Movie crazy

I'm going movie crazy here and my Mom's house.  I've watched a bunch since Tuesday.

The Thing

One of my favorites!

Devil

Eh... Don't bother.

Legion

Not great, the Prophecy was way better but i do so love apocalyptic movies.

The Final Destination

They really should have stopped making these

The Social Network

A must see and I love the soundtrack.  Trent Reznor is the man!

Pitch Black

Such a great sci-fi/thriller!

With the exception of The Social Network, it seems to be a suspense/thriller theme week.  I've seen all of these before except Devil and The Final Destination, but while I sand away at my homemade frame its perfect.

I've also been baking while I watch.  I've made two batches of flour free, sugar free breakfast cookies.  The first batch was too sweet, but still tasty.  I made that batch with almond meal, butter, Splenda, vanilla, an egg, cinnamon, apples, dried cranberries, and walnuts.  The cookies are high in protein and low in carbs and calories.  My goal is to have something quick and filling for breakfast.  But as I said the first batch was a little too sweet.

My second batch just came out of the oven.  This one has almond meal, flax meal, butter, vanilla, an egg, apples, dried cranberries, dried blueberries, and walnuts.  I forgot the cinnamon that I intended to use, oops.  I used less butter in this batch too.  This batch is a little bland but strangely addictive.  I think a little less flax meal and a little more almond meal for improved color and texture, and some cinnamon for extra flavor for my next batch.  Once I've got the winning version down I'll share that recipe on here.  I'll also attempt to figure out exactly how many calories, carbs, etc are in them.

My second class was today.  I've had a horrible sore throat all day so that made talking for over four hours lots of fun.  But otherwise the class went fine.  I sincerely hope I am not getting sick and this sore throat isn't the beginning of a cold.  My appointment with Dr. C. is next Monday!  I don't want to have to reschedule.  Who knows how long it would be before I could get in again?

Just to be on the safe side, I'm going to hit the sack early tonight, after chugging some OJ and popping a vitamin.  I'm kind of looking forward to sleep anyway.  Once again I was up before the sun today because of my class and the dog.  Tomorrow I don't start work until 10am which means I'm not getting my butt out of bed before 8am.  Thank goodness!

Trying to hold onto hope

Most of the time I deal with this stupid infertility shit pretty well.  But then there are these moments that just...  Hurt.  I have them more frequently than I'd like but they don't last.  Especially if I'm at home and I can cuddle Frankie and lean on Tony (in no particular order.)  Most of the time I have hope that things will work out and sometime in the next year I'll get that illusive positive pregnancy test.  But sometime this black pit of despair just destroys that.

I had a moment like that today.  I was in the car on the way to my class and I had a flash back of something that happened yesterday.  My pregnant co-worker D had me touch this specific spot at the top of her very swollen belly.  (I've never touched a pregnant belly before, at least not in my memory.  All of the people I know who've had children weren't in the same state!)  I didn't feel the baby move or anything, but just to know that that was a baby under there, and to feel it.  It was awesome.

But today in the car when I thought about it again, this black wave of despair washed over me.  The want of it was almost suffocating.  I started to tear up.  Then I got angry.  Then I tried to let it go and tried to focus on the positive.  It didn't entirely work but it made the pain a little more bearable.  And then, a little while later, I came out the other side and found my hope again.

I'm pretty sure that this is a part of the grieving process.  I'm grieving for the lost hope of a normal conception.  An easy conception.  And I'm still trying to come to terms with this diagnosis.  With what it does mean, as well as what it could mean.

The rest of my day was fine, parts of it even great.  It was just that moment, that short period of time when I was alone with my thoughts in the car.  Later in the day I was in awe of a local high school's career center.  They have a dental hygienist program, a nursing program, a pharmacy technician program.  They even have an auto repair class room and a full restaurant.  Not to mention the fact that just a little ways from the school, the students build a house every two years!  A house!  The school has nearly 4,000 students which allows them the funds for all of this stuff, but I kept thinking that I wished I'd gone there!

My class went well too, despite a few hitches with the room.  The store my class is at is undergoing some construction and my classroom turned into a dumping and staging area.  Thankfully the next three classes have been moved to a different location that is much closer to my house.  The class is small, which makes teaching easier, and most of the students participated which is always a plus.

So not a bad day, just a bad moment.

Even so, I'm wiped out today.  It will be an early bedtime for me.

Sometimes I'm amazed by people

Today I took a phone call at work from a sales rep for the fertility end of our business.  She was calling to check on what medications we were having trouble getting in stock.  At the end of our phone call I asked her if she had a few minutes.  She did so I told her about my own fertility challenges and about my upcoming appointment.  We chatted a bit about the hows and whys and then she did something that floored me.  She gave me her cell phone number and email address and told me if I ever had any questions, concerns, or just needed a shoulder to cry on to give her a call.

It brought tears to my eyes.  It was so darned nice of her and I appreciate it so much.  She doesn't know me and I'll probably never talk to her again, but that she would offer is a such wonderful thing to me.  I really have been fortunate with my job.  I've had some great experiences through it, and this is just a reminder of why I love the company I work for.  The great people I met.

Speaking of people and my job... On Thursday I have my first technician training class of the season. The class is designed to help prepare employees for the National Certification Exam.  Even though I've done quite a few of these now, I'm always so nervous the first day.  And this one is no exception.  In fact I think I'm more nervous than before.  Why?  Before the first class I have a meeting with the teacher for a local high school's career center. 

For the past two years we've had students from this high school in one of our three sessions of classes a year.  These are inner city students who plan to get technician jobs on graduation.  We've worked out a deal with the school for them to sit in on our exam preparation classes and intern at our pharmacies.  For the past two years these students have come to my classes and been disruptive and disrespectful. 

The first year the students showed up without books, pens, or paper.  Read magazines and popped bubble gum.  Talked to each other and texted.  They even lied to me and told me they were supposed to leave early one day.  The most recent class I had students talking, texting, and sleeping in class. All of them expressed some really petty complaints about co-workers at their internship stores. One of the students told me they didn't see why they had to be there as they'd already done all of the work.  This class I teach is basically a review session.  You are supposed to try it on your own and then come to class with questions or problems. 

After the last session I was fed up.  I called the liaison between the school and my company and told her my problem.  I vetoed the idea of just canceling the program as I think its a good idea in theory.  We just need to work on the practice of it. Her solution was to invite me to her first meeting with the teacher for this new school year.  Perhaps if the students knew going into my class that it was a review they might not be so restless and rude.  Perhaps if they knew that they need to behave and not be disruptive.

I'm nervous about talking to a teacher about students I've never met based on two negative experiences with past classes.  I want to find a way to make these classes work for both the high school students and my company students.  I just don't know how to do that.  And I don't really have a lot of suggestions.  I'm not a teacher, I just teach a class.   Perhaps I should ask the teacher to tell the students to behave as they would at a job.  That they are going to be evaluated on their behavior as they would at any job.  Maybe we can work out a "report card" that I can send to their teacher at the end of the classes that would count towards their grade.  Maybe the students are just still to immature, but its worth a shot at trying to make it work

Shameless rant

Sleepy kitty

Today really took in out of me.  And while there wasn't anything specific to blame, lots of little things conspired to make today just down right draining.  It started with me being late to work.  Only by three minutes, but I hate being late, it seems to make the rest of the day feel out of rhythm.  This is the second time I've been late since they started construction on one of the intersections on my way to work.  There is a electronic traffic sign before the intersection warning you that traffic patterns have changed, and what lanes go where.  There is this weird divide with highway access on the far right and southbound traffic on the left, with stripped roadway and construction heaven in the middle.

Its been like this for over a week.  And surprise surprise, people still can't get it right.  The light (and it's a busy one) ends up with people trying to change lanes in the middle of the intersection at the last second.  Or people trying to turn and ending up in the wrong set of lanes, backing up into the intersection and trying to get to the right side.  I even saw a car turn into on-coming traffic on accident.  

Today there was an idiot who tried to turn at the tale end of a yellow light.  He didn't make it and the newly green lighted on-coming traffic didn't even slow down.  He ended up stuck between the highway lane and the southbound lanes.  He was freaking out the other drivers.  People would get close and finally see him and slam on their breaks, which made all the drivers behind them do the same.  He was still trying to get himself out of his predicament by the time I got through the light.  Normal this is an easy light.  You never get stuck at it.  Today it only took me three greens before I could get through (that's sarcasm in case it didn't come through in print.)

Idiot drivers!

Once I finally made it to work it was just a bunch of little things that kept piling up.  Some of them really stupid and nit-picky of me but once I'm really irritated its hard to snap out of it.  (Any one else like that?) For instance, someone had left a ladder sitting in front of the diabetic needs products.  It has been there for two days now.  I know they are working on the section but it seems like every patient needs something that's right behind that damned ladder.  I keep meaning to stick it in the stockroom, but I rarely get a chance.  And really, its not my job to clean up after others.  If I'd brought out the ladder you can bet I'd have put it back when I was done.

And where the ladder is... SMELLS BAD.  We think a mouse died in the wall (ewwww.)  The pest control company came and told us to give it a few days and the smell would go away.  Its been nearly two weeks...  It stinks just as bad, just not quite as strong.

And...  Every difficult patient we have called or came in today.

And...  We got really busy when my pharmacist stepped out to use the bathroom and when he came back he got stuck on the phone with someone for a long time so it was almost like I was by myself.

And... That person he got stuck on the phone with called four times today.  And she loves to talk.  And talk. And talk...

And... And. And!

By the time I got off of work all I could think about was going home, eating dinner, and passing the f. out.  But of course I had more work to do once I got home.  My next round of pharmacy technician certification classes (I teach them) starts next Thursday and I have some prep work that really should be done before the weekend.  But Monday's going to have to be good enough because after an hour of working on it, I'm done...

I forced myself to stay awake until my laundry finished, and now it is.  So I'm going to go get ready for bed.  I'm sure I'll be asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.  Sorry for the rant.

On a positive note...  I stumbled across a blog today.  The Bloggess.  The author is a columnist in Houston.  I was linked to her website by another blogger to this post.  And then I read a little more and found this one and this one.  And I'm hooked.  This woman is "funny as all heck and tarnation," (MSNBC's words but I agree!)