Today is the American Thanksgiving. I am thankful for a lot, but still…..being alone today kind of sucks. Ah well, I’m going to maybe go see a flick and run by my townhouse to drop off the TV I bought yesterday.

So, I have been here in Huntsville, AL for almost a week now.  And have been at work for 4 full (well, almost full, because my new boss came in at 12:30 and DEMANDED I go home – heh) days.  What do I think?

I OMG fucking love it here.  Seriously.

I am suffering some separation anxiety of course.  My kids aren’t with me, and that sucks.  I’ve heard from the Terrorist several times.  She misses me.  Awwwww.  My Monkey is in Mexico with my parents celebrating his birthday (which is Friday), but I miss him just the same.

My saving grace?

Renee.

Seriously.  I knew Renee when we worked together in Houston.  We were casual friends, but not much more.  She was here in Huntsville, working on the same program as me, before I was.

I HAVE LATCHED ON TO HER.  Poor Renee.  Seriously.  LOL

It is really super nice to have people you already know when you move to a new place, and Renee has really taken care of me.  “Do you need anything?”  “Can I take you somewhere?”  “Can I show you around?”  “Let’s go to lunch!”  Awesome beyond measure.

So, on this eve of Thanksgiving, here is my list of things I am thankful for:

• My children.  They are healthy and happy (well, as happy as a 15 year old girl can be.  LOL)
• My health.  Despite my stupid broken foot, I am healthy.
• My friends that have supported me through all my whining on my search to get out of Hell.
• And finally Renee.  Seriously girl.  You are making this transition so much easier for me and I cannot thank you enough.  I <3 you!

Happy Thanksgiving Day to you all (or for my Canadian friends (even those sock wearing ones) happy Thursday).  Hug your loved ones extra tight for me, will  ya?

This post is necessary since I may or may not (totally did) start a whole sock brou-ha-ha on Twitter last night with one Canadian hottie named Bluepaintred.

I was born in southern California, to a barefoot beach queen.  I learned to walk BAREFOOT, not in clunky old shoes.  When I was a child, it was discovered that my feet are allergic to their own sweat.

Let me repeat that.  ALLERGIC – TO – MY – OWN – FOOT – SWEAT.

And unfortunately, my feet sweat.  A lot.  At age 5 the docs discovered that this was the reason my feet were cracked and bleeding all the time.  I was instructed to go barefoot whenever possible and specifically not to wear socks if I could avoid it (makes my feet sweat).  Magically, after a few weeks of allowing my 10 little piggies to be free and unencumbered by shoes or socks, my cracked and bleeding feet healed and everything was groovy.

So, because I spent a huge amount of my life being “forced” to be barefoot and sockless, I have harbored quite a distaste for having ANYTHING on my feet at all.  My feet have to be literally freezing blocks of ice before I will put a pair of socks on around the house.  The very first thing I do when I get home from work, before ANYTHING else is take off my shoes AND SOCKS.

While I totally appreciate the love that Miss BPR has for her socks, I cannot be part of #TeamSocks.  I just can’t.  I have lots of socks.  I have lots of very cute socks.  And they all sit in the drawer and drown in lonliness because I just can’t be bothered to wear them.  But I can’t part with them either.

So, there is my rebuttal to Sock Love.  While I can appreciate your love of the little feet jails, I hope you can appreciate my distaste for them and we can put this past us and move on.  Can’t we all just get along?? 

This is a Monkey weekend.  I picked him up from my mom’s and he’s sick.  Great.  He hung low all morning this morning, then this afternoon we took off and went to go see the movie “9″. It sucked.  79 minutes of my life I won’t get back.  Insult to injury?  The Monkey snoozed off and on through the movie.  Ugh.  79 minutes and $14 I won’t get back.

Came home and made the BEST hamburgers and onion rings for dinner.  Unfortunately, he’s sound asleep.  He came home from the movie and immediately went upstairs to “take a nap”.  I went to wake him for dinner and he growled at me.  Actually growled at me.  *sigh*  Well, he clearly needs more sleep than he needs to eat, so I let him be.  I’ll heat him up a hamburger later when he wakes up – IF he wakes up.  He’ll likely sleep all night now.  When he’s sick he does this.  The kid just wants to sleep, sleep, sleep.  So, I’ll let him.

So, just a quick update to tell you all that A) I hated the movie “9″ and that B) I rock at cooking.

I had to go out Saturday morning and do some grocery shopping, bum foot or not, so I bravely got up and took off.  While out I made a snap decision to go get my hair cut.  It was intended to be a trim.  A TRIM.  I ended up cutting off 9 inches of hair.  At first it was a little traumatic, going from having hair that hung further than half way down my back to hair that doesn’t quite sit on my shoulders.  In fact, I went home and regretted the decision – but of course, there was nothing I could do about it.  What was done, was done.

I didn’t leave my house at all yesterday.  My foot was really aching, I guess after having been up on it too much the day before (groceries, hair cut, putting groceries away, making a crock pot full of chili, you get the idea), so I sat my ass on my favorite chair in my living room and was lazy all day.  I watched Ghosts of Girlfriends Past with Matthew McConaghey.  Movie was just kind of ‘meh’.  Just a word of advice to Matthew – stop playing the same douchebag character in every single movie you make.  You are pretty, and you CAN act, let’s see some range, huh?

Before Dexter got started I colored my hair (having the much shorter hair makes more of my stupid grey hair show), took a shower then settled in to watch Dexter – then headed to bed.  Still kind of in dismay about my hair.  I am SO NOT a girlie girl.  Having the really long hair was nice because I could just put it in a ponytail or a clip and go.  No muss or fuss.  Now I’m going to have to actually do something with my hair.  And maybe even use product.  *dies*

I woke up this morning, looked at it and tried to figure out what the hell to do with it.  I plugged in my curling iron and spent 5 minutes putting some curls in it, brushed it out and guess what?  Totally cute, totally easy to deal with and I now officially really like it.  Like a lot.  Like, I may not go back to the long hair again.

So, aside from my traumatic-turns-out-fabulous hair cut, things are about the same.  My foot is killing me.  I fear it is going to be like this for a long time.  I am out of the good pain killers too.  No more vicodin.  They only gave me a few days worth.  I am still taking the 800mg ibuprofen, but they aren’t doing much to help the pain.  I can’t keep it elevated at work, and I try and stay off of it as much as I can, but by the end of the day it is just throbbing.  Also?  The boot weighs elevntybillion pounds.  God, by the end of the day, my right leg is tired from hauling the stupid boot around all day.  By the end of this ordeal, my right leg will be much stronger than my left.  LOL

OH!  One more thing.  I got called on Friday about a job interview.  *thank god*  This one is still within my company, but it is in Huntsville, AL.  I like Huntsville, it’s very much like Houston, and I have friends there already.  Interview is tomorrow at 9:30am CST.  Wish me well, cross your parts, etc etc.  You know the drill.  I talked to a friend that works there and found out they are desperate for good qualified help down there.  I am very qualified for the work.  In fact, he was going to kind of put in a good word for me.  =)

I alluded to the fact that I hurt my foot on Friday while in NYC in my last post.  I fell on Friday morning and turned my ankle and was fairly certain that I broke my ankle or foot.  However, I still had a lot of stuff to do during the remainder of my trip in NYC.  So, I did not go to the ER immediately when it happened (yes, I know, it was a dumbass thing to do, blah blah blah).  I walked all over the place on that foot, just dealing with the pain.  Hell, I got up and danced Friday night at the Kill Hannah show.  It wasn’t pretty (but then, it never really is, even when my foot isn’t all janked up) but I did it.  I got off the plane when I got home to Hell and went immediately to the ER.  They x-rayed it, said it looked broken, but because their equipment wasn’t great, and it was late enough in the evening that the radiology department was gone already, they weren’t 100% sure.  To be safe, they put me in a soft cast (horribly uncomfortable, by the way) and told me to go see an orthopedist to have it properly checked out.

That appointment was today at 2pm.  I got there, got checked in, called back and waited for the doctor.  He came in a short time later (and I nearly fell off the exam table…..tall, blonde, young, good looking, funny, nice, did I say good looking?) and looked at my poor swollen and black and blue foot and announced that I had done a real number on it.  He was pretty sure there was a break in my foot, but not my ankle (which is a good thing), but it was hard to tell on the x-ray partially because of the angle at which they took the x-rays and partially because I was so swollen.  Additionally, the ligament that connects the ankle to the foot is just ALL kinds of messed up.  It is either very strained or is actually torn.  **sigh**

So, he manipulated my foot to see how much range of motion I have (for the record?  not much, and what I do have hurts like hell) and looked me dead in the face, in all seriousness and said “Miss, you really, really screwed your foot up.”

I love my new doctor.

He decided to put my in a “break boot” for 2 weeks and is having me do some light physical therapy.  I go back in 2 weeks and then he’s going to take another x-ray of my foot and see where we’re at.  At that point, we discuss further options.  Hard casting to set it all or surgery to pin it was discussed.  He said if in 2 weeks we don’t need a hard cast or surgery, not to get too excited about getting out of the boot because, as he reminded me, I am not 14 and would likely not heal that fast.  If I don’t have to do anything further in 2 weeks, I was told to expect to be in this boot for at least 6 weeks.

Awesome.  Up to 6 weeks in this big, clunky, clonky thing.  Because, my size 10 foot isn’t quite big enough I suppose.  This boot weighs a ton and makes me an inch taller on my right side.

The Terrorist got a Bedazzler from my folks for Christmas a few years ago.  I’m gonna go find it and bedazzle the daylights out of this ugly ass boot.

(to be fair, this boot is far more comfortable than the temporary soft cast I had and I can take it off to shower, sleep and scratch if I need to, unlike a hard cast……)

Someone has been trolling my blog and I blocked the IP address.  First time in 4 years of blogging that I’ve felt the need to do it.  Boooo.

Now for the meme part of this post.  I stole it from Tracy off her Facebook…..it looked entertaining.

Using only songs from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. You can’t use the artist I used. Try not to repeat a song title

Pick Your Artist

Muse
Read the rest of this entry »

I had a not very good weekend.  I can’t even really explain all the stuff that wasn’t good, it just wasn’t.

I have to change my situation here, pronto.  My prospects for the job in Houston are GONE.  The job requisition vanished from the system completely, so apparently, you CAN’T go home.  At least, I can’t.  Doesn’t mean I’m not going to get out of here, because I am.  I hate this city so much.  I don’t want to live here ANY MORE.  I am job hunting within the company to find something somewhere else.  Who knows, I could end up being your neighbor (scary thought, I know).  The company is very large, and we are kind of everywhere, so the possibilities are nearly limitless.  Even over seas.  I wasn’t really considering them before, but I am now.

I just want to pack up everything I own and leave.  Take my Terrorist and go.  The Monkey is in good hands with my folks.  Unfortunately, I need to have a job wherever I’m going to move to.  I’m not going to just up and leave here with no job lined up.  I can’t do that.  I have an ex husband that never pays child support, and not a lot in the way of savings to live off of for months.  Besides, it would be financial suicide to make a move like that in this job climate.  I’m smart, I’m educated, I’m good at what I do.  Problem is, there are a LOT of people out there that are smart, educated and good at what I do, that don’t have a job.

*sigh*

I laid in bed yesterday for a large part of the day, just me and Satan.  I didn’t feel BAD, but I just didn’t feel good at all.  I napped a lot.  I cried off and on all day.  Poor Satan, she was so confused.  She was back and forth between wanting to comfort me and wanting me to knock it off and quit waking her up.  (LOL)  Then I realized she didn’t have any food, and being the laziest human being on the planet, I didn’t want to go to the store, so Satan and I went up to the corner convenience store because there is a McDonald’s attached to it, and I needed gas.  I got out of the car, and Satan made a jail break.  Damn dog.  She got half way across the parking lot, but stopped in her tracks when I yelled at her and slunk her way back to my car.  Heh.  I got her and I a cheeseburger and headed home.  YES, MOTHER OF THE YEAR – PETS AND CHILDREN!  WOOOT!

So, my weekend sucked.  How was yours?

There are rules.  They are not difficult rules.  They are not complicated.  Some are maybe unwritten, but they are there, and universally known.

I’m talking about the public bathroom.  The women’s room to be exact (since I lack the equipment to use a men’s room, I’ll stick with the etiquette rules I know).

1. FOR THE LOVE ALL THAT’S HOLY – WASH YOUR HANDS AFTER GOING.  Do not be what we call a “Crack d’Nobber” (say it slowly, you’ll get it) (no?  still don’t get it?  okay, don’t be a “crack to knobber – like wipe and grab the door knob and go – get it now?).  Washing your hands will take 30 seconds, and not only is it the polite thing to do it, because WE don’t know what you may have actually been doing back there behind that locked door with that hand and your nether regions exposed, it also helps slow down the spread of diseases like the flu.  You know that sniffle that runs full-tilt boogie through your working group until you are the last man standing for a week solid at work?  Your friend Crack d’Nobber probably started it.  I’ll wait while you go punch him/her in the junk.
2. If you enter a public washroom at work and find your friend standing at the sink washing her hands, feel free to say hi, exchange pleasantries, ask about the kids, blah blah blah.  However, if you enter a stall, look down and notice MY shoes in the stall next to you, there is NO reason to choose that moment to strike up a conversation with me.  EVER.  Unless you are having some kind of life ending medical episode, or do not have any toilet paper, do not talk to me.  Heart attacks and a lack of T.P. are the only excuses you have to talk to me through the bathroom stall walls.
3. And that brings me to number 3.  The biggest rule.  Let me set the scene.  Large public bathroom in an office building.  8 stalls.  All stalls are empty except for one, and the one occupied stall is all the way at the end of the row.  DO NOT GO INTO THE STALL RIGHT NEXT TO THE OCCUPIED ONE.  There are 6 other stalls to choose from.  SIX.  Do not choose to become my pee buddy at that moment.  At least one empty stall between us please, if at all possible and at all times when possible.

So, there you have it.  3 very easy to follow rules for using the bathroom in public.

Of course, now I’m gonna get hate mail.  Bring it on PEEps, bring it on. (ha!  I crack me up)

So, I am taking the plunge.  Finally.  I have started and stopped several graduate school programs since getting my bachelor’s degree from the University of Phoenix in 2005.  My undergrad degree is in Business Administration.  I had never attended college before I began, so I had to do all 120 credits required for the degree.  It took me 4 ½ years to do it in the accelerated program format of UoP.  4 ½ long, tiring fairly miserable years.  I had a full time job, 2 small children at home, and little to no help from a spouse in their care (or the care of the house for that matter).  The poor kids ate a lot of PB&J’s for dinner those 4 ½ years.  Fortunately, they liked it.

Making it even more miserable was the fact that I had ZERO desire to be getting a degree in Business Administration.  None whatsoever.  I did it because I needed the degree to advance in my career (another thing I fairly solidly hate with a passion, but that I am good at and that pays my bills quite nicely).  So there was my motivation to go forward.  For every day I cried during statistics because I didn’t understand it and felt D.U.M.B. for not getting it, I kept thinking about how this was going to help my career.  When I wanted to open a vein because the financial management class was taught by Satan himself and was yet another subject I just DIDN’T CARE ABOUT, I kept my eye on the prize.

When I began searching for grad programs, that driving motivation was gone.  I don’t NEED the master’s degree to advance.  Hell, my dad makes an obscene amount of money working for my company as a Senior V.P. and all he has is his Bachelor’s in Business Administration (from UoP as well).  I know quite a few people that got their Master’s degree and are working at the same level I am now.  It’s just not necessary for advancement the way getting my bachelor’s was.  So, with that motivation factor gone, I had a hard time getting even remotely excited about the MBA programs I tried out.  HATED them in fact.

So I took some time, not thinking about going back to school.  Not worrying about whether I should or not.  But, the thoughts of returning to school have begun to creep back into my mind.  I went out to the UoP website to see what kind of Master’s programs they offered and found one that struck a chord with me.

A Master’s in Psychology.

This is not clinical psychology, and I could never become licensed to be any kind of therapist with this degree.  As it states in the degree program literature:

“The Master of Psychology program focuses on the general rather than clinical psychological study of individuals, including their behaviors, thought processes and emotions.  The courses in this program do not have a clinical emphasis and do not lead to professional licensure.  The program will provide supervisors and managers in business, marketing, human resources, government services or education with an understanding of the cognitive and affective process that underlie the individual human experience and behavior;  research methodologies by which this knowledge is acquired; critical thinking and problem solving necessary to evaluate behavior; and the application of theoretical principles to inter and intra personal issues.”

39 credits.  13 courses.  20 months.  And I’ll have a graduate degree.

And my mother once told me I’d never amount to anything.  Pfffft.