spa

So....we are starting to consider our options for the back yard.  We have a bid from a concrete contractor that we like.

He will replace the broken driveway, re-do the front porch steps, and pour a patio in the back yard, all for a very reasonable package rate.

We have pretty much decided NOT to build a deck on the concrete pad in back, but leave it as a patio, possibly making our own mosaic tile surface on it eventually. 

The long dreamed of hot tub/spa will sit on the patio.  No real need to build a deck around it to make it easier to get into.  They all come with steps now anyway.

We have been shopping around quite a bit to find a spa that fits into our small budget.  We think we may have found it.

We've changed our minds, too, on how we plan to finance these changes to our property.  The home equity line of credit is a good idea, but Dave can borrow against his "thrift plan" at work, and the repayment is taken out of his paychecks, and the payments pay interest BACK TO the thrift plan.

So it's like we borrow it from ourselves and pay ourselves back with interest.

This makes a little more sense than paying someone else that interest.

Did I mention that the next door neighbor - whose dogs were attacked by the dog directly behind us- finally put up her 8 foot privacy fence?  So that corner of the yard is taken care of for us.  Dave has been working on taking out the ancient chain link, and it looks pretty good back there.

The bamboo is going to take a few years, but it's getting established across the back, and the other side really doesn't matter, because that's where our tiny bit of privacy fence, our shed, and a stand of trees all are.

In related news, my friend Julie from my last job has a daughter who is half Moroccan.  This daughter went to Morocco, as she does almost every year, and this time, asked what I might like her to bring back for me.

Black soap, I said.  "What?!" she said....  I guess it's not as common a thing as I assumed it is?  I don't know.

I had previously asked my Illinois dance friend Priscilla to bring me some on several occasions, but she never did, for whatever reason.  She also goes to Morocco every year.

Moroccan black soap is this gooey stuff that is fabulous for your skin.  In researching it, I found that it is the primary step of the traditional Moroccan spa experience.... Hammam.

It seems odd that Julie and her daughter had never heard of it, but that I had.  Especially because Julie has had personal experience with hammam.

Maybe they don't call it black soap over there?  Dunno...

Anyway, the daughter followed through, and brought me a fairly large container of the stuff.  I received it  yesterday, and did my first home hammam!!

I made a big cup of mint tea, filled the bath tub, and took a hot bath in plain water to open my pores.

Letting the water out of the tub, I stood up, and then spread this goop all over myself.  It turns into a creamy foam, but not a big, lush lather.

I stood in the bathtub, with this stuff all over me, and sipped my tea for about 10 minutes.  Then, turned on a cool shower, and got out the special rough mitt that came with the soap.

As I rinsed, I scrubbed every inch i could reach with this rough mitt.  It was very invigorating, and my skin was BRIGHT RED.

After getting all rinsed off, I got out of the shower, dried off, and was amazed at how smooth my skin felt.  Those bumps on my elbows and the backs of my upper arms are GONE, and my skin also absorbed the moisturizer instantly, because all of the dead surface skin cells were now gone.

I usually have to wait for the lotion to soak in.

Today, I took a quick shower this morning, and my skin still feels great, and has this soft glow to it.

I am so stoked about my home spa experience!!  Thank you, Julie's daughter!!!  At long last, I got to try something wonderful that I've been wondering about for years!

the Light

so....we have come through the tunnel, and that light that was at the end is around us now.

FINALLY!!

After weeks of stress and inconvenience and unpleasantness...it's all behind us now.

Dave's dad is home and doing well after a week in the hospital, where the staff ruptured his esophagus by accident.

Dave got the promotion he was gunning for, though the raise was only half of what was discussed initially. But whatever.  The ceiling is higher now, so it's all good.  His favorite part is that he gets to move back into the downtown building, which is where he was for the past 5 years or so.  It's closer to home, and much, much quieter.

AND...my personal ordeal of 1) finding out my job was being outsourced, to 2) getting a new job, 3) giving notice and working the notice while my former co workers called me a traitor and looked down their noses at me, 4)  having to drive an awful commute to a strange place, because the permanent location was virtually destroyed by floods in May,  5)  missing out on going to the dance studio for 3 weeks because of that commute, 6) having to learn a new job from the bottom up 7) feeling like an intruder and outsider at the new job because no one would talk to me, 8) complete lack of ergonomics in the temporary office causing physical discomfort on a daily basis, 9) having to actually move the new job's office back to it's permanent location (really didn't think I'd have to crawl under my work station and disconnect my computer components in a dress, because that's what the IT department is for......but I did!)....  is now all over.

The weird way people were acting vanished on moving day.  There was a sense of team, and people chatted with me about my life a little...wanting to get acquainted.  It was nice!

And, on actual moving day, we got to wear jeans and sneakers....and I didn't have to do THAT much heavy labor.  They had actual movers who did the heavy work.  We only had to lift CPUs, monitors, and crates full of stuff.

No really! ( again, I thought that was what movers were for.)

Anyway, we are moved in, and now there are only two more weeks of sitting at temporary work stations before our new desks are installed.
That means we still have to sit at folding tables, so that means that there will be continued arm and shoulder pain, BUT at least now I have an unbroken chair, and an actual foot rest (instead of a cardboard box). I also don't have to sit where two tables meet anymore, so there is some improvement.

And the commute?  It took me 6 minutes to get to work Friday morning...and I came home for lunch and took a nap!

My first paycheck was only for 3 days, and was supposed to be direct deposited on the 15th.  Unfortunately, it was not, and the situation turned into an ultra cluster fuck, resulting in me being paid in cash at close of business on the day after pay day....but at least I didn't have to come home empty handed with bills due and groceries to be bought.

I thought I was leaving behind unprofessional management.....but that now remains to be seen.  I do have high hopes, though!!

I will have to pay the cash back when they actually give me my paper pay check.  And I have been assured that the direct deposit is set up and WILL WORK for next pay day, which is not until the end of the month.

I have been feeling totally exhausted and like I am getting sick (thus the nap at lunchtime yesterday).  It comes and goes, every few days I hit a wall.  Low grade fever comes and goes. 

I think it's just my usual incapability of dealing with stress.  My body has had all it can take.

At least I have some xanax to take the edge off and help me sleep, but I am being EXTREMELY careful with that stuff.

Dave is out getting the groceries right now so that I could rest a bit.

It takes me a while to recover from relentless stress, but I am hoping that now I will be able to start that process in earnest.

The night mares and night sweats have already stopped, and the panic attacks have been really mild.  

Oh, and I almost forgot....at work, I can let my tattoos show, and I can wear any color nail polish I want!  How refreshing to be accepted for who I am by my new employer!  My boss even has a tattoo!

So there is hope!

Cool

More rain has brought another bout of cooler temperatures to central Oklahoma.  It was GORGEOUS yesterday!! 

So we got the next load of bricks for the flower bed, and will install those today.

I felt like I was getting sick yesterday.  I felt like that last Tuesday, too, with a migraine along with it.  I think I am just over tired and over stressed, and it will all get better when we get the office moved, and I can settle into a new routine.

There was a fever yesterday, though, so I took it easy and rested.  Today, it's just a cold sore in my nose, really annoying congestion, and a banging head.  Comparatively speaking?  It's an improvement!

Thank the gods for ibuprofen.

When we got home from doing errands on Friday evening, there was a black widow spider ensconced in her web on the front stoop.  This did not please me.

It's one thing to find one hiding behind something in the shed....that's expected.  But by the entrance to the house?  Not. Good.

She was dispatched in multiple ways, and the web swept away...and I sure as hell hope there are no more like her.

The cooler summer and end of drought has made for some very happy insects, arachnids, and birds.  There is plenty to eat, so all of them are out there in abundance.

We can't sit on our porch for a minute without being swarmed by mosquitoes, and every day when we go out to work, there are new and multiple garden spider webs every-freakin-where!

The neighbor with the barking dog has finally gotten her 8 foot high privacy fence put up in the back, so that the pit bull mix behind us can't get into her yard anymore.

This has resulted in us having a nice privacy fence in part of the back yard, too!  Dave is going to take out the beaten up old chain link along that area, and even though we see the "ugly" side of her fence, it's still a great improvement.

We are considering taking out a home equity line of credit in order to get the stuff done on the property that we had previously considered just doing here and there with tax refunds.  If we wait for tax refunds, it will take years to get everything done.

If we do the line of credit, we can get it started and finished, and pay over time....paying a big chunk when the refunds come.

Plus, the rates are pretty good.  Plus, we aren't getting any younger, and we want to enjoy our home to the utmost NOW!

We need to replace most of the driveway, and the front steps, and we want to pour a concrete pad in back that will have a deck put on it, and will leave one corner un-decked for a little hot tub for two.

The garage that was built with the house and later converted into a shed needs to be overhauled.  We can probably leave the structure and just replace the chip board bits that someone thought it was a good idea to add.

Chip board does not last long outside.  It was a stupid move on someone's part to replace the garage door with a chip board wall with a door in it.  The chip board is rotting and ugly.

They also built a side shed onto the garage and made it entirely out of chip board.  So, we can probably avoid the original idea of demo and replace by simply replacing the chip board parts.

That will achieve the same end without costing another $5K.

Our lawn mower is still in the shop, and we've had to pay a service to come out to mow.  They managed to cut down my rose bush and three of our bamboo plants.  Bastards. 

Dave is going to call them tomorrow and see why they did that when he expressly told them NOT to cut down the bamboo! 

It's going to be our privacy barrier between us and the pit bull's house...eventually.  If we can get it to come back.

I'm hoping that when he calls and complains about this, they won't charge us for one of their visits.

It's the least they could do.  Replacing those plants will cost us money.

 Well, off to enjoy our Sunday as much as we can!  You have a good one, too!

Good news/bad news

The projected date that we will be moving into the real office is Thursday, August 15th.

That's the good news.

The bad news is we won't have office furniture for several weeks.  So....the continued complete lack of ergonomics will.... continue, even once we move back in.

Fortunately, though, at least I can hope that I won't be sitting at the place where two tables meet.

First week at the new job

Well, am I ever glad THAT's over!!
 Yes, this post is going to be a RANT.  This past week pretty much SUCKED, and I need to get it OUT.

Don't read any further if you're trying to avoid rants today!


Maybe it's my age?  But jeezuz.  The level to which my training is being micro managed is awe inspiring.

Such as..."you really need to put your initials over here, not over there...it's okay that they're here on this one, but they go there."  (I put them exactly where they were on the example I was looking at, so... ???)

And at one point, the trainer told me to go make copies of some checks.

So I did.

Then,when I  handed the copies to her, she told me I should not make individual copies, but to put several checks on a sheet.

SO I had to do it again.

Um...It MIGHT have been helpful if she had included that bit of instruction in  "Go make copies of these before we do the next step."

I mean, gentle reader....What would YOU do if you were handed a stack of checks and told to make copies of them?

Groan.

The space we are in is bizarre.  It's in this building that is aptly called the bunker, with dimly lit passage ways and unfinished concrete walls and galvanized steel "decorations."  I guess it's trendy, moderinist design.

Anyway, the room we're in is a vast open space filled with rows of folding tables covered with computers.  There are no windows that can be seen out of.

I was assigned to a lovely spot that is where two tables meet, so there is no where to put my feet, and the tables are not exactly the same height, so because my keyboard breaches the gap, it moves with every keystroke.

There are 4 of us in a row right there, then several un-filled stations, then there are two people.  Then in the rest of our row is empty.  There is one person on the other side of our whole row.

The next row back there are 4 in what passes as a cubicle of sorts.  Over there in the corner there are 4 who face INTO the corner.  And then, BEHIND that sort of cubicle?  There are 4 more...tucked back out of sight in a space that is dark, and crowded, and crammed full of stuff.

It's completely illogical how they have us scattered in this ENORMOUS space.

And the space itself is crammed full of stacks of computers and monitors.  It seems that we are in a huge storage room.  And the smell?  The smell of plastic, and electronics is overwhelming.

You know how a new computer or tv or any other device has that "smell" when you first take it out of the box?  Imagine breathing that in, multiplied by thousands, ALL DAY.

So, the big tables are what we have, and there are NO ergonomic adjustments that can be made, so every day, my hands go numb, and my neck and head are not just thobbing with pain, but BANGING by afternoon.

It's truly lovely.

And the commute is KILLING ME. I really, genuinely hate it.  The traffic at 5 pm is worse than any I ever had to deal with in the Chicago suburbs.

I got home at almost 6 one night.  SO, I have temporarily stepped down from my activities at the dance studio.  I can't get there to work by 6 on Mondays, so someone else is filling in for me for a while.

And class?  I don't know.  I skipped this past week, because that was the night I got home at almost 6, and class is at 6:30, and there was no time to eat, change, and drive up there.

We'll see what happens this week.

The people at the new job are largely cold and impersonal.  My boss is nice, and one of the other ladies actually spoke to me...but that's about it.  Even my trainer, who has been kind and patient (if a little...odd....in her training technique), has no sense of humor, and no personable traits.

I am hoping that this kind of atmosphere will change when we move back into the permanent office, which I overheard from the VP should happen during the week of the 12th, with the goal of opening for business on the 19th AT the home office.

I am hoping that EVERYTHING about this experience will improve 100% when we get moved to where were SHOULD be.

Please, gentle reader, my prayers in this regard went completely unheeded.... (I had prayed fervently, in many different ways, that the home office would be re-opened before I had to start work).  ... a little back up from you would be great!