FYI...

Just in case anyone stumbles upon this blog or happens to be looking for the new one, you can now find me HERE -- new look, same old randomness! :)

Random stuff!

I was browsing through blogs the other day, and decided to check out one that used to be a favorite -- the author hadn't posted anything in more than a year, but every now and then, I'd click over to her blog anyway, on the off chance that she'd written something new. Well, this time, lo and behold, there were brand new entries. So I figured, if she could randomly show up again after more than a year's absence, then surely I can update my blog after being gone for a month. Right? Right. (Besides, every time I get lazy, Rick reminds me of how lonely my poor blog is...) So here's some random stuff:

I finally have an email address tied to my blog: journalofrandomtangents@gmail.com. So if anyone feels like saying hi, or wants to ask me why I'm so weird, or whatever... feel free to email me!

My tooth saga turned out to be more complicated than I'd hoped, but it's almost over, fortunately. When I went to the dentist to get the wayward crown glued back down, I found out that it wasn't fitting properly. So he temporarily cemented the crown back on, and I had to go back last week so he could reshape the tooth and get it ready for a brand new, better-fitting crown. So I'm still eating with a temporary crown, but the permanent one will be here in couple weeks and then MAYBE I can stop thinking about my teeth so much. (I had another "teeth falling out" dream last night... I'm always so glad when I wake up from those and realize that all my teeth are still in place...)

So in less than three weeks, we're heading to Hawaii -- it's been far too long since I've had any good travel pictures on this blog, so hopefully I'll be able to share some good ones from Kauai. Winter is supposed to be whale season in Hawaii -- all the whales from the north swim south to warmer water -- so if we're lucky, maybe we'll see a few while we're there. Or maybe we'll just be lazy and lay on the beach and pay no attention to whatever is going on in the water... who knows. One thing I DO know -- I will, at some point, partake of Hula Pie...

Speaking of Hula Pie... my friend Julie asked me to join a P90X challenge group at the beginning of the year -- if you're not familiar with P90X, it's a workout that focuses more on various forms of strength training than on straight aerobic activity. There have been a lot of studies that suggest building muscle is more beneficial than 100 percent aerobic workouts -- running, walking, etc., is great for your heart and overall health, but building extra muscle protects against injury and accelerates weight loss. Muscle burns more calories than fat, so if you gain muscle, you'll burn more calories even when you're sitting around doing nothing. Which is great if, for example, you want to eat a lot of Hula Pie... So obviously I had to join the P90X challenge. I've never done so many push-ups in my life...

And that being said, I think it's about time for more push-ups, so I need to wrap up this post. Hope everyone had a great January -- can you believe it's February already?? Once again, time is moving by way too quickly... so you'll hardly even notice if I don't post again for another month, right? :)

Long time no blog...

Hey, it's 2014! Happy New Year, everyone!

Rick has been reprimanding me lately for neglecting my blog... and he definitely has a point -- I have been ignoring my poor little corner of cyberspace for far too long. Last night, he asked if I was planning a New Year's blog post, and I said that I wasn't sure what to write about.

"I feel like I've already said everything," I lamented.

"Okay, so write about THAT," he responded.

Hmmm... a post about how I've already written everything I can possibly write about? I suppose I could attempt to tackle that...

On the other hand, there's always SOMEthing to write about, isn't there?

Today, for instance, I have one thing on my mind: my teeth. (What, you're not thinking about YOUR teeth right now?? Weird... :)) I've always been a little too obsessed with my teeth -- I brush as often as I can and floss at LEAST once a day, if not two or three times a day. (And if I run out of floss, it's like a major crisis in my house... I've learned to stock emergency containers of dental floss to guard against such an event...) And the ONLY recurring theme in my nightmares is tooth loss -- I never have that "common" dream where you show up naked to a big event... but I dream about losing my teeth ALL the time. And it freaks me out -- I'll wake up, in a panic, and hurriedly run my tongue over my teeth to reassure myself that they're all still in place...

Several years ago, my dentist in Austin informed me that I was an apparent tooth grinder -- when I'm sleeping and having all of those horrible dreams about losing my teeth, I'm also GRINDING my teeth (or at least clenching my jaw much too tightly) -- and that is NOT a good thing. Over the years, all of that tooth grinding has resulted in cracked molars, and my cracked molars have required crowns... one after another...

I've never really had any issues with my crowns -- I've always eaten whatever I want, and I've tried not to think about how several of my teeth are covered with porcelain. As long as those awful teeth-falling-out nightmares don't come true, I'm fine.

So imagine me, sitting on a plane the day after Christmas, about a half hour from landing in Chicago, deciding to pull out some leftover holiday candy from my carry-on bag so Rick and I could finish it off. We each had two pieces -- the first was a lovely vanilla-cream-filled chocolate, which melted in my mouth in smooth chocolately-vanilla deliciousness. That left one more... one last piece of Christmas candy before returning to Chicago and attempting to get my diet back on track after a week of holiday over-indulgence. I took a generous bite of the chocolate-covered confection, which turned out to be caramel.

Now, I love caramel -- I've eaten many caramels in my life, and not only love the flavor, but the texture, as well. But THIS caramel was different... it was crazy sticky and chewy... the candy enveloped my teeth in a merciless tomb of semi-viscous sugar, trapping parts of my mouth like a saber-toothed tiger in the La Brea Tar Pits...

And then, as I slogged my way through the candy, I felt something that no tooth-obsessed person who has nightmares of losing teeth ever wants to feel -- I felt one of my teeth come loose...

Okay, not an ACTUAL tooth -- but one of my crowns was definitely NOT in the place it was supposed to be. I immediately bit down on the wayward tooth, setting it back into place... but the damage was done. I held back the instinct to completely freak out, since I was in a public place and didn't want to start screaming, "it's falling off!!" on a plane. (What's falling off? The wing?!?)

In fact, I managed to stay relatively calm for the rest of the evening, and the next morning got a dentist appointment made for January 2 (almost a week away, which seemed like an eternity). Since the crown hadn't seemed to move all night, I decided to take a chance and eat a little something for breakfast... but as soon as I started chewing, the crown popped right off and I had to bite down to keep it on again. Fortunately, drug stores sell temporary cement to hold on loose crowns, so Rick bought some and brought it home to me. I actually had to wait until I was eating and felt the crown come loose again to try to use it, because I couldn't bring myself to reach into my mouth and yank out a tooth (even though it isn't TECHNICALLY a tooth... but just the very IDEA freaks me out...).

For two days, the temporary stuff seemed to be working. And I was sticking to eating things like soup and pasta and scrambled eggs -- anything that was soft and didn't require a lot of chewing -- so as not to tax the fragile tooth. But my incessant need to floss finally got the best of me, and the night before New Year's Eve, the crown popped off as I was (carefully, I swear!) flossing. This resulted in a bit of a meltdown, which Rick can attest to -- I was crying and freaking out and feeling like all of my tooth-loss nightmares were coming to fruition... I put MORE temporary cement on the tooth and stuck it back on, but this only made it feel totally wrong and awkward in my mouth, since it now had two or three layers of bulky cement. The idea of waiting two ENTIRE days before my dental appointment was stressing me out...

So Rick, probably feeling helpless to comfort his crazy, weird wife, promised to call the dentist in the morning and see if they could squeeze me in. The only problem was, when he called on New Year's Eve morning, the dentist was closed. And so was just about every other dentist in the city. We finally found one that was available for emergencies, but they only promised to "temporarily" fix the crown. And their advice to me was actually to just wait for my appointment on Thursday... since I couldn't stand the idea of going to a dentist just for a "band-aid," I finally decided to tough it out and wait until my original appointment. But I also decided to stop eating any kind of solid food -- so for the last couple days, all I've eaten is brothy soups and smoothies... and I'm so, so hungry... (But on a positive note, I easily lost the few pounds I gained over the Christmas holiday -- this has been a great forced diet. :))

But it's now Wednesday evening, and in 12 hours, I'll be getting ready to walk over to the dentist's office and get my nightmare tooth fixed, and hopefully then I can eat with abandon once more. (But not TOO much abandon, because I don't want to gain back those holiday pounds...) And I'm definitely steering clear of super-sticky caramel from now on...

And hopefully I can make an effort to update my blog more often this year -- even if I'm writing about how I've already said everything I have to say... :)

Yeah, yeah... he told me so...

One of the first real "dates" Rick and I went on after we first met was a day trip from Austin to Dallas to visit Six Flags.

Side note #1: I was stupid and didn't wear sunscreen that day, and ended up with a rare sunburn. It takes a lot of sun exposure, but I DO eventually burn if I'm out in it long enough...

Side note #2: I actually blacked out on the Texas Giant roller coaster -- one of those "check out the crazy g-forces on this thing!" rides. That initial drop is CRAZY, and for about two seconds, everything went black. And then it all came back, and I was like, "Best. Ride. Ever."

The drive from Austin to Dallas is about three and a half hours, and at this time, Rick and I had only known each other for about a month -- most of our interaction had been through the mail (snail mail -- actual handwritten LETTERS -- can you imagine?? I'm old...) -- so I was still in the "super quiet around people I don't know very well" stage. Fortunately, Rick can be quite talkative when he has to be, and managed to command the conversation.

I don't remember much of what was said during that drive, but I do have one memory: Rick was talking about a book series written by Raymond Feist that he loved, and he meticulously recalled characters and plot points as we sped north on I-35. I was trying very hard to pay close attention and retain all the details, as people do when they're first dating and attempting to make a good impression, but at some point I got rather lost. But I knew it had something to do with magicians, and elves, and dwarfs, and a whole bunch of Lord of the Rings-type stuff...

Over the last twenty years, Rick has, occasionally, attempted to coerce me into reading this book series. Or at least reading the first book in the series -- aptly named Magician.

But I, being a fan mostly of the realistic fiction genre, was hesitant to delve into a weird fantasy world filled with make-believe countries and creatures. I mean, sure, I read the Lord of the Rings series when I was in sixth grade... and I remember liking them enough at the time. And I read each Harry Potter book in about a day and a half -- and those certainly set realism aside...

So about ten years ago, I actually DID start reading Magician, in some sort of "I'll read Magician, you read Harry Potter" type deal. Rick got through the first four Harry Potter books quite quickly (but, strangely, he never did finish the series). I only got through the first three chapters of Magician. It just didn't draw me in, so I stopped reading it...

But even after this attempt, Rick didn't give up. Every year or so, he would bring up "The Book" and try to convince me to give it another try. He even gave a copy to our friend Nick and convinced HIM to read it, and when Nick proclaimed it to be a good book, Rick reminded me that Nick and I have similar taste in literature. "When are you going to read my book?" became an ongoing question at our house.

So finally, a couple months ago, I decided I would make a second attempt to muddle my way through Magician. Or at least get to chapter four. Rick downloaded it to my Kindle, I sighed a big sigh, and I sat down to read the 500-plus pages of text.

I'm now eighteen chapters into the book. And the verdict?

It's good.

It's really good.

DARN IT.

Rick was right about this stupid book. And I'm a big enough person to come here to my blog and say it for all the world to see -- Rick was right. And seeing as there are about a million books in this series, I probably should've just started reading them way back on that day we went to Six Flags.

Because now I have a lot of catching up to do...   
        

The mother of all randomness...

Eight years ago today -- September 24, 2005 -- I wrote my very first post for this blog. I think it started as an experiment, to be honest. Other people were dabbling in this thing called "blogging" (a word which, I still contend, sounds just like the sound my cats make before throwing up hairballs), and as a "writer" of sorts, I thought I might toss my hat into the ring.

At the time, Rick and I were living in Austin, with our dog and cat, Echo and Allegro. Mom and dad had just moved from New Jersey and into a house right down the street... Eric was in Chicago, but single, and living in a tiny condo in Lincoln Park with a beat-up, pieced-together computer (which was affectionately -- or perhaps not-so-affectionately -- known as Frankencomputer). George W. Bush was president (ah, those were the good ol' days... ;)), "Lost" was a huge hit on TV, and the last two Harry Potter books hadn't even been released yet.

Since that day eight years ago, we've moved (twice -- once to a bigger house in Austin, and then to Chicago). Our sweet Echo and Allegro are running around together in pet heaven -- but we've been joined by Piva and Riff (who not only make life more interesting, but make me smile every single day). Mom and dad still have a house in Austin, but they also have a condo in Chicago. And Eric? Well, once he ditched Frankencomputer and moved into a nicer place, he met and married a girl who makes him happy, bought a great house, and proceeded to have the two cutest kids on the planet. (Way to show us all up, Eric... :))

We've had a U.S. presidential change, "Lost" came to an end (I'm STILL trying to decide whether I was satisfied with the final episode), and not only did J.K. Rowling finish up the saga of Harry Potter, but we all got to watch Daniel Radcliffe grow up on the silver screen as each movie was released.

For Rick and I, the last eight years have brought new jobs, a couple scary layoffs, and new opportunities -- we've discovered that when one job doesn't work out, sometimes it means that something much better is on the way. We've traveled to Hawaii, the Caribbean, Europe, and all over the U.S. We've said goodbye to some loved ones, and welcomed some new lives. We've met new people, made some new friends, and reconnected with old acquaintances. I've learned to cook some new recipes, and have gotten really good at baking cupcakes (WHY do I have to be so GOOD at baking cupcakes?? :))... but I've also learned to embrace my pedometer, and working out is more a part of my life than it's ever been.

There have been constants, of course -- family, long-time friends, my love of chocolate, the Yankees. (Although even the Yankees moved from their old stadium into a new one.) But it's interesting to go back through my eight years of blog posts and think about where I was and what was going on in my life when I wrote each one. And even though I've been slow to update lately, it's good to know that my blog is always here when I feel like rambling aimlessly about nothing. :)

So, in honor of my blog birthday (and keeping true to my randomness), here is a hodgepodge of pictures from the last eight years... mostly in no particular order whatsoever:

   

 

 

I don't know about you guys, but I can't wait to see what the next eight years has in store... :)