Well I guess this is growing up…

At work, we’re in the process of updating the company website.  Which is good, since besides job postings, it hasn’t been changed in the almost 4 years I’ve been there.  The “about us” section had just my 3 bosses on it.  Apparently one of the changes is that we’ll ALL be on it.  There’s only about 15 of us total, between 2 offices, so it’s not like an epic listing of a billion people.

Anyway, one of my bosses sent an email to all of us, asking what our title is (what’s on our business cards), as that will be put on the website.  My current title is (without getting TOO specific) is ____ _____ Specialist.  That’s already fancy for me, as I’ve previously only ever been an “Assistant” or “Coordinator”.  Truth be told, I got to choose my title, so I made sure it didn’t involve either of those words.

So bossman comes up to me and says “Hey, got your email with your title, thanks.  Just so you know, we’re going to add another title on the website, since you do so many different things.  We want to make sure people know all that you do.”

So my title #2??? Is going to be  SENIOR _______, _______ ______.

I have not been a Senior anything EVER.  Except for being a Senior in High School and College, of course.

But yeah, I’m going to be a Senior blah-blah-blah.  That’s HUGE to me.  It’d be even more awesome if a boost in pay came along with that, but eh…I’m not stressing over it.  I get commission off of some of the stuff that I do, so I guess I’ve just gotta continue my hustle.

The fact that I’m a Senior blah-blah-blah is also freaking me out a little bit.  It means that I’m somewhat IMPORTANT.  I guess in a way, it means that I’m doing something right.

But it means that…there’s no escaping it…I’m a BONAFIDE GROWN-UP.

Seriously.  I am 36, going on 12, but yet I’m a grown-up.  I wear jeans to work everyday and carry my crap to work in a Hello Kitty totebag.  One of my bosses made fun of me today because I had my lunch in a pink lunch bag and my strawberries were in a pink container (which is also Hello Kitty).  I have ridiculous, fangirly crushes on emo band members. I watch trashy TV. I have decidedly bad taste in a lot of things, and I’m kind of a dippity-do.

But I guess that’s SENIOR Dippity-Do.

I’m a grown-up, an adult.  And it’s making me twitchy.  Is 36 too early for a mid-life crisis?

Synesthesia

I’m pretty certain I have some sort of weird version of this.

I kinda want to talk about it. Kinda want to give examples. But I don’t think anyone would get it.  It’d just be like, “oh yeah, well, Mer’s just a fuckin’ wackadoodle like that.”

It doesn’t bother me; it’s kinda nifty actually. But it’s like DUDE – how does my brain come up with this shit?

In other news, I’ve had a rough day.

I believe…oooohweeeheeeeeee….

JHud’s transformation is amazing and inspiring.  What is not amazing and inspiring is the vocals in this commercial.  Both vocals, separately, are very good.  But as a duet, it’s all off.  There’s something about the timing of their singing…I get that it’s her singing with a hologram of her (old) self.  But man, review the tape and figure something out!  It’s just off beat and pitchy to me.

But hey, she’s the recording star and award winner.  I’m just a shlub who sings karaoke on the weekends. What the hell do I know?  *wink*

ANYWAY.

I have joined Weight Watchers.  A friend of mine and I joined together.  I personally don’t think she needs to lose anything, but if she does, it’s certainly a hell of a lot less than me.  But it’s nice to have a partner in crime on this venture.

I’ve actually done Weight Watchers in the past, and have been very successful. My problem comes in sticking to it long-term; in other words – maintenance.  I get comfortable and lazy and I think that I can just go back to my old ways.  Before you know it – 10, 20, 60 pounds has piled back on me.

Pair that with my history of disordered eating – binging, purging, fasting, etc. – and it’s just a cycle of endless trips up and down the scale.

I want this madness to end.  I want to find balance.  I want to be able to say yes to the right things, and no to the wrong ones.  I want to maintain a lifestyle of healthy eating, while giving myself permission to indulge every once in a while.  Maybe being older (hello, 36 and 1/2, how are ya?) and wiser (ehhhh, debatable) will give me the ability to accomplish this.

As I’ve illustrated in my blog over the past year or so, I’m trying to learn how to cook.  I’m hoping that while exploring various techniques (as in, not burning shit beyond recognition) and learning how to use my various cooking contraptions, I’ll come up with healthy recipes that I love, and that won’t be filled with fat and cholesterol and sodium and whatnot.  Sadly, woman can not live on BACON alone. Maybe the addition of various spices and textures will help me to be totally okay with the fact that I’m eating rabbit food, and not bacon.

I can totally do this.

I hate to be that chick who is embarking on a diet at the beginning of the New Year.  But, I’d been considering rejoining WW for a while, and there happened to  be a local meeting on New Years Eve, and my friend wanted to join too.  So it all kinda fell into place.

So far, I’m finding it easy to stick to.  I definitely have a problem with portion size and control, so I’m trying to be very cognizant of that.  Busting out the measuring spoons and cups and all that.  I go back to work tomorrow, so I’m hoping that I’ll be busy enough to not be all OMG FEED ME every 2 hours like I have been the past few days.  Being alone is a trigger for me (Me and all the food, together at last! Teehee.), as is boredom.  I’ve been exploring cooking as a hobby, but man…that can be dangerous! Oh hello, baked ziti!  Hello, tuna casserole! And of course all the, AHEM…”Quality Control” testing of ingredients along the way.  If I start playing around with healthier recipes, this could work out very well for me – both as a novice cook, and as an expert dieter (heh).

We’ll see how it goes.  Meanwhile, I am sick as a dog.  I started feeling crappy yesterday, and I’ve only gotten worse.  Lightheaded, sneezing, sniffling, all that good stuff.  It’s payroll week this week, and we lost a day due to being closed yesterday, so I’m expecting a chaotic day tomorrow. Resting is imperative, because I have no choice but to power through tomorrow.

Holla.

 

All is quiet on New Years Day

Happy New Year.

I guess the holiday season is winding down.  I’m almost happy about that.  I spent so much time being stressed out and a little bit on the depressed side.  Also, between doing stuff for work, moving, as well as cooking and preparations for Christmas Day festivities – well, I was busy and overwhelmed, quite honestly.

So, if things return a bit to the quieter side, well, let’s just say that I’m not going to be weeping openly about that.

But still, the holidays did have their lovely aspects.  My first Christmas as Eric‘s wife.  Christmas Day spent with friends.

Speaking of Christmas Day – our theme ingredient this year was BACON.  Because bacon is freakin’ awesome.  I even got Eric a t-shirt for Christmas, proclaiming “Bacon Is Meat Candy“.   The internet was scoured for bacon-tastic recipes.  A few of the big winners of the day were:

BLT Pasta

Holiday Bacon Appetizers

BLT Dip

And of course -Bacon Grilled Cheese Sandwiches – these were my creation.  Pretty much a basic sandwich, but with 4 cheeses.  I recommend:

• Laughing Cow Light Swiss Wedge (1 per sandwich)
• Collier’s Powerful Welsh Cheddar (a few slices, your desired width, but enough to cover the bread)
• Kraft American Cheese (1 slice per sandwich)
• Pepper Jack Cheese (I used Lucerne‘s – 1 slice per sandwich)

I found that using 1 slice of bacon, cut in half, worked well for each sandwich.  But hey, you might want MORE BACON, OMG! Do what works for you.

BACON, OMG

Of course, Frosty the Cheeseball made another appearance:

FROSTY!

One of my friends even made Bacon Roses.  They were way too pretty to eat.  We thought they were real flowers at first!

Purrrrty Bacon Roses

Per tradition, my parents sent me a box of petit fours from The Swiss Colony, so I brought those as well.  I giggled when I opened the box:

Look closely...teeheehee

(also in the above picture – the Pickles In A Blanket that were a huge hit last year)

Christmas was very tasty indeed.

After having been in go-go-go, run-run, run mode for the past month or so…I’m tired.  So I am spending some quality time on our new couch.  We’ve spent the past month without one, since we discarded the old one when we moved.

COUCH!

Perfect for TV watching, internet surfing and general laziness

 

Also great for chillin' with a beer and checking VERY important messages.

 

Though I went out last night for New Years (dinner at Apertivo and ended the night at Gilly’s), I am spending the first day of 2012 very quietly.  Slept in, did some laundry and other chores, hung out with the Hubz, and then once he left for work, I just kept myself firmly planted on the couch.  I’ll probably turn in early.

And I’m completely okay with that.

 

C is for Cookie

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks, and the holiday season is in full swing.  Who needs a nap? I do, I do!

A few weeks ago, Eric and I had the opportunity to meet Sam The Cooking Guy.  We were able to sit in on an episode of his Livecast.  And let me tell you – Sam, his family and crew are SO NICE.  We really had a blast.  They were extremely hospitable, and it was great for me to meet someone that I really admire.  Oh, and I highly recommend French Toast Mountain. It’s delish.

French Toast Mountain!

Eric in Sam's kitchen - note the dry-erase sliding cabinet doors!

Me in my glory, in Sam's kitchen

Sam is a truly nice, genuine, funny guy.

I said to him, “You know, you give me hope that I can actually cook someday.”  And he said to me, “You can, and you will.”

Fast forward about 2 weeks later to this weekend.  I’ve been invited to a Cookie Exchange party of sorts, and I decided I would try the Potato Chip Cookies that Sam featured on one of his shows.  To be fair, it was a “Viewer Recipe Episode” – so I can’t really blame Sam for the Epic Fail this became.  It seemed to work out well for him, so I honestly thought:  this will be easy-breezy, and I will WOW everyone with my awesome.

Cue the sad trombone.

Saturday afternoon, I decided to embark on this challenge.

I knew IMMEDIATELY that I was in for trouble.  I could not control my hand mixer.  I had it on the slowest speed, and yet, the damn thing was flying all over the bowl.  There are probably still specks of dough in various spots of the kitchen.

4 sticks o' butter, just like the recipe said. It called for "softened butter" - I'm not sure what that means, so I put them in the microwave for a few seconds...?

It was getting all stuck in the beaters! Very frustrating. Not frustrating enough to take a swig of Eric's Jameson, though. Whiskey/Bourbon/Scotch/Whatever is nasty to me. So, it'd have to be a dire situation for me to dive into that bottle.

Finally, the cookie dough started to look more dough-ish!

First batch is in the oven - YEAH!!!!!

At this point, I am feeling very positive. I have gotten over the hand mixer panic, and I have sampled the dough and it tastes pretty yummy.  The recipe said to bake them for about 10 minutes…I decided to check after 8 minutes, just in case.

This broke my heart.

The cookies were flatter than pancakes, somewhat burnt on the edges, and pale in the middle.  And bubbling.  And bathing in a pool of oil.  See, I had sprayed the cookie sheet with Pam, because I felt like I remembered my Mom greasing cookie sheets when I was a kid.  I figured…no harm, right?

Off to the trash can.

At this point I have gotten all wibbly-chinned, which quickly evolved into full-blown SOBBING.  I am hysterical at this point.  I called Mom and cried to her. I’m sure she thought I was ridiculous.  She said that I may not have needed to grease the sheet, the temperature of the oven may be off…it could be a number of factors.  She told me it was okay to keep the dough in the fridge overnight, and that I should try again.

So, I did. I tried again this morning.  Batch 2.  No grease.  I checked the cookies after only 6 minutes and got THIS:

Burnt worse than the first batch. Smoking. Bubbling in the middle. Trying to take the off the sheet resulted in a slimy, floppy mess.

Cue the tears. AGAIN.  Eric probably thinks I’m absolutely unhinged.  Of course, after our tree almost fell over on top of me while I was decorating it the other night, I’m not feeling overly confident about my first Christmas as Eric’s wifey, you know?

The remainder of the dough got scrapped.  2 failed batches is about as much as I can take.  I really can’t figure out what went wrong, though there have been several suggestions – oven issues, too much grease, lack of baking powder…?  But I printed out the recipe right from the website, and the reason I chose it was because it didn’t have a lot of ingredients and seemed easy.  Sam tried it on his show and was successful.  So…I’m at a loss.

So, I’ll be going to the Cookie Exchange cookie-less.  The hosts know this, and let me know, actually before the CookieFail, that if it didn’t work out, not to worry.  They know that I’m…culinarily challenged, and said it was more than enough that I even tried.  I just feel bad because I was SUPER-EXCITED to try these cookies.  I was boasting about how delicious they sounded and how easy the recipe appeared to be and OMG I’M MAKING COOKIES, yo.

Last year, I made No-Bake Cookies, so I really thought that, you know, after over a YEAR, I could move on to the next step, involving ovens and shit.

Apparently, I need a remedial cooking class.

Christmas is coming, and my friend and I are once again, hosting a get together for a few close friends who don’t have family around locally (or want to get AWAY from their families on the holidays, you know, whatevs…) – which, again will involve epic amounts of cooking and preparing of foodstuffs.

I really enjoy the process of cooking. I want to be good at it.  I want what I prepare to be tasty, and also a reflection of my love for people.  You know: I love you; let me show you how much…with a casserole!

It would just really suck if that turned into: I love you; maybe we should order some Chinese take-out.  Or: I love you; here, chug on this Pepto while I drive you to Urgent Care.

But I think I’ll miss this one this year

As Christmas rapidly approaches, I find myself slipping further and further into a state of depression/I-don’t-care-ness. This is usually my favorite time of the year (except for my birthday, of course). This year has been tough, though.

Today, I just started Wellbutrin (XL, for extra-large depression?), after being off of Prozac for a month. The side-effects with the Prozac were unbearable, and disappeared almost immediately after I stopped taking it. I’ve taken Wellbutrin in the past, and that’s probably the medication I’ve had the best luck with, in the 10+ years of trial-and-error I’ve been through with meds.

I’m crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

The tree almost fell over on me while I was decorating it. This is just one among the many reasons why I could quite possibly ruin the first Christmas as Eric‘s wife.

My desire to attend any of the 463 parties I’ve been invited to is ZERO. Being invited to events where 20 or more people are going, and I know about 3 of them? Puts me into such a panic. I don’t want to be alone and wall-flowery, but I don’t want to cling like a vine to the few people I do know. I am having a hard time trying to motivate myself to attend any of them. But it’s not my comfort zone. There are few physical locations and situations where I am not in a panic. Being at a house I’ve never been to before, with a bunch of people I don’t know, and feeling like there’s NO ESCAPE…it’s not really conducive to feeling festive.

Please pass me a cup of cheer. Or 5. Or 12.

I have no energy. I have no attention span to listen to even my favorite Holiday songs. My body hurts (partially due to tripping and falling in the alleyway on Saturday). I feel fat and ugly. I can’t get motivated to do much of anything. I don’t know if it’s because I’m so exhausted from moving, because I’m just depressed, because…I don’t know.

I haven’t been completely devoid of holiday spirit, but it comes and goes.

I’ve been full of piss and vinegar lately. I’m crabby and I don’t have a hell of a lot of patience.

I want to cry. I feel so trapped in this feeling, and no way to let it out. No one wants to hear this bullshit. Especially not during the holidays.

I need a Christmas miracle of sorts.

Come, they told me…

“Christmas Jollies” is a fantastic holiday album.  It’s full of disco-Christmassy delights from Salsoul Orchestra.  During the Christmas season, my family would bust out the 8-track, and pop it into my 2-XL, and listen to it as we watched the Yule Log on TV on Channel 11.  We also had an actual fire going in the fireplace as well.

How did my childhood living room become so Studio 54-esque?  My dad, back in the day, was a hard core Giants fan.  He went to a lot of games.  I even remember coming along as a little girl.  But they used to play these songs, over the loudspeaker at Giants Stadium.  My dad knew someone who worked there, or something, and asked what were these super festive songs that were playing?

And that’s how Salsoul Orchestra became a staple in my home.

Just a random story for you, without much of a point.  As I do.

MEANWHILE…

Tomorrow, I am super-stoked, because I am meeting Sam The Cooking Guy.   As I mentioned in my last post, Eric and I won an auction, and now we get to attend Sam’s Livecast. He does a webcast, 3 days a week, which is live (hence LIVEcast), and then later available for download on iTunes (just sayin’).  So yeah, tomorrow, I’ll be there. 6pm Pacific Time.  During which I’m sure I’ll find some way to epically embarrass myself.

Never mind my social anxiety.  I’ve met a few famous people (mostly bands) in the past, and I ALWAYS, ALWAYS end up coming across as such a dork. Like, moreso than the people in my life know me to be.

And I really am a fan of Sam.  I dig his show, I dig his Livecast.  I never used to like cooking shows, but now I watch a lot of them, in hopes that I’ll somehow learn to cook via osmosis.  What I like about Sam is that he’s not a chef, really, but a guy who likes to make yummy stuff, in a relatively simple manner.

That, and he’s funny.

I’m pretty psyched.

…and I just totally went all ADD and started looking up weird house songs from the early/mid 90s on YouTube.  For, like, a half hour.

Clearly a sign to wrap up this blog post.

 

I’ll have a Blue Christmas

We are in the new apartment.  Post with fun details to come soon.

However, I’ve had a cold where I sneeze continually.  It’s been 3 days now.  I may have thrown my back out from sneezing.  I’m also in Holiday Mode at work.  Which means will I label, stuff, address, stamp and send about 350 cards to be sent to clients.  We are aiming to mail them out Monday/Tuesday of next week.  Which is also a payroll week – so I will stuff and stamp another 160 or so envelopes full of checks.  Plus I need to decorate all the client gifts, stickers and bows and…

…it’s enough to suck the holiday spirit right out of me.

My work Holiday Party is this Saturday.  Friday night, Eric’s band has a show.  The following Thursday, I’m heading up to see Sam the Cooking Guy’s Livecast. Yeah, Eric and I were at an awards dinner, and that was one of the auction items.  A ridiculous amount of money later, I’m going to be meeting SAM.  I’m hoping he can impart some cooking wisdom to me. Lord knows I need it.

Week after that, Eric and I are going to Magic 92.5 Quiet Storm Live!

I already have 5 or so invites to Holiday-Type Fiestas.  I have my own small shin-dig to plan.  I have a new apartment to organize and decorate and make look like a home!  Sometime during the month, I have an appointment with my shrink to get on something not-Prozac. I should probably look up when that is.  Although, they’ll call me a few days before to remind me, so…eh. I desperately need to get my nails done and get an eyebrow wax.  I need to make an appointment  to visit my therapist at some point.  Because I’m starting to feel overwhelmed again, and kinda not-so Merry and Bright.

For now, I’d settle for just being able to breathe through my nose again, and stop coughing.

 

Breakfast in America

 

 

I’ve made somewhat of a habit of what I’m calling “Breakfast Mush”.  Where I just take some leftover stuff, throw it together and hope for the best.  Usually there’s at least some pasta and eggs involved.

TODAY’S WAS EPIC.

Ingredients (quantities are up to you):

• Egg Noodles (left over from last night)
• Tomato Sauce (left over from the other night – homemade – diced tomatoes, chopped olives, mushroom slices, splash of olive oil, splash of red wine, salt/pepper/oregano/basil/onion powder)
• Scrambled Egg Whites
• Low-Fat Cream Cheese (a few spoonfuls)

Combine together and reheat.  Add more salt/pepper to taste if desired.

I probably should have taken a picture of it.  But, eh. It wasn’t really pretty. It was just DELICIOUS.  And pretty well-balanced.  Noodles for the carbs, sauce for the veggies, egg whites for the protein, and cream cheese for the dairy.  Tangy, slightly creamy, without being too heavy.  Pair with a cup of coffee and you are GOOD TO GO.

 

 

Such a beautiful mess

The new Gym Class Heroes album is excellent.  This particular track just guts me in a wonderful way.