Seriously, calling all TVD fans

Ok, I promise I will get back to tell you about the crazy condo-buying-oh-not-so-fast and couponing and hip-hurting and south-beaching soon but right now -

DID YOU SEE THE VAMPIRE DIARIES THIS WEEK? O. M. G.!!

Seriously. There was like giggly chortling and hand clapping and cheering and bouncing in my chair. I know that my heart leaps anytime there is a first kiss between characters that I love in a show. But this was just….beyond. Like a Finally and Thank God and OMG and YES and I Can’t Believe That Happened NOW and Really, No Teasing? and What’s the Catch and hoping and holding my breath to make sure it really happened all in about 10 seconds of time.

Phew! I’m fair worn out. No exercise needed today!

It was a callback to Dawson’s Creek when Joey had been fighting off her feelings and wrestling with acknowledging them after Pacey kissed her and confronted her. And finally he just called her out and there was a heartstopping countdown and hand catch and then she gave in to herself and kissed him. And it was beautiful and passionate and innocent and free all at the same time. And this kiss, so long in coming, between Damon and Elena was just as forceful and poignant and bittersweet.

I love Kevin Williamson. He’s the best.

Trooping on

Today was one of those odd days at work. It went really fast and I stayed occupied, but looking back I’m not sure how I stayed so busy! One great save….a cat with a clotting issue (suspect it got into ratbait) that we figured it out quick and got blood transfusions in and brought it back from the brink of death! very satisfying case.

So….once AGAIN, I said “phew, it’s a slow week at the grocery stores and Rite Aid. I can chill out the crazy coupon shopping”. Once again, I am proving myself wrong. While the week’s sales are not many, the things that ARE great deals are big ones. And I have meat coupons for Safeway that expire 2/28 ($2 off any beef purchase…no minimum required! So I’m getting lots of packs of single cheaper steaks and small packs of stew meat for just over $2/pk minus $2 coupon = nearly free! I had 24 of these coupons, have to use them in separate transactions so I’ve been slowly buying beef for like 5 weeks. And at RiteAid, there is a HUGE sale (equaling $0.30/item) of Johnson & Johnson baby products that there is a zillion different coupons out for. Stock is limited and running out everywhere so its multiple stores/trips to gather them. AND I have rainchecks for deodorant from last week that I have coupons for to equal $0.80 moneymakers per item. The problem is that those coupons expire in 2 days and I actually made the mistake of BUYING the coupons. So I have 15 coupons left and if I don’t find at least 10 more deodorants to purchase with them in the next 2 days, I won’t break even on the deal. It’s not a huge deal if I don’t, but I hate to end up paying for a deal that should have been free (or make money!) just because I didn’t pay attention. I wouldn’t have bought the extra coupons if I had realized the expiration date was only ONE week out from the sales week. I KNEW that I’d be needing rainchecks and that it would probably take 2-4 weeks to gather all the stock….at least without running around to all 5 area stores 3 times this week. SOOO this week I’ve been stopping at a different Safeway & Rite Aid on my way home from work each morning. It’s worked out….I’ve picked up 2-5 J&J baby products each time, gathered some other raincheck items at RA and a couple of other weekly deals, bought 2-3 meat packages a day, and not extended my day too much. Now down to 1 meat coupon and need 10 more deodorants (have coupons for 15 though). Luckily all the area RA get their supply trucks in today. So on my way to work tonight going to stop at one (hope they have deodorant!) and stop at another (or two) on the way home tomorrow. I’ll be glad to get ANY more of those deodorants! And count it as a lesson learned.

Ok that’s a lot of expanding on the coupon thing. Basically: it’s going well. I love it, even when I’m frustrated by it. It’s a very fun new hobby. As for SB, I’m very happy with how things are going. I’m definitely still working on convincing myself to do better on the exercise front though I think that will be easier once spring comes along. Food is going much better than I thought it would and drinking is drastically improved. Yay!

I still need to do a weekly meal plan, though I’ve been doing ok through this week “winging it”:

B: HB egg, chicken, a few grapes, Motts veggie/jucie medley
L: steak, mashed sweet potatoes, asparagus, coffee
S: veggies w/ hummus, 2 oreos
D: tuna alfrdo w/ ww rotini, cauliflower/carrot/cranberry steamers, sparkling vitamin zero cranberry
S: 1/2 apple w/ PB, greek yogurt w/ jello powder

Did do exercises yesterday morning. Today not so much. Tonight is the last day of work and then 4 off. Have a TON of stuff I need to get down this weekend. Errands, housework, Pets at Home business, SB planning, etc. Going to sleep now!

2010–looking up!

Well 2009 is over in about 45 minutes. And you know what I say to that? THANK GOD! I am soooo done with 2o09. Bring on 2010! It HAS to be better than last year.

Ok, that sounds a lot more negative than I meant it to. And perhaps I have had 3 glasses of wine and my friend that I spent the evening with just left and I am a bit tipsy and maudlin and overly dramatic. But seriously. 2009 was crap. Pretty much a wash of a year. It could be worse, definitely. But if 2009 had never happened, that would be totally ok by me too.

Let’s count the ways that it sucked.

Jan-March- the slow unraveling hellishness of the ending of my relationship with Shawn. We try not to dwell on that around here.

May- I quit my job (which is a great job and I would take back in a second) to take a new job closer to home at a brand new clinic

May-August- work my butt off at said new job to get the clinic open, do a good job, make something of the place.

August- get fired/quit because new job has turned into a crazy place with a psycho crappy business owner/boss/vet.

September-November- do relief work all over the place at all hours of the day. Luckily get enough hours to pay bills but life is CRAZY.

November- get current job. Am bored. Think of ways to find a new job due to severe level of dissatisfaction/boredom. Live at a room for rent 3.5 days a week. Drive a lot. Have no opportunity/time to date or socialize.

December 31, 2009- here I am! Ready to make a new start for 2010.

On the brighter side, here is the plan for 2010:

I am in the interview process for an animal shelter in Seattle. This is a FT job which is 4 days/wk for about $2-3 more hourly than what I make now. It also has 100% paid medical/dental and lots of paid time off. It is just within commuting distance so I wouldnt’ need to have a 2nd room and place to live in. Which would be awesome! So hopefully this job works out. I would probably start FT there in February. I have working interviews Mon/Tues so I should know by next week if I am taking a job there. Let’s keep hoping!

Other than a new job opportunity just on the horizon (yay!), I have a few other plans (I refuse to call them resolutions) for this next year. Namely these:

1. Eat better. Less junk, more cooking. And for goodness sake, exercising some portion control and restraint. I have to face it, I’m 27 and the metabolism is shutting down.

2. Exercise more. I plan to join a gym and work out a plan with a trainer. I need aerobic and strength training and plan on continuing to do yoga several times a week to help with flexibility & core strength. Because my back is crap and my range of motion sucks. And I need to do something about all that before I am in serious troubles. I also want to start skating more again, just recreationally, and start square dancing again (I so love it), and maybe take some ballroom dance lessons.

3. Work extra shifts. This is to  fulfill 2 different goals. First of all, regardless of if I get the new job or stay in the one I have, I need to work extra ER/CC shifts in order to have enough advanced level cases for my emergency certification caselogs. And I want to save more money and fix up my house so I need the additional income.

4. Sell my house! I have finally decided that I need to just sell this house and buy something closer to Seattle. It will really open up my job opportunities as well as my social and dating opportunities. And I really don’t have a reason to keep this house. Yes it has land, but I don’t even do anything with it and its just more property to maintain. There’s no good reason to hold onto it. However, I have about 10K worth of repairs/cosmetic work needed to get the house in saleable condition and I need to build equity and/or save for a downpayment on a house further north. So the estimated sell date is probably about 2 years from now. But there’s plenty to do and work for in the meantime!

5. Socialize! Date! Have a life again! Think about having foster kids in a couple years!

So I have plenty of admirable and completely doable goals for 2010. Let’s check back in on Dec 31st 2010 and see how I’ve done and how many of these goals are either reached, failed, or just carried over for 2011.

But it’s definitely looking up!

~Lissa

Sick

I hate being sick. And I REALLY hate the getting sick part. You know, that day that you wake up and go along your day and realize that there’s a lump in the back of your throat that doesn’t go away no matter how much you swallow. And you slowly figure it out. You’re screwed. The cold is coming on. Tomorrow when you wake up your throat is gonna be on fire. Tomorrow or the next day you won’t be able to breathe through your nose. It will be a long 5+ days before you’ll start to feel better.  You know that you need to sleep but you don’t want to GO to sleep because you’ll feel worse when you wake up.

This is the day where I try and make a great big batch of soup and make sure I have plenty of popsicles, cough drops, tea and syrup in the house.

This is the day where you get the beginning of the virus fever. It’s a sort of out of body experience, that fever. All hot and cold and wiped out. You don’t feel quite connected to what is going on around you.

Crappiness. I hate getting sick. At least I have tomorrow off and don’t work until Thursday evening. Hopefully I’m not feeling too horrible on Friday since that is Scott’s Bday and I want to hang out with him!

 ***

In other news, I had my phone interview for the new job today and I think it went pretty well. They will do a background & reference check and then either be doing in person interviews and/or a working interview. Plus a drug screening prior to the working interview. Soooo hopefully I’ll hear about scheduling for that the end of this week or beginning of next.

And I have an appointment to look at a room to rent in a house in Lynnwood on Friday. Would be very close to the new job (or 3 of the relief jobs I have) and also very close to Ashley’s place. *crosses fingers* I hope EVERYTHING works out.

Oh! And I signed my refinance papers for my home mortgage today. So as a bonus, no mortgage payment for October! I’ll be all caught up on my bills (including my plane ticket home for Thanksgiving) and have some extra cash for Christmas or to put a first month’s rent down for that room if it works out.

Ok, gonna lay on the couch, watch Dawson’s Creek, drink tea, and eventually pass out and go to bed. Talk more later.

~Lissa

It’s been a month? Really?!

Ok, so I can’t believe it’s been a month since my last post. I tend to start things and not follow through on them so I’m really trying to keep blogging. I know that chances are nobody is reading this (though I did give a few friends the URL), but I think it would be nice to look back at someday. You know, when life is super-awesome.

Not that it’s all bad now. It’s just….life. Sometimes up, sometimes down. Somedays things work out well, sometimes things don’t work out well at all. Sometimes I’m feeling positive despite all the crappiness, sometimes I’m feeling negative even when things are going ok. Life, ya know?

Well that perfect job? Before the interview even came about the job had changed from 3 days/wk ER overnights to 4 days/wk internal medicine day shifts….which took it out of the realm of possibility or interest for me. I still went to the interview, get my foot in the door and all that. It went well and I am going to have a semi-permanent regular relief shift there as well as do other occasional relief shifts. So I have Saturday overnights lined up there starting in October. I hope that I like it as much as I think I will!

I also have a regular weekly relief shift at Clinic B, Thursdays. And while I don’t have a regular weekly shifts at Clinic A, I do have Sunday nights scheduled for October & probably November. And I have a couple of shifts at the end of October scheduled at my old work. So at the same time of the month as August, I have 15 shifts lined up for October already! (Versus 7 at this time in August for Sept.) And I imagine that will fill out considerably as we get closer and into October. As a point of reference……at this point last month I had only 7 shifts lined up……I’ve ended up working 20 this month!!! It’s been crazy, I worked 16 shifts in the first 17 days of the month. The bonus is that just with work this month I’ve made up for losing out on two weeks of work at the end of August.  My new goal is to work as much as I can (reasonably—-no double shifts or back-to-back insanity….I did that this month!) until Thanksgiving. I’m taking a week off for Thanksgiving to fly home and spend it with my family. And then I’m gonna work as much as I can the first 2 weeks of December and plan on taking the last 2 weeks of December off. I want to spend Christmas with my friend Ashley and her family, and I’m thinking about flying to New York City to spend New Year’s with my friend Craig. I’ve been wanting to visit him for years since he’s moved there and have never had the money or chance. But I have lots of working to get done to be able to afford to take all that time off and a trip to NYC!  I think I can do it, after all I have 2-3 regular weekly shifts plus a total of 5! clinics that I do relief for. I’ve had to turn down like 4-6 shifts this month due to scheduling conflicts so basically I can work as much as I want to. At least that’s my hope!  While I have regular days scheduled for October, I have at least 2 or 3 places to hear from about other relief shifts so it’ll probably fill in quite a bit. Yay! It’s nice to not have to worry about money at least.

Oh yeah! News since last posting. Shawn finally came and picked up his fishtanks and dead car and all his other belongings. It was like pulling teeth to get him out there, even on the day that he had assigned to himself. Typical Shawn. I had thought how happy I would be when it was all gone, but that night after he left and I looked at the empty house I was just sad. It was like, ‘finally! my house is mine again!’ But also, ‘this wasn’t how it was all supposed to go’ It’s easy to look back sometimes and wax nostalgic about how good things were. And then I remember how really really not it was so much of the time. The drug peddling, the laziness, the obstinate behavior, the Valentine’s Day where he didn’t come home, the yelling and picking over nothing, the many many tears. The next day, I was just simply happy to have my life back again, to start again. Right now it’s hard because when I go into stores they have all the Halloween stuff out. And Halloween last year was the point in our relationship where everything was really really good. He was just moving in, I was starting to spend time with the kids, the holiday season and plans and activities, and it was all so new and hopeful and promising. It wasn’t until about New Year’s that everything went to hell. So this holiday season is going to be hard. Everytime I walk in a store there will be reminders EVERYWHERE of last year and how happy I was then. Not that I am exactly UNhappy now, just not happy like the promise of it last year.

Because really, what am I supposed to do with those Christmas portraits that we took last year? That’s not my family, those aren’t my kids, no matter how much I wanted it. I can’t ever put those into a photo album, but I can’t throw them away either. It’s all just really sad.

Anyways I’m excited to go to the Puyallup Fair with friends next Sunday, it’s the last “summer” activity. So sad that summer is over!! This has been a good summer all in all. I got a tan, spent lots of time outside and in the sun and reading in my hammock, caught up on sleep, spent plenty of time hanging out and talking with friends, and just enjoyed time to myself. Hopefully I’ll have a good and busy fall/winter between work and time off to enjoy holidays. Chances are I’ll have  fulltime ER job by next holiday season and then all bets are off! Definitely not gonna be able to take chunks of time off so I’d better enjoy it while I have the opportunity.

Ok well this has been inane and rambling. If you are reading this, friends, well you know that this is typical Lissa. I’m gonna go and try to be a little more structured and sensible in my next post. Which will hopefully be a recap of the Fair and not another monthly update! Wish me luck!

~Lissa

Moving forward

I think the expression “get over it”, or any of the many variations thereof is one of the most obnoxious phrases that anyone can utter to another person. We say it far too often, far too easily while shrugging off the effort of truly listening to one another and showing compassion and empathy.

There are many things in life that others grow sick of hearing us talk about….our personal experiences and tragedies large and small. These told and retold stories on our part eventually incite people to tell us to get over it already, move on, deal with it.

Tragedies big and small, each one as unique as the individual who is experiencing them. A death, a breakup, a fight, a job loss, a ruined favorite shirt, a broken car. Who knows what these things mean and entail to the one closest? And these days, how often do we take the time to hear someone who is dealing with them? We are quick to shrug off another’s unhappiness or sadness. We so easily forget what it is like to deal with a personal tragedy, despite the fact that we have all been there in some way ourselves.

Everyone who has loved before has experienced the one who got away. The one who slipped past them for whatever reason. The one that looking back, with years of experience and newfound wisdom behind them, they KNOW could have been more, and MIGHT have been everything. I know that paralysis that comes when you realize exactly what you have lost. I know the darkness that surrounds you when you don’t know how to stop the mind from racing and circling. I know the way the words repeat over and over in your head and you are driven to talk it out again and again with whoever will listen. I have experienced great patience and compassion from friends in relation to this difficulty. And I have experienced those who just say “Get OVER It Already!”

You don’t get Over this relationship. Eventually the paralysis eases and you are able to move again. Sometimes sideways, sometimes back, but mostly forward. You learn how to move on. You take chances, you keep looking for a new love. Your mind slowly stops circling and focuses on the life at hand. The sad thoughts, could have beens, regrets fade and shrink and are relegated to a wistful sector of the mind.  But you never get over it.

It has been many years since I lost that first most innocent and pure love. I will never get over it. But I will live my life, enjoy it, and still take occasional comfort in pulling out the old memories with my old friends. The ones who have always listened and been tolerant of my inability to “just get over it”. The ones who smile, just as I do, when that name is brought up. And let me vent and reminisce and just simply talk when I need to. About whatever I need to. For however long I need to.

I hope I will be able to be that patient friend to those who have been so true to me. I pray that I will never tell them to “Get Over It”

~Lissa