Ready for it to be over

Before I was a little bit nervous with the co-worker leaving, but now I'm ready for them to be gone. I'm not trying to sound mean, but it gets a bit frustrating when each of us spend at least two to three hours each day learning from this person, as she teaches us about stuff like where old archives are.

I realize that everyone's time is always stretched, especially where I work, but we couldn't have gone over this sort of thing like around the time all of us started? Maybe I'm being ridiculous, but it's frustrating. But she's just that way: you have to ask all the questions, even if you don't know what questions to ask.

Besides that, I had to go home early today because I've got a nasty cold. The plague is spreading everywhere, and the fact that I've been more stressed out than usual probably didn't help my immune system. I must say that I'm getting less stressed as I become more comfortable with the information for the long-term financial planning, and I'm becoming more confident that I'm not going to completely mess up the five-year plan (don't kid yourself - I was finding myself getting a slight headache each time someone mentioned the five-year financial direction before). Confidence (melded with lots of research and time) worked wonders to stop those headaches.

Eek in a week

One of my coworkers is leaving. She's the one that was my boss when I was an intern. She is the holder of much knowledge, and she is leaving right before we have to start creating the Council Adopted budget book...with a new system...

It will be a very good move for her because all of us could tell she wasn't happy where she was. And all that negativity was getting quite old - it made it difficult to work with her at times. But it will be interesting to see how we do over the next couple of months.

Apparently we're going to try to fill the position sometime in December (if we can find anyone!). So don't mind me if I get a little more crazy than usual around the holidays...

Migraines: Help Wanted

As many of you know, I get migraines. I have been keeping a journal of all of my migraines since the end of June this year in order to figure out some common links or triggers so that I can figure out how to treat them. I have already talked to my doctor this year about the migraines and he prescribed Midrin, which made me even more nauseous than the migraines do. I've found that my body cannot handle much caffeine, which has caused me to stop trying Excedrin.

Overall I have found that the drugs that I have tried don't really work because the migraine will usually come on in the afternoon one day and carry on until the afternoon or evening of the following day. I get so nauseous that I can't do much of anything besides lay in a darken room and wait for it to pass. I'm lucky in that I don't have any changes to my vision and sounds don't really bother me, but any kind of light is blinding and I tend to have a heightened sense of smell.

I've been researching more on the Internet about the condition itself and I've found that nobody really knows too terribly much at this point. I found out that I shouldn't be a woman because there is a higher percentage of adult women that get migraines and it's linked with periods. Awesome.

I'm wondering if any of you have had migraines and have found that certain treatments work for you, and I'm hoping that you will share. Do any of you know of good resources that I should look into for more information? Thanks in advance!

I started biking to work again last week without any pain in my IT band. I'm glad I took a break from biking and basically everything else so that it could heal. I figure that it took about a month. I missed out on a long of great biking, but I'm working on making up for that now.

I got the first stocking done, but I need to fix the foot and toe. I expected to make some mistakes since I'm making up the pattern as I go, so this next stocking will go much smoother. I still can't believe how big these are. You wanted big stockings, right Mom?

I got through all of season 4 of Grey's Anatomy, so now I have to go back to watching just movies. Darn. Chris set up a TiVo for us, and it will take me a bit to get used to having it. We don't tend to watch regular TV, so it's weird to actually watch shows on TV rather than on the Internet. It is a good addition.

I've been researching more ways of reducing the amount of waste we produce. I've been looking into starting a compost bin right outside our door. I've asked my dad if he has any spare metal garbage cans, like the one that the bear got to (that way I don't have to drill as many holes - Mom, can you make sure that Dad reads his email? hee hee).

Back to cleaning...

Evenings of knitting

Shocker: I'm knitting a lot lately (more than usual). As I mentioned before, I'm working on Christmas stockings for my family and last week I started my first one. Of course it's taking more time than originally anticipated which is mainly due to all of the color changes and the fact that I'm making these fairly large. I sized everything out before I even cast on, but I'm still kind of surprised at how big it looks now.

The first stocking I'm working on is turning out great! Even though I was really excited about how the stockings looked on paper, they are turning out even better than what I planned. It's going to take many, many hours to finish these so it's actually not such a bad thing that my IT band has been bugging me (it's getting better, mainly because I've been resting it a lot).

I've also been watching Grey's Anatomy Season Four from Netflix which has made the time just fly by while knitting. I have been measuring the progress in my knitting by the length of one show. Ridiculous, but fun.

Haven't been busy doing much...

...besides getting migraines and complaining about my IT band.

The fun thing has been planning out Christmas stocking for my family. I got all the yarn and planned out all of the patterns (I did all the charts in Excel) and I'm really hoping that I'll be able to complete them before Christmas for obvious reasons. Yes, it's an ambitious goal, and I'm going to try my best to complete them.

Right now, I'm working to finish a pair of socks that I started knitting for Chris this summer. I got a third into the second sock and put them aside since it was still warm out. But then Chris asked me a week ago where those socks were...hee hee. So that's first priority, then starting the stockings.

Fall is finally here!!!!

Have I mentioned how much I love fall? The cool weather, the colors of the trees, the cool weather, being able to comfortably wear sweaters again because of the cool weather. It's a beautiful time of the year!

I started riding my bike to work again and now I'm able to ride on a parkway almost the entire way in instead of wondering if I'm going to make it to the Stone Arch Bridge. The price of the parkway is that half of it is in kind of rough shape and it runs along the river meaning that it's got quite big hills. I've been able to conquer all of the hills without stopping or walking my bike, so I'm quite happy with myself.

The only problem with me at this point is my IT band. A couple of weeks ago, before the weather became as perfect as it is now, I decided that after not doing much activity for the past couple of months, I would try running...outside. I figured that it had to go better than before since the main reason I thought it didn't work in the past was because I was under the false belief that I had asthma, which I don't have.

Anyway, I tried running outside...for two days straight. Nothing like easing myself into it! After doing that, my right knee started to hurt. I asked Kimmi about it and she said that it was likely my Iliotibial Band since the pain presents itself in the knee, but is actually more likely a problem with the whole band that runs up the thigh to the hip. She suggested I do certain stretches and use a foam roller to loosen it. That has been helping (and hurts a lot when I find the tightness in my hip) and I've been icing it over the past couple of days and wearing a compression sock which all helps, but it's still bothering me.

Other than that, I've been addicted to Sex in the City. I'm watching the last season part II and I find myself getting emotional at times. Dammit - why do I get so emotionally involved with fictional characters??? Oh, and I really want a dog. Not going to happen for a while, but I want a dog. And my eyes are doing great. Still find myself reaching for my glasses at times.