laura705

Mild today.  Still walking to the train because I haven’t brought my bike up to the garage.  Actually, we’re parking the car in the garage and there’s no space for the bike.  So I guess I need to keep it on the patio or something.  I wanted to take it today but I realized I still need to fill the tires and make sure I know the combination of the lock.  I do confess to having not locked it a few times when I was in a hurry to make the train, and it was still there at the end of the day.  Yup, that’s the kind of bike it is - not worth stealing.  Anyway, there just wasn’t time to do that this morning.  I need to do it tonight after work. 

Last night we saw the movie Alice in Wonderland in 3D.  It wasn’t my thing.  No wonder I never made it through the Lewis Carroll book as a kid - it’s just not the kind of fiction I like.  And I guess I’m not much of a Tim Burton fan either.  But I thought Helena Bonham Carter was very good as the Red Queen - off with his head!!  LOL.  We saw a preview for Toy Story 3 - it looks cute.  I think I saw the first one, but not the 2nd. 

Not much else to report.  Eating hasn’t been good from the snacking standpoint.  I have found a sandwich place near the office that I like that’s less expensive and has better bread than Subway, so that’s good.  Maybe now that the weather is getting nice and I can eat outdoors again I’ll get back to bringing lunch from home.  I told bf last week to not buy me any lunchmeat - I got really tired of it. 

Tonight I’ll take doggy for a walk, take care of the bike, and do a workout. 

It’s a bit milder than yesterday, and we’re having a bit of sunshine, weak sunshine, but still sun. 

I took doggy for a walk yesterday after work.  I didn’t do any other exercise since I felt sore from the two previous days’ exercise.  I watched DWTS and Castle and that was about it. 

In general, I’m feeling cranky.  At this moment, my cold isn’t bugging me too much.  Talking makes me cough, but otherwise I’m okay.  My shin is feeling tender to the touch, but otherwise I’m fine.  The new problem is my ears - within the past hour or so, they feel plugged up.  Like fluid is building up in them.  Funny coincidence, but this is also coinciding w/ a new pair of earbuds I used today for the first time.  I don’t like how they fit in my ear, even though they came w/ 3 different size pieces that go in the ear.  Whatever.

I’m not happy about my custom orthotics, so I might see what the podiatrist can do with them.  I have to determine what my medical insurance allows in terms of the frequency of replacing them.  Otherwise, I’m also thinking about buying some new shoes.  My most comfortable shoes are my Birkenstock sandals, so I might try a Birk shoe.  Yes, I’d like to be able to wear more fashionable shoes, but comfort comes first. 

Nothing much else to report - er, whine - about.  So I’ll publish. 

Cool today, but the sun is supposed to at least shine.  Looking forward to the rest of the week because it’ll really warm up starting tomorrow.  Sure I’ll be wishing in the back of my mind that it wouldn’t just jump from a few days spring straight to summer, but I’ll definitely take it.  I will finally start riding my bike to the train station! 

I stayed home from work on Friday.  I had a bad week physically, between those “menstruation migraines” and this cold. Each one separately would be bearable. But both, by the end of the week just got really old and I woke up feeling lousy with the start of another of the headaches, and the congestion from the cold didn’t help. So I called in sick. Missed the last jeans day of the quarter. Oh well. I just needed a day to kick back. All I did for the morning and early afteroon was watch tv, read my book (The Shipping News), and read the paper. In the late afternoon, bf and I went out for lunch (Middle Eastern food - lentil soup and lamb sandwiches). We also bought a CO2 refill for our SodaStream seltzer machine, filters for the fridge’s water dispenser, dog food and some household stuff from Walmart.  Watched “What Not To Wear” that evening (or was that in the morning?).  The woman was a body builder who wore mostly spandex because she had trouble finding clothes to fit her body.  She had to buy a large size blazer to fit her shoulders and have the rest of the garment tailored to fit her.  They did a good job on her, clothes.  She was so muscular, I just felt she looked better covered up.  That said, I wouldn’t mind my muscles having more definition.  All I have to do is quit eating junk and eat lean meats, veggies and whole grains - that’s all, ha ha.

I did two BE 30 min. workouts on Saturday morning. I had a nice lunch w/ my two HS friends. Bf had been to the restaurant before and recommended I try the cherry crepes. So I had them and they were yummy. Brought 1/3 home. Bf will probably eat them (if he gets to them first!). There’s a new supermarket in the same strip mall as the restaurant and the Oscar Mayer WeinerMobile was there, LOL.

After that, I bought a new pair of ear bud headphones from Best Buy and some Tom’s of Maine toothpaste from Target. They are converting that Target into a grocery store (like the’re doing w/ the one near our house). They had a big open area and I walked across it to get to another aisle and I somehow didn’t see an empty shelf base/end cap unit jutting out (it was the same color as the floor) and I totally tripped over it and went flying (along w/ the toothpaste and the sunglasses perched on my head). No injuries, except my  my shin is sore - but no bruise, which is weird.  Not a lot of fat on the top of my shin bone I guess.  I spoke to the store manager and told her to put cones or something around it to prevent some other poor sap from doing the same thing I did. Unless everyone’s more alert than I was…

Took doggy for a walk Sat. afternoon and didn’t do much of anything Sat. night.  Sunday I read the papers, put a chicken recipe in the crock pot, and took doggy for a walk.  BF and I took doggy by the creek, since the ground had finally dried enough.  Doggy got tired towards the end and kept wanting to lay down.  We let him do it a couple times, but then just kept him going so we could get back to the house.  Poor baby, I guess it was about twice as long as his normal walks.  I guess he needs some spring training, lol.  Didn’t do much in the afternoon.  Lunch was Chili’s - we shared a steak sandwich on flatbread and grilled shrimp.  We each had ordered their special combo that came w/ appetizers and we ended up taking most of that home - just too much food. 

Dinner was the crock pot chicken - boneless, skinless chicken thighs, black beans, corn, tomatoes w/ chiles, cumin, & garlic powder.  Served on tortillas w/ a bit of sour cream, shredded cheese, cilantro, and hot sauce.  Yum.   

Back at work today.  I had to walk fast to make my train today and just made it.  I found out that jeans day will go through the end of this week, so that’s nice.  I’m in dress pants today though. 

Nothing planned for tonight.  I’ll get my bike up to the garage and fill the tires so I can ride it to the train station the rest of the week.  I need to make sure I remember the combination to my lock, lol.  I told bf I wanted to sell the newer bike we bought last year - I just don’t like it.  I’ll go back to my old single speed Schwinn Breeze for the time being and maybe find another bike on Craig’s list for my train station commutes.

Okay better get back to work. 

Cool and gloomy today, only mid-40’s today and tomorrow. 

About 15 min ago the headache started up.   This one is the same sharp intermittent pains as Tuesday’s headache, but not on the back side of my head, but on the right side of my head, including my right ear.  I just took 3 ibuprofen, hope it goes away soon.  Logged it on my spreadsheet. 

On top of that - my cold.  Rather mild, thankfully, but I have congestion in my throat that needs clearing.  I might take some Mucinex.  No coughing or anything else though.  I had a sore throat this morning, like other mornings this week, but they seem to pass quickly, so maybe they were just from dryness in the air.  Whatever.

Took a dog walk yesterday, but didn’t do any other exercise.  Steps for the day ended up at about 9,100.  Pretty good.  Watched some tv and tried to do the newspaper sudoku and jumble.  I don’t do sudoku very often, and it seems like I can only get through level 1.  So level 2 in yesterday’s paper was a lost cause for me.  And then I couldn’t do the jumble either, so I felt like a dunce.  I gave up on both and went to bed and watched part of an old movie and fell asleep before the end. 

Nothing much else to report and plenty of work to do, so I’ll publish.

Gloomy today.  I wore my warmer jacket so I could wear the hood.  I left the house w/ wet hair. 

I didn’t take the dog for a walk yesterday, bf did.  I did the rest of my lower body workout - glutes, hamstrings and abs.  Dinner was grilled chicken and a couple deli salads.  Bf frequently skips veggies when he makes dinner for us.  Watched some tv, did some reading and that was about it. 

Wanted to stay home - call in sick to work, but I’m not all that sick.  I do have a bit of a cold.  My throat was sore again this morning, but I can’t keep taking those nasty cold-eze drops.  Besides I feel like I’m no longer fighting the cold - I have it.  But it doesn’t seem severe.  Anyway, I’m not sick enough to miss work and I’d probably be pretty bored at home.  It’s not like I’d be playing hooky to do something fun…so I’m at work. 

Nothing planned tonight.  I’ll probably exercise again tonight.  If it isn’t raining after work, I’ll walk doggy. 

Okay, back to work now.

Sunny today.  Chilly this morning, but hopefully a bit milder at lunch time.  Of course it’s cooler here by the lake, so we’ll see. 

Yesterday I walked home from the train station, and then bf and I took doggy for a walk.  About 3/4 of the way through our walk, I pulled doggy to the side to let a man pass (who was walking with hand weights, raising them over his head as he walked).  I somehow tripped over doggy’s rear paws (I think I was distracted by the guy with the weights over his head) and strained my right hamstring.  Ow.  That one is always giving me problems. 

After we got back home, I did part of my MR Sculpture dvd’s lower body workout.  I did the calves, quads and inner & outer thighs, but not the glutes, hamstrings & abs.  And for some reason I totally forgot to ff to the end to do the cool down.  Once I was back upstairs, I realized that and so I stretched a bit.  I was pooped after that, so I vegged on the couch the rest of the night.  I got sucked into Dancing w/ the Stars, and then watched this cop show Castle. 

I woke up w/ a sore throat again this morning, but I’d taken my last Cold-Eze last night.  I bought some more on the way to work.  I also had one of those strange headaches on the back of my head again.  My period is due today, so I’ll keep track and see if this headache only comes along during TOM.  I took some ibuprofen and it’s gone for the time being. 

The e-mail migration is not going well as far as archived messages are concerned.  Sigh.  I may be missing some, and it’s a major pain to go into the old e-mail database to try and find them.

Tonight is the movie “Green Zone” (w/ Matt Damon).  One of the movie group members is a big Matt Damon fan.  (She’s got a fantastic photo of him shirtless on her cell phone - ripped, LOL.)  I voted for Alice in Wonderland and listed Green Zone as my second choice…but now I’m not so sure I’m up for another Middle East war movie after watching Hurt Locker on Saturday.  So I might skip the movies tonight. 

That’s about it, so I’ll publish.

Ugh.  Monday.  At least it’s sunny and not raining.  And temps are supposed to be mild this week.

Friday’s book club was good.  Discussion was good.  Food was limited ( all I ended up bringing was a bottle of wine), so I didn’t overdo it like I usually do.   Two of the women had gotten together before book club and made california rolls.  Those were tasty.

Saturday I had my hair appointment.   I didn’t do much of anything after that, and I didn’t take doggy for a walk.  The weather was crummy - snow/sleet, and windy.  Quite a cruel joke that it was the first day of spring.  In the evening, we watched “The Hurt Locker”.  Well done.  Not my cup of tea, but it still held my interest. 

Sunday I lazed around all morning.  The snow and rain had ended, so I took doggy for a walk in the afternoon, followed by a M. Richard workout - the Sculpture dvd I bought a few years ago.  I did the upper body workout.  I’m sore today.  Tonight I’ll do the lower body workout.  During the late afternoon and early evening, I watched two PBS tv specials about Chicago’s river and lakefront.  Makes me want to do some sightseeing, especially the areas I haven’t ever been.  Usually even when we do something like that, it’s focused on a single place.  I kind of want to just go to the general area and hang out for the day. 

I’m fighting a cold, been taking those icky zinc lozenges.  I hope they work. 

Other than my workout, I have nothing planned for tonight.  I’m still slowly going through the organizing book.  I’ve finally got past the first couple sections that set the structure for an organizing project, and now I’m starting the specifics for different types of areas - home office, garage, etc.  While I found the first part of the book necessary, I’ll be glad to finally get some tips on organizing specific areas in the house.  

Nothing else to report, so I’ll publish.

Didn’t get here yesterday.  Been busy and will continue to be. 

Tuesday night went to the movie Valentine’s Day.  It was better than I expected and entertaining enough.  Last night bf picked me up from the train in spite of the weather being just beautiful and me telling him just the day before that I didn’t need to be picked up anymore since the weather was milder now.  But he said he wanted for us to take the dog for a walk when we got back home.  So that’s what we did.  After that I did a 30 min. Body Electric workout.  Pecs are sore today from the pushup routine.

Nice day today and I’ll probably go for a walk at lunchtime.  Not really any peaceful places to walk in downtown Chicago, but just getting a few blocks south of where I work, it gets less populated and quieter. 

I’ll do another exercise video tonight.  Having done the longer workouts from my new Margaret R. dvd last week, I realize that the longer workouts are better, even better than doing 2- 30 min BE shows back-to-back.  So I’m going to rotate the shorter and longer workouts. 

It’s been forever since I’ve been to the gym.  I confess it no longer holds any appeal - even compared w/ my chilly,  cluttered, ugly basement, lol.  Too bad I prepaid for the entire year…  I kept trying to think of things that would make it better for me, to no avail.  BF is too inconsistent/streaky to rely on as a motivator/workout partner at the gym.  I haven’t worked to find an exercise class on the schedule that I like enough to do regularly or even gone to any class enough to have made any gym buddies.  I thought I might enhance my gym workouts by cycling the two miles to/from the gym, but never even tried it last summer when I initially thought about it.  That might be something nice to do on a Sunday morning…  We’ll see.  Otherwise, it’s not a ton of money, but it’s definitely wasteful.  I could certainly find something else to spend with that $18 a month!

Okay, need to get back to work, and then it’s lunch, and then a safety meeting after that. 

Got busy and didn’t post yesterday.  Today’s the new e-mail program rollout.  I have a dr appt this morning so I’ll get to the office late morning.  I didn’t clean much out yesterday and I have this vision that my e-mail database is so large that my file will still be migrating approximately 18+ hours after it started, LOL.  The problem w/ my cd/dvd drive has not been not solvable, so now they want to re-image my laptop.  Ugh.  Sort of want to not bother, but I’m sure now that I’m without an operable cd drive, it’ll be a Murphy’s Law scenario where I will urgently need to read cd’s, ha ha. 

No exercise last night because we went to the wake of my neighbor’s father and then out to eat.   Tonight’s a movie.  “Valentine’s Day”.  I didn’t get a chance to vote.  For some reason I’m not excited to see Alice in Wonderland, which was another movie on the list.   I think it’s because I feel guilty over never reading the whole book.  I’ve had the book itself since I was a child - what I guess might be considered a vintage 1923 edition w/ color and B&W illustrations.  (I’m in the office near the bookshelf so I’m looking through it now.)  Maybe I’ll read it - someday. 

Anyway, I didn’t really want to see the other choices either - Wolfman and Dear John.  I don’t think Val. Day received very good reviews, but it’s got a lot of stars in the cast and it’ll be a  fluffy change from Shutter Island, so I’ll go.  I think. 

Okay, better get moving. Not sure how traffic will be and I need to give myself extra time because I’ve never been to this location.

Happy it’s Friday and that I’m taking the afternoon off work.  It’s nice and sunny right now, and it would be very nice if it would stay sunny for the day.  I’m all ready for the flower and garden show this afternoon.  Well, except I have to buy some batteries for my camera, and I have to check my transit card to see how much money’s left on it and probably load more. 

Yesterday was okay at work.  I kept busy with the same icky project I’ve been working on for a while, but I think I’m finally ready to put closure to it.  I changed clothes right after I got home from work and did the 3rd of 4 workouts on my new dvd.  This one was 40 minutes, so it moved right along. 

I’m back.  This is as far as I got before work got in the way, LOL.  I’m getting ready to leave the office and start my weekend.  Everyone have a great day and a great weekend.  Nothing else planned for this weekend after the flower show, so that’ll be nice.  Only 2 more days until DST begins!!