Category: Daily Life

My husband and I have a terrible habit of forgoing outside entertainment because it's easier just to sit in the TV room and watch the stuff from the DVR. However, I've been paying special attention to low-cost opportunities to do more interesting things and we've been having a great time over the past few weeks.

It started with a trip to a local park to see the Kansas City Symphony play for free. We went with some friends, brought lawn chairs, and enjoyed a cool, late-summer evening of live music.

The next weekend we repeated the experience at a jazz festival. In both instances, we were treated to hours of entertainment and didn't spend a cent.

I did pay for last night's outing, but it was in the form of a donation to Habitat for Humanity. We got to tour the Clarence Sondern house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and the Thomas Hart Benton home, which is right next door. The administrator of the Thomas Hart Benton home happens to be one of my former high school classmates.

I loved the Sondern house, particularly the great room, which had windows on two sides looking out into the trees beyond.

The deck and patio spaces outside were very pleasant as well. Unfortunately the house suffers from the curse of all the flat-roofed houses I've encountered: a musty smell that is almost certainly due to a leaky roof.

Next on our agenda we have trips to the Kansas City Zoo and Powell Gardens. I have a Groupon for Powell Gardens and another one for a Segway tour of the zoo, and we're looking forward to using both of them in the early fall while the weather is nice.

What have you done lately that's fun and free or cheap?

I'm not sure why I haven't written about this, but I've been slowly forcing all of my worst lifestyle habits to the curb and making an effort to be healthier and leaner. I'm not saying there hasn't been some backsliding from time to time, but I believe I'm seeing and feeling results.

Here's some of what it all entails:

Exercise – I'm still taking yoga classes (I shoot for at least one per week) and I've put a mat, blocks and a belt in my living room where I can easily get at them when I feel the need to practice or stretch something.

I've also found a route through my neighborhood that's just a teensy bit more than 5k long and takes about an hour to walk at a moderately brisk pace. Earlier in the summer I was walking a couple of mornings each week with my friend LuAnn. Now I'm walking with A Librarian on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, even though it means getting up at the ghastly hour of 5:30 a.m.

Nutrition – After a couple of years of breakfasting on Power Bars, I've switched to meal replacement shakes. Not only are they nice and filling (in part because it usually takes me more than an hour to drink one), but the opportunities for variety are pretty much unlimited. My blender is getting a workout and I'm getting a lot more fruit and dairy protein now. It makes me feel noticeably more energetic.

I've also started taking multivitamins. Yes, I know that nutritionists say they aren't as good as eating nutrient-packed food, but I figure they can't hurt.

Finally, there is now only one kind of snack in the house: fresh fruit. At this point, I seriously think I would turn down a piece of chocolate cake in favor of a handful of cherries or a nectarine. It's amazing how quickly you can lose your taste for sweets.

Bad Habits – First of all, I quit drinking caffeine again. It was exacerbating a medical condition and I'd been reading a lot about how drinking coffee really only quells the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal and doesn't provide a true energy boost. It seemed kind of silly to spend so much to feed an addiction.

Second, it finally started to sink in that when I drink alcohol (which is, after all, poison), I almost always get a headache and feel kind of icky in general. Beer was the first to go and since then I've cut back on almost all alcoholic drinks. I'm still good with a glass of wine or a mixed drink from time to time, but most of the time I'd just as soon pass. Heck, I even gave away two of my four BlogHer conference drink tickets!

At the Office – I recently invested in a Gaiam Balance Ball Chair. My regular office chair is a high-quality Steelcase ergonomic chair, but I can still manage to slump and make myself thoroughly uncomfortable when I'm sitting in it. The balance ball chair forces me to have good posture, sit upright with both feet flat on the floor, and engage my core muscles. I think its true secret is that it forces me to regularly get up and walk around because I can only sit on it so long before I need to take a break and stretch a bit.

* * *

I still have a ways to go before I start seeing significant changes, but I can see that I'm slowly melting off some of the excess fat that I've been building up over the past few years. My wardrobe might not be a lost cause after all.

Does anyone have any tips to share? I'm willing to entertain any healthy idea as long as it's free.

After putting off the whole ordeal for more than a year, my husband finally agreed to have his wisdom teeth out. Yes, he was supposed to have had them out in 2009, but he let it slide until they started to hurt again. Men.

So today was the big day. I left work early and took him to the oral surgeon's office where he was to be anesthetized for the extraction. I'd brought my laptop and some research to read so I could work on a project, but it turned out that the whole thing took less than 20 minutes.

When the nurse came out and pointed me to the recovery room, I discovered a very confused man. As I posted to Facebook, "Sitting with husband as he recovers from having his wisdom teeth out. He's like 'David After Dentist' crossed with Marlon Brando in The Godfather."

He kept saying, "I don't remember anything." Well, that was the point of the general anesthesia, now wasn't it?

Talking to him was a lot like talking to a person with Alzheimer's. He wasn't quite sure where he was and he kept asking me the same questions over and over.

I led him carefully out to the car and drove him home so he could nap while I picked up the prescriptions they'd given him. While I was at the store, I stocked up on soft foods: pudding, vanilla yogurt, soup, applesauce and some sugar-free juice for him to drink.

The whole "change the gauze every 20-30 minutes" thing fell by the wayside immediately because once he fell asleep, he was out for several hours. When he finally woke up, I was hoping to get some food into him, but his face and tongue were still numb even three-and-a-half hours after the procedure.

He's up and around now (watching a video podcast about recording, to be exact), but I still feel like I need to be around and baby him a bit, at least until he eats. In the meantime, I guess I'll get back to work.

Image Credit: Natalie Dee

First the bad part: I had a going-away party for some friends listed on my calendar for Saturday at 4:00 p.m. Scrolling through Facebook this afternoon as I was killing time before getting ready for said party, I saw a post from one of the farewellees thanking everyone for the great party…last night. Did I have plans last night? I did not. Did I turn down plans tonight because I thought it was the night of the party? Yes I did.

Someone else needs to be put in charge of my calendar.

The productive part: On Friday after work, I got my hair cut and colored in preparation for BlogHer. Then I got on a roll and decided I needed to get some pre-trip shopping done. First on the agenda: a new pair of Chuck Taylors. They were buy one, get one half price, so I ended up with basic black and a comic book pattern that I'd been eyeing. Only one pair gets to go with me to New York, so I'll have to do some outfit planning and decide which one wins.

I managed to limit myself to buying only contact lens solution at Costco, then picked up travel sizes of a few toiletries at the drug store. By then it was getting late and I was hungry, so I grabbed a fast food chicken sandwich and took it home to eat while enjoying Tosh.0 and Psych.

This morning I got up unnecessarily early and hung out with my husband for a while before he went to bed. I took a yoga class, had crepes with my sister and niece, and then got a pre-conference pedicure to make my toes a lovely, sparkly violet color.

My sister and one of her friends invited me to join them in perusing a bunch of shops at a wholesale gift mart. I met up with them a little late due to a longer-than-expected nap, so I missed my sister laying the smackdown on a woman who had left a puppy in a hot car outside a coffee shop. My sis is a shining example for us all in the kicking ass and taking names department. (See also: raccoon rescue.)

The gift mart was overflowing with all the jewelry, accessories and home decor items a person can stand. We wandered around for an hour or so and decided we'd had enough. There was a Macy's in the same mall, so my sister and I did a bit of shopping there as well. I picked up a maxi dress that will be perfect for one of my evenings at the conference.

Then I decided I needed a shrug to wear with the dress. My sister has a cute one from Old Navy, but of course the store nearest me only had them in Teeny and Enormous. (They may actually call their sizes something else.) A salesperson called around and found the store in the area with the most in stock in the sizes I wanted, so I began formulating a plan to keep shopping, even though I hate shopping with a burning passion.

When my husband got up, I invited him to go to dinner, with the caveat that I wanted to run into Old Navy. As it turned out, the Old Navy in question was an outlet location, so I got what I was looking for and saved 40% too. Better yet, there was a really good band called Soca Jukebox playing in the courtyard of the shopping center, so the whole thing turned into a nice outing.

Now I'm chilling in front of the computer, adding stuff to my Netflix queue, and trying to decide whether to go down and watch TV or just turn in early. It's been a long couple of days, but at least I have all of my pre-conference shopping finished. At least I think I do.

I spend a lot of time on the computer. A lot. And lately I've been noticing my face doing something weird from time to time. I'll be reading something online or playing a game and all of a sudden, I'm grimacing as if I'm in pain.

It took a while for me to stop and think about it, but when I finally did I realized that what was actually happening is that I was squinting.

Yes, as though this latest birthday has flipped another switch in the age-related breakdown control panel, I think the time has come for me to get…reading glasses. [Heavy sigh.]

My eyesight is absolutely terrible. I've been severely nearsighted and astigmatic since childhood. Without my glasses or contacts, I can only focus about an inch in front of my eyes. If I try to read a book sans correction, my nose hits the page before the words get clear.

That's really been my only problem until now. However, I've known this was coming because my eye doctor has been almost gleefully foreshadowing my eventual need for reading glasses and/or bifocals ever since I turned forty. He and my dentist should get together and have a doomsaying party.

So I've made an appointment with the eye doctor to see what needs to be done. I don't want to run around with reading glasses on a beaded chain like someone's granny, but I may have no other choice. At least it's better than developing new forehead wrinkles from squinching up my face. That's what I tell myself anyway.

Photo credit: Lunasmom

For a birthday that marks an unremarkable age, my friends and family members certainly went all out. Not only have I not paid for a meal in the last four days, but I've raked in the loot gift-wise. Here are some of the awesome presents people have given me:

The coolest yoga mat bag EVAR! My sister had it custom made for me.

Crazy Cat Lady Action Figure. When I opened it, I remarked that the only surprising thing about the gift was that no one had gotten me one sooner. Please note that the action figure has four more cats than I do, if you count the kitten in her robe pocket and the one on her shoulder.

This t-shirt, also from my sister. The peace sign is made up of tiny cartoon dead bunny heads. It's deeply weird, so of course I love it.

Bad Cat playing cards. I was a My Cat Hates You reader way back in the day. It's nice to see that one of the original cat websites is still making a buck.

I've also gotten the cordless drill I mentioned earlier, three jars of spices from Penzeys, $50 in cash, a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate and a $25 AMC Theatres gift card.

As much as I loved all the presents, I was just as thrilled with all of the birthday greetings I received on Facebook and Twitter all day long.

So thanks again, everyone. I can't think of a better kickoff to another year on the planet.

Happy Birthday to me! I've made it another year, despite the fact that Xena tried to assassinate me yesterday morning by hiding on the top basement stair when I was trying to carry some laundry down.

I've decided that this is the birthday that marks the age where I can start calling everyone, "Honey."

However, as one friend put it, it might be the age where I have to start calling everyone "Honey" because I can't remember anyone's name anymore.

My husband already took me to pick out and buy my gift. I chose a 12-volt cordless drill because I'm practical like that. It was that or a new hammock and I figured I'd get more year-round use out of the drill. I'd kind of like a chainsaw, but Spyder has made it clear that that's a 50th birthday gift, so I'll have to wait.

Because I'm taking the day off tomorrow, I'm staying up late tonight. I made chicken stir-fry for dinner and my husband and I watched "Hot Tub Time Machine" and "The Rocker." It seemed fitting to revisit 1986 in two different movies for my birthday.

Tomorrow I have a lunch planned, but in the evening I'm attending a friend's puppy shower rather than trying to plan something for myself. I figured I could work in some further birthday festivities later in the week.

Just as long as I get cake at some point…

Technically my holiday weekend continues today, as I have the day off. However, it's raining and I have no concrete plans until later on, so I think it's safe to say that most of the fun stuff has already happened.

On Friday evening, I got together with three friends to play board games. We were planning on playing Battlestar Galactica, but after a starter game of Condottiere (which I won!), we ended up playing a couple of rounds of Last Night on Earth instead. I played the first game as zombies and the second as humans and even though I lost both times, I definitely enjoyed zombie gameplay more. We ended the night with two more games of Condottiere, which I lost but still enjoyed.

On Saturday morning, my sister and her family invited me to go to Blue Springs Lake with them on their boat. Well actually, my sister invited me to go to "The Lake," so I ended up at the Longview Lake marina while they stood around at Blue Springs Lake wondering where I was. Fortunately, the lakes aren't too far apart and I caught up with them fairly easily.

We spent most of the trip lounging around in the water, but the kids got a chance to do some tubing toward the end.

The sky looked threatening after a while, so we called it a day and went back to my sister's for pizza.

That evening, I drove to Excelsior Springs for Banky and Thundabolt's wedding. As befitting a marriage between two bloggers/tweeters, the wedding had its own hashtag, #thundabanky, and several of us live-tweeted the ceremony.

It was a beautiful, heartfelt ceremony with a fun reception featuring some of the most delicious wedding cake I've ever tasted and music from Flannigan's Right Hook.

On Sunday morning, I drove to Unity Village to meet up with my sister and a group of her yoga students for yoga in the woods. We walked about twenty minutes down the trail until we reached a concrete bridge over a creek. We laid out our mats on the bridge and did a class enveloped by the sounds of wind through the trees, birds, and flowing water. It was very peaceful and calming.

I had most of the day free after that, so once I'd taken care of the adoptable cats at Petco, I had time to meet up with queentuffy and kipkillagin for a second breakfast. I returned home and whipped up a batch of strawberry/cream cheese/pretzel dessert (with added blueberries, which made it wonderful!) and managed to get in a brief nap.

We spent the evening at a friend's 4th of July party, chowing down on party food and drinking lemonade slushes with vodka. There were a lot of musicians there, so my husband had fun playing drums during an extended jam. For some reason, I didn't take any photos at the party even though I had my camera. You'll just have to use your imagination.

Today I'm finally going to make some sourdough bread with the starter I got a while back. Other than that, this looks like it's shaping up to be a housework day.

Do you have the day off? What are you planning?