Migraine alert!

So I fought a migraine last week and though it seemed to be gone on the weekend, it is back tonight. I am thinking it has to be either the bus or the office I am currently working in. I hate migraines. They just make me want to curl up and go to sleep. Mind you, I slept like crap last night. There are certain disadvantages I am finding to being more active. If you do not maintain the activity level, you tend to sleep like crap. I find that if I do less than 5000 steps in a day (which is not hard to do on a weekend, when I am generally only up 12 hours), then I feel like crap and I sleep even worse.

Course it could also be my bed. On Saturday, I finally gave up and bought a new bed. I have had my waterbed since I was 13. I love waterbeds; they are so comfortable, so warm and so soothing. Unfortunately, this is the second bladder that has been bought in the last 5 years and both have developed holes along the baffle. I think the warranty might still cover this mattress, but it is unlikely and really after having the same problem, do I really want to go through this hassle again. I decided that I would like to have a bed that doesn’t curve along the sides – which when you can sleep in the middle all the time is not a problem, but add a sleeping partner and suddenly the bed in not as comfortable. So I broke down and took D with me to find a new bed. It is exhausting to try out beds for several hours, I must say. D looked like he was going to pass out at any minute and I just was tempted to close my eyes and test the bed for real. But a bed was picked out and hopefully, it will be delivered by Friday so I have all weekend to test it and make sure I can sleep in it.

My training is going well. I did what is essentially a practicum today and I finished it with what I believe are flying colors. Yeah me! Tomorrow, the others in the group will finish and then we just need to work out how we want to work on our presentations for the next 10 weeks – yes, the joy of doing training for trainers is that when you are done training, you turn around and start training others. I am kind of looking forward to that and very nervous as well. And if the weather holds I should be able to go to all the offices that I need to hit in order to do the training without having to spend more than 20 minutes with a bus. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Anyway, off to get some Tylenol and make dinner. Steak, stuffed potatoes and salad. Yum!

Snow Day!

What a weekend! Friday night, D and I met up with A & J for dinner. We originally planned for Atlantic Trap and Gill, but seeing as there were about 30 people lined up outside the doors to get in, we chose to try Red Lobster as the consensus was for seafood. As a land lover, not my fave choice, but they do have some turf items to eat. Amazingly the wait had us behind 3 other parties and we were seated in no time. A lovely dinner was had, though the steak was not the best steak it could have been. I think they were mad that there was a steak lover in the midst of 3 lobster orders. The conversation was great, as always. As we were driving home, there was a light snow starting, but nothing extreme.

So imagine my surprise Saturday morning, well, afternoon, when I opened the front door to get my paper – if not for the slight indentations were someone (the paper person) had walked at the end of my walk, I would have never known where the sidewalk was. Oh my freakin’ goodness. There went my ideas of calling people to go shopping. The first thought that went through my mind was that it was a snow day – a day to curl in front of the tv, cuddle with someone or something and watch videos while eating comfort food. Alas, we had plans that night so that thought got thrown out. I went through my normal Saturday awakening – prep breakfast/lunch, read the paper, maybe watch a movie – alas, what was supposed to be Bridget Jones’ diary 2 ended up being 2 hours of taped WB filler shows. Joy. So I finished reading the paper and went outside.

2 phone calls to mom, 1 to D and about 30 minutes of swearing, I gave up on the snow blower and decided to do it the old fashioned way – with a shovel. I feel for eastern Canada and Russia with their blizzards, I huffed my way through the front – thank goodness for neighbors who sometime early in the morning had done some of the shoveling, so I only had knee high drifts on my property – city property was only ankle deep. Then to the backyard – a shovel width trail from front gate to door and to the back gate. Screw the rest – D would probably get the snow blower working, and that would finish the backyard. Then the driveway – that day I hated having a double garage and matching double width driveway. I did enough to get D’s car to the garage. When D called to say it was home time, I returned to the driveway to dig out some of the alleyway and some more of the driveway so I knew the car would make it into the driveway and garage. After watching one person get stuck and rev their car so much that the back end rose off the ground, I was a little worried that the car would not even make it in the alley let alone the driveway and gosh forbid, out again to go to the Fuj Memorial. But D returned and made the snow blower work – stupid machine. And we were able to make it to the party with me grabbing the holy shit handles in the car only about three times. Whew!

The Fuj Memorial cribbage tournament was a riot as expected. Lots of good nibblies, lots of good conversation and there were people there that did not participate in Purgatory, so there were no moments when I had to cry out “Enough already!” Unfortunately, C and myself did not maintain our title. While we say that we wanted others to have the joy of housing the cup, in truth, both C and I were exhausted and despite our efforts, the cards were not with us. I think I scored 15 once, 12 four times and mostly 6’s. Not shabby, but certainly not winning scores. The winners this year was the 2 people who had not won a single game at the last memorial, so it was fitting – though I think their innocent act was just that – an act; and in truth, they were sharking us. Heehee.

Sunday arose to the great cheer of “No More Snow – Yeah!” D and I walked to the mall to pick up some groceries. The alleys are terrible and the side roads a horror. And I think the lack of snow all season has led to a shortage of snowplow drivers because the main roads suck as well. Amazingly, most of the people in our area have actually shoveled their walks (trust me – this is truly remarkable) and the walk back (no alley way this time) was much more pleasant. D stopped to help push someone at the corner and the rest of the evening has been spent watching tv and relaxing.

As a bonus, J was gracious enough to show me A’s cravat so that I can adjust my pattern which did not turn out as well as expected and I should have D’s cravat finished sometime this week.

I am dreading taking the bus tomorrow though. I hope the main roads are plowed by then. And I have to remember to give myself extra time to make it to the bus stop, let alone downtown. If I thought it was tough today, I can only imagine how hard it will be with an additional 10 pounds in a backpack weighing me down.

On a domestic front, I must say, my attempt at a month’s menu plan has worked out swimmingly. We have maintained the schedule with our only variations this weekend, but even then, it was easily altered and since I have enough leftovers for the next few weeks, I did not need to make a big meal today for lunches. And I have not picked up a few extras here and there at Safeway like I normally do, thereby saving money as well.

Unfortunately, the rise in leftovers numbers has been due to my training at work. I am currently in training downtown and there is NO lunchroom where we are and so I am buying lunch everyday. While this is wonderful as I have so many people I need to do lunch dates with and I love having new things, it has been terrible to both my wallet and my waistline. Despite easily making my steps for the day, I have not lost any weight. I have started taking the stairs going down instead of the elevator, and I have come up with some cheap meals ideas that I can probably stick with, so hopefully I will either lose weight or continue to maintain. This does not bode well though since rumor has it I may be downtown and without a lunchroom for an additional two weeks minimum. Sighhh!

Get Busy

D’s costume has been started. It would be finished, except the light blew on my sewing machine and so we had to track down a new one. That is done; I just have to install it now so I can finish it. And of course, I am procrastinating by writing in my blog. Heehee.

What a week it has been. I start my training on Monday, so this week at work has been stressful. I don’t procrastinate at work; I have projects that I get done all the time. It just seemed that since for 3 weeks, I will be at training and then the following 8-10 weeks I will be in and out of the office to train others, I needed to get ALL of my projects finished. I mean - I know the office will survive without me. But it won’t be nearly as pretty or organized. So this week, I revamped a couple of shelving areas, got a cheat sheet (version 3) for my job done and made sure all the things I usually handle have been settled with someone else for those emergency times. It is times like this when I realize that I do FAR too much at work sometimes. And to hear them talk about having to do these duties – I even made sure that the water for the water cooler was reordered and paid for, so they don’t have to worry about that, because that sure made a big ruckus when I said they might have to order water. My goodness, people, I will move on eventually. Please don’t think I will be at this level forever. Now, that is a scary thought. I mean, I like working with the clients (most of them), but to do what I do until I retire – I think I have more potential than that. Plus, without these mini-excursions, I am never going to get new skills at my job. Except for the new things being thrown at us, I have my job down pat and when compared to the other offices, I do more that I am supposed to.

Eh, whatever. I mean - it is just a job. I work to make money so I can afford to live. Though lately, my money goes towards bills.

Did I mention I love Wonka Nerds, the candy? I found an Easter egg full of pure sugar – laffy taffy, sweet tarts, runts and nerds. Mmmmmm. I’s loves my sugar.

And this weather has been most interesting – I feel like all I do is shovel and just when I finish, the snow starts again. Sighhhh! One of my neighbors yesterday though was so nice and did not only the city sidewalk, but also my walk up to my front door. So nice. And this morning, someone with a snow blower did the city sidewalks for half the block. Cool. At least, I am getting my weigh lifting workout. Who knew that I would miss not having a fence? Previous years, the fence hadn’t been installed, though the old falling down was removed. So shoveling was a breeze. Just throw in the back yard. The fence is up now, of course. So here is me, who is only inches taller than the fence, trying to lift the shovel full of snow over the fence. I usually wear a lot of it. Hence the wearing of a touque and scarf even though it is a balmy –5 C outside. Sighhhh.

Bad news for the week – a coworker has been building a house for at least 18 months. On Thursday morning, it burned to the ground. Good news is that they hadn’t moved their stuff in yet and they weren’t living there and no one was hurt. But they were finally moving in this weekend. They have been trying to move in since last summer. And on Thursday, another coworker’s daughter was moving into a new house in the boonies, and sometime on Wednesday, someone broke into the house, stole all their stuff and basically trashed the place. The rugs were filthy. They tried to damage the heating system so the pipes would burst and everything was taken that had been moved out there thus far. It was just a horrible day for people.

On a good note, my previous coworker who kept me company at my desk area returned on Friday to say hello. She is off on maternity leave now and is excited. She looks good too. Sometimes, pregnant women don’t always look good when they are nearing the due date, but she looked really good. I hope all goes well with her.

Did you read the article in the journal about a blogger being charged with cyberlibel for discussing the run-ins she had with her landlord? It was very interesting. I understand that this a public forum, though few read my blog, but I don’t tend to write what I wouldn’t say to the person (yes, I would tell Harper he’s not my pick), but it seems to me that we are getting blamed for having an opinion. As long as you can defend your position, why should it be a problem? Libel is a false accusation of an offense or a malicious misrepresentation of someone's words or actions in print. If I am not lying about the situation and I can say here are the reasons that say - Harper should not be our prime minister - then that shouldn’t be considered to be libel unless my facts are a lie. I don’t know. It makes you wonder sometimes what the world is coming to that one cannot state an opinion and the reasons behind it without worrying about being sued. What happen to debate? What happened to free will? Seems to me that the free world is more “free to be sued” than ‘free to be me’.

I guess, I should stop procrastinating and go work on the costume. Before it starts snowing again and I have to go shovel again.

Down to One

So like my last post, I again woke up this morning with the dreams of working on D’s costume. I have gotten further than last time – the patterns have been cut from that huge sheet of patterns, the material has been pre-washed and I read the instructions and 75 % of it makes sense. So I woke up, took a quick shower, ate breakfast and then my mom called. She had terrible news and so I spoke with her. Then returned to the paper that had not been read yet, finished the paper, in time for mom to call again. After hanging up the phone, I went outside and shoveled the walks, speaking with my neighbor who has so kindly shoveled my city sidewalks twice in a row now. Then I entered the house and went to the computer to do what I had told my mom I would do which would have been fine, if when I sent the item, it hadn’t neglected to send my augmentations. So I had to those again. And so here I sit, almost 6 hours since I got up and I haven’t worked on the costume. Sighhhh!

The good news for today is that while I won’t tell you specifics, I have managed to lose a bit a weight. Actually, for me, it is a good amount. So I will pat myself on the back. I have done it all with just little changes that are easy to maintain and no elimination of certain foods, which I wholeheartedly disagree with. Thinking back to the few years of changing my food habits, I am amazed that I have gone from sitting down and eating an entire back of jalepeno and cheddar chips (oh my goodness, are those spicy) to being able to have a handful of chips every once in a while and being satisfied. And while I miss my Sunday gaming, I must admit – I don’t miss the slurpee and all the sugar from Sundays, cause it was a lot of sugar. I actually go to work on Monday and not feel exhausted. And I don’t necessarily go to bed earlier. I believe it is just because of the sugar.

So my list of to do’s is as ever long, my list of done is one. I have shoveled. Sighhh. Guess what I am going to do tonight? – procrastinate against doing the costume some more. Heehee.

Yesterday was a nice day off. I need more days off. I pre-washed the fabric, and turned the self-clean on the oven and did dishes, ran the dishwasher and finished my clothes. I organized and wrote down what is in the freezer. AND I made a month long meal list. In theory, if we stick to the list, we will have finished most of what is the freezer. I know – totally anal, but totally awesome! AND – I wrote an email to a friend from my old work and when it got to what’s new with me, instead of saying, not much new, I actually wrote something that was new. And it felt good.

So despite my mother’s not so good news, today I feel happy and I feel good about things. A good day indeed.