Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Mild, Not Spicy

I am a pretty picky eater. And I like my food relatively plain. I eat chips, but not the hot sauce.

I also tend to eat the same stuff over and over. Case in point: For about 7 years, every single morning I eat one piece of cinnamon toast. Occasionally I go nuts with either sweet potato pancakes, or on the even more rare occasion, donut holes.

And when I visit the one Indian food place I go to, I order one of two items. One is probably not even considered Indian food. It was originally called "The Hawaiian Combo", and it's name has since been changed to "Rice and Noodles." But since I'm ordering it from a restaurant that claims to be Indian (it may actually be Indian-Fusion?- not sure), I think I'm sort of cool and tell people I'm eating Indian food.

Today I went there, and of course, I ordered the standard- Rice and Noodles with Chicken. They give you the option of ordering it mild, medium, or spicy. Last time I ordered it, it was just a little more flavorful and even more yummy than usual. I thought maybe they mistakenly made it medium instead of mild. So today, I threw caution to the wind and ordered it a notch up from mild.

Oh. No.
It was WAY too much for me. I saw little red specks in it, which I assume was some radical pepper that made it hot. I had to drink about 3 times more diet coke than usual. So not only was I hopped up on the spicy, but also the added caffeine. And because my stomach was so full of liquid, I couldn't eat nearly as much as I usually do. Which on the one hand is great, because I have that much more for leftovers. Except, it's leftovers that I'm sort of afraid of now.

No more experiments for me on how I order my pseudo-Indian food. It's MILD for me. And chips, no hot sauce.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Welcome To The New Blog!

This new blog is dedicated to the creative endeavor of the making of my upcoming cd, which at this point, is titled, "90 Days"- hence, the name of this blog.

I hope this will be an interesting journey in the process of all the things that an indie-musician, like myself, goes through in making a cd. I hope for who ever reads this, it's a fun, relatable and insightful look at taking on a big project. I also hope keeping this blog will keep me motivated and focused on my task.

I'm just going to start at the beginning and see where it leads me. I hope you will follow along.
Thanks for stopping in. Not sure how often I will post, but it will be at least weekly. Please subscribe to this blog, and my other blog- Then you'll get little alerts when I post something new.

I'd love this to be an really interactive blog, so please leave comments, questions, advice...anything!

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

If You Give a Girl Some Landscaping....

We recently had our back yard landscaped. And it is BEEautiful. And as it goes with most home improvement projects, one thing leads to another. Once the landscaping started to look so great, we decided we needed good looking patio furniture to match it.

My husband has been talking about Teak wood furniture, literally, for years. Of all the patio furniture options out there, this is not my favorite. But I get it. It's sort of the equivalent to our leather chair in our den. It looks nice. It looks clean. It looks masculine. He's a guy, it it looks like very manly furniture. But it doesn't look cozy or comfortable. The wood patio furniture doesn't look like anything I would want to curl up and read a book in.

But since for the most part, I tend to get my way around here, I decided this little Teak furniture battle is not one I wanted to fight. So I told him if that's what he really wanted, to just get it.

And to appease me, he ordered a hammock.
Oh. But it is not just a hammock.

It is really the most delicious hammock I have ever laid in. (And I've laid in plenty! And I've even fallen out of a few!) It's very wide- Big enough for two for sure. And it's made out of a blanket-y material. And it has a pillow attached.

The hammock sits out under our pecan trees. And I lay there and look up at those trees. And, as those home projects go...one thing leads to the next. If I look up for too long, I start to notice that we need to have our trees pruned. There are lots of dead and broken branches up there.

But for now, I'll just lay there and hope none of those tree branches fall down and knock me out. But if they do, I'm already laying in a very comfortable spot where I am happy to stay for as long as necessary.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Rated PG-4

I try to keep this blog clean. I try to avoid offending anyone. Maybe this stems from my past as a 1st grade teacher.

But I just have to report what I watched on Oprah last night. I woke up at 3AM (always fun!), couldn't back to sleep, so I decided to watch the Oprah that had been recorded. It was a follow up show about teenage sex, and how parents should talk to their kids about sex.

There were lots of points made on the show, and for the most part I agreed with what the sex therapist was advocating- talking to your kids about sex, not making it seem taboo, etc. But I was caught a little off guard by a woman who called in asking if it was normal that her 4 year old daughter masturbated to the point of being sweaty and having an increased heart rate. The therapist said, that yes, that is normal and that she's probably just sweaty because she was getting close to the big O. (And I don't mean Oprah) REALLY??? Is that normal?

And that, my friends, is yet another reason why I think I'm a far better dog-parent than I would be a child-parent. I get annoyed when my dogs lick themselves and yell at them to stop. (Ew. Sorry Zoe, sorry Scout.) I could not be comfortable with or supportive of my 4 year old child jacking off during bedtime storytime.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Garden Clubbing

Today I went to my neighborhood monthly garden club meeting. We meet in the daytime, which is one reason why there is no one else even close to my age that attends. It's just me and about 25 octogenarian ladies.

I love it that I am the Spring-iest chicken there. It's a guarantee that I will be the youngest lady at each meeting. Also, there's something so maternal about most of these women, and it feels similar to the way I use to feel around Mom and her friends. Most of the time, I'm way more entertained by the members themselves than I am by the actual speakers that are lined up to teach us things about "gardening". (I put that word in quotation marks because very few of our topics have anything to do with gardening.)

I don't even really care what the speaker is talking about. For me, the magical moments are the chit chatting before the meeting starts, and then the funniest stuff of all comes when we do the business portion of the meeting. One lady always reads a meditation- Very corny poetry about living a good life. AWESOME. Another woman reads the minutes from the last months meetings and that is hilarious. She writes down every little thing that was discussed, what we voted on, who was there, who had a broken hip, etc. I don't know how she's able to remember it and get it all written down. I certainly couldn't. Another one of our members is in charge of sending out the get well cards to the members who aren't in attendance. We also have a lady who reports to us about dues, bills, and how much money our little garden club has in the bank. Usually, the president of our club gets really mad at someone during some part of the program. It's always hilarious to see because most of the ladies are just so sweet, but this particular woman can get a little nasty. And the rest of us get a little afraid.

I cannot tell you how much I love going to these meetings. It is about 2 hours of the best entertainment and I find myself laughing for days afterwards.

The era of the old fashioned garden clubs seem to be winding down. Lots of the younger women in my neighborhood work in the day, or they have little kids to tend to and just don't have the time. I am so, so lucky I have a flexible daytime schedule! The only inflexible time I have, is that time, on those Thursday with my garden club friends.

Monday, April 6, 2009

The 19th Wife

I used to have a book review blog. But I was pretty sure no one read it so I stopped updating it. But I read all the time. In fact, I think it would be hard for me to function if I didn't always have some book I was reading.

I do most of my reading in the bathtub every night. About an hour's worth. I've read a few long- and heavy!- books lately and holding them up during my baths is sometimes challenging. And annoying. But the book I just finished reading, The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff, was so worth it.

Two stories weaved in and out through the book- both about polygamist communities. One, historical fiction, about Brigham Young's 19th wife who became an outcast and went on a crusade to end polygamy in the US. The other, a fictitious modern day story of a murder that takes place in an LDS (Latter-Day Saints) community. Both stories were riveting and I read the 500+ page book in just a few days.

A great book like the 19th Wife leaves you wanting more. Since finishing the book, I've been poking around on YouTube to see interviews with real life LDS members. Oprah interviewed some of the poly-wives from the compound in Eldorado, Texas just last week. Oprah asked lots of good questions and the women answered with their canned answers. She asked if they ever had problems with the other wives. Even though they share a husband with many other women, these ladies say there isn't any jealousy. Uh-huh. Oprah asked the children, "What do you do for fun?" They don't have toys, and they don't know any Disney stories, or even nursery rhymes! Instead, they just work. Super fun. If I was Oprah, I would've asked, "Where are all the men?" Why is their population so women-heavy that one man has so many wives? (By the way, I know the answer. Maybe Oprah does too, and that's why she didn't bother to ask.)

I so highly recommend this book. Although it's considered fiction, it reads like truth and I suspect there is a lot of non-fiction elements to it.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Whimper

I think my favorite sound in the world is that of a dog dreaming. You know, when they make those little muffled barking sounds? I also love hearing my dogs snore.

Ok now, my least favorite sound in the world- which I have been experiencing yesterday and today is when my dog- or any dog for that matter- whimpers in pain. It's a heartbreaking sound.

Scout had surgery to "repair" her ACL ligament the other day. And of course she's going to have to go though some pain before getting through to the happy days of walking again. She's been whimpering in pain, off and on, both yesterday and today. Especially whenever I look at her. If only she could understand as I tell her that this pain is only temporary, maybe it would be easier to endure. But she doesn't know. All she knows is that right now, she feels crummy. Right now, she has a pink cast on her leg and can't really move. Right now, she'd rather just pee on her leg than mess with trying to walk over to the grass. Right now, (due to her pain pills she's taking) she's a little cross-eyed.

Cesar Milan always talks about how dogs live in the moment. And usually, that is an advantage. But this is one case when I would rather her think about what's to come, rather than what is.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

A Few Gray Hairs

The other day at lunch, my friend looked at me and said, "Oh! You've got this one gray hair sticking straight up. Can I pull it out for you?" Oh yes, be my guest! I think gray hairs are the most resilient hairs on my head and have a mind of their own. They are the rebels of the group.

I don't have many grays, but I think if I get more, I will have the thickest head of unruly hair. Now that my hair is longer, I notice more strands of hair left in my hairbrush. No, I don't think I'm going bald. I just think now that it's longer, well, there's just more of it. But I haven't ever seen a gray hair that's come out of my head- unless I, or someone else, pulled it.

I don't pull them just because they are gray. I pull them because they are spastic. They are thick, curly, and go the opposite direction of all my other hairs. Like I said---rebels.

I made a little pact with myself. I'm not getting a haircut (okay, maybe a trim- but not a cut) or getting any hair color put on my head until the day I turn 40. The birthday plan is I'll have a day at the spa, then I'll get my hair cut, colored with some fabulous highlights, and styled. When people see me they're bound to say, "You look marvelous! What did you do?" And my reply will be simply, "Oh, I turned 40."

But until that day comes, I will live with my crazy gray hairs. There's only a few of them. True friends will pull them out for me whenever absolutely necessary.