Daily Post 059: For the Love of Sandpaper

Arg. It’s early. And by early I mean 10am. I’ve been up roughly since six I think, which is when Zane came to bed. He stayed up all night playing Fallout. He didn’t do any of the things he said he would do. He left food out on the counter all night so there’s no dinner for tonight.

I’m trying really hard to not be a grouch about any of this. I’m trying to remember that he DID cook dinner for us last night, and that he DID pack a hookah with the flavor that I wanted. Kiwi and lime. It was amazing.

I’m trying to remember that we DID have awesome cuddle time on the couch where we watched two episodes of Beautiful Bones before I went to sleep because I had to be at the gym early for training.

The food bothers me. I hate wasting food. We had to throw chicken out because it was left in the fridge too long without being cooked. We have fresh veggies that he’s suppose to use in a Shepard’s pie that are going to go bad soon, and I know he’s not going to cook tonight because he has to make brownies for work. And I feel mildly guilty because I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like the pie when it’s cooked because I’ve never liked Shepard’s pie, ever, and I’ve told him that. But I agreed to try it anyway because I’ve never had his.

But what happens when I don’t like it and he gets tired of having to eat it by himself? Most likely it will sit in the fridge and then get thrown away, which sucks because that’s basically setting money on fire.

I don’t want to be unhappy or bitchy or grouchy or anything negative. I want to go back to last night before all of the responsible stuff didn’t get done and the kitchen was clean and I was happy with how my day had gone and I felt good.

I slept most of yesterday, which was amazing. It’s the first time in a while that I indulged in that. Being a slacker. Listening to my body. Giving it the break it needed and deserved.

I biked to school, I found a new blog to follow. I cross stitched a bunch and prepped a bunch of threads so I can keep working for a while. I biked home without my backpack and felt like I did really well. I wore my new jacket and loved every second of it. It’s nice and fluffy on the inside and feels amazing.

I went back out with the car after showering to retrieve my backpack and to run to the store for cookies. Friday is my last lab before the holiday break and I wanted to get something for the students. So yeah. Christmas cookies because who doesn’t like the gift of diabetes?

I had almost an hour long conversation with one of the guys in finals. We’ve chatted off and on throughout his time in the program, but this was the first time we really had an in depth conversation. We talked about freelance, then meandered around to the topic of why I was still at the school and what I personally wanted to do, which led to talking about the other degrees I plan on getting, the one I’m currently working on, and ultimately how I want to teach aikido at a dojo, which totally has nothing to do with anything I plan on going to school for, or anything to do with what I have currently done with my degree / career / life.

I summed it up by saying that I enjoy learning things and then showing people all the cool shit I’ve learned. And that I think is really my main goal in life and where I get my fulfillment. Showing people cool stuff and helping to build them up and showing them they can be awesome and do really cool things too.

I ended up going back home after dropping the cookies off at school. I ate dinner and relaxed because I felt like I had done well yesterday. Not crazy productive, but productive enough to rest on my laurels.

And now here I am. I didn’t get to have breakfast or coffee. Zane said he would wake me up, which he did, but not early enough to have breakfast or any real time to enjoy the morning.

I made it to work to drop my bag off then headed to the gym where I worked out. It was good. I feel like I did well. The squats and lunges aren’t destroying my legs as much so I think there’s improvement there. The ab work doesn’t leave me feeling like I should curl into a fetal position and cry until someone shoots me. I can see more muscle definition in my arms as I watch my form in the mirrors. I can see the changes in my body and I like them. It makes me feel like I’m doing well and that makes it easier to keep going.

I sat outside for a little bit. It was an overcast morning. It looked like rain. I finished off my bottle of water while the breeze cooled me off and I inwardly groaned about the thought of having to bike against the wind. But it let up and the ride back to school wasn’t bad.

I think I need to put air in the tires. It feels like the bike is dragging and that even though I’m biking well, that I’m not getting as much response from the bike as I should. I don’t have a portable bike pump, which is something I really ought to get. And I don’t have a way to check the tire pressure, so for now I’m sort of stuck with just a hunch. But I’m pretty sure more air would improve my biking experience. I think I need to raise the seat a bit, too. I don’t feel like I’m extending my legs as much as I was before and that I’m losing power because of it.

Anyway. I clocked in once I got to school. I checked my email, but it’s too early to have gotten anything new in my work inbox, and all of the stuff that was in my personal inbox was junk. Yay Christmas ads. No I don’t feel special for receiving them. Please stop sending them and cluttering up my virtual office desk. K, thanks.

I saw Seth and Ari for a little bit. We checked the schedule for January since the preliminary is out. CRI1 is going to be 9am to 5pm supposedly. I’m so used to the pm schedule that thinking about having to be awake so early in the morning for work, before the gym, sucks. I don’t want to do it. I can never just be happy with the work schedule. XD

Shading and Lighting is schedule for, literally, 4 labs. That means Frank and I would be on campus from 9am until 1am… Which isn’t going to happen. There’s no way that we can work a 16-hour day. Like, it’s physically not possible for us to cover that with the amount of people we have.

I know Tony has already requested that the lab be moved into a powered lecture hall to accommodate the large class size. That would mean there would only be one lab, which is doable. But it would most likely be at night…

Down side to that, because this whole situation is just full of downsides… I would be working a flip schedule. 9am for my class one day, then 9pm for the SAL class on the other days. That’s going to not be cool. I know, from experience, that I’m going to be tired constantly and that will affect my ability to get to the gym, and with my race less than 60 days away I’m not going to be ok with anything interfering with that.

There’s really nothing that I can do about it other than stew at the moment. Until I know what the changes are going to be all I can do is speculate and worry and be angry over nothing. Maybe lab will happen before lecture and it will be more of an am schedule and things will be fine. Who knows? I certainly don’t, so why am I assuming that everything will be awful?

Why is it so easy to jump to the “Everything is awful” spectrum?

So what if the trash didn’t get taken out, or the litter box cleaned, or the food put away, or the kitchen cleaned, or the trip made to Wal-Mart?

None of those were my chores. None of those were things that I said I would do. The world didn’t end because they didn’t get done. So why is there so much discontent inside of my brain because of it?

Because I had pictured a reality that is different than the one I woke up to, and that difference is like sandpaper inside of my brain, rubbing against my skull, creating this grinding noise that I can’t think past. The world is wrong. It’s different than what it should be. It must be corrected. It must be set right in order for this sound, this discord to end.

If I had known it wouldn’t get done I would have done it myself rather than going to sleep. Most of those things wouldn’t have taken very long to do.

And this is where I feel like I’m not a team player. Or rather, this is why I dislike team projects and other people and delegating tasks to someone else. I feel like this is part of why I have trust issues and prefer to rely on myself rather than believing in others.

It’s because of the times like this where things don’t get done, or aren’t completed the way I think they should be. I’m picky. I’m demanding. If you say you’re going to do something I expect it to be done when you say you’re going to do it. And when it’s not it makes me feel validated in my reasons for not wanting to trust other people. For not believing someone when they say they’ll do something. Or when it’s half-assed and I have to go back and do it myself anyway. What was the point of asking then? Instead of being done once it had to be done twice and I had to waste time before doing it myself anyway.

And it’s not like this is the first time and I’m blowing it out of proportion. It’s consistent enough to me to not be shocked. Just mildly disappointed, which makes me frustrated with myself because why should I be disappointed? I knew this was a likely possibility. And in reality, it doesn’t matter so why waste energy on it?

The trash will have to be taken out eventually. The litter box will have to be cleaned. What does it matter if it happened last night or tonight?

I guess it bothers me because I feel like I’m going to have to do it when I was looking forward to not having to worry about stuff. But by not worrying about it those things didn’t get done. So it feels like a failing on my part. I didn’t adult good enough and because of that I feel like the apartment is a disaster and I hate, loath, despise, being in an icky, unclean environment.

Me: Please apply more sandpaper to my brain. There’s not enough friction going on in my thought processes at 7am. Thanks. I appreciate it. : D

For now I’m at work. For now I’m not going to worry about it. Or care. Or even waste more effort thinking about what needs to happen later. Fuck it. I’ll take care of it after my lab. After my bike ride home. After my shower. Most likely before I eat since I’ll have to clean the kitchen before I can do any sort of cooking, but still. It’s not something I’m going to spend effort on right now because there’s literally nothing I can do about any of it from where I’m at other than be an angry, frustrated ball of rage, which I don’t want to be.

I want to feel good about my workout. I want to have confidence in myself that I’ll be ready for my race even though I’m starting to feel like I won’t be because that’s part of the cycle with goals. Self-doubt. Fun times… said no one ever.

I’m going to go and cross stitch so I can feel good about making progress on my commission. I’m going to make a new play list to listen to for my ride home. I’m going to enjoy my day because there’s no reason for me to not enjoy it. Aside from that I don’t now what I’m going to do, but I think that’s a pretty decent to-do list.

Task 1: Wake up.
Task 2: Be happy.
Task 3: Go to sleep.

One of out three down. Time to go drop kick those other two in the face.

Daily Post 049: Retaliation

Yesterday was rough, but not due to emotional turmoil. My body decided to retaliate against me by having me wake up with a mild migraine that refused to go away. It was like that annoying “friend” who won’t take a hint and sits there constantly yakking at you as you try to diplomatically disengage yourself from the conversation…

I ended up messaging Clavan letting him know what was going on and asking if the headache didn’t go away by four-ish if I could take one of my remaining vacation days to stay home. It was that bad. The light that made its way through the sheets I was using to cover my eyes was painful. I didn’t even want to entertain the idea of having to bike to work like that.

Said headache didn’t go away until around 8pm, but it did end up going away.

That was the third day in a row that I woke up with a headache. The first one that was migraine level, though. Zane wants me to make a doctor’s appointment, but I don’t think I will. Not until the New Year like I had planned.

I think there were a lot of factors for yesterday’s migraine. Dehydration. Lack of deep, restful sleep. Air pressure change since about the time the headache went away was when it finally started raining yesterday. Who knows for sure though?

It’s also possible that this conversation went down while I was sleep.

Brain: Hey. So I know we haven’t been sleeping well, and fuck that whole drinking water thing. Let’s go to the gym again when we wake up! : D

Body: Haha… no.

One day I’ll learn that my body will always win… Yesterday wasn’t that day…

Needless to say I didn’t get a lot done. I eventually cooked the stuffed tomatoes, but that was about all I got accomplished. I spent literally all day curled up in bed, drinking water every time I had to get up. I was able to drink almost a whole gallon. In the beginning it was hard to drink more than a few sips at a time, but as the day progressed I was able to drink more at a time, and the nausea I was feeling eased up which made it easier to eat, too.

So yeah. Yesterday was a bunch of lame. Surprisingly I was able to sleep really well last night. I’m not sure when I went to sleep. After 8 before 10? I woke up at 3:30 which is when I cleaned the kitchen and did the cooking. I responded to a few messages on Facefail and emailed my mom.

Zane was a grouch this morning. Over tired. He’s already apologized for snapping at me, and I’ve apologized for the morning being rough for him. Empathizing really. I’m not going to be sorry that I woke up before he did. Or that he went to sleep later than I did. One of the pitfalls to sharing a room. We knew there would be nights like this, and while it may seem sort of rude or callous of me I’m not going to be sorry I woke up him by being awake myself. All I did was leave the room, and then come back later to get my towel so I could shower and get ready for work. It’s not like I was throwing a party in the room, or being obnoxiously loud.

I think it is a lot like the day he was calling out of work the week before last. I was super agitated with the noise he was making while looking for his supervisors number, and it wasn’t him I was mad at. It was just being over tired and, well… grouchy.

We seem to be ok through the text messages we’ve been sending each other, so here’s to hoping that the evening goes well.

I’ve already been to the gym and had my training with Terri. We added lunges into the routine today. ;-;

So much sad face. I was so happy that I was totally owning the squats, and those lateral raises didn’t stand a chance, and then she’s like, “Alright, 10 lunges, each leg.”

No problem. With how much leg stuff I do this is nothing. I got this.

Brain: Oh my god. I’m only at four and I’m dying. I got this. I got this. I hope I got this. I’m pretty sure I don’t got this. Two more. Come on. Pep talk. You can do it. Warrior Dash. Earth Dragon. Motivational stuff. Something other than lunges…

It was a good workout. She mentioned how I have really developed quads. Pardon me while my inner “Do you even lift, bro” self flexes like the body builder I’m totally not. I mentioned how it was most likely from biking so much. That and I’ve always had pretty good musculature in my legs from all of the sports my dad had me play.

It’s where I got most of my scars from actually. It’s not that I thought of sports as the Hunger Games or anything… It’s more that I really didn’t care what it took I was going to win… Or at the very least you were going to go down with me.

Possible over competitiveness might have been a side effect of the perfectionism I’ve had for most of my life.

Anyway, since training was so early in the morning I have a bunch of time before my lab starts, so here I am at work, procrastinating on actually doing work. XD

I guess now that I’ve caught up on my day of nothingness by writing two pages about it I can move on to actual productive things.

Daily Post 044: Sunday Lunch and Monday Bandanas

This was meant for last night. Only 8 hours late. Go me. : D

I didn’t write on Sunday, but then not a lot happened, which I was ok with.

I woke up late-ish. Around 9:30. I poked around at a few things. Nothing super important or amazing enough for me to actually remember. I eventually showered and dressed so I could meet with Sabrina for lunch. Not surprisingly she wanted to go to the sushi cafe that Zane and I had just gone to the night before. I’m not joking when I say that place is amazing.

I didn’t mind going back. I was a little worried that it would be awkward, since Hannah was supposed to be working and I have never seen or hung out with her unless Zane was there, but it ended up being fine.

Sabrina and I got to the cafe as the same time and were able to walk in together. We got our corner booth and actually had the whole place to ourselves for a while. That meant Hannah was able to hang around and chat with us for a bit. Her and Sabrina were able to connect and talk about school and what their plans are for afterwards. Sabrina graduates in December. It’s going to be hard when she leaves, just like it was hard when Tre graduated. She’s a friend and it’s always rough when they leave.

But sad tangent aside, it was a good lunch and I think Hannah and I slightly bonded and are on more friendly / at ease terms. Maybe that was all inside of my head, and I totally recognize that as a possibility. It was very similar when I first met Nic. Until I was able to spend time alone with her I didn’t really know how I fit into the dynamic.

Once lunch was over and Sabrina and I parted ways I drove to the produce store to finish off the shopping. I actually really, really, didn’t want to go. I wanted to go home and go back to sleep. Or at least curl up in bed in the dark and not worry or think or do anything other than let my brain relax.

But, nope. I was a diligent adult. I got the last remaining items on the list and was in the process of checking out when Zane called me.

I want to take a second to express how awesome it is to be able to get in touch with him and vise versa now that he actually has service for his phone.

He’s going to be cat sitting for Hannah and needed the car to be able to meet her after her shift. He was calling to see where I was at since it was getting really close to when he wanted to be leaving. He ended up walking to the entrance of the apartment complex where I picked him up. He had been on his way to meet me at the store, but I was faster because I’m awesome. /flex

I drove him back to the cafe, but only dropped him off rather than staying. I went back home, thought about doing chores, and ended up taking an hour and a half nap instead.

I woke up to Zane calling me asking to be let into the apartment. Since I had the keys for the car he didn’t have his house key to get inside. I was much more recovered than I had been earlier in the day. I unlocked the door and let Zane in. Hannah was with him and we all hung out for about an hour, which was really nice. Another thing which helped me feel more at ease around her.

I had a cup of coffee while we chatted in the living room. Hannah eventually left so she could get on the road since she was traveling back home for the holiday break. Zane and I chilled for a bit and eventually watching an episode of Sherlock and having pizza for dinner.

Zane went to sleep before I did. A first, I know. I wanted to try to stay up as late as possible since my schedule this month is PM. I played Chime for a while, going to sleep around 1ish. Not as late as I wanted, but a good start to switching my sleep cycle over.

I stayed on the couch for a bit but moved to the room at some point.

And here we are at Monday. It’s been a fantastic day so far. My bandanas came in! Woooo! They’re awesome. I love all of them. And I don’t know which one to wear tomorrow because now I have choices and colors.

I also got an email, two actually, after I got home from work saying the Lucy tops that I purchased have shipped. They’re coming from two different locations, so there’s going to be two deliveries. One should be here by Wednesday. The other isn’t scheduled to arrive until Saturday, but I’m hoping that it gets here sooner than that.

Fingers crossed.

So both of those things are amazing news.

The morning started out super sluggish. I was a bit of a grouch when Zane got up this morning, and I apologized to him through Facebook once I actually started my day. We didn’t do breakfast together, mostly because he wasn’t hungry and I wasn’t rested enough to care about getting out of bed.

I started my day around 10ish. Which seems crazy late to me until I put it in perspective with the thought that that I wouldn’t be getting home until around 1am. I tried messaging Clavan to see if he knew what the lab size would be. It was very possible that there would only be one lab and I would be able to leave work around 9ish. He hadn’t had lecture yet, which meant he wasn’t able to answer my question. So much lame. >.<;

I went through my email. I put the clothes away. I called my mom and let her know what was going on with the trip home. I got in touch with another one of my friends, Nasse, the guy I hung out with on spring break, so we have plans for lunch on Friday. I created a new podcast. Even got all of the editing done for it. I started working on the second activity for Shading and Lighting, and once I got tired of that I made the shrimp tacos that Zane and I will be doing as dinners.

I had lunch at some point during all of that, as well as set up my new voice mail.

Around 3:30 I showered, packed up my bag, then headed to work. I clocked in, had water, logged my workout, and took a look at my work email. There wasn’t much so that was nice. Once I was cool enough from the ride I changed and got the lab set up.

My day got even better when I found out there is only going to be one lab for CRI1 rather than two. That means I’m biking out at 9pm rather than 1am. Woooo! I can’t express how awesome that news was. It literally made my entire month. Best birthday present ever. At least that’s what I’m going to count it as. My birthday gift from the school.

The lab is an awesome group of students, too. Very engaging which made the intro speech much easier to do since it felt like I was talking with them rather than at them. I stitched a little bit before finishing off the SAL activity I was working on. There’s still a few things I need to do with it, but the main step, the rendering, is out of the way. Now it’s just playing around in Photoshop.

I saw Ari, which I don’t really want to talk / type about. Maybe another time. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it was taxing and something I had been hoping to avoid to be honest.

It was cold as I biked home. I kept my jacket on which I normally don’t do. It makes me realize that I will most likely buy the bike mount for my new armband magnet of awesomeness because the armband kept sliding down my jacket sleeve. It stays on fine when it’s my skin, but the fabric doesn’t have enough friction to keep everything in place. Sort of not cool. I won’t get the mount until next paycheck, but it will happen.

My bike chain slipped while I was crossing a street, which didn’t help the bike ride home. It’s cold. It’s dark. I just had to deal with an uncool situation. My armband won’t stay in place. Oh… and I look like a fool. Totally a relaxing bike ride… said no one ever.

I was able to fix the bike on my own. I felt all spiffy and bike savvy even though I’m sure it was the easiest things I could have possibly fixed. I made it home without further incident and I am once again completely satisfied with my purchase of the new headlight for the bike. I can’t imagine what that ride would have been like if I added, “Wasn’t able to see the sidewalk” to the list of things that made the ride unenjoyable.

Zane was walking out of the apartment to switch the wash when I pulled the bike up to the steps. Look at him being a super sexy adult doing all those adulty things. <3

He had stopped by the store before coming home. They’re doing a potluck at his work tomorrow and he wanted to make something to take in. While he was out he picked up a bag of chips to go with the tacos. Mostly so I could do shrimp nachos since I like the crunchiness. I feel like it’s moments like this that I need to write down in a separate notebook or something so when I start to only see darkness I can be reminded that he’s actually pretty amazing to me.

The sink was a mess when I got inside. John and Trevor were talking. I had just had a crap ride home (though to be fair it could have been way, way worse), and I was still flustered over the encounter with Ari. Zane tried to chat with me while I was unloading the dishwasher, but with everything else that was going on I couldn’t focus. I told him it was loud, which it was, and that I needed a few minutes, because I did. I needed to breathe because I felt like everything was closing in around me.

He understood and said he would talk with me after everything settled down and I had some time. Finishing putting the dishes away and cleaning up the sink helped. John and Trevor ended up going to their rooms and I was left in silence. Blessed silence.

Zane came out of the room not long after and hugged me. A long hug where I buried my face in the crook of his arm, feeling his warmth on my skin, taking in his scent which means safety. I asked if it would be ok if I had a minor breakdown, to which he answered yes.

I didn’t, but it was nice knowing that if I had it would have been ok.

I made a bowl of shrimp nachos and ate while we talked. I explained the ride home and why I was slightly overwhelmed. How the noise of everyone being in the kitchen had been hard for me. Eating helped balance me out too since I was super hungry. I was also starting to warm up since the ride home had been so cold. Cold… in Florida… not what I signed up for.

I asked if anyone had checked the mail since I was expecting the bandanas. No one had so Zane ran out to do that while I finished packing the hookah bowl he had been starting. A mix of chia tea and honey. It smelled nice.

He came back with a package for me and thus the wonderfulness that is bandanas was had. I love all of them.

We sat in the living room watching a few videos on YouTube. I showered. Watched another video, then came back to the room to write. Zane showered too and is currently in bed sleeping.

It’s getting late and I plan to be up early with him so we can have breakfast and so I can get to the gym before work, which starts at 1am.

I had thought to go to the gym today, but my lower back is hurting. Muscle pain, sort of like I strained it. It’s not the sharp pain of a pulled muscle, but it still hurts sometimes and makes me cautious, weary of moving too fast. It’s not a good feeling.

I didn’t want to risk agitating the muscles by going to the gym. The bike ride to school made it feel better. But now, at the end of my day, it’s starting to hurt again. I’m hoping it’s gone, or significantly less tomorrow. If not I might not do the gym again, which would suck, but I’ve sort of already chalked this week up to screwed since I’ll be traveling. I might run while I’m home, but I’m not going to be biking as much as I have the past 4 week.

But yeah. I would really like to be able to go to the gym, and it’s totally not going to happen if I’m exhausted in the morning, so I’ll go for now and see how everything is feeling in the morning.

Daily Post 041: Thursday and The New System

I didn’t really get up with my alarm this morning. I was still tired, I didn’t have anything to really do until the leasing office opened so I could put money on the card. Zane didn’t want breakfast. He was taking left overs for lunch… Yep, staying in bed.

I did get up to give him a hug goodbye when he left for work. We’ve made plans for him to take Friday off. We even have plans to do pancakes for breakfast, something special and slightly indulging.

I poked around in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher and running it, making coffee, heading up some left over veggies for breakfast. Zane and I have actually done well as far as not letting food go to waste.

I procrastinated for a little bit by checking my email, but eventually I began grading the most recent project files. I tried out a new system that I think I might stick with. Testing the rig files doesn’t take very long at all. What takes forever is creating the comment files and updating the Excel sheet with the grades.

This time, instead of trying to comment and grade while examining the file I used Quicktime to make audio recordings of my comments as I “graded” the file. I think the longest I spent on a file was 8 minutes, which was awesome. I know that doesn’t seem like a lot of time. How can I possibly go through and know everything about the file?

All I can say is that I do. I don’t know if I’m fast, or efficient, or if I process things differently, but I can typically analyze everything I need to about a file, including what is broken and why it is broken in less than 10 minutes. It might also help that I’ve been doing this for literally four years.

Add doing all of the commenting and such on top of it and a typical file is anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes. In all honesty, I don’t think my new system is going to “save” me any time. If anything it will make it take longer because I will be essentially grading the project twice.

What it does do is allow me to break the grading up into more manageable steps. I can get through all of the hard work super fast, and then all of the thinking is done. I can create the comment files whenever, wherever. I don’t have to worry about a student coming up and interrupting me while I’m in the middle of working on a file. I can pause the audio clip since all I am doing is copy / pasting really.

And even with that, I have an idea for a tool that might make it even easier to do, integrating the comment files with Maya, and transitioning the comments into a point value which can be exported into Excel.

It would be a bit of a project, but I think that’s what I’m going to work on over the holiday break.

Anywho. I got through all of the files within two hours. An hour and a half I think.

By then the office was open so I walked down there, put money on the card, came back to the apartment, got the laundry, and started the wash. I cooked the second half of the Sriacha chicken, since Zane wanted to cook it in batches. I ironed Clavan’s cross stitch since I let it soak overnight in OxiClean.

I packed up the cross stitch afterwards along with mounting board so I could use the mat cutter at school to size everything properly. I messaged Terri about my new schedule to see about personal training. She’s off on vacation next week so we’re going to arrange something later. I’ll still be going to the gym so it’s not a big deal in my mind.

I also messaged Paul and set up a meeting with him tomorrow around noon so Zane and I can do the phones. Since I didn’t think I would be up for any sort of real brain intensive stuff I decided not to work on Marcus’ commission today. Instead I prepped a new cross stitch which I will be making for my older brother. A Christmas gift I think.

I switched the wash, unloaded the dishwasher, put the food away, then took care of the dishes. I ran out of time to put the clothes away, but I felt pretty good about everything I was able to get done.

I showered then headed to school, packing a container of salad into my backpack, even remembering the fork. There was a bit of a breeze, but it wasn’t the massive wall of force it was the other day. I think I made good time but I wasn’t using my app so I honestly don’t know.

I ate after clocking in .Lab wasn’t all that busy and between the two I was able to get all of the commenting and grading done. Even posted the grades to the online plateform so grading is 100% done and I can enjoy tomorrow sans work related tasks.

I scanned Clavan’s cross stitch so I have a picture of it. I cut the mounting board and put the cross stitch on it, so all that needs to happen now is for it to be framed. My new endeavor is to make custom frames. I’m buying the material tomorrow. According to Google it’s not that hard.

I messaged Sabrina. We’re going to do lunch on Sunday. Anthony and Tica want to hang out. I messaged him my new schedule, saying weekends were best, but I am pretty sure that conflicts with his schedule. We’re going to wait until after Thanksgiving to try to meet up.

I called my mom while I was on break. I’m most likely going to be going home for Thanksgiving. She wants to see me, but with having had the stroke she isn’t comfortable making long drives by herself. I really want to see her, too.

Zane and I had tentative plans to spend Thanksgiving together, so I wanted to double check with him that it would be ok for me to go, and to extend the invitation to him to come with me. I don’t think he will. We haven’t really discussed it since I’ve been home. Mostly because I devoured food and went to sleep.

I should mention that it was raining when I got off of work and Zane was super awesome and picked me up. So much warm fuzzy feels.

Social wise I also have a schedule phone conversation with Jin on Sunday again. I feel bad that the last time we talked I basically highjacked the conversation and did nothing but bitch about work.

I think that was about it for my day. I ate once I got home. The kitchen was spotless still since John hasn’t been home all night and Trevor and Danielle went out to eat. I work up when Zane came to bed, which is why I’m awake right now. Since he’s taking tomorrow off he stayed up for a while playing Fallout. I’m going to go back to sleep for a bit, but I do have things I want to get done today.

Since I work on Saturday tomorrow is my day off. I think Zane wants it to be mostly an introvert day, so we’ll spend the morning together, I’ll go off and do my stuff, then we’ll reconvine later in the evening. Tomorrow is also supposed to be date night…

I have anxiety over it which I’ve already told him about. He wants to go to the sushi place, which led to a bit of discord last night.

We were both in the kitchen and I mentioned how I would like to go out on Thursday for date night instead of Friday to try to avoid the typical Friday crowd. I mentioned how I would like to go to sushi because I really don’t want that to be a negative place for us. I want to feel comfortable going there.

He said that it would be better to go on Friday because Hannah doesn’t work on Thursdays. I honestly hasn’t known her schedule. I hadn’t cared if she was there or not. If she was, cool. If she wasn’t, cool. It wasn’t about her.

Zane’s comment made it about her though. It’s not about having a nice night together. It’s not about the atmosphere or food. It’s specifically about seeing another person. That led to a whole bunch of not cool feelings. It made me not want to go out at all, and I sort of still don’t want to go. I don’t think the food will be wroth the emotional discord of sitting for over an hour in an awkward situation I don’t want to be a part of.

I don’t know if I’m ready to go back now. If we go when Hannah is there then it’s for her. If we go when she’s not there, we’re going on that day specifically because she’s not there and it’s about avoidance.

It feels like I can’t win and if I can’t win I would rather not fight that battle. Blah… Dates aren’t supposed to feel like punishment. But it sort of does now and it’s the one part of my day I really am not looking forward to. How messed up is that?

Zane has to see Hannah at some point regardless. She’s going out of town for the holiday and he agreed to cat sit for her.

I really wish I could write these emotions off. I wish I could berate myself for feeling petty. I wish these negative feelings weren’t here because honestly they’re the only ones messing with my inner peace right now.

Tomorrow is a full day, and it’s already 5am. I guess I should try to get a little more sleep before tackling anything. It’s not like any of the places I want to go to are open anyway. Because they’re lame like that. I mean, come on, who isn’t awake at 5am?

Oh yeah… the rest of the world…

Daily Post 040:Wednesday’s Research

I didn’t really put my to-do list in it’s place from yesterday, but overall I feel today has been pretty alright, even with the news of the December schedule finally being released.

I had breakfast this morning with Zane then dashed out the door. The bike to school was nice. It’s becoming more of a warm up than a workout. With the doors fixed for the break room I was able to drop my backpack off without issue, even retrieving a bottle of water from my stash.

Terri was waiting for me when I got to the gym. We went to the back room where she had me focus on upper body with core thrown in at the end. My triceps are the worst. But that’s nothing I didn’t already know.

She also had me go through different exercises, instructing me to do as many as I could, with my max reps being 20. I was able to do the full twenty for all but two of the exercises. The dips I could only get up to 10, and then surprisingly the leg raises, my last exercises for the session, I was only able to get to 7.

I wonder if that has anything to do with biking the six-ish miles to the gym and then doing the previous core exercises. I would have liked to at least have gotten to 10. A nice solid number. Seven just seems so eh to me. It’s an odd number though, and those guys are weird.

Oh well.

After stretching I bit I sat outside finishing off my water bottle and enjoying the morning, watching people coming and going from the gym, going about their day.

Eventually I got back on the bike and went back to school. I’ve finding the rhythm for traveling on the bike. I know when traffic starts to pick up on certain streets, when to expect the school buses to be coming. What times the sun will be in my eyes, and what directions to avoid. I have duly noted all of the potholes.

Frank and Seth were in the break room when I got there. We actually had a pleasant conversation this morning rather than bitching about the work environment, so that was really nice. I had a protein bar with more water before changing and heading to lab, which was uneventful.

The few questions I had I was able to answer fine.

I did spend a bit of time looking at bandanas, and then purchasing four new ones. The other night when I went to dry the clothes at the laundry mat I think I lost my favorite bandana. The one without holes in it. I can’t find it anywhere and I know that I pulled it out of the dryer along with my compression sleeve. It’s not in the car though, and I didn’t see it when I was putting things away.

I wanted to wait until Friday to do this, but honestly there isn’t a difference between doing it now, and then, except that by doing it today I might be able to get them before the end of the week. I’m super hoping. I feel so awkward without my bandana. ;-;

I did expand on my color selection. I got purple, red, green, and blue. I am hoping that I like them. I told Zane that I’m going to feel not right about spending the money on the bandanas until they come in and I try them out. It’s just like my car, or the shoes, or the stuff for the bike. Until I fall in love with it, until I feel like the money was well spent and a good investment, I’m going to have iffy feelings about it.

So that’s in the works.

While I was in lab I got a reply from Marcus. I had sent him a message this morning asking if I could do more of a chibi style for his commission rather than a more formal / serious style. He was ok with the change so I went ahead and started working on the pattern.

I wasn’t able to finish it before heading home, but I got almost all of it done. Just some lettering left to figure out.

I biked home. Another good ride which left me hungry. I had my salad almost as soon as I walked in the door along with more water. I called Paul, the Verizon dude, and got more information from him, mainly the actual costs of the phones.

The denial will last for roughly three to six months, and even then our credit with Verizon would be “reviewed” so there would still be the chance of the payment plan being denied, so there’s really no point in waiting for that to clear.

We’re still able to turn our old phones in for store credit, and there’s a $50 rebate on Zane’s phone, so that could help negate a fair amount of the initial expense.

Zane went online through his employee thing and checked the discounts on the phones he’s able to buy 3^rd party. The deals on those phones aren’t as good as the deal we would be getting in the store, so Friday we’re going to set that up. Hopefully.

That was my main thing for today, along with the pattern. I finished that off and sent it to Marcus for his opinion. He asked if it could be changed to include another character, which, yeah, it can. But that totally negates all of the work I did. Lame. >.<;

I told him I could change it but I wouldn’t be able to finish the new pattern today. I also said I would most likely sketch it out first to get his approval on the concept before turning it into a pattern. He was fine with that.

I like my original pattern, which I based off of a cute cartoon of Smaug. I think I’m going to stitch it for myself eventually. The new concept for Marcus is to have a chibi version of Smaug and Bilbo fighting over a gold coin with the title of The Hobbit underneath them, possibly in a frame, but I’m not sure on that yet.

I cooked bacon since I didn’t want to have to do that in the morning for my breakfast. I also cooked a burger because food. I showered at some point and also logged my riding since I haven’t been using RunKeeper to track my travels. I get impatient waiting for it to start up. I’m not sure if it’s a wifi issue or a processor issue with the phone. I’m hoping whatever is causing the lag goes away since I’ll have better coverage with Verizon as well as a more up-to-date device. #firstworldproblems

I did look up the difference between male and female bikes, as well as the difference between male and female bike seats.

So… the difference for the bikes themselves has to do with the cross bar. Guy bikes normally have a straight bar while girl bikes have a bar that is angled down. This actually doesn’t have any mechanical function. Like… it’s not because girls bike differently or anatomically need the bar to be angled differently.

It’s actually due to the fact that when biking first became popular girls still wore skirts and dresses more often than not. Wearing pants was a huge no-no, so having to lift their legs over the crossbar was pretty scandalous what with showing off so much leg and stuff. And I mean, come on, if you saw that ankle you had to get married and stuff. Talk about moving fast on a first date…

So the cross bar on girl bikes was angled down so girls didn’t to lift their leg as high to get onto the bike. That’s seriously the only difference. It was to accommodate fashion. And actually with cycling picking up more, a lot of female bikes have a straight cross bar just like guy bikes, with the differences being in the dimensions to support the shorter torso / arm length of females.

As for the seats. Since females typically have a wider pelvic structure “female” seats tend to be wider, however some girls find “male” seats to be more comfortable, and vice versa for guys. Some like the wider cushion.

I actually just switched out the seat that was originally on Zane’s bike for the one that was on Frank’s bike; a female seat. I actually don’t like it much. I feel like it puts more pressure on my sit bones and it actually becomes sort of painful on the longer rides. I feel like I can’t bike as strongly because of the discomfort. I can’t use as much force or power because the seat isn’t distributing the pressure properly, or at least not the way that Zane’s seat did, which is a guy’s seat.

I’m most likely going to switch the seats back. Not right now since it’s already 11:30, but before next week.

I ended up napping. That seems to be a new habit. I get so tired about six-ish hours after the gym. Not just tired like I can keep going I just need a cup of coffee. This is like, “The apartment could be on fire and I wouldn’t care I’m not leaving the bed and you can’t make me,” sort of tired. Zane came home but let me sleep for roughly three hours.

Eventually he woke me up. He also cooked dinner because he’s amazing like that.

I was setting up the computer to do some grading, but the internet was being hardcore lame. It took me 15 minutes just to get my Google Drive documents open. Motivation killed.

I did check my work email. The schedule for December finally came out. Zane wanted to get money from the ATM to put on the laundry card. I originally had gotten a $20 to do that, but the laundry had to be dried elsewhere because there wasn’t money on the card and we couldn’t leave the clothes wet overnight. That meant I had to use the $20 at the laundry mat, which normally isn’t a big deal because I would have gotten three $5s back, but for some reason the machine turned my entire $20 into quarters, which I can’t use to put on the laundry card for the apartment… Arg.

At the moment I don’t have anything clean to wear to bike to work in tomorrow. Not cool, and so not going to happen. Zane said that I could use his card to get another $20. I can put the money on the card when the office opens, do laundry, and still have some time to kill before having to go to work. Everything ought to work out. Fingers crossed.

Since I was out I stopped at the school to grab the schedule off of the server. It sucks. I would be working 5pm to 1am for the CRI1 labs. I’m really hoping that it goes down to one lab. With it being the holiday season a lot of people take leaves of absence to go back home and stuff. Shading and Lighting is 1pm until 9pm, which isn’t bad, but still would be lame if I’m working until 1am because I wouldn’t be getting home until around 2am, and not getting to sleep until at least 3am most likely 5am. I haven’t figured out when I want to schedule my training with Terri in this giant mess.

I will most likely try to keep it on Wednesday. I’ll have a better idea on Monday what the labs will actually be like. Hopefully there’s only one. >.<;

That’s it though. The kitchen is a mess. I’m not going to clean it until tomorrow morning. Same with my to-do list. I’m tired again. Sleep sounds good.

Daily Post 038: The Monday Grouch

Let’s see if I can bang out my daily writing before having to go to work. :3

So yesterday was Monday… It’s hard to believe that only makes it Tuesday morning. It feels like so much has happened… still. I guess with a crazy busy weekend that tends to happen.

Yesterday morning started out a little rough. Zane had stayed up way later than he should have. Bobby stuck around for longer than was polite on a work night… It was a not fun situation. It meant Zane was crazy grouchy when he woke up.

Luckily I was able to tell it was just a mood and not really meant to sting, but some of his words were unfair and did hurt. I packed his lunch and made him breakfast which I also put in his lunch box so he could get to work a bit early, beating most of the traffic, and nap for a bit longer in the car.

He was appreciative of me taking care of his morning, even remembering to pack cookies, and letting him sleep for a bit longer. I know what it’s like to not get enough sleep and to dread having to go through the day. I wanted to make his morning better even if I couldn’t make the lack of sleep any easier to handle.

I also mentioned maybe sticking to an 11pm curfew on work nights. If everyone leaves at 11ish that would give both of us 30 minutes to an hour to wrap up the day and get ready for bed, which would still only give us less than six hours of sleep.

I also mentioned that maybe it would be better to try to find a different day to do the game on. A day where there wouldn’t be a time limit on socializing. Friday or Saturday could work, though there would be sometimes I couldn’t be able to be at the game due to work. And that really depends on when the lab times are, because if they’re AM then it wouldn’t matter.

Anyway, it’s something for us to think about. A tired introvert is never, ever, a good thing, and I felt bad for Zane, because he doesn’t have sick time yet he couldn’t take the day off without bad juju happening at work. He’s still in his 90 period so we don’t want any bad marks on his record. I don’t want it there for the additional reason that it was sort of self-inflicted. Owning up to consequences and everything, though I still think it was rude of Bobby to not leave after the game was over. He knows both Zane and I have to get up early in the morning. If he wants to hang out later he should come over on other days.

So yeah, morning wasn’t terrible, but it was like trying to hug a cactus. Sort of not cool.

After Zane left I put some of the clothes away, but not all of them. I showered and got ready for work, deciding to go to the gym afterwards rather than before since I didn’t want to be rushed while I was there.

I made it to work fine. The new bike seat is way different since it’s a girls seat, and that’s actually something I want to look further into. Why there’s a difference. Also, the difference between a girl bike and a guy bike, because curiosity. I know visually the difference, but I don’t know why there is a difference. So that will happen at some point I think. Not right now since I’m running out of time.

Work ended up being more than I thought it would be. Frank’s daughter was sick over the weekend, and about 30 minutes into the lab his daycare called saying she was still sick so he had to go pick her up. That left me alone in lab. I was able to handle it fine, but I wasn’t able to do anything else. I even forgot to clock in I’m pretty sure. Luckily Clavan is an awesome supervisor and will fix the error for me, but it’s still annoying to realize that I was so bombarded with questions that I couldn’t even open the computer.

I literally did nothing but answer questions yesterday. I ended up having a really awesome conversation with one of the students though. I think I gave him some really good perspective about what it will take to set himself apart from not only his classmates, but the other people he will be competing with for job openings.

After lab I needed to get away from people. I changed back into my biking gear and headed to the gym. I ran around the track again. Minute intervals. My shines were sore at first but around the third interval I started finding my pace. I think I’m going to stick to minutes a few more times, maybe the rest of this week, then move it up to two minutes. I also did weights yesterday. Mostly upper body, but some leg stuff, too.

I biked home, going over the bridge on the bike trail. I told myself that if I biked all the way up it I could have a burger when I got home. I guess I really wanted that burger.

I wasn’t able to make it all the way home without stopping though. On my route I pass by a gas station. It’s actually right in front of one of the lights that I have to wait for. I actually stopped there and went inside to get some Gatorade and a salad. I hadn’t eaten anything since my protein bar during lab and I was not only feeling super headachy, but also sort of sick from not eating enough.

I sat outside listening to music while I ate my Southwestern salad and had almost all of one of the bottles I bought. There was a deal, buy two for $3.

It was awesome sitting in the shade, resting, recovering. I was able to watch people as they came and went, noticing the traffic pattern for the lights. It was nice.

After sitting for a bit and letting the food settle I got back on the bike and continued home. I didn’t go as fast as I could have. I had my backpack with me, so I’m sure that factored into my slower time, but my body in general was beat. Biking, running, and lifting all in one day is a lot I think. I’m going to keep doing it because I’m a Type A and I don’t know the meaning of “Slow and Steady”. It’s “All or Nothing”.

I made it home eventually, carried the bike up the stairs, and proceed to do nothing. It was the most amazing nothing I’ve ever done.

Actually I posted my 16 page blog from all the days I didn’t write. I still haven’t done a weekly saga post, but I’m sure that will happen in the next day or so. I really want to keep up with those.

I did end up curling up in bed after I showered. I also did have that burger I promised myself. Along with a bunch of water.

Zane came home. We had amazing cuddle time together before watching an episode of Arrow while smoking one of the flavors of shisha. It’s a mandarin orange, which smells like an orange Starburst. We mixed it with a little bit of mint shisha so it has a really cool, sort of chilly flavor to it. I enjoyed it.

Trevor and Danielle took over the kitchen right when I wanted to start making the potato leek soup, so instead I had the leftover half a steak and veggies in the fridge. Zane made a snack too, but I’m not sure what it was. I think tater tots.

We didn’t get to make dinner until 10. Which sort of sucked because it was so late. In the mean time Zane watched Doctor Who, I poked around at my computer for a bit. We did end up rearranging the room, but we both ran out of steam for putting stuff back where it belonged as far as the bookcase and such were concerned. And I totally didn’t feel like crawling around plugging my computer back up. So we decided to save that for tomorrow (today).

We watched another episode of Arrow while we ate. I had another salad with the soup and a piece of toast. A nice light-ish meal for the end of such a busy day. I would feel back about eating what seemed like a lot of food, but nope. I’m pretty sure I burned just as much calories as I consumed yesterday. And I’m not going to feel guilty about not going to the gym today.

Funny how I consider today an “off” day when I’m still biking close to 7 miles. Perspective.

Anyway, that’s about it for yesterday. Zane and I were both exhausted so sleep came fairly quickly for both of us. We slept together, and even had cutesy pillow talk like we used to. It was nice, reassuring, comforting.

He was super grouchy again this morning, but we both know it is from not getting enough sleep and introverted alone time. But that’s for another post.

I need to get going and shower so I can get out the door. Also, posting this without proof reading. Please don’t murder me for grammar. <3

murder

Daily Post 037: The Not So Daily Post

I have about a week’s worth of writing to catch up on. How did it get away from me for so long… And then there’s going to be the weekly recap… >.<; So much stuff…

This was also written last night, but I lost steam on editing my typos (which I’m sure there are still tons of), and this morning has been super crazy.

Thursday

Not surprisingly Thursday is hard to recall and is most likely going to take the most time to write about as I sit here and ponder what actually happened and in what order. I had meant to write when I got to the end of my day. There was lots of anxiety over my test. I never got around to doing yoga before work, but my morning was pretty chill all things considered. I spent a fair amount of my morning stitching before biking to work.

I did go to Crisper’s for their Southwestern salad. It was pretty good. It wasn’t covered by their happy hour special though so I’ll most likely not be getting it again any time soon. Ideally I’m not going out to eat during the week anyway, so spending shouldn’t be happening as much in the future in general.

I worked up some concept designs for the character sheets during the second lab. That was fun since I got to draw on the dry erase board. I’ve filled up my artbook and haven’t replaced the one that I keep in my backpack. I don’t think I would have put a new one in it anyway with biking to work. I don’t want to run the risk of sweating through the back and messing up the book.

The first lab was super rough and left me drained before it was even halfway over. The turn in for the project was at midnight, so it’s not surprising that there were so many questions and minor freak outs.

It meant that I didn’t have the mental capacity to do much of anything else. After the little bit of brainstorming during the second lab I went back to stitching off and on between answering questions. I haven’t been able to but any real time into Clavan’s project since then, which is frustrating. It’s so close to being done. >.<

I want to have it done by the Tinkerer’s meeting that Bre scheduled, which is this Wednesday. I would love to be able to give Clavan his gift during the meeting. I think that would be perfect.

Zane picked me up from work on Thursday so I didn’t have to bike home in the dark. We decided to leave the bike at school and that we would dive me back at some point during the weekend so I could ride it home.

He took me out to Pita Pit for dinner as a way to get the light, leafy dinner I craved. It had good moments and bad moments. I was still overwhelmed from work and realy in the ride Zane got angry at other drivers doing stupid thigns. It wasn’t a good combination for us.

Things smoothed over. We sat and ate so I could be still for a little while. Originally he had wanted to eat at home, but I needed time to decompress, so the compromise was we would eat at the shop until his sandwich was done, and then we would leave. I was ok with that arrangement. Zane did finish he food before me, so I wrapped up the little bit of sandwich that I had left and finished eating in the car.

On the way home Zane began talking about the PS4. Since I was tired and drained I wasn’t very talkative. He ended up saying that he was going to stop talking since I didn’t care about the topic, which caused me to get angry.

I did / do care. I was listening to everything he was saying. Having a statement made about my feelings didn’t help our situation. He said that all I had done since he had picked me up from school was “bitch” at him, which stung because I felt I hadn’t complained about anything that had happened. I had stayed quiet actually other than to say work was rough. And all of the moments where we had smiled and laughed… it was like they hadn’t happened to him.

When we got to the apartment he parked and got out of the car saying he would see me inside, leaving me to walk up the pathway and stairs alone. It was super early still. Only around 9ish. I went to the room and tried to go to sleep anyway, feeling that with the weight of the test the next day that it wasn’t worth staying up. I could hear the TV in the living room, though, and after a little bit I decided to get my headphone, which were on the kitchen table. I was hoping that music would help cover up the sound and let me sleep.

When I went into the kitchen Zane asked me to come over to him. I did. He hugged me. We ended up talking and I mentioned the reason I had gotten angry and bothered was because it had hurt that he made it seem like none of the good interactions had happened or mattered. He said I had a point and he was sorry he had ignored those moments in his statement.

We mentioned again how it seems like we’re expecting the worst from each other.

He said that he feels like I’m still depressed a lot of the time because I’m still so quiet. He said I wasn’t like that in the beginning, before his unemployment. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I told him that in the beginning I felt like I was alone, which is why I was on the dating site in the first place. I didn’t hang out with my old roommates. I didn’t hang out with co-workers, and still really don’t. I wanted human contact, and when he and I lived apart I would go home when I needed space and silence. I was always charged when I was around him. More social.

Now we live together, so he sees when I am quiet and withdrawn, which has a negative connotation. So lets not use that word. It’s not the right word. I don’t feel like I am withdrawn. I feel like I am calm, peaceful. I am slower and able to go at my own pace, which lets me enjoy the things around me. I am able to do the things that I want which normally doesn’t involve other people. Watching TV and playing games and hanging out with others, that’s fun, but isn’t often restoring. TV sometimes, but not often. Same with games. It depends. It’s still input that I’m having to process, so if I’m over stimulated it’s not fun anymore. It’s more tasking that I have to do, which doesn’t recharge me. I enjoy quiet cuddles on the couch where I can listen to him breathing, where we can have random conversations as topics come to us.

He likes that sometimes. He would rather us be engaging in something. Maybe we can find a compromise with this. If I have my quiet time I will be more likely to do the things that he wants to do. So maybe we can have quiet time first for a little bit, then go about our evening. It is something I will bring up later tonight I think.

Zane ended up letting me go back to the room so I could sleep. I felt better than I had before our conversation. As it was I was so exhausted that I wasn’t able to stay awake fretting over my test. I suppose there is a bright side to everything…

Friday

Friday started sort of rough. I hadn’t set my alarm before going to sleep, figuring Zane was going to wake up at his normal time. But he didn’t. Since I was driving him to work so I could have the car for the drive to Jacksonville he thought it would be better for both of us to get more sleep. I had planned on getting breakfast from a gas station along with a coffee / cappuccino thingy when I stopped for fill the car up, and Zane didn’t want to cook breakfast for himself in the morning so there was no real reason to wake up super early.

I showered, looked up the directions to the testing center, which were amazing easy. Huzzah! I made sure I had everything that I might, maybe, possibly, need in case the end of the world happened, then headed to the car with Zane.

He wanted to stop at a gas station before work so he could pick up breakfast and lunch for himself. Wawa is a gas station chain that is popular up north, but has recently been taking over in Florida. They’re well known for their sub station, which is basically like a Subway built inside of the gas station, but better.

Well, I didn’t know that they do breakfast sandwiches, too. We stopped at one for Zane and when I saw that they did breakfast I guess I sort of lit up because Zane said if I wanted something that he would get it for me. He walked me through all of the options, clicking the buttons as I looked at the screen from around his arm, hugging him from behind while we both built our breakfast sandwiches. I even got to have a mint mocha coffee.

While Zane was waiting for the food I went ahead and put gas in the car since I was taking care of everything that I needed to in one stop. The whole experience was extremely pleasant and helped smooth out the remaining wrinkles from the previous night. Zane also got a bottle of water for me so I could have something to drink during the drive.

I took Zane the rest of the way to work and was able to kiss him goodbye before heading out to start my adventure to Jacksonville. I’m super glad that I’ve been biking to work. As awesome as it was to be able to take him to work and be part of his morning, I don’t think I would stay sane if I had to do that commute every morning just to drive back home. It would be over an hour of my morning, not to mention the gas.

I feel sort of guilty for writing that because I feel like that makes it seem like I don’t want to do things for Zane. I feel like it makes it seem like taking him to work would be “too much,” and that’s not it at all. It’s more that when given the option between driving him or being self sufficient, I’m not taking the lazy option. I’m taking the option that is healthier, more time efficient, and what I feel is the more financially responsible option. There’s no reason for me to not bike to work, or to other places that I need / want to go (with in reason). Seeing what the choice could have been made me realize how right my choice was, and I’m happy to have that validation. It makes it easier to wake up and enjoy my ride because it could be over an hour of sitting in traffic instead.

Driving during rush hour traffic sort of sucked in the beginning, but once I was on the interstate it was smooth driving and basically and hour and a half of solitude and good music. I feel like construction follows me everywhere I go in Florida since there were three new construction spots on the trip to Jacksonville since the last time I drove home to visit my mom, but it really didn’t affect my travel speed, so it was more just a slight annoyance of having orange barrels everywhere.

It was easy to find the building that I needed to be at, and the suite. They were actually still installing the test software onto the laptop that I was going to be testing on, so I had a few minutes to use the restroom and to get about five minutes worth of stitching in.

The proctor for the test was super nice; a guy named Seth. He walked me through the setup process, and was extremely helpful and reassuring when Maya started crashing on me.

Yeah… even during an exam the software is buggy as fuck. If I had been a recent graduate taking the certification and it had glitched out on me like that I would have had anxiety through the roof. As it was it was just a mild annoyance because I had to keep pausing the test software to wait for the program to re-launch, which meant Seth had to keep reading me off my sign-in number and permitting my pause in the test.

There were only 4 questions out of the 35 that I “marked” so I could come back to them. I ended up passing with a 94%, and I know the two questions that I missed, but for the life of me I honestly didn’t know how to find the right answers. I’m sure with more digging around I could have, but I was happy with what I had done, so not getting those two was ok in my book.

A lot of the questions were easy for me.

The test room was super amazing, too. I was in a room with rows of flat tables, much like the tables that are in the powered lecture halls at school. I had a Windows laptop, which was a little annoying since I work with Mac more often than not, but really that just means I mess up the hotkeys every once in a while. It wasn’t a big deal to be honest.

The desks faced a giant wall of windows, and outside of the windows was this gorgeous view of trees and a pound that had a fountain in the center with water shooting up, catching the sunlight of the autumn day.

It looked so peaceful, so beautiful. Anytime I started to feel frustrated with Maya crashing on me I would look out the window at the water. I would watch the branches swaying with the breeze, and I would breath as the program re-launched.

I would just let it all go. This test wasn’t going to define me. It didn’t really mean anything. I know I’m good. I know I’m smart and resourceful. I know I can figure stuff out and learn. This test, this program, doesn’t make me a good person. Really, it just means that I have an interesting hobby that I’m lucky enough to work in such a way to make it pay my bills.

There wasn’t a reason to get anxious. It was just a test. Just silly, randomly generated questions.

So when I was an hour into my two hour limit, I only had those two questions that I didn’t know the answer to. I was done. I didn’t want to dig and find the answers. I was confident I had gotten all of the other answers right. I only needed a 71% to pass. I was ok with not getting those two questions. I was ok with not being perfect. So I submitted the test, filled out a quick survey, and then had my results pop up on my screen.

Jennifer Conley, Congratulations you have passed the Maya 2015 Professional Certification with a 94%.

I couldn’t stop the smile on my face. And I know it was a childish, pure joy, type of smile. Almost a foolish smile. I just couldn’t help it. I felt so much self-validation. Everyone at the testing center congratulated me. Seth asked if he should play celebration music. I laughed and said no, that I was going to endure enough “I told you so”s to make up for it.

It wasn’t until I was halfway back to the interstate that I realized I had forgotten to actually pay for my exam. XD

Leave it to me to remember to pack my checkbook and then not use it…

It was too late for me to turn around, so I kept driving hoping that I would be able to fix the issue when I got home either by mailing a check or paying over the phone with my card. Something.

Before leaving I had texted my mom, Zane, and Clavan about the results, letting them know I had passed. My mom called me while I was driving home, so we chatted for a bit, which was nice. She had been at the doctor’s doing her own set of tests, unfortunately her results aren’t as instant. She has to wait for the docs to check over the scans, so it’s a bunch of hurry up and wait. She seems to be doing well. I wish I was closer to her to be more of an emotional support. I’m sure she could use some company.

I drove the rest of the way home listening to music and feeling pretty good, and yet at the same time sort of silly for having something pretty trivial mean anything at all to me.

I mean really… out of all of the things they could have asked me I simply lucked out that it was only two questions that I didn’t know. I could have had horrible luck and gotten more questions that I couldn’t answer, or answered wrong.

Maya is such a huge program. There’s no way to know everything for every situation. I still learn new things about it every lab. New hot keys, new short cuts, new work flows, new errors. There’s so many people out there who know so much more than me. And yet…

And yet, I now enough to be considered a professional. I know enough to hold my own. I know enough to hold my head a little bit higher, stand a little bit straighter, and to know that I have done something that none of my other co-workers have.

It makes me have pride in myself. I went through with something that I have wanted for literally years. I found out all of the information for the exam. I worked through the booklets. I found the testing center, and I took the test. I didn’t give up when it took over a month to figure out where to take the F’ing exam. I didn’t back out when I had to drive two hours to a place I had never been to take a test I might fail.

I didn’t back down. And I think that’s what I’m proud of the most. That I didn’t shrink away.

Zane asked what I wanted to do to celebrate while we were texting before I started driving back home. I honestly hadn’t thought that far. I hadn’t let myself think past the test. There was only the test. There was never results. There was never passing. Maybe failing… but never passing. There was just going there and taking the exam.

The end.

But there’s always something after the happily ever after. And here I was, in the after part.

What did I want to do?

I said that I didn’t know but that I would think about it on the way home. And I did.

I want to dye my hair again. It’s been over a year since I shaved my head. It has grown back to the point that I can pull it back into a small bun or a ponytail. It’s starting to hang down in curls again. It brushes the tops of my shoulders.

I want to dye it purple again. I want to go back to what I feel is normal for me. I think that will be the most amazing thing to mark this accomplishment. A year ago I made a commitment to myself. To better myself. To find myself and to be true to that self. And this past Friday I reaffirmed something that I knew. That I am good enough. That I am awesome, and that I am my own person. I feel like I’ve earned the right to dye my hair again.

I don’t know if I can explain it more than that at the moment. But I do feel like it is something that I have earned. I feel like this is the right thing to do, and that it isn’t some random “because it’s cool” thing. It means something to me. It’s a rite of passage in a way.

It won’t be able to happen until this coming weekend, but it will be my reward. It will be amazing, and I can’t wait to smell the Manic Panic dye again. It will most likely be an emotional thing for me, but then again, what isn’t? #INFJissues

When I got home I did have an email form my contact congratulating me, but also mentioned that I forgot to pay and to message her back. I ended up giving them my card information and was able to take care of the issue. I apologized over and over again, because there were multiple emails, saying how I had not meant to leave without paying. It’s all water under the bridge now though. And really, it makes for a humorous story.

I kept plucking away at my email since I had several messages to take care of. I also made a post on Facefail about my certification giving a special thank you to my mom, Zane, and Clavan. I told them “Thank you for believing in me even when it’s hard for me to believe in myself.”

By then it was time to pick up Zane from work. I headed out and still got there with enough time to sit and wait for a little bit. Once he got to the car there was an amazing kiss hello. We decided to go to a different Best Buy for the PS4 to avoid traffic.

Zane was super stoked for it. There was actually an amazing deal on the PS4 where he ended up getting two games free, one of them being Fallout 4. Because of that he bought me God of War 3, the remastered PS4 version, since he had budgeted money to go towards the Fallout game. I haven’t had a chance to play it yet, but I’m looking forward to when I can. I love the God of War series. Some much win.

We decided to go to my sports bar for celebration dinner where I ended up having a draft of Angry Orchard. Good food, and it wasn’t super busy yet since it was so early en the evening. Towards the end of dinner we were both ready to be home. Zane drove since I was still fuzzy from the drink.

When we got home I had another apple cider, and went to sleep shortly after, leaving Zane to enjoy his new relationship with the PS4. Though I really can’t blame him. It’s super sexy.

Saturday

Friday was a super full day, and Saturday was along the same vein.

It started with making breakfast. Not sure if I ever mentioned it or not, but one of the things Zane bought while we were at the produce store was quail eggs. Since they had been in the fridge for a while I used those for breakfast. The eggs are so small compared to normal chicken eggs. They’re cute.

There’s not much of a difference in taste, so I don’t think we’re going to go out of our way to buy them again unless we’re doing something that specifically calls for them.

Anyway, breakfast was awesome. Zane and I ended up going to the Verizon store to look into setting up a new account, which took about an hour and a half. I had to play around with the new iPhone since the design is different. I actually really like the size of the iPhone 4. I’m not into having a giant screen. I just want to be able to check my email, and text. Making phone calls, maybe… Only if I really, really, like the person though… I don’t need a 64 gig Swiss Army computer in my pocket…

I also looked at an iPad since I was there. Frank lets me play on his every once in a while and OmniFocus works on it. It would sort of replace my notebook, but I’m not sure I’m ok with that. So I don’t think I actually want to get one. It was nice to poke at it for a bit.

Turns out I wasn’t able to open an account right away due to the $90 charge that ERS keeps bothering me about. I went ahead and paid that. I’m happy that I paid through Verizon itself though rather than through ERC. It feels more official that way, and with all of the negative content I found for ERC I don’t think I would have ever been comfortable working with them.

So, with all of that squared away we should have been green-lit to get the new phones and set up the account. For some reason it wasn’t letting us do a monthly payment plan. The associate we were working with spent a lot of time talking to various people and various departments trying to figure out why in one system we were approved, but on his system we weren’t.

Come to find out it was because of the charge. Because it had defaulted the system thought Zane and I wouldn’t make timely payments. The associate said that he could fill out a form to request an override from his district manager (or someone like that) and that he would let us know when it was approved.

I asked what would happen if it was denied, because you know, I can never accept that something is going to work out to a positive conclusion.

He said that if it was denied we would have to pay more for the phones up front, but that would make the monthly payments less.

Since we couldn’t do anything until we knew about the approval, which since it was Saturday could take a few days, Zane and I left to go to Travel Country to see about exchanging my running shoes. We thanked the associate for his time and away we went.

I was so nervous about the exchange, but it was one of the most amazingly fantastic experiences I have had as far as returning an item. I walked in and was greeted warmly, which is normal for the store. Their sales team is always super friendly.

I sheepishly said that I sort of needed to see a manager. One of the girls who was at the counter said she could help me, so I explained that I had bought the shoes last weekend, and had even worn them around the store, and that they had felt fine at the time, but when I got to the gym and tried running on the indoor track that they were too loose and that my feet kept slipping inside of the shoe.

I didn’t have the box the shoes came in or the receipt since Trevor had taken the trash out. I said that I had called and talked to someone during the week and they said to come talk to a manager since it would be up to them to approve the exchange.

The manager was so nice. She said that as long as it was within the return time frame (30 or 60 days, she couldn’t remember which) that the store would take the merchandise back, no problem. She brought down two different sizes for me to try on, but the first pair worked great. It feels like my feet are being hugged. Not too loose and not too tight. It’s the first pair of Vibrams I’ve owned that cover the entire top of my foot. I really do like the style so far, and I especially love them since they fit properly now.

To make it even better, the shoes were on sale so they credited my account back $25 from what I paid when I first got the shoes. I absolutely love this store because every time I go there it is a fantastic experience. I had been worried that I would be stuck with a pair of $170 shoes that I couldn’t use. Instead I got the perfect pair for cheaper. I was so excited to try them out. I couldn’t wait to get to the gym.

Zane and I went home. I had an apple with some peanut butter, changed, then took the car to the gym since I still didn’t have the bike. I ran the track doing minute intervals. It’s the most I’ve run in a while. I had muscle soreness but my shines seem to be fine. I also did two sets on the upper body machines, which totaled out to 4200 pounds.

I felt like I could go for more, but I’m pretty sure that was my runners high, and I didn’t want to risk pushing too hard, which I’ve done a lot of in the past. So I stopped at two. Next time if I can make it through three then I’ll up my weights.

I came home and showered. When I looked at my phone I saw that I had a message from the Verizon guy. We were denied for the payment plan. I got a bit more information from him and thanked him for his time. I let him know that once Zane and I figured out what we wanted to do that we would call him back. I’ve thought of a few more questions to ask him, but we’re not going to do anything with the phones until Friday, so that’s on the back burner for the moment. And I’m totally ok with that.

Zane had another session for his Pathfinder game that evening, so he left shortly after we talked about the phones. I napped while he was gone. He was supposed to be home around 8, so when I woke up at 7:40 because my roommates were being super loud I didn’t think I would have to suffer for long. Zane would be home and I could go to school and work on podcasts, or we could be irresponsible and go out for dinner, or something. Bottom line, we would be able to get away from the noise.

At 10:30 I still hadn’t heard from Zane. He hasn’t responded to my messages. I didn’t know what to think or do. I didn’t have the bike, and even if I did I still didn’t have a new head light for it, so riding at night was going to suck hardcore.

It got to the point where I couldn’t stay in the apartment anymore. It felt suffocating. I needed to get out. I needed to breathe, to think. I needed to be away.

So I started walking to school. If nothing else I could get the bike and ride it home. Hopefully with it being so late it would be easier since there wouldn’t be as much traffic.

I was also sort of angry. Zane and I had talked about how things would be once he was mobile. I told him that I didn’t really mind or care what he did, but that since we’re sort of a unit, looking out for each other, it would be nice to know a basic idea of where he was or if he wasn’t going to be home so I would know not to worry.

This sort of felt like a breech of that. He had said he would be home around 8 because that’s when the place they were holding the game closed. He said when he got home we could try the chia tea shisha that he had ordered. But after two and a half hours I still hadn’t heard from him.

I felt like that was inconsiderate, and instead of letting myself stay at the apartment stewing in an environment that was already frustrating I decided to go outside and walk instead.

About halfway to school I saw a text from Zane on my phone while I was skipping through my music asking where I was. I replied that I was walking to school and said what street I was on.

A little while later he pulled up next to me, opening the door for me to get in.

I was nervous. I didn’t know if he would be mad. I was still sort of unsettled because of the lack of communication, and feeling trapped at the apartment. It’s not like I could have been angry at my roommates. Well… I mean… I could have been, but realistically it was 8pm on a Saturday night.

What am I going to do? Rain on their parade? It’s not their fault my past two days have been fairly busy and that what I really need is absolute silence. It’s not fair to them to say they can’t use the living room, a communal area, for social gathering and enjoying the weekend. I felt the better solution was to remove myself since I was the one with the issue. And while I was sort of frustrated with the lack of communication, I super, seriously did NOT want to mess up Zane’s night.

Zane explained that the place hadn’t had wifi, and since his phone still doesn’t have service he hadn’t been able to send or receive messages. He said he had stayed afterwards to chat with Hana in the parking lot. I said that Trevor, Danielle, and John had woken me up by watching stuff in the living room and then John had started playing his music super loud and that I needed to get away. I said I had been going to the school to get the bike.

Zane drove me there. When we parked the car he got out and hugged me. He had asked first and I said that I might cry. He said that was ok and hugged me anyway. I didn’t cry, but we did hug for an extended period of time. Eventually the tension I was feeling melted away, leaving me tired again. Biking home wasn’t going to happen, but we did check to make sure the bike was still there. I lock it up pretty well, but I didn’t like how it had been left all by itself for so long. I don’t want it to develop abandonment issues.

It was still there, with all of its pieces. So that was nice. I guess I really should figure out a name for it. Because I’m weird like that. I also feel sort of guilty that I think of the bike as “my bike”. It’s a lot like this image… Mine, rawr.

smaug

Zane and I ended up going to the McDonald’s on campus since their lobby is open 24/7. Neither of us wanted to be at the apartment with everyone being social. We chatted more about his Pathfinder game. We talked more about Hana, the server from the sushi place. I explained my feelings of third-wheely-ness.

It was a good conversation. We ended up sitting outside on the sidewalk in front of the building for a bit, still chatting where we had a bit of a spat. Zane had said something about how I was only going to vote for Bernie Sanders because he had told me to…

*digs heels into ground*

Hold up. I do not do things simply because I am told to. And that is actually not why I plan to vote for Bernie. It was a lot like his comment about how I didn’t care about the PS4. It was an invalid statement about my feelings, and it upset me.

I mentioned how it seemed that he was doing that a lot recently. How it feels like he keeps making assumptions about my feelings or actions, and that those assumptions makes the feelings I do have seem invalidated, which is where the angry and upsetted-ness comes from.

It was a situation which could have turned into a huge fight that messed up the night, but I think we actually recovered from it, both of us understanding the other’s perspectives a bit clearer, and both of us agreeing that instead of assuming things, we’ll start asking for clarification instead.

When we got home everyone was in their rooms. Well… John was trying to sleep on the couch, which was lame because that meant Zane couldn’t play on the PS4. We ended up chilling in the bedroom for a bit, trying out the chia tea shisha like we were supposed to. I like it, but I think it would taste better with a bit of mint, or maybe some extra vanilla in it.

John ended up going back to his room after about 30 minutes so Zane went to the living room to play Fallout 4. I stayed curled up in bed. I don’t remember hearing him turn on the TV that’s how fast I fell asleep.

Sunday

Man… I’m already at 10 pages and I still have all of today to get through. >.<;

I feel like I’ve been typing for hours. Today has been an amazing day though, and totally deserves to be written about. Zane came into the room around 7am. He had fallen asleep on the couch while playing his game, and he was sorry for that because he had said he would sleep in the room with me last night. I wasn’t bothered by it though. I had slept solid the whole night and was ok with that.

I ended up getting up and moving out to the couch myself. I was up, but not really ready to start the day. I guess I ended up falling back asleep because the next thing I knew Zane was waking me up around 9 saying that we needed to do the grocery shopping.

Um… shouldn’t we meal plan first?

So we figured out what we wanted for food this week. Sriracha chicken rice bowls, since that didn’t go according to plan last time, and leek soup with salads. We also still have burger for sandwiches.

We made the shopping list and figured out how the day was going to go. Since Zane hadn’t gotten much playtime in on the game yesterday I offered to do all of the shopping on my own. He let me take his card since it’s still his turn to do grocery. We had breakfast together, after which I showered, then headed out on my own.

I went across the street to the produce store again. I got everything we needed from there for $25. Awesome sauce. From there I went to the bike store to get the head light.

I actually was rung out by the same associate I had spoken to when I bought my helmet. He was super awesome once again. He took the light out and showed me how to attach it to the bike along with a few tips and tricks since it’s the same light that he uses on his bike. I also asked him a bit about attaching the bike rack to the bike, but he said without seeing everything he really couldn’t comment much.

I’m most likely going to get the bike tuned up in January, so I might look into it then.

Anyway, another really awesome experience there. I stopped at the bank to withdrawal $20 to put on the laundry card. Then I went to Publix for the rest of the items we needed. Another $20. So as far as grocery goes, we only spent $50ish.

I chatted with my mom for a bit on the way home. She had a bit of gossip to talk about. It was on the short side as far as our conversations go, but it was good to talk with her again. I told her about going out to dinner with Zane and how I was going to dye my hair again.

When I got home I showed Zane all of the loot I had gotten since he had felt like $25 wasn’t going to be enough. He was impressed. I spent the next while prepping all of our food for the week. I made a batch of egg mix for my breakfasts. I cut up the chicken and put that in the freezer. I cut up the onions, broccoli, boiled eggs, cut up lettuce, made salads. All sorts of stuff.

I cleaned out the fridge too. John’s bacon had mold on it, and there was a bag of lettuce mix that had spoiled and was super icky. No wonder things smelled off… Normally it would bother me to throw other people’s stuff away, but when it’s that spoiled I have no mercy. I spent so much time cleaning the kitchen during my week off, including scrubbing every inch of the fridge. I’ll be damned if I let other people mess that up.

Zane and I had the rest of the cheddar broccoli soup with toast and a bit of salad for lunch. It was super awesome. Filling but not super heavy.

Around three Zane and I got ready to head out. He was going to drop me off at school so I could bike to the gym, lift weights, then bike home. Good thing I checked the gym hours before leaving. The YMCA closes at 3pm on Sunday. Soooooo much laaaaaaame. Arg.

Well, I had to get the bike regardless, so Zane still dropped me off. Luckily the bike was still there. That would have sucked. We actually joked, saying if I wasn’t back at the apartment in 40 minutes that he would have to come pick me up because I wasn’t going to walk all the way home.

I actually made it to the apartment before Zane did since he stopped at Publix on his way back. Since we were so under budget he wanted to get snacky stuff for his lunches. Crackers and cookies. I’m ok with that. He set aside $100 for this week and we had only used half of it.

Since the bike was back home safe and sound I broke out the tools and started playing with stuff. I took off the front reflector since it was where I wanted to put the new head light. I played around with snapping the light on an off the mount. It charges via USB. I also tested out turning the light itself on and off and switching through the different light settings. I think it’s going to be awesome. I love it at the moment, but I haven’t ridden with it at night yet, so we’re still in the honeymoon phase.

I also ended up switching the seat on Zane’s bike with the one from Frank’s. It took me a little while, but I figured out how to do it, and rode around the apartment’s parking lot once. I had to adjust a few things, but on the second ride around everything felt great. And I felt super savvy for having taken care of it myself. Go me!

I showered once I was done showing off to Zane my handy work. I took the laundry down to be washed, but wasn’t able to dry it at the apartment. We only had $1.25 left on the card, and with the higher prices we now need $1.75 to use the dryer.

It’s actually to the point where it would be cheaper to do the clothes at the laundry mat. It will be something I mention to Zane later. Not tonight though.

While the clothes were in the wash I began working through my emails since I hadn’t done anything with them since Friday afternoon. I still had a fair amount to read by the time the wash was done. I packed up my backpack, kissed Zane goodbye, then took the wash to the laundry mat to dry. I finished going through my mail while I was there, even taking the time to write a pretty long email to Chrys since I had a message from her.

When I got home dinner had already been cooked. We had the last bit of steak with mashed potatoes and the green beans I had made earlier. Since then I have been back in the room writing.

Normally Sunday is game day, but Bobby originally wasn’t going to be able to make it due to family being in town, and John is hardcore sick, again. I also never got around to being able to make the new character sheets. So the game got canceled in favor of being normal hang out time. Bobby was able to come over after all, so he, Uke, and Zane have been having bro time out in the living room while I write.

I really ought to put the clothes away, but that’s not going to happen.

Zane and I also talked about rearranging the room tomorrow. I’m excited about that. But right now I’m tired. I’m not even going to worry about making a to-do list I don’t think.

I’m just going to finish writing this, do my pre-bed chores, and then go to sleep. I’m super tired, I’ve had an amazing weekend full of productivity, communication, and adventures.

Tomorrow I’m going to wake up, have breakfast, go to the gym, then go to work. Once I’m there I can figure out the rest of my day.

Daily Post 028: Busy Sunday

The only thing I didn’t get to on my to-do list today was my weekly recap, which I’m totally ok with.

I slept well last night. I woke up fairly early this morning but lazed around in bed, sleeping off and on, cuddling with Zane because it was warm under the covers. Eventually I did get out of bed to clean up the kitchen from the makeshift party the night before.

I cooked the Cajun pasta so we could have meals later. I messaged my younger brother to let him know that I got his check and deposited it. I poked around at my external drive and found the old SAL podcasts that I had downloaded while I was a student. I want to watch them at some point since I plan to create new ones for the class and I want to make sure I’m not forgetting little gems of information.

Eventually Zane got up and we mapped out the day.

I took his bike to get looked at and to replace the tire that I overfilled the first time I tried to use his bike. It wasn’t the gears causing the chain to skip. It was the hanger that was messed up, which is a fancy bike term for a certain part of the bike that does a special thing…

In all seriousness the guy I ended up spending the most time talking to was super friendly and helpful. He explained that the hanger was bent and that was causing a tension issue with the chain. When I asked how it got bent, like, if it was something improper I had done verses normal wear and tear he explained some of the most likely causes.

When I asked how to tell if it was a gear issue causing the chain to skip he actually took out some tools and showed me how they check it and the process they would go through to fix it. Super awesome information. He didn’t talk down to me and he didn’t act like I was wasting his time.

They said it would be about 30 minutes to fix the bike. When I asked if it was cool if I ran to Wal-Mart to do a bit of shopping they said that would be fine, and they would email me to let me know when the bike was ready.

So with that set up to be taken care of I went to Wal-Mart to pick up a new water filter, coffee creamer since there’s a different selection at Wal-Mart than at Publix, and a candy bar for Zane since I wanted to do something special for him.

Before I was done shopping, roughly 15 minutes after I left the shop, I had an email saying the bike was done. Sweeeeet.

I paid for everything then headed back. It was about $50 for both the hanger and the tire, including the labor, but after riding the bike around the street for a little bit I totally felt it was money amazingly well spent. The bike rides so much smoother now. Seriously. It’s like I’m biking on air. Riding a cloud… that hates my quads… but a cloud none the less. Completely 100% satisfied with the service and work. I’ll be going back there for sure.

I think it would be good to get the bike serviced in January. A full tune up, which would be about $100. But if it’s going to be my main transportation now, which I’m really loving it so far, then I think that would be a good investment. I would rather pay to maintain the bike properly then have to pay medical bills for getting a concussion from the bike falling apart while I’m on it. Sort of like the car. I take it in every so often so I don’t get blindsided by issues later.

That’s for a later time, though. Right now I’m super happy with the bike and how it’s preforming.

I ended up biking to the bank to withdrawal $20 and biking back home. I wanted to test out the bike and I needed to do something. After just a day of sitting around, recovering, I was about to go insane from not working out. It was a fast ride. Only 25 minutes, but I averaged a 5 minute mile pace which is the fastest I’ve been able to do so far. Or maybe a more accurate way of saying it is that was the longest I’ve been able to hold that pace consistently. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I didn’t have to wait to cross a major street with the route I took to go to the bank.

It was such a pleasant ride with a nice burn. Not too hard, but not too easy either.

I showered when I got back to the apartment. Zane had gone through his box in the living room, picking out what he wanted to keep at the apartment, what he wanted to go into storage, and what he wanted to toss. I started a load of laundry.

Zane ended up switching the wash and I folded it before bringing it back into the apartment. We decided to do salads for lunches this week. Breakfast is already taken care of, and dinners are good for at least a few days.

Since Zane is hoping to figure out what’s going on with his paycheck tomorrow while he’s at work we’re trying to hold off on a full blown grocery trip. He really wants to be able to pay for the groceries this week. He also wants to start putting gas in the car since he’s really the only one driving it. I’m pretty ok with that.

I had a list of errands I wanted to run before the game. The first stop was to the storage unit to drop off the stuff. Then I headed to Publix to get the things needed for the salads and a case of water to drop off at work. From there I went to the Arby’s in the same plaza because I needed to break the $20 that I had. At least that’s the excuse I’m using for justifying why I bought cookies for Zane and myself.

I ran to school, stopping at Taco Bell to get tacos for later that night. Since it’s game night I wanted to make sure there was food for everyone. I ended up having to call security when I got to school. For some reason my badge wouldn’t let me into the break room. It was giving me issues last night, too, though. I thought it had to do with it being a holiday, but the security guy said it most likely has something to do with daylight savings.

Either way, what should have only taken me three minutes took me closer to 15. Much lame, but at least it got done.

I stopped by the gas station to fill up the car, that way Zane doesn’t have to worry about it for the week. I had messaged Frank earlier asking if it would be ok to swing by to pick up the crate he had for the bike, which was why I needed to break the $20.

I gave him $12 for it and we chatted for a bit about work and school, and high school, marching band and sports. It was a good conversation. I enjoy the times we’ve been able to hang out outside of work.

I was already hardcore late for the start of the game though, and I had the groceries in the car so I didn’t stay all that terribly long. Just long enough for it to not seem rude when I left. Go go social ninja skills.

When I got home it was just Uke and Zane. Bobby wasn’t going to be able to show up until after 7:30 and John was MIA. Since we really couldn’t start the game until at least one other person showed up I decided to get to work on prepping the food.

I boiled eggs for the salad, cut up the lettuce, and shredded the rotisserie chicken. There was enough to make six containers so Zane and I each get three. I cooked more bacon for my egg sandwiches. We shouldn’t go through the bacon as fast this week since Zane I think will be eating oatmeal for the most part, and he’s not doing BLTs for lunch. I cleaned up the kitchen and prepped a batch of egg mix for the morning.

Eventually Bobby showed up and the game started. It was pretty disjointed again. Zane was playing on his phone, which is a story in itself. Overall it was a fun game. John ended up showing up around 10ish and played for the last hour and a half.

Everyone is still out in the living playing Guitar Hero. I’m tired and will be going to sleep shortly.

There’s no SAL lab tomorrow, which totally changes my game plan for the day. I already wrote out my to-do list.

I plan to bike to the gym in the morning for a yoga class then come home. That’s a 12ish mile bike ride, plus an hour for the class. I think that will be a good day as far as working out goes.

I want to start work on the second assignment for SAL and work a little on my certification testing. I have four more chapters to get through. Depending on how long the first one takes I might try to work through two of them.

I want to call my mom as well just to touch base with her. I would like for our conversations to go back to being a weekly occurrence.

My to-do list seems really full, but honestly, the first half of it I’ll blow through before 10am. The yoga class is at 8. So with me leaving the apartment around 7ish, I’m sure I’ll be fine. I think I’m going to ask about getting a locker at the gym so I can keep my shower stuff there rather than having to worry about carting it back and forth all the time. No real reason to keep a bunch of shower stuff in my backpack where it’s taking up space and adding more weight to my commute.

A small locker will be $5 I think. Maybe it was $10. I honestly don’t remember. I think in either case it would be worth it.

Oh. At some point I also added the gas mileage information to the Evernote that I have for it. And I did put the cloths away when we took a break from the game.

I’m ready for tomorrow. There may be a nap involved with how active my morning is sketched out to be.

Zane and I had a conversation before I came back to the room. Not a bad conversation, but one that requires some contemplation and reflection on my part. As I need to I’ll write it out, but for now I’m tired and the only thing I want to do is crawl into bed with Scarlet and pass out until 6am. So that’s what I’m going to go do.

Daily Post 026: Better Late Than Never

I didn’t have it in me to post this last night. That would have required proof reading, the minimal I do of that… and I really just wanted to get home and way from work by the end of the night.

Since I didn’t post last night I’ve gone ahead and tagged in the last bit of the evening when I got home, and part of this morning.

Pre Ride Home

Today has been going so well. Well… it had it’s moments, but overall today has been great, so it sucks that it’s ending with me wishing desperately that it wasn’t illegal to kill people because I’m so sick of answering BS questions that have no right to be asked, especially when people are paying literally thousands of dollars to sit through a lecture, have podcasts, and all sorts of other reference material…

It hasn’t been bad until this last hour, but seriously every time this person twitches I have to restrain myself from going ballistic because I know they’re going to as me a question, and I know it’s going to be something they should already know. My introvertedness is so tapped out right now it’s not even funny. And I hate that the lab is ending this way. It was great. The whole day has been pretty swell. I don’t want to be angry and frustrated, but they’re not going to go away just yet, these feelings. They’re going to linger for a little while and keep me wanting to bite someone’s head off.

I don’t want to go home like this. I don’t want to spew my day at Zane when he’s feeling sick and had his own rough go at it. It was his first day taking calls on his own. No training wheels. I want to be able to talk to him about his day. I want to be able to hug him and cook him dinner and sort of pamper him because he’s sick. You know… the whole mother hen thing…

But no. I would rather punch people in the face right now if they so much as think too loudly in my direction.

Arg….

This morning started with breakfast. It actually started at 5:30 am because Zane’s alarm was set for that time for some ungodly reason. I couldn’t fall back asleep so I got up around 5:45. I unloaded the dishwasher and packed his lunch because I was already up. Around 6 I started making breakfast and at 6:05 when I was thinking to go make sure Zane was up he came out of the bedroom, dressed and everything. Responsibility never looked so sexy.

We had breakfast. Zane mentioned feeling icky and that he was nervous.

I didn’t have to be in to work until 1ish, which meant leaving the apartment around noon. So I had a lot of time to myself.

I started laundry. I cooked oatmeal since we both agreed to do something different than eggs. I emailed Zane some pictures I took of the hookah last night. He wants to make a tutorial for a friend and we needed visuals for some of the processes.

I worked on my mom’s resume finally. I had a few questions for her so I couldn’t finish it, but I have a good idea of where I want to go with it. I bought the net for the crate. It has free shipping on it, but that means it’s not going to be here until around the end of the month. I worked through more of my certification booklet since I had time this morning to do it. I didn’t get through the animation section like I wanted, but I was dragging a little bit. Tired. That didn’t bode well for the rest of the day…

I emailed Carol, the secretary for our program, attaching a zipped folder with pictures of all of the cross stitching I have done recently. She emailed me back saying she had been wondering when I was going to send her more to display on the faculty TV. That made me smile. Carol is awesome.

I went to the leasing office to see about my parking decal since they never called or emailed me. I guess their order got delayed and they won’t have the decals in until next week. Arg. But that’s not all that bad. At least I will get one eventually… I hope…

I had thought to stay at home and stitch for a bit, but I wanted to shower first. I guess there’s air in our pipes or something because when I turned the faucet no water came out… and nothing came out for the hour or so that I waited… and waited… and waited… and F this. I need to shower.

Zane and Trevor mentioned this can happen during the winter season, so I didn’t freak out, but there was no way I was going to work without a shower.

So… (today is the day for dots) I ended up leaving the apartment early, biked to school, dropped by backpack off, biked to the YMCA, showered, then biked back to school. That means I’m looking at a 10 mile day as far as the bike goes. Not there just yet since I still have to go home, but it’s not like I can weasel my way out of those last three.

I made it to work in time to go to my department meeting. I hadn’t planned to be there, but it worked out nicely. I ate lunch during it, not feeling guilty in the slightest. I then went to lab since that started at 1pm.

I began entering in all of my DAD classes into the Career Path system for work. That was a bit of a cluster because of the hours. I guess they didn’t want the actual hours that I put into the class. They wanted the credit hours for the course. So all of my entries got denied and I have to go back and reenter them now. I have no idea what the credit hour value for the classes are, but Clavan is supposed to get that information for me. At least I have the Word doc with all of my information saved so it’s just copy and paste at this point.

I emailed everyone about wanting to take the 13^th off to take my certification test. I didn’t get any responses for that, but I’m sure it will be fine. If not I’ll take a vacation day because I’m taking that test come hell or high water.

I wrote a post for the Respect Award that I was nominated for by Shrew. And I’ve been cross stitching for most of the time I’ve been at work.

My bike chain seems to be skipping when I start pedaling, so I looked into that a bit. I’m not bike savvy enough to know anything though, so the articles I read weren’t all that helpful. I’ll mention the issue to Zane and Trevor and maybe they can do their manly-man stuff and magically fix it.

I also started looking at taekwondo podcasts but I haven’t found anything that I like yet. Mostly because that’s what I was doing towards the end of lab, so every 30 seconds I was getting interrupted by this one student. And it sucks worse because of the fact that he’s so draining means I don’t have as much patience for other students. It’s not fair to them. And what’s even worse, because there’s a lot of “worse” in this situation, this dude is scheduled to be in the first lab. He’s staying over into the second lab so he can be here and have extra help, which I totally, normally, don’t mind. There’s tons of extra seats, so as long as someone isn’t being a distraction I don’t mind if they want to hang out at school for longer.

But I just survived four hours of this guy’s questions, only to have to suffer through another four hours when I want to pull my hair out and tell him to leave me alone and stop sucking my soul out through my brain. Blarg.

This is one of those moments where I feel unprepared for my job. I know he has a learning disability. I should be more patient. I should, I don’t know, be able to do something to help him. But I can’t. I can’t make him understand the material. He has to find a way to absorb the information that Clavan provides for him. I can’t sit with one student and redo all of lecture while everyone else has to figure out their own questions because I’m occupied and unable to help them. That’s not how lab is supposed to be, or able to be, run.

He has no notes. He has nothing to show that he’s trying to work with his disability. And really I don’t think it’s a disability. He’s smart. Once he has the information he’s fine. It’s just figuring out how to get his brain to process it, since he processes things differently.

This is something I’m going to have to talk to Clavan about. I’m not going to be able to go through the whole month like this. I’m not going to get to the end of every lab and wish I had a concrete wall to bash my head against because I’m so drained that death by blunt force trauma sounds like a mercy.

If nothing else then I’ll have to enforce a “One Lab” rule where no one is allowed to stay over into the second lab. Which would suck, but if that’s the only way I can make it through the second lab then that’s what’s going to have to happen.

So with all of that out of my system I’m going to bike home. Hopefully the new playlist I made and the solitude will help disperse the rest of the feelings so by the time I get home I’ll be alright. I’m supposed to go to the store for a few things. Originally Zane was going to do it, but now he’s not because he doesn’t want to go back out, and I can’t really blame him because if I were sick I wouldn’t want to either.

I’m thinking about not doing it though. I might save it for tomorrow after Zane gets home because after biking 10 miles and working for 8 hours, I really just want to shower, eat, and go to sleep because I have to bike back to work at 7am tomorrow.

The store doesn’t have anything that could make being around people worth it. Unless it had student loan forgiveness… I might go out and mingle for that, but even that is doubtful. That’s how much I really just want to not deal with shit right now.

Post Work Writing – The Conclusion

The bike ride home wasn’t as relaxing as I wanted. I mean… it was great until I got to the final stretch (what was it with the end of things being bad yesterday? ) On the last bit of my trip I almost got hit twice because people were racing down the street to get to the road I was biking along, because rushing to get there and wait on traffic was way worth it…

So I was still agitated when I got home. I actually stayed outside and had a little mini cry session in the dark because I was feeling so overwhelmed with it all. I just needed some space to emotionally process and I wasn’t going to get that by going into the apartment. I couldn’t go in just yet. Soon, but not yet.

So I stayed outside listening to music, letting my brain do its thing until I felt ok enough to take on the rest of my night. I carried the bike up the stairs, went inside, and immediately attacked the dishes in the sink. I needed to restore order and balance to something, accomplish something, to jump start good feelings.

Zane was asleep. He looked awful. I let him stay asleep and made sure that his lunchbox and water bottles were taken care of for the next day. The whole time I was thinking about how often he took care of me when I was depressed. How he watched all of Ergo Proxy in the dark with me. How he would hug me while I cried for no reason. This was a small thing compared to that. Making sure his day wasn’t ruined over the simple fact that he was feeling sick.

I ate a quick dinner before going back out to the store. I got the veggies for the Cajun pasta, more bacon since we’re blowing through that. With both of us eating two slices for breakfast and Zane using another two on his BLTs it’s sort of understandable. I also got DayQuil for him, which was the real reason I decided going back out would be worth it.

When I got home I cooked the bacon while I cut up the veggies for tomorrow evening. After that I showered since I hadn’t done that from my bike ride yet. I didn’t want to shower until I was able to change into comfy clothes, which meant doing the store and other chores first.

That wrapped up my night. I slept on the couch since Zane was sick and I didn’t want to wake him up by going into the room. I woke up at 4:30 sort of awake, but I didn’t want to start my day that early. Instead I crawled into bed and spent the next hour and a half sleeping next to Zane.

He didn’t feel any better this morning. He was thinking about calling out sick, but he doesn’t have sick time yet. I told him that I didn’t think it would be the best move even though he felt like crap. He agreed.

Instead he stayed in bed a bit longer. I got up to make sure things were taken care of and because I wanted to shower and eat before leaving for work. Zane messaged me a little while after getting to work saying the DayQuil seemed to be helping a lot, so that’s good. Hopefully the day isn’t awful for him. I kept telling him in the morning that it was already on a countdown, and that he would be home before too long and then it would be the weekend with no obligations or early wake up calls.

I didn’t get out the door until about 7:15, but it was bright enough to bike on the sidewalk so I think I might continue leaving around 7:20ish in the mornings instead of right at 7. It was a much more enjoyable bike ride this morning, too. A complete 180 from last night at least.

When I got to work I clocked in and started drinking water instantly. I don’t think I drank enough when I got home yesterday. When I woke up at 4:30 I had a killer headache. My shower helped a lot, and I took DayQuil myself since I woke up congested. I can’t get sick… that would make this whole biking thing a nightmare.

I still had a headache when lab started so Frank let me have some ibuprofen. The migraine I felt building has gone away, so I think I’ll be alright for the rest of the day. At least hopefully I’ll be able to last until I get back home at 1ish.

I had an email from my dad this morning saying thank you for the note I sent on his birthday. There was a bit more to it, so I responded, catching him up on a bit of what I’ve been doing, asking questions about the girls. Normal exchanging of pleasantries. That sort of thing. It was nice to see a reply from him. I was worried that he wouldn’t.

I had a notification from Amazon. My bungee net shipped out and should be here Monday. Score! That’s way better than the end of November.

I got the second address for another one of the cross stitch gifts I made. My mom also got back to me about the addresses for her and my younger brother, so I’m thinking about running home, getting everything squared away, then biking to the post office, which would be roughly another 6 miles to my day.

That means yesterday would have been 10, and today will be 12. I’m seriously thinking about doing it. You know, end the week on a peak. Tomorrow would be kickboxing, and then Sunday would be my slow day with yoga. The gears are already turning because I refuse to give my hamster a break.

I just got an email from Faculty Development about my external training, which is what they are classifying my degree classes as. I ought to be able to take care of that today, correctly this time since I have all of the information I need now.

As far as what I want to get done while I’m at work… I’m hoping to get through some of my certification booklet. Maybe a bit of cross stitching… not sure yet. It’s a pretty chill day, though. Frank is doing his demo thing, which leaves me to do pretty much whatever. Including being a slacker and working on my blog.

So now that I’ve finished this up I guess it’s time to move on to the next task on my to-do list.

Daily Post 019: Is It Hot In Here?

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.

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