I have received some of the nicest comments and e-mails about my most recent post. Thanks to every one of you for being so kind. As goofy as it might sound, I’ll be returning to those comments whenever I need a bit of a lift.
I decided to treat myself to a pedicure yesterday, and the woman in charge told me that my fingers are terrible. She also told me that I should NEVER use clippers because I’m clearly terrible with them. (She didn’t speak English very well, and Terrible was one of her more common words. I didn’t mind this at all. I AM terrible with clippers, and I’m glad someone finally put me in my place about it.) She also told me that she loves how smooth my legs are, and she thinks I’m a good mom for staying home with my kids when they were babies. (Apparently, her daughter hires a babysitter to come in while she’s at work. According to the woman at the nail place, “Stay at home? Good. Don’t stay at home? Terrible!”)
Me: Be careful there, Sister. Those are Mommy War words! Don’t you watch the TODAY show?!
Speaking of today, today I had lunch with someone I haven’t seen in 25 years, and it was delightful. I do love getting older and being more comfortable in my (terrible!) skin and being able to talk to people without staring at the floor. I also love that a half century of life has taken place (25 years for her, 25 years for me) since we saw each other, and there we sat eating black beans and rice (me) and a BLT (her) and talking as if high school was yesterday.
This weekend is my annual Yarn and Sushi Hajj. My shopping list holds one word: Fiber. I’ve been spinning on my wheel a LOT lately, and as a result, I’m all calm and happy and not losing sleep over the fact that our laundry is sort of stinking and our kitchen faucet is on the fritz.
Last week I plied this:
It was a pain to spin (very nubby, lots of vegetation that needed to be picked out), but in the end it became 360 yards of Beautiful Swan.
Tomorrow morning is my 26 minute run. (The program is slowly increasing my time until I reach 30 minutes.) I’ve decided to start shaking up my running locations, mainly because running circles around the same track every other day is starting to wear on me. Instead of driving 15 minutes west, I’m going to drive 15 minutes north.
This means instead of seeing this:
I’ll see this:
Although it will add a half mile to my morning, I’m pretty sure I’m making the right choice. (My very first 5K is in less than two weeks. After I get through it, I’ll be able to say, “I run” without making silly air quotes and rolling my eyes into the back of my head like I’m more of a Pretender than a Runner. With that said, I’ll be keeping the sticker.)
School starts on August 15th. I’m not ready. The summer has been a good one, and I’m not quite sure I can wait nine months for another. This has nothing to do with that, but: Have any of you ever purchased a Groupon thing for housecleaning services? Was it terrible? Because I’m doing my thing again, and something needs to happen. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>
My child turns 7 on August 15th. I’m not ready. Your new running locale looks fab. (I’m on steroids and feeling loosey-goosey today. Can you tell?)
I feel like I”d have to clean my house before letting someone come in and clean my house. Ridiculous, I know, but it keeps me from even looking at those Groupons.
That yarn looks like candy.
My house is generally clean…as long as you don’t look at our basement or sunroom. Those are both big fancy messes of boxes upon boxes upon bags of nonsense that need to be hauled to Goodwill.
The only way I keep it clean is by making the kids help. They clean up after themselves, dust, put away their own laundry, help load and unload the dishwasher, and a bunch of other stuff. I pretend to not notice that it isn’t perfect. Xanax helps.
We had a horrible experience with a Groupon cleaning service (they refunded our money). Every Thanksgiving we hire the Molly Maids to clean our house and it is a GREAT experience, and less than you would think.
I love running outside, and not around a track. I am so proud of you!
I am also not ready for summer to end. My big boys are going in to first grade. It’s going too fast.
When looking at your sticker, I noticed that you drive a Hyundai Tucson. I’m considering one for my next vehicle – may I ask how you feel about yours, and how long you’ve owned it? Is the mileage actually as good as they say?
Thanks in advance!
I’ve grouponed about 10 different cleaning services since January. No horrible experiences, though there have been some pretty frustrating ones. I recommend cross-checking with yelp, if that is active in your area.
All but one of the services have done a good job with the actual cleaning, but several have been pretty damned frustrating in terms of scheduling, cancellations, and no-shows.
OTOH, full price cleaning in my area runs 50-75 dollars an hour per cleaner, and I have paid a fraction of that, so I’m not really complaining.
OMG!!!!!!! I need that sticker!!!!!! I giggled out loud at work. Yep, that’s me. A big solid 0.0.
What a lovely site to run.
hi.. i have a wonderful cleaning lady.. she was my nanny and then when my boys were too old i told her i couldnt imagine life without her and she needed a new job so she started cleaning homes.. she is now pretty full.. but you may be able to use her.. she is awesome.. very very reasonable.. please let me know if you would like her number
I have not used a groupon for a cleaning lady (and sadly have heard several negative reviews by people who have — mostly scheduling troubles b/c they weren’t prepared for the onslaught of Groupon purchases). We ditched the cleaning lady in favor of piano lessons and added the bathrooms to the kids weekly chores. It worked out okay, but I miss having a clean floor twice a month.
That yarn is GORGEOUS!
Lovely new place to run. Funny to see the pile of stones. Check out this definition of my name. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairn
It was lovely to catch up! :)
Hey, RUNNER, I did my first (and second) 5k in May after starting Couch to 5k in March and ZOMG, what a great feeling. You can totes do this. Being in the crowd for the race really makes it easier. Looking forward to your victory!