Daily Dose

Sleeping In Hotels

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Health and Wellness, Travel Log /

I’ve come to sort of hate sleeping in hotels. We always seem to sleep on the wrong sides of the bed (because TW wants the side with the bedside table and I don’t care about that, and the bedside table always seems to be on “my” side.

Sure enough, last night — TW was on my side but we continued to sleep in our normal positions, which means we ended up facing each other for most of the night. And TW coughed constantly in her sleep. Which means she was coughing in my face.

And then there’s the problem that the dogs are not with us. You’d think it would be MORE comfortable to have a larger bed with no dogs than a smaller bed with three dogs but no. Not comfortable.

I ended up putting a big pillow in between us which helped it feel like a dog was laying in between us (which is what normally happens) and also prevented TW from coughing on me. This worked ok except that TW decided that pillow was her pillow and kept trying to LAY on it and I kept having to push her back over.

Did I mention I’ve got the hot flash thing to deal with, too? So I need my damn personal space or I’ll die of heat stroke or something, lol.

We’ve got two darn beds, I think tonight we’ll switch to the other one. Maybe that will help. A little?

Tired. Very tired.

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Filofax, Art Journaling and Other Goals In June

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Filofax /

Hahaha. I hate June.

I didn’t touch my art journal. I lost momentum with the daily doodling journal. I did sort out a design for something I’m hoping to work on next weekend, so that’s a win.

I carried a to do list over from May because I didn’t get much done and… I only got one more thing crossed off. Granted, that one thing was a big money management thing, so I’m very happy about that.

I don’t expect July to be much better because there’s this little conference happening and all of my hours belong to all of the work. So, I’m carrying the list over again and only adding MUST DO THIS BEFORE BlogHer ’14 or DIE stuff because at least I know I’ll get all of that done.

I have to say again that I am loving my Filofaxes. They do help me stay on track, with work — and to a smaller extent with every day life things. If I had more time for every day life, I’d be happier but the Filofax can’t work magic and come up with more hours in the day for me… lol.

I’m looking forward to August… oh, wait. Kids going to college. JMP and Jenn visiting. Oh well, I’ll have a fun to do list for that month so yay!

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Fucking Fly

1 Comment / Daily Dose /

There is a fly in the office. It’s making me crazy.

I’m sitting here trying to work and it buzzes past my head, as close as it can come without actually hitting me. So I stop and grab a rolled up magazine and look for the damn fly. It’s nowhere. Can’t find it to save my life.

So, I go back to work.

30 seconds later, here comes the fly — it lands on my laptop screen. I reach for the magazine and as soon as I’m ready to pounce, it flies away. I sit quietly and wait for it to come back. It does not come back.

So, I go back to work.

30 seconds later, here comes the fly — it lands on my Filofax. I’d hate to have fly guts on my Malden but that would be better than living with this fly. I reach for the magazine and the damn thing flies away. I sit quietly waiting for it to come back. It does not come back.

So, I go back to work.

30 seconds later, here comes the fly. It lands ON THE MAGAZINE so I get up and get another magazine and just as I’m about to slam that fucker, he flies away. I stalk around the office looking for him and CANNOT FIND HIM.

So, I go back to work.

Repeat 857 times and you have some idea of how my morning has gone.

Oh look, there he is on the fish bowl…

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Are You Sure the Blackhawks Didn’t Win?

Daily Dose, Day to Day /

One of the things I do all day is watch Google Trends to see what’s hot and happening.

All day long, the Blackhawks have been on the top 20 trends list, with multiple versions of their name.

The Kings… they make the list once. Way down the list. Hell, when I got up this morning, they weren’t on the list at all.

Does nobody care about the Kings? I know I don’t but I probably don’t really count as a BIG hockey fan, though I have strong preferences for the Bruins, the Capitals, the Rangers and the Flyers. (In that order, pretty much.)

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Filofax, Art Journaling and Other Goals In May

Daily Dose, Day to Day, Filofax /

Holy hell. What happened in May?

Looking back over the month, I can tell you pretty much nothing from any of my lists is scratched off.

Oh sure, I started strong and then we went to Miami and everything went to hell. OK not everything. But pretty much everything.

I didn’t blog every day in May. That’s the first time that’s happened in… longer than I can tell you.

I didn’t pick up my art journal at all. I had a lot of fun playing with the Some Lines a Day journal but then Miami happened and I got out of the routine of doodling in it and BAM, haven’t touched it since then.

JMP’s stocking is stagnating again. I was doing so well… shoot. I really need to pick up the pace there, so maybe they can take it home with them after they visit this summer… hahaha who am I kidding, the kid will be lucky to have it show up in his Christmas box.

Hell. There was a whole week when neither of my Filofaxes were even decorated, much less used properly. And then once I got back into them, I couldn’t actually get anything on the lists FINISHED because the world is crazy, work is crazy, life is crazy and I’d like a May do-over, please.

Except. May being over means we’re one month closer to our move south! 2 years and 2 weeks to go. Let’s just leave May and start June on that happy note.

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Reading in May

Daily Dose /

Just 19 books. Another rough month for reading, (though this was a rough month for pretty much everything.) I really need to get back to my kindle books because I’m really falling behind. Almost half way through the year and I’m not close to half way to my goal. Oops.

Here’s what the month looked like:

– 3 were Audio books
– 2 were Children/Middle Grade
– 2 were YA
– 1 was from the Cybils shortlist
– 6 were Non-fiction
– 1 was a graphic novel

See, pretty pathetic. Maybe I should stop playing around online and hurry up and finish another book so I can get to 20 for May? Wish me luck, maybe I can come back and update the numbers before the night is over…

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Zentangle Artist!

1 Comment / Community Chest, Daily Dose /

I made a contribution to Laurel’s GoFundMe project and she sent me this awesome bookmark!

It arrived right after we got back from #BlogHerFood and every morning I told myself I was going to take a photo and thank her properly and blog about it.

And every afternoon, I collapsed into my bed without having done so.

I love it. It’s beautiful. Thank you Laurel! I hope you make your goal and become a Certified Zentangle Teacher! Your work is fabulous and I’m proud to own a piece of it.

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The Week After

1 Comment / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Work /

Why do I always forget that the first week after a BlogHer conference is maddening, exhausting, and overwhelming? Probably because if I didn’t forget, I’d curl up in a ball the week before a conference and refuse to move until it was over?

It takes a good five days to adjust, to catch up, to get back to normal. Today is day five and I’m almost there. ALMOST.

I’ve got no less than five assignments due and they are all five have finished. This is not how I generally work and I need to get my shit together and go back to getting ONE thing DONE completely AT a TIME.

But first, I need more coffee. A lot more coffee.

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More On Miami

1 Comment / Daily Dose, Travel Log /

I’ve decided it’s true, you really don’t appreciate what you have until it’s gone.

Our trip to Miami is a good example.

We really enjoyed this trip. Pretty much enjoyed every damn thing about Miami.

Which is a little odd since on previous trips we weren’t all that thrilled. Not that we hated any of those trips (let’s not think about the synchronized swimming parts of some of those trips), it was just different.

I think we had to leave Florida to appreciate Miami properly.

The weather. The people. The graffiti. The coffee. The beach.

We visited the Bayside Marketplace.

We rode the Metromover many times.

We wandered through Lummus Park and the SoBe beaches. We ate at The News Cafe.

We went to the Perez Art Museum (and discovered an Artomat in the wild!)

It was all so much better because we’ve been gone so damn long. For a few moments, I even thought maybe we could move to Miami and then my sanity kicked in. Nah, we won’t move there but I would like to visit again.

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BlogHer Food: Day 2

4 Comments / Daily Dose, Foodie, Travel Log /

Another great day at BlogHer Food.

The morning keynote was excellent. I’m a huge fan of I am Baker, ya know.

We rode the excursion bus to Brickell Village but walked a few blocks to a terrific latin cafe, Tinta y Cafe. We had just gotten our food when Stacy, Julie, Jenny and Jenijen showed up so our lunch hour extended to a two+ hour lunch. That was a lot of unexpected fun.

The after party, hosted by Elise, Jaden and Ree, was terrific (as usual.) The flamenco dancers were great, the venue was gorgeous, the people were fabulous. (Even Melisa, Diane and Liz. lol)

Another great event and I’m so glad I was able to attend #BlogHerFood (even though I’m not a food blogger.)

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