ronni

Back To Myself

/ happy, pictures, ronni

Flamingo

Ah. I feel so much more like myself today and let me tell you, THAT is a relief. I got to work in an office I enjoy, and I got to catch up with friends I haven’t seen in months and I even saw someone from my past life at Ogilvy. It was cool to see him! Sometimes I guess I just need some good energy to help clear out the cobwebs in my brain.

My sleep schedule has become way more conventional in the past few weeks. Disney World helped do that. It’s weird to wake up at 6am and think to myself “Wow, I can sleep for another two and a half hours!” (It helps to live very close to the offices I typically commute to, or in most cases, have the office in my living room.) I woke up feeling well-rested this morning and definitely less cranky. And I was greeted at the bedroom door by little Fi again. He must hear me moving around when I am getting ready so he goes to wait for me, and when I open my door, he’s sitting or standing there looking up at me. So sweet and cute.

He’s curled up beside me right now. 🙂

Last night, Adam made chicken nuggets from a recipe he got from YouTube, I think. They’re to mimic the Chick-Fil-A nuggets. He does a really good job with them, and they taste AWESOME. But then the leftover cooking smell drives me bananas [1. Unless it’s bacon. I’m surprisingly very OK with the place smelling like bacon all the time]. I diffused some lavender essential oil (I am anxious to receive the purification oil) and then I had to burn two incense sticks. Deep-fry smell lingers and lingers and gets onto everything. I’m not a fan. My friend Jen is the same way. She cannot stand cooking smells. I don’t mind them WHEN cooking is taking place. But once I’m done eating, get it away. I’m the same with strong food smells. Stew? Ketchup? Beef n Noodles? Get it away from me when I’m done or I’ll get nauseated. It’s weird.

Anyway, I’m not even sure how I got on that topic. I really just wanted to write and report that I’m feeling so much better today. OK then. Til next time! 🙂

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Angst, Angst, More Angst

/ miscellany monday, pictures, ronni

Crabapple Tree

Sometimes I feel so silly. I swear, I’ve been nothing but dumb the past few weeks, and verbalising it and beating myself up out loud. Saying things like “I’m so stupid, I can’t believe I said/did/thought that.” I don’t know why I’m doing this. I want to call myself stupid for doing it. And I probably will.

For example. Right now I’m pretty tired and wondering how the hell I’m going to manage a full day in the office and then an evening out with friends tomorrow. Then I had to sit here and remind myself: “Oh wait, it’s the end of the day, of course I’m tired. I’ll get a decent night’s sleep (cats willing) and I’ll be good to go in the morning. DUH.” And if not, there’s always these guys:


[via]

Coming off of a weekend that was 80% annoying and 20% OK, I’m kicking off a pretty busy couple of weeks. Workshops, working THREE freelance jobs, and commitments every evening this week, except tonight, but tonight I was working so….

But now I’m done working for the day. It’ll be time for me to bathe and head to bed soon, and I hope that the cats aren’t obnoxious so I can actually get some sleep. At least I’ll be at the place with the free apple juice and oranges. But I’ll probably spend most of my time in the free candy drawer.

It seems like I go through these times where I’m doing nothing but eating candy and playing video games, and then I go through times when I am so busy it’s a miracle I don’t have a nervous breakdown. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve taken on too much and I’m 99% sure I’m going to give up one of my commitments within the next couple of months. I don’t like to do that but I think I have good enough reasons:

1. I don’t really like it. I resent it when I have to do it, and I dread it when I see it on my schedule.
2. It’s volunteer, so I’m not even getting paid for it, although I am getting things in exchange for it. But I’m beginning to think it’s worth my sanity for me to just PAY for the things instead.
3. The resentment of *that* thing is spilling into other aspects of that life, and I don’t like that. Because most of the other stuff is just fine.
4. When I am busy, I am busy, and that’s the one thing I can always see sacrificing and being totally OK with it.
5. I’m picking up new paid gigs all the time. I’d rather devote more time to that.

I’ve been feeling off, and I wonder if that’s because of the Daylight Savings Time combined with Mercury Retrograde and also coming off the high of Disney World (I do know that I owe you some more trip report posts!)… all I want to do is curl up with a good book, chocolate, some chips, and a big glass of Tang.

And because I’ve been feeling off, I’m not resigning from that post just yet–it could just be a passing thing. We’ll see how it goes.

Right now, I feel like the depression is trying to take hold again and I’m too damn tired and overwhelmed to fight it.

BUT I’m going to see an old friend tomorrow night after working onsite for a client, and we’re going to eat in a very yummy restaurant. Also, Golden Boy will be recording for me on the TiVo. I get to go out to Naperville on Wednesday, and Thursday I’m going to meet a family I’m potentially going to babysit for occasionally. I’ve got the rest of the Twilight movies coming for me in the mail and I plan to have a marathon once I’m done turning in all my teacher training stuff. (THAT should give me the motivation to finally get shit done.) The official first day of Spring is 10 days away (even though you wouldn’t know it by the 30F weather and snow here), and it smells like popcorn in my apartment. And Fi has been curled up by my feet almost all day and evening. (I guess that tells you where I spent the majority of my day.) So there are GOOD things and I’m usually so good at focusing on them. It’s just been much harder lately for some reason.

Right now, I’m craving something warm and sweet and yummy and comforting. Like Cream of Wheat and bacon, or apple crumble. Also a hot bath. So I’m going to do at least one of those things.

Night.

miscellany monday at lowercase letters

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Five

/ meme, pictures, ronni

weeeee

I found this on Lesley’s blog. (She found it on another blog.) You know I can’t resist things like this…..

five

…. things you’ll find in my purse
* wallet
* small notebook w/pen
* gum
* lotion
* keys

…. things you’ll find in my bedroom
* at least one cat (unless they’ve been shut out b/c someone peed on the bed again)
* stuffed animals
* toys
* clothes all over the floor
* snacks

…. things I’ve always wanted to do
* write a best selling novel
* go to another country
* act in a hollywood blockbuster
* walk the red carpet
* be interviewed on a talk show

…. things I’m currently loving
* that there is technically only 18 days of winter left
* my cute new headphones
* tang
* my new stuffed bear (but Pandernoodle is still #1 with me!)
* looking forward to Disney World this coming June

…. quirks I have
* a strong sense of smell
* a hatred of people crowding around me when I am trying to concentrate and/or shop
* a need to sleep with an electric blanket
* a hatred of the sound of footsteps, especially clicky high heels on hard wood or laminate flooring
* a need to read before I can fall asleep at night. There is a big stack of books by my side of the bed.

What about you? If you do this, let me know in the comments so I can check out your Five!

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My What a Guy… GASTON!!

/ disney world, pictures, ronni, vacation, yay

Gaston and me!!

This was one of the highlights of my Disney trip. Gaston was hilarious. I heard him ask a girl if she liked his teeth. He told me to put my arms around him and try not to faint. He was so much fun, and the character I’d hoped to meet this time around. 🙂

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Just One of Those Weeks

/ life, pictures, ronni, shenanigans, yoga

Wahhhh!!!

It was just one of those weeks. You know the type where it seems like you’re doing ALL THE THINGS ALL DAY LONG but you only check one or two things off the to do list. Or when you get so far in a big project on the computer only for the software you’re using to crash, not only once, but at least five times.

Yes. That really happened.

BUT I eventually got the project done and my recipient is very happy. 🙂 And now, another yoga teacher training milestone is out of the way. Customized yoga is done. Here I am with my student:

me and nancy
nancy is awesome

Not much more to go. I need to attend two thesis presentations, write up my book reviews, write up my private lessons, and turn in my thesis. And my final exam, which hasn’t been announced yet. Closing circle is April 26. That gives me about two months to tie up all the loose ends and finally have that certificate in my hands.

Earlier this week, I got to see a truly disgusting side of humanity but in the next instant, I saw things that were heartwarming and beautiful. It was a week where I felt like I could not get enough to sleep, and a week where a cold decided to come along and make me feel slightly off-kilter and very cranky.

I realized I like Slim Jims.

I got to work at Trisect, which I love. And because I was working on a special project, the proofreader I usually cover for was there. It was awesome to finally meet her. She was really nice, and she has big hair like me. 🙂

Went back to Mysore Tuesday night. I like the evening Mysore and I am thrilled that a Thursday evening Mysore is going to start in a few weeks. At least, that’s the word out on the street. I never expected to like Mysore as much as I do. Believe me, NO ONE is more surprised than I am that I like Mysore as much as I do. I got four more poses on Tuesday, and I think I’ll be here for a while. I’m up to Uttitha Eka Padasana. Yea. I’ll be there for a while. Heh. Funnily enough, I am great at that one. It’s the two before that I suck at. It’s Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana and Utthita Parsvasahita that’s gonna keep kicking my butt, and those come BEFORE Uttitha Eka Padasana. And then once I get those, the next big move is handstand, but before that is Utkatasana, where I’ll be stuck for about 95 years because I cannot do handstand (yet?). It scares the poo out of me. (But I like Utkatasana so I’m OK with that.)

I got to watch the pilot for Golden Boy, which made me happy. I thought that I would miss it because the television premiere is February 26 (you know where I’ll be!) but CBS.com is nice enough to have it streaming now. I am not a huge “cop show” girl but this one is intriguing. I like it and will continue to watch it for the time being.

Yesterday, snow came and that, coupled with usual Chicago Friday rush hour that starts at freaking 1pm, made running errands annoying and frustrating. I’ve gotten spoiled by the new Target in town. Yesterday, we went to a more crowded one and I wanted to smack everyone who kept getting in my way. And that really was almost EVERYONE. It seemed like as soon as I’d go to an empty aisle to look at something, 90,000 other people would need the exact thing I wanted. OR I’d go to an aisle and there would be one person standing right front of the item I needed, and standing SO CLOSE TO THE SHELVES there was no way I could go up and look myself without being a creeper.

I worked the Tantric Restorative workshop last night. Doing the workshops at the West Bucktown location is 99x less stressful than doing them at River West. Except for always worrying about running out of props, but we were actually OK. There were fewer people there, and although the lobby got a little crazy with one class ending, the workshop starting and *another* workshop starting, it was still OK. And the actual workshop itself was great. I almost fell asleep in some of the poses. I know some people DID fall asleep. I might have been one of them.

I was glad to get home, eat some pasta, and read. I’d planned on cleaning the apartment today, but they dropped the bomb yesterday that the manuals were due to our students this coming Thursday. And well, Thursday, I’m going to be playing in Animal Kingdom or something. So I had to get it done today. Which brought on the histrionics when Word kept crashing. And crashing. And crashing. So I used Pages and managed to get it working–although Pages has its own issues. But no matter. It’s done, and I think it looks OK. And Adam ended up doing all the cleaning.

Mercury went into retrograde today, which makes me a little bit nervous, considering I had the computer issue, and I had an issue with one of the games I play causing me to possibly inadvertently spam non-playing FB friends. Folks, I love some of the games on Facebook. They’re mindless and cute and they just help me calm the eff down. But I don’t want to be subjecting people to all of that if they don’t want to be, so I am very careful about filtering my game posts so only fellow players see them, and only sending requests to people I KNOW are active players (and I know this because they send active requests to ME). So when I’m clicking through my requests and realize that the game company has thrown in someone I KNOW doesn’t play but I’ve already clicked it (and didn’t realize it until after the fact), I get really angry. Because that’s bullshit. It’s deceitful and greedy and I can guarantee they’re not getting a dime of my “real money” for doing underhanded crap like that.

OH and also, they recommend that Sagittarius people don’t travel during Mercury retrogrades. This is what the Farmer’s Almanac says:

In Sagittarius: It is not a time to travel, so reschedule or just expect delays, lines, and lost directions. Instead, take care of local affairs. Patience and a sense of humor are needed.

WELL ISN’T THAT JUST FREAKING GREAT. But I’m not going to buy so much into this because I don’t want to be blaming every little silly thing on retrograde and making a big deal out of something that’s probably nothing or just typical annoying things that happen any time one travels.

Anyway, I expected long lines. For some reason, this February has been insane with lines in Magic Kingdom, so *Kanye shrug.* And yeah, we’ll probably get lost in Magic Kingdom, but it’s happened before and we got through it. It’s the delays that have me worried. Well, you know what? I will throw my own retrograde energy into a March 1 Friday night flight delay. That flight back to Chicago can be delayed as long as it freaking wants and I won’t care one happy little bit. And if I have to stay an extra night in Orlando… OH DARN.

I forgot to mention: a couple of weeks ago, someone told me that someone told her that I had a singing voice like an angel. Which is nice to hear but really CANNOT BE RIGHT. She has to be mistaken or have gotten me mixed up with someone else. My voice changed when I was about 12 and hasn’t been that good since. I get lazy and don’t hold keys right or I just get out of my head and sing everything completely WRONG (i.e. 9000 octaves above what it’s supposed to be and off key). Now, when I am paying attention and working hard, I sound OK. But I mean just OK as in, it’s OK to listen to me when I’m in the shower and the water’s running really hard. I can OM like a mofo. But sing? Nah, dude. She had to have been mistaken.

Something else I forgot to mention: One of the 50¢ CDs I got from Half-Price Books was Karsh Kale. I first heard his music by accident, browsing around on emusic.com, and I really liked it! So THAT was a treasure find for sure.

And now I’m calming down by blogging, listening to music, and neurotically arranging folders and files on my computer. Because that’s how people like me feel some sense of order and control in the world.

Oh my God. I think I need to go to bed. I’ve got to sleep off the rest of this cold. Maybe I should go to King Spa and sit in that really hot sauna. That’ll burn the rest of this crap out of my head. And they ARE open 24/7….. yea right. Like I’m going anywhere NOW.

Anyway, tomorrow I’ll be packing and charging various devices. Gonna TRY to make a yoga class too. I need one that’ll kick my ass. There is a vinyasa 2-3 at 11:30am and also one at 5:30pm. I’m going to try to make the 11:30am class. I will be able to do exactly 0% arm balances, but it’ll be fun to try.

OK, OK. TL;DR. Whatever. Night!

4 Comments