Archive for August, 2007

New (Fiscal) Year Resolutions—a month early

August 31st, 2007

Today is Friday, the day before a weekend. And even better, a long weekend. Plus, tomorrow is Sep 1st. The start of a new month, the time I like to try to start new habits. I have a worksheet tracks up to 3 new habits. I filled it out last month, but it didn’t last very long. I’m going to try again. One of the habits is the same, the other 2 are new, based on a healthy food habit group I’m currently attending. The new habits are:

  1. Pick up at least 5 minutes a day. (This is a repeat from last month, and is a modification of the 15 minutes that is the mantra of FlyLady. Since I had trouble doing 15 minutes, I thought I’d ratchet it back to 5, just to get in the habit of doing a little bit every day.)
  2. Eat breakfast. I used to eat breakfast every day. But over the years I’ve gotten sloppier & sloppier, and now it’s more miss than hit.
  3. Eat at least one fruit or vegetable serving a day. Yes, my diet is that bad. Which is why I have to change my eating habits.

Wish me (good) luck! I’ll try to to post my progress here. Hopefully that’ll help me be a little bit more accountable.

Posted in Musings | Comments (2)

Thursday Thirteen: 13 meetings this week

August 30th, 2007

Sometimes I feel like all my time is taken up with meetings and I never have a chance to get any work done. So, without further ado, here are 13 meetings I’ve had to attend this week. I am going to use military time, because… well, because I can?

  1. Monday, 0800-0830: “Stand up” brief in the director’s office. It’s literally stand up—lots of people, very few chairs. And it went over about 10 minutes, which made us late for…
  2. Monday, 0830-0930: Operations center update. Reiterated most of what was briefed in #1. Loads of fun. (Not.)
  3. Monday 1030-1115: meeting to prep for briefing the boss, who is being prepped prior to meeting with the General who is being prepped for Big Video Teleconference later this week. (I even had to miss another meeting I have scheduled for the same time.)
  4. Monday 1130-1335: meeting with boss to prep him for meeting with General who is being prepped for Big Video Teleconference. Cafeteria closed at 1330, so had to grab junk food from snack stand prior to attending…
  5. Monday 1330-1415: weekly “synch” meeting, which is a fancy name for staff meeting. Fortunately, this meeting was chaired by someone who actually makes sense, hence, getting out in only 45 minutes.
  6. Tuesday 0800-0900: stand-up in director’s office. This one lasts for about an hour because we don’t have to be elsewhere at 0830.
  7. Tuesday 1030-1100: meeting to review slides prior to meeting with General to prep him for Big Video Teleconference this week.
  8. Tuesday 1300-1500: meeting with General to prep him for Big Video Teleconference this week.
  9. Wednesday 0830-0845: stand up in director’s office. Received demoralizing “pep talk.”
  10. Wednesday 0845-0945: operations brief, which began late because of “pep talk”
  11. Wednesday 1100-1200: collaboration session that reiterated some of the things presented at 0800 and 0830 meetings along with review of latest slides for Big Video Teleconference later this week.
  12. Wednesday 1130-1315: “Operations & Intelligence” conference with General. This is a regularly scheduled meeting and had nothing to do with prep for Big Video Teleconference this week.
  13. 0800-0900: stand up meeting boss’s office. Didn’t even get through the entire brief due to another “pep talk.” Gah.
  14. 1300-1415: Big Video Teleconference. Had been in the works for approximately 2 months. Went pretty well, but still cause for banging of head. (More about that some other time.)

Shit! I couldn’t even cut it down to only 13! And this was a short week! (Military has Friday off, so things slow down… a lot.) Oh, and there meetings that I actually missed.

(By the way, the “pep talks” happen when something ticks off the boss, and he lectures us on everything we’re not doing. He’s got a lot of great ideas, and he’s very good about not yelling. But telling people who work 12-16-18 hours a day that they need to do more & be more attentive to his direction is pretty demoralizing.)

Posted in Thursday 13, Work | Comments (5)

Thursday Thirteen: I need this one

August 23rd, 2007

I sat in a briefing today that really peeved me. It puts the folks I work with in a bad light, and I feel horrible for them. They are terrific people who are working their asses off; and now, if the briefing slides don’t change between now and next Thursday, there is going to be hell to pay. We will have to scrape no less than three senior officers off the ceiling. So, in order to make the evening more enjoyable, here are:

Thirteen things I’m grateful for:
  1. my paycheck, which is rather nice
  2. my commute to work, which is pretty easy
  3. my car, a 2000 Lexus (I bought it used) that runs like a dream
  4. the people I work with. They’re very smart and hard working and I’m so privileged to know them.
  5. my home, which provides me immense comfort
  6. Kristen and Michael’s impending new arrival
  7. in addition to Kristen, her two brothers, who are the absolute bestest
  8. my renewed interest in knitting, which allows me to make adorable things for #6
  9. all the kitties that have graced my life with their unconditional love; Brandy, Cassie, Chelsea, Britta, Gigi, Daisy, Kimmi and Shadow (even though his unconditional love is sometimes a bit too much)
  10. Michelle Market, whose specialties are a perfect fit for my neuroses
  11. my iPod, which has allowed me to download songs from Supernatural and make CDs for my “best friend-in-law” and me
  12. Supernatural Season 1 DVD sets being on sale so that I can buy a whole bunch of them to give out to others
  13. several friends who have birthdays this month who will be getting Supernatural DVDs and CDs as presents.

Yes, it’s true. It really does all boil down to Supernatural! :D

Posted in Family, Supernatural, Thursday 13, Work | Comments (0)

The nose knows

August 22nd, 2007

Update to the saga of the bloody nose: So, I went to the ENT on Monday. He gave me three choices.

  1. Do nothing. (He doesn’t recommend that. Neither does one of my co-workers—the only one who asked about it.)
  2. Have the blood vessels cauterized. This wouldn’t take very long (he was willing to do it Monday!) and there’d be no down-time.
  3. Have surgery. (Eeek!) Apparently I have a significantly deviated septum, which I did not know. He can straighten it out and snip some of the mucous bearing membranes. (And he’d cauterize those pesky blood vessels at the same time.) It’s minor surgery, taking about an hour that he can perform at his facility, but it requires general anesthesia. And I’d have about a week downtime.

So, being the totally indecisive person that I am, I asked to think about it. Yesterday I went back & forth on options 2 and 3. I’ve never had “real” surgery, and have never been totally out. But I like the idea of being out from work for a week or so, even if I do have some discomfort. (Yes, I dislike the job that much!)

But last night I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t breathe. The nose was totally plugged up. So, my decision has been made. I can’t schedule the surgery for about another month since work is pretty busy up until the end of September. (Oh hell, work is always busy, but my presence is critical for the next few weeks. Unless I croak, of course. In which case they’d do just fine without me because they’d have to.)

Ah, I’ll be able to sleep in, pet the kitties, play computer games, and watch massive amounts of Jewelry tv. If I could have the surgery sooner, I’d also be able to finish the baby blanket I’m knitting for my niece before her baby is born next month. (Lucky little girl! Her birthstone will be sapphire—my favorite.) As it is now, though, it’ll be a race to the finish.

Posted in Family, General | Comments (1)

Supernatural; episodes 1.05 - 1.07

August 19th, 2007

(Sorry for the inconsistency in blogging, especially my plan to blog the Supernatural summaries once a week. Worse, I have no excuse. :( Thank you, Teresa, for getting me off my butt and back into the swing of things. Now I’ll have to blog a couple times a week—or more—just to finish up before the start of the third season; which, by the way, doesn’t happen until the beginning of October. :( again )

Episode separation doodad

Bloody Mary is an important episode in the overall gist of the show. It’s one of the episodes I’d recommend if you wanted to watch just a few episodes of the show in order to understand the entire “mytharc.”

Sam’s nightmares about Jessica’s death continue to haunt him, and it becomes apparent why he’s having these nightmares. Sam feels terribly guilty because he dreamt about Jessica’s death for days before it happened, but said and did nothing about it.

Episode separation doodad

While not essential to the “mytharc” of the series, Skin provides a great insight into Dean’s character, especially his feelings of resentment towards Sam. It might be a good episode to watch as it’s heavily referenced in two of my favorite season 2 episodes, The Usual Suspects and Nightshifter.

Episode separation doodad

Hookman is a stand alone episode. In fact, I never saw it (it was one of only 4 episodes not repeated over the summer) until I bought the Season 1 DVD set, and I was fully able to follow the continuing story.

The only note worth mentioning is that Sam makes a small connection with a young college girl, but explains he isn’t ready to move on yet. At the end, Dean watches hopefully as Sam and the girl talk, but Sam makes no move and is quiet as the two head out of town.

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Thursday thirteen: Yesterday in 13 significant events

August 16th, 2007

  1. 1:00 am — wake up, realize I’m swallowing something, turn on light, lightly blow nose, blood gushes forth. Pinch nose, lean head back slightly, wait for bleeding to subside.
  2. 1:15 — bleeding hasn’t subsided, decide to go to emergency room, try to get dressed while holding tissue to nostrils.
  3. 1:30 — sufficiently dressed, but bleeding has subsided. Decide to go back to bed. Put on new pair of pajamas (since previous pair now have blood on them), arrange pillows so that head is elevated, go back to sleep.
  4. 6:10 — alarm goes off, turn it off & go back to sleep.
  5. 7:15 — wake up, decide I’m ok to go to work. Put saline solution in very dry nose, blow nose to clear out, bleeding starts all over again.
  6. 7:20 — call work to let them know I’m going to emergency room and to pass on important information. Can’t reach anyone so get dressed and go to work to attend morning meetings and pass on important info.
  7. 8:00 — get to work, attend meetings, pass important info, write e-mails to follow up important info.
  8. 9:45 —head to emergency room.
  9. 10:05 — arrive at emergency room, stand in long line to get checked in.
  10. 11:15— finally see physician’s assistant who gives me bacitracin to ease discomfort.
  11. 11:50 — given referral to ENT and get checked out of emergency room.
  12. 12:00 — stop at drug store for more bacitracin, pick up junk food because I’m very hungry.
  13. 12:15 — get home. Neighbor is parked in my spot (grrrr), but am not in the mood to confront so find another spot. Go inside, eat lunch, take nap to recover from trauma of the night, try hard to resist urge to blow nose. Not completely successful.

So, while the symptoms have been eased, the problem has not been resolved. Which is why I need to see the ENT. Why did my nose start bleeding all on its own? My sinuses have been horrible this summer, ever since I went to Texas. (Yeah, that’s it, I’ll blame everything on Texas!) I used a humidifier in my bedroom this winter and it did wonders. And I didn’t have too much trouble in the spring (not that we had much of one), but this summer has been miserable. I’ve known for awhile I need to see a doctor, but didn’t want to go back to my internist, since I don’t really like him. Perhaps I can ask someone at the ENT office.

Episode separation doodad

On a separate note, I think I’ll actually try to sign up for the real Thursday Thirteen next week.

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Blog challenge: Blog my passion

August 13th, 2007

Guess I better answer this challenge before Lorelle comes out with her next Blog Challenge tomorrow. ;)

So, what is my passion? That’s a great question; one I’ve been trying to figure out for over 50 years. I thought I’d the answer finally at age 46, when I discovered the World Wide Web and how much fun it was to create web sites. I was fascinated that learning the “code” was relatively easy; the really difficult part (for me) was the graphic layout and content. I’ve had no training in graphic design, but just about everything I did that looked and “felt” good was right on the money. It just took me forever & a day to achieve the right design. I also took care with my content, making sure that what I said was “just right” (ok, except for the occasional typo).

What I designed in those early days was a fan site. It grew into a great community, a very large (but very well organized) web site. But I began to lose interest in the subject, fell behind in providing updates, and worst of all, I let my temper get the better of me (and made some bad decisions) when an internet troll attacked me. After that, I went to a blog format, but the web site is now barely alive. I’m thinking of returning to a static web site with the blog being just a part of the entire package, but probably won’t. (Updating and maintaining via WordPress is just too darned easy.)

I still have that passion for web development, but am struggling to keep up with the newer technologies, such as the integrated database explosion of the 90’s, and the Web 2.0 of today. Heck, I even have trouble with CSS! I suppose I could blog about blogging, but there are so many more knowledgeable and experienced folks out there, I feel I’d be totally out of my element.

So, what are my passions? Well, for the most part, they’re listed in the categories. I like the tv show Supernatural, but am not willing to set up another fan site, especially when there are so many other terrific, active sites out there. I love to write about my family. It’s full of wonderful (and a couple not so wonderful) people. I love to write, period. I recently took a writing class and wrote about 7 essays. I planned to post them here, but the instructor was very encouraging about submitting them for publication. Perhaps I could write about my highs and lows of trying to get published (or not). (I do have one category that’s not listed because I’ve yet to write a post in that category. It’s titled “Grammar Puss,” and my plan was is to scour the internet looking for horrible grammar examples. That ought to be fun. And oh so very easy!)

I also recently started knitting again, and am enjoying it. But do I want to blog about it? I don’t know. I thought about knitting something and reporting my progress for the Blogathon a couple weekends ago, but I knew there was no way I could stay up for 24 hours, so I chucked that idea. Hmmm, maybe I’ll try doing my own blogathon that lasts for a doable (but not too easy!) 12-18 hours. Or perhaps I could host a blog carnival about knitting—once I figure out what a blog carnival is!

Posted in Blogging, Challenge | Comments (1)