I'm Gratefull ...

I've noticed several people on Facebook posting something they are gratefull for each day this month. I would like to join them, so I am going to catch up in this post. :)

1) I am grateful I have a job and it pays the bills. It is better than unemployment.

2) I am grateful for TiVo. You may think this materialistic of me, but with out it, my TV would basically be useless, since I work at night when all the good shows are on. This GREATLY adds to my mental health. :)

3) I am SO gratefull that I have AMAZING friends that I can turn to in both good times and bad.

4) I am gratefull for my health. Although it may not be the best right now, it is still pretty damn good.

5) I am gratefull for Facebook. My grandmother is currently in the hostipal having open heart surgery. Without Facebook, I would not have been able to get in touch with one of my cousins months ago, which enabled us to discuss what was going on with grandma over Facebook IM, the other night.

6) I am gratefull for the amazing doctors who are working on my grandmother's heart today.

7) I am grateful that my car is still alive and kicking 20 years after it was built, with 227,000 miles on it. Phoenix is not the best place to live without dependable transportation.

8) I am grateful that an old boss kept my contact info and offered me a temp gig. It is the first extensive paralegal work I have done in too many years.

9) I am gratefull it FINALLY cooled down.

10) I am gratefull that I have an amazing cat and that he loves me

11) I am ALWAYS gratefull for my AMAZING family and friends. I don't know what I would do with out them.

12) I am grateful that, good or bad, hair grows back. :)

13) I am gratefull that I have a place to live, food to eat, and clothes to wear.

14) I am gratefull for all the stuff I went through as a kid. It made me the woman that I am today. :)

Awkward & Awesome 34

My friend Terra writes an Awkward & Awesome Thursday post on her blog. She got the idea from her friend Amy. I guess I am "sampling" the idea from both of them. :)

Seeing as today is day one of year 35, I thought I would use this idea to look back on year 34.

Awesome - I got a job 2 weeks after my birthday last year.
Awkward - It is the same job I had when I was 22.

Awesome - My marathon training started out strong.
Awkward - Due to medical issues and injuries, I had to push it back to next year.

Awesome - I am now getting the best sleep I can remember thanks to my cpap machine.
Awkward - I am single and am not looking forward to telling a future boyfriend that I have to sleep with a cpap machine. Cause those things are SUPER sexy. LOL!

Awesome - I have a really funny story about how I rolled a golf cart.
Awkward - I got battery acid burns on my left side.
Awesome - The burns healed nicely and I don't have any scars. :)

Awesome - I went out on a lot of dates and met some neat people.
Awkward - non of them ever became a boyfriend. Those that were friends, the friendships were short lived.

Awesome - I have some CRAZY funny stories about dates I went on and people I met.
Awkward - I had to meet some really... ummm... "different" people and go out on some really bad dates to get those stories.

Awesome - I have reconnected with friends from the past (thank you Facebook) and have made new friends.
Awkward - Some of my current friends have moved to other states. For my long time friends, you know this is a recurring pattern for me.

Awesome - My hair is currently shorter than it has ever been, and I like it.
Awkward - I got a bad hair cut and it could only be salvaged by cutting my hair WAY shorter than I originally wanted and spent several weeks looking as bad as I thought I would if I ever cut my hair that short.

Original cut: close to what I wanted, but not quite.


Hair Cut #2: I think my hair was cut by a blind dog, but I'm not sure.




Hair cut #3 in less than a week. I was happier with this one, but decided it looked to much like a "60 year old lady" cut rather than one for someone in their 30s.

Hair cut #4 within 2 weeks. this is as short as it got. Not the greatest cut for me, but at least I was happy with it. Besides, it really didn't have room to get any shorter. LOL!

I think I liked it best like this. I'm currently in the process of growing it out to see what the cut I originally wanted would look like. LMAO! :)








Awesome - My car is officially 20 years old, I've owned it for almost 15 years, haven't had a car payment in 10 years, and it is super cheap to register and insure.
Awkward - My car looks like it's 20 years old and super cheap to register and insure. LMAO!




Awesome - I can truly say that I have learned to enjoy the simple things in life.
Awkward - It took being unable to get a job in my chosen career field and being broke for me to learn how to do that.
Awkward - being broke really sucks.

Awesome - Last night I bought a bottle of bubbly to celebrate the end of year 34 and the beginning of year 35.
Awkward - when I was setting up to take this picture a really cool bottle of wine I bought in Canada broke and I had to clean up glass and red wine before I was able to take the picture.

Awesome - I spent the last few days reminiscing about what it is like to FINALLY feel like an adult.
Awkward - See story above to see how I was reminded how much of a dork I still am. LMAO!

Awesome - I have the best friends and family anyone could ever ask for.
Awkward - There is nothing awkward about that. :)

Awesome - I have many, many years ahead of me and it can only get better from here. :)

Life

Well, I'm not going to be running the Long Beach Marathon this Sunday. I have had a several stumbling blocks over the summer and it just wasn't going to happen. Then, just to add insult to injury, around the end of August my lower back started to hurt, bad. I can not walk more than about 500 yards before my back starts to hurts. I may not have been in the best shape, but I could always walk FOREVER without a problem. Now I can't even walk to get my mail without my back hurting. I can't walk from my car to my desk without being in PAIN before I reach my desk. It SUCKS!

I know that rolling the golf cart didn't cause the problem, but it sure didn't help. I have been going to a chiropractor monthly for over a year now. I went to see him after I was in so much pain that I wasn't able to run 1 mile. He didn't help. I have now switched to physical therapy. I still can't walk very far without pain, but things are coming together. :)

I really would like to blog more, but honestly, there isn't much interesting going on in my life worth blogging about. LOL.

OUCH!

I got to play golf with my dad yesterday. It was a beautiful day and we didn't get to play at all while he was in school.

I was playing pretty well, +2 on each hole on a course I haven't played in FOREVER!

Unfortunately, the day took a turn for the worse on the 9th hole. I left Dad and took the cart to my tee box. My empty water bottle flew out of the cart. I looked away from the road to grab it. THAT was a bad move. Here are the events as I have been able to piece them together.

The cart went up a hill and ran into a very large bush then fell over on the driver's side. All I remember about that was thinking "oh shit" and closing my eyes and curling forward to brace myself for impact. I don't remember impact. I was kind of curled up on my left side and shoulder with my left foot caught on something in the cart. We had a couple of glasses of water and a diet coke in the cart with us, they were all over me.

Dad came running over asking if I was okay. It took me a minute to figure out if I was or not. He unhooked my foot and helped me stand up. It was difficult to stand because I didn't want to further scrap my shoulder on the ground to get myself to a point where I could stand up.

Once I was up, all I remember doing is turning in circles trying to figure out how I was going to get out of my current golf cart prison. It was just tall enough that I would have had to climb over the roof or seats, and I was in no condition to do that. I kept looking at the windshield, but I couldn't get through because of the signs that were in the way. Dad got all of the golf clubs out of our bags and I climbed out the back window.

We were able to right the cart and play the 9th hole. I shot +4, damn accident. I decided I was done for the day and we quit.

The guys at the bag drop were very concerned. We kept explaining I was fine. They said most people put their leg out to stop the cart from falling over and get seriously hurt. I assured them I didn't do that and explained how I had prepared for impact.

I was uncomfortable, but not in too much pain, until I got in the car to go home. It was in the 90's in Phoenix yesterday. I don't want to know what the temperature was in my car after sitting in the sun for 2 hours. It didn't take long before my entire left side was in EXCRUCIATING PAIN! Waiting for lights and driving behind slow drivers was pure torture! I started to wonder if it was road rash or a burn of some kind.

I FINALLY made it home, and took a cold shower. My side started to feel better. I put on the lightest weight, silkiest night gown I could find and laid on my right side on the couch where the ac could blow on my left side.

When I got out of the shower there was what looked like white paint on my side in a couple of places and I have a few big patches of bumpy looking skin. After my shower I went back to inspect my clothes. The elastic on my panties and bra had melted into a stringy gooey mess. Yep, you guessed it, while I was on the ground laying in a pool of water and diet coke, there was some battery acid mixed in. THANK GOD Dad had chosen a diet Coke yesterday instead of our usual Gatorade!

I was able to get a friend to come over and help clean the dried battery acid out off my skin and out of my wounds. Also took some pics, which I will post later.

I am fine, there was no need to go the doc, but I am taking Tylenol regularly to keep my side from bothering me TOO much.

Like I said, OUCH!

It turns out... I have a price

A few months ago I decided I wanted to start jogging. My goal was to be able to run for 45 minutes to an hour; basically to be able to run a 5K without walking. My sis started running about 7 years ago, and competed in a half marathon last April. She warned me that running is contagious and I will find myself running in longer and longer races. I've told her many times how crazy she is.

One of my best friends, Terra, is also a runner. She has run in 4 marathons. Her current goal is to quailfy for, and run in, the Boston marathon. I've said MANY, MANY times that you couldn't pay me to run in a half marathon, much less a marathon. I've stated over and over that I think they both are CRAZY......then came "The Offer".

A few weeks ago I got a random text message from Terra that says: "Jason (her husband) says that if you run/walk a marathon he will pay for us to go on vacation anywhere."

Me: "Done. Who's paying the entry fee?" (For those of you who don't know, marathon entry fees can be STEEP.)

Terra: "Jason says he's paying for the vacation. For a reward like that I'll pay the fee."

The conversation went on from there and took some time to iron out the details, but here they are:

1) I have to run/walk I can't walk the entire thing.

2) I have to enter, and complete, an official marathon. (My theory is that he wants to be able to see the results on the internet. I honestly don't understand why he wants proof. Don't you trust me Jason? ;)

3) We can't go to Jamaica. (which is fine because we don't have interest in going there anyway.) Terra did give him the option to limit "anywhere", but he is standing by his original statement.

There is a very popular and new method of running marathons called the "run/walk method". The way it works is you run for x amount of time then walk for y amount of time for the ENTIRE marathon. You don't wait until you are tired to begin walking. It isn't as hard on your body and people are still qualifying for the Boston Marathon using this technique. This is the method I will be using.

I will be participating in the Utah Valley Marathon in June, 2011. It is 27 weeks from when this deal was made. I found a marathon training program that is 26 weeks long, and I already had a couch to 5K training program that is 9 weeks long. I have merged the 2 together and am currently very happy with the results.

Terra was in Arizona this past weekend to run the Tucson Marathon. While she was here we discussed where we should go on our vacation to ANYWHERE. We are currently planning on ....... drum roll please .......TOKYO!

Anyone who has been there please contact me. I need all the help/info I can get. :)

My starting pace is a 16:12 min/mile using the run/walk method. I need to get it down to a 13:45 min/mile to finish the Utah Valley Marathon in time to get my medal (which every runner knows is the only reason to run a marathon, besides the shirt). I'm confident I can cut 2:30 minutes off my time in the next 27 weeks.

I GOT A JOB - FINALLY!!!!

Yes, the rumors are true. I have a job. It isn't a paralegal job, but it is a job and it will pay my bills. Really - what more can you ask for?

I'm an AYS Agent at the JW Marriott Camelback Inn. It is a beautiful property in Scottsdale/Paradise Valley. It is VERY Arizona in it's layout and decor.

Everyone has been really nice, and my "training" is going well. I say "training" because it has mostly been a matter of me remembering everything from when I worked for Marriott 10 years ago. It is coming back quickly, which is nice. :)

It is REALLY nice to have a job again. Nice to have an income and something to DO every day. :)

The most interesting thing has been the atmosphere here. There has been a lot going on in this department, so there are some touchy people. The girl who has been training me keeps apologizing that I have to see all this so soon. All I can do is laugh at her and tell her it's okay. She has NO IDEA.

First, the people that work here may be disgruntled compared to others that work HERE, but they don't come CLOSE to the disgruntled that I am used to.

Second, she keeps saying how busy and bad it has been. It takes everything in me to keep my jaw in its proper position. Left to its own devices, it would be on the floor. These people have NO IDEA what it means to be truly busy. They have NO IDEA how angry people can really be, ESPECIALLY when there isn't a manager around when one is demanded by the customer. It makes me laugh.

If this has been their definition of busy with pissy coworkers, this job is going to be even easier than I thought. :)

Truths for Mature Humans

This is an email I got this morning that had me LITERALLY LAUGHING OUT LOUD, for several minutes! I have chosen this avenue to share it. :)

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1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14. "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this - ever.

15. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Damn it!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voice mail. What did you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

16. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

17. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

18. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

19. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.

20. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

21. Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the heck was going on when I first saw it.

22. I would rather try to carry 10 over-loaded plastic bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

23. The only time I look forward to a red light is when I'm trying to finish a text.

24. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

25. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?

26. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

27. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

28. Is it just me or do high school kids get dumber & dumber every year?

29. There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

30. As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate bicyclists.

31. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

32. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet my ass everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time