7 Quick Takes

I'm behind on my photo posting, I know, I know. They will come, as soon as I rouse my lazy behind to edit the rest of them. In the meantime, here are some things:

1) This past weekend was a flurry of house projects that required the kids to "entertain themselves" (aka complain and mess shit up), back-to-school shopping, laundry, and pool time. By the end of the day Sunday, the house was a disaster. M. and I agreed that night that it was a damn good thing that it was not a "cleaning lady" week, because there is no way we could get the house in order by Tuesday morning.

Except we were all screwed up from being on vacation, and it apparently WAS a cleaning lady week. OOPS! Now she knows how we really live. So embarrassing. Also, the poor thing cleaned up so many of our messes, and we didn't even leave her a check. I feel terrible. But I'm also completely surprised that this is the first time in over 4 years that we have made this mistake. So, bright side?

2) In a growing panic over the thought of not watching a lick of football this season, M. went out and bought a new antenna to try - something designed for the military, apparently. This thing. We now have over 20 broadcasted stations on our basement TV (where we do all our evening TV watching), including FOX, NBC, CBS, and ABC. And also a bunch of crappy other stations. M. is watching a Ravens game as I type (blergh), and I'm thrilled at the prospect of actually watching The Good Wife and How I Met Your Mother in decent quality (streaming to the TV from a computer just isn't that good). He may not catch much of his beloved Badgers this year, but at least we can now watch the Super Bowl.

3) If they gave out degrees in "getting the last drop of wine out of the wine box," I would be at the top of the class.

4) I'm seeing a podiatrist right now. God, doesn't that make me seem old? I FEEL old. I even have orthotics I'm supposed to wear. That doesn't fly with cute dress shoes, though - I can't seem to fit them in my most of my existing shoes without entering severe blister territory. You don't even want to know the kinds of desperate Google searches I've been doing lately - "orthotics for heels," "orthotics for dress shoes," "dress shoes with removable inserts," "orthotic shoes," "shoes with arch support,"... it's so depressing. God I'm so old. I have plantar fasciitis, which Dr. Google told me, and then my podiatrist confirmed. Score one for Dr. Google! Anyway, it's depressing because I haven't been able to run much at all without at least 24 hours of intense pain afterward. But I think it's getting better? My mom bought me this foot stretcher thing, which seems to be helping. That's how you get rid of it, by the way (though you're always at risk for it coming back) - by stretching the crap out of your calves and feet. I can now say my left foot is LIMBER - sexy, no?

By the way, my podiatrist's name is Dr. Footer. Reminds me of how the anesthesiologist that administered my epidural when Finn was born was named Dr. Payne.

I can't even make this stuff up.

5) I did squeeze in a short jog two nights ago, and decided that this is my new favorite running song:



Macklemore & Ryan Lewis's "Can't Hold Us."

Finn introduced us to the song, and knows far more of the words than we do. It's ridiculously adorable to watch him singing it.

Lucy's favorite song right now is this one (we downloaded the clean version to our iTunes library):



Icona Pop's "I Love It" - also a super catchy, good-for-running song.

6) Tomorrow marks the end of my "Furlough Fridays." In good news for my paycheck and bad news for all my PLANS, the DoD decided to cut short the civilian furlough, from 11 days to 6. I had so many things I was going to do with that time! But also, I was feeling so broke! So this is really for the best, and I do think that I made the most of  my furlough days. Even though too much of it was spend scrubbing grout (because any grout scrubbing is too much).

Anyway, in celebration of the last furlough day (and because he's been working so hard lately), M. is taking tomorrow off, too, and we're going to spend it together. We are heading in to D.C. for lunch and a visit to the National Portrait Gallery, where my friend Jen's work is part of an exhibit - she won second place in a national portrait competition! I'm so excited to see it, and to have a grown-up day with M. while the kids are at daycare...

7) ...where they will be showing off "their" science project. And by their, I mean the one they helped with a little bit. Or a tinsy bit, as the kids are fond of saying. A study on different conditions that grow mold on bread. Mostly conceived and executed by yours truly and M., in exactly the kind of dick parent's move that I hate. But who are we kidding - when prompted for Ideas, Finn suggested some really complicated thing, as always, and Lucy studiously ignored us.  So instead, the bread mold project. And as I type, there are 9 baggies of moldy bread affixed to a piece of poster board up on my living room couch.

Ah, learning.