Work got worse before it got better. I got a talking-to from Chris because I was crying so much. I had tried to implement my plan from before but it didn't work so I made a new plan. I would be totally subservient. I'm not very good at that so I wore a "reminder bracelet" made out of bright orange paper for a few days. It helped me change my behavior. So then I was really miserable and crying a lot and Chris called me into the conference room. I figured that was the end of my employment. But he told me how I was being perceived and have always been perceived by at least him and probably lots of people. Since I'm so bad at social stuff, I had no idea. I wish someone had made me aware of this stuff earlier. Apparently I'm anti-authority. In reality, I respect authority and have an irrational fear of being in trouble. I try to do everything correctly and/or the way my boss wants me to do it. Others think I have no confidence in my ability to do good work. I know I do good work but I always try to do it perfectly. If it isn't the most perfect, I need to improve. I'm afraid that if I acknowledge my strengths too much, I'll be proud or cocky and that's one of the worst things that you can be (in my brain). Others think I have a bad attitude. I've always known that I'm perceived that way. My whole life I've heard, "You need an attitude adjustment." Trust me, if I had any idea at all how to do that, I would be the first to make it happen. How does one adjust an attitude? Am I supposed to act happy? I can't do that. I am what I am. If I'm upset, you know. My face looks upset. My posture looks upset. If I'm not upset, I have a neutral face. If I'm happy, I have a neutral face. Apparently, having a neutral face and stating problems factually and offering suggestions for improvement means I have a bad attitude. I think it means I'm a member of the Autism Spectrum Community, but whatever. Also, my lifelong struggle with depression is difficult to mask. I think Chris/people misinterpret my depression as a personal attack on them or the way things are. When I try to say the right things and have a happy face it comes out all wrong and it looks and sounds really sarcastic and I get in even more trouble. I guess others know how to do that better. When I am genuinely happy I am more lively and it is easier for me to smile at things and have a pleasant tone to my voice. My coworkers seem to like me that way but some of the examples that Chris gave were from times when I was genuinely happy and I had thought I communicated effectively and had a really good attitude. Guess not. I must not know what the definition of attitude is.
So Chris said I deserved to be fired 20 times over (during my time there) but my work quality is really good and he believes I have the ability to change how others perceive me. That causes me to have lots of overwhelming and conflicting emotions. I feel ashamed and thankful and indebted and hopeful and lots of things that don't have names. He recommended I read "How To Win Friends and Influence People". I don't really want more friends or to have lots of influence but I'm hoping that the social truths outlined in the book will help me with my goals. Basically, I need all those unwritten rules of human behavior to be written down. I don't intuitively know that stuff. Mom had to teach me about personal space when I was a teenager. I have to study others very intensely to unravel their behavior so I can emulate it. I can't just act like them; I have to break everything down into it's components and analyze them before I can put them back together in my own body. Eye movements, hand positions, posture, face muscles- all of it has to be worked with seperately. When I was a kid, I even had to practice the component parts of behavior separately so my muscles could learn what to do. Does everyone do this or is it just me? I have no idea. I only know my own internal experience.
I remember practicing pain tolerence. As a kid I had no pain tolerence whatsoever. I had to learn that even though I feel pain at a low threshold, I can tolerate high levels without hysteria. I've always been a scientist. I needed a way to administer controlled amounts of pain so I could practice feeling the sensation and not reacting. We had an old porch swing in the yard. I would hang from the top bar and let the swing hit my shins at slowly increasing speeds until I had built a pretty high tolerence. Then when I experienced other pain I could channel my coping skills and tolerate the sensations. It sounds really horrible but would it be better for me to be screaming and throwing fits at the tiniest twinge as an adult? I used the knowledge and tools I had on hand to acheive more social normality, even though the methods were not normal. I did the same thing with sound. I used the loudness in band to train myself to tolerate loud noises without reaction. I learned that when I was part of the noise creation, it didn't hurt as much. I remember times when I would hear something loud and I would yell or scream along with the noise so my ears didn't hurt so bad. I don't have to do that now, fortunately! But I do still experience more noise pain than others seem to.
The other day I accidentally let both my legs fall asleep. I take care to not let that happen normally. It took a good 10 minutes to get the pain to a tolerable level. When I was younger I would have been freaking out. The pain was significant, some of the highest levels I've experienced in recent memory. So I stood in the doorway, holding onto the doorjam and rode it out. I couldn't move or sit. I thought about falling over but the risk of other injury was too high. But I did a good job; no one noticed that I was writhing in the doorway to the supply room for 10 minutes.
So it is time for another phase of my attempts to be like a normal human. I have been looking for an opportunity to stretch myself and have challenges, but this isn't what I had in mind. I was hoping to transfer to the mailing department. But I do think it is a good thing. You can't always get what you want...but sometimes you find what you need.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
OMG!!
Things are crazy! Crazy at work and crazy at home. When I'm not at work I'm trying to get all my new plants in the ground and watered. I'm having a hard time keeping up. There just isn't enough time. And I've been really tired all week too so I've been going to bed early. So I'm going to continue to do that and hopefully things will calm down enough soon that I can tell you all about it.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
RAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It just started to drizzle a little while ago. It is beautiful!
Ok. So I changed the way my blog looks a little. It is a little harder to read I think. But it looks pretty. If the font makes it difficult for you to read, let me know and I'll pick another. There are lots to choose from.
On the work front: L. said that the area manager is in charge of the flowerbeds. I told her I needed to have guidelines so I know what my responsibilties are and what I'm not supposed to do. She said she'd talk to the relevent people. Of course, the area manager was on vacation this week. So all the plants I bought are still waiting to be planted. Deep Breath...
I had a meeting with the president. You know what, I'm going to use names instead of titles. The names are common enough I think. I don't want to get myself or anyone in trouble. So anyway. I talked to Chris. I said I needed some advice. I didn't know what to do when the things Richard wants are different from the things he wants. I gave him examples of issues we were having with each other. He said in his experience, many of these sorts of problems disappear as the new supervisor becomes more comfortable. He said in the beginning it seems like everything is coming at you really fast and you feel overwhelmed and you overeact to things. He told me to try to understand Richard's point of view. I was trying to do that already but I didn't really know all the different factors that new supervisors deal with. But, armed with more information I think I have been able to work with him better. Chris also said to give it a month and any problems that hadn't resolved by then could be delt with. He really helped me to get a new perspective on things. He would take a situation where I thought Richard and Chris felt very differently and he would help me look for ways that they were both right. That was very helpful. As a scientist, I feel that things are either correct or not correct. It is difficult to grasp that two seemingly opposite points of view could both be correct. He also pointed out that Richard is probably feeling a lot more overwhelmed and inadequate than he lets on. When it seems like he's panicking or overeacting, it is probably that he's trying to prevent mistakes and other problems because he feels the pressure of everything being on his shoulders.
That evening Froggi came over to hang out and decorate cookies and I talked to her about Richard and my talk with Chris. She added that his definition of teamwork is exactly the military's definition. My definition is different than that but I think I understand his side a little more. You do your job the best you can so that the next person can do their job. I get that. I guess I feel that we're beyond that. Doing my job well is second nature to me. It takes little effort. I have a lot left over and I want to use it to help others do their jobs better and to anticipate the needs of others and my future needs. I feel that teamwork means bettering the company as a whole by not only doing my job well, but assisting others to do their jobs well. I think it will just take some time for Richard and I to be on the same page and for him to have confidence that I will do my job well without extra/outside motivation. I think as I continue to prove myself by producing quality work and simultaneously reducing the workload of others, he'll relax.
The final realization came yesterday. All this time I thought that he was upset with me all the time and was always questioning everything I did. Around lunchtime there were two separate conversations where he said something, I thought I was in trouble, and he said I wasn't; he had an idea or he was just relaying information to me. I had an epiphany! He has the same tone of voice, the same facial expression, the same sentence structure, and the same intensity whether he's upset about something or not. When he comes over and "accuses" me of doing something on a job, it's actually a simple question with no irritation attached. It just seems like he's irritated. When he brings a new job to my attention, he's not upset at me for not already doing it. He's simply giving me information. Talk about a light bulb moment. The afternoon went better than the last few weeks have!
I already have practice with this sort of thing. DH used to phrase his questions like commands. Everyone always thought he was controlling and rude and abrasive but I knew it was a simple question. No attitude or emotion was intended. I have helped him learn to rephrase things to be less offensive and he gets along better with everyone, including me. Because sometimes, even I would misinterpret him and we'd have to fight about it before realizing it was a misunderstanding. That still happens a little but we are doing much better. But anyway, I can use that experience with Richard and I think I can interpret him much better in the future. It'll be very relieving to not be on the defensive all the time. I knew I shouldn't automatically be defensive but it was a quick subconsious reaction to his (perceived) tone. Happy days are ahead.
Now that I have Richard at least partially figured out, I have more confidence in my work and myself and I feel like I can tackle the flowerbed situation with confidence as well. I think I can explain my need for guidelines and a list of responsibilities in a way that they'll understand and respect.
The only hurdle I forsee is trying to meet in the middle with Richard on the information debate. He wants to be the one that recieves and communicates all the information. But right now he's really stretched thin because he's trying to do bindery work like all of us (which he's only been doing for 6 months of his life and it takes much more time than that to be proficient at bindery work), make sure we don't screw anything up- which means he has to look at every job and work order that goes through the bindery and often go over the specifics with us, train a new girl, get used to the huge volume of work that we're expected to complete each day (and that volume has grown significantly in the last month), delegate jobs in the right order to the right people so they all get done by the due date/time, learn all the specific details about repeat jobs/customers that nobody bothers to write down anymore, learn all the little bits of random information that you can't really retain until you've been around a long time, make sure we're not getting distracted by something and not working fast enough, make sure we aren't doing a job that can wait instead of a rush job (communicate information), judging when we can get all the work done on time by ourselves or when we need to bring in help from other stores, dealing with our defensiveness and attitudes toward him because we don't understand him very well, and figure out how the company runs, like the personality of the company..or.. I don't know how to explain it. Just the specific nature of the way things tend to happen. At each company, things occur in a specific way, governed by lots of variables. Over time, you can predict what is in the near future based on the rules. Not like legal rules, but more like natural rules. For instance, I know from experience that when I see a couple of envelopes that look like invitation envelopes, I can expect that pretty soon we'll get the insides for the job and we'll be stuffing and mailing those invitations, even though none of that information is on the work order. I can expect that it won't go on the inserter because it's a funky size and/or there are too many pieces or whatever. I know that about the week before the end of the month, the pressmen are going to be cutting a crapload of paper and I know that we're going to have lots of casino mailers on the last two days of the month. I know that every other month, on the third week of the month, we're going to get a couple of pallets of a popular regional magazine and I know that I need to prepare for a lot of label sticking, sticker sticking, and mail sack filling. I know that when we need more foam core to tell Matt, but when we need more double sided masking tape to tell Bart. I know which drivers need to be reminded to pick up their posters in the back and which ones don't.
All that to say, I would like to take some of the pressure off of Richard so he can do his job effectively. I would like him to be able to focus on delegating work, job timing, overall quality control, and perfecting his own skills on the machines, while I handle the little things like unwritten specifics for jobs, preparing for future jobs, gathering information from, and communicating with other managers about jobs, and handling all the random people who come through and have questions or need help running something through a machine. He can't hardly get a machine set up without having to stop several times to investigate a new job that just came in, or help the new girl learn something, or put out one fire or another. He is so overwhelmed by all the distractions that come that he makes a lot of mistakes on his own work. I really feel for him. I know that he has the ability to handle all of it eventually but he's really drowning right now and I'd like to be his water wings (lol!). I don't want to be the supervisor or be in charge of any people. I just want to ease the burden of the people who are in charge. One of my sources of satisfaction comes from helping others excel. Like, when I see Richard about to cut a postcard that will mail, I'll get some mail trays for him to put them in. If someone's about to work on a job that I know has specific directions that aren't in the workorder, I want to go explain how to do the job and why we do it that way. If someone is on the folder and is running out of boxes, I'll make a few more for them. These kinds of things do not fall in Richard's idea of teamwork but I feel that they are important for keeping things running efficiently.
Also, if I have a question about something, I want to ask the person who has the answer. Richard wants me to ask him and then he can decide if the question is important, ask said person, and relay the information back to me. I feel that it is a very inefficient way to do things. Not only does it take a lot longer, but the information can get degraded as it travels through the channels. If Richard doesn't understand my question well enough, he won't know if the other manager has answered the question to my satisfaction. Many times I have to rephrase a question before the manager knows what information I'm looking for. All that time could be spent working on the job instead of waiting for the answer before proceeding. Our company is all about getting things done faster than any other place can. We strive to eliminate all inefficiency in the entire process, from the initial job request to the delivery of the product. Chain of command works in many applications but I really feel that in the information relaying sense, it wastes too much time. If I go over your head and ask Matt or Chris for information that you don't know (and have no way of knowing), it does not mean I don't respect your authority. It means that I eliminated two steps in the process of getting my job done on time.
Well! That was quite the rant, wasn't it! I don't know that it was a rant spcifically, more of an explanation of my thoughts.
I've been at the company longer than any of the other bindery folk. I have an intuitive sense about the jobs that come through. I don't often get overwhelmed by the work volume because most of it is something I've done many times before. When a new type of job comes, I'm excited for the diversity. All the hundreds of individual things (jobs, events, etc.) of the workday seem like a flow of small particles and they seem easy to manage and prepare for. But I know for Richard, each job or new event is more like a brick hitting him. Because he hasn't had the time here that I have, each individual job is its own thing, its own problem, whereas for me, it is a small piece in a continuous flow. I can view the work in the shop as a whole and I can recognize the individual pieces of the whole as just parts of the picture. I'm not sure if Richard can see the whole picture because he keeps being bombarded by bricks in his face. When I first started, every job was a brick, or a concrete block! But over time I was able to conquer each brick and the bricks became smaller over time until they all became particles in a flow. That view took at least two years to acheive. At my 6 month anniversary I was still being pounded in the face all day! I can't imagine being put in charge of all those bricks at 6 months!
Well. Um...
I made sugar cookies. I'm finally caught up on birthday baking and so I make cookies because I wanted to! I made lots of spring shapes with lots of bright spring colors. I increased my knowledge and skill in the cookie decorating area and I have lots of ideas I want to try the next time I use frosting. Which will be tonight I think. We're going to the inlaws for lunch tomorrow and I have extra frosting so I thought I'd make a cookie cake. I should probably call them so they don't fix a dessert.
I think I'm going to take a walk in the park with my trowel and a bucket. There are many escaped lansdcape plants in the park and I don't think anyone would mind if I removed a few. Gotta love invasive species...
Sometime this weekend I plan to make a pictures post. But for now, I want to be outside!! It is cool and overcast and it smells like rain. I haven't smelled rain in forever!
Ok. So I changed the way my blog looks a little. It is a little harder to read I think. But it looks pretty. If the font makes it difficult for you to read, let me know and I'll pick another. There are lots to choose from.
On the work front: L. said that the area manager is in charge of the flowerbeds. I told her I needed to have guidelines so I know what my responsibilties are and what I'm not supposed to do. She said she'd talk to the relevent people. Of course, the area manager was on vacation this week. So all the plants I bought are still waiting to be planted. Deep Breath...
I had a meeting with the president. You know what, I'm going to use names instead of titles. The names are common enough I think. I don't want to get myself or anyone in trouble. So anyway. I talked to Chris. I said I needed some advice. I didn't know what to do when the things Richard wants are different from the things he wants. I gave him examples of issues we were having with each other. He said in his experience, many of these sorts of problems disappear as the new supervisor becomes more comfortable. He said in the beginning it seems like everything is coming at you really fast and you feel overwhelmed and you overeact to things. He told me to try to understand Richard's point of view. I was trying to do that already but I didn't really know all the different factors that new supervisors deal with. But, armed with more information I think I have been able to work with him better. Chris also said to give it a month and any problems that hadn't resolved by then could be delt with. He really helped me to get a new perspective on things. He would take a situation where I thought Richard and Chris felt very differently and he would help me look for ways that they were both right. That was very helpful. As a scientist, I feel that things are either correct or not correct. It is difficult to grasp that two seemingly opposite points of view could both be correct. He also pointed out that Richard is probably feeling a lot more overwhelmed and inadequate than he lets on. When it seems like he's panicking or overeacting, it is probably that he's trying to prevent mistakes and other problems because he feels the pressure of everything being on his shoulders.
That evening Froggi came over to hang out and decorate cookies and I talked to her about Richard and my talk with Chris. She added that his definition of teamwork is exactly the military's definition. My definition is different than that but I think I understand his side a little more. You do your job the best you can so that the next person can do their job. I get that. I guess I feel that we're beyond that. Doing my job well is second nature to me. It takes little effort. I have a lot left over and I want to use it to help others do their jobs better and to anticipate the needs of others and my future needs. I feel that teamwork means bettering the company as a whole by not only doing my job well, but assisting others to do their jobs well. I think it will just take some time for Richard and I to be on the same page and for him to have confidence that I will do my job well without extra/outside motivation. I think as I continue to prove myself by producing quality work and simultaneously reducing the workload of others, he'll relax.
The final realization came yesterday. All this time I thought that he was upset with me all the time and was always questioning everything I did. Around lunchtime there were two separate conversations where he said something, I thought I was in trouble, and he said I wasn't; he had an idea or he was just relaying information to me. I had an epiphany! He has the same tone of voice, the same facial expression, the same sentence structure, and the same intensity whether he's upset about something or not. When he comes over and "accuses" me of doing something on a job, it's actually a simple question with no irritation attached. It just seems like he's irritated. When he brings a new job to my attention, he's not upset at me for not already doing it. He's simply giving me information. Talk about a light bulb moment. The afternoon went better than the last few weeks have!
I already have practice with this sort of thing. DH used to phrase his questions like commands. Everyone always thought he was controlling and rude and abrasive but I knew it was a simple question. No attitude or emotion was intended. I have helped him learn to rephrase things to be less offensive and he gets along better with everyone, including me. Because sometimes, even I would misinterpret him and we'd have to fight about it before realizing it was a misunderstanding. That still happens a little but we are doing much better. But anyway, I can use that experience with Richard and I think I can interpret him much better in the future. It'll be very relieving to not be on the defensive all the time. I knew I shouldn't automatically be defensive but it was a quick subconsious reaction to his (perceived) tone. Happy days are ahead.
Now that I have Richard at least partially figured out, I have more confidence in my work and myself and I feel like I can tackle the flowerbed situation with confidence as well. I think I can explain my need for guidelines and a list of responsibilities in a way that they'll understand and respect.
The only hurdle I forsee is trying to meet in the middle with Richard on the information debate. He wants to be the one that recieves and communicates all the information. But right now he's really stretched thin because he's trying to do bindery work like all of us (which he's only been doing for 6 months of his life and it takes much more time than that to be proficient at bindery work), make sure we don't screw anything up- which means he has to look at every job and work order that goes through the bindery and often go over the specifics with us, train a new girl, get used to the huge volume of work that we're expected to complete each day (and that volume has grown significantly in the last month), delegate jobs in the right order to the right people so they all get done by the due date/time, learn all the specific details about repeat jobs/customers that nobody bothers to write down anymore, learn all the little bits of random information that you can't really retain until you've been around a long time, make sure we're not getting distracted by something and not working fast enough, make sure we aren't doing a job that can wait instead of a rush job (communicate information), judging when we can get all the work done on time by ourselves or when we need to bring in help from other stores, dealing with our defensiveness and attitudes toward him because we don't understand him very well, and figure out how the company runs, like the personality of the company..or.. I don't know how to explain it. Just the specific nature of the way things tend to happen. At each company, things occur in a specific way, governed by lots of variables. Over time, you can predict what is in the near future based on the rules. Not like legal rules, but more like natural rules. For instance, I know from experience that when I see a couple of envelopes that look like invitation envelopes, I can expect that pretty soon we'll get the insides for the job and we'll be stuffing and mailing those invitations, even though none of that information is on the work order. I can expect that it won't go on the inserter because it's a funky size and/or there are too many pieces or whatever. I know that about the week before the end of the month, the pressmen are going to be cutting a crapload of paper and I know that we're going to have lots of casino mailers on the last two days of the month. I know that every other month, on the third week of the month, we're going to get a couple of pallets of a popular regional magazine and I know that I need to prepare for a lot of label sticking, sticker sticking, and mail sack filling. I know that when we need more foam core to tell Matt, but when we need more double sided masking tape to tell Bart. I know which drivers need to be reminded to pick up their posters in the back and which ones don't.
All that to say, I would like to take some of the pressure off of Richard so he can do his job effectively. I would like him to be able to focus on delegating work, job timing, overall quality control, and perfecting his own skills on the machines, while I handle the little things like unwritten specifics for jobs, preparing for future jobs, gathering information from, and communicating with other managers about jobs, and handling all the random people who come through and have questions or need help running something through a machine. He can't hardly get a machine set up without having to stop several times to investigate a new job that just came in, or help the new girl learn something, or put out one fire or another. He is so overwhelmed by all the distractions that come that he makes a lot of mistakes on his own work. I really feel for him. I know that he has the ability to handle all of it eventually but he's really drowning right now and I'd like to be his water wings (lol!). I don't want to be the supervisor or be in charge of any people. I just want to ease the burden of the people who are in charge. One of my sources of satisfaction comes from helping others excel. Like, when I see Richard about to cut a postcard that will mail, I'll get some mail trays for him to put them in. If someone's about to work on a job that I know has specific directions that aren't in the workorder, I want to go explain how to do the job and why we do it that way. If someone is on the folder and is running out of boxes, I'll make a few more for them. These kinds of things do not fall in Richard's idea of teamwork but I feel that they are important for keeping things running efficiently.
Also, if I have a question about something, I want to ask the person who has the answer. Richard wants me to ask him and then he can decide if the question is important, ask said person, and relay the information back to me. I feel that it is a very inefficient way to do things. Not only does it take a lot longer, but the information can get degraded as it travels through the channels. If Richard doesn't understand my question well enough, he won't know if the other manager has answered the question to my satisfaction. Many times I have to rephrase a question before the manager knows what information I'm looking for. All that time could be spent working on the job instead of waiting for the answer before proceeding. Our company is all about getting things done faster than any other place can. We strive to eliminate all inefficiency in the entire process, from the initial job request to the delivery of the product. Chain of command works in many applications but I really feel that in the information relaying sense, it wastes too much time. If I go over your head and ask Matt or Chris for information that you don't know (and have no way of knowing), it does not mean I don't respect your authority. It means that I eliminated two steps in the process of getting my job done on time.
Well! That was quite the rant, wasn't it! I don't know that it was a rant spcifically, more of an explanation of my thoughts.
I've been at the company longer than any of the other bindery folk. I have an intuitive sense about the jobs that come through. I don't often get overwhelmed by the work volume because most of it is something I've done many times before. When a new type of job comes, I'm excited for the diversity. All the hundreds of individual things (jobs, events, etc.) of the workday seem like a flow of small particles and they seem easy to manage and prepare for. But I know for Richard, each job or new event is more like a brick hitting him. Because he hasn't had the time here that I have, each individual job is its own thing, its own problem, whereas for me, it is a small piece in a continuous flow. I can view the work in the shop as a whole and I can recognize the individual pieces of the whole as just parts of the picture. I'm not sure if Richard can see the whole picture because he keeps being bombarded by bricks in his face. When I first started, every job was a brick, or a concrete block! But over time I was able to conquer each brick and the bricks became smaller over time until they all became particles in a flow. That view took at least two years to acheive. At my 6 month anniversary I was still being pounded in the face all day! I can't imagine being put in charge of all those bricks at 6 months!
Well. Um...
I made sugar cookies. I'm finally caught up on birthday baking and so I make cookies because I wanted to! I made lots of spring shapes with lots of bright spring colors. I increased my knowledge and skill in the cookie decorating area and I have lots of ideas I want to try the next time I use frosting. Which will be tonight I think. We're going to the inlaws for lunch tomorrow and I have extra frosting so I thought I'd make a cookie cake. I should probably call them so they don't fix a dessert.
I think I'm going to take a walk in the park with my trowel and a bucket. There are many escaped lansdcape plants in the park and I don't think anyone would mind if I removed a few. Gotta love invasive species...
Sometime this weekend I plan to make a pictures post. But for now, I want to be outside!! It is cool and overcast and it smells like rain. I haven't smelled rain in forever!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Wind
The wind has been the story lately. The other day there was a wind gust of 71mph in Oklahoma. I don't remember the town though. Our average wind speeds have been in the 20's and 30's. All the plants are unhappy. Even the hardy native ones.
When my plants go out now they go on the front porch to stay out of most of the wind. They came inside the other night when it got down to 34 and I'm going to put them back out as soon as it warms up some more. It's almost 60 now and they could technically go out but I was cold when I went out so I'm going to wait.
Work has been stressful. The actual work part is fine but I'm having trouble understanding what my new supervisor wants from me. He seems to want me to operate in a way that is opposite from what the owners have aways wanted. He wants me to ignore everything that is not currently in bindery. But I have saved countless jobs from going out wrong because I pay attention to the whole shop. And I have been thanked repeatedly for doing that. The owners have specifically told me to take more initiative but the new supervisor wants me to not take initiative at all. He doesn't want me to think for myself (it seems). Basically what he's said is he wants me to do my job and that's it. I can take initiative, depending on if my thinking is correct or if it's a good idea. He doesn't want me to plan ahead for jobs or for upcoming events. The most difficult thing is that he gets really mad when I either do things a different way than he would and then defend myself or if I question something that he's doing (because I've been here and I know that it's not going to work his way). When I try to communicate to him about it he doesn't understand what my problem is because I do good work. I KNOW I do good work. That isn't the problem. It's all the stuff that happens that isn't actually a job. I'm not really sure what to do. I have a hard time talking to anyone about it because I start crying. I only cry when I'm frustrated. I'm really frustrated right now.
Also, the flower beds at work have me frustrated. The owner told me to buy plants and make it look good but he didn't mention to the lady who is technically in charge that he told me that. And then he kept saying I should do what I wanted and he doesn't have any preferences but then it turns out that he had strong preferences about lots of things and now I have to take stuff back to the nursery because he refused to tell me he didn't like it!! No communication at all. I'm going to have to let L (lady in charge) know that either I need clear guidelines or I'm not going to mess with the beds any more. And then when the lawn guys mulched they pulled out some of my plants. RRrrrrrrrrrr...
So lets concentrate on home, shall we!
Yesterday we were productive. We tacked up the ugly TV cable outside our house, cleaned the garage for 30 minutes and got a nice big corner done, and cleaned up debris on the side of the house. I also removed a couple of wasp and mud daubber nests from the eaves, cleaned the litterboxes and the fish, moved the forsythia and put a yew in its place, potted up plants to take to the Spring Fling next weekend. I even discovered that I hadn't gotten the lid to the snake tank closed all the way and now Garak is MIA. I searched all over and found no evidence of poo or remains. I looked at Tuvok's piles in the back yard and found no bones in them. I did find a suspicious tunnel in the front flowerbed. It could be him or a toad. I disrupted a toad in the adjacent bed yesterday so it could be his house. I'm a little upset with myself about this. I do know better. The good thing is that snakes are hardy and resourceful creatures and he's probably ridding our house of mice. I think we'll probably run across him one of these days.
Today we have errands to run. WalMart, PetsMart, CVS, etc. I need to make banana bread and peanut butter cookies. I think I might take pictures of the yard today if the wind cooperates enough. I haven't given you guys a virtual tour in a while. Oh! And I need to make door prizes for the Fling. I am really excited about it! I'm dragging DH along this year. He's not real thrilled about it but I know he's going to have fun. Several of the other DH's are just the kind of guys that he enjoys talking to. I still don't know what food I'm going to bring...
I discovered another spider egg sac while I was removing unwanted nests from the house. The folks on Garden Web seem convinced that it's the same species as the sac in my kitchen window. Argiope aurantia, yellow garden spider or golden orb weaver in other regions. But the two sacs have fundamental differences that really make me feel like they are from two different species.
 |
| Argiope aurantia |
 |
| ID TBD |
I'm going to submit them to What's That Bug.com and see if they know. I'll probably have to wait a while for my answer and that's ok. They're busy. It isn't impotant that I know right now, but I do need to know eventually. Just because it is something I don't know and I don't like knowing that there's something I don't know. Like a bit of information I don't know. Skills and entire subjects are one thing, but a bit of information to make my world picture clearer is important to me.
You know, when I was a kid I thought that by the time you were an adult, you had yourself figured out and that your personality was pretty much set at that point. I thought that since the body stopped growing and changing (more or less), that the mind did too. But I think that my mind has evolved more as an adult than it ever did as a child. My "who I am" has changed significantly over the last decade. Many things are still the same but some very fundamental traits have shifted. I'm really starting to understand life as a journey of knowledge and change. I'm learning more about myself and I'm discovering the power to improve upon who I used to be. I still remember the time of my life when I discovered that adults were not perfect. I always thought that by the time you were a full fledged grownup, you knew enough to not make any mistakes. But around 18-19 years old, my little world started falling apart. Grownups don't have all the answers. They screw up. They make bad decisions. They have flaws. It took a few years to come to terms with that realization. Then I had to discover that a person can be flawed but still be worthy of love and respect. You don't have to be good at every part of life to be worthwhile. You can have flaws that make you inept in some areas but you are really great at other areas and that's where community comes in. Everyone together creates a whole. I'm still trying to figure out what flaws I need to try and fix and what flaws I can just let be. No one gets to be perfect. In what ways am I content to be less than perfect? What people around me fill in my gaps? How do I fill in the gaps of my friends, family, and coworkers? The gaps that still remain in me after others fill in with their strengths are the ones I need to work on the most/first.
So that was an interesting thing that came out of my brain... I have not had those particular thoughts before.
Too much thought. Time for a kitty!
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| Lillibutt's nose |
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| Houseplants and Tuvok |
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Praying For Rain
We are in the midst of a terrible drought. We haven't had any precipitation in months. DH and I are kind of suprised we aren't doing any water rationing. Our particular mesonet station is showing we have decent soil moisture but many parts of the state are bone dry down to 24". No real relief is in sight. We may have some thunderstorms this evening though. That'll be nice.
I have soaker hoses in my front beds. The water spigot leaks and I discovered if I keep a soaker hose attached to it the water goes into the gardens. The plants are much happier since I started that.
All my plants are outside today. The wind is blowing from the southwest so I put lots of them on the east facing front porch. They seem happy and my porch looks like a tropical paradise! Lol!
This week at work was insane. I don't think we've ever had this much work. It did slow down a little by the end of the week and we were all ready! Yesterday was fun because I got to work on lots of creative projects. This week at home was also insane. We had lots of errands to run and things to get caught up on and by Thursday night we had to cancel plans to stay home and rest. Also, we were out late one night because DH had to go to the urgent care clinic. He had a thing on his arm that we expressed on Sunday and got lots of black stuff out of, but then it got angry and it swelled up huge and nasty. He's on antibiotics now and it is looking much better. It was growing by the hour so we figured his immune system needed some help. Since the Bactrim is working, I don't think it's MRSA but we wanted to be safe and keep it under control. My sister-in-law had MRSA on her inner elbow once and it swelled her whole arm up to twice the size and she spent the week after her wedding in the hospital getting IV antibiotics and pain meds. It's quite a story.
Last night after work I went to the nursery and got plants for work and some container soil parts for me. Then I went to WalMart and got a few more plants. DH went to the Thunder game so he didn't get home until almost midnight. I had puttered around and lost track of the time and I was finally taking a shower when he came home. I slept until about 9:30 and DH is still in bed at almost 2:00. I'm seriously considering taking a nap. We're pooped!
I was going to plant the flowers at work this morning but then I realized that the lawn people will probably trample them when they put the mulch down this week. So they're waiting on the front porch. I found some Azalea fertilizer that had all the things that the soil at work needed. So I got that and spread it on Wednesday. The lawn people put nitrogen down on Thursday. Hopefully that will help until I can get more natural forms of fertilizer on the beds. A few bags of manure would do a lot of good. The soil looks to be straight sand. I haven't actually manipulated it to do a real test. But it drains very quickly and the nutrients leave almost as fast as the water. According to a soil map I just found, we are in the Sandy Hills area: very deep, sandy and loamy.
So I got lost in the soil map for a while there. Lol! I love maps! The land I grew up on is right at the border of two soil (and vegetation) types. I can show you exactly where they change too! Pretty cool.
So anyway, this weekend I need to sew the bean bags for work (long story), plant some stuff, repot some stuff, clean the snake, wash the dog, tack up the ugly tv cord in the front, clean the air filter, clean the Betta, and mow. Hm. Wonder how all that's gonna get done. Oh, and bake.
What I want to do is go buy a hammock and take a nap outside.
I have soaker hoses in my front beds. The water spigot leaks and I discovered if I keep a soaker hose attached to it the water goes into the gardens. The plants are much happier since I started that.
All my plants are outside today. The wind is blowing from the southwest so I put lots of them on the east facing front porch. They seem happy and my porch looks like a tropical paradise! Lol!
This week at work was insane. I don't think we've ever had this much work. It did slow down a little by the end of the week and we were all ready! Yesterday was fun because I got to work on lots of creative projects. This week at home was also insane. We had lots of errands to run and things to get caught up on and by Thursday night we had to cancel plans to stay home and rest. Also, we were out late one night because DH had to go to the urgent care clinic. He had a thing on his arm that we expressed on Sunday and got lots of black stuff out of, but then it got angry and it swelled up huge and nasty. He's on antibiotics now and it is looking much better. It was growing by the hour so we figured his immune system needed some help. Since the Bactrim is working, I don't think it's MRSA but we wanted to be safe and keep it under control. My sister-in-law had MRSA on her inner elbow once and it swelled her whole arm up to twice the size and she spent the week after her wedding in the hospital getting IV antibiotics and pain meds. It's quite a story.
Last night after work I went to the nursery and got plants for work and some container soil parts for me. Then I went to WalMart and got a few more plants. DH went to the Thunder game so he didn't get home until almost midnight. I had puttered around and lost track of the time and I was finally taking a shower when he came home. I slept until about 9:30 and DH is still in bed at almost 2:00. I'm seriously considering taking a nap. We're pooped!
I was going to plant the flowers at work this morning but then I realized that the lawn people will probably trample them when they put the mulch down this week. So they're waiting on the front porch. I found some Azalea fertilizer that had all the things that the soil at work needed. So I got that and spread it on Wednesday. The lawn people put nitrogen down on Thursday. Hopefully that will help until I can get more natural forms of fertilizer on the beds. A few bags of manure would do a lot of good. The soil looks to be straight sand. I haven't actually manipulated it to do a real test. But it drains very quickly and the nutrients leave almost as fast as the water. According to a soil map I just found, we are in the Sandy Hills area: very deep, sandy and loamy.
So I got lost in the soil map for a while there. Lol! I love maps! The land I grew up on is right at the border of two soil (and vegetation) types. I can show you exactly where they change too! Pretty cool.
So anyway, this weekend I need to sew the bean bags for work (long story), plant some stuff, repot some stuff, clean the snake, wash the dog, tack up the ugly tv cord in the front, clean the air filter, clean the Betta, and mow. Hm. Wonder how all that's gonna get done. Oh, and bake.
What I want to do is go buy a hammock and take a nap outside.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Happy Sunny Saturday
Happy Day to you. The sun is out and my plants will be joining it shortly.
Work got busy sometime during the week. I don't really notice that we're getting busier until all of a sudden I realize we're slammed. Strange how that works. Thursday was the end of the month so we had several mailers that had to go out plus all of the normal rush to get everything billed. I worked really hard and I figured I'd be paying for it on Friday. Then after work I went to a fundraiser for the Food Bank. The annual Chef's Feast. There were 10 of us that went. It was a lot of fun. I got to meet some spouses of my coworkers and they're really cool. The food was really good too. I liked the pineapple sweet potatoes and the chocolate dipped banana bread and the bacon wrapped quail and the tuna and pineapple sushi roll and the shitake ravioli... yeah, it was yummy. Oh! and the Beef tenderloin with mushrooms and yummy sauce. And the chocolate whoopie pie... that was my favorite! The best part? I still lost .2 pounds that day! I learned that I much prefer Riesling over Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay. I've had Pinot before but never Chardonnay and I've wanted to try it. But yuck. Riesling is where it's at.
Speaking of wine, we went to Mahogany last Saturday for MIL's birthday and I had a Pinot Noir that was pretty good. Not my favorite red but still good. The Filet Mignon and asparagus were just as good as last year. No, I take that back. They over salted the steak a little. The asparagus was delectable.
Apparently we're going time traveling today. I realized I didn't blog about last weekend.
Mom and Dad and my brother came down on Friday night and we looked at a potential new car for them and then had dinner with my dad's side of the family at Cracker Barrel. The company was awesome; the service was decidedly not. The 4-star waitress was not earning her stars and she was training a rising star waiter. He had not learned much yet and she wasn't supervising him well enough. My dad didn't leave a tip and we were really proud of him! DH even gave 10 percent.
My parents just paid the last of their debt. We are all so proud! But one of the things that let them do that was that my dad totaled one of the cars. So as soon as the last payment went through they were looking for a car. DH spent the previous week researching and calling dealers. The car we looked at on Friday night was the only car in the city that met Dad's top two criteria: manual transmission and cruise control. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find those two things in the same car?!!? The dealership looked and felt more like a front for the Mexican Mafia than a dealership. We weren't comfortable there. But! On the way to Cracker Barrel DH got a call from AutoMax. They just had a trade it that met all of the qualifications! We had planned to go all over the city on Saturday looking but the right car was half a mile from our house! We went to AutoMax first thing on Saturday. The car was still on its way back from the detailer so we decided to wait on it. Well, they decided to wait and Mom and my brother took me back home to decorate a cookie cake. While we were doing that, Dad and DH test drove a newer model of the same car that was on its way. We got back to AutoMax, and the salesdude thought maybe we could afford the newer model. DH and the dude negotiated for a while but they weren't able to get the price low enough for us. Its not really their fault. It was still technically a new car, never been owned and they don't have as much leeway on those. In the meantime, the 2008 showed up. The seats were still too wet to sit on but it had the same driving characteristics as the 2010. Same parts were used and stuff. This car had been owned by a family and they definitely used the car! But that's not a problem. It actually made me smile to see the kool-aid stains. There was some superficial body damage; an old rear end wreck made the bumper stick out just a little and minor scrapes and dings. The motor ran beautifully, the tires were good. All the controlls were in working order. The detail lady said she wanted to take the car back and re-dye the carpet to get rid of the stains so we couldn't take it that day. But DH and the salesdude were able to strike a deal that my parents could easily afford. Then I had to go deliver the cookie cake. I ended up talking to D for quite a while. She's from Sri Lanka and so we talked about all the differences between there and here. I love talking to people from other cultures.
In the afternoon Dad helped me put some pictures in frames. I had open-back frames and I'd only used frames that already had the glass and backing and stuff. Now I know how to frame things myself! Cause my dad rocks. Then we had to go to dinner with the InLaws and you are now caught up on last Saturday. Whew!
I don't even remember what happened on Sunday. I think we cleaned out the upstairs office for about half an hour. But the rest of the day is blank. I was pretty tired from the weekend so I must have rested a bunch.
So skip ahead to Yesterday. I was able to wake up suprisingly easily considering how Thursday went. At work I numbered 2 jobs and then I had to go over to the place that sells us our mailing equipment. Our big inserter has a motor out and they couldn't get the part here in time for this giant mailer that we had to have out so we were using their demo model. The inserter put 6 pages in a 9x12 envelope and spit the envelope out, I stuffed a booklet in the envelope, and the temp girl sealed the envelopes and put them in their respective bundles and sacks for the mail. The inserter could insert 850 an hour except you have to stop and refill every few minutes. So I estimate we were able to do about 500 per hour. The total on the mailing was well over 10,000 but I'm not sure on the exact number. On Thursday evening my boss said he wanted the mailing done by 1:00 but since I was going to be working on it, it would be done by 10am. That's one of the biggest compliments he's ever given me! So on Friday, try as I might, I couldn't get it done by 10:00. Couldn't get it done by 1:00. At 5:00 we still weren't done. We got 3 other helpers and a little after 6:00 we finally got the last one stuffed. We hauled the whole job back to our building where we had an automated sealer and sealed the last several hundred pretty quickly. Then we had all 7 people that were still at work sorting all the pieces into the right bundles and sacks and we got finished just before 7:00. I was about to pass out! I started feeling the effects of Thursday by 11:00 that morning but other than lunch, I didn't stop. My mouth was so dry but no amount of water could fix it. I felt like I could just fall down and never get up again. My back was one solid concrete block. The temp was exhausted and hurting too. We worked hard but I was upset that I didn't get the job done in time to go to the Post Office. My boss said I did a good job and deserved a high five anyway. The job went to the Post Office this morning.
So I treated myself to Braum's for dinner. I had a 1/6lb burger and a scoop of cappuchino chunky chocolate and still had 45 calories left for the day. The ice cream really hit the spot too. I haven't had many sweets or chocolate since I've been on this diet. Sweet tea is now too sweet. But that CCC frozen yogurt was the best scoop of ice cream I've ever tasted! At 140 calories for one scoop, it was the perfect indulgence. Just the right amount.
I talked to Mom on the phone for a little bit about options for killing the grass and weeds under her rubber mulch mow strip and I fed the snake. He only wanted one mouse. But he had just shed too so I'm not concerned. Then I took a Tylenol3 and a methylcarbamol (muscle relaxer) and went to bed. I feel much better after 11 hours of sleep!
I took a soil sample from the flowerbeds at work and gave it to the Extension Office. I got the results back this week. The nitrogen is supposed to be 60. Ours is 6. That explains the weird mutated growth this spring! I gave the report to the boss in charge of that and he said he'll tell the lawn people to fertilize the beds on their next visit. I need to find out when that will be. If it isn't soon, I'll do a nitrogen treament myself before they come. I don't want to plant anything else until I get the nitrogen back up a little. But I need to start planting things very soon.
After lunch DH and I are going over to Dave and Froggi's to help them haul their old broken hot tub to the dump. We'll probably hang out with them until we need to leave to go to Norman for dinner. My friend is about to have her second baby and I want to get the baby blanket to her. Sunday is free except for dinner with the InLaws. We forgot MIL's birthday gift last weekend. Oops.
So now I'm going to take a bunch of plants outside. Hooray for warm weather!!!!
Oh, and I lost almost 7 pounds so far. Hehe!! Ultimately I want to lose around 20 more. I'll be 5-10 pounds heavier than I was in college but I don't really want to be that thin anyway. That was back when I still had a metabolism. Plus, I have a lot more muscle now and that will add some pounds. I'm not really obsessed with the number; it's just a way to measure where I am vs. where I want to be. If I get down to 125 and decide I like myself there, then I'll stay there. I just know I was 110 in college without much muscle so that's the only reference I have. I'll keep reevaluating as I go along.
Ok, now I'm really going!
Work got busy sometime during the week. I don't really notice that we're getting busier until all of a sudden I realize we're slammed. Strange how that works. Thursday was the end of the month so we had several mailers that had to go out plus all of the normal rush to get everything billed. I worked really hard and I figured I'd be paying for it on Friday. Then after work I went to a fundraiser for the Food Bank. The annual Chef's Feast. There were 10 of us that went. It was a lot of fun. I got to meet some spouses of my coworkers and they're really cool. The food was really good too. I liked the pineapple sweet potatoes and the chocolate dipped banana bread and the bacon wrapped quail and the tuna and pineapple sushi roll and the shitake ravioli... yeah, it was yummy. Oh! and the Beef tenderloin with mushrooms and yummy sauce. And the chocolate whoopie pie... that was my favorite! The best part? I still lost .2 pounds that day! I learned that I much prefer Riesling over Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay. I've had Pinot before but never Chardonnay and I've wanted to try it. But yuck. Riesling is where it's at.
Speaking of wine, we went to Mahogany last Saturday for MIL's birthday and I had a Pinot Noir that was pretty good. Not my favorite red but still good. The Filet Mignon and asparagus were just as good as last year. No, I take that back. They over salted the steak a little. The asparagus was delectable.
Apparently we're going time traveling today. I realized I didn't blog about last weekend.
Mom and Dad and my brother came down on Friday night and we looked at a potential new car for them and then had dinner with my dad's side of the family at Cracker Barrel. The company was awesome; the service was decidedly not. The 4-star waitress was not earning her stars and she was training a rising star waiter. He had not learned much yet and she wasn't supervising him well enough. My dad didn't leave a tip and we were really proud of him! DH even gave 10 percent.
My parents just paid the last of their debt. We are all so proud! But one of the things that let them do that was that my dad totaled one of the cars. So as soon as the last payment went through they were looking for a car. DH spent the previous week researching and calling dealers. The car we looked at on Friday night was the only car in the city that met Dad's top two criteria: manual transmission and cruise control. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find those two things in the same car?!!? The dealership looked and felt more like a front for the Mexican Mafia than a dealership. We weren't comfortable there. But! On the way to Cracker Barrel DH got a call from AutoMax. They just had a trade it that met all of the qualifications! We had planned to go all over the city on Saturday looking but the right car was half a mile from our house! We went to AutoMax first thing on Saturday. The car was still on its way back from the detailer so we decided to wait on it. Well, they decided to wait and Mom and my brother took me back home to decorate a cookie cake. While we were doing that, Dad and DH test drove a newer model of the same car that was on its way. We got back to AutoMax, and the salesdude thought maybe we could afford the newer model. DH and the dude negotiated for a while but they weren't able to get the price low enough for us. Its not really their fault. It was still technically a new car, never been owned and they don't have as much leeway on those. In the meantime, the 2008 showed up. The seats were still too wet to sit on but it had the same driving characteristics as the 2010. Same parts were used and stuff. This car had been owned by a family and they definitely used the car! But that's not a problem. It actually made me smile to see the kool-aid stains. There was some superficial body damage; an old rear end wreck made the bumper stick out just a little and minor scrapes and dings. The motor ran beautifully, the tires were good. All the controlls were in working order. The detail lady said she wanted to take the car back and re-dye the carpet to get rid of the stains so we couldn't take it that day. But DH and the salesdude were able to strike a deal that my parents could easily afford. Then I had to go deliver the cookie cake. I ended up talking to D for quite a while. She's from Sri Lanka and so we talked about all the differences between there and here. I love talking to people from other cultures.
In the afternoon Dad helped me put some pictures in frames. I had open-back frames and I'd only used frames that already had the glass and backing and stuff. Now I know how to frame things myself! Cause my dad rocks. Then we had to go to dinner with the InLaws and you are now caught up on last Saturday. Whew!
I don't even remember what happened on Sunday. I think we cleaned out the upstairs office for about half an hour. But the rest of the day is blank. I was pretty tired from the weekend so I must have rested a bunch.
So skip ahead to Yesterday. I was able to wake up suprisingly easily considering how Thursday went. At work I numbered 2 jobs and then I had to go over to the place that sells us our mailing equipment. Our big inserter has a motor out and they couldn't get the part here in time for this giant mailer that we had to have out so we were using their demo model. The inserter put 6 pages in a 9x12 envelope and spit the envelope out, I stuffed a booklet in the envelope, and the temp girl sealed the envelopes and put them in their respective bundles and sacks for the mail. The inserter could insert 850 an hour except you have to stop and refill every few minutes. So I estimate we were able to do about 500 per hour. The total on the mailing was well over 10,000 but I'm not sure on the exact number. On Thursday evening my boss said he wanted the mailing done by 1:00 but since I was going to be working on it, it would be done by 10am. That's one of the biggest compliments he's ever given me! So on Friday, try as I might, I couldn't get it done by 10:00. Couldn't get it done by 1:00. At 5:00 we still weren't done. We got 3 other helpers and a little after 6:00 we finally got the last one stuffed. We hauled the whole job back to our building where we had an automated sealer and sealed the last several hundred pretty quickly. Then we had all 7 people that were still at work sorting all the pieces into the right bundles and sacks and we got finished just before 7:00. I was about to pass out! I started feeling the effects of Thursday by 11:00 that morning but other than lunch, I didn't stop. My mouth was so dry but no amount of water could fix it. I felt like I could just fall down and never get up again. My back was one solid concrete block. The temp was exhausted and hurting too. We worked hard but I was upset that I didn't get the job done in time to go to the Post Office. My boss said I did a good job and deserved a high five anyway. The job went to the Post Office this morning.
So I treated myself to Braum's for dinner. I had a 1/6lb burger and a scoop of cappuchino chunky chocolate and still had 45 calories left for the day. The ice cream really hit the spot too. I haven't had many sweets or chocolate since I've been on this diet. Sweet tea is now too sweet. But that CCC frozen yogurt was the best scoop of ice cream I've ever tasted! At 140 calories for one scoop, it was the perfect indulgence. Just the right amount.
I talked to Mom on the phone for a little bit about options for killing the grass and weeds under her rubber mulch mow strip and I fed the snake. He only wanted one mouse. But he had just shed too so I'm not concerned. Then I took a Tylenol3 and a methylcarbamol (muscle relaxer) and went to bed. I feel much better after 11 hours of sleep!
I took a soil sample from the flowerbeds at work and gave it to the Extension Office. I got the results back this week. The nitrogen is supposed to be 60. Ours is 6. That explains the weird mutated growth this spring! I gave the report to the boss in charge of that and he said he'll tell the lawn people to fertilize the beds on their next visit. I need to find out when that will be. If it isn't soon, I'll do a nitrogen treament myself before they come. I don't want to plant anything else until I get the nitrogen back up a little. But I need to start planting things very soon.
After lunch DH and I are going over to Dave and Froggi's to help them haul their old broken hot tub to the dump. We'll probably hang out with them until we need to leave to go to Norman for dinner. My friend is about to have her second baby and I want to get the baby blanket to her. Sunday is free except for dinner with the InLaws. We forgot MIL's birthday gift last weekend. Oops.
So now I'm going to take a bunch of plants outside. Hooray for warm weather!!!!
Oh, and I lost almost 7 pounds so far. Hehe!! Ultimately I want to lose around 20 more. I'll be 5-10 pounds heavier than I was in college but I don't really want to be that thin anyway. That was back when I still had a metabolism. Plus, I have a lot more muscle now and that will add some pounds. I'm not really obsessed with the number; it's just a way to measure where I am vs. where I want to be. If I get down to 125 and decide I like myself there, then I'll stay there. I just know I was 110 in college without much muscle so that's the only reference I have. I'll keep reevaluating as I go along.
Ok, now I'm really going!
Sunday, March 27, 2011
We're now experiencing more normal spring weather. We may have had a light frost last night. By the time I looked at the temperature it was 8:15 and it was 34. So all the plants are back in and crowded onto the plant shelf and the windowsill.
They wouldn't have to be so crowded except the top shelf has seedlings that need to be close to the light and that takes up the whole shelf. This whole week looks to be upper 30's for lows and 50's for highs so I may do some rearranging indoors.
And then I ordered more hoyas... So, in the Hoya world there was this guy named David Liddle who lived in Australia and he collected hoyas in the wild, discovered and named tons of new species over several decades, did research, and sold generous cuttings at reasonable prices. Each year people would gather together in their online forums and put together a group order. Well, last year (or maybe the year before) David Liddle died. It is very sad. And his wife now has the greenhouse and the collection up for sale so this may be the last time anyone has the chance to order cuttings from the Liddle collection. Naturally, I couldn't pass up this opportunity! I have never ordered from the Liddles before so I had to this time. I chose the following:
IML 0256 australis ssp. australis 'Brookfield'
IML 0144 australis ssp. melanesica
IML 0774 bordenii
IML 1174 callistophylla
IML 1556 caudata
IML 1590 aff. clandestina
IML 1428 erythrostemma
IML 1742 macgillivrayi 'Rocky River Red'
IML 0850 merrillii
If available: IML 0511 erythrina
I chose species that were a. difficult to find in America, b. expensive to purchase in America, c. would ship well without drying out too much, and d. were most appealing aesthetically to me.
The order should be submitted soon and I think it takes a couple of months to recieve the cuttings. I'll probably end up dropping about $100 on this. And that's chump change compared to many of the others in the group. Fortunately, I will be recieving a $100 bonus soon for referring a new employee at work.
Speaking of work, a couple of weeks ago I asked to be moved to a position with more desk work because of my Stupid Tired Disease. Well, they said no. I was really upset on Friday when I got my answer but I've got a better perspective on it now. They really can't move a bunch of personnel around just to make me feel better. I think what I was most upset about is that my boss assumed I hadn't tried any other methods of getting more energy, losing weight, eating nutritiously, etc. He would start to suggest a common solution like, "You need to eat 1200 calories a day or you'll starve to death", or "You're tired because you're not getting enough nutrition" and then I'd counter him with all my research and the actual facts of my situation and he'd be like, Oh. It irks me when people act like they're better than you and tell you common knowledge like they discovered it themselves but they don't actually know anything about the subject other than that one tidbit. I have researched nutrition extensively for about 5 years. I have researched Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and all the treatment options. I have tried many of the coping mechanisms/treatments already and some of them have been a great help. I have done 28 years of intensive research on my own body and I know what my signals mean. So don't go spouting off "CFS is just a name they give you when they don't know what's wrong". The rheumatologist suggested CFS because I fit the profile of specific symptoms, blood panels, and illness history. It may be over dignosed by some doctors, and I may not actually have CFS, but as of now it is the best conclusion based on the evidence. Also, when I treat my body like it has CFS I notice a huge improvement. So there!
Personally, my theory is that CFS isn't a disease by itself but actually a set of symptoms caused by the underlying disease, mainly autoimmune attacks on the body. In my case, my bloodwork shows I have two possible reasons for my CFS symptoms. My Epstein-Barr antibodies are too high to have fully recovered from mono but not high enough to have the full blown disease of Eptsein-Barr. In the doctor's experience, the intermediate antibody levels are almost always accompanied by CFS symptoms. The official research is divided on this subject however. The second thing is my Hashimoto's. Every doctor agrees that I have Hashimoto's and that my immune system is attacking my thyroid and will eventually kill it. Right now my thyroid is still functioning withing the normal range but the effect of a constant immune system attack is the same as a normal person who has a virus or bacterial infection. If you take away all the symptoms specific to the virus or whatever that the person has, you still are left with feeling totally wiped out because the immune system is working so hard to defeat the invador. That takes energy and saps reserves. So since my immune system is working so hard to destroy my thyroid "invader", I am left feeling wiped out all the time. I wish that made sense to people who don't have an autoimmune disease. Just sleeping a little more or excersising a little more won't fix the problem. In fact with exersise you have to be very careful. If you overdo and get you heart rate up for too long, you feel even worse for days afterwards. It isn't like sore muscles either. It is almost a paralysis of sorts. I can move my arms but it takes such a monumental effort that most of the time it isn't worth it. Some studies show that the weakness is caused by damage from lack of oxygen in the muscles during the exersise.
Also, my left arm feels weak a lot because my back muscles are so tight around the nerves that go from my arm to my spine. And since I'm left handed, it causes a problem. I get one massage a month but it doesn't keep those muscles loose. Hmm.. since I do work with my massage therapist, maybe I can pay her to do mini massages in between the full body ones.
So anyway, when I was distraught on Friday I thought maybe I should find another job. But I really like my job. I get satisfaction from working with my hands and making things. I get affirmation from my coworkers because I do good work. I feel like I make a difference. I like the feeling of skill mastery. Right now I'm doing ok. I'm taking an appetite supressant to help me get to a healthy weight and it is giving me lots of energy and motivation to do things. It's also giving less pleasant side effects (I feel like I overdosed on caffeine big time) but it is helping me not feel hungry so I can eat smaller meals and shrink my stomach down and that will help me maintain my healthy weight. I have lost 5.5 pounds total and about 3 of those pounds left this week when I started the appetite supressant. I think I'm about to level out to 2 pounds a week or so. The first couple of days I was dropping fast but that happens on any diet program. I'll be satisfied if my average weekly loss is between 1-2 pounds. I could be at my goal weight as early as June. I don't think I want to stay on this medicine for more than 8 weeks though. All the literature recommends short term use. But, by that point my body will have adapted to eating less and won't rebel so much. I could be as close as 10 pounds away from my goal at that time so keeping the momentum will be easy. I expect to feel much better at a healthy weight and it might relieve some of my fatigue. Wouldn't that be nice.
Also, everyone thinks I'm trying to lose weight to look better and they get all bent out of shape because they think I look good already. The looking better thing is relatively minor compared to the real reasons. I want to feel better. I don't want my extra fat getting in the way of my movement anymore. I want to bend over without squeezing all my breath away. I want my blood pressure and cholesterol levels to stay in a healthy range. My cholesterol was borderline even at my lowest weight (which is 5-10 pounds less than my goal). I want to feel more confident and it is much easier to feel confident if you don't look 5 months pregnant. Unless you actually are 5 months pregnant, which I'm not. I want to be happy with my own body. I want my outside to reflect my inside and as my mind gets healthier I want my body to be healthier too. I have a closet full of really nice clothes that I would love to wear again. And yes, I do want to conform to the American standard of beauty to a degree. I don't want to be a stick but I don't want rolls either. And that is that.
Here's a picture of my Hoya carnosa 'Krimson Princess' in bloom.
And these are the tags I made to help me remember who I pollinated with who and when.
They wouldn't have to be so crowded except the top shelf has seedlings that need to be close to the light and that takes up the whole shelf. This whole week looks to be upper 30's for lows and 50's for highs so I may do some rearranging indoors.
And then I ordered more hoyas... So, in the Hoya world there was this guy named David Liddle who lived in Australia and he collected hoyas in the wild, discovered and named tons of new species over several decades, did research, and sold generous cuttings at reasonable prices. Each year people would gather together in their online forums and put together a group order. Well, last year (or maybe the year before) David Liddle died. It is very sad. And his wife now has the greenhouse and the collection up for sale so this may be the last time anyone has the chance to order cuttings from the Liddle collection. Naturally, I couldn't pass up this opportunity! I have never ordered from the Liddles before so I had to this time. I chose the following:
IML 0256 australis ssp. australis 'Brookfield'
IML 0144 australis ssp. melanesica
IML 0774 bordenii
IML 1174 callistophylla
IML 1556 caudata
IML 1590 aff. clandestina
IML 1428 erythrostemma
IML 1742 macgillivrayi 'Rocky River Red'
IML 0850 merrillii
If available: IML 0511 erythrina
I chose species that were a. difficult to find in America, b. expensive to purchase in America, c. would ship well without drying out too much, and d. were most appealing aesthetically to me.
The order should be submitted soon and I think it takes a couple of months to recieve the cuttings. I'll probably end up dropping about $100 on this. And that's chump change compared to many of the others in the group. Fortunately, I will be recieving a $100 bonus soon for referring a new employee at work.
Speaking of work, a couple of weeks ago I asked to be moved to a position with more desk work because of my Stupid Tired Disease. Well, they said no. I was really upset on Friday when I got my answer but I've got a better perspective on it now. They really can't move a bunch of personnel around just to make me feel better. I think what I was most upset about is that my boss assumed I hadn't tried any other methods of getting more energy, losing weight, eating nutritiously, etc. He would start to suggest a common solution like, "You need to eat 1200 calories a day or you'll starve to death", or "You're tired because you're not getting enough nutrition" and then I'd counter him with all my research and the actual facts of my situation and he'd be like, Oh. It irks me when people act like they're better than you and tell you common knowledge like they discovered it themselves but they don't actually know anything about the subject other than that one tidbit. I have researched nutrition extensively for about 5 years. I have researched Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and all the treatment options. I have tried many of the coping mechanisms/treatments already and some of them have been a great help. I have done 28 years of intensive research on my own body and I know what my signals mean. So don't go spouting off "CFS is just a name they give you when they don't know what's wrong". The rheumatologist suggested CFS because I fit the profile of specific symptoms, blood panels, and illness history. It may be over dignosed by some doctors, and I may not actually have CFS, but as of now it is the best conclusion based on the evidence. Also, when I treat my body like it has CFS I notice a huge improvement. So there!
Personally, my theory is that CFS isn't a disease by itself but actually a set of symptoms caused by the underlying disease, mainly autoimmune attacks on the body. In my case, my bloodwork shows I have two possible reasons for my CFS symptoms. My Epstein-Barr antibodies are too high to have fully recovered from mono but not high enough to have the full blown disease of Eptsein-Barr. In the doctor's experience, the intermediate antibody levels are almost always accompanied by CFS symptoms. The official research is divided on this subject however. The second thing is my Hashimoto's. Every doctor agrees that I have Hashimoto's and that my immune system is attacking my thyroid and will eventually kill it. Right now my thyroid is still functioning withing the normal range but the effect of a constant immune system attack is the same as a normal person who has a virus or bacterial infection. If you take away all the symptoms specific to the virus or whatever that the person has, you still are left with feeling totally wiped out because the immune system is working so hard to defeat the invador. That takes energy and saps reserves. So since my immune system is working so hard to destroy my thyroid "invader", I am left feeling wiped out all the time. I wish that made sense to people who don't have an autoimmune disease. Just sleeping a little more or excersising a little more won't fix the problem. In fact with exersise you have to be very careful. If you overdo and get you heart rate up for too long, you feel even worse for days afterwards. It isn't like sore muscles either. It is almost a paralysis of sorts. I can move my arms but it takes such a monumental effort that most of the time it isn't worth it. Some studies show that the weakness is caused by damage from lack of oxygen in the muscles during the exersise.
Also, my left arm feels weak a lot because my back muscles are so tight around the nerves that go from my arm to my spine. And since I'm left handed, it causes a problem. I get one massage a month but it doesn't keep those muscles loose. Hmm.. since I do work with my massage therapist, maybe I can pay her to do mini massages in between the full body ones.
So anyway, when I was distraught on Friday I thought maybe I should find another job. But I really like my job. I get satisfaction from working with my hands and making things. I get affirmation from my coworkers because I do good work. I feel like I make a difference. I like the feeling of skill mastery. Right now I'm doing ok. I'm taking an appetite supressant to help me get to a healthy weight and it is giving me lots of energy and motivation to do things. It's also giving less pleasant side effects (I feel like I overdosed on caffeine big time) but it is helping me not feel hungry so I can eat smaller meals and shrink my stomach down and that will help me maintain my healthy weight. I have lost 5.5 pounds total and about 3 of those pounds left this week when I started the appetite supressant. I think I'm about to level out to 2 pounds a week or so. The first couple of days I was dropping fast but that happens on any diet program. I'll be satisfied if my average weekly loss is between 1-2 pounds. I could be at my goal weight as early as June. I don't think I want to stay on this medicine for more than 8 weeks though. All the literature recommends short term use. But, by that point my body will have adapted to eating less and won't rebel so much. I could be as close as 10 pounds away from my goal at that time so keeping the momentum will be easy. I expect to feel much better at a healthy weight and it might relieve some of my fatigue. Wouldn't that be nice.
Also, everyone thinks I'm trying to lose weight to look better and they get all bent out of shape because they think I look good already. The looking better thing is relatively minor compared to the real reasons. I want to feel better. I don't want my extra fat getting in the way of my movement anymore. I want to bend over without squeezing all my breath away. I want my blood pressure and cholesterol levels to stay in a healthy range. My cholesterol was borderline even at my lowest weight (which is 5-10 pounds less than my goal). I want to feel more confident and it is much easier to feel confident if you don't look 5 months pregnant. Unless you actually are 5 months pregnant, which I'm not. I want to be happy with my own body. I want my outside to reflect my inside and as my mind gets healthier I want my body to be healthier too. I have a closet full of really nice clothes that I would love to wear again. And yes, I do want to conform to the American standard of beauty to a degree. I don't want to be a stick but I don't want rolls either. And that is that.
Here's a picture of my Hoya carnosa 'Krimson Princess' in bloom.
And these are the tags I made to help me remember who I pollinated with who and when.
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