The two things I'm thinking about right now

Thing One: Mr. Monkey and I are in the midst of buying a house. This is, for me, a big and scary and stressful experience. This is, for Mr. Monkey, not such a big deal since he's been a home owner before. One of us, and I won't name names here, has a nervous stomach and is currently considering marketing a new diet plan called "Poop Yourself Skinny". It is not necessarily a complicated plan but there'll definitely be an informational to explain how to use the thought of a mortgage payment to induce feelings of, um, bowel urgency. It’s gonna be great.

Thing Two: My writing class. My class meets tonight, in three hours to be exact and I have nothing to turn in. I wrote a little last night but what I wrote sucked like a Dyson on a shag rug so I tossed it out. I intended to write today but I actually had to work at work so that didn't pan out for me. I’m not sure what I’m going to do.

Happy birthday little blog!

My blog turned 1 year old yesterday...yay little blog!

I went back and read my first month or so of blog postings and it was interesting. Some things have changed since October 2005 and some things are depressingly the same. I wrote about wanting to redeem myself from a terrible sugar and caffeine habit and, well, I'm still a sugar and Diet Coke junkie. Maybe worse than before. I know that I weight exactly the same as I did then, despite 365 days of thinking about wanting to weigh less.

I wrote about wanting to have a baby but struggling with the timing...and tonight I took my bc pill and a women's vitamin loaded with folic acid, so I'm thinking that means that I'm still basically in the same place. I want a baby but the timing isn't right yet so I both try to prevent it from happening while trying to prepare my body for it. Some times this makes me feel a little depressed.

Let's see, what else...Mr. Monkey is still a runner man and I still like hearing him call me "wife". I did finish grad school, so all those whiny and petulant entries about my thesis did amount to something. I also changed my job, so there was some progress there too. I don't shill lotion anymore, but I'm still trying to work an extra job to save money for a house (please feel free to take this as a shameless plug for www.tastefullysimple.com ....go visit, you'll love the beer bread). We still live in our little rental house but that looks like it might change in the next six months, so that's good news.

I wrote 69 posts this first year, which amounts to a fairly respectable post every 5 days. This is the one thing I beat my husband on this year. Woo!

Word Play

Okay, I have a new mini-obsession that I am totally cracking myself up with…Tom Swifties. We had to come up with a bunch of these during my writing class last week and now I can’t stop myself from trying to think of more. For those of you who haven’t heard of them, a Tom Swiftie is a type of word play where an adverb is used in a speaker attribution in a way that is both proper and punning. Here is a pretty standard example:
“I ate a hot dog today,” Tom said frankly.

A “good” Tom Swiftie should make you laugh and/or groan. Here are some of my personal favorites:

“I need some Viagra,” Tom said limply

“Don’t call me Howard,” he said sternly

“I bought a new thong,” she said cheekily

“Please fill it in,” he said blankly

“It can’t be fixed,” Tom said brokenly

“Are you a diabetic?” she asked sweetly

“The doctor said I need a bypass,” he said heartily

“Will you marry me?” he asked engagingly

“I’m a lumberjack,” he said woodenly

“I dropped the toothpaste,” Tom said, crestfallen

“I think it might be radioactive,” Tom said glowingly

I know some you out there are word nerds too…so…contest time! Submit your best Tom Swifties and I will choose the best one and write a poem of praise about the winner. A real, honest to goodness poem (rhyming and everything) posted forever on this here blog. Post early, post often!

Dairy Queen

Oh my. I think I have an issue. Please look at the following things I've eaten this weekend...tell me, do you see a theme here?

Thursday night: Two cheese grilled cheese sandwhich on sourdough (so yummy)
Friday night: Chicken tortilla soup garnised with shredded chedder (does it count as a garnish if you use 3/4 of a cup?)
Saturday snack: Tuscan Valley cheese ball spread on chips (said cheeseball is 99.9% cream cheese and .1% spices. It goes without saying that it is freaking delicious). This cheeseball is followed by a Key Lime dessert cheeseball.
Saturday supper: Cheese pizza.

It is now Sunday morning and what am I considering for breakfast....why, a cheese omlet of course.

Maybe I wouldn't feel as concerned about all of this if I used love fat cheese, but I firmly believe that low fat, or even worse non-fat, cheese is an abomination. It makes the little tiny baby Jesus cry.

I'm trying to justify this cheese eating ramage in the following two ways: 1. At least its not sugar and 2. I'm Dutch and this is, therefore, an important way of celebrating my culture. Maybe if I eat enough my meager Dutch speaking skills will come back...

Oh look...it works... Ik houd van kaas! Kaas, kaas, kaas...