On Any Sunday

Yeah, that was me... working on a Sunday.  Isn't it funny how you have a whole day figured out, what you need to do, how to do it, how much time it will take -- only to have your entire plans changed by someone in management???   I figured I could do what needed to be done, plus a little extra, in five hours. Needless to say, I could have worked a full eight and still not have been done!  But.  I refused to sit through a lunch hour on a day when I wasn't scheduled to work a full day.....   Instead, I came home to my fav breakfast meal:  Peanut Butter on Toast.   I love creamy, melty PB on warm toasted wheat bread.  :)


The rest of my day was spent sitting.  Laying.  Squirming.  Moving again.   I was trying to ease a pain in my foot.  Something in the arch of my foot has tensed up, and there's a knot.  Sometimes it takes hours for it to relax and go away.  Today, I tried a version of BenGay on it.  Then tied a heating pad around it.  I laid on my side.  I elevated my leg.  I even got up and tried to do some stretches.  I have a little ball with knobby's all over it, it vibrates, I roll my foot around on it.  That helped a little as well.  It took about 5 hours for the pain to subside enough that I felt I could toss dinner in the oven, take out the recycle trash, and run Sadie around the back yard for a few minutes.  (I like to wear her out before I crawl into bed... otherwise she tends to keep me awake... )

I spent some time chatting with some folks last night.  Again, I felt the resentment of time lost where I could be doing other things.  But at the same time, it was good for me to have actual conversations with someone other than #AzSadieThePug.  lol

No time for photography today.  And it looks to be a very busy week.  I don't want that at all.  I just want to go in, do my time and go home!   I've been trying to figure in my mind just how to work this week.  I thought perhaps I'd go in, do my thing and then dash over to another store to give them some help they requested.  I'm not sure just how much needs doing over there, so I'd like to know and be prepared for the rest of my week.  I was promised to them on Thursday, around 8am, but when I flipped my calendar, I found I've a doctor's appointment for a physical that day.

I'm not looking forward to that at all.  Mostly because I'm embarrassed that the pounds I managed to lose have come back.  I didn't stick with my regimen of healthy eating, or of going to the gym every day.  But dammit!  It's so not fair sometimes.  I wear a pedometer from time to time and I walk the equivalent of about 6 miles a day for my job.  I also walk my dog every morning half mile.  A year ago, I was also spending an hour a day, five days a week, in the gym.   Along with staying under 1600 calories.  And that was just to maintain my weight.  To lose weight, I had to up the gym time to 90 mins, and cut back 200 calories a day.  Well..... excuse me, but that's not much of a life!   Get up before dawn, walk the dog, head for work, walk on my feet for 9+ hours, then get all hot n sweaty in a gym.  Head home only to make supper, clean up a bit, play with Sadie, hop in the shower and tumble into bed.   We all talk about Quality of Life.... well, what's the quality in that????    yeah,  I don't think the doc will agree with those as excuses either.   *sigh*

We shall see.  I'm more concerned with making sure I'm healthy in a good way, get my annual colonoscopy, and keep the dreaded "C" word out of my vocabulary.

Hope everyone has a better week than mine is shaping up to be.
Keep Smiling!  I am :) :) :)

Happy Saturday!

Here it is, Saturday morning.  Only one day off this weekend, back to work on Sunday.  I am filling in for one of my guys who is on vacation.  I'll be working in a different area of my BigBox store, but I'm looking forward to it.  I'm going to try making a few changes, nothing drastic!, to try and improve the work flow in one area.   I'm just going to come right out and say it:   While men get the job done, sometimes they're not too organized about it.   :P   maybe what I do will make a difference.  I hope so.


I'm sitting here trying to decide what to do with my day.  It's a relatively cool morning, but it's going to be a hot day.  I need to do my laundry for the week, and I have things to pick up at the library.  Of course, grocery shopping is on the list as well.  It will feel like a busy day!

I should get started, but I'm resting up a bit. Sometimes you need that extra hour or two of sleep!  Funny thing is, when I take an extra two hours in the morning, I'm still up before 7am. lol   Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend :)

Thoughts

Ok.  A study of ME today, lots of interesting thought... Well, interesting to me. hahaha  I was busy chatting like I used to do, and found myself a little resentful afterward.  It took away my time to write, to work on photos.  I found that I like to catch up, but not a lot of detailed chatting is necessary any longer.  But that goes against the other part of me that at times feels lonely, no one to talk to here in the house.

I know, I know, its all balance.  Finding the right person(s) and the right amounts of talk to satisfy without overwhelming.    That all sounds a little weird to me.  But there's a reason for feeling this way.  I am an empath.  Not full blown, but still an empath with people I make a connection with.  If you're not familiar, you're probably saying "what???"

Hm. How to explain.  When I am around people, I am very sensitive to their emotions.  What they feel affects my own emotions.  And I can't deal with too much of that, it's overwhelming.  But what's worse, when I have a special connection with a good friend, someone I care about, I can feel what they feel in a way.  My friend, Helen, when her feet are bothering her a lot, mine feel it too.  When my mom has a very bad back, my back hurts too.   This can become bothersome at times, and is one of the reasons I tend to avoid crowds, or too many people.   I even avoid malls for this as well.  I haven't always been this way, but have become more attuned to it as I get older.

So... the overall lesson for me is this:
find the right balance.
set limits.
When those are reached,
be strong and call an end to it.  
And relax.  *laughing*
 lately, my "relax" is with an episode of Frasier...
Sadie has a crush on Eddie, the dog!

Gym Rat, Part 327

Just a shorty note today ... it was an uneventful day overall.  My BigBox store fed the employees sub sandwiches with chips and soda to celebrate being accident free for 60 days.  Accidents are a huge cost on a store's bottom line, so every big milestone we are appreciated for working safe.   It's a nice gesture, IMO.

I have committed myself to going to the gym again.  Yes, AGAIN.  I think I've "started over"  326 times already!  Today was day #2, and it felt really good.  I zipped out two miles on the elliptical, then some resistance training.  It's funny, I assumed that after being "'out of my game" for a while, I would use less weight, be slower on the elliptical, but there must be some kind of muscle memory.  I'm happy for that!  Being sore is no fun!


The hard part for me?  Using time at the gym takes away time from other creative things, like my photography.  It's a balance.  But when weather is cooler again, I'll be able to combine hikes with pix and get exercise with my creative side .... can't wait for cooler temps!

My lil Sadie is being a pest tonight... she's whining around like she's hungry -- but doesn't want to eat her own "real food"  lol  silly dog!

I Can Do It!

Good day, for the most part!

Starting the day off right always helps.
This morning, I dashed out with Sadie for our morning walk.  She paused to sniff out something, and I looked up and saw a shooting star!  And all I could think after I saw it was "do it again, do it again!!!"

Wasn't such a bad day, work wise,
getting lots accomplished makes for a good day.

(This faery is one of my fav prints, btw! )




I have had issues all summer with my feet ... and after studying up on WebMD and other websites, it seems that one of the biggest culprits has to do with chemical/electrolyte imbalance.  So back to Powerade, and eating bananas.  I'm hoping that this will begin helping soon!  It can be very painful having your foot cramp, toes curl up and making it painful to walk.



And yes, I am back at the gym.  My efforts from last year are gone, and now its time to do it all over again.  And I can do this!!   A mile on the elliptical, half mile on the treadmill and 30  mins of weight resistance.  I wasn't sore afterwards -- but tomorrow may be another story! haha  So... a big chug of water and two aspirin before bedtime!!

My mantra:

FWB's

OK.  Friends with Benefits.  Is there a definition of that?  How does it work?  and with whom??

Urban Dictionary says this:  Two friends who have a sexual relationship without being emotionally involved. Typically two good friends who have casual sex without a monogamous relationship or any kind of commitment.

That being said .... here's my story (and I'm sticking to it!)  About six years ago, I found and met up with a man from the internet.  As is always the case with me, we met in daylight, in a public place.  Sorry guys, that's my rules.   We met in a park, took a walk around the park, and attempted to get to know each other.  He'd been in the service, he was recently divorced, and he wasn't looking for any kind of commitment.  I'm sure his thoughts were along the lines that now he was free, he was gonna play the field!

For me, that just doesn't work.  I'm not wired that way, have never been wired that way, and when I tried it a few years back ..... nope, nu uh, I felt cheap and used.  But that's my own issue in my own head, I'm sure.
So, about two years ago, I got a text from this guy.... "Looking for FWB yet?"  Made me chuckle, but I sent back "sorry ..... no".   On Monday, another two years down the road, I got another text ... "Hello Linda.  Your name is in my phone ... have we met?"  First off,  I must not have made much of an impression that he doesn't remember me.  However, it must have been enough of one to keep my number in his phone all this time!!  hah hah   We sent texts back and forth, a little flirting before the big question:  "Looking for FWB?"

I understand now why we never hooked up in the past.  You can't be Friends with Benefits if you're not friends first.  Why do men assume they get the "benefits" without taking time to become friends????

Found this, it summed it up for me.
Gotta be some sort of feelings there first.
I'm not looking for marriage, or forever after,
but there's gotta be some kind of substance.
Who's with me on that???

Weather Forecast

Weather Forecast for today:

40% chance of showers in the Valley of the Sun

100% chance of showers in the backroom at my local BigBox Store!

heheheheheheh

Yep.  Someone hit a sprinkler line with the forklift... and whoooosh, it was raining indoors!  All things considered, just a little water wasted, very little damage to product in the back room, so we're thankful for that.  Spent a good part of my day squeegee-ing water out the back door.  Because it was a sprinkler line, the Fire Department showed up.  Then we had to have an emergency plumber....  quite the excitement!

After all that, I sure didn't feel like working the rest of the day!!!

Rose

When you make your blog more like your personal journal, where do you draw the line?  Just how personal do you get here?  Every thought, desire, whim?  Or just some basic observances on life and love and all that goes with it?  I"ll be pondering that over the next few days, to see where things outta stand.  In the meantime, here's a few updates on life in general:

It's been a year now.  My dad was diagnosed with cancer stage IV metastatic and has been on chemo. They've changed, adjusted, readjusted his medications.  He has had a few breaks inbetween, like not having any in the month of December.  He gets readjusted and his strength and appetite rebuilds.  It's been a wonderful extra year of having him, and I'm so thankful for the many number of times I've been able to dash up and see them on a weekend.  Even though we don't always do something special, or go somewhere, just spending time together, doing things we would normally do, is a pleasure.

This last trip up there, I drove dad to the recycle center.  Me, I just donate my cans to the city and let them haul them away, I didn't think it was worth my time.  But for a 9lb bag of cans, he got nearly $18 !!  So I guess the dollar's worth of gas paid off.  Not my fav place to go, however.  It's run by an oriental family, and on a Saturday morning, boy is it busy!  We had to wait for an 18wheeler to back in, and then another truck before we could even pull in. When you get inside the gate, there's just no space to maneuver your car into or out of a parking space.  People are everywhere, forklifts are dashing to and fro, and other people who are dropping off cans are busy trying to offload from their vehicle into the blue barrels they have ..... yeah. It felt like a madhouse to me!   But it makes dad happy, so .... that's what I do :)

While I was doing this with Dad, my mom wanted to get her roses fertilized for the winter.  Now, my aunt was visiting as well, and volunteered to help out, get the job done, but mom insisted, "Ohhh no, Linda's gonna do it when she gets back..."  hahahaha  I hope I'm as funny as she is when I'm her age!

And mission accomplished,
her roses will be glorious
in the spring, as always!

Does having Readers matter?

So here it is, Sunday night.  Another Monday morning around the corner.
It's been a good day, lots of chores completed, but a few left undone, too.
Spent some time in the pool; sun and water always feels nice.

I'm happily tired, cooked some oven chicken and baked potato.
and did a lot of reading.  Nora Roberts.

I go back and forth about this blog.  I have no readers, no followers.  If I was of a certain sort, I might be saddened by the fact that no one cares enough about what I have to say.... But I don't write for the kudos of others.  I write because its what I need to do.  I am not complete without writing on a daily basis.

With time being the most important commodity we have these days, why take the time to write down the mundane, the thoughts, the little things.  But there may come a day when I'm no longer here, and my words will be discovered, read by my children or grandchildren, and they will come to know the real me through my words.  People as a whole are complex.  There's no way to know everything there is about a person, but if they write and leave things behind, we can have a better understanding.

I am a fan of genealogy, and find myself wishing I knew more than just the basics about my grandparents, great grandparents.  They all came to America, weren't born here.  What did they think?  How did it work out for them?

To my Kids:  with Grandpa Oliver being diagnosed with cancer, and being on chemo for over a year now, we've been lucky and blessed to have this extra year beyond his original prognosis. There are copies of letters I've written to him with some memories about growing up.  They're on the desktop under MSWord.  I'll have to back those up on the external hard drive.  Just in case.  Or maybe I'll have them published.  Wouldn't that be fun??   Grandma has the originals kept in a book for people to look at as well. :)

I'm going to leave it at that for the time being, and of course to keep doing what I do, no matter that anyone else bothers to read these.  Which reminds me:  Time to update my ICE page with details about things, in case of emergency.

Drinks

After a week of catching up on all the usual things that need doing after being on vacation, like chores, I spent the morning taking a walk with Sadie.  We did chores, puttered around with painting some cupboard doors, relaxed watching some Frasier (Sadie loves Eddie!), then went grocery shopping.

Our treat after all of this:  Chipotle!  and a Seagram's Margarita.  One is just perfect for me.  It doesn't take a lot of alcohol - I like the feel of the first drink. Anything after that makes me feel yucky.  Maybe its the dehydration after having more alcohol.  But one's enough :)

Happy Weekend!

#AzSadieThePug

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Let your soul....

From time to time, I get "addicted" to a song, and have to listen to it over and over again.  Tonight, the song was Sting's "Let Your Soul be Your Pilot":

Let your soul be your pilot
Let your soul guide you
He'll guide you well

When you're down and they're counting
When your secrets all found out
When your troubles take to mounting
When the map you have leads you to doubt
When there's no information
And the compass turns to nowhere that you know well

Let your soul guide you upon your way...

Good words, good song, makes you think about things.  Let your soul guide you. What does that mean? I was raised "churched".   The folks made sure I went to church every Sunday.  Not that I minded, it worked back then, and I'm happy for who I am now.  But there was always something i religion that was missing for me.  As a result, I consider myself more of a spiritual sort than part of organized religion.  (I realize that some people need the organized part .... but I digress).  
Being spiritual, there's an inner voice we all have, some hear their voice louder than others.  Call it soul, call it spirit, call it intuition - the label doesn't matter, it's what you do with it that does.  Trust what you've been taught.

When I was a student in Sunday School, part of our confirmation was a Bible verse chosen by our Pastor just for us.  Mine was II Timothy 3:14 :  "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it."   I had good teachers throughout my life, and it's those people who influenced my spirit, my soul, my inner voice.  I trust those to lead me where I need to go.

Let your soul be your pilot.
He'll guide you well.

Almost Friday

They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  Those of this who are over a certain hill have certainly learned this.  Today was a day like that.  I left work early and headed to the mall.  I had an order to pick up, and decided I was in dire need of new shoes for work:  New Balance, of course, because they work well with all the walking on cement that I do.  Mission accomplished, I think these will be great.

Then I actually went INTO the mall for lunch at Paradise Bakery.  For anyone who knows the real me, I don't DO malls.  Walking around and looking at things I don't need, or can't afford, doesn't thrill me any longer.  And I have issues being in crowded shopping malls.  I can deal with them if I know what I'm there for, where it's located, get in and get out.  Yep. That's me normally.  But today I actually enjoyed myself.  Of course, malls are typically quiet at 1pm. lol

Then.  I get home and my son is finally tackling the flat tire he got on his Ezip bike.  The bad news:  his tire is out of round, and there's a broken spoke.  We drove it over to a bike shop, and they don't work on e-bikes.  Now what?  We checked Google for someone local who does repairs, and headed that way.  Oddly, it was just a guy in his garage.... *sigh* ... this doesn't bode well for me.  But there he was, door open, so Brian popped in and the guy actually had the tool needed to remove the smaller sprocket from the wheel.  In the end, he happened to have a replacement wheel but the gears for pedaling don't fit.  Doesn't anyone dare to work on these little bikes?   maybe Brian needs to start his own shop!  Such frustrations.

To top it all off, my feet, my legs and my lower back are all aching this week.
Maybe a little extra rest this weekend.
Here comes Friday!  Whooo Hoo!