USPS can go to....

somewhere.

I've heard horror stories from the Fountain Hills USPS branch. Ever since I started working at my Phoenix area hospital, I use the mail drop there. In over a year, I haven't had a problem with nobody getting their bill paid or a card or note.

This week is the most annoying thing yet. Ever since I moved to my duplex, I've always gotten my Sprouts ad on Tuesdays. Their new sale starts Wednesday. I get the rest of the grocery store ads on Wednesday. This Tuesday: no Sprouts ad in my mailbox. Ditto with my the mailbox at my parents place.

Wednesday comes, and my parents mailbox still didn't have a Sprouts ad. Same with my mailbox.

In talking with my sister last night over dinner, I made a comment that Sprouts must not be mailing their ads because I didn't get one, and neither did our parents.

She said "I got an ad on Tuesday, like always. I would have saved it for you if I had known."

What the hell? I didn't get the ad, mom didn't either, but my sister living a half mile away got one.

I figured I'd just look it up online today when I got home. But lo and behold, there was that famous ad in my parents mailbox today. I left it with them since they're coming home in time to appreciate it. And lucky for me, mine was in my mailbox.

USPS can suck big time.

catching up

I talked to my mom tonight. They're on their way back from Chicago tomorrow and should be home Sunday. So that will free up an hour of my after work time to catch up on emails and blogging.

Cats are still fat (fluffy). I wish I could spend more time with my future mother in law.

And I'm giving up my organic shirt. Wonder if contact Maggie's functional organics would do anything.

move stresses

Okay, so I'm moved in.

Boyfriend/fiance was really great in helping me move furniture last weekend. Got leather furniture for the living room, a rustic huge desk that's subbing as a table in the kitchen until the other table arrives. Rustic bedroom set in my room is awesome.

Cats are polar opposites to the move. Magnum (furr monster) was pretty laid back, jumping in cabinets and closets pretty quickly. Once the mattress got set in, he took over. He loves going outside and rolling on the concrete patio. The fluff ball Adira was traumatized beyond belief. She spent our waking time wedged between the hot water heater and wall or the pillow pile and the wall. When my mom was here to let the cable man in, she ran and hid. I couldn't find her and was convinced that she had run out and was lost before she magically reappeared. Hopefully she'll get there.

But now that my cable's fixed, any my Airport's setup correctly, life feels a lot more normal.

Lent?

I should just say that I was abstaining from blogging for Lent.

But that would mean that I'm a practicing Catholic.

I've been super busy. I signed the papers for a house, and literally picked the keys up today! So I'll be spending the next week moving in. I'll be breaking in the washer and drier before anything in the kitchen.

The best part is that there's a fireplace, with charming brick work around it. And it might get cold enough this weekend that I might actually use it.

I love how big the kitchen is. Complete with an empty corner for a small table. But I'll put in a butcher block cabinet thing instead to have more working surfaces.

The bedroom furniture is being delivered tomorrow thanks to my awesome dad going over to accept it. The mattress won't get in place until Friday, but hey, small steps.

Not sure when the cats will move in (take over). Furr monster (Magnum) will be easier to move, since he's had lots of recent vet visits due to his illness. So to de-stress him, I took him for non-vet car rides (pick up prescriptions, go see my sister, whatever). The fluff monster will be difficult to get to the final destination, but she'll be running the place soon enough. There's lots of closets they'll love to climb up in, and these nooks and shelves they'll love to take over.

Yes, the furr monster has cancer. And the vet thinks it's spread to the liver too. So I've been very torn about what to do with the poor fellow. The two biopsies couldn't produce anything useful for a real diagnosis. I have the ultrasound images, and left with letting things go or putting him through major surgery.

is it over yet?

I'm in Superbowl overload. Every morning, the paper has a whole section devoted to the Superbowl. All the local radio stations can talk about is the game, the teams, the boost to the economy.

*gah!*

All I see is more traffic on the freeways/major roads in the afternoon when I'm trying to get home. Plus, I see more people who don't know where they're going and pull the three lane change to go from the far right to the left turn lane. More people at the restaurants means it takes longer for my take out food to get ready for pickup. Since I don't have a supermodel body, I don't have to worry about trying to get into the hot nightclubs.

I remember back in 2001, my sister got married in late October. The same weekend of the NASCAR race (and the Diamondbacks were in the World Series). So after doing my maid of honor duties of shuttling various family members from the airport to places to stay, we learned the hard lesson of trying to get them out of town the Monday after the wedding. I started to bring them to the airport with four hours of lead time, and every one of them missed their flights due to long, long, long, LONG lines to check in.

Lucky for me, I don't have to go near the airport anytime soon since I just got back from Seattle a few weeks ago.

need birthday date

My dad's giving me a birthday present that's nice, but it's not ideal.

I got two spring training tickets for the Cubs a couple days before my birthday.

On a Thursday afternoon.

Fiance is in school all day Thursday (until 7 PM). So hopefully I can find someone that can also get off work and go with me.

one year ago...

It's a little late since I missed my one year anniversary of living in Phoenix.

One year ago was kinda surreal. I wasn't working. I was applying to all kinds of jobs and not hearing anything.

After Thanksgiving, boyfriend and I did all kinds of traveling. It was spending a few days here and a few days there. We stayed on this part of the country.

I didn't have a place of my own to put up lights or decorations. I didn't have a lot of money for giving gifts. So I gave my time since that's what I had a lot of.

In retrospect, boyfriend and I should have done a long car trip to the midwest to see more of his family. We kept the traveling to this part of the country.

Now, I spent the afternoon putting up lights and decorations. Boyfriend was here for Thanksgiving (again).

And boyfriend's not just boyfriend anymore. On our drive back from Wickenburg, he was telling me about how he plans to have his next house, and putting in these things like an Arizona room for cats, and a rose garden, it was obvious "those are my things."

I couldn't help but comment that he was putting the cart before the horse since I'm just his girlfriend.

And that's when he showed me the ring.

Okay, it's not really mine yet. He's a starving student for goodness sakes. But he has it picked it out. And I found out that while I was working Friday, he and my dad had a drive where they had a "talk". And he got my dad's blessing.

This is probably a very good thing. This has never happened to me, and I thought it never would. So I have time to get used to this idea, and start to have some ideas of what I really would like .

new toy

Last week, my new toy showed up.

My iBook was pushing 5 years old, and I felt it couldn't handle the demands of new versions of software. And it was two OS systems back, so some of the new versions wouldn't even work on that OS.

So with the release of the latest Mac OSX, I waited a few weeks until they released the laptops to go with it. I even splurged and doubled the memory.

I stuck with the MacBook (was iBook) line.

I love this laptop. It's so sleek, quiet, and sexy. The keyboard layout is a bit bulkier looking, but I'm pretty much used to it by now. The built in webcam on the top of the screen is very nice. Boyfriend and I can now video chat since he also got a laptop with the same feature.

The new OS? So far, I'm pretty pleased. It took some getting used to in understand which programs were active, but all the same keystrokes I got used to are still there. So it's a pretty seamless transition. Of course there's a lot more crap that I don't care for that I'm going through and getting rid of (or trying to get rid of).

My only gripe is the power supply. I knew it was an issue with this new line of laptops in reading product reviews, but it's quite annoying. It's the magnetic connection that links the wall source to the laptop. It's not a very strong connection to allow for easy break away to avoid damage to the laptop or the power supply, but I've disconnected it many times already, sometimes by just moving it across my lap. Since I damaged one power supply in that fashion, I understand the practical reason for redesigning it. But maybe if you allowed the power supply to connect on either side of the laptop, it'd be a lot more practical.

Magnum's given his rub of approval of the new laptop. He even laid across it before I turned it on for the first time. So I can't go wrong with the cat seal of approval.

getting out of Dodge

I so can't wait for "3:10 to Yuma" (Christian Bale = yummy).

I took half a day today to try and get out early (along with everyone else). Boyfriend and I are planning on camping out at Marshall "Lake" (we didn't see any water last weekend). But there's lots of places to go riding the quad and dirt bike.

Then I get an email. There's a seminar at 1:00 this afternoon. WTF - seriously? My boss is getting out of Dodge to his cabin in the woods, but I'm stuck going. Perhaps it'll run short like last week.

So I'm really stuck trying to get out of Dodge with everyone else. There's only two ways to go, so I will be crossing my fingers that one will be okay.

big *duh*

I feel like a bloody idiot.

Laptop was fine. I should have gone with my gut that the power adaptor was bad.

I managed to talk myself out of it because the power adaptor had been working fine a couple hours ago and all I did was move the laptop and power adaptor from the living room to the bedroom. And the little light that comes on when connected to the laptop was lighting up.

I wish I could have taken a volt meter and ruled it out. Turned out to be an expensive lesson.

But it's back now.

still kicking

Still lurking around. My laptop died about two weeks ago - power supply connection no workie.

And then my boyfriend came. He confirmed that replacing the supply won't fix the problem.

So I'm still around. I'm spending as much time with boyfriend as possible since he has to leave this weekend.

Will eventually replace the laptop - in the meanwhile.....

waiting for....stress

I stress more than most when I try and travel.

Anywhere.

It's worse when it involves going to a different state. Since I don't know what I need, I tend to think I need everything.

An evening dress, blouse and skirt in case we go out somewhere nice. Shorts, pants, t-shirts, beach shirts, beach hat, and ball cap. Tevas, flats, sneakers, slip-ons.

Didn't forget the bikini. I ordered it last week, and it showed up just in the nick of time today. Lucky for me, I like it a lot. Not that I'd have time to return it and exchange it for something else.

Don't need to worry about pajamas. Not our style.

Socks, underwear, pantyhose. I have to get all that together now.

At least I can do some laundry since he has some sort of facility at his place.

I asked what kind of kitchen things he has. I hope that he has most of what I'm thinking I might need. Just a pie, pancakes, and a lime tart. And whatever I get inspired to cook that I find at the farmers markets. Otherwise, I have room in my suitcases for some of that stuff.

And enough room for stuff that I'm bringing back.

Oh, and phone charger, camera battery charger, hair drier, and whatever other cables I'm forgetting have to go too.

We bought my mom a cool carry-on bag that fits the laptop, camera, and food with room to spare. She's letting me take it - yeah! My mom rocks since she's also going to be looking after the fluff and furr.

So why is this so stressful? Probably because I don't do this a lot. I haven't been anywhere in two years now. Probably because I am trying to think of everything and obsess about what I'm forgetting. I generally chill once I get past the security screening because I'm resigned to "past the point of no return". A glass of wine or two on the plane also helps.

We found a cure for diabetes

Scott Adams posted on his daily Dilbert blog about how just once he wants to read a headline "We found a cure for diabetes".

If only it were that simple.

I attended a seminar today about how the hunt goes in finding the genetic cause for type 2 diabetes is going. The best they've been able to find is a gene that when expressed in homozygous form is responsbile for having the patients BMI increase 2.1 units.

Most overweight diabetic people have a BMI much bigger than that!

And they really didn't go into gene linkages too much. It would have been too much for a seminar.

"So the search continues" is the take home message. They started with a 116,000 gene spread, and are going to widen the search to 1,000,000 genes. It helps that they have access to the Pima Indians with a more homogenous gene pool (polite way to say inbred) with a high rate of type 2 diabetes. They can compare those genes with non-diabetic Pima Indians and the "everyone else" population.

I'm still amazed when I try to comprehend how all these different parts work together in such a way to make us who we are and how most of us work without any problems. Then, you get the people like me that have something get screwed up causing problems such as mine. If it's the evolution of simple amino acids, it sure took a long time to get it right.

Does such logic imply "intelligent design?" I haven't had enough to drink to say one way or another.

PSA

Attention National Forest Service:

The day before the start of Memorial weekend is NOT the best time to take your websites down for maintainance. Because I was not able to access the web page for Tonto National Forest, I was unable to resovle a dispute with a fellow co-worker (but I know I'm right and we'll just leave it at that).

Thank you,
Jenn

ragged running

Or is it running ragged?

I have so much to do it isn't funny. After work tonight, I'm meeting up with someone for a little while since I haven't seen him in a few weeks. I wish I could raincheck it, but I'm too good of a friend to say "no".

Boyfriend will be in AZ tomorrow. At least I have clinic, so I should be able to leave at a decent time in the afternoon. He has a craving for Carrabba's so we'll be going there after work tomorrow. At least they have a gluten free menu so I can eat there without too much trouble. I thought it was okay, but it seems to have made a better impression on boyfriend.

Thursday, more clinic. After work it's laundry, packing, and getting stuff together for Friday's trip camping.

Friday morning, boyfriend leaves to stake out a campsite. I have more clinic, cell maintainance, seminar, and social after seminar. So my hopes of leaving at a decent time are going out the window on Friday. But sometime that night, I'll be reunited with boyfriend with our matchmakers joining us sometime after that.

---

Yes, we know about the upcoming fire restrictions. No open fires or charcoal permitted. A bit of a bummer, but not unexpected this time of year with so little rainfall. The last human caused fire by the area caused 4.5 MILLION dollars to get under control. But everyone still wants to go, so we're still going minus the campfire. (At least this way all the clothes won't come back home smelling like smoke.)

---

And part of my running ragged was to catch up to a different friend last night that wanted to see "Shrek". So we went, and I left my VCR to tape the season finale of "24". Was kinda "eh" about "Shrek", and when I finally got home, I fought fatigue to watch "24". The way it ended made me pull my hair out with "I stayed up to past 11 for THIS?????????" I suppose after the season finale of the first season, it's hard to impress, but damn I was mad.

blue day

I thought that my new version of birth control was supposed to keep me from being an emotional wreck. Today is one of the days I'm doubting that.

First, I found a gray hair. A real one on my head by my two eyes. *sigh*

Then I've been missing boyfriend. Haven't had an email from him since Sunday when he told me that our Memorial weekend plans were changing destinations. I asked "where?" and hadn't heard back. So I finally texted him with a "miss you" so he could call me when he had a chance. Finally figured out where we're going, but he's not going to be here long, and our alone time is going to be pretty non-existant.

Then I check my bank account today since this is when I get paid. Sure enough, got paid. But I'm off by $0.09 So in cross referencing my online statement to my checkbook, I account for 5 of the missing cents (mis-entries on my part I'm sure), but can't figure out the remaining $0.04 I almost start to cry at this moment.

So instead I took a deep breath, added the $0.04 to my latest gas purchase to get my balance to even out. I'm not going to worry about 4 missing pennies.

I'm just happy I got paid today. I can finally start working again on my savings. And I get a second paycheck Friday for the work at the hardware store.

But it's not making me very happy. I hope it's just because I'm tired to the point of wanting to burst into tears at a simple "hello". I truly hope it isn't because of the birth control horomones.

black and blue Monday

This weekend sucked. I worked all weekend setting up merchandise at the new hardware store. Saturday was my more productive looking day, but Sunday was rearranging things to shoehorn in the bits of things that I couldn't fit in Saturday. But I got up about 60 square feet of merchandise.

Sunday I was so tired I was almost falling off the ladders all day. Which led to several crashes into the fixture walls. I got home and fell asleep for an hour before the Mother's Day dinner show. Two strong drinks later, I fell back asleep on the couch.

So I'm sore, black, and blue (and red if you count the scratches). At least I sit on my butt most of the day because I can walk (slowly). I didn't even consider taking the stairs this morning.

How was your weekend?

you can be friends

I don't care what the writers of "When Harry Met Sally" say, guys and girls can be friends.

Most of my friends are guys. Maybe it's because I'm a bit of a tomboy, or worked in a hardware store, or compensating for the fact that I know my dad wishes I was a boy. Whatever the reason, I have a lot of friends that are guys.

Yes, my "best" friends are girls. But I don't get to see them as often as I do my guy friends.

In order for you to be my guy friend, I have to trust you. And even though I've been burned by guys that I thought were friends ending up doing something that I didn't want (which usually ended the friendship). The ultimate trust test is to go out drinking. If we can have a good night on the town with a few drinks and the conversation never gets suggestive or the hands never go below a goodbye hug at the shoulders, congrats.

The other test involves bringing others in the mix. I have a guy friend that doesn't drink (yes, it's good to have diverse friends). One Saturday, he stopped by the hardware store and asked if I was free for lunch (for a friend, it's possible). And then he asked a yard guy and his girlfriend to join us. I was a little guarded because I was wondering what was going on if it was a double date kind of thing or not. But we went, and had a good time, and friend paid for everyone (despite our objections). It's almost easier to go out with others because you're less likely to do something affectionate in front of somebody you know.

The other test is their level of personal involvement. I have a guy friend from the hardware store. We've gone out drinking a few (too many) nights, and he'd call to make sure I made it home. We're working weekends setting up the new store, and if he needs a favor, he calls on me first. Something about our attitudes towards work and life, we really get along. About a month after we got to know each other, he suddenly mentions there's a girlfriend. In Seattle. They're going through problems, and wanted a good friend to listen to his side of the heartache. I've heard this story before, and I almost fell for it before. He finally produced a picture, but what made it more believeable was when he asked if she could call me someday because she was getting worried about all the time we were spending together. We had a nice short chat, and I assured her I was committed to someone else, and not to worry.

---

What does boyfriend think of this? He trusts me. I can't keep a secret from him anyway. I told him about the dates I went on late last year because I was bored and lonley. The trust goes both ways, and I have no problems if he wants to go out to a strip club with the guys or something. And I know he has no free time to date anyone else.

Friday blah

I don't care what the traffic weenies say, the Friday commute still sucks. It doesn't seem any different from any other day of the week.

The early hours of clinic and helping out friends caught up to me last night. I feel asleep watching TV at 8 last night. Finally gave up and turned out the lights, rolled over and fell back asleep.

Woke up at 5 in the same darn position. The biggest problem for me when that happens is that it usually sets my neck problems to DEFCON 1. Hopefully over the next few hours it'll gradually subside as I'm moving around.

Have to split and refeed my cell lines for the weekend, and then seminar. Maybe I'll get my radiation safety done after all that (my boss and I laugh since it's all the stuff I already know, but we HAVE to do it anyway). After all that, I'm supposed to go out with a friend and another couple (and I trust him enough to know this ISN'T a double date).

Living with celiac

So, how goes the gluten free thing? Right now, I'm in a bad patch. Going out for drinks and dinners a few nights (okay three or four) a week didn't help. But I think the night I was doing Bailey's shots didn't seem to give me problems.

I am still very limited on what I can have at most bars. But since I don't do rum or tequilla, it's been vino, vino, vino. A guy bought me a shot of something that had Bailey's in it and after four glasses of wine, I was in the mood to try it and see.

Food is even worse. I don't know if it's the cross contamination issues or what, but it just sucks. That's why it's almost easier to go to places like the Elks because the food options are very limited it's easy to just forget about it. It's when it gets late, you do get hungry.

I haven't gone out since Friday night. I played "safe" and drank at home that Cinco de Mayo weekend. And my mom is good about catching what I eat at home. So I don't know why I'm still having problems.

All those problems aggravated my PLMD. It feels as if I was working out my lower legs all night when I get up. So I'm very thankful this job is a lot of seat warming. But when I've had to run out or down the hall, I feel it bad.

At least my plans for this Friday don't involve meeting someone at a bar or club. And so far I haven't been tempted to bring him to the dark side and get him drunk. I've decided it's good to have diverse friends.