Tom Petty Box Set Update: #2

Status: Round 2, Disc 4, Song 8

Well, I made it around once and am charging through my second round. It took me 24 days to make it through the first one (a pace that will have me listening to this thing for the next two years, btw), and I'm hoping I shorten up that time for this second round.

It's sort of nice to have a goal with the music I listen to. Marathon training is cool, but it's a lot. Six days a week of working out (four of those running), new sneakers, new blisters, early mornings, lots of pounding the same exact sidewalks every morning. Watching out for shin splints, wondering how on earth I'm going to make it 26 miles when 6 still feels like I'm pushing it. Through all that, it's nice to have the same voice there, to have a subgoal that clearly can be reached if I give it enough time.

Tom Petty Box Set Update

Well, as Memorial Day Weekend ends, I am well on my way to listening to the entire Tom Petty Box Set 30 times.

And by "well on my way" I mean "I got a cold last week and didn't run much, so I've barely cracked the damn thing".

I am officially on Round 1, Disc 3, Song 2.

My initial thoughts:
1. Tom Petty sings at least half a dozen songs that I had no idea were him.
2. If you're on the last 5 minutes of a run and it's really freakin' hot out and you don't think you're gonna make it, "Free Fallin' " is definitely the song you want to come on.
3. Tom Petty gets surprisingly disco at times.
4. As far as running music goes, this could definitely be worse.

Clearing out the excess....

Well, as one of my random summer projects, I'm going through a book called "Apartment Therapy"...an 8 week program designed for those of us living in small spaces to improve your home and make it a happier, healthier, less cluttered place.

I'm on week number 2, and as part of this, I was challenged to completely clean out my kitchen this week. I started on Friday, and finished most of it on Saturday. All said, it took me about 5 hours as I moved around, throwing out spoiled food, old condiments, dusting, mopping, rearranging, and making a stack of things I didn't really need or use. It was a pretty damn liberating experience actually, and walking in to my kitchen now feels like running in to an old friend who's lost about 30 lbs. It looks good in there.

I was pretty proud of the VCVAH and I on some counts....we really don't keep that much extra food around, everything we have we use. We do let things get pushed to the back of the fridge a little too easily, only to rediscover them when they're a month past the "use by" date...but other than that we were good. The one place that we (I) really fell down though was utensils. Our utensils drawer was unopenable most days because of all the stuff jammed in to it. I decided this was silly and that with strengthened resolve, I was going to pare down. I braced myself for the chore of deciding what to get rid of. As I started sorting through things, I was quickly embarrassed. I had thought this was going to be difficult.....until I realized I owned FIVE pizza cutters. Let me repeat: I (who can't eat regular pizza) owned FIVE (I have never purchased one) pizza cutters (3 of which didn't look like they could cut jello). How did this happen? How had I allowed myself to wrestle with this drawer day after day, without ever realizing how much of the stuff in it was just plain junk? I had 3 garlic presses in there for heaven's sake! Only one of them actually worked!!! I have $400 worth of German steel in a nice knife block on my counter top, and I was keeping 5 dull knives (one of which I managed to snap in half with my bare hands) in this already croweded drawer. I had little plastic coffee scoops that I was saving by the dozens...who does that?

In the end my two drawers of terror wound up being consolidated to one. My coffee mug collection is a quarter of what it once was. There is now room to breath in my kitchen, and I am loving it. At first I thought the "Therapy" part of "Apartment Therapy" was a bit dramatic, but I gotta say, when you live in an 800 square foot condo, and you get rid of that much stuff in a weekend, something in your soul definitely relaxes. When you realize that you're not post-college any more, that you have enough stuff, that you don't need to keep every cracked dish "just in case", you feel yourself growing up a bit more. And it is good.

When the going gets tough.....

Well kids, I'm back from Maui.

There were loads of minor tragedies, but luckily they were weighted towards the beginning of the trip, and I happen to find it very hard to get angry at the beginning of a vacation. For those of you not on facebook, the incidents included: Tim losing his wedding ring in the ocean, me scratching my eye and it nearly swelling shut for two days, sunburns, heat rash, and sea sickness (all me).

In all of this however, a distinctive and unrelated issue emerged: I dislike my job. I really REALLY dislike my job. The interpersonal dynamics are pushing me towards a major anxiety induced breakdown, and it's very depressing for me. The work itself isn't terrible mind you, but the constant tight rope I walk between the personalities is exhausting. As my trip closed out, I got more and more upset at the thought of going back. Then I got upset because I really wasn't such a fan of my last job either. Maybe the problem was me. I grew morose.

Anyway, it was then that my own words came back to me, in a highly underrated post I did almost 3 years ago. When the going gets tough, the tough get weird. I realized I was looking at this all wrong. I was looking at this as something to be endured rather than the blogging opportunity it was. I realized that I need to take myself from stressed out to inappropriate hilarity. I needed a shift in position, a parallax if you will. It was then that I decided what I would do. I would take on a series of interesting or bizarre challenges over the course of the summer, for no other reason than to have something other than work to focus on.

I liked the idea immediately, and I've perked up quite a bit. I began to plot strategy. Memorial Day to Labor Day sounded like a good time frame.....a 100 days of summer type thing. Now for the challenges....what to do? So far, here's what I've got:

1. I have a book of "50 best hikes/walks around Boston". I actually have two, one more naturey, the other more urban....I'm going to pick one book, then do all of them.

2. Listen to the Tom Petty box set 30 times in a row. While running.

This one works because I should allegedly start marathon training soon. I'm going to force myself to only listen to the six CDs in this box set until I hit 30 repeats. The set is 5:13 hours long, in case you were curious. I started yesterday, for honesty's sake.

3. Watch the entire first season of "The Real World" in one sitting. Obviously, this will be done on a weekend.

4. Order a set of 100 random postcards. Send out all of them to various people I know.

5. Watch one John Waters movie every night for a week.

I'm somewhat considering tracking this on another blog I have set up, just for organization, but I'll cross link. Any suggestions for projects welcome. Or, of course, new jobs.

Mawwiage is what bwings us together....

Given that I'm headed back to school soon, I've gotten the brilliant idea that the VCVAH and I should start reading some of the more popular marriage/family help books out there, so I can start to have ideas of what the current thoughts are (and get a little preventative maintenance in to boot). Most of these seem to be available on the cheap through amazon.com's used books (thank God for divorced people selling off their books, eh?).

So, dear blog audience, read any good marriage or family help books lately? Or even books on interpersonal dynamics (i.e. working with different personality types or the 5 love languages type stuff?)

No need to have read them yourself....

Truly awful suggestions also encouraged.

Life update

It's occurring to me that most people get updated on my life via word of mouth or facebook status updates (Pmac, you would love facebook. Sign up please.)

Anyway, for those who have neither, there have actually been some changes lately, so I thought I'd give a good ole update for you folk.

The VCVAH and I are doing well....and it's pathetic that seven months in to our marriage that actually means something (and I mean that in the "I know people who got married the same month as us who are already in counseling" sense). But anyway, we're fine, we're happy, we no longer have a roommate, we miss the money, but love the space.

When we got married, we promised ourselves we'd go on a big honeymoon type trip in the first year, and since we both still have our jobs and prices for travel are tanking, we jumped on some deals and are headed to Hawaii two weeks from today. Maui to be specific. There we'll be doing the typical nauseating honeymooner thing, while also visiting my college friend Kara (who comments here as Live Free or Die Tryin'). It's all very exciting.

Other than that, I've been accepted to a grad program in marriage and family therapy and am most likely headed back to school in August. After getting my 10th employee review in a row that said I'm a good worker but I talk too much and a little too involved in coworkers personal lives, I decided a career change was in order. I have a vague idea that I'd like to stay at Dana Farber with that....they have a big psychosocial department.....and work with families who are facing cancer, but it's a three year program, so that could change. I will not be quitting my job to do this, btw...at least for the first two years. We'll see once I hit my internship.

The smaller stuff is good as well. I'm working on a rather far reaching writing project that is stimulating, frustrating, emotional and necessary all at the same time. I'm running a 10k in a week and a half. I got a fun book called Apartment Therapy, an 8 week guide to making your apartment a real home. Thus far, highly recommended for anyone living in a small space. It's motivating me to throw out mounds of junk (junk= anything I packed when I moved from Medford 2 years ago and haven't unpacked/missed/realized I still had since then).

Those are the highlights, thanks for indulging me!

When good presents go great....

Well here at Fair Trade Certified we have just finished what I like to call the week o' birthdays. The first week of April is a busy week for me birthday-wise, as my mother, my sister and my husband all have birthdays in the same 5 day period.

I was a little unsure of what to get for the VCVAH this year, as last year's trip to Camden Yards (or rather, as I recently learned, Oriole Park AT Camden Yards) was going to be hard to beat. After a few sessions of brain racking though, I hit on a plan.

As many of you know, I'm a pretty neurotic budget maker. When we got married, the VCVAH was a little worried about living up to my high standards, but he fell in line like a champ and has been great thus far. I wanted to do something to reward him for all of this....something where he felt like he could go a little crazy on something he wouldn't normally buy. CDs and DVDs are where most of his spare money goes, so those were out. I sat down and thought hard about what his other loves were, and it wasn't long before I came up with it: hot sauce and beer.

Now, while my digestive tract actually flinches just upon hearing that, this is the sort of thing he loves. So I tracked down a specialty food shop that sold both, worked a little overtime and set aside a good chunk of cash to let him go a little nutty with.

Yesterday was the big day, so we went to the store (Gypsy Kitchen in Quincy,MA). They had a couple of rows of hot sauce, and it was all going well. Then we got talking to the owner, told her what we were doing, and things got awesome. Turns out she started the whole place because of her love of hot sauce. She started popping bottles open, letting Tim try them, and when he didn't flinch she brought out the really big guns. She made him put a couple back ("I don't like to say bad things about the stuff I sell, but let's just say if I were on a desert island that is NOT the one I'd want with me") and pulled out some she thought were superior. It was great. She even put us on her email list and told us that if we needed any suggestions for any of them to call her. It was a pretty great time all in all (to note, the only one Tim fought her on was Joe Perry's hot sauce. He said he didn't care if it was good, he was buying it).

Anyway, because I've been in to picture blogs lately, I thought I'd show you his haul:Yup, that's Joe Perry's hot sauce in the front there. That big thing in the back is actually 5 lbs of BBQ sauce that she says is some of the best stuff she's ever had. At $25 for the container, it better be. Now in case you're wondering what that random white thing in the middle is, let me zoom in for you....If you think it looks like a nose, you're right. The sauce is actually called "Pick This"....and if you squeeze that nose, boogers come out. I'm not kidding. Sometimes Tim buys things just to annoy his mother. I have a bad feeling this sauce is coming to Easter Brunch with us. I tried to get a picture of the boogers, but they apparently are reflective and got lost in the flash. Lets just say the texture is a bit disturbing. Oddly, this was not even close to the grossest packaging they had there. In case you ever wondered what market niche hot sauce is aimed at, I'll give you a hint: men.

Anyway, the beer proved to be much less interesting (as apparently they don't let you sample beer at 11:15 on Saturday mornings), but the hot sauce was great. The BBQ sauce will be made in to burgers tonight, as I still have some ground beef left over from the sacrificial cow my parents slaughtered for Easter and the bottle says it goes well with sacrificial cow (lamb or goat works well too, dove for the poorer folk). All in all, a birthday success, and we are actually taking bets on when he will run out of hot sauce now. Guesses welcome, but in fairness, keep in mind that he had 5 bottles to start (including a jumbo bottle of Frank's) and I accidentally left one out of the picture.