Alabaster Mom

I've never been much of a runner. Remember the physical fitness testing in school?  Do they still do that?  I remember having to do the flexed arm hang, shuttle run, 50-yard dash, and 600-yard dash. I can't remember what else. Sit-ups, maybe?  I remember doing okay on the 50-yard dash, and even the flexed arm hang. The 600-yard dash, though? There was no dashing involved. I would jog along for a bit and then walk around the track, usually with a couple other girls, while a gym teacher yelled, "C'mon, ladies!" I have just never been much of a distance runner. So, naturally I'm planning to run a 5K in May. I even got new sneakers for Christmas. I've gone to the gym a couple of times since then. Normally, I go right for the elliptical and then do 40-45 minutes on that, shying away from running entirely. I think it all comes down to high impact vs. low impact. I spend a lot of time doing yoga and cardio and don't have any issues because it's all l...

I somehow failed to take many photos of our Christmas festivities this year.  Maybe we just aren't as cute as we used to be - I dunno.  On Christmas Eve, I had to work a half day. My husband and daughter were at home playing video games. On the way home, I stopped at the mall to buy my husband a new cell phone. My plan was to wrap it and wait until Christmas morning to give it to him. He uses his phone so seldom that I was pretty sure he wouldn't even notice that his old one was now dead.  I ended up giving him the new phone later that day, though. I mean to tell you, you have never seen anyone less enthusiastic about getting in iPhone. "Okay, thanks," he said, and set it on an end table. It's the iPhone 5C (and not the newest model) so it was cheap (the case I bought cost more than the phone). The kid immediately piped up: "I'll take it if he doesn't want it!" Later that evening, we went to church. I coordinated the service so I figured I...

Every year, I post a blog entry about my favorite songs from that year. Nobody reads it except Rachel, my music-loving friend of 33 years. I didn't download a ton of new music this year. Plus, it's harder for me to tell what I purchased this year because I had to restore my entire music collection from back-up a few months ago. In October, I bought a new car and now have Sirius XM radio. So, instead of listening to new music, I now listen to inappropriate comedy (when my kid isn't in the car). When my daughter is in the car, I have to listen to Top 40. I have fantasies about very bad things happening to Ariana Grande. Anywho, some of my favorite songs from 2014: Happy with Me - HOLYCHILD (Good tune for the gym) Hurry Up Sundown - Springsteen Water Fountain - Tune-Yards Diamonds - Johnnyswim L8 CMMR - Lily Allen (guilty pleasure sort of thing) The Orwells - Let it Burn Madman - Sean Rowe My Silver Lining - First Aid Kit (Stay Gold is a close second) Too Cool to...

I sent my husband and daughter to a movie this evening so that I could finish painting, wrapping, and assembling. I've been hiding out (and painting) in Geeky McNerdikins comic book room, so ignore the junk in the background. Here is a photo of the sewing table (formerly red and white) and the dress form my daughter requested: The table has a leaf on each side so it's been a challenge to paint the table without letting the hinge get stuck in one position (with each leaf up or down). I think it came out okay. It has a little drawer on one side.  If I had more time (and some, you know, skills), I'd add a design or something to the top. As if to seal the Christmas deal, the kid handed me a card before dinner today. It has a hand-drawn snowman on the front and says this on the inside: "Dear, Mom. I love you so much! You make me smile. I am giving this card to you because I love you. Remember the time when I said I love you most but then you overtook me with I lo...

Well, it's all over but the shouting, I guess. Our gifts are shipped (to Oklahoma, Virginia, Maryland, and Minnesota), and I'm all shopped out. I took a half-day off work last Friday and knocked out a lot of the shopping then. I just need to wrap the gifts I bought for my kid and my husband. Of course, I need to kick them out of the house first, which is no small feat. A asked for a table she can use for sewing. My friend Sarah is moving and had an extra table. A win-win! I just need to paint that bad boy and I'll be all set. I would do it after the kid goes to sleep but half the time she stays up later than I do.  I did get her the dress form she wanted, too. Dress forms can get pretty pricey and the one I bought is fairly basic. I just hope it's not too rickety. The only way the table and dress form will fit in her bedroom is if we pull out the huge dollhouse and put it in storage. I might just shed a tear when that happens. I didn't send Christmas cards or do a...

. . . I went vegan. I haven't lost an ounce (which would have been a nice little side effect) but my conscience is immeasurably lighter. Originally, I was just going to try it for a week but once I did that, it just seemed to make sense to keep going. I should probably say "plant-based diet" instead of vegan because I know I'm not great at this vegan stuff. I'm sure I've accidentally eaten things that were not 100% vegan. Every Wednesday, I go to a local grocery store (that has a kick-ass salad bar) and get a salad for lunch. They have this balsamic vinaigrette dressing that I love, but it does have trace amounts of honey in it (and I had eaten it several times before I noticed that). I probably shouldn't eat it, but I tell myself that I get bonus points for the salad itself.  At work there is a candy bowl full of Lifesavers. One day I Googled Lifesavers and it turns out that not only are they not vegan, they really aren't even vegetarian. They conta...

My daughter handed me her Christmas list a few weeks ago. I offered to give her my Christmas list and she just gave me a "does not compute" look in reply. The other day she handed me an addendum. "That's not how this works," I told her. "You only get one list." Then, a day later she asked to have it back so that she could edit it. Seriously, kid, give it a rest. A few of the items on her list are pretty straightforward and yes, she's getting them. She wants a dress form for sewing and a table for laying out patterns and whatnot. Some of her gift "suggestions" are dumb but I'm buying them anyway, such as this bird in a cage . What's on the addendum, you ask? A Netflix subscription, Darn Yarn (I thought it said Damn Yarn but I'll take her word for it), and a bunch of sports stuff: a new helmet, a soccer ball, a basketball, and a volleyball. What's weird about these items is that my kid has almost zero interest in sp...

My daughter has an admirer, a beau, a suitor. What do kids call it these days? A boo? And she's his shorty?  Is that how this works? Being a good NPR-listening, Democratic-voting, liberal Unitarian Universalist, I've been very careful to tell my daughter things like, "When you grow up, you might marry a boy or a girl. Or maybe you won't want to get married at all." Well, I needn't have bothered. My kid is firmly interested in the opposite sex and I think I can already picture some seriously dramatic teen interactions coming up in a few years. I'm just imagining some lovelorn fool from her algebra class standing on our front lawn and begging her for just one more chance. For now, though, we are just in the beginning stages of the gooey stuff. A boy in her class has it bad for my kid. When I went in for parent-teacher conferences a few weeks ago, I took the opportunity to look through my daughter's desk. It was like Hiroshima in desk form. Very bad, ...