Final stretch

Dear Blog - it's almost over. According to his flight's status, Craig is now over Canada and I will be picking him up from the airport in just a few short hours. When he gets home, he will be greeted by a stack of mail, the pile of laundry you saw in yesterday's post, a half dozen or so fewer beers and two dirty coffee thermoses.

The past couple of weeks have been interesting, and I've definitely learned a few things:

1. I really don't drink much beer, even when it is immediately at my disposal, chilled and in the fridge.
2. Leave it to Trader Joe's to ruin a perfectly good dark beer.
3. I way over planned in the food department - not sure how much I think I eat, but apparently, it's a lot.
4. My only food "emergency" was in the area of soy sauce - fortunately, we're pack rats and I found some packets of soy from a carryout order in our cupboards.
5. Heavy cream tastes good in coffee - forget the half and half.
6. Black bean burgers two days in a row is NOT a good idea...
7. I have plenty of clothes to last me a full two weeks, even without having to turn my underwear in side out.
8. Showering is optional as long as you have a package of baby wipes and ROCKAHOLIC dry shampoo in the house.
9. Tonight's day light savings time? Really?

With that, signing off for now - thanks for following! Stay tuned for my next blog topic (though it may be a while). Looking forward to French toast for breakfast in the morning. Maybe crab legs for dinner tonight?

The mother load

Dear Blog - I promised you I would get to the topic of laundry, so here goes: I started out this experiment knowing that my workout gear was probably going to present the biggest challenge as I don't have a full two weeks worth at my disposal. So, I decided that I could live again pretty much the way one does at Army Basic Training.

When I was in boot camp, every soldier was issued two Army tees, two pairs of shorts and one full set of sweats. Back then, these items were cotton. We exercised every day, sometimes twice a day.

So, we had time to do laundry every other day, right? Dream on. On the contrary, we had time to laundry maybe once a week. So, that meant that for at least five days out of the week, we were putting on dirty, smelly gym clothes that were never designed to wick away moisture like most exercise gear does today.

Assuming that, at a minimum, I would need to wear my running gear twice, as long as I didn't sweat too much during my outdoor workouts, I starting out saving exercise clothing. But, then I didn't exercise as much as anticipated. And, when I did exercise, it ended up being in smelly gear. And for what? Nothing. The good news is that I don't have as much laundry to do as I would have. Gotta see the bright side, if there is a bright side to that, right?

Off the bandwagon

Dear Blog - For two days now I have both exercised AND showered. I know I am disappointing you. But, you will be happy to know that for dinner I went to Cold Stone Creamery with my buddy Leann and ate Mud Pie Mojo. Then I came home and topped the night off with a beer. I think I have redeemed myself.

Rub a dub dub

Dear Blog - Did I say I was going to shower? Well, I have been. Maybe just not as frequently as I normally would. No, it's not because I don't have to worry about close ups with Craig gone; it actually has more to do with laziness. And, not even laziness in regards to showering, but in regards to exercise.

For the past week and a half, exercise has fallen to the wayside also. Typically, I associate needing to shower with having exercised. In the past, when I've fallen out of my normal exercise routine, I've also been known to forget to shower.

That's how I went from Saturday to Wednesday last week without showering. I realized what had happened when my hair started to feel really nasty with four days of styling product and grease build up. This week I went from Saturday to Tuesday because, 1. I didn't exercise, and 2. I knew I could get away with it.

So, to all my coworkers out there: yes, you probably were smelling me. ;-) Regarding today's visual, things didn't get to the point of baby wipes, but maybe it should have...?

Nothing to report

Dear Blog - today I'm too lazy and too tired to post. Not to mention, I don't want to bore you when there's really nothing to say. Stay tuned over the next few days for updates regarding showering and laundry. T minus 5 days and counting.

Today's visual is someplace I'd rather be right now. Tropical and warm. No doubt dreaming of any place but here is very guy like. Enjoy.

Long overdue...

Dear Blog - I knew they should have gone immediately into the garbage when I pulled them out of the drawer, but unsure how many pairs of britches I had left before I could do laundry, I decided to wear them anyway. Elastic showing through the wasteband and fabric so thin you could almost see through them, their fate was sealed less than an hour later when my zipper got stuck in a hole in the front as I tried to zip up my jeans. Sorry, no visuals this time as I think we've already reached a point of TMI anyway...

Coffee conundrum solved

Dear Blog - in case you're curious, I did use the same coffee thermos all week. And, I didn't even rinse immediately after I was done with it; that actually waited until the next morning... Baby steps. Here's what the mouthpiece looked like after a week of use - eeew... Next week, I plan to use Craig's thermos - start the week out clean.

Falling by the wayside...

Dear Blog - So, there are a couple of things that are simply not getting done while Craig is gone.

1. Bed making is definitely not getting done. Over the past 6/7 years, rarely have I made the bed. The last person out of bed is responsible for making it. Since I started work at GMAC, that's been Craig. With him gone, I'm really of the mind that I'm just going to mess it up that night anyway, so why bother...

2. I'm bringing in the mail, but leaving it at Craig's place setting, where it anxiously awaits his return to be opened. Note, however, that I have left the important stuff on the top of the stack.

To wrap things up for the end of Week 1, I thought I'd let you know that dinner tonight was a burger and a beer. Just following the rules here... Had to use a piece of bread for the heel however. Zoe grabbed the heel of the bun off of the counter as I was going to get the camera for the photo op. Wanted to be mad, but had to laugh...

A girl's gotta do...

Dear Blog - Girl Scout cookies arrived yesterday. That should provide at least an additional two day's worth of sustinence. Woo hoo!

Time to do some girlie things tonight: teaching Aqua at Life Time Fitness and then sitting down to Grey's Anatomy with a nice glass of wine. Can't be all guy for two weeks...

The epitome

Dear blog - dinner tonight was a chili dog and an ice-cold beer. I think I'm getting the hang of living like a guy thing. The cold pizza and beer I had earlier this week might even be more guy like....

Finally needed to run a load of dishes. I'm in awe of all the Glad ware that's in there. No doubt billions of free radicals are roaming my body after all the microwaving I've done in plastic containers this week.

Beer, beer everywhere, but not a drop to drink

Dear Blog - Went out for happy hour last night. Not sure why when there's so much beer sitting on my kitchen floor. Am I going to have to have another party to get rid of the stuff? I suppose some of it will eventually make its way to the refrigerator as my food stores get low and I need to seek out alternative calorie sources...

The things we forget

Like the yumminess of cold pizza. Dear Blog - seriously, how could I have forgotten this? Granted, the pizza I'm eating now a days is slightly more sophisticated than the cardboard take out pizza's of my college days, but still. The only thing that could have made it better would have been to have added an ice-cold beer. Guess I've not quite fully immersed myself.

On another note, I did have to break down and do some dishes last night. Never fear, though, these were still dirty from the chili party over a week ago. I was too lazy to freeze the chili and put away the crock pots then, so that got done last night. Gotta love nature's refrigeration in the winter time, AKA the garage...