I Bore Myself

I know I have been a very inconsistent blogger and I wish I could tell you that it was going to change and I was going to embrace some blog every day mentality but the truth is, I have no idea what to write about these days.  I am even losing steam in Facebook land where I look at that little status field staring back and me and all I can think is that I am boring even myself.  I am two steps away from writing what I ate for breakfast, it is that bad.

Nothing is necessarily wrong but there are things that for some reason I know I should do and yet can't seem to do.  There are friends I haven't emailed or talked to in ages and I love them but I can't seem to muster up the energy to reach out and touch them.  I have gone to bed most nights by 9pm with super low energy, sometimes enough to scare me into thinking something is very wrong but I still get up at 6am and do kick ass workouts and then I figure if I can do that, then nothing must be too too wrong, right?

On a side note, I have never been good at taking medication daily so I realized I went a good week or so without taking a multi vitamin and a vitamin D so I have taken those for a couple of days and last night I stayed up until 11pm!

If I had energy, there still would not have been too much exciting to blog about but here is what I would have provided you with:

1)  Readers of my seekrit blog will recall I was not enamored of my manager when I worked at academic institution in Boston.  Recently, I had a tremendously gossipy instant message chat with my friend who still works there, the one who originally got me that job, about something that happened with her. 

We do a lot of work with universities in Africa, hence my trip to Uganda.  Some staff members from Ghana came over for a technical training and this woman invited my friend and another former staff member to join them for lunch.  She told them that she had approval to expense the lunch and even reminded them, as the menus were being passed out, that they could order whatever they wanted as the university was paying for it.  My friend, being diet conscious, got a glass of water and a salad.

Well a couple of weeks later, my ex-boss sent out an email to my friend and the other co-worker.  Turns out that the university had rejected covering the lunch for some reason and she was billing them, her subordinates, for the lunch!  She required my friend to pay $20 for his salad and water and the other guy to pay $30 for whatever he got and she wanted it in cash, paid to her, by the end of the week.

Can you imagine that?  Even in my worst financial straights I would never ever ask someone to pay for this.  She or someone made a mistake somewhere so it was up to her to eat the cost of it.  I imagine it must not have been pleasant for her to all of the sudden owe money she thought was covered but well, sucks to be her.

As my friend put it, "I know exactly how much I am worth to her now.  $20."  He is actively looking for a new position.  He had started the job search earlier but I think this was the nail on the coffin so to speak.  It might have been different if she wasn't such an unpleasant person to work for but this lunch thing?  Wow!

2)  My friends are getting married in Palo Alto, CA in August and we are going to go!  After the big two week trip last year I swore we would not be able to do such a massive trip for many years to come as it was really expensive and exhausting.  But then we got word that friends of ours who we really adore were going to get hitched and a bunch of people we love would be in attendance and I thought long and hard and decided we had to go.

You see, there has been a lot of glass half full rim dipped in poison and rubbed in ebola salt stuff going on for us.  B's parents continue their sad decline, my dad is doing well health-wise but my relationship to him leaves much to be desired.  Every day I gravitate to all the awfulness in the news and instead of stopping to smell the roses, I just smell gas.

I decided that we really need to celebrate the really good things that happen and that people really do matter much more than things.  So yes, this will put our "house savings" off for a bit but it will amount to a matter of months rather than years.  We have an aggressive goal of saving $25k cash a year for the next 3 years because a house here goes for $400k and that 20% doesn't grow on trees.

Instead of the full on 2 weeks to visit everyone, we will go to the Bay Area for 4 days, spend a travel day to get down to Bakersfield, visit with B's parents for 2 days and fly home.  We are going to cut every single corner financially we can to make this a cheaper trip but oh, it will happen.  We will dance at our friend's wedding and toast to their happiness surrounded by dear friends.

So that's, as my mom would say, the "scoopy poop."

How's by you?

Comments

[Shannon-from-old-job]

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY I am so glad you are going to make it out here for the wedding festivities! The bride is concerned that no one will dance, and last week, I said if M & B are there, they'll be dancing it up! And I love that you mention that in your post. :D Yay! I wish we could have you stay with us for a night, but our new little guy might drive you batty at that point. ;) You guys could camp in our backyard though! :D I'll keep my eye out for hotel groupons and let you know if anything pops up for that timeframe.

I don't know what to say about that ex-boss thing. So sad you're not working there any longer.

Yay! :D

[Michaela]

Aww, I am glad our little corner of the universe might somehow be useful to your corner of the universe. We will do our very very best to make the trip worth your while! Everyone will be required to be extra awesome. Perhaps we will put it on the wedding website.

[Melissa]

I echo Shannon: yaaaaaaay! So excited that you guys are coming. I wish we could offer you a place to stay, but I'll keep my ear out too.

Wow about your former boss. Tacky to the extreme. (And what kind of salad and drink costs $20, anyway?) You are well rid of that place!

[Kathy]

But I want to know what you ate for breakfast :)) But really I understand how you feel. I'm glad the trip is happenning for you and that is something you will not regret.

[Sha]

Man, I stopped blogging a while back. Not every day is an excite-a-thon here, and frankly, even writing down the interesting stuff is, well, another thing I have to do during my day. And I'm often tired enough as it is. :) I'm impressed you blog anything with two kids and a job!

[Chickenpig]

That's so wonderful that you're going. You won't look back with regret thinking "Oh, I wish we hadn't gone on that trip and had saved that house money for 3 months." But I bet you would regret not going to that wedding. As for the blog thing? The blog will wait until the warmer months, when the days are longer, and you've got more vitamin D on board ;)

My oh my, is your former boss a b-atch! Boo-howdy, I'm glad you got out of there!