CAUTION: Woman In Progress

It's pretty bad when the only dream you really remember having was about a frozen coffee drink. lol But yeah, that was me last night. I dreamed I went to the Einstein's here at the library and ordered a frozen cafe caramel. They were minutes away from closing and yet it took them forever to make it. In the meantime, I had to leave so my mother was going to pick up my drink for me and bring it home. When she got there with it, it was disgusting. They hadn't ground the ice at all. it was in these big round chunks with coffee instead of the frozen blend. It had chocolate instead of caramel and the whipped cream was melted. To top it off, while I was ranting about how disgusted I was, my mother sprinkled a packet of Splenda on it and I went on a tear with her about that and actually tried to scoop the Splenda out. Fruitless endeavor. I think I even cried I was so upset and angry. Never mess with Jana when it comes to her frozen treats. Not even when she's dreaming.

After a seven week absence, Sis1 and Emmy (and BIL) decided to finally come back to MS for a visit. They hadn't been home since about two weeks before Easter so they were LONG overdue. I skipped out on Friday night supper and opted instead to enjoy a frozen pizza and Ghost Whisperer from the comfort of own couch. The folks' house was going to be full anyway with both my sisters' families and love 'em and all but my nerves can't take too much, yanno. Emmy dressed for fishing. But Saturday, Sis2 left Lyssa with Mama and Emmy went fishing and palling around with Daddy (the BIL's spent time with their respective parental units) so us sisters had us a girl's day. We didn't hook up until around 11:30 or so, though, because the sisters are slow movin' turtles. Me, I'd been up since 6:30, went to town and bought groceries and STILL had time to come home and wait for them. It was all good, though, cause we went to lunch first. I hadn't been to App...

Would that life was like signing into Blogger. Each time you sign in to comment to somone's blog (if you aren't already signed in) you get to choose who you want to be. Wouldn't it be great if each time you stepped out of your home , walked into a building or met someone new, you could choose your identity? Whether it be the same old you, someone anonymous or someone entirely different. You could just be whoever you wanted to be anytime you wanted. 'Cause sometimes it totally sucks to be who you are. Ya know?

Oy vey, has it been a weird week. It feels like it should be next Thursday by now. We've had an influx of patrons this week. For some reason college students still think it wise to wait until the last second to do research and write papers. I'd like to bang their heads together. Not only does such behavior cause THEM undue stress and possibly a poorly written paper, but it also causes US a lot of undue stress. All these students coming in from the SAME CLASS needing to do research RIGHTNOW dangit! Which means Jana and her colleagues have all been run ragged this week and most of last week. Added on top of the running ragged, the a/c in our reading room decided it was still winter outside and instead of cool crisp comfortable air, it's been pumping out HEAT for the past week. Meaning it's been 80 degrees in our reading room while we're running ourselves ragged. Argh! I can has nap? Pweeze? We've still been hunting for Sis2 and her crew an apartment and we think w...

Hey, I meant to leave this earlier this week but my brain has been on the fritz. The muse has commandeered any free time I've had. But, I have excellent news to share. My granddad, the one with the brain tumor, had an appointment with his oncologist earlier this week. They discovered that the cancer is almost entirely gone. He's got a spot the size of a pencil eraser that they feel confident should disappear once he's complete chemo. He's been doing really well with his treatments, too. His radiation ended the first week of April, I think, and he's been taking chemo pills. He hasn't really experienced a lot of the usual symptoms. He was already bald, so he didn't lose his hair! lol But the nausea and stuff he hasn't had that much of. He feels well enough that he's invited several of us to go eat tonight at his favorite seafood joint. I can't go because they're leaving at 4 and I don't get off till 4 but he's promised to take me out la...

From the Barnes and Noble Synopsis: Readers fell in love with Cannie Shapiro, the smart, sharp-tongued, bighearted heroine of Good in Bed who found her happy ending after her mother came out of the closet, her father fell out of her life, and her ex-boyfriend started chronicling their ex-sex life in the pages of a national magazine. Now Cannie's back. After her debut novel -- a fictionalized (and highly sexualized) version of her life -- became an overnight bestseller, she dropped out of the public eye and turned to writing science fiction under a pseudonym. She's happily married to the tall, charming diet doctor Peter Krushelevansky and has settled into a life that she finds wonderfully predictable -- knitting in the front row of her daughter Joy's drama rehearsals, volunteering at the library, and taking over-forty yoga classes with her best friend Samantha. As preparations for Joy's bat mitzvah begin, everything seems right in Cannie's world. Then Joy discovers t...

Packing is HARD work. That's what I've been doing for the past couple of days. Trekked over to the Delta to help Sis2 start packing some stuff up. We got several boxes packed up and moved to my house but it didn't even put a dent in all that needs packing. When we packed as much as would fit in my car, we started cleaning. Didn't get terribly far with that, either. But since Lyssa is cutting a tooth and was terribly irritable, we're lucky we got anything done. I'd have stayed and helped longer but I had to come back to work and Sis2 had to take Lyssa to her eight month check-up anyway. Can you believe that she's eight months old already? It seems that just last week she was all tiny and sweet. Now she's growing tall and strong, cutting teeth and stuff. *sigh* Time sure does fly, don't it? She's a sweetheart, though, even irritable. I miss her terribly and I only just left her last night. We danced together, played blocks together. Snuggled. She ...

Last night whenever they would show previews of the all new Ghost Hunters, I'd close my eyes or look away. It was supposed to be some really awesome evidence and I didn't need no stinkin' spoilers, thankyouverymuch. Turns out it was some wicked AWESOME evidence. To me and apparently them, anyway. A ghost that not only responded to their yes or no questions but also turned a flashlight on when they asked it too. BUT, the ghosties musta only liked Jay and Grant (and let's face it, I'd stand on my head and sing Yanky Doodle for Grant) because they didn't really come out and play with the other investigators. Okay, so a little bit with Steve and Tango (who needs to ditch the hat, dude.) but not much more than walking past the EMF reader. And you know, I think it's kinda funny that in each episode they show the clips explaining what EMF readers are and what they're used for and what EVP is and how that works. I suppose it's useful if you're just now t...

I started re-reading Jennifer Weiner's Good In Bed last night in anticipation of her newest release (today!) of Certain Girls . It's a sequel to Good In Bed and since it's been a few years since I read GIB, I thought I might need to reacquaint myself with it so that I won't be lost when reading Certain Girls . Smart, no? I'd forgotten how much I loved GIB--how much I identified with it. In case you're unfamiliar, Cannie Shapiro is a "big girl" who's just broken up with her boyfriend of three years who in turns writes an article about "Loving a Larger Woman." Chaos ensues. Or something similar. Cannie reflects on her life (the father who verbally abused her, mostly) and it's amazing how similar a lot of her thoughts and feelings are to mine. Scary, actually. Anyway, besides the deeper issues of being a "big girl" it's funny, sweet and a little sexy at times. I'm halfway through it and hope to finish it tonight...

There's a certain danger they don't warn you about when you take a monotonous job. They warn you all about the boredom you'll face but no one told me about all the time the monotony would allow for thinking. For instance, just now I was sitting here flipping through these newspapers I have to read everyday to mark for clippings and I came across several articles about some local companies. It made me think about my cousin, M, and how different his life turned out from mine. We grew up together, were afforded the same opportunities and yet he has a job that pays twice what mine does, is never boring and sends him off to Germany for a week of training. Not to mention all the other traveling he gets to do. Granted, he probably hates the travel because he has a wife and two sons he misses while he's gone, but I envy him. Not just the money (though it'd be super nice not to have to worry and budget so closely for every little thing.) But just the adventure. The fact that...

This came in an email. It was as the very end but I think it was the best part. Very thought provoking, especially so since it speaks directly to a lot of the thoughts I've been dealing with the past several months... Remember, when the world pushes you to your knees, you're in the perfect position to pray. Being happy doesn't mean everything's perfect. It means you've decided to see beyond the imperfections.

Okay, so I've never had a fortune cookie say that before. Never really thought much about fortune cookies except just to have silly fun with. My brothers-in-law and dad like to see what kind of sexual innuendo they can come up with from whatever "fortune" they get. But yesterday I was cleaning out the side pocket of my purse and came across a fortune I'd gotten sometime back in February, when I'd eaten Chinese for lunch. I'd stuck it in my purse and forgotten about it. It read, "Friends long absent are coming back to you." Now, when I first read that my initial reaction was trepidation because the first friend that crossed my mind was my BF with the icky husband. I love my BF to death but as long as she's married to him, I don't want them living anywhere near me. My mother, however, when I showed it to her, her first thought was my sister. This was just after Sis2 and Goofus had stated that they'd begun job hunting here at home and wanted...

sometimes something (or someone) happens that just really makes me want to bang my head against my desk. *sigh* It's called not bursting my balloon, people. AND not arguing with every little thing I say. Sometimes it's okay to just KEEP QUIET. If I'm wrong, let me look stupid. That's my perogotive. Don't correct me on every little thing just because you think you know better than me. Argh! I wish I weren't so nice, I'd tell this person just what a little ray of sunshine he/she isn't.

It's usually me.

I got antsy and bored last night so I started a project I'd been contemplating doing for some time. I've collected numerous wedding invites, newspaper clippings, etc that I'd intended to do a scrapbook with. You know, just a random, "This is your life" sort of scrapbook. I'd designated an old gift bag to hold all the items I'd collected so last night I dragged it out and sorted it. My dining room table looks like a paper factory threw up on it! lol I, of course, don't have the actual scrapbook to put it all in yet so I've just spent some time organizing it into categories. Wedding invites/clippings; thank you notes, special occasion souvenirs (concerts, trips, etc), Alyssa baby shower items, Emmy baby shower items (yes, I've been saving this stuff THAT long. LOL), graduation things, school certificates--you know, all the keepsakey paper items that sentimental people tend to hang on to. ;) I'm trying to map it all out in my head--what I want...

It IS Tuesday, right? I've lost all track of my days. *sigh* Anyway, for lack of anything interesting to say, I thought I'd share some random subjects, thoughts, etc. with ya'll. ~~ Last night as I was flipping channels I came across one of my favorite old movies. Well, it's an old movie, now since it was made in the 80's. Lean on Me starring the much loved Morgan Freeman. (He's much loved by me. I'm assuming everyone else in the world feels the same as I do. If you don't, WTCrap is up with that? The man's a friggen genius!) I'd actually forgotten all about that movie. You know, over the years there have been plenty of those "this extraordinary person saved this awful inner city gang ridden school" movies. Dangerous Minds come to mind. But I gotta say, Lean on Me has 'em all beat. Yeah, Mr. Clark is a mean SOB a lot of the time but he does it out of love for the students and in the end, they're all that matter. Anyway, watchi...

Unfortunately, besides diabetes, heart disease and thyroid issues, mild depression also runs in my family. A large part of my rant on here last week had to do with that. I'm still in a bit of a funk. Itchy and restless and not entirely content with my life. I think I'm gaining a grip on it again, though. Hopefully things will even out soon. Unfortunately for you guys, I subject ya'll to this sort of thing through this blog a little more often than I should. It's good for me in that I have an avenue in which to vent and whine to people I trust (and the world at large! Eek! lol)--something I would never be able to do with my face to face friends and family. Not that I don't trust them, it's just they either don't understand it, make me feel small for it or try to "best" me in a "woe is me" competition. Sorry. My depressive episodes are not up for "who's the most depressed" contests. Thankyouverymuch. Ya'll, on the other ha...

Thy name is Jana. *sigh* Sometimes I'd love to just throw my hands up. Wave a white flag. Something. Anything . Nothing and everything is wrong. I counted my blessings while in the elevator yesterday. While they're many, the frustrations are just so much more... frustrating. For instance, you all know about my battle to lose weight, right? If you don't you've either just started reading this blog or you live under a rock. Either way, here's the scoop. In 2006 and part of 2007 I lost around 40 pounds. (Yeah, and I'm still huge, so you do the math.) Somewhere along the way in 2007 I plateaued, as is apt to happen. Thing of it is, I never got out of the plateau and in fact despite my best efforts I gained 8lbs of it back over the course of a couple of months. Now it seems my struggle is stuck in reverse. Doesn't matter what I do, how little I eat or how much activity I add to my day it just isn't working. And it's frustrating the hell outta me. Grrrrrr....

It was entirely too strange having Easter and my birthday on the same day. Too. Strange. The whole day was just odd. Off, if you will. But then, this whole YEAR has been odd/off/strange. I don't know what happened there but nothing feels as it should these days. Everything seems all wonky. Between illnesses, deaths, this oddly early Easter, leap year and all manner of other anomalies, it's a wonder I even recognize my life at all. But, I did indeed get to (sort of) celebrate my birthday. Mama and Daddy took me out Friday night to eat at my favorite Mexican place. The food was excellent as usual. The service, however, could have been better. The waiter rushed us through everything, completely ignored Mama and me and didn't even offer us dessert! I was so disappointed! I don't know what his problem was. It wasn't as if we were there at a peak time and he needed to turn our table quickly. We got there WELL before the supper rush. *shakes head* I think he just wanted to...