New Scenery and Power Outages

Friday was super crazy. I had a dentist appointment at 8, then psychiatrist at 10:30, then hair at 1, then football game at 7. In between I was making sure my man and the little one got to all of their appointments as well as tried to do laundry and clean the house. Everything went well and was on time and everything. My hair came out super duper awesome. Peggy and I go to the same stylist. We're convinced she's a witch. Neither of us like to fuss with our hair much, and we both love "punky" colors. We also hate making decisions. This is where our Hair Witch comes in. We tell her to have fun, and she does. At the end of our appointment we have an awesome 'do that requires little upkeep and looks really good on us. No normal human could accomplish such a feat without magic, hence she's a witch. Anyway, here's my super awesome 'do:

I'm trying to get the bulk of my hair back to my natural color and grow it out. You see, I have ridiculously thick hair. Some of the thickest Hair Witch has seen/felt. It also grows really fast. And it sucks up dye. Before I cut it all off most recently, it was approximately down to my bra strap. It took 17 ounces of dye to color root-to-tip. A normal head of hair that length would require something like 8 ounces. Needless to say it gets very expensive to keep up a non-natural color. So I'm going natural... Well, almost. I figure I can have fun with my bangs and just leave the rest of my hair alone. This will also cause less damage and allow me to grow my hair out faster. Ok, enough about my super awesome hair.

Saturday started with us going to Costco. I went to the optics counter with the little one while my man started our shopping. Without going into gory details we'll just say that my man finished the shopping, checked out, and loaded the car before I was done at the optics counter. That was annoying. After unloading the car, starting another load of laundry and taking care of some other stuff around the house, I took the little one and her friend to Ulta. It's our new favorite beauty store. The dermatologist said that the little one needs to use mineral makeup, that it's the best for your skin. A day after that appointment we got a coupon for 20% your whole purchase at Ulta, and noted that they have Bare Minerals starter kits. It was meant to be! So of course we both had to get starter kits, and a bunch of other things. I spent way too much! 

Saturday evening, around 8:45, somebody rang the doorbell. I told Pepper to sit on her bed (about 10 feet from the front door) and peeked outside. I didn't recognize who it was, but we have a "No Soliciting" sign so I figured it was important. I opened the door and the guy asked if I was the owner of the house. I really don't like when people ask if I'm allowed to make decisions. I had one guy ask "is the man of the house home?" I should have shut the door in his face! Anyway, after assuring him that I own my house, he asked if my neighbors had told me what he's been doing on our street (you know like the alarm companies ask?). I told him no, and pointed to our "No soliciting" sign. He said "oh, but I'm not a solicitor." Then went to point at one of my neighbors and said "we just installed a system for them..." So I asked if it cost money "... well... um... a little bit..." I told him that is indeed soliciting and shut the door in his face! I was so proud of myself! That's the first time I've told a solicitor off! And I was so proud of Pepper, she kept her butt on her bed the WHOLE time the door was open, until I told her OK! Then I told her she was a good girl, but I kind of wished she had mauled the guy for harassing me at almost 9 o'clock in the evening!

Which reminds me of a funny anecdote about somebody trying to sell me something a while back. So this guy rings the doorbell and I open it up. He starts giving me his speech (how do you spell schpeal? shpeel? is that even a word??) about a security system (he's the one who asked if the "man of the house" was home). I tell him "I don't need a security system, I have a vicious attack dog." (totally straight faced). Pepper chose that instant to run out and start licking him. I somehow managed to keep a straight face and said "See? She's vicious!" He had no idea how to respond. It was super funny, except for the part where he wouldn't go away until I made Brady yell at him. I really should have just shut the door in his face too. But anyway, it was freaking HILARIOUS, and still makes me laugh!

Anyway, back to my weekend... 

Sunday morning my man went out fishing with his dad and buddy. I did the grocery shopping then started on his birthday desserts. We had his birthday dinner with the family, home-made fried chicken. Then dessert was (low fat) lemon-lime layer cake with from-scratch berry lavender sorbet. It was da BOMB! Oh, almost forgot to mention, my man's niece helped me decorate the cake. It turned out pretty cute with lemon and lime flavored fondant.

Sunday night, before I went to bed, I got a text from my work's automated notification system. It said that our site had no power and to check the hotline before going to work in the morning. This is not the first time our site has lost power for whatever reason. It happened previously almost three years ago. That time the hotline said site people should stay home, so I did. Around 2pm that afternoon I got an e-mail saying that if I hadn't gone to work at our town office, I had to take PTO for the day or make it up later that week. So this time when I got the same message, I went in to our town office. There was mass confusion, many people didn't show up. My boss being one of them. I had already been planning on working in town today because I am doing a special project for my in-town lead and it's a lot easier to do that when I'm next to him.

I decided to get up at my normal time of 4:30 and use my extra time (from my shorter commute) to take Pepper for a walk before work. She was incredibly happy to see me grab the leash off the hook. We walked briskly for 15 minutes. Pepper was her usual good self, even ignoring some sprinklers starting right next to us. After fielding questions from a lot of people asking what the heck was going on, and playing musical computers 'cause there aren't enough for everybody, I settled down and started work. To use a phrase from one of my college buddies, I went data mining. I ended up staying a bit late so I could get to a good stopping point. I think I did more productive work today than the entire previous three weeks combined. It felt good! I got my data whittled down from almost 400 points to 125 relevant, sort-able ones. Tomorrow I start linking data points to specific calculations. I'm actually kind of excited. I love this kind of stuff. Does that make me weird? Anyway, I think I will be working two days in town and two days at the site each week. Probably Monday and Wednesday in town so I can take Pepper for a walk before work since I have my personal trainer after work those days. Hopefully then I can walk her after work on Tuesday and Thursday and at least one long walk on the weekend. I think this should keep me focused and interested. Boredom is my enemy!

I left work around 5:30, stopped at a friend's house to drop off a check and chat for a bit, and still got home about the same time I would normally leaving at 5. I changed, grabbed a power bar, and headed to the gym. I did a mile on the treadmill before Brian came to start my torture. He turned my legs to jello. Step-ups, squats, step-step-squats, squats with weights, more step-ups, and then my arch nemesis: wall squats. The first "set" I did about 15 seconds before my feet slid out from under me. I managed to finish my 30 seconds (I convinced him that I can't do a minute yet) without stopping again. My second set I did the whole 30 seconds without stopping!!! Even after all the other leg exercises I did already! I was totally stoked. Then he wanted me to do the rowing machine. I suggested the elliptical instead. The rowing machine seems to give me a rather nasty tension headache. I started off by almost breaking his arm with the stupid handle on the elliptical. Then he kicked my butt by making me squat down and pedal really fast without moving my upper body. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to walk tomorrow...

Slight side note: I also got back on the food journal band-wagon. I'm using Fat Secret. It's free and easy. There's an app for my phone that I can just scan the package of whatever I'm eating and add it to my journal. It also has a HUGE database so most stuff is easy to add. My problem comes when I have home-cooked meals. That's where my OCD kicks in and I get frustrated at being unable to find an exact match. Then I give up on the whole journal and go back to my bad eating habits. This time I have enlisted Blonde Friend and Peggy to join me and help keep me on track. Hopefully they can remind me that the journal is a guideline and doesn't need to be perfect. Brian announced that I have my second weigh-in this Friday (he said Monday, but I want to do it in the morning). I think I'll print out my journal and bring it and see what he thinks. Anyway, wish me luck!