"Something tells me you’re not licensed to do this. Show me your papers.", originally uploaded by krisalis903.

While giving Izzie an in-between-haircuts haircut, she gives me this look that makes me think she’s mentally questioning my dog grooming skills.

I’m going to start this post off by admitting that, yes, I know I don’t take care of myself as well as I really should. Last year’s stress-induced emergency room visit is a great example of that.

So as a result, I’ve decided to face my impending old age and start taking better care of myself (not that I really had a choice though because it’s either do it, or don’t and die an early death). This also means finding an actual physician whom I can visit for regular checkups. Most recently was one of those said checkups, which included some blood work. It’s been a while since I did a CBC as part of a checkup (and not as part of an ER visit). Eventually I knew that one of these days my love for full-fat sour cream, real butter, and mayonnaise would eventually be revealed to the world. Today was that day.

I called my doctor’s office this morning to follow up with a nurse about my blood work. Minnie, the nurse, was so chipper this morning that I probably wouldn’t have been as receptive to her overly bubbly phone greeting if I didn’t have a cup of coffee that morning. She was even enthusiastic when she was telling me that my cholesterol was high (not very high, but higher than normal) and almost faked me into thinking she was delivering good news.

(The funny part of this whole thing was right before I called her, I’d just sat down at my desk with a cup of coffee–with half & half of course–and a cinnamon roll from Starbuck’s.)

Yeah, that’s my thing right now. Diet, exercise, and lower my cholesterol.

That is, after my fried chicken book club meeting at Babe’s Chicken Dinner House tomorrow night

So after the stress-filled week I had last week, all I wanted was a weekend to decompress.

And decompress, I did.

I spent most of the weekend with my butt planted firmly on my couch (sometimes laptop in hand, sometimes not) watching a marathon of episodes from Arrested Development, 30 Rock, and The Office. Whoever said laughter is the best medicine was spot on if you ask. me.

As a result, our weekend was full of one-liners from various episodes. Last night, when we arrived home after a filling dinner at my parents house, a mother and her son were crossing the parking lot in front of us and the kid kept staring at us as I slowly inched toward them in my car. “Look at that kid staring us down,” I said to Jabari. “It’s like he wants to play chicken with us.” And then I started clapping my hands and saying, “Cocka-cocka-cocka-cocka…!” and laughing. If you’ve ever seen Arrested Development, you’ll recognize that as Gob’s familiar “chicken” dance.

And last night, I jumped into bed next to Jabari saying, “Here comes the funcooker!” That’s from the episode of 30 Rock where Tracy would moon people, saying, “Here comes the funcooker!” which was also the name of Jack’s pocket microwave. That one definitely got a lot of laughs and a lot of use

And then this morning before Jabari left for work, I gave him the special Kenneth the Page “good luck” hand gesture. You’ll see what I mean at the end of the clip here. Seriously, no matter how many times I watch his monologue in this clip, I laugh every single time.

The great thing about having a long weekend is having a shorter work week. I’m glad that tomorrow is already Wednesday (today still felt like a Monday even though it technically was Tuesday). Mom is supposed to have her follow up appointment with her doctor. A good writer would know what to write in this next sentence. Instead I’m going to leave you with a short clip of Gob (played by Will Arnett) and his chicken dance.

If there’s one thing I like to do, it’s tell stories. Jabari should know this by now, so what I’m about to say doesn’t leave this blog. Got it? Ok.

Yesterday I came home from work and as I was walking up the sidewalk to my apartment, I smell the distinct smell of burnt toast. It was 6:30 in the evening so it was a little surprising to think our downstairs neighbors were cooking a lot of toast for dinner. On the other hand, I’ve been known to make breakfast for dinner (or as Turk from Scrubs would put it, brinner) so maybe it wasn’t so surprising.

Anyway, I get to the bottom of our stairs and I look up to see the front door was wide open. So I’m thinking either 1) We’ve been robbed; or 2) Jabari burned something so bad that he actually had to actually open the front door to let the stench out. I’m not really sure what was worse.

I walk into the apartment to find all the windows were wide open and Jabari was sitting at his computer. “What in the world?” I asked. I don’t even remember if Jabari said anything when I walked in. Perhaps the overwhelming stench of burned-something clouded my memory of it.

My eyes travel toward the kitchen to find the microwave wide open. And like a scene from a horror movie, I walk over to it and just as I peek inside, that’s when the scary music starts playing.

There, inside the microwave, was a smell of burned popcorn that could not beat any other burned popcorn smell in the history of processed foods. The once white microwave was now stained this unappetizing yellow and absolutely positively REEKED. Sitting underneath it on the countertop was a bag of popcorn.

Evidently he had set the microwave to pop it and left it while he fiddled around on the computer. And by the time he realized what happened, it was already done , and smoking from the inside out.

Evidently there’s a reason why they print “THIS SIDE UP” in really large letters on one side of the bag of popcorn. It’s because THEY REALLY DO MEAN FOR YOU TO HEAT IT UP WITH THAT SIDE UP. Or else, of course, you run the risk of setting fire to the kitchen, as we discovered yesterday.

Seriously though… the smell penetrated every fiber in that apartment. It was in the bathroom, the bedroom, EVERYWHERE. Everywhere except in the air around where Jabari was sitting because he didn’t smell it until he heard it beep, which was long after it had burned away and disintegrated into unrecognizable brown lumps. Although I think I can see why because our living room has vaulted ceilings so it had a long way to travel before it actually reached where he was sitting. But still. It’ll probably require a divine angel or perhaps an exorcist to banish the smell it left behind (which, after a certain point, begins to smell like a combination of sweaty gym socks and a stinky old ashtray filled with stale cigarette butts).

Yes, folks, we now live in a bowling alley.

I had almost started to clean it before he stopped me. It was his mess, he said, he’ll clean it up. Only later did he realize his mistake. He pouted and made faces the entire time. It was the least I could do since now I had to live with a yellow microwave.

*Blip*

If you were wondering what that sound was, that’s the sound of me turning of my filter for this one post. It’s not very often that I write, unencumbered, an entry that wasn’t featuring a photo or a paper project. So if you were looking forward to one of those, I apologize. Instead, this one is going to be about something that most of us women are hesitant to expose to complete strangers: everyday thoughts and feelings.

Deep breath.

For the last few weeks, I’ve neglected a lot of things in my life: my house, this website (although I think that’s been longer than weeks), my weight, my social life, and my hobbies. It started with things that needed to be tended to, but then when left unattended, began to gather dust and turn into an eyesore. A stack of paperwork. A box of things that needed to be put away. Pretty soon I was seeing pockets of unattended areas everywhere. I’m sure there are a lot more to add to that list, but those are what’s currently pressing me.

There’s this song by Weezer called Run Over by a Truck. It’s funny because that started playing in my Genius mix just as I was writing this entry. As I listened to the lyrics, I just smiled because it’s exactly how I’m feeling right now. It really does sometimes seem like I’ve been run over by a truck. Like the fire that had been lit up underneath me, the one that kept my passion going for the things I really love, has gone out. The things that I used to find so easy are suddenly a struggle. I’m unable to pinpoint why. In fact, at this point I don’t even think that’s important, but I’m aware of what I need to do to fix it.

So what am I doing today? I’m starting with baby steps. I’m doing what I can to get my house in order first: laundry, spending 15 minutes putting things away, creating a list of projects that need to be completed around the house, and cleaning the floors. I figured these are small things I can do today that won’t overwhelm me.

Has anyone else gone through periods where they just don’t feel like doing anything? How did you get out of it? How do you stay out of it?

Currently Reaching Astounding Levels of Embarrassment and Shame, originally uploaded by krisalis903.

So I’ve begun the arduous task of wading through my collection of CDs, converting the ones I really want to digital, and sorting them for sale or storage.

As I’m filing through some of these CDs, I think I can only attribute my having some of them in my collection to temporary insanity. Like this one, for example, the Garth Brooks album where he was parading around as some fictional character named Chris Gaines. Seriously? I paid money for this?

On the other hand, listening to the album I realized that among the duds, there were a couple of really good songs that I liked, such as “It Don’t Matter to the Sun” and “That’s The Way I Remember It.” And “Lost in You,” one of the more popular songs from the album, was a really great love song. It’s unfortunate that it’ll probably be easily forgotten due to the overall failure of the whole record. At the time, I had no idea what he was doing when he released it, but after doing some research this evening, I found out the CD had been released as a pre-soundtrack to a movie in which Brooks would play the character Chris Gaines and that the movie would follow. But after the soundtrack flopped, they dropped plans to make the movie.

The unfortunate thing is it’s completely non-existant these days. They don’t even have the album artwork stored anywhere for me to download and import to iTunes! It’s not even part of his discography on his website. It’s almost as if this album never existed. Hmm, maybe I should keep it. It might be worth something someday

A Lovely End to a Lovely Day, originally uploaded by krisalis903.

The weather has been so awesome the last couple days that we’ve had the windows open in the evenings. My reading chair is right in front of one of those windows which means not only do I get this nice cool breeze on the back of my neck, but I get to hear all the outside sounds: the distant train, the occasional plane overhead, and the chirping birds. And if I stay up long enough, I might even hear the sprinklers turn on for about 10 minutes and then turn off.

After making a nice pasta dinner for me and Jabari, I settled into my reading chair to work on my laptop while Izzie kept my feet warm. And then I read the latest issue of Cooking Light which had an article on risotto (something I haven’t tackled before, but am now considering).

Evenings like this one make realize how glad I am to have a camera to capture it.

It’s been a really good Saturday. And those are rarely good for me because oftentimes I never do everything I have on my list of things to do before the weekend is over. Although today I didn’t have said list, it was still a good day. And maybe that’s why it was so good.

It’s almost midnight. I’m curled up under the covers watching a Clive Owen movie while typing away on my laptop. Izzie is snoring loudly from Jabari’s side of the bed. And actually, she shouldn’t be sleeping in our bed because she’s grounded (she’s been really bad this past week), but, well, it’s cold and it’s the weekend. I’ll let it go just this once.

Jabari is in Houston for the weekend so it’s been just us girls since yesterday. It’s been nice to have the place all to myself again, but I do miss him.

I’ve tackled my second sewing project this weekend: simple table napkins and a cute little apron. The napkins turned out great, I purchased more fabric to make another set. And the apron turned out, well, ok. I don’t know if I liked my fabric of choice. I probably would have liked it better if I used some kind of twill or canvas for the apron part, and then the patterned fabric for the front pockets. I’ll have to post pictures of it tomorrow.

After making a quick trip to Hobby Lobby, I grabbed lunch at Raising Cane’s. It’s funny—I tried that place several years ago when I discovered their location in Lewisville, but the meal was so disappointing. The breading on the chicken tenders was soggy and fell off the chicken. The chicken itself was flavorful and the dipping sauce was… weird. It had a may, ketchup, curry, nutmeg type flavor. I was so used to Chick Fil A and their honey mustard and crispy waffle fries that Cane’s was just so unimpressive.

Then they opened a location down the street from where I live. I was on my way home from shopping one evening when I figured I would stop by. It seems as though they’ve improved something because the chicken tenders were much better. The dipping sauce is still weird, but it’s starting to grow on me. I’m still not sure if I like it more than Bubba’s on Hillcrest, but when I get tired of Chicken Express (and I sometimes do), it’s nice to have another option.

Wow, did I really just write two paragraphs on the intricacies of fried chicken tenders?

I have a lot of things on the horizon though. A new month is about to start which means another month of working towards my goals. Oh, did I mention I’ve been working out using EA Sports Active? It’s a lot of fun despite the lunges, jump lunges, and jump squats I’ve had to do since starting this workout. The great news is I’ve already lost 3 lbs since starting over a week ago! Baby steps, of course. Baby steps.

(Not really, because it’s pretty disgusting, but I figured it would be an appropriate title for today’s entry–ha!)

So yeah, today I had my first root canal. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been prone to cavities and all kinds of dental work. Today one of those cavities finally caught up with me. Over a year ago, I had to have an old filling replaced because it was already passed its prime. When my dentist removed the old filling, he discovered even more tooth decay beneath it. The larger, new filling ended up reaching the tooth nerve which meant it was only a matter of time before the nerve would die and then I would need a root canal.

After putting it off and putting it off, I finally scheduled my appointment for the root canal after my dental hygienist twisted my arm before I left my last cleaning appointment. I decided then I would schedule it at the earliest possible hour just so I could get it over with and have the rest of the day to either nurse my poor mouth and/or sleep. In fact, the sun wasn’t even up this morning by the time I was already in my car on my way to my dentist’s office.

The root canal treatment itself wasn’t as bad as most people make it out to be. In fact, if you can tolerate a filling (or several) then you can probably tolerate a root canal. Honestly it was just like a much more intense filling. Except that one part during the procedure when he took that pointy file and started scraping out the nerve insides. Oh yeah, it was graphic.

Luckily though, he said it was a standard root canal–no surprises. Needless to say, despite how non-scary it was, I would try to avoid it if not for my own comfort, then at least for my own wallet. It was NOT cheap.

I’m wondering how many people are actually going Black Friday shopping this year.

Today we got a little bit of a preview of that craziness when we went out to Allen Premium Outlets. For some reason, Allen has always been a million miles away to me, but it turns out it was just a 20 minute drive from where we live. Jabari surprisingly wanted to do some shopping (which is EXTREMELY rare because he hates it) and heard there was a Sketchers outlet store in Allen.

The drive there wasn’t so bad, it was when we drove into the shopping center to park was when we hit traffic. I think it took somewhere around 10 or 15 minutes just to get in mostly because we were fighting a lot of pedestrian traffic. But when we did get in, parking wasn’t so bad if you didn’t mind parking in the middle of the shopping center.

When we got out of the car and found a map to figure out where we were and where we needed to go, we found out that where we needed to go was all the way on the other side of where we were (as our luck would have it). Thankfully we wore our walking shoes.

Jabari and I ended up going different ways and decided we would meet up later since we both had our cell phones. I stopped by the Lane Bryant sore and found a LOT of stuff was 40% off. I ended up buying a grey corduroy blazer and an olive green cami for like $40. I refrained from buying anything else because I had one more stop I wanted to make at The Cosmetics Company Outlet which happened to be just 3 or 4 stores down.

I’ve heard a lot of rumors about The Cosmetics Company Outlet, that it’s a great place to get high-end department store cosmetics at a discounted price. This is true. I found MAC Mineralize Skin Finishes for like $19.50 compared to the regular price of $27. They carried brands like Bobbi Brown, Clinique, and Estee Lauder–a lot of the products were either overstock or discontinues. I didn’t buy very much, just 3 MAC Pigments for $13.75 each (although I think one was $15.75 because it was a glitter): Copperbeam (which is a beautiful rich copper color), Reflects – Red Black (a dark wine color with glitter), and Melon (a shimmery melon color). I think I walked away with a decent stash though. I don’t know if I’ll come back during the holidays (I imagine it just gets really packed and crazy around that time) but I’m pretty sure I’ll come back again.

The only other shopping I plan on doing this week is the grocery store, then Michael’s and Bed Bath & Beyond on Friday. Anyone else doing major Black Friday shopping?