random in 2011

As of 7am this morning I had spent 84% of 2011 in my pajamas. I imagine that would start to get old if I kept it up for the whole year, but I'd still have liked to try.

Yesterday I ran my first mile of 2011 on the treadmill. Gonna run my second mile of 2011 after work.

Speaking of work, I still hate it.

My new year's resolutions are:
-Run a 10k
-Quit my job in August
-Make some money selling earrings on etsy

I wish I could quit sooner, and indeed I had applied for a job that would have started next week (no interview even, boo). I realized last week while reading Crazy Aunt Purl's account of 2010, wherein she recounts getting laid off in June, that I really wished I could be laid off too. It's a completely awful thought, I know. But I feel so trapped by this job.

I gave handmade earrings to my sister and mom and my boyfriend's sister and mom for Christmas. Both mom's have worn them in my presence, but I don't know if that's because they really like them or if they want to make me feel good about myself. But I do feel good about myself for having made them and I like them. So whatever. I'm gonna open an etsy shop. I just need a name.

I made baby cupcakes for boyfriend's sister's baby shower. And I knit booties for her too, but they came out really big. Oh well. I almost finished a matching hat yesterday, that will fit the baby a little sooner I hope. I need to put up pictures. Well, I need to take pictures.

Mental Test, La Marseillaise

I took French for three and a half years in jr. high/high school and another three semesters in college. I never really got fluent with it, but I did pretty darn well in Paris on the class trip we took. And I was starting to get to the point of thinking in French, as opposed to thinking in English and then translating, when I was writing papers for that last semester in college. But there's not a ton of it left now. I was in Quebec a few years ago and I understood a decent chunk of what was said around me, but I couldn't really respond to complex questions. And my pronunciation is for shit.

It turns out a co-worker of mine is friends with my jr. high French teacher and she came into the office a while back to chat. I was shocked that she remembered me and my sister (sister took German, but our teacher is Swiss so we got a combo deal there), but I was also really scared that she'd ask me something in French and I would only be able to stare blankly back at her. So as a mental exercise, I decided yesterday to see how much of the French national anthem I could come up with off the top of my head.

Here's what I got without looking anything up:

Allons enfants de la Patrille
Le jour de gloire est arrive!
Contra nous de la tyrranirer
Les tendarts blah blah blah blah blah
Repeat that line I just made up
Entendez vous dans les compangnes
Muirer quelque chose les souldats
There's a serious change in the melody here
And can't remember how many lines it goes on for.....

(ready for the big finish?)
Aux armes les citoyains!
Formez les battaillons!
Marchons! Marchons!
Quelque chose autre!*
Nice, uplifting closing line!

And the entire country erupts into applause over my mastery of their beloved anthem. (*"Quelque chose autre" I think is French for "something else")

Hmmm, doesn't look great. Let's look up the real one shall we? From Wikipedia:

Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,
L'étendard sanglant est levé!
L'étendard sanglant est levé!
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras
Egorger nos fils et nos compagnes!

Aux armes, citoyens!
Formez vos bataillons!
Marchons! marchons!
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!

Huh, well it certainly could have been worse, but I'm still disappointed because I could sing this thing in my sleep in 10th grade. You can go look up the translation if you feel like it, it's kinda gory actually.

Check me out!

I have finally made it into relative currentness with the interwebs here. Along the techno-phile/phobe continuum, I'm a mid to late adopter usually. Stuff has to be around for a while and enough of my friends have to have started using something before I start using it. I might get an iPhone or a Blackberry eventually, but 75% percent of the people I see/talk to regularly will have to get one first.

For example, it took me a while to get on myspace, and then it was mostly because all my friends started having conversations there and when we hung out in person I didn't get the jokes. And then there was the migration from myspace to facebook, and I was a little late on that bandwagon too. I was relatively early amongst my friends to gmail (I got it when you still had to be invited!) and that helped with using blogger. But I was so late with rss feeds (I just started using Google Reader and I LOVE it, can't believe I didn't do it sooner) and my current cell phone doesn't even have a camera.

But now look what I've figured out! I'm using Twitter with my phone and I even set it up to update my facebook status as well as this cute little box here on the blog!!! It's awesome! So now I can tweet from the middle of the Shark Week party. With just a text message! I can't upload a picture via cell phone, but I can change my online status in three different sites with just a text! So even if I don't blog for a long time, there's still something being updated here. And it's so simple.

So while I have to admit that this is definitely not cutting edge or early adopting in any way, it's still fairly early for me to be doing this. I'm proud of myself. =)

Sometimes it hits me

You've been in a cave lately if you haven't seen this:



Cute right? I found it sweet. I didn't quite love it the way it seems a lot of people did, but hey, I just might have some lingering bias. (Sidenote: I HATED "Enchanted" and came closer than I ever have to walking out of the theater. Hated it. And I'm pretty sure I still would now.) But I genuinely enjoyed watching this little video, even though once was definitely enough for me.

Well a friend just posted this to FB:



I'm sorry, it's just too great. Obviously the group in the second video really knows what they're doing, that's some seriously well-choreographed and well-executed moves. The judge is my favorite. Well, maybe when she throws the bouquet is my favorite. Or maybe the court officers are my favorite. Oh hell the whole video just made me smile. And it's all meant in good fun.

I don't root for divorce. It sucks. It SUCKS. And it sucks even if you don't have kids. Or a house. But I have to say, I cringe a little every time I see the fairy tale, "we're so blissfully (blindly?) happy," marriage stuff. (Or a lot if it's a whole movie's worth of crap like "Enchanted" *vomit*) So it was really refreshing to see a parody of the "Forever" wedding entrance video. Cause I said "forever" once and later wound up in front of a judge saying "not anymore." Who says there can't be humor in that?

She's so lucky

I used to be one of those people who said "I never win anything." I have no way of really proving that cause I never kept records of raffles or drawings or contests that I've entered and not won. But I did feel that way. Well not anymore.

Back in February I won a photo title contest at The Pioneer Woman. Here's the post with my name in bold! "Calf au Lait" how freakin clever is that? I was so proud of myself I could barely stand it. And the prize was great, $300 at Target.com. I got a yoga mat, throw pillows for the couch, a new comforter, some pyrex bakeware, and a microwave. It ruled.

And this morning I just got an email from Bossy saying I won a pound of coffee! I'm afraid it will be whole bean, which means I'll have to buy a grinder, which means that it's a shame I didn't get one with my $300 at Target.com. But I don't care, I love coffee.

In any case, I'm starting to feel a bit embarrassed by my good fortune. And now that I'm thinking of it, back around Thanksgiving I won (well the table pooled our tickets and put me in charge of organizing them, and then I made my friend take the prize because I still lived out in the boonies with my folks and didn't want to drunk drive) a week of free beer at Mario's Fishbowl. And last summer Aaron gave me extra raffle tickets at a fundraiser and I won a gift certificate to Black Bear Burritos which is maybe my favorite place in Morgantown. (And this was even before we started dating. Awwww.)

And gosh, I even won a pair of basketball tickets at Working Women's Wednesday back in January. Shoot, I feel really greedy for even entering the coffee giveaway. Well if you're reading this and you want a free pound of coffee, just be the first to comment here and I'll send it to you!

Weekend Wrap-up

Boyfriend went out of town to see a Phish concert and while he was away, I had a really nice weekend. Between taking him to the airport and picking him up from the airport I:

- Finished catching up with Lost. Good golly, it feels good to be done, not that I didn't enjoy watching it. Pumped for season 6!

-Watched all of Weeds season 4, just in time to watch the season premiere tonight! (In just one hour from now!)

-Finished dishcloth 4 of 4 for an upcoming present (for someone who definitely does not read this blog but I'm still going to keep it at least slightly secret here). This one I did while watching all that tv I just mentioned.

-Went to the local farmer's market! Bought apple butter, honey, goat cheese (chevre), and a bag of salad. Persevered through washing the salad despite finding an inch worm, slug, green flying thing (aphid?), endless little tiny black flying things, and a lady bug. I felt bad about squashing the lady bug, but it had to be done. I also petted a bunch of handspun yarn, but alas, it's too pricey for my budget and too scratchy to be any of the projects that I have in mind right now.

-Went bowling and did not too badly.

-Did a little yoga, thanks to this site. It kicked my ass a little, I really haven't worked out at all since February (and I wasn't that consistent about it before then either). I'm sore.

-Slept a lot. Which is particularly good because I really haven't followed up much on my previous intentions to sleep more.

-Made some art! A moonscape in pastels on canvas. Pastels feel a bit like glorified crayons with my skill level, and that's kind of what it winds up looking like, but I really enjoy this one and I'm going to hang it over my bed. And hopefully post a picture here too.

It was a good weekend. I missed Aaron but it was really satisfying to do so much that was all about me. =)

Sometimes it's the little things

Most of my life I have been religiously conflict avoidant. Ask any former roommate. (Is avoidant not a real word? I keep getting the red squiggly line. hmmm.) Getting married, however, kinda knocked that out of me. (Er, getting divorced is what really did it.) It's not totally gone, but you try being married to someone who sometimes does things that married men are not supposed to do and see how long you can avoid a conflict. So yeah, I'm way better at handling conflict than I used to be, but the tendency to avoid is still there.

I share an office with my boss, meaning I sit in the small rectangle between his desk and the wall, with my back to the door. This is so not feng shui it's not even funny. There is one particular gentleman I work with who is a pretty big guy. And he was in the habit of walking right into the 1 1/2 square feet of free space in my area and going through my drawers for stuff he needed... WHILE I WAS SITTING RIGHT THERE. It was so invasive and claustrophobic and frustrating it would ruin my whole day every time it happened.

So I resolved to handle this like a grown up. The next time he came in and started helping himself to my very limited amount of free space, I asked him if, when I'm sitting at my desk, he could ask me for what he needed instead of getting it himself. And he said oh sure no problem. And today? Today he walked in the door, stopped, and said "Hey, would you mind handing me the reservation books?" And I said "Sure thing."

It was like magic to this former conflict avoider. =)

I know I'm making a bigger deal out of this than I need to

Soooo.... I didn't tell anybody about this blog for a while cause I wasn't sure I wanted to. But now I do so it's time to do an intro post. You know, one that's a little more insightful than this.

On "Foggy Outlet":
The day I created this blog address it was a very foggy morning. I LOVE foggy mornings in WV, it reminds me of being a kid and walking to school when it was so foggy you couldn't see the end of the block. And then it all burns off into a gorgeous sunshiney day (hopefully). I like how there's a fog line too. Up at my parents' house it won't be foggy, but as you drive down into town there's a specific point as you go down the hill closer to the river where the fog starts. It's cool. But I also like "foggy" cause I don't really have a plan here. I've posted about knitting and crocheting, dreams, and weird stuff that makes me laugh. Whatever's in my head. And that's how it'll likely continue.

And obviously, it's an outlet. I'm blogging for the same reasons any random person might blog: it's cheaper than therapy (but not necessarily as effective), I'm bored, I think I might have something to say, I want to do something creative. I found myself reading a couple of artsy/folksy/diy type blogs and feeling a particularly nasty kind of jealousy. As I processed it out with B (she's also cheaper than therapy and at least, if not more, effective) I realized that I was having such a strong reaction cause I wanted to be doing what they're doing. And you know what? I'm never going to be a renown writer, or a professional artist, or even a particularly stylish dresser. But dammit I want to do something creative. B suggested I start a blog. I balked at first, but here it is.

On my blogging history:
This is actually my fourth blogspot address. They're all gone now so I won't bother telling you what they were. The first one was much like this one, I'd blog about whatever was in my head and all my friends read it and occasionally left comments. It was a happy little place. Then months after my ex moved out I discovered he was still reading my blog. This made me feel very weird and I didn't like it. Plus I didn't have a whole lot of non-depressing things to say at that point and I wasn't updating very often. So I deleted it.

The second one was a super short lived "I'm going to have fun now goddamit and I don't care what you think" angry kind of thing and I managed to offend B in the very first post. She called me on trying to cop a bad girl identity that wasn't really me (which she was right about). But I didn't like her critique so I deleted that one too.

Then I started a third blog that I didn't tell her about so I could further explore trying to be a bad girl without her input. But it's not very fun writing about being a bad girl when no one is reading. And truth be told, at the bottom of it I'm just not that much of a bad girl. So I deleted that one too.

That was all a while ago and I sort of swore off blogging. I thought the world had enough random bloggers, surely I didn't have anything to contribute that would be worthwhile. But screw that, it's not like I'm wasting paper with this. And it's a way that I'm putting myself out there. I'll definitely show off more knitting and crocheting, maybe some sketches, maybe some poetry. Or maybe it will only be more YouTube videos. But it will be videos that reflect parts of my personality, so that's something.

On having an audience:
I'm going to do my darnedest to genuinely not care what any of you think. I mean that in the best way, I want to do this first for me. I have this tendency towards perfectionism, and if I start to feel like I'm doing something "wrong" I will very quickly spiral down and want to delete this blog too. I want to avoid that so I'm going to try and practice not caring if you don't like it. Conversely, I will be grateful for any kind words you may have for me here, but I'm going to try and practice doing it first because I want to.

For that reason I'm not putting a site meter here. I don't want to know how much traffic I get, or what city my readers live in. If my ex happens to find it, I don't want to know. If no one stops by for three whole weeks, I don't want to know. If it blows up and I have tons of readers, I don't want to know.

So there's my very wordy intro. Sometimes I just have to say things aloud (or, ya know, type them) to give myself permission. Hopefully no more disclaimers or justifications after this.

Get outta my dreams, get into my car

I used to be really into dream interpretation. Not so much lately, but I still like it when I have an interesting dream. The other night I dreamed I was in my car and I shifted from park to drive. As far as dream symbolism goes, transportation of any kind is pretty cool. Driving yourself is cooler. And the car in my dream was my real-life car, my little Ford Focus! Not just some generic dream car. Any time there's ever been a car in my dreams before it's been some random car made up by my subconscious. Obviously the action is significant, shifting into Drive like that. Overall I think this dream is a very good sign.

And since it was so realistic, I can recreate it for you now!

Here's what my dream looked like. I shifted from Park:


to Drive:


It's like you're inside my dream! Dream-blog-vision!

And cause I can't leave well enough alone:

Why you shouldn't take me anywhere

I have this issue that occasionally embarrasses me in public. Sometimes, I don't know why, funny things will randomly hit me in that laugh-so-hard-you-cry kind of way. I don't think there's anything wrong with that in and of itself, I quite enjoy laughing that hard. If I'm by myself, no problem. If everyone else is laughing that hard, no problem. But not infrequently it happens to me and nobody else. It's so embarrassing.

Like the other night I was hanging out at a restaurant with a group of people that included a couple and their little baby. The baby got passed to one of my friends and all was well and good and cute. Then my friend casually took a swig from his beer bottle, set it back down, and looked a little alarmed and used his sleeve to wipe off the top of the baby's head. Me and one other person saw this and while she definitely laughed, I couldn't stop laughing and had to forcibly choke down the rest of my laughter. I also couldn't look at that friend holding the baby for a good 10 minutes before I finally really calmed down.

Also recently, I was recounting to a friend the scene from The Wedding Singer where Drew Barrymore's character gets drunk in a bar and pukes. She comes out from the bathroom and says to Adam Sandler's character, "I vomited in my hair. Does my hair smell like vomit?" For whatever reason, I could not say those lines without laughing. Particularly the word "vomited." Even now I just said it aloud to myself and it's making me laugh. I can't tell you why it's so funny.

One time a few years back, I was hanging out with friends at someone's apartment and one of the guys was talking about his recent trip to NYC. He mentioned going to a concert and another friend, who happens to be Australian, asked "Oh, was it a pianist?" And I knew what he said, but I couldn't help hearing something else, and it just made me giggle. A couple of other people giggled too, but while they all stopped giggling, I couldn't stop.

I know that I get this from my mom. It happens to her too. But the great thing is that if it happens to her while I'm around (or vice versa) I start laughing uncontrollably just because she is. And then she starts laughing harder because I'm laughing too and we just lose it completely. This is great because it's not embarrassing when it's not just me. Instead, it feels like we have some completely hilarious inside joke that no one else gets. Though even still, sometimes she calms down way before I do.

Just for the sake of another example, this video always makes me laugh that hard:

A year ago today...

I was living in Cambridge, MA. I was working full time but I took that day off. I woke up without an alarm and got ready. Got some coffee and a bite to eat at the cafe and hopped on a bus to East Cambridge. I went into the courthouse there, the second time I'd had occasion to visit. I paid some nominal fee and got the official decree with the raised seal. I got back on the bus to Davis Square and I went to the Social Security office, took a number and filled out the paperwork. Showed them the official decree and they said, "Yes of course you can have your name back, paperwork looks good, have a nice day." Then I went back home to show my roomie. She was pleased. I was pleased too.

Today....
I am living in Morgantown, WV. I work full time but today I got to leave a little early. I woke up late, grabbed some fruit for breakfast and hopped in my car to go to the office. I came home for lunch and made myself french toast. Went back to the office to wait out the afternoon till my boss said "Yeah of course you can take off, nothing's going on here, have a nice weekend." Went to the grocery store. Now I'm sitting here, having a little glass of white wine and feeling pleased.

I feel fat... Gonna try to sleep it off

I've talked about my scale before. I dislike how much I weigh. And it's not just the number, I dislike how I feel in my jeans (and these are jeans that I bought last summer because I was feeling fat in the jeans I had before that) and my arms are getting flabbier and my waist is getting thicker. And I ate three doughnuts at work today.

My new year's resolution was to either get down to 130 pounds - or, if I fail at that, resolve to stop caring about my weight forevermore. So far this year I've put on about 6 pounds. hmmm.

I've tried different stuff and usually something works for as long as I can stand to stick with it. The Sonoma Diet worked well for me but I lost so much so quick right in the beginning (5 pounds in 5 days) that I freaked out and stopped doing it all together. And it made me a little crazy about my food: I almost started crying once because my mom made something for dinner that involved white flour and I didn't want to offend her so I ate it. I almost started crying about eating a refined grain. I become an emotional cripple when it comes to diets that scare you into eating healthy.

And that seems to be the major issue for me, I don't want to do something that makes me mad at food. Or guilty about food. Or scared about food. I have too much inclination to go off the deep end with it.

B posted this about a picture food diary. I've done food diaries before, but it's the same guilt/anger issue for me. I don't want to be shamed into eating less. I do like the idea of using pictures more than just writing it down, cause then maybe you're more inclined to see patterns, and you're doing the recording before you do the consuming... But still.

Then I read this and I'm so all over it. Sleep more and lose 10 pounds? Sounds perfect. I need to lose more than that to get to 130 but still, it's a hell of a start. And I love sleeping. I was already thinking about how I wished I got more sleep more consistently. So I'm going to try it and I'll let you know how it goes. =)

Crochet rug update later. I've hit a decision point and I'm in need of advice. I'll post about it when I have access to the pictures on my camera.

I hate snow.

Say what you will: it's pretty, it's romantic, it's fun to play in. But whatever, I'm so over snow. We had freak snow showers last night and predicted again tonight and it just makes me want to curl up and die. It's definitely better here than Boston (except for the past 24 hours) but still. I really think I could live somewhere that it never snowed and I'd be a better person for it.

This morning I went out to my car (after procrastinating about leaving for work for as long as possible). I opened the door and slid halfway in to turn on the car to warm up while I cleared off the snow. Of course since it was rainy and gross last night, I had left the windshield wipers on without realizing it. They kicked on and promptly dumped a windshield's worth of heavy wet snow on my leg. Official sucky start to a sucky day. If it had been sunny like this weekend I'd be singing and dancing around the office right now. I would. I swear. I hate snow.

Thinner - or - How my scale ironically scares me into eating

I have a bad habit of weighing myself every morning. When I'm standing on the scale, I'm focused on the number (and it never makes me happy which is why I consider it a bad habit). But when I'm in there doin my business (what kind of blog is this!??!) sometimes I look over at the scale on the floor. The brand name is Thinner, which I kind of have issues with. Why can't the name be something that invokes the idea of being healthy, not just thinner? The font actually gets skinnier over the word too. The T is nice and thick and the R is all slim and withered away. Kinda weird.

But the real issue here is that it always reminds me of "Thinner": the only Stephen King movie I have watched other than "Carrie". (Has anyone not seen "Carrie"? I had to read the book for a Women's Studies class in college and it was super interesting. Freaked me out for sure, but it made for a great class discussion.) In "Thinner," A kind of douchey overweight dude does something kind of douchey to a gypsy family and gets cursed to keep losing weight. So he keeps losing weight till he looks like a shrunken head. I don't remember how it ends. Oddly I saw this in the theater when it came out, not on VHS at some torturous bad-movie-watching-party (which is a theme that has cropped up in multiple circles of friends of mine). This theater to be precise. At least I didn't pay much for it.

So now when I look at my scale I think about how much I don't want to look like a shrunken head and then I go eat a lot.

I can't believe I'm making this my first post - or - The reason God made farts smell is so deaf people can enjoy them as well.

After some urging, both external and internal, I'm starting a new blog. I'm going to try to not be precious about it, or perfectionist-y, or take feedback (of any kind) too seriously. I've had issues in the past (probably more about that later).

In anycase, I set up the Foggy Outlet name (probably more about that later too) but then left it blank for a little while, waiting for inspiration. I found some inspiration here: check out segment 4 for The News from Lake Wobegon. I don't know why I always giggle at this kind of stuff (the "stuff" I'm referring to is a little ways into the segment). But I do. I am 6. Farts are funny.

I have always loved blowing zerberts on people. It's funny cause it sounds like a fart but it doesn't stink and if you do it right it tickles. This was a big perk of being a nanny, captive zerbert victim. Now my poor boyfriend gets a zerbert on his neck whenever I'm feeling a little hyper. I'm never sure how this makes him feel. He laughs, but kind of nervously.

Anyway, I was going to post an audio file of me making fart noises in my elbow (ala The Pioneer Woman's burps) but I can't post it unless it's a video and there's something about a video of me making fart noises in my elbow that is a line I just can't cross.

But here's a picture:


Hi blogging world!