birthdays and staplers and dogs, oh my!

Apparently, I haven't even logged into my blog since March as there were comments to be moderated. But now there's an awesome reason to revive the blog and post:

Suebob's 50th birthday!

It was 5 years ago that I stumbled on her blog from another internet friend's blogroll and I haven't stopped reading since. S, early on in the relationship, got used to the fact that I talked about all these people whose lives I read but had never met.
And in Chicago in 2009, I did get to meet the wonderful Suebob (never SueBob, it irks her!) and her red stapler. Even though it was broken. Like Laurie, I was a bit intimidated because everyone knows Suebob and who was I? Just a some time blogger who had no business being at a blogging convention, let alone meeting and rooming with one of the coolest gals at the conference. Yet, when I opened the hotel room door for her, it really wasn't like we were meeting for the first time in real life. And that's what's so great about Sue; how welcoming she is, to all.
And I love how much she loves Goldie. She's part of the reason I broke down and adopted Grover, the love of my life. Other people would talk about the hardships of pet ownership and it would give me a second thought, but the love she has for that mutt (& I use that term fondly) is amazing. It shouldn't be considering all the love she has to give for all of her causes. Case in point, her 50 for 50 birthday celebration. Rather than request presents, Sue brought attention to different charities near and dear to her heart for people to send donations if they so choose.
And this is why I love Suebob Davis.
Oh, and because she's cute!

always more fun

This getting back on track stuff is hard. I really thought I'd be able to keep up with blogging. That was a good one and it lasted about as long as the average New Year's resolution. Good thing I forgot to make any this year.
At least I'm still going to the gym 5-6 days/week. But I started that trend back in August, so now it's one of those good habits, like making your bed for 2 solid weeks so that it becomes second nature.
Anyroad, enough with the ramble. The whole point of posting again is to whine about recent life. As that seems to be the whole point of my blog at all.
Two weeks ago, S's dad started his radiation and chemo. 2 and a half weeks ago S got fired. Since we were technically DINKs (double income, no kids), does that make us OINKs now? Lots of fun there, what with a mortgage and all. Hopefully some unemployment will come through and we have a little bit of money to tide us to supplement my salary. I may get into more details later. After all, this is my 301st post in 6 years. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?

renovations

s & i have been discussing our options for the bathroom(s) and what to do with them. since s's dad is a contractor, we're hoping to get an in for first-hand knowledge of what (and what not) to do.
the full bath definitely could use a complete overhaul: new tub, tiled surround and floor, new toilet and sink top. it also looks like we're going to do something with the half-bath on the main floor. there were these bizarre shelving units in the 3'x7' half bath. shelving behind the toilet that ran from floor to ceiling, fine. but it is also on the sink/mirror side, basically boards running top to bottom, but no shelves. last week s pulled them down on the sink side and we'd like to get some tile down and maybe a pedestal sink to make it look a little bigger. his best guess (& wildest hopes and dreams) is that we can do both bathrooms for $1000 or less. i laughed at him. it certainly would be nice to get everything done on such a low budget, but i'll believe it when i see it. any suggestions appreciated!
first things first, we're still waiting on the condo association to arrange our deck door replacement. they have cashed our $500 deposit to order the sliding door.
huh, first world problems, for sure!

moving week

not moving emotionally, more physical moving. on monday, we drove back down to iowa from the twin cities after s's g-ma's 85th birthday celebration at a twins' game. it was a huge family affair with almost all of his mom's relatives there. on saturday we had a pool party at one of his aunts' houses and all the aunts, who are notoriously judgemental, asked s's brother when he was going to buy a ring for his gf, who was also there. nice, since s & i have been together twice as long, but hey "when the aunts like someone, they like someone" yay for me!
on tuesday, back at work, getting back from lunch, i find that my phone is gone. not to worry, not my cell phone. i mean my work phone. apparently, while i was gone the dial tone stopped as my coworker was using it. she called telecommunications to see what was going on & they suggested maybe the cord was loose. oh no, apparently even that department doesn't communicate with each other because one of the guys had moved it back to where our new office is. at least we kindof knew that the move was coming some time in the near future and that we wouldn't have much notice. the rest of the day i had a computer, but no phone unless i stretched across to the check-in desk.
about midmorning wednesday, my boss's supervisor came by and we unplugged my computer and everything and else and carried it down the hall to bfe where the new office is located. there will be 4 of us in that room, including my boss who has had her office moved 4 times in the last 5 years because the new doctors need offices.
thursday was great, fully functional and moved in. i felt like i accomplished a great deal of work, even though we're still extremely far behind.
and then, my boss calls on friday morning saying she'll be late because her boyfriend is in the emergency room. in california. okay... she didn't call her own boss until afternoon and i ended up staying over an hour late. at least my bank account will appreciate it.

revelation

on sunday, we went out to dinnerr for mother's day with s' family. on the way there, i found out one of the major factors as to why s doesn't want to get married. not that i'm actually in all that much of a rush.
he comes from a big italian catholic family; there are 4 kids and his mom has 6 brothers and sisters. while we driving to the restaurant, he told me that he would not be the first child to get married from his family because that would require huge festivities. for years, i have been saying how i would like to elope and maybe have a good-sized reception shortly thereafter. i've got a pretty big family too, but my brother did the big fancy party, so that gets me out of it. besides, my parents always told me, even when i was fairly young, that they were going to get me a ladder for my wedding. nevermind the cliches about eloping have the bride climbing out the window and the fact that my room was in the basement when i lived at home.
at least now i know what some of qualms about getting married have very little to do with me. and his older brother is in a serious relationship and s said that he would love to have a big wedding, which perhaps means there's something for us in the near/not-so-distant future. that's good because neither of his sisters has ever been in a serious relationship, even the one who's 6 months older than i am. so there is hope for me after all!

in the saddle

this is yet another (hopefully not in vain as it's been over a month since my last blog post) attempt to rejoin the blogosphere. work has been more than a pain lately (case in point, i received a text message from my boss on thursday at 5 to 8am that she was on her way to california & wouldn't be back until unofficially leaving me in charge. also friday was supposed to be the last day for a coworker who started in february, but then was poached by one of the clinic doctors as a research assistant; she only committed to working as a scheduler for a year when she started because she was eventually going to grad school. not cool.)
despite the pressures of the 'real world' and not winning the lottery (how many times must a i hear 'you have to play to win!), i would like to resume working on my bip and possibly getting back into the swing of blogging. the new house seems to have drained any ambition from me once i get home from the daily grind, but i don't consider that to be too much of a bad thing. we've now lived here for over 2 months and it was such a good decision! i barely remember the apartment i spent 8 years in; this feels so much like home. we still have yet to put anything on the walls, but we now have grown-up living room furniture (an awesome entertainment console, new couch, chair-and-a-half and a beautiful matching ottoman). next step is to clean up the 2nd bedroom, which has become the catch-all room. and we're saving our change and recycling money to buy an actual bed/headboard set. whee! we're grown-ups. sortof.

tgif

even though it's no longer friday (whew! saturdays are so much better as there is no getting up and going to work involved), i'm still glad i made it to friday.
this past week was okay, but the last two weeks at work were complete torture. my boss always takes spring break week off to visit her bf, the plastic surgeon, in la. fine, we knew that and the new girl was aware, but then we found out that both boss & new girl were going to be gone that friday, leaving 2 to do the job of 4. my coworker and i managed to get through the day since half the docs were gone leaving the clinic almost manageable. whew! crisis averted, or so we thought. come monday morning (almost 2 weeks ago now), we show up to discover that boss has an 'emergency' and isn't going to be back that week and no idea when she will be back. not that she bothered to inform us or even be in contact. and the coworker who'd helped me on friday was off half wednesday and all thursday and friday because she was getting a colonoscopy. that left new girl & i alone for two full days and she hadn't even been working in the clinic for much more than a month. what the h#ll!?!? that means we got 30 minutes of break in a 9 hour day (rather than leave the other person alone for a full hour to answer phones, schedule patients at the desk & try to complete orders and paperwork). and these were full clinic days, not slow spring break days.
finally our retired administrator, who came in to inform us that our boss was gone, said that boss would be back tuesday this last week and forwarded us the e-mail. the e-mail she forwarded? boss's out of office message that she'd set up when she originally left for spring break and intended to be back on tuesday the week she was out for 'emergency'! argh!
so apparently something bad went down with bf or his practice or something. and boss showed up on monday, didn't really say anything to us, so we're still in the dark. when one of the receptionists asked if everything was okay she got all teary, then pulled herself together, but didn't say a word about why she was gone or thank us for keeping the place from completely falling apart without her. oh! it still makes me steam! i do understand that 'something' happened and i'm sorry for her for that, but she didn't even really acknowledge the position she put us in at all.
or maybe i'm just being a b#tch...

some things, recently

s is the best. yes, indeedy. despite the many times (each day) i want to smack him for tapping his foot or my leg or any other repetitive motion, he is the bestest. earlier this week, when i did my taxes (yes, i filed my taxes on mlk day), i mentioned that i wasn't so sure how the whole blogher thing was going to fit in our budget, what with the whole buying a house business and whatnot.

he looked at me, quite sincerely, and said, "we'll make it work out somehow because you had so much fun this summer meeting people and it made you so happy."

is that not the sweetest thing? and having done my taxes, i have enough money from my refund to pay the registration fee and take care of my car tags (almost $200!!! why is it so expensive? i drive a frickin' toyota! a2005 camry is not a luxury car by any stretch. nor was my 2001 passat george and that was maybe $10 cheaper. ouch!) with a tiny bit left over for a rainy day emergency. that was exciting news on monday night and i was looking forward to an extended stay in nyc longer than a layover.

but now i'm still a little up in the air about being able to go because even more shiz is going down on this whole house thing. friday we were supposed to have the financing in place according to our offer to the seller and the bank was aware. all day i was giving myself an ulcer waiting to hear from the loan officer, getting calls & e-mails from our realtor asking if i'd heard anything yet because the clock was ticking down. all for naught (not?), right? oh no, the underwriters didn't sign off on it because we are short $$$ for the closing costs. you know, the closing that isn't happening for another month! between us we'll be getting 3 more paychecks from now to then. and guess how much we're short? oh, the exact amount of my tax refund. how serendipitous!
so that's all fine and dandy, but they still won't approve the financing until it's in the account. the realtor has me sign an extension request for 1 week to get the financing finalized. 1 lousy week, just until next friday. and my loan officer is best buds with the seller's realtor, so he's like no problem, he'll understand and everything'll be copacetic.

nope, the seller is still freaking out as far as i know and hasn't signed the extension because he has less than 5 weeks until he closes on the other house he's buying. actually, he's closing the same day we're closing. so despite his realtor explaining that this is a minor glitch (the money will be there next week one way or the other because my parents will either wire it to us until my refund comes back or the refund should be in the bank next week anyway) and things like this happen on occasion. if he backs out now, we're screwed and there's no way in h-e-double hockey sticks he's going to find another buyer willing to pay the same amount and get financing in place in less than 5 weeks. the place was on the market for over 2 months and no one nibbled until we looked at it and eventually made an offer a month after our first showing.
this morning we had to head over to coldwell to sign a revised statement saying that the financing is only contingent on the closing costs, which will be in place this week, and now we have to wait to hear if the seller's agent can talk him into agreeing and signing our week extension. hopefully he'll call by this afternoon to say things are back on track and we can wait until the bank gets its act together and comes through with the money.

and i haven't even mentioned the fact that the week before last my doctor diagnosed me with hypothyroidism, my fave coworker accepted a nursing position at the other hospital, our clinic administrator is retiring the same day coworker is leaving, s's old unit is being deployed again to iraq and tomorrow is his official last day in the military so i have to bake brownies, my/pioneer woman's sweet potatoes and make peaches & cream salad for the party. whew! guess i'll save something for another day because the monster needs to go out now.

disappeared

yep, there i go again, falling off the edge of the earth. and for over a month this time. not blogging is starting to get as bad as not working on my book. it's been just over a year since i had my first submission and subsequent rejection. i didn't realize at the time how symbolic that would be.
anyhoo, where i've been is working on finding a place to live. you know, an actual home that i/we own. hopefully finding out today from the bank about preapproval for a mortgage. scary, grownup stuff that i'm not sure i'm ready for right now. s is excited about it. i guess that leaves me with the role of eternal pessimist. our credit's not good enough, who would give us money, yada, yada.
it all started with me looking at properties online while we were in vegas mid-november. vegas was an awesome time with lots of eating and walking and looking at things. and apparently an anniversary trip was what s needed to make more of a commitment (ie the house thing-not like he proposed or anything, which apparently some of my friends find to be even more of a commitment than getting engaged)
my parents are kind enough to be giving us 10% down. they know i'm never going to want or have the kind of extravagant wedding that my brother did. (and i always thought the bride's family was expected to make the larger contribution-not that i think that's right.)
i've been waiting since friday to hear from the bank and i guess they're kindof backed up. supposed to find out this morning at the latest according to the loan officer s talked to yesterday afternoon. wish us luck!

end of the line

when suz & i hit up the social luxe lounge before blogher, we signed up to receive a free sweater from lands' end, to be shipped at a later date. of course, that date ended up being the week i was in nodak for my brother's wedding. by the time i got home, ups had already given me 3 notices and shipped it back. i called ups, they told me nothing could be done until it arrived at the shipping point. i e-mailed lands' end and customer service told me they had no record of it since i hadn't made an actual order. they said they'd get back to me when i gave them the tracking number. nothing, not a peep from them & that was 2 weeks ago.
yesterday, i received a mass e-mail from lands' end's pr person about a new campaign to blog (or tweet) called good feelings. if you post about the campaign, they'll donate a cone of yarn for each post to knit hats for the homeless and enter you for a chance to win their new good feelings line. i'm going to imbed the knitting video as soon as my connection stops freaking out.
i really want to learn how to knit. i've got basic crocheting down, but have never been able to master knitting.
anyroad, the point of this e-mail was how cool lands' end has been. i e-mailed the pr person back about my returned sweater & she responded immediately that she had my sweater right there & was going to send it back to me. they didn't know if i'd moved or what since it was returned by ups. sweet! now suzanne & i can be twinsies for next year's blogher!

big move

poor little grover really doesn't like all this moving around of furniture. last weekend we shifted some desks from the bedroom to the kitchen & vice versa (i've had my old desk from elementary/hs in the kitchen as counter space is close to nil and in order to put s's computer up in the bedroom & redistribute space we flipped them.) we also moved s's dresser into my room & grover, showing either his displeasure or fright, peed on the carpet about 3 times.
today we moved a bunch of things at my place & s's old place into the new storage unit. his pillowtop bed into our room & my mattress out, his big bookshelf into the bedroom, my new flat screen tv into the bedroom & his giant one into the living room. it's gonna be a tight squeeze with 2 people in a one-bedroom where i've been settled for 7 years now, but we'll make it work. and rent will be totally feasible now so that i may actually be able to put money in a savings account every month while paying more down on my student loans, etc. even with the extra $$$/month for the storage unit. anyway, i was worried grover would freak again so we mostly left him in his crate. he cried that we weren't letting him out & we were "playing" without him, but he seems to be doing fine now that most of the big stuff has already been taken care of. it probably doesn't help that the poor little bugger is teething either. s found a bloody little puppy tooth on the carpet in the living room (after he stepped on it with bare feet). this was after we saw blood on his rawhide twist earlier in the evening. thought he'd just bit his tongue again. then today, i noticed that one of his long canine (haha) teeth in the front is gone. our little baby is growing up! (plus the fact that he's 3x the weight he was when we brought him home less than 3 months ago.)
so most of what we have left is organizing the mess that is the living room. a few more trips over to the storage unit in the car will do. we got to take the "free" moving truck (less $250 in cash they had to hold while we had the truck) this afternoon. after they called us this morning to say we couldn't have it for the 3 1/2 hours we'd reserved it for because the person before us would be late, they called at 11.30 to say we could take it whenever we got there until 3.30 before they closed so it worked out perfectly. and s & i didn't kill each other (yet) with moving everything, even though it came close. and grover is digging on the icecubes i keep throwing him for teething toys. it's hilarious to watch.
this has been quite an adventure so far. i look forward to the rest of it.

fall down, go boom

and there i went awol again in the same month as blogher. man, i suck! what excuses this time? well, s has been as good as living here and the puppy monster has been running us ragged. his cuteness far exceeds the drawbacks, though i have barely been able to get any kind of writing in the past 2 months. (don't ask if i mean s or grover.)
about the falling downness: on friday at work, the clinic administrator took us all aside and informed us that, although we had survived the first round of layoffs, the hospital planned to cut salaries across the board by 2%. hey, at least we still have jobs. and i figured out from my salary and my annual hours that i'm only losing $.33/hour. i'm not gonna argue with that versus losing some kick-arse coworkers. (simply because we wouldn't be the ones choosing who goes, so i'll put up with the barely tolerable ones if i have to. or if i am one of them.)
then on saturday, s & i went to a wedding. the ceremony itself (including processional/recessional) was a whole 12 minutes. at the reception at the country club we had a seating chart, which was my first experience with that formality. it turned out to be a pretty awesome match up for all involved, though. the one flaw with the evening was that an extra chair was randomly placed at our table while we were up getting hors d'oeuvres. i sat one chair off from my original seat and in an attempt to correct the error i was in the process of scooting my butt to the one to the right. s also thought to correct the extraneous chair by pulling it away from the table, right out from under me. in front of the entire table, i fell down and crashed to the floor. fall down, go boom. i have 2 parallel bruises on my right leg, one on my thigh and the other on my shin.
and finally, the boom. s, as i'd mentioned above, has basically been staying here for the past 4 weeks if not longer. there was a falling out with one of his whiny, baby roommates (recall, if you will, that they have all recently turned 21 or are younger & s will be 26 in september) who is now refusing to pay his share of the heat/electric that is under s's name. beyond that, s was supposed to have a place to live, but when he went to dinner with the 2 current roommates (4 people total, 2 of whom were staying & 2 new people coming in) on the 5th, the guy freaked out because s went to hs with & knew his ex-gf only as a passing acquaintance. to say it was a bad breakup is an understatement. the girl apparently took out a restraining order on him & he goes into a month-long depression every year at the time of the breakup. thus, after much discussion, s will be moving into my apartment. we'll be getting a storage space because when someone has lived in a 1 bedroom apartment for the past 7 years as i have, one tends to accumulate a great deal of stuff. not to mention that last year s lived by himself in a 2 bedroom before this house fiasco. we haven't killed each other yet, despite the close quarters this past month & i'm making room for some of his "junk" to replace my "junk". i know that "they" recommend you don't move into a place that someone else already lives in for fear of being territorial, but it should be fine with an adjustment period.
i guess s will have all of the weekend after next to get cozy while i'm at blogher. hopefully, we'll have everything situated by that point & i'll be able to get my groove on with all the cool blogesses out there in blogland! wooo! can't wait!

motherhood

wow, this is a totally different experience. there is definitely a reason i've said i'm much too young (yes, at 30) to be a mother. taking care of a baby (particularly a furry one) is tough work. i have always had the utmost respect for parents, but even moreso in the last 10 days since we've had grover. when s was gone for his grandfather's funeral last tuesday & wednesday, single motherhood was rough. i have been lacking in sleep these last days. having to get up in the middle of the night once or twice is painful. for the first few days we let him sleep on the floor, which he still seems to love doing. 3 nights now he's slept in his crate & whined, but i haven't given in to his crying. that was a problem with the first night; we gave in so he wouldn't be sad. grover's mostly been okay with accidents in the house. once we figured out his mannerisms & potty signals. also, we've been trying to take him out after meals/drinking & when he wakes up from naps. accidents have still occurred daily, particularly because he wants to 'play' with me & gets bitey/chewy on my hands & feet. i try to replace my skin with an appropriate toy & show encouragement, but if i don't cooperate, he'll act out & pee on the rug. he knows that's showing me. tomorrow night i'll be calling our local, highly recommended training class (spot & co.) to start her puppy class next wednesday. scotties are notoriously stubborn and aggressive (they were bred to chase vermin), so whatever i need to do to get him off on the right paw. he is still the cutest thing ever & he only seems to act out with me (probably pent up energy). s takes him all over the place & comes over to let him out of his crate a couple times a day. next week will be a challenge because he starts an 8 to 3pm job about 10 miles away, so he won't be available to let grover out during the day. i'll have to adjust my lunch break & haul @$$ back to the apartment to give him a break in the middle of the day, so he's not stuck in his crate for 8 hours at a time. we'll make it work. s thinks he's the cutest thing & i think he's second cutest only behind s himself. i'm trying to imbed a video, but i can't get quicktime to work on my laptop. (and of course he just bit me in the boob, so that's awesome)

my baby!

grover is the bee's knees! he is positively adorable, potty trained or no. he's not even 10 weeks old yet & had been living in the (heated & air-conditioned) dog run with his parents, siblings and the other dogs (wheaton terriers mostly) when we picked him up, so he's still getting the idea of eliminating outside.
he's taken to his crate quite nicely, but yesterday we had an extremely busy day and saturday i took him the 15 miles to his vet check. as the vet told me, it's hard to tell with these kinds of dogs (he has a dachshund), when they're squatting in prep to pee or poo because they're so low to the ground already. having never had a dog, i'm finally getting it. need to watch his mannerisms or he may pop a squat when my back is turned. he got a clean bill of health & was told he was the perfect patient for his calmness.
after the vet, i came home to wake up s & douse him with more cold meds (swine flu, i'm sure) before we went to the 2nd annual midwest one bank microchipping. only $5, so i donated some more to the local shelter, then we took him to meet s's mum at a family friend's daughter's 1 year birthday. on the way back for a nap in his crate, we introduced him to s's dad. he's been just a little doll with everyone who's handled him so far.
unfortunately, we had to leave him alone in his crate for a couple hours to go to s's sister's birthday dinner. i knew we'd left him too long because he'd only gone potty all day since i'd taken him to the vet & we came back to a poo-filled crate. s bathed grover & i got to clean up the crate. he took that in stride and forgave us, but would not go to sleep in his crate last night. we brought the crate into the bedroom, but after the first two hours he whined & slept just outside the edge of the crate alternating between flopping on my clothes and s's on the floor.
s & i need to establish a routine for him. he should catch on. we already got him to figure out 'sit'. grover pretty much alternates between periods of playfulness and snoozing. hey, he's a baby, so what else should you expect?
yesterday we also found out that s's grandpa (the one we drove to sioux city last saturday to see) passed away yesterday. that means s & his family will be out of town on tuesday & wednesday. i have to figure out someone to petsit all day while i'm at work those days. i can't get time off from work because we're implementing a hospital-wide computer system tomorrow & i've already got half thursday & all friday off because i'm scheduled for a colonoscopy. i'll have to call around or see if my friend who works at home would be willing to take him from 7.30am to just after 5pm both days. that's an awfully big favour.
now for some pictures:

dark

last week was a real downer, in so many ways that i couldn't pull myself out of it. so much so that i cried at work. i didn't know what was going on with my health with my bloodwork coming back and the possible diagnosis of drug-induced lupus or possible thyroid disease. (and i still haven't heard back from the rheumatologist about the additional labs i had drawn on 3/13).
the big thing that kept me practically immobile was the trial in iowa city. a year ago february, a kid came to town to celebrate with his friends for his 21st birthday the next day. he went out, drank a bunch & got kicked out of the bar for getting sick, and then on the way to his friend's house for the night, ran away from the group up a street. his brother & friends called him repeatedly & called the cops to help look for him. about an hour later, he showed up with no pants and two coats wrapped around him to keep warm. he crawled into bed, saying he didn't remember where he ran off to and went to sleep.
the next day, a 75 year old man was found beaten to death in his own apartment a few blocks away. this kid's wallet, coat and shirt were found in the apartment, along with the door kicked in. the best guess of what happened is that because both buildings were the same number (513), but a different street. he runs off, thinks he's at his friend's place and got undressed to go to bed. when the old man confronts the intruder in his home, the drunk kid thinks that he's the one who broke in and beat and strangles the old man. he had at one point answered the phone when his friend called looking for him and said "there's a guy who's gurgling and it's freaking me out. i think he's dead." he still doesn't remember anything from that night, blackout.
all this happened 3 blocks from my apartment. the trial went on monday thru friday and one of the local newspapers had a reporter liveblogging the event. i didn't read the whole thing live, but every day i caught up on the testimony. at first i thought the kid deserved everything he got, life in prison, no doubt. then other things came out, like the fact that he rarely drank and his family growing up ran a program for delinquent boys to rehabilitate them, he started a bible study during the year he was incarcerated leading up to the trial. he's now only 22 & waiting on sentencing for the judge to decide (it was a non-jury trial) his fate. i still think there's no question that he killed the poor old man and that he deserves to be punished for that horrifying act, but i can't help but feel depressed about the life that he is losing as well, his own youth.
i don't know if i've come to any conclusions about why i was so enthralled by this or if i feel any better, but i felt like my own life was in limbo while the trial was in session. i was in a dark cloud of depression that took quite a long time to lift; it's not going to change what happened, but now i feel like i can breathe easier knowing that justice is working on finding the proper punishment. and it's good to know that the judge is conflicted over the outcome. makes me feel better to know that someone in such a position knows that it's not an easy situation to come to some kind of resolution.

nothing like warm pee in the afternoon

on wednesday, i had the pleasure of running over to the other side of the hospital on my lunch break. had to give a little sample for the rheumatologist i saw on the 23rd. luckily there was no venipuncture involved (i'd gotten that part out of the way on the day of-only 4 days after i'd donated blood, so i had a pre-poked vein all ready for them). i moseyed over to the lab after checking in & dutifully took my newly labeled urine specimen cup. i always get a chuckle over reading the directions in the bathroom. "women: remove pants..." men are never told that crucial step. are women really so stupid that they don't know to remove their pants? seriously.
business done without any drips & i place the practically steaming cup (who knew body temperature was so high?) in the little metal door... right next to someone else's dark (ugh!) yellow specimen. i kindly mentioned that my cup had company in the little closet when i walked out past the lab techs.
today in the mail i received a copy of the transcription from my rheum appt & also the lab results. um, apparently my ana (normal is <1:40) is a bit high. read that as 1:1280. apparently my thyroid is off, underfunctioning a bit. not enough, or long enough, for me to gain any weight, so i don't know if it's been happening for long. i know that people with hyperactive thyroid tend to metabolize faster & lose weight more readily than others, so the opposite should be true to underactive thyroid. if nothing else, i've lost 3 lbs since catching a monster cold this weekend.
now with these results, i don't know if the doc will even want me to get my remicade infusion tomorrow. the doctor who administers it is not my actual gi doc, so i won't know what's what until i check in & see him tomorrow. since my abnormal labs could be the result of drug-induced lupus, maybe stopping the remicade is the best bet, but i don't want to suffer through more joint pain until i introduce another drug. conundrum!

monday fun day

this hasn't been the best week at work and i haven't even made it through wednesday yet! superbusy and we're a bit short staffed since my supervisor was in cali on monday & the other m had her peds rotation for nursing school from 7-3:30 yesterday, plus she's deathly ill with a cold.
the upside is that i have a new cell phone in the mail (lg env2!) and monday night after work, i called s to say hi and that i was gonna head home rather than see him. he said he'd call a little later because he was at his folks' place. over an hour had passed & i was about to take my laundry over to the washer, but grabbed my phone before i went out the door in case he called. as i walked to the other side of the building i saw my car sitting at the back of the parking lot with the lights on & s inside. shrugging, i took my laundry downstairs & tossed it in. then i walked back over to the car & stood by the driver's side until s rolled down the window.

me: "uh, hi."
s: "helllooo. whatcha doin'?"
me: "what am i doing? laundry. what are you doing?"
he was eating a frosty.
s: "i thought i'd surprise you. um, after i ate this."

silly boy, trying to keep ice cream from me. he came in for a bit & watched ncis while i stumbled around in the crawlspace trying to empty the last couple boxes. then he took me over to his house to spend the night. unfortunately, i decided to partake of a tiny glass of mountain dew after 9pm and with my body's caffeine sensitivity, i was up until 2am. and kept s up when he finally crawled into bed at 1am. i can't stop talking when that happens. he just finds me silly since he couldn't fall asleep either.
hope all are having a good week!

today is a new day

today i had a meeting, via work, with a health coach, to help me be more accountable with my life and stuff. in the past year, since the arthritis hit me hard, i've had an incredibly difficult time with keeping up on exercise and eating right has never been much of a priority. i'm not technically overweight (depends on the fluctuation within a pound or two) according to my bmi, but i'd prefer to be more in the midrange than threatening to teeter over the edge with a single macaroon. this is difficult with the pain in my joints that can start at any time before & after my infusions. but i intend to get a referral from one of the docs in the clinic where i work & see a rheumatologist to see if physical therapy is the appropriate step or what kind of exercises (swimming, i know!) are best for my circumstances.
i am also completely addicted to the food network. i'm not sure this is a detriment to my goal about eats. not that man vs. food is truly tempting me to go eat 15 dozen oysters or the world's largest donut (i wouldn't mind a bite).
it is going to be quite difficult to remain accountable with s, especially when my suggestion of salmon, asparagus & cottage fries (i know, but i need my starch!) was met with "let's have calzones! i'm buying!" okay, so i crumbled already, but at least i had spinach & mushrooms on mine. i'm planning to do a workout in front of the telly & possibly some extracurricular activities.
besides the health/eating/exercise issues, i need to rein in the procrastination. one of my short term (two weeks) goals before my next appointment with the health coach is to finish writing an article for a children's magazine. obviously with a two week timeframe, i'm not aiming for actually being published, but at the least i want something i will submit for consideration. and not chicken out about the rejection factor.
so wish me luck (or please, nag/ask/encourage). here's hoping that 30 is the best year yet!

good times

last wednesday, after work, s met me with the car and we drove west for about an hour toward des moines for dinner. we were meeting up with an old friend of mine from college. i'm not sure i've actually even seen c since i graduated in 2001. maybe once after that and that's a long time ago.
she was the first person i officially met when moving into the dorms way back in august of 1997. my folks were trying to make the bed on my lofted bunk and she walked into the room and introduced herself. i still remember my dad being embarassed because my mom couldn't hear her & said she was deaf, turning around to see that c wore a hearing aid. ha! c was a sophomore who had lived on park region 3 the year before when they hadn't yet remodeled the rooms. (somehow i lucked out and got into a basically brand new dorm rather than the virgin vault, also known as the nunnery.) half the floor were park 3 girls who got dibs on the new digs, but they still let us join in the fun and weren't clique-ish about it.
anyway, c is working in des moines and flies in from fargo weekly. she just got engaged a couple weeks ago and i was looking forward to congratulating her in person. it was so great to see her! we chatted about some of the folks we remembered from college & explained to s why neither of us really dated much at concordia (the fact that the odds were about 1/3 gay, 1/3 taken & the other third not worth it basically left us out of the equation, which is fine by me or i wouldn't have been the person i was when i met s).
chatting with old friends you haven't seen in years is so great to bring back the memories. *sigh* i miss my college pals.

updater

two 'ittle updates
1st, the heat sitch
e-mailed the landlord (wife) who works at the u on friday morning & she said she'd send hubb or f-i-l right over. when i got home after work (glad i left the place messy for them), i found an opened, new space heater sitting on the floor running by my picture window & the heat cranked up to 72. i picked up a few things, took out my trash & then headed over to s's place since the 72* thermostat wasn't really kicking much actual warmth. we went to dinner out of town & landlord called me back around 9pm to say that he'd moved tons of stuff in my bedroom, under the kitchen sink & in the crawlspace under the stairs to find out why it was so cold until they realized it was because there wasn't enough insulation under my apartment that was causing the freeze. idiots!
i haven't been back to the apartment yet, since friday. i'll go back after church this morning.
on a second note, i previewed my tax refund situation (only waiting on a 1098 from one of my student loans i'm paying back) & i'll be getting a couple hundred from federal, so i can afford the trip to blogher if suz is down with that!
now i'm off to get dressed for church. haven't been in too long.