Awesome gardening

It is gorgeous outside today! Any my tulips are budding! And, unless I'm very much mistaken, my teeny-tiny lilac shoot is going to bloom this year! The lilac was a shoot that we transplanted from my parents' old house (the house I grew up in) the year we bought the house, and mostly it just looks like an enthusiastic stick, but it looks like we'll finally see some flowers this year.

The climate we live in is still to cool at night to start putting plants in the ground, but Andy and I are working on planning a makeover for our front gardens, which have just sort of developed haphazardly as we've gone along. The front of our house is really the only place that gets full sun, so we're planning on turning an existing crappy triangular garden between the front walk and the driveway into a much nicer, built-up flower and vegetable garden. We'll also build up the beds along the front of the house and brick them in with matching stone, instead of the weird stone that is there now. And, probably the best thing, we'll lay some landscaping fabric so I have to do less weeding! Yay! (Full disclosure: I rarely weed, so my gardens often look like shit.)

We're putting in a compost situation this year too. We're following the basic premises of this guy: more compost, less work. It's basically a self-sifting compost thing so you don't have to turn it. Hooray!

We went to Lowe's today to start looking at plants and bricks and junk. I'll also ask my sister to draw up a garden blueprint sort of thing, which is something she's really good at. She knows what kind of plants like to be near each other, and which corner will need the most watering, and stuff. So I'll tell her the thoughts we have on what we'll be growing, what has to stay (like my teeny lilac and some tulips), and the dimensions, and she'll add some suggestions and send me a sketch with zones mapped out!

Do you have a garden? How do you remember to water it often enough? How do you decide what to grow? What tips do you have for a novice who always counted on her sister to do her share of the watering when they were kids?

Any of you have a toddler and an infant?

Some good friends of ours have a days-old baby and a rambunctious toddler. We brought them some Chinese for dinner last night, and today, here's my plan: I'm going to take my two dogs over there and have the toddler help me take them on a nice, long walk, then we're going to go to the store to get stuff to make English muffin pizzas, then we're going to make English muffin pizzas, then I'm going to offer to bathe the toddler (he's mildly allergic to dogs, but I don't know if the walk will bug him or not - his parents have okayed the walk because he's dog-crazy), maybe bathe him, then depart, hopefully in time for him to wind down with his folks and go to bed.

How naive is this plan?

We know the kid pretty well and he's definitely a high-energy kid, so it will be awesome to get him running around after some dogs. He also has very specific ideas about what he will and won't eat (yes: blue go-gurt [retch] and hot dogs! no: Chinese, apparently!) so having him help pick stuff out and then make his own little pizza might be a way to get some good food into him. And I hope that planning to leave before, say, eight or eight thirty will mean he doesn't hit that overtired, hyperactive state when he starts swingin' his little fists.

What else would you recommend? If you've been in their shoes, what would have been most helpful to you?

Internet time-sucks

A selection of various websites for you to get lost in for several hours:

Sweet Tooth. This has been sitting open in my browser for three days so I can drool at it whenever I want.

Reasoning With Vampires. Dissecting passages from the Twilight series and explaining what makes them such poor writing. Intelligently.

Zenni Optical. Their virtual try-on feature is really easy to use, and you were feeling narcissistic anyway. The most expensive pair of glasses they sell is $46. What?!

Pinterest. Have you joined yet? If not, maybe wait until you have several hours to sit and stare at lovely images in a gloriously mindless state. (I'm a member but am not sharing my id because it's linked to other shit in my real life and I'm a paranoid weirdo, but it's mostly pictures of knitted housewares, fancy-pants recipes photographed well, and home-type shit I can't afford.)

Books to challenge preconceived notions, via Metafilter. I'm pretty sure I haven't shared this yet (and am too lazy to check, sorry). So many good books to add to my list!

Now you share yours!

Bonus post: bad idea

Turns out it is a bad idea to wait till your husband leaves for his touch football game then watch the National Geographic special Lions vs Hyenas or whatever it's called while you're pmsing. Within the fifty-nine-minute special, you watch a precious adorable baby hyena murder her baby sister, watch a cobra bite and kill three fluffy sweet lion cubs, watch the cubs' cobra-bitten mother die a slow painful death over the course of four days, watch a lion you really were kind of rooting for get slowly picked to death by the pack of hyenas (and roar in pain the whole time), and watch, like, half these damn animals be ostracized and driven from their packs. You may or may not try to convince the dogs sitting near you that all your sniffling is really just allergies. You may also be too proud to turn it off and admit defeat.

OH MY GOD, ACTUAL SENTENCE: "One swift bite to the neck, and the new matriarch - is dead."

Three true things about today

1. I went in to work early so I could get out early and go for a run, then totally forgot I went in early. Who does that?

2. I got my home-try-on glasses today. Texted Andy to tell him so, and he texted back: "Send me pictures of you wearing them. We'll call it specs-ting." Pretty sure I married him in anticipation of that moment.

3. My little teeny orchid is putting out a new leaf. It might be the first time an orchid I've owned has done that. So far it's not dead, you guys! Progress!*

*Note: I have pretty much always been a plant-murderer. Not, like, with chemicals or anything, but through neglect. Now I have a routine and both of my orchids get ice cubes on Thursdays and if they need it my other two houseplants get watered then too. All of my outdoor plants can fend for their own damn selves, because they're not all pussified like my orchids and peace lily and palm-thing. Right?**

**None of this makes sense. I should be running but I don't have time for a run because I forgot I went to work early and I have a follow-up eye appointment in twenty minutes and I won't feel like going for a run afterwards because I'm super lazy. Ugh.

On the internet and anonymity

How many of you dudes are bloggers? Do you separate your real life from your blog life?

I have told a total of three people about this blog: Andy, my sister, and a friend who lives in a different city and who I'm 90% sure doesn't read it. Andy's fine with being blogged about but doesn't read this thing, and I think the Kid said she was okay with what I had put on here about her and Brian, but I never know. The internet is weird.

I've definitely given enough information on this joint for real-life acquaintances to identify me. I've considered going back through and giving people (and pets) code names, so as to make it less obvious, but then I give myself stern pep-talks about being paranoid and how very little on this thing is incriminating anyway. I mean, the time(s?) I posted from work, I did it on a work-sanctioned break. I'm hardly confessing to anything outrageous.

But because I don't tell people about this thing, I don't like sharing shit that I don't know for sure they wouldn't want on here. Some good friends of ours had a baby recently, and there's a neat little story about how they didn't find out the sex of the baby but their toddler kept announcing that it was his baby sister, and turns out he was right. They gave her a really pretty name, too, but I know I'd be kind of pissed if I had a kid and someone plastered their birth information all over the internet without my permission.

I think this is also partly a worry about how to share the awesome news with you dudes when the Kid has her baby - they picked out a name, but it's not mine to share. You know?

How do you all handle revealing shit - especially information that isn't directly related to you - with strangers on the internet?

Learnings from a Monday

1. I will use any excuse to get out of running. Today, it's raining, so I'm staying inside and watching a documentary about the gang MS13 on Netflix while Andy's at the gym.

2. Pankcakes will pull anything food- or cardboard-related off the kitchen table and destroy it. So far, she has murtalized two packages of cookies (Sorry, Kid! I forgot to buy you replacements!), a box of tissues, two packets of mints, and a box containing contact solution. However, she has left the newspaper left on the living room floor completely unscathed. Andy and I are in the habit of putting all food-related items where they belong, but this cardboard thing has me thinking she might need to be crated while we're gone.

3. My coworkers will take anything as long as it's free. I brought in some surplus Easter candy and figured I'd end up tossing it at the end of the day, but it was all gone within two hours. Even the Ziploc baggie full of jelly beans. And the one full of pretzel and peanut m&ms mixed together. Would you take unlabeled candy without wrappers sitting on a counter? Don't these people have any pride??

4. I finally used my Old Navy gift card and bought some cute summer dresses over the weekend. Turns out cotton sundress plus sweater tights equals a dress that rides up my thighs all day. Oops.

5. I guess it's okay to stay in from the rain if it's cold enough for sweater tights, right?

6. Rooster and Pancakes are starting to finally look to each other as playmates instead of trying to get me and Andy to play all the time. This is why we got Pancakes in the first place, so our diabolical scheme is working! Hooray!

7. MS13 is the most dangerous gang. Netflix and National Geographic agree.

Baby names

Instead of the post I had planned to write about having guests for a holiday, here are a list of actual honest-to-God baby names from my city and the surrounding areas, as published in the local newspaper:

First names:
Nailuj (which, naturally, is Julian spelled backwards)
Reign
Eian
Premiere (SERIOUSLY?)
Junior (SERIOUSLY?)
Caneron (Maybe this is a typo on the newspaper's part? I hope?)
Josselin
Bless
Major
Giovanthony
Maxwail
Maizen
Lai'La
Gracie (because apparently she'll never be a professional business-type person)
Miley (I think it's typically not a good idea to use someone else's family-nickname-then-stage-name as a legal name for a child)


Double whammies (first-middle combos)
Malazha Renae-Anne
Jayleana Royanne
Aviana Anii
Serenity Briquelle (Serenity isn't too unusual, but Briquelle?)
Seona DeNice
Ashantis Cristal
Casmeire Tiwayne

I swear to you that I transcribed all of these faithfully.

Notes on Couch to 5k

Week One, Day One:

• Next time I go running on a lovely spring day, I will take a goddamn antihistamine first, or at least bring some goddamn tissues. I was a snotty, sniffly mess by the end of it.
• Pancakes is not an ideal running buddy. She's SUPER EXCITED ABOUT EVERY SMELL EVER so she'll dart all around the damn place. And if I keep the leash short enough that she can't try to dart over in front of me, she still tries to pull ahead and smell things and ends up dangling and walking on her back legs a little. (I think it looks like I'm abusing her, so I leave the leash a little longer than that.)
• One winter, even with regular brisk walks and stuff, is plenty of time to undo all the getting-back-in-shape work I did in the fall. 
• My cousin was in town for my sister's shower, and said, in reference to the women of my family, "We are not built for aerobic activity." I thought of that when I was running and could actually feel my gut jiggle with each step.
• I had forgotten that running clears out one's chest a little. Hello, coughing!
• I feel really virtuous about going for a run, and will now celebrate by going out to dinner with friends who are in town and drinking a margarita.

And now a visual comparison:

How I looked when I was running

How I felt when I finished

                         vs.










Any of you run? Any of you hate running? Chime in here!

Eye doctor appointment in nineteen minutes

You guys! I have an eye doctor appointment for the first time in two and a half years. I realized this when I was recounting to someone recently how my glasses got stolen on my honeymoon. Turns out that healthcare in Jamaica is prohibitively expensive, so there's a huge black market for things like prescription glasses and contacts. I spent my whole honeymoon in my contacts and had to store them in tumblers (WHICH I JUST TRIED TO SPELL 'TUMBLR' THANX INTERNET) with notes to the cleaning staff to not throw them out. So when we got home, I had to get new glasses. That was in the summer of 2008 and I'm just now following up. Oops.

So I spent part of my day checking out Warby Parker, but most of the glasses I like best aren't available for the home try-on, which is SO NOT COOL. I totally get that they are in high demand, but don't you think that would mean even more people would want to try them on? So I'm going to see what I can find that I like at the doctor's office, and then maybe get some back-up pairs online at Zenni Optical! (Also, when I showed Andy the link, he responded, "Just don't get hipster glasses, okay?")

Where else should I look online? Help a sister out!

Not proud of it, but

Here are the excuses I came up with to put off starting running today:

• Can't find headphones 
• Headphones I could find were huge and uncomfortable; also didn't fit well around the mohawk
• There were three dogs who would want to go, but I could only really take two and would have preferred to take one
• It's 38° outside
• I don't own any pants for running. I have running shorts and flannel pants that are too long, but I'd have to make do with some capris or something
• I had just enough time to DO ANYTHING ELSE
• Andy's computer (the one that has iTunes on it) died when I was making a playlist
• I didn't want to have to shower before heading to my friend's house

Obviously, I didn't go. I have an eye doctor appointment tomorrow afternoon, but if it's still light out, I'll go then. Unless I can come up with eight brand-new excuses. And the headphones don't count, because Andy brought me a pair just for running today.

Any excuse suggestions for tomorrow?

Get out of my head, internetz.

Did you ever have to read that awful book Feed? I had to teach that book my first year as a teacher. It sucked. It was a decent idea - what would life be like if the internetz were part of our brains, implanted in infancy? How would that change interaction and communication and stuff? - but the delivery was, shall we say, somewhat less than delicate. Even my dumbest students didn't like being smashed in the face with the equivalent of "IT'S A BAD IDEA. IT'S A BAD IDEA. IT'S A BAD IDEA." for a hundred fifty pages. One of the first great conversations I had with Andy's little sister was a shared dislike of that book, which she'd had to read for college, and how she'd suggest teaching it so that my student's didn't automatically dismiss my class as a bunch of crap.

It didn't help that the (weak) plot was all mixed in with weird bits on things like thought control, and what about this girl's weird hippy family who don't get her the implant till way later in life, and meat being grown on farms (just the muscles, not whole animals), and stuff. Ugh.

In case you can't tell, I didn't like that book. Hated teaching it. Thought less of the two students who claimed to love it - though to be fair, one of them was almost certainly high and hadn't read the book, so I'd have thought less of him anyway. I'm an asshole like that.

But this morning, I was like, yo, my life would be easier if I could just, you know, surf the web in my brain instead of on my phone. I'm reasonably sure they're tracking our internet use at work, in large part because they assured us they aren't without anyone accusing them of doing so, so if I feel like taking a two-minute break from editing boring stuff like forestry laws, I'll check a tumblr or two, but I use my phone. Which is less than ideal.

Now I feel like I maybe need to reread that shitty book just to remind myself that IT'S A BAD IDEA. IT'S A BAD IDEA. IT'S A BAD IDEA.

How would you feel about being able to browse the web and communicate with people with only your brain?? Ever read that book?

Link love

Damn, these look good.

Homemade Cadbury Creme Eggs. Dang.

Maybe even better: homemade Twix Bars. I had to talk myself out of making these for the Kid's shower, on the basis of us already having WAY more food than we need.

Recommendations for books that challenge preconceived notions, via Ask.Metafilter. So many more books on my reading list!

Bizarre or unexplained black and white photos. Number 4 is a strong candidate for the cover of my first CD, if they ever find a cure for lack of rhythm.

How are your apostrophe skills? Via my favorite grammar blog, Missed Periods and Other Grammar Scares, which, by the way, is a fucking funny name.

Holy shit. Blarter. An online community of bloggers who barter. You can offer shit, or respond to offers that are already up. SUCH A GOOD IDEA. (via A Friend to Knit With.)

Nonsense words from around my house

A list of words that are meaningless (or have different meanings) outside the walls of my house, but signify something (or something else) within:

Oocher (noun) Sternum. Comes from the time I was stretching grandly and my sternum popped, loudly and painfully, causing me to yell, "Ooch!" I still crack mine, probably more than is usual. Definitely more than is usual, as I've never seen anyone else pop theirs.

Skrelch (verb) This horrible noise I make when Andy tries to do something like tickle me, or put his finger in my armpit, or something (I'm not the only one well versed in making things awkward, okay?). Also often referred to as "the dinosaur noise." It's a little bit similar to the Wilhelm Scream, but throatier.

Candy (noun) Boobs. No idea why. Started sometime in my sophomore or junior year of college, as I remember using it in that building. Used in such sentences as "This shirt makes my candy look awesome."

That white-trash pasta salad (noun) A very specific pasta salad consisting of elbow noodles, frozen peas, crumbled bacon, mayo, and salt and pepper. So good. It is an indicator of summer for me.

Chikeet (noun) Phone charger. Refers to the sound made by my last phone when it was plugged in - a cheerful little chiKEET! My new phone - new, as in I've had it since November - doesn't make this noise, but it's still often called a chikeet around these parts.

What made up or weird words do you use?

Note to self.

Yo, next time you decide to cut your almost-back-to-normal hair into a mohawk, maybe check to see if you have a department meeting the next day. There is no way to debut a new hairstyle at a department meeting without having to talk about it for ten minutes. Even if you've had that hairstyle more than once since you started this job two years ago.

Also, on the same topic, maybe plan ahead a little better so you have some clean clothes that aren't black. Your middle-aged-and-older coworkers might not literally jump out of the way when you say "good morning" next time.

All about blending in, right?

To three idiots.

1. The asshole who really, really tried to cut in front of me in traffic today. Excuse me, dickhead, there's no way you didn't see that GIANT FUCKING FIRE TRUCK BLOCKING THREE LANES. It has its lights on, and your minivan sits up way higher than my car. Stop being a jerk. No, you can't get over. I don't care that you put your blinker on, I'm still not letting you in.

2. The girl who cut my hair. I understand that you probably have had women be all, "I want it really short!" and then panic and get mad at you. I also know you've probably had people be like, "Take it down to half an inch!" and not really understand how numbers work, or how they translate to the skull, or whatever, but I did not like having to repeat myself FIVE TIMES that yes, I wanted a mohawk; yes, I wanted it about three inches wide; no, four inches isn't the same thing, I want it thinner; yes, I am sure I want the sides a half-inch long; YES, I know how short that is. Also, for the record, if you don't know what products to use in a mohawk and you've already discussed with the client that she's had one, it's okay to ask. Next time, try a firm-hold paste, instead of a combination of way too fucking much styling cream and some hair gel on the part that won't stand up. That way, your customer won't have to redo the whole thing when she gets home.

3. Me. Didn't you learn anything from the last time you sent an email without checking which gmail account you were signed into?? It's pretty fucking unlikely that a professional in charge of hiring people is going to read an email from an email address dedicated to making things awkward. Cool, jackass. Real fucking cool.

What idiots would you write a quick note to?

Hello, Monday.

Good things about today:

• First truly warm day of the season. It got to 72° today! 
• It wasn't too hot either. I hate when it's muggy, and it wasn't bad.
• I got approved for two days of vacation to take my first weekend trip with Andy!
• I'm just straight chilling with the Kid and Brian for a while, then we're going to dinner at my folks' house.
• I'm trying really hard to figure out if LuGia's Ice Cream is open for the season. If so, we're going to have a little after-dinner snack!
• I just sent my resume in for an interesting part-time thing. We'll see if it pans out.

What about you dudes? Anything awesome?

Hooray for weekends!

The Kid and Brian got in just fine, I finished the precious baby sweater I knitted their baby, and I'm about to start making her a dress with the rest of the yarn I accidentally got too much of!

I made a delicious breakfast, too. Man. So much awesome is happening.

Then, in a little bit, I'm going shopping with my mom and sister-in-law to get ready for the Kid's shower next week! Hooray!

What y'all up to?

Food links

I am taking a quick break from being useful and helping with painting trim to share these with all of you:

Awesome-looking granola recipe from La Tartine Gourmande. Lots of nuts and some maple syrup and stuff. She specifies that it's gluten-free, which is not a thing to me at all but I'm sure will be useful information for someone.

A whiskey/lemon/fresh ginger/honey/scotch drink so bracing and good for you (right?) that they call it the Penicillin Cocktail. For health purposes.

And a blog to read all the back posts from while you're eating that granola stuff and drinking that health drink:
2 birds 1 blog

Wednesday can suck on it.

Ways in which today is trying its best to bring me down:

1. I am wearing brand-new underwear, and I got my fucking period a week early.
2. I asked the woman in charge of training people at work a question about a weird thing I was working on, and got a ten-minute lecture about how I needed more information instead of an answer. (I knew that. It's why I was asking her how to handle it.)
3. I had one of those ring-once-then-hang-up-because-it-was-a-wrong-number calls at work, but it was from the VP of HR, so I panicked quietly for a while. (Also, Company I Work For, it's not necessary to have someone with the title "VP of HR" when the whole HR department is two people.)
4. Pancakes decided that what our backyard really needed was a water feature, so she very helpfully started excavating a pit for it.
5. She also excavated the hell out of the garbage can in our bedroom. Hello, chewed-up tissues spread around the upstairs.
6. It stayed cold and drizzly and sticky out, instead of being sunny and warm-ish as promised.
7. I took the dogs for a walk even though it was kind of gross out, and discovered that a chipmunk has dug out a nest under the lavender in my front garden. Asshole.
8. The Kid and Brian are coming on Friday and staying with us for two weeks (yay!) but I have a million things left to do, and all I want to do is to go to bed early.

So to cheer myself up, I've decided that I'm going to finish cleaning up all the clothes I've spread over the guest room (which also functions as my dressing room) since the Kid and Brian vacated it in December, and then I'll call it a night!

How do you handle feeling overwhelmed and tired? Any sneaky trips?

Weekend in Brooklyn

These stupid glasses were everywhere.

I had a great time visiting NYC, you guys. My friend lives in Williamsburg, which is neat for me because it means I'm never the person wearing the weirdest clothes. We hung out and ate awesome food (hello, cheese plate and wine for dinner) and stuff.

Some highlights:

• Cheese. There was a lot of cheese, adn I love cheese, so that was great.
• Knitting. I knit a whole baby sweater and most of a second one! We went to a great yarn shop that wasn't any more expensive than the non-chain yarn shops around here. And the sweaters are so fucking precious.
• In fact, they're so fucking precious that a biker dude told me how sweet it was. The sweater I was showing him was pink. And he cooed a little bit. (Brooklyn is weird.)
• Tequila. Lots of tequila, which led to me getting into a heated conversation with the bartender (a friend of the friend I was visiting) and some poor bystander, who happened to be Canadian, about what the game Oregon Trail means about American psyche and stuff. The Canadian guy may have tried to remove himself from the conversation when I told him that one of the best parts of the game was naming people in your party after people you hate and then letting them die.
• Delicious homemade brunch, which cost so, so much less than going out to brunch.
• We went out to dinner with my friend's husband, from whom she is separated but with whom she is working on reconciling, which was really nice. Hooray for people working hard on relationships instead of giving up!
• I got a chance to wander about by myself for a while yesterday while my friend worked, which was neat. I walked A LOT. 
• I partially completed Resolution Number 8!

Lowlights:

• I fucking hate standing around, and there is a ton of that in NYC, particularly when waiting for or on the subway. 
• I always spend significantly more than I plan to, because everything in the city is more expensive than it needs to be.
• Hangover.

How was y'all's weekend? Do you heart New York?

Assumptions I make about strangers

A partial list.

• If you are driving under the speed limit and there are no cops in sight, you are high.
• If you are wearing Crocs in public, you are not highly educated.
• If you are wearing a bluetooth ear thing and are not currently talking on the phone, you are a presumptuous douche.
• If you are under the age of forty and are wearing big plastic Sally Jesse Raphael glasses, you pretend to only like obscure music but secretly listen to Jewel and watch American Idol.
• If you are a male and your pants are so low that I can see more than three inches of your underwear, you are an idiot. (I have yet to find a single exception to this one.)
• If you are loudly talking on your cell phone at the library, you cheat on your taxes.
• If your child is out in public with ratty hair, you're self-centered. (I know that this one is more likely to mean you're overworked and overtired, but still. Brush that rat's nest.)
• If you spit on the ground in public, you hit children and/or puppies.

What assumptions do you make? Do we share any?

A review

So we are officially into the second quarter of the year, and I have not completed a single one of my resolutions. Some of them are in process - I hear that Andy will be doing significant work on the bathroom this weekend, for instance - and some are sort of stalled, for various reasons.

Here's a brief recap of where things stand:
House and home
1. Redo upstairs bathroom. Partially complete, and will be complete(ish) within two weeks. The Kid and Brian are staying with us when they're home for a baby shower, and we are pretty sure that plaster dust is bad for pregnant ladies to breathe.
2. Finally attach headboard to bedframe AND 3. Get new nightstands. Partially complete. We got a whole new bed frame and two matching nightstands, but we're waiting for it to warm up so we can refinish them in the garage. Andy insists that if one stains wood in the freezing cold, it will not cure right. Or something.
4. Repaint the crappy job we did with cut-in in the living room. Nope! Haven't even thought about doing this. This is kind of more of a resolution for Andy, anyway, as even on a stepstool I'm too short to reach the part of the wall that needs redoing.
5. Get our kitchen knives professionally sharpened. Nope.
Social
6. Host a fancy dinner party. We have had parents over for dinner and friends over for dinner, but never in a fancy sort of way. Not crossing it out yet.
7. Take at least two weekend trips with Andy. I'm in New York right now (yay!) but things didn't work out for Andy to come with me this time. On the upside, we did find out that he gets two full weeks of vacation this year, so we're working on planning some awesome stuff.
8. Visit friends in NYC and Boston at least once each. Partially DOING THIS ONE RIGHT NOW!
9. Go camping and enjoy it. It has not stayed above freezing for more than four days at a time yet, so I'm saying this is more of a late-second-quarter/early-third-quarter goal.
Personal
10. Relearn to drive standard. I had one lesson, did passable in parking lots but didn't venture onto any real roads, and then we sold the truck I was learning on. I would officially consider this one stalled.
11. See a dermatologist and learn how to better care for my specific skin.  Nope.
12. Investigate laser hair removal. Nope.
13. Complete Couch to 5K Nope. I've thought about starting to run, but I totally hate hate hate running in the rain, so I'm waiting till it's a bit nicer out.
14. With Andy's help, nail down the design of my next tattoo, then get said tattoo. Partial. I think I have most of the major elements decided, but now I need to figure out the detail stuff and get the artist to draw it up!

I'm officially considering this my kick in the butt to get some of this shit crossed out already.

How are you doing with your resolutions? Any goody-two-shoes out there cross out a whole list already? Do you even remember what you resolved to do?