Lickety Spit

My boss refuses to stop licking envelopes and its driving me crazy. Let me explain. I purchased new 9x12 envelopes for books that we send out regularly. The last time I ordered these envelopes we bought a more expensive kind. Trying to save money I went cheap. The envelopes themselves were fine but I didn't realize that they were not self-sealing but the kind you had to wet in order to seal them. With the last kind you pulled a strip revealing a sticky strip and then all you had to do was push the sides together. So to fix this problem I bought some envelope sealer which is basically a spongy glue stick that both wets the sealer and puts some more glue on the surface. Who wants to lick a bunch of envelopes closed everyday, right? So this seemed to be working ok for everybody in the office until one day I was sitting in my boss's office talking to her about something while she was preparing a package in one of these envelopes. I watched as she put the book in the envelope, licked the thing closed with multiple waggings of her tongue and then pulled out a roll of packing tape, cut it to the appropriate size with scissors and then applying the tape haphazardly to the end of the previously molested envelope. After I witnessed this I asked her, "What are you doing?" She said that she was sending a book off to so-and-so to which I countered, "No, why are you doing that to that envelope?" To which she replied, "I just want to make sure the book doesn't come out in the mail." So I tell her to wait just a minute and I go and get her one of the handy spongy glue stick envelope sealers that I had purchased for just this purpose. As she prepared her next package I showed her how to use the glue stick on it and she agreed that was a better idea. Problem solved right? Well, perhaps not.

A few days later I am in her office again and witness the same envelope molesting as before except that this time after she licked the envelope thoroughly she applied the wet glue stick to the package as well. (At least we had gotten rid of the excessive tape step.) So I asked again, "What are you doing?" She replied that she was using the glue that I had given her. So I say, "Well yeah but the glue replaces the need to use your tongue. See the glue wets the sealer the same as your spit does so you don't have to lick them anymore." She goes, "I don't mind licking them." And I say, "But that's just gross! And now your doing the same step twice for no reason." So I try to explain again the idea of wetness being the same whether it comes from spit or from the glue stick but that argument was to no avail. A co-worker had come into her office to discuss something and I presented my argument just to make sure I wasn't the crazy one. My co-worker agreed and tried to explain the same thing I had just explained but again, it was useless. So now each package that is sent from her is sealed with a loving french kiss as well as the glue stick. (By the way she has her own glue stick that only she uses.)

One would think that would be the only envelope sealing discussion a person would have within a weeks time, but no, that wasn't the case. A few days later I was doing something in our mailroom when another co-worker of mine, who is a bit of a germaphobe, came in and asks if there is a way to seal an envelope. (This was in regards to a regular letter sized envelope.) I told him about the spongy envelope sealers that I had gotten and I also suggested that he could just lick it too. (It was just one.) Then he says, "Well, I just don't want the person who receives it to think that I licked it." I looked at him for a moment probably not hiding my confusion very well before I said, "What???" He explained that he just didn't want the receiver to be grossed out thinking that he had licked it closed. I still had the confused look on my face as I turned around and grabbed his paycheck out of his mailbox and held it up saying, "Who do you think licks these every two weeks?" He looked at me with horror. (I really don't lick them myself but it illustrated my point.) I told him that I didn't think many people thought about how the envelope they just opened was sealed but that the envelope sealer was available for him to use whenever he needed it. Also that he should probably never open any packages that were sent to him by our boss without wearing gloves.

Recent Work Highlights

1. One of my co-workers yelled this, not to me but in a meeting we were having... "Feelings! I don't care about your feelings! Put your feelings in a bag and mail them to your momma because I don't care about your feelings!" It was kind of a "There's no crying in baseball!" moment. Awesomeness right?

2. My boss was meeting with a person from Austria about starting a film commission there. Right before she went to meet the person I told her to be sure to greet them with a "G'day Mate!" She thought about that for a second and then gave me a dirty look.

3. My boss agreed to meet with a troop of 7 year old cub scouts for an hour and tell them about our business. After that was over she said, "Well, that was a stupid idea."

Future's so bright.

I am very lucky. I have an office that is on the 15th floor in a downtown building that has an awesome view of the San Diego Bay. I can see the aircraft carriers when they are in port. That also mean that I am on the west side of the building which is the side in which the sun sets. You might think - "ooh sunsets!" Yes there are some spectacular ones. But now with the stupid time change all I get is the sun in my eyeballs every afternoon. Right now I am squinting. One of my coworker walked by and laughed at me saying that if I kept scowling like that my face might stay that way. That launched me into a tirade about DST and the sun now being in my eyes! So I have a choice...

Do I close my blinds and miss the view? Do I continue leaning slightly forward at an awkward 45 degree angle every afternoon avoiding the sun and scowling? Someone might suggest that I open the blinds in the morning and then close them when the sun gets in my eyes later in the day. To you I say - that is way too much work for someone as lazy as me. Then as I was thinking about this I came up with a great idea...

Can you image walking past that every afternoon? I am going to try it and see how long it takes my coworkers to say anything. Maybe I'll start a trend. Hey if I can wear them in my car why can't I wear them in my office? I have a brother who used to wear his sunglasses at night, this is definitely not as bad as that.

Let the experiment begin!

It's Alive!

See I told you this blog wasn't dead. Let's just say it was in a coma...for a year. It was breathing, there were a few signs of life - there were even thoughts but they just weren't being communicated to the outside world. This past year has been an interesting/weird/introspective one. I wouldn't say that it was a bad year, in fact lots of good things happened and hey it could always be worse, right? Look around, it could definitely always be worse. When Angelo and I were trying to come up with Christmas card ideas this last December we were cracking ourselves up coming up with ways we could joke about our 2009. We were a little worried that people wouldn't get the humor and think it was a cry for help so we went with the warm and fuzzy snuggie card. But we have learned that when life gives you lemons suck out all of the vitamin C and yell “EAT THAT, LIFE!"

It was right to give up my blog for a while. I was mostly blogging to entertain myself and I wasn't really feeling very funny the last year or so. I think it would have been a lot of complaining and I hate complaining so I'm glad I wasn't contributing more complaining to the world. After all I really don't have much to complain about so I'm glad I was mum.

So here are a few of the events/thoughts/haps from the last year...

1. I have lost a total of 55 lbs! Thank goodness I started losing weight when I did because if I had been puffy AND dealing with life I would have been a frackin' mess. It definitely helped my outlook to be shrinking my pant size. I went from a size 16 to a size 6 which I honestly can't believe nor did I ever set out to do. I have to tell you that when you finally change your lifestyle it really does come easier. I do have to give a big shout out to the swine flu for helping me with those last 5 lbs in October. There is a silver lining to every bad situation people!

2. My job has been an absolute roller coaster. I have realized that my boss and I get along loads better when we don't have a marketing budget. Mostly because I completely disagreed with what she chose to put out but it doesn't really matter because she is the boss. (Funny how that works.) Now that all our marketing money has gone away we get along just like old times. We had a crazy funding cut this year again so I am getting real good at dealing with no money. (There's something for the resume.) Since my company's funding is known on an annual basis at least I know I have a job for another year. A sad consequence to our budget cuts is the suspension of our internship program. *tear* Whatever will I blog about now?

3. Early last year my doctor found a "lump." Yep, that kind of "lump." The unknown didn't last for long and it turned out to be just a cyst but holy crap. My heart goes out to anyone who goes through that. My experience didn't even last that long but it really gave me some good perspective.

4. Facebook is weird. I joined and it's fun to be able to keep up with some people. It's weird to have some people friend you. My feeling is that if I would be happy running into a person at the grocery store and would have a conversation with them then they can be my facebook friend. If I would quickly duck into the next aisle then no, no thanks. To be perfectly honest it's best use for me is to keep tabs on the kids in our church youth program. They spill all kinds of stuff on it. I don't know if I would have said so much if facebook had been around when I was a teenager. I think they are just so used to broadcasting their lives through texts and such that they don't really understand that EVERYONE CAN READ YOUR CONVERSATIONS WHEN YOU TALK ON THE NEWSFEED.

5. I am coming up on 6 years as young women's president in our ward. That has gone really fast. I still totally love it! The girls that I have been able to work with have made such an impact on me. It has definitely been something I have really needed in my life. It's funny because it seems like whenever we have gotten any bad news in the past year it always seems to happen on a Tuesday. That is also the day that we have our youth mutual activities during the week. Usually I am saying, "Aw crap, now we've got to go to mutual." But then we go and have a good time and it's the best distraction. Things don't seems so bad after that. The kids are so fun and freakin' hilarious too! Angelo and I are constantly amused.

6. My husband is awesome. He is definitely the mac to my cheese. He constantly makes me laugh and takes life in stride which is all I can ask for. His family also continues to entertain us. His brother and his fiancee had a baby boy last year and that has been a very good thing. They created the first grand baby which has been wonderful (and frankly a relief.) There have been some funny stories but I can't send them out into the Internet for fear that someday they will be found by future anthropologists who will think that was normal for the early 21st century and I can't have that kind of guilt weighing on my conscience.

Being in a coma you sometimes fear people will have forgotten about you. I hope that's not the case. I made it through my blog coma and I'm hoping there is no significant brain damage.

THIS BLOG IS NOT DEAD!

It's just been on the back burner for a few months. I think I'm back though.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm back. I have three blogs that I had worked on in the last few months so check them out. I will be updating more often - I promise!

45

That's how many pounds I have lost! It has taken me nine months but its been worth it.

Here's my obligatory puffy pants pictures:
Holy junk in the trunk!Here is a list of some of the differences losing 45 pounds has made:
-I now only have one chin. It turns out having more than one isn't helpful at all.
-I don't snore anymore.
-I have dropped 4 pant sizes.
-You know those muscles that exist just above your knee? I had forgotten all about those until a few months ago when mine started showing up again.
-I can walk up a flight of stairs an not get winded.
-I no longer weight more than my husband.
-Before I was getting headaches at least twice a week...now I maybe get one a month!
-My waist went from 41 inches to 31. That's 10 inches people!
-Shopping is fun again!
-No two points on my back touch anymore.

The funny thing is that I never started out with this weight loss thing for any other reason than I was feeling like crap. Yay for feeling like crap! I am now slimmer at 30 than I was for the majority of my 20s. Looking back that's kind of lame. Hopefully I'll do better with this decade.

The cool thing is that I did not go on a diet, I just learned to eat better and exercise. I exercise at least three times a week. The only things I really don't eat very often anymore are french fries and mayonnaise and I never thought I would say that! I also don't drink anything other than water usually. I haven't had a soda in 9 months! It's been interesting transitioning into regular life after being very careful with what I was eating. I haven't been using my SparkPeople site since before Thanksgiving. The weight came off slower than when I was using it but I even got through the holidays losing weight. This is puffy Katie from Christmas of 2007:And this is a much healthier, happier, and less puffy version:

Where all your dreams come true...

So did you hear? I turned 30 in January! I know! 30. Geez, that's like three decades or something. For the momentous occasion I decided that I needed to get out of town. We kicked around a few different destinations but finally decided on Disneyland. It is the happiest place on earth you know. What better location to lose my 20s than a place where people wear hats with giant ears on them and elephants fly! We went up and stayed at the Grand Californian Hotel for a few days. The hotel is right on the Disneyland property so you get to walk right out of the hotel and into the park. It was awesome. We spent Thursday and Friday at Disneyland/California Adventure which was so fun. Here are some picture highlights of the trip...

Here is Angelo pointing at a monkey's butt. (Don't worry it's not a REAL monkey butt.)This is my favorite ride at Disneyland. I like to spin really, really fast! It makes me laugh. What does it say about me that I like to spin around in circles that don't really go anywhere? Hmm...
My new favorite sign:On Thursday night we were waiting in line at the new Nemo submarine ride. (Which by the way is a total snoozer in my opinion.) When we were almost to the front of the line this big group of people were rushed up to the front. There was a Disney employee with an ear piece standing with this big group and I knew something was up. So I kept staring at the group until I figured out what celebrity it was. Finally I caught a peak - it was Kirsten Dunst. It was freezing that night and she was wear some big mickey mouse gloves which was kinda funny. She kept her back to the crowd and stayed pretty incognito. She has really pretty skin and really blond hair. It was kinda funny.

One of the best part's of the trip was my surprise on Friday! Two of my nieces, Sherise and Whitney, flew down from Utah and surprised me at Disneyland! One moment I was wolfing down a giant waffle cone, the next two of my favorite people ran right up to me on Main Street, Disneyland. I was shocked! Angelo had been stalling for a while I guess. It was pretty funny. We spent the rest of the day running from ride to ride with them. On Saturday, my actual birthday, we went to breakfast with my nieces and my parents at a place Whitney swears has the best waffles. (They had all stayed in a hotel in Anaheim on Friday night.) After breakfast Angelo and I headed up to L.A. to see the musical Wicked. It was awesome! It was the last weekend it was playing up in L.A. I loved it! My 30s started out pretty good. RIP 20s. I'll miss you.

You will have a Merry Christmas!

This is a story about my boss giving a Christmas present to a Jehovah Witness.

The week before Christmas me and some of my co-workers were piling into my boss's car to go to yet another funding meeting. In the back seat there was a silver gift bag that we had to move so that we could sit down. Cathy gave the present to my coworker in the passenger seat and said, "Can you hold it? Hopefully Nadine is in the booth." (Nadine is an attendant in our building's parking garage.) Here's how the rest of the conversation went:

Co-worker: "Cathy, Nadine's a Jehovah Witness."
Cathy: "I know, that's why the bag is silver. I didn't even use Christmas tissue paper."
Me: "Cathy, I think she's going to know it's a Christmas present."
Cathy: "It's not a Christmas present."
Co-worker: "Maybe it would be better to give it to her in January."
Me: "I don't think Jehovah Witnesses ever accept presents. They don't do birthdays or anything."
Co-worker: "I think you can give a Jehovah Witness a wedding gift."
Me: "What's in bag?"
Cathy: "See's Candy and some nuts. I made sure the packaging didn't have any Christmas stuff on it."
Me: "I don't think you should do this."
Cathy: "We'll see what happens."

Nadine unfortunately works the afternoon shift at our garage so she wasn't at the booth when we passed by. Dang it! A few days later I got an update from Cathy.

Cathy: "So do you want to know what happened?"
Me: "What happened with what?"
Cathy: "With the silver bag."
Me: "Oh, of course I do!"
Cathy: "So last night when I left the garage I had the present ready. I held the bag out my window as I passed Nadine in the booth. I dropped the bag into her hands and I said, 'Thanks for being my friend!' and I drove off."
Me: "Did she say anything?"
Cathy: "Well, she didn't really have time. I dropped it and drove off real fast. She kinda shouted thank you as I drove away."

That's right, Cathy did a drive by gifting. What can I say, she loves Christmas. This after all is the woman with 40 plus Christmas sweaters who keeps her 15 foot fully decorated Christmas tree up in her living room all year long (on purpose.) She just has to spread the Christmas cheer around even if the receiver doesn't celebrate the holiday they WILL have a merry Christmas if Cathy has anything to do with it.

You've got to be pretty ticked off...

...to throw your shoe at someone. Maybe I'm wrong to think this is funny. You have to be at your wits end to come to the conclusion that taking off your own footwear and throwing it at someone is the answer. I'm sure it made him feel better too. There are definitely a few people I would have liked to have thrown my shoe at last week. Why didn't I think of that? Angelo and I immediately thought of the Austin Powers connection. Here's a funny parody video on youtube.

Other possible WMDs that could really cause some damage:

Jacked

My parents are visiting my sister in Texas right now and I was talking to my mom on the phone the other day. While over there she got a speeding ticket. Apparently it was a very unfair speed trap that the police officer had set up. She was telling me about it and angrily said, "He was just parked in the middle of the road with his little radar gun pointed at the traffic. It was so jacked up." Proudly, I am taking credit for that one. I taught her the term "jacked up." Even better she used it in its proper context. Good job Mom!

You know what is awesome?

When you sneeze right as you are putting on your mascara. It happened to me this morning and this is kinda what I looked like afterward:
Don't you love giant mascara blink marks? I hate it when that happens. The sneeze's force rocked my arm up and I almost stabbed my eye out with the mascara wand. I'm lucky I escaped without serious injury. Why is it when you have a tickle in your nose that become priority #1 to the body and all other functions are thrown out the window?

Glazed

My boss Cathy brought in two boxes of donuts this morning. You know how many people in my office eat donuts? One. Her name is Cathy. She is very sweet to bring in food, I know, but most of us are trying to be good. So a few donuts get eaten over a few days and then she puts them in the freezer. Do you know how many bags of donuts we have in our freezer at work? About 6. You can tell when Cathy has eaten a donut because there is always a trail of glazed donut icing that leads from the kitchen to her office. We've been laughing at the trail all day. When a new person see it they say, "Oh, I guess Cathy's been here." When we pointed the trail out to her earlier she just giggled and went and ate another one.

One of my favorite Cathy traits is her ADD. Of course, I say this completely out of love. For instance, when you're meeting with her you only have a finite amount of time to get your point across to her. The last few months with this big project have been an absolute joy. If you go on too long or you're talking about something boring I can literally see the moment when she isn't listening anymore. I swear we could be discussing the end of the world and if you weren't getting to the good parts quick enough you will have lost her. She starts smiling and nodding her head and says "uh huh" whenever you require an answer. Her eyes glaze over and she might as well hang a sign on her forehead that says, "we're done here."

Sunday Nap

The best blanket ever!

Tis the season

Today was the first day back to work after Thanksgiving and the official start of the holiday season. You know why? Because my boss has begun her annual "Parade of Christmas Sweaters." I don't think she has this one but she should. You get the idea.

What?

At one of our recent staff meetings one of my co-workers was sharing his list of projects that he was working on. My boss often takes notes about what is filming so that she can cause all kinds of trouble with her newsletter. One of the projects being discussed was about an Alzheimer's documentary. My boss was furiously taking notes about the last project and wasn't really paying attention to the current conversation. She finished writing and looked up and said, "What was that one about?" I couldn't help but burst out laughing. Oh Cathy, you're one in a million.

Twilight Party

We organized a viewing party with our young women's group for the debut of the Twlight movie. We had dinner and then went to the Edwards Movie Theater. (Get it??? Ha ha.) Lucy made goodie bags for our outing with pictures from the movie on candy bars. It was awesome. Here's some pics.
We all liked the movie. It has its share of cheese but there also some good parts. My favorite part of the night was coming back for ice cream and hearing the teenager's reviews of the movie. They are so entertaining. Being obsessed is fun!

Election Day Losers

While everyone else was watching the pundits discuss the new president of the United States, Angelo and I were at Target buying the just released Twilight movie soundtrack. We got the last copy available at the Target in Lemon Grove. Boo-ya! Take that tweeners! Angelo has been really into the Twlight playlists and the soundtrack is pretty good. So now that this election day nonsense has ended we can focus on more important matters...like the fact that the Twilight movie opens in 16 days! Shhhh! Don't tell anyone that we are so obsessed. That would be embarassing.

A dent, some bags and a twitch

That is all that is left from my October. I feel like I have been MIA for a whole month! I've had two major proposals due at work within a week of each other and they account for our funding for the next 18 months... so no pressure. It's been killing me. I turned in the second 30 plus page proposal on Friday. Get ready for a whine-o-rama.

This is my dent. Apparently, I furrow my brow when I'm frustrated, stressed, concentrating, thinking something is stupid, looking at the computer too long, or waiting for the printer to spit out my pages. So that means I've been furrowing a lot this last month. Well now I have this big old dent in between my eyes. Here's a picture. (Please ignore my very unkept brows. It's been a long month.)
What the freak! I have a giant wrinkle in my face now!

The bags I referred to earlier are the two dark ones that now reside under my eyes. No amount of cover up has been able to fully conceal them. Last weekend all I could do was sleep. I crashed on the couch at 7:30pm on Halloween. I am lame.

The second report's deadline was moved up by about 3 days so that was really fun. Last Thursday afternoon as I was in the final stages of printing and compiling the second report I developed a twitch in my left eye! That one made me laugh though. It was like a badge of honor which I announced proudly to all of my co-workers. "Hey look! This report has given me a twitch in my eye!" You've got to be about ready to flip out in order for a twitch to appear and I was ready to crack up by then. They were all very nice to me that day.

So I got everything turned in last week and now this week we have to present to the funding board. On Monday we began outlining our oral report and developing a Powerpoint presentation. That's when the freak out finally happened. I don't know what crazy juice my boss was drinking that day but she came into my office and asked that I work with the intern (that's right the Guerilla) to develop the Powerpoint. I guess last week she'd asked him to work on the Powerpoint so that we could maybe integrate some of his ideas. I had seen a copy of the presentation that he had slapped together and it was a joke. One of the graphics on one of the slides looked like three ping pong balls in a toilet. I'm not trying to be mean but our funding is not really the time to be utilizing our vigilante intern. I couldn't keep it together and that's when the yelling began. I told her that I would absolutely not work with the intern and some other stuff. Oopsies. We worked it out later in the day but wow, I had hit my wall. (By the way, I won because the intern is nowhere near this project anymore. He's back concentrating full time on the demise of our enemies.) I will be really glad when this week is over. Next week we have our big industry networking party that we put on every year so that isn't going to be any prettier. So basically I will be glad when Thanksgiving is here. That is bad considering it's only the 4th. Sorry for the whine fest but I can't afford therapy, I don't eat my troubles away anymore and I don't have many more people that I can yell at.

Some good news is that I have maintained by good eating and exercising habits despite all of this and my total weight lost is now at 33 pounds. Wohoo!

Halloween

Angelo's department at work had a roman theme for Halloween. They had a gladiator, a roman queen and a Caesar salad. Angelo dressed up as a Roman Gnome. Get it? Like the "roamin" Gnome? HA HA! He won second place in the company's costume contest. It was the shoes that won it for him. Not bad for throwing the costume together the night before.

Angelo's 30th Birthday

Angelo turned the big 3-0 on the 17th! We went out to dinner to Shogun (like a Benihana) with our parents and his brother. Here are pictures from the night just to prove Angelo's family exists. (They are very hard to get on film.) Here's us with my parents.Angelo acting his age with his mom and dad.
Angelo and his brother Nino.
For his birthday I surprised him with a ride in a WWII plane. You've got to do something fun when you turn 30, right? This was super cool! Angelo got to fly all over San Diego. The pilot let him fly the plane and they did loops and all kinds of tricks. He got to pull 4Gs!

Here's a video of the take off.