Cleaning my house this weekend was...an adventure. First, I had thought I broke my washing machine. It wouldn't turn on at all (though the dryer worked -- I checked), no water, no power, nothing. So, I sat down on the floor of the mud room, tried not to cry, and pondered using my emergency credit card (that I used once this month already!) to go buy a "new" machine. But first, I had the genius idea of checking with my landlord first to make sure his moron handymen hadn't been doing work on my house that would magically make just the washer not work. Well, it took us a half-hour or so of detective work, and calling each other half-a-dozen times while I crawled and climbed and checked breaker boxes, but we finally figured out that his hired morons broke one of the electrical breakers while they were messing with my outside safety lights. Whew! Of course, this means that I currently don't have safety lights (boo!), and have to use an extension cord across my kitchen to make the washer work (but it works!), and randomly my garbage disposal is also on the same breaker so does not work, but mystery solved! After we figured it out and landlord promised to come Monday (today) to fix the breaker (am NOT holding my breath! He never keeps his promises), we hung up the phone and I went to take the garbage out. Ran into a neighbor who said, "Hey, did you know both of your safety lights are burnt out?" This literally happened 30 seconds after we had hung up the phone. Woulda been REALLY useful to know 30 minutes prior, but still, heh!

Second adventure happened last night at 9:30pm as I was finally finishing my last chore of the weekend -- vacuuming. I had sprinkled that carpet powder all over my whole carpet area to make the place smell fresher, but it was clogging up the air so I couldn't wait to clean it up. The vacuum worked fine in the main room, but by the time I got to the bedroom area right outside my bathroom, it was making a really funny noise. I haven't had this vacuum long (it was a hand-me-down from my mom), so funny noises are new to me with this machine. The machine was still running, but I stupidly popped open the main compartment to see if I could see anything obvious wrong. DOH! The second I did that, the vacuum bag exploded and started shooting dust straight into my bathroom.

Oh my god, you guys. You don't even know.

Even worse? One of my recently completed chores? Cleaning the bathroom.

I seriously almost cried. I did start choking. That dust was foul, and made worse by the "Tropical Island" scented carpet powder. I mean, I like to smell it when it's mildly wafting around the room, not taste it on my tongue and in the back of my throat. ugh.

So, I cleaned and cleaned...and briefly panicked when I thought I didn't have any spare vacuum bags and was going to have to live with some of the mess for a full day (but I did find the bags! yay!). And this morning I am still finding places in my tiny bathroom that are covered in dust. I have a little shelf on which lives my perfume bottles and a lotion holder -- dust all over the bottles still, and in the bottom of the lotion holder. So gross -- but it's kind of like when you shatter a wine glass on the kitchen tiles and are still finding shards months later. I'm sure I'll still be cleaning that bathroom all week, at the very least.

At least now I know how to check the fullness of my new vacuum. sigh.


Work? In crazy mode. Again. Still. I had a few months of non-craziness, so it's way past time for more. I both love and loathe this sort of thing. Surely there is a better way to find career-fulfillment, liveable salary, and adrenaline rushes? I suppose I could train to become a sky-diving instructor. I'm sure it'd be more relaxing...

Oh geez, I just this moment received an email that the Surfrider Foundation is inviting 3000 people to attend the public hearing next month to see me present the case I'm now working on. ::facepalm:: 3000. People. Squeak?

Is it possible to have a heart attack from relief? My whole chest feels sort of numb and tingly after the news I just got. See, I've been miserable at work lately for several reasons, but one of them was because we decided last Friday to take one of my cases before to hearing in April. This would mean that I would have to produce a lengthy document and attempt to negotiate a settlement with the other attorney all in a very short timeframe. I thought the deadline for the main document and settlement agreement was tomorrow, and that I only had a week to do everything, and here it is Thursday and I'm only about 1/3 done. Just now found out that I somehow managed to read a calendar wrong and that in fact the deadline is next Friday. Considering that I've been consulting the calendar all week to find out the various mini-deadlines that fall all around a larger project, I find it ridiculous that though I met all the mini-deadlines, my eyes kept seeing the wrong date for the BIG deadline.
<---DORK

Sometimes? I SUCK. But what sweet relief, yes?

* Today on BART a guy sat down next to me. I don't usually look at the people around me on the train -- I just listen to my iPod and/or read stuff on my Treo. When we reached my stop, I finally turned to the guy to ask him to let me out of the seat -- and froze. I swear to the Gods that this guy was Ronon Dex's younger, shorter twin. Same hair, same facial hair, same skin color, same eye-color, and the look he gave me out of the corner of his eye -- an assessing, amused look -- just, wow. He was just probably 5 inches shorter and 50 pounds lighter than Jason Momoa, but twins, I say, twins. I was speechless. Sitting there with my mouth stuck in the smile I was going to give him before I asked him to move. He clearly got the message without me using my words anyway and got up to let me leave. ...can't freaking believe I sat there next to him for a half-hour without noticing though. doh!

* That interview I had two weeks ago -- I received my score. Rank 1, baby! (Rank 1 is the highest, for those not familiar with State Service.) Unfortunately, my bosses are holding off on promoting me for awhile, so, sadly, this may never benefit me. I was pretty disappointed when I learned that late last week, but there is nothing I can do about it right now. I can work to impress them and hope to change their minds, but I don't see anything changing within the next 2 months. The budget is such a sensitive issue anyway that I can only feel justified in arguing my case a certain amount.

* Tonight I must go the gym, but I want to be home in time to watch NCIS (I still adore it even in reruns) and Biggest Loser (I could totally have won that show -- hee!) and, if I have time when commercials are on, try to catch some of the American Idol performances. There might be a few other things I want to see, if I'm not TV'd out by then. I feel like such a loser when I look forward to going home to watch tv...well, what can I say -- guess I am!

* Weight Loss Update: I broke through my long plateau and lost two more pounds over the weekend. Total loss so far: 122! Trying realllllly hard to cut back my calories by around another 200 per day. Calorie count has crept up by 200-300/day over the last 2 months as I've tried to add more protein (and also found a new addiction for Trader Joe's Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels -- YUM!). It is so obvious that my body is super-sensitive to every calorie now. I had 200 more than I should've yesterday and went up half a pound. I burn way more calories a day than I eat (like, 1500 more), every single day, but my body has adjusted. It should be physically impossible for me NOT to lose several pounds a week, and yet my body continues to defy the laws of nature. Strangeness! Also strange: I'm definitely wearing the size now that I wore when I was in college...and weighed 40 pounds less! I don't get it...but I'm not gonna argue. Last week, I had a check-up with the medical team monitoring my diet and my labs are all perfect. My doctor is convinced that I'm building lots of muscle lately -- which would explain me continuing to shrink but the scale not going down, and also my wearing a smaller size than my weight would normally indicate. She shrugged, "You're tall," and made vague hand-wavey motions at me as if to say, "look at your massive bones, you size 12 shoe-wearer." (I also want to make it clear that I am getting plenty of nutrition every day and my nutritionist was the one who originally recommended cutting back my calories even more -- though she did kind of second guess herself when she evaluated my height and general frame-size. So, if I find the cuts hard to maintain, maybe I just won't do it, and the team will be find with that.)

Friday list:

* Had my interview Tuesday afternoon. Left the room thinking of the many, many things I should've said but didn't. Proceeded to tear hair out and whine to all who would listen.

* One of my coworkers/friends was one of the people on the panels doing the interviews (though not mine since that would've been a conflict) and she and I and another coworker who was interviewed all sat and debated answers to the questions (illegally since we're not supposed to disclose that info -- oops!). I felt both better and worse afterward. Later, on Thursday, my friend snuck into my cube and whispered, "Don't worry about your score!" in a way that I'm pretty sure she meant that she found out that I scored high enough to get my promotion. eeee! But I'm not sure yet! ooooh! So, must remain calm until official score is received in a week or two. ...but I am somewhat relieved now. However, this whole thing distracted me muchly this week, and therefore I did not get out a document that people need and are waiting for. Bad Nyn!!

* Had more run-ins with my unreliable landlord yesterday over my broken toilet. I was thisclose to getting a hotel room for the night and subtracting it from my rent. But then I managed to track down the handyman and he seemed to fix the problem (though it acted up again briefly later, but was fine again when I left this morning. arg!).

* We lost 3 more employees from my agency this week. All 3 of them were my good friends and sat in my little section and I'm going to miss them SO MUCH! ::weeps:: I'm about to leave in a mo' and go to a beer hall for a little party for two of them.
Update! Oooo, gossip. Leaving!coworker!Y just came into my cube and whispered that a big boss is also secretly leaving and today is his last day!!! OMG! Guys, this is even worse than I thought. I seriously, seriously need to find a new job, like, by the end of the month. ::vibrates with tension::

* I got paid today and it had my little 5% bump from passing my one-year probation. Yay! It's not a lottery win or anything, but it's always nice to see an extra hundred or so in my bank account. However, I'm really holding my breath for the hopefully imminent promotion. If I get approved to get bumped up a class, it is like at least a $700 a month raise. That will mean so very much to me and my ability to live from month-to-month. Plus, it seriously increases my chances of finding a better job with better pay.

Ok, the party crowd is heading out for the pub. Yay! There might be gambling later. YAY! Happy Friday!

I've worked in the customer service industry before. Several times. I know how tough it is. I don't think my standards are too high...I'm a pretty easy-going gal. Every now and then certain things will annoy me more than they perhaps should, but I still am not the type of person to demand to talk to someone's boss for anything less than something egregious. But, dude. You know how sometimes a string of things will happen that make you think the universe is having a grand joke at your expense? Well, lately the one being laughed at is me. And it leads to this -- sometimes I just want to grab people, shake them, and yell, "Do your f*cking job!"

Here, I'll list a few of the things ticking me off lately:

* My landlord, and his crew. My house is old, and it has a few things I would like done to make it nicer, which my landlord readily agreed to, or offered to do before I even asked, way back before I moved here in December. Well, of the half-dozen or so items, a grand total of 3 have been done. Recently the crew he hires to do all the work has been working on the building behind me. Every few days the crew chief promises me, "We haven't forgotten you! Swear!" My landlord himself has set and broken no less than 4 appointments to come do something to my place, and only once with a phone call to let me know he wasn't showing up. Then he'll come on some random day while I'm at work and don't know he was there until I find a note left on my coffee table. So annoying, and frankly kind of creepy. I certainly never leave my bed unmade or underwear on the floor or anything.

* My new-and-now-former trainer. My first appointment with him was on Saturday and only was a brief half-hour session. It was fine but I didn't like him a whole lot. I certainly wasn't ready to sign up for the $1000 two-month package he wanted to sell me. But I did agree to meet him for an hour-long "full session" to see what he would recommend as a full work-out for me. I have a ton of experience using weights and planning my own work-outs, but it's always good to get some periodic "professional" input. Plus, I'm getting to the point where it's getting harder to lose weight, so by all means, help me if you can! The appointment was for last night and I had to leave work a few minutes early in order to be there on time. He had written the appointment date and time on a sticky note for me, so I know I was there at the correct time. Well, of course, he stood me up. I asked for him at the counter and the guy said he didn't know anything, but he got the trainer's step-daughter (also a trainer) to call him. This all took so long that I finally wandered over to the treadmills and started my own work-out. No one bothered to come over to me (I was in full view of the desk and saw them look at me) to let me know what was going on. As I was finally leaving over an hour later, I stopped at the employee's table and asked what had happened. The step-daughter looked up at me vaguely and said in the most bored tone imaginable, "Uh, he said for me to get your name and number and he'll call you later." No apology. No explanation. No pleadings for forgiveness and offers of discounts. Nothing. I smiled tightly and walked out while saying over my shoulder. "Nah, thanks anyway."

* My mailman. Since I moved here 2 and a half months ago, I've suspected (but had no proof) that the mail person doesn't come every day. I don't receive mail every day, which I've had happen in the past, but here it seems to happen more often. Then, suddenly, one day I'll have a huge amount of mail. But every time I'd put something out in my box to be mailed, it would always be taken right away. Well, Sunday night I put out a Netflix movie to be returned. Last night, Tuesday night, I got home and the movie was STILL. THERE. I seriously thought mail people were the last frontier of reliability -- you know, that whole "rain, sleet, snow..." thing. My illusions -- shattered!

Today is Day 4 of the Headache from Hell. Getting really sick of feeling sick. My whole head feels bruised from the very top to my face to my neck. I've been taking painkillers a couple times a day and am starting to notice that when they start to wear off, I feel even worse -- nauseous, dizzy, and the feeling of the headache creeping back up is awful. I haven't taken anything yet today, but think I'm going to have to so I can be clear-headed for my interview at 3:15. I had a cold a couple weeks ago, and have had lingering lung fluid and clogged ears ever since, not to mention some sinus pain. I'm wondering if the headache is a sinus infection since my face really does feel sore across my cheekbones and my eye sockets feel dry and gritty. ugh.


So, my interview at 3:15. I'm procrastinating on doing some last minute studying. See, I'm showing great initiative already! ::eye roll:: This morning, I tried on about 5 different suits to try to find one that fit right. Very exciting that I fit into a much smaller size than I expected, but the pants were about a quarter size too small, and the jacket had a spot, so instead I'm hitching up a pair of too-large black slacks that have a waist tie, and this will probably be the last time I wear them. I'm also wearing a cute faux-suede black jacket and a teal-blue-brown striped silk shirt that I haven't worn in 7 years. One of my work friends, an awesome guy from the mail room, came by to deliver me a package and said I now look like Scully from X-files. heeeee! My hair is cut into a bob, it's naturally a bit reddish-blond, and I'm wearing a suit and makeup, which I rarely do lately, so I suppose that's where the Scully-reference came from for him. It's been years since someone called me that, so I guess I'm finally thin enough again to be compared to pretty actresses.

Always nice to have an ego-boost on a day like today!

Ok, ok, back to work...

Oh my gosh, you guys!! Freaking out, here! I just got a phone call that the oral exam I have to take to get my promotion is being moved from Wednesday morning to tomorrow afternoon. !!!!!!!

I have no idea why I'm freaking out so much about this. It's been moved, like, 16 hours sooner. It's not like I didn't know it was coming, I just now have one less sleep to lose. And yet, if I were a nail-biter, these suckers would be gnawed. ::runs in circles:: See, it's always awkward when you're being interviewed by people you already work with. Which I had to do once before, and it turned out that the interview was awesome, I was later told confidentially that I was one of the panel's favorites...and yet I didn't get the job. And still had to come to work the next day anyway. After I cried in front of my boss.

...ok, I think I just nailed the reason I'm freaking out. I already knew I was nervous about scoring high enough to pass this exam and get awarded the next class in my pay scale, but now I vividly recall the trauma I went through around 4 years ago. Fear of failure and humiliation -- always a classic.

I better go study up on, you know, my job.

I made a mini!Me! Since I have lost so much weight over the last year, I'm having body image issues in that I have nooo freaking idea what I look like anymore. This past weekend, I put together a little album of photos showing me at various times through the last year -- that helped a lot to see how much progress I've made, plus it's just shocking to see myself as so damn fat exactly one year ago.

By the way, weight loss update: 119 lbs gone. I have a range of goal weight that I'd like to be in (the "normal" BMI range) so my upper limit goal weight is approx. 50 lbs away and lower limit 80 lbs. Honestly, though, I think I'd be pretty freaking skeletal if I lost 80 more lbs!

Anyway, the model maker site allows you to enter your exact height and weight, so I played with it to see how my figure looks now, and how it will look when I get closer to a goal weight. I think it's pretty accurate, actually. I used the arrows to make the mini!me spin around so I could see her from all sides. Maybe, just maybe, I'm getting more used to the Reality New Me.

* Got my hair chopped this weekend. It is now a cute A-line bob. I don't think it's been this short since I was a child. Though I adore long hair, honestly I do look better with short hair. It does something nice to my face.

I've been shedding a lot due to my strict diet. It has been so freaking annoying how much hair I lose. Shorter hair will help cut down the annoyance factor...I hope! Good thing that I have SO MUCH hair, even with losing a poodle's worth a day.

* Yay, TV! Finally saw the first disc of Stargate: Atlantis Season 2. I've been a fan of the show since it debuted, but have only ever seen all of Season 1, LOL. I read fanfic, what do I need to actually watch the show for? (kidding) It took awhile since I had to wait for dvd and then wait for it to move up my Netflix queue. I finally went and moved it up the list a few weeks ago. Can I just tell you how much I love Ronan? I've lived off of seeing bits and pieces of him but now I get to watch him all from the beginning. Mmm! Also a new favorite: Psych Season 1. I'm also finally finishing off Dexter Season 1 -- somehow the set got really separated in my queue so I saw the first half of the season and then have been waiting for months for rest of the episodes. I just saw the episode where...ooh, shouldn't post spoilers, huh? Rats.

* One of the supervisors just came to ask me to help with hiring our summer interns. Yay, the POWER! I kind of love doing stuff like this, despite the extra work. There is a Public Interest career fair at Hastings College of Law next month and so far, we have received 85 applications. Looks like I'm going to be pouring through resumes and writing samples for the next few days. We'll probably each pick our top handful of favorite candidates and interview them all at the fair (which is a Saturday -- yikes). This time, each of us on my team will get to hire our own personal body servant intern that will work only with us, so we cut down on having to explain each of our projects to all the different interns who might be able to give us a few hours here and there. I love this idea.

* Weight loss update: Down 109 pounds! I've also lost 10 sizes so far. If I keep up this pace, then I will reach my goal weight by my birthday in June...but that's sort of the best case scenario. I know it will be hard to maintain a consistent loss. So, I'm sort of just in general aiming for hitting goal sometime this summer. ...then comes the hard part -- maintenance!

* One of my online friends was in San Francisco for a work convention this week, and we made plans to get together. I was so excited 'cause I admire this woman a lot and we've never met in RL before. But sadly, her company kept her busy from 5:45am-9:30pm. yikes! We chatted on the phone and agreed that if we were even just a few years younger that we would totally meet at 9:30 for drinks or whatever, but since both of us are old ladies in our 30's, we both just wanted to go home, put on sweats, and watch TV. Sad! So, since she comes out a couple times a year, maybe we'll get to meet next time. Bummer.

* I have to leave work in about an hour to go to a doctor's appointment. This is good, because I just really kind of want to get out and run around a bit. I'm longing for the weekend in the kind of vague way one does on a Thursday afternoon, but I have to admit that I still feel like there are things I need to get done this week.

* Speaking of work, I nearly cried in the middle of my office on Tuesday. I've been working on a document that was supposed to go out last Friday, but due to everyone taking the day off except for me, it had to wait until Monday. Then Monday turned into Tuesday, so my whole calendar is getting screwed to hell. Well, my boss met me walking in the hall near a bunch of cubicles and offices and somehow the conversation got turned into all the things that were wrong with the document that kept holding it up and she decided to place most of the blame on me and publicly, in the middle of the hall surrounded by my coworkers, criticize my work. I was mortified. Afterwards, I went right over to coworker!CC and she totally made me feel better and agreed that looking for new jobs is sounding better to both of us by the day.

Later, I went to talk to boss again and told her that I appreciated getting constructive criticism, but next time could she please, please not address it to me in public? She seemed surprised by my request and said she didn't see it as giving me criticism at all and anyway really thought no one was around to hear it. I kind of started to tell her about all the people I heard working in their cubicles around us, but then just dropped it. She sent me an email later apologizing again and said that she realized she "broke confidentiality" which is so lawyer speak, lol. So it ended better than I anticipated, but boy, what a miserable afternoon that was.


* I am loving the USA network playing 2 NCIS episodes every Wednesday. They started from the beginning and since my viewing of season 1 was spotty, that is exactly what I needed. I heart this show SO MUCH. One of the episodes last night was the one where the team goes to an aircraft carrier and they meet up with the guy that had Tony's job before Tony. And poor woobie Tony watches how Gibbs acts around this guy, which is almost fawning if Gibbs was the type to fawn. And Tony is SO SAD...until he gets to talk to the guy at the very end of the episode and then he feels so much better. But there is a lot of great background stuff on some of the characters (Tony!) and in general I enjoyed it.


* Weight loss update: 104 lbs down. I put on a lightweight suit jacket today that I haven't worn in years and years and it fits perfectly! eee! So today I am wearing a black dress with red swirls, black fake!suede jacket buttoned twice, black tights (size: one size fits all, which never would have fit me even a month ago), and black heels. BUT! I've lost some weight in my feet, if you can believe it, so with wearing tights that make feet slippery, the heels were too big to do much walking in, but luckily I had brought flats, too, so I could make the 1 mile walk to the doctor later, so now I'm wearing those. Anyway, I like this outfit a lot, but apparently I look amazing considering the way all my coworkers are carrying on. So much talk about how amazing I look "now." People are gushing, and it is embarrassing, but I guess I'm learning lessons in how to just say "thank you" and then try to eventually change the subject. I'm smiling a lot.