i wouldn't believe your wireless radio

I'm single so Valentine's isn't my favourite holiday.  Even when I haven't been single on Valentine's, it hasn't been a holiday that registered much for me except for the candy.  Truthfully, even the candy isn't all that great.  (Easter is the candy el dorado.)  Roses are pretty but not my favourite flower, especially in red, and they're ridiculously overpriced right now.  I'm not as bitter as I have been in the past, but on the whole today is just not a big deal to me.  Of course, that said, I did get three cards in the mail yesterday, two of which made me bawl and one which made me laugh.  Luckily, I opened them in that order.

I won "MVP" of my team last Friday during the bowling ramp up.  We also locked into last place, score-wise.  I know I helped with that a lot too.  (Hey, we got a prize for it!  But really, it's just that I suck at bowling.)  I'm not sure what I did to deserve the MVP aside from ham-up without a lick of shame (stick-on mustache!) and dance to the music that was playing, but I'll take it!  I won a bowling pin.  That might not sound like a big deal to anyone else, but I like quirky shit like that.  I was looking on ebay for bowling pins a few years ago.  So now I have one.  I have to think of some other quirky object I must have now. 

The diet continues.  I was up last week and a little confused about it, as I'd been pretty damn good (aside from a visit to Meat Church).  I weighed again Friday night on a lark and fully clothed, I weighed less than I did that morning.  So I decided it was a fluke, some trickery by my body to keep me from getting smug or something.  In any case, I'm not bothered by it.  It won't be the last time the numbers go up.  Another number that's up is my grocery budget.  Crispy McFuckcheese, fresh food is expensive!  I find it irritating that a pound of cherries (roughly $5 last Sunday) is more expensive than a "value" meal at most fast food places.  I don't really consider the grease, heartburn, and fat ass that come with that meal to be a "value" but it's cheaper than a bowl of cherries and there's something inherently wrong with that.

I tend to do my grocery shopping on Sunday afternoons, which is a little stupid.  I bring my shuffle, throw in my earbuds and bop through the aisles, ignoring all the fussy children, exasperated mothers, and idiot men who don't seem to understand how grocery stores work.  It helps keep me from strangling strangers in my way.  I'd like to switch it over to a week night, but I'm stocked up right now and my weeknights will be few and far between soon.  Plus, then I'll miss Wheel of Fortune and the opportunity to laugh gleefully at the people who buy obvious vowels and then hit bankrupt immediately.  (Frivolous vowel purchase infuriates me.  Shut up.)

So I've noticed that I don't get nearly as much heartburn as I used to.  I figured that would happen as my weight went down but I haven't really shed that much and the difference is staggering to me.  Obviously, there's something to this "eating better" thing, even if it's not the most fun.  I noticed I was walking a little differently today.  It's a walk that I recognise from a long time ago; I don't know how to explain it, but I do hope that it sticks around.  When I was hitting the gym daily (sometimes twice) when we first moved to Texas, I had this silly habit of mashing all the fat on my belly into a ball shape.  (I know, it sounds nuts.)  I remember that ball getting smaller and smaller as I went to the gym.  At my thinnest point, my hands touched each other around that little ball.  My hands are still very far apart in the belly smoosh exercise now.  I want that little ball back. 

effin murphy

It's been a slow week.  Little to do at work and plenty of motivation to do what comes through, so I'm busy in spurts of 3 to 5 mintues, 3 to 4 times a day if I'm lucky.

Today I'm happy it's Friday.  Don't want to do anything.  Work flowing like crazy. 

sundayblah

I slept all through yesterday.  I kinda thought I would.  I was exhausted.  I did, at some point, get up and sleep on the couch for a while.  I've become a sweat-monster at night; getting up and moving to the couch helped cool me down (and probably gave the bed time to dry out--I know, ew).  But I feel rested today.  That's good.  

I was out from work from August 1 to November 2.  Technically, I've gotten my required 12 weeks of FMLA time for the year.  However, people have been very nice at work; everyone says they get it if I need to bug out early sometimes.  That's good to hear at least.  I didn't spend a lot of money while I was at my folks' house (shocking, eh?), so I know that it's possible to scrimp and save if it's necessary.  (I'm thinking of checks with fewer than 40 hours, here.)  It will be alright.  I just need to speak up before I fall over unconscious on my keyboard.

I cooked a bunch of chicken boobs in my new crockpot today.  My new crockpot?  It's awesome.  My old crockpot was from my college days.  The new one?  It's red so it cooks faster.  (I don't know--it's a silly thing Amy and I have.)  But it really did cook faster than my other one would have.  Apparently, those things burn out after a while.  So if you still have the crockpot with the little garden vegetables painted on the outside--go and get yourself a new one.  It doesn't have to be red, but c'mon, red is kinda cool.  

cheese and crackers

I started back to work yesterday.  Everyone at work has been lovely.  All day, people asked if I was doing whole days or halves.  It never occurred to me to do anything but the full 8 hours.  Back to work means back to work; work means 8 hours, 9 if you count the lunch hour.  I figured since I've been able to be awake for longer than that without naps or collapsing, I'll be fine at work.  I forgot how exhausting it can be to be "on" for that many hours in a row.  I'm quickly remembering.  It's day two and my neck is aching, my shoulders are stiff, and my brain is goo.  Last night, I ate cheese and crackers for dinner because the thought of cooking (like I'd planned to do) was making me want to pass out.  To be fair, the cheese and crackers were delicious. 

Today, I'm more exhausted than I was yesterday.  If I can make it through "Bones" tonight, I plan on being in bed directly after, around 8pm.  I hope this helps me make it through tomorrow.  I don't think it's fair to the kitties, as I won't have a whole lot of time to love on all of them before I'm unconscious again, but they'll have to make do.

It's frustrating.  I know that I probably won't ever be back to how I was BC* but I didn't expect to be this exhausted for this long.  I feel like my body is fucking with me; I don't feel sick, I don't look sick.  It's not fair that I'm this tired still. 

I'm going to see how I feel this weekend.  If this is cumulative and I want to sleep through the weekend, I'll know that I need to scale back my hours for a while.  I'm worried people will think I'm milking it.  I know that's ridiculous but it goes back to not looking sick, etc.  I don't know if I need a doctor's release to do part time or if I'll still qualify for benefits (which I need, obviously), or how they'll respond if I need to leave earlier in the afternoon.  The idea of having to go up there and ask makes my head spin.  More than it is already from being so goddamn tired. 

*Before Cancer

coming around

Today, we grabbed my current furniture out of storage and moved it back into Maison Pants.  Seeing my place with the paint and new floors and my stuff?  Awesome.  We didn't unpack it all; I still get zombie-tired rather quickly.  However, Mama Pants made my fridge absolutely sing, it's so damn clean.  And Big Daddy Pants did some sort of voodoo magic on my washer/dryer because it was drying like whoa; he also hung hooks in the loo so that I can hang towels and toilet paper and such.  I unpacked books and books and books; 5 bins of books and stuff.

Yesterday, Mom and I hit various stores to get various "moving in" stuff.  Funny to think I've lived in that apartment nearly 10 years and we're buying "moving in" stuff.  We also bought curtains for 3 areas in the house: the living room (which are decorative and won't really be closed), the Area sliding glass door, and my bedroom.  Picking curtains is hard!  Inevitably, I'd pick a curtain option and it would be out of stock.  I did this several times before I found three options that worked.  My new furniture arrives Friday.  Photos will be forthcoming.

I had my hair chopped last Wednesday.  It's shorty short now; a cut I've had before but years ago.  I really like it!  The gal who cut it is my mom's gal and good at what she does--she didn't even blink when I pulled my mop out of the rubberband to show her what she was gonna be dealing with.  In the end, we got four ponytails that measured over 10 inches each.  It took a long time for the ponies to dry (I put them over a lampshade with the bulb on) but they're ready to go off to Locks of Love now. 

My head felt so much better once she cut those damn ponytails off.  In radiation, I was often called "the one with hair" because, well, I was.  I was the only one that didn't have breast cancer, that hadn't gone through the chemo with taxol, the hair stealer.  I started to associate the mop of hair with the whole radiation/chemo process because I was The One With Hair, because I had to braid it on Tuesdays so it didn't bug me during chemo, because it was a general pain in the ass, because it came out and was absolutely everywhere during the whole treatment.  It was a lot of damn hair, overpowering.  Great to donate, but damn.  I'd look in the mirror and all the hair would scream "Sick!!  You're sick!!"  It was time; I'm still getting used to the bit of vulnerability that I find with shorter hair but I love my curls.  Funny thing is, I swear it's curlier than it was before when it was this short.  Chemo is notorious for making hair grow back curly--I wonder if it made mine a little curlier even though it never fell out.

Things are coming together.