Month: October 2015

Daily Post 023: Monday Madness Sprinkled With Productivity

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I’m slightly bothered at the moment, but I’m not going to let that ruin my day. I’ve had a pretty full day even though I’ve only gotten up to around 25 tasks so far. I already wrote about some of my morning.

There was the hitting of the snooze alarm, there was my shower followed by breakfast and coffee. There was the ride to work and then the normal tasks of setting up my computer and checking email.

I wrote my blog from yesterday. In my quest to find headphones I ran into Luis which lead to about a 30 minute conversation. While I was writing my blog I actually got an email back from one of the places about my certification. The contact has been super friendly and full of amazingly useful information.

Apparently Autodesk discontinued the Certified User test and only offers the Professional test now. No wonder I haven’t been able to find it. At least someone finally gave me a straight answer. My contact mentioned that there would be a testing day on November 12th. The test would be $135 (ouch), paid on site, and that the time frame was any time between 9am and 3pm. I would have to drive to Jacksonville to take the test, but that’s not bad. Only an hour and a half drive.

Since I had only bought the Certified User test booklet I asked if the Professional test booklet was an acceptable resource to purchase. I was told that it would be a good resource, so I’ll most likely buy that tomorrow.

I know I’ve been spending a lot of money lately. I got new workout stuff. I bought the body pillow, highlighters, the bike stuff, Zane and I have gone out a few times. I upgraded my workout apps. Now I’m looking at dropping more money for my certification.

A few weeks ago I would be beating myself up so hard mentally that I would most likely be so depressed I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed. But I don’t feel depressed right now. I don’t feel like what I’m doing is wrong. I feel like it’s ok if I spend the money because Saturday Zane is going to deposit his first paycheck and buy groceries for the first time in four months. I don’t have to pinch pennies and freak out over how I’m going to cover everything, because I don’t have to do it by myself any more.

I feel like I’m able to get the things I want, and in the case of the bike, need, without having to sacrifice other things to do it. I like the fact that I can spend my money on me. And I’m not going to be sorry about that.

It helps that I actually feel like I’ve been earning my paycheck recently. Today included. I’ve begun working through the new content and Tony is already super appreciative of the changes I have suggested. Yay positive reenforcement.

He also loved the new podcasts and has already added them into the podcast playlist for the students. On top of that he gave me the green light to create pdfs for the assignments, which is what I spent a majority of my day doing at work.

I had admin hours all day today, so I didn’t have to worry about going to a lab. That meant I had roughly 10 hours of work time.

After getting headphones from Luis and talking to him about the certification information I had just received I went back to the break room. I ate a quick snack of a protein bar, made my official to-do list, then finished designing the lettering for my cross stitch project.

When that was done I typed up the descriptions for the Digital Art and Design classes I have been taking. Of course I forgot my password to the Career Path system and got myself locked out, so I couldn’t actually make any of the entries today, but I did go through the process to change my password to something I’ll remember… hopefully…

I’ll most likely finish up that task tomorrow morning. Or try to at least. I want that off my to-do list before the end of the week.

During my lunch break I created a recipe entry on my AllRecipes.com account for the Cajun pasta I made a few weeks back. I’m really looking forward to having it again. It’s on the menu for this week.

I finished stitching the lettering for my cross stitch project, so that’s completely done. I ended up having to redo some of it three different times. I kept getting the spacing wrong, and even now, I don’t think it’s actually centered and I can’t figure out why. Maybe today just wasn’t my day as far as counting goes.

That took me up to around 2ish. Still four hours to go before Zane came to pick me up. I decided that I would start brainstorming the pdf design for the first assignment in SAL. I figured if I got a template going I could get that approved and use it for the later activities.

Since I didn’t have extra food with me I had planned to go to Crispers for their happy hour, where a bowl of soup is only $3. Of course I started working first, so it became a, “I’ll pack up as soon as I finish this section… and fix that font… and I think this would look better if it were arranged a little different… I really ought to change the color scheme to the school’s colors…”

So at 5:30 when I realized I hadn’t heard from Zane yet and that I was about to starve I actually did pack up and head outside. Normally he is able to text as long as he has access to Wi-Fi, but not while he’s out and about. One of the many downsides to him not having service to his phone. I had been expecting a text from him before he left work to let me know he was on his way, but I figured it was possible he accidentally forgot.

I sat outside for a bit, waiting. It was over cast and wet feeling. Like it should rain, but it never did. As I was waiting all sorts of horrible thoughts were going through my head. He forgot he was supposed to pick me up and is sitting at home, nowhere near his phone so I don’t have a ride home. He got into a car crash and is dead. He wrecked my car so I’m going to kill him myself if he survived… You know… stupid, irrational shit like that.

It was only about 10 minutes before he pulled into the parking lot. I sheepishly admitted to my thoughts after we exchanged greetings. I felt guilty for thinking them, and I wanted him to know that. That I was sorry. I was also sorry for being ridiculously tired and hungry. Grouchy dragons are grouchy.

I knew the kitchen was a mess from this morning, and I knew that there wasn’t anything already cooked at home. No matter what there was going to be a wait time. So we ended up going to Moe’s for dinner instead. It wasn’t the amazingly fantastic experience I was hoping for, but then with how tired I was pretty much anything that involved people and sound was going to be less than perfect. Hunger outweighed the need for solitude though, and so we had dinner there, after which I drove back to the apartment and almost instantly fell asleep in bed.

I slept for about four hours before waking up on my own. Scarlet was curled up beside me. I petted her until she got tired of the attention and got up, going to the closed door and looking back at me, making it abundantly clear that I was slacking in my “cat servant” duties.

I got up and went out to the living room, letting Scarlet believe that I opened the door solely for her pleasure. Zane had taken his laptop out of the room so I could sleep. He was on the couch watching something. Not wanting to interrupt I walked up behind him, rubbed the top of his head for a few seconds, then went into the kitchen to start on the chores.

I unloaded the dishwasher, and had begun to load it. Zane came up behind me, hugging me, and I asked if he was planning on finishing the peanut butter tomorrow, which you would have thought was the worst thing I could have asked because he got super upset.

I admit that I didn’t say much when I first came out of the room. He had said “hi,” while I was touching him, and I said something like “hi, love,” back to him before walking away. I was still waking up. I had tasks on my mind like cleaning, getting more food because I was hungry again, packing his lunch for tomorrow, prepping the eggs for breakfast, [insert 9 billion other things that need to get done], etc…

And the whole peanut butter thing. I’m not sure if I wrote about it or not, but Zane likes to make home-made peanut butter. I guess it’s a bit of a process. You have to roast the nuts, then blend them, and with my mini-blender it takes a while. He had started doing it Saturday, but never got a round to finishing it. He didn’t finish it Sunday, and today we both had work and when we got home I went straight to sleep. So all of the things have been sitting on the counter for days without a chance to really do anything about it.

I wasn’t asking him to finish it tonight. I was asking if he was going to finish it tomorrow. Otherwise I would plan to do it before I went to work. But I guess my question super upset him because he was trying to be intimate with me, and my mind was on chores and I wasn’t registering his advances correctly.

He walked away, leaving me standing there feeling dumbfounded because I hadn’t though my question, or tone, had warranted his angry reaction. Confused and kind of hurt I went back to rinsing the dirty dishes and loading the dishwasher. Being depressed wasn’t going to make the sink empty itself.

A few minutes later Zane came back and asked how much longer I was going to be. I didn’t know how to answer because I was still trying to figure out what I had done in the first place. He looked in the sink and said that he would finish it for me and that he knew I was still tired and that I should go back to sleep.

What the fuck, dude?

Firstly, I’m not tired. I was feeling a lot better until you blew up at me. Secondly, I’m hungry so I feel like I’m being treated like a misbehaving child and being sent to bed without dinner.

So, that whole encounter made me angry. I did go back to the room, more for space than to actually comply with what he wanted. We ended up talking it out, which is how I found out about the feeling rejected thing. Zane also mentioned that he fought with Uke Sunday night while I was out getting the tacos.

He said that he’s still be sort of edgy from a few weeks back where we had a conversation about parents. It brought up a lot of old feelings for him, and I guess it’s still bleeding over into things.

I can’t blame him for that. At the time of the incident I felt like all of it was uncalled for, or a huge over reaction. Understanding that his reaction had nothing to do with my actual question helps immensely.

So the situation wasn’t fun. And he’s already said that he’s going to sleep on the couch tonight, which sucks, but I think maybe it’s for the best. I think right now he’s still pretty raw and that alone time is what he needs. Space to figure it out and let the emotions do their thing.

After some down time in the room I went back out to the kitchen where I cut up the strawberries for Zane’s snack tomorrow, prepped the egg mix for breakfast, and cooked the rice for the remaining curry in the fridge. That way we have dinner for tomorrow with no excuses.

After that I came back to the room and finished working on the pdf for the first lecture activity. I’ll email to Tony once I get to work tomorrow, since the OWA site won’t attach files properly for me. Because it’s lame.

I’m writing my blog, I will make my to-do list. I may even still do my weekly review since I never got around to it. I have a challenge assignment that I ought to do, but I’ll most likely skip out on it and do it tomorrow at some point. Most likely over coffee. I think that would be a good game plan.

I’m getting tired again. It’s already almost 2am and I want to be awake tomorrow morning to make breakfast for Zane and I. Tonight was rough. I know I wasn’t the most sociable person when he picked me up from work, and I apologized for my tired, anti-social behavior, and for triggering the reaction that he had over my question once we were home.

None of that should keep us from having a good morning together, though. I want to be able to hug him goodbye before he goes to work, and he’s already said he would like to have a good morning with me, too. So for now we’ll both go to sleep, and hopefully wake up less tired.

Daily Post 022: Fashion Rant and the Rest of My Sunday

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I’m currently at work. I got here around 7:10 in the morning. Zane gave me a ride since I was pretty sore across my shoulder blades, most likely from kickboxing on Saturday. Of course when I first woke up this morning and thought of the bike ride to school I was like, “Noooope”. Think of Lana from Archer.

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But then as I was walking out to the car with Zane, showered, fed, and dressed for the day I was like, “I totally could have biked today…” So much lame, but there was no turning back at that point. So now I’m at work until roughly 6ish when Zane comes to pick me up, unless I walk three miles home, which since I’m wearing a skirt today will most likely not happen, or I suppose I could try to get a ride from someone, another option with a snowball’s chance in hell.

All in all I think today will be a good day, as long as I’m able to find a pair of headphones because I currently do not have any of the four pairs I own on me… I don’t even know how that can happen. Only… I do… because I took them all out of my backpack at some point and never thought to put any of them away. I suppose I should mention that my desk is currently a mess right now, and if I had taken the time to straighten it up even a fraction I most likely would have avoided this issue.

I’m sure there’s a set of headphones in lost and found that I could use for a few hours. I might look into that later. At the moment the break room is completely empty and the silence is nice. Music would be cooler though. I think something soft, something for background noise. It’s a new week so there should be new tunes on my Discover Weekly list from Spotify.

Anyway, I guess I should recap Sunday since I didn’t get to it yesterday. I would like to go back to doing weekly recaps, too. I miss taking the time to reflect on my weeks and everything that I was able to accomplish and all of the crazy adventures that I go through. I think adding those back into my routine will help keep my life in better perspective. So that’s in the works.

I haven’t had a chance to make my to-do list either, but at the moment I’m still plucking away at things that I know need to get done. I feel like once I am done writing that I’ll be able to start today off right. So far, most of the things I have done have been immediate tasks, such as checking work email, or hold overs from yesterday, such as writing my blog.

I don’t want to start my week off with last week. Which making today’s to-do list before the writing would be doing that. I would have to add my “write blog” task to it, and I don’t want that to be the way I start the day on my list, even though technically it is still part of today, regardless of if I write it down or not… I don’t know why it’s such a big deal in my head if it’s on the list or not, but it is, so this is the order I’m doing things in to appease my neurological masters.

Alright, now that that tangent is out of the way…

Sunday started at 6am. x.x

And that’s after not getting to sleep until after 1am.

I wanted to bike to school in the morning. I know traffic might be a little heavier during the week, but I wanted to get a feel for the lighting, the temperature, and how things would look with biking so much earlier in the day than later in the afternoon. I also wanted to try out my new biking shorts to make sure they were comfy and something I would enjoy biking in.

So I got up, had coffee with water and a piece of toast. I got dressed and mentally ready. I carried the bike down the apartment steps, checked to make sure the lights were still working from last night, put my helmet on, then headed off to work with my Chevelle station playing on Spotify.

It was a great ride. The sun wasn’t up yet, the streets were empty. It was a little hard to see the sidewalk so I actually biked on the road instead so as not to run down a poor pedestrian. When I got to the bike rake at school that I used I hopped off and did some stretching before turning around and heading back home.

The sun was just starting to come up, so everything was lighter, softer. More cars were on the road but since I could see everything clearly I didn’t mind being on the sidewalk again.

The shorts were awesome. Totally happy with them, and for $5 you can’t really beat it. I mean, seriously, they were marked for $40 originally. Got to love clearance.

When I got home I drank more water, showered, then woke Zane up so we could do breakfast. I still had some errands that I wanted to get done for Sunday, but I also had yoga at 11 that I wanted to go to and I didn’t want to be rushed at any point during my day. There was also the DnD game later that night which would be people intensive.

Instead of dashing out to try to do the shopping before yoga, Zane and I ended up starting season one of The Flash. Before the first episode had ended I was hooked. I stitched through most of it, trying to get my latest project completed. By the end of the episode it was time for the gym, so I changed, again, and headed out in my yoga attire and flip-flops because fuck wearing sneakers to the gym. : D

Yeah… I’m that person.

The yoga class was amazing. I actually was able to do the Flying Lizard pose.

yoga

basically it’s this image, only I most likely did not look that graceful, and there was a lot more sweat…

Lizard is one of my favorite poses though, and I was super happy that I was able to take it to the next level. My legs felt so much nicer after the class, too.

When I got back to the apartment I ate, and showered, again… I feel like I’m becoming part fish with how much I’m in the shower now. I got dressed and headed out to take care of my running around. I went back to Wal-Mart and returned some stuff. Which I know this is going to be a full on tangent but I need to rant somewhere and Zane just wouldn’t understand because he’s a dude.

I had bought a few packs of panties the other day. With biking to work, and working out so much more I’m going through two pairs a day essentially. So I figured having ones specifically for working out in would be nice. I stood there for a while in the store, going through all three aisles of options. Why can’t there be a pack of just plan black panties? Nothing fancy with printed flowers, or pink, or lacy, or skimpy bikini cut, or whatever other overly feminine things have to be done to or on panties?

I really feel like at this point getting boxers would have been easier.

I finally settled on two matching packages, so I would have six sets, that I felt were subdued enough, the right fabric that I wanted, for a price I was willing to spend.

So imagine how frustrated I was when I got home and realized that the cut wouldn’t fit the way I wanted to even though they say they’re in my size.

/goes on a rampage

All I wanted was some panties. Why is it that guy stuff is so straight forward, “This size is actually this size, no bullshit attached,” but girl stuff is, “This size only fits this size if you make a sacrificial offering, and only if that sacrificial offering happens on the third full moon of the month,”?

It’s like shopping for shoes, another thing that I hate and would rather stab my eyes out than have to suffer through.

“Oh look. These are super adorable, and they’re in my size. Except they’re not because size 10 doesn’t really mean size 10. It means we’re going to label this as a size 10 and laugh as they watch me through secret cameras as I get frustrated when I try said adorable shoes on and realize they don’t fit like they should.”

This is why I hate shopping… Arg.

So that was like a page and a half worth of “I hate capitalism, just give me something that’s functional and straight forward,”…

Well, I went Wal-Mart and returned the unsatisfactory merchandise and got roughly $20 back. I went back to the clearance section and got the pair of pants I had found on Saturday. I don’t care if they are slightly too big. They’ll be my new lounge pants for around the apartment. They’re super comfy and purple and I love them. I know this because I wore them all last night. <3

I also got a couple clearance tanks to go over my workout tops for the whole biking thing. I picked up new hair ties because my hair is 100% long enough to be put into a ponytail again. I also picked up a dark chocolate candy bar for Zane since Wal-Mark is the only place we know of that sells his Green and Black 80% coco bar.

That ended the Wal-Mart trip. From there I went to Publix to pick up the few things for my school lunches that I needed. I also got shaving cream. Zane and I have been sharing his and it was running low. I didn’t want it to be empty if he went to shave his head or face for work. I didn’t think that would be very fair, or fun, especially since the reason we’re going through it faster is because I haven’t replaced my own. I didn’t really see a need to, though. Zane doesn’t mind that I use his, and his works just fine for me. So as long as we replace it when we are low, or out, there shouldn’t be a need to have two different bottles / containers of shaving cream in the bathroom, especially when such a small space is shared with two other people.

I got more tomatoes for Zane’s BLT sandwiches as well. He’s going to be taking those for his work lunches. There was a deal on yogurt, so I got six of those. I still have left over granola sitting in the pantry from the last time I bought yogurt, and I figured since I needed some sort of snacky thing for when I get home after biking this would be a good way to free up some storage space.

I feel like biking is coming up a lot in my posts at the moment. I’m sort of tired of typing that word… so I can only imagine how tired people are of reading it…

After Publix it was off to school where I dropped off the box of protein bars I bought and the tuna lunches I needed to replace. I also took a few green apples with me from home, that way if I needed a snack while at work I have something other than a lunch item.

The last stop was to get gas for the car. Then it was back home.

I poked around online for a little bit, but eventually watched the second and third episode of The Flash while stitching. I got all of the base stitching done, and all of the back stitching had already been completed, which meant all I had to do was figure out the custom lettering I want to backstitch and then do it.

Sadly I ran out of time to do that, so the project didn’t get finished last night like I wanted. Zane needed to use my computer for the character sheets, which meant I couldn’t play around in my cross stitching program.

I wasn’t part of the game very much last night to be honest. They spent a lot of time going back over stuff because some of the sheets didn’t save properly. I took the time to print a new cross stitch project and to prep the fabric and threads for it. I’m going to be making one for Clavan this time. One that says, “Thank you for your patience.”

The original piece of fabric I was going to use had a run in it, but I thought I would be able to fudge the stitching enough to still be able to use it. After about 30 minutes worth of stitching it was pretty apparent that I wasn’t going to be able to do that though. Lame….

I was already tired, and sort of over taxed from the day, and the game wasn’t all that fun for me since we really weren’t doing anything for an hour and a half. I wanted space, and silence. The apartment was overly warm again, too, but I thought it was just me because I hadn’t been drinking as much water as I should have been.

I offered to go get food to get away. Trevor gave me 5 dollars, and John gave me a 20 to get his own separate order. I threw in another 8 ish, and went to Taco Bell to get a taco box for everyone.

It gave me the space I needed to recharge and let me feel like I was actually doing something with my time.

When I got back to the apartment I ate in the room, alone, and then came back out to the game where I prepped a new piece of fabric and made a fair amount of progress on Clavan’s project. Trevor also mentioned that it was warm. I guess the AC got bumped up to 80 degrees so it wasn’t kicking on like it should have. We lowered it down and that helped a lot with making me feel more comfortable being around everyone.

My character tried playing catch with some giant toads that were in the crypt we’re exploring. They weren’t very good at it and sort of got upset at me for throwing alchemist fire at them… they wouldn’t have caught on fire if they had caught the vial though… so it was totally their fault…

I ended up calling it quits and going to sleep around 9ish. I had been feeling sort of sick for the past two days. Not like full-blown sick, but I have been a little congested and my throat has been bothering me enough to be annoying. Not painful, just sort of blah feeling. It’s that pre-sick feeling. Not cool…

I also wanted to wake up at 5am this morning to make sure I had time to get ready incase Zane was taking me to work. And just in general, I like waking up with enough time to not have a rushed morning because rushing sucks and adds to the chaos.

I took Nyquil to make sure that I got to sleep and stayed asleep. Zane came to bed at some point but I don’t remember much about it, what with being drugged and all.

5am came way too fast. I would have been ok with an additional three hours of sleep. Even as it was, Zane and I stayed in bed until around 6. His alarm actually didn’t go off, so it was beneficial that I asked what time it was. I ended up getting up to shower, Zane dressed, I packed my bag (forgetting my headphones), made breakfast, Zane shaved, we ate together, then got in the car and drove to my work.

Making breakfast was a little hectic. I make sure Zane’s lunch was packed, too. Since all of my lunches are at school I didn’t have to worry about mine.

If I hadn’t been so tired last night I would have prepped most of this morning so there would have been less to do, but seeing as how I was so tired I didn’t even make my to-do list last night I don’t think there was much hope of having the foresight to do anything else.

It’s something I will keep in mind for the rest of this month though. The more that is taken care of at night, the smoother the morning. Good logic there.

All in all I think the morning has gone fairly well, and I’m happy with everything that I was able to get done last week.

I have already looked at my work email and had a message from Tony in regards to the work I completed for the first assignment. I have things to add to my to-do list in that regard. I also have my brain-dump sheet that I created last week with things I still want to get done this month. There shouldn’t be as many errand type chores to do this coming weekend.

I forgot to mention that yesterday I also did laundry because clean clothes are nice.

But yeah… that was pretty much my Sunday, and my Monday seems to be off to a good start, if a slightly tired one. I’m going to go make my to-do list though, so I can actually be productive with my 10 hour shift.

Musing Moment 0064: More Challenge Stuff

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Day 10 – Rethink Your Goals

One thing that I never really do with Chalene’s 30 Day Challenge is recreate my goals. I normally stick with that I first come up with, come hell or high water. This time though I actually sat down and rewrote my goals.

Some of them have actually changed. I am feeling more inspired by work, mostly because I have actually been doing work and I can see where the curriculum can be improved. It also helps that I’m not super depressed and I have the energy to look outside of myself and to care.

So after a little bit of thinking this is what I’ve come up with.

  1. Run the Warrior Dash in February
  2. Complete the SAL course work before December
  3. Create pdfs for the SAL assignments before January
  4. Pay off Bank of America credit card by February
  5. Get gauntlet tattoos by May
  6. Achieve 1st Dan rank in aikido by next December
  7. Achieve 1st Dan rank in taekwondo by next December
  8. Reach size 14 by May
  9. Run a solid mile by January
  10. Create a SAL reel focusing on glass, crystals, and grunge

Half of my goals are in some way health related, and the rest are sort of work related. A lot of the “health” goals deal with personal and spiritual growth though, which heavily factor into my emotional health, which is what I decided my key priority was supposed to be.

I’m feeling so much better than what I was a few sort weeks ago. It’s almost insane how much different, lighter, and just in general emotionally healthier I already feel. I feel like I’m standing back up again, and now I’ll be able to move forward on all of the things I want.

These goals are a little different from the ones last week, but I feel like they are more solid. I actually want to achieve all of them, rather than just writing them down because I feel like those should be the things I want.

Day 11 – Skill Mastery

Day 11 is when you begin focusing on what skills you need to have in order to achieve your push goal. Right now my push goal is the Warrior Dash. I’ve already upgraded my ZenLab apps and plan to begin using them tomorrow. I just got done with an extra bike ride, and there’s yoga later today, so cut me some slack on the number of pushes I’m not going to be doing… >.>

I do want to start moving on my black belt goals though, so I think the first search I’m going to be doing is finding podcasts / videos for practice routines for taekwondo. I want to go back to practicing the punches, kicks and first stance. Maybe doing that for roughly 10 minutes or so each day after my bike rides?

I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out. First thing is first though. Got to find material so I’m not just flailing around hoping I don’t break things.

Day 12 – Blood Type = “Be Positive”

Ahhh, day 12. The day that is always hard for me. This is where we admit that we have evil voices in our head that berate us. All those self deprecating comments… we have to own up to them and realize that we’re not all that nice to ourselves most of the time.

For a while I was doing good with staying on the “Positivity Train”. Until recently, though, I was full of hurtful, hateful comments that I directed only at myself.

  1. You’re a failure.
  2. You’re disappointing everyone.
  3. You’ll never get anywhere in life.
  4. Why don’t you just give up? It’s not like anything matters anyway?
  5. You can’t do this. It’s too hard for you and you know it.

How is that at all ok to say to anyone, much less yourself?

Sticking with the assignment from Chalene here are my five positive, first-person counters to those comments.

I am NOT a failure. I’m actually pretty amazing and a badass.

I’m not disappointing anyone. Not even myself because I’ve kept going through all of this. I’ve survived and I’m getting back on track. There is nothing disappointing in perseverance.

I have gone many places in life, and will continue to do so. The only difference between a dream and reality is hard work.

Maybe some things don’t matter. But I’ll never give up, and just because something doesn’t matter to someone else doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter to me. I only put effort into things that I think are worth-while, and if something gives me fulfillment then it matters.

I CAN do this. I am doing this. It’s not too hard. It’s hard enough to make it worth it. Nothing that is worth having in life is going to be inside my comfort zone. I’m going to have to stretch for it. Reach. Push myself. And once I get whatever I’m striving for it will be that much sweeter because it wasn’t something handed to me. It was something I worked for and achieved. It made me better in some way because I actually did something.

And with that I am caught back up with the challenge. Off I go to continue my plans of world domination. : D

Daily Post 021: To Crawl Into Bed… Or Just Waffle Face On The Keyboard…

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Today seems like it has stretched on for forever. It feels like more than one day has passed and that I have gotten so much done, and yet at the same time I’m left wondering what I really got accomplished with my day.

It started at 6am, which turned into me hitting snooze until around 7:10. I did get up, however. Go me. I ended up having a Skype conversation with my younger brother. Almost an hours worth of catching up with him.

It was a spur of the moment thing while we were both online. I originally had gotten up early to go to the store before going to the gym. Even with the conversation I ended up getting everything that I needed this morning… sort of.

Since Zane and I had pancakes for dinner the other night we still had half a container of buttermilk in the fridge. I want to go back to having the weekends be sort of special since our weeks are spent mostly apart again. And special things almost always involve food, at least for me. So I suggested we actually do pancakes, for breakfast this time. It’s something different from our normal eggs or oatmeal, and we could use the rest of the buttermilk in the process. Two birds one stone.

Zane was on board with the idea, we just needed some baking soda, and there were a few other things on the shopping list I wanted to go ahead and get. So I did.

I got back home, put the food away and still had some time to kill before going to the kickboxing class at 9:45. I figured since my membership is good at the LA gym until December that I would take advantage of Jackie’s kickboxing classes on the weekends. Maybe even the yoga classes on Sunday’s, which I’m hoping to get to.

I almost didn’t go to kickboxing this morning to be honest. After getting back from the store I took stock of how I was feeling. Sort of tired. Sort of sore from all of the biking recently. I wouldn’t mind having an “easy” day. But after thinking it over I knew that I would be aggravated with myself. I wanted to do kickboxing. I want to run my Warrior Dash. I’m not going to be able to run it if I “take it easy”. And I knew after the class that I would feel awesome.

Which I did. Jackie’s class was once again fantastic. We ended with a bunch of core work. When I got home Zane was already making the pancakes. I had forgotten to get fruit for them, so he had run out to the store while I was at the gym. He had asked before I left if that would be ok because I was worried that I had ruined our breakfast plans by not getting strawberries. But everything turned out fine.

Zane retrieved the strawberries and the pancakes were actually pretty amazing this time. I guess he added vanilla to the batter, and he made mine thinner this time since I had mentioned that his were thicker than what I’m used to.

While we were having breakfast we discussed what needed to get done today.

I had my list of errands that I wanted to do, and I mentioned that he most likely wouldn’t want to be there for most of them, which I was cool with. Zane said yeah, he was feeling pretty anti-social. I was too, but I knew whatever I didn’t get done today would be left for a different day, and with the game tomorrow night I really didn’t want to save everything for tomorrow.

So today it was.

I showered, logged my workout, then headed to Wal-Mart. Next month most of my labs are in the morning, which means I’m going to be biking while it is still dark out. According to Florida law I have to have a front light and a back light on my bike, so I bought those. I spent a while looking through the clearance section to see if there were any athletic shorts I liked, but no dice. That’s ok. I don’t really care for the Wal-Mart brands anyway. They don’t last, but then you get what you pay for.

After Wal-Mart I went to FedEx and figured out how to ship one of my cross stitchings. Online I had been given an estimate of $20. So I went through the whole process. At the end, after everything was filled out and rung up it came out to $40. I paid for it, because it wasn’t like I was going to not send it, but I did politely mentioned that I had been given an estimate at half the cost and wanted to know why it was so much more.

I guess on the weekend they only ship priority, and I had most likely been given a quote with the economy-shipping price. Good to know for next time, but it would have been nice if it had been mentioned that one of the options wasn’t available. The girl who was helping me was super new though. She kept having to call the supervisor over to make sure the forms where being filled out correctly. So all in all it wasn’t a bad experience, just different from what I was expecting, and now I know for the next time I need to ship outside of the country.

With that taken care of and off my list I decided to run by school to take stock of the lunches I have stored there. I went ahead and had a tuna lunch while I was at it since I wanted to avoid spending money on food. It didn’t help that Zane had taken my credit card with him to the store in the morning and had forgotten to put it back in my wallet, so all I had was my debit card.

I added the information I needed to the shopping list for the coming week, ate, then headed to the sporting goods store near the mall. I figured I could go there, look at shorts and the clearance section and hit up an office store along the way to get the highlighters I wanted. Wal-Mart had a crap selection.

I found two pairs of shorts I super liked. I liked them so much that I decided I was going to go to the second location that I knew of so I could see if that store had any more. It was doubtful. Clearance items sort of suck like that, but I felt it was worth a shot.

The Office Max I had been hoping to go to apparently closed. But the second sports store is near another pretty major area, so I figured there had to be a store with highlighters somewhere around there.

With a revised battle plan in my head I pulled out of the parking lot and drove towards the UCF campus. I passed a second Wal-Mart along the way, which I stopped at. While I had been going through the clearance racks at the first one I had found a pair of pants that I super liked, but they didn’t have my size. Which is odd… very rarely do I get to say, “This is too big for me.” But it happened and I was bummed about it because these pants were super comfy.

Since I was passing the store anyway I figured I would stop and look, but again that was a bust. Nothing there for me. So back to the car it was.

The second sports store had one of the shorts I liked, but in two colors, so I got both pairs, which gives me a total of four new shorts to bike in instead of the one pair that I keep wearing over and over again. I’m going to be sad to retire them, but they have served me well and I really like the new pairs that I got. I’m hoping they last for a while.

Next will be new bandanas. Can’t wait. : 3

There was an Office Max and I did get the highlighters I was looking for. I wish I knew of a place where I could get individual highlighters. I really just want green ones at the moment. Or blue. I’m not a huge fan of yellow or pink. Orange ones are awesome, too. And I really love the mini keychain highlights. They’re perfect for keeping with my cross-stitch stuff. But I have no idea where to find them anymore. The only place I remember seeing them was at Staples forever ago when I still lived with my mom.

And since I’m at the computer I just did a Google search for Sharpie Minis and wouldn’t you know I can get a pack of them for roughly 5 bucks. I might do that next paycheck just because they’re tiny and adorable and I love them.

Anyway, I forgot to mention that between leaving the first sports store and stopping at the second Wal-Mart I did wash and vacuum the car. I hadn’t realized there was so much gravel and dirt on the floorboards. I also found a pair of Zane’s socks under my seat, most likely from when I was doing laundry at the laundry mat. I also found one of his missing pens.

The only thing errand wise left on my list was putting gas in the car, which I figured I could do after Zane and I got back from dinner. We had made plans to go out for sushi if we were both up for it. We both were, and it was amazing with great service. I left a $10 tip.

I unloaded the dishwasher and reloaded it. Zane and I watched the last bit of BoJack Horseman on Netflix. I had to go out and get batteries from the CVS near the apartment so I could make sure the lights for the bike work. They do and they are attached. Woo.

I never did get gas for the car, but that’s fine. I need to get my missing lunches from the store then take them to work, so I have to go out for a little bit tomorrow. But I’m hoping it’s only for a little bit and not the 5-hour adventure I had today, though I don’t regret any of it.

I do need to take a few things back to Wal-Mart to exchange them, but overall it should be a fairly short excursion tomorrow as far as the errand side of things goes.

I want to wake up in… 5 hours now. Even less by the time this post is done. I want to try biking in the morning to get a feel for it before Monday, which means I only have tomorrow morning to do it. I also want to try biking in the new shorts so I can make sure I actually like them as much as I think I do.

I don’t want Monday to be full of a bunch of new and untried things because if any of it doesn’t go down the way I want it to then Monday is going to suck and I don’t want my Monday to suck especially if with a little bit of quality assurance it can all be avoided.

So yeah… early wake up call tomorrow to do this. /sigh

I also want to do yoga around 11am so I can get some stretching into my routine. I can feel that my legs are super tight and need it.

I really need to sit and make my to-do list for tomorrow so I can see the game plan for my day. Checking my work email would be a good idea too so I can see if Tony had a chance to look at the podcasts yet. I’m hoping he likes them. I think they turned out well, but then I’m most likely biased.

I had wanted to do a few things for work today, but I don’t really see when I could have. I’ve been out for most of the day. I did a lot of running around, I had an awesome workout, I spent about an hour stitching towards the end of my night. I had a full day, and I’m going to have a full one tomorrow, too. And it’s Saturday. I think I’m allowed to not do something work related on my weekend.

Yeah… screw you brain. I’m not going to let you make me feel like a slacker. I will however let you convince me that I should be in bed right now rather than typing at the keyboard.

Daily Post 020: It’s Fixed!

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Today started crazy early. 6am. Which I guess in the scheme of things isn’t all that early. But I didn’t get to sleep until around 12:30, then woke up at 2am for a little bit. So it seemed like an ungodly hour.

It was hard to sleep with the air so warm. I love summer, and heat, but that’s when I’m awake. I love sleeping under big fluffy comforters and blankets, and that totally wasn’t going to happen last night with it being a billion degrees in the apartment.

Ok… so just like 6am isn’t technically all that early, it technically wasn’t a billion degrees in the apartment. We opened up the windows so there was some circulation, but it was still cooler outside than it was inside. Not cool…

Zane and I had breakfast together. After he headed to work I started tackling my to-do list since I had had my coffee and was awake. I went ahead and paid the bills. I went through my “in” pile again. There were a few things that still needed to be put away and a couple of letters I wanted to write so I can mail them to my mom and younger brother. I sent an email to my mom with my Skype information. I also asked her for my brother’s address and her PO box since she’s sold the house and I have no idea how to send stuff to her at the moment.

From there I started looking at the workout routine I want to start up for my Warrior Dash. I added those events to my calendar. I’m going to be using my ZenLab apps to focus on strength building for the time being. I made sure to put in rest days, too, since I have a habit of not giving myself time to recover.

By then it was close to 9am. I showered then ran the new lease down to the apartment office. While I was there I asked about the parking decal for my car. I guess they’re out of them at the moment, but new ones should be in by Monday or Tuesday. So close. >.<

I also put in a work order for the AC unit, hoping that would get done within the day.

With all of that squared away I hopped on my bike and headed to the bank to get the money order for November’s rent. That was a really nice easy bike ride. Once I was done with the bank I biked to the grocery store to pick up some shredded cheese and taco sauce. I got a sushi lunch while I was there, sitting outside in the shade while I drank water from the water bottle I had packed in my backpack.

It was a really enjoyable experience. I had my headphones in and there was a cool breeze which was helping me cool off.

There is a Ross store in the same plaza as the Publix that I had biked to. Since I’ve been biking so much, and since it’s something that’s going to continue for the next while I figured I would see if there were any athletic shorts that I liked since I only have one pair that I actually like at the moment, and even those are literally falling apart on me. I got the pair I have from Goodwill about a year ago, and the stitching is unraveling, which sucks. I love these shorts and I’m hoping I can find other pairs very similar to them. Ross didn’t have anything that I liked though, so that was a bust.

I biked back to the apartment. Shortly after I got inside maintenance showed up for the AC unit. Huzzah. They got it working and it was the most amazing feeling ever to have the ice cold air filling the apartment after being out and about for over an hour.

I set up Trevor’s printer to be able to email me scanned images because I had a few things I needed to scan but I didn’t feel like going all the way to school to do it like I normally would have. I printed out a meal plan template that I found online while I was at it so I have a cleaner way to track my meals and workouts.

I might actually breakdown and buy new highlighters. Currently I only have a pink and blue one and I’m using both of them to highlight different things on the meal plan sheet. It would be cool to have other colors. With meals figured out I went ahead and figured out most of the shopping list for the coming week then went about the cleaning chores for the day.

I scrubbed the walls and cabinets in the bathroom, along with the counter. I wiped down the mirror as well. I still want to clean the floors, but that’s a battle for a different day. I did vacuum the living room, hallway, and bedroom, though. So I don’t feel bad about skipping out on part of the bathroom.

Since I was done with the hardcore stuff I showered again, ate, and got to work on the SAL Project 1 assignment. Since that involved a lot of rendering (think of rendering as watching paint dry, only digitally, on the inside of your computer screen) I was able to do other things while working on the assignment.

I brushed Scarlet. I cut my nails. I even cross stitched for a bit, though I spent more time threading needles for the last major section I have to work on than actually stitching. At least the prep work is out of the way.

I was still in a full on “Work” mode when I completed the assignment so I started creating the podcasts for Lecture One and Project One. I even got them both 100% done before Zane got home.

I was hungry again, having been ignoring the fact that I needed more food for about an hour and a half. Zane was also hungry so we decided that we would go out tonight rather than tomorrow. Though in all honestly we’ll most likely go out tomorrow, too…

We went to a new place that neither of us have been to. Burger 21.

It. Was. Amazing.

Seriously it was a super awesome burger. And they have a sauce bar and one of the sauces is a Thai ketchup. That was fantastic and I’m so happy that we were able to have a night out and not have it lead to fighting or a downward spiral for once.

It was actually an awesome date night.

We stopped at the smoke shop to get more watermelon shisha. We’ve been using it fairly often with mint, which gives it a sort of bubble gum flavor. I’ve really been enjoying it. So much so that’s it’s sort of my go to flavor at the moment. Which means we were super low on that flavor. Coals as well. So yeah, we stopped and picked up that stuff.

And now we’re back home.

I’ve spent the last little bit finalizing everything so I could email Tony my work for the SAL assignments along with the new podcasts that I created. I offered to create pdfs for the assignments as well to help fix the ugliness of the FSO pages. We’ll see what he wants to do in that regard.

I’ve already made my to-do list and cleaned the kitchen. I’m pretty much done writing my blog. I still have my 30-Day challenge assignment to write. But the only other things to do are to pick my next cross-stitch project, which I think will be for Clavan, and then to run the dishwasher.

42 tasks today.

Tomorrow has a lot of errands. I’m looking forward to it, but at the same time I realize that I might not get all of it done. I might burn out before the end, and I’m ok with that. Most of the errands I have listed under a “Possibly” section on my list, so whatever gets done is awesome, and what ever doesn’t get done isn’t a big deal because it’s wasn’t written in stone.

Though… in all fairness… all of my to-do lists are written in pencil. : 3

Daily Post 019: Is It Hot In Here?

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I’m mildly sunburnt right now. Which is frustrating. I don’t want to be warm. I want to be cool and to stop sweating since I haven’t been outside or really moved around for almost four hours now. I might try taking another shower just to see if that helps lower my core temperature down a bit. I’m literally sitting here in front of my computer with a giant blue gel ice pack sitting on my head, most likely looking completely ridiculous, but even with it I’m overly hot. And before you think that I’m over heating from not having enough water, I’m almost up to a gallon on my intake. I don’t know how much more water I can drink before my very being liquefies…

Other than the whole being too hot thing today has been amazing… and actually while I am writing all of this Trevor just came home and said that he felt warm too, and then looked at the AC and informed everyone that the AC is broken… wooo… at least it’s not just mean being a baby. So I guess we’ll figure that out tomorrow when I turn in the lease. Which, surprise! I was approved for the lease so we have a new lease papers for everyone to sign, and once it’s handed in I can get a parking decal for my car and not have to park forever and a day away from the apartment and worry every morning I wake up that it will have been towed away during the night.

And now everyone is out here around the kitchen table chatting up a storm while I sitting here trying to do my own thing… so I’m going to put this on pause so I don’t end up killing people since I can’t here myself think.

Intermission

Alrighty. Now that I can hear the voices in my head again. Today has been great even though I thought it was going to be awful when I realized I had left my phone and wallet in my car… which Zane had driven away with for work. How was I going to have music on my bike ride to work without my phone?!?! Queue worst morning ever from which the day shall not recover.

If only there were a way to keep my MacBook from going into sleep mode… To the Internet.

Me: Google. Is there a way to keep a MacBook from going to sleep when you close the lid?

Google: Why, actually there is.

Even though Apple hates us and doesn’t offer any sort of functionality like that through the OS, there is a program called NoSleep which will keep your laptop “awake” even if you close it down.

Further testing was required, but after finding some tracks to stash in my iTunes I was able to verify that I could indeed use my laptop as a stand-in DJ while my phone was MIA. Day saved!

With the most important aspect of my day figured out everything else seemed ridiculously easy. And, might I add, once again productive.

I’ve started dividing up my to-do lists into four sections: Pre-work, Work, Post Work, and Reminders.


Pre-Work
Roughly 8:30am – 12pm

I started by cleaning the cat’s pan because Zane ran out of time to do it himself. I had set some pinto beans to soak overnight, so when I made it out to the kitchen I put them on the stove to cook since that was going to be a few hours. I took the laundry out to the wash, cooked the rice for the curry we were going to have for dinner, as well as the Spanish rice I’ve kept meaning to cook for the burritos I have in the freezer. I unloaded the dishwasher, cooked my own breakfast finally, even remembering to take my blasted vitamin pill.

The wash needed to be switched by then. I wrote for my 30 day challenge as well as posting the abstract piece I completed for my class.

I looked into canceling the domain for my 3D Blitz event. I got an email from GoDaddy a few days ago saying the domain is about to expire and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t set to auto-renew, which it isn’t. I’m going to let it expire I think, at least for now. While I’m not using it I can’t really justify paying for it again. I do think I will be running the event again next year, though. I’ve had a several students over the past few months ask me about the event.

I looked up information about the Warrior Dash. There’s a race in Florida… in February. I’m not sure three months is enough time. : x

There’s another race in North Carolina in June.

I don’t know what to do. Having dates makes it seem more real. Is it bad to sign up for a race even if you might not be able to do all of it? Is there a “failure” group that I’m going to get tossed into where people talk about how I couldn’t make the cut? Is there a path of shame that I’m going to have to walk if I can’t do it?

I need to figure out what I’m really doing in that area. Knowing me I’ll most like pick the Florida race, not only because it’s here, but also because it’s closer time wise. The sooner I try to do a race, the sooner I can get over my irrational fear. Who knows. Maybe I’ll do both of them and Florida will be my trail run. I’ll have a better idea of what to expect for the next one and my nerves won’t be as stressed.

So good information, if a bit scary.

I packed the mounting board and cross stitch projects that I want to mail out so I could take care of that while I was at work and had access to a mat cutter. I put the clothes away while I had time to, cooked the green curry, then showered. This whole time the beans had been going and they still seemed a little underdone to me. After four hours? I have no idea what I did wrong since they were supposed to cook in two… But either way I didn’t have time to let them cook longer so it had to be good enough.

Work List
Roughly 12:30pm – 5:30pm

I biked to work, with music, clocked in, had my tuna lunch with water again though I stayed inside this time. It was warmer today without the breeze so the AC seemed nicer against my skin after the ride.

I checked my work email. My Leave of Absence is underway. Huzzah for less stress.

I talked to Frank about buying the crate he had for the bike. I’ve been wearing by backpack as I ride, but I would like to try to keep it as sweat free as possible, which isn’t going to happen if I continue to wear it during my commute. I would most likely want a net of some sort to go over the create as well. Frank said he would check out Amazon for me and get back to me about the price for the crate. I guess they come in sets of two?

Eh. I’ll most likely do my own search tomorrow since he didn’t get back to me about it today. We had a fair amount of questions in lab though, so I can’t really blame him. I took a second to go through all of my Skype contacts and delete the people I never talk to on there. Much like what I did with Facebook before deactivating it. I measured out my dimensions for the mounting board, then went to one of the art rooms to cut it.

So far three of four projects are done. I just need to write letters to go with them. : 3

While I was in the art room one of the students was really interested in looking at my work. We ended up having a fantastic conversation. She’s still a ways away from any of the classes I teach, but I gave her my contact information and said if she ever needed anything or just wanted to chat again to feel free to reach out to me.

With my cross stitch endeavors done for the moment I started working on the lesson one activity for the Shading and Lighting class. I already have a list of notes on how it can be improved as well as a two podcasts I want to make to help support it.

I ended up staying at work a bit late since I wasn’t able to complete the activity during the lab. I also wanted to take a look at what needed to be done to add the classes I have been taking to the Career Path system we use at work.

One of the things was knowing the start and end dates for all 13 classes that I’ve taken… Shoot me in the face now… The start date actually ended up being easy to find. I was on my “Grades” page. The end dates were a little trickier, but I ended up finding them through the school’s calendar.

I also had to calculate how many hours I spent on the class work. I decided to go with 80 hours per class. That’s 4 hours 5 days a week. That’s 80 hours less than what I really ought to be spending on my work. I’m not sure how accurate that needs to be in all honestly. I guess we’ll find out during my yearly review.

With all of that done it was time to head home.

Post Work List
Roughly 6pm – Now-ish-thirty

Zane was home by the time I got to the apartment. The first thing I did after saying hi to him was eat. It felt like I was starving. I also drank more water. I could tell I was a little sunburnt with how warm I was. I showered shortly after eating then watched the final episode for Arrow’s third season.

I took the time to call my mom since she’s back from Germany. It was a great conversation. I got to tell her about my vacation and all the stuff I got done. I got to tell her about Zane’s first few weeks of work and biking to school and the Warrior Dash. She got to catch me up on her end of things. And none of the conversation was about emo, depressing stuff.

Since then I’ve had some of the green curry for dinner. I’ve cooked bacon since Zane and I are going to be doing BLTs and I like having two slices of bacon with my egg in the morning. I’ve logged my rides on RunKeeper, and here I am writing my blog.

Everyone has signed the lease so I can hand that in tomorrow, get my decal, and find out what can be done about the AC. Trevor gave me the list of expenses for this coming month, which I’m going to continue to cover so Zane and put all of his first pay check towards his bike. That’s going to be next weekend. So much excite.

I still need to make my to-do list, and I would like to sit and cross stitch for a little bit since I actually haven’t stitched at all today, and I’m a little wired still.

Tomorrow is a day off where I’ll have the apartment to myself. So much space and quiet and alone.

I will be biking to the bank to get a money order for the expenses, but I plan to do that shortly after waking up so it’s still cool outside, at least as cool as it gets in Florida in the middle of October.

So I guess I’m going to go, that way I can enjoy my night. I feel like I’ve earned it, what with getting 40 things on my to-do list done.

Dragon’s Horde 0045: Life Abstract

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assignment2

History of Visual Communications
Project 2 – Life Abstract

Artist Statement

This is the first time that I have ever really worked on an abstract piece. There’s always been some sort of structure behind my work. Creating a label, structuring a form, concepting out a pose, or exercises focusing on particular things such as anatomy, shape, or lighting.

Very little of my work has ever been free form, so this piece was actually intimidating for me. How does one go about creating an abstract piece? How can you make art if you don’t know what it is you intend to make in the end? How can you do something without having a thought out process, step by step plans? That’s what my whole life is based around. To-do lists and structure and time tables and end results. How do you let go of all of that and just create?

In a way I feel that I’m not that great of an artist because it’s so hard for me to simply let go and find that creative streak that so many other people seem to have. But I was going to have to figure out some way, some trick, to allow me to do this or fail the assignment.

I was sitting at Crispers, having just eaten, thinking over the requirements for the project and the suggestions given to help jump start the creative process. I was listening to music and simply looking out the window on most people would consider a dreary, rainy day.

I thought about all of the different areas of my life, all of the things that are important to me. All of these different things that add up to make me who I am. All of the colors and feelings and memories I associate with these things.

I took out a mechanical pencil and my sketch book and just started doodling really while I thought of all of these different things. So I suppose these are the swirls of my life. My mom, my brothers, my co-workers, my hobbies, my fears, concerns, hopes, dreams, aspirations, all mixing together.

I used green, blue, red, and purple for the swirls because those are the colors of the charkas I most identify with. The heart chakra, the throat chakra, the root chakra, and the crown chakra. I used blue and purple as the background color because those were the colors I was drawn to. Looking back at it I wish I had gone with a gray or some other solid color so as to let the swirls pop more.

Everything in hindsight I suppose.

This was the first piece where I used color pencil since my art classes for my Computer Animation degree over three years ago. It was fun working with color again. Lately if I do anything traditional I stick to graphite shading, which is still a passion of mine, but this piece is special, in part because of the color.

It was a fun assignment and while it’s not a masterpiece, it was emotionally healing for me and helped me think through some of the issues I have been struggling with, mainly my financial fears and how those fears have been bleeding over into the other areas of my life.

All in all, I’m happy with it, and myself.

Musing Moment 0064: To-do List Triggers

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Day 9 – Triggers

My triggers haven’t changed. I still check my list at the beginnings and endings of my labs. Any time I get into or out of my car. Any time I change location. Any time I complete a task I assess where I’m at and what needs to change, be added, or removed from my seemingly never ending list.

I have this down to a working science for me. So there’s not much to write about really. I’ve been doing better about making my to-do lists at night before bed, along with writing, but I don’t think two days is really all that much to go on… Further data is required.

So really things are going fairly well. I still need to set up a solid workout routine, other than my biking, but with how much I got done yesterday and how active I’ve been this week what with biking to work, I’m sort of ok if that gets pushed back until the weekend, or tomorrow since I’ll have Friday to myself.

And really at this point I’m just rambling. I have other things I need / want to get taken care of in the next hour and a half, so I guess I should get going.

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Daily Post 018: The Thursday That Was Really Wednesday

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I spent most of this morning thinking it was Thursday. So imagine how estatic I was to learn that I had a whole extra 24 hours in my week to do things.

Zane and I spent the morning together, which was a fantastic change from the fighting. I ended up going back to sleep for a few hours after he left for work. I had gotten home around midnight, and was in bed around 12:30, but I wasn’t able to fall asleep easily, and waking up at 6am was rough. I was able to get another hour and a half of sleep, and I was way better off for having the extra REM cycle.

I took the time to sit and enjoy my cup of coffee while I did my challenge writing and responded of a few other emails. I cooked breakfast after that, then went about making my do-to list for the day, starting with getting a new notebook. I went through the braindump from yesterday, picking the tasks that I wanted to do today, tomorrow, this week, and so on. That meant there was a fairly extensive list for today, but amazingly, I actually got through literally everything that I wanted to. Good feelz for that.

After making my list and figuring out my current goals I went through my Omnifocus. I don’t think I’m going to be picking that program back up this month, but it was nice to go through it and see that I actually took care of a lot of the items that I had in there. I cleared out the projects that I’m no longer going to be putting time and effort into. I didn’t add anything new because like I said, I don’t think I’ll be going back to it just yet, but still, it’s nice to know that’s it’s cleaner than what it was.

I emptied the bedroom trashcan since it was full. I messged my brother about the money for the storage unit since he still hasn’t paid me for that. He’s going to be sending me $150 which will catch him up on what he owes.

He said he felt a bit unloved since the only times I seem to message him are to ask about money. Which in his defense is a valid complaint. The only times I have been messaging him are when I add him to my to do list, which isn’t fair and isn’t how I want our relationship to be.

I messaged him back saying that I would really like to go back to having chat times with him where we get on Skype and play Magic the Gathering together and actually feel like we’re part of each others lives. I miss him, and I want him to know that I love him, which requires more than a quick messages which basically amounts to “Hi, bye.”

So that’s in the works to get fixed.

I had brought in the box of “car stuff” that I keep in my truck when I had to take all of the stuff to the storage unit over the weekend. Since that was in the apartment and easily accessible I decided to go through it and make sure everything needed to be kept. Of course there was junk in there that needed to be thrown out or donated. So I went through all of it and cleaned the box up. I even took some of the rain-x and sprayed my glasses with it so when I’m biking the water won’t be as aggravating, hopefully. I sprayed the mirror in the bathroom with it as well. Might a well while I have it handy, right?

I updated one of my cross stitch posts with a new image. One without a stitched typo… Like it never even happened. Muahahaha. I also took a quick second to dig out a new skein of thread from my stash because I ran out of a color I’m currently working with. Glad that I had it handy otherwise I would have been an unhappy camper.

After all that I showered and biked to work, using Runkeeper to track my time.

I ate a tuna lunch with a bottle of water while I sat outside cooling off from my ride. It was a really nice way to get ready for work. I saw Clavan and confirmed that I’m not supposed to work on Friday. I’m not. So much awesome. I can’t even put into words how awesome. Another day where I’ll be alone at the apartment. I have so many plans for those eight hours.

Once lab started I took the time to figure out my schedule for the coming month. Shading and Lighting will have one lab that I need to be there for on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 9am to 1pm. The Character Rigging 1 labs are going to be Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, 1pm until 9pm. I’ve already emailed my group to let them know which days I will be taking off to prevent working six days a week. I also offered to take both of the CRI1 labs, if we even end up needing both lab times, that way David can go home in the evenings to be with his wife and newborn.

I emailed my instructor to let her know that I was going on a Leave of Absence. I uninstalled several programs from my laptop, and installed Maya 2016, something that I’ve been dragging my feet on.

Since one of my goals, as established back in January, was to focus on Shading and Lighting I went through the online platform that the students have access to and made a battle plan for all of the assignments. I then began working on the first handful of them. My current goal in that department is to essentially go through all of the assignments for the class so I can be familiar with the projects and have hands on experience with them, especially since the projects just changed literally last month.

I’ve already noticed where things could be better, such as the way the information is displayed in the FSO platform. It would be so much easier to work with the information if it was contained inside of a separate pdf, rather than a huge web page of death full of so much information that you can’t figure out what you actually need to be looking at. It’s just an information overload, and it’s formatted poorly with very little in the way of hierarchy to help guide the eye. And look, there’s proof that I’m actually learning something through the Digital Art and Design classes that I’m taking. /flex

So I’m thinking about offering to create the pdfs for the assignments and projects. That would be a fun project. At least fun in my mind. Because I’m weird like that. I would most likely use Illustrator because I like that program more, though InDesign is more meant for text and such.

Anywho, once I got through as much of the Shading and Lighting work as I could with not having a mouse to use I went about working on my cross stitch. I actually didn’t get all that much done in that regard. Roughly 30 minutes worth before work was over.

After work I biked home, forgetting to use Runkeeper because I’m lame.

I started cutting up the veggies that we’re going to be using in the curry, which I realized we didn’t have coconut milk for. But that was ok because we forgot to get cat litter last night, and I had used the last of the shampoo as well, so the store would be a good adventure to undergo.

Once the veggies and chicken were packed away in containers I made a meal of two burger patties with mushroom, onion, and cheese. I used some soy sauce with brown sugar and garlic to cook everything in. It came out super tasty.

Zane came home shortly after I had finished eating. I was getting ready to start going through the “white box”. The box I had brought back from the storage unit with me.

He asked what all I wanted to go tonight and as I started listing off all of the things I still wanted to get through he mentioned that if we didn’t watch Arrow shortly that we most likely wouldn’t be able to tonight because someone else would highjack the living room and TV.

I agreed to wait to do my things, but inside I was cringing. Things were going differently than what I had thought they would. Change bad. Change bad.

I was a little tense at first, but I started stitching while we watched the show, and eventually everything was ok. After a couple episodes I went and showered while Zane cooked our dinner of pancakes…. Don’t judge us…

I had one. He makes his pancakes super thick compared to what I’m used, and I’m not a super big sweets person, so one was more than enough to last me the next four months or so. I might go make a scrambled egg shortly though since I’m a little hungry again.

Anyway, after eating I cleaned up the kitchen and set the dishwasher to run, then we headed out to the store. The shampoo we use was buy three for eight bucks. So both Zane and I got a scent and a matching conditioner bottle for me. I love mine. Like, I’m thinking about taking a shower just to use it type of love mine. It’s lavender and mint. <3

So much win in such a small bottle.

One of the things I did last night was revise my budget to reflect the numbers I will have once Zane starts getting his paychecks. I will be saving $700, roughly, it will actually be a bit more than that, each month. If Zane is able to put any money toward me in December it is very possible that I could actually have the card paid off. Or at least so insanely close that it would be finished off in January.

I. Cannot. Wait.

Seeing those numbers, seeing what my financial future will be in roughly two weeks, it makes things seem ok. Two more weeks and I’ll be back on track. Two more weeks and it will be an even partnership again.

We can do this. I can do this. And I told Zane about it.

He wants to pay for my phone. Not sure if I mentioned that before or not. But in November he wants to get an account with Version, which I totally support him getting a phone with service. Right now he doesn’t have one, but if he’s going to be driving around, especially on a motorcycle, I want him to be able to call someone if he needs help.

He said that he wouldn’t mind if I was on his plan because I get crummy service with MetroPCS. I said that I wouldn’t mind being on the plan as long as I was able to continue paying the $40 that I currently pay for my phone, to which he replied he wouldn’t mind paying all of the phone expense for me.

I’m not sure how I feel about it. I don’t like people paying for things for me. There is a part of me who is worried that it would be held over my head or something to that affect, even though I know that he wouldn’t do something like that. I feel like with everything we have been through on an emotional level through these past four months, everything that I’ve written about, and all the things I haven’t, that I know him well enough to know something like that isn’t in Zane’s character.

There’s still that fear though. And that nagging voice that says I should be paying for my own way in life. It’s my phone so I should pay for it.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen with that. But it is something that has been brought up, and will be mentioned again once Zane has his first paycheck and bank account set up.

So much stuff is about to happen in the next few weeks. It’s almost a little scary and daunting.

Back to today though. We came back home and put the food stuffs away. I did go through the white box. I did cry and Zane and I talked about it. There were pictures of my dad and I in there. Putting puzzles together on the floor. I remember when that picture was taken. There were pictures of my brothers. My grandparents. There were graduation cards, some of which I threw away, which might sound heartless to some people, but I don’t have emotional attachment to them, so I don’t want to keep them. I kept the ones that mattered to me, and that’s enough.

I also went through most of my “in” pile, putting away different papers that I want to hold on to, the tax information from before I moved to Florida that I found in the storage unit. Miscellaneous things like that. I also figured out how to mail things outside of the US so I’ll be able to send off several of my cross stitch projects soon. By the weekend I’m hoping.

And now I’m wrapping up the night with writing. No tea, but like I said, I’m hungry so I might have an egg instead. Zane’s about to go to sleep as well since he wakes up so early in the morning now. At least he has extra pancakes to look forward to for breakfast.

I still need to write out my to-do list for tomorrow, but I feel like tomorrow is going to be a good day. It’s essentially my Friday. I’ll be able to give my legs a rest from biking so much. I’ll be in the Shading and Lighting lab so I can work on the assignments I want to. I don’t know. It just feels like tomorrow will be nice, like how today was.

I’m really hoping days like today are how most days will be in the future. I would be ok with that.

Musing Moment 0063: Figuring Out My Dash

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Day 8 – Breaking it Down

Today we’re supposed to take our uber push goal and break it down into a battle plan. What’s the next, most immediate step that needs to be accomplished? What research needs to happen? What calls need to be made? What things need to be purchased or obtained? Do other people need to be involved?

Basically you brainstorm out the whole thing so your actions become clear. The goal seems less daunting because it’s not just random ideas floating around inside our heads, it’s clear actionable tasks that can get done. You have your road map so all that needs to happen is to execute it now.

Well… with my goal of completing a Warrior Dash, there’s not really much that needs to happen as far as steps go.

Step 1: Find workout routines
Step 2: Do them
Step 3: Sign up for race
Step 4: Run race
Step 5: Feel like a badass

Seems pretty straightforward to me. The main thing with this goal is that it’s more time oriented. It’s not going to happen over night. It’s not going to be completed in the next month.

I guess I should figure out when I want to run a race, what would be a realistic time frame, and then set my sights on that date. Right now it’s just a nebulous, “I will run the race sometime,” but that doesn’t give me anything to really strive for. I don’t have a deadline to push myself against.

So finding routines to help with training, and then finding the race I want to run. Those are my next steps. Possibly finding high protein meals as well since I’m going to be doing more strength stuff than I have in a while…

Ok, ok… so there’s a lot of things that I can add to my battle plan for this goal… That’s the whole point of this, though. Thinking about what it’s actually going to take so I can set myself up for success.

Workout routines, training time frame, and meals. Off I go to consult the all mighty Google.