Holiday Party 2013 and Saturday Recovery

Last night was our work holiday party, and I’ve spent today recovering. It was a lot of fun. I let loose and decompressed after a stressful week, so I needed today to rest and recuperate.

When the work day ended, I took Jon to the game store. I’ve dragged him with me to parties in the past, but I let him out of it this year. I knew I’d want to dance and socialize, and I didn’t want him to be bored and awkward, so I flew solo for the evening. My first stop was to get ready at my friend and co-worker’s house. My outfit wasn’t overly dressy, but it was different from what I’d worn during the day, and I actually put on some light makeup.

We had a couple glasses of wine before heading to the Hilton Garden Inn for pre-party cocktails. We mingled and visited with people while we waited for them to open the doors to the party room. Everyone was given two free drink tickets, so I had another glass of wine. When they finally opened the doors, we grabbed a table with all the report coordinators a friend from the business office. They started the lines for dinner shortly after that, and our table was in the second group called.

Delicious!

Speeches and a company update from our president followed dinner, and those were followed by more drinking and some dancing. I don’t drink often, but I definitely enjoyed some wine and beer last night. It was made easy by the bottles of wine they put on our tables. I’m also not a smoker, but I used to be, and when I drink I still have a tendency to join my fellow smokers for a cigarette. Luckily, I don’t seem to develop an addiction, and it will likely be several months before I smoke again, but when taken in the context for a party, I love me a cigarette. I didn’t think it was that cold outside, and the view from the hotel was very festive.

Going to walk through these lights next weekend.

True to my plan, I spent much of the night dancing, taking rest and water breaks as needed, but definitely holding my own on the “shake a tailfeather” front. It was so much fun! I love dancing, I just never get a chance to do it. This year, the music was good, and though there wasn’t a huge group of people on the dance floor, the group that was there was a good one.

Jon got a ride to the party as it was closing up. The festivities ended close to midnight, and after making sure my friends got home okay, we made the drive to Wamego. The weather had forecasted some nasty weather, but it never hit us, so our drive home was easy going. I fell asleep shortly after we got home and slept in this morning.

When I finally did get up, I showered and had some Gatorade and a Luna  bar for breakfast. As I’d expected, I was sore, so I spent most of the day chilling in my chair and working on knitting projects and solving mystery cache puzzles. However, the sunny skies outside eventually got the best of me, and Jon and I went out for an early evening walk before the sun went down. Because I was still hurting, I considered this a little bit of active recovery to get my muscles and joints moving. We walked several blocks, including a trek downtown where we stopped and had an early dinner at Barleycorns.

Grilled turkey panini and baja chicken soup

On the way back home, we stopped to get drinks and snacks for the evening, then came home to rest some more. It was a pretty leisurely stroll, and I think the only reason I was hurting when I got home was because I’d been hurting anyway. That dancing, man…my hips and lower back are probably going to need another day to right themselves again.

I talked to my mom tonight and got some information for a little writing project I’m going to do for her. I’ve been playing some cheesy Christmas movies, but I’ve been hanging out on the internet for the most part. I’m going to lay down early tonight and get some reading time in before calling it a day. I hope the weather is good tomorrow. I want to find some caches and hit the gym before gaming, and the plan is to go grocery shopping tomorrow night as well.

Now, it’s time to pop some more ibuprofen. Cheers!

A.

Recovery and Restlessness

As expected, last night was a late one. After work, Jon and I went over to Terry and Erica’s for gaming. Once everyone was there, we walked over to McAllister’s Deli for dinner, then over to Hy-Vee for some snacks. The walk made for some good exercise, but it probably wasn’t great for my hip (more on that later).  We opted for some new types of snacks from the Hy-Vee Health Market.

 

I’ve been wanting to try the Zevia soda for awhile now. It’s made with Stevia sweetener, and I wanted to see how I liked that. It was okay. I doubt if I’ll buy anymore of it though. It’s got a funny aftertaste, and I think if I’m going to have soda once in awhile, I’ll just stick to the regular stuff. The pomegranate licorice was delicious though. I’m definitely picking that up again.

We were all a little fried from the week, so instead of playing DnD, we ended up breaking out Cards Against Humanity. That game is so fun if you have a twisted sense of humor and aren’t easily offended. It’s also addicting, and though we were tired, we just kept playing until really late. It was fun. There was a ton of laughing, sometimes so hard it was painful.

When we got home though, I realized that the walk hadn’t done my hip much good, and that even though the alignment had relieved the pain, it had gone back to hurting badly again. I managed to get some sleep, but when I woke up this morning, I decided the best thing I could for my hip was to not use it this weekend. So I slept in and have stayed either planted in the chair or stretched out on the bed all day long. I’ve been applying heat to it on and off and taking ibuprofen to help with the swelling. It’s definitely feeling looser and less painful since I haven’t strained it today, but I think it still needs a few days of  rest. We’ll be laying low tomorrow and then hopefully this coming week I’ll be able to do some no impact work at the gym for exercise without hurting it too much.

I’m so restless, it’s not funny. I’ve been watching Netflix and reading blogs to pass the time. I’ve also been knitting and working on my stories of Nanowrimo, but the day outside was so nice, and I’m sad I didn’t get to out and enjoy it. However, my motivation to take actual and genuine rest is that I don’t want to be in pain for our trip to St. Louis in just over a week. We have a lot of things planned, all of which involve walking, and I want to enjoy the trip and not be nursing a bum hip the whole time.

I’ll call it a night there since nothing else exciting happened today, and I want to do another heat treatment before falling asleep.

A.

 

Sunday Down Time

It seems like it’s been a really long time since we had a lazy Sunday, so I didn’t feel too bad about taking it easy today. I was up before Jon, but I still slept until about 9:30. I watched a movie and did some knitting.

We decided to order delivery, then got sucked into watching several episodes of Parks & Recreation. Since we had gaming this evening, we finally left the house in the afternoon to grab some geocaches beforehand. We found three.

We were a little late to gaming because we had to print new sheets and because the road construction near Aggieville is horrible. The game was good though. I did some more knitting while my character smashed spiders with a giant hammer.

We went to the gym afterwards, which means we met both our goals this week. I even got that extra day, so I did a light workout. The ball of my foot is bothering me, and that worries me because it’s in the same area that wouldn’t let me walk when I dislocated my toe. I’ve had some issues with it since then, but all day today it felt bruised and tender when I wiggled my toe. I’m assuming I bruised it in the corn maze yesterday.

I’m also having a hip problem, but the pain only happens when I stand up from sitting for a bit. Thinking I might have to see my chiro this week about that.

We had Subway for dinner, though I tried something new this time. They have a chicken cordon bleu melt and it was pretty delish.

Work tomorrow, but I’m off Tuesday to pick up my mom from the airport and take her halfway to my grandma’s in Oklahoma. Then we’re going the full way to pick her up over the weekend. It’ll be a lot of driving, but spending time with my mom will be worth it.

A.

Staying Restful and Comfy

The saga of the hot apartment and the “broken” AC has been somewhat resolved. We decided to go ahead and try one more time to run it in the apartment for a day to see what would happen. Luckily, it did cool the place off, so we’re sitting in relative comfort tonight. It’s still a little warmish in the living room, but not bad. I think the clean air filter helped. Do I have any regrets about waiting this long? No, because we saved a lot on our electric bill this summer. However, having a cooler place for these last few weeks of the heat will be worth it, as long as the AC continues to do what it’s made to do (and as long as the heat doesn’t continue into December).

My day started out with a cicada attack. One got me as we were leaving the building and heading to work. Everything went okay from there. The highlight of my day was setting up a new savings account at our credit union. It was amazingly easy. We want to keep a travel account, but Jon’s current bank has decided that they’re going to charge us ten dollars a month in fees. We looked at other banks, but none had a fee free account, so we’re just sticking with an additional one in our joint account.  Simplifying and streamlining is awesome.

I took an honest to goodness rest day if you don’t count the fifteen minutes of cleaning I did when we got home. Which I don’t in this case, because it was pretty light cleaning.  My legs are sore with shin splints, and since we’re back to training and gym tomorrow, it’s probably a good thing I took a rest.

Now that we can make plans for the weekend, I have no idea what we’re going to do, but I have pinpointed a few possibilities. A Saturday meeting is jacking up my schedule, but I can’t complain since I scheduled the meeting. Labor Day is also making things tough because I don’t know what’s going to be open on the holiday. But it’ll be good. We’ll still have fun and make the most of the long weekend.

That’s really all I have today. I finished another movie tonight called Confined. I didn’t like it. The main character was annoying and it just fell short of being good.  I also played some Dead Island, and as previously mentioned, got some cleaning done so my living room is back in functional order.

It’s early but I’m tired tonight, so I think I’m calling it an early one.

A.

Downward Slide Into Madness

The title kind of describes my evening, though not as literally as one might think or hope.

My day was okay, but it was one of those days where tiny little annoyances started piling. There is a lack of professionalism in people who rank higher than me that I find disturbing.  Most days I just suck it up and deal with it, but today it was especially difficult.

After work, Jon and I decided to eat first, then go to the gym. Of course, after we ate, we decided to wait awhile to let the food settle, so we went to the library to read for an hour. But once we were done there, we ended up skipping the gym due to stomach issues. In hindsight, I guess we should have tried to go for a little bit, because that set my mood for the night.  I realize that a day off isn’t a huge deal, and I know that my weird fear that a day of rest will cause me to backslide is unfounded, especially since I’ve taken many rest days.  I also know that it’s really hard to work out with an upset stomach. Still, it just made me feel yucky and put me in a funk for the rest of the night.

This then meant that other little things continued to hammer the nail of crabbiness. Like when Jon pointed out that my favorite drinking cup had cracked and was no longer usable. Or when Netflix didn’t bring  our queue up right way (incidentally, the queue is now called “My List,” which I suppose means I’m supposed to make my own list, but I’m not going to. I’ve invested too much time in the current one).  By that point, I just felt like a lump, so I finished a movie that I didn’t even enjoy.

I ended the night watching Hobo with a Shotgun. There is a very small, very select group of people I would recommend this movie to, and it does not include anyone in my family (sorry, Mom. This one may be a little bit much for even you).  The idea of doing a modern movie in late 70s cinema style was interesting, and the premise was interesting, if not a tad dark. The gore level was through the roof, and while some gory movies can be fun when they’re over the top, this one was over the top, yet still disturbing. The term “torture porn” comes to mind.  I gave it more stars than the one I finished before it, but that’s mainly from the one liners that would actually be pretty fun to drop into every day conversation if I had the mad retention skills of my husband and could remember any of them (the only one I can remember involves the f-bomb, and I like to keep this blog fairly clean).

Now that the day feels wasted, I suppose I’ll shuffle off to bed. My shoulder is bothering me, so ibuprofen and biofreeze are in order.

One last note: Ben Affleck was apparently picked to play Batman in the 2015 movie. While the rest of the internet rages, I’m only hoping that his Batman voice won’t be worse than Christian Bale’s Batman voice. Because seriously…nails on a chalkboard.

Tomorrow’s Friday. That means it’ll be a good day, right?

A.

Exhaustion and Homemade Hot Pockets

This day didn’t feel normal. It went by fast, like I arrived, and I did a few things, and then I went home. Early, even. I couldn’t tell you what I did though. I’m sure something got accomplished, but I was fairly under the weather most of the day, and by “fairly,” I mean I kind of thought I might pass out a couple times. I’m tired of dealing with the sinus and allergy and cold stuff. I’m not entirely sure if the long workout last night had something to do with it. I felt like I got enough sleep, but I was fatigued and shaky all day. If I had been feeling sick before working out, I wouldn’t have worked out. But I was feeling fine.

So I left early and didn’t go to the gym, since that seemed like the smart thing to do. We did hit up Dillons for some dinner food where we bought the makings of pizza pita pockets to make in our new toaster oven (work anniversary gift…worth it!). I also picked up some of my Dillons freebies. If you are near a Dillons or a Kroger and have not gotten in on this weekly freebie thing, do it! You have to register your card online, but then you can load all kinds of coupons to it, including the weekly freebie. I’m not an extreme couponer, but I’m all about something free. Tonight, I got popcorn and shampoo. Tomorrow will bring some toothpaste. Love it.

The plan was to go to bed shortly after I got home, but that didn’t happen. There were delicious hot pockets, then there was cleaning and laundry, and then there was me on the computer. And watermelon.  There was also a coughing fit that left my face numb. I don’t think that’s healthy. I hope I didn’t have an aneurysm.

You know what else is keeping me up? Muggle Hustle. Seriously one of the of funniest things ever. When Jon shot me the link earlier, I thought it was just random bro quotes. Nope, it’s a whole thing. Read it, but be warned: spoilers and swearing. And hilarity, so if you can’t handle that, then you might want to bunk down with some Fifty Shades or something.

Um…could we get the Muggle Hustle guy to give Fifty Shades the same treatment? Petition? Kickstarter?

Other news, other news….I have nothing. Shutting it down for the night for some drugs and sleepytimes. I’ve put out the notice that tomorrow might be a work from home day, or even a sick day if this coughing and grossness keeps up. It needs to stop. The weekend is coming up, and I have plans.

A.

Sleep and the Lack Of

Today I’m suffering from a severe lack of sleep.

I go through bouts of insomnia, but the past few weeks had been okay. I’d gotten into a routine, I was falling asleep early and waking up feeling pretty refreshed. Then boom, last night, I couldn’t go to sleep. I was tired and my eyes were heavy, but once I shut off my book and tried to fall asleep, I couldn’t.

Once I did finally fall asleep, it wasn’t restful, and it was one of those sleeps where you don’t feel like you’re sleeping. You still feel conscious of where you are and what’s going on around you. At some point I did fall into a deeper sleep only to wake up in what felt like a few minutes later to realize I’d somehow turned my alarm off and was going to be late for work if I didn’t light a fire under my butt.

Today has been a weird blur of things. I know myself well enough to know that when I’m like this (because this isn’t the first time and I’m sure it won’t be the last), I need to stay far away from detailed tasks where I have the potential of making major mistakes. I’ve been keeping busy with the “fluff” and the tedious tasks that I can just do over and over again and not really have to think about.

When I’m this tired, I also go quickly between slap happy and monster rage.

My current plan is to go home, shower early, and just sort of doze off under my snuggy (yes, I have one; yes, it’s one of my favorite things ever). I want to take in some quality reading and knitting time, but some nights I find it therapeutic to just do nothing but stare at the TV for awhile, and since the most few nights have been dedicated to organizing and cleaning, I feel like I’m entitled for a night off.

I’m a little bit worried, though, that once I’m in relax mode, my brain will kick back into high gear again and I’ll be wide awake. And then what? Warm milk? A boring textbook? Melatonin? No matter, I’m going to stay positive about this. Even if I don’t fall asleep right away, being this tired means a deeper and better sleep when I do finally drift off. Which means that I’ll be better able to finish all my work tomorrow and then some.

It’ll also mean I won’t send crazy butt icons to friends through IM, nor will I lose my mind when buying yarn online. Again.

And while I realize caffeine late in the day isn’t going to help, I feel like this is a good opportunity to buy a Starbucks after work, just to perk me up enough to get home okay.