0500 – Wake up with a sinus headache.  WTF?  Drag ass out of bed to swallow the two Excedrin I should have taken last night.

Dog:  Huh?  Up?  Time to play?   Wheeeeee!

0510 – Hmmmm.  Not passing out.  Will try ‘relaxing’ Yoga Nidra on iPod to see if a little guided meditation (not as crunchy as it sounds, according to well, ME) will help.  Is way too early to get up.

Dog:  Wha?  No play?  Bummer.  Is v. cold in here, so I will now attempt to curl up to the size of a 3 year old’s soccer ball and sleep.  *sigh*

0535 – Hmmm.   Meditation not working.  Now finding instructions to ‘become aware of my right calf’ funny.  Not snot-bubble funny, but ‘I really need to effing sleep-PLEASEOMFG’ funny.  Headache gone.  Sinusy-crap NOT GONE.

Dog:  WOMAN!  Quit MOVING!  Pick a sleep position and for the love of god, SLEEP!

0600 – Shit.  Maybe need a Sudafed to rid myself of the sinusy-crap.  Drag ass out of bed to swallow the two Sudafed I should have used as an Excedrin chaser.

Dog:  OMFGJESUS!  Are we up?  Play?  No?  Play?  No?

0610 – OK.  I’m up.  Let’s go see if ResumeGodess has resurrected my resume from the black hole of despair that the rest of me has been crawling out of for the past few weeks.  She’s on east coast time.  As my aunt Sylvie always says…You never knows!!

Dog:  OK.  I can deal with this.  Paybacks for you, woman.  Will now lick myself solely because IT FEELZ GOOD.  Know this irritates the shit out of you, probably because it’s more action than you’ve gotten lately.  HA!

0630 – ResumeGoddess is a no-show so far.  Sinusy-crap reduced to something I can deal with, but NOW AM WIDE AWAKE.  Current television options:  Nutrisystem, Murad acne medicine, Insider Secrets, TurboJam, or colon cleanse.  Outstanding.

Dog:  <has passed out.  Go figure> Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

0700 – If I wasn’t me, would think this was pretty amusing.  Should write post about it since am not bad at self-deprecating humor.  Should also include cool pictures of the Dale Chihuly exhibit at the Phoenix Desert Botanical gardens taken while on vacay with Mom&Dad, coolest parents in the world.

Dog:  <props an eye open>  And one of me?  Playing?

_______________________________________________________

In other overdue news, here’s some pics of the Chihuly installation at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Gardens.   I had a ton of fun shooting with a photographer friend of my parents.  She actually makes spending money by taking rich tourists from the local spa/golf resort out on photo strolls.  I wanna be her when I grow up.

You can check the rest on SmugMug.

If you’ve gotten this far and want to check the rest, check my SmugMug site.

She’s smaller than most cats, so I think she’d fit.

**I know this is an old video, but I couldn’t resist.

Oh what a fabulous weekend!  Seattle was gorgeous outside, and although the entire city is very anti-air conditioning, it was the kind of weekend that makes people decide to move here.  Rain?  What rain?

Friday night I was supposed to meet the girls downtown at Fado, but the weather was screaming for drinks on a deck somewhere, so we met in Kirkland.  Mmmmm,  margaritas!!!

Saturday was as delicious as the day before.  Since I was working on a project in another building most of last week, I had to leave the dog at home.  NOT something she’s used to at all (I know, *sob*, *sob*, poor Chloe.  Tell me that after she craps all over YOUR house in protest).  The initial plan was to make it up to her by heading up to Marymoor park (this insane 16 acre off-leash dog park about 5 minutes from the house), but mamma needed a break too, and one without the potential of getting knocked over by muddy paws, licked upside the face or being bonked on the head by a tennis ball (not necessarily in that order).

So I packed up Chloe, a blanket, some water and my new boyfriend Kindle and headed for the park a few blocks up the road.

“IM GETTIN HAIRCUT, I PROMIZE”

 We set up camp under a huge evergreen tree and Chloe spent a few hours playing with every human and canine that came by while I attempted to spend quality time with Kindle.  God I love that thing.  As an only child I grew up with a book in my face.  No joke I have an entire dresser full of books instead of clothes.  So when Amazon came out with this new book reader, I knew I had to have one. 

“My new boyfriend”

And now that I have one, I totally want to marry it.  Is that wrong?

“I HAS COMPETISHUN”

** First one to find the reference to the post title wins a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com. 

Any ideas?

Almost every winter my list of things to do both at home and at work slowly piles up and gets to be so long that I can’t seem to do anything at all.  It’s not that any one of these tasks is so hard to accomplish, it’s just that the thought of all of them together is so overwhelming that I just want to bury my head in my pillow and hide.

Logically I know what’s going on when this happens, and it totally pisses me off that I can’t do much about it but ride it out. Seasonal depression, sometimes known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.) has reared it’s ugly head.  And in Seattle, S.A.D. is the soup du jour of winter.

This year has been particularly bad for me, since it’s been about two years since I’ve actually spent an entire winter at home and not either alternating weeks between Seattle and sunny SoCal or flying back and forth to the East Coast.  Couple that with the fact that Spring seems to be playing hide-and-seek in the Northwest and DING! DING! DING! We have a winner.

 Check out the symptoms, which typically begin in the fall, intensify in winter, and subside in spring:

• Decreased energy and activity. CHECK
• Tiredness, sleep more CHE..ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
• Sadness, anxiety OH YEAH
• Appetite changes (usually increased appetite) OF COURSE
• Carbohydrate craving DUH
• Weight gain DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT
• Loss of interest in sex (although I wouldn’t know, as my sex life has been as dry as the town I grew up in, probably due to bullets 1-5 up there, dammit) MOST LIKELY
• Withdrawal from friends and family UNFORTUNATELY
• Difficulty concentrating and accomplishing tasks WITHOUT A DOUBT

So how do I fix it?  Sunlight and activity.  All I can hope for is that beautiful Spring days like today start becoming more frequent.  In a small victory in my quest to make friends both inside and outside of work (more on that later), I was invited for an afternoon dog walk with a co-worker (YEA!).  Since it was still sunny when I left, I took Chloe by this dog park down the street from my house I’ve been meaning to check out.  Too many big dogs for her to deal with, but there’s a people park attached, so we took a stroll to see what was what.  This, this, this and this.  That’s what. 

See?  I already feel better.  What a great day. 

Because I haven’t tortured you lately:

There. My work is done.

It’s trick-or-treat time here at work, so Chloe did her best to fit in….

 So did her BFF (not really) Alfred the Big SuperDog…

Before I interviewed for this new job, I was told a few things:

 ”Don’t wear a suit, it won’t get you anywhere.  Dress comfortably.”  ”It’s going to be a long day, so get alot of rest, keep hydrated, and have fun”   and  “I hope you like animals.”  What?

So I get to the building, meet the recruiter, and share the elevator up to the sixth floor with a puggle puppy and a full-grown yellow lab.  I.Freaking.Love.This.Place!  You can take your dog to work!  It’s hardly the point that I don’t have a dog, ‘cuz I’m getting one!

And it’s the first thing I did.  Even before making sure I had more than beer, water and wine in the fridge.  Here she is:

The little terror.  She has zero clue that she’s 3lbs and can make grown dogs shudder when she comes trotting down the hall at work.

Chloe and Alfred: Almost work friends. 

We’re still working on potty training, not whining when I leave for a meeting, and not terrorizing Alfred the Big Brown Dog.  But she’s terribly cute, and knows it.  Dammit.