Day 178: 3/7/12 - "I Am So Ordinary"

"And she is your holy Mary
And I am so ordinary
And she is your Queen Cleopatra
And I'm just your morning after
And she is your Star Spangled Banner
And I am just Frere Jacques
And you can lose me if you want to"

-"I Am So Ordinary" by Paula Cole

What's My Motivation?  Today was one of those days where no matter how hard I tried, no matter my good intentions, I just could not get anything done!  The phone kept ringing, people kept dropping by, issues kept coming up that had to be taken care of, and all the while, my work got pushed to the back burner.  Tomorrow I will attempt to catch up as best I can before Friday, and then next week (Spring Break!) should mean that I get the chance to really get some work done. Fingers crossed.  But days like today lead me to question my motivation.  Why do I continue to do what I do?  Do I still love what I do?  If not, do I at least like it?  Enjoy it?  Want to do it?  I'm not sure what the answer is to these questions, but I realize that I need to address them, and soon.  There is more to it than this as well.  I have to figure out what I'll do if the answer is no.  Or, what I'll do when the answer is mixed.  No matter what, I do know I have to do something.

No Joy in Indy: I'm saddened by the news that Peyton Manning will be leaving Indianapolis.  I can admit that the main reason I was a Colts fan was because I was a Manning fan.  It was difficult to listen to him say goodbye, but wonderful to hear him continue to be the person that he is...a man with a good heart, who remained respectful even when others would have reacted in a different way.  You may have respect for Indy and the ownership there, Manning, but I've got more respect for you.  I'll see you in your new locale, wherever that may be, and guess I'll likely have a new team to cheer for!

Baking Away:  I tried to do work when I got home tonight but I just didn't have it in me.  Instead, I tried out a new recipe and created a banana pudding cupcake.  Or, at least that is what I attempted to create!  I made a vanilla cupcake, cored it, made a banana cream filing (very pudding like!), and topped it with a banana buttercream frosting, rimmed by crushed Nilla wafers.  Not sure what the full effect is but I enjoyed the cake, the cream, and the frosting.  And of course I love Nilla wafers!  Here are some pics of my fun tonight:

 

Day 177: 3/6/12 - "Be OK"

"I just want to be ok, be ok, be ok

I just want to be ok today...

I just want to feel today, feel today, feel today

I just want to feel something today...

Open me up and you will see

I'm a gallery of broken hearts

I'm beyond repair, let me be

And give me back my broken parts

Just give me back my pieces

Just give them back to me please

Just give me back my pieces

And let me hold my broken parts..."

-"Be OK" by Ingrid Michaelson

Let's Not Be Difficult:  I'm learning that some people are difficult just because they want to be.  Today I was one step away from going up to someone and just flat out saying - "That wasn't a request, it was an order...you don't get to say no."  But that's not my style and it also wouldn't have gone over well.  I also don't want to start channeling others who have a habit of doing that exact thing to me and others and I absolutely HATE it!  But I'll be reminding this person that the proper way to handle something is given in our guidelines and that they need to be followed to allow us to do what we need to do to get our jobs done.  And if that doesn't work, then I will say "you don't have a choice!"

Cost of Travel: I'm trying to balance my ALA travel with the need to take a vacation and right now I know I can't wait until June to take that vacation!  I'll go completely crazy if I try to, so I'm going to have to find one of those last minute deals and just go where it offers for me to go.  I think I just need to pick a weekend to do it, make sure I've scheduled the time off, and then just go!  I just don't want to get stuck going somewhere I've already been or somewhere that being a single traveler just doesn't go over well.  I really need to go to the beach or something like that, but I'm not much of a beach girl.  We'll just have to see!

Day 176: 3/5/12 - "Mudshovel"

"You will feel my anger
You will feel my pain
You will feel my torment
I'll drive you insane
I won't fight these feelings
I will bring you pain
I won't take away
I'll be whole again"

-"Mudshovel" by Staind

Darn it All to Heck!  I scuffed my brand new boots today as I walked into work.  It was very devastating for me (which of course is also very scary since they are only shoes and I got them on sale), and I had to fight the urge to not turn around and go back to my car and just go home.  Maybe it's because it is Monday and of course I hate Mondays? Maybe its because I was just in a foul mood?  Who knows what the reasoning is for my urge to flee rather than fight, but luckily my common sense won out and I found myself heading into work as I was supposed to.  But darn it all to heck, I just got those shoes!

Out of Pocket: I'm going to have to eat part of my conference trip to Anaheim out of pocket (which sucks) so I'm already trying to find those free lunches/dinners/breakfasts to save myself money.  The current plane tickets are frightening, to say the least and will likely eat into the majority of my money and I'm already eating my registration costs, so I'll be around $600 in the hole by the time the conference finishes up.  I'm definitely taking some extra days for a vacation while I'm there - since its costing me so much in the first place!

Day 175: 3/4/12 - "Dreaming with a Broken Heart"

"When you're dreaming with a broken heart
The waking up is the hardest part
You roll outta bed and down on your knees
And for the moment you can hardly breathe"

-"Dreaming with a Broken Heart" by John Mayer

When Lyrics Attack...Sometimes songs just hit you where it hurts the most.  That is what happened to be twice last night and Dreaming with a Broken Heart is the one that brought tears to my eyes as I was out walking.  As I've mentioned before, it's not always the entire song that catches me.  It's often just a line or two that resonate with me.  How true it is when you wake up and you literally feel as if you can't breathe for those first few moments.  The rest of the day tends to drag along after that.

Hair Today...I'm again contemplating cutting my hair.  After trying to finish cleaning up the apartment, I also realized that I needed to wash my hair...and I knew I didn't have the time to not only wash it, but also put it back up.  So I ended up delaying the washing until tomorrow since I only had the energy to braid it up quickly.  Some hair days are scarier than others!

Day 174: 3/3/12 - "It's Not My Time"

"I look ahead to all the plans that we made

And the dreams that we had

I'm in a world that tries to take them away

Oh, but I'm taking them back..."

-"It's Not My Time" by 3 Doors Down

Eating Wrong:  I use the excuse of massive amounts of exercise to eat what I like on Saturdays.  Today I ran over 10 miles so I allowed myself to have pancakes and pizza.  Not the healthiest of combinations, but one that I felt I deserved.  Besides, the pizza was free (part of Papa John's Superbowl promotion).  Now, of course, I have to work out on Sunday to eat the rest of the pizza (no way I could finish a whole one in one day).  I made myself walk to pick up my pizza instead of doing delivery (to help burn a few more calories).  But I really need to start evaluating this "balance" I have going on.

Emotional Roller Coaster: I've been on an emotion roller coaster of late and I'm not quite sure why.  Take today, for instance.  I woke up feeling more energetic than normal and then went for a long run.  I should have finished feeling accomplished (I have never run that far or that long before) but instead I finished feeling tired, sore, and rundown.  I then proceeded to try to work on some things and found myself unmotivated.  Finally I found myself feeling listless and weepy during the later part of the day, being set off by everything from commercials to videos, to something I read online.  WTF?

Day 173: 3/2/12 - "Keep Your Head Up"

"I know it's hard, know its hard,

To remember sometimes,

But you gotta keep your head up, oh,

and you can let your hair down..."

-"Keep Your Head Up" by Andy Grammer

Strange Conversations: It was one of those days where I didn't get much accomplished, mostly because of two conversations I got into. One started out innocently enough and led to a nearly 40 minute long conversation that did not give us any closer to did reinforce what we already knew (useful?  or not?).  The second one was by phone and it was just a chance to chat with someone who wanted to make sure I was doing okay.  It was funny, because they asked me about something and I told them that I had not heard anything...but tonight when I got home, I saw that I had an e-mail about that very thing.  It was a bit surreal, as if her asking me about it led to it happening.  With those two things taking up my time, 3:00 pm arrived all too quickly and I had to head to the eye doctor.  The conversations were strange, but both good in their own way.

Disrespect: I really dislike it when someone asks me for my advice, or asks me to take over something and when I give them something to do, they don't bother listening to me.  Instead they move forward and make a decision that turns out to be costly, and all I can think is "why did you bother asking me in the first place, if you weren't going to do as I told you to do?"  Really?  Then of course, there are the people who don't trust you to do your job and in their second-guessing, they show themselves to be ignorant (and in some cases, down-right stupid).  If I give you something with the information that you need in order to proceed, then you should trust that the information is correct (by the way, it always has been in the past).  But you show your distrust and you start asking questions that one e-mail would have cleared up.  You start putting out requests for expensive procedures.  All the while, if you had just asked me, I could have told you why we didn't need the expensive purchase.  That one really steams me, like almost nothing else.

Day 172: 3/1/12 - "Hands Clean"

"We'll fast forward to a few years later
And no one knows except the both of us
And I have honored your request for silence
And you've washed your hands clean of this"

-"Hands Clean" by Alanis Moriessette

Surprise, Surprise: It's always fun to have something happen that you never expected but that you thought should really happen.  Today I heard about a process that has been started that may offer some forms of vindication for a lot of people while offering the rest an avenue to finally speak up.  Of course, it can all fall through which is also a good thing, because it would tell me what I need to know about an entire entity and whether there are issues that are so deep seeded that the entire entity is tainted with it.  We will see!

Long Weekend Needed: I think I need a long weekend to myself. No work, no knitting, no nothing normal.  I need to do something totally out of character and hopefully completely enjoyable.  I also need to get away from here.  It won't be this weekend but I'm thinking of taking the Spring Break weekend and doing something fun and exciting!  I wonder if I can get a last minute travel deal and just go do something....spontaneous...