My very own window mistreatment

I have been a fan of the Nester for a long time and LOVE her posts about home decoration using a few yards of fabric, a hot glue gun, and some upholstery tacks. She is one talented lady! I don't know how she does it- using fringe and pompom trim and different prints and it never looks tacky. It looks designer. I get jealous.

So here's what I did. I took some polyester fabric from the home-dec section of Jo-ann's. (Okay, I didn't TAKE it, I paid for it. That sounded all wrong.) It was fraying something terrible and I didn't want to sew the slippery stuff so I lit a candle and singed all the edges LIGHTLY so as not to burn the building down. I opened a window, it was stinky!

Then I started playing. I dragged a nightstand to the window (I don't have a ladder or even chairs and the table was closer) and jumped up there with my fabric and some upholstery tacks. I fussed and draped and jumped down to get a look from far away and the jumped back up and played some more.
I found the tassel yesterday at walmart and I slapped that sucker up there too, check it out:















I think the results were worth the 15 minutes it took to do the project! The pictures are sort of disgraceful- it is really hard to take pictures of windows. Then I had to lighten them up enough so that you could see that the fabric wasn't a big chunk of black, but that made it look like the fabric was see-through- it isn't. Also, mini-blinds are courtesty of my landlord.

How to Win an Olympic Medal

A while ago I wrote a post about how to be a gracious interviewee on NPR or other media. When a host thanks you, you should never, ever say "You're welcome," at least in my opinion. You should say something along the lines of, "Thank you for having me." Gracious. A little humble. You could be the coolest most laid back person on earth, but if you say "You're welcome" you start to look pompous.

And now I've found that the same rules apply to winning a gold medal at the Olympics. After watching several medal ceremonies, here's what I've decided you do (because I'm now the manners person I guess):

#1 Shake hands with the people winning Silver and Bronze, and smile at them. But not too enthusiastically. They did just lose, don't make them feel like you're lording it over them.

#2 If you don't sing along to your national anthem, at least mouth the words. Otherwise it looks like you don't actually belong to the country you just won the medal for. And there's something wrong with that.

#3 Tears are good. At least a little mistiness around the eyes. There's nothing wrong with working your ass off to achieve a dream and then actually achieving that dream and having it all hit you while you're standing on the podium. This applies to men and women.

There you have it, my official medal receiving guide.

Well, it's Tuesday

I like to think that after being in the corporate world for over 6 years now I'm pretty good at handling myself in the workplace. Making small talk in the elevator, telling my employees that they can't take vacation on a particular week, and mastering the art of the succinct email are all skills I've become pretty good at. But there's still one that stumps me to no end.

I'll call it "Days of the Week Chit-Chat".

Every time I ask a select group of people how they're doing, they give me a shrug and a smirky sort of face and say, "Well, it's Tuesday."

Because obviously I'm supposed to infer from this that it is still 3 WHOLE DAYS from Friday and how the heck do I think they feel anyway? It's just Tuesday.

But they also do this on Wednesday and Thursday, and on Friday there is the variation that instead of a smirk there is usually a smile.

If you don't like your job that much, you should go wait tables or something with a really irregular schedule. Then see how dumb your days of the week chit chat is when you shrug and sigh and say, "Well, it's Saturday." And people will look at you like you're a moron.

Hello all 2 people who might read this blog. I'm back.

Not So Good Day

So, here's the breakdown. Just over 2 weeks ago (Tuesday, May 20th, if you must know) I was struck down by fever and general feeling bad-ness. I took off work that afternoon, and the next day. I felt like I was coming back around. So I went to Huntsville for Memorial Day weekend. And that Sunday I felt like something was stuck in my eye. Pink Eye! I went back to the doctor in Huntsville on Tuesday and whined about the lingering fever and congestion, and they gave me a Z-pac and some cough syrup, which unfortunately had hydrocodone in it and I'm not playing that game again. So I took my five days of antibiotics and was feeling pretty good by Friday/Saturday. Cut to yesterday, when I woke up with the sorest throat imaginable. Now I have fuzzy headed cold symptoms, and a lot (A LOT) of yellow-green snot again. I'm guessing this is coming from my sinuses. I can breathe through my nose fine but if I blow my nose or really work at horking something up, there's just so much SNOT. GROSS!

Last night I made honey-lemon-ginger tea and threw in a few cloves of garlic while it steeped. I also made garlic bread. It upset my stomach around midnight and I thought I was going to die, but really just went back to sleep. Every couple of hours I would cough up some more phlegm. And today I feel... well, not great. But not too bad either. I'm at work, drinking more honey-lemon-ginger-garlic devil's brew and sucking cough drops. But I realized a second ago that I might not be SO happy because I threw a tissue in the trash and it missed and I sat there feeling like that tissue meant to personally insult me. I'm holed up in my office, brooding at my general state of unwellness. ICKY.

This weekend Mom will be in Huntsville to see Karen, so I'm really trying to get better fast so I can hang out with her Saturday.

Also, this afternoon is my interview with Big Brothers Big Sisters. Me and my snotty, puffy-faced self are going, because this has been rescheduled twice already and I'm not doing that to them again. Well, the first time was their fault, the second time was mine. I just hope I come across as sounded half-way intelligent. Although, sometimes I'm not sure I really want to do it any more. Oh well.

I could really use a nap....

Friday

Finally feeling a little better today! I didn't get much sleep last night but Sam and I spent a bunch of time on the phone laughing our asses off watching Craig Ferguson. That man is soooo funny. And instead of getting defensive we're getting silly, it's a change for the better.

I'm headed to Huntsville right after this meeting at 2:00. I want to avoid some of the traffic and hopefully the plan will work. Things I'm going to do: listen to a mess of Tony Robbins tapes. Read some books. Watch the rest of the 4th season of The West Wing. See Dad on Monday. Get Sam to clean out his office room. SLEEP. It's going to be a great weekend.

Thursday

This morning the scale said (A NUMBER). That is a huge obstacle I just crossed- not just passing the (A BIG) mark but losing over 10 lbs which tells me I'm actually acheiving something and not just losing water weight. I'm really proud of myself. I've been careful to up my protein intake for the past week, and I think it has made a difference. Sometimes I get a real craving for french fries, and sometimes I even go get them. But I know that they'll just make me sick, and they do. Every time I eat something fried I wind up with diarrhea and stomach cramps. You'd think that would be a good enough deterrent... But the mind is stronger than the body. I've also been trying to at least do a little more physical activity, whether it is a formal workout tape or cleaning or anything that gets me moving. Surprisingly I love to stretch, so I'm good about incorporating that into my evening routine.

I am so looking forward to the long weekend coming up, I just hope I don't spend it sick. I could feel some sort of funk coming on Tuesday, so I went home at lunch. Tuesday night there was tummy weirdness and I didn't get to sleep until 5:00 am, so I was out yesterday too. This makes me feel guilty but also I don't really care because I want to be well. Dad will be home this weekend so I'll get to hang out with him some. After all the LA weirdness I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about.

I got paid today and I'm contemplating hitting Dress Barn at Opry Mills and looking at more dresses. And tops. I really liked the stuff they had in Huntsville. Of course, I really should save my money- between the perfume samples and the bras and the new viola case I ordered yesterday it wouldn't kill me to save some money. But I want to feel pretty.

Brilliant work on the viola case- I vaccummed the old one out thoroughly, then scraped that messy sheet music decoupage I slapped on there about 15 years ago. Then I decided, HEY, this case could use a coat of paint so I hit it with the spray paint for plastic. It hasn't dried yet- I read the fine print and it's not for vinyl fabrics so I really fucked that up. It's all sticky. I went and ordered an inexpensive new case- I hope it is the right size. Also, the new one isn't lined with that awful fake fur so maybe that will help keep the bow bugs to a minimum. But now I plan to actually PLAY the thing, so it won't be locked up in the dark all the time and that will help more than anything. I'm excited about getting back into it.

I'm irritated with Sam. He got the questionaire for Big Brothers/ Big Sisters and said that he doesn't know how I am around kids. (????) He said whenever we're with kids he's so distracted by them that he hasn't had a chance to observe what I'm like with them. What is this, a science experiment? This guy has to go to bat for me sometime. He refuses to even mention that fact that I might be looking for a job in Huntsville to any contacts he has. There's honest, and then there's unsupportive. I just don't know.

Tuesday

You know, this is one of those days. I woke up with a dry throat. Not sore, just dry. But now I'm wondering if I'm going to get a cold tomorrow or if it's taking over my body right now because I tell you what, I am exhausted. I want to get in some warm soft pajamas, crank up the AC, take some Nyquil, and sleep until, um, tomorrow.

Instead I'm at work with close to nothing to do. If I stare blankly into space will anyone notice? If I read blogs all day will anyone notice? If I go home at lunch will anyone notice?

To top it all off I have my Big Brothers/ Big Sisters interview tonight. I really want this to go well, I think it would be fun.

This morning this girl I work with got on the elevator with me. She was on the phone with her husband and seemed sort of reassuring but irritated. She hung up and said, "Charlie makes lunch for me everyday, but this morning he forgot to put it in my car!" Which just cracked me up. I emailed that to Sam asking if he'd do that for me, and who are these perfect people? And he said, "Yes, I will, but I'll also forget sometimes." Awwwwww.

It's freezing in here today. FREEZING. Maybe I'm sick and feverish? I could just go home... I have 8 episodes of The West Wing that aren't going to watch themselves.... :) I also really need to go to Walmart, it's the one place I can think of that will have bread, lemon juice, sunscreen, and wooden hangers (it's getting to be time to upgrade). Also, I want to see if they have any different colorways of the dressy mesh shirts I got there last week- they work with EVERYTHING, and they're super flattering. We shall see.

Things I'm waiting for:

-The mess of perfume samples I ordered from theperfumedcourt.com

-The strapless bra I ordered from JMS.com. They tell me that should be here by Friday, and I hope it fits. I'd like to wear my sundress this weekend without my bra flashing out all over the place. Plus, a girl needs appropriate undergarments if she expects her clothes to work AT ALL. Where have I been?