mondu

It's actually been a year since I've been on here...dang.
So I'm bored and lonely and so far succeeding in avoiding doing the folklore society newsletter which was either due last tuesday, or next tuesday, depending on who you ask.
So...hmmm....life in the past year....
I moved to the Bakery at my store, and got a very big promotion and raise - go me. And for the most part the Bakery is wonderful fun. I'm sure i feel that way in part because Princess (my manager) finds me too valuable to fuck with.
Love my newest arthritis medicine. Which I'm calling Miracle Death, because it is freaking miraculous, so long as it doesn't send me into anaphalatic shock - calm down, A) that is the MOST common reaction to it, and B) that only happened the first time and besides which, that's why they have so many nurses floating around the Chemo Lab. I wish they didn't have to use garden hose sized IV's, but them's the breaks, and a couple of stabs to establish a line and a day benedryled to the gills every 2 months is a very small price to pay to be 99% pain free. I pretty much only hurt when i'm dehydrated AND the weather is changing anymore. Which ain't too hard to avoid. And which is an indescribable improvement from hurting tolerably ALL the time, and unmanageably a few times a week.
I miss having the same days off as L.
I'm still saying I'm going to go back to school for my teaching degree, but not actually doing much of anything about it.....note to self: get the name and extension from Dr. Love about who i need to talk to at eastern.... Part of the problem is I can't afford to quit my job, and I also kinda don't want to screw my managers over like that (the store manager went way out on a limb to get me that big ass raise after all). It's possible, maybe even probable that I could work my class schedule around my work schedule. But once I enter student teaching, from what everyone has told me (student teachers and proffs alike) there's not way to do that and keep a day job, or a night job, or even a part time job, period. I wonder how good the student health insurance is.... and what kind of student loans i could get....
I have this pipe dream about someday ending up teaching at the Academy back on abq....
I've been married a year, and I'm not actually sure where that year went off to.
L is amazing as ever.
I guess I'd better at least pretend to get something done today.

Ok, so many of you already know, but I'm just getting around to getting online again. Still no pictures, I'm working on that too.
Linnea and I snuck off and got married on 8-7-08, we were origianly aiming for 8-8-08, but as it turns out, some people actually plan their weddings more than a week in advance, and there were no appointments that day. It was lovely, even though we didn't know anyone there. There will be a series of parties anywhere we can get away with having them, including a ceremony thingum out here that we WILL invite people to. Details for those to follow. And as I said, pictures, eventually.
K, someone's calling my name....

The plumbing is all reconnected, and i tested it out and had it narrowed down to one leak, around where the drain meets the tub. Fixed that one, tested it, and found 2 more leaks further down the line. So now i've caulked around all the similar joints, to keep THEM from leaking as the water makes it on down the line, hopefully i got them all thoroughly, wasn't exactly easy to reach. It's gotta dry for 24 hours, so i'll be testing again tomorrow afternoon, and maybe, just maybe, i'll have a hot shower wheeeeeeeeee!
Also, getting married very very soon, but i'm still not telling anyone when or where exactly until after the fact.

Ok, so we've been having some plumbing problems. To the point where we don't, currently, have a hot shower, we have a coffin sized, luke warm at best shower in the basement (don't ask me WHY it only gets luck warm, it's litterally right next to the water heater....). So sunday i knocked holes in the basement ceiling, and cut out bits of pipe, we decided to just take out everything from where it splits on up (2 shower drains connect to the same drain pipe). You will never guess what I found in one of out shower drains (the one that started leaking first).....along with plenty of disgusting black burnt smelling goo/grease/hair mess (the burnt black nasty had to be left over from the kitchen fire at least 20 years ago, 2 owners before Linnea bought the house), there was a chisel. There was a chisel in my shower drain. WFT? No wonder it started leaking....

Ok, so if you could have anything, and I mean absolutely anything at all, what would you want?
Cop out answers include: World Peace, a Tardis, a dragon who can be trained to eat all the people who piss you off, things like that(these are all answers I've gotten to this question). Otherwise, go wild, be unrealistic, I just want to know what you want.

Yeah yeah yeah I know I disappeared again. I'm back now, at least for a little bit. And I have BIG NEWS!
I'm getting married!!
No, we haven't set a date, and you're not invited anyway. Please don't be offended, we're eloping in California sometime between now and November, and the only people who will know when will be our witness (either Linnea's son, or the man who is responsible for us getting together in the first place, although we have discussed just dropping in on him, kidnapping him to the county clerks office and not telling him why or where we're going until we get there :)...), our house-sitter, and whoever has to approve the time off for us at our workplaces. And really, we might not even tell the house-sitter, and our work places WHY we're going to be gone. The only reason we're telling/taking anyone with us is because we need a witness.
We WILL have a reception which may or may not include a ceremony at a later date that we will send out invitations to, when we have the details worked out.
This leads me to another request, some of you have moved, and I no longer have your vitals (which is why some of you didn't get a txt message the morning after we got engaged, *ahem* zeffret. Although I think I didn't get everyone in that mass message, sorry if I missed you). I can't send you an invitation if I don't have your addresses...*hinthint* You all should have at least one of my 3 e-mail addresses, I've had one of them since I was 15. I don't use my hampshire e-mail anymore though, so don't send anything there, if you've lost all 3 let me know and I'll get you the info somehow.
Right, the dog has a hair and nail appoitment, so I'd better go or we'll be late.
Love ya all.

I so tired. I just worked 6 days in a row, 4 of them i opened at 4:30 am. We went on a dog adventure the day before yesterday. L's brother recently got a puppy, who he named after my dog, and spelled it WRONG! He was up visiting so we took both Z's and also L's son and his girlfriend and her dog Sambo (who makes my dog look, well not quite small, but certianly not nearly as big as she actually is) to Petco, and then to see the falls, which are bigger than i've ever seen them. I wish i'd gotten video of when we first meet up with Sambo and the kidz, it was hysterical! My dog was so funny. I do have video of big Zia being totally "dominated" by little Zeehya, which is also adorable.
I don't know what my dog's problem is, i still haven't figured it out. And i still hurt from it. We must have passed 50 dogs between Petco and the park, and she was perfectly fine with all but 2 of them. One of them really hurt me, and i felt really bad about it. I was making the dogs do tricks for treats, and wasn't paying attention to mine momentarily, when a little dog went by and before i knew it, my dog took off, trying to drag me with her. She got the little dog, knocked it over before i dragged her back. Fuck it hurt, and it was scary too. I'm going to start looking at training classes again, i looked about a month ago, and they'd all just started, so they should be coming around again in a few weeks or so.
I had all sorts of plans of things i was going to do this afternoon when i got off work, and i took a 3 hour nap instead. Oh well, i have the next 2 days off, and i get my b-day off too, and i think i get time and a half for working monday so that's ok.

Out Hyacinths are starting to come up, i loves hyacinths, there a favorite of mine. They're a little scraggly what with the still snowing and all, but... The forsythias in town are starting to bloom, and the ones out here are thinking about it. There's some trees in town that are starting to bud out too, but I was driving and couldn't see what type they were exactly, maple i think...
If only it would STOP snowing....Seriously we had a vicious storm monday, nearly white-out conditions.

I got a job! Yay for me! It's not glamorous, the pay is crap (10 cents an hour over minimum wage)! But it's union, it's got bennies, and it's easy walking distance from home. I'll be working at the deli counter at the safeway here in cheney. Mostly weekday mornings. I get the impression that they're going to want me to open a lot, which will suck for the first few weeks....4:30 am, but i'm a morning person and i will get used to it, and really, i'd love to be done with work by lunch time most days. It's not quite full time, 30-35 hours a week, but you get at least medical (not sure about vision and dental yet, still waiting on the answer, i DID ask) if you work 80 hours a month. Plus this will be an easy job to work around a school schedule, so no more using that as an excuse for not going back and getting my teaching degree. I'll feel much better about myself once i'm working and contributing to the house-hold again, even if it's a very meager contribution. I went in for my pre-employment drug-test sunday, so the results should be back today i think. We're planning on me going in to sign all the paperwork on thursday, i'm waiting on a call sometime today to set it up. (since i only take my own prescriptions, i'm not worried)
In other news, as soon as I found out i had a job, what happens but my mom calls me from Hawaii and offers to pay for me to take a week long trip out to visit Alan. Where was she in feb or even march when i had the time off? Sigh, ohh well, just gotta figure out how to make it work. Woo hoo free trip to hawaii as soon as i can get the time!

So i had this big long post all about my visit to the Rheumatologist this morning, and then my computer decided to lose it for me. So to sum up, I have Ankylosing Spondylitis. Which is essentially arthritis of the low back, the joint where your hips meets your spine that doesn't move very much if at all unless you're pregnant. BUT it can spread to other joints (like my knees that have been achy lately). She prescribed me sulfasalazine, which is also sometimes prescribed for ulcerative colitis, so it shouldn't give me any problems. It's kind of an anti-inflamitory, and it's kind of an immuno-suppresant, but it doesn't suppress my whole immune system, just the part that produces whatever the compound is that causes inflamation. She wants me to work my way up to the full dose, so it's not going to help for a few weeks at least. But I have a diagnosis, and a treatmant plan. YAY

No skin cancer for me. Moles came back clean. They think they didn't all of one of them, and it might grow back, someday. But, no skin cancer for me!

Happy Spring, it's *&$#@%* snowing. We had about a inch this morning, which melted over the course of the day, and it started snowing again around 5 pm. The day before yesterday we had about an inch of hail, crazy out of control storm. Sigh.
Bright side, I no longer have a job that requires me to be outside in that mess.

Ow. So, since I didn't have enough scars already, I was a good little girl and went and got some suspicious moles removed this morning. They were quite big, and had started behaving poorly, changing shapes, bleeding, etc. Now my back hurts, and itches. I'm doing my best not to move....not that it's working but... So keep your fingers crossed for me that the pathology comes back clean on them in a few weeks.
Do i get a cookie for being a good girl?

Just got back from our post-vet walk. She's a healthy, vaccinated, 82 lb lap dog, who is now licensed and everything.
I'm trying to find the energy to go back into town again for my informal interview at the new starbucks. I went in this morning but the manager wasn't there, and I really ought to go in now, when i know she'll be there, but like the dog, i feel a very strong need for a nap after all our activity. zzzzzz

check out new pic, i had to skew it a little bit, but there's my puppycita, pretending she's a lap dog. Which is NOT my fault, or at least not all my fault. Linnea started it, and now it's hard to stop. I'm trying to teach her that she can only sit on my lap when i invite her, but it's a difficult concept for a dog. I don't know if she actually weighs 100 lbs, but she's close...

Bleh! So i started hurting friday afternoon, and it's just been getting worse since. Neither ice nor tylenol are cutting it at the moment, and there's nothing else i can take that won't rip my stomach to shreds without a prescription, which i don't have. I finally found a possisiton i could sleep in last night that didn't cause pain to radiate down one leg, it made my foot fall asleep (lying flat on my back......i'm pretty sure that's not a good sign....), but at least it didn't hurt and i got a few hours of real sleep. Until i tried to get up. I almost couldn't move this morning it hurt so bad. I eventually had to just grit my teeth and do it. I'm a little better now than i'm up and about. It's snowing today, so maybe it was the pressure change that triggered this. I can't think of anything else that i did that would make me hurt. If i'm not on an up swing by wed i'm going to try to get in to see my dr about pain management. Can't today, i can't dress myself at the moment, and i'm waiting for the unemployment department to call so i can re-explain myself yet again. At least this time i get to tell them "I said i quit because that's what you told me i did when i got fired for an on the job injury". I can't go tomorrow because i have an informal job interview that i really want to get, so i can leave this unemployment BS behind me, AND i have an appointment to take the doggy to the vet for her yearly + shots.
Sigh
maybe i'll try and nap after my phone interview.....i haven't slept much lately

And by "live" journal, i mean more like comatose.....
I'm doing ok. We've still got almost 2 feet of snow here, despite 2 days in a row of 40 degree weather. But at least it's starting to melt and I can get out of Cheney now.
I threw my back out at work way back in september, and i've been fighting it ever since. I was cleared and had returned to work, before thanksgiving. Then it snowed, and i got laid off for the season....or so i thought. My ex-employers messed up my unemployment by trying to make it an l&i claim instead, because it lowers their taxes (that's what the nice lady at the UI office thought anyway). Apparently there's a difference between "lack of work" and "lack of light-duty work" that i didn't understand, and wasn't aware of. I wasn't aware of it due largely to the fact that Jill said she'd call me for x-mas decorations, and other things i could do, but never called me.
I have since been outright fired for hurting myself at work. It's almost funny really. I got fired by mail.....I have a company phone, that i had been carrying around as if i were on call. This amuses me to some extent (i'd rather laugh at how ridiculous they are than go around being angry all the time). I talked to my supervisor the day i got the letter, she hadn't been told anything about it. When she talked to our bosses she was told that it was because i hadn't been calling to check in and give them updates. The office staff has made it very very clear in the past that we shouldn't call and bother them unless we absolutely have to, because they're busy too. I had called to check in with my supervisor a few times, she didn't answer, and didn't call me back. That isn't terribly unusual, it normally means that there's nothing going on, and i don't need to worry about it. I find Dan and Jill's (the owners of the company) behavior kind of funny, in a sad, passive aggressive kind of way. I mean i'm not psychic, and the phone works both ways. Apparently they'd been calling my doctor, who legally can't tell them anything anyway. But they never thought to call me....
It was past time for me to move on from that job anyway. Seriously, they didn't even invite me to the xmas party....or rather, "forgot" to tell me the when and where because it kept changing. I may be stubbornly dense, but i do speak passive aggressive....
My back injury is lingering, and i'm not sure why. They think i might have arthritis, and i have an appointment to see a rheumatologist, but not until april. All i know from the blood tests is that it's NOT rheumatoid arthritis, nor is it Lyme disease. But it's definitely SOMETHING. I don't think i'll know any more until i see the rheumatologist. Hopefully someone will have to cancel and i'll get in sooner. Until then there's not much else i can do, aside from take my resume around all over the place, and buy stock in tylenol (i know it's not an anti-inflamitory, anti-inflamitories make my stomach bleed).
At least the weather is improving. Plus, my mom is coming to visit for a not longer surprise visit. I'm very excited.

Ready? ok....1......2......................4! darn it i missed it!
Wow, i'm all adult like and stuff....when did that happen....having adult relationships....
So, i'm moving in with L. The main response that i've been getting from our friends has been "What took you so long" or "Well it's about damn time!"
So sue me, i was getting mixed messages from her, and never really brought it up until now.
We're going to reclaim the "master" bedroom, which had been her son's, i think ever since they moved in. I primed it yesterday, so that we can make a final color choice and paint it, maybe as early as this weekend, although i'm not holding my breath on that one. She's been putting in 12+ hours at work all week, and i doubt she'll want to do anything this weekend aside from sleep. And i'm not all the way done with the primer, it was making me dizzy enough that i thought it would be a REALLY bad idea to put a slippery plastic drop clothe over a chair to stand on to do the top bit, so i skipped that, we'll either track down her step-ladder, or buy a new one this weekend. And i need to do some touch-ups around the trim. The room was painted in 3 shades of gray, the darkest of which was nearly black. And the primer was so thin that i couldn't get it on thick enough with the brush, so all my brush work needs a 2nd coat at least, before we can do our colors.
I'm going to be slowly moving my stuff in over the month of march. The reason i'm trying to rush on the painting is because the carpet in that room needs to be cleaned, reallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreally badly, and i wanted to paint first, then do the carpet, then move furniture in. Which is actually kind of a lot to do in 1 month if we're both working full time, although it might not be a problem if it keeps snowing and i don't get to go back to work....But i was expecting to go back next week. Depends on the weather...
So that's exciting.
That's my big news. Nothing else much is happening. I'm bored. Not working until it stops snowing.
Yep.

boredboredboredboredboredboredboredboredbored

So i went to deposit my unemployment check today and the cute bank teller who's been flirting with me since early summer said that they're hiring and since i'm seasonally unemployed i should apply (not in those words, but that's the gist of it). So i applied, but they want me to call and talk to a recruiter too, with questions. I understand that this is a kind of interview, and i don't know what to say/ask. Beyond what kind of enviornment/hours/schedule i could expect, and what kind of software they use and so on....
Any suggestions?
I have 24 hours to call them.....but then it doesn't say either "weekdays" or "7 days a week", just gives hours, so there might not be anyone there if i call tomorrow.

of course this isn't going into if i even want to work in a bank, since i've mostly managed to convince myself that that's a pointless throught train since i haven't been hired yet, and am not particularly qualified for the job anyway.

*crash*
So i found out monday that my office xmas party was tuesday (there's lots of drama involved in that, but i'm still to tired to bitch about it again), worked wedensday (more drama i don't feel like typing about), it snowed wed night so i packed thursday and just generally lounged around at a friends where i was housesitting. Got on a plane friday, went to the airport insanely early for my flight becuase of the weather and of everyone having trouble and everyone and their dog, and their cat was traveling the past few days. Made it to Salt Lake without a hitch. Got stuck in Salt Lake overnight, not becuase of weather, not because i was late or the plane broke, or the crew was missing or anything else, but because the goddamn airline sold more tickets than there were seats on my flight, and no one was willing to volunteer to go later becuase the next flight out wasn't until monday afternoon. And no one missed their connection due to weather, and i was the unlucky one without a seat on the plane, so i was stuck. Nothing they could do. They couldn't get me anywhere, on any airline. The best they could offer me was standby all day today (they told me i was 2nd in line....2 standby people made it on the 830 am plane in front of me, but i made it on the 1000am one) a guarenteed flight tomorrow morning if i didn't get out today, a few meal vouchers, a hotel (which i had to pay a shuttle to get to and from, which wasn't very nice, and which told me i was in the wrong room and gave me the wrong key so that i walked in on another stranded girl who'd come with me from the airport on the shuttle and briefly thought they were going to make us share a room) and $400. And my bag made it on my schedualed flight, so i had my laptop, a book and some water overnight, nothing else. I did at least get an overnight survival kit from the airport so i could brush my teeth.
Flying sucks.
But i made it here on the 2nd abq flight this morning, got some food, and promptly went to sleep. Now i've napped, and showered, and eaten and am feeling mostly better. Certianlly more human.