T-minus Two Weeks!!

Hello again! I know it's been over two weeks since my last post. I've missed writing, but short of a constant cheese and WHINE fest, I haven't had a ton to say or report.

Yes, I've definitely been practicing the fine art of self-pitty these days. 'Poor me, I don't have any friends.' 'Poor me, I don't feel useful.' 'Poor me, I've gained some weight.' Any of this sound familiar? Well, for me, it stops today! This is so stupid and totally unproductive, which I can't afford to be right now.

The past several weekends have been rainy and depressing, which doesn't help. I'm stressed almost all the time with the anxiety around moving, worrying about the stress of traveling back and forth every two weeks, worrying about living with Pete again after so long, worrying about the expense of living in California, worrying about what kind of wedding to have and WHEN. Hmmm. I just listed four pretty big things I'm worrying about! TOO MUCH! So, I think the key is to take it one thing at a time. All of these things are going to happen regardless of if I worry about them. So, I've got to change my mindset from worrying to 'BRING IT ON!'. My mom always says 'Don't Sweat the Small Stuff'. And, those are words to live by, for sure. Of course, she didn't ever say much about sweating the huge stuff, but whatever.

I'M MOVING IN 2 WEEKS!!

Wow! Time is flying by! It's been almost a month since I saw Pete last. It's been pretty rough on me. But we're over the hump and he'll be flying in on June 9 to drive West with me. There are so many things I need to do before we leave, and I've been putting them off with the excuse of 'Ehh, I need to wait and do that closer to when we leave.' Well, folks, that'd be NOW!

So, while I do want to have some fun since the weather is going to be nice AND it's a holiday weekend, I also need to do some packing and cleaning house. So, my goal is to have all the non-clothing items I plan to take with me packed by the end of this weekend. I also want to pack up some things and take everything I don't want to Goodwill.

Traveling with two, spoiled, feline Divas should prove to be interesting. I'm not looking forward to it at all. I got them both pretty, pink travel carriers, complete with zebra-printed furry pillows to lay on inside. This is actually a picture of Nikki in hers. They love them! But I'm a little nervous about feeding them on the road. I don't think they'll eat under 'weird' circumstances. I also doubt that they'll do their 'business' in the grass at a rest stop. I think once I can let them out of their carriers in a hotel room, they'll be ok. But I don't look forward to the imminent allergy attacks for Pete, since the kitties will likely want to sleep in bed with us, instead of on the floor.

These are the things running through my head these days. Not happy thoughts about weddings and houses and warm fuzzies. But visions of cat hair all over the inside of my Xterra, and having them pee in their carriers or worse, on the hotel room floor. I'd give them 'something' for their nerves in hopes that they'll sleep during the car ride, but I don't think I can do that everyday for four days, which is what it will probably take us to drive the 3,000 miles! So, if anyone has any suggestions, please leave me a comment :).

I know that this will all be ok and the ride West will be long, but probably uneventful. Since Pete isn't a planner, I'm already mapping our route and looking for hotels along the way. We have our good friend, Miss Garmin, who will keep us company. What the heck did we do without her all these years? It's crazy how you get dependent on things like that. But I digress...

Like sand through the hourglass, So are the Days of Our Lives :)

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned!

Easily Distracted

Blah Blah Blah

In the words of Kei$ha, 'Comin out your mouth with your Blah Blah Blah'. This sums up my week so far. Blah... Blah...Blahhhhh.

Almost everything about this week has been Blah. More petty Blah, Blah, Blah gossip and BS, difficulty doing actual work at work, crappy weather and not feeling like doing anything once I get home... There have been some smiling points, but only a few. And I can look on the positive side and be thankful for everything in my life. But you know what BLAH means, and that's what I'm writing about this time.

Our server at work has been down for three days, going on four. BLAH. There's very little work I can do that doesn't require me to access something on our server, so I've been able to get very little done AT ALL this week. BRUTAL! Hanging out for 9 hours or so a day trying to find things to do that I can do without server files is not the best way to pass the time! And now that my usual 'stuff' has been neglected for three days, if the problem is solved today or tomorrow, I, like most of the people at work, will be scrambling to catch up. BLAAAHHHHHH!


I had sort of planned on moving to California sometime mid-June, which just happens to be next month. I thought the weekend of June 19 sounded good, but Pete wants me out there sooner, so we tenatively decided on June 12. Which happens to be ONE MONTH from today! WHAAAT?! How'd that happen?! So now I'm thinking about everything I need to do at work to prepare for my move.


This is one of the smiling points for the week: I found out that my 'plan' has been approved. YAAAYYYY! I can finally give a few details! I'm going to move to California next month. I will keep my job and work from there for part of each month. And I will fly back to WV to help with our invoice cycle every month for 10 days or so. I'm the lucky girl who gets the best of both worlds. All the travel will be difficult and stressful for me, but I'll make it work. Now all I have to do is share this news with the group of people I work with. And I'm sure that it won't be met with unconditional positivity and awesome happiness, but I need to stop worrying so much about what everyone else is thinking or feeling and do what makes things work for me, right?

So this is today. I haven't written much this week because there hasn't been a whole lot to say. Hence the BLAH-ness of this week. Hopefully things will cheer up a bit for the weekend. The weather is supposed to be nice and I have GOT to get outside and do something active.

Thanks for reading :)



As Always,

Easily Distracted

Rainy days and Mondays

Welp, it may as well be said that I was not productive and happy as I planned to be over the weekend. Saturday was cold and rainy and I sort of endulged in a little wallowing. I went out to get my mom's Mother's Day gift, came home and laid around most of the day. I wasn't really sad. Just lonely and blah. You know, the kind of blah that makes you not want to do anything. So I didn't.

I did, on the brighter side, get some nice visiting in with my family for Mother's Day. And while the sun is out and today is bright and shiny, I can't bring myself to reflect that.

This morning I was greeted by the disgusting aroma of cigarette smoke. I mean, SERIOUS stench! Not just the smell when someone comes in your house and lights up a smoke before they realize you don't want them to smoke inside. I'm talking about the smell of a thousand cigarettes that are sill smoldering in the ashtray after a night of binge drinking with a dozen other smokers. Not that I've ever personally experienced heavy drinking or smoking (wink, wink) but that's what I'd imagine when I opened my eyes and took a deep breath this morning. My entire apartment smelled like an old ashtray. Why, you ask? Because I have a new downstairs neighbor who must smoke much more than the average smoker. Not that I have anything against smokers; I used to be one. I just didn't smoke in any enclosed spaces as I didn't want to be totally surrounded by the smoky smell. I met one of my new neighbors yesterday and he seems like a very nice man. I could smell the smoke just talking with him, but who am I to judge? If I still smoked, I'd probably not like it very much if someone told me I couldn't do it in my apartment. But I'm not sure what to do about the smell in MY apartment. I really don't want my things to smell like cigarette smoke. But I also don't want to cause trouble with my new neighbor. This was definitely not the sort of dilemma I wanted to be met with on a Monday morning.

This evening, when I got home, the smell was even worse, so I broke down and called the complex office to ask if these apartments are smoking or non-smoking. I didn't mention anyone in particular I just asked the question and found out that smoking is allowed and other than getting an allergen filter I'm pretty much stuck. So I lit a bunch of candles and will hope for the best.

I did, after my weekend of lonely wallowing, manage to force myself to get in a short workout tonight. And as I knew I would, I feel so much better. So my goal for this week is to do that workout every evening after work.

Now... How the HELL am I going to stop the crazy smoking men who live downstairs from ruining my stuff with their cigarette smoke?! I'm really at a loss. It's coming through the floor, I think! Please, if anyone has any helpful suggestions, please leave me a comment.

As Always,

Easily Distracted

Sunshine on my Shoulders Makes Me Happy

Yesterday was a new, happier day. The sun came out again, even though it was raining and stormy when I left work work yesterday morning. And, after a while, I snapped out of my funk and realized that I'm not Chicken Little and the sky really isn't falling. Today finds me still happy, but worried. For reasons I'll share with you in this blog.

Everything is progressing on the work 'plan' front and while things aren't really finalized yet, they look pretty positive. Maybe next week I'll be able to share more details. So, that's a positive.

Pete has established an address for us. This is the floorplan :). He was supposed to have picked up the keys to our apartment today, but when I asked him last night about it, he said his renter's insurance didn't take effect until today, so the apartment people wouldn't give him the keys until the renter's insurance was good. Wow. He also shared with me that he plans on living on his air mattress with none of our furniture until I get there. The fool thinks he's going to wait until I get there to move ANYTHING into the apartment?! I don't think so! So when I expressed, very calmly, my thoughts about wanting to have something to sit on and maybe a tv to watch, he told me that the apartment complex doesn't allow PODS on their property. This kinda sent me over the edge a little, because while the movers did come and pack up some of our large furniture, Pete rented a POD which holds our couch, dining room table and smaller stuff. So, if we want to get anything from that, instead of having the POD delivered, we'll have to rent a truck, go to the PODS storage place and get it ourselves. I kept my cool for the most part and just asked him if he even looked at any of the other places on my list. I think my reaction was 'And why are we renting from them?' But apparently the other apartments had many of the same extra costs and crazy rules. So, this is what we'll put up with for a few months. We'll be living in a beautiful, exclusive, gated community with all kinds of great amenities, with no furniture :). Our conversation last night was fairly short and I wasn't in the greatest of moods after learning about all of this. Pete said he had to go for a while but could call me later and I said no, I was pretty tired and was just going to go to bed so I asked him to call me today. Of course, after sleeping on it, I'm not mad at all and I agree we'll do what we have to do.

This morning when I got up and put my phone on the charger, I saw 17 missed calls. Much to my surprise, I checked and Pete had called me 17 times between 1 and 2am! Every 2-4 minutes there was a call from him. And all 17 times he let my voicemail pickup and there was 2 seconds of silence. My first thought was 'Holy Crap, what's wrong?!' And of course, I felt bad that I left my phone in the living room and didn't hear it ringing AT ALL through my closed bedroom door. So after checking all 17 blank messages, I came to the conclusion that he's probably not hurt or else someone would have left me a message. More than once in this moving/starting a new job process, Pete has gotten a bit freaked out and simply needed to talk to me to calm down. And I like it that he depends on me for things like that. My thought is that he went into panic mode and just needed to calm down since our conversation didn't end in the 'I love you' happy hang-up. But I'll call him as early as 10am (7am his time) to make sure everything's ok.

Today is Friday and my second favorite day of the week. I'm not planning to do anything over the weekend, which is unique from so many weekends over the past year. Pete is in California and I am here. I will spend the time cleaning house, grocery shopping, since I don't have anything healthy to eat in my apartment, and starting to organize things I want to take with me to California. I may even enjoy some shopping. I will stay busy.

And, after a few days of taking my Vitamin B and D supplements, I'm feeling a little more 'together'. I've got more energy and I've been able to get things done a little easier and faster. My mood is also better which is always a plus. So, that's something I'll keep doing. I'd like to start exercising again this weekend. If the weather is nice I'll take a walk or maybe get my bike out for a ride on the rail trails. Seems like a good bike ride can bring make my spirits soar. At least if my allergies don't flare up from all the 'nature' on the trail :).

This blog probably isn't the funniest or most entertaining entry and I apologize for that. I really do love being funny and making people laugh, even if it's at me. But this is my life today. My goal for now is to have a nice, happy, restful and, most importantly, busy weekend. A nice, happy busy. Not the bad kind of busy where you don't know how you're going to get everything done. Just busy enough not to feel lonely or sad. A good goal, right?!

Happy weekend everyone!~

As Always,
Easily Distracted

Leaving Reality Momentarily

Well, I tell you with a certain amount of relief that the tension and craziness reached a peak today! The reason I'm relieved is that things will get better and easier starting immediately. I refuse any other reality.

Today started so well! The sun was shining, I wore a pretty outfit and felt good about life in general. And while the sun is still shining this evening, and my life is still wonderful for the most part, my day did not stay bright and cheery. Once again, I am very disappointed in someone I considered a good friend. I'm also sick and tired of the whispering and petty bullshit that happens at work on a daily basis. Call me a hardass but sometimes I just want to yell 'Don't you guys have anything to do?!' at those who are whispering and take long, extended breaks for chit chat and gossip. I mean I'm all for talking, but it gets ridiculous sometimes. This crap happens everyday and I just get tired of it. So, while this probably isn't a huge deal, I'm taking it very personally. I was irritated all afternoon and with my mind working triple overtime, I threw myself into a 'I have no friends' silent, pitty party. Silly me!

And, while I was already in a not-so-pretty mood, Pete called to check in. His first words were 'I found us an apartment!' Immediately I was relieved. It wasn't one of the first apartments on my list, because of the price of rent, but it is probably the nicest complex we looked at online. I ranked others higher because of features vs. rent. So, he went into the space and features and then the rent. $2350 per month! WHAAAAT?!!! Unfortunately, he wasn't kidding. I asked 'Can we afford this' and he said we'd be fine and then went into listing the other expenses. $50 each for my 2 cats every month, with a $500 deposit. Water, electric, internet and cable are extra, which I expected. I can deal with utilities. And I'll pay the cat rent. The deposit is refundable, so we're ok with that. Then, there's garage rent AND we have to pay $25 a month PER CAR for parking for an assigned spot!! ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!! But, I stayed calm. I said we'd be fine. I can bargain shop for our groceries and if it comes down to it, we don't really have to park right in front of our building, which is why people apparently pay $25/month for an assigned spot. Of course, he got us a place on the third floor, but there is an elevator which will be handy when we're carrying boxes up and down in moving. We only have a 4 month lease so we'll start looking for a house to buy immediately. Again, I'm calm. We hung up. And as I began to let all of this information sink in, I started hyperventilating. My boss seemingly appeared in my doorway and asked 'Hey are you ok?' I said 'Yeah, why?' He said 'Cause you kinda look like you're going to fall out of your chair any second.' The next thing I know, Pete texted me "Please tell me everything is going to be ok. I love you." And in the middle of my freak out, I texted back 'Everything is going to be great!' All the while in my mind, I'm trying to calculate the cost of gas to get us with my car, cats and 'stuff', out to California and wondering if we'll be able to eat that week.

So, now, after work, I brought home some plants to re-pot and I'm trying to harness my inner calm. With the help of some wine, of course. Gardening always calms me too. I had to plant two of the plants I separated in bowls and measuring cups because I was in such a hurry to get calmed down that I didn't stop at Walmart to buy more pots. I'm ok with that. I'll get more pots when I'm not in such a funk.

Enter: My happy place. Sometimes when I feel like I can't take anymore, I close my eyes and try to think about someplace warm and happy. Well, here it is, friends!

I'm actually feeling some better now. After a nice, full glass of wine I'm feeling better. But hey, at least I didn't eat all the carbs in my refrigerator :). Instead of going shopping after work, I came home and re-potted plants. Talk about restraint, huh? I'm also working on inventorying the things I want to take with me to California to see if I will have room in my car for everything.

Things are still a bit overwhelming at the moment. But I'm hoping now that we have an apartment and know most of the costs, that things will start to fall into place. I still can't believe we'll be living in a place that costs 4 TIMES AS MUCH as my apartment here in Fairmont. But, 'it is what it is' as they say. For the record, I despise that saying. I feel like that's what people say when they've done something crappy that they don't want to own up to. But, in this case, I think it works.

Tomorrow is another day... This too shall pass... Ok someone stop me before I spew more cliches!

As Always,

Easily Distracted

'Distracted' reaches a new level!

I need to own stock in the OTC supplements promising 'increased brain power' or 'better concentration'. I've actually taken some of these supplements and they do seem to work... If I remember to take them! I mean, seriously, how am I going to get the benefits of these super-wonderful 'natural' items if I can't remember to use them regularly? Vitamin B Combo is the best that I've found. And I know that I'm deficient on Vitamin B, which can cause anemia, leading to decreased energy and sometimes depression; all of which I've dealt with from time to time. But Vitamin B Complex stinks like puke and makes me burp, neither of which are pleasant things. So, me being the dumbass I am, I just don't take it. Logically, thinking clearer and being able to concentrate better are both benefits I want. But obvioulsy not enough to overcome nasty taste, smelly pee and burping. Silly me...

I find myself continually starting a new project and not finishing. Lucky for me I don't generally have these types of issues as far as my work is concerned. I generally do pretty well finishing what I start and remembering what I've done at least for a limited amount of time :). So, I'm at home last night and as I mentioned in yesterday's post, I received the moving boxes I ordered. So, I decided to open the box and go ahead and maybe start packing some stuff up. Limit the clutter, right? WRONG! I opened the box and started assembling one of the 'dish packs' I ordered. Well, word to the wise: do NOT order moving supplies online without taking note of the measurements. I'd be the person to order 5,000 feet of packing tape or something equally ridiculous! I thought the boxes labeled 'dish pack's would be a fairly manageable size. And, I have a nice collection of dishes (Thank you Mom) and a fair amount of glassware that will have to be packed at some time. So, I ordered 3 dish packs.

Imagine my surprise when I assembled the main box for the dish pack and when I'm standing up, the box assembled and on the floor is chest-high for me. Now, I know I'm not tall or even average as far as height is concerned, but COME ON! How the heck am I going to handle a box this size, ESPECIALLY when it's full of dishes and glassware?! So, I stopped with the box assembly project. That's me, I got totally overwhelmed with this giant box and stopped everything I was doing related to the box. It's still sitting in the middle of my living room floor, probably with one of my cats perched on top! In my own defense, the picture here is of the exact product I ordered. Of course, it's not sitting up, so it looks like a nice, friendly, manageable box. NOT.

So, after I gave up on my packing adventure last night, I started uploading pictures online of our March vacation in Naples. One of my work friends got a photo book from snapfish.com and I have to say it's nice! Much like digital scrapbooking, only with a little less functionality. But still a very nice product for way less $$ than actual scrapbooking costs. And, while I love doing it, I don't want to deal with the mess with paper scraps and adhesive laying everywhere right now. Anyway, I started uploading pictures and arranging my photo book and realized the book was 20 pages long. I didn't have enough pictures to fill a 20-page book, so that was Project #2 that got saved for later.

What's happening to me?! Well, step #1 is going to be 'START TAKING YOUR VITAMINS, SMARTGIRL!' This one I don't even need to buy anything to accomplish, so I have no excuses. I will simply HAVE to eat something in the mornings so that I can take my stinky Vitamin B pill. That in itself will help, I'm sure. What's Step #2, you ask? I dunno yet. I'm going to wait and see what Step #1 does for me :).

I guess we can all be thankful I can concentrate long enough to finish showering and getting dressed everyday!

Now I'm patiently waiting to hear from Pedro. Pedro is a nickname we have for Pete. Just so you know, I'll probably refer to him that way from time to time. Pedro had a very difficult time yesterday getting to California. Storms all across the country had his flights cancelled or diverted. What started out to be one connection, with him not even switching planes, turned into a 4-legged trip! He went from Pittsburgh to Chicago, where his connection changed and had left without him. Then after re-working his itinerary, he went from Chicago to Denver, to Las Vegas and THEN to San Jose. And then because he was arriving 4 hours later than originally planned, his friend wasn't able to pick him up at the airport and he had to get a cab to his friend's place. Needless to say, Pedro was not a very happy guy when I spoke to him last night. So hopefully today finds him a little more rested.

He is supposed to be going to see a couple of possible rental houses today, so I'm excited to hear what he has to tell me. The pictures for both look great and if we can get one or the other, while they are more expensive than apartments, there will be way more room, attached garage and yards for him to play in. While I wanted a pool to swim in, that is a usual amenity at the area apartment complexes, I'm very willing to join the Y for their swimming pool and enjoy more room. So, please cross your fingers.

So, I think that's it for today! I'm taking my Vitamin right this minute. Maybe I'll have enough energy to get a workout in tonight!

As always,

Easily Distracted :)

Ok for the Most Part

Well, today finds me still in one piece. I haven't fallen apart from being sad or scared or stressed, just yet :).

The weekend was great for the most part, aside from rainy weather yesterday. Pete made it down from Pittsburgh Saturday afternoon and we went out for dinner and drinks with a couple of my work friends. A good time was had by all! And yesterday, I spent my birthday with my favorite people in the world; my family. I was the queen for the day! Later, Pete and I looked at possible houses and apartments in San Jose and he made a plan to get us a place.

I didn't lose my cool until later in the evening and I thought that was quite an accomplishment! I always get sad when Pete leaves for any length of time, but this time there was a feeling of finality. This visit, he took everything from his mother's house, which he usually leaves there when he knows he's coming back. He dropped his car off to be shipped to California this morning. And at this point in time, he's actually waiting in Pittsburgh International Airport, because his flight was delayed. And he's probably fuming because he hates to travel anyway :). But for me, it was a challenge to get my makeup on this morning in between the 'water works'. And, I've managed to not spill over today at work. 'Spilling over' means my eyes may well up with tears, but I don't count it as crying until the tears spill over and actually run down my face :).

On a different note, (today's post may jump around a bit. Remember, Easily Distracted...) I did not start my diet and exercise regimen just yet. I figured I was definitely setting myself up for failure when I knew I'd be eating my mom's ribs and my sister's cheesecake over the weekend. And right now, I'm still wallowing a little bit, so my goal for today is to eat just when I'm hungry. That's the best I can do for today. I know that exercise will lift my spirits so I will try to do something active this evening after work. Tomorrow, I can probably shake off the sadness enough to get moving and that will send me on my way.

On the Wedding front, I think we're making progress. I've chosen a color scheme for the 'if we have a wedding' scenario. And, my sister has decided that I should have a Pampered Chef wedding shower, which she plans to have for me sometime this summer. Even though we haven't set a date for our wedding or done any planning whatsoever, really :). But, hey, I'm good with that! I love Pampered Chef! So, that's something to look forward to! I've also started looking at ideas to make my own wedding bouquet. I wanted to do something with silk flowers so they won't go bad and I can keep them. Smart, huh? We shall see.

So, my birthday was a raging success! Raging may be a matter of opinion, but I like the word and look for any excuse to use it :). I turned 35 without any mishaps or tears (over getting older). Stay tuned for more this week. I will hopefully have an update about the work situation.

Stay tuned for more of the 'Carrie Chronicles'...