sun and nuts

Little surprise on our back deck this morning : peanuts, some chewed up, some whole. Half a dozen or so.

No big deal really, unless you have a son with peanut allergies!!!!! Those da*n chipmunks!! We must have a neighbor who feeds them, great. The war is on, they will have to vacate our premises!! The chipmunks that is.

I'm off to bed, exhausted after a day of packing. We are flying to Florida tomorrow and now they are calling for freezing rain , lovely!!

So tune back in 2 weeks time :)

head and toes

head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes, knees and toes...
(sorry, had that silly song in my head)

Yesterday I took care of some of my body parts: head and toes actually.

In view of my upcoming trip to warmer climes, I indulged myself by booking a pedicure in order to convert my toes from the dried up winter look to a softer well-manicured summer look including a smashing blood red color for the toesies.

Now, I'm a stickler for details when I go to spa-like places. I mean, its all in the atmosphere right. that's what you're paying for. So this place is beautiful. Beautiful chairs with a sunk-in foot bath complete with massaging jets. The place smells good, essential. The lighting is nice and soothing. The girl pleasant enough (although i ended up with Rebbecca instead of Nelly, wonder whatever happened to Nelly, but anyways whatever). So my feet are happily soaking away and I'd love to get a back massage from that fancy chair while I'm at it. Press all the buttons doesn't work. Tell the girl who replies: "oh I'll get someone to look at that". So I wait. And I wait. I'm one of the quiet non-complaining ones at places like this. A while later, I mention it again: "no problem, someone is on their way". Yeah right, no one ever came. So then she leaves me there with paraffin on my feet and no massaging chair, oh well, I'll just sit back and have a snooze. I'm the only one in the place. I close my eyes and try not to think of the million things I have to do. Relax, I coerce myself. But I'm sitting next to the employees lunchroom-restroom I take it. And I can hear them coming in and out, in and out, laughing and giggling, even as bold as slamming the door. I just wanted to yell: DOn't you know its a spa here!" Ok, sit back, relax, let's concentrate on that new agey music they always play in these places. So I'm listening to it, but I also hear a rock and rolly upbeat sounds emanating from just beyond another wall, where the hair salon is. Cripes.

Anyways, all in all it was still OK and my toes do look yummy.

So while there, I figured I'd get my roots looked after. Yes, those darn white hair where showing through and there's no way I was leaving looking like that. Part of me thought of doing it at home myself but I figured, what the heck, since I'm there already lets go for the total indulgence. So my usual hairdresser (well I've only really seen her 3 times) wasn't there so I got someone else. Nice enough girl it seemed. She looked up the notes of hairdresser #1 to determined the color to use (as I went much browner the last time there). She puts the goop on. I sit there sipping a tea and getting updated on celebrities lives. Rinse it off, she goes extra slow, gives me an non-ending scalp massage. Nice. But then my radar goes up. Something is wrong. I can feel it. She's stalling for time. I can be quite intuitive that way.

Back to the chair, yep, I can see why. I no longer have roots, I have RED roots. VIOLET-RED hair. I'm trying not to cry. She's mumbling away hairdresser jargon, whatever, just fix it. So she put on some toner, left that on, and pretty much rectified it. I was in there a whole lot longer than anticipated. And I had planned to do so many other things. Rats.

But man, I'm so unlucky with hairdressers. Like the time as a teenager in the 70's when perms where all the rage. Went and had one done and my hair got fried, really fried, had to cut it off. Or this other time my hair turned green. When I moved to Ottawa, found this nice girl Tracey, followed her from salon to salon (6 in all), man these hairdressers love to move around...lots of "office politics" I guess. She eventually gave me a phone call saying she was no longer working. Bummer. Then hooked up with this effeminate Lebanese guy. Stayed with him for a few years. But he stopped listening to me. I'd go in wanting something and always left with puffy hair with lots of hairspray. Would end up going home and washing my hair. For a while, I did the home thing. The fight with the grey hair became more vicious. I did my own color for years and even went as far as cutting it myself. While pregnant, I even resorted to natural hair products. All worked well but hair was dull. I was longing to have hair like the movie stars in magazines. Then found this nice Portuguese guy who had been at his salon for 20 years or so. Phew, a stable one. Haircuts were great, got bold, went for highlights. Then went for root touch-ups. Another nightmare appointment, was there for 4 hours, urghh.

What is it with me, do I have bad hair karma? Is it our well water that does weird things? Is it my hormones/body composition? I'm generally pretty easy going with my hair, like whatever, it grows back is my philosophy. But when I pay for a service (and service industry was my livelihood when working) I expect the best treatment all around. I just want to find someone who knows what they're doing and blindly going there and getting things done. Is that too much to ask?

that mouse thing

See that little ticker in the corner? 4 days till Florida, 4 days till we hit Disney, first time ever with the kids. Last time hubby and I were there was 20 years ago, on a sweltering August Day, waiting in line trying not to collapse from heat exhaustion.

I should be ecstatic, right? Actually its stressing me out. I'm not a big fan of theme parks, or big thrill rides or cutesy Disney characters. Neither is hubby. I'm not a big fan of huge crowds. I'm dreading long line-ups. I'm dreading whiny tired hungry kids. I'm dreading having to negotiate where to go and when, in order to satisfy everyone's needs and desires while in the park. The hotel room looks pathetic for what we are paying. But its the only one we could get for a family of five on the resort itself without dishing out tons of our savings. Family of five are considered abnormal in Disney world , a family of four is normal. I just bought our entrance tickets for the 5 of us for 3 days...its a total rip-off. 9 year olds and over are considered adults. No wonder people save forever to come here. We've already spent more on 4 days here than we usually do for a whole 2 weeks away. And we haven't even arrived yet! We usually stay places where we are in control of what we eat, as in having our own little kitchen. But not here. We will be trapped in the land of the outrageously overpriced and nutritiously questionable sustenance for 4 days. And then big sis asks: "what happens if it rains while we are there?" Well, we still have to go, its already payed for. Amazing how we have to pay for everything ahead of time. What a gimmick. There's something about the whole commercialism of this whole thing that's bothering me. Who knows, maybe I'll think otherwise afterwards. But for now, I'm quite skeptical. I'm waiting for that infamous Disney magic to do its thing.

Ah well, this IS for the kids. Hope they enjoy it. I will just have to take lots of deep breaths and hope we don't loose each other. I figure our true vacation, hubby and I, will start once we are out of the reach of that little mouse with the funny ears.

joe update

Session #5 with joe. Each one so far has had a "theme" along with questions to get thought processes going. Today's theme: life style health habits...didn't fare too bad there too...write down goals (done), keep a daily journal (guess this blog counts), eat frequent smaller meals (working on that), strength train 3x/wk (more often than not), plan meals ahead (as much as I can), create a workout schedule (most of the time), sleep 8 hours a day (most nights).

Last week wasn't that great, 3 days with NO exercise and it actually bothered me and going out and having pizza and beer one night didn't help either.

My workout session wasn't that great today either. Somehow, I wasn't as strong as I usually am. P*ssed me off a tad. One week of not doing as much was a step back. He said it happens to everyone, we'll have weaker days than others. What will 2 weeks of being away to Florida do? Of course I will try to walk and bike and swim and maybe go to a gym as much as I can and consciously eat healthy, but it is a holiday after all .

And the slow progress of this all. I'm seeing this long road ahead of me and feeling a little discouraged today. A whole month of working at it, exercising, eating healthy, reading health books, putting it all on the forefront of my consciousness and that da*n scale barely moved. Da*mit. I lost weight faster with WW. Combine that to the fact that I was aiming this whole fitness routine to our Florida departure and here I am a few days away and not that much further ahead as when I started it seems.

All right, snap out of it. At least I'm doing something. Its GOT to be better than not doing anything at all. There's got to be internal changes I'm not seeing.

And now, gotta get into the packing mode. I LOVE traveling but I HATE packing. How to pick which shoes to bring, which clothes, is it too much, is it not enough. AND I have to worry about myself and 3 other human beings...hubby only worries about himself ;) All right, off to try my bathing suits and shorts, urghhhh.

tgif

Fierce snowstorm outside, tons of boring income tax paperwork to do today, really bad menstrual cramps, just want to curl up in a ball with my favorite pj's and a good book...but I have to think about getting supper ready soon, gotta go pick up the twins at preschool, bring big sis to badminton later and buy two birthday presents from the twins for yet another b day party they are going to tomorrow. So I thought I'd take a break and do something fun thanks dani and loukia)...most probably my mood today made me into Bert! Thank God my hair doesn't look like that, but then again, not that much better today...a really bad hair day :(

You Are Bert




Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you lovable - even if you don't love them!

You are usually feeling: Logical - you rarely let your emotions rule you

You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil

How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

an old new game

Usually when hubby goes away, even for a week-end, he'll feel compelled to bring something back for the kids. After having exhausted all possibilities of trinkets from airports, I've had to tell him to stop this practice. The first few times, i even got stuff from the dollar store which he "gave" them. But on his last trip, he brought something back, kinda for me:

A book on Chinese Jump Rope, by Klutz.

He said it caught his eye as he was walking past a store in the airport and he knew how much I loved playing this as a child. I was so excited to get this! Leafing through teh pages, all those moves done a gazillion million times so many years ago, came flooding back. I played this game ALL THE TIME. I was neighborhood champ. And having a mom working in a clothing manufacture, I always had quite a few sets of elastics. I played till it got dark out,every day. If we didn't have enough players, we would improvise and use a chair or a reticent grown-up or a lamppost. Talk about being in shape, pure aerobics ;)

I am so glad someone thought of immortalizing this game in a book. And with spring now in the air, I can't wait to introduce this to my girls!