Exotic yet ordinary

My imaginary friend has given notice. She sat me down yesterday afternoon and told me that she has accepted a new position with the Osage tribe and will be leaving in three weeks. Yeah, like they don't have enough imaginary friends already, they have to go and steal mine. She assures me it's not us, it's her. It seems that she has gotten burned out over the last six years and needs a change. So, she's made one and I'm happy for her. I really am. I'll just, you know, miss her. A lot. I now have three weeks to get used to the idea of not seeing her every day. It's really hard to lose work friends. Even imaginary ones.

I have this weird idea that everything looks better if it is B&W, so it's often difficult for me to put up a picture as is without tinkering with it. I suppose a small part of the appeal of black and white photos is that I can sort of hide out there in a prettier, less flawed version of myself. However, this week I'll put up the color version without any alterations.

The plan for Friday was to eat light. That's more or less the plan every day, but it was most especially true for Friday since I would likely be stuffing myself with an unhealthy amount of yummy comida Mexicana at Santa Fe's that evening. I knew the morning would be easy enough to muddle through. It was the afternoon that would be a bit trixie. And, sure enough, the first half of my day passed without incident. I ate my usual breakfast of sweet cream cheese stuffed pretzel (you can order Schwan's from Amazon.com?! Really? What's that all about?) and was even on my game at lunch. I had a baked potato and a spicy chicken salad. Chicken also courtesy of Schwan's.

So, after lunch, I went back to work encouraged that I could actually make it through the afternoon's festivities withOUT giving in to the cake (delicioso!) that would be not calling but screaming my name the duration of the Volunteer's Ceremony. I was comfortably full and I reckoned I could put enough distance between me and the cake to make it through the presentation of certificates without too much difficulty. And I had a Dana (my friend at work that Chris is convinced does not actually exist) who had generously offered to talk me down should I start to drift toward the snack table.

And then, a co-worker happened. A co-worker and the ridiculously unnecessary incident she caused. An aggrevating incident that made me angry enough to spit. But instead, I had a piece of that damn cake (hey, I'm a stress eater) with Dana's blessing since she had witnessed the incident, too, and, hey, that's what imaginary friends are for. I'm sure that medium slice of comfort had enough calories for an entire meal. Or two. But, it made me happy for a little while, I suppose. I'll just have to get better about not eating angry.

My debauchery continued that evening at Santa Fe's. Try as I might, I just could not bring myself to verbalize the word salad. So, while everyone else was feasting on their enchiladas con mole, I tucked into a ginormous chicken chimichanga. Ole!

First thing this morning I stepped on the scales to assess the damage. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch. NO change to my weight. Those ten pounds I lost? Yeah, they were still lost. If I can stay away from farkin' co-workers and delectable restaurants, I may just make my goal for April. Fantastico!

Oooo! I want to do this!

I read Leahpeah. Daily. Sometimes checking back several times in one
day just to see if maybe she left another post. I tend to cycle through several blogs multiple times each day because I am absolutely obsessive, and bored, like that (though I've had to cut my reading way back recently due to the new internet crackdown at work). Anyway, a few days ago she posted another one of her interviews (Leahpeah has introduced me to all sorts of new blogs this way. My cup seriously runneth over, I'm so bloglogged!), this time with Not Martha. Apparently, Not Martha is crafty. Incredibly so. She kindly posts all sorts of nifty links and craft projects on her blog, including a How To that s'plains all about making MAGNETS! Marble ones!

I LOVE these things! I saw a few on Knitta's fridgitator during a visit a while back and have wanted some of my very own ever since. Now, thanks to Not Martha and Leahpeah, I CAN MAKE MY OWN MAGNETS! I just need, you know, some glue and the clear, flat-glass marble pieces, and magnets and pictures. Lots and lots of cool little pictures. And scissors to cut 'em out with. Oh, and pencils. Snip snip here, glue glue there, and a couple of squishy tra-la-la's and VOILA! MAGNETS to litter the FRIDGE! So EXCITED! Over MAGNETS! I can barely contain myself!

So, anyway, just thought I'd share.

Little girl had her first egg hunt over the weekend. A real hunt with real eggs. Not the plastic ones, because by my estimation plastic eggs do not a real hunt make. Plastic eggs seem to be... cheating. Kind of. See, in my grand schema of things, "real" egg hunts involve hard boiled eggs, Easter Egg kits with waxy crayons and EggArounds and little color tablets that get all fizzy as they dissolve, stained fingers, and lots of patience. So, on Saturday, we took our daughter and our patience over to grandma's for an afternoon of dyeing, hiding, and seeking eggs.

Justin kept little girl occupied while my mom and I snuck off to the kitchen to tend to the bidness of coloring the eggs. I was very excited about this because as a child I myself was not permitted to dye any of the eggs. I could pick out the colors to be used, and I could wield the wax crayon but I was not allowed to use the wire dipper to color the eggs. After having the opportunity at long last to participate in decorating Easter eggs, I now have a better understanding why little Nanda was not allowed to do it. It's really messy. And it takes a bit more effort than you might think. Well, if you're trying to be all creative and crafty, anyway, which we foolishly were. It was during this experience that for the briefest of brief moments, plastic eggs no longer seemed like such a horrid idea. Pop 'em open, drop in a few coins or candy pieces, snap shut. Repeat. No mess. No hassle. But, really, probably no fun, either... So, we pressed on. An hour later, we triumphantly emerged with our pretty pastel prizes and grandma snuck outside to hide the eggies.



Finally, the eggs were hidden. We led Maya to the gate at the back of the house and let her loose in the yard to hunt down the eggs. Initially, she needed a little help to get things going, but after that first egg made it into her Easter basket, it was on. She high stepped her way through the grass, looking high and low (but mostly low), calling "Eeeggg. Eeeeeegggggg!" as she went. As if she expected the eggs to hear her cry and assemble.



After the last egg was collected, she plopped down to tally her Easter bounty.


"Uhn, oo, fee..." over and over she meticulously counted, moving the eggs from one side of the basket to the other. What's a toddler to do with eggs after they've been found, sorted, and counted? Why, you start clacking them together until the shell shatters. Naturally. Grandma rescued the eggs and took them inside to be deviled. And that was the end of Maya's first egg hunt.

Congratulate me. I survived another All Staff! This was the festive, let's get ready for Easter All Staff (complete with egg hunt. No, really), which beats the hell out of the morning of disease and pestilence I endured last month. I'll trade bloodborne pathogens and clogged arteries for multi-colored eggs stuffed with chocolate any month of the year.

The employee recognition committee, being the creative, theme-lovin' folks that they are, had all the tables in the conference room decked out with plastic pastel Easter eggs nestled in purple Easter grass, you know, to give us something pretty to pick at while the director sorts through the mail. And since I can't ever seem to leave things alone, it wasn't long before I picked up one of the eggs and shook it. A bit. Quietly, of course. After a minute or so of shaking my shaky egg, I couldn't take it any longer. I turned to my co-worker, leaned in and sang: I know a chicken... and she laid an egg. Quietly, of course. The weird thing was no one found it particularly odd that I was singing about a chicken and her shaky eggs.

I love Laurie Berkner.

Barely. And only when using the automatic settings (you know, the SIMPLE ones for the neophytes). For now.

On Tuesday, all that separated me from my D50 was three to four days… and the eastern half of the country. The order had been finalized. And upgraded. I knew the pitch for a lens upgrade was coming. KNEW it. And I thought I was ready. I practiced firmly, but politely, declining the upgrade (No, no – the kit lens is fine. Really. May I have my camera now?) immediately prior to placing the call to representative Morris... only to quickly cave after being talked into the 1 gig, high speed memory card (I blame the Brooklyn accent) that I had stupidly forgotten to toss in my 'basket' with the camera when I ordered online. Hopeless. Anyway, the camera in all its upgraded glory was on the way, and that was all that mattered. I spent the next three days calling the house several dozen times to interrupt my mother’s baby wrangling to ask, Is it there yet? How about now? And now? because surely silly Morris was mistaken. Surely, it wouldn’t take a full four days to ship a camera from New York to Oklahoma.

The package arrived on the afternoon of day four.

Reviews for the D50 described it as an entry-level digital SLR geared toward family photographers and those timidly stepping up from the point-and-shoot cameras. Family photographer stepping up from the ol' point-and-shoot? Check and check. Somewhere along about the umpteenth review, I started replacing entry-level with hairbrained ideas like simple controls, operates with ease, and easy to navigate. And I was excited. New camera. Easy. PERFECT. Now, c'mon! Let's go already! And I'm sure the camera is easy... for those who actually know something about photography and digital SLR cameras. Sadly, I'm not one of those people. Yet. So, the crash course has begun. I'm currently working my way through the user's guide and at some point soon I'll be busting out that there tutorial to give it a looksee. In the meantime, I think I've at least become proficient enough to tackle Maya's first Easter egg hunt(s) this weekend.

The new camera should arrive on Monday. If it doesn't, I shall be very. put. out.

About the middle-ish of March, I put myself on a diet. Seriously this time. And, really, except for the occasional slip here and there, I've been able to stick to it. I knew if I did anything too drastic, I'd never make it. So instead of jumping into some complicated fad diet with all sorts of crazy restrictions (give me carbohydrates or give me death), I made a few simple changes to my regular diet: lots of fish, no red meat, lots of water (and, consequently, LOTS of trips to the bathroom - that counts as exercize, right?), smaller portions, no seconds, thirds, elevensies, no late night meals & munching, fewer sweets, and limiting fast food to...Subway (I'm horribly addicted to six-inch oven roasted chicken breast sandwiches on wheat). Nothing too terrible.

Around the same time, my brother-in-law also started dieting. He's divided the total weight he wishes to lose into manageable monthly goals, which is a loss of about five or six pounds each month. Pretty smart. Since I'm all kinds of lazy, I've made his goals my goals and have been secretly following along. So far, I've managed to drop about seven pounds.

I'm still not really exercizing. I always take the stairs at work, though that's due more to a fear of the office's rickety old elevator than an attempt to be more active, and I do the odd set of squats or lunges during the day. Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in some sort of regular routine soon, say walking thirty minutes or so a day or, God forbid, hanging out with Debbie Siebers three times a week. For now, I've primarily been focused on not feeding my face so much... and being a little nicer to myself while I deal with my weight issues.

So, Justin was waiting for me with some interesting news when I got home today. A new piece of art had found its way into our house. A Picasso print. Apparently, a co-worker was doing a little spring cleaning and decided The Lovers, along with a box full of old books, had to go. And Justin was more than happy to take them in. I managed a precursory dig through the box, glancing at a title or two, skimming the pages of a few books as I went. Though it was mostly a convenient excuse for me to.. smell. them. I LOVE the way books smell. Especially old ones. Anyway, the books are waiting patiently in a corner of the room for a proper pilfering. The print is now hanging in our living room. And I like it. A lot.

Another self-portrait Sunday has come and (nearly) gone. It seems like I'm getting little else done these days. Hopefully, I'll find the time to have more than a passing, fragmented thought sometime soon.

I did it!! After a long month of obsessing and waffling, I am happy to report that I finally FINALLY ordered my camera this afternoon from Abe's of Maine. I can expect it sometime over the next eight to ten days.