Hello, Friends!

Well, it seems that things at work have slowed down for a moment. I'm sure I could be testing something or investigating some bug or something productive like that, but I'm just not feeling it today. As much as I complain when it's busy, the time sure does go by much more quickly than it does when there's nothing to do. I've been watching the clock all day. One more hour to go. I keep asking myself what could I do to pass the time. Decided a post to catch everyone up on me would be a good start. :-)

I finally decided on a church. I've been going to St. Catherine's since the end of January. A couple weeks ago, I decided that while it's not aesthetically what I had in mind, they have a fantastic choir and I find myself becoming comfortable there. So, I called and registered as a parishioner. The woman that I spoke with tried to convince me that I should go to one of the churches that are closer to me, but I told her that I'd been to mass at both and prefer St. Catherine's. You'd think they'd be glad to get the additional income, however small it may be, right? I dunno. Apparently, you're supposed to stay with your most local parish. I said no and she went ahead an took my info. Al most two weeks later, I received a welcome letter (which also mentioned that I live too far away and should I try to register my hypothetical children to go to school there, the children that live closer would get preference. Good thing there are no school age children in my house, huh?), along with my tithing envelopes and a book that has a number of prayers and Catholic traditions explained in it. I went to mass Saturday afternoon and, of course, forgot my envelope. Oh well, next week, they'll know that I'm making my contribution.

A couple weeks ago, I got a pretty nasty cold from the girl that waxed my eyebrows. It's been fun. Started with congestion and a sore throat. Progressed into PINK EYE...In BOTH eyes... That has gone away, and now I'm back to being stuffy and the cough has begun its course. It's really been a joy. And my husband swears that he's a doctor without the education (or the paycheck). He always has suggestions of what's going to make me feel better. Tells me not to take this or to take that. He always has the answers, ya know? :-P I just nod and roll my eyes after he goes away.

Speaking of Hubby, he's permanantly back on 3rd shift. Two weeks ago, his boss asked him to work 3rd for a week and a half. Today, he was supposed to go back to 1st. Then Hubby comes home from work last Thursday and tells me that he's on 3rd for good. I'm so bummed! I really liked having him on 1st shift. Not that we spent a lot of time together, but it was nice to not be alone at night. And we'd eat dinner together a few times a week. And I'd get to go to bed good and early, since he had to get up at 4:30, he was in bed by 8:30 every night. It's not just the weeknights, either. The weekends are funky because he doesn't like to get his schedule out of whack. So he stays up most of the night and then naps during the day all weekend. Stinks! However, I'm not complaining because at least he still has a job!

The future of my job is still up in the air. The deal is now supposed to be done at the end of April. It keeps on getting extended. Which is just fine with me. The longer it drags out, the longer things stay the same. Perhaps that's a bad attitude to have, but I just feel like I have more security this way. I have updated my resume, but I haven't sent it to anyone or applied anywhere, yet. I am just terrified of the whole interviewing process. Ack.

I have an appointment to finally have my wisdom teeth taken out on Thursday. It was supposed to happen Tuesday of last week, but I had the stink eye and they made it very clear that I was not to come in if I had a cough or cold of any kind. I'm hoping that everything's broken up and I'm doing better by Thursday afternoon. If not, I'll have to reschedule again. Yes, I'm super scared about it. But I just want to get it over and done with. Have a few days of drug-induced stupor, eating mashed potatoes, pudding & sorbet...And then get on with my life. Rather than having this scary-ass "surgery" looming in the future. I have put it off long enough. I had a week or two there where I was in a lot of pain. Something must have gotten knocked aloose and the broken tooth was really being a bitch. That pain has since gone away, so that's good. But I can't delay the inevitable much longer. Besides, I won't have dental anymore after this deal goes through at work, so the sooner, the better.

Valentine's Day weekend was my sorority formal. A handful of my girlfriends and I decided to leave our men at home. It was nice to not have to keep my husband entertained for the night, but it was also a bit of a bummer because I had to drive BFF & me back home. She didn't drink and would've been fine to drive us home, but when there aren't any men to drive us home, the women all have to be responsible. It's no fun to get drunk when no one else is, ya know? But it was nice to have dinner and dance with the girls. I was super excited about my dress up until I got there and saw what everyone else had worn. My dress was pretty simple - bright turquoise, long, spaghetti straps with a little beading in a starburst kind of pattern that started on my hip. But everyone else had more like cocktail dresses...less like prom dresses. If I go next year, I'll definitely take that into account when shopping. I felt a bit out of place. There were a few girls with long dresses like mine, but we were definitely the minority. So...For your viewing pleasure, here are some pics from the dance. Please excuse my hair...It was flipping hot in that place and my bangs were washed that morning...They didn't last very long. :-P

Me & BFF @ my house before we left. We did NOT plan to have matching dresses. I convinced her to go with me a week before the dance and she borrowed the dress from her sister. What can I say, the girl has great taste!!

Black & Blue! :-)

Some Alumni Ladies

Just a few of the Girls

Change is a-brewin...

Next week, Hubby and I are both starting new schedules. Hubby's company is shutting down third shift again (not sure for how long, again), and he was going to go back to second shift. Which, of course, I was super excited about. I think it works best for us. However, his boss offered him first shift this time, which will be a pretty significant change for him. The last time he was working day shift was like 7 years ago. His hours will be 6am - 2pm. This means he has to leave for work at 5. Should be very interesting to see how this goes. He told the boss that he'd like to try it out, but if it doesn't work, he made sure the boss agreed that he could go back to 2nd.

I think I'd be more excited about this if I was starting a later shift next week. :-P One of our customers is FINALLY putting our software into production next week (this has been a very long time coming...Like since before I started working here 3 years ago...so it's a pretty big deal). One of my managers asked me & JB to rearrange our schedules so that one of us is here between the hours of 7 and 6. She has a kid and is taking classes, so she's very limited on the days that she could work late. And frankly, I wouldn't want to do 7-3 twice a week and 10-6 the other three days, so I'm gonna suck it up and do the later shift, at least for the next month or so.

I love the idea of not starting until 10. That means I can get up later and still have the time to go for a walk, eat some breakfast, shower and get ready for work. But the other side of that coin is that I have to work until 6pm. Which means that I won't get home until 7. I think I'm going to have to start cooking something on the weekend that I can eat leftovers on for the whole week.

We'll see how it all goes down. I worked the late shift yesterday, and I really thought I was going to die when it was 2pm and I still had 4 hours to go. But that may have been compounded by the fact that JB wasn't here yesterday. Her daughter was sicky, so she had to stay home. Her not being here sucks. lol Having a friend around helps to pass the day. Especially JB. We usually go make/buy lunch together. And we chit chat throughout the day. And we encourage one another to not work. lol

No major plans for the weekend. Going home after work today, putting on my pjs and watching a new show that I just found called "The Colony." It's a reality show...The idea is the some natural/catastrophic event took place and they have to start over, pretty much. It's a group of ten people with different backgrounds - a couple different types of engineers, a doctor, a nurse, a handyman, a marine biologist, a contractor and a few others whose jobs I can't remember - and they have to figure out how to survive. They find an abandoned warehouse and figure out a way to filter rain and river water so that it's drinkable. They generate electricity from some old car batteries, but have to come up with a generator for the batteries. They have to figure out where to get food from and how to survive without the comforts of everything that they would've had pre-disaster. Hubby and I watched the first episode together and he totally loved it. It's kinda like 'Kid Nation' was, if you ever saw that. Except with adults. And no "rewards". I dig it. No plans tomorrow. Sims 3 and Chinese food, I think. lol Sunday, I'm going out to my parents' house for lunch. We're going to visit Opa (my grandfather) in the afternoon. He's not doing so well. They've finished the radiation treatments, but I don't know that it's helped any. They started him on hospice a few weeks ago, which is no good sign. Anyway, I'm sure I'll have plenty to say about him next week, and I'm supposed to be working right now, so tears are not an option.

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend! Hopefully this rain is done for a while and the sun can grace us with his warmth!

Geez...Another one...? Really?

Hmmm...This post started as one thing and has completely progressed into another.

So, I found out today that another one of my sorority sisters is pregnant. That makes three (that I know of) that are currently prego and two more that just had babies in the last year. Seriously? WTF Man?

So, to make myself feel better, I decided to try to come up with reasons why I'm glad I'm not prego:

• I can drink a whole bottle of wine tonight to drown my sorrows
• I don't have to go out and try to find maternity clothes for my already large body
• I can spend money on myself, my husband and my cats a new ac compressor, rather than diapers and formula
• I...theoretically can sleep through the night in whatever position I find comfortable
• I......can't come up with anything else.

Yeah, that list is short. And shitty. Here's my other list, which trumps the one above a million times over.

Reasons why I'm NOT glad that I'm not prego:

• I want a family.

Ugh.

Today, my friend and I went to lunch together. She's a pretty skinny minnie and a nice girl, I'd say she's one of my closest friends right now. She's taking a nutrition class, required for the nursing program that she's trying to get into. And this nutrition class is killing me. Every time she has class, the next day, she comes back telling me about how many calories she should be eating and how she's way over that number. And how her body fat % (or some shit like that) is just below where it should be. And how to lose weight, you just need to reduce your calorie intake and increase your exercise.

Girl, I've been fat my whole life. Do you think this is news to me? Do you think if it was as easy as putting down the gallon of ice cream and running around the block, don't you think I'd do that? For 25 years, I've been steadily getting fatter. Every time I try to lose weight, I do okay in the beginning and then I fall off the proverbial wagon. Despite my above statement, I don't sit in front of the tv with a bucket of ice cream for days on end. I think I eat okay - not the best, but it's not like I go to McDonalds for every meal. My biggest problem with food is portions. I make something that I like and I eat way too much of it.

And with exercise...Ew. I hate sweat. JB (my friend from work) asked me if I wanted to go outside to the nearby park for lunch today. I looked at her like she was insane and responded with a definite no. She said to me 'But it's so nice out. It's not as humid.' I replied with 'Let me remind you. I get to hang out with the 90 degree weather on my drive home every day. I sweat buckets just sitting there. I have no desire to come back to work after that.' And she tells me that sweating is good for you and that she, in fact, likes to sweat. Let me reiterate...Sweat = ew. I feel gross and smelly and once you go back inside and it dries, then I feel all grimey. Ew. No thank you. She conceded. We went to Ditka's and had Tuna Nicoise Salads. Pretty yummy, although if she hadn't been lecturing me about losing weight discussing her nutrition class with me, I would've ordered the chicken parm.

This rant about weight and food and exercise is related to the original topic. Majorly. Three reasons. 1. We don't have a lot of sex. I don't feel attractive anymore (I'm at my heaviest right now) and Hubby is far too engrossed in his game to notice when I try to initiate. 2. When we do have sex, who in Jehovah knows if I'm ovulating. My period's all wonky (related to my weight). 3. Even if we were having sex regularly or when I'm supposedly ovulating, it's terribly difficult for someone of my size to get pregnant.

So, anyway, I'm feeling a little boo hoo about it. I'm feeling angry about it. I'm feeling ... I dunno. I wish I could say inspired, but I feel the opposite. When I think about losing weight, I think about how much weight there is for me to lose and I'm discouraged. There's this GIGANTIC mountain in front of me and all I can think about is how hard it's going to be to get to the top. How absolutely impossible it looks. I think of all the sweating and how many times I'm going to fall down and the exhaustion that will go along with it. And I don't even take the first step. I'm just content to sit here at the bottom and wait for my jetpack to instantly appear on my back and take me to the top.

I don't know what I need to motivate myself. I don't know how to look at the mountain and say okay, there's a rock about 10% of the way to the top. Get to the rock. And then look for the next rock. And the next. I want to make it to the top. Hell, I'd be thrilled with myself if I could make it halfway or even 25% of the way up the mountain. I quite obviously know what needs to be done, I just can't find it in myself to do it.

I want it to be easy.

I want it all to be easy. Losing weight. Getting pregnant. Paying the bills. Getting the car fixed. Work. Life.

Grow up.

I'm rambling and the inner voices are starting to come out. Looks like it's time to put this incoherent mess to rest. Maybe the lesson here is that easy isn't always best. Sometimes, you really do have to work for what it is that you so desperately want in your life...

I'm terrified...and exhausted

Uh, warning...This has weepy written all over it...

I feel like the majority of my life has been spent preparing myself for my mother's passing. Watching her for the last 20+ years and the steady decline kinda does that to a person. Soon after my mom was diagnosed with MS, her parents moved from the north burbs back down to the south burbs to be close to us and to do whatever they could to help out. For most of the life that I remember, Omi & Opa (grandma & grandpa in German) were less than a ten minute drive away, if not closer. They've been an enormous part of my life. They filled in the gaps where my parents couldn't. And I value the relationship that I have with them more than words can express.

My dad sent me a text on Saturday afternoon to tell me that Opa went into the hospital on Thursday. At first, I was more pissed at my dad than anything else. Why would he wait three days to tell me this? But that passed and I was more worried than anything else. Opa's been having some pain in his side/back for maybe a month or so, and the doctors decided that they wanted to run some tests. He can't take pain medications of any kind because they make him violently ill. So, his options are to be in pain or to be bent over the toilet. The docs felt that they could do these tests more easily and make him more comfortable if he were in the hospital, rather than at home. They admitted him on Thursday and apparently were running tests all weekend. He came home from the hospital yesterday with bad news. He has bone cancer.

We don't really have much more details than that. He's supposed to start radiation soon and that's about all I know. My grandmother is a very emotional person (geez, i wonder where I get it from...) and it's very difficult to get any information from her when she's upset. She gives this small snippet of info (bone cancer, radiation) and then breaks down, refusing to talk about it anymore.

My dad didn't call me to tell me this information last night. No, instead, he texts it to me while I'm at work today, but only because I texted and asked how Opa was doing first. I'm pissed at my dad, but that has to be put aside. So much more than that, I'm scared. Not having any info is horrible. I don't know if they've caught it early. I don't know what kind of bone cancer it is, though after doing some google research, I'm pretty sure I could guess. He's had cancer before, maybe 15 years ago, of the prostate. But I was young. I didn't know what it all meant and frankly, everyone tried to keep kept me in the dark. I knew that it was going on, but that was the extent of it. I'm sure my parents and g'parents were trying to protect me. Now, being some sort of an adult, they have to let me in. And now I know the severity of cancer. And what it means. And I don't know what to do. I don't know if knowing would make it any better. I mean, what if it's really bad? What if the reason that they're not doing surgery is not just that he's 87, but that it's not just in the bones, but is spreading? Then what? How would that be better?

All day, when I wasn't focusing on something else, or even when I was trying to focus on something else, all I think about is him. I keep pulling out all these memories of him from the back of my brain. Things that I had all but forgotten about. And it just makes me sad. In all that time preparing myself for my mom to go, I never thought about the natural progression of life. I never thought of Omi or Opa going first.

When I told Hubby that Opa was in the hospital, he didn't say much. I told him how I was sad about it and how I hadn't really considered it. And he pointed out the fact that Opa's had a good, long life. And he's right. Eighty seven years is a long time. He's been married to Omi for close to 60 years. They have a daughter & son and four granddaughters. He's had a great, successful life. But that doesn't make it any easier for the people that love him. That doesn't make me any less sad for myself. Hubby told me 'Wouldn't you rather see him go before he's beyond himself? Do you want him to be in pain?' Well, no. I definitely don't want to see him in pain. And I don't want him to be unhappy in any way. But again, that doesn't make me feel better. How terribly selfish that sounds.

Maybe Hubby has some insight that I don't. He's been through this before. Both of his grandparents and his dad passed away before we even started dating. They were all pretty young, and all died from various cancers. My other grandfather, on my dad's side, passed away 7 years ago. And I was sad when that happened. But for different reasons. I don't feel like I ever knew him. I was sad that we didn't have a closer relationship. I was sad for my dad and couldn't imagine how he felt. Aside from him, the closest losses I've had were a girl that we went to school with in junior high, a friend of the family in high school and Mel's Gram last summer.

Hell, I don't even know that he's dying. But bone cancer just sounds so...heavy. Anyway, please say a prayer, if you do that kind of thing. My tears have temporarily dried up, so I'm going to head outside to make dinner. I'm sorry if I've been Debbie Downer here tonight, but I needed to get it all out...