laura705

I thought today would be okay, but it’s turning into ick.  The boss said she’s been asked to revisit our budgets - her boss is “counting paperclips”.  Yesterday she was looking at the SG&A budget, which would include salaries, etc.  Today is the other part of it, which I prepare.  This makes me nervous.  Our company is not out of the woods in terms of economic recovery, so things are still tough for us.  The possibility of more layoffs still exists, and that scares me.  But I’ll plow along and do my best.

Didn’t do anything special last night.  No exercise. Dinner was pasta.  Scale was not kind today. 

Off to lunch.  This afternoon will be a meeting w/ the boss re the budget.  Tonight I’ll exercise. 

Rainy but mild today.  I’ll take it!  My hair’s going wild.  I intended to dry it straight today, but of course I didn’t have time.  At least it’s not too cold to go out w/ it wet. 

I really enjoyed Shutter Island last night.  I had only seen the previews and hadn’t read any critic’s reviews, so I was hoping it wasn’t a ghost story or other type of supernatural sort of thing like the previews might portray it to be.  I’m just not into that.  I really liked the movie.  I liked Leonardo Dicaprio, and I found the last half hour really gripping.  The movie is based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, and I’ve read only one book of his and plan to read more. 

Bf enjoyed the movie too, and he’s lucky I didn’t leave him at home.  He was grumpy because he’d been waiting on the 4th season of Criminal Minds from the library and he finally asked them about it and they told him they’d e-mailed him that it was ready for him a few weeks ago.  He was sure they’d messed up and hadn’t e-mailed him.  Now he’s like #4 on the waiting list.  He decided to look through his e-mail and realized they had e-mailed him.  Doing that gave him no time to eat even part of his dinner, and then he started putting together all these snacks about 5 minutes before leaving.  I was irritated - do you really need to take cheese and crackers to the theater??  Well, I guess so if you haven’t eaten dinner.  And then after the movie he gets all worried because he’s let the gas go on empty.  Grrr.  He drove around a lot the day before and didn’t bother to fill it.  Nice.  So he drove me nuts until we made it to a gas station.  Thank goodness we made it - we didn’t even have a gas can in the trunk because we’ve used all our gas cans on the yard equipment.  Each thing seems to need different blends of gas and oil mixtures…  need to add gas can to the shopping list.  Another reason going electric would be good. 

Not much else to report.  I’m looking forward to Friday because I’m taking the afternoon off work and going to the garden show.  I scheduled a training session for the new e-mail program for that morning, so Friday should be sort of easy.  No meetings today, so that’s good. 

Okay, better get cracking!

Foggy again today, but it’s nice not having to bundle up quite so much.  I wasn’t as tired as I thought I’d be yesterday afternoon – I didn’t really think about being tired during the afternoon.  So when I got home from work, I fed the dog, changed clothes and got down in the basement for a workout.  I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was, to find a big bare spot in the basement where the pool table was.  BF sold the one we’ve had for a few years (to a friend who just bought a house in December) and they moved it yesterday afternoon.  He’ll be buying his brother’s table (they’re moving when their house sells), which is newer, nicer, and practically unused.  I need to nag bf to clean the floor in that area before the other table is moved in.  Why are men such slobs?  If I waited for the thought to clean anything to occur to bf on his own, the health department would come visiting.  He’s the type to wait for his laundry to pile up to mountain size before deciding to do some wash.  Yes, he will take his turn doing the “community laundry” – sheets, towels, etc, - but fails to understand why I want bath towels laundered separately from kitchen towels.  Men!

But I degress. I did another workout from my MR classics dvd – The Body Electric workout.  It was very similar to the pbs BE shows, except it was 60 min.  It had the “students” who did the BE show w/ MR, who I remembered from the pbs shows.  So, another blast from the past with the oldie but goodie exercises.  This one wasn’t quite as frenetic as the “Home Improvement” workout in terms of pace or the music, so that was nice.  And it included pectoral and quad routines, so it felt more complete to me.  Oh, I finally learned that a past BE series will be aired on my local PBS station.  No air date yet, but that’s great news.  I’ll be standing by w/ my dvr. 

Didn’t do much else the rest of the night.  Dinner was more like serial snacking – a couple slices leftover veggie pizza, some chips and dip, and a lean pocket.  Bf had claimed to be hungry, but then spent the evening on the phone with work stuff.  I just watched my DVRd recording of last week’s The Office.  It was when I started watching an episode of Psych that I started nodding off, so I shut it off, cleaned up for bed and hit the sheets. 

Tonight we’re seeing the movie Shutter Island.  Bf wants to see it, so he’s going w/ me. 

That’s about it, so I’ll publish.

Weekend was pretty good.  The mild weather perked me up, especially Saturday when it was sunny.  The overcast, rain, and fog is going to get old this week, but I just need to tell myself to appreciate the milder temps. 

Saturday I did one of the workouts on my new Margaret Richard dvd.  Total 80’s flashback for the hair and workout attire, hehe, but the exercises are the tried and true ones and weren’t very different at all from what MR does on her more recent dvds/BE shows.  However, the pace was faster and the routines ran a bit longer, so it’ll challenge me.  Looking forward to doing the other workouts on the dvd.  Also on Saturday - Walmart, dog walk, lunch w/ bf’s mother, tv at night. 

On Sunday I bought the paper.  After the Walmart shopping the day before I decided to start using coupons again, so I signed up for a newspaper subscription.  Less than 3 mos. after cancelling it, LOL.  Of course in Sunday’s paper there was a better offer.  Not sure if I’ll bother to try and change my order.  Anyways, now I’ll have coupons again.  Also on Sunday - dog walk and some grocery shopping.  I bought a pair of 8-pound hand weights on sale at Target.  I’m using heavier weights for some of the BE routines, but it’s a hassle to use 2 weights per hand to get me to 8 pounds. 

The Oscars party was nice.  The Oscars show - well, that’s the same old thing - pretty much.  I sort of liked how they had another actor or associate saying nice stuff about each nominee for the lead actor and actress categories.  I thought the hosts Steve Martin & Alec Baldwin would be better than it was.  Oh well.  That’s over for another year.  I had a nice talk w/ one of the women that doesn’t get to the movies w/ the group much anymore.  There was a lot of food, and there was a lot of my veggie pizza left over.  With these potluck gatherings, there’s always so much food, I think I’m going to start bringing smaller portions because it’s a wast of food and/or I’ll bring some home and eat more than I should. 

Not planning anything for tonight.  It was a late night last night and I’m sure I’ll be dead tired by the end of the workday. 

Exercise was okay, except I didn’t do my gym cardio.  I didn’t exercise much  restraint as far as food is concerned - too much snacking.  Not good. 

Okay, better get some work done.  Oh, speaking of work, IT’s been preparing us for upgrades on our operating system, e-mail program, and office suite.  On Friday they decided to “push out” the office suite to our floor.  Someone came around 10 minutes before they said they were starting it!  I now have MS office 2007, and having used it a little bit at home, it’s different enough to be a PITA.  IT is strongly recommending we use the online training resource to familiarize ourselves with it.  Next Monday the new e-mail program will be rolled out to us - unless they pull another surprise on us this week. 

Okay, now I’m publishing.

Well, the sun is shining today.  I was trudging along behind other commuters between the train station and the office and the sun reflected off a building and onto the sidewalk where I walked and it felt good.  Yesterday it was still (barely) light out when I got off the train at home, and that was nice too.  Ten more days until daylight savings time begins and I’ll have my longer evenings back. 

That’s about it for the positive.  Otherwise, I’m just feeling blah.  I was sore from Tuesday’s exercise, but I did one workout last night – one BE show.  Sore again today.  My feet hurt too.  It seems like a regular thing now, and with my left foot, it’s the injury from when I overdid it on the calf workouts and totally overstretched a tendon or ligament in the bottom of my foot.  For a while it seemed like it was mostly healed.  Now what?  Since almost all of the sidewalks are totally clear, this week I’ve been wearing sneakers rather than my boots because they have more support, but I still get the pain. 

Work has been a real PITA last week and this week, but I’ll get over it.  No choice, right? 

I’m not very enthusiastic about the movie group’s Oscars Party on Sunday evening.  I’m almost 100% certain that my neighbor won’t be there, since her father is terminally ill and she hasn’t been to any movies in a long, long time and I never even see her in passing anymore – and she lives right next door.  She was already dealing w/ a lot of personal problems, and now with her father’s illness, I’m just so sad for all the tragedy in her life. 

Not much else to report, so I’ll publish. 

Tuesday.  I’m not feeling motivated right now, but things are getting busy, so I better start feeling motivated soon, LOL.  This morning is already better than yesterday because I didn’t wake up w/ that strange headache.  Not really a headache, more like periodic zaps of pain on the back of my skull.  I took advil yesterday and it eased up.  But then last night the pains came back.  More ibuprofen.  Wish I knew what that was.  I’m not sure if it comes up my neck - maybe a stress thing.  I don’t like that, and I sure don’t like bf getting concerned because if it were to happen again soon he’d be nagging me to see the doctor!  Anyway, I slept like a log and don’t have it this morning, so that’s good. 

I’m wearing my long jeans today, or should I say too long jeans.  I tucked under the hems at the back of the legs so they wouldn’t drag along the sidewalk, lol.  We’ll see if they shrink up to a good length for me.  I agree w/ Renee about women’s jeans/slacks being sold in various inseam measurements – why is it the norm for men’s, but not women’s?  Huh. 

Tonight’s selected movie is “The Last Station”.  It’s w/ Helen Mirren, about author Leo Tolstoy, and I really don’t have much interest in seeing it.  It’s nominated for a couple Oscars, and I’m sure it’s well done, but I think I’m going to skip it.  I sort of knew that at least one other member of our little group would want to see it.  I was dithering about it yesterday and didn’t end up voting at all, so now that the decision is made, it’s easy for me to just skip it instead of trying to talk myself into it.

Bf prepped everything this morning for pot roast in the crockpot.  He’s not very quick w/ peeling and chopping, so he wasn’t happy w/ the time it was taking.  But it’ll be tasty tonight, I’m sure. 

That’s about it so I’ll get this published. 

My weekend was nice and quiet with no guests/entertaining.  Food was just so-so - too much snacking, and I made some banana bread yesterday.  The recipe made two smallish loaves.  I’ll bring one to work tomorrow, unless bf wants to bring it to his mother.  I talked w/ my medical ins. “coach” about my no sugar experience.  She asked if it wasn’t easier to resist after not having it for two weeks.  I told her I wasn’t sure if was a physical craving or a psychological/habitual thing - a way to treat myself. 

I did my state taxes on Sat. morning, so that’s done.  Also trying to arrange a group of HS friends to go to a theater show.  Should be fun getting agreement on a date.  At least the show’s been extended by a couple months.  Went on a couple dog walks.  Did some reading, including a good book (so far) on organizing.  I didn’t do gym cardio Sunday – I did two BE shows back-to-back instead.  Funny story about that is I decided I wanted to do a couple older BE workouts I had on VHS.  The tape got stuck in the vcr (sitting unused for years) and I spent a good amount of time digging it out of there (thankfully intact).  Then I went to hook up a vcr bf’s aunt gave to us last year (when she bought a dvd player), but I discovered the power cord was missing!  So of course I ended up doing the dvd workouts.  I have some vhs tapes I’ve been wanting to get onto dvd, so I hope we can find a power cord for that vcr!  Yesterday afternoon I ended up buying a Margaret Richards dvd (she’s the Body Electric instructor – love her!) which is a combo of 4 of her workouts videos originally released on vhs.  A bit pricey, even w/ the 25% off sale, but that’s okay.  Some of those workouts are 60 minutes, so I won’t have to do two 30 min. shows together if I want to do a longer workout.  I’m looking forward to receiving that.  I talked to my coach about getting back into cardio, and how I know that I prefer classes to machines so I just need to get back into a class of some sort.  But the gym isn’t as appealing as it was…  And more concretely, the only weekday classes I can make are yoga classes in the evening - not cardio.  So that leaves Sat. & Sun.  So, saying this for about the millionth time - I’ll give the weekend cardio classes a try.  Spin class, 8:15 am Saturday.  Maybe bf will want to go w/ me. 

I went to shopping Saturday and bought a couple sweaters, some socks, earrings and a pair of jeans, all on sale.  I used a gift card.  I bought the jeans in the “long” size because all of my other jeans are now too short on me.  I don’t know why.  I’m 5′7″, just shy of really needing to buy tall sizes, but a longer inseam is obviously necessary.  Right now my new jeans are too long, but we’ll see how many washes it takes to shorten them.  Hopefully before they start fraying at the bottom!  Another option might also be Land’s End - I believe they sell women’s jeans in different inseam lengths. 

I just scheduled a bill for payment online and saw that my tax refund had been deposited.  That’s nice! 

Not much going on this week.  I think the weather is supposed to warm up by the end of the week - that’ll be nice.