Awards are like...

Awards are like sex:

• They are almost always a pleasant surprise
• You aren't really sure where it's going to come from (or is that just me?)
• They are as much fun to give, as they are to recieve
• When it's all over, you are exhausted, but completely satisfied
• Your good mood as a result, may last for hours or days
• The more you get, the better you feel
• You never forget your first
• You always want more (or is that just me again?)

In short, getting an award is...good :) Speaking of awards, I did get one recently from CS. She is an exemplary blogger, for whom I have the utmost respect. She is wise and exhibits very good judgement in all facets of her life, as far as I can tell, but she trips up occasionally and hands out awards willy-nilly, with little regard for talent or style. Although, most of her chosen recipients are very deserving, I am mystified, once again.

I humbly accept this award and would like to pass it on to a few far more deserving candidates than myself.

Theweyrd1 over at Keen Observer of the Human Condition has started blogging recently. I like to think I had a hand in her decision to take up the habit, and she has taken it to an amazing level in an astoundingly short period of time.

Boo7 over at Mundane Musings for going above and beyond the expected duties of a blogger with her warm and supportive comments and emails.

Heartinsanfrancisco from Guilty With An Explanation for her amazing ability to see and expose the truths in life that remain hidden to the less observant, and for bringing so much joy to my blogging experience by totally "getting me".

All three of these women make the web, and the world, a better place because they are in it!

Row, row, row (whitchaaaa) supposed to be a whip noise!

My erg looks just like this but there's no guy on it, which is perfect because that's where I sit!

As some of you know, I have been rowing on my ergometer a Lot lately. I go down into the basement in the morning. It's cold down there, and I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I have my little ipod with me, I dock the ipod, do a little stretching and plant my hiney for an hour long row. I get warmed up within the first 10 minutes or so, and I'm all sweaty and gross by the end.

I started on Thanksgiving day, taking on a "holiday challenge" issued each year by "Concept 2" the manufacturer of the erg. They challenge you to row 200,000 meters between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This represents quite a bit of time in the saddle. I took it on, thinking it would not only prevent gaining weight over the holidays, but also establish daily rowing as a routine for me, and it worked on both counts! I completed the challenge plus a few meters, and since then I've posted another 300,000 meters in my log. My blisters are callouses, and I can 't feel my butt, however others have told me that they can. I have now lost 24 pounds, and have dramatically increased my fitness level over the past 2 months. I feel not only thinner, but stronger, more energetic, and more confident. All good!

This is my shape before Thanksgiving:

I thought it would help to provide some visual aids of my process without actually putting pictures of me in here, so hmmm....bottles!

This is where I'm headed now....................................................................................

But too much of a good thing, and watch out, I don't want to end up like this.

So, as you can clearly see, my goal is to end up somewhere between a coke bottle and a can of red bull. I don't know when I'm going to get there, but I do intend to arrive.

Can a Woman Lead?

Wondering who to vote for? The conventional thinking is, women are too emotional, while men are logical. Really? Watch and judge for yourself.

I found this video over at the amazingly funny comedian Susan Norfleet's blog fairylady, and couldn't resist featuring it here.

Birdhouses

I like building bird houses. I've been building bluebird houses for my mom for many years. Two Christmases ago I built some for my friends that looked like their houses, but were still fairly simple. They were time consuming, but I never mind spending time on things I know will be appreciated. This summer I built some simple ones for a "yart" sale, (combination yard & art) over at KJ's house.

They were fun to do, and I sold almost all of them. I also was asked if I could build one for someone as a Christmas gift, that looked like their house in Maine. I agreed and when I got the pictures of the house, I was surprised! Who would've suspected it would be a contemporary house with funny curves and roof lines. I puzzled and thought and puzzled some more, just like a Seuss character.

I didn't get the house done in time for Christmas due to just really poor time management on my part. This house took many hours to complete. I am really happy to finally have it finished, and I really hope the woman who asked me to build it likes it a whole bunch. She has been incredibly patient and understanding in all of this. I really am lucky in that way. I have had the pleasure of working for some of the kindest people one could hope for, and this project was no exception. I think I'll take some time off from birdhouses for a while. When's Mother's Day?

Meet Bug

Bug, as I call him, after the verb to bug, is a little Lhasa Apso. His real name is McDuffy, named so by my mother who insists he looks Scottish. My parents are on a two week long vacation in a warmer clime, while I care for the bug, and look after their house etc. My brother has Michael, the well behaved dog that everyone loves. I get stuck with this stubborn, selfish, needy pain in the butt. Yes, he's cute, but despicable. Last night he woke me up at 2am to go outside. My parents do not get up in the middle of the night to let him out, believe me. It took me two of the longest tossing and turning hours ever, to get back to sleep. He cries a lot, about everything, whine whine whine, it's enough to make my head pop right off my body. I love dogs, but this thing...My dogs get aggravated with him because he thinks he's the alpha. A 14 pound dust mop the alpha over a 90 pound Newfie mix, Paaaleeeease! My dogs are having none of it.

He tries to steal the other dog's cookies, he takes their woobies, and earlier, I caught him cheating at cards! When he wants to go outside, he bites and tugs on your pant leg. When you call him, he won't come. Once you give up, and shut the door, there he is. If you need to borrow five bucks, he wants to know if you can break a fifty. He likes to be picked up, he stands there on his back legs and paws at the air with his front paws at you until you do it. Once he's in your lap, he begins encroaching on whatever you're trying to do, he'll just take r

Don't believe her, she is making it all up, except the part about my being cute! I am the smartest and best little doggie ever! These other loser dogs can't even type over 30 words a minute. I mean WTF? right? Hey, what was that? Did you hear something? No! Don't put me down, I'm not done...

As I was saying, my parents can't get back and collect their evil little Muppet soon enough!

It's In The Mail

My postal carrier is a woman, she drives semi-recklessly, comes very late in the day, never smiles or waves, smells of Wild Turkey, and fills my mail box with interesting oppurtunities everyday. You call it junk, I call it blog material. Today I have something from the "Make a Wish Foundation", they probably want a donation, I don't have any money to give right now, but I'll open it anyway. I'd hate to just throw it away, you never know, they might be granting one of my wishes.

Then there's this free insurance offer, or at least the first $1,000.00 of coverage is free, after that I pay for .90 for each additional thousand up to $300,000. That sounds reasonable. It's death or dismemberment insurance. I'm a woodworker, maybe it'd be a good idea, just in case. I read over the coverage plan, and in order to get a 100% payout I'd need to lose 2 arms and a leg, or both feet and an eye, or a foot, and a hand both on the same side, and my sense of smell. I could get a 50% payout for both eyes and a bad haircut, or my hearing, my two front teeth and frontal lobe. 25% if I lose one foot, my thumb and forefinger on the same hand, and my ass in a poker game. If i decide to buy it, I figure I've lost my money, and my ability to reason.

Then, there are a ton of catalogs, I believe they are spawned by my love of Internet shopping. You know the ones, Yarn by the Yard, Yoke and Yak, Stone Carvers Unlimited, Spit-shine, Boot and Bugle, Just Egg-timers, Kettle and Doormat, Twigs and Berries, Larry and Navin, Organic Only, Unisex Unitards, The Plastic Place, and then I get some I don't need!

So next time you go to your mailbox and pull out a giant load of "junk", just remember someone works hard to deliver that alleged "junk" to you everyday, and once you've determined it's all completely devoid of value, do what I do, use it for the seemingly never-ending quest to keep yourself warm. If you live in a warm climate, move.

Clean Up, Company's Coming!

Housework! Let me just start by saying, I put up a good front. People who visit my home think I'm a certain kind of person, neat, clean, organized etc. In fact I am another kind of person, the kind of person who doesn't do much housework at all, until it has to be done. Yes, I do own organized, most of the time, but I do not always put things in the place that I have provided for them to go, so I will always no where they are. I typically find that the worse it gets, the worse I get. I may keep the house as neat as a pin for a week, but if one day of laziness passes, others are sure to follow, until I need a shovel and a box of trash bags, or a gallon of gas and a match, but gas is so expensive now, and I could drive close to 10 or 11 miles with that gallon. Often times having company is what keeps things from getting to this crap-piled-everywhere-super-nova level of disarray. I diligently vacuum, scrub, polish, all of it, before anyone can witness the dusty dog-hair coated carnage. Although I have a few friends I frequently just pop in on, gratefully, they never return the favor, and are all still sure that I am one of the most fastidious people they know. I can remember as a kid when my mother would start up the vacuum, the conversation would go something like this.

Rotten Kid (me) "Hey Mom, Who's coming over?"

Mom: "Just because I'm cleaning doesn't mean someone's coming over!"

me: "I know Mom, you're like, June Cleaver or something."

Mom: *sigh* "The Terva's are coming over to play cards."

So, I know where I got it, and maybe if I had company more often, the ugly side wouldn't ever show, anyway my point is, and I do have one, that recently I was given an award by CS. I love awards, and recognition, and presents, and surprises, and long walks on the...but I digress. She gave me a wonderful award for my blog and recommended people come over here to my blog to check me out.

Oh My God!!! I'm not ready. I come back and look at my blog, one of her readers had already been here and left a comment. I didn't tidy up at all, I didn't write a new post, nothing, I suppose many have come, seen, and left wondering what on earth CS could have been thinking bestowing such an honor upon a messy blog-keeper like me? If you think that's messed up, check out the color of this award!

You Make My Day

Bird Anonymous has presented me with this award, and I am to pass it on to 10 bloggers who make my day.

This is fun to do, since Anony and kj already have one, my 10 are, in no particular order, CS, Charlotta-Love, Ces, Heartsinsanfrancisco, Dorky Dad, Diesel, Debra Kay, tsduff, craig d, and wieneke. Congratulations all of you, go ahead, make my day!

Now for something completely different...

I've got nothing. How is it that when I'm telling a story, I can't help but be funny, but when I put my fingers on these keys, they suck all the wit right out of me, like small square humor-lypo-suction thingys with letters on them??? I blog, and all you hear is, blog-blog-blog... I need to score some of that super-secret-silly-blog-writing-dust (sssbwd), and I don't care how many lives I have to take to get it. That's right! That's how I roll, so watch your backs Diesel and Dorky Dad, I know you guys have the dust, and that you coat your bodies with Pam, and roll around naked in it before attempting a new post. It seems my desire to write a funny post, is matched only by my complete inability to do so.

I was mulling over the idea of a laugh-track. When you get to the end of an incredibly funny line, just in case you don't realize just exactly how outrageously funny it is, the laugh-track is queued, and you can join in mindlessly, Ohhhh, that red mojo, how does she come up with this stuff?

Earlier today, when I began blathering on about my humor-challenged writing style, I was eating some tuna salad. Not a sandwich, or a melt, just tuna salad in a bowl with a fork. I was chewing a mouthful, when I suddenly sneezed. Bits of tuna salad shrapnel sprayed in a wide pattern all over the entire area directly in front of me. It did not come out my ears, so none went to the sides. This included my laptop, it was pretty disgusting. On a scale from 1 to 10 of disgustingness, 1 being: a booger is hanging out of your nose, and 10 being: a long slow french kiss with Jaba the Hut, it was about a 5! I find as I age, more and more disgusting things seem to be included in my daily life, so I try not to be alarmed unless they are catastrophic, psychologically damaging, or require immediate medical attention. It's funny because it's true.

If you found this story psychologically damaging, you were probably pretty close to the edge already. The opinions given in this blog are not necessarily the opinions of the owner of the computer on which they are written.

The First Post of the Year

It seems like a lot of pressure. I want to begin the year on a positive note, especially since I'm feeling so optimistic about the present year. It's just that things haven't gone so smoothly since the stroke of midnight, all the way up to, well, until now. I would certainly not throw in the towel on the entire year based on a few trying days, but I do feel I should write something new. I have been working on my reclaiming my body, and since Thanksgiving, I've been rowing for an hour almost everyday. So far it's going very well, I've lost a little over 20 pounds. I feel better, stronger, more confident, and I definitely plan to continue along this vein. This may not be new for this shiny new year, but it does allow me to enter it with optimism and excitement.

Expectations are funny things. When you have them, you can, and will be disappointed. If you can avoid them, everything good feels more like a gift. This is the approach I like to take, although I'm not always successful.

I can't help feeling like this year will be an important year in my future, but I do so knowing that I am the catalyst for whatever changes occur. I must open the door to the new, and open it often. I have to allow the flow of positive energy by pushing the negative aside to let it in. I need to give good things the opportunity to happen. With this in mind, I know I have to make some changes in the way I live. Recognizing the need for change is not the same as changing.

Here are some of the changes I plan to make.

1. I will make at least 2 new friends this year.

2. I will put myself out there more socially, even if I have to go do things alone.

3. I will join 2 new group activities.

4. I will smile and say hello to more people.

5. I will not fail to ask someone I am interested in, out for coffee or a drink.

If you have any helpful suggestions I can add to my list, please let me know.

This post seems too serious. I should say something funny like "canned pork" which Dorky Dad assures me is very funny.