Running towards something…

On Friday we got a surprise when they closed the office at 2pm.  This was nice, in that we got to go home, but for someone who relies on public transit shuttles that don’t start til 4pm… well, it means you make friends with coworkers really quickly.

One of the girls I work with knows who to ask when it comes to rides and I was able to tag along with her.  So, it was me, my coworker, her friend (and another coworker of mine I suppose), and the nice guy giving us a ride home.  While we were on our way to the train station we got to talking about where everyone lived and it turns out the guy with the car lives about 3 blocks from me.  Everyone else was sort of on the way back downtown too, so none of us ended up taking the train that day which was a nice thing.

 The other awesome bit of all this is that we’re driving home through this winter wonderland of sorts and the route he took brought us through the Northshore- Holy Shit.  I knew there were nice places up there, but I had NO idea we’d be driving through Richie Rich’s neighborhood!  It really was quite stunning though, with the fresh snow falling on all these picture-perfect homes.  I think if I had a car I’d go home that way every day just to oogle at the homes I will never live in.

It’s been a nice, quiet weekend here.  I rented the movie “knocked up” and there was a scene, not involving the pregnant girl, that I related to so much I swear it’s like they took the words straight out of my former life.  Cute movie overall, but I’m glad I didn’t fork out the money to see it in the theater, even if it was Izzy from Grey’s Anatomy.

Tomorrow - work, then new year’s party.  I have a feeling my Midnight kiss will be my friend’s dog, and I think I’m ok with that.  I can’t afford my bottle of Veuve Cliquotthis year, which is just as well… I’ll save up and buy a fancy bottle of the Rose for my 30th.

Hope you all have a happy and safe new year’s eve!

Gok Wan is my hero.  Seriously.  I’m honestly not sure if the American version, due to come out next week, will hold a candle to mister Gok-man.  Here’s an interview from Jonathan Ross:

And for comparison, here’s the commercial for the American version:

Last year around this time, I was hanging around with K-rad quite a bit and he had come up with a plan to make 2007 “The Year of K”.  I had my own plans for making 2007 “The Year of A”, but it didn’t quite work out like I had hoped. 

So, I’m starting fresh.  2008 is going to be a good year for me - 2 and 8 are numbers I tend to like (weird, but my birthday falls on the 28th, so I think it has something to do with it), and I’ll turn 30 in a couple of months (2 months, 1 day - to be precise.)  I have no doubt I can, at this time next year, look back on 2008 with nothing but fondness.  Here’s some of my plan to do just that:

- End the year with less debt.  I was supposed to be out of crazy debt by the time I turned 30, but the past year has left me in a bit of dire straits.  I will get a couple of credit cards paid off (then subsequently cut up), and the others I will make regular payments on so that my cell phone will ring from people other than bill collectors.

- End the year with less fat.  Right now, as it stands, I’m still planning on Maui 2008.  It’s debatable if I’ll do the full or half marathon (mostly because I saw people pass out and die at the Chicago marathon), but either way I’m walking a whole bunch in Hawaii in September so therefore I need to train, which means I need to get off my ass and get into a gym. 

- End the year with less angst.  It’s been said that certain members of my family are “dirty fighters” where as I tend to just be the one who gets to sit back and take the punches.  Unfortunately, this leaves me with some pent-up anger that sits for days on end because I can’t stop obsessing about whatever it was that came up.  I’m going to make a point of saying what I feel, when I feel it.  I don’t want to become a dirty fighter, but I also don’t want to play doormat any longer.

- End the year with a nest-egg.  This goes back to the less debt thing, but having some money socked away for a rainy day (or sudden unemployment) would not be a bad thing.

- End the year with the same job I had at the beginning of the year. The words “Retail” and “unemployment” will not exist in my vocabulary.  (Hopefully this will mean my nest egg can carry into 2009!)

- End the year having seen my paternal family.  I’m looking at times I can get to the East Coast, since I haven’t been there in 2 years now… I’m long overdue for a trip to New England - bring on the Lobstah!

Essentially I want to improve main aspects of my life: health, finances, emotional stability.  These past two years of my 20’s have sucked the life out of me, and now that I have a job I love again there are no more excuses to get things started.  Four more days to lay low then it all starts, right?

I wish it were as easy to forget an email as it is to highlight it and click the delete button.

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A very odd Christmas holiday, running the emotional gamut.  I got the best present of all in that not a single bill collector called me yesterday, but today I got the worst realized-present of all in that someone who I am very used to telling everything to… well, I have to stop telling her stuff.

More to talk about later this week, plus those pesky resolutions need to be written down once and for all.

I’m home sick.  I made the trek out to work today, despite throwing up in a bathroom at the train station, but after an hour or two I knew I wasn’t going to make it the whole day.  It took a whole mass of courage to ask to go home, especially since I’m only at the beginning of week 3, but this is one hell of a whatever… cold.. flu.. something.

ANYHOW so I’m home and I check my mail.  3 Christmas cards await me: 2 from relatives, one with a printed label, and a pre-printed “new address” on the backside of the envelope.  The address is an Illinois one, a suburb, so I start racking my brain as to who it could be. My first instinct is Anne and Mo, since I know since last Christmas their address is new.  However, when I open the envelope and look at the card, it’s not signed Anne and Mo… it’s signed “Tim and Wanda*“ 

I start to rack my brain thinking who these people could be?  People from Livejournal?  No.. the only person I know locally from there is my friend jefF, and I’m pretty sure his wife’s name is not Wanda. 

So, without thinking, I call 411.  I ask for Wanda or Tim in Lake Bluff and they connect me.  Wanda answers the phone and I explain that I got a beautiful Christmas card from her and her husband, and apologize, but I am unsure how I know them!  Wanda chuckles and says she hasn’t even sent out her cards yet, but will ask her husband.  I hear Tim in the background ask, “Does she work at ______?”  To which I say, “Yes, I just started there a couple weeks ago!”  It’s about this time that Wanda puts Tim on the phone.

Tim asks who I work for and I tell him.  He says, “Well, that explains it. I’m her boss.”

*gulp*

It’s about now I feel like putting my foot in my mouth and I stammer through an apology an thank him profusely for the card.  I explain I’m new and I didn’t recognize the name and I’m so so sorry etc. etc.

So chalk this day up as the day I called one of the super-high-ups at my company, at home, AND talked to his wife.

Happy holidays!

*Names changed to protect my tush.

There are little things about my new job that still completely trip me out and make me feel like I’ve really made it, and it’s only near the end of week 2!

1. I found out about 3 days in that I have an Administrative Assistant.  To be fair, she’s not just mine, but if there is anything I need, I go to her.  Considering a couple months ago I would have taken a job like hers without flinching - this is amazing to me.  (Oh, bonus points are that she’s awesome, she knits, and did I mention she’s awesome?)

2. I’ve been handed some small projects across my desk - up until today that is.  I have to plan out a call-center of sorts and figure out how to fit 500 people into a space.  Holy crap.

3. While working on my massive project today, I had 2 deliveries - one was a roladex book for business cards I requested (from my admin and the second was a NAME PLATE for my cubicle!  Holy crap!  My first and last name are hanging up for all to see!  It totally tripped me out and I think my coworkers thought I was a little nuts for giggling so much but I’ve never had a name plate before!

All in all, it’s completely worth the commute.  Love, love, LOVE my new job.

(Oh and PS - from monday last week to monday this week I lost 7lbs… I think not being able to sleep all day is doing wonders for my metabolism! After the new year and after I get my commute down pat I’ll be utilizing the half-price gym membership I can get…Especially since I just sent off the rollover form for Maui 2008 yesterday!)

I fell asleep around 8pm tonight, woke up at 10pm.  Not a good thing for someone who needs to be up at 4:30am. 

Nostalgia hit me and I was remembering that my mom used to be Santa Claus.  Not in the same way that every other parent is Santa (though she did that too) but in that she used to work for the post office and when kids would write their letters to Santa, she’d send them a response.  I thought I had told this story once before in a different journal/blog and it took some digging, but sure enough, December 5th, 2003 had it all:

This might be cute if I had scraped my knee whilst spinning too fast on the merry-go-round or by jumping off the swings from too high or even perhaps if my hand slipped and I fell from the monkey bars.

Nope.  Want to know how I did this?  By doing what I do best - falling flat on my face.

The scene goes something like this:

I have finally fallen asleep at 2:30am, and 4:30am comes far too fast for my alarm clock.  I hit the snooze button twice, then finally get out of bed.  I take a quick shower, throw on the pants and sweater Ginny bought me (in spirit), fix my hair and walk out of the house at 5:22. 

The bus comes shortly thereafter, and I time it: exactly 20 minutes to downtown.  I’m about a half hour from my train leaving which gives me time to buy my ticket AND a hot chocolate.

The train takes off on time and my makeup is done 5 minutes into the trip.  I spend the rest of the time willing myself to stay awake and jamming to tunes on the ol’ iPod.

My train stops and there are a TON of people getting off where I am - are they all fellow employees?  Perhaps.  We have to wait for the train to get out of the way before we can cross the tracks in a herd-like fashion. Moo.

The group goes towards a 6-pack of shuttle buses and I decide to check out the 3 on the left first, looking for my bus.  Of course it’s not there so I squeezed myself through shuttles 1 and 2 on the right, because I had already eliminated #3 from being mine.

As I come towards the front of #2 I see the herd being squished into the bus.   I look off to my right to check out what number bus it is, and that’s when it happened: I found out where the sidewalk ends.  I heard some gasps from the crowd, and a kind soul picked me up.  I dusted off my knees, did a small curtsy, and stepped to the end of the line.   It wasn’t until later that I noticed my knee was skinned, but I did find out right away that my right palm had a bleeding scrape.  Nothing too horrific, but an odd and painful place to have a scrape.

Aside from this, a glorious first day of work.  I have a large cubicle in desperate need of some artwork and some plants.  This means new names!!  (In case I haven’t mentioned, all the plants I have at home are named: Fiona, Penelope, George, Moses, Ava, and The Robinson’s.)

It’s a good thing I learned my new job offers Flex Spending - Though I think instead of Lasik or that coveted boob-reduction I’ll probably have to spend my first year of Flex dollars on knee surgery… they were already cracking before this last fall.

OK, this is sort of a good news/bad news sort of thing all wrapped up into one sentence.

I bought a shirt (well, 2 actually) at Lane Bryant.

The negative about this is the obvious: I fit into clothes at Lane Bryant.  I’ve tried things on there before (on account of the ladies *points to boobs*) but their smallest size has always been too big - up until now.  Which means I’ve gained into epic proportions for myself that I’m really not thrilled about.

But I did say there was a good-news part of this and there is… the good news is that I have found a store that actually cuts their clothing in such a way that my boobs FIT into their shirts the way they should!!  Here’s an example: I didn’t try on this exact shirt, but it was very similar in that it was patterned and had the little belt thingy right under the boobs.  That’s the important part: the little belt thingy right under the boobs WAS right under my boobs.   If I were to try on a shirt like that at say, Old Navy, the belt would land right in the middle of my boobs, giving me the ever-so-attractive four-boob, thus making me feel more cow-like.  But not LB…they’ve actually realized that in some cases, if you need a size 14 (yes, even though I have gained 50lbs over the past 3-4 years, I’m still a size 14) you might need a little more room for your junk in the front trunk.

It’s this same concept that pisses me off to no end with bathing suit shopping (not that I’ve bothered to do THAT in a long while).  For whatever reason, designers deem it necessary to put PADDING in L and XL tops!  Sorry to say, if I need an XL top, it’s because I’ve got padding of my own - I don’t want to buy any more of it!

Anyhow, that’s my clothing rant for the day.  I’ve got to do some things around here, go off to retail, do some more things tonight and then tomorrow I start the new job along with my new commute. It’s so going to be worth it though.  I dream of the day where my rent is paid on time (and I’m sure my landlord does too!