Category: personal
Re-assessing the Balance of Life
Wow, I’ve been AWOL for 2 months! I’m sorry. I’ve probably been stricken from everyone’s blogroll by now.
As of June, I’m no longer employed full time, but am working 3 days a week.
What I’ve gained:
Lots of time to rest - this is very good
Time to exercise - I’ve started working with a personal trainer
Time in [...]
Curiosities
Christiane has tagged me with a meme, to list six curious things about myself.
1. For 3rd and 4th grade, I attended the German School in Lagos, Nigeria.
2. Once upon a time, I thought I was called to be an Anglican nun, but the whole silence thing turned out to be a real obstacle.
3. I tried [...]
A compliment
Yesterday we went to see our lawyer about updating our wills. Our lawyer used to be a neighbor, but I haven’t seen him in four or five years, and he apparently hadn’t gotten the wheelchair memo.
He came out of his office, looked at me in a sort of puzzled way, and said, “Is that Katja? [...]
Hair pics
Here they are:
(Full Post)Hair
Three years ago, my hair was below the shoulders.
Two years ago, after I lost 40 pounds, I got it cut in a chin length bob.
Last month I got it cut in a kind of bushy mid-short cut that I couldn’t really get used to.
So tonight, I went and got it cut very, very, very short. [...]
Stop! Don’t eat that!
I have seriously got to get a handle on this compulsion I seem to have to put everything edible I see into my mouth. I even think the right thing first - do I need this? Am I hungry right now? Will I enjoy this? Is it worth it? And the answer is no, and [...]
(Full Post)Stöckchen/Meme
Christiane hat mir ein Stöckchen zugeworfen:
Vier Jobs in meinem Leben:
Kassiererin
Privatlehrerin
Büroleiterin
Programmiererin
Vier Filme, die ich immer wieder sehen kann:
Go Now
Der Name der Rose
Viel Lärm um nichts
Philadelphia Story
Vier Orte, an denen ich gelebt habe:
San Francisco, CA
Lagos, Nigeria
Seoul, Korea
Williamsburg, VA
Vier TV-Serien, die ich sehr gern sehe:
West Wing
Buffy - Im Bann der Dämonen
Firefly
Lost
Vier Orte, an denen ich Urlaub [...]
Christmas meme
From Jenn X:
1.What is your favorite Christmas carol/song?
Today, it’s Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, as sung by the divine Chanticleer.
2.White lights or multicolored?
Neither. Candles (hush, I’ve never burned anything down).
3. Do you have a cut tree, live tree or an artificial tree?
Cut, but not yet. It can’t go up before the fourth Sunday in Advent. [...]
Nostalgia
I’m on a little trip back to 1964.
I was flipping through a catalog, and saw this blast from the past - we had that deck when I was little. So I ordered one and have been playing with it. Youngest Son was helping me build something and allowed as to how my childhood must have [...]
Reducing
After successfully losing 40 pounds, I went to the doctor last week and discovered that 10 pounds (I’m lying, it’s 11 pounds) have crept back on. So it’s back on the wagon.
Last time I used a Palm app called DietLog to track my eating, which has since morphed into BalanceLog. I bought the new version [...]
Which Christmas Carol are you?
You are ‘Adam Lay Y Bounden‘! Ah, you appear to be something of a Christmas snob. Whether you are a musician who has sung one carol service too many, or merely someone with very highbrow views on music and culture, you shudder at the thought of piped music in lifts, wince at endless repetitions of [...]
(Full Post)Cult!
I’ve been sucked into a cult, but I don’t know if it’ll stick.
At work they offered a Getting Things Done course. Suddenly people are walking around raving, yes, raving, about their inboxes being empty. They all have label makers on their desks. Their engineering notebook pages all have big Xes on them (for processed).
Since there [...]
High School, again
Today I mistakenly went to a high school music parents booster meeting. I have not generally done well as a booster parent. I find that booster parents don’t seem to have moved on since high school. Remember in Desperate Housewives when Lynette is trying to be accepted by the other preschool moms? Good comedy is [...]
(Full Post)Before and after
I’ve decided to post these so that I have something to look at when feeling depressed about body image.
(Full Post)Spiders
There are two large spiders living in my garage (there are probably lots more, but these are the ones I’ve noticed). They build orb webs that last about a week. Spider #1 seems to enjoy living dangerously; her web tends to be anchored to things like the bike rack and the garage door track. Spider [...]
(Full Post)Two comments, or, How I got over wanting to be like my father
Seeing lots of family this past weekend got me thinking about mine.
My father died at the age of 55, when I was 24. He was a Foreign Service officer, and I wanted to be like him.
When I was an undergraduate, I was very unfocused, taking courses in wildly differing areas and not doing anything very [...]
Nine Black Skirts
I have three kids going back to school in a week and a half, and we’re going to my nephew’s wedding next weekend. This confluence of events means that I’ve been a shopping maniac for the last several weeks.
After several false starts, I think I now have my wedding guest ensemble (thank you, Nordstrom Rack!). [...]
Blank Anxiety
A course based on David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity is sweeping my company. I haven’t taken the course, but after hearing all the raves from people who have, I got the book.
I haven’t gotten very far, but I have done what my co-workers are raving about: emptied my email inbox. [...]
A Break in the Weather
After a week of temperatures hovering right around 100 degrees F, it’s dropped to 70 and is raining. What a relief.
(Full Post)Random
I’m reading in everybody’s blogs about how hot it is; it’s cold and rainy here. I had a breakfast meeting in Broomfield this morning, followed by a 9:30 am meeting in Boulder; when I started my car to come back to Boulder the oil light came on, so a coworker drove me in. Without my [...]
(Full Post)Ashamed
There may be a new car in my future.
I’ve got a four door sedan that I’m perfectly happy with, except that every summer either the airconditioning or the cooling system blows up. I feel like some kind of ecoterrorist; four years in a row I’ve lost all my freon due to air conditioning leaks. I [...]
The Reward for a Job Well Done
Is another job.
In the last several weeks I’ve assumed two new sets of responsibility at work, without actually getting rid of any of the old responsibilities. I used to think I had no free time; now I know I was free as a bird, then. Up until now, I just had my own little piece [...]
Unitarian Jihad
I try not to be a sheep, but sometimes it’s irresistable. My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Sword of Reasoned Discussion. Get yours.
People of the United States! We are Unitarian Jihad! We can strike without warning. Pockets of reasonableness and harmony will appear as if from nowhere! Nice people will run the government again! There [...]
Are we speaking the same language?
In my next life, I want a program where, when the system engineer says, “Black” and the programmer nods understandingly and says, “Yes, black”, they both mean that black that is the absence of all color, and not, say, chartreuse and magenta.
(Full Post)Noise
Many office moves are taking place around me. The gentleman who moved into the office next to mine last week plays the radio, and uses the speaker phone for (as far as I can tell) every call. This is somewhat annoying. We do not work on the same program or in the same field, so [...]
(Full Post)An Excess of Kindness
I went to the library for lunch (yummy hot chicken salad) and on the drive home wound up behind an elderly man in a very beat up old car. Turns out that he had a habit of coming to a dead stop (on a major east-west thoroughfare) for every car trying to turn out of [...]
(Full Post)Weather
I think we can declare the migraine gone now, thank goodness.
Now I just have the irritating tingling and numbness (yes, Virginia, thanks to MS I can have both at once!) in the right arm and the shooting pains in the legs.
Argh!! Symptom journal! I hate symptom journals! I will not keep a symptom journal!
Nice weather [...]
Migraine, MS
Bad things starting with “M”?
What this migraine lacks in ferocity, it makes up in length (three days so far) and general ugginess (is that a word)? Using crutches exacerbates my already very painful neck and shoulder muscles.
Anyways, bitch, moan, whine, etc. It’ll be better soon (she says hopefully).
Fish update
The fish have found a new home at Petland. I had to avert my eyes from the tiny puppies, but at least I’m relieved of the fish.
(Full Post)Winter Solstice
Happy Birthday to Jody and me!!
(Full Post)A couple of things
First, my annoying political zealot precinct captain co-worker told me that when I voted early, the political zealots would get my name and would stop annoying me.
Second, your sewing room should always be in the back of the house.
Why?
Because when you’re sewing something for yourself, frequently you find yourself somewhat deshabillée because it’s easier than [...]
Intimidating
I’m smart. I’m also an obnoxious loudmouth. I’ve never seen anything I didn’t have an opinion about, a fact I didn’t want to research, or a piece of writing that I couldn’t improve. I can argue about anything, and do.
So sometimes there comes a moment in a relationship with someone else when I realise that [...]
Back!
I’m back after a fun roadtrip. Got lots of pictures, discovered there’s very little good coffee in western Kansas. I’ll try to post during the weekend, but I’ve got to go take care of my bazillion work emails now.
(Full Post)A Shallow Post
Ok, you women who regularly wear lipstick, what do you do about eating? Wipe it off beforehand and re-apply afterwards? Eat it off with your meal (and ugh, leave lipstick on the water glass), and re-apply later?
A quick web search for the answers to this essential question uncovered that the women of America apparently all [...]
Paying the Piper
I’m paying for all my recent activity - August was very intense at work, we’re trying to get a release out. Last week I flew to Annapolis for 3 days, then San Francisco for one day. This week I’ve been working long days to get ready (doing viewgraph engineering) for a customer meeting tomorrow. School [...]
(Full Post)Vibes for Dorothea
Feel better soon, Dorothea.
(Full Post)Compliment
From mdmhvonpa:
Inger always makes you feel that you have given her the moon when you hand her a fork. She has got to be the most gracious person I have ever met.
No one will ever say anything as nice as that about me.
(Full Post)As long as I’m complaining
What’s with all the commas in posts to bulletin boards? You’ve seen them, haven’t you?
Reception was good, lots of food/music.. laughs,, we had 258 people go thru the food line,, the beer dissappeared,, me drink ?.. come on gang,, some of you know, how much I love beer,,I drank my share, and danced..They played the [...]
(Full Post)Pain…
Migraines are bad and should be outlawed.
(Full Post)Irritated
Last week it was snowing. This week, it’s regularly hitting the high 80s. My car air conditioning, which was completely redone last October, doesn’t work again.
I made an appointment with the shop, and took it in this morning at 7:30. At about noon, they called me to tell me I needed another 3 pounds of [...]
Shallow
The older I get, the more I groom. Haircuts every six weeks (ok, every four weeks, cause it grows out so fast), that sort of thing. Now, suddenly, I want a manicure. (Actually, it’s sudden, but not mysterious - I’m getting ready to go to the wedding of a family friend that has all the [...]
(Full Post)Forward into the Past
I went back to my hometown this weekend, thanks to Judy M, who organized a reunion of people who were kids in Reston in the late 60s and early 70s.
In 1965, Reston was revolutionary - a planned community with townhouses in the middle of the woods, high density housing surrounded by acres of common space. [...]
Just Married
Congratulations, Fazia and Jeff!
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