Let the countdown begin. . .

Now that the Michalski adventure is over and my rage has subsided, my thoughts turn to sand between my toes, blended tropical drinks and floating in the blue ocean.  Vacation will officially start at 06:00 am on Saturday morning and hopefully the Jamaican air traffic controllers will settle their strike, and all the bad weather will move out of Dallas before then.

I have all the bathing suits / flip flops / sundresses I need and now just have to think about what / how to pack it all.  D on the other hand has only bought one set of board shorts and already wants to return them so he may just be sans clothing.

Sorry, I promise I'll stop talking about Jamaica soon...

In other news, I have been babysitting my nephew a TON lately, and on Sunday we took a morning trip to the BioPark.  It was a beautiful day. See below:

 

 

 

Lucky Numbers

So if you didn't already know...I kinda have a thing for the number 22.  Who knows if it's because my brain is trained to look for it, or if the universe aligns to give me little signs that things are good, but I see 22 everywhere.  I catch the time at :22 after the hour at least 4 times a day, and usually catch 11:11 once a day.  I often get receipts where the total ends in .22 cents.  (By the way I just looked at the clock and it's 11:21 right now-- my brain is right on time -- now it's 11:22).  Of course my birthday is on the 22nd also, and last night I started reading "Bel Canto" (thanks JD) and in the first few pages it states how the main character's bday is also October 22...so of course I'll finish the book because I know it is meant to be.  When I see 22 I feel at ease and like things are meant to be.  When I started at PRN, JD and HM started on the same day as me and they share the same birthday of October 11, which adds up to my birthday October 22.  Anyways, I could go on and on and on, but my point is that I like these auspicious dates / numbers / coincidences.

Here are some interesting facts my dad forwarded to me about 2011:

1. This year, July has 5 Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.  This happens only every 823 years.
2. This year has quite a few unusual dates:  1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11, 11/11/11
3. Now the craziest one of all:  Take the last two digits of the year in which you were born - now add
   the age you will be this year, the results will be 111 for everyone in whole world (unless you were born after 2000, then it will add up to 11)

Lets just let that soak in for a little bit...
 

:)

perspectivity

So my house is overrun with Michalski men right now...and how am I feeling?  (well lets just say I'm feeling lots of things but not gonna lay it all out on the table right now -- but you can make the safe assumption that they aren't positive emotions).  I really like being around family and encourage David to spend time and be supportive of his family, but I REALLY value my quiet time, personal space, and the ease of my lifestyle.  Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Anyways, while they went to watch Thor, I went grocery shopping (lately it feels like retail therapy since I've been nuts about cooking for myself) and got some perspective on the big wide world.  The world is not propelled through space by Michalskis, it's safe to assume that nobody at the store has the last name "Michalski,"  there are far more serious problems in this world than those in the Michalski clan.

Things at the store that reminded me I'm still on planet Earth and not on planet M:  the guy behind me in line didn't use any bags for his produce and brought his own box to take the groceries home, what an eco-conscious human being...I was embarrassed of my 15+ plastic bags.  There was a lady with one leg hobbling around the parking lot asking for money.  I said I didn't have cash and she didn't even bother finishing her sob story, she just headed to the next person in the lot.  As I got into my car I saw people walking the long way to their cars just to avoid her and even though it may be safe to assume she lost her leg to something drug related, the sun had just set and I felt terrible that here she is, probably feeling as shitty, depressed and low as anyone could ever feel, and she is not going home to eat dinner or sleep in a bed and does not have a houseful of family members waiting for her.  Nobody deserves to feel like that.

Anyways, so I came home humbled by my store excursion (by the way it felt great to drive in a car ALL ALONE for the first time in days) and made some EatingWell.com Chicken Noodle Soup.  I cooked and rocked out til the boys came back home, and I feel a little better than I did before they left.  I'm just gonna quietly keep to myself for the rest of the night and let them talk / dramatize amongst themselves.

(for some reason blogger won't upload the pics of my soup -- i think the Michalskis are hogging the bandwidth with their cpus -- so instead I'm uploading pics of my beautiful dogs who make me happy and keep me sane)

Tomorrow I'm having lunch with a friend who is leaving to the Army on Tuesday and bc I'm a HUGE wuss, I know I'm gonna tear up.  So much stuff all going on at once!  I'm soooo mentally exhausted and feel like tomorrow's goodbye will just be the icing on the emotional cake.  sigh.  Please Jesus, let me wake up tomorrow morning to discover it is May 28 / time to fly to Jamaica, and that I can leave and avoid this last week in Michalski limbo.  :)

family bo bamily

Today is a nice little break from the 'Michalski Family Extravaganza" which will be in full swing by tomorrow.  D's dad and his girlfriend arrived from New Hampshire on Sunday night and we mingled, ate, entertained, chatted, and then they headed out to Northern NM for a little road trip.  They will be back tomorrow and D's brother, sister-in-law and niece will fly in from Virginia late in the evening. 

It's not often that this family has all of its members together and only maybe once a year do all of D's brothers meet up, so it will definitely be an extravaganza.  It's also the first time that D's niece has been to NM and met all the extended family.  It'll be busy busy busy.  They all have a lot to catch up on, and  I will be behind the scenes making sure everyone sleeps well, has clean towels, is fed, and has transportation.  :)

It will be interesting to see how we balance going back and forth between D's mom and dad and making sure that no one is being neglected and that everyone gets to visit enough.  I'm very thankful that my parents have a relationship of tolerance and that we can all have parties and have fun even though my parents are divorced (my mom's patience has a lot to do with how well we all get along).  D's parents aren't quite as friendly towards eachother as mine are and it makes for a lot of running back and forth between the two.  I know there is a lot of history and drama and emotions involved, so it's much safer to keep them separated, but I have a very 'Full House' wish that we could all just be one big happy family.  I know I can't control how all the Michalskis will get along, but at least I can do my best to make sure everyone is having a good time in their own respective places.

Someday when I have my own family, I will do everything in my absolute power to make sure we all stay together and get along and so my kids don't have to worry about splitting holidays with both parents, or inviting divorced parents to the same function.  It's no fun and it's too much stress for kids to deal with, even when they are 27 years old.

Ahhhh family, a blessing and a curse.

Favorite Things April 2011 - Better Late Than Never :)

well sheesh!  The months just fly by don't they?  March just came and went with no favorites at all (I was too busy being lazy) and here we are in the first week in May and what have I been up to?  Well, online shopping, tv watching, Royal Wedding obsessing :), planting, dieting, p90x sweating, babysitting, and preparing for D's family to come in town for his brother's graduation party (more on that later).  Yowzer.

1.  AeroBed.  Yes.  David and I have sealed our pact with adulthood by buying our very first air mattress.  Now people can stay the night and enjoy the sensation of sleeping on a giant soft life raft.  I did some online research and actually looked for airbed alternatives for a while to avoid the noxious off gassing, but nothing was as easy to store or set up as the ol airbed option.  We got AeroBed at Costco for like $110 and set it up in the living room so it could "air" out (heheh) and after only a few hours that nasty pvc smell was pretty much gone.  That day was two weeks ago (or was it three?) and AeroBed has been inflated in the living room ever since.  I'm giving it a "very extended test run," and have been very pleased with the results.  It's seriously sooooooo addicting to just lay three or four feet in front of the tv, with all these blankets and pillows, and the laptop, and snacks, etc.  On the weekend nights, I even sleep on it.  I leave the windows open to let the cool breeze in, I snuggle under the comforter, and sleep like a baby.....on an air mattress.  I HIGHLY suggest buying one, even if you don't have guests.  (Our guests will be here for two weeks starting on Saturday, and I'm not looking forward to giving up my living room nesting spot).

ours is all beige, but has the same headboard which is good at keeping the pillows on the bed

2.  Helpful "gotta lose weight" websites.  On MyFitnessPal.com you enter your weight, age, goals, lifestyle, activity level, etc. and it tells you how many calories you burn on an average day and subtracts a healthy amount so you have a deficit and will lose weight.  Everyday you enter in the food you ate (using the huge database of stored nutritional info that has everything from Carl's Jr. to Amy's frozen dinners to Cheerios -- and if they don't have it, you can add to their database using the info on the back of your food) and it gives you a breakdown of how many grams of carbs, protein, fat, etc. that you have left in your allotted totals.  It's been very helpful.  It also helps me pay better attention to what I'm eating (getting the most nutrition and energy from my meals without overeating, consuming empty calories, or losing my balanced diet) and has made me more aware of serving sizes and calorie intake. (Now when I watch man vs. food I feel sick). It's like the facebook of health and nutrition, but I choose to ignore the 'social aspect' part of the site, and just use it to keep track of my stuff.  And it acts as my conscience too.  I still cheat on Saturdays and eat out -- even though i try to make good choices and limit my servings -- so I don't log in during the weekends and I always have an email waiting for me "Rebecca hasn't logged in for two days"... but i ignore, I don't want to make myself super crazy : /

The other one is EatingWell.com.  Also known for it's food magazine, the website has a zillion recipes organized according to whatever kind of diet you are on.  Low-cal, gluten free, vegan, vegetarian, diabetic, low-carbs, etc. You can login in, browse through the recipe collections and 'add' them to your recipe box for later reference. I've been SUPER good at making multiple meals throughout the week and I love that it tells you all the nutritional information right there so you don't make a meal and find out it's gonna fatten you up.  ANDDDDD all of the nutritional information for these recipes is on MyFitnessPal.com so I just need to say, yes, I had one serving of chicken tikka masala, and it already knows how many cals, carbs, protein, etc.  THANK YOU INTERNET.  ANNNDDDD maybe it's not so much dieting as it is eating ideal healthy balanced fresh food, because I feel full most of the day and have good energy, and go to bed feeling like the weigh in won't be successful the next morning...but it almost always is!

 3.  Sunset magazine.  I have been reading the same three issues that I stole from D's mom's house a year ago and still love them.  Yesterday I picked up the new May issue and flipping through it has convinced me to just pay for a year's subscription.  It's soooooo pretty and interesting.  It gives me all these yearnings to go explore all the beautiful places in the Southwest, and at the same time makes me want to beautify my home and DIY.  It will seriously spark some good ideas, no matter what your interests are.  Plus, I feel like all of the vacations, projects, and businesses / products they plug are fairly within my income bracket and there aren't just ad-ridden pages showing me stuff out of my reach (like many magazines, I think).  I feel like it's a real magazine for real people. 

4.  Pinterest.  Talk about an overload of ideas!  This website lets you make collages / idea boards based on products / art / ideas / fashion / recipes / diy / furniture / music / travel / funny pictures that other people have 'pinned.'  Every member contributes ideas and then shares them with the online community.  I haven't really taken the time to create my own board yet (I would be there all day), but I did spend like 2hrs at work one day looking at the 2,000 pictures from YoungHouseLove.com's board.  AND you can browse all you want, but if you want to become a member and pin things, you have to "Request an Invite" and it took two or three weeks before I was officially "invited."   that's ok, the wait was totally worth it because I'M IN LOVE.

5.  Pirate Booty.  I'm probably the last person on earth to discover this yummy snack, and I love it!  mmmmm it's like a bag full of airy light white cheddar Cheetos and you can eat almost half the big bag and not kill your diet.  I like to eat them when I just need to put something in my mouth and get some flavor, snacky snack.  And David, Luka and Lola love them as well :)

Editor's Note:  I also love spring flowers, warm days, cool breezes, little babies, pregnant ladies, whole wheat crust pizzas from Bricklight Dive, my mommy, my baby boy nephew, 30 Rock, a glass of red wine at the end of the night, spring planting, the smell of hose water, shopping at CostPlus, royal weddings, etc.

Okay, that's all I can really think of right now.  I gotta clean the house up and down, in and out before D's dad and girlfriend come to stay with us tomorrow...I'm already behind : /

Countdown to JAMAICA!

I make a point not to talk about Jamaica on a daily basis because I don't want to bore those around me / make them jealous ;) but I DO pretty much think about it every minute of everyday.  Examples:

-- "Oh, I'm not taking a lunch, AND I'm staying two hours late?  But you will enjoy your lunch AND leave one minute early?  Sure thing, sucker.  I'm gonna be on the beach in 25 days and you'll still be here being a little *******."

-- "Hmmmmm.....do I really need a bathing suit for everyday we are there????  Should I really be spending money on new underwear that nobody is gonna see?  Am I becoming addicted online shopping because of this trip?  What if none of these clothes fit and then I end up having to wear my old boring clothes and everyone looks cuter than me?"

-- "I hate the wind.  When is it gonna stop already?  Jamaica will be my zero wind paradise and I will sit on the beach, just as I sit in this cubicle."

-- "How many pounds can I lose in 9 weeks?  7 weeks? 6 weeks?  3.5 weeks?  Will I make my goal?  Am I being realistic?  Am I going to gain it all back after one meal in Jamaica and after countless weeks of dieting?"

-- "What if I could take my dogs to Jamaica?  Would they ever want to come back home?"

-- "Should I get a spray tan before I go?  Just so I don't blind everyone with my whiteness?"

-- My mantra while Dave's family is in town:  "This will fly by, everything will be fine, and even if it's not....I'M GOING TO JAMAICA AFTERWARDS."


Anyways, when I envision this dream vacation, this is what I see:

Now all I need is some nice cheap sunglasses :)