Where's my coat?

Do you want to know how cold it was in my house this morning?

(How cold was it?!)

It was so cold, I had to drink *hot* coffee. No joke here, I really drank hot coffee. And I HATE hot coffee. But I left a window open in the living room and the thermostat read 51 degrees.

Ooops.

So where have I been? I've been on blogcation. Similar to the seemingly popular "staycation" in that I've been home, I've just been staying away from my blog. You'd think that this would have provided me with a surplus of things to discuss with you but it hasn't.

I'm going to go clear the frost off the television. I'll be back.

Have some wine, it'll warm you up.

It's Labor Day. Or if you're Canadian (or just unnecessarily fancy) it's Labour Day. Being as I don't currently have the option to labor (or labour) for dinero this year, I shouldn't be celebrating Labor Day. But since I was in labor about four months ago and damn it, I think that counts for something, I'm putting my feet up with the rest of the country and enjoying a day of rest.

At least until Mini Bee wakes up from his morning nap.

It's cold in the house this morning. I have the windows open and the air conditioning on (because I like to party and because it helps my allergies) and the combination of 55 degrees outside and 70 degrees inside makes it freaking cold where I'm sitting (next to the window and under a vent). I should take my own advice and go put some more clothes on; in a few months the Bee will be complaining that it's subzero in the house and why can't we turn the heat up above freezing in the house and my response to that will be that he should be wearing more than his underpants and a pair of socks, for the love of all things holy it's December and who in their right mind walks around in their underpants in December.

And to answer the question that I know is on your mind at this moment, Yes, I'm already wearing more than just underpants and socks.



My idea of comfortable home heating and cooling has always been a little backwards than the norm. In warmer months I like to set the thermostat at about 66 degrees so I can wear slippers and sweatshirts. And then in the winter I lower it to about 60 degrees and wear t-shirts. And all year round I have the windows open because I hate the smell of stale air (and confined dog). Last year was even worse in the winter - I was preggo and my internal thermostat was all effed up anyway. I turned the a/c on in February and have yet to turn it off.

We're having dinner guests this evening. The Bee invited a friend over for dinner and that friend invited a few other people for dinner (AT OUR HOUSE!) and so a small dinner is turning into a large dinner and once again I find that I have to go to the damn supermarket just to buy food for other people. I think we should start hosting BYODF (yes, I want you to bring your own DAMN FOOD) parties. We'll be happy to prepare it and serve it and most likely even clean up afterward but holy crizzap, you people are getting expensive. Nothing like extending the invitation of your unemployed friends to others.

Being that these are the Bee's friends, he's not too upset with the virus-like spread of invitations - his only stipulation is that they bring the beer. Now, if I got to drink any of this free beer then my attitude might not be so bad. But I'm the one upstairs, tending to the baby and the leftovers and the clean-up and the barking dog and empty beer cans. Wah, wah, wah. I ought to just implement a "You can't come in my house unless you bear gifts for the Janel" policy and tell them all I want wine. So our BYOB parties have now evolved into BYOBADFAAPFTJODCI parties. And for those of you that can't keep up, that translates into "Bring Your Own Beer And Damn Food And A Present For The Janel Or Don't Come In."

So... who's coming for dinner?

Mmm, pencils.

It's September. September rings of school, football games, and fall foliage. If September had a smell, it would be of freshly sharpened pencils and brand new notebooks. I love the smell of school supplies. I like the feeling when you walk into an office supply store and you're confronted with the overwhelming scent of office supplies. My mom said I should have been a teacher, if only to smell the supplies at the beginning of the school year.

Anyway. Can you believe it's September already? Where has the year gone? I mean, I know where my time has been spent. How about yours? Did you do anything fun? Have you accomplished all your summertime goals?

For always complaining of boredom and having nothing to do, I actually had a semi-busy week. Last Friday I had a job interview; it didn't go so well and I don't expect them to be calling me anytime soon. It wasn't the interview itself that sucked, I was just a wreck. Earlier in the afternoon I'd laid my clothes out on the bed so I could get out of the shower and iron them. Well, Kingsley decided that he was going to take his pent-up anger out on the bed and pee all over everything, including the only even semi-professional outfit that currently fits me. I could have killed him but that would have only made me more late. So I broke out the B-team outfit, ironed it and rushed out the door. The interview was going great until I looked down about halfway through and noticed that I'd sweated completely through my shirt, like from shoulder to elbow - totally noticeable. GROSS. And apparently in my rush to get dressed and get out of the house I put my underwear on backwards and they rolled down under my butt cheeks, making me looking like I had a giant turd stretched from hip to hip. SWEET. And the cherry on this proverbial disaster of a sundae? My super-hot, knee-high business socks apparently lost all elasticity mid-interview and I had to stop in the hallway to hitch them up so I wouldn't trip over them. That wouldn't have been so bad except for the turd-roll under my butt cheeks that everyone saw when I bent over to hitch up my business socks. AWESOME. So I'm not going to sit around and wonder why this company isn't calling - I'm pretty much aware that I bombed that meet-and-greet.

Some days I wonder why I even bother...

This last weekend Libbeth and her family were in town. They had a family reunion to attend on Saturday and spent the rest of the weekend in Des Moines, so I got to see them on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It'd been almost 16 months since I've seen them - the kids are getting big and I finally got to meet (the newest) Baby Girl. And Libbeth and Ryan got to meet Mini Bee; they both said he looks older than he already is, which I don't see but I spend all day, every day with him. They feel like a second family to me - they've been there for me in great times and some of my most dismal times, too. It was wonderful to see them and I cried when they left but the Bee and I are talking about making a trip down to North Carolina later in the fall. I hope that happens.

My mom and step dad are separating. Sort of. They're moving to separate apartments, which is pretty much separating, except they're only six doors apart in the new building. Literally. So they're separating but they're going to be neighbors, which makes me giggle. And not because I don't understand the reasoning - I do get it - but it just sounds like a really bad television sitcom. But it's not my place to pass judgment. I hope they're happy and can either work it out or end it amicably. My idea of happy isn't everyone else's idea of happy and vice versa. Not that I even know what my own idea of happy is, most of the time.

But it's too late to get into that. I'm too tired for that conversation tonight.