28 February 2015

50 shades of white


After considering a ton of colors, and then a ton of whites (you'd be surprised at how many shades of white there are), we finally decided between 3 colors:

Behr Belgian Cream
Behr Glacial Tint
and Behr Victorian Pearl


Can you see the difference? Maybe? These colors look way different on the computer than they do on the actual walls.

They've all got very distinct undertones, despite being shades of white. In the bathroom, Victorian Pearl has a cool pinkish-beige undertone, Glacial Tint has an icy blue undertone, and Belgian Cream has a warmer cream-yellowish undertone.

I've got them up on the walls and I definitely do not like Glacial Tint. But that's probably the one Chris will love. Such is life. So realistically it's between the other two. I'll have to see what they look like in daylight. Hopefully we get some sun tomorrow, but rain is forecasted.


I'm just happy to be that much closer to picking a color and getting the darn walls painted! Because it kinda still looks like This, just a little less grey and a little more white.

27 February 2015

I like lists

It's Friday night and I've got my Weekend To-Do list right here:
  • Watch Helix tonight
  • Watch House of Cards and try not to binge
  • Drink Wine (check)
  • Get white-ish paint swatches and finish priming the bathroom. Chris's friend is coming to stay with us in a couple weeks and I'd like to have a fully functional bathroom by then... Two weeks deadline it is!
  • Plant seeds indoors and hope I eventually get seedlings! It worked out very well last year.
  • Visit madre. And give her back her stuff!
The rest is fair game.

The dog is bumping me with her nose wanting attention. She doesn't smell bad right now so that's good. Chris has been working with her a lot the last couple of days and she's doing a lot better with the "sit" command. Woo.

25 February 2015

Clean

How often do you clean your phone?

Myself, it's done on a daily basis. I wipe it down with an alcohol pad at the end of every workday, considering my work environment and the fact that I use it in the lab. I'm not sure I'd be so diligent if it wasn't for that.

I suppose phones are along the same priority as keyboards, remote controls, keys, doorknobs, light switches, purse handles, etc. Those only get wiped down in serious, serious cleaning modes and when someone gets sick. Then nothing is safe from Lysol.

So just curious- how often does your phone get clean? (And while we're at it-- the aforementioned keyboards, remote controls, etc.)

24 February 2015

ads

This would be another mediocre commercial that wouldn't earn a second glance, but the song choice caught my attention. So I grooved, then when it ended I stopped grooving and went back to reading my book. I feel like they could have done so much more with that punchy song!


Suze-- my default setting when commercials catch my eye... or, ear-- your thoughts?

23 February 2015

Bye, Blue

I've been carrying the same Estee Lauder tote bag on a daily basis since 2008 when it was gifted to me by my super sweet boss. The little guy has endured much abuse. Blue, my trusty tote. You could shove so much stuff in there. Laptops, books, lunch bags, purses, beach stuff, spilled coffee, unidentified sticky stuff on the bus floor... he's seen it all.

After a while the handles became completely worn through to the core, and the overall appearance became quite shabby, then recently the side seam split beyond repair. I held out for as long as I could, but it's time for a new bag.


Blue is now in the trash can, covered with raw ham juice and other trash things, so I won't be tempted to pull it back out and carry him again. I've got to let him go!

Today in Stein Mart I grabbed this guy for $25. Hello, Pink.

It will probably not hold up as well as Blue, but at least I now have a tote bag that is not falling apart. Let's see if she gets me through the summer.

Mondays

I did not want to get up this morning, especially after that cold front blew in. Which is kinda cool kuz since I have the day off, I got to turn off my alarm and sleep in a little. It would be rad to crank up the bed warmer and stay put for the majority of the day, but this chick's got plans to hang out with two thirds of my favorite ladies in the world that I miss so much.

The dog is chewing the hell out of a bone behind me. The cat is probably still holed up in the "Slar Pad," which Chris has dubbed the bedroom. She'll hold down the fort and make sure the bed is warm until I return.

This is my favorite Monday picture, and I have it saved on my phone but it took me WAY too long to find it on the internet.

Morning, bitches.

Anyways it's time to get dressed.

21 February 2015

bathroom paint

We've been having a lot of trouble picking out a paint color for the guest bathroom.

It was obvious the room gets hardly any natural light, but then we looked up and realized the light fixture itself had dark yellowish globes that cast a funky tint over everything. There was no real source of brightness and everything seemed blah.
Rather than continue to struggle, we had a "light bulb" moment (pun intended). We decided to change the lighting situation, and then go back to choosing a color. Derh. So simple. Fix the source of the problem instead of trying to work around it.

The first thing we did was replace the funky globes with frosted ones.



So much better. Once a mirror is installed, it should help bounce light around as well.

Then, we replaced the dark blue curtain (it was just a temporary covering, anyway, so the neighbors didn't see us pee) with white blinds to match the others in the house.

 

That way, even when the blinds are closed some natural light will still seep in.

Now that the light situation has been changed, we will go back to picking a color.
We are leaning towards a light color (Note that the dark grey has been kiltzed very nicely in the pic above), simply because the cabinets are nearly black, we have zero intention of re-painting those, and, you know, maximizing light.

We have ruled out:
A lighter shade of grey. I tried a few and none seem right, plus grey seems to clash with the cabinets.
Shades of blue, because 3 other rooms in the house are blue. We're pretty blued out.
Green. I'm just not feeling green at all, in any shade or form. Even mint.
Purple, because it's too girly. Also pink. (But if I find a dusty pink, it might look so cozy in there...)
Beige, because Chris thinks it's boring. I sort of agree. Plus the whole rest of the house is beige.
Red and orange are simply too strong of colors. Trying to stay on the cooler side of the color wheel so yellow is also out.

You may have noticed that's all the colors. What does that leave? White. Cream.
Which I baulked at initially because white is so... uninspired. After thinking about it, it might work perfectly because it's fresh and fits all of the light-bouncing and cabinet-contrasting criteria. We can always punch it up with color accessories and art once we get it painted.

So back to the paint section to pick out whites. And a lot more kiltz.

invaluable

Back in Christmas of 2008, Chris bought me a waffle maker. I remember seeing it in Walmart and making a comment that I'd like one. Nothing fancy, just a simple model. I believe it was $12 back then.

Little did we know that year after year, that waffle iron would become a staple in our household. Even after the latch broke and the markings got rubbed off. It's seen a lot of love and cranked out a lot of waffles and it's still trusty.

Some families have pancakes on Saturday mornings. We're waffle folk.

I know that if it wasn't for the whole celiac thing, we wouldn't have used it much. Some people have waffle irons that they've never used.

Without the celiac, we'd probably be those people that eat cream-of-whatever chicken casseroles, and eat frozen waffles. Making waffles from scratch would have been too much of an effort.

But since cooking from scratch is a normal thing around here, it's no big deal to make a batch of waffles. I can literally shuffle into the kitchen, plug the waffle iron in, and have the batter ready by the time it's heated up and ready to go. Waffles and coffee are usually done simultaneously. I've done this a time or two.

So here we have it, the Ode to the Waffle Iron.
Happy Saturday, waffle iron. It's good to see you.

Waiting on Waffles

20 February 2015

I missed booze

ermergherd.
I missed wine. Popped open a bottle of red this evening and after so long without, it doesn't take much to feel the love.

Verdict on the stomach issues is still out. Today was merh. I think perhaps continuing the probiotics would help, as it seems the antibiotics did their job very well, getting rid of the [potential] bad bugs as well as the bugs that are supposed to be there keeping things regulated. Time to replenish!

I think wine helps with that, eh?

Cleaning off my phone

Cleaning some pics off the phone:

Some pretty sunsets lately:


Dog house:


Andy can't figure out why Pumpkin won't play with her. (Psst. Andy, it's because Pumpkin's a biznitch.)


The dishwasher wouldn't drain last week. Some disassembling, a shop vac, tons of bleach, and some nasty funk later, it now drains like a charm. The random things you learn when you're a homeowner: How the dishwasher plumbing works.


I've tried several products to spruce up the wood finishes around here until we can get them stripped/ re-stained, and what worked? Coconut oil. Go figure.



Also posted on instagram: We discovered we have a camellia tree tucked in the back corner of the flowerbed out front. Blooms galore! Unfortunately it's got tea scale pretty bad. I read up on it, and I'll see if some horticultural oil works on these buggers. I'd hate to lose one of the few sources of flowers we have.


It's threatening to rain, and I hope it does soon because this headache on my day off is not cool, man. Not cool.

19 February 2015

swing on up

Oh, man. Things are on the upswing.

I woke up today feeling great. Better than I have in literally months, maybe a year. It didn't last the entire day, but it was like a breath of fresh air. I didn't have to pretend like I felt like a normal human being for a while.

Got some of those lingering things accomplished both at work and at home. Starting to be able to relax a little on the inside.

Coincidence that things started upswinging just as Mercury did its thing? I don't know, but my boss and I have started randomly discussing Astrology and things. She's very into it, and has some cool insights. Maybe I'm at a point in my life where a little guided self-reflection would be beneficial. Or maybe the last thing I need is self-reflection!

Stumbled upon a darling blog. I love the pictures. Makes me want a garden full of flowers. It's so inspiring.

Chris is playing with the dog with the new cat toy. The dog is highly amused. The cat, in her usual state, not so much.

15 February 2015

skimm

So I started reading The Skimm daily. It's a website that summarizes the news/current events in a broken down matter-of-fact type of way.

I signed up for the daily emails but they kept going to my work spam and I don't read my personal email daily. Instead I go to the website and click on Recent Skimm.

It's not earth-shattering stuff, but at least now when someone says things like ISIS, I know more than they're just some bad guys somewhere probably in the middle east. Plus I enjoy the witty references sprinkled in the summaries.

Anyway, I do that now.

14 February 2015

side effects

The doc warned me I might have problems with the meds and their side effects, using the exact words, "You may feel worse before you start to feel better."

So true, doc. Last week was suck city. This weekend I am both trying to suck it up for the purposes of maximizing toot time, and trying to take advantage of the opportunity to lay on the couch when I feel bad instead of pretending like I don't feel like shit at work. (Which, fortunately, I've become very good at over the years.)

This evening I tried doing some of my digestive yoga, which seemed to help a little, and hopefully things calm down before I force another set of pills down my throat at bedtime.

Thoughts:
I never thought it would be so hard to take pills. But when you take so many of them they seem to get stuck in your throat, or try to work their way back up, or you swallow air with them which makes you both nauseated and burpy combined with the other feelings, etc.
The instructions indicate to take a dose after meals and at bedtime. The problem is, on weekdays I generally go to bed about 2 hours after I eat dinner, which piles the doses right on top of each other. In an effort not to rocket-launch these pills into my stomach in rapid succession, (and possibly relieve some of the discomfort) I've started setting an alarm for midnight to take the bedtime dose, or about 4 hours after dinner. It sucks both to wake up and to stay upright for the required 10 minutes after taking the pills so they don't burn a hole in the esophagus.
And that's all the detail I'll really get into because everyone knows the other random ass side effects of antibiotics.

08 February 2015

let's get this party started

I was going to wait until I finished my bottle of wine to start ANTIBIOTIC FEST 2015, but I figured that was a really bad reason to wait, and I wanted to see how the drugs affect me before I take a bunch and then head off to work.


The prescription came in a paper lunchbag, instead of the normal little pharmacy pouch. That was the first indication that I'd be taking a lot of pills.

The schedule is:
After breakfast and dinner: 3 antibiotic capsules, 1 acid reducer, 1 probiotic
After lunch and before bed: 3 antibiotic capsules

So that's 16 pills a day for 10 days. That's 160 pills. 160 pills that could possibly cure me forever! However skeptical my default setting is, that's the whole reason I'm doing this. So the first 5 pills are officially down the hatch, with plenty of water.*

*I think it's funny that the package instructions tell you to take it with plenty of water. If you didn't, these horse pills would choke a bitch. Thanks, instructions, for that obvious bit of information.

07 February 2015

Resolving

So back to those new year's resolutions...


1. I saw my gastroenterologist, armed with the determination to focus on the cause of my troubles.
We talked. In his opinion, the only two things that usually cause that kind of inflammation are NSAIDS and H. Pylori. Since I'm not a big NSAID user, he turned to H. Pylori. When I mentioned that I've been tested for it several times before with negative results, he agreed that they did not see any sign of the infection in the biopsy results either. However, it can be hard to miss and based on my history it's worth a shot to go ahead and treat for it, just in case. I agreed to the treatment because it's something that I haven't already tried. Now we're talking.

What does that mean? It means a round of seriously gnarly antibiotics. After the treatment, though, if it is due to H. Pylori I will start to feel better. How bizarre would that be? To just suddenly feel better one day? Like I said, I'm ready to try anything if it will help or even rule something out so we can move on to something else. Onward!

2. I saw my gynecologist. To my disappointment, he did not agree to give me enough prescription refills so that I can skip my period. I suppose I will need to go out and buy tampons, then. UGH.

He did, however, agree to run some bloodwork at my request. I even fasted. What came back was not surprising. Lipids were not ideal. They gave me the same old advice: eat better and exercise more.

This not only reinforces my need to exercise, but provides a bit of a wake up call. It's no longer, "Oh hey I think my cholesterol is still high." I have the numbers right in front of me. A warning.

I'm officially on the other side of 30, and I can't keep ignoring my heart health. Not to mention the fact that it's February- Heart Month- and much of the information I'm seeing lately is aimed at women's heart disease.Why is it, then, that I'm still lacking motivation?

3. Struggling with keeping the "Making people happy" mantra in my head. Probably because life has been so... trying... lately. Not giving up, though. I think it's good for me to be in that state of mind, when I can remember to pull it up front and center.

4. Got the new fence. Thank goodness we decided to do that before all this tax madness, or we probably would not have done it. Next up: bathroom. It's been in the same stage of progress for about a month now.

05 February 2015

bad day(s)

This week has been beyond bizarre and frustrating and kind of terrible. Nothing spectacular or anything, just an ongoing sequence of shitty events. I'm ready for things to level out or something. Not sounding promising, as the weekend holds the promise of taxes and family. Suze mentioned Feb 11 as a golden day, so here's to sticking it out until then.

03 February 2015

boulder part 2

One of the other big things weighing on my mind lately is work. More specifically, the idea that it might be time to look for another job. Changing jobs is normally a stressful task anyway, but it's complicated here by several reasons.

The only reason the thought of changing jobs crossed my mind is because we started hearing rumors of something wicked coming down the pike. While I usually ignore rumors such as these, they immediately get a lot more merit when they come straight from your boss, and your boss's boss. Without getting into detail, it made finding another job seem like a good idea.

With that one thought came a snowball of other thoughts:
  • I don't feel like it's the right time to leave this job.
  • For the most part, I like my daily tasks and the people I work with.
  • However if I'm honest with myself, I don't feel challenged. While I can always ask for more projects or responsibilities, I've hit the ceiling at my current position. There is no room for growth unless someone leaves, and even that is not guaranteed because historically when something opens up, they SAY they consider internal applicants, but in reality they always hire from outside.
  • I'm torn between wanting to wait and see what happens (sometimes great opportunities arise from a mess), and wanting to move on before the mess happens.
  • My schedule is great. I love weekends and holidays off. If I find something else, I want to keep that.
  • Changing health care and other benefits-- will I find something as good? How good are the benefits I'm getting now?
  • Maybe I can find something with the same company, but a different department.
  • I do not love my daily commute, so maybe I can find something closer to home.
  • Jobs in my field are a bit scarce closer to home, not to mention going back to the bench would be a step backwards, so maybe I should consider changing careers.
  • Whatever else I find, I'll need to make more money. Which shouldn't be too hard because I'm not making a lot right now.
  • How am I going to find time to interview? I'll have to take time off which is weird and suspicious and annoying.

Plus everything in-between. So I updated my resume, one tailored for my specific field and one tailored for a possible career change. And while I'm not trying to change jobs right this second, I want to be ready not only if shit hits the fan, but also because I know that I will need to move on at some point if I want to grow. I'm keeping my eyes open for anything.

The good thing about not needing to change jobs right this second, is I can be a little picky. I can try to find something that really meets my wants and needs.

My next step should definitely be management, or at least a position with an opportunity to grow into that.
And I definitely need more cash flow. With all of the benefits offered by my current employer, there is a very strict basis for calculating salary and it doesn't necessarily reflect how much you're worth. Which is incredibly frustrating when my peers and friends all make more than I do and we've all got similar experience in our chosen fields. It has started to make me regret my career choices, and I've started looking into what else I can do.

In conclusion, this is the swirl of thoughts in my head all the time, combined with the aforementioned thoughts and a few other randoms. Fun, huh?

01 February 2015

random things that are not adultful stress

Been really bloated the past few days. Like so much that my skin is hurting it's so stretched. No idea why! It's not helping the overall funk that has settled in that region. Drinking tons of water (and lemon water) hoping it will resolve soon. Related: Gastro appt Thursday.

Related... related: Gyno appt Tuesday. I called ahead and asked if they could run a lipid panel while I was there, since it's been a while since I've had the ole high cholesterol checked and butter has been a big thing around here lately. They had no problem with that. Sweet.

Nacho bar at Ashley's superbowl party. Bloating and cholesterol be damned-- I'm absolutely taking part in that. I'll bring the pepto bismol. And take some fish oil.

Dad and Tommy came to treat for bugs and pests. Take that, adolescent roach that I saw in the shower the other day, and rats under the deck. Your days are numbered.

We have tried leaving the TV/ lights on and giving Andy a chew when we leave. So far, it's preventing the misbehaving issue. The other day Chris left and forgot to do those things, and all hell broke loose, specifically in the trash can. So that means it's working, hopefully. Don't prove me wrong, dog.
She still likes to dig holes in the yard. We're filling those up with poop, like the dog trainer suggested, and she won't mess with those holes, but instead will dig new ones. Sigh. Maybe she just needs funner toys or bigger chews.

P.S. This is the closest that they've voluntarily gotten to each other without hissing and swatting from the cat. Andy just wants to be friends and Pumpkin is, well, Pumpkin.
They are both moving from the front window to the office window, united by a common interest in the neighbor's cats roaming about in the front flowerbeds.

This sequence of pictures is priceless and adorable.
I couldn't believe that 1. They looked at each other from their respective windows and went back to their stalking and there was no fighting and 2. I caught it on camera. Could this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship? HA, not a chance.