smiling on foot

This has pretty much been me for all of 2010 so far:

There’s a ghost at Hekd’s House.

First, I should tell you that I’m crazy obsessed with watching Lost. Even at this moment, I’m fighting the urge to not write this blog entry and instead dive right into some Lost episodes. Once I heard that the current season was going to be its last, I decided it was time to be part of the club. Before now, I refused to watch it because of all the unanswered questions the series poses. I would listen to my former roommate discuss the episodes with others and wonder why they put themselves through this madness of having so many more questions than answers. I wouldn’t be made a fool of. So I decided that once the series was ending, I’ll watch them all at once. Fortunately, Netflix offers them for free when I watch on my lappy.

And now I’m a fool for Lost.

I watch it just about every day and I’m up to season 3. To be specific, I have 4 episodes left of season 3. I love Sayid. I hate Juliet. I love Desmond’s accent. I’m bored with Jack. I love Ben. I’m disturbed by that Nikki/Paolo episode. I’m enthralled with Jin and Sun’s back story. It’s all a wonderful soap opera of characters. And they throw me just enough bones that I’m not overly irritated at the lack of knowing what the f is going on. But then again, I don’t have to wait very long to find out the resolution of each cliffhanger.

Last Saturday morning, I watched an episode. At the end of every episode, the credits come up and then the production company “bad robot” runs their graphic of a robot and some kid voices yell “BAD ROBOT!” and then the episode is officially ended. I’m at a place now that I’m so sick of hearing this every day of my life. So I try to hurry up and click to the next episode before this bad robot part plays. But last Saturday morning, I simply closed the laptop before the bad robot part played and packed it away in a bag. Saturday evening a bunch of us got together at Salem Beer Works for BM’s birthday, then I went to Dan and Hekd’s house for the night since it’s a lot closer than Weytown. My laptop spent all day and night unplugged and in my duffel bag. The plan was that I would sleep in the basement room on the comfortable futon. But for some reason, I was too scared. And when Hekd and Dan went up to bed, I felt uneasy being by myself. But I decided to sleep on the couch in the living room even though it’s not very comfortable. I put the TV on the sleep mode so it would shut off in 30 min. I do this at home nightly and 99% of the time I fall asleep before 30 min. At Hekd’s house, I was awake when it shut off so I put it on another 30 min. Once again, I was awake when it shut off so I just let it stay off and tried to sleep. I drifted in and out of a not-so-restful sleep and then around 4 in the morning, there was suddenly the familiar kid-shouting from the corner of the room, “BAD ROBOT!”

I was so scared, I buried my face into the couch and thought, “I knew it. I knew there was something off about tonight and there is totally a spirit in this house that’s messing with me.” At this point, my laptop had been unplugged for about 17 hours. I didn’t think my lappy’s battery could last that long. And even if it did last that long, Netflix times out when you’re not watching anything for a while. Dan went to breakfast with the boys the next day and relayed the story. Dan told me that Keith said it was probably a glitch. I think not. So I’ve decided it’s fact.

There’s a ghost at Hekd’s house.

My streak of failed relationships is successfully intact. And it’s okay. As a professional girlfriend, I rarely have a relationship that lasts less than a year, but the latest lasted just under 6 months. I don’t know if it’s the short duration of the relationship or the fact that it’s my umteenth boyfriend I’ve had to say Sayonara to (perhaps a bit of both), but I am surprisingly okay with everything. I cried for a week after we broke up and was generally sad for a week after that. I talked things out with a few close friends and then thoughts of him just fizzled away… just like magic. Now that I think of it, a substantial portion of what makes things okay probably has something to do with the low caliber of manhood this particular ex-boyfriend displayed. Breaking up was a no-brainer. But I won’t go into name-calling on this one. We’ll just say he wasn’t for me and I wish him well. I think 6 months is about the time when you get to know someone for who they really are and there’s no more of that “best foot forward” nonsense or even that “rose-colored glasses” nonsense from the beginning months. So you date and get to know each other and sometimes it’s not a fit and you break up before “real” feelings are invested. Not a terribly uncommon story. I think of him fondly as someone who sort of brought me back to life in the romance realm and I’m glad to have known him at this time in my life. And all this being okay is really a shocker for me (and I’m not talking about the hand gesture). I’m usually a lot more emotionally effected by these types of things. Perhaps we should throw in a little “growing up” in the mix too. Whatever the reason may be, it’s obvious that the way my head works has changed significantly over the past couple of years. And for right now, I think I’ve come to terms with not having a boyfriend for a while – there are other things in life I can focus on… and other things I absolutely NEED to focus on to make me happier in this life – that does not involve dudes. So stay tuned for more major personal growth in 2010. Maybe I’ll fall in love in 2011. It would be nice to do that one more time before the end of the world the following year.

Who puts Evergreen as a hand soap scent?

I’m not sure if Mum acquired this hand soap and lotion combo as a gift or not, but appeared in our downstairs bathroom this winter and has received some skepticism from yours truly. Now, when you think of hand soap, what sort of scents come to mind? Lavender? Vanilla? Something of a citrus variety? I would think these would be your “go-to scents” in regards to a hand cleansing. Did you ever smell a pine tree and think, “Man, that smells so good, I’d love it if my hands smelled like this all day?” Or perhaps, “Wow, the smell of trees is relaxing, I’d like to bathe in it someday?” I, personally, have smelled pine trees before and not once did I get the urge to rub my body all over said trees.

Don’t get me wrong, evergreen is not a bad smell. I enjoy the smell of a Christmas tree, or fake Christmas tree spray in a can or even a tree-smelling candle. But hand soap? If you think that evergreen is a weird smell for a hand soap, I’m in your camp (a camp surrounded by lovely-smelling trees, no doubt). Am I wrong to think this is weird? When I wash my hands in the downstairs bathroom, I could probably pick a liquid soap out of the shower to use instead… but I guess I don’t hate it enough for that sort of effort. Actually, I wouldn’t say “hate” at all… just weird… and maybe “ill-fitting.” But I will continue to use it since there is so much left, which actually makes me think I’m the only fool using this wacko hand soap.  I have yet to use the lotion. Hand soap smell is bad enough, but I’m really not feeling comfortable with that scent really lingering for hours through a lotion. Now that I think of it, I don’t believe I’ve ever even SEEN an evergreen scented hand soap or lotion in any store. Have you? Would you buy it? Would you use it if it was given to you as a gift?

I had a birthday last Saturday and it was a lot better than I planned. Mostly because I had initially planned to do nothing. I was going to let 33 just slide by with maybe the normal joint birthday celebration with my brother whose birthday is the day after mine (but 12 years earlier than my birth). My brother surprised me with a special phone call a few weeks before the big birthday weekend to make some plans. We didn’t do the big celebration together last year since I spent the weekend with my girlfriends at JBP’s former Cape Cod pad instead. I figured he could have the family birthday fun night to himself for that year. Good thing, though, because my brother’s son (my nephew) initiated a strong upheaval amongst the Hull locals that resulted in a parking lot brawl… and my mother trying to defend him with her words. ::Sigh:: Anyway, I was pretty touched that it was important to my brother that I was able to attend the joint celebration this year, but a little nervous that similar shenanigans would resurface. Regardless, it was decided that the family would meet at the local Chinese restaurant/bar for some karaoke, drinks and cupcakes the Friday before our birthdays. I invited NF, AMR, Bykfam and Bykfam’s sister to join me in case I needed to pretend to not know my relations. Thankfully, everyone behaved themselves and such measures were not taken.

Also around that time, I was emailing with HEKD about not wanting to do anything for my birthday. She offered to bring back the “girl dinner” so all the usual attendees could bring a dish to her home and maybe there will be some cake and candles for me. How could I refuse? I do so love a girl dinner. Since I currently do not have a home of my own, the girl dinner has definitely become few and far between. A low-key night with 5 of my closest girlfriends (and HEKD’s coworker who I never met before) was just perfect. I received many thoughtful birthday cards and presents. RB drove all the way east and forced HEKD to purchase basic baking supplies to make my fabulous smiley face cake. So I had family fun karoake night on the 29th (with no parking lot fights) and girl dinner fun night (also no parking lot fights) on the 30th. All in all, it was a nice birthday weekend (with absolutely no parking lot fights to speak of – phew!).

I’ve been telling my co-workers how “done” I am with this tag line. It’s on everything! Even this blog! Well, it was more towards the beginning of the year, but I’m a little late with this post. I only notice it because the emails I worked on in January of last year included this slogan so I’m more sensitive to it appearing in ads all around me. I even received a religious calendar in the mail with “New Year. New You.” on the cover. Can we think of something else, people? Or are the marketing geniuses of the world too busy making their co-workers crazy to come up with something new? In my experience, it’s the latter. Speaking of which… I won’t go into details… but just want to say it’s been an interesting 2010 thus far and I’m seriously considering changing my career. What could I do with myself that would not require me to stay at work until 7 p.m. three nights a week? Something that would allow me to have a life? I don’t know where these 5:00-release jobs are, but I can’t seem to find them in my current career. I guess I’ll just keep plugging along and hope that things get better… either with a change in career or without.

I do have a new assistant, however, and she just started this past Tuesday. Training is HARD. I have to use my brain so much more and I barely have time for these hours of training. The hardest part seems to be explaining how the different parts of an email swap out based on what type of customer you are… how to recognize and think about the changing pieces, how to code it, how to set it up in the online tool we use and how to know if you did it right. If you’ve never worked with this sort of technology, it’s tough to wrap your head around. And if you’ve been swimming in it for 5 years, it’s hard to explain to someone who doesn’t have much experience in this sort of thing how to figure it out. But it’s her first week and she did pretty well. I’m going to have to think this weekend on a better way to explain dynamic content for her for next week… a “lesson plan” if you will (for all my teacher friends).

Speaking of technology:
My American Express online account just sent me a 2009 summary of expenses. It’s pretty cool how they’ve categorized my spending in 9 different categories: Business Services, Communications, Entertainment, Fees & Adjustments, Merchandise & Supplies, Other, Restaurant, Transportation and Travel. These categories are listed down along the left of the chart and along the top are the 4 quarters of the year of which the spending happened. I’m proud to say I did not use this card TOO much in 2009, but I did falter a couple of times… especially at Christmastime. About $1,000 falls into Merchandise & Supplies and you can expand this category for a more detailed breakdown… where you see this spending was exclusively on clothing. Shocking. Bad, bad LK. The other $700 falls into Business Services but when you break it down the spending is exclusively on Health Care Services. This was all my dental work I had done last fall. How cool that American Express can automatically create this chart? And it’s completely accurate. I love technology. Now I just need to put this S back to zero balance for 2010.

A couple of weeks ago, I used kodakgallery.com’s cool little sidebar app to drag and drop my favorite photos from all my 2009 online photo albums and created a “year in review” of photos. This is always an excellent project. It’s time consuming for sure and I remember last year feeling like I’m never doing this again because it’s so tedious to choose the photos, order the photos to my liking and put little captions on each. But I think the sidebar app made it a little quicker for this year. Of course, the captioning is what takes most of the time, but it’s mandatory in order to tell the story of the year. It took me about 2 hours to put this together and the final product always makes me feel great. No matter how depressed I will be about the cold, snow, work, living with my parents, etc… the Year in Photos is a powerful reminder that my life is pretty damn good.

Click here to see my 2009 year in photos! (Apparently, I attended about a million birthdays in ‘09 – apologies for the lack of variety.)

Now as for 2010:
I’m not going to make any “resolutions” this year, but I do have some general plans. #1 is I’d like to move out of my parents house and support myself like a normal 32-year old (33 in 2 weeks!). I’m afraid to live by myself, but it’s something I’m going to psyche myself up for and force myself to do. Sort of like a “personal challenge” instead of a lame “resolution.” I’m close to paying off one of three college loans and then I’ll start saving for the move. I’m still undecided on the condo vs. apt. decision.  However, I’m leaning towards the apartment after hearing about Xtina’s $3,000 termite damage in her condo and year 2 of water ruining the carpet/wall of KDM’s condo. It’s all their issue that they need to deal with and I think owning has just so much monetary risk that’s scary to take on by myself. (Especially if I’m looking to change my career, right!?) #2 for the new year is just to keep up with my health and try like Hell to get to the gym at least twice a week and continue to eat right. I know that everyone else on the planet has this new year’s goal too, but that doesn’t mean it’s less important. I did really well with it in 2009 for the first time in my life and hope I am able to continue with 2010. #3 is just to continue to enjoy time spent with my friends and my boyfriend. I had been so lonely before I met NF and have had some really good laughs and conversation with him in 2009. I really hope this works out and we have a fun 2010 together too. But, of course, the friends play a big part in my happiness too and will continue to make time to see those smiling faces as well.  Hopefully, with the new assistant, I can do more weeknight outings and have that much more of a more fulfilling life.

We’ll see if the new year brings a new me, I guess!  Happy New Year, Bloggos. :)

Since I started with such a negative title, let me begin by writing out some good things. But I have to note that when I listen to Oldies 103 and they have that little radio station in-between jingle “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” I feel like yelling, “It SO ISN’T the most wonderful time! I’m freezing to death! I have too much to do! I’m spending too much money!” But I suppose there are some good things happening to… let me try and think…

I interviewed a nice candidate to be my assistant at work this week. She is SMART. Her resume is slightly intimidating and I think she’s probably going to be gunning for my job in a year, but that’s okay. At least I’ll get some intelligent assistance for that 1 year anyway. We’re extending an offer this week (or maybe we already have? Who knows.) and I hope she can start the day I return from my vacation. Which brings me to ‘good thing #2′ which is that I have all of next week off! Yippee skippee! I am in desperate need for that one week off as I still don’t have any presents purchased for my brother Chuck’s family and only a couple of things each for my parents. I also need to buckle down and do some gift wrapping… and maybe bake some Christmas cookies. So much to do…. which brings me to why this time of year is so f%$#ing far from “the most wonderful”…

1) Working in retail during the holidays sucks. It sucks for many reasons, but of course the main one is just that I work a lot harder this time of year. But admittedly, November was worse than December, so I guess that’s a bonus.

2) Since my job requires me to be email-subscribed to many different types of retailers, I get LOTS of email to read through this time of year. The advertisements entice me to spend money and I stress over whether I should do it or not. Oh, would my niece like that? Maybe I should go into the store and see it in person? Will a better idea come around? Do I really need to spend this much money on her? Do I even have time this week to go to a store? Maybe I should just buy it now online. Will it arrive in time? Maybe I should wait until vacation so I can go to the store? It’s emotionally draining for me to ask myself these questions over almost every email and family member almost every day of the holiday season.

3) Since I am physically and emotionally drained, I will often get sick this time of year – which I did. Thankfully, it lasted only four days. Yesterday was my first day of being back to good health and it felt GOOD. Working hard and being so sick is not a good combo – fyi. I will also often perform immense amounts of “retail therapy” as a sort of “release” from my self-inflicted stress. As a result, 50% of boxes that have arrived at my home are for myself, while the other 50% will be distributed across my friends and family. I have also spent an obscene amount of money this year. I need to not be so willy nilly with my online shopping next year. This sh*t is ridiculous. I’M ridiculous. I bought self-tanner on ebay today that was recommended to me by a co-worker. Yah – crazy, right?

4) Christmas Cards. I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas Cards. Every year I tell myself that it’s a big waste of time and money and to only do it if I have many nights free and/or start them early. But when I begin to receive them, I can’t wait to get mine together to send back in return. I love this “best wishes” correspondence from your household to mine and vice versa. But then there’s always the question of whether I should photoshop something personalized or just buy a box of cards like most people. Since I know I have the skills to be slightly creative and make them personalized, I feel like if I’m going to do it, I should do it to the best of my ability. Mum says this makes me like my dad: do it super great or not at all. I do not have many nights free this year due to late nights at the office and boyfriend visits in Marshfield. But last Sunday, Mum insisted that I create a Christmas card on the ol’ computer that would feature our multi-species family. We brainstormed and I came up with an idea that took two photoshop-heavy nights of a very sick LK to execute. The card is super cute, LARGE and a little sloppy… but it’s done. I printed out a shortened xmas card list and wrote out envelopes last night. Phew. Done. I don’t know how many years longer I can spend this kind of time on Christmas cards. What if I have my own home and family someday? There will be no homemade cards if that day comes. Mum will need to hire a new designer. I hope the “I do everything else in this house” speech works on the new designer. :)

Okay, now I’ll end with some good thoughts. I have noticed how my attitude about the holidays is notably cheerier than last year. I know, I know – you are skeptical because you just got through reading the above 4 points on why I find the holidays the most terrible time of year… but until the Holidays aren’t so much work, you’re never going to get a 100% “It’s a Wonderful Life” reaction out of me. What you will get is an LK who is actually turning on Oldies 103 to listen to holiday music in the morning. An LK that willingly decorated the xmas tree and even put on the holiday music while doing so. And an LK who bought a festive tablecloth last weekend in excitement for having everyone over on Christmas day. I even wore little ornament earrings to my work’s holiday luncheon last Friday. Last year, I wanted nothing to do with holiday merriment and Mum had to force me to help her with that tree and attend family gatherings. I’m glad and relieved that my reactions have improved. You never know what can happen in a year.

Work has been kickin’ my butt the past couple of weeks and blogging hasn’t been top of mind. Apologies. Thanksgiving weekend is the time of year when we make more money than any other week of the year. And because it’s so important, the powers-that-be conduct many meetings discussing promotions and marketing messaging… and change the promotions and marketing messaging over and over and over again… which creates lots of work. But whatever. I’m pretty much AWESOME and get it all done and make it happen so it’s all good.

Work has also moved my desk temporarily. I used to have a really private back corner desk that was shared with my cube-mate who is currently out on short-term disability. But they’ve decided to remove our cubes, build a wall and make that back corner into a corner office. My new cubicle location is much more public and people keep talking to me a lot more. So with the increase in holiday work in addition to the influx of people talking to me… I stay late a lot and this needs to stop. I often think of an old co-worker who used to put a “go away” sign on his cube when he needed to get stuff done. I haven’t ruled it out.

In October, my boss emailed the e-comm team about PTO (Paid Time Off) that we needed to take before the end of the year or we’ll lose it. Guess who the winner was who rarely takes time off and has the most hours on her record? Oh yes, yours truly went ahead and took some days in November and December. But with every day off I take, there seems to be some people who get upset over it… which is probably why I don’t take time off very often! Oh well. I took off 11/13 and 11/16 and it was kind of nuts leading up to it and then the week when I returned, I worked so late every night to catchup and get ready for the holiday it hardly seemed worth it. But on the day of the 16th, I was able to go to Mum’s fancy gym with her using her annual free guest pass… and subsequently contract a UTI after sitting in the jacuzzi. AWESOME. That was the last time I went to the gym in November.

When gearing up for Thanksgiving week, I was telling Mum how I just feel like I’m always rushing. Rushing to get to places (always arriving late), rushing to do laundry before bed, rushing to get stuff done at work before a certain time, rushing to get to my BF’s apt. before he turns into a pumpkin at 10… I’ve just been behind on everything (especially work-related stuff) and still fitting in more and more into my schedule. So I took off Monday through Wednesday after Thanksgiving and it has done a WORLD of good. Sure, I’m still getting phone calls from work, but I’ve been able to catch up on so many things: laundry, unread emails from 2 weeks ago, learning how to use my new Droid phone (which is awesome), painted my nails and today I may actually go to the gym.

The day before Thanksgiving was a half day for the company… but this always excludes the e-comm team… especially me… especially when I’m taking off the Mon thru Wed after the holiday. So I was rushing, rushing, rushing and finally got out of there. And the plan was to go home and quickly make some lemon meringue pies and then go to NF’s place. I ran around the house looking for pie shells when Mum had put them, and all ingredients I needed, in a plastic bag on the table for me to make things easier. I don’t know why I didn’t see it. This is what happens when I’m rushing. So I separated out the 4 egg yolks and the whites into two bowls and began making the lemon filling, double the recipe. And without even thinking about what I was doing, I dumped in the egg whites into the mixture when I was supposed to put in the yolks. I was so mad. Then NF called at that moment and said he was crazy busy getting ready for his holiday and weekend away and could he just see me on Friday. Now I was mad AND disappointed. I dumped everything down the sink and started all over. Thankfully, we had two more boxes of lemon pie filling hanging around (it’s my favorite so mum always has it on hand). My sister and niece came over that night for a sleepover to “help” with Thanksgiving the next morning. Ever hear about how too many cooks spoil the broth? Yeah, things were a little chaotic on Thanksgiving, but the dinner was fantastic and the lemon meringue pie was nothing short of amazing. :)

Monday morning, I spent about 4 hours perusing Cyber Monday deals and phoning the companies with additional codes found online. I wish I could say that most of that shopping were for holiday gifts, but buying for me is just so much easier than buying gifts for others! However, there were some gifts purchased too. There will be many boxes delivered to this house over the coming weeks. I think I’ll at least take off Cyber Monday every year just to do this. So many great deals online. Then Mum and I went shopping at the local Goodwill on Tuesday. I didn’t purchase anything, but boy do I love the people watching. And when I get a place someday, I’m totally doing my furniture shopping there. They had some really cool antique-y furniture that I was falling in love with left and right. I love shopping.

Last night, I was able to see my friend, Katie Z., for our own game of catchup since the last time we visited was JULY. Holy moly. You would never know we live in the same town! We drank almost two whole bottles of red wine in a 5 hours period. :) Go us! Last Saturday, I was able to meet my friend, Xtina, for dinner after not seeing her for many weeks and then we hit up the Bykfam birthday bash where good times were had. I feel like this past week has been a good balance of friend time, family time and catching up on chores/errands time. NF went to Albany, NY and then Portland, ME this past weekend to follow his favorite live band, Phish. He had wanted me to go with him and his friend, but I’m glad I stayed back and saw some friends and got some R&R. Going back to work tomorrow is going to be way harsh. Waayyy harsh. I had originally wanted to fit in a visit with HEKD on Friday, but the reality is just that I’m going to be working late Thursday and Friday. And if I don’t work late, I’m going to start the holiday month behind, I’ll be back to square one and you Bloggos won’t hear from me for like a month. :) And no one wants that!