Saturday, July 30, 2011

Swimming

Today will no doubt be filled with packing, packing, and a little more of you know what. I would like to take intermittent breaks and go swimming even for just a few minutes at a time. We haven't swam in over a week now and I'm going through withdrawals.

We didn't even go swimming in Las Vegas last weekend even though we had plans to do so. The reason is that in the late afternoon the pool at Treasure Island is full of young guys and gals trying to hook up. They all have adult beverages that they're consuming. I'm sure that most of them urinated in the pool.

I think if we had gone swimming there even before the daily mack sessions, it would have burned while we peed for at least a week afterward. I'm serious.

I might be getting sick. Here's my symptoms: sore throat, somewhat of a stuffy nose and a headache. I'm sucking on a halls and I've taken some headache medication. I hope I start to feel better soon or I'm going to have to skip the packing. Darn.



Friday, July 29, 2011

Back to School Shopping

Yesterday I hit the stores to find some basic teacher clothing that will be my uniform for at least until November when it gets kind of chilly around here. I bought a pair of black slacks, two skirts and a shirt.

When I got home I went through my closet to see if everything still fit. I put on this one skirt that I haven't worn for awhile but I wasn't sure why because it's really cute and basic (like most things I wear) so if I wanted to I could really get a lot of use out of it.

Well, when I put my legs in it and started to pull it up it became extremely obvious why I wasn't wearing it. I couldn't get it around my ass. I even looked at the zipper to make sure it was unzipped all of the way. It was.

I waddled out to the living room to show John. He laughed. It's okay, I was laughing too.

He's the best husband in the world because I said something like, "Can you believe how small I had gotten?" He said, "Yeah, you had gotten a little too skinny." He prefers how I look now. Big ass and all.




Thursday, July 28, 2011

The Deepest Kind of Sleep

I am a deep sleeper. I mean a really, really, really deep sleeper. I'm such a deeper sleeper that I wake up still exhausted even after plenty of sleep and if I wake up during the night I'm completely confused. John has gotten used to this confusion so it doesn't phase him at all.

Last week I went to bed before he did and after about thirty minutes of snoozing I woke up thinking I was choking. I screamed out to the living room, "John!!! Help me!!" He came to the bedroom and I said, "Just you! Just you! Shut the door." He assured me that there was nobody at home except him and Kita. He also assured me that I wasn't choking. I said, "Oh. Ok." Then went back to sleep.

Last night during the middle of the night I woke up in a puddle of sweat. I was so wet with sweat that in my confused state I thought John had poured water on me. So I woke him up and asked him if he had poured water on me while I was sleeping. He calmly and sweetly said that he didn't do that. I put his had on me so he could really understand why I had made that claim. Again, he was completely cool about the whole thing even though I had made him touch my sweat. Gross.




Wednesday, July 27, 2011

My Boyfriend

Check him out ladies. Do you know who this hottie is? Bradley Cooper! I met him in Las Vegas at...


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the wax museum. I know, bummer. Isn't he so handsome? It was kind of freaky because he looked so real. If he had been real he would have been the best looking celebrity I've ever met in Las Vegas. In 2005 I met Richard Kind in the Southwest terminal at the Las Vegas airport. He was definitely nice but not quite as fine looking as Mr. Bradley Cooper.




Don't you think it would be very strange to have a replica of yourself made out of wax? If I had a wax version of myself I think I would want to be posed doing the wiggle dance.



Maryellen

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

There's Always Something

John sent me four potential rental houses (we'll be renters again for a little while-don't worry, it's a good thing for us) for us to move to. We're moving soon, but we're not sure where yet. We haven't hit panic mode yet so we're being somewhat choosy.

I decided to drive to all of these places before calling to make an appointment to have a tour. Boy that was the right thing to do. One was placed right up to Highway 60, another one was on a street that was so narrow two cars wouldn't be able to pass each other at the same time, the third one was a little too far out from the places we work but the 4th one was pretty nice.

I looked at the 4th one online again when I got home from my parade of homes. It looked pretty crappy on the inside. I don't think it's been updated since it was built. Believe me, a little updating for this place would be very good.

We found a perfect place last week and were the first ones to fill out an application. We thought all systems were a go until the property management lady called to tell me she couldn't process our application.

Here's the reason:



Apparently, Kita's mixed with something that the company thinks is aggressive. I really fought for our girl but no dice. So the search continues.




Testing

I want my comments back but I'm having trouble. Let's see if this works...



Monday, July 25, 2011

our weekend view

Ah, Vegas. We love that place. We stayed at treasure island. I now want a treasure island bed. It was like sleeping on a giant pillow.

I've never gone to Vegas and had a bad time. I just don't think it's possible to have a bad time there. My only regret from this weekend is that I didn't get my picture taken with the mini Elvis. I totally missed my chance.

Maryellen
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Thursday, July 21, 2011

barrel of monkeys

At the bottom of our sticker drawer I found these little guys. This turned out to be a very fun drawer. It was definitely better than the utensils drawer. No surprises there.

Maryellen
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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Blogs I Follow

I'm going to be removing the blogs I follow. I'm still going to be following these blogs but I'm not going to have them posted on my page anymore. So, if you come to my blog to check out one of the cool people on my list I'll give you some time to bookmark them before I take them off.



Comments

I decided to disable my comment section. If you want to email me I think you all have my email account. I have a new one I use for discounts but if you want to email me on it you can.

maryellenmaxfield@rocketmail.com



The Kitchen is Closed

We're moving soon. Very soon. So, I've been kicking it up a notch with the packing since I'll be back to work on the 3rd. The packing is going great. We're more than half way done except for the walls. Our walls are still decorated (except for the dining room) and they will be until we're ready to move.

I completely packed up our dining room on Monday and stripped the walls of art work. The result was I got pretty teary. So from then on I have left the walls alone and my tear ducts have stayed clear.

Today I packed up the kitchen. I made a bunch of burritos before I shut her down. I should have planned better and cooked something more exciting for the last meal I cooked in our kitchen like Julia Child's beef bourguignon.

Maybe I'll just have to save that meal for the first thing I cook in our next kitchen.



Thursday, July 14, 2011

My French

Have you ever said something to someone and got a laugh and then you said the same thing to someone else and got nothing? Well, apparently that's not the case with my French. I've shown off my skills twice and have gotten a laugh twice.

Last night we were watching the U.S. women play France. Inevitably I started speaking French. I said, "Oooooo Fondue...." in my best French accent. I would have continued with words like plie and pirouette but I guess all John needed was fondue because he started laughing.

If he likes my French then he'll LOVE my Chinese.




Monday, July 11, 2011

3:36 a.m. is Way Too Early

This morning I was woken up by loud thunder and Kita making her way in between John and me on the bed. She was scared by the thunder. I was happy by that because our old girl can't hear too well these days so it's great when she shows us that she hasn't completely lost her hearing.

It was also raining. Thunder and rain in the morning is one of my very favorite things especially living out here in the Sahara. However, it just happened too early. When I woke up a couple of hours later the rain had stopped. Boo to that.



Sunday, July 10, 2011

Saturday Doing Nothing...

Well, not completely nothing. In the morning I used up all but the last ten minutes of the four hours given to me to take my elementary education proficiency test. Um, I may be taking that again. It was kind of hard.

The rest of the day John and I spent at home doing things like playing Texas Hold'em. I lost. Our bets: John wants to give me another golf lesson (I lost a previous bet). I told him he didn't have to make that his bet because I would do that anyway. He said he wanted a guarantee. Probably a smart idea. My bet was for a romantic comedy that he had to watch with me without making jokes about it.

We also watched several episodes of Party Down and ordered pizza. It was really relaxing. We haven't had a Saturday like that in a long time. Last Saturday we were in Texas, the Saturday before that at a wine tasting party in a land far, far away (Peoria), the Saturday before that we were in Ruidoso and the Saturday before that my brother and his family were in town. My memory is a little foggy about any other Saturdays.

There's a free viewing of Frida's story at the Phoenix Art Museum today. John asked me if it was the one with Madonna. Aw, I love John.




Friday, July 8, 2011

A Thing

John says that I always need "a thing". Something that guides me through my day to days. I have to agree with him. Some of my things came from places like Hawaii when I came back with the Aloha spirit. I was so at peace with everything until I went back to work in triple digit temperatures and my Aloha spirit was murdered.

For many years I adopted Lee Iococca's proactive way of listing six things in a day that he needs to get done and then prioritizing them. The thinking is that if you get through all six things then you can make a new list. If you only get through one or two things then at least you've done the most important tasks of that day. I've been doing this for about six years. That thing is done.

I've even tried to do the seven habits of highly effective people. I hope my principal isn't reading this but that's a little too involved for me.

My two new things have come from the Zen Habits and Martha Beck who writes for the O magazine. From the Zen Habits I was very interested in an article about living without goals. The thinking here is that if we're so focused on certain goals then we've already pre-determined our path and it's difficult to let other experiences into our lives. Or we're so focused on achieving that we don't appreciate the experiences that get us there. Another thought is that if we don't succeed in the goals we've made then we're disappointed but if we didn't make the goal in the first place we can't be disappointed. If you would like to read the Zen Habits post you can click here.

My other new thing is Martha Beck's thoughts on what to do if you want to change the behavior of a loved one. The answer is to love them and not give a damn what happens to them. If you want to read that article you can google Martha Beck unconditional love. I tried to put the link for you but there was an error.

I think that my two new things are very much related. Both of them involve not setting expectations.

Well I'm off to do...something.


The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.-Albert Einstein




Thursday, July 7, 2011

Life Lesson Learned at Little Caeser's...

Here's the lesson: If someone holds the door for you before going into an establishment make sure you say thank you loud enough for the person to hear you. If not you will for sure be told, "you're welcome" twice in a tone that really says, "a thank you would be nice b!@ch."