I just want a cool band-aid

Ya know, as most girls think, I like to think of myself as low maintenance. I don't need many material or physical things to make me happy. The following things are a sampling of things that make me happy.

1. A dog riding in a car with his head out the window.
2. Cool, fresh sheets on the bed.
3. A perfectly ripe and beautiful tomato.
4. Funny or colorful band-aids.

The last one is extremely important y'all. I get my blood drawn every time I go to the doctor (nothing scary - it's just to check my thyroid). My doctor loves tests, and because of his love of tests they take a bunch of blood. Hey, I like information, and if they've already stuck me they can take all the blood they need, leaving me with the blood I need thankyouverymuch.

The phlebotomist that usually sticks me is pretty awesome, but at the end of the transaction I feel very much cheated. She quickly put a cotton ball on the wound, and affixed it with horrible surgical tape....the tape that rips off a layer of skin.

I would dig a Hello Kitty band-aid, or perhaps some rad graphic or zebra stripes, anything is better than the cheapo cotton and tape route.

So yeah....that's really all I have to say.

Much Love for the Cowboy Caviar

Oh hi hello. You have probably visited my blog in search of Cowboy Caviar. Welcome. I am happy you are here, and hope you find the recipe as delicious as I do. I get lots of hits daily from folks just like you that googled "Cowboy Caviar," so I thought I would create a post in honor of people that dig the sort of food that I do.

If you prepare the recipe, and enjoy it, please oh please let me know by leaving a comment. It would be fun, and ever so much appreciated.

If you also like funny writing, there are two extremely true posts I am rather proud of.

Serve and Protect

and

No autographs please

Anyhoo, thanks for stopping by!

Zumba!

Oh hi hello neglected blog. In earlier posts I have documented my attempts at exercise, and to be blunt, they we epic fails.

Until now.

Because of this program I am in, I have been given a 6 month membership to Metro Parks & Recreation Facilities. When I received it, I knew this was a great opportunity, and I was not going to let it go to waste. Nosireeeebub not me.

Y'all I was never athletic. In high school I was not in any sport, other than the required gym classes. In college I took yoga. It could be safely said that I am a left-handed person in a right handed world, and boy do I have the bruises to prove it.

My name is Tina, and I am a klutz. Where are the understanding nods and hugs of encouragement?

The machines and nautilus equipment were easy enough to understand, and now I am comfortable with them. For cool up and down, I walked the elevated track surrounding the open gym, but I was still not using the opportunity I had to its fullest, and I knew it.

The exercise class.

I got a schedule and some of the offerings looked like torture to me. Body Ball Class? Uh I have enough issues with balance without having to teeter on a sphere. Crunch Craze? I think not. It sounds like my abs would hate me so bad.

But Zumba sounded like fun. So I googled it and lo and behold there were plenty of youtube entries. It looked like fun too! It didn't look like torture! It is aerobics and dance elements, all to latin or hip hop music. I just wondered if I would display some tragic white-woman boogie moves a la Elaine from Seinfeld.

Tonight I go to my third class, and I can hardly wait. I rumba, samba, and shake my bootie just like the others in my class, and I don't give a damn if I look like a fool. It is just that much fun.

Inspiration

I have been selfish with myself for a spell. That's one of the reasons (excuses) for not writing here. I don't know that selfish is the best word. I'm not really a selfish person, more like selfless to a fault, so that self care feels selfish.

I have been selfcare with myself for a spell. That's better, if you will excuse my grammar.

Today I went to the main branch of the Nashville Public Library (for serious when am I not there) to hear Ann Patchett read a short story.

Y'all she was lovely, inside and out. I loved hearing her brain on her own written page being spoken in her voice. There was laughter in the conference room, I saw people with their heads cocked like cute dogs, looking thoughfully as she spoke.

At the end, she said she was told by a professor to write about what you know. And that "what you know" could come from anywhere. She said she was a student of silence, of staring, of observing.

Hey....I'm good at that!

So I am back to my book, you know, the book that I keep damn talking about. It is to tight. The story is too wrapped in itself. I knew for a long time that I needed to loosen it up so that it could breathe. The story needs air, and I think I have figured out how to breathe life into its nostrils.

I am so glad that I went, and am thankful for the inspiration.

Blog hate

Turns out that I am the kind of blogger I hate. You know...you visit the site every now and then, because you connected in some way with the blogger. Time after time you are visited by the same stale, old post, because the blogger hasn't posted in forever. And then you are pissed. Dammit you want to be entertained. Post someting already!

Oh hi hello me.

You've seen the apologies before. I shan't bore you with one. It would be lame, and it sounds so lame in my head that I cannot force my fingers to type the necessary characters. My fingers may be developing a separate consciousness. Scary.

So I shall bring you up to date on my... well myself. I haven't been excercising, because exercising sucks and I am having a difficult time squeezing it into my schedule. I'm hopeful that will change, but I am also hopeful that I will win the powerball. So there's that.

Last week I had a "Staycation." I took a week off from work and stayed home. I think it was the very best vacation I ever had. I organized stuff, I didn't wake up to an alarm clock, I had lunch with my husband, and did lots of other stuff you just can't find the time to do when you work for da man.

But the very best thing I did was that I finally donated 10" of hair to Locks of Love. My hair was absolutely driving me nuts, so it was time. I now have a kicky short do. I will post a picture when I have one that is cute enough. There is one problem though. I seem to be suffering from something that I call "Phantom Ponytail Syndrome." 99% of the time my hair was kept in a ponytail so that it did not annoy me. I was used to brushing it out of the way whenever it was where it shouldn't have been....too used to it. I keep reaching towards the back of my neck, and there is no hair. It is so weird...as if I have lost an appendage.

So that is really all I can think of. I know ... rather boring. I seem to be in creative flux right now. I'm not really doing anything, but I think I will shortly continue working on my book, since ideas are again popping in my head.

Don't hate me. I'm really a very nice person that is rather lame at times.

The Dogs That Are Friends

There are many dogs in my neighborhood, but two certain dogs have a special place in my heart.

They are known to me as The Dogs That Are Friends. Every time I pass by their house, I look for them. I squee with joy when I see them, and am melancholy when I don't, because they are lovely.

The Dogs That Are Friends are Labs. One is golden, one is chocolate. They romp and play on the lawn, or sometimes I see them curled up in each other, making a furry ying and yang symbol. They make me so happy that I even have a song for them, but yeah that is not for your ears.

I saw them this very morning on the way to work, bouncing and running in the early sunshine. It is a good start to the day.

The Vacation at Home

I have recently put in a request for my first week of vacation for 2009. Know where I'm going? Nowhere. That's right y'all, I am staying put, and having a vacation at home.

Now in past years, there have been many trips that required my passport, there have been cruises in the Mediterranean and the Bahamas, family reunions in Florida, but there is nothing on the agenda this year, and frankly (and economically) I could not be happier.

I must also say that a lot of my vacation time was used for working vacations. Dear husband is a photographer, and we have shot weddings all over the place, even Europe. Now, I'm not complaining about getting paid to work for one day and building a trip around that, but there was always an element of stress and pressure. My vacation at home will have none of that.

So, the last week of April, I will be a homebody. I will get up naturally, rather than hearing an obnoxious alarm clock.

I will do those things I have wanted to do forever, like organize my closet. That's right closet, I will control you.

I will go to the grocery store one mid-morning during the week, and stroll around the aisles, rather than hurry through the market one night after work.

I will go out to lunch with my husband, rather than eat a nuked Lean Cuisine.

I will garden. My deck consists of weathered pots and tired soil with the last remants of last year's herbs. I will bring it back to life.

And most of all I will have the quiet enjoyment of my home. I have never had a vacation like this, and it might just be the best one ever.