Another Monday home
Without the previous intention to do so, I called in to work and stayed home again today. As appealing as that may sound, I rather do not like it. I’d rather be at work. But I’m having a bit of trouble sleeping, perhaps due to anxiety, or maybe running after 9 PM is detrimental. Either way, when I woke up this morning, I was definitely feeling sleep deprived. I am determined to go to work tomorrow.
So instead, I played LOTRO, did laundry, watched tv, walked across the street for some groceries, and had a conversation with my apartment complex’s property manager. I asked about getting the nails of the landing outside my front door hammered down, and I explained my pending employment situation and asked if something could possibly be done to reduce my monthly rent, for example, by signing a new lease. She gave me reason to be hopeful, so I am. Stay tuned.
Topic stew
What the heck? Second day in a row of nearly effortless awakening in the AM. I think I’m doing something wrong.
Actually felt like I got some work done today. Got some things done for the curriculum website and worked with Letitia on how she can take over responsibility for its maintenance once I’m separated from the organization. Add to that some exchanges with Governet, scheduling a years worth of meeting space, and some more data entry into CurricUNET. Yep, I rock.
Sent a résumé up to the diocese today; an Administrative Assistant Position. We shall see. I think it’s helpful to be proactive. Helpful but quite difficult for me as it turns out.
Ok, know what else I pretty much suck at? Trick question. I only had one thing in mind. The correct answer is: follow-through. We’re having a tri-tip sandwich sale on Sunday. I’m sort of in charge so I should have had more of the details locked down before today. Well, it’s not too late or anything, just tardy. I think I pulled it together sufficiently though. I will have to do a crapload of running around. 🙁 But I will be getting a Costco card out of the process.
Got a semi-random email today from a woman asking if I could get together with her to do a photoshoot. She’s a bodybuilder and wants some shots for her portfolio. I totally would do this, but I’m not feeling excited about TFP (time for photos) right now. If this were a paid gig, yeah. I did tell her that if the shoot were really close by, and she was in a bind, I’d do it, but that she should look for another photographer who’d be more into free work right now.
*Several hours later*
Did my run tonight. Went SO much better than last Friday. The extra rest seems to really have helped. I ran 10 minutes, walked 1 minute, then ran 30 minutes. 3.55 miles. Breathing was amazingly easy!! Getting better!
Dinner post-run was rice, steamed vegetables, and steak. The rice came out perfect! And the steak too. I’m calling this a good day.
Good day.
License to Ill
Left work early today. My stomach was troubling me a little, and I hardly needed convincing. It’s not that I was so sick that I couldn’t finish the day. It’s actually that mentally and emotionally, I don’t feel good being at the office right now. I have so much sick time built up, it’s ridiculous. It would come out to well over a month of time off. The biggest problem is that when I’m let go, all the sick time I’ve built up will go away and be gone for good. It’s really quite a disincentive.
After a few hours of being home, I went for my run. Did 5 miles in 57 minutes, which is a slight improvement over the same distance last week. As a result of all this running, I have lost as much as 20 lbs in the past few months. That’s good news!
Blue Monday
2 things of note today.
#1 I was informed that, once again, I am being bumped by someone more senior with the district. I will be unemployed after July, 31st. This sucks. I’m tired of fighting to continue working in a place that has done none of my requested/suggested things to ensure that they retain me. I don’t want to lose my job, but I’m at the point where I feel I just have to make the best of it.
#2 I went to the bullfights tonight. Photos tomorrow.
Upcoming
Tonight was my last meeting as Grand Knight. I’m relieved to be done, but I wish I could have accomplished more. Hopefully I accomplished SOMETHING! I am apprehensive about Bill taking over starting next month. His attendance sucks and I don’t expect that it will be improving much. 🙁
This was a short work week. Monday was a holiday and as is true all summer, I have Fridays off. I’m very glad to be off tomorrow. I plan to meet Mike at the church to go over the use of the sound system, head to a different Mike’s house to playtest a new game, and finally, do my 10K training tomorrow evening.
Plans for September seem to be coming together. Exciting! So far, Rizza is coming for Jeff’s wedding, Dave (and hopefully Rizza and Starbuck) is coming to hike up Half-Dome. The possible plan is to run the 10K on the 17th, do some wine tasting on the 17th/18th, spend a day on the lake on the 19th, and go to Yosemite from the 20th through the 22nd. Much of this may not come to pass, but it sure is fun to plan!
Modesto Classic
Ran my 5K today. My goals were to run the entire race without stopping to walk and come in with a time of no more than 35 minutes. Mission accomplished on both fronts. There were many, many times that I wanted to stop running and just walk for a bit. I was bargaining with myself constantly! But in the end, I ran the whole race. My time was 33:46.1. I’d like to do the next one in under 30 minutes.
It was nice that there were several of us MJC types out there. Me, Vee, Tonya, Donna, Rita, Erik, and Laura.
Good job to all of us!!
Here are a couple of photos.
Me and Vee before the race.
Me and Tonya.
My race results.
Thursday is the new Friday
Today seemed very long. It wasn’t busy at work, but it wasn’t as slow as it’s been other days this week either.
I’m a little OCD I think. Here’s one manifestation: whenever I eat M&Ms, skittles, or any bite size snack food, I have to eat them in pairs, one for each side of my mouth. Well, I don’t HAVE to. But I definitely make every effort to satisfy that need.
I watched again the episode of the Office where Michael leaves. What a tear jerker. Very good acting/directing/writing to pull at my emotions the way it did.
Went for a run after work. I think I pushed myself too hard. I wasn’t able to go as long as yesterday and my ankle started hurting a bit. Tomorrow is a rest day so I hope that I’ll be good to go on Saturday.
I attended a dialogue session at the church tonight on the topic of immigration. It’s a complex issue that I struggle with sometimes. The video we were shown felt so heavy-handed. I wish people wouldn’t do that. It’s really unneccessary.
There ain’t no cure for the summertime blues.
Today was an incredibly boring and unproductive day at work. Summers are always slow, but this was ridiculous.
This evening, I played Aluatis for a while, but my Monday night group couldn’t really get things together so grouping didn’t actually happen. Alas. We intend to try again on Thursday.
I listed to and sang through several Mass settings that we will choose from for Advent and beyond. I liked the Mass of Renewal by Curtis Stephan the best. I think Jody is amenable to that setting.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but I am sort of learning Italian. I love languages and I miss studying them.
Sunday potpourri
I started the day by playing/singing for Mass. Despite my lacerated index finger, I think I did a tollerable job. But here’s the problem, in 3 weeks, the Mass schedule changes and the 10 AM Mass will be in the Maze church. We still don’t really have a plan for what will happen with music when the schedule changes. I suspect that Mike will not last long and if/when he goes, Chris will follow. Cynthia has turned out to be pretty much worthless, so maybe I’m all there is. *Sigh*
Played several more hours of LOTRO this afternoon. Haelindir again. I got him up to 38, so mission accomplished. Back to Aluatis tomorrow night. All of the enhanced xp is used up for Haelindir, so I probably won’t play him again until next weekend.
Our tri-tip fundraiser did turn a profit, but I’d guess that it will all turn out to not have been worth the effort.
Did week 7, day 3 of my 5K training this evening. I’m pretty sure I upped my speed. That’s great! I have two more training sessions before I actually run a 5K (next Saturday).
I’m very much not looking forward to going to work tomorrow. I’m rather discontent. I’d like so much for things to be different but I am ruled by inertia. I keep looking for that combination of things that will lead to change. The search continues.
Oh, and it seems I’m an inconsiderate jerk.
Fridays in the summer
At MJC, for the summer, we all switch to 4 10-hour workdays with Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays off.
I hate it. The days are so long; you have to spend Fridays recovering from the week, Sundays getting ready for the next week, and there’s no time to do stuff in the evenings after work. My solution is to use vacation time to shorten each of my work days.
Anyway, fans of this schedule will point to the extra day off. But as I mentioned, I spent most of today sleeping in, and doing nothing. I did get some time in on Haelindir, he gained almost 2 levels today. I’m hoping to have him at 38 by weekend’s end. I also went shopping with Jose for the tri-tip fundraiser this weekend. We spent just under $1000 at Cash & Carry. He still had more shopping to do at Costco too. I hope we make a decent profit.
I did my training tonight. I’m on week 7 (day 2) which has me jogging 25 minutes. But I made a mistake and did the training for week 8, day 2, which had me jogging for 28 minutes. I did it, and it wasn’t too bad. Now, do I go back and make up for what I missed or do I just go forward from where I am?
By the way, thanks for reading.
