Defying Maladies

I was feeling so invincible! I got a flu shot back in November, and figured I was good to go!

No germy little hand or snotty little nose was going to bring me down. Not even the pink eye scare before Christmas was going to get in the way of my seemingly perfect health. In fact, I was on my way to setting a personal record. I hadn't had a sniffle, a scratchy throat or any sign of of being under the weather. This flu shot thing was starting to feel too good to be true...and well...the trouble with things that seem too good to be true is that they usually are!

Yesterday I woke up with the onset of a sore throat. I chugged airborne. I drank green tea with honey and lemon. I did EVERYTHING I could think of. But it wasn't enough. I woke up this morning and felt awful! I called in to work and make an appointment to see my doctor. I spent the morning with more tea, and then got to my appointment only to see one of the most frightening sights...a stupid, giant q-tip! Throat cultures are the worst!

And that swab was all in vein...no strep here! Just your regular, run-of-the-mill common cold. At least if it had been strep, I could have gotten some antibiotics to make me feel better instead of playing this waiting game and trying to feel better as soon as possible so I don't miss too much work!

Half full, half empty or too big

I have this giant mug I got at Disneyland, commemorating the 55th anniversary of the theme park. And by giant...I mean giant!!!

So, naturally...I can't fill it all the way to the top. Whichever hot liquid I chose to put in this cup (coffee or tea) would surly be cold by the time I was half way through. So I don't fill the mug to the top, I fill it to the middle.

Some would say the cup is half full. Some would say it's half empty. Some would say it's too big. Okay, that was literal.

I try so hard to view the proverbial 'mug of life' as half full, and lately it's been taking a lot of effort to see things that way. I'm not flipping over to the 'half empty' side of things, but maybe just the 'too big'. I feel like I have a lot on my plate right now. Work is crazy, my parents are on my case for not 'getting out enough', and I am finally facing the facts that I am too poor to care about any of that. Being optimistic just takes too much work, and I quit. And I'm over it. And I'm tired.

There's no place like home for the holidays

Sometimes I wonder 'at what point in my adult life will I stop referring to my parents house as 'home'?'
My apartment in Simi Valley is very home-y, and when I am somewhere not in Simi I always refer to my return as 'going home', however, any trip up to Visalia can also be classified as 'going home'.
And talk about 'from Atlantic to Pacific, gee the traffic is terrific'...I think driving to the Atlantic coast would have taken less time than I spent on the 405. It took me 5 whole songs, and at one point I'm pretty sure I was part of a convoy...there were so many trucks, it was redic!
But I made it...I made it home to Visalia. Hanging with the 'rents watching Dog the Bounty Hunter.
I get to go to church with the fam tonight, and get to see some of my CLC peeps that I haven't seen in about a year, including my goddaughter.
I have been a terrible godmother lately, it's hard when you live so far away...but for a few short days I get to be around family and friends and to be surrounded by all Visalia stuff that for some reason I tried so hard to get away from.
When I come up here, I have little to no time to relax, my time is pretty booked because I have so many Visalia things to see and Visalia things to do.
Tonight is soup and church and PIE SOCIAL!!
Tomorrow gotta get up in time for the parade, Thanksgiving 'linner' and watching 'A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving' with the sis
Finding time over the weekend to watch Deathly Hallows with Becca, and Tangled with the bff...hopefully going down and getting some lunch or at least a tea at 210 (assuming they're still open on Saturdays) and squeezing in time to be bummed about missing the "Monday after Thanksgiving Visalia's Candy Cane Lane Christmas Parade"

Snow White and the 7 Laurens

On almost any given day, if I had to answer the question 'if you were one of Snow White's dwarfs, which one would you be?' (Which, as we all know, is a question we face on a daily basis...) Normally I'd go with a combo-pack. Happy, Doc and some Dopey thrown in on the side. I would say I'm generally pretty optimistic, but definitely prone to dorkiness, mishaps and occasional social awkwardness.
This week, however, I am forced to change my answer. This week I am Sleepy, Sneezy and (as a result) Grumpy. The weather has definitely been a contributing factor. I haven't exactly been Bashful (see what I did there?) about how I feel towards anything over 75 degrees. I mean, get with the program November!! Did I miss the part where the calendar decided to take a trip in a DeLorean and go back in time to July? Shouldn't we have been done with this nonsense, like, three months ago?
AND on top of it all I'm sick. Not like, go-to-the-doctor sick, but sick enough to be miserable and whine about how much I hate head colds. I'm pretty sure this is going to deplete my tea stash completely. Not to mention I've already had to replenish my soup collection. I have been double- even tripling- up on OTC cold remedies. Theraflu, Mucinex, Airbourne, Cough drops, and about four mugs of green tea with honey and lemon a day. I would totally be kicking this cold's butt if it hadn't already kicked mine. I can't sleep if I can't breathe, and my stupid nose is so congested that I almost have to try to sleep sitting up. My sinuses are trying to invade my face, and unless I am sucking on a cough drop or chugging tea (neither of which I can do while attempting sleep) I am hacking up a lung...which, in turn, gives me a terrible headache! In short, I'm falling apart...

What I Did For Love

"If today was the day you had to stop dancing..."

I stopped dancing 6 1/2 years ago...and I miss it so much. I started taking dance classes when I was in elementary school. Tap, Jazz and Ballet. I eventually quit tap, I was the one tapper who couldn't quite sync up with the rest and made the piece sound like crap. I had to perform a tap number for a dance class I took in high school and I took the taps off my shoes so the audience couldn't hear me. Jazz wasn't my favorite, but it was a lot of fun and the costumes were awesome (except for the unfortunate crushed velvet unitard of '99). But Ballet was my favorite. When I was in 7th grade I got to start en pointe, and even though my feet hated me, I couldn't stop loving Ballet. Every Christmas we would perform a piece from 'Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker'; to this day I can't hear Tea (Chinese Dance) without thinking échappé, échappé, possé, possé in my head. Plain and simple, I miss Ballet. I never thought I'd be a professional dancer when I grew up. I knew that this was just a hobby and form of exercise. I wasn't going to be the next Anna Pavlova. I never had aspirations of joining the American Ballet Corps. But I still miss it. I miss my pointe shoes, and my custom made tutu, and pliés, and battements, and tour jetés, and pirouettés, and the absolute high that comes from doing them on a stage with bright lights shining in your eyes.
I miss the perceived grace that came with being a dancer. I miss using that as a way of identifying myself when I was in high school. Michaela was the 'tennis player', Emily was 'the band girl', Natalie was 'the choir girl', Whatsherface was 'on the honor roll', I was 'the dancer'. Whether or not I was all that great (I wasn't), that's who I was. I loved inviting my friends to my recitals. I loved being 'the dancer'.
I remember we were doing a re-fitting my senior year, since none of us had worn our tutus in about a year. So I had my tutu on, and my pointe shoes. I was also wearing some pretty grungy tights (we used to have races with the runs in our tights. We would pick at them and see how long we could get them to go in one pull). But I was beaming. I didn't realize I was beaming until one of the girls in my class pointed out 'Lauren's got her stage face on'. I couldn't NOT smile, even there at the dance studio, no audience, no stage, no lights, tights that were more run than tights, yet being in costume, I couldn't help it. I loved the way I felt. I wish I could wear my tutu every day. It was lightly boned, so not only did it have a nice corset effect on my tummy, but it gave me incredible posture. And while pointe shoes are definitely not the comfort footwear of choice for most, I miss those too. It makes me sad that my feet are all pretty now instead of callus-y and blister-y from my shoes.
I think I might dance around my living room when I get home...with the blinds closed, of course

I'm tired

...but not sleepy.
This has been a re-occuring problem for some time now. Part of it is work stress, I'm sure. I can't seem to stop thinking at night. I lie in my bed, listen to my fan and think. I think about things that I can't control, especially not at 1 o'clock in the morning. If I could take my brain out at night, that might help. Other than that, I don't know how to fix this problem. Two nights ago, I was in this same position. In my comfortable bed in my comfortable pajamas with my white noise at a very comfortable level and my comfortably dark, cool room. The conditions couldn't have been more conducive to a good night's sleep. But I couldn't get sleepy. So I decided to get up (at 2 am) make myself a cup of chamomile tea and watch Glee on DVD...I fell asleep on the couch. Maybe I should try sleeping on the couch every night, I mean, any sleep is better than none at all, even if couch sleep is pretty poor quality.
It's almost as if I'm becoming nocturnal, I get so sleepy during the days that I am tempted to take a nap on the sofa in my office, and some days I take a nap when I get home from work. Which just makes sleeping at night just that much harder. Which, in turn, makes getting up in the morning that much harder, which makes me so sleepy during the day that I need to take a nap when I get home...and the vicious cycle continues. I don't know what to do. I can't even talk to my mom about it, because she worries enough about me as it is. I don't need her to lose sleep over my loss of sleep. Her not sleeping isn't going to make it any easier for me, and I don't want to give her any more reasons to stress out about me, since I'm the more gray-hair inducing of my parents' children, they don't need to add my insomnia to the long list of reasons why I can't take care of myself.

I'm just so tired of being tired. I just want to sleep.
I've tried tea and tylenol PMs and if Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep and doesn't know where to find them, it's because I've counted them all, and Mary's Little Lamb, and every other sheep for that matter. So much fleece...

Mug Shots

I have 31 coffee mugs. There are 31 days in August. This obviously means that I need to use a different mug every day this month when I have my morning cup o' joe. Also, I will be deviating from the whining that normally takes place on my blah-g. Lucky for you (although, my only reader is currently off being a secret-agent for Jesus, so lucky for who? I don't know)
Aaaanyway, I decided to start this venture with one of my favorite mugs. I bought this one at during the 50th anniversary year at Disneyland. One of my favorite things about this particular mug is that it pulls double-duty and can stand-in for a soup or cereal bowl--which it often does.
This was one of my justifications for the purchase of this mug (I usually don't have to justify buying mugs, but my boyfriend at the time told me not to buy it because it was kinda expensive-whatevs)




It has the original Disneyland logo on one side, and a retro-tastic map of the Happiest Place on Earth on the other side. And it's teal. And I feel like I could swap it with one of the Mad Tea Party teacups and no-one would notice. Because it's huge.