Phonetree Hell

What the hell is with large companies and ridiculously large phone trees? And the voice?! How much more robotic and frustrating can you get? Can we please just record a normal person saying the phrases you want, rather than piecing single word records together? It grates on my nerves so heinously…I can barely listen I’m so frustrated. All I want to do is throw down the phone. 

Why not just press zero, you say? Because there is no option too! I press zero and all I get is “Sorry. I. Did. Not. Understand. Your. Response.” I say “customer service” and I get the same. I say “operator” and I get the same. Cheap ass companies don’t want to pay for a customer service phone group, so I have to wait through five phonetree branches, select what I hope is the correct selection (would I have gotten a better match to my problem if I had selected “2” instead of “3”? I don’t know!), and now wait for someone to call me back who will probably say “oh, I can’t help you with that. You need x dept.” Then they’ll transfer me, and I’ll wait some more. The worst is when dept number 2 says “I’m not sure why they sent you over here. You really need dept 3” and it just goes on and on. 

Why? Why do I put myself through this?! 

At least I opted to use the “we’ll call you back” option. So now I’m waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Someday they will call me back. “Someday my call will come…” cause waiting decent customer service from this company (who will not be named, cause really, it could be any company, right?) feels a lot like waiting for my handsome Prince Charming…pointless and a waste of my energy. I’ll save myself thank you. 

But of course, this is an issue I actually need to speak to someone about. So la-te-dah-te-dah. I’m still waiting, wondering if they ever will call me back. 

And now I’m hungry.

Gah!

Learning to Breathe While Running

Breathing while running: this is a skill that I learned a few years ago. You'd think it'd be easy, but you'd be wrong - well, at least when it comes to me. Breathing while running, really running, not just a short sprint but a nice long run, was pretty tough for me. I'd gas out so fast and my lungs would be on fire and I'd get these nasty side stiches that would not quit. It sucked.

You know what the key turned out to be? Don't panic. Don't worry. Don't get too excited. Relax. Breathe normally, and don't push it. And don't don't DON'T try to run at someone else's pace. I was never the person who was going to run a six minute mile. Ten minutes is plenty good, and as long as I accepted that was my current ability, I could relax and enjoy the run. And when I did that, something amazing happened. I could breathe. I didn't have to think about it. I wasn't panting and wheezing, I was breathing. And it felt WONDERFUL.

Why am I talking about this? Because I feel pretty strongly that I'm going through the same lesson again, but this time in my life. I am so excited and inspired by everything going on that I am rushing and pushing to get to the next thing - cause guys, every next thing is even more exciting than the thing before it. Its amazing! And not everything is perfect, but it really is fun.

The trouble is, the more I rush and sprint, the harder it is to live the rest of my life - in short, it just gets harder to breathe. I had a wonderful forced holiday this weekend and I realized I have completely forgotten to enjoy life while I was rushing to the next thing.

So, this is my new task - to relax, and keep on running.

Ain't Nobody Got Time For That

I am just floored. When did my life become so exciting, and so focused? I'm sitting here in lecture, surrounded by a bunch of twenty-something college students, overhearing conversations about boyfriends and college events and how hard everything is, how crammed their lives are Oh boo-hoo. My first thought was 'they have no frickin clue' and then I remembered how it felt when I was there: what it was like figuring out how to balance work and school and life, learning what types of things deserved my attention and my energy, and which just didn't, how everything that came up felt equally important and that I had to take on and deal with everything. All at once.

Today I find myself working full time, going to school half time, raising a toddler, maintaining a healthy relationship with my husband, family and friends and carving out extra time for myself and my passions. Does it take skill and effort? Hell yes. Is it overwhelming? Not even close. Not right now. I know myself now. I know what I want, what is worth my energy and what isn't. I have fabulous people around me who are suppoortive and understanding, even as I suppport and understand them. And things that are stressful, hurtful, upseting or overwhelming are just not even on the radar. If it ain't helping me out or helping my family out, its just out. period. As the meme out there says 'Ain't nobody got time for that.'

Of course, there are overwhelming moments, but the key is to notice that I'm overwhelmed and figure out what I have taken on that I don't need to worry about. Usually its some deadline/future issue that I don't need to worry about right now - so, yay! Time to take a breath and enjoy something great.

Its really amazing to see just how far I've ccome in terms of life. I suppose you could call that growing up, but it doesn't feel like growing up. It feels like growing aware. I may not "act my age" but I certainly "act myself" which is way more valuble IMHO.

My Brain Does Not Always Have My Best Interests at Heart

I am so excited about [REDACTED], (I can’t actually talk about yet, because it’s not yet a done deal). And yet, I’m being kept up in the middle of the night with ideas and anxiety about it. Mostly excited anxiety, because I’m less worried about it failing than I am that it’s going to go so well I won’t know how to handle it. I swear, I can’t not worry – it’s going to be too good so I’d better freak out and not sleep?!  Srsly, Brain? You suck.  

Basically what I’m doing right now is blocking out time to work on [REDACTED] and not allowing myself to focus on it when I’m outside of those time blocks. I certainly have enough other stuff to do, between work, school and family. So I’m just limiting the amount of time I can work on it, and thus, theoretically, the amount of time I spend freaking out/bouncing around. It kinda works….0_o. The rest of the time, I just give in and be obsessive and crazy working at 4am. But overall, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  (And I seriously can’t wait until I can share [REDACTED] with you guys!)

Yoga with Jeremy!

Yesterday Jeremy and I did our first hot yoga class ever, and for Jeremy, his first actual yoga class ever. The first ten minutes I was sure it was an awful idea. Its already 90 outside and I'm walking into a heated room to exercise. Does this make any sense?

We chose it because it fit into our schedule, not for any other reason. Interestingly enough, we both liked it. Even Jeremy, who HATES being hot. I can't say much about Jeremy's experience, but it was very cool/wierd/awesome for me. Something interesting happened when I stopped paying attention to the heat - I didn't care. After 10 minutes or so, the yoga practice got harder - a lot of fast and challenging movements and I had to decide what to focus on. Heat or Yoga?

I chose yoga. Its why I was there afterall. And once I chose that, the heat didn't seem to be an issue. Yes, I sweat. A lot. Like, A LOT. So much that I didn't feel sticky at the end. My sweat was just water. I had, in fact, bathed in sweat. (wow) I also had to really focus on my breathing. My body kept wanting to hold its breath, like it was waiting for things to get easier. Yeah, that wasn't going to happen. So lots of breathing focus, which basically kept me going.

And yes, there were moments where I had to take breaks, less for the heat than for the fact that some of those yoga poses were damn hard. But overall, it was great. I walked out feeling wonderful and energized. I had spent an hour focused on my balance, and my breathing and it was fabulous.

I'm not sure how we would have done had we not been eating as healthy as we have. (I had a hamburger on Sunday and shrimp today but otherwise, no meat for two weeks!) And for those who have done Bikram Yoga, this was not Bikram. The room was only heated to 98 degrees, so not as hot. Probably about as hot as I would go though. It was uncomfortable but tolerable.

We are going back on Wednesday for another (non-heated) class called Samurai Yoga which incorporates martial arts. I'm a bit sore so I may need to take it easy, but I am totally excited about it!

The Family that Shares....

Almost three weeks ago Jeremy came back from ComicCon. And he brought us all a little gift...sinus infections! Yay! I've never had one before and I gotta say, they are so much.....fun?

No. No they are not fun. They are crappy and debilitating, and they don't go away on their own no matter how much you take care of yourself. When, six days in, I still had yellow crap coming out of my nose at the pace of gallons a day, I gave in and went to the doctor. Now I'm on pain pills, steroids for the swelling, and a massive dose of antibiotics that will probably take me over a month to recover from. Thanks Hun!

Josh got it too, and has been fighting fevers and whatnot for almost two weeks. He just gets the antibiotics, and so far, so good. Hopefully he gets better without needing anything stronger or more invasive.

The one kinda good thing that has come from this is that I FINALLY understand Jeremy's eating habits. He constantly craves salt and fried foods and junk, and then complains about how yucky he feels.* For years I've done what I can to support his learning to eat well, but I never understood why the habit got started. I mean, his body literally HATES that food. He has the fastest negative feedback to junk food I've ever seen, so why on earth did such a strong eating habit develop? One answer: sinus infections.

To explain, last night we went out to eat, and I ordered what I thought would be an amazing dish or morracan veggies with quinoa and couscous. Yeah, tasteless. Not because of the food, but because my infection would not let me taste it. Thankfully Josh got chips, beans and cheese and they were so salty, they were AWESOME. I hate the whole plate (Josh didn't want it anyway - he had filled up on crackers before dinner). I told Jeremy how wierd it was that I craved such a salty dish, and he said "Now you know how I felt most of my life."

Jeremy probably had a chronic sinus infection for years, or at least major problems with his sinuses, when he was a teenager. But he lived in a state that didn't provide insurance for children and his parents owned a small business that meant they couldn't afford health insurance much of the time. So he went untreated. And then ate only the food he could taste - salty, fried, junk food. Sure, it caused (and still causes) a host of other problems, but I tell ya, I totally get it now. Cause man is it hard to force yourself to eat something you can't taste. Hard, I tell ya.

So now I get it. I get why he tends to eat the way he does, I get why everyone complains so much about sinus infections (yes, they do, in fact, suck hairy rat balls) and I get that I seriously am never waiting to report a sinus infection to a doctor again. Yuck!

*On a side note, Jeremy recently decided to try eating vegetarian, gluten free, and nothing fried. Its amazing! We are finally eating the way I would always choose to eat, and both of us feel so freakin good! (except for the whole sinus infection thing)

Updates!

I know you all are wondering how my hunt for fulfillment is going (and by you all I mean Cindy - Hi Cindy!) Its been interesting, to say the least, especially with all the change and upheaval gong on with Jeremy and his getting back into acting.

So far I am very clear that yoga, ballet and lindy hop are very prominent in the "get back to me" project I have going on. Bob Harper's Yoga for the Warrior continues to kick my ass, and dance makes me feel alive, so they all get to stay.

I'm also feeling very driven about to rather surprising (to me) things that I'm just going to own right now. First, I have fallen into the position of de facto manager for Jeremy - planning things out, keeping him on track, making sure steps are followed up on. I seem uniquely qualified for it (accountant) and it totally lets me use my business-y brain, which, up till now as felt very patronized and ignored by the rest of the world (for those feminists out there, yes its mostly by men, but I don't necessarily think that's a statement about sexism, just a statement about who I have around me at any given time).

Second, I am owning that I am a seriously opinionated woman, and need an outlet for it. So I am starting a Tumblr, and maybe another blog. Tumblr first, because I find I mostly want to repost stuff I find with a short comment rather than write a whole blog. And facebook and twitter aren't really the greatest places for said repost - too many family members and whatnot. I'd rather keep those social media actually just social, and link to my Tumblr instead. So watch for that in the coming days too.

I will post pictures/videos of dancing in the near future, just cause I'm all about sharing everything right now. And now that I've promised, I have to deliver. And that will drive me to continue with this whole thing, which, of course, is the point of this crazy exercise.