July | 2011 | twodolla

Jul
29

my noble attempt at biking to work ended like this

Category: Get Healthy, mobile, Photos 2 Comments

Please note the dangling handlebars.

So much for being green and healthy and all that stuff! I’ll try again when it’s cooler… and I bring an allenwrench with me.

Jul
28

By Wendy

a high schooler without a phone is probably criminal somehow

Category: Misc. Leave a Comment

This post brought to you by Net10. All opinions are 100% mine.

We very recently canceled The Kid's cell phone line. Part of it was that he'd left his phone in Missouri over Christmas, but kept telling us it was at his dad's house. It wasn't until my Aunt found it at her house sometime this spring that we realized it wasn't actually lost somewhere in the mess of his room at his dad's. Problem solved on locating the phone, but we'd also gone that many months without him needing it bad enough. So we cut the line.

He'll likely be taking public transportation every now and then to school next year. (We both think it's super important for him to learn how!) And here comes the need for him to have a cell phone again. I can't justify him having unlimited web access on his phone and he refuses to talk on the phone, so all I need for him? Unlimited texting, of course. So, we're looking at prepaid options. Mainly because if he's a d-bag (not that high school boys would ever be anything like that!), I want to be able to just not pay his phone bill one month, know what I mean?

I've started to see the Light, if you will, and consider this quite a bit more after doing some research about it. Net10 (their Facebook has a ton of awesome info) has 10 Good Reasons on what makes them standout and the thoughts of many a-real NET10 customer are pretty interesting, too. I'd be happy with a walkie-talkie personally, but I don't want to have the nerdiest kid on the bus. At least not in that fashion.

Also, if the kid were to watch the video and see this person speaking with a British accent, he'd be sold… I told he sometimes slips into speaking in a British accent, right?

Jul
28

By Wendy

Riley is best friends with everyone.

Category: Photos, Riley Leave a Comment

But right now, this 12 pound weasel named Leo is his BFF. How cute are they? Do they look like brothers?

Jul
22

By Wendy

i don’t want to be pretty at all

Category: Links, Me, Videos 1 Comment

A long time ago, The General showed me this video:

If you don’t want to watch the video, which is dripping (in a good way) with passion, then you can read the lyrics right here and it will give you an inkling of how beautiful the video is.

Then, I want you to read this article. If you haven’t read this, you should. I love it so much. There will be a quiz on this should The General and I ever have a daughter. I apologize to every adorable little girl that I’ve ever said “Look at you, so pretty!” the very first time I met them. You’re more than just pretty; you’re AWESOME.

Jul
20

By Wendy

it’s soooo hot. how hot is it?

Category: Local Leave a Comment

I’m from Missouri. In Missouri, it’s normal to see temps above 100 and humidity above a kabillion percent. Yes, in my 9 years in the Twin Cities, I’ve gotten a little spoiled in the summer. But these past few days have been perfect reminders as to why I hate Missouri summers.

It’s been so hot in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area over the last couple of days:

TC Bear (the Minnesota Twins mascot) melted.
A local TV station baked cookies on the dashboard of a car (which should also serve as a reminder that you’re a f’ing moron and deserved to be kicked in the gonads if you leave your dogs/kids in a parked car during the summer).
“I’m hot” has become a common answer that people give me when I say, “How are you today?” over the phone.
Riley refuses to go outside to pee unless you push him out there.
A local weatherdouche has coined a phrase: Humigeddon. Simply translated: Prepare to sweat your balls off.
I have managed to catch a cold. It’s kept me homebound for three nights, instead of visiting my friends (the treadmill, bike, elliptical and swimming pool) at the gym.
The Twins’ TV guys tried to fry an egg on their desk during an afternoon game.

Twenty years ago, I was probably sitting in my parents’ house, counting on one window unit air conditioner to cool the whole house and that’s only because I’d spent the whole day riding my bike all over the town trying to find a pickup basketball game to play somewhere, seriously soaking in the heat and humidity that happens regularly in Missouri. Right now, I’m sitting in shorts and a t-shirt, enjoying the central air, and trying to figure out what I can make for dinner that doesn’t include turning on the oven.

I may bitch about the weather in the winter, like when it’s 20 below zero, but I hate that a lot less than when I can’t walk from my front porch to my car without sweating. I’m a delicate flower. I don’t like to sweat.

Jul
17

By Wendy

i’m like a cute little fish, just with more hair

Category: Get Healthy, Photos 3 Comments

I’ve been swimming since before I could even walk. Pretty sure I went off the high diving board at the Sedalia Middle School’s indoor swimming pool (it may or may not have been involuntary depending on who tells the story) before I finished Kindergarten. When we were kids, my mom took my brother and I to the swimming pool as many days a week as she could. We swam in lakes, jumped off fishing docks, floated around in anything we possibly could. As an adult, I’ve abandoned that hobby quite a bit and the extent of my swimming has been floating around for hours in a Caribbean ocean in the middle of winter. While I’m certainly not complaining about that, that type of swimming’s main focus is making sure salt water doesn’t get in your rum-based drink, you know what I’m sayin’?

The gym I’ve belonged to for the past five months has a gym. I’ve been super hesitant to use it because, hi. Who the heck honestly likes to wear a swimsuit in public? Nobody I know.

Last summer, we were in Chicago and I was almost more excited about swimming every night than I was about our daily 7-11 Slurpee/Big Gulp stops. Then sometime this fall, we stopped somewhere in Iowa, and I woke up at 6am just to swim before we drove the rest of the way to Missouri. And then we joined a gym finally in February and I’ve been talking myself into swimming every day. It was only recently that I did and, man, am I glad I did.

I hit the treadmill, the elliptical, the stationary recumbent bike super hard every day. I’m proud of that. But I’ve realized that swimming is the way to go. It uses muscles I didn’t know I had. I breathe harder after doing some laps that I do after doing the C25K plan. I might smell like chlorine next time we hang out, but rest assured, it’s going to be worth it.

I have a cousin who swims 3000-5000 meters a day. That’s NUTS (in a good way) and is beyond even the slightest level of comprehension for me. I’m gonna be super stoked when I eventually get to 500 meters (I’m up to ~450 now!) doing all of these strokes that I’m pretty sure are made up, because that front crawl WEARS ME OUT.

Anyway. Mainly, I needed to write this post because I took the above picture. But I also wanted to write it because, hey, if you have a pool nearby you, GO SWIM. It’s super good for you and it’s a whole heck of a lot more fun than pounding your knees on the treadmill or having your butt slide around in someone else’s sweat when you ride the bike at the gym!

Jul
7

By Wendy

a list of the last seven hours

Category: Lists Leave a Comment

Finished up work for the day and actually left less than 30 minutes after I was supposed to (record for this week!).
Decided to head to Joe’s cabin for the night tomorrow night.
Checked on our garden.
Swam 440 yards (that’s a shade over 1/4 mile for you non-professional swimmers out there).
Had dinner.
Went to the grocery store.
Made a large container of an alcoholic beverage.
Cleaned out the cooler.
Checked my beer stock for the weekend.
Watched Marshall climb in and out of a paper Target bag at least a dozen times. I’m not buying that fuzzball anymore toys ever again.

It’s no wonder I’m tired.

Jul
5

By Wendy

pride photos: only over a week overdue

Category: Photos Leave a Comment

The full set is here, but here are my favorites:

My picture takin’ was way down at this year’s pride, including a lack of a Pride family photo this year. SAD.

Jul
3

By Wendy

my latest gym quandaries

Category: Get Healthy, Gym 2 Comments

Quandary I: I need new running shoes.

Quandary II: Why do I crave a billion bananas as soon as I’m done working out?

Quandary III: We started hitting the local community center several months ago to take advantage of what they call their “workout room” and hopes of the occasional pool time for The Boy. The General had to do a lot of convincing, but finally talked me into it. I couldn’t be happier about it. I try to hit the gym at least five days a week for at least an hour and always feel great when leaving. I’ve started running, lost some weight, toned some weird places, etc. I’m committed to it pretty hardcore. Our family membership has eventually dropped down to a dual membership, and very recently that has become a sole membership: just me. So, I started looking at other options just to see what else was out there.

I found a Snap Fitness that’s 2 miles from my house and now I can’t stop thinking about switching my membership over to there. I just paid for a full month at the community center, but am tempted to give it a shot when that expires. And here’s why:

It’s close enough for me to bike or walk to if I really needed.
There’s tons more equipment, so I wouldn’t have to wait in line.
It’s open 24 hours.

Those are the only three things that I don’t like about my current gym setup. Of course, it’s ~ $8/month, but the above three things kind of make up for that.

Do you belong to Snap? Do you like it? Hate it? Would love some real opinions of it and not just ones I can find posted online, because people tend to get a little carried away with that kind of thing.

Jul
1

By Wendy

swimming in my own sweat

Category: Me Leave a Comment

It hit 100 again here today. That’s twice all summer. I’m not complaining too much, because it’s only happened twice. In Missouri, I think it’s happened 209 times in the past two months. Go ahead and do the math on that one.

Today, while at work, all I could think about was going swimming. I opted for running on the treadmill and riding the stationary bike for a while at the gym instead. And the entire time I was running, the only thing I could think about was how I spent the best summers of my life as a kid at a cabin my grandparents had near Warsaw, MO. Yes, that’s where this guy is from, who was arrested on having wanton waste of fish. (I can’t help it. I love that phrase.) We’d swim daily in a lake that was way too deep and we were way too unsupervised most of the time.

And that’s all I really want to do now. Except every time I think about it, I think of the massive snapping turtle that my LYLAS-BFF Angie and I saw one day while we were in the same lake. And ever since then, I haven’t exactly been chomping at the bit to go hog wild swimming in a lake. That may very well change if too many of these 100 degree days keep happening.