Bleh. I'm awake.

I was helping a friend look some things up on the Internet last night and got to a point where sitting in the chair really hurt, and we were basically finished and I went on home, took some ibuprofen and a small bit of muscle relaxant, and I was out for the night. I didn't manage to get up early and work on the notes (and we are playing). But I got up early enough to have some veggie sausage, some Greek yoghurt, and an apple (a big breakfast for me, especially on a weekend). I have a lot to do with my friends today, so I thought I should power up. :) I also have a lot of laundry to do over there, so I'm going to go get ready and put that in the car. Hope you have a good weekend!

I am up at an ungodly hour (before dawn)

so I can catch a bus to work to attend a birthday breakfast where our administrator makes us omelets and the directors serve the rest of the food. Mind you, my birthday is in April. But they do it twice a year and apparently mine falls in this cycle. Since I'll have time after eating before I have to be at work (I start at 10 am), I'm going to go over to Walgreens, which is nearby, and possibly Family Dollar if they're open early enough, and see if I can find some gloves. It's supposed to snow today, at least flurries, anyway, and I don't have a matched set and those I had I'm not happy with anyway. I have a nice pink and purple scarf that was knitted a few years ago by Brenda for me. My coat is sky blue. So I'm going to wear both so I can coordinate the glove colour with them.

Okay, I'm going to catch up on some news. Have a nice day.

'Gentiles will eat anything', or so my friend, who is Jewish, tells me

But I had to draw the line at undercooked catfish today at lunch. I very indelicately spit out a piece into my napkin, I'm afraid. But they let me get some tuna salad instead, and alerted the servers. Serves me right for trying to eat something non-kosher--a bottom-feeder at that. Granted, I'm not Jewish, but I can't help thinking that they are on to something when it comes to unclean food. I don't really like catfish, shrimp, or pork (the latter not being an issue, since I'm a pescu-vegetarian). I have to admit, I'm convinced I was Jewish in a past life and seriously considered converting at some point (much easier for me, as a woman...no circumcision required). I even have a minor in Judaic Studies, so maybe that's all worn off on me.

But I am excited that tomorrow the cafeteria will be serving breakfast for lunch. My favourite! I like breakfast at odd times, like lunch and late at night. I'm rarely up early enough to actually make breakfast before work, and the cafeteria stops serving breakfast before I get there.

I am still craving tofu goodness from Great Wall. I couldn't make it in time before they closed tonight; maybe I can get it between jobs tomorrow, depending on how much money I have left over after my rent is paid.

More hours mean more pay

but it was still nice not to be working at the store today, the only day I've had off during the work week. Tomorrow I do my regular Saturday shift, then Sunday I'm off for the game, and then I work Monday. But I'm off Tuesday and Wednesday.

At some point I need to reschedule a cancelled dental appointment for two fillings. I'm having some pain and I'm not sure but I may have chipped a molar. I have such large fillings in most of my molars that it's pretty easy to break a tooth. That may mean another crown.

Today was spent doing interlibrary loans, putting literacy project books on the cart for the clinic, printing off patient surveys, and generally preparing for our big open house at the hospital. I don't go (I did once. I discovered I'm uneasy around crowds and clowns. I never had trouble with clowns until I was surrounded by about seven the one time I volunteered for the information booth. They wanted a pin I had. The lack of personal space and creepy old men in face makeup really unnerved me. I know they meant well, but still....) That is actually one real hazard of my job. You never know when a clown is going to insist on hugging you.

I also spent the day being harassed by ants in my cubicle. It's rained quite a bit and they're coming in one by one. I picked up some ant traps from housekeeping, so maybe that will help.

I'm going to have to go into work early on Wednesday because they're having a free birthday breakfast for those of us with recent or upcoming birthdays. The directors serve the food and our administrator makes omelets. Considering that's the day before I get paid and my food situation is already looking sad, it will be welcome.

Speaking of food (or lack thereof), I weighed myself, and I have officially lost 20 lbs since about September. I weighed 291 at my heaviest; now I'm 271. Go me! Go lots of peanut butter! D said I could be the spokesperson for the Peanut Butter Diet much like the Subway guy is for healthy sandwiches.

I've been playing a lot with iGoogle this evening. It's a personalised form of Google that allows themes and various widgets where you can choose the content you want displayed and customise everything. I have Twitter, Google Docs, Google Talk (a chat client), Google Calendar, a picture-of-the-day from National Geographic, my Gmail account, my Google Reader feeds, a to-do list, a clock, and some miscellaneous stuff, just on the main page. There's other tabs for games, news, politics, etc. My theme changes according to time of day (the sun is shown during the day, at sunrise/sunset, it turns orange, and at night it shows the moon. Anyway, it keeps all sorts of applications that I use daily at my fingertips (and no, I don't twitter at work, since it is in essence mini-blogging).

The picture to the right of this post is of my Yahoo! Avatar. I played with it a bit and have been using a square icon of the face for some of my profiles, such as at Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Okay, it's almost 12:30. Time to go to bed early for a change. Good night.

My, what an interesting day

First of all, there was the fact I had Indian goodness to bring for lunch. This was followed by pie, with which a group of us at work celebrate each other's birthdays. So it was like a birthday extension. I had coconut cream, and it was yummy. Plus, I still have plenty of aloo ghabi and peshwari naan for tomorrow.

This afternoon I took back the blouse I bought last night, because sadly it was too small. I got two others for the same amount of money, which was cool. It is, however, truly frightening what my shirt size has become. The gym and a food diary are calling. Plus, I definitely need to weigh myself tomorrow. At least my stomach wasn't the problem; it was my chest. But still...it would be nice to get into fairly normal clothes.

I finished Rutland Place by Anne Perry. I love the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt novels, but I'm going through them slowly since I was getting them from the library and there are gaps--and I think I bought Resurrection Row at least twice plus checked it out because I kept forgetting which one I'd read. Yes, I can be a scatterbrain sometimes.

I also got my hair cut short with some layers in it so it's not so weighed down. Of course, it got rained on shortly after that, so it's hard to see how well it will come out on a daily basis. The lady at the shop really wanted to colour my hair auburn with soft highlights. I put her off for now, although I've always wanted to have auburn or red hair. And after all, I'm forty and turning grey a little at a time. It's time to have fun, right? But like I said, not right now.

I went home for a couple of hours and the sunny day quickly turned to thunderstorms complete with hail. I went to do the notes and instead wound up calling the fire department because there was a tree on fire and spreading to others and I didn't want it spreading to anyone's house. They were there for a couple of hours taking care of that, so instead of doing the game notes, I wound up watching The Devil Wears Prada, which was quite excellent. I really enjoyed it. Of course I loved Glenn Close and Anne Hathaway, but there was a guy I just thought was adorable, Adrian Grenier, too.

So now I'm home. My mom called and left messages. I think she may have forgotten my birthday yesterday. But she wished me a happy fortieth today instead.

I have to get up early for our semi-annual birthday breakfast tomorrow. Our administrator makes omelets and the various directors serve breakfast. And I love breakfast, especially when it's free. That's three days of birthday. :)

Good night.

Our new person didn't work out

so next week I'm working at the gas station:

Saturday 10-8
Monday 3-8
Tuesday 3-8
Wednesday 3-8

That plus my day job makes 44 hours, so a pretty full week. But the money helps. And at least I get to see Heroes. :)

Today wasn't that bad, although I did work both jobs for a total of 12 hours. I did a lot at both, so I'm pretty tired. I should have been in bed a couple of hours ago, but here I am.

I've decided I need BB King to come to my house and teach me how to use the feature of my glucometre that supposedly allows you to test on your arm rather than your fingers. I've never been able to get it to work. You stick this extender onto the lancet, and it just never seems to let the needle get to the arm. Sometimes it literally can be a pain to use your fingers over and over (although I do rotate which ones I use and which side). Which reminds me, I need to get more strips.

By the way, I now have a new favourite breakfast cereal: Fruity Cheerios. They're smaller than Fruit Loops, have multigrain goodness, are flavoured with real fruit juice, and have 25% less sugar than the leading brand--and they're quite nummy. Of course, I tend to eat cereal at night rather than in the morning (I picked that habit up from my grandfather) so for actual breakfast I have a Quaker Oatmeal-to-Go bar, which is somewhat better than my former usual choice, a Pop Tart, the latter of which have 75% of your recommended carbs in one package. The oatmeal bar is much less than that.

Okay, that's all for now. I need to take care of Cerys and then head on to bed. Tomorrow is court day. I'll let you know how that goes. I would be able to sleep in, but the exterminator is going through the building tomorrow and I'm afraid they'll come in while I'm in the shower unless I'm up at a reasonable hour. 'Night.