A Day in My Shoes

2012-02-01T14:56:00.000-08:00

So over the summer I ended up quitting the gym completely and took up hula hooping. I lost 10 pounds in the duration of the time that I was hooping (probably a month and a half), and really loved it. I got pretty good at it for the most part, but never got my nerve up enough to record myself doing it. I watch these videos on YouTube of these chicks who are amazing, and put me to shame. Then our laptop broke and I couldn't watch the tutorials anymore to learn more tricks so I didn't spend as much time with it.

I ended up feeling empty after that and rejoined the gym. I figured if I was going to be hooping that I could skip out and try something new for awhile. I also got tired of being stalked by the same guy every morning, and I just got sick of the constant bickering from the same onslaught of people. The stalker would try to be nonchalant about his stalking, but the attempts were just irritating. There are timed dials all around the gym that work the ceiling fans above the different work out areas. Stalker Steve (I have no idea what his real name was) would come over to the cardio equipment where I happened to be biking, and would turn the fans on above me as if they were going to cool him off on the opposite side of the gym where he was doing squat thrusts or whatever. This became a repeated occurrence. Finally one day, he came over and turned the dial on the fans (which were already on) and then made his move. He started talking to me and asking me why I left at 8:45 every morning. I told him I have a job. His response was something that made me think that he thought I was in high school. Even creepier considering Stalker Steve was probably in his 30's. Let's just say I was not overly nice about his annoying and pathetic advancements. This went on for about 3 days. I was not nice to him. In fact, I will admit I was flat out rude, but come on. Get the hint already. I'm convinced that had he flat out asked me on a date and I told him that I was married, he would have asked me when he could pick me up for our date. It's even more annoying when guys hit on you that you're not interested in, but you're not wearing any make up on top of it, and sporting baggy sweats, a men's t-shirt with pit stains, and wal-mart shoes. Ok, now you KNOW they are just desperate. Gosh.

Maybe I was just being over cynical of them but I needed a break. I didn't want to work out after work because that's when all the high schools over take the place. Did you ever notice how high school boys act at the gym? A majority of the time, when they aren't tickling each other, they are flexing in front of the mirror and giggling...I witnessed this a majority of the time when I did work out in the afternoon and it bothered me.

So I rejoined after that month and half or so. A lot changed in that time I was gone. Half the morning people quit or transferred gyms, so I didn't have to listen to that anymore, and Stalker Steve seemed to have nabbed himself a girlfriend who shows up in his car now and again and works out there. He won't even look at me now and I couldn't happier.

Hair update

2012-01-23T11:17:00.000-08:00

January 2010 January 2012

Very Quick Updates

2012-01-22T19:48:00.000-08:00

Hi Friends,

Just a quick update, as mentioned in my title...

I am getting married to my wonderful boyfriend of 4 years and 3 months on April 13, 2013. Planning a wedding is a lot more stress then I always imagined.

I have lost a total of 43 pounds. I was reading back through my blogs tonight when I first started and seeing how frustrated I was back then, makes me so proud to know that I stuck with it and am 8 pounds away from my original goal. On another note, I have extended my goal to 60 pounds, which will put me back at my highschool weight, which I will not disclose on this blog, ever...

Well, maybe when I actually reach the goal...very few people actually know the number.

My hair is also growing at an alarming rate thanks to the Biotin and B-12 vitamins I've been taking. This was also another one of my 'goals' in one of my old blogs I'm pretty sure was to let my hair grow out.

Anyways, more gym stories coming soon. Unfortunately, I have not had any encounters with Big Pat and Uncle B, but there are other real life characters to be born.

Nighty night.

The Downsides to Concerts

2011-12-12T14:03:00.000-08:00

For anyone who knows me or anyone who has read my previous blogs, my boyfriend and I go to a lot of shows/concerts/music festivals. We are no strangers to the patchouli scented scene that is jam music. I have attended the following shows:

The Monkees - Star Plaza Theatre, IN - 96'
Paul McCartney - The United Center, IL 99'
Warped Tour - Tweeter Center, IL - 01'
Warped Tour - Tweeter Center, IL - 03'
Summercamp Music Festival, IL - 04'
Particle - The Pearl Room, IL - 04'
Dave Matthews - Tweeter Center, IL - 04'
Particle - The Congress Theater - IL - 04'
Summercamp Music Fesitval, IL 05'
Dave Matthews - Alpine Music Theater, WI - 05'
Keller Williams - Canopy Club - 07'
Umphreys McGee - The Aragon, IL 08'
Rothbury Music Festival, MI - 08'
Disco Biscuits - Congress Theatre, IL - 09'
Keller Williams - Canopy Club - 09'
Umphreys McGee - Auditorium Theater, IL 09'
Phish - Alpine Valley Music Theater, WI - 09'
Phish (Festival 8) - Indio, CA - 09'
Keller Williams - The Canopy Club, IL - 10'
Phish - Alpine Valley Theater, WI -10'
Primus - Congress Theater, IL - 10'
Phish (Superball IX) - Watkins Glen, NY - 11'
String Cheese Incident - The Aragon, IL - 11'

Needless to say, I have been to quite a few shows. Unfortunately the last show for Cheese was cut short, mainly because some asshole stole Ben's bank card at some point the night before and he didn't realize it until a half hour before we were supposed to leave for the concert. Naturally, that will instantly ruin your night, but also because we finally came to the realization of how ignorant the attendees are at these jam shows.

Firstly, The Aragon is a semi-huge venue in Chicago. It can house a large amount of people easily, but apparently they never sell out of tickets and over stuff the venue for whatever reason with sweaty, smelly bodies, so Ben and I were literally backed into a wall for the 40 minute duration we made it through the show. I could not move. It's a good thing we didn't move too because had we moved, the asshole in front of us sporting a gigantic, bulging, backpack wouldn't have had any room to maneuver his giant asshole bag around in the crowd. What are you carrying in that backpack? Your friends? A blanket? What gives? Why is it necessary that you bring a gigantic backpack into a sardine packed venue? It's like a wandering airbag that plows into innocent bystanders and knocks them down steps and into walls, and god forbid you should step into someone holding a dixie cup of beer that they just had to take out a second mortgage to purchase. Shame on you.

Secondly, it is a non-smoking venue. Have a little respect for the sea of people who don't smoke in the crowd, and don't blow your cigarette and weed smoke on us while your flailing around, punch dancing all of us.

Thirdly, If you have gigantic dreads, wear them down for the night. When you put your dreads in a ponytail, it creates a very deadly and large weapon of mass destruction that may have the same effect as the 'backpack guy' or even worse, possibly end up in the persons mouth trying to have a good time behind you. This also goes for girls will extremely long hair. There is no reason you have to put your ponytail up and then swing it around like Jan Brady. You don't pay property taxes on the tiny 1x1 space we all get, so knock the shit off. Nobody thinks you're cute accept all the drunk assholes blowing weed on people and punch dancing everyone. (Which reminds me, what is up with the fairy wings and tutus? You look retarded.)

Fourth, If you are going to throw glowsticks at a show (which I encourage), get the little, thin, glowsticks that you can make bracelets out of. Unfortunately, dumbasses will bring gigantic, thick glowsticks with hooks on them that rocket down and hurt people when they come down. Are you stupid? Why would you get these? When you are in a store and you see gigantic glowsticks, that weigh approximately 2 pounds a peice, why the hell would you be like, 'Yeah, these will be a good idea, nobody really needs their eyes anyway." Seriously, have a little common sense. Assholes. OH, and don't even get me started on the Sky Lanterns. Do you understand how dangerous it is to bring those to a festival around all those dreadlocks? When you light them, you have to wait until they are ready to take off, but instead, without fail, some idiot will light it and try to throw it like a frisbee and it ends up falling back into the crowd. These are at the outdoor festivals obviously, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone tried to let one go in a venue.

Lastly, why do you drive from Georgia to Chicago and then stand outside with $20 bucks to get a ticket? I guess I respect the fact that you are a dedicated fan, but shit, you can't wait until they come around to your state? It's not my problem, but still. Wtf? It seems pretty stupid to travel 16 hours or so with $20 bucks?

Other than that, I love shows and I love music, but after being at so many, all this stuff has just really started to get to me. No more indoor venue shows, not for awhile at least.

Comcast Rant

2011-12-01T12:45:00.000-08:00

Since I moved out on my own into the big old world, Comcast has been my cable provider. At first, they seemed ideal and the corny commercials seemed legitimate. But then, they give you 6 months free of a promotional priced package, where I was paying around $80 a month, then shoots up to some ridiculously overpriced amount. Currently I am paying roughly $150 bucks a month for this. Ben and I have ONE box, NO DVR service, NO movie channels, basic HD channels, and "Xfinity" internet. What in the HELL am I paying $150 bucks for? I'm not asking to see a copy of my statement, because I've seen it. I GET what I am PAYING for but what I don't understand is how they can charge people $150 a month for cable and internet?

So yesterday, I get another $150 bill and that was about it for me. Not to mention, if you are one day late on your bill, they shut your service off and then charge you $5 bucks a device to turn all of your stuff back on. They shut me off last month because I was a day late, and 2 months before that they shut me off for being $.20 cents off on the bill. Twenty CENTS off. When I called them to complain, they said, "Well the computer system shuts you off, not the reps." And still, thereafter, charged me the reconnect fees. Not to mention, that my internet connection is so unbelievably slow that more often than not, I have to restart my computer because it's working so hard to bring up a website that it just freezes. Two months this went on before I finally called Comcast (I put it off because most of the time when I talk to them I get nowhere so I just kept procrastinating) and the guy was completely confused when I asked him to run a health check on my system. He kept mumbling weird things into the phone before finally putting me on hold for 20 minutes. I had actually set my phone down, turned it on speaker, and then forgot I was on hold, because I had time to watch almost a whole show before I realized that my phone was still on. He never came back, so I hung up. Useless.

Yesterday, I got online with a rep and asked them why I keep getting bills that were so outrageous. I also wanted some kind of compensation for the fact that I've had the slowest Internet on the planet. I figure if I'm going to get raped all this money, I can at least have a Internet connection that works faster than the speed of my hair growing. The rep tells me that he cannot talk to me because I'm not an authorized user on the account. Ben has called Comcast before and told them that I was, and although I've fought with Comcast numerous times, that was the first time I'd heard that one. I have a feeling that after all my complaining to them, they've blacklisted me, but instead just told me that I'm not authorized to speak to anyone. I told him "Thanks for nothing as usual" and logged off. In a stint of rage, I completed the survey you are forced to take after chatting with an online rep and without even reading the questions, just vigorously clicked 'highly dissatisfied' until my finger hurt. Then in the comment section I went on a long rant (basically what I just typed here) but made sure to end my comment with 'Your service is terrible, Comcast is terrible and I hate you".

That'll show 'em.

The conclusion? I'm still stuck with a $150 bill and nothing is being done about my internet.

Moral of the story: Keep calling Comcast and complaining because it makes you feel better.

Weightloss

2011-11-11T11:39:00.000-08:00

Well, I have lost 40 pounds total. After so long, I just started training myself to eat in portions, work out a couple days a week, and just cutting out unnessecary sugar and condiments, sticking to low fat foods and whole grains, limiting red meat and seriously cutting back on diet pop. It has just become a routine.

I recently signed up to run my first Chicago Marathon 5K in September 2012, and hopefully will be doing others before that. It's so far away, but I'm already nervous! I can run 3 miles now, but it's still tough. I figure by then I will be able to do the whole thing, no problem.

It's always been a personal goal of mine and I finally sucked it up and paid the $25 registration fee to run.

Another one I want to run in is the 'Run for your Lives' race in Indianpolis in June. It's a 5k and obstacle course that you run through, all while being chased by Zombies. I can't imagine a funner way to run a race, and obviously it would give you more insentive to finish when you're running from something instead of for something I suppose.

Recipes Worth Trying

2011-10-10T14:54:00.000-07:00

So I've been hooked on a website called Pinterest for awhile and I find the best things on here. I found a few recipes that I made and wanted to share.

I normally make recipes off of the Kraft website and am more often than not, disappointed with the outcome. I made a recipe one time that consisted of macaroni and cheese, grilled chicken and vegetables. The way they described this 'dish' was to simmer the chicken in a pan, add the frozen veggies, and then put the mac and cheese in the pan once made, then cook all together. Once finished, I tried to eat it, but it was really lacking a lot of things. The freezer taste from the vegetables basically soaked into the contents of the dish and the chicken with the mac and cheese was just awful. I could only get down a bite or two before dumping the rest in the garbage. Kraft = failure. I've never made anything off the Kraft website that didn't end up in my garbage.

I am no expert cook, and quite frankly, I hate cooking in general. My mom is a great cook, and makes it look so easy. Watching my mom is like watching the food network. I swear she never follows recipes, just a pinch of this and handful of that, and a beautiful, perfectly cooked entree comes floating out of the oven. I feel like I struggle a lot, and then my food always comes out half-assed for some reason. I tried to make a corn dog casserole the other day and ended up with some kind of stuffing with hot dogs in it. It didn't taste bad, it was just like having a hot dog Thanksgiving. It was more awkward than anything, and once again, ended up in my garbage.

So finally, I decided to switch it up and try some more challenging recipes. Maybe the recipes I was trying weren't turning out good because they were crappy recipes. Like I said, I'm not an expert, but I can cook when I really set my mind to it.

First, I found a stuffed pepper recipe. From what I remember, and from what my curious co-workers told me when I told them about it, there is supposed to be a tomato sauce simmered into the stuffed peppers. Which is true, because I remember my mom making them for us when we were kids. The red sauce also works in the cabbage roll recipes. I'm pretty sure it's the same stuffing actually.

Here's the recipe I used from Kalyn's Kitchen. I loved this because she even took pictures which was helpful to a cooking dumby like me!

The only difference I made to her recipe was that I did not use the ground fennel (I couldn't find this anywhere! I'm sure I wasn't looking in the right place), and I used 3 sausages instead of 2, so I had extra stuffing. I personally loved it without the red sauce. It had a nice texture to it and the Parmesan really brought it all together. We only had 4 smaller peppers, so all the stuffing we didn't use served nicely as leftovers the next day.

The next recipe I tried were creamy chicken taquitos.

I am always iffy on Mexican food because up until the past couple years, I always hated Mexican food. I think I generally was not a fan of corn tortillas and cilantro, but I've aquired more of a taste for it since we have a really good Mexican restaurant at the end of our road.

This recipe comes from Pennies on a Platter

My differences were that I made it with red medium salsa instead of green salsa, and left out the cilantro. They were very good! I think that some refried beans would have worked on these as well, or even used to dip in. We didn't have any though, so we used some light sour cream. I also used 1/3 less fat neufchatel cream cheese.

I've added both of those to the 'yes' list for dinner ideas:)

And....I'm back.

2011-09-27T11:21:00.000-07:00

So I was really starting to feel guilty beacause I quit the gym back in the middle of July. Honestly, I was so annoyed with the other people that went in the morning that they would seriously ruin my morning. Not to mention some guy was hitting on me every morning and I'd finally had enough. I packed up my mental 'luggage' and left that place. In place of my work outs, I started hula hooping. I got pretty good too. It's a really fun hobby to pick up and Youtube is an awesome place to see tutorials on tricks and what not. I also decided to cut back on red meat (hamburger mainly) and diet pop. I never believed the myth about drinking diet pop until I actually cut back on it. I have a friend that works at the gym, so I got a hold of her and asked her about rejoining the gym. It'd been about 2 months and I was starting to feel really bad about my lack of exercise. I was worried that I was packing on all these pounds again and whenever I ate something fattening or 'carby' I'd be sitting there imagining the fat just placing itself back into the places it had dissapeared from. She told me that I wouldn't have to pay another enrollment fee since I had just recently quit, so I jumped on it. I was back in there the next day, pedaling away on the stationary bike. I decided that weighing myself needed to happen because I was anxious to see how much weight I gained or didn't gain since I'd quit the gym. Much to my disbelief, I'd actually LOST 12 pounds in that two months. I guess the mix of hula hooping, no hamburger and diet pop actually did work. So that now puts me up at a grand total of 35 pounds lost. (Pat on the back). I'm making it a point to work harder at the gym. Over this past weekend, I rode 10 miles on the bike, and over the past few days, I've run a total of 3 miles. Psh, 3 miles, I know, but for a person who despises running at much as I do, that's quite the accomplishment to me.

Aside from the 'no hamburger/no diet pop' policy, I've been trying to train myself to portion control. Let me break down the Weightwatchers diet for you:

Portion control - Take smaller bites and eat less of something. If you have a giant steak, only eat until you are full and take the rest home for later. That's why they always say that you don't have to deprive yourself of eating foods you love. You can still eat them, just STOP eating when you feel full. Something I try to do when we go out now is if I want to get something on the menu (pizza - because I love pizza), I get a dinner salad before hand, or a cup of soup (a vegetable, broth based soup, creamy soups do not work for this idea because they are loaded with fat and sodium). By the time you get your actual dinner (or the pizza in my case) you are somewhat full, and won't devour the entirety of the entree (25 peices of pizza). If you like cheeseburgers as much as I did (remember, I'm cutting back on eating hamburger meat), cut the cheeseburger in half before starting to eat and set it aside. I bet by the time you eat that half, you're full. Then you don't feel as guilty about eating it, and you have some for later.

Dietary fiber - Dietary fiber absorbs water as it passes through the digestive system. In other words, this helps you poop. Start checking labels, the more dietary fiber that is in food, the better it is. It's easily digested.

That's pretty much it. Portion control, and foods with dietary fiber. The higher the dietary fiber, the lower the point on the system.

By no means am I any kind of expert, but it's just little everyday tactics that get easier after awhile. I do things now and I don't even notice. I got a cheeseburger from McDonalds a few weeks ago for the first time in 2 months out of desperation for the taste of fast food and I actually found myself cutting it in half and saving the rest. Once I put the other half in the fridge, I felt silly. I feel silly even typing it. I also found a new love for fish. Once I got a taste of a good slab of grilled salmon, it's all I want to eat. There are so many ways to experiment with chicken and fish, with different seasonings and breadings. I also switched from regular Yoplait yogurt to Greek yogurt. Greek yogurt is always recommended by whoever, Jillian Michaels and whatever, but I tried it and I never want to go back to the Yoplait crap. They have such different textures. Greek is thick and pasty (and awesome with fruit or honey I might add), and Yopliat is runny and gloopy. The only problem I ran into is that Greek yogurt is really expensive. I was pretty bummed about it actually. $1.50 a cup? Gawd. So I tried Aldis one day and was extremely happy with the outcome. $.89 a cup, and taste just as good as the expensive ones. I will warn you though, you really have to have a taste for it because I tried to get all the girls at work on the Greek yogurt horse and they weren't having it. There were a lot of crushed faces in the room and a lot of wasted yogurt.

Oikos - good
Yoplait greek - shit
Dannon - good
Aldis brand (Friendly Farms) - awesome

And that's my lesson for the day.

By the way, if you want to watch something that will really change your mind about eating fast food, watch the documentary 'Supersize me'.

Garage Sales

2011-09-12T13:17:00.000-07:00

Since October is near, a lot of towns are having their Oktoberfests which means garage sale season begins. The town I work in was having it's garage sale weekend so I decided I would get up early and venture into the psychoville to find a bike I've been looking for. The fancy neighborhood of the town is where I wanted to go because a co-worker of mine lives there. I was hoping she would drive around with me, but she kept insisting that driving wasn't going to happen and that she refused to go despite it being in her neighborhood. I ignored her warnings. Ben wanted to go fishing that morning, and all my friends were preoccupied sleeping and what not so I had to go solo. I got up early Saturday morning and when I arrived to the neighborhood of choice, I was shocked at what I saw. Normally when you think of garage sales, you picture an entire town, some people walking and most just slowly scooting along in their vans or vespa scooters or whatever, pissing off everyone who got stuck behind them who isn't participating in the garage festivities. This was different. People were packed along either side of the road, leaving nothing but a tiny path in the middle for cars to squeeze through. Families were piling out of their Hummers and BMW suv's, sporting fanny packs and visors, pushing strollers, walking down the middle of the path, making it nearly impossible to get through. I was dumbfounded. I called my co-worker repeatedly in a panic because she never around her phone. When she did finally pick up I immediately questioned her on the strange event happening in her neighborhood. She gave me the 'I told you so' speech, and I eventually ended up in her driveway. It was definitely an advantage knowing someone in the neighborhood because there wasn't anywhere else to park. It was basically a flea market with no parking lot.

When I left my house that morning, it was windy, cold, foggy and on the verge of raining. I decided that jeans and hoodie would be a good choice. Upon arriving to Pleasantville, the sun popped through the clouds and radiated a whole lot of heat and sunshine throughout. I figured this would be a good opportunity to get some exercise, but thereafter, was doubtful it would be very enjoyable to walk the neighborhood in skinny jeans and what not. Now sweating and irritated, I stopped at my first house. I don't know about some woman, but me personally, I think sweating is the most annoying thing that could happen right after you get done putting make up on and doing your hair. Granite, I had my bedhead-do up in a messy bun thing and wasn't wearing much make up, but I've been growing my hair out so I have a lot of baby hair growing in. So when I start sweating, the baby hair sweats into a curly cue and makes a perfect swirl on my shiny forehead. I ended up buying a wine holder for Ben's bomber beer bottles. We're not big wine drinkers, but I'm trying to accomplish an Italy/Mediterranean look in my kitchen and thought it would be a nice touch. I also bought a few decorations for kitchen 'theme', and a Hoover Wind tunnel vacuum for $15 bucks. I was unsuccessful on the bike, but I got a vacuum so that's good. The vacuum I have at home now is a hand-me-down from Ben's grandma. The vacuum is a 1980 Winter Olympic Electrolux vacuum.

The thing is still kicking good and strong, but it's a pain to use. It's like dragging a little kid around in a store that doesn't want to be there so they just go limp and you have to pull them around like a big wet noodle.

On the way back to my car and before I bought the vacuum, I saw what I thought was the PERFECT bike for me. It was a maroon woman's mountain bike with a water bottle holder and squishy silicone butt pads, which is unnecessary, but a perk. Now my co-worker, Rochelle, always tells us stories about two of her neighbors. I will just say their names are Dee and Judy. According to Rochelle, Judy was influenced by Dee and turned into a real bitch even though she used to be an nice person. Judy lost a lot of weight, and is now 'very blessed'. Blessed about the weight loss and blessed about life. Once again, this may just be me, but I get extremely irritated when people describe their lives as 'blessed'. It's one thing to be 'blessed' if you are a religious person and stick solely with your religious views or if you are a cancer survivor, but people who drink a lot, eat a lot of fast food and smoke cigarettes bother me when they describe their life as 'blessed'. Anyway, when I walked up to Judy to ask her about the bike, she was munching viciously on a stick of celery. I asked her what she wanted for the bike and she told me it wasn't for sale. Turns out, it was Dee's bike. Dee had ridden the bike over to visit her bff Judy and had so conveniently parked the bike amongst the garage sale items. At this point, Judy, Dee, and their husbands were all questioning me about what kind of bike I wanted. How old did I want the bike to be? What color bike did I want? Etc. Feeling completely stupid now, I just kept saying, "Thank you" and slowly trying to back away, but I felt like they were keeping me there to entertain their garage circus. Finally Dee says, "What about those people across the street? They are selling bikes." to which I replied, "Those are men's bikes, I don't really want a men's bike". The reason I do not want a men's bike, is because generally, men are taller then woman. I am 5' 4", and I have short legs. I am not going to buy a men's bike that I have to struggle to climb onto. I had already looked at those bikes, they were pretty tall as far as 'climbing up onto'. I guess my response must've offended her because she looked taken aback. "What's wrong with a men's bike? I ride a men's bike. I've been riding a men's bike for years!" At this point, I'd have enough, told her I would 'keep it in mind' and stomped off through the grass to Rochelle's house to get my car. People are unbelievable. Who cares if I don't want a men's bike? Why did my preferences about bikes offend her? If I have something in my mind that I want, I'm not going to get something else because some celery munching, visor wearing weirdos thinks I should.

So overall the day was success and I only spent a little under $30 bucks. I could have spent about $300 on all the decor I found, but luckily I ran out of cash in my wallet and had to call it quits. That is why I do not keep a lot of cash on me on all times, it makes it way easier to spend. One thing I did learn though is that I am going back next year and I am definitely bringing someone with me.

Hula Hooping

2011-09-07T12:51:00.000-07:00

Hello friends. I realize I've been gone for quite a long time, but I've been extremely busy. Once we got back from Florida I was pretty much bombarded with work at the office.

I realized that my blog is going nowhere fast, and I want to give it a kick start. My blog was originally intended to keep me on track of my weightloss journey by blogging about it everyday. That was obviously short lived. I kept up on my word though as far as my personal goals. I guess I decided that instead of busting ass and practically killing myself, that I was going to do it my way. It occured to me one day while going over the Weightwatchers diet, that all it is, is portion control and eating a lot of dietary fiber and proteins. I joined the gym, was there about 2 years, and then hated it. All the old people would congregrate in there in the morning and gossip (loudly--usually yelling across the entire gym to each other), and then some guy started hitting on me every morning and I'd finally had enough. The gym was split into two parts, one being cardio and one being weights. I would be allllll the way over on the bike, and he would be alllll the way over on the bench press, and he would come allllll the way over to where I was biking and turn the fan on above me that was on a timer. That fan is obviously not going to be cooling you off, so why are you coming all the way over here to turn it on???? Then he would awkwardly start asking me about my life...where I went to school, why I wasn't there yesterday, etc...I probably could have told this dumb ass that I was married and he'd say, "Oh, cool...so when are we going to hang out?" Vultures I tell ya. Not to mention I'm sweaty and in my gross gym clothes, so....I don't get it.

I ended up quitting the gym and taking up hula hooping. You can hula hoop for hours, break a nice sweat, and it's so much more fun then going to the gym. This is just my opinion of course, but I personally hate the gym. I find it to be repetivtive and boring, whereas hulahooping, is only $20-30 bucks for a decent homemade hoop and you can pretty much do it anywhere. I made my own hoop firstly, which required a trip to Menards, 1" plumbing tubing, 1" pvc tube connector, a few rolls of duct tape and colored electrical tape and ta-da! My hoop.

When I made the hoop, I did not follow the key point in which you are supposed to put a hair dryer on the the openings to widen it and put the connector in. Instead, I just got a smaller connector and duct taped it together so after a little bit, the hoop eventually stretched out into a tear drop shape, so every once in awhile I have to cut the tape off and retape it. After a month or so, I ended up buying another one off my friend who makes them, so I have both of them now. The purple hoop is weighted because of the particular piping I used, so it's better to exercise with. My red and black hoop is bigger, lighter, and ideal for doing tricks with. I will eventually be posting a video on here as soon as I can muster up the courage. I feel a little weird knowing that my face will be on youtube, so I'm biding my time, but I'm picking it up quick and I LOVE it. I would suggest it to anyone who wants to switch up their exercise routine.

Old ladies

2011-06-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

I work in a little podunk town in Illinois called Monee. It's about 35 miles South of the city. Monee is also a truck stop paradise. They have a Petro station which is connected to an Iron Skillet where all of the truckers and toothless wonders reside. Ironically, the Iron Skillet is my favorite place to go for a late night drunken snack, and to gawk at all of the mysterious people that are dining there.

In Monee, there is also a Dunkin Donuts. I occasionally stop at DD to pick a large unsweetened iced tea or the occasional iced coffee. Today, I was sitting in the drivethru, waiting at the window, and I see an old lady with large Robo Cop glasses on, circling the parking lot, confused. She finally positions the car in such a way where her rear is facing the front of me, and starts backing the car up towards me. I put my hand to the horn waiting for her to back right into my car, but she didn't. Instead, she parked it a few inches from me, turns it off, cranks the seat back, and is clearly readying herself to take a nap. Now mind you, I am at the window of the drivethru waiting for my iced tea, and myself, and 3 other cars behind me, are now blocked in by this sleepy old woman. I can't think of anything better to do but bust out laughing hysterically. I couldn't help myself. It was goddamned funny. The lady finally comes to the window and cranes her neck aroud the window, "What is happening?" She asks me. I respond, still laughing, "I guess she was tired."

"She's sleeping?!"
"Yes..."
"I'll be right back."

A few minutes later, one of the gas station attendees comes out and bangs on her window. She woke up suddenly, waving her arms around. I'm still laughing. "YOU CAN'T PARK HERE, YOU ARE BLOCKING THE DRIVETHRU". She rolls her window up on the lady, pulls up, and parks at a gas pump to continue her nap. I don't quite understand what this was all about considering there was a Petro station 15 feet down the street where people can park and take naps and what not. Old people boggle me.

...And a month later

2011-05-24T19:40:00.000-07:00

I realize that I said I was going to update about Epcot and the rest of our Florida trip as soon as possible, and I really wanted too, but I cannot get a break at work. It has just been HELL. Right before I left for Florida a decision was made that I would now be taking over 2 different jobs on top of the job I was doing. Do you ever get SO stressed out that you become physically ill? That is what was happening to me. I am too young to feel like a 70 year old woman at work. Everytime my boss gives me something to do, I can feel myself aging and my hair turning gray. It's not the fact that he is giving me work that is stressing me out, it's the fact that he is giving me work on top of all the other work I am doing. We are seriously understaffed, and the school I work is becoming bigger and bigger by the day. It is a physical impossibility for one person to do all the work that I do. I am not saying that to brag or 'toot my own horn', I am simply stating a fact. I am to the point where I am neglecting aspects of my job, to tend to other parts of my job. For example, I will avoid answering my 70 or so e-mails a day to work on forms and paperwork. Or, I will take a day to neglect my forms and paperwork to work on student files to get them ready for graduation. If I'm not working on the student files, I'm answering my e-mails. In the midst of all the chaos, I am trying to answer all of my phone calls. Now, when the students want to call, it is normally because they want to tell me that they sent me an e-mail. After they tell me they sent me an e-mail, they want to explain to me the contents of the e-mail. What is the point of sending me an e-mail, if you are just going to call and tell me what was in the e-mail? If I tell them that I got their e-mail and will respond to it when I get to it, the next million dollar question is, "When are you going to read it?"...This question really gets to me. I'm not sure, let me take out my crystal ball and predict the future for you...It's silly because they are serious, and they want an answer.

So Epcot was one of my favorite parks. It didn't have a lot of rides, and compared to Universal and Magic Kingdom, this one was very laid back. A storm had also rolled through the area and the temperature had dropped almost 20 degrees. It was a steady 75, cloudy, and in my opinion, perfect. We'd been getting scorched in the hot Florida sun for the past 3 days, so the change was more than welcomed. I wasn't aware when we got there, but the inside of the giant Epcot golf ball is actually a ride called 'Spaceship Earth'. It's a ride that takes you through all the stages of life since the beginning of man. Out of all the rides I rode while in Disney that week, this one was probably my favorite. It's slow and probably boring to a lot of people, but I loved it. We also went on Test Trak that day, and Mission Space. Has anyone actually ever gone on this peice of shit 'ride'? There were warnings all over the place that if you get motion sickness, it is advised that you DO NOT go on this ride. So what did I do? I went on the ride. I should have gotten off immediately when I saw a pouch of barf bags on the ride, but alas, I stayed on. Now, for those of you who have never been on this horrible abomination, let me tell you about it. This is Wikipedia's version: "Mission Space is a motion simulator thrill ride at Epcot. It simulates what an astronaut might experience aboard a spacecraft on a mission to Mars, from the higher g-force of blastoff to the speculative hypersleep."

Now, let me tell you my version.

First you start out in a dark room with a group of people. Gary Sinise pops on the screen and starts rambling about space ships and moon landings and blah blah blah. Yes, Gary Sinise was also the shinless, but awesome, Lt. Dan Taylor from the amazing movie, Forrest Gump. If you have not seen this movie, or do not like this movie, I feel very sorry for you and suggest you stop reading my blog now and light yourself on fire. After Lt. Dan stops blabbering, you are broken into groups of four and sent into separate doors and loaded into your 'spacecraft' cockpit. They lock you in, equipped with barf bags, and the cockpit rises upwards so you are now facing the ceiling. There is a small screen in front of you, similar to the Nintendo Virtual Boy from the early 90's, except in color. They also do something where you experience G-force while watching this 3D monstrosity. Right away, some bitch pops up on the little 3D tv and warns the riders that 'closing your eyes will only intensify the motion sickness', so at this point, I am panicking. The 'ride' starts up and a movie starts. It's basically a spacecraft taking off from a landing and flying to Mars. We weren't even off the launch pad yet and I was already ready to barf. My eyes were going funny and watering, I actually did try shutting my eyes, and that bitch was right, it made it worse. So I opened them and fixated them on the barf bags. Ben was giggling and holding my hand and kept asking me if I was ok and I kept hesitantly responding, 'no', in fear that opening my mouth would excrete barf on myself and the 14 year old passengers we were stuck riding with. After 2.5 excrutiating minutes the peice of shit was finally over and I staggered off and fumbled for the exit for fresh air. NEVER again will I ever go on that ride, and quite honestly, I do not understand how people enjoy it. It should be shut down and burnt so I can pee on the ashes. I didn't end up barfing, but I definitely didn't feel right the rest of the day.

After the torture was over, we headed over to the 'Countries' and walked around. We took a relaxing boat ride through Mexico, went on another relaxing boat ride in one of the other Countries, then settled in Germany for an amazing lunch of authentic German food, and get this, it was a buffet of authentic German food. They had a stage set up where a band of lederhosen wearing men were playing. It was great. I loved this place.

After we filled up on great food, we walked around some more, went on 'The Seas of Nemo and Friends' which had an actual aquarium at the end of it which delighted me. I have a soft spot for animals, fish or not.

After that, we went back to the hotel and got ready to go to the Electric Light Parade at the Magic Kingdom. If you haven't been to Disney, or haven't had the opportunity to see this, I recommend you try to do it at some point. For those of you who may think you are too cool for this, it's most likely because you suck. You are never too old, and never too cool to see the Electric Light Parade.

Yes, I took this picture.

The next day we headed over to the Animal Kingdom. This had to have been the most congested park of all of them. We only managed to go on a few rides and stand the scorching heat, little kids and sweaty bodies rubbing on us, for roughly 5 hours before we called it quits and went back to our room for some swimming. We went on the Kilimanjaro African Safari, which would have been a lot more awesome if half the animals hadn't been hiding. I still appreciate the fact that I had the opportunity to ride this, it's a demanding ride at the Animal Kingdom. We also went on Expedition Everest, which is a coaster that travels up into a mountain where the 'Yeti' lives. Awesome. As you all know from my previous blogs, I'm not a huge fan of instense roller coasters, but this one, I ended up LOVING. I would go on it again with no hesitation. Of course, it's not a coaster with big drops and what not, or I would have hated it most likely. We finished out the day eating at place called Yak and Yeti, which featured Asian quisine and an unforgettable dessert. Normally Ben and I don't get dessert's when we dine out, but it came included with our Disney meal plan, so we got some. It was a large plate of fried cream cheese wontons with vanilla ice cream, topped lightly with hot caramel syrup and fresh strawberries. It was one of the best things I've ever tasted. It should be featured on one of those shows on the Travel channel. I can just picture Adam Richman sitting at the table taking big bites and making all the weird sex noises he makes while engorging his face with all kinds of good shit. Speaking of good shit, I left out a few details about the nights that Ben and I went out for some fancy dinners. The meal plans are probably the best thing you can do for yourself if planning a Disney vacation, because we ate market fresh priced fish quite a bit on this trip. One of the places we went (Captain Jacks in Downtown Disney), I ate a big slab of grilled Talapia with mango chutney, ahh-mazing.

Friday was our free day. We got up early and went back to the Magic Kingdom to see the 'Hall of Presidents'. By the time we were done doing that, it was already scorching hot out by 11 am, and I was exhausted. We went back to the hotel, relaxed and packed. That night we went to a place called 'Ohana' as our last fancy dinner in Orlando. This was a Hawaiian restaurant where they would stuff your face until you wanted to puke. They would bring rounds of meat on skewers to your table, along with pot stickers, salad, Hawaiian rolls, and noodles. Completely stuffed, we took the monorail back to the hotel and passed out for our early wake up at 4:15. The Disney bus took us to the airport around 530 and we were home by 11. This time, I had the bright idea of calling Southwest and asking them if it was possible to check in online, which it was. So we checked in as early as possible and were in the first group boarding. Not only did I get to sit by Ben, but I got a window seat. You better believe I took advantage of it and drank gin and tonics on the way home and got to relax this time. I I loved Florida, but you really don't realize how much you love home until you don't get to see it for a week. I haven't slept that good in my bed since we got back from our 31 hour drive from California in 2009.

Since then, we've already bought tickets to Phish's Superball IX in Watkins Glen, New York at the Watkins Glen International race track. My brother asked us the other day, "Are you guys ever home?" I guess not...Luckily, this is only a 10 hour drive, and not 31.

Pictures from Bubba Gump Shrimp - Universal Studios

Disney World Continued

2011-04-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

So the first day, after the flight fiasco we got settled in our hotel room. For anyone who ever books a vacation package through the Disney website, please be aware that whatever hotel you are staying at takes your bags directly from the airport to your hotel room, which is amazing, but not if you don't know that. We stood at baggage claim for a solid half hour and even started checking other flights thinking it got mixed up. We kept looking at each other in a panic. I had a laptop in my bag, about $500 worth of clothes, all my make up, my hair dryer, straightener, my life, you know, those kinds of things. Finally we went to the information desk and they explained this to us. Would have been great to know at some point before that.

If you've never been to Disney before, it's literally a 'whole new world', and I'm just trying to be lame and steal quotes from Aladdin--It's seriously like you've stepped out of the real world and into a warp of somesort where everyone is extremely jolly and friendly. There's 'Disney magical express' busses that take you to all the parks, except Universal Studios, that's not part of Disney. Ben had to remind me of this at least 16 thousand times while we were there. If the busses can't get somewhere, then the Disney monorail system will whip you around to restaurants and what not.

The Magic Kingdom was really fun. I'd have to say my favorite ride here was definitely the Haunted Mansion. It's really amazing how they do some of the effects on these rides. The ballroom part of the ride is the best part, and you walk out of there actually feeling pretty creeped out. Sounds a little stupid, but bits and peices of that ride would pop up in my dreams for like a week after. I found a video of it on youtube, but it's pretty dark. If you move it to about 3:48 you'll be able to see the ballroom. http://youtu.be/LG7n2ZD1z_U It just doesn't do it justice though, it's something you have to see for yourself. We went on Space Mountain, which I loved. It's a pitch black, indoor coaster. Buzz Lightyears Space Ranger spin, Pirates of the Carribean, and of course, It's a Small World. Wow...that ride is annoying. After that, I was so exhausted. The lack of sleep from the night before started to really hit me, so we headed back to the hotel and we passed out in our beds. Heh.

The next morning (Sunday) we had Alamo car rental come pick us up so we could rent a car. I am 25 and have a valid driver's lisence, so we figured we wouldn't have a problem. Wrong. I guess you have to have a major credit card, and I only had my bank card (which is a Mastercard...I didn't get it...still don't). Ben, who is only 23, ended up having to put the car in his name with $40 extra for insurance. As the guy is ringing us up he says, "Would you like to be upgraded to a Camaro for an additional fee?' Ben's eyes lit up. "How much extra?"

"80 dollars a day."

After a brief moment of hesitation, a smile stretched across his face. "Screw it, let's get the Camaro."

And off we went in a 2011 Camaro.

Universal Studios was next on our list. It was sunny and 85 by the time we got there. I was feeling much better today having gotten a full nights sleep. I'm sure you all remember that the 1 place I wanted to see most was The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. This place was amazing.

Once inside, I had made up my mind that I wanted a want from Ollivanders wand shop. We waited in line for 45 minutes in the scorching sun to get inside this place. While we were waiting, Ben got us some Butterbeer, which is not beer at all, but a VERY rich creme soda with a frothy melted ice-cream substance on top. I could only handle about a half a glass of it. Both Ben and I felt sick after drinking it--definitely not something you should get while walking around in the sun for hours and going on rides. Of course, right after we drank Butterbeer and left Ollivanders with our new wands, we went on the Dueling Dragons rollercoaster. I had such a headache after that. Between the heat, Butterbeer, and being whipped violently about on that coaster was not a good combo. We went to Jurassic Park after that and sat down for some dry as leather chicken strips.

(Side note: I found out just recently my idol, Bert the Conqueror was there the very next day after we were. I was SO crushed. Bert is the only reason I went on the Raging Bull last summer. I would have loved to meet him! http://youtu.be/ZXDhICjInVk )

We went on a few more rides before we called it a day. My head was starting to throb at that point and all I wanted to do was go jump in the pool at the hotel and cool off. We went to Universal two days in a row, ending our second night at Bubba Gump shrimp before we went back to the hotel for some much needed beers.

And this is where I leave you my friends. Once again the work day is over and I will start with Epcot next time:)

Byebye.

3 Floyds and Disney World

2011-04-14T14:48:00.000-07:00

Hello,

I really hate that I cannot keep up with this thing. I dissapoint myself when I come back and notice I haven't updated in over a month. I decided that today I would temporarily neglect the piles of files on my desk to get an update in. Before we left for Orlando, we took a trip over to Munster, Indiana to visit what in Ben's mind, is heaven, 3 Floyds brewery. For those of you who read my previous blogs (bless your hearts) you know that I do not like crafted beers. I prefer light 'piss beer' as beer connoisseur's would call it. Beers like Select 55 and Michelob Ultra, you know anything light and watery that my weak stomach can handle large liquidy portions of. My first beer was a Gumballhead, a golden, 5.5% ABV, wheat ale that I actually enjoy. Floyds has a great menu, consisting from fennel, schnizels, and basic sandwhiches. I got a grilled chicken sandwhich with their homemade horseradish mayo for dipping, and I've been craving another one since we left. I normally do not like horseradish or anything with horseradish in it, but this stuff was amazing. I'm sure it's a very simple recipe, but it's good enough to eat on sandwhiches and fries, and that's what matters. My second beer was some kind of Japanese rice beer that I cannot remember the name of, but it wasn't one of Floyds beers, it was just one they carry. That one was pretty gross, and I had a hard time getting it down. I was also extremely full at that point, and pretty lit from the first beer. I am a puss, I know. Ben drank a Dreadnaught, a verrry hoppy ale, with a 9.5% ABV and a Ham on Rye, which literally tastes like a smoked ham sandwhich. I even liked this one!

After we ate, we went to see the tour of the brewery. It was more of a Floyds history lesson since there wasn't a whole lot of 'touring', but it was fun nonetheless. I posted the pictures of it below. Every year Floyds has a Darklord Day where they only sell their famous Darklord Beer that one day. By some stroke of luck (6000 tickets sold out in 3 minutes) Ben and I got 2 tickets and are attending Darklord Fest at the end of the month. I'm pretty pumped. We went last year (when they didn't provide tickets--obviously not expecting the turn out) and got there at 9 in the morning and the place was PACKED shoulder to shoulder. When I say place, I actually mean 3 streets worth of people as the fest is obviously outside. People were throwing up in the streets already, sleeping on the sidewalk, it was pure chaos. It was pretty stupid because of that last year actually, so we left empty handed. This year, they have time slots for groups of people to go and get their bottles of Darklord and we got the 5-7pm time slot. This year it should be more enjoyable because we will actually be able to go and taste beers and have a good time (I hope). Ben is brewing a batch of his own beer right now, a Boysenberry IPA, so I'm rooting for him since he's a rookie, that it turns out good.

You can read more on it at http://www.3floyds.com/. I'm not sure if you can actually purchase their beer online, but if your interested, I'm sure it's possible. Needless to say, we got home that afternoon and took nice long naps.

So, the night before we left for Disney, I wanted to be in bed AND sleeping by no later than 9 pm seeing as though we had be up at 3:15 to get to the airport. I tend to get cranky when I don't get my sleep, and we weren't just landing in Florida and going to the room to take a nap before venturing out into the World of Disney, we were landing, dropping our stuff off and starting the day. So I drank a few beers, popped a sleeping pill and dozed off shortly after. Ben came to bed about an hour later and of course I woke up. I hadn't been asleep more then 20 minutes probably, if that. So he passed right out, and I was now wide awake. Long story short, I watched Pee-Wee's Big Adventure twice before I put Beetlejuice in the dvd player, cryed like a baby for a few minutes out of frustration from lack of sleep, and ended up falling back asleep at 2:30am. So, 3:15 rolls around and I'm back awake, tired, and extremely irritated. I would have been ok with even 4 hours, but roughly 1 hour of sleep? Come on. This was also my first plane ride, and I was terrified. So we get to the airport, check our luggage and go get some hot dogs in the food court. Finally when our flight is called, I notice that Southwest is loading people on the plane in groups. Our tickets were group C35 or some shit. In other words, Ben and I were two of the last people on the plane and Southwest is also open seating in rows of 2, seats of 3. So of course, to make this morning even better, much to my disbelief, Ben and I are separeted on the plane. I'm stuck in the front between two black people, and Ben is way in the back. Not to mention, the dumb bitch who had the window seat had her window closed, and was casually napping on it with her leopard print pillow. She had a Steve Harvey book open in front of her that she would periodically open one eye and glance at for a few minutes. The seats were tiny and if I ever so slightly brushed this woman's arm or something, she would slowly turn and stare at the spot like I just poked her with a cattle prod, which at that point, I would have LOVED to do. Like I said, I'd never been on a plane so I at least wanted to sit by Ben to have someone to talk too, or AT LEAST get to look out a window, but instead I got stuck in between Tokin and Rawanda who was SLEEPING on the window. BITCH! Thankfully, the ride was 40 minutes early and we were off the plane in 2 hours. I kept myself busy by playing Nintendo DS and thinking happy thoughts.

We got to the hotel once we landed in Orlando and got ready to go out. At this point, I was more awake and excited. For some reason they gave us a double bedded room, so we compromised...

We started our trip with visit to the Magic Kingdom...

Unforunately this work day is now over and I will have to continue this, I WILL get more pictures up asap...

To be continued...

2011-03-09T14:52:00.000-08:00

So I've started tanning this week, and by tanning I mean really tanning, or as some people call it, fake baking. It occured to me that spray tanning was not going to get my skin ready for the raging sun in the Sunshine State of Florida. I am a naturally pale Irish girl, and taking me from a cold winter inside the house to a week filled of outside activities in Disney World, will fry me like a lobster.

Last summer, our friends Paul, Natalie, and Ben and I went to Turkey Run State Park in at a hotel called the Billie Creek Inn, in good old Indianer for a weekend. The first day we drank ourselves into oblivion and ran wild outside the hotel, literally. As you can see from the picture, there was plenty of room for us to do so. After a long day in the pool, we were throwing a light up frisbee acting like assholes in front of my little brothers and the neighbor kids. My parents and the neighbor parents were sloshing it up at the pool, double fisting Miller Lights and what not until wee hours of the night. It was a good time. The next day, the four of us decided it would be a good idea to go tubing for 3 hours in the river. Turkey Run provided large blue tubes and give you a start point and an end point. I believe it was only 5 miles, so we figured it wouldn't be that long. They loaded us up on a couple of busses and shipped us down to shore to see us off. Before letting us off, the hippie that was driving starting giving us the rules and badgering us drunks about drinking in the river. "There are conservation police all over these trees, scoping you out with binoculars, so all you underagers, don't drink--but since I know you are going to anyway, try to keep them in coozies or don't do anything stupid to draw attention to yourselves. You are going approximately 5 miles, which will take roughly 2 1/2 hours.' AH! We all exchanged glances...2 1/2 hours? I guess that makes sense since we'd be floating roughly 1.5 miles per hour. I figured an hour tops, and my dumb pale ass had forgotten the sunscreen. That being said, we unloaded and hopped into the river. About 3 hours later we got out at the end point, tired, starving, burnt and angry. I was under the impression that floating down a river would be relaxing, and it was, for the first hour. After the second hour, you're very much ready to get out. I swear I could literally hear my skin sizzling after that second hour too. There are a few brief moments of shade during the float, but nothing that will really help. We left Turkey Run shortly after that, grabbed some quick Burger King and headed home.

About 30 minutes into the ride I started getting 'cramps'. A day in the hot sun, followed by a greasy BK lunch was not something my body was prepared for. A case of the 'D' word fell upon me rather quickly and we were forced to stop in a teeny town along the way so I could use the teeny bathroom. I was rather embarrassed. Do you ever get those cramps? They are HORRIBLE...and they come in waves. They go away after you relieve yourself, and then come back full force 20 minutes later until there's nothing left. You're literally forcing nothing after so long. I don't get it. From what I remember correctly, I did make it home ok. When we got back to town it was rainy and chilly out, which was a strange change of events considering it was warm and sunny just 2 hours ago when we left Turkey Run. We both got home and examined our charred bodies in the mirror. By no means whatsoever am I exaggerating or lying when I say that we were both as red as fire trucks. Ben tans easier then I do, so naturally I was almost more purple then red. Since we'd been sitting in tubes all day, there was a very awkward white crease across my stomach, as well as some other inconvenient white patches amongst my Jet Puffed Marshmellowman body. We both scrambled for the aloe and started generously bathing ourselves in it. It was horrible. The streaks didn't go away for at least a month. It was very attractive.

Hello World

2011-02-16T13:35:00.000-08:00

I have gone quite a lengthy amount of time here with no post. I simply haven't had the inspiration lately. I find myself at work being a slave to the countless e-mails I get each day and long droning phone calls from whiners for 8 hours, that I swear I hear them in my sleep at night. I guess that's why I have a job though, is to WORK, so I can't complain, but that's why I haven't been posting. I've often thought about how nice it would be to sit at home all day and play video games, but honestly, I'd be so bored. On those particular weekends when there isn't much going on, I find myself wanting to aimlessly spend money, or bake fattening cookies to discourage my weight loss plan. That's still going good I guess. I'm still at my 27 pound plateau though which is really bothering me. I still work out. I've been trying to switch up my normal cardio and light weight routine, into more heavy lifting and Pilate's exercises. The places I want to lose the most weight are my lower abs (what woman doesn't?), and my arms. We are going to Florida on April 2nd for a week and haven't looked good in a bathing suit in 5 years. How I long to step outside in a bikini with confidence instead of wishing I could shrivel into a tiny raisin and dissapear. I definitely look better then I did last summer. My waist has shrunk significantly, but I still have a month and a half to shrink my beer gut more, so I'm ready. Once I take some pictures in Florida, I'll post a few maybe. We'll see how they turn out.

I've taken on a new obbsession with spray tanning lately. In my personal opinion, it's definitely a better alternative to tanning in a bed. It's more expensive, but I think it's more beneficial. It takes up less time, is obviously better for your skin, and looks natural without all the burning and radiation. A new spa and salon opened up 2 blocks from my house and they offer the spray tanning services. You tell them which shade you would like (light, medium, dark) and they put the cartridge inside the booth. Once the booth has warmed up, you step inside in your birthday suit. There are numbers on the floor of the booth, and the booth's woman voice will tell you when you need to rotate, and where to put your feet. I will admit, I felt pretty silly the first time I went...like I was being taught how to dance by a robot voice in a booth while I got sprayed from head to toe with a brown mist that smelled like Chinese food....but you're only in the booth a total of 3 minutes so it's overwith before you know it. Once you get past the mild humiliation, it's actually pretty relaxing. Surprisingly, it really does look natural too. It doesn't streak and is not orangy at all. It usually rubs off after 3-4 days, which is the only downside, but I still like it. You can't really beat $60 a month for unlimited sprays considering it's $25 bucks a session normally. I go probably 3 times a week, so you can do the math there.

So, I was at Wal-mart over the past weekend, the day before Valentines day, and you'd think it was Christmas. I was trying to buy groceries and people were running into me, pratically mowing me over to get to the Baked Lays...wtf was going on here? Come to think of it, I was actually in Wal-mart around Christmas time and it wasn't even as bad. People were practically falling over each other in the 'featured aisle' section trying to get heart shaped boxes of chocolates and cheap stuffed bears. You know, the 4 seasonal aisles that are usually conveniently placed right in front of the entrance? I decided I would take a gander, because I wanted to get Ben one of those little hand held back massagers that look like spaceships. I walked down one aisle and there was a Mexican family of 9 hanging out in he middle of the aisle. The parents were standing staring off into space awkwardly while their 7 kids or whatever ran about the aisle, poking and slapping things. I quickly backed the cart out of that mess and tried the next one. There were two woman standing there, and a pole with a phone on it. On the right of the pole it was clear, but too small for my cart to fit. On the left side of the pole, was the two women who acted like I wasn't there and giggled to each other about something. I waited patiently, finally said excuse me, and they continued to ignore me. Why are people so rude? Get the fuck out of the way! Had I been anymore pissed off then I was at the current time, I probably would have pushed my way through, but at this point, I was relatively calm since I had just gotten there, and just sighed loudly and left the aisle.

Later, I was done with the grocery portion of my shopping and decided I would look for the massager again. I saw a group of Wal-mart creatures standing in the middle of the walking path, chatting loudly, so I walked up and waited for an opportunity to interrupt. I was starting to get the feeling that I was invisible because the idiots just stood there and continued talking even though I was standing there staring at them. Finally I said loudly, "DO YOU GUYS CARRY THOSE LITTLE VIBRATING BACK MASSAGERS?' One of the woman said, "Probably in pharmacy--So anyway..." She continued talking to her friend/co-worker. As I walked away I said, "Thanks I guess and excuse me for interrupting your conversation!" Bitches. I felt like I was in one of those videos that they make new employees watch..."...And this is how you NEVER treat a guest here at Wal-Mart!' Cut to the scene of me being ignored and walking away frustrated with fruity 80's music in the background. So I wandered down to pharmacy, only to find that no such thing existed in pharmacy. Those damned assholes.

Once I got out of that hell hole, my next mission was to find a deshedding tool for the furry kids. Poster sheds like a sonofabitch and regular brushes just don't cut it because he gets knotty and matted with his long ridiculous fur. The only ones I could find were $40!!!!! These things are seriously no bigger than a Bic razor. I searched EVERYWHERE for this thing and couldn't find one for under $25 bucks, so I ultimately ended up buying one of Ebay for $10. I also bought 16" brown and blond extensions that I should be getting at the beginning of March. I'm excited. My hair has grown 4 inches since October since I started taking Biotin for hair and nail growth. Anyone trying to grow their hair out, I would HIGHLY recommend taking it.

Well I'm out, 'til next time:) While your waiting, check out these websites I love:

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/

http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/

One of my babies, Poster Nutbag.

Christmas and Chick-Fil-A

2011-01-04T14:54:00.000-08:00

I feel that this year I had a way more successful Christmas than last year. I had more money this year, which equals more Christmas presents for the man and family. Last year I was pretty much broke and wound up getting everyone $20 gift cards. By everyone, I mean Ben's mom, Ben's sister, and got my parents a gift card for Red Lobster. I had to go halves with Ben's mom on a PS3 for Ben, which wasn't an easy task. I wanted to put it on layaway so that I could make payments on it since my life revolves around making payments to everything, but the only store that offered layaway was K-mart, and they were permanently sold out of PS3s for eternity I guess. Eventually, I got one from Best Buy and all was good. I decided to get him the PS3 because he deserved it. He's taken me to countless nice dinners, on vacations, it was the least I could do.

This year was much better. I was able to get my parents gifts that I was genuinely proud of...mostly the 2 foot long Abbey Road street sign that I got my dad for his man cave. I went to great lengths to obtain that sign.

About a month back or so, 3 weeks, whatever, I ordered what I thought would be an 18", metal, road sign off of Amazon. I waited roughly 2 weeks for this and received it 3 days before Christmas. As those 2 weeks were passing, I kept pulling up after work waiting to see a elongated package waiting gleefully for me on the front porch, but I never saw it. Finally one day, I open the mail box and pull a 12" envelope out of the mailbox. It was flimsy and bendable and much to my dismay, when I opened it, I pulled out what looked to be an Abbey Road bumper sticker. I was livid. I stormed into the house, whipping the 'sign' about and having a tantrum. I just kept looking at it like it was magically going to grow into the sign I'd imagined, but alas, it did not. Then I just started laughing. I laughed for a good 9 minutes, just looking from the 'sign' to Ben, Ben to the 'sign'. Finally Ben says to me, "Why don't you just return it?" Of course, this thought did occur to me, but what's the point? So we hung it above our living room doorway. Our house is not the typical Pier 1 Imports decorative display, but rather a colorful little thing full of blues and oranges and Grateful Dead, John Lennon and Phish art work and posters hanging everywhere. We agreed upon moving that our house was to look more like a museum of music rather than a Martha Stuart 'Living' magazine cover. Screw that. It's our first house, we want it to be original.

So after making peace with the whole ordeal, I came to the disheartening conclusion that the only way out of it was to drive 40 minutes North to a hell hole called Orland Park, Illinois. Orland Park mall was the only mall in the tri-county area that had a store that sold the actual sign I was looking for. I hate Orland so much...that's why I decided that buying it off Amazon and paying extra for shipping and handling would be worth not having to drive there. I'm thinking this was more the reason behind my tantrum in the first place than the $14 dollars I spent on the thing. You'd think that $14 dollars would have been a good clue that I was being ripped off, but did I check? Nope, I'm an asshole. So, after work one day, I sucked it up and started on my journey to Orland. I had listened to a co-worker on how to get to Orland 'quicker', so I got off the exit she suggested. As soon as I get off the exit, I am stuck in dead stop traffic, and still roughly 20 minutes away from the mall. Immediately regretting my decision, the road rage starts to set in. Naturally, the whore in front of me wants to slam on her breaks as much as possible which is only increasing my hatred for Orland more and more. I finally turn onto the road the mall is on, and wouldn't ya know it, I get stuck in another bout of dead stop traffic. Finally, after nearly an hour (this trip should not have taken me more than 25 minutes), I arrive at the mall and start looking for a spot. As I suspected, there weren't any, so I found myself having to park at the veeerry end of the lot, literally 2 spots away from the road. So I practically jog inside as I'm trying my darnedest to get in and out of there as quickly as possible, and luckily the store I needed to go too was directly across the particular entrance of the hell hole I'd entered. I power walk furiously into the store, grab the sign, and get into the check out. As I'm exiting Hell, people are just mindlessly slamming into me like I'm not even there, emo kids are hanging out doing emo things, it was a mess. I think I had a mild panic attack trying to get out of there. Once I got outside, it occurred to me that my car was so far away that I risked being stabbed or mugged on the way back to my car, so started running...I must've looked like such an idiot, but I didn't care. I had gray sweatpants on, black boots that Ben calls my 'pirate boots' that kept bunching up at my ankles, a dirty white coat with fingertipless gloves. I'm pretty sure I probably looked like a bag lady who had just robbed someone and was on my way back to my bridge or shopping cart or whatever bag ladies live in. I let out a huge sigh of relief once I finally planted my ass back in my car. Just when I'm home free and attempting to exit the mall's enormous retarded lot, I accidentally wind up in the one exit that only goes one way, which of course, was the opposite way of where I had to go. Eventually I turned around and wound up in the Chick-Fil-A drive thru to pick up a bag of fried cholesterol for Ben and I for dinner. I don't get it people, what's the deal with this Chick-Fil-A hype? I had a deluxe chicken sandwich, which is a basic sandwich, they just added cheese, and it tasted no different to me than any other fast food chicken sandwich with cheese. The Polynesian sauce that everyone raves about is nothing more then Burger King's sweet and sour. Seriously. Try them both, prove me wrong.

By the way, once I got home, I took a picture to compare both signs...the top one is obviously the wrong one!

Until next time...

"Here at Globo Gym we're better than you, and we know it"

2010-12-02T14:03:00.000-08:00

So I started going to the gym in the mornings now instead of the afternoon. I find that going after work is such a pain in the ass after a long day in the office. All I want to do when I get off is go home, put on my pajamas, most likely do a pile of dishes, and then cuddle up on the couch with my cats, is that so wrong? Plus when I go in the morning, it helps wake me up, gives me the incentive to go to bed earlier, and quite frankly I just like it better. The gym is much less crowded in the morning too.

The only problem I have with my morning gym routine is the town gossipers that invade the place every morning. Several elderly women, a middle aged woman who looks like Carrie Fisher circa 1991 who is a complete nutcase, and a few elderly men. I have become quite accustom to this morning crowd, and learned to drown out their constant rants with my Ipod. I believe that "Carrie" is an obsessive compulsive exerciser. She is there every morning when I get there at 7:50, already drenched in sweat, and vigorously power walking at an alarming rate of speed. After about 20 minutes she gets off, puts her foot weights on, and starts pumping iron. She's quite a gangly one. There's no depth or definition in her muscles as far as I can see, it's quite strange. You'd think from all that iron pumping and dynamic cardio she'd be ripped like a washboard but she isn't. Her and one of the elderly men are constantly yapping during their workouts. I heard her one day (over my Ipod I might add) telling him, "Yeah! Can you believe it! My daughter goes away to college and suddenly wants to be in a Jewish sorority house! I'll tell you what!..." Of course, this only led to a heated debate over religion and discipline. All the other old woman chime in, "Well in MY day!..." All the while, these screech monkeys are taking up all the treadmills, squawking back and forth to each other. Defeated by the unusual onslaught of old people every morning, I am forced to use the ellipticals.

Yesterday morning, I was doing one of my normal routines, starting on the elliptical, moving to the stair stepper, and onto the arm presses. There was an abnormality in the gym yesterday morning, as there was a new guy there. He was roughly 5' foot tall, resembling that of a pinched off loaf, sporting a sleeveless tee, black gym shorts, work boots, glasses, and a large back support belt. He wandering from machine to machine holding an 'O-Men' magazine and grinning strangely at everyone who would go within a 5 foot radius of him. Since he seemingly was guarding all of the arm presses, I went to the ab machine. As I'm using the machine behind him, enjoying some Primus on my Ipod, he's using one of the 3 arm presses (sorry, I do not know any of the actual titles of these machines, forgive me). The one he was using is the one where you sit down, and push the handles forward. For some reason, he decides to dramatically let go of the handles. I guess he was done using them and wanted everyone to know. The 7003849 pounds he was pressing went crashing to the floor with a deafening clang. Like I said, I had Primus blaring my ears, so the sound was considerably muffled, but it was definitely loud enough to scare the bejesus outta all the old folk on the row on treadmills. Quite startled, they all stopped squawking long enough to turn around and gape at him awkwardly for a few seconds before resuming to their gossiping. He got up and went stomping around the gym like an incredible asshole, checked himself out in the mirror and started working on another machine that was too close to me for comfort. I got up and started on one of the arm machines, that was next to the previous one he'd just been using. Not only did he not wipe down the machine he was sweating all over, but he left his O-Men magazine laying in front of the machine, displaying a whole 2 pages of lubed up steroid ragers like himself. I had not even gotten one lift in (this was the one you push upwards), and he was already careening around the corner from the back of the gym and walking right up to me. I quickly looked at the floor and pretended I didn't see him coming, but he just stood there. I finally looked up at him, Primus still blasting, and he said to me, "Let me know when you are done with that"...I read his steroid lips, but I knew he what he said. What the hell man? This is not your personal gym where you can leave your secretly gay magazines laying all over and question people trying to use the machines you may potentially want to use in the future. You also aren't wiping the steroid sweat off the machines! I was pissed. I pulled out my earbud and said, "Why don't you wipe the other machine down first and we'll see." Which is what I should have actually said, but what I really said was, "Yep." I didn't tell him though. I just got up and left. That'll show him.

Current weight loss: Fluxuating between 23/26

Pant size dropped: 2

New Goal: Drop 20-25 more pounds by the time we go to Florida, March 19.

Random Topics

2010-11-19T13:05:00.000-08:00

Random 1:

On the Surf Report the other day someone had referenced Jillian Michaels, and it got me going. I used to somewhat like Jillian when I started watching The Biggest Loser last season. I breifly idolized her intensity and passion she threw at you to achieve your goals. I wanted to stress 'briefly'. After purchasing Jillians book "Making the Cut" last year, I learned very quickly, that Jillian Michaels not only looks and talks like a transvestite, but that her ways of losing weight require you to be some kind of millionare chef of somesort. After reading the $400 grocery list, and the fact that Jillian emphasizes that you cannot drink, I retired the book into the cabinet never to be seen again. How dare her. How dare Jillian Michaels tell me I cannot drink. There is a part in the introduction of her book where she says, "BUT, if you have to have alcohol," I picture her rolling her eyes in disgust here like we are all scumbag alcoholics, "You are limited to 2 small glasses of vodka and some diet soda." Did it ever occur to Jillian Michaels that not all people are fans of vodka? I hate vodka. I have always hated vodka. After watching her videos and partially reading her useless book I've really come to hate her actually. I just really despise that manly attitude. I understand your body is ripped like Schwarzenegger's mutant offspring, but why the man voice and mannerisms. For God's sake Jillian Michaels, get the celery stick out of your ass, paint your nails, eat a McNugget and drink a goddamned beer. Live a little.

Random 2:

Lately I've been seeing a lot of nonsense on the news about opting out of being checked at flight security next Wednesday for Thanksgiving flyers. That was pretty much the icing on the cake for me. I don't need anything else to convince me that people are getting stupider and stupider. WHY the hell would you be trying to convince people that opting out of security is a good idea? You're really more worried about a security guard 'touching you' and taking a full body scan of you, then dying in a firey crash on a plane because some asshole suicide bomber wants to blow you up? Good God people, really?! Are you really that stupid, or are you just that hell bent on making some kind of retarded statement? Has anyone noticed lately all the potential bomb threats we've had lately? Oh, and 9/11? If I was going on a plane where half the passenger opted out of security, I'd be pretty goddammed scared. You don't think that there aren't some bombers out there watching the TV shitting themselves with glee and hopping online to buy plane tickets? It just really burns me. My opinion is, if you're going to get some stuffy assmunch that's not going to be willing to be checked, that guy can stay the hell of the plane and eat his Thanksgiving dinner in the airport lobby with the rest of his asshole friends. I just picture some fat idiot, bustling through the airport, red faced and sweating, stopping at the security line, then screaming profanity at the security guards because he's afraid someone is going to fondle his frontal ass. If I had a frontal ass, I would gladly let someone touch it if it meant saving my life. People just baffle me.

I will be back Monday most likely. Feel free to add your opinion, I'm curious what other people think about the plane thing.

Byebye,
Britt

Andy

2010-11-12T21:04:00.000-08:00

A few posts ago, and about 4 months ago, Ben and I brought home a new kitty whom I named Andy. The name was thought up when Ben and I had gone to see Toy Story 3 and I loved the idea of naming a baby girl Andy despite the gender. Toy Story movies have always been classics, and the name stuck with me. The lady, Karen, that we bought Andy from, explained to us that Andy (or Daisy they called her) was the only girl in the litter, and quite a pretty baby! she exasperatedly added.

We brought Andy home and introduced her to our other handsome furry forest cat, Poster. Poster did not take to Andy...in fact, Poster would not come into a room if Andy was in it. I took this picture from the couch one afternoon while Andy was napping in my lap, and Poster was watching and sulking in the other room. I was especially intrigued by the glowing eyes reflecting into the floor.

Eventually Poster and Andy became friends and were two peas in a pod, but it was time for Andy to be taking to the dreaded vet. I brought her there and set the carrier on the counter. The girl at the counter questioned me several times on the name..."So this is a male..."

"No, it's a female"

"A female named Andy?"

Now becoming slightly offended, I reply, "Yes."

She looks at me, confused, "Andy...this is a female?"

Now annoyed, "Yes. I named my female kitten Andy."

"OK."

So she takes Andy away. I finally left practically crying because I'm such a baby seeing my child be scared (I don't have kids, my pets are my kids), and went to work. An hour later I receive a call from the vet's office. I answer nervously, contemplating something horrible, but instead she says, "When you came in this morning, you told us Andy was a girl correct?"

"Yes, why what happen to her?"

"Well...I don't know how to tell you this but your Andy is actually a little boy..."

"WHAT?"

"Yeah, he has testicles...so we are actually going to neuter him...but at least you don't have to change the name!!!"

I was floored. I realize this may sound silly to some people, but it completely blew my mind to find out that our 'little girl' was actually a little boy. We'd been referring to him as 'Poster's little girlfriend' and 'our little girl' and laughing about how Poster will probably be humping her soon. We got a good laugh about that.

Well I am going to watch some Ghost Adventures and go to bed.

Goodnight friends:D

Oh blog...

2010-11-11T19:12:00.000-08:00

Hi blog...I miss you. For those of you who do read my blog, I must apologize for the lack of posts lately. Ever since the crazy lady quit I haven't had much time to breath. We hired someone to take her position, but recently I was pulled as the receptionist and bumped up to a different desk, and offered (forced) into a more advanced position arranging the med students clinical rotations. I despise it. My job mainly consists of me talking to various doctors around the US and setting up internships for the students. Makes me want to cry somedays. True story. I find myself frequently having breakdowns and turning into some kind of incredible office hulk, muttering profanity audibly under my breath and breaking into random sweats of frustration. You seriously wouldn't believe how some of these kids talk to us. I had a kid call me today asking me for certain information that he could only get from the medical school itself. As a reminder, we are the consulting office for the university, not the actual university. I explained to him as calmly as humanly possible, 'We simply do not have that information, you must call the campus for that." His response, "What good are you? What good is this office? Go on your computer and look at my file, and tell me what I need to know..." Flabbergasted, I looked at the phone like it had just tried to bite me, took a deep breath, and repeated myself several times before the insatiable douche finally gave up and did what I told him. Twenty minutes later, I received a call from a different students parent, which isn't a rare occurence, who decided he was going to waste 17 minutes of my time and tell me how unorganized our offices are and how this is that and that is this and blah blah blah. He continued to badger me and ask me several times if I agreed with him and what I thought of what he was saying and it took everything inside of me not to say, "I think you are a rambing fat asshole." Click. Several times during our 'conversation' he kept interrupting me to tell me that 'Money is not an issue...MONEY IS NOT AN ISSUE!' I guess my explaining to him that paying tuition is part of the medical school process, I was insulting his supposed wealth. I just don't get it. How do you call and talk to people like that who are trying to help you?

Anyway, I've been still going to the gym. I've lost over 20 pounds, dropped a pant size, and am slowly but surely getting to my goal. I've also started taking 1000mg of hair and nail vitamins so my hair is finally growing out...

I have lots of stories to tell so I will try and make time and quit slacking...I am going to drink beer and play Halo Reach now.

Love,
Britt

Hair-Over, Primus and Rothbury Fest

2010-09-23T14:25:00.000-07:00

I'm a little blue lately because although I am losing weight, and feel physically better, I am still having an issue with my pale as a ghost skin and stupid fricken hair cut that stupid fricken lady down the street cut recently. I've never really had a set hairdresser at a specific salon. I usually go to whoever is available and conveniently located for me. For as long as I remember, I had a lady named Vicki do my hair. She became somewhat of a friend to the family after so long, and I even threw up on her floor once when I was getting my hair done for my Aunt's wedding at the age of 6. I remember saying, "Hurry..." as I doubled over in threw up a half a gallon of orange juice onto her floor. She still managed to french braid my hair though. I threw up on my Aunt's wedding dress in the limo a few hours later. It was so ruffly you couldn't even tell. They are divorced now. Anyway, after highschool I became very good friends with my pink-haired, arch nemesis who had recently obtained her cosmetology license. She would do my hair frequently, testing new colors, giving me trims whenever needed, helping me pick out the perfect shades and developers, it was great. I had my own personal hair dresser. She even put 10" extensions in my hair one time. She was really good at what she did. Except, for some reason I seem to attract friends who are gypsies and can't sit in one place for a long period of time. They must move all over, make new friends, work different jobs, get bored, and start all over again. So one day she called me up and said her good-byes as she was suddenly packing up and moving to Michigan with a girl friend she met at a dance club. That was it, she was gone. After she moved away, I had another friend, Sammy who was a hairdresser. She was really good too, except she would charge me the same amount at a ritzy salon which I thought was a little weird. I don't mean to sound like a penny pinching bitch, but I'm your friend, you can't give me a little bit of a discount? If I had my license, I'm pretty sure I would charge for coloring, but not for simple trims and what not, especially not $20 bucks. Shortly after, Ben and I moved into our apartment, and we became friends with our downstairs neighbors. Wouldn't ya know it, she was a hair dresser. So I started going downstairs every so often for $10 hair cuts. Now we're in our house, and that couple had to move out of the apartment and into a parent's house due to the lovely job situation here in the depressed States so now I have no one. I've talked to the downstairs girl a few times but she has a new baby and what not so our schedules are always conflicting.

I finally gave in and went to a place down the street from my work. I told her I just wanted a trim and wanted my 'helmet' as I call it, cleaned up to make it easier to style. So what does she do? Gives me a bowl cut. Literally, she trimmed around the edges in a straight line and was like, "There ya go!", and did not even clean up the layers or anything. Unfortunately, I could not really tell that there was a problem until a few days later when my hair started to 'settle' and refused to do anything. I need a complete hair-over. I also would like to start tanning too. I just hate being pale at all times. I've tried the bronzing lotions and spray tans and they never look natural. I don't care how much they try to convince and sway you that it won't look 'orangey', fake or streaky, they always do. Especially since the lotions and sprays do not show up until like 4 hours later. I made the mistake one time of putting it on before bed and woke up looking like some kind of Oompa Loompa Zebra creature.

So October 2nd, Ben, our friend Cody, and my brother Brandon are going to Chicago to the Congress Theatre for Primus. I'm pretty excited about it. We saw Primus back in 2008 at Rothbury festival in Michigan. Which, was by far, one of the coolest and visually stimulating festivals I have ever had the pleasure of attending, I might add. I saw more colors walking through that forest then I've seen in my whole life. Especially at night when they had the forest lit with blacklights that was reflecting off glitter paper wrapped around the trees, it was truly amazing. We had to walk through there to get to the 'secret' stage where Primus was playing. As we all filed out of the forest, he started playing "Here come the Bastards', which was a perfect pick for an opener. It must have been an awesome sight from his point of view.

Unfortunately, since it was close to 100 during the day here and 50 at night, I was sporting a backless tanktop, a skirt and sandals from the daytime concerts. All the stages are bunched together throughout the forest, and the tent was about a half a mile away from the stages. Since we didn't have time to run back and grab a change of clothes, we didn't make it to the end of the show. I couldn't take it anymore...I'm pretty sure my lips were blue and had I had lost feeling in all appendages at a certain point, so Ben and I, frozen, hiked back to the tent and put on some warm clothes and ventured out to the after hours parties happening throughout the grounds. They also had what was called an 'Interactive Monkey Sculpture' which kept us entertained until about 4 in the morning. They had bongo drums attached to the base of the sculpture, when you would hit them, that's when the strobe lights would go off that you see in the video.

I'm pretty sad that Rothbury is no more. They keep promising a new festival but it's not going to happen. So I guess I feel privaledge that I got to attend the very first 2008 festival.

Well, I am going to start trying to figure out what to make for dinner. Good day all.

Random Rants and Stuff

2010-09-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

I am really hating this day. First I wake up this morning and my 'friend' has arrived for the month, which is always delighfully unpleasant. I don't step one foot out the door before being hit with a pounding headache. These kind of headaches do not go away with painkillers...well mine don't anyway. The only thing that makes these particular headaches go away is sleep. Sleeping is not something I can do at work. I have to sit at work, on the phone and listen to med students squawk in my ear, demanding for things to be done with them when they haven't even done the proper requirements or sent in appropriate documents for that particular thing to be done. It's exasperating. They always claim that 'nobody told me that' or 'weren't aware of that', and it's always the students who have been in school for 2 or more years. How could you not know? How could you not know how much time you are given to study for your board exams? Come on people.

Other than that, I guess I'm glad my 'friend' wasn't here over the weekend. We took my brothers to the Signature Room in Chicago for lunch, and it was great. I was pretty dissapointed they didn't put us at one of the many open tables with a window view...so we were stuck staring at table after table of Chinese people. I have nothing against Chinese people, but there were so many of them in Chicago on Saturday I questioned whether or not we had teleported into China at some point. It started to get weird...everwhere I looked, there were Chinese people. The food was good. They had Mahi Mahi, some delicious cheesy potatoes, cheesy broccoli, mostacholi, and some other goodies. They bought a basket of freshly baked bread and these giant tortilla chips on our table, which was good with the spicy vegetable beef soup they were offering. The only thing I guess I could complain about--just a tiny complaint--the waiters are a little too much. I genuinely appreciate good service, but we'd take one sip out of our drinks and there would be arms shooting from all directions refilling the glass to the brim. One time, the waiter came by to refill my brother's water, but he ran out water half way through. In the blink of an eye, another waiter filled the missing 2 inches with water as he sashayed past like a ribbon dancer in a gentle breeze. Most people would love that, but I guess we are used to stuffing our faces at Ruby Tuesdays and Red Lobsters and aren't used to that kind of treatment.

After the restaurant we took a wild cab ride over to Navy Pier and rode the ferris wheel. By far the biggest ferris wheel I've ever been on. I remember all of us exchanging nervous glances at certain points. My youngest brother kept snapping pictures with his cell phone and I kept imagining it popping from his grip like a bar of a soap and smashing into someone's head down below. The air tempurature and wind speed also drops and picks up at the top, which doesn't help calm your nerves one bit.

Well the work day has come to another end, will hopefully try to write tomorrow.

Hugs, Me.

Signature Room and Halo 3

2010-09-01T14:55:00.000-07:00

Hello fellow readers, whoever you are.

Has anyone ever been to the Signature Room at the 95th in Chicago? Ben surprised me yesterday afternoon by telling me he was taking me there for lunch on Saturday. We are bringing my little brothers too, so that will be interesting. My one brother Brandon, is a younger, male version of myself. We both play guitar, we both love the same bands, we're both easy going, and we both have a thing for Halo 3 on Xbox. We can hang out all day and laugh at toilet humor until we move on to video games and it would never get old. My youngest brother, Colin, is the exact opposite of me. He is 14, an all-star baseball player, plays Gears of War on Xbox, and likes Lil' Wayne. Completely different. I have a younger sister as well, but she is in a league all her own. She's a bit more temperamental then the rest of us. Her and Colin are more alike, me and Brandon are more alike, but Brandon and Amanda look more alike, and Colin and I look alike. See how that worked out? I always thought that was interesting.

Anyway, the Signature Room at the 95th is on the 95th floor of the John Hancock building. Ben and I went here for our one year anniversary and had a great time. If you look in the picture on the website (not the one above, that is not us), we actually sat 3 tables up from the left corner in front of the window. It was a $150 meal for two of us, but fun and romantic as well. I thought it to be quite rediculous the way they priced their menu items though. I believe I got the stuffed marsala chicken, and I asked for a side of broccoli. The broccoli was extra, $7 dollars extra to be exact. The entrees do not include sides. The individual garden salads were $8. My Bud Light was $7, but they poured it into a champagne glass, so I guess that made up for it...(heh.) Overall though, the candle lit, romantic ambiance, the live grand piano music, the beautiful view overlooking Navy Pier, it was all worth it. We're just going for their lunch buffet this weekend though. They have a pretty strict dress code for dinner guests, but lunch is just casual. They just ask that you don't wear beach wear...I'm interested to see what my brothers will come up with. Brandon's usual attire is jeans and a Grateful Dead or Primus tee, and Colin is an avid fan of Abercrombie and American Eagle attire. Colin told me he had a pair of high-top Jordans he would wear though...hopefully that will suffice.

Real quick before I leave work (I've been trying to finish this post for 3 hours...DAMN PHONE)...I found a video I'd seen on G4 quite some time ago. It's supposed to be a teaser for the Halo movie they are supposedly in the midst of making...awesome video. Check it out if you even know what Halo 3 is...

Halo 3

G'night all!

Success!

2010-08-24T16:44:00.001-07:00

Just so everyone knows, my first ever rump roast turned out amazing. I made mashed potatoes, and used the broth to make gravy...It was good.

Phish

2010-08-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posting lately, I've been extremely busy at work. I'm not complaining though, the wicked witch is gone and I will gladly take over the job if it means she's leaving. I finally got somewhat caught up today and realized I'd deserted my blog. I went to back to it and it felt like I was visiting an old abandon house. Poor blog.

So I went to Phish over the weeked. It was awesome. I forgot how much I hate sitting in the lawn at that place though. Alpine Valley is literally in a valley, so the lawn is a steep hill of agony that is scary whether your going up or down it. People are constantly going up and down so it's very likely that some drunk asshole will give you a 'bow to the the face or chest and knock you backwards or forwards. It would be a very painful domino effect if that happened. I made sure to stay close to the handrails during the hikes because I could only imagine the worst if I were to fall. Last year we were in 26th row pavilion, so I guess I can't complain. Here are some pictures from the show:

Me and the man...very excited lol.

Green Man...obviously stuffs. Don't lie, it's the first thing you looked at.

Ben jocked in his new camera...

This is our friend Jason, who repeatedly jumped off the loft in our hotel room.

Lake Lawn Resort Balcony Pics

So yeah, it was an awesome trip. There's plenty more pictures, but those were just a few of my favorites.

Sorry for the short lame post...work is almost over.

Have a good day and a pleasant tomorrow.

Six Flags, Gurnee, IL

2010-08-01T15:21:00.000-07:00

I have secretly been a complete wreck about taking my redemption trip to Six Flags. Last time I was there was summer of 2008, where I pussed out fairly quickly, and caused my boyfriend a hernia after he'd spent a hefty amount of money on me for that weekend. He booked a room at a nice hotel, took me out to dinner, and bought the tickets, so I can understand. I got the silent treatment the remainder of the day.

I had/have been watching the show 'Bert the Conquerer' on Travel channel for some time now, and I adore it. It couldn't have aired at a better time, because right around the time we planned this, this show came on. Bert was my inspiration to ride the dreaded ride I've been fearing for months. To be clear, I don't completely hate rollercoasters...I hate extremely big drops that send your stomach into your mouth and rob you of your air supply while you're plummeting down a drop. I guess that's what some people love about them, but not me.

We got to the park yesterday about 10 am, I could see that asswipe coaster peering at me over the trees, just mocking me. The sudden urge to crap took over me. We parked, and started on inside. As we got into line for the Raging Bull, the extreme fear set in. I can't even remember the last time I felt so scared and vulnerable. I was on the verge of sobbing. My hands were sweating, my body was frozen...I kept saying, "I can't do this...I can't go on this..." I forced myself to sit, pulled down the harness, and off it went. Ben and our friend Dan kept saying things like "We're almost to the top! Here it goes!" I yelled, "Please stop talking to me until this is over!" We were at the top, I closed my eyes, and we fell. The 208 foot fall only lasts a total of 4 seconds, but for that 4 seconds you cannot breathe, then it goes back up and around, and through a series of smaller drops, which you also can't breathe, then its over. As soon as it was over, I wiped my eyes, threw my arms up in the air and yelled, "BERT THE CONQUERER!" It was over. That stupid drop that I've been dreading for months for finally done with, and I was proud.

After that, the rest of the rides were a breeze. Even on the Vertical Velocity I was laughing and having a great time and that's the ride that made me call it quits last time. We rode 3 more after that, but then it got to the point where there was 90 minute wait times, so we went in the lazy river in the water park for a bit, before making a much needed stop at Joe's crab shack for some shrimp and crab legs, then home.

So I redeemed myself. Now I'm confident that I will be able to go on anything I want in Orlando in March, which is part of the reason we went yesterday. Going to Orlando would be pretty lame if I didn't want to ride anything at Universal.

Until next time, cheers!

Rollercoasters

2010-07-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

So tomorrow is the Concerned Employee's last day and I couldn't be happier. We've all been counting down the days. The only drawback to her departure is the fact that my boss decided that I would be taking over her job. I think I mentioned this in the last post. I didn't realize how annoying this process was actually going to be. She's been here this week, but has decided that she is done working, and has been dumping all of her files, e-mails, & phone calls on me and obviously throughly enjoying it, you can just hear the excitement in her voice as she tells a student to call me. I hate her. It wouldn't be so bad, if I knew anything about her job. She handles all the graduating students, and basically gets them through the graduation process, and ultimately presents them their degrees. Wayyyyy easier said then done. Has anyone ever witnessed the process of someone trying to get their medical degree? I mean, not just heard it from the student's point of view, but actually seen the work that needs to be done? It's a damn long process and a whole helluva lot of paper. The same time that 'CE' has decided to go on her way, they also decided to fire the girl that works in our Philidelphia office. Guess who was designated to take over her job? If you said 'you!' you're right...me. I think I mentioned this all in the last post though, so sorry for the deja vu. Basically I'm going to be doing the job of 3, and you're damn right I asked for a raise (in writing). I'll keep you posted on the outcome of how that goes...I have yet to hear about my pay increase request.

So Saturday, we are going to Six Flags, in Gurnee IL. I am incredibly excited, but secretly scared shitless too. Ben took me here back in 2008, we got a hotel, went out to a nice dinner, had a great night...the next day, we went on 4 rollercoasters and I had enough. I don't even remember what set me off. I just remember we went on the Dark Knight Coaster, Batman, Vertical Velocity, and then Superman. None of them were even that scary, I just hype myself up and keep telling myself that the cart is going to fly off the tracks and I'm going to go hurtling into the air and splat onto the concrete and the more I kept thinking it the more scared I got...but this is a common fear right? I know I'm not the only person in the world that thinks this.

The one I'm especially scared off though is the Raging Bull, that first drop is going to make me cry, I just know it. It's the tallest coaster there, peaking at 208 feet, and Ben will not let me live it down if I bitch out again. He was not happy with me that day, and I don't blame him, tickets prices are 100% bullshit.

I decided that I am going to mimick the show 'Bert the Conquerer' on Travel Channel. I smile like an idiot from ear to ear when I watch this show. Bert is incredibly afraid of heights, but has to do challenges that involve riding the tallest coasters in the world, skydiving, whatever he is deathly afraid of, he has to do. If Bert the Conquerer can conquer them, then so can I.

Bring it on Raging Bull...Bring it on.

Love Rant

2010-07-20T14:27:00.000-07:00

I am having somewhat of a terror of a day today, so I figured today would be the perfect day to write out my promised 'love rant' to counter the 'hate rant' I posted a few days ago.

As I said, the crazy lady has quit, and July 30th is her last day. I guess the joke is partially on me because my boss has decided that I am the perfect canidate to take over her work (the work, not being crazy). They've also decided to fire the girl the our Philadelphia office, and who did they decide would take over her work? Me as well. So I am doing both of their jobs, plus my own, which I don't even know what that is anymore. I've decided that I am going to ask for a raise...that's a lot of work. Even today, psycho has been forwarding all of her e-mails to me, and I honestly think she's getting pure excitement out of it. She's sitting over there, with her elf hair, snickering while she sends them, and bombards me with instant messages about how to do her job. That's exactly why I was avoiding telling her until the absolute last minute, but my boss had to spring it on her. It was only a matter of seconds before she was rattling away on the keyboard, telling me things like, 'Lol, Good luck!', and shit of that nature...I want to throw her out the window. I'm pretty sure she wants this place to crash and burn because she honestly believes that she is the heart and soul of this business. She keeps it running, and without her, we are nothing. Gawwwwwd, shut up already. I feel sorry for the people at her new job.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty down today. My phone has been ringing non-stop, e-mails have been pouring in, people are giving me work that they are very capable of doing themselves. Seriously, you can't put a file away? You have to leave it on my desk to put away for you? Sure, just add it to the pile, I'll get to it never. Ultimately the file will sit on my desk until someone is scurrying around the office looking for it one day and they come to me to look for it, and the cycle starts all over again.

1. I love texting.
2. I love Dairy Queen ice-cream. There is something about it that I find to be better then most ice-creams, and I stand by that no matter anyone says.
3. I love cottage cheese on baked potatoes.
4. I love wearing flip flops, and have literally worn them until the day it starts snowing. True story. I remember because Ben's uncle grabbed me by the shoulders one night, shook me violently and yelled, "You're gonna freeze out here in those flip flops kid!" I told 'em, I will wear them 'til it snows.
5. I love my Hyundai.
6. I love having hippie stickers on the back of it.
7. I love concerts.
8. I love being able to get drunk within walking distance from my house, but not actually at my house. No driving, no DUI!
9. I love the feeling when I leave the gym.
10. I love sleeping.
11. I love Saturday mornings, giving I'm not hungover.
12. I love going out to dinner with Ben.
13. I love being one of the only girls I know who can fingerpick a guitar.
14. I love storms (but not violent ones that produce tornados).
15. I love animals, especially cats.
16. I love beer.
17. I love music fesitivals.
18. I love writing.
19. I love Dr. Pepper, but not the commercials. Enough with KISS.
20. I love my mom's garlic rice.
21. I love the feeling of relief.
22. I love my house.
23. I love sticky notes.
24. I love themed parties.
25. I love hating the concerned employee.

That was a lot harder then the hate rant. I actually didn't enjoy doing that at all, I'm going to add that to my hate rant.

Well I'm off to the gym...maybe the lesbians will do something exciting...they never cease to annoy me, but I always love writing about them.

26. I love writing about the lesbians.

Love, Britt

Hate Rant

2010-07-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

Well we brought the new kitty, Andi, home last Friday. Poster did not take to her as well as we'd hoped. Friday night he avoided her and us like the plague, spending most of his time guarding his litter box, or hissing at her from across the room. We felt kinda sorry for him. It was obvious he felt rejected and replaced, but what can we do? As of Tuesday he'd become more adjusted. He hadn't been hissing as much, and has even ventured into the front room where she runs around so he can sniff her and watch anxiously while she plays on his scratch post. Monday, I was getting ready for work and I heard her playing on it, there was a moment of silence, followed by Poster screeching. By the time I got in there, Andi was hiding under the couch, and Poster was tearing off up the stairs. I have a feeling Andi jumped on him and scared him because she does not understand that Poster doesn't like her. Today was the first day we left Andi out of the spare room while we were at work. This morning they were running about like they were best friends, and upon checking on them at lunch today, they were still good. So finally that's over. Even though they are just cats, I swear you can still feel the tension between the two of them.

I was watching Tosh.0 the other day on Comedy central, and he was doing a 'Hate Rant'. 'Hate Rants' can also be found on Youtube by various strangers. I thought it was funny, and I decided to do my own.

1. I hate when I nicely let someone in front of me, and 3 or 4 more cars decide it's their turn too.
2. I hate when my internet is slow.
3. I hate when I go to the gym and their are lesbians hogging up the elliptacles.
4. I hate when I go to the gym and that same guy is on the last elliptacle the lesbians aren't already hogging.
5. I hate tapioca pudding. What are those little gel pieces in there?
6. I hate that my house always smells like cat butt, no matter how much I clean. I love my cats, but I do not love their bathroom habits.
7. I hate when I go into a public restroom to do a BM and someone always walks in right when you sit down. So you're holding it until they leave, but it seems they are purposely taking their time. Doing their hair in the mirror, drying their hands over and over with 18 papertowels, etc...I always feel better when they turn the hand dryer on though, then it's safe.
8. I hate when people think talking louder to people who don't understand English will make them understand.
9. I hate when you're trying to buy a new cell phone and they go through the entire process, excite you, start your account, then tell you your credit is shot and you can't have the phone unless you pay an $800 downpayment (Ahem, Sprint).
10. I hate when I go to a restaurant and there are floaties in my drink.
11. I hate waiters named 'Ted' at Olive Garden in Matteson, IL. He is terribly slow, forgets everything, and should not be a waiter.
12. I hate when I bite into a peice of good meat and discover it's loaded with chewy fat.
13. I hate when I switch lunch meats at the deli, and get home and discover they are full of chewy fat.
14. I hate when people ask me 'What?' before I even finish the question. Not only are you not listening, but you're also interrupting me.
15. I hate people at concerts who are in the crowded lawn with you, and block off a 10x10 area of space for themselves. If you cross into their imaginary space, the girlfriend will usually start whining to her boyfriend who will then try to start a fight with your boyfriend or friends. It's a concert, they are crowded, and unless you are paying property taxes on that 10x10 space, I'm gonna stand there goddammit.
16. I hate generic cheeses. For example, cheeses made with oil, not ok (thinking generic kraft singles, ugh)
17. I hate people with big stinky dogs who let their dogs drool, lay and enjoy the rest of the human luxeries of the home covered in rancid dog smell. I don't mind big dogs who are bathed, I'm talking about those smelly outside dogs. Your house smells, do you not smell that?
18. I hate those Christmas cookies that have the hard jelly in the middle, not appetizing.
19. I hate really big watches.
20. I hate cars that are shaped like tear drops.
21. I hate when girls put their hair up, and leave two pencil thin strips on both sides of the eye and then push it behind their ears, then completely drench their hair in thousands of gallons of hairspray so it looks like plastic. More often then not, there's usually an eyebrow ring thrown in there, topped off with a gaudy shade of white eyeshadow. It's not attractive, please stop.
22. I hate PMS.
23. I hate Totino's pizza commericials.
24. I hate the Concerned Employee.
25. I hate when people get offended by everything. Anything and everything you say offends these people, and they have to question everything you say. Lighten' up a little, life's too short to be pissed off constantly.

And that's it, I will post my "Love Rant" tomorrow. Off to the gym.

Ta-ta!

A Few Good Things

2010-07-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

How was everyone's fourth of July weekend? Mine was good. Last year for fourth of July weekend I was sporting a sinus infection and my right ear was swollen shut for 3 weeks. Since my ear was swollen shut, it was throwing my equilibrium off, causing me to be dizzy and miserable the entire weekend. Come to think of it, that infection didn't go away until the following weekend hours before a friend's pool Luau party. I remember I was dreading going because I'd been looking forward to it for a month and my ear was still swollen shut, actually at that point the swelling had went away but it was still blocked with mucus. That day, Ben and I were on our way to PetCo to search for what would soon be Poster, our cat, and I sneezed. Suddenly, it was like a whole new world was brought before my ears and I could hear again. Apparently the sneeze had jolted the mucus build up from the infection in my ear I couldn't have been more elated. We went to the party that night and had a great time. Booze, jello shots, slip and slides and mosquito bites to my hearts delight. I think I was celebrating the end to my 3 week sinus infection more than the party itself.

Since my fourth weekend was practically ruined last year, I decided this fourth, I was going to make up for the lack of one I had last year. Don't get me wrong, last year I still managed to have some fun, faked a few laughs, still managed to drink a few beers, but on the inside I was miserable.

Last Thursday (July 1st), I went to the gym after work, feeling absolutely fine. I got home, and had 3-4 beers out on the back porch with a girl friend, went in about 8:30, had a few triscuits and went to bed. No big deal. Shortly after getting in bed, I started to feel sick. I got up 4 or 5 in fear that I was going barf all over, and finally after not doing this, I fell asleep. I tossed and turned all night, waking up on the hour, having weird dreams and hot flashes and what not. All I kept thinking was, "My weekend is ruined...I have the stomach flu, I know it..". 5 am finally rolls around when Ben leaves for work and I discovered that I was now covered in itchy, blotchy hives as far as the eye could see. What the hell was going on there? First I'm awake all night with stomach cramps and flu symptoms and now hives? I'm not even allergic to anything. So I went back to sleep for a few hours hoping when I woke up they would be gone, but they weren't. In fact they didn't go away until Sunday morning, but I digress.

I called off work that morning, took some antihistamines, forced myself to do a little housework, and passed out on the couch for 4 hours. I started having a dream that my boyfriend called me and told me he was going out with his buddies after work for a beer, when I am abruptly awoken to my phone ringing. I groggily answer to my boyfriend who says, "Hey, I'm gonna go have a few beers with the guys." Ironic huh? Once I woke up from my 4 hour nap, I felt like a whole new person.

The rest of the weekend went swimmingly. Saturday we decided to venture out and try out a new water park close to home. Normally we go to Deep River water park in Indiana that's a solid 2 hours away, but we gave this one a try. This, 'Aquatic Center' was about 20 minutes away, and generally did the same job as Deep River, which is cool you off. They had a lazy river, which I called the turbo river, because the thing was going about 25 miles per hour, and a few dinky slides. I felt stupid going on the slides because there were swarms of tiny children surrounding the slides entrances, and Ben and I towered over them like the Stay Puffed Marshmallow man. It's sad when a small child looks at you like you don't belong there instead of the other way around. They also had a lot of really dumb rules. For example, the park attendees are given about a half hour in the pool before an announcement is made that everyone must get out so the lifeguards can cool off. I get the point of this, but the lifeguards can't just come down off their beach thrones and dip their feet in and what not? You have to clear 60 or 70 people out of a gigantic pool so 7 lifeguards can cool off? The first time this happened I only saw one go in, 2 others didn't even move, and the remaining ones just jumped down and dipped their feet in for a few minutes. Everyone just stands around the sides of the pool clearly annoyed. In the lazy river, you have to sit with your butt in the hole only or get a whistle blown at you 456 times. It was just dumb. We only made it about 2 hours before we were bored and ready to leave. We agreed that next time we would just go to Indiana.

So, I have greats news for those of you who have read my posts about the 'Concerned Employee'. You ready for this?

She quit!

I guess her many failed attempts at trying to get the rest of us fired really pissed her off and she's moving on. She hasn't told anyone yet, but my boss told Rochelle (co-worker) who helps him with the hiring, and of course she had to tell us. We were all giddy. We immediately started thinking of ways to celebrate. Her last day is July 30th, so I'm going to bring a cake the following Monday that says, 'Good Riddance Concerned Employee'. I have a friend who makes cakes and I've already made arrangements with her on what it should look like and say. It's going to be great. I even considered making T-shirts that say 'You're friends are not your friends" and giving them to the girls. The reason being is because after the first 'Concerned Employee' e-mail surfaced about my co-workers and I being on Facebook, and even had the nerve to get on my Facebook and copy and paste all my personal info to management, I blocked off my entire facebook, since it wasn't before and I didn't know, and only left the 'About Me' section visible to strangers. There, I posted this: CONNIE, STAY THE HELL OFF OF MY FACEBOOK! We are all well aware that you are "The Concerned Employee". And when I say 'we all' I mean EVERYONE. Do you realize how completely psychotic that really is? How many times are you going to try and get Lynnette and I fired by making up elaborate lies about us? I don't like you, for lots of reasons, but I would never try and get you fired like you did to us. It has just gone way too far. You have serious issues. Just remember, what goes around, comes around. So keep it up, 'cos you are only hurting yourself.

The very next morning after I post this, I get an e-mail that says, "It's not Connie, get your facts before you accuse, your friends are not your friends'. "You're friends are not your friends" has been giving us girls something to laugh about for months now, and we'd often talked about getting t-shirts made with that slogan to wear on casual Friday, every Friday. We started openly talking about 'The Concerned Employee' right in front of her. Except that we would actually say 'Concerned Employee' and not her actual name. What does she do when we do this? Nothing. She's completely silent. She just sits at her computer and looks straight ahead like she hasn't any idea what's going on. First clue that gave it away, is why would you be completely silent? It just makes you look more guilty. You'd think she'd ask what was going on, or want to be involved in some way, but no.

So it's over...at least we hope so. It's very possible that she could still send her crazy e-mails even after she's gone but who knows. For the time being I'm just going to smile and enjoy the sweetness of it all.

Second good thing that's happened is that Ben and I decided to adopt another kitten. A friend of Ben's moms works for a shelter and had a whole litter of medium haired, 8 week old kittens, up for adoption. We jumped on that because we have a thing for long haired cats. Poster is a medium haired too and you'd never know the way his long locks gets touseled and tangled and create a perpetual tornado of fur that whirls about the hard wood floors. I swear I vaccum twice, even three times a week sometimes and the fur just doesn't stop. You wanna know something funnier then the picture? Is that Poster isn't even fat, but he has so much fur it makes him look colossal.

Anyway, I feel like I've been typing for way too long. Have a good weekend friends.

PS: Our newest addition...

Yahooooo Answers

2010-07-01T13:45:00.000-07:00

I love reading Yahoo answers on a boring day like today. I was kind of neglecting my duties as a reliable answerer for the past few weeks, so I was on it again today, browsing some cat questions. I enjoy reading the cat category best because people ask the stupidest questions . Here are my favorites directly from the site:

1. I think my cat is dying, what should I do?
2. My cat has been foaming at the mouth, should I be worried?
3. My cat has bloody diarrhea?
4. When will my cat realize that it's chasing around a speck of light?
5. Why did my cat hiss at me when I picked it up while it was pooping?
6. Declawing cat so it stops attacking my pregnant stomach?
7. Can a rabbit get a cat pregnant?
8. Could my cats be evolving? If so, could they be trying to kill me?
9. My cat loves to sleep in a plastic grocery bag, is this safe?
10. I think my cat is dead?

The pooping one was my favorite, and it read:

My mom and I were talking in the kitchen when we heard our cat from below the window meowing loudly. We thought she might have been hurt so we went outside to check. We found her squatting in the grass, and when I approached her, her meows grew louder. When I tried picking her up, she hissed, kicked the dirt and bounced away leaving my mom and I laughing so hard at what she left behind for us. My cat is not aggressive at all. Why did she react this way?

My response:

I get pretty angry too when people sneak up on me while I'm pooping in the grass.

I also thoroughly enjoyed number 6:

i am pregnant and i think my cat hates the baby. i swear that it wants me to get an abortion and it keep clawing at my stomach. i want to declaw it so my fetus is protected. can i do this?

My response:

"My fetus"!? LOLOL, Thanks for the laugh! Seriously...thank you.

I just don't get people...You think that your cat is trying to claw your belly because it's jealous of your baby? By the sound of it, this woman should not even be having a baby, and how would a cat know if you had a baby inside? Are you retarded? I'm asking because I'm concerned. Not a concerned employee (heh), but a concerned individual for that poor child that will be bore into the world to a woman who believes her cat is trying to kill her unborn child. That baby is going to grow up afraid of house cats and will be one of those people on the Maury "Fear" show. They will bring out demonic clowns that will chase him with several house cats, and force him to pet them, and give them treats, and he will live in fear and seclusion in his mothers basement for the rest of his life.

Did I paint a nice picture for anyone there? Does anyone else feel cold and depressed now? Just kidding. Realistically I'm pretty sure this post was fake, and was posted by two 12 year old boys, giggling and peeing on each other or whatever little 12 year olds do...I dunno, showing each other their poop or something...little boys do weird things that usually has to do with poop, pee or boogers, so I'm just throwing out a shot in the dark there. I could be wrong though, nowadays it's probably looking at Busty Asian Beauties, chewing Skoal and drinking beer. Who knows, society is mess now. Did anyone see that video of that 2 year old that smokes cigarettes over in Indonesia or wherever? They said that he just picked it up one day and if they try to take it away he throws a tantrum. 40 cigarettes a day!? Who's buying this kid his smokes? Does he eat? Does he sleep? There is so many holes in this story...

Well I have about an hour of the work day left, so I'm gonna visit Peopleofwalmart.com.

Byeee:)

Storms and Toy Story

2010-06-30T14:18:00.000-07:00

I don't know about anyone else but I am loving this weather right now. Over the weekend it was so hot and humid you'd break a sweat just walking outside. Now the humidity has lifted, and it's a beautiful 74 degrees and sunny, and the most I get to do is sit and watch it out the window. This week has been completely dead. The phone calls die at about 1 pm and we sit here and twiddle our fingers or asses for the remainder of the afternoon. It's usually like this in between semesters though, it always picks up again and then our heads are spinning.

I believe I drank some sour milk this morning with my usual bowl of multi grain cheerios. I smelled it first because I couldn't remember when I bought it...I vaguely remember grabbing it at Wal-fart but I couldn't remember when that was. It smelled ok. It smelled a little like plastic I guess, but it didn't smell sour...Anyway, I poured a generous portion of the supposed tainted milk into the bowl, scarfed my breakfast and on I went. Before I even walked in the door my stomach started flipping. I've been a known 'stomachacher' my whole life, just having a nervous stomach, so I occasionally will feel ill after eating breakfast. I think it's just the sugar in most cereals that upsets it, and pancakes...OMG, PANCAKES, they are SO good, but they kill my stomach in the morning, so I ignored it and went to work. A few hours later I started feeling nauseous, and felt like a storm was brewing in my undercarriages. Just really short and sharp (shart?), pains like a bolt of lightening was striking my intestinal track. Whatever. I feel like I'm in some kind of pain constantly. My severe case of hypochondriacism is driving me c-r-a-z-y. I'm convinced now I have OCD because I saw a show about it, and I'm pretty sure these sinus headaches are related to an inoperable tumor in my nasal passage. If I knew any better, I'd have a nasal tumor, several different types of cancer, and whatever other things that my overactive brain can conjure up, all the same time. Siiiggggh...My boyfriend and my mom tell me I'm stupid, my dad, where I think I inherited this trait, would probably agree with me. Heh.

By the way, I never did give my review on Toy Story 3 which I saw recently. I bought tickets online that morning because I was certain it was going to be sold out. It was sunny and nice out all day, and an hour before I got off work, a really nasty storm started blowing in. I am an avid weather reader, and I like to be prepared if such a storm does hit, so I was reading about this storm on weather.com when as if on cue, the sky was almost immediately black, the winds picked up to about 50 mph, and I was in the midst of begging my boss to let us leave early. Storms normally don't scare me, but when I am away from Ben, and my car is sitting outside in an approaching hail storm, I'm scared. Plus, every room in our building has a window in it. Even a tiny bathroom in our kitchen has a tiny window...so what the hell? So I'm panicking, probably looking like an idiot, and getting visibly upset at this point, when what does my boss do, but starts JOKING with me...Basically calling me a liar, and probably thinking I'm just wanting to leave early because it's Friday, but I wasn't. I was truly scared and I wanted to get home, get my SUV in the garage, and sit in the basement with Ben and Poster. So he finally lets me leave around 4:20 and I raced outta here like I was on fire, and drove home. I managed to beat the pounding rain, but the wind was practically blowing me off the road. Of course, as luck would have it, I get stuck behind an old fart out taking a drive in the country, going 30 in a 45, and I couldn't pass him because of all the dips in the road. I was so pissed. This seems happen to me on the this road quite a bit. It never fails. Anyway, so I get home, the sirens start blaring and Rochelle (co-worker) calls me to tell me that our boss ultimately let everyone leave anyway because the power went out. See? He never listens to me! I suddenly feel like I got punched in the gut when I realized that I'd bought my Toy Story tickets online that morning and they are nonrefundable. The storm was heading towards the theatre the movie was at too, so we were a little perplexed on what to do. But, we made it. Luckily, the worst of the storm missed us and my $25 bucks wasn't wasted.

OK, NOW, the movie...It was awesome. Pixar never ceases to impress me. This was a GREAT ending to the classic Toy Story, and I highly suggest everyone go see it.

Oh and by the way, the movie didn't sell out, and it didn't even fill the theatre....sigh.

Well my stomach hurts, and I'm ready to get the hell out of this place.

I'm going to attempt a visit to the gym today, we'll see how that goes.

Concerned Employee Continues...Oh and Disney

2010-06-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

I hereby vote that our office hours should be from 8-4. These days just seem to drag on for hours and hours and some days I seriously feel like going crazy. Especially Fridays. Fridays it seems that we do not exist and the only people that call the office are wrong numbers and telemarketers. After awhile, I am trying so hard to stay awake that instantaneously get a migraine, which are often shortly followed by the following: severe fatigue, not just the brain but the body, blurred vision, nausea, yawning so much that my jaws feel like they are going to explode, and then me going to bed at 9:30 on a Friday night because the lack of events in the office made me miserable. Why 8-4 you ask? Well because, for those of you whose career paths have fallen into clerical, you know that the hours between 2-5 are the must excruciating time of the office day. Time seems to literally stop, and laugh at you. But honestly, shaving off that last hour would be so great. I'd get home earlier, and have more time after work to do things I want to do. When I get off at 5, if I go to the gym, and by the time I get home it's already 6. Once I get done doing dishes, it's 6:30. God forbid I have to go grocery shopping after work because shit, then I don't get home until close to 8 and then I go to bed an hour and a half later. It just sucks. I almost wish on extremely slow afternoons my boss would let us go early. But that'll never happen.

Well, I really don't have any updates on the "Concerned Employee". Lynnette has decided that she refuses to waste anymore time or energy on her, and whenever I think about it I get more and more pissed, so I'm trying to do the same. Monday morning I received a forwarded e-mail from her from a student asking who handles visas. CE is aware that I do not deal with the visas, but rather pushes the work off on me because apparently she thinks I do. So I forwarded this e-mail to my boss. Today, I get another forwarded e-mail from CE, from the same student complaining to her that I did not write her back. So what did the bitch do? She sent it to my boss. Making sure he saw that I was non-responsive to the student, which is a no-no. I didn't get in trouble because he saw I'd previously sent him the e-mail asking him for the answer because I did not know it. I also made sure to write CE back and tell her, "I do not deal with the visas, stop sending me these e-mails" and forwarded that to her and my boss. She wants to sit and play games with me, I'm just gonna start playing right back. I am so unbelievably done with her shit you do not even understand. I am so exhausted from her constant nonsense, and always having to defend myself, and feeling tense and uncomfortable because she wants to sit and frown like the miserable bitch that she is, I'm just sooo over it. Mind you, this woman is close to 40!

Anyway, I haven't done any gym updates in awhile, so lets see...Upon stepping on the dreaded scale of sadness (yes the one at the gym that never changes), it's claiming I have lost 17 pounds...yay! So it's changing now!

I was reading my previous posts and I came across one where I compared myself to the Stay Puft Marshmallow man. I about peed.

Otherwise, I realized that it wasn't what I was doing, it's what I WASN'T doing. I was going to the gym, getting on the machines for a piddly 5 or 6 minutes at a time, lifting a few weights, and calling it a day. So I started upping the work outs and now I'm doing 1-2 miles per work out. It's a goal of mine that every time I go, I do a mile or more, whether it be on the elliptical, or the treadmill. As soon as I set goals for myself, that's when I noticed that the weight started to go down. I believe a lot of it was water weight, but either way, I'm achieving something.

So you wanna know what one of my favorite things to do online is? I love reading reviews on hotels I've stayed at, or hotels I'm going to stay in in the future. Ben and I have been slowly putting pieces together for our trip to Disney in March, and so far we've come up with a few hotels and run through a quick list of Disney attractions we are going to visit while there. We are obviously going to stay in one of the value resorts offered here because otherwise a nice hotel would require about $3000 for a week. Which is pretty ridiculous considering the mortgage doesn't even cost that much for an entire month. The value resorts will be around $500-600. Hopefully. We are going to go to a few amusement parks, so hopefully I can get over my fear of roller coasters by then. We are also going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter...most likely Ben will have to drag me outta there because I'm pretty sure I'll be trying to move in within an hour. I can't wait!

Goodbye friends. Until next time...

"Concerned Employee" Strikes Again

2010-06-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

First off, I'm extremely disappointed in Blogspot and how incredibly difficult it is to center my header picture. I seriously tried to fix it for over an hour yesterday and I could not find the code to center it. I'm pretty sure I went cross eyed and had a few blood vessels burst in my head trying to find this code and it was nowhere. If anyone can enlighten me on this issue, I will give you a great big thumbs up and be extremely appreciative.

Yep, the 'concerned employee' has stricken again. My supervisor called me in his office yesterday and handed me an e-mail from this 'concerned employee'. This time I couldn't help but laugh. My supervisor's wife, who does not speak very good English, started laughing, and my supervisor cracked a smile. This E-mail reads, "Lynnette and Brittney are and have contacted ECFMG and dished out a lot of bad information about Dr. --- in hopes that the Royal closes so they can get UE. You can call ECFMG and Ministries of Health. Thye contacted everyone on information regarding Dr. --- "

Lynnette is my co-worker. Dr. Blank is the president/dean/owner of the Caribbean medical university I work for. ECFMG is the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, which I just had to Google, because I seriously didn't know what it stood for. ECFMG is basically the last step before a student graduates, and if a student is reported to ECFMG at any time during their education for behavioral issues, that student does not become a doctor. To recap, I did not even know what ECFMG stood for. Second, I do not have the contact information for ECFMG. Third, if I was going to slander Dr. Blank, I wouldn't have the slightest clue who to call. Fourth, I do not know anything personal about Dr. Blank because it's none of my business. On the occasion that I happen to have to open the office mail, I refused to even open Dr. Blank's envelopes, even though I was told I could. It's not my mail, it's not my business, and I’m not opening it. Lastly, I have never spoken to anyone at ECFMG in the year and half I've worked here.

For those of you in question of my position, ("you work at this place and you didn't even know what that meant?!") I do not deal with the graduates. I deal mostly with the new students, take care of the doctors files (students do internships with them called 'clinical rotations'), I prepare visa letters so that our Canadian students can cross the border, and I prepare letters of good standing for the doctors allowing the students to rotate with them. I also take care of the office billing, sit on my phone with student’s non-stop, answer dozens of e-mails per day, and so much data entering that I swear I could pee data if I tried. That being said, I do not have time to sit and collaborate with my co-worker, Lynnette, and plot schemes on how to sabbotash the office so we can sit on our asses and collect unemployment.

For one thing, I have tried to collect unemployment before when I was let go from a retarded 'managerial' position I temporarily held at U-Haul. It was a horrible ordeal. They need paper work from all your previous jobs, they need to talk to all your previous employers, and when all said and done, I wouldn't even be making half of what I'm making now. Not to mention that if you had a bad experience at one of those places and your previous employer bad mouths you, they most likely won't give it to you. I could be wrong, as this was over 4 years ago and I don't really remember. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

The 'Concerned Employee' on the other hand, since I'm 100% positive I know who this is, is the one that is constantly dealing with ECFMG. The Concerned Employee also comes in a half hour early each morning, even though she does not get paid for it. What the hell is she coming in that early for? If you have no reason too, why would you purposefully get up earlier then necessary to come to work? She's not scoring points with our supervisor because he doesn't even get here until 10 minutes after 9 each morning himself.

Before the Concerned Employee went completely psycho and I still talked to her periodically, she expressed how much she did not like Lynnette, and she was also constantly bitching because the state does not offer disability for Fibromyalgia (which he has supposedly). So it's very possible that she could be coming up with this whole elaborate scheme to try and get the office closed herself so SHE can get unemployment.

It sounds crazy, I realize this, but I am not making it up. This woman is completely off her rocker. I've worked at a lot of places with a lot of different people with different and various personalities, and I've NEVER met anyone as nuts as her. It seems she is set on ruining my life, and I haven't the foggiest idea why.

As soon as they prove these e-mails are from her, you mark my words, I am filing a suit against her. I'm not letting her get away with trying to get me fired, not once, not twice, but three times! Come on already!

Well I hope everyone enjoyed my post. I will keep you posted on the crazy lady! There's always a story when she's involved!

Emo Kids

2010-06-18T13:36:00.000-07:00

It's just one of those Fridays today. Busy morning, dead afternoon. I've been sitting here listening to the a/c running in the office for the past hour. I even attempted to convince my boss over the yahoo messenger that leaving early today would be a good idea. I told him us girls already took a vote on it. He just sent me back a mad face, so I just assumed that was a no.

Ben and I are going to see Toy Story 3 tonight at The Paramount in shoot-em-up Kankakee. I would enjoy going to this theater so much more if it was in a nicer neighborhood. I hate going into movies here and having a bunch of little kids doing the crib walk during the movie, and have Shaqueefa talking to Moniqua as loud as possible on her cell phone about 'this baby daddy and that baby daddy', come on. Plus the staff here is just so SAD looking. They are all pimply little emo kids with jet black hair swept forward into their eyes, thick rings of eyeliner around each tearful eye. It's so weird. If you hate your life and your job THAT much, go dig a hole in your backyard and live in that. It'll be dark and cold like your soul.

Seriously though, what is wrong with some of these kids? Have you ever seen the sickishly skinny boys wearing skin tight girl pants with like purple zebra print shoes and a yellow bandana for a shirt? I just don't understand it. I used to hang out with guys who would dress like that because I went through a slight emo phase myself when I was like 16. But I didn't dress like a borderline goth, I just listened to a lot more sad acoustic music and started hanging around with 'scene kids' with septum peircings and weird peircings in the middle of their cheeks and whatever other freakishly I'm-screaming-for-attention peircings they could think of. It got old really fast because I learned the hard way that emo kids are HIGHLY sensitive and easily offended. If you say one thing that might question their motives it's an immediate drama fest. The guys were actually worse then the girls. One of my emo friends came over for a small drink fest at my house one night and my mom asked him why he had a purse, he replied angrily, "It's not a purse, it's a sachel!' (I swear to God I am not quoting 'The Hangover', this kid ACTUALLY said this, and this was in 2002), my mom replied, "Ohhh, so it's a man purse..." He didn't like that too much, but we had a good giggle over it later. That kid hated me for a long time and probably still does. Heh. Come to think of it, that kid actually worked at Paramount! What a coincidence!

Well I'm outtie. Not much going on today.

Those Damn Lesbos

2010-06-16T14:48:00.000-07:00

So I was at the gym last week sometime, can't remember which day, and one of those damn lesbians was there. I was on the elliptacle that they never go on, and Uncle Pat was on the treadmill in front of me. I noticed she kept looking out the window, every 5 minutes or so, and I was under the impression that she was looking over her shoulder at me to see if I was done yet. I started to get real angsty and huffy about it. I feel like everytime the butcher of the two is in there, she's always eyeballing me. Not eyeballing me because she has a crush on me or anything (thank God), but eyeballing me because she's jealous or something that I'm using a machine she may potentially want to use soon. Finally, I saw that stupid red stationwagon pull up, and you'd swear this lady had never seen Uncle Beatrice before...it's so nauseating to watch. Uncle B is a short little woman about 4' 9", the tradition dykey salt and pepper grandma-do that old lesbians seem to adore so much, and bushy little eyebrows covered with glasses. She walked in there with a big smile her face and practically glided over to Uncle Pat like she was in a dream and they stared at each other lovingly. It's so sickening. It's one of those things where your so disgusted you want to look away but you can't. So I just sood there and watched them chat while listening to my ipod and squinting my face in a disgusted fashion. Uncle Pat is clearly the man in the relationship because she's very masculine. She stands like a guy, talks like a guy, and just has 'guy' mannerisms. I'm sure one of these days I will undoubtedly catch her 'fixing' her crotch area like a burly baseball player, then I will have wash my eyes. Uncle B actually looks pretty normal and looks like she should work in a library or something, whereas I have a very strong suspicion that Uncle P works as a forklift truck driver in a factory somewhere. Luckily, the ambiguously gay duo hasn't been there all that much lately, which is good because they really put a damper on my work out with all there mushy love staring and their simultaneous work outs. Yeah, you're gay, we know, but do you really have to work out in sync together and do all the same movements at exactly the same time? Gawd. I have a boyfriend too, but you don't see us running side by side on a treadmill, at the exact same speed, jeez people.

But that's all for today, I'm off to the gymnasium. Byebye.

Xbox and Pickles

2010-06-15T18:51:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what's going on with me lately, but I swear for the past two weeks I have had a different bodily dilemma funkin' up my life. First, I'm not sure if it's allergies or what, but I get these staggering headaches, followed by nausea, followed by extreme fatigue, followed by me going to bed at 9:30 the night before I took my vacation day, sooo I shoulda been drinking and playing Halo 3 on Xbox and cussing out 12 year olds Xbox live, not going to bed. The next day, (this was last Thursday by the way, June 10th), Friday, I felt like I was constipated. Then it slowly turned into a dull pain in my abdomin and groin area, and I quickly realized that my bladder infection was coming back for revenge and I only had 3 pills left from the previous one from a month ago. Yeah, I didn't finish the bottle like I was supposed too? Big whoop, wanna fight about it? So I payed the price and ended up having to go to the doctor again and pay $70 bucks out of pocket for him to tell me the same exact thing he told me last time and prescribe me the same exact medicine. I originally called to ask them if they could just simply fill it for me since I knew what it was and they said no. Cheap asses...but nonetheless, they did take me yesterday without an appointment and got me in and outta there in 40 minutes. The perks to that was that I got out of work an hour early, got my prescription refilled, and still had time to go to the grocery store, get my new registration sticker, and still made it home by 6pm to enjoy some yummy soup and sandwhiches with the man. Trust me, I would much rather pay $70 bucks and see a nice legitimate doctor, a minute from my house, then go sit back at Aunt Satan's Asshole, 25 minutes away, in the ghetto again, and wait 3 hours only to find out that I have to wait 3 more hours for a brand new doctor fresh outta med school...For those of you confused, please see my previous entry about 'Insurance-less chaps'. So anyway, today I wake up, and I had to think whether or not I'd gone out drinking the night before. My head was pounding. I felt like someone had punched me directly in the eyeballs. My forehead, temples and cheekbones were thobbing like my head was a heartbeat, and I considered calling off work. Unfortunately, I had just taken a vacation day the previous Friday for a Phish show, so I couldn't take off another day. So I popped two Aleve, got ready anyway, and carried on with the day. Despite the pain I managed to get a lot done today and even made it to the gym to complete a mile on the treadmill--found out I lost about 8 pounds in the last month...awesome. I also found out that the scale at the gym that has been plaguing me for months is a peice of shit and adds about 4 pounds to everyone's losses. So that whole time when I was freaking out thinking that I wasn't losing anything and couldn't figure it out, it was just the stupid scale...Did I not say it?!!? Did I not say a few posts ago, "I don't believe that scale"? I totally did.

Yesterday, upon returning home from the grocery store, I was unloading my groceries when a sickening crunch of breaking glass was heard from behind me, immediately followed by a wave of cold liquid on my new gladiator sandals. A giant jar of delictable Claussen pickle halves had ripped from the bag and attempted an escape. So now, I'm standing there with my purse, 3 bags of groceries, feet soaked in pickle juice and those weird floaty spices, a pile of broken glass and about 8 beautiful pickles laying in the driveway. For a second I just stood there, seriously considering picking up the driveway pickles, rinsing them, and transporting them into a tupperware...then I pictured myself marching back to the grocery store with the contents of the pickled mess in a plastic bag and demanding a new jar. Claussen's aren't cheap, they are roughly $4 bucks a jar, and never on sale, but they are SO worth it. The salty, garlickly goodness topped off with a perfect juicy crunch, you can't go wrong. They aren't vinegary and rubbery like some. Yuck. But, I digress...I went inside and got the broom, and sadly swept the poor little guys, accompanied by a pile of shards, into a dustpan, and threw them into the garbage in slow motion. I could hear them screaming on the way down, and I had to walk away. It was a sad day in pickle history, and I'm SO pissed at that little blond idiot at the grocery store who didn't double bag my glass. She looked like Garth Algar from Wayne's World. Infact, she put a plasic jug of cranberry juice in with it. I mean, who does that? It's not rocket science...when you are distributing the items into a plastic bag, you can pretty much determine at that moment whether or not the bag will be able to hold the heavier items without overstretching the bag. Sigh. So being the nice person that I am, I disregarded the whole situation, and gave the Garth-look-a-like girl a break, for now.

I also hit a bird with the Sante Fe today...there were definitely bird guts in my grill and I wanted to throw up upon inspecting it. The thing flew right into my car while heading down a main highway...I just pictured the oncoming drivers laughing at me.

Well Ben is snoring on the couch, and I'm taking this opportunity to play me some Halo, so I will see everyone on the flip side.

Party on Wayne, party on Garth.

Ants, cats and things...

2010-06-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

I woke up today, feeling like a zombie. I have a feeling it has something to do with the humidity making me feel sluggish, or the fact that we just got back from a fun, sun and beer filled weekend, but I had an extremely hard time getting up this morning. I trudged down the stairs, eyes still closed, found the werewolf and snuggled with him on the couch for a few more minutes before he scrambled away. After my shower, I was getting ready for work as I usually do, when I noticed there was some kind of parade going on.

This wasn't a normal parade with music and gay floats and what not...but a parade of hundreds of ants filing giddily into my kitchen. I stepped closer to the sink, one foot at a time, eyes wide like the ants were some kind of alien ants and were going to spew acid in my face or something...I muttered a load of obsenities under my breath...They were everywhere. The parade ended in a town ant meeting in my sink...I just stood there, staring. I had no idea what to do...it was about 8:10, I had to leave in about a half hour. My hair wasn't done, lunch wasn't made, no breakfast had been eaten, and I knew this little fiasco was going to take up some time. My first thought was I needed to spray them with something, and not having any bug spray, we use Lysol antibacterial spray to kill pests. So, I drenched them in antibacterial spray. It killed all the ones having a party, but did not stop them from filing in from the outside. They were coming in from the back door, and the crack where the cabinets and the floor meet. There is also a giant hill in our garage, and apparently another one under the porch, so I have a pretty good feeling they were coming in from the basement. So I vaccumed and Lysol-ed them all for the time being, then threw the vaccum bag away. While all this was going on, Poster decided this would be a fine time to get inside the cabinets and roam around, which he knows he should not be doing, but seems to enjoy testing my patience when necessary--I was over this day already and I'd been awake for about an hour.

I finished doing my hair quick, and by this time, it was 8:44. Awesome. I had literally no time to do anything else. I brought a tupperware of cheerios and a 'bullet' of milk (the airtight container found on a 'magic bullet mixer'), for my breakfast, stomped on a few ants on my way out and drove to work in an angry tizzy. I don't even remember driving to work, that's how angry I was. As I'm sitting down to start my day at the office, it dawned on me that it was June 1st. June 1st is the day my sticker expires on my car. So I called around for prices and everywhere is pretty much the same...$104.00. Including a $5 convenience fee. Convenient for who!? So that just struck my angry bone some more. It's only my luck to be pulled over and ticketed for the sticker, so I'm just waiting for that to happen...

So anyway, lunch time comes and I told the boss that I was going to take a long lunch so I could go home and spray for ants. I called the local Dollar General to ask them if they had traps, they said yes. When I got there, they didn't have any traps. I guess within the 5 minutes I called there must've been a sudden rush of ant trap Crazies trampling into DG, must be an out break of ants or something (rolls eyes). So I settled for a indoor/outdoor Raid spray with a 'fresh comforting scent', which I found to be some sort of oxymoron...A can of death with a fresh comforting scent...oook.

So I sprayed a perfect jet of comforting death spray into the ants marching grounds, being careful to make sure I didn't get it everywhere because of the werewolf. I sprayed it precisely into the crack where the cabinets and floor meet, in front of the back door, and unloaded a destructive amount of spray into the hill in the garage. I went back in and took a papertowel around the cabinets where I sprayed to make sure Poster didn't get any notions. But as usual, I was right. He promptly made his way straight to where I just sprayed and began sniffing around. Don't be fooled, the fresh comforting spray evidently attracts asshole cats as well as entices humans with the beautiful aroma. But I wanted to see what he did. I couldn't stay at home to baby-sitt the little snot all day, so I watched him to see what he would do. Luckily, he only sniffed and carried on his way.

I wanted to mention also, that yesterday, we bought him new elevated bowls because he has a bad habit of pushing his water bowl all over, causing it to spill. He also usually pushes it right next to his box, which is never a good thing. So these elevated bowls are simply two steel bowls, perched into a large plastic holder with a rubber ring on the bottom. Kind of like the one in the picture, except black. I spent $14 bucks on this thing, and what does he do as soon as I set it down and fill it up for him? I walk away, and I hear him pushing it across the floor.

I need a vacation. Seriously.

The Danny Stories

2010-05-26T11:59:00.000-07:00

When I was about 10, my parents, my sister, brother, two of my aunts and two of my uncles, and my two cousins Michael and Danny all went to Yogi Bear campground somewhere in Indianer to camp for a weekend in the pop-up campers. Before I got too old and cool, I absolutely LOVED the trips to the Yogi. I'm not sure if it was the one water slide down at the murky brown beach, or the idea of living in a tiny folding house for a weekend, but I loved it. My cousin Danny was the same age as me, and we were practically inseperable growing up. He was my best friend for years to come.

After arriving and parking the pop ups, we had our hearts set on sprinting down to the pool. The adults gladly agreed to get some long needed drinking in, and told us they'd meet us there later. Michael had wondered into the forest to fish or something, and mom made me take my sister along. You know that one little kid that's always trying to catch up in the foreground with the floaties? That was her. The pool was unusually desserted when we got there. Just me, my sister and Danny--Danny cannonballed into the water, and I was being shy, pokin' one toe in at a time trying to get used to it. Eventually I got in and swam for a bit, and then got out to dry off. I remember the weather wasn't all that nice that day, so it was chilly. As I was drying off, I glanced over at the two girls who had shown up and were making a ruckus. They were being real nasty to each other, in a ‘playful’ kind of way, if that’s what you’d even call it. They were calling each other names and trying to pull each others bathing suit bottoms down...something that I obviously didn't want any part of. Suddenly, one of the mini-skanks looked in my direction--I wished suddenly that I was invisible, but I wasn't. The girl asked me, 'What are you a lesbian or something!?' Even though they were clearly talking to me, I responded with, 'Are you talking to me?' They giggled, and continued tugging at each others bathing suits..."Yeah lesbian! Why are you looking at us!?'

"I wasn't looking at you."

God, I wished my future self could have come popping out of a time machine then. My future self would have said some very colorful phrases and told those girls how I really felt. Obviously, they were the ones with the lesbian tendancies, and I wasn't looking to see them naked, I just glanced over to see the commotion was and that's all it took. They stood there taunting me for what seemed like hours.

My sister was too young to even realize what was going on, and Danny had suddenly become a pro at holding his breath under water and made sure to stay there for as long as possible to avoid helping me. I kept looking to him for help but every time I would look I would just see the top of his head and a halo of bubbles. I was a very sensitive little kid, so I’m just standing there, fighting back tears and these little fatherless skankazoids were just harrassing me…when who should pull up at the perfect time, but my dad to the rescue. He yelled “What are you girls doing!!?” And of course, they scampered off innocently without another word. Danny conveniently popped out of the water and said, 'Oh, we leaving?' I frowned at him. I'm pretty sure as we were getting into the van, Danny and I yelled, "JERKS!" or "IDIOTS!" or something a kid would say...Danny's favorite phrase as a kid was 'cheapskate', so it's very possible that he yelled that at them too even though it had nothing to do with the situation.

I told my dad what happened and as any concerned parent who's child is messed with, he started yelling and was tempted to turn around and possibly drown the little bitches, or something of that nature, and we all just laughed. Then he yelled at Danny for not helping me. I felt much better. I was never one to fight. I tend to clam up under pressurized or awkward situations. I'm one of those people who doesn't think of the good comebacks until 10 minutes after the fact.

Shortly after that fiasco, Danny and I found a new way to entertain ourselves. We somehow managed to convince my dad that letting us drive the golf cart he rented around the camp for awhile was a good idea. So we drove around for probably a solid hour before a cop pulled up and started doing what cops do, and just being a jag off…asking us for our licenses, even though we were clearly 9 & 10 years old, we were laughing, like yeah, we TOTALLY have licenses! We didn't really understand what the big deal was, we were tall enough to reach the pedals, the thing didn't go over 20, and we were in a campground. It's not like we were out on the expressway.
We tried to lose him by driving down a bike path, but much to our dissapointment the bike path was a loop and looped right back around to where he was waiting for us. So we got reemed for a minute, but he let us go, and we got our drunk Uncle to drive us around for awhile. He was driving through bushes and all kinds of pollen dusted shrubbery for our amusement, Red Dog beer in hand. I almost flew off a few times, got hit in the face with a few low hanging branches, but we had a blast.

I remember Danny and I spent a lot of time on a swing set too. It was one of those swing sets that's extremely tall, with very long swings, which gave us plenty of swinging power before we jumped off them into the sand.
I have plenty more adventures with Danny and I, but I have to really fish for these memories!

Note to mom & dad: Technically, that was my first encounter with a cop. Hehe. I know...not funny.

Sites N' Stuff

2010-05-24T14:48:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the slacking lately. I've discovered a few more websites to keep my busy during downtime at the office so I've been neglecting my writing a bit.

Let's see...

- http://www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com/ - Awkward Family Photos, truly a gem of a website for any bored person.
- Yahoo Answers - Pet Section - Cats - People ask the weirdest questions about their cats and you have to leave your 'answer' or 'opinion' to their question. You score points with each question. People can give you a thumbs down or a thumbs up, and also can rate your answer as the best. I am obbsessed. I've scored 655 points in 3 months. To do this, go to Yahoo, make an account if you don't already have one, scroll alllll the way down on Yahoo.com, and click Answers. I never knew it was there because it's a tiny print at the bottom of the Yahoo website, but I'm glad I found it.
- http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/ - This is a classic, and self explainatory.
- http://www.failblog.com/ - Had me in tears at work laughing.
- http://www.thewvsr.com/ - This is a blogger I discovered when looking up the side effects of Alli, the weightloss pill. I absolutely love this site, and love the reads. I was almost embarrassed, but then proud when I realized I was a top commentator. Thanks Jeff Kay, your blog has turned into my new facebook. This is the first site I check now when I get to work in the morning.

A few little updates:

I have lost about 16 pounds so far. The scale is still telling me I've lost like 4, but it's one of those gay scales where you have to move the little tab yourself. I just don't believe it, there is no possible way. My jeans are fitting looser, my double chin is gone, and I can just TELL. Why 16 you ask? Well because when I was at the doctor a month ago, I was down 10 pounds, and that was with clothes on, and I've lost some weight since. So I'm just rounding it off at about 16. I have had countless amounts of people asking me if I've been losing weight and I can finally say 'YES! YES I AM, THANK YOU FOR ASKING! SERIOUSLY THANK YOU!' I hoping that at this point, I will be where I want to be by August-ish. I had my boyfriend cracking up the other day. We were driving to go get some food for a cookout and we saw a real fat guy stopped at a stop sign. He was panting real hard like a bulldog in a sauna, and my boyfriend said, 'Man...that guy looked real fat and miserable.' We laughed, and then I made the comment, "Yea, that's why I have my heart set on losing weight, I'm sicking of being miserable and uncomfortable in the summer time." There was a pause and he started laughing and said, "You act like you are obese or something." I'm not of course. But seriously, even being 'thick' in the summer time can be excruciating. Especially for people like me who are extremely self concious. Unlike some girls, I can't be thick, and still wear skin tight belly shirts and shorts that look like underwear. I like to be somewhat conservative and try to wear clothes that can still flatter girls with some 'junk in the trunk'. Ha ha, that saying is so lame. But I've seen some girls who are like 230 pounds, wearing tube tops, cut off jean shorts in which each worldly sized buttcheek is hanging out of either pantleg, there stretch marked pimply cleavage slapping about in everyone's face, and that's just not right.

I believe in the saying, 'shake what your momma gave you', but I believe that saying was created with intentions that you'd be shaking your inherited goods with clothes on. Kind of a black person's spin off on 'dance like no one's watching'.

Well work is about over and I'm about to go the gym.

I'm up to a mile and half on the elliptacle/treadmill...I'm going for 2 miles tonight. If I can do two miles in the elliptacle, it'll take me about 40 minutes and I will burn about 450 calories. Nice. If I did it on the treadmill, it would be less calories, same amount of time. So I'm going with elliptacle. Wish me luck.

Disgusting clinics for Insurance-less chaps

2010-05-07T14:55:00.000-07:00

Weeeeelllllll, goood afternoon.

Tuesday afternoon I was forced to go to the doctor for an apparent bladder infection. I'd noticed it about 3 weeks ago, where I just felt like I had overstretched my stomach muscles, but they weren't unstretching themselves. I thought it was from working out, so I stopped going for a couple days, and the pain persisted. Shortly after, my lower back started to ache, and my stomach felt heavy. I felt like I was wearing a clip on Donald Duck fanny pack fulla lard. I try my very hardest to never go to the doctor, mostly because I hate it, but also because I'm always afraid that a little twinge or twitch is going to be something incurable or severe. So I made an appoitment at a place called Aunt Martha's, in a ghetto, shoot 'em up town called Kankakee, IL. Kankakee is the kind of town that should be on the show First 48 on A&E, and I often like to refer to it as "a slum of Chicago wannabe". It's not uncommon to open the newspaper everyday and read about someone getting shot at, run over, and robbed on a daily basis in this exceptional hole.

"KANKAKEE -- Authorities in Kankakee say they've charged a 21-year-old woman with involuntary manslaughter in the death of a legless man whose body was pulled from the Kankakee River this week. --Daily Harold " See? Even legless hobos aren't safe.

Since I have about a gazillion bills to pay every month, health insurance is not an option for me right now. So, I have to make an appointment at this clinic, because they take donations rather then insurance. I usually give them $10 bucks a visit. My appointment was 12:45, Tuesday afternoon, May 4th. I took a half day off work, knowing this place is slow, and took a book of scary stories to keep me company in the overfilled, over-smelly, lobby of goons. The past two times I'd been there, I waited for close to an hour and half before being called, so I was prepared.

After about an hour, I'd read almost 2 chapters of my book, when I heard a lady in the corner, stomping, huffing and checking her watch. I heard her say, "Goin on 3 hours now!"...I figured she was just exaggerating, so I carried on. Another half hour went by, and I was starting to get angsty. Normally, I wouldn't mind so much, but this place is full of loud, obnoxious, assholes who have no respect for the people around them. Half of them are coughing or picking an orafice, half of them are talking on the phone as loud as possible about how, "no man aint gonna get nuna dis jelly!' and, the rest are holding there four crying babies and filing their nails at the same time. It's quite a spectacle. Normally, I would be patient, but I was agitated with the surroundings, and incredibly uncomfortable in the tiny chair, that I finally went up to the window and asked how much longer it was going to be. I made up a lie that I had to pick up my boyfriend and had to leave at about 3:30, which is reasonable I think considering my appointment was at 12:45. The receptionist quietly explained to me, "The primary doctor had to leave to assist another clinic, and there is a new doctor in her spot, and she's very slow..." She looked through the files..."you still have 5 people in front of you, and there's 5 in the rooms right now who haven't been seen yet." This was at 2:30.

Let me tell you something, when you are hurting, or there is something unexplained happening to or in your body, the last thing you want to hear when your waiting in a doctors office, is that you will have to wait 2 or 3 more hours to see a doctor. Even when I told them the circumstances, that didn't sway them. There was NO way, I was waiting until 6 or 7 o' clock to see the doctor. If they knew she was going to get called out, they should have called all those people and rescheduled them, or told them they'd call them when it was ok to come in, or something! Come on. So, I went in to my car, and just broke down crying with fury. I was mad because they wanted me to wait, and I was mad because I didn't have insurance. In desperation, I called my poor dad and asked him if I could borrow money to see the doctor in my own town. I'd been going to him since as far back as I could remember, when I HAD insurance (on my parents', which ended at 19). But at that point, my boyfriend was getting off work, so I reluctantly asked him for the money instead. I HATE asking people for money. The guilt eats away at me worse then the Langoliers eat time zones. So I called the other doctors office, and then told me they'd take me without an appointment. Without even letting the office of Aunt Satan's Asshole know I was leaving, I booked it down the expressway to the other clinic, in my own town, 30 seconds from my house. I was in and out of there an in a hour, and it only cost me $68 bucks with a 45% discount designed to help people without insurance. I couldn't stop thanking them. I felt stupid at how many times I thanked them for helping me, but I was so happy, I couldn't help myself. Turns out, I did have a bladder infunction, and I was put on an antibiotic.

I vowed that I will never go back to that place...EVER. I am convinced too, that the doctors at Aunt Satan's are clueless idiots who shouldn't be doctors. I remembered something she said to me last time I was there, which I am not inclined to share for any reason, but I looked it up on WebMD the next day, and the website completely proved her wrong. It's sad that I believe a website over a doctor. Very sad indeed.

I am feeling better now, by the way!

Thank you Riverside clinic. Forever and always, Britt.

Our California Adventure, Part 2

2010-04-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

So we took a few more pictures at the Arizona Welcome Center before departing towards Flagstaff. The temperature finally started to climb and after a few hours we were in the 70's. Going from 20ish degrees to 70 in a matter of hours is completely awesome. Once we reached Flagstaff, it was like we were going through a portal into a different world. We were traveling upward, feeling more and more like we were in a spaceship (I call Ben's Jetta, the 'spaceship'), and the canyons were so deep and vast I was getting lost just letting my eyes wander in them. It was all great and thrilling and what not--but that air pressure! Oh my God, that AIR PRESSURE! It got so bad at one point, I couldn't hear Ben talking to me, and Primus that was blasting out of the radio, sounded like a distant voice in the cactus speckled horizen somewhere. It was truly frightening. I questioned whether or not I'd ever be able to hear again. Ben yelled, 'Brittney, you'll be fine!! Just wait until you fly somewhere!" Not very reassuring, but I'd take it...and that's when I saw it--so quick I could barely tell, but I saw it--My first palm tree. Granite, I have seen palm trees, my Uncle used to have one sitting out by his pond when I was kid that would fizzle and die in about a month, but nothing compared to seeing them in their own palm-appropriate climaxed homes.

After about a half hour of pressurized agony, my ears popped, and sounds of life flooded back into them. We were on a 5 lane highway at this point, out of the mountains, and we decided to stop and get beer and leave a pee. Arizona is gorgeous. We were blessed to have great weather that weekend too so the sun was shining, it was now 78 degrees, and the first gas station we stopped at was surrounded in enourmous green palms. The gas station was another story. I went to pee and the lock was broken, and apparenly a starving artists had used poo to create artwork on the walls. Nonetheless, they had toilet paper and a pot to pee in so I did my best to not touch any surfaces, and bolted out to the beer cooler with the quickest of speed. Arizona has 30 packs of Bud Light cans...which we excitedly took two of. Illinois has 30 packs of Busch Light/Natural Ice/ & Icehouse--The "dirty thirties" of Busch Light used to excite me very much, I mean, who can beat buying 30 beers for $12.00? The Natural Ice and Icehouse however, no thanks. A few of those and you'll be eating floor pronto.

So we hopped back on the expressway once again for about another hour when low and behold, the most amazing sight we'd ever seen--the archway for the California border. We were stopped by border patrol who proceeded to ask us if we had any fruit, which we replied, 'no'. Then he mad a remark about Bud Light and told us we should be drinking Miller, to which we replied, 'gross' and carried on.

We were pumped. I think we both smiled from ear to ear for the hour drive to Indio. When we finally got there it was the best thing I've ever seen.

The festival itself was very unorganized. We had to drive to 4 or 5 different gates and none of the employees seemed to have a clue what was going on or that they were on the job. One of them was smoking a cigarette and playing hackie sack. We asked him if he knew were 3 day pass camping parking was and without missing a kick he said, "Dude, I have no idea!' and laughed. This little escapade had seriously ruined our excitement. Ben sarcastically thanked him, and we turned around again. Eventually we found a group of campers who had gone through the same ordeal, and directed us in the right path. We finally got to our campsite, and shut the car off for the next 3 days. Ben and I cracked our first Bud Lights, and washed down the memories of having been stuck in a car for the past 31 hours. The tent went up, we changed clothes, and hiked it to the concert grounds.

Once inside, we were pretty impressed. I was starving to death as we'd only eaten snacks and junk the whole way there, so I enjoyed a brat while Ben enjoyed the 31 different beer options. He finally settled with a 'Magic Hat', I had a Pabst Blue Ribbon (this was the closest to a watered down domestic they had...I can't do the hoppy black beers, it's like drinking liquid black liquorice...no thank you).

The concert was good, but honestly, at that point, all I could think about was crawling into the tent, into our nice warm thermal sleeping bags (and air mattress, we like to camp classy) and get a good full nights sleep. Once we got back to the campsite, I drank one more beer, Ben cooked up a steak and then we were in bed. Ben passed out in about 10 seconds, and I was just about to doze off when a group nearby, who were quietly listening too some Bob Marley, suddenly decided it would be a good idea to blast Tupac at maximum volume. The car was right next to our tent, and I swear I almost started crying. I mean seriously? You're at a hippie music festival blasting Tupac at one in the morning? So in a fit of rage, I marched out there and nicely asked them if they could turn it down, as we had just driven from Chicago and just wanted to sleep, they reluctantly agreed. I must've sounded like such a buzzkill, but I didn't care, I wasn't going stay up for the sake of a bunch of drunk frat hippies to blast Tupac and pretend to be ghetto.

The next morning we woke up and immediately lit up the grill to cook some breakfast. All we had was meat, so we ate porkchops. Ben washed it down with a Bloody Mary and I was just trying to drink as much water as possible. I've learned from my previous 3 music festivals that waking up, rolling out of your tent and cracking a beer at 8 a.m. is not such a good idea. The last time I tried that in Rothbury music fest in Michigan, I wound up drinking 6 beers in an hour and half, on an empty stomach and 1 hour of sleep and ended up puking in my tent for 6 hours. Not fun. We had left home at 1 am that morning and arrived at our destination about 4 hours later, once we got to the campsite, got the tent up and started our celebration, it was about 7 am. I missed the whole first day, and Ben came to get me around 6 p.m. with a bottle of Pepto and a beer. What can I say, we were at a music festival, and I'm a trooper. We watched one more show that night, then went back to our tent, nibbled a few blocks of cheese with some diet coke and went to bed. But anyway, that's a whole other story, back to California...

We were just sitting there, eating our porkchops like cavemen (we were lacking utensils), when a stranger came pummeling into our campsite like a train wreck. He'd managed to find a small rug, and collapsed onto it like a failed jenga game. He used one of our folding chairs as a foot rest, and proceeded to smoke a bowl without any thought as to where he was.

Ben and I looked at him curiously. I had to get up and walk away because of my uncontrollable laughter, not to mention his barn door was open and I was getting an unintended peep show. Finally after a minute of silence Ben finally asks, "Hey guy--Do you want a bloody mary?" As if he came out of a trance he looked up and said, "Oh man...no thanks" He 'repositioned' himself, took a few more drags, and eventually wandered off. But that wasn't the last we saw of him, he came back a little while later, wearing clothes this time, and we soon figured out that he was indeed our neighbor.

We made friends with our neighbors after a little while, I wish very much that I could remember their names, but I can't. There were two couples, the stoned man in the picture and his girlfriend, and another couple. The other guy was constantly dressed like a sailor, and had a big firey red beard, and his strange, yet intriguing girlfriend. She was weird, but I couldn't help liking her. Come to think of it, the sailor's name was Matt. I remember that because we were playing frisbee with them and I just remember I kept seeing his name MATTHEW written across it, but I can't remember anyone else. Matt and his girlfriend actually lived in the mountains of Sacramento, in a tent ironically. So this experience was nothing new for them. They were born to live as tree huggers apparently, but we liked them. We stuck by them as much as possible during our stay.

That day, Ben and I went to the fair grounds early to check out some stores and sculptures and what not. Music festivals are always riddled with overpriced shops and sculptures. Phish was playing a day show this day too (Halloween). I actually had money for this fest though, so I splurged on myself a little. I can't go to California with no money and buy nothing! So I'd taken out a small loan before we went. It was intended to pay on bills, but it ended up working out in my favor, so I had about $300 extra to spend on myself. So I bought a purse, some chap stick and a Phish hoodie, which I've been wearing almost every day since then (seriously, I don't go anywhere without it).

We attended the 2nd concert again that night, which again, was amazing. By this time though our feet were so sore and throbbing, all I wanted to was sit. We headed back to our campsite and turned in for the night.

The next morning was the last day of our California trip. We got another night of good sleep and hung out with our neighbors all day. Sadly, we also packed up our stuff and got the car all ready to go. We were leaving that night after the concert.

Once again the show was amazing, Phish came out to play the encore, and we decided to leave to beat the crowd. You'd be surprised how many people leave minutes after a festival. We said our good-byes to our temporary and only best friends from California that we would never see or hear from again. Since Pat and his girlfriend were living outside, they had no phones. We waved our last good-byes and they faded into the dark swarm of people enjoying 'Esther', the encore. We exited the fair grounds, passed all the shops, gave it one last look over, and...

We were back. Back in the spaceship to start on a trip back home to Peotone. We hopped back onto the expressway, and I fell asleep.

3 hours later, in Arizona somewhere around Flagstaff we stopped at a rest stop and slept a few more hours. About 5:30 am, I made Ben get in the passenger seat and fell back asleep and I drove until about mid-New Mexico, where we switched and I took a nap again. I just wanted to point out that I drove through the Flagstaff mountains all by myself, thank you very much. Ben woke up sometime later and yelled, "Oh my God! You drove through Flagstaff by yourself!"....Yeah, I don't even like driving on the expressway, let alone a winding mountain side at 8000 sea level. So I was pretty dang proud of myself. I'll tell you what though, those Arizonians are not phased by those mountains at all, they fly through there like they are part of the Indy 500, and I was fluxuating between 70-80...that is butt clenching speed for a scaredy-cat like me. That's probably the hardest I've focused in my life.

I woke up sometime later in New Mexico. New Mexico takes about 7 hours to drive through from what I remember, but we were in the dreaded Panhandle again before we knew it. Our stop in Texas wasn't as nearly as bad the second time. We stopped a Famous Daves and enjoyed some Texan food, then we were back on the road. I drove for about 7 more hours, while Ben slept a little more. By this time, we were in the middle of Oklahoma. Remember in Part 1 of my story, I said that Oklahoma was crap? Well, here's why.

We eventually switched once Ben woke up, and I had stupidly pouded a half a bottle of water. I'd practically been dehydrating myself the whole trip to avoid having to stop every hour, and although I was doing a great job, I was also depriving myself. So we had to stop, so I could do what I'm best at, and pee. We pulled up to a gas station that had been being advertised for a few miles, but when we reached it, it was nothing but a desolate, empty box. So we had to drive 6 or 7 more miles to a rest area. First,

we discovered something very dissapointing about Oklahoma just then, besides the fact that it has the most depressingly dark and scary highways in the United States, almost every exit requires a toll. Cash only. We had barely enough change to get to the stop, and had to get 10 bucks in quarters just to be safe. Second, Ben got pulled over by a very bitchy dyke cop...there was road construction on both sides, so Ben pulled onto the left shoulder. The cop flew out of her car, and before Ben even got the window rolled down, she was screaming, "FIRST OF ALL, YOU NEVER PULL OVER ON TO THE LEFT LANE, YOU COULD GET US BOTH KILLED, SECOND OF ALL, YOU WERE GOING TOO SLOW IN THE PASSING LANE. IF YOU FEEL THE NEED TO GO SLOW, GET OVER!" And that was it, she stormed off, jumped back in her cruiser, and took off about 300 mph down the street. No warning, nothing. Ben was going 65 in a 60. Please explain to me how that is too slow when we are going over the speed limit? This, just giving me another reason to loathe cops and their retard decisions. Just because you're a cop, doesn't give you authority to be a jag off at any given moment. Get off your power trip lady, go to a gay bar or something and get some phone numbers for crying out loud. Third, there were signs all over the roads warning of deer. I was trying my very hardest to fall asleep, but I was so sleep deprived, that my body was what I called 'airplane mode'. It didn't want to sleep but didn't want to be awake either, I was just sort of a zombie, waiting for a deer to come sprinting out of the woods at any given second--when suddenly, Ben jerked the car violently and yelled 'HOLY SHIT!'...I looked up just in time to see a buck, sprawled across both lanes. Antlers sticking up in the air like trees. We had just enough time and room to squeeze around it, going 75 mph, and I'm pretty sure we both peed a little. Shortly after, we came to another dreaded toll. Ben put the appropriate amount of money in, and the gate wouldn't open. Ben called the number on the box to report it, and we took off. At that point, I declared defeat against the dreaded state of Oklahoma. There was just too many close calls, dykes and dear carcasses for our liking, and we were so tired we were both seeing trails and what not. We pulled into the next rest stop, and much to our delight, the sign read 'Missouri Welcome Center'. I was so happy to see that sign, I'm pretty sure I deliriously laughed to myself on my way into the bathroom. Being on the road that long with no sleep, no lights and such will drive a person loony. I'm pretty sure I was laughing with joy though.

The next morning, about 5:30, I made Ben move again, I was done sleeping, I wanted to get home. I gunned it to the nearest town, grabbed a pop and a granola bar, and got us to St. Louis in about 4 hours. We stopped at a Panera bread, got some good food, and crossed the border into Illinois 15 minutes later. 4 more hours later, we were home. I'd never been so frickin' happy to see that stupid little town, and flat lands and cold weather. I'm pretty sure the extreme air pressure did something to my ears too because everything sounded 20 times louder. We got up into our stupid little apartment, and collapsed onto our stupid uncomfortable furniture.

I had never slept in a more comfortable bed that night. We'd drove across the Western part of the country, seen mountains, drove through mountains, made new friends and been places and seen things together for the first time. It was truly an experience to remember. After all said and done though, there's still no place like home.

Our California Adventure, Part 1

2010-04-27T14:52:00.000-07:00

So, last October Ben and I took a trip to California. It was a 31 hour drive. We drove to California to attend Phish Fest 8, in a town called Indio, about 80 miles South of Mexico.

We left at about 7 pm, Wednesday night October 28th to start our adventure. That night we drove until about 1:30 in the morning, about 2 hours past St. Louis. We passed the arch for the second time, and it's so much prettier at night then it is during the day. The town looks a lot scummier in the dark though. I'm convinced that aside from the arch, St. Louis is not as beautiful as people say it is. It's very industrial looking with a lot of old rickety roads and such. It doesn't have a welcoming feeling to me. It kind of reminds me of the strips of houses and stuff along the sides of the roads, right before you get into Chicago. Just run down and uninviting.

We finally stopped at a little hotel, that was being ran by an Indian family. It was raining, and we had to talk to the woman through a peice of bullet proof glass (since it was after hours). She spoke perfect English, but was pretending she didn't understand Ben as he was trying to bargain with her. We would only be staying roughly 5-6 hours, so she hesitantly knocked off 10 bucks, which was still a rip off.

The next day it was still raining, and we continued our trip in Oklahoma. Oklahoma is crap. 'Nuff said about Oklahoma.

We ventured onward into the panhandle of Texas where we came to a strip of restaurants designed specifically for travelers. It was about 5 pm and about 18 degrees that day in the panhandle, and both of us were sporting hoodies and sandles. Ben had on shorts, I was wearing yoga pants. We must've looked like morons stumbling into that Cracker Barrel. We passed a restaurant called The Big Texan, which we laughed at and drove by...the placed looked like a Vegas whore house...Our waitress came to our table and squalked, "Hey ya'll! My name is (Debbie?) what can I get ya'll to drink!?' We told her. She came back with them, and then Ben asked her how long of a drive it was to New Mexico? She dumbly replied, "About 5 hours", and she left. I suddenly had the strong urge of crapping myself, and Ben looked very upset. We were at midpoint, and quickly regretting our decision to drive to California. We started going over our options of finding the nearest airport and flying the rest of the way, but then what would we do with the car? So that was quickly forgotten. We reluctantly choked down the rest of our food, since both of us felt pretty dissapointed and sick, and got back into the Jetta. 45 minutes later we were passing over the border of New Mexico. We both immediately said to each other, "New Mexico!? What was that girl talking about?! IDIOT!" But we were so happy, we stopped at rest stop and nearly kissed the ground with elation. There was just something about Texas that really depressed us. Plus, we passed our midway point.

We were bashing on Texans for awhile, since that girl had obviously never been out side of the state, then it started to snow. Not enough to cause any driving problems, but just enough to add something more the beautiful scenery. We were winding through mountains, and the snow was glittering like crystals on the walls of the mountains before they would melt away. We were mesmerized I think, because we didn't talk until we got to the hotel.

We slept great that night, and got up early Friday morning and had some hotel bagels and OJ in the morning. I got to take a quick shower, and we got back into the car. It was just peaking about 6:30 a.m., and the sun was just coming up over the mountains...once again, something indescribable.

This was probably the best time of the whole trip, mostly because we knew that afternoon we'd be to our destination and be drinking beers and lounging under palms. New Mexico went fairly quickly, and we then crossed the border into Arizona at about 9 am. It had been snowing in Arizona obviously, because Ben was making snow balls, once again, in our shorts and sandals.

For those of you who have ever been to this welcome center...are these not the weirdest stalls ever? The doors are only about 4 feet long, if you stand up, you can easily see into the stall next to you. It's quite strange. I managed to get in there and get my business done before a slap happy group of doily-lovin' old geriatrics came walkering in there with their fanny packs and neon visors. They were whoopin and laughing like it was Bingo night at the Atrium. As I was walking out, a tour bus full of kids went tearing off into the direction of the bathrooms as well, so I dodged a bullet. I just imagined all those little girls playing peek-a-boo under the stall doors with those poor old women. Probably gave them heart attacks, or at most, bowel movements.

And that is where I leave you today, tune in tomorrow where I will be posting the rest of our trip, and of course, more pictures.

PS: About 3 months later, we were watching the Travel Channel, and not only was the Big Texan voted number 16 out of 101 best restaurants in America, but Adam Richman from Man vs. Food was there doing the 72 oz steak challenge. Yeah--we were kicking ourselves in the ass...

So Friday...

2010-04-25T17:03:00.000-07:00

...I easily pulled on a pair of jeans that were too tight on me 2 months ago.

Couldn't be happier.

Poster the Cat

2010-04-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

Most of you have already met Poster Nutbag. He is Ben and mine's fury feline friend whom we named after the Phish song 'Harpua'. Harpua is actually a dog who gets into a fight with Poster. I think that's pretty much what the wholes story/song is about, I've never really understood it to be honest. Ben can tell the whole story backwards and frontwards and in different languages I think. Poster is a long haired Maine Coon mix. For awhile, we were definate that he was a Norwegian Forest Cat, but since they are so similar in so many ways, we are having a really hard time figuring it out, so now we are leaning more towards a Maine Coon.

In the morning, Poster likes to promptly wake us up at 4 am by clawing the corners of our box spring. When he does this, he shakes the whole bed, and the sound is definately in my top 10 most irritating sounds.

Ben leaves for work shortly after, and I get up sometime around 7:40 depending on whether or not I am going to the gym. First I take a shower, and Poster sits outside and waits. I get out of the shower, Poster sits on my feet. Poster continues to sit on my feet, even while I am using the toilet. I try to scoot him away with my foot, but this usually causes a reaction in which he provides what I call 'a death grip' onto my foot, and nibbles it gleefully as if he's triumphed over a small animal. After several attempts to shake him off, he gives up and then turns towards the shower and watches the water bead down the shower curtain for a little while. Eventually, he gets into the bathtub, and attack the water too. Watching is not enough, he must interact with it. Once he is finished with that, he will climb up onto the toilet, and try to get out the closed window, only the blinds are closed too, and he must first get those out of the way to get to the window, which is also closed mind you. So it ends up just being a lot of pointless noise.

He spends most of the day very effortlessly pulling open our magnetized cabinets and exploring the wonders of the pots and pans universe. The other night, he was hiding in there and I didn't know. So I bent down to peek in the dark cave-like cabinet, and make sure I didn't close him in there, and sure as hell, he sprang out at me a serial killer, landed about 3 feet away from the cabinet, couldn't get traction on the wood floor, ran in place for a few seconds, then very dramatically bounded up the stairs. Pans and baking sheets came pouring out like the cabinet was throwing up, and I almost fell on my ass. I haven't gasped that loud since I was 12 and thought there was someone hiding in my room next to my dresser, but it turned out to be a George Harrison poster--seriously, it was that scary. When an unsuspecting furry werewolf jumps out at you in the darkness, spilling pots and pans all over the floor, you tell me that wouldn't scare the bejesus outta you?

Poster always enjoys making an extravagant toilet paper trail from the upstairs bathroom down to the first floor (as seen in an earlier post).

He also likes to chirp at birds out the window, eat bugs, poop, eat and pooping some more. When he's not eating or pooping, he's sleeping.

He's taken a new interest to his 'room' as we call it, which is actually just a broom closet where his litter box, food and water have been homed. He spends a lot time in there, catching lady bugs, eating more than he should, pushing his water bowl all over. He prefers it to be right next to the litter box, I'm guessing so he can wash his feet when he gets out, kind of like we used to do before we got into a pool when we were kids. Realistically though, this creates problems, because the dumb ass puts it right in front of his box, so when he scurries out of the litter box to avoid smelling his own poop, he showers the bowl with litter on his way out. Returns later, sniffs and says, "Nope, not drinking that" which results in more pushing, more puddles, and a retarded wet and thirsty cat. We clean the bowl all the time. Usually I just wipe it out because supposedly if you wash the bowl with detergent, they can smell it and have a hard time drinking it. But we've given up trying to figure out the 'bowl pushing' ritual, because he won't stop, and seems to find pleasure in doing it, so oh well.

Speaking of litter box...Poster left such a bad poop the other day, I could smell it two rooms away...and the smell wasn't just passing through, it was getting worse and worse and seemed to be following me. Ben was sleeping on the couch near me and I wondered whether or not he could smell it in his sleep. I'm surprised it didn't wake him up. So I was forced to clean the box earlier then normal to rid of this feces catastrophe.

At night, he usually has a small burst of energy where he will run around the house 35-40 times, do the 'lizard crawl' on the couch, then finally collapse in front of the TV where he then licks his his crotch for an hour. He will follow us to bed, and sleep in various positions, usually on our chests or in between our legs. It's not very comfortable to have a large furry thing louging all over you through out the night. It was ok when he was kitten, but now he's a big furry werewolf, and it's not ok anymore. I usually wake up and have to physically remove him from the bed because simple shooing doesn't work.

I've come to the conclusion that Poster is a very needy cat. He follows both of us wherever we go, and hates to see us leave in the morning. He will try his very hardest to follow us outside, and even tries to trick us by sticking his paw in the door as we close it. He loves us.

Well it's only 1:30 and I feel this is going to be a very long afternoon.

I'm going to the gym after work too, if I have any energy left when I leave here.

63 degrees

2010-04-20T14:09:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon again,

It would be an even better afternoon if this 'chill' would kindly remove itself from the forecast. It's dissapointing when you walk outside thinking it's going to be 75 and breezy, and it's 63 and breezy. Jeans and hoodie weather. On Saturday, Ben and I were preparing for a birthday party we decided to have for him. It was about 62-64ish that day, and it just wasn't quite warm enough to even have the windows open. I was so dissapointed. I kept glancing at our thermometor outside in hopes that it would warm up later in the afternoon, but I had no such luck, it stayed a steady and chilly 63.

The party was fun, just a group of our friends, a few we don't even really talk too, we had lots of beer and I ate way too much cheese. I got rid of 4 blocks of cheese that night though between myself and the party attendees. Enough said about that.

So the weightloss thing you ask? Oh, it's going the same. Just me fighting with the scale and me losing. I thought about this morning and decided that my metabolism has flatlined. It's non-exsistant. My army has retreated and I'm battling that peice of crap all by myself with a nerf gun.

The only thing that I can think of that is slowing this process down for me so badly is me working in an office. Sitting on my butt 8 hours a day with no movement.

I feel like the more I try and the more I think about it, the less that happens. I've been listening to everyone but myself for the past 4 months, and from now on, I'm listening to myself. I'm going to keep working out, and keep eating good, stop worrying about it, stop listening to everyone's advice on what to eat, what not to eat, what to drink and what not to drink, what to do at the gym...I just don't care anymore. I'm just going to carry on with what I'm doing and live my life and I'm confident the weight will start peeling off eventually.

Well my 'friend' is here for her monthly visit, and I'm fighting a migraine right now, so I'm gonna go.

Sorry for the short post, I will post more later, scouts honor.

Sue Finley and Toilet Paper Trails

2010-04-12T14:51:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon!

So, funny story...I got a friend request on Facebook from a person named Sue Finley this morning. I have been promptly denying any unusual requests for the obvious fact of what happen previously with Psycho. There were no pictures, no posts, and no information on 'Sue Finley' what so ever, other than that they graduated in 2005 from Manteno. That wasn't a huge school, and I was friends with a lot of '05 kids, and I think I would have remembered a Sue Finley. So a fairly popular kid who graduated in '05 happen to be my friend and online, so I asked him about Sue. He said that there is no such person, and the name didn't even sound familiar. So I came to the quick conclusion that 'Sue Finley' is really just a cover for Connie Rosenbrock...aka 'Sue Finley, the concerned employee' aka, our psycho co-worker! So instead of adding her, I wrote her a private message on FB for her to see when she checks back later to see if I've added her:

Nice try Connie...it's getting pathetic now, really pathetic...By the way, there is no Sue Finley in the graduating class of '05 in Manteno, psycho. I don't know what you're trying to accomplish, but all I can tell you is that all you've accomplished is making yourself out to be a psychopath. Now please quit stalking my page, and please stay out of my life unless it's WORK related.

I mean, come on. She just wants me to add her so that she can snoop through my page and use it against me again. I'm seriously at a loss for words anymore...if anyone was in my situation, what would you do? We can't say anything to her, because we don't neccesarily know that it is her, we are just assuming. But who else would it be? I'm just done with her, period. So she can sit there and write anonymous e-mails all day, and find ways to get us fired until she's blue in the face, but I am certain that eventually, she will slip up a little peice of her plan and the truth will come out.

My other co-worker, Lynnette, who was Sue Finley's original target, came to my desk today and said loudly, 'You know what? My great-grandma used to think my name was Sue! She would call me Sue all day...You should just start calling me, Sue Finley Owens!' I laughed until my stomach hurt. At least now when Pyscho decides to try and ruin my life, I have people to talk too about it. They are all experiencing her behavior for themselves, and we can all just laugh about it. Before Lynnette and Rochelle worked here, I had nobody. Just me and Psycho.

Anyway, Poster has discovered a new fascination with toilet paper. I was getting ready for work and as I'm going up the stairs I see a trail of TP starting at the landing (see pic) and ending on the roll. How he managed to get it that far without ripping it is beyond me. I yelled at him, and he hid under the bed for awhile. I did laugh though, but secretly so that he couldn't see. I was afraid if he saw me laughing, he'd think it was ok to make toilet paper trails and forts and whatever other magical toilet paper oddeties can be discovered. The toilet paper was salvaged.

He also has a bad habit of sleeping on my chest. Which is very uncomfortable. I wake up in the middle of the night feeling claustrophic from a giant, fat, furry body lounging on my chest plate.

Well it's time to go. Everyone message Sue Finley on Facebook and tell her what a freak she is.

Byebye!

Dr. Oz and Yoga

2010-04-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

Hola,

So I've been checking out the Dr. Oz website lately, because his show come on at 4, and I can't watch it. The few times that I've watched it, are the times I've stayed home sick or something, which is rarely. Seems the only times I take off work, I'm doing more work on my day off then I actually do at work. Anyway, on his website he has a test you can take to tell you what your true age is. Mine was 26. Not too bad. And the only reason it was 26 for some really stupid reasons that I can't even remember. I think one was driving 5-10 miles over the speed limit? Come on, if you really think about it, driving over the speed limit shouldn't have anything to do with age because if you get into an accident due to speeding, does your age really matter? I just didn't get that, but ok.

Then I also found a link on there entitled, '100 people with 100 weight loss success stories!', but there were only 4 stories. I was a little annoyed. I enjoy reading other people's success stories, but I don't like being lied too about it. Fix your site Dr. Oz.

I think it's funny too that his crowd is all women. I was watching one day not too long ago and they panned across the crowd, and I think there were 2 guys total. The rest of them were middle aged, pudgy, women with 80's hair and bright orange lip stick just swooning over this guy. Then he calls a random woman up from the crowd and suddenly the show turns into the 'Price is Right'. A lady comes sailing from her seat like usually a black woman or a very fat woman, so blind with excitement they practically soar over the crowd like Spiderman. It's hilarious. I wouldn't be excited. He probably has bad doctor breath like most doctors do. You're doctors, for every patient's sake, chew some gum.

So other than that, everything is going good, aside from this migraine I have, but I believe this is due to boredom.

I thought about something today...This blog was originally intended to be keeping track of my weightloss, and it's turned into free based novel about everything but that.

So a few little updates on that: I have been going to the gym still, but in the morning, which I find to be fantastic. I absolutely love, it, and I don't even care if my hair is curly with sweat when I leave. It's all in the name of wearing a size 7 once again. Oh, and I don't have to fight lesbians off everything, the gym is virtually empty in the morning.

Dr. Oz also told me that I need to start doing more flexibility and strength excersizing, and less cardio and weightlifting (this was another part of my true age test I forgot about). For my body type, I am supposed to be doing a whole lot of yogo and pilates and less of the other stuff. So I've been trying it. I've been alternating between going to the gym in the morning and doing yoga and pilates. Those exercises are A LOT harder then they look. Sure, when you watch, you're like 'pffftt, simple'...you are sadly mistaken, my friend. Pilates and yoga are focused on 'core strength' so everything from your chest to your pelvic bone is consistantly being worked throughout the whole exercise routine. I did 45 minutes of both the other day (I use Comcast Fitness channels on Demand) and I am extremely sore about 2 hours later. It also improves posture, which makes you taller. So I've just been switching it up...a little cardio there, weightlifting there, and flexibility and strengthening everywhere else. I did some Jillian Michaels routines this morning, and she kicked my ass. Seriously, if the weight doesn't start falling off soon, I'm gonna start scissor kicking people's groins. I eat awesome, I drink lots of water, I work out, I can't figure out what the hell I'm doing wrong. I seriously cannot. I have to actually try to FIND reasons now.

Poster does not like when I exercise on the front room floor. Yesterday I was doing yoga and at some point I laid my head down and he thought I was laying it down close to him to play I guess, so he provided a death grip on my skull with his werewolf talons and attacked my head. I slapped him, and he took off at the couch, and did his weird lizard crawl thing across it...I coulda killed him.

Well it's 5. See ya later.

Manbugs and Blue 70's toilets.

2010-04-05T14:28:00.000-07:00

Hello, I'm back.

Well we are all moved into our new house. That was the most exhausting 5 days I've had since Phish Fest 8 in California, and that includes the 62 hours we drove in 4 days, and the 10 or so miles we walked in the scorching hot sun in sandals in 2 days. By the way, we are flying everywhere from now on.

Wednesday, Ben closed at 3 pm, and we were out of there by 4 and started getting our stuff out. We thought it would be a decently easy move since "we don't have that much stuff"...wrong! We have a lot of stuff! Everytime we thought we were done, we'd open a cabinet or turn a corner and there'd be a pile of stuff somewhere. What ticked me off, is I went back to get the cat Wednesday night and my landlord was there hangin' around. I was sweaty, smelly, and running up and down the stairs like a crazy person trying to load one last load (and a furry, retarded cat) into my car, and she came up and pretty much let herself in, and was poking around, asking me if I left the keys for her and what not. I'm trying my best not to be rude, but seriously, was she blind? There was stuff still sitting all over the counters, the fridge had not been emptied, obviously nothing had been cleaned yet...I mean really? Plus, I'd talked to her the day before and she said, "We're going on vacation anyway, so take until Monday and just get everything taken care of, no big rush!' But here she was, 3 hours after we closed, badgering me about where the keys were? So finally, I think she got the hint and left. So I rounded up the little werewolf and went home for the night.

Thursday we went back over and cleaned the place, not very well, but enough. We just wanted to start organizing our new place, and get the hell out of that apartment, so we did a half assed job. We didn't break or ruin anything while we were there, so all the dirtiness was just natural, over time, build up. Just little things, that I'm sure our landlord will deduct out of Ben's security deposit somehow. We mopped, vaccumed, wiped down all the cabinets and scrubbed the fridge out, and that's about it. The landlord decided to come back with her husband and bother us some more, and he even had the nerve to tell us not to throw our garbage in the dumpster. Uh, ok, so are we supposed to throw it? Load it in our cars and take it to our new place? I don't think so...So they left and we threw all of our garbage in the dumpster.

We finished that up at about 12, then went to Menards to get garbage cans, and other odds and ends, then to Lonestar, then back home to clean some more. We got all the kitchen stuff put away, and I worked my ass off, scrubbing and mopping and organizing, did 4 loads of laundry, vaccumed, dishes...ugh. I finished at about 8 pm, and practically collapsed onto the couch. Friday we had a party, of course, we had to break in the new place, but 3 hours after guests arrived, our old, pastel blue 70's toilet stopped flushing. So we were forced to go up and down the stairs for the past 2 days to use the upstairs bathroom. Ben replaced the toilet, so now we have a pretty white porcelain one, that certainly makes the bathroom look better. Except, now we have a blue toilet sitting on our back porch, because garbage pick up isn't until Wednesday. What our neighbors must think...

By the way, my landlord texted me at 7:45 Friday morning and asked us if were done yet. I wanted to write back, "LAY OFF LADY!" But I didn't. Why do you tell us you'll give us until Monday, when it actuality you are only giving us a day. Did I mention they were going on vacation? Oh, and Ben won't get his security deposit back until they get back, which is April 12th. But she's giving us a hard time and hurrying us. Rediculous.

Saturday we had our internet and cable hooked up, and the first thing I did was recover my gamertag for Xbox Live and play Halo 3 for 2 hours. That was pretty much all we did Saturday. It's rather sad how dependant the human race is on TV and video games nowadays for entertainment, but I don't care, I have Halo now, and that's all I care about.

Sunday we ate a lot of food for Easter, and I whined about a giant misquito bite that I'd scratched to the point of bleeding, all day. I feared I was getting gangrene, and my foot would soon need amputation. It's better today though...infact, I scratched another one on the back of my leg, and caused that to bleed as well. I'm just a misquito bitten mess...come to think of it, they could be manbug (ladybugs) bites too because we have been overridden with them invading our home. What is with those things? They swarm in corners and windows, die for 3 weeks, and then suddenly come back to life. I was sitting in our upstairs bathroom, and I noticed 3 on the floor. I thought to myself, "I bet you that at least 1 or 2 of those are still alive, and will soon be migrating to another part of the house soon..." A few days later, I was up there again, and 2 of them were gone, one had been smashed. I was sitting at work one day too (ironically, in the bathroom again), and there was one on the window sill. It was there for a solid 3 weeks at least...I am not exaggerating. And I know I'm not exaggerating because for those 3 weeks, I go in there and laugh to myself because nobody had bothered to get a tissue and throw it away, including me. One day, I was sitting there, and saw something moving out of the corner of my eye, I turned, and low and behold, the 3 week, supposedly dead manbug started moving and trying to get up. I couldn't believe my eyes. I just sat there and stared at it for what seemed like hours. Finally I picked it up and flushed it down the toilet. I was convinced there is only two ways to kill a manbug. You have to drown or burn them, otherwise, they just keep coming back. You squish one in a tissue, throw in the garbage, and a few days later it'll be crawling outta there, broken and battered, but determined to crawl on one more surface. Preferably your clean dishes drying in the sink, or something of that nature. I did a little research on them, as I was curious to know why they come back to life after 2 or 3 weeks, and I couldn't find anything on it. The information I found said that they hibernate in the winter, but not for 3 weeks on a window sill. Oh well. That's what vaccum's are for.

Today I am puffy and bloated, and ashamed in myself because I was too lazy to go to a different gas station to get my Select 55 on Friday, so I ended up getting 95 calorie Michelob Ultra, and drinking almost the whole 12 pack by the end of the night. Granite, we were partying for almost 9 hours, but nonetheless, that's gross. At least when I drink Select 55, I don't feel as bad if I drink a lot of them. I'd have to drink a 24 pack of those, to equal the amount of calories I drank, drinking 11 Ultra's. Makes me feel fatter just thinking it. Not to mention that we'd eaten take out for almost 4 days straight for every meal because I didn't have a chance to grocery shop and we threw away most of our food (most of it was old or not worth salvaging). I try to convince myself that I worked out a lot while moving, but I can't convince myself hard enough that it was effective. I haven't been sleeping good either, all the moving and cleaning has really been taking an effect on my arms, so I've been tossing around at night, unable to get comfortable because my shoulders are hurting. Oh well, that'll pass.

Well the day is almost over, and I'm not looking forward to my Aldi's trip...I wish Berkots and Aldi's would switch places, or prices, or something.

Good day.

Continuance of Friday...

2010-03-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

Well I've had quite the interesting weekend/week. Let me start with Friday.

I woke up this day feeling exceptionally well, after getting a good night's sleep, and the sun was shining. I got up at about 6:15, got ready for work, and went to the gym around 8. I got a good work out in before going, and just started the day out great. It didn't end great though. 'Crazy' was at it again, and decided she would send another fake e-mail to the president of the company, but about me this time, instead of Lynnette (accounting). She actually went onto my facebook, copied all of my facebook activity (status updates, comments people left me) and sent it to him. Around 4:15, our boss, messaged me over the yahoo messenger and tells me not to use facebook anymore, and even sent me the contents of what was in the e-mail that was sent to our company president. I was floored. I was completely outraged for 2 reasons...obviously this crazy demented woman went out of her way to get onto my facebook (which unfortunately, I had not set to private upon creating it), and try to get me fired, but she also copied my personal information and was broadcasting it to management for her own twisted enjoyment. I understand that management is able to see our internet history, but from my understanding, cannot see the contents of the page. This is not right. I felt personally attacked and invaded. She may as well have sent him my diary. None of my status updates or comments were bad, all the stuff she managed to copy was just information about me moving, but either way she took that line to cross and danced all over it. Aside from me not liking her for other reasons, (and I have MANY) I would never go out of my way to get her fired. I was so livid Friday afternoon that I broke down crying hysterically in fury. I am not one to get in fights or hurt people with violence, but it took everything inside of me not to attack her. I was so blind with rage, that if she had come near me at that point, I probably would have. I wish so badly that the people I try to explain these situations too, were here to experience them themselves. I am not exaggerating to you when I say that she is the most insane person I have ever had the unfortunate displeasure of meeting. She's a malicious, selfish person, who would stab even her best friends in the back to get a head, and I've had it with her. You know, like I said, I would never try and get someone fired, but if they figure out those anonymous e-mails were from her, I wouldn't feel bad to see her go. She obviously had no concern with how that would've severely and negatively affected my life had I lost my job, even after seeing my facebook statuses saying "MOVING WEDNESDAY!! :D", so I don't care about her pitiful life either. She just wants everyone to feel sorry for her because she has fibromyalgia, and since we don't, she's lashing out and causing all these problems. Let me just make something perfectly clear, we do not, NOT like her because she has fibromyalgia. We don't like her because after so long, we are sick of hearing about how sad her life is, how much money she doesn't have, how she doesn't have cable, how she is starving because she can't afford food, how whenever one of us stays home sick or is sick, we shouldn't have, or are faking, because she feels worse. (OH, I'm sorry, am I broadcasting her life to everyone? Whoops!) If the attention is taken away from her for more than a day, that's when she gets desperate and starts doing these things. It makes sense, because a month ago, I quit talking to her completely because she sent a fake E-mail about Lynnette to the company president. So, I was the next on her hit list. It's just so bizarre. I feel like I can't even explain it without sounding like a weirdo myself, but I assure you it's true.

So I went home that night, eyes puffy and stinging, had a few needed beers and a pizza with the boyfriend before hitting the bed and getting some much needed sleep at 11 p.m.

Saturday we got up at 7:45 and started getting ready for our trip to Springfield for the wedding. We left about 9:30 and stopped in the podunk town of Dwight for some breakfast. We walked into a small diner, decorated in honor the infamous Route 66, with all kinds of American flags, Eagles and roadsigns outlining the little buildings brick walls. When we walked in, the whole restaurant got quiet. The town folks stopped to look at us curiously, some even stopping in mid-chew to see us city people walk through the doors. I think all I could hear was the hair growing on my head. Finally Ben said loudly, "Whoa, do I have shit on my face?!' Of course, me, Jess and Pam all flung ourselves into the nearest open booth and laughed. His outburst was definitely audible for the entire, tiny restaurant to hear. Eventually, dishes started clinging again, and a low murmur of voices rumbled back to life. It was definitely the most awkward, "walk in to a little hillbilly town diner" I've experienced in my lifetime. I felt like we were in a movie, or on a hidden camera show.

The wedding over all was not much fun. It was beautiful, but the drive wore us out. Since we were expecting to move, we had cancelled our hotel room and had to drive home that night, so that's all we could think about was that 3 hour drive home. We did find a really neat hippie shop (see pictures)there though, the biggest one I've ever seen. They had so many things in there I wanted so badly, but I reluctantly didn't buy anything. Thanks to 'Crazy', I was fearing that I may have not had a job the following Monday, so I regretfully did not purchase anything. If the place was closer, I'd seriously consider opening up a credit card there, if possible, which I'm sure it wasn't. Mom and Pop shops aren't real keen on the whole 'credit card' thing. They are hippies, what the hell are credit cards?

Once we got home (around 9:30 p.m.), Ben was asleep within the hour, and I'm pretty sure he was sleep-driving home too. I was dying for a beer since it was Saturday, and I'd only had a couple the night before, so I drank a few and watched TV before I turned in.

Overall, my weekend was virtually ruined, thanks to 'Crazy', and not very exciting. I hate her even more for that. It takes one person to ruin it for everyone, and she sure as hell proved herself in that area. She had all of us girls worried all weekend. It's now Tuesday, and I'm still here, and everyone has settled down a bit, but all of us girls are terrified to even so much as check the weather. I've used facebook a few times, but only in the few minutes before 9 a.m. when I get here, and during my lunch break. Otherwise, I'm staying clear of it. My facebook is not that important to me, we were only using it because we were never told we couldn't. In fact, for the year and 3 months I've worked here, it was never an issue until a month ago when 'Crazy' sent her first E-mail about Lynnette being on facebook. We had a meeting, in which our boss explained to us, if you have a problem with another employee, you come to me, no more of this nonsense with sending e-mails. But, what do you know, a month later, she does it again. It's just insanity.

By the way, all of my posts below are the same date, because I removed some in fear that I may get in trouble for them somehow. I kept them in my E-mail for a few days, but I reposted them. So enjoy.

Bye bye.

My original Friday post, that was rudely interrupted...

2010-03-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

Well, what a nice day! I went to the gym again this morning, discovered I've lost 2 more pounds, which makes a total of about 8 now. But my weight seems to be steadily falling now though...Could it be that the weight is starting to fall off? Because yesterday morning I weighed myself and I'd lost 2...which makes a total of 4 in a week...2 days actually. I honestly think it's because I stopped eating Scamway and have been eating grilled chicken salads all week with a few teaspoons of 60 calorie, no fat dressing and a whole buttload of vegetables, frozen fruit and nuts. I've also been drinking so much water I feel like a water balloon. Aside from the carb and calorie loaded Scamway I stopped eating, I virtually eat no bread at all. I mean seriously, it's about time something happened to my benefit. You know you're losing weight when your yoga pants start getting loose on you.

So Ben finally texted me at lunch today with good news! We should be closing on the house on Wednesday, March 31st. This better happen because I'm sacrificing 2 days of work for this move, and I also worked it out with the landlord that rent will not be an issue so long as we are out within a reasonable time (the following Monday, which we surely will be if the closing goes as scheduled). I also have to clean up the apartment which won't be fun, but I've been keeping the place clean, so it shouldn't be that bad.

So a few little updates...

Poster is no longer trying to get into cabinets and closets, but instead has taken on the new habit of going directly under where I lay in bed, and scratch the wall. It doesn't make a noise as if a human was scratching a painted wall, but more that of a furry asswipe creature with werewolf talons scratching a chalkboard. That little stunt, as well a few others, are his new way of waking Ben and I up at 4 in the morning, on the dot, every morning.

One of his others is going into the spare bedroom where we keep various junk, and also a lot of old boxes that we've been saving over the year for our expected move. For some reason, he will paw at the largest one, which makes a loud scraping noise. Take your hand, put it on the nearest surface and slide your hand along it, but lightly. Repeat between hands. This is what it sounds like, except 3 times louder and for 15 minutes straight without stopping on a large cardboard box. Atleast, we think it's a cardboard box. Everytime one of us finally can't take it anymore, we get up to spray him (a water bottle is always necessary with this cat), and he's already bolting to hide behind the couch. We've never actually caught him pawing the box to death, but that's what it sounds like. I'm not going to lie, he's an extremely smart cat. I'd like to pride myself in thinking that he's smarter then your average cat, but this is not automatically a good thing.

For example, this morning, before he started box pawing, he was playing with a hair tie in our doorway. He likes to find small trinkets laying around (he prefers things that make noise of course, beer bottle caps are his favorite), and bring them directly into our doorway and play with them. Ben was gone for work already, and Poster had not yet settled down from his 4 a.m. recess. I was just about to doze back off when he brought the hair tie into our doorway and was rolling around with it mercilessly, every so often, rolling into the wall, and scraping his dragon dagger nails into the lenolium, basically making a lot of unnecessary ruckus. I finally got up, and took his hair tie from him, and laid back down. I swear to you, I am not making this up, before I even had a chance to close my eyes, he was under the bed, scratching the wall. My first thought was that I was hearing things, but I wasn't. He was getting revenge on me for taking his beloved toy.

Since of course, he is always out of arms length when I reach under the bed to drag him out, I had to get up, again, and go into the front room, knowing he'd follow me. But it didn't work. He was sitting under the bed, green eyes glowing with glee at my obvious anger. So I lured him out by pretending to give him a treat, but then just locked him out. He is seriously like a kid. I love him dearly, but he pisses me off a lot too.

Well I'm out. Have an awesome day.

Slightly better?

2010-03-30T07:54:00.000-07:00

Guess what I did today?

I got up at 6:15, got ready, and went to the gym for an hour before work. I LOVED it. There was nobody there except an older couple and their trainer. A vivacious older woman with a lot of pep in her step. The old man was an adorably sweet old guy, who said to me as I was leaving, "You have a great day today!'. That made me happy. I wish all old people were like that. But they aren't.

I have a pounding headache behind my eyes because of my monthly friend dropping in on me at 5 this morning. This morning though, the whole bottom half of my body was throbbing, and trying to fall back asleep after Ben left was near impossible. So that's why I decided to try the theory of working out to rid of cramping. It really did work, very much so. The headache didn't come until later of course, after the stress of the day set in. We have something here called 'clinical rotations' which are basically the student's internships with the doctors. They go through coursework for however long, then move on to the 'hands on' part in hospitals in the US. A job I have voluntarily taken on lately, is sending letters to the clinical coordinators (the people who set up the rotations) to ensure that the particular student they are setting up, has all of there fees paid. We have a very large number of doctors that work with us and accept our students for their internships. We have to pay these doctors for allowing them to rotate, and the kids pay us. But sometimes, the kids will go over our heads, go straight to the coordinators, lie to them and tell them they are in good standing with us, and the coordinators, unaware, will set up rotations for them when infact, they have not paid us for them yet. Which means that the doctors send us invoices, and upon checking the students statements, haven't paid, and it causes huge problems. So everytime a student calls one of the coordinators now (there are 3), they tell them to call me and get a 'letter of good standing'. I then have to find how how many weeks of rotations the student has done, compare it with their bill, and then prepare and send a letter. I've been doing 5 or so of these a day, and it's becoming a real hair puller. Especially since most of the students are notorious for lying, arguing and putting on a real show when they realize that one of there rotations will be cancelled due to insufficient funds. I just hate that. I even had a student on Tuesday, who has done 16 weeks of rotations already, and only paid for 12, ask me, "Well, can you send a letter for another 12 weeks? I promise the payment will be in next week." I laughed at him and said, "If I believed a student every time they told me that, we'd be in REALLY big trouble."

So Brenda, our mortgage broker still hasn't gotten back to us with any good news yet. I called her today and she said that USDA or (HUD) or whatever the hell you want to call them, messed up some of Ben's paperwork, and they are correcting it. How typical. Of course we are really under a lot of pressure right now as far as time, and they are messing up paperwork. Get with it, you idiots.

It's now 10 to 5 and I have not received a text from Ben with good news, nor a call from Brenda with good news. When I talked to Ben earlier, he said to me, "I'm about to tell them to take this house, shove it up their asses, and get (bleeped)". Which made me laugh a little, but I am just as frustrated as he is. This whole thing is really messing with our time, and feelings. Since last Friday we have been let down over and over and flooded with dissapointment. We just feel so belittled by some persons we can't even see. Who are these jags? We haven't even started to pack because we're both starting to feel hopeless. Like we've been dangling an enourmous worm on a line for a month without a bite. Everytime we feel a wiggle, it stops. That was a gay analogy. My mind is a little clouded with pain right now, so I'm gonna call it a day.

Have an awesome day everyone.

Oh yeah, and I lost 2 pounds.

Angry Post

2010-03-30T07:52:00.000-07:00

Well I'm very irritated today. The mortgage brokers and our realtor were almost certain we'd close on March 19th. But then, that fell through, so an extension was made for another week. It is now Wednesday, March 24th. I called the mortgage company this morning, and they got Ben's file back from HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development), and now there's some little paperwork errors that need to be fixed, sent back to HUD and reveiwed, once again. The already had an extenstion last week to get paperwork, and now they need more time just to fix a few little things? Seriously...what the hell!?

We are really pressing time here! We don't have another week. This is rediculous. We need to get out of our apartment by April 1st to avoid paying another months rent. Not to mention we would have had Friday (as I requested this day off, and then unrequested it today, I'm lucky I have an understanding boss) and Sunday to move our stuff. Saturday we have a wedding in Springfield to go too (we cancelled the hotel room for this and are passing up a night of free drinks BECAUSE WE THOUGHT WE WERE MOVING), so we only have those two days. I cannot take off 2 days of work to move, which is the appropriate amount of time I will need to get moved and get the place cleaned up! AHHHH!

I just want to punch HUD in the face right now. I don't blame the brokers or our realtor, I'm blaming HUD for being a bunch of picky little pansies...if they are checking all this stuff so throughly, why didn't they catch all of this the first time?

I also forgot my gym clothes today, I'm pretty sure my monthly 'friend' is going to show up some time today, the weather blows, my acid indigestion never goes away, etc...its just one of those awesome days. I'm seriously on the verge of bawling my eyes out with anger at this whole stupid situation. We just want to get in there, get the move overwith, and move on. But instead, we have to sit and sit and wait for that phone call.

Oh and to add a little more anger onto my already overly irritating day, I still have not lost any weight, so the Biggest Loser competition is going just swimmingly! I feel like an idiot that I've weighed in three weeks in a row and nothings happened. I mean, not even 2 pounds. They're probably thinking, 'Why did you join this competition, if you're not trying?" Well, that's the thing, imaginary gym employees in my story, I AM TRYING! I am trying, dammit. I've BEEN trying for over two months now. You tell me why nothing's happening, you see me here 3 or 4 days a week, fighting lesbians off the elliptacle and walking up the rotating stairway of hell, so you tell me!

UGH!!!!!!!!

I want to give up so bad. I'm not going too, but I want too. I'm sick of trying to be positive about something that is never going to happen. I have to work, so I can't quit my job because it requires sitting in a chair for 8 hours. Over the past few months, I've read lots of success stories but various women, young, old, obese, thick, and jiggly and they all say the same things: "I started eating better and working out 30-45 minutes a day, 3-4 days a week and lost 45 pounds in 3 months" or something of that nature. So that's roughly 15 pounds a month. So....what's my problem then? I've been eating better for almost 3 months, eating whole grains, fruits, vegetables, more salad than I can handle, besides the outrageous carb count in Scamway sandwhiches, I barely eat any bread, I watch my sodium intake, I get a very adequate amount of sleep each night, I eat a good breakfast, I've been drinking 55 calorie beer (2 nights a week), I barely drink pop anymore, I went from almost 4 cans a day to 1diet pop if any at all, I work out 45-50 minutes 3-4 days a week...WHAT IS THE PROBLEM THERE?! Yeah, on the weekends, I will get take out, or eat a little bit of junk here or there, but nothing that should be preventing me from losing ANY weight AT ALL. People keep telling me, 'Oh just give it time, it will start falling off one day..." Really? 3 months later? If I was a roast in a smoker I'd be liquified right now. If Jillian Michaels weren't alive, she'd be rolling in her grave right now!

1 1/2 hours later...

Ok, so I took a break and had some lunch, drove around and got some fresh air, and I feel slightly better.

So, nothing unusually exciting has happened to me lately. I bought a dress for the wedding on Saturday, but not a green one. I was definately budget shopping, and DEB did not have any green dresses to my liking. So I settled with a very cute black one. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice it actually looked, since me shopping for anything is always a horrible and anguishing experience. Clothes just keep shrinking and shrinking because we're all supposed to be anorexic models nowadays. Anyway, It was on clearance too for $25.00, so it left me room to buy shoes and a few other accessories, like panty-hoes. I think pantyhose are hilarious! You pull them out of the little box shaped like an egg, so it's like unhatching a little baby animal or something, and the things are so tiny you always question whether or not they are going to fit you. They always go up the leg all sleek and sexy, but then you get to your midsection and the feeling immediately goes away and quickly turns into sadness when you realize that the pantyhose will not stay comfortably on the lower abdomen. They keep sliding down, under your stomach 'pooch', and you can feel it when you walk. "These god damned pantyhose keep sliding down!"...Then they always fit your crotch weird. You feel the strangest desire to do lunges as often as possible while sporting a pair of 'hose because they are preventing your legs from moving as freely. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm always messing with the crotch area of those things when I wear them. And, it's just inevitable that if you purchase a pair of pantyhose, they are going to tread and tear and there's nothing you can do about it. They are just hilariously stupid. I've worn a total of about 5 pairs of 'hose in my life, and all were ripped in a matter of hours. I'm choosing to wear them for the wedding on Saturday because my pasty, jet puffed legs, are white as marshmellows. That's what I look like, the Stay Puffed Marshmellow man from Ghostbusters.

Hopefully the wedding will be fun though for the short time that we will be there. We had Ben's mom cancel our hotel room because we thought we were going to have to rush back that night and hit the hay so we could get up bright and early and finish moving and cleaning on Sunday, but to no avail. Thanks again, HUD, for your picky and finicky bull that is causing us so much stress. You'd think we were moving into a castle the way they are handling things.

Hopefully this will all work out soon, so I can stop posting angry posts.

Have a good day all.

Subway lies.

2010-03-19T14:39:00.000-07:00

Again, sorry for the rant yesterday. Biggest Loser.com made me feel bad about myself, so it just set me off. Last night, Ben fell asleep earlier, so I stole his phone and started messing with a calorie counter application I downloaded on it some time ago. I tried to break down all the reasons I haven't been losing the weight, and finally figured out that this whole time that I've been 'eating good', I actually have been intaking the same amount of calories if not more, then the 2000 calorie per day diet. I have a calorie journal online that I periodically check, and my goal calorie intake is about 1100 per day. I have broken up my usual diet for the past couple weeks, and the outcome was that I'm going well over 1500. So it's no wonder. The 'Light and Fit', 'Fit & Active' and 'Weight Watchers' labels can be deceiving.

Also, I've been eating Subway for lunch and dinner pretty much every day for the past two weeks (6" for lunch and the other half for dinner). But something occured to me last night while messing with the calorie counter add on Ben's phone...when the Subway commercials say that 'There's only 250 calories in this sandwhich! YAY!' They are not counting, the cheese, bread or condiments. They are basically just giving you the meat. I will break it down for you...

6" Bread: Honey Oat-250 calories, 48 carbs, 3.5g fat
Ham: 60 calories per slice (about 3 slices on a 6")
Turkey: 50 calories per slice (about 3 slices on a 6")
Light Mayo: 50 calories per tsp (so about 6 tsp per 6"), 1.5g fat
Mustard: 5cal per tsp (about 6 tsp per 6")
Provolone: 2 half circles are 1.5g fat, 50 calories (2 per 6")

And that is usually what I get on mine, with spinach, cucumber, and that's it. So lets see, that's, 970 calories and 6.5 grams of fat. For a 6 inch. Now, if I eat the other half for dinner that's almost 1940 calories, not to mention the carbs in that. And the wheat bread is no better, the wheat bread is 200 calories.

See for yourself...

So that's how they get ya. I do agree that is it healthier than eating a Big Mac, except the Big Mac actually has less calories at 540 but 29g of fat. The worse thing to get at McDonalds is the Deluxe breakfast at a whopping 1090 calories and 56 grams of fat. Oh, and the milk shakes, 1110 calories for a vanilla, and about the same for the other two (Sorry dad).

So I think I deciphered why I have not been dropping the weight. I have had a very mislead diet hidden behind 'weight loss' labels. So I'm gonna start cooking up some more chicken breasts and making big salads instead of worrying about getting Scamway.

I'm not giving up yet world. Where there is a will, there is a way.

I also have to stop getting take out. Those Saturday night rendezvous at the Skillet and Hamada and wherever else are not doing me justice.

So a few little updates...

Crazy is still at it. I have not talked to her since the day before the meeting 3 weeks ago, and I don't intend on talking to her. It did not dawn on me how crazy she actually was until her little plans started unfolding. I truly believe that she is trying to get us all fired. I'm not sure what her motive is, or what she plans on doing if we all got fired, but she's got something brewing up there. I think that she has this huge, epic and ultimate plan that will bring all her little plans together one day, and when they do, she's going to put on quite a show. She has no regret for what she did. In fact, she's pretending it didn't happen and acting as though we are all the ones with the problem. She is constantly doing things to make us not like her, snapping at everyone, slamming her phone after every call, stomping around, slamming drawers, oh yeah, and did I mention sending fake e-mails to management about facebook, getting us all in trouble and nearly fired, and not even because f facebook, but because of the drama she's causing...but then gets all riled up when one of us isn't giving her attention. It's so weird...it's like...she does all these things that no normal person would enjoy, but then wants us all to cherish and respect her as a co-worker. Either that or she wants us all to feel sorry for her and give her attention, but we stopped caring a long time ago, so what does she want from us? I just don't get it. It's definately a head scratcher.

We've all been in a good mood today (except for Crazy of course, her being in a good mood should be considered a very rare event. Like the solar eclipse.) So, she's been slamming her phone, yelling at every one that calls, permanantly frowning, things like that. So my co-workers and I have just been laughing at her, and the more we laugh, the more angry she gets. She doesn't nessecarily know we are laughing at her, but I'm sure she's figured it out. I came up with the idea that we should just start spraying her water when she gets out of line, but I'm not sure how spraying crazy people would work out. There could be a number of strange things that happen in an event like that, but who knows.

Oh and one more thing I hate...when people put little stupid flags on there cars. Not flag stickers, but flags. Those little ones that snap into your side windows and flutter around all gay. I just saw an old guy drive over the Monee Manahattan overpass, he had a little golfers cap on, and I assume the typical beige rain guard jacket, with grey slacks and orthopedic foot clubs (shoes) with the velcro. I'm sure he wasn't going anywhere, he was probably just taking a little cruise with his pea sized wife, with her drawn orange eyebrows, and doily. I'm not sure why an old lady with orange eyebrows would be carrying a doily around, but when I picture an old woman, for the longest time, I've thought of doilies. So the woman in my story, is carrying a doily.

Help me Jillian Michaels

2010-03-18T14:33:00.000-07:00

I'm serious, as of today, I am done pittling around with this weight thing. Why is nothing happening yet?!? I must be doing something wrong! BUT WHAT IS IT?!?! Ahh! So I'm just going to have to work that much harder and get over my dumb little dislikings for treadmills and what not. I've been at this for over two months now and NOTHING has happened! I have lost a few pounds give or take, but I thought by now I'd at least lost a pant size...but no. For a couple days, I thought that my clothes were fitting looser, but I kid you not, I think they've gotten tighter. This is so frustrating, I could just cry right now. I'm just going to come out and say it, I hate the way I look. HATE it. I have a disgusting ripply body that I'm ashamed of, and I'm so mad at myself for letting it get this way. I'm also sick of trying so hard at something that isn't even working. I take back what I said, I think my body is made up of some other weird anatomy because working out for two months and eating right and having nothing happen is unheard of.

I've also been playing with the fact that maybe I'm mentally not letting the weight go. I swear I can give myself the flu by just thinking about it, so maybe I'm stressing myself out so much trying to lose it that I'm just keeping the weight on. Stress makes you gain weight right? I just don't even know anymore. Between this and my constant acid indigestion, I've just had it! I could yell out a whole bunch of profanity and words starting with F right now, but I won't. I'll just think them.

I swear that over the next two months or so, I AM going to get this weight off. I think the acid indigestion is caused by the weight, so I can solve two problems in one. I mean come on, 50 year old women on Biggest Loser can lose it, then so can I dammit!

OK. Had to get that out.

But I'm serious. I can't take it anymore. I hate going into a store and seeing cute shirts that I have to pass up, and dreading buying a bathing suit every summer, and being humiliated going out in it. The phrase, 'Pool Party' gives me seizures. I'm just done living like that. I want to throw on a cute tank top and a skirt this summer and not have to hide it under layers of shirts and pants that took me 4 hours to find. It seriously makes me so sad. I remember my grandpa told me a few years ago, "Just remember, there's a skinny girl in there somewhere". Yeah I was pretty upset by that, but he was right. And my Aunt who was obese for a few years, but is now a double 00, shoving weightwatchers in my face, while the other Aunt chimed in for a drunk banter about my joining, in front of Ben nonetheless, who at the time, was a fresh boyfriend of 2 months. That's not really something you want your two lush anorexically skinny aunts' pointing out in front of your new boyfriend.

He just gave me a hug when we left, and I was crying, and told me not to listen to them. That was night he decided he did not like Aunt Sarah, since her opinions always matter so much more when she's drunk. If we don't stop what we are doing to go to do whatever it is she suggests, she will stare at you, with her lips pursed in a kissy formation, and give you an evil eye while applying scoop after scoop of lipgloss.

Sigh...well I know ranting about it doesn't do me any good, but my butt is stuck in this chair 8 hours out of the day, so I can't express my anger physically (by working out, not punching things like I feel like doing sometimes). This is one of the reasons I miss waitressing. We went to the bar last night to celebrate St. Patty's day for a little bit, and I was periodically glancing at the bartender. I was jealous of her. She was a little spanish chiquita, cute as a button, running around the bar. Her shift ended at 6 I guess, because the new bartender, Sue, a good hearted older women with a rugged biker look to her, came in to relieve her. I was jealous of both of them. I saw the spanish girl counting out her tips, and I longed so badly to do that again. I hate sitting here, day after day, staring out the window, talking to little assonine, rich, med students. I know I haven't worked there in almost 4 years, but I miss B-dubs. I miss it so very badly. I know if I ever tried to go back it wouldn't be the same. All my friends are gone, all the managers are different, but I still have my memories. I know it sounds stupid, but that place was more then just a dumb old waitressing job to me. I had made a countless amount of friends there, a family, a home away from home. I had as much fun working at that place then I did my sophomore year of highschool, which was by far the best year. There were so many kinds of different people there, so many different places to hang out, it was just great.

I know everything happens for a reason, and had it not, I wouldn't be where I am now. All I need to do now is get this weight off, so I can hopefully be content and make peace with myself.

I am my own worst friend.

Green livin' is the life for me...

2010-03-17T14:48:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon! A good afternoon indeed! And Happy St. Patricks day, a.k.a. Drunken-People-Who-Suddenly-Think-They-Are-Irish-But-Aren't-So-They-Go-To-Bars-And-Act-Like-Asswipes Day!

I'm Irish, and I couldn't care less. It is coincidental that my favorite color is green though...and I like beer...but the whole Irish accent really burns me. And the green suits, with the cut off legs, green stockings, and penny loafers with cotton balls hanging off them. I really hate the way grown men dress like leprachauns with those fairy shoes and shuffle about with bagpipes. The whole thing just really bugs me. Seriously, where do people come up with these traditions? I think the accent hatred actually came to the first time I saw the movie 'Caddyshack'. That dork of a girlfriend that Danny had, Maggie I think her name was, had an Irish accent in that movie and, UGH, I couldn't stand it! Anytime I see that movie now I have to fast forward the parts with her in it. YES, I hate it that much.

It's another one of those things you just can't explain...why did Curly have a hatred for tassles? I don't know. Do you know? I didn't think so. And why was limburger cheese the only thing that calmed him down? Again, don't know.

Well, I haven't really gone to the gym since Sunday unfortunately. Monday I was having some monster digestion issues, which forced me to leave the gym early. Tuesday we were having a crisis with this whole closing thing on the house. They just have the hardest time setting dates and getting all the information straight that they need, forcing Ben to now close later. We have to be out by April 1st to avoid having to pay another month's rent, and the new closing date is most likely the 26th now. The problem? Ben gets a vacation fund every year from his work, and they needed 'proof', to make sure the extra $1500 and something odd dollars, isn't drug dealer money basically. They also needed proof of homeowners insurance on the house that they haven't even approved him for yet. So he had to go buy homeowners insurance last night, for a house he hasn't even gotten. What sense does that make? So he was a ticking time-bomb yesterday. I went home to help him look for all the new information they needed, then I gave him my credit card, told him to order out, and left to go get a haircut and let him cool off. When I got back, that seemed to have done the trick because he was laughing at Seinfeld when I returned, and when Ben is really mad, not even Seinfeld makes him laugh. So that was good. We ended up eating some beef sandwhiches and watching, yet again, another Seinfeld. Afterwards I cracked a Select 55 (only 1!) and we watched 'Biggest Loser' before going to bed.

The warm weather gives me a happy, fuzzy feeling in my beergut and reminds me how much I love the summer. I finally have a nice car with a big sunroof to enjoy, and I feel like this summer I will finally free of those stubborn pounds I've so desperately wanted to lose for 4 summers now. So far, much to my dismay, I haven't really lost a whole lot of anything. Just a little more self love everytime I step on that scale and it reads the same thing week after week. SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE HELL? Ironically, on Biggest Loser last night, Bob (one of the trainers) said that working in an 8-hour a day office full time, can make losing weight a lot harder. Awesome! Thanks Bob, great news for me!

Well in honor of St. Patty's day, I am going to have a few beer with Ben at the bar after work. He actually called me to go out on a week night! Amazing!

Good bye all!

Hamada of Japan

2010-03-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

Well I tried to do a little updating on this thing, and all I managed to do was put on a new background, and blow up my picture to an annoyingly large size. I can't get it back now.

You'll have to excuse my rage in the last post, I let my anger get the best of me. I failed to realize that losing weight takes time. I've been steadily gaining it for the past 4 years, so it's going to take time to get it off. But sometimes you just gotta vent, you know?

I didn't give up. In fact it just made me want to do it that much more. I went to the gym 4 days last week, all at about an hour a peice. Except Sunday I went for an hour an a half. The gym was virtually empty at first, just me and an older man working out in jeans. Ouch. So I finally manned up and went on the treadmill. For 4 minutes. Then I was reminded why I hate the the treadmill so much, so I got off. I did run on it however, but only for 4 minutes before I thought to myself, "I really hate treadmills".

I moved on to the swinging elliptacle on a resistance of 15 for 20 minutes, and then moved it to a resistance of 20 for 10 minutes. Austin Powers was on so I just watched that for a half hour before finally getting off, sweaty and numb and moved onto the stairway of hell. I set it on a resistance of 3 and reluctantly worked out on it for 5 minutes. No 10 minutes yet. After that, I went and did some free weights. Usually on a week day, the free weight section of the gym is occupied by 6 or 7 highschool boys and a few older gentleman. I feel very awkward waddling over to their territory and lifting weights, especially since highschoolers are not always the nicest of people, so I tend to stick to cardio for most of my work out. Or at least until the highschoolers move over to the cardio machines, then I move.

Oh, and I forgot, Uncle B and Aunt Pat showed up. I knew it was them when they were pulling up because Uncle B drives a maroon Subaru Outback hatchback. The perfect lesbian car in my opinion. You're not sure if it's feminine or masculine, but it's more masculine, just like them.

Like I was saying, after I was finished with my cardio, I was taking advantage of the vacant free weight section. Since the jeans guy was gone, it was just me and lesbians. I conciously to stay as far away from them as possible, but I kept a close eye on them incase they tried to pull any funny stuff. I know this is totally weird of me, but a few times I thought they were going to forget I was there and start making out or something. After that thought popped into my head, I couldn't look at them anymore. I turned my back to them and did a few lunges and other various free weight excersizes before taking off.

So something occured to me today that has periodically crossed my mind, but was disregarded. You know what? It is really hard to stay on a diet when you constantly have acid indigestion. No matter how much I eat, I constantly feel like I am starving severely. It doesn't just stop there, it gives me stomach aches, makes me very irritable and uncomfortable, more often then not, brings on headaches. It's getting rediculous. Fruits and vegetables are not good foods to eat when you have acid indigestion. Most of them have underlying acids in them (tomatoes for example), and I think green peppers, not sure. Fruits like apples, oranges...I have to eat starchy or milk based foods to subside the pains. Tums and Rolaids don't do anything, I may as well eat candy. I didn't really think much of it at first, but I was really thinking about it today, and I don't think I go one time in the day where I don't have it. Sometimes it's just not as bad and I don't really notice it, but most of the time its staggering. Especially in the morning around 5 am when Ben leaves for work, it usually starts to flare up. When I make my lunch in the morning, I base it around snacks I can eat to help my acid indigestion, not diet foods. It's like it's taking over my life. I don't have health insurance, I cannot afford to go to the doctor, so I don't know what to do.

So my weekend was fun.

Friday I got off work early to go pay some bills and go to a dreaded doctors appointment, only designed to violate women. So I once I was done being violated, I got home about 4:00, and Ben and I decided it would be fun to go out to eat. I suggest TGIF's because I've been dying for 'Sizzlin' Chicken and Cheese'. I don't care who you are, if you don't love this mind-blowing entree, you are missing out. Way out.

But Ben insisted that he wanted to go to Hamada instead. Which I NEVER object too. I feel like a princess when he brings me there. You sit at a table of 8, with a large griddle in the middle, and the cook prepares your dish right at your table. First you get salad, soup, then a hefty bowl of chicken fried rice, a large portion of noodles (the best noodles you'll ever taste), followed by 2 big scoops of fresh grilled veggies, and then your meat. I always get the Royal Delight, which is chicken and shrimp. If you ever go here, I suggest eating the seafood sauce (the light orange sauce), with everything. I always take home a huge box full because by the time I get my meat, I'm stuffed, so when I do put my food in a box to take home, I just pour it in and mix it with everything. You can't go wrong with it. It's a sweet peppery sauce and taste amazing on anything. I bet it even tastes good on ice cream. It's that good. You will never find an entree there that is under $17.00. But it's so worth it. The place is very inviting, with a cozy romantic setting and the food is always great. Not just good, but great. Tony the Tiger style. I love going there. We've also been to Fuji's Japanese Steak House in Orland Park too, but Hamada of Japan tops it, and is in Tinley Park, so it's a lot closer.

Well the work day has come to a close.

I will elaborate more tomorrow, I'm going to the gym to work on my fitness, whenever it feels like presenting itself.

Venting

2010-03-11T14:56:00.000-08:00

Ok, wow, this acid indigestion is really getting out of control. For lunch today, I had Subway. Turkey, ham, pickles, green peppers, light mayo, mustard, provolone, lettuce and spinach on honey oat bread. Later, I ate 4 rolaids, accompanied by a cup of a yogurt and a few slices of apple, followed by 2 tums. Wouldn't ya know it, I am still fighting the uncomfortable storm of the century going on my stomach right now and this started about 2 1/2 hours ago. I tried chugging water too, but I think that made it worse. What the hell man? I have been cutting WAY back on the drinking, so I can't blame it on beer. I have completely cut out drinking during the week, and even on the weekends I haven't been drinking that much. I'm almost bored with it...I can't believe I even just typed that, but I'm serious. That being said, I still can't figure out why the weight won't come off. What am I doing wrong?!?! Like I said, I've seriously cut back on the beer, and the beer I am drinking is Select 55, all I eat during the week is greens is moderate portions of anything, I've been working out harder...I mean, seriously? Is my metabolism asleep? I don't understand this. I mean, I'd be happy with 10 pounds at least, but I think I'm up to 7 now, in 2 fricking months? I'm 24 years old, what's the problem here?

I don't know what I have to do? Should I just drink chicken broth and water and quit my job and work out 8 hours a day and take laxatives and diet pills? Jeez!

I'm just so flustered. I wanted to get in moderately decent shape by the end of March for the wedding we have to go too, but apparently the fat that has suction cupped itself to my body isn't going to budge for awhile. So I guess my next goal is summer time. It really breaks my heart that I've virtually seen no response from my body yet. Everytime I feel like I'm thinning out a little, my jeans never get bigger. Infact I think they've gotten a little tighter. Maybe I'm building muscle and it's just disguising itself as fat...but muscles don't jiggle, so keep dreaming Brittney.

Oh well. I'm going to go to the gym today and work on something that won't ever happen.

Oh, and I bought an 'Emery Cat' scratcher for Poster...It's an 'As seen on TV' product. His nails are out of control, and I decided to buy this for him because it's supposed to naturally file his nails, hence the name, 'Emory Cat'. I waited for over a month for this thing, and when it finally came last night...HE DIDN'T EVEN LIKE IT.

I'M GOING TO PUNCH POSTER IN HIS TINY CAT HEAD THAT IS TOO SMALL FOR HIS HUGE CAT BODY.

The 'Emory Cat' also came with a little feathery bopper toy...which he demolished, ripped apart, broke in half, within the first 10 minutes, then slept with it.

Poster = me punching.

Have a grand day everyone.