GlassAngel at Home

Yeah that is right today was emotional breakdown day. Things both personal and professional were conspiring against me today and I had a little bit of a problem at my desk today. It required a lunch out to get a little perspective back.

The Beef and Broccoli wasn't half bad, but the time away was enough to give me a little break from the professional problems that are plaguing me this week. Once I was back in the office thought things didn't seem quite so bad as they had before the lunch break.

The personal problems, well it is going to take a few days to get to the bottom of and they are putting me on a hair trigger. I'm not quite ready to talk about them yet as I still don't have it all sorted out...but when I do you will be the first to know.As for tonight... all I want is my bed and a good book to escape into.

Posted in: General Life on Wednesday, January 31, 2007 at 7:22 PM 0 comments    

Someone sent me this today knowing that I will turn 30 in a couple of months as a reason why I shouldn't be looking forward to it in a bad way.....

This is for all you girls 30 years and over... And for those who are turning 30, and for those who are scared of moving into their 30's... AND for guys who are scared of girls over 30!!! This was a monologue by Andy
Rooney from the CBS show, 60 Minutes.

Andy Rooney said:

As I grow in age, I value women who are over 30 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 30 will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, "What are you thinking?" She doesn't care what you think.

If a woman over 30 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do. And, it's usually something more interesting.

A woman over 30 knows herself well enough to be assured in whom she is, what she is, what she wants and from whom. Few women past the age of 30 give a hoot what you might think about her or what she's doing.

Women over 30 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved .. They know what it's like to be unappreciated.

A woman over 30 has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women friends. A younger woman with a man will often ignore even her best friend because she doesn't trust the guy with other women.
Women over 30 couldn't care less if you're attracted to her friends because she knows her friends won't betray her.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 30. They always know.

Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 30 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one! You don't ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we praise women over 30 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well- coiffed hot woman of 30+, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of
himself with some 22-year-old waitress.

Ladies, I apologize.

For all those men who say, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free". Here's an update for you.

Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage, why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire Pig, just to get a little sausage.

Posted in: Thought For The Day on Tuesday, January 30, 2007 at 12:16 PM 0 comments    

Well it has been a few days since my last post so I thought I would catch you up on the latest and greatest in my life....which is nothing. The weekend was short and uneventful as long as you don't call going to the laundry eventful. At least this week it was not filled with screaming kids, in fact there were no kids there at all. I did a little shopping, cooked a little, watched a few movies and read alot. All in all my kind of weekend.

The Healthy Lifestyle thing is going good. I got in more that my allotted time for cardio and made 2 of my 3 strength training sessions. Eating I did well, I stayed in my calorie range all week and am down by 3.5 lbs so far.

Posted in: General Life on Monday, January 29, 2007 at 12:52 PM 0 comments    

I went to Target after work today for a new work out dvd and as I rode the escalator to the 2nd floor (yes I have a 2 story Target right around the corner from my house) I heard this thump. I looked down at the bottom and it was this little girl (about 5), she had literally jumped on to the escalator. As I watch her giggling she jumps from one step to the next as it slowly works it's way up. Soon she is standing on the step next to me, she looks up at me still giggling, then looks back at her mom who is still on a step near the bottom. As we reach the top she sprints off and runs back to the down escalator and jumps back on. Her sheer enthusiasm for riding the escalator caused so many people to smile as they watched her joy in such a simple thing. I wonder when the last time I was so engrossed in something like that.

As for the workout dvd I ended up with the Yoga Booty Ballet - Goddess Booty & Yoga Core set. I did the goddess booty one tonight and I have to say that it was a little challanging for me in my current inflexable state. Hopefully I will be more flexable soon by using this set. In other "Healty Life Plan" news so far so good this week. I have done all my work outs so far. I have eaten well and only been a little over my calorie range for the first 2 days of my week.

Work is stressing me out this week...The Boss has been in a bad mood for like 3 weeks and this week it has been bad. I will start putting a new study into production this week, so I am stressing about that.

Posted in: General Life on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 at 8:11 PM 0 comments    

I know this seems like such a lame thing to be so excited about. I have been with out a outside driver's side door handle for going on 3yrs and this winter the inside one on that door bit the dust. So back at the beginning of December I ordered them off ebay. After some shit by the USPS (they lost the package at my local unit)I finally was able to get a set today and then one of the guys at work installed them for me. It was so cool to get into my car this evening with out having to crawl through and open the window so I could get the door open. No longer is my car ghetto with the plastic zip ties to pull to open the door. You can not believe how happy this has made me!

In other news....

Today was the official restart of the healthy eating plan. I did ok today for the first day with eating...I am only over my calories for the day by about 30. Yesterday I did a 30 min cardio work out and today I went on a 30 min walk with R. on our lunch break. As soon as I am off the puter here I will be doing my strength training stuff and another 30 min of cardio to get in my calories burned for the day. I didn't sleep well last night so I think I will be going to bed once I am done with them so I can try and be up to do my work out in the morning so I don't have to do it tomorrow evening. Also I need to find a scarf for tomorrows lunch time walk.

Posted in: General Life on Monday, January 22, 2007 at 7:24 PM 0 comments    

Today was the normal sunday...laundry, food and cleaning. I waited till later in the day to do laundry since the bear's had a playoffs game today in the hopes of having fewer people. For the most part that was true...except for the lady with 4 running, screaming kids.

I spent most of the morning cleaning my LR carpet... when I was sick my lovely cat decided that one corner was her cat box. So I am on the 3rd try to get the smell out of my carpet. I think I will be needing to clean it atleast one more time before I will be happy with it.

After the laundry I went and picked up groceries. I was good and only bought good for me stuff. I came home and cooked up a whole bunch of meat to eat for the rest of the week so I can eat better for supper. After my cooking spree I did my 15 min walking work out so I did do something good today.

Posted in: General Life on Sunday, January 21, 2007 at 9:19 PM 0 comments    

This week I had a "ahha" moment and I have been thinking about it ever since. I have been reading the book Keeping the Love You Find by Harville Hendrix and this book has me thinking about a lot of things.

My moment...well it had to do with the fact that I realised that I don't really know how to be by myself and be happy with that. I can take that one step further even and say I don't really know who I am without a connection to someone else...such as D's daughter, J's sister, lil J's aunt, L's best friend or so-in-so's girlfriend. I think this could be termed a mid life crisis if not for the fact that... 1. I'm not at the middle of my life yet. 2. I don't think I really ever left the "nest" so to speak to find out who I was.

So this is a 2 part problem; who am I as a individual and learning how to be happy by myself.

I'm not saying I have never been by myself (I lived by myself for 2 years before I moved to Chicago) just that even when I was not in a relationship I had family and friends to take up any loneliness slack. If I needed someone to talk to, someone to go out with I had built in "people" to take care of that. Now my people are 200 miles away and I need to amuse myself.

And when I was not in a relationship I was always looking for the next one. The one that would be the lasting one. The book has some exercises you do that help you pinpoint patterns you have in relationships that are causing you to not have good relationships. I have to say I'm not liking what I am seeing as I do some of these. I look at the trends and say why are you doing this to yourself time and time again? Why are you choosing to make yourself unhappy/scared/hurt? Why are you choosing to be with men who are not what you want, or not going to treat you right?

All of these are questions that need to be answered, taken care of. So my goal for the next 30 days is to try and work on finding out a little more about me as a person and not as part of the collective. And to continue reading this book to see where it leads.

Posted in: General Life on Friday, January 19, 2007 at 7:30 PM 0 comments    

OK so I was reading blogs just now and ran acrossed Charming's idea for a man detox. I read this and it hit me over the head that I need to do this also.

Posted in: General Life on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 at 8:47 PM 0 comments    

Well winter has arrived in Chicago! Yesterday was a day of snow, sleet and rain. We didn't get the big forcasted storm last night but did get a little (about a 1") bit of snow. Today it was sunny but cold. Walking out of work tonight in the dark was not fun and it took forever to get the car warmed up. Right now the weather bug on my computer desk top says it is a lovely 19 with our low tonight about 11.

Since it is so cold out I had to leave the heat turned up a little last night and it seems like I will be doing the same tonight. With the 2 floors below me unoccupied and unheated I am losing a lot of heat and also not getting some heat I should be getting from those 2 floors. So far this winter I haven't really missed the heating blanket that I used to have, but last night I did! I think that I will be stopping to buy one on my way home from work tomorrow night if they say it will be cold like this for a few more days.

Posted in: General Life on at 8:08 PM 0 comments    

I spent my weekend doing my fave thing....being lazy! I had huge plans to clean and organize my closets, which had thing shoved in them when I moved in and never taken out again. But alas as my saturday moring started I just couldn't make myself start and that laziness carried thru to sunday as well.

I did make it out on sunday to the laundry, only by sheer force of will since I knew if I did not I would be down to the uncomfy undies for the coming work week. You know the ones that are in the back of the drawer for those times when you only need to look good for a short period of time. So since my work days are long and some what stress filled I hate to make things worse by wearing undies that scratch in the wrong places. Also since the Bear's were playing a big game the place was deader than a door nail. I took my laptop and a movie and watched till the battery died, which thank god was only 2 min before my last load came out of the drier. Why you may ask was it a thank god? Well there was a couple in there that had 5 kids under 10 and did very little to coral them. They ran streaking and bouncing off of things from one end of the place to the other and all I wanted to do was tell them to calm the fuck down. BUT of course I said nothing and put my head phones on and turned the volume way up.

Posted in: General Life on Monday, January 15, 2007 at 7:59 PM 0 comments    

I don't think I have ever looked forward to the weekend more. This week has been one big happy and draining thing. Work has been very fasted pace and I have been working my ass of since I started the week with 14 hours (yes, the actual count was 14 full hours) on sunday working at home.

Posted in: General Life on Thursday, January 11, 2007 at 7:56 PM 0 comments    

I received a "save the date" email from my aunt today...seems her and her fiancee (they got officially engaged at thanksgiving) have decided to plan a wedding for October of this year. I was truly surprised as my mom and I were joking that we needed to clear a credit card for last minute tickets to Vegas, since we didn't think that she would go to the trouble of planning a wedding again after her last one fell through a month before hand. So now I have another wedding present to buy this year.

Posted in: General Life on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at 7:31 PM 0 comments    

1. got out of a emotionally bad for me relationship
2. lost almost 30lbs
3. got a great new job


I will add more to this list as I think of them.

Posted in: General Life on Saturday, January 6, 2007 at 10:23 PM 0 comments    

(Note: this post is several days in the making and is quite long, so if you choose to read the whole thing please get ready with some free time and a nice cup of tea. This is the beginning of the "year’s resolutions/well-being plan" posts, of which I'm sure there will be a few.)

I will be the first to admit I have low self-esteem. Always have and I have times when my low self-esteem is higher, and times when it is lower. Currently…it is the lowest it has ever been. So I’m trying to puzzle out what caused the drop to see what I can do about it.

So far I have figured out:
1. the whole dating thing
2. Current Body Image
3. Finances
4. Distance From Family
5. Time of Year

I’m going to start at the bottom and deconstruct going from easiest to deal with to hardest.

Time of Year:
Ok I know this is not the best time of year for me…winter tends to drain me and make me depressed. Not much I can do about it aside from moving to the south where the winters are a little sunnier, which I’m not really into doing. So this is a stick it out till there is more sun and more heat thing. I can do that I just need to be aware that that is what is happening and cut myself a little slack on this one.

Distance From Family:
This may seem like not a big one…but it kinda is. Family is all I really have and the whole holiday season, whipped by in a flash. I really didn’t feel like it was the holidays at all since I was not with then all the time. I miss what daily/weekly interaction with them more that I am on my own. I feel out of the loop with my own family now and that is making me feel out of sorts.

Finances:
Let me tell you something you may not believe…I suck at handling money. True I know that sounds odd, but I am. I have yet to find a system that works to keep me paying all the bills on time and not making me feel like I’m a slave to a budget. Several times a year I sit down and puzzle things out so that everyone is happy with the amount of money I give them, only to have something happen and have things blow up in my face. Currently I am not in hot water of any kind…but that could change at any moment. I really need to figure something out cause I am sick of getting late fees cause I forgot to write out the check and send it, when I have the money to pay it. I also need to get back into a “less is more” mindset. I am spending a lot of money, and I’m not quite sure where it is all going. This city is expensive to live in and I need to watch what I am spending a little more. Also The goal for this year is to start saving for a car to be bought next year and at the current rate of savings I will not have anything saved for it.

Now on to the “Top 2” which are equally hard to deal with and some what linked…..

Current Body Image:
To be frank….I don’t think I’m pretty/cute/attractive at all. Never have, period. Ironically a lot of people think my younger sister & I look identical, so far as to think pictures of her are of me. The thing that is even more ironic is that I believe my sister is beautiful. What would Freud say about that? There have been times in my life when I was ok with how I looked and had accepted how I felt about the way I looked. This is not one of those times. Currently I feel I am waaaayy to heavy, and not looking good at all. I am not at my highest weight ever, but close to and a step on the scale puts me at over 200lbs and with a body fat count of almost 50%. Not good. I did well the summer months last year in getting things on the right track and through informed eating and exercise I was able to take off almost 30lbs. It seems that track worked till I started the new job and thing when to hell after that. I need to find that track again and some motivation to stay on it, that is for me and not for the bridesmaids dress I have to wear in 6months. Where I am going to find this motivation I have no clue!

Dating:
It sucks & I hate it. Truly that is my current mood about it. I am looking for Mr. Right and NOT Mr. Right Now. Mr. Right Now seems to be all I am finding. I will be turning 30 in less than 4 months and I have always thought I would be married by now. Well guess not. I am horrible with men. I couldn’t pick a nice one if he was right in front of me. I pick the man who is unavailable to me wither it be emotionally or through his already taken status. I also seem to pick ones that don’t treat me well, or take but never give back. The men I have been seeing/dating since I have been on my own are ones who are as I term “ the whiny call” or “the booty call”, both of which I really don’t need. I know part of my problem was listed above in the body image part. If I don’t believe I am pretty/cute/whatever how can I believe the complements I get from those guys I do meet. How can I expect them to like what I don’t even like?


So that is the current take on what is up with me. Stay tuned as I figure out what this all means for me in the coming year.

Posted in: General Life on at 9:52 PM 0 comments    

I have just gotten done reading a great book called...

Be Honest- You're Not That Into Him Either By Ian Kerner

A very good read, and doesn't take a lot of time to read either. I found it at my local target, but it should be in any bookstore.

Posted in: Book Report on at 9:45 PM 0 comments    

So 2007 is here, it was ushered in by me sitting on my sofa, all alone, watching a movie. What movie you may ask? Well if you know me at all you will not laugh but think appropriate to know that I was watching Constantine. All in all my New Year's 3 day weekend was mostly calm (except for the attempted break in) and was spent reading a lot and trying to kick the really bad cold I got when I went back home for Christmas.

This is a new blog for a new year, due to the fact that someone I didn't want reading my blog found my old one. I will not be linking that one to this one, because then he could find it...but I will be in coming weeks trying to get some of the old posts on to this one.

Posted in: General Life on Wednesday, January 3, 2007 at 7:56 PM 0 comments