Who Needs Sleep?

You know how I'm always making a much bigger deal of things than I really need to? And it keeps me up nights, worrying about things that don't require my worrying? And it stresses me out so much that I start feeling sick all the time?

Heh.

Work has been stressing the hell out of me lately, and as a result, I'm not sleeping well, and as a result of that, I'm walking around all day in a tired haze, my nose is stuffy and runny (although that might have a little bit of something to do with forgetting my Claritin all weekend...), I'm getting headaches every single day, and I'm generally achy. Whine, whine, whine.

So what have I been stressing so much about? Well, to make a long story short, a giant company bought our small company and everything has begun to change. And we all know how I am about change.

Some of these changes are minor, such as having to wear safety glasses over my glasses (they make me look like a giant bug), and having to wear these "safety shoes" in which, ironically, I slipped on the ice in the parking lot a few weeks ago. The shoes were uncomfortable, but I've discovered that if I wear hand-knit socks, they're actually pretty comfortable once I get past their weighing eleventy-million pounds (steel toed, you know, because I'm so likely to drop things on my feet while I'm in the lab...). Since I know a sock knitter quite intimately, this little bit of change is no longer a concern. I'm not uncomfortable looking like a giant bug, either, because whom am I trying to impress?

The next bit of business is the new bonus system. Seeing as we didn't have one before and we have one now, you'd think I'd be totally stoked about this, right? Well...yeah...kinda...but here's the deal: it's performance-based, and my performance directly affects the bonuses of everyone in the lab, and everyone else's performance affects mine. No pressure. Some of the things the performance is based on are not a big deal. Safety is one of them. Seeing as my little accident in January is the only lab accident we've had in years and years, and it was classified as a "near-miss", we've totally got that one in the bag (besides, I have steel toed shoes and bug glasses. How can I lose?). Another thing is making up the business we lost from one of our clients who went and got their own mercury analyzer (jerks...), and took $8,000 a month away from us that we now need to make up. I'VE BEEN WORKING OVERTIME.

The biggest bit of this, though, is that they want us to get ISO certified for heavy metals. Oh look, that's me! This certification involves changing all my test methods to match a complicated set of criteria, plus more blanks, spikes, standard additions, QCs, and much, much more, so every run will take much longer than it does now, and I'm already running around all day like a chicken with my head cut off. I haven't taken more than ten actual lunch breaks since New Year's. It's getting ridiculous. Not only will this lengthen my runs, but OH GOOD HELL THE PAPERWORK. Right now the most paperwork I have to deal with is documenting in my lab books the results of my daily tests, and keeping records of instrument maintenance.

Now the plain fact is this: when things have changed in the past, I've rolled with it. It's caused a bit of stress in the beginning, but I quickly get used to it and that's just the way it is. When we switched from the graphite furnace to the ICP-MS, I thought I'd never figure it all out and I lost a lot of sleep then, too. Same thing with switching from the CVAA to the DMA. Mercury is SO MUCH BETTER NOW, but it was stressful at the time. So why am I wigging out about this now? Because I'm me. Duh.

The last thing that's been stressing me out lately is that we're trying to sell the old GFAA (it's been sitting there for more than two years, it's about freaking time). The problem is that they want me to get it up and running again, and they sent over test samples for me to run on it to demonstrate that it still works. Now, here's the thing: back when it was working, it didn't really work. I pulled up some of the old data today, and the QCs were just ridiculous. It was a piece of crap then, and I'll bet one of my spindles that it's still a piece of crap.

The plan is to get Richard to come over and tune it up a bit and help me get it up and running, and then run the samples they sent over to us.

Now, really, I shouldn't be stressing about this. I examined the issue more closely today. I printed off the old SOPs for how to run the furnace and the specific instructions for how to prepare and run all the standards, samples, and matrix modifiers. I poked around the old software to re-familiarize myself with what's what. And you know what? It's starting to come back to me. I think I can do this. Especially if the big company decides to approve getting Richard to come over. The best part? The samples they sent came, and they sent me pre-made standards, a blank, and the samples are already prepped. They couldn't have made it easier for me. See? I totally had nothing to worry about, and yet the past few weeks I've been stressing myself out. Unnecessarily. Yep.

Cookies, Crab Legs, Cupcakes, And Company!

Birthday Week began eight days before my birthday, because Kwiddens spoils me terribly!

First, she came over to my house and we started baking sugar cookies. She had made the dough ahead of time, so all we had to do was roll it out, bake it, and frost it. We baked them and let them cool while we went to dinner.

She took me to Red Lobster, where we ate delicious crab legs and laughed and complained about all sorts of things, because Kwiddens time is therapy time, even on birthdays.

After dinner we got back home and frosted the cookies with pink frosting, because pink is my favorite.

 At some point we got a bit silly.

She made me way more cookies than I could eat by myself! I had sugar cookies with every meal for the next several days. Don't tell the Diet Police!

The following weekend a few friends made me some cupcakes and decorated them themselves:

Everyone is so sweet to me!

I got a few birthday presents, including some nice soap and hand lotion from one friend, and some pretty sparkly fiber from another, and a lot of really beautiful fiber from my mother-in-law, who also got me a little tool to help me spin more consistently. I of course bought myself birthday fiber and yarn (from Scott), and will eventually put pictures of all of it up here in one of my spinning posts.

The present I'll be most excited for I don't have yet. Isaac is going to make me my very own custom spinning wheel! I am SO STOKED. It'll be a while, since he is going to make it from scratch, but when I get it I'll post about it and show you pretty, pretty pictures.

On my actual birthday, two Sundays ago, my family was swamped and it was just bad timing all around, so we waited until this past Sunday to get everyone together for dinner. We went to Iggy's and had a lovely time with each other, and then Birthday Week was over.

Snuggly Red Socks

I finished another pair of socks!

And that's my friend photobombing with her finger.

And, of course, I had to start a new pair:

I was going to just do regular socks, but I am feeling rather ambitious, and will try for knee socks!

Text Time 22

Me: I need to clean my house. Things are piling up.
Kwiddens: I need to eat something that's not Twix. :)


Mim:

TV and baking at the same time!
Me: Clever!


Em: Problems with having photography majors as friends: you end up wearing nothing but a satin negligee in the snow for two hours.
Me: There better be awesome pics as a result!
Em: We got the whole shoot done, but at the price of hypothermia.
Me: Are you okay?
Em: I am now.


Me: How you doin, Mim?
Mim: Doin alright. I lost my glasses. Sucjs to lose glasses because yoi bcan't see to find the.
Me: Or to text, apparently :P


Jorg: According to my teacher, gas is a liquid.
Me: Does he mean gasoline?
Jorg: No.
Me: Was he trying to say "fluid" instead of liquid? Because that would actually be correct.
Jorg: He says the two terms are interchangeable.
Me: Nooooooooo. He seems to have gotten his degree in Dumbassery.
Jorg: I told Mom what you said. She says she loves you.

The Trick Is To Be Stoned

So I've been practicing spinning a bit here and there, and actually remembering to take pictures, because I want to actually blog about it, not just think about blogging about it. Look at me go, blogging about it!

At the spinning workshop I bought this extra batt to practice with:

It's a mixture of cashmere, wool, firestar, and bamboo. Here's how it spun up:

I would have been happy with it, except the white bits (the wool) didn't draft nearly as smoothly as all the other fibers, and so it made for nubbly bits here and there. I felt like if those bits hadn't been there, the results would have been much more consistent. I liked the pink and orange together, though.

A while ago I ordered a sampler from a woman here in Utah who has an Etsy store:

It's all merino wool. I wanted to practice seeing how the colors end up spinning up together. I can't yet see in my mind what things will look like spun up. It'll take practice.

So far I've only spun one of these. Before:

After:

Interestingly, I didn't like the colorway that much in the braid, but I liked it more spun. Not my favorite, but pretty good.

As I've been practicing, I've had two goals: to spin thinner singles, and to spin more consistent singles. I think overall I've been getting more consistent:

These three pictures are in order, of course. You can see the last one is much more even than before. Interestingly, I spun this one while I was on Klonopin (and I was knitting on Shelby's shawl the other day and I had had an entire bottle of wine, and I knit faster with fewer mistakes). Interesting...

Look! Shiny Things!

One of the women in my knitting group is organizing a retreat for some of her online friends, and one of the things she's putting together for it is goodie bags with samples and fiber-related treats from indie dyers, spinners, and crafters in the area. It's meant to drum up business for these local artisans.

I offered to make sets of stitch markers for her. I made twenty sets of six, and then kept one from each set for myself...taxes, you know. Here are most of them:

I don't do beadwork often, but occasionally I just get the urge, and the result is pretty things!

So Buttery Soft...

As I've mentioned before, I'm knitting (and crocheting, actually; there's a crocheted edging) a wedding shawl for my dear friend Shelby from high school.

This is the pattern I'm using, and this is the yarn. Baby alpaca, in the Oyster Heather color. So scrumptiously soft!

Anyway, I've started it and made a good bit of progress, so I thought I'd post a picture and show off a bit!

Keep in mind, it's all squished together, and lace doesn't actually look like lace until it's properly blocked. But I have to say, I've been doing very well.

Out of sheer paranoia, I've been placing lifelines every ten rows. When I started, it was every four...I've gained a little more confidence in my abilities since I started (placing a lifeline is putting a bit of spare yarn or string, or dental floss in my case, through where your needle is currently so that if you make a mistake and need to rip back a few rows, you can easily pick up where you were at the last lifeline instead of having to rip it all out and start over). It's a good thing, too, because I've already used them four times. This is really my first lace project, so I'm still getting used to it. It's a lot different, because the needles I'm using are way too big for the yarn (that's how you get the "lacy" effect) and it feels strange compared to the other knitting I've done in the past.

Now We Can Use The Roomba!

Since I'm lazy and tired, I let Scott blog about our new floor:

For a over a year Anna and I have been looking at redoing the flooring on our main floor with hardwood. We picked out the flooring we wanted that went well with the new cabinets in the kitchen. It is laminate that is finished in a Brazilian Cherry.

I went to Home Depot and was browsing for a thing for my keys when I saw that the flooring we wanted was on clearance. I called Anna and told her, and she told me to get it. When I was paying for it, I told the flooring lady that I was going to pay with my Home Depot card and she said "Thanks for telling me that 'Lowes has that for cheaper' "(wink wink) and gave me an additional  5% off. Home Depot has a customer for life.

They loaded a full pallet plus 4 boxes into my truck and away I went. When I got home I looked at how much my truck was sagging from the weight and apologized to my back ahead of time. I started to unload the flooring into the house so it could acclimatize to the house. Then I started to rip out the old carpet, padding and tile. I started to rip up the tile in front of the door ... and, big surprise, I was able to pull out all the tile by hand ... no tools needed. I then started to rip out the carpet. Once I got to the sub floor I started to clean it up and prep for the new flooring when I saw that they had used finish nails (smooth shafted, very small head) to attach the subfloor to the floor joists.... that is why it squeaked all the time. I changed them all to screws. Almost all the squeaks went away.

I had Jorg come over and help with the install of the flooring. We put down a few rows and then stopped for the night.

Then next day we really went to work, getting about 2/3 of it finished.

The last day we finished and cleaned up. Here are some before and after pictures.

Buster is still getting used to walking on the floor ... he has face planted a few times.

Note from me: See the spots in the very last picture? I glued felt to the bottom of the furniture to prevent scratches. Superglue dries right away, right? Wrong. I still haven't figured out how to get those spots off. I have a new floor for a few hours and I've already ruined it.

We still need to do both sets of stairs and the upstairs landing, but that can wait.

But My Flowers Smelled Great!

Valentine's day. Good and bad. We'll start with the good...

Scott had these delivered to me at work on Thursday (a bit early, yes). My coworker brought them in and said, "What did he do?" Kinda funny. Anyway, it's all pink (favorite) with pearls (favorite). He's such a sweetheart.

Last year, or maybe the year before (I can't remember) I sent him a cookie bouquet, and although he loved it, it was rather expensive, and Scott doesn't like when I spend money on him like that. So this year I had a better idea.

I had a heart-shaped bacon pizza delivered to him the next day. Only $8, so he can't complain about that! He forgot to take a picture, sadly, but he liked it very much.

Okay...now the bad.

I got home from work, took a shower and put on a slightly nicer shirt and a necklace (fancy!), and we went out. It was only 5:30, so I thought that would be early enough to avoid most of the dinner crowd and we could have a nice dinner, just the two of us.

We drove over to Red Lobster, because crab legs are delicious and festive, and there wasn't even a parking spot open. So, still in the mood for crab, we drove over to McGrath's, where the lobby was so crowded I didn't even bother to ask how long the wait would be. So Scott and I thought that maybe we could go up the hill to the Chinese restaurant just south of the air force base, and it wasn't very crowded, so we thought we had found a good place. NOT.

We stood there in the lobby without anyone saying anything to us for a good fifteen minutes. A grunt of acknowledgement would have been nice. Anyway, we were finally seated...and then nobody came over (or, once again, even acknowledged our presence) for another twenty minutes. This seemed ridiculous, but there were a lot of people picking up carry-out orders, so we figured they were busier than they had planned for.

A woman finally came over to take our order, and we got our drinks almost right away, and my soup, but then we waited another fifteen minutes for our wontons to come out. They were delicious, so all was forgiven. Okay, not really, but they were awesomely delicious. Another fifteen minutes, and Scott's food came out...but mine didn't. For another fifteen minutes. I was hungry, so I picked at Scott's a bit, but by the time I got my food Scott was just about full, so I ate while he just kinda sat there and picked at his noodles.

We finished, and my food was delicious, but then, surprise, surprise, we waited for our check. Another fifteen minutes. Scott eventually got up and had to go to the kitchen to find someone to get us our check and some boxes. We boxed up our leftovers, went up front to pay, and left without leaving a tip.

Now, I used to be a waitress, so I know how difficult things can get, especially when you're busier than you anticipate and things are a little hectic. But when you don't even give a quick "I'll be with you soon" and just ignore your customers, you don't deserve to be tipped for the service you aren't giving. This is only the second time EVER I have not left a tip. The service was that bad.

But overall, we probably got out of there more quickly than we would have at Red Lobster...

Some Days...

Some days...

...I dismiss my alarm instead of snoozing it, and wake up 40 minutes late, which leads to a rushed shower (no relaxing under the hot water) (no shaved underarms) (I know you wanted to know) and that apparently makes me cranky.

...I have to try so hard to not verbally rip everyone's head off, both at work and at home. Nobody deserves this, and there isn't even usually a reason (except wonky neurotransmitters, but you already knew about those).

...I am tempted to quit my job. It used to be so laid back, and now it just isn't. I'm busier, which is usually a good thing, but on days like today (where I'm emotionally trainwrecked and all I want to do is go home, fling myself on my bed, and sob uncontrollably for a few hours) it just seems to be too much. Which is sad, because I am Invincible Superchemist, and I'm supposed to be able to solve all chemistry problems without batting an eyelash. But some days, I tell you...

...I want everything, but nothing at the same time. Food, specifically. Nothing in particular today, but lately I've been wanting a certain food, and thinking about getting it, and then when I think about the effort involved in getting said food I stop wanting said food.

...I love Scott more than usual. This happens all the time; I love him more and more every day. But some days I notice it more. Usually, it's the days like today when I have to convince myself that I have wonderful things in my life and the world isn't going to end tomorrow. I look over at my Scott, and he smiles at me and says something silly, and I feel a bit better and count myself lucky to have him in my life.

...Buster needs a bath but refuses to be bathed. NAUGHTY.

...I have to rip out three rows of complicated lace knitting because I got distracted and skipped some stitches somewhere and I can't find them, but somehow the math just isn't adding up. RIIIIIIP! (Thank heaven for lifelines; I've been placing one every four rows out of sheer paranoia...)

BUT.

Some days...

...I am KNITTING LACE DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW BADASS THAT IS.

...I can't think of another positive thing to put here. I'll feel better tomorrow, I'm sure. 

(I just LOVE mood swings...)