Thankful

No lie, I’ve been in a pretty rollercoaster emotional state the last 5 days.  And if you happen to catch yesterday’s post, which I deleted, you know that I was feeling an awful lot of sad as the holidays approach.
I took it down because 1) I don’t only want my blog to be about feeling sad, because I don’t feel sad every second of every day.  In fact, I was pretty much in a giggle fit at the end of the day today.  and 2) I feel like I have no business complaining when I have so much in my life that others don’t have.
That said, I am in a quieter, calmer place today and while I was finishing sweeping up the place a bit, slightly more unconventional “I’m thankful for’s” started popping into my head.  So here goes…
1) I am thankful for having good role models in my life.  Yes, this definitely includes my family, but a lot of other great people too.
2) I am thankful for my job.  Not just that I HAVE a job, but, minor annoyances aside, I have a job I enjoy going to every day.  I’m thankful that I actually look forward to going to work some days, and most days I leave feeling pretty darn accomplished.
3) I am thankful for YOU.  Whether we’ve ever met in person or not, your support has been amazing.  And I love reading your goods and your bads, your highs and your lows just as much–even if I don’t always comment.
4) I am thankful for finally learning how to eat healthfully and exercise.  Even if I don’t do it every day, I’m light years ahead of where I was before.
5)  I am thankful for the Hoover Floormate wet dry vac.  Especially at this moment.

And of course, it goes without saying that my friends, family, and fuzzy little kittenheads are the blessings I count daily.
I fly out tomorrow night.  If I don’t check in, everyone have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Crazy Presents Lady

Two other things that most people know about me as it relates to the holidays is that 1) I am anal about buying Christmas presents early and 2) I freaking love wrapping presents.  I actually take into consideration that I want to have at least one day before Christmas to wrap gifts at my parents’ house when I make my travel plans, and god forbid I should wrap presents the day of only to have them opened that evening.  OH NO, that cannot happen.
I was a little behind this year, but I can cheerfully say I only have 2 people left to buy for (everything is in twos today, huh?)–my mom, because my dad and I have to pow-wow and scheme about what to get her, and my cousin’s little boy because he is three and obsessed with Buzz Lightyear but already has everything Buzz Lightyear and frankly, I have an easier time shopping for girls anyway.
Now I am ready to commence wrapping.
Which is funny, because I was at CVS last week looking at the paper and the cards and thinking “I am so not ready to do any of this” and now suddenly I am.  Plus some of my little self-talk to get me out of the sad mindset is to focus on the things I DO enjoy about the holidays.  And the #1 winner is wrapping presents.
I should get a part time job at the department stores or the malls wrapping presents, but I don’t know if I could do it under pressure.
However, if you would like to send your presents my way, I will wrap them for you for free.

Holiday Cheer

There’s no doubt–the pending holidays have not helped my crummy mood.  Everyone knows by now I get stressed at the holidays.  And this year, the combination of having lost both of my grandparents in the past year, going through a major breakup, and probably spending my first NYE in awhile totally alone…PLUS the fact that most of the people I know are scaling back financially on gift giving this year…which doesn’t make me sad b/c of the lack of gifts, but rather, because some of my own family and most of my friends have just opted out of the gift giving because they are under such financial strain.  It all  makes me very, very sad.
HOWEVER, it is kind of a lot of overdramatic nonsense on my part because you know, I have my parents to go home to.  I have a job to keep going to.  And I am healthy as can be, physically and mentally.  And I can tell you from hopping around the blogosphere that is not the case for a LOT of people. 
I just wish for the holidays everyone could feel good. 
However, I started my holiday shopping for my cousin’s little ones, who are not worried about money or swine flu or job security.  It made me so happy.
THIS made me so happy. OMG, it’s a teeny tiny Stella McCartney trenchcoat. CUTENESS!

But, for a toddler that seems just a bit extreme, so I opted to buy Little Miss Lana this instead.  Also CUTE! And on sale!
So if the holidays can’t totally be about cheer in 2009, here’s hoping they can at least be about as much cute as possible.

Why Is It So Easy?

I’ve had this post tumbling around in my head for the past couple days, and now I’m in a bad mood* so this should be really good.
Twice this week I lamented to someone that I want to know why it (being this whole dating business) is so easy for other people.  And each time I said that, it was met with laughter and incredulity.   No, it is not easy, and no, I don’t know the nature of everyone’s relationships, and yes, with the divorce rate still so high I guess it really isn’t easy.  But still, I do feel like sometimes other people have had a much easier time finding Their One.**
Case in point:  how many people I know who met their s.o. in college, fell in love, got married, and in some cases started families.  Bam.  Easy peasy.  By the time they were 24, for the most part this nonsense was not even cause for concern.  WHY did that happen for some people and not me? Why am I still dealing with this dating crap at age 34?!
Alright, in fairness if I think about the guys I dated in college, I would absolutely not have wanted to marry a single one of them.  So maybe I didn’t know what I was doing, or maybe my path was different, blah blah.
But it’’s hard not to throw a temper tantrum and yell “It’s not fair!!!”
The other piece of this is that it SUCKS to be a person who has always worked hard, who was raised to work hard, and always got what they wanted out of life by working hard.  Well, guess what?  When it comes to finding Mr. Right, apparently that rule doesn’t apply.  For someone who functions very much in that mindset on a day to day basis, it’s really hard not to get frustrated.
Meh.
I’m just ranting.
But for those of you who found your s.o. so early in life?  I really do want to know why it was so easy.  Or if it was not easy, just make me feel better by telling me why.

*I had some crap news come down at work (don’t worry, I’m still employed) and I am fighting a headcold which seems to be at its epicenter right now, so all I want to do is spike some green tea with whiskey and crawl under the blankies.

**I don’t believe in THE one, or A one (except the steak sauce, heh) so whatever you would call The person for A person.

Miss You Guys

So yeah–the internet blockage at work is playing out exactly like I predicted.  I’m not commenting or posting as much as I would like.  Often I’ll read a series of posts in the morning on my Blackberry and WANT to comment, but too often the script for someone’s comment section doesn’t run, and I can’t do it, and then I get home from the gym* or something and by then I just forget or don’t want to bother. But  I am reading!  I swears!
(The first person to suggest I get an iphone to fix this issue gets punched)
Productivity, you are the bane of the blogger phenomenon!
Image heavy posts are killing me too because they take for-freaking-ever to load on my bberry and then I just end up skipping them. Yikes.
This weekend has been pretty normal and uneventful.  I’m incredibly groggy which I think has to do with hitting the sugar a *leetle* too hard over the past few days (I made pecan pie thumbprint cookies yesterday and admittedly had to add a little extra butter and brown sugar to the mix because man, when you mix those two together with a mixer I could seriously just sit and eat it out of a bowl for hours on end).
I’m meeting P in a few for our usual Scrabble, I’ve seen H a few times this weekend, and okay…yes, I had a date Friday.  There. I said it.  It went fine, was a perfectly lovely first date, I may or may not see him again, please do not ask me to elaborate.

*I worked out 5 days this past week–3 days of cardio and 2 of yoga.  Yay, me!

Hey Everyone, Remember Me?

I realized the last time I posted anything of substance I hadn’t really reached a mental/emotional equilibrium.  Well, please know that I have been in a good place all week and hopefully this will continue.  Honestly? An awful lot of self care over the weekend helped.  I kept things pretty chill, got a LOT done around the house, exercised, got a 25 minute chair massage at the new nail salon around the corner,  went for a ridiculous 2 hour walk on Saturday, met the girls for brunch on Sunday, met P for the usual Scrabble, got slaughtered at the usual Scrabble, and went to bed super relaxed and feeling good (It was on my agenda to make a pie but it just didn’t happen.  However, I definitely see cookies ahead this weekend.).  I’ve still kept things pretty low key in the evenings–mainly exercising (I’ve become addicted to the stationary bike at Bally’s) and chilling with the television, my embroidery and the kitty cats. (Yeah, the whole NaNoWrimo thing?  Total fail.  I started with just a line and a couple characters and was pretty happy with where things were going, but then my brain went kablooey and I just haven’t been able to pick it up since.  Maybe next year.)  This weekend I’m stepping up the socializing a bit again but not to absurd proportions.
Speaking of my embroidery, I was going to elaborate a bit on that.  I’ve always been an artsy person, but I wouldn’t call myself a crafty person.  I can’t sew much more than a button.  My attempt at crochet was a complete failure.  And I won’t even subject another person to trying to teach me to knit because I know I don’t have the patience.  I picked up an embroidery kit on a whim a couple weeks back and as I joked to H, I think I have finally found a craft of my very own.  The neat thing about embroidery is that it’s a little more free-form than most yarn or needle crafts–I’ve equated it to drawing with thread.  After a number of practice patterns on the tea towels in the kit, I branched out to a real retro kitchen towel I bought at Joann’s and am in the process of sewing two little strawberries on it.  It’s great fun for me and has become a great way to unwind with the (new! big!) television.
Okay, time to go do some serious harvesting over on Farmville.  Man,  I miss being able to keep up with my crops at lunch time!

Technical Difficulties

Yesterday we launched our new internet monitoring policy at work, including some newly blocked sites.
Know what’s blocked?  WordPress.  And I can read blogs still in Google Reader but I can’t click through to comment on them.
I can still get into Facebook (but can’t play Farmville!!).
So, suffice to say this will probably be severely cutting into my reading and blogging time.
Now, before anyone goes off about how I should be working, not posting or reading…
1) I get my work done
2) I am on the phone most of the day, which usually lends itself to other things because
3) I am a chronic multi-tasker

So, no, I really don’t think this is going to impact my productivity at all.  Which, by the way, acording to what I think is a very flawed study, is at a huge high across the business world right now.  Know why?  People are scared to lose their jobs.  Management by fear is never a good idea.

Anyway, more on life in general when I can check in.

Take That, Bally’s

I  had an AWESOME workout tonight at the gym. Yay!  I ran for 5 mins, then did 25 minutes on the bike (why the 5 min run? just what I felt like doing) at level 12.  !!! I don’t know how high the bike goes, but I can tell you I only ever remember getting up to *maybe* level 6 in the past.  So, hey Bally’s?  When I get to the 94th floor of the Hancock Tower I’m going to tell you to EAT IT for having your trainer tell me I didn’t have the stamina to complete the Hustle.

I wrapped it up with some crunches and pushups and felt GREAT.

I haven’t been consistent with the exercise this week, what with the mental breakdown and all*, but still, when I do go I am making it count.

And now I am craving lemon bars** something fierce.  Oh, the eternal struggle.

*I am feeling better, but man, I am ready for these major mood swings to s-t-o-p.
**I am thinking I might make a pie this weekend.  Just because.

Better

See, told you I’d be better today!

Okay, not all better.  But a lot better.  Thank you so much to those of you who emailed me.  I didn’t write back to anyone today, so don’t take it personally or worry that I’m in a ditch somewhere if I didn’t write back.  By tomorrow I think I’ll be able to process everything again.

I did end up taking today off.  Per usual, my stomach imploded as it tends to do when my emotions are high.  So my body forced me to rest, and that’s totally okay.

I just got back from Sears where I got a digital booster antenna so that I can watch V tonight.  (I was doing fine with my old school antenna, but couldn’t get ABC, so let’s hope this fixes things b/c LOST starts up again in January!!)  And the show may suck, but I don’t really care.  Because watching tv and sorting through the detritus that needs to be dealt with in this house (the physical and all the emotional that’s tied to it) is what I feel like doing tonight.  For the next couple months, taking care of ME is top priority.

Thanks again.  It is always so helpful just to know that people care–cheesy as that sounds, it is true.

The Highs are High, The Lows are Low

After such a fun weekend, I crashed in a very big way today.  I mean emotionally.  I think today was the most I’ve cried since the very first time E. and I split.  In fact, here I am crying again. (it’s been pretty much every couple hours)
And it’s not really about E…at least not entirely.  I mean, I know coming off of that relationship has left me without a full tank of emotional gas, and there are still things related to my relationship with E. that are hurting my heart so much.  But there are other things I don’t want to talk about here.  Things I feel like I brought on myself at a time when I really didn’t have the emotional reserve to deal with them.
I know, this is very vague and probably making little sense. I’m also tired.
I’m just at an emotional depth I didn’t know I had in me, and yet, at the same time, somehow mostly  managing and coping just fine.  On one hand, I feel like I could take tomorrow off for some mental health, but on the other, being at work keeps me distracted and sane.
You know,  I’m not like this every day.  For the most part I’ve been fine.  But man, when the wave hit me, it hit me really hard.  I feel battered, and exhausted, and lost and confused.
I’ll be better tomorrow I’m sure.  Again, sorry for the vague.