not that you asked...

August 2007

Originally uploaded by Not That You Asked

Favorite photos of Asher from this month. (Not that I actually took any photos of anything besides Asher.)

I am more than willing to admit when I am wrong

Forgive me, but it appears that sixth grade was the true height of my awkward stage, not eighth, as was incorrectly identified in the previous post. Yes, that's me, below, with the hair and the eyebrows and the hideous jumper-type thing, which I can't believe I ever found remotely flattering, but which I can't believe my mother let me out of the house in, either. THANKS, MOM. And hey - although I know you're feeling sorry for me, and really, I don't blame you in the least, save at least a little sympathy for my dear cousin, who is standing next to me wearing those footless leggings with lace trim. And an enormous fake flower.

Oh good, a close-up! The better to see my missing teeth and werewolf eyebrows with! And GOOD LORD, those shoes are all the reminder I need why I don't wear flats. Are those boats? Or MY FEET?

And then there were the college years...

Just kidding! That was Halloween. A hideous Halloween, but still. Halloween. It's excusable, right?

My four-year-old self has seen her future. And it isn't good.

Seriously, I'm going to look like WHAT? Surely you jest.

I had to drive all the way over to my parents' house to scan these for you. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY. I know I am. There are M&Ms at my parents house. And free diapers, too! You guys want to come over tomorrow?

Squishy

So. Again with the weight thing.

Generally speaking, I like where I'm at. I wouldn't mind losing a few more pounds, but I'm not pushing myself for them, and if I were to be completely honest with myself, I would just go ahead and admit that I'm really only trying to lose them so that I can officially say I weigh what I weighed back in eighth grade or something.

For what it’s worth, eighth grade was the absolute pinnacle of my awkward stage. I’ll see if I can dig up a photo because hello, tree trunk legs! Unwieldy eyebrows! Hair that was… well, interesting, at best.

Anyway, if it happens, it happens. And yet, if the scale is stuck where it is right now for ever and ever and ever? Well, that’s okay too. I won’t complain. But do you know what I don’t want to be? I don’t want to be mushy.

Besides helping me lose weight, all this cardio has done wonders for my general health and well-being. My blood pressure is excellent and my resting pulse is a shockingly low 52 beats per minute. But my body as a whole could use a little strength training. A little toning, perhaps. Some sculpting here and there. Oh, and triceps that don’t sway in the breeze.

I won’t join a gym for obvious reasons. The most important of those obvious reasons is because I just won’t get off my butt and go. Also I can’t justify the cost of a gym membership at the moment because I just bought a BOB (!!!) and that was supposed to BE my own personal home gym. Which it is, it’s just that I can’t bench press it. I keep hitting myself in the head with the swivel wheel.

I would love to get a recommendation for something I could either get from Netflix or through Amazon or something. Book, video, I don’t care. I don’t even mind if you’ve got some routine you pieced together from sixteen separate issues of Shape magazine—I’d love to know if you found something effective.

I wish I had taken the time to document my progress over the last few months, but I think the truth is that I was too afraid to record what I looked like when I started losing weight. That and I think I was afraid that I wouldn’t lose any weight at all and wouldn’t want to compare pictures and see that I hadn’t changed a bit. I'm so glad I was wrong, but this is the best I can do. Can you see a difference?

January:


August:


Oh, and that blue thing? Peeking out from under my tank top? I caved. I bought new sports bras. FOUR OF THEM. But I still can’t bring myself to throw the old ones out.

I wrote this last night but was too sore to press Publish

We accidentally left the jogging stroller out in the rain last night and even though it stopped drizzling around noon, the seat was still soaking wet at 4pm when it was time for our daily walk. In hindsight, I suppose there are numerous things I could have done to remedy the situation. I could have spread a towel over the seat. I could have blowdried it with the hairdryer. I could have dressed Asher in a ensemble fashioned out of water-resistant garbage bags before buckling him in, but instead I chose to strap him into the backpack. And then I had an even MORE interesting idea, which was to put the backpack ON MY BACK and to walk three entire miles with nearly 30 pounds strapped to my person.

I honestly didn't expect it to be much different than pushing all that weight in a stroller. Guess what? I was WRONG. My legs are kind of... angry with me. I suspect they're hatching a plan to fail me completely when it's time for me to pick myself up off this here couch and go upstairs to bed.

I'm actually kind of insulted by my body's reaction. You'd think after six months of rather strenuous daily exercise, I could throw a few more curveballs its way. But you'd be wrong, and instead, here I sit, achy and cranky and also kind of crooked because my kid preferred to lean to the left the whole time I was walking, probably because he couldn't see over my gigantic, bulbous, frizzy-haired head.

Asher loved it. He squealed for the entire first 15 minutes and that was truly something because this child? DOES NOT SQUEAL. Like, ever.

Until today, the longest amount of time he’s ever spent in the backpack was about 20 minutes. The backpack was a floor model clearance item and didn’t come with a sunshade, so I’ve been wary of taking him out in it this summer because he won’t let me put a hat on him. Also summer is kind of hot, yes? And I sweat enough as it is, so I cannot imagine the degree of sweating I might be capable of with a little child-furnace swathed in canvas and polyester attached to my body in 98-degree weather. Thankfully yesterday it was cool and misty and the sweating was kept to a relative minimum. That is, at a minimum FOR ME. When I got home I had achieved an elaborate sweat pattern in the exact shape of a backpack, complete with shoulder straps and waist belt. Alas, there is no photographic evidence. I know, I know. BOOOOOOO.

Anyway, aside from my aching legs, do you know what else was kind of insulting? We passed a man that we pass most days on our walk and today, as usual, I said hello and he said hello and then, because we were going opposite directions around a loop, we passed him again about 20 minutes later. And I said hello again and he said hello again and then he followed that up with, "You should really get one of those carriage-type thingys. So you could push him! It would be so much easier!"

Wait, WHAT? First of all, sir, with all due respect: it's called a STROLLER. And, um, second? We run into you nearly EVERY SINGLE DAY and we say hello EVERY SINGLE TIME, sometimes twice, even, and you seriously have not noticed that on every other occasion that we acknowledge each other, THAT I AM PUSHING ONE OF THOSE CARRIAGE-TYPE THINGYS?

This man looks me directly in the eye when he speaks to me. I just do not understand this phenomenon but let me tell you it is doing absolutely nothing for my self-esteem and I am beginning to wonder if perhaps I am just the world's most forgettable face or something. Honestly! How did he not recognize me? We have been running into each other for two entire years now. So I am baffled. And rather distressed.

And I am going to buy myself that new stroller this weekend and then I am going to run him over with it. YOU'LL KNOW WHO I AM THEN, OLD MAN.

Dog Attacks Man Playing Wii

First things first: I picked a stroller. CUE ANGELS SINGING.

I can’t tell you which one. Yet. This is only because I need something to write about at that other site, since in the last few days Asher has been napping/eating/pooping rather inoffensively, thus I am not operating in Crisis Mode and have very little to blab on and on about even though I’m contractually obligated to do so.

I didn’t buy it yet either, but for good reason—they didn’t have the color I wanted in stock at the store over the weekend. Well, wait. OK, so actually? There was also the fact that we somehow found ourselves walking out of Target on Saturday as proud new owners of a Nintendo Wii.

So it is entirely possible that this new purchase could delay the stroller situation. Which I thought was kind of annoying until we got home and set up the Wii and played tennis on the Wii and DUDE! The Wii is AWESOME. And maybe I don’t really know what I’m talking about because the last time I enjoyed video games was back in 1986 when I had to use a joystick to play Pole Position on Atari.

But Dave seemed to be enjoying it too, and Dave has some other video game playing thingy, albeit one where most of the games involve shooting people or running them over with cars, and although that is distasteful it also means he knows a lot more about video games than I do and lends him some minor credibility. So if he says the Wii is awesome, I believe him, because I certainly didn’t do any research on it besides thinking the commercials made it look like a roaring good time. And duh! We all know advertising is just well-packaged, 30-second snippets of Truth.

We played golf first (I won) and then bowling (I won) and then we tried tennis and it turns out that I suck at tennis but it didn’t really matter because during our fourth game all the running and jumping and swinging of arms got Hambone riled up and he bit Dave, which was hilarious, and gave me all the incentive I needed to bestow upon the Wii my official Stamp of Approval.

Of course, this doesn’t change the fact that the Wii was a complete and total spontaneous purchase, of which I am not as big of a fan. It just makes no sense to me to walk in to Target on Saturday morning for hair dye, body wash and a pair of running shorts and walk out with $300 worth of electronics equipment just because there was only one left. It’s one thing to throw a People magazine or a tube of Chapstick onto the checkout as an afterthought, but a VIDEO GAME CONSOLE? Such things are strongly against my shopping code of morality.

I mean, I have been pouring over stroller reviews for weeks, terrified that I would be wasting a similar amount of money on something I won’t absolutely love. And even though I am thoroughly convinced that I’ve chosen the right one, I’m still stalling on buying it because I’m nervous about feeling guilty once it’s in my hot little hands. My conscience? Is on duty around the clock.

It would be so much easier to be Dave in this relationship, wouldn’t it? Except for the part where I’d be the one with the big, purple dog bite on my leg.

I have seen what is under the bathrobe. It is not good.

Asher, Hambone and I were sitting on the front stoop the other day waiting for Dave to get home when I noticed that everyone coming home from work was carrying copies of the new 2008 IKEA catalogue. That they got in the mail. THAT I DID NOT. This is the ultimate shining example of how life can be horribly unfair.

So I pouted and stomped my feet a little and then my elderly neighbor stopped by to chat and to pinch Asher’s cheeks and (I swear this is true) sing and dance for him in her bathrobe and I told her I was jealous of her catalogue. And so she gave me hers, although she made me promise that I’d give it back when I was done.

I don’t think she understood exactly what she was doing.

After all, it has been five whole days and I AM NOT DONE. And I do not plan to be done for a very, very long time. It is quite possible that I will not be done until the 2009 catalogue comes out NEXT SUMMER, twelve whole entire months from now. And I am kind of hoping that because she is old that perhaps she has just forgotten about the existence of the catalogue altogether.

This is entirely plausible. Please don’t forget that she was dancing suggestively in her bathrobe at 6pm on the sidewalk in front of my house. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

Anyway, the forgetting? That would be nice, because the catalogue and I are spending lots of quality time together and we are just beginning our relationship and we haven’t even gotten a chance to talk about our FEELINGS yet so I would be absolutely heartbroken if we were to have to go our separate ways. I get all choked up just thinking about having to go to the bathroom alone.

I don’t know why I love IKEA so much. Let’s be honest: most of it is crap. Cute crap, but still: assemble-it-yourself-with-an-extremely-poor-instruction-manual-particle-board crap. And about 98 percent of the time, the putting- it-together process of whatever we have bought causes such an enormous fight that Dave and I end up not speaking to each other for a day or two. Also, once his toenail almost fell off courtesy of the combined efforts of me and this one extremely unwieldy EXPEDIT bookcase.

But then that catalogue comes in the mail and everything is so shiny and modern-looking and I forget all about the hassle and the possible divorce proceedings and then I get to the store and it’s all so unbelievably well-priced that my credit card practically digs itself out of my purse and presents itself at the checkout. And then at the last second I always throw a bag of 11,000 tealights for 33 cents on the conveyor belt and get them home to find that I’ve only used three out of last year’s bag, WHY DO I DO THIS, HELP.

Such a complicated, unhealthy relationship.

One that I completely intend to continue.

P.S. again! So I’ve narrowed my stroller search down to the BOB (specifically, this model) or the Phil & Ted’s. If you have experience with either, I’d love to hear it. Everyone I’ve heard from so far seems to be absolutely enamored with the BOB (Maggie equated it to pushing a dainty little cloud and various other commenters and emailers confessed to sneaking out in the middle of the night to make out with theirs) but I am kind of enthralled with the idea of converting a single to a double stroller. I just worry that the P&T won’t hold up as well as the BOB. You know, because I am HARD CORE and all. Riiiiiiiight.

Self-contained underwater breathing apparatus

I need to learn how to scuba dive.

I realize this sounds kind of ridiculous at the moment. After all, you know me. I'm Emily and I have a 10-month-old baby and, well, this fact alone kind of stands in the way of my taking any kind of vacation where top priority is to remain underwater for as long as possible. And yes, it would have to be a vacation: I would only ever use this particular set of skills in a tropical setting because I absolutely refuse to scuba dive in a quarry or a lake or somewhere else murky and cloudy where something I can't see might touch my leg or my arm or GOD FORBID MY FACE.

And that tropical setting thing poses a wee bit of a challenge because WE'RE FREAKING POOR.

Anyways. Still.

I need to learn to scuba dive.

I need to learn to do it because I want to know how to do something that my husband really enjoys doing. And I have long since given up on getting him to adopt any of my pasttimes. He hates running, he refuses to scrapbook (I KNOW!), and although I could spend all day rearranging our furniture and chatting endlessly about what I'd like to eventually do with our kitchen, he'd rather eat glass.

So I'm stepping up to the plate. Dave and I are very different people. I love him with every fiber of my being and he is my favorite person in the entire world, but that doesn't mean that sometimes we don't have much to connect over. We have Asher and we have each other but there aren't many things we enjoy doing together. Especially now that we're trapped inside the house once the baby is in bed at 7:30. Even our TV choices are compromises: he suffers through House Hunters and I have done my best to tolerate Tivo’d episodes of The Simpsons although if I have to sit through that one where Homer has the affair with the busty, twangy country singer ONE MORE TIME I will have to eat glass myself.

Which, heeeeey! Something we'd have in common!

Dave loves to dive. He got certified in Hawaii, of all places, that spoiled brat, and has dived off numerous Caribbean islands and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. I, on the other hand, have snorkeled rather poorly (also known as INHALED SALT WATER) in like three entirely different places, and while we're on the subject, may I tell you that this one time while snorkeling? I actually got motion sick. Which I thought was kind of dorky but then this other girl who was snorkeling with us actually threw up, which was gross, really really gross, except that then all these fish swam up and started eating the puke and it was STILL REALLY GROSS except its like everyone else forgot that it was throw up and started taking pictures of all the fish. Also, I should note that this girl was snorkeling in her clothes. PANTS AND A LONG-SLEEVED SHIRT. I think she deserved to throw up, honestly.

But that was on my honeymoon and I don't tell too many stories about my honeymoon ever except to tell everyone AGAIN, ONE MORE FREAKING TIME about how I soiled the marital bed.

Anyways, it’s something I’d like for us to be able to enjoy doing together. I think it sounds amazing and fun, if not completely, ridiculously scary, HELLO POSSIBLE UNDERWATER PANIC-ATTACK, but I am an excellent swimmer and I want to give it a shot. Not to mention that I think it would make him really happy and dude! In a marriage, isn’t that like, the best thing ever?

Dave, if you’re reading this? It’s totally ok to return the favor by making sure your dirty socks are in the hamper every night. It’s the least you can do for your wife, who plans to breathe canned air through a plastic tube 40 feet below the surface just to make you happy.

And it will be worth it.

P.S. Do you want to give me stroller advice? If you don't want to comment over there, you're always more than welcome to comment here. And that goes for anything I write no matter where it gets posted. I can't see anyone's email addresses at the other site unless they're part of their user name, so it's hard for me to write you back and I MISS DOING THAT AND I AM PROBABLY ANNOYED AT THAT ENTIRE SITUATION RIGHT NOW. I'm just saying.

Michigan

With Mom
Originally uploaded by Not That You Asked

You would never have known by just looking at these photos that we never slept while on vacation. But we didn't. AT ALL. You people out there with your wonderfully flexible babies who will sleep anywhere? SUCK IT. I hate you.

Otherwise we had a great time.

I ate it

By the end of August, I’ll have been on Weight Watchers for four months. So far I’ve lost almost 25 pounds and gone down two pants sizes and I have gotten really good at being very diligent with my exercise and with keeping track of almost everything I eat.

Except then last week I went on vacation.

Today I feel an overwhelming sense of ickiness. Sure, it was fun while it lasted, all six glorious days of it, but now the reality is starting to set in: my waistband is more constrictive, my stomach is a little queasy and UGH! The constipation! WHY DID I EAT SO MUCH CHEESE?

Wait, I’ll tell you why I ate that much cheese. Because it was there. And because it was tasty. And because once I give myself a little slack, I find that I’m rather difficult to reel back in.

It would have been enough had I just eaten whatever was offered at meals. Big, family-style meals that featured plates stacked high with ribs and steak and pasta salads and pizza and sausage and hot dogs and hamburgers and birthday cake and quiche and pancakes and bacon, OH THE BACON, real, actual, from-an-oinking-pig bacon that sizzled in its own fat on top of the stove. But the meals? The meals were just my gateway drug.

Do you want to know how bad it got? Worse than the handfuls of M&Ms I grabbed every time I went in and out of the kitchen. Worse than the cubes of cheese I popped like peanuts. Worse even than Twix bar I snuck out of the fridge and ate while Asher was taking a nap one afternoon while everyone else was out on the boat.

I ATE OREOS FOR BREAKFAST. Just because they were there.

Wait, it gets worse! I did it in full view of everyone else, all 10 other adults staying in the house with us, and I did it RIGHT AFTER I INGESTED FOUR BUTTER-TOPPED, SYRUP-SOPPED PANCAKES. And a Coke. This story is 100 percent unglamorously true.

I wonder how it’s even possible that my clothes still fit. I do not think the six miles I ran while I was away did much to neutralize the amount of crap that went into my body. Although four of those miles were on hard-packed sand and that probably burned a few calories more than usual. Right? RIGHT?!

But today it was back to Square One. Back to counting my Points, back to exercising. Except, well, except that it was too hot to exercise today (Code Orange!). Not that I feel like eating, though, because I caught some stupid cold and I can’t breathe and I can’t taste anything so really, WHAT IS THE POINT OF EATING? The point of eating is to TASTE FOOD, after all, that is how donuts were invented.

Also, may I just say, this cold? It is… kind of an odd experience. I’ve never, ever, in my entire life had snot so thin that it poured out of my nose. It literally SPLASHED onto my shorts as we were leaving the grocery store this afternoon. I actually thought that my sunroof might have started leaking, but no! It was MY NOSE! It was also DISGUSTING!

And now the cold medication I took is starting to kick in so before the screen goes all fuzzy and my head starts spinning and I start typing out incoherent gobbledygook I shall sign off. But I will leave you with a photo or two because everyone loves filler. Don’t they? Especially when the filler is cute and has a bunch of snaggleteeth.

Blogher photos

molested by heather b
Originally uploaded by Not That You Asked

I finally figured out how to post from Flickr. And then while I was at it I changed my user name and set up a new account and BLAH BLAH BLAH whatever here are my pictures already.

Enjoy. I took them myself. Well, unless I'm IN them, and in that case someone else took them. It's not like I took a tripod to Chicago, I had to bring extra shoes.