Pink goodness

This morning? Holy stressfulness.

Well, actually it started last night with some work stuff so I already had that stress on me before the morning started.

Anyway, this morning started off badly with the iPhone alarm glitch. Now thankfully I already knew about the glitch and set our bedside alarm clock. Still, I have a whole routine with my alarms. So, not having my different alarms go off when they usually do and instead just having one go off messed me up.

Is that completely stupid? Probably. Oh well.

Anyway, I ended up getting up almost a half hour after I originally planned on getting up. Luckily my plan gives me more than enough time to get ready but still, cutting off 30 minutes of my routine makes things pretty rushed.

I went to jump in the shower but decided I needed my eye drops first so I asked Joel to grab me my makeup bag. It’s usually in the bathroom already but since we had spent the night at my parents’ house for New Years it should have been in the backpack we brought.

It was not where it should have been.

It took about two seconds of me thinking to remember the last place I saw it was at my mother-in-law’s house.

That was when I panicked.

There was no freaking way I was going to work without makeup. Some girls are naturally beautiful and could pull that off. I? Am decidedly not one of those girls. No matter how much sleep I get I have the most horrendous dark circles under my eyes. People ask me if I’m tired when I’ve had more than enough sleep and am wearing all kinds of makeup. Without makeup? I look like I got punched in the face. Not kidding.

So call me vain but I would rather be late than go to work with no makeup.

Now, not only was I running 30 minutes behind schedule, plus however many minutes I spent looking in the pocket it should have been in in the back pack but I now thought we’d need to stop in Walgreens to pick up an entire new set of makeup.

Hello panic.

I frantically showered and while I was in the shower tried to replay my steps. I’m pretty good at locating lost items if I just have a few minutes to think.

Then I specifically remembered handing my makeup to Joel at his mom’s house and asking him to put it in the back pack so it wouldn’t get lost. For a split second murderous thoughts entered my mind but as the memory finished playing in my head I realized that I watched him put it in there.

A quick look in another pocket of the back pack confirmed my memory was correct. No super rushed trip to any drug stores for us and I made it to work exactly on time. Win!

Once I got to work I had to deal with a minor flood. Then I still had to solve the problem that caused the stress from the night before. Nothing too extreme but, considering the morning I had, it was enough to make being my normal cheery self a struggle.

Everything worked out and I did not have to work a 14 hour day. I only stayed an hour past when I was scheduled. I consider that a serious win.

So, instead of working a ridiculously long day, Joel picked me up and we went out for dinner. You better believe the first thing I ordered was this:

Pour a cosmo over cotton candy? So bad. And by bad I mean yuuuuummmmmmm.

So overall today wasn’t too bad. The start sucked but it ended on a pretty sweet note. We’ll call that a win.

No time

It’s been so long since I truly didn’t have time for things. No time to read books I want to read. No time to catch up on my shows. No time to read and comment on all the blogs that I love.

No time.

Well, ok not no time. But I would have to give up other things. Like spending time with friends. Or sleeping.

Those are things that I’m not giving up.

So for all intents and purposes, I have no time.

It’s weird for me.

I can’t remember a time in my life when I had no time. In The Netherlands I had plenty of time for internet and books and shows. Obviously the kids kept me busy but I always had evenings free plus three days off a week. Then I had basically part time jobs until I got a job as a flight attendant.

As a flight attendant? It felt like I had nothing but spare time. I spent a ton of time “working” but let’s face it, even on the airplane I had time to sit and read a book or whatever.

Then there were layovers. Often on my layovers I went out and explored the town or hung out with coworkers. I wanted to soak in every second of that job. However, if you’re staying in an airport hotel with nothing around for the 8th time in 2 months…. you run out of things to do outside your hotel room so it leaves plenty of time for books and blogs.

Add into that having 11 guaranteed days off a month plus not flying every single day I was on call? Sometimes I felt like the laziest person alive. I wasn’t.

Until I got furloughed. Then I was definitely the laziest person alive. I would go days without ever seeing the outdoors. Pajamas were my uniform and I would find myself on Hulu watching absolute crap because I had no more blogs to read or shows to watch.

Really truly pathetic.

Now I have this job. And I. love. it. It keeps me on my toes and challenges me. There are always problems to solve and when I turn a near disaster into a success? Well, there’s nothing quite like the rush it gives me.

But, I’m left with a choice between reading a book that I really love (or at least I really love so far. I’ve barely begun it) or sleep? I’m probably going to choose sleep.

And when I say probably I mean pretty definitely.

I love sleep. We’ve established this.

What I’m trying to say is, I’m an awful blog friend lately. I barely even check Twitter anymore, much less post. I read as many blog posts as I can but I rarely comment. I hate that. I have things to say, really, I just am trying to squeeze as much into a short period of time as possible.

So I’m totally lame and have no time to do a lot of the things that I’ve loved and gotten used to over the past couple of years. I think it’s probably a good thing. I haven’t felt this fulfilled since I stopped flying. I certainly have never felt this productive, possibly ever.

I’m sure a balance will come soon. Already things run a million times smoother than they did before. Until then I’ll treasure ever second of sleep and down time I get.

Speaking of sleep, I have a nice warm bed and handsome husband calling my name right now.

Pointless Ramblings

I’ve had a long couple of days at work. Or weeks. Or months. Whatever I’m tired.

Being tired makes me much less inspired when it comes to blogging. I have no stories.

No, that’s not true. I have a million stories but not one I can put on a public blog.

I have no funny videos. I have some cute pictures but I’m saving them for Wednesday. So basically I’m idea-less. Fun.

When that happens I try to go through my archives and find something I started and never finished. Often that little bit of inspiration makes writing much easier. Sometimes I even get a completely different idea out of reading through a couple half finished posts.

This time however I noticed a trend. It’s a trend that I’m not sure is a good one. The trend is sad. All these half finished posts are depressing and that’s why I didn’t finish them. See, “real” people read this blog. When I say real I mean people I actually see face to face on a semi regular basis. This makes it hard for me to pour my guts out on here. Yesterday’s post was just a glimpse of what’s been churning under the surface for awhile now. I was thisclose to not hitting publish. And several times since I’ve been thisclose to taking it down.

The sad thing is, it’s not even that deep of a post I don’t think. Not compared to some of the amazing blogs I read. It’s not everything I wanted to say. I hate reading vague statuses and posts. That’s all I feel like I publish anymore.

I think part of it is because I’m so tired. It’s harder for me to laugh things off when I’m so tired I could cry. I really enjoy my job, especially since it’s grown so much over the last several weeks. It’s exciting. It’s also exhausting. It’s mostly mental exhaustion.

It’s biting my tongue when I want to talk.

It’s finding a balance between friendship and getting shit done.

I want to be a good manager. I also want to keep the friendships I’ve started. I’m afraid I can’t do both. Not that I’m awesome at keeping friends anyway…

I need to get back into acting. Or dancing. Or taekwondo…. Or something that allows me to be incredibly physical in my stress relief. I mean, being married does offer some activities that are good for that…. but, you know, mixing things up a bit.

Or something.

So basically I’ve just rambled for 400 words or so. And…. I’m not sure where all these words have gotten me exactly. I guess to the conclusion that I need to take a class.

Or start an anonymous blog…. who’s with me?

Drowning in stress

I’m so stressed out I can physically feel it. Like a tight grip across my chest. I’m sure that’s why I’m fighting one of the worst sore throats I’ve ever had in my life.

I hate feeling stupid.

And inadequate.

I’m just overwhelmed.

The worst part is, the one person who can help me hates me.

So that’s basically no help at all.

I’ve noticed my heart racing at random times lately. Even when I’m just lying down.

That can’t be good.

It’s probably because my mind never stops going a mile a minute.

I never do anything halfway. Whatever I do I throw myself into 100%.

I can’t stand screwing up or making mistakes.

I want to be perfect.

Except I’m not.

But the idea of disappointing people in my life….

Hate it.

::sigh::

I can do this.

I. Can. Do. This.

I have to. I refuse to fail. All I need is a little more information. I just need to actually do certain things once and then it will be fine.

It will be nice when I don’t have someone undercutting me and trying to make me look bad at every turn. That’s really tough.

The irony is, by trying to screw me over it’s only made me look better and made them look like an ass. So not the most effective sabotage.

However, to my morale? It’s been relatively effective. My mind is constantly racing trying to catch mistakes before they happen. I feel like at any moment I’m going to fail and fall out of good graces.

It makes me feel like throwing up.

Or crying.

Or screaming.

I want to do well but it’s starting to wear on me. I’m not ready to give up, not by a long shot. I just feel like I’ve been waiting for things to get better for months and I’m still waiting.

Overall I’m very positive. Things are vastly better than they used to be. There’s still so far to go and if I let myself focus on that too much I’m afraid I’ll drown in those thoughts.

My goal right now is to keep smiling. No matter what. Amazingly a smile, even when it starts out faked, can turn a day from bad to good. It improves my mood almost without me realizing it.

You just can’t smile and have a bad day.

Or at least that’s the idea.

I can’t wait for snow but then again I might just be delirious

Yesterday morning (or maybe it was this morning, today was so long I’m not really sure.) I walked out my door and smelled snow. It hasn’t snowed here yet though. Actually, it’s been quite warm for the time of year. Up until a week or so ago it was all the way in the 70′s. This is Chicago! That is pretty unheard of for November.

Anyway, the smell of snow was delicious to me. This isn’t my normal reaction to colder weather. Generally I dread it. Maybe it’s because of the fantastically mild weather we had this fall. Or maybe I’m finally coming to terms with the climate here instead of wishing it was much more tropical. Part of it is probably the lovely new winter clothes I just bought. And the fact that we have a garage now which means no more scraping ice and snow off the car (not that I ever really do it. That’s what my husband’s for. But I’m happy for him). Whatever it is exactly I’m actually looking forward to snow.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner. Our Christmas tree is up (don’t judge, Joel likes to decorate the tree for his birthday). Stores and cities have lit the Christmas lights. My work just bought enough Christmas decorations from hobby lobby that the receipt was as long as I am tall (no lie). I’m just excited.

I know I may eat my words in a couple of months. Right now however I’m expecting this winter to be just lovely.

P.S. I may or may not be delirious at this point. I worked almost 12 hours today and have been up for about 19 hours. As proof of this Joel and I just laughed one of those can’t-breath-tears-run-down-your-face-almost-puke kind of laughs at a voice changer iPhone app. The filter that reverses your voice? Oh. my. god. We both almost died of laughing so hard. In case you were wondering, “Phoebe come” backwards sounds like “maki beef.”

Aaaaand I believe that’s my cue to go to bed.