PractiGal

No More Procrastinating -- Starting Tomorrow

The thing about procrastination is that the longer you wait to do whatever it is you're putting off, the worse it gets. It seems like just knowing this would be enough incentive to Just Do It.  But the more I procrastinate, the more likely I am to continue procrastinating.

The other night I decided it was time to update and balance our checkbook. For some reason, I'd been avoiding entering receipts, deposits, etc, into Quicken for almost the entire month of February. This isn't like me at all. The more I put it off, the more I didn't want to sit down and do it. When I finally forced myself to take care of it, it was a Project, with a capital P. Not only did I have entries to record, but I had a new overdraft "loan" to take care of.

What was I thinking?

I used to be a balance-to-the-penny kind of gal, with my Quicken up-to-date at all times. I guess priorities change, huh?

However, for the month of March, I hearby promise, in front of the Internet, to at least record my entries during the weeks when they occur.

Oh where, oh where has that party girl gone?

I know one thing -- she definitely goes into hibernation in winter.

There was a time when I'd primp and prod to get ready for an evening out. Just the right outfit, the makeup, the hair just so, the contact lenses, perhaps a fresh scent to wear. There was always "getting ready to go out" music, too. And perhaps a getting-ready drink. Looking back, getting ready to go out was an event, and may have taken hours.

OK, so it's been years since I've done much primping. Especially lately, being Mom to a toddler. My husband and I don't go out a lot. When we do, I'll do a little primping, but nothing like the days of old.

On Friday night, I had "ladies night out" with my sister and niece who were here visiting from out of town. The plan was to go do something after the little one was in bed;  we'd leave my husband alone with the sleeping babe, while we went out into the cold winter night. It took my husband all of 3 seconds to realize this was a great idea -- an estrogen-free house and a couple of hours of peace and quiet for him.

Around 8p.m., it was time to get ready to go out. I was ready to curl up with an afghan on the couch, but instead I "got ready."

I realize that I can now get ready in record time. In under 45 seconds, I applied lipstick and chose a pair of earrings. I shook my hair with my fingers and wiped my glasses on my shirt. I already wore a sweater and jeans. Perfect.

Ready to go out.

We go to a locally-owned coffee shop. There's live music. We're where it's at. We're cool. We're out.

I'd forgotten how hard it can be to talk when you're listening to live music. And it's even harder when, after a few sips of your herbal tea, you just want to put your head down on the table and go to sleep.

We have a good time, despite my frumpiness. We talk about my niece learning to drive, and going to college before long. She's 15 now, and boy am I feeling old.

On the way home, we talk to our other sister on speaker phone in the car. She lives in Colorado, so she gets to experience this ladies night out with us, long-distance.

We swing by a grocery store so that I can pop in for a quick purchase. I grab what I need and get in line behind two groups of young people. Both groups are buying massive quantities of beer. They're proofed. I smile. That was me, once upon a time. A long time ago.

Now here I am, checking out with my gallon of milk. My lipstick's now faded. Yeah, I'm someone's mother now, but I am "out!"

And I'm hoping I make it home without being pulled over for driving while under the influence of chamomile tea...

Snapshot -- The Sweetness of Almost Two

Our son finds his infant cap from the hospital and has to wear it. Getting the cap on his head is a little like stuffing a watermelon into a sock, but we do it. And he loves it. My husband leaves it on  when he tucks the little guy in. After a little head movement on the mattress, the cap slips off. The little guy yells: OH NO!!!

I wash my boy's hair in the tub, pouring water over his head with a little bowl, as always. The water runs down his face, and he yells: OH NO!!!

He spills his cereal all over his tray, covering the space where his trains had been roaming freely. OH NO!!!

The mailman delivers the mail. OH NO!!!

You get the picture. We have a little drama boy in our house. I'm sure it's just a phase -- OK, I hope it is. Though I'll admit it's pretty damn cute. I try not to laugh too much, as I don't want to encourage the drama queen (king) thing.

I am into encouraging another favorite phrase du jour, however: BIG HUG!

He's been asking for hugs for a while now. Usually, "Hug, hug!" means "please pick me up!" But now we have BIG HUG. And that means I want a big hug... or I have a big hug for you. So I've become a BIG HUG pusher around here.

My little sweetie knows kisses too. Some of his books show babies kissing stuffed toys, mommies kissing their babies, ... and I always know that on those pages he'll turn to me, puckered and ready.

And yes, I know exactly which books have kissing in them.  And we read them daily.

And when that stops, I'll be the one saying OH NO!!!

The old-fashioned art of listening

Does anyone listen to you at your house?  As in, you speak, and then what you say goes into their ears and they retain that information?  Maybe there's something going around, but it seems like I am not being heard at our house.

Take last night, for instance.

We're changing our little boy's diaper before bedtime, getting the toothbrush out, you know the drill. My son really likes to be put to bed by Daddy at night, so when I can, I gracefully exit the room when it's time for stories and lullabies. Before leaving the room, I casually mention to my hubby that the white blanket is in the wash. Our son has been using his blankies as snot rags lately (ick), so, one by one I'm stealing them away to wash them. I didn't make a big deal of this, because I don't want it to be a big deal to our boy that a blankie is missing. So far, he doesn't play favorites, so I figure I'll just take them one at a time and get them clean.

Fast forward 20-30 minutes. I'm downstairs at the computer, naturally.

I hear a loud call from the stairs: "Marie, where's his blanket?"

Grrr.

----------------------------------------------------

And then there's the little fellow. He hears me, and amazingly, sometimes even retains the information. When he feels like it.

He has developed a bad habit of picking the fuzz off of blankets and putting it in his mouth. This grosses me out. Lately, when I see him picking fuzz, I ask him to give it to me. And he does. As long as I'm looking, apparently.

Last night, I caught him when he thought I wasn't looking. I saw him pick some fuzz and put it in his mouth. By the time I said "No no," he was victorious in his effort.  Then I saw a little dimpled-face fuzz-eating grin.

Grrrrrrreat.

School of Life

At the PractiGal household, we're lifelong learners. We don't need a classroom to learn valuable lessons. Nosirree!

And many times we don't even need books.

Many of our most important lessons are learned right here, within these walls.

Lessons learned recently:

• When you send your spouse to the grocery store with a shopping list, be sure to specify that you'd like a whole uncooked chicken.
• If you bid on an online auction, make sure you are prepared to win. Because... You. Might. Just. Win.
• No matter how many times you try, a grapefruit will not bounce.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What have you learned lately?

Advice from The Donald

So we have this Donald Trump doll at our house. It's a talking doll. You press the button on his back, and he spews Trump-isms. We've been having fun, making The Donald chime in to conversations at our house:

• "I have no choice but to tell you, you're fired."  (of course, the classic line from The Apprentice)
• "Stay focused."
• "Brand yourself and toot your own horn." (Dangerous advice with 2 males in the house!)
  
• "Try to avoid shaking hands whenever possible."

Say what?

That last one surprised me. I've always thought it was good business etiquette to shake hands. With a firm grasp, but not too firm.

I'm not an aggressive hand-shaker, and by that I mean that I do not seek out shakes, but when the situation seems appropriate, I extend a hand. And weak handshakes do make a not-so-good impression on me, so I make sure to use a decent grasp myself.

Is this why The Donald recommends avoiding the shake?

Or is it because your hands may be sweaty? clammy? cold?  Granted, we don't have control over all of the hand-shaking variables.

I mentioned to my husband that I was surprised by this tip. He isn't surprised. Hubby says that with men, hand-shaking can be a power game.

Have you ever felt that the business handshake was a game? Is this a guy thing? Do you try to avoid shaking hands?

Energy conservation specialist

We've had some freakish winter weather this year -- cold and snowy one day, spring-like the next. Overnight, the temperature got up to 60 degrees (F) - yes, the outdoor temp, so we let our wood stove go out. We knew the temperature was supposed to drop today, and it did - it was 27 at lunchtime. We keep our house thermostat set to 67 though, so if we don't have the wood stove cranking, the furnace kicks on.

At least it usually does.

This morning I puttered around the kitchen FREEZING COLD. I was wearing flannel pjs and wool clogs, but I thought I was going to have to chip ice off my nose, I was so cold.

I checked the thermostat. 61 degrees inside. Our programmable thermostat had been reprogrammed to come on when the indoor temp hits 57.

I didn't do it.

My husband didn't do it.

That leaves one other member of our family.

The almost 2-year-old member of our family.

And yes, it just so happens that he likes to push buttons! And he's tall enough to reach the thermostat now.

Maybe he was just doing his part to help our family conserve energy and save money. Or maybe it just runs in the family?  Like father like son?

Potpourri, as they say on Jeopardy

Odds and ends. Yes, I like lists.

• My almost 2-year-old tucked his trains in at the kitchen table today, using a placemat. Sometimes the placemat is a tunnel, but today I knew he was putting them down to sleep, because I heard "Ni-night sweetie."
• There's one book that we can't get through right now. It shows happy dinosaurs on one page, then sad dinosaurs on the next. They're sad because one of their balloons busted. When we try to go past that page, my son must return to it - "boon! boon!" I think he's concerned about the popped balloon.
• Yes, we are raising a sensitive little guy.
• Some of my flower bulbs are starting to come up. This isn't good; winter is far from over in NY.
• As I've mentioned, I'm kind of into this Raffi thing for kids; I'm checking out various CDs from the library. I've discovered a gem -- even if you're not into country music, if you have a little one, you have to hear Country Goes Raffi. I love it. You get to hear Keith Urban be a goofball on Apples and Bananas. All the renditions of Raffi's songs are fantastic.
• At lunch time today, the two teenagers behind me at the grocery store check-out were buying a big package of SlimFast and a box of Pop-Tarts.
• I received a gag gift for Valentine's Day. It's a 12-incher. And no, I'm not joking! (Yes, that link is work-safe -- go ahead & click on it!)
• Today, The Donald was instructed to hug Thomas the Tank Engine.
• And then, while in The Donald's warm plastic embrace, Thomas was fired. Poor Thomas.

Shopping for Valentine's Day

This morning after taking my mother-in-law to the train station after a weekend visit, I suggested stopping at a little candy shop in the city. My husband is usually a little sad after his mom leaves, and since tomorrow is Valentine's Day and we're both chocoholics, I thought that a little sweet treat was in order.

I offered to just hop out of the car, go in and pick up a few things, but my hubby wanted to go in too, so that he could get something for me. So we were in this small store at the same time, buying each other Valentine's Day chocolates. It was busy enough that we were able to shuffle amongst the other people and not see what each of us chose for the other.

When I got to the cash register, my husband was at least 5 people behind me, so I figured we'd be able to get out of there with at least a little bit of surprise factor.

That is, until my cashier announced my total at the top of her lungs:

THAT COMES TO $15.23.

Why not just use a megaphone, lady?  I'm standing about 2 feet away from you, do you think I'm hard of hearing? I'm sure the people out on the street heard you. Not to mention my husband, who's behind me in line... yeah, the person I'm shopping for.

Gheesh.

I waited for my husband and we headed out together. His comment? That we spent way too much on chocolate. And that he heard how much I spent. He told me that he spent a lot too, though less than me.

But can you ever spend too much on good quality chocolate?

I'd make a lousy frontier-woman

Even though I enjoy camping in the summer time, I've come to the conclusion this winter that I'd make a really bad frontier woman.

We're heating our house mainly with wood this year, using a wood stove in our living room fireplace. With gas prices so high, we decided to use wood for heat, til our pile runs out. It keeps our house plenty comfy, and sometimes it's downright toasty.

That is, as long as I'm not in charge of the stove. When my husband's around, he keeps the fire going beautifully. He knows just when to add logs and how to turn the knobs to keep it going.

When he's not home, and it's up to me to keep it going. I almost always forget about it and the fire goes out completely.

So today I decided I'm going to keep it going. I'm on a mission. I've stoked and added wood twice since my husband left the house, turned the valves just so, while the new logs got going, and then closed the door and turned the valves the other way once the fire was roaring. I'm learning that this wood stove thing is a fine art.

Of course it would be fine if that was all I had to do; I could probably manage. I'm also taking care of our son and getting the house ready for company.

As I was switching laundry to the dryer a few minutes ago, I was thinking what it must have been like to be a frontier wife and mom. You'd keep the fire going while your husband was out hunting or whatever, with no Barney and no TV to distract your toddler while you make lunch and clean up around the house. You'd be scrubbing your clothes by hand and hanging them all over the place to dry. You'd be washing all your dishes by hand, and probably making your own clothes and blankets by hand.

I bet I wouldn't last a day.

With a dishwasher, a washer, dryer, microwave, TV, etc, I sure as hell should be able to keep this freaking fire going.

Let's hope I don't burn down the house in the process!