I think I might have to file a class action lawsuit against HGTV. After watching so many do it yourself shows you are almost brainwashed into thinking that you have some type of skill level when anyone can see that you are lucky to just be able to put one foot in front of the other without falling. It's irresponsible programming at best. Last week, I noticed that the upstairs toilet had begun to run. Feeling brave I lifted off the top to the toilet tank only to be confronted with a rusty, moldy, cracked tank that probably would've even been rejected at the foulest of gas station bathrooms. Ugh. I'm fairly certain that this is the original toilet-so it's over 50 years old-just think about the crap that toilet has seen. While I realized that we could probably pay someone to fix the toilet, I figured we'd just get a new one considering the disgusting innards of our current toilet. I checked Lowes.com and found a Kohler toilet on sale for 264.00. I don't know that I've heard much about Kohler toilets-but I've heard good things about their faucets-so I was interested. Plus a name brand sounds better than the poop-in-ator or some such thing. I decided to see if it was in stock. SWEET-now the toilet has gone down to 199.00. I remember a 10% off coupon lurking around and end up with a toilet for under 200 with tax. I hadn't asked for a commode for my birthday but was feeling pretty smug seeing as how I'm an awesome toilet shopper. We get the toilet home and I put a few calls out to see if anyone's interested in installing a toilet. (I'm even willing to pay in cash vs. brewski's-but no one is calling me back.-maybe I should've paid in beers.) Meanwhile, hiking downstairs to use the john at 3 AM is losing it's appeal. While waiting for my toilet installer to call, I begin to get innundated with friends declaring the relative ease of replacing a toilet. We start to wonder if maybe-we could just do it ourselves-and save a few more bucks. (I bet you can see where this is heading-must build time machine to warn self and head off toilet disaster.) Friday comes and Jim decides that he will be able to install the toilet. The easiest part is at the beginning-draining the water from the toilet. I even think to use the wet vac and we're feeling like pros. Jim expresses some concern when opening the box-and seeing all the extra parts but I am comfortable since I see directions and perversely enjoy putting ready made furniture together. Almost immediately we are cofronted with our first obstacle. We can't loosen the nut connecting the toilet supply line to the tank. I check Youtube and decide we don't have the correct tools. I run over to the local hardware store where I use my newfound toilet vocabulary with ease-throwing out terms like toilet supply line and channel lock pliers with reckless abandon. I imagine that everyone is awed at my plumbing skills. I come home and have to leave for work. I figure we will finish when I get home. I probably should've left for home when I spoke with Jim at lunch. Our conversation went as follows: Me-Hi, how's it going Jim-Hi, hi, hi, hi....the toilet's leaking-the baby's screaming but I've got to keep going, help *click* I pretended like this was a normal conversation and continued on with my day. I left a few messages throughout the day-but never got Jim on the phone again. (While I was at work, Jim was dealing with non standard parts on our toilet and at one point in time the toilet supply line broke and he was squirted in the face with streams of water. Think cartoon style, the reenactment is pretty good but I'd pay money to see the actual event I didn't hear back until that night. We were so close-Jim had everything set up-and just needed to remove the water valve majiggy-cause it didn't fit the new supply lines-and that's when the copper piping twisted and broke shooting water throughout the walls. Cost of the toilet? 188.00 Cost of the plumber to fix the broken pipe in the wall on a Friday night? 560.00

Whoever said that breastfeeding would melt the pounds off of you is full of crap.  Baby Cheddar and I are five months post delivery and I've lost a whopping .5 pounds-only 50 more pounds to go.  (Since I didn't weigh myself at the hospital-I sometimes like to pretend that I really weighed 230 pounds at delivery which at least gives me a respectful 25 pound weight loss.)

My initial plan was to go to the gym frequently post baby.  After all, I was off from work-what else was I going to be doing with my time?  Hahahahahahahaha.  To be so naive again.  The first few weeks at least were consumed by being a human vending/changing station.  Now that things have calmed down a bit-I've started venturing off to the gym.  I'm focusing on stress management-I seem to handle things better when I have a regular exercise program and have set a simple goal to get to the gym 4x/week.  (this usually gets me there 3x for at least thirty minutes.)   

I also set a goal for a mini-indoor triathalon-10 minutes in the pool, 30 minute bike and 20 minute run.  I was making good headway (if you call 1 minute runs for a total of six minutes progress) until I hit a couple of roadblocks.  First I lost my IPOD!!!!!!!  Without audio books I'm unable to force myself to run-and it's pretty difficult to read and run at the same time. Also my right foot is all messed up-with heel pain and some middle toe pain. Still, I plan to steal the husband's Ipod and continue training in the next few weeks.

Kids and my husband continue to have difficulty with my weight gain.  All of the kids I work with think I have a brother-or am pregnant again.  Jim has apparently forgotten that I gave birth or was ever slimmer.  (He does this innocently-he's always been a foot in the mouth kind of guy but still...)  His latest?  We were looking at an old photo from the Halloween before I got pregnant.  

I was Dora-Whora.  Jim was amazed looking at the photo-"OMG, when was this taken, like five years ago?"  He was shocked and disbelieving that I looked like that right before I got pregnant.  I put this in as my burning bed defense-you will all be my witnesses.

Anyhow, it's difficult for me-especially since I'd lost  a lot of weight before-I'm afraid that I won't be able to lose the pregnancy pounds-and am too busy to commit to the amount of time at the gym that I would need to seriously attack the pounds.  So I decided that it was time for me and dessert to part ways.

Dear Fat,

cc: desserts/chips/salami

Although it's been a pleasure to have your company over the last year and a half, I'm sorry to say that I will no longer be able to hang out with you.  Valentine's day will have to be our last meeting for awhile.  I'm sure that we will meet up again-at birthdays and parties-and I hope it won't be awkward.  I wish you all the best,

K

I made one New Year's Resolution on January 1rst.  Being a new mommy, I needed it to be easily attainable-so I chose the following:  I will only eat french fries if they are fresh, hot and crunchy.  I also gave myself two options upon encountering the soggy cold/room temperature fry-sending it back or throwing them out.  So far, I've thrown out two sets of fast food fries (I suppose I could've sent my husband back to Wendy's but I figured they'd still probably come back cold.)

During the rest of January I pondered what other goals I would like to set for myself.  I like the idea of trying things that are out of my comfort zone.  For instance last year, I took a course on teaching baby yoga-and are you sitting down for this one?  I sang karaoke stone cold sober-and about eight months pregnant.  Dead sexy, I know.  

I'm certain that being a new mother meets all of the qualifications of being outside my comfort zone.  I work with kids-but not babies after all.  I've been surprised by how quickly I've become comfortable with taking care of baby Cheddar.  It's amazing how perfectly babies are designed-as much as I think I should be cleaning the floor (oh hell-puttering around on facebook, really.) I peek over at a smily baby-and I'm entranced for the next half hour.

Still, I'm afraid of becoming just a mother-and afraid of not being enough of a mother.  Is there still time for me when I'm already working forty hours a week?  

So I decided to start scheduling once a month classes for myself.  I LOVE to learn and craft and create things.  So far I've signed up for a crushed glass painting, fine silver jewelry fusing and creating caged glass beads.  I took advantage of my continuing education money through work and learned new techniques to correct /r/ and lisping and will be taking a three day course on facilitating parent language groups.  All of these things still fall within my comfort level-so I decided to add on a physical challenge.  I took a suggestion from Beckyanna-and signed up for an indoor triathalon through Lifetime fitness at the end of March.  

It's not a full on triathalon-after all I practically just gave birth.  But it does include the swimming, biking and running portions.  And since it's time based-it will be done in one hour.  I'm excited and apprehensive at the same time.

What about you-what types of things do you try to push yourself?

It's always been a childhood dream of my husband-and probably a lot of other young cartoonists-to be published in Mad magazine.  Of course I'm biased-but I've always thought he would fit in perfectly.  (You can check out his work at: www.hungaskiillustration.com)  

In November, Jim was lucky enough to get to tour the Mad magazine office-and meet with the art director-Sam Viviano.  Such a nice guy-he took time on Thanksgiving eve to give us a tour of the office, reviewed Jim's portfolio and gave him a lot of constructive criticism.  

It's always been a childhood dream-but now it looks like it may never happen

The signs were there-instead of the original artwork by artists like: Mort Drucker and Herman Meija-there were baskets, and salt shakers attached to the wall.  He explained that they'd recently had an auction where they'd sold almost all of the original artwork they had.  These lunchroom staples were hanging up there while they waited for the reprints. He also talked about the difficulties in the print media business-noting that almost every magazine with the exception of fashion magazines and entertainment tabloids are struggling.  Yesterday, they announced that they will be changing from a monthly magazine to quarterly.  

www.newsarama.com/comics/010923-MAD-Quarterly.html

A couple of years ago, Disney let go of all of their traditional animators-they will be focusing on computer animation from now on.  Magazines and newspapers are in trouble.  Entertainment weekly continues to value artists who cannot get a likeness of their subject.  Cool devices like the Amazon kindle reduce the need for illustration as well.  They keep making machines that will draw your portrait or caricature for under 10.00.

*sigh*  The world is changing.  I'm just not sure that I always like the way it's going.

Sometimes I think it would just be easier if I was in charge of the world.  Do you ever think that?  Anyhow, I've come up with a way to fix the economy and thought I should share it with you.  I think I am qualified to do this because I took Economics as a zero hour class in high school.  Zero hour was for those nerds who wanted to take an EXTRA class their senior year.  (Just so you know the kind of nerd I was.)  

My economic stimulus plan was conceived by myself while watching television.  I've done no additional research nor have I considered what the actual cost of my plan would be.  In fact, I'm not entirely sure what-if any-economic stimulus plan has been proposed.  I think that maybe I heard a rebate of 6 or 7 hundred dollars going out to families-but I could've made that up.  

But if that were a proposed plan, it is ridiculous-even giving people one thousand dollars is unlikely to change the current economic condition. For instance-if your house is in foreclosure you're probably behind at least 6 months of mortage payments-so at least 6 grand-right?  That thousand isn't gonna do much to fix that.  

We've bailed out the banks who seem to remain incapable of changing policies in order to help out homeowners.  I'm sure it's due to some bizarre law that forbids banks from changing interest rates or from doing anything that would help anyone out ever.  It seems like common sense-give homeowners a lower fixed rate-get paid.  Keep the adjustable rate-get a house you can't sell.  And while I know we all like to feel sorry for the banks-I figured out that we will be paying our bank an EXTRA 200 Grand just for our little abode over the next 30 years.

At any rate, helping out the banks or auto industry doesn't change the fact that consumer's aren't going to start spending more money right now.   Especially since all of corporate America seems convinced that they will help the economy by laying off all of America.

So I've decided that I'd like my own personal bailout.  And I figure we should just include all of America in this bailout.  I propose that we just give families 40,000.  This would allow most Americans to get out of debt-or significantly reduce their debt and probably leave enough room for them to buy a car. And how about tax incentives for the average American-like no sales tax on goods made in the USA?  Brilliant, right?  Or maybe I just want 40,000.00.

How would you save the economy?