I just had 12 inches of hair cut off!

This past week has been HORRIBLE! I slipped and fell and hurt my back and hip. Being bed-ridden for a week with a heating pad and the democratic national convention (GO OBAMA) wasn't nearly as nice and relaxing as I thought it might be. Every movement was just horrendous pain. I am getting better finally, but no where near 100%. The good thing was that even though I couldn't move or exercise at all- I did manage to lose 1.5 lbs! What made this week worse was the fact that we had really nice weather, and it's my son's last week before he goes to school and I couldn't go anywhere with him (like the zoo or museum).

I did manage to clean out my closet and this is what I saw-

Not just black, white and denim- colors! patterns! I guess I did learn something from WT! Now of course I have to worry about winter clothes....
Yesterday I decided to keep my hair appointment that I had made a while back. I went from this-
To this-

sorry for the bad pictures- but it's over 12 inches of hair gone! I am a bit in shock. It's super short and I haven't had hair this length in over 15 years.

Guilty pleasures- everyone's got them. Here is the old Meme-plus Fashion!

It has taken me a while to sit down to post anything- life is crazy right now. The septic is still dead and now we have to start the permit process. My husband is sick- it may be his gall bladder- he's at the hospital right now. My son starts pre school on the 2nd, and I am SO not ready for that. My Aunt is driving my Mother crazy- my cousin is out of work (so is her husband) and it doesn't appear to anyone that they are even trying to look for a job (and she has 2 kids so it's a bigger deal- I guess. I don't know. I refuse to get involved) so she calls my Mom daily to vent.

To take my mind off of all that- here's a small list of guilty pleasures.

1. Music. This is easy . ABBA, Rick Springfield, George Micheal and WHAM!, AC/DC. Wildly divergent I know, but I grew up in the 80's - when music and fashion wasn't so much an art form.

2. TV. Top Gear. BBC America has this great show- I mean who doesn't like watching 3 guys test drive 250,000 dollar European sports cars? I like racing- NOT NASCAR- racing. But what really makes me laugh is when the hosts buy 1000 dollar beater cars and drive them across Africa (or from Florida to New Orleans) or when they buy these horrid used cars and then "test" them- like by testing their suspension systems by driving over a brick road with a colander of eggs over their heads. I also love "clean house" on the Style network. Neicy Nash makes this show for me. It's not really the clean part I enjoy- it's the dirty before houses (foolishness and mayhem!) that make me feel better about my own. I won't even talk about Dr. Who and Torchwood. My favorite shows- along with Lost and House. They are not guilty pleasures. I am proud of them!

3. Movies. "Another Woman" with Justine Bateman of all people. It's a Harlequin romance novel movie. It's usually on O or lifetime about midnight- and I have to stay up and watch it-it's awful though. I'm just warning you. The other type of movie I love but don't talk about is stuff like "Motel Hell". Funny, stupid scary movies about serial killers.

4. Food. Fritos. I love me some Fritos- especially when made into a Frito Pie. (Fritos, chili, cheese and onions) The other thing is Italian Cream Cake. YUMMY

5. Books. Chuck Palaunik. The guy who brought you "Fight Club". I also love a series of books written in the 30's and 40's (with some updates later) called the "American Guide Series" and they are a complete travel-guide type book about a state (there are 48 I guess, unless they did a HI and AK later) I have the one for Michigan and Texas already. I will have to do a later posting about these books because they are a hoot (and are unfortunately a clear reminder of racism, sexism and all sorts of bad -isms)

6. Fashion- Black cotton stretch yoga pants with a t shirt (for around the house) and flip flops. I have about 5 pair of black stretch pants and usually change into them within moments of entering my house.

Why I hate Neil Diamond. Really, I do....

I had pretty horrible teeth when I was younger. Way to many teeth, and they crossed over each other. This meant braces, and braces meant weekly trips to the orthodontist. That meant periodic "tightening". If you had braces in the 70's or 80's you know what that was like- but if you didn't- just imagine someone pulling on a wire and making all your teeth want to move closer together. The pain some weeks was incomprehensible. My orthodontist must have loved Neil Diamond, because he played it all the time. Somehow, when my turn in the torture chair came "America" was always playing. They say smell is the most powerful sense. I have to argue that sound it close up there. Whenever I heard Neil sing, my teeth would start to ache and I would smell dental molds.

Years and years later I was living in Austin and my friends and I were walking around 6th street. 6th street is a street where every storefront is a bar or restaurant ( loosely a restaurant). Many, many nights of my youth were wasted (literally) on or about that street. ANYWAY- one night I heard the strains of a familiar song coming out of one my favorite places- The Black Cat Lounge. No link- hell I don't think they had indoor bathrooms if I remember correctly. What I heard coming out of the bar was "America". The Black Cat was considered by some to be kind of an anarchist club(it seemed a bit more dirty punk to me- but there were tons of bikers and more than a few skinheads depending on the night) so it was an "odd" rendition of the song to be sure, but it was "America".

And my teeth started to hurt.

My B I T . Don't expect to much and you won't be let down....

Here is my plan- honestly, it's not much of a plan. But, it's all I can do now.

1) I am going to stop eating fast food. Unless I have to. Yes, that sounds like a cop out, but hear me out. I have some blood sugar problems and sometimes I have to eat- and eat fast. I can't set myself up to fail (or pass out)- so sometimes I need to grab a hamburger or a coke. But I am going to stop the never ending drive through meals that I have been using as a major food group. When I do have to eat while out I am going to try to make better choices. No more fries. No more biggie sized anything. No more finishing my kids happy meal- after I eat my meal. A little more planning on my part and I should be able to totally cut these virtually empty calories out of my life.

2) Smaller portions. Of everything. We have been living our lives on super size for 4 years. Time to get off the merry go round. 3 solid, well thought out meals per day, plus 2 healthy snacks. Limit the fat, watch the calories, try to get more "real" food in the diet and limit the pre packaged or prepared foods.

3) Keep up with the biking. A few days a week I bike a course that's between 4 and 6 miles. I need to up that number and add some weight training. My mother (who lives only 1.6 miles away) has a great stationary bike (the kind with the computer etc...) and my Dad is buying a treadmill for the winter. They offered unlimited access to me too. Yea! Something to do when the snow is up to my nose.

4) I need to go through my closet and get rid of my fat clothes. If I don't have those to fall back on I think that will help.

That's it. We'll see how that works.

Just when you think there's all the time in the world..

Another of my high school classmates died over the weekend. We are all in shock. A few weeks ago he was in town and a bunch of people met at the local bar to wish him well- he was going to Afghanistan. We didn't go- after all, the reunion is just next year, and we didn't really have a babysitter anyways. Now I wish we had gone. I don't even know if he even made it to Afghanistan- he died of a heart attack this weekend. He would have been 41 or 42.

Makes me feel rather petty bitching about a dead septic system.

Limbo isn't just a party game

A little more septic news- Monday we got a call from the septic company. It seems the transfer company they use ( the transfer company takes the truckloads of waste and does what ever the hell they need to do to make it less gross) got shut down by the DEQ (dept. of environmental quality) due to a paperwork issue. It may be down for a few weeks. That means that the septic companies in the area are also down (they can't work if they can't get rid of the waste) SO- it's LIMBO time!!! We are just being careful about our water usage and monitoring the situation. I hate this- I will never again complain about doing laundry. The good news is that I have been doing my laundry at my Moms house (she's been doing some for me too) and if things get hairy here next week we'll just go live there for a little bit- they'll be on vacation! It's still not a horrible situation. We'll see how long this goes on though.....

In addition to all this we learned that a classmate of ours from High School unexpectedly died last Thursday. She was only 42. Causes are not known yet, but she may have passed away from an aneurysm. She had been feeling unwell and had bad headaches. She just flew last week. Thursday she went to bed early and died. We went to her funeral yesterday. She wasn't a close friend of mine- at one point we dated friends so we did hang out for a while- but she was my husbands first real crush in 8th grade.

There was a few of us from school there-and the discussion was- is this what we have to look forward too? Is it really our time to start losing classmates to natural causes?

Update on the septic- TMI to the extreme! **UPDATED**

Apparently, when this house was built many many moons ago, the first owners installed a septic tank and what's called a "dry well" which is an awful lot like another septic tank. The "special sauce" goes into the septic, then the "solids" filter down and the "watery stuff" goes into the dry well. The dry well is a a 5 sided cement tank (no bottom) that is surrounded by gravel, rocks (sometimes hay?? apparently) that has slits on the the sides. The water will sort of filter out of the dry well out the bottom and the slits. When it becomes clogged (by years of soap, oil, etc..) it ceases to drain (or leech) out- or drains out so slowly that it can't keep up with the septic tank.

Frequent pumping will help extend the life of your dry well. But according to my research, it should last somewhere around 15 to 20 years. Mine is now 35. Sometimes there is a drain field after the dry well. The drain field also filters the waste as it exits the septic. Sometimes people only have a septic and drain field. A dry well was often installed to save money or for small water usage people . Since the first owners were an elderly couple that makes total sense to me. Also, my dry well was installed (35 years ago) too deep. Or, when the former owners built the garage- they graded the area and filled in to deep. Either way- it was too deep to work correctly. It was also built to closely to a large tree, and it was built in the shade. Both of those things are wrong, and will contribute to the life expectancy of the system.

After talking to the neighbors- seems they needed new septics and drainfields too.... our closest neighbor (and her rental property) had the new systems installed a few years ago and our homes were built pretty close to each other in the 70's. She joked to me this morning she needed a scuba suit in her basement because so much sewage kept coming up. Thank God that didn't happen to us. Maybe these systems were installed by the same people- who knows. I don't have that information anymore- and the first owners have been dead for a long, long time.

SO- the septic tank itself is fine. We will find out from the health department (who is in charge of these things) if we install a new properly installed dry well, or if we need a new, properly installed drain field. OR BOTH.

It's not a total worst case scenario. It happened at a good time. (if that's possible) We have employed a good company. We can still actually use our house- our bathrooms, our sinks. It has ceased to back up. It doesn't affect my life much right now at all. And, in the end we will have a septic and leeching system installed correctly, that works correctly and a new, flat yard to plant grass on. There's my silver lining!