Training, internet issues, and SuperSaiyan hair

Note, my internet is not reliable. With gas being STUPID per gallon I'm going to forgo driving the 15 miles to the library for 10 minutes of web time (yeah they suck). But when I'm at Daddio's we have wifi! Posting will me chaotic at best.

Okay so maybe I just totally gave away my exact age in the title, maybe not (probably just let the interwebs know how big of a dork/nerd I am). I lived to watch Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon on Saturday mornings, along with Gargoyals and Zeta project, and don't get me started on Batman Beyond.

Anyways none of that is the point. Point is my hair is YELLOW due to my husband asking me ever so sweetly to try and dye my hair blonde (with the promise that afterwards I could streak it with any color I so desired, purple and blue!). And I've been using the Super Saiyan joke/line to keep from breaking down and crying every time I pass a reflective surface.

What is this training I mentioned? Oh, well, it's marathon/strength training for Warrior Dash. I'm so stoked. I hate running with a passion, but throw in some obstacles, a finish line made of FIRE, a fuzzy viking hat, and a free pint of beer at the end and it's my new favorite thing. My husband, being the super special awesome military man, is in charge of our training regimen. But he let me pick out the order.
Distance run + strength training, fun cardio, easy sprints + strength training, sucky sprints, day of rest.
Today I did my 1/2 mile sprint in a little over 4 minutes. Before you laugh at me, I'd like to point out that there are LOTS of hills here. Yay mountain terrain. Since I thought that was pretty good I rewarded myself with a rootbeer float. Because there's nothing like negating your progress when doing something you hate. lol
Jex makes me feel like a fatty. He runs the same pace I do with a freaking 20lb backpack. Stupid in shape husband made of lean muscles and stuff. (^_^)

the 80's are out there

Ok, so for most of you the 80's don't seem like that long ago. Heck, even I feel like they've only just ended, and I didn't even really grow up in them (early 90's foo).
But they are definitely over, and certain aspects of the 80's have the ability to make me bust a gut every time,.

So when my father-in-law (who will henceforth be known as Dadio)found an old 80's work out shirt and tried to convince us that it belonged to Jex I thought I was going to die. Dadio has a handle bar mustache and slicked back thinning hair; imagining him in the little cut off gray T was bad enough. But when Jex slid it over his aerodynamically muscled body and started doing Napoleon dynamite moves I couldn't take it. The fit of giggles was too much and literally rolled me straight off the bed.
The father and son banter was just a cherry on the cake.

Dadio: Man, you're so gay.
Jex: This is your shirt, that makes you gay.
Dadio: The 80's were gay! And it's your shirt, turd.
Jex: Admit it this shirt is yours.
Dadio: Nah, it must be one of Witchy's.
Jex: *Napoleon Dynamite Dance as his dad stands behind him and pretends his eyes are melting*

Yup... I love my in-laws

A Walk in the Woods

Well, if you read about the Mountain Bike adventure you'll know that when Jex, my knight in dinted armor, asked if I wanted to go on a bike ride the other day I said 'no.' in the sweetest way possible.
By asking to go on a walk instead.
There's a little piece of land about a quarter mile from my brother-in-law's that's Beautiful. If I can ever remember to bring my camera I'll post some pictures. It's my favorite place in all of Ellijay. So, when Jex said his usual "I'm following you." I lead him there.
We threw rocks from the top of the hill into the river through the trees. Then Jex found a perfect skipping stone. He was going to try to skip it across the river from the top of the hill. I suggested that we go down to the edge of the river instead. The hill at the end of the pseudo-driveway is very steep, covered in leaves, saplings, and blue white stone. When Jex spotted a 'trail' he decided to go follow. Turns out it was an erosion trail that dumped off a sheer 4 foot drop into the river.
Hmmm.
Jex looks up at me, and with the child-like grin that makes me fall in love with him again every time, he said simply: "Your turn, trailblazer."
Okay then. I took my perfect walking stick and went back up the hill a ways and found what looked like a good path from above, but turned out not to be so great in actuality. I promptly slid on the leaves that covered a rock and nearly into a tree. But now I was on a real path and we got to the river. There Jex skipped rocks I didn't know could be skipped and all was good.
On the way back up the hill, this time up a real path, I stepped on something under the leaves that snaked up and hit me in the butt. It felt too large to be just a stick. Turning around I saw a cleanly picked dear spine with broken ribs and a pelvis fused to it. I just had my butt smacked by a skeleton butt. Weird. Wait, there was another one... but no leg bones or head or anything like that.
It's about here I should mention that I never really grew out of my imagination as I grew up. Really, I'm not crazy.
All I can think of at this point is Werewolves. So, when Jex teasingly asks if I want to race up the hill I beat him to the top. Even with the fear that there's some large predator big enough to eat deer heads I still loved walking all the way back up to the road. There's something really great and soothing about the smell of fresh earth coming from your clothes from where you're covered in dirt.

Spring Time fun

It's spring time in the Appalachian range in North Georgia. Birds singing at 9 pm, wasps making multiple nests in Jex's grill, pot holes full of rain from the last random spring storm that swept through night before last.

It's also about this time my husband and I get stupid ideas. I may not look it, but I'm really really out of shape. When I was in middle school I was tiny, so I vowed to be stronger than everyone. At that time I could do something like 50 chin ups and could bench press close to 90lbs (impressive when you take into account I only weighed about 75 or 80). In high school I played softball, did 20 REAL push ups every night, and ran at least 3 miles a day. Even when I lived in Japan I'd ride my bike something like 5 miles a day, and college 7 mile walks once a week and 20 minute jogs every other day.
Now; I feel good if I can walk just one mile and do 10 girly push ups. So you'd think when my husband asks me if I want to bike ride around his mom's place I'd say 'no'. But it's so nice outside.

Most of you are probably thinking: "what's the big deal?" It's not the ride that's the problem, it's the terrain. My mother-in-law and step-father-in-law live on a Mountain. Yeah.
The bike ride started out awesome, because I love speed (there's nothing like flying down the steepest hill ever and shooting through a covered bridge at 45 miles an hour without an engine). Getting back to the house was the problem. My bike is only a little 6 speed, foldable, bike that I got in Japan specifically for getting around at college in Oklahoma. It has 12 inch tires. Even on the lowest gear possible I was going up the hill slower than I could have walked up the hill.
However this is not the first time I've fought up the steep incline. Last year when my husband wanted be to train with him for some of the more secret parts of his job I jogged up the hill (and my jogged I mean more like limped).
All the memories flooded back as my body was leaning over the handle bars in a vain effort to pedal faster. I only made it a fourth of the way up the hill before I gave in to common sense and walked my bike to the top.

When we FINALLY made it back home my husband was awesome. Before bed we both got leg massages and Jex got a hand massage (because unlike me he isn't comfortable going 45 mph without better breaks than the two rubber erasers on his back tire). Thanks to my loving hubby I can mostly walk today. Mostly. (^_^)

*sigh*

I'll be in South Carolina this weekend. Yay?
My husband doesn't believe me, but that place smells like ham. I think there's a Smithfield Ham processing plant near the base or something.
Hopefully we'll figure out when Jex can finish his training. Maybe I can finish my schooling(finally!) at the same time. If everything goes well I'll be able to get a good job while Jex goes to college while working his Reserve thing. (I'm still poking at him to go back active duty, civilian life doesn't make sense to me.)

Recently I've been chilling out, knee deep, in the Nerd Kingdom. Wizards of the Coast literally rules all conversation between my brother-in-law and Jex. More than half of Jex-Rem conversations are about Magic the Gathering and picking out feats for our D&D characters the next time we level up. It's not a bad thing, really, I have a few ideas from our last game session that'll be really fun to draw.
But I miss intelligent conversations about language structure and evolution that I used to have with my college mates. I miss the exchange students and the flavor they added to life. If I could have a day of conversation that didn't start with a D&D class, a video game title, or a particular Magic card I will be happy. Really, really, happy.

Yay! and not so yay.

We get paid!
I'm happy the government worked itself out. This is probably why I stayed away from politics for so long, it's full of drama and I get really worked up.




---- The happy ends here---------------------------------------

And so today I've tried to read about the Fair Tax stuff. *sigh* Why does everything about government have to be so conniving?
Actually, why does everything about everything have to be that way?
Sales' Man: This is the best product ever! (actually it's a piece of crap that will cause you grief and isn't worth the money you pay for it, but hey I've got bills to pay so my Honor and Pride are going to have to take a back seat)
*sigh*
My Utopia has a Dystopia (I have no idea how to spell that word) I'm sure. But at least in the world I'd love to live in the majority of people have the kind of Self Worth that kept them from putting their name to anything of poor quality. My grandfather taught me to never do anything I wouldn't want to put my name on. Dad taught me the worth of a Good Name. If I do anything I want to do it right.

So, I'm going to provide a link to the Fair Tax bill and the places that are of special interest. Since I thought I knew what I was talking about based on the information that I'd gained prior to my last post. Honestly in this day and age it's hard to tell who's speaking truth and who's running off of bias/emotion/self interest. I hope that I can be a voice of truth, to the best of my human ability.

Fair Tax Bill Sections of interest are Section 2, part 7: Section 103: and Section 703 parts a-c.

Seeker posted a link to This Blog for me to read.

Here's a Blog I found.
I tried to read a panel that was done by tax professionals but it felt like I was reading Portuguese and I didn't understand half the words and I don't have the time to be going back and forth between the dictionary and finding my place in the text.
And now I'm going to do laundry and get ready for guests.
~Rem

Walking with my husband

Marriage weight. Someone somewhere cursed me with it (and don't deny it! I heard "I hate you for being skinny while eating brownies" all throughout high school), and even though it took a year and a half to find me, now I have this little extra squish that jiggles when I go up the stairs too fast.
Nooooo! My habits haven't changed (with the exception of three letter long married people stuff.) What the heck is this? *pokes squish*

So, my husband (who just got called by someone's 98 year old Pawpaw trying to get a hold of a Joseph, who just called back again... and my husband is just talking to the old guy and having a nice conversation. I love him!) is nice enough to go on walks with me. And tease me till I feel the need to chase him, and con me into playing rock paper scissors to see who has to carry who up the hill, and make me push him up the hill just because.

Walking with Jex is something like the Olympics of walking. It's never just a route around the neighborhood or block. It's usually a mile and a half experience that includes a few obstacles, side quests, and aggravation. But hey, I've lost a pound and a half. (man I use a lot of parenthesis)

You know you married into Rednecks When....

Your husband gets you out of bed to watch him pet an Opossum with a shoe.




Maybe I should be fair. It didn't start out that way.

My back hurt, my hubby had gotten a back rub, we were laying in bed trying to sleep when we heard the metal food bowl on my father in law's porch start to clang. Munching and crunching noises filled the night and my husband asks: "Is that the Opossum?"
I answer with a groggy: "Yup."
Jex gets out of bed to try and get a peek at it. The guest bedroom windows are long and have a great view of the porch. But it was a little too dark for him to see.
Jex: "Hey hun?"
Rem: "uhhnng?"
Jex: "Would you mind turning on the porch light? If you don't want to get out of bed I can do it."
Rem: "Grmbleminute."
So, I get out of bed and turn on the porch light. And, ya know, Opossums aren't as ugly as I thought they were supposed to be. This one was actually really fluffy with a cute white face topped with little black mouse ears.
We oogled for a minute or so (I'm not a city slicker, but I spent a good chunk of my life overseas where foxes and tanuki are more normal than Opossums) then my husband picks up a shoe gets on his shorts and announces with more excitement than I've seen him display in a while: "I'm going to go pet it!"

Hmmm. My woman instincts aren't sure this is a good idea, but hell it's a little guy what harm could it do? So I open the door for him and flip on the light.

The Opossum was not sure about Jex at all. He stayed about a food and a half away. Slowly trying to back peddle from the huge monster that erupted unceremoniously from the building that gave him a steady supply of cat food (poor U-gly <-- my father in law's cat). Jex moved to match the Opossum's speed and before I knew it they were in the corner of the porch; the Opossum with his pointy mouth wide to show off needle like teeth and growling pitifully, my husband cooing to it while he pet it with his sneaker.

This morning I stood in the doorway of my father in law's alternately gawking incredulously and laughing hysterically at the sight gifted to me. There's no denying it now... I married into Red Necks.

home again?

Jex and I are back in Georgia.
Back to driving 53 miles every week to spend time with one of my pair of in-laws. Returning to the Nerd Kingdom established during my husband's high school years after a long 5 month absence. *sigh*

Only it feels more like the Twilight Zone than Home.
First: the porch of my mother in-law and Tony's home is clean. Poor Chloe dog had surgery on her snout after an accident with a buried electric line. The kittens are no longer kittens. My brother in law has a girlfriend!

Second: Adam, the king of Nerd Kingdom, is now dating and has moved in with Carrie, the mama hen/queen of Nerd Kingdom. Neither Jex nor I saw that coming. Matt, the Keeper of Tales, is engaged to Sara(h), the Knight Errant. And Joel, once an outsider to the Nerd Kingdom is now a full fledged member (though I'm still fuzzy on what his title should be).

Third: Jo cut her hair.

Luckily for me my father in-law will probably never change. His hairline will forever be receding, he will probably be crass till he dies, and just over one side of surly with a dash of corny male humor.

This week we're in the spare room of my Father-in-law's. My husband has helped me split my black magic deck (no I'm not a witch/wiccan, it's a card game) into two decks. We've played some games, watched Tangled! (ah! I love it!) And gone on two walks around the nice wooded area around where my father in law lives near lake Lanier. Some how in that time I tweaked a back muscle so bad I've been whining involuntarily all day.
My loving husband gave me a massage earlier so I could get some food down (when I'm in pain, emotional or physical I don't eat) and maybe he'll be sweet enough to give me another one before bed. *fingers crossed* If he doesn't I think I'm going to lay on the cute really thick till he crumbles into a pile of heart shaped confetti.