Thenagirl

I'm not sure if I've discussed this before, but Athena's been leaking urine at night. Bloodwork was done (to rule out effects of Rimadyl) as well as a urinalysis. Nothing, but we put her on antibiotics for 10 days just to make sure. The thought was better to do antibiotics for a while to see if that takes care of it rather than putting her on another chronic medication. Honestly, I hadn't checked her since the end of the antibiotics to see if they were working. Then this morning I woke up, thought it was strange that she wasn't in her bed, and then saw that her bed was soaked! :o( I'd do a sadder face if I could. It's especially disappointing since she had only been leaking a little bit--last night was the first night that was a major event. Part of me holds out hope that the cat decided to make it her litter box.

The next question becomes do I put her on another medication or just buy washable doggie diapers? The easiest thing would be the medication--but it wouldn't be easy on the wallet.

Poo.

Food for thought

I don't know how many times over the years I've tried doing a food journal. I can also tell you the number of nutrition & exercise tracking websites I've been a member of are getting up there.

I just get a little peeved that I can't find one that I really like that gives me everything I'm looking for. Perhaps part of it is that it's just so time consuming & cumbersome to track everything. And what do you do when the site you're using doesn't have the nutrition info of what you just ate...then you have to add it manually...bleh.

I downloaded the Lose It! app on my iphone last night (free). I had downloaded it before but never used it. So I tackled it with renewed enthusiasm. Weighed myself to enter my weight, signed up for reminders, etc. To reach my goal weight (which is actually a little over zealous) by a particular date, it set my calories at 1295. Not that awful in my opinion.

Today marked my first day of food tracking.
Breakfast = 230 cals. Around 10:00am I started calculating the calories in the lunch I packed. SURPRISE SURPRISE SURPRISE! I would've been left with only 147 calories for dinner. WHAT?! I was floored. And I thought I was packing a good lunch--turkey sandwich, two carrots, dried apricots (yes, I tried them--not sure I like the texture on the outside, but I can handle it), and I think most of the calories came from the 100 calorie Cheezit pack & the vanilla Snack Pack. But none of that mattered because...

My husband IMs me and says, "Hey, how 'bout we go to El Torito for lunch?" "Okay!" So not only did I eat a more unhealthy lunch, but I also didn't work out. :oP Needless to say, I didn't try to track my dinner.

I'll try again tomorrow.

*image from http://stolzenhaus.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/lose-it-iphone-app-wow-was-i-wasting-calories-on-junk/*

Song of the week

When I grow up I want to be...

I've been pondering my future lately. Lately as in, this afternoon.

As an Administrative Assistant at the rec center (btw, I started as a permanent employee on the 15th--benefits here I come!!), I am surrounded by people who majored/are majoring in Sports Management, Sports Administration, Exercise Science, Physical Education, Nutrition & Dietetics, etc. Because I enjoy my work so much, I ~naturally~ thought I might explore these majors a little more to determine if it might be a path I'd like to go down. The only one that remotely piqued my interest was Nutrition. After looking at the course descriptions, I thought, "Uh, maybe not." They just seemed so dry. And I'll be the first to admit that biology courses (Behavioral Ecology for example) seem really cool, but then two weeks into it you're thinking, "Seriously??" Perhaps it's just me.

Anyway, so as I'm sitting at my desk working on May's newsletter (& having tons of fun btw), I thought to myself, "Self, why don't you look into doing something like this??"

So long story short, what would making things look nice (be it newsletters, blogs, business cards, etc.) fall under? Graphic design?? Is that what this is called? How much money is in this profession? I hate to admit it, but yes, money does buy some happiness--NOT ALL, but definitely some. Would I enjoy graphic design?

I shall look into it & perhaps take a class or two to feel it out. If I continue down this road, I might just be a perpetual student--a "lifer" if you will.

*image from http://www.jbzarchitects.com/cms/news/

Awwww, I want one!

Is this legal??

Song of the Week

If you ever wondered what my field research was like...

I thought I might post a youtube video of the northern flying squirrel for my readers.  Little did I know I would stumble upon this gem of a video.  This is as close as you can get to understanding what I did out there.

I kept thinking, "Wow.  This is exactly what we did.  Wow.  They're talking about the subspecies I'm studying.  Wow.  They just mentioned the NCWRC (who I worked with)...& there's a comment below about the squirrels crossing the Cherohala (my study area)."  But I don't think it was filmed on the NC side of the Cherohala because there wasn't a tunnel on the road we took.  It might've been filmed on the TN side.

So yeah, that's part of what I did out in the field.  And when she was complaining about the poop--I would've been collected it in a vial for later DNA analyses.  We also set traps along traplines that we checked every morning & I did vegetation surveys in 10x10m plots around every place we found/trapped a squirrel & random plots corresponding to the known squirrel points.

Anyway, not sure why I'm blogging about it when I should be writing about it in my thesis.

Later gators!  Enjoy the video below!

Well then, what CAN I eat?!

I have a system.

Eat a snack around 10:00am (99% of the time it's a banana).

Eat another snack before working out (today it was a 100 calorie cheese nip pkg).

Work out, then eat lunch.

Today I had a turkey sandwich.

Then I ate my kiwi and started in on my grapes.  At that point my stomach starts doing somersaults. 

So what do I do?  I go online and search for the fructose to glucose ratio in kiwis & grapes.  Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure enough, they're both >1.  We're aiming for <1.  Granted, their ratios are only 1.06 and 1.04 respectively, but apparently it's enough.  Bananas are 0.84.  And apples?  The fruit that led me to these stupid fructose posts??  They're 2.83.  Uh huh.  Yeah.

Let's see, what are my options...prunes, prune juice, dates, apricots, plums, sweet potato (okay, I can handle this one), & figs.  Great.  Looks like I'll be venturing outside of my taste bud comfort zone.

Sorry, I'll try to be more pleasant in my next post.  :o)

Song of the Week

ASB Conference Thoughts & Feelings

Went to the awards banquet last night...didn't win anything.  The submission instructions were terrible--in fact, I never saw any; I found out at the banquet.  Apparently you had to submit an abstract for a lot of them.  When we registered, we were to check the boxes next to the awards we wanted to apply to and most everyone assumed that was all we had to do.  Apparently not.

Which leads me to my next statement:  the ASB website is crap.  I would really like to use a stronger word, but I shall not.  I'll leave it at that.  Well, I will say this:  they need to either hire a company to do their website for them or if they already have someone doing it, fire them & hire someone else.

My university co-hosted the conference and it sounded like there was some sort of bickering going on between our folks and the ASB Conference folks.  Our folks (the meeting coordinators at least) didn't even attend the banquet.  Sounded like it was in protest, but I don't know for sure.

I was having a pretty good time until one award presenter stood up and spent about 5 minutes discussing the fact that he was not going to give out the award because no one could follow directions on how to submit.  We heard a gasp and an entire table got up and left while he was speaking.  The whole thing was just so ridiculous.  Okay, fine, say you're not giving out the award and leave it at that.  Don't go on & on about following directions and your award is so important that if people can't follow directions then they don't deserve the award.

Everything just kind of culminated and I came away feeling I was surrounded by hoity toity assholes.  The remaining smidgen of desire to pursue a career in Biology just flew out of my body.

Good.  Got that out.  Not going to think about it or talk about it again.  Until of course the bio students go out for beers--I'm sure it'll come up then.  ;o)

An aside:  a bird flew into our window today and laid crumpled on the ground still breathing and moving its eyes around.  I'm not very good with things like this (ex: the time our dog caught it's paw in-between the wire table and table rim of our outdoor furniture, flipped over, broke its toes, and hung there while I ran around screaming) so I called everyone I could think of until I got my brother on the phone (oddly enough he was the one that had to deal with me & the dog) who said don't worry about it, it's just stunned and will get up in a few minutes.  Sure enough, several minutes later this blue jay rights itself, sits there for a minute and then goes on its merry way.  Thank goodness!  I asked my brother what I do if it doesn't get up.  His answer, "Go get a shovel and smash it."  See picture proof below:

Oh yeah. Watchin' Lost tonight.

I've figured out how I work best.  Set small goals and reward myself when those goals are met.

Current goal:  1 page of Intro per day this week.
Reward:  I'll have the weekend to do whatever I want (that will obviously not be thesis related)

Mission accomplished (so far) got a page written last night & one tonight.  It's been a lot easier than I expected--probably because I've been copying a lot of text from other papers I've written on the subject.  And I've banished C from the office, so that helps.  It's far from perfect, but I'm taking my sister's advice & just plopping it down on paper--that's what editing is for, right?

Had the phone interview today for the job I currently have.  Noooooo, that wasn't awkward. *sarcasm*  But it went well and I'm looking forward to having health insurance soon.

Speaking of health insurance...wanna know something else that was awkward?  Received an email from my aunt with a bunch of jokes dissing Mr. President.  I guess she doesn't know I voted for him.  :o)

I shall end it there.

Dear Husband...

Dear Husband, 

If I promise to do laundry (wash, fold, & iron), will you get me this room??:

This will aid tremendously in my desire to wash/fold clothes and will add to my overall happiness--which in turn will lead to a better life for you.  I would probably even spend most of my time in this room which will give you more time to spend playing WoW.  I really don't see any drawbacks here.  

Love,

Your wife

*picture from http://www.zimbio.com/Laundry+Room+Design*

Song of the Week

Look what we did on our 3 day vacation!

My eyes were definitely a lot bigger than my pocket.  No new light fixture, no new sink, no new cabinet, no new toilet, & no new tub/shower.  At least not yet.  BUT, I do like how it turned out.  The wall color is definitely a lot darker & bluer than I expected, but I didn't hate it, so it stayed.  After everything was "done" (we still need to touch up some areas & paint the window sill & baseboards) I realized the striking similarity to the office.  :oP  I suppose there's a reason for that--I like the style!  Check out the pics:

Note the mirror with the lovely floral detail.

 

This is my favorite part of the bathroom--I'm not quite sure why I love these light switches so much.

I'm lazy & didn't iron the shower curtain--the steam from showers should get the wrinkles out eventually anyway.  :oP

New blinds!  $15 at Home Depot

This is probably my second favorite.  The tree is a wall decal from Target, the shelves are from target, and the bottle & glass bird is from Pier 1.

We painted the cabinet, mirror, & shelves.  I think the original sink & countertop look okay--well, they have to.  The painting of the mirror didn't work as well as I had hoped.  Thank goodness this picture is forgiving.  We're going to try to take the mirror out of the frame & repaint--if that doesn't work, we'll get a new mirror. 

Yeah, it sucks our entire weekend was spent doing this overhaul, but I really like it & think it was well worth it.  I just hope my husband thinks so too.  

P.S.  C, thank you so much for your help!  I will without a doubt buy you a head set so you can play your geeky WoW game.  :oD