Beached Whale

My gym has had more drama lately. It is owned by M & T. But M & T are now going through a divorce and T left her no notice as well as left us in the bootcamp no notice. Previously when I have watched shows like the Biggest Loser and they do things like switch trainers on them, I was like, oh get over it. But now I completely understand. I have been filled with anxiety over the "new guy" we were going to get.

New trainer is N. N is very nice. We started with N last week Tuesday and while I know I have been working out for the last 5 weeks, after our first workout with N, you certainly couldn't tell. Thursday nights workout was so hard I honestly thought I was going to throw up in the middle of it.

It was all I could do to struggle through. I felt very depressed about it. I'll continue to perservere, but man...

I got my taxes done yesterday. 3 states and a home sale...sheesh. It took over 2 hours to complete and I "had people". I went to the big block to get them done. But I really don't trust the guy who did them...it just seemed like he didn't understand some stuff. So we'll see. Luckily I don't owe anyone money. I didn't care about getting anything back, just didn't want to owe any money.

My brother and his family are off to Walt Disney World this week. All of them are sick as dogs...so I hope the sunshine and Mickey make them feel better.

I'm super excited because I get to visit them in a couple of weeks! Woot woot!

Just call me Kookie

How many times in a row do you have to get tonsillitis before they decide it's time for you to get your tonsils out? I've had tonsillitis at least 3x / year since I was about 9. I still have my tonsils. This year, since moving to the great white north, I have now gotten tonsillitis (self diagnosed thanks to WebMd, then verified by visit to Doc first time) twice in very quick succession this new year and it's not even March.

I was so proud of myself that I was fighting this last time so hard, trying not to let the cold reach my chest which then can escalate (for me) into bronchitis really quickly. Wednesday night I went to my spin class and did the best I've done thus far and it was hard. The trainer was awesome and kicked our butts. I came home feeling so proud and felt so good. Then...a night of tossing and turning and coughing my head off followed. I was so wiped out the next day during my training class I thought I was going to die. After lunch my colleagues around me were telling me to go home as I was white as a sheet.

It was snowing like crazy and what should normally be a 20 minute drive took me an hour. Once I got home I took so much cold medication and sleep medication that I slept. I slept all day Friday and all Friday night. I finally feel human today.

I'm so tired of being sick. I had really hoped that working out would build up my immune system, but we'll see. Speaking of building my immune system, I've started taking Kundalini yoga. Kundalini is a type of yoga that focuses not only on the outside but also the inside. According to Wikipedia (for what it's worth) Kundalini yoga is a physical and meditative discipline, comprising a set of techniques that use the mind, senses and body to create a communication between "mind" and "body". Kundalini yoga focuses on psycho-spiritual growth and the body's potential for maturation, giving special consideration to the role of the spine and the endocrine system in the understanding of yogic awakening.

Now, all of this felt a bit "woo woo" to me the first class. We do a lot of chanting and focus on our "auras" and our "chi". I'm not sure I really buy into all of this, but I have to admit it has grown on me and I love it. I like the meditation (as I am awesome at the corpse pose - essentially laying on your back). But mostly I like it because a lot of yoga focuses on breathing techniques and I now have asthma - which really concerns me. So I asked my yoga teacher if she had any additional exercises to help me out. She then asked me if I would be interested in homeopathic medicine...uh...well...I guess so.

I've never been interested in homeopathic medicine. I am the quintessential American girl - if a pill will make me better, bring it on. When I lived in Japan, the doctors there often wanted to use "the foreigner" as a guinea pig and try Chinese medicine on me. As if I was an alien and it would react differently on me than them. I hated it. Why deal with nasty tasting crap for 2 weeks when a pill will cure me in 2 days?

But I thought I really hate dealing with my inhalers and it's really expensive and I would love to figure out a better way to deal with my asthma. Little did I know what that would entail. So I fill out this "intake" form for her. My yoga teacher has some type of homeopathic certification. So last week, after class she pulls out all of these vials. She then sits next to me and takes my pulse while dropping different liquid herbs on the pad of my thumb. Uh yeah...whatever. I'm like la la lah. I feel nothing. She's making typical doc type noises, switching vials around and such. Then, all of the sudden, she looks up at me and asks, "do you smoke"? I'm like, no. Then she says, "but did you smoke". Uh...yeah. She goes, I knew it! I was like, am I suddenly at a Tarot Card reading? WTF? So she recommended 2 herbal remedies for me. I looked them up - they are legit old school remedies.

She sends me to this herbal shop to buy them. I was meeting a friend for lunch, so I made her go with me as my yoga teacher said if you think I'm out there, the people who run this shop are "kooks". Lovely. So I go to the shop, find my stuff and get out of there before it gets busted as it is clearly a head shop. Well, actually I have no idea, but it was bizarre. Incense and books and herbs everywhere. Freaky-deeky people "working" there as well. I think one guy was actually a witch doctor.

So now I'm supposed to drop these two herbal liquids under my tongue twice a day. First off, they are NASTY tasting!! I have a very low tolerance for that. THEN, one of them BURNS!!! Completely unpleasant and it creates canker sores in my mouth.

To top it all off she gave me some dietary recommendations - basically things she wants me to stop eating. First on the list is all cow dairy and eggs. UHHHHHHH!!! NO CHEESE?!!! It's like my go-to snack. I LURVE cheese, just about any and all cheese (except stinky blues). Then, a laundry list of vitamin supplements. We'll see how long it lasts.

So here's to becoming a kook. Om.

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Creeky and Confused

Today ended my third week of bootcamp. I am sore in areas I didn't know existed. I can't sit or lay in the same position for long periods of time without risking a serious cramp or twitch. When I get up, my body creeks and cracks like an old lady. Class today is at noon. I woke up at 9:30 thanks to a stupid telemarketer and it was bright sunshine and snowing. What do you call that? When we lived in Hawaii and the sun was out while raining they called it, pineapple juice. Silly, but appropriate. So what would you call sun and snow at the same time? Shave Ice?

Okay - sorry, sidetracked. So I was very tired this morning...could have very easily gone back to sleep. But I show up and as usual I'm the first to arrive. My other 5 cohorts in pain show up and we end up doing spinning sprints and jumps followed by ubiquitous push-ups and lunges because clearly we didn't work out legs enough while spinning.

Then we get back on the bikes after lunging and push-ups because clearly we don't need our legs anymore - legs must be numb. So we did hills. At a certain point doing hills I honestly thought I was going to break down and start crying. I was trying to channel my inner Lance Armstrong saying to myself over and over, "I'm in the Alps, isn't it pretty?". I manage to find some inner motivation to finish the climb up the hill and then we have to finish the day with 60 bicep curls and 60 triceps.

After I finished I felt really good and it seemed the hour went by really fast. It clearly did not seem that way in the moment, but push-ups are getting "easier". My ultimate goal is to do boy push-ups, not girl ones.

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So I have a bit of a strange dilemma. I used to have a MySpace account, but there are too many strange people who post inappropriate spams to your account so I took it down. Other people asked me to join Facebook which is more private than MySpace, so I did. I went to 3 different high schools. I get "friended" by a lot of people that I can't remember. So I have a lot of random "friends". I also find it odd that after 20 some odd years these people want to "friend" me. It's really just wanting to compare lives and see how people have aged. I don't have any photos of myself because I'm not thrilled with the way I look these days (hence the bootcamp) AND because there are certain people over the years that I am not so keen in looking me up again.

So I work with a man that I will call A. I have conversed with A since I started my new job in July. A has been with the company a little bit longer than me and is in a Director role. I was able to go to headquarters in December for some training and met A and those on his team. They were very cool to me and we did lunch and then drinks and dinner. From then, I invited A and his team to my network via LinkedIn. LinkedIn is like Facebook for professionals. Not long after I made my request, I got an email from A asking if I was on Facebook. Now, due to some lessons learned over the years, I try now to keep my work "friends" separate from my social "friends". AND I didn't exactly want someone from my current company in a higher position than myself seeing my status updates and other silly things I chose to post to my Facebook account. I already have felt like I have to censor myself in my blog at times and I didn't want to do so on Facebook. But, how do you say no? So to his question of am I on Facebook, I simply answered "yes". Then, I get an email a few days later saying he didn't believe me because he couldn't find me and asked if I would "friend" him. So...feeling a bit of pressure I did.

While I really like A - he's very intelligent, good-looking, he's probably in his 50s and has a kid in college. I might be interested in him if we didn't work for the same company and the fact that I do work with him regularly. On Facebook, there is an internal IM system. On a few occasions A has IM'd me via Facebook asking what I'm up to and such. Then recently he's started IM'ing me at work. Recently he IM'd me at work and I couldn't tell if he was interested in me as a friend or more than a friend. I've been out of "the game" for such a long time, I can't tell when I'm being flirted with or not. So I always assume the person is not. Until this week. Monday, I get an IM from A who has read one of those stupid quizzes I filled out on Facebook and references it. So we have a bit of banter back and forth and then he says, "I think if you lived here, we could have a lot of fun". Okayyyyyyy. What do I say to this? Especially as he's chosen to say this via our work IM and not Facebook IM. So I just say, thanks. THEN, Friday I get a V-Day IM from him.

Sigh...seriously? I am not sure what to think about this or really what to do. Thoughts?

Happy

Lately I've been feeling pretty happy. It's unusual for me especially over the last few years filled with being laid off, selling my house and moving. I'm finally over that "new hire" hump where I feel like people finally know me, my hard work to build a network has paid off. I made it through another scary period of lay-offs and I know it could always happen sometime in the future, but I think I'm "safe" for now.

I enrolled in a bootcamp that is kicking my ass, but I can't believe the stuff I'm able to do. My energy level is up and oddly enough I've been in a really good mood lately. It's weird.

Light Sleep

I never thought I was a light sleeper until I moved to my current apartment. It seems I got used to owning a home and used to not having neighbors right on the other side of the wall or "city" noises.

I know I've complained in the past about the loud banging noise in my bedroom. Yes, it still happens. I've given up trying to record it and frankly, as I've said I doubt seriously the management would do anything about it even if they could "hear it". HA!

Recently, since my world became a frozen tundra, I've heard this awful noise outside a few times a week that I thought was trash men. No idea why I thought it was the trash men other than the vehicle makes that awful back-up beep-beep noise. The other night, it was like 2am and that stupid beep-beep noise was going on and on and on - for flipping ever! I was laying there thinking we don't have that many dumpsters! So I finally got up and looked out the window...no it's not the trash men. It is the 2am snow plow patrol. They clear off the side streets...at 2am. At 2am for like a freaking hour!!!

I can handle the fire trucks and the cop cars and the occasional horn going off, but that stupid beep-beep back-up noise off and on for an hour?!!! I've tried sleeping with ear plugs in the past and frankly they hurt. I think I have small ear holes. I'm one of those weird people who can't wear the ear buds because they won't stay in...and if I try to make them, it hurts.

Somebody call the Wahmulance! Wah wah wah...so long story short, I don't recall the last time I slept through the night. Between the noise and my cats, it's not happening. I'm exhausted and spend my days at work trying not to fall asleep at my desk.

Proud to be an American

I'll have a nap for lunch

I'm a big whiny butt and took today off because I'm still not feeling well. Although, not really as I did do 2 conference calls and checked email throughout the day. But I was able to take one nap between them. Why can't we do this when we are in the office? Seriously, isn't it my choice what I want to do over lunch - shouldn't I be able to just put my head down and have a nap for lunch? I suppose I could go outside to my car and take a nap over lunch - if I lived in a normal climate location! Where I live I would freeze to death or die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

I'm also really annoyed about going to work tomorrow - on Inauguration Day. I think we should all have the day off for a national celebration. Not only did we have to work today (yes, I know I called in sick) on MLK Day, but we have to work tomorrow. AND at my work we blocked from streaming video on our computers, so we can't watch the inauguration either!! Seriously - they expect us to do work at work?! Ridiculous!

Wheezy

I'm dying. I feel like crap. I've been sick off and on since the holidays. I'm tired of it. I thought I was getting better. I went to the doc on Thursday and he said everything looks fine. On Friday I started this bizarre wheezing cough and on Saturday I couldn't get out of bed. I slept most of the day Saturday. Taking a shower was exhausting.

Today I'm not much better. I'm sitting here trying not to pee my pants every time I have a coughing jag. I need to strip the bed and remake it - not looking forward to it. Just the thought of it makes me tired.

Then, to top it all off, I hear my beloved peanut butter is being recalled due to salmonella. Peanut butter is my go to food when I don't feel well, when I do feel well, basically anytime. I love peanut butter. In fact, I'm not sure I ate much of anything else for the first 6 years of my life. I'm actually very sad because my niece has yet to try peanut butter - she's not yet 3 years old and can't have it. We are all taking bets in the family as to whether or not she will like it. I'm obviously on the pro side. My sister-in-law didn't discover the wonders of the magical properties of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich until she was pregnant with my niece, so I'm thinking because of that my niece will love it. At least I hope so.

In my family we actually have a weird tradition of eating peanut butter. We eat chicken noodle soup with peanut butter on saltine crackers together. Not just together, but we float the peanut butter laden crackers in the chicken noodle soup.

Don't knock it til you try it. Does your family have any weird food traditions?

+ZERO!!!

I'm so excited today! Not only is it a Friday - quite possibly the best day of the week next to Saturday, but today the temperatures were above ZERO!!! I know it sounds stupid, but I can handle temps until it hits the negative territory - especially if there is very little wind. But this past week has been the coldest week on record in January - natch. It always happens to me. We would move somewhere and everyone there would say, the weather hasn't been this bad in decades.

The one thing I'm not looking forward to, in spite of it being the weekend and on the plus side of zero, is more snow. I'm so flipping tired of snow. I always thought it could be too cold to snow...HA, living in the frozen tundra has taught me it doesn't matter the temp it will snow. It snows so much and it never gets above freezing - so it's snow piled up on top of snow ad nauseum. I hate driving on it - frozen snow combined with exhaust from vehicles creates black ice. So many accidents lately.

I didn't have much of a choice moving here, I needed the job. However, I really did like it in nicer weather. But all the natives lie to you. Winter doesn't last just a month longer...winter is flipping 6 months long! It's been so cold that my relatively new car, Martha - a 2007, wouldn't start on the first crank.

I've been trying not to complain about the cold, at least until February...but I never said I wouldn't complain about the snow. I hate snow. It sucks.

Saddle Sore

Last night I went to my second night of bootcamp. It was so intense. We did spinning and a bunch of other horrible things like lunges and push ups. I have never done spinning before - or should I say I have never spun before? We had to do this stupid "jumps" on the bike - where you stand up and peddle and then sit down and peddle over and over and over and over again. We did a total of 30 min plus the rest of the horrible stuff for 30 min.

And yes, duh, I'm sore. I don't necessarily mind having sore muscles (other than having to use the handicapped stall because it hurts too bad to sit on the toilet without using the handrail). Being sore is sometimes nice because you know you worked really hard. And I did. I was busting my fat ass.

But what sucks more than being sore, and speaking of my ass, I now have a sore hiney from the stupid spin bicycle seat. I need a flipping donut to sit on!

Then! The totally bizarro thing happened after we left the gym - someone stole all the spinning bikes from the gym!! From the location I go to and their other location! Isn't that crazy! I got an email from them this morning. So obviously my bootcamp is on hold until they resolve this...but it's so crazy. I have such a hard time believing this...those bikes aren't light and the gym is on the second floor of this old warehouse on the corner of an intersection.

Anyway, they better sort it out soon otherwise they better be giving me my moolah back.

Lamo Work Peeps

The last two companies I have worked at have had some seriously lame people who do not care about pop culture (gasp!). I seriously don't get it. All I want to do is watch the Golden Globes and show up to work the next day and talk about the best/worst dressed. I mean seriously, did you see Renee Zellweger last night? AND did Marisa Tomei steal Jerry Seinfeld's puffy shirt?

I NEED to talk about this! I need to share and dish and gossip and pretend like I know these people! Everyone I work with is completely LAME and does not watch much less does not care!!! UHHHHHHHH!!

Bunch of LOSERS!!!

The Pink Sisters

So after a lot of thought this evening, I have a new plan! Get me to a nunnery!! It involves two things I've been looking for: job security and a man! I'm sure you are thinking there are no men in a nunnery...well, no there aren't, but it's worship of Jesus who was a man. See!

My mother said, but you would have to be celibate - and this is new to me how? Not to mention, I found a convent in Lincoln, Nebraska that wears a PINK habit!!! PINK! My signature color!

Check out the sisters! Love their habit - the pink. Not mention, they have 2 recreation periods - that's more than some kids get in school. AND they have a foozball table. I mean seriously, what else do you need?

Why didn't I think of this sooner?!

Lay Off

Unemloyment and lay offs. Not exactly news, however today it reached an all-time high 7.2%. Scary. Since September the economy has really sunk into the toilet. I have been laid off 3 times in my life. The first time everyone tells me I can't count as I was only 20 years old and it was my first real job. I beg to differ. I totally count it. Yes, I was young, yes it was my first job, but I was still sans job.

More recently I have been laid off 2 times in the last 2 years. July 2006 and March 2008. Lovely. The first time I was able to rebound incredibly quickly thanks to my brother. This last time, I was sans job for 6 months. 6 months! Trying to sell my house and get a job anywhere at the same time. Serioulsy one of the worst times of my life.

I have now relocated to new city with new job. However, thanks to the state of affairs, new company just went through a lay off right before the holidays - yes, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you. We heard we would take it quarter by quarter. Well, I guess the first quarter is turning out worse than the company thought as the next round is supposedly going to take place the first week of February and it will affect even more people than initially thought.

So, here I sit again...with the monkey on my back. Constantly looking over my shoulder worrying as to whether or not I will still be here after the first week in February. And then if I make it through that...will there be yet another round?

I know no job is "safe" any more these days and our states operate under "at will" employment rules so I could be canned just because they don't like the shoes I'm wearing that day (bad example, because my shoes rock). But seriously, I am so tired. I am so tired of constantly looking for a job. I just want a job. I want to do my job and get paid for it.

The signs don't look too good for me and my role to stick around - and thus far I'm batting 1,000. So I've started the process yet again of updating my resume and getting out on the job boards to see if anything is out there. There wasn't much this time of year last year and now it's even worse.

I'm not sure if I can handle it again emotionally. I'm so tempted to sell / get rid of all my belongings and move me and the cats to a deserted island somewhere. Care to join me?

Wovel - not your shovel variety.

I'm an NPR addict. It's really all I listen to these days. I'm so ridiculously addicted to it that I will debate with my friends my favorite shows and journalists. The fact that I admit I listen to Sci-Fri, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and now I've moved to the home of Prairie Home Companion is insane!!

So today on NPR I heard a story about the newest, ever yet evolving Internet that I found very appealing - I think it will also appeal to my SIL immensely.

We have blogs, and twitters and all kinds of new ways of communicating. Now we have "wovels". That's right wovels - web novels. According to NPR a wovel is: The Wovel: Literary Alternative To Browsing Blogs.

While Victoria Blake was working as an editor at Dark Horse Comics, she used breaks from work to surf the Web. "I noticed that I was using my random 10 minutes in between tasks to go to gawker.com, which is my favorite media gossip site," she says. "I realized that if I provided prose — fiction — that I would want to read, myself ... that I would use those 10 minutes to read prose, not gossip."

In that vein she came up with the idea of Wovels. “A wovel is a web novel. There's an installment every Monday. At the end of every installment, there's a binary plot branch point with a vote button at the end.” Victoria Blake.

I seriously want to know why my SIL or I or either of our mom's did not come up with this idea as voraciously as we all read.

Side note - if you happen to Google "wovel", this is what you come up with:



World's Safest Snow Shovel

Perhaps they need a better name?


~Edited due to author's accidental publishing prior to finish.

Update on Noise

So last night and this morning I tried to record the noise on my camera with no luck. Sigh...on a brighter note, I was finally able to get some good sleep between the banging noise. I made my homemade chicken and rice soup and I have no idea what makes it so awesome - other than me clearly - but it really makes me feel better. My left tonsil was swollen and huge and sore this morning and now after eating my soup it's much better.

It's a lot of work, but for some reason it works better than just opening a can of Campbell's - which I do like as well. And today was quite possibly the best batch I have ever made.

I have no idea why I tend to get sick on the weekends or during holiday. I feel like all I have done is sleep since I went on vacation for Christmas. And now I'm off to take a nap.

Bring in da noise

I moved to new city back in August. I was so excited about my new apartment. The first week I was camping out on a blow up mattress until my stuff arrived. I love the location and the views. All was going well for about the first week and then right before my stuff arrived, I was in the master bedroom and was woken up by a loud banging noise. Keep in mind, it was about midnight and I heard this noise over the wall-unit A/C.

At first I thought it was my next door neighbors getting it on...but if that's what is happening no one is having any fun as there is no real rhythm to it. You get a few "bangs" and then a break for like 5 minutes and then a few random "bangs".

The management of the building offers a lot of assistance and support except in my noise case. I have complained at least once a month consistently since I moved in. This last time I was pleading with them as it is seriously ruining the quality of my life. Every flipping morning and evening I hear this noise. I find it very difficult to believe that no one else hears this noise but me.

Management response is due to the face that the noise happens during the hours when they are not here there is nothing they can do about it. Basically they can't do anything if they can't hear the noise to try to identify it. It is not my next door neighbors because the room that is on their side is used as a study only, nothing more. Also, they have heard the noise occasionally but they don't use that room that much.

Needless to say I'm very upset. I pay a considerable amount of money for this place to have it be ruined by this noise and I feel a bit like the Princess and the Pea - I don't think management really believes me about the noise.

I've been trying to figure out a way to record the noise - this morning it was awful. To top it off, I'm sick. I can barely sleep anyway because I'm so congested I can't breathe. Now I get woken up by loud banging.

This is all leading me to make the decision that I will move when my lease is up. *&)*(&)*&)*&^&^%^&%^$%^&^!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am pissed. I HATE moving. This time I will have to move myself - it's not like I will have packers and movers and blah blah blah. I'm so upset. Sigh...and frankly even if I can record the noise and have management listen to it, odds are they will say there is still nothing they can do about it!

All this has lead me to not want to finish decorating - why bother. I'm leaving in 8 months. But the other part of me wants to use my hammer at 2am and hope that the noise of it reverberates down through all the apartments and the entire community complains! ARGH!

Eye of the Tiger

I made it through my first bootcamp class and I can barely move. It was an hour of interval training. We had 6 stations. At each station you have 2 exercises. You get a total of 8 minutes at each station and 4 minutes to do each exercise.

The first station was a lovely combo of "burpees" and "mountain climbers". I'm not really sure who names these things, but they should have been called "hurl" and "puke". Just a suggestion. I guess I'm lucky we didn't have to do suicides tonight.

However we did have to do walking lunges and squat jumps next. Bicycle crunches, cherry picker crunches and side plank yoga poses. Then, we move on to bicep and tricep crunches. To end on my all time fav...jumping rope and squats.

I have to say I was quite proud of myself. I did all of the stations and I actually jumped rope! I was trying not to pee my pants the entire time I was doing it, but I did it! Obviously not for 4 minutes straight - we all know I'm not that coordinated, but still.

I'm trying to stay motivated and encouraged. A friend told me I should have gone for a walk yesterday to work out the kinks. Instead I went to a New Year's Eve party and danced my ass off for 2+ hours straight. I think that qualifies as a workout.

Now I really can't move. Thank goodness I can hold onto my vanity in the loo to sit on the toilet. Sheesh.


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On a completely random note. Have you seen this stupid advert for DVDs to watch TRAINS? That's right, trains. You can watch all sorts of random trains as they ride on their tracks...I don't get it. I mean, I sort of get the whole train-set fascination and the hobby, but why on earth would you want to watch trains on a DVD? It didn't even look like it was some sort of documentary on how trains work - just watching them. Like it is train porn.

I won't even go into the stupid "slanket/snuggie" thing either. Seriously, is it that difficult to deal with a blanket?