Facie’s Ramblings

Most years for Lent I have given up sweets. I was successful only once, in 2001, I think; I forget the year, but I had devoted myself to fitness in an almost obsessive way. It was a tough 45ish days without a piece of candy, cake, or bowl of ice cream. But I was doing that more for myself than to bring myself closer to God, which is a big part of doing (or not doing) something for Lent. I don't have nearly the faith I did then, but I do try most days to be a decent human being. If everyone strove to do that, the world would be a pretty great place, and it likely would not matter so much which religion people were, or if they had a religion. But I digress. This year for Lent I have decided to do a few things. Try to lessen my "saying the opposite" of what the hubs says. I do this. A lot. It is not so much that I have to be right. I am pretty sure I AM right most of the time (he would disagree). But I am going to try to let things go more. This one is going to be toug...

Because I have over 300 "friends" on Facebook (at least half of whom are not really friends at all) and only a handful of readers here, I tend to be more open in this space. Today will continue that trend. If you know me well (or even if you don't know me at all), I can tell you that for the most part, I feel pretty good about myself, both physically and as a person in general. I think it started soon after I had a child, and really solidified once I hit 40. I just have been able to accept who I am, know that I don't have to be perfect to be a good person, and pretty much am okay with my body, even though it is not as thin and tight as I would like it to be. Unfortunately, in the last six or so months, I gained a few pounds. Going to Baltimore almost a month ago and eating non-stop for several days and hardly moving put me a few more pounds ahead, and I am now the heaviest I have been for only the third time in my life. Unfortunately, because I walk a lot and I st...

Our couch and leather recliner in the den are pretty much destroyed, thanks to Sadie, who never met a piece of furniture or carpet that she did not want to dig at. I never much cared for the couch anyway, and it is almost 13 year old, so we decided to replace both of them. The hubs had this brilliant idea of getting a sectional with a cup holder feature in between one of the love seats. I am not a fan of those, but I gave in, mostly because he had me sold on the chaise. Yesterday, while J and I were at my mom's, he went to a furniture store, found a set he liked, and emailed me a pic of it, which included a chaise. I liked it okay, so the three of us went to see it today. I was expecting to be in and out of there within 30 minutes. We went over to the set, and I liked it  better in person (though still did not love it). But once he sat on the chaise for a couple of minutes, the hubs realized it was not as comfortable as he thought. Worse was when you reclined the chaise (which ...

I really could not decide on the better post title to aptly describe the blogger dinner I went to Saturday night, so I used them both, probably creating the world's longest blog post title! Considering this is going to be a long post, it kind of makes sense. So here is how it went, blow by blow (get your popcorn ready): Brian thought with the nearly always awful traffic on the Parkway East combined with a Pirates game and a closed exit that I should leave at 4:30 for the 6 p.m. dinner. I figured that 4:45 would be safe. In reality, even with a traffic backup at the North Shore, I was driving past the restaurant at 5:20. Unfortunately, the restaurant is BYOB and does not have a bar, so I had a dilemma. After driving around for six or seven minutes, I noticed a bar a block or two up the street, so I parked near it. As I was walking to the bar, I thought back to a time in '94 or '95 when I walked into a bar near the campus of IUP one weekday afternoon. I had hoped and ass...

No, I don't mean I need to go somewhere with the hubby. We did that not too long ago, remember? And the kid will be at grandma's again in another week, so we should get to go on another mini-date. Mini because my husband will be on call, which he is six months out of the year. And that means he cannot go far from home in case he gets a call and particularly if he has to go somewhere. Which brings me to why I need a date. Next weekend I will be meeting up with some fellow bloggers, none of whom I have met in real life and at least half of whom have blogs I have never read, for dinner. I was planning to take Jordan since a couple of the bloggers are bringing their kids. Then hubby informed me a few days ago that he looked at our calendar and saw that I had a blogger dinner, so he figured that would be a good time to send the kid to grandma's. I had reservations about taking Jordan anyway. The next oldest kid there will be four, and I was not sure how Jordan would do wit...

When I lie awake at night, often post ideas swim around my head, most of which are pretty good. But when I wake up the next day (or at least when I have the time to sit down and write a post), those great ideas and half-written-in-my-head posts have disappeared. So I just thought I would throw a few things out there. I went to a fashion show today, to support J's school. Considering my near lack of fashion, it is kind of funny, but it was actually a nice time, made better by my winning a small door prize. If nothing else, I was happy to see a pair of medium-length shorts on one of the eight-grade models. Anymore, it seems as if shorts come in two sizes — an inch or two just below the butt or well below the knees, which I guess are not really shorts. Hooray for a happy medium! In case you were wondering, being out of work for three years is kind of like a lifetime. Unfortunately, those few freelance projects over the past few years as well as my share of subbing are just not the...

I like to celebrate a birth weekend or a three-day birth anniversary whenever I can. Why limit yourself to just one day out of 365?! So, of course, in advance of today, the big 4-0, I decided to start my celebrating on Saturday. It started off on a small scale. I took Jordan to the Home Depot for one of those kids' workshops. With no hammering and a few screws, it was right up my alley. And, I was able to lift and carry the full propane tank back to the car, so clearly I am not over the hill! We followed that up with a quick trip to Kohl's, where I treated myself to a new wallet. Even waiting in a 20-person-deep line could not dampen my spirits, what with my happily telling the two people in front of me and one behind me that I was turning 40 on Monday. Yesterday was the real highlight. With my Steelers Santa cap and Hines Ward jersey on and my Terrible Towel in pocket, I headed downtown, where I got to park for free! I had a nice walk across the Roberto Clemente Bridge and...

May your travels be safe, your food be yummy, your family fights be limited (or, better yet, non-existent), and may you find at least one thing to be thankful for. I have many blessings, which I will try to remember over these next few days, particularly while sitting in traffic, being annoyed by a family member, or moaning about how much I have overeaten. I need to remember that I have a car to drive, family to visit, and food to eat. Yes, I am indeed blessed. Happy Thanksgiving! Oh, and can I just say that I am also thankful that Sidney Crosby is back on the ice and that I won tickets to see the Nutcracker. Almost makes me forget about my dead TV. :-)

A blog I visit from time to time recently had a post about free-writing. Well, that was the part of the post that most intrigued me: Kristen explained how she responded to a simple prompt of "I" and went on to write about herself uncensored for five minutes. As my 40th birthday looms ahead (just over two months), I decided to try this free-write myself. So here goes nothing, off the cuff, from the heart. I... I worry a lot, about more things than I should. I love my kid and my husband more than anything else. I love my kid more than my husband, and I know I probably should not. I like football and hockey, to watch. I am a Steelers fan first and a Penn State fan second. Once I had a kid, I decided it was okay not to watch too many PSU games, but I do my best to watch all the Steelers games. I don't think you should leave sporting events early unless you have an emergency or some pressing concern; whether it is a blowout or a close game, I want to ...

See those two shoes up there? The ones that don't match, not even close? Yours truly managed to leave the house last night in those completely different shoes. Apparently, when I checked myself out in the mirror before I left, I failed to look at my feet, which is not too surprising considering I pretty much never do that. What is odd is that I must have put each shoe on without looking at what I was doing. For the love of Pete, I know those shoes are slip-ons/backless, but how could I not catch a glimpse of them while sliding my tootsies in?! And as you can see from the photo, the structure is quite different. Any marginally coherent or observant person should notice that they don't feel the same. Yet I, apparently as clueless as they come, managed to walk out of the house and drive to the Strip District without noticing anything was amiss. When I got of my car almost 30 minutes later and took a few steps, then I decided to look down. Oddly enough (but clearly not surpr...

When I worked at my last (almost full-time) job, I did not go out a lot without the kid for the mostly obvious reasons: I felt guilty missing the few waking hours I had with her, and I really just missed her. That is why while at my last job, I often talked coworker friends into two-hour lunches or leaving at 3 p.m. for early happy hour; I hardly missed any evening hours with J and I still got to have grownup fun. One would think when you have not worked regularly for over two years, the guilt of being away from your kid would lessen. But if you know me and how my mind works, you would know it really has not and it goes beyond money. At swim lessons last week, two moms and I were talking about how when our husbands spend time with the kids (or kid, in my case), although we are grateful to have that time alone, we often find ourselves missing our kids, wishing they would hurry home, or in my case, often joining in on whatever Bri and Jordan are doing. Fortunately (for lack of a bett...

If I were a betting a woman, I would bet that I have used the above post title before. I will try to remember to check before I post this. Here it is, another New Year's Eve. Unlike Barry Manilow, I don't feel the need to make it the best. This night really is just another night for me. My guess is that I have stayed up past midnight only once in the past decade (old-cough-old). Tonight will probably be no exception. I will be going out to dinner with my mom and the kid. We waited until yesterday to make a reservation, so we will be dining at 4:30 (speaking of old). My guess is if we had tried this in the Burgh, we would have been out of luck (we are at Mom's in Indiana County). But the worrier in me likes to be off the roads pretty early anyway. Mom has been in PA since Sunday night, just before midnight. For some reason almost an hour elapsed from the time her plane landed (around 11:50 p.m., not exactly a prime flying time) until her suitcase made it on the luggage...

I hope all of you had a lovely Christmas. If yours was anything like mine, you may still be in some sort of a food coma. I started eating a lot of cookies Christmas Eve and since then have stopped eating (not just cookies) only when I was at church, in the car, or sleeping. A lot of my pants are too big anyway... Anyway, now that the secular season is winding down, I wanted to share some observations: Even though I have been listening to Christmas songs since the 19th of November (Light-Up Night is the "official" start of the season in the Burgh), I am not ready for the radio stations to stop playing the jolly tunes. This morning, I was pleasantly surprised to hear Christmas songs on two stations, but I am guessing that is for us Church folk, who are still in the Christmas season.  I like to think that I have finally accepted that no matter how many times I ask my MIL not to buy Jordan a lot of gifts and/or spend a lot of money on her for Christmas (and birthday, for tha...

If you have read this blog for awhile, you know I try to keep my friends and relatives out of it. At the very least, I don't get into super specific things because I figure these people may not want their stories "out there." You probably have also noticed I very rarely blog about my husband. About the only post that was (mostly) about him centered on a birthday gift I got him which he did not appreciate so much. I have long gotten over that, and believe me, we have much more petty (and important) things to discuss. But this week I went where I had never gone before, and I am ruing the day. A couple of nights ago, during a Pens game, I mentioned to Brian that I thought his stomach looked bigger and I was worried about his weight. I realize saying something like to another person will go poorly probably 99 percent of the time. But I am concerned, I have noticed this for quite some time, and I want my husband to be around for awhile. Once Bri got over his anger at my s...

Last week, I had a particularly trying day while subbing. I don't think I have ever gotten through a day without some small challenge, which is typically the loudness of a large class (and for the record, I think having over 30 kids in one class is too many). But usually, all is well that ends well. The day started off fine. By late morning, I bribed one of my toughest (i.e., largest) classes by saying if I did not have to tell them to be quiet more than two times, I would let them out two minutes early. The school has no time between classes, which means that other than the first period, no class really starts "on time." But since this class is right before lunch, and I was hungry and knew we could get through what we needed to, I figured this was an acceptable trade-off. The class was probably about as quiet as it ever was; I did have to say something three times, so, much like I parent, I did not hold completely to my threat, but I called it a success. And as the s...

Like many people this time of year, I am reflecting on all the blessings in my life. So, as I did last year, I want to list the many, many things I am thankful for. Jordan . To think I did not want kids and could have missed out on her. She is truly my greatest blessing. Brian . We drive each other crazy more than we should. And sometimes we want to run the other way, far, far away. But he is a good husband, father, cook, and handyman who is doing the best he can. And he just walked in with wine coolers! Family . Jordan and Brian are at the top of my list, but I am also blessed to have the rest of my relatives, especially my mom, dad, brothers and their families. Friends and acquaintances . I have many (more of the latter) and for that I am lucky. Faith . It gets me through tough times and often helps me better appreciate the good times. Health . We have been blessed by relative good health, aches and pains notwithstanding. Home . Unfortunately there are people out there who don't ...

Today is one of those days that makes you really appreciate the sun and just being alive. Jordan and I went to a local outdoor church festival where I got to stir a giant kettle of apple butter (which was more like applesauce at that point). Jordan sat in a fire truck. We partook in various eats and drinks, including some baked goods, a hot dog, and hot apple cider. And we just got to enjoy the beautiful fall day surrounded by members of our community. Good stuff. (And it came on the heels of a Pens and a Pitt victory, so that helped.)

I don't know if it is more age (almost 37.5) or that I am not as physically active as I used to be, but lately I have had aches and pains that I thought were reserved for people in their 60s and older. Just this weekend, while at Mom's, my left calf really bothered me. I walked alongside a bike-riding Jordan and winced with almost every step. I bowed out of a walk the next day as well. Oddly enough, while at a park, the pain went away after awhile. I have no idea where it came from and why it left. This came on the heels of my sore butt and thighs after walking in my hilly neighborhood one day last week. I finished the jaunt with a little run up my steep hill. I still would like to start running again. Of course, I have been saying this for over a year now, ever since I bought new running shoes, shoes that I took out of the box for the first time last fall, I think, just to make sure they were still there. I keep thinking back to the senior citizen I saw on TV last year who was...