A Leap of Something

I was having an existential crisis this morning.  I have been really struggling with my job and in general what I do for a living.  I like it.  I think I like it but I just don't know anymore actually.  I'm finding I am sick of the BS associated with what I do.  There's far more governmental influence currently and coming down the pike (pipe?) than when I first started.  More (and just like everywhere I'm sure) I'm getting asked to do more on less.  And I feel bad because it really impacts employees and at my employer MANY of our employees earn 12 - 18 bucks an hour.  We then annually take away 1400 of that in medical benefits alone.  And my bigger boss is now talking more deep benefit cuts. It kills me because I have at least 5 people right now who I know for certain have no ins because they can't afford it.  To me that's wrong.  (And I can also admit I don't like paying so much for my benefits and would hate to see my benefits get slashed).  I was feeling like this, though, even before I came to my new job.  So much more Bullshit.  So much less good stuff. 

So I've been considering going back to school.  I don't know if I'll do it.  I know I've talked about it before.  UNT has a library sciences program which only runs about 12k for the tuition.  I think I could do it.  I think it might be what I'm looking for. According to UNT's site, youth librarians are in demand.  God that would combine my 2 favorite things.  My biggest concern, though:  money.  I'll earn less than I earn now.  That kind of stresses me out since it is just me.  It also stresses me out to think about being subject to the whims of the government.  In Seattle, there were regularly furlough days where the libraries were closed.  They don't get paid for those days off. (Maybe they use vacay I suppose).  I think we've had them here too.  So I think I'll take a baby step and make an appt to go see a graduate admissions counselor and go from there.  Well that and find out about GRE/GMAT testing.

Not again

I volunteered for an event today.  For the first time in all of my volunteering, I left early and I didn't let anyone know when I left.  I was so over it.  I gave them 6 hours out of the 9 I was signed up for.  I like volunteering for events and maybe I've been spoiled because I've worked so many up in Seattle for really established charities.  This group has only been doing this event for 4 years so that's not really a lot of time in the grand scheme of things.  Nobody there knew or remembered my name so I'm pretty sure it wasn't noticed. Especially since they kept moving me from place to place.

I was already annoyed when I realized I had to get there at 9:00 this morning and yet the event didn't start until 11:30.  I'm cool with helping set up events but did we really need 2 1/2 hours for set up?  No.  I got there at 9 and the coordinator for my area wasn't there.  She eventually showed up and then left me again. And ultimately we were ready like 45 minutes early.  Time wasted.  It also bothered me that they were charging for the kids' activities.  It was only 50 cents to do a game and they had some good donated prizes but for some of the games the 50 cents seemed chintzy.  Plus it then meant you had to have a ton of change which we didn't. 

I got shifted around to various jobs during the day because they had way too many volunteers for the barely used kids' area so they kept moving me places.  They needed help at the live auction.  Turns out they didn't need help and I hung around there for freaking ever.  The problem with the live auction was that they were doing like one item between each band playing.  Seriously, how can you draw a crowd to check out the live auction if it is just like a commercial?  And there wasn't enough of a crowd for the 4 volunteers they pulled from other areas to watch the crowd. 

Eventually I got moved again and this time it was to trying to sell fully cooked briskets outside the store whose parking lot we were in.  After they decided to move the brisket sale to someplace else I ducked out and just didn't get with the group.  They had like 5 of us there trying to sell these briskets (mostly unsuccessfully honestly).  By then I was overheated and totally done with it.  I just felt like the whole thing was a disorganized mess and it was totally unfun.  Freezing my ass off for the Leukemia & Lymphoma society was more fun than this.

I'm easy, but don't piss me off

I'm changing car insurance companies.  This is kind of a big deal for me because in general when I sign up for a service, product or whatever I stick with them.  Short of a huge issue I'll stick with a company indefinitely.  Of course some of that is just sheer lazyness.  Once I've signed up for something I don't want to have to go through the huge project of researching information and then changing to something else.  So finally deciding to change car insurance carriers after months of spending a ridiculous amount of money took an act of extreme bad customer service to make me switch.  I called my guy several months ago and asked how to get off the high risk program.  He did some checking and thought he could and my new rate would be x - much cheaper than I was paying.  Ok great, sign me up I say.  And then nothing.  I called pack a good 6 - 8 times in the next two months with assurances that I'll get a call back.  With a "you haven't gotten the change paperwork yet?"  With nothing.  So I get a new insurance carrier and called to cancel my current policy today.  Again I get the "we're not in the office so call the 800 number" message.  Bye bye my guy.  Welcome new girl. The worst part is that I originally told them I would understand if it couldn't be done in this initial six months.  All they had to say was "Oh sorry, we can't make that change until your renewal" and I'm lazy enough to have stuck around.

10 lbs!

According to my official weigh in I'm down 10 lbs. (And by official weigh in I mean the piece of paper I keep in my linen closet where I keep my scale and I write down the weight on Friday mornings only even though I may weigh myself randomly on a Tuesday evening and a Monday morning after my shower and a Thursday right before I go to bed.)  That's pretty cool.  Technically I'm only 4 lbs away from goal weight 1.  But to give myself a little 'lunch leeway' I should probably see if I can manage 8 or more.  I have a month or so to do it.  That means I'm 29 lbs away from skydiving weight.  However I'm still about 79 lbs from learning to scuba dive weight.  (The advantage to putting these weight loss rewards in place... it gives me time to save up the needed funds to do them. :)  )

I joined a couple groups on my calorie counting website.  I'm probably going to quit one of them.  It is the "I am superduper fat and want to lose 100 lbs or more group."  (Obviously that's not the real name, that would be mean).  I was reading some of their forums and message boards and it made me rather depressed actually.  There was one whole thread about what people wanted to do when they go to their goal weight.  It made me sad for them because it kind of seemed like they were just waiting for this magical number to really do things.  I know some of what their things were they really needed that magical number - like shop at the Gap and not need seat belt extenders on airplanes - but others didn't and I just thought why make that big goal so far way out there.  You should reward yourself steps of the way.  We celebrate birthdays and not just the big ones... why not celebrate small successes?   

Satan's Scheme

Have I mentioned there's a huge church across the freeway from my apartment building?  Huge. It is a Baptist church and I can see it from various points in my complex. It is not a megachurch as defined by some website I found about them which kind of surprises me but what do I know?  Anyway... this week on their scoreboard sign thingy they have the phrase "Satan's scheme" and each time I think is this a hairbrained activity?  Is Satan planning on hiding his new dress from Ricky because he spent all his allowance on it?  Did he go to work at a candy factory and eat all the candy?  And since Satan is my heinous ex-brother-in-law, is he actually planning on doing something heinous to my favorite nephew now that said favorite nephew lives near them? These are the things I ponder.  Clearly I have too much time on my hands.

Analog or digital

I've only been counting calories for the past 18 days.  It feels like I've been screwing around with this A LOT longer than that.  I'm not positive that I will be able to do this for the long haul.  But I'll definitely keep at it for as long as I can.  I'm trying to find that right balance between eating better and not totally depriving myself of food I like, which will make this fail. 

Other goals

I think when I get 1/2 way between weight x and weight y I'm going to go sky diving.  I may need to have my sister visit then because I'm not 100% certain I can do it on my own. :)  (She'll do it with me.  She'll do anything apparently. : p )  She's certified in scuba diving (that's not why I say she'll do anything) and I totally want to do that too. 

Shopping is hard

One of the difficult things about moving from a location with a huge Asian population to one without a huge Asian population is finding asian food components I used to use regularly.  I'm not even looking for anything particularly exotic.  I was looking for sesame oil and hoisin sauce (hoisin sauce is difficult because I have to find GF hoisin sauce) and fresh ginger.  It took me 3 stores to find hoisin sauce that was GF and ginger.  Now I must remember that Kroger is really the best bet for most things I want. 

Murder/Suicide Pact

Back when Michelle and I were in college, we had a murder/suicide pact that if we got to weight x we were ending it all.  Well, weight x has come and is long gone and we're both still alive.  In fact, weight y has come and gone and we're still alive which shows how serious we both were about this whole pact.  I've been counting calories obsessively for about 2 weeks.  caloriecount.about.com says I should only be eating 1600 calories per day and honestly I haven't been strict about it.  Most days I'm within 100 of it.  Some days (like yesterday) I didn't but I'm still eating fewer calories than I burn (according to the site).  I've also added exercise in the morning most days (40 min).  Gilad's Bodies in Motion make me happy.  I DVRd them from Fit TV so I can ff through the commercials. 

So I have between 8 - 9 lbs (I use an analog scale not a digital one) to get back down to weight y.  Which will also mean I can go on the zipline.  So far I've lost about 5 - 6 lbs.  I know that's not a lot, but it is good so far. :)

First shift down

Tonight I went to my first shift at the shelter.  I spent the evening in the 'pre-school' room with about 8 or 9 kids between the ages of 2 and 4.  There was an actual employee with me which meant I was fortunate because in the older kid room the volunteer was all by herself.  There have been a lot of new families in since I did my orientation there a few weeks ago.  They've doubled the number of kids since I was at training.  I had a good time with the little kids.  I sat in their teeny chair and we talked about shoes and i ate pretend food and engaged as many as I could in conversation.  There were 2 new kids whose mom had just gotten there today.  The little sibling cried the entire hour. Mom was seriously missed.  Towards the end older sibling started crying.  I think younger's crying just wore the kid down.  (I know it wore me down.  I was wiped out when I left). It was fun and I'm excited to go back. 

Fun Fun Fun

I went to the Dallas Art Museum today because it was the last weeend for the Coastlines exhibit.  Walking through the exhibit made me miss Seattle a little bit.  Even though I haven't always lived near the water, I have for the past 10 years and I kind of miss it.  It was nice to be able to see the water sometimes.  The exhibit was gorgeous!  They had a wide variety of media which I appreciated.  It was a multi-sensory experience because they also had various sounds playing.  In some areas you could hear the roar of the ocean and they also had the plinky plinky kind of music in the background.  My favorite painting was this one that was done in oil on canvas called Time and Tide by Alfred Thompson Bricher.  It was so amazing.  Until I walked up close to it I thought it was a photograph.  I tried to find a poster of it in the museum store but all they had was a little card.  I think the clouds really give it away but if you just focus on the rock and the water it is gorgeous. 

I think I may love his work.

I did go through the entire rest of the museum.  It was a really nice three hours.  (Additionally according to the calorie count site I'm using 3 hours of leisurly walking burns 781 calories just so you know :) ).  The museum has a lot of different exhibits.  Another painting I fell in love with was called The Icebergs by Frederic Edwin Church.  I could really get lost in the textures of the ice and the colors of the ice. It is a pretty big painting and it almost seemed like you could step into the painting and be much cooler. :)

In real life it is much much cooler.  It was in a section I could take a photograph of it but I didn't. (I borrowed this photo from Wikipedia).  I'll post the other photos I took later.  There was Egyptian art and just so many other neat things to see.

Trying something else

So I found a webpage that I can put in what I eat and counts calories each day.  If I eat only 1600 calories each day for the next 3 years I can get down to my "target" weight.  (This is the website defined weight not my defined weight, I don't know what that is.)  So started that out today.  Did not make the 1600 ceiling.  Not even close. BUT it is keeping it in my head so even though it may take me awhile to get down to 1600 calories/day at least I'll be THINKING about calories to maybe help reduce the number I take in. 

While at BlogHer I got my cholesterol and sugars checked.  I rocked all my numbers (well except the BMI and if that was fine, I wouldn't need to lose 15 lbs now would I?).  That was kind of exciting since I don't think I've had those tests done in years. 

Traveling Debacle

If I were one of those people who believed in "signs" or "the universe telling me something" I totally wouldn't have made it to BlogHer in NYC this past weekend.  

1. I had to gate check my suitcase.  I gate checked it all the way to JFK.
2. Weather closed the Charlotte airport.  It eventually reopened and we landed but my JFK flight had already left.
3. This is midnight and there aren't really any other flights going to the NYC area so I check into a Quality Inn for a whopping 3 hours to get some sleep... with no clothes since my bag got gate checked.
1. The irony (is it irony? maybe Murphy's Law) was that I actually contemplated pulling out a clean undies, toothbrush and toothpaste and a clean shirt when I discovered I had to check my bag but decided not to because I was the 3rd to the last on board and the line was actually moving down the jetway.
4. The next day I get to Charlotte.  It is too early for any place for food to be open and I spend so much time trying to figure out my next move it becomes too late to try to get food.
5. Miss my first La Guardia flight.  Discover that the 2nd La Guardia flight had a TON of seats open so I didn't have to worry about getting on that one. 
6. Headed down to luggage to see if it would be at all possible to get my luggage shifted to La Guardia so I don't have to go to both airports.  Don't hold your breath I'm told.
7. At La Guardia we have to circle the airport for 20 minutes because they are reconfiguring the runways.  I don't even know what that means but I could have cried.
8. Here's where the weekend gets saved... I get the next La Guardia flight and even better - Luggage makes it! I had the luggage lady scan my tag to see if I should even bother waiting and it was there! I could have cried with joy.  And I might have told the luggage lady I loved her.  It was a heat of the moment thing. :)

I am not destined to lose weight

Yesterday after work I stopped at Wal-mart to buy several things including a scale.  After 45 minutes and walking across the store 4 times, I finally found one in hardware.  Why are scales in hardware?  Why are they not with bathroom stuff (technically they are with the bathroom stuff because they were with the toilet seats and the towel bars and whatnot but they are not with the shower curtains and soap dishes).  I finally find one in the back and make my way back up to the front and get in line... to discover that my wallet is not in my purse.  I left it in the car.  I'm at the end of my rope so I put everything back and head out to the car to go home. 

This morning I get up to run errands.  Among them I go to Wal-Mart because the other Wal-Mart had Cabot cheese and I still want a scale.  So I go to Wal-Mart and they have one style of scale. It is not the scale I want (I want cheap analog and not uber fancy expensive kind).  I'm done.  Not buying a scale after all.

Maybe I could hike or something like that...

For today's Sunday Adventure I field tripped to the Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge.  It was so cool!  There were a ton of trails.  And on Sundays they have various things going on in the afternoon. Today's was a hike down at the boardwalk and river bottom trails.  I was the only one who showed up to go, though so it was just me and the naturalist.  How cool is that?  Awesome!

This is in the Lotus Marsh area.  They set up this fence around certain areas to see what was being eaten.  Now they're not only not sure what was being eaten, but they're not sure what is eating it.  They originally were concerned about what wild hogs were eating. 

View of the boardwalk from the pavilion in the Lotus Marsh.  The boardwalk is a little rickety right now because apparently when it floods the boardwalk ends up under water.

Up close of a button flower.  I like how they are tons of teeny tiny little flowers in a ball. They're all over the marshland.

Can you see the mysterious thing in this photo?  As we were walking back on the road to the car we took to the head of the boardwalk trail they bounded across the road in front of us.

Can you see the mysterious thing in this photo?  This was in the marsh.  I like how the duckweed and the fern (whose name I already can't remember) looks like solid ground.

This red is also in the marsh.  It is a fern that turns red like this in the fall.

This butterfly on the button plant was HUGE.  So pretty.

The duckweed and the fern make it seem like you could walk across this carpet of green.

A part of the Trinity River and the Lotus Marsh.

Dragonfly in the marsh.

All sorts of trees grow into the marsh. 

Cool old tree.  I think it is an oak. I know it is dead.

Old willow tree in the marsh.

Pavillion in Lotus Marsh.  It is out on the river so it is cooler than on the paths.  I could see turtles and fish in the water.

Can you tell the difference between poison ivy and a plant that isn't poison ivy?  These two are growing right next to each other.  (I can't remember the plant's name even though the naturalist told me like 4 times.)  The poison ivy is the one with 3 leaflets in a cluster with red edging.

Awesome red dragonfly.  I like how it is tigetstriped.

I think this is the Trinity River.

Can you see the bird?  White egret on the river.

These strands attached a spiderweb from a tree to the deck.

There's a brightish yellow spider in the trees which by itself is cool, BUT you add in that it makes a zig-zag web that makes it even cooler.  Apparently it is a common spider but I thought it was pretty nifty.

I'll be feelin' that

I bought a Groupon to do a zipline for me and my sister and her kid.  The problem... I have to lose 15 lbs to meet the weight requirement.  Obviously I have to lose more than 15 lbs but the 15 lbs are a semi-immediate loss. (Like before December when the groupon expires).  (Or before they visit and want to actually do this.)

To that end I've DVR'd several exercise shows from FitTV.  Sadly the shows have commercial interruptions but two 1/2 hour programs give me a 40 minute workout.  And they're different and some are kind of fun.  Although yesterday while I was doing Bollywood Dancing I was reminded of college when Kate would kick me out of the dorm while she did her step aerobics.  I have no coordination. :)  

That wasn't unsuccessful

Have I mentioned I'm going to BlogHer?  I am.  I have been waffling about this lately.  Part of me doesn't want to go and save my money.  The rest of me wants to because a - it is NYC which I have not been to since I was 8, b - Michelle is one of the presenters and I want to see her presentation and c - I think it will ultimately be fun even though I'm all apprehensive now.  I became even more when I heard there are going to be over 2000 people there.  That's a lot!  But I got my BlogHer pass in the mail yesterday with a random quantity of drink tickets (I say random quantity because PM got one number, I got a different and someone else we know going - yet a 3rd quantity.  I can't figure out the logic there).

Anyway... that's a long intro to today's Saturday adventure.  I drove into deepest darkest Dallas to go to a pre-BlogHer meet up.  All in all it wasn't a bad time.  It made me nervous to go but I met some very nice women and a nice husband.  Saw some excrutiatingly cute children. (The eyes on Rory's baby were amazing. Such a cute little chub!)  Ate a small bowl of ice cream.  Learned about what some people are doing in blogs.  Found a couple I'll probably follow.  Heard about a couple potential Sunday Adventure spots.  Not too bad a way to spend an afternoon.

I just do what the disembodied voice in the box tells me to...

I just got back from a trip to deepest darkest Dallas.  Since I'm new to the area, and especially new to deepest darkest Dallas, I was using the GPS.  The GPS and I tend not to agree on certain things and frequently I find myself yelling at her.  (I use the female voice on the GPS because the male one sounds way too much like a Speak & Spell).  Today was no different.  In the part of Dallas where I was, apparently there's construction and it took me like 1/2 mile on two different freeways just to get back to the 183W.  I don't know why we couldn't use surface streets.  I especially couldn't figure out why we couldn't use surface streets given how bad traffic was for that 1/2 mile.  (I know I'm relatively new to driving in traffic.  Walking in Seattle for 6 years does not prepare one for bumper to bumper traffic.)  On the way home things got even weirder.  I'm driving along getting ready to get onto my freeway close to home and it tells me to take a certain exit.  Hmm... maybe it knows something I don't.  So I get off the freeway.  Then it tells me to take a right and get back on the freeway.  WTF?  I could've stayed on the freeway I was on because the exchange was coming up.  Stupid box. 

Welcome to the Cliche

I blame PM's incredibly adorable and well behaved children for the recent slap to my "biological clock."  (Ok it is probably not their fault.  I am 36 and do have ovaries and a theoretical maternal instinct.) 

I want to have kids. I have waffled about it in the past, but if I'm being honest with myself I think that waffling was mostly to bother my mom and not something I honestly believed.  But god the pull is so strong sometimes.  It's run through my head that I could just go be slutty in bars until somthing happened.  (that something would more likely be one of many STDs given the "difficult if not impossible" label and lack of periods since April - wow TMI for all of you isn't it?).  But I'm not a total moron so I don't.  (And I don't want diseases.  50% or whatever of the population may have herpes, but I don't and I'd really rather not get join them just because)

I now follow several twitterers (what is that noun?) on twitter who are foster/adopt resources here in Texas.  I regularly spend time at adoptuskids.org and the one for Texas (whose site I can't remember off the top of my head) looking at available kids (The kids under 4 on the Texas site... holy cow do those kids have problems.  It is excrutiatingly sad.)  I want this badly, but I also recognize that I want to have my financials in order and my job in order so I can focus the time and energy onto my kids that they are going to need.  I'm hoping to attend an adoption orientation session in the next couple of months.  I know it is still too early to really begin the process since I won't be ready until I can move into a bigger place, but I feel like I have to be doing something to move forward on this.  I don't want to be 45 and look back at what I didn't do.  (Ok I still could adopt at 45 and I'm being overly dramatic I know). (ooh perhaps it is the sign of an impending period, eh probably not.) 

And ultimately when all is said and done I think I'm just lonely here.  When I moved to Seattle I at least had V to hang out with and then Matty P and then other friends eventually.  Here I know nobody.  And while I generally don't like people, spending the bulk of 3.5 months by onesself is hard.  I'm going to a pre-Blogher meet up next weekend.  Maybe something will come of that.  And although Kate in VT says I'm good with friends, I find it very stressful and difficult.  As a kid I always latched onto like one or two people (which if you look at my friend track record is still in effect 30 years later) and they would be my friends.  Whine whine whine wah wah wah.  Tomorrow is another day and it will be a good one dammit! :)

I got to screw!

I may or may not have mentioned I've joined a couple of Meet-Up groups.  I haven't really decided how I feel about the Meet-up groups, but whatever.  The book club one I haven't been to yet since they keep doing books I have no interest in.  The other one is a volunteering group. 

Today I volunteered for a ramp project where we built a ramp for a home.  It was actually fun.  The main group is a group of older men volunteers.  They were really funny, bickering with each other like... well like old men. :)  I got to drill and clamp things.  The smell of fresh cut wood is really attractive.  Calvin Klein could bottle that up and I would be very happy. :) I really enjoyed the project and I think I'm going to do it again.  Hopefully I can volunteer with some of the same people again so maybe I can make friends.