how do you live so happily while i am sad and broken down?

Well, today sucked.

To start off, I made a poor plan for arriving at this hotel.  It was a good plan when I made it.  I booked a 10pm flight two weeks, knowing that this would get me to the hotel between 12:30 and 1 AM, because I knew I'd need to be available on my tennis team roster.  We generally play from noon to 6 or 7pm, depending on which line, and I wanted to have plenty of time to get home and get cleaned up.  So it was a good plan, but then we moved the match up (yay! earlier = less hot, which is always a good thing in Atlanta in the summer) so then I had a whole day in between.  So I could have gotten in at a decent time, but I had no way of knowing that two weeks ago, and since I've lost status on Delta, I can't change flights same day anymore without paying a whopping amount of fees out of my own pocket.

Then when I got here, I realized that I left my prescription Pepcid at home.  So after my five hours of sleep, I woke up with the now unmistakable feeling of having had acid reflux in the night.  Sorry, gross, I know.  I never noticed that that's what was happening before, but now I can tell. 

All of this before I even get to work, which then started off with a bang.  Suffice it to say that the client is not happy, and my chances of making them happy are slim.  So stress all day long, and now I seem to have heartburn?  Or an ulcer, idk.  Then my kidneys started hurting and I thought I might be getting a UTI, which.  Awesome.  I did dehydrate over the weekend, so it's entirely possible.

Then I went to dinner, and my site this week features two of my all-time least favorite things:  
1) Conference dining!  Because the chance to sit at a table with complete strangers is fun!  
2) Buffet as the ONLY choice.  Buffets are a dieting nightmare - so easy to go overboard, and you end up eating bizarre combinations of food.  For example, tonight for dinner I had Swedish meatballs and a pretzel covered jalapeno popper.  Bwuh?

To top it off, all day my email was popping up autoreminders for me of stuff I needed to do, but didn't have time for.  Like the $3K worth of expense reports I needed to figure out and submit so I can get my money back.  

I've gotten a handle on the stress now, I think - I went to Walmart and bought OTC Pepcid which looks like what the doctor gave me, just without the insurance coverage, but whatever, it was $5 for 8 pills, which will cover me til I get home.  I got all my expense reports submitted and reconciled, and tomorrow I'll need to find time to send in the receipts but whatever.  My kidneys feel less like they're going to fall out, so maybe that was just panic?  IDK.

I really wanted to write tonight, but I think whatever creativity I might have had in me has been squashed today.  *sigh*  I was really hoping for an easy week, but it is not going to happen.  

I am curled up on the couch with my cat , watching a movie while I work on my cross-stitch project, with the other cat sitting across the way.  It feels very domestic.

I've done next to nothing all day, just recovering from my hangover from last night's festivities.  Some day I will learn not to switch alcohol types mid-stream.  It was a fun night though, and has resulted in my signing up to take a sewing class with some of the girls from tennis.  It starts next Sunday and goes through the beginning of February.

Christmas was good, but unfortunately I came down with the flu on Christmas Eve so I was kind of puny for the whole thing.  On the plus side, I had zero appetite, so I didn't gain any holiday weight.  I got nice presents - including 3 pairs of the same kind of gloves because Amazon makes it too hard to mark something as purchased when it's linked to a different site.  But by the third pair, it was kind of funny.  

Vacation went by too quickly, of course.  I still have tomorrow off, but then it's back to work on Tuesday.  Ah, well.  

Day 27: This month, in great detail

I got up early and got ready to go, then called the doctor's office to see if I could get in to see the doctor or get a prescription called in. He had me come in, and with actually very little waiting, I got a prescription for antibiotics and cough syrup. I love my doctor, he's really nice and he's the only doctor I've ever had where you spend more time with him than the nurses. And he remembers every personal detail I've ever told him about where I've lived, my family, my hobbies, etc. This from a man I see once or twice a year!

It was just before noon when I got out of his office, so I swung by my favorite Mexican restaurant and got take out, then took my prescription to the CVS near my house and dropped it off through the drive-through window. I went home and had my lunch, then I went to Wells Fargo to talk to them about my mortgage and investment accounts. They don't do the mortgage thing there, that's another branch, but he called the lady for me. Oh, maybe I haven't mentioned this? Right before Thanksgiving, Wells Fargo rebranded all the Wachovia banks, so they bank in Georgia now. They called me to see if I was interested in refinancing my mortgage, which I would be if the details were right. Historically low interest rates and all that, plus if there's no catch the paperwork they sent me looks like I could lower both the interest rate and length of my mortgage and save $50,000. (I'm pretty sure there will be a catch.) Then I started the paperwork to move 3 investment accounts I have at 3 different banks to Wells Fargo, in the continuing effort to leave Bank of America.

That took AGES, and really wore me out. I was going to go over to Bank of America afterward and close my account, but I just didn't have the strength. So instead I came home and blanketforted on the couch and watched Hoarders and ate blackberry cobbler. And now I am going to take my cough syrup and go to bed! Good night!

Day 28: This year, in great detail
Day 29: Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30: Whatever tickles your fancy

Ugh, still sick. This morning, it felt like I was choking every time I coughed. So that was FUN. In a 'I think I'm dying' kind of way.

But as always, I feel better in the evenings, so I feel almost normal now. Except that if I talk too much, I cough. This made the four-hour training session I had to lead today interesting. My colleague said she didn't notice it though, so I guess I was good at getting away from my headset in time.

I've been pretty tired so I haven't accomplished much this week, other than tennis practice on Monday - which I'm proud of myself for going to, as I really didn't want to, but I felt good once I was there. I haven't done anything more on my photo albums because I discovered some photos I hadn't had printed, so I've ordered those. Once they come in though, I'm on it! This should cover me from May to July, so hopefully I can zip right through those. I'm getting the rest of the photos ready to go so that I can take snapfish up on its next offer of free shipping. If I'd gotten my act together sooner, I could have gotten these shipped free, so I'm kicking myself a bit for that.

And now back to my exciting evening of tv watching!

Hope those of you who celebrated had fun, and that everyone had a good weekend!

I am worn out! But it was a fun weekend. On Friday, I went to the Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse ( http://www.atlantazombie.com/ ) with some friends. They play it like you're a small group of survivors being led out of a hot zone by a military guide and zombies jump out at you from all over, then the military guys shoot them, and you run. It was good times. Then afterward they had zombie paintball, where you get to shoot at real people dressed as zombies. I was excited, as about five zombies into the first tour, I was all "I want a gun too!"

I did feel bad about shooting one guy because he was about five feet away, but the girl at the booth said I had to do it. I guess he knew what he signed up for!

Then on Saturday, I slept in (yay!) then did some shopping before I went for a walk with a friend. Then I got cleaned up and went out to a Day of the Dead gallery exhibit opening that a friend had an entry in, and then they invited me to go to the bar that one of them bartends at, and then before I knew it, I was crawling into bed at 4 am.

The next morning, I drug myself out of bed at 10 am to go play a tennis match. I was hurting! I really didn't have that much to drink, but I forgot to eat dinner! Oops! I lost the match, but I'm pretty proud of it - I took it to three sets (6-3, 3-6, 6-7), and the last one went to a tiebreak. Not bad considering my state, and the last time I played this girl she beat me 6-4, 6-4.

I was going to spend the evening recovering quietly and handing out candy, but J&S invited me down to theirs for dinner and a scary movie. Way more fun, but I'm sure I wasn't the best company ever.

Today, I really, really wanted to call into work. Every muscle in my arms and legs are aching, even though I don't think that the match was that challenging. I'm guessing I was super dehydrated. Ugh.

So I might have had goals for today, but none of them were gonna work out. I woke up with a distinct and overwhelming need to go back to bed. My fever's hovering around 99, so I'm sick but not super sick. It's weird. I just feel tired. I'm guessing it's the flu, just suppressed by the fact that I actually got a flu shot this year. I worked until about 1:30, then gave it up. Slept all afternoon. Now I'm on the couch, watching Criminal Minds and uploading pictures to my iPod. Yes, new obsession - now that I have an iPod that shows the album pictures, I must put album pictures on all my songs. Hello, OCD. :)

Need more juice.

Also, GIP for the awesome photo my cousin took by my sister's house this summer. Win, graffiti person, total win.

No, I haven't given up on this. I will complete it! Even though I've spread it out over 3 months now.

Day 26: Your week, in great detail

Monday, March 1:
Woke up feeling not so great, with a bad headache. Worked all day, nothing too exciting. Then I skipped tennis practice since I was feeling not so good. I ran over to Michaels to buy paper for my photo album, and then went grocery shopping. I was going to get myself dinner at Moe's, but I missed their operating hours by about ten minutes. Came home, fixed myself dinner, worked on my photo album.

Tuesday, March 2:
Woke up feeling feverish and clammy. I took my temperature, and it was at 99. I was actually relieved, because that explains why I'd been in such a bad mood; I'm always rage-y when I'm getting sick. Finished up work early, so I worked on my photo album. Made myself some soup.

Wednesday, March 3:
Still tired, but feeling better. Worked - did some support call work, held my two training sessions for the week. Found out that Bob Bryar really has left MCR, very sad. Worked captions for my photo album. Stayed up far too late faffing about on the internet, re-tagging old journal entries.

Thursday, March 4:
Got up and ran to my physical therapy appointment for my carpal tunnel. Last appointment, yay! Grabbed lunch from Willy's, and came home. Worked on support calls all afternoon. Completed the embellishments on the photo album. Was safety person for my friend Katherine for her first eHarmony date; she was not kidnapped, yay!

Friday, March 5:
Worked on support calls in the morning; annoyingly I have 5 going right now (this is not my actual job, just helping out another department) which are basically resolved but am waiting to hear back from the client to confirm that what I've told them actually worked. Then did my actual job in the afternoon, four hours of conference calls, an hour and a half of paperwork. Took a super quick shower, and ran to tennis drills. Went out to dinner afterward with Katherine, our regular Tennis and Tequila outing at a local Mexican place. Came home after and put the photo album together, finished, yay!

Saturday, March 6:
I took a day for myself. Slept in til noon, didn't really get up at that point. Worked on tagging old LJ entries, read a blog by a woman who gave up her career to move to Hong Kong with her boyfriend, did laundry, cuddled cat. K came down after work, and we went over to my friends' house for an awesome vegetarian dinner (fake chicken cordon bleu, rudabega (sp?), asparagus, and homemade rolls, with pears and caramel ice cream for dessert, plus yummy lemonade cocktails!) and a movie - Girls Will Be Girls - which should totally be a cult classic, it's hilarious. Hint: none of the girls are actually girls. Came home really late.

Sunday, March 7:
K got up to leave for his parents' house in Florida for spring break early. After he left, I went back to bed until noon. Still tired, but not so hungover as I probably should have been (yummy cocktails were yummy) thanks to copious amounts of water ingested throughout the night. Personal computer wouldn't start; took battery out, started up. Had to restore, screen is not working right (flickers, goes dark, etc). Backed up files in case of premature death; will probably take it in to Best Buy sometime this week. Ran to play tennis, sort of won - I won the first set 7-6, and then half way through the second set, when the score was 3-3, my opponent forfeited due to fatigue (she has had a cold this week.) I am happy to have the points, but it was a bit of a let down. One of the girls on my team was playing a match at the same time, so I stuck around to watch the end of her match, and then we went to dinner. I came home, and have planted myself on the couch, and that pretty much brings us up to date.

( Future Days )

So today I quit the online Weight Watchers program and re-joined Netflix. I wonder what that says about me :)

I watched my first episode of Dexter tonight. Intriguing, and I'm definitely going to catch up on it. I'm going to start watching streaming video while I work instead of the usual 8 episodes of Law & Order SVU I normally watch. The streaming video feature on Netflix was new when I quit, but it seems like there's a lot on there now. And I have the second laptop, so I can hook it up to the tv. Hard to pause though. Short cords ftl.

Anyway, my Thanksgiving was nice. My parents and my sister came down; it's becoming a tradition. We watched my cousin finish a marathon, then we all went to lunch after. Then the next day we did the art museum all-day event as per usual - the exhibit was great, but their activities were a bit lame. Last year was so awesome, so this was a disappointment. On Saturday, I took them on the CNN tour and to the Aquarium. And we played board games. So it was a fun visit, but I'm a bit worn out from it. I wasn't as over my sickness from earlier in the week as I thought, and I had a bit of a relapse while they were here. I'm better now, but I'm still taking it pretty easy.

I've also been working to organize a tournament for my tennis team, so that's been both fun and stressful, but it's all put together now. It actually worked out really well on paper, so we'll see how far the execution strays from that.

Otherwise, I'm just working on finishing the craft project for my mom's xmas gift (almost done! freaked out that I'll mess it up at the last minute!), hanging out with K, and working when they make me.

This icon brought to you by the fact that I am sad I could not convince K that Little Britain is awesome.

*sigh* Sunday night already? Really?

Um, let's see. Friday night was fun - gotta love trips to the ER! I started having abdominal pains that came on really suddenly, and I knew what it was from last time - kidney infection. So I called my doctor's office but the doctor on call said I had to go in because they can't diagnose that over the phone. Fair enough, but that meant four hours in the ER. It was at least humorous since the exam room they had me in was next to the nurses' station and I got to listen to them saying things like "Anyone know what happened to the pregnant lady in 36?" Apparently they lose people.

So Saturday was pretty quiet, because I was feeling kind of out of it, while the antibiotics kicked in. I was so muzzy-headed that I set off my home security system trying to go out to plug in my lawnmower! I haven't done that once in the two years I've lived here!

I took it really easy on Saturday because I knew I had a tennis match today, and I wanted to be able to play. My partner Claire and I were playing last, so we took the court around 4pm, and let me tell you, today was a warm day in Atlanta! It was low-to-mid 80s here, and so hot that I had trouble taking a deep breath on the court (hi asthma, thanks for showing up at inopportune times). BUT! Despite all that, we won! My goal for this season was to win one set, since last season (our first) my goal was to win one game and I did that. This season I have come close a few times but could never close the deal, and today was the last game of the season. So now I have won game, set, and MATCH! And I was playing really well today, so I'm pretty proud.

I was in such a great mood when I got home, I sat down and played my drums, which I have been woefully neglecting, for almost a whole hour! Now I'm trying to catch up on some housework - notice I'm doing an awesome job of procrastinating by blogging. Which I still feel like I don't do as much of since I got twitter. Ah well! Maybe I'll start trying to do one serious journal entry a week? I'll think about it. Feel free to share your thoughts!

*heaving sigh* Cooking is hard, y'all. I just spent two hours making a recipe that said it would take 30 minutes.

So I'm feeling better, although I still get tired out easily. Yesterday, I got so much done, or at least it felt like it to me. I unpacked, did half my laundry, swept and mopped my hardwood floors, finished the reorganization of my kitchen that I started ages ago, and went grocery shopping. It's honestly the most productive I've been at home in months. I think going away every once in a while is good for me.

I didn't do much Easter-like today, but it was a good day. I had a tennis match, which was less fun than I was hoping. Our opponents were not very nice. They insisted we have the scorecard available at the beginning of the first match (our captain was playing late, and was going to bring it at 2 instead of 1, really not a big deal) and threatened us with a forfeit when one of our lines was ten minutes late showing up. It's a holiday, peeps, lighten up! We lost, which was no big shock (this team is currently winning our league), but my partner and I almost pushed our game to a third set and I was having a pretty good game, so I'm happy. Gotta work on my backhand.

And then I came home, and people were Wrong on the Internet, which has taken up most of my time this evening. :(

So my big goals this week are:
*Get my car looked at. It's making a bad noise.
*Get all my work stuff taken care of so I can enjoy my weekend with typhoo and craigger guilt-free.
*Practice my drums at least once.
*Eat better - I gained weight in Canada. *hums 'Blame Canada' to self*