Archive for October, 2010

I need decorating tips, people!

Thursday, October 21st, 2010

Last night I got off work and went to Zumba at the YMCA near work.  It’s a good class and a lot of people ladies attend it.  I’m still getting used to the instructor, so I get lost a lot, but I’m still having fun.  The part where I really have trouble is when we do weights.  I’m a weakling and I have trouble doing curls with 10 pound weights.  But I try!  And I try to do all the crunches she has everybody do, but I’m just not strong enough yet to do it the way she’s doing it.  I’m working on it.

After that, I went home (we rescheduled our Wednesday meeting to next week) and was completely exhausted for the rest of the evening.  Justin went out for a long run while I was at the Y and he was exhausted, too.  So we he threw together a quick dinner, and we spent the rest of the evening sitting with our computers.  He fixed my netbook, by the way!  I can’t remember what the problem was right now, but he cleaned out a bunch of stuff and reset the settings and now it works!  It’s wonderful!  We pulled my “nest” chair into his office a while ago so I can sit in there and do stuff while he’s working on his computer.  There are a lot of nights where there aren’t any lights on in the house except for in his office, and we’re both contentedly sitting in there.

Tonight we’re having company over for dinner.  I’m really nervous about it.  I’m worried that it’s going to be really awkward and not go well and it’ll be just awful.  And I’m also not going to be involved in preparing for it at all because I won’t get home until about 6:00 and they’re coming over between 6:30 and 7:00, so Justin’s going to make dinner and clean the house and get everything ready for the evening.  I’m a control freak and micromanager and not being involved with this at all requires that I just sit back and do nothing.  It’s more than a little nerve-wracking.  And it’s probably really good for me.  I should just relax and trust that Justin can take care of it, because I know that he can!  He’s a better cook than I am and more detailed at cleaning than I am!  So I really just need to chill.

And that’s pretty much the update for today.

Oh, hey!  We’re throwing a party at our house next Saturday and I’m looking for some good, but inexpensive ways, to decorate the house.  (I’m looking at you, Krista!)  I’m hoping to dip leaves and pine cones in wax over the weekend and I can string them up around, but I’ve never done it before and I’m not totally sure how it’s going to work out.  So I need more ideas!  We’ve got a wreath on the door already and a leafy tablecloth and a couple things of corn and pumpkin-shaped things around, but not very much.  What should I do?!

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Making friends is hard work sometimes.

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

One of the things that Justin and I have been struggling with is that it’s really hard to make friends at this age when we don’t have children.  At least, that seems to be a key factor.  If you moved into the area and don’t have children to help make a connection with other people, it’s really hard to break into a group of people and make friends.

We thought we were making progress with people from church.  And we do get along well with several people at church and chat amiably with them when we see them on Sundays or when we run into them other times.  But apparently when I stopped going to one Bible study and joined another, that was highly offensive to a family we through were friends.  And since the end of August when I made that change, the wife of that couple has yet to have a full conversation with either Justin or myself.  So we don’t really know what the full situation is, but it was upsetting and frustrating and made us think that we needed to explore other venues to find friends.  (Again, not that we don’t like the people at church and get along with many of them when we see them.  Just that we might want to expand our search for people who would befriend us.  I mean, really.  We’ve been at the church for 2 years.  We should have made friends there by now.)

So I started an intense search for geeks in our area.  I mentioned back in August that it’s hard to find geeks because we tend to stay inside, out of the sun, in front of our computers.  If you’re lucky, though, you can find their trail online.

Around the beginning of September, I found a group of geeks in the area and started poking around on their website.  They have a site for planning gatherings and chatting.  So I stuck my nose in and said that we’d love to meet people in the group.  And a bunch of other people thought it’d be fun, too, so at the beginning of October, we had a party.  For 10 hours.  It was AWESOME.  We sat around chatting and playing games and munching on food.  There was fighting with foam swords.  We played “Apples to Apples” for about 5 hours.  I almost hyperventilated laughing.  It was a fantastic day.

Justin and I have emailed back and forth with several people in the group since then.  We’re getting together with another couple for dinner.  We’re planning another party at the end of the month.  Another guy wants to get together with Justin so they can duel with shinai.

I’m hopeful about it.  Sad as it is, gamer geeks tend to be more accepting than people at church.  The day of the party, there were multiple discussion about political and religious views and the group has opinions across the whole scale.  But no one got upset about opposing views, outside of their discussion.  I mean, there were some pretty heated discussions, but at the end, everyone was still willing to be friends.  So I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to fit in because of that acceptance.

I’m also looking at a book club through the library.  There’s a science fiction / fantasy book club starting at the end of October and I’m planning to attend.  Maybe I can find more girls who’d be willing to sit down and chat about literature and more sedate geeky-ness than hitting one anther with swords, foam or otherwise.  I’m looking forward to the meeting.

And it’s nice!  Finding people who are willing to chat and hang out.  I haven’t really had that since 2003, when I left college.  Seven years without someone to go to movies or get a cup of coffee or go shopping (other than Justin)?  Very lonely.  We’ve been in this house for more than 2 years and we haven’t had anyone over for dinner. The years we were in Savannah?  We had people over twice:  my roommate and our marriage counselors.  We kind of fail at making friends.

So I’ve been putting a lot of energy into this right now.  Last night I went to a gathering of women through church, mostly the Bible study group, but also other ladies from the church.  While there, I was invited to a meeting at one of their homes tonight, but I think I might postpone until next week, because tomorrow we’re having dinner with a couple from the geek group and Justin and I would like an evening to relax a little bit.  I have to call her and see if that would work out okay.

But we’re making progress!  And it feels really good.

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Still doing okay

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

Just a quick “today” post today.  I’ll do another “last month” post tomorrow, probably.

My morning started out kind of weird when my alarm went off and wouldn’t stop.  I snoozed it and it kept ringing.  I turned the alarm off completely.  It kept ringing.  I opened and closed the phone a couple times, since that makes it stop, too, and it STILL kept ringing.  So I turned the whole phone off.  And that finally did it.  It’s never done that before and I’m hopeful that it was the only time it does that.

My stomach this morning wasn’t feeling as well as it was yesterday.  Maybe the pizza for dinner was a bad idea?  I don’t know.  I’m feeling a little better right now.  These pants are too snug and it’s not helping the issue at all.  I’ve really got to get my clothes out of the dryer tonight.

I forgot my soup mug at home this morning.  I got too busy at work to wash it before leaving yesterday, so I took it home with the intention of washing it.  And then left it soaking in the sink, where it’s still sitting.  I eat my oatmeal in that mug every morning.  No mug = no oatmeal.  Granola bar it is!

I also forgot that we’re getting free lunch today, so the salad Justin helped me pack for lunch is completely unnecessary.  I should go take the croutons out so they don’t get soggy and then I could eat it tomorrow.

It was dark most of the way to work this morning.  I’m back to using the full-spectrum light most mornings.  Daylight Saving’s ends in 2½ weeks.  I’m trying to remember how productive I was during the evenings in the summer and keeping energy to get something accomplished between getting home and going to bed.  So far, it’s not going very well.

I did have a really lovely conversation with Mom last night, though.  I enjoyed that a lot!  It was great catching up with what’s been going on.  And just chatting is a lot of fun.  And now I just have to remember when it’s usually a better time to call.  :)   (Monday before 7:30, Friday or Saturday evenings, but not Thursday evening.  Right?)

After chatting with her, though, my netbook completely failed to get online and we can’t figure out why.  Justin was able to connect to the shared folders on the computer, but it absolutely refused to connect to the internet.  It was so frustrating.  I know that I could have just moved to my desktop computer and sat there to check my email and such, but instead, I restarted my netbook about a half-dozen times, gave up, and read a book.

Tonight I’ve got Bible study, but instead of our usual study at the church office, we’re doing a get together at one of the leader’s houses (not that she has more than one house – there are 3 leaders and they each have one house . . . as far as I know).  Hopefully it’ll go well!

And that’s the Kylene news for the day!

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Fried chicken is hazardous to my health.

Monday, October 18th, 2010

This weekend, Justin and I decided to take a break from the craziness of the last several weeks.  I used some vacation time and stayed home from work on Friday.  We intended to go to the beach on Hunting Island, but ended up sleeping instead.  Apparently, we were both quite tired.

So we went to the beach on Saturday.  We threw our swim suits in the car in case it was warm enough to jump in the water, but also grabbed books and video games and a camera, in case we just wanted to sit on the sand.  We stopped at Publix (grocery store) for a picnic lunch of fried chicken, and drove out to our favorite ocean-side view.

It was wonderful.  We sat and relaxed, we waded in the water (I thought it was much too chilly for swimming, though Justin wasn’t convinced), I took pictures (that I haven’t uploaded to my computer yet), and we even ran barefoot a short distance through the surf.  It was fantastic!

We finally made our way back home when I started to get too cold (and Justin was getting bored) and we settled back at the house to relax.  I ate a little bit more of the chicken when I got hungry, and that was apparently a really bad idea.  Because about an hour later, I got this stabbing pain in my stomach like something very sharp was in my stomach and scratching up my insides.  Something like, oh, a chicken bone.

That’s the best we can figure, anyway.  It hurt.  A lot.  So I lay on the bed and tried not to move.  Justin got me the hot pack and some Advil and water and looked up what we should do.  And pretty much the best we could figure was that as long as it didn’t get too painful and I didn’t start having other symptoms, then I just had to wait it out.

Yesterday when I woke up, the pain was lower down in my system, but everything still ached and I felt awful.  We stayed home from church and I lay in bed with the hot pack on my stomach, drinking water, eating crackers, and being bored out of my mind.  I poked at the internet, I read my book, I watched TV.  Now and then, I’d wander into Justin’s office to see what he was doing.  He’d wander in to the bedroom now and then to check on how I was doing.  We took a couple minutes late in the afternoon to do a little fall decorating, but only a couple minutes because I got tired again and had to go lie down.

It was really not very fun at all.  I’m feeling better today, though not all the way recovered.  It hurts to pull in my abs.  Everything in that area is still a little swollen.  But I got up for work and put on proper clothes, so that’s an improvement over the last couple days.

And part of that whole story, other than letting you know what’s going on and to warn you about the dangers of fried chicken (I have no idea how I managed to swallow a bone), is to say that my phone sat in my purse downstairs from the time we got back from the beach until last night at about 10:30 when I went to bed.  And then I saw that I’d missed a text message from Dad, a phone call from Luke, and two calls from Mom.  It’s kind of amazing, really.  Nobody calls me for weeks and weeks, and then when I’m lying in bed clutching my insides because they hurt, half of my family calls.  And I completely miss their calls because my phone is too far away!  How frustrating is that?

Anyway, I’ll try to get back on here again in the next couple days to talk about what’s been up the last couple weeks (I’ve been busy, but it hasn’t been terribly interesting).  And I’ll try to get on the phone with a bunch of you over the next several days, too, because I feel awful about missing you when you called.  But that’s what’s been going on the last couple days!

I hope you’re all doing better than me.

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