Lots of Changes - Into the Fall

So I think since I last posted to this site, a BUNCH has happened. The fall quarter has started up at the UW, and I'm up to my neck-hole in work. I'm taking two communications classes there this quarter. These classes are quite the challenge, so there hasn't been a lot of time to do too many other things. I'm taking a great digital media class on blogging. It's really awesome and the instructor, Kathy Gill, is really great. She's a few years older than I am - big sister age - and she's from the South. Georgia, I think. She's just really good and really enthusiatic about what she's doing and that make all the difference in the world. The other class is a Mass Media effects class, and I have a hard time not snoozing during the class and the readings. So I will just have to get through that one.

Also, I've started a diet called Ideal Protein, and my own weight loss project blog. I've decided that it's time to get this weight off once and for all. My goal is to lose 95 pounds. That will put me at my ideal weight, and slimmer than I've been since junior high school. Ideal protein is designed to get the weight off of you reasonably quickly, and that's what I need. It's costly, but will be well worth it if it helps me get the job done. There are no magic answers, but I think with the plan set up the way it is nutritionally, it's sound and I'll be able to stick it out to the end. If you'd like, follow along on my Ideal Protein blog. I will be updating it regularly.

The down side to having such a busy life, however, is that I have done zero decorating for the Halloween Holiday, which upsets me as you know. It was really sad when several people at work noticed that I had not yet decorated my office. But some years, it's just not in the cards. Right now the husband and I are watching some Amityville Horror. I didn't know that it had been completely debunked. I guess the people who started it dreamed it up over a bottle of wine one night while they were scheming to get out of a mortgage that had turned out to be a terrible financial undertow. It certainly spawned one of the most classic horror films of our time though.

We've also played some games and had some good times at the Wandering Havoc game store. I'm going to be rebuilding their website for school credit, so be sure and watch that site as well. Guess I'm gonna update my blogroll on this site. It's getting kinda outta date.

Halloween is coming and I am not at ALL ready

So it's October 15, and I haven't put up a single Halloween decoration. It's almost sacriligious! I am a huge lover of Halloween, pumpkins, fall leaves and basically all things to do with All Hallows Eve. Right now we are watching "Trick or Treat" which is a pretty good anthology of Halloween storeis all threaded together by a little dude named "Sam Hain". He's a rucksack toten goblin with an attitude. Creepy people killing each other, women turning into werewolves and gobbling up their Halloween dates - your basic Halloween goodness. I wrote some good stuff on Samhain some years ago. Pretty much sums up my feelings on the day. I'm back at the UW this year though - working on my Communication degree, and there's hardly enough time to put together passable outfits to go to work, much less decorating the house or anything. Perhaps tomorrow I will get out a few things out of the shed. Or not. I was supposed to work tomorrow, but I guess I don't have to now. I'm not that thrilled about that because I was looking forward to the extra money. **sigh** Oh well.

We're supposed to go and play games tomorrow at the D&D place, and the husband is re-working my character. The hazards of allowing him to use my computer since his was stolen a couple of weeks ago. We're going to go play Gamma World tomorrow evening, so I won't get to play my warlock character tomorrow night, but it should be okay. I guess it's a demo so we'll probably play pre-fab. ug.

I dont' remember what I was going to talk about when I started this post. Only that it is a "meh" halloween season. I want candy and popcorn, and I can't have either. I'm on this friggin' stupid-ass diet where I can't have ANYTHING.

Anyway, there it is. I'm going to quit writing before the husband messes up my character beyond my ability to recognize her.

A Re-PEAT trip to the Gynocologist....

Yay for me... I finally had my annual ladies' exam about three weeks ago, and just about a week afterward, got a call from one of the nurses at the Northwest Women's Health Center - a mill-like medical machine pushing preggos and women of all ages in one door and out the other with precision and applomb. What I initially thought was a call about the routine results of my exam soon revealed itself as a first for me. It seems that when they did the "scrape" - they didn't manage to get enough material. Now for those of the male persuastion who have never experienced the joys of a pap smear, lemme tell ya...try to imagine someone using a cat brush on the inside of your stomach and you'll just about have it there. Oh! And add to that the fact that the route to your stomach is through somewhere in the area of your ass. Anyway, I guess they didn't gouge me good enough, so I had to make an appointment to go back and get re-scraped. I did that this morning. My regular doctor, Tracy Johannsen, couldn't be bothered to do it herself, so I was left in the hands of a nurse practitioner.
The nurse practioner wasn't quite Nurse Ratched here, but more of a cross between her and Kathy Bates in Misery. I felt like this gal would have been more at home in a field hospital in WWII than in a gynecologist's office in downtown Seattle. But hey...I just needed to get my cervix scraped, so what did I care? I tried to explain it to the girl on the phone that I completely understood that Dr. Johanssen did about a hundred of these things a week, but that I only had one every 12 to 18 months, and hey... I was a little on the sensitive side.
They replied that they perfectly understood, but that if I wanted to see Dr. Johanssen, I would have to wait until mid-November to take care of it. Well SHIT! I wanted to have this thing over and done with. I had put it off as long as I possibly could in the first place. So, you can only imagine how happy I was when I went in there this morning to see Nurse Helga and saw Dr. Johanssen standing out in the hall laughing and talkign with her staff about the football game over the weekend while I got my cervix scraped by this concentration camp reject. But it's done. Hopefully the results will be in soon and will be all clear. But GRRRRRR.

Night night!