Not Me Monday: Inventory Edition

Being the sucker that I am for forwards and quizzes, I just had to participate in "Not Me Monday." This week is the Inventory Edition, since my inventory weekend was full of "not me" moments. And I swear, all of the events below, I in no way took any enjoyment from them... ;)

First off, I did not intentionally show up only 10 minutes before the start of inventory in the hopes of avoiding the pre-inventory pep talk meeting, and I was not at all disappointed to see that they had waited for me before they started with the meeting. And when I showed up, I did not laugh when my boss blamed me for causing a friend to "choke on his chicken" because I didn't bring a drink from Dunkin' Donuts. I also did not think of the phrase that included the words "choke" and "chicken" in a sexual way, and use that as the basis for several jokes through the whole evening. During the meeting, I paid attention the whole time and did not goof off with my friend because I knew that the person I'd be with would know what to do already.

When I was on the forklift, I did not laugh when my driver told me that he required all of the people in his cage to have a "nice hiney." I also did not participate in a lewd conversation with my driver in an effort to take my mind off of how high up I was. I did not notice when my friend in the cage in the next aisle made crude noises, and I certainly did not laugh my butt off. I also did not freak out when my driver left me in the cage 40 feet above the ground so he could go talk to somebody. I didn't spend the time stuck up there obsessing about how my new pants were getting dirty, and I didn't text one of my coworkers that I was stressed that my jeans were getting dirty. He, obviously, did not think I was a freak for sending such text messages.

Most importantly, when I was given paperwork to verify unit counts, I didn't dread not having a calculator and finally showing the world that I can't even do very basic math in my head. I did not make numerous basic math errors that my 7 year old nephew could have done, and I certainly didn't blame my fear of heights as a distraction from being able to do said very basic math. And my boss? He certainly doesn't think I'm a little stupid for not being able to figure out 12 x 3 +11 in my head.

I also didn't make a big deal about how everybody, after inventory, had to be on Xbox so we could play a few rounds of "Left 4 Dead," then ended up going home and not logging on. Then the next day, when one of my friends asked me where I was and why I didn't log on after I didnt' make such a big deal about everybody else logging on, I didn't tell him the reason I didn't log on was because I was "getting some."

Nope. None of that ever happened.

Where the Hell Did My Butt Go?

Yesterday at work, a woman I work with made possibly one of the strangest comments I've gotten in awhile... She told me that my pants were too baggy in the butt, and it was almost time to buy new pants. After wondering why a female co-worker was looking at my butt, I decided that perhaps she was right... It was time to buy new pants, and most likely a new belt. The pants that I've been wearing were pre-weight loss size 14 and my belt has had so many holes added to it to get it to fit right it looks like a long strip of leathery Swiss cheese.

So after work, I wandered over to Kohl's and went through their Levis (the only brand that has covered my behind for like 15 years), grabbed a few sizes and went to try them on. I almost died when I ended going home with this pair:

I haven't been a size 8 in like nine years. I couldn't freaking believe it. So now I'm wearing size medium shirts and size 8 pants. I feel so thin. Yay me!

Maybe I shouldn't have skipped that meeting after all...

Taking My Life Into My Hands

This is the worst time of the year for me at work... Inventory. Blech. I hate it. Every year, we clean and organize for a week straight (hence the 6 day work week I'm currently enjoying), count everything, count it again, then people like me go behind the other people who can't count and recount what they've already counted twice, then the Home Office brings in an outside company made up of mostly illegal Mexicans who count everything that we've already counted for a fourth time, then we take a piece of paper with the total the outside agency counted to the people in charge, and then they issue us a paper back telling us to count it again because the illegal Mexican's total doesn't match our total. And this goes on until the wee hours of the morning.

My fun is amplified big time this year, though. Now that I'm a supervisor (which isn't as big a deal as it sounds)with career aspirations, I get pretty much be the gopher for my bosses, which ordinarily I wouldn't mind... Except for I was chosen for the dubious honor of being put in a cage that they raise with a forklift about 30 feet so that I can pull down tags on things we've already counted. And I'm terrified of heights. Like super terrified, in a big way. There's only one thing that scares me more than heights, and that's spiders. Luckily for me, there are a ton of spiders up there. So my fear is that I'll be in this little cage up 30 feet in the air, and I'll see a spider... At which point I'd wet myself and then pass out. My plan was either to work during the day so I would get out of it, or be pregnant and have my doctor write an excuse for me to get out of doing it. So much for that.

I hate inventory. With a passion.

The irony of this whole situation is that when I started working at my current job a year and a half ago when I was a stay-at-home-wife, it was supposed to be just a silly, part-time job that would give me spending money for Disney World. No responsibility, no obligations beyond just showing up, nothing. Who would have thought I liked my job and would want to advance in it as a career? I had careers and I hated them, and I go out and get a job and end up finding a career.

And now I get stuck doing inventory once a year. Blech.

Time to Admit Defeat

Well, I think it's time I finally just admit to it... I'm a dork. A raging, red-headed, female dork. Today, I finally bit the bullet and did what apparently 9 million people, including William Shatner, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Ozzy Osbourne, have done before me. I downloaded "World of Warcraft." I swore I'd never do it, but then I found a friend who plays, and I got a new computer that could support it... I guess it was just inevitable at some point.

I have to say, though, the whole "World of Warcraft" process is less than noob friendly (yup, I said "noob." Deal.). I had to download about a billion patches to get the thing to work, and then about a billion more after I logged in the first time. Then another billion when I put in the "Burning Crusade" expansion. Then you have to choose armies and races and servers and game play styles, sit through another billion updates, accept about a thousand end-user agreements (I think I may have given away my first-born, I'm not sure), and then research your booty off so you can try to figure out just what the heck is going on in this micro little universe that everybody knows more about than you.

Luckily, I have a friend who walked me through the first 3 hours of the game. Yay for laziness!

Overall, I find the game interesting... I'm not sure if it is or isn't what I expected, but considering I'm only 3 hours in, I don't suppose I can expect to have a judgment on how I like the game yet. Only time will tell. At this point, I'm just happy to have another game to play, and another person to play with, when my husband monopolizes the Xbox.

So, my name is Xbox Maven, and I'm a red-headed, big chested, level 6 Blood Elf Warlock, with an Imp. Boo-ya.

Wh00t! New DLC for Call of Duty!

Remember that list of things that make me disproportionately happy with life? You can add new DLC to that list! Yay!

Actually, yesterday was a great gaming day for me all the way around. First off, I cut out of work an hour early (considering it was my day off and I worked anyway, is it really still considered leaving an hour early or is it leaving 7 hours late?) and did some good, old fashioned achievement whoring to boost my pathetically small gamer score. Now, I've gone from a gamer score of 600 and change to 1100 and change... Thank you "Scene it: Lights, Camera, Action!" for handing an avid movie buff some easy points... But whatever, achievements are achievements, and I'll take what I can get.

Secondly, "Call of Duty: World at War" FINALLY released some new maps beyond that freebie Makin Day map.,, Including Verrückt for the Zombie Nazis. Yes, I freely admit to being one of those dorks who co-ops Zombie Nazis for hours on end, which is really silly when you think about it, because if I want to shoot zombies in a co-op format I should just play "Left 4 Dead," but I can't help it. It's a guilty pleasure and I'm addicted. Considering I am the most awful person alive on multi player death matches, Zombie Nazis is all I have to save face.

As always, I knew the maps were coming out, but did I prepare? Of course not. I had 1600 points just waiting to be redeemed, but I didn't redeem them ahead of time... I had to wait until everybody and their brother was trying to buy points, so I got error message after error message. So aggravating. You'd think I'd be better prepared, but I never am.

The only thing that would make life better is if I didn't have to be at work by 7am and I could stay up all night, getting my butt kicked on CoD: WaW.

Now what I want to know... How much longer do I have to wait for "Left 4 Dead" DLC? By default, I know it *has* to come out before April 21st, when the new version of the game is released, but I hope they release it a bit earlier than that. I'm just dying to play the new Lighthouse map on verses (even though I hate verses because I'm awful at it) and their version of horde mode a la "Gears of War 2" looks completely addicting. And, bonus bonus, it'll be free, so I don't have to worry about redeeming codes and points. Freaking cool.

Come on Valve! You're killing me! I can't wait anymore!

Weight Watchers Weigh-In: Week 9

I don't know how it happens, but weigh-in day always sneaks up on me. I know it's coming for a week, but somehow when it comes down to crunch time, I'm blindsided. And I have something very bad to admit... This week, I wasn't happy with my total weight loss (a measly .6 pounds), so I skipped my meeting. I know, I know... That's not a great thing to do at all, but I knew that going would just make me feel worse. Meetings are great when I have some sort of weight loss, but when I don't, it just makes me feel like a failure to hear how others had such a good week. So, I used a long day and week at work as my excuse not to go to a meeting so far away, so early in the morning, along with the fact that it's my least favorite time of the month, and instead opted to sit at home on the couch drowning my sorrows in Fruit2O and Midol until it was time to go to work... Which is actually fine, since as long as I'm working these 6 day, 50+ hour weeks, I have no time to myself at home, so this time is something I really need right now. The stress of maintaining this schedule is literally making me sick, and I'll take every moment to myself I can steal.

Really, I can't complain about my progress... Losing 20 pounds since January 9th is really good, and the difference is really noticeable. And 40 pounds total weight loss? I never thought I'd be able to do such a thing. Did I mention that when I went clothes shopping on St. Patty's Day, I actually tried on mediums? When the heck was the last time I did that? I think I was still in high school...

I feel like lately, though, my weight loss has kind of... Stalled. And I know it's 100% my fault. When I first started the diet, I was a strict tracker, a strict good-food only eater, strict figure-out-the-points-on-everything-that-goes-into-my-mouth person, weighed everything religiously... But now, I find myself sneaking in one or two "fun sized" candy bars that are hiding in my friend's desk, or having a sample of food that I know is bad for me but I trick myself into thinking that if I only have a little it's OK, or having a little more than a serving size, and I won't lie... I've been eating just to eat. Yes, the food is generally OK for me, but if you're eating because you're bored... It doesn't matter what it is. It's like your body knows you're eating just because, so it retains every last trace of what's bad and sticks it right on your thighs. And with two of my overall goals met, and no long-term goals to replace them that are as compelling, I find it hard to get the motivation to behave on my diet.

Every week, I know I should make goals for what I'd like to do or see happen, and this weeks goals are clear:

1. Go back to tracking religiously so I can be accountable for what I eat
2. Stop snacking on things I know are bad for me
3. Exercise more

True, I make pledge 3 every week, but this week, I'm serious. Not like last week where I said I was, but really wasn't.

I am just chalking this up to a bad week, all the way around. Next week I know will be better, at least in some aspects. I hope.

Edit at 9:20am ~ Karma has a great sense of humor and an obvious taste for irony. I skipped my meeting so I could have more time at home, but my husband called to say he forgot his passport and needed me to bring it in to work for him. If I'd gone to my meeting, I would have left home early and thus, I would have missed his call, I wouldn't have been able to bring in his passport and he'd have been SOL. However, because I skipped the meeting in order to stay home and be lazy, I didn't miss his call, which means I have no excuse to avoid bringing him his passport, and now I have to go in early anyway to bring him his stupid passport. Grrr...

Now, before I sound like an ungrateful wife who's unwilling to go out of the way for her husband, this has to be at least the 5th time in less than 3 months I've had to drive into work to bring him something he's forgotten... Cell phone, wallet, passport, or some combination of all three. It gets irritating to have to drive 45 minutes to his work, hand him something, then drive 20 minutes in the opposite direction to my work, and work a 9 or 10 hour day. So where I was going to leave at 10:30 to be at work for 11, now I have to leave at 9:45 so I can be at his work by 10:30, then leave right away so I can be at my work by 11. ARGH!!

I should have gone to my meeting!

Seven Things That Make Me Disproportionately Happy

Wednesday is my only day off this week... And it's my last day off until next Thursday. So I pledged to do as little as possible with my day. I even turned down a lunch invite in favor of sitting on my butt and restarting Fable II, a game that (under my old profile), I've almost beaten. I don't know if that makes me sad and pathetic, or just somebody who's indulging in some much-deserved "me" time. I'm going with the latter because it makes me feel better about myself.

Along with my plan to contribute as little to humanity as possible, I went about and did some blog surfing. One of the blogs I stopped at, Heather's Hodgepodge, had this cute little thingy about the seven things that make make us disproportionately happy with life, and I couldn't stop myself from doing one of my own. Seeing as I'm easily amused and I love doing little quizzes and questionnaires, that sort of thing is my kryptonite. So here's my list:

1. Any marathon of "Top Chef," "Kitchen Nightmares," or "Hell's Kitchen." Seeing any of those on for an entire day just thrills me to bits. I might as well get my sweatpants, a bag of chips, and blanket, because I won't leave the couch all day.

2. Getting Xbox LIVE Achievements. I really don't know why, but the need to get Achievements on my Xbox profile, literally, drives me to play some games for hours on end. It's like those little points validate my entire gaming life, and at the same time, serve as a numerical watermark for how much time I waste online.

3. Sleeping in, and/or not having to wake up to an alarm. I don't think there's a need for any explanation there.

4. Stickers. There, I said it. I love stickers. If I get stickers or stars or some other reward for a job well done, it thrills me to pieces. Maybe that's why Weight Watchers works so well for me... Because my entire weight loss journey is validated in stickers and stars, and getting those is my crack.

5. Comments or emails. 90% of my communication online is through forums and private messages on forums, or messages through Xbox... And that represents a relative fraction of my overall online correspondance, seeing as 98% of what I get overall is spam. Whenever I get an email or a comment from a person, even a random person, it makes my hour.

6. Free food. You ever go to a store that has samples of food, and you watch a person just bounce back and forth from sample station to sample station, getting sample after sample? That person is probably me. Samples always turn into free lunch for me. I wish I could say I was joking, but 2 of my 3 favorite stores have free food somewhere most of the time.

7. Rainy and/or foggy days. I love rainy days. Rainy days make me so happy, it's insane. Especially now, since it's been winter for so long that rain means it's too warm to snow... Which means that spring has to be on the way... Right?

My dreary, foggy backyard... But spring has to be coming, right?