Things that keep me sane at 6:45 on a Friday night when I’m still frantically working with no end in sight, have killed the battery on two of three phones I own from all day conference calls, and still haven’t made it out of my pajamas. On a positive note, when I went outside to bring in wood for the stove, the hay guy was here and saw me and since I was in my John Deere pj’s, he just waved and thought nothing of it. Thank goodness for #lifeouthere.

Yes, that is a very large bottle of cheap wine in a Flying Dog beer glass with wine up to the beer fill line. And cheese and crackers served on a ziplock bag. Don’t judge. #fuckthisfriday Yup. That’s about where I’m at…

AKA cats. And all this time I thought it was short vampires leaving fang marks in the toilet paper. I should have known it was a cat appropriately nicknamed Fang. 

The end result. Thanks, Caspian.

What funny things do your critters do? Share your stories in the comments and we can all make this grey Monday a little funnier!

The weather here has been insane. Sunday it was 57 degrees, and dropped to 0 with wind chill of -20. Yes, you read that right. Mother nature needs some wine for herself. Fortunately, I have some for her, though I’m reconsidering sharing thanks to the ice that she left for me on my doorstep.

There was some Facebook fitness challenge, so I edited it a little. Also I may have started writing this right after Thanksgiving. Yeah, so there’s the first fail haha.  Then I had to change a few things because crunches on the floor hurt my back, and I have a kettlebell so why not use it?  I’m going to see if I can be determined enough to do this 2x a day to make up for missing Thanksgiving, but we will see.  So far today I did:

6 sets 10 reps each w/kettlebell lifting upwards from a semi-squat, palms up
Repeat the above, palms down
6 sets 10 reps each side to side
3 sets 20 reps each crunches on yoga ball
3 sets 10 reps each side to side sway/crunches on yoga ball (where you move your butt from side to side on the ball as it rolls and stay centered/balanced, anyone know what this is really called?)
60 sec plank

I’ll try to repeat this at least 1x a day for the next 2 days (so 3d in a row) then rest 4th day, then add a set to each for days 5 – 7, and we see how this goes.  If I’m feeling like being an over-achiever, I’ll try for 2 workouts in a day (AM & PM) but if you know me, you know that’s being REALLY ambitions.  I’m not a morning person – not even close. Though I did get up at 6AM today and out of bed by 7:30 (yes I just sat there with kitties and pretended to motivate for a while…) and I have to say I got a ton done!  Of course none of it was work-related, so here I am working late. What does that say about you when you take a break from working to work out?  Sheesh…workaholic much? And it’s not like today was all fun and games until now.  Nope.  This morning was spent doing a super-clean on my apartment.

Cori trying to figure out this yoga thing

Update: so none of the above has happened since whatever day I started writing this and forgot to blog it. I’ve been doing yoga every weekday since last week thanks to Chromecast and www.doyogawithme.com, and I wanted to add back in some aerobic exercise and weights so I did this workout today before doing some yoga.

Well if you know me, the 1-2x a day for 3-4 days in a row is just laughable. I must have been delusional when I wrote that. Or drinking a lot of ine. Seriously it’s amazing that I’ve done yoga 4 times now (last Thursday and Friday and yesterday and today). Although I do have to admit, since doing yoga, my back and neck and shoulders feel a lot better, and things I didn’t realize even hurt like my hamstrings and forearms are starting to feel looser too. Took a few days though. After the first two days, I think I was more sore than when I started. Yoga may look easy, but I was a lot more like an awkward unbalanced twisted pretzel than anything close to what the instructor looked like. Hey, you gotta start somewhere right!

Maybe I can do the kettlebell / core workout 3x a week and yoga 5? Too ambitions? I may be drinking wine again…

Wow, I’ve been a slacker. Again. With the holidays and all it’s been a while since I’ve even had the time to think about blogging. But hey it’s a new year and you know what that means, right?  Partying and drinking! Resolutions! Yeah those…

I normally don’t make resolutions, but I think there are a few things I need to change, and it all started with me doing some yoga today, or as I prefer to call it, the twisted pretzel workout. Because that’s what I feel like when I try to do it. Before I get into that, I want to start by saying Merry Christmas and all that jazz. And Happy Hanukkah, but seriously that was during Thanksgiving and is already older news than my lack of blogging since…almost Thanksgiving. For me, Christmas is a time to get cozy in the house, decorate and celebrate the winter to come, and give thanks for the year prior. And gifts. Of COURSE it’s about gifts. For me though I like giving gifts because I love the look on people’s faces when they get the perfect gag gift item they love.

I had a great Christmas. My brother turned 30 in mid-November, and right before that he got engaged to his wonderful girlfriend (yes, I’m older. yes I’m still single). And my sister came home to visit from New Zealand (yes, she lives on the other side of the world). And we got to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas all in the same week since she was only here until the first week of December. In reality, I think we were just making up for the fact that Jewish people get a week of Hanukkah and my family isn’t one to be outdone, so we had to top that by cramming as many holidays into a week as we could…which included as many family parties as one could tolerate while attempting to not down too much wine.

I digress. So back to twisted pretzel exercising. I’ve got a bad back from getting run over by a horse several years back, and I tend to not take care of it the way I should, so I decided that for the New Year, one resolution was to do some yoga. I’m not saying how much because some could mean one day, and since I did yoga today, that means I’ve already kept my first resolution! Or it could mean more than one day. But that means if I do yoga tomorrow too, I’m golden. See where I’m going with this? Well anyway, I was contorted like a pretzel and no where near what the instructor looked like, writhing in pain and curled up like I was made by Aunt Annie all thanks to my brother getting me Chromecast for Christmas so that I could (thankfully!) torture myself in the comforts of my own home.  I do have to admit, my dogs and cats all looked at me like I was out of my mind. I can only imagine the looks I’d illicit if I was in a gym. Well, day 1 down. Let’s see how many ore I can go.

Then yoga got me thinking. Once I was unwound from being a pretzel, I realized that even more than the stretching and the breathing was the thinking it makes you do. Or rather focusing and letting go of thinking, which is something I rarely do. I’m a chronic multi-tasker. The kind of person that feels that if I’m not doing 23423567 things at once, I’m not working hard enough. Always go-go-go-go-go, often it feels like I do everything in a rush and fail to stop and smell the roses. So in addition to yoga, I’ve decided to make a big resolution all based around being present in the moment, and not multi-tasking so much.  Here goes.

Cut the umbilical cord to my laptop and cell phone on more than just weekends/times when I am in the barn. Fortunately I am good about leaving the phone in the house and turning the laptop off all weekend for the most part, but during the week, I have one if not both of those near me 24/7. As soon as I wake up, I check my cell phone for email and news. When I go to bed, after turning off the laptop I check my cell for weather and updates…it’s got to stop.

Mind you, I’m ADD or ADHD or whatever you want to call it to the max. No, I’m not on meds, and I haven’t been diagnosed. I’m 37. When we were kids, if you were too hyper or easily distracted, you went outside and did something like playing stickball in the streets or red rover (remember that game? I LOVED that game!). But as an adult that makes a living online in digital marketing, it’s like the constant bombardment of distraction. I have a Lifeproof case for my phone (awesome!) and can even take my phone in the pool in the summer, or in the shower. I have even answered business calls in the shower. Yes, yes you read that right. IN THE SHOWER. You know you multi-task too much when a shower is no longer sacred.  Sheesh.

So there’s that. For real. I’m doing it.  No more watching TV while playing on the internet and doing work, and checking messages on my phone. Okay, well maybe I’ll have the TV on for background noise, but from now on, I am taking time for me. Starting with pretzel contortions, and continuing with being able to do stuff, any stuff, without always needing my cell phone 3 inches away or less.

On a positive note, I lost my cell phone 3 times when I was distracted doing other things so far today. Off to a good start? Chime in with your resolutions. Or don’t. Or just make fun of mine. Hey, does anyone want to do a 30-day cleanse? I know of this great diet. No, really. Haha!

In other news, I’ll get back to the Not So Ok Cupid saga in the next few days. I’m back online and have more stuff to share, and maybe I’ll even go ahead and join Farmer’s Only just to make you folks happy. Yeah yeah, we’ll see.

SERIOUSLY HORSING AROUND: My Favorite Things (Equine Style) at I Sell Tack.com

Seriously, you guys. Think about what you are asking me to do. You really want me to join Farmer’s Only????  What, am I your personal guinea pig?

So what do I get out of the deal? (Will work for Jack, will work extra for Limited Edition 2013 Holiday Jack.) And let’s make sure we’ve thought this through. Because I live on a farm, and because there’s no way of meeting any really decent people up here (see post from earlier this week about my not so Ok Cupid experiences…) we’ve decided that somehow downgrading to an even worse dating site makes sense? 

Apparently as of 2012, they had over 200,000 members. I don’t know if I’m impressed or creeped out. I mean, what are the chances that there’s even anyone remotely normal on there if I’m batting a thousand on Ok Cupid which has a bazillion members? Maybe we go with the logic that smaller pond means less sharks. Hmmm, that could work.

Of course you guys do realize that there’s always a chance that 90% of the people on there are from Nebraska eating fried mayonnaise balls, and if you want to know how I feel about that, well just watch this: 

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, what exactly do you guys propose? 

I give up. After a bit of a dry spell (I’m really picky, honest), I decided I’d give it a shot and reactivate my Ok Cupid profile and see what’s out there. I mean hey, I live in a rural area that’s somewhat remote and it’s not like there’s tons of successful eligible bachelors near me. Sure there’s bachelors, some have kids by multiple baby mama’s, others are missing teeth, and others have no job and still live at home with mom – well into their 30s!  I am sure you can understand why I’ve chosen to pass on much of the local crowd. 

With all you hear about how many people find their “true love” (gag) online, how bad could it really be? There certainly wasn’t a plethora of eligible, single, unencumbered yet gainfully employed men in my area. So I reactivated my account.

Within minutes I was chatted up by someone who seemed relatively normal, had a dog, loved the outdoors, and even split wood and had a wood stove, like me. Wait, what? Someone normal? We exchange numbers and day 1 is fine. Day 2 is going okay. Not too many texts, but decent convo. Then evening rolls around and it’s like once sundown comes, the freaks come out to play. Here come the fun questions!  I shit you not – these are all real things asked by people I met via Ok Cupid this past week. Enjoy, laugh, choke on your milk (why the fuck are you drinking milk? Go get some Jack Daniels like a real adult, will you?), go ahead. It’s okay. I totally understand.

Random guy: Is that a pink log splitter you have there? 
Me: It’s red.

Random guy: What kind of chainsaw do you have?
Me (what I wanted to say): That’s your idea of a pickup line? Really?
Me (what I actually said): The kind that cuts wood…
Random guy: Wise ass.
Me: Ask a stupid question…

True Story

Random guy: What’s your favorite body part on a guy?
Me (what I wanted to say): Oh, penises of course, because clearly I’m just out to meet guys because I love giving BJs more than anything else in the world…
Me (what else I wanted to say): Is this a “how much of a whore can I meet on an online dating site” test?
Me (what I finally actually said): Are you fucking serious?!
Random guy: Eyes, smile, you know…
Me (what I very nearly almost said): Brain. Because you clearly don’t have one.
Me (what I actually said): Brain, because it’s where the personality comes from.

Random guy: What’s your favorite color?
Me (what I wanted to say): Are we in the 3rd grade? Can I share your crayons after recess? Pretty please?

Random guy: Hi love ur eyes care to chat
Me (in my head): Oh hey spelling and sentences are totally optional. As long as you have the IQ of mayonnaise, we can totally date screw. It’s okay, I have no standards, and your line about my eyes really struck me as honest and caring and sincere.

Random guy: how are you aren’t you the prettiest lil girl
Me (in my head): oh thanks, do you wanna be my daddy-o?

And the list goes on. I may just stay on there for fodder for my blog because come on, really! I can’t believe people say this shit and actually end up getting dates! Maybe that’s my problem, I’m going about this all wrong. What with being relatively normal and all. Hey, I did say relatively. Let’s keep that in perspective.

My friend (you know who you are!) wants me to join FarmersOnly.com because I live on and own a farm. Have you seen those commercials? Really? But hey we may do it because we’re bored and I bet that would give me enough bad online pickup lines to write about for years! 

My take on FarmersOnly.com. Thanks, but I’ll pass!

Well I did finally get my tree up, lit, and fully decorated, but it wasn’t easy…it’s a long story littered with fuck ups, disasters, a perpetually broken down truck, and a whole lot of other shit. But hey, if you think you had a rough week, have a seat and laugh at mine!

This is how my week went.  Monday was heads down working all day and catching up after the long weekend, typical for a Monday.  Then Tuesday I check my nearly empty bank account and find that the credit card company I’ve been using too $99 out of  my account with no warning and no explanation.  I call them, flipping out, and get the runaround.  Took 2 calls and 3 tries to actually get a rep on the phone, and then all I am told is that it’s some IRS reporting fee.  Bullshit.  Basically it’s an excuse for Commerce Payment Systems to charge you out the wazoo.  They claim to be so much cheaper than Intuit, but let me tell you, it’s all crap. They have hidden fees, their rates change whenever they feel like without warning, and you never know what’s going to be taken out of your account.

So I fired them. Only I found out you need to fill out some form before they allow you to fire them. And in the meantime they tell me it could take up to 30 – 60 days for my “refund request” for the random $99 to be processed, if approved.  IF APPROVED? Eff that! Hang up on them, and call my bank and put a stop payment on the charge.  Then I call Intuit and while rewiring the ABS line on my truck, that was causing the ABS light to come on, the ABS system to be off, and 4WD not to work.  You know, little necessities when oh, towing a horse trailer, and living in the mountains heading into winter.  As I’m fixing that, the Intuit rep gets me all set up and approved for an account and BAM! Done. Recurring billing included, all for less than the BS with Commerce Payment Systems.  Thank goodness!

Yes, it’s still Tuesday at this point and knowing the weather this week is going to be touch and go, I decide hey, well it’s only 8PM why not put up the tree? I at least managed to get the tree inside, and opened without Jack peeing on it (success!).  Some of my lights still work, but the tree looked kinda half-lit so I figured I’d get more lights on Wednesday when I went to see my family before my sister heads home to New Zealand.  I manage to eat dinner at 11PM (leftover turkey again) and get to bed by 2AM.  Reasonable-ish.

So much better than Wal-Mart

Well the truck wires are fixed and I head to see my brother so we can tape up the wires for good. Simple enough, right? Oh wait, except now my radiator is leaking antifreeze all over.  Crap.  After dinner, I get sealant, and then stop at Target on the way home from my Dad’s.  Get the lights I need and few Christmas gifts and I’m back on my way home in under an hour. Awesome! Until I get almost home and stop for gas. And I don’t have my wallet. CRAP.  I call Target, and amazingly, the manager is able to find it IN A SHOPPING CART in the cart return outside in the lot. Wow I’m brilliant, I actually managed to pack the car with what I bought and take my wallet off my wrist and off the front seat of the car and put it in the cart – where it hasn’t been at all while shopping – and return the cart with my wallet in it. WTF is wrong with me? No, I wasn’t drinking. I did this entirely sober, all on my own.  Brilliance at its finest, I tell you.  So I turn around and drive the 30 min back to get it, then back home.  Of course I had my dogs with me so as soon as we got home, now about 10PM, I feed them and they proceed to puke from driving in circles on the highway. Awesome.

Hey, but I have lights on the tree.  Yup, 11PM on Wed, and I decide that I’m going to put the damn lights on the tree if it kills me.  It almost does.  Fortunately I have some wine here that helps.  Tree lit, garland with lights around the doorway hung. And I’m in bed nice and early like I planned exhausted and stressed by 3AM. Yay hump day…

Sooooooo Thursday will be better, right? Sure. Get up and do some stuff in the barn and get ready to trailer a horse that was adopted. Well the fucker WILL NOT GET ON THE TRAILER. Refuses.  We try every trick in the book, feed, treats, even a blindfold. And nope, he’s not scared, just standing all droopy lip and half asleep looking at us like, “hey assholes, just so you know, I’m not getting on this trailer.” Awesome. 1h later, the adopters say they’re going to jog home. With the horse. They live about 6 miles away, he runs marathons, and his wife will follow him in the car. Welcome to my world. Who needs a horse trailer, when you can just jog the horse there?

Back inside to work, and oh wow, early night for me! I’m done and eating dinner by 9pm.  That’s gotta be some sort of personal record. Even having turkey and stuffing for the umpteenth day in a row tastes like a gourmet meal.  And the wine – shit I don’t even know what kind it was. It was wine. Because that was my week, and it’s not over yet. But it’s Friday. TGIF. Do I get some sort of award for making it through the week? Pretty please? See, and you thought your week was crazy. Could you imagine if I had kids? Hahahaha just that thought makes me need some Jack Daniels. Oh dear.

Hey at least the tree is up and the stockings hung…

No, really, thanks a lot – to all of you my lovely readers that follow this train wreck of a blog (aka my life) and to all of you that are so organized and ahead of the game, that you already are done with Thanksgiving, cleaned up from having a houseful of crazy relatives, managed to do your Black Friday and last bit of Christmas shopping without interfering with family dinner or getting trampled by the masses, and came home to finish out the weekend with an already perfect Christmas tree up, house decorated and the holidays in full swing.  Thanks.

Because I’m not nearly that motivated organized ready for Christmas. And because after a week of getting ready to host family and also splitting wood so I can keep the house warm, I’m just flat out exhausted. And possibly a little bit sick.  Maybe. I’m not quite admitting that yet, but I slept for 10 hours last night, and did the same on Saturday night as well.  And that is totally not like me. Besides, I hate it, because it makes me feel like a lazy piece of shit when I get out of bed at 10AM and the rest of the world has been functioning since 6 or 7. Hey, at least there was wine. Lots and lots of wine for the holidays. 

Could also be that in all the commotion of the weekend, I’ve forgotten to take my thyroid meds so much as once, so I did that this morning. Hopefully that helps. Because on top of sleeping like a hibernating bear in the dead of winter, I’ve also been getting the hot/cold/hot/cold flashes and sweats which is so much fun, and I’m way too young for menopause (EEEEK! No, really, I’m 37). But I know when my thyroid is out of whack I get like that so definitely could be part of the issue. On top of it, after I eat something – anything – I want to go straight to bed. Ugh, yeah thanks a lot, thyroid. For making me feel like crap and running down my immune system and now I’m stuffy too. Don’t even try to blame Jack. Whiskey kills germs, you know.  Seriously.  That stuff is like medicine in a bottle, just ask anyone from the 1800s or 1900s. Doctors prescribed that stuff for everything from a cold to a headache to the flu. I drink enough Jack that I betcha I could have been a doctor in my past life. What’s wrong? Headache? Here, have some Jack! Toothache? Jack’s the cure.  What about the flu? No problem, Jack will make it all better!


Anyway, my Christmas tree is standing outside waiting to be opened up and brought in the house.  I’m feeling almost like I should do that today, but at the same time not so much. All of my friends’ Facebook feeds are of their perfect families and their pretty trees and lovely houses and meanwhile my single, tired, self hasn’t put mine up yet.  I think that will be the goal for tomorrow: decorate for the holidays and get out of bed before 10. Damn you, thyroid, we’re doing this.

On a more serious note, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with family and friends, no one got overly caught up in the Black Friday sales craze, and that today is a lovely relaxing Monday for all. I know I’ll be here working and shopping Cyber Monday sales for the holidays and procrastinating my tree going up. Honestly though I already cleaned some this morning and if I bring in the tree, I’ll just have to vacuum and clean all over again and go into the attic and get the decorations out and that’s too much effort for today.  Today is day #1 back on thyroid meds. Let’s see how we can kick that thyroid into gear by tomorrow.  Happy Cyber Monday, all! And if you come across any great deals to share, feel free to post them here.  I’ll put up a link to a list of some of my favorite CM sales shortly. 

In the theme of saying “thanks a lot,” I’m thankful for my sister home from New Zealand and spending time with her (if I get sick, I’m totally blaming you, Steph!), my brother turning 30 and getting engaged (congrats, bro!), and my family all being able to get together several times this past month to celebrate and spend time together. I’m thankful for my family of amazing animals, from cats to dogs to horses, and thankful for some amazing friends near and far, that I love and trust and am so grateful to have in my life.  And for my one friend lending me his log splitter.  That thing is my favorite new toy! Have you ever seen how a 29 ton splitter can crack a giant log like it’s a toothpick? Fun, and much better than trying to split wood by hand.


Oh and I leave you with a funny. My little dog Jack (Daniels of course, like you had to ask) is a rescue and as far as I know, never seen a tree inside before. So at my Dad’s house yesterday for dinner, he was so excited, he ran right over to the tree…and peed on it (and the gifts underneath)!  Poor dog was all excited that there was a bathroom inside the house for him and next thing he knew he was getting yelled at and tossed outside.  Hopefully he doesn’t do that when my tree goes up. Tomorrow. LOL