If you give a mouse a cookie, Part II

In typical Friday fashion, I am almost done with my design and have also found something that I NEED. Continuing with my office work out quest, I found something that I have decided is a necessity in my cube. I think I would be ultra productive in both losing weight and working...

How is one of the these puppies not in every office?!

Now, I just need to convince the owner of the company that we need to spend about $2,000 to keep me sane... I think it will work, don't you?

If you give a mouse a cookie

Okay, I've hit an all time low. This morning I came to the office with full intentions of finishing a design I started yesterday. I opened the site pictures and began to surf through to find a picture I needed when I realized that I was in a lot of the pictures. Since I was writing measurements while a co-worker was taking pictures on that freezing cold site visit, I happened to be standing in many of the shots and what I saw made a tear role from my eye.

Yes, you may think I am just being hard on myself and yes I have been working out 4-5 times a week and I'm back on the low-to-no carb diet, but this picture... THIS PICTURE! Oy vey! What a mess!

So, being the self-deprecating person that I am, I immediately saved a copy and began to work on a new version of myself in Photoshop (petty, yes I know). However, this did not make me feel better and since it's a Friday in the winter and no one is really here, I took 10 minutes and did 100 squats behind the security of my cubicle walls.

This got me interested, do they have websites for office work-outs? Well of course they do! I don't even have to leave me chair! So I scrolled down the list and found some ab workouts and immediately grabbed my water bottle, scooted my not so little butt to the end of the chair and did some twisting movements for about five minutes.

Then I was curious, how many brides-to-be can you find secretly sweating through a mini-workout in their office? Of course, I turn to Google again to see what I can find. Not much.

So, then I decided I would write about it and here I am. Well, that's how I spent an hour freaking out on a Friday in my windowless cube hell.

Wintertime Blues

Lately I have been really, REALLY bored. It's not that I have nothing to do, because I have a lot of projects both at work and at home. I have the ailment that many suffer from at this time of the year, Cabin Fever.

I feel like I want to tear my hair out. I feel so blasé. I feel like crying, but then realize that I'm too tired and depressed to muster the energy to secrete a single drop of that saline fluid.

A couple days ago, the finance and I were sitting on the couch playing a rousing round of Pixel Junk Monsters (a small obsession of mine) when I became antsy and was about to make a suggestion until I realized what I was about to say... "Wanna go for a walk?" Pretty sure that wasn't an option as the temps had dipped well below freezing. Darn!

I'd give anything to go for a jog around the neighborhood or to sip a glass of wine on the patio.

Wedding Dresses are Fun!

I picked up my dress last weekend and it was amazing! It felt so great to try it on and then play with the veils and other hair accessories!

I am keeping it at my parent's house and I wish it were at mine! I would try it on every day!

Now I have to make arrangements for any alterations, although, as long as I lose an inch or two within my mid-section... no alterations needed! I hope I can do it!

My Oatmeal Tastes Like Soap

When I was a tot, my parents threw me a birthday party at McDonald's and invited all the neighborhood kids. It was amazing (well, to a two-year-old, at least)! And, as an added bonus, McDonald's treated me to a present as well! They presented me with a plastic bowl and cup (with a sippy type lid) that had pictures of all the great McDonald's characters. It was love at first sight.

To this day, I have my little bowl (the cup and lid were lost to two separate and equally devastating incidents in the dishwasher) and I have it kept neatly away in my office desk drawer. Of course, the little characters have long since disappeared, but the bowl remains. I use it to eat a multitude of meals requiring a bowl and I wash it by hand in our little sink with a dollop of dish soap after each and every use.

However, sometimes I can't wash the bowl right away and it requires a little soaking. I have learned that you cannot soak with the soap in the bowl as it is very old plastic and it seems to eat any material cradled in it's aging arms. This has not been a problem with my salads or my soup, but for some reason the magical powers of oatmeal have seemed to be able to draw the soap back out and into the creamy oats, which find their way into my mouth.

I have never had my mouth washed out with soap, but I can understand why it is such an unpleasant experience. I think I will requiring a different bowl specifically for my oaty breakfast.

Please Interrupt Me

I don't know if this tends to happen in other offices, but it has begun to annoy me to no end in mine. I have noticed that if you are in a coworker's office having a convo (work related or not) people just tend to think it's okay to jump into the office and stand there staring at you and then take the first possible chance to cut in and ask a stupid question or tell a stupid story and then leave having completely disrupted the initial conversation.

I have begun to quit mid-sentence, look them straight in the eye and say, "Can I help you?" I had originally thought that this would make them uncomfortable and they would get the hint that they are being rude. WRONG. Instead, they usually reply, "Oh, I just wanted to tell so-and-so/you something" and then they continue with their stupid question or story.

Am I the only person that knows that you should only interrupt if it is an urgent matter and you should apologize profusely even then?

The Clock Has Wings

My goodness how time flies! I apologize for my lack of storytelling lately! Excuses aside, I just didn't really have anything worth writing about. So....

First: HAPPY NEW YEAR

Second: A little story about a puppy.

Yesterday, the finance and I were FINALLY able to sell the solid oak mantel that has been sitting in our garage for eons. It's a beautiful thing that I had purchased foolishly when I wanted nothing more than to finish the bare fireplace off with something other than the sagging piece of wood that someone had carelessly (and barely) screwed into the wall. We then realized that we wanted "natural stone" and therefore placed the fate of our oak mantel into the hands of Craig, whom keeps a mighty dandy list of items for sale or barter.

Well, we had a nibble that turned into a showing and the couple who took our precious baby to it's new home came to peak at their potential project and hand us a chunk of change. I popped my head outside to get a looky-lou at the new owners when a puppy came barreling into the garage wagging his tail furiously and jumping every which way, only to turn and barrel right back out into the snow so he could role and chew at the rock solid ice.

Everyone exchanged glances and smiles and the husband of the pair commented, "Well, he sure doesn't get enough love now does he?" quite sarcastically, of course. I laughed and we went on with our sale.

The finance helped them pack up their new purchase and came back inside only to ask, "Who's dog is that?" Astounded, I replied, "Well, it's their's... isn't it?" "No, they left and the dog is still running around out there. Go look out the front door".

So, I headed over to see the little thing, still happy as a clam, running every which way across the road and under our giant spruce tree (hunting the rabbits I assumed). And then it hit me; I've seen him before. He was the dog that I helped capture about two months ago for a young woman. He was a bit smaller then, but the same dog all right. He was on the loose again!

I opened the door and called him over. Unlike the last incident, he came pouncing over and allowed me to pick him up. No collar. Hmmm... someone must have wriggled out of his collar and took off.

So, I bundled myself up, gave him a dish of water which he quickly lapped up and took him back out into the bitter cold streets to see if he could lead me to his home. The finance followed as well and the puppy took us one street over where we deduced, based on the puppy piddle and a doggless leash, where he may live.

This is where the story gets troublesome. I noticed that the blinds were filthy and broken and that there was no sign of a collar. I rang the doorbell in the off chance that we had guessed correctly and a young woman came to the door. I asked if the wild-eyed, hyper little mutt may be hers and she announced that yes he was and that he had run off a while ago.

I then remarked that I had been worried as it was much below zero and the little guy's face was nearly frozen completely over (not to mention the remnants of urine that was still clinging to his little dingle). She explained that he usually did this for about three hours and would come home when he felt like it. This irritated me to no end as I would never just shut the door and let my dog roam the car laden streets of suburbia.

She put on her jacket and joined us in the street, but once the pup layed eyes on her, all bets of catching him were off. He jumped here and there and placed his face in the ground and his butt in the air just tempting us into a game of tag. She brought out a treat and he immediately ran for his sweet to which she grabbed him by the fleshy abundance of his neck with a firm grip and he screeched in pain and bit her.

Odd, she could have just picked him up as I had earlier and been done with it, but instead she released him and looked up sheepishly as he went back to his little game. I tried to help, but finally the finance said (as cold as I've ever heard him speak in the presence of a stranger), "Let's go. It's her problem now". So, we left (me, hesitantly) and allowed her to deal with her own issue of a puppy that she obviously did not want or care for.

When we entered our home and I took off my jacket I began to say how terrible it was to see the poor little guy like that. Ironically, the sarcasm put forth by the man that bought our mantel turned out to be more true than I had imagined.

The finance told me to let it go because there was nothing we could do. I wanted to call the police, but there were no other signs of abuse and the dog looked healthy enough to me. But if I see that little thing running loose again, so help me, I will be on the phone before you know it.

It's unfair that someone who obviously does not want a dog is in possesion of one and I, who have been begging and begging and begging and begging, is without. What a cruel world it is!