Shockingly, vacations CAN suck.

I have decided that the worst part of a vacation, without a doubt, is not the coming back to work after it.

It's the week (or in my case, month) before leaving that is the most torturous part.

The last month, but two weeks specifically, at work have been absolutely horrifying. It's been busy, demanding and and all-around shit fest. Normally, I really like my job and I really like what I do. But lately it's just been hard...in ways that it normally shouldn't be. There is too much change and too much movement, not enough constancy and certainly not enough consistency. I find myself getting frustrated with minute things and tasks and yet leaning on them to make it though the day. Filing has become one of the ways that I pass time. I hate filing and I now look forward to it. I actually ALLOW it to pile up so that I have something to do in order to feel productive.

Granted, this last week was an anomaly because of technical issues, but lately I have felt incredibly useless. I find myself wiling away the hours on the internet (something I've been cautioned against in the past). But honestly, how many times can I say "I have nothing to do", "I can help with anything", "Please give me more accounts" or any variation?

I feel that I have made it clear that I love my job and love what I do. I have said that I want more responsibility. It's not like I WANT to dick around on the internet all day. In fact, I'd prefer it if I were so busy at work that the only outside connection I have with the world is Twitter or...nothing.

More changes are inevitable at the office, though I wish that they weren't (for selfish personal reasons), but they might benefit me in the end. I don't know.

So between worrying about not having anything to do and making sure that I'm caught up enough to feel good about leaving for an entire week, I have been under far too much stress.

Today will be a big day of studying, laundry and not much else. Exciting.

Changes are coming...

I think I'm going to go blonde.

I haven't yet figured out what, exactly, inspired this. I have "virgin" hair, not yet touched by the likes of professional grade hair dyes...I've never even gotten highlights.

But I think being a blonde might be a grand ol' time! Not like Playboy Bunny blonde...a platinum I am not. But some color of blonde. I should probably make an appointment with my stylist soon...even though I won't be getting this done until well after Easter.

Hmm...

I'm excited!

Jillian is out of her mind.

Jillian Michaels is completely insane. And yet I contintue to inflict pain upon myself via her 30 Day Shred workout thing. I took about two weeks off from the madness to go to the actual gym and try my hand (feet?) at running.

Ummm....my dog is snoring incredibly loudly right now. Hilarious.

Surprisingly, between the working out (and getting my ass handed to me by Jillian) and my recent membership to Weight Watchers (don't mock), I feel a lot better about myself than I have in the last year or so. And I'm happily 5.4 pounds lighter today than I was about a month ago.

I've done nearly everything in my power to make this excess weight go away. I've tried calorie counting. I've tried South Beach. I've tried The Biggest Loser diet. I've tried ... every damn thing I can think of. I never ever ever wanted to try the Weight Watchers thing. I guess I sort of thought there was some weird stigma attached to it. I'm not sure why. But I figured, it's the only thing I HAVEN'T tried and I watched my mom and sister lose insane amounts of weight a few years ago. So I gave it a whirl.

And yes. It does work.

And I get to wake up happy every morning, actually excited about stepping on the scale and "weighing in". It's good to feel that way.

Salacious Tarts, UNITE!

I am a Britney Spears fan. I’ve been a fan since …Baby, One More Time. I own all the albums and the majority of them, I actually went to the store to buy.

I am the most uncloseted Britney fan you will EVER meet. Guaranteed.

The funny thing about celebrities is that, all too often, we see them as these untouchable, God-like creatures who don’t go to the bathroom and who don’t (or shouldn’t) have issues. I think that’s where the majority of the problem lies.

Celebrities can’t make mistakes. Hell, they can’t even go outside wearing sweats and t-shirt without being scrutinized and mocked and flashed all over the tabloids and television. It’s so weird! I can’t imagine a life where I couldn’t just sit at Starbucks in my Saturday uniform (yoga pants, tank top and tennies) drinking a latte and reading a book without being harassed in some manner or another. What kind of a life is that?

I often find myself reading review of music and movies on Plugged In, Focus on the Family’s pop culture website. I used to appreciate the reviews for what they were, but then they went and really distorted a Will Smith song a few years ago. After I wrote a rather scathing letter to the reviewer, I began reading the reviews with different eyes…and probably with some amount of mental masochism.

I just read their review of Circus by Britney. I’ll be the first to admit that there are moments on the album that are rather…tarty. “If U Seek Amy” is probably the finest example (and if you haven’t figured out by now that she’s saying “F-U-C-K me”, well, now you know). The woman is a sex symbol. Let’s be clear about that. She’s not someone I’d want my daughter to idolize. She’s not the ideal role model…she never really was (which begs the question: does any celebrity ever WANT to be a role model? Or is that forced upon them?).

But in the same breath, let’s also be clear that she’s a 27-year-old single mother. She has issues. She probably has a mental illness in the form of bi-polar disorder or something like it.

I can’t really imagine what it must have been like to go through a painful divorce and custody battle in front of the world and then have a forced institutionalization splashed all over everywhere. That’s horrible! And shame on the media for doing it.

So when Focus on the Family calls her a “Salacious Tart” I say better a tart who is getting her life together than a whacked out little girl on the verge of losing her children.

Better a scantily clad woman who can provide for her family than a flip-flop wearin’ nut case who can hardly drag herself from her bed.

Better a woman who can be proud of herself and her accomplishments again than someone who appeared to be on the fast track to unintended personal demise.

A friend once told me that one week at church, her pastor actually asked that his parishioners pray for the girl rather than soak up one more sloppy report of her. I have to agree with him. Be honest: if you had a friend, or even a mere acquaintance, who was going through a divorce and custody battle and then just started teetering on the brink of insanity, what would you do? Pray for her or hope she did something else nutty so you had something to talk about at the water cooler? Would you send good thoughts into the universe or wait around for her to fall off the deep end and not do anything?

So with my trip to Vegas for her show looming mere weeks away, I say MORE POWER TO THE BRITTERS! Tart is up, lady! You do your thang!

Playing with hippies.

Here I am, back in Boulder.

Todd is at his Writer's Group in the back of the coffee shop and I'm studying (okay "studying") in the front.

A glorious faux hippie and her two very cute kids just sat down to eat a quick brunch and are now on their way out. They left a massive trail of chocolate cupcake behind them and around the very area in which I am studying.

Hilarious. Gross. Many things.

I really have nothing to add to my blog list from this week. And I think I might have outdone myself last week with all the posts re: my globalization class. Damn. But I feel the need to write, for some reason.

I am realizing that one of the biggest motivations for getting done with school as quickly as possible is not so that I can be a college graduate and not so that I can sleep more.

It's so I can have time to read again. There are so many books that I need and want to read. The Heart of Darkness has been at the top of my list for over a year. And yet, without the hours and day and weeks to devote to it, I have yet to rent it from the library. Sigh. I also have been sitting on Night for over 3 years. Yowza. I'm apparently all about the most depressing books every written. Weird.

Thursday night, Todd and I embarked on the second of my five resolutions. We went to see The Phantom of the Opera. I have honestly never seen anything more amazing in my life. I've been wanting and waiting to go to a Broadway show my entire life. Honestly. The whole thing...my ENTIRE life. And we finally went to what is probably my favorite musical of all time (though it might tie with My Fair Lady).

I have decided that I want to do musical theatre for two reasons. 1 - I love to sing. 2 - I want to wear those outrageous and beautiful costumes.

It's hard for me to go into much detail here about how much I loved the show and the specifics of what I loved. I can say, though, that seeing Phantom has cemented in my mind that experiences, rather than things, are the gifts that I really love and appreciate (aside from flowers delivered to work because that makes me feel extraordinary). There is only one"thing" that I really want from Todd and I don't foresee receiving that for several years (like 19 more years).

I will never forget the way that I felt walking into the theatre to see Phantom for the first time. Wow. Just...wow.

Slipping into delirium...

It’s amazing to me how tired I’ve been this week. I think I’m pushing myself too hard sometimes, but there’s really no way to stop myself now. What with working full time and going to school on top of that and then trying to lose weight and get fit…it’s really exhausting.

This is how I’ve always functioned though. It’s a really bad habit that I’ve made and I should just stop doing it.

This habit is that of over-scheduling and under-resting. Maybe I should re-think my Lent and give up doing too much this season.

While it’s true that I have learned to say “no” to certain things over the last few years, I have managed somehow to replace those “no’s” with other “yes’s”…and that is the inherent problem.

I can’t not go to school and I certainly can’t not work (thought the idea of being independently wealthy is appealing). So what else do I give up? Being with other people re-charges me so I don’t want to not do that. I just have this really awful thing in me that says I have to fill every moment of every day with SOMETHING.

I can’t quite describe how excited I am about being able to go to bed at 8pm on a weeknight without feeling bad that I didn’t do enough homework or studying that night. I want to be done with school. I’m enjoying the work and the learning, I really am. But I’m ready to be done. As my brother’s student said last week: I want to be an adult so I can start enjoying my life.

I’d re-phrase that and say “I want to be graduated so I can start enjoying sleep!”

I feel like I could take a thousand naps and still not be rested.

Tonight I will say my first “no” and not go to the gym. Rather, I will get home and go straight to bed prior to going out for dinner. Todd is mercifully going to walk the dogs for me which will garner me an add’l 15-20mins of sleep.

Regardless of the fact that I gained weight last week as opposed to losing, I will not be at the gym tonight. No worries…I’ll be back at it tomorrow and Sunday. But I think a nap is long overdue.

Fat Tuesday is here...you know what that means...

Ah the Lenten Season is upon us.

Every year, I make every effort to take part in this. I think it’s a somewhat important thing to do, even outside of religion. Learning to let go of unnecessary or frivolous or unimportant things is sometimes, well, necessary.

This year, Lent came up on me much faster than I expected it to. I was never able to put much thought into what I was going to give up or let go of. I’d thought of some things. I considered giving up meat and booze, but then a couple things came to mind: 1) we’re going to Japan during Lent and I really don’t want to miss out on Kobe beef while we’re there…and pork is in EVERYTHING and 2) I don’t really drink that much anyway. It would be that much of a stretch or challenge to not do something I already don’t do much of anyway.

But when we were at Megan and Paul’s house over the weekend, she mentioned that she was giving up shopping for Lent. That actually did strike me. I do a lot of excess shopping that I shouldn’t. I can find a reason to shop at any time. It’s true. I don’t need help to find a reason to buy something. And frankly, that's not really fair to Todd. I have a credit card from my "single days" that, while he has access to, he just doesn't use. And I get all bent out of shape (sometimes) when he uses "our" credit card for things I'm not aware of. Which is extra-crappy of me because a lot of times, the things he buys that I'm unaware of are nice things for me (new laptops, flowers delivered to work, miscellaneous "prizes").

So this Lenten Season, I'm giving up shopping. I know it's going to be incredibly difficult. I need a new hairdryer (but not desperately). I want to get mousse for my hair (but that's rather excessive, considering the amount of hair gunk that I already have). And those are just things I came up with this morning! You can see this is going to be a challenge.

But I think I can do it. I think I need to do it. It just means that my wedding gown preservation will have to wait another 40 days (yes, I know. It's been almost 18months since the wedding and I've still not gotten it preserved. That's another Oprah...I'm trying to decide on a lot of things re: the gown still). I am also not going to eat meat on Friday's, but that's something that Todd and I usually do during Lent anyway. Ha! The way we are during Lent, you'd think we were good old fashioned Cafeteria Catholics!

At any rate, there are about a million reasons I could come up with why I think it's important for me to be a part of Lent, but I don't know that it's necessary to get into it here. I wasn't raised Catholic and my family never did Lent when I was growing up. This is a relatively new development for me...it's only been in the last 6-8 years that I've started making Lent a priority.

Denying myself something that I've seen as important for so long is a good exercise in understanding what it means to go without. Yes, I know..."shopping" is frivolous in and of itself. It's not like a person ever died or was killed for lack of shopping.

So while this isn't like I'm giving up food or water for 40 days, I think it's going to be a good way for me to really understand what denial is. Hopefully.