randy roos

Last night I had a bit of trouble falling asleep and started just thinking about random things.  And here they are:

1.  Right now the foods I am craving the most are oyster crackers, caramels, and milk.  And no, I am not pregnant.  Those are just the things I want to eat all the time.  And when I don’t have them I think about how good they would taste.  I’ve rounded out those 3 things with a little Panda Express and pizza lately.  My regular diet is just fabulous isn’t it?

2.  We checked two big things off of the cheer calendar last week.  That is always a relief and it is basically the only way I’m staying sane with cheer right now.  I can survive as long as I am seeing progress.  The next month(ish) will continue to be crazy, but I’m just going to keep plowing through.

3.  I am not happy with Directv.  We’ve had it for 4 years and have had issues with it for at least half that time.  There is now a tree that has grown enough to block the satellite feed and it is messing up the channels we can get and whether it will even be a clear picture.  Which yes, I know, “wah wah, my first world problems are soooo terrible!”.  The issue at this point is that I just hate confrontation and phone calls so I’m not looking forward to canceling Directv and trying to set something up with Comcast.  Why do I not have a personal assistant to do crap like this for me?  Oh right, because I’m not famous or a high powered CEO.  In fact I am an administrative assistant myself.  Thankfully I haven’t yet had to call and cancel my boss’ cable provider.

4.  Speaking of work, it has been CRAZY busy.  I work on the piles of tasks all day and feel like I leave with piles that are the same size at the end of the day.  We’re also getting to the point that everyone is so stressed that they can’t even remember what work has already been done so then they do it over again.  We are wasting time people!  And at this point I just don’t see an end in sight.

5.  I think I might start posting a “Song of the Week”.  Obviously I enjoy sharing the random songs I hear and like and it might be a way for me to just get on here more often and get the thoughts flowing otherwise.  I already have a song for this week picked out, but it will have to wait for its own post.  Gotta spread the wealth here people.

6.  I’ve been reading Harry Potter and I’m pretty much obsessed.  I didn’t read them while they were coming out and in fact thought they were kind of dumb and childish (sorry to my 2 college roommates who were obsessed with them at the time – I’ve been proven wrong).  But since then I’ve seen all the movies and for some reason last spring my current roommate (who was the 3rd college roommate but who also didn’t read them then) and I started to get all crazy about the movies and watched them all on ABCfamily.  I even went to Blockbuster late one night because our dvr hadn’t recorded one properly (damn you Directv) and we were sooo sad not to be able to watch it.  Anyway, I decided to read them and started at the very end of July.  And I am now more than half way through book 5.  And all I want to do is read it all the time.  I don’t want to have to work or coach or make food or clean my room.  I just want to read Harry Potter.  Where is my rich husband who would make it so that I could just sit at home (or even better – by a pool or on a beach while on a tropical vacation) and read?  I have a feeling he is off somewhere with that personal assistant of mine.  Now if I could just track them down.

7.  My mom thinks I might have Lyme disease.  That is the conversation we had on the phone yesterday.  She has some basis for believing this because many of the symptoms are things I have been dealing with.  Except for oh, the TICK BITE AND RASH you are supposed to have.  But I did google it and I could see there might be a slight possibility that this is what is wrong with me.  The symptoms do add up and the first site I read did say that sometimes you don’t notice the bite and that the rash might be so insubstantial that you don’t think anything of it.  Which great.  Now I’ve got stinkin’ Lyme disease.  Thanks Mom.

8.  Sometimes I think the world is going to blow up because of all the ways technology has just exploded (no pun intended) in the last 10 or so years.  I’ve been out of high school for just over 11 years now and the way I live my life and use technology now is so vastly different then it was back then.  Which duh, it is for pretty much anyone.  But it blows my mind that I didn’t have an email address until about the middle of my senior year (I can distinctly remember getting it too – a boy named Josh helped me while we were in our “Applied Graphics” class).  And now with the cell phones and texting and facbeook and blogging and tweeting and skyping and everything!  Which yes, I know this is not a new topic at all, but the thing that set my mind off about it recently was when I was watching the VMA’s on Sunday night and they kept reporting which celebrity was the most popular tweet conversation (is that what you call it?) at that moment.  First of all, who cares?  And second, why are we wasting our time tweeting about random celebrities while we are probably all at home watching it by ourselves?  Where is the face to face interaction?  I just can’t imagine what will be coming next with the rate everything has happened in the last decade.

9.  If you can’t tell from that last entry – I am getting old.  You know, 28.  Which is apparently when you start feeling old.  And when you are a teenager or college student you think that this could NEVER happen to you.  You will always be hip and with it (well at least as hip and with it as you are as a teenager or college student which as we all know varies quite a bit).  But there comes a day or a week or a time period where you realize that things have changed and you either haven’t changed with it or you’ve changed too much to appreciate the world changing.  And suddenly the hipness is no longer there.

10.  Does anyone want to call Directv and Comcast for me?

simple summer pleasures

a few things that are making me happy in a dreamy sort of way:

*a big beautiful bouquet from our farmer’s market for just five bucks

*tangerine popsicles

*the anticipation of going on a short road trip soon

*fresh raspberry pie at lunchtime

*indulging in a massage and then consequently booking the appointment for the next one

*catching up with one of my best friends

*reading eat, pray, love

*anticipating reading harry potter next

*watching the new season of my boys (started yesterday) with my roommate

alaska recap

Welp, I’ve been back from Alaska for about a week and half and am just now getting around to posting pictures and a recap of the trip.  One reason is because my parents actually came down here the same night I did so I’ve been a little busy doing stuff with them.  And another reason is just because I’ve been lazy and enjoying my days of having few responsibilities.  But things are changing today!  I’ve posted some pictures on facebook and now I’m writing this post.  Crossing stuff off the list.  So make yourself comfortable, I think this is going to be a long one.

The trip was great.  One of the best trips home in recent years.  I was able to see quite a few of my friends (sadly, for only quick visits with most of them), I got to spend quite a bit of time with my niece and nephew, I got to hang out quite a bit with one of my closest friends Carlie (and help out with her brother’s wedding), and I got to attend (and plan and set up) my 10 year high school reunion.  The weather was amazing.  As in pretty hot – it was in the mid 80′s for most of my trip.  I only remember it reaching those kind of temps maybe once or twice growing up.  I had of course packed completely inappropriately.  Luckily I’d brought quite a few tank tops for layering, so I just dropped the extra layers.  And I never once touched the fleece jacket that took up tons of space in my suitcase.  Oh well.

The first weekend I was there, my niece (A) and nephew (Z) stayed with us at my parents’ house.  A is 4 1/2 and Z is about 15 months.  They arrived on Saturday evening and we had them until Monday morning.  It was fun, it was exhausting, and it reminded me of just how amazing my sister in-law is to be able to keep up with them on a daily basis.  It took my dad, mom, and I all of our effort to keep just 2 kids in line.  Dad and I took A to the park where she ran around for 2 hours straight and someone thought my dad was either homeless or a creepy old man because he laid down in the shady part of one of the jungle gyms and was taking a snooze.  When another lady asked me about him I was confused at first and then realized that she was talking about him.  A little embarrassing to say the least.

That evening we took the kids to Kepler Park for a boat ride.  A decided that her life jacket was killing her after my mom tied together the top set of ties.  So, much of the ride was spent listening to her complain of choking and saying that her vest was “sooo heavy”.  Finally she perked up a bit when she got the chance to row the boat with Granny.  Then Z started fussing and we couldn’t figure out what his deal was.  Turns out he wanted to row too.  He’s very mechanically minded, which doesn’t surprise me a bit seeing as how my dad is a civil engineer, my brother is an areonautical engineer, and Z‘s other grandpa owns his own construction company.  And while a bit small for actual rowing, he did seem to have a grasp on the concept and was as happy as a clam after that.

That night Z fell asleep in my arms while we watched Black Beauty (um, how sad is that movie?) and when I went to put him down on his makeshift bed of couch cushions, I couldn’t believe how much he actually looked like a little cherub.  It helped that he was just in a diaper and wrapped up in his champagne colored silky blanket.  His blonde hair didn’t hurt either.  I wish I had a picture of him at that moment.  So adorable.

I met up with lots of my friends for lunches during the week.  I went with one of them to this newer restaurant called the Red Beet.  They don’t have a full menu there.  Instead, they make one entree a day and that’s what you get.  It helps that the food is totally gourmet and delicious.  I can be a picky eater so I was nervous they’d be serving something I really didn’t like, but the food was fabulous.  I thought it really couldn’t get much better and then we ordered dessert!  I got this amazing almond cake with cream and I couldn’t believe how good it was.  I’ve been craving it ever since that day.  I can taste it right now it was so great!

My friend Carlie was up from Tennessee for her brother’s wedding and our high school reunion.  Her husband is originally from Florida and has only been up to Alaska once before.  It was actually when he proposed to her and it was a pretty short trip with disappointing weather, so he was excited about the chance to visit again.  I asked my dad if he would take the three of us up in his plane to fly over a nearby glacier.  The sky had gotten pretty hazy because of wildfires up by Denali, but the view was still amazing.  I think Tony had a great time and it turns out it was Carlie’s first time having a scenic flight like that (and she grew up in AK).

I spent my last Friday and Saturday there helping with the wedding.  Friday was pretty fun because Carlie and I got to zip around in my dad’s Miata going from place to place.  There was the normal wedding stress, but I had fun for the most part.  Saturday was a bit of a different story.  I had fun, but was a lot more stressed.  I’ve coined the day as “running a marathon in bad shoes”.  Seriously, one of the worst blisters I’ve ever had on my heel.  But it all worked in the end and the bride and groom are married (they were high school sweethearts!) and everyone survived!  (But I’ve only worn flip flops since then.)

Oh, and that Friday night we celebrated my brother’s 31st birthday.  I made him a spice cake because my sister in-law told me that whenever they eat spice cake somewhere he always says something to the effect of “why isn’t spice cake in our life more often?”  I got him the first season of Lost on dvd because a couple of months ago he called me on a Wednesday night about 10 minutes before it was on.  I told him I could only talk for that bit of time because Lost would be on and I couldn’t miss it.  And he had the audacity to ask me, “What’s Lost?”  AAAAHHHHH, are you kidding me?  I understand to some degree – they don’t have regular tv and basically just watch things through Netflix.  But Lost just seemed up his alley especially with all the conspiracy theory stuff.  So now I hope he does actually like it seeing as how I went ahead and just bought the season for him instead of telling him to get it on Netflix.

That night the kids ran around my parents’ yard for quite awhile.  I just sat down in the middle of it and started taking pictures.

Sunday was our reunion.  We had planned on having a potluck BBQ at one of the local parks.  I’d gotten kind of anxious about all the details of it (but not about seeing any of the people).  Luckily my friend Hailee really stepped up to the plate and got lots of decorations and nice things to make it feel more festive.  I spent the better part of the week worrying about parking, which of course turned out to be a non issue.  I’d say about 40 people from my class (out of 216) along with families came.  So a little dissappointing size wise, but it was so great to see the people who were there.  And everyone was so gracious about thanking me for putting it together.  I was really glad we did it, even if I had anxiety about it for a whole stinking year.  Everyone looked pretty much exactly the same and it was weird to see little miniature versions of them running around on the park’s jungle gym.   And their were quite a few little babies there.  So sweet.

That night I took the red eye flight back down to WA.  My parents were on another flight that was scheduled to take off at the exact same time (I’m pretty sure we were on 2 different runways).  Once we were in Seattle I took the shuttle bus and they had a layover and then a commuter flight up to B’ham.  And I beat them there by 5 minutes.

being domestic

People, I made bread recently.  Homemade goodness.  And yes, while I was the Food & Consumer Science Student of the Year my senior year in high school (an honor I’m not quite sure I deserved – I only got it because I was the home ec teacher’s TA during the last quarter and reorganized her entire office – but I still like to tote it out randomly just to show off), I am not what you would call a great cook.  Mostly because I’ve just been cooking for myself for about the last 10 years (except for freshman dorm food and sophomore year when my roommates and I actually made meals to eat together) and I’m lazy, so I typically eat snacky things and then make something random like a piece of baked chicken with no seasoning except Lawry’s salt on it.  Hmmm…maybe something could be gleaned from this to explain my current nutritional status….or maybe we’ll save that for another time.  Anyway, I had a yearning to bake bread after reading about a fellow blogger who’s been making bread every week.  So I procrastinated doing other somewhat more important stuff and spent an afternoon baking.  It turned out to be really yummy and just a little too crumbly.  But Mrs. Slaughter would be proud.  And yes, that was the name of my home ec teacher.