Almost better than Christmas (almost)

IT'S MARCH MADNESS Y'ALL!!!

After Christmas, March Madness is my favorite time of the year. I try my best to not schedule a darn thing for the weekends so I can sit and watch nearly 12 hours worth of basketball games. It drives my husband NUTS because I get loud and scream and yell and curse and throw my destroyed bracket in the air when a team I have in the Elite 8 loses but OMG SO MUCH FUN!

I have a dinner to go to Saturday night but I plan on watching as much basketball as possible. Ideally, I watch the games on the little tv's at the gym so I work out extra long but my gym doesn't get any of the 4 channels that games are on. WTF. I should quit that gym.

For posterity and so I can't claim that I totally guessed every single game correctly, here is my Final 4:

Kentucky

Ohio St.

Missouri

Kansas

Championship Game:

Kentucky

Ohio St.

Champion:

Kentucky 

Check back with me in two weeks and I'm sure I will be singing a different tune about March Madness. I think last year I threatened to never fill out another bracket as long as I live. This is serious folks.

 

Child Safety beat Me

I had the pleasure of taking care of my two nieces on Saturday while their parents were either working or playing basketball. We had a picnic at a park, we played on the playground, I drove a train to Chicago and then to Arizona, I explained to the oldest one that we couldn't play hide-and-go-seek because hiding would require her to be out of view which wouldn't make me a very responsible babysitter.

I dropped one off at rehearsal and walked with the little one to get frozen yogurt which we shared. If she had it her way, it would have been all hers but she was up against me and Michelle doesn't share food! She is lucky I broke the rules for her. We picked the oldest one up and we drove home. It was quite a successful day.

But I did face two opponents. One I conquered. The other kicked my behind. The opponents weren't children or animals or a challenging slide at one of the two parks we visited. Oh no. Those things are a cake walk compared to what I faced.

The first opponent was the bottom buckle on a car seat. I could not figure out, for the life of me, how to buckle that damn thing. I saw that the two buckles had puzzle-like pieces. It should have been easy but it wasn't. The oldest child tried to help while the youngest was getting pretty pissed that I couldn't figure out how to buckle it. Their mom was playing basketball in the background but my pride wouldn't allow me to call to her for help. "You are capable, Michelle. You CAN buckle this car seat." And I did. After about 4 minutes which is entirely too long to figure out something simple. I paid close attention for I knew that I would have to buckle it again soon.

 Next up was this damn umbrella stroller. It defeated me. I'm not proud of that. Not at all. I actually consider it one of the greatest failures of my life. I couldn't fold up a lightweight umbrella stroller. I'll say it again: I couldn't fold up an umbrella stroller. What did I do? After calling my sister for help (it didn't help), I threw the stroller in the trunk. I don't know how I fit it in there but I did and if anyone in the parking lot was watching me, I'm sure they were laughing. Probably calling CPS about an unfit parent they saw in the parking lot. "She couldn't fold up an umbrella stroller! Please stop her from caring for those children!"

 

I was defeated. And sweaty. But overall, I considered the day to be successful. As I drove them back home to a mother who can buckle a car seat and collapse a stroller with her eyes closed, I listened as oldest niece served as a teacher to youngest niece, asking her to help find hidden items in a book. All my failures washed away as I listened to their teamwork. I'm a lucky Aunt.

Friday Happenings

1. I took some personal time this morning so I could go to the gym at 6:00 a.m. I really need to get back on the morning workout train during the week so today was the day that it started.

2. This week I have been eating so much freaking candy that I found myself angry, ragey, irritable and on edge 4 days in a row. I yelled at a freight train yesterday. For real. I am cutting back significantly even though it is going to be really hard since I'm probably dependent on sugar now.

3. It is such a beautiful day today. I'm wearing a dress and love the feel of the sun on my face. Next week it will finally look like winter (one week from Spring) with cloudy, rainy, cold weather which I normally like but man, that sun feels GOOOOOD.

4. I watched two episodes of Project Runway this morning. Aside from all of the Jersey Shore people, doesn't Kenley have the most annoying voice/face on the television? If you look closely during judging, you will see her standing with bad posture, hands on hips, facial expression turned to TOTALLY BORED mode, etc in the background. I'm sure production has told her to just stand straight and face forward but she is incapable of following instructions. Instructions like, "Stop making the same damn dress over and over and over again."

5. Back to #3. You know what I will miss when warm weather comes our way? Cuddles with kitty. During the winter, she loves sitting and sleeping in our laps when we are sitting on the couch or at the computer but when it gets warm outside, she needs her space. Maybe I'll keep the house really cold so she will always want to cuddle with us. It is so sweet.

6. I'm still formulating my "Where I Stand" post and deciding if I should write it or not. I need to keep it simple. I tend to get wordy but I just want to simply say how I feel without delving into too much detail and risk being picked apart.

I hope everyone has a great Friday and a wonderful weekend!

Biting my tongue/sitting on my hands

The past few days have been tough for me. I have read things online that have made me shake my head, roll my eyes and click "unsubscribe" on Facebook. I enjoy the diversity of people that I have in my social media circles. I enjoy reading different opinions and thoughts but I also have a line. That line has been crossed a few too many times so I must take action to stop myself from going CRAZY. I wish I could take a deep breath and move on but if people put themselves out there to be judged, I judge. Maybe that is wrong. I don't know. But isn't that the point of status updates? To share your thoughts, reasons and feelings? And isn't that the point of the comment box, to agree or disagree?

I have been formulating a post entitled "Where I Stand" and I have been putting my thoughts together on how I can write my thoughts, my feelings, my opinions with intelligence. People might not agree and that is okay. People might comment that I suck. That is okay. But I have this space that is mine and I've always been pretty honest with what is going on in my life and in my head. Why stop now?

Why? I'll tell you why.

The climate of our world is insane. If you aren't with us, you are against us. If you dare speak up against a popular opinion/movement/event, you are stupid, racist, misogynistic, horrible, anti-woman, anti-man, anti-child, anti-fun, anti-forward thinking. I'm coming into my own on several thoughts both politically and socially. There are issues that I feel are not political issues and I wish the politicians, all of them, would STFU and stop talking about them.

So I sit on my hands and I bite my tongue and I feel the Type A personality boiling inside of me, waiting to get out. Waiting to say my piece and have a voice. But I don't want to shake things up and I don't really want to be attacked, especially on Facebook. For some reason, I feel like my space here on my blog is safer even though it is not locked down like my Facebook page.

I worry about people calling me those names I listed above even though in my heart, I know I am a good person. A great person, even. My beliefs don't make me bad. They make me ME. And I should share my beliefs in the hope that someone will read them and say "hey, I feel that way too and I'm glad I'm not alone."

Kitty washes her hands

Such good manners

Vacation PTSD

I'm sure I talked about vacation PTSD last year when I had to cancel and reschedule and replan our trip to New York and Washington D.C. due to my husband's work schedule.

The effects are still with me. Our vacation went perfectly but we did lose a little bit of money on airline tickets and broadway tickets. I thought I learned my lesson to be careful when you book vacations, never chose the scary NON-REFUNDABLE option and review everything before purchasing.

Last night, on a whim, I decided to research how much a trip to Kauai would cost. Did I say on a whim? That is a lie. It was prompted by a picture my mom posted from her hotel room in Lanai. It was gorgeous and breathtaking and awesome. It was Hawaii. And while our trip to San Diego was already in the books (at least the hotel), I was curious.

Bottom line: We are going to Kauai in June. It all happened so fast. There wasn't a huge (big but not huge) price difference between three nights at the Hotel Del Coronado, flight and car and four nights in Kauai, flight and car. We've never been to Kauai but I've always wanted to go. And we seem to make a habit of going to Hawaii every other year: 2008 for our honeymoon, 2010 for the Ironman, 2012 for why the heck not?

After I stared at the screen for a good 10 minutes, switched hotels to save a couple hundred dollars and signed up for trip protection, I hit "book" and instantly felt sick to my stomach. Once again, this trip will be at the end of on my husband's 16 hours a day/7 days a week work cycles. Our trip is 8 weeks after it starts and while I've been told it "won't go that long" I feel like I am going to throw up just thinking about cutting it close like we did last year. Because I heard that last year and it didn't end up so well.

You think I would learn. I need someone to hold my hair back for the next three months because seriously....vomit.


Here, I'll use this to distract myself.

Vegas: On the Strip

Las Vegas is just a big piece of eye candy. During the day, it is just big buildings but at night it really comes to life. Sadly, I don't have too many pictures (or none at all) of The Strip when it is really dark out but dusk provided me some great shots.

I had a great time walking around, sipping on a drink and taking pictures throughout the weekend.

The fountains at Caesar's Palace

Inside of The Bellagio. All decorated for Chinese New Year. Very beautiful!

 

Eiffel Tower

Bellagio. Waiting for the fountain show. I love how when the music starts and the water shoots up, nearly everyone on the strip (either side of the street) just stops and watches. 

Playing with my camera.

 

While editing my photos, I lost quite a few of them and I'm bummed. Note to self: Always drag into another folder before editing. I was editing straight from the card so I have no original copies. DUMB MICHELLE.