laura705

Not much to report today.  It’s chilly, but at least sunny today.  Looking forward to the next few days because they are supposed to be sunny and milder. 

Yesterday dragged for me at work.  Not because I didn’t have anything to do, but nothing really urgent.  Our busy season is winding down, so that’s good because the boss won’t be so hyper, and it’s a good opportunity to catch up on things. 

Food was a bit over my calorie range, but not by much.  Today I brought my snacks, but not lunch.  I’ll eat out.  Not sure where or what.  I didn’t exercise last night.  I’ve just been so tired at the end of the day the past week or so.  I think maybe I need to eat more calories earlier in the day or something?  What I really need to do is get back to exercising.  Really my only physical activity has been walking during my commute, which is over a two miles a day, but less than I want.  I think exercise boosts energy. 

I find I’m looking forward to when the boss has her time off work, and to some time off of my own.  Neither are for a few weeks yet, so I might schedule a vacation day in the next couple weeks.  I always like to carry over a few vacation days into the next year because I’ve gotten so accustomed to doing that, but I’m going to try and limit it to 2 this year.  The new admin inquired about our 2010 work holidays, so I printed them off for myself as well and saw that we get Presidents day for a holiday next year.  Sometimes we don’t get it (usually depends on how the other holidays line up), so that will be nice because otherwise there’s a big gap between New Year’s Day and Memorial Day. 

Okay, I’m just rambling now, so I’ll post this. 

The text in my first post started highlighting itself and not letting me type anymore, but I didn’t want to totally re-write it, so I published it “as is”  with a dangling sentence at the end.  I couldn’t edit it either.  So, rest of post is here, but it’s not much more. 

One quick meeting today, scheduled by the boss.  It will be to tell us about what it going down right now, which is some employee cuts that boss told me about yesterday.  Sad, but our company is having a hard time like so many others.  Our department is okay, but only by virtue of the fact that the lead admin is transferring out of our department and her position isn’t being replaced.  So I guess what happened with the lead is a blessing in disguise.

Other than that, nothing much to report.  I brought my lunch and snacks from home today.  Nothing going on tonight.  I should exercise.  Maybe I’ll do something at home tonight. 

Okay, going to publish this before the text starts freaking out again.

Still chilly today, and it’s not sunny either.  Boo.  Need to start wearing my warmer outerwear. 

Last night was pot roast for dinner.  It was really tasty.  Overall, food was okay yesterday.  I smuggled my sandwich into McDonald’s and bought a side salad and a diet coke to eat with it.  Yeh, I could have just brought the salad back to work, but I figure once I venture out of the office for lunch, I’d just rather eat where I am rather than hauling it back to the office to eat at my desk.  

I brought a serving of pretzels and some water to the movie theater.  I didn’t really like “The Invention of Lying” much.  It had funny parts, and I really like Ricky Gervais, but overall it fell flat for me.  Right from the start, I started to split hairs.  Just because people don’t lie, does that automatically mean they voice every thought in their minds?  Because that sort of means they’re often cruel or impolite.  I dunno.  I suppose if there was a natural point in the conversation where a spoken response is expected, it makes sense to have the character voice their true feelings (you’re an idiot) instead of the usual white lie type of niceties (so nice to see you).   I think I liked “Ghost Town”, another Ricky Gervais movie, much better than this one. 

Well, there’s

Brrr, cold today.  Don’t like that at all.  Feeling icky today.  First day of TOM, and I’m having abdominal and lower back pain that I usually am not plagued with.  Waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in. 

Yesterday was alright at work.  No meetings, so that was good.  I haven’t mentioned the news in our department:  Last week, the boss told me the “lead” admin is leaving the department.  (Actually, the other manager told me the week before that, but I had to pretend I didn’t know because she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.)  Anyway, that was the good news.  The bad news is that she’s going back to her old department in a newly created position (still administrative), but the department is situated on the same floor as ours, right next to ours.  So she’ll still be around.  The other bad news is that we won’t be replacing her because of company budget constraints.  But the boss thinks this is actually the best outcome that could happen.  After a lot of issues over the past couple years, it became apparent she really didn’t work well with others.  Once I was no longer supervising her, I pretty much kept my distance because I didn’t trust her.  I’ve also noticed the new admin didn’t mix with her much after she became comfortable with her job duties, and when the lead was assigned to work on a project w/ the other manager, they also butted heads with the usual problems.  So I guess I agree with the boss, because I think the lead was headed towards termination at some point, and it would have been ugly.  This is the best outcome.  Actually, the best outcome would be if she was working on another floor, or better yet, outside the company, but we’ll deal with it. 

Last night’s bone density test went fine, and I’m in the normal range, so I don’t need another one for two years.  Dinner was eggs and bacon and an English muffin.  I was over my calories for the day by the amount of the 3 pieces of Halloween candy I ate last night.  Bf took all the candy he wanted and put it away, so I took the rest to work this morning.  Of course I couldn’t resist digging into it on the way to work, how weak is that?  But it’s now on the counter in the coffee room and it should be gone in no time. 

Brought my lunch and snacks to work today.  No meetings again today.  Plenty to do though.  Tonight is the movies.  We’re seeing “The Invention of Lying”.  That’s about it, so I’ll get this published. 

Wow, November already.  Need to print my Nov. calendar. Need to get the rest of my vacation days scheduled!

Weekend.  Hmmm.  Oh, quiet day at the office.  In the evening, bf and I went out for dinner.  I suggested a Thai place we’d tried once before.  Not finding the food quite spicy enough last time, bf ordered it spicier (which our server called “Thai style”).  The beef salad we had for an appetizer would have been really delicious (it was more than just the usual pile of beef on some iceberg lettuce, it was a real salad w/ lovely greens and a nice flavorful dressing), but it was just too spicy.  Same for the Tom Yum soup I ordered as my main entrée.  Bf’s panang curry was just fine.  (We actually ended up sharing entrees.)  So next time, we’ll just order it Thai style, but ask them to back off the spice a couple notches.  Too funny seeing bf with his nose running and eyes watering.  I have a slightly higher tolerance for the spice, but my nose was running too.  Our lips were stinging too, LOL. 

After dinner we went to Walmart and bought our Halloween candy.  went to bed relatively early, because once again I was pooped. 

I don’t remember what I did all Saturday morning.  Just puttering I guess.  I put up some Halloween clings on the storm door (better late than never) and dug out a trick-or-treat pail to use for handing out our candy.  The candy, still unopened, was calling my name all morning and I finally succumbed and had a mini Twix.  Right around noon, I took doggy for a walk by the creek.  I took the looong leash, but soon realized I wouldn’t be letting go of it because doggy was moving pretty fast (full of P&V again) and I probably wouldn’t be able to even keep up with my end of the leash.  So I ended up putting the flexi leash back on him, which is easier to deal with. 

Lunch was soup and chicken.  In the afternoon, I did some laundry, swept the floors (a quiet alternative to the stick vacuum), drank tea, read my book, and greeted trick-or-treaters.  It was a brisk, windy day, so I didn’t want to rake leaves, nor did I feel like doing any other clean up in the backyard.  I did, however, eat (and logged) Halloween candy.  I made a point of eating one of each type we had, which was 8 pieces, and in all I had 10 pieces.  It sure adds up!  We didn’t get many trick-or-treaters, so we had a lot of candy left.  Didn’t end up giving it away to the last trick-or-treater to visit, so boo on that.  

Sat. night was ho hum.  I watched some tv, including Suze Orman, and went to bed early for some reading.  I didn’t sleep very well on Saturday night and ended up getting up in the middle of the night for a snack – some crackers and dip.   Then I read some more.  I finally went back to sleep and didn’t get up until about 8:30 the next morning. 

Sunday morning I finished reading my book, looked at the newspaper, and made a shopping list for a few items I needed for a couple recipes we might make this week.  I ate a healthy breakfast and plenty of water because I had my blood donation appointment.  Before the donation appointment I bought some fabric dye (sale at Joanne’s) for some sheets I want to dye.  After the donation, I had not one, but two bags of the tasty white cheddar popcorn they have for post-donation snacks, and I also started on a pack of Oreos (which I finished later in the day).  After that, I went to the market and picked up some groceries at Traders Joe’s and another store.  Back at home, lunch was few pieces of leftover pizza.  Bf and I took doggy for a walk after lunch.  Nice and sunny!  Dinner was fancy burgers bf’s mother had bought on sale and given to us.  Sun dried tomato and parmesan.  Nothing I’d buy or eat again.  Because we had leftover Halloween candy, I ended up eating some of that during the day.  We need to get rid of that!  I’ll have bf pick out what he wants (probably the Heath and Payday bars) and we’ll give away the rest.  Not a great eating day, but I don’t count calories on Sundays.  I still try to eat reasonably, but yesterday really got away from me with the snacks. 

Back to logging in my food today.  Today was the fundraiser’s bake/garage sale.  I bought a small brownie.  Have to work that into the day’s calories.  Brought my lunch and snacks to work.  Sandwich was on some low-calorie wheat bread bf bought for me.  Only 70 calories for 2 slices.  It’s not bad, not great.  Nice that bf’s catching on. 

No meetings today.  Tonight after work is my bone density test.  We’ll see if bf makes the pot roast for dinner.  I left the recipe on the counter, hint, hint, LOL.  I thawed the meat yesterday. 

Okay, enough rambling.  Time to publish. 

Here’s my usual Yay for Friday.  :)  The boss mentioned she wasn’t feeling well yesterday, and today she’s at home.  The other dept mgr has been sick and was coughing a lot yesterday.  I was in a meeting w/ both of them yesterday afternoon - hope I don’t catch anything from them.  On the upside, it’s nice being boss-less today. 

I was tired last night.  Been feeling that way for the past few days.  Maybe it’s the weather - it’s been dreary and rainy all week.  Or maybe it’s because I’ve been walking instead of cycling for the home-train station part of my commute.  The walking is better exercise for me - full weight-bearing exercise - so maybe that’s it.  Or maybe it’s because I haven’t been getting any formal exercise in a while.  Or maybe it’s because it’s PMS week.  Or a combination of everything.

Last night’s dinner was the last of the leftover chili - yum.  Bf needs to print off the recipe from wherever he found it online.  All I did was go through the mail and watch some tv.  Ho hum. 

I brought a sandwich for lunch and my snacks from home.  Nothing going this weekend.  Well, I have a blood donation appointment on Sunday.  And it’s the end of daylight savings time.  Everyone around here (including me) was confused about it - so it’ll be lighter in the morning?  darker in the evening?  Not sure why this is coming up this year but not really in previous years.  But I thought it through yesterday and figured it out.  (Right about now you’re thinking, gawd is she a dufus.)  Anyway, this morning I felt less foolish about doing that because the radio guy also admitted confusion too.  It’s not just me this year! 

Other plans for the weekend is some cooking and the continuation of sorting through my paper pile. 

Okay, nothing else to report, so I’ll publish. 

Almost Friday! 

Yesterday was good, but not too productive at work.  This was due to company fundraising activities in the afternoon.  They were fun, but also took me off track a bit with food.  I logged it all, then went home and had dinner since I was actually still hungry.   Dinner was marinated pork chops (on the grill), steamed green and yellow beans, and oven roasted potatoes (tossed in olive oil w/ garlic powder, onion powder and paprika).  I liked how the taters came out, which is good because I bought this big bag of potatoes and need to use them up because they seem to be going south quicker than I thought they would.  I should be storing them in the 3 season room where it’s cool.  Same for my onions.  Didn’t eat any snacks at home last night. 

Fell asleep on the sofa, so I guess I was pretty tired last night.  Dragged myself off the sofa to wash up and go to bed.  Didn’t even read in bed. 

Today I brought my snacks to work, but not lunch.  Lunch was a McD’s double cheeseburger and a side salad w/ LF balsamic vinaigrette dressing.  I know, I could do better, but I get tired of Subway, or bringing my own lunch, or trying to figure out the calories in foods from places where the nutr. info isn’t readily available.  And when I do estimate calories, I start to feel like the numbers are very weasely.  I don’t try to underestimate and look like I did great, but the numbers just seem sort of meaningless when you can’t confirm their accuracy.  I will bring my lunch fro home tomorrow. 

Need to get back to exercising, but I have been walking both ends of my commute this week now that it’s rather dark in the evenings.  I don’t feel safe cycling home on our dark streets.  I feel some soreness that I don’t know if is from the extra walking, or from my fall from the stoop on Tuesday.  My feet have been sore too, but I think it’s actually my sneakers and the orthotic.  Yeh, I’m wearing several hundred $ of shoes/orthotics and my feet still aren’t comfortable.  I’m going to ask the podiatrist if my orthotics can be redone.  I think the arch support areas are in the wrong spot, even though they’re based on an impression of my feet.  Or it might be that they put a smooth, slippery covering on the surface of the orthotics and my feet slide around on it.  How dumb is that?  I tried out a pair of over-the-counter orthotics before getting these custom ones and I think those might have been more comfortable.  I’m going to phone the dr office today. 

Okay, I’m rambling.  Better post and be done. 

Only Wed.  Darn.

Work was okay yesterday.  The meetings re open enrollment were helpful.  Have some thinking to do re HDHP vs. PPO.  I’ve always rejected the HD plan without really considering it because of that high deductible.  Now that I paid more attention to the particulars, it might be the better option.

The movie last night was “The Stepfather”.  It was alright.  More directed towards teen audiences I think.  Bf liked the original ones (this one’s a remake), so he may go with his friend this weekend to see this new one.  Even if it’s not as good as the original Stepfather movies, I’m sure he’ll enjoy watching the teen girlfriend character, who spends most of the movie in a bikini, LOL.  Of course, the ending let’s you know there’s almost certainly a sequel to come. 

Hmmm, what else?  The day after bf tripped off our front stoop and tweaked one ankle, I fell off completely and landed on both knees.  Didn’t tear my jeans (course not, it was an old pair I was wearing), but skinned both knees anyway.  Nothing really hurts, thankfully.  I’ve fallen off that @#$% stoop several times over the past ten years we’ve lived in this house.  I think it happens when there’s snow or leaves covering the part where the sidewalk ends and the adjacent garden bed begins, and if you step off the stoop at that part, that’s a problem.  Or maybe the stoop is just too small, or the sidewalk needs to be just as wide as the stoop.  Either way, the remedy is expensive concrete work.  Sigh.  Add it to the list of things to do when I have nothing else to spend my money on.  Like food, mortgage, insurance, etc. 

Food was much better yesterday because I remembered to bring my snacks and lunch to work.  Movie night dinners need to be quick, so I had a Smart Ones entree.  It was chicken santa fe with veggies.   Didn’t notice when I bought it that there was no rice or noodles with it.  Total calories, 140.  Not really a sufficient dinner.  I added 1/2 cup of leftover rice to it.  I brought pretzels and water to the movies for my snack.  When I got home I had a piece of wheat toast w/ peanut butter.  Yum.  Doggy, of course, was right there, sniffing at the peanut butter (don’t blame him), so bf gave him a biscuit w/ peanut butter (doggy’s own no-salt pb) in his treat ball.  He liked that.  Reminds me, I think I’ll make him a batch of his pnt btr dog cookies this weekend.   I brought my snacks and lunch to work again today.  Tonight’s dinner will be pork chops that I marinated yesterday with an allrecipes recipe.  We need to use up the sack of potatoes I bought a couple weeks ago, so maybe oven roasted potatoes and a frozen veggie will be the sides. 

Bf committed us to hosting the dessert portion of our block’s holiday party in mid-December.  At least I have time to plan AND obsess over it. 

Tuesday. 

Yesterday went okay at work.  I didn’t have any morning snack; lunch was subway.  I bought cookies for my afternoon snack when I stopped to buy a greeting card after lunch, and some Combos for the train ride.  Not the best choices.  I took the next earlier train home to give me more time to get to my doctor appt. 

Bf drove with me to the doctor because afterwards he wanted to go to half price pizza night at his favorite pizza place.  We arrived maybe a couple minutes late at the doctor, but I didn’t actually see the doc until 40 minutes later.  Grrr.  Next year I will schedule my appointment at the beginning of the day (1^st appointment), even if I have to take the day off to do it.  At least I had my book with me to read.  Bf almost fell asleep waiting in the car, lol.  Another annoyance was that they had me do a urine sample.  They didn’t tell me that when I made the appointment and of course I don’t remember that they want one since this is only a once a year appointment.  I don’t even know if there was enough to do the test.   Whatever.  Annoyance #3 was that the doctor scolded me for not getting my bone density test when I went in for my mammo a few weeks ago.  So, it would have been good to actually have this gyne exam before the mammo appointment so that the doc could tell me about the test and answer my questions before actually having it.  But I didn’t set it up that way this year.  So it’s really my fault, but I was still annoyed.  Anyway… the facility where I get the bone density test – same place where I get the mammo - is close to my house, so I don’t mind going in for a separate appointment, especially since the test is short and lets me keep all my clothes on and no one is squishing or probing any body parts. 

At the pizza place, the smell when we walked in was incredible.  Bf and I each had a cup of minestrone soup, and then pepperoni pizza.  I had 3 pieces, about one quarter of it, even though I would have liked to snarf down several more.  We brought home half the pizza.  Logged in to TDP, calories were around 1900 for the day, so it could have been worse.  Today I brought my lunch and snacks with me, so it should be a better day foodwise.  I actually enjoyed walking to and from the train station yesterday.  After a couple weeks of being mostly sedentery, it felt good to get some physical activity.

I had some conflicting meetings on my calendar this afternoon, so I was glad that one was just rescheduled to another day.  Now I can attend the others, which are related to our company’s open enrollment. 

Tonight’s movie night and I plan on going.  Not sure what we’re seeing yet, but I hadn’t voted yet when I received an e-mail asking if I was going, since there was a tie in the voting.  I hope my choices didn’t make it a 3-way tie!  I wanted to see Invention of Lying, but it starts too late for me.  My choices ended up being 1.  Law Abiding Citizen (I like Gerard Butler) and 2. The Stepfather. 

That’s about it for now, so I’ll post this and get back to work. 

Gloomy rainy Monday today.  I forgot my lunch and snacks at home today.  I actually got them all ready last night, and here I forget to take them with me this morning.  Boo.  Then I was almost to the train station (walked today), the battery on my iPod ran out and I had to listen to my radio, which I’ve come to hate.  The station I used to like now does traffic reports every 10 minutes.  Between traffic and commercials, there’s very little time left for anything else.  Heck, even our local National Public Radio station (my 2^nd choice station) does traffic reports now.  Then the train was delayed – stuck behind another train that was having problems.  Arrived at work about 30 min. late.  Not off to the best start today. 

Weekend was alright.  Took doggy for a walk Sat. afternoon.  He’s been very bad about eating his food since we got back from our trip, and he hadn’t eaten his morning meal, so I was surprised he was so full of energy!  He was running me around, zigzagging all over for the first several minutes of our jaunt.  I was tempted to just let go of the leash, but the way he was going, I’d probably never catch up to him. 

I started on the big paper pile Saturday afternoon.  Not finished by a long shot, so I need to continue with it during my evening tv sessions.  Bf and I bought a CO2 replacement cartridge for our Sodastream machine.  It ran out on Thursday or Friday and Bf was really missing his carbonation.  He even drank a bottle of Pepsi Zero I had sitting around (a freebie from Target).  Didn’t do anything special Saturday evening.

Sunday I got showered, went through the sale ads and my coupons and made a shopping list.  I hit the library for a couple books, ate lunch, and then went to the market.  When I got home, I started some chili for dinner.  Bf decides he going “make some really good chili” which ticked me off because he’s essentially implying he doesn’t like mine.  Annoyance number two about the chili was that he decides to choose a chili contest winning recipe and runs out to buy some special seasoning a bunch of the recipes called for.  When he got home I looked at the ingredients on the seasoning he bought and the first one listed is MSG.  Sure, we need more sodium in our diet.  Annoyance number three was that I had horrible gas after eating the chili.  I can’t really blame bf for that – I’d already added the kidney beans before he hijacked the chili-making.  And I think what really brought on the gas was the Curves granola bar I had a couple hours earlier.  They were on clearance at the market, so I bought a box and tried one.  High fiber, that’s for sure. 

Did a load of laundry, made some sandwiches for lunches this week, and that was about it for Sunday – sort of boring. 

My alarm clock has automatically changed itself for daylight savings time the past two days.  I can’t remember how many times it does that before it gives up.  Ever since the gov’t extended DST a couple years ago, that has happened because my clock doesn’t know the gov’t changed it and keeps to the old schedule programmed into the clock, and there’s no way to turn off the feature that automatically changes the time for DST.  What a nuisance.

I just had one short meeting this morning and have no others today.  Tonight is my gyne exam.  Ugh.  Perfect thing for a Monday like today.  Oh, BTW, I’ll have to watch my insurance on this.  Once again, the insurance denied this year’s mammo claim like they did last year.  Had to phone and get that corrected, again.  Apparently the mammo itself and the digital review are coded as two separate procedures and it doesn’t get handled properly by the insurance company’s claim system.  Grrr.

That’s about it for today, so I’ll publish and get on with it.