I had a pair of dark brown corduroy pants in my last year of college that I wore pretty much every day. This is not an exaggeration. Every day.

I loved them.

I think I bought them at Old Navy. They were baggy, and I cut them off to fit inseam-wise (I have to buy the “short” or “petite” or “ankle” lengths of things if I want them to fit, off the rack).

I think I washed them about once a week. I was a pretty clean person – showering approximately daily – so it’s not like they were GROSS, but they typically could not be considered CLEAN on any given day either.

I would still live like that if I could. Wearing whatever, giving myself haircuts/colors, shaving my head if I wanted. Reading a lot, thinking a lot, writing a lot.

Everything seemed really important. I felt like I mattered in the world. It doesn’t seem like that anymore. I am cynical.

Wearing the brown cords was part of it, like I couldn’t be bothered to think of physical things, issues of clothing or whatever. I didn’t care. Or maybe I just didn’t WANT to care. I don’t know. Either way, I wore the HELL out of those brown pants.

I just bought three pairs of corduroys from Old Navy. I can’t wear them like I did The Brown Pants, but they still excite me.

***

Old Navy clothes are disposable. I know this. But I was on a mission to get some cheap shirts with long sleeves. I came home with three.

Highs here are still in the 100s (FOR REAL, FOOLS), so sadly, the sleeves are not for reasons of “fall.” No, I am getting another tattoo tomorrow, and this one may just qualify as BIG ASS. I am expecting that it will take up most of my inner right arm.

I’m so excited.

But I think work has taken all they can take with the medium-sized one on my left arm (not my Little Prince, which is also new, but can be covered with short sleeves).

I cannot ask for more. I am a “professional.” I cannot wear the same brown corduroy pants to work every day, even if I really really want to.

I am supposed to be reviewing drafts for my second job, and all I want to do is NOT THAT.

I want to be writing here, or watching something streaming on Netflix, or buying clothes on the onlines (something I need to do DESPERATELY… not kidding). Anything but reviewing drafts.

And I’m tired. Oh, so tired.

How do you get motivated?

Related: How do you get motivated to lose weight?

I was losing weight, and I lost quite a bit, maybe 30 pounds over the past year (thus: the need for new clothing), and now I can feel it slipping away, the motivation. I haven’t ACTIVELY been trying to lose weight since we moved (3 months ago today!), but I’ve been able to stay pretty stable. Except now, I’m starting to notice that I’m eating entire boxes of chocolate macadamias from Hawaii, and hmmmmmmm. Probably not the correct direction. If I were to GUESS.

(I am seriously eating chocolate macadamias RIGHT this second, while I’m writing this.)

I need to figure this out. So as not to lose this progress. So as to be healthier and happier and all that. And also hawt.

(Sadly, I am pretty sure that boat has sailed.)

Okay. I am going to go read something now. I still want to talk about my friend whose birthday it is today, and also: my MENSTRUAL CUP.

Oh yesssss. Good posts are in store for you in the coming days.

Tasks this weekend (not a comprehensive list, just things at the top of my brain):

• Clean the house (and by clean, I mean pick up) (perpetual task of the strangulation variety)
• Bank register, bills, budget (Saturday task of the suffocational variety)
• Figure out how to return the shoes I got with the Groupon that are too small (on the up side, the OTHER shoes I bought with that Groupon are now my FAVORITE SHOES EVER)
• Gather items to contribute to the kids’ school’s garage sale (this happens in perpetuity, and we have been taking stuff almost every day for awhile, but it would be AWESOME if we actually went into our garage and assembled all of this instead of just randomly coming across things and strapping them to the top of the van to take to school the next day)
• Hang out with my mom and aunt, who will be here for a short time tonight and tomorrow morning
• Catch up on stuff for my second job, which generally involves responding to email and reading/editing documents (line from an email received yesterday: “I don’t mean to bug you, but did you get my last email?”)
• Groceries (regular task of the never finished, never enough, never satisfied, expensive-to-feed-seven-people-especially-when-my-kids-take-one-bite-of-everything-they-begged-to-eat-and-throw-it-in-the-trash variety)
• Move furniture (we just got a new couch with the end of the money we set aside when we sold our house, and it is BIG ENOUGH, which is new, but it is also TOO BIG, so we have some problem solving to do)
• Somehow dispose of way too much trash and recycling, so it’s not sitting on our kitchen floor like it is right now
• Dishes (CUPS)
• Laundry (if I did a load a day, my life would be so much easier, but that doesn’t happen)
• Kieran has OT across town at 11am this morning
• I REALLY need to do work-work for my first job, but that’s probably not happening
• Brad needs to do two homework assignments (he started a master’s program part-time this fall)

This last item is the wild card. I expect that these assignments will take about half of Brad’s waking hours each day, so yeah. How to do the rest of these things with four children?

Right now, Archer is screaming and pushing and scratching Anneke, trying to get her out of his new favorite chair.

It is probably time to take away his pacifier except for sleeping, as he’s really started talking a lot recently, but everything sounds like, “Neh neh nehneh neh neh nehneh NOW.”

This is awesome, and I love it. You’re welcome.

It is almost 2 a.m. where I am, and I am still awake because I just spent an INORDINATE amount of time composing an email wherein I did complain about feeling like I was “being pecked to death by chickens” in a meeting at work today.

This email was to a BOSS type, by the way, and she, oh yes, was the leader of the motherpecking chickenpeckers. So.

I’m still awake.

Want to see a photo I came across yesterday? One that’s ALMOST cute enough to make one want to cancel one’s husband’s vasectomy, now scheduled for a week from today?

(I would give credit if I could find anything other than this link.)

In other news, I had a job interview today that lasted TWO AND A HALF HOURS.

Holy mackarel. And also halibut.

No word on the health.

I did the MRI; it was relaxing. I had the blood drawn; it gave me a bruise.

My head is killing me.

I’m in Dallas right now, for work. I am pretty much over my job.

You know what made me happy today? A text from Brad with this photo.

Shortly after this photo was taken, I hear he laughed so hard, he gagged and threw up.

Surprise! I hate my job.

And also, knock knock.

[You: Who's there?]

I still hate my job.

There are lots of reasons for this, none of them the least bit interesting; I will spare you. Suffice it to say that I need a change. Am in desperate need, actually.

We can live on almost nothing; we always have. We’ve been “poor” by most standards most of the years of our marriage. But in the past couple years, our incomes have grown, and we’ve gotten ourselves some commitments – grownup commitments, like house, car, loans, etc. – that require a level of income.

I hate being bound by these things. I know they’re not important, REALLY. But it’s also not like we can walk away from them.

So, I’m miserable. For money, basically. Which is disgusting.

But what to do?

Independently (or dependently) wealthy individuals, please to contact me!

Brad and I share a car. Mostly, it’s a good thing. Tomorrow, not so much.

For fun, I just mapped out all the stops we have to trade off making tomorrow. Twenty stops over 66.3 miles. Nineteen of these stops are located in the same four miles of downtown Austin.

1. Home to daycare
2. Daycare to university
3. University to art school (8:45 a.m.)
4. Art school to dermatologist (9:15 a.m.)
5. Dermatologist to university
6. University to therapist (11:00 a.m.)
7. Therapist to art school (11:45 a.m.)
8. Art school to therapist (11:50 a.m.)
9. Therapist to university
10. University to art school (1:00 p.m.)
11. Art school to home
12. Home to chiropractor (2:15 p.m.)
13. Chiropractor to art school (4:00 p.m.)
14. Art school to university
15. University to daycare
16. Daycare to home
17. Home to OT (5:30 p.m.)
18. OT to home
19. Home to swim team (7:00 p.m.)
20. Swim team to home

So, yeah, makes total sense for me to work full time.

Any of you fools who want to write your initials on your food best do that shit at HOME.