General Malaise

I don't know if it's the rapid passing of another year that's got me in a funk or what, but I am definitely in one.

Let's investigate, shall we?

Health:
Well, my shingles are not as painful as they once were (thank goodness), but now they're just sort of hanging out, looking gruesome and feeling uncomfortable. Thank goodness it's not shorts season. My biggest concern now is passing this nastiness on to BH or The Geej. I've taken precautions, but you just never know. In other news, I went to my semi-annual visit to my cardiologist yesterday, and my bad cholesterol has come down a bit. So, yay.

House:
Our house is sort of half-assed decorated for Christmas. BH doesn't really like all of the trappings of the season, so I try not to go too nuts. But going half-ass is somehow more depressing than not doing anything at all. Our cats have launched a full-scale offensive against the Christmas tree and its Ornaments of Doom. This is no surprise to anyone, least of all me. But it's still annoying as Hell. Cute, but annoying.

Also in house news, I'm ready to finish up the flooring by having the new carpet installed, but my bank account isn't. I was hoping to get the installation scheduled right after the first of the year, but it may be later than that now. Our carpet has never looked good: The color sucks and the state of the carpet itself is pretty sad. But now that the hardwoods have been installed, man does it ever look shitty.

There are parts of the house--especially the garage--that are beginning to look like they were interior decorated by psychotic hoarders. I wish I could spend like three solid days (or more) just de-cluttering and cleaning. I need to, but I just never have the right combination of time and energy to undertake this monumental task. Therefore, I just get more and more frustrated and disgusted by the whole situation.

Work:
The move on to the new team has gone well thus far. There are a still a lot of things we need to figure out about how we're going to fit in and priorities, etc., but so far, so good. I'm going to a big work meeting in Ft. Lauderdale in mid-January, so that should be interesting. I feel like I've got a lot to do to get prepared for that between now and then.

The Holidays:
I'm about 50% done w/my Christmas shopping, but I have NO ideas about what to get my mom and her fiance, my stepsons, or my inlaws. I guess I'll wrap up the remainder of what I need to do during lunch hour shopping trips since I don't know when I'll have time to do it otherwise.

Since I had to take time off for the shingles, I'll be able to take very little time off for the holidays. Having to choose between taking time off to deal with an illness or to be with family for the holidays is a shitty choice to have to make, but when you've got very little time off allotted to you each year, that's what you've got to do. I really love where I work, but (as I've said before) our paid time off policy SUCKS.

The Geej:
Man, that kid kills me. Her reading is getting so good, she's really enjoying math, and she's just generally flourishing and growing TOO DAMN FAST. She's so completely believes in Santa that it's just charming the Hell out of me. This is probably the last year that she'll have no doubts about the jolly ol' elf, and I'm just soaking it in. After today, she's out of school for two weeks. Thank God that the wonderful Dah will be taking care of her for most of that time. What would I do without her?! And this Sunday, I'm taking The Geej to see the Rockettes Holiday Spectacular. She is going to have her mind blown by the sparkliness of it all.

Chores:
I fucking hate grocery shopping with the fiery passion of one million suns. Well, not really the shopping, per se. It's the hassle of the shopping. The list making (which doesn't matter because I invariably forget something important from the list), the parking, the dealing with oblivious customers who are in my fucking way, the parking lot...I hate all of it. If I could shop in an empty store, by myself, and have my groceries magically delivered to my car, and then unpacked at my house and prepared into some lovely meal, I might--and I mean might--not hate it so much. But that's doubtful. Anyway, lately somehow our house has been getting down to stems and seeds in the groceries department, and it 85% of the time it falls to me to a) figure out what we need to replenish what's missing, b) plus what we might need to plan meals for the next few days and c) shop to get all of that stuff and then d) lug that shit home and unpack it and then e) whoop up something delicious and nutritious for dinner. And this is after working all day, fighting rush hour traffic, and picking up The Geej so that there's a six year old in tow during one of my least favorite domestic activities. Is it any wonder that after all of that I'm in a Grade-A shittastic mood?

Let's change the subject, shall we?

Thanks to a lovely hand-me-down from Dah, we now have a matching, less-than-a-year-old high-efficiency washer and dryer. They're kind of awesome, even though I'm still getting used to them. But regarding laundry: Why can't I ever stay on top of it? I mean, I know better than to wait until the weekend to do all of it (even though that's still when I do most of it), but no matter how much I do during the week, there is always more to be done. It seems like each morning, I'm starting a load before I leave for work, then I'm too damn tired to finish it up when I get home. So you know what I end up doing? Running the rinse cycle again the next morning (lest they get moldy), and aiming to complete the load that afternoon/evening. Sort of defeats the purpose of the whole High Efficiency thing, huh?

Miscellaneous:
God, I'm boring the shit out of myself just writing about this drudgery.

Look away, people. Look away...

Perhaps next post I'll be in a different state of mind.