Anti-Social

I have come to a new resolution for stuff right now. I haven't really been enjoying going to any activities of any sort, or any real social event so I'm going in to hiding. I mean, life is good, things are great and I'm happy, I'm just not feeling the mood. I'm not chasing down any guys, not that there are any I'd want to chase right now anyway, so I'll go to the dances because, if you really know me, you know I LOVE to dance, otherwise, I'm staying home. I've enjoyed having more free time and not going out with anyone really. I have been able to spend more time with my family and sisters and just sit around and do what I want, when I want. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going out with friends, just not filling up every spare moment with having to go out and do something, and in fact, avoiding some of them and not going out and having "other plans".

There are only two problems to this that I foresee. One, I'm not sure how it's going to be because I do like being social, however I think this is easily overcome as I've been quite enjoying not going to stuff so far. Two, it has caused me to do a rather crazy thing as of late which I don't regret, but because I'm alone a lot, his has made me realize how quite lonely I am. Now, don't get me wrong, I do enjoy being where I am and being single and enjoy life quite the way it is, but there is a loneliness that comes with living alone at my age and still being single. I can handle it though, no biggie. The thing I did was I e-mailed an old friend from way back in the day. We've been friends on facebook for a while but I haven't e-mailed him or talked to him since. So, I decided to. The problem is I'm afraid of falling in to old patterns because I'm lonely. It's a long story that has a lot of history to it that I don't want to get in to on here. I'm just good with being friends and wrote the e-mail to catch up on the last 15 years since we've seen each other.

So, here's to some long lonely nights ahead, but I'm at peace with that and kind of happy about it right now. I'm enjoying more time to do what I want and maybe get some of myself into shape both physically, mentally and spiritually. Heaven knows I need all three!!!!

Decision Made, Australia Here I Come!!

Well, I have already made travel plans for my next big trip. I have been dying for years and years to go to Australia. It's been a thing ever since I was a little girl and probably aided by the book The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day where he talks about moving to Australia. I still don't know why I chose Scotland this year, but that felt like the push I needed to do and the place I needed to be this time. Now it's Australia. I have a friend from Brisbane who I met when she came to live here for a year, and that was 3 years ago I believe, and I kept telling her I'd come visit soon. Well, I have now made the decision as to when I'm coming.

The lease on our office space is up the end of November next year, 2010, and I am hoping that my boss David decides to sell his business then. Whether he fully retires or not, who cares, but I'm hoping he sells so I can work for T, like I've been planning to. T has been asking me to come work for him for 2 years now, and last year tried to buy my boss out. Well, he's sitting waiting for next year and so am I. I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for it to be over. I have been here six years as of next month and I need a change of scenery. The hardest thing is I am the only tech in the office which means I do EVERYTHING. When I go work for T I will not be the only tech and will be able to do different things and hopefully not some of the one's I'm working on now. The hard part is when David gets caught up and is sitting, waiting for me to finish companies, when sometimes, I'm waiting for info from people too. It gets kind of hard. I look forward to not having that kind of pressure. T even e-mailed me a few weeks ago asking what kind of vacation time to start planning for me. I love that I already have a new job. That was the part I was worried about the most and I know that going to work for T will be a great, relaxed environment where I'll get spoiled quite a bit. I was beginning to get a little worried lately too when David's wife J keeps talking about maybe renewing the lease for one year if they'll let us and crap like that, but I felt a bit of relief when T's business partner called today to ask for David. I didn't let on that I knew who it was (thank goodness for caller ID) but seeing his name there brought peace to my soul about the whole situation. Knowing that a year after trying to but David out he's still keeping in touch with him helped calm me down about it. Kind of a reminder that the Lord is watching out for me and knows my needs. I just told him Dave was on vacation and when he'd be back. Honestly, a great relief to my soul.

So, when I originally told E about coming to visit her I said when my boss retired I'd find a new job before I came and come. Well, now that I have the new job, I am going to take 3 or 4 weeks and just travel around Australia and maybe some of New Zealand. My friend Fee has a sister V, who married and Australian and they lived here for a year, but just moved back to Coffs last month and I plan on going and visiting with them too. It's going to be so much fun!!!!! I even just now finished e-mailing T to let him know, I'm taking time off to go. My birthday is at the end of November and I'm thinking of going the end of November, beginning of December for something fun and to be back in time for Christmas, especially with two new baby girls having only their second Christmas'. I feel good about this decision and it feels like the right thing to do. I wouldn't have e-mailed E and V and T about going if I didn't know it was right. I even have V and her husband on a man hunt for me LOL!!!!! I decided since I'm not looking and I don't really care, I figure he'll find me, someone might as well be looking for me. It could be interesting right??? Well, here's to new adventures, vacations, and new jobs and pray it all goes right and happens next year!!!!!

Week One

Well, so far I've stuck to my guns, and I have to say, if I didn't have Sasha I would have NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS done it!!!! We worked out every single day last week that we said we would. We did our running on Monday and Wednesday and then walking on Tuesday and Thursday. Friday Sasha texted me to tell me that she had a fever and couldn't run so we made plans to go Saturday instead, which is within the allotted rules because we still got to workout 5 days.

So Saturday I nearly killed myself to go running just to keep to our goal. I was up and moving my brother at 10 am and everything I moved came from the basement so I had some pretty good asthma breathing going on at his old house. We worked hard to get it loaded up. Then when we got to his new house almost everything I brought in was either an upstairs thing or a basement thing. See, he moved from a bungalow into a two-story house, so I was doing stairs like mad. About two-thirds of the way through unpacking my really bad knees were starting to give out. When we stopped to eat some pizza around 2ish I got up off the chair and made some oooffff sounds. Karen asked what was wrong with me, I was like, oh bad knees, sore body just in general really. I could hardly stand after having sat, and then we still had the heaviest of the furniture to go. But by about 3:30 or so we got it all done. I felt bad leaving them with some of the mess they had, but we had done all we could do without completely driving them nuts. At this point they're still decided where everything is going in the new house because it's so much bigger. Amanda was amazing and pretty cheery considering it was moving day and how stressed she was. I give her a lot of credit for how she deals with stress.

I texted Sasha to see if we really had to go and she said if she was puking and going to go I had to go too. So I went. I didn't run as well as I had the other days, nor as well as I did today (it's Monday again, ugh) but I tried and I pushed what I could. My knees were okay with the running but my lungs were the problem. I'd pushed them too far with moving and I kept getting a stitch in my side. I walked more than usual for my run but at least I did something. I am so proud of myself for that and for sticking to it. I figure in a couple of weeks I'll have my lungs trained pretty well to be able to go a lot further because my legs and feet are doing well, and way better than I expected. I think all that walking in Scotland helped. I was dead sore Saturday night and didn't go anywhere which was nice and still recovering a bit on Sunday but it was good for me. My lungs today were still showing signs of recovery when I went running, but I pushed through it and walked a lot less than usual. One day I'll get there!!!

I'm so glad that I have someone to go with. After having gone through all of my weight loss and my still weigh ups and downs one of my criteria in a husband is someone who likes to workout and will push me to do things like this and have a plan with me so I'm not always sitting around. I don't like sitting around but I'm also very lazy and making myself get out and go, which is why I'm so glad for Sasha right now. I don't care if that's being picky about a husband but I figure at my age in life I have a right to be even MORE picky and get what I want out of it. Better than then settling, because if I settle I'll never be happy, and I'm happy now so why screw it up. If I want to stay at the same or more happy than I am now I want what I want and need, which is somewhat flexible and changes a bit as to where I am in life, but a certain level of physical activity is required. So there's my little, I dunno, call it a rant or whatever you want for today but that's me :)

The Story of the Three Scotsmen

So, I couldn't really go in to the whole story on facebook when I posted my pictures, but there is a really funny story behind the picture I have of the three Scotsmen. Now, it may only be funny to me and be one of those you had to bee there stories, but I was there so it's funny. So I had heard about King Arthur's seat being kind of fun to climb up and was debating whether to go because my feet were already sore, but I took the chance and did it. So I was getting near the top and saw the three of them there laughing and having a drink. I was too shy to ask for a picture and finished the little ways I had left and chuckled at them getting drunk on my way.

On my way back down I saw two of them and they were chatting up this girl. It was really funny to listen to their conversation. The shorter one (the one on the left of the picture) was the funniest really. He was just chatting up the girl like crazy and then there was a point where she went down one side and they were going down the other (same side as me). So I chuckled even more as I heard him saying to his friend about how that was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen and stuff like that, only the language was a lot more colourful and he said said it so much funnier. So I'm going down the hill and get about half way and I see the third guy. He's the one in the middle of the three in the picture.

There was a woman and her father who wanted to get a picture with him so I offered to take it for them. He mentioned about his two friends and that he wasn't sure what was taking them so long and I told him that they were hitting on all the girls on their way down becoming quite friendly with everyone (they had found another girl just as I was getting out of ear shot). He laughed and said something about that being like them. He was telling us that he was part of this group (I'll have to look it up) from around Aberdeen area and they wanted to be the first of them to drink a bottle of whiskey at the top of King Arthur's seat. He was laughing too cause they had the bottle and all he had was the box.

After I chatted with the woman and her father chatted with the Scotsman she offered to take a picture of the Scotsman and me. The two of them proceeded then to walk up the long climb. The Scotsman and I got talking and stuff. He asked where I was from and what I did for work etc, etc. His friends were getting close enough that he started to yell to them to come down cause they had the drink, and I was on my way down the rest of the way anyway. He joined them as I went down. Not long later I saw a group coming from the St. Anthony's church ruin that looked like vikings or something. They had obviously dressed up for the gathering too. One of them decided to do come down quickly and did a little yell as he did so. It was actually really really really funny.

I stopped by the pond with the swans and stuff and started to walk back in the direction of getting food and my hotel. At one point, as I was walking by the park I turned and right behind me were the three Scotsmen walking together. I said I wanted a picture of them but they said they weren't stopping so I walked backwards and took a picture of them while they walked. The one I had talked to said to the others, that I was the Canadian girl he had mentioned. Well, they started getting friendly and chatting it up with me. We got stopped by some tourists wanting pictures and stuff too. The short one totally was flirting it up with me, as he had been doing with everyone. They noticed my empty water bottle and asked what had been in my "flask" and I disappointed them when I told them it was only water.

At one point the blonde one, from the right of the picture, pulled my back to him by my backpack and offered me some of the whiskey in the glass they still had. I declined and said I didn't drink. They laughed and joked about that and the short one said, ya neither did he, as of five minutes ago. I laughed and asked him how long that would last. He kept telling me about his hotel room and what I was doing after and stuff. It was so funny. I wish I remembered it all but I don't. It was too much and too funny. Then one of them started riding someone else's bike and I eventually kept moving and they found another girl to hang out with. It was really funny. Definitely a highlight of the day for me. Truly a fun moment on my trip. Check out the pictures below and you'll see the one of the three of them. They were a lot of fun.

Ohhhh, the pain.

So, today is day 2 of the new workout regime and my legs are sore. I was so tired last night and didn't sleep great. I slept ok, but by the morning my legs were sore enough I couldn't sleep. I had a hard time staying awake for a bit in the morning but then I ended up okay because I got into a groove and got something accomplished today. Then as I was leaving work, it starting to rain, and I mean really rain, but we decided to go anyway. By the time I got out of the East end and got home and changed it wasn't so bad. We walked in the River Valley again today so we were covered by trees but it was mostly spitting at that point. We walked for an hour, which did some good. Then I went to Taekwondo class. Oh man, one of the girls had been gone for a few weeks so she wanted them to kick her butt, so they did. My lungs and legs got quite the workout.

I was put through the ringer, couldn't breathe, and then pushed some more. It was good for me but boy and I tired and sore now. And just think, tomorrow is another running day, plus I'm going to try and go to TKD class again. LUCKY ME!!!!!! It's good for me and I really really need it. The running is going to build up my endurance and my lungs which will help for my class.

Getting something accomplished at work today helped too. I didn't finish a company but I got the crappy part of one of them out of the way. If I can push past the crappy part, to where I just have to call or e-mail them my questions, I can usually manage the rest of it pretty easy. The nice thing too is that nothing new has come in for over a week so I can catch up with what I have and just concentrate on those ones and get them done. They all kind of suck and have crappy crappy long parts to them, but like I said, once I get past that, the end is easy and I can move on. That's helping. If I can push past that I might be able to make it through busy season from October to December. That's when I really want to die. You'll hear more complaining then. At least there's Christmas in there to help. That holiday break is really nice, especially because I'm usually, finally caught up by then.

So, here's to hoping I make it through running and TKD tomorrow and work for the next 4 months!!!!

I have a plan!!!

I felt the healthiest and happiest I have of all 2009 when I was in Scotland. I was walking every day for hours on end and did a few hikes even. I was working out at the end of last year and have tried to get back into that routine but have had a hard time and have felt just really gross. My stomach has been bugging me some too, which doesn't help. I'm sure some of it is job stress related. I think I'm ready for a change but I just can't yet. It's rough being the only one in the office who can do my job so I have to work on EVERY clients books. I talked with T again on Sunday (the one from last year who has been trying to get me to work for him for two years now and tried to buy my boss out last year) and he asked how things were. Then he sent me an e-mail last week asking me what they should budget for me for vacation and to name my terms. He also is looking forward to me coming to work for him. I'm praying very, very hard that when the lease is up for us next year that my boss retires. I just need something new. So, pray hard for me too that it works next year. I just feel bad leaving them because they've been good to me and if I leave, he's forced to retire at this point and I don't feel I can do that to them yet.

So I was talking with a friend the other day and we decided to get together tonight. We didn't know what to do but I knew that I needed to go for a walk. So we ended up going to the River Valley and ran part of the way. It was so nice. I haven't been running in FOREVER and was surprised how far I could go before I had to walk for a bit. The two of us both decided that we need to do this more often so, we have a plan. The plan is to go and do some running/walking on Mon, Weds, and Friday and then walk, just walk on Tues and Thurs or some other form of exercise. Just an hour every day is all we need. I need to do something to hopefully kick my butt back into gear and feel better again. Here's praying things get more relaxed and I figure things out.

I know, I know, it's been a while.....

Ya I know. I've been home for almost 2 weeks and I haven't written a thing. Mostly because I don't know what to write. My trip was absolutely fabulous and exactly what I needed. I walked so far every day and felt so good. I haven't been feeling that great all year, health wise I mean, but while I was in Scotland I felt fantastic. I came home every day with my feet killing me and my legs exhausted from how much walking I did, but I felt fantastic. I've tried to get out and walk here but it's just not the same and I'm not feeling well, again. I was quite happy there, except that I was missing my family. I missed a few things while I was gone, like Ivy's baby shower, but that's OK. I usually get bored at those things anyway.

A lot has happened lately too. My brother and his wife decided to buy a house closer to all of us. It's really quite exciting and a really beautiful house, well, at least from what I can tell from the pictures. They get possession of the house next weekend and they're pretty excited, although stressed about the whole thing. Poor Amanda has had quite the year of wedding plans, graduating from school and the big exam for it, and then moving. Ivy's growing like a weed!!! She's gained 11 ounces in the last six days and at one month old she weighs over 10 pounds. I think it was 10 pound 6 ounces or something. She's so dang cute too.

I don't want to bore you with all the details of my trip but I will post a few pictures. I have to say that I absolutely LOVED the Doctor Who exhibit and spend the most money there at the gift shop. FAR too much fun was had by me and I probably would have bought more if I had the room to bring it home in. Ya, I'd say I'm definitely a fan!!!

p.s. we also went to Heritage Festival the day after I got home. That was fun to spend some time with my sisters, their husbands, my mom and the kids. It's become a family tradition.