the most exciting holiday ever

Well, I knew my Fourth was going to be uneventful. I just had no idea how extremely, boringly uneventful I could possibly be. I think I took my boringness to new levels. It would be almost sad, except I'm actually kind of impressed with myself. I mean, if you're going to be boring, you may as well be the most boring person ever in the history of the world, right?

We kicked the day off by sleeping til after 11. Well, to be entirely truthful, I did wake up at 8:30, get a heating pad, and then go back to bed. But more or less...in bed til 11. Then I spent the rest of the day alternating between laying in bed (reading or mindlessly surfing the interwebz) and doing random 'spring cleaning' projects. I like how Matt always refers to a semi-deep cleaning or organization project as 'spring cleaning,' regardless of the time of year. It seems so...optimistic. Or something. 

So here's some of my super exciting accomplishments. And since it was Independence Day, I think I shall name them accordingly.

I celebrated my independence from an increasingly cluttered, unruly, and hard-to-find-anything bathroom cabinet:

We have a pitiful amount of storage space in our master bath (this is 'mine' and Matt has the same amount of space under his sink-- that's it! No linen closet, no drawers...just...this), and I have an intense love affair with beauty stores and products, which doesn't always work out so well. Luckily I was able to restore some order and implement some new systems down there while only re-using stuff (boxes, tubs, etc.) we already had around the house. I think it will be much more functional now! Plus, seeing me doing this inspired Matt to do the same under HIS sink, so...basically our bathroom cabinets are winning at life now.

In the course of cleaning out my cabinet, I celebrated my freedom from old, dried-out, no-longer-in-favor makeup and products and pared everything down to what would fit in this box (not counting the three pallets to the right that obviously would not fit in the box) (and all of the brushes are happily organized in a cup now, too)!

I don't even want to discuss how old some of my makeup was. Or why I am a hoarder and would be hanging on to some old dried up mascara from like '03. Let's just be happy that it's all gone now. Obviously this makeup box does not include any nail products; those are all housed separately in an entire drawer of the drawer-organizer-thingy under the cabinet. But I went through the nail polishes, too, and tossed some that had been lurking since like...college.

After all of this organizing and product-purging, I celebrated my right to lay on the bed and read a few chapters of my book. And it was glorious. The book AND the laying on the bed, watching it rain. Glorious.

Late in the day, after stir-crazy-Mattie convinced me to at least go on a walk around the neighborhood, I had one final celebration: my freedom to wear clean, non-wrinkly clothes. Wah wah wah.

I know. You thought I was exaggerating how boring my day was, but now you know the truth. I was bored enough to take pictures of my laundry. How you like them apples?

The Fourth of July would not be complete without idiots  neighbors shooting off fireworks (in the rain) all night. Here's how our family felt about that situation:

Lola is not such a fan of fireworks. But she's a big fan of being in a cocoon on the couch, snuggled so close to me that we have to call her Womb Doggie (the name she acquired when I was recovering from surgery and spent all of my time on the couch and she would snuggle up SOCLOSETOME that it was like she was trying to crawl inside me...okay, so maybe this story sounds weird, but when she does that now we call her Womb Doggie because apparently she wants to get in my womb? Whatever. Don't judge me).

Basically the most exciting thing about my 'holiday' (Wednesday night, actually) was that I watched two episodes of Naked and Afraid, the new 'ultimate survivor' show on Discovery. I watched it fully expecting to just laugh my head off and act insulted about how we've stooped to new lows as a society, making boring survivor-type shows more voyeuristic what with the unnecessary nudity and all...but dude, I was wrong. That show was pretty awesome. Being dropped naked into a scary and dangerous place actually does make survival even tougher...it's not just gratuitous. (For instance, since they had no shoes, when they walked through an unavoidable field with thorns and briars, their feet got all jacked up...and then infected...and yeah, that wouldn't have happened if they had shoes on) On one of the episodes, one of the first things they did was weave/fashion some Adam & Eve-type clothes, so that was pretty awesome and then there wasn't even that much nudity. But at any rate, watching a few episodes made me extremely thankful for my food, house, and excess of everything for the rest of the holiday. Also, for the record, I would never ever survive any of those situations. NEVER. Anyone else watching that show? The next new episode is on Sunday. I'm definitely tuning in.

Right so...that was my extremely patriotic and celebratory Fourth of July. Right. I didn't even wear red, white, and blue...so basically I failed at being an American. Maybe next year I'll do better.

For now, I'm at work...which feels really weird...the whole random Thursday off in the middle of a work week? I guess most people took today off as well, but I have barely any vacation days or sick days, so...I didn't. And now I'm here and the AC isn't working so it's about 90 degrees in my office, and I'm just trying to pretend I'm on Naked & Afraid (only not naked...don't worry) and I'm just gonna have to survive this travesty...until 5:00 (or the air gets fixed, whichever comes first). Wish me luck!