Footprints on the Moon

My poor baby. Monday, I thought things were going to be business as usual… I got up in the morning around the usual time, puttered around the apartment, and then went to get in the shower to start getting ready for work. While I was in the bathroom putzing around though, I noticed Pudge jumped in and out of the litterbox a couple of times. So instead of getting in the shower, I sat down and watched him for awhile. He was in and back out of the litterbox 7-8 times in less than 10 minutes, obviously trying to pee, but only succeeding in getting a few drops out each time. I don’t know a lot about kitty bladders, but I’ve read enough to know that male cats especially can get urinary blockages and they can be fatal. Suddenly, instead of getting ready for work, I was throwing a hat on my dirty hair and shoving my (snarling and ungrateful) cat into a carrier to go to the vet.

Side bar: It’s a good thing that I work for a 911 dispatch center… my coworkers are trained and skilled at deciphering people who are having emergencies. When my coworker picked up the phone and asked what I needed, I burst into tears. When I finally managed to tell her what was up, and she asked me if I needed to take half of the shift off or the whole thing, my answer was, “I dooon’t knoooooooow…. *sniffle*” Heh. Needless to say, I’m much better at handling someone ELSE’s crisis than my own.

Anyway, so off to the vet we went. The picture you see above is one I took while sitting in the waiting room, waiting for our turn to be seen. He was curled up in a tiny little ball and looked so pathetic. Just breaking his mama’s heart.

The vet did a scan looking for crystals in his bladder, and luckily that came back clear. While he was back there, Pudge expressed his displeasure in being manhandled by peeing all over, so thankfully not completely blocked either. Unfortunately, his urine was pretty much all blood. So he got an antibiotic shot, and we get to go back to the vet in two weeks to get another one. Poor guy, he just looks so miserable!

And on top of that, his sister is being a jerk… hissing and growling at him ever since we got home because he smells different from the vet and medicine. If she keeps it up, she may earn herself a trip to the vet in 2 weeks for moral support so that she smells all icky too! In the meantime, I’m looking forward to my days off this week so I can stay home and force my love on keep an eye on my boy.

I typed this out on my phone while laying in bed the other night… having thoughts on my mind, but not keeping a journal these days. I decided to go ahead and share with the class.

Today I find myself ruminating on being kind. I had a situation where I found myself being rather rude to someone, and felt like I earned the disapproval of someone I respect at the same time. Now, I did pretty immediately recognize that the situation should have been handled differently, so I guess I’ll allow myself some credit for not just blundering ahead and patting myself on the back in righteous indignation.

It bothers me that it happened in the first place though. I describe myself as a cynic, as I definitely seem to be one. Pessimistic by nature, sure, but being negative all the time is fairly emotionally draining. It’s been niggling at me all evening since I got home from work so I decided to google change. For whatever reason, the search term that popped into my head was “learn how to be kind.” I was thinking, I suppose, that I’d find articles that helped me learn how to treat people better. I was a little startled (humbled, sad) to discover that the majority of the results were articles on being kind to yourself.

But of course. How can you be a nice, pleasant, and kind person to someone else when you are not able to be kind to yourself? If all you ever say to yourself is negative, how you can you possibly project positive things to other people?

I am a pretty classic introvert, but I’m also pretty dang mean to myself. I internalize EVERYTHING. Surely, not every weekend I spend at home alone on my couch is because I’m a failure as a person, but that sure is what I tell myself a lot of the time. I stopped skating, writing, losing weight because I don’t feel WORTHY. I miss out on places, restaurants, movies, cities I want to experience because I am too scared and self-conscious to go alone. Or ask someone to go with. Like anyone would care if I ate a meal by myself, so why do I imagine judging eyes on me all the time? I’m fairly certain that the only one judging me is me.

How do you stop? How do you stop being your own worst enemy? Stop being TOXIC to yourself and allowing negativity to seep into every corner of your life? I don’t know. I don’t know, but I’d sure like to find out. Because at my core I am a little girl who does not feel worthy of love, yours or her own, and I so so so desperately want not to be.

Admitting there’s a problem is the first step, right?

Debt Chart

Overall, a very good month! You see a couple additions… one being Nelnet, which is in forbearance, so that’s interest charges. Capital One now has the balance of the MyPoints card which I transferred over both to put it at a lower interest rate and to consolidate my monthly payments a bit. Capital One also gained an annual payment that I forgot to prepare for.

As you can see, I did manage to pay off the ER bill last month. Writing a $1,110.00 check was slightly painful, but it’s nice to have that one gone! Only a year and a half after the ER visit… Now I’m focusing on the car loan. It doesn’t have the highest interest rate (the lowest, apart from the student loans) or the lowest balance (again, it’s towards the top of the list, apart from the student loan), so it’s not next on the list of what “should” be paid according to most personal finance theories. But that’s why they call it PERSONAL finance. It’s the bill that bugs me the most, as I’ve paid off this car once before, and I’d like to own it free and clear again sooner rather than later. It’s the one I’m definitely the most motivated to make payments on. I think I may be able to finish paying it off by April. We’ll see.

I’m also looking over the list and trying to decide which one should get my focus next… probably either the Capital One or the Surgery Center bill. The Surgery Center doesn’t have any interest, and the Capital One does. I also need to get the balance transfer paid down/off before the promotional rate expires so that one will probably be the next one on the list. I was threatening to pay off the Perkins student loan next, since my college transferred the payments to a new company that is really ticking me off, but given the low payment amount and low interest rate, it just doesn’t make sense to do it that way. I can’t promise I won’t bump them higher on the list anyway the next time they do something dumb, though!

This is the first time since I had the surgery and added all those medical bills that I really feel like I’m making progress and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m really excited!

Debt Chart

I mentioned in my “resolution” post yesterday that I intended to start making progress on my debts. I’ve been working on gathering up all of my new debt totals, making a plan of attack, and a 2013 budget for about a month now. I figured it was time to share it all with you! Since I haven’t updated my financial totals in the past year, I decided it would be easier to start completely over with the chart. I’ll try and get to the side bar charts soon.

The debts listed here include credit cards, what is left of surgery bills from August of 2011, as well as my student loans. The Nelnet student loan is in forbearance until October, so any changes to that one before then will likely just be added interest charges. My current focus is the ER bill, that one should be gone soon… I plan on putting the majority of my Christmas overtime for getting rid of that one. After that, I *should* just go down the list in the order they are in the chart, but the car loan bugs me the most since it keeps me from owning my car free and clear, so I might tackle that one next. I honestly haven’t decided yet.

I don’t really believe in resolutions… I think more often than not, making a resolution is just setting yourself up for failure. That being said, I do have goals that I am working on, and a new year, when everyone is making resolutions for improvement, does seem like a fitting time to post about them.

In no particular order, the things that have been on my mind and/or I have already been working towards are the following:

Get My Weight Back on Track

In 2010/2011, I lost quite a bit of weight. Then I hit a plauteau, got frustrated, and stop working any kind of plan. Slowly but surely, the weight started creeping back on. Compound that with several injuries, and a new job that has kept me from getting much exercise for the second half of last year and I’ve put at least half of the previously shed weight back on.

As some additional motivation to attempting to get back on track, I joined a DietBet game. I was able to buy in for $20, and at the end of the four weeks, anyone who has lost 4% of their starting weight (verified by pictures), gets to split the pot. Right now, the entire pot is nearly $8000. Hopefully it helps… it’s certainly making me think really hard about the ice cream that I’d really like to get when I get off work!

Pay Down Debt

Paying down debt has been a constant for me for several years. I’ve had several setbacks, such as last August’s gall bladder surgery, that have pushed me in the wrong direction. However, thanks to my new job, with a slightly higher salary, I’m finally set to really start pushing forward on this again rather than simply attempting (or failing) to stay above water. I worked some OT over the Christmas holiday (16 hours on Christmas Day), so when that paycheck arrives, it should go a long way towards paying off the next debt in line. My probationary status expires at the beginning of February, and with that will come a bump up to full salary. I’ve been at salary less 15% since I started. I’m looking forward to gaining some traction and getting on a better track, financially.

Make Difficult Roller Derby Decisions

I’m in a tricky spot with this one, where the decision I ought to make isn’t necessarily the one I want to make… Ever since being released from training, I’m on a shift that doesn’t play nice with roller derby practice. I’m not able to be there for at least half of the practices in a month. I can’t devote the time that I need to to play… I’ve been considering switching to Officiating roller derby instead of playing. It’s something that I also could not dedicated quite enough time to, but is a better fit for the time that I have available. It just feels like unfinished business. I wasn’t ready to stop playing. It just seems like it’s the only realistic option I have right now… I’ve just been, so far, unwilling to make it official.

Start Finishing Unfinished Crochet Projects

And on a lighter note… the last goal I’m going to work on will be finishing unfinished crochet projects! I’m working on finishing a couple of baby blankets for pregnant coworkers, but then I want to start clearing out some of the projects in my closet that have been loitering in various stages finishedness… I found photographic evidence in my Flickr account that one such blanket (whose previous intended owner is now 4?) was started in 2007. And an afghan I started for myself in 2008. Yikes. Will 2013 be the year that I finally start clearing out the backlog? (Probably not.)

Welcome to 2013, y’all. I hope the new year has been treating you well so far, and you have all made it home safely from whatever New Year’s festivities you found yourself at. My own new year has not gotten off the most auspicious start, but hopefully that does not signal anything as far as how the rest of my year is going to go.

I rang in 2013 at work with some coworkers after an 8 hour shift unexpectedly turned into a 16 hour one. A coworker ended up in the emergency room and was unable to make it in for the midnight shift, so I agreed to stay. I survived until 6:30am and drug my tired butt home and straight to bed. I only detoured long enough to ditch my bra and brush my teeth.

By 7:30am, my cats were attempting to kill each other in the living room. The knock-down drag out fight was not ending, and Lucy, as always, was screaming bloody murder so I had to get out of bed to break things up. And that’s where things went horribly wrong… Somehow when I scrambled out of bed, I went off the end of the bed instead of off the side and my right foot landed in a laundry hamper at the end of the bed. Unfortunately the hamper was neither empty nor full of soft clothing… the only occupant of this hamper was a hard plastic humidifier that has been waiting for me to set it up on my nightstand. I was half asleep, so I don’t really even understand what happened next, much less know how to explain it, but since the hamper was so tall, I was unable to pull my foot back out of it in enough time to keep it and me from hitting the floor.

I laid on the floor for a few seconds trying to sort out what had just happened and make sure I wasn’t broken and then got up to separate the cats. And then clean up the cat puke I narrowly avoided in the hallway because OF COURSE Lucy gorged herself when I got home from work and fed them, and then promptly barfed it back up in the hallway. That was about when I discovered that the humidifier had won a battle against my big toe, and I was leaving blood spots on the carpet in my hallway. And did I mention that this was happening in the approximately 6.5 hours that I had to sleep before I needed to get up and get ready to go back to work?

My toe is throbbing where the chunk of flesh is missing, I have carpet burn on my knee, and I’m pretty tired. Happy New Year!

Two cats for sale. Cheap.

On Friday, December 14, 2012, tragedy occurred in Newton, Connecticut. 26 lives were taken. 6 adults and 20 tiny angels were lost. I don’t want to talk about the killer. I don’t want to talk about mental health. I don’t want to talk about gun control. I just want to talk about heart break.

I don’t have many words… does anyone? All I could manage to post on my Facebook on Friday afternoon was a single status: “The world is a scary place. I don’t have any babies, so please hold yours extra tight for me, okay?” I think the majority of our nation was feeling the same thing I was… a desperate desire to hold our children close and offer whatever protection we could. To hold them tight and make sure they know how much they are loved and cared for.

My heart breaks continuously. I cry when the reality of the situation hits me. I cry when I read the names of those who were killed. I cried when I watched the video that I linked above. I cry when I think about my own almost-six-year-old nephew and thought about him not coming home from school. There’s time enough for politics later. For now, let’s just love Newton. Let’s respect the adults that lost their lives doing their jobs, and those babies who don’t get to go home to their mommies and daddies. Oh, those precious babies.

My heart breaks all over again, and I cry.

(Source)

On the theme of change: My brand new haircut, before and after.

Several weeks ago, I got a text from my mother that said, basically, “So did your blog just up and die?”

Oops.

My response was, “Well, kind of.” Not intentionally… but things happen. Life has a tendency of getting in its own way. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times– I didn’t really feel like I had much to talk about. There was roller derby, and work which was making me miserable. I felt like anything I had to say would be the same thing over and over again. So I’d open the blog, stare at the blinking cursor for awhile, and then close it again. I did attempt to type out an update the day that Mom asked me about my blog, but I was on my phone and the WordPress app barfed and ate everything I’d so painstakingly pecked out, and I just couldn’t be bothered to do it again.

So here’s the deal… life was miserable there for awhile. I didn’t want to talk about it because there were some vindictive people in my life who had previously taken something I’d written and attempted to forward it to my supervisor. I didn’t want to risk that happening again because people are petty and childish. Now, however, I will freely tell you that my boss was the stupidest person I have ever met in my whole life, and I say that completely straight faced without a hint of exaggeration. I completely dreaded going to work every day to have to deal with her. Luckily, in June I recevied a phone call asking if I was still interested in a job that I had applied for several months earlier.

Of course, the answer was YES! I interviewed, and then waited three LONG painful weeks to hear back. I got the job! Immediately I turned in my two week’s notice, and worked my final day with the security company on July 31st. I am now in the midst of training as an emergency dispatcher, and so far I am loving it! Partially just because I am off the sinking ship that was that security account, and partially because I think I will really enjoy this job. I have a LOT to learn, and I’m working on it… my trainer says I’m doing really well at learning everything quickly, and she thinks I will have NO problems completing my training and doing this on my own. Honestly, the significant pay raise and benefits is just icing on the cake!

I turned 29 today, and I couldn’t be more optimistic about the way things are going. Change is good. Life is good.

Look! I got a new helmet this week! It’s very “head squeezy” which pretty much means that it fits nicely and my old one was probably slightly too big the whole time haha Or at least the padding was pretty broken down after 2 years. I looove the color of the new one, and the sweat liner padding it has in it is pretty nice too.

I had a pretty great weekend! Friday night I spent relaxing on the couch, playing with barcode scanners on my phone, cuddling with the kitties and catching up on the DVR. I also made some last minute plans to head for Indianapolis to see the Naptown Rollergirls take on the Minnesota Rollergirls on Saturday. That was a great day, making the trip with a couple of my teammates, and watching an incredibly close bout. There were NINE lead changes! Crazy!

Today was practice… I always love Sunday morning practices, and this one was plenty intense. Lots of crazy stuff that pushed me out of my comfort zone, which resulted in lots of hitting the floor. Much more than “normal,” so I’m sure I will feel that tomorrow! We followed that up with lunch with a large group, and then I got my arm twisted to go see The Avengers with them. I’m glad I did! The superhero/action movie genre is usually not my thing, but I REALLY enjoyed the movie. Now I’m typing this up while I watch the Amazing Race finale, and then it’s off to bed as soon as it’s over so that I can get some sleep before starting another work week.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend as well!

Photo by James Korn

When last we talked about that roller derby thing, I was expressing some dissatisfaction about how my journey was going. I received a lot of great support after sharing that particular blog post. There are only two comments on it, but I also received several in private. The most common theme was, “this is completely normal” and “you’re not alone.” Since “roller derby disillusionment” is one of the top search terms that now sends people to this blog, I’d say “you are not alone” is definitely an accurate assessment of the situation.

The thing is, roller derby tends to be something that you pour your whole self into. When you first start playing, it’s this new shiny thing that you hold up on a pedestal. Everything about it is so exciting and amazing… you’re learning so much about your abilities and discovering that you are capable of so much more than you ever dreamed! And then, things start to crack around the edges. Maybe it’s the first time that a brand new skater comes in that was practically born on skates and whizzes past you while performing a skill that you’ve worked on for months, but still don’t quite have down. Maybe it’s the first time someone gets the spot on the roster you thought you should have had. Maybe it’s the first time you get wind of some interpersonal drama that you were previously oblivious to. Whatever it is, the crack appears, and it spreads into your line of vision. Eventually, it becomes all you can see if you let it. You start to wonder why you bother, and if the trouble is worth everything that you put into it.

For me, I was frustrated, but I knew I wasn’t ready to give it up. I haven’t gotten everything I want out of roller derby yet. As in life, you can only change that which is in your control. But really, just deciding that I wasn’t going anywhere made the biggest difference. It meant returning to working hard instead of just kind of going through the motions because I didn’t know why I should bother anymore. I contacted the coach that I’d spent the most time working with and asked for feedback on how I was playing and what I could work on. He spent a day or so thinking about it, and sent me back a response. Nothing on it surprised me, and adding it to a few things I had on my own, I had a list of things to focus on. I wrote it on a post-it note, and left it by my computer where I would see it often.

After that, I set up a meeting with the team coach and captain that were setting the rosters to find out why they were choosing not to roster me. I can’t say that it was my most favorite meeting ever, and I can’t say that I agreed with all of their reasoning or everything they had to say. But at the same time, I couldn’t necessarily disagree with it either. As they say, perception is reality, so whether I agreed or not, at least I had something fairly concrete to work on. I’ve put my head down and kept working, and gradually things have improved. They certainly aren’t perfect… one of my closest friends on the league is in the same spot now that I was in when I accused roller derby of being a bad boyfriend in January, and that breaks my heart just as much as when I was there.

After all these conversations, and shift in my focus, I did finally make a roster. Yay! In April, we had a rematch with Lafayette, and we won! I got to play in 8 whole jams. It felt really good… and I didn’t go out there and suck it up either, haha! There were some really great moments like where I swept sideways on turn 4, and removed two blockers that had been pestering my jammer. Or pushed their jammer out of bounds behind the pack on turn 1. I got a lot of great feedback from the coaches and my team that night… though I didn’t know whether to be grateful they noticed, or a little offended that they seemed so surprised. We have two bouts remaining in our first season, and I’m happy to report that I’ve been rostered for both of them!

The roster is great, but honestly the main difference between now and January is that I know what I want, I have goals for the off-season and next season, and I decided that I’m not going to let any frustrations prevent me from going after what I want.