Uncomfortable

I am very awkward. I am clumsy and I drop things and I'm just all a whirl all the time. Add to the fact that I'm ridiculously self conscious, and you have a great recipe for the world's more uncomfortable person to be around.

Today's awkward confession: Hugging. I like hugging my family, but not really anyone else. Close friends, close family members sure. I'll tolerate it. But everyone else? I'd rather just stand a few feet away and wave at you. I came to realize this last month when I was doing visiting teaching. My companion would give our teachees a hello hug or a good-bye hug and I didn't offer a hug of my own at the end. I just stood there like a moron watching. I mean, I could've given each of them a hug of my own after my co-teacher was done, but really, I didn't want any part of that.

I don't like hugging in front of other people. Like at my wedding, after we cut the cake and did the obligatory feeding of each other, I gave Marcelo a high five. Yup, you read that right. I didn't kiss him, didn't hug him, didn't show any love or affection in any way. We high fived. That's the kind of girl I am.

People must think I'm horribly cold and distant. But the truth is that I just don't like hugging people. I get self conscious, I think about their hands: Where are they? What can they feel under my clothes. Should I suck in my gut or lean to the side so they don't feel my love handles? I want out of this hug NOW!

Then I think about my hands: where do I put them? On the waist? Over their shoulders? Or under their arms? Do we do that "over one shoulder and under the other" type hug? Do I pound on the back? or maybe a soft caressing rub (very consoling)? open hand on the back? closed fist that they might possibly feel and think that I'm about to slug them? CURSE MY USELESS HANDS!!

And then the hug breaks and where do I go? Do I say close to them after breaking away from the hug? But that could make them (and me) feel weird due to close proximity. I don't want someone that close, possibly able to see the boogers up my nose. Or do I take a step back and maybe make them think that I didn't enjoy the hug? Give them a little shove as I break away? Or is it NOW that I should do the little consoling arm rub/pat? So that means I need to say in close proximity, right? But not too close, naturally.

Oh my gosh, I hate hugging!! So if we are long lost friends and I haven't seen you in 5 years and we meet up again and I don't hug you? Please don't be offended. I just plain don't like hugging. But feel free to give me a high five!

Afternoon Delight

What do you give your child as an afternoon snack? Piece of cheese? An apple? Maybe a glass of milk and some crackers? Do you give your child frozen bread?

My child love LOVES frozen bread. See, since the diet started, I've been eating less bread. So I freeze the loaf so it doesn't go bad. (You can easily break off one individual piece and toast it if needed) Another thing about the freezer, we have one of those pull out drawers. Which a 26 pound 20 month old can open with super ease. Especially after she figures out how to use her body weight to open it. So when she wants a piece, she opens the freezer and brings me the bag.

What is it with frozen food? I can't get my child to eat cooked peas, but frozen peas? She'll eat enough to turn her poo green. Berries on her french toast? No way. But frozen berries out of a bag? I have the stained clothes to prove how much she loves them.

Another item of baby business. I have 2 private times to myself. The first one is shower time. I have no problems locking the door and putting on a video and enjoying a nice hot shower. The second "me" time is when I'm pooping. I get to poop in peace!! I do NOT feel badly as I close the door and I hear my little girl knocking on the door while I poop. It's my 3 minutes! I get 3 min of pooping time to myself.

However, one day I forgot to shut the door when I went into the shower. I enjoyed my blissful body cleaning time in peace, even though I could hear her rustling about outside the door. And when I got out, this is what I found:

I'm sure all of you have had moments like this. I'm sure your pictures are much better. And I'm sure just like me (if you are cheap and poor) you spent 7 min rolling it back up onto the roll again.

Next, my little baker. I'm putting her to work and going making some money off of her.



Excuse my horrible voice. I'm much closer to the microphone than she is.

Ok, that's all for now.

Please tell me you agree with my "bathroom time". I know you are considered a "bad mom" if you let your child cry right outside the door. But seriously! I don't need my child pointing to the faults of my naked body. AND THERE ARE SOME HUGE FAULTS.

TCOB

In on of my favorite episodes of Sunny (ok, let's be honest, they are all my favorite) Sweet Dee has a heart attack. Mac and Charlie decide to get jobs solely for the health benefits. When they arrive for a job interview, they only have one resume to share between the two of them. They say it's because they are "going green" and it's easier to just have the one because they are basically the same. And one of their lists of accomplishments is that for the past 10 years they have been managing every aspect of their own lives. "You know, TCOB. TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS".

I must agree with them, I also am TCOB today and mostly every day of my life. And right now I am taking care of some bloggin' business. Just, you know, random bits of my life. As if you cared.

My mouth felt really dirty about 5:30 pm in the afternoon the other day. Probably because i was taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon and you know about sleep breath. Anyway I got up and decided to do the whole mouth cleaning cycle. I flossed first, then brushed firmly but not vigorously, and then used mouthwash. It's my special "Crest Nighttime" mouthwash, guaranteed to "protect your mouth" for up to 8 hours.

See, I made the mistake of doing this about 30 minutes before dinnertime and was very alarmed to discover that all my food tasted really weird. I immediately knew it was the mouthwash, and so went and rinsed and even re brushed my mouth. But there was no getting rid of it. It was there for the next 8 hours. I will tell you this: CREST IS NOT LYING!! They will never be dragged into court for false advertising.

It made everything I ate for the rest of the night have a weird "chewing on a piece of tin foil" mixed with a "2 hours post-dentist, mouth just coming out of Novocaine deadening" taste to it. It seriously ruined my night. Because I'm really restricting my calories and I get really hungry for dinner. And then all my food was ruined? CURSE YOU CREST AND YOUR EFFECTIVE CAVITY PROTECTION!

Next item of business. I have been reading lots. And all good books (mostly) but listening to books as you are at the gym running is SUPER less effective when it comes to keeping you motivated. I know that they always say to listen to good music to keep you going, and there must be some truth to that. I always go to the gym's very dark "cardio cinema" room (Motto: Created with Fat Girls and Old Men Who Fart While Working Out in Mind) and watch a movie in near pitch black while I try to not fall off the treadmill. However, many of the movies are NOT good for gym time. Examples: 50 First Dates. That's Raven Symone movie about a road trip to see colleges, Pink Panther 2. Not great movies to keep you pumping.

Yesterday the movie was "Pearl Harbor". While Citizen Kane it is not, it does have a good amount of action and suspense in it. Especially if you've forgotten what happens in it because you saw it 2 months before your mission. (Remember that, Amy? Remember how I was at your house for like a week and we saw like a bazillion movies before you left for Brasil? Awesome) Anyway, great acting? No. Suspenseful with air jet fighting? ABSOLUTELY!! I ran constantly with my treadmill at a 1.0 incline (don't judge. I'm very large. Please congratulate me for running at all) for about 20 min and didn't even realize it.

And today was the last 40 min of "The Dark Knight" which is also super suspenseful. And kept me focused so I didn't notice my legs throbbing and how I was gasping for air. Really, it works!! the adrenaline pumping in your veins really keeps you focused. EXCEPT for one type of movie. The HORROR movie. They will show PG-13 horror movies (no slasher types) which are all played up by the suspenseful music and then having something jump out at you. Someone ALWAYS falls off a treadmill whenever that happens. One guy fell off a stationary bike the other day, but poor kid was like 4 feet from the screen, so I can't blame him. But why do they do this? I have a secret suspicion they are taping us and there will be a Youtube video up soon called "Hilarious morons at Gym!" I will be playing the part of moron #4.

Have you ever been that person falling off the treadmill at the gym? Please tell me your best treadmill biffing story. I love a good wipeout.

That's all my business for today. I'm going to try to blog more. I don't promise GREAT blogs. But I do promise more. Please let me know if you want me to go back to the "Quality not quantity" method. Oh wait, my blogs were never very quality. Nevermind.

Hoarders

Do you watch the show "Hoarders" on TV? That show really REALLY scares me. Mostly because it's my legacy.

See, my maternal Grandma was a hoarder. A serious kind. The only think that kept her from living with 8 foot walls of trash in her home was my mother. My mother would go over to her house a few times a week and every time she would leave she would pack up a few bags of trash and leave them on the back porch. She couldn't let my grandma actually SEE her take them out of the house, because she would freak out. So she would put them outside, and then say her goodbyes and leave and then sneak around to the back and pick them up. It was just necessary.

Of course, things were much worse before we moved to Eureka. Before that happened, we would go to my g-ma's during the summer house and just be there in the muck. She had a 4 bedroom house, but the biggest bedroom upstairs(the size of the master and another room put together) was closed and locked. Not only that, the upstairs hallway to get to the room was locked too. One day I found the key to unlock that room, and I showed it to my mom. She got all quiet and then really REALLY excitedly said, "seriously? Can I see it?" I handed it over and she ran right up the stairs. Bashed her way around the boxes and unlocked the door. Only to discover that the room was so full of boxes that the door couldn't even be opened. That's the way my grandma lived.

And that's my heritage. And so whenever I see homes like that I have to blame the other spouse for a little bit of the problem. A person will get away with as much as you let them. So as long as the non-hoarding spouse keeps their mouth shut or in some other way acquiesces, it will continue. Why not just grab a bag one day and fill it with as much crap you can find? Take it from the bottom of the stack I mean that stuff hasn't been seen for years, so there is no way the hoarder can say "But i was USING that!". Also, if the hoarder claims that there are "special keepsakes" you can say "well, they obviously aren't that special to you because you have piled trash on top of them". I'm basically saying there is no excuse that can't be proven to be a total justification for their actions.

Because I'm afraid of becoming a hoarder, I tend to like moving. It helps me keep my house clean. I always do a purger as I'm packing up my stuff. And I loveLOVElove to throw things out. Even clothes. Like if I get a new shirt, my rule to myself is that I have to get rid of an old one. If I buy 4 shirts, I have to get rid of 4 shirts. This usually isn't a problem because I always have clothes that I end up not wearing for quite a while. It just makes me keep myself in check. And keeps my closet from being over run. (but then I look and see how many more clothes Marcelo has than me and I get seethingly jealous. Maybe I should re-think this whole "get a shirt, lose a shirt" idea)

So don't be surprised if I come over to your house and start throwing things away. It's what I've trained myself to do. And I'm sorry if I throw away your prized afghan that was crocheted for you by your great grandmother. I don't care if it's your nakey blankey or not. Becuase seriously, it had to go. It had mysterious stains on it and smelled like 3 day old Ecua-Cheese. You'll thank me later.

H.O.U.S. and Other Assorted Details of my Life

You know in "The Princess Bride" where they talk about the ROUS's? The Rodents of Unusual Size? Well I'm that same way, but not with rodents. I'm that way with my head. It's a Head Of Unusual Size. I don't know if it's the size or the shape, but headbands that are supposed to fit everyone never work on me.

I actually think it is a combination of my hair being so thin and fine,and of my weird shaped head. For Christmas, Vidal Sasson left the following in my stocking:

They are called "stay put head wraps" but they do no such thing. They slip and slide around my head like they were made of vinyl. I try putting them just behind my ears and about an inch and a half from my hairline. They slide up the back of my neck, to the crown of my head and keep sliding back. The little rubber "grips" sewn in are mocking me the whole way back.

It's always been like this. When I would play sports in high school and before the invention of these headbands, the best option was "pre-wrap" (which was put on the skin before the athletic tape was put on there ensuring minimal hair rippage when removing) because it had a spongey yet tacky consistency. You could roll up a length of it and put in your hair and if you were normal, it would stay. Mine never did. I was always so jealous of those who could make it stay.

I guess I just have to accept that I have a weird shaped head. It have too many crags and bumps on it and whenever I move my eyes or neck my scalp also moves. So I need to give up the hope of ever being able to wear cute headbands. "JUST LET IT GO, ALICIA!!" You have a H.O.U.S.

Next item of business. My child is sick. Maybe from the gym play area. (we took her there for the first time ever on Saturday so we could work out together) or from the petrie dish that is Nursery. She's not horrifically sick. Just a runny nose and slight fever right now. But she keeps waking in the night. Like 4 times last night. OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Screaming (but not screaming my name. Remember, my child doesn't talk. Not even to call for me in the middle of the night)

And we, being the heartless wretches that we are, we let her cry it out most times. SHE DID NOT APPRECIATE THAT. As can be discerned from her slightly hoarse voice this morn. *Alicia is awarded mother of the year award. She accepts graciously* Yes, I let my child scream for upwards of 45 minutes. Please start a line of horrible comments after this post.

And the third totally unrelated topic: I am a non-fiction freak. The stinking non-fiction table at my library sucks me in every time I walk by. I go in to pick up a book I have on hold, and I walk out with 3 non-fiction books. What the WHAT? WHY DO YOU HAVE SUCH AWESOME COVERS AND INTERESTING TOPICS, YOU NON-FICTION TROLLOP!?!?

And I have found some of the greatest books there on the non-fiction table. I found this book there, and this one too. Both some of the greatest books I've read in a long while. So I can't say that I dislike the non-fiction table. I just like how everything looks so good!! Much like all the varieties at the Cheesecake Factory.

Hmmmm. Cheesecake.

And SCENE.

One of these things is not like the other. . .

I love zappos.com. Its the only place that someone with my giant size of a foot can find a shoe in their size. And cute too! And they have free shipping and returns. And because I'm a VIP member (insert ooooh's here) I get free overnight shipping on all my orders. So when Marcelo's gift was ordered and shipped on the "10th" (so they said, hmmfphf) it didn't arrive till the 24th. Almost missed Christmas. But I procrastinated buying Jules' gift this year (she was my secret santa) and I bought it on the 22nd and it was at her door the next day.

I LOVE YOU ZAPPOS.

However, I'm on the hunt for some new church shoes. The shoes I wear EVERY Sunday are hideous and my mom bought them second hand at Savers when I was 8 months pregnant. Yeah, so basically they are nasty and gross and nasty. Did I mention nasty?

So I went to look at the website just to put a few shoes on my "wishlist" in preparation for when I get to buy myself some new shoes. (That gets to happen when I lose 30 pounds. It's a mini goal)

As I'm narrowing down my search, I chose 4 categories or themes that my shoes should fall under. I choose the words "Dress, Feminine, Elegant, Formal" because like I said I need church shoes.

Here is the shoe at the top of the list they gave me. Please tell me which of the 4 words this shoe falls under.

Would you say more formal? or more elegant? or a mix of the two? Please let me know what you think.

P.S. They wanted $60 for these shoes. I'm going to go vomit right now.

Just in case you were wondering. . .

Super glue and carpet don't mix.

Just in case you were wondering.



This will serve as my "The Facebook" status update:

Alicia is. . . . Cutting Superglue out of Carpet

What is your current status?

(make sure your status starts with "(your name) is:")