tulips and poop

Remember my blog post last fall about all the bulb craziness I got involved in? yesterday I was out in the backyard surveying the dogpoop situation and noticed that the ones under my bedroom window are popping up gangbusters. Even through a last snowpile!

 

P.S. the aforementioned situation is dire. And, the ground freeze seems to have broken the lid on my doggie dooley (dog poop septic system)

taking pictures of people - hard to capture ugly ass pants and thong at work

It is hard to make it casual and unapparent that you are taking a picture of someone in a poor outfit choice. Particularly at work. Like this morning – I was in a business meeting and a girl was giving the presentation:

She was wearing a cheap acrylic boucle’ cropped sweater in chocolate brown and then white sweatpant material pants (the top of these was like those yoga pants (wide band) and the bottoms were hemmed straight legs), clearly with a thong, and then heavy, ugly, cheap, brown shoes.  – overall these pants were the aberration to her outfit. They were 1) inappropriate to the season, being clearly summer pants 2) inappropriate in a business meeting, being sweatpant material 3) incongruous with the rest of the outfit, being all cheap, heavy, ugly and brown.

 

To top this horrible outfit off, in the 15 minutes she talked, she used “umm” 37 times. I kept a tally in my notebook. I would like to pull her aside tonight and give her this “feedback”. I know that this wouldn’t be taken well – when is “feedback” ever taken well? – and I want to do it only out of malice for her ugly ass pants.

Should I?

 

class rings on non high school students

What is your stance on high school class rings on people not currently in high school?

 

To me it is so blatantly odd, I wonder, is it some secret indication to others?

in a bad mood

for the past day or so I have been in a bad mood.
Contributing factors:
1) it was my 6th week in a row traveling and my 9th week traveling this year. (note, we have only had 11 weeks this year)
2) I discovered my crush from afar is gay.
3) For some reason I am feeling unfunny and uncharming. This can either be because I am in a bad mood or a cause of the bad mood, I don't know.
4) some less than competant people at work have been making more work for me. I can't figure out how to mentor them into competant. This makes me feel incompetant.
5) the IRS sent me a mysterious letter that just says I owe them (no amount or reference information) and that unless I call within 5 days of receipt (post marked 2-29, so I am already screwed) they will garnish my wages. I am utterly confused and I hate this sort of stuff.
6) I spent 45 minutes on the phone today trying to get through to said IRS, but no luck. I still don't know what is wrong. I don't owe any money.... gnnnrr.

Okay, we established I am in a bad mood, what can be done to remove said bad mood?
What I would normally do:
1) hang out with friends, complain and laugh hysterically
- this is complicated by numbers 1 and 3. I am out of town and I feel unfun. This means I am too tired, too far away and reluctant to actually do anything.
2) buy something
- I don't seem to want to. And number 5 is freaking me out about money.
3) do my favorite Saturday activity to perk me up - take dogs hiking for a long time, and then get coffee at my favorite yarn store.
- the issue here is that there is still soooo much ice covered snow on the ground in Madison that hiking is sort of out. I tried last weekend and I slipped all over the place. I ended up having to slowly move along and one dog pulled something in his leg on the ice. I like to work up a good head on the trail, so it doesn't sound like fun to try to skate along.

So, my question to you is, what do you do to get yourself out of a bad mood?

Days 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15

The rest of the carb limiting went fine. I stopped posting because I couldn't deal with posting such boring material. I like to come to my blog and read it and laugh. I am so funny and cute. Ah, not those posts. super boring.
There were some close calls, like deep fat fried cheese curds, cheese and bacon covered french fries, and a hangover day where I went to the grocery store with a hangover. well, honestly, I was still drunk. Shopping while hungry gets a lot of press, but believe me, you don't make good choices when hungover/drunk either.

I noticed some patterns. Excellent for avoiding bad situations:
1) breading on deep fat fried things - my number 1 culprit of carbs. I though that my biggest problem was sweets. I don't crave salty things. I do love me some cookies/donuts/pastries, but you can really avoid them. You just stay away from bakeries and that entire section of the grocery store. But, for some reason breading sneaks in on me regularly. I debread some on my plate, but the breading is so delicious... it breaks me down.
Lesson here: If I want to be good to myself, deep fried things are a bigger enemy than sweets. Particularly because I usually feel bad after eating sweets, but don't feel bad after mozzarella sticks.
2) I have to count and keep track all day. Going with a gut feel is no good. All the things with 1 and 2 carbs, seem so inconsequential, but there you are at 3pm, you are feeling great about your day, but like 10 of your day's carbs are gone! -
Lesson here: I lie to myself. having to write everything down kept me honest.
3) I found my daily carb posting necessary, but felt that you, my audience, must be getting bored. I just didn't have enough carb funniness. not my fault. carbs (or the lack of them) just aren't common comedic material.
Lesson here: perhaps I will start a completely separate blog or just email someone, or do the Stickk.com thing to keep me honest and
4) I lost 5 pounds over the 15 days. This is pretty good since my physical activity was pretty much: trotting through airports, two dog training sessions and one Irish dance class. not triathalon training, that is for sure.
Lesson here: I should keep doing this.
5) I don't seem to want to eat carbs when I can and I do when I can't - for instance, I allowed myself to eat whatever carbs I wanted on day 12 since I knew I was doing a special dinner thing that night. Turns out, I didn't even want anything bad all morning. I happened to be full. However, right now (yes, I am still doing it) I just spent 10 minutes thinking about a Mrs. Field's cookie with a mountain of frosting on it. If I walked over there, I wouldn't even get it.
Lesson here: have allocated carb freedom time each week. This will allow me to eat things that are driving me nuts, or at least tell myself the rest of the week that I will have it during the off time, but I likely won't even eat it then.

Overall, it was a success. In addition to proving to myself that I can do it, I lost some weight and got myself back into the swing of it. I always notice a marked improvement in energy/attitude when I stay far away from sugar and white flour, and this time is no different.