sooooo... I missed blogging yesterday.... but I don't feel bad about it. Yesterday was the day of birthday parties and events. I was also dangerously close to not blogging today either. 

Yesterday I had the honor of going to a house warming for a delightful couple. I've known them since college and I both happy and unbelievably jealous of their home. Great space with a beautiful kitchen and pool in the back with a cabana! The kitchen and the backyard is really what got me. I long for a house. Something to really call my own. It isn't in the cards right now and it isn't necessarily a logical choice at this stage in my life but gosh darn I want one. I enjoy our apartment but I could do without the elevator that might trap you, the guy who smokes so much outside of his apartment that opening our front door often results in me coughing and the crazy cat lady who is well... crazy and happens to own two cats that we will gladly take in if she decides to pick up and leave them here. I guess I just really want choices. I want to paint my walls and hang up stuff with actual nails and not worry that at some point we may not get back the security deposit or that taking things down will be a total pain in the ass. I took a photo while I was at the party and oddly enough it wasn't actually of the house, but of some very interesting art on the wall. 

I really enjoyed this to the point where I took 3 pictures and I just used an andorid app called photo grid to combine my photos. What may be hard to tell is that this is made out of license plates. It is really quite awesome. Also while standing around, wishing I had my own home and wondering if I should have another party snack I decided to try to snap a candid photo of a friend and his son, who is the most well behaved child I have ever encountered as well as the best dressed

Look at this adorable father/son moment (wish the little guy still on his fetching hat for this photo). This kid is freaking adorable, this is the kind of kid that as a woman just makes your ovaries hurt. Luckily there were so many kids at the party that the feeling was squished pretty fast :) 

I'm not one for saying I want children. But every once in awhile a kid just comes along and you go.. oh! being a parent must be awesome. Ok... done with the talk of children. 

After becoming severely claustrophobic as more people arrived to enjoy in the good fortune of a new home I came home and went on the most amazing cleaning binge. I have actually been cleaning like a madwoman for the past several days and I am so incredibly proud of my accomplishments. The only reason I stopped cleaning yesterday was so I could go to a birthday party. I was so into cleaning that it almost seemed unreasonable that I would leave my apartment to do something that wasn't cleaning. But of course I had a good time. Hugs, conversations, singing happy birthday, sharing tater tots, 3 beers and a cupcake later and I was absolutely beat. A good beat though. It was good to get out and be around friends. It's also wonderful to know that if a friend gets groped by some perv that just about all of us are ready to go after that guy for being out of line. We never did find him but don't mess with me or my friends. We may not hang out one on one all the time but we are part of a theater company who loves one another and will stand up for a person when they are in need and honestly sometimes even when they aren't in need. hmm.. pretty bad ass group of people if I do say so myself. 


I was able to sleep in today and was sad to say I woke up with a stuffy nose and a sore throat. I've been battling something for several weeks. I think my immune system is trying to fight off everyone's germs and some days are just better than others. I stayed in pretty much all day and wasn't able to start a class today that I wanted to... but it gave me more time for cleaning. I got 4 loads of laundry done and I finally went through every single magazine I had stacking up and looked through and pulled out articles and chucked everything else. It was a wonderful feeling to get rid of them. I feel like I have been a major cleaning rockstar all weekend. But I couldn't be this freaking awesome without the doxie scanner I wrote about the other day and this:

My scanner! We are like total BFFs. I bought this several years ago at this point and it was one of the best purchases. All weekend long I have been a shredding like a mad woman and I couldn't be prouder of myself. 

You have no idea how immensely proud I am for doing all this work. It probably doesn't seem like a lot because I'm trying not to bore you with details but this is a good thing. A very very good thing. Like weight off my shoulders, breathe easier kind of good. My project doesn't stop here though. I'm going through every folder I have and am seriously thinking about what I need and what I don't. I did this a while back but got overwhelmed and kept a lot of things and shredded a few things I wish I hadn't. It was cathartic to shred cards from old friends on one hand and on the other I will never have those again to look at, I won't have some of the kind words they said to me. But I also won't need to relive the memory of one or two of those people being full of shit. I should have kept them or  at least scanned the ones that were important but I was just in a panic and needed stuff to go. Le sigh...  I gotta remember.. I can't keep everything.. just keep chanting: I will not be a hoarder, I will not be a hoarder and breeeeeaaaathe.....

btw... when writing a blog I do not suggest writing it after a large mug of sleepy time tea. I am not sure I will remember this blog tomorrow. Oh well.. goodnight folks!!!

The thing about goals and challenges is that you actually have to do them. Today I really truly did not want to blog. Don't know why just didn't really feel like it, but I need to do this. I need to keep my mind going and do something at least slightly creative. Creative is a broad term and I suppose I feel like I'm not wowing my audience but then again...who is my audience? Friends that probably already love me and are looking to get to know me a bit more or share in my day. For those of you reading this.. thank you friend! 

Today was work, making small steps to make my day better and just calming down from the rest of the week. I was surprised how much better I felt after taking a tiny break from work to get a jasmine tea. It wasn't the best I had ever tasted but something about it was so soothing and liberating. hmm...tea as something that is liberating... that seems odd to me, but so be it. Sometimes life is really about the simple things. Sure the rest of my day was all about purchase orders but while I was drinking that tea everything seemed a bit easier. 

I am also very proud of my evening. I finished the scanning project on my desk! Do I have other scanning projects with other documents?? yes, I do. But for the time being I finished the one on my desk and then shredded everything. It was a really wonderful step in my path to be less cluttered. Now for the photo a day of the results!

Yesterday I had a pretty good day filled with random fun in an otherwise normal day. I really truly should not be surprised that today was a crappy day. I have a cause of the blues. It didn't start that way and I tried hard to fight it but gosh darn it I really just couldn't. 

I woke up and I was sweating like crazy to the point where I wondered if I had a fever because I was so hot.. took my temp.. perfectly normal but something was not right. Took a bath which is something I have never done in the morning.. ever.. still felt crappy, laid down on the bed for a few minutes.. still crappy.. Well  by this time I either needed to leave asap or be late. I got dressed quickly and had no time to eat breakfast or do anything with my hair. Luckily I finally remembered during this winter season that I own a bunch of hats so I put on a beanie which has been quite wonderful to wear today especially since windpocolypse decided to happen mid day. At least I was really lucky that I made my lunch the night before and was able to grab a new snack that I found at the store. I even made it to work on time so the day was still ok-ish. 

I eat my tasty treat which is my first photo of the day:

Those little muffins could have been terrible but they were quite good and I at least got something in my stomach for breakfast. Now they did get my fingers messy so I went to the kitchen to wash up and when I went to dry my hands I was greeted with this:

That was printed on the paper towel. It is Bounty brand and I eventually realized there was some sort of gardening theme but seriously? that is just the wrong kind of message and really should be avoided in a world full of crazy ass killers. I must say it actually made me feel really weird for several hours. I knew I was being somewhat ridiculous but it really colored my day. 

Blah blah blah.. normal work stuff...

Then out of nowhere the girl who is leaving next week because she is moving to another state finally hands me work that I will be taking over. In an already overwhelming week, I was not prepared to be just handed this stuff today. I mean I wondered when but geez.. give a girl some warning. This work which used to be my job has changed a bit. There are few things that get entered in a different way than I'm used to so something that should have taken me a couple minutes each took me 30 minutes for 4. I felt so stupid and finally decided to admit that I was struggling and I wouldn't get it done today but I really wanted to try to do it on my own. So I admitted it via email, got a response, which then I responded to trying to say that I knew I was offered help but I just needed to try to do this on my own first. Fast forward 3 hours and suddenly it is a huge deal where she is telling the owner about it and saying " megan, what's there not to understand" "you did this before I seriously doubt I need to re-teach you this".. I tried to explain and then there was "so you're telling me you know nooothing about these purchase orders" and again I tried to explain and it was useless. As you can see she was kind of rude and made me feel supremely stupid in front of the owner of the company who was honestly very nice about it but I just spent the rest of my day going over it in my head... should I have not said anything?, should I have stood up for myself more? idk... but this happens all the time. I do not do well with other women who are super full of authority. I just can't get my words across. I went back to my desk and just felt like. I felt like crying which made me feel worse because honestly it isn't that big of a deal but any time someone makes me feel stupid I get like this. It is just about the worst thing someone could do to me. 
I ended up finishing everything I was supposed to do and told the coworker to check my work because I had said that I wanted to do that when we were talking to the owner. I could tell she probably was not pleased with this but the other owner was in the room so she played nice. 
I'm basically a wuss. 
I can tell I am in a really bad funk because usually when I road rage at people it goes something like this:

"you stupid piece of shit, why don't you get the fuck out of my way before I run over your fucking children" 

or something like that. Today all I could say was "you're awful"

Hans just got home and we chatted about the work day and we did both kind of figure out what bug got up my coworkers ass but there were multiple ways to handle this and making me look stupid in front of people was not the correct one. 

I also pathetically came home and said to the cat "mama has the blues"

I wish I could handle confrontation so I could say something like "I think you are being rude" That is such a simple action but I just can't do it. Everyone always says I am intimidating and that I walk around and I just ooze confidence but I am kind of the worst. I basically just hide and get sad. Unless of course I know for a fact that I am in charge. Like when I am a Stage Manager. When I am in that position I know exactly where I stand and get stuff done. Sometimes I think I would be a way better manager than a regular worker. Don't get me wrong I work super hard and I always do my best but this job has taught me a few things about working and myself. I think I am an awesome manager and although it seems like a good idea you don't always need to try to be friends with people at work because it will often bite you in the ass. 

Well this has been a long tirade and I think it should come to a close so I can try relaxing and at least turn my evening around. 

In an effort to streamline things a bit more and have less paper clutter bugging the crap out of me I'm starting to actually scan my papers. Now part of me wishes I would have started this sooner as I did finally give up some papers that maybe I should have kept but...actually I'm not sure I would ever need them but I think I might have felt better if I had scanned them.. anyway...whatever..its done. 

Doxie is a thin scanner that very easily scans and has idiot proof software. At least I really hope it is idiot proof because I can't imagine a program being any easier to use. So far I have only scanned pay stubs and time cards but I'm feeling really damn good about this. If I can cut down on the junk in my file cabinet I will be immensely please with myself. Bring on photo of the day:

I really do love my Doxie, and by "my" I mean it really belongs to Hans :)

Aside from this scanning project I had kind of a good day. Had lunch with a coworker, got a free water bottle from my boss, and then totally scored items I needed (but didn't expect to find and honestly wasn't looking for on this trip) while shopping. Pretty freaking great. Oh and I had a ton of emails that made me feel super popular. yay! 

I went to the gym! I've had a gym membership since July and I have only been a handful of times because ..well..I'm an idiot. I got so caught up in shows and just being plain tired from work that I just didn't have the strength to go and sometimes when I really truly wanted to go it was just so crazy late in the day that I guess I worried a little bit about my safety. You can definitely tell that it is the New Year though. I walked into the gym and it was absolutely packed. I managed to find the one non-broken, not in use cardio machine and I'm really glad I did. I honestly think people were avoiding it because the machine gets non-stop air conditioning blowing on it in full force, which to me was a life saver. I have a number of physical problems including knees that constantly hurt. It is super painful to run so I can't just go outside and run around, I have to use some sort of elliptical style machine that has a more fluid motion. I suppose what I need to use isn't important, but what is important is that I ran fro 41 minutes. This is a huge accomplishment for me. Even when I was working out with a trainer he wouldn't make me run for more than 10 minutes. I have never ever run for more than 15 minutes and that was pushing it. I've almost always stuck to a bike if I wanted any long amount of cardio. I guess this seems silly but I am amazingly proud of myself. I suppose I would have been more proud if I also did a really kick ass work out after that but the place was so full that I couldn't find an empty machine and I'm always terrified that I am using free weights wrong. Shhh... Megan don't talk about that other part, continue to be super excited that you accomplished something you never have until now. YAY!!!


 I have more to say about health and fitness but I can't get over not knowing what that loud Boom was in North Hollywood a little while ago. No one seems to know what it was but many people heard it and felt it. (internal edit, was still writing this blog when this was posted to my facebook page where I questioned what the noise was... still no answer but at least LA times did a write up http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/01/north-hollywood-explosion-sonic-boom-mystery.html)  this is driving me crazy....especially because I still hear helicopters. What I should do is stop worrying about it, everyone is fine let's move on to photo of the day!

My family has a habit of saving christmas paper and boxes. During this past christmas I heard one of my family members say "I've seen the same box for 10 years" which is actually an accurate statement. Hans and I have been having a family christmas whether we are with his family, my family, or apart and then we open presents together at home. Even though I'm at home and don't have to save any paper, boxes or bags I still have the urge to. Hans tries to stop me but he only half succeeds. He'll see the same polar bear bag next year.. But this year I was more willing to throw away in an effort to cut down on the stuff I have but I couldn't resist this one box top which has been sitting on the floor for quite some time. I insisted on keeping it because I wanted to cut out the adorable penguin on it. Well tonight, tonight I decided I'm throwing it away. There is no need to keep it. Instead.. photos!!

I don't know what it is about penguins that I love so much but I do. I've never used this word but seriously.... Squee!!!

I am a horrific picky eater. Not so bad as that I would complain about someone else's meal just because it was something I wouldn't eat but I'm just very specific in my tastes. As Anna aka Lemon might say "she's the most adventurous picky eater I know" which is actually true. I'm willing to be proven wrong, I'm willing to taste something and I'll even understand why other people like it even though my taste buds don't agree. For example you might like... Sweet Potatoes, I have tried them on multiple occasions and have tried to like them even though I find them to be not particularly good. Of course now I will never eat them as I finally realized I get sick ever time I eat them. That was not actually a good example but I just couldn't think of a super good one.  I actually generally strongly dislike many things that people love. Berries for instance.. I do not like berries at all. I will not eat them. I think they smell delicious and look pretty but the texture of berries is so horrendously awful in my mouth that it makes me squirm and want to spit it out immediately. You give me the fake candy version of the same berry and I will probably eat it.. unless that fucker is a raspberry and then you are on your own. Those things are vile. 

My head is a little bit fuzzy today as I am on the tired side and therefore anything I have written above just seems off. I'd love to write more about foods but I think it is time to post my photo and head to bed. I'll have to try for something more interesting in tomorrow's blog. 

Above you will see my lunch for today. I was actually pretty damn proud of myself for making this the night before as I am ab absolute mess in the morning. I unfortunately did not actually finish all of my lunch but hey it's still in the container and I can eat it tomorrow... yay! Let me explain what you are seeing here. It is my attempt at a healthy lunch. I have 2 peach halves, 2 hard boiled eggs, and then the main dish is cold french cut green beans will fresh mozzarella pearls. I thought I was pretty creative. I need to eat better, I'm aware of that but because of my previously mentioned pickiness it is pretty difficult to find stuff that I really like, that doesn't make me sick and is actually good for me. I'm sure these foods exist I just have to find them. If you have lunch suggestions and want to share... let me know, just be prepared to be shot down with.. umm... I don't like that food you just suggested. 

There I said it. I admitted my love for Poquito Mas. To some this seems like a ridiculous post but for those who really truly know me...you know I can't get enough. Saturday morning when I wake up no matter what time I will probably want food from Poquito Mas. Why? I have no idea but it is this ridiculous urge that I can't quite get rid of. I often go around the apartment and ask Hans if it is "burrito'clock" ...It usually isn't. Which is truly unfortunate. Hans and I have our differences but a big one is his love of Chipotle to my love of Poquito Mas. We have dueling "fast food" mexican places that we like to eat at. HOW WILL OUR LOVE SURVIVE????  
I am often prone to over dramatics. I apologize. Moving on.. But seriously I love this place and I have a feeling it has to do with the fact that I generally dislike salsa but this is the first place I ever liked any. I have no idea what it is made of, no idea what it is called but it is so delicious. It also got me through a big unhappy moment in life when I was gluten free and basically couldn't figure out how to eat out with friends without breaking down in tears. Their corn tortillas were the answer in my time of need. 

This post is absolutely ridiculous. I am aware but if you love something.. ya just love it. :)

I have a bit of.. I guess I will say a ritual. When I am not feeling well and especially if it is something that requires me to leave work I muster up the strength to go to Trader Joes for Apple Juice and Soup. I don't know why but these things make me feel better. If TJ's also had Oddwalla Citrus C Monster floating around I would probably grab that too. I picked these up yesterday but gosh darn both of these items are worth a post because they are so damn good. As stated from today's previous post I am not well. I've mostly slept and watched TV and by TV I mean I have been watching a British sitcom called Peep Show. My greatest accomplishment for today was taking a shower since standing up or exerting any energy seemed to make me feel worse. I'm all aches and pains at the moment but at least my nose feels like maybe it is a little less stuffy and although my mouth is dry I think it also might be feeling better as well. Gonna cross my fingers for a magical recovery by tomorrow. Ya know so I can clean or do something productive. 

This is definitely not an exciting post but then again I don't think I promised any excitement and it fulfills my goal. Hooray for goals!

Yesterday should have been my 3rd blog post of the new year...well..things didn't go as planned and I'm a little sad at already semi-failing on day 3 but to be fair I had taken my photo and had an idea about what I was going to write but ended up leaving work around 2pm because I was sick. I ended up getting home around 2:15pm tried to eat a little something and then got into bed at 3:30 and didn't wake up until Hans got home around 6:30. I tried to get up an have a conversation with him and ended up going back to bed. I woke up a few times during the night but ultimately I slept from 3:30pm until the next morning at 8am. I called in sick tried to eat some breakfast and went back to bed and proceeded to wake up at noon. Basically I'm all out of sorts and I can't really feel bad about missing something because I wasn't feeling well. However this is a pattern with me. When I get sick I tend to fee supremely guilty if I stay home from work etc.. because I know I'm letting someone down but by going in to work I'm just gearing myself up for feeling worse or making a mistake because no matter what the sickness is the first thing that happens is my brain gets all fuzzy and i have trouble focusing. I'm not even sure I will remember writing this later today. Blargh!  Yesterday I took two photos and now to post them both:

Yup, it's a picture of my shoes. I work in an office that doesn't have clients coming in and out so our dress code is super casual. A while back I decided that I was going to be as comfortable as possible at work because I don't see the need to dress like a slut at work. My office isn't an exclusive club, I'm not going to get kicked out of line for not dressing correctly and I'm not trying to impress anyone. I sit at a desk for 8 hours a day and when the need arises I work in a warehouse getting items ready to ship to our customers. I really don't need to be in 4 inch heels while lifting boxes and putting on UPS labels. Some days I think..wow Megan this is a whole new level of frumpy you got going on but ultimately I am comfortable and I can do a myriad of tasks without thinking twice. I think I'm pretty smart. 

This is Scout. When I came home to get into bed she was in the middle of it making it incredibly difficult for me to move her. But really I just couldn't bear it she was so cute rolled up in the blankets. I actually tried to sleep on the sofa so I didn't have to move her. I'm just that silly. I did eventually move her and felt bad about it right up until the point I fell asleep. I found it adorable that when Hans came home she had been sleeping next to my leg the whole time. I love her!