#1 - Start TTC

TTC means trying to conceive in case you're a little behind.

Seeing as how I'm over 21 weeks pregnant at the moment, I feel I can safely mark this one off my list!

Oh yeah. And I'm pregnant with TWINS! Double whammy!

Our boys at 8 weeks and 5 days old

They've grown quite a bit since this picture, but I just love it so much that I thought I'd share.

#55 - continued!

I think I've actually finally forced myself to form a new habit. I officially completed goal #55 - take a multivitamin every day - a few months ago, but Greg and I have been pretty good about continuing to do so.

The only times we really miss are those nights that we eat out, which isn't often. Other than that, the vitamin containers stay sitting out on our kitchen counter as a daily reminder while we're cleaning up after dinner. Go us!

#43 - Get new glasses

I only ever wear my glasses in the early morning when I'm just waking up or late at night when I'm getting ready for bed. Other than that, I'm either wearing contacts or as blind as a bat.

Perhaps that is because the only pair of glasses I've had for the last 3 years are from a really old prescription. They get the job done, but I wouldn't trust myself to drive with them. I finally buckled down, made an appointment and dropped some major cash to get a new pair.

Maybe I'll actually venture outside with these...

**picture soon to be added**

#52 - Um, halfway...

In last week's game, I did actually score a soccer goal.

Too bad it was for the WRONG TEAM! ::hanging head in shame::

I am still mostly a defender so I was in front of our goal, blocking an opposing player, when our goalie smacked the hell out of the ball. It hit squarely on the side of my foot. A perfect connection. And rebound straight into our own net. Doh!

No good.

#21 - Buy a new dining room table & chairs

We hit the Four Hands Warehouse sale two months ago and struck gold!

So pretty!

#15 - Refinish and repaint the front door

We recently repainted our backyard deck, or more specifically, failed miserably at our attempt and so hired someone to do it for us. We went ahead and also hired the guy to refinish and repaint the front door.

The heat has already put a few cracks in the new paint, but it looks so much better than it did before with dull bit of paint flaking off all over. So this task is officially done.

#54 & 55 - Done!

I did it. Yay!

I went an entire month with no fast food AND I took a multivitamin every, single day.

I even got my husband to take the vitamins with me, which was a very good thing. Without his regimented self-discipline, I would have had to restart the vitamin count-down many, many times over. But he was good. Several times he reminded me right before bed that we needed to take them. This Saturday, when I was about to pass out from mojito overdose, he even brought them to my bed with a glass of water. That saved my butt! It was the LAST day of the month-long streak. How badly would that have sucked...

So I'm taking them. And I will continue to take them. And hopefully this will become more and more ingrained into my daily habit. But as for the fast food thing, my month+ streak ends today. I forgot my lunch and am starving so it's off to grab a "healthy" salad from Wendy's.

Feels good to do those though. Good luck to everyone on their uber-healthy goals too.

#52 - I WAS ROBBED!

Goal #52 was to score a soccer goal for my team. This is pretty difficult to do considering that I'm a bad-ass (all things considered...) defense player and therefore I spend most of my time back near our own goal. And I certainly don't want to score there. It's rare that I push up enough to even make an attempt at scoring.

Well, during our last game we were short on players. So as the game progressed, we started getting worn out and not running as much. That's when I noticed that there were only 2 people playing on offense - the rest of us were lolly-gagging at the back - so I ran up to help.

During one exciting play, my husband, me and one of the other guys had the ball bouncing all over the place at the opponent's goal. Someone made a shot. It missed and bounced off the wall. Someone else took a shot. Same thing. Their goalie dived to try to catch the ball, but he missed and somehow I took possession. I had a window! And I was going for it!

I knew I had to kick it high because someone had fallen on the ground in front of me. I knew the goalie was still recovering from his last dive. So I lined the shot up and took it. And it was perfect! It was high, right in the middle, and dropping, about to go in, and ohmygod...

... and then...

...and then...

...some asshat - NOT the goalie - reached up with his hand and bumped the ball just enough to bounce it up and out of the scoreline! Which, by the way, if you don't know is completely illegal! It's cheating, you @$#^@$#% #$%#@$^ %^*$%^!

It would have been my only goal ever! And you stole it from me! You mean, stupid boy!

So I didn't score after all. :( And he didn't even get sent off. Bad call. But I'm not bitter.

Tonight we're playing again. Kharmically speaking, I'm due.

The ABC's of Me

I was tagged by Joyce! (Hi, Joyce! My middle name was Joyce - after my grandma - until I changed it to my maiden name after marriage.)

A - Attached or Single: Attached

B - Best Friend: My husband, but since that's probably cheating... Shelley!

C - Cake or Pie: Pie! I hate chocolate cake.

D - Day of Choice: Saturday for obvious reasons...

E - Essential Item: a good bra

F - Favorite Color: blue

G - Gummy Bears or Worms: worms - they're more fun to play with

H - Hometown: Slow-deatha

I - Indulgence: shoes, cheese Doritos

J - January or July: January - my b-day's in January

K - Kids: not until I graduate

L - Life is incomplete without: challenges (I'd get seriously bored otherwise)

M - Marriage Date: April 29, 2006

N - Number of Siblings: two - a younger bro & sis

O - Oranges or Apples: I am addicted to oranges

P- Phobias or Fears: snakes & religious fundamentalists (I'm reading Under the Banner of Heaven, and it has warped my mind)

Q - Quote: "When I'm good, I'm very good. But when I'm bad, I'm better." - Mae West

(I don't really have a favorite quote but I like this one. I found it when I was looking for the one that goes something like: If I can't serve as a good example, then I'll have to serve as a horrible warning.)

R- Ring size: I forget! 7, I think...

S - Season: spring

T- Tag 3 Friends: Ashley, NDK, & MC

U - Unknown fact about me: (Related to Joyce's) During my kindergarten graduation, I won a trophy for memorizing and reciting my bible verses perfectly every single day. Now I am agnostic.

V - Very favorite stores: DSW!!!

W - Worst Habit: procrastinating (as in now)

X - X-ray or Ultrasound: ultrasounds don't mutate your DNA

Y - Your Favorite Food: crème brûlée, oranges, watermelon, cheese Doritos

Z - Zodiac: Aquarius

#38 - Purge 101 Things from My Life: Items 1-49

I have to say I'm very proud of myself for this one. I come from a long, decorated line of thoroughbred pack-rats. My people are horders. We horde e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. Because you just never know when you might need that ratty, old towel or those rusted, bent nails. And why throw them out, when there's all this room in the closet/garage/junk drawer? And I'm one of the least clingy in my clan. I could go on and on and on about certain other family members who shall remain nameless, but I won't. You know who you are!

Tonight while Greg was playing (and winning!) poker, I scoured my closets and drawers. Culling clothing! Clothing I've had since high school! I wish I was kidding, but I actually pulled out a dress I wore to take my senior pictures. How sad is that... That dress was over 13 years old! It's time to let go.

So I'm doing it! I'm taking clothes and giving them away to friends and charities. Surely someone can make use of these things I haven't touched in years. And here's what I've thrown out so far:

6 sweaters
7 skirts
12 dresses - twelve!
5 tops
6 bras
4 pairs of jeans
1 hat
3 t-shirts
5 pairs of shorts

Go me! Hopefully I'll have another wave of bravery and conviction soon because it actually feels good to lighten my load.


And may I just say, this was an emotionally difficult job for me, made all the more challenging by a kitty who is obsessed with laying on clothes.



I can't tell you how many times I had to disturb her peace to get at those things she had perched herself upon. But she's pretty cute, right... :)

::sigh:: Back to Zero (again)

Shit! I just blogged about my vitamin role yesterday. And guess what?

I forgot them yesterday. Grrrrr.....

#15 - Sand and Repaint Front Door

We've just hired someone to redo our back deck for us. And since he'll be toiling with the sander and paint anyway, we decided to tack on the front door as well. For $150 he's going to accomplish this goal for me.

That price may seem steep, but right now I'm traumatized by the thought of stripping and repainting any wood surface for a while. $150 is worth it! We're picking out paints tomorrow, and hopefully it'll be done by the week-end.

#54 - Back to Zero

I'm starving and forgot to bring my lunch today. That means my 'no fast food for a month' goal is starting over. Boo!

But the good news is that I haven't broken my month-long daily vitamin trend. Yay me!

#7 - Beat Greg at Darts

I totally should have made this "Beat Greg at Bowling" because I kicked his ass this week-end!

After briefly recovering from an ill-advised home improvement project on Saturday (oy!), we met up with our friends Shawn and Jim at the bowling alley for some double-date friendly competition. I must say the girls completely dominated in the first 2 games. My scores were 136 and 132 - I won both! Then it all went to pot, and I came in dead last with a 92 - more representative of my typical bowling prowess.

But I'm taking this as a good omen. Maybe I should challenge Greg to a game soon in the man cave. He hung the board ages ago, but we haven't used it once. I think it might be time...

#73 - Something Must Be Wrong...

I got my passport back!!!! Already! On Saturday!

How? How is this even possible?

The last time I renewed, I gave it the full, recommended 6 weeks processing time and still had to pay the expedition fee to get it back to catch a flight to Hungary. This with condemnations and I-told-you-so's from Greg up to my eyeballs! The time before that, we're talking MAJOR CRISIS. I had sent in the application and was desperately waiting for it to arrive so I could take my first international flight alone as a new high school graduate going away on an exchange program to France. Three days before my flight, we got the envelope in the mail. My mom came running back from the mailbox screaming for joy and waving it in the air. She handed it to me. I ripped it open, looked inside. It was all my information - my name, my address, my birthday - with SOME STRANGE, BEARDED MAN'S FACE!!! I just broke down in tears right there in our driveway and kissed my plane ticket and my five weeks overseas goodbye. I was devastated.

Well, the wonderful people at the county courthouse listened to my tear-stained story of woe and fixed everything. Somehow they mailed it off and got it back to me two days later, a day before my departure. By the time I arrived in the Paris airport, I hadn't slept in days due to the worry.

This time it took them SEVEN days to receive, process and send back?!?!? I'm... dumbfounded... impressed... in shock...

Maybe the passport gods are making it up to me for all my bad luck in the past. Or maybe it's some force conspiring with my husband to show me the virtues of not procrastinating. I have no idea. But I'm so happy that there will be no more passport crisis again for another 10 years. Hooray!

By the way, the new passports are impressively artistic. Each page has some all-American scene - Mount Rushmore, the Liberty Bell, the Mayflower landing, etc. So pretty! I'm hoping I'll soon fill them with stamps, but as for now, I'm officially counting this task as done. yay!

#73 - Renew My Passport

You know what sucks? Paying $75 + a $60 expedition fee to renew a passport, only to have to renew it yet again a year later. (Ok, I know there are worse things in the world to contend with but work with me, people!)

My last passport was issued in the summer of 2005. In the spring of 2006, I got married and changed my name, thus making my new/old passport (with fantastic picture - a rarity for me) obsolete. For two years I've been putting this off. I've been purchasing tickets and traveling under my maiden name, even though all other legal documentation clearly states my married name. It's been fine so far, but I'm always a bit nervous when I do it. And instead of pushing my luck even further, I've finally succumbed.

I mailed off my passport renewal with name change today. And I'm not even under a deadline. Progress!

The only thing I'm a little sad about - and this is sheer vanity so I'm sorry - is that this is going to be the picture on my passport book for the next ten years:


It's not so bad. What really bugs me though is that I'm about 10 pounds too heavy right now. And when I gain weight, I'm like a chipmunk. I get FAT cheeks. Do you see those fat cheeks in that picture?!? They're enormous! They just take up so much... space!

And now every time I travel the world, I'm going to look down and see this picture and think to myself My God, someone tell that poor girl to lay off the acorns!

:)

#55 - Take a Multivitamin for a Month

Greg and I are getting old(er). And playing soccer isn't helping, especially in the creaky knee department.

We've recently started taking glucosamine tablets in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, these things actually work. To be quite honest, I'm more than a little skeptical - skeptical of the whole vitamin, nutritional supplement and herbal remedy industry that's flourishing today. Its not that I don't believe any of them actually work. Its just that the entire industry is completely unregulated in any way.

(I just erased the beginnings of a long, rambling tirade that I started typing, but I'll spare us all. You can find much better debates on this subject elsewhere...)

The bottom line is that no one really knows whether or not glucosamine (and others) work. And even if they are effective, the tablets we buy at the grocery store may not be in the right form or dosage to be effective. So I guess we're just taking a leap of faith on this one and sticking with the philosophy that it can't hurt to try and hoping for the best.

So since we're taking this horse-pill of a daily supplement, I thought we might as well take a horse-pill of a multivitamin as well. And that's what we're doing - glucosamine and Centrum every day for a month.


We've started about a week ago, but we missed a day so I'm being honest and zeroing out the tally.

As of today, we've taken them two days in a row. I'll try to keep us honest until May 22nd - a full four weeks - at the very least. (I have always been crap at daily anythings so this may be the longest "month" ever...)

#54 - No Fast Food for a Month

Greg and I just watched the movie Fast Food Nation tonight. It's absolutely horrifying. Greg actually read the book a few years ago and was completely traumatized by it. He would always stop and read passages to me because he was just so astounded by the atrocities from every angle of this story - animal cruelty, pollution, workers' rights, disease, contamination, urban sprawl, illegal immigrants, the list goes on and on...

After seeing this movie, now seems as good a time as any to start this task of shunning all fast food from my diet for a month.

In fact, maybe its time to think about that going-vegetarian one too... The slaughter house scenes in the movie are graphic and hard to stomach. Not to mention the implications of working conditions, health- and safety-wise. Yes, I think I've been scarred enough to forgo my assembly-line foods for a while.


If this is a topic that interests you, you may want to check out the Meatrix animations that accompanied the extra features too. I realize they're every bit the emotionally manipulative propaganda machines that any fast-food chain is, but they basically summarize the message of the movie.

(And this reminds me that I've always wanted to read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle too. I'll have to add both of these books to my very long list...)

#7 - Beat Greg at Darts

I'm not going to count this as accomplished, but it's definitely progress...

While in Mississippi visiting Karl & Terry, the whole huge group played a few rounds of "Killer", the dart game where you have to hit your number 3 times to become a "killer" and then you can start knocking points off of other people by hitting their number. If a killer hits a person's number so many times that they go to zero, then they've been killed.

I don't know how this happened, but I totally WON the first game. I killed EVERYONE. Mwaaaahaaahaaaha!

Check out my maniacal, evil smile...

See the dart board? As they bit the dust, I drew them each a picture signifying their untimely demise. Am I a cold-blooded killer or what?

#70 - Drive to State I've Never Visited

So we actually took that trip to Mississippi last month to surprise our friend Karl as a late birthday celebration. He had no idea. It was awesome.


Karl was scared awake but quickly recovered and started passing the beers around. A good time was had by all.

The next morning Karl and Terry took us on a tour of the University of Southern Mississippi campus. It's gorgeous and everything was in bloom.

Mike & Amy, Brianna & Mark, Karl, Greg & me

Karl's a chemistry professor there so he showed us around the labs too. Oh, the joys of geekdom...
Later that night we enjoyed dinner and darts a local pub. It was great fun, even when Brianna was almost accosted by the sloppy, drunken lesbian.


The next day, Karl impressed us with his mad barbq'ing skillz.


They were, in fact, delicious. For a Brit from Essex, he's done an amazing job embracing this whole deep, southern lifestyle. After dinner, it was philosophizing time around the fire pit.


The perplexed look on my face here because I had just been arguing (heatedly) with Karl about something with which I have zero personal experience. I do that when I've had a few too many to drink and someone antagonizes me. Karl was having great fun. He lives to rile people up.

The next morning we took our tylenols, ate a huge breakfast and said our sad goodbyes. :(

I miss them. Even if Karl's boarish, pig-headed declarations piss me off sometimes. :)


Since we drove to Mississippi in the middle of the night, we didn't get to take in any scenery. But on the ride back home, we caught what we missed the first time. The most surprising bit was to see the effects of Hurricane Katrina three years later. One second, we'd look out the window to views of fields and fields of trees.


A few seconds later, we'd pass an expanse that had been whipped and wripped to shreds.


Its pretty amazing to imagine the kind of force that could mow down a forest...

Thanks, Karl & Terry, for being amazing hosts! You handled the invasion beautifully. :)