Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Tea and Always Looking for a Way Out

Of my job that is.

Don't get me wrong.  I really enjoy what I do.  When I'm editing video like the main aspect of my job description says.  It's the drama of being a departmental manager that makes me want to leave the business altogether.

And this year, for some reason, has been worse then in the past.  About every year in the fall I start debating what else I could do.  I've looked into going back to school for teaching.  But I really think that at my age, I'm a bit disadvantaged in this market.

Then I thought, I'll teach fitness classes.  But really, how many turbo kicks can a person really teach in a day without crashing?  So realistically, I don't think I can make a living off one class.

Unless that class is Pilates?  I would love to be certified.  I looked at the closest place.  I looked at the price, the hours, and then remembered; I have a three year old, a husband, and a job.  I can't be driving the 4 hours needed to get that training in.

And my dream felt crushed.  Then out of the blue, my Pilates instructor tells me that they might be setting up a course here in town.  They will have the certification people COME HERE!!  The cost would be less, because of a buying equipment discount (something of that sort for the gym)

And my hopes jumped through the roof, and my brain already fast forwarded to me quitting my job in such a way that I no longer deal with the drama, but can work part time editing.

Of course, not sure my boss would ever go for that.  But I can edit on my home computer now.  Professionally, not the freebie stuff that comes on a windows.

So, I could still edit video to my hearts content (provided I can think of what I want to edit) and teach pilates, and quite likely make a living.

Then perhaps I could take up teaching PiYo, or hooping, or.....

See.  That is my brain looking for a way out.

Since the possibility of the training won't even start until next year sometime. I have a few months to determine if I really want to do this, or if it's a flight of fancy.

But considering how many times I've circled around to the fitness business, I have a feeling I will go through the training.

Which is so confusing for me, considering that I left work today thinking "I love my job"

like I said, some aspects are wonderful and beautiful.  And others I could do without.

And writing this down here, really hasn't helped me gain perspective of what I want.  I really feel like I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Tea and LAZIK

Ah, to be able to see without glasses.  If you wear glasses, you know the feeling.  If you don't, then you will never quite know.  It can be explained, but never truly experienced.

In fact, when I informed a co-worker that I was getting LAZIK they responded with the usual questions: cost?  (oh, about $4000) Risk? (oh, well, I suppose the worst that could happen is you could go blind...)  "Oh, well why would you want to take that chance, it's your eyes"

Yes, well, the thought of waking up at 3am, rolling over, and being able to see the clock to know that it is 3am is enough to take a chance on a proven surgery method, that everyone I know that has had it, has had mostly success.  Only one person didn't, and they didn't go blind.  They just had one eye they had to go in a second time for it to "take" as they put it.

So, I made the appointment, and only got nervous they day I had to go into my eye doctors office and have my eyes dilated. I think it was due to the "this is it" mentality.  Since I had to pay them a good chunk of change on that day for the year of follow up appointments I would be having.

A little over a week later I was in the car, on a four hour drive to "get new eyes" as my husband put it.

Not nervous.  No butterflies in my stomach.  Just a bit of anticipation, an eagerness to open my eyes in the morning and see.  To be able to go to bed at night without digging contacts out of my eyes.  Or stumbling in the middle of the night to my daughters room, nearly running into the wall because, not only am I not awake, but I didn't put my glasses on.  And heaven forbid I have to change a diaper, or find a lost sock.  These are things one shouldn't do with fuzzy vision.

So, we find the offices, an hour early, The Dishler Laser Institute.   But that was planned.  They want you to eat before going into surgery.  After we made sure we knew where the place was, we went to lunch.  We drove around until we found a place to eat. It was a Deli place, I don't remember the name, but it was pretty good.  Then back to the offices we went.  Their office was on one of the higher floors.  I think there was only one or two floors above them.

We stepped off the elevator, and saw these glass doors that informed us we were at the correct location.   We walked in, and it was like  the waiting room to a spa.  There was a pretty complete view of Denver, nice chairs, and water with cucumbers and lemons.  Really, I think it was the cucumber lemon water that gave it the spa feel.  Since you usually only see that in a spa. After I filled out the required paperwork (most of which I did at home) I found a chair and began the wait.  But, I still wasn't nervous.  I read my book on my phone, while my husband read out of a book on the table.  Then I was called in.

The appointment had three parts to it.  First they eye check.  This was mostly your standard eye exam to start.  Followed by some tests I've never had done before.  I think they were tests to measure your eye, to make sure they calibrate everything.  At one point I had to stare at an image and hold my eye open.  For some reason it took her longer on one eye than they other, and she apologized quite a bit for that, then said "but you did really well not blinking or anything."  Kind of in a surprised tone.  I replied "you obviously haven't done much photo shopping have you?"  and mimicked holding a mouse while staring, unblinkingly, ahead.  (seriously, sometimes I think you have to set a timer to remember to blink with that program).

Then I was back in the waiting room.  Drinking "fancy water" and reading.  Part two was the explanation of medication.  Here they went over the pills, one for pain, one to relax.  The eye drops, and how often.  The first week your life is eye drops.  It goes down considerably after that.  The sunglasses, and night goggles.  Don't rub your eyes.  What time to take your eye drops right after surgery.

Then on to part three.  The surgery.  I was lead into a room with what looked like leather lazy boy chairs.  I sat in one while they put surgery booties on my feet, a hair net over my hair, took my glasses, and put drops in my eyes.  I briefly met with the doctor, then the nurse came in and gave me more drops.

I was then led to surgery.  There were two lasers.  One that cuts the flap in your eye, and one that reshapes your eye to correct your vision.  The first took about 10 to 15 seconds each eye.  Really, I was just looking at a green light.  The second was a little longer, about 20 seconds per eye.  That was like looking into a red led light.  it had about six or seven lights it looked like.  I stared at it until it felt like I was going cross eyed, The only thing I felt was a breeze on my face.  Although there was a smell, like evaporating water.  Kinda like how it smells if you are boiling water and let it all boil out.  Right before the pan starts to burn.

Then it was over. I was led back to the lazy boy chair, and sat there with my eyes closed.  The nurse came in, and asked me if I could read what time it was.  It was strange, because it was like looking through a fog, but I could read it.  but I got the time wrong.  She looked at me kinda confused, and I looked again and corrected myself.   It was a case of it being close enough to changing to the next hour, that at first glance, you read the time an hour off.

I was given the bag of eye drops and such, and was given dark sunglasses to wear from that point on.  Out I walked into the lobby to find my husband.

We stayed at a hotel around the corner, and I followed the directions to take about a 3 hour nap, or at least rest my eyes.  I didn't think I had slept, but apparently I did.  We ordered in food, and while everything was still foggy, it was clearing up.  I ordered this spinach artichoke flat bread that had mushrooms and pesto sauce on it.  It was amazing.  I just had to throw that in there.  It was delicious, and I wish there was someplace where I live that made that.  I had to wait until 10 to put the drops in my eye, so I laid back and half watched the TV.  I did have a headache, but I think it was eye strain.  Mostly I had my eyes closed as I waited for 10pm to arrive.  I did fall asleep somewhere during Conan, because one minute a guest was on, the next the band was closing the show.  I hopped up, took the pill they sent me home with, did the eye drop thing, and went to bed.

The next day the fogginess was gone.  I could see, and it was awesome.

I am just about a week away from it being a month, and it's been great.  Because you can't exactly rest your eyes to heal, like you can a broken leg, I have noticed my eyes tire easily, but it's been getting better.

Overall, I completely recommend it.

Best of all, when something wakes me up at 3:37 am, I can quickly see what time it is, and roll over and go back to bed knowing my alarm isn't going off for another hour and 23 minutes.

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Tea and Super Bowl

So, the Winter Dream tea was yummy, but the Peppermint Bark is amazing!  Just needed to say that.  It's so good.  They both have the chocolate bits in it, but the peppermint bark has little candy peppermint pieces in it.  It was like the first time I tried a vanilla chai.

So.... The Super Bowl.  I made the mistake of doing a little Super Bowl food shopping today.  Talk about a crowded store!  It was worse than the weekend before Christmas.  Of course I had the sense to stay out of the toy department the weekend before Christmas.  So I'm just talking from a grocery aisle viewpoint.  I can say that I bought way more food then we need, as we don't have a party, we have 2 adults and a 3 year old.
This will be the 8th game I've watched.  I never watched football before meeting my husband.  My roommate and I at one point decided that Super Bowl Sunday was for girls to watch sappy romance novels and eat pixy sticks and cookies. Honestly, I still prefer that type of Sunday marathon.

I do enjoy the commercials, but.... those are all online right now, so I'm not sure what the point of spending millions of dollars to air your big commercial, when people can see them anytime.  Yeah, you are getting your advertising out there, during the biggest game of the year.  The most watched TV show of the year. but still....  it's ridiculous, and I'm rambling.  So I'm outta hear.






Sunday, January 19, 2014

Tea and Work

Tea of the week.....  Winter Dream by Lets Do Tea.   I tried the chocolate mint tea from Teavana last month.  The taste is okay, the smell is.....  not pleasant.  Now, Winter Dream on the other hand is a similar tea, Chocolate mint, with a very pleasing taste and smell.  I'm hoping this is a tea that will stick around through out summer as well.  Of course, I tend to drink a little less tea in the summer.  

I have discovered in the last few months that the more stressed I am, the less tea I manage to drink.  More so because when I'm super stressed at work, it's because I am super busy with projects and don't have a minute to get away from my desk to heat a cup of water.  This realization hit me when I was brewing a cup of tea, during a slow period where I really had almost nothing to do.  As busy as I am sometimes, I still need to step away from the desk.
Luckily my husband inadvertently given me a gift that will help me with that.  For Christmas I got the Nike Fuel band.  It encourages you to get up ever hour to move around for 5 minutes.  For the most part I've been trying to do that while at work.  At times it's a bit strange to just wander around the small building I work at and not look crazy.  When the temperature gets above 30 I plan to take my walking around outside to the parking lot.  I hope I'll look a little less crazy, but who knows.  
My co-worker has been trying to move around more.  That stems from the study that recently came out talking about those that sit all day have earlier deaths.  So, he sees me get up, and he follows.  One more person following and my entire department will be walking in circles around the building for five minutes.  I suppose that will cut the crazy factor down a little.