Can't Catch a Break

I've been kinda down lately for a lot of little reasons, none of which should affect my mood this much, but they just keep piling on top of each other and I could just really use a break.

I was on antibiotics a couple weeks ago for an infection. Took the meds, felt better, finished the meds, everything was fine.
A week later, I have a UTI. There was no reason for me to possibly get a UTI other than the first antibiotic I was on. So now I'm on more antibiotics. (None of my doctors have ever told me that antibiotics could cause--or make me vulnerable--to other infections.)
This new antibiotic says I can't have caffeine while I'm on it. I didn't realize just how much I really depend on those 1-2 cups of coffee every day. I'm irritable, exhausted (barely making it to 9pm the past two nights before I go to bed when I normally stay up until 10pm), and getting headaches.

On top of that, either a hubcap fell off of my car or it was stolen. So I'm down to 2 hubcaps on my car now. It looks awesome. Plus I need an oil change. And this stupid-cold weather makes the low tire pressure light come on, even though I check and check and there's always plenty of air.

Did I mention this ridiculously cold weather? Yeah, I'm over it.

Then there's all the stuff that keeps going wrong at the house (where I only get to spend about 8 hours a day during the week, none of which is in daylight). Our storm door is broken (thanks wind), our garage door is broken (or the motor is dead or something, I don't know), and one of the drain pipes is broken.

And this whole job-hunt thing is exhausting and discouraging. I've sent my resume and applications in to a lot of different places and I either haven't heard anything yet or got emails saying they went with other candidates. I haven't even gotten any kind of interview yet. It's extremely frustrating and worrying. I struggle daily to be calm about it and stay positive. What if I don't find a job? What if we can't pay our bills? It's terrifying to think that I could leave my current job in January (which is less than two months away!!) and not have another job to go to.

I'm sorry for the rant and all the negativity today. I just needed to get all that out. Poor Chris has to listen to me complain about a lot of these things on a pretty regular basis. I'm trying to be positive, but it's like everything is working against me right now and that makes it really hard.

If any of you have any job-hunting tips in general, or know of a place in St. Louis that's looking to hire a writer and/or editor and/or communications specialist, please let me know!

Copper's 1st Birthday

I finally got my pictures to upload! I didn't have nearly as many as I thought...and most of them are of Copper lol. Here they are:

She was not happy about wearing that cone.

She still managed to play with her toys and run
into everything and knock stuff over. It was cute
at first. After a while it was just irritating lol

She's special :)

Baby Madison as Snow White for Halloween. 

Today is Copper's birthday! We celebrated last night though.

We got her some yummy "pupcakes" (mostly because
I was too lazy to get the stuff to make some myself.)
Maybe next year. 

We went to several different stores looking for
party hats. I guess people don't wear party hats
anymore? 

Copper was not too happy about wearing these hats.
And would hardly sit still for these pictures. Brat.

I can't believe she's one! 

As part of her birthday present/party yesterday, we took her for her first walk in our new neighborhood. I wanted to take her a lot sooner, but couldn't find her harness anywhere. Turns out, it was just hanging on one of the dining room chairs under a coat. Woops. She did okay. There are a lot of dogs in our neighborhood though, so of course she wanted to play with all of them. She still has much to learn. All in all though, it was a good day :) 

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Going "Natural"

As I said yesterday, I haven't been able to work out much lately. Okay, that's basically a lie. I haven't worked out at all in the last month or so. Spending 4 hours a day in a car and working all day and then job-hunting most evenings is pretty exhausting.

I've still been reading a lot of blogs and stuff though and there was one thing that I kept reading about over and over: the amount of chemicals and unnatural things that go into the stuff we eat, bathe with, clean our houses with, etc. The more I read about all the horrible effects these chemicals can have on people, the more inclined I was to start making some changes.

The problem is "going natural" can get expensive. With our current budget, we just can't afford to buy natural or organic everything. Buying and eating all healthy food is really hard and expensive. The speediness and convenience of frozen meals and fast food right now isn't something I can completely cut out right now. I don't have the time to cook every night or do meal prep or anything like that. And sometimes I just really want a cheeseburger and fries. Don't judge.

So while I am making a small effort to eat healthier, I just can't make any major diet changes right now. The next thing I tackled was soaps. Reading about all the negative effects that fragrances and detergents used in shampoos, body washes, laundry soap, etc. made me want to make some changes.

I now buy handmade soaps from Herbaria Soap in St. Louis. I use their soaps for everything now: body, hair, face, hands. Switching from liquid soap to bars was rough for me at first. I've never liked using bars of soap. But knowing exactly what my soap is made of, where it's made, how it's made, and who my money is going to was all worth it. Oh and they smell pretty incredible too! I highly recommend their soap. While it hasn't solved all of my skin issues (most recently and most frequent is itching all over), I do feel that it has made a difference. And I love that I'm not buying a ton of different (and expensive!) soaps and cleansers all the time.

Since my itchy-skin-issue wasn't resolved just from switching soap, I decided maybe it was time to try some "free and clear" laundry soap and dryer sheets. Again, I haven't noticed much of a difference. However, I did read that detergents can linger in fabrics even after several washings with natural soaps, so if that's the case, I could be itchy for a very long time. (Yes, it may be time to see my doctor about this, but I'm using that as a last-resort.)

That leads me to my next issue: allergy medicine. First of all, that stuff is really expensive. Second, what I had been taking (and what had worked most of the time) has recently stopped working so great. So I tried something else instead. That hasn't worked either. I'm tired of spending money on medicine that only works for half the time it says it's supposed to (like, 24 hours maybe lasts half a day for me). So I've decided to look into some natural allergy relief. What I've found so far is that Butterbur and Vitamin C are the best, especially working as antihistamines. I also read that a combination of the essential oils lavender, lemon, and peppermint can help relieve itching and inflammation.

I've been considering trying a natural deodorant as well. I've even done quite a bit of reading on DIY deodorants, but I think I might just buy some from Herbaria first and see if I like it.

Eventually I want to move to using as much natural and/or homemade products as possible, but that takes time and money.

What's your take on "going natural"? Do you have any tips or tricks or natural/DIY products you use? 

I'm Back!

I know it's been quite a while since I've written on here :( Because of my recent move and grad school, I had to take a little break from the blog to focus on everything else.

We've been living in our new house for about a month and a half now and it's been pretty wonderful. I love the house, I love living in St. Louis again and getting to see my family more often.

Spending 4 hours a day in my car really sucks though. And school on top of that? Well that was a recipe for disaster. Technically, I'm only in my car an extra half hour each way than I was before when we were living in Farmington. I didn't think that would make that much of a difference, but it totally did.

I was exhausted, cranky, felt like I was wasting lots and lots of my time and money, angry, depressed, etc. So I made the decision to quit grad school. At least for now. My last day at my current job is the beginning of January and I have to have a job by then. Spending a ton of time on school work that I wasn't interested in doing in the first place became even more frustrating when I knew that was precious time that could be better spent elsewhere, like looking for jobs.

So I quit. And I feel so relieved. I now have a little bit more time in the evenings and tons more time on weekends to scour the internet and apply for jobs (I've applied for 4 or 5 so far...not having a ton of luck). Plus, I get to spend my extra time doing stuff I actually want to be doing like reading books I'm interested in reading, and maybe running again! It's been a very, very long time since I've gone for a run. I'm hoping to change that soon though!

Here are a few other things that have happened lately:

My aunt and uncle had a baby! Contrary to what certain people may think, I'm extremely happy for them. I'm just not a baby-person, so I'm not all gushy over her and holding her and whatnot. But as far as babies go, she's pretty darn cute (coming from a person who thinks most newborns look like tiny aliens). Her name is Madison and she's about 3 weeks old now. So her and I will hang out in like 3 years. lol

Copper got fixed. Finally. It was expensive. And kind of stressful. Although those sedatives they gave us to give to her were awesome for a while. Until they were gone. And she chewed through her cone. Yep that's my dog. And she'll be a year old on Monday the 11th! I can't believe she'll be 1 already. :( And yes, we're getting her a doggie cake and a party hat!

As I already said, I quit school. It was a difficult decision to make, but once I made it, I felt so incredibly relieved. I'm not saying I'll never go back and finish my master's at some point, but now is just not that time. I'm ready to have a career I love and be able to come home at night and go for a run or read or watch movies or do whatever the heck I want because I don't have homework to do.

I got hit in the face with one of Copper's toys and broke my glasses. That started as a fantastic day and turned into a crappy one real fast. So now I'm stuck wearing the glasses I hate until I can go to the eye doctor this Friday and get a new prescription for contacts and glasses (I can't wait to wear contacts again!). Lack of contacts is part of the reason I haven't started running (or trying to run) again since quitting school. I just can't wear these glasses and run. Doesn't work for me.

I think that's just about everything. The important stuff anyway. I tried several times and several different ways to upload photos to add to this post, but I'm still having problems with it, so no pics for this one. I will keep trying to figure it out and hopefully I'll be able to add some photos to one of the next posts (which I promise will not be months from now!).

Thanks for stopping by to catch up! I hope you all have been doing well!

Falling in Love: Books

Book love is much like any other love. We fall in love with them, sometimes immediately, sometimes it takes reading a few chapters, and sometimes it takes reading them more than once.

That last one is the kind of book love I have most recently experienced and it took me completely by surprise. As I was carefully working on one of our upcoming books, Annamanda, I realized I had fallen in love with it. Which was surprising because I did not like the book the first time I read it.

It was long. Like 600 pages long. And it took place in/around New Madrid around the time of the 1811-1812 earthquakes and was written as people would have talked back then. And there was a lot about religion (although the book itself is not about religion). I had a hard time relating to it. I had a hard time reading it in general because it was so long.

My boss and I have worked with this book a lot. It's not nearly as close to being done as I'd like, but I've gotten quite a bit of say in the page design and coming up with ideas for the cover. I feel as though this book has become a part of me. And every time I work on it, I fall in love with it a little more. I get excited every time I get to work on it. And I get anxious when there are other things I have to do instead of working on it. 

It's a beautiful book (which we have shortened some) and I just can't wait to see the finished project and hold it in my hands. I think my biggest fear right now is not getting to finish it before I leave. (I've decided that I'm going to leave at the end of the semester, whether I have another job or not.) While there are many things about my job that I don't really enjoy (mainly anything that deals with numbers or budgets or money), working on the books (even the ones I don't like very much) is the very best part. Seeing a book go from text on recycled paper with lots of editing marks and notes on it to the finished product is one of the best things in the world. There are quite a few other books we have scheduled for the spring and it makes me incredibly sad that I won't get to work on them (although since I'll still be going to school here, I'll at least get to see the finished product!). 

Book love is one of the best kinds of love for so many reasons and in so many ways. I think that actually working on books makes it even stronger. And I know that there are some books that I have worked on and fallen in love with that I probably wouldn't have if I hadn't worked on them...some I probably wouldn't even have considered reading at all. 

It's the reason I love books and the reason I love what I do and the reason I'm reluctant to leave. It makes me incredibly sad to know that I probably won't have a job in the near future that even deals with books at all, let alone helping to create them. 

Never Forget: 9/11

A friend of mine posted on Facebook earlier today and she talked about how she remembered every detail of that day from where she was when she heard/saw the news to what she was wearing. It got me thinking. I really don't remember a lot from that day at all.

I remember I was in a science class (8th grade I think?). And I can remember the news station we were watching because my teacher always had it on before class started. I remember who I was in class with. And I remember not knowing what was going on--I didn't even know what those buildings were. We had never talked about them in a class before and I had never heard of or seen them on the news or anything like that either.

I was confused. I didn't know what those buildings were or who was in them. I'm not even sure I knew where those buildings were. My teacher didn't tell us. Maybe she assumed we knew what they were. Or maybe she was just too shocked to talk to us about it. I don't know.

That's really all I can remember from that day. I don't remember going to my other classes or if my parents talked to me about what had happened when I got home (although I'm sure they did). I didn't know what to think or how to feel.

It's interesting how some people don't remember much from days like that while others remember every little detail about it. And there are kids who were too young at the time to remember it at all. For them it's a "history lesson." They were talking about that on the radio today--we say "never forget" but there are kids who don't even remember it at all. I even titled this post "Never Forget" and yet there's so much from that day that I don't remember.

The whole point though is to remember the lives lost that day. The first responders who risked or sacrificed their lives to try to save others. The men and women who joined the military because of that day to defend our country. And the families of all of those people. Remember them.

Falling Off the Wagon

Last week I fell off the "30-Day Squat Challenge" wagon. Hard. Tuesday was my first day of classes and it went pretty well. I had a decent day over all even though I had gotten little sleep the night before: class was good, and I was looking forward to going home, doing my squats and then relaxing.

Instead, I came home to a house that smelled of poop. I had no clue which animal had done it or where, but I knew what it was the second I walked in. I wanted to cry. Of course, it was Copper. She had diarrhea. And she had managed to get it all over her kennel and herself. So I had to clear all of the cat's stuff out of the bathroom so I could give the dog a bath (still in my nice work clothes--didn't want to risk her getting her poop-covered self on any of the furniture). She was not happy about the bath, which she made quite clear when she got out and shook off, soaking everything in the bathroom.

I made a few attempts to dry her off then set out to clean her kennel. I wanted to puke. It smelled so, so bad. Meanwhile, she went and took a little nap on the couch. While she was still soaking wet. On top of all that, I couldn't even shower until later that night because Chris was working late.

Needless to say I did not get any sort of workout accomplished that night. The next day was my other class, Advanced Publishing, which is my night class. I had coffee twice that day because I was so exhausted. The class was good though. We watched Helvetica (if you're into typography and that sort of thing, you should watch it) which was pretty good. I'm pretty sure it's on Netflix, so once we move and have better internet, I might watch the whole thing. Since I work all day on Wednesdays and then have night class (not to mention the fact that I was exhausted), I didn't work out that day either.

By my afternoon class on Thursday I was completely off the wagon. I had given up hope of working out at all that week, or on catching back up on the squat challenge.

I spent the weekend doing homework, laundry, and napping. Copper's diarrhea slowly went away (thank God!!) and she's doing much better now.

Labor Day marked Year Two for me and Chris. We stopped at the Boat House in Forest Park for a beer and then went to the Zoo (mainly to see the sea lions!). After that we went to Pi for a late lunch and then headed home. Aside from burning my fingers with hot grease from our breakfast (much better now but hurt like hell at the time!), it was a really great day :)

Despite all the obnoxious kids that kept getting
in the way, I was able to get a couple good pics.

The Sea Lions/Underwater Tunnel is definitely
my new favorite place at the Zoo :)

Cute little elephant :)

View from one of our favorite spots.

Grizzly bear!

And last, but not least, the penguins!

I hope you all had a fun, safe Labor Day! Sorry that I also seem to have fallen off the "blogging wagon" as well. I promise I'll try to write more regularly ("try" being the key word there!).