Purge

I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. A purge. Then things like the earthquake in Haiti happen, or you read a particularly moving piece about a homeless person, or you see a friend lose a beloved pet, or you see two friends lose them… and it makes even more sense.

I have all these things, these material things that sit unused on shelves, or tucked into little corners of the house or shoved under the seat in my car. Thousands of dollars worth of THINGS. Unused, uncared about, unnoticed and completely unnecessary. Last weekend, on a whim, I ransacked my closet and got rid of anything I couldn’t remember having worn in a year. There was a lot more I could have gotten rid of, but, baby steps. Then I made Cassidy do the same thing and she got rid of more than I did. Off to the Goodwill it all went. I always have Cassidy go with me when I donate stuff. I think it’s important that people she be a part of that. I did some searching the other day though and found a battered women’s shelter in a nearby town so this weekend, when I do another purge, that’s where we’ll be taking them all.

Then I’m going to move onto some of the big ticket items. I realized on a daily basis I carry around about $2300 worth or stuff between the purse, DSLR + accessories, Flip, iPhone, etc. It’s silly. But, unfortunately it’s all stuff I’d feel lost without. The spare iPhone that’s been sitting there unused for a year, the two Window’s smart phones, the HD mini camcorder… not so much! I don’t need five Coach purses, I don’t need 10 pairs of black strappy heels, I just don’t. So I’m going to start getting rid of these things. Sell some on Ebay, Craigslist, some of it I’ll just give away. We could use the money right now for sure, bit good karma can be just as important.

There is so much more though. The guest bedroom is full of boxes we haven’t unpacked since we moved a year and a half ago! THINGS! I haven’t used my desktop for anything other than data storage and a print server in over a year. THINGS! We have a cat house that the cat’s haven’t cared about just sitting there (although, moving it upstairs where they always are might help), extra dog crates, the list just goes on and on and on.

After The Purge, The Decorating will once again commence. Looking at Brittney‘s pretty pictures of her house inspired me. The clean, uncluttered, pretties are what I want in a home. Keyword: UNCLUTTERED.

I can’t wait. And of course, I’ll take lots of pictures along the way.

Help Haiti

I’m sure if you are reading this on the internet, or have been near a TV or a radio or a newspaper or another human being in the last 24 hours you’ve heard about what happened in Haiti. I just spent part of my lunch reading the devastating stories of bodies piled up in front of buildings, people dying on the streets because there is no room in the hospitals and people searching fearfully for their missing loved ones.

I saw this link posted a few times on twitter and wanted to share it:

Six ways you can help in Haiti.

The comments are full of even more links and phone numbers you can use to help. Do something, please. If you can’t afford to contribute, repost this to your own blog, tweet it, add it to your facebook status, emial it to a friend, just get the word out.

Introducing Danica

We got Kumo a sister. We’ve wanted to get him a playmate for awhile now and had been looking at puppies and dogs online and decided last Saturday to drive to the Salinas shelter where we got Kumo just to look and see if we could find a puppy. We tried two other dogs first, a 10 month old Mastif and a tiny lab mix puppy. The Mastif was SO CUTE and already as big as Kumo but when we brought him into the pen next to where we had Kumo, he was REALLY aggressively barking and growling at Kumo. Then we tried the puppy which was a COMPLETE SPAZ and spent 10 minutes chewing anything that came within 10 feet of his mouth. And peeing. And barking.

Then we tried Danica and she came in the pen and crawled in between Ben’s legs and put on her cute face. And we were hooked. We introduced her to Kumo and they did pretty well together. There were two moments, one in the pen and one in the room before we left, where she got a bit snippy with Kumo but I think it was just because Kumo was really excited and once he got a little too close to her neutering incision. But the girl has spunk for sure, that was clear right away. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she ends up being the alpha even though we have taken steps like feeding him first, allowing him to walk in front of her and out the doors before her. But I just figure they’ll work it all out eventually.

We weren’t prepared to be bringing a puppy home THAT DAY but we had pretty much everything we needed left over from Kumo anyway. Crates, toys, bowl… all we needed was a NAME. When we adopted Kumo we had to wait four days for him to be microchipped, fixed and the last of his shots and it took the entire four days to come up with his name.

So on the way home we started throwing out names. We knew just from meeting her that it would have to be a strong, sassy female name. Ben threw out Danica right away and I liked it but we didn’t want to jump at the first name.

Me: What about Seven of Nine!
Ben: Well we’d have to call her Seven, not Seven of Nine.
Me: What about Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One.
Ben: *sigh*
Me: What?! I’m just throwing stuff out there!

And then Cassidy’s head exploded from the geek overdose. What can I say, I love my Star Trek.

We ended up going with Danica because it fits our theme. Our cat Hans’ full name is Hans Devise Stuck after the Hans Device, a racing neck brace, and Hans Stuck, a famous German race car driver. Kumo is named after the Kumho brand of racing tires. We dropped the ‘h’ so it would be easier for the kids in his Kindergarten class to spell his name.

So Danica just made sense.

So, blog friends, welcome our newest family member Danica Hirsch:

The first thing you lose on a diet is your sense of humor.

I’ve lost 15 pounds. I’m not sure exactly where that 15 pounds went. My pants feel a little less painted on in the morning but other than that I’m stumped. Knowing my luck 5 of it came off my feet and the other 10 were just cleaned thoroughly out of my colon. We’ve been eating very “clean”. Whole grains, lean meats and LOTS AND LOTS of fresh veggies and fruit. Over the next few weeks I’m going to feature some of the recipes here because most of them have actually been much tastier than I’d think something good for you should taste. Gone are the days of rice cakes and plain egg whites that’s for sure.

Of course, Ben has less weight to lose overall but has already lost more than me. He’s at 20 pounds lost. It’s totally awesome for him, he’s doing so well. But certainly there is some twisted higher being out there that was drop kicked in the face by a woman at some point and now we’re all paying the consequence by having to do twice as much work to lose the same amount of weight.

We’ve also been hitting the gym pretty regularly. It’s amazing to me how in two months I can do the same workout on the treadmill but my heart rate average has gone down 40 beats per minute. FORTY. BEATS. PER. MINUTE. I thought for sure during that first workout that my heart was going to commit mutiny. He was going to band together with my spleen and gallbladder and find the quickest exit possible. I’m not sure how important a spleen or gallbladder is but I do know that I’d be kinda screwed without my heart.

Today I made an appointment with a personal trainer that I routinely see TRY TO MURDER people at the gym. Tonight a man just WALKED OUT in the middle of his hour. WALKED OUT! Dude is INTENSE. And I’m really really looking forward to it. Also, I’m wondering how hard I’d actually have to hit him to knock him out to run away. Maybe kicking hm would be better. I guess we’ll find out Wednesday.

Treat please.

Breakfast @ 6:30AM: I need to work more protein into breakfast. Even if it means getting up earlier to cook something at home. I don’t WANT to do that though. When I start P90x I want to start having a Shakeology before I leave the house or on the way to work. That’s 17 grams of protein, 17 of carbs and only 150 calories! I also forgot flax seed meal AND my vitamin today. DOH!

1/3 cup of Danon Light & Fit Vanilla Yogurt
1/2 Fuji Apple
1/2 cup Puffins Peanut Butter Cereal

Calories: 168
Carbs: 20
Fat: 1
Protein: 4

Snack @ 9:30AM: I forot to take a shot before I ate it! DOH! I’m new to this! I’m sure I’ll start to remember in no time!

5 Ellie Krieger lemon shrimp
1/4 cup Ellie Krieger Soup cream & Chives Smashed Potatos

In 140 (plus possibly 673 more) characters or less.

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I should tweet that” only to find that it’s just not possible to get your iFriends to fully appreciate the awesomeness of trying to explain to your daughter just how NOT OKAY it is to tell somebody they have fat feet?

Well, I do. Like, all the time. Seriously.

And I always think to myself that HELLO!! BLOG!! But then I start to wonder if posting crazy stuff in little bursts like that will fill up your Google feedreader (all 38 of you!) and risk you hitting that unsubscribe button. The problem is that I just don’t have it in me right now to sit and really write.

Truth: I’m stressed the fuck out.

Ben still hasn’t found a new job. We all need summer clothes but I keep thinking we can wear these jeans just a bit longer. Do I really want to spend THAT MUCH MONEY on razors?! Especially if nobody can see my legs because I never wear shorts because I only have two pair that I can wear. I want to sign Cassidy up for some kind of summer camp but with Ben here, it’s seems silly to spend money on something like that when he’s here to keep her busy. I really want a new iPhone, mine is on it’s last legs but I’m not about to blow $199 on a new phone when I think of all the other things we need. I had the idea to sell a purse and some makeup to cover the cost of the phone but if I sell that stuff there are so many other things that money could go towards and iPhone isn’t at the top of the list, things like summer clothes still are. It’s not that we CAN’T go out and buy these things, it’s not that bad, it’s just getting over the mental hurdle of buying anything we don’t ABSOLUTELY NEED until Ben finds work.

I’ve been taking on a lot of extra responsibility at work which is great because I’ve basically injected myself into the new system we are about to roll out so I’ve got job security. But. It also means more work, added stress and having to deal with more people. Also, not having time to blog from work.

And I hate to lay this onto Ben. I know that he’s equally as stressed out as I am and what words can he offer me? We’re in this together. It’s not something where one of us can look in from the outside, sheltered and unaffected, to give comfort to the other. We are both suffering. And as much as we’ve both tried to not let it effect us, it has. I’m sure that he’s SO READY to be out of this house and back into the workforce that it’s frustrating for him. Add that to me being completely stressed out and it’s naturally led to some tension at home which means; more stress.

Then one of the hardest things for me, the one I constantly have to tell myself to not dwell on, is that I really hoped this year would be the one where we’d start trying to grow the family and, obviously, we aren’t about to go down that road when we aren’t financially stable. The hardest part is watching people all around me get pregnant. There are TWO girls out of the 8 on my team at work that are expecting, too many online friends to count have suddenly all started popping up pregnant or about to deliver or have newborns, then family members… It’s SO hard to sit back and read/watch that. I am honestly so happy and beyond thrilled for all of these awesome girls and families but hearing about it is so bitter sweet. Sometimes if feels like 97% bitter and 3% sweet. Something I try not to dwell on but tell that to my uterus and that stupid clock ticking so hard it’s like an entire drumline has taken up residence in my cerebral cortex and boy are they throwing one hell of a kegger.

*deep breath*

So yeah, I tend to stop blogging when I start to feel this way because as much as I try to not let my mood effect my writing THAT MUCH, it does and I can’t control that.

SO ANYWAY! I’ve decided that it’s kind of silly to let aflux just sit here and rot, right? There are awesome resources out there like the WordPress iPhone app so I can publish those moments on the go. The good ones. The ones that make me smile and forget the stress and help the day pass by. The ones I hope to start documenting so that I can look back at the end of the day and smile and say, hey! Things aren’t THAT BAD! Cassidy thinks I have some pretty PHAT feet!