Pissed Away Fifty Dollars These Past Ten Days

I am completely utilizing my new planner.  I love it!!  My brother got it for me for Christmas.  It works best when I use bright colors to mark things.  I have about ten different color highlighters that I use.  I love to pour over it and make it pretty and write down everything that I do.  It's satisfying when I find that I marked off everything to do that day.  I keep stickers paper-clipped on the back cover to put on those days to reward myself. Yesterday, I gave myself a little penguin because I completed everything I had down to do.  I am over halfway done with everything I meant to do today, since I am blogging at this very moment....!!!!
INTENSITY!

It's been pretty slow at work.  Everyone is at the big Steering Committee Meeting this week.  The only people here are Kevin, Kathy, and myself.  Stan might be here too, I can't tell.  He is so quiet. I got a new cubicle and I have a nice window now.  It's a "reduced" size cubicle, but I love it even more than the full size one I used to have.  Probably because it is all mine. I brought my wall clock today and hung it up and brought my ninja bunny cord wraps. I have a black and a pink one.  They are so darn cute.  I don't even want to use my headphones so I can just have them hanging there looking adorable.  It's nice that there is no one here.  I am pretty much left in peace to do my work (or not do my work [for shame]), because the other people who are here are on the other side of the whole office and never have any reason to come over to me at all.  So I'm getting a little spoiled this week.  Next week it'll be back to work as usual I suppose. *sigh*
I've been thinking that I really want to get a fish for my office.  I want a Betta (more properly known as the Siamese Fighting Fish) since they are solitary.  I have been researching tanks that would work, because I want something that isn't going to make hardly any noise of course.  It's debatable though as to whether I can even have one.  I'll have to ask my bossy boss when everyone gets back next week.  But I found this one tank and in the video it seemed to be really quiet and some of the reviews talked about how it was quiet.  One woman even had it in her office. So it may be a possibility yet!
I'd also like to have a plant, but I am going to way for that until spring so I can get a nice pretty, healthy one. I've been looking at Feng shui to try and get that in my office, because I am big on comfort and want to feel at peace and sort of a home away from home at my office space.  Let's face it, I spend nearly as much time here as at my actual home so I want to love it; if only a little.

My brother (I have two and this is the other from the one previously mentioned) has asked me to create him a drawing.  I don't know if any of you follow me on Instagram (TympanicPulse) but I've been in a more geometric mood lately.  My brother loves that sort of thing and wants me to do one so as soon as I get done with it (probably by the next time I blog) I will be sure to upload it on here along with its predecessors.  Maybe I'll even put one in my cube! It's good to have artwork around, even more so if you did it yourself and are really proud of it (helps if it's good too then you will get lots of compliments to make your head swell, whoop whoop!).  I think I will definitely do that.  I'll have to write down to get wire hangers at Walmart this weekend (TO THE PLANNER!!).

So I've been sick for about the last 3 1/2 weeks.  It's had varying degrees of miserableness, but mostly it's sucked.  This week I've got the coughs and its horrible because I can't take any real medicine (if you don't know why, read previous post).  Last night though when my boyfriend took me on a date (we went to P F Chang's. It was soooo good! I got the mandarine chicken and a small side of Sichuan green beans and mixed it and tons of spicy, sweet, tangy sauces and got to eat the rest of it for lunch!) and we were in the movie after dinner (we saw Taken 2, it was good but I'll be honest I wasn't raving afterwards or anything like after The Dark Knight Rises) I was coughing some and a couple times I coughed and got this sharp pain in my right side.  It was only for a moment and then subsided, but it concerned me.  It happened again when we were back at the apartment watching tv in bed and I coughed.  And it happened once more today at lunch when I leaned forward to pet my most beautiful friend, Arda, but that time I wasn't coughing.  Those are the only four times, but I think I should maybe so see the doctor because I would hate to have an irritated appendix or something and not do anything about it and it get worse. In fact I am going to call right now...
And at 8:30 in the morning I will be finding out just what is wrong with me.  Hopefully nothing.  They want me to fast in case I have to take any tests O_O  I made it super bright and important in my journal. Let's pray there is no emergency surgery involved.  If there is thought lets pray it goes well haha.

So my song of the day today I actually had as my song of the day on Facebook one day last week.  It just rocks my socks off.  Have a listen to I Miss the Misery by Halestorm. I heard this song on the radio and immediately fell in love with it.

Also the movie of the week is Les Misérables.  This movie is phenomenal.  Everyone should see it.  Be aware that it is an operetta (which means they sing nearly the whole time, less than 100 words normally spoken).  You get used to it, and the singing is wonderful, but it is something to be aware. It's not exactly the easiest movie to watch but it is so worth it.  I loved it.  I laughed and cried.  All the actors did a wonderful.  Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman go above and beyond.  Really it's a must see on the big screen.

Believe it or not, I actually got some work done while typing on this.

Unbelievably,
Mav


"A chip on the shoulder is too heavy a piece of baggage to carry through life." John Hancock

 There is an example of what I have been up to. More to come!

I think I just heard a gunshot....

I have stretch marks!! How did this get past me?  It's not like I'm fat or anything or pregnant or even really grossly, body builder muscular.  I mean I have gained weight since high school, sure, but who the fuck hasn't? For the record, in high school I was too skinny really at 5'10" and 135 lbs.  That's really small, definitely not in the bell curve of the spectrum, but more on the outer edges.  It's not the end of the world of course because they are pretty much totally invisible unless I hike my leg up almost over my shoulder and shine the light just right (I guess in a way that's a blessing) but it irks me that I have them at all.  I just barely have a bit of chub and everyone compliments my legs and ass.  They are like my best feature and now they have been marred by these horrible trenches (well not my ass, they are just on my back inner thigh, but still marred!!).  This calls for drastic measures as far as getting back into some sort of shape so as to avoid further complicating the problem. I've never been so upset about something so superficial and that makes me peeved at myself. But it's not a sin to want to look good, right? Just because I'm a forward thinking woman doesn't mean I have to wear clothes that don't fit and no makeup and my hair in a ponytail all the time.  I'm not a feminist!  (No offense to actual feminists because I know that's not what you are all like. I was just making a joke, but if you got offended by that statement anyway its probably because you are a feminist who dresses like a man and I say to you that you need to quit being a stereotype. Feminism is about being a woman.  Embrace those womanly qualities like your breasts and ass and cut throat sense of manipulation and use it to put men in their place! But I digress....)

So I have been doing this blog officially for one year and one week. You will all be so excited to know that one of my New Years resolutions is to blog more. I have a planner that I got for Christmas and I plan to actually write it in if I have to. I'm interesting and the world deserves to know what I think.

I got arrested after Christmas for possession and now I have to do this stupid drug testing program for six months.  Staying off the God-given plant isn't the problem, but I'm not allowed to have alcohol either and even the tiniest traces will show up and send me to jail.  They told us to get rid of everything that has alcohol in it (body wash, toothpaste, mouthwash, hand sanitizer, etc) because it will show up on the test.  So my darling boyfriend and I looked through all my toiletries last night and found everything that I use that has alcohol in it (any kind of alcohol at all, even if it was the last ingredient, I wouldn't risk my freedom on it) and I put them all in a box and tucked them away in the closet.  So today I went to Walmart to find new (alcohol free) toothpaste, conditioner, and body lotion. (Damn, I forgot to look for perfume, but I doubt I would have found any, all of mine contained alcohol)  I spent an hour in Walmart to find these three things.  The toothpaste was the easiest. Basically a toothpaste with no mouthwash (e.g. scope).  I got the Crest Complete.  Then I tried to find the conditioner.  Shampoos do not have alcohol in them, but all conditioner does (even the organic ones!) so I had to settle for a 2 in 1.  I looked at several of these and apparently 2 in 1 shampoo/conditioners do not contain any alcohol.  The biggest bitch of them all those was the lotion.  Almost every single kind of lotion out there has some sort of alcohol (cetyl, stearyl, lanolin, you name it) except for one kind that was a whopping $15 per 4 oz tube (I tried to look up the name of it on the Walmart website but it didn't list it, [it starts with an A] in fact it didn't list any of the stuff that I bought, so your Walmart may have a wider variety of alcohol free products).  So I felt at a loss.  I did carry that tiny bottle around with me for about 15 minutes, but then I noticed the sun screen isle and thought maybe I could get some sort of sun tan lotion.  I thought maybe in the kids brands there would be less alcohol, but this was not so, they may have even contained more.  But finally I found some equate version of banana boat for kids that contained none but it wasn't so much lotion as just sunscreen.  Then after putting away the ridiculously expensive shit and holding the sunscreen I saw the aloes and most of them were not lotion in anyway, but thin and all containing alcohol when to my luck and joy I saw a bottle called Ocean Potion: moisturizing aloe LOTION! and its got vitamins D3, A, E & C and antioxidants and tea tree oil. It also smells phenomenal.  If I apply this regularly it should help with the aforementioned stretch marks as well. And at a very reasonable $5 for a 20.5 oz bottle I felt I had hit the jackpot.  Luckily some of the things I already owned were alcohol free so for those of you going through the same thing I am I will tell you what is ok to use if you are going through crazy drug testing:

• Lorel Go 360 Clean facewash (with the little scrubber): NOTE: I use the light blue topped bottle with the creamy kind for sensitive skin.  I can't vouch for the other kinds, they could all have alcohol in them.
• Toothpastes that DO NOT contain any mouthwash type agent. 
• Ocean Potion Moisturizing Aloe Lotion
• White Rain body washes
• Proactiv cleanser, but NOT the green tea moisturizer. 
• Degree for men deodorant (that is the gel kind), but NOT the antiperspirant one (the one that is the white creamy bar) 
• Crest mouthwash, but really any mouthwash that says alcohol free on the front.  These are common.

Bottom line, if you have to be this conscious of the alcohol content in your toiletries then you should just go ahead and check the ingredients label of everything.  

Overall, I feel like I will get through this testing program without any problems, now that I have acquired the necessary alcohol free items.  And in case any of you were wondering since I am basically a saint and don't have so much as a parking ticket on my record I get to do the deferred course which is only six months as opposed to the full program which is 1-3 years. AND since I haven't partook in the God-given plant since New Years (don't judge, its a celebration!) then I am going to be clean even faster so I don't have to go to these terrible court sessions.  That's the other perk to the deferred course. The regular course meets every Friday for Drug Court and it lasts from 9 AM until noon.  I don't have that kind of time.  I have a legit, demanding job.  I only have to go for the next couple weeks while I get clean and while my status is still pending. So I wont have to go back to court until I graduate the program in July, unless I fail a drug test which wont happen because I took extra precautions with my toiletries and I wont have any trouble at all staying clean and I barely drank before so that will be super easy.  I wonder what it's going to be like when I get totally clean and have absolutely no alcohol in my system?  Will I feel different? 

So since I kind of dished a lot of dirt about myself today the song of the day will reflect its juicy nature.

Heard it Through the Grape Vine by Creedence Clearwater Revival

You can take the weed out of the hippie, but you can't take the hippie out of the girl.

Honestly,
Mav