Mmmm, Betsy Bread

My Dad's friend Betsy makes a sourdough bread. It's fine as bread, but we all agree that it's real forte is as toast.

Dad came over last night bearing two loaves of Betsy bread, and I got one! So today's breakfast is Betsy Bread Toast, fresh fruit and coffee.

Yum!

Peter, you're a whale.

And Grace, you're evil.

No, I'm not angry at my children! And, no, I haven't become a nasty vindictive mother who hurls insults at her kids in a vain attampt to boost her own ego and deny her own insecurities.

Nope, it's just church choir musical time.

This year's musical was "Oh, Jonah"; it's (duh) the story of Jonah and the Whale. Peter was the whale; he mainly had to do a boogie-swimmy-ish sort of dance, and did sing a bit (solo, he sang a lot in the choir). Peter memorizes well, and enjoys choir, but he is not, generally speaking, a child that covets the spotlight, so it was interesting to see him! He did quite well, though, and got some laughs.

Grace had a speaking line at the beginning of the musical, but really came into her own when the choir became evil Ninevites -- let's just say my girl tapped into her inner bad-guy. She looked EVIL. E-V-I-L Evil. Good stuff.

It was a fun morning -- we went for brunch at the Waffle Shoppe after!

ACK! GAG!!

Or, gross things in the morning.

So I got up this morning, and in my bleary way headed to the bathroom to take a shower. Washed my face, put in my contacts, peed...

and felt something tickling the back of my throat. It felt like a hair, but I couldn't get it to move.

So I hacked. And coughed. And hacked some more, and periodically would move it enough that it would REALLY tickle the back of my throat and I'd gag, and then hack some more, and basically did a really good Bill the Cat impersonation for about 2 minutes.

Until, finally, I was able to pull out a hair (yes, it was grey. Hush).

And then I realized, it was like my own little human hairball! Except, of course, I don't groom myself with my tongue, and, yeah, just one hair, not a matted phlegm covered mass of them.

But I'm a little more sympathetic to The Boys now!

In case you wondered

My son ROCKS at the sports trivia quizes on Facebook.

80's music, though, not so much.

And when it comes to NASCAR math the three words that describe us are as follows, and I quote:

"STINK. STANK. STUNK!"

Woah, TWENTY YEARS??????

So, I was driving down Franklin Street last night, taking my kids to choir, and I passed a guy, roughly my age, standing on the corner talking to a few other people. He looked vaguely familiar, but couldn't quite place him.

He was wearing a sport coat, which is a little odd -- the dress code on Franklin Street, particularly on a warm spring evening, tends to lean towards the casual. But, whatever.

I finally decided he was someone I'd been to college with, and vaguely wondered why he was there, but didn't really think about it.

Today, Kathy and Dad went to a program put on by UNC called the Living Legends lunch; at Carolina you become a Living Legend on your 50th college reunion. The Living Legends lunch is held each year on graduation/reunion weekend (yes, Carolina, for some bizarre reason, thinks its a good idea to bring even MORE people into Chapel Hill this weekend!).

And, yes, this is graduation/reunion weekend.

Graduation/REUNION weekend. In 2009. When my preferred year (don't ask) is 1989.

Holy Smokes, this is my 20th college reunion! Course, I'm missing it, but still.

TWENTY YEARS! Damn. Now I feel old....

I'm BA-ACK!!!!

So, a whole month (essentially) since I've blogged.

Why, you ask? Well, OK, so you didn't (well, Trina did, and David commented), but I'll tell you anyway!

A lot of reasons, really. Partially just crazy busy life, which was cutting down on time in front of a computer when I didn't need to be doing other things.

Partially a lot of stress in my life lately, which affects my mood. And while blogging can be good for one's soul, to a point, I have a hard time blogging when I'm upset. When I'm very upset, I tend to dwell on things, perhaps even obsess (resounding chorus of, "Nah, ya THINK?!?!" from the peanut gallery). And, quite frankly, I tend to NOT blog, because I don't want to blog about the things that are upsetting me.

But I am in a much better mood of late, which is, in and of itself, a little disturbing. While yes, there's been much in my life lately causing me stress and angst, I was noticing that I was not reacting to it as I felt I should. It wasn't that I was having inappropriate reactions (i.e. no tears when Grace brought home a great report card), but it was as if my reactions were a bit extreme. Or, a better analogy: if I'd been a thermostat, a .05 degree difference in temperature would cause me to kick in and try to heat the world. And, yes, that in and of itself was very disturbing, and scary.

And then I read an article that said that in some people, for some reason, statins can affect moods. And I've been on Lipitor since November.

So, I went to my doctor. I told her all the things going on in my life. I told her what I was doing, behaviorially, to deal with them. We talked about the anecdotal evidence that Lipitor can affect mood (cause it is mainly anecdotal), and we talked about the very, very small body of empirical evidence showing similar correlations (and, yes, I know that correlation is NOT the same as causation).

And, in the end, we decided it couldn't hurt to do a little experiment, and take me off Lipitor for a bit, just to see what'll happen.

And my mood has improved. Now, granted, I'm also still working on the stressors in my life, so it may not be the lack o' Lipitor.

But part of me doesn't care -- it doesn't really matter WHY I feel better, but I do.

So, I'm back, baby!