I Freaking Quit

I love my job.

Most of the time.

Today and yesterday I have just really had it with everything, though. Both of my instruments give me crap on a daily basis now and for CRYING OUT LOUD it's not my fault. It's beyond ridiculous at this point. I shouldn't have to take them apart and fight with them for TWO HOURS every day just to get them to work, and then get results that I don't really trust.

And then people have the nerve to freak out and ask where the results are. Seriously, do they honestly think I am sitting around, doing nothing? When you ask for results ASAP I am already doing it. If it isn't done yet, there's probably a reeeeally good reason.

I almost cried several times over the past two days and I am so frustrated that I wanted to quit and find another job. It's THAT bad. But, I need this job, and I am just trapped so I will continue to go to work in the morning and stress out the entire day and come home and not have the energy or willpower to do anything at all.

Then there's the added stress of having other people living with us (not that we don't like them, it's just that it's a change and we all know how changes stress me out). Also, we are getting our mortgage stuff ready and it's stressing Scott out and when Scott stresses I stress. Also I am having a bad self-esteem week and I feel horrible and my feet hurt and I haven't been sleeping well (but I just took Nyquil so hopefully I will be able to sleep better tonight...we'll see).

WHOOOO. Ok, pity party over.

So I am THIS close to finishing the back piece of my sweater. I had to frog a few times because of stupid mistakes and also because the pattern had a TYPO. Fortunately I can add and I figured it out on the second pass. Either way, I learned my lesson early and placed lifelines every 20 rows or so just in case, and they came in handy twice so I am glad I did it. This sweater isn't using nearly as much yarn as I thought...actually will probably use less than half so maybe I will make a matching one for Mim! That wouldn't be dorky at all...

We are planning on having a giant garage sale on Saturday. We have been going through all the crap in our whole house (you know, when we moved into this house we had about enough stuff to fill up about a third of it and now our stuff has multiplied and replenished the spare rooms and we're stuffed to the brim now. WHERE DID IT ALL COME FROM??) and Allene is going through all her and her son's stuff too, and Kwiddens might come and bring her crap and Mim said she would come too but we'll see about that.

I went to the store today to get stuff for the sale (stickers, posterboard, etc.) and HOLY CRAP LET ME GO ON A WAL-MART RANT:

I love Wal-Mart. It's probably my favorite store. Now, I know this is not exactly "classy" and I know it's definitely not politically correct, but there are reasons.

1. It's like a mile from my house.

2. It has everything. Even knitting needles.

3. It's all so affordable.

4. It always has everything I need in one place so I almost never have to go to any other store, except when I want hearts of palm and I can only find those at Target. Stupid Target.

5. I go there out of habit.

6. Ours is so much cleaner than any others I've ever been to.

7. I'm sure there are more, but I'm upset and beginning to feel the Nyquil so I can't think of any more.

But here's the deal: they're renovating. EVERY STINKING TIME I GO I START HYPERVENTILATING. They MOVED everything around and so I don't know where anything is, and neither does anyone else, so everyone takes longer to shop and doesn't know where they're going and have you ever been in a store where people don't know where they're going? It's awful, let me tell you. So it's super crowded and everyone is pushing the carts around like absolute MORONS and I hate stupid people and I hate being confused so when you put the two together, it's like presto, PANIC ATTACK.

Stupid Wal-Mart.

And Again...

The Andersen PierceFest of '09 continues.

Kwiddens got a Monroe done tonight.

The day was chronicled as follows:

On the way to our house her BF's XTerra got a flat tire. Sad day:

Then, Kwiddens was sad and mad:
Here she is, supremely mad at the tire:
The poor tire:
So sad.

Scott then got the spare tire out and replaced it for her:
I would have done it, since I know how to change a spare, but HOLY COW that tire is so huge in comparison to the ones on the Focus...yeah.

Watching on the DVD player in the car on the way to dinner:
We ate dinner before going to the shop because we had a moment of brilliance and realized eating might not be pleasant after the piercing was done.

At the shop (Lucky Bamboo in Layton, definitely recommend this place), filling out the paperwork:
In the chair, ready to go:
You can't see him, but the guy who pierced her, Brian, was a total hottie. There were some pictures in between of the actual piercing, but they are either gross or unflattering or both, so they aren't on here!

The finished product:
Notice the HOLY CRAP THIS HURTS look on her face and the paleness...the blood totally drained from her face and she looked sick for a minute, it was kinda sad. I think I might have passed out, but that's because I'm a pansy.

Then we went to the store and got solution to clean it with and some other stuff we needed.

This was Kwiddens's combined birthday and Christmas present. And it was fun.

Everything at work went OK until I tried to run cadmium. I HATE the piece of crap graphite furnace, I want to "accidentally" push it off the lab bench. They're trying to find an ICP-MS. They had found one for sale and were about to write out a check when they went and sold it out from under us to some Japanese dudes. Jerks. So now we're looking again.

In the meantime, I can run Cd on our other ICP. It's just annoying.

We have a company summer barbecue tomorrow afternoon, so we only have to work a half day. Awesome! Scott is coming so everyone will get to meet him.

Some Stuff And Junk And Things

Twice in one day. Now there's a record. Either a flood of posts or a drought.

Buster has this cat-like habit of perching himself on the back of the couch and watching whatever is outside. He does this all the time. But, the other day we were just sitting, watching TV, minding our own business, when we hear a THUNK. Buster lost his balance and took a nose-dive down into the space between the couch and the windows. HILARIOUS. Then, it happened again. HILARIOUSER.
I have wanted this piercing ever since freshman year of high school. I finally got it today:
Mim inspired me: she sent me a picture today of HER NEW BELLY BUTTON PIERCING. Yes, my mom is SO COOL. And that isn't sarcasm, she really is!

Here is the progress I have made so far on my new blue sweater:
It's all scrunched up on the needles so you can't see the lace panels properly but eventually when it's done I'll put it on and take a picture and then you'll see. It's very pretty! I'm excited that I can make something that doesn't look like the product of a 4-year-old playing with string.

When everyone in the house is feeling sick or just blah this is what happens to the coffee table:
We are never that disgusting in our entire lives. Just this past weekend.

We went to Target (I don't like Target, but it's the closer store to our house) and I saw BABY BANANAS and I HAD to take a picture...see how small they are in comparison to Scott's hand? See? CUTE!
I have been a total yarn whore and I keep ordering yarn online without a project in mind, which told myself I would never do because I didn't want to waste money and have a huge stash but THE STASH KEEPS GROWING. Here is some purple lace weight wool and some icicle sock weight alpaca/wool:
So freaking soft. I put it on my face.

Good, Bad, Ugly

Good:
I am about halfway up to the arms on the front of my new blue sweater. Mim wants one also, but hasn't decided on the color yet.
I have successfully learned to cable. And there is lace, and I did it! It's only 7 stitches long, but I'm counting it as a victory.
I have a company party on Friday so I only have to work 4 hours. Scott's coming to the party with me and everyone will see how adorable and sweet he is.
A woman at work brought home-grown zucchini for anyone to take so I grabbed one. Can't decide: grilled, fried, or in zucchini bread? Choices, choices.
Knitting is funny when you've taken Tramadol. Funny as in, oh look! What the crap are my hands doing? Why is this not working? Lalala zzzzzzzz.....
I'm still in my smaller jeans.
I got pretty yarn in the mail the other day. Some of it was fuzzy.
I'm skinnier that I was in January.
The nitric acid stain on my finger is FINALLY starting to peel off. We're talking weeks of yellow fingers.
I get Mexican food today, which is awesome because I NEVER get Mexican food because Scott's allergic to beans. And everything else, but you can pry my peanut butter from my cold, dead hands. MMMMM, peanut butter.

Bad:
My throat hurts.
I have to wait until this cortisone thing wears off to have the surgery. This could take months. In the meantime I'm not in pain most of the time so I suppose life is good.
Scott has been sick for a few days, and it's the saddest thing ever because I can't do anything about it.
I had a two-day migraine and had to stay home from work totally stoned from pain meds on Monday.
I have a giant FTIR project that I did a few weeks ago, and then the hard drive on that computer died and we hadn't backed it up since APRIL so we lost all the data and I have to do it over again. This will take several days.
My hand hurts today. Like, really hurts.
I still haven't finished Em's present, even though her birthday was Monday...oops. I should really do that...there's only about an hour's worth of work there, I just need to sit down and do it.
I'm still not as skinny as I would like to be.

Ugly:
Not a single thing. My life is pretty good most of the time, and when it isn't, it just seems like it's bad because I'm not looking at the good stuff. Sometimes the crap can eclipse the awesomeness in my mind, you know?
Things can ALWAYS get worse. Trust me on that one.

Pain Meds and Frogging

Here is a fun meme: post ten things that nobody else (or, not very many other people) has/have done.

Here goes:

1. Hugged an Argentinian pop singer. His name is Justo Lamas. He comes around to high schools all around America and sings his songs, which are all about love, peace, and happiness. He basically promotes learning Spanish and learning about the Latin cultures. We got a special chance to meet him backstage and ask him questions (in Spanish, of course) and when we were done we all got a picture together. It's in a box somewhere...

2. Gotten pertussis (whooping cough) while vaccinated against it. Not even joking. When I get stressed out I get SICK. I also got Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. No idea how.

3. Crocheted a Victorian lace Christmas tree. I made lace snowflakes, icicles, garlands, angels, and a tree skirt. It took me a few years (but it wasn't the only project I was working on).

4. Exploded things for a living. Lecture Prep. Those were the days.

5. Put my cell phone in the oven. It all started with a very bad habit I have: taking my cell phone into the bathroom. Not smart. But I did, and while I was in there it fell into the toilet. I reached in there and grabbed it as fast as I could but I was totally grossed out and so I rinsed it in the rub right after. Then I didn't know how to get it dry to see if I could get it to work. Kwiddens called me and I was like, OH NO GUESS WHAT JUST HAPPENED. She said that she had gotten her phone wet once and to dry it off she put it in the oven and it worked like a charm. I thought that was a great idea, so off to the oven I went. Turns out her oven had a WARM setting and mine didn't, so I put it as low as it would go...not low enough apparently because it melted. MELTED. I had to use an old phone for a few years because I couldn't afford a new one.

6. Hit the center of the target with a 30.06 at 200m on the first try. I am deadly. Still, Scott's better. Like, he could enter a competition better.

7. Dressed up as Santa on Halloween. I was Santa, Kwiddens was an elf, and my friends Becky and Lori were a reindeer and Mrs. Claus, respectively. We got several comments.

8. Driven over 130 mph. I had a fast car...I was in a bad place emotionally and was doing some stupid, irresponsible things...plus I had some friends egging me on. Good friends, those. Got pulled over, too. At least when she radared me I was only at 102 mph...my Mim took away the car. Permanently. I walked to and from school the rest of the school year.

9. Seen a plasma. As in a sea of dissociated nuclei and electrons, not like a TV or body fluid. Although I've seen those as well. Only a few circumstances on earth you can find a plasma, all man made (on earth anyway, the sun is in fact a giant ball of plasma). We have an ICP in our lab, and if you look in the little window you can see the plasma cone. It's an argon plasma and is a pretty blue-green color.

10. Dated a murderer. He wasn't a murderer when I dated him, don't worry. On the contrary. He was a really nice guy. A really CUTE guy. And he asked me out. ASKED ME OUT. That almost never happened. We didn't date for long...apparently I wasn't slutty enough. Anyway, I came to find out, years later, that he had turned totally bad somewhere along the way and had murdered someone and was in jail. A little while later, he committed suicide. Sad story.

Last week my wrist got so bad I couldn't move it at all and I was at work...no good. So I went to the doc and she gave me some non-narcotic pain meds so I could take them and still work. They helped but they DID make me woozy, contrary to what the doc said. Oh well. It's gotten better since then, but I had a PT appointment yesterday and he wants me to wear a brace as much as I can until I can get surgified. I also have a list of exercises/stretches and hot/cold baths he wants me to do every day. No problem. It is a little difficult doing things with a brace on, though.


So, Em's birthday present is almost done. Remember a while back when I said I was almost done? Well, I didn't swatch AGAIN and I didn't measure as I was making the present so when I finished the knitting for BOTH halves I had a bright idea and decided to try them on. Too small. So, I frogged and started over in the larger size. HOWEVER, I used the wrong shaping algorithm and ended up with the wrong amount of stitches toward the end, so I had to frog again. At least I had only done one half at this point. Then, I started again but this hand thing really came to a head about that time so almost nothing was getting done on them at all. I did a few rows per day; that was all I could manage without pain. Sad. Once this cortisone thing kicked in I was on a roll though and finished the knitting in just a few days. Now all I need to do is weave in ends and add buttons (that I found in Australia, COOL buttons, you'll see). But, by this time, I am good and sick of the project so I put it aside for a while and started a sweater. Em's birthday isn't until the 17th so I have time to finish them.

Tori

I love music. Ever since I was a little girl my Mim made me (I say "made" because I didn't want to...and now I regret quitting) take piano lessons and so I grew up learning music. I also remember that when we were little Mim would stay up late outside of our bedroom playing music on the piano so we could fall asleep, and when she couldn't she would put the stereo in the hallway and put on Enya (hence my lifelong obsession). To this day, whenever I have problems sleeping, I listen to Enya or something else that's soft and relaxing. I have a lot of anxiety problems, and music has never failed to calm me. Likewise, whenever I am angry, or happy, or nervous, or really whatever my emotional state there is always music to match.

This weekend I relaxed, but I went to West Valley to spend time with Kwiddens, and that was a couple hours of driving total, and driving stresses me out, so when I got home I hooked up my headphones to lappie and I have been listening to Tori Amos, who has an album for every mood. Lately my favorite is The Beekeeper. It's mostly soothing and delicate and her voice is just beautiful no matter what she sings.

It makes me want to sing again.

Eat at Joe's!

I don't feel like digging through Vegas pictures tonight...the truth is we didn't take as many as we planned. For one thing, we didn't do as many things as we planned (it turns out if you walk down The Strip in 1,000,000 degree weather you will not feel well and will not want to do anything for the rest of the evening). And, of course, we both kept forgetting that we have a camera. Lame, I know.

GOOD NEWS: The cortisone, though incredibly painful and just plain MEAN, is working! I knitted for like ten hours today and I'm a little sore but my hands aren't lifeless and numb and I'm not dying of pain. Awesome. That means that it IS, in fact, carpal tunnel (duh Duh DUH, we totally knew this but in order for insurance to pay for the surgery they have to "prove" it...) and so in two weeks I go back in and we can schedule surgery and voila, I will be cured. Except for the part where I have to stay home from work. That just sucks.

In other news, I made up with my sister. Kwiddens and I had not been getting along...just more fallout of the great CRAPFEST of '07 (and '08 and '09, but who's keeping track) but I finally just got sick of not having her in my life, so certain topics are more or less taboo in conversation but other than that we are cool again. I am going to meet her in Salt Lake tomorrow to have linner, or dunch, whatever the afternoon meal is called (hobbits call it "afternoon tea") with her and her new BF who, from what I've heard, seems pretty cool. I think we'll go to Joe's because I have an addiction to snow crab.

I went to the store today to get buttons and ended up getting snacks and Scott and I just had the laziest day ever. It was nice...I relax on weekends all the time but he doesn't relax with me as much. But, aside from a few calls he got on the tech phone he hung out with me all day. But anyway, when I was at the store I SLAMMED my little toe into something and I'm not sure if it's broken, but it was bleeding and there is still pain hours later so it might be a possibility. The total number of times I have broken a toe comes to...I've lost count. I'm not clumsy or anything, noooo, not me.

It's All About The Bacon!

While we were in Vegas we went to The World's Largest Gift Shop. It's HUGE. There were so many hilarious things in it, so we took lots of pictures. Today's blog is brought to you by bacon.

Gummy Bacon (actually strawberry flavored, thank goodness):
Bacon Bandages:
Bacon TOOTHPICKS EEEEW:
Amusing.

So my hand is not hurting today, which is nice because it was AWFUL yesterday. I did everything left-handed at work and I am so awkward with my left hand because I never use it for anything. So, no pain today, but it did get tired easily, and then it was doing this weird thing where it felt like I was getting little electrical shocks in my hand and arm. Weird.

So you know how my instrument at work always breaks? Yeah, I GOT A NEW ONE. Kinda...technically they couldn't just give me a new one under our service contract, so Richard just replaced all the parts inside, leaving us with the original chassis. HA, take THAT Thermo-Fisher. Now, yesterday Richard was planning to come in around 8 and be able to finish it in 3 hours. He didn't show until 11 and when it was 3 he still wasn't done and I was all screw this and went home. Since he was installing all day yesterday I didn't get any of the samples run so today I had to run around like a chicken with my head cut off and get yesterday's AND today's samples done, and of course I had to run another lab's mercurys as well.

The good thing in all of this craziness: extra $300 in the paycheck. I like the moneys.

The dog tried to eat my Oreos. Jerk.

Fremont and Pain

So here's another tidbit about Vegas:

The Fremont Street Experience is actually pretty cool, albeit ear-bustingly LOUD. During the day you can walk around and look up and it just looks like some sort of sun shade is over the street, but then periodically throughout the night the whole street turns its lights off and the canopy LIGHTS UP. It's actually made of a kazillion little LEDs. These are a few pictures of the neat shows. The whole theme was "Summer of '69", because it was the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. The entire staff of our hotel was wearing tie-dye, which was pretty fun. Anyway, so the shows on the giant sky-TV were all about that, and there was some good music too. I was actually surprised at the crowd; it was much smaller than I expected, which is AWESOME because I don't always do well in crowds.

On another, unrelated note, I went to the doctor again yesterday. Apparently we need to "prove" that it is actually carpal tunnel, so they had to give me a cortisone injection INTO MY HAND DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW PAINFUL THAT IS, HOLY CRAP. They injected numbing stuff in along with the steroid, so last night I couldn't feel anything, and then It. Wore. Off.

Pain. Oh yes, pain.

And all day today I had to do everything left-handed and it was hard and awkward and I was sad. But the pain is mostly gone, except typing this isn't exactly pleasant.

So I go back in three weeks, and if the cortisone has helped, then we know it is, in fact, carpal tunnel, and then we can proceed for plans to surgify me, yes I make up words. The surgery will have me out of work for a whole week and I have no idea how I am going to handle that. I take one day off and I get so excruciatingly bored, so a whole week? Let me just say, there better be some wicked good pain meds that go along with all this. Maybe if I'm stoned I won't be bored...?

Sorry...

...for the lack of posts. Baby Pink Lappie has been very, very sick. She is mostly better now due to the tremendous efforts of the amazing Mr. Scott. She needed to be reformatted and now she is acting like a computer instead of a broken record. Soon she will be back to normal (some files haven't been transferred back on to Lappie from backup...cough cough 40 gigs of music...).

I have to have surgery on my wrist, or maybe wrists, I will ask the surgeon tomorrow what he thinks. I have carpal tunnel syndrome. Woo hoo, my favorite. So for a while there will be no posting, because I won't be able to type for a little while. I have to take some time off work, and I hope pushing the buttons on the remote control doesn't hurt because THERE WILL BE NOTHING ELSE TO DO AT MY HOUSE. I'm thinking back on the few months I didn't have a job and I can't for the life of me remember what in the world I did all day. I get a day off now and I feel so LAZY. And I'm bored ALL DAY LONG.

Oh yeah, we went to Vegas on vacation for Pioneer Day. I should post about that...how about I post a little bit at a time to minimize wrist-hurting-ness? Excellent idea, Anna.


Scott got a tattoo:
.
.
.
Ok, not really. It was a "henna" tattoo. I say "henna" because is WASN'T real henna. I would know, I do henna tattoos. Anyway. The lady said it would last for like 3 weeks but it was gone the next day...waste of $15. Anyway, we thought it would be funny to freak out Scott's ultra-conservative mother. But, seeing as it faded away, she wasn't fooled.


More to come later. Maybe daily mini-posts until I am done talking about Vegas...?