Ask And Ye Shall Receive

SUN! I should pout to the internet more often because right after I made my mopey post the sun came out from behind the clouds for the entire day yesterday. Ava and I spent a couple of hours in the backyard (me putting together patio furniture and her digging up piles of dirt) and it was glorious. It looks like today might be shaping up the same way too. Wooo! Plus, my laptop is fixed so I can go pick it up today. Good times.

My eating habits still kind of suck. I was lucky and only gained a half a pound back during Girl Scout Cookie Week and now after week three I lost another pound so I'm down a total of 3 1/2. But overall I don't really feel like I'm eating that healthy in general (just eating less) so I sort of feel like it's undeserving. Plus, although I do my pilates and weights every night I still don't do any cardio because I simply don't have the time and that bothers me. I love how it makes me feel to work out but with taking care of Ava all day I can't fit it in. When Juliana was a baby I used to take aerobics and kickboxing at the Bartlett community center because they had a kids playroom there. I should find a place like that around here.

Blah blah blah.

Jason and I want to make a family band called the Von Gessner Family Singers. We'll be sort of like the Sound of Music but without the Nazis. And with cuter outfits. So far our set list includes "The Rainbow Connection" and "I'd Like to Visit the Moon." We kind of have to work on Juliana's attention span though. We're also thinking about getting Ava a tambourine since she loves to clap along when we sing.

We played poker on Saturday night with Billy and Heather and I totally won. For the first time ever. Now if I could only beat this girl.

I also played Jason's bass guitar this weekend. Rockin'.

Won't You Take Me to Funky Town

As in funk. As in the one I am in.

I miss the sun. We are in the middle of another series of grey days here in the cheese state. We had a glimmer of spring on Saturday for a few hours (in which Jason demolished the 50's style aluminum awning in the back yard- yay!) but now it's back to grey skies again. This type of weather makes me very unproductive and I hate that. Especially because being a stay-at-home mom I feel the obligation to be super-ultra-mega productive all the time to make up for the fact that my children do not pay me for my work (darn them!) Lately I've been spending way too much time on the computer, lolling around the house and going to bed early. I missed my dance class last night because I had a headache and a sore throat most of the afternoon and ended up turning in at 8 o'clock. The same bedtime as my five year old.

Woe, woe, woe is me.

I'm going to get my hair done this week. That always helps right?

Darn You HBO! Darn You to Heck!

I am officially in love with Big Love. As in the new tv show on HBO. At first I didn't want to get involved because that would mean an hour of my life gone again every Sunday night but the preview ad before the Sopranos last week hooked me. It's so good. (It also doesn't hurt that Bill Paxton is extremely easy on the eyes. I think I may have sucessfully filled the void that Peter Krause left when Six Feet Under went off the air.) So far I think my favorite character may be Margie, the youngest of the three wives on the show. I feel an odd affinity with her much in the way I do with Charlotte from Sex and the City. (Regardless of the fact that I have not, nor have I ever been a doe-eyed, prudish brunette.)

Cheesehead

Well, I warded off the evil cookies for a day. A whole day! Today was not as successful though. I hate being healthy. It used to be so easy! Ten years ago I would have a bagel and a diet coke for dinner and now Jason makes me dinners with things like the word gratin in it. I looooove gratin. And I miss it so. (And it's only been a week and a half!) So I lost three pounds the first week of my new get-Tracey-in-Springtime-shape regimen, which is good, but now this week I think I will be happy if I simply haven't gained it all back. Have I mentioned that I hate being healthy? I totally lied to the State of Wisconsin when I filled out my height and weight for my new driver's license last week. I don't want to be a liar! (No, I didn't tell them that I was six feet tall. That's ridiculous!) What is it with Americans that we celebrate every gathering with food? My dad and my brother came up to visit on Sunday and we went out to the neighborhood Italian place. Mmmmmm. That's my problem. I'm just too darn American.

Exercising an Ungodly Amount of Self Restraint

There are Girl Scout cookies in my house.

GIRL SCOUT COOKIES. IN MY HOUSE.

I Want a Sunday Kind of Love

The girls spent the night at Aunt Shelly's house last night which meant we could enjoy dinner out, a movie (V for Vendetta), followed by a couple of drinks and then sleeping in until 9am. I still woke up at 7 out of sheer habit but just lolled around there for a couple of hours. This morning I made myself breakfast and have been trolling around on the web while listening to the 40's station on the radio.

I haven't had a lot of motivation to blog lately. Isn't it funny how sometimes a thing you started doing for fun can end up on your to-do list?

Today looks good. The sun is shining. My Dad is driving the girls back from Rockford in a few hours. I think I'm going to take a long hot shower and have another cup of coffee.

The Power of Home Renovation

This may not look like much but it's making me sooooo happy right now. Tomorrow it will be finished!

Can't Wait!

The Sopranos.

Drool.

Dancing Queen

I started my modern dance class on Monday night! (It turns out I can't take ballet because of the time but I'm still trying to maybe work that out.) Anyway, I had mixed feelings about the class but overall I had a good time and I'm glad that I'm doing it. It's just a completely different environment from what I got used to in college: meaning people are in the class mainly for fun and not training to be professional dancers. Of course, I'm only in the class for fun as well but a part of me was yearning for the style of teaching I had back at the Dance Center. I think I took for granted just how good some of the instructors I had were. Plus, I'm totally missing the live musicians. Pop music on a cd player just can't measure up to live drumming. I guess I should have appreciated my college days more. Of course, I did have to pay thousands more dollars for that experience- or should I say I am still paying dollars for that experience. (Thank you United States government! I hear it's not quite as easy now to score student loans and grants as it used to be.)

So on the whole I am pleased. I'm taking an intermediate level class which is on the easy side but I haven't danced in three years and I want to ease myself back slowly. Plus, you can always find something to improve on. Which leads me to my next goal in self-transformation. (No, it's not to stop drinking diet soda because that's a lost cause and I've made peace with that.) Last year around this time I made a conscious decision to start eating better and working out more. I don't really make new year's diet resolutions because in January it's still cold and snowy and I like cuddling up in my house with comfort food and drink. It's always around March or so when I get the bug to get back into shape. So anyway, last year I started eating better and lost about twelve pounds which put me back at the size I was around when I was twenty and also made my drivers licencse stop lying to the State of Illinois. Well, as it turns out I finally gained about ten of that back so I'm getting back with the program again. What program? Well really I just subscribe to the eating a lot less and exercising a lot more program which always seems to work for me. Hopefully I can stay with it this time so I don't have a repeat of it again next year. I blame Jason partially for over the years turning me into such a fan of good food.

Just for the record, I tend to think that writing about food issues and weight can sound a bit annoying and girly (as in "Do I look fat in this dress?") but I need to write stuff like that down so I will follow through with it. Now that it's out there I am forced to make updates on it.

I'll Shut Up About My Birthday Now, I Promise

You have new Picture Mail!


Originally uploaded by plural.

Look! I'm all glowy!

This was taken before Jason and I went out for steak and wine. I didn't have a cake but Juli wanted to sing to me so we lit the candles at the dining room table and I blew those out.

Happy Birthday To Me

(I know that posted this last year but I just really like it.)




Chubby me on my first birthday in good old 1979. I look like I'm about to take flight with the wings on my shirt. Plus, apparently I like to watch golf.



That's one of my favorite pictures. I still have to fight the urge to eat chocolate cake like that.

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, I Need, <i>I NEED!</i>

Five things I would thoroughly enjoy on my birthday this weekend (excluding love and smooches from my family because, let's face it, I will get that already regardless of what day it is):

1.Let me sleep in until 8:30
2. Have all the laundry in the house clean and PUT AWAY.
3. Have my car washed and all the little cracker crumbs and fruit snacks vacuumed out.
4. Allow me a full, uninterrupted hour in which I will lay on the bed and read a book. I haven't read a book since the last Harry Potter came out in July and that's shameful.
5. Take me out somewhere in the evening. Anywhere. I don't really care where.


That's not too much to ask, is it? Of course if anyone wants to buy me these shoes i won't object. Oh, and I want a massage too! Can I have more than five things on my list? Darn.

Perturbed

I do love you Milwaukee, but did your local UPN affiliate really have to pre-empt the latest episode of Veronica Mars for a Bucks game? Are they seriously that good? The last time Chicago networks bumped an episode of anything for a Bulls game was back in the 90's when they were actually winning. Plus, I am seriously doubting that any of the Bucks players are anywhere near as sassy and street smart as Miss Mars. (I'm also fairly sure that none of them are cute, petite blondes either.)