Maybe I'm just jelly (fish)?

Poor Diana Nyad.  It was reported on CNN this morning that she had to abandon her 4th attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida due to a storm and jellyfish stings.  I was really rooting her her, because this woman's idea of a hobby is vastly different than mine.  She's dedicated years of her life training to swim the 103-miles between the two countries.  My idea of a hobby is eating roasted peanuts at a minor league baseball game.

And while I would've been thrilled for her to finish successfully, I just gotta put this out there.  If your hobby causes you to look like this:

...perhaps it's time to find a new hobby?  Maybe?

Wardrobe malfunction(s)

On Sunday morning, after I got dressed for church/work, I looked at my reflection in the full length mirror in the guest room and groaned.  Then I spent the next several minutes trying to convince myself that the outfit I put together wasn't really all that bad.  I did this by turning to examine said outfit from several different angles, and at each one, the conversation in my head went something like this:

"It's not THAT bad?"  "It's fine?"

The skirt, blouse, short-sleeved cardigan, sandal combo was just not doing it for me, but I was running late and just had to get out of the house.

Then I got to church and someone asked me if I was expecting.  As in, expecting a baby.  As in, that outfit you're wearing makes you look pregnant.  I'm not, for the record.

Today, I wore a skirt and shirt to work, initially feeling much better about my wardrobe.  Until a coworker spied me, exhaled deeply, and said something along the lines of, "I sure am glad I'm not the only one who decided to dress down today."  Uhhhhh...I didn't?  Mean to?  Dress down?

Tomorrow, I'm wrapping my bed sheet around myself like a toga.  Probably nobody will say anything.  I'll let you know.

Big plans

I am so excited for work to be over this afternoon so I can race home, change into my P.J.'s, beat Jeremy to the recliner, and watch hours and hours of Olympic coverage.  I just love the competition, how I get nervous for the athletes even though I'm thousands of miles and a 5-hour time difference away.  My hands get sweaty, my heart races, and...

Wait, what?  Oh, really?  No kidding.  Not for 4 more years?  Where's Rio anyway?  Well.

In that case, I am so excited for work to be over this afternoon so I can race home, change into my P.J.'s, and beat Jeremy to the recliner.

The end.

I give, and give, and give.

Where have I been?  Where have I been?  I don't even know.  I'm pretty sure I was abducted by the government to participate in some super secret project of some sort.  So super secret, in fact, that my memory of said participation has been erased and replaced by memories of my normal, daily, hum-drum life. (Let's keep going with that theory.  Maybe I'll earn a knock on the door from the FBI.  Or a psychologist.  Brilliant plan.)

Here are all the things I can think of that I've done in the last two months:

- I got bit on the face by a 4-year-old at work.  That was in June.  I was traumatized.  In fact, the first thing that went through my mind was the tagline from that old television PSA:  never shake a baby.  The baby was not shaken, but my nerves were.  Punk.

-  I've been busy refining my theory about weight loss.  Here it is in its current form:  My theory is that there is a finite amount of weight in the world.  It's not evenly distributed mind you, which is why Americans some people are grossly overweight while other people are grossly underweight.  My theory further theorizes that when a big fat American looses weight, someone somewhere else in the world suddenly and without explanation gains the same amount of weight that was lost by the American.  Get it?  So if all the fat Americans would lose their extra weight, that pesky problem of starvation would be taken care of.  Want to know my favorite part of this theory?  There is NO WAY it could be conclusively disproved.  What are ya gonna do?  Gather up all the people in all the world into one room and make each of them stand of a scale while some people simultaneously exercise and diet?  I don't think so.  Also, I think The Biggest Loser has caused some starving people to be very, very surprised.  And in need of new pants.

- I spied on these people at the bar behind me as they had an awkward and semi-successful first date.  The initial meeting was uncomfortable for all involved, but they settled into some nice conversation and even went beyond happy hour drinks to have dinner.  And I'm sure someday they will tell their grandchildren about the really, really strange girl at the table behind them who, on their first date, acted like a moron who doesn't get out nearly enough.  (I call the date only semi-successful because he was wearing tall athletic socks with tennis shoes and khaki cargo shorts.  Tough, but not impossible, to overcome.)

- I've enlisted the assistance of a personal trainer for the first time in my life.  Linda is British, which I think is a nice touch.  I find her accent soothing as I huff and puff my way though even the most basic maneuvers.  She's also polite enough to stifle her giggles, which I very much appreciate.  Like today when I threw a 10-pound medicine ball to the floor, thinking it would stay there because, well, it weighs 10-pounds, but instead it bounced up and hit me right in the face.  Hard.  On the bright side, my tingling face did distract from the pain and torture of sit-ups.  So there's that.

- I've watched my husband have some harrowing encounters with nature.  The first encounter involved a spider in the bathroom.  I was in the shower, the spider was on the ceiling just out of reach.  Since dripping on the bathmat was clearly out of the question, I shrieked and bellowed summoned my husband and asked for his assistance.  The short version of this story goes that both of us squealed and one of us got bit by said spider and when I say "one of us" I more specifically mean "it wasn't me."  Briefly, there were visible fang marks.  The second encounter (you forgot there were two, didn't you) involved a small bird trapped in our screen porch.  While I'm not sure how it got stuck, it became quickly evident that there was much confusion and fluttering about, and we both (Jeremy and I, not the bird and I) became concerned that the little birdie would either die from an exploded heart or lose control of it's bowels all over the porch furniture.  In either case, clean-up would've been necessary, and ew.  So after some heated strategy sessions which contained a lot of strenuous objection and eye rolling (from the humans, not the bird), my dashing husband decided that the best and easiest way to free the bird would be to CUT THE SCREEN.  I'll pause to let you read that sentence again.  That's right.  He CUT THE SCREEN, which compromised the integrity of the screen-ness of the porch.  But the bird did escape after only a little coaxing, and we had ample opportunity to both entertain the neighbors and practice our bird call.

In summary, I've been busy the past couple of months providing material for the blogs of others.  Specifically for that 4-year-old's jaw, that skinny kid in Africa who wishes I would lay off the baked goods for the love of all things holy, for those two first daters, for Linda the Trainer, and for that birdie.  Not so much for the spider though, because, well, it's tough to blog when you're dead.