laura705

Well, the last day of the year and the last day of the decade. 

Not much to say today.  I finished my quarterly schedules, so now I’m back to my regular stuff, the catch-up, clean-up stuff - and I have another whole week of bosslessness to work on it. 

Last night I was a couch potato - no exercise.  Bf heated up a variety of leftovers and that was dinner.  I watched my 2nd Fred & Ginger library dvd - the Gay Divorcee.  I realized I’d never watched it before, and I  decided it’s not one of my favorites.  I’ll check out another one sometime soon.  Christmas is over, but I finally was able to check out the dvd Christmas in Connecticut from the library.  I’ll watch it this weekend. 

So my weekend will be our little party tonight, nothing planned for Fri., a blood donation and hair appt on Saturday, and nothing on Sunday.  For 2010, I need to stop saying stuff like “nothing planned” and actually plan my workouts and DO THEM.  Today was the last day of my newspaper subscription, so this Sunday when I get up there will be no paper waiting for me in the driveway.  Good opportunity to go to the gym and get one workout over with for the week.  If I want the paper I can pick it up after my workout. 

Well, instead of rambling along, I’m just going to publish this and get back to work.  Everyone have a safe and happy holiday, and a happy, healthy, prosperous and productive 2010!

New Year’s Eve Eve.  Warmer today than yesterday, but it’s snowing.  Not sure how much accumulation is expected.  I would be okay w/ winter if the temperature didn’t fall below the mid-20’s.  It’s those teens combined w/ the wind chill factors that make it so miserable. 

Not much to report.  I’m almost done w/ my quarterly schedules.  Still hoping to receive an e-mail from the powers that be announcing a noon-time office closing tomorrow (instead of 3 pm).

Last night’s dinner was a piece of lasagna and garlic bread.  Movie snacks were some smuggled M&M’s and RF Cheez-its.  I had a coupon for a free small drink and used that.  I was asked if I wanted to upgrade to a large for 50 cents or a dollar, I forget how much.  Regardless of the cost, the answer was no.  As it is, the small is more like a medium.  I think a large is one that I need two hands to hold onto.  Portion sizes are crazy these days. 

The movie Precious was very good.  Sad, but good.  There were some lighter moments, and uplifting ones too, but still, it’s very sad to know that there are children out there whose circumstances are very similar to the one depicted on the screen. 

I stopped on the way home from the movie to pick up the tea that was special ordered by the market.  This is the 2nd store w/ the 2nd batch and I really didn’t need it since the 1st store unexpectedly came through with the order and we bought a few boxes from them.  But I didn’t want to burn any bridges by requesting a special order and then not buying any of it because who knows when I might need to special order something in the future?  But when I asked for my tea, no one knew where it was.  How annoying - there doesn’t seem to be a consistent process so that the employees - on day or night shift - know where the product is held.  Lame.  I phoned the store manager today to tell her that.  Not sure why I fet compelled to do that, but the mgr. was was apologetic… whoopee.  Going forward, it’ll be on bf and I to be very specific about where they’ll keep the order so picking it up isn’t such a circus.

TOM is visiting this week and my body is all out of whack - water retention, digestion, etc.  The usual headache hasn’t hit yet, but it will.  I’ll make a concerted effort to guzzle a lot more water for the rest of the day. 

Anxious to get home and have a quiet evening.  I do, however, need to get to the gym.  Sigh.  Don’t wanna, but I just need to get myself there and do 30 min.  I’ll have my iPod and it’ll go by quick. 

Okay, better get back to the schedules.  I will finish them and send them off and maybe I’ll get an earlier train home.

Very cold today.  I put a blue sky, blue ocean, sand, and palm trees photo on my desktop because the winter blues are starting to set in now. 

Yesterday was icky.  I was tired all day - yawning a lot.  But after planning to take a slightly earlier train, I ended up getting involved in a project and took my regular train home.  Which is fine because I missed my normal train in the morning and was a bit late.  Not that anyone would notice - very quiet here.

Bf picked me up at the train and we decided to get dinner and run errands straightaway.  Dropped off books at the library.  Dinner was most of a chicken burrito (no rice) at Chipotle.  Went to Walmart for a couple things and ended up spending $80+ dollars on toiletries, groceries, and household stuff.  I also picked up a set of crochet hooks and a skein of yarn.  I have a dvd from the library that teaches crochet stitches.  I thought it might be a nice hobby that doesn’t isolate me in the spare bedroom with my sewing machine.  And it’ll be something to keep my hands busy and not putting food in my mouth, LOL.  I’ll give it a go. 

Back at home, I got myself ready for bed and then watched my library dvd “Top Hat” with Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers.  It’s a silly, frothy movie, but the elegant sets, costumes and dancing are what I like.  I have another Fred & Ginger dvd from the library, but I might not have time to watch it before it’s due back.  Unless I can renew it online.  I thought I’d get to bed early, but I wasn’t dozing off, so I ended up going to bed at 10:30 or so and slept well.  I feel much more alert today!

Trying to keep busy here at work with the usual stuff, including quarterly schedules, and also with clean-up type stuff.  I have to try not to fall into working at a slow pace or slacking off because I’ll certainly regret squandering the boss-less time I have right now! 

Food is still off track.  We bought some bananas and granola bars yesterday, so I have some better snacks than what I’d buy on the run, but not much in the way of other groceries.  We have some lasagna to heat for dinner tonight, but we need to do some meal planning and shopping.  Good 2010 goal is to get better at that!

I’m going to see the movie Precious tonight.  Not much else to report, so I’ll get this published. 

Happy Monday.  I’m actually sort of glad to be back to the normal routine, even if it does include work! 

My family came over yesterday and it was nice.  Tiring, but nice.  Bf and I got everything cleaned up last night and the house is nice and tidy.  I think it needs to be a 2010 goal to keep the house tidy because it just makes me feel so calm.   Seriously.  I went to bed late last night, and I’m really dragging today.  I’m glad it’s so quiet here in the office.  I need to pick up a couple things from Walmart after work, but otherwise I have nothing planned and I’m sure I’ll be getting to bed early tonight. 

I have a lot on my mind, but I’m afraid if I start typing I’ll go on forever.  So I suppose I’ll just stick with food and exercise related topics.  Food has been all over the board.  I’d gotten rid of all the sweets that were tempting me, and then over the weekend I was of course jonesing for something sweet!  Unfortunately bf brought home some cookies from our friend’s house on Christmas Eve, so I ended up eating some of those.  I’m looking forward to going grocery shopping and buying healthy food I need for my work lunches and snacks, not for food for entertaining!  Today I had cereal for breakfast at home and then bought a bagel on the way to the office.  Not a good pattern to get back into.  Lunch from home was a cheese sandwich and chips.  Yup, definitely need to do some shopping.  We have some leftover dessert from yesterday, as well as leftover chips, nuts, and M&Ms, and we’ll use those for Thursday - New Year’s Eve - when we have a couple friends over. 

I haven’t been to the gym since Thursday, so I’ll get back there this week.  I received a pedometer for Christmas, so I want to open that and start using it.  I heard a blurb on the radio yesterday to the effect that people who wear pedometers get more steps in than people who don’t.  It’s that consciousness, I’m sure.  My lungs have felt fine the past several days, so that’s good.  My sinuses, however, are another matter.   I’m now out of the sample allergy med, and I can tell my nasal passages are swollen.  Not a lot of congestion or sneezing, but the swelling makes me uncomfortable.  I hope my mail order rx gets here today!  Ceejay, good idea to check out a health food store for the neti pot type thingy.  There’s one right in the train station downtown. 

Well, I’ll get this posted and read some of your blogs.  Or find a place to take a nap.  Yawn. 

A bit after 9 now.  I was up around 7 and have been reading and on the internet. 

I last posted the 23rd.  Didn’t do much on Wed. night that I recall.  Oh, we went out to eat.  I had a pork chop and half of a baked potato and salad and bread.  Stopped for a gift for bf’s mother afterwards, then the library, then home.  Miserable rain on Wed, Thurs and Friday.  It was good to get home and be warm and dry.

Thurs. I woke up early, read and relaxed for a while and then got out for gym and shopping.  I bought gas, hit 3 stores to buy bf’s gifts (nothing fancy), and then went to the gym.  Back home, showered, did a load of laundry, and wrapped gifts for bf’s mom, aunt and nieces.  Before we left, I took doggy for a short walk.  Bf made the green bean dish - sauteed onion, garlic, diced tomato and green beans.  Yum.

We went to bf’s mom’s place.  It was so warm in there - a small apartment w/ the oven going, etc.  Then I made it worse for myself by drinking wine - made me even warmer.  I took off my shoes, and later took off my fuzzy socks, LOL.  It was a nice meal - ham, plain baked sweet potatoes (so good!), the green beans, a roll w/ butter.  Afterwards we played Scattergories and didn’t eat dessert.  BTW, we’d forgotten the dessert at home (the leftover trader joe’s choc. covered pastries, sitting in the downstairs freezer) and stopped to buy an apple pie and ice cream.  We left the pie there and took home the ice cream.  By the time we left, I had a headache  - I don’t know if it was the wine (2 glasses of white wine) or the mom and aunt talking over each other in separate conversations w/ bf & I or not eating enough during the day (or combination thereof).  My head was pounding.  And by the end of our drive home, I was nauseous as well.  Ugh.  I think I ate all normal food, except some spinach dip on a melba toast thingy for an appetizer.  Anyway, I stayed home, took some ibuprofen, and drank some seltzer and bf went to his friends’ house alone.  I just sprawled on the sofa in front of the tv.  I fell asleep and thankfully when I woke up two hours later I felt fine. 

I woke up early on Christmas and read and watched tv for most of the day.  Wrapped bf’s gifts, washed some dishes, but that was about it.  We had a nice quiet day.  Lunch was Italian sausage sandwiches, dinner was crabcakes w/ homemade remoulade sauce, garlic noodles and steamed green beans.  Opened gifts, talked to our mom’s, and to bf’s niece. 

I’m so irritated with the mail order rx pharmacy.  The day I went to the doc - Dec. 18 - the doc’s office faxed the rx to them.  I got an e-mail the same day saying they had it and the rx was in process.  Then nothing.  I phoned on the 24th and they said it might go out that day.  Jeez, what have you been doing w/ it for a week?  Grrr.  It didn’t go out, so now it’ll be Mon or Tues.  My sinuses are feeling swollen.  The sample of the other stuff I’m taking isn’t as effective, and now it’s running out.  I have some zyrtec, but I hate how that dries me out… Guess I’ll do what I need to until they finally get it sent.  Bozos.  I’m going to call and complain on Monday, and demand that they send it next day shipping, for free, of course.   Update - just saw my e-mail and it was shipped on 12/24.  Yay. 

All this has also made me look at info on sinus/nasal irrigation on the internet.  I think I’m going to try it.  Not that I’d be able to give up my allergy meds, but I think it would help a lot with that and when I have a cold.  I bet bf would benefit by it too, but he has had ear problems all his life and if he did it wrong it might cause problems.  But he goes swimming, etc, and so I think he’d be okay if he did it properly.  I think the one i want is the Rhino horn one because it’s plastic and because of the shape and the nozzle.  I’d just mix the saltwater solution myself.  I wish I could buy the Rhino thing in a store, but I doubt I’ll find it at any of the usual places, so I’ll probably just order it online.  I watched some videos online and it seems pretty straightforward, but I’m certainly not about to try doing it with one of my teapots like I saw one guy do!  He said, this is what I learned on Oprah today, and he used this old fashioned metal teapot and he stuck the spout in his nostril - it was funny. 

Okay, enough about that.  Today we need to shop for tomorrow’s dinner w/ my family, and do some cleaning.  The house is in pretty good shape, so we mostly need to focus on the food part.  Oh, and I need to buy the gift cards for them. 

Better publish this and get going.   

I didn’t post yesterday.  I didn’t have much to report.  I’ve been taking zinc lozenges the past day or so.  No cold, so I guess they’re helping.  I went to bed early Mon & Tues night.  I woke up at about 3:30 am today and couldn’t really get back to sleep, so I hope that doesn’t help the cold in it’s fight.  I read my book a bit.  This one, Sara Paretsky’s “Hardball” is going faster than the last one, which was really long, but good.  That one was Jonathan Kellerman’s “The Butcher’s Theater”.  Both are detective books. 

Food hasn’t been all that great this week, but weigh-in this morning showed me at the same weight as last Thursday.  I’ve been bringing snacks from home, but not my lunch.  No formal exercise since Sunday, just the walking I do for my commute.  I’d like to get to the gym, so I might do that tomorrow morning if I feel alright. 

It’s very quiet here today in the office.  The boss and the admin are out.  Looking forward to the quiet next week, although only the boss will be out then.  Plenty to do, including cleaning out my cube.  The boss cleaned out her office, but she just moved the stacks to the cube vacated by the former lead admin.  She spent some time there sorting and tossing, but piles are still there.  Me, I just want to toss stuff.  Right now, I pulled a fat file folder full of paper from a 2006 project.  I haven’t looked at it in a long time - haven’t needed to.  It deals w/ something that’s no longer my responsibility, so I think it all can go.  Yesss!

Tonight I’ll probably do some shopping - grocery and gift.  I know we have to pick up some tea that the store ordered special for me.  Funny thing is that bf inquired of one store about a special order and they said they’d have to check w/ the manager.  We heard nothing from then, so we went to another store who put it on order for us.  Then we get calls from both stores saying our order was in.  So we bought 3 boxes from one store, and will probably buy 3 or 4 from the other.  The 2nd store offered to keep the rest of the order for us to buy when we needed it.  Which won’t be for a while now!  We also need to finish gift shopping for bf’s mother (we know what we’re getting her, just need to buy it), and a little something for his aunt.  We also need to wrap all the stuff, including the gifts for bf’s two young nieces.  We won’t be going to that gathering on Sunday, so we’ll have bf’s mom bring them. 

Tomorrow we’ll be having dinner w/ bf’s mom and aunt.  In the evening, I think w/ might go to a friend’s house, as usual.  No plans on Christmas day.  Saturday night we have a party.  I forgot about it, and when bf reminded me about it on Monday I got totally irritated.  As usual, he mentioned it a month ago, didn’t mark the calendar, and then never mentioned it again until Monday.  I suppose I overreacted, but I had the sore throat, which I figure I picked up from the party on Friday (gazillion people were there), and another party just didn’t sound so great to me at the moment.  But now I feel okay and a party sounds alright to me.  Sunday morning I have a blood donation and later a get together w/ my sister & BIL and my SIL and nephews.  First Christmas w/out my brother (he passed away in April).  Sad.  People have asked if I’m going to see my mother out of state, but no, I’m not.  I don’t feel the need to go there every year when the grand total number of visits back home that my mom and dad made in the 15 years since they moved there is one.  I will plan a visit for 2010. 

Well, on that high note, I will get this published and get on with some work.  If I don’t get back here, everyone have a Merry Christmas!

First day of winter and longest day of the year.  On the bright side, the days will start getting longer after today. 

I felt fine up until lunch time, at which point my throat started hurting.  I just cancelled a dinner I was supposed to have w/ a friend after work.  She advised that I take those nasty zinc lozenges.  hate those things, but I don’t want to be sick… Maybe it’s worth the awful taste to try and fight off this cold.  I’m very annoyed because I just had a cold last month.

My weekend was alright. Very lazy, and I’m sure I’ll regret that this week.  I should have done more shopping, but I didn’t.  Friday night’s party was nice.  A lot of people, but we were spread over three floors (2 apts & the basement), so it wasn’t too crazy.  It was a late night, and I slept in on Saturday and spent a lot of the day just reading my book.  I finally finished it.  Didn’t do much Saturday night.  Sunday was lazy too.  I looked at the paper a bit, then decided to bring up our DVR/hard drive and a VCR from the basement to see if I could figure out the connections needed to copy shows from our cable co. DVR box to our DVR’s hard drive so that we can burn them onto a DVD.  We also want to get some VHS videocassettes copied onto the DVR’s hard drive and make a DVD.  I hit a dead end when I couldn’t find the manual for the DVR/hard drive and gave up. (Bf found it later in the day.)

I went to the gym around noon and did 15 min on the elliptical, 15 min on the stationery bike, a few minutes of cooling down on the treadmill, followed by some stretching.  I did fine, but I wished I’d remembered my iPod.  Came home, showered, took doggy for a walk, went out for a late lunch, drove around the area w/ the nice Christmas decorations, stopped to see our friends and their baby, stopped at Trader Joe’s, and then back home to watch The Big Lebowski.  I’d never seen that movie and it was really funny.  I love the Coen Brothers movies, but I haven’t seen them all, so I want to catch up. 

Food wasn’t good this weekend, and I ended up eating some of the cookies still sitting around.  I took the rest to the office today and they are gone!

Okay, this post has sat here all day while I worked on something yucky that I want to get off my desk this week.  Time to finally get it posted. 

Yesterday bf made chili for dinner and it was alright.  It was a bit salty - he used what the recipe called for - and it didn’t have tomatoes.  He used a prize-winning recipe, a Texas style chili w/ a lot of ground beef and I prefer less meat, and some tomatoes and beans.  Oh well, it was a small batch, so it’ll be back to the drawing board.  We didn’t go see the decorations because our friends weren’t available, but at some point we’ll get over there. 

Instead I watched a sappy holiday movie last night and wrote a few more Christmas cards.  Not sure how many more I’ll do.  I got ready for bed relatively early because I had my dr appt early this morning.  I read my book for a bit and then fell asleep around 11-ish. 

I got up, got ready, and left the house before 7 am today - early for me.  At the allergist’s office, I went not just to get new rx’s on my allergy meds, but to discuss the “lung issues” I’ve had this past year.  I was given pulmonary function tests and diagnosed as borderline re asthma and given inhaler samples to use.  I also asked about exercise  -if stopping substantially all rigorous cardio during the past year could have played a part.  The dr confirmed that improving pulmonary function through exercise may help me - which I guess seems obvious.  I have to go back in two months.  In the meantime, I need to go back to the gym and get back into cardio - classes or equipment. 

I have the rest of the day to myself, but no firm plans until a party tonight.  I have 170 pages left to read in my current book.  I generally enjoy this author but this book is just so long.  I want to finish it and move on!  The next book club is in mid-January and the book chosen is “Wuthering Heights”.  I have the book from when I read it a long time ago.  I remember thinking, “so what?”, about it, even after I rented the movie to see if maybe I’d missed something in the reading, LOL.  Maybe I’ll get more out of it this time around.   Before I start WH, I think I’ll have time to read another book, if I ever finish this one.  I sort of wanted to read “A Christmas Carol” but there’s definitely not time for that!  Something light and fluffy is in order!

I had tea and toast for breakfast but I’m still hungry.  Maybe another mug of tea will hold me.  Okay, just babbling, so I’ll get this published and go back to my reading.

Well, it’s my Friday today, since I’m taking vacation tomorrow.  I should be happier about this, but the whole performance appraisal thing is getting me grumpy.  I submitted my self-eval yesterday, but now I have to provide input for three other people.  That’s just as difficult, at least using the form they have makes it that way.  Grrr.  And this whole thing gets me dwelling on how I’m doing at work and how I wish I liked my work more, etc.  Nothing like a little introspection to bring me down, LOL.   

The scale is up a pound today from Tuesday’s weigh-in, but still the same as last Thursday’s.   The past three days of eating have been off track. I haven’t gotten back to logging on The Daily Plate yet, and I need to because if I don’t watch my step I’ll continue to go in the wrong direction.  Oh, brought the leftover almond cake to work today.  Brought a small snack baggie to work for myself containing some of my marginal homebaked cookies.  I ended up sharing them with a couple co-workers and they said they were fine, so I’ll bring the rest to work on Monday.

I didn’t do any Christmas cards last night, but I compared my list to the cards we’ve received so far and made notations so I know to at least send cards to those people (bf thought that was sneaky of me - is it?), updated some addresses, and crossed some names off.  I didn’t print any labels because, oh, I don’t want to rehash all of it.  If I did you’d think I was making it more complicated than it is.  Which I’m sure I am, LOL.  Anyway, I took a couple boxes of cards on the train w/ me this morning to get a start and realized that one box has dark green envelopes. So I’m forced to use labels on those because dark ink would be very difficult to read on the dark green paper.   But I finished a whopping 4 cards from the other box, which has boring white envelopes.  I was going to do more at lunch but I didn’t.  I’ve decided to send some e-cards too.   Hope I can find a nice FREE one, LOL. 

Tonight we’re supposed to go see Christmas decorations. Tomorrow morning is my early doctor’s appointment, tomorrow night is a party.  Nothing else firmly planned for the rest of the weekend.  House is still pretty clean from last weekend’s efforts, so yay.  Need to do some shopping. 

Okay, back to work. 

Got through the afternoon alright yesterday.  I was hungry and went to see what the leftover potluck food was like.  I didn’t think to check the fridges, but I ended up w/ some crackers sitting out on the counter.  No cheese or dip or anything, just crackers, but it was enough.  The almond cookies I brought to work went fast.  I will bring the leftover almond cake to work tomorrow.  On the way home I brought some flavored pretzel pieces with the thought of bringing them to the movie that night. I did that, but I also ate some on the train home from work, so I had quite a bit of those.  Dinner was soup. 

The movie “Everybody’s Fine” was good, but I thought it was sad, not heartwarming like I thought it would be.  I’m looking forward to seeing “It’s Complicated” with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin sometime soon.  I like comedies!

Food today still isn’t on track today.  I need to get back into the groove.  I shouldn’t let these breaks in routine drag on like this.  I brought snacks from home, but I also had a creamy soup and chips at lunch, and then a cupcake (courtesy of our building, who does goodies and holiday music in the lobby every year).  As for exercise - it was very cold this morning, so I had bf drop me off at the train.  I’ll walk home from the train though and get a bit of exercise and fresh air.  

Bf said he’s making chili for dinner, but who knows?  Depending on if he gets sidetracked with something else or how long it’ll take him to make, we may have it late or not at all.  I’m looking forward to going home and relaxing, but I want to send some Christmas cards, and they won’t send themselves!  I have a sheet of decorative labels leftover from a previous year, but it’s a hassle printing them…I might just do it all by hand.  Or not. 

Tomorrow after work we’re supposed to meet friends and go look at some nice Christmas decorations in a northern suburb.  We usually take the opportunity when we’re in this area to stop at a place that has really tasty grinders.  Tomorrow I’m not going to eat the appetizer that bf always orders, but I’ll eat half the sandwich as usual.  Friday I’m taking a vacation day, and I have an early morning doctor’s appointment.  That night we have a party to attend.  The rest of the day is mine! 

Okay, need to publish.