Chores

Things I have gotten done today that I have been putting off:

  • Vacuuming the house
  • Sorting out my casual dresser drawer
  • Run a box and a bag to Goodwill for donation

Things I have gotten done today that I usually do on Sundays:

  • Picked up groceries
  • Check in on kids’ schoolwork situation
  • Move car
  • Do finances
  • Take out trash

Things I have gotten done today that I didn’t plan on doing:

  • Sorting out three additional dresser drawers, emptying two
  • Pick up vanilla greek yogurt and breakfast pastries for Junior Youth

Things I still want to get done today:

  • Pick up vanilla greek yogurt and breakfast pastries for Junior Youth
  • Move car
  • Do finances
  • Take out trash
  • Check in on kids’ schoolwork situation
  • Run a box and a bag to Goodwill for donation

So far the day is going well and I feel accomplished, although there’s still a lot of things on my to-do list.

ETA: I got done all the things. ❤

Versus: Movie Edition

I watched both Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse and Wreck-it Ralph Breaks the Internet tonight. I’m sure everyone interested has already seen both, but I hadn’t. I grabbed them from Redbox while filling a Rx, and I’m happy to report…

Spiderverse kicked Wreck-it Ralph‘s ass.

I’m so happy that Spiderverse lived up to its hype. I’ve been hearing since it car out that it was awesome and how fantastic it was, etc, etc, etc. After so much fanfare a person can quickly get to the point where one avoids things exactly because they are so popular.

Elder Youth and I watched it together, and that might have increased my appreciation as well. EY loved it as much as I did. Maybe a tiny bit less. And I tell ya, movies are always more fun when you can share them with your kids. If you have kids. And if the film is age-appropriate for all involved. You know what I mean.

Wreck-it Ralph was “okay”. I was able to easily watch the film while playing a game, and it wasn’t ever interesting enough to pull me away. Eh and Junior Youth has seen it for a birthday, and Neither EY it my mom who had gone with them had been particularly blown away. That might have tainted my appreciation, but I doubt it.

I also found WIR‘s lessons kind of patronizing, while Spider came off genuine (and genuinely hilarious – I couldn’t stop laughing at that one part with Miles running away from his dad with Peter B. – that was side-splitting).

So maybe it wasn’t a fair comparison, but I’d wanted to see both about the same amount and I just finished them and felt like sharing.

Happy weekend, everybody!

#nopoo

I’ve been fussing with the idea of going completely #nopoo since I shaved my head around New Year’s last year. I’d heard about it, it was intriguing, but most of all, my hair has been subjected to daily shampooing for at least 20 years, and probably more like 25. It’s frizzy on good days, no exceptions, and day 2 has always been greasy-looking. But with super-short hair, it would be easier, right?

Well. I mean, not washing your hair isn’t hard. It’s a lack of action, and this one in particularly is easy. You either don’t get it wet, or massage your scalp under the shower. Simple.

Except then I forgot I wasn’t going to go shampoo free, and I’d wash it. Or I’d have something going on and I thought it would be important to have it clean. Or… or… or…

It’s only been since the start of this year that I’ve been tapering off the shampoo with intention. I have made progress from daily shampoos to where I am today, trying out my 4th day at work instead of relegating it to the weekend when nobody sees me except family. So far, so good.

The results for me, regardless of what’s actually going on with my head, are positive and clear: when I shampoo, my hair is frizzy and poofy. Day two is much better. Day three has until today been the last day I can go without it getting gritty, but I made sure to really give my scalp a good massage in the shower and brush my hair before leaving for work after it had mostly dried.

It looks better. It’s softer. I do worry that it looks greasy, but the reality is that the longer I give my head to get used to the reduction in shampoos, the longer it looks good. I’ll probably need to shampoo tomorrow, but the next time that day five lands on a weekend, I’ll give that a shot, and I’ll keep working forward.

Have you ever tried getting away from shampoo? Do you use shampoo alternatives in your hair, or just water? I’m interested

Images of Spring

The trees are budding and there are cute, seasonal donuts at the donut chains. All is well with the world.

150 oz

I don’t know if I told this story yet, so here I go from scratch.

So, I was listening to Girl, Wash Your Face, and Rachel Hollis (someone I’ve never heard of before being assaulted by her face as a recommendation after I listened to some Brené Brown) told me that I should be drinking half my weight in ounces of water every day.

Dude. That’s a lot of water.

And so I was like – Hell, I know I’m not drinking enough. I remember from years and years ago when a woman on Oprah saying your pee should be just the slightest bit yellow if you’re drinking enough, and that’s not the shade I get. So why not give it a shot?

150 oz of water is 5 of the 32oz bottles I have at home. It’s almost 8 of the 20oz bottles I have at work.

IT’S A LOT OF WATER.

When I drink a lot of water, it doesn’t take long for it to start tasting bad. I suppose it’s like anything you eat a lot of – at some point, it just gets disgusting, no matter how much you loved it to start with. And so not only am I trying to drink what feels like a sinking boatload of water, but I also have to find a way to make it palatable all the way through, because there’s no way I’m getting 150 oz down of just the regular stuff.

An additional issue has been an inability on my part to even manage to consume that much water in a day. My first day I got 64 oz, and actually felt like I couldn’t drink another drop. The second day I got into my 3rd 32 oz bottle, but not much further. I think the third day I just forgot to try.

I’ve managed to wrangle the taste thing, I believe. At least I’m trying. I’ve found that if I mix up my plain water with the fruit-infused water the office makes, a packet of Emergen-C (because my child has the flu and I’m determined not to get sick), or a Crystal Lite Lemonade packet, I have enough variety to get through more water without getting squicked out by the taste.

And this week I realized that getting 90 oz in isn’t so hard anymore. I can get about 60 oz in before lunch, and I think if I push that I can get to almost 80 by noon. That’d be a good start, because I really start to slow down how much I drink once I’m at home. The more I can fit in at the office, the better.

So I’m making progress. The more I drink, the easier it is to get it in. And with flavored water still counting as water, the taste is managed as well.

My only problem now is how often I have to pee.

Every 30-45 minutes. I should really start keeping track.

It’s a bit ridiculous.

Oh, and now you know about how much I weigh. 😛

Photo by Ethan Sykes on Unsplash

A brief review of last week

I got my taxes done!

No, that’s not quite correct. I got most of my taxes done. I always forget the one last one that I have to do strictly online and with a separate company than the rest.

But I got the rest of my taxes done! I owe the State and am getting something back from the Feds. This is usual, and nothing is particularly out of the ordinary, except for how easy things were this year.

I love easy taxes.

I watched a couple new movies! First, “Crazy Rich Asians”. Loved it, I must read all the books, I have to know what happens. Finger’s crossed that my local library has (or can get) all the books. It’d be nicer if they could get the ebooks or audiobooks on Overdrive, but I’m not sure how to make that happen.

I also watched “Close”, a Netflix original. I don’t know why I thought I’d like it in the first place, but I think it had to do with the lead actress who has also been in “What Happened to Monday” (another Netflix original I’d recommend), “Prometheus”, and a few other films I’m sure you’ll know but I haven’t seen so I’m not recommending. Close was good, and I enjoyed it.

And I watched “The Unicorn Store”. I really enjoyed the silliness of this one, the absurdity, the Joan Cusak and Bradley Whitford and Brie Larson and Samuel L. Jackson of this one. I loved the characters and how they grew and how free Brie’s character was.

I know there are two more good movies coming out on Netflix at some point this weekend, but I don’t remember what they are, not even a little bit. I saw the previews and added them to my list so when they are available they’ll be there for me, but I can’t recall if there were two coming out on the 4th or the 10th.

I guess I’ll find out next weekend.

I’ll skip the events of Friday, Thursday, and Wednesday, because they sucked. Tuesday wasn’t bad, except…

I got an email at work from a vendor with an overdue invoice. This is a company I regularly order from for the office, except for that one time 10 years ago when I ordered for myself. So imagine my surprise when the invoice was addressed to me, personally.

I emailed back and asked them to change the Bill-to and invoice my coworker with the office address, as usual.

The company emailed back and said, sure, thanks, but in the future, can I please let them know when I’m placing an order on behalf of “them” (which I can only imagine means my company).

I emailed back and said that no, I have only placed one personal order in the past 10 years. I will let them know if I’m placing an order for my personal use, but they should assume I’m ordering from the company if I’m using my work email address to place the order.

I was irritated for most of the rest of the day. It was the snarky tone, as if I’d done something out of the ordinary to cause this mistake when in fact it was an accident by a new employee on their end. Later in the week when my coworker had to pick something up at that business, the representative I’d been emailing back and forth with said, “Nicki’s not mad, is she?”

My coworker lied to make the guy feel better and said no, she’s fine.

Nicki was, in fact, mad. Irritated, as previously mentioned. Riled up. Bristly.

And that was my week! It was busy. Computer issues and disappearing print drivers, and a large workload, and stress. This week may or may not be better. I’m kind of thinking it will be slightly better, but no lessening in workload or irritants related to the sheer amount of work that needs to be done right now.

Happy Monday!

Morning, Sunshine!

its a nice day outside but a friend got some hard news yesterday so it’s probably appropriate that there’s rain on the ground and the clouds are trying but failing to cover up the sun this morning because that’s my friend we’re talking about here.

Theme Change

I changed my theme this morning. I wanted to like the Twenty Nineteen theme, but it just wasn’t doing it for me. This is better, for now, until I spend a lot of time at my site and get tired of it.

I miss the days when I knew how to code my own blog. Greymatter was easy to learn and use. WordPress is awesome, but I think there’s too much to mess with for me to be really comfortable with it.

At any rate, enjoy the new layout!

Sweet.

I’m going to be doing the Blog All About It blog challenge by herding cats & burning soup. If you like to blog, it’s not too late to start!

April’s topic – “sweet”.

Radical. Awesome. Dude. Sweet.

Does that conjure up guys with long hair and surfboards? Skateboards maybe? I don’t do either, but I love those words.

Do you know how many times I call someone “dude” and get strange looks? Lots. Some folks find it offense. “I’m not a ‘dude’,” my 13-year-old tells me.

It doesn’t stop me.

Sweet: awesome, cool, neat, fabulous, amazing, radical.

Also, a taste. I don’t have a sweet tooth exclusively. Some folks are salt people, some are sweet people, but I ride both depending on what’s going on in my life. Some days I really don’t want sweet anything, and some days you can bring it on for hours and it never gets old.

That’s all I’ve got.