My Month-Long Case of the Mondays

I’ll just come out and say it: I’ve been in a funk this month. Unfortunately, that affects all areas of my life, including my writing. I’m not sure if it’s the changing-jobs-after-almost-four-years thing or the I'm-constantly-on-the-go thing or the I’m-almost-on-the-other-side-of-twenty thing or what. But in any case, I haven’t been as diligent about blogging as I wanted to be this month because I just haven’t felt like it.

Since writing is my career now, though, I kind of have to be more diligent about writing. I know my work will suffer if I don’t take the time to write when I have the chance. So here is my attempt at getting out of my funk. Forgive me if it’s disastrous.

First things first: I dominated my August goal of keeping a daily food journal. Down to every last Swedish Fish, I faithfully recorded every morsel I consumed. I did not, however, eat less or continue my journal this month. So I don’t know how helpful that goal really was.

Now for another confession: I basically gave up September’s goal--improving my posture--the first week of the month. I had all these lofty goals of walking around with books on my head, taking some yoga classes, and sitting on the edge of my chair at work in hopes of training my spine into submission.

But even though I remembered I should sit with my feet flat on the ground, it was just so much more comfortable to just let them cross…and to slouch down while in the throes of writer’s block…and to walk normally instead of thrusting my chest out as if it were on display.

I know my posture is terrible and that it won’t get better if I don’t work to improve it. Maybe I'll just get weekly massages instead of sleeping on my back and not allowing my poor legs to cross.

Okay, now pretend that I worked in a seamless segue here.

Moving on to my goal to read 52 books this year. Not to toot my own horn, but beep beep! I’ve read 42 books and am currently reading 43, 44, and 45.

Since I last blogged I’ve read some great ones, namely The Devil in the White City, Unbroken, and The Fault in Our Stars.

This post is already too long to go into any great detail, so just go borrow/buy/whatever you have to do to get these books in your hands. You won’t be sorry.

I also finally read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I really enjoyed it and will probably read the other two books in the series, but it took me over 100 pages to get into the book and really understand what was happening. I don’t usually give books that long to hook me in, but since I had heard from several trusted reader friends that TGWTDT (I had to think about that abbreviation so long that it probably would have taken me less time to just write the title) was excellent, I stuck it out.

I definitely don't regret reading it, but I do wish it had been as suspenseful and dramatic as it turned out to be all the way through.

Pretend once again that I've just worked in another seamless segue, 'cause I want to wrap this up.

October's goal is to floss every day. Clearly, I should have been doing this long ago, as I have to go back to the dentist in a few weeks to get another root canal. Oops...

But I thought this would be a good goal for October since I'll undoubtedly be consuming more sweets than usual--candy corn, caramel apple pops, Fun Size anything. You get the point.

I won't subject you to pictures, but I will try reallyreallyreally hard to be a better blogger this month. Randel and I celebrated our two-year anniversary yesterday, I tried another Pinterest recipe, and I've been writing more project sheets at work, so it shouldn't be difficult.

Holla!

Three Boys and a Backsplash

They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I’ve never had a reason to doubt them—whoever they are—but I know now just how right they are because I got a new-and-improved kitchen for nothing more than chicken tacos and BBQ pulled pork sandwiches.

It all started one afternoon several months ago when, out of the blue, Randel’s friend Joey asked me about my backsplash. I told him I didn’t exactly have one; it was the same grayish-bluish-stuff-I-don’t-know-the-name-of that my countertops are made of.

He then asked me if I wanted a new tile backsplash. I said yes, of course, but asked how much it would set me back. He said he, Randel, and their friend Ryan would do it for food.

I’m no Rachael Ray or Pioneer Woman, but I’m not a fool either. I quickly accepted the generous offer and consulted Pioneer Woman for the perfect recipe to feed three hungry, hardworking men. I decided on her make-you-wanna-slap-your-mama chicken tacos.

The Saturday in March (yep, this project was begun six months ago) arrived and with it, the men and their supplies—tile, grout, measuring tape, some sort of tile adhesive, and lots more stuff I don’t know the functions of.

We started out with the food. In retrospect, this probably wasn’t the wisest decision on my part. What if they had gotten so full and satisfied on scrumptious chicken tacos that they couldn’t work?

Luckily, they remained true to their word and got right to work after polishing off somewhere around 17 tacos.

I stayed in the living room, out of their way, with Joey's wife and baby. Amid the noise of tiles being cut, tiles being dropped on the floor, and the general loudness that occurs when Randel, Joey, and Ryan are together, Ashley (Joey's wife) and I kept up conversation and tried not to interfere.

But when we saw what looked like mud being smeared across what I thought was a beautiful, nearly finished backsplash, we grew fearful. Maybe Joey doesn’t actually know what he’s doing, I thought. Maybe he just wanted a free meal. So Other Ashley and I ventured over to see if we could deduce what they were up to.

“Um…what’s that mud for?” I politely asked Joey.

He gave me an answer I didn’t understand, but I tried to calm my fears of my kitchen being ruined. Other Ashley wasn’t so hesitant with her query.

“Babe, it looks like you’re messing up her kitchen,” she said.

I just laughed and tried to trust Joey when he told us to just trust him.

Turns out, Joey could be trusted. Several hours later, half of my kitchen had a brand spankin’ new backsplash that looks better than I ever imagined!

**six months later**

Somehow, nearly half a year passed before the guys came back out to finish the job. It could have something to do with the fact that Joey and Ashley have a new baby. That’s just speculation, though.

After hounding Randel about hounding Joey about when they were going to finish my kitchen, Randel texted me one day: “How about we finish your kitchen this weekend?”

I immediately said yes and wondered what I would feed them this time around. They loved Pioneer Woman’s chicken tacos, but I wanted to do something different this time. I had a fierce craving for BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, so that's what they got. Wanting to be a good hostess, I whipped up some baked beans and potato salad to go along with the sandwiches (okay, I bought the potato salad, but I did whip up the beans).

 

After eating, the boys got right to work. The other side of my kitchen had a smaller space to cover, so they were done in just a couple episodes of "Criminal Minds." The only thing is...they forgot the grout. So my kitchen isn't actually complete, but it's almost there.

 

I wonder what I should feed them for grout work...

 

And now, some before and after pics. [Note: Inevitably, I forget to take adequate "before" pictures, so I don't have many, and the ones I do have aren't great.]

 

 

 

These photos don't do my new kitchen justice, so if you want to admire the boys' handiwork in person, just stop on by. If you're lucky, you'll get some food out of the deal.