an update on my boring, boring life...

i have a headache, but i'm going to plow ahead and do this massive post anyway. i've been meaning to post all day long so damn the headache! i'm going for it.

- it's been a long few weeks and admittedly, i've been quiet because of that. i'm tired of being sick and tired, but that's really nothing new. i'm going in for a whole new round of doctors and testing and therapy. i'm on stronger pain medication and have decided to just take it everyday instead of trying to soldier through the pain without the meds and end up in more pain and much less functional. i'm trying to stay very positive and trying to do what needs to be done to keep myself functional. i have to keep up my spirits. mark (my pt who is a specialist in nerve problems) said that nerve conditions get worse when you're depressed and the best way to keep yourself feeling better physically is to deal with the emotional aspect headon and not let things fester. i've been lucky because the people closest to me have been incredibly supportive and haven't said (at least to my face *g*) that i need to stop whining. and really, i do try not to complain too much. chris and my mom hear the most of it and the two of them are just so wonderful. i wouldn't be doing half as well without them.

- i have my yearly review sometime within the next two weeks or so. i can't imagine i'll get a bad review at all though the writeup for running out my ppl time will be brought up. i really hope it doesn't effect the raise too much. honestly, i just want to get over $14.00. i'm worth a whole lot more than that and i'm hoping beyond hope that someone out there notices that and finally bumps me up to a reasonable hourly rate for the amount of work i do. it's scary that i've been there for three years though. i'm kicking myself for not putting money in the retirement plan. at chop, you're vested after five years. i've been fulltime for a year and a half and part-time with benefits for another six months before that. ah well. you live and learn. i never thought i would be there for a year, much less three. *sighs* it's not a terrible job and while it frustrates the hell out of me, i'm scared of losing my health benefits right now. i have never been so scared of not having health benefits before in my life.

- laura, co-worker who got married in july and was at my b'day party so some of you know her, is pregnant! she's happy as can be and we're all kicking ourselves for not setting up the betting pool like we talked about. i knew she was going to be pregnant before she was married a month and dammit, i was right! she's eight and a half weeks along which meant she was pregnant after only being married for about two weeks. ah well. i'm seriously happy for her and am very excited for her and rich. they're going to be great parents. hell, they already are with rich's son ahmad. but this makes two pregnant gals on my shift and everyone is looking at me with shifty eyes and joking that it's totally my turn to get knocked up and i'm all 'noooo! i'm not getting knocked up!' i don't think they believe me though even if i am telling the truth! i'm not getting knocked up anytime soon! [crosses fingers] besides, my sister is totally handling being the knocked up one in my family. she's taken the pressure of all us grandkids to produce great-grandkids for my grandmom. um. oh, btw my sister is pregnant.

- speaking of the grandmom, it was her 80th birthday on friday. my aunt and mom threw her a party that turned out really well. it was a lot of her family, and a bunch of her friends including her very funny and very gay piano teacher. i really think she enjoyed herself, but it's not always easy to tell with her. she's a cranky, cranky woman who can make even the happiest moments crappy. however, there was some very yummy baked brie courtesy of my mom and some really yummy sea bass courtesy of my aunt, so it was a good food night. plus i had a new type of lambic - apple. mmm...apple lambic. i really liked that one a lot.

- we hung out with mike, jen, and a bunch of their friends on saturday night. it was seriously a lot of fun. very chill, relaxing evening with fun people. the owner of the place we were at, carl, lives at 2nd and south basically and his place overlooks south street. he's got a great balcony where we lazed about and grilled food and stared at people and threw tomatoes into a paper cup and watched the police try and pull over some guy. they succeeded, but it was really damn funny because it was a huge van plus two bike cops. *g* then we went inside and watched grandma's boy. holy fucking funny movie, batman. we're going to have to own that one. great fun.

- i did a lot today, but didn't wear myself out. i did a lot of laundry, ran a few errands (mmm...coffee), and went to my doctor's office to pick up my stack of referrals and my fmla paperwork. yay! he filled it out and made up a diagnosis because he's totally sick of this as well. he hates that he can't get me better and isn't willing to take chances anymore. thank *god*. then i made chili because i am apparently a goddess at making chili. i happened to mention last week that i was thinking of making chili since we've been having cooler weather and laura was all 'yays! bring me some.' and then she proceeded to tell jen how good my chili is and how she always asks me to bring her some if i've made it so jen was intrigued and asked if she could try some too. and i can't bring chili for the two of them and not bring enough for paul so i have this huge container of chili in the fridge for them. plus a non-beef container of chili for my mom since she was all 'ooh. chili?' when i said i was making chili. and a beef-filled container for dad. and there's still two big containers of chili for myself and chris. i don't fool around when i make chili. hehe. since that's pretty much all that's in my fridge, that's a good thing. *laughs* grocery shopping this weekend since i got paid. yay!

- ( project runway )

- i really need to sell some bpal. i've given a lot of decants away recently, but i need to liquidate (hah!) a lot of my collection. but it's impossible for me to part with the bottles. chrissy came over tonight to sniff the CD line and fell for midnight on the midway (which i totally called!) and wanted to buy it from me. i got all twitchy and asked if she cared if it was in the bottle or not. *laughs* luckily she didn't care and i decanted it into three little bottles and one mini-roller ball so i got to keep the bottle. yay! i'm going to have to stock up on empty 5ml bottles and offer people full bottles but without the lab labels. i'm sure some people will be up for that.

- i'm going to have to sell the incredibly lucious isabella fiore shoes i bought a few weeks ago. they're simply divine and i love them like crazy, but they really don't fit my feet well. chrissy fell for them as well, but will not be buying them. so i guess i have to go with ebay. unless anyone here is looking for a pair of gorgeous pair of platform heels. you can see them here. if you do want them, just let me know. i won't charge more than what it cost me for the shoes including shipping which was $106 total. they are gorgeous and really, really unique.

- i really need to finish gathering stuff for my bpalanon birthday swap. i'm almost done. i just need to order a few things from amazon and pack everything up. yay! i'm having so much fun picking stuff out from my person. i hope she/he enjoys their gift. i know i loved getting my package. :)

- i've read a lot of wonderful fic lately. i'm only going to link a few, but these are really good ones.

In a Castle Deep or a Fortress Strong by geekwriter143. dS, F/K, NC-17. It was written for the getfraserlaid challenge so you know it's got porny moments. ;)

The Comfort of Adversity by kantayra. Smallville/DC-verse, Clark/Lex, NC-17. Long and satisfying read. Features Conner (Kon-El aka Superboy) and a very, very well-written Mercy. Good stuff.

Bridges by mmmchelle. SGA, post-McKay and Mrs. Miller. PG. This is one of many fics that came out after that episode, but I *love* this one. It's told from Jeannie's POV, has a *fantastic* Rodney who is really trying and fleshes out Kaleb and Madison so very well. Good stuff.

- and i think i'm done. whee! if you made it to the end, you get a cookie. [hands out cookies]

an update on my boring, boring life...

i have a headache, but i'm going to plow ahead and do this massive post anyway. i've been meaning to post all day long so damn the headache! i'm going for it.

- it's been a long few weeks and admittedly, i've been quiet because of that. i'm tired of being sick and tired, but that's really nothing new. i'm going in for a whole new round of doctors and testing and therapy. i'm on stronger pain medication and have decided to just take it everyday instead of trying to soldier through the pain without the meds and end up in more pain and much less functional. i'm trying to stay very positive and trying to do what needs to be done to keep myself functional. i have to keep up my spirits. mark (my pt who is a specialist in nerve problems) said that nerve conditions get worse when you're depressed and the best way to keep yourself feeling better physically is to deal with the emotional aspect headon and not let things fester. i've been lucky because the people closest to me have been incredibly supportive and haven't said (at least to my face *g*) that i need to stop whining. and really, i do try not to complain too much. chris and my mom hear the most of it and the two of them are just so wonderful. i wouldn't be doing half as well without them.

- i have my yearly review sometime within the next two weeks or so. i can't imagine i'll get a bad review at all though the writeup for running out my ppl time will be brought up. i really hope it doesn't effect the raise too much. honestly, i just want to get over $14.00. i'm worth a whole lot more than that and i'm hoping beyond hope that someone out there notices that and finally bumps me up to a reasonable hourly rate for the amount of work i do. it's scary that i've been there for three years though. i'm kicking myself for not putting money in the retirement plan. at chop, you're vested after five years. i've been fulltime for a year and a half and part-time with benefits for another six months before that. ah well. you live and learn. i never thought i would be there for a year, much less three. *sighs* it's not a terrible job and while it frustrates the hell out of me, i'm scared of losing my health benefits right now. i have never been so scared of not having health benefits before in my life.

- laura, co-worker who got married in july and was at my b'day party so some of you know her, is pregnant! she's happy as can be and we're all kicking ourselves for not setting up the betting pool like we talked about. i knew she was going to be pregnant before she was married a month and dammit, i was right! she's eight and a half weeks along which meant she was pregnant after only being married for about two weeks. ah well. i'm seriously happy for her and am very excited for her and rich. they're going to be great parents. hell, they already are with rich's son ahmad. but this makes two pregnant gals on my shift and everyone is looking at me with shifty eyes and joking that it's totally my turn to get knocked up and i'm all 'noooo! i'm not getting knocked up!' i don't think they believe me though even if i am telling the truth! i'm not getting knocked up anytime soon! [crosses fingers] besides, my sister is totally handling being the knocked up one in my family. she's taken the pressure of all us grandkids to produce great-grandkids for my grandmom. um. oh, btw my sister is pregnant.

- speaking of the grandmom, it was her 80th birthday on friday. my aunt and mom threw her a party that turned out really well. it was a lot of her family, and a bunch of her friends including her very funny and very gay piano teacher. i really think she enjoyed herself, but it's not always easy to tell with her. she's a cranky, cranky woman who can make even the happiest moments crappy. however, there was some very yummy baked brie courtesy of my mom and some really yummy sea bass courtesy of my aunt, so it was a good food night. plus i had a new type of lambic - apple. mmm...apple lambic. i really liked that one a lot.

- we hung out with mike, jen, and a bunch of their friends on saturday night. it was seriously a lot of fun. very chill, relaxing evening with fun people. the owner of the place we were at, carl, lives at 2nd and south basically and his place overlooks south street. he's got a great balcony where we lazed about and grilled food and stared at people and threw tomatoes into a paper cup and watched the police try and pull over some guy. they succeeded, but it was really damn funny because it was a huge van plus two bike cops. *g* then we went inside and watched grandma's boy. holy fucking funny movie, batman. we're going to have to own that one. great fun.

- i did a lot today, but didn't wear myself out. i did a lot of laundry, ran a few errands (mmm...coffee), and went to my doctor's office to pick up my stack of referrals and my fmla paperwork. yay! he filled it out and made up a diagnosis because he's totally sick of this as well. he hates that he can't get me better and isn't willing to take chances anymore. thank *god*. then i made chili because i am apparently a goddess at making chili. i happened to mention last week that i was thinking of making chili since we've been having cooler weather and laura was all 'yays! bring me some.' and then she proceeded to tell jen how good my chili is and how she always asks me to bring her some if i've made it so jen was intrigued and asked if she could try some too. and i can't bring chili for the two of them and not bring enough for paul so i have this huge container of chili in the fridge for them. plus a non-beef container of chili for my mom since she was all 'ooh. chili?' when i said i was making chili. and a beef-filled container for dad. and there's still two big containers of chili for myself and chris. i don't fool around when i make chili. hehe. since that's pretty much all that's in my fridge, that's a good thing. *laughs* grocery shopping this weekend since i got paid. yay!

- ( project runway )

- i really need to sell some bpal. i've given a lot of decants away recently, but i need to liquidate (hah!) a lot of my collection. but it's impossible for me to part with the bottles. chrissy came over tonight to sniff the CD line and fell for midnight on the midway (which i totally called!) and wanted to buy it from me. i got all twitchy and asked if she cared if it was in the bottle or not. *laughs* luckily she didn't care and i decanted it into three little bottles and one mini-roller ball so i got to keep the bottle. yay! i'm going to have to stock up on empty 5ml bottles and offer people full bottles but without the lab labels. i'm sure some people will be up for that.

- i'm going to have to sell the incredibly lucious isabella fiore shoes i bought a few weeks ago. they're simply divine and i love them like crazy, but they really don't fit my feet well. chrissy fell for them as well, but will not be buying them. so i guess i have to go with ebay. unless anyone here is looking for a pair of gorgeous pair of platform heels. you can see them here. if you do want them, just let me know. i won't charge more than what it cost me for the shoes including shipping which was $106 total. they are gorgeous and really, really unique.

- i really need to finish gathering stuff for my bpalanon birthday swap. i'm almost done. i just need to order a few things from amazon and pack everything up. yay! i'm having so much fun picking stuff out from my person. i hope she/he enjoys their gift. i know i loved getting my package. :)

- i've read a lot of wonderful fic lately. i'm only going to link a few, but these are really good ones.

In a Castle Deep or a Fortress Strong by geekwriter143. dS, F/K, NC-17. It was written for the getfraserlaid challenge so you know it's got porny moments. ;)

The Comfort of Adversity by kantayra. Smallville/DC-verse, Clark/Lex, NC-17. Long and satisfying read. Features Conner (Kon-El aka Superboy) and a very, very well-written Mercy. Good stuff.

Bridges by mmmchelle. SGA, post-McKay and Mrs. Miller. PG. This is one of many fics that came out after that episode, but I *love* this one. It's told from Jeannie's POV, has a *fantastic* Rodney who is really trying and fleshes out Kaleb and Madison so very well. Good stuff.

- and i think i'm done. whee! if you made it to the end, you get a cookie. [hands out cookies]