Palisade, Colorado

Oh, what a weekend! There aren't words for most everything we did and saw and ate and drank. So I'll post photographs with some brief explanations. Keep in mind that the pictures can't possibly do any of the subjects justice. It was magical.

The bed and breakfast where we stayed --
 a charming Victorian that has been stunningly renovated and is run by the sweetest couple.  We had fabulous breakfasts every morning and relaxed in the heavenly hot tub in the evenings.  We can't wait to go back.

The view from the backyard.

Our room and bathroom. Told you it was stunning.

The winery across the street.  We had a personal tour with the winemaker and his wife.  That man is a viniculture genius.  He really knows his stuff.  I learned a lot about wine and how to better appreciate different varietals. They liked us, too because they invited us back that evening for an Independence Day celebration with some of the best food I've ever had.  We're talking roasted pork rib quesadillas with cherry jalapeno salsa, green salad with mandarin oranges and white wine dressing.  Oh, man.  It was tremendous.

The town is small so we did a lot of walking.  The railroad tracks run right through the middle of town so we had to wait on a train.  In case you didn't know, it's rather loud.

We saw some interesting signs.

And some interesting plants.  I still have no idea what this was.  It almost looks like a fungus that has overtaken the the tree but I can't be sure.

One of our favorite places to eat, ever.  They serve the best Greek gyro I've ever had.  I might change my mind if I have a real gyro in Greece some day but since that's not happening any time soon I'll keep going back here.

This particular day, however, I had a garden veggie sandwich with sweet potato fries.  It was so good I'm still thinking about it.

We toured another winery.  This one wasn't as interesting because the tour was given by an employee of the vineyard.  I know it's not possible to tour with winemakers all the time, but it does add a nice personal touch when we can.

Scrap metal sculptures outside another winery.

Awards won by our favorite winery.  I loved every single wine I tasted at this place.  It's called Garfield Estates and they are fabulous.  Paul joined their membership club and I won a free bottle of wine when I entered their drawing.  Yay!

We also ate at the Palisade Brewing Company.  They're an interesting place.

The brew delicious beer and serve delectable French dip sandwiches.

On the way home we stopped at Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs for lunch.

I had a veggie burger that was To. Die. For.  And, of course, more sweet potato fries.  For the record, Palisade Cafe and Grill makes better fries.

We lunched on the patio by this fountain.  The weather was perfect.

After lunch we walked around town a bit before getting back in the car for more driving.  Glenwood Springs is a great place to vacation.  This pool is fed by natural hot springs.  I'm dying to go there and get in it some day.

There are both Hotel Colorado and Hotel Denver in Glenwood Springs.  I don't think that should be allowed.   It's too confusing.

I'll give them a pass though, because Hotel Denver is attached to Glenwood Brewpub that makes more good beer.

More sights in Glenwood Springs.

  And then we got back on the road for the rest of the drive home.  We saw thousands of dead trees like these.  They're being killed off by the bark beetle.  It's a sad but necessary part of natural forest life.

The Eisenhower-Johnson Tunnel.  Did you know that it's 1.7 miles long?  It feels like it, too.  Funny tidbit -- that car in front of us has a license plate that reads HRVRDMAN and the plate is inside a frame that says 'Harvard Alumni' on it.  Um, you think?

On the other side of the tunnel we hit this.  Record-breaking holiday traffic.  We sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic for 2 hours.  It was bad.  It was maddening.  It was hot.  It was yuck.

I left out a big section of our trip.  On July 4th we went up onto the Colorado National Monument, took lots of pictures and had a picnic.  We watched the fireworks down in Grand Junction.  I'll put that in the next post because there are almost as many pictures of that as there are of the whole rest of the weekend.

Updating the Number and Other Things

It's summer.  Summer means the kids are gone and I have lots of free time.  Free time that is eaten up by working out, traveling, tasting wine and playing kickball.  That doesn't leave a whole heck of a lot of time for writing.  Something's gotta give, huh?  As always, when I go on a writing hiatus, I miss it tons.

So.  First things first: The Number.  The Number is looking better.  I haven't quite reached my goal yet but that's okay.  I'm eating well and feeling great -- really, really great.  I've embarked on a workout schedule that I really enjoy. It is as follows: Monday, Wednesday and Friday are running days and Tuesday and Thursday are weight training days.  I have completed Week 4 of C25K and will begin Week 5 this coming Monday.  It feels really good to be moving and it feels even better to see muscle definition appearing in places I've never had muscle definition.  I'm on track to run a 5K at the end of July and I'm excited about it.

Early this month Paul and I celebrated one year since our first date.  It's been quite a year.  Paul is a great guy and I am fortunate to have him in my life. We went to Palisade, Colorado and celebrated there.  More about that in the next post.  And lots and lots of photos.  Hold on to your hats.

My 31st birthday is coming.  It feels weird.  Thirty didn't bother me at all; it was fun, actually.  Thirty-one isn't bothering me, per se, but it does feel much, much older than 30 did.  I don't know why.

Later this week I will leave to pick up the kiddos in Albuquerque.  Then we'll head to Arkansas to see my family.  It's been way too long since we've seen them.  I have missed them so.  The kids are pumped.  It's always so much fun to see my kids playing with my siblings.  After a week or so there, we'll head back to Albuquerque where the kids will stay to spend the rest of their summer break.  On a side note, I'm looking forward to running at thousands of feet lower than my current elevation to see how much easier it is.  I only hope the humidity doesn't make it that much more difficult to breathe.  I will report on that next week.

On a blogging note, I have tons of stuff I want to write about but I'm afraid I won't remember it all.  I should start saving notes on my phone or something.

What is a Pessimist?

A pessimist is a person who not only sees the worst in every situation but actively tries to make situations worse.  For example, I spoke with a mother on the phone today regarding her child's need to change his medication because a specialist told her his current medication will adversely affect a chronic condition he has.  Generally when we change these types of medications we have to see the patient in the office so we have the time to address side effects, medication interactions and possible interactions with chronic conditions, such as the one her son has.  She's unable to bring him in because she has no money for gas and has next to no gas in her car.  I told her that I'd check with the doctor to see if he could schedule her for a phone consultation.

After discussion with the doctor he agreed to call her tomorrow (on his lunch break, no less) at an appointed time and go over the considerations of this new drug with the child's condition.  I called her back to tell her the happy news and to get her pharmacy phone number so we can call in the medication.  Instead of being relieved that we found a solution and thanking us for doing something we don't usually do, she proceeded to wonder if her insurance will cover the new drug (I don't know and have no way of knowing), worry that her children would be too loud while she's on the phone and then tell me how nothing ever works out the way she wants it to and life sucks in general.

Geez, lady.  Yes, sometimes life sucks but when people go out of their way to help you with one of your problems, please don't lay the rest of them out.  We can only help so much.  Ugh.

Paradise

Yesterday evening Solomon informed me that he did not get full on the breakfast I gave him yesterday morning so he went to eat school breakfast when I dropped them off.  They were supposed to be serving pancakes yesterday but when he got there they had run out and were handing out breakfast burritos instead.

"Mom, it was the best burrito I've ever had!  It had eggs and cheese and meat and paradise!"  And I swear, he swooned like Scarlett O'Hara when Ashley Wilkes walks into the ballroom at Twelve Oaks.

Dumpster Diving

Sometimes I'm such an idiot.  One of those times was yesterday.  I am trying to phase out plastic food storage containers because they're a waste of money.  I can only use them until they start to get stained or smell funky, plus I'm not entirely sure that all my plastic is BPA free.  And I can't put them in the microwave.  You know, the list goes on for a while.  So I've been tossing them one by one.

Yesterday I went to Target in search of good glass storage containers with safe, tightly-fitting plastic lids.  I found some great Pyrex that can be frozen, microwaved, baked, etc.  And they have lids so I can carry leftovers to work without worrying about leakage in my lunch bag.  I got several containers all with matching lids and I was so excited.

I brought them home, unpackaged everything and set about either handwashing them or loading them in the dishwasher with the other dishes to be washed.  Then the cable guy got here to switch our cable service to another outlet, I did laundry and dusted and straightened up and took trash to the dumpster and I didn't think about my new storage containers any more.

This afternoon I went to pour leftover salsa into a new glass container because the plastic one was leaking. (Another reason!  Loosely fitting lids!  Argh!)  But I couldn't find the corresponding lid.  It wasn't with the handwashed things in the dish drainer, not in the dishwasher, not in the cabinet where I store plastic lids.  I couldn't find it any where.  Then I realized that I couldn't find the rectangular lids for the small baking/storing dishes, either.  And it hit me that the box that held this particular set had looked much bigger to me than necessary when I unpacked it.  But I got distracted with laundry and the cable guy and didn't open up the bottom of the box.  So I figured that the lids must have been at the bottom of that box.  And that box was taken to the dumpster yesterday.

So I went downstairs and dug through some of the nastiest trash I've ever seen and found my Pyrex box -- all the way at the very bottom of the dumpster.  It was so disgusting.  There were flies every where and it's about 89F today -- way too hot to be digging through smelly trash.  Ugh.  It was worth it, though.  The lids were indeed in the box under a cardboard divider and now I have a complete set of storage dishes with lids.

Lesson learned: always, always, always open up the entire box and take out all of the packing material before you throw it into the dumpster.

Night Out with the Fam

Some of the family, anyway.  I went out last Saturday night with Jenn, Caleb, Jonathan and Cassie (Caleb's sister).  (Caleb's mom offered to watch 5 children so Jennifer and I could hang out together, sans children.  Isn't she great?)  We met up with the steel guitarist (and his wife -- Travis and Courtney) from Caleb's band.

We took the Light Rail.  I rather enjoy the Light Rail, on occasion.  It makes me feel metropolitan.  I like that, on occasion.

Inside our car, announcing the coming station, Union Station.  Woot!

Inside Union Station.  This tunnel goes underground, beneath all the trains.  And not just little trains like the Light Rail.  There are Amtrak trains here, too.  Kind of freaky to think about all that steel above our heads.

Outside Union Station.

Walking to Wynkoop, where we met Travis and Courtney.  Wynkoop is a good place.  There is good food, good beer and pool.  They have a juke box and once Travis got his money into it, there was good music to listen to.  We ate, drank and played pool.  It was a good time.  I would put a picture of Wynkoop's menu here but the less-than-friendly waitress took the menu while I was trying to photograph it.  To be fair, I was taking the picture with my phone so I guess it kind of looked like I was just texting but she was still less-than-friendly.

So instead, here is a picture of the bison burger with extra sharp white cheddar from heaven.  I know it doesn't look like much but it was so delicious. So, so, so delicious.

And here is a picture of my beer.  Or ale, to be precise.  The Rail Yard Ale.  It was also delicious.

A weird pool table.  Caleb, Travis and Courtney played a couple of games here and then we moved to a couple of regular tables.  I'm bad enough at pool; I do not need any funky Ls messing with what little groove I can muster.

A regular table.  Jennifer, Cassie, Courtney and I played teams.  This was the game that would not end.

After we had exhausted our mad pool skillz, Travis declared that we should walk to Herb's.  He said there is always a live band and that it was kind of a dive, but still a great place to hang out.  So walk to Herb's we did.  On the way, we encountered some interesting sights.

Like these massive doors.  I wish I had a picture of someone next to them, to show them to scale but a) I didn't think to do that and b) even if I had, I don't know if anyone in our crew would like for me to post a picture of them on my public blog.  So you'll have to take my word for it.  These doors were in the side of a huge building.  They're at least 30 feet tall.  Insane.

This sign in the window of an empty office building.  It made me laugh so I took a picture of it.  I guess I shouldn't laugh.  I mean, I know I do spend most of my time thinking about ways to excite and elicit new business.  I just didn't know that other people did, too.

Dueling night clubs.  Two places across the street from each other, both playing music as loudly as possible, flashing lights and trying their best to attract people to jam themselves into line so they can wait around for an hour and then pay $7 for a beverage.  We make a point of never going to places like this.  Ugh.

And, finally.  Herb's.  Travis was right -- there was a live band and it was a dive.  But if going to dives means not waiting in line for an hour, I'm okay with that.  The band was pretty great.  Like really, really great.  They had a woman up on stage for a couple of songs and she had a phenomenal voice.  There was another woman playing saxophone who was pretty awesome, too.  By the time we got there it was almost 1:00 so we weren't there long before they had to shut down.  So we headed back to Union Station.

But not before I saw this.  It was taped to the women's bathroom door and I read it while waiting on Jennifer.  In case you can't tell, it's a copy of a diploma from the University of Colorado.  It was awarded to Christopher Ramos this 29th day of May, the year of our Lord 2010 for completion of medical school.  As I was pondering why it was taped to the bathroom door, a guy came by and said, "Who is that asshole anyway?  What kind of guy puts his diploma on a ladies' room door?"  I just looked at him and then he continued, rather cockily, "It's me.  That's mine." I said, "Um, wow.  Desperate?"  And then he walked away.  And I giggled a lot.

This is another shot of the dueling clubs at closing time.  Lots of cops, just to control traffic and drunk people.  Maybe I shouldn't say 'just'.  That's a pretty big job, given the couple of drunk people we crossed.  One dude ripped some leaves from a tree and offered them to me saying, "Want a pretty flower?"  His girlfriend was rather embarrassed.

A van in the parking lot across from Wynkoop.  I had to photograph it because it is advertising what I drank at Wynkoop.  Did I mention that it was delicious?
 

Half way back to Union Station Jennifer remembered that she'd left her credit card in the possession of the waitress at Herb's.  So we walked back for it but they were already locked up. Major bummer.  And then when we got back to Union Station we found out that we'd missed the last train.  (In Jenn's defense, we did not miss the train because of her credit card.  The last one had already departed when we went back for the card but we didn't know it then.)  The next one wouldn't be until 4:22.  Ugh.  One cab and $48 later we were back where we started and I, being the designated driver and having stopped drinking 4 hours prior, took us the rest of the way home.

All in all, a pretty memorable night.

Observations

1. I was going to wear a light khaki skirt today but then I realized that my legs are roughly the same color.  Not a good look.  This girl needs some sun, stat.
2. I am instead wearing a denim skirt that I bought 2 summers ago.  It's 2 sizes too big, at least.  This is good and bad.
3. I hate the end of the school year. During the last 6 weeks of school there are 7 -- I repeat: 7 -- separate days that my kids need or want me to be at their school with them doing something to commemorate the end of the year or going on a field trip or something. I just can't do it and it bums all of us out.
4. Paul has been gone for 9 days on a motorcycle trip with his brother and sister-in-law.  I miss him. He's coming back on Sunday and I'm really excited.
5. My kids are going into the 5th grade, 4th grade and 2nd grade.  When did they get this big?  When did I become the parent of such gargantuan children? It's unreal.
6. I have new sympathy for allergy sufferers.  I've spent the better part of the last week congested, sneezing, blowing my nose, and downing Sudafed for a stupid cold.  I just want it to go away already.
7. The words 'epic', 'beast' and 'random' are bugging me. 
8. Angry Birds is the most addictive and maddening game I have ever played. Unless you count The Impossible Game. It's a tough call.
9. That is all.  I think.

Fruit for Dessert

Last night, during dinner:

Me: I think we'll have some of the watermelon in the fridge for dessert tonight.
Miriam:  But that's fruit.
Me:  Yeah ... ?
Miriam:  That's not dessert.
Me:  Sure it is.  Fruit can be dessert.
Miriam:  Only if it's covered in chocolate!

Adventures with Pee

Excuse the potty talk, please.  If I were my kids I'd take away my computer time.  But I control the computer and I make the rules and I'm not my kids.  So there.  Potty talk shall ensue.  But not terrible potty talk -- giggle-worthy potty talk.  I promise.

So today there was a 6-year-old girl in the office for her yearly well exam.  At the end of the visit I asked her to go to the bathroom and pee in a cup.  She couldn't.  She had stage fright or cup fright or something.  After a couple of trips to the bathroom I told her parents that it's really not a big deal, that we don't have to do it today and if they want to take a cup home with them they can bring it back in whenever it's convenient.

The problem here was two-fold: a) they're actually a little concerned about her urine because it's occasionally cloudy and b) they live 45 minutes away and it's never convenient to just run a cup of pee to our office.  So they decided to leave for lunch, run some errands and then come back to see if she could pee.  Great plan.

A few hours later the dad returned with a cup of pee and a jubilant 6-year-old girl who proclaimed loudly, "I peed in the cup! At Wal-Mart! In the Wal-Mart bathroom!"  I congratulated her and told her dad that I'd call him later with the results.

Later I called their home to relay the urinalysis results and I spoke with the mom.  I told her everything looked good and then she said, "Did they tell you that we lost it in Wal-Mart? She finally had to pee while we were shopping so her Dad took her to the bathroom and then carried the cup around with him.  Well, he set it down somewhere in the store and didn't realize it until we got to the cashier stand.  So we had to go back and look for it. The cashier thought it was the funniest thing ever."

I simultaneously had a good chuckle and an 'ew' moment, wondering where they had left it and who might have seen it before they came back for it.

One Week's Pocket Contents

Belonging to Samuel.  Why?  I do not get it.  The child brings home all manner of weird crap that he finds every where.  And if I ask him to throw something away, he gets very sad and his eyes get huge and his face falls as if I asked him to kick a puppy or something.  So I relent and the crap sits on the dryer for a week or so and then I throw it away and he never asks what happened to any of it.

Cloud

My Kid Made Breakfast

And he set the table.  He made scrambled eggs, toast with butter, juice, the works.  And it was such a huge help to me this morning.  I had to do a load of laundry before we left for school and work and there is no way I could have done everything by myself this morning.  Today is the day when my calorie cycle hits its all-time low and having a sizable portion of protein first thing in the morning helps me get through the day without going over my limit.  I like being able to count on my kid.  Yay, Solomon!

Our Day in Pictures (& a Few Words)

Playground.

Boulder climbing.

Monkey-like antics.

Cloudless sky.

Scooters.

Sidewalk chalk.

Artwork.

 Flip flops.

 Bubble wands.

 Water guns.

 Owies.

 Shadows.

 Her Royal Puppyness, Abby.

 The driveway.

I Pray for You

The video:


Pray for You - Jaron and The Long Road to Love (OFFICIAL VIDEO) - Funny bloopers are a click away

And the lyrics:

I haven't been to church since I don't remember when
Things were going great til they fell apart again
So I listened to the preacher as he told me what to do
He said you can't go hatin' others who have done wrong to you
Sometimes we get angry but we must not condemn
Let the good Lord do his job, you just pray for them


I pray your brakes go out runnin' down a hill
I pray a flower pot falls from a window sill
And knocks you in the head like I'd like to
I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls
I pray you're flyin' high when your engine stalls
I pray all your dreams never come true
Just know wherever you are, honey, I pray for you


I'm really glad I found my way to church
Cause I'm already feelin' better and I thank God for the words
Yeah, I'm gonna take the high road and do what the preacher told me to do
You keep messin' up, and I'll keep prayin' for you


I pray your tire goes out at 110
I pray you pass out drunk with your best friend
And wake up with his and her tattoos


I pray your brakes go out runnin' down a hill
I pray a flower pot falls from a window sill
And knocks you in the head like I'd like to
I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls
I pray you're flyin' high when your engine stalls
I pray all your dreams never come true
Just know wherever you are, near or far
In your house or in your car
Wherever you are, honey, I pray for you
I pray for you

Now that we've got that out of the way -- are ya kiddin' me?!  This self-aggrandizing, spiteful garbage is considered prayer?  Is that what the minister means by praying for those who do you wrong?  Really? This might be one of the worst songs I've ever heard. Between this and the joke circulating around about praying for President Obama's death, I'm pretty disgusted with a good portion of the U.S. population. Ugh.

Have you heard the joke about praying for the president's death?  No?  Lucky.   Let me burst that bubble for you.  It goes something like this:

Dear God, last year you took my favorite singer Michael Jackson, my favorite actor Patrick Swayze and my favorite actress Farrah Fawcett.  So I just wanted to tell you that my favorite president is Barack Obama.

Let me enumerate all the reasons this is so terrible:

• It's disrespectful to the office of the president, regardless of political affiliation.
• It's supposing that God actually chooses who is going to die and when and that his decision can be influenced by human whims. For those that believe that God is omniscient, omnipotent and truly loving, this is absurd. (And for the record, I've only heard this joke from people who claim to believe this.)
• It's unpatriotic. (And again, for the record, I've only heard this joke from people to whom unpatriotic actions are akin to blasphemy of their God.)
• It trivializes the deaths of some truly magnificent artists and allows them to be just the build up to a terrible punch line.

I know some people will get all huffy and say I can't take a joke and that I'm hypersensitive but really, that's not true. I appreciate jokes. I love humor and I especially love dark humor. However, jokes about praying for someone to die are not funny. I put them into the same category as jokes with racial undertones and jokes about mental handicaps.  If you want to wish someone dead just own up to it. Don't try to cloak it in distasteful jokes or stupid songs.

So there you go.  That song and that joke and all the people who like them are on My List.

What. The. Heck.

What. The. Heck. #1
The patient is 14 minutes late and is a typical toddler so he does not want to follow his mother and me to the exam room.  A sensible parent picks up their toddler at this point and carries him or her.  The insensible ones fake walk away from their kids, trying to manipulate their kids into following them. (Bad idea all around, for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that it does not work.)  This mother was one of the insensible ones.  When her child plopped himself on the floor and cried, she took him by the hand and half dragged-half walked him to the room.  All this time, I'm standing there and thinking about the other 3 patients I have waiting on me and wishing I could educate this mother.


What. The. Heck. #2
This mother missed her son's 6 month, 9 month and 12 month well visits, therefore he's very behind on the standard immunization schedule.  This mother wants to catch up all the shots possible today.  That means 6 shots.  One of those injections has 5 components.


What. The. Heck. #3
Mother is concerned about his weight (which was okay, for the record.) so I asked how much he eats and what kinds of foods.  She states that he really likes sweets and that's about all he eats.  I advise that she stop offering artificial sweets and encourage better choices.  I say that eventually he'll eat and learn to eat better things.  Patient's mother nods and smiles.  Later when I return to give her child all 6 of his shots, she whips out a Dum-Dum for him before I can even blink.  So much for not offering sweets, huh?  Also, if she keeps a stash of Dum-Dums for any potentially bad situation, she's setting her child up for a lifetime of problems.

Again, I say What. The. Heck.

Bumper Sticker Shopping Again

So my car -- her name is Susie, by the way -- isn't quite so bright, shiny and new any more.  She's still fabulous, of course; that will never change.  But I'm ready to adorn her with bumper stickers and such now.  I'm getting another Coexist sticker because I love that sticker so much.  I'll be getting a couple more that reflect my views and stuff but in the mean time, here are a couple that I considered for a time:

New Phone

A few weeks ago I took Samuel to the office for his 7 year well visit.  And by 'the office' I mean my office, where I work.  It's chock full of great people who can take great care of my kids. Anyway, moving right along ... The visit went just fine.

Jennifer called during the appointment but I couldn't answer the phone so (I thought) I put it back into my coat pocket and continued the visit.  Just before we left my friend Lisa came in to poke Samuel's finger and check his hemoglobin level.  He. Did. Not. Like. That. One. Bit.  It took both of us to wrestle him onto the table and pry his pinky finger out of his fist for the 1/16th of a second it takes to employ the lancet.  His hemoglobin was great, by the way, a testament to his incredible strength.

We collected ourselves and headed over to Chick-Fil-A for some lunch.  While in Chick-Fil-A Samuel blew some bubbles into his milkshake which caused it to explode all over the table.  I reached for my phone to take a picture, all prepared for a PSA post here about blowing milkshake bubbles.  But my phone was not there.  I looked in my 14 coat pockets and my 5 pants pockets and my bag.  Not there.  No biggie.  Probably in the car.

We finished lunch and went to the car to take Samuel back to school.  My phone was not there.  I ripped up the floor mats, moved my seat back and forth, dumped out my purse twice and moved all the booster seats.  No phone.  Went back into Chick-Fil-A.  No phone.  Went back to the office.  No phone.

I was a tad freaked out because my phone is integral to my daily life and I didn't realize just how integral until I could not find it.  I figured that I must have thrown it into the trash at Chick-Fil-A and decided that it wasn't worth searching through other people's half-eaten food for a 2 1/2 year old phone.  So I dropped Samuel off at school and headed to the AT&T store.

I've been drooling over iPhones for years.  I almost bought one last summer.  But I didn't.  But that's neither here nor there.  Anyway.  It's been past time for me to get a phone upgrade for months and months but I just kept putting it off.  I figured that the loss of my phone was a sign of some sort that I should get a new phone.  And why not get an iPhone?

The AT&T dude was very cool.  I told him the sad saga of the morning and how all the signs were pointing to an iPhone.  His eyes practically turned into dollar signs like in a cartoon.  I decided on the 16 GB 3GS, the accessories to accompany it and the Apple Care to support it.  I couldn't fathom needing 32 GB of space on a phone, for Pete's sake.  But again, not important right now.  Moving right along.

I decided to go ahead and get a new phone number.  I've kept my Texas number because it was simpler than changing my number and I kind of liked the, "Hm, where is that number based?" questions.  But when in Colorado ...

I got my phone, fell into a nice, comfortable infatuation with it and finished my party errands.  The only reason to be upset was that I had lost all the contacts in my old phone, about 200 numbers.  (Yikes!)  As I waited in the pick up line at the kids' school, Paul called me and said that Lisa had texted him and said that she had my phone at the office.  (My phone is so important because, of those 200 numbers, I have precisely 3 memorized -- Jennifer, Paul and work.  When I got the new number I was able to call Paul and Jennifer and tell them what happened.)

Crappola. Now I had two phones, one of which was deactivated.  Do I return the iPhone and keep my old phone?  Or do I just transfer the old contacts into the new phone?  Returning it was out of the question.  I was already in loooooove.

So I got the old phone from the office (Apparently, Samuel kicked it off the table during the finger poking episode and Lisa took it to the nurse's station, thinking I'd come back for it.  And I did but she hadn't told the front desk about it so they told me they didn't have it.), took it to the AT&T store and the nice man who sold me the iPhone opened it up to retrieve the SIM card so I could have all my numbers.

So, long story short: girl loses phone, panics, buys brand new fantabulous phone, falls in love, lives happily ever after.

Testing

Blogging from my phone.  IT'S CAPITALIZNG EVERYTHING WITHOUT PERMISSION.  Sorry for yelling. Have to figure this out. Blerg.

Red Letter Day

• Miriam has a field trip to the zoo.  Fun, fun, fun!  I packed her lunch with a little I-love-you-have-tons-of-fun note.
• Samuel has been learning Easy Talk in speech.  It's a method to help him get past stuttering in his daily speech.  I've been encouraging him to use it throughout the day but he's been resistant because he's self-conscious about talking more slowly.  This morning he got really frustrated but stopped, took a breath and switched to Easy Talk and got through it!  I am so proud!!
• The kids have a school skating party tonight.  There are several of them through the year and they always beg to go.  This is the last one so I agreed to take them.  I'm not looking forward to it, but they are.  Immensely.
• I have lost 20 pounds!
• I get to eat 1900 calories today and we are hitting the Wendy's drive-thru before the skating party.
• My phone rocks.  (I started a post about this and then abandoned it but I will finish it some day.)

Default Hiatus

I hate how I get out of the writing habit and it's so easy to just keep coasting without writing.  This might sound silly but I feel like my brain gets clogged.  I think about a lot of things that I want to write but I never get around to it so all the thoughts hang out in my gray matter.  It gets kind of dusty up there like that.

I hope to do some spring cleaning this weekend.

I Hate the First Week After Breaks

I really do.  When the kids are with the ex-husband in Albuquerque they eat all manner of crappy food, stay up way past anyone's decent bed time and are generally spoiled rotten by movies, video games, candy, amusement parks and no responsibilities.  Then they have to come back here where I *gasp* make them eat healthful meals, go to bed at an appropriate time, do chores and I can't spend money on every entertainment their little hearts desire.  It sucks for all of us.

So last week I was in a funk.  It's tough enough to write about the mundane things during times like that, never mind the extraordinary ones.  But we made it through the week.  Literally one week of nagging, hounding, whining (both theirs and mine) and crying.  Sunday was a great day and Sunday marked one week of the kids being back here with me.

Today was fabulous.  Well, except for the minor frustrations this morning with Samuel's toothbrush.  And his jacket.  And his shoes.  But that's kind of normal.  We had a delicious, balanced meal and each kid was only reminded once to eat the veggies.  I did not only a load of laundry, but also unloaded the dishwasher from yesterday, reloaded it after dinner and ran it!  The kids had minimal homework that was done quickly and they even had time for some tv and a half hour of computer games.  Everyone went to bed (almost) on time.

:contented sigh:

I hate Week One after school breaks.  Week Two is okay.

Think the Potatoes Might be Old?

The Number, Part 8

So I wrote the other day that The Number was down by 16.  And today it's officially down by 17.  Woot!  Three more will be a major milestone.  I loved being able to say that I had lost 15 pounds.  Saying that I've lost 20 pound will be that much more awesome.  Also, the first 15 pounds were just what I had gained from July to December of last year.  I need to get past that point.  It's as much a mental thing as a physical thing now.

Also, I'm back to strict calorie counting.  I proved to myself that I wasn't ready to quit counting.  I stopped counting for roughly 3 weeks and reverted back to bad habits.  Not as bad as before, but still bad.  I didn't gain any weight but I maintained steadily and now is not the time to be maintaining.  I hope to be maintaining this summer.

I didn't win the online Biggest Loser Challenge.  I came in third, I think.  And now I'm part of another Biggest Loser Challenge at work.  I don't know if I'll win that one either but I'll do my best.  Besides, the point isn't winning anyway -- the point is being fit and fabulous and loving it.

I joined a challenge with my online fitness friends to do push ups in the month of April.  On April 1 we did one push up, on April 2 we did 2 push ups and so on.  I decided to add crunches to my part of the challenge, too.  I'm hoping to see some serious definition by the time summer rolls around.

My official goal is to lose 19 more pounds.  That would put me at a weight that I haven't seen since the awful Summer of Divorce when I lived on Dr. Pepper for fear of vomiting all other sustenance from the hellacious anxiety and stress.  I know 19 plus 17 sounds like a lot, and it is.  And I might not actually get there. (But if I do, it'll be a much healthier weight than the Summer of Divorce because I will get there by healthy eating and healthy activity.)  Those are just numbers.  I can imagine what I will look like and feel like at that weight but if I get to a point before there that I feel fabulous and healthy I'll stop.  I'm not as concerned about the numbers as I am about my feelings toward myself and my energy and overall health.

So there you have it -- a Number update.

Awesomeness

This week on my online home there was a thread titled "Things that are awesome" and it made me really happy.  People posted the good things that have happened to them this week or things that make them happy all the time or things that are, for lack of a better word, awesome.  I liked the idea.  So, without further explanation, things that are Awesome or Phenomenal or Tremendous or Excellent or whatever other superlative you'd like to tag them with:

1. my adorable kids
2. the fact that my kids are maturing and might, one day too soon, object to being called 'adorable'
3. Paul
4. my clean house
5. the organic, grass-fed, free range, used-to-be happy beef that's now in my freezer
6. movies
7. music
8. friends
9. family
10. game night
11. excellent food
12. decreasing The Number by 16 (Woo-hoo!)
13. feeling like I'm exactly where I belong
14. exploring school/becoming an RN options
15. me (Yeah, I said it.)

Spoon

Spoon. Oh, yes.  I really like Spoon.

Let's see, where do I start? Oh, how about with the transportation? I planned out my trip so that I would arrive via train and bus just before 8, when the openers started. But I went to dinner first with friends, lost track of time and missed the train. So I took a later one and missed the bus. No problem, I'll just catch a later bus, right? Wrong. The next bus wasn't for another hour. So I walked. It actually wasn't too bad, though. It was just over a mile. I ate way too much at dinner and the walk was a good way to burn some calories.

Anyway, when I got there everyone else was already inside so Jennifer came out to meet me with my ticket and we got in without any problems and found our crew some where near the front.  The openers, as Caleb said, "Aren't bad.  I just don't like them.  Plus, that dude with the guitar is going to break.  Like a twig."  His description of the guitarist was right on -- he was really, really skinny.  And not very smart.  He tried to make a reference to Layne Staley but instead said 'Layne Stanley.'  People didn't like his talking and not singing so he started to get some heckling.  Someone flipped him off and he said, "Hey, why would you do that?  You know, there was this lady named Emily Post who wrote some books -- you should f@ck!n' read 'em."  That was kind of funny.

Somewhere during this I noticed puffs of smoke rising periodically from the crowd.  Now it was pretty smokey in there because of the fog machines and stuff but there's no smoking allowed.  However, it was quickly evident that this was not cigarette smoke.  But you know, Colorado does allow people to smoke medical marijuana with a prescription, so who knows?  Maybe our fellow concert-goers had chemo treatments earlier in the day or were suffering from cataracts.  You never know.

I think it was right about this time that I started to smell something really foul and no, I'm not talking about the pot.  It was really, really disgusting.  Like stockyard disgusting.  Jennifer smelled it, too and we decided that the girl in front of us had farted.  It was so gross.  I don't think I've ever smelled something that nasty from a person.

Standing so close to that many people is weird sometimes.  I mean, in addition to the pot and the farts.  The girl in front of me was really drunk and kept swaying and stepping backwards into my personal space, which is already tiny in a setting like this.  Her hair was getting in my drink.  Caleb offered to trade places with me and then he stood right next to her and didn't move when she backed up.  Finally she realized what she was doing and went away.  It took her a really long time to notice, though.

And then some where around here, I got hit in the back of the head by some guy's elbow.  I turned around to see what happened and there was a guy behind me with his arms flailing around.  At first I couldn't tell what happened.  It looked like either a seizure or body-surfing gone bad.  As it turns out, it was neither.  Two guys got into it over personal space and one started throwing punches.  Caleb picked up the aggressor and threw him off the other guy.  So he left.  The guy who got punched was bleeding and lost his glasses.  That sucked.

Just before the show ended I noticed this guy who wandered into my line of site.  I took a photo because the quote on his shirt is so cool.  It says, "Only when the last river has been poisoned, the last tree has been cut down and the last fish has been killed will man realize that he cannot eat money."  I just love that.  I wish more people thought like that.

And here is my very, very dark photo of the Capitol.  I have a thing for the Capitol.  I don't know why.  I just like it.

Playing Catch Up

The kids have been gone for almost two weeks so I've had a lot of free time.  That free time has been spent with Paul and other cool people, working and doing fun stuff.  I haven't had a lot of time for writing.  I miss it so I thought I'd get back into the groove with a brief summary of what I've been up to.

Paul and I didn't make it to the Western Slope for the spring wine festival.  A big snow storm moved over the mountains and we decided it was too risky to drive I-70, especially when it's already been shut down to one lane by a rock slide.  Fortunately, the B&B owners let us reschedule our weekend to July 4th if we added another night to our stay.  There's another wine and blues festival that weekend so that will be fun.

Since we were in town that weekend we instead got to go out with Jenn, Caleb, some of Caleb's family and some friends.  We ate at Jonesy's Eatbar and then went next door to hear Reckless Red.  It was a fun night.  That weekend we also went to see a couple of movies: Alice in Wonderland and Crazy Heart.  Alice in Wonderland was predictably good if you like the combo of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp.  And I do.  Crazy Heart was really, really good.  Jeff Bridges truly deserved his Oscar this year.  Fabulous movie.

On Tuesday night that week Paul had free vouchers for Comedy Works.  It was new talent night so the comics were hit or miss.  There were half a dozen that we really enjoyed.  Afterward we spent some time walking around downtown and people watching.  We discovered that there's actually not much going on after 10 pm on a Tuesday night.  Ha!

Last weekend we spent Sunday with friends of a friend from my office.  They play Egg Wars for Easter.  I picked weak eggs and lost badly.  But there was tons of delicious food and good conversation.  I like this making new friends thing.

Last night I had dinner with some work friends and then met Jenn, Caleb and friends downtown for Spoon.  Needless to say, we had a great time.  We always do.  More about that later.

This Friday night I'm hosting ladies' game night at my place.  I don't know how much game playing we'll get done, but there will be delicious food, some drinks and laughter.  It's going to be great.

I'm making some more progress on settling into the new place.  I have some artwork up on the wall above my bed.  I also have some new artwork up in the dining room and living room.  And I'm working on an idea for the hallway.  I'll post some more pictures when I'm all finished.  I'm making Samuel a duvet for his bed, too.  I've made bedding for the other two kids in the past but he was so little then that he couldn't really voice an opinion.  The poor kid has been using Miriam's hand-me-down, flowered, pink-and-purple comforter for quite some time.  He says he wants his cover to be half yellow and half orange and he's going to get exactly that.

I've talked to the kids several times.  They're having a blast and being spoiled at least 1/2 rotten in ABQ.  They come back this coming Sunday and I'm really excited to hug them and squeeze them again.  They're such great kids and I miss them.

Samuel turned 7 last week.  For some reason, his 7th birthday is difficult for me to wrap my head around.  He just seems so grown up now.  For so long, he's been  The Baby.  And I suppose in some ways, he always will be; he is the youngest, after all.  But 7 years old is so much not a baby.  I'm not sad about him getting older -- I'm not That Mom.  It's just weird to think about my youngest being so big.  Samuel does tell me that he'll always be my baby, though.  If I could insert a pink, puffy heart here, I would.

So I don't know about this being brief but it's a summary, at least.  It's good to be back.

Heard a New One Today

Acne's foot.  As in --

What's that cream? That one that you use? For the rashes?  On the feet? For acne's foot?

Irony

Those are wind turbines. On the back of a Hummer.