don't you just feel like this sometimes?

[this picture came in one of the thousands of email forwards one of my coworkers sends me, so i have no idea who to give credit for this picture.]

home sweet home

we made it back home from vacation. and i'm leaving today again for a work trip. oh well, no rest for the wicked, i guess.

we did have a lot of fun, even during the 26 hour road trip portions. we played the license plate game. found all but three states (w virginia, rhode island, and vermont) along with a few mexico plates, canada plates, one us gov't plate, and a even german plate. i'm still very surprised that we managed to see some hawaii plates and n dakota plates but none from w virginia.

we also played a variation of slugbug/punchbuggy. generally, if you see a vw bug, you get to call it out, including the color, and then smack the person closest. there are additional rules; some think you get two hits for a classic and generally you get a retribution hit if it ends up not being a bug (pt cruisers can be quite tricky from a distance). andrew loves to drive along with his family in the car, call them all out, and then just listen to the fifteen smacks from the three people in the back seat. on our trip, we generally went hours with barely seeing a car, let alone a vw bug, so the game mutated into calling out interesting things we happened to see. instead of punchbug yellow, it became punch watertower, punch mcdonalds, and punch pond. it also turned into something of a one-up-manship. we drove past a dinosaur land and there were big dinosaur statues on the side of the road. andrew called them all out: punch green dinosaur, punch yellow, etc. but i one uped him with punch dinosaur bones still in the ground. and occasionally we called on a judges ruling for inappropriate punches. i called out punch mountains that looked like breasts but andrew questioned it in that one was a bit bigger than the other. i said she just ran out of tissues, and i stand by my punch.

vacation update

i'm slowly starting to feel like a normal person again. or, i guess, what i think of as a normal person. and i know that i'm not going to want to leave on friday morning.

i think i've gotten through all my stupid impulse sentences. hopefully. for example, we were driving through oklahoma and i was looking out the window. i saw some water and said, "gosh it must have rained here recently." "no," andrew said, "that is a pond, not flash flooding. its not rain runoff, that water is always just sitting there." i'd forgotten about the existence of ponds.

i'd also forgotten there were nice people out there. strangers who say please, thank you, how are you and have a nice day. people here even actually mean all those words; most days i'd be happy with anyone just saying them. in part it is a small town thing and in part its the south and the bible belt.

i went to get a haircut this morning, and i was already in the chair when i thought to ask if they take plastic payments. i almost didn't ask, because in the back of my mind, i figured i could just write a check. and then i remembered it was an out of town check so they for sure weren't going to accept that. so i asked and the look on the woman's face really answered me quickly. she hadn't actually started cutting my hair so she could have sent me off but instead, all up front and before she knew who my daddy is, she was fine with me going to the atm AFTER the cut. once anyone figures out that i'm charles and cheryl's daughter, i'm practically embraced like family. or if they don't recognize the names, i can just say, you know that guy on the moped and the light bulb goes off. everyone knows my dad, the guy on the moped. (he hasn't been able to drive a car for years and so owns a terribly cute, orange sherbet colored moped.)

i do feel something like a celebrity. a couple of people already knew me and knew i'd moved to vegas. and some other people have just happened to glance at my license (because its in a plastic window on the outside of my wallet) and mentioned that i was an out of towner. to which i reply that i'm from here but recently moved to vegas. and everyone just looks awed. "wow, you live in vegas?!?" i guess ten years ago i would have done the same. now i feel like i probably look awed at them, "wow, you get to live here?"

they are dropping like flies

another coworker has rushed off to the hospital. this time for some kind of gallbladder gallstone gallish issues. i'm kind of glad to be going on vacation; there is clearly some sort of badluck plague going on here.

everyday is a new adventure

work has been eventful this week.

on tuesday, one of my coworkers thought he was having a heart attack, in his office at his desk. he's had a few before, so he knows what they feel like. the hospital ambulance and the firetruck emt both showed up. it was odd. none of us wanted to just go back to our desks like nothing was happening, like a coworker might not be having some serious health issues. but at the same time, we didn't want to stand around and gawk. in the end, he was not having a heart attack and he did not go to the hospital in the ambulance. someone else in the office drove him and he didn't stay the night. he has several heath issues. none of them caused by, but all exacerbated by being about a hundred pounds overweight. he's not fine, but he's also not likely to die today.

and then today, i reviewed a file for a self employed 'phone actress.' its entirely possible that she is very wholesome single mother and works for a psychic hotline telling people their fake horoscopes. but in this town, odds are against that and in favor of a more risque sort of hotline. when i woke up this morning, i did not think i would meet a phone sex worker.

we are headed home for vacation tomorrow. i think i will be quite glad to get away from this town for a few days. sigh.

i think this has to be the ugliest shirt i've ever seen (i don't mean to offend if you happen to own and love this shirt). i was looking around on line for some dress pants for work and happened onto a site that claimed to sell 'sophisticated' clothing. this is an example of their sophisticated daytime shirts. really, they had daytime and afterdark catagories and this one really was in the daytime option. i cannot imagine what they think i should wear after dark!

"This classy top features a split neckline with a neck tie that fills the exposed area. 3/4 length sleeves and an engaging print perfect this look."

ah, the company picnic

i've never been so hot and tired in my life.

we were out of the house at 9 to help set up for the company picnic. around noon, everyone else started to show up. we had over 200 RSVP; since during the four hours of picnicking we had such turn over, i think we got our 200. we grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. there was a bake off contest. tug o war. there was a jumper and clown for the kids. the best was watching the kids beat a pinata. and then around 4:30 we started to clear everything away.

i guess it wasn't that hot out. it only got up to about 105, for about eight hours. i drank at least four bottles of water, two or three cans of soda, and my bladder was absolutely no where near being full.

i'm also fairly appalled at the fitness levels of my coworkers. the parking lot was downhill and around the corner from the picnic pavilion. so setting up was terrible. all the ice chests were full. everything was uphill. we had all the food and drinks and candy. all the water balloons. etc. cleaning up was a breeze. everything was lighter. everything was eaten or melted or tossed away. walking to the parking lot was downhill. one of my coworkers (who had not been there to set up, only clean up) couldn't hardly carry a nearly empty ice chest down the hill to the truck. i carried it full up the hill. i know i'm young and that has a bit to do with it. but it also seems like most everyone i know lets their thirties and forties slip by and suddenly they are weak.

andrew and i got to talking about that. so many people have very valid reasons for not accomplishing a variety of goals. you've got so much stress in your life with work, kids, school, a commute, etc. you are to tired. you cannot afford a gym or tuition. there just isn't time right now. most of those things are completely legitimate reasons; they honestly are not excuses. but i think when you allow the reasons to dictate your life, instead of the other way around, then yeah, they become excuses. the reasons never go away, usually they multiply. so either you choose to do something about it or suddenly find yourself unable to carry an empty ice chest down the hill.

horray! my soldier came home!

andrew doesn't seem to worse for wear. a bit tired and itchy but his terrible sunburn seems to have lessened. and he lost five pounds, much to the irritation of my coworkers. he's not trying; they really really are. but they are surrounded by donuts, he was surrounded by cacti. not really the same amount of temptation. when he took a fourth helping of dinner friday night, i got the impression that the cacti might actually have been more tempting that the army food...

today i finally met a professional poker player.

in the gym, at 5:30 am, i met rocko. he moved to vegas from new jersey in order to be a professional poker player.

the best thing i could think to says was, "good luck with that."

scratch that off the to do list!

i've finally gotten around to signing up for a refresher spanish course. well, i've started the process.

monday night i applied to the local community college, sorta. its very recently not a community college. ccsn is now just csn, college of southern nevada. its still a two year, associates sort of place. the online application seemed really really interested in whether or not i had graduated high school. there wasn't any space to tell them about my undergraduate or graduate degrees. do you think they'll accept me??

once they have accepted my application, i need to take a test proving i can read and do simple math. and then if i pass that, i can sign up for my spanish class. its on saturday mornings and i'm really excited. there are seven seats still available so i'm trying to get some coworkers to join in. most everyone took a class back in high school, but since we deal with so many spanish speakers, working with housing in the southwest, i think it would be good if we all spoke it a little more.

right now i'm just waiting patiently for my acceptance email...

over half way

andrew's two weeks in utah are over half way done. as far as i can tell, he's doing great. he earned a 100% on the first written test and has made mid 90s on all the rest. he may finish with honors which would be great except there is no more room on the wall for army certificates/awards. he led PT one morning, and he got to teach a class on first aid for shock. he's getting really good at giving himself an IV and also shoving one of those tubes down your throat into your tummy. i think he was a little sad that all the injuries were only simulated. for the rest of the time though, we are completely out of contact. until thursday they are living in tents out in the 'field,' who knows what that means for utah.

things are not going well at work. there are meetings on monday and thursday. its possible that changes will be made, for the good or bad. buts its also entirely posslibe that things will just continue on; we seem to really enjoy tedious meetings and planning and then forgeting all the plans.

on the bright side, i finished harry potter and loved it. also i saw bourne and loved it. i made some veggie beef soup in the crock pot, and since it was super tasty, i loved it too.

my coworkers are all gettin skinny

it started with two coworkers signing up for weight watchers last week. they did the initial meeting and weigh in. they got their plan; figured out the points. throughout the past week, a lot of people in my company have joined. three more in my office. one spouse. a couple in california and colorado. a few are even doing this online. i'm pretty sure weight watchers does not do group rates; i think its just a lot of people wanted to lose weight and its so much easier to complain about carrot sticks but go ahead and eat them anyway if all your friends are eating them too. its all about support and motivation.

so since not everybody joined at the same time, only two are up to their second week weigh in but congratulations: one coworker lost 3.2lb and another 2.4! i can't wait to brag about them more in upcoming weeks.

happy first of august

hooray its august; july is over. i think its going to be a good month; its gotten off to a good start already. i got to the gym early, managed to get the good treadmill and i didn't get lost on the way to the site (i've made a considerable number of u-turns already this week).