blogkitten.com

Archive for August, 2005

Grouchy and the Grumpytons

August 30th, 2005. Published under General. 1 Comment.

I’m in a bad mood.

I don’t like being in a bad mood.

I don’t want to be in a bad mood.

Yet, here I am, in a foul mood.

Well, on the bright side, I only have about 5 hours before I’m on vacation.

Gah.

Sports talk

August 29th, 2005. Published under General. No Comments.

In an effort to not be a downer today, I bring you an observation from the weekend:

(Well, it’s more of a question.)

All over the sporting goods stores are team gear (hats, jerseys, etc.) that are not in the team colors. For instance, there were black Cubs hats with a black stitched Cubs logo on it. Or the white on white hats, or the pink jerseys.

I mean, COME ON! The whole point of buying team gear is to support the team - and for me, that means wearing the Purple and Gold if you’re a Vikings fan! What if you went to a Celtics/Knicks game and the fans were all wearing the monochromatic team gear? How would you know who to have a brawl with after the game?

Can you imagine showing up to a Eagles game wearing a yellow/yellow monochromatic Eagles hat during the Eagles/Packers game? You’d probably take a D-Cell to the temple in no time.

So…what IS your opinion? Should “team wear” be only in the team colors?

I say yes.

Sidetrack…funny hat: Yankee Hater

Case of the Mondays? More like an entire cargo hold of Mondays.

August 29th, 2005. Published under General. 2 Comments.

I just don’t understand the need of people to know everything that is going on in other people’s lives. Hiding behind the guise of “interest” and “friendship” lies a gossip, a nosy person and a snoop. When people find things out, they question in surprise that I was capable of making such a decision without them knowing about it. Why does it matter to them what I do? I certainly wasn’t going to make any plans with them anyway. The way some people act - or just ARE - dumbfounds me at times.

Anyway.

The weekend was ok, I guess. Sometimes, I feel like a mandatory appointment that people keep out of obligation rather than out of want or desire. I could be talking out of my ass too.

I fear that my next therapy session is going to be a fucking doozy. How do I know? Judging from the headache I’ve had for a few days now and the fact that I’m starting to sleep hours longer than normal, it’s not boding well for my mental health right now. Considering the disaster I’m making with my personal relationships lately, I’m not surprised. Good thing I have the day off, that’s all I’m saying.

Maybe I just need to enter a convent or volunteer for the Army or become a soap-opera actress or go into the Peace Corps or have a lobotomy or train to become a ninja in China.

(Are there Chinese Ninjas?)

Whatever the case, I don’t want to be me or have this life right now. I really don’t.

Geh. Enough with the pity party! I didn’t start this entry out to be such, I was totally going to complain about popular culture and such. So I’m going to stop now, while I’m way behind.

Random musing: If I ever get a camera, I’m going to be a picture taking muthafucka. I miss it.

Not your typical prototype.

August 26th, 2005. Published under General. 1 Comment.

I was looking at some…err…”girly” blogs. Blogs about shoes, makeup, handbags, et cetera. Looking through those blogs, I’ve come up with a pseudo-realization.

[It's a "pseudo-realization" because I have known it for some time, it just pops up randomly in my conscious mind...much like today.]

I am so not a girl.

I AM a girl in the biological and physical sense. And I do some girly things. I wear perfume, I paint my toenails in the summer, I shave my legs and get my hair highlighted. I even like skirts. But that’s where the line is drawn.

I do like clothes and keeping up-to-date on fashion, but most of the time, I don’t wear the latest things. My wardrobe is funky and functional.

I used to like makeup…before most makeup items would cause me to break out in a rash on my face. Nobody really notices when I DO wear makeup anyway, so that isn’t a concern. I basically wear a tinted lip balm. Sometimes mascara. Saves me 15 minutes in the morning by not doing it.

Also, people tell me how much they love my hair, how awesome my hair looks and “what do I do” to make it look like it does?

Honestly? I don’t do anything special. I wash it, condition it and add one tube of goop or another, depending on my mood and let it dry. That’s pretty much it. I get it cut every 3 months or so and get it colored at the same time. [I don't concern myself with roots.] But I’ve given up trying to fight my hair genetics long ago - so my “secret” is that Frank and Kathy are my parents and I’m lazy.

If I took a poll at work to see how long other people thinks it takes me to get out of bed, shower, get ready and out the door for work…I highly doubt that anybody could guess accurately. Today, for instance, I did not want to get out of bed. It was dark and rainy and I stayed up until midnight reading a book. So I got up at exactly 7:12am and was ready and out the door at 7:33. No, I didn’t scrimp on my normal routine. I showered as normal, got dressed and did my hair and skin care routine. I suppose the only thing I multi-tasked on was brushing my teeth while I was on the toilet, but I do that all the time anyway.

Do you think anybody noticed? Probably not.

As far as accessories go, I have one purse (it is a “seasonal” one, so I suppose that is girly to a point), I wear this Fossil watch on one wrist, a LiveStrong bracelet on the other and my wedding ring. I do go a bit nuts with necklaces ever since I figured out how to make my own (I have a very sensitive metal allergy - I can only wear a minimum of 14k gold in my ears, but sterling silver is ok for necklaces and rings), but again, they are funky.

I do have a penchant for pink, I always have - because I look really, really good in pink. But I go for more modern shapes with pink and nothing frilly or too girly. Lace bugs the crap out of me…I’ll be so glad when THAT fashion trend goes to the wayside. Ugh.

I had a point here somewhere.

I guess I’m proof that one doesn’t need to be slathered in makeup and spend hours on her hair to be considered beautiful. Sometimes if you go with your genetics rather than fighting them, you end up looking so much better. And I get to sleep in while all the other high-maintenance women get up to “get ready” for the day.

Sleep: the best revenge. Well, for me anyway.

Design goddess.

August 25th, 2005. Published under General. No Comments.

I’m working on a friend’s photography website. Needing to do a redesign of it, specifically.

She takes mainly live concert photographs for various online and print magazines. So, in order to cater to that, I’m going to “RAWK” it up a bit.

I plan on using Chank’s Newcastle font for the main titles and headers of the site. It should be easy to knock out as I only need to do 4 different pages. Easy peasy. Nothing like the band website has - egads. That site needs a redesign something fierce. But, no time nor ambition to do it at the moment.

Speaking of website designs - I really, really need to get my friend S’s site design done too. I need a deadline. I work better with a deadline.

So tired…

August 23rd, 2005. Published under General. 1 Comment.

I’m utterly exhausted today. I suppose that’s what I get for being awake until 1:30am.

I’m also battling a monster sinus headache.

Well - enough with the complaining.

Yesterday was my one year wedding anniversary. We went out for dinner (the steak OMG *DROOL*), then back to the apartment where I hooked up my anniversary present: an iPod shuffle.

Dan bought it for me because he knows that I like running and that I don’t like taking my U2 iPod out with me because I hate the armband, I don’t like holding it in my hand and the waist pack that I LOVE to use is not good for the iPod. So if I run outside, I don’t have any music.

It was probably the most thoughtful gift I’ve ever received.

Thank you sweetie. :-)

And I ran…I ran so far away…

August 22nd, 2005. Published under General. 1 Comment.

Saturday morning I ran in the Guidant Heart of Summer 5k.

I had my alarm set for 6am (since the race was at 9) so I could eat and digest my breakfast before I had to run. I ended up snoozing my alarm until 7am.

So I drug my ass out of bed and made two packets of instant Cream of Wheat, topped with liberal amounts of brown sugar and some milk. Good carb food that should digest pretty easily.

Since I was going to be sweating like a pig in less than 2 hours, I didn’t take a shower. In hindsight, it probably would’ve been good for my muscles to warm them up in the shower. It was somewhat chilly that morning.

We get to the park, and I knew it was going to be a clusterfuck before we even got there. Why? Because the women’s 10k race (which had cash prizes) started at 7:15am, and the Men’s 10k started at 8am. So there was already going to be a lot of people there not only competing, but watching as well. Meaning parking was going to be a nightmare.

We ended up driving around trying to find a spot, and it was getting close to 8:30 (which I thought was the “cut off” for registration) so I told Dan that I was going to go register and he can meet up with me near the start line.

Turns out, we were somewhat near the start line, which was on the north side of the lake. However, registration central was on the WEST side of the lake. So I kinda half ran/half speed walked over there.

Once I finally got there, I discovered that there was no “cut off” time to register. They didn’t even check to see if I HAD registered. So Dan could’ve came up and said he was registered and got all the free stuff and swag for free!

I got all my stuff and realized that I left my phone in the car. How in the hell was I going to find Dan and give him all my stuff before the race? Turns out, he walked over to registration too, so I found him no problem.

I don’t really have a lot of “play-by-play” for the race, because it was a nice day and I was feeling pretty good about my run. The weather was nice and cool - a refreshing change from the Aquatennial race where it was in the 90’s. There was a guy pushing a running stroller with a 3-4 year old kid in it saying “faster, Daddy, faster” as they went by. Hilarious.

I finished with a time of 31:59:45 (according to my new watch). I looked back, and I thought I finished around 36 minutes at the Aquatennial, but in fact I finished in 33:37. Still, a big improvement in time, I’d say.

Afterwards, I was so tired and worn out that I think my brain quit working. I remember trying to say something to Dan, and it came out as nonsense. He just laughed at me and said that’s how he gets after a bike race.

My body was screaming for food, so we went to Brugger’s Bagels and I got my favorite breakfast sandwich: Asiago cheese bagel, egg, pepper jack cheese and bacon. Mmmm…bacon.

The rest of the day I fought my tiredness. The night before, I was a bit wound up about running that I had a hard time falling asleep. But I went out and sat on the deck with a book and my iPod for a while and after almost falling asleep, I decided that I needed to take a shower and go run my errands.

I got home and started watching TV. I think I fell asleep around 4:30pm and work up at 8:30pm very disoriented. Like “what day is it” disoriented. I made some dinner, ate that and went to bed at 10pm. Pooped!

I’m running in another one on September 17th for the Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance. We’ll see how well I do then!

Gloomy day.

August 18th, 2005. Published under General. No Comments.

I don’t know what my problem was last night.

I put in 3 miles on the treadmill and yawned all the way through it.

Yawned?

Then, once I got back to the apartment, I had this desire - no a NEED to eat everything in sight. We’re talking spoon-in-the-peanut-butter eating everything in sight.

Egads.

Then I went to bed at 9:45pm. NINE-FORTY-FIVE.

I really hope I’m not coming down with something. There’s been a lot of people hacking and coughing in the office all week.

DON’T GET ME SICK, DAMMIT!!

I was supposed to go to a pool party at one of my bosses house this afternoon - ~~now, with the weather, it looks like they’re postponing it to Sunday~~ it’s still on!

I’m still going to run some errands afterwards. I need a new watch before Saturday morning, and I’m not going to have time to get one tomorrow.

Good times.

August 17th, 2005. Published under General. 4 Comments.

Well, I think I figured out the “summary” function on this thing. I also changed the layout - again.

I’m going to change the “default” photos to photos of my family - I’m not sure which ones I’m going to use yet.

I really, really want a digital camera. Dan’s had our camera for weeks - and I want to get out and take photos of things that I see every day. I was looking through some of photos I’ve taken in the past yesterday and dammit, I’m a good photographer. But no camera*, no photographing.

Anyway, I’m going to change the neon green to a more subtle color, but I’ll use the finished photograph header to figure out the colors I want to use.

My therapy session yesterday was draining, but it was good. My therapist told me how proud she was of my progress since I started to see her.

Somewhere in the past weeks, since I started therapy and got on an anti-depressant, I’ve had a change in how I’ve perceived myself.

In the past, I’ve never been happy with myself. Didn’t like my body, didn’t like my looks, etc. Very critical of myself - never thought I was good enough.

But one day, I was getting ready to go out for a run and I was standing in my bathroom in my underwear and a sports bra putting in my contact lenses. Once I could see again (I’m quite nearsighted and can’t see shit without my glasses on), I looked at myself in the mirror and thought “I look really good.”

And that thought really made me pause. I think somewhere in the therapy and the medication, my brain lost its fixation with perfection. I’m not perfect. I’m never going to be a size 4. I’m not going to weigh 110 pounds (the last time I weighed that was probably in the 4th grade). I’m not going to be 5′11″ and willowy. I’m a stocky, muscular, German/Irish/Polish farm girl who is 5′5″ tall, weighs 150 pounds and looks pretty damn good for a 32 year-old. And I have awesome hair, in my opinion.

Everyone has their own beauty - it’s just a matter of finding it. I think I’m slowly finding mine.

* - Well, I have a 7 year-old, tiny ~~Olympus~~ Minolta (Advantix film) camera that takes shitty pictures. Not counting the fact that I’d have to pay for film processing in order to see that I have shitty pictures, it’s a crappy camera anyway.