getting ready to leave for florida/bahamas!

My tooth infection was drained the last time I went to the dentist, and temporarily filled. The temporary filling proved just that, and has been missing for a few days now. I can't stop playing with it, making little sucking noises on the the hollowed-out-tooth. I am sure everyone around me is tremendously grateful, but every *once* in a while, it hurts in a weird hollow-achy-echoing sort of way, and so I keep messing with it...not that I want to hurt, but I have to keep testing it. Stupid intermittent reinforcement.

Anyways, I decided not to even call the dentist until I get back from my trip, because it's bearable now. I just don't eat on that side. My trip! My trip! I am leaving bright and early early early on Saturday morning! My mom is dropping me off at the office at 6:30am, where I commence Being In Charge of 40 people - 32 of whom have developmental disabilities. We fly to Orlando, stay at the Caribbean Beach Resort, go to Disney's Magic Kingdom for 5 days, then board a cruise ship and head out to the islands of Nassau and Castaway Cay - where I will be swimming with dolphins, para-sailing, and peering through glass bottom boats. We fly back on November 8th.

I am not quite comprehending that we are leaving the day after tomorrow. I'm still a little dazed. All organized - mostly - but disbelieving.

Today's so-strong-it-almost-knocked-me-over realization was how much I was going to miss Adam and my puppy dog. I had a fantastic morning with Adam today - it's nice when he doesn't have to work super early AND he wakes up while I'm still home. Last night I stayed up past my bedtime watching the movie Defiance - Adam begggged to put it on, and then fell asleep before the plot twisted even a little bit. It is not the type of movie I would normally choose for myself - I have a hard time watching anything emotional - rather, I have a hard time *choosing* to watch anything that makes me feel beyond light and fluffy. I am emotional enough - when I watch movies, I want to relax, not cry. However - I am usually *glad* when I watch emotionally-deep movies, because, let's face it, they're better quality than Dude, Where's My car? So anyways - I stayed up really, really late watching a lot of Jewish people die horrific deaths.

Anyways. Adam. Juno. My beautiful beautiful puppy dog and my amazing amazing man. Many mornings when I wake up, Adam and Juno are both still sleeping - Juno usually wakes up but doesn't move much - just follows me with brown eyes while I'm getting ready. Adam looks so good in our green sheets and blankets - secretly one of the reasons I picked out that color. I have a very hard time leaving the dogs and boy in the morning - when it's cold out and there is this wonderful October sunshine and I just want to stay in bed, one hand petting Juno, watching Adam's freakishly long eyelashes.

Too mushy for you? Sorry. I am all mush today. I am currently impressed with his ability and desire to always *improve* himself. The two of us being who we are butt heads in certain areas pretty damn frequently, but all the upset is worth it when I tell him something is important to me and I can SEE the work and effort he has put into understanding my needs more. It's an amazing feeling. I am feeling so lucky.

He won't be home when I get home tonight - so I am going to stop at the gym first with Tulip - I am going to walk for 5 minutes on the treadmill, run for 12, walk for 5 more, then do 38 minutes on the bike. That will cover what I was supposed to do yesterday, and what I am supposed to do today, with a few minutes extra to count towards my goal of 500 fitness minutes this month. I currently am at 365 minutes....so add up that, and I will need to do 75 minutes tomorrow to hit my goal!!!!

After the gym, I'll go home and put two butternut squash in the oven, and cook the lentils I bought today - I splurged on red AND green lentils, just to make a prettier plate. I have tracked my food fantastically well for the last week - and hope the scale will show it tomorrow at my weight watchers meeting. Even if it doesn't - because I seem to have a 1 week lag reaction time - I'll feel good about knowing I did it for a whole week. I plan on continuing it on my trip - I will be taking ww oatmeal and a bunch of fruit and other food with me to avoid crap.

I also want to take Juno for a walk tonight, and continue the packing process. I miss Adam already. My pirate costume is fantastic. Yay thriftstores.

I think that is all for now. I am all sorts of mixed feelings right now!

video and website

I am really, really, really excited about my company finally embracing social networking sites in connection to the Walk for Independence! This is a video that we have ALL had our hands in (see if you can count the number of times I say I'm walking) - staff and clients have all contributed to this wonderful little video. Please go take a look, forward it to friends, send it to everyone you know!


Walk for Independence Video

If this encourages you to register, you can do so by going to This Website.
YAY!

joy

today I am feeling very grateful to my mommy. It's amazing how well a person can know another, and I definitely know that no one knows me as well as she does. Phew. It's a relief, actually, to be able to just SPOUT and have her not only understand what I'm saying, but be able to dig to the real meaning underneath.

Thinking about joy and choices today, and of using every little choice to move in a more joyful direction. Every choice I have - given the situation, which is the better choice?

I want this to become a habit.


Today I will be working til 2:00, then opening the house up from it's bug-bombing, then going to the dentist, then -something- that makes me happy or satisfied. Or maybe even just laying on my mom's couch recovering from the dentist. We'll see!

ftw

next time I'm frustrated with my job, I would like to remember that right now, my work includes deciding whether or not I want to swim with dolphins or go parasailing on my cruise to the bahamas.

............yup.

adam xmas

I am trying to track down a christmas present for Adam that I found in Vegas - he's been looking for this particular thing for EVER and ever and ever, and I found it on a day where I didn't have my wallet. Soooo I spent several hours of detective work, calling and googling, and nobody could tell me the name of the kiosk on fremont street that I found it at! So then I called the security department for downtown vegas, who knew the name of it, and I googled some more, found it's parent company, talked to the warehouse, who gave me another number, who gave me another number - and I have finally got in contact with Lupe - who went to the kiosk today to find it for me.

Unfortunately, it's not the same thing that I wanted. Hoowwwever, I do have a picture of what I want on my phone, so I just sent that to her, and she thinks they can make me a custom one. AHHHH. This is crazy. And he is so not going to appreciate the work. ;)

Woke up sick, feeling a little better as the day goes on. It's still gray and great out there - I brought some tea and hot chocolate with me to work...I figure if I can't curl up on my couch drinking it at home, I can at least have some here.

Okay. Back to work.

I heard a choir singing....

It rained last night. I walked out into the world this morning, stepped in a puddle, and looked up in surprise. Everything was sparkly. Listened to Tori Amos and Etta James and am fighting a weird surface melancholy, coupled with some deep gladness in the changing season. It is just - I do not spend the majority of my days doing what makes me really, really, really happy. I am tired of a lack of time. I was spoiled by unschooling, I guess - used to hours and hours and hours to delve into projects. I hadn't had a chance to knit yesterday so I stayed up 30 minutes later than I meant to, just so I could do a few rows. I don't like squeezing in things that make me happy like that.

I have a messy house again. Sunday a bunch of people came over to watch football, and it is now trashed. I had homework last night, class tonight, a meeting tomorrow night, class the night after that, and plans with my aunt the day after that. I am frustrated all over the place by a lack of order, cleanliness, and, once again, TIME.

There is definitely the possibility that I am getting sick right now, which I am sure accounts for a lot of the dragging feeling. Right now I would like to wear my orange pj pants, my dad's old heidelberg sweatshirt, and curl up on the couch with my knitting, some tazo tea, and adam's old grungy gray bedspread.

if I continue to feel this sick, I will ask paul if I can leave class early. I think that's a good idea.

I am about 1/4 of the way done with the right front on my slouchy cardigan - I finished the back. It's FUN FUN FUN to knit, but I am going to need more of this yarn.

I made a sale on etsy yesterday! Goodbye big chunky green beanie! You were fun!

......more later.

not interesting even a little

I have not had the chance to catch up on sleep yet, and I don't know when that's actually going to happen. Holy heavyeyelids batman, I can't take it for that much longer.


Today - I neeeeed to run, I am running a 5k on saturday and have NOT trained. Ack. So running a must. I have class at 6. I need to make lunches. I need to do the dishes and dust. I also wrote a bunch of notes for my sweetheart and I want to hide them in all his clothes and stuff.


tired. bored. time to go now. more later, perhaps.

the park, elks lodge, and a clean house

Sneezing today - it just sort of occurred to me that my eyes are kind of sensitive and my throat hurts a little. Time to guzzle some water.

I had the strangest workday today - met two of my interns at HB Central Park at the location where we are doing the Walk for Independence on Jan. 17th (contact me to register!!!). I got excited for the Walk all over again - it's such a great park. That's where Adam, myself, and our friends usually go to play disc golf. It's where Adam and I used to go running at 2am, when the coyotes would come out and alternately play with/want to eat Rommel. It's got lakes, playgrounds, disc golf, dog park, picnic areas, Shipley Nature center (where I worked, actually, for a few months), and across Golden West the park continues with more lakes, willow trees, the best library ever, and a humongous and fairly new Sports Complex. It's a fantastic park.

Anyways, we stayed there for a while, and designated where we are going to have everything, then I came back to the office, did about 30 minutes of work, and then it was time to rush out to the Santa Ana Elks lodge to meet with one of the parents of my clients. She is arranging it so that we can use their ballroom for free for our holiday party - so we got a tour of the place, and it was just...a whole other world. First off, you have to use your membership card to even get through the door. She showed us the ballroom, a smaller banquet room - and the meeting room. Seats set up for 400 people, with this odd podium thing in the middle for their "Exalted Ruler" (so not joking. How do I get that job title?) Then she walked us past the lounge - a dozen or so older men drinking and smoking at 11am on a Wednesday - and then into the restaurant. She knew everyone in there, of course, both diners and staff. She treated us to lunch and told us all about what else the Elks do, how to become an Elk, etc. Have I mentioned, it's a whole other world?

There is something awfully appealing about it, though - I don't know if you know how many members Elks lodges have all over the US, or how much money they raise and donate - but you can't DO the kind of philanthropic things they do without the huge amount of sheer power that comes from that many members. I was a little awed. I loved being in Girl Scouts, I can totally see why people join sororities, there is also something about being a member of a club - you know, one where you have to use your card to get through the door - that I can understand wanting to have a part in. Apparently Elks only let women join as recently as TEN years ago. In their newsletter, the Exalted Ruler and Lead Knight (yeeessss) sign their statements "Fraternally," and "With Brotherly Love."

So we did the schmoozing thing for a few hours - finished it off with some chocolate pudding from the buffet, and now I'm back here. I have 2 hours left, and a bunch of stuff to do, but my head is spinning - and part of it is from my day, and part of it is from whatever is making me sneeze.

Adam cleaned so much of the house yesterday it's amazing, and I need to keep it that way. He put away a bunch of things that were stacked up in annoying places, and although I didn't think it looked that cluttered before, without them, it looks so much better. He cleaned up the yard, washed both dogs, washed my car, did laundry, and started dishes. I hereby VOW TO NEVER PUT ANYTHING DOWN IN THE WRONG PLACE EVER AGAIN. I heard once that clutter is always formed by not putting something away right away, and the reason you don't put it away right away is to avoid making a decision. Well, I am a Decision Maker! It's what I'm good at! So here I go.

Also - with the base of the house clean like this, I can see how to go the next step and make it *pretty* - which is really what I want to spend my time doing. So I not only am going to not put anything down without putting it away ever again, but I am going to do one extra cleaning thing a day to keep it looking so sparkling.

Yes I am. I like my house like this.

Okay. Time to go do Very Important Things now.

heavy, heavy eyelids

So. So. So. tired.

It looks so wonderful outside, from the window-wall of my office (I am incredibly lucky: two whole walls of my office are floor to ceiling windows) - bright and crisp, sunny and coollld. I would like to go home and clean. I need to vacuum and clean the kitchen. I know it seems like I spend my whole life cleaning, but I'm such a messy person that it never STAYS clean. I do dishes and then cook and then wham, everythings back to how it was again. I hate that! I want to clean and cook and knit and sew and do all that stuff and not have messes at the end of it. I want to be able to build on the cleanliness of my house and make it pretty - but I feel like I only ever have time to keep the clutter barely reigned in. This is what happens when you work full time, are taking a class, and have actual interests.

Last night I closed myself off in the bathroom and painted until 11:30. Why the bathroom, you ask? Best lighting. Today I woke up tired. I worked 14 hours yesterday.

I did a bunch of knitting on my lunch break - I have about 4 more inches left for the back of the Slouchy Cardigan, then I can start the front! Yeehaw. It took 2 skeins for the back - so I think I will probably need 5 more skeins at least. I think I have 3 left. I will need to find more of this yarn!

Today my brilliant plan is...work, stop at home realllly quickly and get my parking pass/gym membership, go to class, stop at the gym on the way home from class, get home and bake chicken and make red beans and rice. Then sleep. A lot.

Tired!

sunday sunday sunday

Just cleaned up the garden - staked up the tomatoes better, got rid of dead cucumbers and marigolds, made a trellis and planted two rows of peas on either side of it...cut down all the seeded basil, hung the green ones to dry, and sorted out the seeds of the dried ones to save for the spring! Wondering what I want to plant next....

The weather really has been changing, and although I spent the whole time in a tank top, now that I am sitting still there is a breeze and I'm a little chilly. This morning I was downright cold. Yippee!

I am about 60% done with the back of my Slouchy Cardigan that I am making - it's a pattern from The Knit Cafe book. It /looks/ like pretty much the perfect sweater, and I really love the yarn I am using (a deep bergundy "raspberry" light alpaca). Tonight I am planning on fending off the Sunday night desperation with something yummy smelling in the oven, curling up in a blanket I've crocheted, and working on that sweater.

In the meantime, however, I am going to go finish up the laundry, then go for a walk/run in the neighborhood while listening to Harry Potter on tape.

Last night I hung out at Alex's with him and some friends - 3 of them I've known since I was leeeetle. We sat outside by the bonfire and laughed hysterically as we played the most intellectually snobby version of the alphabet game, and the most random and entertaining version of the Name Game. Three cheers for good old fashioned fun. ;)

Tonight's dinner I think will be: Hungry Girl chicken pot pie - and, maybe another kind of pie for dessert. Mmmm.

pictures from class, adam

Yesterday was a pretty darn good day - I did a LOT of work crammed into the regular number of hours, which always makes me feel good. I also did a presentation at CalOptima, and I do love speaking about PI because I believe in the mission of our company so strongly. It's very rejuvenating to tell a group of interested outsides the good parts about us.

After work I headed to my painting class - it's coming along... it's due Tuesday, which means I have some serious work to put into it over the weekend.



Today I have a bunch of excellent work to do in preparation for the Steering Committee Meeting, making the next newsletter, and preparing for the cruise to the Bahamas we are going on at the end of the month.

Time to get going. Tonight after work I hang out with Roxana, and then hopefully make it back home in time to make some lunch for A for tomorrow. I need to spend some good old fashioned TIME with my boyfriend. Sometimes the schedule we have, where he comes home after I should already be asleep - is very frustrating. I got really cranky last night because he woke me up when he got home, but he was asleep when I left this morning - so if we don't wake each other up, we don't really talk for 4 days at a time. No bueno. Maybe I should get him flowers and candy. ;) It's hard for me to balance the practical necessity of SLEEP with the just-as-legitimate-need for Adam time. Hrmph. I am glad it's nearly the weekend!