i'm back

Sorry. I’ve been sort of MIA lately. Here are the excuses:

1. I’ve been at Disneyland (the happiest place on earth) with John and several other members of my family. We had such a great time, but I was exhausted by the time we got back on Monday! It’s taken me all week just to recover.

2. I’m searching for a job, and I have 8 weeks to find one. So I’ve been in hyper focus mode. I spend time job searching every single day.

3. Work has been so busy. My boss leaves on vacation today, and I have been racing against the clock to finish projects before he left.

But those are all just excuses. I’m back again, ready to post again, because I have a LOT to say! So much going on. My husband broke the news a while ago on his blog, but I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned the fact that John and I are moving to Georgia at the end of July. I have so many emotions surrounding the move that it’s probably best saved for its own post. But needless to say, we are very busy cleaning, packing, finding a place to live, and job searching. And trying to see family and friends as often as we can before we live very, very far away from them.

Anyway, more thoughts later. Happy weekend all!

thanks for the advice

Thanks to everyone who replied to my request for back pain advice! I ended up going to my primary doctor, and she referred me to a back specialist, and also to physical therapy. So I think I'll be set.

Meanwhile, sueing the university seems more and more appealing the longer this stupid pain lasts. They are paying my doctor bills, sure. But I want them to compensate me for the pain I'm feeling, my inability to exercise, my limited ability to clean my house, for the things I've had to miss out on because of this, and for the emotional pain.

I'm serious. The past 11 days have been seriously unfun. I have to sit down and get up using my arms. I really didn't know how good I had it, health-wise, until this accident. I mean, a bad back makes everything painful and more difficult.

But I'll stop complaining now and instead feel thankful for all the blessings I have. And I have quite a few!

and the moral of the story is...

I'm going to attempt to explain the crazy circumstances that ended with me at home all day today instead of at work.

Yesterday at about 4pm, I was walking back to my office from a work meeting across campus. The wind was so bad that I had to close my eyes to prevent dirt and debris from getting in them. By chance, a co-worker and a student worker drove by in our office's golf cart.

"Can we give you a ride back to the office?" Of course you can! So, with cell phone in hand, a purse and some papers in the other hand, and a laptop bag slung over my shoulder, I hopped on the back of the golf cart, facing backward. I didn't have a free hand to hold onto the sides. Can you see where this is going?

Anyway, we got to our parking lot, stopped, and then the cart took off again. My body, unfortunately, did not take off as quickly as the cart did. I could feel myself sliding off, and I also knew that there was nothing I could do about it. So I flew through the air and landed pretty hard on my back. I said a bad word. But do you blame me? What would you do if you had just flown off a golf cart, landed on your back which now hurt like the dickens, and felt extremely embarrassed at the thought of anyone seeing what had just happened?

And people did see. They all ran over and crowded around me to see if I was okay. And I was, sort of. My back hurt bad enough that I didn't want to get up. But when a woman suggested calling the paramedics, I said no -- I mean, I fell off a GOLF CART for crying out loud! How badly could I be hurt? But she suggested that we call anyway, just to be safe. And that is what she did.

Two minutes later, I heard sirens in the distance. I was mortified. "Please tell me that those sirens aren't for me." But they were. A fire truck drove up to the parking lot. An ambulance was there. Five firemen came over to me, quickly checking my head and back for injuries. They offered to drive in the ambulance to the hospital. I said no way would that be necessary. Again, it was a golf cart accident.

I got home and assessed the damage. My back hurt pretty badly. My cell phone sustained some nasty road rash. Thanks, cell phone, for taking one for the team. That would have been my hand otherwise. My back hurt, but otherwise I felt okay. But then I tried to sleep last night and I couldn't. The pain in my back radiated down my leg, and the pain in my leg made it impossible to sleep. So I stayed up reading until I was so tired I knew I would fall asleep no matter how much pain I was in. Which I did.

But that decided it. I stayed home from work today, calling HR to get worker's comp information and made an appointment to see my doctor. Most of my day was spend reading and watching movies as I iced my back and tried to get comfortable.

The highlight was getting the back x-rays. If someone had told me that x-rays involves getting mostly naked and lounging in a hospital gown for 20 minutes in a waiting room full of old guys, I might have thought twice about getting said x-rays. Or I would at the very least have chosen my undergarments a little more carefully this morning. Ha!

But the bottom line is: I fell off a golf cart. And you can feel free to laugh about that. Because that is what I am doing right now, though I am cursing the golf cart in the same breath.

self-doubt and job woes

I think my job is changing completely, and I'm not sure if I should be excited or scared. I think I'll be learning the ins and outs of PeopleSoft, which could be a good thing. But at the same time, my workload could explode in the next little while, something I am not thrilled about.

I just wish I knew if we were moving in 8 months. If we aren't, then job searching would be my top priority. If we are, I just don't feel right about taking a new job and then leaving six months later. That's not fair to the new employer.

So what I'll do is get all the skills and training I can from this three-month PeopleSoft project. By then, I'll know more about our future, and I can use my new skills toward getting a good job that I like.

In other news, I'm feeling insecure about taking the creative writing class. Mostly I'm insecure about my writing. The thought of reading it out loud in a classroom terrifies me! I'm on the verge of dropping the class, but I know I'll regret it if I do. I can do this, right?

monday monday monday

Happy Monday. Top thoughts of the day.

5. I hate work. The situation just gets worse. A coworker was brought into the boss's office and berated for things she had no control over. We all pray for a way out of this office.

4. I taught Relief Society at church yesterday, and the lesson was on families and eternal life. I feel the need to be a better person. I know I need to, but it's so hard to change!

3. I need a haircut desperately. My last haircut was great, and looked sort of like this, though with less bangs. I think I'll do something similar again:










2. Saved by the Bell watching is going strong. I know you're dying for some quotes:

Mr. Belding: Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! *What* is going on here?!!
.......
Zack: I like school... it's a good way to kill time between weekends.
.......
Lisa: Screech, would you like to rejoin the human race?
Screech: You always said I wasn't a member.
Lisa: I'll sneak you in.
............

1. I am so excited! My husband said I can crochet this and he would wear it!:

tgif

I finally did it—I saw the counselor. And I haven’t felt this good in a long time. I was able to talk through a lot of things, and she was very optimistic about the eventual outcome of this whole counseling thing. Because of that, I feel so much better about the issues and problems I’ve been worried about. It was as if the words I spoke lifted a weight right off my chest. I’m so glad I finally called.

And in other news, my parents and sister are coming into town this weekend. We’re going to see my niece dressed up at her ‘Trunk-or-treat’ (costume still TBD), attend Sparky’s FestDevil, and perhaps have our own murder mystery party…should be an interesting weekend.

I’m so glad it’s Friday! Someone walked into our office just now with plates of sandwiches and fruit—always a welcome sight, but quite the party on a Friday afternoon. Our office is frequently the recipient of leftover food from catered meetings. Yum. What a way to end the week.

Have a good weekend!

you think anybody wants a roundhouse kick to the face while I'm wearing these bad boys?

Okay, my last entry was quite a rant, wasn’t it? What I failed to mention is that there are some days when I accomplish very little at work. I can’t focus, and I don’t get much done. I get grouchy and less pleasant on those days, and Tuesday was one of them. I also didn’t mention that my supervisor is one of the nicest human beings out there. She really doesn’t know that her actions are hurtful.

Not that I don’t plan to leave soon. It’s time for me to become a librarian, and I know it. The good thing is that JJ and I sat down together this past weekend and discussed our dreams and goals. We each wrote out the things we are working toward, and it seems so much more real now that the goals are in black and white. So things at work are bearable because I have a game plan.

I’ll probably be writing in here about some of those goals. In fact, if I weren’t so busy/lazy all the time, I’d be writing in here a lot! Nearly every day something happens to me and I wonder, “Should I blog about that?” I practically have an incident all typed out in my head while it’s simultaneously happening to me.

Speaking of “Should I blog about that?”, something funny happened to me yesterday at the public library. When I told the story to JJ, he laughed like crazy and voted no on me blogging about it. Here’s a hint: it involves bathrooms and me not being able to hold it…but, I guess I’ll have a little propriety and not post it. Even though it’s funny!