JennDawg Back in Town

I took Jack to see Disney on Ice at the US Airways arena. This was the first big production that we took him to. I was worried that he would lose interest after 15 minutes and that I would be bored myself but Jack was mesmerized the whole time. He truly believed that he had helped saved Mickey Mouse from that bad guy from the “The Incredibles.” I was mildly entertained myself so I would say it was big success. I would definitely take him to another one. Poor Jack was the only kid who didn’t have any concessions or $20 toys but I have a pretty easy time saying “no” to a box of $7 stale popcorn. Instead Jack ate almonds and Starbucks mints out of my purse. After the show, Jack and I walked several blocks through downtown to get to the Arizona Center where we met up with Brian and Ty at the Greek restaurant. It was a beautiful night and we ate outside by the fountains. There were lots of shows and activities downtown so it was bustling and exciting and full of energy. We had a really great time.

On Sunday Brian and Joe brought over Joe’s old wine cooler that holds over 200 bottles. Brian bought it from Joe since Joe is moving to Tucson and was selling a few things. We are storing many bottles of wine for Joe. I won’t even hazard a guess as to the value of the wine sitting in that refrigerator but I will guess it’s pretty hefty. Around 4 PM we got our first visit from JennDawg, who moved back to Arizona from Illinois. So many people move away from here but just about none move back. Brian made lamb shanks for the occasion. It’s great to have her back. I guess “Cacti to Cornfields” will be called “Cacti to Cornfields to Cacti” now.

On Monday I started a 9 day cleanse. I have friends who have done a 10 day cleanse where all they do is drink water mixed with maple syrup, cayenne pepper and lemon juice. I don’t think I have the willpower to do that. The cleanse I did is from Isagenix: http://brianstinson.isagenix.com/

With this cleanse, you do 2 cleanse days where you eat very little but are flushing your body full of nutrients and then you do 5 days where you have 2 shakes and a healthy meal and then you finish with 2 more cleanse days. Most people lose quite a bit of weight and inches. I was hoping for more energy and better skin. Maybe in hindsight it wasn’t that smart to do all four of the cleanse days on work days. I was pretty sleepy and cranky and when I went to a conference room for a meeting during lunch on the second cleanse day, a guy had a box of steaming, freshly made French fries that smelled amazing. That was torturous. And to top off the end of the first day, I had a meeting at 9 PM that went until 10:30 that was very contentious. Brian said he heard me yelling all the way down the hallway. I think the hardest thing about the cleanse was giving up coffee, feeling sleepy during the day and not being able to really do much about that and feeling mentally dull. The last two cleanse days were really hard and I was extremely cranky on that last day. I had all these grandiose plans of eating all this food the next day but when it came down to it, I didn’t. I’m glad I did it. I lost 1 ½ to 2 inches off my stomach and a few pounds but mostly I am excited about having energy throughout the day without drinking coffee and being able to do things with the kids after work. The other really odd thing that happened is I got a lot more flexible in Pilates. I wasn’t expecting that.

Friday night Brian had a friend in town from Seattle (he schmoozes alumni to get them to contribute money to the University of Washington business school) and he spent the night. Burrito (a nickname for Brian’s fraternity brother and now pediatric ICU doctor) came over as well. I like to grill the guys on their love lives and was able to pump a lot of good information from them but then got really sleepy and had to go to bed (I was still doing the cleanse). The next day we went to Makutu’s Island which is a big indoor play area for the kids. I think it’s geared for kids a little older than Jack and Ty but we still had a lot of fun. Brian and I got a big workout because we had to follow them around throughout the whole playground. I was really sweating. Sunday was the Superbowl but I didn’t have time to watch it. I had to get the boys ready for bed and then I headed out to the Orpheum to see “Legends” with Joan Collins and Linda Evans. The show was funny—I enjoyed it. This was followed by a hideous week of work. But Brian and I made time to go to Postino’s for lunch on Friday (we almost never eat out for lunch, never with each other and instead, eat at our desks while slaving away so this was a big treat).

Friday night we did our trip to the mall after work. Jen joined us at Wildflower and told us her single stories which are always entertaining. She did confirm a question that I had in one of my earlier blogs: A leopard does NOT really change his spots. She joined our normal routine of going to the book store. I read Jack books and then I went to get tea and Jen read Jack a few books. I was entertained by the storytelling until Jack kicked over my big cup of hot tea right there in the bookstore. I helped the store employee clean it up. I felt bad but the employee was grateful that I confessed to my mess—I guess usually people just leave with a huge mess sitting there. After a few more books, we left to find Brian and Ty and found them at the play area outside the book store. Jen got to experience the stress of watching 2 kids in that play area—it’s a constant effort to keep both kids in your field of vision. Jack and I were still wide awake so Brian and Ty went home and we went for ice cream cones. It was almost 9 PM (Jack’s bed time is 8 PM!) so we left but stumbled into Hallmark where they had all these cards that played music and quotes from movies. We had a good laugh over those cards and finally we went home. It was fun. On Saturday I met Jill M and Connor at the train park with Jack. The boys played together OK—not great. But I got some good social time with Jill M. Last night Brian and I went to Lisa’s husband’s birthday party. It was a fun party with margaritas and Mexican food but I was in an introverted mood and mingling seemed like work. I hate it when I feel blah like that. Jill and Joe B were there but otherwise we didn’t know anyone. This morning I met Missie for brunch and then we went to Nordstrom Rack. I tried on a bunch of nicer tops for going out and they all look a million times better with my new chest. Right now it’s raining and we have all the windows open. The weather has been really amazing lately.

Oh, Brian got a new car. His Rav4 was over 10 years old and I really wanted something with upgraded safety features for the kids. We were pretty sure we wanted an Acura and the MDX seemed like a good idea because it had the third row seat so we could actually take one car when have two visitors. I struggle with the gas mileage and being a good citizen about that but the truth is that we have very short commutes and his 10 year old car only had 60K miles on it. Brian was looking at used to 2006 Acura MDX’s but I encouraged him to look at the 2007 and get exactly what he wanted in a car. I think it’s worth it when you keep your cars for 10 years so we found the car we wanted and they had the exact configuration and color on the lot and so we bought it. We didn’t trade in the Rav4 and I was anxious about selling the car, just because it can be a pain in the butt, but a couple days after putting an ad into some auto-trader web site, a woman came to see the car and bought it. So that was that.