x’d, new friends, and visualizing a new job

Went to see X-Men Three today! What fun! Went with Tim, Patrick and Sarah, and it was much better than I thought. I had heard bad reviews and that it was only ok, but I definitely had fun, and it was much sadder in parts than I thought. It was great to see how excited Tim was to see Beast, and to see Beast fighting. Of course, it always makes me think what super powers I would want, and you know, I don’t know! Other than flight of course…

Other than that, today was a good day, and it was a good weekend overall. I feel recharged. Less angry, drained, bitter, frustrated. I journaled a lot, wrote some of my story, cooked, watched movies, slept and played with the pup. It really helped me to feel like me again. After last week, I definitely did not feel like me.

I took Myra to a new dog park today with this girl Lisa from work, she seems really nice and I get along well with her. Her boyfriend Steve also seems like a nice guy and Tim likes him as well, so it would be nice if we have a new couple friend.

Then tonight, I wrote a letter to the Universe, detailing out what I want in a new job, boss, coworkers and work environment. I know that when I am specific about what I am looking for, it is much easier to find it and bring it into my life (like our house. We were pretty specific about what we wanted and we got pretty darn close). Tim had a great suggestion, to bring that list with me on any interviews I go on and read it before I begin the interview, and it will help influence the questions I ask and the things I look for. I feel better about that too.

Read Full Post »

elu and friends

I’ve been starting to work on my story more, and I really like how it is shaping up. Sometimes it feels like I am waiting for Elu to tell me what happens, but it is so cool to know it’s a good story. I just love Elu.

I also wrote out some rough overviews of some of the other story ideas I have so I don’t forget them. I know getting published is a lot of work, but I really believe that these are stories that kids would like to read. I am certainly going to keep working toward that goal. And I think it helps with the insanity of work, at least I have my own writing and my own ideas I can work on at my own pace, and not have them messed up to make work happy.

Read Full Post »

new bra’d

Tim has been hounding me for months now to buy new bras. I only had two, and they were both falling apart and uncomfortable.

So, I went to Vic’s Secret, had a fitting, and then they put me in a dressing room with a drawer full of bras of their most popular styles, all in the same size. Meh, meh, ok, Wow, Wow! All of a sudden, I felt sexy and…what a concept…i had on a bra that was comfortable! Felt like it fit right, straps weren’t falling down and uncomfortable.

I dropped over $100 on three new bras, but I think it was definitely worth it.

Read Full Post »

soo tired

of work drama, fighting, tension. Yesterday Danielle and Trish had a fight in our group meeting, and I felt like yelling at Danielle to shut up. The whole meeting was tense, and I felt like ass the rest of the day because of it.

Add to that I’m super busy today (well, today through next weekend). Patrick’s last day is today, and in addition to being sad that he will not be there, it leaves me alone with Michele, who has pretty much been in a perpetual bad mood. Danielle is being snottier than ever. Sue is still not speaking to Michele much. Kathryn has been tense. It’s no wonder I never want to go into work.

I’m stepping up the job search, because this environment and tension and drama is just draining me. I found a job that sounds almost exactly like my athena job, so I’m fairly confident I could get an interview with them. I’m not necessarily interested in working there, but I really need to get out.

Can you stupid people just grow up and act professional???? I feel like I work with a group of overtired five year olds who throw temper tantrums on a regular basis. Hate.

Read Full Post »

keep thinking about curiosity

Curiosity (www.curiositygroup.com) is the company I applied to for their senior writer position a week ago. I have been thinking a lot about this company and how much I would love to work for them.

Visualing myself going there for an interview, talking to them. Visualizing myself working there and writing for them. And lately I’ve found myself looking at ads and thinking, ok, if I was writing for this audience, for this product, what would I want to highlight? How would I reach the audience?

I don’t know if it is being positive and optimistic or thinking too much about it, especially since it’s only been a week and probably too soon for them to start calling people in for interviews.

I think in addition to OHSU being a draining place to work with all the drama and frustrations, I think I am feeling tapped creatively. I like healthcare, it interests me, but there are only so many things I can write about, only so many ways I can talk about heart attacks and colon cancer screenings. I feel like I can’t tap into my real creativity, and it certainly isn’t a creative work environment.

I don’t want to think about Curiosity too much, because who knows if I will even hear from them. But I think this is a pretty good indication of what I am looking for, and I didn’t even realize I was looking for direction there. I want to be more creative, I want to be able to play with my writing more, write for different audiences, different products and really have a chance to stretch my mind. And a more creative, fun work environment definitely seems to be something I want.

Read Full Post »

busy weekend!

After yesterday’s busy day, today was another busy and fun day. Got up with the pup, took her to school and then went grocery shopping (Is trader joe’s ever not busy?? I was there 12 mins after it opened and you would think they were giving away stuff for free).

Came home and went out with Ava to Sellwood. Once again, Tim and I managed to miss most of a cool neighborhood. We like Sellwood, think it is really cute, but we only saw about three blocks of it, missing most of it. Ava and I went to the huge antique malls, which were fun to wonder around. Found some drinking glasses that match our goblets, and got a cool idea for a writing project. I bought some old photos and I am going to write something about each of them. Can be as short as I want, but it will be a good creative exercise.

Man, Ava makes me so grateful for Tim and for our relationship. Ava is unhappy with Aaron, and she deserves so much better. She said a bunch of things that made me sad, including that Aaron finally got a job after a year of not working, so now she doesn’t have to keep lying about it (they live in his mother’s old house, and apparently if she knew Aaron wasn’t working, she would have kicked them out). That, and the fact that she and Aaron don’t even sleep in the same room, she says she is a light sleeper and he wakes her up when he comes to bed. But they just dont’ have a good relationship. I hope she finds it in her to leave him and find someone better.

After all that, came home and took a two hour nap, phew, I was a busy girl!

Read Full Post »

aliens, fat dogs and Gilmore Girls

What a great, and full, Saturday.

Got up with Myra and took her to the school up the street to wear her out since we were going downtown to participate in the American Heart Association Heart Walk (OHSU was a sponsor and we were “encouraged” to come out and walk).

Michele and David came over so we could drive over in one car, and it was the first time I’ve ever seen Myra afraid of someone, she wouldn’t go near David at all. Didn’t know if it was because he was the tallest person she’s met, or because he was wearing a hat and she doesn’t see people with hats very frequently, but she would just hide behind Tim when David would try to pet her. Very cute actually, she’s so brave lol

Did the heart walk, or rather heart stroll. Took us an hour to do 2.5 miles, when it shouldn’t have taken anymore than 45 mins. But it was a nice day to walk along the river.

Michele was walking Kathleen’s black lab Elvis, and I felt so bad for Elvis. He is very fat, very out of shape, he’s only 5 and looks like he is about 12 or 13. Dogs should never get like that, he clearly has almost no daily exercise, it made me kind of sad.

Came home, had some cereal and headed down to the UFO festival in McMinnville (apparently McMinnville is the site of a famous UFO sighting). Festival seems a bit of a stretch. There was one small tent and then some discussions in the hotel next door. I had wanted to go to see the alien pet parade, but there weren’t many animals dressed up, and the ones that were just had capes on. Cute but disappointing.

It was interesting, there were a lot of regular people, probably townspeople, just there for the food and wearing alien headbands. Then there were some alien nuts, and of course the religious nuts, wearing shirts like “Washed in the blood of Jesus Christ.” The religious nuts would stand on one side of the street and yell at the alien folks on the other side of the street. I felt like telling the religious nuts that what they believe is just as much fiction and fantasy as some of the alien stuff. But I didn’t feel like getting beat up lol

Tim had fun, and got to talk to people who are interested without being wingnuts about it. I wandered down to the bookstore for a bit, but I think Powells has now ruined me for lesser book stores, there was such a bad selection. But I got the Mermaid Chair, which I am very excited to read.

Came home after a long day, fed the puppy and watched an entire disk of Gilmore girls. That show is fun and really well written.

All in all, a very fun Saturday (even if we did eat like crap all day).

Read Full Post »

wobble wobble splat

Went ice skating last night at the Lloyd Center ice rink (right in the mall) with Celena. It was fun and certainly harder than I remember from the last time I did it, while I was living in France. At first, I felt like I could barely move and my legs were burning, but I loosened my skates a bit and that seemed to help.

But it was much more of ice wobbling than ice skating and I fell several times, to the amusement of the people watching, I’m sure. This woman who clearly knew how to skate well and said that my blades were too dull, which was part of why I was having so many problems.

Even though I left sore, it was still fun, and nice to do something different.

For our next athletic adventure, Celena and I are going to try indoor rock climbing. We’ve both always wanted to do it. No really, I’m serious. Yes, I know I have virtually no upper body strength. But I am certainly game for trying it!

Read Full Post »

off running :(

I’ve been having pain in my legs when I run. It seems I almost always have some kind of pain. Lately I’ve been trying to run through it, or walk for a bit and then run again. But today, my legs hurt so much I wasn’t sure I could walk back to where I parked the car.

I am going to make an appointment with a sports orthopaedic doc at OHSU because this is clearly not going away on its own. I am a little concerned it might be compartment syndrome, I read about it on Runner’s World, and it fits perfectly, and can be harder to treat than shin splints. I’ll have to see what the sports docs say, but I definitely can’t run like this.

Sigh. I really wanted to train for the Big Sur Half Marathon. I was really excited about it. I wouldn’t even be so sad if I was just doing running to lose weight, but I really love it. I’m hoping the doctor I go to can find a way to help me run without pain cause today really sucked.

😦

Read Full Post »

Holy long (and mostly fun) day, batman!

Got up at 6 with the love of my life (really, I do love her…but do I have to start loving her soo early?? lol). After I let her out and gave her breakfast, I expected she would come back to bed like she normally does. Nope. Had lots of puppy chewing to do, and then when she was done with that, puppy squeaking.

So I get up with her officially around 7:30 and take her to the big school up the street, where there is a huge field for her to chase her frisbee (and me 🙂 Wear her out, so she’ll be good for the day. Come home, and then grocery shopping (three stops, including trader joes and an awesome fruit stand…hooray healthy food!)

Then off to get my hair cut, really cute although I looked like a schmoofy poodle at first, once I wet it down again it was much better.

Then Tim and I head down to the outlets to go shopping. On the way, we pass a bus fire, with the northbound traffic completely dead stopped for miles, but thinking it will clear up in a few hours when we are ready to come home (remember this). Had a blast shopping, and finally found some jeans that look good on me! No small task, that.

Start heading home around 5:15 and then run smack into totally stopped traffic. Get out of the car and talk to neighbors stopped. Took over an hour to go about two miles. Our gas gauge is now under 1/4. Finally get off at an exit, go one way, ends up being a very long dead end (but pretty and holymoly mansions and farms, so pretty at least). Go back the other way, and two so not helpful guys said your best bet is to get back on the highway.

Since we didn’t have much gas, we went back south instead. Stopped and got gas (gas station had probably never been that busy) and then took the really long way home, but at least we could go normal speed. Finally get home at 8, three hours past poor puppy’s dinner, an hour past her bedtime. But since we bought her new toys and took her out to play, she managed to forgive us.

Phew!!

Read Full Post »