There's a new man in my life. Ok, that's not true. But there is a new car that happens to be of the male persuasion. I apologize for not having any pictures of him or anything else lately. I am in a temporary state of not being able to upload any pictures. As soon as I get a new personal laptop (any week now, I promise), I will liven up the blog a little bit with photos.
Tom, TH, whatever you want to call him, was born in 2008 in Japan. He's a Subaru Outback. He's a kind of dark lead/silver color w/ black interior. He also has heated seats (I really like that about him.). Since it's still snowing in Utah these days, I've been able to make use of his all-wheel drive feature as well. He handles so well!
Tom's not quite as zippy as Pam was, nor does he have a sunroof, but he needs a lot fewer repairs, has a ton more head room in the back seat, he's HUGE (in comparison to Pam, of course.) and I haven't bottomed out of any driveways or other deep dips in the road YET. He's great. And he gets an average of 26 mpg. I love it!
Odd thing - ever since I've had him (aka last Tuesday) I now see his siblings all over the road. It's like suddenly everyone has a Subaru! Crazy.
I'll confess that Tom did not seduce me with his good looks. I was attracted to him for his more practical features. But I don't think I gave him enough credit at first. By now, I find him a bit sleek. But I still hate his new car smell. It makes me nauseous. However, that's supposed to go away, so I'm dealing with it.
All in all, I like Tom. There are always kinks to work out in new relationships, things to get used to and maybe even compromises to be made. But I think this is the beginning of something wonderful between he and I. Why, just the other day I discovered, to my delight, that Tom has an amazingly tight turning radius. It's fabulous, really! Way better than Pam's was.
I have car payments now, so that kind of sucks. And I'm still waiting for the smackdown from my car insurance. But wadda ya gonna do? Apparently cars cost money.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Odd Things I Love To Do
I like to do a lot of monotonous things that others don't like to do: things that require a lot of repetition; mindless things; things that involve some kind of rhythm. One of those things is running on treadmills. Another of them is typing. I really like it. It's soothing in a sick and twisted kind of way. A friend had this little quiz on her blog, and oh my. I got quite excited. You can click below and check it out to see how you fair with the test. I confess, I took it several times. It's kind of addictive.
79 words
79 words
Friday, March 21, 2008
Shattered
I was talking with my sister the other day. She is droning through her last few days (we hope) of pregnancy waiting for her new little boy. She already has 4 boys and a girl. They are all adorable. But, clearly, the little female is a minority. I asked my sister if she was happy to be having another boy.
For the record, she's delighted to be having a boy. Slightly detouring from that point, my sister expounded on how she thinks Clara, her daughter, will respond to the baby. We talked a bit about how she is now, with being the only girl. Clara is delightful, cute, a total ham,... Clara is many things. She can be rough and tumble and hold her own amongst her brothers. And she's definitely a girl. She insists on wearing more pink than any three year old I've ever met before. And she doesn't get it from her mother -- her mother hates pink. It's also been determined that she likes being the only girl. And She LOVES my sister. My sister is both mother and, more significantly, the only other girl in the house. Along with this hard to come by quality, however, comes certain consequences. My sister says she notices when Clara gets reprimanded for something, it shatters her completely. And I can imagine why. It is very traumatic to have your one, truly most significant and only constant female friend in the world be upset with you.
I had to smile a bit as we talked about this aspect of Clara, as I think she and I may have this in common. Poor girl. Hopefully she can grow out of it. I don't know that I can.
It's a hard thing when one has to come to terms with oneself. Sometimes my emotions get so big, they start to not fit inside and then start to leak out so that I have no choice but to admit that I have them. Very unfortunate, as I find it's so convenient to just ignore them most of the time. But when they make themselves so darn obvious, ignoring is nigh unto impossible! What's a girl to do?
Well, cry, of course.
My new personal realization: compliments are important to me. Previously, when considering the 5 languages of love, that one was always one of the lower-ranking priorities. I'd almost opted to drop it off the list completely at one point, but then thought better of it and figured all of the languages are probably beneficial to some degree. Due to recent events, it has been determined that compliments should be moved up to a higher status.
Lately, I find myself being in the lot of what I'd like to call "noncompliments." Things like: I'll not like you if you ever cut your hair short, you eat weird food, I disapprove of you when you cook with alcohol, you don't clap enough in performances, when you dress up you make me look bad, you don't vacuum enough, I can't believe you'd DARE to put your hand down the garbage disposal, you're not careful, your outfit is terrible..
I could go on, but it'll just make me sad if I do. I think Male and I have gotten to a place where he is very comfortable. So comfortable, in fact, that he has forgotten to pay attention to the fact that most of what comes out of his mouth is everything he doesn't like about me. They're probably things he was also too polite to say previously. I assume he likes me. And I think he forgets to express this because he probably assumes that I know.
Well, I do know. Despite this, I have been shattered for an entire two weeks, dizzy with all the noncompliments that are swimming around in my head. My one big friend in the world is upset with me. Often. It's some cause for concern that I have so much in common with a three year old.
For the record, she's delighted to be having a boy. Slightly detouring from that point, my sister expounded on how she thinks Clara, her daughter, will respond to the baby. We talked a bit about how she is now, with being the only girl. Clara is delightful, cute, a total ham,... Clara is many things. She can be rough and tumble and hold her own amongst her brothers. And she's definitely a girl. She insists on wearing more pink than any three year old I've ever met before. And she doesn't get it from her mother -- her mother hates pink. It's also been determined that she likes being the only girl. And She LOVES my sister. My sister is both mother and, more significantly, the only other girl in the house. Along with this hard to come by quality, however, comes certain consequences. My sister says she notices when Clara gets reprimanded for something, it shatters her completely. And I can imagine why. It is very traumatic to have your one, truly most significant and only constant female friend in the world be upset with you.
I had to smile a bit as we talked about this aspect of Clara, as I think she and I may have this in common. Poor girl. Hopefully she can grow out of it. I don't know that I can.
It's a hard thing when one has to come to terms with oneself. Sometimes my emotions get so big, they start to not fit inside and then start to leak out so that I have no choice but to admit that I have them. Very unfortunate, as I find it's so convenient to just ignore them most of the time. But when they make themselves so darn obvious, ignoring is nigh unto impossible! What's a girl to do?
Well, cry, of course.
My new personal realization: compliments are important to me. Previously, when considering the 5 languages of love, that one was always one of the lower-ranking priorities. I'd almost opted to drop it off the list completely at one point, but then thought better of it and figured all of the languages are probably beneficial to some degree. Due to recent events, it has been determined that compliments should be moved up to a higher status.
Lately, I find myself being in the lot of what I'd like to call "noncompliments." Things like: I'll not like you if you ever cut your hair short, you eat weird food, I disapprove of you when you cook with alcohol, you don't clap enough in performances, when you dress up you make me look bad, you don't vacuum enough, I can't believe you'd DARE to put your hand down the garbage disposal, you're not careful, your outfit is terrible..
I could go on, but it'll just make me sad if I do. I think Male and I have gotten to a place where he is very comfortable. So comfortable, in fact, that he has forgotten to pay attention to the fact that most of what comes out of his mouth is everything he doesn't like about me. They're probably things he was also too polite to say previously. I assume he likes me. And I think he forgets to express this because he probably assumes that I know.
Well, I do know. Despite this, I have been shattered for an entire two weeks, dizzy with all the noncompliments that are swimming around in my head. My one big friend in the world is upset with me. Often. It's some cause for concern that I have so much in common with a three year old.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
An Old Friend
How can something be nostalgic, wonderful and pathetic all at the same time? And yet it is. I ran yesterday. For the second time. In many months. I love running. I've missed it. The gym isn't nearly as fun without a run on the treadmill. I know there are few people who share this opinion. But, nonetheless, for me it is a very true statement.
I ran for the FIRST time in months a couple weeks ago. It was also a very joyous occasion. But slightly less. The pathetic part comes after the run, actually. I got off the treadmill after I had only run 2.5 miles (though it was at my normal pace, which made me very glad my hiatus hadn't made me slower). I suddenly realized... dun, dun, dun....my legs felt like jello. I was a little surprised. I used to run 3-5 miles without even thinking about it. So for that short run to do that to me was, well, a bit of a set back.
But not totally surprising. It had been MONTHS since I ran. And, of course, I have been going to the gym in the meantime. I've gotten better at the bike, the arc trainer, the stairmaster and my arms actually have identifiable bi's and tri's-- which may be a first for me. But I haven't done as much cardio as I'd been doing while I was able to run. I would frequently do cardio for over 40 minutes if I was running. In contrast, I normally kept it to 20, and SOMETIMES 30, with these other machines. What can I say? I just don't love them as much.
It seemed like a minor set back. But not the end of the world. I just needed to build my muscles and endurance back up. C'est la vie. Yeah. At the time I clearly didn't know the meaning of the term "set back". No worries. I was soon to find out as I was TOTALLY sore for the next few days, to the point that I walked like a disjointed, stiff, adolescent boy, nervously making an effort to make his awkward body move at a middle school dance. That's a wee bit embarassing.
And that wasn't the worst of it. When the soreness started to subside I went back to the gym to run again, which I learned I shouldn't have done. Because when you run like I ran, you get sore for many reasons, one of which is that exerting your muscles like that causes little tears in your muscles. I am sadly very prone to BAD tears, and succeeded in exacerbating one of the tears in my left thigh within the 1st two minutes of my 2nd attempt at a run. OW! I am so not smart sometimes.
So, two weeks later, which could also be called yestersday, I finally got my sorry butt on the treadmill and ran a slow, steady 2 miles without tears or other reasons for pain. I didn't run too much. I didn't run too fast. And today? I feel just fine. Ahhh, welcome back friend. I've missed you.
I ran for the FIRST time in months a couple weeks ago. It was also a very joyous occasion. But slightly less. The pathetic part comes after the run, actually. I got off the treadmill after I had only run 2.5 miles (though it was at my normal pace, which made me very glad my hiatus hadn't made me slower). I suddenly realized... dun, dun, dun....my legs felt like jello. I was a little surprised. I used to run 3-5 miles without even thinking about it. So for that short run to do that to me was, well, a bit of a set back.
But not totally surprising. It had been MONTHS since I ran. And, of course, I have been going to the gym in the meantime. I've gotten better at the bike, the arc trainer, the stairmaster and my arms actually have identifiable bi's and tri's-- which may be a first for me. But I haven't done as much cardio as I'd been doing while I was able to run. I would frequently do cardio for over 40 minutes if I was running. In contrast, I normally kept it to 20, and SOMETIMES 30, with these other machines. What can I say? I just don't love them as much.
It seemed like a minor set back. But not the end of the world. I just needed to build my muscles and endurance back up. C'est la vie. Yeah. At the time I clearly didn't know the meaning of the term "set back". No worries. I was soon to find out as I was TOTALLY sore for the next few days, to the point that I walked like a disjointed, stiff, adolescent boy, nervously making an effort to make his awkward body move at a middle school dance. That's a wee bit embarassing.
And that wasn't the worst of it. When the soreness started to subside I went back to the gym to run again, which I learned I shouldn't have done. Because when you run like I ran, you get sore for many reasons, one of which is that exerting your muscles like that causes little tears in your muscles. I am sadly very prone to BAD tears, and succeeded in exacerbating one of the tears in my left thigh within the 1st two minutes of my 2nd attempt at a run. OW! I am so not smart sometimes.
So, two weeks later, which could also be called yestersday, I finally got my sorry butt on the treadmill and ran a slow, steady 2 miles without tears or other reasons for pain. I didn't run too much. I didn't run too fast. And today? I feel just fine. Ahhh, welcome back friend. I've missed you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)