So Sleepy.

My eyes are betraying me. They keep trying to close all by themselves. I had plans on surfing Pinterest and watching episode 3 of "Under the Dome" and maybe doing a little reading. As it stands, the words I'm typing are looking a little blurry and yes, I'm wearing my reading glasses and no, there's nothing wrong with them. The dude upstairs sounds like he's rollerskating across his living room right now. WTF??

I slept like crap last night. For starters, I wasn't tired so it took a while to fall asleep. Then I got all itchy and that didn't help with the falling to sleep bit. I think I passed out somewhere between 11:30 and midnight. Woke up a little after 1. Fell back to sleep. Work up around 3:15 and decided to get up and pee. Fell back to sleep. Woke up at 4:55am and had to pee again, and then couldn't fall back to sleep. I was wide awake. Dammit. Finally fell back to sleep around 5:30am and then my alarm went off at 6. It made for a very long day and it the reason why I'm so sleepy now. Despite my fatigue, I still managed to water the plants on my balcony, make my lunch and made a big bowl of fruit salad.

Work was good but long. I put on my iPod and focused on getting some finance stuff out of the way this morning. I managed to get almost all of it done. I have some more paper work to deal with tomorrow too and hopefully that will get the bulk of it out of the way for the week.

Nothing overly philosophical on my mind tonight. I think brain may had nodded off already. No sign of the moth either.

Keep cool.

Good Night!

Sarah

Anyone wanna go for a swim?

More Weather Venting and A Bus Caused Power Outage

I made it through the wilderness. Somehow I made it through. Didn't know how lost I was....because the damn snow/ice pellets were in my eyes. It was definitely a brutal day. Those bloody little ice pellets really hurt when they're coming down. The wind whipping them around didn't help. The funny part is that the ice pellets actually were providing some traction on the sidewalk. There'd been some freezing rain earlier. Thankfully that had stopped before I left for work. It's zero and raining right now. Our "Winter Storm" warning ended at 10:18, so about a 20 minutes ago. We still might see some freezing drizzle overnight and possibly some more tomorrow morning but it sounds like we're in for just normal rain and above zero temps tomorrow. My apartment is still damn cold though. It's kind of like being at my parent's house. My poor nose has been cold since I got home from work. Looks like we have a rainy week ahead of us too.

Work was good today. I was kept busy doing research on requests and getting some late finance things done. It was relatively quiet in the office as a lot of people had taken the day off and even more didn't make it in today due to the weather. We had an office "coffee break" which involved getting coffee and doughnuts for the staff. I think everyone liked that. We even managed to get some for the evening shift and they were happy. Unlike parts back home, we lucked out and didn't lose power at all today. The storm caused power outages back in Southern Ontario. Only one part of Ottawa lost power and that was thanks to a city transit bus. It slide off the road and took out some power poles in the process. Our buses are talented like that. And it's the second time one of those particular style of bus has slide off the road this winter. I think the City of Ottawa needs to "Winter Road Test" any new style/type of bus that they're thinking of purchasing. That was they'll know that they can survive our winter weather.

I'm in for a quiet weekend. First up on the agenda is a frequent item: sleeping in. Once that is accomplished, I really have to get my ass in gear and finish getting this place cleaned up. I need to re-organize the clutter and then sweep/swiffer/wash the floors. I also need to wash the towels and bedding. Lots of fun, right? Curling up with my book or a good movie might be in the cards too. I think some Chinese food might be as well. I'll have to see what I feel like tomorrow. Here's hoping that the productivity fairy comes to visit and I can get a lot accomplished. My bedroom is pretty much a lost cause (always is) so I'm not going to worry about that right now. Besides, no one but me sees it!!

Since my eyes seem to be closing on their own, I think it's time to log off and go burrow down under my blankets and see if I can get warm. Which will probably backfire and I'll wake up at 3am, hot and sweaty. LOL.

Good Night!

Sarah

Snow be gone!!

Sunny Saturday and Sleep

Since I haven't blogged for the last couple of nights, I thought I should probably do so. Frankly, I've been too damn tired to Blog. After the no sleep Wednesday, Thursday night wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be. Despite being crazy tired, it still took a long time to fall asleep. Thankfully, last night was a bit better. I'm still waking up a lot in the night but I got to sleep in this morning, so that was very nice. I also had a nice can of Pear Cider this evening so I'm hoping that helps with the sleep too.

It was a beautifully sunny day here today. Too bad it was breezy and that breeze was stupid cold. Stupid weather. We're in for flurries this evening and freezing rain early in the morning then it's going to warm up and the freezing rain will change to normal rain. Looking at the week's forecast, it appears that spring might just be here. Heck, it's supposed to be 20C with rain on Wednesday. Go figure. Weather people are predicting that we'll have a long, hot and humid summer. I'm ok with the long and hot part. The humid part I could do without.

My day was pretty good. I went downtown and cashed in my coupon for a free bottle of perfume that I got for Christmas. The lady said I could have the small bottle for free, or pay $11 and get the big bottle. So, 35ml for free or 60ml for $11. Big bottle it was. I ventured into the market and went to my favourite butcher shop. They had some lamb souvlaki skewers, so I decided to have a Greek night. I bought them and I made some Greek rice and made a Greek Vinaigrette for the Greek salad I made. It was all very good. I also picked up a bottle of my new favourite wine and a couple cans of the Pear Cider I discovered last month. I ran a couple more errands and hit up the grocery store before returning home to bask in the sun coming in my windows.

I started to watch Madagascar 3 this evening. It made me laugh so that's good. I'll watch the other half in the morning.

Since tomorrow is looking like it's going to be a dreary day, I'm going to use it to clean my kitchen. I'm going to make a pasta dish for dinner. It's on the cover of the April issue of Food Network magazine. Looks easy enough. They have a truly kick-ass cake in this issue. It looks just like a flower pot with flowers in it! So cool.

My friend Michelle and I head to Montreal in 13 short days. I'm excited and not excited all at the same time. I have a lot of house work to do before she gets here and work is crazy busy right now so I have to make sure everything's all organized before I leave. That being said, I'm only actually missing 3 days of work and the break will be really good for me and I really am looking forward to seeing Michelle again. It's been a very, very, very long time since I've spent this much time with her, so I'm slightly apprehensive about it too. I'm sure everything will be great. I just hope that Mother Nature co-operates too and gives us some nice weather while we're there. The long range forecast isn't looking very good. But it's still a good ways out.

WTF?? It's 11:30pm and it sounds like someone is walking around upstairs with a peg leg. I swear, I have some of the most disrespectful and inconsiderate neighbours ever. Earlier, I got to listen to the couple down the hall yelling at one and other, again. It's pretty much a weekly event. It's one of the things I miss about my apartment in Calgary. Other than the dude that used to watch porn with the volume up and the naked people who lived in the building beside me, the neighbours were pretty awesome and very quiet.

Anyhow, I can hear my bed calling, so I think it's time to hit the hay and see if I can not only fall asleep quickly, but stay asleep until morning.

Good Night!

Sarah

Can't Sleep

I wasn't going to blog tonight because I was too tired. But seeing as I've been tossing and turning for the last hour and a half, I said "fuck it", got up and now I'm blogging.

This is ridiculous. I've been sleeping like shit since the weekend. Usually I'm pretty good at falling asleep, I just can't seem to stay asleep but lately, I can't fall asleep either. And for the past 4 nights, when I am asleep, I keep having really strange dreams. It's getting to be very annoying.

I've been tired all day. I fought off the urge to have a nap earlier because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. I guess that was a mute point. I went to be at 10pm. It's now 11:35pm and I'm wide awake. I feel like crap and I have to be up at 6am. And if the sleeping issues weren't bad enough, I keep waking up between 5-5:30am and then fall back to sleep just in time for my alarm to go off. WTF??

I nearly drifted off to sleep around 10:45 but then a cop car or ambulance went down the road with its siren blaring (really?? There's so much traffic on the road at this hour that you need your siren) and the damn thing woke me up and I can't been able to get back to sleep since. I can't get comfortable in bed either. My pillows are too flat or my arm starts to fall asleep. And I can't get the temperature right either. It's too cold with the window open (even just a crack) and it's too hot with the window closed. And to add to my misery, I have a song stuck in my head and it won't leave.

I seriously don't know what to do. This is very frustrating. I feel exhausted and tired. But as soon as I lay down, BOOM! Wide awake. My room is nice and dark, I have the fan on for background noise, I don't have any electronics in the room (no tv or computer) so there's nothing to distract me. I didn't have any caffeine this afternoon/evening, so that's not it. I don't really have anything on my mind that's bugging me, so that's not the issue either. Maybe I should raid my bathroom cupboard and see if I have any Gravol. That shit usually makes me pretty groggy. With my luck, it would just make things worse. It's be groggy but unable to fall asleep and then when I did sleep, it would be for such a short time that it would still be in my system when it's time to wake up.

Sigh. I don't know what to do. I guess I'll just go back to bed and stare at the ceiling for a few more hours.

Good Night!

Sarah

My brother seems to be able to fall sleep anywhere. Wish I could!

4 Day Weekend!!

It's finally here. I didn't think it would come, but it's finally here. The coveted 4 day weekend. Now for those of you who are about to start bitching that you don't get 4 days off...Family Day back in February wasn't a day off for me so this makes us even.

The morning was pretty calm. The Easter egg hunt went well and I'm pretty sure all the eggs were found. I also ended up with a good deal of chocolate - gifts from my co-workers. That's kind of nice since the Easter Bunny usually doesn't come to my place anymore. I don't think he can hop up all those stairs.

5 of us went out for a nice lunch for Xtina's birthday (which is tomorrow). The food was good and so was the company. We pretty much just venting about work all lunch. It was very cathartic. Best part? We had lots of time to eat and we didn't have to rush to get out of there. B and I were on time for French class. In fact, we were in the lobby waiting for the elevator when our teacher came strolling in. Once again, there were only 3 of us in class. Which kind of makes for a fun class. We get more practice this way and more individual attention, which is really great. Class flew by. We all got tripped up on the last 2 exercises of the day. We had a map and the directions were read out (in French of course) and we had to say which location they instructions took you too. LOL. What a gong show that was. I kept getting my droit and gauche mixed up (right and left). It was fun though.

I got home at a decent hour and was able to drop all my stuff off at home and then head out to Walmart and the grocery store. I stocked up on a few things for the weekend and then came home and made my Tofu Udon Noodle Soup for dinner. It was really good and I have a lot left over for lunch tomorrow.

Apparently B and I missed some fun while we were in class. Somewhere between 3:15 and 3:45, the computer systems went down.  Our evening peeps were doing a bunch of manual things with the mail and such until it came back online. That really had to suck. I bet everyone was hoping to be sent home early. I can't say I blame them. An early start to a long weekend would be great.

Speaking of early starts, I think I might opt to get an early start on sleeping. I woke up at 4:30 this morning and could not get back to sleep. It was so friggin' annoying! I think I feel asleep about 15 minutes before my alarm went off. I was not a happy camper. But I get to sleep in tomorrow so that's great. I probably should spend tomorrow cleaning, since my friend Michelle arrives in 20 days :)

Good Night!

Sarah

Signs of spring!!

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!

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!

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.

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!

Time Flies

Wow. What a crazy day. It was insane. It was one of those days where you try to do a million things at once but don't seem to accomplish any of them? Yeah, a day like that. I did get some paper work out of the way, so that was good. I didn't have lunch at all, unless you count the 4 cookies (they were small!) that I bought at the bake sale lunch. The sale went well, so I'm happy about that.

I was crazy tired by the time I left work. So I picked up some Sushi and Tom Yum Soup and headed for home. It was sooo good. Since then, I've just be kicking back, relaxing and finishing up my Christmas cards. I'm hoping to get everything in the mail tomorrow.

I can't believe how fast things are going. Christmas is coming so quickly and there seem like so many things to do. I just have to hang in there until 5:55am on Friday. At that point, I'll be on the train, heading home to see my family and I'll get to relax for a few days. The idea is pure bliss.

Watching the news tonight was so sad I nearly had to shut it off.  I could drive myself mad trying to figure out the hows and whys of such a tragedy. And so close to Christmas too.

Anyhow, I should turn in. I have a bit of a busy weekend ahead of me, though I'm hoping to work in some relaxation time on Sunday :)

Good Night!

Sarah

Just Another Ordinary Day

I have absolutely no idea what to write about tonight. I'm very sleepy and no ideas are coming to me. It was a rather normal day with nothing interesting happening. I went to work, went to the grocery store, came home, made dinner, watched Castle and Bones and now I'm sitting here, writing this. No strange people on the bus tonight. Nothing overly crazy at work, except for a minor advent calendar freak out and then having to explain to a couple people what exactly an advent calendar is. Pretty normal, typical day.

I jut realized that if you look around my apartment, you'd have no idea idea that Christmas is only 22 days away. I no decorations what so ever up. Not even a window cling. I keep seeing all kind of pictures on Facebook that friends and family have posted of their brightly colours lights and their well decorated Christmas trees and I've got nothing. And more to the point, I have no desire to put any of it up. Why bother? I'm the only one who'll see it. I suppose I should at least put my wreath on the door. I made it myself and I think it's rather pretty.

The Christmas spirit seems rather elusive this year. Maybe I'll find some Thursday night. It's the kick off to "Christmas Lights Across Canada" on Parliament Hill. It's usually a pretty magical event.

Right now, I need sleep more than anything. I slept like crap last night. Not quite as bad a friend of mine who was up all night with a sick baby (who I hope is all better really soon!), but bad enough. It took me nearly 2 hours to actually fall into a good sleep and then I kept waking up every 2 hours and then I woke up a half hour before my alarm was set to go off. That sucked royally!

So I'm going to log off and head to bed early now. I don't think my nail polish is 100% dry yet but I'll take the risk of getting sheet patterns in it.

Good Night!

Sarah

Sharbot Lake, 2010

Christmas Card in November??!!

It has been a very long day. I spent 11 hours at work today, so that's probably why I it was so long. LOL. I didn't get a chance to escape for a break either. Oh well. I was going to work OT tomorrow but it got moved to Sunday so now I have my weekend back. Not sure what I'm going to do with it. The Help Santa Toy Parade is tomorrow but I'm not sure if I feel like going downtown to watch it.

Meh. I'm tried so nothing seems like a good idea other than sleep :)

Going back to last night's blog for a minute, about rushing the season. I got home from work tonight and waiting in my mailbox was a card from my crazy-ass friend M. She lives up north and I'm pretty damn sure the cold has frozen her brain. The card was a CHRISTMAS CARD!!! She's nuts. I'm going to hide it under my couch until at least December 1st. It was a nice card though.

Sleep time for Sarah.

Good Night!

Sarah

The Great Run-A-Round

I'm feeling a bit better tonight. I still am tired and don't feel like eating but I had a nice hot bath with some lavender scented epsom salts and I used a warming mud mask on my face and now I feel a little more relaxed. Last night I woke up just before 1:30am, just after 4am (might have been the little earth quake that happened in Quebec), again at 4:40am and then at 5:55am. Friggin' annoying.

Today was a little better of a day. The morning sucked and seemed to drag on but I got some stuff done that needed to be done so that was good. Worked on getting yesterday's discovered mistake fixed and then got into a nice pissing contest with our ITHelpDesk, which I won.

We have 2 Help Desks: one for the special program we use and one for everything else. We had a problem with a user account. So the designated coordinator contacted the program helpdesk (like he's supposed to). They got back to him and said that it wasn't at their end, but provided instructions on who to contact to get help, as the issue lay with the group who looks after the accounts.

Here's the fun part. You can not communicate directly with the account group. You have to contact them via the main helpdesk.

So, the coordinator asked me to contact the main help desk since I'm the account contact person. No problems. The instructions from the program helpdesk said to contact the main helpdesk and ask that the issue be forwarded to the account people. So that's what I did. I provided all the necessary info on the user etc.., included a note saying that the program helpdesk told me to contact the main help desk and sent off the request. I get a canned response email back from the main helpdesk telling me to contact the program help desk. Sigh.

I email the helpdesk back and pointed out that in my request, I said that we'd already spoken to the program helpdesk and that they told us to contact the main helpdesk. A few minutes later, I get an email back from the main help desk saying to read the instructions and contact the program help desk.

You've got to be fucking kidding me. So...I hunt down the email train between the program coordinator and the program helpdesk, find the one that instructed us to contact the main help desk, and I copied and pasted it into my email back to the main help desk.

And I didn't hear from them again. But what a waste of time. It took the coordinator half a day to get a response telling us that we need to contact someone else. Then I wasted an hour emailing with the idiot at the help desk. And guess what? The user's problem still isn't resolved.

Which reminds me, I never got my help ticket # for that request. Guess I get to harass them again in the morning.

I'm not an idiot. I know how to read and follow instructions. Unless they're in french. Then I'm fucked.

Speaking of which, I have French in the morning. Dammit. At least I remembered to bring my books home tonight. I probably should get to bed. I need to be able to pay attention in class tomorrow morning.

Good Night.

Sarah