A warm blanket and a long nap is much needed

Even though it is only 9:25, I'm going to go ahead and label today a bad day.

I haven't been able to wake up yet.  I'm so exhausted I feel like I could fall asleep in my very uncomfortable office chair.

My back started hurting again yesterday so today I'm wearing my back brace which isn't relaxing or comfortable.

I have not had nearly enough coffee.  I think today is about a 5 cup day.

I'm PMSing so I am wavering between being pissed off about everything and wanting to put my head down on my desk and cry.

I was too busy last night to get my new dog blog rolling.  I was attempting to make my sister a cake for her birthday and kept running out of ingredients.

This is the third day in a row that I've been up before 6 and hating it.

I have cramps.

There are stacks of papers on my desk for me to get through and I can barely even look at them without going brain dead.

I want to go home.  I want to go home and snuggle up in bed and sleep off the bad day.  The fact that I can't is just making me bitter toward everything else today.

F*** you Thursday.  F*** you.

The Flu Week

I don't feel like I should complain much about work because even on its worst day this place is so much better than what I have put up with in the past.  But I think this week is worthy of a complaint or two.

First of all, where do I work?  That is a very good question.  There are three businesses that I work for so it isn't confusing in the slightest.  One is a drug trial company.  One is a sleep behaviorist doctor.  And one is a sleep lab company.  I am the door keeper for those three companies.  The sleep lab is a little bit scattered and disorganized but they're figuring it out.  Normally everything runs pretty smoothly.  Although there are some things to complain about, I just have to remember my previous employment and then I find myself thanking my lucky stars.  Usually.

This week is Flu Week and it sucks.  The drug trial company is doing a massive flu study that I have been in charge of scheduling for.  It has been a nightmare to figure it all out and call people and there are so many restrictions on how you can schedule.  Blah.  Doesn't help that we're scheduling older people.  Some of them are lovely and charming.  Some of them come from the stock of old person that screams at kids on their lawn.

I'm not exactly having fun with it.  I have to be at work at 6:30am, which SUCKS!  I am not a morning person.  Mornings were invented to torture us slowly until we can get enough coffee into our systems to become human.  True I used to work earlier everyday but that was a while ago and I have very much happily settled into my later work schedule.  So I hate this.  It isn't as bad for me as it is for the coordinators who have to be here from 7am-7pm all this week.  But I still complain.  Just more quietly in their presence.  Then for the next two Sundays I have to work too.  That means no days off for me until the end of the month.

I'm exhausted just thinking about it and must refill my coffee.

Whirlwind Weekend

That was a whirlwind weekend.  I need a couple of days to recover!  Good thing it is Columbus Day...  Wait... I'm at work...

...Columbus Day is a stupid holiday!  I didn't want it off anyway!  It's not like he did anything important.

So this weekend started out with a double puppy class for me because a few people missed last class so I was kind enough to come in and do a quick catch up for them.  It's not something I mind doing at all but I do tend to get irritated when people ask me to do them and then don't show up.  Luckily that didn't happen this time and they showed up.  I can tell they haven't been practicing much at home (yes your trainer can tell when you don't practice) but they seem engaged in class so they come out on the positive client list anyway.

After class I went home and put together a shopping list.  Since it is getting cooler I am breaking out the crock-pot.  I like the idea of putting together crock-pot meals six to eight at a time and freezing them.  That way in the morning before I leave for work I can pop them in the crock-pot and they're cooked by the time I get home.  See, in the interest of eating better I'm coming up with an effective plan of attack against the nights were I tend to eat poorly, coming off of my 13 hour day where I am just TOO EXHAUSTED to even contemplate cooking.  Enter the crock-pot in all it's crocky glory.  Of course for this plan to work I have to do a lot of meal preparation all at once on days where I have time.  This is the first time I've done it so we'll see how it turns out.  Anyway, I got my shopping list together and took off to shop.  I don't tend to shop in bulk so it seemed like a lot of food to me.  On the plus side, I did get to push around the cart and I did do some cart riding doing the empty aisles.  You have to make shopping fun.

I returned home with all of my fresh purchases and yes I carried them all into the house at once.  Second trips are for babies!  I got to chopping and filling bags and then I realized that there was stuff I was missing.  Damn it!  The shopping list I worked off of wasn't complete.  After I got done cursing I called my sister and bribed her with some Margarita Cupcakes to get me the missing items.  Which she did because she's the best.

And yes, I did say Margarita Cupcakes.  Caught that did you?  Yep, I totally made Margarita Cupcakes from scratch.  And they turned out WONDERFUL!  Yes I did have to resort to calling my mother to find out what the heck lime zest was (I will never hear the end of that.) but it was worth it for the complete scrumptiousness of the cupcakes.

After a long day of chopping and crying over the onions (first time chopping onions has made me cry) I trucked off to Angie's house to see her new DVD.  Very exciting!  Raising an Off Leash Puppy which she knows a lot about since she has a wonderful dog Owen to prove it.  Someday I'll be as cool as Angie.  It was well past my bedtime by the time I got home.

So as you can see I already had a busy Saturday.  Bring on Sunday.

It began with a family brunch which has become a regular affair.  My Aunt Kim was visiting from St. Louis and it was very good to see her.  I do miss my crazy St. Louis family.  After that I managed to herd her, my mom and my dad over to the house I'm buying so we could go over just how much needed to be done and what needed to be done first.  That is a whole different post.  I'm actually starting to get excited about how cute this house is going to turn out to be.

Then we were joined there by my besties Caitlin and Kathleen.  Caitlin of course lives in the Springs and had seen the outside of the house but Kathleen hadn't seen it at all.  She stopped here in her treck across the country with her mom to kind of check it out.  I hope she decides to move back here from Ohio!  I wanted a three bedroom house so both Caitlin and Kathleen could live with me but that didn't work out.  I love them both and hopefully one of them can move in once this house is finished.

Then we went down to Manitou for some lunch.  There is this incredible Middle Eastern cafe there with some of the best falafel I have ever had.  Not only is falafel yummy but it is so fun to say.  Falafel.  FA-LA-FEL!  Great word.  Did some quick walking in Manitou then we were off to meet my mom and aunt at Lowes to look at paint colors and such. 

Aunt Kim is an interior decorator and has some serious talent.  I will have to fly her out again when the house is finished so she can decorate it.  Between her, Kathleen and my mom we were able to get a nice pallet that I can use throughout the house.  It is very earthy and natural, which I love.  We also picked out some tile to frame the tile already in the house around where my wood burning stove is going to be.

Then we went back to my brother's house where there was pizza had and a movie watched.  Long ass weekend.

And now the first week of the flu shot study is starting which means for the rest of the week I have to be at work by 6:30am and I have to work on Sunday.  *sigh*

Nailed it!

I have to share that my nails look very pretty.  They're pink and cute.  And my toenails match!  Why am I excited about my nails you might ask, especially since I don't tend to be overly concerned with girly things like that?  It's because I've been a nail bitter since I could chew.  Up until high school I'd chew off all my nails and then wait a couple of days and do it again.  When I got to high school I began to covet my sister's long pretty nails but I just couldn't break the habit of nail biting.

I'm finally ALMOST broken of it.  My secret?  Nail polish.  I try to always have at least clear nail polish on.  That way I have something to pick at when the mood strikes instead of biting my nails clean off.  Granted it isn't a perfect system because once I pick off some of the nail polish then it all hast to come off.  I CAN'T stand having chipped nail polish.  That means I go through a lot of nail polish.  Also sometimes once the mood strikes I pick off all the nail polish and just keep going to the nails.

It also doesn't help that my jobs have generally been hard on my nails.  Working with dogs means I get banged up and things happen.  Polish chips and nails break.  And when nail's break you can pretty much assume I'm going to have short nails before the day is over.  If one nail breaks I have to bite them all off.  Compulsion.  OCD.

I'm trying to curb that.  Right now my pinky nails are the perfect length and so pretty.  They get broken the least.  They are the envy of the rest of my fingers.

Now I hope I don't crack on the pressure and bite them all off...

And yes, I did just do a post about my nails.  Because it's my blog and I can!

It's time to get political

Alright I've avoided it long enough.  Politics.  Ug.  Just the word is enough to exhaust me because my general view of politics is either toddlers pushing each other down in the mud or an endless rat race with not beginning or end and not much accomplished.  I would much rather stick my head in the sand and let it pass me by like many Americans but I don't believe that you have any right to bitch about politics or political happenings if you don't take the time to inform yourself and vote.  If you don't vote, you forfeit all bitching rights afterward.

My political past hasn't been all that exciting.  Since you can't vote until you're 18 anyway I never gave it a whole lot of thought before that.  It was an untouchable and unswayable ideology before that.  Granted it is still untouchable and unswayable but at least now I get to join the rat race like all the other exhausted rodents running on the unmoving wheels.  Keep in mind that I was raised in a Conservative Irish Catholic family.  My parents were always up for debate and encouraged us all to have our own ideas and opinions though.  That's where I learned that your opinion is not worth much if you haven't done the deep thinking and research needed to defend it.  Once again, "Because I'm right," is not a valid argument.  It's irritating as hell when toddlers blurt it out and it doesn't get any more attractive in adults.  So I have a healthy respect for debate as long as you are willing to actually debate and possibly eventually agree to disagree.

Then I went to college.  And I went to about the worst college I could have picked.  Boulder is a beautiful place, thus why I picked to live there.  However, it is also a very shallow and close minded place.  It is not a place to be different, no matter how much they kumbaya at you and tell you they accept all types of people.  First of all, it is a predominantly white community.  Second of all, it is a predominantly upper middle class community.  I found it to be a rather petty place where tolerance is much harder to find than any kind of drug you may fancy.  CU is a good school and huge, which I liked.  But it is so flooded with kids there on their parents' dime that partying is a way of life, not just something that goes on behind the scenes.  For those of us who had to work to pay our way didn't have time for that and had a hard time fitting in to the social scene.  I couldn't afford to spend time partying because I worked full time and went to school full time.  Plus I just really couldn't $afford$ it.  Add to that delightful atmosphere the way crazy political side of Boulder and the fun begins.  Saying people are liberal there is only scratching the surface.  There are a lot of communists, socialists, die hard liberals and agendas I couldn't even name.  I have no problem with people being of different political parties.  That's one of the great beauties of this country that you can believe whatever you want to believe.  I will fight for people to have that right.  However, what irks me is when people throw those beliefs in other people's faces in a disrespectful and degrading way.  Just because I disagree with you or you disagree with me doesn't make either of us less of a person with less rights to feel that way.  But if you want to throw it in my face at least back it up with some fact or strong thought.  Just because I come from a more conservative background, does not make me a horrible person.

Of course that is not the attitude I encountered.  I have a fairly open and laid back viewpoint.  There are very few topics that I will get truly passionate about that I get truly offended if someone doesn't agree with me.  It was kind of shocking to me how many people took an instant dislike to me because I'm more conservative.  And I've never had so many people ask that within the first couple of minutes of meeting me.  Not everyone was hostile toward me but the handful that were made the experience a bad one.  I had a hard time fitting in so I tried out the College Republicans but I wasn't really conservative enough nor dedicated enough to really relate well to them.  You have to be pretty dedicated to put up with the kind of crap the College Republicans got in Boulder.  I was called "Baby killer" more times than I can count.  It probably didn't help that it was a heated election year my freshman year of college.  I voted for Bush that year and I wasn't going to hide it.  However I was not at all prepared to be spit on because of it.  Yes, spit on.  That is the kind of behavior and attitude that is the problem in politics today.  I got really tired of that really fast.  One of the reasons I hated living in Boulder so much.  It was like a constant battle because I had a different set of opinions than the liberal majority.  And it wasn't even that I was that different; I was MUCH less conservative that any other Republican I met there.

So what are my beliefs and opinions?  I'll tell you.  Keep in mind that I don't have these opinions to offend people and I hope you are not offended by them.  I'm always up for healthy discussions and debates but I won't give anyone the time of day that wants to get personal over them.  If you don't want to know my political standpoints, stop reading.  No harm, no foul.

I am a registered Republican.  I am thinking about changing that to registered Independent though.  I do not believe in voting on party lines.  I think that the people who only vote on party lines and have certain opinions because that's what is traditional for that party are cheapening themselves and the system.  We have some wonderful rights in the country.  We have the right to believe in what we want to believe and not be persecuted for it.  We have the right to vote how we truly want to vote.  Anyone that throws that away doesn't really understand how lucky we are as Americans.  So yes, I am a registered Republican but I don't vote on Republican party lines just because.  I believe in researching each issue, deciding what is important to me and voting on THAT instead of just looking for the R and checking that name.  Usually that works well.  I keep my head down and try not to pay attention to the political poo throwing that goes on.  I don't get involved too much in political things mostly because I find it exhausting.  If I didn't believe it was important to take a hands on approach and exercising my right to vote, I wouldn't bother with politics at all.  But again, I believe that if you didn't take the time to vote you don't have the right to bitch about it.  And if you threw away your vote without researching the topics; that's almost worse.  Every year I am almost tempted to vote for whatever candidate does the least amount of smear campaigning.

To be honest, I think this two party system is ruining our government.  It seems like the two parties spend more time fighting each other than actually completing anything that helps the American people.  If they had any ability to compromise and work together without bringing to mind vindictive toddlers on the play ground I think more things would get done.  If a third party member had any hope of winning I think I would vote for them just to get someone else in office.  Sadly, voting for a third party member feels a little bit like throwing my vote away.  Still, I may end up doing that this election.

I don't like Romney.  I don't like Obama.  I have problems with both candidates and both agendas.  I don't think either of them would make a good president.  I almost shutter to think of Romney as president and I haven't been fond of Obama at all.  The whole thing is depressing because we're going to get one or the other.  I'm to the point of trying to decide which is the lesser evil.  Because I'm so undecided and torn this year, I did watch the debate.  I normally don't bother with those because again it just feels like "I'm right!" "No, I'm right!" "No I'm right because I'm smart."  "No, I'm smart!"  Bicker bicker bicker.  Blah blah blah.  But I sucked it up and I watched the debate.  And no I didn't play the debate drinking game even though it was VERY tempting and probably would have made it more enjoyable.  I think Romney punched through more of his opinions and commanded attention at the debate... but he also came off as kind of a jackass.  Obama just kind of stood there.  Which is fitting with the past four years of his presidency.  Honestly the most interesting character during the debate was the moderator, Jim Lehrer.  He was very polite and patient with them.  I would have told Romney to shut up and let me speak.  Yeesh.

So coming out of the debate, I'm not decided.  Not even close.  To amuse myself and maybe help me find some footing, however juvenile they are, I took some online tests to see where I fall.  Romney or Obama.  And....  I am split about 50/50... helpful.  Gah the way this is going I may not vote this election.  Either way something is going to happen that I like and something is going to happen that I hate.  Why stress myself out about it?  Because I so believe in taking part in the process!  Damnit!  Why can't I just be okay with not caring?  Damn my civic duty that I so respect and cherish.  I guess I will be tuning in to the other debates and I don't expect to know who will get my vote until the very end.  I may be staring at the ballot when I decide.

Here are some of the things I am pretty "solid" on:

• I believe in equal rights for the LGBT community, especially gay marriage.  I believe it is outright discrimination that prevents gay marriage.
• I believe in woman's rights.  That includes easy and affordable access to birth control.  Viagra is covered by most insurance companies so it is actually offensive that women have to fight for affordable birth control.  Oh and I don't believe it should be all old white men debating the issue.  Let's have woman's opinion on women's rights please.  
• Woman's rights also includes abortion.  I used to be against abortion because it is killing the potential for a human being.  However, as I got older I realized that I might make a certain decision for myself but I can't dictate that decision for other women.  There is a saying I heard that really hit home with me on this issue.  If you can't trust a woman to make the decision how can you trust her to raise a child?  That really resonates with me.  I can't make that choice for someone because it is impossible to see it through their eyes.  Nor would I want a bunch of old men making that choice for me.  So, as much as I hope I would make the choice for life if I were in that situation, no one should take that choice from me.
• Healthcare.  This is a hard one because I'm not sure what solution I want.  The fact is though that healthcare in this country is in a scary state.  SOMETHING has to be done with it.  It needs to be easier for people like me to get healthcare.  For a long time I didn't have any insurance of any kind and thank goodness nothing happened to me that I'd be paying through the nose for medical bills.  Now I have insurance with my new job but a lot of companies can't afford to provide it and people can't afford to buy it on their own.  It's scary to think about.  Problem is, I'm not sure which candidate has the best fix for healthcare.
• Gun rights.  It is my right as an American citizen to own firearms and no one better take that away from me.  Come the end of this year I will be exercising my right to own and carry a firearm.
• Immigration is another issue.  I do not believe illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay here because they managed to sneak in.  If you can't come here legally then you don't have rights here.  That said, I think that the immigration system that allows people to come here should be rethought because it is very hard.  We should keep in mind that we are a country of immigrants but that doesn't mean you get all the benefits of living here if you're illegal and don't pay taxes.
• Foreign policy is important to me too.  If you remember my post on Sept. 11th, keeping this country safe and fighting for our rights and our continued existence is important to me.  I am proud to be an American and I don't want to see other innocent Americans die just for the simple fact that they are Americans.  Terrorists are a threat and one of the world's greatest evils.  Our government should be able to protect us.  But then you have the fine line of what is invading my privacy, which is one of my rights, and what is keeping me safe.  Also, I'm not sure that the USA should be involved in so many global conflicts when we have so much work to do at home for our own people.  Although I have supported the War on Terror since the very beginning, I would like to see a lot of those resources come back home and help the people here who need it before we rush off and stomp the living daylights out of other countries.  Of course, that is also a fine line.  All these fine lines is why politics gives me such a headache.

I'm sure there are many other things that I have opinions about but my brain lost steam.  I tend to be socially more liberal and economically more conservative.  And in this election, I'm straddling the line more than I ever have.  Makes it really hard to vote.  Why can't they just share the position?  That might be the best compromise but then, of course, that would mean that nothing would get done because they'd be too busy pushing the other down in the dirt then crying about it to the American people.  Sigh.  See why I don't normally like to get too overly involved in politics.  Sadly, you'll probably hear more about this as the election draws nearer.  Somehow I am going to have to make up my mind.

In the kitchen

I've been attempting to make changes in my life.  Of course, like many people, my new years resolutions tend to be good intentions more than anything else.  One thing I have been steadily working on is cooking more.  I've always been able to cook but I don't necessarily like to do it.  I don't want to spend an hour cooking something that will take me 15 minutes to eat.  However, in the interest of eating better and spending less, I've started doing just that.  Eventually hopefully I will get faster because I do want to keep at it.

Pinterest has been a big help in this.  (which reminds me I need to post about Pinterest in general)  But anyway I began seeing some yummy looking things on Pinterest and began to gather them up.  Then I thought about actually trying them out.  So I bought a recipe book and put together my Pinterest recipes. 

I haven't tried them all, obviously, but what I have tried has been very good.  This is encouraging.

So tonight I'm making some Mexican Stuffed Shells.

The picture looks good doesn't it?  I have found that my food doesn't look nearly that pretty but it tastes just fine... so far.

I still haven't figured out THE system for shopping.  I did discover this site BigOven that I can upload my recipes to and create weekly shopping lists and such.  Now when I actually get to sit down and get those recipes on there it will be a nifty thing.  Until then I just kind of pull up Pinterest on my phone while I wander around the store.  And King Soopers is big into changing everything around so it makes no sense and is hard to find those little things.  I sent my brother to shop for this meal and he came back with taco shells instead of pasta shells and he couldn't find green onions.  (he's adorable).  I go to pick up those two things, and of course come out with about 15 more things than I needed damn them, and it took me about 5 minutes of staring at the pasta wall to find large shell pasta.  Finally found it way back in the corner.  Someone must be making A LOT of Mexican Stuffed Shells tonight because there were only a couple of boxes left.  I knew where to get the green onions and then my 15 extra items and I checked out.  Can I just note, that I will not go to a human checker unless forced to.  I like those self checkout things.

I must say that my stuffed pasta was VERY nummy.  Took me longer than it should have because I was watching the debate at the same time but I think this was a successful cooking experience.  

Mmm mmm good eating.

The how to!
Mexican Stuffed Pasta

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1 package low-sodium taco seasoning
• 4 oz. cream cheese
• 14-16 jumbo pasta shells
• 1.5 cup salsa
• 1 cup taco sauce
• 1 cup cheddar cheese
• 1 cup monterey jack cheese
• 3 green onions
• Sour cream

1. Preheat oven to 350°.  
2. In a frying pan cook ground beef; add taco seasoning and prepare according to package directions.  Add cream cheese, cover and simmer until cheese is melted. Blend well. Set aside and cool completely.  
3. While ground beef is cooking, cook the pasta shells according to directions; drain. Set shells out individually on cutting board/baking sheet so that they don’t stick together.  
4. Pour salsa on bottom of 9×13 baking dish.  Stuff each shell with the meat mixture. Place shells in 9×13 pan open side up. Cover shells with taco sauce.  Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.  
5. After 30 minutes, add shredded cheese and bake for 10-15 more minutes, with the foil removed.  Top with any condiments you’d like (green onions, black olives, etc.) Serve with sour cream and/or more salsa.
6. Enjoy with yummy noises.

Guru in training

I have been informed by my dear friend Whitney that I suck at blogging.  No that's not what she said but the general meaning was there, haha.  I do admit this is true.  Beyond posting a new blog post and then sharing it on my Facebook, I'm not a big blogging guru.  Apparently there is much to learn.  So now, if you look at my lovely blog (which by the way I am proud that I figured out how to customize it at least a little) there are some changes you can take advantage of.  Above ↑ you will see a little bar below my lovely picture heading with "Email" in it.  If you submit your email address there you will receive my blog posts to your email.  Over to the right → you will see this little like three line design followed by "posts" and "comments".  If you click those, my blog will be added to your collection of blogs or other things you are following, if you are techy like that.  WAY down at the bottom ↓ you can share my blog on Facebook or Twitter.

So hopefully that helps get my blog out there a little more.  Not that there is anything of great importance on here as I am mostly writing it for myself and I'm not sure how many people read it.  But if you do read it you can now choose different ways to be notified of my various posts.  That being said I do promise to post more often.  When I get busy and stressed I only tend to want to do bitchy posts.  Then I feel like I'm just complaining and I don't really need to cement it in words.  But this is supposed to be a reflection of my life and sometimes in life I get bitchy and complain.  I guess anyone reading this will just have to handle that.  I do want to try to have more of a presence.

In my heart I am a dog trainer but I am also a writer.  I do write quite frequently but mostly keep it to myself.  I've been writing since I learned how to read and write, which came later in life than most people.  I have a pretty good case of dyslexia.  Dyslexia means I have a hard time reading or doing other activities such as math because decipher I symbols differently.  Basically I learn differently than everyone else.  So when I was in elementary school the teachers didn't know how to teach me and I wasn't learning anything.  They told my mom that I was just stupid.  Luckily my mom knew something else was going on and took me to get all this testing done and soon found out I was dyslexic.  After a couple of years of tutoring I was reading at a college level and able to work around being dyslexic.  I still struggle with some things, like my spelling or with math, but dyslexia didn't stop me from a love of reading and writing.  Heck I have a degree in English Literature with a focus on Creative Writing.

So coming back from that tangent, I love writing.  I have been writing since I knew how and have several pieces of poetry published.  In high school I took three times as many English and writing courses than was needed.  I also kept a blog that I recently reopened and looked at.  I was really open and honest in that blog.  Though before you ask, no I will not be sharing the link with you.  I downloaded the whole thing and plan on going back through it and rereading it.  In knowing who you are, I think it is important to remember who you were.  Doesn't mean you have to keep being that person but you should at least acknowledge life experiences.  So, though I may not want to share all my teenage angst with you, I probably will pull bits out here and there.

In the spirit of blogging and writing more I will make the effort to at least post something everyday.  I get caught up in these silly rules like "I can't post more than one post a day" and "If I'm going to bother posting it has to be something of substance".  Bah.  I don't think the blogging world has such rules, which is one of the reasons I so enjoy it.  So I will move the Blogger App on my phone to the front and do more blogging in general.  Yes, there is an app for that.

I really want to start writing about dogs/dog training and all that good stuff that I am passionate about so maybe in the next couple of weeks I will be starting a second blog to do that.  Whitney will have to help me set that one up so that it is SUPER cool and advertised.  Oh yeah.

Rambling post but there you have it.  Should probably find time to do some work between all the blogging I am going to do.