whoooooosh

that's the sound of my life moments these past 2 months, just breezing by while i've barely had time to breathe. i went to vegas one weekend, i went to new orleans and jackson for weddings, with a side trip to golden, MS, to see 2 very special friends, all while squatting in a friend's house (alone) and working, and then i moved back to the new home and the lawyer (new blog nickname) and started a new job.

it was a busy july.

then my sister got married. and then my mom came and stayed with us for 8 days. that really upped it a "busy summer" in general.

so, my blog has sat unattended in the internet from pre-vegas to labor day weekend. but the dust is starting to settle here, so hopefully my blog will return to its regular posting routine. and that dust settling business? i mean that literally. this house is all wood and dust is everywhere. but that's a separate story.

i plan to upload camera photos from the past 2 months tonight, so pictures are forthcoming, if blogger cooperates. meanwhile, i intend to finish today's tasks of roxy bathing, elliptical training, ceiling cleaning (see above) and picture hanging before dinner.

and so, i bid you adieu, dear faithful readers (or those i have left), and shall return on the morrow with picture posts and new-life-chapter stories.

blog vomit

i feel like i've been holding back all the things i really would like to blog about, but can't because of the effort i'm putting into this blog challenge. have you seen the pictures i've put up on here?? time. consuming.

i've got to get this stuff off my chest.
so, in no particular order, general musings/rants about life incidents.


i've joined a gym, in addition to the pilates studio. here's to getting my skinny on.

the law student is still cleaning like cinderella as we wait on job leads to ripen. i'm not complaining, but i still feel kind of usurped.

i made 160 dream cookies last night. i'm going to have to frost those suckers tonight. find the recipe on my blog by clicking on the label "dream cookies."

i'm already getting excited/anxious about the upcoming travel schedule and workload for the next week, with our last home football game and thanksgiving, then back home for one more football game. we are road warriors!

i'm a little pissed at small town and its recent dog leash law incidents. just because someone fell over and broke their wrist doesn't mean my little roxyface is in any way capable of malicious, unprovoked bloodlust or general rowdiness. and who are all these people that think the park is a dangerous place because of dogs? where did y'all come from? i've been going to this park daily for over 3 years - you must be talking about some other place. they're dogs, not hellhounds from the seventh circle. they like to run. i'm pretty sure i can manage my own dog, without a police officer in a golf cart riding around to see if roxy's off her leash or not, thankyouverymuch.

i've always been sort of a closet sci-fi fan, but chose instead to tease the law student about his extensive fantasy book collections. until i started reading one series. consider me out.

whew, i feel better.

domestic goddess

so, last night, i cleaned out my cabinets (well, the ones that store food). this little adventure started out with me just wanting to get some glass out of the cabinets to give to my grandmother. i've told you i inexplicably save glass jars, right? well, i do, and until last night i had a whole shelf full. but i digress.

my grandmother makes jelly for fun. she really has no one to cook for, and can't possibly consume or give away all the jelly she makes, but make it she does. and it is gooooooood. i currently have multiples of muscadine, strawberry, apple, and blueberry peach in my fridge, along with 2 jars of sweet pickles and some jarred figs. bad thing is, i don't often eat breakfast, so all that jelly just sits there in the top shelf of my fridge, being lonely and looking yummy. don't tell my grandmother this.

well, i tend to get carried away. my grandmother told me that if i had any glass, i could give it to her. so i started collecting the forgotten jars from my cabinets last night to clean and de-label to give to her. that turned into me cleaning out and re-organizing the entire upper north face of my kitchen cabinets (next, the lower levels). the law student kept coming into the kitchen periodically to ask me when i was making dinner and found me standing on the oven, with our entire non-perishable food supply crammed onto any available counter space. he did get dinner, but not until after i made him look at my handy-work and make the obligatory compliments to my awesome domestic skills.

i didn't give all my glass away, though. i saved some out of principle. tonight, we shall drink from mason jars.

next on my list: mom's pecan pie and grandma's dream cookies.

monday morning confession

i can't remember the last time i shopped for groceries. or vacuumed. or washed a sink full of dirty dishes after preparing a nutritious, locally-grown homemade meal. or even wanted to. i'm regressing as a housewife. something about this summer and this fall schedule and new football season have conspired against my good intentions and sapped my energy. i've let all this bar exam stuff go to my head. all my years of housewifery, all my standards, are slowly spiraling down.

and let me just tell you, the newly-sworn-in-and-able-to-argue-in-mississippi-courts-but-currently-still-open-to-employment-opportunities esquire does not make it any easier for me. how in the world am i supposed to polish my skills and stay on task when he so willingly washes last night's dishes for me every morning? or dusts and vacuums on sunday afternoons so i don't come home to a dirty house? i left him saturday morning painting bleach on a stain on his shirt, and when i returned home i found he had folded the clean towels and put them in their proper place in our bathroom. this means he pulled them out of the dryer. he doesn't even fuss when i send him a grocery list, at least not so i can hear him. and as a result, i never really remember what we have in the pantry, even though i made the list and the menu, which i can no longer find.

i think back to our first days together. i was often more than annoyed to see cereal bowls with spoons stuck to them on the side table, or half full glasses from the night before in random spots around the house, and i hated stepping on forgotten underwear in the bathroom. but he caught on and began to share in the work of wifely domain. it was such a welcomed help! but i fear i've created a monster. i've made myself totally expendable. i now know just how efficient my little househusband is. he's running circles around me with the vacuum, while i just lay on the couch with a glazed look on my face. i have got to get it together, pull myself up by my apron strings. because i know he's going to get a job soon, and then where will we be? looking at each other over a sink full of dirty dishes while i try to remember how to fold a shirt.

i'm not complaining. really. i know how good i've got it. and i know he enjoys making and keeping me happy more than he actually likes cleaning. and by no means do i want him to stop. i loooooooove basking in the faint glow of a really clean home, and doubly so when i didn't do the cleaning. i could really get used to this. stay away, ladies. this one's mine.

a productive saturday

as mentioned in the previous post, my house was in a state of major disarray. so i cleaned. all day.
here's my got-done list:

-3 loads of laundry, plus blankets, dog bed and 2 sets of sheets.
-washed dishes.
-walked the roxy.
-dusted the bedroom and living room.
-vacuumed the entire house.
-mopped the tile.
-put up all my dirty/clean-but-tossed clothes and put away the shoes.
-cleaned the mirrors.
-lint-rolled the roxy, then the couch.
-cleaned the kitchen counters and put things in their proper places.

my house is so clean now. i feel better and ready to take on one last week of taxes.

and speaking of cleaning...does your husband/do you do this? the law student takes his wedding ring off just about every chance he gets, it seems. not because he doesn't want to wear jewelry or flirt with other women or anything like that--he just takes it off. for instance, when he showers, or shaves, washes the dishes or waves with his left hand or something. and i don't mind. but he doesn't always remember to put it back on immediately and oftentimes leaves it exactly where he put it. you know, hanging off the shower caddy hook (my personal favorite), or on the edge of a sink or other bathroom apparatus. i came across it late friday night on the edge of our bathroom sink. i know men and women think differently. the law student, i'm sure, thought the counter was solid and clean and dry and next to where he was standing, so of course that was the perfect place to leave a wedding ring. i looked at it and immediately saw it slipping down the sink drain, sliding into the trash can or flying into a just-flushed toilet. (in these scenarios, no one has to actually flush the toilet--it just happens to be flushing at that exact moment.) so i hid it and went to bed.

cut to saturday morning, 11-ish. the law student is dressed, showered and ready to head to the library but keeps scuttling about, in and out of rooms. he asks if i've seen his wedding band. i say no and remind him that his band cost more than mine did. he keeps looking, saying, "i left it right on the bathroom counter." i smile to myself and try to keep a straight face. then he says he's going to have to look through all the trash he just took out. for a milli-second, i contemplate letting him do it, but then i scold myself for being mean. actually, i realized if he got through all the trash and then i told him i had hidden it and knew where it was, i would be in big trouble. so i go to the bathroom and show him the hidden ring. he was not too thrilled with me.

shower power

it's wussy wednesday again. guess what i'm doing? at work, blogging, wishing i was somewhere out in the sunshine, waiting on a lunch/farmer's market date with the law student. i really don't want to work today.

*sigh*

so, my wussy wednesday post--here you go. i do not want to clean my shower. it has a live black mold on it that has crept from the shower curtain to the wall of the tub. i mean, isn't that nasty?! eck. and for the past 4 days, i've looked at it, sneered, and stepped out of the shower and away from all motivation to clean it up. well, i broke down today and half-as-cleaned it at 6:40 this morning after my shower. i found a bottle of scrub free spray and half-heartedly, then whole-heartedly, then frustratedly, sprayed the mold and the other suspect pink areas near the drain of my shower and using (ruining) a perfectly good washcloth not immune to bleach to clean it up. you see, that scrub-free spray doesn't spray so well. so after i had showered, i had bleach all over my hands that needed to be cleaned. you know, again. i hope the law student appreciates all that i go through to make his life more clean and comfortable.