Sarah TOTALLY knows how to fill BP's hole

So obvious, why didn't we think of it? Watch for it at about the 5:10ish mark...

Winter gloom

Daylight savings time has ended and for me that marks the beginning of the long, gray, depressing slog through winter.

I don't do well with short, dark days.

To make things even darker, NASCAR's season ends this weekend.

I don't know what it is about NASCAR, but it makes me happy. Just about nothing else does.

This season isn't even over and I'm already counting down the days to next season's Daytona 500. It falls on Valentine's day in 2010, and that's just 89 days from today. By then the days will be noticeably longer and brighter.

89 days to go. I think I can tough it out.

End of summer purge

I'm sorry to see summer come to an end. It's been a good summer. It's the easy time of my calendar. Soon financial aid season will be upon me and I'll be at my laptop for hours upon hours, days and weeks at a stretch. Not looking forward to that. In fact, I'm dreading it.

I had my annual physical last week and though I don't have all the lab results yet, I don't expect any surprises. I'm feeling better than I have in a long time. The coughing that had me down during spring (likely allergies), is long gone. The nausea that began last year and worsened this past spring is also gone. It left with Celexa.

Speaking of Celexa, I think I'm finally through the withdrawal. Looking back on it, the process probably hit its apex when I was in Oregon in June. I was so miserable that weekend I wanted to die. I wasn't depressed or suicidal. I just wanted to die. Hard to explain. It's all behind me thankfully. I feel great, both emotionally and physically.

I think my thyroid may be off kilter a bit, so I half-expect to get a call from my doctor to change my Levoxyl dosage. I say half-expect because if my thyroid was off like I think it is, I'd be dropping a lot more weight. I have been dropping weight, but it's because I've been working at it.

After a seven month stretch when I took a break from weight loss and rarely exercised, I picked it up again, in earnest. I came off a stressful winter/consulting season with a serious case of cabin fever. When work wound down, I busted out. I've spent every possible minute of every day this summer outside (or in the pool), doing something.

The batting cage is the perfect compliment to Frisbee golf [I throw from left-to-right and swing from right-to-left]. Just saying.

I've had a lot of time for the outdoors because this is my off season. I've not been especially busy with work. I do a different kind of modeling in my off season. I do these cookie-cutter, assembly line, predictive models. I get a fixed price per model, and there are enough to do that I earn half of my year in my off-season. Yet I hardly work at all.

Unfortunately, the rest of my year doesn't come so easily. I haven't figured out how to adapt my econometric models to an assembly line system so that I can get the same price-to-effort ratio. I need to work on that.

When one can't work, one must play. Playtime aplenty has had its rewards. I dropped 10 pounds over the summer.

I've dropped 50 pounds since quitting my day job 14 months ago. My knees are a lot happier and I no longer suffer from GERD.

I'm working hard to drop 25 more. Then my plan is to clean up the rest of my act just long enough to pass a physical for affordable health insurance. The difference between Fat Trop and Lean Trop is about $200/month in premiums. Cha-ching.

I've blogged enough for now about banjo, except for this cute thing. The kid in the lesson before mine is an 8-year-old girl learning guitar. She's just starting out and already she's doing a respectable rendition of Walk the Line. When her lesson was wrapping up, I overheard her tell the instructor "They're going to make a movie about me, just like in Walk the Line." So. Cute.

If there was a movie about your life, what celebrity would play your part? No clue who would play me in a Trop biopic.

Another reason I'm sad to see summer end: Amanda. I enjoy being home with her through the day. I'm so lucky to have that. We'll still have it after school starts, but it won't be the same.

Amanda has been pumped for school after her first two orientation classes; her full schedule starts tomorrow. I hope she takes to college the way I did. I hated high school so much that I almost skipped out on college. As it was I delayed college until I was 20. That was the right thing for me. I hope this is the right thing for her.

I am so desperate to see Amanda blossom.

Courtney and I spent a lot of date nights this summer at city stadium, where the Hillcats play. Minor league baseball is a lot of fun. We went to the game last night and saw a great fireworks show afterward. I'm going to miss nights out at the stadium.

NASCAR has been SO much fun this summer because my guy has been at the top of the charts most of the season. He had a bad night last night though. Hope that's the last one. NASCAR lasts until November, so there's a lot of racing left.

Finally, I'm sorry to see summer end because with fall comes another birthday (October). I'm going to be 49 this time, and that's hitting me HARD.

I'm feeling a surge

This withdrawal is the strangest thing. I'm at a place now where half the time I am a basket case, and the other half of the time I'm feeling better than ever.

My appetite is back. I'm not nauseous all the time. In fact, I got a hankering for favorite of mine and made the most excellent meal the other night.

I've been exercising again, and spending a lot of time in the sun outside (I have the poison ivy to prove it).

I'm staying ahead of my work. I'm back to cranking out cookie-cutter models. It's easy money compared the financial aid models I do in the fall and winter. I have better concentration too. I'm less ADHD-like when working; I actually stay on task and am less easily distracted by twitters and blogs and email. Sometimes my workday, which starts at around 7:00am, is wrapped up by 11:00am. It used to be, for lack of focus, that the same amount of work got stretched over the entire day.

On the down side, I find being around people a challenge. I am exceedingly impatient and crabby. I am prone to meltdowns. Conversations frustrate me. I also have frequent days where crying comes way too easy. I could do with a lot less of all this. I don't like being a bitch.

I keep coming here looking for a new post

Then I snap out of it and realize I need to write a new post if I want to see one.

I haven't had much of a muse for blogging.

The truth is, I haven't felt particularly well. I've seen my doctor and we're working on a few things. I'll see her again in a month for a more thorough assessment.

Emotionally, I've had some really bad days lately. This is to be expected, I suppose, given that my brain is adjusting to no antidepressants. On a bad day I'm not nice to be around, and I know it. I'm hoping this rough patch is just a phase of my withdrawal.

Yesterday was Amanda's last day of school. I've never been so happy to see a school year end. Though she just completed 10th grade I'll be enrolling her at the community college in the fall as a regular freshman. She tested into college English and math, so she's good to go. By the time her high school classmates are getting their diplomas, she will have, hopefully, completed her first two years of college. I hope it's a good move for her. High school just wasn't working out.

In other good news, my chapter 13 bankruptcy, stemming from my first marriage and subsequent divorce, was discharged (paid in full) on June 1. I am debt free. I cannot describe how free that feels.

Here comes the sun

We've had a long stretch of gray dark days this spring. Darkness kicks me in the ass.

This weekend, finally, the sun is back.


I am so much better now.

This is too embarrassing to share

But when has that ever stopped me?

We had a nice visit with my folks. Among other things, we finally got around to exchanging birthday gifts for the year.

My mother gave me this book because the face on the cover reminds her of adolescent me.

The sad truth is, this is exactly how I looked at 14.

What happened to my muse?

~Sigh.

I can't think of anything to blog about. Maybe I should do what other bloggers have done and solicit questions from readers. I can't imagine what anyone would want to ask, but if per chance you have a question, ask it.

I'm taking a vacation with Amanda beginning tomorrow. We will hang out at our nation's capitol. Maybe a break from the routine will help me find my muse.

Quote of the day

“Voters, ultimately, when they are thinking of a leader, are not thinking necessarily of someone who can fix the carburetor, but someone who can drive the car.’’ --Mike Huckabee, speaking about Barack Obama.





Whatever you think about the Huckster, he sure knows how to work the sound bite. I agree with his assessment of the Democratic contenders for the nomination, but at the same time I've come down from my own case of Obama-mania. I like that Obama can inspire, but I also have a lot of concern. Long before I heard any pundit say it, it occurred to me that instead of being our next JFK, Obama could wind up being our next Jimmy Carter: smart and capable, but simply overwhelmed and overrun by events.

My sense is that Obama has peaked. His Teflon is cracking. And Hillary is poised to take him down.

The thought of the Clintons in the White House again makes me cringe. I'd love to see a woman in the White House, but not Hillary Clinton. I want to see a woman get there without playing the gender card, and by running on her own accomplishments rather than her husband's. And most important, I don't want four or more years of Clinton corruption, marital drama, and hyperpartisanship. And I certainly don't want four more years of cronyism, secrecy, incompetence, and machismo (all very apparent in her campaign).

Most everyone aligned to the right of the political center hates Hillary Clinton, and not without good reason. And at least half of those aligned to the left of center dislikes her too, for other, equally valid reasons. How do her high negatives translate into a victory in November?

They don't.

I take solace then, knowing that no matter what we won't have to suffer through another Clinton two-for-one presidency.

Though I dislike Clinton, I will not vote for McCain. I won't vote for a GOP candidate on principle. I don't care how good that candidate might be; so long as the GOP continues with its theocratic, heterosexist anti-family party platform, I will not support their candidates. That principle aside, McCain caved on torture. He sold his soul to the dark side.

So I guess I'll be left without a candidate. ~sigh.

Pissy in Pleasantville

I'm still not sleeping right. And I am totally burned out.

I work for a small consulting firm that two major consulting firms hire for analytic number crunching upon which they provide a very expensive array of services. The firms cultivate the business, sign clients, and provide a lot of warm-fuzzy hand holding. We are a quasi-silent partner, providing analysis from the background.

There has been a turn of events with one of the firms my company deals with. Their primary analyst, "J," is leaving. J is brilliant and I have loved working with him. I've learned much from him. He's a gifted analyst. Gifted analysts are rare.

I was the last to know that he's leaving. My company was told weeks before I found out. I was not happy.

That was months ago. In the interim, the parent firm brought in a part-time enrollment expert to take over for J. And they've hired a math teacher with no higher ed consulting experience, a full-time replacement, who only started last week.

Friday is the J's last day, and just today I was told by the client that *I* would serve a primary role in transitioning projects from J to the new analyst. It means that I become the interim project manager for THEIR clients while they get their footing, while still doing all the background stuff.

WTF? This is their transition plan and I am the last to know?

My boss at my company was just as surprised. He emailed for my reaction and I told him I was upset to be the last to know. Had I been brought into the decision-making months ago, I could have told our client their transition plan won't work.

There is a lot I do for my company and their clients during business hours. I cannot do it at my day job. As a state agency everything is monitored, information security is being tightened and everything is being audited. I can't spend hours of state time conducting LiveMeeting conference calls with clients unless I take annual leave to do it. And I can't use state equipment or state internet access for these purposes. But that's how the business is conducted; on the phone and over the Internet. It's just not possible to meet the obligation of transitioning clients from one analyst to another in this context.

Secondly, it's not in the agreement I have with my company. I'm paid to run the numbers, build the tool, answer questions, and offer advice. Our client is charging, by the $10Ks, a lot more per project than I get paid to do my part of each project.

And then there's Amanda. I think she's crashing again. It's been a bad week for her (and me). I'm not available to take on additional responsibility right now. Had we discussed the transition plan before now, I would have told the client this. The client is aware that Amanda was hospitalized and that I am needed at home.

So there. I'm annoyed about consulting and I'm worried about Amanda. But then there's Court.

Two weeks ago Court and I had the closest thing, for us, to a fight. I'm not going to get into it except to say it was a situation where we both wanted the same thing, but in the offering we managed to hurt each other deeply. I made Court cry and she so rarely cries. We were "off" for quite a few days, but were able to talk and finally resolve things on Monday. It's sort of like we fought and made up, but without any nastiness.

Oh. My. God.

The making up has been so good that it can't be good for a woman my age. Court and I are having our best couple time EVER. It's like a whole new world has opened up... like I've been living in Pleasantville all my adult life and I'm just now seeing things in color.

Bear with me....

while I quit a disgusting habit. It's day three and so far so good. Only one major meltdown so far
(it was a doozy).

Complicating matters, I was home all day yesterday and our Internet service was down. That addiction is far worse than my cigar habit.

It was NOT a good day.

This mom thing is hard

Amanda and I had our night out tonight. And from the get go she started asking questions. Hard questions. About her dad.

~sigh.

Amanda's therapist is having her confront her feelings about her father, which is a good thing. But the bad thing for me is her questions. I want to be supportive and positive. And I feel compelled to be honest with her. But damn, her questions take me back to some very dark, awful moments in my life that I'd rather not exhume from the mental mausoleum where they are interred.

I'm not ready for these conversations. But she is.

So... we talk.


This is so hard. They don't prepare you for shit like this in parenting books.

The suspense is killing you, admit it.

Here are the latest Cup standings:

This is depressing. Stewart ran a good one at Talladega on Sunday, leading the last quarter of the race. Then he made one bad move, and just like that he dropped from 1st, to finish 8th.

While he held onto his fourth place position in the standings, he fell 37 points further behind the leader.

~sigh.