Me-OWWWW!

Ok. Can someone please explain to me why my cat does not understand the concept of I leave you alone when you sleep, why can't you leave me alone when I'm sleeping! GRRR!

At 2:30 a.m. he wakes me up by scratching at the bedroom door wanting in. I have to sleep at night with the bedroom door closed so that he doesn't come in and jump on the dresser and pull everything off of it, get under the bed and start crawling upside down and clawing at the box spring, sharpening his claws on the night stand, chewing the phone cord, you get the idea. I get up and let him in briefly. He'll usually jump up on the bed, knead me for a couple minutes, then I'll pick him up, take him out in the hall and close the bedroom door. He's usually good for the rest of the night after he's had this fix.

So the fix was completed for the night and I guess I didn't shut the door tight all the way. The next thing I know about an hour later, I'm woken from a dead sleep with a cat who's jumped up on the bed and landed square on my stomach. I was scared crapless, awoken this way. He realizes he's scared me and jumps off the bed and into the window sill. I had the window open last night because it was so hot out last night (can you say Indian Summer?) and he does like to sit in the open window sill. I figured "OK, He's content in the window, just stay there and let me sleep". Nope. He starts up his above listed shenanigans, so out he goes.

At 5:55 a.m. I hear his scratching at the door once again. F*&K! I'm so fed up at this point and being that it's a half an hour before I'm supposed to get up for work, I'm super pi$$ed. I'm the type of person that can't fall back asleep if I accidentally (yah, let's call this accidentally) woken up an hour of so before I'm supposed to get up. I just lie there and think, Frig, I have to get up soon...I have to get up soon.

I love my cat, I really do, but nights like last night make me want to let him become an outdoor cat and see what happens, lol.

Monday, Monday

Another weekend overwith and in the books. I've said it before, I'll say it again - they're never long enough!

Nothing too exciting to report from the weekend. Friday night I got some groceries, had supper and went up for a quick visit to my parent's place as I hadn't been up there all week. I went back home and Ryan and I were both exhausted. We were invited to go to Shane and Val's house, but we just watched t.v. for a little bit and were both in bed, sound asleep before midnight.

Saturday was bachelor-party-all-day-event for Ryan, lol. It started with golfing and then heading to Grand Lake for the night. I had the day to myself to drop a couple hundred dollars on bills and to do housework. Fun stuff I tell ya. I did laundry at my brother's house, hung it on the line all afternoon, then went back to get it around supper time. Back home, I barbequed for supper and then decided to tackle my bedroom closet. This is something I really hadn't done since I started losing weight over a year ago. I mean really tackle it - as in take every single thing out of it and go through it all. I ended up with only a small wardrobe left of clothes that I can actually wear. On one hand it was a great feeling (I even tried on a pair of jeans I had when I first started dieting, just to see how much weight I had shed and could not belive how HUGE they were. I seriously could have fit another person in there with me...sad that I was that big once) on the other hand it sucks knowing that I hardly have any clothes now and hardly any extra money to go out and buy a bunch of new ones with. I'm leary to buy a bunch of new ones now anyway as I'm still losing. I've said that about the clothes that I currently wear now, but I needed some stuff, lol. There's a great, cheap clothing store up by Carrie's house in Ontario that sells new stuff that are seconds. I love that place and have yet to find any flaws with anything I've bought there before, so I'm hoping to hit that place up when I fly up to see Carrie in February, after she has the baby. The place is fantastic like $3-$5 for shirts, I got a Tommy Hilfiger sweater there for $10, new jeans for $10, it's so cheap!

Yesterday I woke up very early at the crack of dawn with a cold. I couldn't get back to sleep, but also didn't want to be up and around either. I felt terrible, I just wanted to lie in bed and sleep. I finally fell back asleep at around 9 or so and slept for about an hour. Ryan came home around 11-11:30-ish from Grand Lake. I had breakfast (he'd already eaten with the boys) and sat on the couch talking with him for a bit. There were a couple of open houses that we wanted to go to in the afternoon, so we talked about those. We're just started to look at houses right now to get a feel for the market, don't get too excited for us just yet, lol. At about 12:30 I told him I was going to go upstairs and lay down (I had still gotten no relief for any meds I'd taken up to this point and was running a fever) and for him to wake me up when he was ready to go. He fell asleep on the couch (understandably after only getting 3 hours sleep the night before, partying with the guys, lol) and came upstairs and woke me up at around 3 p.m. We decided to go to one of the houses on our list, so off we went. The house was cute, but is definately a fixer-upper and has some flaws. It's not one that we're really that interested in.

I then went up to my parent's place for supper and weighed myself. As of yesterday I lost 5 lbs this past week. Pretty good I thought for my first week back on the program. The first week you always seem to lose more, so I highly doubt I'll have another five pounder week, lol.

I talked to Carrie on the phone for a bit last night, which was great as we haven't chatted on the phone for a little while. Sorry I had to cut the conversation short though Carrie! Ryan rented us the movie Vacancy to watch as there was nothing on t.v. that evening. The movie was alright, but nothing spectacular. It was one of those very predictable horror films.

Friday's Here!

Yeah it's Friday! I can't wait to sleep in tomorrow! This week hasn't been as hard on me as last week, sleep deprevation wise. I'm starting to get more used to getting up at 6:30 a.m. instead of say 10 a.m., lol.

Ryan and I went to the Taproom on Wednesday with Brent, our friend who teaches in Japan and is home for a visit. He hasn't changed a bit in the over two years since I'd seen him. Last night Ryan had to stay late at work, working on a deal with a couple for a new car. His nights to work late are Monday and Wednesday, so technically he wasn't supposed to work beyond 6 yesterday, but you've got to do what you've got to do for the customers.

After he got finished (and got the deal!) at work, we watched the premier of Survivor China. This season is particuarly interesting to Ryan (anyone who knows Ryan, knows how much he hates reality tv...but tolerates it to some extent for me, lol, so it's funny to see him actually want to watch this) as he was in Hong Kong this time last year (which is an island within China...Ryan compares it to being on the northside of Fredericton [Hong Kong] looking over to the southside of Fredericton [China]) and he's also in a Survivor pool at work.

As we were watching the beginning of the episode where they were showing the contestants in the temple, Ryan said that it looked exactly like a temple he was at when he went to visit the Big Buddha on Lantau Island (which was where he lived and also where the international airport is located). At first we figured it was just another temple that looked exactly the same, but the more I think about it, it probably was the same one, where the airport is located on Lantau Island. The producers probably took the contestants there as soon as they got off the plane, filmed the segment and then sent them on their way across the bay to mainland China and into the jungle.

Nothing really exciting going on this weekend. Ryan and I were thinking about going to Maine for two nights for a getaway and also because the dollar was almost at par when we were talking about going (it has since hit par!). We aren't going now as we figured we'd still spend a fair amount of money (which is somewhat tight right now) and also Ryan was invited to a Bachelor all-day party on Saturday, which begins at 2 p.m. with a round of golf. I guess my plan is to do all sorts of exciting things like grocery shopping, dishes, scrubbing floors, cleaning the bathroom.....I hope I can contain myself with all the fun, lol!

Back on the WW track

It's Wednesday, half way through the work week. Too bad it wasn't Friday already!

A friend of mine and Ryan's, Brent, is back in town currently from Japan. He's been teaching there for a few years now and is back for another week. Brent was in touch with Ryan last night and Ryan tells me that there are plans for us to meet up tonight after Ryan finishes work at 8 and to go for a beer. It'll be nice to see Brent as it's been a couple of years since I've seen him last. Ryan saw him last year just before Christmas, while he was working in Hong Kong. Brent came over from Japan to visit Ryan, which was awesome since Ryan hadn't seen a familiar face in months.

I've started back up loyally (that doesn't look spelled right...but it is) on my Weight Watchers regime last Monday. I'm a little worried about the temptations this evening I will have at which ever pub we chose to go too, but I'm sure I can hold strong and not give in. After so many events coming up over the summer (camping trips, birthdays, etc.) and me not being able to stay on track with my weight loss plan, I don't want to "cheat" again until Christmas. I am determined to stay focused, lose the weight I put back on *sigh* and get down to my ultimate goal of having lost 100 lbs in total.

Weekend Update

Back to the grindstone today. I don't feel as tired this morning as I had each morning last week, but give me a few days, lol.

What a great weekend! Friday afternoon Val sent me a message asking me if I minded if we changed the plans for the evening a bit. Since it would cost us all a small fortune to head downtown for Harvest Jazz and Blues at around 6:30 or so as originally planned, we opted to eat first and then go out. Ryan and I got some subs and then headed over to Shane and Val's place. We had a few drinks there, called a cab and then headed downtown.

First stop was the Snooty Fox where Morgan Davis was playing. We waited inside the pub for over an hour, standing around having a few drinks before we could get a place to sit. We finally got a table, stayed for a few songs and then headed down to the Barracks Tent. I'll just say it was an "adventure" for us to get in and leave it at that, but we did get in and had a great time. Ryan had to work in the morning, so he and I left as soon as the band was done. We called a cab to pick us up in front of the CIBC bank, sat on a bench and waited....and waited...and waited. We then see Shane and Val walking up the sidewalk, so we take off with them knowing the cab will probably never show up. As we're walking up the street, we run into Charles LeBlanc, a proud blogger. He took our picture and posted it to his blog the next day, lol. Here's a link to the photo. Shane and Val then went in search of poutine, Ryan and I opted to walk home.

Saturday I didn't have much ambition as I was feeling the effects of being super tired from lack of sleep all week and also the beers I had drank the night before. I did manage to go run a few errands and pick up some groceries, but that's about the extent of my day. Ryan and I both were beat on Saturday night and didn't do anything. We watched Joe Dirt on TV, which got over at 10:00. I went up to bed after that and was sound asleep well before 11 on Saturday night, lol.

Sunday was birthday celebration day for my mom. Her birthday was actually last Sunday, but she was away with all of her sisters, so we celebrated it yesterday. We went to the Hilltop for supper, where I ran into Funky there, and then back to the house for cake and gifts. I went home afterwards, put my laundry away and Ryan had gotten us a movie, which was all subtitled...great. I can't remember the name of it, something Labrynth (I know that's probably spelled wrong).

What a cold morning it was when I got up today! BRRR! The house was freezing, but I'm reluctant to turn on the heat this early, since it's so damn expensive!

Egg-Zaw-Stid!

Well I'm almost through my first week of working day shift and I have to say that I am exhausted! The fact that I'm a night owl, trying to become a morning person coupled with me staying up late almost every night this week after the events of the week, I am completely beat.

I knew the transition of changing from working nights to days would be difficult and it looks like it will probably drag into next week too, as at this point I really can't see myself feeling "chipper" in the mornings next week either. It's all worth it though - I can't tell you how great it is to get off work at 4:15 and not say anywhere from 9 p.m. til 1 a.m. like I have in years past.

Yesterday when I got home from work I layed down on the couch and watched some Family Fued. The next thing I knew it was 6:30 and I could hear my brother outside mowing my lawn. I had fallen asleep on the couch for almost two hours! This didn't hinder my ability to sleep last night though. You know people say if you nap more than 30 minutes then you'll have a hard time falling asleep at bed time? Not me folks, I got in almost 8 hours of sleep last night and had my alarm not gone off, I know I could have slept a good 3-4 more hours.

My break schedule is so messed up for today. The break patterns usually run every two hours - so work two hours, get a break, work two more hours, have your lunch break, work two hours, get a break, work two hours, go home. Well today they have my first break 1 hour after I've started, then my lunch at regular time, then my last break shortly after I return back from lunch break, leaving me with a two and a half hour stretch before I can go home. It might not seem like a big deal, but in a call center environment it's a nightmare. This job is so hard on the head, so having to work extra long stretches beyond when you should have had a break, is brutal. It also makes for an extremely long day. Hopefully when someone from our scheduling department arrives, they can help me out and do some changing of those breaks. If not, it's going to be a l.o.n.g day for me.

Not much planned for this weekend. Shane and Val have invited us to meet them downtown tonight for the Harvest Jazz and Blues festival, so I imagine we'll take that in tonight. If I'm not in a comatosed state, lol. Hopefully I'll catch a second wind and be alright for the night.

Funeral Today

Not much news to report today. It's getting close to 8 a.m. and I'm only at work for another hour and a half today. I was given permission to leave work early today to attend Carrie's grandfather's funeral. It's nice that the company is letting me leave early to attend this funeral, however I'm not getting paid for the time I'm not here.

It sucked so bad to have to get up so early this morning, knowing that I was only going to be at work until 9:30. Ryan said to me "Why are you bothering to go in, just to leave at 9:30" to which I agree, there's not much sense, but that's when work was letting me leave. Originally I thought the funeral was at 2 p.m. today and I double checked online yesterday and saw that it was at noon. I had already told work that I would only need the last half of my shift off (after my lunch break) so I had to go and explain that the funeral was at noon and not at 2 p.m. like I had originally thought. They were good about it and said I could leave on my break (9:30 a.m.), so I guess I shouldn't push it anymore and didn't bother asking for the whole day off...although I did think about it. I guess it's a good thing though to put a couple of hours in today and not lose a full day's pay. Sometimes too you have to look at what's more important in these cases, and in this instance being there for Carrie is more important than money, so I'm not going to fret anymore about losing some pay.

Carrie and I are as close as two friends can be. We are like family and her family treats me like I'm a part of their family, so it's important that I be there today for them. Ryan is leaving work early today and is coming with me to the funeral, which I thought was very sweet. We're going to try and get a lunch date in there today at some point too.

Some Sad News

Yesterday Grampie Bean (Grampie Lavigne) passed away. Grampie Bean was Carrie's only surviving grandparent left. He has had severe respitory problems for about a year now and when Carrie was home 2 weeks ago, we knew he didn't have much longer. He has been suffering for quite some time now.

So Carrie is on her way back home again, but this time for unhappy reasons. While she knew that this was coming and is thankful that Grampie isn't suffering anymore, it's still a sad occasion.

Carrie was supposed to arrive into Fredericton last night at 11 p.m. on Air Canada from Hamilton. At around 9 last night her mother called me and told me that Air Canada messed her up completely. They had her booked to fly out of Toronto instead of Hamilton (an hour and a half away) and by the time she arrived at the Hamilton airport to leave, there is no way she could have even made the Toronto flight. All of the Air Canada flights are booked solid for today, so she got screwed over pretty badly by Air Canada. Apparantly a death in the family is not even enough motivation for them to try and help a pregnant lady home. So she's booked with WestJet who fly from Hamilton to Moncton and will be arriving into Moncton at 4 p.m. today. So on top of the stress and all the busy-ness that comes with losing his father, Carrie's dad and mom now have to drive to Moncton to pick Carrie up because of Air Canada's screw up. I hope Air Canada compensates Carrie for this.

Goodbye Night Sh*t...I mean Shift!

Yeah it's Friday! This week is one that I'm glad to get overwith. Not that anything particularly went wrong or anything, but it is my last week of having to work nights and I will be so glad at 9 tonight to put it behind me! lol. So yes, starting on Monday I will be working 7:30 a.m. - 4:15 p.m. until February. I'm so happy!

The weather this week has been really bizarre. It's been super cold in the mornings and at nights. Yesterday morning when Ryan was driving to work, it was 3 degrees! Three freakin degrees...on September 5th. That's nuts. But here today it's supposed to get close to 30 degrees this afternoon. My allergies have been driving me nuts for about 3 weeks now and if this wacky weather continues, I'm sure I won't be getting any relief soon.

My back is starting to get better. It's still bothering me, but no where near as bad as it was on Monday. I'm just trying to take it easy and let it work itself out.

My brother is supposed to be buying a new car today. Well a new-to-him car. He's getting a winter beater so he can store his mustang and not have to drive that in the winter. I'm curious to take a look at this beast once he gets it and to see what kind of shape it's in, lol. Ryan found it for him through a dealer and says it's in very good shape and I imagine it is. My brother knows a lot about cars and wouldn't buy junk.

No real plans for this weekend. I kind of like it when this happens from time to time, I can just take life as it comes, lol. My mom's birthday is Sunday, but all of her 8 siblings are in town and they're getting together on Sunday so we'll have to delay Mom's birthday celebrations until next Sunday I guess.

An extra long weekend!

Back to work today after an extra long weekend. I took Friday off to spend the day with Carrie and had the holiday Monday off so it ended up being a 4 day weekend for me, which was great because it almost felt like I was on a mini vacation.

Friday Carrie and I were going to "day trip" it, but being pregnant and uncomfortable driving for long distances, Carrie wasn't feeling up to going too far, so we headed to Oromocto for the day. We had lunch at Jungle Jim's and then did some shopping at the Giant Tiger and in the *tiny* Oromocto mall. From there we headed back into Fredericton and went to Regent Mall where I picked up a much needed new purse.

Friday night Carrie and Andrea came over to my place for the evening. We watched the video from Carrie's wedding, played some tunes and (Andrea and I) drank a lot of beers, lol. Poor Carrie enjoyed her juice and watching Andrea and I feeling more and more effects of the beers, lol. Ryan was out at a camp party, so it was nice to have the whole house to myself with the girls.

Saturday I called my brother and learned that he'd hurt his back very badly and was layed up and on 2 different kind of meds. This being "Speed Weekend" at our local stock car track, this couldn't have happened at a worse time where my brother is on the pit crew for two cars in two different classes. I went up to his place and took him lunch, did some laundry and stayed and made him supper. He was moving around quite well to my surprise and was even saying he was going to go the big 250 (lap) race on Sunday to help with his prostock team. This made me nervous as I didn't want him to undue any of the healing he had accomplished already.

Sunday rolls around and off to the track my brother goes. He said he wasn't feeling too bad and wasn't going to push himself. Carrie and her brother stopped in at my house to say farewell to me as she was leaving on Monday and this was the last chance I would get to see her before she departed. Ryan went off on a big cruise on his motorcycle to Coles Island later in the afternoon. He and I were planning on going to the big 250 race at the Speedway at 5:00, so I was nervous he wouldn't make it back in time for us to go. I stopped off at the Superstore to pick up some stuff for us to BBQ for supper before heading to the track and I ran into "Poet" while there (check out her blog in my links section). She told me she quit work and was starting a new job. It was good to see her and hear directly from her that she'd chosen a new path in life.

Ryan makes it home from his bike ride in time for supper. We head to the track and saw the hundreds of cars parked all along the highway that couldn't get a parking space in the speedway's lot. Further down the road we see a track parking attendant waving cars down pit road. He told us that they had developed an overflow parking area behind the pit area and that they would shuttle us back into the speedway. So down pit road we're going when a line of trucks with car haulers are heading towards us. Pit road is not wide enough for two vehicles to travel on, so we were stuck...and then the car behind us rear ended us. I freaked out because it was my car we went down in. Ryan was stuck in the drivers seat and couldn't get his door open for the the campers parked along side him, so I got out and thankfully there was no damage to either vehicle. We ended up having to back all the way out of pit road to try and find a spot on the side of the road. I was so fed up at this point and was so ticked off at the speedway attendant for sending us down that road, that I didn't even want to watch the race. We did find a spot and walked about 10 minutes or so to get back to the speedway.

The speedway was completely packed and Ryan and I went to sit in the beer garden as we figured it would be more roomy there. My brother's prostock team didn't qualify because they got spun out in the qualifying heats and didn't have enough laps left to catch back up to the front. Ryan went to get a beer and I see my brother and his crew walking in front of the grandstands, so they came to sit with us for the race. The stands filled up quickly and I had to sit with my legs in a "V" shape the entire night, so my knees wouldn't go into the back of the person sitting in front of me. It was extremely uncomfortable.

Yesterday Ryan went golfing with his dad and my brother and I went to check out the FREX. It's sad how badly the FREX is deteriorating each year. It was terrible, we weren't there an hour I bet. The highlight of the trip over there was the dippy dog, lol.

My mom was cooking a big turkey dinner yesterday as my aunt and uncle were in town from Ontario. We enjoyed a lovely meal and sat and talked in my parents living room for a few hours. The chair I was sitting in at my parent's place was more of a decorative chair and not meant for sitting in for extended periods of time as it doesn't give you any support to your back. I was very stiff when I got up and went home.

As I sat on the couch later last night watching tv with Ryan, I could feel my back getting stiffer. At 5 a.m. the cat woke me up scratching at the bedroom door, so I got up to look after him and I could barely move, I was in so much pain. I took two extra strength tylenol and went back to bed and layed there in agony for atleast an hour before I fell back asleep. The alarm went off for Ryan at 6:45 a.m., so basically I just got back to sleep and was up again. I told him that my back was really sore and now I knew how my brother felt, lol. I did manage to fall asleep again for a short while after Ryan went to work and I then got up and had a hot bath and some more tylenol and that seemed to help quite a bit. I'm still in pain mind you, but I am at work and think I can stick it out for the day (hopefully). I think the combination of me sitting with my legs in a "V" for hours at the speedway and me also sitting in that god awful uncomfortable chair at my parent's house last night for a couple of hours in the culprit. Hopefully I'll start to get some real relief soon.