laura705

Only have a few minutes until a meeting. 

Yesterday went alright at work, although an afternoon meeting sort of took me out of my groove.  After work I went to Walmart and the grocery store.  Dinner was a salad and trader joe crab cakes w/ homemade remoulade sauce. 

Kept busy with work up til now.  Having the admin print out all the files for my project.  I’ll give them to the boss this afternoon to review, along with some outstanding items.  

Today’s my Friday!  I’m meeting bf at a reggae club near the ballpark before the concert, then the concert.  I wasn’t sure how late of a night it would be, so I took the day off work tomorrow. Turns out the concert begins at 7 pm, so it probably won’t be a very late night, although we’ll go to dinner afterwards.  I might go to the gym tomorrow.  If it’s nice out, maybe I’ll go on another bike ride, or maybe bf and I will rent a canoe from the place I saw on Sunday while out riding.  I’ll let you know how it goes if w do the canoeing.  We’ve only been in rowboats and once a clear bottomed kayak…

Yeh, I suppose if I want nicer soil now, I guess I’d have to buy some  compost, peat moss, whatever.  I also learned that the runoff from the worm composting process (”worm tea”) is also very good for the soil, and that can also be purchased.  Maybe I’ll do that this summer.  As for home composting, I like the idea of buying a ready made self-contained composter, especially one of those you crank or roll around to mix everything up.  But I’m cheap— no, make that frugal!  So maybe a homemade pile will suffice. 

The meeting has been postponed because of a last minute rush request handed to the other manager.  Fine by me.

This weekend I have a hair appointment and book club on Saturday and then a cookout at my sister’s on Sunday.  I’ll have to bring food for book club and the cookout, so I’ll have to work that out.  Even though I know others fit in 10 times as much activity as I do in a weekend, I’m glad I have Friday off work because I like to have a lot of leisurely ”me time”. 

Okay, I’m going to get back to work and try to be semi-productive for the rest of my day.

When I type the month I’m still wanting to type June.  The summer is going too fast for me I guess. 

Yesterday I kept busy at work.  Today I have to put together all the docs for my project and give them to the boss to look over.  Something happened a couple weeks ago that will add to my project, so even if I had everything completed today, it won’t be the end of it.  We always try to improve these projects each year so they run more smoothly and efficiently, but there’s always something that throws a wrench into them.  What’s funny is that the boss is always predicting how well the current project will go compared to the prior year, and then something happens… and then she’ll be saying it again next year.  Oh well. 

At home, I got changed, quickly watered some stuff in the garden (including my newspaper layer over the veg garden), fed the dog and went to the gym.  I did about 45 min. at the gym, but it was better than nothing.  Afterwards I stopped at the library and at the dairy for milk.  Dinner was a cheese french bread pizza.  Dessert was a good humor chocolate eclair bar. 

It rained early this morning, which is good because everything needed it.  I wish our soil was better.  When it gets dry, it gets rock hard and horribly cracked.  I should start a compost pile, but I hesitate because of the bug and odor factor.  I could do a “cold” pile, which I guess is just stuff from the garden and no food scraps, but those take longer to produce good compost.  Maybe I’ll just start with that.  Who knows, maybe someday I’ll end up doing worm composting, lol.  So I guess my modest goal this year will be to take a bunch of leaves and either run over them with the mower, or suck them up into our leaf blower/vac to shred them and lay them over the veg patch and other areas, and till them into the soil in the spring. 

Okay, better post this and get on with it.

Not much to report.  Work was okay yesterday, except for a snarky e-mail from a new employee in the company.  I didn’t want to get off to a bad start with this person, so I ran my response past my boss, who of course was also annoyed by the e-mail.  We responded, hopefully sounding more polite than not. 

Didn’t go to the gym last night.  Instead we returned the stuff to Kohl’s and bf found another shirt he liked.  Dinner was a salad and a slice of leftover pizza. 

Today there’s a meeting after lunch that I need to prep for, otherwise, I need to wrap up a lot of loose ends on one of my projects coming due tomorrow and submit final long-lingering items on another. 

Tonight is movie night.  I didn’t vote, and the choice ended up being Public Enemies.  It’s well over two hours long and I just don’t feel like going.  I think I’m going to pass on it and go to the gym instead. 

I’m trying to defragment my computer drive and do work on it at the same time.  It seems to be moving along, even though I seem to recall you shouldn’t be running other stuff in the background.  It’s been a long time since I’ve done a defrag.  I might just pause it and resume it during lunch and my afternoon meeting.  That would be more efficient.  Speaking of lunch, I brought a sandwich.  Snacks are cherries and cottage cheese. 

That’s about it for today.  Have a good day everyone.

I’m moving slow, the computer is moving slow.  Very Monday today. 

The weekend was fine.  Nice weather for a change.  Friday night we took doggy for a walk, went to dinner (pizza), and then shopped for the baby shower gifts. 

Saturday I did a couple loads of laundry, puttered around, wrapped the shower gifts, and headed to the shower.  The traffic was bad and I was a bit late, but I got there in time for games and food (salad, pasta, sausage, potatoes).  Gosh, there were a lot of gifts!  This is the couple whose condo is already jam packed – I haven’t any idea how they’ll fit all the gifts into their place.  And get this – they have another shower next weekend.  I don’t envy them one bit. 

I stopped at Kohl’s on the way home and bought a pair of pj’s for myself and a few shirts for bf.  Once I tried on the pj’s at home, I didn’t like the way they fit.  BF liked his shirts, but I told him I saw one that I think he’d like even more than one of the others I’d bought, but it wasn’t in stock in his size.  He’ll probably go to another Kohl’s store in the area and see if they have his size.

We went out to dinner at a place with an outdoor patio – it was a very nice evening to be outdoors.  We had calamari and salads. 

Sunday I puttered around for the first half of the day.  I took doggy for a walk.  I laid out a soaker hose in the veg garden, although I’m not sure it’s working correctly.  The garden was so weedy, I decided to cover the soil with sections of newspaper.  Hopefully that’ll block out light and kill the weeds underneath and prevent new ones.  If I need to, I’ll just keep adding paper over the top!  I have a short fence all around the garden, so if it gets windy and the paper dries out, hopefully the fence will keep the paper from blowing all over the place.  Hope this doesn’t turn into a fiasco!

I was mainly killing time until bf had installed our bike rack on the roof of the car so I could go riding in the afternoon.  He tried to get out of it by saying he thought he would wait until we bought a part to accommodate our tandem, but I said we’d still need to accommodate a regular bike.  Anyway, he got to work, but had a hard time with the stupid rack and it’s multitude of parts.  Every car is different, and so it’s a big PITA.  Apparently our moon roof was also causing issues with getting this thing properly fitted.  I tried to stay away during this painful process, but at one point when bf was cursing and complaining, I suggested we just get one of those simple racks that go on the back of the car by the trunk/bumper.  After two hours, he agreed.  He packed up all the pieces, will return the new parts, and sell the ones he bought used, along with all the ones we still had that fit onto our previous cars.  Good.  I really don’t want the rack on the car all the time. 

After all that, I ended up removing the front wheel of my bike and cramming the bike in the back seat of the car and putting the wheel in the trunk.  I parked near a trail that goes into the botanic garden and did my ride.  It was late afternoon by the time I got to the garden, so I didn’t feel like parking my bike and walking around.  It was sort of a long ride for my first real ride of the season and I didn’t want to get totally pooped out before riding back to the car.  But it was a beautiful day for biking, and I did about 15 miles in all.  I’m debating buying a different type of bike, because my mountain bike has straight handlebars and leaning forward on them puts a lot of stress on my hands, arms and shoulders. 

I also passed an area where people were canoeing, and they had canoe rentals, so I’d like to look into doing that.  That area has small bodies of water, and that would be a good place for beginning canoers. 

Sunday evening I didn’t do much of anything but shower and lay around because I was tired out.  Well, I also unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, folded some clothes and made some sandwiches for lunches, so I wasn’t completely inert.  I’m a bit worried because when I was went to bed, when laying down, my chest felt congested and my breathing was wheezy.  I had the same sensation following a cold back in the winter.  I hope I don’t have asthma.  I looked it up in a reference book I have and it’s possible… My chest still feels funny this morning.  I wasn’t sure I was going to see my primary care physician this year, but now that this has come up, I might. 

Better get this posted.  This week is a deadline on one of my projects, and also a short week for me (taking Friday off work).  It’ll be good to get this project finished. 

Yay, Friday.  It’s overcast and very humid, showers expected.  Oh well, yesterday was nice. 

After work I met a friend at a restaurant near our offices.  We sat outside.  I had three light beers and, in spite of the commercial claims, they were very filling!  We both had taco salads for dinner.  I couldn’t eat all of mine - I was just too full already.  I took and 8:30 train home, rode my bike home from the station in the dark.  I didn’t have my front headlight with me (it detaches from the bike), but at least I had my rear light, which is a red reflector and when turned on it can be set to a couple different flash patterns for better visibility. 

Bf had a friend over, but I just said a quick hello and started getting ready for bed.  Bf told me the shoe store phoned that the purse I ordered had come in and that he went and picked it up for me.  I was still full, so I didn’t even look at it, let alone transfer all my stuff to this new bag.  All I  wanted was to lay in bed like a dead tuna.  I did all the usual bedtime stuff and then watched tv for a bit (Property Virgins featured an engaged couple with a very sensible guy and an ultra dippy wife - how could he stand her??) and and then read for a bit and went to sleep. 

Having gone to bed feeling like I wouldn’t want to eat for days, I woke up hungry.  I had cereal.    I forgot about my new purse, but didn’t really have time to do much more than the minimum anyway.  I was surprised to wake up 40 minutes after the alarm went off the first time - I hit the snooze button more than I realized!

I spent my time on the train reading the newspaper articles about local cemetery employees that had been removing buried remains from plots, dumping them carelessly into mass graves, and reselling the plots.  Just awful. 

Lunch today is a rf salami sandwich and pretzels.  Snacks are cherries and cottage cheese. 

Tonight I need to shop for the baby shower gift.  Our new admin has a young child, so I asked her what the most useful thing would be and she said diapers.  Even though the expecting couple is registered at a few stores, I like the diaper idea, so at least part of the gift will be diapers.  And I think I’ll print out some fun/funny diaper statistics which I’m sure I can find online - something about the thousands of diapers they’ll be changing over the next couple years… 

This weekend is the baby shower on Saturday.  Otherwise, I need to do some yardwork - the veg garden is getting very weedy.  And I still have to finish my rock removal project from the one garden bed.   I need to get bf to install the bike rack on the car - I want to go for a bike ride on a trail this weekend. 

I’m going to get this posted.  Another department member asked if I’d heard about a last minute meeting being called by the big head honcho here.  I hadn’t, but she’d heard something from someone else - someone who’d be responsible for helping set it up, so I tend to believe it.  And after we talked, the boss rescheduled a meeting we’d set up for this morning for this afternoon, so she might know something about this.  I’ll ask her if she knows about it.  We’ll see.

Have a good weekend everyone. 

Work went okay yesterday.  I feel like I got a lot accomplished. 

I worked out at home yesterday, doing my Margaret Richard Triple Threat dvd.  I did the lower body workout, an hour. 

Nothing much else to report.  Snack was rf wheat thins & a laughing cow wedge.  Dinner was a salad and a cheese french bread pizza.

Lunch will be a sandwich, pretzels and cherries.  After work I’m meeting a friend for drinks/dinner.  We’ve been postponing in hopes of getting weather that will allow us to sit at an outdoor cafe.  It’s supposed to cloud up in the afternoon, so it might not be ideal today either, but I’m ready to go forward with it.

I have a baby shower to attend Saturday afternoon.  The husband just lost his job last week - could the timing be any worse?  Anyway, tomorrow evening or Sat. morning I’ll need to shop for a gift.  Otherwise, nothing else is planned.  Looking forward to the weekend, hoping the weather will be nice.

Feeling stressed.  And I’ve brought it on myself, of course.  I procrastinate on projects, and then the deadline is suddenly upon me and panic and guilt ensue.  So that’s where I’m at with work.

My eating continues to suck.  Lunch yesterday was a pbj from home, and I picked up a bag of chips (single serve this time) and a diet soda.  Snack was cottage cheese. 

I came home and made some sandwiches for the rest of the week and popped them in the freezer.  Dinner was a bowl of lentil soup.  The movie “Away We Go” was fine.  It isn’t a movie with a lot of action or a big climax, but it had its humorous and sad moments.  I wasn’t up for a tearjerker like My Sister’s Keeper, or something like Pelham 123, so this was fine.  I had a medium popcorn at the movie. 

I had a small piece of cake after the movie.  I read for a little bit and went to bed.  I was crabby because bf had decided he needed the car last night and dropped me off at the movie, and then picked me up afterwards.  He was still at his friend’s house (installing software on his friend’s computer so he can update his resume in Word – the guy lost his job last week, and his preggo wife is due in August).  Anyway, I got ticked because I had to wait a little bit for him to drive from there to the theater.  Not too long, but I viewed it as him inconveniencing me - he could have looked up the length of the movie online and gotten himself back to the theater so I didn’t have to wait, but no.  I’m getting really irritated with sharing a single car, and I’m generally unhappy with just about everything in my life at the moment.  Work, home, money – everything. 

I will curtail my venting and finish this up so I can get back to scrambling on my projects.  I brought a turkey sandwich and pretzels for lunch.  I brought some fruit salad for a snack.  I bought a brownie to get me through the morning.  Yes, I had a bowl of cinnamon life cereal at home for breakfast and I did not need the brownie, except on a purely emotional level.

Tonight will be the gym. 

I ate lunch outdoors yesterday - it was sunny and warm.  I had a rf salami sandwich on wheat.  Unfortunately I bought a bag of Combos to supplement it - a multi-serving bag.  I ate several servings at lunch, and then the rest on the train ride home.  Not a good choice!  Otherwise, snacks were an apple and some fruit salad. 

After work I went to the gym by myself.  I asked bf if he wanted to go, he said yes, but wanted to wait until later when it was less crowded.  I reminded him of our discussion and that I wanted to go right after work, and that he didn’t have to go with me, so he decided not to.  I did the elliptical for 10 min instead of my usual 5 min warmup.  I was considering doing 30 min of cardio and 30 of strength, but I decided not to.  Doing just 30 min of strength isn’t enough for me to do all I want to do.  I just don’t see myself getting to the gym often enough to split up my weight work, so I’ll stick with full body workouts.  I managed 3 sets each of pull-ups and tricep dips on the gravitron.  I’m looking forward to needing less assistance and using more of my own weight on that machine.  I might start keeping track of the weight I use on the various machines so that I push myself more on upping the weight.  

Dinner was the leftovers from our Sunday rib dinner.  Today breakfast was grape nuts cereal w/ skim milk.  I brought a pbj sandwich for lunch and cottage cheese for a snack.  I stopped and bought a little debbie nutty bar this morning.  Could I be making worse choices?  I definitely need to shop for healthier snacks to bring to work.

Tonight’s movie is “Away We Go”, with the guy who plays Jim in The Office. That’s about it, so I’ll post now.

Generally a nice weekend.  I reported on part of Friday already, but I’ll repeat again that I went to the gym in the morning, lol.  That was twice last week.  Will try for 3 times this week. 

Shopped for the food for our cookout contributions.  Also bought cherries and a watermelon.  Yum.  The rest of the day was uneventful.  Later in the evening bf and I and a friend went to a festival one suburb over from us.  We caught the tail end of Eddie Money, and had a sausage sandwich for dinner.  On the way home we went for ice cream cones. 

Saturday I got up and made the pineapple upside down cakes - made two round ones.  They turned out alright.  I think the recipe called for too much brown sugar, but it’s edible.  I also made my cucumber salad.  Bf made mac n cheese.  Off we went to his sister and BIL’s house, and it started to rain lightly and continued to rain lightly all day.   The rain sort of put a damper on the day - they have a fantastic new pool I would have enjoyed splashing around in had it been sunny.  But it rained until about an hour before we left there.  A few people got in the pool at that point, but it was cool and the sun wasn’t on the pool by then, so bf and I skipped it.  I was slightly relieved not to have to don the bathing suit, but I should get over that because I definitely want to go back there on a sunny day to get in that pool! 

We drove home and took doggy for a short walk and fed him.  Not long after that we met bf’s friend, his wife and his mother for fireworks.  It was a different display than we usually go to, and it was pretty good.  We weren’t at the “official viewing location”, but a nearby open area.  Bf was disappointed because you couldn’t see the fireworks that are done close to the ground.  Live and learn.  What was funny was that while we had brought chairs and set up on the lawn, the 3 others stayed in their car!  How did the mom see sitting in the back seat??  Whatever.  After the day of rain, the ground was damp, and the air was very humid, but cool.  When the show ended, we packed up, got in the car and turned on the heat for a few minutes just to dispel the damp chill.  Weird 4th of July weather.  Next year we’ve decided to go to a show that is held in a horse racing track in the next suburb. 

Sunday was very quiet.  Unfortunately I woke up around 3:30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep.  I shifted around in bed for a while, then grabbed my pillow and went out to the living room and read my book on the sofa for the next few hours.  I alternately read and dozed.  Then I got up, had some tea, read the papers and puttered around.  The weather was beautiful - opposite of the previous day.  I took a shower and went to the farmers market at the train station.   Not really in a shopping mood - it was just something to do, so I bought nothing.  And I must say that the stuff costs more than at the market.  Have to balance the cost vs the benefits of buying local. 

I bought some gas afterwards.  Lunch was grilled chicken breast and leftover cuke salad.  I did a couple loads of laundry, and then we went out to dinner with bf’s mother for my birthday - ribs, and brownie a la mode dessert.  Yeh, not a restrained eating day, although we all took home half of our meals. 

Nothing exciting going on this week.  I need to crank on some work projects with deadlines coming next week, otherwise, I really want to take some vacation time.  But not this week.  Next week I’m taking Friday off.  Later this month or at the beginning of next, I’ll take a week.  

Okay, need to get on with the day.

Work went quickly yesterday, since I was leaving early.  Lunch was a Subway 6″ turkey sandwich w/ sunchips.  I went to the podiatrist and had the bottom of my foot cast for the orthotics.  I didn’t know how they’d do it.  I sort of had this picture in my head of sticking my foot in a tray of plaster or something, lol.  Nope.  They took the material that I guess is used to put casts on broken bones and wetted it.  The material has the plaster in it already.  That was smoothed to the bottom of my feet, quickly dried, and then removed.  That was it.  In 3 weeks I’ll have my inserts.

I killed about a half hour til the next train back home by stopping in a gourmet food shop and buying a lemon square.  Then I read my book in a little park area, then read some more at the train depot.  Funny waiting for a half hour when the ride itself is only one stop away and takes only a few minutes.  Oh well.  I could have had bf pick me up, but I sort of wanted the me time, and besides, I needed to take my bike home from the train anyway.  It crossed my mind to walk home, but it’s quick by car and train but it’s not walking distance, especially not with my heavy backpack.  I just did mapped a route home from there on the gmap-pedometer site and it was 3.4 miles!  Even further than I thought.  Good thing I didn’t start hoofing it   BTW, I really like using that site to map out my routes and see the distance I walk or ride on my commutes, dog walks, etc.   

Once at home, didn’t do much of anything, including my at home pedi.  I agree with your comments - I like getting pedicures by someone else, but I thought I’d save some cash and do it myself.  I’m feeling really guilty that I’ve been off the brown bag lunches for quite a while now.  Having done it for a while earlier in the year, now I know how much money I could have been saving!  I’m going to get back to the lunches from home next week. 

Dinner was pasta with my homemade meat sauce and some garlic bread.  I don’t think the sauce came out very well.  I don’t know if it was the recipe or the crock pot.  Probably both - it was sort of bland, and the texture wasn’t right.  I’ll try a different recipe next time, and stovetop, not crockpot.  I watched the tail end of the women’s Wimbeldon semifinals - wish I’d seen the whole thing.  Good match. 

Today I got up early and finally finished the book club selection.  Not thrilled with it.  I might go to the library today to get another book to start.  Around 8:30 I went to the gym and worked out for an hour.  I’m beat.  I showered and have just been sitting around since then.  Unfortunately, I started snacking and ate a serving of peanuts and too many bbq potato chips.  I need to get this eating under control!!  Not having that stuff in the house would be a start!

I looked at the recipes we’re making to take to the cookout tomorrow and wrote up a shopping list.  I’m making a cucumber salad (Thai style) and bf is making macaroni and cheese.  I’m also making a pineapple upside down cake.  I bought a nice big ripe pineapple last weekend (sale 2 for $3!!), but after a couple days on the counter, it was more ripe than I like for snacking on, so I decided to make the cake - it’s been years and years since I’ve made one.  I’m using a boxed cake mix, so I decided I’m going to make two small round cakes and take one to the cookout.  I dont want a big cake sitting around the house.  I’ll use the remainder of the pineapple for a smoothie. 

So that’s about it for now.  I’ll eat some lunch, hit the library, and then go out and buy the groceries.  Not sure what’s going on tonight.