December 2005 Archives

I woke up feeling out of sorts this morning, which was not how I wanted to spend any of my vacation time, so I tried a little experiment. I started a post where I wrote down everything that was bothering me, and then wrote down the best counter I could for each one. I’m pleased to say it was a great success. Before I got through even half of the list, I was feeling better so you’ll all be spared the whining – for now anyway. And then John got up, so I had someone to play with, which helped too. Part of the problem was just that I was bored, I think. Of course, one of the many reasons I love him is that just hanging out with him doing nothing is fun, so he cheered me up just by being himself.

And then I went to the Aveda spa and got a massage and pedicure. I defy anyone to stay in a bad mood after an hour long massage and then a pedicure. I love it at the spa. Everyone is nice to you, and they bring you water and soft robes and are focused on making you feel good. I felt pampered and relaxed and oh so lovely after. In fact, I still feel good! I definitely need to find a way to work a semi-regular spa visit into the budget. They gave me a coupon for a discount on a hot stone massage, which I’ve always wanted to try. Maybe for my birthday or something. Anyway, while I was there, I ran into my boss, who was getting her manicure fixed or patched or something. We talked a little bit about work stuff, but mostly in a “we’re busy without you” way, so my vacation is still intact.

And now I think I’ll take my relaxed self off to bed. Hopefully tomorrow will be grump free.

Where was I when last we spoke? Oh yes, getting ready for that last day of work before my vacation. My office closed at 1, but I was there until 8. And then I went Christmas shopping. Saturday was chock-full of baking (three kinds of cookies, one very fancy cake and a lasagna) present wrapping, and dinner with my dad. The dinner actually went spectacularly well by Christmas with my dad standards. Sunday was a blur of family, presents and driving from house to house to house – exhausting, but not bad. Plus, I got all sorts of great presents and then some. Top prize goes to my brother, who totally surprised us with a DVD player. It is sleek and silver and matches our fancy TV in the living room, and I’m sure we will enjoy it very much, just as soon as we figure out how to hook it up properly.

The last two days have been all about relaxing. I’m really enjoying not having to go to work right now. I think I’ll eventually get bored, but I could definitely use a couple of weeks of this. Yesterday I spent most of my day lazing about on the couch, reading one of my Christmas books. I took an extra luxurious shower, exfoliated, moisturized and deep conditioned my hair. And then I watched a little TV, read some more, and went to bed. It was a lovely day, aside from the fact that John wasn’t feeling very well.

Today I got up, walked Seamus, went back to bed for a couple of hours, and then eventually headed out to go see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with my brother. I quite enjoyed it. Tilda Swinton was very impressive as the White Witch – cold, imperious and terrifying. The story wasn’t quite as exciting as I remember it being, but it has been about 25 years since I read the books, so I’m probably judging by slightly different criteria. Let’s just pause for a moment while I wait for the shock of being old enough to have been able to read anything 25 years ago to pass. How the hell did that happen? Wow.

Up next, having John’s mom, sister, her husband, and their kids over for dinner tomorrow. And more relaxing, hopefully including a massage and a pedicure.

I hope you are all having a nice week too.

…one day left until my vacation starts! Video shoot number two went off today without a hitch, which was nice. Work presents were distributed and received and no less than three people suggested that I ditch this whole marketing director gig and take up baking cookies for a living. The big crowd pleaser wasn’t even my special chocolate chip cookies, but my oatmeal cranberry white chocolate chip ones. This is most likely because there were fewer of the fancy chocolate chip cookies due to an unfortunate burning incident. I was so excited thinking that Cookie Madness 2005, part one would go more quickly that previous baking marathons due to the fact that I have two ovens. But it turns out that the top oven heats unevenly and unreliably and burns the precious, precious cookies. Oh well.

And tomorrow is supposed to be a half day at work, although I would rate my chances of getting out of the office 1 p.m. as slim to none. That’s ok though. I’ll line up all of the ducks so that my work is covered while I am out, no one gets unfairly burdened, and I don’t have to think about work at all for 10, yes, 10 days.

Then I have to pick up some brown sugar at the grocery store for Cookie Madness, part two, round up a couple of last minute little presents (I could have gone tonight, but I thought I’d give getting home before 9 p.m. one night this week a try), and then it’s laissez les bon temps roulez! Or really, clean the house, bake cookies, wrap presents, bake a cake and make lasagna, but those could be bons temps. Well, except for the cleaning.

Here is a photo of the AC/DC ornament in its natural habitat.

You’d get a longer post, but I worked over 11 hours today, and went to the grocery store, the ATM and the store that was closed yesterday morning. Nothing says fun like killing yourself to get to work by 8:30 so the video crew can have an attitude with you. And so that one of the people being videotaped can ignore the specific directive to NOT wear stripes or patterns and, in fact, wear a striped shirt with a pinstriped suit. Which I should have known was going to happen, but still, grr.

So, in closing, here are a couple of cute photos of my Seamus that were also on the camera.

Oh, and not to brag, but Becky was right when she commented about my cookies on the last post. I do make amazing oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. This year, my team members will also be getting oatmeal cranberry white chocolate chip and either Dutch cocoa cookies or snickerdoodles. As will my family members, with the addition of sugar cookies. But not tonight.

Friday I took the day off to go Christmas shopping. I do not do well when the malls get all crowded and noisy around Christmas, so I usually take a weekday off in December and try to take care of my in-person shopping in one big swoop. Unfortunately, this year, taking the day “off” meant I had a conference call from 9 to 9:30, ate breakfast, took a shower, logged back in around 10:30, and worked until 12:30. Obviously my definition of not working isn’t quite what it should be.

So I drove down to the mall hours later than I meant to, and shopped. But it was frustrating, because I just wasn’t finding anything I wanted to give to people, and I started feeling grinchy. So I left and went to Barnes & Noble, where I ran into my mom, which made it difficult for me to buy her a present! But I had a nice time with her, picking out books for my friends’ kids. And by getting up early both yesterday and today, I managed to get most of the presents I needed to buy. I just have to get something for my dad, my boss, and my brother. And one more thing for John, which I tried to buy today with no luck. Attention independent store owners: opening before noon on the Sunday before Christmas is a good idea, if, for example, you want to make money.

In other Christmas related news, did you know that if you wait until a week before Christmas to buy your Christmas tree, you will be able to get a really nice one for only $15? And a bunch of lights and ornaments at a discount as well. John and I never got a tree in our apartment because there wasn’t a good place to put one up, but I was determined to get one for our house. So we got one today and I spent a very pleasant afternoon decorating it. Well, first I put the lights on too early and had to redo them after the branches settled down, but other than that, it went very well, and the tree looks lovely. And John finally got a chance to hang up his treasured AC/DC ornament (in a place of honor, of course).

So, I just have to finish shopping, wrap presents bake about 800 cookies, one cake and one Christmas Eve dinner for my dad, and I’ll be ready for Christmas. And get through two video shoots, fit in a whole week of work and get a bunch of stuff done early in preparation for being on vacation the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Sure, I can do that. At least I’m feeling more in the holiday mood.

I think the universe is trying to teach me a lesson about patience. Perhaps I was a really impatient person in another life.

There’s the whole fertility thing, of course, which everyone knows about already.

On Sunday, after four long weeks of eating healthy, working out and being a very good girl, I had my big weigh-in in the bathroom…only to discover that I have not lost a single pound. Not one fucking pound. John has been doing the exact same thing that I have, and he’s lost ten pounds already. I suspect he may have lost even more than that, but he won’t tell me out of a fear that my head will explode and I’ll attack my own ass with a cheese grater or something. I’m fairly pissed off, but I think I’m just going to have to work out harder. On Sunday, though, after I got a raging headache in my mom’s overheated house, we threw dieting caution to the wind and got ourselves a pizza and fries for dinner. It was delicious.

So that was a crappy start to the week. And then it got even crappier when a guy rear-ended me on the highway on my way into work on Monday morning. I’m fine, but he beat the hell out of my car. Up by my house, the highway is only two lanes on either side, and at rush hour the traffic frequently goes from 50 mph+ to a dead stop when you get near an on/off ramp. Which is what happened yesterday and then wham! The guy ran right into me. My poor car is going to be in the shop for a week. Unfortunately, I had to spend half the day on the phone with insurance companies, car rental places, and body shops, because there was no way I was driving my busted-ass car 30 miles home from work. Yes, for some reason I kept on driving to work after the accident. When the insurance guy called me at work at 7 and was surprised that I was still there, I thought I showed remarkable restraint by just saying “well, I got in late because of the accident” and not snapping “well, I had to stay late after your lame ass company was wildly unhelpful all damn day.”

And then today I lost half the day today to a dentist’s appointment (although miracle of miracles, I don’t have any new cavities. I do have special $17 dollar prescription toothpaste though. Aren’t you jealous?) and taking my car into the body shop. Naturally, we have a huge marketing launch tomorrow and we’re way behind on everything. And two big meetings I have to lead and/or present at in the next two days. If I can get through the next two days I have Friday off. If I can get through the next two days.

As much as I hate to crush all of the fun speculation going on in the comments of my last post, I’m pretty sure my potato salad craving was just weird, unusually early PMS. Apparently instead of craving normal stuff, my body has decided to make me want to eat food I won’t even enjoy.

Of course I would love it if you were all right. I’ll admit that part of me still hopes each month that I’ll get pregnant on my own, but in my heart of hearts, I don’t really believe that will really happen. The sheer number of obstacles my body would have to overcome to get pregnant without some sort of assistance make it very unlikely to occur.

And this afternoon I’m pretty sure I felt a cramp and I got very crabby too. Seriously, you would not believe how irritated I was that there was no hot chocolate in the kitchen closest to my office. I mean, I had to walk down the hall to one of the other kitchens! I practically stomped my way down the hall. And I’m re-reading a book I’ve read before, and one of the characters dies at the end, and I almost started crying when he first appeared in the story because I know he’s going to die. So, yep, PMS.

Sorry to spoil everyone’s fun.

Yesterday I had an undeniable craving for potato salad, to the point where I actually bought a little container of it at Whole Foods and ate some.

This is weird because I hate potato salad. I hate all of the deli “salad” family – macaroni, cole slaw and **shudder** egg. I think mayonnaise is the devil’s own condiment. I don't even like to look at mayonnaise! Back before I was a vegetarian, my hatred extended to tuna salad and chicken salad too. I even went so far as to invent a tuna salad made with Dijon mustard, lemon and capers so that I didn’t have to eat mayo. That’s why it’s extra ironic when I get the “can’t you just eat the tuna?” question now, since no, I can’t. But even if I did eat seafood, tuna salad would be right out.

Now I’m a big believer in the “your body craves what you need” school of thought, unless, of course I’m craving obvious junk food cheese fries and chocolate cake. But I’m pretty sure there’s no special nutrients in potato salad!

Contented and pleased. That’s the way I feel right now, which is nice. I had a lovely, quiet weekend which is definitely contributing to my sense of peace. But the main reason is that while I was walking Seamus last night I realized how much progress I’ve made with how I’m feeling about fertility treatment. I was thinking about the new fertility center I’m going to try in January, about maybe checking out their website and contacting someone who I know used their services. And it hit me that I’m feeling hopeful again…and ready to start over.

It was funny, too. I was in just about the exact same spot where I was two and a half months ago when the whole notion of taking a break first occurred to me (as I was walking around with the dog, crying and hoping I wouldn’t run into anyone who wanted to talk to me.) I was so tired, and so stressed out and so unhappy about the whole experience. And terrified that taking a break was wrong, or stupid. But now, I know I made the right choice. Yay me.