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?

I’m probably making this harder than it has to be

I was going to post something yesterday, but then I didn’t.  True story.  And one of my better ones, I know.

You know how sometimes people suggest doing something together (“We can carpool!” or “You can sit in here with me!”) because it sounds like a good idea?  To them, anyway.  And you don’t want to do it, mostly because you just want to be alone, but if you say that, it’ll hurt their feelings.  Or look like an attitude problem.  Yeah, I hate that.  Except when I don’t hate it.  There are times when I’m all for it.  Usually at the beginning, but then I’ve set a precedent (“Carpooling is a great idea!”  ‘Wow, it makes so much sense for me to sit in here with you instead of over there by myself!”) and backing out is difficult.  It’s like breaking up (“No, it’s not that I don’t like you.  I do.  I just need some space.”  “It’s not you, it’s me.”), except not so permanent.  I need an excuse that sounds reasonable and won’t hurt anybody’s feelings.

I’m just not in the mood for people.  People in general.  You guys are good, the people at my gym are good, but everyone else?  I want to hide from everyone else.  For now, though, I’ll settle for sleep.

Sore (not Thor)

I can’t even count the ways that I am sore.  Last  night was my first night back at my Muscle Blast and yoga classes since Thanksgiving.  I’m very happy to be back, I really like those classes, but oh my god I hurt so much now.  Every muscle we worked on is screaming at me.  The aches sorta crept in one by one throughout the day, but they’re all here now.  Hi everybody!  Now go away.

I spent the entire day in a tiny little room with my boss (plus an hour and a half each way in a car with her to get to that tiny little room).  I need some space.  I need some alone time.  And I need some sleep.

You know what’s awesome?  Tomorrow’s Friday and it’s the beginning of a three-day weekend!  You know what’s awesome-er than awesome?  The first season (well, the 2005 season) of Doctor Who arrived in the mail yesterday!  With extras and commentary and lots of hours of Doctor and Rose goodness.

Does anyone know where we can find the last season of Torchwood (the season set in the US) online?  It was on Netflix for a little while, but it’s gone now.

My plan for the weekend:

  1. Do my homework (I have an assignment due for Data Modeling and Design)
  2. Finish Faithful Place
  3. Start The Hunger Games
  4. Exercise
  5. Grocery store
  6. Blah blah other boring things
  7. Oh, also SLEEP

Anger and flowers

You want to know how to make my blood boil?  Close a help desk ticket of mine without resolving it.  I don’t care what company it is, what the service is that you’re supposed to be providing me, or how big or small the issue I reported was.  If you haven’t resolved it or are still waiting to get some information from me, DON’T CLOSE THE TICKET.  Morons.

Have some pretty to end your day.  These are our anniversary flowers.

Baby, it’s not that cold outside

It’s not cold enough.  I should be happy about that (I hate being cold), but it’s hard to feel Christmas-y (or Hanukkah-y – yes, I’ve been lighting candles this year.  Please pick your jaw up off the floor.  That’s not sanitary.) when you barely need a coat to go outside.  I’ll get over it.  Just as soon as we hit the road.  Which can’t be soon enough for me.  What I’m really looking forward to is the time off.  I need a long, long break.  Or maybe…yeah, we don’t talk about that on the internet.

I also didn’t mean to publish that yet.  The Publish button looked a lot like the Save Draft button just then.  Whoops.  (For those of you coming late to the party, first of all, shame on you.  Get it together and be on time.  Secondly, it’s kind of obvious what just happened, so this explanation is unnecessary.)

I regret my choice of post title now.  Not just because it’s dumb, although that should be enough.  No, I regret it because that song is stuck in my head now.  I like it fine, but I’ve been having this problem all day, and I can’t settle on a song I’d be happy to have looping through my brain all day.  I woke up this morning to the theme from The Price is Right (thanks to the episode of How I Met Your Mother we watched last night), but I started to tell John about it and immediately switched to “You Were On My Mind” by We Five.  (John, you were right.  It’s We Five.)  Maybe I can get that one back.  I’ve always liked that song. Wish me luck!

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’m beginning to think I’m a big whiny baby

I do a lot of complaining and wishing some things were different (not most things, just some things).  And yes, I’m working to change those things, but to some extent, I need to just handle them better.

I don’t want to talk about that, though.

An old man and I bonded over the too-green bananas in the produce section at Giant this evening.  He tore two off of their bunch and said, “You don’t want to buy them when they’re too ripe because you have to eat them all at once or they’ll go bad.”  My response, “I see your point, but if they’re too green, you have to wait a long time before they ripen.  What if you wanted one with breakfast tomorrow?”  We understood each other.  But now I have too-green bananas.

Who’s excited?

I am, I am!  Tomorrow is Les Mis.  YAY!  Tonight, I pick Sparky up from the airport.  Yay!  Also, it’s Friday (yay!) so PRESUMABLY, I can sleep in a bit tomorrow.  Got up before 5 this morning, people.  (John is not pleased.  I tried REALLY hard to have everything I needed in the guest room so I wouldn’t wake him while I got ready, but I needed one little thing and, of course, I needed it 15 minutes before his alarm was going to go off.  Sorry, John.)  We’re having a kick-off meeting this morning, and I was in charge of bringing bagels, and traffic has been HORRIBLE this week, so I figured I’d just get out the door earlier.  Guess what?  I over-corrected.  I was up the elevator and in my little conference room by 7:20.  Just a little bit earlier than necessary.  A tad.  Still, it’s better than the alternative.

Can someone please get Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger” out of my head?  I don’t like it.  I keep trying to force it out, but it creeps its way back in every time I think I’ve won.  Stupid little whistling part.

Dread

It’s going to be okay, right?  I mean, just because my boss decided that we’re going to commute downtown together three days a week starting next week for I don’t even know how long and that commute (plus some extra work travel) caused me to almost quit a year and a half ago and NO it’s not better having a commute buddy when that buddy is your BOSS –

That sentence got away from me.  Let’s just say I’m not looking forward to it.  Besides, she changes her plans for me on this project every other day (sometimes every day), so it’s possible that it a) won’t happen at all or 2) won’t last long.  So I’m putting the frenzy away, locking it in a closet, and instead I’ll work on getting all those #%^# songs out of my head.  Because THAT is a good use of my time.

I can have a do-over, right?

I had a strange day.  Got so frustrated with work I was nearly in tears.  Got over it because there’s a lot of funny stuff on the internet.  I know, right?

My favorite tweet today:

My favorite reddit…thing today (it’s actually from yesterday, but it kept me amused today, too):

Must go.  If I stay here any longer, I’ll eat the entire container of rice pudding.  (John’s brilliant idea – who gets a craving for rice pudding, of all things?  So good.)  Anyway, I’d like to pretend today’s odd day never happened, so I’m going to take my book and go to bed and start fresh tomorrow.

I am an ostrich

I worked it out while talking to Dad today.  When too much stuff gets thrown at me at one time, I bury my head in the sand until it’s almost too late rather than figure out a way to manage it all.  Not helpful.  Not healthy.  I made some progress today, and I was finally given some direction (badly needed) on one project and a better due date on another, and I feel like I can handle it now.  We’ll see.  But I do feel better.  (Sssshh.  It’s mostly work and a little bit school, so I can’t talk about it anymore.)

Not so good

I took my calculus final last night.  I don’t feel good about it.  And that sucks.  But it’s over, it’s done, there’s nothing left but the screaming, and I will do my best not to fret.  Until I get my grade.  But then at least I’ll know.  New focus: statistics.  My goal for the weekend is to get through two more quizzes.  And run six miles on Saturday.  That’s really all I’m hoping to accomplish.  That and get to the grocery store.  I need to buy lots of fruit and other healthy things.  And maybe go to Target.  And possibly weed the flower beds.  Drink some wine.  Oooh, I bought a raspberry merlot (“the kind you buy at a second-hand store”) at one of the wineries Jess and I visited last weekend (did I mention Jess and I went wine-tasting last Saturday?).  It’s really good.  Sadly, it’s mostly gone already.  I might have to buy more…but maybe not this weekend.  I’m in danger of over-scheduling myself.  Focus, please.  Statistics!

Riley loves me, this I know

Who can resist those beautiful brown eyes?

He’s reminding me that I should be paying attention to him who adores me and not so much to the computer.  I’ll be right there, Doggy-dog.

I love Tom and Lorenzo.  They make fun of people in the most delightful way.

That appears to be all I have to say today.  Oh, wait.

This week, from an I-was-better-about-doing-the-things-I-need-to-be-doing perspective, has been much better than last week.  Last week was all about keeping weird and stupid hours, not getting enough sleep, eating like a piggy little pig, and NOT EXERCISING AT ALL.  All week.  I didn’t feel so hot when I got to last weekend.  I felt downright disgusting.  And very very tired.  So I’ve been better this week.  Not perfect, no, but better.  About that stuff.  I haven’t pigged out (as much), I’ve done some sort of exercise every day since Sunday, and I’ve been getting closer to eight hours of sleep every night.  This week was MUCH worse for work, though.  But I’m not going to talk about that.  (I vented to Jess on my way home today, so I feel a little better.  Thanks, Jess!)

The other thing I feel better about?  Calculus.  I got my midterm grade back over the weekend.  I got a B.  That’ll do.  I thought I did better than that, but considering…everything, I can be happy with it.  I take my final next week.  I turned in my last quiz twenty minutes ago, so the final is all that’s left.  That feels good, but so does knowing I can still handle calculus.  After all this time.

Now what do I get to do?  Clean.  Clean like crazy, like the wind, like I’ve never cleaned before.  Because the house is a WRECK.  It looks like a tornado came through.  See for yourself:

This is what happens when we don't pick up the clutter for a couple of weeks. We just keep shoving it to the side.

Note the calculus paraphernalia and the books stacked all over the dining room table (because the giant annual used book sale I LOVE was last weekend and we just HAD to leave work early on Friday to go before they closed at 7pm that night because we were out of town the rest of the weekend) and the toilet paper, giant bottle of ibuprofen, and tons of mail scattered on the island.  And that’s just this room.

I know where I’m starting, though.  All those new books need to be shelved, and before they can be shelved, they have to be catalogued.  Hey, it’s gotta be done.  I might as well be the one to do it.