Tuesday 5: Big important things!

It has been a couple weeks since I last posted, so I guess I should do a little bit of writing. It's that Tuesday 5 time again!

1. I am still going through a bit of the winter blues. I don't mind winter, but I would prefer to get a boatload of snow at least once this year! The one time we were initially projected to get a huge snowstorm, it all went north of us and we got nothing but a trace. Boo. I miss the snow. I love being out in it, the look of the pristine lawn of snow before anyone walks on it, and the way a city shuts down in silent reverie. It is so lovely. Come back snow, I miss you!

2. So my stepdaughter graduates 8th grade this year and she goes to school in a small town, as she mainly resides with her mother. We went to an 8th grade parents' meeting a week or two ago to go over graduation, the 8th grade dance, some fundraisers, and the 8th grade trip to an amusement park.  The kids want their dance's theme to be Royal Ball and they are going to wear formals. Are you kidding me?! It's 8th grade! Not only that, but the parents are talking about spending gobs of money on decorations and a DJ. They even made statements like "This is my child's 8th grade dance, of course we are going big! The school isn't paying for it, so we can do what we want!" Okay, I understand that this is a milestone in a child's life, but it isn't high school. Plus, the K-12 is all in the same cluster of buildings, so they aren't even physically moving anywhere. Back in my day, (yes, I am legitimately using that phrase) the only decorations we had were a few streamers and balloons on the refreshment table and we wore regular dresses, nothing fancy to our dance. Oh, and THEN, they started talking about how maybe they should do a glow in the dark theme and have the kids' hands get painted with it so they could see who got too handsy on the dance floor *tee hee* Oh isn't it so funny to sexualize our 13 year olds?! *wink wink* It's nothing we didn't do back then. Except uh, no, we didn't do that. Anyone who had "boyfriends" in junior high went to the movies and held hands and maybe kissed a few times, but I KNOW our parents for the most part encouraged modesty and self-respect. Ugh, sorry for the tangent, but that really disgusted me. Am I a prude?

3.  Today is Fat Tuesday y'all! Mardi Gras! I am thinking about what to do for Lent this year. I am sure you are all supremely interested, right? Well, I am thinking of abstaining from all pop and alcohol this year and adding some prayerful activity. I am terrible about following through on the prayer stuff though, so I am going to start small and maybe do a rosary once a week and maybe 2 religious books over the course of 40 days. What are you doing? Any more, simple ideas for me?

4.  Is there anything quite as rage-inducing or perhaps frustrating as the election cycle in the U.S.? I think you are hard-pressed to find something worse in that respect. If the super mysoginistic, and bankruptcy-loving Trump wins the nomination, this country is far more selfish than I originally thought. It's sad how successful he is in using fear and loathing to his advantage and disguising it as frankness.

5. Speaking of loathsome politics, Hillary Clinton is pretty despicable as well. So much history of shady dealings and outright lying and basically saying anything anyone wants to hear just to garner votes. The worst part is that Gloria Steinem, someone who considers herself a groundbreaking feminist, basically said the reason young women (under 45, that's me!) are flocking to Bernie Sanders is because all the boys like Sanders. Whaaaa?!?! So women like Bernie because we are too stupid to think about issues and just go where the cute boys are. Wow. Just wow. Not to be outdone, Madeline Frickin' Albright stated her "jokey" motto that she has said (according to her) many times in the past. "There's a special place in hell for women who don't support other women." So now I am supposed to vote for Hillary because she and I share the same gender?! How is that not the very opposite of what feminism stands for? It's truly appalling that women are actually considering her.

I know, I know, people have very different ideas of what they want a president to be like. It's great that there is so much attention focused on electing our next leader. However, I would encourage everyone to do some digging and not just vote for someone for superficial reasons. This is important and yes, your vote does mean something. It's too bad we don't take up a grass roots movement for an intelligent person that's not worth tens of millions of dollars or more!

Thanks for reading and have a great week!

Fat Tuesday 5

1.  Today is the last day before Lent and I have some last minute decisions to make.  I really thought about it today and I want to do a sugar detox.  However, there is a problem with that.  I have already bought everything for meals for the week and they include things that are on the NOT list for the detox., including whole wheat tortillas and granola for my greek yogurt.  I'm not sure I can even eat the greek yogurt since it's probably sweetened in some way.  (It's vanilla.)  I don't know how to get around this.  Maybe I'll just eat everything I have now and detox after this week is over?  I really want to do a sugar detox, but I don't think it's feasible right now for those reasons.  Hmmm.  I'm already adding in other things, but that would be the one big thing.  I used to give up meat for the 40 days of Lent, but it's not really a hardship for me anymore and I really don't eat a lot of it, so I don't want to fall back on that.  What say you, oh readers?

2.  I was in misery while working out today.  My stomach hurt and I started getting a bad headache in the middle of it.  I did 3 sets of this:  15 squats, 10 alternating forward lunges, 20 sit ups (laying flat and using a kettle bell), 10 pushups, 15 rows (using a resistance band), 20 regular crunches, 10 side plank crunches (each side), and 10 high knees (alternating legs).  I think that's all.  I feel like I'm missing something, but I don't know what.  The entire time I was doing all of this, I was also clenching my gluteus maximus trying to hold in a fart.  I was successful, but it was painful.  Haha.  I'd feel bad for my trainer if she didn't kick my ass 7 ways to Sunday.

3.  We did the adult thing last night and signed up for life insurance for Rick last night.  I can't get any because of my heart condition.  The insurance agent had an abscessed tooth and was chewing on ice the whole time.  Poor guy.  I told him about my baby tooth that I had 'til I was 23 or 24 (no tooth underneath it) and when it broke in half and started hurting.  I was young and broke with no dental insurance, so I went with my friend to the bar and drank 3 very alcoholic drinks to get rid of the pain.  It worked, kind of, and I ended up wiggling them enough with my tongue to eventually rip it out.  Almost as painful as the time the immediate care physician cauterized my big toe and it wasn't numbed all the way when he started.  Yowch!

4.  My kids have put in their orders for character cakes.  Stepdaughter wants a Spongebob cake and stepson wants a Deadpool cake.  Deadpool is a comic book character, an 'anti-hero' and is known as the 'Merc with a Mouth' (mercenary that is).  SD had Patrick Star last year and SS had the Death Star.  Eh, at least Spongebob is already rectangular and Deadpool is really not all that difficult either.  I remember some awesome cakes my Mom made when I was a kid and so I've tried to do a few of those for my own kids.  Years past have seen a ladybug, a Jolly Roger cake, sea turtles and Legos.

5.  I read an article the other day that talked about what people perceive to be the 'sexiest' accent in the world.  British accents were #1.  Isn't that just a little too easy?  What about Australian or Italian?  French?  German?  Okay, maybe not German, it really just sounds like they're perpetually angry.  Don't get me wrong, I do like to hear Alan Rickman say, well...just about anything really, but I think there are many other accents that are just as appealing.  In fact, almost any accent that's not your own probably sounds pretty appealing to you.  What do you think?

Have a great week readers and please like me on Facebook.  Thanks!