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This weekend [Aug. 29th, 2009|07:59 am]
[mood | chipper]
[music |Public Radio podcasts]

Last weekend I did everything on the list except the cleaning part, which still hasn't been done.  Oops. 

This weekend:
  • State Fair!  For those who haven't seen it in the 70 other places I've posted, 2 of my entries took first place in their categories, and another took 5th place in its own category but 1st in another special category.  Today we're going and taking pictures!  And then Randy's staying to volunteer at NAMI's booth in the Education Building.
  • Ply and finish the white alpaca/silk I've been working on for eons.  I keep forgetting how long it takes to spin fine yarns.
  • Spin something fun
  • Card fiber for my sweater-for-me yarn at my friend Celeste's.  That's one way of prepping fiber to get it ready for spinning.
  • Clean?
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To do list for the weekend [Aug. 22nd, 2009|10:31 pm]
Ok, kind of cheating here since the weekend's half over - I get to cross off some of it as I write it.
  • Spin yarn (I did a little, but not as much as I wanted to)
  • See movie (500 Days of Summer - excellent)
  • Clean off couch and chairs - part of a long-range cleaning plan
  • Yardwork - partly done, but I'll be putting in more time Sunday morning.
  • Grocery shopping
  • Laundry

Hm, I could have sworn I'd been more productive today.
  • Attempt to organize time better.
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My Summer Vacation... er, training and stuff. [Aug. 17th, 2009|08:47 pm]
I've entered yarn, sweaters, and a blanket in the state fair. I don't expect anything, but I figured I should try.

So, here we are after our Family Feud audition, photo courtesy of my cousin Jenny. Everyone in the picture is some variation of a cousin to me, although only one is technically a cousin. It makes me laugh that among the 6 of us who auditioned there are 5 different last names. Some family. Clockwise from top left: Pam, Wendy, cardboard cutout of host John O'Hurley, bobblehead of John O'Hurley, Elsa, Will, me, Jenny.


And behind the cut, some random photos from my last day in LA: )
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(no subject) [Aug. 14th, 2009|07:33 am]
[Current Location |Hotel room]

 How many of last weekend's to-dos did I do?  Basically everything except I didn't clean as much as I wanted to.  Hooray for being productive.

I've been in LA since Sunday.  At first the instructor went off into wild tangents, and not in a good way, but since this is "boot camp" (two weeks of training packed into one), he hasn't had as much time the last few days to rant about Obama and Oracle's owner, or to wildly praise Wyoming and Peoplesoft's founder and former owner.  I'm learning a lot and it's fun.  If you like that sort of thing.

I'm also making flying pigs - crocheted pigs with wings.  There's a lot of not-doing time in the class, and luckily the instructor is understanding about wanting to keep hands busy.  (There've also been a lot of emails and texts with friends.)  I've finished up pieces for the messenger bag I've been working on for a long time, and made most of three piggies, which I'll eventually photograph.  I had to buy yarn in order to make the piggies, since the bag pieces were done during the first day.  I have a spindle along, but it's a little too distracting for others, much more so than crochet, which is an activity that keeps the hands relatively still.

In general, though, I've missed home, friends, and routine.  I'm in an office-y area, and light industry, so there's not a lot of beautiful views or anything, and since I'm in training almost 10 hours per day, I didn't bother to rent a car.  I'm going to try to make it out to the ocean this afternoon via bus.

Time to get ready for class!

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Plans for today [Aug. 7th, 2009|07:54 am]
Audition for Family Feud
Laundry
Photograph yarn
Post yarn
Clean
Climb

Plans for tomorrow:
Clean more
Laundry that didn't get finished today
Pack
Dinner with family

Plans for Sunday:
Fly away (training in LA)

I think I'm forgetting something.
 
ETA:  Finish yarn
Spin more yarn

Still forgetting something.
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I've been busy [Aug. 5th, 2009|10:20 pm]
[mood | tired]

I've spun a whole lot of yarn.

I started my own Etsy shop - The Spinning Daisy, selling handspun yarn.  It turns out I like spinning more than I like making stuff with it, so I was ending up with lots of extra yarn. I've also started up a(nother) blog in conjunction with that, and learned to take pretendly fancy photos on the cheap.  

I need to take more photos - that's only halfish of what I've made lately.

Ok, that's it for most of what I've done lately.  I've totally been a slacker at exercise, so I'm trying to get back into the habit.  Part of the slacking is a result of the crazy weather - changes in barometric pressure are the most consistent trigger for my migraines, so I've been getting 2-3 per week of those, and having a migraine tends to dissuade me from exercising.  I've been a champion eater, though.

We went to a friend's wedding in Illinois, and to their reception in Indiana.  They border each other, but it's still weird to have the ceremony in a different state from the reception.

Oh, and I started a new job.  I guess that's biggish.  Unfortunately, do to my newness, I'm currently at the know-nothing stage.  Next week I go out to LA for training in PeopleTools - with any luck, I'll come back from that and know something.  But I have written my first non-SQL (or at least not all SQL) scripts, for a change to a table.  I was all proud.  It hasn't gotten out of the first level of development, but it exists.

I'm planning to enter stuff in the State Fair Creative Activities competitions - yarn and crocheted stuff, mostly.  I figure it couldn't hurt.

And I've been reminded that with this whole sleep-awake thing being so much better, that when I don't get enough sleep, I'm more tired the next day.  I used to be tired either way, so it wouldn't matter if I stayed up late.  Now, it matters.  So it's time for bed.  Good night.
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Hello again! [Jul. 8th, 2009|07:40 am]
[Tags|]
[mood | chipper]

Goodness, it's been over a month since I posted. What's been going on?

I've taken a new job - still in the same company, but back in IT working for my former boss. So now instead of saying (when asked what I do), "Well, it's kind of IT, but I work for a team called Knowledge, Insights & Analytics, which is part of what used to be Sales & Marketing but that department split up and KI&A is now part of Portfolio Strategy," I'll be able to say "I work in IT." Much less annoying for everyone. Not even people who work in the same company know all the contrived ways the departments have been re-orged in the past year. Sales & Marketing, Learner Support, and "the Schools" have all been completely rearranged.

Anyway, the new job starts in just under two weeks, and I'm looking forward to it! I'll be learning lots of new stuff.

I've also been crocheting, spinning, and doing crafts like my life depends on it. Well, not really, but much of my spare time has been taken up with crafty stuff, mostly spinning. I haven't uploaded most of my recent stuff, so I'll post pictures soon.

And there's other stuff going on, but that's for a future post. But it's good. In the meantime, here's a picture of something I didn't make, but is nice and cheery.  A coworker had these at her desk, on a day when I'd already been thinking about daisies, specifically daisies in these colors.




Off to work!
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*sigh* [Jun. 5th, 2009|07:03 pm]
[mood | exhausted]

 I have had a bit of a day.
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Ack [May. 25th, 2009|04:39 pm]
I am paralyzed by indecision.

I don't know what to spin, I don't know what to eat, I don't know which of my 6 in-progress books to read (fluff, biography, history, literature, neurology, and something I can't remember).

And it's making me anxious.

I've been washing fleece today, and I'd actually like to do more of that, but all my fleece washing stuff is also used for fleece drying, and there's no more space or equipment.

I've started dyeing, which is fun, but again, takes up the same drying space that's already in use for my just washed stuff.  And I've got more in the pre-wash stages already.

I did my first dyeing at home experiments Saturday.  I bought 11 colors of dye (one pink, 2 reds, apricot, yellow, chartreuse, green, turquoise, blue, purple, brown) and attempted a skein that would show them all.  Of course, some blended in to each other, so I can't actually tell which is which.  I'll have to attempt it again with smaller skeins and fewer colors.  I also tossed in some "combing waste" (the fiber that doesn't hold up to the combing process, but can still be carded) and a couple of sheep eggs (note to self:  dye before combing).  (Er, sheep eggs are what Randy calls my bits of hand-combed top.  They're whitish and wound in a ball and look vaguely eggish.)  

Then I tried "overdyeing" - dyeing new colors over already dyed fiber.  I had some turquoise stuff that was a little too ... what's the word... one-toned, so I added some splotches of blue and peacock.  I prefer it this way.  Eventually I'll post pictures.  I added a skein of yarn and dyed it blue, peacock, and chartreuse (a stunning combination if done well - this was not done well, plus I missed some spots), and a small piece of grey alpaca (intended to be just blue, but got some turquoise as well).

All of this is done in a crock-pot that doesn't get used for food.

My intention with the gray alpaca and one of the gray fleeces is to make a sweater, which will be dyed blue over the natural gray, leading to a dark, heathered blue.  I'm psyched about the idea.  I hope it works out.

I tried spinning up some milk fiber - a hideous not quite christmasy blend of red, light green, and white, which I will overdye with blue to get (I hope) teal, blue, and purple.  But it broke, and it's slippery, and it seems like a lot of effort.

I keep intending to use my food crockpot, but I only think about breakfast food in the morning and about dinner food in the evening - I never remember to start stuff 8-10 hours ahead of time.



Time has passed.  I now have a plan.  I am going to update some stuff on Ravelry, put away my laundry, clean some, maybe dye some roving (doesn't need the same kind of drying layout), have dinner, and go to a coffeeshop.

And I'm going to put out ingredients for breakfast near the crockpot (those extra slow cooking oats, I forget if they're Irish or Scottish).

And now there's less paralysis.

And maybe I'll take pictures of wool drying and some other stuff.  

Ok, time to do stuff.

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Seriously? [May. 19th, 2009|09:41 pm]
 97 degrees here today.  http://www.startribune.com/local/45445622.html  I'm not ready.  It's not even casual summer yet.

Not that I want it back at -20, but a few more weeks of 60s-70s would be nice.

It's this type of weather that makes me cut my hair.
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So, that happened. Oops. [May. 11th, 2009|08:21 pm]
[Tags|]
[music |The Story podcast]

When I started spinning, I said, “But I never want to have to do any prep work with the fiber. I’m just going to buy already prepped fiber.”

Then I started thinking about dyeing my own, because people had given me undyed fiber.

Then I started thinking about maybe buying a fleece at the upcoming fiber festival, maybe 2, so I could have enough for a sweater that I would have made all of myself (spinning, dyeing, crocheting – everything but raising the sheep). My friend Celeste gave me one of her (many many) fleeces about a month ago, but was that enough for me? No…

I went to the Shepherd’s Harvest Sheep & Wool Festival this past weekend with the intent of buying 1-2 fleeces, wool combs (to make the fleece spinnable) and taking a dyeing class.

Two days, one set of wool combs, two pounds of hand-dyed merino, and (about) five fleeces (from seven sheep and alpaca) later, I finished.

I’ll be learning a lot about processing and prepping fleece in the next few months.

I bought 1.5 alpaca fleeces (all of Squiggy’s and I split Rocky’s with a friend, Celeste), 1.5 fine wool fleeces (all of Barbara’s and half of Iris’s), and the equivalent of 2 medium wool fleeces (one whole, whose name I didn’t get, and two halves, Flora and Pudge, which I split with another friend, Kerry). Total of 25 pounds of wool and alpaca. Some of that will wash out (dirt, lanolin, etc.), but I should still end up with more than 20 pounds.

This is the first fleece I bought.

Angelica

Clicky for more pictures. )

If you want to know the details, you can click through to Flickr and see my Shepherd’s Harvest photostream. Also my Fiber Prep photostream, for some extra fleece and related pictures.

I was pretty disappointed in the dyeing class. I love the results, but the instruction was almost non-existent. We were told to soak the merino in water. While some of us were still soaking, the instructor basically said "Ok, here are the dyes and the roasting pans. Go ahead and dye your stuff." I asked lots of questions - I'm one of those people - and didn't always get very helpful responses. "How do we know when the fiber is soaked enough?" "Oh, you know..." "No, I don't." "When it doesn't seem dry anymore." *sigh* At another point when there was a lot of stuff going on and questions about steps in the process (because we were at a transition time), she was out smoking a cigarette. Although we eventually wrangled some information from her, she didn't offer anything like, what are the steps, why do we do such and such, here are some handouts to help you. All I came away with was the dyed fiber. If it hadn't been labeled a "class," which to me implies teaching and learning, I probably wouldn't have been as disappointed.

But meeting up with spinning friends was nice. I spent time with Elizabeth, Celeste, Kerry, and Jess, and learned and shared and participated in mutual enabling. (A week ago, Kerry told us if we saw her carrying any fleece to her car, we should shoot her. Instead, she and I split two fleeces, and she got some other fleece too.)

It was a spinning-intensive week, with spinning groups on Sunday and Tuesday, then Shepherd's Harvest this weekend. And I was so tired at the end - I'd spent about 6 hours each day (Saturday and Sunday) at the fiber festival, sitting down for only about 5 minutes total. Between that and the poor sleep (nightmares Saturday, late bedtime Sunday), I'm dragging a bit today.

In other news from the past month, I’ve been spinning (I finished about 6 skeins in the last month), crocheting (working on 2 shawls and a sweater) and working. And doing other stuff. Haven't been posting here, though, and I've basically not been on Facebook for a week or more. I climbed a highly overrated 5.10c, but I'm counting it anyway.

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Yesterday was fun! [Apr. 12th, 2009|10:51 am]
[Tags|]

First of all, being awake during awake hours is fun!

In the morning, I went scooter shopping with my friend Marie. She's been carless for several months now, and with the arrival of warm weather she finally bought the scooter she's been coveting.

Marie about to leave

I went along to play bad cop, because I knew she couldn't hide her giddiness. I asked good clarifying questions for the first 5-10 minutes, then became giddy as well. I totally want her to buy me a sidecar, and I could be the sidekick on her adventures.

I want the sidecar

Then in the afternoon I went to the house of another spinner to use her drumcarder to make some of my fiber easier to work with. Totally worth it. And when I finished carding, she showed me how to dye wool. She had one almost completed batch, and had one ready to start, so that I could see all the parts of the process except for the several hours of soaking and leaving it alone. So she rinsed out the batch she finished dyeing and laid it out to dry, then let me choose colors for the next batch. I chose bronze (which is actually greenish, kind of the patina thing) and apricot, a brownish peach color. She got the wool all ready, put the dye in, then set it in the crockpot to start the actual dyeing process. She'll bring it along to our next spinning group so I can see what it looks like.

Then a family birthday dinner for my cousin Petre. All in all, a very satisfying day.

Oh, nothing to do with yesterday, but here's the first finished product from some of my handspun yarn. Marie knit some wristlets:

Gloves 1

It looks like real yarn and everything!
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Woohoo! [Apr. 2nd, 2009|09:34 pm]
[Tags|]
[mood | pleased]

I have now earned a gold belt in karate. Randy has too. We took our white belt test today, and passed. It involved a form (routine of kicks, punches, blocks, etc.) and breaking a board with a kick, specifically a side kick. The board break was definitely the hardest for me, mentally and physically. Plus, I'd had a great afternoon - fixed the query that was stumping me for a week - so all my anger and frustration were gone. I couldn't think of anyone or anything to hate, to focus my energy into the kick. So it took about 8 tries, but I finally did it! Randy broke the board with his first kick. He's got some power in him.

And since I suck at LJ cuts, I'm not cutting for the pics. Here are Randy and I (not necessarily in that order) with our respective broken boards.

I broke this with my foot! Randy did too!

We don't look very fearsome. I don't think we've yet earned the status of "lethal weapon" in the eyes of the law (our teacher has). But still, it's cool.


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The usual. Except awakeness instead of sleep. [Apr. 1st, 2009|01:21 pm]
Well, sleepdr and psychdr finally worked it all out. I'm taking the awake drug, and let me tell you, being awake is cool! I'm not hyper or jittery or anything, just... normal. Not a zombie. It's nice not to be "so tired I'm shaking," "about 30 seconds from falling asleep," and other descriptions I've used in emails (during the workday, not at night) during the past few months.

It's not an amphetamine. I don't entirely know why, despite the half dozen times Randy's explained it to me. It works specifically on the wakefulness center of the brain, rather than in general, and does not activate the pleasure center (which leads to addiction).  

I'm developing a query at work that's driving me insane. Something about the formatting is not working, and I can't figure out the fix. I've been working on this - just the formatting - for about a week now. Grr.

Tomorrow Randy and I test for our gold belts (so, passing the white belt test) in karate. I'm confident with the form (routine, with kicks and punches and blocks and stuff). I'm not so sure I'll be able to break a board with my foot (side kick), which is also a requirement to earn the belt. But maybe if I pretend the board is this query I'm working on...

Meanwhile, craftiness:

A sweater I finished in December or January and finally got around to photographing:

Jade

I've gotten about halfway through my stash of wool (plus the merino/silk blend), and I'm starting to think about some of the nicer fibers I've got. I'm almost confident enough in my ability to try to make yarn from the alpaca, silk, and other fancy schmancy fibers. Just want to practice a little more.

ETA:  I suck at LJ cuts.  I've attempted 4 times to make it right, and I am giving up.

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Sleep, yarn, assorted other stuff. Yup, another long post. ETA: With many edits. [Mar. 11th, 2009|05:53 pm]
[Tags|]
[Current Location |The couch, as (almost) always]
[mood |Sickly]
[music |None, due to impending migraine and laziness]

Last night I had my sleep study. Very frustrating and disappointing. I wasn't expecting them to be able to tell me much, and my expectations were met. They attached 22 "leads" to me - mostly to my head, but also chest (for breathing) and legs (for RLS). Each one had a wire that was long enough to reach the... um, box it plugged into (didn't get a name for it) even if the box was a little far from me. If I needed to leave the bed, they would strap the box around my neck. So I looked like a terrorist. A sleep-deprived, slightly demented terrorist. ETA: As many are, I suppose. )

Meanwhile...

I still love my wheel Daisy. I've spun up some downright respectable yarn - some merino, some anonymous wool (maybe corriedale?), some mix. Pics and details behind the cut... )

So that's about 3/4 of a pound right there. I've got another 7+ pounds of fiber yet to spin, which will take me a while to get through - especially since I seem to be spinning finer and finer singles. I'm currently working on a silk and something (probably merino?) blend which has no intended use at the moment, and some (probably merino) wool that I hope to make into a hat. Pics and details of most of my fiber stash are in my "Handspun Yarn" photoset on Flickr. Eventually the rest will get there too. And eventually it will get spun into yarn.

I've made a couple of scarves (with storebought yarn) as well, but I'm holding off on pics of them and a couple of sweaters I've finished, as this post is way picture-heavy and long. But those pictures are coming.

At work, I've changed departments yet again without changing jobs. I now work in "Portfolio Strategy." I'm back to saying "I do IT work." Sales & Marketing was bad enough, since that's not what I do, but no one would know what Portfolio Strategy is. One job, nine months, three departments. Yup, I'm in corporate America.

Is that all? Have I forgotten anything?

Oh, my birthday was 3 days ago. I'm 35. It was a pretty good day. Shopped (REI, yarn, fiber) and ate lunch with my friend Marie, then had dinner with Randy at an Indian restaurant we don't often get to because of the distance. In between I spun yarn and relaxed.

Maybe that's all.

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Well, it was fun while it lasted. [Feb. 24th, 2009|08:10 am]
[Current Location |Work (shh, don't tell)]
[music |(If You Can't Sing It) You'll Have to Swing It]

 Good sleep, that is.  No nightmares or anything like that last night, but lots of waking up in the wee hours.  

Also, you know you're in bad shape when the massage therapist grunts with the effort of releasing a knotted muscle.  Just a small, quiet grunt (I'm pretty sure they're trained not to do that), but it was there.
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I've actually slept pretty well lately [Feb. 23rd, 2009|09:18 pm]
[Current Location |Couch, as usual]
[mood | sleepy]
[music |I'm wearing headphones, but nothing's playing. I do that sometimes.]

Randy recorded a couple of relaxation scripts for me to listen to at bedtime, calm the anxiety.  Apparently they knock me out in about 5 seconds.  I don't think I've gotten past "I want you to take a couple of deep breaths..."  It continues as I go further into sleep, so I think it's doing me good even if I'm not awake.  And I've been sleeping longer, and with fewer dreams.  I know it's cyclical, and the bad sleep will come back, but in the meantime, sleep is nice.  3 solid nights of sleep in a row, even if it's not 8 hours per night, is crazy good for me.

Meanwhile, I'm playing phone tag with the doctors (actually the nurses) about the drug to help keep me awake.  SleepDr recommended a medicine but wouldn't prescribe it - wanted all drugs dealing with my consciousness (sleeping and waking) to come from the same source.  So I called my PsychDr and left a message for the nurse that SleepDr recommended this drug and could PsychDr prescribe it for me.  PsychNurse calls back, leaves a message saying PsychDr wants confirmation from SleepDr, so can SleepDr please fax something saying he recommends it.  I leave a message with SleepDr's Nurse's backup, since  SleepNurse has left for the day.  SleepNurse calls me this morning (but on my cell, which I rarely check at work) saying she's confused and can I call back.  I don't get the message till after the workday is over, so this will be delayed till tomorrow.  It shouldn't be this difficult.

Good thing I'm more rested and not quite so non-functional as I was a few weeks ago.

Forgot to watch the Oscars last night, which is kind of odd.  I only know some of the winners from friends' Facebook statuses - which is also odd.  But I remembered to get my climbing gym membership.  (One hour in February they have a sale in which an annual membership is almost half-off.)  And I've done other stuff too - spun, crocheted, exercised, read, spent time on the computer...  I'm keeping busy, I guess.

My friends both started their new jobs today, so yay!

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Sleep [Feb. 20th, 2009|06:49 pm]
 I had my appointment with the sleep doctor.  He was kind of a jerk and of the "It's obvious what's actually wrong with you and I don't have to listen to anything you say" mindset.  But he ordered a sleep study anyway, to make sure it's not sleep apnea, which we both know it's not (probably to fend off a malpractice suit if I die of not breathing while I sleep).  

Depression and anxiety, btw.  All my sleep issues (which I've had for decades, most of them) are because of my depression, anxiety, and the medicine to treat those.  Insomnia is a symptom, not a disorder.  According to the doctor.  He recommended a separate drug to help me be more awake during the day.  It's not an amphetamine, but it's still not the direction I was hoping to go.  I want to have good sleep and fewer drugs, not bad sleep and more drugs.

He did acknowledge that I have restless leg syndrome.

Anyway, I'll be doing the sleep study in a couple of weeks, so that's good.  And if it turns out there's more wrong with me that I'd need a sleep specialist for (which I don't think will be the case), I'm dumping him and going for someone who actually listens.

I slept well last night, actually - one little nightmare around 5am, but other than that, a good solid 7 hours of sleep.  And today I didn't have the "I could fall asleep standing up" exhaustion that I've had for most of the last month or longer.

I did, however, have a migraine, both yesterday and today.  

I've finished more yarn, and a couple of crochet projects, and will eventually post pictures.
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Friday, mostly [Feb. 14th, 2009|01:20 pm]
[music |Randy's watching some tv show on hulu]

 I had a weird day yesterday (Friday).  It started out on the crummy side, with little sleep and lots of nightmares.  Missed the bus, forgot my lunch, got to work to find an email saying a report I'd worked on for two months was wrong.  (It was right - the person had changed his mind about what he wanted the report to do.)

I had hot cocoa, and some candy, and things started picking up a bit, till I got to a point where there was nothing I could do - boredom.

So if you remember, my team was moved to Sales and Marketing due to a personnel shift.  This happened about 3 months ago, but we're still sitting with the IT folks because of other stuff happening with the Facilities group - moving the four of us is a low priority.  As I was leaving work, the VP of IT saw me.  She's worked with me some because of some reports going down, and me being the only person around to fix them or do a workaround.  So she stopped when she saw me, and started talking about how she hadn't seen me in a while, which was both good and bad - good because nothing had gone disastrously wrong, and bad because she hadn't seen me.  She asked how things were going, I said fine, still writing reports.  She said that if I ever wanted to get back into the IT side of things (which I do), I should let her know.  I have a lot of potential and ability and some other stuff, and she likes to "grow people within the organization," so if I wanted to move back to development (yes) or maybe a BA (no) position, let her know.  She's about 4 managerial levels above me, and reports to the CIO, so that's a nice person to have in my corner.

One of my other former coworkers (who moved off the team before the transition and is still in IT) has been bringing up in meetings how the BI team, or anyone in IT, should hire me, and has told me if I'm ever interested in an IT position, to talk to him.  He's sort of been a mentor, so I kind of expected this from him, but then also to have the VP stop and basically say "Come back, we want you here" was weird.  It felt good, but weird.  I'm not used to that.

I'm hoping/planning to move back to IT, but not quite yet.  I want to develop more skills so I'll be more versatile, and my current bosses support employee training, so I'm going to be learning another programming language or two.

Then I got a massage, which was nice - and the person worked on some trigger points that hadn't ever been noticed before by other massagy folks.  I've got two more appointments in the next two weeks, so yay for less pain.

Today:  spinning, cleaning, movie(s), food, not necessarily in that order.

I've tracked two nights of sleep, as prep for the sleep evaluation.  I have lousy sleep.  Two nights (one morning) ago, I was able to sleep till 5, but had lots of nightmares after that, and I don't really know what happened when I was falling asleep.  I thought I drifted off peacefully, but Randy says I was yelling and kicking.  I remember nothing of that.  Today I was only able to get solid sleep till 2am, then I woke up lots and lots, till I gave up on the idea of sleep at 7:30.  Dreams about my hair and moths (different dreams, luckily), among other things.

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Sleep, mostly. [Feb. 11th, 2009|12:05 pm]
 Daisy has all her parts now, and is working just great.  I've spun up about 5 oz of yarn (not a lot, all things considered, but I do work and exercise and waste time on the computer and try to sleep).  I really like spinning.  Still working through some spindle spinning, too.

Finished a scarf.  Pics will come eventually, along with pics of the sweaters.

Just made an appointment with a sleep clinic for an initial consultation.  I called my psychiatrist for a referral, who said it needed to come from my primary care physician but he thought it was a good idea.  So I made an appointment with my PCP (about other stuff, too - migraines, whee), and she referred me to a clinic.  It's actually a lung clinic, with a sleep center included (because of sleep apnea, I assume).  The current plan is that the consultation with a sleep doctor will happen next Thursday, but if the sleep neurologist has an earlier appointment, I'll take that instead.  Originally the scheduler had my reason down as insomnia, but once I listed out my various issues, she changed it to "sleep, miscellaneous."  Indeed.  

It's all happening much faster than I anticipated.  I'm used to having to wait longer for appointments, but I'll have an appointment with a sleep doctor within three weeks of me starting to take the idea of a sleep study seriously.  (I finally accepted the idea that a) my sleep is abnormal, and b) it may make me more tired than the average person and could possibly be affecting my life.)  Randy's been suggesting a sleep study for years, but he and Marie talking to me about it 12 days ago made me cross the bridge.  It was a combination of how tired I've been for the last month (nearly non-functional at times) and the realization that other people sleep through the night, which had never occurred to me as a possibility.  

The spinning wheel happened much faster than I planned, too.  Apparently once I decide on something, I move quickly from "well, maybe sometime in the future" to "must do now."  

I exercised yesterday even though I didn't want to (tired, sad).  I count that as a win.

Two of my friends and coworkers have gotten new jobs (within Capella) that they were hoping for, so yay!  One will be moving to my team - so Marie, Sarah, and I, who all climb together, will be on the same team.  The other friend hasn't posted about it, so I won't say anything, but I'm very happy for the person.  For both of them - they were both really hoping to get these new jobs, and they both did.  Yay!
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