The Soda Stand

Archive for March, 2010

I’m so glad I read my horoscope yesterday.  It warned me of problems I would have with authority.  I pretty much ignored it, cause yanno…I have problems with my supervisor all the time and I just deal with it when it happens.

Since I started this job two years ago, I’ve used sick leave six times.  This would average to three per year, which in Vegas would have given me some bonus time.  Here?  It gets me written up for excessive sick leave.  Using eight or more days sick in Vegas, would be excessive.  Here?  It’s five days or more makes it excessive and it doesn’t seem to be within a 12 month period…just overall.  I need to read the SOP again to see what the time frame is.   I don’t agree much with it, but it’s in the SOP so I can’t really argue it.  She did say she felt bad while she tried to explain that it was just a “verbal” warning, but there were papers I had to read and sign as well.  One of those papers is that I am now on a “One Day” schedule.  If I call in sick, I have to go to the doctor and get a note to return to work.  Awesome.  So I accrue this sick leave, I use it and now whenever I’m sick, I have to spend $25 on a doctor’s visit.  Also, if I can’t get into my doctor, Urgent Care is $50.  Sweet.  /sarcasm

Needless to say that put me in a crappy/pissy mood for the rest of the afternoon.  I think the supervisor knew it because she avoided me the last hour of the shift.

When I got home, I was still feeling frustrated and decided to take it out on the elliptical that I purchased Tuesday evening.   It took me 2.5 hours, but the damn thing is put together and it works.  I then attended my seminar for my writing class.  Which, amazingly, my grade is lower in this class than in my math class.  I think I’ve been so afraid of failing math, I’ve concentrated more on it and just half assed the writing class.  I’ll be refocusing and making sure I bring up the grade in the writing class.

I’ve registered for the next two terms and in May, will start one major requirement and my first elective.  I’ll be taking Introduction to State and Local Government and Psychology.  woot!  I love me some government classes and psychology!   For my July term, I’m registered for Intro to Policy Making and Intro to Administrative Law. 

Once these two terms are done, I’ll have one major requirement left to take (Macroeconomics) and the rest will be electives.  I’m looking forward to October!

Off to work I go.  Have I mentioned I dislike my job? A lot.

Until next time…

I believe in loyalty.  Loyalty to my family, friends, myself and my career.  Public safety is in my blood and it’s how I grew up.  My family are the most important people in my life.  My friends are my bread and butter to get through each day.

I believe in love.  Love of God, love of self and love of others.  Without love there is no hope.

I believe in myself.  No matter what I go through, I make the right decisions for myself at that time, not questioning what others may think of my decisions.

I believe in the healing aspect of music.  Music can soothe a trouble soul & mind.  Music can help me deal with so much in my life.

I believe in laughter.  I laugh at myself all the time.  I love those huge belly laughs when it feels like I’m jogging on the inside.  Healthy, healing and wonderful.

I believe in integrity.  Doing the next right thing, whether people are watching or not.

I believe in honesty.  No matter the situation, I will always be honest with myself, which enables me to be honest with you.

Until next time…

My hard drive is full of shit.  Just tons of stuff I don’t use, I don’t look at and I don’t need.  I’m feeling an urge to reformat the whole damn thing and move forward.  Just start with a clean slate and bring in what I want to bring in, when I want to bring it in.  Ya know?

This line of thinking brings me to my friends list on Facebook, as well as my friends list on Twitter.  I was following 187 twitter accounts.  Ummmm why?  I’ve already cleaned out about 50 of those and will be continuing this cleaning routine until I get it down to an acceptable amount for me.

Facebook will be a little harder.  I have life long friends and acquantenances on there and I don’t know how I will feel deleting some of them.  But I’m looking for a clean slate and some of the people and I rarely talk, chat or contact each other, so why are we friends on there? 

I’m looking to disassociate myself with unhealthy living and thinking.  Yeah, I know I’ve been unhealthy and what not lately, but since I’m trying to improve upon this situation I put myself in, it’s time to do some reformatting of my hard drives.  I’ve already started making a mental list of people I haven’t talked to in ages on there that it really won’t give me heartburn to remove them from my contact list.

I was looking through the Status Shuffles on FB before work today and I found this one:  “It’s funny when you’re having a hard time and maybe not yourself, you find out who your true friends are.”

I absolutely agree with that statement and it makes me sad.  It actually breaks my heart.  When people are going through some of the roughest things they’ve ever gone through, people walk away.   The only time I can actually see myself walking away from friends in need is if they did something to me personally that betrayed my trust.   Beyond that, I have never walked away from a friend for being unhealthy or going through a rough patch.

Some may wonder where this post is coming from and I’ll tell you.  There has been tons of drama going on around the interwebz and it’s got me to thinking.  I’ve read some great posts and some great comments, as well as snarky, sappy and ignorant posts.   It all got these thoughts and juices running through my head and I decided it was time.  I read this morning about someone “cleaning house” and I liked that idea.   I had already started the process on Twitter, now I’ll just move it on over to Facebook and other places in my life.

Here’s to a healthier, happier and more productive me in the next nine months of this year.

Until next time…

This is a listing of the things I do not like to do (but sometimes do anyway).

• Any kind of math that is not payroll or accounting related.
• Cleaning my kitchen, bathroom and bedroom.
• Going to work on payroll Mondays so early in the freaking morning.
• Dealing with Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde personalities at work.
• Getting up at 5:30 in the morning to get ready for work and leave by 7am.
• Having to deal with hidden agendas and people who think I’m stupid enough to fall for them.
• Dealing with people who refuse to be open minded enough to see someone else’s point of view.

And now, for a list of things I do like to do:

• Hang out with my family as much as possible.  It makes me strong and filled with joy.
• Chat with my BFF T as much as possible – whether on the phone or over Ventrilo while in WoW.
• Listen to music as much as possible.
• Talk to people on Facebook and get a giggle from a few of the guys I work with who are “mack daddys” (their words, not mine) and make fun of them.
• Chat with people on Twitter.
• Sit on the beach and relax (have not done this since before leaving Vegas.  Must plan a beach vacation soon though)
• Take a cruise and relax by the pool, sleep when I want, eat when I want and generally do a whole lot of nothing for the duration of the cruise (have not done this since 2006, must do it again soon).
• Cuddle with my Josie and know that at least one creature loves me unconditionally and no matter how cranky I get, she will still love me.  Awesome feeling right there!

Until next time…

Who knew that math equations and problems and integers and other crap like that could bring a 40 year old woman to tears?  I certainly didn’t think that would happen.  But it did.  I have 20 math problems that I have to complete every unit and this week is Algebra.  While accountant style math is more my speed, this class of mine has been quite hard for me.  Extremely hard.  I’ve sucked it up and I’ve done my best, even surprising myself when I finally actually understand what they are asking of me.

Today?  There was no understanding of any kind.  I spoke to a co-worker who is really good at math, I spoke to several of my classmates AND I chatted with my professor.  I still did not get it.  Not one of them could explain it to me in a way I could “get.”  So I did what any red blooded American woman should do in a moment like this…..I had a mini melt down on Facebook and Twitter.  Math makes me feel incredibly stupid, even though I know I’m not.  I’m just not math savvy and I’m okay with that.

After about 10-15 minutes of that, I closed out all the math homework windows and then got off my ass, got dressed and headed to Walmart.  I got myself a Texas Instruments TI-30XIIS.  Quite the fancy calculator if you ask me, but if it will help me get through this class, I’m not going to complain.  It was not expensive, so I’m not going to cry about the expense.

I’m more than halfway done with the math homework and I just took the quiz after listening to the seminar.  Even after listening to the seminar and using my handy dandy new calculator, I didn’t rawk the quiz.  But I’m okay with that, cause I passed it!  And if you know me and math, passing is good enough for me, as long as I get through the 10 weeks and don’t have to retake it.

And on that note, I’m going to go finish putting my laundry away and maybe play some WoW before bedtime.  I’m sure there will be a more meaningful post tomorrow when my brain is not so fried from math stuffs.

Until next time…

I am going to be a busy little bee this weekend!  Tonight, I’m working overtime at the auto shop for some data entry they need done before June 1, 2010.  There are bout 8000 things they need entered and there are about seven of us doing the overtime.   I don’t know how late I’ll be working tonight, but if I get out early enough, I’ll be going to a GA meeting that starts at 7:30.  If I don’t get out early enough, I’ll be going home to do some reading for school.

Tomorrow, I work from 10am to 4pm at the apartment complex and then after that, it’s all school stuff.  I have tons of reading to do and a few assignments, as well as a quiz to take for math class.  Not looking forward to any of it.

Sunday, I’m going to be trying a new church (new to me) that is down the street from my apartment.  Actually, it’s probably further than that, but it’s all relative, right?  lol  I’ve been wanting to get back into going to a church I feel comfortable at.  It helps if I actually GO to these churches to find out if I feel comfortable, so Sunday is step 1 in that area of my life.

After church, I’m hoping to be able to get some laundry done and finish up whatever homework/reading I have to do that I have not done already.

I would have done homework stuff yesterday, but I was so sick it was pathetic.  My IBS acts up every now and then and prevents me from doing much of anything.  I slept off and on all day and then I watched The Hurt Locker on OnDemand on my Insight cable.  HOLY CRAP!!!  What a fantastic movie that was!

Jeremy Renner did wonderful as Staff Sgt. Will James and the movie just kicked all kinds of ass.  It was well written, well made and the acting was incredible.  I liked the angle they came from making it from the view point of the actual soldiers it focused on.  There were no political agendas and no government bashing.  It was just well made and well thought out.  Loved it.

Until next time…

Post title taken from one of the lines in The Lost Boys.  It was spoken by the character Sam – played by the late Corey Haim.
Yesterday morning at work, I was sitting at my desk when my Co Worker came into my office in a rush and told me “Corey Haim was dead!”  I asked her to repeat herself and she did.  I was floored.  Actually, I was a little heartbroken and memories from my youth and young adult times came flying up.

Corey Ian Haim.  38 years old.  Passed away.  Dead.  Gone from this earth physically forever.  It makes me incredibly sad for several reasons.  One of them being that I grew up with him.  He was the love of my life.  I was so in love with him after seeing The Lost Boys, Watchers and several other of his movies he did with Corey Feldman.   He fell off the grid for many years, turning up later addicted to valium and crack cocaine, which leads to the other reason I’m so sad.  Whenever someone struggling with addiction is taken (whether from that addiction or not), I get incredibly sad because of what the world has lost.

Yes, he was tortured and addicted.  Yes, he did some shitty things to those he loved.  Yes, he was desperate for work a few years ago.  He struggled with his demons.  He struggled with them and they possibly took his life.  While there is much speculation about how he died, I am waiting to hear the actual results.  I saw on the news today Corey Feldman was on there fussing about people automatically assuming he died because of his addiction.

I watched the two seasons of The Two Coreys on A&E.  I watched almost every episode and my Netflix offers both seasons to watch instantly on my computer.  I just might do that.  Haim was my favorite.  Even with all of his struggles and down times, he remains my favorite of the two.  I like Feldman well enough, but Haim was where it was at!  He had that boy next door look and his little smirk could just melt my heart.

He was looking rough during that series, but I still thought he was adorable.  I remember the first time I saw him was in The First Born with Teri Garr and who can forget Silver Bullet with Corey in a wheel chair killing werewolves?  Awesome stuff!

I hope and pray his family and friends (especially his mom and Corey Feldman) find peace and strength to get through this rough time.  I pray that he has found peace from the demons that seem to chase us all until we are willing to deal with them.  His demons can no longer hurt him.  HE can no longer hurt himself with his addiction/lifestyle.   Rest in Peace, Corey.  You will be missed and since love transcends death, I am sure your friends and family will continue loving you.

Until next time….

I was watching the news this morning (actually more like listening while getting ready for work) and they were mentioning rain and what not for the next several days.  They even mentioned we may have thunderstorms this Thursday. 

I read on msnbc dot com that they had a tornado in Oklahoma.  Nice.  Last time I looked, those were the storms coming this way.  So we go from one extreme to the other?  We are just now coming out of our cold snap and going into warmer, spring like weather.  And of course, along with spring like weather here in the Midwest/South, we get severe stuff like tornados and severe thunderstorms.   Just one more thing to look out for and be mindful of!

I was listening to my iPod today at work, as I do everyday, and the song All Fired Up by Pat Benatar came on.  I have always loved the song as it is and something about the lyrics just caught my attention today.  “I believe there comes a time that everything just falls in line.  We live and learn from our mistakes, the deepest cuts are healed by faith”

We all know I’ve been going through my own kind of funk.  I’ve been resentful and full of pain and anguish, which I’ve rarely, if ever, spoken outloud.  It’s all on paper and my mom and BFF T hear most of it.   I’ve isolated myself and I’ve painted on this face for the outside world that everything is fine.  Very few people push through that mask and get to the depths of what I’m going through.  I’m thankful for those who do it, even if it gets me feeling defensive and we argue.  At least they continue pushing me until I say something, because most people who know me well know that as soon as I say something out loud, I tend to deal with it in different ways until I find one that works for me.

I’ve always been extremely self aware of my own behavior, which also makes me aware of others behavior.  I’m a realist.  I know how people are and how judgmental they really are, even when they try not to be.  We all judge others.  It happens.  It’s human nature to look at someone else’s behavior and make assumptions. 

I spoke to my Vegas sponsor, SLS,  last night for the first time in months.   MONTHS.  We’ve both been busy with life and going through our own funks.  We were discussing GA and the way I feel about it and how often (or not) I go to meetings.  She said she understands where I’m coming from and maybe I feel this way because gambling is not my core problem.   I almost fell over out of my chair when she said that because it’s pretty much the conclusion I had come too a few days ago in my journaling.

My core problem is from growing up the child of an alcoholic.  I am the adult child of an alcoholic.  I can not hide it and I can not run from it.  It defined who I was growing up, into early adulthood and it still helps define who I am today because I have not dealt with it 100% like I did the gambling addiction.  Gambling is just a symptom of my thinking and living.  Gambling was an outlet for me that became my own addiction.  I stopped getting useful things from GA long ago and I just kept going because it’s all I knew.  When I stopped going, I started going into this funk.

This funk tells me there is a core issue that I have yet to deal with or have not dealt with fully and completely.  It’s time.  It’s time to face this issue and move forward with my life.   I’ve started looking for the support groups I need and I will start going.   Amazingly, when I do this search, I find hundreds of meetings per week.  Al-Anon will provide insight into ME and MY behavior that was learned and expounded on by the alcoholic in my life.

Cross your fingers for me!

Until next time…

I have a dysfunctional relationship with an old friend of mine.  He visits me often, but his visits are short and usually don’t last longer than a few hours.  However, last night, his visit lasted from 10pm until I got up at 4:30 for work.

Insomnia.  Insomnia reared his ugly head in a very bad way.  I turned everything off at 9:30 or 10 and was still awake at midnight, tossing and turning.  I fell asleep somewhere between 12:30 and 1 and woke up several times throughout the brief amount of sleep that I did get.  I tried kicking him out of my bed several times, but it seems insomnia wanted nothing to do with that and wanted to keep me company all night long.

Today was payroll Monday.  I was freaking out this morning as I was stumbling around getting ready for work.  I could hardly open my eyes or think straight I was so tired.  As a matter of fact, I am even more tired now than I was when I got up this morning.  It will be a very early evening for me after I check my discussion boards for school.

Payroll went very well and we had it done by 12:45 p.m. (which is about 2 hours earlier than the average used to be).  I say “used to be” because when I first started this job, we were doing payroll well into the afternoon and it was 4pm sometimes later when we’d finally get it done.  The last several months, we’ve had it done no later than 1pm and it’s due at 2pm.  Anytime we get it done before the due time is a good thing if you ask me.

I’m going to go vegetate on the couch and do nothing.

Until next time…

I had quite the productive weekend and I’m not done yet!  In bullet style, this is what I did:

• I did three loads of laundry (still need to put it all away lol)
• I started cleaning the living room (more than just picking things up, etc)
• Cooked myself some home made tacos for the first time ever (they came out quite tasty!)
• My math homework that consisted of 20 math problems dealing with Venn (?) diagrams and sets and subsets.  Yeah.  It was like Greek to me.
• Did my discussion board posts for the weekend (just need to post on both two more times before Tuesday at midnight)
• Did the math seminar option 2 (watch the seminar and then take a quiz on it)
• Took a butt load of trash out that I had collected during my cleaning frenzy on Saturday.

I still have much to do around the apartment to get it to where I’d like it.  I really let it go to shit and it’s time I take care of it.  Supervisor at work and I were talking last week during one of our “getting along really well” moments and she mentioned that since her husband died, she had not really done a good cleaning of her house.  I got to thinking and I realized that I had not done that for several months myself and committed to myself to do it.

I will do a little bit each night after work, picking one area at a time to take care of.  I have so much shit piled up everywhere, I’m sure I’ll be working on it for weeks.  While part of me would love to beat myself up over it, instead, I am choosing to just fixing it instead of berating myself for letting it get this bad.  I’m tired of flogging myself when I regress or make stupid decisions.  What’s the use?  I certainly can’t change the past, so I might as well just look forward and do something about it.

And now, I’m going back to playing WoW, because I can and I’m not looking forward to payroll tomorrow.  Pfft.  Hate it.

Until next time…