Stephieface

About a month and a half ago, I was tired. The main thing I was tired of was my body. I wasn’t too keen on it anymore. It was like that sweater you got, and then wore a bunch, but then it got lost in the back of the closet and when you cleaned one day you found it. And as it hung there on the hanger, you started to see how stretched out and worn it was, how the color had faded. And while you still loved how comfortable the sweater felt; looks-wise … not so much. Then you start debating if you should keep the sweater or donate it to goodwill.

While I can’t very well donate my body to Goodwill (though I would be totally willing to donate the pooch, part of my hips and ass, and some of my thighs) I can do something about it. And do something I have… I have quartered my food portions, I’ve been drinking more water, I’ve been exercising 100% more than I was (meaning I wasn’t at all… and now I am), and I’m eating healthier foods.

I still fit in to the same pants as I was wearing before, and they don’t seem to be any bigger. But I’m generally feeling better than I was before- so that’s good. As well, since we don’t own an scale, I have no idea how many or if I’ve lost any pounds. I figure that even though I can’t see how many pounds I’ve lost, I also won’t see how many pounds I didn’t lose. I’ve watched the Biggest Loser and I know that women drop weight in teeny tiny amounts (4lbs vs a man’s 11lbs) and that it can be discouraging. So we’ll just play it by pant size and energy. If I feel awesome, what’s my weight matter?

I know that, while dating the Mister, at my skinniest I was 140lbs and a size 12… and I was super happy. I’m not aiming for a supermodel physique, I don’t think I could carry off the 6′3″ and 98lbs thing very well… especially since I’m 5′4″. I just don’t want to be the size I am, I would like to be the size I was… and the size I was is not a scary number- its pretty average and normal and not crazy at all. It was real, and non sickly- and that’s where I want to be.

Now, a good portion of the jobs I’ve held in life (that isn’t wife and mother) were working the return desk of whatever store I happened to be employed at. This could mean a few things:

I’m very stubborn

I follow store policies well

I’m willing to do jobs that other won’t

I’m as nutty as a Peanut Butter Walnut muffin

I’m a masochist

And, whatever the reason, when it comes to me having to use the return desk I’m pretty much an exemplary customer with the most patience, the most calm. I know that the person behind the desk does not have it out for me, nor are they trying to spite me for sh*!$ and giggles- they are just doing their jobs. However, I can get angry at corporations and their silly return policies… especially policies that hold me and my money hostage at their store. This I don’t like. While I understand the need that stores have to do whatever it is they can to keep you there to spend your money, I don’t like being forced to.

I am the sort of person who if I see a shirt at place “A” for $35, and a shirt at place “B” for $21, and they are both the same shirt (maybe not the same brand) I will buy shirt “B” because its cheaper and I have an extremely small budget that I must stretch somehow beyond its normal capacities. So, given the option of spending $10 for 2 at one place and $11 for 4 at another… I’ll go with the other.

This kind of thing can be frustrating when you need to make a return, you have everything you are supposed to (boxes unopened, receipts, well within the return period) and are only given store credit. Especially frustrating when you don’t really shop at said store often at all, and what you want is cheaper elsewhere. Sure, you can make your return- but you can only spend the money here. Sure, we know you don’t shop here ever- we don’t care, you gave us your money once and we aren’t giving it back… ever… no matter what… nanny nanny poo poo. So that my options become, spend it here or else you don’t get to spend it at all.

As well, with the use of gift cards in returns… if you save your store credit for some rainy day when you might actually have need of money that you can only spend at this one store, you had better hope its within sometimes 6 months or so of having put it on the card. Because at some places, 6 months or so of non usage of the gift card and they start charging fees to your gift card to “upkeep” the gift card you didn’t want in the first place. Check the back, seriously… read that small print, I know it was on the CompUSA ones while I worked there ($2.99 after six months of non use, then once a month until it was used for a purchase or the balance was $0).

Now, I can understand if the packaging is missing, there’s no receipt, its after the return policy guidelines why a store would do this, because they are trying to help you as a customer… sure you aren’t getting cash back, but hey you got something and that’s better than nothing right (see what good guys we are? spend more money here in the future… k?)? However, when you have all the needed items and you’re still not allowed to get your money back… well… that’s just a hostage situation, where’s Bruce Willis when you need him?

Some people have asked why I don’t write as much as before, and the honest truth is that the Mister has a new schedule at work where he is off for four days and works three (for 12+ hours). With all of this new Mister time, I don’t get to post as often because I’m hanging with the Mister.

Another reason why I don’t post as much….

…is a nice little injury I received being a dip wad. I have an open chunk taken out of the side of my hand, and a nice flappy chunk taken out of my finger…. taken by an evil curtain rod. So, in addition to it looking like I’m being very proper with everything I do (pinky out PB&Js, pinky out teethbrushing, pinky out garbage detail), anything that involves a teensy bit of motion from my pinky is now extremely hard to do. This post has taken well over an hour just from going back and fixing mistakes The Pinky made. Evil curtain rod.

My 4th was awesome! I had a great time for pretty much the whole thing. On the actual 4th, the Mister, the Flying Diaperinis, and I headed off to Raccoon Creek Park. While the Misterling (zach who is getting a litle to old to be a diaperini) fished… (here the Mister is showing him how to cast with his new fishing rod he got for last year’s birthday)

…The Flying Diaperinis and the Mister when crayfish hunting in the creek, which included dam building and getting wetter than you’re supposed to (some FDs could just not grasp the fact that you aren’t supposed to walk in the creek regardless of the depth, as that day we took home a TJ who’s pants were wet from the waist down)…

… while others just sort of walked around (me) and others just hung out (on mommy’s back)…

Then later that night, the FDs (Sam and TJ) went with me to watch the Moon Twp fireworks, because frankly I just can’t have a 4th without any. Not only were the fireworks as big as ones that I remember from when I was a kid, I had the added pleasure of watching planes fly through them. Not over them, THROUGH, them. Which was scary and awesome all at once.

Then the 5th found us in Erie PA at the Mister’s Sister’s house for a family thing. There was swimming, and food… oh and of course mohawks…

It was a fun time, the only bad part about the whole thing was that on the night of the 4th after the FDs and I got home from the fireworks I was in the kitchen and the Mister was in the livingroom. We both heard this loud crashing noise amongst the firework noises that I had thought had come from outside and he had thought had come from upstairs (he even went up to get after the FDs thinking they were playing instead of sleeping) and it turns out that we were both right.

The next morning we woke up and started getting ready to his sister’s with no issue, when after the Mister took a shower he discovered his laundry covered in broken glass… then looking around discovered a bullet hole in our window. He called me up and we started looking around only to discover that the closet was shot as well, so we called the police. The police showed up about 15 minutes later (since we called the station and not 911, and since we were pretty sure that was the noise we had heard the night before was the cause and it was no longer an emergency) and started looking around and taking pictures. Then they perused through my gutchies and clothes (the only clothes in the closet) , only to shake one of my shirts causing the bullet to fall to the floor. The thing I am most upset about is not that the cop handled my underwear and bras, but that the bullet shot through my Polamalu jersey…

We explained to the officer that we’ve only been here a month, and have only talked to our immediate neighbors, so there really isn’t any cause for this to be done to us on purpose… most likely it was an accident- we hope anyways. My neighbor Judy was very concerned that we would move after this, until I joked with her that this had already happened at the old apartment and it takes a lot more than that to make us want to move.

Overall, we were just glad that no one got hurt, that it was our room and not any of our children’s rooms, and that we were downstairs when it happened. The landlord already came and looked at the window and is ordering a replacement… still, it put a pall over the day’s beginnings.

In other, happier, bullet-free news my garden is doing pretty well…
…These are my Red Grape Tomatoes…

…and these are my Yellow Pear tomatoes…

…and my Beefsteak Tomatoes…

…and my Cucumbers…

…and my Lavenders…

…and of course the Rose Bush clipping I got from my neighbor’s yard last week that I am hoping will become my own rose bush one day…

And when I am not overlording my container garden, I am knitting some ankle socks from the Yarn Treehouse yarn that was delivered the day I moved in…

All in all, pretty good stuff if I do say so myself.

Last night I went to bed a little early, since I had been up with the kids since 5am (Mister has to go to work, Danny and TJ have doc appointments, we have one car…) and was super tired. The Mister was still up, watching the Animal Planet show, Seven Deadly Strikes. I woke up around 3am or so for an impromptu pee break, yet the Mister was still not in bed. I chalked it up to him having found something insanely interesting on TV, Book, or the Internets- something that happens often enough that its not uncommon for him to do so. Not feeling weird about it I went right back to sleep… only to be awakened later by his dropping of change on to a nightstand. I had mistaken the sound (for whatever reason) as rain coming in the window and immediately bounced out of bed to shut the windows.

“whoops, sorry” he replied

Since I was awake anyway I asked him what was so interesting that he was only coming to bed then, and he replied…

“I was up reading your blog all night… and you are such a fibber!”

So then I began to ask him what he was talking about, and it mainly centers around one anniversary post where I stated he hated green beans and wouldn’t admit to snoring. We then talked about a number of the posts, how he thought I just hit the ground running with long long posts but found it was otherwise, how he thinks its funny that I have “filler” (memes and random generator stuff), and so forth. I wasn’t embarrassed about all the man pictures at all, since he figures I have a crush on everybody (which I don’t, just a lot of men who look like him).

In any case, the minute after he told me, I started devising a post with the above title, intent on posting it this morning.

Then, as I start writing the post this morning I hear noises outside the computer room window… squoish, squoish, squoish of feet walking in mud, followed by a light tap, tap, tap on the window. My first thought was the unabbreviated version of “WTF”, and I opened the curtains to see who was there (fully expecting Nick, one of the neighborhood kids who I have apparently adopted somehow) but no one was. I peer to the left and the right, but see nothing. I then open the back door (but lock the “screen” [glass not screen] door) and look out… nothing. Then, feeling bolder, I open the screen door and start looking all around outside… checking for footprints in my mud, grass, or on my sidewalk… nothing. It was a very creepy moment… the perfect way to start the Fourth of July! Wait… is that right?