Suz’s Ramblings…

I have a wonderful job.  It pays the bills, has a pretty impressive benefit package, and in this time of economic turmoil, it’s secure.  (Something about how people don’t want to give up running water or the ability to flush even when they’re broke) And yet, I still feel the need to complain!

I think that my boredom stems from the repetitive nature of my job.  I know it’s not like I do the same test every day, but it’s the same group of tests on pretty much the same samples every day.  Which makes for predictability.   Granted, there’s something to be said for boring and predictable, but it’s starting to grate on my nerves.  A lot.

All of this means that I need to find something to do with my spare time that is fulfilling, and preferably rewarding.  Currently I’m thinking that I’ll open an Etsy shop and put some of my handmade wares in it.   I’ve got a few things to put up for sale, I just need to make myself list them.  I’m hoping to be posting a link in the next few days to my shop.  Let’s see how long a few days is!

If this doesn’t work, I’m not sure what I’ll do next.  Anyone have any ideas?

For some unexplainable reason, I’ve been craving the burritos from Allsup’s lately.  No worries, there’s no chance I could be pregnant.  Anyway, a good friend of mine and his finacee went to Albuquerque to pick her daughter up from her sister’s house.  So, I did what anyone in my desperate situation would do.  I begged for the Allsup’s hook up.  And I got my wish fulfilled.  There are beef & green as well as either beef & bean or bean & cheese (which ever of the two they weren’t out of) in my freezer.  Yay!

I just got done scarfing my first beef & green in a long long time.  The good news is that at least it was as good as I remember.  And yeah, I know that’s probably not saying much, but I’m doing better than my friend’s fiancee who found that the beef & red weren’t as good as she remembered.

There’s somewhere around two dozen burritos in my freezer, and my hubby had fun with me by skipping the whole  labelling which bag contains which burrito, so it will be a surprise every time until I reach the end.

Life is good.  Now if I can only get some “real” New Mexican food, I will be a happy, happy girl!

It appears that I’ve yet to learn that the definition of insanity really is  trying the same thing over and over again in an attempt to elicit a different outcome.  The evidence can be found by scrolling down until “Nike+” appears in the left column.

You can follow along to see how my masochistic streak is progressing by waiting for the Nike Mini to fully load.  The stat box below her tracks my distance from the beginning.  Where the beginning is back in Feb 2007 when the house was being built and we’d started walking.  Only 11.7 miles of the 136.85 mile total as of this writing weren’t from 2007.  Of those 11.7 miles, 6.18 are since the beginning of 2009.  Of the 6.18 miles of 2009, 4.54 miles are from this month. Which means that it only took 125.15 miles for me to lose and gain back 20ish pounds.  Well, actually, it took many more miles than that.  We’d been walking for at least a month prior to dropping the $$$ for two Nike + kits.

I wonder how many miles I’ll be good for this time?

Oh, and for the record, the husband just broke 100 miles on tonite’s walk.  Even he’s not as masochistic as I am.

After everyone of my coworkers having eyes the size of saucers after hearing me describe my trip down the stairs on Sunday and all of them (including the male ones) looking at me like I was out of my effing mind when I said that I didn’t go to the doctor, combined with the pain that wasn’t getting better, I caved and went to the doctor tonite.

And I got a shot of an anti inflammatory drug, a prescription for another anti inflammatory drug, a muscle relaxant, and a pain killer.

So, as long as I don’t move my right arm too much and don’t put weight on it when shifting in the car, it’s tolerable.

Let’s see if I make it the whole day at work tomorrow…I didn’t make it the whole day today, but that was still an upgrade from yesterday when I didn’t make it at all.

Slipping and falling down a half dozen steps when you are 31 sucks WAY more than slipping and falling down a dozenish steps when you are five.

I’m off to lay down in hopes of getting my neck to chill out again.

So about  a month ago now I discovered that which is Ravelry.

Which resulted in me discovering a yarn shop near home.

Which has resulted in me taking lessons to learn how to knit.

Meaning that my hobby has become an obsession.

Posting will remain light t0 non existant until my obsession returns to hobby.

(Yeah right)

Now back to ignoring my blog.

I had another surgery followup appointment today, and learned why I’ve still been unable to breathe through my nose.  The scabs in my nostrils were that large.  Cue the EEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111eleventy-one! And OMFG did it hurt to have them (and the stitches that were embedded in them) yanked out.  By the time the doc realized that some lidocaine or something was in order, it was a bit on the late side - my eyes were already watering.  Apparently, it’s atypical for the scabs to cement themselves in like mine did.  The new scabs (surprise!  there was bleeding!) aren’t supposed to end up as ginormous as these were, but I’m not buying into that one.

And the gauze type stuff that came out a couple of days ago when I blew my nose?  Yeah, that wasn’t supposed to happen either.  The stuff was supposed aid in healing and dissolve over time, not be blown out in one bloody, mucousy mess.

Here’s to hoping that now that I can breathe through my nose that I’ll be able to sleep for more than 5 hours.

You’re welcome for the mental images that I’ve provided, and no, I’m not giving out mind bleach to help with that.

Yesterday was the day I finally got relief from my sinus issues!

While my nose is still hella sore and oozing snot tinged with blood, I can still tell a HUGE difference.

While I was unconscious, the inside of my septum was straightened - the deviation was never visable externally, a polyp was removed, my turbinates were resized, and as best as I could tell from the rest of the surgical orders, any sinus openings that were restricted had the restrictions removed, and any excess thickening of the lining of my sinus cavities was also eliminated.

Due to the oozing of snot (which is expected to continue for another day or two) I can’t really breathe out of my nose.  I have gauze squares held in place under my nose with part of a surgical mask.  Usually tape is used to hold the gauze in place, however I’ve got a *lovely* adhesive allergy, so I switched to the modified surgical mask that I was hooked up with when I was sent home.  The first time I was “with it” when I changed the dressing (about hourly), I had to see if I could tell a difference when I inhale.  The difference was so drastic that I can’t resist checking it out every time I change the dressing.

Also another plus is that the “brain fuzz” that has been such a constant companion for months now seems to have subsided.  I’m only sleeping in one to two hour stretches due to the mouth breathing drying my throat, but I feel like I’m sleeping well, as opposed to the craptastic sleep that’s been the story of my life for so long now.  Oh, and no more river of drainage!  There’s a little bit of drainage right now, but I suspect that has more to do with the healing process after the surgery than anything else, as there’s not much of it.  I was going to give a more detailed description prior to realizing that would be TMI on the eww, gross front.

I have a splint in each nostril to support everything for the initial stages of healing.  The splints will come out at my post op appointment on Friday.  I’m hoping that once the splints are out and I’m breathing through my nose that the feeling of fluid in my left ear will go away again.  I’m concerned about it only because I can’t get my ear to “pop” when I yawn, something I could do earlier in the day after the surgery.

As for the pain, it sucks when I go too long without taking anything.  Fortunately, it’s more of a dull throbbing pain than a sharp stabby type pain, and the pain seems limited to my nose and the sinus cavities to the sides of my nose.  The good news is that I can take Tylenol and get a couple of hours of relief.  The bad news is that the pain comes back before the 4 hour minimum between doses.  So, I’ll take a Demerol which usually lasts about three hours, and three hours gets me well past the minimum wait for Tylenol.

There is a chance that this surgery could become “Phase 1.”  Phase 2 will not have anything to do with my sinuses though.  Phase 2 will be the removal of my tonsils, adenoids, and possibly excess throat tissue.  See, I have fairly mild sleep apnea and cryptic tonsils.  Due to it being physiologically impossible to breathe through one’s ears, my doctor doesn’t do both simultaneously.  The sinuses were picked to go first because of the problems that I’ve been having with them, as well as the possibility that the inflammation in my throat will subside now that the river of drainage is gone and I’ll be able to breathe through my nose while I’m sleeping.  Personally, I’m less worried about the sleep apnea than the cryptic tonsils.  They leave a funny taste in my mouth and also cause bad breath. Eww.  Also not helpful is that I trigger my gag reflex more often than not when trying to clean out the crypts lately.  Double eww.

Anyway,  this post is more than long enough, and I still need to write an update at some point re: the baby shower and the projects that I completed as a part of that.

I seem to recall having taken either this political quiz or one similar to it before and scoring less left and less libertarian:

My Political Views
I am a left social libertarian
Left: 5.99, Libertarian: 4.34

Political Spectrum Quiz

Even more interesting were my foreign policy and culture results (though I don’t recall those breakdowns having been offered previously.

My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -1.02

Political Spectrum Quiz

My Culture War Stance
Score: -3.99

Political Spectrum Quiz

Will has already shared his results.

Anyone else care to share theirs in the comments section?

Yesterday was the younger niece’s birthday party.  Surprisingly, it actually occurred to  us to put the camera battery on the charger the night before.

Plus, we’ve been acquiring larger compact flash cards when they’ve been on sale in anticipation of eventually upgrading, as well as insurance that we’d never run out of room on the memory card again like we did when we were in New Orleans for a week a few years back.  So, we’d been looking forward to “test driving” one of the new cards.

So, we arrive at the party, and pull out the camera.  The husband has issues getting the zoom to work.  He presses the button and nothing happens.  This was surprising to him, but not to me.  I’d had this happen at least once before, but I wrote it off as another “blonde from the roots in” moment.  Apparently it really was the camera and not me.

I’d also had the lovely experience of the camera having the green boxes for focusing the shot appear on the screen and my shots still came out blurry.  This I figured wasn’t my fault and shared that info with the hubby.  I’m not sure if he had that experience yesterday or not, but he had enough other experiences (the camera heating up, the picture still being blurry in action mode, etc) that we’re both convinced that it’s definately the camera.  We also struggled with pressing the button to take the picture and nothing happening.  Or the camera taking the picture 30+ seconds after pressing the button.

The last lovely feature might have been due to the speed of the compact flash card - it was taking close to a minute to save the picture to the card.  Which made it “fun” to try taking multiple shots in a row.  Given all of the lovely “features” that the camera has developed, I’m tempted to lump this one in with the rest.

Our current delimma is this.  The camera that we (I) really want is the Canon EOS 5D Mark II.  At approximately $3500 for the camera with a lens, it’s a bit out of our budget.  The biggest reason that I really want this camera is that it comes with a full frame sensor. Which dude.  I’d never need to get another camera again.  I’d get to start collecting lenses and other photography gear instead.  So yeah, major drooling going on over here.

The feature that’s next on my list is optical zoom.  Our current camera has an anemic 3x optical zoom.  Which isn’t very much, and has on more than one occasion been a serious disappointment.  Zoom really does make or break the shot.  Well, zoom and blur, but still.  I’ve had several occasions where I’ve been just short of pissed that I couldn’t zoom in any further.  Which is where the Canon PowerShot SX10 IS comes in at.  It’s got a 20x optical zoom, as well as optical image stablization.  However, its price tag is in the $330 range, which isn’t too far off of some of the low to mid range SLR cameras.

Anyone have any opinions or ideas they’d be willing to share?  Admittedly, I’m biased towards Canon cameras.  No real reason behind that bias on the non SLR models.  The bias towards Canon for the SLR models is due to them having the largest range of lenses available.  Granted, I have no idea how much use I will be making of that range of lenses at this point in time, but there’s something to be said for having that option available.  If you have a good reason(s) for me to consider another brand, I’m not opposed to getting something other than a Canon.

Oh, and ideally, I’d like to get the camera before the 19th of February, as the next event for which I need a camera is on the 21st.  I have no desire to repeat the annoyances of yesterday.