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Friday, October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween



Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Note to Self...

...don't put purple carrots in vegetable soup EVER AGAIN. Yuk.

I grew a variety of different carrots this year, purple, yellow, white and regular orange carrots. I harvested some this week and I thought it would be fun to put them in some soup, kind of a rainbow effect. BAD IDEA. The purple carrots turned every vegetable a nasty, washed-out, purpley color and turned the soup blood red. Try getting the family to eat that mess. Yeah right. I couldn't look at it either, but it did taste delicious. Now I have to figure out how to force them to eat it tomorrow as well...

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Girl, You'll Be a Woman (too) Soon


Her favorite color is brown. What 6 year old girl loves brown? My girl. She would choose to wear brown clothing all the time if I let her.



Her memory is incredible. She can remember minute details from things we did several years ago. I know this will come to bite me in inconvenient places later on.



Amazing rhythm as well. This girl can dance. From an early age she has had amazing moves. When she was little we used to joke that she looked like a pole dancer. I KNOW that isn't funny, but when you see your 2 year old with smooth moves like that, it's hard not to think so. Now if I could just get off my duff and get her into a class to even her out. Something like ballet....maybe tap...



She knows what she wants. She is not afraid to ask for it either. Or remind you, not-so-gently of course, if you forget.



She is quite the artist and has a great eye for detail.. She has amazing drawing skills and the stories that she creates are so cool. Right now she is working on a 25 (now 37) page Halloween story. It's a masterpiece.



She plays pig with her sister. P loves to pretend that she is a pig and R loves to indulge her. When we dropped her off at school she said to P, "I'll play pig with you when I get home." Made P's day. All she could talk about was when R would get home to play with her. And she did. She loves her sister and can be quite tender and loving...at times.



Monday, October 27, 2008

When I Was a Boy....

I had another girls night out with my mom and we had a blast. We started off the night by heading down to Fremont for dinner at Costa's Opa. But before we could eat we had to find parking. In Fremont, on a Friday. So we drove around a little (open to interpretation of what a little means (and crossing the Fremont Bridge several times)) and drove past Troll Avenue which is under the Aurora Bridge. I told my mom we had to go up and see the Fremont Troll. She had never seen it before, so I was excited to show her. The troll was put under the bridge and yes, that is a Volkswagon Bug in it's grasp. It's cool. I would looove to live on Troll Avenue. Who wouldn't?



Walking back towards the restaurant we saw a sign celebrating the installation of the J.P. Patches statue, so we decided to find out where it was. For those who don't know, J.P. Patches had a local t.v. show for YEARS. Maybe 20? He was a clown and the Mayor of the City Dump. He had a lot of fun friends come visit him like Ketchikan the Animal Man, Boris S. Wort, The Swami of Pastrami, and Ggoorrsstt the Friendly Frpl. My personal favorite was Gertrude, his girlfriend who is the masculine lady in the statue with him. She has hands just like a Michelangelo statue. And all the other parts too. (Don't get the wrong idea, she was only played by a man.)



You can almost see her 5 o'clock shadow.



The statue was designed so that people could add their own pins to J.P.'s jacket. I thought that was such an awesome idea.



ICU2TV



My mom and J.P.

Cool side note - We got to see J.P. Patches at the Stanwood-Camano Fair a couple of years ago. He was just as funny as I remember. My girls loved him and still talk about him. The fun was that there were a lot of adults in the audience who didn't have children with them.


Costa's Opa is a fabulous Greek restaurant where they set cheese on fire right in front of our table and shouted OPA! Awesome. The food was amazing and I plan on returning in the near future. Avgolemono, mousaka, souvlaki, dolmades, spankopita....drool. The only thing I didn't eat was baklava - I was too full.

And for the last part of our fun night we got to go to a Dar Williams concert. She is another singer that I discovered in college. Ah, the good ol' days when you had unlimited access to friend's CD collections! She had Shawn Mullins open for her. He had the hit "Rockabye" ("Every thing is gonna be alright"....that guy). He was good, but Dar was awesome. She is quite the storyteller and the stories that led into her songs were so twisted and convoluted that I had a hard time keeping up/not peeing my pants cause I was laughing so hard. She's that funny/subtle. It was my first time seeing her in concert and I was not let down. Here are two of my favorite (of many) songs of hers:


When I Was a Boy



The Christians & The Pagans




OPA!

Friday, October 24, 2008

Less is More, or More is More?


I gave the girls 3 sheets of window clings to decorate the windows in our house. They used all three sheets on 1 window no matter how much I tried to encourage them otherwise. Sigh.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Cream Cheese Onion Dogs

I'll spare you a picture this time. This is really, REALLY not a photogenic food. The picture I took made me not want to eat this so much. This is a super easy meal that we love. It came to us via my sister via a street-side hot dog cart.


Ingredients

Buns (I prefer Fransisco International Outdoor Rolls)
Dogs (I like Costco's polish sausages)
Cream Cheese
Barbecue sauce
1-2 T. Olive Oil
1-2 T. Butter
1/2 sweet onion, sliced about 3/4 inch thick


Saute onions in pan. You can use straight olive oil or butter if you choose. I like to mix it up a bit. You can carmelize them if you desire, but I like mine just as they start to turn light brown and still have some bite to them. Lightly toast bun and spread cream cheese on both sides. Put onions and barbecue sauce on top. Will make enough onions for about 3-4 hot dogs. Enjoy.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Proof that I am not crazy...

So, for the longest time I have loved Wheat Thins. They are by far my most favorite cracker ever. They are a staple in our house, they almost qualify as another food group. From where I am sitting right now, I can see 3 1/2 Costco-size boxes of Wheat Thins. Yum. Too bad my retainer is in right now...

For quite a while I have thought that there was a difference in taste between the Costco Wheat Thins and grocery store Wheat Thins. Everyone I know thinks I'm crazy. They tell me they can't tell the difference. For the longest time I held out and would only buy grocery store Wheat Thins because I could tell the difference.

My mom was over last week and had some Costco Wheat Thins to snack on. She asked if they were the low-fat kind. It was a blind taste-test, I swear. She told me they tasted different.

One more thing to knock off my "See, I'm not crazy list."

Or, my mom is just as crazy as me.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Steee-rike!

Yes, we went bowling. The kids had a blast. I sucked horribly. Even with the bumpers in. R rocked. Average speed for the girls' bowling balls, 3.5 mph. I couldn't believe that they had something to track the speed!


Check out her form and that action! Everytime it was P's turn to bowl, she would get up to the line and you could hear her say "Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, throw!"




Where did the ball go?





Saturday, October 18, 2008

It's Been One of Those Days...






Thursday, October 16, 2008

Endurance & Gratitude

This has been a rough week for me. I had yet another doctor's appointment where I was hoping for some good news. Yet again I was let down. It seems that I might have contracted a virus while in Mexico that somehow did something to my inner ear when I passed out. The doctor just doesn't know. Good news, no permanent damage, so hopefully the hearing loss in my right ear is only temporary. Bad news, the dizziness and tinnitus might continue on for another 6 months. I could tell the doctor was just throwing a number out there for me. He has no real way of knowing how long it will take to recover or if I will even recover completely. Yee haw. So excuse my word vomit and indulge me yet again...

Elder Robert E. Wells:

“I have been flying many kinds of aircraft for the last 30 years, both in the United States and in Latin American countries. Not too long ago when I had returned to the [United] States after an absence of some years, a very dear friend offered me the use of his new [airplane]. …


“We discussed my qualifications of being covered under his insurance policy, and it turned out that I needed a check ride with a qualified inspector as it had been some time since I had flown that particular type of plane.

“The arrangements were made, and I met the inspector at the side of the airplane at the appointed hour with my licenses from the USA, Argentina, Paraguay, and Ecuador, and logbooks showing flights in Cessna 310s across jungles, mountains, deserts, international boundaries, etc. He smiled calmly but was unimpressed and said, ‘I’ve heard about you, and I have no doubt about how much flying you have done, but I have to assume that those flights were when nothing went wrong. Now let’s fire up this bird and see how well you fly it when everything goes wrong!’


For the next hour he made everything go wrong! He simulated every emergency he could think of. He turned things off that should have been on. He turned things on that should have been off. He tried to create disorientation or panic. He really wanted to know how well I could fly when everything did go wrong! In the end he climbed out, signed my logbook, and announced, ‘You’re okay. …’

“One of the purposes of this life is to be tested, tried, and proven to see how well we will serve the Lord. The Prophet Joseph [Smith] said that we would be tested to see if we would serve and remain faithful through all hazards. We knew before we came that there would be many adverse circumstances to test us: accidents, sickness, and disease to prove us; temptations and distractions to try us; disappointments, discouragements, reverses, failures, and all kinds of situations to determine our character. …


“The question still is: How well can you fly it when everything goes wrong? How well can you live when every test, every trial, every proof of your faithfulness is exacted of you?”

I told this story Relief Society while teaching a lesson on adversity. I had forgotten about it until a few days ago while I was reviewing the last few months. I am nowhere near being out of this trial yet, but I am most definitely not in the darkest days of it, or so I assume. Let's hope not. I have been told that there will be lessons that I will gain from this experience. I am grateful that I have not had to wait until this trial was over and long gone before I could reflect and receive some insight.

During some of my hardest days, I truly questioned myself. I had huge amounts of guilt because of my inability to take care of my family, I still do. I would lay on the couch during the day thinking of everything I should have been doing. I couldn't cook. I couldn't drive. I couldn't even make it off the couch some days to let my girls play outside. Sometimes I would want to pull my hair out and tear my skin to pieces when the dizziness got out of control. It was then that I realized my illness was affecting my sanity. This has been a very trying time for me. I go. I do. I run a tight ship. I have to, it's part of who I am. This has forced me to let go of pretty much everything. All at once. Oh yeah, trials are fun. What was the other thing that I taught in that lesson? That sometimes things happen to you for no good reason at all. Nice.

I recognize that I am such a Martha (Biblical, not Stewart). Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Martha had sat down to listen to Jesus instead of prepare the meal. I'm sure some guy there (not Jesus obviously) would have been grumbling that there was no food. In my role as a mom I quite often get caught up in my Martha role because that is basically what I do each day. Clean, feed, repeat. But I forget that even though someone, sometimes, maybe even often, might have to do the dirty work, it doesn't always have to be me. My kids (and husband) are much more capable than I thought. True it might not be to my standards, but I have been learning to accept that. Ok, so I have to force myself to turn my back while R is vacuuming, but then everything is fine after that.

I recognize that it is part of who I am and that is fine. I think that one of the things I needed to learn is when to choose the better part. I have a hard time with that one. Because while I am having fun, in the back of my head I'm thinking about everything that isn't getting done. Once I was forced to drop everything for a while (quite a while to be sure), I found other things to take their place. Some more important things, some less important things. I am reassessing the priorities in my life and trying to choose the better part even if it is in 5 minute increments. But what matters most is that I have been able to release Martha's death-grip on me. Now Martha & I are just holding hands. Handcuffed to be sure, but holding hands.

So while maybe I haven't aced this flying test, I haven't failed it either. I still have a chance to show that I can do same dang good flying when there is some pretty bad turbulence ahead. So what if the oxygen masks dropped and some luggage got thrown around? No one was hurt, right? Hopefully my passengers aren't afraid to fly with me again.

The End.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Po' Man's Roca


So I made this the other night for a party we went to and by request here is the recipe! I really don't have a better name for it. It is somewhat similar to Almond Roca in flavor. Somewhat. Insomuch that there is sugar, butter, chocolate and almonds involved. The previous name was Chocolate Saltine Treat. Yummy. Doesn't that just roll off your tongue? This is super easy to make and I have no candy experience whatsoever so don't expect temperatures or any of that other technical junk.

Enjoy!
Ingredients:
2 cubes butter
1 c. sugar
1 t. vanilla
1 1/2 packages saltines
16 oz. chocolate chips (milk, semi-sweet, peanut butter, whatever!)
Nuts (almonds, cashews, walnuts, etc.)
1/4 stick butter
Line regular size jelly roll sheet with tinfoil and butter it with approximately 1/4 stick of butter. This works best if you stick it in oven for a minute or so while preheating the oven. Place saltines over entire sheet.
Melt 2 cubes of butter and add sugar, cook it until it is slightly brown. Not taupe, not caramel-colored, just slightly brown. Add vanilla.
Pour mixture over saltines and spread evenly to the edges of the sheet. Bake in oven for 5 minutes at 350*. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top and spread evenly to edges. Get creative with chip flavors if you want to. I usually mix half milk chocolate and half semi-sweet together. Sprinkle nuts on top and gently press into chocolate. Refrigerate MINIMUM 1 hour. Chop into chunks and devour. Oh and watch out for little bits of tinfoil on the bottom. It happens sometimes.

Monday, October 13, 2008

For Maggie



Sunday, October 12, 2008

Tagged

My first tag! I'm so excited. So here are the rules.


1. Link to the person who tagged you: http://accidentprone-lefthander.blogspot.com/

2. Post the rules on your blog.

3. Write six random things about yourself.

4. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Random things about me. Beware.

1. Cheese drawer - I have a drawer in my fridge that is devoted solely to all types of cheese. The occasional lunch meat might make it in there, but really it is the cheese drawer and it is full of goodness. Currently - Parmesan, Mozzarella, Cheddar, cream cheese, Gruyere, Emmental, Laughing Cow, Velveeta (I know it is cheese product, but it is SO good) and Asiago/Romano. I LUV cheese. Story - the first time I ate Brie, I cut the rind/skin off. I didn't know you were supposed to eat it. Plus it was kind of nasty looking. I'm raising my girls to not be so gauche. They know the right way to eat it and LOVE it.

2. Colonel Sanders - I have kissed Colonel Sanders, of KFC, that is. Yep the Colonel himself. And I have a photo of me puckering up. I was probably one and a half. The details are fuzzy in my head, but my dad was a manger of a KFC back in the day and for some reason I got to meet him and give him smooches.

3. Trumpet - I play the trumpet. I used to be really quite good at it too, but since having my braces off 2 years ago, I'm too paranoid to play it much. See, my trumpet mouthpiece is part of what made my teeth the nasty bucktooth mess that they were. I don't want to go back to that.

4. Alaska - I worked in Alaska in the fishing industry. I started off at a salmon cannery in between school years during college. It could only get better from there! After I graduated from college I worked in Alaska for almost an entire year in various locations. Topping this whole experience off was working on a factory/vessel in the Bering Sea during the winter. Not to be repeated.

5. I am addicted to chapstick. I am miserable without it. I have 2 in my car, 1 in the kitchen, 1 in my purse, 1 in the bathroom, 1 next to the computer and 2 in my bedroom. Oh, and 1 in my pocket. They usually migrate and will end up all in one location and none with me.

6.) My family is confusing. Sorting out the siblings is even crazier. I am the oldest of 7. Split into two different families. I'll spare you the break down, but needless to say it is confusing.

Mom's name - Susan (Suzi)
Step-mom's name - Susan
Step-dad's name - Joe
Father-in-law's name - Joe

Brother - Ryan
Step-brother - Ryan
Step-sister - Holly
Half-brother - Gavin
Half-sister - Maggie
Half-sister - Cassie

With 2 brothers named Ryan, I can't even describe how confusing it is. It was even worse when they were little!

So tag, Diana, Danielle, Jessica, Hope, Cricket, Calley. I hope you give me some good reading material!

Friday, October 10, 2008

Of Hangers and Toilet Paper

As I was doing some quick clean-up around the house the other day and making my Costco shopping list, I had an epiphany about a couple of my many quirks.

First off is toilet paper. I remember many a times growing up we would be low, really, really low on toilet paper. In a house with 6 people that creates a potential for disaster. Now, as an adult, I have found that I have to have no less than two (2!) Costco size packages of toilet paper in my house. One of them must be unopened and when the other gets below half full, I buy another package. So sometimes that makes 3 packages at home. What a freak.

Second is hangers. We also had a hanger shortage for quite a while at home. I remember sneaking into other closets at home and stealing any empty hangers and whisking them back to my closet. Where they would promptly be stolen back when empty. So now, in my kids closet I must have triple the amount of hangers that they need. As for myself, I must have two dozen empty hangers in a spare closet. We had a roommate who moved out recently and asked if we needed any extra hangers. Yes, please. I inspected the bag that she left us, there must be at least a hundred hangers in it. SCORE!

I shall never go without again.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Kids


Oh how I love my girl for the crazy, random person that she is.


Favorite number - 44 Why? We don't know. She just likes to shout it out just because.

She pretends she is a pig most of the time. And she has the craziest snort to go with it that she will rip out at the weirdest times. It is loud.




Matootie Ma Toot Toot. Yeah, that is another one of her crazy things she says, we are not sure what it means.


Her little voice. Capitllar. Blutterfly. Titty Tat, Mommy-a. Some days she sounds like she is a New Yawk native.


Her cheeks. Both sets.



Her fast pitch swing. We seriously need to get her into softball. She has the speed. She has this crazy walk where she swings her arm like a fast-pitch softball pitcher and does this hop/gallop thing. Seriously crazy.



She will give you her last M&M without even thinking about it. She is amazing when it comes to sharing. She always has been. Unfortunately her older sister has figured this out, and will use it to her advantage. If she knows she won't get caught. But my little one doesn't care. She will still give.
Sometimes when she is talking and forgets what she is saying, she'll pause, look at me and say "Mommy I looove you."
Gives the best kisses. Complete with sound effects.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

It's Over Now...



Yes, I got to go see The Phantom of the Opera this weekend. Yea for me! I adore The Phantom. This was the second time seeing it on stage, but that was over 10 years ago, so in some respect it was almost like seeing it on stage again for the first time. The only real bummer was that we made the joke before the show started that we were going to get stuck behind someone tall (nothing personal tall people, but it sucks getting stuck behind you sometimes) and guess what? We did. Fortunately for me, they had these booster cushions for vertically challenged people that were at least 6 inches thick. I still had to sit criss-cross (applesauce) and lean into the ailse to be able to see somethings. Nothing better than seeing The Phantom barefoot! The first half was good, but not great. Some people were a little flat or a little too shrill. Maybe they were ready for a break (it was the final weekend here). The second half rocked however. I was riveted and had plenty of goosebumps. And I got to see it with one of my most favorite people in the world.


My mom. Who loves it as much as I do. Which makes sense of course since I am a clone of her. I'm her own little Mini-Me.

Proof. My husband can't tell if he is talking to me or my mom when he calls me at my mom's house. Truly Freaks Him Out.

Oh, and I converted her. She now has jammies just like me! I knew she'd like them.

Lame picture (I know), it was all that whipped cream!
We went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner and had us some fabulous food. We gorged ourselves and decided to go back to the Cheesecake Factory for our cheesecake after the show. Marvellous idea! We got three kinds of cheesecake. No, we did not eat it all right then. I took some of my share home for the next day. And no I did not share it.

And the best part of all of this? My girls were gone for the weekend, so I got to sleep in LATE the next morning. And eat the rest of the cheesecake for breakfast!

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Then there was one....

...and now there are none.


Go into the light little fish...





I am not against pets. I would just like to have a pet that has a lifespan longer than a dishwasher cycle. I also don't do dead things. As in disposal and removal of them. Ask my mom. I made her come home from work one day to take care of a deceased pet. I don't like dead things. Period.

We have had aquatic frogs for the last year and a half. We raised them from the tadpole stage until they were full fledged frogs. We managed to keep two frogs (Cinderella & Juan) alive for a year and a half. Pretty good if you ask me. Well, a couple of weeks ago one of them turned into a floater. It wasn't dead, but was clearly on it's way. It would move if you forced it to, but then, well, it would float again. A couple days later the other frog did the same thing.


Have I mentioned I don't like dead things?


So someone came up with the idea to grant the frogs a final wish. We called it the "make a frog's final wish foundation." Honestly, we made that up all by ourselves. Someone took them to a nearby lake and released them into the wild for a final hurrah. I did not condone this action, but then again I didn't have to dispose of them. I feared they would clog the toilet and I was not about to bury them.


So then I said in one of my not so bright moments, stop by the pet store and get a fish to ease the pain of our children. In my head I was thinking about a beta, I think they last a fairly long time. I forgot to express that thought. Came home with 10, count them 10 goldfish. The ten cent variety. I believe they are called feeder fish. ARGH! They succumbed quickly over a period of 12 days. And guess who got to dispose of them?


One not so happy lady.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Chicken Pesto Pizza



One of our family's favorites and really easy to make. I mean, come on, it's pizza. My mom and I made homemade pesto and froze it into various size muffin tins. I pull out a regular size muffin tin chunk of pesto for this pizza. I also use a Boboli pizza crust because 1.) I haven't found a homemade pizza crust recipe that I like, and 2.) I'd probably be too lazy to make it anyway.


Ingredients


Boboli pizza crust

about 1/2 - 1 cup pesto

about 1/2 block of cream cheese

1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

3/4 cup cooked chicken, cut into strips

about 1/2 of a zucchini, thinly sliced

2 mushrooms, thinly sliced

red pepper, thinly sliced

onions, same routine

about 1/4 cup parmesan, romano or asiago cheese, finely shredded


Mix pesto and cream cheese together to your taste. We have kids, and they like it a little creamier. You can use straight pesto if you choose, but I like to add some cream cheese because it helps bind the pesto together and makes the sauce not as greasy. Layer the rest of the ingredients in order. Vegetable preference is obviously optional. I'm the only one in my family that likes onions and peppers on my pizza. Sprinkle finely shredded parmesan cheese (or whatever you have around) on top.


Enjoy!

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Like Mother, Like Daughters


Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Me and my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

First, I need to apologize for my harsh language the other day. I was having a really bad day. And I couldn't wear my jammies to make me feel even a little bit better. They were in the wash.

The day started off fine, I went to another doctor's appointment. Doctor number five to be precise. The doctor that two other doctors referred me too. The doctor that took me FOREVER to get an appointment with. But that is another story. I was excited to go see this doctor because he was a SPECIALIST'S SPECIALIST. Basically, he only dealt with problems similar to mine and a few other things. I didn't get my hopes up too high, but I was trying to be optimistic. After all he was a SPECIALIST'S SPECIALIST. (I promise I won't say it again in caps.)

So I get there, tell my story for what must have been the umpteenth time to an M.A. (Umpteenth is a number, just go look it up if you don't believe me.) Then I get to tell it again to the doctor. Redundant. Why did I tell the M.A. in the first place? But I have asked this question too many times to let it bother me yet again. So we are doing the doctor/patient thing and he's talking about all these tests he is going to do, tricks he has up his sleeves, blah, blah, blah...then he says the magic words, I'd like to do an MRI first.

Wait.

I've already had an MRI. Did they miss something? Is there something else he wants them to check out?

No.

My stupid doctor's office DIDN'T transfer my records over.

Nice.

Especially when it was the DOCTOR that told me she would have my records sent over to the new doctor. The buck stops with you lady and this is not a good sign of how you run your practice. You suck. (I'm reverting to grade-school insults.)

Did I mention how long it took me to get in to see this guy?

So, I'm trying hard to keep my cool and not explode all over this doctor. Like the Incredible Hulk. And I try to esplain (I'm leaving this typo in) to him my frustration about what a waste of time (and money) it was to come see him today, calmly. He offers a few apologies about "Medical practice red-tape, negligence, blah, blah, blah." Whatever.

It's just my life. NO big deal. I can hold on and wait for another few days. Wait, that is what this whole process has been, I can just hold on for another few days while I wait YET AGAIN because of some mistake or oversight. ARGH. Don't think that I am being irrational here. I understand it takes time to get in to see a doctor, to get test results back, answer phone messages etc, etc, etc. But the mistakes have just happened too many times over the last few months. The only way I get through each day and hold onto my sanity is based on when the next doctor's appointment is, when the lab work results come back, anticipating a phone call etc. It's like my own little Advent calender in my head. 6 days to go, pop another chocolate in my mouth, go to bed.

Did I mention they are weening me off of the medication that makes me feel better? It's only a "short-term" medication. It doesn't "solve the problem", it only "masks" it. Whatever, I felt a whole lot better on it than I do today.

So that threw my whole day into a downward spiral. I went straight to Krispy Kreme, bought some doughnuts (no numbers needed) and ate them. Then I laid on the couch and slept.

The one thing I forgot about was that a few weeks prior my husband had paid for me to get a massage. And it was that night. Let me tell you, that hour made all the difference and washed away the whole day's worth of garbage. I felt soooo good afterwards. And I came home to clean jammies.

Lessons learned: must get a massage every day. Need to buy back-up pair of jammies.

P.S. Sorry for all the cap usage. I'll do better next time.