Thanks

for the thoughts and advice the other day. I appreciate it.

And thanks for not thinking I'm totally crazy. I just needed to think out loud a little bit.

I'll keep you posted.

A Rose By Any Other Name...

So I'm a little torn ... and kind of ticked off... about a couple of things and I thought it might help to blog it out. (hehe, OK saying "blog it out" makes me chuckle for some reason. Am I just weird that way?)

Ahem. Anyway.

I started writing a post and it felt like I was just ranting in an unproductive way. And I don't like that. So here's the gist of it...


I've basically been offered a title change. It's a title I'm quite familiar with. It's actually funny how it seems to follow me around: Assistant Director.

The title doesn't come with more money (which I kind of need and will hopefully get once I have license in hand- another source of ranting, don't get me started). The title might come with more responsibility, which would mostly be on paper (literally the classification in HR would change on paper)... but I mean, I've been doing the stuff already ..it would just be official. It would mean I would supervise people. It would probably carry some credibility with parents and maybe students. It might pave the way for some changes down the road.

But honestly the title seems to be quite overused around here. I'm not sure it means much to many people. Even though I'm already doing most of the stuff now...this would make it official and might create more administrative nonsense for me...which might take away from direct client care. And the supervisory responsibilities might be a bit much if I'm expected to keep my schedule the same.

So I'm not sure what to do. I need your thoughtful input. On the one hand...if not much changes, why wouldn't I take the title. I guess it looks pretty. On the other hand, is having additional responsibility worth it? Am I missing something? Am I just being weird and overthinking this whole thing?

Part of the complication is that I recently learned I kind of got screwed on my salary when I got here (thanks to one person who is no longer working here)...and that's what I'm trying not to rant about and y'all don't really need to know all the drama and sordid history. But yeah, I'm a bit bitter about that.

Thoughts??

Company's Coming

The fridge is stocked.

Supplies are aren't in the house....yet. (Yup, you guessed it...more house projects.)

Floors are swept, beds are made, towels are folded. Lawn is mowed and pooper-scooped.

And Montey is on the lookout. He can't wait to see his cousin Vinnie.

Oh, What a Night

So last night I did go to the "social gathering"...thankfully I had talked to one of my new quasi-friends (we're on the way to becoming friends, but it's still quite new) and she and a couple others I knew would be going to this thing. I was relieved. See, when my Crush and I spoke and I told him K-Dog couldn't come...he made some statement (I am still praying it was a total joke) about hitting on women and he hoped I'd have someone to talk to without K-Dog there. Sigh. Again, it was hard to know if he was really joking or not.

When I got there with my friend/coworker T (who happened to be in town) and saw all my new quasi-friends, I knew things would probably be fine...at least I had them and we could always leave. But it was weird, not gonna lie. We all felt like we were crashing the whole thing.

Finally my Crush came down to my end of this giant string of tables and was chatting with me for a while. He ended up sitting next to me when they brought his food out, so we got to talk more...and there was a lot of bickering and back-and-forth between us. And as usual, he ended up being quite sassy and basically insulted me a number of times, called me a few names, and told some other people that if I murdered him, they should grab his phone and call his sister. I told him that with so many people witnessing his sassy behavior toward me, I would be able to get off on Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity. Later he did tell me that he would never tease me and call me names like that in front of certain people/audiences, which has been my experience even with the joking and teasing we've done up to this point. I spent most of the night next to The Crush...at one point he bought me a drink (T too, but she just wanted water) and later he got a little touchy, but I'm not really sure I should make anything of it at all.

Anyway, T and I stayed with the group (who are clearly pretty tight and hang out often) until after 9:30...I know, so late, right? Hehe. It was for me. And dang it, I'm just pretty proud of myself for going!

Oh and it seemed one of the girls brought some young (under 21) friend with her and according to T, was really pushing her onto The Crush. During the second half of the night he was sitting between the girl and me. I'm really not so sure the girls on his other side appreciated me being there or the fact that I was getting as much attention from him (or the others) as I was getting. Whatever. 

It was very weird seeing him with his friends and acting all goofy and ... loud. He's usually so serious and calm and quiet. But it was good. I've wanted to get to know him outside of work...and honestly a part of that is so I can revise this darn idealized image I've had in my head.

So overall the night was a lot of fun and I met some cool people, had some fun with The Crush. He still wants to come out with K-Dog and I...so I guess we'll if/when that happens. I really hope he doesn't think K-Dog and I get as rowdy and goofy as the group did last night! Because we really aren't rowdy. At. all.

The night ended when they all decided to go to a bar for some karaoke. A couple of the guys wanted me to come and the one who kept calling me "Doc Heidi" all night practically yelled at me to "give a good reason" why I couldn't come out, but I just couldn't do it. I was spent. But was flattered they wanted me to come out and happy to have gotten to meet these people.

Oh...The Crush was chatting up some blonde at the bar at that point....I didn't even get to say goodbye. Kinda sucky, but whatever. Who knows, maybe he did that on purpose...

That's that, my friends. For now I'll chalk it up to experience and see what happens (if anything) later.

Gimme a Paper Bag! STAT!

I think I'm so nervous, I actually appear calm right now... like if my hands were shaking, they'd be going so fast they wouldn't appear to be moving at all.

The Crush emailed K-Dog and I to invite us out to a "social gathering" after work. Then basically immediately after we ran into him at lunch. I chatted to get more details (he was being a bit "secretive" with them) but he did say that K-Dog and I were "both [his] dates". I gave him crap about not coming out with us the times I'd invited him before saying he should've just told me he prefers hanging out at "classier" establishments than the "low key" bar we go to. He said it was more about scheduling, then said, "Besides, you're an East sider...I'll be honest, I've got a problem with that. It's like when I was in New York, you don't date someone from another burough."

In case anyone missed it...he said the word date(s) two times.

Kevin can't go. Hence the needing a paper bag. 

And for the record, I wasn't even all weird and red in the face...at least I don't think I was. I could even form sentences. And even though I planned to run approximately100 errands after work and buy some tile (which is really fun on a Thursday night), I didn't blurt out "I'm buying tile" or some other ridiculous thing.

You know what that is don't you? Progress.

This Is What My Life Has Become????

I spent a part of my morning yesterday like this...

...my feet propped up under my desk with ice packs on my shins.

Oh, and let's not forget some of this in the evening...

Yeah. My shins hurt.

I realized...I spend a lot of time thinking about my dang shins. And icing them. And stretching them, strengthening them, and reading about how to strengthenstretchcareforthem.

I blame these guys...

Stay tuned...

Imagine My Surprise

I was working on a few small projects in the yard this weekend and was in and out of my little garage a couple of times. I was moving a few things around when I noticed the craziest thing! These two plants were growing!

Let me back up. Last year when I was looking around for some things to plant in the front yard (which didn't actually happen until recently), I came across some perennial hibiscus plants that were on sale. I snatched a few of them (6? 8?) and had every intention of planting them in the front yard. Well, time went on and I never really got a chance to get them in front, so I ripped out some other plants I hated in the back yard and thought the hibiscus would be lovely there. I planted most of them in a smallish spot and had 2 left over. So, I set them in the garage and barely thought of them since...I figured they were dead since they were in such tiny containers and left there all winter. All. Winter. When I stumbled upon them in the garage, I was floored to see new growth! How the heck did they live in there with no water? Luckily they had light from the one window in the garage...it's like a gardening miracle!

So I potted them in 2 of the biggest pots I have and I'm hoping they make it (the ones I planted in the ground are coming up again, but no flowers yet).

Let me tell you, these hibiscus are HUGE...

See what I mean? That's my hand over a flower last summer!!

They are also beautiful...it will be a surprise to see which colors come up where...

Doesn't this one remind you of a peppermint candy?

So pretty! I can't wait to see what happens.

Tell me...have you had any garden miracles?

Creative Cookin' (Or... That Time I Managed to Botch Up a Tried-and-True Recipe)

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Every once in a while I like to treat myself to a nice breakfast over the weekend. Usually it's Sunday morning, but it can be whenever the mood strikes me. These days it's usually homemade pancakes, though a couple times a year I'll get real crazy and make waffles!

This morning I decided I wanted to get creative and tweak my pancake recipe. I partially thawed a few frozen strawberries and chopped them up. Then I decided to try replacing some of the milk in the recipe with plain vanilla yogurt. I've done this before with things...it's actually quite lovely in your French Toast egg mixture...but I guess I've never done it with pancakes.

I should've known right away to cut back on the milk or increase the flour or something, because adding berries will always add some moisture. Durr. Apparently so will yogurt- more than you think. But I got excited at the sight of the pretty pink batter and eagerly got the first two pancakes going. It smelled really good! When those didn't turn out so well, I figured I should let them cook a bit longer next time...which left me with a pretty dark pancake (in general these pancakes seemed to brown up super fast!). They were just turning out really moist and gooey in the middle. So,  I added a bit more flour to my mixture and tried again. A little better this time, but still not great. After a couple more tries and half-eaten pancakes, I called time-of-death on my pancake project. I wonder if the batter would've made some nice crepes?? Unfortunately, I didn't want crepes, nor did I bother trying.

I gave it my best shot, but overall this little experiment was an epic FAIL. So much for that nice breakfast. I guess next time I will simply look up a recipe on the Google.

Anyone have any good stories about creative cookin' gone horribly wrong?? Or really well?

PS- I was looking around for a cute picture to use for this post and found this adorable apron! How sweet! Too bad I don't sew.

New Workout??

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You guys know I love dogs. I'm a dog person, straight to the core...and proud of it!

So when I read about this new workout modeled after a dog...I couldn't help but laugh out loud. Here it is, taken from this article on the Runner's World website:

"Run Like a Dog
My dog, a shepherd mix named Cooper, doesn't care where we are or what time of day it is, or even what the weather is like. He doesn't know what his resting heart rate is and rarely bothers to wear a watch. He just loves to run. And every time he does, his face and his body telegraph one simple message: This. Is. AWESOME. I'm runningrunningrunningrunning!

The "Run Like a Dog" Workout (Including Warmup and Cooldown) Walk 8 seconds. Trot 4 seconds. Stop. Sniff. Sprint 7 seconds. Freeze. Walk 5 seconds in any direction but forward. Stare 9 seconds. Lunge at rabbit. Double back, walk 3 seconds. Urinate. Repeat six times. Collapse on rug."

What do you think? Ready to tackle a new way to work out? What are you doing these days to get some exercise in??

Seriously, the whole article is pretty good, so go check it out, whether you run or not. I also found myself cracking up at the part about standing still at red lights. Good stuff. :)

All Kinds of Happiness!

So, since I'm trying to get back into the swing of blogging, I figured I'd catch you up on a couple of things...

My Birthday was a couple of weekends ago. Yeah, the big 3-1. I think 31 was a little more difficult for me than turning the big 3-0 last year. Maye I just don't like odd numbers, I don't know. 

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I'll be honest, my Birthday kind of sucked this year. I had to work (I try never to work on my Birthday), which wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that it was new student orientation. And K-Dog was gone. Let's just say there were some parents that apparently didn't care for me much. And they basically fired intense, crazy, accusatory questions at me. And my new Vice President happened to be watching. It turned out fine- the VP and my other colleagues in the room said I handled everything really well and a lot of other parents came up to me later and told me they appreciated what I had to say, my humor, and that I did a great job. A few actually told me they couldn't believe the other parents' behavior. One sweet woman actually leaned across my table (I was at a resource fair at that point) and patted my face and told me I did a really nice job and she felt so bad when the parents were hassling me.

But on the upside...I got some beautiful, cheery flowers and a balloon sent to work from my mom, my friend/coworker took me out for an AMAZING sushi dinner and brought me a Kung Fu Panda cupcake (her son's b-day is the day before mine), I had lots of Facebook messages/texts/emails/phone calls sending love my way, and I even saw The Crush...and he touched me. (But we're not gonna talk about that now.)

Last weekend was my mini-vacay/Birthday re-do weekend. I took a few days off from work and went to visit my brother in the Twin Cities. Have I mentioned how much fun he and I have together? Which is still funny to me, given we used to fight like crazy when we were younger. Anyway, it was nice to get away for awhile and spend some quality time with him. AND.... let me introduce you to LuLu...

Isn't she pretty? My lease was basically up on my Saturn (which I loved so much), so Brother and I went car shopping. Such an adventure. After a little drama with GM screwing me over on trading in my Saturn, I managed to get a lease on this beautiful 2012 Kia Sorento. She's got a bit more room than my Vue did, which is nice, but doesn't feel like a big bulky thing...except when I'm backing up...but I have a camera to help with that...though I'm not used to using it and end up feeling a little seasick backing out of my long driveway. :-/

Can you believe this weekend is my second House-iversary?! I can't. In some ways it feels like a lot longer...but mostly I can't believe I've owned my house for 2 years. Wow. I better get crackin' on these darn projects!

Lastly... I hope you all have an awesome and safe Fourth of July weekend! I hope you all get a chance to relax and have fun!

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