Mandajuice

Abiding Time

1. Our dog is mad at us again and for the life of me I can't figure out why. Are the kids pulling his ears again? Does this particular bag of Iams not meet with the requirements of his delicate canine palate? Is the ground outside too cold/wet/muddy? All I know is that he's shitting in the house again - on our white carpet - and I'm sick of cleaning it up. I don't know whether to smother him with additional affection to make up for whatever got the burr in his ass or to throw him in the garage and let him stew. Either way I wish he spoke English.

2. The other day I was standing in the shower (alone! one of the brightest, most delicious perks of having a house husband is that I can literally lock the door and shower in peace. Years! It's been years since I've showered sans small people!) and anyway, I encountered a spider. A frightening thing directly above my naked self, big enough that I could see it without my glasses, but high enough on the slope of the vaulted ceiling that there was no possible way I'd ever be able to reach it if I tried. And for a flash of a second I thought about turning my shower head to the murder setting and pointing it skyward. I'm not sure exactly what made me think this particular tangent was bloggable, but I guess for that flash of a second I imagined myself as a kid and realized it was something I would've done if I still lived with my parents and wouldn't have had to be the one responsible for repairing the soggy ceiling. Now that I'm a grown-up, I'm only able to enjoy the THOUGHT of drowning a creepy home-invader with my shower head, not the act itself. But still. How cool would that have been?

3. This:

4. We didn't watch the Superbowl. I prefer to think of us a Football-free house. Instead I thought Sunday afternoon would be a great time to get in our weekly grocery shopping. And it was - Wal-Mart was a desert oasis of empty aisles and steeply discounted beer - but we brought the children. Both of them. Which was A Mistake. One it was too late to remedy by the time I realized the folly. (I've been shopping alone since Dave's been home - yet another perk. In fact the only downside of an unemployed husband as far as I can see is the paycheck.) Why is that my kids are perfect angels ALONE, but the second you get the two of them in the store at the same time, they're immediately poking holes in Wonderbread packages and knocking refried beans off the shelves? They can be so calm individually, but together they're annoyingly combustible. I hate to make generalizations, but seriously, you people with only one kid? YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

5. Alex is pretty much reading now, although not independently. What I mean by that is that if you put a book in front of him and help him turn the pages, he'll read it with aplomb and relative ease, but there's no way he'd ever sit down with a book unprompted. It isn't something he particularly enjoys yet. Reading still takes WORK, whereas shooting cardboard boxes in the backyard with his bow and arrow is just plain FUN. And while subtraction still pisses him off (at least the double-digit kind), he can do multiplication in his head. Seeing what's easy for him vs. what causes him to struggle is yet another highlight of parenthood. I wonder how his brain works, how the numbers and letters appear on the pages of his mind, how this result of human reproduction can turn out so different from either of its genetic contributors. Deep thoughts, I know, but I'm convinced all parents have them. At least once a week I have an out-of-body experience where I look at my kid(s) and think, HOLY SHIT, I made that. I know I can't be the only one perpetually in awe.

6. Even more surreal is when I when I look up from my spot on the couch, where I'm sitting and reading a book with my feet tucked up under my butt in the same position my mom always sat to read and I realize that under my loose, stained, zip-front bathrobe I'm wearing the same style of industrial, yet comfortable panties that my mother always wore and I'm drinking my sixth cup of coffee like my mother always drank and it occurs to me that somehow time has skipped forward like a scratched record and I'm the grown-up now.

Dude.

7. Also, Alex can tie his shoes. But not THOSE shoes. ONLY THE GREEN ONES WITH THE EXTRA LONG LACES. Do not mess with a six-year-old shoe-tyer. They can be vicious in their singular frustration.

8. Genoa thinks it's HILARIOUS to copy me. This was cute the first 200 times she did it and admittedly, it's still cute. 

9. I'm glad I'm not the only one with a wrong sense of humor! And thank you for not mocking me in my confessional. Y'all will be the first to know when I finally throw my Big Lebowski party. So far all I've got planned is Wii bowling and White Russians, but I'm sure I can come up with more if I let the idea ripen a bit. The Dude will abide until I come up with a guest list.

Funny?

Ever since Dave and I started watching that new show Archer on FX, I've been thinking a lot about what makes my sense of humor tick because very little has made me laugh out loud the way that show has. (While sober!) Is there some kind of online quiz for this? Because I think my sense of humor stopped developing when I was about 13. A quick run down of things that have actually made me laugh out loud:

Archer (They had me at "whore island")

Something About Mary

The Big Lebowski

Superbad

That new Denny's commercial where the guy says, "Mr. Chino, I'm not a fan of your beverages, but I sure do love your pants."

The Hangover

Bruno/Borat

Strangers with Candy

Certain episodes of Phineus and Ferb (Dr. Doofenshmirtz!)

Certain episodes of Family Guy (although none recently now that every episode is a thinly veiled political campaign)

So basically I only laugh at bawdy, ridiculous humor, generally directed toward college frat boys.

So what am I forgetting?

(And no, this isn't a sponsored post. I don't do those.)

Momentum vs. perfection

According to that rocking little Wii Fit exercise board dude, I've lost 5 pounds since Christmas day. And honestly, I'm a bit happy with myself, especially since I haven't been dieting at all. I simply started working out on an infinitesimal level - 30 minutes a day playing Wii with the kids and occasionally reminding myself to do Yoga and strength training. I also quit drinking cocktails except for two days a week (on the weekends or sometimes during the week if we plan to go out). I still have something like 12 pounds left to get to my goal (of weighing as much as the average man), but I'm giving myself the rest of the year to do it.

Did I ever mention that my only weight loss/fitness goal after my gastric bypass surgery was to someday run an 8-minute-mile? Yeah. I know. What was I thinking? But my ten year surgery anniversary is coming up on August 8, 2012, and I think I should try to make that my goal. Of course, that means I need to get myself slowly into shape over the next two years if I want to make that happen. I like the idea in theory - a numerical physical goal that has nothing to do with my weight or my pants size - but the reality is that every minute I spend running is a minute I also spend contemplating the sweet merciful release of death.

And what am I going to do with my boobs? No. Seriously. WHAT? I need a harness of some kind. Preferably something steel belted, maybe the kind of structural engineering they use to keep skyscrapers from collapsing in Japanese earthquakes. I'll happily take your sports bra recommendations.

My other new year's resolutions seem to be going fairly well too. I'm trying to make money. (Still offering a discount on any financial planning services through the end of January!) I'm reading more non-romance novels (and rather loving it. You can click on my Goodreads links to see what I'm reading.) I'm trying to be a better blogger (Facebook to the rescue!). I'm reading more the kids, going to the library at least every week and doing my husband (although not yet on a cruise liner). My sister and I have been trying to go out and listen to live music, but twice our plans have been foiled by weird scheduling snafus. We keep trying.

The only thing I've rather sucked at is working on my book. It feels like I've lost my writing momentum. My mojo. I'm a little terrified to open my manuscript and work on it. (It's always a work-in-progress. Even if it ever gets published, I'm sure I'll be taking a red pen to the printed copy.) But I'm anxious to write new stuff and finish my NANO book and since I won't let myself start anything new until I've completely finished submitting GRAVY, I'm ready to get back to work on it. I need to focus less on some unobtainable idea of perfection (which is really just an excuse to terrorize myself into a state of inaction) and just get-er-done. So this is me using my blog as an accountability intervention. 

Is anyone else keeping up with their resolutions? This is the time of the year by which I've usually forgotten about mine.

Recipe for Hot Dogs and Eggs

I know! This sounds like The Most Ghetto Recipe of all time - and maybe it is - but DAYEM, it's goood. In fact, Hot Dogs & Eggs is Dave's specialty. He's been making it for decades and everyone loves it. It works well for a crowd, for the kids and for a hangover.

It is also as easy as, well, hot dogs and eggs.

The ingredients are so complicated, I'm not sure you'll be able to remember them if I don't post a picture, so here you go.

A pack of hot dogs.

A carton of eggs.

ROCKET SCIENCE!

We REALLY love these all natural, uncured, all beef hot dogs from Trader Joe's. Every time I walk in that place, I grab at least ten packs of them and stick 'em all in the freezer. (That's why this package is wet - we defrosted it in a bowl of hot water for 4 minutes). In fact, I can't walk out of TJ's without spending $80, since we only go once a month and I always stock up hot dogs and grab a case of two buck Chuck Cabernet. (Which is really THREE buck Chuck here in WA.)

Anyway.

You chop up some hot dogs, like so.

And so.

And you throw them in your nonstick skillet. (A regular skillet would work just fine too, since the hot dogs are juicy enough not to stick.)

In the meantime, start cracking some eggs.

Here's where I'll give the only secret there is to this recipe.

The ratio is 1:1. One egg for every hot dog. You could bump it up to 1.5 eggs: 1 dog, but it's risky. This is a MEATY dish. Scale your recipe to the number of eaters you've got.

Then pepper the eggs, but do not salt them. (Dave hates salt and he will HUNT YOU DOWN if you ruin his recipe by over-salting. The hot dogs are salty enough.)

Please excuse my funky-looking grout. It's actually SUPPOSED to be gray, okay? But admittedly, it's been a while since I bleached it. (I hate my tile/grout! If it was up to me, I'd redo every counter in my kitchen with giant industrial slabs of stainless steel.)

Anyway, whip up them eggs and cook the hot dogs in your skillet until they're good and brown. This photo is ALMOST done, but not quite all the way there. (My DONE photos were all blurry.)

Add the eggs.

And scramble.

(Dave has a method for "ribboning" the eggs, but we've been married for 12 years and he hasn't shared his secret with me, so we're all out of luck. The kids refer to him as The Breakfast Master.)

Action shot!

When they're done, they look like this.

Serve with toast, garnish with shredded cheese and enjoy your ghettorrific goodness!

Also? Don't knock it till you TRY IT.

PASS

Before I left this morning, Dave asked me whether I usually do better on real tests or practice tests. I wasn't sure, but I think I usually do about the same. I don't generally get test anxiety and I'm the QUEEN of retaining facts in my short term memory (ie: waiting until the last minute to study and then cramming my butt off) and then promptly forgetting everything I studied within 48 hours.

But man. Apparently my RAM is low a few gigabytes these days because I actually FELT my brain getting slippery. Since I passed the same exam a decade ago, I figured it was just going to be a matter of pointing my brain in the right direction and clicking refresh a few times until I memorized everything again. But there was stuff I literally COULDN'T memorize. Especially facts that experience has taught me I'll never need or use, like whether a certain securities law passed in 1933 or 1934. Apparently my brain just decided there was no room for such useless (not to mention GOOGLEABLE) information. 

Is this a sign of old age? Childbirth-induced brain atrophy? Too many cocktails?

I was doing decently well on my practice exams before I went into the test today - scoring in the 80th percentile consistently - but about half-way through the test, I realized that my study materials hadn't covered something like HALF the topics I was being asked about and I was sure I was going to fail from making too many 'educated' guesses. And I was already getting embarrassed about how I was going to explain my failure.

But I somehow managed to pass anyway.

Now I'm going to go fill my RAM up with a good book and some bad TV. Have a good 3-day weekend!

Delurking Day: Facebookage

I somehow finally managed to link my blog to my Twitter feed and to link my Twitter feed to Facebook. I know! I must be a GEEENIUS. (It literally required me to log in ONCE and then click a single button when I post.)

Generally, I try to avoid Facebook because once I click on it, I can't stop myself and three hours later I'm in the middle of a heated discussion about religion with someone I haven't seen since we snuck behind the gym to smoke cigarettes in 8th grade. Don't get me wrong, I *LOVE* it, but it's a time suck, is all. But now that everything's cross-posted everywhere, I promise to be better with it and actually RESPOND to stuff there.

So in honor of DELURKING DAY, leave me your Facebook info and we can all be FB BFF's. (I can't believe I just typed that.) Or send me a request (Amanda Del Buono) mentioning the blog. Or just say hi or leave me a link to your blog so I can read it.

You're here. I can SEE you with my super sonic bloggervision goggles (aka google analytics). So suck it up and leave a comment in honor of delurking day.

ALSO: if you're on Twitter, LET ME KNOW and I'll add you there as well.

All work and no play

Sorry for the unintentional silence lately, but I've got my nose to the grindstone STUDYING. I'm taking my Series 65 on Friday (the test that licenses me as an Investment Advisor Representative). The thing is, I took this exam ten years ago and passed it on my first attempt (well, actually it was my second attempt because on my first attempt, my car died on the way there in the middle of the highway in a bad part of Sacramento in 100 degree heat and I had to call Dave to get a rental car to come pick me up. We only had one car and it was a piece of shit. I remember hovering terrified under the freeway overpass with nothing but my own tears and a hunting knife Dave left had in the glove box for protection. Boy how things have changed in a decade).

Anyway, when I took five years off to stay home with the kids, my registration expired and I have to retake it. The hard thing about studying for such a test is that I know that I MUST KNOW the answers because I've passed the damn test before! But that doesn't mean my brain can actually FIND said answers. So yeah. Nose meet grindstone. I've been cramming for several days now since I'm the original procrastinatrix.

Bringing sexy back in surprisingly inapropriate ways

A few nights ago I found myself strategically positioned on the couch in the living room so I could simultaneously avoid watching Glenn Beck (who I don't dislike as much as I feel like I should given his average decibel level), read (I was reading Jonathan Tropper and laughing my ass off) and still hear my children playing upstairs with the two girls who live next door.

Have I mentioned that? That not only do we live across the street from Grandma Carol, but we live right next door to a family who has two girls the exact same ages as my two kids? That we carpool to school every day? Add in the big back yard and you know why I'm so desperate to stay in this house.

Anyway. We not only have The Girl Next Door, we have TWO of them. And the kids have finally hopped on the bandwagon and started trekking back and forth to play between our two houses, which is ideal. I can practically SEE the happy childhood memories crystallizing as they happen - Genoa half-strangling their shy black-and-white kitten (adorably named "Hello Kitty"), Alex caving to the feminine majority and negotiating a few rounds of dressing up as the prince in exchange for a few minutes of gun play, and most recently, Alex complementing the girls on their dress-up choices.

This is what I overhear:

"How do I look, Alex?"

"You look sexy, Ashley."

"Sexy?"

"Yeah, you look sexy in that dress."

"What did you just say?!" I holler from my perch on the sofa, my ears having perked immediately to the sound of my son taking the dress-up game to a whole new level.

"Uh... sexy?" Alex answers with a shrug.

"Did you learn that word from the neighbors?" (As a parent, it falls to me to assume anything even remotely inappropriate was learned outside of our neat little walls.)

Then Ashley appears at the top of the stairs decked out in one of Genoa's Disney princess dresses adamantly shaking her head in denial.

"No," Alex admits.

"Where did you hear it, then?" I ask.

"From Daddy. He says it all the time."

Oh, right. DADDY.

Oops.

And then it hits me that he DOES say it all the time and I'm flooded with memories of him saying it, the most recent of which took place in the car when Dave pointed out that my thighs were jiggling. I scoffed and shifted in my seat to lessen the jiggle-factor, but then Dave squeezed my leg and said, "No. Girls are SUPPOSED to be jiggly. It's sexy."

Only now does it occur to me that the kids overheard the whole thing, that they were listening intently from the backseat and that they probably overhear a lot more than we think they do. It's one thing to hear it from your husband and quite another to hear it from your six-year-old son's mouth. A little like nails on a chalkboard. How do you even BEGIN to explain "sexy" to a six-year-old? All I said was, "only grown-ups can be sexy. Not kids." But, gah. Yet another parenting FAIL.

New year, new business plan

For years I've had this business plan trapped in the back of my mind patiently awaiting the day I could let it free to roam. In fact, part of the savings account we've been living on since Dave lost his job was money I've been saving to some day open my own financial planning business.

The only reason I never did it sooner was that I hate working alone. I've always thought that every good planner needs a second set of eyes. Clients deserve a second opinion, a fresh perspective on their numbers, and I dreaded the day I'd have to start my own business ALONE without the benefit of someone else to bounce ideas off of.

So I pitched Jason my business plan.

And within two weeks of meeting him for the first time, we were business partners. Jason did all the dirty work by quitting his desk job two years ago and starting his own business. I'm just hopping onto his coat tails and helping him grow it. The more we get to know each other, the more we've realized that we're ideally suited to work together given we have the same ridiculously specific ideas about financial planning, investing and ethics.

Anyway, our plan is so simple it's almost stupid: to make high-end, sophisticated financial planning advice available to REGULAR HUMANS. The last firm I worked for had a $10,000 minimum annual fee, which meant our average client was a millionaire several times over. Don't get me wrong, it was an ideal place for me to hone my financial planning skills, but it always bothered me that we couldn't serve a broader client base and that the people who MOST needed financial planning were the least likely to be able to afford it or to seek it out in the first place.

But the truth is - you shouldn't have to be wealthy to get good advice. EVERYONE needs a financial planner.

So instead of charging commissions for financial products that our clients may or may not need (commissions = objectivity FAIL), we offer flat-fee services, so our clients know up front exactly how much our services will cost. We actually have a price MENU, so clients can pick and choose what they actually want, not just what we think they need. Our services are broken down into modules, so you don't have to buy a big scary financial plan, you can just get answers to specific questions, like this:

Cash Flow Planning Module:

What do your income and expenses look like?
How can you get and remain out of debt?
What should your budget look like?
How do you start one?
What tools should you use to manage your spending?
Are you making the best use of your resources?
Can you afford to ________?

Or this:

Investing - Current Snapshot:

What are your current investments?
What is your current asset allocation?
What are the underlying costs of your current investments?
What are the tax consequences?
What were you thinking?

I'm not sure if you can tell, but I'm RIDICULOUSLY excited about this. It's something I've always wanted to do and do well. So if you or anyone you know has any BURNING FINANCIAL QUESTIONS, our doors are officially open:

Pearl Wealth Financial Planning

We work online and by phone, so there's no need to be local. I thought I'd start off the year by offering anyone who mentions my blog a 10% discount on our services during the month of January.

Genoa does the Wii Victory Booty Shake

Is it just me or is this the cutest thing ever? (It gets extra good right around 37 seconds in.)