Last spring my husband linked me to kellymoorebag.com, where I fell head over heels for the orange sherbet posey bag. I had to have it… it’s a camera bag, but it’s like a purse too, and it could double as a book bag for school. So last April I ordered it as an early birthday gift to myself. I’m totally smitten with this purse. Lately though, the strap kept unhooking itself regularly. And then last week in the middle of a store, it broke. The connector fell apart, I found most but not all of the pieces… it was a disaster. I was so disappointed. This is the only expensive purse I’ve ever bought. I was starting to think maybe it wasn’t worth it…

Then I checked out the website and it turns out her bags come with a year warranty. Awesome! You just have to send them a picture of the damage so they can assess it. Within minutes I had emails going back and forth about the damage and my warranty. They offered to send me a new strap. It was in the mail in a couple of days, and arrived at my home two days after that. Very fast, and now my awesome purse is restored to its former glory.

I’m SO impressed with how helpful and fast and prompt the Kelly Moore customer service team is. This is a fantastic company. I will definitely buy from them again in the future.

* They didn’t pay me or ask me to say these things.

Image credit: kellymoorebag.com

Today I feel like I could just keep going forever.

This morning I had my last class of the semester. My A in Personality Theories is so high that if there was a letter grade above A, I’d have it. I left school in the light, misty rain, with an urge to go run more. Running in the rain has really never been my thing, but I’ve been making myself get up and do it the past couple of mornings. And it was so light, what’s a few sprinkles?

Naturally, I got home and the rain picked up. Out of curiosity, I snagged my rain jacket that I’d given to my daughter to wear and tried it on. It shouldn’t fit me yet, but somehow it does. And the rain lightened up again. So off I went to the park. I kept a slow, comfortable pace and just kept going. I felt like I could keep going like that forever. I’m hoping this is the beginning of a return to more miles. I’ve been wanting this for awhile, but not found the time or the will to make it happen.

Everything just felt right. My breathing was natural instead of being something I needed to think about. The music was making me happy. I wasn’t tired at all until a little into the 3rd mile. After that, I felt the blister coming. And then the rain picked up. I made it home, 3.1 miles in 37 minutes.

I’d like to work on my 5k time and improve it by spring. But I have no complaints about a steady, comfortable run that I enjoyed. If the rain held back and the blister didn’t happen, I’m not sure I’d have stopped running anytime soon. I like that.

How do you feel about running in the rain? 

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about holiday food. I’m on a serious diet, so thinking about it isn’t necessarily a good thing (it makes me hungry), but it’s almost time to get ready for it.

Most years I make my mom’s lasagna. Homemade sauce with meatballs and sausage, assembled with lots of ricotta and mozzarella… you get the idea. It’s wonderful. If you’ve ever actually made a lasagna, you also know what an unbelievable pain it can be. So this year, I think I’m going to spend a day making my sauce, but serve it up as manicotti instead. Much smaller production, and if you stuff them like a lasagna, it tastes just like lasagna. And there’s less leftovers, so you can get back on track with eating healthy faster. I’m also considering that maybe, if I’m going to be eating badly for a couple days, it might be worth it to throw in some homemade pizza. Because I won’t be eating that for awhile either.

As far as holiday baking goes, my husband is making cinnamon rolls (and they are AMAZING) to bring to Christmas brunch. I have no other yummy baked goods planned. I loved doing the cake balls last year, and would love to try something new and yummy, too. But I’m on a diet. And I sample when I bake things. And my hand mixer was murdered by bread dough. And I hate to shell out another 10 bucks for a cheap piece o crap hand mixer that will die an untimely death due to bread dough, cookie dough, or some other baked good that’s tougher than a crappy appliance. I need to get a decent one. But I’d rather spend my money on the kids.

So, I’m not sure what I’ll be baking this Christmas, if anything.

Any suggestions? What are you making? What traditional foods can you not live without during the holidays?

My father passed away 2 weeks ago, and I spent this past long weekend with airplanes and funerals.

I’m so happy to be home. And nothing is ever going to be the same again.

I’m a firm believer in the people who have told me it doesn’t ever get any easier. Time doesn’t heal this, you just keep living.

So I guess I’ll just keep living.

Last night I took my daughter to the Jack’s Mannequin concert. It was her first concert ever! It was really fantastic and she had a great time. Once Jack’s was actually on stage. Three opening acts made for a very long night for a 10 year old standing up in a crowd of people on a wood floor.

Some stuff I learned last night:

Andrew McMahon and I have a similar eye for photos. Here’s his shot of Oklahoma the day of the show.
http://instagr.am/p/HuSBH/

And here’s one of my many shots from earlier in the week.

I could try to make something more out of this but I’m pretty sure it’s just that I’m not the only person taken with our ever changing beautiful clouds in our amazing open sky here.

Next thing I learned: I’m the only person in the world whose cell phone doesn’t have a zoom lens on its camera. What the hell Samsung? My phone was cooler than yours when it came out, for about 5 seconds til I realized the GPS was never going to work right. And now I have serious camera envy. And my real canon camera (not my huge really good one, my stash in a pocket it’s so small camera) also took crap for pictures when zoomed in… Here for example is my best shot of the night, which is still pretty much crap.

Someday when I have the money for a new phone, I’m getting the one with the best camera, and the best GPS. I don’t even care if it dials out so long as those parts of it work…

Another big thing I learned is that it’s a bigger deal to have the experience than the photographic memories. There were these dudes (yes, dudes… I said on the way home that I really thought most Jack’s fans were short girls that think Andrew is cute, not tall dudes) that pretty much recorded the entire show in pictures, videos and audio. Not only could it not possibly have been the same to look at the entire show through a cell phone, but my daughter and I didn’t appreciate our view being blocked by not only their big heads, but their arms holding phones. Step outside your recording devices and live, people! You missed a really good show and it won’t look or feel the same on your tiny cell phone screen later.

I was going to insert a cool video from the show here… yeah, I did take a couple… but youtube won’t let me upload it for some reason. Guess that’s what I get for talking smack.

The last and probably biggest thing I learned last night is that I’m getting really old. It didn’t matter to me if I had something cute to wear to the show. I spent more of the night monitoring the crowd and making sure my daughter was ok because I’m somebody’s MOM for goodness sake! And I swear people who knew me then would NEVER believe this part… I went home without trying to meet Andrew McMahon because I was tired and our feet hurt and it was pretty late for a 10 year old to be hanging out in the parking lot of some dive concert hall waiting for rock stars. Next time however, I will wait. I came to my senses after I got home. It was such a small place, we’d have probably had no issue meeting the band.

So we’ll just keep waiting by a palm tree until they come back. Maybe I’ll even have a new phone with a good camera by then.

We spent a good deal of time in the hall closet last night while a tornado walked over our house. The locations they were listing on the news which we could hear from the closet were terrifyingly close to us. I guess we have to have one ridiculous storm a year where a tornado decides to lift up at just the right moment and walk over while we decide it’s maybe the end of us, or at least of our house and our stuff. And because this happens at least once a year, I just got my yearly reminder that my hall closet is a disaster!

Really it is. It’s packed full of clothes that don’t fit right. Clothes that will probably fit right when all is said and done, but in the meantime are a serious pain to remove from the closet in time for the tornado sirens to go off. I need to get fit, and get that closet emptied!

And I’ve been working on that. This week I lost 3 lbs, bringing me to a total of 11 lbs in 2 weeks. If I can keep this up, I’ll have that closet in shape in no time.

Awards at school today. Here’s the list.

highest average in science
highest average in spelling
highest average in reading
reading 2 levels above grade level
100+ point AR trophy
straight A’s
character award for wisdom

It’s been one crazy week. This morning I wrote my final english paper in class, and handed in my history take home exam. And watched my jackass history teacher write a big F on the front cover, and add it to the pile of others which also all had a big F on them. What?! I think he must have been getting a kick out of the look on our faces as he did this. He then told me F stands for Final. Oh, ok, right. Then he opened his grade book and told me congratulations and that I did a good job, and had one of only 2 A’s in the class. I’ll believe that when I see it posted in my grades next week. I had to work 10 times harder than I should have for that A. There’s also some sick irony in the fact that it was nearly impossible to get anyone to buy back my stupid history book, in the end only getting 5 bucks back for it. At least it’s out of my house now.

So what did I learn in my first semester back at college? My english teacher Dr. Sweets (Yes, this is a reference to the show Bones) made me remember how much I really do like writing. This was my favorite class despite the insane elementary school style group work that never ceased. The good news is, I made some friends in those groups that I’ll likely say hey to when I see them. And Dr. Sweets turned out to be a pretty inspiring guy for a comic book geek. All I learned from my jackass history teacher (yeah, I give everyone nicknames, EVERYONE!) is that if I ever encounter anyone like him again, I will drop the class immediately. I’m not afraid of hard work, but I do have better things to do. From my Soc teacher (Ok, I guess I never found this guy a nickname) I learned that sociology can be ridiculously depressing, and is not really my thing. Good class, interesting class, but I’m a psych major and I just don’t think that way. I will likely pass on any more soc classes in the future. From my Math teacher BFF I learned that I can be good at math even while still hating it. I’ll see her again when I get to algebra in a couple semesters. I won’t miss the snotty girls that hated me. But I will miss my 2 math BFF’s who I will definitely be bugging this summer.

It’s been a real experience, and I can’t wait for more. I have 3 weeks off until my online summer class starts. The break will be nice. My head is overloaded with information that I’m not sure where to store yet. And there are things I want to do and read that I just haven’t had time for. And at the same time, I really can’t wait until my class starts.