Filed under: Exercise, Misc. Humor, Posts | Tags: COVID-19, Exercise, Food, quarantine, self-improvement, writing
We’ve all seen the memes about gaining weight while under quarantine, and how we should all be trying to better ourselves during this time. So, after 4 months of working from home, I have come to the conclusion that the Quarantine-15 is a real thing, and that I’m pretty much as lazy as I thought I was. I was secretly assuming it was me just being too hard on myself.
I don’t have any excuses.
I have extra time because I’m not commuting, and I can drop in a load of laundry when I need to get away from my computer and stretch my legs. I live out in the country, so not going to the gym should have been replaced by lots of activity outside, like running (which is solitary and free) or the 50 million online exercise apps available. I even am lucky enough to have a pool, which I’ve been in only to just stand in the shallow end, like a hippopotamus.
Instead of bettering myself, I have coped by consuming copious amounts of wine, opening the fridge and staring at its contents for minutes at a time before eating yet another vat of pimiento cheese, watching too much tv after dinner and reading smut novels with heaving breasts and raised lettering on the covers (some are so bad even a book addict like me has to put them down).
I have not learned a new language, edited my novels, blogged nearly enough, or even tried more than one or two new recipes.
So here’s what I’ve decided to do. I’m going to create a short Quaran- Tuck It List (like a bucket list) of things to do during the pandemic that might get me moving forward again. Feel free to make your own, or if you need some accountability, share your list in the comments!
- Lock the refrigerator on a timer.
- Attempt to not drink any alcohol for one week. (Don’t judge – there’s only so much I can inflict on the Fam all at once.)
- Sell stuff on my local FaceBook market page – yep, Hubby is probably going to have a heart attack when he reads this. Dude, RELAX….I’m not touching your t-shirt drawers.
- Let the cats live. I CANNOT clean up anymore animal body fluids. If one of them shits on my outdoor cushions one more time, I’m going to lose it.
- Actually do the stretches every doctor I’ve seen has said I should be doing. The problem with thinking of yourself as 30 in your head is that your body likes to laugh and go, “let me remind you…”
- Edit and finish the fantasy novel I started 20 years ago. Not 50 Shades of Gray fantasy…magic and swords and stuff. If I had to write the 50 Shades of Gray novel it would have ended after her interview with him and all the red flags she could only miss if she’d been locked in a box for the first 20 years of her life.
- Write an alternative novel to 50 Shades.
- Create an author website page.
- Publish a bunch of these blogs in a book so future generations can just hand it over to their therapists and say, “See? It’s genetic…”
- Start a workout program to do in my pool (see next week’s blog).
What’s your Quaran-Tuck It list?
Filed under: Misc. Humor, Posts | Tags: Fixer Upper, Gaines, HGTV, home decor, home decorating, Love It Or List It, relaity tv, renovations
In recent years there has been a lot of backlash against the fashion industry for promoting unattainable ideas of what beauty is – and to some degree, it has responded – models are heavier, they are more athletic, and they have some visible flaws. In fact, studies have shown that just looking at a skinny model in a magazine can make you feel bad about yourself. I’d bet money that seeing a house or well-designed room that you can never hope to attain because of either lack of money or lack of design ability also makes you feel bad about yourself.
Or maybe that’s just me.
I think HGTV needs to take a page from the fashion industry’s book and inject some real “reality” in their shows. I don’t know how many divorces that channel has caused, but I’ll bet it’s quite a few. So many of the homes they renovate or purchase are out of reach of the average homeowner, or the costs of the renovations are misleading. Now, I’ll admit I’m just as much an HGTV junkie as anybody else, but I constantly have to remind myself during the shows that what I am seeing is not an accurate depiction of what it takes to renovate, well, anything in your home.
I fell in love with Chip and Johanna Gaines (Fixer Upper) like everybody else. I love her style and their TV marriage, and I even subscribe to their magazine – excuse me…their “Journal”. 
But there is NO WAY on God’s green earth you can do the renovations they do for the amount they say it cost. Unless…. you have decades of experience flipping houses (which by the way, is done on the cheap for maximum profit), own your own real estate company and your own construction/design company, which Chip and Joanna do. So, during every episode, in my head I add at least $5k – $10k at the end of each reno cost to be realistic.
Once I ran through all the episodes of the Fixer Upper, I watched Love it Or List It. Hubby and I even talked about trying to get on the show so they could fix our upstairs. However, the producers never show these people moving all their crap and their kids and pets into an apartment and two pods while the renovation is going on, or the fact that they are on this show in the first place because one wants to stay and one wants to move. I think there are already marital issues piling up that need to be discussed, and probably not on reality TV. And, nothing says fix those problems like since buying or renovating a house – one of the top 10 stressors in life. You can’t tell me there aren’t some serious plate-throwing arguments during the process.
I really have only one question about those shows: what happens when the stagers take the pretty fruit bowls and candles away, and people have to move their old, crappy, dog-chewed, not-the-same-size furniture and towels into the newly-renovated home?
What I really want to see, HGTV, is a show about decorating with what you already have. Show me how to display the glass bowls, framed menus stacked in the attic, blue coral my cousin gave us for a wedding present, decorative metal bird cage, and our three autographed footballs in a way that doesn’t make my house look like an upper-crusty Goodwill store. Show me where to put my couch so that I can see the TV, the snow outside and still work on my computer with having to throw a blanket over my head to cut out the glare. And show me how to hide the damned cat litter so I won’t smell it, but I won’t forget it for so long that the cats get revenge and pee on the carpet.
And for God’s sake, will someone please explain what Joanna’s obsession is with shiplap?
But for now, until they can produce a show that accommodates my middle class budget, I’ll keep watching, getting ideas for Hubby to do, and then seeing which one of us breaks first – me deciding I can live without it, or him going ahead and building it so I’ll shut up. And while I watch, I’ll remind myself to look around, see that I live in a home with my loved ones, that is warm enough, cool enough, full of memories and souvenirs and things that make my life very easy in all the ways that really matter – and I’ll be thankful.
Filed under: Exercise, Food/Drink, Posts | Tags: alcoholic, bars, chardonnay, drinking, drinks, Exercise, lactic acid, wine, workouts
What my friends give me when I get uppity and ask for a buttery chardonnay…
Chardonnay is the perfect substitute for an intense workout.
Yeah, you heard me. I said it.
Now let me work my way around to it and you’ll see how my flawless logic enabled me to skip many a workout, guilt-free.
When you workout, your body converts sugar into energy. During intense exercise, there may not be enough oxygen to complete the process, so your body makes lactic acid in response. But this can build up in your body more rapidly than you can burn it off. Symptoms of lactic acid build-up are cramps, nausea, weakness and exhaustion.
Chardonnay’s delicious buttery taste comes from lactic acid produced after the first fermentation. Too much Chardonnay can leave your crampy, weak, nauseous and even exhausted the next day.
So…if you don’t like to exercise, stick with a buttery Chardonnay. You’ll be fooling your body into thinking you had a workout!
You’re welcome. That is all.
Filed under: Posts
Ok, many of you have heard that I finally have a short story published – it’s a mystery, set in The South, and is full of snarky folks just like me! Take a quick look at this review, and feel free to purchase the Deadly Southern Charm Anthology at http://www.WildsidePress.com.
I’ll have a blog coming soon – it’s been too long and there’s lots to rant about – in the meantime, enjoy!
via Book Review – Deadly Southern Charm
Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Posts, Travel | Tags: dermatologist, health, silence of the lambs, skin, sunburn
Today I went to the dermatologist for my annual visit, which always makes me temporarily look like I fell headfirst into a vat of liquid herpes virus. Blisters are on my forehead, nose and cheeks from where she froze a bunch of questionable freckles and moles. I also requested to have a skin tag removed so I don’t have a weird, skinny pinky growing out of my neck – but when she froze it off, it blistered, and now it looks like a I have an abnormally small third nipple growing there instead.
One of the things that is supposed to separate us from the animals is our ability to postpone gratification. We can wait to eat that chocolate bar in the bin at the grocery store checkout when we know there’s a huge anniversary steak waiting for us at Ruth’s Chris. The flip side of that is our ability to understand that not all consequences are immediate. The fact that you hung your little brother in the closet all afternoon by the back of his shirt may not have incurred parental wrath until Dad got home. Then the beatings would begin.
Sun damage is the same. When I forgot to flip over as I basted my teenage self, there wasn’t any immediate regret, just the tingle of a mild sunburn or the occasional blister. Aaaah, but the punishment has begun. These days, I can see lines that are soon going to make me look like a dried-up prune, or one of those muppets in the movie Labyrinth.
The movie Something About Mary also comes to mind – and not the Cameron Diaz character. 
I’m pretty sure that Botox won’t help either – making my face immobile might take away the lines, but it will also make it impossible for anyone to know if I’m being sarcastic or just super bitchy.
My skin may look 20 years older than I am, but there’s always a silver lining: I don’t have to worry about Hannibal Lecter or Buffalo Bill anymore (Silence of the Lambs). I think my skin has finally started turning into leather while I’m still wearing it. It’s not quite saddle or boot material, and no amount of lotion is going to make it into a good skin suit (don’t ever Google that – trust me).
So that’s my Public Service Announcement – wear your sunblock and your 100 SPF t-shirts, and please, please, please go see your dermatologist regularly. Not being afraid of Hannibal Lecter and Buffalo Bill is a silver lining, but don’t put yourself in a position where you have to look for one.
Subourbon Mom 