Passing the time...

This is what nerds do in their free time... Now if only Husband would stop cheating.

Thankful...

Thanksgiving, to me, has always been about unlimited mashed potatoes and cheesecake. This year there was no cheesecake so other things had to be considered. It was a busy day and now I'm tired. However, as with most holidays I'm feeling a bit nostalgic.

-Family is a complicated thing. I don't mean that in a negative way. I mostly mean that anytime you put a semi-large group of people in a room things are bound to happen. Distance, time and differences of opinion are always dangerous. Cryptic I know. It doesn't really matter though, above all else... I'm thankful for them.

-I didn't mind working today at the vet clinic. This time last year, working at DTV, I was distressed. I may be tired and worn out but it's a small improvement. I'm thankful to have at least a small portion of my professional life happy.

-I forget sometimes how wonderful my Husband can be. I think I take him for granted. However, when push comes to shove... he's the reason I get through "those" days. You know what I mean...

-The weather has finally turned to fall. It turned dramatically and caught everyone off guard but I'm thankful I can finally use my scars and sweaters.

-It's nice to come home to unbounded happiness. They may be loud and underfoot most of the time but the uncomplicated love they provide melts away the stress. I love the wet noses and barking more then I could ever love a material thing.

With all the chaos in day to day life it's hard to remember all the reasons you should be thankful. I know that lately I've taken a lot of things for granted but when you face how fragile everything really is... it makes you take pause.

The ability to focus on the positives and blur the negatives is something I want to strive for... everyday. Not just today.

Easy come, easy go...

A former co-worker/good friend was involved in a near-fatal car crash early Sunday morning.

Her heart was punctured and she had to have emergency heart surgery.

They lost her twice.

I saw her today at the hospital.

You almost couldn't tell she had been in a car wreck.

Despite the big scar on her chest from the surgery she didn't have a single bruise on her.

I'm so thankful I could cry.

I take that back... I have cried.

The doctors say she should have died.

Only one person in Japan has ever survived her type of accident.

It's been a week... to say the least.

New favorite

Where has this product been my whole life?

Screw V8 and Ensure.

I am so in love it's ridiculous.

Time is on my side...

At least that's what the Rolling Stones sang about, back in the day.

Lately I feel like time has become that famous saying about jello... "It's like trying to nail jello to the wall". Time is elusive and shifting, at least that's how it seems. Maybe it's the lack of time lately. Maybe it's the fact that my mind has shifted into a weird alternate dimension. Either way I feel all out of sorts lately.

I think it started with the time change. That's when I noticed my mind only wanting to function when I'm unable to be near a computer or pen/paper to jot my thoughts down. My inner dialog seems to start at about 5am even though my body is trying desperately to keep sleeping. The dialog continues until about 4pm. By the time I'm home at roughly 6:30pm I feel like a zombie. My mind refuses to recall those witty and funny blog ideas I had been playing with all day.

Time is such an odd thing. Maybe it's all just a matter of relativity. One moment it seems like years have flown by in the blink of an eye and other times the clock never seems to move. I realized today that Husband has been entwined in my life for approximately 1/5 of the happenings. I'm sure as the years progress this fraction will continue to get weirder. I see my relationship with him in terms of inflation as well. To know that a particular meal I get at a certain restaurant has gone up exactly $.55 is bewildering to me. Especially because math has never been my strong subject.

I have this overwhelming urge to throw my watch into a river sometimes. I'm constantly obsessing over it and I hate the control it has over me. When I'm at job #1 I'm watching the clock trying to allot myself enough time to each task to be done in order to move onto job #2... while at job #2 I watch the clock refuse to move fast enough. My watch dictates when I eat and when I shop instead of allowing me the freedom to choose it on my own terms. When I fall asleep with my watch on it ticks inside my head reminding me of all the seconds I'm wasting. Don't even get me started on daylight savings time...

I personally blame the bank for making me obsess over numbers in ways I never thought possible before... I'm bored with being obsessed over numbers and time... it gets me nowhere.

And that's my random thought of the day. Maybe now I can stop obsessing.

Reflections...

"Second Guessing"
Jonny Lang

Second guessin' first impressions
There you go again
Rushing off in all directions
Since I don't know when
All day long you're building walls
You're building walls all day
Putting ceilings on your feelings
When they should fly away

Don't you think it's time you quit it
Don't you think it's time you admit it
Your heart is more worthy of trust
Than the thoughts in your mind that sit there gathering dust

Everything you're looking for
You'll know when it's real
You'll know when you've found it
By the way you feel

Writing down your deepest emotions
With your pen in hand
Your piece of paper flew out the window
You watched it try and land
You felt bad as it flew out of sight
A part of your heart alone in the night
All of a sudden you didn't mind it
When you pictured that lonely stranger that would find it

Everything you're looking for
You'll know when it's real
You'll know when you've found it
By the way you feel

I was cruising along today in-between my many errands when this song came onto the shuffle. I *heart* Mr. Jonny Lang... however, this song has a new found level of meaningfulness to me now. I realize now that this song really fits into why I think many of us blog. I know when I was off rummaging through blogs the other day that even if it's through pain, joy or frustration we're all hoping to find ourselves not so alone in that emotion.

I worked a half day today because of the holiday. I attempted to take advantage of the time and get some stuff done. However, I would almost swear the universe was working against me. If I tried phoning somewhere I couldn't get an answer, if I tried speaking with people regarding things to be done... they seemed completely incompetent. I wonder if the universe was trying to tell me to relax and catch my breath. I'm incapable of doing so though.

Lately I've found myself uninterested in TV. Shows that I normally like watching are now starting to bore me. Granted when it gets dark all I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep. I feel like someone has taken all my energy away.

My digital camera is broken. Well... maybe not broken but not working properly since my b.i.l dropped it on concrete. This makes for a very sad Karen. Growing up with photographers as parents I feel like I can't function without the power to document my every waking moment. Very tragic.

I'm off to bask in the glow of Heroes. One of the few shows I still like... If I don't die of heat stroke in November I will return... one of these days.

Veggie love

Hubby and I wanted to cook dinner.

Dinner is almost always like WWIII in our household.

So I suggest a veggie stir-fry type dinner.

Husband pulls out some chicken legs and strip streak because he's convinced that veggies won't be enough.

Little does he know... he gets full from the veggies before the meat is even done cooking.

Mwahahahaha!

I'll make him a vegetarian one of these days.

The recipe can be found here. We just substituted the eggplant for butternut squash.
The above photo is from the first time we cooked said dinner.

Coping

Coping is a funny thing. It never fails to amaze me the things the human mind is and is not capable of handling. The past few weeks have been what seems like a never ending test of that for me.

When I started at the vet Husband was afraid of two things. My willingness to do the "dirty" work and my ability to handle death. The first is valid because I always make him clean up any bodily fluids left behind by our dogs, and well the second is valid because when I used to watch Emergency Vets on Animal Planet I would sob like a little child anytime an animal died. So far I'm handling both extremely well. So much so that he tells me if we have kids I'm in charge of any "clean ups". I think not. On the second note... I think I'm coming to terms with death. Being in a vet's office makes me more curious then emotional. When they put a 20 y/o cat to sleep the other day I found myself being happy he had lived a happy life and not focusing on the other half of the situation. I'm sure it will be different as time wears on but for now I'm dealing better then he expected.

Not to post a terribly depressing blog but I think dealing with death on an animal level makes dealing with it on the personal level easier. I find myself coming to terms with deaths in my past I had yet to find peace with. It's all very odd.

On the other hand... I'm not coping well with the extremely long hours. I'm working from 7:30am-6:15pm every day. No breaks. I barely get to eat. Tomorrow will be the first full day I've had off in over 2 weeks. I'm ready for it. I sobbed the other day while working at the bank. I couldn't take the pressure anymore. They are trying to arrange for my hours to be cut back down to part-time. They say if nothing else by Dec 1 I should be back to just 20 hrs a week. Blah. I want to quit but I just got my first paycheck from the vet's office and let's just say... it isn't much.

Still no word on Husbands job. The anticipation may kill us.

It's in the 70s and it's November. I'm not coping well with that. I want to sweaters and that's that.

I had fully intended to blog more, maybe later. I'm still exhausted.

iPOD goodness...

According to iTUNES these are my top 25 most played songs. I think my iPOD has become possessed or Husband's iPOD has taken over... See for yourself:

1. Bleed it out - Linkin Park (Wait for it...)
   
2. Hands held high - Linkin Park (It keeps coming...)
   
3. What I've Done - Linkin Park (See...)
   
4. Feelin' Way Too Damn Good - Nickelback (Like them but not this song really...)
   
5. Ain't No Other Man - Christina Aguilera
6. I'm Not Okay (I Promise) - My Chemical Romance (Dislike them with a passion)
   
7. Don't Phunk With My Heart - Black Eyed Peas
8. The Bad Touch - Bloodhound Gang
9. Bad Day - Daniel Powter
10. I Will Buy You a New Life - Everclear
11. Take a Picture - Filter
12. Paralyzer - Finger Eleven
13. All My Life - Foo Fighters
14. Learn to Fly - Foo Fighters
15. Longview - Green Day
16. Basket Case - Green Day
    
17. Cry Me a River - Justin Timberlake
    
18. Somebody Told Me - The Killers
19. I Want You to Want Me - Letters to Cleo
20. Lying from you - Linkin Park (Told you so...)
    
21. In Pieces - Linkin Park (They're everywhere)
    
22. Welcome to the Black Parade - My Chemical Romance (Meh...)
    
23. You Make Me Sick - Pink
24. Du Hast - Rammstein (Hate, hate, hate)
    
25. Pretty Girl (The Way) - Sugarcult

Husband is obsessed with Linkin Park's new CD.

Me? I'm always on shuffle.

Weird day... I have nothing more interesting to say...

Satan, thy form is cat

I met Satan today.
He is an evil hissing and spitting orange cat.

I was going about my business as usual this morning during my shift at the vet clinic.
That's when I met him.
He stares at me and starts growling.
I go to move him to another kennel while I clean his.
That's when he went psycho.
He latched onto my hand and started spinning around knocking all kinds of stuff off the shelves.
You would have thought I was trying to murder him the way he was carrying on.
I was bleeding pretty bad after finally getting him moved.
I bandage myself up, clean out his kennel and then it's time to move him back...

I think I'm being smart, I think I'll just throw a towel over him and he'll relax.
That's when all hell broke loose.
He starts hissing and screaming like angry pissed off cats will do.
I'm running around trying to corner him after he escapes the temporary kennel.
I finally get ahold of him, many scratches and swear words later, and that's when the rest of the staff comes running.
They said it sounded like a war zone back there.

My hand starts to swell and turn purple.
For the rest of my shift, everytime I pass his kennel I make sure to that little f-er exactly what I think of him.
How anyone could ever love that monster is really beyond me.
Cats are evil.
Pure evil.
They are Satan.

Take 2 and call me in the morning...

When I was younger I thrived on pressure and deadlines. I would put things off till the very last minute because I convinced myself that I worked best under pressure. I would even go so far as to make up bogus lists of things that "had to be done" and run around like crazy in order to feel productive. I'm pretty sure I was some form of adrenaline junky. However, in college that lead to my immune system nearly shutting down on me.

In the years following I've become quite the opposite. I've become sedentary and comfortable in routine. I avoid pressure like most people avoid carbs nowadays. Change has become the enemy. Change triggers anxiety in me and the anxiety then throws my immune system into what feels like complete meltdown. This is why I currently feel like doing nothing more then crawling back under my down comforter with some claritin and a bucket of ibuprofen.

For the past couple of days it felt like my right arm had been dislocated. Every time I would try to raise my arm I would practically scream out in pain. I figured I either had to be sleeping on it funny or maybe I had minor injuries from a dog at the vet pulling on the leash too hard. Then there's the issue with my legs feeling like they are strained to their breaking point. I've been hobbling around the house for a few days now and it's very attractive to say the least. Sleeping? Yea... not getting much of that. At least not getting much quality sleep anyway.

This month will most likely tests whatever energy reserves I have left. I will be working every morning at the vet from 7:30-10:30ish. Then I go to the bank from 11-6:15pm. I'm also alternating weekends with the vet and the bank. This means I get one Sunday off every other week. I'm trying not to be irritated with the bank. I know they need me to work because we're very short-staffed but this is getting a little out of hand. Had I known that I would be working full-time at the bank and part-time at the vet I probably wouldn't have gotten myself in the situation to begin with.

When I'm home... I don't feel like doing anything. I'm so worn out that I can barely focus enough to watch TV, let alone check a dozen networking/blogging sites. So if you don't hear from me much this month... it's not that I don't care it's just that I'm so tired.