chatter

Hollace told RAW that she wanted to get me an iDog for my iPod for my birthday. RAW calls me at work to ask what that is and where to get them. They spend all of Friday night shopping looking for this hot gift. On Saturday RAW sets out to try and find this iDog. He is finally told there are a few in a mall far away from home. He goes out and gets it.

Sunday morning I try and stay in bed long enough for them to bring me breakfast in bed like they like to do but it is 10:30 now and I figure they are coming. Of course they hear me get up and say hey, get back in bed. I guess they were aiming for lunch in bed. RAW got donuts. He stacked up 4 on one side and 2 on the other and put a 4 and 2 candle on top. It was cute.

The day was nice and low key. Hollace watched Robots 2 or 3 times and I was trying to record a DVD from the new DVD recorder. I was finally successful.

RAW got crabby that night and blew up over nothing. I never seen him get that pissed before and honestly, it was over nothing. I suppose that was in honor of my birthday.

Been busy doing the Christmas projects, card, calendar shopping so I am making this quick but wanted to get something down.

Monday morning comes, the day I have been dreading all weekend. First of all it doesn’t start too good. It is raining on my drive to work and half way there I realize I didn’t bring my badge to get into the building. I try calling someone I know who is in early like me but she is on her phone so I wait until someone will let me in. Fortunately my wait is indoors and not in the rain. Finally a woman looks at me odd but lets me in once I tell her where I work.

The cloud has lifted and I almost feel giddy. I, at first, credit the vitamin I took at home but then realized my period is almost here! That is it! I just fell, for the second month in a row, for a pre-menstrual depression/anxiety thing. If I can anticipate this every month and it only lasts for a few days, then I can deal with it and understand it and not get worried that I need meds or something.

I have been in a slight funk all holiday weekend. On Wednesday I worked at home trying to finish up the College Relations CD. Working with Dan the PM stresses me out how firm he sounds when checking up on me. Hollace had a half day of school and RAW went off to Fort Wayne to pick up his mom for Turkey day. I had to run into work because I goofed up on the CD I had to get to the client the night before. Tomorrow first thing, I have to finish it up but I am stressed that something still won’t be right. Trying to find approved photos for this thing is driving me nuts. Between the re org, Adam quitting and the branding changes at work, things are more challenging and for some reason I am less able to deal with it without anxiety.

I seem to have this black cloud hanging over me all weekend.

Went to mom’s for Thanksgiving and stayed at a hotel with RAW’s mom for the night. When I was ready to leave on Friday for home, my cousin came by with his new baby so we stayed later. It took us an extra hour to get home when we did leave because of traffic. Paula left around that time from Cindy’s house. She got here at 11:30pm

Saturday we went to the Lake County museum to see the Japanese anime exhibit then to lunch that took over an hour to get then to Long Grove for a bit of quaintness.

Paula headed back to mom and dads this morning and will be driving out back east on Monday.

RAW got back home from his mom’s last night at 11:30pm. The new red Kitchenaid mixer was waiting. It is snazzy and we just laugh over all the swooning we are doing over it. Haven’t mixed anything yet

Back to the funk. I am anxiously waiting for the treadmill to come so I can get some exercize. I am sure that will help. Grama has the “depression” again and reminded us of that all weekend. I hope I don’t get that way.

I knew it was eventually going to happen. Disgruntled workers leaving after the reorg. Today I found out both Adam and Deb W (project manager) both quit.

I knew Deb was having a hard time and Adam (the art director) anxiously waiting for relief in the way of another art director. Now I guess we are looking for two. Yesterday Adam asked me over the cube wall if I ever freelance. Now I suspect why he might of been asking or at least I will pretent I know. I told him, not really. Had a love/hate relationship with Adam.

Even if some of this was to be expected, I still feel a bit unsettled. Especially after Jon mentions that rumor has it that Susan the big boss might just close shop for CN. I don’t know about that but the funk is hanging in the air

First off, I didn’t get a package every day this week. I got them all on Tuesday. Four boxes. And they came at the same time. RAW was answering the front door to Fed Ex and the side door for UPS.

The story of the printer goes on. I was able to cancel my order at Buy.com because the printer wasn’t really in stock. It is hard to cancel an order there but I emailed them and they took care of it immediately so I went to Amazon.com to buy it. In the course of a day the price on that printer went down $18 so now it is cheaper than Buy.com. I buy it.

Today I go and check to see if it got shipped when I noticed the price went down an additional $40! Unfortuntaly I bought it yesterday. I have an email in to Amazon.com now to see if they will fix me up on the price difference.

It is that time of year again where I buy myself fun stuff. It is profit sharing time…well it is actually the 1st of December but I got my statement and know how much. And the stuff I buy now won’t show up on the credit card until after the check gets here.

So far this is what I have ordered:
10-22mm wide angle lens for the Canon
Crumpler 7 million (camera) bag (I just successfully eBayed my old Crumpler today)
Headphone for the iPod
Iomega 250Gig hard drive
Epson printer to replace the ailing 1280
USB hub
Treadmill (haven’t officially bought that one yet)

I like the deals at buy.com but they aren’t Mac friendly. I tried to buy my Epson printer there but I couldn’t get the order to go thourgh. I finally went to Amazon.com where it cost more so I opened a credit card so I could save $30. Placed my order then eventually the buy.com order when through I guess cause I got an email saying thanks for your order. Cancel, cancel, cancel the Amazon.com order pronto. At $500 I don’t need two of those printers.

I am expecting a package every day this week now.

Paula isn’t moving back home now. She got a really good job opportunity. She will be driving out next week to pick up some stuff that mom and dad took home for her.

I am feeling a little left out because Pam and family and Paula (likely) will all be un in Appleton for Thanksgiving. I suppose I should call mom to make sure she isn’t going

This week went fast but it was a killer.

I woke up Monday in a near panic and I couldn’t figure out why. At one point lying there in bed I started worrying about whether or not the pumpkin seeds I roasted Sunday night were going to be good. It was really odd, it went down as more than just normal Monday dread but anxiety. Wednesday I thought I seen the first signs of my period and then got relieved that Monday’s anxiety was PMS related. But when I looked at my calendar and seen that AF wasn’t due for over a week my heart sunk and I thought if this anxiety thing was going to be part of my life. I then realized shortly after that my calendar calculations were wrong and AF came on Thursday.

It was Halloween, the weather isn’t too cold and the rain holds out. I take Hollace around the first half of the neighborhood where we run into Haley and her family. They were heading back since they had little ones so Haley asks to come with us. That girl knows everyone. I think RAW was pissed we took so long. the girls emptied their heavy bags and went out with him for more.

Tuesday I decided to work at home. It was either that or call in sick for a mental health day. I have yet to figure out how to call in sick when not obviously sick and explain it to Hollace who will wonder if she can have sick days like that too.

I had this intense little job that needed my undivided attention. It didn’t go well and in the end I worked 12 hours Tuesday messing with this job. I was near panic again. At 5:00 I called “Bob” and told him I am going to need his help on Wednesday (when a sample for this job is due), that I am over my head. That was me calling Uncle. Shortly later I approached the job in a different direction and now I am going to be fine. Didn’t need Bob’s help after all.

Wednesday I am dreading because now I got to deliver on my goods. It goes ok but I cancel lunch with Mia that I was looking forward to. On the home front RAW tells me that Hollace had a melt down in gym and was sent to the principal.

Thursday is the day to catch up on the little jobs. Ted P calls me and asks if I can do some video graphics. Pretty much put some headlines in Photoshop. I say sure. That ended up being the wrong answer. I stayed until 5:30 that night (4:00 is normal quitting time for me). The client kept piling up the things we needed done by the next morning. I finally went to Corey for help and Mike and Larry in GDS stayed even later and came in early to get through the pile. I then spent most of Friday redoing most of it. Not the guys fault, but the clients fault.

Sherry calls and tells me that Amy’s baby gets christen on Saturday and invites me. Not going, had no good excuse. We talk for a while while Hollace is trying to do her homework. They are working on substraction and I get what she has to do next wrong (apparently) because I am talking to Sherry.

The weather has been lovely and the shit hadn’t hit the fan yet on Friday so I decided to grab a sandwich and head to the forrest preserves for lunch. It was nice and I got some cool photos of the playground there. I came back and they were waiting for me to redo the clippings. My afternoon sucked.

I had to leave on time on Friday (and they needed that video done by then anyway) to pick Hollace up in afterschool care because RAW headed out to Indiana this morning.

When we got back some girl in the park was excited that Hollace was home and kept chanting her name. It was getting dark and I couldn’t see who it was but I knew it wasn’t Haley since this kid was taller. I let Hollace go over there to play for a bit as I watched them play vampires running around having fun.

Sitting in the door on an odd scrap of paper is a note that says that there is a birthday party at Haley’s house at 5:00. It was 5:00 and I definately didn’t want to send Hollace over there right now so I ignored the invite. It wasn’t Haley’s birthday I know.

By 9:00 I am crashing and burning. Hollace is fired up and I nearly fall asleep trying to get her ready for bed. She went to bed and I crash on the couch for the next 2 hours. I stumble in here, update my photoblog, write my story down and now I am going to bed. This isn’t typical of me on a Friday night. I usually cherish the late night hours when I don’t have to get up early the next morning. My week just took it out on me.

This weekends plans are to hang out here and clean out the drawers in my continuation of moving out the clutter. I am in a major homebody mode where I don’t want to go anywhere on the weekends.

I stayed up too late last night. I got Cindy on the phone at 9:45 pm to wish her a late happy birthday and didn’t hang up with her until midnight. This morning I am paying for it. Not so much because I am tired but for some reason I am feeling anxiety. Everything is slightly putting me in a panic.

Last night after Sherry left, we attacked our pumpkins. We got lots of seeds and both RAW and Hollace were excited over roasted pumpkin seeds. I felt a little pressure to make sure they were good. Well they are soppy. I put too much oil/butter and worstester sauce.

Because I was on the phone too late I forgot to put the seeds away so this morning I lay in bed for some reason fretting about them, then I just started worrying about everything else (trick-or-treating, getting Hollace’s bangs cut, big deal stuff like that). I know it was because I was over tired. I drove to work trying to find music to ease my mind but couldn’t so I just turned the radio off and fretted. I just want to crawl back in bed but I worry about taking a sick day where I am not really sick and what kind of message I am giving to young impressionable Hollace. Oh dang, I just remembered last night I was going to put Hollace’s movie on tape for her teacher but I didn’t. Now I am worrying about that. Maybe I will go home to work.

I suppose my mind won’t ease until I hear RAW and Hollace tell me the pumpkin seeds are great!

Sherry had Saturday off and decided she was coming up to visit this weekend as long as she could find someone to cart AJ around to all the parties she goes to.

On Saturday she finally shows up at 3 or so after dropping off a friend somewhere in the suburbs and getting lost. We go out and get some margarita fixins and RAW grills up some steak. We have a good time just hanging out.

Sunday morning since it was time change, we used our gained hour to go to church. AJ is pissed that her mom wasn’t leaving in the morning and called my cell phone twice in church. Sherry’s friend that she dropped off was also expecting Sherry to come back and pick her up Sunday morning. Of course Sherry had other ideas and hung out with us until 5:00. After church we went to Quigs apple orchard for some quaint store shopping, hayride and lunch and then to Target where I needed to go get another cool floor lamp for my office since RAW took mine for the living room.

After Sherry left and we had a nice family time working on the pumpkins (see other post), RAW had Hollace sweep up some dropped popcorn in the kitchen. I guess she didn’t sweep the whole house or something and he flipped out on her. I came in and broke united parents rule #1, don’t contridict each other and went to Hollace’s aid who was crying on the couch. RAW was projecting his anger over how worthless Sherry’s kids are (they are lazy) and was being tough on Hollace so she doesn’t turn out that like. The thing is his yelling is exactly like Sherry’s yelling at her kids was and you can see how her kids respect that. I can’t seem to get through to him that getting mad and yelling at Hollace isn’t the approach to getting her do what you want. Dinner time is often fun because of this.

We have another big blow up while trying to get Hollace ready for her bath that wasn’t too pretty. In the end RAW appologized to Hollace, I appologized to RAW and I guess all is well. Well not really but good enough for tonight.

Last night we had Haley over for dinner. She has been wanting to eat over at our house for a long time. I get home from work and Haley is playing as usual with Hollace. Hollace has been wanting grilled cheese so I thought that would be good. I burned the first set and had to start over. I also warmed some chicken noodle soup and some peas. Hollace had a royal meltdown over the soup. She doesn’t eat soup and you would of thought I was feeding her poison. That in turn flipped RAW’s switch and he melted down as well. Haley apparently has a thing for peas and ate every one in site including the few left on Hollace’s plate. Haley was telling me that she was going out with her aunt for a Halloween costume. This venture was delayed because her aunt was in ICU after taking too many Tylenol and harming her liver. Yikes.

A week or two ago, Hollace and Haley “wrote” a play called the Blooded River (or Blund Rivfr Muvie according to their title screen). They were anxious to perform it for me at the park so I grabbed the camcorder and taped it. There were 5 scenes which ended with both of them falling to the ground dead and then declaring, “act 2 (and so on) over!”. I worked the movie in iMovie, went in Garageband for some creepy music then outputted to DVD in iDVD. It was cute. I gave Haley’s mom a DVD when we walked Haley home after dinner last night.

I don’t know if it was RAW’s outrage at dinner or his grumbling over how to work the TV now after Tivo was installed but I went into grumpy mode the rest of the night. I wanted to go to Menards last night to pick up the new entertainment center but RAW got on the phone and gabbed. I wish I got the Tivo installed on the computer room TV instead where I can enjoy it and not hear RAW complain. I will have to see if I can move it.