A Late Update

Remember this post? The one where I challenged myself (and Ricky) to take a break from ordering take-out and delivery for the month of October? Well, I meant to update you on how that went on November 1, but life got in the way and here we are on November 20.

But never fear! The lack of an update does not mean failure of the challenge. In fact, giving up ordering out was much easier than we expected. It was almost as if we didn't even think about it once we knew it wasn't an option any more. When it was dinner time we went to the kitchen and we cooked. We didn't sit on the couch and wonder what we should order. We just got up and cooked.

And it didn't suck!

Now don't get me wrong. We did cheat. But only twice. For the WHOLE month! Considering we used to order in at least twice a week I consider that pretty damn good. Also, when we cheated, the food wasn't that great which made it easier to get back on the wagon. Perhaps eating more real food made us realize how a lot of restaurant food is just okay.

Now we are more than halfway through November and we have continued to eat in. And it's great. We're eating healthier (because we sure as hell weren't ordering salads!), we feel better, we haven't wasted the groceries we buy. It's great! And of course, we have saved some money.

(Which is a damn good thing, because the medical bills for Little Ricky's birth JUST stopped rolling in. And let me tell you, even with good insurance, babies are EXPENSIVE!

My "favorite" bill (can you hear the sarcasm???) was the one for Little Ricky's room and board.

Ummmm, he roomed with me and I'm pretty sure we paid for MY room and board. Also, I breastfed which means the hospital didn't even have to shell out any formula for him.)

(But I digress.)

So, back to the challenge. We plan to continue the no (or minimal) ordering in. We had also talked about starting a new challenge and cutting back on sweets, but c'mon, people. It's the holidays. We'll try that in the new year!

Wordless Wednesday: 5 Months

My Dream Job

I have had many a shitty job.

There was the summer spent as a counselor at Girl Scout Camp. (Thank God, LaTeedAh was there too or I never would have survived.)

There were the couple of years selling greeting cards at Hallmark. Not the shittiest job, but definitely one of the more boring!


There was the temp job at a law firm where the lawyer screamed at me for not sending a call through and instead taking a message even though he was in a very important meeting. (I walked out of that job that day and even though it was more than 10 years ago it still KILLS me that I didn’t delete some of the files on his computer first. Asshole.)


I have also had some awesome jobs.


I’ve led two youth theatre programs, one in TX, one in NC. At both jobs I had the opportunity to work with some awesome kids and parents. And in NC I had the most amazing boss. It was an absolute joy to work for her.


I’ve worked for a major symphony orchestra. (Actually, that should have been a cool job, but due to a bad boss, it was pretty shitty.)


I was the education director for a professional ballet company.


All cool jobs, all fun jobs. All jobs within the arts which I love.


Despite all of that, none of them ever felt like my dream job. I enjoyed the jobs, but I never had that “jump out of bed, can’t wait to get to work in the morning” feeling no matter how much I loved where I was working and who I was working with.


Until now.


Now I have a very demanding boss. He screams when things don’t go his way. He makes me work at ungodly hours. He creates really awful messes and then expects me to clean them up.


And still I love this job.


I adore this boss.


I can’t wait to get up in the morning and get to work.


Now if we could just talk about an actual paycheck…



I know he looks cute, but don't be fooled. He's quite the slave driver!

Ricky Speaks!

Be sure to check the comments from yesterday's post to see Ricky's response.

Perhaps the honeymoon isn't over...

Things I Love Thursday: Lipgloss

I have a few unhealthy addictions. Now I’m not talking crack unhealthy. More like Diet Dr. Pepper, Ben & Jerry’s unhealthy.

I also have some addictions that are not necessarily unhealthy, but are definitely frivolous. (And no, I’m not talking shoes. Because shoes are not frivolous! They are necessary items.)

(Yes, I NEEDED all 5 pairs of pink shoes that I own.)

(Shut up!)

Anyhoo, one of my frivolous addictions is lip gloss.

Being in high school in the late 80’s I was a fan of big hair, dark lip liner and dark, matte lipstick. Let me tell ya, I was a looker.

Even once I toned down the hair I stuck with lipstick for quite a while. But then a few years ago I randomly bought a tinted lip gloss. And then another. And another.

And it got to the point where I couldn't walk into a Target or Walgreen’s or CVS or Sephora or damn near anywhere with a make-up aisle without buying a new lip gloss.

I now have a drawer full of lip glosses ranging from completely sheer to brownish, pinkish, reddish, wineish, etc., etc.

Despite having almost every color under the rainbow I am always on the search for another one. One with that perfect sheer wash of color. One that makes me look like I’m not wearing anything and just have naturally lovely lips.

And then Pink Cupcake Vintage wrote about Jemma Kidd's Lip ID Color-Adapt lip gloss. Now let me just say that Pink Cupcake Vintage is one of the more stylish people I know so if she recommends something you know it’s going to be good. So I immediately trekked to my neighborhood Target and bought me a tube.

And sure enough, this lip gloss is awesome! It comes out of the tube clear, but once on your lips it somehow becomes the perfect shade just for you. On me it turns into a lovely, natural pink. On my husband (yes, he tested it out for me. What a good man!) it becomes more of a wine color. I don’t know how they do it (some sort of science, space-agey, gobbledy-gook) but I do know I like it!

Now when I’m going for that "perfectly natural, I’m not wearing make-up, I just look this good" look, this is the gloss I reach for.

You can find this lip gloss at Target and while it costs more than a normal Target lip gloss it is totally worth it. If you try it, let me know what color it becomes for you!!

With all the hoopla about blog reviews, I guess I should say I didn't receive anything for this post. I just like the lip gloss and wanted to tell you about it.

Find more Things I Love Thursday at The Diaper Diaries.

Romance, Romance

Ricky and I will celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary next week. For the most part, we have a good relationship. Sure we have our little tiffs, but we rarely fight-fight. But like a lot of couples we can get pretty wrapped up in the day to day business of life and let romance go out the window.

We were talking about that recently and I said to Ricky “I want you to treat me like your girlfriend, not your wife.” At this point Ricky made some typical man remark about sex (sorry, mom!), we both laughed and the conversation was dropped.

But the next day I received a phone call from our doorman that I had a delivery. As I wasn’t expecting anything I asked what it was. “It’s from a florist.”

A florist? Well, send him up!

Ricky WAS listening last night. He sent me flowers. How sweet!

Little Ricky was in the middle of a nap and I didn’t want the doorbell to wake him so I floated to the door to await my flowers. As soon as I saw the delivery man I flung open the door and came face to face with…

An edible arrangement.

(You know those fruit baskets that are made to look like floral bouquets?)

An odd choice, I thought, not terribly romantic, but we’ll give Ricky credit for the thought.

And then the delivery man said “Lily?”

Ummm, no, Lucy.

Is this apartment ###?

Yep, but I’m Lucy, not Lily.

The delivery guy looked pretty stumped at this point so I mentioned that Lucy and Lily might get mixed up over the phone so why don’t we see who the basket was from.

“Dear Lily, Get well soon. Love, John.”

Okay, I’m not Lily, I’m not sick and I don’t know a John that would send me fruit. Three strikes.

Off the delivery man went and I was left feeling like an idiot.

One, I got super-excited over flowers when I didn’t even know for sure if they were flowers.

Two, I yanked open the door before the man could even ring the doorbell. Yes, I was trying to keep him from waking the baby, but he didn’t know that. He was probably thinking “poor, sad woman.”

Three, the arrangement wasn’t even for me!!! (Making the eager yanking open of the door even more pathetic!)

When Ricky got home from work that night, I told him my sad little story. Did he express empathy at my embarrassment? Did he apologize for not actually sending me flowers (or a fruit basket?)

NO!

He laughed.

The honeymoon is definitely over.

Wordless Wednesday: ROAR!