I LOVE These Things: A Pencil Topper, Defying Gravity, and Black & Blue

Dear Weather,

Please make a decision on temperature.

First, it is a pain to figure out what to wear (Did I mention I’m SICK of all my summer clothes??).
Second, my house goes from freezing cold in the morning to hot-ass sauna by bedtime. (And since it is past October 1st, I refuse to use my air conditioner.)
And finally, this in-between weather BS still requires me to get pedicures because it flip flops from boots to sandals weather every other day. (I want to wear boots all the time, but I can’t, because I’m too old to wear them with shorts.)

But minus my “PMS Weather Rant” this week has pretty much rocked…except for one thing…

Here is what I’m in LOVE with this week.

1. Pencil Topppers.

I’m an office supply junkie.

I love colored pens, Sharpies, Ticonderoga pencils, colored Post-It Notes, and multiple journals for ideas and to-do lists.

And you’d think, with my office supply addiction, I would have a decent pencil eraser, right?

I didn’t.

I was cobbling it along with some POS eraser I’d bummed off my daughter, who probably got it in either a “treasure box” at school or some random birthday “party-favor bag”. And that eraser SUCKED. Instead of erasing, it made greasy smears on my paper. Kind of like having a three-year old lick their fingers and then “rub out” a pencil marking. It was gross.

So this week I broke down and purchased this wonderful box of happiness…the Dixon Ticonderoga Office and School Eraser Combination Set.

(Did you hear the angels singing when you read that?)

It’s so sad that my heart can be won for $2.99. But I’m a cheap date because these are by FAR AND AWAY the best erasers I have ever used in my life. All my pencils are topped because when I erase a pencil mark, it looks like an adult did it. My heart is full. #officesuppliesrock

2. Defying Gravity

One of my bucket list items came true this week.

I was able to take my kids to a performance of the musical WICKED.

I saw WICKED several years ago in NYC at the Gershwin and it was amazing. It made me laugh, cry, cheer and everything in between. (Picture with buddies Andrea and Karen.)

And this performance was everything it was before, but I got to see it through the eyes of my kids.

One kid (the pre-teen boy who smells bad on occasion) had pre-teen angst the entire time. (Which is code for slightly pouty, slightly pissed-off, slightly bored, and slightly excited…you just had to sit back and see which emotion showed up.) He declared that while he “liked it”, he didn’t want to go to another one until he was older and it was a date.

The other kid (who is still thinks I’m the bees-knees because she’s under 12) was mesmerized. At intermission, she declared, “THIS is the best show EVER. It is SO COOL.” She clapped, got teary-eyed, said she knew water wouldn’t hurt her, and wanted to go again this weekend.

That’s right baby doll, theater is the BOMB and mama is going to buy us Theater League tickets (because I’ve been WAITING for someone to go with me) and we’ll go to everything.

3. Black & Blue

On Tuesday night, as I was leaving to go pick up pre-teen son from Cross Country, I slammed my pinky finger in garage door. (And did I mention I was running late?)

And while it hurt like a MO-FO, I KNEW I had to keep moving because I was running late and the middle school is a solid 15 minutes away.

Since I was completely focused on the pain and concentrating on driving, I missed the part about my pinky finger bleeding like a stuck pig.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that by the time I realized I was bleeding, my car resembled a crime scene. Blood on both front seats, the steering wheel, the console, the door, the radio, the windows.

And for the record, McDonald’s napkins in the glove box for three months do NOTHING at either stopping blood or wiping it up.

Let’s just put it this way…pre-teen son who never notices ANYTHING opened the car door and asked, “Mom?? What happened in here? Did someone die?”

Soooo….while I don’t love the fact that I have a gimpy pinky finger that is black and blue (and purple and red – the picture above was taken on Friday…so imagine how bad it was on Tuesday), I thought it was a funny story and had to share.

Plus, it is hard to type…so I’m using it as an excuse for all of my typos.

(Which several of you mentioned my HUGE amount of typos in the Reader Survey…have you taken it yet? I’d love it if you would.)

And in case you missed it, here are some new posts from this week.

Results on Whole 30 From A 40 Year Old {The Good & Bad}