Coughing for Christmas

Why am I sick again?  Is this some cruel joke?  I was better for a few days, maybe even a whole week, and then I woke up with a sore throat Thursday morning, and now I’m a wreck.  I’m drinking water like there’s no tomorrow, which means I’m going to the bathroom every 15 minutes or so, and I’m congested and coughing my head off.  This is getting old.  Everyone keeps asking me what they can do to make me feel better, and I appreciate that, I really do, but there isn’t anything anyone can do.  I have medicine (although it doesn’t seem to be doing anything), and I have lots of water and lots of tea and lots of kleenex – what else is there?  Oh, it’s time for ibuprofen.  Ouch, people.  This sucks.

Get off my lawn!

I think I’m getting old.  My back hurts (lower back – it’s felt achy and a little twinge-y since my last Muscle Blast class two Mondays ago).  My left arm was tingling off and on for almost a week (it’s stopped now) because I think I pinched a nerve doing a handstand in yoga class (a week ago Wednesday).  I make grunting noises when I lunge to get over the dog gate at the bottom of the stairs, and worst of all, I was SO over Halloween after about the tenth group of kids.  I lose patience for that quicker every year.  All we were doing was handing out candy to the kids who came by.  I can’t imagine how the parents of 8 or 9-year-olds must feel, trailing their kids down block after block.  I mean, when they’re 3 or 4 or 5, they’re totally adorable, they need your help, and they get tired fast (very important, that).  Beyond that age, can they even get tired out?  It’s exhausting just thinking about it.

I missed the very beginning of the evening because I had to take Roxy to the vet.  Once again, her paw was bothering her and she licked it so much she made it worse.  Yay for obsessive dogs.

Here’s my sweetpea last night at the vet:

And here she is today, completely miserable in her Cone of Shame. The sock just wasn’t working this time.

I don’t like change

My wonderful Wednesday nights at the gym are no longer.  My yoga class has been canceled (for lack of an instructor – all that drama drove her away), and my strength class instructor won’t be teaching at all anymore.  Tonight was the first strength class with the new instructor.  She’s not new to the gym, just new to Wednesday nights, and I don’t think I like her style of teaching.  (It’s not just because it’s different.)  The other instructors play music, and they use it to drive the exercises.  If we’re doing bicep curls, 2 counts up, 2 counts down, those counts are to the beat of the music.  They’ve chosen their songs for specific exercises, and it’s lots of fun.  This instructor plays music, but it’s irrelevant to the class.  She counts the exercises, but she doesn’t count evenly, and she ignores the beat of the music.  !  I can’t handle it.  Why would someone do that?  She subbed for one of the classes I was taking sometime last year, and I noticed it (and hated it) then.  She hasn’t changed.

I know.  My life is SO hard.

 

*@$%^ mosquitoes

Do mosquitoes love me or hate me?  On the one hand, they can’t stay away from me.  On the other hand, they’re harassing me.  On the one hand, they think I’m delicious.  On the other hand, they make me miserable.  Either way, I think I won by moving out of the swamp that is Hampton Roads.  High ground = very few mosquitoes.  Unfortunately, very few does NOT equal zero, and every once in a while, I still get attacked.  I had a bite on my left shin that was taking forEVER to stop itching and go away.  I finally got a day or two of relief, but then I lost my head and went outside in the early evening to sit on the deck and read for a couple of minutes while the dogs played in the yard.  Silly me.  By the time I found my head again it was too late.

I did it

Kind of.  I had a work conversation that will have consequences.  Might be good or bad.  Let’s hope for good.  I think.

I’ve spent the last couple of days catching up on Fringe.  I was away too long and I missed two episodes, and at this point in the season, missing two episodes is kind of a problem.  Sure, I have Television Without Pity to catch me up, but I’d rather watch them.  Sadly, Hulu only carries the most recent five episodes (and it’s not a Hulu+ show), and it turns out I was seven episodes behind.  I read somewhere that Hulu is about to become even more limited, but I don’t remember where I found the link, and Google isn’t helping me right now.  But that will suck.

You know what won’t suck?  The Bloggess is coming to the DC area on her book tour! But wait – there is something that will suck about that.  I.  Can’t.  Go.  I can’t go and shower her with support because I will be out of town, and as happy as I am (and will be) to be on vacation, I can’t help but wish her visit wasn’t happening right then.  So you know what you local people can do?  I bet you can guess.  Go.  Go see her in Gaithersburg next Saturday (5/19) or in Annapolis next Sunday (5/20). Listen to her speak.  Get something (anything) signed.  Most importantly, tell her she’s wonderful and she can move in next door to me anytime.

I just re-read that paragraph and did a double-take.  Did I just write “shower with her support”?  Oh, wait, no.  I didn’t.

I am not pleased

John had brunch with the band this morning (Rock stars do brunch, don’t they?  No?  Well, they should.  Brunch is awesome.), so I took my book (The Bloggess‘s hilarious Let’s Pretend This Never Happened) off to Starbucks with me.  I got my favorite drink (tall skim no-whip toffee nut white mocha – I mention it all the time because I assume you’re planning on memorizing it so you can order one for me next time we’re at Starbucks together without even having to check with me.  You’re planning to do that, right?) and sat at a table outside to sip and read.  Lovely half-hour or so, only slightly marred by the kid at the next table who stared every time I laughed at my book (which was about every 10 seconds).  He was just jealous.  Then Wegmans (Yes, I actually went to the grocery store this weekend.  Can you believe it?), home to unload, and back out to get my nails done.  I was desperately in need of both a manicure and a pedicure.  I went to my favorite place, but for the second time this weekend, I was turned away.  Terribly sad.  The first time was Friday evening.  My friend Chastity was in no hurry to face traffic on her way home, so we decided to get our nails done and went to this place.  Turns out this weekend was prom weekend, so they were fully booked.  Sad.  We gave up that night, but I assumed that by Sunday I’d be able to walk in.  I should have asked, since when I got there today, there was a sign on the door that said they were closed for a private party.  Disappointed, I went to my old favorite salon.  Unfortunately, they’re under new management, and I am not happy about it.  It wasn’t a terrible experience, but it wasn’t the relaxing afternoon I’d hoped for.  They didn’t stab me in the toe or anything, and my nails look okay, but they’re cut too short, and the lady was a bit rough with my cuticles.  So I have to find another back-up nail salon (or plan ahead).  My life is so hard.

Fighting with my phone

Remember a few months ago when I wrote about my phone problems?  I still have those problems.  It seemed to get better for a while, but that’s probably because I avoided any data-heavy apps.  Unfortunately, my phone has rebooted itself many many times just in the last week.  I did a factory reset on Tuesday (which is what both Sprint and HTC recommended when I called them all those months ago), and then my phone rebooted four times IN A ROW Wednesday afternoon.  So the factory reset was not the solution.  I will probably try to take it to a Sprint repair center sometime soon, but that’ll cost me.  If I can hold out until August, I’ll reach the end of this two-year contract, and I can get a new phone for practically nothing.  But can I hold out until August?

Recovering

Last week was the week from hell.  There wasn’t a single day I didn’t come home later than usual and thoroughly exhausted.  And for three of those days, I had long commutes (either to DC or to Baltimore).  I’m desperately in need of rest.  Today was a good start, but I could use another week.

I’m not asking much (just a token really, a trifle)

I had plans for this evening.  My plans included homework.  My plans got derailed by Homeaway.com.  The slightest passing reference to a possible trip to the UK and I get sucked in.  Not a good use of my time.

Now I’m watching the clock.  I’m doing that thing I do where I start to feel tired a few days in a row (late nights, early mornings), and I know I need to get more sleep, but it’s hard to get to bed earlier.  So then, every time I look at the clock, I’m calculating how many hours of sleep I can get before I have to get up.  It’s 10 to 9 right now.  If I can be asleep in 10 minutes, I could get eight hours tonight (I’m going to Baltimore tomorrow and I have to get up at 5).  I won’t even be ready for bed in 10 minutes, let alone asleep, so 8 hours is not happening.  And that’s mildly upsetting because it means I’ll be tired tomorrow.  Actually, it means I’ll be visiting Starbucks at 6am tomorrow morning, which is not so good for my health.  But when I have to drive an hour and a half when it’s still dark outside, you better believe I’m going to allow myself to have a tall skim no whip toffee nut white mocha.  Is it too much to ask to be able to sleep in at least until the sun comes up every day?

You know that moaning sound Harry makes in that one scene in When Harry Met Sally? I’ve been making that sound all day.

I worked from home today.  And I’m going to work from home again tomorrow.  Breathing sucks.  (You’re welcome.)  Well, it does, no matter how you look at it, sick or not.  You can’t run from the truth.  I have had a fuzzy head all day.  John had hopes that really loud music might vibrate all the crud out of my head last night, but it didn’t work.  It was cool, though.  We went to see Eric Johnson play in Alexandria.  We weren’t more than 40 feet away, and I picked the right side to sit on – he was angled towards us most of the night.  Crucial, in his case, ’cause you have to watch his hands fly.

Sorry – no brain, loud music in the basement (the band is rehearsing), and I want some soup.  Wonton soup.  (I had egg drop last night – no, two nights ago.  Love that stuff.)  I lost my train of thought, realized I have nothing left to say about the Eric Johnson concert, and then stared at the screen until it went out of focus.

Oh, you know what’s really totally not cool?  Wearing cologne to the gym.  It’s so unnecessary.  Yesterday, I was on one of the machines, and the guy on my right smelled like he had bathed in the stuff.  It was very irritating to my already irritated nose.  He moved on after 10 minutes or so, but the scent didn’t.  Dude.  It’s okay if you don’t smell like roses.  You’re at the gym.  You’re getting sweaty.  And nobody cares.

And there goes my brain again.  Lost for another 20 minutes.  I need soup.

Going to bed now

I started a post today on my work laptop when I didn’t have internet access.  To get it, I’d have to turn on my work laptop, wait the half-hour for it to boot, and then wait another five minutes for Word to open.  Not worth it.  It wasn’t that great anyway.  Something about getting up early and being sleepy.  It wasn’t done, but still.  It can wait.  But I really did get up early and I really am sleepy.

For the Doctor Who fans (who are up to date), here’s a neat timeline (from here via The Daily What).  I’m being careful not to look at the very bottom.  Still not caught up.

Juggling is a skill I do not possess

Maybe it’s because I’m getting old(er).  Maybe it’s because I was never very good at multi-tasking.  I’m not handling doing lots of things at once very well.  Not at work, not at home, not combining work and home (where home = school and fitness and oh, right, grocery shopping and cleaning and playing with the dogs…).  Something is always getting neglected.  Which something changes day to day, except for grocery shopping.  That gets neglected every day.  Which means we’re eating SO much crap.  Pop tarts for breakfast today, guys.  I can’t remember the last time I even saw a pop tart.  I went to CVS this morning to get more allergy medicine, needed something for breakfast, and grabbed a box of strawberry pop tarts.  Yum, sure, but not good.  Yeah, I could have picked up a box of nutri-grain bars or granola bars.  Or those milk and cereal bars.  Frankly, the milk and cereal bars both fascinate me and gross me out.  They say they’re made with real milk, but who wants to eat cereal with solidified milk holding it together?  It’s probably more like frosting, and frosting for breakfast doesn’t sound all that appealing either.  Anyway, yes, I took the easy, junk-foody way out.  And that was dumb.  But it was quick.  This morning, I’m trying to learn how to solve higher order homogeneous linear differential equations with constant coefficients (before I have to go to Baltimore for work) so I can finish my quiz on time.

I probably jinxed it. I do that a lot.

Cold weather = dry air = dry skin = can I just spend all day every day in a bathtub full of moisturizer?  That wouldn’t be weird, right?

Here, have an insane puppy.  I’m tired.  Too many interrupted nights for sick puppies.  But yay!  No incidents last night or all day today!  I think we might be able to sleep through the night tonight.

I’m going to regret saying that, aren’t I?

You’ve got to THINK about these things

I didn’t think it through.  Tuesday afternoon – dentist appointment that leaves me with a temporary crown on the left side.  A little tender.  Can’t bite down hard.  No problem, I think, I’ll just do most of my chewing on the right side of my mouth.  But wait!  This morning, I had an appointment with my oral surgeon. Time to expose the post that was implanted so my dentist can screw on a fake tooth in a few weeks.  But doesn’t that mean I’ll have stitches and be sore and tender?  On the right side?  Yes!  It does.  Mushy food it is.

I could have scheduled this better.

I could fall down flat on my face and not notice

I cannot begin to describe how worn out I am.  We were up way late (for us – like 1am) last night and slept in as late as we could before work today.  Not long enough.  So we were dragging when we woke up.  I worked from home today, and while the morning was fine, the afternoon was frustrating and what little energy I had from my morning tea wore off pretty quickly.  I went to the gym this evening for my strength class, and the instructor tried to kill us.  She had us jumping from exercise to exercise, targeting two muscle groups at once, no breaks.  Our heart rates were up and I was STILL yawning.  It’s almost 7:30.  If I’m not in bed by nine, I might not make it through tomorrow.

Even with all that, I don’t regret last night.  We had dinner with friends we see less than once a year, friends who were just passing through on their way south, and if it means a day like today, well, okay.  Worth it.

Accident prone

I should not be allowed in the kitchen.  It was the site of my fall the other week, and now I’ve gone and sliced my finger instead of the tomato while making a caprese salad.  On top of that, a Jason Mraz song has been going through my head most of the day, and while that’s okay occasionally (depending on the day), it hasn’t been okay today. Stop already with the scatting. I’m not in the mood. I have two quizzes to take, and your silly lyrics are not helping. Now go away, Mr. Mraz.

Things I’m anxious about today

I woke up this morning a little crazy with anxiety.  The worst thing about it is that I woke up with a list of all the things I should be doing on a loop in my head, and then I froze.  I could have gotten up right then to get started on the list, but did I?  No, I stayed in bed.  Because I could put off all the hard things.  I do that all the time (procrastinate).   Of course, that gives me less time overall to get everything done, so all it really does is ratchet up the anxiety a little more.  Not exactly helpful behavior.

Instead, let’s a play a game (courtesy of Mom) called “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Anxiety Causing Thing #1: Quiz #4 for vector calculus and the midterm I have to take on Thursday

What’s the worst that could happen?  Well, I could get all the answers wrong on my quiz, but that doesn’t affect my grade (just makes my professor think I’m an idiot), so there isn’t anything to worry about there.  Of course, my performance on my quizzes is an indicator of my performance on the midterm, so if I don’t do well on my quizzes, I may not do well on my midterm.  And I could fail my midterm.  So what if I do?  I won’t have a very good grade in my calculus class.  That would be a blow to my ego (something I could survive), and it may put me on the road to failing this class.  What if I fail the class?  I’m taking it online at a community college because I need the prereq for grad school.  If I fail it, I’m out approximately $350.  If I fail it, I can retake it later.  Will I fail it?  Probably not.  I may not get an A.  I may not even get a B.  But I probably won’t fail.  I submitted my quiz this morning (confident that I got three out of four right), so that’s out of my hands, and I still have today, tomorrow, Wednesday, and part of Thursday to study for the midterm.  Breathe deep.

Anxiety Causing Thing #2: Work

What’s the worst that could happen?  I could get fired.  Or laid off.  Or whatever.  That could happen, but there’s nothing I can do about it (and there’s no immediate indication that it’s coming), so that’s not what’s making me edgy.  There’s nothing specific about work that’s bothering me.  No major deadlines, no one is asking me to do anything I’m not capable of, I don’t have any issues with any coworkers.  I just don’t like it.  I don’t want to come here every day.  (I know, whine whine whine, most people don’t actually like going to work.)  I want to do something with flexible hours where I can work from home and have more time for me.  The math that’s stressing me out is the first step in that direction, so this is more of a low-level, back-burner, always-bugging-me sort of thing that every once in a while jumps up and says, “Hey!  Loser!  Worry about me!”

Anxiety Causing Thing #3: Army Ten-Miler

Did I tell you about this?  A few weeks ago, John registered to run in the Army Ten-Miler this October, and I caved to the very mild peer pressure and registered with him.  So what’s the worst that could happen?  I’ll be so slow that the bus that picks up the slowpokes who aren’t going to finish in the required time will pick me up.  Humiliating.  I have 17 weeks to train for it.  I had more, but I didn’t use them.  I can’t procrastinate on this one, so every day I don’t start this training plan gets under my skin, and I didn’t run today.  Well, I kinda did.  I sprinted around the block (up the hills) a couple of times with the dogs this morning.  My math anxiety trumped my race anxiety this morning – I spent the extra time on my quiz.  (SuzRocks sent me a link to a half-marathon training plan.  I figure if I’m capable of running a half-marathon by the time I finish training, ten miles should seem easy.  Ish.  I just need to start the &^$* training plan.)

There are other things that bug me (there are always other things), but those are the three I woke up with this morning.  Peace, serenity, lots of gym time tonight, some studying…I’ve got it under control.

Happy thoughts!

The itchiest post in the world

Catalog Living makes me laugh.  Here and here.  (I’m catching up.  You should have seen how many tabs I had open for Tom and Lorenzo.)  Then I wasted about an hour on The Daily What.  Who am I kidding?  That was not a waste of an hour.

Did you come here for original content?  I’m terribly sorry.  I seem to have misplaced it.  Let’s look over here….nope.  Not under my desk?  In the closet?  No.  Under the dog!  No way.  Part of my problem (or the handiest excuse I have right now) is that I’m fighting the itchiest  bug bites I’ve ever had.  It’s like chicken pox.  I’m fairly certain it isn’t chicken pox, and my memories of chicken pox are pretty old, but that’s what it’s like.  I think.  I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since Saturday night.  I’ll get through most of the day not really noticing the bites, but they burn like fire in the middle of the night.  It’s awful.  The last few nights I’ve gone to bed after taking ibuprofen and benadryl and after dousing my legs in caladryl lotion.  Hasn’t helped.  Today I tried neosporin and band-aids.  Not helpful.  Tonight, though, I have a plan.  First, this anti-itch lotion that smells like the worst mentholated cough drops you’ve ever tasted.  So far so good.  Then a bath with epsom salt.  If those two things don’t work, I’m going to cut my legs off at mid-thigh and hobble around on my stumps for the rest of my life.  It’s that bad.

My doctor wants me to get fat

There are days when the internet is no fun.  Sure, I can still keep myself occupied (for hours, if necessary), but sometimes I find hilarious and interesting and share-able things, and sometimes I don’t.  It’s probably me, not the internet.  Maybe I’m not in the mood.  I need new fun websites to explore.

My oral surgeon told me I had to lay off the exercise for a week to ten days after my tooth thing.  I did that.  Today is ten days later, and I went back for a follow-up.  Know what he said today when I asked if I could go back to normal exercise?  “Stay off the stairmaster for another two weeks.”  What a strange thing to say.  Was he kidding?  So I asked.  “Are you kidding?”  “No.  You bounce too much on that thing, it’s part of the motion.  The bone around your implant needs to harden, and if you bounce, it could move around.”  Well, crap.  “So no running?”  “Nope.”  “How about light jogging?”  “Wear soft shoes.”  Again, what?  So now I’m paranoid about bouncing.