1.  Mother’s day breakfast of choice – check.

2. Mother’s day new bath stuff – check.

3.  Mother’s day funny cards – check.

4.  Mother’s day hugs from The Spouse and The Boy – check.

5.  Mother’s day bath – check.

6.  Mother’s day lunch cooked by The Boy – check.

7.  Mother’s day workout – check.

8.  Mother’s day nap – check.

9.  Mother’s day dinner cooked by The Boy and The Spouse – check.

10.  Mother’s day wine – check.

I’d say they completed the mission, right?

1.  I turned 44 today.

2.  I also ate…a LOT.  Like 3,200 calories-lot.

3.  But I worked out too so that makes it all better, right? (NOT).

4.  The Boy is out of school all week due to the pig flu…never mind that nobody in his school has it.

5.  They’re calling it “Swine Break”.

6.  And they won’t have to make up the days.

7.  I’ve had this weird creeping poison ivy-esque rash thing for like two and a half weeks.

8.  It’s gone away in some places and popped up in others.  In fact – I think it’s spread to my face.

9.  Clearly I must go somewhere amongst the unwell to get a cortizone shot or some special salve or something.

10. If you knew me,  you would know that I am a border-line Monk – what with all the opeing doors with t-shirt hems and hand washing and refusing to use public pens and all.

11.  No, I’m not wearing a mask and gloves when I go out and I don’t plan to.

12.  But for God’s sake people..cover your damn faces and wash your damn hands after you cough and sneeze and STOP wiping your noses with your palms and then grabbing door handles.  Yuck.

13.  My forearm is on fire and my face is hot and they both itch…even with cortizone 10+.

14.  So tomorrow I will share space with the unwell.  But I damn sure will not use public pens, touch door handles or  even put my hands on public counters.

15.  Because I can’t afford to catch anything else or bring something back to the house.

16.  Shut up, I am NOT Monk.

17.  Am not.

18.  That is all.

P.S.  44 wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have this creeping rash crud.

I got glasses last week, which can be considered both good news and bad news because:

1.  I can see.  That’s the good news.

2.  I can see.  That’s the bad news….because now it takes like twice as long to clean the house because I can see more dirt than I used too.

Oh well….at least now I don’t have to walk around squinting all day long.  I guess that’s also good news.  Oh and also, I can read the street signs while driving.  I guess that’s good news for everyone else on the road!

I hope most of you moms out there got to sleep in and relax all day.  As for me…..the spouse and The Boy took me to a movie, The Boy made me lunch, and they are cooking steaks for dinner.  Eating and a movie…what more could I ask for?  Oh…and no dishes.

BTW I already bought numerous gifts for myself while shopping the past few weeks.  They would have bought me something, but I told them not to.

Go see Iron Man.  It’s very, very good.

1.  I turned another year older this past weekend.

2.  Don’t ask, because I’m not telling.

3.  Dang, that Wright thing is like a bad odor that just won’t go away.

4.  Sorry, but I just don’t believe Obama when he says he didn’t know the guy was like that.

5.  Come ON….for 20 years you heard that crap and never realized?

6.  Apparently, Hillary wants to “obliterate” Iran.

7.  Ooookaaaaay……

8.  Raising taxes on oil companies will NOT reduce the price of gas.

9.  But it might make some people feel good about “sticking it” to profitable companies.

10. If we enact windfall taxes on oil companies, why not do the same to other companies which, on average, make the same amount of money on the dollar that oil companies do (about seven and a half cents on the dollar)?

11.  I guess it’s a volume thing….?

12.  Or, it’s “oil companies are evil”.  Yeah, that’s it….

13.  McCain should do something to whiten his teeth.

14.  Raise your hand if you think the Super Delegates will actually award the nomination to Hillary.

15.  ……..

16.  Thought so.

17.  The Boy gets his High School schedule this week.

18.  It CAN’T already be time for him to go to high school.  Can it?

19.  My younger sister had a baby a couple weeks ago.  A brand new nephew.  Yeah!!!

20.  Don’t forget…it’s Mother’s Day this Sunday.  Still need to get something?

21.  Of course you do.  Open up a new browser and start looking.  You’re running out of time.

22.  The Spouse brought me back a really nice bottle of wine from Chile for my birthday.

23.  But I’m hesitant to open it because it IS so nice.

24.  He tells me I can open it when I want and drink however much I want.  It’s MY wine.

25.  I’m still not sure….should I open it?  Should I save it?  By opening it am I admitting I actually had a birthday?

26.  Yeah…um…..don’t think I’ll open it.

27.  At least not until I get used to adding another year to the machine at the gym.

28.  Putting the new age in the machine after my birthday is the worst part of the post-celebration “damn, am I really THAT old?” routine.

29.  All this talk of politics and getting older has made me thirsty.

30.  I think I’ll fix a drink.  But not the wine…at least not yet.

I recently found out that I’m one of the few who have a legitimate reason for why they can’t lose weight….I mean, besides the fact that I simply cannot give up alcohol completely, that is.

Yup.  My thyroid is low.  I tried the herbal stuff for a few months, and it helped….but not enough.  So now I’m on the meds from the doc.  I don’t expect to miraculously lose weight, but it will be nice not to be so tired and actually make some progress at the gym.

I can already tell the workouts are actually doing some good now, instead of just maintaining the status quo in the absence of a working thyroid.  So….good.

It runs in the family.  I don’t know why I was so surprised.

Oh…..I got a new laptop today!!!  My first laptop since leaving work six years ago.  It’s one of the Dell models that Best Buy started carrying.  The only really annoying extra software it came with was a trial version of Norton that kept trying to update itself.  But the system let me uninstall it easily enough once I found where to do it.  There’s other stuff out there that works better.

Can I just say that I’m not too thrilled with Vista?  It’s much harder for me to navigate.  I guess I’ll get used to it.  For what I do on a computer, there really was no other affordable option considering the fact that I could not find a new computer anywhere that still had XP and the Mac looks pretty…but not THAT pretty.  Oh, well….I’m sure we’ll all be upgrading to the fixed version of Vista soon enough.

I must go play with my new technology now.

Yeah, thyroid meds!  Yeah, new laptop!

That sounds about right. People that know me know it takes a lot to make me wake up earlier than say, 10 in the morning. Except maybe a good breakfast. That ALWAYS does the trick. Swiped this while I was catching up with Paula a few minutes ago.

Time for more coffee….

Oh, get your mind out of the gutter.  But I am very guilt-ridden about it.

I….love….LOVE…..to listen to Obama speak!  I know, a rightie actually listening to the most liberal member of the Senate (when it comes to votes).  Inconceivable.

But….I CAN’T HELP IT!  The guy is attractive, smooth, eloquent, and oh, that voice…..so rich and deep and full of hope.

Yes, I listen.  Every single time I hear his by now (to me at least) highly recognizable voice on a commercial or on the news….I stop everything I’m doing just so I can go watch and hear that guy talk.  I always feel so hopeful after I hear him.

Hey, let’s get real here.  I disagree with almost everything the guys says.  But MAN, he is SO easy to listen to it’s scary!

I think most of getting people to vote for you is getting them to listen to you.  On the dem side, I can’t imagine an easier person to listen to.  Poor Hillary.  She has to fight against a message of hope delivered in that smooth, eloquent voice.

She really doesn’t stand a chance, does she?

See? Says so…right here.

You Are an Old Soul

You are an experienced soul who appreciates tradition.
Mellow and wise, you like to be with others but also to be alone.
Down to earth, you are sensible and impatient.
A creature of habit, it takes you a while to warm up to new people.
You hate injustice, and you’re very protective of family and friends.
A bit demanding, you expect proper behavior from others.
Extremely independent you don’t mind living or being alone.
But when you find love, you tend to want marriage right away.

Souls you are most compatible with: Warrior Soul and Visionary Soul
What Kind of Soul Are You?

I must have actually answered that one truthfully! Swiped from Paula.

Yes, I’m back from my weekend up in Wisconsin. I actually got back on Sunday night, but seriously…I’ve just been too tired to even think about posting. With the flying and the staying up late and the drinking….yes, that does catch up with you.

Anyway…it was a really good time and well worth the trip. I arrived on Friday afternoon, and after a nice lunch with my younger sister and a quick change, it was off to drinks and dinner with “the cousins”. Yes, we did eat….but really the night was all about the yards. Yes, yards. See?

Well, what we really wanted was a boot at the German place next door. But they were out of boots so we settled for the yards. Oh…if you don’t know what a boot is, I caught a shot of one of the mini-boots (they have much bigger ones) on the way out the door.

It’s a thing we like to do when we all get together like that. Share a boot or five or six…

Anyway, the next day the crew was in much need of bloody marys. So my sister had everyone over for bacon (there was other stuff too but really it’s all about the bacon on a morning like that) and bloody marys. My cousin used to be a bartender, so he was cranking ‘em out as fast as they could drink ‘em (which was pretty fast). See? Bloody mary bar:

That afternoon, we went to my aunt’s house for an early dinner before the Badger game. I think there were like 43 people there if you count the aunts, uncles, cousins, and the offspring of the cousins (no, The Boy didn’t go….he’s older than most of the out of town cousins and he had school). Oh, yes…there were brats..cooked by my German uncle. Sweet.

Then it was off to the game for some…over to my cousin’s place for others. My cousin has a fire pit built in the center of her patio outside. It was awesome sitting there drinking, watching the fire, and chatting after the game.

Finally, the next day there was ANOTHER breakfast (with more bloody marys). After a stop at my mom’s to chat (although the Packer game was on so there wasn’t much chatting..she’s a die-hard fan), it was back to the airport for my flight home.

So as it turns out, although there were quite a few gatherings which I felt like I really should go to……I was glad I went and attended all of them. It was really good to see everyone – and all the newest members of the family.

I think I’m finally caught up on sleep and ready to get back into the routine around here. By this time next year, I MIGHT be recovered enough to do it all over again.