…this time, you can pin this one to your “Beauty” board.
I call it the “run to Ulta on your lunchbreak to return the pink and blue sparkly nail polish that your 5 year old son picked out, but that you wouldn’t even wear on your toes in the winter” manicure.
Here’s how you do it.
Step 1. Go to Ulta, buy a sparkly pink and blue nail polish because Miles likes it.
Step 2. Get home, realize it’s hideous and you’ll never, ever wear it.
Step 3. Wait a few weeks, then run into Ulta on your lunch break when you’re in the area for something else.
Step 4. Try on the navy polish you were lusting after, but then realize there are so many other colors, so start working your way from thumb to pinky.
Step 5. When you run out of fingers, start at thumb again.
Step 6. Pick a damn color already.
Step 7. Wander around store for a few minutes before going to the cash register, so you don’t ruin your new manicure!
And that’s really it! If you really want to be like me, leave the nail polish on for a few days, possibly weeks. And then remember that you’re 38 years old, dammit, not 7, and you should really have more mature looking fingernails.
Pin it!
PS I picked the one on my thumb. I’m not sure I made the right decision, so I will probably end up repeating steps 4-7 a few times.
Halloween is over, but the boys are still obsessed with costumes. Miles has told me approximately 3,654,339 times since Thursday what he’s going to be next year. (Red Samurai Power Ranger WITH the red disk but not the black disk and the helmet, not the mask, and don’t forget the boots and the gloves. And the sword. And the Samuraizer.) (And yeah, right, kid.)
We went to Target and I got them some $5 costumes in the post-Halloween sale, but that did not quench their costume search. Linus, in particular, became fixated on making a costume. A pumpkin costume, to be specific. Just to wear around, maybe to Mardi Gras, he said. So I said we’d work on that over the weekend. I found some $5 orange pillowcases at Walmart, so I got those (no chance anyone will ever be able to sleep with them on their pillow, they’re seriously orange safety cone colored.) But when I got home, plans had changed, and the pumpkin was discarded in favor of a new Power Ranger he invented. Love their imagination, but beware if you ever stay over at our house. Orange pillowcases.
We took a trip to Michael’s, where I got some plain t-shirts, fabric paint, and foam sheets. We got a good start on the costumes, but there is SO MUCH MORE. Swords, sword-holders, black square shoulder thingies, pants, robotic arms, etc. But I am pretty proud of our creations…
(couldn’t find Linus’s picture to take a pic)
translates into:
So, yeah, man, I totally expect this awesome DIY costume post will be posted all around Pinterest and re-pinned a jillion times. Right? Look, here’s a pinnable graphic. You are WELCOME!
Took the boys to the pumpkin patch on Saturday. We met up with Ren and her girls, and afterwards, Oliver was diagnosed with strep. As you can see, he was feeling fine at the pumpkin patch. It came on very suddenly. Weird. Anyway, he’s fine now.
For the last nine years, I’ve worked in the IT department of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. I’ve been there so long, I just had a boyfriend when I started, and I was in my twenties (barely)! In the time I’ve been there, I got engaged, and married, and had a few kids. I feel like I’ve done a lot of growing up at this job, and my coworkers are the family that have stood beside me the whole way. We lived through Hurricane Katrina and our subsequent displacement. They shared in my shock when I came back to work after my first ultrasound. (And I got to see what it was like from the other side when R came back from the ultrasound where his wife found out she was having identical twins.) The first place the boys had a sleepover was at my boss’s house, so I really do mean it when I say they’re like family.
Which made it hard to tell them I was leaving the nest, for a new job, my dream job. They were happy for me when I told them, which is a testament to what great guys they all are. (I have always been the lone female in the department, and I’m not going to say I didn’t enjoy being queen of the castle all these years!)
But I am heading out, into an amazing opportunity, working for a company whose products I have long loved and championed. I’ll be moving to Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, for one. I’ll be working as a Happiness Engineer. Great title, huh? It kind of says it all. I will be working with the users of WordPress.com, helping ensure their blogging experience is a positive one. I’ve been doing this on a part-time basis for the past couple of months, and can’t wait to dive in full-time with all of the other amazing Automatticians.
So, as predicted, Miles had some costume regrets after he decided on a Luke Skywalker costume (actually, it’s an Obi-Wan Kenobi costume, but whatever) while his brothers chose to be Power Rangers. I was so delighted that he chose something different, on his own, that I didn’t push him very hard to reconsider, and maybe I should have. Or not, because then I wouldn’t have witnessed this disgustingly sweet moment…
The other morning, they were playing in their costumes, and Oliver and Linus both came up to me in private, separately, to suggest that I tell Miles how cool his costume is. “Don’t tell him we told you to say that.”
A little while later, after I effusively complimented Miles’s outfit, I heard his brothers say, “Woah, Miles, that costume is SO COOL. It is WAY cooler than ours. Woah.”
I wanted to share a really sweet post my friend Heather wrote about her puppy Rupert, who died earlier this week. You know I’m not a dog person, but Rupert was special. I mean, the boys adored him. And that is really something.
My eleventh half-marathon. Why do I continue to do these? I don’t even really like them. I probably say this after every race, but I’m sticking to 5ks from now on.
Anyway, for the week prior to the race, I knew the weather was not going to be ideal for a half-marathon. Ideal for a picnic or a birthday party at the park, but not for running. Not for me. I need cool, cloudy weather. Which is the opposite of what we got.
Before the race started
My plan was to run with my friend Heather, who is ten years younger and probably fifty pounds lighter than me. You see where this is going? We did a 2:1 run:walk and in spite of the weather (I mean, it wasn’t that bad, it was in the 70s) I felt pretty good. We were averaging about 12 minute miles, which was fine, whatever.
Still alive
About a mile after this picture, when we were in the Audubon Park portion of the race, the timer beeped to run again, and I just told Heather to go on without me. She said later I looked very pale. I didn’t even feel all that bad, but I just knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep going at that pace for another five miles. So she went on ahead (and ran the rest of the way, so I’m glad I didn’t hold her back) and I contemplated having George come get me. But then I decided I would just keep going, and see how it went.
So that’s basically it. I just kept going. I ran some, I walked some. I ate some jelly beans, which I guess helped. I mean, I didn’t die or anything. Ha.
And then I finished. In, shockingly, not my worst time ever. 2:53. And in looking at my history, it’s faster than my first, eleven years ago, that I did when I was training for the London Marathon. So that makes me feel a tiny bit better.
George and the boys watched me finish, which was great, and I got a rare photo with my boys. And Millie. And Heather’s boyfriend.
One positive note was that I was not really sore Sunday or today. I am guessing that means I was pretty well trained, legs-wise, just not heat-wise. Although my legs felt really really tired at about mile 12, I definitely still had some life in them. I was just overheated. But still. No more half-marathons. Unless they’re in Alaska or somewhere that’s guaranteed to be cold. Hmmph.
As for the race itself, I was disappointed in a few things. Well, kinda. I was disappointed there were no timing mats on the course. That just seems weird. I really would like to know what my time at the halfway point was, before I lost my shit. And There were no photographers out on the course, but that was more of a relief than anything. Just an observation. But at least there were plenty of water stations, and whatever they were giving out as a sports drink was totally delicious. Yum.
One funny thing happened at the end, a woman came up to me who recognized my sparkly skirt and the boys, because she had read my review of last year’s race the day before. Love that!
I’ve seen other people doing it on Facebook, so I thought I’d give it a try. I didn’t think it would look this…uncanny. I don’t know. Weird. Kinda creepy. But fun.
pyjammy dot blog 