StinkyLemsky: A Child of the 80s Grows Up

All Hallows Eve

My ever so glamorous plan for this evening involves battling notoriously hellacious Halloween rush-hour traffic, running four miles while watching Charmed on DVD (season 5), and then heading home to crack open a bottle of wine, cook a pot of chili, and pass out candy to the twelve or so children that show up on our front porch. What? You don't watch Charmed while you exercise? Well, my friends, you are missing out. First of all, it's brainless excitement - while all the cells in your body are screaming out for relief from the pace, you can ignore them to ponder more important questions like, "Since when does lingerie count as wardrobe?" and "Could Rose McGowen actually be a worse actress?" and, my personal favorite, "They turned Phoebe into a mermaid? What?!"

Next thing you know, your run (okay, jog, let's be honest) is finished and you weren't even bored once. Priceless.

Right now, unfortunately, I am not headed home via early Halloween related dismissal. Oh no, I am not. I am actually cursing the stupidity of people who respond to an email asking you to answer a question that was the sole reason you sent the email in the first place. It is the single most frustrating thing that happens in my workday and I always have to check my reply to make sure it's not too obviously demeaning. Like, "See answer below in original message. Duh." Or even the classic 90s sarcastic response of, "from the department of the obvious..." Yeah, not so much appropriate for the workplace, right?

Tomorrow night, Mitch and I will be downtown for the hockey game, so if you're watching the Blues on tv and a blonde girl gets knocked upside the head with a hockey puck while holding a cold adult beverage, it might possibly be the writer of this blog. Just sayin'. We actually made a hotel reservation so we can both partake in all the benefits offered by seats with free catering - that's right - a waitress comes to our seat offering free drinks  and snacks (hot dogs, brats, popcorn, and pretzels... oh my). We'll be walking to the game and stumbling home from it, good times!

I also feel obligated to add a post script to my previous entry - don't worry Stacey, I don't think there's a Michael Buble christmas album, but he did have 4 bonus Christmas songs on a CD once, so I am assuming they're available on iTunes. Is November first too early to bust out the Christmas carols?

I totally spelled maschistic right on the first try

Well, the game was... not so good. Yes, as Pryor made his ill-fated throw towards the endzone in the final seconds of the game, we watched with bated breath from the parking lot right outside the 'shoe. And we knew, seconds before the rest of the television-viewing audience, that the throw would not be successful. We were literally within a few hundred yards of the stadium and the roars of despair from the crowd reached us before the five-seconds-delayed broadcast could. Sigh. There's always next season, right? 

Honestly, I really enjoyed the tailgate anyway. There's nothing quite like being surrounded by hundreds of thousands of die-hard fans, all rooting for a victory. And also nothing quite like the air of defeat after a loss. That's the very nature of being a fan, I guess. You have to take the good with the bad. 

In other news, school has officially swallowed me whole. I have 4 major projects due before the end of the semester and my study plan tells me I should be spending five hours on homework today. During work. Shhh - it's our little secret, right? Oh, and also our little secret? The fact that I haven't done even ONE hour of homework yet today. My study plan is an unforgiving masochistic jerk if you ask me. Though, that judgement should have no bearing whatsoever on your perceptions of the study guide creator because that person may or may not be the person writing this blog entry right now.

As far as the job hunt goes, I've had some great leads (big thanks to Stacey for one recommendation!) but nothing's panned out quite yet. I really don't have much energy to focus on searching right now (see above, re: crushing homework load) so I'm hoping I'll be able to find something after the holidays before my big fat cubicle eviction notice in February or March.

Speaking of the holidays... I loooove Christmas time! Last year we were so busy with the wedding that everything kind of got pushed to the sidelines and forgotten, but I have no intention of letting that happen again this year! Right now I'm trying to decide when I should pull out the Christmas decorations (especially our tree). We're hosting a baby shower (which, in our family means HUGE party, complete with keg and tons of food) for a cousin (okay, she's not actually my cousin by blood or law or anything like that, but she's part of the family that we have adopted as our own and therefore just as important as a cousin, if not more so because we actually chooose to love her and her family and lavish her with presents and I fully intend to rub her belly, so there) the day after Thanksgiving. We're going to have quite a few people in our house that day and I think putting up a tree or two might cramp the space and may be better used for drinking! and presents! and mingling! and food! Gah! Am so excited! It's enough to make a girl purchase 17 "Christmas Spice" wallflowers and pull out the chafing dishes right this insant!

I'm refraining myself like a lady, don't worry.

Until this weekend, at the very least, at which point I fully intend on purchasing Michael Buble's Christmas songs online. And maybe a baby gift or two. Because I'm practical like that.

Just in case you were wondering...

This is what the seat looks like when it's not empty.

 

Seriously, when did my cute little baby nephew grow up to be so big?! Maybe someday I'll write a post about the day he was born. We didn't know if my sister was having a boy or a girl and it was so much fun to find out in the waiting room - her husband walked out with a video camera and told us & we cheered and cried and celebrated. Hmm, I'm not so sure the other new mommies appreciated that, as it was after midnight at the time.

This is turning out to be a quiet, slow Friday. I'm looking at my post-it note of things to accomplish today and it's quite sparse. (And only 30% of it is work related). Sparse is a good thing though because today, after work, Mitch and I are going to Ohio! We're so excited; it's been way too long since we made a trip back. Nearly all of his family lives in Ohio and we always have so much fun when we go visit. I love hanging out with his friends from high school and college - they are a riot! They even introduced me to a new drinking game which I solemnly vow to avoid playing more than 1 round of because it is bad news. Although, most of his friends have had children within the last year, so they may  be a little more tame this time around.

Yeah. Riiiight.

Mitch and I are even taking the day off work on Monday (though I still need to be back in time for school that night). Oh, fyi, I only have eleven classes left! Eleven! I can not wait until this semester is over, it's been one of the most difficult of the whole program; culminating in what is guaranteed to be my most difficult group project - hands-down. Seriously, this project is so difficult it's giving me nightmares. And I wish I was joking.

I won't be worrying about school tomorrow, oh no. Not tomorrow. It's going to be one of the biggest Buckeye games of the season and we'll be tailgating in Columbus to celebrate. Please think of me when you're in your nice cozy homes & I'm freezing my hiney off in a parking lot and trying to gauge exactly how much alcohol I can handle at a time. Let's just say day-drinking has never been a strong suit of mine. I pretty much have a five hour time limit and once I open that first beer I had better be thinking of a place to crash - or else. That doesn't exactly lend itself to the "kegs and eggs" atmostphere of a Buckeye tailgate, now does it?

So, if you're in Columbus tomorrow and you see a girl drinking a diet sunkist at noon, please don't give her too much trouble - she's just trying to avoid embarassing herself (until dusk at the very least).

Usually there's just an empty diet sunkist bottle floating around back there...

Here's eomething I'm not used to seeing in the backseat of my car...

   

Yes, that's right. My nephew's car seat is currently residing in my good ol' Saturn LS 2000. Such a trusty vehicle, I'm telling you. I happen to really dislike the color of the interior (I'm more of gray / black interior fan, myself. Or leather if I really had the luxurious choice. Though it's not so luxurious when you scald the back of your thighs in the summer...). Anyway, the reason I'm driving around town with a carseat in tow is because I've been taking my nephew to preschool while my brother in law is out of town on business.

Good times. I'm actually going to miss the chance to spend the morning with him when it's gone - we've been having fun hanging out in the car together; playing a Diego matching game while we wait for the school to open. It won't be too long before he's a teenager &  embarassed to have a conversation with his dorky aunt, much less give me a big 'monster hug' and a kiss goodbye.

Why can't they stay little forever?

Portrait of Boredom... or... Great Use of My College Degree

I wasn’t sure if I’d have something to post today. It was a relatively quiet weekend for us… okay, maybe not quiet, but definitely typical in terms of weekend activities. Which, in our household consists of a combination of the following ingredients: drinks with friends, errands, gym time, hangover recovery, Buckeye football watching, household chores / maintenance, and Tivo watching. The percentage of each activity varies weekend to weekend, but that’s the basic plan in a nutshell. Although, atypically, we’ll be in Columbus, Ohio next weekend, and though we don’t have tickets to the incredibly anticipated football game versus Penn State, we will be tailgating. There will also be copious amounts of adult beverages. And resulting taxi rides because nobody wants to volunteer to DD on Homecoming weekend, that’s for sure.

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 Where was I? Oh, yes, my lack of something blog-worthy to post today. Well, a few minutes ago I finished a project that was so monumentous, so exciting, so awe-inspiring, I just had to share it with you.

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Yep, I finished my flip chart masterpiece!! I think it’s quite impressive. As you can see I have zero artistic creativity even when expressing myself through markers, so I think that should tell you something about my ‘type A’ personality, shouldn’t it? It took me a little bit longer to finish than I had anticipated – mainly because the black marker decided to die and did not automatically regenerate itself no matter how many days I left it sitting there with the cap on. Sheesh. Cheap-o markers. But, my friends, I persevered. I trudged on. I battled my procrastination (which applies itself liberally to all workplace activities, be they artistic, homework, or actual-honest-to-goodness-employment related tasks), and I finished.

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Now what am I supposed to do for the rest of the week?

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(p.s. As a side note - do any of you use typepad? Can you please explain to me why / how to convert line breaks? I finally gave up on this post and just entered the 's as placeholders because I was getting gray hairs from the ordeal. I've tried my old strategy (going to the html tab and entering </br>) but even that doesn't work with this new version. Help! Um, Please?)

Project Runway Spoiler and Severe Ramblings Enclosed (proceed with caution)

Would you like some onomatopoeia-type descriptions of the last three days in la casa StinkyLemsky? Cough, cough. Ah choo. Ehhh. Cough, cough. “I think I have a fever, waaaah.” Translation? I've officially come down with whatever is ‘going around’ these days and I’ve been miserable since Wednesday. Coincidentally, I still came to work that day (take THAT, mean lady at the office!), though I stayed home yesterday.

A quick side note… I had NO idea that onomatopoeia was spelled that way. I thought it was closer to ‘onomonopia’ because that is exactly how I pronounce it in my head. I hate it when I find out I’ve been mispronouncing a word for years. Though- it could be argued that there's not much use for the verbal pronunciation of onomatopoeia anyway, but that's hardly the point.

So, yes, I took a sick day yesterday. I suppose I could have come into work, but I did have a slight fever and I really don’t see the point in spreading around my germs (because not everyone at work deserves my symptoms), and it’s not like I have piles of important, crucial, life-altering work to take care of anyway. Instead, I was a big lump and sat on the couch all day – tivo-ing shows to my heart's content and enjoying commercial-free entertainment all day. I watched two re-runs of Gilmore Girls (though I’ve seen every one and my family owns seasons 1-6 on DVD), several baby shows on TLC (I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it), two episodes of the DCC, making the squad 3 (that’s the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders for those of you without my penchant for bad reality TV), and I even set aside some time for an episode of 90210 (this season’s, not 1990s).

Which, let me take a moment to talk about 90210. Are you watching it? Katie convinced me to give it a try (after I persuaded her to watch Gossip Girl and she became addicted I suppose it was only fair of her to pass on another obsession in return) and I do enjoy the brainless entertainment. But, and I should say BUT, I do have a problem with a few key elements of the show. (1) The main character, Annie, is entirely TOO thin. Painfully thin. Nicole-Ritchie-a-few-years-ago-thin. The-Olsen-sisters-plus-ten-pounds-thin. Now, I’m sure she’s just eating nicotine for lunch and that’s not one of the nation's recommended four food groups, so that could have something to do with her lithe physique. But I’m just sayin’. (2) Have the actors on this show ever met brothers and sisters? Because their portrayal of Annie & her brother’s (Duncan?) relationship is laughable at best. Full House may have been able to pull off the cheesy-music-loving-sister act, but come on, this is a little ridiculous. I know I don’t have any brothers, but I confirmed with Katie (who grew up with my husband as a twin brother so has some experience in the matter) that my theory is correct. We decided it was just so unrealistic we would have to outright ignore it (much the same way every plot of Gossip Girl is so unbelievably, laughably, ridiculously exaggerated and at times happliy defying the laws of time, physics, and nature). You don't question reality in some television shows - it keeps everyone happy. Don't even get me started on Grey's Anatomy. Gah.

Speaking of television’s guilty pleasures… am I the only one who was incredibly disappointed with this season of Project Runway?

(spoiler alert)

Leanne?!?!  REALLY?! I thought Korto was the obvious winner – her collection was unique, cohesive, and incredibly well constructed. And, yes, I wouldn't have been able to write that sentence without the help of Tim Gunn’s jargon because I have no idea what I’m talking about when it comes to fashion (which every single member of my family can confirm). However, please tell me I’m not alone in this… Please? After seeing three pieces of Leanne’s collection I started to get déjà vu because everything looked exactly like the piece before it. I know, I know, she was “inspired by waves,” and the “architecture” of her “pieces” was flawless, okay. Fine. But, STILL. Korto’s clothing was amazing. And, Kenley. Oh, my. Kenley. I’m sure there are some people out there who would applaud her style and technique, especially since her pieces supposedly resembled those of other famous designers; but, wow – I thought most of her line looked like it belonged in the 80s. This may again be a glaring example of why I’m not employed in the fashion industry, who knows. It did irritate me a bit that they wouldn’t cut her some slack, “So and so did the whole painted fabric thing a few years ago…”  Really? Because painting on fabric can only be done once in the history of fashion?

However, that doesn't make me a fan of Kenleys's line. No, no, no, it does not. But, with a few lessons in personality and manners, she may have received better compliments from the judges all around. We'll never know.

Still though... LEANNE??

Fixing the economy, one day at a time...

I just finished reading Emily’s post on her family budget, so I thought I’d take a page from her book and write a little about the topic here. I am really lucky in that Mitch and I are both extremely financially oriented people, so our money spending styles are pretty much in-line. I can’t even imagine how hard it would be to be married to someone with an opposite money mind-set.

 

Mitch and I, through careful spending and monitoring of expenses, manage to save a very nice sum of money from every paycheck. Practically the day after we returned from our honeymoon, we set up a budget tracking spreadsheet and sat down together to discuss our bills and savings goals. As a side note – Mitch and I are both Excel devotees. On our first date we discussed spreadsheets for at least ten minutes - which I am betting explains a lot about my personality… Anyway, our spreadsheet evolved over time and now has the following basic categories: checkbook register, monthly bills, net assets & debt, and savings goals.

 

Mitch would be the best person to explain each category because the design was mainly his, but I’ll give it my best shot. Our checkbook register is self-explanatory.  Each receipt is entered in and balanced against our bank statement. I’d be perfectly happy to do the balancing once a week, but Mitch is dedicated and enters / balances the file every day, without fail. He even text messaged me his purchases when he was in Boston. What can I say? He’s detail oriented and I am a blessed, blessed woman.  

 

Moving on, the next section is where we list our monthly bills. Mitch has everything categorized by date and knows which paycheck pays each portion. He is completely responsible for maintaining the file and paying the bills. Yes, I know I’m lucky. Now, the savings goals sheet is my favorite because it’s where we get to list our splurges and see how close we are to purchasing them. We have ‘buckets’ for travel (we’re going to Disney World next year), Christmas presents (this can be a big expense that catches you unaware), home decorations (this is where we budget for small remodeling projects like new lighting), other splurges (we’re saving for a new laptop and two bikes right now) and an emergency fund. Each ‘bucket’ has a savings goal and shows the current amount we have saved. It’s been a great system because we can look at the file any time and know where we stand.

 

The last table is our net assets and debt, and I have to give Mitch all of the credit for this one. He has every student loan, car loan, and credit card listed with the interest rate and amount due. This is a really cool system because he also has it set up to show the number of years left until each item is paid off. For some items, it’s a matter of months (we have little to zero credit card debt) and for others, it’s a matter of many years (our mortgage for example).

 

Every paycheck is budgeted and accounted for. We pay our bills and savings account first and then go from there. If we’re getting low at the end of the pay cycle, we’re extra careful with our spending until payday. When we get raises or bonuses, we increase our savings first (though we occasionally use the money on fun budget increases, like when we upgraded to HDTV or bumped our Netflix package up to 2 movies per month). One of the coolest ideas Mitch came up with was to use our extra paychecks (our budget is based off of 2 paychecks per month, but since we get paid bi-weekly that leaves us 2 ‘extra’ paychecks per year) to pay off part of our mortgage.

 

Here’s how it works (warning – technical, boring explanation ahead): when we bought out house, we wanted to avoid PMI (a monthly insurance payment for homeowners who don’t put down 20% at the time of purchase). So, we got two mortgages: one covered the majority of the loan at a flat, low rate. The other covered the remainder at a slightly higher rate & requires a balloon payment at the end of the loan life. Our goal is to use our extra paychecks each year to pay down that second loan so we won’t have to worry about a balloon payment when it expires. The first time we made the ‘extra’ payment it reduced our repayment time by seven years! I’m telling you, the power of cumulative interest is an amazing thing to behold.

 

Sometimes my family teases me for being so budget conscious, and I really can’t blame them, but it’s really working well for us. This system, which wouldn’t be possible without Mitch’s devotion to tracking and maintaining it, brings about far less money-related stress in our marriage than I ever thought possible. And I think that’s something to be proud of.

Snippets of a Monday:

* Is it weird for a coworker (who you’ve never met and rarely correspond with via email) to send you an email addressed to your last name? I mean, isn’t the “I’ll call you by your last name” trick usually reserved for close friends, college fraternity brothers, and sports teams? Addressing me as my last name implies a level of familiarity or a subordinate relationship. And we have neither. Strange.

 

* I’ve started reading “The Last Lecture,” by Randy Pausch. In doing so, I’ve sidestepped my strict policy of not allowing ‘criers’ into my life (be they movies, books, or ‘very special’ segments on Oprah). I just don’t like to invite extra drama into my personal space, thank you very much. In fact, when I went to see “The Notebook” a few years ago, I thought I was in for a fun romantic period piece. Yes, I’m serious. After literally thirty seconds, the girls in the row behind me were already crying. Loudly. Thirty seconds. I knew I was in for a rough ride and almost left the theater.

 

* I like Halloween movies – just ones that aren’t actually scary. In the last week I’ve watched Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic – two excellent examples of my taste in Halloween flicks. Forget Freddy and Jason and Saw (oh my); give me some PG rated Halloween adventures any time!  I’ve never really enjoyed horror / thrasher / gruesome movies and could hardly even stand to watch Tales from the Crypt as a tween. This week I’m planning on digging out The Worst Witch from our DVD cabinet, also known as “Tim Curry’s masterpiece,” and a purchase filed under “Reasons why eBay is sometimes a little too convenient.”

 

* Yet again, I’m making it a goal to lose ten pounds. Truth be told, I’m making it a goal to lose ten pounds by Christmas, which gives me eleven weeks. Mitch is supporting me 100%, which is such a huge help. I haven’t really written about my struggle with my weight here yet, which is funny because most of my childhood journals (through age 20, even) deal with exclusively that topic. Let’s just say I have a long history of body image issues (I tried my own self-induced diet at age nine, though I was a perfectly normal – just slightly chubby – sized child).  My goal over the past few years has been to establish a healthy eating / fitness lifestyle and not focus so much on weight. But – with my honeymoon and newlywed weight gain still firmly hanging on to my midsection, it’s time for a more organized approach. Either that, or a shopping spree because I need some clothes that fit!

 

* I managed to get five mosquito bites during my hike yesterday (another 5.5 miles!), despite a liberal dousing with Deep-Woods-Off. I believe the next time I choose to go for a hike I will bring along a mosquito netting canopy tucked under my visor and some Amazon-jungle-approved-Deet-100-level-repellent. Or, I will just wait until it's winter. Which suddenly seems like a much more logical option.

 

So, there you have it, five snippets of thought on a Monday afternoon. Maybe later this week I’ll have enough brainpower to string together one long cohesive thought for a blog post.

 

Nah.

Well this is a post I didn’t want to have to write…

I didn’t get the job. I’m not entirely surprised, nor am I entirely disappointed. I know I had an excellent set of interviews and I wouldn’t change a thing about the process. But, there’s no denying the fact that I’m feeling a bit of a let-down after going through three very in-depth and emotionally draining interviews. (Don't even get me started on the application...) And this, dear Internet, is where I start to get a bit angsty.

 

You see… I’m in a pickle. I’ve been given an eviction notice on my cubicle space, effective March of 2009, and I have to find a job by then. Yes, I’ll be given a small severance stipend, and yes I know I’m incredibly lucky to have five months to job search when most of my coworkers are not considered ‘crucial to integration’ and will be departing over the next four weeks. Things could be worse. But that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to be unhappy about it, does it? I’m going to miss my job – the beer in the fridge, relaxed work atmosphere, plenty of time to study, free goodies part of my job. Though, once I finish school (in eight weeks – squeeee!) I won’t really have that “study time” excuse any more.

 

So, fellow citizens of Neverland – I need to grow up. More importantly, I need to decide what I want to do when I grow up. I need some form of gainful employment that is also slightly conducive to motherhood. Now, don’t freak out – motherhood isn’t impending or anything, but it is in the five year life plan (God willing); so I’d like to keep that in consideration when choosing my next life sucking, soul draining  paycheck provider. For some reason, employers nowadays aren’t really into the whole flex-time, work from home, thirty-hour-work-week option for their minions employees. Oh, and I also have that small, tiny, miniscule request of actually being busy all day.

 

Yes, busy – that would be the opposite of my current condition which can be easily summed up with one of the following:

a)     bored to the point of eating to stay awake

b)     hanging out in the conference room coloring a flip chart with markers to pass the time

c)     spending two hours a day on homework and working on projects that aren't due for weeks

d)     all of the above

 

What do you think the answer is? If you guessed (d), all of the above, then – my friend, you are a winner! Once my flip-chart masterpiece is complete I may even take a picture and post it for you here on my blog – wouldn’t that just convince you to snap me right up and give me an employee ID badge for your company? I bet it would!

 

In the meantime, I think I’d better continue to network and search online. The former is so much more annoying than it sounds (ugh network) – especially considering my slight agoraphobia and very tiny circle of friends; and the latter has proven absolutely, completely, totally mind-blowingly useless. I know it will work out, and I know that only time will tell where I end up, but I’m getting less and less patient by the day.

 

I wonder if Mitch would mind if I went back to school again – maybe I should be a career counselor. Oh, the irony.

I’m glad I got that out of my system!

As you may have noticed, I was being a tad melodramatic on Friday. Is it obvious I don’t handle the unknown well? Anyway, I've now had a whole weekend of reflection on the matter and I'm really at peace with whatever happens. If I get a rejection call, I’m already prepared to inquire about 2 other positions in the company (both of which are arguably better fits for my personality). If I get an acceptance call, I'll probably ask for 24 hours to discuss the matter with my husband and go from there. It’s completely out of my hands now.

 

Which is good, because my hands are currently occupied by my keyboard. I’m also trying very hard to keep them from scratching my new mosquito bites, acquired during a five mile hike yesterday. One of which is on my scalp. Really, who thinks to spray repellent on their head? Not me, that's for sure. You can’t see the bugs here, but they’re in the forest, ready to attack…

 

 

Most of the terrain was uneven, and looked more like this:

 

 

 

My mom and I also saw several spiders, some caterpillars, two snakes, and an amazing view of the Missouri river…

 

 

Oh, and we only got lost once! That was a success in and of itself.

 

All in all, it was a fun weekend. I can’t wait to drag Mitch to this trail when he’s back in town from Boston. Come home soon, hubby!