Ketchup 3 - February Edition

I am here. I have just been slammed with work. So here are tidbits of whats been going on for the last couple of weeks. I am still trying to catch up with my reader.

1. Valentine's Day didnt suck this year. Had some amazing food and thoughtful gifts. That didn't get paid out of my checking account.
2. Have tickets to see Blake Shelton tonight and no one to go with. And I actually paid for these tickets!
3. Painted my new room at my new house.
4. Got new shiny furniture for my new room.
5. Falling in love with a hobbie again.
6. Excited about this move thing.
7. Panic Attacks down.
8. Things still in the shitter with the fam. Trying to help them though.
9. Paying for a gym membership that I haven't been going to.
10. Things are going surprisingly well with LJ and I.
11. LJ's grandma and aunt sent me V-day presents! How cute is that!
12. I am sending back the thank you cards today within a reasonable amount of time.

I swear I will craft a real post soon. Anyone want to add a line of their own?

May the Spirit be with me

For anyone who's not Roman Catholic today is Ash Wednesday. For Lent we are supposed to give up something we like. Okay, so I am not a really great Catholic but at least I am trying. Anyway, I finally figured out what I am giving up. All sugary drinks. I don't drink Coke or Diet Coke or any other type of dark soda but if there is a Fanta or a Crush around I am all over it. Since I don't drink a lot of soda in general you would think this wouldnt be much of an issue. Except I love lemonade. I could have lemonade all day. So day one 1 and I went to whole food and and bought Metro Mint Lemon Water and gah... not good. I think its also b/c I am not much of a mint lover. I am trying to find new alternatives on what to drink that doesnt have sugar and I won't drink anything with fake sugar thanks to this book.

Any ideas on what I should be drinking? Oh, I am already stocking up on Republic of Tea drinks. Yum!


P.S. I swear I have some real posts coming up. Like the music swap... I didnt forget about you Sparkel.

Bathroom Revelations

Dear whoever uses the big stall before me.

Dude, double check to make sure there are no left-overs. It's okay to double flush. That's nasty!

love,

the girl who wants a clean throne.


Dear Girls Talking in the bathroom,

Thanks for stoping your conversation when I walked in. Hopefully it wasn't about me.


Love,
your co-worker


Dear People who walk in when there is someone in one of the stalls,


You never know who is in the stalls or if they are the person that is about to get fired that doesn't know it yet.

Love,
Fortunately not that person

Meet The Parents, Part Dos

I have a habit of calling everyone and their mom when I am driving home from work during the week. Mostly b/c this is the only time I have to sit and not be disturbed by anything else. That and if I sit still too long without any kind of movement I get real sleepy. Especially when it's warm. Does that happen to anyone else?

Since I call everyone and their mom... I called LJ's mom. Turns out I had not lost the the scarf she gave me for X-Mas but I had left it at her house. So we were catching up and she was telling me that her son never calls her just to chat. Of course not. LJ hates to talk on the phone. Hell I am the only person he really even talks to on the phone. I have my own special ringtone on his crackberry *whole 'nother post*,

I think I pointed it out in my last post about meeting the parents that LJ hadn't met my parents and that LJ's mom knew said fact. So when I was talking to her last Friday she asked me if we had finally done that. Fortunately this was a phone conversation vs. say a video conferance or worse an in person. I'm sure she would have liked to have seen the deer in the headlights look that crossed my face at that moment. So I came up with the best thing I could say "As a matter of fact my mom and I were discussing what should be made for dinner when LJ and I come over this weekend."

Not exactly a lie but my mom was kind of like, "do we really have to do it this weekend?" I won't bore you with all the details but here goes: The dinner started later than expected & we stayed there till almost 1 in the morning. My dad and my bf were doing tequila shots and I had a margarita (or 2?) My bf and parents found common ground in making fun of me. Or my lack of domestication. My bf went as far as asking my mom why she never taught me how to cook. My mom fired back " what are you talking about? I still try to teach her how to cook! she just doesn't listen!" Yes LJ that is the life you are looking forward to - undomesticated bliss.

The nice thing (well at least for me) is that since they don't speak the same language so at least I can translate selectively. All in all I think it was a good meet and greet. 

Long Day

My stress levels have been up for the last 24-48 hours and I haven't been dealing too well. It started with a clusterfuck of a mess at work that was partially my fault. The other belonging to another party, but finally we ended up throwing someone else under the bus. Which I feel really horrible about because it's not in my nature to do that in my personal life so why do it in my professional? It was just a matter of logistics and the party that did get thrown down their kind of deserved it and with everything involved we would be on the losing end of it. Anyway not trying to justify it. It happened. I feel like hell about. The fortunate part of it is that it ended up clearing up today *even though it's not even necessary now* but at least now we wont be under a time crunch. Oh and I got chewed out by one of my superiors in front of 3 peers. Fun. This was the biggest fuck up I have ever had in this job.

On top of that with my stress levels up it ups all my other emotions. LJ was trying to be supportive and I just snapped at him. On top of that I just hung up on him. I felt bad. It wasn't his fault I just let everything get to me. He normally stays at his place and works late but seeing how upset I was he came right over even after I begged him to stay home and that I would be fine.  I guess thats what a guy does when he really cares about you.  I've been meaning to go see the psychiatrist. Hell I even called last week to make an appointment. They gave me paperwork to fill out before I even show up. I am just using it now as an excuse not to go. Procrastination. My first name. My  middle name. My last name.  Help.

I do have some fun stuff coming up on the horizon. If I could just get out of this funk and stop crying at sad country songs and happy country songs. Damn.

No More Brokeback Mountain?

I just read that Heath Ledger is dead!OMG! Sucks! Just sharing the news.

WTF?

Catching up with the 21st Century

For any of you that have a sitemeter tracker thing and I read your blogs that I visit ALL THE TIME. It's not that I am a stalker or anything - it's just that until today I didn't have an RSS reader. So yeah, your site stats are gonna go down. FYI.

Love,

not really a stalker.

P.S. Will post a real post later.

You actually noticed?

Last night I felt icky from just having a long day and not having any sleep the previous night that I decide to take a shower. I normally shower in the morning to help wake me up and I don't like being cold at night. The only other times I shower in the evenings are when I visit the gym.

The thing about taking a shower at night is that I have no idea what my hair is going to look like in the morning. For work I normally put it in a slicked back ponytail and a little boufant or side swipe thing. It's not very exciting but it gets the job done. I guess I do this so much that people figure I must have questionable hair. The thing is I don't. I have great hair. I normally damn most of the genes that made me but I love the hair I have. Its thick (so thick that I have to have it sheared), it's bouncy and its shiney. My mom has fine curly hair and my dad has thick straw straight hair. So I ended up with big wavy hair. If I put in the effort most women put into their hair I would have pantene hair (super shiney pretty) everyday. I just don't care enough to make that effort on a weekday for work. By me a nice dinner and take me out for the evening and I will do it. ;)

So since I woke up kind of late this morning I decide against my usual slicked back 'do and decided to go for the free flowing hair. A little bit of Rusk Anti-Frizz and a little bit of Biosilk (yes I know its the devil but I like the smell) and I was good to go. Mind you I didn't style or even bother to brush my hair to go to work today. When I walk in the first thing my boss says "wow, your hair looks nice. very natural." This coming from a guy who won't notice a fly on his nose. Sometimes I can't take a compliment and all I said was " I didn't brush my hair this morning, but I did use product!"

So I am feeling pretty good about my hair today just b/c I remember I was watching Miss America-Reality Check ( brain fluff I know) and they made a comment about one of the contestants that didn't feel comfortable in her own skin after they made a comment to her about being so pretty with the natural curl in her hair and how they don't like the fact that she is representing this attitude in a beauty pagent.

So I love me and my natural hair. And my styled hair. And the genes that made my hair what it is today. Maybe one day I will post a picture of me with my hair down to my butt (from when I was a kid or from high school).

*Pantene Hair Swoosh*

As good as Britney's Mom

If you are a sane person you wouldn't ask Britney Spear's mom for teenage parenting advice right? So then why would you ask the person with the worst track record for relationships - relationship advice? It's worse than the blind leading the blind. It's the blindman telling the blind woman that he can see. It's not the blind woman's fault that she got lied to. Yet they both fall off the cliff together.

Speaking of Britney I heard that she was looking at house's over by where I work. No thank you. Stay on your side of LA. We don't need anyone else out here that is a shitty driver with a car that is worth more than what your mom made in 5 years before she started pimping you out running over our pedestrians and causing traffic jams to watch train wrecks.

Seriously. Go away, don't look back. We don't want you here.

What's in the bag?

I got this bag a couple of weeks ago at Forever 21. It's not a place I would normally shop but the accessories are kind of cool. I like this bag b/c it has studs all over it which makes it a little more edgy than my regular Coach bag.

Starting from top left:

Coach business card holder: b/c you never know when you are going to do business.

My Keys: Including the tag to the gym and a little flashlight.

Coupon holder: I have a habit of just dropping paper into my bag, I figured this would help with that instead. Part of my new years organiztion.

Wallet: I bought this Wallet at Forever 21 as well to go with the purse. The cool thing about it is that it has a wrist strap to go with it.

Pink Case: Nope it's not for a retainer. It's actually a mouthguard. I drive so much just in my regular commute that my Dentist recommended that I actually wear it when I drive so I don't grind my teeth as much. At least its not huge. It only goes up halfway up my teeth and its custom-made. 

My Life - My Phone: This is Pocket PC 6700. Its actually a huge phone but I am such a text message junkie that I need something with a full keyboard and a touch-screen.

Notebook: Also part of my NY Resolution, so I can remember stuff I keep forgetting. Also thinking of doing Stephanie's Idea.  Hence the heart stickers on the inside. I like stars but I also love hearts.

Ipod: Project Red. I got it for free as part of my purchase of my Mac. I had a 30 GB on top of this one but it kicked the bucket a couple of months ago.

Sudoku: my addiction. I always carry a book with me. I particularly like this one b/c it has a hard cover and a spiral on the inside. I could get the digital version of it on my phone but its not the same. Yes, I do it in Pen.

Lancome Lip Gloss in Heatstroke: It just looks pretty on my lips it goes with any lip color really.

So there you have it, what I drag around in my purse everyday. 

They like me! They really really like me!

Before we went to see LJ's family in Idaho for Christmas he knew I was super nervous. Honestly, I have had really bad experiences meeting the parents of significant others. I know most of the reasons behind their not liking me are not my fault (the fact that I am not white, that I came from a working class family that I dug my self up from, the fact that I am not mature enough to handle children that aren't my own), but they still bother me. 

So when it was even mentioned that he wanted me to meet the family instead of being excited I got really anxious. Anxious to the point that I didn't even know if I wanted to meet them.  I think b/c LJ sprung the Christmas trip on me out of nowhere probably helped a lot in the sense that I wouldn't get all worked up before going up there. The trip turned out awesome.

Anyway, I wondered if his family really liked me or if they were just being nice since I was there with their "Golden Boy". Then this week we received a card from his grandma. The card was actually addressed only to me which LJ thought was a little strange. His grandma was talking about how LJ and I met and was hoping for luck for her son.  Along with the letter she sent a religious Catholic Metal and a prayer card. Did I mention his family is super-Catholic and the first thing that came out of his grandma's mouth when she heard that I was too is "Wonderful!"

If they didn't like me they wouldn't send letters after the fact right? Or is it the fact that I sent filet mignon and lobster tails to both parents and grandparents for christmas have anything to do with it? 

Silver-Lined Living

I have known for a while that I would be moving from my current casa. I love my place but at the same time it is lacking a lot of things that I am looking for. I found a new place accidentally with a new friend K. I met K at my nail place that I've been going to forever. We are near the same age, work for competing companies & have the same style. We exchanged phone numbers to hang out on a future occasion. We ended up hanging out a week ago and we were talking about our living situations and she has an extra room for rent. 

When I originally started looking for a place I didn't consider even having a roommate. I have gotten used to living by myself. You know the being able to run around nekkid, my own food in the fridge and no one else making a mess. But what do you do when the perfect place comes and smacks you in the face? This place has everything I have been looking for and then some. I even made a comment a week before to LJ saying "wouldn't it be nice if I could find a place with a fireplace?" I now have one in my room.

So it wasn't what I was originally looking b/c of the roommate but I am trying to look at the brighter side of things. I will be paying half of what I pay in rent now, I will be living in a way better less crowded neighborhood, I have real parking that I don't have to pay extra for, its closer to the freeway, and did I mention that I will be paying half of what I am paying now?

Also as part of my new years "resolution" the whole chick friends thing this might be a good thing. She is a single girl with more girl friends than I do. She in general is more social than I am. She has even mentioned throwing parties and other shennanigans. She went to Vegas this weekend on a whim. So I think she will be a good addition to my current friends. 

Lets hope this all works out and I am not looking for a new place less than 6 months from now. 

*knock on the screen* Anyone out there?

So turns out it's National Delurking Week, A little late but let's give this a go. Most if anybody is out there is b/c I have been making an effort to stop lurking so much. I always wondered if anyone comes back and reads my blog. So this week is your week. Show the love everyone! *Please, pretty please, with a big cherry on top*

So you have something to say here are a couple of questions from me to you:

Your Name/URL
Your shoe size (to see if we shoe mates), who makes your favorite shoes.
Where you are from.

*Cheers!*

New Year 2008

First week of the new year has given me a little bit of time to digest what will be happening . I am not setting new years resolutions because I know I won't stick to them. I just need to live my life in the way I know will be in my best interest. So here are some things I will be focused on.

1. Apartment: I have decided to leave my current apartment. Don't get me wrong its great and has a lot of what I am looking for but it's still missing a lot of things that I really want. That and it is way over market. Since I have time till my lease is up I am taking my time to look at things. I already found a perfect place only problem is it belongs to another girl who wants a roommate. What to do? What to do? Do I want a roommate again? With such a perfect apartment landing in my lap?
2. Health: So the 14 lbs. I lost I gained back and lost again. And a little bit more! Yay! I am paying out the wazoo right now for the gym so I intend on using it. Along with that I am still seeing my therapist who will be referring me to the psychiatrist for meds. At least I know I need help. Between the 2 things I am working on I think I will be happier in a few months. Depression and anxiety aren't fun.
3. Work/School: So this 10 year program is not cutting it. I have been in school to long and doing one class at a time sucks. With me moving and paying off my car it leaves me a with a lot less expenses which will ease up my stress of having to work so much. Depending on what work does I may just go back to school full time. Then again it could totally upswing and I could be making a lot of money again and school gets put back for another year. Why can't I be one of those super people who can work full time and go to school full time? Well I could but I would want to kill myself and not have any kind of social life. I don't have a real need for the piece of paper b/c I am pretty well skilled in my business, I have a ton of experience and I make more money than a lot of new people with degrees. But I know if I ever want to move on up that I need to finish school unless I want to end up on a dead end.
4. Relationship: So I think I should give the BF a name instead of just the BF. He is LJ. LJ and I are trucking along in relationship bliss. I can't really forsee what is going on in our future. We talk about the future a lot but sometimes I think it's just me talking out of my butt. When it comes to relationships I am far more experienced than he is even though he is almost 4 years older than I am. I am so used to being on a real fucked up relationship super highway that being in a normal speed flowering non-drama relationship is still a little odd to me. I think I need to stop putting pressure on myself (and I am sure on LJ too unconciously) about where this relationship should be. It's not a race. Most of my friends have already been around the track once. It's okay for me to just be tying up my shoelaces and seeing everyone go by and sprint when I am only ready for the warm-up jog. If you don't do the warm up jog you end up on the side of the track with a pain in your side b/c you tried too hard or worse you completely fall out of the race. I don't want to fall out of the race with LJ.
5. Friends: I am making an honest effort to have more girlfriends. I came to realize that I lost a lot of friends when I was in my last relationship for a number of reasons. First my guy "friends" had ulterior motives and I knew it. Yet I still kept them as friends until they came to realize that I wasn't going anywhere with them. Then I lost a lof friends to having kids. Mind you I love kids but its kinda hard to balance a kid on your hip and drink out of a beer mug. Girlfriends are hard to come by when you live so far from where you are working and just meeting genuine people in LA/OC is hard. Let's hope I have better luck this year with that. I'd also like more blogging friends. Probably would help if I didnt lurk so much and actually commented on the blogs I read. I'm trying though.

Meet the Parents

Even though I am not over every illness that I have contracted within the last week or so, I figured I should write this post while it was still not past the expiration date on the carton.



So last Saturday night/ Sunday morning at 1 am the bf and I head to bed. The following conversation ensues:



BF:I wonder how much tickets to the Idaho are?

Me: An arm and a leg.

BF: Go grab your laptop and lets check it out.

Me: You are on crack.

*checked*

Me: They are too expensive.

BF: I guess they are. But if we could go what days would you want to go?
Me: Leave Sunday come back late christmas day.

* I fall asleep*

3:30 AM:

BF: I got tickets!
ME: WTF?
BF: We have to be at LAX by 7:20 AM.
ME: WTF?

Because this trip was not planned and you know you don't need planning when you go from Sunny Southern California to just south of the Canadian border. The first thing was "OMG its Cold." I didnt know what to expect up there. BF hadn't told anyone in his family that we were coming up so when we got to his parents house his mom almost dropped the phone she was talking on, his grandma cried and his aunt tried to rile him up by saying "You know it means something when you bring a girl home to meet your family for the holidays."

The next couple of days were filled with lots of family lots of homemade food and lots of drinking. BF's mom was like "you know we normally don't drink every night of the week here, it just happens to be working out that way." BF's dad has his own classic rock band and the last night we were there they set up in the shop and rocked out for us. BF's mom and I agreed that BF's dad was like a little kid at a school recital running around shaking his hands saying "look at me mom! Look at me!"

Since no one knew BF was coming much less me, I could tell that we got some slapped together last minute gifts. It's cool though. I can't blame them, I did get something cool from his mom. She gave me a bar of lotion from Coldwater Creek. His grandma gave me silver earrings and both of them gave me scarves.

Just for the record... his mom made best prime rib... EVER! Also I was running fevers the whole time. I just got a fever blister last night. I also got the stomach flu last night. That was not fun. I've been lightheaded for a couple of days. All this stemmed from the trip.


Before we left his parents asked "So you guys will be up for 4th of July right?"

For the love of shoes!

I love shoes... I'm surprised I haven't done more posts about my love of my feet dressings. Anyway, I just saw something horribe. A pair of my shoes... called horrible on What Not to Wear!

I have a real post to write too but I don't have the brain power currently. Will come back this weekend and do it. 

Cheers!

Christmas? What Christmas?

So I am not a big fan of Christmas. Haven't been for the last 6 or so years. Why? Did Santa not come one year? Did I gain 10 lbs. from one christmas? Was I the last one to the chocolate box and found that only the (nasty) fruit ones were left? Not so much.

The first year I moved out of my parents house everyone ditched me for Christmas and Thanksgiving. Everyone meaning all of my friends, my family and my then boyfriend. Since then I am normally a grouch about the whole holiday season. Last year was the first year I spent thanksgiving with the family and I think it was still pretty disasterous in the sense of uncomfortable silences and people leaving early because they just couldnt take looking at each others faces anymore.

This year with the family stuff going on my dad is out of town, my brother is not around and well my mom... I will at least be spending part of it with her but even I am not sure how that is going to turn out. The rest of the time will be spent with the boyfriend.

Very few people got christmas gifts from me this year. I have been spending way too much money in general. I got an awesome gift for the bf and I got something for my client. I am still working on my parents and something for one of the girls from work (also now a good friend). I am dreading the whole shopping thing still. The malls are zoos here. Fuck. I don't want to go.

Can we really just pretend Christmas never happened? And never will again?

Final Prayers

So as much as I am trying to be upbeat today, today really sucks. Found out last night that my grandma is on her deathbed. My dad flew down this morning and will be there through Christmas. The prognosis isn't good. They already went to go find the priest to say the final prayers and at this point there is nothing we can really do. I don't even have a passport to fly down there. When my granddad passes I will fly down. The guy I work for asked me how I was doing and I said in a really flat voice that my grandma is dying. I don't even think he heard me.

Oh well, shit happens. *Where's my drink?*

Good in the World

It's nice to see real life people getting good stuff happening to them, for example - Stephanie. OR at least overhearing about it at Dawn's. *crooked smile* Hope everyone has something awesome happen to them today.

Medicated

So I am not sure if it is b/c the stresses I have had lately on the daily bases or of its just an ongoing thing that I have been avoiding dealing with because well, I can. Yesterday I read this post on Dooce and it got me thinking.

I've been previously medicated on at least one of the following medication: xanex, celexa, lexapro, klonopin for long periods of time. When I fell off of them it was not by choice. I just couldn't afford them anymore when I quit my job, lost my insurance, broke up with my boyfriend and was unemployed while renting an apartment that I couldn't afford by myself.

I originally ended up in therapy and on meds b/c I had anxiety about driving. I refused to drive for 3 months. In July 2002 I got in a pretty bad car accident and ended up in the hospital for a week. They ended up feeding me steroids b/c they couldn't figure out if I had gotten seizures or if I was having PTSD. They had all the psych interns come and check on me everyday. They did the steroids as a preventative measure. Preventative measure ended up costing me 100 lbs. in 10 months. When I told my doctor "I am gaining 10 lbs in a month, what should I do?" her response was "Quit eating so much Carl's Jr." I've lost some of the weight since but I am nowhere near what I once was. The first year I could blame the weight gain and that I was trying to get it off. 5 1/2 years later it should be gone. I am just fat now.

Anyway, since that whole thing blew through and I got back on the horse I have been doing pretty okay. I haven't had any major catastrophes that have thrown me into a tailspin. Okay maybe I have but I haven't let myself hit rock bottom again. That's why I am seeing my therapist, b/c I could feel it coming on. If I had been medicated for the last say 2-3 years would I be doing a lot better? In some ways I am ashamed at the fact that I know I need meds yet I haven't gotten help again. I know what it feels like not to be walking on egg shells. Not let some little thing that you know is not that big of a deal be so overwhelming that you end up not doing it because of all the ridiculous anxiety you have built up around it beyond the usually anxiety you get with something new. I want that again. I have spoken about it to my therapist about going to the psychiatrist to get meds. She says its my choice she is not going to make me. I think I am finally gonna do it. I think I will feel better about the whole thing. Or at least I hope.