Tai Chi Toes

After posting a pic of Hubby's feet, I thought it would only be fair to put up a picture of my feet. I painted my toenails (very girly of me - very unlike me!) a pretty purple fuchsia color. Hubby inquired if I was starting a foot fetish site, and why did I paint my nails anyway? (Like I said - it's a girly thing to do, and I am not very girly that way!).

Truth is, summer is coming. I don't hide my feet in socks at Tai Chi after March - I get too hot with socks on while doing tai chi. So, I like to catch the occasional glimpse of pretty toes while I practice my forms.

Oddly enough, when I have my fingernails painted, it is almost too much to watch them - I get distracted if the color is too loud. But apparently the color further away from my face is fine... not too distracting from practicing.

Hello again

Boy, it's been awhile since my last post. I apologize to my dedicated audience (all 2 of you!).

The first week I didn't post was one where hubby was away on a trip. You would think that would give me more time to post, but I got sucked up in the world of Lost again.

The next week I didn't post was school's spring break week. This is a week where my schedule is thrown off by the fact that there is still someone sleeping at 8:30 am - and it's me!! I do love school vacation time since I don't have to get up to get The Boy up and off to school. Last time he had vacation, I honestly could not remember what time I had to get up for the next school day (6:30 is the drop dead wake up time).

I also was waylaid by a monster headache. I developed it on Tuesday night, had it most of Wednesday, parts of Thursday, and it has tried to come back every day since. The thing that seemed to help the most was Wednesday night Hubby & I took a bath together. We soaked for about 20 or 30 minutes in a bath with salts for relaxation/stress release and muscle relaxation. Hubby rubbed my feet and give me unprofessional reflexology. Now, I say unprofessional as in he does not do this for a living, and is not learning how to do it. It did have the awesome effect of getting rid of my headache for the night and for the most of the next day. It was simply amazing to be soaking in the warm tub, having my feet not just rubbed, but worked on to relieve all the stress in my body that my headache had been causing.

So anyway, I am looking to get back in the habit of posting - so keeping checking in!

You know what they say...

Anna Scott: You know what they say about men with big feet.
William: No, I don't, actually. What's that?
Anna Scott: Big feet... large shoes.

Notting Hill - one of the best movies ever!

Hubby's feet - best Hubby's feet ever!

Scanning My Life Away

I am a hoarder. I come from a long line of hoarders. Well, maybe hoarder is a strong word for it. We're Yankees, thrifty, savers, re-users, recyclers, frugal, cheap, packrats. Yup, I am a packrat. Although I am a semi-reformed pack rat. I CAN get rid of things - give them away, have a tag sale, donate them, etc. This is totally the influence of the Hubby.

But one area I have difficultly letting go in is PAPER. I have tax returns from 1990. I have paystubs from when we lived in CA (1990 - 1992). I have paperwork from Hubby's job in 1993 (anyone need a memo on the new guy?). I have grocery store receipts from 10 years ago. I have invoices from Hubby's salesman job in 1993- 2001. I have boxes and boxes of PAPER.

Part of my issue is fear. I am afraid I will need this information sometime, so I keep it. But I also need SPACE in my basement. So I have found the perfect solution. I convinced my bosses I needed the ScanSnap550.

This thing is awesome!! It scans to pdf - in color, double or single sided, and has an option for OCR (so I can search it for keywords later - so when I want to find the receipts for Walmart, I just type in "walmart" as the search word and viola! there it is!).

So, I have gone through the 14 boxes of old paperwork, culling out the crap, recovering the binder clips and rediscovering how stupid we used to be. It was amazing to look at what we paid for things, the interest rates we paid, and how long it took to pay things off. I found the appraisal for the heart pendent and earrings Hubby bought for me for our 6th Wedding Anniversary. I found the paperwork for when we bought our dog Chewie ($600 cost - financed for $900). I have pulled out the important stuff to scan and have about 15 boxes of pure crap that needs to be shredded.

I found a company that will come to the house, shred all the boxes in front of me (15 to 25 minutes to complete the job) and then be on it's way. I have easily met the minimum amount of boxes.

So now, i need to scan all the "important" stuff that I normally would feel like I need to hold onto. Then they can go into the shred pile. So I tackled the bank statements the other night.


I scanned 3 INCHES of bank statements in 45 minutes (black - not color; double sided; not using the OCR option). All that - years of information - now digitally stored and searchable (after I change the files to OCR'd files). AWESOME!!

Ever have a day...

That isn't horrible, not necessarily bad, but things just don't go the way you want them to?

Yesterday was a day like that. I think most of my problems stemmed from the fact that at lunchtime I went to the grocery store and when I came home, I wasn't hungry, so I didn't eat lunch. Everything was mostly ok - no big issues or problems - until I had to go to the city to pick up The Boy from school. Normally he goes home on the bus, but he had a play to watch and wasn't done until 5 pm, so no bus for him.
I hate driving in the city.
I hate driving in the city at 5 pm rush hour.
I hate driving in the city at 5 pm rush hour and then not be able to find parking near the school.
I hate driving in the city at 5 pm rush hour and then not be able to find parking near the school and then when I do find parking, it is next to impossible to get OUT of the parking space to get The Boy when he calls to say he is ready.
And I'm hungry.

Let me tell you a story about me being hungry. This is when Hubby and I were first together - not yet married. He got a promotion and had to move from CT to CA. This was a temporary job for 3 months, until the company and he were both sure he was a right fit for the job. They put him up in a hotel, paid his expenses, all was grand. They were even generous enough to pay for my ticket to visit him for 2 weeks. So, I went out to visit him. I had absolutely NOTHING to do every day for two weeks during the day. I went for walks, looked around the local area (I didn't have a car, I think), watched tv, played cards, etc. Hubby was busy all day working hard to turn around the plant into a well run machine (as opposed to the hell hole it was) and was tired when he got "home" to the hotel room. We would usually go somewhere close and quick for dinner.
One night, either he was late or I hadn't eaten much, but he got home and just wanted to chill out and relax - he was in no hurry to go dinner. Well, I was hungry and bored and cranky... I practically was in tears (and probably did cry) waiting for him to get ready to go for dinner. Poor guy - he had no idea how bad and horrible I felt inside until I pretty much exploded into tears and sobbing. He was so good to me, said he was sorry, said I should have told him that I really needed to go eat, etc., etc. (He is a very good Hubby that way).

So now we have a family joke that if I say "I'm hungry" in a certain tone of voice, we drop everything to go get something to eat.

Well, I should have paid attention and gotten something to eat before I left to pick up The Boy. Driving was a nightmare, parking was a nightmare and it was all worse since I was hungry.

The Boy and I stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts - one of the worst selections and service I've had in a while, but it was something to eat.

I got home, Hubby was already home, and we just relaxed in the bedroom. We needed to get dinner going, so I listed off the choices. One of the choices was sloppy joes. It turns out I did not have seasoning packet for it, so I jumped on the trusty web and looked for a recipe. I found one that looked good, that I had the ingredient for, and had gotten positive reviews.

Let's just say it didn't go over well. Cereal came out as the backup dinner.

So much for the trusty internet!