Toot toot!

Yes, that is the sound of me. Tooting my own horn. Not something I find attractive about myself, but I'm feeling indulgent.

I just finished my novel and won NaNoWriMo! Woo hoo! As of about 10 minutes ago, I finished the innocuous novel that I started on November 1st.

Final word count: 50,232.

As soon as I told Harry that I was about to submit my final word count, he jumped up and grabbed my phone to record the moment.



I didn't even know what to call this story, it's kind of scattered and doesn't even really do much of anything. But I wrote it, and it's really long, and the cramp in my left hand is sufficient proof.

And with that said, good night.

Sweet, sweet justice.

I'm not a proponent of revenge. But, like Alicia Keys and Justin Timberlake both so eloquently say, "What goes around comes around...."

This is not a love note.

Dear brainless Berkley students who woke us up by driving into our parking lot and playing your fight song with extremely loud trumpets four different times between the hours of 2 am and 4 am two nights ago:

Look, we all get it. College rivalries are great. We are playing you in football on Saturday, and for some reason your pea sized intellects have deduced that this warrants you driving all the way across the bay to ruin the sleep of hundreds of graduate students, their spouses, and their children multiple times in the middle of a school/work week with your 8th grade trumpets.

Congratulations, we all know you play the trumpet, and that you can drive quickly in and out of our parking lot. You’ve come a long way, I’m sure.

However, if you had paused and thought it out (a process of which I am seriously doubting your capability), you would have realized that you decided to used your trumpets in GRADUATE HOUSING. Which means, of all the students on campus that you chose to rudely awaken over and over in the middle of the night, ABOUT HALF OF THESE PEOPLE WENT TO BERKLEY FOR UNDERGRAD. Next time, I recommend you read a campus map. The numbers and letters all come together to point you in a crystal clear direction to the undergrad housing, where the little 18 year-olds are no doubt still up until 4:00 am, and would be delighted to kick your sorry behinds.

In the meantime, I hope you’ve been caught by campus police, that you’ve been fined, that your punishment also consists of cleaning my bathroom with your toothbrush, and that next time you’ll actually, you know… read a map.

Your truly,

Disgruntled sleepless cranky face girl

PS I hope we beat you on Saturday.

This is what happens when I surf the internet/start writing a post with zero direction.

I waste inordinate amounts of time, but happen upon some really funky fresh stuff.



Also, can I just say something really irrelevant? Of course I can, it's my blog, sucka.

I'm participating in NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month. My sister in law (who herself is the sum of all awesomeness) told me about it a year ago. You sign up and in the month of November, write a novel. It could be the lousiest thing ever written, but if it's 50,000+ words and you submit it before midnight on Nov. 30, you win. Or rather, everyone who does so wins. We all win. Win win win. Win.

The story would be a complete snooze and a joke to all who read it-- it's totally quantity over quality. But I have gotten to the point where this inane story is sort of starting to write itself. And this pleases my wee brain.

As I write this, Harry is making a "best of" Beatles mix and I'm hearing clips of songs of my childhood. Life is nice.

Bang!

I went back to the hairdresser the day after I had these cut to have them fixed (as in, tweaked, not as in neutered), and now I love them.

(This picture was taken as we drove to San Francisco to see Imagine Dragons. More on that soon...)

It did still take me about 48 hours to feel like I was looking at myself in the mirror.

More work for upkeep? Yes.
Scratched my itchy need to change my appearance? Yes.
Do I still jerk my head to get the hair off my forehead and then realize… it’s not going anywhere? Yes.

Mission: accomplished

Because my spouse is the best of all the spouses in the land

I got a hair cut yesterday. It was one of those risky ones where you have a vision and it’s been a long time coming and you’ve saved your pennies and the hair appointment is scheduled with a highly recommended hair dresser weeks in advance. So I went and an hour later, I left, feeling a little sad. It didn’t work out.

I think we’ve all been there—when you pay good money for a haircut that makes you feel like you belong in the 90’s on a “Friends” episode. It’s as if someone has punched you in the stomach. And you paid them for it.

I came home with spirits that were a bit deflated.

And let it be known that Hal works really hard. I’m not the only one who works all day long around here. And he listened to me as I hemmed and hawed, and eventually let all my worries snowball into worrying about my hair, my day, our crazy schedule, the lack of sleep I get, how I wish I could just have one day where I don’t have to do anything. And he was perfect. He just sat there and listened, filled in my pauses with words of both encouragement and sympathy, and then took me out to dinner. And then gave me free reign to pick what to watch on TV.

I know every wife says this, and in our own way we’re all right, but seriously. My spouse is the man.

(Sidenote: Pictures of the haircut are forthcoming. After my mini-episode, I called the salon, and they said they could easily fix my bang woes for free. Bam.)

So today I had an undeniable hankering to make him something really tasty for dinner. And I wanted it to be something manly and masculine and out of the ordinary. Because he’s the best. Is this post rapidly crossing a line marked “nobody cares but Sarah?” Then stop reading, foo, because I’m not done.

I love this site. I’ve used it many times. The recipes are all scrumptious. If I wanted to pull a “Julie and Julia” and make every recipe from one source over the course of a year, I would be tempted to use this site. Chock full of creative culinary ideas.

I stumbled upon the recipe for Steak Sandwiches a while ago and needed a good reason to cook a real steak (for the first time in my life). And today was that day.

(Sidenote: It's not like I never cook real food for Harry. But bear in mind, all ye who possess counter space and dishwashers-- cooking is an entirely different experience at my house. I'll think of a great recipe, start to crave it, and then say, "Oh wait. That's going to require like 4 bowls and like 3 pans and who knows how many spoons." And then the recipe is nixed in the name of grilled cheese sandwiches. All ye who have dishwashers: I'm jealous of you.)

Behold. It’s like I borrowed a swatch of Lady Gaga’s meat dress.







If anyone is interested in the recipe, it’s here.

PS If any further proof is needed to show that that my spouse is the man... he's doing all the dishes (by hand, mind you) as I type these very words.