500 (And Other Numbers)

I haven't been putting aside the time I need to post here on a more regular basis and it's been bothering me. Not because I have a lot to say (if you've read this drivel, you know I don't have much to say), but more because I started the blog to help me work on my communciation skills, to help me learn how to take what's in my head and turn it into something coherent. The less I try to get something out, the more I find myself internalizing everything and translating it all back into Walt-speak. The more I do that, the less I want to write here,

One of the reasons I haven't been as active here is because of work. I've been working my ass off since the holidays. There's been lots and lots for me to do at work and when there's such an abundance of work, there's overtime. Last year I went though a couple of months of not having as much to do and limited overtime. If there's nothing to do, there's no overtime (though try telling some of my co-workers that. Doesn't stop them...) Anyway, there's been so much to do and I've been taking advantage of the extra hours. But it's killing me. By the middle of the week, the exhaustion starts catching up with me and by the end of the week, I'm a zombie. This week it started catching up with me on Tuesday. Not a good sign. To put the number of hours I've been working into perspective, in 2008 I managed to work 87 paid* overtime hours. In 2009, I've worked 42 paid* overtime hours, nearly half of my entire 2008 output. Now can you see why I'm tired?

(*I've mentioned before how overtime works in my office. I work a 37.5 hour work week. The first 2.5 hours of overtime each week is given to us in comp time. Anything above that is time and a half in our paychecks. Most weeks in 2008 I managed to get in my 2.5 hours but not much above it.)

I haven't posted about my little iTunes OCD project lately. To refresh, I'm actively working on listening to every single song in my iTunes library at least one time. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now and it's getting me giddy. My iTunes library is currently 43,330 songs with the unplayed count at 2,739. iTunes estimates that's a solid 7.5 days worth of music. I'm really anxious to finish this up because I've let some great things kind of slip by me in the last year or so that I've been doing this. Most new things get a single listen and then I'm on to the next thing. If I had to guess, I'd say I have about 5 or 6 more weeks until everything is finally listened to.

Today I hit a weird little milestone that I initially wasn't trying for, but made anyway. Today marks the 500th consecutive day since I had my last soda. When I stopped, I think it was initally going to be for a month. I had plateaued in my weight loss and I thought kicking the soda for a little bit would jump start me losing again. I've lost 36 pounds in the time that I've stopped drinking soda, so I guess it worked. ;-) I kept reaching what I thought would be my soda restriction goals and then I'd challenge myself to see if I could go even longer. First a month, then two, then 100 days, then six months, etc etc etc. Now I've made 500 days. After I hit a year, I told myself the challenge was over and I could have a soda whenever I wanted. And I may soon. God knows I keep dreaming about the stuff. I'm good to have a dream where I have a soda to drink at least three or four times a month. The dreams are all generally the same. I'm somewhere (restaurant/friend's house/vacation) and before I realize it, I'm drinking soda. And in the dream, my next thought would be "so much for breaking that streak." I think what's helped keep me off the stuff is my competitive nature. Once I reached a significant enough period of time, I started pushing myself to avoid the stuff, challenging myself to continue to build on the number of days. I can't imagine going forever without having another soda, but at this point in my life, I don't really miss it... much. But there are some days when I would kill for a Diet Dr. Pepper. KILL!

Blossom Dearie

I just read over at my good friend Dane's blog that Blossom Dearie passed away. Sad now. :-(

Another Random Post

***Sunday weigh in. I don't think I've nattered on much about them the last couple of weeks. Last Sunday I topped out at 194 again. It was a big weekend of eating, visiting and eating. I expected a number around there. Today, however, I was at 188. Down six pounds, which is huge. The first couple of pounds came off early in the week as my body regulated from the over indulging. The rest came off when I got the stomach bug that's been going around. I almost feel 100% again and my appetite is coming back. Too bad, because there's nothing quite as slimming as a stomach bug.

***I watched an entire dvd from Dynasty's third season last night (4 episodes). I love how craptastic that show is. It's just as good as I remember it being. But things aren't happening in quite the order I remember. For instance, Adam arranged to have Jeff's office at ColbyCo painted (with toxic paint!!!) on one of the episodes I saw. I remember this happening later.

***I'm sick of allowing people to hurt my feelings. No one can hurt my feelings unless I let them and I'm the king of allowing it. If there's one thing I need to work on about myself this year, it's this.

***I've been listening to Devo all weekend and for this I blame Bjorn.

***I used to be a huge fan of awards shows. Couldn't get enough of them. My favorite show was the Grammys, which is on tonight. I've really lost any and all desire to watch them. I don't know how or when this happened, but I've really given up on them. Sure, I'm interested in finding out who won, but watching... Nah. I used to make a whole day out of it, starting with some specials on cable, followed up with the red carpet and finally the awards themselves.

***It made it up into the mid 40s this afternoon. All the ice is finally starting to melt. Yay!

I Am...

You Are a Coffee Mug

You have loads of energy and stamina. You can zip through the most boring of tasks with complete enthusiasm. You are also great at motivating a group. You are a fearless leader. You are efficient and productive. You don't put off tasks or procrastinate. You actually enjoy working. You would make a good small business owner or startup employee. If a job requires blood, sweat, and tears - then you have some to give.

What Office Supply Are You?

Lunch With My Honey

Ken who?

Today I had my second date with my adorable Sean (who, by the way, looks so cute in that picture. Me, on the other hand.... I'm not having a very photogenic day today. LOL!) Second dates tend to be hard for me and I don't know why. I should be over that nervous energy because this is no longer the unknown. Luckily for me, this wasn't the case. I think I probably expended all that nervous energy wondering if I was going to get nervous about lunch today. (Shut up and leave me to my neuroses!) Anyway, we met at 1 o'clock at my building and headed back to the scene of our first date (a chopped salad place. So tasty!)

When we got there, I noticed something that was pretty fucked up. Sean's hands were covered in band aids. So were mine. Now, while that probably doesn't seem like anything odd, get this. On my right hand, I had two band aids. So did Sean. I had cartoon band aids. So did Sean. I had Scooby Doo while Sean had SpongeBob SquarePants.

On my left hand I only had one. So did Sean. I had a super-hero band aid on that had. So did Sean. Mine was Batman. His was a Marvel Super-Heroes. I think it was funny as shit. So much so that I insisted we take pictures.

Going back to work after having lunch together sucked ass. Sure, I was in such a good mood, all giddy and flirty and fun, but I didn't want to do anything that resembled work anymore. All I wanted to do was to gossip, chit chat, goof off and play. My afternoon was anything but productive, but while that might not be a good thing, I also didn't want to punch any of the jackasses I work with in the throat anymore. This lunch was the best thing for me. It really refreshed and recharged me.

Now that we've got lunch down to a science, our next order of business is meet the spouses. This should be good.

Made By My Blog

Stolen from Bjorn:

Friday

Dead tired. That's how I feel right now. Just exhausted. I know I've been whining about this a lot lately, but it's the truth. I've been overdoing it and by the time the weekend hits, all I want to do is sleep. After my vacation over the holidays, I've made a commitment to myself to crank out as much overtime as possible. And by the middle of each week, I've been telling myself that it's wearing me down and I need to pull back some. But I haven't. And then I sit here Friday night, ready to fall asleep before 9pm. Has it been worth it? Right now the answer is NO. I haven't seen any of that overtime in my check yet. There's a four week (or two pay cycle) lag in overtime, so I haven't seen my reward yet. My next paycheck will be the first one to show the overtime, but that pay period I only worked two days (because of my vacation). Two more weeks until the nice check.

I need to stop whining about this. I'm sure I've beaten that topic to death already. A long time ago.

But it won't stop me from talking about money. Today, for instance, I dropped a few hundred bucks. My tires were getting balder and balder and with all the shitty winter weather we've been having, it was a good idea to replace them now, before I run into trouble. All four of them were getting pretty bald. I knew that the tires weren't going to pass my next inspection, which is due in May. I was going to replace them then, but Ken convinced me now is a much better time to do that. Plus, I'll have fresh new tires for my road trip tomorrow to Jersey. We're going to spend the weekend at Ken's BFF's. Haven't seen Jim in a while and it will be nice to get away for the weekend. Especially because it means two things. 1) IKEA and 2) Converse Outlet. I fell in love with the Converse Outlet when I was in Florida this past summer. We had to buy bigger luggage to get all the new shoes I bought home. Naturally, once I got home, I googled it to see where the closest outlet was. It's about two hours south of here and we have to pass it on the way to Jim's. I'm pretty happy it's that far away, because if it wasn't, I'm afraid I'd be spending my paycheck there every payday. Two of my favorite words in the world are Clearance Converse!

I'm annoyed that I'm still behind on all my blog reading, but I did catch up almost completely on my email. We had a storm two days ago and I left work at noon. I intended on playing online for a little bit and then do something constructive, like clean or read or something. But I ended up spending hours and hours online. I can't be mad at myself because I did get something done.

The day of the storm I decided to be helpful and shovel the driveway and the sidewalk when I got home from work. That was a bad idea. My sciatic nerve had been (mostly) back in check. The last flair up, I thought, was caused by all the shoveling I had done in the middle of December. Well, on Wednesday I got the confirmation that this is true. My nerve started going crazy on me. Not as bad as it did in December, but it hurt. It's two days later and it's still kind of bothersome. I'm hoping it calms itself down. If it doesn't, though, I do have doctor's appointment on Monday and hopefully I can get something to help it out. My appointment is with the PA and he has no problem writing out prescriptions if I need something. We'll see if he's in a helpful mood on Monday.

C Is For Cookie

Stolen from Sean, who stole it from someone, who probably stole it from someone else.

You Are Spontaneous and Bold

You view the world with childlike wonder. You are very inquisitive. You can help but spy, investigate, and ask questions. Your life is all about change. Right now, you may be going through some changes you really don't like. You're easy going and easy to be around. You aren't picky or high maintenance. You seek sensations in your life. You crave excitement and love risks.

The Sandwich Cookie Personality Test

I Don't Like, I Love and I Hate...

I don't like that I've gotten behind on almost every single blog I read. I don't know where my time goes that I'm not current.

I don't like that I've gotten behind on most of my email again. There are two or three emails I really need to write or respond to, but I just haven't. I know this past weekend I was in no mood for socializing, either in person or virtually. That included email. I really needed to be a hermit. I need to catch up this week, at least with the important ones.

I love that this is day two of being in a really good mood. I don't know what's going on, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. Because I know I'm going to be in a shitty ass mood soon. I know me.

I hate that I was up another pound today. I am officially the heaviest I've been all year. I need to see a downturn on the scale soon. I just bought four more pairs of pants and if I outgrow them, there's gonna be trouble.

I love that there was fresh, new drama at work today. I really do enjoy watching these people and their self-created issues. Couldn't happen to a better bunch.

I hate that FrankenKlinger spoke to me for the sake of speaking to me. I know it's bad when she talks to me, because that means she's alienated EVERY SINGLE PERSON she works with... AGAIN.

I love my new iPod. LOVE IT! It's amazing that I drained so little of the battery on this one while the same usage on my old one, I would have drained at least half the battery. Hurrah for a fresh battery.

I hate that Bret Michaels keeps getting rid of all the fun girls on Rock Of Love. I also hate that I got sucked into this season when I swore I wasn't going to watch. I also hate that I'm about to go watch the Real Chance of Love Reunion Special. What's wrong with me?

I love that I might be going to IKEA this weekend. I don't really need anything there, but if we're going to Jersey, I need to go to IKEA.

I hate that boot shopping tonight was another bust. I love that the cute boy at EMS was more than accomodating and went above and beyond the call of duty to try to find me a pair of boots.

I love that I found out my W-2 forms were mailed out at 10am this morning. If I don't have them tomorrow, I'll have them on Wednesday.

I love that there was a new Entertainment Beat with Frances Gumm (JudyCast) today. It has to be a year since the last one.

Sunday Nattering

I've been kind of lax with posting the last week or two. There have been a number of reasons I've been slacking, not all of which I feel the need to get into here and now. If you've read this blog before, you can probably guess a couple of the reasons right off the top of your head.

Anyway, this is meant to be a shortish catch up post. Most of the stuff I've store away in my head to write about is now gone, and it's probably for the best. I'm sure it was worse than the regular shit I bitch and moan about. Consider yourself saved.

I don't know why, but I'm in a fairly good mood today. Knowing myself like I do, I shouldn't be. Ollie started in his needy licking at 2:30 this morning, with repeat performances at 4:30 and 5:30. I got up when the 5:30 one started and have been up since. I used that as my motivation to get out of the house and do my walk. I walk 3 miles in about an hour at the mall. Six a.m. is the perfect time because there is only a small handful of blue hairs there then. The time went quickly today, too, which is nice. I had two podcasts to listen to and I did a little Twittering with Thom, who was at work at that ungodly hour. As per my usual pattern, I headed to the supermarket before heading home. I don't know what the hell is going on, but grocery prices are still climbing and getting out of hand. It seems I'm paying roughly $20 - $30 more for the same things I was buying six months ago. Anyone else noticing this? It's really pissing me off because I'm not earning $20 - $30 more a week than I was six months ago.

So I left the house just before 6 this morning and got home just before 8. My plan was to put the groceries away, look at the paper and then head back to bed. That didn't happen. I put the groceries away and then took off my coat. When I did that, I knocked my iPod off of my belt and it dropped to the floor. No big whoop, I thought. I've done it before and I'll do it again. I picked it up and it was still playing, so I went and grabbed the paper. But my song ended and another didn't start. I looked at it and it was still on and about every 5 seconds it would show another album cover and then skip to the next track, and so on and so forth. I had this happen to me once before and all I had to do was reboot the iPod. When I did it this time, it rebooted and gave me what I assume is the iPod equivalent of the blue screen of death. It was a big red X and the Apple support url. Not a good sign. I went there and followed the steps they said to restore my toy. Nothing seemed to work. Then I googled my problem and everything I read basically said to go buy a new iPod. For some reason, I was still in a relatively good mood. While reading some of the posts I found, someone mentioned that he had this problem and since his iPod was still under warranty, he got it replaced. That got me to thinking. Was mine still under warranty? I bought it just after Christmas last year, but I couldn't remember the date. I dug through my email and saw an email from Amazon saying it shipped to me on 1/17/2008. I'm guessing I got it a day or two later and that would still put me just outside the one year. I was curious as to when my warranty actually expired, so I dug out the box, typed in the serial number at the Apple site and found out that they claim it ends on 1/29/2009. This crap does not happen. My warranty should have expired a few days ago, no matter what the date was. Things like these always break just days after the coverage ends. I was now kind of hopeful, but not completely. When I went to find my warranty info, this is how it's worded on the website: "Our records indicate that your product is covered under Apple's Limited Warranty which is estimated to expire on January 29, 2009." Estimated. I made an appointment for the Genius Bar for this morning and hoped for the best. I got to the store just before it opened and although my appointment was for 11:10 this morning, I was seen almost immediately. I spent a total of maybe five minutes in the store. The guy helping me typed in my info, turned around and grabbed a shiny new iPod and swapped mine out for it. That was that. I was stunned it was so easy. I expected to hear that they were going to send it out and I'd be without it for a week or two. I didn't expect to be without it for the time it took to hand him my old one and for him to hand me the new one. Francine Fishpaw is dead, but Francine Fishpaw 2 is currently syncing to my iTunes right now. It's a beautiful day.

I haven't mentioned my weight in a couple of Sundays. Today the scale told me I was 192. Second week in a row. I seem to be holding steading at 192 and it's been like this for about two weeks now. To say that I wasn't down about this would be lying. It's been frustrating me that I'm stuck at 192. I've said before that I have so much self-esteem tied up in the numbers I see on the scale. It's hard to seperate my logical side from my emotional side when I weigh myself. My logical side sees 192 and says "Shit, that's an amazing number!!" while my emotional side sees it and wonders why I can't get back down to 190. I know this is a big problem with me because I'm having dreams that I think are inspired by those extra two pounds. The dreams are generally the same. I'm back working at the record store. It's closing time and there are all sorts of people still milling about. No matter what I do, I can't get them to leave. In some variations of the dream, I also have more people piling in. The dream is telling me I think things are spiraling out of control in my life. I tie a large part of it to weight control, though I know there are other things I'm freaking out about. I know how foolish this sounds and I know how foolish it really is. I've lost 108 pounds. Why I can't appreciate that and only focus on the 2 pounds I still want to lose is just not healthy. I'm working through my issues slowly but surely.