I don't usually care about football, but GIIIIIAAAAANNNNTTTSSSSS!

I took my trackball to work today. Not sure if it helped or not. By the end of the day, my shoulder did not feel injured, but it did feel really... fatigued? I guess I'll give it until the end of the week to see if maybe I just need to adjust.

Other than that, I really don't have a whole lot to say about today. I made shrimp over wild rice and romaine lettuce when I got home from work. It was pretty good, but a bit heavy on the olive oil, so I might want to adjust that if I make it again. Mark put Rosetta Stone on my laptop so I can try to learn some Italian before our trip this summer. And that's about it, really. I guess it was a pretty low-key kind of day!

So-so day of work today. I've been in a lot of meetings lately, but they don't seem to be leading anywhere very productive, so that's been frustrating. I just want something to DO all day, you know? But today was my work-at-home day, so at least I did get some stuff done around the house, just general cleaning up, laundry, changing the bed linens, etc. I fully intended to dust today as well, but I would rather walk across hot coals right now. I hate dusting so much. And making myself do things when I'd rather do pretty much anything else is not usually a very good strategy, unless I just don't have a choice. So the dusting can wait a bit longer, until either I'm more in the mood to do it, or until Mark has time to do it.

I really had every intention of going to work out today, but... meh. My shin's been complaining a little bit for most of the day, off and on, so I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to give it another day to rest. I also didn't realize that today is supposed to be the coldest day of the whole week. It's not even 35°F right now. Yuck. Might as well just stay in, build a nice warm fire, and catch up on some reading.

Today's lunch was the same potato/egg/whatever salad from yesterday, by the way, and dinner's going to be linguine with pesto, potatoes, and green beans. I keep daydreaming about hot dogs. I want a hot dog. I will probably not be able to go the rest of my life without eating a hot dog. Isn't that stupid? Of all the types of "meat" to not be able to completely give up, I'm having an issue with hot dogs. I know there are veggie dogs, but I've had those before, and they're not the same. I want a hot dog.

Also, I seem to be going through a phase right now where I completely don't care about clothes. I mean, I have standards. I'm still never going to be the type of person to feel comfortable going out in public wearing pajamas, or even sweatpants, for that matter. I don't like to look sloppy, and I won't wear anything that's mismatched. But other than that, as long as it's clean and appropriate for both the weather and the circumstances (i.e. no hoodies in nice restaurants, no flip-flops at work), I'm good. I also have started finding people who obviously take a lot of time to put their outfits together to seem strange, like they're from another planet or something. Which is weird, because I used to envy people like that. Hey, I'm going with it, for as long as it lasts. Because whenever I start caring about my clothes, I just end up getting frustrated. I try to go shopping, I don't like how anything fits me, the things I do like are too expensive... UGH. I'm much happier when I can just go about my business in jeans and a t-shirt and not worry about it.

Wow, that got long. I might as well tack on a disclaimer that if you're reading this, and you ARE the sort of person who cares about their clothes, I am absolutely not casting any sort of judgment on you. I think everybody should wear whatever makes them feel good.

All right, time for me to shower and then get started on dinner. And making that fire I was talking about. Yay, fire!

So last night's pasta turned out pretty good but a bit bland, so I ended up sprinkling some Parmesan cheese on top. I also wished I'd added more - wait for it - GREEN BEANS. Now, if you don't know me, you probably don't know why that's a big deal. But I have a pretty sordid history of vegetable hating, so actually wanting MORE vegetables is a bit of a milestone for me. I'm pretty convinced that my problem with vegetables is all in my head, and that I can get over it if I just keep thinking of vegetables as a delicious part of a healthy diet instead of instruments of Satan. I CAN DO IT!!

My shoulder pain returned with a vengeance at work today, so I made some further adjustments to my chair that seemed to help, but it was hard to tell because I was already so sore by that point. I also have a couple of other ideas for things that might help, but our department is moving from the first floor to the third floor next week, so part of me just wants to wait until we move and then set up my new desk completely differently from my current desk. Another part of me wants the pain to end NOW.

I really wish my desk at work weren't so freaking tall. That would solve, like, EVERYTHING.

I went to a couple of stores trying to find Rice Dream non-dairy ice cream, but there was none to be had. I know I'm not even close to being a vegan, but I love the taste of rice milk, so rice cream, as I've decided to call it, sounds awesomely tasty, not to mention so much healthier than regular ice cream. I shall continue my search at another time.

Dinner tonight was Caesar salad with... tempeh! I have to say, it was pretty tasty, and not very hard to cook. Easier than tofu, I'd say. Yay, new foods!

We are in the process of planning our family trip to Italy. My cousin sent us links to a whole bunch of villas in Tuscany and asked us to pick our top three, but it was just about impossible. They all look SO GORGEOUS! Part of me is still waiting for something to happen so that we can't go, because this trip just seems too awesome to be real.

Yikes, it's getting late. I should go help Mark clean up in the kitchen before I go to bed. Goodnight, DDNers! Another week is more than halfway over!

Today I came into work, and the very first thing I did was completely rearrange my desk. The new arrangement DEFINITELY seemed to help, but it involves leaning back in my chair (it has an adjustable back) so far that I feel like I might as well be doing this. Oh well. Whatever works, I guess.

I successfully managed to dodge lunch with my co-workers two days in a row this week. Yesterday I acted like I was too busy, and today they were going at 11:30 AM, and I legitimately was just not hungry at that time. Things are honestly getting much better with them, but I still find a good book to be much better company most of the time. Oh, introversion.

I had my annual review today. It was my first one with my new boss, and it seemed like she agreed with most of what I said in my self evaluation. There really weren't any surprises. I rated really high in most things, but I need to work on speaking up during meetings, getting my ideas out there, getting noticed, being assertive, etc, etc. Duly noted. I got some goals for this year, so that's exciting. I love having concrete, specific things to work on. I also did bring up that I feel like I could definitely take on more, and I was a bit more direct about it than I ever was with my old boss because I feel like my new boss actually cares. So I have a feeling we'll be revisiting that soon.

Oh, and yeah, the monetary portion. 2.9% raise or thereabouts, which is pretty normal, and a smaller bonus than last year but still really good. I mean, honestly, ANY bonus is a good bonus. Last year I used my bonus to buy a new laptop. This year I guess I'll see what I get back from my taxes, and what Mark gets back, and we'll decide whether we want to use the money for a trip like we've been talking about. A trip to... VEGAS!! Or, you know, somewhere that DOESN'T cost a fortune, possibly. But probably Vegas.

Well, we do have some other things to take care of too. Like our couch. Which only has two cushions left out of three. EMBARRASSING.

I don't want to dwell on this, but a lot of my time over the past couple of days has been spent in trying to convince my sister that she actually will not die in Italy if it's hot outside. And I can promise that I've been doing this in the absolute nicest way possible, but I kind of want to do this:



Except, you know, slightly less violently. But anyway, I said I wasn't going to dwell on it, so let's move on.

It was only 30 degrees today. I did not work out. I could have gone to the gym, but I didn't. I think I'm going to just count this week as a rest week and see what next week brings.

I made burritos tonight. I used multigrain tortillas, vegetarian refried beans, shredded spinach, green onions, tomatoes, and a little bit of plain Green yogurt. And I added a little bit of low-fat cheese to the second one. They were HORRIBLE. The tortillas tasted about as close to cardboard as anything I've ever ingested. The refried beans were gross. I'm not a big fan of refried beans in any case, but apparently once you take out the fat, they're terrible. Just bland and mushy and yucky. And then no sauce of any type to help it along, except the yogurt, which didn't do much. I ate as much as I could stand and then gave it up. So, yeah. Won't be repeating that particular experiment.

I have a tentative plan for going completely vegetarian by the end of the year (in other words, eliminating the seafood). But it's just something I've got bouncing around in my head that I'd like to try. If it doesn't work out, it's not the end of the world, but at the same time, I'd like to at least try.

All right, that's all I've got for tonight. I've got some dogs that seem to think it's their supper time, so I guess I'll oblige them.

Happy Friday Eve, DDNers!

I'm confused...aren't beans already meat-free?

^Beans are vegetarian....the other stuff in refried beans (namely animal oils and fats) are not. At least that's my understanding. I avoid looking at the label of refried beans hahaha. And I also refuse to remove it from the can....someone else always gets that job even though they are mighty tasty.

^Yep, canned refried beans are usually prepared with lard. The ones I bought did have soybean oil in them, but they just weren't the same. I bet I could find something better if I tried different brands, but like I said, I'm not a huge refried beans fan in any case. I think I would have liked the burrito a lot better if I'd put black beans in it, so next time maybe I'll just try that. I have no explanation for why I went with the refried beans except that the recipe said to, and I figured that maybe if I tried to keep an open mind, I'd actually like them.

You may or may not want advice on this front, but I make a ton of Mexican type food...I'm well-known as an addict, heh. The refried beans I buy are fat-free and they're pretty decent...the vegetarian ones have a lot more calories for some reason, but I eat meat and want to stick with the same brand, so I go with the fat-free version. No clue how it works but they are all pretty bland to begin with. I usually thin them out with a bit of water, then add some basic spices...red pepper, cumin, garlic powder, maybe something else that catches my eye, like diced jalapenos or whatever. I'm a big fan of high fiber/low carb tortillas...they work well if you want to do regular burritos or if you want to grill them. If you want something with a big more texture, FlatOut wraps and other products like them are awesome. Greek yogurt is amazing to use and it's super versatile...I usually mix it with taco sauce to make a saucey kind of topping for tacos, burritos, etc. The yogurt's thickness keeps the taco sauce from dripping out like it normally would.

Ok, no more Melatonin inspired Mexican food talk...do with that paragraph what you will.

Congrats on the good review at work, by the way! I hate evaluations even when I know I've done well...my mind has this complex where I emphasize tiny details that might be construed as "bad" and convince myself that the boss will concentrate on those. Ridiculous, haha.

^Thanks for the advice! I don't know why I immediately said that I wasn't going to try the burritos again, because that's probably not true. I just need to be more mindful of tasting things as I go, making sure there's enough flavor and whatnot. If I'd gotten a low sodium burrito seasoning packet to mix in, it probably would've been MUCH more palatable.

*****

Laptop's running out of battery power, so I'd better hurry this along.

Today was actually a really good day at work. My co-workers and I were being so silly, all day long. I was actually laughing so much at one point that my head started to hurt. Never thought THAT would happen. They're really not a bad group. I just need to be more open to being myself, speaking up when I have something to say, even if it's a little bit against the grain of what everyone else is saying.

I was on a conference call today where someone in our Illinois office was mentioning that she went to her husband's philosophy club meeting, and they were discussing religion. Someone else said, "Just make sure it's not those Jehovah's Witnesses!" and I just cringed. I guess I might as well say that that's the religion my family and I used to belong to, and while I no longer feel any loyalty toward them, I would never call them - or any other religious group - out like that IN A BUSINESS MEETING. What, do people think JWs live in caves or something? That they don't have jobs like normal people, so it's safe to say whatever you want about them? It just really irked me.

Blah, I'm failing at hurrying this along.

They were serving baked fish with red potatoes and veggies at work today. Yum! But afterward, I was still hungry. So I ate candy. Then we got pizza for dinner tonight. So, a hit and a couple of misses in the food department today. But I weighed myself today, for the first time in two weeks, and I was down a pound and a half. Obviously that won't continue if I keep eating pizza and garlic bread for dinner, but this was the first time in literal weeks that I ate until I was full, so I think I'm fine.

I guess that's about it. I need to hand my computer over to Mark now so he can get rid of some malware for me, so I'll just leave you with a collection of videos that had Mark and I laughing ourselves sick the other night:






... et cetera.

This recipe makes a taco seasoning mix that tastes EXACTLY like the packets of stuff, but even better, and with the added bonus of knowing you don't have any anti-caking product or MSG in it. All the seasonings in it are inexpensive and frankly, things I think everyone should have in their pantry anyway, and you can make a lot or a little of it at once. You could make a lot and keep it in an airtight container, which is what I do. I actually use an empty spice dispenser.

I also would've done black beans, brown rice seasoned with an onion and some cumin, and fresh salsa, or even just some fresh cilantro and lime.

^Excellent, I think I have all of those spices except oregano, which we're probably going to buy more of tomorrow in any case. I never even though of looking for a seasoning "recipe" like that!

*****

I am feeling a bit stunned over the news of Whitney Houston's death right now. I don't usually get like this over celebrity deaths, but Whitney Houston's music was SUCH a big part of my childhood, and I never thought she'd be dead before she even turned 50. So, so sad.

*****

Anyway. I finished Out of Oz today. I don't know why it seems to be the new trendy thing for authors to leave tons of loose ends hanging at the ends of books and/or series of books, but it drives me up the wall. So that happened. And also, there were many different romances at various points in the series, and by the end of this book, all of them had ended pretty depressingly except one minor one. Nuts to that. I guess I'll probably give it a few years and then read the whole series over again. Sometimes when you already know what's going to happen, and you don't have the capacity to be disappointed by it anymore, it's not as bad as the first reading.

We went to a seafood restaurant called The Oceanaire for an early Valentine's Day dinner tonight. It was excellent, but definitely too expensive to be anything but a special occasion kind of thing. But getting dressed up for a night out on the town with my husband is always a fun time. I really enjoyed it.

And that's about it. Another lazy weekend in our household, and I'm certainly not complaining. I'm pretty disgusted with the cold weather right now, though, but that's not really here or there. Nothing I can do about that. Unfortunately.

Whoa, totally forgot to do any sort of update today until I was about to head to bed. That was a close one!

Today was another food oriented sort of day. First I made a delicious frittata with cheese, spinach, tomatoes, green onions, mushrooms, and potatoes for breakfast. Then I spent quite a while perusing my new cookbooks and marking recipes that I think I'd like to try eventually. Then I picked one recipe out of each book (four in all) to make this week for myself, and I also picked one to make for one of the dinners that Mark and I will eat together (we usually eat dinner together twice a week and separately the rest of the time). Then I went to the store to get all the food we need for this week, and I was pretty excited that literally half of my list came from the produce department. And finally, after coming back home and putting everything away, I made one of the recipes for dinner. It was penne with porcini mushroom sauce, and it was DELICIOUS. So I ate that and watched Teen Mom 2 for a bit (I found an episode my DVR apparently never recorded, which annoys me) and then cleaned up in the kitchen, and that was pretty much my day.

While I was busy doing all that, Mark went out and bought a rick of firewood. My parents bought us a rick of firewood for Christmas, but we already burned through all that. Hopefully this next installment will get us through the rest of the winter. So he went and picked that up and then spent most of the rest of the day chopping the pieces of wood into smaller pieces and removing the bark.

I had a really frustrating night last night. I was feeling really down because of the bleak weather, I was really tired, and I was feeling a bit hormonal, and the combination was just really bad. I hate it because I get so irrational, but even the most irrational feelings seem real while they're happening. And Mark, god bless him, always takes my feelings so seriously, even when he suspects that I'm not quite myself. So I love that he's not ever dismissive of me, but at the same time, I think sometimes maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have someone tell me to pull myself together because I'm being ridiculous. But I guess it wouldn't matter, because I probably wouldn't listen anyway. And I think he probably knows that.

Anyway, that was our day. Another fairly uneventful, relaxing weekend. My favorite kind.

I feel you on the cold weather front. I have been trying to exercise more now, but its an annoying drive to the gym with an impossible parking situation (college campus...) so I have been trying to run on the path by my apartment. I don't mind the cold so much...but it's been so windy. I hardly made it a mile the other day because I either had a 20 mph cross wind or head wind during the route. Ugh.....

Geez, almost forgot to update AGAIN. Well, this time around I'm really not in the mood due to a crappy headache. So, as briefly as possible:

Work - Spent most of the day packing up my stuff in preparation for our move to the third floor on Thursday. Ended up taking a LOT of stuff home.

Dinner - Made oven fried fish with breaded cauliflower for dinner. Obviously it would have been healthier without all the breading, but I'm still easing into this whole vegetable thing. And it was delicious.

Other - My period started today, which accounts for the headache, and also for the fact that I feel like a whale. And I'm tired. And grumpy. *grumblegrumblegrumble*

The headache is still lingering, but today was my work-at-home day, so at least I got to lie around on the couch for most of the day. My mom dropped by to give me a Valentine's Day card, so that was nice. Mark came home from class while I was lying down with my eyes closed, and when I opened my eyes, he was standing there with a single red rose for me. So that definitely made my day.

I wasn't feeling up to putting forth much effort for dinner, so I had my first fake chicken nuggets tonight, with leftover mashed potatoes from our fancy dinner on Saturday. I was completely blown away by how similar they tasted to real chicken nuggets. I really was not expecting that.

I've got a fire going in the fireplace now, and the rest of the night is probably going to be spent watching TV and playing Professor Layton and the Last Specter.

By the way, did everyone see this?



It aired during the Grammys, which I did not watch, so I just saw it today. Pretty cool, I think. I know a lot of people are expressing doubts as to whether Chipotle actually only uses meat from humanely farmed animals, but in any case, I think the message is a good one, and it's always good to get people thinking about where their food comes from.

I am feeling much better right now. The day started off a little rough, but at some point this morning the headache finally went away, and now I am feeling a bit more energetic.

The cafeteria was serving Indian food for lunch today, which was AWESOME. Actually, it was pretty mediocre, as far as Indian food goes, but just the fact that they were serving Indian food was awesome.

We had kind of a weird meeting today. My boss would like to "re-brand" our department. She wants us to have a different name, and a logo (yes, really), and to have a sort of a launch party where we unveil our new... look, I guess? So that's kind of weird. But what she was saying without really saying it was that our old boss was not very well liked by other departments, and as a result, when people think of our department, they are kind of used to thinking of us as a department that they don't really want to work with. So she wants us to have a fresh start and get rid of those bad associations. I think it's all pretty silly, to be honest, but whatever. My boss has been in the business world almost as long as I've been alive, so I'll trust her judgment on this one.

I had my doctor's appointment after work today. Because of the different medications I'm taking, he likes for me to come in every six months so we can talk about how well the medications are working and so forth. So we talked about my IBS, my migraines, and my GERD, all of which are being pretty well managed at this point. I decided not to bring up anything else. I don't have any concerns about my diet right now, so it seemed pointless to bring that up, and as for the shin splints, I don't see how he personally would have been able to do anything about it. So the best he could have done was give me a recommendation to a specialist, and I'd just really rather not. I'm probably being stupid, but I really, really hate going to the doctor.

We made pasta primavera for dinner tonight, and I ended up going back for seconds on the veggies. I'm doing it! I'm getting over my hatred of vegetables! I'm so freaking proud of myself! Thirty years old, and I'm finally learning to eat my veggies.

Oh, hey, I should probably do my taxes one of these days. All right. I will set that as a goal for this weekend. *nods*

^I highly recommend getting a juicer. They're pretty inexpensive & a lot of fun to play with. I hate carrots, but when I mix them in a juice, I don't even notice them. I probably make fresh juice 3-4 times a week. Plus, it's creative. Though some combinations are far more successful than others.

^A juicer, eh? Interesting idea. I'm definitely not opposed to it, especially considering my love for kitchen gadgetry. I just took a quick look at some juice recipes, and there are some really interesting ideas out there. I'm just wondering how many of these I could accomplish with the blender we already have.

*****

Today was a bit of a wacky day at work. We had to have all of our stuff packed up for our move to the third floor by the end of the day. I'd already packed most of my stuff, but my co-workers still had a lot to do, which led to not much actual work being done by them, and that led to not much actual work being done by me by association. We took two separate field trips up to the third floor today. First we went in the morning to see how things were looking. Then we went again in the afternoon because by then they'd already put up our new cubes, so of course we had to see them. We're going to be packed like sardines up there. My prediction is that we're going to move again by the end of the year, once they realize that they're just trying to fit too many people into too small of a space.

Also, for some reason I really wasn't hungry at lunch time, so all I had was an iced tea with sugar and lemon, and then suddenly I was STARVING at 2:00 PM. So I ate - yikes, this is hard to admit - hot cocoa mix, straight out of the envelope. I had no money for the vending machines, the cafeteria was closed, and I had no snacks in my desk. Oh, the shame.

So anyway, then we left at 3:00 PM to go to Applebee's. We ordered pretty much every appetizer on the menu. We even got potato skins with the bacon on the side so that I could eat them. It was fun. The only thing that was awkward was when one of my co-workers said that she used to think I was so quiet, and somehow I ended up blurting out that I can't talk to people I don't know very well. Oh my god, am I a three-year-old?! Who SAYS that?? I immediately wished I'd said pretty much anything else in the world. Even saying that I feel UNCOMFORTABLE talking to people I don't know very well would have been better than saying that I CAN'T talk to people I don't know very well. I just hope more than anything that they can just forget I even said it.

But anyway. I came home and actually made it outside for a workout, which I totally did not think would happen today. So I felt really good about that. And nothing hurt when I was running! I did cut my workout about 10 minutes shorter than what I was doing before. I also went back to the elastic bandage rather than the shin sleeve, and I think I'm just going to stick with the bandage from here on out. It works well, and my foot did not go numb like when I was using the shin sleeve. Fingers crossed for pain-free workouts from here on out!!

Several things are happening in March that I want to do, but I don't think I can do all of them, unfortunately. I was planning on visiting Nashville D on March 2nd through the 4th. Then today I got a Facebook message from my friend W's wife inviting Mark and me to a surprise 30th birthday party for W, and it's going to be on March 3rd. So I texted Nashville D to see if we can move the visit to March 9th through the 11th, and I'm still waiting to hear back. In the meantime, I just got an e-mail from Mark's mom, inviting us to a birthday party for Mark's cousin, aunt, and cousin's stepkids. And it's on March 11th. But that may be a non-issue anyway, because I think Mark may be going out of town that weekend too. Argh. Most of the time I have no social life whatsoever, so it's annoying that everything is converging like this. The family b-day celebration is the least important to me, but I know Mark probably does not feel the same, we'll just see what happens. Nashville D may not be able to change the weekend of the visit anyway.

Actually, come to think of it, I probably should have run this all past Mark before I asked Nashville D if we could change the dates of the visit. Whoops. Wife fail!

Can't believe another week is almost over. Happy almost-Friday, DDNers!

Well, today was just tiring. It was our first day at our new desks. It was just mass chaos. We're the first group of people from the first floor to move, so we're basically sitting in the middle of a construction zone right now. Most of the cubes aren't even built yet, our boss's office isn't built, some of the carpet isn't down yet... Craziness.

The first thing I noticed was that my old chair had been replaced with a new one, and I was like, Oh, HELL no, not after all that time I spent adjusting it so that my shoulder wouldn't hurt anymore. Then I noticed that our actual cubes were different. We used to have partial walls that came about halfway across our cubes so that we'd have at least a little bit of privacy, but these were completely open on the outside. Like, if the cube is a box, there would be three sides to the box, and then instead of half of another side, there was only just enough to cover the side of the desk. Then I noticed that one of my boxes of stuff was missing. So I located the box in someone else's cube. Then one of my co-workers located our missing chairs stuck in a room somewhere. We complained to our boss about the cube walls, so I think they're going to swap those out. So we're working on stuff, but it's just annoying that there were all these issues, right off the bat.

People from the first floor who haven't moved yet kept coming up to check things out. One of my reps (not "mine" in the sense that they report to me, but "mine" in the sense that I do staffing and scheduling for them) came up, and just to make conversation, I was telling her about how we're hoping we'll get the bigger cube walls back (thus making a smaller opening to get into the cubes), and her response was, "That'll make it hard for you to get into your cube when you get pregnant. Because you're so tiny that you're just going to get huge." WTF?!?! I told my co-workers about it, and they thought it was totally insane too, which was good, because for a second I thought maybe it was just me being overly sensitive about people talking about my getting pregnant like it's inevitable. So that was weird.

I don't know, I hate to be whiny and high maintenance, but I'm just not feelin' it right now. The new location, I mean. Our cubes are arranged like this:

A X X X
X X X J

I'm where the "J" is, and my only co-worker who actually does the same job as me is sitting where the "A" is, so we're as far apart as humanly possible now. Whereas before, he sat diagonally from me, like this:

X J X
A X X

So I could talk to him pretty easily from where I was if I had a question or something. Not that it's THAT hard to get up and go talk to him now if I want to, but... it's just different. So I don't know. The cube next to his might be the one that's assigned to the person who's in our Philippines office right now, so if that's the case, I may ask to switch cubes, because then at least I wouldn't be switching with someone who's already moved in. But I don't want to seem like a complainer, so maybe I'll just deal with it. I don't know.

Other things: The women's restroom is being expanded to make room for new stalls, since they're adding about 100 new female employees to the floor. So I have to go down to the first floor to use the restroom. Also to use the printer, for now, since our printer is still sitting outside our boss's old office. And our boss is still down there too, so that's kind of weird. I'm in a different wing of the building now, so I parked in the parking lot that's closest to that wing, and at 7:00 AM this morning, it was already PACKED. Normally if I get to work at 7:00 AM, I can have any parking space I want in the other lot. And I don't normally get there that early. So that sucks. But there's a staircase and elevator just inside the entrance to that wing, so it won't take any longer for me to get to my desk, so that's cool. And we're closer to the cafeteria now. It's directly downstairs from us. And hey, I'm going to have some rock hard glutes from going up and down the stairs all day. So it's not all bad! I'm trying my best to be amiable and flexible, but it's hard when you're going into a new situation that is OBVIOUSLY worse than your old one, and there's nothing you can do about it.

So yeah, tiring. By the end of the day, I was so incredibly ready to get out of there and get away from all of the hammering and drilling and whatnot.

Not much else to report. I did some Rosetta Stone when I got home (Lui cucina! Loro cucinano!), took a bit of a nap with Mark when he got home, caught up on some shows I DVR'd, and now we're watching Star Trek. And my computer's about to die, so I should go.

Sorry about all the venting. Today was just a little rough, but I'll get over it.

Fairly productive day today...

We slept in pretty late, and then Mark went to get us Jimmy John's sandwiches for lunch, and while he did that, I cleaned up a bit around the house. We ate lunch, and then Mark had to leave for his tattoo appointment. This was his second session. So he did that, and I did some Rosetta Stone, worked out for a bit, took a shower, paid some bills, did some more Rosetta Stone, and started my laundry. By the time I did all that, Mark was back. He still has a couple more sessions to go on his tattoo, but he doesn't want me to pay for any more of it. So that made me a little sad, because I really wanted to pay for all of it, but on the other hand, it's turning out to be way more expensive than I thought. It looks really good so far. I think it's going to pretty impressive when it's completed.

So then after Mark got home, we went out to eat. I was feeling extremely anti-chain restaurant, but I didn't want to drive too far away, so we decided to finally check out this Mediterranean restaurant that we've been meaning to go to for literal years. It was SO GOOD!! It was a bit on the pricey side though, so it's probably not going to be somewhere we go very often, which is too bad, because it really was awesome. We got pita bread and hummus as an appetizer, and then I got the veggie plate, which was kind of like a sampler of non-meat items. It had falafel, spanikopita, and tiropita. I made sure to save half of everything so that I could take it home as leftovers. Because it was SO GOOD SO GOOD NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!!

I also was considering trying another restaurant I found online that has a good vegetarian menu, but it's in a really trendy area of town, so we decided to try that sometime during the afternoon or on a weeknight when it probably won't be so crowded. Yay, food!

So anyway, we came home from the restaurant, and I folded some of my laundry and then filed my taxes. I ended up owing a little bit on my federal taxes, and I'm getting a small-ish refund on my state taxes. I'm pretty pleased with the way it all worked out. I'm much happier getting the money on my paychecks throughout the year than getting it refunded in a lump sum when I do my taxes. But that's just me, and I'm probably weird.

Today we got up around 10:00 AM, and I ate breakfast and got dressed and did whatever until around 11:30 AM, when I left to meet up with T in her town to see The Artist. So we did that, and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and then I came back home around 4:30 PM. I ate some pizza leftovers, we worked on a grocery list and then went to the store to do our food shopping, and then we came home. I ate some cereal and did some Rosetta Stone and that was my day. I'll probably try to get the rest of my laundry folded before I go to bed.

And... yeah. That's about all I've got. Oh, and I found this at Meijer:



It's a wall art thing mounted on wood. I'm thinking I'll probably put it in the master bedroom. The living room and den already have Beatles stuff in them, and the master bedroom is desperately in need of more wall art. Yay for finding cool wall art at the supermarket!

Back to work today. I'm still adjusting to being on the third floor. It's just weird, but I guess before too long it'll just be my new "normal." That's how life goes. It reminds me of a Stephen King quote than an ex-boyfriend of mine used to like to post as his AIM away message a lot: "People can get used to just about anything. That’s the best of our lives, I guess. Of course, it’s the horror of them, too." It's stuck with me all these years, I guess because it's true.

Anyway, I spent most of my downtime today researching options for a short trip I'd like to take with Mark in April. Originally I wanted us to go to Vegas, but I decided to go for something less expensive for this go-round, given that I'm getting just about no tax refund, and I used most of my annual bonus to help Mark pay for his tattoo. So after much research, and after consulting with Mark, we're going to... Albuquerque! Kind of weird, considering that what I think was the worst vacation of my life was a family trip to New Mexico that we took when I was in college. But the fact that my dad lost his billfold that had our return tickets and his voucher for our discounted hotel rooms in it, and the fact that I left my CDs on the plane on the way there, probably factored very heavily into that impression. And, you know, we probably could have gone to Paris or something, and if it had meant that I'd be stuck in a rental car with four other members of my family, I probably would still have less-than-fond memories. But I digress. My point is that I think this time around, with my favorite traveling partner, and the ability to control exactly what we do and when, I think things will go much better. Poor New Mexico. I never really gave it a fair shot, even though I don't think most of what went wrong had anything to do with the location. So yay, traveling! I'm excited! It'll be nice to have a little mini-trip just to get away for a few days.

Tonight we made butternut stew with corn, tofu, and pine nuts for dinner. It was my first time ever eating anything with butternut squash! I really liked the taste a LOT, but I was still slightly squicked out by the texture, which is what always gets me about squash. I like for fruits and vegetables to be nice and crisp, and anything that's not is pretty gross to me. But I did eat it, and I did like it, and I think we will probably make it again sometime.

I also made banana "ice cream" for dessert, which consists of cutting up bananas, freezing the cut-up pieces, and then pureeing them in the blender until you get something that's roughly the consistency of ice cream. It was amazingly creamy and obviously quite a lot healthier than dairy ice cream, but I think next time I need to let the bananas ripen a little more. The end product was slightly bitter, which made me not want to eat very much of it, but Mark loved it, so we didn't waste any.

Add in a bunch of DVR'd episodes of The Wonder Years, and that was my day. I was going to work out after work, but after going up and down the stairs all day, my shin was starting to complain just a little bit, and I was also absolutely starving when I got home. So I skipped it. No biggie. I prefer working out on Tuesdays anyway.

So... Guess I should have jumped on that cheap airfare to ABQ when I had the chance. I checked today, and the price has gone up $65 per person, which is more than I feel like spending. Whoops! So it's looking like we might be headed to Dallas instead. I'm excited! I've never been to Texas, except to change planes. I'm definitely going to book SOMETHING today so that we don't lose out on another cheap airfare opportunity.

Off to do more research!

*****

JUST KIDDING! The cheap Dallas flight got booked up while I was figuring things out. So I made a quick decision, booked some airfare, and we are now officially going to... San Antonio! The price difference between San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston was negligible, and they all seemed fun. San Antonio just seemed the most... different, I guess. I mean, any of them would be pretty different from what we're used to, but San Antonio seemed the MOST different.

Woohoo! I ❤ traveling!

... And I'm back.

So yeah, obviously a lot of my day was spent figuring this trip out, but our airfare is booked, so it's official now. Still need to book car rental and hotel, but I've already pretty much got those figured out, so it'll just take a few minutes, whenever I get around to it. Now watch - The hotel I was planning on booking will probably be completely full by the time I go to reserve a room. I wouldn't be surprised, the way things have been going.

There was a time in my life when I think I would have been really upset and stressed out by the fact that not only did the original dates I had in mind for the trip not work out (I wanted to do it next month, but there was only one free weekend we could've done it, and I had a training class the Monday after), but none of the original destinations I had in mind worked out either. But I just took it all in stride, and I was actually having a lot of fun with finding alternate destinations. I guess I'm getting pretty mellow in my old age, LOL.

EDIT: Also, checking out tourism websites is a really cool way to learn about fun things to do in your own city. Just sayin'.

So anyway, we're going to San Antonio, and if anyone has any suggestions for things to do, I'd love to hear them. But we're only going to be there for two and a half days, so I doubt we'll run out of activities. Obviously the Alamo and the River Walk are at the top of the list. I don't want to over-plan things. I figure we'll probably make a list of a bunch of things that we'd like to do, and then when we get there, we'll see how many we can actually fit in, depending on how long each one takes and how far away they are from each other.

I really, truly meant to work out today, but I just could not summon up the willpower. It was dreary and drizzly all day, and at the time I would have gone to work out, the wind was blowing at about 20 MPH, which is just ridiculous. I HATE cold, windy workouts. The cold isn't so bad, because once I get going, my body heat counteracts it, but when it's windy AND cold, I just can't get warm. So I did the sensible thing and sprawled out on the bed and dozed for a bit instead. Then got up and took a shower and made dinner. Tonight I adapted a recipe I found on the Betty Crocker website for Caesar tuna noodle salad. My version was a lot healthier and lower in fat than the Betty Crocker version, but it still tasted really good. After that I spent some time cleaning up the house, and now I'm about ready to do some Rosetta Stone before bed.

I'm just so excited about this trip! And I can't believe how spontaneous I'm being! I LOVE this! I'm getting closer to being the person I've always wanted to be all the time.