It has been a long week. Long. And…long. And yet short. Isn’t that always the way? When you’re in it, you think “how could it only be fifteen minutes? Haven’t I been sitting here for a couple of hours now?” and then all of a sudden you’re all “hang on, it’s time to stop for the day already? What the hell? Where did the time go?” And even though the week has been long and I’m rocking a severe case of Mouse-Shoulder (whoever thought it was a good idea to pair a desk chair with arms and a desk with a slidey outy keyboard tray must have been high), I feel almost nourished by the work I’ve been doing. Okay that’s a weird metaphor. Let’s try a simile. This has been a long week of work, work and…wait for it…more work. I’ve spent all week sitting in our office looking for work, retooling websites and pages (for work, not so much for here) and yet, I feel oddly satisfied–like I just ate a plate full of spaghetti and stopped at just the right moment (happily full but not yet about to barf).
It’s geeky but I truly love working, even when the monetary rewards aren’t flowing in as heavily as I’d like. I like a job well done. I like putting in the work, doing the drafts and implementing feedback. I do! Have you not yet figured out that I am a ginormous nerd?
In completely unrelated asides: I cannot get enough of the Halo/Walking on Sunshine mashup from Glee. It is on repeat in my brain. So is Beyonce’s Single Ladies.
What was I saying?
Oh right, a job well done. I appreciate it. It’s why I’m okay with getting down on my hands and knees to wash the kitchen and bathroom floors the “real” way (pffft, I use my swiffer to clean off my kitchen cabinets and the wall above the shower) every week. It’s why I don’t mind making the bed most days. It’s why I still fold shirts the way I did when I worked as a t-shirt pusher at a certain souvenir shop in a certain hotel/casino in a certain tourist destination. That and, well, you try folding t-shirts for eight hours a day five days a week for two years and see how easily you go back to the non-t-shirt-shop way of folding. It’s why I don’t mind spending a week pulling apart copy and then re-pulling and tweaking and resubmitting and then rearranging and revising one more time. I like going back and looking at my first drafts and seeing how far I’ve gotten the words to come.
Because I’m a nerd! This is what we do!
I’m looking forward to trying the same thing during NaBloPoMo.
Hurry up NaBloPoMo!
And also? I think I’m going to spend the weekend knitting on the couch. Because I keep meaning to pick up the yarn again but instead I’ve spent every evening doing work stuff. Except for last night. Because nothing gets in the way of Grey’s Anatomy in this house.
*The Beatles! Who else?
Is anybody else really looking forward to this year’s NaBloPoMo? I mean, sure they’ve expanded it so you can do it every month if you want and then there’s that whole Blog 365 thing (that I failed MISERABLY in 2008) but for me November is always NaBloPoMo month. And I am really looking foward to it this year. The first year sucked and was hard. Last year it didn’t phase me much at all and this year I’m looking forward to it so that maybe, hopefully, I can get some of my blogging mojo back.
I FINALLY finished two Bloggers’ books: Julie and Julia
Of course, actually being brilliant would probably help a lot.
I have said it over and over again–my problem is not a lack of ideas. It is mostly a lack of confidence to put them in writing–which could be a blog post all by itself. When I can’t sleep I can think of a bunch of things to write about. When I’m out and about there is inspiration everywhere. But then I get home and my inner censor goes “not good enough, the moment has passed, that’s too controversial, don’t tempt fate, that will surely end up with at least one of your in laws on the phone in a snit, don’t write about that – your MOM reads this!” and a bunch of other excuses. So really, the biggest problem is me and my reluctance to grow the eff up and say “you know what? I’m an adult. I pay for this space. It’s mine. If you don’t like what I have to say just don’t read it!”
At least I know what the problem is. Now I just have to grow some balls. Are those available through Amazon do you think? ‘Cause I have a gift certificate…
I didn’t quite mean to give my title a second exclamation point but now that I’m sitting here, it seems kind of appropriate. If you follow me on twitter (and you should, seriously, I’m awesome) you’ll know that we went to Fry’s (the electronics fan’s wet dream). We came home with two monitors. Two big ol’ flat screen HD monitors which means that our computer’s screen is now higher tech than our television–something that Will wants to recifty ASAP; too bad we don’t have anything close to resembling a disposable income or we’d also have found a way to buy a big ol’, flat screen TV.
Will put the monitors up last night and spent a few hours installing things and then, of course, playing World of Warcraft. I figured that I wouldn’t get access to the computer until Monday when Will went back to school but he got called in to work today so I spent the morning re-cleaning up the computer room and then installing some of my own stuff and now I’m blogging!
I have to say that at first I was skeptical about the need for two screens. But today has shown that being able to watch a DVD on one screen while I worked in the other has been pretty nice.
Yay! New computer!
My current template isn’t set up to display the time of my posts so I will just tell you that it is after midnight. It is after midnight and I am still awake. Heck, I’m not just awake. I’m still up and moving around! And so is Will! We got the parts for the fancy schmancy new computer today so Will spent his lunch break and most of the evening putting the CPU together and has been installing things. Of COURSE World of Warcraft is installed already because he “just wants to see how it plays compared to the laptop.” Even though, technically his account is cancelled (finally!) as of the 28th. Anyway, right now he’s having fun trying to get everything perfectly networked even though tomorrow evening he’ll have to unplug it all because he has to hook up the new monitors we still need to buy and he has to move stuff from his old computer to the hard drive and…oh a bunch of stuff that you have to do when you get a new computer that sounds complicated when he says it.
My flu seems to be losing its grip. I still have the stupid cough but it isn’t nearly as bad. That Mucinex DM stuff worked really well (I took a second one when the first wore off to help me sleep through the night. I haven’t yet decided about whether or not I’ll do that tonight. The having to drink a whole glass of water at the same time kind of turns me off from the idea). My energy is slowly returning as well. I did not have to take a nap after washing the dinner dishes tonight. This makes me almost giddily happy because it shows promise for my being able to actually fall asleep tonight. Nothing keeps you up at night like getting too much rest during the day!
Finally, we broke down and bought some Pepsi. But! Before you groan about my falling off the caffeine wagon… it was caffeine free Pepsi! Because! I missed the taste of Pepsi. Even though the caffeine cravings are mostly gone, I’ve missed having soda to drink (which will be my next hurdle, I know) so tonight I broke down and asked Will to bring home a 2-liter of caffeine free Pepsi so I could try it out. It’s all I drank growing up (caffeinated soda was only had at restaurants and out of the vending machines at school until I went to college) and I don’t remember it tasting any different and…hurrah! It still tastes the same! There’s just something about soda… it has the perfect texture-thicker than water but not as thick as juice or milk. Or something.
Back in the world of we have a new computer, the grand total of computers in our house now? Four. Two desktops and two laptops. Except that the (now) old desktop is just barely still running. And Will wants to give my laptop to his Dad because his Dad will not stop complaining about how he wants a new computer. He was “asking” us (to everyone outside this family it would appear more like “ordering” or “telling emphatically that we needed to”) to buy him a new one (incidentally, the man and his wife bring in at least twice as much as Will and I do each month thanks to retirement funds, VA benefits and 401Ks) but has since “agreed” that he only “needs” one of our old computers. And here’s where I’m a completely stereotypical American who has lived in luxury for too long: I am not in love with the idea of giving him my laptop. At least right now. For one thing it would leave me without a computer of my own to play on when Will is using both the desktop and his laptop to “do homework” (aka play games. Don’t laugh, somewhere I think I have photographic evidence of this happening). For another, if there is one person on the planet who does not need constant internet access it is the F.I.L. Seriously. Trust me. Mostly though, it is more of a “why do we have to foot the bill for something he can afford to buy on his own?” issue, especially since Will’s family members are not known for treating their posessions with anything resembling respect. I don’t want to give my beat up old laptop to someone who won’t be nice to it (or for a few other reasons that I shouldn’t document here in case we do end up sending him a computer but can I just say? Ebay addict).
Incidentally, it is because my laptop is older and less advanced than Will’s that is the reason behind it being my laptop to get “given.” If I had the newer computer we’d probably have already sent Will’s laptop away but Will refuses to even consider “giving away” my computer without my giving complete permission (he’s a good man, my husband). At first I was okay with the idea. I mean, sure give him my cat hair clogged Dell. I’ll have a shiny new desktop to play with during the day! And it will get him off our backs for at least a couple of months. But then I remembered Will’s gaming habits and how I like to surf the web while we watch television too. And damn it, why can’t he just buy his own?!?
But still. Poor me. I have too many toys and don’t want to share.
I am so getting visited by a few ghosts this Christmas.
You and I have inhabited the same body for more than thirty years now and I have a question. Why can’t I ever just get a head cold? Why must every sniffle become a cough? Seriously I.S. what’s up? As soon as I started to feel the sniffles take hold last week I swore off dairy. I swore off going outside. I started pounding vitamin C and did my best to eat only healthy well made home cooked foods. And, sure, okay, I did eat a whole bag of Doritos over the course of a couple of days but that’s nothing compared to my usual snacktitude and I had to eat those! Will and I aren’t buying any more snacks until we finish off the snacks we bought for our wedding reception that didn’t get eaten (or opened).
You have to know how irritated I am right now. I woke up this morning thinking “wow! I can breathe! And I didn’t even need to get up in the middle of the night to take a benadryl to get that to happen!” and immediately started hacking. That painful, tight, non crunchy hacking which means that you are simply gearing up for the gravelly coughing and bronchial bark fest that are sure to show up in the next day or two. You know the kind–the kind where I can’t laugh without having a coughing fit?
You do this to me every. single. time I get sick. Not once have I had a 24 hour flu. Not once have I had a small case of the sniffles. Not once have I had a full on head cold that left me feeling sore in the nose but nowhere else.
Look, I know that coughing is how I’m supposed to get rid of the extra germy germs from the flu. I know that coughing is a good workout and that, should this cough run the way most of my chest colds do, I should have some awesome abs in a couple of weeks. But honestly? I’d rather breathe clearly and deeply without it turning into a hacking fit. I’d like to laugh and not have to deal with people rushing to my aid because they think I’m dying (because the chuckle turned into a doubled over coughing attack).
So if you could see fit to let this weird cough thing last just a day or so? I’d be really grateful.
Thanks,
Me.
P.S. If you could also see to it that I can stand up and move around for more than five minutes without needing to take a two hour nap I’d really appreciate it. I have work to do!
I got through the major caffeine withdrawals just in time to come down a cold. Will and I spent most of the weekend sprawled out in the living room moaning and sniffling and snuffling and blowing our noses. Incidentally? When my left sinus gets clogged and I try to keep blowing my nose anyway? I make a noise not unlike a mallard doing an impression of a dial tone. Take a few seconds to imagine what that might sound like. It’s okay to laugh, we did. A lot. It almost became a party trick. You know, if we were up to being around other people.
So that’s what I’ve been doing. Lying around and moaning–first because of the headaches that came from the withdrawal headaches and then groaning because of the flu. I feel mostly better today. Er… well, my brain feels fine. It’s ready to get up and get back to work. But if I’m up for very long my body rebels and all of my energy and focus goes away and I have to lie down for a while. It’s irritating as all hell, but at least I work from home so taking a break to lie down for a while isn’t the hugest deal. Except on my profit margin but I’ll catch up on that in the next few days.
Do you want to hire me to write for you? I’m available!
In completely unrelated news, did you know that Rhapsody has a bunch of the Glee cast recordings?? I’ve been sitting here in the office listening to them and people, I might be getting a little bit obsessed. I am in love with the arrangements on these songs. Maybe it’s my inner choir nerd but I really appreciate a well arranged song. It’s very easy to go cheesy and ew when you try to arrange pop songs for choir and so far I have yet to dislike any of the songs performed by this cast. Good job um…. Glee cast arranger!
Oh and for the FTC: I listen to Rhapsody through a subscription that I will be paying for myself after my free trial (that I signed up for on my own without any prodding from the company) runs out and did not receive any incentive from anybody related to Glee to promote their songs on its service. I just think they’re super cool and I enjoy listening to them. There. That should keep me from needing a lawyer right?
Now that we are married quite a few of our relatives and friends are all over us like rice pilaf on a junior high school cafeteria wall to get with the babymaking. This is partly our fault. We let it slip to a few people that we would most likely start “trying” soon after the wedding. Our friends and relatives have taken this a little too literally. At least three of them, so far, have demanded to know what is taking so long. Because oh my god we’ve been married for three weeks and we’re not fertilized yet? We’re SO LAZY!
You need to know this to understand the reaction I got yesterday when I posted “I just drank my very last gulp of caffienated Pepsi for the forseeable future. I decided to mark this monumentous occasion with a tweet.” on twitter (dear internet, how do you get those nifty screen caps of your tweets for your blog??) and something similar on facebook.
Holy jump the gun there a little bit why don’tcha Batman!
For the record, no I am not pregnant. Sorry.
I have decided, however, that I am going to cut out the caffeine now instead of later. I’m kind of a Pepsi-holic and I figured that weaning myself off of the stuff, or going cold turkey, is better done well before there is a wee one being built. So, after I finished up the last of the Pepsi leftover from the wedding reception, I called my caffeinated Pepsi consumption done. For until at least after the birthing has finished–whenever that ends up being.
This is all a very longwinded way of telling all of you out there in blogland that today is my first day sans soda and I? is hurting for some cola. When we were in high school my friend Wendy used to have “coffee spasms” in which, out of nowhere, she’d suddenly start twitching and shaking her hands and saying “need coffee. neeeeeeeeeeed coffeeeeeeee” and people? I very nearly walked myself over to the store to cave in and buy some damn soda. It took quite a lot of strength to not do it. I used to laugh at her. I kind of get it now.
Yes I realize that it is pathetic to be addicted to soda but here I am. Day 2 in the office (still awesome and loving it), day 1 sans caffeine.
Forewarned is forearmed.
Today was my first day working out of our makeshift home office and? It was grand. I say that it is still makeshift because we are still in a little bit of limbo on our office equipment. We’re waiting for some financing to come through so we can buy a new mega-awesome-fancy-schmancy-computer-of-the-gods that we can both use and some updated software and then we can really get this place organized. In the meantime I’ve moved my laptop in here and it sits on the desk in front of Will’s current computer monitor (his computer has made a most fantastic radio today). One of the reasons I was so excited to work from home two years ago was that I could leave the television on all day for background noise if I wanted. It took two years before I finally caved in and admitted something major: I cannot ignore the television. It’s like asking Will to walk through Best Buy and not stop and watch people playing the tester video games they have on display. It’s freakin’ impossible.
The office? Will not have a television. This is partly because there isn’t anywhere to put it (we do have a television we are not using in the closet but, conveniently, do not have a Fios cable outlet in this room) and partly because I am terrified that if we plugged one more thing into the outlets in this room we’ll blow out the whole apartment and set the building on fire.
I’d like to say that I was able to sit down in our makeshift office this morning and get right to work but that isn’t quite the case. Because we are in flux mode, I spent most of the morning working with Fios and tinkering with the new all in one printer to get it set up as a home fax machine. It took a couple of hours to get it all straightened out but finally, right after lunch, it started working perfectly. And doing it this way should save me about $4 a month. That might not sound like much to you guys, but it adds up! I’m a little bit excited that I am being so fiscally responsible. And because we have a real fax machine now. I’ve been using an internet based faxing service for the whole time I have been freelancing and you know what? Having to scan everyting in that you need to fax is a huge pain in the butt. A time sucking huge pain in the butt.
There are other changes afoot here in the Farley household (seriously I am still getting used to my new name). We’re still figuring out budgets and banking. We’re trying to make changes to our diet and exercise routine (also known as starting healthy eating habits and an exercise routine). Will is back in school for the year and I’m putting my nose back to the grindstone and trying to carve out a sensible work schedule.
Who knew that getting married made growing up seem like such a good idea?
I know, I know. I punch myself in the face for not posting more often and then don’t post anything for almost a week. I have no excuse except to say that the business of getting married is time consuming, yo. I know, I know, there are plenty of other bloggers who are able to come back from their honeymoons and jump right back in to posting every day while working a full day and doing all of their regular household duties (six loads of laundry, I’m looking right at you) and taking care of all of the stuff that they need to take care of after getting married, like name changes and finding health care. As it turns out, I am not so good at the multi tasking when it comes to major life things. I decided to take this past week to focus on just getting it all done so that I could go back to working and blogging like a normal(ish) person.
In this last week I have:
Gotten a certified copy of my marriage certificate from the county record’s office
Ordered my new social security card (by paying a visit to the Social Security office and waiting for over an hour in line)
Visited the DMV to order my new ID (which came in the mail on Friday)
Went to Will’s bank to add my name to his bank account
Went to my bank twice: once to add Will to my account and once to change my name on the account (because I had forgotten my marriage certificate at home).
Spent a day and a half filling out and turning in paperwork to find out if I qualify for the discount program at OHSU. This involved going through all of my financial records for this year, taking TriMet to the OHSU campus (which took an hour longer than it should have because none of the ticket kiosks at my transit center were accepting debit cards and I had to go get cash), getting lost on the OHSU campus for forty five minutes (in the effing rain), trying to get off of the OHSU campus and then spending a couple of hours putting together and faxing over a bunch of information that I didn’t know I had to include in my application. I spell this all out for you because I am still kind of bitter. I also realized that, on paper, Will and I look far better off financially than we really are so I am worried that I will not qualify for a discount at all which means that I will have to apply for and find a way to pay for private insurance.
Spent a day doing the aforementioned six loads of laundry
Spent yesterday cleaning our back room up and out and getting it ready to be turned into a usable office for Will and I to share.
Spent today tracking down office stuff (namely a new printer, a shredder and some extra printer ink) and then hooking it all up in our new office. Our new laser printer/fax/copier’s name is Pete. And I named our new shredder Shredder. Which sounds unoriginal but is still a kick ass Ninja Turtles shout out.
Got my hair cut! Finally!
Oh and Will started classes again this week.
This makes it sound kind of like this was a giant week of suck but you know, it really wasn’t. Visiting the records office, the social security administration and the DMV on the same day (which meant spending most of the day on the train) was exhausting but that was the same day I got my hair cut, which was something I’ve been longing to do for months.
Friday’s trip out to OHSU was irritating as all hell (do NOT try to use Google Maps and find your way around that place. It will be a giant FAIL. Especially if the place you want to find is a tiny office in a huge building. Good lord.) but that night we went out to dinner with some friends and then had them come over and play Rock Band for a little while and that was really fun.
Even today, when we accidentally blew…something complicated…in Will’s computer when we plugged too many things into a single surge protector/battery backup and he had to spend an hour or so performing emergency surgery to get his computer working properly again (it’s an old computer) we ended up with a neat little office that I can use during the day for work and he’ll use in the evenings for homework and gaming. And then I made spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner (which turned out really well).
Getting all of the little details taken care of is kind of a pain in the butt but, honestly? I like feeling productive. And I am really looking forward to working out of our home office tomorrow instead of trying to be productive while I sit on the couch and am tempted by DVDs, games and daytime television (hey, when you have expanded cable daytime television isn’t totally sucktastic).
And, of course, now I can get back to blogging! Woo!
I am still working out the post about the wedding in my head. What I am coming to realize is that the process of getting married, contrary to what I thought and hoped for, does not stop with the wedding and reception. I’m not talking about the maturing of a relationship, that’s an entirely other blog post (or quite a few come to think of it, since that is what we’ll be doing for the rest of our lives). What I’m talking about is the business of getting married. The months of planning that went into the ceremony and the reception. Then there was the honeymoon (which was PERFECT). Now there is the paperwork: the thank you notes and the changing of my name and putting each others’ names on bank accounts and credit cards, figuring out the finances and the savings and insurance.
But I could not let this blog stagnate any more. My poor blog has been sorely neglected in the last few weeks. Seriously, NaBloPoMo needs to hurry up and get here because I am in need of some serious posting rehab.
Part of me has been hesitant to write in here because I know you guys want the Official Wedding Rehash. Part of me (the anal retentive part) feels like I shouldn’t post anything else until I post that. But I’m still working on it in my head. I know that you guys will be happy with a bulleted post but I want it to be something more. I dunno. Maybe I’m building it up too much in my own head? That certainly wouldn’t be a new activity for me!
So no wedding post yet. But soon. Hopefully. Hopefully BEFORE NaBloPoMo.
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