Almost Halloween

We spent a lot of time making our Halloween costumes this year... yeah, we like went out to the fabric store and bought all the supplies and for $52 we were able to make 2 costumes in 2 hours.  Personally, I don't care if you make or buy your costume -- it just tends to come out way more hilarious if you make it.  Life was really busy this week so come Friday night we were like, "Shit, we're having a party tomorrow night... here at this house!"  So we had to finish everything up and then clean like mad people because by the end of the week this place is consistently and without fail A Total Dump.  We had to buy food, liquor, beer, pumpkins and shovels.  We've never owned shovels before and I don't think ignoring the snow will be an option anymore.

After hours of cleaning and organizing later, the weather report changed.  Instead of a few inches of snow it's looking like 6-10 inches.  WHY?!  I don't care if it snows, but if it ruins all of our efforts it's really going to suck.  I don't mind eating all the party foods myself and drinking all the beer, but I'm not exactly going to sit around in my costume by myself doing that.  Ok, maybe I will... I'll have nothing better to do since my dog isn't around to tend to.  I guess this will make clean-up a lot easier if nobody comes all the way out to our house, that's a major upside to the situation.

[This is not my Halloween costume, this is just a really horrific outfit]
 

Another major upside is that we finally hung stuff on our walls.  It only took 2 months.  I'm not even kidding you, it took us 2 months to put 1 freaking nail into the wall and now we have 7 items on display.  I never thought I'd see the day.  I'm really weird about a lot of things, but the permanence of wall decoration is definitely one of them.  I'm all for complete and total commitment except with decorating.  -- I just ordered Dwell Magazine yesterday to try and inspire me / make me feel poor and unhip.  A magazine is a lot cheaper than an interior decorator though, so hey that's something.

This week not much got done around the house.  We relocated Mia's crate to the office from the family room, and hung 7 pictures... that's it.  Today the boys are going to repair our shed (hopefully) that was damaged a while ago and I had planned on fertilizing the lawn but I am pretty sure we missed that boat.  We decided to hold off until December to buy our second car for like a bunch of reasons but mainly because in December we can afford to buy something that we actually want vs. something that we feel cornered into based on price.  This is a major relief and now we can focus on laying hardwood flooring and doing the crown moulding in the dining room in the next 2 weeks without me freaking out about the cost.  -- I freak out a lot these days.

Something a crazy person would mention right now: 
Pottery Barn is offering free shipping and free embroidery and discount prices on their Christmas items right now - stockings, tree skirts, etc.  I bought 3 of course for a mere $48 which are going to be a lot nicer than our craptastic Target stockings.  Christmas is my favorite holiday so I figure that if I start now buying a few things here and there when I see something nice on sale, then by December 1 we might actually have a decent amount of decoration that isn't cheap and tacky.  I am really sick of having horrendous holiday decorations, I'm too old for that shit.

Back to Halloween.  Hopefully, I'll be able to show photos of our super cute costumes tomorrow and hopefully I won't attempt to drink all the beer myself.  

Laziness is King

Well I haven't gotten around to decorating my coffee table yet... but I really do appreciate the ideas that people had and I'm heavily considering a nice combination of them.  My reality is that I haven't had a moment to go out to like Home Goods or Pottery Barn and look at anything in person yet.  It's just been really busy and like... yeah my house still looks unlived in and uninviting - Oh Well.

My little pumpkin is gone for 3 weeks at Boot Camp, and in the meantime we have to do like a billion things.  The first item on our list is to buy a second car.  We're really really specific with what we are looking for in this car - dirt cheap, 30something miles to the gallon, used with 30-40K miles on it, and did I say Dirt Cheap?  We started this adventure a few weeks ago and hopefully by the end of this week we can finally close this project out.  Also, we're throwing a Halloween party on Saturday and the only thing we have is beer and tortilla chips... no costumes, no decorations, no jello shots, we've got nothing.  I just realized why we don't usually like to throw parties - the effort is just too much work for us.  Laziness often pays off, I'm telling you, not having to prep or clean up or any of that is a massive reward for non-party throwers.  We've been debating a costume for a few weeks now and the closest we got to locking in an idea was a horse - as in I'm the head and Abe's the butt and together we're a horse but apart we aren't really anything at all.  Turns out those are Really expensive costumes, like $1,600!!  So back to square one.

Other things on our massive To-Do list, and most of which hasn't even begun yet:

• Crown moulding in the dining room
• Hardwood flooring in the dining room
• Repair the roof of the shed
• Clear out the garden for the winter
• Clean the gutters
• Fertilize the entire lawn ourselves for the winter
• Finish picking up all the stray twigs everywhere
• Call the plow guy to put us on his schedule for the winter
• Paint all the baseboards on the first floor
• Paint the bathroom on the first floor
• Order our dining room set
• Maybe hang some stuff on the walls
• Curtains for our bedroom
• Move some furniture around
• Get a second mattress for our second guest room
• Replace some shelving in the laundry room
• Chandelier in the dining room
• Area rugs for the family room

Obviously all of this shit isn't going to get done in 3 weeks especially since most of it can't be done during the week days, but it's better to make a long list and hope to get through half of it than to make a short list and not do any of it -- this happens way more than I'd like to admit.  

For example in this photo there is a white carton of like window blinds in the background with a pink sticky note on it.  This was left in that same exact spot by the sellers of this house.  That thing has sat there untouched for over 1 month.  I just moved the stupid thing yesterday so I could put a plant there, but man, if my plant didn't need a new spot to sit then that thing would Still be sitting there.  Also, I'm pretty sure that we're making the same face...

Decorating

I have a couple problems that I could use a little help with.

1.  I would like to "dress" my coffee table, but I really don't know how.  I'm a minimalist decorator... aka, I don't like a lot of crap sitting around.  Too many "things" feel like clutter to me.  So anyways, I could really use some advice on how to "dress" this piece (seen below).  I do plan on getting more exciting throw pillows and a more exciting area rug but both of those are also challenging for me.

Suggestions are welcome.  I hear this thing called Pinterest is supposed to help me with this, but I can't really figure out how to use it... nor can I even see anything on the site.  Not sure why.

2. We need Halloween costumes.  I sort of wanted to be those dancing hamsters from the Kia commercials but it turns out that's actually two costumes.  1. a hamster, and 2. a hip hop outfit on top of that, so way too much work for these two lazy people.  Any good ideas?

The Bar Method

The Bar Method has come to Boston.  You can read all about it Here but reading about it is a lot different than experiencing it.  The studio is in Back Bay on Clarendon and it's brand new and gorgeous.

I assumed this would be a lot like my current Physique57 dvd workouts and I was right, they are right on the same track.  All movements are small, purposeful, and you do a million reps of teeny tiny painful movements that crush your soul.  Your muscles shake from minute 5 through the very end at 1 hour.  It's embarrassing until your realize that 95% of the class is in the same boat of uncontrollable muscle spasms.

The studio requires that you wear pants/long shorts and socks for sure.  You do the workout on carpeting so that you don't slide around.  It starts out with a warm up of basic marching leg lifts, goes into arms with very light weights (2-4 lbs) in which you instantly start sweating, and then continues on to the bar with uncomfortable stretches and more tiny leg lifts and tiny squats.  Do you know how much a tiny squat hurts?  A shit load more than a big squat.  Eventually you sit on the floor with your back against the wall and lift your leg straight up to the wall (back and up) and like a hundred reps later, you might be done.  I can't even straighten my leg straight up at that flexible angle, which is a problem... it was like a major effing handicap in this case and mother of God, it just was the hardest section for me.  Next up was the abs and that was not half as bad, you laid on the floor on a little pad and did mini crunches, like so small you were really only moving like inches, and then lifted your pelvis just inches, and sometimes you did them at the same time.  It ended with a nice cool down with stretches.

After the class, my body felt exhausted and I just wanted to lay down for the longest nap of my life.  As the day went on, my body felt a bit more pain.  It seems a lot like I just paid $24 for 1 hour of a major pain session in which the instructor continuously corrected my form and talked to me through her microphone, which was nice of course but also another blow to my ego.  The price is a bit steep, but it was something that I was really curious about so I took the plunge.

This class is tough but in a good way and I'll probably end up going back.

Update - the morning after, I am Really sore: thighs, butt, back of arms, and abs.

Bon Me Truck

Over the weekend, I had the chance to go out for brunch with a couple girlfriends to Union in the South End which I totally recommend.  In fact, I'd really love to go back like asap.  The food is really good, the vibe is great, and it's nicely priced.  The portions could be a little bigger, or I could be less of a fatty... but let's be serious here, the portions could be a little bigger.  Right after we ate, we headed over to the South End Open Market.  It's a big favorite on the weekends and as it turns out - the food trucks are like all over this.  Every food truck that I'd ever heard of in the Boston area shows up for this.  I was so mad at myself for not having enough room in my stomach for like every truck's food there.  I decided that I Had to try Bon Me.  First of all, bon me's are all similar - Vietnamese sandwiches with some pork, some veggies, and some nice spicy sauce.  This Bon Me was Huge.  It was the size of a Subway Footlong, but of course much much better.  I had a few bites and then saved the rest for Abe to eat later.  It was well worth the $6 they sell it for, I felt like I stole it from them or something.  That could easily sell for $10.  The longest line by far was Roxy's Grilled Cheese, but I wasn't about to wait forever for a freaking grilled cheese... maybe next time. 

The open market continues for the rest of the month - it's dog friendly, and you don't actually have to buy or eat anything at all.  It's just sort of a really good time and there's lots of meter parking, which is cool too.  I totally recommend bringing your appetite and some cash, your stomach will thank you! 

Partying in The 'Burbs

Friday night.
Plans: go out to dinner with another couple for a friend's birthday.
Traffic: horrendous, so dinner was a little later than intended.
Location: Deep in the burbs, real deep.

We arrived at this little Mexican restaurant located in a strip mall and thought to ourselves, "this seems like a really strange place for a restaurant..."  We entered and I ordered myself a $3.99 sangria (which was pretty amazing) and we sat down with our friends.  First of all, we had to cross a dance floor to get to our table.  There was a DJ there for some reason, though nobody was dancing as it was 9pm.  That would eventually change, but for the time being we had dance music going and drinks a flowing.  The food was really good, like... pretty authentic Mexican for a place that looked to be more Tex-Mex than anything else.  We were having a really great time: drinking, joking, eating lots of food and then suddenly it's like we entered a whole new world.

Scene:

Everyone is dancing around us - 20somethings, 30somethings, 40somethings, 50somethings, maybe even people who are friends with my parents.
Music - the best music you may hear at your local wedding venue
Dudes are showing up and sort of circling the dance floor looking at the fresh meat, a la high school dance style or your local Boston bar
Girls are wearing their best "going out" outfits.  One girl looks like a hooker, and strangely another girl looks like The Hamburglar... ok, not really, but she was wearing a 1 piece suit that was purple or something.
Realization: we are the only people drinking, all the rest of these turkeys are Dead Sober, like this is what they like to do without having to be insanely drunk...


I believe that people can do anything they want to do in order to have a good time.  If you want to go do a keg stand without wearing pants, so be it.  If you want to stay home and watch a movie while wearing sweat pants, so be it.  If you want to dance around on a Friday night at your local Chili's equivalent while wearing a hooker outfit, knock yourself out.  It was like the most entertaining shit I've seen in a really long time.  Unfortunately, it also meant we had to witness middle aged making out, but it happens!  I'm not sure that we really fit in, but the food was good enough for us to go back for sure.  Next time we'll know what to expect instead of feeling so blind sided by the sudden urgency to let loose on the weekend by the locals.

Vet on Speed Dial

Last night after work, we made excellent time through the commute and then I ran into the vet office to pick up a couple things for Mia before coming home.  When we got back to the house, we fed her, and then took a good look at our little one.  On Sunday, I had cleaned off her eye a few times but figured that there were just a lot of sleepies in there.  By Monday night, her eye was really red and all signs pointed towards conjunctivitis so we had to take her to the vet at 7:45pm.

The good news: It's only conjunctivitis and with an eye ointment applied 3x a day, it will go away.

The bad news: I have to insert this eye ointment by myself for the first couple of days because Abe will be traveling. Also, I had to stay home with her today because she couldn't attend daycare like this... although it's likely to happen again and again with her being in close quarters jumping all over other dogs at daycare so frequently.  The fee for this visit was higher than the usual vet fee since we didn't have an appointment scheduled but they really wanted us to come right away to make sure there wasn't any actual eye damage so it was sort of like after hours "urgent care" type of a visit, so we had to pay $92 vs. the $65 for a regular visit.  Dogs cost a million dollars to own, nobody tells you that, but I will tell you!  Not that we would take her back or anything, but man they're way more expensive than anyone lets on.

You may also notice in this photo that Mia is wearing a harness now.  At first, I thought it was a bad idea.  My dog growing up had one, and it just wasn't anything special.  This one, on the other hand is like magic.  It stops her from pulling while walking somehow, and she actually likes wearing it.  If you have a dog who is a terrible walker, then this may be the answer for you.  It gives you more control, takes pressure off her neck, and somehow it really does stop the dog from trying to pull you across the country to chase that squirrel.  We take it off when she goes to sleep and when she's at daycare, but she looks really cute with it.  The only downside is that she gets stuck under the bed if she's wearing it since she barely fits under there as it is, so then I have to help her out.  Oh well!  Purple is her color.

I Just Needed to Vent

We spend a lot of time commuting.  I usually tell people it takes around an hour, but that's a bold face lie.  Really we leave the house at 6:45am to drop Mia off at daycare and then we need to circle all the way back to get on the road to work where we sit in traffic till around 8:15-8:20 when we arrive at Abe's office and then I get on the subway and get to my work at 8:30-8:45.  I am in commuting mode for 2 hours.  Before we got Mia in daycare it was of course a much shorter commute, maybe even 25 minutes less time on the road but she needs it.  On the days that I sometimes take the commuter rail, I still need to drive 10 minutes to the train, then sit on the train for 1 hour, then get on the subway for 5-10 minutes, so that is still a process. 

During all this time spent in the car there's a lot of time for thinking and for self reflection.  I think a lot about work and ongoing projects.  I think a lot about home improvements and steps we need to take to get all of our wish-list type stuff done.  These days I find myself mostly thinking about my relationships and about my dog's manners.  Those are two totally different things but those are on my brain a lot.  While we've been at the new house for about a month now I've realized a couple things:

1. Doing anything after work in town during the week is close to impossible with only 1 car and Mia needing to be picked up at daycare / let out to pee.
2. Not doing anything after work means that friendships become much more difficult to maintain because on weekends we have a million house projects to work on.
3. I don't really care all that much.

Life has gotten much more complicated these days and yet people still ask me about babies all the time.  We've having a super hard time dealing with our new house, commute, and dog... a baby is the absolute last thing that we need right now.  Each night we go to bed in a kind of exhaustion that we didn't know existed.  Each day we look at our checking account with a kind of horror that I haven't known since I was in college.  I can't even lie and say that money isn't really tight right now and that it's not crushing our souls and dreams of ever going on a vacation again, or that the adjustment to the suburbs isn't hard at all.  It's tough, all of it and there's really nothing that we could have done to prepare ourselves better for all of this.  There's no in between with this shit, it's all or nothing but that's how we tend to live our lives.

Once we solve a few of our problems, I think that things will go more smoothly - Mia will get the training that she desperately needs, we'll finish a few key rooms in the house, a second car will be added to alleviate some of the scheduling conflicts, and bonus season will pad our checking account again.  Sometimes it just feels really good to vent because as exciting as this is, it's still all very overwhelming on a daily basis and because of that we tend to drink a lot more than we used to.  There are worse things in the world... like making out with a Kong and being caught on camera.