Mishmash Musings

Since most college teams around the country began play today, I guess I can safely come out and say that it’s football season! Football is by far my favorite sport, so even though the baseball season has been interesting with both the Cubs and White Sox doing well, I couldn’t wait for the end of August to get here so I’d have something to do on Saturdays and Sundays!

Football season for me means cool weather, weekends filled beer, chips, and pizza, and of course a bunch of smack talk with my friends about our fantasy teams. It means sitting out on friends’ decks to watch games through mid-November, and then huddling around their fire pits to watch games through the rest of November and December. It means wearing team apparel all weekend long, dwelling on wins or losses, and second-guessing fantasy decisions for the entire week.

In short, football season is my favorite time of year, so you better believe I’ll be a happy camper from now until February!

One thing I’ve noticed happening over the past few months is that our small group of regular friends isn’t having quite as many dinner outings as we used to. We used to go out to decent restaurants at least two or three times a month, and end up spending several hundred dollars between the six of us.

But now that everything costs more and people are not as secure with their employment status as before, we are just having these dinners at someone’s home or going out for small lunches on the weekends instead.

I’m as worried about finances as the next person, but I have to say that I’m getting very tired of giving up all my fun in life. I’ve never been one to go clubbing or to spend all my money drinking, so these restaurant outings were about all I had to look forward to in terms of socializing. Now that they’re not happening, I can’t help but feel a bit depressed.

I can’t believe my son is in first grade already! All that stuff other parents say about enjoying these early years because it goes by so fast is absolutely true. I mean, I can still remember bringing him home from the hospital for the first time all those years ago, the early-morning feedings, his first tooth, learning to walk, outgrowing all his baby clothes and other things like that. It seems impossible to me that my boy is now in elementary school!

I’ve definitely been bitten by the nostalgia bug recently, and have been taking tons of pictures and home videos in an effort to hold onto these childhood days as long as possible. It’s hard to imagine my sweet, happy-go-lucky little guy turning into a sullen, withdrawn teenager someday, but I know that’s just as inevitable as all these other milestones. At least I have about 10 more years of good times before that happens!!

Although I’m very happy about losing 9 pounds in the last six months, the one thing I don’t enjoy about my fitness regimen is going to the health club on weekends. That’s when it’s really busy, and when most of the crazies come crawling out of the woodwork. So not only do I have to wait to get on the machines I want, but I also have to spend time dealing with people who want to carry on long conversations, people who aren’t very conscientious about wiping off their sweat after using equipment, and people who talk loudly on their cell phones the entire time they’re there.

I would love to avoid weekend workouts at the health club altogether, but because of my schedule, I have to go on either Saturday or Sunday in order to fit in three trips per week. Ugh, this is exactly why I wish I had one of those home gyms instead. I hate these types of forced interactions with people!

As things stand now, my best bet is probably to either go just twice a week or somehow work it out so I can hit the gym only on weekdays. What a hassle!

I’ve been committed to being a healthier person this year, and towards that end, I’ve been following a fairly good diet and exercise regimen. I’ve been pleased with the results (for the most part), as I’ve lost 9 pounds in about six months. That doesn’t sound like a whole heck of a lot, but I was only carrying around an extra 15 pounds to begin with.

Anyway, while my weight has dropped, I haven’t noticed the same decrease in my overall body fat percentage. When I started my new regimen, I was on the high side for a healthy female of my age and height, something like 28.7%. In six months, I’ve seen that number drop just 2%, even though I’ve been doing my best to tone my muscles and cut my fat intake.

I’d like to get down to between 20-23% body fat, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to do it all on my own. That’s why I’m now considering trying a supplement like Fenphedra. I’ve read some reviews that say this is a pretty good fat burner, so maybe it’ll give me the boost I need.

I won’t rely on these supplements alone, of course. I plan on sticking to my regular diet and exercise regimen as well. But any extra help at this point would be welcome!

Well, I had been enjoying my first summer of clear, blemish-free skin since I was a pre-teen, but I think that’s over now. As I was washing up for dinner tonight, I saw that I’ve got a bunch of clogged pores on my forehead, leaving that surface bumpy and disgusting looking. I thought my latest skin care regimen was working, but I guess I’ll have to start shopping around for more acne cures after all.

I tell ya, this gets pretty exhausting. I’ve been battling bad skin for more than 20 years now, and I never manage to stay clear for than a couple of months at a time. I drink eight glasses of water per day, avoid foods that trigger breakouts, gently cleanse my face twice per day, use benzoyl peroxide on existing blemishes, and am careful not to touch my face with dirty/oily fingers — yet I still have problems. What else can I possibly do here??

So my son is 5 now, and will be six in February. I usually don’t worry about his development, as he’s been a late bloomer in almost every category (walking, potty training, etc.), but I’m starting to become concerned by his lack of interest in reading. I’ve purchased a bunch of easy books for him to read, and we’ve spent a lot of time going over them together. He shows halfhearted interest when we read together, but absolutely zero when I ask him to spend 30 minutes or so reading quietly on his own.

He will be starting kindergarten soon, so hopefully he’ll develop more of an interest there when the class works on phonics. If he doesn’t, though, I’m not sure what I should do. Maybe forcing him to watch his favorite TV programs with the volume down and closed captioning on would help a bit!

I’m not panicking just yet, but I will keep an eye on the situation. The last thing I want is for him to fall behind his peers right from the beginning.

My six-week work assignment finally ended today, which means that I should be able to get back to my regular daily schedule beginning on Monday. That is to say, I will only have to put in about 8 office hours per month, and will have plenty of free time for freelance writing, cooking, cleaning, and spending time with my family.

I have to admit that it was pretty exhausting having to drag my butt to work every day. I can’t believe that I used to have the energy for this kind of thing! I certainly have a new-found respect for those moms who manage to hold down full-time jobs and take care of their households at the same time. I would crumble under all that strain.

Anyway, to celebrate making it through the past month and a half relatively unscathed, I’m going to treat myself to a spa day when I get my paycheck next week. A relaxing massage to wipe out all my stress would be perfect right about now!

I love getting massages (who doesn’t), and just wish I had enough money to go to the spa on a regular basis. A friend of mine is actually attending one of those massage therapy schools that are very popular these days, and has promised to give me awesome discounts on massages in the future. I can’t wait for that to happen, because I’m sure my shoulder and neck pain would diminish considerably if I had someone working on those areas regularly.

At any rate, I’m going to try to get an appointment for Wednesday. Barring that, I’ll have to go in on Friday or Saturday because I won’t have a babysitter any other day. I’m really looking forward to this little treat!

I can’t believe it. I just found out that my in-laws were scammed out of a HUGE chunk of money ($25,000) yesterday. I don’t want to go into the details of what happened because it makes me sick to think about it, but I will say it was a phone scam and that someone managed to convince them to wire the money to a bank account by saying a relative was in big trouble.

My in-laws are very trusting people, obviously, and aren’t all that savvy when it comes to scams and what not. They’re in their mid-60s, are retired, have a fixed income, and just gave away a chunk of their nest egg because they thought they were helping a relative in trouble.

At first I was angry that they could have been so gullible, especially as they person in question would NEVER get into the kind of trouble that the scammers claimed she was in. I asked why they didn’t make a couple of phone calls to verify the problem before wiring money. I mean, there are a hundred little things they could have done to avoid being scammed.

But it happened, and I know they feel terrible about it now, so I didn’t want to press the issue. They’ve filled out police reports and so forth, but it’s doubtful that they’ll ever see that money again.

A few people I’ve talked to about this have tried to convince me to look on the bright side. What’s done is done, they say, so there’s no sense in reliving and rehashing it continually. At least everyone still has their health, and your in-laws are still able to make ends meet even after losing all that money.

While I agree that there’s value in looking at things that way, it’s far easier said than done. I’ve had an entire day to mull this over, and even though their money loss doesn’t affect me directly (in a financial way, I mean), I still feel sick to my stomach every time I think of what happened.

Let’s hope the cops find the bastards who did this and put them away for a good, long time so they can’t bilk any other retirees out of their life savings.

As I was walking my dog this afternoon, I found a $100 bill in the alley by my house! It was folded up in a messy sort of way, as though someone just shoved it into their pocket or something, which leads me to believe that it dropped out as the person pulled out their keys, cell phone, or pack of smokes. As there was absolutely no one else around at the time, and since I had no way of identifying the owner of the money, I kept it — and immediately waited for something bad to happen to me. Yes, I’ve been watching WAY too much My Name is Earl!!!

Anyway, I’m happy I found the money, of course, but at the same time I can’t help feeling just a tad bit guilty. I hope whoever lost this cash isn’t going to run into serious problems after losing it….

It looks like families in this area are still struggling to pay their mortgages every month, and are either moving to cheaper digs or are losing their homes to foreclosure. It’s getting to the point where I can barely go five or six blocks without seeing one of those big moving pods sitting in the street in front of a house with a “For Sale” sign planted in the lawn. It’s getting to be pretty depressing.

I don’t know how long it’s going to take the country to recover from this foreclosure mess, but I hope it’s not a long, drawn-out process. I miss the strong economy, I miss low prices, I miss the stability we once had… You can bet I won’t take those things for granted ever again!

I’m the kind of person who needs nearly complete silence when I sleep. The slightest noise disturbs me, and sets me up for a night of restless tossing and turning. So you can imagine how freakin’ annoyed I was last night to hear the shower faucets in the master bathroom dripping constantly. Ugh! It was pure torture having to listen to that drip, drip, drip into the wee hours of the morning, and to make matters worse, I didn’t have any earplugs on hand to block the noise out.

I finally gave up and went to sleep on the couch, even though we didn’t have the AC running downstairs. It’s a good thing I had the day off today, because I would have been completely grouchy and useless at work.

I’ve already put a call into a plumber, and he’ll be by on Wednesday to see what’s going on. Hopefully it’s just a minor problem with an easy (and cheap) fix!