Monthly Archives: March 2012

Seek and you shall find: Search Terms for Mutant Supermodel

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I know everyone does this and I am so late to this party but honestly my brain is so asleep lately I can’t think of anything to write about so I figured I’d pick the low-hanging fruit of blogging and address some of the search engine terms that have brought you here.

Since I’ve never done in the two year life of this particular blog, there are a lot of different searches. Some are bizarre and some are funny and a lot are boring. But my top ten search hits are all different variations on only three things so I figured I’d tackle these first.

Most searched for term on Mutantsupermodel.com: Shera

Ok. First of all folks, it’s She-Ra. And her full name is She-Ra Princess of Power. She is the main character of a cartoon series from the 1980′s by the same name and originated from another cartoon series called He-Man who is her brother and who my brother MutantWino was obsessed with. MutantPirate was a bit too young to really appreciate the awesomeness of He-Man. But you don’t come here looking for He-Man, you come here looking for She-Ra. I adored She-Ra growing up and I have bemoaned the fact there is no awesome character like her for Daughter today. Leave it to today’s society to bring back the foodie Strawberry Shortcake and the man-filled Smurfs and leave out freaking She-Ra. But apparently you don’t even come here to hear all that jazz, you apparently come here for pictures of She-Ra. So here you go, enjoy some She-Ra Princess of Power eye candy.

OK I have more but I’m about good with this many don’t you think?

Second most searched term: hoarders buried alive

I’m amused my top two searches are television related because I really never ever watch TV and kind of think it rots your soul but hey, we all can’t be book worms because then the library would never have good books for me to read!

I’m going to assume most of you that come here are referencing the TLC show Hoarding: Buried Alive. It is a pretty shocking show but it’s also inspirational as I talked about here. This isn’t a one-day makeover or even a week-long transformation. The show addresses some deeply rooted issues and, in the cases I’ve seen, respects the emotional attachments these people have formed to their items. We can all relate to that, albeit in different degrees.

The fact is as much as we’d like to be rational beings, we’re very much ruled by our emotions and all of our negative behaviors are directly tied up with those dastardly things. And that’s my favorite part of the show– when the emotional trigger is identified. I’m really into this sort of concept lately and am dying to get my hands on the book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Figuring out why you’re doing what you’re doing may not put an end to your behavior, but it should go a long way to at least easing associated guilt or shame while you work through the process of bringing the behavior to an end.

My favorite part is the before and after pictures because they’re not perfect results and I respect that. The improvements are still breathtaking and you’ve got to give these people some major credit on the transformations they accomplish.

Hoarder Living Room BeforeHoarder Living Room AfterHoarder Kitchen BeforeHoarder Kitchen After

Third most searched term: Mutant Supermodel

Yup, me. I have an About Me sort of page that you can read if you’re into that sort of thing. I promise you I worked very hard on making it not boring. The basics are this: I don’t run a niche site. I blog about my life as a single mom with three kids and all the many aspects of my life, loves, hates, etc. I love to write. I always have. As much as I love to read really. And I love networking and I love the interwebs. I love meeting new people. As a matter of fact, back in my prior lives as a blogger I used to participate a lot in swaps of all kinds and absolutely loved connecting with people that way. I love testing boundaries but in a really polite way, I’m not into controversy deliberate or otherwise. I’ve been doing this a while and as much as I love it, I do have my moments where I get sort of bummed with the fact I’ve never really been able to attract a really big following. Especially when I see some of these newer blogs come out and seemingly explode on the scene and the content is just… meh. But at the same time, the following I do have is amazing. And I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I mean how many single mom blogs can say they’ve only had one trollish comment ever on their blog huh? And that it happened after two years of existence?

You know how Get Rich Slowly got famous not just because of the content JD put out but because of the readers? I feel the same way about this little baby right here. Hope you do too.

So there you have it. The top three things people come to this blog looking for– She-Ra, Hoarding, and Me! One day I will tackle the more humorous ones that have led people here and another day I will tackle the more serious ones because there are some really good ones.

Walled In, Walled Out

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Closing In On Me by Heroethic on Flickr

 

Tired today. Of a lot of things for a lot of different reasons.

Physically? That’s easy. Daughter asked to sleep with me last night. This never happens so I allowed it. This never leads to a good night’s rest on my part and I knew that going in and it was no different last night.

I lay there for a while between Daughter and Boyfriend (seriously, I have the lamest nicknames) listening to their generally synchronized but still completely different breathing. Daughter’s was mixed in with a slight whistly wheeze and Boyfriend’s was rougher with an occasional snore. Daughter’s was shorter than Boyfriend’s but they pretty much started and ended at the same time which is impossible for me to understand right now much less explain.

There’s a lot of yawning going on here.

But I’m also tired in a different way.

Why are so many people angry today? Fearful? Depressed? Anxious? Hopeless? The election insanity is not helping, I know. The economic crisis. It just feels like everyone is on the brink– ready to explode. And instead of coming together, reaching out, embracing each other, linking arms, we’re taking sides. Division, division, division. What happened to all the shades of gray?

White people here, Black People there, everyone else over there somewhere. Men here, women there. You “others” just go and hide somewhere so we don’t have to acknowledge your existence and recreate our nice little division system.

Republicans here, Democrats there and the rest of you grow a damn spine and either take a side or shut your mouth because this has nothing to do with you. Conservatives here, Liberals WAY over there, Moderates please see above Republicans/Democrats memo re: “the rest of you”. And by the way, changing your mind is something that no longer exists. It’s called flip-flopping now and it will not be tolerated, respected, or accepted.

United States vs The World. Poor vs Rich. Corporations vs People. My Pockets vs Your Pockets. Progression vs Regression. Spend vs Save. Capitalism vs Socialism. Free Market vs Regulation. Healthy vs Sick. Big government vs Small government. Rent vs Buy. Illegals vs Citizens. Baby vs Fetus. Hetero vs Homo. Stay at Home Mom vs Work Outside Home Mom. Atheism vs Theism. State vs Church. Single Parent vs Married Parent. Slut vs Prude. 1% vs 99%. Planet vs Global Warming. Custodial Parent vs Non-Custodial Parent. Religion vs Science. English vs Math. Candidates vs PACs. Fact vs Opinion. South vs North. East vs West. Blue vs Red. Manning vs Tebow. Blog vs Trolls. Star Wars vs Star Trek. Facebook vs Google+. WordPress vs Blogger. Knit vs Crochet. My Way vs The Highway.

Why are we so eager for a fight? Why are we so ready to jump? Why are we convinced someone/something is surely out to get us?

It is so exhausting but as much as I want to just let it go, the fighting is all around me and I can’t always stop from being caught up because so many times it just goes too far. We can debate but stick to the facts, not your interpretation of them. Contrary to popular belief, reality does not have a liberal bias. We can debate, but refrain from insults. We can debate but please keep your ears open as much as you keep your mouth open.

Every day it gets louder and louder. Everyone is screaming to make this point and that point, to be seen and to be heard. Look at me! Listen to me! Pay attention to me!

When did we forget we’re not animals? Our gut instincts are about as right as often as they’re wrong folks. Why are we listening to them more and more instead of listening to each other? My gut might tell me punching your face would be the most effective way of getting you to shut up but my  mother taught me better than that. Who do I listen to? My gut tells me to blow my paycheck on whatever I want, when I want it but the people I respect tell me to at least save some of it and I’ll be better off in the long-run. Who do I listen to? My gut tells me I should work hard to get ahead and you should do the same for yourself but Mother Teresa taught me the value of working hard to get many of us ahead together. Who do I listen to?

Isolation everywhere. Bickering. Divisiveness. This whole feeling that if you see things one way, you must be crazy/uneducated/immoral/fanatical/classless/lazy/dirty/pathetic/foolish/not human.

We don’t want to accept each others differences, we just want to know what they are so we can somehow gain the upper hand.

Isn’t it interesting how the most hyped movie right now is this thing called The Hunger Games? And the central plot to this wildly popular movie based on a wildly popular book is a bunch of fights to the death? We are drawn to this concept like moths to the flame.

There can be only one.

It’s stifling. It’s confusing. We’re being forced more and more to take narrower and narrower sides.

Am I the only one feeling claustrophobic?

The Other Reason You Should Be Angry About Trayvon Martin’s Murder

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I want to say I am really proud of the discussion raging across the United States right now regarding racism which has been brought on by the tragedy of Trayvon Martin.

However, I am frustrated this discussion is completely overshadowing what I see as the key to this tragedy– the fact that George Zimmerman was licensed to own a gun. Why, why, why is gun ownership still so easy to come by in this country?

We are so advanced. We spend ungodly amounts of money on defense on a national level and services like the police on local levels and yet we insist on being armed. Why? Do you honestly think your little gun is going to protect you against the top military in the world? Do you honestly think your little gun is going to do a better job of defending your family than the highly skilled local police force?

What is it going to take for this country to let it go? At the very least, can we please make it insanely difficult to get one? How is it that one must go through major steps to become a teacher, a police officer, a fire fighter, a doctor, a lawyer, a pilot, or whatever else requires licensing and yet a paranoid man with a history of violence (against police) can obtain license to own something that is specifically designed to end lives?

I am irate, like everyone else, about the police response and handling of the tragedy but the bottom line is it shouldn’t have happened in the first place and not because we’re in 2012 and still grappling with racism. Blacks shoot and kill blacks every day. Whites shoot and kill whites every day. Men shoot and kill women. Women shoot and kill men. Children shoot and kill children.

Why?

Because it is too damn easy to get your hands on a gun in this country.

Yes, talk about racism. Let’s grapple with that monster. But for the love of god, let’s not look past what actually ended Trayvon Martin– a loaded gun.

With all of the technology and all of the services we have in place, there is absolutely no need for gun ownership. Asking for a license to own a gun is simply the equivalent of requesting a license to kill.

Self-defense? There are other methods that do not take a life and they are getting more effective every day.

The number of people who save themselves because they owned a gun is negligible, especially when compared to the number of people who died because of a gun that is fired by rage, fear, shame, anxiety, intoxication, paranoia, or any emotion that pulls a trigger– none are positive.

Yes, I am angry that in 2012 there are still idiots who find other people suspicious because of the color of their skin. Yes, I am angry that in 2012 there are still people in charge who take sides because of the color of a perpetrator’s skin before considering the facts. But, I am angrier that in 2012 there are still people who can get guns– especially people with a history of violence and paranoia (over 40 calls to 911 reporting suspicious activity or people is paranoia).

We need to come to terms with race in this country but we also need to work towards tighter gun control laws so these types of tragedies don’t happen as we work towards a better tomorrow.

What will break us finally? Columbine didn’t do it. Virginia Tech didn’t do it. Trayvon Martin isn’t doing it. The countless stories of shooting murders and fatal shooting accidents that appear in your local newspaper don’t do it. What then? And why should we wait until that sort of tragedy to take place before we move to action? Hasn’t there been enough bloodshed already? Haven’t enough black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Native American boys and girls been buried already?

Divorce: One Year Later

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Today marks the one year anniversary of my official divorce. My separation actually happened way before that– in June 2009. Yes, we were separated almost two years before we officially got divorced. So by the time it was legally declared and done with it was more like a celebration and wave of relief thing than anything traumatizing.

The hard part was the separation. That initial shock to the system.

I was the one who wanted the separation and the divorce so a lot of people take the point of view that I should have been off the hook for any sort of negative reaction to it. That’s a load of bull crap. I’m sure there are lots of people who want divorces and don’t experience a confusing tornado of emotions but there are way more than do and I was one of those.

In my case, by the time I asked for the separation and divorce I was done, beyond done. And even though I knew the marriage was past the point CPR would’ve helped, it didn’t mean I wasn’t without doubt. Was I seriously doing the right thing?

The answer was always yes. But there was always so many things to question myself on. And doubt is not the same thing as regret.

I have never regretted my decision to end my marriage. I regret my decision to get married and even that one is hard to do with 100% conviction because my marriage brought along two more children. Can’t have one without the other.

The biggest difference between now and then is probably the level of anger. I just don’t have it much anymore. Yes my Ex confuses the crap out of me. And sometimes he frustrates me. But for the most part, my Ex and I don’t really talk or anything so there’ snot many triggers to get the anger going.

Yes, you read that right. We have children together and they regularly go with him, but we have a system set up where communication and interaction with each other isn’t really required. It happens, mostly via e-mail, sometimes by text, and rarely by phone as his girlfriend doesn’t allow him to talk with me. But we have a system and we have a flow and thankfully there aren’t many hiccups. We rarely mess with the schedule. Child support is handled by the government. And I pretty much take on 90% of everything related to the kids so I don’t have to count on him. There are exceptions of course, but for the most part  I just get it all done so I don’t have to deal with empty promises.

Honestly, the thing I keep thinking about today isn’t me or my former marriage or anything like that. It’s about all of you who are just starting this whole process now. Whether you’ve just thrown your husband out of your house or he’s left you for someone else. Whether you’ve left him for someone else or he’s thrown you out. Whatever your personal situation is. I’m thinking of those of you who are at the very beginning and everything is raw.

You probably feel like you’re on this psychotic roller coaster ready to just fall out at any moment. You probably have no idea how on Earth you’re going to make it through. You may feel like you may never heal from this, you may never trust again, much less love again. So many things hurt. So many things confuse. So many things doubt.

The questions are in the millions and the answers are in the single digits.

All I can tell you is I was there too not so long ago and I’m here now and I’m not perfect now and there are still more questions than answers but the questions are different now. The feelings are different now. I’m happier now. I’m calmer now. I’ve learned so much. So. Freaking. Much.

It’s almost been three years since I separated from my Ex. And you know what? Everything is better.

My job is better. My financial situation is better. My love life is better. My relationship with my children is better. My future is better.

I remember that vividly– the fact I couldn’t envision a better future when I was in my marriage or even when I was fresh out of it. But I was freaking determined to make it better even if that meant some major hard work.

So I guess what I want to say is please do not give up, cave in, or fall apart. Ok yes you can have meltdowns and breakdowns and tantrums. But do not let yourself fall past recovery. Do not dismiss your own power, your own strength, your own intelligence, your own creativity, your own bravery. Maybe you’re in the most brutal of situations and people are belittling you left and right. Please understand other people’s anger towards you has absolutely nothing to do with you. You are not responsible for their anger, their hate, their confusion. That’s all their stuff. They choose you to throw it at because you’re vulnerable and they know it. You scare them because here you are on your own and you are alive.

People are scared of women on their own. People are scared of you. And the better you get at being by yourself, the more people are going to be scared of you and resent you and hate you and call you all kinds of really ugly stuff. Let them work through their own demons– you have enough work cut out for yourself and your children.

So there you go. That’s my anniversary wish if you will. I’m thinking of all of you who are starting to navigate this difficult road. You aren’t alone. I wish you all the patience and the strength and the endurance and the courage I can possibly muster and then some.  I can do it. You can do it. We can do it.

Too Much Do, Not Enough Don’t

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Too Tired to do Anything

Last night I did something that was as stupid as it was necessary—I pushed myself way too hard. I was aware of the moment where I should’ve been content with what I had accomplished but another force pushed me way past it.

I try and set some sort of goal to accomplish at home the days I don’t have school. I try and keep it something significant but simple. Yesterday, the goal was to mop the playroom. It provides immense gratification and it doesn’t take a huge amount of labor.

I got home and the kids were at Abuela’s house, in no rush to come home. I don’t hold this against them—they get endless amounts of cookies, chocolate milk, and cable TV over there. I seized the opportunity. I moved all of the big stuff out of the playroom, grabbed my broom and swept, swept, and swept. Satisfied all the dusties and the crumblies were swept into the trash, it was time for Mop Phase One: Clorox.

I mopped, mopped, and mopped. The cat jumped and slid. I scrubbed the stubborn stains. Phase One was complete. I went back to the kitchen to prep the bucket for Mop Phase Two: Fabuloso.

I need to insert a note here before I come across as borderline psychotic. When I usually mop, I don’t go past Phase One. But when it’s Time to Mop, I do both. So back I went to the playroom and spread the yummy smelling Fabuloso everywhere. And it was so nice. The playroom was sparkly and yummy smelling. Reward! Satisfaction!

This is the moment I should have stopped. This is the point I should have been content with what I accomplished, pasted the mental gold star, and moved on to accomplishing the everyday basics plus relaxation. Not to mention the kids had gotten home as I was wrapping it up. But…

The rest of the house was chaotic. The rest of the house didn’t smell nice. The rest of the house had stains, crumblies, and dusties scattered all over with precarious piles leaning treacherously on several surfaces. So I went back to the kitchen to prep the bucket again for Mop Phase One. And I did the whole house.

And then? I prepped the bucket for Mop Phase Two and did the whole house. It was somewhere in the middle of this Daughter wandered over and breathed in happily and said something like “This is just like the cleaning lady” which left me baffled because the last time we had a cleaning lady was just after her dad and I split and that was two years ago almost, no three. Could she really remember? She had just turned three!  I asked what cleaning lady and sure enough, she remembered.

Reward! I’m the cleaning lady! How those two got twisted in my brain as a positive thing I don’t know.

I helped cook dinner, I picked up the laundry baskets in the living room, and straightened up here, there everywhere. I cleaned the kids’ bathroom up. I emptied out three drawers in Daughter’s room for Boyfriend’s Daughter (To Be Nicknamed) to put her stuff while she stays with us. I made the lunches. I cleaned the dishes. I cleaned the litter box. I put together the outfits for the Spring Portraits. I ran to Target because Eldest didn’t own an appropriate shirt and Baby didn’t own appropriate pants.  I kept going until I collapsed into bed just before midnight.

By that point, the reward elation was gone. In the final leg, the thing that was pushing me was this angry feeling that if I just waited until someone was able to help me get things done, it wouldn’t get done and it needed to get done because if it didn’t we’d be back on the slippery slope backwards we constantly find ourselves on that leads to piled clutter everywhere and things missing and strange smells in vague places and things sticking to your feet. Recently I learned that if you want something done, you’re the only one truly responsible for getting it done because you’re the one that wants it done. So I was angry no one else wanted it done.

It was the exhaustion thinking.

There’s a phrase I hear all of the time from people, “I don’t know how you do it.” You know how I do it? The same way you do it, whatever “it” is. You either do, or you don’t. Repeat.

Usually, I feel pretty good when I get stuff done, but not today.

This morning I felt my body scream against the alarm clock. The scream shook every nerve in my body despite the fact not even a moan escaped my lips. It physically hurt to lift myself from the bed. I had to force myself to not press Snooze (do or don’t). It took me ages to completely wake up as my brain clung to some level of sleep while I forced and pushed my body to move around. I can feel the bags under my eyes, heavy as can be. I don’t need a mirror to know they’re there.

I usually look forward to going home. But my house has become so overwhelming that this isn’t the case. I am very much a satisficer but my house isn’t at a level I’m ok with. Even with all of the work I put in yesterday and the past few days, it’s still not a sight for (my) sore eyes. So even though I want to go home and relax, I don’t want to go home because I know I won’t be able to relax once I get there.

There are kids to feed, bathe, mediate, and put to bed. There are lunches to prep. I’m pretty sure there are dishes to put away. There will be dishes to clean. There’s a basket of unpaired socks having a massive sock orgy which is causing the birth of more socks because the population has significantly increased in size. Baby needs socks because apparently all of his socks are fornicating in the laundry basket instead of spooning monogamously in his drawer.

Those are the Must-Dos. And then, there’s the desk. The God Damn Desk.  Every time I walk into my house, there sits the God Damn Desk.

Covered in Crap.

I have sat at this desk. I have sat and considered the Crap that covers. I have even dispatched some of it. But Crap, like the socks, reproduces. The desk taunts me. And it overwhelms me and discourages me. It also motivates me to find other things to keep busy with so that I have a Perfectly Good Reason to not attend to the God Damn Desk.

I think I might bring in the timer for this one. I think my strategy will be to get through the Must-Dos and spend only 20 minutes at the God Damn Desk. And after that, I will begin to drink wine. And I will read books with the children and maybe even do something silly with them. I will flip through a magazine. Or perhaps I will meditate on the latest Knit Picks catalog. I will get my children in bed before nine tonight.

And I will try desperately to follow suit.

De-Frumpiness Project: Nailing February and Accessorizing March

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De-Frumpiness Project

Regular readers might be aware I am doing a year-long De-Frumpiness Project in an effort to get myself out of the rut that my personal style somehow careened into at some point in my life. Each month, I focus on a different aspect of myself that could use some freshening up or just plain attention.

In February, I decided to pay some attention to my fingers and toes. The big thing was I wanted to break an awful habit I had of tearing my cuticles, sometimes to the point of bleeding. I also wanted to try and make sure nail polish was kept neat.

Well, I was able to do pretty well with avoiding the picking. I think one thing that helped was that I was moisturizing my hands way more often. As a matter of fact, the first time I picked at a cuticle was on Leap Day, when all the stress from my grandmother’s death made it harder to remember to moisturize. Suddenly I had hang nails and dry annoying cuticles.

Lesson learned.

The nail polish was a wash. First of all, I’d always mess up putting polish on at least one nail right away, so putting on color polish became something annoying to do, not fun.
Second of all, it seems nail polish is just not very compatible with my life. Polish would begin chipping almost immediately, within a day. The only type of polish that could endure the insane amount of things I do daily, was good old fashioned clear coat. So most of the times, that’s what I stuck with. Not as cheery or fun, but at least my nails looked cared for and that was what I wanted.

Lesson learned.

The only downside I found to the nail polish not working out the way I’d envisioned it was a complete lack of photos. I mean, how many fascinating ways are there to photograph naked nails? This picture featuring one of the Valentine’s Day cards we did is the only one I have that shows off my pretty and healthy nails.

So, now it’s March– way into March actually. And the project for March is born from the recent death of one my Abuelas. Why?

Abuela was a classic lady. There was not one pair of jeans in that house. There was not one t-shirt to be found. She just was not that kind of lady. She was always put together, polished, complete. As a result, one thing my grandmother had a lot of was accessories.

I can’t seem to get the hang of accessories. It’s not that I don’t feel comfortable wearing them, it’s just that 1) It never occurs to me to actually spend money on them and 2) It rarely occurs to me to put on the few I own. I’ve been in survival mode. That means I throw on pants, a bra, a top, socks and shoes, and please god don’t let me forget to put on deodorant today (but I keep some at work just in case).

The thing about figuring out your own style is paying attention to what catches your eye in a positive way. You will find common themes. For me, I found myself drawn to sleek but complete looks. I liked hair that was obviously given more thought than a hairband, but wasn’t overdone. I liked jewelry as thoughtful accents– not piled on but not left in a drawer either. And I noticed I liked little accents like a simple brooch or a pretty scarf or a cozy shawl.

I sported none of these, but my Abuela did. And upon cleaning out her house, I got a lot of it. A couple of pashminas and shawls, a few simple scarves, two lovely brooches, and fun jewelry that ranged from classic and subtle to statement pieces for day time to beautiful treasures better saved for special occasions.

So, here we are in March and I am accessorizing. I am forcing myself to contemplate something other than the bare essentials. I am forcing myself to think about what I am putting on, to consider what I look like. I must stop and reflect, and then actually take in the reflection the mirror truly offers.

Funny how we take this sort of thing for granted and how quickly it disappears if you let it. But that’s the whole point of this project, bring myself under consideration, paying attention to me. If you’d like to join me, let me know! I most easily track this sort of thing on Google+ and I can add you to my De-Frumpiness Circle on there if you let me know. With enough urging, I might even get off my lazy social media butt and encourage this project through Twitter. Is that of interest to anyone? What do you all prefer?

Brain Dump: Drained Edition

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I am so tired. This is actually my second actual attempt at posting something but trust me I’ve made a thousand more mental attempts this past week.

One of my Abuelas died on Sunday. It wasn’t the one that lives next door to me but the one that lived less than a mile away from me– my Dad’s mom. It was unexpected. She actually had been in the hospital about three weeks ago with double pneumonia but she recovered and had been home over a week. She died in her sleep and from what my dad tells me, looked very peaceful so that was a huge relief to us.

I am down to one grandparent now. This is the first time I have had a close connection to the goings on of an estate. I’m not involved directly– my dad and his two sisters are the ones that know the details and I haven’t asked, but I’ve been helping cleaning the house and will most likely be in charge of the future garage/estate sale because I like doing that kind of stuff. But I have been witnessing the stress that comes with estates. Wow. I don’t want to go into details because I don’t want to potentially offend someone but to put it plainly, two siblings appear to be on one page while one is on another and that has added a weird layer to the week that I feel has even possibly interfered with proper mourning but maybe I’m wrong.

It has been an exhausting week. I have had this weird post nasal drip thing that is causing this crazy coughing fit to start up every morning around 4 or 5 in the morning even if I take medicine at night. So that is not making resting any easier and it shows. I look beat up.

I got my first Pre-Calculus test back. The class average was 65. Yours truly got a 97. No curve for this one.

I was supposed to have my second test last night. I had emailed my professor on Tuesday letting her know what had happened. I was trying to squeeze in studying wherever  I could but frankly, there was NO spare time. She finally emailed me back yesterday morning asking if I would like more time for the test. YES PLEASE.

Last Friday I used a bunch of boxes and things to create a makeshift standing desk. It’s pretty awesome and precarious looking.

Standing Desk at Work

Standing Desk + Pandora = Dancing at Work

My favorite part about it is that when I’ve got certain Pandora stations playing (like Santigold) I end up dancing at my desk a lot. I have my door only slightly open and not many people wander over this far down the hall but I’m pretty sure I’m totally going to get caught busting a move any day now. I can’t help it. Dancing is in my Cuban blood.

My dad is blogging! He’s a social worker and his blog, ProgressNote.org focuses on adolescents, especially as far as ADD and ADHD are concerned in that area because that’s what he does these days. He keeps things brief but really informative so if you have a need for this information, or know someone who does, please pass it on!He seriously knows his stuff. At the funeral, so many people came up to me to tell me how amazing he is at his job and what a huge help he is to the team he works with. That made me happy. My dad is awesome.

I’m going to get my taxes done this weekend. Have you done yours yet? I have a refund due. I want to buy a new bed, but I need to fund Summer Camp.I guess I’ll just have to live with the ridiculous dent in the middle a while longer. I want to pay off the credit card with the 31.99% APR but I MUST fund Summer Camp.

I owe you a post on February’s De-Frumpiness Project. And I need to remember (or choose) what’s going on this month because I really need a kick in the butt right now.

I’m the Maid of Honor for my cousin’s upcoming wedding in July. Not that it’s likely to happen or anything but seriously remind me to never ever get married again. Ever.

What’s been going on in your world lately? I have a lot of catching up to do blog-wise.