What's Next?

These are the things I am currently "playing with":

Buying an antique/consignment business
Leaving the teaching profession
Freelancing
Focusing on updating Brandywine

Here's the reality:

No regular income
No health insurance

It would be predictable that I would quit my job and get into an accident where I am badly injured and horribly disfigured and they would have to pull the plug because I'd have no insurance.

*sigh*

Scopin' Things Out (Some People Might Call It Stalking, but Whatever.)

When I go for my legendary (or at least they will be, soon) walks through the neighborhood, I like to keep tabs on stuff. I walk a different way every day, on a five day rotation, just in case something exciting happens. And I make sure that at least once a week, I check out the Rapunzel House.

The Rapunzel House has been an ongoing concern since 1984. It is STILL unoccupied and uncared-for, and I am starting to get nervous. Someone is going to buy the Rapunzel House...and tear it down.

If you are a peep of mine, you know that my husband and I are like OSI's Oscar Goldman. We take outdated, run-down properties and fix them.
"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better...stronger...faster."

(Okay, maybe not faster. And obviously, a house ISN'T Lee Majors. But you get the picture.)

And I am afraid that once Rapunzel's out-of-state owner decides to sell (oh, yes...I have done my research. I know who she is. I know where she is. And I imagine that she is hanging on to this house because she grew up there), it will be too late. The house will be in such a state of disrepair that there will be no saving it.

Do yourself a favor, Chickie. Sell the house. To me.

Because You're Mine, I Walk the Line. (Not Really. Because I'm Chunky, I Walk the 'Hood.)

Last year, I wrote about BV Bootcamp and the rules for walking. And now I'm walking and not just observing the rules (sort of), but getting to see my neighborhood when the sun comes up. And it's really interesting.

First of all, there is the little old guy I like to call "White Baseball Cap." He runs every morning about 9 am. His little legs look like they would snap in a strong wind, but he always waves as he jogs against the traffic. I wave back, from the safety of the sidewalk, as I don't trust cars to avoid my big-butted self.

Then, there are the "Little Mamas." They always walk in pairs and threes, pushing big honking strollers with one or two children strapped in. They chat and laugh loudly, sometimes as if they are forcing themselves.

The group I love is the "Seventies Shorts." The group varies in size--sometimes as few as three, sometimes as many as five, who jog before they go to work. They are young women in their 30s, and they wear those little jogging shorts from back in the day when I was young and fearless, sort of.

"Blonde Audrey" is always interesting. She's very young and very thin, blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her skin-tight clothes are head-to-toe black and she wears oversized black sunglasses. I'm of the belief she is trying to channel Audrey Hepburn.

But the best of all are the two old(er) ladies with the Westie. I like them because they are always smiling and never fail to say hello. They seem to be grounded in reality: they wear comfortable clothes and have not attempted to turn back time by coloring their hair.

And I wonder what those people think of me? I know what the "Little Mamas" think-- they tend to look at me as if I am the friendly neighborhood child molester. I want to tell them that once upon a time I had little children I pushed in a stroller, even though it was through a different neighborhood, and that just because they're privileged doesn't mean they're perfect. But they're young--what do they know? The "Seventies Shorts" probably think I need to join them and lose a few. "Blonde Audrey" doesn't strike me as the type that thinks at all.

But the gray-haired ladies? They probably think I'm a pleasant person.
And some days, I am.

Eat Me!

So, I have learned one thing....that white food taunts me.

It sits there in the kitchen, calling me...softly at first, and then louder. "Kirby,,,I'm here....you know you love me.....you know you want me....puh-leeze....I'm here...."

And white food is tricky. Potatoes, in particular. Potatoes want you to THINK they're vegetables, but they're really WHITE! And totally off-limits.
(I tried to think of them fried, and therefore more of a yellowy-tan. But Doc Adam, whom I will discuss at a later date, says that it doesn't count--potatoes are still white on the inside.)

White food? Is the Debbil.

Kicking My Own A$$, Part I

I will admit it. I am a food racist.

I love white food.

Bread, pasta, biscuits, cake...all receive a big "Hell Yeah!" from me.

And, as most of you know, it was a long,cold winter and, being unable to grow a fur coat, I have put on another layer of a different sort.

Ten years ago, I could lose fifteen pounds in a couple of months. All I had to do was eat a little less and exercise a little more. But that doesn't work any more. Now I need to try something drastic. My "Kirb Appeal" this summer will be NewThirteen, trying to weigh what I did at 13. (This is a HUGE joke, peeps. At thirteen I weighed 101. Like the song. Now? I would need to remove all my insides PLUS a leg in order to weigh 101. Which I believe would be drastic.) And lest you think I want to LOOK thirteen again? Let me correct you. That would involve braces, headgear, and perhaps the ugliest wire-framed glasses on the planet. Nope--I'll settle for losing 15 pounds and looking 50 instead of 51.

I have done lots of research these first two weeks of summer, and I will be blogging about some of the things I've learned about dieting. (By 'learned' I mean read with a healthy dose of skepticism.) For now the easiest, albiet the most painful, choice is to give up a lot of my white food.

Alas, little Biscuitville, I hardly knew ye.

My Love/Hate Relationship with Menopause.

Why I love menopause:
1. I can use it as an excuse. As in "Hey, I'm sorry I'm late, but I was driving along and all of a sudden I had this terrible hotflash and I had to pull over into the nearest Cook Out and get a peach cobbler shake.
2. I can use it to scare people (particularly those of the male persuasion). As in "Do you REALLY want to mess with a menopausal woman? Go ahead. Go there."

Why I hate menopause:
I look every day of fifty-one.

Why this is a problem:
I was still getting carded into my late thirties. I am not joking. And it wasn't just a clerk or two being nice, either. It was "I'm sorry, ma'am. I need to card everyone who looks like they might be under thirty."

So my challenge to myself this summer is to get my cuteness mojo back. Kinda like Valerie Bertinelli, only blonder.


Because I want to stop looking like this Kirby:




And start looking like this Kirby:

I Win!

I don't know who started it...I have a notion it was my mother...but there's been a lot of discussion regarding "who gets what" after her death. It almost makes sense, now that she's in her late seventies, with multiple health concerns, but this talk began when she was, oh, I don't know....fifty.

(Younger than I am now. And to my kids--if you're reading this? You get NOTHING! I'm taking it all with me. j/k.)

There has been some discussion among my siblings. The protracted discussion (by protracted I mean twenty-year long) has been regarding a certain corner cupboard, which my sister and I both covet. Why? Who the heck knows--it's not an antique, nor is it particularly beautiful, but the scale is perfect and the style beautiful in its simplicity. The inside is wide board tongue-in-groove, painted sage green, and the rest is dark-stained knotty pine. And frankly? I love me some knotty pine.

This corner cupboard was the one piece (besides the bed and sofa) that my mother insisted had to come with her to the old lady apartment. I think she has been putting off making the inevitable: to whom should this corner cupboard be bequeathed?

Recently, the winner of this nice (but not old or particularly valuable) corner cupboard is *Tah-dah* me! And yes, it would look great in my living room. But you know what? In the past twenty years, there have been a lot of changes. And for my brother, sister and me, it's not really all that important who gets the corner cupboard. It's that we can all pitch in together--first during my dad's loss and the subsequent sale of my mom's house, then moving her to an apartment, and now through her health issues. We can sit down together and talk and laugh and there isn't any underlying animosity. (Of course, I am speaking for everyone because I am the big sister. I guess I could be wrong, and they both hate my guts and I just don't know it.) But in so many families, where there is so much bitterness, I figure that corner cupboard or not, I still won.

No, Kiki, do not get your hopes up. The corner cupboard is still coming home with me. ;)