Archive for the ‘Living!’ Category

4 day weekend!

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

And we’re back!

So I’m feeling much better.  My nose is still a little stuffy and gross, but it’s not a big deal and otherwise I feel just fine.  And besides, pollen season has started (already!  I know!) and it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.  Fun!  So, as long as I’m not sleeping for more than 18 hours in my day, I’m good!

Tuesday was lovely.  Not so much during the day, but the evening was a delight.  We were going to go to the new Olive Garden in town, but they don’t take reservations and the wait time when we got there was more than 90 minutes, to which I said, “I don’t want Olive Garden that much.”  So we called Outback and their wait time was only 30 minutes, so we put our name on the list, drove over there, got our pager button, walked out of range to get cell service and look up movies we’d like to watch, and then wandered back in time for them to come out looking for us because we weren’t responding to the page.

Dinner was delicious!  The people next to us were apparently insane and left all in a huff about something about their food.  We really weren’t paying attention to them.  I did notice that one lady asked for ranch dressing, ketchup, A1 steak sauce, and another steak sauce and then was annoyed when it took the server more than a minute to come back with them.  And then she sent something back to the kitchen.  And then they were gone!  And we were especially nice to our server for the rest of our meal.  She was a gem, really, and I have no idea what was wrong with those other folks.

Anyway!  Justin and I sat and babbled about geeky things.  He dressed up in a suit jacket and I wore a new dress that he bought for me with money he got for Christmas.  He talked about a project that he’s been pondering and I talked about the book I’ve been reading.  We ordered dessert.  And went home about two hours after being seated and rolled our way into the house because we were so stuffed.  What?  Other things are “supposed” to happen on Valentine’s Day?  Bah!  We changed into comfy clothes/pajamas and watched previews for the movies that we were talking about before dinner (Hunger Games!  Dark Knight!  Hobbit!  Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer! (Yes, really!))  And then I read for a while in the armchair in his office while he played computer games.  And then I went to bed and he stayed up until he got sleepy.

All in all?  One of the better Valentine’s Days we’ve had!  It was great!

Moving on to Wednesday, I was super tired because I stayed up reading until later than I should have.  And I was organizing a big meeting for a thing at work that was supposed to have breakfasty things and coffee delivered and lunch delivered and the food was late every time and I was stressing out and things were just Not Going Well.  But we made it through, the food got there eventually, everything that had to get accomplished that I could get accomplished did get accomplished.  Justin’s sister came over for dinner and we enjoyed some family time there (by which I mean she played Skyrim and Justin helped and I read a book, but there was fun banter over dinner).  And then I went to bed ON TIME.

Today I had to worry about the twin to the meeting yesterday, with food for breakfast and lunch, but this time we expected it to be late, so it wasn’t such a big deal.  And all the rest of the stuff I needed to take care of got taken care of quickly and well and I finally got lots of random papers cleared off my desk, some of which have been sitting there for more than a month and I DON’T LIKE having papers on my desk that I can’t clear away quickly, so that was fantastic.

I did work late, because on Monday I took off in time for yoga and on Tuesday I got off in time to go for dinner with Justin.  And I decided earlier last month that I wasn’t going to work this Friday and I got it cleared with my boss to work my 40 hours on Monday – Thursday.  And then I’m taking Monday off, too.  So I had to work later to make up the rest of my time, but now?  FOUR DAY WEEKEND.  I kept reminding my guys that I wouldn’t be around on Friday or Monday and they were all “Where are you going?”  And I’d tell them “It’s my birthday on Monday and I don’t want to work on my birthday.  So I’m not!”  To which they are surprised and amused and they wished me a happy birthday.  Maybe I’ll bring them some cake on Tuesday.  (And, fun thing, my boss is going to be out of the office (on the other side of the planet) all next week, so I left today and I won’t see him again until the 27th.  He’ll email me tasks, I’m sure, but there’s a 12 or 13 hour time difference!  It’s going to be interesting.)

So!  My plans for the weekend?  Not a clue.  But I’m not working!  I’m taking a four day holiday for my birthday!

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Sick

Sunday, February 12th, 2012

So I got a hold of my worship pastor last night and told him that I wouldn’t make it to church in the morning.  And then I went to bed and didn’t wake up until after 11:00 this morning.  I’m feeling a little better, but still tire out quickly and my head is still stuffy and ugh.  Sick.  Taking it easy again today and hopefully will be all better by tomorrow.

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Sleeeeeepy

Saturday, February 11th, 2012

Thursday = work all day, home to make dinner, band practice for church, home and sleeping

Friday = work until noon, home, chiropractor appointment, grocery shopping, out for Chinese buffet with friends, home with friends to make cookies and watch Dr Who and then sleep.

Saturday = sleep most of the morning, kick Justin out of bed by snoring too loudly, give back the bed when I wake up and let him sleep some more, wake him up a couple hours later, go back to reading, fall asleep on the couch, go back to bed and sleep for 3 more hours, finally shower, get tired again but refuse to go back to sleep when I’ve only been awake for a couple hours all day.

I think I might be coming down with something.

Wednesday it felt like I accidentally got a piece of the pizza I had for lunch up my nose.  It hurt and I couldn’t blow it out or flush it out with my neti pot.  Thursday, I was still feeling weirdness in my sinuses, started sneezing a lot in the afternoon, but still felt like something was stuck up my nose.  Snored a lot that night..  Friday, woke up feeling like my sinuses were stuffed full of cotton that was overflowing into my brain.  Couldn’t smell a thing.  Couldn’t hear well.  Talked more quietly than necessary because it sounded loud in my head.  Snored a lot overnight.

I’m exhausted.  And I have to sing tomorrow.

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Small steps to a healthier me

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Whoo!  Three days in a row!  Don’t expect it to last over the weekend, but I’m trying really hard to get on here and write.

So Justin and I are trying to do things that are more healthy for us.  I’m going to yoga two times a week.  He goes running on days when I go to yoga.  One of these days we’ll go running again together on an off day from my yoga class.  We try to go at least for a walk, but we don’t always have the energy/motivation.  Anyway, we weren’t really doing any of that before, so we’re working on doing better at that.

We’ve also been working hard to include a salad with every dinner.  Now, they’re not always the most healthy salad once they’re drenched in a creamy dressing, but we’re working on that part.  At least we’re including some fresh greens with the meals.  And we’re trying to be more intentional about our meals.  We know that we spend a lot less money on groceries when we plan out a menu for the week and less food goes bad because we never got around to eating it (especially salads lately, which was the biggest wasted food before).  Plus, there are fewer nights when we sit down and go “Wbat do you want to eat?”  ”I dunno.  What’s in the freezer?”  And the freezer’s full of frozen stuff, but it’s stuff we got on sale and we do try to get things on the healthier side of frozen food.  So, for example, instead of the pot pies that are sooooo good and something like 2000 calories a piece, we’ve got a pot pie mix that’s mostly frozen vegetables and not cream sauce and down to like 300 calories.  Maybe?  I’m not sure.  But it’s *significantly* more healthy.

And if I’ve mentioned money a lot in that previous paragraph it’s because we are on a strict budget when it comes to food, both groceries and eating out.  We looked over our finances and determined that the “low-hanging fruit” (to use a phrase from my Lean training) was to cut money from those areas.  Other areas, like bills and regular expenses, aren’t going to change much from month to month.  But the money we spend on food had huge variances between months.  So we set a budget and we’re working very hard to stick to it.  Because come hell or high water (it’s that strictly a southern phrase?) we are going to get out of our credit card debt.  It’s our #1 goal right now, financially.  So when we get to September, we will have money available to buy airplane tickets for November.

I heard an interesting thing on the radio on my way home tonight, asking the question whether people gain weight or lose weight during a recession.  The guess by one of the people on the program was that people would lose weight, since, like us, people would eat out less often and eat at home more often.  And eating at home it’s much easier (generally — more on that in a minute) to eat more healthy options than found at restaurants/fast food joints around town.  Makes sense, right?  Not eating fast food burgers or huge, sauce-covered pasta bowls with bottomless bread sticks would mean an overall reduction in weight.

But at the same time, it’s generally understood that people in the lower income brackets tend to have trouble with their weight.  Because things like potato chips are cheaper than, say, apples.  It’s really hard to keep a family fed in vegetables when frozen pizza and bologna sandwiches are significantly cheaper.  So in a recession where people aren’t able to keep their homes over their heads, it seems like a lot more people would be forgoing the vegetables (even inexpensive frozen options) in favor of more cheap soup and sandwich options.  Know what I mean?

Plus, this isn’t even getting into the side-effects of psychological distress, the depression and lack of motivation that would keep people sitting in front of their TV instead of heading to the gym with, while we’re on the subject, the membership that they can’t afford to pay for anymore.  And the example the other guy on the radio program mentioned was the lack of money to pay for cigarettes ($12 for a pack?!) which would mean an increase of weight for anyone trying to quit.

So I think it swings both ways, but there’s a huge difference depending on the financial situation of the household in question.  People who have the financial fluidity to be able to reduce their food budget and keep eating healthy foods might be more likely to lose weight while people who are on the less fortunate side might gain weight because the healthy options are just too expensive to afford.  So figuring out a national average would require more understanding of the actual average financial situation of people right now.  And that gets into things more tricky than I know how to get into.

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting discussion.

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Status update

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

My to do list for work today:

  • Finish getting R—’s trip to Denver set up with the travel department
  • Get the food set up for A—’s lunch presentation to the big-wigs
  • Finish linking the cells in the Excel workbook with the source document
  • Work the math out to figure out the hours spent per department on this project last week
  • Follow up with several people regarding deadlines for projects due this week
  • Figure out how to ship that box back to the supplier
  • Get a hold of S— in finance and get the right account charged for that event
  • Get the standardized template out to the guys for updates on their tasks
  • And more…

My hand is doing much better.  All the symptoms from yesterday are gone except for a little tenderness around the wrist joint and the burn actually hurt today — it didn’t yesterday and maybe that should have told me something…  Anyway, it’s much better today.

Mom, please feel free to call whenever you’d like!  I usually have people over one evening of the weekend, so you’d need to call before 6 on the weekend.  Otherwise, call after 7 and I’m usually home by then.  I can email you a more detailed example of my schedule if you’d like.

The biggest part of my day today was spent coordinating a lunch for the directors and VP over the project I’m working for.  I set up the meeting last week.  I ordered food for it yesterday.  The meeting was scheduled from 11-12 and lunch would be provided.  At 9:45 this morning, my boss told me he thought they were going to move the meeting up from 10 – 11 and did I already order the food?  Oh.  Well, he’d call me in 1/2 hour and tell me what to do.

Half an hour later, the meeting was back on schedule and I went to Zaxby’s to pick up the food.  Three trips back to the car and a hefty charge on my corporate card and I was back in my car and on my way to the building with the meeting.

I am very thankful that I ran into someone there who helped me unload everything from my car and then the woman who was helping me get this organized told me where to set up the food.  My boss was already in the meeting and didn’t know where the food was going to be set up because there was a last minute change about where that was happening, so I had to step into the meeting and motion to my boss to let him know where it was.

And then I waited to make sure that everything would go smoothly and that no one would steal the food and that people would know where to find the food.  And I waited.  And waited.  And watched the food get cold.  And waited.  And listened at the door of the meeting to make sure they were still in there (2 doors to the room).  And waited.  And an hour later, they made it out of their meeting.

I’m running the math on how long I think all those things took and I’m off somewhere, so maybe it wasn’t an hour, but it was definitely long enough that the food got cold.  And that was not the impression that I wanted to make on the VP and all the directors.  Not that I had anything to do with how long their meeting took at all.  But, like I told Justin when I called and ranted to him about this, it doesn’t matter one bit whether or not it was actually my fault.  It matters if the directors and VP think it was my fault.  If they think I could have done something to keep the food warm long enough, then that’s the impression that they’re going to have, accurate or not, and there’s nothing I can do about that.  And it’s very frustrating.

Anyway, the important people got their food. And then  I got my food.  And then the rest of the people who were in the room where the food was set up got to eat anything they would like because it’s just rude to make them all smell Zaxby’s for a couple hours and not let them eat any.  The directors/VP came back through to grab a final cookie.  And then I cleaned up the mess and took the leftovers back to my desk, where a handful of people were made very happy at the opportunity to eat the leftover salad and cookies and cold fries.

From start to finish — I left my desk at 10:30 and made it back to my desk after 1:00.  Nearly 1/3 of my day was spent fussing with food.

And yet I still managed to get almost everything done off my list I wrote up yesterday as well as a bunch of things that weren’t on the list.  And that might just explain why I’m so stupidly tired when I get home sometimes.

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