Oh well

I don't know what else to try. I tried to put that picture of me and Robbie with the rest of the pictures from Saturday night. But, no matter what I did or tried, it changed into a box with a red X in it. I wanted to add a title, and it wouldn't let me. I wanted to change the color and font of the text so that it matched the rest of this blog, and it wouldn't let me. No matter what, it changed to that red X. So, I uploaded it with a caption, and that is how it will stay. I know I'm probably the only one that cares that it doesn't have a title and that the caption is a different color than the rest of the text on this site. What can I say...I guess I'm just weird. If anyone knows how to fix this so that the picture doesn't turn into an X, let me know.

Which one of us is sober??? 

The human head weighs eight pounds

Here are some other interesting facts regarding the human body.

I went and had my CAT scan. (Here is what my head SHOULD look like.) No news. The guy who put me in the machine and actually did the scan probably did not speak doctor-ese, and would not have been able to read the scan. He told me that the doctor would read it and then send the report to my doctor in about one or two business days. So right now, I just have to figure that I'm not dying yet. Interestingly, I have felt better the past two days than I have in the past few weeks. No idea why. But I'm not going to complain.

As you can see, I posted some pictures to my blog last night. I had a cute picture of me and Robbie to post, but every time I posted it, it just came up as a box with a red X in it. I can not figure out why the other pics posted with no issues, and then the one of us would not post at all. It was very annoying. Maybe I'll try again tonight and see if it changes its mind and works.

Saturday night

We went bowling Saturday night - we being me, Robbie, Becca, Chris, and Pat. Bowled poorly, but had fun. Here are some choice pics from our evening after bowling, hanging out at Becca and Chris' house.


Here's Pat! Watchin' the game, drinkin' some suds...


Becca and Chris...not exactly sure what they are doing...


Now this one is better...at least they are smiling!

Frost...

Robert, not Jack.

It may be obvious that I am completely bored at work today. That doesn't mean that I have nothing to do. On the contrary, I actually need to complete a thick packet of information for an evaluation, as well as write a memo. However, I feel like doing neither of these. Instead, I would rather post on here for everyone else's amusement.

Now, back to Robert. One of my all time favorite poems is The Road Not Taken. To add some culture to this blog, I thought I would post that poem on here. So, here goes.

The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost

Notice anything different?

So, I think the pink began to be nauseating. Seeing it every day on my blog and then also on Melissa's blog, it began to be a little much. So, I thought that blue would be a nice change. It should be pleasing for most (although Robbie won't like it because it is baby blue).

Not tonight honey, I have a headache

OK, so I never say that. (Mom, if you are reading this, you can pretend that you didn't read that first line!) But, I do get headaches. And, lately, I feel like I'm getting more headaches. I don't really understand why. I don't really feel like anything has changed. I don't feel more stressed out, I can't track any foods that appear to be the culprits. I just don't get it. So, I broke down and went back to the neurologist. She gave me more prescriptions. She restarted a prescription that I took myself off of (she asked why I stopped taking it, and I couldn't remember! I'm such a bad person!). And, she gave me a prescription for a CAT scan. Some medical things are worded so funny. The prescription said "CT scan of head and contents." If they don't take a scan of the contents of the head, they really won't get much of anything, will they?

This brought up a scary thought though: What if they do a scan and there are no contents in my head??? Which would bring up another question: If there is nothing in my head, then would it be inaccurate to say that all of my brilliance and intelligence is all in my head??? (hehehe) OK, I'll stop, although I am amusing myself. :)

I guess the scarier thought is that the CAT scan will show something that is not supposed to be there, instead of showing that nothing is there at all. You always hear about these people who die of an aneurysm, and the only symptoms they had were really severe headaches. But, since thinking about what they might find will only stress me out, I won't think about that. Wish me luck though that I pass my CAT scan!

In other news...
I usually keep politics and religion out of my blog. Nobody really gives a damn about my political thoughts, and I'll get all sorts of nasty emails if I got into religion. So, we aren't going there. But, I did read an interesting article on The Washington Post webpage about Bush and religion. Like I said, I'm not going into the political stuff on this blog, but it has some interesting stuff on there, like "George Bush did what God wanted him to do." Yeah. OK. Whatever.

Stuff

I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing me complain on this blog. Tough. When things are going well, I feel like I don't have anything to write about. Maybe I'm really a glass is half empty kind of girl. I'm annoyed at my supervisor. She gave us this long speech a few weeks ago about how important supervision is, and how we need to make an effort to have supervision. Some of us made the comment that when we have come to have supervision, my supervisor has had people in her office. She said that if that happens, she will ask those people to leave because that is our time to meet. Well, the past three weeks since she has made that little speech, I have not had supervision. Today, I went at my appointed time, and she had people in her office. And, instead of having them leave, she said it was "a necessary staffing" and that we could meet in a few minutes. I have now gone back to her office three times and she isn't even there. If supervision is so important, why is it that I NEVER have it? Today when I went into her office and she was too busy to meet with me, I suggested that we change my supervision time, as she never seems to be available to me at that time. She didn't really say anything. One of her main problems is that she does not mark off our supervision time in her calendar. Then, she schedules meetings and all sorts of other stuff there so that when I come to meet with her at our scheduled time, she is busy or not there! It is soooo frustrating! I have had this same time with her since January, and I have not had supervision more times than I have!

I guess I'll try to write about something happy now. Things are going well at home. Robbie and I are getting along really well despite having to learn how to deal with each other's little habits. One issue is that neither of us is all that fond of cleaning (I guess nobody is). So we have to push ourselves to do chores. They are getting done, albeit slowly. We also don't like cooking much, though he has made more dinners than I have.

I have been getting a chance to read some, especially when Robbie is at work on Saturdays and the few late nights that he has worked. I finished Deception Point last week. I enjoyed it, but I think that Dan Brown's more recent books were better. When I get a chance, I'm going to read the first book that Dan Brown wrote, Digital Fortress, as I heard it was good as well. I'm currently reading Donnie Brasco. I can't remember why, but for some reason Robbie and I were talking about the Mafia one day, and he said I should read this book. I never saw the movie, so I don't know anything about it. So far, it's interesting. I know very little about the Mafia, so thus far it is keeping my attention. We'll see if I still like it after 300 more pages.

The Jet Set

Now I'm jealous. Apparently Tanya (my cousin, not my supervisor) is coming to MD two times in one 30 day period, going to Walt Disney World right after that, and going to Belgium right after that! So between October 28 and December 30, she will have gone all over the East Coast, and then to Europe! Does this seem fair to anyone else? And, at the end of January, she will be going to Vegas. OK, now I'm just getting mad. Apparently because Independence Air flies really cheap from Columbia, SC to other East Coast destinations, Tanya and her crew have just decided to go everywhere. I wanna go! [Insert temper tantrum here.]

Pillow talk

The solution to my sleep difficulties, it seems, lies in my pillow. The pillows that I have been using were brought with Robbie when he came up. They were, in a word, sad. I think that they were, perhaps, brought with him across the Atlantic and from Washington. So, I thought it was time to get some new pillows. Enter WalMart, stage right. We went to WalMart, and since everything is always cheap there, we decided to get two thick pillows. They were nice. New. Plump. Looked good for sleeping upon. So, we moved the old nearly-dead pillows into the hall closet (for out best visitors, of course!) and put the new pillows on the bed. Now comes the sleepless nights. I think I slept fine for a few nights. But then, I couldn't sleep! For like four nights! That's hell when you want to concentrate at work, and when you are prone to getting migraines, it's no fun either. Robbie suggested that perhaps the problem was the pillow. (I hate when he turns out to be correct!) So, in the middle of one sleepless night, I got up and grabbed the better of the dead pillows from the closet. And now, I have slept very well the past couple of nights. So, I guess even if pillows look like they could use updating, consider how well you sleep before doing so. I now have one dead and one brand new pillow for overnight guests to choose from :)

Profiling

On my profile, it says there have been 53 views of my profile. Who in the world has looked at my profile? And if anyone has looked at my profile, and thus, I assume, my blog, then why do only like two people leave comments???

Just plain tired

I seem to be having trouble sleeping the past couple of nights. Like, I can't fall asleep for several hours, and I can't stay asleep for long periods of time. As a Moien girl, this is disconcerting, because usually we can sleep anywhere at any time. I don't really understand why this phenomenon is occurring. I have thought about all the usual suspects regarding sleep problems: caffeine before bed; too much sleep earlier in the day; stress. So, let's rule them out one by one. 1) I'm addicted to caffeine. I admit it. I'm a caffeine junkie. But, as such, drinking caffeine close to bedtime does not do anything for me. Plus, I don't think I have actually had much caffeine at night recently. 2) As mentioned previously, in a Moien girl, there is rarely such a thing as too much sleep. People who know us well (us being me, Mom, Kath) know that we enjoy sleep very much. We can sleep in cars, on airplanes, on beds, couches, chairs, the floor, etc. I did take a nap yesterday afternoon because I hadn't slept the night before. But it was not a very restful nap, and I don't think it would have affected my sleep last night. 3) What is stress? I think I'm usually stressed out. And it has kept me up before. However, work is going pretty well right now. I'm feeling pretty good about my cases, I'm ahead of the game on just about everything. I don't know what would have been stressing me out. Usually, when I'm stressed, I lay in bed and think about what I'm stressing over. But, the past two nights, I have been laying there thinking about nothing except wanting to fall asleep. It's not like I'm going to bed and I'm not tired. I am tired! My eyes are droopy as I lay on the couch! I'm ready to crash and sleep for like 12 hours. But, then I get in bed - and nothing happens. My body is being very cruel!

In other news, I had to go to the DC Superior Court today to pick up drug test results for one of my 12-year-old clients as well as his mother. On the plus side, both of them are testing negative, and have been doing so for a while. On the minus side, there were really scary people there drug testing. I didn't fit in. They were looking at me like, what are you doing here? You are in the wrong place. I felt like I was in the wrong place, too. Luckily, I didn't have to stay long. I got my drug test results and walked really quickly out of that area. (I know...I'm such a princess!)

I feel like I should write more, but have no clue what else to say. I'm realizing that I could never be a writer for a living. I seem to have perpetual writer's block! C'est la vie!

This seems appropriate

In light of the comments I got on my last post, here is the story of The Little Red Hen.

Will work for food (well, sort of)

It is nearly impossible to find anyone around this agency to help you out with anything. Everyone is too busy to help a sister out. (Go, team!) They have too many visits to do, too many notes to write. The best ones are those that just don't respond when you send an email out asking for help. Everyone is also too busy to show up for Program retreats. Nobody wants to sit around and participate in team building exercises all day. The last one we had, many people, including supervisors, chose to work instead of go to a non-working retreat.

BUT add food to the mix and people come out of the woodwork. Upstairs in our big conference room, we have 23 pizzas, two sheet cakes, and ten cases of sodas. And every social worker, social services assistant, supervisor, program manager, and administrator showed up to eat! Everyone was there acting as if they love everyone else in the unit. These are the same people that wouldn't help you unless you were on fire. And, old habits die hard. Our program administrator bought all of this food for us, because we met all benchmarks for the month of August or something. But, when he asked for five people to help carry the pizzas upstairs, everyone all of a sudden forgot English. People pretended they didn't hear him. They simply ignored the request. They were too "busy" to get the pizzas, but they seemed to get unbusy awfully fast when the pizzas showed up. And, all of these people are social workers! They live to help others! I think I'm starting to lose faith in the human race.

There's no excuse

Since I'm getting harassed for not posting, I'm trying to come up with an excuse. My dog didn't die. My car didn't break down (I guess that's not really applicable anyways.) I've actually been kind of busy. But still, it doesn't feel like anything post-worthy has been going on. In short, I don't have an excuse for not posting; I just haven't done so.

Lessee...I'm the discussant for my book group this Sunday. I am discussing The Da Vinci Code. I read it once before, about a year ago, so I'm trying to finish reading it again so I can remember exactly what happened. I'm on about page 170 out of about 450, so it looks like I may be in trouble. I guess I'll spend most of Saturday reading so I can try to finish. I really liked this book and would recommend it. However, Dan Brown's first book, Angels & Demons, was better. I would highly recommend that one to everyone. It was entertaining, educational, and suspenseful. What more could one want in a book?

I assisted a coworker with a removal yesterday. She had to remove nine children from their parents. This one wasn't as traumatizing for me as my other removals as we picked the children up at school, not from their home. I guess it was also less stressful for me because I didn't know the children. But, even so, doing removals - in a word - sucks. It's sad and stressful, and it is the least fun part of my job. I realized yesterday that I have good social work skills. I was able to get three little kids (6- and 8-year-old males and a 5-year-old female) to talk to me immediately. They were friendly and even well-behaved. This was shocking in and of itself! But of course they were asking where they were going and started saying they wanted to go home. And even when home is definitely not the place for these children to be, it is so sad. These children are so resilient. I can not imagine how I would have been if I had been taken from my parents and put in some stranger's house. But, that's enough sad stuff.

I got to spend several days last week with my sister. That was really nice, as I had not seen her in a year and a half. I'm going to try to plan a trip out to Santa Barbara in the near future. I'll have to see if she has any pictures that are post-worthy.

I was very excited that American Dreams came back on last Sunday night. I don't have many TV shows that I must see, but that is one of them. I guess it's my soap opera, my little escape from reality for an hour. I love it. I would recommend it.

Since the highlights of this post are a book and a TV show, it's obvious that I don't have much of a life. But, I'm okay with that. I'll post again when I think of something exciting to talk about.