Archive for February, 2011

Caught the crud

Sunday, February 27th, 2011

Well, I finally caught the crud that’s been going around work.  I got up this morning and my nose and throat were both raw — great for a morning when I’m singing at church.  But Justin and I went in and got ready for church, I made it through practice and all the way through church, drinking lots of tea and water and orange juice, putting aside the aches and runny nose and general yuckiness until after everything was done.  We cleaned up after church and went home and I curled up in bed as soon as we got home.  (I would have fallen asleep in the car, the weariness hit me as soon as I sat down, but Justin said he’d leave me there if I fell asleep and I didn’t want to sleep in the car.)  I slept until after 6 o’clock.  Then I got up, Justin got me dinner, and I watched tv for the rest of the evening.

I feel awful.  I’m tired, my nose and throat are raw, I keep sneezing.  It’s a little after 10 o’clock now and I’m going back to sleep in the hopes that I’ll feel better when I wake up.  I’m staying home from work — already sent an email to my lead and let him know.  I fought long and hard to not get this thing, but I guess the long hours last week and the general popularity of the bug (soooo many people have it!) finally ran me down.

I’m going to go to sleep now.

P.S.  Thanks so much for the well wishes, Ethan and Audrey and Amy!  They made me smile.  :)   My arm is feeling a lot better today.

2
Tags:
Posted in Living! |

This is why I haven’t been writing

Saturday, February 26th, 2011

Sunday was great!  Slept in, got breakfast in bed, read a book, talked with all my immediate family, got delicious dinner, and watched a funny movie.  It was delightful!

Monday, my department moved from one side of the building to the other and considering all that has to happen with that (people to move the computers, people to move the boxes and bookshelves and file cabinets, people to move the phones) and the number of people moving (about 30) and trying to get some work done at the same time, it went surprisingly well.  My feet ached by the end of the day, but I think it was the most smooth move we’ve done yet.  I got lots of compliments on how well I got everybody organized.  It almost makes up for how frustrated I was getting at the end of the week when people kept interrupting me to answer their questions about why the printer still wasn’t working or where they could get keys for their desk or what to do about it being so cold on one half of the room (the other half is warm and part of the problem there is that the thermostat for the warm half of the room is actually out in the hallway, and the thermostat for the cold half of the room is broken — we’re working on it).  Anyway.  It was successful.  I went home, Justin rubbed my feet, I fell asleep sitting in a chair, but woke up in time to watch Castle.

Tuesday, I woke up and couldn’t move my right arm very well.  I couldn’t raise it up above my shoulder and it hurt.  All day, I kept on trying to solve moving issues and try to get a document completed that I’m really late to submit.  That evening we went to the chiropractor’s office for adjustments and he (actually, let me put in here that when I say “my chiropractor” I could mean one of three people — it’ s a family business, so it could be the father, his daughter, or his son — but it’s just easier to be non-specific) (in this case, it’s the son) fixed up my shoulder blade so I could move my arm, commenting that I “really messed it up.”  Trust me, it gets worse.  And afterward, we stayed behind for a health talk and free pizza.

I have no strong recollections of Wednesday, so it’s safe to say it was a lot like Tuesday.  Answering annoying questions while trying to get work done.  Not making it very far on my work, but resolving a lot of moving issues.  I did manage to make a good deal of progress on one aspect of the project, though, so that was good.  Unfortunately, my shoulder was still hurting.  And I spent the evening working on paying bills and balancing the checkbook.

Thursday I worked from 7am to 8pm and it was exhausting.  I had to finish up as much of my project as I could, so I eventually put on my headphones and put up a sign saying that I was trying to finish up this project, so please let me concentrate.  And I’m pretty sure that my lead started turning people away and telling them to let me work because I was able to get a lot of work accomplished without being interrupted.  I was still there after everyone left, but I managed to get it done and sent out for review and I might actually get it submitted before the middle of next week.  Still VERY late.  I went home, Justin drew me a bath, and I sat in the bath, reading, until after 10, when I got out and went to bed.

Friday, I slept in a little before going back to the chiropractor’s office again because my arm was feeling even worse.  He (the son, again) started poking at different spots on my shoulder to try to identify the problem.  Once he found the spot and I stopped gasping in pain from him poking a finger at it, he took his activator (hammer thing) and tried to put it back into place.  Once I stopped crying from the pain (seriously, it hurt SO MUCH! it was like an 8 on my pain scale), he put a cold laser on it and then gave me a cold pack and said that if it wasn’t feeling better by morning, I should come back in and he’d take an x-ray.

What I hurt, somehow, was my sternoclavicular joint, though I’ve got no idea how I really did that because usually it takes something like getting punched in the chest or something with a contact sport.  But let me tell you, it hurts.

I went to work after getting an ice pack from home and managed to get caught up on another project that I’d been neglecting all week and left after about 4 hours of working.  I went home, kept putting ice on my collarbone and relaxed.

I was still in pain this morning, (I keep moving wrong in my sleep and hurting it) though not as bad as the last couple days.  The constant pain has dulled down to a localized dull ache from a pressing pain across the whole shoulder and I have a lot more range of motion through my arm.  I still went back in and the chiropractor (son, again) took an x-ray.  It didn’t show anything, which was a little disappointing.  But I guess that’s still the better option rather than having something broken or obviously wrong.  He put the cold laser on it again, did NOT hit me with the activator (I think I might have punched him if he’d tried again), and told me to rest it and keep in icing it.

And that’s the plan.  Rest.  Ice.  Tomorrow I’m singing at church and Justin’s running the projector from the back.  Today we have no plans.  So I’m resting.

1

Quick babbling post o’stuff

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

Hi!

Yeah, it’s been a little crazy around here. 

Starting on the work-front, since I’m doing this on my lunch break, has been insane.  We finished two projects earlier this week and are hoping to finish another one this afternoon or tomorrow.  And besides that, I have three documents that I was supposed to have submitted on Monday in order to get into a 30-day window for it to be reviewed, and I’m still not done.  And they’re moving the date back a week, so I have even less time now to do it all.  PLUS, we’re moving from one side of the buidling to the other side and everybody packing and trying to figure out what can fit into the new area because it’s smaller than where we are now and what’s going to go where, and because there’s two groups of us in the area and such very little space, there’s been low-level fighting with the other group about who gets to use which space.

If I didn’t enjoy moving so much, this would be more challenging.  But I kinda like it, so it’s kinda fun.

I’ve been working super-late (7:00) for the last couple days to get things done and catch up on some time that I was out for a meeting Tuesday morning, so my evenings have been very short once I get home.  I’m trying very hard not to work tomorrow, but right now (just before 12:00), I’m not sure how that’s going to go.

I did manage to bring something home from work, apparently — there’s been a nasty cold/flu thing going around and although I haven’t had any effects from it (tea and water and hand sanitizer and yea!), I think it skipped right over me and into Justin, poor guy.  He hasn’t been feeling great the last couple days.

On the away-from-work stuff, we’re still waiting for the Admissions department from Justin’s school to process his letter and get that started.  There’s nothing we can do until they open it up so he can start school again, so we’re just stuck waiting.

This Saturday we have a couple people coming over to play cards and have cake with us — one of them has a birthday on the 22nd, so we’re sharing cake.

Um . . . what else has been going on….  Last Saturday we helped Habitat for Humanity in a place they’re working nearby.  It was mostly moving mulch around and making the properties look nicer.  But it was still hard work and good stuff to do.

Last Sunday I sang with the band at church and it was a lot of fun.  This Sunday is my birthday and I’m hoping for a pretty low-key day.  Order a pizza, watch a movie with Justin.

Anyway, yeah.  Most of my brain right now is stuck:  What else needs to get boxed up and labeled for the move?  Is there anything else I can plan ahead for in order to make this go more smoothly?  And what is up with the drawing for the monitors for my document?  Why can’t I find the drawing that shows me where the monitors go?  And the 50/60 Hz power?  What’s up with that?

So that’s that.  I really hope I don’t have to work tomorrow.  I’m probably going to be here again until 7:00 or so tonight.

It’s been a really loooooooooong week.

Comments Off

Down-time

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

Not that it’ll matter if you don’t read this ahead of time, but this website might be down for a little while sometime in the next couple of days.  Justin is going to update our server and some other things and try to stop the spamming that he’s been getting.  So if you stop by and the site is down, fear not!  We’re doing maintenance and will be back soon.

Love!


2

MVE Pilates

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

I’ve been trying to be sure to get to the YMCA for a class at least once a week.  And by “trying,” I mean, that I went last week and decided I should go again the week after and so far that’s the whole trend.  It’s a two week trend, but it has a lot of good intentions behind it!

Anyway, you all know how well last week’s class went.  And tonight I was supposed to have a meeting at 6:30 (which has now probably been rescheduled to tomorrow) and I have band practice on Thursday (yeah, it’ll have to be a short meeting), so yesterday was the only day of the week that I could get there.  So, yea for me!  I went to the gym.

The class was called “MVE Pilates.”  I guess it’s actually supposed to have a small “e” so it’s “MVe” and it stands for “Maximum Versatility Exercise,” according to the YMCA class description.  And you use one of these chair things (linky). 

MVe chair

That thing is not nearly so benign as it looks.

See that horizontal bar bit?  It’s attached to the bottom of the seat with a spring that has four settings to adjust the tension – 1 is easiest to push down and 4 is hardest.  So the workout?  All has to do with that bar.

Examples!

Sit on the seat and push the bar down with your feet.  Extend the arms forward and pull them back in rhythm with the legs, and then add abs so it’s a little like a crunch.  Then do it with one leg, while the other points straight forward.  And switch!

Lean over the chair, facing the seat, with your toes on the bar and your hands holding onto the sides of the seat.  Then shift your weight onto your arms, tighten your abs, and lift your legs up into the air, keeping them straight until the bar is all the way up.  And then push the bar back down to the ground.  And then do it again, except instead of going back down to the ground, pulse it there with your arms holding you aloft and your knees bending in toward your underarms.

Turn around on the chair and grab the bar with your arms behind you.  Lean backward and push the bar down with your arms while balancing your legs in the air.  Then scissor-kick your legs, still while pushing the bar down with your arms.

That one is where I fell off the chair first.  Lost my balance and fell backwards onto the ground, started laughing like crazy, and lifted my arms in the air like a gymnast pegging her landing.  It hurt a little, that bar banged me right in the small of my back, and there were 15 people in the class, so everybody saw me do it, but apparently that’s not uncommon for first-timers.  The instructor laughed right along with me.  And I stretched it out a second and then got right back on again.

The second time I fell was when we were sitting on it sideways, one leg extended out to the side, one arm pushing down on the bar and the other straight up in the air, so when we pushed down on the bar, the arm in the air and the leg out sideways were in a straight line, parallel to the floor.  Yeah, I lost my balance again.

It was a good workout, though.  There’s a lot that I couldn’t do, like successfully lift my legs up to my underarms while supporting my body on my arms, and sometimes I’d just laugh and mumble “How on earth does that work?” but I worked up a sweat and a couple sore muscles, so I’d call that a win.  I have some soreness this morning, though my shoulders and my hips and my abs, but nothing nearly so serious as last week, thank goodness.

And I learned some things!  Like what those chair things were in the aerobics room along the wall.  And that my left leg really is a lot weaker than my right.  That I need to work on my balance a lot more – but focusing on my abs, not just my ankles.  That even the really beautiful, slender girls, like the one beside me in class, aren’t necessarily fit.  And that Saturday and Tuesday classes are the advanced class and I did fine despite all that.

2
Tags:
Posted in Living! |