Tag Archives: work

To be cursed with an hourglass.

Got a yearly bonus this year! My first one ever, I was really excited :D

Having recently realized how unhappy I’ve been with the progress of my weight loss, I decided to spend some of the money on something to help out – so I bought a Body Bugg*. So far, it has been a complete disappointment. Its uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time, time consuming to manage, the website is not very user friendly, it doesn’t add a lot to what I was already doing for my weight loss, and most importantly: it was expensive. So I returned it (waiting for my refund) and I’m going with a good heart rate monitor instead to start accurately tracking my workouts on My Food Diary.

I’ve also decided to stop working out with my co-workers and instead try a exercise plan that might be a better fit for my fitness level. The truth is that I just can’t eat enough throughout the day to sustain that kind of work out and perhaps my body is rebelling and storing calories instead of burning. Since my sister (and Erin) spoke highly of Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred, I decided to give that a go. It requires very little equipment (just hand weights, though I added push-up bars because of wrist pain) and not as much time so it fits into my schedule easier. I moved my lunch hour ahead to be able to use the work gym with a bit more privacy and so far it’s been working out. Despite how simple the routine is, it’s really hard for me – which is disappointing after over four months of working out 3 times a week at work. I just have to keep trying.

Had a disappointing clothes shopping experience the other day. I went into Lane Bryant (plus size clothing) and thought I could pick up a pair of size 14 pants since the 16 I currently wear is large now. The 14 still seemed too loose, so I decided to try your run of the mill “misses” store. To my horror, I still could not fit into any size 16 pants and the size 18 (if I could find them) was loose. Most of the issue was the fact that I have a sizable butt and hips, and so if it fit around my waist I couldn’t get it around my hips and if it fit around my hips it was sagging at my waist. Lane Bryant has been the only brand that made room for my butt and hips and still contracted at the waist again. I called my sister, wailing into the phone about how no matter what size I am I’m never going to find pants that fit.

On a suggestion of one of the Lane Bryant clerks, I tried Fashion Bug the next day and was over joyed to see that I fit into one of their size 16 petites – MISSES. The clerk explained that Fashion Bug has most of the same cuts as Lane Bryant, just smaller sizes, which would explain why it would fit over my hips and still fit at the waist.

Does anyone know of any other brands that are made for hourglass shaped women? I don’t want hip pants, I don’t like hiking them up every time I bend over.

*A “calorie management system” that provides you with a small device on an band that you wear on the back of your arm 23 hours a day. The device has a special algorithm that uses various indicators from your body to gauge calorie burn even during low energy actives - but does NOT have a HRM. I heard about it on “The Biggest Loser”.

Flying by!

This year is passing so quickly!

I took a week vacation at the beginning of August. It looks as though Paul will be working again very soon (with his old boss) so I wanted to take advantage of his time off while we could. It didn’t feel like a vacation though – it’s amazing how having kids can do that. There is no “break” from parenthood – at least not for the average parent. Even with dropping Evy off at daycare a few days – those hours flew by and we were back picking her up before we knew it. Next time, I’m planning a “get away” – even if we don’t go far. It’ll be a real treat once Evy is old enough for a family vacation to feel like vacation.

Speaking of Paul and not working, the unemployment benefits process has been very eye opening. For one thing, it takes a minimum of 10 days to receive a check – once you fill out the necessary paperwork. So if you don’t fill it out and return it as soon as you receive it, your likelihood of receiving checks in a reasonable time frame in order to pay bills is pretty slim. I was shocked at how “hard copy” oriented the process was. Being unable to fill out the form online seems archaic. I’m sure there is a reason (perhaps legal, signature based?) but I can’t help but wonder how much money is being sent on this whole paper envelope based process. I’ll be glad once we’re out of this point in our lives.

Can I just say how much I love my job? Because I do. Tremendously.

Its taken me nearly a week to write this post. I seem incapable, recently, of sitting down and finishing anything in regards to this blog. I’m glad to be busy, but I miss blogging.

Busy is better than bored!

I’ve been really busy lately, really. I wrote an entire post about WHY I’ve been busy, but re-reading it, I realize its all very boring to someone not living it. So here’s the condensed version:

  • Work, work, work. Training the new employee, taking on progressively advanced tasks, trying to fill some big shoes. Got an electronic kudos today from my manager, so I know that all my multi-tasking and hard work is paying off :D
  • Improving health. It takes time to live a healthy lifestyle, I don’t care WHAT other people say. Sure, it get’s easier – but time consuming all the same. Food prep. Work outs. Sleeping (yes, I believe that getting an adequate amount of sleep is part of a healthy lifestyle). All while working & commuting for 11 hours a day. I wish I could workout, sleep, or prepare food during my commute :P (I work 30 miles from home – an no public transportation fits my schedule. I’ve tried to carpool – but again my schedule is hard.)
  • Being a part of a family. I love my family, and I love being busy with family stuff. I have no complaints there. I love making time for my sister, I love spending my Fridays off with the kids. I love planning vacations with the husband. I’m very fortunate, and I try to never forget that when the schedule gets a bit crowded.
  • Hobbies. What are those? I don’t know, I don’t have time! I’m still in a book club, but I’ve been too busy to read much other than the one book a month. I could not get into “Wicked” and abandoned that. Right now we’re reading Christopher Moore’s “Island of the Sequined Love Nun”, which is highly enjoyable – when I find a few minutes to read. I would really like to peruse photography some more, but when you spend 11 hours of most of your days in ONE location, it’s hard. I’ve been thinking about taking up bike riding, as that’s both a good physical activity and really fun!
  • Extra income. Trying to earn some extra income by testing software – I got a few gigs straight away and earned some coin this past month, but I find that some of them only pay if you find bugs. I think I should get paid for participating at all, considering I provide a “clean bill of health” when I don’t find bugs and also tack on constructive feedback. I’d like to be picky in regards to which jobs I take, but I’m not offered THAT many. Plus, like any job – the more I take the better my tester rating is so I’m offered more.

I’m not sure I want it to get easier though, I might get bored again :P

On a scale of 1 through 10…

With 10 being the most – how inappropriate would it be to lecture a department director on the use of “thx” as a closing statement in a company email?

 

If you haven’t already noticed, I absolutely HATE the use of “text” language in a professional environment. Seriously. Its like nails on a chalkboard to me.

Of work and motherhood.

Friday of last week we got hit with a virus at my work. Being the front end for technical support, that meant that myself and the team I work with were responsible for cleaning the PCs that were infected. I ended up staying about 2 hours after work – with 4 PCs connected to my KVM at a time. Lucky for us, the virus – while well hidden – was seemingly unmalicious. Once we found out where it was hiding, we were able to remove it from all the 20+ PCs that were infected and get them back to the users without much time down.  I’ve seen virus’ that were very smart and would prevent you from removing them by making control panel, task manger, and services unavailable. This was not one of those – so we could just clean them instead of wiping them and having to reload the user profiles.

This week I also replaced a motherboard – my second hardware centric assignment since my botched test. The co-worker who passed me the task said I did well, and finished quickly, which made me feel better. I’m really not that terrible at my job, its just that “PC Tech” is such a broad field to so many people that it would be impossible for me to be everything everyone expects of me. But I’m trying.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but my work is shifting to “9-80′s” at the beginning of the year, which means I’m working 9 hour days (with an hour lunch, I’m at work for 10 hours), but retaining my 80 hour work week by taking every other Friday off. At first I was really excited because that meant I could start having at least two days off a month to spend exclusively with Evy (we’ve been having trouble finding daycare for Fridays anyhow). But before my supervisor left for vacation he reminded me of a request I’d placed awhile back in regards to a preschool I wanted Evy to attend. It’s a co-op preschool which means I’d be required to be in the classroom at least 3 times a month – half day. That’s really going to throw some stuff off. I’ll have to choose between the co-op preschool and two Fridays off a month – because I can’t do both without practically living at work.

Being a working mother is hard – not physically really, just mentally and emotionally. I’m always wondering if I’m screwing up royally with Evy – wasting this time to nurture a loving, smart, creative person just because of how crummy the economy is. Soon she’ll be in preschool, and then she’ll be attending school full-time and I’ll have lost my chance. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I really do believe that Denmark (and other such countries) have the right train of thought about paying mothers to stay home. They are raising the future population of the country, don’t you want them to be the best they can be? Mothers (on a whole) can do that, they can create that if you give them the chance. Its just as important, if not more important, than any other job in a society.

I’ll stop babbling now. I’m just a bit overwhelmed this week. Baby Center says Evy should be able to say at least 20 words by now – and even piece together two or three into basic sentences. Evy can’t do that – at least not that I’ve seen. I’m not even sure she knows the difference between “mama” and “dada”, even if she is able to say them.