Sometimes Thursday Should Be Friday

I've been terrible at keeping track of the days this week.  Tuesday I thought it was Wednesday for half of the day, and yesterday felt like it should have been a Friday; today, even more so, feels like it should be the end of the work week.  I think it's because the summer weather has finally appeared and it feels like it should in July.


I think I'm just anxious to get out of town for some camping.  This weekend BF, Rudy and I are heading to Nehalem for a little overnight camp trip.  It's not that far and we are only staying one night but it's nice to get out of the house and out of town just for a little while.

Also, I'm not diabetic or pre-diabetic.  Thanks to my eye exam we know that now.  It wasn't really a concern of mine even though it does run in the family (mom's side is Native American, but I'm convinced that it's not genetic with them but a symptom of their eating habits).  Randomly during my eye exam last week the student doing my exam (I usually go to Pacific University's eye clinic) asked if she could test my blood sugar for a research project they are doing in one of her classes.  She asked a few questions (like when and what did I eat last, if diabetes ran in the family, took my blood pressure, etc) and then pricked me and my sugar level about 2 hours after eating lunch was a 116.  The "normal" blood sugar range for someone without diabetes should be <140, so I think I'm good.  I meant to look up the normal range for these things last week after my actual appointment, but kept forgetting.  I'd like to thank my mom for not introducing us to sweets and treats until we were out of our toddler years and for always providing healthy foods for us to eat for my good results.  Oh, and BF for helping me put together a great nutritional plan a few years ago that included whole grains and less processed food.

Let's hope when I get home today that BF has great news about winning the lottery. 

HOT BOX!

BF and I watched "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and it is now my favorite and most quotable movie. It's pretty safe to say that if it's a Wes Anderson film, I'll like it.  It's based off of the lovely Roald Dahl children's book "Fantastic Mr. Fox".  I also LOVE Roald Dahl.  Very fond childhood memories of reading his books.  If you haven't seen or read it, I suggest doing both.  It's also a kid-friendly movie other than a little bit of violence (PG rating).

So this week I feel like an absolute bonehead.  At work I'm keeping up with the manic pace of things just fine, but at home I'm completely lacking my usual motivation and organizational gusto.  I haven't vacuumed, I haven't done any cleaning other than daily dishes (with BF's help, mostly) and I left a load of wet clothes in the wash completely forgotten.  When I did remember it (2 days later) I opened the lid cautiously, knowing that I would find a wet mildewy heap of clothes to rewash and that's exactly what I found.  I had to rewash the load, on hot with a drop or two of bleach to kill the moldy mess.  Lukily, my clothes weren't ruined.

I also did another awesome thing where I miscounted days on the calendar and stopped my birth control almost a FULL WEEK before I was supposed to (how long have I been doing this whole lady-days thing?) so I spent a couple days feeling like complete ass because my body was all "Hormones... what???" until my period finally started.  I know that's probably WAY too much information, but that's my week.   

Really looking forward to camping this weekend!

The Benefits of Mini Vacation

As I said I would, I took a few days off of work.  BF and I didn't really go anywhere or do much, but it was nice to have a few days to sleep in and not answer phone calls or emails.

We kicked off my mini vacation by seeing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II on Friday morning at 12:01am.  It. Was. Awesome.  They gave us 3D glasses shaped like Harry Potter's glasses to keep!  It was adorable.  I'm a little sad that it was the end to such a great series of movies, but I cannot wait to own it and watch it whenever I want!  Sort of like the books... sometimes I'll just pick one up and start reading all over again.

Anyway...

It was really hard the first day of no work (last Friday) to turn off my "work" self; I was buzzing around the house getting irritated that I wasn't getting everything done.  Then I sort of chilled out, got my house clean, didn't drink anything caffeinated and felt more relaxed- a clean house seems to have that effect. 

Friday night was softball as usual and then the weekend was pretty much a blur.  At one point we had a BBQ at our place with BF's parents and sister and my parents. It was a tight fit in our small place, but the food was excellent and the company was nice, too.

We also went to Corvallis to see a Corvallis Knights baseball game.  Our friend Sean is on the team and it happened to be his birthday so we watched the game, ate hotdogs, got gelato and then ate burgers afterwards to celebrate.   Because it was his birthday, we let Sean pick where to eat and he DID NOT pick Block 15 so BF and I were a little sad, but the food we did have was pretty good so really no complaints there.  We'll just have to go back to Block 15 another time.

Monday I had an eye appointment and found out that my prescription has stayed the same for 3 years now... that's pretty incredible!  No new glasses since mine are serving me well, but I may go back and pick out a pair to have as back up since my back up pair are getting a little beat up from travel. 

Yesterday BF and I saw a movie IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY with all of the old retired folks.  It's funny to see what type of people are seeing movies at noon on a Wednesday.  We saw "Horrible Bosses" and it was us and two other older couples in the theater.  I forgot they were there half the time and was laughing loudly- Charlie Day is one of my favorite people. 

Today was my first day back at work and I even got there early in anticipation of the pile of stuff waiting for me, but it wasn't that bad.  I got yelled at when I ran a quick errand by a crazy old European man in an Adidas soccer jersey for getting a plastic bag for my purchase.  I told him thank you for the unsolicited comment regarding my purchase and that I would be reusing the bag at home (which I frequently do when I RARELY get a plastic bag)* and that he could take a plastic bag and put it somewhere unmentionable.  I really do hate it when people think they know better than me and I know I was a bit rude, but I made the checkout lady laugh and I felt much better.  Reminder to all:  you may mean well, but sometimes you have NO IDEA what other people are doing so you should just stay out of it.  That's my PSA for the week.

Anyway, it's great having a super short work week (tomorrow's Friday!) and I'm already looking forward to the weekend again.

*For future reference, BF and I rarely get plastic bags at the grocery store preferring to use our reusable fabric bags instead.  When we do get a plastic bag, we keep it for future use or we return them to the recycling container at our local grocery store set up specifically to collect these bags. 

What's Another Word for Overwhelmed?

It's about all I can do to make it through a work day this week.  I'm freakin' sad about losing my boss to the dark side (as I call them), but it's a good promotion for her.  I've got a to-do list several miles long and I don't have the energy to tackle half of it.  I feel mean because people keep asking me to do extra stuff and I just don't have time to be my nice, normal, accomodating self. Maybe I'm just biding my time until Thursday when I start my mini- vacation.

People keep asking how I'm doing and I feel like I'm on repeat saying, "Overwhelmed!", but that's truly how I feel right now. 

We needed to have hired my replacement 2 weeks ago because it's to the point now where I won't even have time to train this person when we do hire them. 

Enough complaining. 

I've got Friday through next Wednesday off and I'm TURNING OFF my email and work phone.  I started sending advanced warning that I would be out of the office "so don't call me or email me because I WILL NOT get back to you until next Thursday", but we know how much attention people pay to anything so that's why I'm literally not opening my work email at all and I'm putting a greeting on my phone that says "I'm gone for a few days so only leave a message if it's important and not an emergency... if it's an emergency call 911 because I will not be checking my messages".  I have to be that blunt sometimes.


It'll be lovely not to have to respond to anything for a few days. 

It gets even better because BF bought us pre-sale tickets to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II in 3D!!!!  So I'm kicking off my vacation by taking our friends Kyle and Kate shopping at the employee store and then watching HP at 12:01 on Friday morning.  Then I'll sleep in, go to a nice lunch with our Admin Group from work and eat some Mexican food.  Friday night will be softball as always and then Saturday is sleeping in, haircut and a baseball adventure.

So I'm not totally into baseball because no one gets in bloody fights and it's sort of slow to watch, however one of the boys from BF's softball team was contracted to play with the Corvallis Knights this summer.  We are headed down to Corvallis on Saturday afternoon with a lot of the guys on BF's current softball team to watch a Knights game.   And then we are eating at Block 15 which is BF and my favorite place to eat of all time.

Sunday we are planning on having the family over for a BBQ, so I have to figure out how everyone will fit in our little apartment, but I'm sure we'll make it work. 

I have no plans for Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday so I think I'll end up doing stuff around the house and maybe finding a storage space for our extra stuff that doesn't have a home in our apartment.  It's all useful stuff, but seasonal things I'd like to keep can't be displayed all year, and definitely can't be taking up our extra bedroom/office space either.  All that clutter and boxes stresses me out.

Is it Thursday yet?

More Like May, Really...

What in the world is happening?  Is it climate change?  Where has my summer gone?


So it's the second week of July and the weather here is more like end-of-May weather meaning mid seventies and partly cloudy.  We had a few good days of 80+ degrees and sun, but only a few and it's JULY.  If I didn't love Portland so much, I'd move.

Yes, it's July, which means I had a full weekend of Mom's birthday stuff and Independence Day celebrations, sans BF.  BF was in Oklahoma attending a family reunion with his parents and sister- one that I was invited to but didn't attend since there's no way I could get away with missing my mother's birthday... which, coincidentally is on the 4th of July.

Friday was nice because we got to sleep in, so sleep in we did.  When I finally did get up I think we went to the gym but I don't remember. Then we cleaned and ran errands and went to BF's softball game.  Saturday we got up sort of early since BF had to finish packing and get to the airport.  Once he left, I went back to bed!  Once I was ready to be up and active, I packed up the dog and headed to my parents' house.  We wandered down to the Saturday Market in Hillsboro where my dad has a booth selling hand carved wood items.  We hung out there and snacked on some awesomely sweet fresh local strawberries and my mother bought fruit, bee pollen and hand-dipped candies.  We mostly hung around on Saturday afternoon and played with Rudy- he had a blast.

Sunday I got up early and went to church with my mom since my dad was at another market and couldn't go with her.  It was a great service with a special guest musician who was amazing.  After that I took Rudy to my parent's and took my mom shopping for her birthday.  We headed to Woodburn and it was PACKED.  There was hardly a place to park in the overflow lots, and I should have realized it was going to be super busy since there were some crazy Independence Day weekend sales.  We didn't get anything super exciting- I stocked up on underwear and socks (WOOHOO!) and my mom bought some pajamas.  We are so wild!

Monday was the big day, so we hung out with my mom, ate an awesome grilled dinner and headed downtown to see the fireworks at the waterfront.  I love fireworks, but I hate it when the general public has access to them... there seemed to be so many accidents and fires that night!  I was nervous about how Rudy would do since he's never been around fireworks and we didn't get any puppy sedatives for him, but he did ok.

We left him at home as usual but I put his comfy bed in his kennel so he could hide in there if he got too scared and we shut the doors so he couldn't escape the yard if he got really freaked out- I know that sometimes pets run away during the 4th because they are so afraid of the commotion! When we got home he was nowhere to be found, I was calling and calling him and finally he crawled out from behind my parents couch!  I didn't think he could fit back there, but he did!  He wasn't shaking and seemed to have been asleep so I think he was ok.  He really likes small, dark, cozy areas (like under our bed which is only a few inches off the ground) so I'm not surprised that he found little spot at my parents house. 

Tuesday it was back to work, which isn't bad but really I should have taken a week of vacation instead.  But since I didn't I've been at the office all week trying to do my old job (until we get a replacement hired) AND my new job which is starting to stress me out a bit.  I left work yesterday with a terrible migraine which I can only attribute to stress because my neck and shoulders were SO TIGHT that by lunch time I didn't think I would make it home.  I've requested a week off starting at the end of next week after the Harry Potter premiere so that will help.

Anyway, BF came back from Oklahoma on Wednesday at 2am.  I was worried that he wouldn't make it back to Portland at all because they had a layover in Phoenix and there was a 70 mile wide dust storm there!  The airport shut down for a few hours to let the storm pass and the dust settle (literally) and then they were off. 

This weekend BF's softball team has a tournament to play and our friends Brad and Nicole are coming up from Corvallis- which means I need to rush home and clean up the extra bedroom!  It should be a fun weekend and I'm planning on lots of picture taking.