Hi ho hi ho.. it's off to work I go..

Back to the grind, as they say. I'm hoping the computer problems are all worked out.. I'm getting too old for that crap and I'm not feeling up to handling the stress... I took last week off and I just sat around for the whole week and did nothing.. I had wanted to take the time to do a bunch of stuff around the house and get out walking.. I walked once with Ron and the dog and the next two days I suffered with the pain in my hip... I think I'm in a low grade depression right now because I can't take advantage of the nice weather and get out and do stuff without paying later with the pain... Ron is so patient with me because I sat around like a lump for the whole week and only did a bit the last two days towards getting anything done..

I'm going to a seminar on diabetes this weekend with my sister. It's a whole day affair on Saturday and I'm wondering if there will be anything new that I don't already know.. I hope so.. it would be great if I could be drug free but the chances of that are pretty slim.. now if I could take off another 25 pounds to go with the 25 I already have off that might make a difference.. anyone have any ideas?

We looked into getting a pellet stove for heat next winter.. the government has some low interest loans and a few grants for that type of stuff but we have to get an energy audit done.. I know there are areas where we need improvement for sure and the wood stove we have now is pretty well done for... so in the next few months we're going to get under way with the "plan" to make our house more energy efficient.. because the price of heating oil is criminal!! That's all for now.. can someone give me a push out the door to my car?

Work and I have fallen out of favor...

Ahhh work.. it used to be my means of identification. I was that girl that worked in an office doing gymnastical mind twirls and leaps of imagination. I took great relish in a job well done (and was slightly territorial about my space and job)... who are we trying to fool.. I had my name on ever piece of equipment from pens to office chairs and god help anyone who laid a hand on what was MINE dammit!!.. not any more.. my mind set has been irrevocably changed.

The time until my retirement has become a large stone tied to my neck as I struggle to swim upstream against a tide of discontent. It's like a child preparing their parents for their eventual leaving of home by becoming rebels and struggling against the status quo with all their might until the parents are ready to kick the little jeesers out long before they are ready to leave. I'm not sure if I'm the child or the parent but either way a break is coming. But alas it is years in the coming (or until I have a breakdown, whichever comes first).. and it's looking more like the latter rather than the former as each day passes..

The beginning of the end of my love affair with my job came when we made the news.. the collective "we" of the Provincial Government.. and not in a good way. You see for the last three days of last week our computer system hasn't been working.. I shouldn't say it hasn't been working at all.. we have a split system (much like my personality) and the one that we use to process about 5% or our daily work is working (much like my mind) but the big sucker that we use to process 95% of what we do a day while passing 300 to 400 customer through our happy doors is down 95% of the day.

So we are stuck manually calculating and recording transactions for said 300 to 400 not in a good mood customers. Can you say "stress overload?".. now isn't that a nice happy, sunny frame of mind to be in while contemplating early retirement?

Oh, did I tell you that I have this week off.. great timing for a change. Let someone else deal with all the crap while I vegetate at home (much like I plan to do once I retire). Gotta break myself into it gradually.

My Theory on Weight Loss

I've had a theory on weight loss for years and it has been proven out once again today making it closer to a law of nature..

You see.. I believe when you lose weight it doesn't just disappear... it stays suspended in the air in the vicinity of your body like a fog or ghost, and when you least expect it, it will attach itself to your friends or family.

As I have said, I have lost 25 pounds and have been feeling great about myself.. my clothes are fitting better, I don't flinch from my reflection in mirrors. I foolishly thought that the weight was gone.. never to return.. and since my friends, family and coworkers hadn't had any major weight gains I pushed my theory to the back of my mind and even attempted to dismiss it.

But today I saw a friend of mine at work who I haven't seen since before Christmas and I noticed his new Budda belly. He had always been fairly fit but ummm he looked a little preggy.. He informed me that he gave up smoking and gained... you guessed it... 25 pounds. Need I say more..

My theory came rushing to mind once again. I thought the curse of the floating fat cells was a thing of myths and imagination but I was WRONG.. DEAD WRONG... so be afraid.. be very afraid.. because I plan on losing more weight.. and you could be the next victim of the fat gas.. don't say you haven't been warned!

The Before and After...

We have the before... taken a year or so ago...























and we have the after... taken yesterday...


I hadn't realised how much of a difference 25 pounds made until I took that picture.. I'm quite impressed... (even tho' I do say so myself to quote my late mother).. and you can hardly tell that I'm in constant, crippling pain eh?..

It's Spring!

Time to give the old blog a face lift. If only it was as easy to give this face a lift. I believe it is time for a new icon photo as well. That picture of me is so last year! I was told I look marvelous and hot by a guy I work with (who also told me I looked miserably in pain, how do you process that combination?) so I think that picture should reflect my new hotness, but why is it that hotness doesn't translate on to film or digital technology? You would think that we could successfully take a picture that doesn't show the reality but what I visualise myself looking like in my head. Now that would be progress.

Update on the computer front

I got my new hard drive only to discover that it was a dud and returned it in exchange for another, slightly more expensive one. When the second one arrived it wouldn't work in my computer so I opted to call a "computer guy" to pick up the said computer and see what he could do to fix it, if anything. I had images of a new mother board in my future but was pleasantly surprised (if not slightly embarrased) to find that my memory stick wasn't inserted all the way in (much like my own which has worked loose with age).. so a mere $35.00 would fix it all up sans a red face from me. I had mentioned that my power supply wasn't heavy enough for my new video card so he offered to install a new one for around $50.00 while he had the computer at his shop so I said go for it. So for $95 and change I got my computer up and running (that doesn't include the cost of the new hard drive $135. and the new video card $79.00) but now my computer rocks!!! I have 500 gig of on board memory and 500 gig of external memory and a video card that allows my 3d programs to finally work properly. Life is good.

It's time for a pity party!!

Who's bringing the party hats? I've been in pain over a month now with my sore back which manifests itself in deep, searing, tearing, rotating pain down and around my right leg and into and across my right foot. Some mornings I can't go to work because I'm in tears and some days when I go to work it takes all I have not to go home again because the pain is a wild animal taking a bite out of my resolve.

I can't even enjoy my new found weight loss. I'm down to 170 pounds and if I can't get out and walk again I fear that the weight will creep back on again. But until my doctor gets back a week from tomorrow I fear that I will have to suffer through. I do have some mega pain killers but they are nasty nasty things that I choose not to partake in. Besides the possibility of getting hooked, they make me feel like death is a viable alternative to the shit that they play with my head and body.

I had blood tests taken a couple of weeks ago to rule out rheumatiod arthritis because the xrays showed extensive arthritis in my lower back and especially my right hip which the doctor suspects is pinching on my sciatic nerve. So I don't know if there is anything that can be done or if I'm doomed to suffer with this pain the rest of my life (big bummer on that one).

So now the party's over (or at least moved to a private party at my house), time to throw the confetti, kiss the hostess and head for home. Thank you for attending.

Present or warning?

Our cat, Penny, has left little mouse bodies in prominant places about our home in the last week. It leads me to wonder if they are her feline equivalent of diamonds set in a flashy broach kind of present or a horse head on the pillow kind of warning that she can kill while we are asleep.

How Come?

How come, once I turn the computer off, I can come up with witty, enlightening, relavent posts.. but once the computer is switched back on, the mere act of pressing the "on" button, causes a memory dump.. and I sit there looking at the blank screen with an equally blank brain? Then once again "off".. engaged in meaningless tasks and the mind floods with ideas.. and of course I'm out of reach of a keyboard so the thoughts flow over and out my brain.. never to be found again.. such is life.

Just an update on the pooch dentistry..

We sorrily under estimated the cost of Missy's little dentist visit.. it cost $297.00.. I think it may be bank loan time to keep her in the style to which she has become accustomed. But at least she ain't no $5,500. hooker.

A disquieting revelation..

I just recently discovered that my daughter, some sisters and some nieces and nephews read my blog.. not that there's anything wrong with that.. it's just odd.. and disquieting.. in a slightly perverted sense.. like they were reading my diary.. which I guess they are.. shame on you all!!.. *mental note to watch the family references.. on second thought.. what the hell.. it'll teach them for peeking.. lol.*

Phantom print...

Just a note to all you bloggers out there.. if you want to pick a layout that doesn't cause temperary blindness.. stay away from a black/extremely dark background with white print... it takes me at least a minute and a half to dispell the phantom print from my corneas... just sayin'.

The Waiting Game

My computer hard drive crashed.. never to return.. my son had resurrected it back to a working condition only to have it spin out of control once again.. so off to buy a new hard drive online.. waiting for a week to ten days for the new one to arrive I decided that I may as well order a new graphics card while I was at it (only to discover that my power supply wasn't heavy enough being only 300 watts to the video card's 350 watt requirement).. so I'm contemplating the outlay of more money for a new power supply.. meanwhile the hard drive arrived only to be proven as a dud.. so back it goes and a new one ordered.. only to have to wait all over again for the replacement, not knowing if this one is also a glorified paper weight.. and in the meantime my fingers itch to get back to my passion and obscession.. (no not that one.. my other obscession and passion) poser... and to top it off I'm at home with a severe arthritis flair up, without my distraction.

The storms that almost were...

We've had our hopes raised by the all knowing(?)and revered voices from the weather channel who have promised us days of immense accumulations of either snow or more excitingly anticipated.. freezing rain.. where we have visions of snuggling in front of the wood stove on the day of days.. a STORM DAY.. only to be awaken by our alarm clocks and stumbling to the window to observe the rage of nature only to be greeted by a slight wind and a spinkling of snow... How fair is that?... but come the weekend we can expect gale force winds and snow drifts only to be disappointed because the storm can't be expected to stretch over more than a day.. and the day is always Saturday only to be followed by warmer temperatures and rain by Sunday evening, leaving the roads clear and passable by Monday morning.. Damned weather persons.. how you mock us

What a Waste...

On Sunday what a whopper of a storm... high winds .. snow.. freezing rain.. power outage for a couple of hours.. but to have it on a Sunday..what a waste of a good storm.. when we could have basked in the glow of a storm day.. could have slept in and then could have stood around scratching my butt all day.. *wait a minute.. that's what I do at "work"..*

Poor Missy our little Poodle held out as long as she could, in fact her eyes were floating by the time she insisted that we let her go out.. then she stood bracing herself against the battering wind as her ears twirled like helicopter blades on each side of her head.. then when she "went" I pray that she was facing the wind and not with her back to it.. if you get my drift.. *why does the line "don't shit into the wind, and don't mess around with Jim" seem so appropriate?*

The money pit that is our dog..

Our dog, Missy, has been having some problems with her girl parts.. she's been itchy and the fur around there has been coated with her urine and has become all gunky.. eww.. so we took her to the vet and got her looked at and also to have her nails trimmed.. $75.00 later we found out that she has an infection down there.. also her breath is really bad so we have to take her in to get her teeth cleaned again.. That can be really expensive because she has to be put to sleep to do it.. when she's out we want to have some moles removed from her ear, and legs (Poodles are prone to those type of growths) so I would imagine we won't get away from that particular appointment for less than $200. or so.. but she's our baby and we can't let her get sick with gum infections.

Also we are still trying to get some weight off of her.. so we decided to increase her dry diet food a bit and cut out her evening wet food and drastically cut back the amount of wet food we give her in the AM.. just giving her enough to put her glucosamine tablets in. I was surprised and how quickly she realised that she wasn't getting any table scraps from me any more.. she's a pretty sharp cookie.

Deleted My Other Two Blogs

I decided to give my other two blogs the old heave ho.. gotta get lean and mean..

Money..

They say money can't buy happiness and money is the root of all evil.. but I'd like to try and prove them wrong.. anyone have any money that I can use for this very important experiment?..

Our mortgage is opening up again and we have the option to borrow some money against the value of the house to consolidate some of our bills.. but we are unsure on whether to do that or not.. granted the interest is lower overall but we would be spreading it over a longer period of time and there are costs to getting the money (around $750.00) and we would only be able to get enough to pay off some of our bills, not all of them.. so we are on the fence about the whole thing.. On one hand it would ease some of the money stress but would be be trading it off for a long term debt, say for 10 years.. but then again we aren't making too big a dent in the debt but are slowly paying it down so I don't know.. We have a few weeks to decide because our mortgage opens up the end of March.

The Definition of Love...

With Valentines day come and gone I've been contemplating the meaning of love.. I would say that I'm in a loving relationship.. me and my partner, R., have been together for what will be 7 years in July.. that's longer than a lot of marriages.. so the day of St. Valentine got me thinking.. Why does R. love me?.. and he obviously does because he puts up with my whining which has become more frequent and loud since my various health problems have put me in a snarky, whiny, moaning frame of mind of late.. what's the attraction?.. I had gained over 25 pounds since we met (and so had he come to think of it).. we've, since this time last year, managed to take off the 6 years of blubber we had accumulated due to showing our love through our stomaches.. I guess if my love for him hadn't diminished because of his growing waste line then why should his for me?.. but I have observed that men are more visually stimulated then women.. but I guess my limited knowledge of the opposite sex is just that .. limited.. and the meaning of love is beyond my grasp.. but not the love itself.. so I guess I shouldn't over analyse it or I might miss out on the actual experiencing of it..

Took a storm day...

Was supposed to go back to work today for at least half a day.. but it was storming and they closed the schools and some of the Gov't offices (not ours but since I live in the country I thought.. ain't gonna happen)... I figured that the drive in would tense up my hip and set me back so I took a storm day.. so I've been off of work for two weeks and a day.. and I realised something.. I could retire tomorrow and not look back.. I'm beginning to hate my job again... this happens every few years.. I have a love/hate relationship with my place of employment.. and presently I'm deeply in hate..

Was talking to one of my sisters today and was informed that I have cancer... hmmm... that one slipped past me completely.. apparently another one of my sisters heard from one of my nieces who heard it from her mother (who I was talking to) who I apparently told that I was full of sores all over my body and this final sister at the bottom of the chain figured out that I had cancer... ever play that game when you were kids where you whisper a sentence in someone's ear and have them whisper it in another's ear down the line and then get the last person to repeat what they were told out loud and laugh about how much the story had changed?.. well I ain't laughin'.

Our family loves to gossip.. I have honestly been trying to break myself of that habit but old habits die hard. Sometimes I hear myself telling someone something I overheard and feel that old adrenaline rush of "the secret". Then afterwards shake my head and feel ashamed of myself. Why do I do that? Spilled secrets have a way of returning to you and biting you in the butt.. hey.. maybe that's what's wrong with my hip.. my karma turned around and bit me.