A Trip Down Memory Lane

I'll be honest... I meant to have this up 2 days ago! But I've been busier than I thought I would be this week. Yikes.

With all these projects going on at my house...which sometimes seems to create more projects...it's tough (for me anyway) not to feel overwhelmed and sometimes discouraged by all of it. Sometimes I even wonder what the heck I was thinking buying a house...this house...all by myself. Yes, I have lots of awesome help from family and friends, for which I am eternally grateful. But still. I'm just callin' it like it is.

And then I look back at where I was one year ago and I can't help but smile and think... gosh...progress...

My living room, one year ago (almost to the date!)

I liked to call it Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

What a surprise that floor had been! To read the full horror story go here.

Check back soon and I'll show you the other changes to my living room! What a difference a year makes!

The Blind Leading the Blind

Somehow, I'm still not entirely sure how, I became the adviser of a just-forming student organization. There's a whole process to become "recognized" as an official student organization. I know very little about that process on this campus. And it seems that the students know only slightly more than me. As an adviser...shouldn't I be... advising?

The fact that we'd like to become a chapter of a national organization both helps and complicates things a little, I think. On one hand, the national organization has a lot of templates and examples to use in getting established. On the other hand, it seems as though one or two of their steps conflicts slightly with our process. Oy.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to get a big, collaborative program organized and like most of the other programs I've run recently, things are more complicated than they need to be. BUT we're nearly set. I hope. And thank goodness I have a faculty member helping coordinate things...yet she's only been here a few months longer than me.

The blind leading the blind. Yup, that describes my life right now.

To say that I'm feeling overwhelmed at this moment in time is an understatement.

Payback is a B*#@h

My sister, Boo, recently told me to get back to blogging more often. So I searched and searched for inspiration. And since I recently posted about Lenny, I realized there was one more small part to that story I would like to share now.

When we left off with the story, I had just taken (and passed) my final in the class Lenny and I shared. My deep, abiding love crush on Lenny continued just as strong as before. The next semester started and I didn't have any more classes with Lenny. :-(

Meanwhile, Boo was in high school and happened to have a new student teacher. Lo and behold, her student teacher turned out to be one of Lenny's teammates. Apparently, he was also kinda cute. My sister sort of hinted at talking to her student teacher about Lenny and maybe mentioning that she had an older sister, blah blah. I forbade her to speak to the student teacher about any it- in my mind, the student teacher would naturally tell Lenny all of this and the two of them would share a good laugh over it. I vowed I would make her regret it if she did. I even explained how mortified I would be if she did something like that.

She didn't listen to any of what I said.

She called me one day and excitedly told me that she mentioned something to her student teacher about me and said something about Lenny. I never really did get the details. Boo conveniently "forgot" exactly what she said to the student teacher.

I was furious. And yet calm and focused on my plan for revenge. It just popped into my head, fully-formed. So the next night, while Boo was gone, I went to my parents' house, marched into Boo's room, scooped all of her bras and undies out of her drawer (she had a LOT too) and threw them into the bathtub where I doused them with water. Then I put all of them into our big chest freezer in the garage.

I smiled a grinchy smile, thinking about how surprised she'd be the next morning when she went to get dressed. I could imagine her looking high and low for her undies and finally finding them frozen solid in the freezer.

Ah, payback. To be fair, I did warn her.

In the end, I think someone told Boo where her undies were. They weren't frozen, just a bit frosty. She was mad. Even today, she says it was "mean." Payback sucks, what can I say?

And I sort of got yelled at for putting wet stuff in the freezer like that.

But I would do it again, darn it. I would do it again.

How I'm Feeling...

I was reading last night and this little piece of dialogue really resonated with me. I thought about it again this morning standing at the kitchen sink, and again during lunch today. It's from North of Hope, and these two characters are driving long distance and are nearly home again:

"Please, Tom, I'm exhausted."
"That's why I'm telling you. Talk to you, keep you awake."
"I'm not sleepy, just exhausted."

That's me. I'm exhausted. I'm not tired or sleepy, but I am definitely exhausted. I guess I never really thought about the difference, but it fits for me.

How are you feeling?

I'm Baaaaack!

Yes, it's true. I'm alive and FINALLY posting something. It's funny how many times family & friends mentioned that I hadn't posted anything for a while. I know...I was the one NOT posting. :-)

I started a post last Monday, but didn't get to finish it, partly because my rage had passed (which was partly what I was going to write about), and partly because I was just so darn busy at work. Last Tuesday afternoon/evening I started feeling sick- sneezing constantly and really HARD, tired, headache-y, etc. I took the afternoon off on Wednesday thinking I could rest and feel a bit better to make it through the week (I had a really jam-packed schedule). I slept all afternoon on Wednesday, but stubbornly dragged myself to work on Thursday feeling completely crappy. My coworkers chastised me and told me to go home, but I just couldn't bail on my scheduled appointments that day. However, before the end of the day, I had our office manager cancel everything for Friday- I just couldn't do it. If I were sitting alone all day in a cubicle somewhere it would be one thing, but I sit with people all day long. I look at them and they look at me. And let me tell you, I looked awful. And every time a sneeze built up (for like 2 minutes), my eyes would water and twitch, I'd tense up, and I'd get the strangest looks...and really, who wants that when they're sick? So I literally laid around all weekend. I didn't do laundry, I barely cooked, and I took about 9 naps. Today I'm actually at work and feeling better than I have since last week, so that's progress.

Other than that... I honestly think I have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), only I'm more rageful than depressed. Winter back in Wisconsin has been an adjustment for me, to say the least. I mean, I usually want to stay in with a warm blanket and a good book, go to bed super-early, and eat lots of hot soup in the winter, but this has been a bit different for me. I decided I had SAD last Monday when I went to jump in the car and leave for work later than I wanted to and had just enough frost on my car windshield to require a scraping. I was so mad! At frost! I was mad about the bitterly cold temperatures and the slightly slippery intersections! I was just sick of winter. Maybe my disorder is more aptly named RAW (Rageful About Winter). Hmm... perhaps.

So, imagine my reaction to read this on weather.com: 

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN GREEN BAY HAS ISSUED A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW... WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT TONIGHT TO MIDNIGHT CST TUESDAY NIGHT.

* SCATTERED LIGHT SNOW OR FLURRIES ARE EXPECTED TODAY... BUT THE STEADY SNOW WILL NOT ARRIVE UNTIL LATER TONIGHT. IT WILL CONTINUE THROUGH TUESDAY EVENING.

* 3 TO 7 INCHES ARE LIKELY BEFORE THE SNOW DIMINISHES.

* SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW WILL MAKE FOR SLIPPERY ROADS AND POOR VISIBILITIES.

Super.

In all reality, I'm just so happy to be less sick that I'm not thinking much about this piece-of-crap snow storm. Or maybe I'm in complete denial.

And how are YOU this fine Monday morning?

Today I Feel...

Tired. It's Monday. Lately it seems as though I've been trying to prolong the inevitable (i.e., Monday) by staying up a little later on Sunday night. Bad idea.

Hopeful. It's finals week and the end is truly in sight...we all (students, staff, etc.) need a break. I'm looking forward to time off for the holidays!

Worried. As if 14 inches of snow wasn't enough...we now have freezing drizzle and a little more snow. It's supposed to stop fairly early, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the drive home is OK since the temp is going to drop.

Ooof!

I didn't know what exactly to title this post, but I wanted something to capture that feeling and sound similar to the wind being knocked out of you... or kinda like catching a hard-thrown football, right in the stomach, "Ooooff!" But once I catch one football, here comes another.

Yeah, that's kind of how I feel at the moment. And I've been so tired, I've been in bed before 9 the past 2 nights, so I haven't had much time to post anything. I'm stealing a few lunch-hour moments right now, just to write to let you know I am still alive... just trying to juggle a lot at the moment. I'll have some posts later this week....

Stay tuned.

Call Me When It's Friday

Today, I Feel...

...slightly productive. I've gotten some odds and ends taken care of at work, though I still have some other things to knock off my list.

...excited to shop! I'm going to check out Pier 1 and Joann Fabrics after work today. Hopefully I find a deal or two.

...happy about the AWESOME deal I got on licensing exam study materials! Thank you very much, ebay.

...a little nervous about students returning to campus. Is the summer really gone already?? Where did that time go?

...a little sleepy. I'd better take a break and maybe I should change my online radio station from relaxing spa-like music to something more upbeat or I can forget about being more productive!!

How do you feel today?

(By the way, I based today's format off of a post I read on a cool blog, Girl v. The World. Check it out!)