Tuesday, March 18, 2014

MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Today I had to go have blood drawn as another step towards saving money on our insurance.  The blood draw went fine and I didn't scream or faint, even though they used a needle the size of a boba straw. (That may be a slight exaggeration, but still...)  The lady who did the work taped my arm, and per usual, told me to leave it on for about 10 minutes.  Usually I wind up taking the tape off before the 10 minutes are up, if for no other reason than I don't like people looking at the bandage and wondering what sort of medical test I just had done.  I've never had a problem with it before, so when I stopped for coffee on my way in to work and the tape began pulling loose, I didn't think anything of just taking the whole thing off and throwing it away. It had been close to 10 minutes by that time, I thought.  However, today I must have been having a clotting issue, because while I was walking away from the garbage to pick up my drink, my arm started bleeding!  Gross much?  Ugh, I was embarrassed.  No one wants to see your blood while they're enjoying their breakfast!  Well, I wouldn't think so, anyways.  I had to grab a napkin and hold it against my arm until it stopped.  Now I have learned a valuable lesson: I'd rather have people looking at my bandage and wondering about my medical issues than looking at a bleeding appendage and wondering if I'm going to give them Hep C while they're eating. 

Sorry, people at Starbucks! No Hepatitis here, I promise, just bad judgement!

2) I've realized something about myself in the past month or so, but I'm not sure if it's really an unusual thing or if everyone feels this way.  Bear with me because it's a little hard to explain.

One of my Facebook friends sent me a message with a picture attached and said something like "Saw this and it made me think of you."  This guy IS someone I consider a friend, although we haven't seen each other in person in a long time, but I immediately felt odd that he was telling me that he saw something that made him think of me.  Now, it wasn't an odd, creepy-stalker-this-man-is-freaking-me-out feeling, it was more of a why-would-he-think-of-me? feeling.  It wasn't the first time I've felt like that.  I had to actually sit back and think of why hearing that made me feel so strange, and I finally came to the conclusion that it was because I genuinely never thought that anyone, with exception of my family, ever thought of me at all.  Like, I cease to exist to people unless I somehow initiate contact between us.  I'm also usually surprised when I get unsolicited contact from other people.  That probably puts me on the Autism scale somewhere, but it's the truth!  I hope you don't take that as me just being pitiful, but I've almost always felt like that.  I think that's why I always have such a hard time inviting people to do things with me, calling, texting or even sending an e-mail, because I'm afraid that I'm bothering them by reintroducing myself into their everyday lives!  I've even realized that's why I'm sometimes very surprised when I get gifts and cards, even on my birthday.  I know, I know, it's weird.  I've apparently convinced myself I'm a Silence (if you get that, you're cool). 

Honestly, though, is that how other people feel? 

3) I am wearing an orange and blue dress today, and have already gotten a comment about how they are Auburn colors. Sigh.  I...I just like the colors together.  It's not that hard!


Thursday, March 13, 2014

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I'm feeling restless today.  I don't want to be at work, but I have no idea what I would possibly do if I weren't here, so I'm not sure why I'm feeling this way.  I've been feeling weird, jittery and slightly bad tempered since I woke up this morning.  I thought it was caffeine related, but then remembered I didn't have any caffeine, so unless Butler is dosing me with Excedrin at night, I have no idea. I wouldn't put it past him.  Maybe it means bad weather or some bad news (I hope not) coming.   The same principle of how horses freak out before a storm. Because I'm part horse, I guess?  I don't know! I don't like the feeling, though.  It's crawly. 

2) Speaking of Butler and crawly things, I found a tick on him last night!  Yuck!  I thought he was on medication to deal with ticks, but apparently we had been misinformed about that.  I suppose we're lucky that he isn't covered in them, since he spends his days wallering around in the grass, but that one tick was enough for me to feel itchy the rest of the day.  I went to the vet first thing this morning and got something for them.  I can't stand the thought of the little critters being on him or on us!  When I was a kid, our house got infested with them somehow (I remember seeing them on the curtains and crawling up from the carpet) and ever since then they've given me the wiggins something awful.  As God as my witness I will shave the dog and have him shrink wrapped before I let him get all ticky!  Bleh.  Even writing about this has made me itchy.

*IN FRENCH SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS NARRARATOR VOICE*
Two. Days. Later.

3) I recently got a Fitbit Force!  It's a really neato little gadget that you wear around your wrist that acts as a watch, a pedometer, an alarm clock and sleep analyzer, and it connects to an online program to help you keep track of all manner of health stuff, like water consumption and calorie intake.  Basically it's a shaming device unless you are really active, which I am not.  I wanted it for two reasons: A) I'm hoping that by seeing how very little I usually do in a day, I will be motivated to move my carcass around a little bit more and hopefully restart whatever healthy lifestyle changes I need to make. B) It also connects to a program online that Steve's company is a part of called Vitality, which (I think) keeps track of the ways that you are exercising and making good health decisions so that you can get discounts on insurance.  Barring those things, I'm sure the NSA can use it to track me down in case they decide I'm a threat due to the sheer amount of yarn I buy.  There's a joke about afghans/Afghans in that, but I'm not feeling very clever today.

Anyways, one of the things I really like is that you can set a goal of how many steps you want to take in a day.  If you meet that goal, the bracelet/watch thing buzzes and it does a little digital light show in celebration.  You also get a big green smiley face on your Fitbit dashboard. If it could just dispense a small pellet of chocolate once you reach your goal, it would be perfect.  Inversely, one of the things I'm kind of iffy about is that the pedometer doesn't seem to be totally accurate.  While I'm walking, it seems to be doing the job correctly, but there have been times when I've been in the car and noticed that it is advancing my step number.  I'm not 100% sure why it does that, but I'm assuming it's the way I've moved, or maybe vibrations or something. Who knows?

Last night I'd been sitting in the living room crocheting when I decided to check the app that the Fitbit syncs to and see how far away from my goal I was.  I was surprised to see I was only about 800 steps away from my goal, because I'd been crocheting for a long time.  I just guessed that I must have done a lot of walking during the day, so I got up to walk around the house for a few minutes to see if I could get closer to the goal.  I walked around for a while before I got bored (my house is not big, nor is it interesting to walk through) and I decided to sit down again and continue my crochet project. I checked my Fitbit again and saw that I was only about 400 steps away from my goal and figured I could do that before bed without a problem.  I settled back and began crocheting again, and after a while my Fitbit buzzed.  I looked down and saw that it was doing the "Hooray! You made your goal!" thing.  Apparently, the Fitbit had been counting my crochet stitches as steps!  I hadn't walked that much at all, I'd just been doing something with repetitive motion that triggered the pedometer!  I also found out that I crocheted about 1.7 miles.  If only that burned calories...