The ick is going around

There's some sort of flu going around work.

Well, maybe more than one.

People are dropping like flies (although without the annoying buzzing around  your head first). I've asked if I can order a giant bubble to work in so that I don't get whatever they have, but apparently there's no budget for a giant plastic bubble.

Of course, people get sick all the time, but this one is knocking people out for much longer than usual.  One of my former coworkers was off for 3 days.  I've known her for 3 years, and I don't think she's missed 3 days in total during that time.

I do not want whatever they have.

I can't be sick next week (cyst removal, doctor's appointment that's already been rescheduled twice, Pathfinder sleepover).  Two of those things I'll be at regardless of how sick I am, but it would be nice if I wasn't sick at all.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that's an option.

Last week was extremely cold here in Ottawa - the kind of cold where it's hard to scrape the car windows because there's so little moisture in the frost. I actually plugged in the car for 3 or 4 nights in a row - and there are years where I don't plug in the car at all.

It started warming up on Friday, and the weekend was much nicer. I even went cross-country skiing this morning.

(I tried to talk myself out of it on the grounds that we haven't had any fresh snow in a while, but ... this is Ottawa. It's either too cold or so warm it's melting or there has been no snow since we last got freezing rain. You have to take your opportunities where you find them.)

While I was on my way to the park, I ran into one of my neighbours walking their two dogs.

Now, I know these dogs. I see them all the time, and when I go over to their house, the dogs are thrilled to see me.  In fact, Oliver immediately goes to get his tennis ball so I can throw it for him.

But for some reason, when I see them outside of their house, Oliver barks like crazy at me. He's even been known to run from his house to my house when I'm outside just so he can bark at me.

It's ... well, it's pretty funny, actually.

So when the dogs saw me, naturally they had to come over to bark at me. As always, I offered to pet them, but they were far too excited for that, so I continued on my way while they got distracted by a piece of garbage.

I got my skis on and started on my way.  The snow was pretty dry, and it actually made for quite an easy ski.  I skied to the end of the park and back and then walked home.

Next week I might even venture out on an actual ski trail.

Year in review

 Well, it's getting a little late to do this, but ... I didn't do it earlier, so here we are.

Here are my 2012 resolutions:

1. Be employed for at least 10 months of the year: Done. 12months, actually. Yay!
2. Come up with a workable, challenging exercise schedule. Done. I'd actually forgotten about this one, but it happened when I moved from contract to full tie & got access to the gym at work. And anyone who saw me Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday of last week would have to agree that the schedule is challenging - I was so sore. I could barely walk. It was embarassing.
3. Reconsider home phone service, reduce the monthly cost. Another one I forgot about.  It's half done - I reduced the cost, but I still think I'm paying too much.
4. Increase my emergency fund by $8000. Done. And then the car needed repairs. Sigh.
5. Organize/clean the sewing/Sparks room.This is another half done one - it's a lot better, but there's still work to do.

 I don't really have a solid list for this year. I'd like to make it out cross-country skiing at least once. I'd like to go skating on the canal. I'd like to spend a week at the lake. I'm not really ready to make a real list, though.

I need a nap

I got up crazy early on Monday. (3:45, to be specific). I didn't have a choice - I had a flight at 6:30.

You know what's not a good idea? Flying to the US early in the morning the Monday of the week after New Year's. There were crazy lines of people going everywhere - but mostly, I suspect, somewhere warm.

I made it through the lines, though, and after breakfast in Dulles, landed in San Francisco around noon.

(Of course, noon in San Francisco is 3 here, so it had already been a long day.)

I took a car to San Jose, checked into the hotel, and went in to the office.

I was there for 3 hours, and by the time I left, I was starving.  My colleagues and I went and got dinner, and then I went back to the hotel and collapsed.

(After checking Twitter and Facebook, of course. I wasn't living in the dark ages.)

At 4 a.m., I woke up. I really would have liked to have slept more, but my brain decided to do it's overactive puppy imitation. (You know what we should do? We should get up! It's morning, you know! Let's get up and see if the internet is still there! Let's get up!)

I got up.

I'd ordered room service (which was insanely expensive, but work was paying for it), and it showed up promptly at 6:30. I have to say, my bagel and cream cheese was extremely well presented - the bagel was wrapped in a napkin, the cream cheese was on the plate, there was butter and jam, and the glass of orange juice was sitting in a container of ice - but it wasn't worth the $20+ it cost. Except that it was, because I needed breakfast.

Look, it's sunlight

We went in to work at 7:30, and left again at 7:30.  It looked beautiful out, but all-day meetings don't leave much time for enjoying the weather.

When we finally got back to the hotel, one of my colleagues and I went for a walk. We explored the area around the hotel, and eventually ended up walking by the outdoor skating rink beside the hotel. The ice was ... not good, but there were tons of people for a Tuesday night, and they all seemed to be having fun.

The skating rink

 Wednesday was a little shorter - the meeting started at 9:15 and ended not long after 4, so my colleague and I were able to walk around a little in daylight. We made it to the university (where we'd been the night before) and then stumbled across city hall.

A bunch of us then went out for dinner, then it was time to go back to my room to pack.

Thursday morning, I left for the airport at 3:30. After an extremely disorganized check-in process (which wasn't helped by it being not long after 4), I took my 5.5 hour long flight to Philadelphia, then a shorter 1.5 hour long flight to Ottawa. When we started descending, I looked out the window and thought "Hmm, wonder what river that is".  Then I turned my head to the left and noticed it ended in a giant lake, and thus had to be the St. Lawrence.

After another long day (on which I saw the sun both rise and set from a plane), I made it home by a little after 6.

Remind me not to do that again for a while.

Going in circles

Today at work, one of my coworkers was talking about some problems she was having with her TV, and her dilemma about whether to buy a new one - new TVs have more features, but she doesn't want to spend the money.

And I said, "I know what you mean, I have no intentions of buying a new TV anytime soon."

So tonight, I thought to myself, "Hey, I can put off going through the mail by watching the Big Bang Theory", and I tried to turn on the TV.

Nothing happened.

I pressed the "TV" button on the remote and tried again.

Still nothing.

I walked over to the TV, noticed that nothing had any lights on (TV, Wii, DVR, stereo), and pressed the on/off switch on the power bar on the theory that taking down the Christmas lights had resulted in me turning it off by accident.

Still nothing.

I thought "Hmm, the power bar is dead."

A little later, I remembered that there was a light plugged in to that outlet, so I walked over to turn it on - but it wasn't there, because it's only there when the Christmas decorations are up, and I took them down last night.

I went back to planning to replace the power bar.

A little later, I thought, "Hey, I thought something was plugged directly into the wall, but there's no lights on anything. It's like the outlet itself is dead. That'll be a pain if that's the problem."

It took me a little while to remember that the outlet is on a light switch - and that I had a house sitter for the past two weeks who might have disregarded the massive quantity of tape on the switch. I walked across the room and turned the switch back no.

Still nothing.

And then I remembered that I'd "turned on" the power bar. I flipped the switch again and lights came on.

But I'm still scared to try the TV.

Christmas wrap up

This is normally my resolution post - how did I do on last year's resolutions, what do I want to do this year - but my flight was delayed for 2 hours in Toronto, and I'm too lazy to do that.

In an effort to look like I'm actually updating this blog on occasion, here are some pictures of my Christmas sewing projects:

Fleece hoodie, fleece overalls

 

Fleece vest, pajama pants

Nightgown, pajama pants

While I was gone, I went out to my cousin's farm:

(I know nothing about anyone snow tubing behind the truck.)

I took my niece & my cousin's daughter shopping for gifts for their moms:

No one got giraffe sunglasses for Christmas. But they were fun to try on..

I went to the Tunnels of Moose Jaw:

Outside the tunnels

I took my niece sledding and brought the dog:

Not sure whether this was the best day in the dog's life, or complete torture

And here are some things my niece said to or about me while I was there:

• "When I grow up, I want to be like my mommy. She knows how to drive."
• "Auntie Colette, I can skate faster than you can drive."
• "When you leave, you have to leave all the people, animals, and stuffies that were here before."
• (via text message) "If this is Auntie Colette all I read was bla bla bla."
• "Grandma, you're still Auntie Colette's mom, so if she tries to boss you around, send her to her room and say no electronics."
• (when I threatened to bring her back to Ottawa) "I know you only bought 2 plane tickets. You didn't think I'd outsmart you, did you?"
• (in response to "Who's your favourite auntie?") "Auntie Wanda. I have to be honest."

I hope all of you enjoyed the holidays.

Now if only I didn't have to go back to work tomorrow .... 

Redirected

I flew from Ottawa to Regina on Wednesday.

It was supposed to be a quick trip - get on the plane at 5, transfer in Toronto, arrive in Regina at 9:30.

That's not how it worked out.

Our first flight was delayed, which cut our 75 minute break in Toronto down to 15 minutes. We rushed to our second flight and made it just as the doors closed.

As we reached the Ontario border, the pilot made an announcement - there was fog in Regina, and we had to make an unscheduled landing in Winnipeg to get more fuel.

I was a little concerned that I'd end up in Calgary for the night, but there was nothing I could do about it.

We refueled - which took about half an hour - and then started to go again.

Almost immediately, we stopped again. There was a mechanical issue, and they had to call maintenance.

That took another hour or so.

They got the mechanical issue fixed, and we eventually continued on our way. We got into Regina after midnight.

Christmas by the numbers

(If you're under 12, stop reading now. Come back after Christmas.)

Trips to Fabricland: 4. Well, maybe 5. Or 6. I should check my credit card bill.  Too many, is the point. Especially since the whole goal of the sewing overload was to use up fabric. Sigh.
Number of sewing projects:  4 pairs pajama pants (+ 6 with Pathfinders); 1 pair fleece overalls; 3 nightgowns; 1 fleece vest; 1 fleece sweater; 6 [redacted]; 3 [redacted]
Trips to Chapters: 4. Also too many.
Number of books purchased: 2 + 7 + 10 + 1 = 20
Number of books for me: 0
Number of books purchased that I'd like to read if I ever had time: 4
Cookies baked: 8 dozen, all one kind, this afternoon
Chocolates made: Too many to count. Well, that's not strictly true - too many to count without walking into the kitchen.
Number of days of work left: 3
Belly dance shows this week: 1
Pathfinder meetings remaining this year: 1
Number of families sponsored in the last 3 days: 1 (with work colleagues)
Available time available to shop for said family before Tuesday: Um.
Number of trips to Lee Valley: 1. I forgot one thing but will have to live without it.
Number of Christmas cards sent: 0 (So far, check back tomorrow. Assuming I have time to buy stamps.)

Melodic dreams

Last night, I woke up at 2.

I have no idea why. It didn't snow, so it wasn't a snowplow. Wanda was home and presumably asleep, since she had an exam at 9:30 this morning. There were no unusual noises. Nothing was happening. I just was awake.

And I thought "Hmm, this is weird. At least it's early enough that I'll be sure to fall asleep again."

By 3, I was regretting tempting fate like that.

And oddly enough, thinking "I have to go to sleep, I'm going to be really tired tomorrow" does not help at all.

I don't remember anything between 3 and 5:30, so I must have fallen asleep again, but by 5:30 I was definitely awake. At that point, I didn't expect to go back to sleep. After all, my alarm goes off at 6:30.

Naturally, I fell asleep anyway.  And dreamed.

A complicated action story.

That turned into a musical.

Even in my dream, I was surprised. Where did that come from?

And why isn't it the first time I apparently composed a musical in my sleep?

Mysterious

Wanda's birthday was last Thursday which means I can finally share the Mysterious Project of Mystery Part III - the flouncy skirt you see in the picture. I made it while she was out of town one weekend. It took a ridiculous amount of material

Our cousin Matthew came to town for her birthday, and we had a good time hanging out, talking, and playing games while he was here.

Belgian lace table runner

 He left last night, and after I dropped him off at the train station, I did the Christmas decorating.

Sigh. The flash made the lights invisible.

 And then today I did nothing, which was not actually the plan.

Oh well, sometimes you need a day of nothing.

Crying over spilt nutmeg

At Pathfinders on Monday, we made cookies in a jar.  (Have I mentioned that I quit working with the 5&6 year old Sparks and started working with 12-15 year old Pathfinders? Well, I did.)

The recipe we were making called for nutmeg, so I just grabbed a jar out of the cupboard. When I came home, I put the jar back in the cupboard, and it promptly fell out.

And broke.

Basically, the bottom of the jar broke off. The rest of the jar was intact.

I wiped up the nutmeg and picked up the pieces. (There wasn't much else to do at that point.)

And then on Tuesday, I found another big-ish piece of glass. I picked it up.

And then yesterday, I found another piece of glass.

I'm starting to wonder how many pieces I could possibly have missed. After all, spice jars aren't that big.

A shot in the arm

I usually get a flu shot. Yes, it only protects you from a couple of strains of the flu, but it's free, safe, and getting the flu is annoying, so I get the shot.

The company I work for has a flu shot clinic every year, so I signed up. Then I made my cyst appointment, realized it was the same day, and cancelled the flu shot. It wasn't a big deal - I had an appointment with my doctor on Nov. 19th.

Then my doctor cancelled, an I was rescheduled for today.

And then my doctor cancelled again. (As a side note, I'm a little concerned about my doctor.)

For those keeping track, that's three potential flu shot opportunities, zero actual flu shots.

The city of Ottawa always has flu shot clinics, so that was another choice, but Rexall PharaPlus is also running radio ads saying that their pharmacists will give flu shots.

I decided to give that a try.

There was a little bit of a wait - at the pharmacy I went to, they treat it like a  prescription request, so you get put into the queue as if it's a prescription - but 15 minutes or so later, I was done and out of there. Despite teh wait, it was much faster than the clinics.

Now all I have to do is hope they guessed right about what strains will be common this year. 

Vague post is vague

Wanda was away in New York this weekend, so I had the whole house to myself.

Somehow, my brain translated "I can do whatever I want" into "I must three months' worth of work in 2 days". Stupid brain.

I felt like I was on fast forward all weekend. I recaulked the bathtub, worked on the mysterious projects of mystery, and made some Christmas gifts that I can't share yet since they are going to people who read the blog, as well as the usual cooking and laundry.

Most of these projects involved sewing.  I don't sew very often, but somehow I tend to pick up the hobby again in November.  This will last until the end of January or so, and then I'll stop again for months.

I'm not done, either - I still have more to do when I get a chance. Not tonight, though. Tonight I plan to sit.

Random updates

The down arrow on my netbook is broken.

It's one of those things that you think you hardly ever use until it's broken, and you can't use it anymore.

Work has been really busy. I'm not working a lot of extra hours, but I spend my days at full speed. It's exhausting.

And then I drive home in the dark.

I had my cyst appointment on Wednesday. It was a beautiful day - warm, with the sun shining - and it was nice to leave the office. They didn't end up removing the cyst since it had burst - it's possible that the lining is gone and it won't reoccur. If it comes back, they'll take it out.

The chicken wire I bought for Halloween is still sitting in the front porch. I'm glad I bought the small roll.

Week 2 and I'm still enjoying not boxing.  There is a punching bag in the gym at work, and I spent a few minutes on it on Tuesday. And then I decided it was too hard and I spent the rest of my time on the elliptical.

I took my winter jacket out this week. I'd forgotten how soft and light it is.

I desperately need some new shirts. I'm sure I wore clothes last winter, but I can't for the life of me figure out what. Every morning I stare into my closet hoping something warm will appear, but no luck so far.

I keep hearing about snow from friends and family - Utah, Saskatchewan, New York, Calgary. There's no snow here. I haven't even raked the leaves yet.

(There have been years where there has been snow before I rake the leaves. Sometimes it's even because the snow was early.)

I'm not ready for snow, anyway. I don't want to have to wear boots. And Wanda isn't working overnights this year, so I'm going to have to clean off the car. There's no rush. It'll get here eventually.

I didn't vote today

As I'm sure everyone knows, it's election day in the US.There are a lot of similarities between Canada and the U.S., but every American election cycle reminds me of how far apart we are politically.

Not necessarily our political beliefs - although it's kind of weird to think that one of the most privileged countries in the world has a large percentage of people who believe medical care for their fellow citizens is optional but assault rifles are not - but in the political system itself.

For starters, my understanding is that when you register to vote in the US, you have to pick a party. That's ... kind of weird. I can register to vote when I fill out my income tax - and failing that, I can show up on election night with some ID and vote on the spot. No party affiliation required.

One of my American colleagues asked whether I'm a member of a political party. I'm not - and in fact, very few Canadians are. (One estimate I found online was that 2% of Canadians are a member of a political party.)

American politics are incredibly partisan - ridiculously so, from an outsider's perspective. Canadians, on the other hand, have more political parties but seem to be less devoted to a particular party.  (Last election, for example, I could have voted for the Pirate Party. I don't remember what their platform is, but I assume it has something to do with gold doubloons.) Canadians tend to vote against a party rather than for another party.

Unlike Americans - who vote for their president directly - we vote for our Member of Parliament. The only people who vote directly for the Prime Minister are those who live in his/her riding. The party who has the most MPs elected (usually) becomes the government.

And about that - the Prime Minister only stays the PM as long as he has the confidence of the House of Commons - so losing an important vote can bring down the government and force an election. Unless he prorogues the house to avoid losing a vote and having a coalition of the delusional take over. (I didn't say our way was better, just different.)  Obviously, we don't have fixed election days. And we certainly don't have a year or more of campaigning before an election. Well, not officially.

As for voting itself, CNN (which was on while I was at the gym) was saying that people were waiting 2.5 hours to vote.  If I wait 2.5 minutes, I'm tapping my foot and looking at my watch.

Well, OK, I don't wear a watch, but I'm looking meaningfully at my cell phone.

It's interesting seeing how different things are for our neighbours.

And I look forward to Twitter telling me who wins in the morning.

Assuming they've finished counting the votes by then, that is.

Fall Camp

This weekend was our fall Pathfinder camp.

Do you know how hard it is to find a site to camp in tents in late October?  It's not terribly easy.

Luckily, I have a big backyard, so we decided to camp there. As an added bonus, I didn't have to pack.

Friday was beautiful. We set up the tents (one 6-person tent for 4 girls, one 6-person tent for the leaders, one dining tent), then walked over to the Sportsplex and went for a walk on the trails in the dark.  The girls kept freaking themselves out by inventing stories that murderers were lurking in the bushes, which resulted in screams whenever we encountered people doing nefarious things like walking their dogs.

It was late by the time we got to bed, so we slept in on Saturday morning.  After making our breakfast and cleaning up, we went door to door selling cookies.  We had lunch, and then it was time to get ready for the zombie walk.

Most of the girls did their own makeup, so we had wildly different zombie looks. (Well, three were zombies, one was a butterfly. I don't get it, but points to her for being her own person.) I went with these instructions. It turned out OK.

Note the sad lack of brain hair clips

If I were to dress up as a zombie again, I'd add more toilet paper and prob ably go with different colours over top. It lasted quite well, even on the drizzly day. I didn't actually put together a costume, simply because it was cold and rainy, and my costume options required better weather.

We took the bus downtown - getting the occasional strange look - and walked to the start of the walk.  There were tons of people there, dressed as every type of zombie you could imagine. I took some pictures, but ... my phone is across the room, so just use your imagination.

A little after 3:30, the walk started. It was long. Really, really long. And by the end, my feet hurt enough that I was actually walking like a zombie. If I were to do the walk again, I'd join the group on Elgin Street.

We made it to the Parliament buildings, but didn't stay there long because everyone was exhausted. We bused home and cooked our supper inside.

We woke this morning to more rain. I unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the rain to go away via twitter, but we had to take the tents down wet.  I now have tents drying all over the basement.

Still, it was a good weekend.  The girls hadn't had much camping experience, and they learned a lot. They even managed to remain mostly cheerful during some difficult weather.

But I plan to sleep for the rest of the day.

After I cook supper and do my laundry, that is.

Mmmm, brains

The Zombie Walk is fast approaching. I decided last week that I was going. I have no idea what my costume will be - I'm having issues destroying perfectly good clothes. I'm also having issues destroying some of my clothes, which, frankly, are getting to the point where they should not be worn in public.

But in the meantime, I've been googling makeup ideas. Man, there's some cool stuff out there. I'm torn between trying it all tonight and being too lazy to bother doing it in advance at all.

I also found hair clips with brain pieces on them - and by found, I mean "saw on the internet". For the record, they don't have such clips at Value Village, Dollarama, Malobar's, or Party City (formerly Party Packagers). Party City does have a skull cap that is topped with brains, but that's too fake for me - unlike brains on hair clips, which are totally natural.

Tomorrow is out for costume assembling - it's the last boxing class of the session - but maybe I'll find some time on Thursday to figure it out. If not, I'll be the one at the zombie walk in normal clothes & awesome makeup. Or possibly mediocre makeup.

Either way, I'll be there.

Get me out of here!

I worked from home on Friday.

I love the idea that I can work from home on occasion. It makes it easier when I have an appointment closer to home than work, or when I take my car in, or when someone's coming to the house for some reason.

It's also good when I have personal phone calls to make - I can make them from work, but it's more convenient to make them from home.  On Friday, for example, I scheduled the removal of the annoying cyst on my back.

There are some issues with working from home, though.

First of all, I quickly run out of food in the house, because I snack constantly. On Friday morning, I finished all of the veggies in the raw veggie container in the fridge before 9:30. I would have moved on to potato chips, but we didn't have any.

Also, I miss everything that's going on at work - including the gym, and our newest activity of going out for lunch on Fridays.

And I notice things around the house - the kitchen floor needs sweeping, for example - but I shouldn't be doing anything about them because I'm supposed to be working. But I can't work, because the kitchen floor is dirty.

I don't have a comfortable place to work at home - on Friday, I sat at the table and worked, but I was pretty sore by the end of the day. (I don't know why I didn't move earlier.)

But the biggest issue with working from home - especially on days I don't have a car - is that I go stir crazy. I think things like "I know, I'll just run to the store at lunch" - and then I realize I'll have to literally run, because my car is elsewhere.  If I were at work, I'd never run to the store at lunch, but something about being at home makes me want to be elsewhere.

If you've ever tried to convince me to leave my house outside of work hours, I'm sure that's shocking to you.

The thing is, I don't think it has anything to do with wanting human contact - I had three conference calls before noon. I think it's more about not being able to leave.

(That's ridiculous, of course - I'm a 10 minute walk from the transitway, so even without a car I can easily get where I'm going. In fact, I took the bus to pick up my car on Friday.  It took 35 minutes, including 15 minutes of walking.)

I don't think there's much danger that I'll start to work from home every day.
 

Harvest

I pulled out my garden this weekend.  I picked the cabbage and (2) potatoes yesterday. There were 2 large cabbages and 1 small one, and the fridge is pretty full of Thanksgiving stuff. I fit one of the large cabbages into the fridge but was concerned about whether the second one would be OK overnight.

And then I realized I picked it from outside, which was not refrigerated.

(Today I made part of the second one into coleslaw & put the rest in the raw veggies container that's always in the fridge.)

Today was the harder part - not physically harder, emotionally harder. I had to kill perfectly healthy tomatoes.

Here's a picture of the last one I pulled out. It's a grape tomato plant.  The first tomato was ripe in June, which is a month earlier than usual.  The spiral that's supporting it is about 5 feet tall (a little shorter when it's in the ground), and the top of the plant snapped and bent over because it was about a foot taller than the stake.

Yes, that's a full size outdoor garbage can

 I also had to pull out a huge volunteer tomato plant that (since it wasn't supported) was as wide as one of the raised garden beds.

And the only cucumber plant that grew, that produced its first flower a couple of weeks ago. (No cucumbers, just the one flower.)

From the one grape tomato plant, I got 1/2 a gallon of grape tomatoes - and that's with eating a few a day since June.

And, in convenient timing, tonight it's supposed to freeze.

At least I'm not sharing pictures ... yet

A few years ago at Christmas., I discovered a lump on my back.  It was red and sore and annoying, but frankly I had other things on my mind, and after a couple of weeks it went away, so I did nothing about it.

Last week, it came back.

Again, a red, sore, noticeable bump. It was kind of squishy - not solid - and by the end of boxing last Wednesday, it was driving me nuts.

But I had other things to do, so I didn't make it to the doctor until Saturday.

It turns out it's a something-cyst. It's irritated right now, but if I leave it alone and stop what's causing the trauma, it'll calm down. The only way to get rid of it completely is to have it cut out, but it's not in any way serious. Totally not a big deal.

Except.

It's right where the band of my bras go. Specifically, it's in a place where it gets hit - a lot - by a sports bra.

After I saw the doctor, I covered it with a bandaid. This week, it started feeling better - more itchy than sore, and not as ... bumpy.

Yesterday, I added a second bandaid. (Well, I made Wanda add a second bandaid - my elbows don't bend that way.) The cyst was protected by a cross of bandaids.

I went to boxing.

When I got home, I took off the first bandaid and, by the time I pulled off the second bandaid, it was bleeding.

Applying pressure is extra fun when it's a place you can't easily reach.

The new bandaid started driving me nuts today - my back was itchy all day - so I asked Wanda to pull it off. (I find this fascinating - she finds this really, really gross. She's probably looking for a new place to live as I write this.* )

It's not bleeding. But I'm out of boxing & going to the gym until it heals. 

This is the lamest excuse ever.



* Just kidding - she's watching Glee. Yes, I know it doesn't make sense.