A Year in Numbers

Total exercise minutes recorded: 12, 253. Most minutes exercise in one week: 520. Most minutes in a month (May): 1, 830. Yoga classes taught this year (for pay): 88. Weeks I've had my piercing: 17.5. Weeks since Ross was laid off: 9. Weight at the start of the year: 154. Weight this am: 144. Inches lost off of my waist this year: 2.125. Amount of money we've spent this year on the wii: $217 (ouch!). Trips I took this year: 4 (Arizona, San Francisco, Las Vegas, El Paso). Computer deaths this year: 2 (the laptop was under warranty, the desktop just died). Number of posts to my blog this year (including this one): 184. Miles on the Saturn: 140,685. Miles on the Subaru: 57,461. Number of pairs of free VS underwear I have gotten (just in the last couple of months): 7. Number of jobs I have: 3. Number of cakes I baked this year: ?. Number of pounds of butter I've used this year: at least 25. Number of times I had my hair cut: 3. Pairs of new shoes I bought this year: 3? Completed knitting projects: 0. Can't think of much else....

You Dropped a Bomb on Me, Baby...

I saw the woman whose name shall not be mentioned making bath bombs on her show a long time ago. I was flipping channels--that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Since then I have always wanted to try making them. A few months ago I found a couple bath bomb recipes online and bought all the ingredients. The ingredients then sat in a box untouched for at least two months.
Sunday night (possibly inspired by my visit to Lush) I decided to go ahead and try to make the bombs. I ended up making two batches. The first one was lavender scented (and possibly tea tree, oops, I might have used the wrong essential oil). The second batch was black chamomile--my mom bought me the oil at B&BW on Black Friday.
The ingredients are relatively inexpensive, and the mixture is easy enough to make. The hard part is getting the balls out of the molds. I enlisted Ross's help and he was a lot better at it than I was. He was able to make perfect little globes. I'm going to make some more soon. I need to find a better source for the citric acid. It was kind of expensive at the store where I bought it.

Bath Bombs

1 c baking soda
1/2 c citric acid
1/3 c epsom salts
1/3 c cornstarch
1/2 tsp Borax
1 Tbl. oil
essential oil
water
glycerin
spray bottle
globe molds

Mix all dry ingredients together. You might want to grind up the epsom salts and citric acid if they are in large crystals (luckily mine were fine crystals).
Add oil and essential oil. For the first batch I used a lavender scented oil. In the second batch I just used plain old veggie oil, but the recipes suggest almond oil. Mix thoroughly.
I put about a half and half mixture of water and glycerin into a small spray bottle. I shook it up, then I sprayed the mixture a few times to moisten it. Caution: too much glycerin can start the fizzing reaction. You might not see the reaction, but when the bombs are used they will be duds and not fizz.
Mold the mixture (which will be powdery/crumbly) with the globe molds. Ross said the trick was to way overfill the mold so that the edges of the mold never touched when he squeezed really hard to pack the mixture together. He let the mold sit for a minute or two then tapped on the mold to help release it. Careful--the globes like to break in half. Gently lift off one half of the mold, then the other--no twisty!

Pose of the Week: Side Crow

Is this the pose you were thinking of Valerie? I have long legs, so the head of my (left) femur is on my left elbow and my knee is on my right elbow. I did manage to do it once without resting my hip on my elbow, but I think instead I had my elbow jammed into my ribs. I need to practice this one (and so many others.)

Presents

I received more than 2 presents this Hanukkah. Ross bought me season three of the Venture Brothers. I'm really excited about watching that. Ross also bought me a calculator. Long story there, but I'm happy to have it. I got a new cozy robe from Ross's mom. Tejal gave me a tea chest with a few tins of tea and a very nice tea strainer in it. Right now we are trying out the wii game that Ross got me--Okami. We have it for the PS2 and I love it, so he bought it for the wii. I also bought myself a couple of things. Let's see--that red velvet jacket, soap from Lush, and a new naked man calendar. Out shopping yesterday Ross bought me a really comfy hoodie and some thigh high socks. I really like the socks. They keep me warm and he thinks they are sexy. I've gotten so much stuff in the last 8 days I'm sure I forgot something.
I'm trying to think of a pose to post tomorrow. I don't think it will be nearly as exciting as last week's.

Breaking My Rules and Doing My Part

I avoid the mall in December. It is one of my rules. I broke it yesterday to see if I could find a good deal somewhere on long sleeved T-shirts. I realized that I don't really have any long sleeve T-shirts. I have plenty of long sleeved shirts, but I can't see myself wearing my Ann Taylor button downs to the gym on cold days. So I did my part to stimulate the economy by going shopping. I did buy 2 long sleeved shirts for myself, a couple of shirts for Ross, and red velvet jacket that I didn't really need.
So there, I helped the economy by buying something I didn't really need. I joined in with the "holiday spirit."
Yesterday I read an article that said that 30-50% of retail sales occur during the holiday season. Ha! Our economy is strongly based on people going out and buying each other useless, unnecessary crap during the last 7 weeks of the year. Yep, I was moved by the spirit of shopping to buy even more junk at the galleria. But how could I resist buy-one-get-two-free deals at Lush?
My husband is unemployed and I barely make enough to buy groceries, but yesterday I was doing my part to stimulate our crap-based economy. I'm a little disgusted with myself.

Best Gift Ever!

Tejal bought us gifts. She's such a sweetheart. She got Ross the best gift ever. We were standing in the kitchen and Tejal handed Ross a Gamestop bag. He peeled back the bag a little and saw that it was a wii game. Cool. Ross started to feel bad, issuing lots of "aaaaw"s and "Tejal you're too nice to us." He started to pull out the game and saw the words "All Star." Ross thought it might be a karaoke game. Okay....But then he saw the "Cheer Squad" part of the title. Thoughts like "Oh, shit, what did she do?" and "Oh God, I hope she doesn't want me to open this and play it right now." started to shoot through Ross's head. Of course he was thinking "Maybe I can return this."
Tejal had a big grin on her face. Ross stood there for a few seconds just staring at the game. Tejal handed him the gift receipt and said "The look on your face was a lot more fun than just buying you a gift card!" We all busted out laughing. Tejal is so cool. She regaled us with the story of her buying the game and making triple sure they were going to give her a gift receipt. We had lots of good laughs on Wednesday night. At one point we were laughing so hard Tejal shot water out of her nose!
Ross now has to go through the embarrassment of returning the game.

Holiday Card

So, I'm too lazy to buy/order/send out holiday cards. I decided this year to try and do a holiday E-card. Easy, right? I searched for a long time for a customizable e-card. I finally found smilebox, which allows you to upload your picture(s) to the card and send it for free. When I opened the program I noticed that it automatically imported the last two things I had scanned and some random photos of the space shuttle. After I chose a design the program put the space shuttle photo in. I deleted the photo. The space went blank and it said drag and drop photos into space. Okay. Seemed easy enough. We took a family photo and I put it in the card. I gathered a bunch of emails and sent it out. Woohoo. For some reason not everybody got the card. Whatever. When chatting with Dishi last night I asked her if she'd gotten the card. She said yes, with the photo of the shuttle and my CPR card and stuff. What?! Yep, I sent out a card with a family photo, random photos of the shuttle, scans of my CPR card and YogaFit certificate. Damn! I feel like a total idiot. I previewed the card. Yes I did, but I didn't press play for the photos because I thought I had only put one photo in the card. I did only put one photo in the card. The program just loaded the other photos in for me. Whack. I still feel dumb. So if you received my holiday E-card and actually went through the animation and pressed play...sorry. Have a good laugh. I didn't mean to send those photos. I suppose I should feel good that there weren't any BAD photos in there. Oh well, I tried.