The Pursuit of Lazyness...

The last time I checked, the saying wasn't "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Lazyness..." but, if I was in that room, well, you know. There are certain things in life that I wish I had inherited from my grandmother, June. One of these traits was her drive. Go go go. Move move move. Accomplish Accomplish Accomplish! I am the total opposite. As with most things in my life, I will get all "list" done 5 minutes before the Apocalypse, at which point I will have 4:59 minutes of pure relaxation.

Lately, I feel that I have been using school as an excuse to not do the other important things in my life (namely, the dishes, the laundry, the diet). Waaah, statistics is hard, I can't do the cat box. What the eff is an ANOVA again?? How can you expect me to vacuum the couch at a time like this??? Oh, Christ, not another nonparametric test!!! I need a cookie. And a beer. /cry.

But really, I need to get over myself. I remember being in a class once at ASU where one of the middle aged ladies was holding down two full time jobs AND working on her degree. So while I do long for the day when I can come home from work and plop down in an inner tube in my backyard with a beer in my hand and pretend I'm floating down the salt river, for the next year I'm going to have to balance life, work and school.

And furthermore, why can't this be my troop of singing cockatiels?

Don't Stop Believin'

I always used to say that Journey was NOTHING without Steve Perry, and today I stand corrected. Meet the new Steve Perry (who is brand new lead singer for Journey) named Arnel Pineda:



I never cease to be amazed. Of course, this guy isn't nearly as good looking as Steve Perry, but at least if Journey comes to town on tour I'll pay to watch them ;)

Not much is happening in TheRightWife land. The days seem to be blurring into each other right now, and I am in full on lazy mode. I hate statistics. I hate statistics. I hate statistics. Statistics class needs to be over (only 1.5 more weeks left, hoorah!).

Oh, I know what is exciting!!! Baseball season is back! Our first season tickets are for this Friday, and if memory serves me we are playing the Rockies. Other than that, I think I won't do much of anything this weekend except Statistics homework. Oh, and our taxes. Ummm, and the house needs to be cleaned (a-frickin'-gain... can't my frackin' house stay clean for one fruckin' minute?).

I think I'm going to make a goal to try and enjoy this summer in the old fashioned Kerith way. I used to spend an awful lot of time at the pool, driving and listening to music in the sweltering hot hot heat of AZ. The last few summers have been spent primarily in the well shaded and cool shelter of our home. Now that AZ is back in the 90's (we will be back in the triple digits in no time) I need to get ready for the summer!! Lets see... what do I need to do to get ready for the summer???

-Lose 4000 pounds
-Get a bikini
-Get a tan

Alright - let me get to work on all that...

My Music

I'm using a neat program called Media Monkey to manage my music library, and today I was busy exploring all the various features that are now enabled since purchasing "Media Monkey Gold." One cool feature is the ability to spit out reports/statistics on my music library. I got a kick out of my reports - specifically the artists that I had the largest number of tracks for.

MediaMonkey Music Library Statistics

Totals
Type	Library	Played
Artists	1208	373
Albums	1229	280
Genres	165	60
Years	59	39
Playlists	30	15
Tracks	7323	525
Length (h:mm:ss)	510:26:37	37:43:06
File size	46.58 GB	4.07 GB

Averages
Type	Library	Played
Tracks per Artist	4.3	2.6
Tracks per Album	5.3	2
Tracks per Genre	40.7	9.1
Tracks per Year	99.1	13.3
Bitrate (kbps)	214	247
Year	1927	1978
Length (h:mm:ss)	0:04:11	0:04:03
File size	6.51 MB	7.48 MB

Top 10 Artists
Tracks	Artist	Length	File size
376	Sublime	20:16:38	1.28 GB
356	Bob Marley	24:05:09	1.29 GB
290	Journey	20:28:44	2.02 GB
236	Megadeth	17:16:06	2.26 GB
210	Loggins, Kenny	16:58:18	1.02 GB
209	311	11:56:01	849.26 MB
173	Korn	11:56:04	1.49 GB
155	Moody Blues	12:16:50	1.17 GB
155	Van Halen	11:09:44	919.04 MB
143	Whitney Houston	10:36:54	985.36 MB

Top 10 Artists played
Tracks	Artist	Length	File size
31	Journey	2:19:21	247.11 MB
30	Deftones	2:02:58	119.76 MB
27	Loggins, Kenny	1:59:26	122.29 MB
24	Van Halen	1:28:42	120.55 MB
20	311	1:09:42	83.63 MB
19	Bob Marley	1:11:13	65.25 MB
18	Muse	1:18:08	161.47 MB
18	atb	1:28:49	581.94 MB
18	Goldfinger	0:44:44	60.1 MB
18	Loreena McKennitt	1:47:24	99 MB

Top 10 Albums played
Tracks	Album	Length	File size
16	Deftones - Around the Fur	1:04:33	58.66 MB
12	Loreena McKennitt - Parallel Dreams	1:11:53	65.33 MB
11	Van Halen - Van Halen II	0:34:19	47.17 MB
8	Creedence Clearwater Revival - Chronicle	0:23:04	21.13 MB
6	Journey - Time³	0:30:58	41.38 MB
6	Cherry Poppin' Daddies - Soul Caddy	0:21:53	19.28 MB
6	Chris Isaak - Forever Blue	0:18:15	16.85 MB
6	Slipknot - Slipknot	0:19:59	17.48 MB
6	Sublime - Sublime	0:20:19	18.78 MB
6	Van Halen - Van Halen	0:20:45	27.15 MB

Top 10 Genres
Tracks	Genre	Length	File size
1684	Rock	114:19:17	11.11 GB
461	Other	30:53:04	2.26 GB
371	Reggae	25:24:16	1.37 GB
317	Classic Rock	22:15:49	2.02 GB
299	Alternative	19:04:45	1.75 GB
291	Pop	22:19:13	1.38 GB
244	Country	15:23:18	1.37 GB
227	Skacore	12:12:37	746.55 MB
215	Thrash Metal	15:38:57	2.15 GB
193	Trance	16:17:22	4.26 GB

Top 10 Genres played
Tracks	Genre	Length	File size
172	Rock	11:14:04	1.01 GB
36	Classic Rock	2:30:49	244.46 MB
31	Other	2:05:54	193.27 MB
28	Pop	2:04:08	126.59 MB
25	Hard Rock	1:33:22	162.87 MB
23	Alternative	1:27:57	140.26 MB
20	Reggae	1:19:15	72.72 MB
18	Trance	1:28:49	581.94 MB
17	Country	1:03:23	125.15 MB
13	Thrash Metal	0:52:48	111.94 MB

I feel pretty...

Or at least I feel that I have the POTENTIAL to look pretty. My good pal Schmee hooked it up with the Mary Kay connection, and I wandered away from Casa De Tamale with quite the boat load of goodies! Seriously - check this out:

From Mary Kay 3.20.08

From Mary Kay 3.20.08

And here is the bag, full of empty boxes and smaller bags - this is a large crate & barrel bag!!

From Mary Kay 3.20.08

I don't even know where to begin with 1/2 of this stuff, but I'm determined to overcome my lack of beautician qualifications and finally learn how to properly paint my face on!

On The Edge of 25...

So, here I am, almost 25 years behind me. I thought I would be a lot more excited about this moment then I am, but honestly, I'm feeling sort of serene about it all. Calm, relaxed, reflective. I'm pretty happy with the last 25 years of my life, and I have some pretty major accomplishments under my belt! I have loved, I have lost, I have hurt, I have felt immense joy! I have made amazing friends, and even kept some along the way ;o) I have married an amazing man - the dong to my ding (my bookend, as June would say). I graduated from college (somehow) and I'm half way through my MBA. I've gained weight, I've lost weight, I've gained weight, I've lost weight, I've gained weight, I've lost weight, I've gained weight... etc, etc, etc.

I thought it might be fun to make a list of my "top 25" moments in the history of Kerith:

1. Being Born (pretty important, I think, and not as easy as it looks, as it turns out)
2. Hanging out with my dad when I was a baby in our refrigerator fort (I don't actually remember this, but I'm sure it must have been great philosophizing with him)
3. Rocky Point w/ June and the family when I was around 7 or so - we adopted a stray dog for the week and I named him Rontu from the book Island of the Blue Dolphin
4. Taco Bell lunch with my Mom for my 10th birthday - she said I could pick whatever I wanted, and she brought it to school and we ate lunch in the station wagon. I felt special :)
5. Goodyear Swim Team Summers - I hated competing, but I loved swimming, and Mom would always come watch the swim meets and make a fuss over us getting plenty of carbs beforehand and banana's during the match
6. Jessica Lidner adventures - I was exposed to a lot of things hanging out with that chick that I might not have otherwise. I tagged along for a few years and experienced the wonders of the Wigwam, Tennis Camp and putting virgin Pina Colada's on her father's tab at the Wigwam Swimming Pool.
7. Alpha Far West - I loved hanging out at that bookstore with my Mom and all her cool pagan friends. The store is gone now, but I'll never forget it!
8. Naomi Marine - that crazy bird! She turned my world upside down! She was amazing, brilliant, unique - I wanted to do everything just like her. She is still a dear friend, even if she is 3000 miles away! I will never forget our 48 hour challenge to not sleep, finished off by rollerblading to Western Sky Middle School to see what our 8th grade schedule would be.
9. Valerie Tucker (Farris nowadays) - she adopted me in the 8th grade and we've been "BFF" ever since. She also exposed me to a great many things, like ridiculous amounts of soda, hanging out with older kids and it being "cool" to be good. We both played the French Horn in marching band, and she always gave me her soggy fries at lunch. She helped me through my first couple broken hearts, and I viciously attacked aggressively defended her from anyone that tried to break hers.
10. Agua Fria Marching Band - oh how we sucked, but it was still the most fun a kid can have in high school. I fit right in with them, and there was nothing more awesome than Friday Night Football games and 2 weeks of band practice in the sweltering August Arizona heat. We would concoct the most god awful "wake up juice" made of mountain dew and any disolvable candy several days before any band competition. Yuck, but so yum :)
11. Swing Dancing - we danced, we went to clubs, smoked cigars and watched swing bands - it was amazing fun! I somehow managed to see the Cherry Poppin' Daddies 9 times before I was done with high school - they are so great!
12. Ace (formerly known as Jason :) - He was like some rare older brother - he took me places, to concerts, to Tempe, to Albertson's, lol. We shared a love of blue sweethearts and unrequited love. He showed me all the coolest things, like checkered slip on Vans and the Royal Crown Revue.
    
13. The Summer after my Freshman year of High School - I was recovering from a massive case of broken heart, and my fondest memory is riding in the back of Val's jeep on our way out to Waddell. We had just been swimming, so my hair was wet and my skin was tight from the chlorine. It finally occured to me that everything would be ok.
14. The Summer before my Senior year of High School - It could have been right out of any coming of age movie. Again, I was mending my wounded heart, and I was looking for love in all the wrong places. But - it was still an amazing summer, full of part time work and swimming, and chasing after boys.
15. Senior Year Spring Break - Oh, holy hell, the trouble we caused in Rocky Point! Chelsey's dad was cool and bought us chests full of Dos Equis. I spent an entire week stuck to the beach with my best friends! Ashley got drunk and pretended she was Anne Frank, and I danced my ass off at Manny's Beach club. The high lite of the week? Seeing our Principal at that same club dancing with what appeared to be a Mexican prostitute...
16. My 18th Birthday - I wasted little time in getting pierced full of holes and tatted up. It is my belly button piercing that brought me to Joshua (or you could give that credit to Ryan Badsgard, who technically drove me around that week). The weeks and months after my 18th birthday were spent driving back and forth from the West Side to Tempe visiting Josh at any opportunity. Some might call it a booty call. I called it lopsided love. This phase of my life drifted into the next phase...
17. Summer Before my Freshman Year of College - This summer was insane. My lopsided love for Josh grew with each passing day. I spent my days in a haze of metabolife and diet coke. I looked amazing, and I knew it. I wielded that power unfairly and tripped Josh into the sack many times throughout the summer. He called off our fling 1/2 a dozen times that summer, and finally ended it for good in mid August.
18. Summer Samba with my Summer Grandma - June and I bond over this summer. I love her. I relish our talks, her advice, and she does my laundry. Does it ever get better than this?
    
19. October 15th, 2001 - Josh claims his undying love for me. I rejoice. Victory is mine!!
20. A Drinking School with a Football Problem - Freshman year football games are some of my happiest memories. Stinky Tamale keeps me in the fold, even during the games when Josh and I are not "together." I spend home game Saturday's getting drunk tailgating, sobering up at the football game, and then getting drunk again at the band party afterwards.
21. 3 Roommates and a Private Bathroom - My dorm experience was incredible! I lived with three of my best friends, and we made that little place a home. It didn't hurt that two of my roommates were art majors. Naomi and I shared a room, and it was a "beautiful disaster." April would often cook for all of us, and we always fought over who's turn it was to take out the trash or buy toilet paper. I loved living in that dorm room, and I truly regret only spending 1 semester with those girls.
22. March 4th, 2006 - Josh and I get married - the day is calm, and I'm relaxed (somehow) and I couldn't have planned it any better. Good friends, good food and good beer.
    
23. June 16th, 2006 - my June June dies. I am devastated, yet some good has come out of it. June's last act was to bring us all together - for the first time since high school I am in the same room as all three of my siblings and my mother. We spend a week after this wallowing in sadness, drinking beer and mourning her loss, but we spend it that way together.
24. Vegas Baby! My first trip to Vegas in August of 2007 is just as amazing as I hoped it would be. I got to see all the sights, and drink all the yards of Pina Colada my stomach could contain. I turn $1.00 into $6.00 at the Penny Slots!
    
25. A New Roommate - for a short time, my little sister moves into my guest bedroom. She and I don't spend an enormous amount of time together, but we bond. She does my hair and my makeup. We eat... a lot. She moves out... it was good while it lasted :)

So, in 2 hours I'll be a whole year older. Sometime tomorrow my Mom will call me and play the Beatles "Birthday" song for me over the phone. It won't be as good as if she were here, but I'll take what I can get :) Here is to another 25 amazing years!

The Adventure in My Mouth...

Thought I would show off some of the "meh" stuff I have been eating lately. I think I'm back out of the omelet for breakfast phase, though it was filling while it lasted. I'm just not a big breakfast person, and to eat that much protein that early kinda grosses me out.

I also enjoyed quite a bit of hot tea this week:

(notice how I strive to heat up the planet right from my very cubicle every day with the wasteful use of Styrofoam cups)

Dinner for tonight:

And for fun, here is what Josh surprised me with for enduring 2 years of wedded bliss ;)

And finally, the adventure in Josh's mouth for tonight:

Yeah, that is frozen pizza. I suck at wifeliness. I did let him eat some of my salad though, lol!

Might As Well...

Since 1/2 the population of Arizona doesn't speak a word of English, we might as well embrace the new state language of Espagnol. To get you in the mood, here is the greatest song EVER!



I am addicted :) I think there is something in this song for everyone, even marching band nerds that play the sax! Enjoy!

Oops...

Well, I *meant* to start the new diet today (as I mentioned in an earlier post) but then I made the fatal flaw of eating lunch before determining what the nutritional content of said lunch would be. Well - lets just say that 19 points later on a salad at El Pollo Loco, Weight Watchers didn't work out so well for me. I really wanted it to work out today, too, because today is 3/11, and I LOVE 311, and in my head it sounded much cooler than it seems now that I'm putting it out for the internet. Anyway, do over. I am committing to weight watchers as of tomorrow morning. I haven't had a ton of success with the diet previously because I am ALL ABOUT INSTANT GRATIFICATION! Yeah, I like ridiculous diets that let me lose 20 pounds in 1 week, but that weight never seems to stay off for very long. But - that was the old Kerith. This is the new and improved "Kerith can be patient and give a diet time to work" kind of Kerith.

I am sure there are some nifty tools involving the weigh watchers website that I can embed here, so I'll try to be fun and interactive and share recipes and such.

I suppose I should put some sort of goal out there - something to try and achieve?? I'm thinking that I'm going to strive to feel comfortable in a bathing suit by the first run down the river.

Let the watching of the weight begin. And are you tired of hearing about the dieting nonsense yet?

**********************************************************************************

Also - my 30 day health challenge isn't going as I had hoped, but I do have to admit that I am behaving a great deal healthier than I normally do. Always trying to improve, however :)

A Week in Review

Positives/Negatives: I seemed to have kicked the mountain dew habit - not a drop in the last 7 days. Rockstar - I cut back from 1 everyday of the week to 1 on Friday/Saturday/Sunday. I think I am ready to kick that habit for good tomorrow. I mostly tried to make good decisions with food this week, but usually ran into issues by dinner time. That seems to be where I struggle the most - in the evenings. I'm going to try and revisit an old diet for awhile that works "ok" for me until I can truly focus and commit to an organic healthy lifestyle. I made zero trips to work out, save walking from my car to the spring training facility - but I drank any calories lost while at the game.

Another thing I was very disappointed in this week was the effort I put into my appearance. I would often justify not blow drying my hair only to get to work and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and feel fairly frumptastic. For some reason it has been difficult for me to hustle in the mornings (probably because I am not getting enough sleep).

Finally, I'm starting to realize a little that the old saying "everything in moderation" is key. Deprivation can make us behave sillier than we ought to. For example - every time I ever attempted the Atkins Diet, I would immediately begin craving things like Mashed Potatoes and Macaroni and Cheese. *BUT* when I'm not on the diet, I don't eat things like that at all. I know there has to be something to this, and I think that our brain plays tricks on us when we start not allowing ourselves to indulge or enjoy a treat every now and then.

Focus for Week 2: I'm going to put a much stronger focus on appearance and less of a focus on food/drink. When you get down to it, food is fuel. I just need to make sure that I'm not filling the tank up with unleaded gas. Premium only for me! Lastly, I'm going to follow Sabrina's suggestion and choose 1 or 2 tasks each day that I need to accomplish before I take time to relax.

Day 1 Down, 29 Days to Go

I started off strong today, and ended up not so hot by this evening. I still have time to remedy a few of my misses (please excuse me while I drink the remaining 32 oz of water I have committed to and gulp down my multivitamin... ahh, not much better, lol). My day started off splendidly with a completely healthy breakfast I will refer to as yogurt granola fruit mush (other's have called this creation a parfait, but that just sounds too fancy to me):

From Parfait

So, the first place I went wrong is having breakfast at 6:30 am, which left me starving by 8am. Plus, as I carefully measured out portions, I immediately became disgusted by this so called "healthful" granola. Did you know Granola has 230 calories per 2/3 cup? LUDICROUS!! Anyway, I was also disappointed that plain low fat yogurt doesn't taste like ice cream. /sigh.

The rest of my morning was spent munching on apple and orange slices (1 mineola tangelo and a small apple to be exact) until I found myself staring unexcitedly into a bowl of Progresso Vegetable soup at lunch time. *Yawn*

By the time I got home this afternoon I was gnawing my arm off in sheer desperation for sustenance, and immediately stuffed a nutrigrain bar down my throat to ease the pain. I was very much looking forward to dinner at this point, which was to consist of chicken breast marinated in lite Italian dressing, green beans and brown rice. Dinner plans were quickly shattered when we realized that not only was our lighter ( you know, the kind just for lighting candles and grills) out of lighter fluid, but the grill was out of propane. Lameness.

Plan B consisted of a Vegetable Club Sandwich from Teakwoods for me and a Cajun Chicken Sandwich for Josh. I'm going to say that my day started out as a 10 health wise and ended up somewhere near a 5. Oh, and before you ask, I didn't get any exercise other than the mind wracking brain sweat I worked up trying to figure out statistical b.s. for my MBA.

This is going to be a long 30 days, lol.

(P.S. - Math is hard when you are going through massive caffeine/aspartame withdrawals).

Liar, Liar (30 Day Health Challenge)

Typically I reserve my rantings on health and the overwhelming size of my ass to my hand written journal. I like to talk about how much I loathe my eating habits, but usually I make sure only I can read them. Well, I decided to try something different. I got this idea from "O" Magazine where one of their writers decided to do everything the healthy way for 30 days. It was quite miserable for her at first, but at the end of 30 days she had lost weight and was feeling much better in general. I hadn't thought about that article much until this weekend, but as I enjoyed yet another sedentary, fast-food filled weekend, I knew it was time for a change.

One of Husband's chief complaints about my behaviors includes my need for instant gratification (ie, overnight weight loss from "insert crazy diet here") and my lack of follow through. Apparently I start a whole lot of stuff that I never finish. I can think of a few things (like working out) that I do with full enthusiasm for 3 days, and then I forget to even look at a treadmill for 3 months.

These personality flaws wouldn't be so bad if I didn't carry around so many terrible habits with me. While I don't smoke, sunbake in a cancer coffin, do drugs or have an unhealthy level of stress, I do have a myriad of other problems. I really like wine, a lot. Oh, and beer. I'm not going to say I'm an alcoholic, because I can go weeks without a drop and not feel any pain. But when I do drink, I don't drink a glass of wine, rather, I drink a bottle of wine. Catch my drift? I guess that would tie more into portion control, lol.

Another habit I'm sure is slowly killing me is my consumption of Low Carb Rockstar and Diet Mountain Dew. I think I read that when heated above 96 F., aspartame converts to formaldehyde. Isn't that gross?? I am slowly embalming myself, lol. Now, if I could enjoy a can of diet soda a day, this might not be so terrible, but instead I enjoy 2 liters of diet mountain dew a day. I guess that brings me back to my problem with portion control. Portion Control is the bane of my existence! What am I missing in my life that I so fervently try and fill myself up with everything else??

It is hard to change bad habits overnight. It is even harder to do it over a long period of time. Because I apparently lack the gene that allows people to just do the responsible and healthy thing, I figured a 30 day health challenge would be a better method. 30 days is not indefinite, there is an end, thus this gives me an opportunity to follow through and complete my challenge. My company issues a "Health By Numbers" challenge at the beginning of each year to encourage their employees to improve their healthy by adhering to the numbers 0-5-10-25.

1. 0- Zero tobacco Products
2. 5- Five servings of fruit and vegetables a day
3. 10- Ten Thousands steps walked per day
4. 25- Achieve a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 25 or less

I am going to add a few more "0" items for the next 30 days. The first one is zero products containing aspartame (diet mt. dew, diet rockstar or otherwise). I am also going to set the ground rule of zero fast food consumption over the next 30 days. I'm going to have to say zero alcohol consumption for the next 30 days as well (which sucks because of that whole anniversary/birthday thing this month).

Finally, I am going to add a few numbers of my own.

1. 30 - Minutes of exercise daily
2. 1 - Multivitamin Daily
3. 8 - Glasses of Water Daily

So, there you have it. My 30 days health challenge to myself. I'm going to bore you all to tears with reports on my progress and what I am eating (because heck, I may be eating something I THINK is healthy, and you might have to inform me that I am misinformed).

Dream Home, Part 1.

I thought I would start blogging about my home, and specifically my attempts at turning my house into a "home." I have lots of ideas for different rooms, and my overall focus is on having a clean, simple, clutter free home. I've started decorating (minimally) and the big focus for us right now are these major projects we want to accomplish (landscaping the backyard which is only gravel at the moment, and laying our new floors). But - I'm always on the look out for other cool ideas, and I found one for our laundry room when I was reading BH & G in the Oklahoma City Airport. It fits our needs (yes, my dear husband actually contributes quite a bit to our laundry endeavors) and is even the same size as our laundry room now. Of course, we'll have to make some changes to our current set up (like exchanging our fold out doors for doors that just open up) but I think this is very doable.

From Dream Laundry...

Of coures, one major problem I am running into right now is finding inexpensive butcherblock to cover the washer and dryer with (this should provide a great working space). Any idea on where I can find relatively affordable butcherblock?