Don't Get Too Excited...

...because this isn't a "real" post yet. Give me about another week and things should quiet down enough that I can get back to work.

However, in the meanwhile, I'm going to share some personal history that is evidence I need someone to cook for me.

Not because I'm lazy (that's beside the point) or because I don't enjoy it (also beside the point).

Because I am lucky that so far, I have not (entirely) burned down a house due to one of my cooking disasters.

Stuff burning in our kitchen is probably a weekly occurrence. I have no patience to stay in (or even near) the kitchen while waiting for something mundane to happen, like bringing the frozen pizza to an edible temperature. Plus, I figure if I can set a timer, the four-year-old can come let me know when it beeps (she's actually better about this than the Moroccan), and I can come fetch whatever it was from the oven. I am the Queen of Multitasking. (Note: I specifically did not say I was the Queen of Successful Multitasking.) So I will deposit something in the oven or on the stove, leave to use the restroom, walk by the computer on the way back and end up reading Facebook posts until the smoke detector goes off.

My mother really did try to teach me to cook, and when I have the time and patience (which is rare enough that it's safest to say "never"), I can follow basic recipes. I make fantastic French Toast and excellent grilled cheese (which is almost exclusively what I lived on while in Japan). However, I don't eat much of those any more, which means I'm either eating something raw (green peppers are a favorite), packaged (yay for string cheese), or I'm picking out the least burnt parts of whatever I tried to cook. If I'm really lucky*, the Moroccan cooks dinner early enough for me to eat AND prepares enough for me. This is rare though as he likes to eat at 9 or 10 pm at earliest--if I eat that late and close to when I go to bed, I don't feel well in the morning. Plus if I want to go work out, I have to eat a couple hours before then because running is hard enough without trying to simultaneously digest. In any case, my cooking is atrocious. I probably shouldn't even call it cooking because cavepeople had to have had more culinary skills than me or they would have starved to death since they couldn't, you know, open a new can of food when the first one ends up charcoal.

*The Moroccan has a different definition of "lucky" than I do.

The first signs that I had issues (that I remember) were in high school. I was making baked potatoes and decided to brush premelted butter on them. Unfortunately, since it was already melted, it dripped to the bottom of the oven. I was in the kitchen when I heard KKSSSHHHH.......pwooof! KKSSSHHHHH.....pwoof! When I turned around, I saw something that can only be truly described as a direct copy of the flame spurts in the fire swamp from The Princess Bride.

Yeah, Mom wasn't too happy about that one. However, since the butter that dripped onto the bottom of the oven would sizzle, then burst into flame, we kind of felt like it might not be wise to open the oven door, so we had to just wait until the potatoes were done. Except for a very few scorch marks, amazingly they turned out okay.

During the same period of my life I set the toaster on fire. In my defense, I would like to explain that all I did was put in two slices of bread and push the button. However, since I already had the fire swamp episode behind me, when the toaster burst into flames and set the cupboard above it on fire, somehow my family decided that it was my fault that this had occurred. It didn't help that I had walked out of the kitchen while the toaster was on and someone else had to deal with the problem.

Jump ahead to after college (I lived in the dorms all through college and although I complained regularly about the food, clearly I'd never had to live off of my own cooking for that long a period of time or I would have kept the whining to myself) and I moved to Japan--but I already told you about how I lived on French Toast and grilled cheese there. My problems with cooking in Japan were not so much things being burnt. I had a shoebox apartment, with a one-burner stove that was right next to my miniature sink. For reference, both the burner and the sink fit into a surface area the size of a regular cookie sheet, if that. The problem was that if so much as a drop of water got into the element of the burner, it shorted it out for several days, meaning I couldn't cook (or burn) anything, so I had a lot of convenience store food since I couldn't afford restaurants.

Come home from Japan and one of my few cooking achievements was a lasagna dish I made one night for my roommate. It was fantastic. It took me two days of planning, a week's worth of grocery money for the specialty ingredients, an hour of prep the night before, and four hours that night.

Seriously? I don't have that kind of time to cook. It's actually cheaper and faster to burn something, toss it, and go out to eat. I've never put forth that much effort on a single dish since.

Okay, yes, there are simpler recipes and cheaper ingredients. Not the point here.

I. Don't. Enjoy. Cooking.

And not enjoying it does not motivate me to learn to be better so I don't suck at it quite so much.

Instead, I am a culinary fire hazard.

My biggest catastrophe in my current home was the actually very serious grease fire that I (accidentally) set last year, resulting in a damaged (but still functional) microwave, scorch marks that go up the cupboards and onto the ceiling, third degree burns on The Moroccan's hand, and burns on the dog (we literally had to go to the doggie ER to get her treated). I escaped unscathed (physically), because I was so useless running around screaming ohmigod! whatdowedo? whatdowedo? that The Moroccan told me to just get out of the way.

Since then, the number of burned meals has not really changed, nor has my attention span or apparent ability to care enough to do something about it.

Tonight though, was probably one of my lowest moments.

I decided to make a special treat using Halloween candy: S'mores.

It turns out that you can, in fact, burn graham crackers in the microwave. And when they are burned especially badly, they get stuck to the plate (Note to self: burnt graham crackers could replace super glue, must see if we can get a patent on this).

I did manage to successfully create some unburnt S'mores afterwards, but since the kitchen and family room smelled like smoke, it was a bit hard to tell. Also I belatedly remembered that I've never really enjoyed S'mores because I don't really like marshmallows, and my daughter and husband don't really like chocolate, so the whole thing was really an exercise in futility.

Except, of course, to remind me that I need someone else to cook for me.

In Transition

Since a few of my readers have asked...here's the status.

I'm in transition. Kinda like between events at a triathlon, except I seem to be moving much more slowly.

As to my current lack of goals/direction, I was awaiting a judging schedule before thinking about competition dates and what goals to set around those unset events. I'm sad not to be doing Catalina, but couldn't justify the costs. Maybe another year, when I can justify the costs.

As for posting, I have had some good things happen, I've had some "issues" (as one friend put it, she has so many "issues" that she has "subscriptions"...sadly, I totally understand and identify), and I've had some challenges.

In the interests of not sharing things that are not other people's business (I tend to share more than I should as it is), one of my ways of dealing with personal stress and stressful situations is to turn someone inward. Also, I know if I posted details about some of them, it would get back to those people, either directly as they read this, or indirectly, and the fallout from that would create more stress and more problems.

The way I deal with stress? Not healthy. I eat. Or I spend money. Or both. Sometimes I spend money at a restaurant. You know, kill two birds with one stone and all that. And if I'm really stressed, then I go shopping after I eat at the restaurant. Then I come home and try to escape into a book.

That is not to say that whenever I don't post, I'm having a face-stuffing fest. I also don't post when I'm on vacation or I'm just plain busy.

In the last three weeks, I've had all of the above. I put together a massage continuing education conference and was getting ready for it. Then I was gone for three days at the conference, out of even cell phone range. I got back and had several meetings during the week and then judged both days on the weekend. Then I had more meetings and another business trip where I actually had to fly out of state. Then we had busy events that meant that I didn't have time to even sleep properly all weekend. Now I'm having to deal with the details of moving my practice in 12 days. And in the middle of that, personal stress.

And we've already covered how I deal with stress. Negatively. I tend to do the opposite of what would be good for me, which I know is silly, but it's what happens. And when I get upset, same thing. And some of the stress was caused by things that upset me. And now I'm starting too many sentences with the word and.

So I'm in transition. Trying to move my brain to de-stress mode so I can stop my backwards unhelpful behavior, get everything done, and in the meanwhile life goes on.

I will post more when I'm a little less scattered and (hopefully) have figured out what I'm transitioning to.

Back on the Judging Circuit

I got my judging assignments back in August, as I might have mentioned sometime back then but since I'm too lazy to check and can't remember so few people read this anyway, I'm reiterating it. (Sorry. Thank you for reading, really!)

Combined with family events, holidays, massage events, adding judging to my weekends means that I don't have a free weekend between Labor Day until the first weekend after Thanksgiving.

Actually, this is a good thing, because it means there will be (slightly) more cash flow in the budget. Maybe even enough for a new bed frame.

So today was my first (paid) day judging. I judged last weekend, but it was a volunteer event that earns me the cost of my judging membership dues, so while I benefit, it's not really money I can spend.

I'm going to be repetitive for a moment. This is the start of the judging season. Which should logically follow that it's the start of the competitive season. Meaning some athletes (those who competed last year or who have exceptional talent) are, um, "more prepared" than others.

Yes, coaching comes into play for this, but as a former coach, I'm not going to slam coaches who have lousy teams, nor am I going to put on a pedestal coaches with exceptional teams. In my 18 years of coaching experience, I've seen athletes who excel under (in my opinion) lousy coaches, and likewise, phenomenal coaches who have athletes who are never going to be on the awards stand. Some of it is gym policy, some of it is the program (or lack thereof) that is built around those coaches (for example, the strength/weakness of the recreational and developmental coaches who feed athletes into the competitive program), some of it is luck, some of it is gym reputation, and yes, the good majority is what a coach can do with the kids they get. I've seen any number of these combinations. Today was no exception.

There were kids--and this is compulsories (quick review: everyone does the same routine and it means hearing the floor music 60some times over a period of about three hours), which is the beginning levels of competition--who were nearly flawless. I think we handed out a couple of 9.775s. Yay, girls!

I also had to give out the lowest score I've ever given. Which actually made me really sad. I wanted to go offer her and her coach advice, but that's one of the things we really aren't supposed to do as judges. If a coach comes up and asks the right question in the right context and you're in a state (I am) where the coach/judge relationship is pretty good and you're not at any kind of a championship meet (we weren't), then factual information can be given.

For example, "if she hadn't left out that one skill, it would add up to 1.6 to her score."

And then, although still the lowest score we handed out yesterday, it wouldn't have been the lowest score I ever gave.

I'd still feel badly for her, though.

Perhaps because I have delusions of grandeur I had some levels of success of a coach, it's times like these that I think, Gosh, I wish I could go to that gym and coach for them and help those poor girls.

But I'm done coaching. And, like I said before, I can't see what goes on in that gym or judge the coach (at least, not entirely) by his athletes, and I could end up just as trapped by circumstance anyway.

We saw a few other routines that were in the low zone. Usually odd mishaps that the penalties happen to be severe for (and it was the beginning of the season--live and learn), but just none that were so low. What's worse is that when I reviewed my calculations for that score--I missed a couple of things and it should have been even lower.

And because it was one of the last routines of the day, it stuck with me. I hope that kid doesn't quit. I hope that she has a good support system around her. I hope that she stays active.

In the meanwhile, and hoping the rest of the season will not have a repeat of such an event, I'm looking forward to it. Because today's paycheck was about half of the bed frame I want.

I Forgot My Own Lesson

A few years after we were married, I accidentally learned a lesson about getting things that I want. If there's something that's a semi-large to large expense, but that we can finance reasonably, need severely, or even just really really want, but I'm the one that wants/needs it and my husband doesn't see the value, we don't get it.

To be clear: I am NOT slamming my husband here. He manages our budget and despite two layoffs (equalling 9 months of no income), we haven't lost a house or a car or (for the most part) our standard of living. So bravo to him (truly).

Here's the thing: there have been several instances where there has been something that I wanted/needed that were rather large purchases. Things that would truly take planning, make a dent in the budget so that we'd have to compensate somewhere else, and--here's the key--he wasn't convinced that we needed.

Let's look at a little case history.

Way back in 2004, I took a few sewing classes. There was this super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow sewing machine that I saw and wanted. It was also super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow expensive. When I mentioned it could be my birthday present, I believe there was mumbling in Arabic that I presume translated to something along the lines of, "Right, and then we'll move into a mansion."

Jump ahead to early 2006. I'm pregnant and my car had died. I was bicycling/using public transportation for three-plus hours a day to get to and from work. (My husband, who was a 15-minute bike ride from work was driving his functional car.) I ended up miscarrying (not related to the bicycle riding), but still had no transportation that did not involve self-propellment and/or digging change out of my husband's wallet.

I'd helpfully emailed him a list of items for a new car. It looked something like this:

Must-haves
decent gas mileage
front wheel drive or 4-wheel drive to be functional in snow
good/low maintenance
4-door model so I won't break my back bending a seat forward to put in a car seat if we ever have a kid
room for my massage table in it

It-would-be-nice-ifs
functional stereo
air-conditioning
sideview mirrors on both sides
automatic locks so I could lock all the doors at once
trip meter

As-long-as-I'm-dreaming
one of those fancy button keys that unlocks the car
a sunroof
bunwarmers (you know, the seats with heat in them)
a CD changer in the stereo
rear wiper
something not ugly

Note: my old Subaru Justy that I drove after college for about 5 years was only $1500 back then. If you could find one with four doors, that would be fine with me.

Apparently even my "must-haves" list was too demanding because I never even got a response to my new car features list.

A few weeks after the miscarriage, I had to borrow his car because I had several doctor's appointments that I couldn't get to in time with my bike and public transit and still get to work. The next day, I (accidentally, I swear) forgot to return his car key and when I took off on my merry way on my bicycle, I didn't think anything of it.

Until a mile from home, riding in the bike lane on a fairly busy street, I hear my name shouted right behind my left ear. I nearly wet my pants fell off the bike I was so startled. Turns out it was my husband, who'd gone to leave for work, couldn't find his car keys, realized I still had them, ran out, got on his bike, and chased me down. This was when I discovered that I still had his car keys. Coincidentally, it was when he decided that he needed for me to have my own car again.

That night he had a list of car options for me. We picked up the new car one month to the day after my miscarriage (and it had everything except bun warmers and four-wheel drive).

Several months ahead, in late 2006. Bob had destroyed beyond cleaning several spots on the carpet, we'd bought and housebroken a Golden Retriever, which had also destroyed beyond cleaning several spots on the carpet, and we'd got suckered into volunteered to dogsit my sister's bulemic dog (fine, it's not bulemic, it has a birth defect, but the end result is total involuntary binge-and-purge behavior), which added to the destroyed beyond cleaning spots on the carpet. Which meant we could no longer strategically place rugs/furniture on the floor to cover things up. I was stating, repeatedly, that we needed to get new floor. My husband, who I'm now going to just refer to as "The Moroccan" did his consumer reports research, shopped around for the decided-upon laminate flooring, and determined that we couldn't afford it.

Since I was pregnant, I was reiterating the need for the floor because there was no way I was going to let "Wiggly" (as we called our daughter before she was born, rather than referring to "the baby" or "it") crawl around on that carpet. Again I was reminded that it was not in the budget.

However, The Moroccan had also started sewing. In fact, he was sewing more complicated things than I have ever sewn. And better than me. Honestly, I was totally jealous proud of him. He was talking about selling his creations and he was getting frustrated with the limitations of our sewing machine.

I took him to the store with the super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow sewing machine and had them demo some different machines--since honestly, some of what he was doing was beyond my skill level, I figured it would be better if they explained it to him. You know, since I would try to influence his decision couldn't.

About 45 minutes of demonstration later, after a demo on the super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow sewing machine, he turns to me and asks, "Do you want it?"

I was stunned. For a whole lot of reasons, including that the sewing machine asking price was 3-4 times what we'd estimated that the flooring (which we couldn't afford) would cost.

I carefully responded, "Yes and no....Yes, I want it, but no because we don't need it and we need new floors FIRST. Which we can't afford, so no, I don't want this machine. I need new floors."

I swear to goodness that if looks could kill, the saleslady (who I am friends with), would have decapitated me with laser vision at that moment.

My husband sat there, trying to process what I'd just told him. "But I thought you really really wanted this super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow sewing machine."

I repeated. "Yes, I want it. I don't need it. I need new floors. And no way am I letting you buy this sewing machine if we can't get new floors."

Again with the saleslady death look.

Now, in case you haven't already caught it (I hadn't at this point), something MAJOR had just happened. The super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow sewing machine had changed from something I wanted to something The Moroccan wanted. I didn't realize this until several months later when I was retelling the story to a friend and it was pointed out to me. Which is why I'm pointing it out now.

The Moroccan says, "What if we could get the floors and the sewing machine?"

I believe at this point I actually snorted. Which is when the saleslady stepped in and sweetened the deal with same-as-cash financing, reminding us of a rebate, and throwing in a couple of discounts and freebies.

I shrugged. "If our budget went from we can't afford new floors that we need to we can afford the floors AND the super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow sewing machine in a matter of 45 minutes, I'm not going to argue. I don't understand it, but I'm not going to argue."

He asked for a calculator, paper, and pen, and then spent about 20 minutes (after the store was supposed to close) mumbling and scribbling.

We drove away with the super-duper, fancy-pantsy, ultra-wow sewing machine in the back of my car and the promise of new floors before Wiggly would be born.

Are you seeing the pattern yet? If it's me that wants the big purchase, it doesn't really happen. Once he decides that we want/need the purchase, it happens. (I would like to note that both the car, sewing machine, and flooring purchases were all made before his first layoff--at his job where the income and benefits were significantly greater than they are now.)

In other words, if I could use this technique sparingly (because there is a point where the budget won't bend, no matter what) and strategically, I might have a little less frustration waiting time before we get things.

Except the problem is, I can't seem to remember to use it.

Until today, when I realized, that accidentally (again), I had.

Our waterbed, which I loved for years and honestly, still really do like, hurts my back too much to sleep on it any more. And by "too much" I mean "so much that I haven't slept on it pretty much for the past two years." I've been hinting that if we got a good mattress, we wouldn't have to get a boxspring and we could use the waterbed frame and I wouldn't have to camp out on the futon/massage table/our daughter's bed any more.

But good mattresses are expensive, and--you guessed it--not in the budget.

When we got back from visiting my sister this summer, we discovered that our cat had been locked in the bedroom all 11 days that we were gone--without food or a litterbox. Yes, she survived (by drinking toilet water), and no, we're really not sure how it happened, and no, the housesitter didn't notice because that cat hides under the furniture if a strong breeze blows three counties away.

The cat survived. The carpet and some of our possessions did not.

The master bedroom was one of a few remaining areas in our house that we have not refloored since we moved in (along with the kitchen, my bathroom, and the front entryway). Mostly because we didn't want to disassemble the king size waterbed with 12 storage drawers and a cupboard underneath and a monster headboard with shelves. Now it was unavoidable.

The room was so horrendous smelling that even with fans blowing out the window 24/7, it was stinking up the rest of the house. Even The Moroccan, who can't normally smell very well (long story involving broken nose and reconstruction), couldn't deal with it and started camping out in the living room.

Know what? I've been asking for a new bed (or at least mattress) for two years. It only took two months of him sleeping on the futon to announce, "I've had enough. We've got to get a new bed."

My point? Once again, it was something that he thought we needed. And not being (totally) stupid* I seized the moment and took us mattress shopping today.

*If I was smart at all, I would have failed to replace the waterbed heater a couple of years ago when it broke because he had to sleep on the futon then too.

I happen to have relatives in the mattress manufacturing industry and had actually done some shopping around. Not that I didn't trust them when I was told that they offer great mattresses at reasonable prices. No, it was because The Moroccan won't buy anything without cross-comparison shopping done first.

I discovered that my relatives do, in fact, have the most reasonable rates on comparable mattresses, so I hauled The crutches-using Moroccan down to the showroom. (Another "get stuff" tactic I might want to keep in mind--take him shopping when he is somehow disabled because he'll just want to be done with the process. Not sure if it will work yet though.)

We found a couple that we really liked but were a little undecided. We had chosen the one we liked the best, but my relative wouldn't let us buy it--she said it was important to wait and then come back. However, I was wanting to get this done NOW (not because I was afraid my husband would change his mind, but because I am So. Tired. Of. Sleeping. With. A. Four-year-old. So she sent us over to the next closest showroom (about 10 minutes away), because they had one more model there we hadn't tried and it would give us some time to "step away" from the one we'd liked and see if we liked it as much when we tried it again.

We ended up buying the other model. We didn't get the "foundation" for it because we haven't chosen a bed frame. I had actually looked at IKEA yesterday to see if they had anything I liked and see what the price ranges were. I don't know what we'll do on that yet, but apparently it's "not in the budget."

For now, I've totally burned out the "he needs it so we'll get it" method and I'm not testing the "taking you shopping on crutches" again right away, so I think I'm going to have to hope I make enough money judging that I can make the big purchase.

More News From the Stupid Zone

Yesterday I was feeling pretty miserable--runny nose, total sinus headcold thing going on--and it had been building for a few days. But I don't really have time to be sick, so I basically ignored it and kept going. Perhaps this is how I run myself into the ground at times. Anyway, I was not at 100%.

Today my husband was having orthoscopic knee surgery and while I was at the hospital, I had a total sneeze attack and my eyes felt like they had sand underneath my eyelids and I wanted to scratch. them. out.

I was thinking to myself, Wow, I feel really sorry for people with allergies. They deal with this all the time.

Then I went, Wait. I have allergies. Maybe this isn't a cold.

I took some Benadryl and now I'm feeling much better.

In defense of my cluelessness reasoning, I have not had reactions from my environmental allergies since 1999, unless I count the allergy test done in 2003. So it wasn't the first thing that came to mind.

Now I'm wondering if that "cold" I had all winter and spring earlier this year?...might have been allergies.

Just a Few of My Problems

1) Ketchup addiction.

2) An inability to keep ketchup on my food while transferring said food to my mouth.

3) Directly related, shirts without ketchup stains.

4) Finding I have spilled ketchup on myself somewhere other than a shirt (in this instance, the side of my knee--and how did it get there?) is where this really gets worse.

5) (And most disturbing) My first and implemented idea for cleaning this up was to have the dog come lick it off.

Apparently We Weren't Done with the Sick

I had one of my insomniac nights last night where I just couldn't get to sleep. I think I drifted off around 4:00 am.

My husband woke me at 6:30 to ask questions about my daughter's plan for the day. Then she woke up and came in and wanted to talk with me for an hour as my husband was getting ready.

I know, I know, someday I will look back on this and wish my daughter still wanted to talk to her mommy for an hour, but all I could think right then was that I just wanted to sleep.

Finally, they left the house.

What felt like two seconds later, my phone rang. It was actually just after 9:00, but it was my daughter's French preschool, informing me that she had diarrhea and needed to be picked up immediately.

Yay.

I got up, showered, let the dog out, and took off to her school. The teacher didn't seem terribly pleased (not that I blame her; their policy on that is pretty clear). My daughter wasn't too upset; she wanted to know where we were going to go instead. I went grocery shopping and then she was begging for sushi. Having a bit of a craving myself, I went ahead and took her to my favorite local place.

She'd just barely eaten the tops off of her crab salad when she informed me she needed to go potty. Since we've been dealing with accidents, I tried not to show my annoyance, but I was kinda frustrated that once again, she waited until we'd started a meal to go take care of business.

In the restroom, she had another bout of what got her sent home from French school. Then she threw up. Luckily, she didn't get any on either of us and some of it even made it into the toilet. I cleaned up the bathroom as best I could with paper towels, informed the wait staff that someone might want to go in and sanitize the place, paid for our meal, and left.

Apparently a good thing she came home from the preschool.

I called her pediatrician, who told me we'd done all the right things so far in regulating what she was eating and doing, and that this was probably just an "aftershock" so I didn't need to worry and to put her on the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast).

My daughter thought today was GREAT because I sat her on the couch, turned on whatever movies she asked for, and took her liquids or nibbles of food every 10 minutes.

Of course, the poor little thing is now exhausted and took a 4-hour nap.

Now if we can just get her insides back to normal.