Anthony Hopkins = one scary dude

Yep, there's a reason I love this guy. He is quite possibly the scariest actor in Hollywood. Every movie he's in creeps me out. We saw his latest, Fracture, this morning. It was creepy, but completely entertaining. I loved the ending, but will refrain from saying much more about it due to not wanting to ruin it for anyone else.
In other news, work is still slow...really, really slow. Hopefully it picks up soon, as I have a student intern who starts a week from tomorrow and it would be kind of nice to have some work for her to do.
Running continues, albeit at a slow, slow pace. I'm finding it difficult to get myself psyched up for my regular runs, even though they're short and painless. I'm still exhausted by the end of every day, so this whole running in the evening thing is really taking a toll on me, but I can't seem to motivate myself to get up and run in the mornings.
My husband's niece (the one who's fifteen) had her baby yesterday. It's a long, complicated story, that pretty much belongs on Jerry Springer or at the very least the Maury show, but she and the baby are doing fine. Unfortunately, she named the baby the most good awful name I've ever heard...Amity. Yep, like the Amnityville Horror. Apparently it means friendship in Latin, and in the niece's defense, she's probably too young to have even heard of this movie...but that poor kid. As if her life wasn't already going to be hard enough.
So, that's the weekend update in a very condensed form.

High maintenance much?

Yes, I think so. My first week of Tuesday/Thursday afternoons at the other office is complete. It went fine. It was kind of like a homecoming of sorts, as this is the office that I was originally in when I first started working for this company.
The low point of the afternoons is the office manager. How can I phrase this nicely? She's an OCD control freak...in the worst way. Today I had my charts and charge sheets (those little forms that we fill out that says what we did with each patient so that they know what to bill them for) all organized and sitting on my desk...neatly in a pile. She proceeded to come along while I was away from my desk and "unorganize" them. I like all my charts in one pile in the order the patients are scheduled, and all my charge sheets in a corresponding pile. She separated them all out, so that all of the charts were with the appropriate charge sheet and they were lined up in a row along the entire length of my desk...thus preventing from using my desk for pretty much anything else.
I didn't say anything, but put everything back the way that I like it. Then it happened again...so I was forced to say something to her about liking it the other way. The response I got was "well, that's not how we do things here." Seriously? Does it really matter? I'm the one doing the work, it's my desk, so let's just leave it the way I like it.
I won that battle by the way.
Then, as she was leaving, there was the whole discussion about turning off the lights, locking the doors, turning off the radio, etc...Uhmmm, I'm almost thirty years old. I think I can handle flipping a few switches and locking a couple of doors. I'm pretty sure I don't need step by step instructions with a drawn out diagram...Ugh.

Baby birds and slumber parties

This morning as dear hubby was cutting the grass he stumbled across three baby birds. Brand ing new baby birds, as in, didn't have feathers and their eyes were still closed baby birds. Two had died already, but the third was still alive. We didn't have any idea what to do with this baby bird. We discussed putting it in a shoebox and trying to take care of it, but didn't really know what we would feed it, or if it would even survive if we tried, so we just had to leave it alone. I'm sure that it will die eventually, probably sooner rather than later, but it was still kind of sad.
Last night I went with a friend to a slumber party. Not an actual sleepover, but a "Slumber Party". Yep, I went to one of those ladies toy parties. You would not believe the stuff that they had at this party...you name it, they had it. Swings for your bedroom, lubricants, s, and all kinds of other interesting stuff. Needless to say, I got quite an education. It was fun though.

The work saga continues

I'm sure you're all tired of reading about my work woes, I know I'm sure tired of writing about them. But what can I say, I sometimes feel better after airing all of my concerns...so bear with me. Today I was supposed to have a meeting at 4:30. Instead, my boss decided that I needed to head to a different office to help with patient care, as they've been really busy there lately. Fine, no problem.
Then they decide that in order to alleviate some of the scheduling concerns at this other office, I will now be working my two short days in this office. So now, starting next week I'm supposed to be working Monday, Wednesday, and Friday long days at my office, and Tuesday and Thursday afternoons I'll be working my short days at this other office.
I'm not opposed to this, as I am getting a tad bit tired of feeling like I'm getting paid to do virtually nothing, but I'm a little peeved that this company basically assumes that I have no life outside of my job. One of the immediate casualties of the schedule change is going to be my participation in Girls on the Run. Obviously I can't continue to coach this group if I'm supposed to be at work. My other concern is that I have a lot of shadowing/surgery observation/chamber of commerce meetings/other assorted crap that takes place only in the morning on Tuesday and Thursday, so I am going to be putting in what seems to be a lot of extra hours. We'll see how well that works for me.
The biggest concern that I have is that this move is not going to be temporary. I told my boss that I don't have a problem being flexible now, but that once I come back from maternity leave, I'm not going to have that luxury. Since my husband has school two or three nights every week I'm going to have to have some cooperation on the part of my employer with getting out of the office by 5:30 if I'm at this other office or by 5:45 if I'm at my office on nights dear hubby has school so that I can pick the baby up. Supposadly they're "going to cross that bridge when we get there" and "it shouldn't be a problem". We'll just see. Oh well, I guess if it doesn't work out I can always find a new job.

What do you mean I can't eat that?!?!

In response to the good Doc's reply to one of my recent posts...I have decided to share with you my current dietary restrictions. Now, keep in mind that food is one of my great joys in life, and you'll have a pretty good picture of how this whole pregnancy thing is working out for me. The list includes:
1. Hotdogs. Apparently hotdogs contain nitrates. Nitrates are bad for you, or so they tell me. Now, I've been eating hotdogs my whole life and have yet to notice any ill effects from it, and I figure that if I cover my hotdog with relish, sport peppers, onions, ketchup and musturd I'm cancelling out the bad effects right? Not so much.
2. Lunch meat. Lunch meat=listeria=bad ass bacteria= a child who looks like William Shatner, has bad breath, and/or other equally hideous deformities. Who'd want that (unless you were William Shatner's mother)? Word on the street is that you can eat lunch meat if, and only if, you heat it to steaming first...which completely wilts the lettuce and makes the mayonaise disgusting...yummy.
3. Caffeine. Caffeine will give your fetus ADHD or cause it to have a grossly misshapen head according to the nosy/ignorant woman in QuikTrip this morning. How is what I'm drinking any of your business beyotch? A disclaimer to this is that you can have some caffeine, but only in moderation. Praise Jesus, they don't expect me to go cold turkey. (Cause we've already seen that I can't have that.) Let me just add here that you would just not believe the number of foods that have caffeine in them, including my beloved chocolate...
4. Raw anything. Including medium cooked steaks, sushi, and that entire Raw Foods diet. This one's pretty self explanatory and I don't miss any of this crap anyway. It's awful hard to miss something you didn't eat before.
5. Booze. Margaritas, mai tais, rum runners, pina coladas, beer, wine...It's all gone. My liquor cabinet is getting really dusty. Oh well, just think how strong all that stuff will be after it ages for another five months.
6. Aspartame. Yep, the artificial sweetner is bad for your fetus. It causes cancer in laboratory rats, but then again so does anything when you mainline enough of it. This shit is in EVERYTHING, including sweet, sweet sugar free Kool-Aid, fat free yougurt, diet soda, and pretty much the entire aisle of low fat goodies at the grocery store.
7. Ibuprofen. My wonder drug of choice causes birth defects. Not a good thing considering I have almost daily headaches that the Tylenol that I am allowed to take barely touches.

Yep, that pretty much sums up the don't eat this list for now. I'm sure that as I progress I'll learn even more things that I'm not allowed to ingest. So tonight, when you're drinking your after work glass of wine and cooking your medium rare steak while smoking your cigarette and telling your significant other to be sure to add coffee beans to the grocery list, think of me.

Uh, where are all the patients at?

This is quickly becoming ridiculous. I once again have fewer than ten patients scheduled on a Monday. Normally I have twice that scheduled. I'm really starting to get anxious over my low patient volume. There are only so many things that you can do to build a practice, and I'm quickly running out of ideas. I'm getting to that point where I'm starting to really worry about whether or not I'll still have a job in a month. This is so not a good time to be worrying about this type of thing...
Onto a different, lighter subject: the anti-theft devices that they put on clothing in the department stores. Why talk about these? Well, funny story. Dear hubby bought some shorts about a month ago. He cut the tags off, but didn't realize that the anti-theft device was still firmly attached to the shorts. Yesterday he went to put this pair of shorts on and realized that the exploding ink theft tag was still attached. So he was going to take them out to the garage and attempt to remove the tag by basically beating the crap out of it until it came off. Such a bad idea in so many ways.
I figured if he did this, the shorts would be ruined thus equalling a big waste of money. So I volunteered to try to take them to the store and get the tag removed. Of course we don't have a recipt for these shorts, as they were purchased so long ago...so tomorrow's blog post might be coming to you courtesy of the county lock up. Let's hope hubby of mine answers his phone when I call to have him bail me out!

Weekends seem so short

Maybe the weekends go so fast because I truly dread Mondays. Maybe it's because I'm fearful that tonight will be a repeat performance of last Sunday night and I'll have trouble falling asleep/staying asleep. Or maybe we really enter into a time warp on Friday night and the weekends really do go faster. Any way you slice it, time flies.
This weekend found us checking out Disturbia. Awesome movie, by the way. I could completely see this movie happening in my neighborhood...I've even got the pyschotic killer already cast.
I felt the need to do some shopping yesterday...this almost never happens, as I really don't like to shop under normal circumstances. I finally decided that I needed some spring clothes that would accomodate my ever-enlarging abdomen, I'm tired of feeling fat every day. So, I had gift cards to a couple of stores at the mall and was able to get a couple of cute tops. I also picked up a couple more things on sale at the maternity store...so many cute things in that store, but I have such a hard time justifying spending a ton of cash on stuff I'm only going to wear until the end of the summer.
I've still got a few more gift cards, so later this week or next week I may be needing to take myself on another shopping spree. I really need to pace myself.
I did not run yesterday. I had a splitting headache most of the day, which I woke up with again today. Fortunatly I was able to take something early enough today to keep it from getting really bad. I felt well enough this afternoon to take my treadmill for a quick three mile spin. Even though I just slowed down last week to 9.5 minute miles, I'm feeling like I need to slow it down a bit more again. I just get so tired so quick, and I got winded walking up the stairs earlier today...goodbye cardiovascular endurance.

How appropriate

I took the "What Finger Are You" quiz on Firefly's blog. It was amusing. I'm too lazy to look up the link and post it, so just follow my sidebar link to Firefly's blog and take the quiz from there if you're so inclined...interestingly enough I am the middle finger. If that's not fitting I don't know what is.
I really don't have much to report today. I'm still slogging through this slow time at work. I'm trying to stay busy by "making" work. I've been doing some marketing, going to meetings and working on some community outreach stuff. None of these things are fun, and I'd much rather be treating patients, so hopefully things pick up soon.
On the good news front, we're finally getting a Jimmy John's sub shop. I personally have never eaten here, but apparently they're very good. Hubby ate there almost every day when he was in Chicago last fall for business for a week...hopefully they're as good as he says. I've finally decided to say to hell with the no lunch meat clause of my pregnancy books. I'm eating that stuff, in moderation of course, but I think I'll take my chances with it.

Why can't I sleep?

Last night was the worst night I have ever had as far as trying to sleep goes. I went to bed a nine, figuring that way I could get up early this morning and get my run in before I went to work, which is something I used to do daily but haven't done in at least four or five months. At midnight last night I was still awake. And per my husband, when I can't sleep, he doesn't sleep. Apparently, every time I turn over in bed I literally pick my entire body up and "fling" it to the other side, and all of this is accompanied by some extremely heavy sighing.
I finally fell asleep just after midnight, only to wake back up at 1:30. I wasn't awake for too long then, but at 4:00am the damn clock in the kitchen...which chimes the hour started going off. Normally this clock is only active between 6am and 9pm and then it's silent all night, but dear husband was "trying to adjust the volume" and got the clock all confused. So I was awoken again, and again at five. What a disaster.
I think most of the reason I can't sleep is because I'm stressed about work. It seems entirely too coincidental that the most difficult nights I have are Sunday nights. My caseload is way slow right now. I've only got seven patients scheduled today, and four of those will be finished by the end of the week. So far, I have no new patients on my schedule for the rest of this week to replace these people with. I can't remember ever having been so slow before in my life. I'm stressing a lot over this. I've been doing everything I need to do including getting good results, going out and visiting doctors, and trying to keep my hands into other things (ie:chamber of commerce/non-profits/etc.) but nothing seems to be paying off at this time.
My only consulation at this time is knowing that we're short a therapist in one of our other offices, and that same office has someone else who is leaving at the end of the month. So hopefully, should they decide to close my office I'll still have a job. The only drawback to maybe switching offices is that the office that needs help is about forty minutes from my house instead of the five I drive now...and there's no way I'd be able to get from that office to the daycare we chose by the time that the daycare closes. But I guess there's no use worrying about that just yet, I'll have to wait to cross that bridge if and when I get there.

I'm on a roll now

A blogging roll that is. Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself, but you never know. Today we got up fairly early. I was able to get some easy, non-difficult stationary biking in while I read the latest issue of People, which I pilfered from my office. I'm in charge damnit, I can do these things.
Then we figured that since we were already up, we'd go see The Reaping, with Hilary Swank. She's awesome, but this movie blew. I did not like it even a little. I had a tough time buying what they were selling, but the special effects (ie: the plagues) were pretty damn cool.
We then came home, collected the Max-inator and went to my mom and dad's for lunch. We had a pretty good time there. My parents are going to buy us our carseat and stroller as a welcome baby gift, so that's pretty cool. Knowing my mom, we'll probably have it in hand by next weekend. I was really surprised, as it was just my husband and I invited for lunch. I kind of thought my dad's mom would be there, and was prepared for a full sermon on how I'm too young to have a kid, (even though I'm older now than she was when she had my dad) or how terrible it is that I'm going back to work after I've taken my maternity leave (yeah, try raising anything other than your credit card debt on just one salary now days.)
We left after spending a couple of hours there (during which the dog barked pretty much nonstop) and came home to clean the house, mow the lawn, do laundry, pay bills, and a three mile run. I am now thouroughly exhausted, but I feel like I got a lot done.

Sunday movie review a day early

Since tomorrow is Easter, and that brings with it the obligatory family get together appearances, we bumped our movie viewing up a day. Although if I drag my butt out of bed early enough tomorrow morning we might be able to catch another one anyway...have I mentioned how much I love this discounted tickets for morning movies?
We saw The Lookout this morning. It was pretty good. Not as good as Shooter last week, but the premise behind this movie was different, and different usually equals good in my book. The basic idea is that there's a guy who's had a serious head injury, he works in a bank as a janitor. He falls in with the wrong crowd, you know, the one's who want to rob said bank. Much violence insues and in the end...well, we'll just leave that a surprise. It was entertaining though.
We then went to Baby's R Us to finish registering for the kiddo. I picked out a sweet ass Jeep jogging stroller (in addition to a regular stroller for everyday use). I so hope someone buys me this, as it totally rocks. Although the baby won't be old enough for this cool ride until next spring, so I can always buy it later...
Now I'm contemplating a run, a short run, on the treadmill, but a run nonetheless...

Busy baby day...

Today is one of my normal half days of work (I work three ten hour days and two five hour days) and my husband was off work today. We had an ultrasound scheduled for this afternoon, so we decided that we would spend the time before our ultrasound visiting daycares to figure out which one we wanted to enroll the shrimp at.
Daycares seem to fill up pretty quickly in this area, especially since most of them only have eight infant spots available at any given time. We were able to come to a pretty quick agreement over which one we liked best, and picked up the paperwork/paid our registration fee/did all the pre-enrollment junk so that we're set for next fall. The director of the facility that we selected assured us that there would most definitely be a spot for us next fall so we're prtty confident that this is one more thing that we can cross off our list of things to do between now and the day the baby gets here.
The ultrasound went very well. The baby doesn't exhibit any problems or reasons to be concerned that anything short of normal development is occurring at this point. In fact, it's actually measuring a bit larger than it should at this point, which moves the due date up about five days. We were able to see all of it's major organs, both arms and legs, and that it had the hiccups. We (well I) chose not to find out the gender, as I would really like to be surprised, but I'm still firmly convinced that this baby is female. They said that it measures about seventeen ounces already...It's amazing that this little thing is so big already! Hopefully it'll be a compromise between my husband's weight at birth and mine. He was huge, (9.5 pounds) and I was on the small side (5 pounds and some ounces.)

We were hoping it wouldn't come to this

Our kids at GOTR continue to be disrespectful to the coaches, mean to each other, and just don't listen. We (the other coaches and I) kept trying to tell ourselves that it was just the age range, but lately the rudeness seems to have gotten so much worse. So it's time to have a come to Jesus talk with them, and unfortunately start doling out some consequences for failure to listen and show respect. Crazily enough, that's one of the premises of GOTR. To listen to each member and show respect for themselves as well as each other.
I think the problem is that we are too nice to these kids. There are really only two or three instigators, so maybe this is a case of cut off the dragon's head and the rest will fall into line? I'm certainly hoping so. So far we've talked about making kids who don't show respect or are mean to other members sit out of some of the fun stuff or maybe lose their snack at the end of practice. I'm not really sure how well either of these will work out. We're not to the point yet where we need to physically remove kids from the practices, but I could see it getting to that point fairly quickly.
The biggest problem at this point is that we send home emails telling the parents how we've had problems with lack of respect and that the parents need to discuss with their daughters how important it is to listen and be nice to each other...but the parents either don't want to believe that their daughter is part of the problem or don't fully understand the magnitude of the problem. Either way, something has to give...I so don't want to be the pissed off angry coach who has to yell to get her point across.

He's a good dog

Now, at least. The Max-inator has been having some, uhmmm, issues for the past month or so. And by issues I mean that every time we leave the house, he craps on the living room floor. We finally got tired of disciplining him and cleaning up his mess, so we decided to try something different with him.
He's always had the run of the house when we're gone, so we decided to take this priveledge away from him. We purchased two of those child safety gates and make it a point to pen him up in the kitchen every day when we leave now. Now, before you go thinking I'm all mean, let me just add that the kitchen is unarguably the largest room in the house and he's got his food, water, and bed in there, so it's not like he's hurting for anything he needs.
So far, confining him to the kitchen seems to have worked. I haven't had to clean up dog mess in over two weeks. Such a nice thing to come home to. I think it's working out to everyone's advantage, because I know I'm much happier to see him now that I know that I don't have to clean up after him every night. He's happier because I'm so much nicer to him when I'm not all pissed off at him for making a big mess. Everyone wins.

How does the weekend go so fast?

I can't believe it's already mid afternoon on Sunday. It seems like it was just Friday a minute ago. I've done a lot this weekend. We got the entire house cleaned, the yard mowed, the landscaping beds weeded, and tons of other stuff done. We went to Target last night and did half of the registering for the baby. We still have Baby's R' Us left to register at, but at least we got some of it done. I was so glad to tackle this task, as the shear volume of stuff kids need is somewhat overwhelming. It's nice to have a list of sorts of stuff we still need.
We also went and saw the new Mark Wahlberg movie yesterday. For those of you who don't remember the early nineties, Mark Wahlberg has come a long way since his days of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. He's actually a pretty good actor now. This movie was one of the best I've seen, I enjoyed it so much that I even told my husband as we were leaving the theater that I would go see this one again. I so want to be a Marine sniper now.
I just got finished running an easy three miles on the treadmill. I was really dreading this, as my hip and pelvis have really been hurting for the last three day, but I think I almost feel a little better now after having run. I'm finding that although my legs don't get tired, I'm getting winded much more easily now. I'm pretty sure that the next week or so will see me dropping my pace down a little more.
So chores are almost done, we still have grocery shopping, which I dread, left on the list of things to do, and I still need to balance my checkbook, which I also don't enjoy. I guess the sooner I tackle these tasks though, the sooner I can collapse on the couch...