I’m about to leave California after a wonderful visit. I haven’t blogged the trip, instead I tweeted it. You can read all that stuff here. I could have blogged it after we got the the hotel because, yay free wifi. But sod that! I’m in California! I actually didn’t want to be online apart from checking emails and tweets.
But I’ll put together a full trip report when I get back. For now, here is a picture of my beautiful sister and her new husband on their wedding day.
Last week at work was completely crazy and exciting and fun, and is the reason I’m happy to be working in the news biz. My town gets a big story, one that went national, and my newsroom just mobilizes and gets good quality coverage. Even I got to be a part of it, working with the desks to get information out to the people using Twitter and liveblogging, and well, the regulaar website 🙂
It was immensely satisfying.
Of course, I was also told during a meeting last week that I haven’t been in the biz long enough to become cynical and jaded. I hope that never happens.
(And not to stray way off topic but I’m going to answer my Aunty’s comment from the last post and say that Tom’s fix didn’t last and the old pair were held together with duct tape and happy thoughts.)
What else… Ah yes the college fair. I had to miss going to the free showing of Walk the Line (the paper sponsored it as a fitting end to our Music Madness tournament) in order to go to a college fair, and I’m glad I did. Discovered that everyone was right. Shannon’s awesome score on ACT test will be very beneficial for getting much financial aid so she can go to Uni after high school instead of having to do the cheaper route of 2 years at a junior college first. Not that there’s anything wrong with that 🙂 But if she can swing it, and we can work the scholarship mojo, she can go where she wants now.
In other news, we’re still going to the Y 🙂 Trying to find a routine time for us to go is a bit of a challenge. So far it’s pretty much just been going when we can fit it in. So far we’ve played racquetball (Shannon would rather duck and cover when the ball comes her way, and I’m actually not too bad at it. It’s rather like Calvinball if you don’t bother with the rules. Who knew that it would be so much fun to hit the ball off of every available surface?), done the treadmills, and we’ve been in the pool just once. Need to rectify that because I have dreams of a brisk uphill walk on the treads, working up a good sweat, followed by a delicious dunk in the pool to cool off.
I’m discovering that I’m still a bit shy about exercising in front of people. I couldn’t bring myself to walk into the weight room area when it was full of young studly types, and the reason we played racquetball the other day was because the cardio room (with the treads/ellipticals/etc.) was busy with people who can use those suckers for hours on end. I’m slowly trying to get into shape, and while I know we’re all there to do the same thing, it’s hard to go at my own pace in a room full of exercise nuts. Gotta work on this issue of mine. But I am enjoying the Y membership.
In less than two weeks I will be jetting off to foggy Monterey, Cali to see my baby sister get hitched. I can’t believe it’s almost time to go. I’m so looking forward to this. I know Kelly is too. She’s not a nervous bride at all either, which is cool. I think all the details are sussed out and now it’s just a matter of getting there and doing it. I’m looking forward to that, and to maximum beach time.
Still debating on whether to bring my laptop. I have not traveled by plane since before 9/11. I have yet to experience the security changes, and I’m worried about my laptop getting banged up and plundered. Will talk to the cousin about that. I’m just going to need it to download video and piccies I’m planning to shoot while I’m there. I only have 2 2-gig mem cards and that’s not enough, but if I can empty them periodically it would be fine. We’ll see. Anyway, beach + me + hopefully some fog = happy girl. And it will be so damn nice to get out of Nebby for a while.
I know I said that the stuff that went down last week was fun and exciting, and it was, but it also highlighted some of the very worst traits of this town – the stuff I’ve always hated about living here. The ignorance and intolerance is staggering. Usually those two things stay bubbling under the surface and I don’t see evidence of them much. But occasionally it blows up bigtime and makes me long to be anywhere but here.
Anyway, I need to go. Very late for a school night. Gnight internets.
So I now have a decent pair of glasses. I just got them today and couldn’t wait to wear them. Normally, I hate wearing glasses. but after several years of just wearing contacts, sometimes I just don’t want to mess with them. I have wretched vision, so either contacts or glasses are a necessity. After returning from the gym tonight (which is going smashingly btw. Love the treadmills and discovered I’m kind of good at racquetball.) I put on the new specs.
And I remembered why I don’t like wearing them. My eyes feel tired and heavy. Contact wearers you know what I mean. Putting contacts in kind of wakes you up. A nice cold plop of liquid on the old eyeballs and you feel kind of refreshed and ready to go. At least I do anyway. Without them I feel sleepy. It’s weird.
But I’m going to wear them to work tomorrow just for the novelty of it. But if I end up dozing in the afternoon, I’m blaming the specs.
What a fascinating post this is! 🙂 I didn’t have a point to it really. I’m worn out after a crap day at work and exercise my body isn’t used to yet, so I’m just sort of freeform rambling. It’s getting late now though so I’d better put this post out of its misery and go to bed. Night!
There’s something you don’t hear every day – from me. I joined the YMCA a couple of days ago. I’m incredibly excited about it. I’ve never joined any sort of gym before and now I get to be one of “those” people 🙂
I’ve been trying to lose weight. And I’m trying to do it right. No fad diets – juice fasts, Hollywood diets – no none of that useless stuff. I’m simply eating better and watching the calorie intake. I started doing this in March, around Easter. There were two things that had to stop: quick stops at McDonald’s and soda. I’m very proud to say that I haven’t had any soda since Easter, and I haven’t had any McDonald’s, BK, KFC, Wendy’s or Amigos – fast food in general – since then either. I even resisted the best root beer ever when I spent five hours at the Chicken Coop (local sports bar) hanging out with cousins. Drank tea the whole time 🙂
And I’ve lost a good amount of weight. I don’t have numbers because I decided not to be a slave to the scale. Instead, I’m going by how my clothes fit. Currently, I’m needing belts with my jeans and slacks, and I’m fitting into clothes I haven’t been able to wear for a long time.
And I feel awesome.
But the one thing I haven’t really been doing is exercising. Now that I’ve got the routine down with the healthy eating, it’s time to move to phase two, which is, of course, the exercise. (Yeah, I know I should have been doing this all along, but TBH, the healthy eating thing was just easier to do. My dream exercise is swimming, and I just don’t have easy access to a pool that isn’t crawling with annoying kids.) I’m taking this whole lifestyle change slowly, at my own pace. I’m not trying to slim down to get into that little black dress or anything. I’m trying to slim down for my own health, and I want to make sure that what I’m doing is something I will stick to. I’ve proven to myself that I can stay away from fast food and soda, and eat healthier at home every day. Now I need to prove to myself that I can get into routine exercise. I believe it’s this second phase that’s going to kick the weight loss into high gear now.
So I’m very excited to be a member of the Y. Last night was our first visit as members (Shannon joined to, yay single parent rates! – oh and awesome story – when we signed in, the lady at the desk thought I was trying to rip off the Y by getting a single parent rate. She said, “There’s no freaking way you’re old enough to have a kid her age. You look 18!” I could have kissed her. And liked it.) and we swam for about 45 minutes. It was fantastic. It was a cool, rainy evening and so to get into an indoor, heated pool was bliss. Afterwards, we wandered around checking out the various equipment (treadmills, ellipticals, weight room, indoor track etc.) and now I can’t wait to get back down there today and do some time on the treadmill. I’m going to be one of those people who’s always at the gym 🙂
Wish me luck!
I’m in a bit of a lull right now of New and Exciting things going on, gearing up for a busy October. My biggest decision of the month involved dropping the massive cable package I had because other than watching Project Runway, I was not watching television at all. Shannon was, but everything she was watching was on the lower channels. I finally decided it was ridiculous to pay for all that but not use it. So I’m now the proud owner of basic cable and everything I’m missing (like Project Runway on Bravo) can be downloaded online. Sometimes for just a small fee (like on iTunes.)
I did just finish watching all four seasons of Doogie Howser, M.D. on Hulu 🙂 That was a fun trip back to the late 80s/early 90s. Also funny to see a little, wiry Dr. Horrible 🙂
Anyway where was I… Oh yes, October. My baby sister is getting married. I can’t believe it’s nearly time. We’re flying out to Monterey for a cliffside wedding with the Big Blue Pacific Ocean in the background out at Big Sur. Here’s the spot they’ll get hitched:
Freaking gorgeous eh? Can’t wait. And a pre-wedding reception at the fabulous Gianni’s Pizza (a local legendary eatery) and several days hanging out with old friends and family. After the wedding I plan to spend a lot of time at the beach and soak up beachy atmo before coming back here to Landlockistan.
And THEN, on Halloween, my cousin is marrying his longtime girlfriend in Omaha and my sister and brother-in-law (squee!) are coming back for that. And we get to stay at the beautiful Cornerstone Mansion. It’s going to be lovely.
So, I need to warm up the camera, buy some bigger mem cards, get wedding pressies, and somehow hope I have enough dosh to make it through being in one of the most expensive places in the country for 6 days. Cross your fingers! 🙂
Anyway, running late for work now. Big meeting today with Omaha’s web guy to talk about the direction we want to go with our website. Wheeee!
I just read a blurb on Lifehacker about a family that went “cash only” and saved money.
Well duh.
I don’t have credit cards. The last time I had a credit card was ten years ago when i lived in England, and Barclay bank just handed me one with my new account. I felt giddy. I promptly got all spendy and pretty much blew through my 500 pound limit on it.
No I use my debit card. If I don’t have the money in my account I can’t buy it. Plain and simple. Sucks when I want something shiny and gadget-like, but that gives me incentive to save for it, which is something I’m only now beginning to be able to do. The debit card works *like* a credit card of course, and I can do anything I need to with it that I would with a credit card (ie, shop online.) So why bother with a credit card that’s going to be impossible for someone in my income bracket to ever pay off (especially if I used it to pay a large debt, like a car repair or something impossible to pay for outright.)
Admittedly, the credit card *would* have been handy with the old $900 fuel pump replacement I had to do. But years of single parent-dom has taught me to be resourceful.
But aside from the freak occurrences, I’ve never needed a credit card. And I know myself, I’m dangerous with them. best to just avoid them altogether and live within my means. If it means I can’t jump on a plane and head to Europe whenever I want and worry about paying for it later, so be it. I’d rather be relatively debt-free than burdened and stressed over things I can’t afford.
I don’t carry cash either and that is something I probably should do. Even in this day and age, there are some things you just need Real Money to pay for. But I can’t remember the last time I had any cash on me. So maybe it’s not exactly vital.
My friend and coworker, Jack, has been training for the past three months to run in his first marathon, the Bill Seymour Half, which was this morning. He blogged his trials and tribulations for the paper and had a lot of people rooting for him, myself included. If you get a minute, check his blog out – he’s a great and funny writer. I don’t read many running blogs apart from my dad’s and Jack’s but Jack turned his into an irreverent look at what it’s like to be a novice runner preparing for your first Big Run.
Anyway, here he is at the finish. Way to go Jack, you made it! 🙂