Sunday, October 28

time for a change

I'm pretty bored the look of my blog so I'm thinking about doing some renovations. Of course there's not a whole heck of a lot you can customize with these templates like you can with some other hosting sites, but just the same I'm going to give it a shot.



So, if I disappear, you'll know what happened.



I hope I'm not opening a can of worms with this one.

**Update: Well, that's it for now. I'm just glad I didn't lose the whole thing in cyberspace.**

Saturday, October 27

duck & cover

I don't post much about work, and there's a good reason for that. I work with a bunch of cliquish, entitled freaks. Now don't get me wrong here. There are people that work at the same company as I do who are some of my best friends. But the group I work with - they're a whole different breed.


There's this big ass deal about safety where I work, and the safety nazis in my building really, really go overboard with it. They conduct monthly walk arounds of the cubicles making sure we are being safe. They stop you in the hallway and remind you it's corporate policy to have a lid on your drink. They politely request that you take the elevator instead of the stairs if you are carrying something in both hands. And then there's the quarterly mandatory safety audits.


During our Monday staff meeting our head safety nazi informed us we were having an earthquake drill sometime later in the week. You would have thought we were asked to prepare for the Miss America pagent or something with all the questions being asked. "What do we do if we're in a conference room?" "What if I'm in the elevator?" "What about if I'm in the shower?" "If I'm outside, where do I go?" OMFG!! Are you serious? Have you not ever participated in an earthquake drill or an actual honest to god earthquake before? As always, the safety nazis took all these questions seriously and set out to get the answers.


A couple of days later we get an email detailing what we should do if we are here or there or wherever during the drill. We were also given the day and time of the drill because, ya know, we need to plan accordingly since major disasters such as earthquakes give us time to prepare during the actual event. Uh, yeah! My favorite answer of all was to the question "What if I'm in the elevator?" If you find yourself in the elevator during the earthquake drill, wait for the elevator to reach your floor, step out of the elevator and huddle against the nearest wall holding your hands over your head. Are you serious?? Yeah, because during a real earthquake the elevator is going to function flawlessly and actually arrive at your destination. Gack!!


The day of the drill finally arrived. And so did the predetermined and announced time.






(silence)






(blink blink)






Several minutes after the scheduled time and obnoxious siren blares at ear deafening levels. And then, the voice. Someone actually droned on for several minutes providing instructions of what to do, where to go and whatever else they wanted us to hear while they had us captive under our desks, conference room tables, sinks, doorjambs, etc. And then it was over. Not a single safety nazi walked around to see if anyone was complying with the drill. WTH?






(blink blink)

Wednesday, October 24

what to say?

Well, I went and did it! One week from tomorrow NaBloPoMo begins. And, yes, this year I decided to {officially} take the challenge. If you're not familiar with NaBloPoMo it's an exercise in torture that we bestow upon ourselves during one of the busiest times of the year - posting something on our blogs every day for the entire month of November.

Now some of you may not think that sounds like torture at all because you've got your shit together and post every day all year long. No matter what. To you I say "Whatever!" Some of us aren't all anal and shit about posting the crazy little details of our lives. And some of us just don't lead that exciting of lives to have all sorts of stuff to say every day. <--- this would be me!

So this is where you, my fun, exciting, crazy, chatty readers come swooping in and save the day, or days if I'm lucky! I need topics to blog about during the month of November. They can be anything. A burning question about me you've been dying to ask. A burning question that has nothing to do with me whatsoever but you want to ask me because you value my opinion so much. Maybe you want one of my yummy recipes?

Whatever you come up with I promise to try to use during NaBloPoMo. So don't leave me hangin' in the breeze. Please.

Sunday, October 21

sunday seven

Seems like the week's gone by and I haven't gotten around to posting - again. {sigh} Several of the blogs I read have Sunday posts that sort of wrap up the week on topics that don't necessarily have enough meat to be stand-alone posts of their own, so I thought I'd go ahead and make a Sunday Seven. So, without further delay, here's a few items from the past week I thought I'd share.

1. Why is it every time we have a weather pattern a bit out of the ordinary that sweeps through the area they have to come up with some stupid ass name for it? This one was named something completely lame like The Big Wind of 2007. Uh, duh! There was a lot of wind, and it was big, but c'mon. Can't you come up with anything a bit more creative? The only good thing about this one is the kiddo's school lost power and after about 30 minutes decided to close school for the day so I got an afternoon off work. Of course that made for a pretty busy Friday catching up from what I'd not done Thursday afternoon, but whatever.

2. Boo! Eek! Trick-or-Treat! The house is finally decked out in all of Halloween's glory complete with pumpkins, skeletons, spiders, webs and lights. I usually get things going before it gets this late but being that the half of my garage not housing my car is full of crap all over the floor keeping me from getting a ladder close enough to the shelves to get to the Halloween box and the fact that I won't get on a ladder if I'm the only one home for fear of falling off and cracking my head open (which some days wouldn't probably be so bad except I'm afraid the blood oozing out would mat my hair and I'd look unpresentable when found some days later) I figured if it didn't get done today, I might as well just scrap it this year.

3. I hang out with the craziest group of girls at work. The other day one of them started talking about feet. Ewww! One of the lesser known things about me, and one I've probably never discussed here, is my absolute abhorrence for feet. Seriously. I know it's weird but I loathe looking at the bare foot. It just creeps me out. Try and make me touch it and I'll scream like a little girl. Yuck! Anyway, back to my crazy friends. One started talking about feet and I cringed. She's the one who likes to find the little things that bug is and ride us about it. I'd hoped they'd never find out my dislike, but now that they know feet seem to come up in conversation just as much as poop, snakes and grasshoppers - the other phobias of the group. Yeah, I know. We're a weird bunch!

4. I was gonna do Hilly's Phraseology game, but I seriously don't have a clue what words I use more frequently than others. I'm sure some of you could tell me (and probably will), so go for it!

5. This last week I've been hooked on tea. And not just any tea. Trader Joe's spice tea. It's kind of like chai spice tea, but not exactly. I find myself craving it around 10am and then again around 2pm, both of these being after my morning pot of coffee. It's so yummy with a bit of sweet (either Equal or honey) and a splash of milk. Yum!

6. I had good intentions to go see The Nightmare Before Christmas this weekend but didn't quite make it.

7. And last but not least, the drama that I've been dealing with for the past 5 months and not talking about here is slowly taking baby steps in the right direction. This is a HUGE relief to me and my body's already reacting to the release of pressure by completely falling apart. It's amazing how we can keep pushing ourselves when needed but given the opportunity to relax even the slightest bit, it's all over.

Sunday, October 14

right or left?

Do you ever have one of those moments when you're going about your ususal routine and all of a sudden stop to analyze it? No!? Okay, maybe I'm just a freak, but it happened to me last week and it's been on my mind ever since.

It all started the other morning when I sat down on the edge of the bed to put my socks and shoes on. Halfway through pulling my left sock up (right sock already on) it hit me. Do I always put my right sock on before my left? And what about my shoes? Do they have a special order too?

Apparently they do, and so do many other activities in my life as I discovered throughout the week. For example, my hair. I realized I always start drying my hair on the left side of my head before the right. Even the brushing and straightening starts on the left. Walking up or down a flight of stairs I always start with my right foot. And when I brush my teeth, it's the left side that gets to enjoy their cleaning first.

Being that I'm right handed I would have assumed that everything I do would start on the right, but as you can see from the list above, it simply isn't true. The one activity I found that isn't always the same (but at least 95% of the time) is getting out of bed. The right side is the leader on this one, but every so often the left side gets a turn.

Now that you know for sure I'm a freak, and possibly even have a few OCD tendencies, why not observe yourself and see if there's a pattern to your activities? I can't possibly be the only one thinking about this. Besides, now that I've implanted the idea in your brain you'll be consciously noticing your idiosyncracies whether you want to or not. You're welcome for that!