Monthly Archives: July 2009

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My Press On Obsession

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Since this is MY website, I try to avoid looking like a total goober around here. I don’t tell you all my painfully embarrassing moments, although I average 5 a day and it would be a lot of content…

That notwithstanding, I just have to admit that the little bit of ghetto nerd in me has a new favorite thing: Press On nails.

Realizing that the mani-pedis were costing ‘the family’ about 80$ every three weeks, I stopped going to the salon for fake nails. I would get a pedicure every couple months as a treat and for major upkeep, then just do my toes myself. But my finger nails were harder to keep nice. In Utah for my birthday I found a little set of nails with rhinestones and flowers painted on. That’s fancier than the french tips I was paying so much for. They didn’t last all that long in the cold and under ski gloves, but they were fun.

In San Diego I’ve been wearing them every other week or so now. A set includes 24 nails typically for about 5$. I’m a savvy chick and can get two sets out of them by filing the big ones down to size. They usually last about a week, you really just super glue them on. I’ve gone crazy about them since I started getting compliments about what cute nails I had. Everyone asks where I get them done and I admit they are press ons and ignore the funny looks.

Here’s what I’ve got on right now:

silly

And here’s all the new sets I just picked up:

nails

What do you think? Am I the biggest dork on the planet? I am a little worried I’m too old for these things, but they’re just so much fun.

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Journaling

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Even though I’ve found this website a great place to chronicle adventures, I don’t post ‘here’s what I did today’ everyday. I just try to stay in the habit of writing little blurbs to make my brain work. I wanted to post stories and poetry but have totally chickened out for three years straight. Then I thought about socail commentary until I realized my thoughts on current events aren’t all that funny or though-provoking.

What I have done, since high school in fact, is buy a planner every year and keep track of what I do day to day. Even if it’s laundry. It was so fun to go back around the time we got married and remember all our dates. As the years go by, I’m less meticulous, some weeks accidentally go empty as I draw a blank when I sit down to jot down notes. But for the most part, there is my life, at least the events that comprise it, in a hard copy, on paper.

I would readily suggest to anyone with a terrible memory like mine to try journaling. A dream journal, or a day planner. Maybe even one quote a day that you find and like. Taking pen to paper just feels more rewarding than the laptop sometimes.

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Best I Can Do

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We’ve been having such a great summer! Getting to know our good friends even better, hanging around the beach, trying tons of new places, and starting our volleyball club at 4pm has been a blast! MK has a ton of photos he owes me that I keep promising you that just aren’t happening. Today BD and MR let me join them for a trip to Balboa Park, a really amazing place that we don’t get to all that often. I took pictures with my phone since I forgot my camera – but hey, that means I have the pictures and can show you them! I just threw everything that was on my phone into an album.

Here they are!

I have so much more to look forward to – Sandy Eggo is a great place! We’re taking a road trip, seeing comedians, concerts, planning trips, and getting a few more visitors soon – not to mention CH moving here! Best Summer EVER!

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Anyone Could Do It

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Let’s be realistic.

fives.jpg#103

What The Health Articles In The Women’s Magazines Really Boil Down To, Every Month:

  1. (Insert food here) is good for you; unless you eat too much!
  2. Working out is good for you!
  3. Not working out is bad for you!
  4. Fast food is unhealthy!
  5. (Insert same food from #1): will it kill you?

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Rethinking That One Time

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Stories can either gain or lose something in the retelling. Driving by our old La Jolla place today, we told the story of the dummy apartment lady that gave us a place then gave it away. I can’t find it – but here’s this link – proof that things can be amazing.

Sure, we PLANNED to move to Utah. But we were basically EVICTED. I didn’t give all the details here but the truth of the matter is, we would have been homeless but were TAKEN IN. So I’m thinking about my awesome brother, how he’s moving out to San Diego – I think it’s finally safe to announce that here – and how great it is that when he gets here, he has my house until he has his. And he has us.

Some people have nothing. We had BB and TB to turn to when honestly we had no where else to go. Life can be really amazing, and people can be so giving that it hurts your heart to know how great they are. Sure we knew each other a long time – but opening your house speaks volumes. Them letting us stay with them until our lease started, it wasn’t a little thing, it was huge. And I hope that everyone gets to experience that kind of generosity.

Telling MB that story, seeing him crack up, rethinking the whole “what are we going to do” moment, those memories stick!

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Kindergarten Confessions and Reflections

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Yesterday, I spent the day at the beach with MR and BD. I’m still getting to know BD and discovered she was a teacher, kindergarten last year and 3rd grade coming up this fall. I had to ask what it was like – teaching was my lifelong dream until I realized just because I talk a lot doesn’t make me qualified.

Her stories centered around the first couple months of school – saying that was by far the hardest, once the kids got the idea of ‘school’ and ‘schedule’ it was a good time. But I didn’t even think of some of the things she was able to say she’s seen – children unable to take their ‘potty breaks’, and teachers nervous about lawsuits if they helped. Crazy stuff. I love talking to people in all lines of work and learning the things you’d never assume.

The day also gave me cause to reflect. As I was going to bed last night, I noted that I can vividly remember kindergarten. Not just from stories I’d heard, but my own consciousness. I have memories from before that, we moved when I was 5 or 6, and I remember the apartment prior to the house. I remember the kindergarten room, the test of knowing your shapes and colors, and my mom telling me how well I did. My grandmother was a teacher and she was helping me learn any time I was with her. I remember milk and snack time, and the little walls made of these cardboard “bricks” to separate us at our six-sided tables, the crayons that were the same shape as the table.

Thinking of BD teaching 3rd grade was different. I tried to remember 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so on as I fell asleep. Some vague ideas of things happening are there – the teacher who gave me “A Secret Garden”, the boy of my dreams moving to town, the meanest teacher, getting glasses – but not as vivid as my recollections before that time. I might remember that better than high school – I’m still trying to forget some of those! 🙂

How about you? What are your strongest or oldest memories?

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County Fair Round Two

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This is the second time we took a trip to the fair. I loved it last year (here’s that post) and since DW would disintegrate in any more direct sun, the fair provided an option since the beach was out. Unfortunately since it was the last weekend, and the day before the holiday that everyone was off from work, we spent an hour getting there. It was worth it when we got our Zucchini Weenie though!

That’s right, they actually listed it in the program as the newest feature food of the fair. The description is a simple one: a hot dog, in a zucchini, fried in batter. It was at the stand that also featured the fried chicken in a Krispy Kreme donut, the fried mushrooms, the fried ice cream cookie sandwich, the fried Twinkie, and the fried Oreos.

Fair food is hilarious. There is no light snack. There is splurge after splurge. Fried food in general, fair food, etc., is a big treat. Well, at least for us. There were people in that line that I’m not sure realized that all their problems could be solved by stepping out of that line. Maybe not solved, but let’s call it a step. There were multiple people in those carts driving themselves because they were too big to walk in that line. I just don’t understand…