I officially was offered a job! My first day is next Tuesday (just in case you're new here, it's the same job I currently do...only I'll be a "real" employee with a salary and benefits and the like...instead of an intern).In other "good for me" news I worked out today. I have lots to say about this...bullet points? Yes, I think so...- My ridiculing coworker works out every day at the same time I plan to. And yet I didn't see him today. And I must say, I was on edge waiting for him to pop up and point at my sweaty forehead and ridiculous little ponytail and laugh. Ok, he probably wouldn't do that, he's honestly sort of nice to me on most occasions. But either way, being on edge was not fun. I think it'll get better tomorrow as I get more comfortable with the place and the machines. The edginess is going to go away.
- I don't think I'll ever be comfortable standing naked in a women's locker room.
- I started on the elliptical and felt like..ok, I'm not so bad. Then I realized I was at about a 13 minute mile and that's like a fast walk. Eerrrr...not so hot. I also moved to the bike and my thigh muscles couldn't handle even two levels of resistance. Because..you know, they've all atrophied.
- For some reason I'm intimidated by the weight machines. And to be honest, it might be because it was all men hanging out over there. And again, I think when I get more comfortable with the place, I'll wander over there and work my arm muscles (which seriously need it).
- A question for those of you "in the know"....what should my target heart rate be and how long should I work out while at that target? I could look it up, but I'm lazy and sneezy and don't feel like it. If it helps, I'm 5' and weigh about 125 - 130. I thought maybe those of you bored at work could research that for me when you're bored.
- I expected all the girls at the place to be skinny Trixies. And they weren't! Maybe that'll happen next week though...
- The absolute worst part/hardest thing about working out was the walk home. It was evil and long. I don't understand how working out gives people energy. I think I could get in bed right now happily.
And finally, it smells bad here. Like gas. Or glue (which is what it actually is). Glue that is holding down my newly repaired parquet floor...
Hello, and how was your weekend?Mine was particularly good. Not only was I totally productive on the cleaning front (it is SO clean here. No, really) but I also saw an unexpectedly enjoyable movie on Friday.First with the cleaning...remember way back when, I started a "big clean?" Yeah, well I never finished that clean. The upstairs hall has sported two vacuums and various junk for a month and a half. And the bedroom? Really never was cleaned. But today the bedroom, the hall and the downstairs are all tidy and scrubbed (with my new super floor cleaner vacuum combo - which has so much suction power that at points it was getting stuck to the floor and I was having a hard time moving it. Using that thing was a serious work out). The only areas that I have left to do (probably at various times on Saturday or Sunday of next weekend) are the kitchen and the bathroom. The bathroom is semi-clean. The kitchen had to be avoided because there is a patch of 4 parquet tiles missing as well as about 14 newly buckled tiles. I think that as the underfloor is drying, all the tiles are buckling. It is actually a serious hazard and I have hurt my toes numerous times on those damn tiles. I also keep stepping on them and crunching them in...The movie was Stardust. It was actually really well attended for an older movie (might be the $5 price tag, good deal for the city!). And it was not only a well crafted, engaging story but it also packed some major laughs! Really glad I went.Tuesday I'll start working out. Hopefully every day for the next week or so, try to find a pattern...maybe some classes that I like. Other than that...same old, same old. Hopefully in the next few days I'll have a "I got a job, congratulate me and buy me gifts" post. Ok...there's no reason why you should buy me gifts for that. But you should always just buy me gifts in general. It's Wednesday? Buy Katie gifts! It's september 1st, buy Katie gifts!
Happy picture Saturday everyone...For your viewing pleasure, I took some pictures of large uprooted tree on my walk to work yesterday. It was sort of a gray day. Anyway, there's the roots...(and the crazy carpet looking grass...)
And in this picture you can see the crushed car. Notice the lucky, totally unharmed life-size VW sedan. Right behind it is the crushed car. Flat looking isn't it? It's a minivan. Yes, that flat, smaller than the sedan car used to be a minivan...(if you click on the pic to enlarge it, you'll also see that one sheet of window remained totally unbroken and is just unnaturally sticking there...)
And lastly, I got some mail love today. I purchased the yarn, but golly did it ever arrive fast. Yes, I said golly. This lovely mint-green (I know it looks blue in the pictures...a camera issue) yarn is going to become knee-socks at some point. Shout out to pure knits. If you all like yarn, go there...I always hit the sales and I always get a handwritten note thanking me for my order. Nice touch.
Wow. Wow.I work in a bunker. My office has no windows at all, and all the walls are cinder blocks. While this is nice when the Chicagoland area is under a tornado watch, it also sort of sucks when the area is under a tornado watch. We had NO idea that the weather was so bad until one of my coworkers received a phone call...from Spokane Washington. How does that work? The Spokane caller was watching the Cubs game, it got delayed due to severe weather and then immediately the power/broadcast cut out all together. He was worried about my coworker.At that point we all left our office and went to a window to look outside (our office has no windows, but our building has a lot). The wind and rain were so out of control that a lake of water was actually forced under the door...a second-floor doorway. It was intense.Walking home after work, right outside my building looked like someone had hacked apart the trees. The sidewalk was covered with branches. Big branches. As I walked towards home it got better and better, less branches, just small ones...at some points, none. Until I got about a block from home. And then I saw the COOLEST storm damage ever. I wish I had had a camera.A tree, completed uprooted from the ground. Pulled out of the ground. It's roots were perpendicular to the ground. It was a HUGE tree, an old tree. It had, luckily, fallen away from the house on its left side and into the parking lot on its right side. How lucky was that house?? But..there was a car...a car under the tree that was crunched, crunched right down the middle vertically. Perfectly crunched, perfectly centered crunch. Amazingly flattened. SO COOL. I know that if it was my car I probably wouldn't feel that way...but honestly, I have to admire the damage that huge tree was capable of inflicting. The tree had completely filled the parking lot too... I didn't enter the lot, so I don't know how many other cars had been damaged. Just the very obvious one...
I do feel a little sadness about the loss of such an old, lovely, alive tree...but stormy weather...so neat.
Today I managed what I had heretofore thought impossible: I recreated my favorite London meal almost entirely successfully. While I lived in London, I ate three meals on serious rotation:- Microwave quesadillas
- Baguette with garlic butter and BabyBel cheese
- Pret-A-Manger BLT sandwich
Obviously number 1 is easily recreatable. And number 3, sadly is not (at least not yet - Pret has spread to New York. Chicago soon?). Number two has been crazy hard to recreate. Garlic butter does not exist in the same way in the US (it's either garlic cheese or garlic & herb butter. I don't want the herbs). And BabyBels in the US are not the same. They are strangely spongey and soft here. And that's weird. But despite that, I had a similar meal tonight - but instead of garlic butter, I used garlicy hummus. And I just dealt with the spongey cheese. And I had sourdough instead of a baguette. And it was delicious.I also joined the gym today. And I could have started working out today. But I didn't. I'm having iPod problems. And I need to break the chains of laziness.
And I needed to come home and apply for the job I currently have. But instead of being an intern I'll be a real employee. News to come on that front hopefully...
It's also good that I came home, because there's a little seepage/water coming from somewhere...and my floor buckled (taking a floor buckle picture is deceptively hard):
Yeah. Another apartment catastrophe. There's not even that much water on the floor...it must all be under that parquet...
Let's pretend it's Saturday again. In fact, I would like a do-over for yesterday in general. Something weird happened and I felt sick as hell (like a super cold - I could not stop sneezing. And when I wasn't sneezing, I had that awful feeling that you get when you need to sneeze and can't. That uncomfortable, tickling feeling). It was a rough day and I went to bed really really early. But I feel much better today.For my picture Saturday, I almost took a picture of my raw, chapped nose. You know you want to see it. Sexxyyyyy....Instead, here's my picture. If you haven't done something about this (stop going to BP, sign some petitions, anything) then do it now. Here's one I haven't posted before, and here's one, and here's one.
totally obsessed with facebook. You should join. Here's why:- we can play scrabulous (scrabble). Which I love. I'm mediocre at it but words and letters are fun.
- pokes. Ok, probably nobody else enjoys this part. Basically you can poke people. They get told that they were poked. Then they can poke back. It's really meaningless. Except that I have such fun imagining my pokes. I don't poke you. I poke you lightly in the arm. Or I jab you in the ribs. Or I repeatedly poke your arm in one spot. A poke to your dimple. A quick kick to the knee. That's violent isn't it? Anyway..all those pokes are just fodder for my overactive imagination (fodder, good scrabble word!).
- status updates. Not only do I get to read everyone's updates but I also get to write them. And that again, is just like handing a girl who is overfull of silly little quips and imagination a big juicy bone (or in my case, I'd prefer a steaming, gooey cookie). My favorite (although unused, because I haven't grown the balls yet: Katie is in need of a good poke.
Sometimes, I become overwhelmed by my obsession with technology (blogs, facebook, yelp, what's next?). Soon I'll be sitting in front of my computer for all of my waking hours...oh wait, I basically already do.
Oh wait, no that's just birdshit. For the second time in my life I got crapped on by a bird today. How many of you have been shit on once? Twice?The first time I was crapped on was in college. I was hurrying home from a later class (I could make dinner if I hurried). At the time I was living in my sorority house which was quite literally, 50 steps away when the bird shat on me. Plunk. Right on my head. I was a little horrified. I ran inside. I made my friend Janet help me wash my hair in the sink. Then I hurried down to dinner. I actually remember it all fondly. Lots of laughing and sink shampooing. You know, sink shampooing is probably some random, generic mental image people get when they think of sorority sisters....sink shampooing, facials, pillow fights.Today I was walking home from lunch with my coworkers. Some green shit landed on my head. And no one noticed. So I somehow got most of it out of my hair, put my hood up until I could hit a mirror and managed to keep it quiet. This is a victory, a super triumph. Since all of the coworkers I was with are sarcastic, ridiculing types and would have never let me forget the bird shit incident. One in particular. In fact, I somehow feel like I dodged a bullet. I got shit on, and yet I feel relieved that no on noticed that I got shit on. Weird feeling.
I woke up today not feeling so great and my head and neck have just been tight all day. Besides worrying about my imminent death/cancer/disease/paralysis (hypochondria strikes!) it has been really physically uncomfortable. I know some people have constant tension in their neck and I don't know how they do it. I've felt really dull all day. It's amazing how much nothing you can do in one day without getting bored. I just have no will to move. The truth is, I did get out today - I went to the knitting store and to the grocery store. But I was sort of poopy/miserable the whole time. I finished my fingerless gloves, washed my recently knitted socks and the gloves and laid them to dry and officially started a Gryffindor scarf. So I was productive.But what I really wanted to do was clean. I have this new hardwood floor cleaner/vacuum and I really want to try it. I built it on Friday (and had some fun experimenting) in preparation for today. But I guess it wasn't to be.Tonight I'm off to the sister's to eat sausage and sauerkraut. Hopefully I'm not too cranky due to my being a big old, complaining baby.
It's my first picture Saturday...(well, second if you count the hair thing...which I decided not to). I hope you all have a nice weekend.
Flowers surrounded by clutter crap.
So not much going on. A lot of work, some Lollapalooza, some couch sitting. Lolla wasn't what I had hoped...but I don't know what I had hoped since I didn't really care much about any bands other than Pearl Jam. And watching Pearl Jam with what felt like 1,000,000 other sweaty, steamy fans was not all that enjoyable. Why does Lolla have to be 172 degrees whenever I go?I caved and joined facebook. I really do not withstand peer pressure very well. At least when it comes to new technology. As for my self-esteem improvement plan, here are some updates:- My hair has improved my morale...although the humidity is causing weird curling action at the front and I hate that. However, it won't be humid forever. Right? Right?
- Working out: I went to the gym to join and it doesn't make sense to join until August 20th (I'd have to pay the full summer price for only 2 weeks of working out - if I wait until the 20th, then it's fall quarter price). So that is on hold just a bit. One of my coworkers works out there every day at the same time that I will and he agreed to help motivate me to go (all I need is motivation to actually show up there).
- As for make-up...yeah, haven't started that yet. I'm still getting used to my hair routine (which is still not established firmly). I think early next week I'll be set with that routine and I can add the 5 minutes of make-up time.
That's all. Sorry for the boringness lately. When school starts and/if I get hired on as a salaried employee, some excitement and interesting stuff may happen soon. You know, walking to work I miss a lot of the crazy CTA stories...
I had a bus adventure like no other yesterday. Going home from Andersonville on the Clark bus. I wanted to post about it yesterday, but I figured the hair thing would sort of overshadow anything else. Bus Adventure:An old guy kept pulling the stop wire for every stop. The bus driver yelled back that if he pulled it again and didn't get off, he was going to be kicked off of the bus. So, what did he do? Pull it again. The bus driver came back to the old guy and told him he had to get off the bus. Some nosy other guy gets involved and starts threatening the old guy to get off. For a bit I really thought the old guy would just sit and ignore them until the police came (because at this point the bus driver was threatening police and dialing his phone). But then, the old guy gets up, pulls the wire a dozen times and flaps his shopping bag at nosy guy while turning to go. Nosy guy punches him in the back!! At which point old guy starts flailing at nosy guy with his shopping bag and then spits in his face! Old guy gets off of the bus (bus driver is off of the bus, supposedly on the phone with the police). Old guy starts chasing the bus driver! Bus driver gets back on the bus laughing...old guy was trying to spit on him. Sounds like I made that up, but it happened. On the bus I was on. I have some weird bus luck.I'm thinking about doing picture Saturdays. What do you think?As for hair day 2...it turned out way better than I thought. There is one hair that's a bit too long which I might have to trim, but that doesn't bother me. I can't help but think this is a really great cut because it all laid perfectly even after a pretty violent and amateurish blow-dry. I did a little of that whole "round brush, make the bottoms turn under" thing, but mostly, it did it on it's own. The back...I'll need to be more careful with the back tomorrow. It doesn't look awful by any means, but it could be better....So I'm sharing more pictures so that you all can see the sides/angling. I think the one pic I posted yesterday didn't really do much for the style....so here I am on day 2. That picture of the back...yeah, that was nearly impossible to take all by myself...
My hair is gone. And 12.5 inches of it (yes! a foot and change, not kidding!) is going to be sent to Locks of Love on Monday. Looking at and touching that hank of hair is sort of creepy...I liken it to a dead animal. Hair, when not on the head, is sort of icky. You all just want me to get to it and post the pictures (that is, if you didn't immediately just look at the pictures before even reading this?).So here's the before:
So much hair! Too much...
You know you're looking at this picture thinking...ugh, yeah, that looks baaaaddddd.Here's the during:
It was quite surreal....And here I am holding my ponytail, with my new sassy do:
The general idea is one of those angled dos...plus a little bit of bang. The bangs? They are annoying me pretty heavily right now. But, I don't hate the haircut at all. Back is below...
Really short at the bottom (and feels all fuzzy and delicious. You can bet I'll be rubbing the back of my head quite a bit...). I think this pic was taken with my hair tucked behind the ears...All in all, not a terribly traumatic experience. It feels pretty good. I think I like the do, but would like it to be longer on the sides (which was not an option). So yeah, someday some child will get a wig of Katie hair....
OK all, so this weekend I get my hair chopped off...and I have no plan. No plan. It's actually a little scary now that it's so close. I don't have much to blog about, but I did want to outline my "build up your horrible body image/self-esteem" plan. Two of my friends were bothered by the last bachelorette party blog post. And after chatting, I realize I have some self-esteem issues. So, my short-term plan is to artificially inflate my body image/self-esteem through...artificial means. This plan involves:- Hopefully hot new hair cut. I don't think it's going to be as short as I'm willing to go, so even if I hate the first cut, there will always be somewhere to go with it...right? Right.
- Wearing a full face of makeup (for me that just means foundation + mascara) a few times a week. At least once a week to work, if not way more. I need, need, need to look in the mirror under those hideous fluorescent lights and not think "Oh, you look skeletal and dead tired today. Pretty awful really".
- Starting to gain muscle. See below for lengthy discourse on how I hate that I want to do this, but feel for my sake, I have to right now.
My sister wrote a lovely post about a book she read and about how awful it is that there is a societal pressure to be thin...and one of the comments said exactly how I feel (and yes, I'm going to quote a comment):the saddest part is that I see my friends and think about what amazing, intelligent, truly beautiful women they are, but I can't see that in myself, because all I can see is the many ways that I don't measure up to the standard of beauty set by magazines
And I'm not sure how to fix that. So I'm going for the artificial ways. I'm not going to diet. I'm tired of dieting. But I do desire muscle. I would very much like my arms to have tone instead of being entirely like gelatinous blobs of spotty fat (spotty because of that pesky skin condition, keratosis pilarsis, which won't go away...and the only way to make it better is to use gross ointments and lotion. Not worth it).So I'm joining the gym that is right around the corner from work and that is discounted for me. The only time I ever enjoyed...moving...was when I was using an elliptical. So, I'm hoping I can get back into the swing of hitting the gym...for 30 minutes or so. I also have high hopes for classes. I would very much like to try "Cardio Party" or spinning. Yes. Spinning.That's the plan kids. And it starts Monday.
