ohmygodit'sbeenforever

yesterday i added a new street to my running route in an attempt to run longer distances. here's what i noticed and was slightly astounded by...streets have smells that we become accustomed to and don't notice. on my normal run, there are some smells. there's the corner of nottingham and massengale (yep, massengale...) that smells like poop because of the sewer cap, there's the park portion of my run that smells dusty from the four baseball diamonds, there's northman that smells like fertilizer. these are smells i never thought about really, i came to expect them i guess. so yesterday i added the new road, lewisham, and the smells on it were fabulous. i actually paid attention and then had a little reflection and realized my other streets had smells too and decided lewisham's smells were much better than the usual dusty fertilizer poop smell of the rest of my route. lewisham had this piney eucalyptus fresh cut grass smell. totally refreshing.

Oatmeal.

I have a new love. Oatmeal.

When I was a kid, my parents never forced me to eat it like lots of Moms and Dads because they don't like oatmeal either, though my Dad tries to eat it for his heart health, but gives up after a couple days. We ate grits instead, which I really doubt have any nutritional value. I'll have to google that.

So my whole 26, almost 27 years, I've avoided oatmeal. I got a health screening a month or so ago and fortunately all my OCD gym attendance/food choices have paid off over the years and I'm in tip top shape in terms of cholesterol and blood pressure and such, whew! But the heart issues run in my family and we are all quickly getting old if you guys hadn't noticed, and so ALAS! I turn to oatmeal to lower my already fairly low LDL cholesterol. So for three days, I ate two bites of oatmeal and then dumped the bowl. BUT on day 4, I had a breakthrough. I started to mask my oatmeal intake by covering it with Kashi cereal, the yummy honey almond flax kind, and so that gave it crunch. Then, I removed that element and turned to cinnamon and sugar, which I can handle now. And today I added raisins. It was actually good and I ate the whole 3/4 cup which apparently is what you're supposed to eat. It took me a week to get to this point. What this means is that when I actually am OLD and actually do have terrible cholesterol from being old and the doctor suggests eating oatmeal, I'll be ready. No worries.

So here's my poll: How do you take your oatmeal?

This is similar to the how do you take your coffee question so if you'd like to throw that in there, feel free. I take mine with a splash of fat free hazelnut creamer in case you were wondering.



On a completely random note...have I been the only one in the dark about google scholar? googlescholar.com. wow.

My dog

IS A MORON!

In January, she graduated from living in her pin during the day. She's a whole year so you know, we thought her brain had grown a little. Not!

Last week, she lost all of her senses and started eating things that do not belong to her. She's been the best puppy...the best, but now is a moron.

Last Friday, I noticed she'd eaten a nice neat square out of the quilt on the bed, the really nice nautica quilt that was a wedding gift. Yea, I wanted to kill her.

Then yesterday, we noticed she ate a nice neat circle out of the couch. Not our lounging laying around couch, but the nice one in the living room that we never sit on b/c the big TV isn't in there couch. Arg!

She also succeeded in eating Daisy's bed AGAIN. She's a little monster.

Needless to say, her pin is back out and that is where she spends her days now. Moron.

a note on jeans

that'd be denim. i have a few pairs of jeans. i have my favorite pair, my feeling-a-little fat pair, going out pair, etc. last night i wore the favorite pair (explanation: comfy but not ugly) to dinner. it is now 10 am and i have to head out for some errands and such and i pull favorite pair off the floor where i dropped them last night b/c i figure i can definitely get another wear. however, slight glitch...they smell like dinner! i was sitting here checking the email and kept smelling food reminiscent of last night. apparently i like to block out the fact that i'm wearing slightly worn favorite pair and choose to believe they are clean out of the wash. so i sniffed my hair, my sweater, the shirt underneath my sweater, the chair...and then realized...favorite pair smells...like food! see, to me that's a little gross. they aren't dirty per say, just smell like i AM a restaurant. so, is this when i pull out the bottle of febreeze??? i think so.

what up

Christmas came and it went. I think I gained 8 lbs. in one day alone, that'd be on Wednesday, but today my sis and I ran a 5k. We were slow, but still beat 117 people. I think there were 300 and something people so you can do the math. 1 of the 117 was a really loud breather. I wanted to stop her and say, "If you wouldn't exhale with such force you would probably save 3.5% energy." But, I just didn't have it in me.They had fresh pineapple at the end which made me happy. And the weirdest thing ever....boxes and boxes of Papa John's pizza. Gross. After running? No thanks.

Other than that, no major events. A lot of wii playing. We now own Guitar Hero. It's funny. You have to hold your mouth just right to get all the notes. And last night was a major bowling/tennis/boxing tournament. It's been some intense training I tell you.

In other news...I ordered a gift on amazon. I love amazon. I ordered it on Dec. 6. Estimated delivery was Dec. 28. A little slow, don't you think? It is now Dec. 29 and it's still not here. I don't love amazon so much anymore. It was actually ordered from the amazon marketplace and it was a steal. Now I realize that actually the seller is a steal-er. He now has stolen 42 dollars from me and I'm mad. I emailed him...I'll be sure to keep you updated. I know you're on the edge of your seat.

HD upgrade

will & I have come into the modern age. we can now watch tv in high definition on a shiny new screen. i had no idea until now that celebrities had pores. no idea. but they do and they're gross. you know how for years you watch people on tv and they are so blurrily pretty and you think, "i wish i could be that blurry, i mean pretty..." well truth is they have pores and yellow teeth and redness around their noses. sometimes while watching, i'll just cringe from the realness. crazy! i know. i never had such a reaction before and now i know it's not because they're so pretty. it's because i couldn't see them. this is uplifting, don't you think?

2013

i've just semi-finished another paper. it's due tues. including a presentation where i stand up in front of people and blab about my study on students' gendered talk during reading conferences, which will be followed by the downing of a few beers to wash away the memory. why the need for the beer? this is the first big one of about 100 more before the really really big one which must be finished by 2013, the year that denotes me finally being finished with school. and so because it's the first of all the rest before the big big one in 2013, i'm a wreck over it. i've been a wreck over it since september and so the actual paper might be a wreck too. but you know what? i've been working on this for 2 months, so here's to having a lot of pages and a lot of words and some conclusions that might not be nearly as sound as i'd hoped they'd be. but hey, it's written, i'll print it, i'll talk about it, life won't end.
here's to all of us finishing one more semester! yipee!