I am so controversial...

I received an email about a complaint about my blog, and a link to click to view it, and blah blah blah, SPAM, so I deleted it. Because I? Am no fool. I do not clink links in ridiculous emails.

Then today I logged on to take a peek at my blog for the first time in, oh, a while, and lo and behold, a big, bold message greeted me:

We have received a DMCA complaint for your blog, So Not Zen. An email with the details of the complaint was sent to you on 11-Jan-2012 , and we reset the post status to "Draft"; you can edit it here. You may republish the post with the offending content and/or link(s) removed. If you believe that you have the rights to post this content,you can file a counter-claim with us. For more on our DMCA policy, please click here. Thank you for your prompt attention.

Wowza. Who did I piss off? I went to the deleted post, and it was a picture (from Google images) of a French bulldog with the title "Christmas Wish List No. 6" and that's pretty much it.

I had no idea frenchies were so controversial.

In other non-threatening news, today is January 12 and I have yet to break my January resolution, which is NO BIG BOX STORES. I'd love to make this a lifestyle choice, but even given our differences, the Tar-jay still calls to me on occasion. But not this month. We'll see what February holds.

I have continued my January tradition of dieting my way back down to my post-holiday level of overweight, which is my baseline overweightedness. It's hard to feel celebratory about the fact that, yay, I am dieting my ass off and now I only need to lose 15 pounds. But in comparison to the oh, hell no, reality of gaining six or seven ADDITIONAL POUNDS during the course of the holidays, I guess it's the better position to be in.

Hopefully I'll be back to my normal weight by March (15 pounds by March, that's doable, right?) when I start my running training program up again. This year I am running two half-marathons, one in May and one in June. I've got no good excuse for not running these days because our weather has been brilliant and non-wintery to the extreme, yet I haven't run since I did a 5k on Dec. 4, so six weeks ago, not one little jog. I have, however, been dancing with Tim, three hours of classes per week. We're doing West Coast swing, East Coast swing and Cha Cha. I could live without the cha cha, personally, but the swing classes are a lot of fun.

So, here I am, back to the blog, again, hoping to make it a semi-regular occurrence. I'll try not to stir up too much controversy with my cute dog posts. Peace out.

Deck The Halls.,,,

... with $1 loofahs from Walmart.

This idea? All Carlie. This photo? My new iPhone. Fa la la la la

Send help, STAT

Singing the new car blues

This is my Montero. I love this car. I know how to parallel park it like a boss downtown. I know which parking garages I am going to scrape the roof of. I know that the tires can take curbs without damage. I've driven it for ten years now. And while I love the thought of shopping and of new, I hate the idea of a learning curb.





I've needed as new car for a year now, for mechanical reasons. Repair costs at this point are more than the value of my car. But that's okay. I've lived with the rattles and chirps and occasional spazzy jerking motions when accelerating from a dead stop.





Now I have a giant crack across the windowshield. And I resigned myself to live with it, because even putting a new $350 windshield on the car at this point seems silly. That's okay. I'll drive it anyway. Last week, the interior overhead light started coming on at random times. Hit a bump, light comes on. Round a corner, light comes on. Weird. But I can live with that.





I've also been overlooking a leak on the front passenger side, and now a leak in the back door. I've learned to overlook the seatbelt problems and the fact that I get 15 mpg at best.




But this weekend, the speakers have started to die. And I am finally ready to car shop. Because I'm not driving around without a radio.





What I want in a new vehicle: small SUV, big tires, big side mirrors, headlights that turn themselves off automatically, roof rack, third row seating is a bonus but not necessity. 20 mpg or better required. Comes in red is a plus.





Tim is pushing me toward a Honda CRV. I have two friends with Subaru Foresters that they love. And my sister has a Ford Escape Hybrid which is awesome. My personal taste is running toward the Nissan Rogue or the Chevy Equinox.





What do you drive? How do you like it? Help me! I am suffering from a severe case of decision-itis, aka choice-o-phobia.

Insanity

Carlie and I are campaigning hard for a dog. Specifically, a shih poo. Because my dollhouse sized condo is not already crowded enough and covered in cat hair.

I may have finally lost my mind, for real this time.

But look at that face. Oy.

And now we're broke. The end.

Since I decided to participate in the NaNoDooDah thingy, I've been trying my best to post every night, which generally means posting from my iPhone or iPad, because I am too lazy to get out of my bed and sit at the computer by the time I remember that I was going to post something, and my laptop has somehow mysteriously gone to live in Carlie's room since I got my iPad. Anyway, I just looked back at recent posts and see how riddled with typos they are. Whoopsie.

Yeah, I know, first world problems.

Speaking of first world problems... this is Carlie at 9:40 this morning.

And this is Carlie at 11:30 this morning. Notice anything different? In her toothal region, to be specific. And yeah, toothal is not a word. I know.

Now here's me at 9:40 this morning...
And here's me at 11:30 this morning...

Let's celebrate in haiku, shall we? This week's theme: Fleeting. How appropriate.

Money comes and goes

I won't always be broke, right?

The smile is worth it

I've got absof steel buried under there somewhere

Today I did a kettlebell workout, a 30 minute session in a 150 degree sauna, and then went to a running group where we did 25 minutes of sprints followed by a core workout.

And then I died.

Nothing new to see her, move along

Today is one of my favorite days of the year. Or at least it starts as one of my favorite days of the year. Generally, it ends as one of my least favorite days of the year, but then like an insane idiot, I do it again the next year.

Craft with Carlie Day! Woot!

Since Carlie was old enough to exchange gifts with friends for Christmas, I've had her make her "friend" gifts every year. We've made some pretty cute things, like fairy houses, snowglobes, purses made from old jeans, magnet boards and I can't think of what else. This year we're going with crocheted monster hats.

She is getting her braces put on in two days, so I thought a good needlecraft project will keep her mind off of her aching teeth. Especially since she is such a low maintenance and drama free child. BWAHAHAH. not.

In other news, I recently replaced my ghetto-ass busted windshield on my car to the tune of almost $400.00. And guess what? On my drive to Boise Friday I got a rock ding. WINNING! I immediately said to Carlie, my traveling companion, I AM SO GETTING THAT FIXED FIRST THING MONDAY MORNING SO IT DOESN'T SPREAD... lesson having been learned last time (see $400 fucking windshield replacement).

One little ding. Not so bad, right? When we got up Saturday morning, everything, including my car and windshield, was encased in ice. When I got my windshield free of the ice, the "ding" had become a crack. A fucking crack that measured about five inches long. FML. As a bonus, once the car warmed up, the five inch crack spread RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES and I watched it travel from the driver's side bottom corner of the windshield all the way to the passenger side bottom corner. But it didn't go straight across. It curved upward and then down again.

And now my car has a giant frowny face on the windshield. Appropos.

Yeah, no

Spent eight hours driving today. In a car. Just me and carlie and Sirius satellite radio Hits 1, which is a station that plays the same dozen songs repeatedly.

So, yeah. Bogging, my ass.

Carlie-nomics

Gas for my behemoth vehicle to and from Boise, $300

Bazaar table fee, $25

Carlie's Gross Today, $95

Carlie's hair feathers at bazaar, $5

Carlie's new hat at bazaar, $15

Carlie's food at the bazaar, $15

Bottom Line, -$11,763 ish

But the new hat is pretty fabulous.

Sent from my iPhone.

Road Trip Fail

On The Road

Posting from my iPhone from a shithole hotel without wifi, in a shithole town halfway to Boise. Road trip, woot!

Carlie and I are joining Maggy and Iris for a crafty holiday bazaar. Banana Cream Puff goes nationwide. You can say you knew her when.

Sent from my iPhone.

Haiku Wednesday

Do it all, and well
Do more, be better, excel
Push, pull, go. Stop. Breathe.

Today's Haiku Wednesday Inspiration: Excel

Photo: istockimg.com via Google

NaNoDoMoBlo

It's Novmber and I'm going to do that crazy thing where you post every day for a month. I also agreed to participate in a fitness frenzy, doing 30 minutes of exercise every day between today and Thanksgiving.

So, yeah, hi, November, come on in and kick my ass!

Speaking of my ass, that's kind of my go-to phrase, "my ass," as in:

Carlie: I'm tired.
Me: tired, my ass. Do your homework.

Tim: I'm hungry.
Me: hungry, my ass. Dinner will be ready when it's ready.

You get the idea. Apparently this may be a southern thing, because I heard "my ass" four tines in a single episode of Treme this weekend. But I digress.

I was at a Halloween party last weekend and a couple dressed as Occupy Wall Street protesters. They were awesome with their signs and hippy garb and camping gear. I had a beer, or four, and in the course of conversation I threw out "occupy, my ass."

Yeah. I need a new go-to phrase.

The funeral that wasn't sad, unless getting really drunk makes you sad

taken at my dad's funeral, held as a private event at his favorite bar

It's hard to be sad when your weekend involves sifting cremains into a scotch bottle with a kitchen funnel, drinking scotch and beer on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico at 9 a.m., seeing friends and family that you haven't seen in years, eating the best seafood available anywhere in the world (for real) and cleaning up puke (not mine) in the car after the "funeral."

The Vieaus, it's how we roll.

Seriously?

Have you ever done that thing where you're involved in an interaction with someone, who may or may not be your husband, and that someone "gets mad" about something, but the thing that they are mad about is so fucking ridiculous that you assume they are joking, especially because the magnitude of their over exaggerated anger is so dramatic that it verges on comical; and because you think they are being funny you continue to egg it on by engaging in the same behavior that brought on said dramatically comical anger; but then eventually you realize that the whole thing is actually fucking real and OMG are you shitting me? You're upset about THAT? And then you start to think about moving into a sweet little house built for one, or maybe just living in the in-store model home inside of ikea and eating meatballs every day and changing your name and never answering your phone again, because SERIOUSLY? WE'RE FIGHTING ABOUT THIS? You have got to be shitting me.

Friends don't let friends blog drunk

I said I would do it. It’s not much, but it’s all I can do from thousands of miles away. And then I failed. I didn’t do it. Why? I don’t know. How difficult can it be, just open the emails and organize the photos for a slide presentation? Not that hard, right? Yet the emails remained unopened.

And then my sister in law, in some random act of unknown kindness, sent a one line email saying, “We’re putting the photos on a thumb drive, “ and, just like that, I’m off the hook. She didn’t know I dropped the ball, and yet she picked it up and let me off the hook.

And now that I don’t need to open the emails attachments and look at the photos, now I can. And BAM, first photo, it’s one of my parents circa 1980s and it hits me like a sucker punch to the gut and I’m floored . It’s too much and I can’t handle it. IT IS TOO MUCH. My mom has been dead since 1998. My dad just died. And I. Cannot. Handle. It.


Flash forward half an hour and I am watching crap TV with my 12 year old, texting with my sister re: the loss of brain cells and also, PS, I need to pack, because it’s almost time to go spread my dad’s ashes.

It. Is. All. Too. Much
Seriously. Fuck this.

Freebie

A question that has been on my mind... what is the coolest free thing that you've ever gotten? Not free, like a prize that you won and is supposed to be cool, but random crap that you came across and found useful.

A couple of weeks ago, I ducked into a posh Indian restaurant in downtown Portland for a quick lunch during a depo. The service was sooooo slow that I had to have them pack my lunch to go and go back to work without eating. If you know how I feel about my meals, you'll understand the gravity of going back to work without lunch. Devastation.

But they packed my food in this bpa-free bento container. And since bringing this home, it's like the most sought after item in the kitchen. I was using it during dinnertime cleanup to pack leftovers for Tim to take to work the next day, but now that school has started, Carlie is using it every morning to pack her school lunch.

A close second place would be the plastic drawstring bag that I got at a running expo in June from Brooks shoes. Perfect size, heavy duty, well made, can wear it like a backpack, one of those bags. Love. It.

So share... what random piece have crap have you lucked into?

Happy Fall - Blog Post No. 900 (yowza)

The nitty gritty crap of real life has been interfering with my ability to enjoy the good things. And there are so many good things going on that have been pushed to the back burner. The change of season is in full swing here in the Pacific Northwest, with highs in the 60s for the rest of this week. I love fall. It always makes me nostalgic with memories of high school football games and French Quarter Halloweens.

An update on my brood...

Maggy's wedding was a raging success. We danced, danced, danced all night long. Photos coming soon. Prepare to be dazzled by the incredible photography work of Amy.



Taylor is still doing his thing in Santa Barbara, glass blowing and skateboarding. He came home for a quick summer visit. That boy still cracks me up, even if he might look a little scary sometimes.

Erinna is at UW in Seattle, attending rush week. I'll go up this weekend to be with her on Bid Day, where I will capture every exciting moment of the start of her Greek life with my iPhone, much to her chagrin.

Carlie has started seventh grade with NO DRAMA (hope I didn't just jinx that). And she's not too old to go out and play in the fall leaves. Thank God.