Habits are at first cobwebs, then cables...

You know, I had actually written a long blog post that I was adding to as I got a a chance, and it has since disappeared. 

So....you get the short version...

I've been running.  I seem to have plateau'ed (not sure this is actually a word) just past 3/4 of a mile, but I'm still running.  And hating basically every minute of it.  My leg goes through good and bad phases...it was good for awhile and didn't hurt while running, but last night started back up again.  I'm looking for a pattern.

Work has been work.  Its a lot of work.  I've been dealing with a wretched and evil coworker who wants everyone to be as miserable as her.  I word vomited for about 30 minutes to both my supervisors together last week about it.  I get a trainee back in 3 weeks after he's done academy training.  That's going to be a lot of work.  Somewhere in all of that I have to create 5 trainings.

I had an energy guy here this week.  And I've been dealing with my landlord and his brother...which is another long blog post for another day.  The energy guy took me aside and told me his unofficial opinion is this house needs insulated.  I'm still bugging my landlord for new heating elements.  According to my landlord's brother, they will be putting more insulation in the attic.  We shall see.

I've also been cooking.  I can't remember if I mentioned this before.  Its one of my goals for this year (not a "resolution".  A goal.  To eat more fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats, and stop eating so much processed food).  This required the aquirement of $75 worth of spices (something other than salt, pepper, and garlic - which was my previous spice rack).  Its been interesting.  Not sure its totally worth it some days.  Sometimes things come out delicious...other times, not so good. 

Well...its time for my shower and for the start of my day.  *weak cheer*

Spices are so cool looking. 

Roasted spiced chick peas.  Delicious the first night.  Gag-worthy after sitting around for a day.

Still a fan of baking.  Strawberry cake cookies.  With bear sprinkles.  MMMMMM.....

The easier it is to do, the harder it is to change. ~ Eng's Principle

First, Second, Third...

I ran for the third time last night.  I have to chronicle this because its so rare.  I hadn't been to the gym all week due to my work schedule and the weather, but got right back on the horse by running.

1st run:  I made it 1/4 mile before having to stop in exhaustion
2nd run: I made it 3/8th of a mile before having to stop...mostly out of pain (see below)
3rd run: I made it 5/8th of a mile before I had to stop (mostly out of lack of oxygen.  I hate running).

Wooo....I was excited.  My next goal is 7/8th of a mile or a full mile. 

My coworker (who happens to have a has a masters in sports medicine....  Why she now works where I do is a lesson in college sports and college politics)...anyways, I've been having pretty bad nerve pain in my lower right leg when running and I asked her if I could do anything about it... My doctor told me it was related to my sciatica and told me it was fine as long as it doesn't bug me and suggested I stay away from activities that exacerbate it.  Anyways, long story short my coworker thinks I also have chronic compartment syndrome.  Sounds ominous.  Well, if you look at this Wikipedia article it is....but make sure you scroll to the chronic section, thats less ominous because its exercise induced.  Essentially compartment syndrome is the muscles that surround the nerve tighten a bit as they're being used (i.e. exercise) and blood flow causes the muscle to expand...thus cutting off the nerves that run through the muscle.  I don't know why it happens selectively, and for me its only happening in one leg.  The only bother (besides the nerve pain, which if you've ever had its kind of excrutiating sometimes) is the fact that the nerves being cut-off run to my foot and I start to lose feeling in it.  I don't realize I can't feel my foot though, until I start to drag my foot and end up tripping. 

But, I figured if I make it through this run in February (running a mile and a half on the city streets of Seattle), THEN I can go bother the doctor.  My running partner has been training in physical therapy, so I told her about what my coworker thinks and we discussed it.  Last night at the Y I stood there after running while she examined both legs to make sure I was okay and there wasn't any stretching skin or swelling.  See, while the above makes me sound unresponsible, I still can be responsible when I want to be.  In fact, running this time wasn't as bad because I spent a lot of time stretching out my leg muscle before running (at the suggestion of my coworker). 

Dayshift is making me short tempered.  I snapped twice at one of my coworkers because he didn't notice something extremely obvious and then made a stupid comment.  *sigh*  I need to learn to take more deep breaths.  I did the adult thing and apologized immediately for snapping, but still.  Ergh. 

This has already been a long week.  Maybe its because I did nothing but be snowed in last weekend, maybe its my current tiredness, I don't know.  But I'm really looking forward to the weekend.

A flower in my yard before the snow storm.  I haven't checked to see if it was still there.

What is a face, really? Its own photo? Its make-up? Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? That which is in front? Inside? Behind? And the rest? Doesn't everyone look at himself in his own particular way? Deformations simply do not exist.
~ Pablo Picasso

A first time for everything

I cooked. 

Yes, thats right.

I know you're thinking "umm...that can't be the first time Alicia's cooked".  Well, its not.  But it IS the first time I actually favored cooking fresh chicken and vegetables over making the absolutely delicious Trader Joe's pizza I have in the freezer.

Now, I know when you look at the picture you will probably think "yes...that looks like something Alicia might have cooked"...but in my defense...#1.  thats cheese.  #2. I took the picture on my phone.  #3.  The brown-looking chicken is only that color because I used brown sugar to cook it in.  #4.  There actually is color to the vegetables (for example, red skinned potatoes and green zucchini) it just all disappeared under the influence of cheese and a poor quality photo. 

Despite how it looks, it was delicious...and, not too bad health wise.  I know I keep saying "cheese!" (in fact, all I could hear replaying in my head all night has been "Cheese, George, Cheese!!!"), but apparently a little goes a long way and there's actually very little on there. 

In other news, the snow is gone.  Replaced instead by heavy rain, extremely gusty wind, occasional power outages, and the overwhelming desire to stay inside with the covers over my head. 

In fact, I'm currently in bed while writing this, as my bedtime is 8pm (okay, so I'm a little bit past that) now that I'm a part of the land of the living (aka dayshift).  So, soon, I will get to pull the covers over my head as I listen to the overgrown bushes scratch at my bedroom window.

*mentally adding hedge trimmers to my growing list*

My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?
~ Erma Bombeck

The first room to be completed...

The craft room...a place for everything and everything in its place.... 

For the time being at least.

My "to do" list is already at 6.  I need to catch up!

In other news, my car is back in the driveway!!   It rained all day, so while the roads are still super slushy (not sure why they haven't plowed now...this would be a perfect time for it...), they're still passable and I was able to get home with minimal scariness.

Weekends are a bit like rainbows; they look good from a distance but disappear when you get up close to them.
~ John Shirley

First Shovel

The price of Independence

The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude. ~ Voltaire

First snow of the year

I have made the determination....snow is only fun if you don't have to work in it...

My car several hours before I left work....it continued to snow after I took this picture.  I left it there & caught a ride home.

Atticus LOVES the snow.  He spent a lot of time running...

eating...

more running...

and catching snowballs!

My scarf.  ha. 

Homebound for the night!

The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches. ~ e.e. cummings

The first night before the storm

The weatherman is predicting a fairly big snowstorm starting tonight into tomorrow.  Of course, they've been predicting this storm to hit since Sunday and so far no go, so I'm hoping that the predicted 10 inches of snow to fall starting tonight will turn to rain.  I know I know, 10 inches?  Pbbbbttt...thats nothing.  But in my defense, in our defense, its 10 inches for the PNW, areas that are used to being hit with mild temperatures and 4 months of rain during the winter. 

I went from east coast driving in the snow with very little worries to west coast being a nervous nelly when the roads aren't even being touched with snow.  Its something about the area and the fact that I have to worry about all these inexperienced drivers out there, I think.

Anyways, Atticus and I hung out a bit outside today after work - it is actually eerily sunny.  The calm before the storm?

Just one more day of work.  I need to be at work at 4am (or earlier if they get overwhelmed), so I cancelled my gym and coffee plans for the evening and will have a relaxing few hours with my dog, a beer, and perhaps pinterest.

A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water. ~ Carl Reiner 

First then Second

Got my second "run" in today.  Really, they're a cross between jogging and walking.  But still.

Also, was amazed at the amount of crazies that were in the gym at 9am.  Its Saturday, people...sleep in!!!

Ate for the first time at a local diner I've wanted to eat at for years, but have always been unable to for one reason or another.  Its one of those really cool places that you just want to sit and drink everything in.  I hope to go back soon.

Back to work early tomorrow morning.  I'm not dreading going to work (despite their call for super cold weather and snow), I just dread how early 4am comes. 

Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary. ~ Mark Twain

First down...not yet out

What a past couple of days.  If its not one thing, its another.

Wednesday night I rushed home after a 12 hour shift, let Atticus outside, and went back to my bedroom to change out of my work clothes.  While I'm back there I heard a really loud "BANG".  I was pretty sure the sound was somewhere in the house, and I eliminated basically everything I owned making that sound because of the actual sound.  You know how you hear something fall or hear something break and you just KNOW what it is based on the sound?  Well, I could tell you I DIDN'T know what it was based on the sound.  I knew it came from inside the house somewhere, but I couldn't even pinpoint where.  I walked from room to room looking for possible culprits.  Nothing.  I looked outside with Atticus.  Nothing. 

Oh well, I shrugged to myself.  I'll figure it out later.  I had to leave to go meet up with someone.  I go out to the garage (I don't store my car in the garage - I'd have to concentrate too much on not hitting anything, its pretty small - but I do leave and enter through my garage just because I like to.)  Anyways, I hit the garage door button, and I hear something akin to high tension wires snapping, and the whole garage door mechanism, from the bottom to top, starts making a really loud sound and shimmying very badly.  There were 2 wires on either side that starting bouncing around too. 

Huh.  That would probably explain the bang I heard.

I got outside and hit the garage door button again.  Haha...I really wish I would have recorded the door thumping to the ground.  I mean, it didn't fall off the tracks or anything, but it made a decisive "thump" when it closed.  

I called my landlord when I got to my meeting location.  He answered the phone "now what?".  In a nice way, of course.  He came to check the door out after I got home that night, and to check on the water heater etc.  The "BANG" I heard?  That was the main spring at the top of the door breaking.  I'm pretty sure it stayed contained in the door mechanism, but now that I know what it was, I wouldn't be surprised if I find a spring embedded in the wall somewhere. 

Since then, I have talked to Mark (landlord) and Alex (Mark's brother who is going to fix the garage door) about 20 times.  Seriously.  Alex calls to make sure I'll be home so he can access the garage, then he calls for garage door information he didn't write down, then he gives me progress reports etc.  Hes funny.  The first time he came over he played more with Atticus than doing anything with the garage door.  I don't mind...Atticus needs a friend.  Someone other than me.  Mark has actually been very proactive with my whole electric bill thing.  Next week we have a guy coming over who is going to go through the house to see if he can find any major energy draws.  I think he's also going to have the electric company check the meter to see if its broken.  And, he's going to replace the heating elements in my hot water heater.  I'm pretty sure I need a whole new hot water heater, but I'm willing to deal with the one I have now as long as its not the energy vampire. 

I'm feeling a little better about life.  Not in such a funk.  I think it helps that I had a full and fun weekend.

Oh, and I started to run.  Actually run.  Tonight was my first night.  Pretty sure I'm going to hate myself for it tomorrow, but guess what.  I'm going running again tomorrow. 

All because I signed up for a fun run. 

:D

One of the many reasons why going out with girlfriends is fun...they're willing to split a huge brownie dessert!

The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.
~ Erma Bombeck

First defeated

Today was "bad-news day". 

I've been dealing with something personal that only got worse today.  Just plain old bad news.  Can't talk about it but I wish I could express the complete depths of my disappointment with the whole situation.  Quite simply, I was let down in a big way. 

I get home this afternoon and open my electric bill.  $413.  WHAT??  Looking at it closer, it has both last residence and this residence on the bill.  I call, explain.  They made a mistake.  They took off my old residence.  I still owe $289.  WHAT? 

I explain to the guy at the energy place, and later had the same spiel with my landlord.  What in the world am I doing that is using so much energy?
- my thermostat is set anywhere  between 58-60 degrees.  Sometimes when my nose is super cold I turn it up to 62 for a bit.  I literally walk around this house in my robe ALL THE TIME because its so cold.  I asked for slippers for Christmas (and received them - thanks!) because the floor is so cold my feet are like icicles all the time and regular socks don't cut it. 
- I was gone for almost 2 weeks during the billing cycle.  My refrigerator was on.  The heat was set on 55 to make sure the pipes didn't burst.  That was it.
- My dryer broke at the beginning of December, aka the billing cycle.  Therefore, I haven't run the dryer for most of the month of December...instead electing to use twine and random hooks in my kitchen as a make-shift clothesline.
- I don't own a TV.  I don't have that running all the time.
- My laptop, which is the only extra appliance I keep plugged in all the time, is constantly switching to power saver and turns itself off.
- I close the doors of the 2 bedrooms I don't use so they're not heated.  The thermostat is in the living room, which is the warmest room in the house. 

So, I asked...what in the world?

The guy at the power company honestly didn't give a crap about my predicament.  He suggested I look online for energy saving tips. 

My landlord offered to change the heating elements of the water heater.  Its old.  The tank is larger than I am and the hot water only lasts for about 10 minutes.  He thinks that might help.

Then he suggested I turn in my car and buy one from him.  My response was along the lines of "if I need to pay $300 a month in electricity I will not be able to afford one of your cars". 

Then, to top it off, I cleaned out the dishwasher (on energy save/water miser setting), and I only pulled out part of one of my new birthday wineglasses.  I fished out one of the missing parts out of the bottom of the dishwasher.  There's still about a 1 inch square piece of glass thats missing.  I'm hoping it is ground up and in glass heaven, because I searched the dishwasher and its not there.

I keep telling myself to count my blessings.  Look at all the good things that have happened in the past few days:
- my trainee is actually enjoyable and is making progress.  I like working with her.  I'm enjoying my job (granted, not the hours, but I like the job part).
- my mom sent me a "thinking about you" text at 0430 this morning that made me smile.
- I had an awesome weekend hanging out with friends
- I had a friend able to guess what was wrong with me yesterday by just a text message that said "Eh", and he then spent all day texting me to cheer me up while I was at work.  Talk about the longest text conversation ever.  I had to text back undercover (I can't use my phone while at work), but was willing to risk it because he made me smile.  He was so freaking UNDERSTANDING, and said the exact things I needed to hear.  I told him a little of the continuing saga today and he came to visit me because he knew I was having a hard time. 

But still.  I get home today, deal with my electric bill mess, and I just feel...tired.

And defeated.

Today was the only day out of a string of 5 I could make it to the gym, and I couldn't even make myself go for the endorphin rush. 

I'm not trying to be a gigantic, weepy stick in the mud, chanting "woe is me", to anyone who is willing to listen.  I'm not.  I just wish wish wish wish wish I could come out on top somehow.  Right now I'm stuck somewhere at the bottom.

"Whats right is wrong
Whats come has gone
Whats clear and pure
Is not so sure.
It came to me
All promises become a lie
All thats benign corrupts in time"
~ Bad Religion

First of the year Funk

I have to admit, this past week was a huge struggle for me.  Getting back into a routine, waking up at the ridiculous hour of 2am, not getting enough sleep, punishing my body for not going to the gym for 3 weeks, work stuff, personal life, etc. 

On Wednesday my body was the first to rebel - I took a nap after work, and woke up so I could hit the gym with a friend.  I tried at least.  I don't know if it was sore muscles from the past couple days or a complete lack of sleep, but I could barely move.  I hurt in every way possible.  I ended up having to cancel all my plans for the night, and just went back to sleep instead. 

On Friday I received the proverbial straw in regards to something personal, so I hit the gym for 2 1/2 hours to try and work out my frustrations and disappointment.  It worked for a bit, and I went out with a group of friends for the night. 

We hit up a billiard hall...

We all are extremely untalented at pool.  It took us 2 hours to play 3 games. 

As a side note, I am very blessed to have a group of friends that I can laugh with and talk with and just be myself with. 

This morning I woke up back in a funk, so I'm going to go fix that by watching a scary movie.  I normally hate scary movies, so we'll see how this goes.

Back to work early tomorrow morning.  At least I don't have to wake up til 4am.  Second week of dayshift....we'll see how this one goes.

Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it. ~ J.K. Rowling

First day down...

...more than 6 months worth of dayshifts to go.

The time I arrived at work this morning...

I'll tell you more how I feel about it when I'm not tired, cranky, and hurting from 2 hours at the gym.

p.s.  I just got a knock on my door - 8:45 pm mind you - it was a guy looking for someone I had never heard of.  No, probably shouldn't have answered the door without a gun in hand,  but Atticus was going nuts.  The more I think about it, the more I'm sure the guy was a repo man looking for the previous tenant of this house.  Interesting...*strokes beard thoughtfully*

Early to rise and early to bed
Makes a man healthy and wealthy and dead.
~ James Thurber

The First of the Year

Cleaned up at Goodwill yesterday.  Am pretty excited because I fit into a lot of pants that are the next size down from what I was wearing. 

I wasn't planning on shopping at all, but I took a good hard look at my closet and realized I probably should:  2 pairs of my favorite jeans recently ripped in unfixable places, and the jeans I was wearing on Saturday are now so big that I swim in them.  And not the cute "her jeans are a size too big" big, but more like "she looks like a clown in those jeans" big.  Plus, I'm down to 4 pairs of work pants, 3 of which the waist sags because they are no longer the right size. 

My Goodwill loot:  5 long sleeve shirts, 2 sweaters, 9 pairs of work pants, 1 pair of Born shoes, and 2 pairs of jeans...

Can you tell what my favorite colors to wear are...???

My favorite deal of the day...a new pair of pants from the Limited with their original tags on...

I feel bad talking about my Goodwill good luck when crap is happening elsewhere though:

One of my friends is fairly verbal on the subject of police officer safety, and posts all officers killed from the Officer Down Memorial Page.  (If you ever want to be humbled or read something sad - go to ODMP.org and read the posts and the reflections.)

On January 1st at 6:30 am, my friend posted:  "We ended 2011 with 163 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, an increase from 2010. We start 2012 with a blank slate. Each New Year presents an exciting possibility that memorial services can go on hiatus for the entire year. But in such times of discourse, misunderstanding, wariness, and training budgets being cut, I know it's just a matter of time before we put the black bands over our badges.


Love your police officers, deputies and troopers. You may not always see eye to eye, but they're keepers at the gate separating you from evil."

Just 4 HOURS later, he writes: "It didn't take long... New Year's Day isn't half over and already two law enforcement officers are dead. Keep their friends and families in your thoughts and prayers."

One officer is from my state; no, I didn't work with her, but I know people who did.  This is her ODMP page.

You want to know the part of my job that gets me? Its this.  I can deal with the crying callers, listening to people scream in the background of collisions, officers yelling over the radio.  I can compartamentalize that until it no longer affects me as much as it once did.  But this is what I worry about - hearing someone's last words on the radio.  Knowing that they will never able to sign out of service again.  And to tell you the truth, its probably the biggest fear of all dispatchers:  we want our "guys" to come home safely at the end of every night. 

So, if you want to pray for people you haven't met, pray for the men and women in law enforcement.  Pray for their families, whose daily worry is so much greater than my own. 
 
* Climbs off soap box *
 
One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things.
~ John Burroughs