Category: Work

My Birthday

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Considering the fact that I worked both days this weekend I still had a nice birthday. Thursday evening Joe surprised me with an early birthday gift – an iPad 2! He really wanted to get me something nice because I’ve been so stressed at work with a recent promotion and last year when I came into some extra money I didn’t buy anything for myself but bought him a PS3. It was really sweet and despite my reservations about the 10″ screen being too large it is actually the perfect size.

He got me the 32 GB version since I had mentioned regretting only getting the 16 GB iPhone. I’m in love. With Joe, of course, but also with my iPad. I knew I wanted to get one eventually but I wasn’t in a hurry. Little did I realize just how much I’d love it since I had described it as nothing more than a oversized iPhone on this very blog. Which it is in so many ways but it’s much more fun to use than I could have anticipated. Not only can I type better and faster on it (I’m typing this entry on it right now), but the apps designed with the iPad in mind are amazing. They are both functional and beautiful. I’m also really digging the multi-tasking gestures to move between apps and whatnot. But I digress…

E is sick so we only had K this weekend. Friday we went out for dinner to our favorite Chinese place since K loves the place as much as we do. Saturday between me doing some work we visited two different malls – one for K so she could look for clothes and I could visit the Apple store for a case for my new toy, and another so I could redeem my free birthday burger from Red Robin where Joe made certain they knew it was a special day for me so that they would sing to me. Talk about embarrassing! My entire face was bright red and my sister in law was there too since she’s visiting from Arizona. Luckily there is no video evidence of the event because Joe didn’t think to record it on his phone until it was too late. Whew!

Between the two mall visits we bought cake mix at Target and K baked me a lemon cake. I thought that was very sweet of her. Later that evening we rented Mr. Popper’s Penguins which was a cute movie. Then I worked some more before going to bed.

This morning a coworker came over for training since I’m transitioning my billing duties to her and moving into a new role. I’m excited because this means I will actually be able to take time off during the beginning of a month which I haven’t been able to do in six years due to my work schedule. In fact Joe and I are already planning a two week trip to the East Coast in early October.

Anti-consumerism and anxiety

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Is it weird that I don’t want anything for Christmas? I’ve been looking at the deal sites just because it’s fun but nothing makes me go “oh, I wish I had that”. Does that mean I have too much? Or am I depressed? I know I’m stressed out a lot right now due to some changes at work, but I’m not sure why that would make my desire to consume disappear. Maybe it’s the articles I’ve been reading about having too much stuff.

Incidentally, I went through the five Christmas decoration bins I have in the garage and am going to be giving away some of the stuff that I never use. I have one bin that is nothing but empty boxes, tins, and bags for gift-giving. I probably won’t have to ever buy gift bags again! I’m still using Christmas cards I bought years ago too.

I think the one thing I’m looking forward to is just the time off to (hopefully) clear my mind of work for awhile and relax because January is going to be a hell of a busy month for me.

On a related note, I’m back on Xanax. Ugh. I was only taking it if I had a panic attack but now I’m back to a pill a day. Mind you, it’s a quarter of a milligram which is nothing, but that little bit helps.

Why can’t I be one of those relaxed people who doesn’t get phased by anything? I’m the exact opposite and I hate it. I want to be calm at all times. I guess I can make that a 2012 goal.

Games

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Wednesday was BINGO day at work. I had no intention of participating since last year was so disappointing watching the same people win multiple times while I got nothing. I decided to try again, however, and focus on the fun of playing and it paid off: I won a $50 Kohl’s gift card. Woo!

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If you play Hanging with Friends or Words with Friends and would like to start a game with me leave a comment and I’ll email you my username so we can get our game on.

4th of July

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Happy Belated Independence Day to my U.S. readers! We spent ours with the kids at my parents’ home and watched the amateurs in the neighborhood set off fireworks while we messed around with sparklers, caught lightning bugs, and tried to avoid getting bit by mosquitos.

Today we slept in and then spent a couple hours at the pool. Right now the kids are with Joe at Target getting supplies for our Mexican dinner I’ll be preparing shortly.

We’re toying with the idea of going to the drive-in tonight since we’ve never been but the first movie of the double-feature is Cars 2 which we’ve already seen. The second movie is Super8 which doesn’t start until 10:30 pm. I’m already doing the math in my head regarding how much sleep I’ll be able to get since I’m working a half day tomorrow. Thanks to the fact that I have no one to cover for me, I can’t take the entire week off to spend with the kids while they are here. Bitter much? Yes. I haven’t had time off between the 6th and the 10th of any month in over five years but I’m trying to make the most of it by doing some fun things before I have to go back to work for the rest of the week while everyone else gets to have fun. Waaah-waaah.

Three (not blind) Mice

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You should see the bruise on my left leg – it’s the biggest bruise I’ve ever had. How did I get it? From playing Whirlyball on Thursday during a work function. It was fun, but man am I sore! I knew right away when I smacked my leg against the control stick that it would be bruised but I never would have guessed how much. After that I sat the rest of the games out, but joined in on two games of Lasertron since I have never played before. It was so much fun, but it’s exhausting being out of shape! It’s too bad I bruise so easily or I’d love to play paintball since it’s like lasertag but outdoors.

Today ended up being quite eventful. It didn’t start out that way, though. I slept in until 10 am and then we made belgian waffles with the waffle maker we bought at Target last weekend. After breakfast we ran some errands which included buying crickets at Petsmart for the toad. Somehow we ended up taking home three little mice! Here’s a quick video of them that I put together.

Aren’t they adorable with those oversized ears? They are teeny tiny too! Smaller than the smallest hamster. They were on sale for $5 and since they can be housed together we decided to buy all three. Joe came up with their names since we’re such Big Bang Theory Fans. They’re living in Oreo’s old 20″ long aquarium and they have her old Wodent Wheel, some tubes, and two houses. It’s nice being able to make use out of all that stuff that was sitting in the garage collecting dust.

After pulling the aquarium out of the garage we found ourselves doing some unplanned cleaning and organizing since it was such a mess. We found more stuff to donate to Goodwill (we already donated a bunch of stuff last weekend) and threw away and rearranged a lot. By the time we were finished it was after 5 pm and we were starving since we had completely missed lunch, so we went to Red Robin for dinner and then did our grocery shopping at SuperTarget.

Tomorrow we’re going to IKEA to find a small stand for the toad – we put the mice on top of our CD stand where the toad’s tank was so we need to create a new space for her.