Category: Daily Life

Just checking in to say that despite all evidence to the contrary, I am still clinging to this mortal plane. I was awake briefly this morning, but I didn’t feel like posting another verse and chorus of the "I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ Ta Die Blues," so I just ate breakfast and went back to bed until about 2:30.

I did manage to get my new iMac set up and running with all of my old files and settings. What a lovely beast it is. My eyes hurt too much for me to be able to spend any significant time surfing today, but it’s nice to know it’s there when I’m ready.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I did get a definitive diagnosis of the flu. The doctor stuck a long, brushy thing in my nose and scraped around in a most uncomfortable manner. Ten minutes later she came back and told me I was definitely among the flu-stricken. She says I’m the only person she’s treated so far this year who got a flu shot and managed to get the flu anyway. Lucky me.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I might be well enough to get some work done tomorrow. It’s probably not a good idea for me to actually go into the office, but maybe I can at least work from home instead of sleeping all day. Of course, if today is an indication, that’s a pipe dream.

All of this thinking is making me tired. I think I’m going to go take a shower and lie down some more. May all of you avoid getting the flu this year.

Well, my illness is starting to take a distinctly flu-y turn. Headache, body aches, sinus pain, chills…it’s all bad.

I’m taking a sick day today and I’ve already lined up a doctor’s appointment, but it’s not until 4:30 p.m. In the meantime, I think I may just go ahead and drug myself senseless with Nyquil Sinus.

Sorry to be so whiny this week, but it’s amazing how much your universe contracts when you’re sick.

In other news, I finally joined Twitter this week. Of course, right now it’s just as complain-y as the blog, but there’s potential for me to talk about interesting little tidbits that don’t make it into the larger narrative.

I have a cold.

I could tell it was coming yesterday because I kept sneezing all day for no apparent reason. I started the Zicam swabs while I was still at work, so I’m hoping that’ll help keep the suffering and duration to a minimum. However, right now my sinuses are aching so much that it’s making my teeth hurt.

I found some old-fashioned, you-could-make-it-into-meth Sudafed kicking around, so I took two of them. I might move on to Tylenol if this headache doesn’t subside.

Band practice tonight should be interesting.

Behold the amaryllis I bought just before Christmas. I was so excited to plant the bulb and see the long leaves grow. I waited…and waited…and waited. Nothing else ever happened. Apparently I purchased an underachiever.

If you’re puzzled about the caption, visit The FAIL Blog.

Happy Friday, everyone!

I went to a Blogger Meetup after work last night that included:
Ancillary Adams / Jim
Frighteningly Uncommon Sense / Faith & hubby Leo
General Blather / H-Train
Gone Mild / Dan
Hip Suburban White Guy / XO
JustCara (who was gone before I arrived)
Law School Bound / KC Sponge
Ramblings, Rants, and Mommyhood Journal / Janet
My Spyderweb / Spyder (I’m on ur blog, steelin ur links)
Well Hell Michelle

After a crappy start to the week, it was great to hang out with everyone, drink a couple of martinis and belt out some hard rock karaoke (AC/DC and Led Zeppelin songs I’m already doing in the cover band).

I learned something about karaoke: the lyrics they give you are rubbish. Any basic Internet lyrics search will give you much more accurate lyrics than the random junk they were projecting onto the screen for the songs I did last night.

Before all that, I did get my photo taken at work. Unfortunately, despite having brought makeup to fix myself up after yoga class, I was still shiny and pumpkin-headed. Photoshop can fix the shiny, but there’s nothing to be done about my huge melon. Still, I’m sure one of the shots will be good enough for the article in which it is to appear.

I wish I could say I slept better last night, but I found myself wide awake at 5:00 a.m. I turned off all of my white noise sources and managed to go back to sleep until 7. Fortunately, I’m feeling perfectly energetic during the day, so maybe I’m just going through a phase where I don’t need as much sleep as usual.

Speaking of sleepiness, if you’re a coffee fan and a blogger you might want to check out this offer from Joffrey’s Coffee and Tea Company. Sign up for their "coffee beta test" and you could get a sample of one of their flavored coffees, as well as a link from their site. Even though I’m no longer drinking the caffeine, I still signed up for some decaf because it sounds delicious.

All right, I’m out of here. I need to get dressed and made up, and then stop by my credit union on the way to work. Enjoy your Thursday!

I’m usually a really good sleeper, but for the last two nights I haven’t been able to turn off my thoughts enough to sleep restfully all night long.

There’s been a serious illness and a death in my social circle this week, so I’m sure that’s where a lot of it comes from. However, other thoughts impinge on my sleep as well, most of which are completely non-urgent things that I resent having to think about when I should be slumbering.

I learned last night that I’m going to have my picture taken today, so I found myself lying in bed pondering how I should fix my hair, how to minimize the damage to said hairstyle during yoga class, what I should wear, and where I should sit or stand to be photographed. Why couldn’t that wait until I was fully conscious?!?

Even crossing a couple of items off my huge to-do list yesterday evening didn’t help.

It’s a little early in the year for me to need a vacation, but I’m thinking I could stand to do something relaxing. Any suggestions?

This is more for me than for public consumption, but I’m hoping that if I write it all down, it might make me eventually do all of this stuff. So, here’s a list of the things I’d like to accomplish or begin in the coming week:

• Hook up my new iMac and transfer files to it from my dying G4. This involves cleaning off my desk, which is why I’ve had the new computer since last Thursday but still not set it up.
• Buy salt for the water softener, furnace filters and kitty litter. I’ve been to the store over and over lately, but I just can’t seem to accomplish the purchase of any of these items.
• Laundry.
• Begin some kind of aerobic exercise routine. If the weather ever improves, I’m planning to do the Couch-to-5k program. For now, I’d settle for an after-dinner walk several times a week. I could also stand to take the stairs at work more often.
• If the previous item doesn’t happen soon, I need to add: buy larger jeans. It can’t be good when eating a normal meal causes your pants to hurt you.
• Recycle my big bag o’ junk mail. I could do this today, but I have to look through it all first.
• Gather my tax paperwork and make an appointment with my accountant. I’m definitely getting refunds, so what am I waiting for?

Wow, that list makes me want to crawl back into bed and stay there indefinitely. The fact that it leaves off a bunch of other stuff I need to do makes it even more painful.

I guess I’ll head to the office and start working on that to-do list now. The rest will have to wait.

My weekend started out in a healthy place with an 8:00 a.m. yoga class on Saturday. It devolved into pizza, beer and tiramisu by about two, and then I made a big batch of chocolate chip cookies. I only ate two of the cookies. That’s good, right?

That evening, we took the remaining cookies and went to a reception at The Zen Zone, not realizing that it would be snowing vigorously by the time we arrived. We hung around for an hour or so, then grabbed a quick dinner and went home.

On Sunday morning, I started researching recipes to find something vaguely movie-themed that I could take to Piper’s Oscar party. I chose a Tres Leche Cake, which I renamed "I Drink Your Milkshake" Cake. It turned out great, even though I kept putting in tablespoons of ingredients that should have been measured in teaspoons (notably, baking powder in the cake and powdered sugar in the whipped cream).

The party was fun and I ended up winning a DVD of "The Queen" for correctly picking (guessing) seven of the top award winners.

Between my cake baking and my party attendance, we had a truly awful band practice for the cover band. It took more than three hours to get through two sets, and the recording shows that we have a long way to go before we’re going to be ready to play in front of anyone. I hope it was just an off day.

Weekend Nap Tally: An hour-and-a-half on Saturday. None on Sunday. Sigh.

So that’s my boring life right now. Let’s hope for something more interesting in the coming week.

Today was a day of unusually rude awakenings.

It started in the wee hours of the morning. I awoke with the unwelcome feeling that the next time I moved my left leg, it was going to cramp. Of course, it did. I got a full-blown charley horse in my calf muscle that took several minutes of "Ow! Ow! Ow!" to let go.

I’ve been drinking a lot of water lately, so I’d guess my electrolyte balance is off. I’ll get a banana from the coffee shop downstairs when I get to work. A little potassium should help.

Once I managed to fall back asleep, the universe stepped up its campaign to get me out of bed. Our alarm system went off around 6:00 a.m. and vaulted us out of bed. It turned out that our kitchen window had come unlatched and must have shifted a teensy bit.

So I’m up now. What next?

Surprise! A dozen roses from the hubby, presented as soon as I walked in the door. Sadly, I’d neglected to buy any wine to put in the glasses you see all around them.

Dinner was grilled bacon-wrapped fillets (it was only 10 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but that never stops me from grilling). Incidentally, I did cook them much longer than this.

Our side dishes were roasted fingerling potatoes and asparagus tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper and Garlic Garlic seasoning.

Then we had mini creampuffs from Costco for dessert while we watched "Reno 911," "Mythbusters" and "Lost." I had to TiVo "The Daily Show" because I was too tired to stay up any longer. I brushed my teeth and was asleep by 10 p.m. The End.

P.S. I almost forgot – today’s the fourth anniversary of this blog. If you feel like a walk down memory lane, my very first post was Average Jane Goes to the Prom.