Sleepy Thursday

After all of my excitement yesterday, you think I would have passed right out. But no. Firstly, my hot, soothing bath backfired. I was too hot afterwards and couldn't get comfortable in bed. Then I tossed and turned for what felt like hours. I kept waking up too. I think the sound of the plows going down the road might have been the culprit there.

This is what I woke up to this morning:

I am truly not impressed. Even more so since it's STILL FUCKING SNOWING!!!!!! We're supposed to get another 2 cm tonight and 2cm tomorrow and 2cm Friday night and then a 60% chance of flurries on Saturday and a 40% chance on Sunday. Give me a break! We're already pushing 30cms over the last 24 hours. The damn snowbanks are as tall as I am. Crossing the street has become an extreme sport because you either have to climb over said banks or risk traffic going around them. Stupid weather. This is the most snow Ottawa has seen in 4 years. I guess we were due. Thankfully, the buses were running better this morning and this evening. Hopefully they keep it up for tomorrow. I hope the snow crews come by soon and remove our snowbanks too. I'll have to take a photo of the ones out front tomorrow. It looks like the front of the building is being eaten by giant snow monsters.

Trying to wrap my head around some travel plans for mid to late spring. I'm going to Montreal in April, I just need to pick a weekend and then I'm thinking of going home in May for my bday and my Great Aunt's bday. Mine is a semi-milestone and hers is a major milestone. I haven't seen the family since Christmas (and still haven't forgiven my rat fink brother for giving me the stomach flu at Christmas) so it would be very awesome to see everyone again.

Today is my mom's birthday :) By the sounds of it, she had a pretty decent day, except for the part where my brother broke in and ate all the chips - LOL. Thankfully mom came home and stopped him before he moved onto the cabbage rolls and chocolate cake. This is mom celebrating her bday last year:

It's safer for everyone if you don't ask me to explain that photo. All I'm going to say is that it was my Uncle David's fault. End of story.

I'm very excited by the fact that tomorrow is Friday. I've only worked 2.5 days this week (had French this afternoon) but it still seems like an insanely long week. I did a lot of cooking this week, so maybe that's why it seems longer. I dunno. I made some very amazing Monte Cristo Chicken Cutlets for dinner and a pineapple angel food cake for dessert (1 box angel food cake mix, 1 20oz can of crushed pineapple: just mix the 2 and nothing else. Bake for 25-30 mins and enjoy. So flippin' good!). Guess I was feeling domestic this evening :)

I really need to get some shit together this weekend. I need to mail away 2 bday cards and I have to mail home bday gifts for my mom, brother, nephew and niece. And I might get around to mailing a crazy belated bday and Christmas gift to someone else I know too. Canada Post is going to love me.

Ok. It's sleep time. I keep pausing to think of what to write next and I almost nod off. Oops.

Good Night!

Sarah

More snow from this morning.

Super Woman and Snow

I don't even know where to start with today. It's been all over the map and despite a rocky ending, I'm kind of laughing about it. But that might just be because I'm really sleepy right now.

So, I took the day off. I had 2 holiday days left at work and they're "use them or lose them" ones so I decided to use one. I arranged a shopping date with one of my very best friends(NB) and her adorable child (Baby F).  I got to sleep in this morning, which was awesome. Sadly, sleep did not come so easily to NB and Baby F, but he went down for a nap early so things were looking up. Mother Nature was cooperating at the time but soon decided that throwing ice pellets at us would be fun. I took the bus out to Kanata to meet up with them, which was quick and painless. Walking through the mall parking lot while being pelted with little ice chunks was the hard part. Once inside, we got our shop on. Baby F got to pick out a new toy and seemed very happy with all the new things to look out. He even helped me pick out a bottle of hair dye (he had some help from his mom). We then ventured onto Chapters which involved a caffeine stop at Starbucks for NB and I. I got a new book and we headed out to find lunch.

By now the ice had stopped but the snow was picking up and the roads were getting messy. We opted for a drive through and eating lunch at home. Apparently shopping tired out Baby F and he passed out about 5 minutes from home. As a result, NB and I had a peaceful lunch. Once the baby was up, it was time for a changing and a feeding. Both were a little rocky as someone was cranky after their nap. NB got through it all in fine form and with minimal swearing. I doubt she'll ever know just how impressed by her I am. After lunch Baby F seemed quite happy and crawled all over the room playing with all the toys, leaving time for the grown ups to chat and catch up - which was my favourite part of the day.

After a couple of hours, I went out to shovel snow out of the way so the garage door would close properly and so that the car would get out and then it was time to go and pick up Mr. NB. The four of us then headed out for dinner. By now, the roads were a mess, traffic was a mess. the buses were all fucked up, broken down, delayed or jack knifed so we figured that waiting until after rush our would see a smoother trek home.

Dinner was nice. Baby F inhaled it. It was incredible to see. LOL. And our server just kept screwing up. The irony was that he was training someone new!! Towards the end though, Baby F started to get cranky and it was time to jet. I got dropped off at the park and ride and they headed home. When I got into the bus shelter, there was a good number of people there so I was taking that as a good sign - I hadn't missed the bus. Turns out I didn't have to worry about missing the bus simply because there hadn't been one yet......and one wouldn't appear for another hour and 26 minutes!!! We kept seeing "out of service buses" coming into the west end and letting people off but nothing was heading back east. I saw 5 local routes too. It was very frustrating. I could have stayed the night out there but I figured I could last a little while longer and it paid off. The ride home was relatively quick and only slightly nerve racking. It did end was my less than graceful exit off the bus and through a snowbank rather than over it, but nothing was bruised other than my ego so I"m fine. I managed to successfully make it over the next 2 snowbanks I had to traverse on my trek home.

Once home, I got out of my wet clothes and checked my email and then went and had a nice, long soak in a hot bath with some Lavender Epsom Salts. I finished reading my book while I was in there and had a chance to reflect on  the day.

With the weather aside, it was a great day. I didn't have to work and I got to spend several hours just relaxing and hanging out with a very dear and awesome friend who I don't see nearly enough. She's such a wonderful and amazing person, even more so now that she's a mom.Just getting to hang out and chat made the day a great one. Despite being very tired thanks to yet another sleepless night, she just kept going, making sure Baby F was taken care of. I couldn't do it. Watching Baby F play and crawl around was great. He's adorable and highly entertaining but I don't know how she does it. She's Wonder Woman. I honestly don't think I'd have the patience and capability to be so selfless that's required when you're a mom. And she certainly has it in spades. I'm in complete awe of her (and her husband). They're amazing people and kick-ass parents :) And I can't wait to see them all again. But next time, the weather had better be much, much better!

Good Night!

Sarah

This is the only place I like seeing snow!

Monday *sigh*

I cooked a kick ass dinner tonight. I had a little tenderloin steak in the freezer so I had that (just salt and pepper on it) with a salad and some peas (frozen, not canned) and it was great. A fast, simple dinner. Doesn't really lend to leftovers for lunch tomorrow but that's ok. I've still got soup from last night that I can take for lunch. 

My work day was a little on the busy side, which is never nice on a Monday. The afternoon proved to be very busy for a couple of my managers and lead to some confusion. That was fun to watch. You need to find amusement where you can. I have Wednesday off this week so it's a short week, which means I need to get more done in less time...but I get a day off, so it's worth it. Unfortunately, Mother Nature appears to be trying to rain (or snow) on my parade. Not nice.

Not much else to say tonight. I'm pretty sure my brain has already headed to bed. I really should do the same.

Good Night!

Sarah

I would so love to go back to Vegas!!

Oscars and Violets

Compared to yesterday, today was quite a dull day. LOL. I'm currently watching the Oscars. There was a tie in the Sound Editing category. Who knew? I haven't been paying attention to the whole show though. It's kind of been one of those off and on sorts of things. I did like the musical numbers. They were very well done.

I cleaned, watched a movie, baked, did some dishes, spent way too much time on Pinterest and made soup. So a very domestic day over all. I also slept in until 10am so there went most of my morning. Sleep rocks.
I'm currently trying to decide if I can stay awake long enough to see Adele's performance at the Oscars. I probably should be in bed instead.

I'm a little stressed out at the moment as I keep thinking off all the stuff I have to get finished at work tomorrow. I was covering for someone else last week and things got busy on our end so I didn't get everything done. I'm hoping this week is much quieter and I'll be able to focus and get everything finished. I'm sure I will. It's just normal Sunday night mind wandering crap. I only have a 4 day work week this week. I took Wednesday off as I had two vacation days left and if I don't use them, I lose them.

Falling into the totally random category, I'm quite happy to see that my little violet is blooming again. It's been so long since it bloomed, that I'd actually forgotten what colour it is. Turns out it's purple with white, which is quite pretty. By the looks of it, there are a couple more buds so I should see some more blooms soon. I love flowers so I'm very happy to see that this one is blooming. It makes me think that spring isn't too far away after all.

My bed is calling so I'll have to wait until tomorrow morning to see which movie wins best picture.

Good Night!

Sarah

I can't wait for spring!

Sexapalooza!!!!!!!

As several of you noticed and took the time to point out, I didn't blog last night. Yes, I do that from time to time. I was in a very foul mood last night and didn't want to write as I was somewhat leery of what was going to come out. So I opted to grab my book and curl up in my bed instead.

I was still in a bad mood when I got up this morning. I had a very restless sleep last night and kept waking up so that didn't help matters any. When I logged into my Facebook, I discovered that some very smart people gave me some very smart advice over night and that started making things better. I got to have a pretty lazy morning at home and then decided to go out and have some fun, since I obviously don't need anyone else to help me do that.

I went to Sexapalooza. It's a trade show that was happening at the Convention Center and it was a blast. It's designed and geared towards women and couples. It's an educational experience and a fun on too. They have a main stage where presentations and shows happen, along with seminars and education sessions. While there, I saw a mini-show by a Burlesque troop which involved a strip tease that ended with a giant Jalapeno pepper being set on fire (it had a sparkler in it), a fan dance, two different belly dance performances and a sexy swing dance performance. It was great. I also saw part of the Canadian Hot Bodies show which features male exotic dancers. Wouldn't you know it, the first guy out was dressed like a fire fighter. LOL. I only saw his routine though as the women there were insane and I was starting to fear for my safety, but it was a hoot. Clearly, since it's a public event, the don't take ALL of their clothes off.

The show also had a sex museum, a whole mess of exhibitors and a dungeon. Now I don't know if some of the "kinkier" facets of sex have become more mainstream thanks to Fifty Shades of Grey or if they've been there all along and no one really noticed them before. The Dungeon was something else. You definitely needed an open mind for that one. All of he people in there were super nice and incredibly eager to answer any and all questions. They were giving demos on how to properly spank your mate, how to play with wax and how to correctly tie up/retrain your play mate. There was one other demo but I have no idea what the heck it was. I have to admit that I learnt some interesting new fact about a few things. Can't say that I'll ever use that info unless Jeopardy holds a "Random Sex Trivia" competition, but it was kind of fun to see it all in such a casual setting.

The sex museum was neat and my favourite part was a listing of strange laws from Canada and the USA about sex, flirting, dating and just general male/female interactions. It made for a good laugh. I did have one traumatizing incident while looking around and surprisingly, it didn't happen in the dungeon. A lot of the exhibitors sold sex toys, aids, lingerie, movies etc... While wandering though one such place, they had a "Just Beaver" (yes, Beaver) blow up love doll for sale and there was a young man pictured on the box who looked very much like Justin Bieber. That grossed me right out. LOL.

There were a couple of health type places there like one place doing pulse analysis and another doing posture analysis. There was also the local chapter of Birth Right (a planned parenthood type of place) and a great group who are running an anti-bullying campaign. And there was a booth selling exotic candies. Mostly sucker shaped like penises. I picked a few up for myself and a couple of friends :) Oh yeah! And there was some poor guy walking around who was dressed up like a giant penis. I was standing next to a man who said "Hi Dick" as the poor penis man walked by. I wonder how many times he's heard that one this weekend.

I spent just over 2.5 hours there. I enjoyed myself and I have to admit that I was surprised and impressed by the number of "older" people there. As in probably 10-20 years older than me. Granted, by the time I left, a lot more of the younger people were coming in but it was rather interesting to see the diversity of the ages of people there.

Ottawa gets a good deal of flack for being a "reserved and conservative city". We're not. And I see that we're breaking out of that shell more and more. The Ottawa show is 4 days long where-as the Toronto version is only 3 days long. That's kind of cool. I was a little surprised to see that Montreal didn't have one though.

Anyhow, that was my adventure for the day. I'm rather sleepy now so I think it's time to head to bed and dream of half naked firemen. LOL.

Good Night!

Sarah

A Very Good Day

What a day it's been! It's been one of the best days I've had in weeks, which feels amazing.

It was a pretty chilly start to the day. I'm hoping that's the last of the arctic air. Work went smoothly this morning and all my finance stuff totalled properly on the first time. That's pretty rare in itself. So that put things off to a good start.

This afternoon I started the next level of my French classes. My co-worker and I weren't looking forward to it. Our first 2 levels weren't exactly thrilling and our teachers weren't all that good. We decided to switch to an afternoon class this time to see if we'd be a little more alert. I think that might have done the trick. That and the fact that our teacher seems pretty awesome. We have a female teacher this time and her teaching style is so different from the other 2 we had. She likes to write things done and puts a lot of emphasis on verbal communication, which is where I need the most help. This might not be so bad this time.

After work, the bus gods were making up for the last 2 days and I only had to wait 1 minute for my bus and I got a seat! Woohoo! We flew home. I can't recall the last time I got home so quickly. It gave me plenty of time to check my email, brush my hair, change my top and head back out. I met up with one of my best friends for dinner tonight. As always, the meal was great and the conversation was even better. There was some laughter involved as well, which is never a bad thing. And we capped off the evening with one heck of a dessert. I'm very happy we opted to split it because I think we both would have been rather ill had we tried to eat one ourselves.

Just as I was getting home, I got a text message from my brother telling me to check my email. I thought that perhaps he'd sent me another photo of my adorable niece but nope, it was something better. He'd got my niece laughing and he recorded it and sent it to me. I was grinning from ear to ear hearing her laugh. It's such a happy,joyful and innocent sound. Incredible. And the perfect way to end a wonderful day.

And tomorrow's Friday so that's awesome too!

Good Night!

Sarah

Tonight's Dessert

More Bus Stories

After last night's epic bus ride home, I was looking forward to tonight's ride being much better. On the whole, it was. I didn't have to wait too long in the freezing cold, snow and wind (less than 10 minutes) and when my bus did arrive, I was able to get a seat. Yay!.

Two stops later, a man got on the bus. He had an expired transfer. And not a "just" expired one. This one was over 10-15 minutes expired. He had words with the bus driver and it ended with the man saying "I've already paid for a ride, I'm not paying again" and he went and sat down. We made it 2 more stops along the way before the bus stopped. And we waited. And waited. At first I thought it was a time point and he was waiting until the correct time to leave but after 5 minutes, I was guessing this wasn't a time check. That's when a transit security person got on the bus. The bus cop had a few words with the driver and then came and found expired transfer man and escorted him off the bus. They stood outside chatting. While we sat and waited some more. Finally the transit security dude waved us off and we left without expired transfer man.

The rest of the trip was uninteresting until we got to my stop. My stop is about 10 feet from where an off ramp exits onto the main road. Not only does the exit have a yield sign, but there's a city bylaw that says you have to yield to all transit vehicles. My bus put his signal on and started to move over into the exit lane to get to the stop when some jackass came barrelling up the ramp and without even looking, tried to fly into our lane. The bus driver laid on the horn and the jackass can to a very sudden stop. Which was rather impressive given how snow covered the roads are. Seriously. How do you not see an articulated (so extra long) red and white bus? And what makes you think you'd win if you attempted to cut it off? Some people are just plain stupid. Maybe we should make people pass IQ tests at the same time as they take their driver's tests.

I'd actually love it if the cops would sit in the parking lot and wait for all the idiots that don't yield to the bus and then ticket them all. It's not like they're going to get stuck behind the bus. Once the bus has pulled up to the stop the cars can go around it in the other lane (there are 4 lanes at this point in the road, 1 turning into the mall and 3 straight through). Some people I tell ya.

On an unrelated topic, my next French course starts tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to it. A 4 hour class where I spend most of it lost and/or confused for 13 weeks. And my partner in crime is already slated to miss classes 2 and 3 so that blows. Sigh. Why can't it be a fun class that I actually want to take???. Wish me luck.

Good Night!

Sarah

If buses came with these, no one would dare cut them off.

Bomb Threats and Backed Up Buses

Ottawa seems to have had a rash of "suspicious" packages lately.

First, on Feb 14th, there was a suspicious package found in the mail room of Public Safety Canada, which is a block away from my work. The next day, a suspicious package was found in the Centre Block area of Parliament Hill. Both were found to be non-hazardous.

That brings us today. It took me an hour and 40 minutes to get home from work. It should only take 30 minutes tops. Why? Not because of the snow (which didn't help) but because there was a bomb threat in an arena near the O-Train and Transit Way:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2013/02/19/ottawa-bomb-squad-called-suspicious-package.html

 

While I do appreciate the fact that the emergency response crews moved quickly and did what they had to do to ensure public safety, this is the 2nd time in the last year that traffic got all snarled up due to that particular section of the transit way being closed. This should raise a major red flag to OC Transpo and city officials that maybe, just maybe, more access roads and better emergency plans should be put in place for our transit system. There are very limited access points to the transit way, which means that when it has to be closed, the buses have to detour quite far before they can get back onto it. Since the detours are onto roads which are already experiencing high traffic volumes due to commuters, the problem compounds itself and the entire bus system gets fucked up as a result. Except for route 86. It seemed perfectly fine.

I got to my bus stop a little after 5pm. After waiting for nearly 45 minutes, I gave up and grabbed the next bus that was going my way. This bus then took 55 minutes to get me home. Mostly because it takes a very scenic route. Thankfully, I had my book with me so I read on my way home. I had to stop at the grocery store so by the time everything was said and done, I got home 2 hours and 15 minutes after I left work. That really sucked.

And adding to the commute home's misery, there's a hockey game in Ottawa tonight so there was even more people on the roads than normal. By the time I got home, the traffic on the main road near me was still bumper to bumper. Even on a game night, it's usually all cleared up by 6pm.

I really hope they catch whoever left the package at the arena and charge them with everything they can, just for the sheer misery that they caused everyone this evening. It's not funny and it's not cool. Emergency services have much better things to be doing with their time, like saving lives and stopping real crimes.

Sigh. One day they'll invent a cure for stupid.

Good Night!

Sarah

Ottawa's Transit Way

Monday - Monday

It was a pretty typical Monday for me. While most people in the province had the day off, I did not and it was off to work for me this morning. I have to admit that it was rather nice having a seat on the bus on the way to and from work today. I could handle that every day. Usually the bus is crammed so it was a very nice change of pace. And just for fun, I phoned and woke up my parents this morning before leaving for work this morning. LOL. I'm such an awesome daughter!

Work was crazy busy today. I spent most of the day trying to process refunds (I'm covering for one of the finance admins this week) but I kept getting interrupted or distracted. Crazy. I'm thinking tomorrow will be a little less crazy, so that's good. Mondays are usually a little nutty. And long. It's pretty said that it's Monday night and I'm already looking forward to the weekend. Oh dear.

It was also friggin' cold here today. It was -29 with the windchill when I left for work this morning. I really hope those ground hogs got it right and that this is the last blast of winter and we'll see an early spring. The forecast for the rest of the week is looking good, other than the slight chance of freezing rain tomorrow.

LOL. Cyber hackers posted pro McDonalds tweets on Burger King's Twitter feed today. That's pretty funny. I'm sure Burger King was pissed but it drove a whole mess of people to their Twitter feed. I guess what they say is true: There's no such thing as bad press.

Ok, I'm heading to bed. Despite being cold outside, it's crazy warm in my apartment, except in my bedroom. So I need to go and cool down and then I can get to bed.

Good Night!

Sarah

This is the only place I like seeing snow!

Ho-Hum

I had just decided to head to bed with my book and read for a bit when I realized that I hadn't blogged yet. So then I got up to go and find where I'd left my reading glasses. After doing that, I realized that I hadn't put away all the leftovers from dinner yet, so I did that. Now I'm back at the computer and am pretty sure I'm ok to blog now. LOL.

I had an interesting dinner tonight. I had a roast cornish hen and as a side, I had roasted brussel sprouts and jerusalem artichokes (aka sun chokes). Everything was pretty good. The hen was bigger than the ones you usually see in the grocery store but smaller than a chicken. Enough for 2 people/2 meals but that's it. The sunchokes didn't really taste like anything at all, so they picked up the flavour of the brussel sprouts that I cooked them with, which made them quite yummy.

I slept in and then spent most of my day cleaning. However, I did manage to lose a good chunk of time on Pinterest. That site is dangerous!!!!!!! I talked to my parents tonight and they told me funny stories of their afternoon as my nephew was over. He and my dad were trying to build Legos. My dad is really out of practice :)

I also sat in the sun for a bit this afternoon, in hope of re-charging my emotional batteries. It helped a bit but over all, it was still a ho-hum kind of day. I only left my apartment to take the recycling out. It was damn cold out there today so I'm not too upset about that fact. It's going down to -29 tonight. I hope those damn ground hogs were right and that we'll get an early spring.

Being a ho-hum kind of day, I got to do a lot of thinking, which was nice. Because it was mostly background thinking. Stuff I've been mulling over for a while. While doing a mundane task like the dishes, my mind was able to ponder things without me focusing 100% on them and I only really became aware of what I was thinking about when a revelation or solution popped up. I needed that. Granted, a lot of it just generated more things to think about, but that's ok. I'm feeling positive about my thoughts at the moment. I might just have a plan forming. And yes, me actually knowing what I'm doing for a change is a very scary notion. Most of the time I just make it up as I go along and pretend I know what the hell I'm doing.

But right now, all my mind is telling me to do is finish reading the chapter I'm on in my book and then go to bed. I don't have tomorrow off so getting up is going to be a bit of a pain in the ass. I need to check the bus schedule too... Sigh.

Good Night!

Sarah

One of my most favourite photos that I've ever taken

200th Blog

Today has not been one of my better days. Emotionally, February always sucks. It's been dark for 4 months now so my SADs is at its worst, 75% of my family have birthdays in February and I'm not there to celebrate any of them and right now, work has me stressed out. This week was bad. It took an amazing amount of effort to actually get out of bed and convince myself to face the day and get into work. But I made it through and other than being more sarcastic than normal, I don't think anyone at work noticed that anything was up.

As a result, I was really looking forward to a day out today with a friend, hoping to take in a movie so I could laugh and escape for a bit and get out of my own head. But that didn't happen. I was bailed on, again, and reminded why it is that I have such a hard time trusting people and the stuff that tell me. I keep a lot to myself. I very rarely admit it when I'm feeling this low and I almost never reach out to anyone when I am. But I tried taking the risk this time, doing that. Admitting that I didn't want to be alone and probably shouldn't be alone....and it blew up in my face.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I don't trust people. Why I don't open up to people, even those closest to me. Because at the end of the day, no matter how many times those around you promise to be there for you, promise to help you, promise that you can count of them, you're still alone. And the only person you can be 100% sure of and count on 100% of the time is yourself. I'd been lulled into a false sense of security as of late. I guess this was life's way of reminding me of that. That and the fact that I don't like burdening others with my problems. I figure everyone has problems so why I should I try to burden someone else with mine? I don't mind it when others do that to me, because it simply gives me a chance to focus on something/someone else and I can give my worries a rest for a while. What can I say? I love escapism.

The worst part? This isn't the first time this person has done it to me. If it had been, I might have been ok. But as it was, this issue has been bugging me for a long time and in true Sarah fashion, rather than address it sooner, I let it go and fester and a final straw came along and *BOOM*, I went off. I remember my mom warning me about "fair weather friends" when I was younger. You know, people who are only your friends when they feel like it or when you're of use to them, or when they don't have a current boyfriend? Yeah, it's that kind of situation. Except in this case it's a "when I'm alone/bored and my husband isn't here" kind of friend. There's a lot more I'd like to say about that situation but I'll bite my tongue. It's not my place to say and my opinions weren't asked for, so they shall not be offered.

All I'm going to say is that I'll NEVER change who I am for anyone nor will I ever let a man/my husband dictate my life to me. And if that means staying single for the rest of my life, so be it. I will never settle.

So, then I was faced with a fun old catch 22. All I wanted to do was throw myself onto my bed and spend the rest of the day sleeping/crying on and off. But that's not a healthy option. It just feeds my depression and makes it worse. So option 2 was to go out and get some fresh air and sunshine into my system, which meant being around laughing, happy people, which I really did not want to be around. Ironically, after the events of the morning, I simply wanted to be alone. Being a good girl and learning from my mistakes, I sucked it up, got dressed, slapped on some make up, did my hair and headed out. I'm not a child and I know how to take care of myself. Not that I have much choice. If I don't do it, there's no one else to! Besides, it's not like I enjoy feeling like this and I know I need to be pro-active to get out of the funks when they come along.

My destination was Confederation Park for Winterlude. As I feared, the park was crowed with people and it was damn cold. Those lying bastards at Environment Canada said it would be -6 today. Yeah, right. Anyhow, I wandered around the park and got in line to view the ice sculptures. I growled at the little brats that ran into me and nearly threw a snowball at the young couple sucking face by the garbage can, but other than that, I made it through without causing any great harm too. Even managed to use the Port-O-Potty without freezing my ass to the seat (but it was close). I got some lunch and treated myself to some maple taffy on a stick (one of my most favourite things in the world) and then I headed to the mall so that the feeling would return to my left foot, right hand and my face. After checking out a few places in the mall, I headed for the market.

Mmmm, maple taffy.

By this point, I was feeling better. Being outside in the sun and the air was helping, as I knew it would. The crowds were annoying me less. All good signs. I stopped at the butcher and got some of my favourite sausages and a stuffed hen for dinner tomorrow night. I got one of my favourite cheeses and grabbed some veggies from a very cool organic type market shop. I traded text messages with my buddy Xtinktor while waiting for the bus and we had a laugh making fun of the Leaf's fans. All was good until I got home and turned on my computer.

Despite telling said person "leave me the fuck alone" they couldn't leave well enough alone and had emailed again when I was out. Well there went any salvation of my mood. Kind of impressive how someone can ruin your day twice in the span of 8 hours. But I took the high road this time. I simply hit "delete" and the went onto Facebook and distracted myself with some farming. If only real life farming was that simple and easy.

I had a nice phone chat with a good friend this evening and a few good laughs. I know what brought on the call and I'm not really impressed by the catalyst, but it was great chatting with her none the less and I'm happy that she called. We've been emailing between baby naps and long days of work and sometimes it's hard to find the time to sit down and write out everything that you want to say.

After that, I realized it was kind of late and decided to re-heat my leftovers for dinner. I watched tv and played on the computer but I don't actually recall much of what I was watching. Online I was checking out some cool plant ideas and cool planters. Some of the stuff out there is very innovative! My dad called to rub in the fact that Toronto beat Ottawa and to update me on my parents' night out with my 2 great aunts and my great uncle. I'm glad that they all had a fun time. It stuff like that that I miss the most. Thankfully, the two calls helped make me feel a bit better, so this evening has been pretty good.

So now here I am, writing my 200th blog. Sorry it couldn't be a more upbeat one, but that's life. I really should get to bed. Despite getting to sleep in, even after Michelle texted me and woke me up!, I'm kind of sleepy. Being emotionally drained does that. I've got a whole laundry list of stuff I need to take care of tomorrow, including laundry, so sleep is a good plan. Tomorrow's another day and hopefully I'll be feeling ever better still tomorrow.

200 blogs. Wow. I can't believe that I'm still doing this. I can't believe how much it's helped me. I can't believe what a big part of my life it's become. I started it late last July because I love to write and I wanted to do something everyday that I love and as a way of getting the thoughts out of my head so I could sleep at night or relax when reading/watching tv. What an awesome experiment this turned out to be. Now if I could only think up a good story line for a book....LOL.

Good Night!

Sarah

My favourite ice sculpture - they're mermaids.

Paper lantern tunnel

Skating on the Rideau Canal

Dragons

I'm feeling a little old tonight. I remember looking forward to Friday nights. Looking forward to going out to catch a double feature at the movies and not caring that the second movie would end just a little before midnight. Or heading out to the bar after 9. Or just staying up late watching tv or talking or whatever other shenanigans that came our way. Now the biggest thing about Friday nights is the excitement I get knowing that I can sleep in tomorrow. Frig, I know senior citizens who have more exciting lives than I do.Sigh.

It was a long day at work today and a very busy one. Upside was that the day flew by. Downside is that my poor desk once again looks like a tornado hit it. Next week I'm covering for one of our finance admins so I have a bunch of finance stuff I HAVE TO take care of on Monday morning. Here's hoping I don't screw it up too badly.

I watched "How To Train Your Dragon" tonight (See? Told you I have a thrilling life). I've never actually seen it before. I quite enjoyed it. It's a cute little movie and I loved Toothless the Dragon. Adorable. I'm usually not a big fan of animated movies but there are some really good ones out there.

In case anyone is counting, this is blog #199. Hot damn eh? The next blog I do will be my 200th one. I know I'm pretty damn impressed by that. I've been blogging for just over 6 months now and have more than 6000 page views. I honestly can't believe that anyone would want to read my mostly pointless ramblings. Apparently I entertain some people. Who knew? Certainly not me. I guess I'm going to have to sit and think up something really awesome for my next blog. Something really special.

But for now, I'm going to sleep on it. Yes, I'm a single 30 something and I'm going to bed at 10:23pm on a Friday night. And yes, I'm going to bed alone :p

Good Night!

Sarah

It's not a dragon, but it's close!

Happy Red Day

Work was crazy. We made over 200 bags of candy to sell for our candy grams. Thankfully I had some help. I'm sick of seeing those damn bags though. LOL. Everyone loved them though. It was great seeing the smiles  on everyone's faces when we delivered the candy grams. In addition to this, we had a bake sale. It wasn't as successful as others we've done but we still sold almost everything.

Somewhere in between all of those things, work was done. And there was a lot of it. We're very busy bees :)

My Valentine's Day was pretty good. I got a very sweet card from my parents, candy from my co-workers and I bought myself a dozen yellow roses. They're beautiful. And my slice of cheesecake was great!!

I got to have lunch with a friend from high school today too. It was fun seeing him again. It's funny how people can pop up in your life again. Usually I don't appreciate it when people re-appear. In this case, I think I'm good with it. I like helping people out when I can.

After a late night of baking cupcakes, I'm very sleepy so this blog is going to be a short one. My bed is calling to me and I can't wait to climb in. I'm uber happy that tomorrow is Friday.

I wish all of you a world of love.

Good Night!

Sarah

St. Valentine's Day

Tomorrow is St. Valentine's Day. A day dedicated to love and romance all thanks to a Christian who was martyred way back when. There are numerous stories but the most popular one is said that this particular man, who later became a saint, performed marriages for soldiers who happened to be forbidden to marry and he healed the daughter of one of his captures. The whole notion of romance being linked to St. Valentine's Day doesn't really crop up until the somewhere around the middle ages / 15th Century.

Anyhow, I happen to be single. This means that I'm socially obligated to hate Valentine's Day. But I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I don't hate it. In face, I love it!!

I have tried to hate it before. Gotten all sad and lonely, but that had more to do with depression than anything. Truthfully, I think it's a fun day. Yes, I agree that you should tell the people that you love that you love them every day but this is the one day for OVER THE TOP kind of love and romance and just plain cheezy silliness. I love cinnamon hearts (got a funny story about a friend who sent her bf a bunch of cinnamon hearts one year..only to discover he hated them...LOL) and I love the goofy, cheezy stuffed bears and my god, do I love the flowers. I mean it. I love flowers. Real ones of course. People at work try to bribe me all the time for supplies or info and they never succeed. Now if they showed up with a bunch of beautiful gerber daisies...that might get them somewhere. I'm a sucker for flowers. I buy them for myself all the time just because I love having them around, and if I were to wait for a man to buy me some.... LOL. I'm pretty sure that a man has given me flowers only 3-4 times in my life and that includes my dad giving me 16 pink roses on my 16th birthday. I love the little kids Valentine's Day cards that they fill out and make paper bag envelopes for. I all just makes me smile.

So every year, I treat myself to something for Valentine's Day. This year, I got my hair cut. It's only been 10 months since the last time I had it cut! Oops. I had nearly 4 inches taken off and it feels amazing. I feel amazing. Hell, I even shaved my legs tonight!! Still need to do my nails though.... And I baked cupcakes. But those are for work. We're having a bake sale tomorrow and we're selling Candy Grams too. I spent an hour along with 2 co-workers stuffing bags full of candy. I'm sick of looking at the candy already.

I do have a Valentine's Day tradition. I rent/watch a movie where lots of stuff get blown up (so usually a Die Hard or Lethal Weapon movie), order Chinese Food and have a slice of cheesecake for dessert. This year, the violent movie will be replaced with a new episode of The Big Bang Theory, the Chinese food will be replaced with pasta (watching my wallet and waistline) but I'm still having the cheesecake... if I remember to take it out of the freezer.

I do admit that Valentine's Day is one of those days when it does kind of suck to be single. And don't give me that old line about not really celebrating it or it not mattering much. I've never got to celebrate Valentine's Day with someone special. Murphy's Law I guess. I tend to break up with guys before it and not meet new ones until after it. Even if you've been married for 50 years, chances are you've had a least one special Valentine's Day. I haven't. So don't feed me lines until I've had my chance to experience one with someone special first. There are some things in this world that I'd like to find out for myself. This is one of those things. And I'll get there, eventually.  But until then, I shall treat myself and keep laughing at the cheezy, romantic gestures.

After all, All We Need Is Love :)

Good Night!

Sarah

Let's Talk - in support of Mental Health

Seeing as today is Bell's "Let's Talk" day, a day to support Mental Health, I decided that would be exactly what I'd do.

I have a mental health issue. I've had one for nearly 14 years.

I was in my third and final year of University and I was miserable. I'd lost interest in all my favourite hobbies, my diet was all over the place, I was crazy tired all the time yet I couldn't sleep, I had no energy and I cried all the time. So I went to see a doctor on campus. He said that it sounded like depression and prescribed me an anti-depressant and scheduled me for a follow up appointment. What? Me? Depressed?? Not possible. I had nothing to be sad about. Nope, he had to be wrong. But he wasn't. I really didn't like that first drugs. Yes, my mood improved but it felt fake. And the side effects were awful. He put me on a different one and things got better. This one seemed to work a bit better. No advice, no assistance other than "take the meds". So I did. After a few months of feeling good, he took me off the drugs and away I went, thinking I was all better.

Boy was I wrong. The darkness and the demons came back. Slowly, so I didn't really notice, but they came back. And they brought friends. I had terrible mood swings and I was looking for happiness in all the wrong places. I would spend an entire afternoon or evening, just sitting on my bed or on the floor in the living room, looking at the wall, tears running down my face. Not eating, not sleeping, not talking to anyone. The scariest part? The part that I've never told anyone, ever - was that I used to compose suicide notes in my head. I'd try and try and try to find a way to justify taking my own life. I tried so hard to think up a way to explain to my family and friends why I wanted to leave them and how much better off they'd be without me... That was 11 years ago. And it hurts so much to remember that. To remember what I was thinking and feeling then. As long as I live, I will never forget that darkness. It's a part of my forever and it reminds me of how strong I am and how far I've come.

Obviously, I never gave into those thoughts or feelings. In fact, I actually told someone what I was feeling and their response was "Get help or I'm calling someone and getting it for you". A very unlikely source with a shocking response to me. I promised to get help. Through chance or happenstance, I saw an ad in the paper looking for participants for a new anti-depressant drug study being conducted by the Royal Ottawa Hospital. I signed up. The invited me in for an evaluation. I under went a psychiatric exam which concluded that I was not crazy (Just like Sheldon, I've been tested and I'm sane!!!!!!!!) and the doctor told me that I was clinically depressed. And I started the study. After about 3 weeks, it was clear that I was on the placebo. The doctor gave me the chance to quit the study and get treatment but I toughed it out for the duration so that my results would count. After the study was over, the doctor took the time to talk to me and based on my previous experiences and such, recommended an anti-depressant and I started taking it.

Once again, I ran into a side effects issue but this time, I talked to him about it. Apparently the ones I had were very common and he prescribed me a 2nd med to take along with the first. The combo seemed to work and the side effects left. So then he decided to try the 2nd drug on its own and by golly, that was the magic trick. I felt like myself again. No artificial high. No side effects. Just me. For the first time in 5 years, I felt like my old self. I can't tell you how good that felt. I was on the medication much longer this time and after a year, the doctor decided it was time to go off of it. I was terrified. I still vividly remember what happened the last time. But my fears were for nought. The demons stayed away...for a while. When the did return, it was only in the winter and the doctor told me that it was seasonal depression. He said that he could give me medication but with seasonal, you're depressed for such a shorter period of time that medication is hard to work with, unless the depression is sever. What he gave me instead was advice and tools to cope and be able to manage the seasonal depression.

And that's what I've done ever since. I've gotten much better at coping and dealing and I've picked up some great tips along the way. I read all the new research and studies that come out and pick up advice there. I still have dark days. I still have demons. But they are far and few between. And they are no where as bad as they once were. I'm smart enough and brave enough now to know that should they ever come back that badly, I know where to turn for help and I won't hesitate to do it.

 I understand it now. I know that my dark is so dark only because the light in me is so bright. Shadows are caused by the light and when the light dims, the shadows get bigger. And that's ok. I don't have to be happy every single day, every single moment. I'm allowed be sad. I'm allowed to tell my friends that I don't want to go out because I need a "me" day. I'm allowed to be sarcastic with my co-workers from time to time. LOL. I'm allowed to think and feel and be emotional. I'm allowed to be myself. The good, even better and great days all out number the bad ones. The happy out number the sad. And so long as they continue to do so, I know I'm all good. Without darkness, there can't be light, because if all we had was light, we'd never know how awesome it truly is.

Mental health is very important. Just like a doctor who fixes a broken leg or treats you for the flu, mental issues can be treated and cured. Stop being so afraid. Talk to a friend. Talk to a doctor. Get help, it's out there. Just don't ever give. I promise that I never will.



Thanks for listening.

Good Night!

Sarah

A Song and Silence

I have a song stuck in my head. It's been in there off and on since the Grammy's last night. Thankfully, it's a pretty decent song so I can't complain too much about it. It's "I Will Wait" by Mumford and Sons:

.

Now normally, this isn't my usual type of much. But something about this song is just so captivating. And fun. Maybe I like it so much because I now that someone is out there doing that for me....just as I am for them.

Work was different today. Quite literally. We expanded into our new space and for the 6th time since I started working here, I moved desks. The new one is much bigger and more open, but it's also a lot more quiet. And I have to admit, I really, really, REALLY missed hearing and seeing my co-workers today. I'm so used to having a constant background of chatter, typing, phones ringing, people stopping to ask me questions, laughter..I'm sure I'll get used to it and my new desk will grow on me, but for today, it royally sucked.

Here's hoping that tomorrow is a better day.

Good Night

Sarah

The World Is Nuts

Well I've certainly had a long and busy day, which is slightly surprising since it's Saturday :)

I got to sleep in, which was awesome. I had breakfast and then got my butt in gear and was off and running. I'm kind of impressed with myself. I managed to get 3 loads of laundry done. Pretty much all of the dishes done. I keep finding stray spoons in odd places. And then I stand there and think "How the hell did that get there?". I dunno. I cleaned the shower (after a run to Walmart because I was out of my Scrubbing Bubbles), did a little online shopping (bras for $10!!) and then made dinner. Actually, I think the shopping was before the shower but whatever.

Tonight I relaxed and watched a movie while surfing Pinterest and getting opinions on beer from my Facebook friends (for a recipe I'm making tomorrow. Stay tuned!). It was a good day all around.

Then I turned on the news. I'm more or less convinced that the whole world is going nuts. We've got Charlie Sheen posting a video asking a fugitive former police officer to call him, Egypt banning YouTube for a month thanks to a video that caused rioting a few months back and protesters in Montreal (again) lighting off a flare gun inside a building. Those crack pot survivalist groups that want to wander off and live theirs lives off the grid in the middle of a forest might actually have the right idea. Maybe not the armed to the teeth part but the running away from the world part. It's nutty out there.

Something a little "odd" happened to me today, twice. You know when you're in a room or your office or something and someone walks in? You didn't necessarily see or hear them come in but you know that they're there? You can sense them? Well that happened to me twice today. Except no one was there. I was in the kitchen both times it happened too. Perhaps one of my loved ones wanted to have dinner with me? Maybe I was just hearing the neighbours next door and reacting to them without being conscious of it. Who knows. Either way, it didn't creep me out and it was kind of nice thinking that I had company.

And now I'm thinking that it's a good idea to go to bed. Which is currently covered with a large assortment of laundry and I'm going to have to clean that off before I can get into bed. I probably should have done that sooner. Oh well :)

Good Night!

Sarah

Snow on my balcony this morning.

It's Called Winter In Canada People!!

Welcome to winter ladies and gentlemen.

So the weather was a wee bit on the crazy side today. About 25-35cms of cold, white, blowing sideways crazy. But I still prefer this to the freezing rain. I lucked out with my buses today and didn't have to wait long going to work or coming home from work. They buses were running so late that they were almost on time. Just the drivers were different :) Ottawa is still under a snowfall warning. We'll probably see another 3 or so hours of it before it tapers off and the skies clear. We're in for one beautiful weekend though. The sunshine after the storm.

I don't understand the whole brouhaha about this storm. While it's being billed as the biggest one in 4 years, this is Canada. It's winter. This is what happens. It shouldn't come as a great surprise to anyone. It happens every year. And yeah, it's been snowing for 24 hours straight and yes, it was damn windy. It still isn't anything unexpected. It's not like a level 5 hurricane blew through or anything. And it's no where near as destructive as the ice storm was so many moons ago. I made sure I had on my warm winter boots, my warm coat, mittens, a scarf and my warm fleece hood. I walked slowly and watched where I was going. It's how we deal. It's a snow storm people, not the end of the world. The east coast is going to get it much worse than we did.

And a special thanks goes out to my buddy Cam for calling me and telling me how warm and sunny it is in Calgary today. I'll return the favour in May when the mountain throw a snow storm at you guys and we're +12 and sunny :) Hope you found Jen!

Other than having to go out in the storm 4 times today, it was a good day at work. The day flew by and I'm very tired. My friggin' sinuses are pissing me off and it's getting very annoying. If things aren't better by Monday, I think I'm going to have to go and see my doctor. This morning I couldn't wear my glasses because they were pressing on my right sinus, which was causing pressure, which lead to pain and then it lead to my nose dripping like a tap. And my eye watering. I haven't worn eye make up in a week!!

I am very much looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. I have a whole mess of house work to catch up on. Sounds like a thrilling Saturday for me.

I think it's time for bed. I know, I'm such a party animal!!

Good Night!

Sarah

This was 5 years ago but you get the idea.

Feminism And Hypocrisy On A Bus

After a rather long day at work, I got on a crowed bus and headed home. Near me on the bus were 3 girls who'd just gotten out of class from one of our city's fine post secondary establishments. All 3 are in some sort of Women's Studies program and the 3 young ladies were talking about feminism.

Now this isn't quite the hot button topic it once was, say back in the 50s-70s. But it can still ruffle some feathers. There were actually talking about the connotations that the word "feminism" stirs up and how it shouldn't be viewed as a negative thing. It's not so radical anymore. It's more about equality of the sexes and so forth. I was kind of impressed with them until...

They started to talk about whether or not they considered themselves feminists and then started to think about the other women in their program and who might be a feminist. And that's when it happened. One of these girls says "I think *insert name here* is. She totally looks like one."

What the fuck? Congratulations. Your comment just threw feminism back 30 years. How does someone "look" like a feminist?? And the whole fact that you're commenting and suggesting that, based on looks, another female can be identified as something erases any support you have for feminism. By making that wonderful, stereotypical comment, you just proved yourself a hypocrite. Part of the feminist ideals is that we support all women and I'm pretty sure that stereotyping one and other isn't the way to do that. It's like calling a woman in a tight top and short skirt a ho or slut. It really doesn't do much to improve the image that society has of women. We get labelled as gossipy, back stabbing, cat-fighting bitches and making comments like that kind of backs up that idea. Well the gossipy part at least.

I just shook my head, turned on my iPod and drowned them out for the rest of the ride.

Do I think of myself as a feminist? No. But that doesn't mean that I don't pay attention to women's issues or rights. Every time the government brings up the subject of abortion laws, my blood boils a bit. When I see news reports saying that even in this modern day, men still earn more than women when doing the same job, I get angry and frustrated. I vote in each and every election because I know that a very brave group of women fought for my right to do so 94 years ago. I kind of boggles my mind to think that when my great-grandmother was born, women weren't allowed to vote. Heck, even when my maternal grandmother was born, women couldn't vote. And so many women take that for granted now a days. It's a bit of a hot button issue for me.

So yes, I follow the issues and I do my research and I use my democratic right to vote as my voice sometimes, but I don't think I'm a feminist. And I try my best not to be a hypocrite either.

Good Night!

Sarah

Part of a statue on Parliament Hill, dedicated to the women who fought for our right to vote.

I'm A History Geek

This stupid sinus thing is more stubborn than I am. Grrrr. I just want to feel like myself again. Maybe I'll be able to re-coop this weekend. I have so much house work to do too.

Tonight I opted to watch stuff on Netflix rather than clean up. I think I might have gotten hooked on "Pretty Little Liars". I watched the first 2 episodes and they were pretty awesome. I really don't need yet another show to distract me from all the other stuff that I really "should" be doing. Like cleaning and exercising.

Those who know me well know that I'm a bit of a history geek. I love it. It fascinates the hell out of me. I firmly believe that we can't fully know where we're going if we don't know where we've been. Sometimes I think I missed my calling in life. I should have been a historian or an archaeologist. Anyhow, there was a very cool news story that came out on Monday. A team of archaeologists in England found a skeleton last year and on Monday announced that they knew who it was: King Richard III. Most of what people know of him is fiction, told by William Shakespeare in his play, Richard III. In the play, Richard killed his nephews to ensure that he'd get the throne. In real life, Richard met his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field, ending the War of the Roses. Henry the VII would then become King, ushering in the rule of the Tudors.

The part of this story that I find most amazing is that it was the DNA of a Canadian man who was used to confirm that the skeleton was really King Richard. Genealogists were able to determine that this man was a direct descendant of King Richard's sister, Ann of York. How friggin' cool is that???

I think it would be a blast to find out that I was related to a King who sat on the throne of England 500 years ago. History is so cool. There are all kinds of mysteries like this that are yet to be solved. Today's technology is helping history to come alive again. And in the process, helping to preserve it too.

So now that I've gotten my history geek on for the evening, it's time for bed.

Good Night!

Sarah

A little piece of my own Genealogy

And I'm Back...Sort Of

I haven't blogged the last couple of nights because I've been sick and am battling a sinus something or other. I was winning until this evening. My right sinus, having grown jealous of the left one causing issues all week, decided it was its turn to cause problems. Which it did on my bus ride home. And most of this evening. Pain. Then dripping. Then more pain. I haven't taken any medication for it today but I foresee some being taken before bed tonight.

I've been a trooper and made it to work every day. I thought about calling in sick today but I was actually feeling pretty good this morning. It wasn't until late afternoon that my sinuses re-grouped and attacked. Stupid sinuses.

Today is the 5th of February and I just realized that two of the 3 calendars that I have in my apartment are still on January. Oops.  I should do something about that. I think I'm hiding from the month. February is insane for me. It's a short month but there are 9 birthdays in February and only 2 of them fall on the same day. This includes the bdays of my step niece and nephew, my brother, my grandma and most importantly of all, my mom. WTF? Inane I tell ya. And so far I've only bought a gift for my niece. And I'm late sending a bday card to my great uncle. His bday was Jan 30th. I'm pretty sure there's something called "St. Valentine's Day" somewhere in that mix as well. Fun times.

Today's catch phrase at work was "Read The Email". It was used by 2 separate people to address questions from two other people in separate incidents. I love it when someone takes the time to send out an email and then no one bothers to read it (or doesn't read it all the way through) and then wastes someone else's time asking questions that have already been answered in the email.  The result is usually several co-workers silently dying of laughter while listening to the exasperated email sending trying to tell the question asker to go and read the *&^%$#@ email.

My lungs are attempting a revolt so I think it's time to go and get ready for bed and kill the revolt with a little cough syrup and sinus meds before hitting the hay.

Good Night!

Sarah

I can't wait for Spring!!

Sick :(

Call my mom, I'm sick :( That doesn't usually work as she's usually the one who's sick, I look after her, go home and then come down with whatever she had. At Christmas, we both got sick at the same time and then we had to look after my dad when he got sick. Amy Farrah Fowler even had Sheldon to look after her and rub vapo rub on her chest. It's not fair I tell ya.

This really sucks as it's the 2nd time I've been since in the last 6 weeks. Same issue too: Sinus cold. Or at least a cold that starts in my sinuses. I went for well over a year without getting sick and now it's happened twice in 6 weeks. That's not good.

I did manage to make it out shopping with Steph today. I was ok in the morning but by early afternoon, I was a zombie. On several occasions Steph has to ask if I was still with her. After she dropped me off, I promptly put all my grocery type items in the fridge/freezer, changed into some jammies and crawled into bed where I had a lovely 3 hour nap. Napping is a tell tale sign that I'm not feeling well. I do not nap. I'm not capable of napping. If I lay down and fall asleep, I'm out for hours. None of this 20-30 minute nonsense.

I used my nasal rinse, I've had a nice hot soak in the tub with some lavender epsom salts and I'm about to make myself a cup of Sleepy Time tea with some honey in it. Then I'll pop a couple of the night-time cold meds and head to bed. Hopefully that will knock me out for a full 8 hours or more. I really don't foresee myself doing much of anything tomorrow, which sucks. I have a large pile of laundry and a nice collection of dishes that require my attention. I supposed getting better is more important than house work.

Here's hoping that this is short lived and doesn't move to my chest and I'm all better soon. Next week at work is going to be a busy one, so I have 1 week to be back to 100%.

Time to sleep!

Good Night!

Sarah

Stupid Sinuses

Some days I feel like I'm living a real life game of Tetris. All these pieces come at me and I need to figure out where to fit them all in. Today was one of those days. Except I was literally trying to fit pieces in, actually it was people. Musical chairs...without the music :) It's an interesting predicament went you have more people than chairs. And it's a good thing that I like puzzles.

My day went well until around 2pm when my left sinus got all plugged up. I've felt like crap since. I really hope that I'm not coming down with another sinus cold. I just got over one in late December. With how wacky the weather's been, I wouldn't be surprised if I am getting sick.

Not much on my mind tonight as I'm very sleepy. I'm still trying to recover from my late night on Wednesday. The older you get, the harder it is to recover. I think I'll head to bed early tonight and hope that I feel better tomorrow.

Good Night!

Sarah

I can't wait for winter to be over!