Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Thoughts and ruminations on googlestalking an ex

Don't do it. Even if you think it might be okay it isn't. After the dreams of the ex recently I decided to google him and see what came up. What came up... a page about him with a link to myspace. Of course I had to follow this through to fruition. I had begun the soul destroying, I couldn't stop. The end result. He still is hot. Maybe hotter than he was oh so many years ago. Hard to say. The other end result. He could still be a jackass and he definitely is unmotivated. Not that I require a CEO or anything but oh so many years after college he should have a degree of some sort by now. (Please notice how I don't spell out how many years oh so many is because when THAT dawned on me I contemplated how hard it would be to cause myself to spontaneously combust.)

I think this was primarily prompted by a rash of recent facebook friends updating their profiles (well and becoming my friends to begin with). Everybody I knew in college and high school has a spouse and children. Ok that's probably an exaggeration, but the ones that post a lot of updates all seem to and it is forcing me to have the oh so unhealthy dialogue of "Huh, how'd she manage to find a husband?" in my head. And they all post pictures of their kids and it is so cute and it might be making me a little bitter. So for about 10 minutes yesterday I felt sorry for myself hence the googlestalking which made me more bitter. :) Isn't that how it always works? So maybe the real lesson here is Facebook is the enemy. Ahh... yes that's the real lesson.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

A bunch of random thoughts leading up to one whole post

I donated blood today. I was pleased I managed to have enough iron in my body to do it for a change. Usually I get yellow carded for at least the first two attempts. They have a new machine, now, to test the hematocrit. Weirdly, the first time they did it I totally failed. You have to have a 12.5 reading and I only had a 11.4. So they did it a 2nd time and passed it. It did make me wonder.

I've been having crazy ass dreams lately. Two nights ago it was a long drawn out dream that actually continued after every time I woke up. There was something about children and I rescued them from the side of the road where they were just sitting. Kind of like picking up a stray dog. I took them to work to find their keepers and I can't remember the rest. Although in the beginning of my dream they were boys but by the end of the dream one was a girl. I can't remember last nights except that an ex made an appearance and it was so real when I woke up this morning I was briefly confused as to whether or not I had seen him in Seattle. (He's not from here so why would he be here?).

Other thoughts include that I find this one concept for mascara creepy... lash tubes. I don't really get it but every time I see the ad on TV I get creeped out. (Completely illogical I know)

I'm trying to cook more at home. So far I've managed two meals in a row. That's not saying a lot. :) Although both were really good. :)

Friday, January 23, 2009

Chocolate for Itches

Last night Stephen and I went to NARAL's Chocolate for Choice event at Safeco Field. It was an interesting gathering. I probably won't attend again, but I'm glad I did and I picked up some nice chocolate. There was a silent auction, which Stephen won something from, and a regular auction of cakes. I didn't bid on anything, but I considered it. I always feel badly for the things that don't get bid on. Like somehow they weren't good enough. It's weird, I know. I think it is actually that I feel badly for the people that donate the item. I know that if I were donating an item (and a lot of the items were handicrafted) I would take care and choose carefully picking something that I thought would earn money for the charity. I guess I would be disappointed if I thought something was great and nobody else did. I might be too sensitive about rejection (or perceived rejection). :)

One thing I should have thought about, but failed to, was the amount of food I might be able to consume. I know I read that both bakers and confectioners would be there, but it was mostly bakers. There were only a few stalls with chocolate that wasn't a baked good. Although Stephen more than made up for my inability to have things. (I'm pretty sure he ate more chocolate than I did all the while proclaiming his dislike for chocolate. ;) ) I did have this wonderful chocolate gelato that had a burnt sugar something or other that was divine. I also got several truffles from theo's chocolate so that I haven't tried yet. I picked up some fudge. Have I ever mentioned I don't really like fudge? I know, for a chocoholic like me to not like fudge it is a weird thing, but I think it is the addition of condensed milk which kind of burns my throat that does it.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Rode hard put away wet - a rare wprk post

This has been a long hard past two weeks at my office. Firstly it is always hard to come back after two weeks off. I don't know how I'm going to survive it when I go to Ireland (unless I meet a wildly attractive Irish man who will sweep me off my feet and take me away from all this forever... a girl can dream right??) :) Coming back will be HARD.

Second, some parts of my job are uncomfortable. I work in benefits and some things I have to do are difficult. We have had two people die at my work in the past two weeks. I get the fun job of speaking with family about things like life insurance etc. Both were sudden so their families are broken up.

Third, I've been working with someone who just frustrates the hell out of me. He also is a major time suck and what should be a simple meeting turns into an hour and a half of me wanting to bang my head on a desk.

Next week will be a better week, I'm sure of it. (Or not, but my fingers are crossed that it will be).

Monday, January 12, 2009

Party Harty

I actually went to a party yesterday. I thought about skipping out on it but since I was meeting a coworker at the U and we were walking over together, I couldn't really skip it. I had 2 mixed drinks (pineapple rum and oj. that's some good stuff right there). I don't think I got tipsy even, although while walking home I was wondering if I was stumbling. :) It was (oh crap I have to get my gear together for water aerobics which means tomorrow in the AM for my shower I have to shave) a coworker's party. She is my water aerobics instructor (hence the sidebar) but she also works with new students. I like her, but like most Student Development people she's kind of effusive and touchy feely. I had hopes for possible single people but alas, apparently all the guys her husband knows are not. She seems to have an interesting mix of friends, but you could definitely see a divide among the cliques. I spent a lot of time talking to coworkers. I talked to this one guy for about 30 minutes (at least) about retirement planning and all that. That's his job too. There were a couple of people I knew from hanging out with her before but not that well and I'm not so good at the talking to random people. I'm impressed with myself for even going since usually I wouldn't.

There was a sign on my elevator last night when I got home that said the heater would be off and turned back on in the morning due to a burst steam pipe. I have no idea when that happened but I can say today it has been sweltering in my apartment. I turned down my own radiator to the lowest setting becuase I'm so hot. I was impressed when I did laundry that the newest manager (that would be #7 if you're keeping track) FINALLY replaced all the burned bulbs in the laundry room. We've been operating on 1/2 light in that room for at least the last year.

Headed to the library today to pick up some new books. They were taping a show called "The Phone" (?) at the library. I didn't see the cameras but there were official looking people wandering about and there were signs as you walked in saying that basically going into the library means you accept that you might be taped and shown on TV. I can't imagine what they were taping in the library, there seemed to be a heightened number of homeless in the library today.

While at the library I photocopied a roadmap of Ireland. I'm going to put the 4 pieces of the map together so that I can really study it and figure out the best places to stay. We're going to try to stay only in 4 to 5 towns that are centrally located to the region and then travel from each of those towns to the sights. In the driving vs public transport debate there are good arguments for either side. On the driving side is the ability to do things on our own schedule and not the artifical schedule of the buses and rails. There's also the expense of public transportation. They offer an Emerald Card which is good on the entire country's various public lines - trains, DART, buses, etc - and it runs like $180 Euro (which is about 250) but that would be good for our entire trip. So that's about $20 a day in transportation costs. The con to driving include the fact that apparently most rental cars in Ireland are manual. I can drive a stick but Lyday can't. Of course that may be a good thing (she knows I'm nervous about her driving, this is no shock to anyone). But I don't have car insurance so there's an additional expense on the car side. Also, gas runs almost $5.00 a gallon. Yikes. Oh and there's the whole driving on the left hand side of the road thing which you can toss on driving down narrow and really unfamiliar streets. So I don't know. Although if we're going public transport route (which I think we are) that will impact some of the places we go to and how long we spend there. Just about 2 months until vacation. Whee!!!

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Damn Weak Dollar

Of course it is 2 and a half months before I go on vacation so things can change before then but currently one dollar is only worth .73 Euros.

Y'all have no idea how much I appreciate having friends that like to do things on vacation but don't have any real desire to plan them. I have no idea why I'm like this with vacation. I'm not like this in anything else, but I LOVE to plan vacations. Figure out where I'm going and when and what all I'm going to do on it. Michelle said to me when we were planning our Hawai'i trip that if I didn't want to lie on the beach the whole time I had better figure out other activities and I totally did. Lyday, who is going with me to Ireland, is just letting me plan whatever I want to do. She's had a few requests but so far seems to be content with me just saying ok here's where we're going. I LOVE it! Even Matthew let me plan our adventure to see tulips.

I did fail my sister and our impromptu trip over to Leavenworth but if I had realized we would be spending two nights there (instead of the one we originally planned for) and if I had more time on Monday between getting home from the rental car place and packing for Leavenworth I may have done a better job. As it was, I forgot the name of the hotel we were staying in and had to call my mom and direct her to the web page and give me names and phone numbers of the various hotels that sounded right. It was a bit crazy, but I figured it out on the 2nd hotel.

So far we will be spending a lot of time outside looking at outdoor things. We're going to go caving (which I'm aware is indoors). We're going to cross a rope bridge. We'll stay in a hostel in a castle one night. I will step into the sea there and wade up to my ankles. (I do this everywhere I go that's on an ocean. I've been at least up to my ankles in Alaska, Hawai'i, California, Maine, Florida, and many states in between) We're going to go to the Waterford and the Guinness factories. I think we're going to use public transport as much as possible. I will have to do more research to figure out how to get to all my destination dreams via public transportation.

Monday, January 05, 2009

Random things

I like this idea I had while walking home today. Since Mandy's kid's spring break does not coincide with Lyday's spring break I think I could actually go for 2 weeks and meet my sister there for the first week and meet Lyday the 2nd week. That could be awesome. Of course to figure out the finances for that will take some doing but that may be the plan. Now to list the must sees, the nice to sees, the maybe sees and the eh I don't care about that to figure out where to go. Whee. I love vacation.

I was glad to get back when I did. The past two weeks I slept at three different places besides my apartment. That was fine, but I found it very strange that at all three of those places (yes one being Michelle's house) the showers were all designed for short people. The one at the hotel in Leavenworth was the worst. Not only did I have to kind of crouch my knees down but I also had to do the back tilt to get my head under the water. My sister is only 5'4" and it was short for her. So weird. Despite the hole in the wall, I do love my shower. The water is outrageously hot and I get good water pressure. AND it is plenty tall enough. Yay.

Tax Time!

It makes me a wee bit sad that my employer doesn't do my W-2 until the last possible minute. On the other hand, I'm absolutely thrilled that I just estimated my tax refund based on my Dec 31 paycheck and I'm getting back $1800. All of that is going towards the $1000 I already have saved and this is going to be a fabulous trip to Ireland! :) (Which there are dates by the way in case you care. Somewhere around March 19th through the 28th. Whee!!)

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Vampires

As you may recall I got another tattoo last year during my visit to Michelle's... On around the 27th or 28th. When I got back to Seattle and was called to donate blood I explained I couldn't and wouldn't be able to until around the first of 09. I opened my email today and received a reminder that I'm now eligible to donate blood and I should make an appointment today. If only everything were as simple as that. :)