Almost Wordless Wednesday

It is almost July so the garden is starting to get big! We have already finished the bok choy that we planted in late April and have seedlings popping out of the ground for a new row that we planted this past weekend! We also took out the bibb lettuce and romaine lettuce- we didn't get a great crop this year so we replaced them with green and red loose leaf lettuce.

Herb garden

Green pole beans. They are slowly climbing up the trellis. I think that they are going to take longer because they do not get a full day of sun.


Hot peppers already starting to grow!

Bush cucumbers flowering.

We have snap peas! The plants are already as tall as me (5'9")!

Cherry tomatoes. Can't wait to put these suckers in salads!

Zucchinis are flowering which means we will soon be inudated with zucchini (not a bad thing- grilled zucchini is DELISH).

Brussel sprouts

Mmmmm beets.

Carrots.

I am so proud of our garden right now. Other than a few of the herbs which we wintered over inside and the tomatoes we planted all of that from seed this year. We saved so much money buying $1.99 organic seed packets rather than buying already-started plants. We thought it would be a lot harder to do....but it turns out it is really simple. Yay!

Heading back to 6th grade

Wow I don’t think that this year could suck any more. Last week I got even more bad news.

Over the weekend I broke part of my back lower right molar while eating. I wasn’t entirely surprised- I have what is called an “open bite” because my jaw has shifted so much the past few years. So with this open bite the teeth on the back right side of my mouth are the only ones that make contact with each other. So for the past few years I have mainly been chewing on the right side of my mouth.

My open bite is most likely due to the fact that I grind my teeth. Dentists have told me for years, but until my dentist here in CT told me that I was seriously losing enamel on my teeth, I didn’t think that it was too much to worry about. Ha ha.

So grinding my teeth has completely f*cked up my teeth. I went to the dentist to get my tooth shaved down (thankfully it wasn’t that bad of a break) and he told me that this would continue to happen if I didn’t get some orthodontia work done. BRACES??? AT AGE 32???? But I already had them for two years from 6th grade to 8th grade! F*ck.

My dentist also said that he had to send me to a “special” dentist because I have a “complex case.” That sounded ominous.

I made my appointment and afterwards wanted to cry. $6200-$7200 to fix my teeth. Probably a year and a half of braces. No possibility of getting Invisaline (the clear retainers). No possibility of braces on the back of my teeth. But I can have clear brackets for $250 more (but with a metal wire). FML.

Oh! And they will mostly likely have to BREAK MY JAW AND REMOVE FOUR TEETH. FANTASTIC.

My insurance is not paying for a lick of the orthodontia work but will pay for part of the oral surgery (aka BREAKING MY JAW and removing teeth).

Unfortunately, this has to be done because my teeth will just get worse if I don’t get them fixed now. We were planning on putting away extra money towards a household savings fund because we will need a new roof/new windows soon, but it looks like that money will be going towards my teeth.

I get all the prep work done next Tuesday. At that point I will get a better estimate price-wise, time-wise and whether they will have to break my jaw and/or remove teeth. No idea as to when the braces will actually go on but at this point I just want to get it over with.

The moral of the story? If you are told you grind your teeth? Get a freaking mouthguard for night-time use so that you don’t have to wear braces. AGAIN.

Quit

So while my one coworker K is having problems with her (now-ex) fiancé, my other coworker D is having problems with her new husband.

D and her husband have been having some money troubles. He got laid off and was out of work for a while which didn’t help their situation. He finally found something about a year ago. He had training for a while and had to travel around the state more than D would have liked, but at least he had a job.

D’s husband hinted about quitting his job, but up and did just that about a week ago without fully discussing it with his wife. They have three kids- one about to head off to college. Bills to pay. She hates her boss too but doesn’t get to quit.

She is FURIOUS- and rightly so. When you are in a crappy financial situation even if you hate your job with all of your heart, you FIND ANOTHER JOB prior to leaving that company. I hate my job but I refuse to leave here before I have another job. You have to be smart- especially with the economy the way it is right now.

D is extremely frustrated at him. The added stress of being the sole breadwinner is not helping their marriage. I felt awful for her- and am shocked that he would think that this is okay. A marriage is a partnership. You make decisions together on things that would affect the family.

If CP ever thought of doing this (thankfully he likes his job)…I would kill him. Especially when you have kids it can’t be all about you and your unhappiness. It’s just so selfish.

What would you do if your spouse quit their job without talking to you first?

Twinkies

For the first time EVER in my life, I bought Hostess cupcakes and Twinkies today. Yes, you read that correctly. I have never eaten or bought anything Hostess. It felt dirty buying that crap (I decided it best to NOT look at the “nutrition” label or the ingredients). I felt as if people were looking at me weird (which is silly because most people in America have probably had a Twinkie in their lifetime).

I wasn’t buying it for myself though. This morning my friend/coworker came clean about what is going on at home. For the past month or so her fiance has been going crazy. Literally. Yelling all around the house. Scaring her two kids. No physical violence, but he is very unstable.

This has happened before. She was married to him. He started to exhibit crazy behaviors; she couldn’t and wouldn’t put up with it so they divorced. They stayed in contact for the kids and after a few years of being apart, she thought that he had matured. Things were great. They got engaged again, but weren’t planning on getting married until he figured out his finances (he is out of work and on disability because he has Meniere’s disease).

For the past year things have been going well….until this month.

Thankfully she is not going to take it. She doesn’t want him to scare the kids. She doesn’t want to be scared herself. She doesn’t want her kids to grow up and marry a man that is verbally abusive and/or someone that has anger issues. She has already contacted her attorney. She has called the police to take away his pistol permit. She is going to get a restraining order. She is going to file for full custody. She is not going to be nice this time.

I feel just awful. No one wants to cry at work. She lost 6 pounds in the past week from the stress of living with him. The kids are on her side, saying things like, “You tried Mommy” and “Mommy we are going to be okay.”

So on the way back from a dentist appointment I stopped by CVS and bought her some goodies. We always joke because she is skinny, but only eats crap food. She is appalled that I have never had a Twinkie. So I bought her some high fructose corn syrup food in hopes that she will eat something and not waste away.

I’m not sure if there is anything that I can do but try to be here for her. I’m glad that the Hostess treats cheered her up for a few minutes at least.

Ahhhhhhhhh

The sweet relief of a relaxing weekend. Sometimes you just need to get away and try to forget about all that is bothering you. This weekend my aunt invited the ladies of the family to her house in NJ for a spa weekend.

Despite the bad weather on the drive down to NJ and the fact that my mom’s flight from Chicago was delayed a couple of times, I felt great after the weekend.

An hour long facial which made my skin radiant. At times the facial was weird because the man talked about new age hooey, something about the five souls and opening your mind, etc. I didn’t quite understand it so I didn’t listen to it too much. After the facial he talked about the products he had used. The moisturizer he used has crushed up gems (as in emeralds and rubies), along with silver and gold in it. The 3 oz bottle cost him $150. I tried asking him just exactly how crushed up gems were going to help my face, but he started in with the souls stuff and didn’t quite answer my question. It made me glad that I wasn’t paying for the treatment because I’m pretty sure it was expensive. Ha!

An hour long massage which helped ease my plantar fasciitis pain a bit.

Delicious and healthy food, full of herbs and vegetables from my aunt’s garden. A delicious white burgundy wine. Interesting conversation with my cousin, aunt and mom. Walks in the woods and through a beautiful garden. Time to relax a read a book (currently reading Freedom by Jonathan Frazen).

Yep, it was a nice, quiet weekend. This year was the first annual family spa weekend. Hopefully my aunt decides to do it again next year and hopefully another cousin and my sister are able to join us.

When I got home Sunday night, I had CP and the puppies excited to see me. Always nice to come home to people/dogs that are happy to see you.

What did you do this weekend?

Get me out of here

I have got to get out of here. I know that switching jobs in this economy is going to be tough, but I am ready. I will give you just a few examples of why I need to leave.

1. My boss often goes on power trips. She calls me and another coworker into her office by yelling our names and expecting us to come into her office as opposed to her either calling us on the phone or walking over to our desks herself. It’s so demeaning. She also has me and a coworker perform tasks that she could do in less time than it takes to tell us what exactly she wants done. An example? She wanted one column of numbers from a five column Excel spreadsheet. She gave me vague instructions over email of what she wanted and frankly, I was scratching my head because she couldn’t POSSIBLY want me to simply delete four columns from the spreadsheet and send it back to her, right? But oh yes, that’s what she wanted me to do. Ridonkulous.

It’s like managers who call to their secretaries to get X on the phone because they are too lazy to do it themselves or because they want to seem more important. Ugh.

2. Recently, our head office said that we could hire two people in our division- one permanent position and another a summer intern. I sat in on a meeting with my boss and another coworker while they discussed how great it will be to get more help around the office. My mouth is on the ground because I have consistently told my boss that I would like more work and she doesn’t have any for me.* So why are we hiring more people in our division when other divisions are DESPERATE for employees? How are these people going to be happy employees if there is no work for them to do? The summer intern is not going to want to come back if s/he has a bad experience. Just because we CAN hire someone doesn’t mean that we should. It’s this type of mentality that pisses me off.

3. My boss decided to go ahead with hiring for the permanent position despite my objections (she is also still working on the summer intern position). The head office then came back and said that we would have to interview and get paperwork to them by the following day. REALLY? We had only TWO referrals and I was the person stuck with calling them to tell them a few things about the job and then see if they wanted to interview in ONE HOUR. What company does this? How professional does this look if you are calling people up for a job interview- and they never even knew the job existed??? The whole thing just boggled my mind. Only one person referred was able to interview with us. He was actually pretty good, but what if the person that we interviewed was awful? Would my boss have said to hire him just to get another body in the door? That’s not how you find good employees!!

This place is so ridonkulous that I am losing my sanity. I need to get out of here before I start to think that this is normal. I have given this place almost three years of my life and it is time to move on to BETTER things. I just have to figure out what those better things are…..

*Note: I would usually take the lack of work as a sign that my boss either didn’t like me or didn’t think that I could do the work, but I received the highest ratings that you can get on my annual review so it is certainly not the case.

Birthday

Yesterday was CP’s birthday. He never wants to do anything exciting and/or make a big deal out of it. One year I am going to throw him a surprise birthday party just to see how he reacts. :-)

This year he turned 35. I can’t believe that I am married to someone that is 35 and that I will BE 35 in two and a half years. That seems so close to 40!!

This past weekend CP’s dad and dad’s fiancé came down for a visit. They met Buster and seemed to not quite remember what a puppy is really like. They have two dogs of their own, but it has been a few years and I think that you can easily forget how much biting, jumping, etc. occurs even if you are strict with training the dog. They were scheduled to watch Buster and Fuzzy Britches while we were in camping in Maine in July, but I don’t think that they are going to be up to the task after all. And with Buster’s socialization issues, I don’t think that it is fair to leave him at a kennel at only four months old (even if FB is right next to him) so we are going to cancel our trip. I’m pretty bummed because I really need a vacation.

Anyway, so while they were down here we went out to dinner at Firebox for CP’s birthday. It’s a farm to table restaurant in a neighborhood that the city is trying to revitalize. Everything was delicious.

The next day we headed to Elizabeth Park which has a Rose Festival every year. The park has about 15,000 plants that are very well tended to with scents that are out of this world. The peak time to go is actually this coming weekend but I will be out of town. I took a few pictures of the park while we were there (too bad it was a cloudy day):

Just a small section of the rose garden. The arches in the back right will be blooming with pretty roses in just a few days!

Pretty flower (not a rose obviously)


Annuals garden

A random bird we saw near the pond. At first we thought it was a blue heron, but they do not usually have the extra feathers on their neck. Some time of crane maybe?

So a nice weekend for CP with his family. Unfortunately, because last night was a week night he didn’t have the greatest of birthdays. He had to rush home from work so that we could make it to the first puppy kindergarten class which lasted two hours (sans puppies). Because it was already 8:30 by the time we left, we grabbed a quick dinner and went home to take the dogs for a walk. At least CP got to enjoy my homemade strawberry rhubarb pie afterwards!

What do you do for a significant other on their birthday? If they are not into celebrating it, do you force something on them?

Shy

Right before Memorial Day weekend CP and I realized that Buster was afraid of strangers. Both of our neighbors came up to pet him and he would shy away from them and then bark. Knowing that this was not normal Berner behavior (Koda is FANTASTIC with strangers- including kids), we knew that we had to correct it immediately. It was time to socialize him like crazy.

However, we had to weigh the possibility of Buster getting sick. Like babies, puppy do not have strong immune systems. Add the vaccines that they get at an early age and puppies can easily get sick. Despite having had his first distemper shot (and recently getting his second), if he came into contact with a dog that was not vaccinated, he could get seriously ill.

On the other hand, he could be a puppy that was fearful of strangers, barking at all of them when we went out in public, with a potential to bite a stranger if he become too scared.

We decided that it was more important to socialize him. So almost every single day we have made it a point to bring him in public so that he can get used to people wanting to pet him. At first we gave people pieces of his food so that he would equate strangers with a positive experience (he is ALWAYS up for food). Now we just make sure that strangers don’t lunge at him when trying to pet him.

Buster was getting better, but had a bit of an experience last week at the vet. We had an appointment with a substitute vet, but just looking at Buster she should have known that he was a puppy (and therefore possibly fearful). Instead of letting him sniff her and at least get to know her for two seconds, she automatically picked him up to put him on the table. Buster was NOT a fan. He tried to bite her out of fright and she basically had him in a choke hold until he calmed down. He was making some awful noises. It all happened so fast- I had no idea how it got to that point.

The rest of the visit Buster was upset, but subdued. I came out of the appointment pissed at the vet because if she would have introduced herself properly to Buster we probably wouldn’t have had that problem. Thankfully yesterday when I brought him in for a quick shot he didn’t associate the vet with the incident. Having a 100+ pound dog that doesn’t like the vet would be tough. But I certainly will make sure that he only gets appointments with our regular vet from now on (who is great).

Overall, our socialization plan seems to be working (other than the vet incident). When he sees strangers he confidently walks up to them as if he wants to be pet. Once they bend down to pet him he does shy away a bit, but after a few minutes of being around the person, he relaxes and enjoys himself. Tonight is the first of seven weeks of puppy kindergarten where we work on some of the basic commands, but also watch the puppies play together (which should be ADORABLE). We are hoping that meeting other puppies and people will help Buster with his shyness. And maybe we will get some more tips on how to help him break free of his shell.

Buster doesn't understand the concept of "personal space" in the car. Poor Fuzzy Britches.

Just in case

This week CP and I met with the company that handles my Roth IRA and life insurance. It was quite an eye-opening meeting. I have never thought about what we would do if one of us got sick or disabled and couldn’t work for an extended period of time. How would we pay our bills? What about if one of us died? Both of us have whole life insurance policies, but because our parents took them out on us when we were young, we are not each other’s beneficiaries.

These are not easy topics to think about. No one wants to think about these scenarios. But it is the WHAT IF that scares me. You don’t think that these things are going to happen to you, but you have no idea what is going to happen in the next five minutes, let alone five years down the road.

So CP and I have made the decision to purchase long term disability insurance. Both of us could purchase it through work, but the plans are not as comprehensive and if we switch jobs we are still covered. Thankfully because of our ages and because we are healthy, the cost is low. We are also contemplating purchasing term insurance on each other for the next few years while we move more money into our retirement accounts.

While I would love to not have to pay for these things, both of us don’t want to leave each other in a lurch in case something happens, especially now that we are out of debt. It’s also a bit easier to do this while we don’t have any kids.

Do you and your spouse have long term disability insurance or life insurance?

Half marathon recap

My plan:

Hopefully finish in 2 hours, 30 minutes. I would eat either a Clif Block Shot or Sport Jelly Beans every two miles. I would get water at every other water station.

Pre-race:
I spent a few days worrying about my left foot that was hurt in my fall down the stairs last week. Thankfully it was feeling better by the time the race rolled around. My heels were a different story…

Saturday I got my period which was the absolute worst timing (especially because I was late by 2.5 days which got my hopes up). CP and I spent most of the day cleaning (aka on my feet all day) before my mom arrived. We had a delicious dinner of grilled fish, veggies and rice. I slept okay Saturday night- CP took the 2am Buster slot but I kept waking up before my 5am alarm because I was worried that Buster was going to bark and wake up my mom.

I woke up that morning and had a heavy flow. FML. I changed tampons about 30 minutes before the start of the race in a porta-potty and stuck another into my sports bra for later.

I ate Gu about 15 minutes before the race started and then headed over to the starting line, making jokes to try to calm my nerves. It was probably 62 degrees out and sunny- a perfect day to run!

Race:
The first two miles were spent with two ladies from my running group that were usually a little slower than me. They were running well and we were on track to definitely break two hours and forty minutes. I definitely felt the bruise on my butt every time I took a step (damn fat jiggles), but the pain was less noticeable starting with mile 3.

Miles 3 and 4 were spent with one of my coaches. I had decided to speed up a bit because I was feeling good….the coach was a little worried that I did that but I assured him that I would slow down if I need to. I ate a Clif Block shot at the start of mile three and drank some water.

Around mile 5 I was still feeling great, but had the feeling that I needed to change my tampon (skip this paragraph if you don’t like TMI). My coach had moved on so I decided to investigate how my tampon was doing between my boobs. Not. Good. I knew that I would be sweaty, but didn’t really have any other place to put it. When I looked down the orange paper wrapper had disintegrated and rubbed the orange coloring all over my skin. The cardboard applicator was also wet and the tampon had partially opened to soak up sweat. Why didn't I try to find a PLASTIC applicator tampon?? I decided to stop at the next porta potty. That meant losing about three minutes waiting for the person in front of me. I ended up taking off the cardboard applicator and frankly just sticking the tampon up with my bare hands (thankfully there was hand sanitizer).

By this time the two ladies from my group that I was in front of had passed me while I was in the porta potty. I set them in my sights and sped up to catch them. Meanwhile the elite runners started to pass me (aka lap us) while running 6 minute miles. Bastards. I stayed with my friends through some of mile 6 but realized that I would soon see CP and my mom at mile 8. That made me run a little faster, although I was worried that I wouldn’t see them and that would devastate me. Sure enough, there was my small cheering section at mile 8! It put an extra bounce in my step for the next mile (despite having to run past the finish line). My time at mile 8 was 1 hour, 30 minutes and 4 seconds. I started to think that I really could make my goal time.

Starting at mile 9 the outside of my right foot started to hurt. I also started to eat two Sport Jelly Beans at every mile marker, thinking that I needed to keep my energy up. I could tell that I was slowing down, but was trying to keep my pace up. I mentally tried to stay in the race, telling myself at mile 10 that I only had a 5K left. At mile 11 I told myself that I had less than 25 minutes to go. Mile 12 was the hardest because my pace slowed down a bunch because my left inside quad started to seize. Great timing.

With about 400 meters left, my coach joined me on the course (he had already finished) and helped me finish. Another coach yelled at me from the sidelines to sprint to the finish- I'm not sure that what I did would be called "sprinting" but it was the best I could do after 13 miles.

First 8 miles- 1:30:04

13.1 miles- 2:30:35

Pace: 11:30

Calories burned: 1800

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CP came up, gave me a kiss at the finish line and asked how I was feeling. My exact words were, “Hurting, but glad that I never have to do this again.” LOL.

Post race:

Sitting down while stretching was a necessity for a bit after the race. I was walking slowly everywhere as my feet were screaming. My mom was able to drive my car home for me and I tried to sit as much as possible before stuffing my face with a delicious and healthy lunch made by CP. I didn’t get to nap as we headed out to a nursery to check out trees for our front yard after my shower. We then sat down for an ice cream sundae which was well deserved on my part.

After all of my worries about getting injured during training, I’m proud that I stuck it out and can now say that I have done a half marathon. And thank goodness I’m happy with my time so that I don’t have to do another one!

Getting nervous

With my FIRST HALF MARATHON starting in less than 48 hours, I’m getting a bit nervous.

I have run all of the long training runs. I haven’t been as good about running during the week. My plantar fasciitis has been awful recently.

I fell down the stairs Thursday morning before work and am now sporting a huge dark bruise on my left butt/hip. I also did something to my left foot in the fall but am trying to ignore it. I limped around the office yesterday but am not hurting as much today. Pain on the outside of my right foot suddenly emerged after a run on Wednesday morning. I have been trying to ice as much as possible, but after consulting "The Google", I'm guessing that it is peroneal tendonitis.

Not running as much as I should during the week may affect my time more than being able to finish the race- but who knows with these random injuries?

Finishing the race is my #1 goal. This will likely be my only half marathon as I can’t imagine wanting to train for another one.

I would love to finish the race in less than two hours and thirty minutes. But that is going to depend on how hot and humid it is out, how my injuries are feeling, if Buster didn’t wake me up in the middle of the night, etc. Otherwise, I should finish in less than two hours and forty minutes.

I have my outfit ready. I have two people cheering me on (CP and my mom). I have my sport beans and GU ready. We ran part of the course two weeks ago.

I can’t turn back time and run more during the week. I can't get rid of my new pains. So I just have to suck it up and hope that I am not dying Sunday morning!

Only two days left to not break an ankle….

Devastation

By now, you have probably heard the news that MA was hit with a tornado yesterday. Here in CT we had a tornado warning for part of the day but thankfully nothing materialized. The pictures of the devastation so close to home are shocking. Despite the fact that I am from the Midwest, my town was never hit by a tornado. I haven’t even come close to seeing one (again, thankfully). But here in MA/CT tornadoes are rare. It’s not like we live in Tornado Alley!



Video of the Connecticut River (and at least one car) getting sucked into the tornado.

I got nervous yesterday when a friend posted on my Facebook wall that tornadoes were located in central MA…close to where we used to live AND along CP’s commuting route. He arrived home safely but I’m pretty sure he snuck through one area just before the tornado hit. This morning he could see the devastation from the highway. So scary.

This morning I got into work and my boss was scrambling to get in touch with people that work in our office and commute down from Springfield, MA. One of my coworkers doesn’t have any power and a tree is down on top of her house. She was still a bit hysterical because she was finishing up at work yesterday when her daughter called, scared out of her mind, and told her, “Mommy, I can see a tornado.” My coworker yelled at her daughter to get down to the basement, but her daughter was so frightened that she couldn’t move. When my coworker got home, her daughter was still in the same room, hysterically crying.

I can’t even IMAGINE getting that call. The helplessness that you would feel in that moment as a mother.

Thankfully, all of my coworkers and their families are uninjured. Please keep the people in central MA in your thoughts….

State of NSC- May edition

A monthly take on my world.

Weight: 199. Under 200!! Yay!

Current Feeling: Looking forward to a busy month!

Running Stats in April
Total Miles Run: 47.37 miles
Time Spent Running: 9 hours, 21 minutes, 46 seconds
Calories Burned: 7,181
Longest Single Run: 12 miles

Current aches and pains: My arch nemesis- plantar fasciitis. This morning on my 3 mile run I had a weird pain on the side of my right foot. I intend to ignore it until after the race on Sunday.

Current Favorite Song: “Just Can’t Get Enough”- Black Eyed Peas

Looking forward to: Finishing the half marathon. I think that it will be time to ease down on my mileage or stop running altogether to nurse my heels back into health. It would be a shame to lose all of this endurance that I have though….

Annoyed about: The fact that Buster can’t be bothered to use the pee pads. At night he is great and has been holding his pee for 4-5 hours…but during the day he is up and about more so he pees on the floor instead of the pee pads.

Proud about: Surviving the 12 mile run. That I made it through half training without killing myself.

How are you feeling with the start of this new month?