Monday, July 31, 2006

Two pounds

of loss, in sweat.

Seriously. I stepped on the scale on Saturday morning and Sunday morning both, and I was down two pounds on Sunday. I sat in this horrific heat wave, in a tent, selling tickets for RibFest this weekend. I did ride my bicycle there on Saturday, and lovely man that he is, Eric picked me up after I worked from 11:30 am until 10:30 pm. I would have ridden home, had I needed to, but it was nice having him take me and bike home.

Man, I was completely wiped after just sitting out in the heat. Makes me wonder what the people wandering around were feeling like!

The bad news about my weight loss, was that it was completely temporary. I am back to where I was before, and more. I'm thinking I just might have to get myself back into a meeting. My clothing is not fitting again, and in the stores, the sizes are going up. Not where I want to be.

I was thinking about going to the gym after work, but once again, I made excuses. Tomorrow is a new month, and a month for no excuses. At least tonight I got both checkbooks balanced (finally) and I will be working on getting the guest bedroom together for guests that are coming this weekend. I need to buy a mattress. The other one went with my stepson when he moved out....

On that note, off to use my muscle!
~a

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Has it really only been one week?

Wow. Work has just been nutso crazy.

My parents and sis were here last Sunday. At my parent's house on Thursday evening, my father asked if I had noticed anything in my bathroom.

My answer to him:
"Well, I put in 12-hour days on Monday and Tuesday, leaving the house at 4:30 am both days, Tuesday I didn't get home until after 10, then Wednesday morning, I packed and left... so no, I didn't notice anything."

Evidently he fixed the toilet. It had not been flushing properly, so he said that he told Eric how to fix it, and Eric told him that it did not really matter because we were going to get a new toilet, so my dad fixed it himself. Who would have thought that adding more water would fix the problem? So now we don't have to purchase a new toilet, or go through the hassle of installing it. I had asked Eric if it was possible to fix it, and he told me no... but let's not go there. Enough about toilets already. I'm sure it was fascinating.

Work has been a mixture of bad and good. Monday sucked. Not only did I need to get up at oh god early to drive an hour to be at a meeting at 5:30am (no lie), they basically told me that I was full of crap, and that I was sent by "the company to put a positive spin on things". Um, no, you asked me here as a subject matter expert, then tell me I know nothing, so really, why was I there? Because I enjoy being yelled at? Yah, that was a great start.

Tuesday was marginally better, as days go, but it also started out pretty miserably. I had to catch a flight at 6am. So I had carefully printed out my itinerary the night before, to make sure that I was going to the correct airport. The code on the sheet said MSP (Minneapolis-St. Paul International, for the non-travelers). So I parked in the ramp there, and lugged my laptop and assorted reams of paper (so it felt like anyway) to check in. I can't find a ticket counter with my airline name on it. Walked from one end to the other, then was told that my flight left out of the Humphrey terminal. So I had to get on the light rail, and walk for what seemed like forever to get to the correct ticket counter. GRRRR. If it's at the HHH, please put that on the itenerary! I would have parked over there, as it is much easier anyway! I talked to the travel service, and they agreed, the only way I would have figured out that it was at that terminal was to get on line, and check which gate the flight was leaving from. Like I am going to boot up the ol' computer at 3:45 am! But the day progressed better from there, the meetings I had in Milwaukee were pretty productive.

Tuesday afternoon, I was on a plane heading back. Of course the plane did not leave on time, as it made funny noises when the brakes were applied, after we had pushed back from the gate and were moving to line up for takeoff. They had to go back to the gate to have people make sure that all of the doors were closed properly! Therefore, I got back, just in time to go to my friend's house for book club. I was of the opinion that I was not really fond of the book. I had been reading it the weekend before, and it just made me depressed. Other folks seemed to like it. It was pretty well written, and it engaged you, but the subject matter just left something to be desired, I felt. Plus it was the writer's first novel so there were several holes in it that just did not make sense or that should have been filled. The other thing was that it proclaimed that it was not "Chick Lit" and it so much was.... The book was: The Bitch Posse by Martha O'Connor.

Wednesday, I packed, got some time in at the office, then hopped in my truck to go to Alexandria, MN. More work meetings. I did not participate in the "team building" golf outing, I thought it was more important to get on a conference call that our VP had scheduled, plus I had been working on putting together all of the stats for said meeting, so I kind of needed to be there.

Thursday was meetings, then I went to pick up my sister and niece, and we went to the outlet mall to support our economy. I really seem to go in streaks on feeling like I have money to spend, to feeling poor and pinched. The poor and pinched usually happens when I manage to balance both checkbooks, and pay all of the bills. I have not been doing such a good job of that lately, as I have a.) had the time, and b.) dread doing it, since I leave it for too long because of a. I did pick up a new winter coat for $32 at the London Fog store that was going out of business. That made me happy.

Friday, was also a rather interesting day. We were out performing a job performance analysis on an employee that had been held out of service. There had been some complaints about him that he could not do his job, which is very physical work. I don't want to get into details, becuase of confidentiality issues, but I ended up calling the test off, becuase this employee was exhibiting very obvious signs of heat stroke - so we are rescheduling for after this hot weather breaks.

It just makes me glad that I am doing something about my health, and trying to stay in shape, so I can go out in the heat without it making me ill.

On that note, I am going to dust off my bycycle, and head over to sell tickets at RibFest. I know it will be a warm ride, but I gotta do it!

~a

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Weekend's wrapping up!

I wanted to do an update on the exercise. I finally got my rear out of the house to go running. I did 3 miles this morning, easy, and acutally ran the whole way. And it felt great.

Yesterday did not go according to plan. But what does? I went downstairs to get a dent made in the laundry, and the basement, as always really was making me depressed. My husband, much as I love him, is not into making things organized. At all. He has all of these books on how to organize, and how not to be messy, but things are always a disaster. As much as a perfectionist he is about some things, this is not one area that he feels the need. Pretty much ever. He saves all of this stuff, because he might want/need it someday. But if you can't find anything, what good does it do you? And then all of the crap masks all of the stuff that you really need, like the lawn sprinkler. It's pretty shameful actually, our lawn. You wouldn't know that Eric has a degree in landscape technology by the shape of our yard.

So I spent about 4 hours in the basement, straightening. And ignored eating for a long time. When I could not stand it any more, I ate a couple of tofu & Spinach eggrolls (Trader Joe's, and quite yummy I might add) and the rest of the Pina Colada from the night before. Then Eric came home, and I pretty much yelled at him for all of the crap all over. He said the least I could do would be to greet him first... which I had told him hello when he came home... but I was in a much better mood later than I had been when I was discovering more crap, on top of crap, under crap.... at least I did something about it instead of being pissed off and eating because I was pissed off.

Today was a day with my sister, my parents and my two nieces. We went out to brunch, then headed to the mall. Lots of trying on of clothes ensued. I ended up with three nice outfits, and my sister got a bunch of stuff for my nieces - school clothes shopping, if you believe that for July! But, things are less expensive here, because there is no tax on clothing.

Anyway, I had to go into the office this evening to get something done (got a call from one of the VP's as I was in the dressing room) and I won't have time to do it tomorrow before he needs the info. So I get to go home and fold all of my laundry. Joy.

Woo hoo, carrots.
~a

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Cribbage and Frozen drinks

That was the theme of last night...

I had a friend over last night to "even" out our cribbage games from last October. We were camping last October, and having a mad, mad, mad time of it. Friendly game, lots of laughing, but we stopped after we had each won one game.

So we played 3 games last night. I won two. Woo hoo!

And I made dinner, so she brought the fun drinks. B-52's and Pina Colada's.

Moving on, until last night, I have been journalling, but no exercise. It's been a crazy week with work and other stuff. My boss was in town for a meeting on Thursday, and I thought we would be able to meet to talk about my PMP (Performance Management Plan, yanno, what I am supposed to do this year, etc) but the meeting went extra long, and he had to leave before it was over to catch his flight. He pulled me out of the meeting as he was leaving to tell me that there are more changes happening in our department, and there is a 99% chance that he will not be my boss anymore. Which really sucks, 'cause I like him, and I think we had a good understanding of what is going on, and he was giving me really good support with the folks here in the US and now I get to have someone new. And I don't know who it is, because I am terrible at guessing these things. I hope that I can work with them though!

My sister is going to be here tomorrow, and we are going to go shopping. I think we just might brave the Mall of America - we can entertain my nieces some at the amusement park there. I also want to go to IKEA which is next to there - it's time to get a bed in at least one of the guest bedrooms... Curt took his bed and the two futons when he moved out (my stepson), so we only have one bed (ours) in a 3-bedroom house. We do have a pull-out couch, but I want to have an actual guest bedroom. (The third bedroom will be my office/sewing room.)

On that note, I need to get some laundry started, then I am going to look over my bicycle to see if I can go for a ride. I need to get going if I am going to make that 1000 minute challenge... especially with the week I have next week!

ta
~a

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

quick update


I'm out the door early this morning, I am meeting one of our supervisors to go hi-railing, but I wanted to update the exercise.

I actually walked to the library to return a book last night after the all-you can eat crab dinner... It almost feels like I am cheating on exercise when I walk, after all of the running I was doing, but hey, at least I am still getting out there, and moving, right?

I have a shiny new bicycle helmet, so I really need to get out the bicycle to start riding. I found out this morning I didn't get into the TC10, so it looks like I am going to do the biathalon with my friend at the end of September (a run-bike-run). I need to have goals to work towards.

And I have started journalling again. This will be day 3. I am aiming for 7 right now... but no ticker for that yet!

Later,
~a

Monday, July 17, 2006

Back from Canada, eh?

Yep. Back in the land of cell phones and e-mail and internet.

Well, I did get back on Saturday, but yanno, there are things that need to get done after being on vacation for a week. The cats demanded a lot of attention, and followed us around for about a day and a half. Now they are back to being normal cats, if you can say that our cats are normal!

Let me say, I am sure glad that we got the new truck. Sitting waiting to go through customs in Fort Francis/International Falls without A/C on Saturday would have been completely miserable. It took us 2 hours to get through. At which time, we parked at the closest store and made use of the bathroom facilities!

It was a relaxing week of vacation. I fished. I hiked. I walked. I read. I watched movies on my laptop. I slept late. I swam in the lake. And of course, I ate too much junk food. There were some really great hiking trails fairly close to where we were staying (a half-hour walk) so I made use of the trails several times during the week. I startled and was startled by a very large deer, which of course I did not see until it started running away, because I was watching my footing. And here's the tally after the week:
I went out in the boat more times than I thought I would, and actually fished and casted more, because I am finally getting the idea of how to acutally use a bait caster reel. But I can only throw it in one way, and I get kind of freaked out if I have to change, 'cause I am paranoid about catching the lure on the boat, or whoever is fishing in the boat, or on crap in the boat...

That being said, there was a big one that got away... a fish I mean. I had a very large Muskie on my line that fought for a bit, then got off the hook before I could get it to the boat. Eric figured that it was over 50 inches. Yep. Big. And it got away, really...

One of the bad things was the sleeping arrangements. The cabin that we were in had all single beds. You can push two of them together, and they look like a king sized bed, but if you try and move over, you encounter the "crack" which you get paranoid that you are going to fall into, or get stuck, or it's just plain uncomfortable, since the beds are older and sag a bit in the middle. That, and it was kind of hot, and the cabin had no A/C. I guess I'm spoiled. At least we were not in a tent...

On another note - I went to stay at my parent's house last night - I had to be up that way for work this morning, and my sister is here from Oklahoma for a month (she tellecommutes, so can work anywhere, provided she has high-speed internet) with my two nieces. I thought we would have a nice visit last night, but guess what I ended up doing? Just let me say, it makes me glad that my stepchildren are grown, and that I don't have to deal with this sort of thing... So my sister was looking at my younger niece's hair, and was seeing nits. Yep. Lice. My older neice had had a run in with it about a week and a half ago, and evidently something got missed. So I spent about an hour going through her hair, getting everything I could find out. My sis had washed their hair with the pesticide shampoo, but evidently that stuff is only like 85% effective, and only on live ones. You still have to manually get all of the nits out. So the two nieces and my sister went to bed with mayonaise on their heads. (Evidently this suffocates the live ones) and my mom and sister spent a bunch of time vacuuming floors, couches, and pillows, and washing bedding last night. And I slept poorly because I had nightmares about lice.

Yep. Glad about the no kid thing, once again!

Anyway, I'm home. Back into the office tomorrow.

~a

Friday, July 07, 2006

Finally, a day off!


And it was great. I finally got out and ran, and it felt wonderful. Although I think I might have overdone it... I figure I did around 6 miles. And it made me crash/nap for about two hours this afternoon. Well, I suppose that combined with the deep cleaning of the bathroom, the four loads of laundry, and the vacuuming of the stairs helped too.

And I think I need some time off. I am looking forward to our week of vacation, but I do need to get packing yet. My brain just about turned off yesterday evening after being in the office for over 10 hours, trying to get everything together before I left.

And it's totally amazing what a sparkling clean bathroom will do to lift your mood.

So tomorrow, it's off to the wilds of Canada, where I am assuming there will be no internet access, so I will not be here for a week or so. (Not to say that Canada is uncivilized, but we are going to a fishing camp, literally in the middle of nowhere!)

ta!
~a

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Sun and Fun

I had good intentions of getting things done around the house yesterday.

Until I decded, screw it, it's a beautiful day, I would rather spend some time floating in my friend's pool, with a tasty beverage in my hand.

I will have to say, that we did get the sheets on the bed changed, and the bedroom picked up, and my stuff unpacked, and cooked up some of my farm share food before we left... and we were on the road somewhere around 12:30.

It was relaxing, and refreshing, and lovely. I'm glad I decided to do it. I even managed to swim some laps in the pool when everyone else was running around getting things ready for eating dinner. I am going to try and join Jess in her 1000 minutes of exercise in July. So here's my start:






Tonight, I should be able to get more stuff done around the house. I have a bunch of laundry to do before we leave on vacation. We will be going to the exotic locale of Minaki, Ontario. Eric will be doing lots of Muskie Fishing, and I will be relaxing with a book in hand, and I also plan to get a good start on studying for my certification exam. I will probably go out fishing a time or two, but I tend to get bored after not catching anything after an hour.

On another note, we did finally get to see The Devil Wears Prada, and I did enjoy it, although there were a couple of major differences in the book that they changed for the movie. But I don't think it took away from either. It was still fun and cute. Eric said he was not bored, so that was a good thing. I think the most amusing part of the movie was the older ladies sitting next to us though - they kept gasping when Miranda said cutting things about Andy's wardrobe, and when Nigel told Andy that a size 6 was the new 14... among other such remarks. I knew they were coming, and gosh, it's a movie about the fashion industry!

Food today has been okay. I didn't pack anything this morning, because I didn't know how long my morning meeting would run, but I did make some light popcorn for mid-morning, and had a frozen meal in the freezer here, so I guess that would be about 9 points so far today. Tonight, I am planning a salad with a pork chop (leftover) shredded on top. I need to get back at portion control, and exercise - the scale is not being nice again. And I know it's pretty much all my fault with the out of control eating. I need to stop feeding my face when I get disappointed or mad about something. And I need to quit eating when I am not hungry. Easier said than done.

I read an interesting article the other day that made me kind of sit back and think. Failing to run. It talks about one person's perspective on how he needed to fail to be able to get back into running. About how making your life more complex, just makes you ragged, and accomplishes pretty much nothing. Getting back to basics, and enjoying the simple things in life. I really feel like that some days, like all of the things in my life are ruling my life. I truly enjoy the volunteer activities I do, but sometimes I wonder why I spend all of the time that I do with them. If I don't get back to the basics of myself, I will no longer be able to do those things that I enjoy.

I don't remember exactly the last time I made Sunday dinner. I enjoy that. I have tons of fresh produce in my fridge that needs to be washed and cooked into something tasty. My bicycle has been neglected for too long. I bought a new bicycle helmet on Monday, and I need to go out and use it.

I'm looking forward to having a week off to refresh and recharge. I just need to get there.

~a

Monday, July 03, 2006

A funny thing happened on the way to the movie theater

So I got home Friday afternoon, and we were checking movie times, and decided we were going to try and make the 5:05 showing of "Devil". We were pushing it to make it there for that time, as Eric was trying to get ready, shower, etc. but we were in the parking lot at about 5:05. Walking quickly to the doors of the theater, and my cell phone starts ringing.

I look at the number that is showing up, and it's the main switchboard at our downtown office. I will admit, I saw that and swore profusely, then answered the phone. Yep. Weekend plans went down in a puff of smoke... the call was to tell me that we had had a derailment in western Minnesota, and I needed to get out there - first report I heard was 23 cars on the ground. One hazardous car of ethyl alcohol residue, but nothing leaking. But still...

So I didn't get to see my movie. I didn't get to go for a bike ride. I didn't get to meet my friend on Sunday morning to run around Calhoun (which I inadvertanly stood up, as I totally forgot about it until I got her message when I checked on Sunday evening). And I ate way too much, and too much crap trying to stay awake and alert with enough energy.

I didn't eat enough good food on Friday night, and was up until about 2am, and then I got about 5 hours of sleep, and was back at the site. My legs were feeling really fatigued, and I was not 100% mentally there... my classic signs of low blood sugar, so I ended up eating a couple of rice crispie treats. After the egg bacon and toast breakfast they were serving.

The scale this morning is clearly reflecting all of the crap that I ate this weekend. And the sad thing is when you start going in that direction, your body keeps wanting that much food, and even if you have eaten something, it says that it wants more. And more. And when you don't eat because you decide that you have had way too much, it calls you a bitch, and your stomach rumbles with the hungries.

I was released from the derailment site at about 11:30pm on Saturday, after being there at about 7:45am. I drove to my parent's house and crashed for the night. Sunday, I lazed around there, reading, talking with my parents, then I dozed off around noon - and slept until about 4pm. I guess I needed the sleep.

There's some holiday stuff going on tonight, and tomorrow, but since I lost my weekend, I don't think that Eric and I will be going anywhere. I have too much that needs to get done around the house. Since it really does not get done without me there. I came home to piles of clean laundry on the bed. And my clothes hamper missing - Eric had brought the clothes downstairs, but didn't bring the hamper back up. And I want to organize the office - move some furniture out, move other stuff in. And the bathroom needs a deep cleaning, and I need to do some stuff with the food from my farm share. And I REALLY want to go see that movie!

Eric has the day off, and is planning on loading up the motorcycle to bring it somewhere to be fixed. I have been bugging him to get that done since it conked out on me last August. I am looking forward to being able to ride a bit again this summer.

That being said, it's back at it. I probably could have taken the day off because of the time I put in this weekend, but I am planning on taking Friday off to prepare for our vacaiton. We are going to Canada fishing for a week, starting on July 8th.

Later!
~a