September 28, 2006

Today I feel weird. I feel antsy, unfocused, bored, wiggly, tingley. Rob said it was menopause. I don’t know what it is, but I feel dissatisfied. I want to get away from everything. I’m tired, but I feel wired at the same time. Actually none of my feelings make sense with one another.

My neck is still sore. Last night was the more sore it has felt. I had trouble getting comfortable while watching TV and trying to sleep.

September 27, 2006

Carla pulled the account for city council meetings. I will continue to do the other meetings unless the city says all or nothing. Part of me feels bad that I reacted to this because now Carla has lost some business. I do give her credit for being willing to pull the account and lose business to stand up for her employees. She has a lot of integrity.

I received more work at my consulting job. I’m learning lots of new things which will hopefully make me more marketable for future assignments. I really want to find a class for Access and for advanced Excel. I think that would really help.

I decided to go on the women’s retreat next weekend. There are 11 people going including me and I only know 3 of them and not very well. I hope its fun. And hopefully the weather will be nice. The leaves should near peak and a hay ride and bonfire is planned. I think I will get a facial as my choice for a spa treatment.

The bed is starting to feel better again. I have had a sore neck/shoulder the past few days. I don’t think it is from the bed. I usually get this type of pain when I’m really stressed. I don’t know what I’m stressed about though.

I decided to start using the spinning bike after work instead of trying to get up early. Tonight will be my first day doing it. I will just shower in the evening instead of morning. I’ve been counting points and trying to eat better this week, which so far has been mostly successful. I have been eating bagels with butter for breakfast, which isn’t the best option.

Meg from Talent stopped by work today. She is such a nice person. She wants to take me to lunch some day next week. I asked if she has received any feedback about me from ESI, but she said they usually don’t get feedback unless there is a problem. So no news is good news.

September 25, 2006

Things are crazy with the city clerk’s office after what happened on Thursday night. I went to the clerk’s office Friday afternoon to pick up a tape and Jane said that she had been on the phone with Carla for about an hour discussing this. And she is planning to talk to the city manager about it. Then the Mayor came by and he apologized for what happened and said he talked with a few of the other councilmembers after the meeting about it. The councilmember that caused all problems is very disliked among the staff and even the Mayor. And I found out it isn’t the first time that he caused someone to quit. Jane said that he could be sanctioned publicly, but that is really all that can be done. I said I would be willing to do the other city meetings but not the City Council meetings. Jane also said she was livid about it all. It made her look bad too since she is in charge of meeting minutes. I never thought about how it affected her. I spent about 45 minutes talking to Jane, the Mayor and other clerk staff and NO ONE likes the councilmember. It was basically a bash councilmember session. After I talked to Jane and the Mayor I called Carla. She was very upset that this happened. It happened before and she thought the city had taken care to make sure it didn’t happen again. She was so upset that she told the city she was going to pull the account. Meaning the city wouldn’t have anyone to take minutes. I don’t know what will happen. I will probably hear from Jane or Carla this week as they try to work things out. I know that even if the councilmember apologizes to me or publicly I won’t go back the council meetings.

I went to Taylor’s cross country meeting on Saturday. It was rainy, windy and chilly. Not ideal weather, but I’m glad I went. It was nice to see her. She is growing up so quickly. She did great too. I would like to go to more meets, but most are too far away.

Our bed isn’t getting any better. We put a board over the box spring for more support and I’ve slept worse since then. It’s only been 2 days, so maybe it will get better. I hope so, but I’m thinking it’s not going to work out the way we had hoped.

Our house is such a mess. I really need to work on it. I should make a point to clean up one small part each night after work. I’ll try to, but I’m usually so tired after work that I don’t want to do anything when I get home. Sleeping poorly and getting used to working again are taking its toll on me. Exercise would help.

Work is still going good. I need more work to keep me busy, but it will come soon I hope. I should have all my accesses this week. I have a project management tool training today and a couple of meetings that should give me more work to do. I’m hoping to work longer hours during week (only 30-45 minutes) so I can leave early on Friday. Although I’m a contractor so I could leave early if wanted to anyway. I thought about working only 36 hours, but 4 hours of time is $147 which over time will add up so I don’t want to lose that. I want to be able to save as much as I can so that the time in between assignments won’t be a hardship.

September 22, 2006

Last night at my PT job as recording secretary for the city one of the council members, who I dislike because of his arrogance and his ability to talk down to everyone, stated in the workshop meeting that he felt the meeting notes were to vague. I was immediately annoyed because it was him, but after talking with the city clerk I was going to forget it. She said he complains about everyone and he’s a jerk. Then in the actual council meeting that is televised and attended by the public, after he stated after the dozen of corrections that he wanted made, he said to the public, “in case you’re wondering about all of these changes, we have a new note taker, who is still learning to do the job”. I was incensed. There was no reason to do that except to make himself not look so nitpicky and pompous for requesting a dozen changes when no one else had any changes. I SOOOO badly wanted to slam my computer closed and walk out while flipping him off. Instead I wrote many bad things about him for the first 15 minutes. And I wished many bad things on him as well, diarrhea, flat tires, a fire in his house, more flat tires…I was mad.

Pat asked me to go on a girl’s only retreat to Wisconsin. It’s something that WIN organizes and this will be the 3rd year. I wanted to go last year but something conflicted with the timing. I may go this year.

Tomorrow I’m going to watch Taylor at her cross country meet. It’s supposed to be rainy and cold, but I told her I would come so I will no matter the weather. I’m going to make some cookies and bars for her too. Last year I made cookies and brought granola and cereal bars too. Elizabeth told me that when she mentioned to her that I was coming, Taylor said “cool, last year she brought food, lots of food”. So I guess she is okay with me bringing treats. I thought she might be embarrassed by it.

I really don’t want to be at work today. It’s not the job or the people, but its Friday and it’s dreary, rainy and cold. A day to be home watching TV and snacking on popcorn or cheetos. I’m looking forward to the weekend. Its busy tomorrow but Sunday I can sleep late, read the paper, watch football, nap and basically do nothing.

September 18, 2006

Our new bed sucks so far. I wake up stiff and tired. Rob doesn’t like it either. The instructions say to sleep on it for 2 weeks to adjust to it. 2 weeks is a long time to wait for a good nights sleep, but I sure hope it happens. It would be a drag to have to return it.

My job is going well. I still don’t have enough to do because they don’t have my contractor ID set up and without that ID I can’t get access to the tools I need to do a lot of the tasks. I’m trying to learn Macros and Visual Basic which I think will help me get other assignments in the future.

It’s tough to wake early these days. I even bought an alarm clock. I haven’t used an alarm clock in many years. I want to get up early on Tuesdays and Thursdays to ride the spin bike. I also plan to ride the bike on Saturday and Sunday. The other days I will do a work out on the ball and/or use our weight bench after work.

I talked to Melinda this weekend. She is doing good health wise, which is good news. We didn’t talk to long. It was sort of an uncomfortable conversation. I would like to see Jessa. I suggested meeting for lunch some Saturday, but she suggested that I come over some night after work to catch up. We need to schedule something. I’ve been enjoying my walks with Pat. I need to get together with Chrisanna too. I can’t believe that I was off for 7 weeks and didn’t once see her. I think I even talked to her less when I was off. I would love to have a brunch with CC, Melinda, Beth, Jessa and Dana. I sent a note a couple weeks ago to Melinda and Beth asking for dates, but didn’t hear back from either of them. I could plan something with Dana, Nellie and Jessa. Rob has suggested having some of his married friends over for supper too. I like to entertain.

Rob was planning to go hiking with Jon, but now I’m totally against it. He bought a gun and there is something about him that gives me a creepy feeling knowing he owns a gun. I have always liked him and thought he was a nice guy, but the gun thing…creepy!

I want need to join WW again. I was hoping there might be a meeting near work I could go to, but I didn’t find one on the website. I feel really fat and out of shape. I am fat and out of shape. I’ve gained 20 pounds since April!!!! That is a ridiculous amount of weight to gain in 4 ½ months. I was thinking of seeing if Pat would like to go to a meeting with me after our walk on Saturday mornings. I know she wants to rejoin, but she may go to the meetings at her work.

There were really bad storms on Saturday night and tornados hit in Rogers and destroyed at least 50 homes and damaged 400 others. If I wasn’t working I would have volunteered to help there this week. There was a tornado warning in Anoka County too, but I didn’t hear of any damage and we just had some wind and rain.

My goals this week are to count points, ride the spin bike 3 times for at least 30 minutes, one weight lifting session and one ball session.

It’s been a long time since I have posted and good things have happened.

I signed on with a consulting firm and they found me a position that I started on Monday. So far everything is going well. The people are really nice and laid back. The atmosphere here is so much better than at AMP. I think I’m going to really like it here. The assignment is only until January 23. I don’t know if it would be extended or not and I don’t know if I would want an extension because of the commute. I plan to save all the extra pay for down time that I may experience before I get another assignment. I’m also planning to keep my Blaine job. Rob thinks I should quick, but it’s easy and it’s easy money. And I would feel guilty quitting so soon.

I had a bike date with Joyce on Labor Day and it was so nice to get together with her. We rode about 23 miles and it was such a beautiful day. I hope we get a chance to go again before it gets too cold. I’ve also set up a recurring walking date with Pat. She has some health issues and needs to lose weight and exercise and I offered to help out by walking with her on Saturdays. It’s nice for me too. The walk is at an incredibly slow pace, but the conversation is nice and it’s nice to have another friend to talk to.

I have most of my dental work complete. I still need to find a solution for the 2 missing teeth. I was going to get dental implants at Rob and the Dr Mertansato’s urging, but the oral surgeon said I only have the bare minimum of bone and that my sinus would need to be moved. No way! I was leery about having implants anyway, but I certainly don’t want to end up with sinus issues. And it was really expensive. I don’t really want to do a bridge either because 4 teeth would need to be altered and those teeth are healthy. I guess my option will be false teeth. Not ideal, but I really want to fill the gaps. I want to be able to smile again without total embarrassment. In fact outside of the house, I rarely smile, because I’m too embarrassed.

Rob may go hiking with Jon. I hope he does. It would be good for him to get out with other people and do something physically active. We both need to do that. We’re home bodies and that’s OK, but we need to be a bit more social.

Speaking of being more social…I’m hoping to plan a lunch with my old DQ co-workers. I’m working only a few blocks away. I’m not sure if everyone is still there, but I would guess that Teri and Paula are for sure. Kim may have left because of the drive and her RA.

Exciting news, we bought a new bed with a leather padded headboard. Love it! And a new mattress. Rob set everything up last night. The mattress will probably take some getting used to. It’s nice to have a new bed though. Our old bed and mattress were awful.

I also bought a spin bike. It came yesterday, but it needs to be put together. I will probably do that this weekend, unless Rob gets it done for me tonight. I’m going to quit the club and use the spin bike and the weight bench we have at home. I also want to go back to Weight Watchers. I counted points for a couple weeks again, but I haven’t been counting this week.

And finally, Rob bought an apple laptop. He is in love with it. I’m glad I found a job so he could get it. I know he really wanted it.

I would like to paint the basement and our bedroom now. I think I could paint the bedroom and bathroom, but I might want to hire someone for the basement. I want to paint the basement a deep orange, but Rob is against it. I want to paint one bedroom wall a silvery blue color. I think it would look great against the dark wood and leather we have. The other walls I think I would just paint a cream color. I think Rob is against my bedroom color choices too.

To sum up, I feel good having a job again, but I do sort of miss being off. I feel bad about my weight and exercise. I will start working on that next week. Trying to get up earlier and spinning, and planning meals for work and for home.