ammogirl

After spending the day yesterday in my room studying and doing papers (…really.  The ENTIRE day was spent in my room except for the 5 minutes it took to drive to the ATM to get cash for take-out), my body was seriously fuh-REAKING out.  I felt like I had ants in my spine, to the point of not wanting to even lay down to sleep last night at midnight.  I had a serious case of the jimmy legs and had to keep jumping up and moving around and good lord I am just like my father.  Hi dad.

Anyway, today I was supposed to do more papers-slash-studying but I couldn’t take it.  Instead I tidied my entire house, did laundry (including sheets), grocery shopped, and made pulled pork and two batches of no-bakes for Tay’s friends who are over here more often than not on the weekends.  Which is totally great AWESOME, who knew having a house full of teenagers would be so…(I really want to put “fulfilling” or “satisfying” here but that just does not sound right) happy.  It makes me content to cook for them and have them run around and grab sodas and it’s really cool to listen to them having fun.

Another thing I did today was take Taylor to and pick her up from her job, did I mention she was working now, and holy CRAP that girl made $80 bagging groceries today.  For six hours of work.  Anddd…they only get paid in tips.  So lets do the math:  80/6 = 13.33 an hour.   Which equals I wish I had a job at the commissary.  Right?

I hope everyone had a really fab T-day.  I know I did!

Tschuss!!

So today is garbage day in ammogirl land.  Every Tuesday, we either put out paper, bio, or garbage and the hodge-podge of recycle stuff that all gets thrown together–plastic, cans, coated paper etc.  It’s a complex system, actually, and one which is completely based upon the first bin you see when you drive into town on Monday nights.  If the Germans have their blue bins out, it’s paper.  Brown, bio; black is garbage and the recycle goes in these yellow bags.  Sometimes there will be a mistake, like, bio days are only once a month but not everyone has bio, so then you just sort of guess. This leads to whole neighborhoods dragging out their bins only to drag them back in Tuesday evening, still full.

Today was garbage/recycle day.  I was excited because before John left we went through the attic and generated a lot of recycle stuff that I’ve been slowly getting rid of–I feel like I’m a giant Earth killer if I put out too much recycling at once, I KNOW THAT IS WEIRD.  So I dutifully placed my garbage bin out, stacked the recycle bags to one side, and went about my day.

At lunchtime, I had to run Taylor home.  As I pulled into the driveway, I noticed garbage bags in front of the bin, but didn’t think anything of it.  Until I realized that it was a bag, not bagS, and it only looked like it was plural as it had ripped, apparently mid-dump-trucking, liberally covering the bin and the ground in front of it with the bag’s contents.

What’s that?  You want to know what was in the bag?

Cat-freaking-litter.

Yep.

The top of my garbage bin, its handles, the ground, EVERYWHERE I COULD SEE was covered in litter-dusted cat pee and poop.  It was AWESOME. Even more awesome was the RAIN, which was melting the litter into rivulets of GLUEY POOP.

Well.  THIS is not what I was hoping to do on my lunch break, but regardless I found myself washing off my bin and scooping litter OFF THE STREET, after which I noticed I had stepped in CAT POOP.  Gross.  I wiped my boot over and over through the grass and puddles and gravel but: GLUEY POOP, you might imagine, has staying power.  Fortunately, there was a broken mirror right by the door, so I grabbed a shard and using it eventually got my boot poop-free.  And then the poopy mirror shard, which I had meant to throw into the garbage bin, instead bounced off the lid and landed on the ground, where it shattered into about 27 SMALLER shards, none of which I could determine as the part I was using to clean out poop, leading me to assume they were ALL contaminated but I STILL HAD TO PICK THEM UP.

Okay, fine, move on.  NOTHING ELSE could make this day worse, right?  So I went back to work, finished my day, came home, and Taylor and I headed back to base to buy a shirt for her job HAVE I MENTIONED TAYLOR HAS A JOB and do some very light grocery shopping.  While at the mall, we ran into our friends the Grimms, who we stopped and talked with for a bit, and then we shopped around the BX, and then we shopped around the commissary (where the cashier really sucked and within the course of three minutes broke one of my eggs AND knocked a container of cranberries off the conveyor, resulting in MASS CRANBERRY FALLOUT), and then we came home and THEN, and only then, did I notice that my zipper had been down the entire time.

Tschuss!!

Oh my GOD THE STRESS IS SETTING IN. I have always thought it pretty goofy when people would say “Man, I sure wish there were more hours in the day” but holy HELL I wish there were more hours in the day. Here is my average day:

0400 wake up, study for SMSgt, workout (strength on my TRX, which, incidentally, I’ve had for about six months but just started using) make my lunch, shower, drop the girls off at school, work, cardio at lunchtime and THEN eat (and yes I shower after) (working out, not eating), work, come home, make dinner (…I DO!  Really!), tidy/laundry/dishes/etc., homework, a little surfing, then bed at (hopefully) 1000.

And that actually doesn’t suck that bad.  It’s manageable, you know?  But today, I didn’t go to the gym*, I worked late (…r), and then had to take Tay to a 6pm hair appt.  Now it’s 9pm and I’m exhausted and haven’t done homework OR extra studying.

*The reason I didn’t go to the gym today was actually pretty funny.  Our fitness reg is changing in the AF, and we are no longer required to have duty time to go to the gym.  So now, where before I would feel not guilty at all for leaving early or coming in late (work-load permitting, of course), I feel like I have to scurry out for my lunchtime gym sessions because I leave about 20 minutes early.  Not because I work for sticklers or anything, but because at this particular level/position I’m working, we are not managed like I would be if I worked for a base…if that makes sense.  Which it probably doesn’t, because I am confusing even myself.  THE POINT HERE is that it’s okay for us to go to the gym, in a sort-of vaguely approved way. However, I am really bad with sort-of vague approvals, because as I pointed out to my boss today, YES, I hate being told what to do but I actually prefer to make my own rules within a defined set of constraints.

For example, if we had set-in-stone duty hours, and those duty hours were 0730 – 1630, with lunch from 11-1230, but within those duty hours I could take 30 minutes of duty time and use it for gym time when it worked best for me, it would be great.

So, SOOO rambling at this point.  Here:

I missed lunchtime gym today because I spent my entire lunch building a power point proposal stating why we should get 30 minutes of duty time to go to the gym…at lunch.

The end.

Now it’s 909 pm and…I’m tired.

Tschuss!!