Max stayed home from school for the second day in a row due to the latest upper respiratory excitement making the rounds. Khai’s got the nose-goo again and I’m holding steady with a sore throat and some chills… maybe by tomorrow we can pretend to be back to normal.

At this very moment, the boys are upstairs playing with Aunt Jenn while I am simultaneously planning dinner, tweaking a Wordpress 2.0 install on another site, thinking about friends, bouncing to something trancy and making a mental grocery list.

Yesterday, I heard something that reminded me of a girl I went to high school with. I’d not heard anything about her in years, so I Googled her and ended up at Dia Webb dot net. It turns out that she won the Miss Oklahoma pageant several years ago and went on to place in the top 10 in the Miss USA competition. She looks almost the same as she did waaaay back then. If you have any preconceived notions of beauty queens, Dia would surely put those to rest– she was just goofy, and always up for random fun. Her first car was an old limousine, and she drove us all over the place in that thing. Wow, that was like 15 years ago… I shouldn’t be old enough to say things like that. In any case, Dia’s voice was spectacular even then– her rendition of O Holy Night still holds strong in my memory. I need to drop her an email. There’s my nostalgia trip for the day– good times, people… good times.

Look! Detailed instructions for a hula hoop of the DIY variety. The boys and I are going to make some tomorrow… because, you know, we can. Everybody needs at least one. D00d. There are hula hoop workout regimes! Who knew? (ha! Jenny, that’s for you)

[It has now been like five hours since I started writing this post. Y’know, dinner, bathtime, bedtime, bedtime again, bedtime try #3, final bedtime: actual sleep, etc.]

For some reason, this photo by Ariel completely made my day– Ravers live!

The Big List of Oscar Nominations came out today and after perusing it, I realized that I’ve seen exactly TWO of the nominated movies. Two– Crash and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I didn’t even see those in the theater. I have some catching up to do…. there are several movies on the list that I really want to see. Maybe it’s time to break down and join Netflix?

And now, from the WTF department, I introduce Amazon’s latest plea for attention: THE PLOG. Whaaaa? I pulled up Amazon.com, and there it was– my Plog. What’s a Plog? A personalized web log, of course! I have notes from people who I’ve bought things from previously, because of course I might want to buy more! How convenient. Eww. It feels cheap & dirty. I need a bath.

I want coffee. I’m stuck here. If you lived next door, I’d bribe you with homemade brownies so you’d come over and watch a movie with me. Instead I’m going to play with Wordpress til my eyes go blurry, then I’ll do some yoga and go to bed.

I think I need to get out of the house more, and I definitely need more chocolate. MmMm. Chocolate.

p.s. RLR, I have a gallon-size ziploc bag just for YOU!

For the second time today, I’ve just lost a lengthy post. IT MAKES ME ANGRY.

The side of my thumb likes to hit the trackpad on my laptop, sending the cursor off to some unknown place. In my failure to notice this, I keep typing away, eventually hitting the space bar and sending my browser back several steps. The result? The loss of all of my current text.

It kinda makes me want to throw things.

Josh had 38 hours at home with us before heading back to Tulsa. He was able to help his aunt out with some family business, and while I’m glad for that, I really miss my husband. To say that he’s my best friend is a vast understatement– it’s like part of myself is missing when he’s not around. I need him home for at least a full weekend… I’m selfish that way.

I wasted a few hours this weekend playing a flickr tag game called fastr. I should have been sleeping. I did score in the top 5 for several rounds, though!

You know of my dome obsession, right? This Polish radio facility could be easily adjusted to fit my concrete dome community needs. Shiny! I’ll build mine somewhere in Colorado.

I typed this in notepad. Notepad NEVER fails me. Never!

He’s home. :)
I’m happy.

The boys are playing happily with Playdough, so I’ve been scouring the internets, pulling up page after page in search of The Dress.

My thoughts at this point are: I’m too picky. Sizes are random and pointless. I’m still drawn mostly to black dresses. I’m cheap– so often the designs I like have big names, but I refuse to pay the big bucks.

Where do you shop? Jenny suggested Newport News (I liked this dress) and I’ve tried a few other sites that I stumbled across. I’m open to more ideas if you’ve got ‘em!

What brands/designers do you like? I used to love almost everything by Max Studio, but lately it’s hit-or-miss (though I LOVE this dress). BCBG and bebe usually have things I like, but the price tags are prohibitive. I’m drooling over this Nicole Miller (actual website), and am actually considering bidding on this vintage-style Nicole Miller dress on eBay. I kind of liked this Generra dress, too. My taste is too expensive.

Being tall makes it tough to find things that really fit, but beyond that, I’m just truly picky. I don’t like most of what’s out there, and what I do like is pricey. The end result is that I have very few things in my closet that I love, and I’m not sure I actually have anything at all that I feel good in. Now *that* is a whole self-image rant unto itself.

Help? Suggestions? Websites? Stores? Labels? Designers? Lotto numbers?

p.s. There seems to be a severe shortage of SLEEVES out there. I’m going to freeze. Even searching the sale pages for fall/winter clothes, I’m finding halter dresses, spaghetti straps, and topless ensembles. Um?

Really, I’m not obsessing over this. Much.

I’ve forgotten how to shop. My ‘little’ brother is getting married two weeks from tomorrow, and I don’t yet know what I’m wearing to the wedding. Granted, shopping with my boys makes things difficult, but even beyond that, I’m just kind of lost.

Once upon a time, I actually enjoyed shopping– now it’s become something to dread. Part of the problem is that I don’t find age-appropriate clothes very often; things are either much too young or look like they belong in an octogenarian’s closet. Also, most of the clothes I actually do like are in black. I like black. A lot. But isn’t wearing black to a wedding considered taboo?

It’s not a big deal. It’s a DRESS. How hard can it be to find something that fits me? Liking it and having it look good would be a nice bonus. One can hope.

My sweet boy Max is going to be the ring bearer, and has proclaimed himself to be the most handsome boy EVER. The evidence:

Has it really been a week since I last wrote anything here? I’ve been distracted by the team of SuperFriends who came to stay with us. There was an abundance of laughing, talking and coffee, about four hours of combined sleep over as many days, and it was wonderful.

This morning I can’t seem to get warm. I’m shivering, despite two shirts and a jacket… more hot coffee is necessary. Also, I slept with wet hair so my head is covered in these huge, bouncy, frizzy curls that seem to ignore gravity. The craziness could probably be tamed with hair gel, but after the near-illegal amounts I put in my hair for the 90’s party on Saturday night, I don’t want to touch the stuff. This, oh best beloved, is what hats were made to disguise.

Periodically, someone asks me what I enjoy doing or what makes me happy. Jenny posed the question this weekend, and once again, I’m disappointed to find that my list of answers is short. Too short. Not only that, but I had to think MUCH too hard to find answers beyond the usual family-friends-art-books-music. It’s something to work on.

What do you enjoy doing? What makes you happy?

This wave of gratefulness I’m riding is still going strong. I’m still wondering what I did to deserve such wonderful people in my life.

Randomness:

• I miss Josh.
• BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. omg.
• today’s craving: macaroni and cheese (which I fake very well)
• there’s been no yoga since Thursday, my stiff body now reminds me
• today’s song-in-the-back-of-my-head: The Rolling Stones’ She’s A Rainbow
• lavender lotion!

Yesterday was such a good day… I was in a great mood because my house was clean, all of it at the same time, and I didn’t have to do it. Today? My kids shredded styrofoam into little pellets all over the formerly clean living room and kitchen floors. I was putting laundry away and talking on the phone–five minutes. I think lava shooting from my eyesockets might have been more pleasant than discovering that little surprise.

Also? Styrofoam pellets stick to everything. Everything. The furniture, clothes, even the tv. I’M SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW.

While I have been known to gripe about these early-morning trips to the airport, in reality, I’m glad to have just one more half-hour with Josh before he’s gone for another week. His Tulsa contract should have less than a month to go… I’m hopeful that afterwards he’ll have a week or so at home before he’s off to other strange and far-off places.

Today, for the very first time in my life, I paid someone to clean my house. Josh thinks I’m a nutjob because I spent a good amount of time yesterday clearing away clutter and organizing things– because you can’t clean if there are papers, toys, loose change and random junk strewn about, right? Especially if you don’t know where to put it all. So yeah, I cleaned before the cleaning people came.

There were three people here, and in under an hour and a half, they had the place *sparkling* — it would have taken me three days to get that amount of work done! Of course, they didn’t have kids climbing on them and saying, “mommy-mommy-mommy-mommy” the entire time.

While they were cleaning, the boys and I were holed up in their room reading books together. What a strange (but good) feeling. I don’t think I could justify making it a regular thing, but it was well worth the money this time.

On Saturday I had a cinnamon dulce soy latte from Starbucks. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since… they’re addictive. It’s like a cinnamon roll! That you drink! With caffeine! MmMmMMmm.

The house is clean, so now I can focus on all of the other things that I need to get done. Well, I can *try* to focus. We’ll see how that goes.

Jon puts it so nicely: “Until you stop seeing the sex, and start seeing human beings trying to figure it out, just like you, we’ll never move forward.”

It’s hard for me to understand why people are so threatened by that which is different from themselves. Tolerance is a good thing. Really.

This resistor ring was featured on PopGadget earlier this week, and I don’t care how geeky it is, I want one.

While still in Santa Fe, I got a $60 pair of Gap jeans on sale for $10. They not only fit, but they are really, really long. SO long, in fact, that I have to roll them up if I don’t have shoes on– otherwise I walk all over them. That makes me SO HAPPY. Hey Rachel, if I send you some $$$, will you go get me another pair? Maybe two more? I’ll have my people call your people. Disclaimer: I don’t find jeans like this on sale here in Texas– but in Santa Fe, the long jeans are really cheap because the population is shorter. I’m not making that up, swear to Bob. If I were making it up, the jeans would magically stay clean forever and ever.

A couple of days ago, Khai was rummaging through the cassette tapes in the car before I got him buckled into his car seat. He put Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever into the deck– I didn’t even remember that we had that tape. I’d forgotten that it’s good road-trip music. Of course, now we’re listening to Wee Sing Dinosaurs… not exactly my top choice. I have to admit that the lyrics running through my head today have been, “Deinonychus! Deinonychus! With his terrible claw!”

Friday is quickly becoming my favorite day of the week. Josh flies home *and* Battlestar Galactica is on. (/fangirl)

I’m inexplicably tired. Hmm, I could do more laundry or I could go to bed early. Tough choice.

Why yes, I *do* lead an exciting life!