Snapshots...

-Husband and I actually played rock-paper-scissors the other night in the car to determine who had to pump the gas. I won.

-I always order a Grande Chai Tea Latte when Husband and I go to B&N or Starbucks. It's not a difficult drink to make, you would think anyway. The other night, crazy girl at B&N first made my drink with coffee in it (WTF?!) then just gave me steamed milk. I was too deflated by then to do anything else about it.

-Working for a veterinarian does have it's distinct advantages. One of my kiddos was due for shots and instead of the nearly $200 fee it would have usually cost me for her annuals shots/checkup it cost a whopping $80. I may never leave.

-Monday nights now consist of Husband and I sitting on the couch yelling like crazy while watching American Gladiators. Talk about flashbacks to my childhood mixed with terrifying dreams about how huge they all are now... It's all very fun.

-This weather is really messing with whatever remaining immune system I have left. I don't really understand how we go from 70s to snowing in 24 hours but somehow it happens. I swear I wake up every morning feeling like I was hit by a semi but somehow manage to perk up by mid-afternoon. Either way it's getting old. I'm ready for summer.

-Furniture shopping sucks. You seem to be either hounded by sales people or completely ignored. Husband and I have been out recently and I have to say that customer service is non-existent anymore. It's somewhat unfortunate that I'm left with a few nice pieces of furniture but a very bitter taste in my mouth from the lack of good customer service.

-I'm also addicted to a teeny bopper canadian tv show called Desgrassi. I really need a life.

" If you want to have friends, you must be friendly. If you want to make peace, you must be peaceful. " - Peace Pilgrim

I've been out of it. Both in the virtual and real world sense. It's already December and I can't seem to wrap my mind around that fact. I just feel like lately time has been slipping through my fingers. Thinking back to the beginning of Fall seems like a lifetime ago.

I'm not ready for Christmas. I'm not ready to even contemplate thinking about Christmas. I'm usually the one who demands to know by November 1st what you want for Christmas so I can be done with my shopping by Thanksgiving. I haven't thought about it at all. I smell a last minute scrabble for gifts at this point... Back to my original point though...

Today while I was in the shower I started musing aloud about what I might want when I said something that must have been buried in my subconscious. (yes I do a lot of talking to myself in the shower, shush!) It was something along the lines of, "if you really want to make me happy for Christmas... donate to charity, give a homeless animal a home, do something for the greater good." Sure there are things I would like to have, a lot of things... But a small part of me wonders if I wouldn't save it if my house caught fire do I really need it? Husband and I have a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff that I obsessively wanted at the time but I possibly haven't looked at in years. I feel uneasy about that. Now that I say this my family will finally get around to reading my blogs and I will be left with nothing for Christmas.... I don't know though. I've just been a weird mood lately.

The vet clinic I work for also works in conjunction with a local rescue group. Since I've been there we have had several rescue dogs/cats come through and be adopted out, except one. Tallulah, pictured above, is a super sweet dog who was just a bit misunderstood. I was afraid that her time was running out so I started harassing everyone I knew about her. One night during a casual conversation with my youngest brother-in-law he showed interest. One thing led to another and yesterday he adopted her. Right now she's staying with us until he can get moved but it's going pretty well. I knew despite the fact that she seemed like an insane crack dog up at the vet she would be a wonderful lap dog in the right home. It just goes to show that you can't judge a book by its cover. And despite what you might be saying... I'm fully aware that I have too many dogs as is and instead of adopting them myself I will just bug everyone else I know.

Reflecting back... November was a stressful month to say the very least. I feel so emotionally drained by all that did/didn't happened. I know I'm being cryptic but it would take far too long to explain and you would all be bored by it anyway. I worked myself into a frenzy and it seems like for no good reason. I didn't gain anything from it... I just lost time and an ability to do stuff I really wanted/needed to do. Laundry is overflowing, recycling needs to be separated, floors need to be swept, computer stuff needs to be organized, dogs bathed... it never ends. Maybe it will work itself out this month... I can always hope.

And that's that for now...

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.

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.

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.

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.

Exhaustion...

I'm exhausted. I'm that kind of exhausted in which every fiber of your being feels just worn out. My eyes hurt. My joints hurt. I even feel like my emotional well-being is hurting. I really need a hot bath and a good 3-day nap. I can't even really articulate why I'm so exhausted. The past two weeks feel more like a lifetime then any other two weeks I can remember. My sense of time is completely out of balance. Something could have just happened 5 minutes ago and I'll swear it was months ago. I'm amazed at the amount of things that have transpired in that small amount of time.

My job at the bank has been filled with drama. People are leaving left and right. The management is in complete disarray. I haven't gotten my next months schedule yet for the sheer fact that they aren't sure exactly who will still be working there. This makes starting my 2nd job with the vet a bit more problematic. Lucky for me they are understanding and willing to work with me. I'm actually having to start my 2nd job tomorrow because they had to fire someone today. Should be interesting to see how it all plays out.

In other news... my allergies are back with a vengeance. I think I'm on the verge of ODing on claritin D and ibuprofen. So far it's the only combination that is keeping me alive and somewhat kicking. I hate Oklahoma this time of year. Now if I manage to ward off my yearly sinus infection that I have gotten faithfully every year since 8th grade (that's 12 years for anyone counting) I'll be a happy camper. This time of year just seems to make me crazy. I'm sure Husband would agree.

And that's all for now. I'm off to gorge myself on pizza, medicine and some Dog Whisperer. Happy weekend to anyone who isn't working! lol