I Miss My Smokes!!

Holy mother…do I miss them. I fought the urges all day long. And I mean fought hard. I had read the third day was the worst day. What they failed to say is this is a day for an epic failure. No one prepares you for this day. The cravings, the fact that I reached out for my smokes I don’t know how many times, the fatigue. Oh my GOSH…the fatigue. That was not expected. I expected to cough…I didn’t cough. Instead I wanted to sleep all day. Literally.

I dread going to work tomorrow. I have a high stress job as it is. They say that I will feel less stress when I quit smoking. Honestly, I’ll believe that when I see it. I’m scared to go to work tomorrow. Scared as in “what if I lose my temper and lose my job” scared. I work in a Corporate office that frowns horribly on smoking, but frowns just as much if you don’t have that fake plaster smile on your face. Everyone should be pleasant and proper at all times. You can’t have a personality at all. So the thought of quitting smoking there scares the bejeezus out of me. And the next couple of weeks will be especially bad for us payroll personnel, due to restricted stocks and annual bonuses.

 
Honestly, I’m not sure I can do this. Even my wit is gone. My blogs are usually halfway amusing. This is just dry and unfunny, which is exactly how I feel. Dry and unfunny. As I suck on this nicotine lozenge that is so nasty, but I can’t seem to find the Nicorette mini’s in 4mg anywhere around here. Only the 2mg. Ahem..I was a 2-3 pack a day smoker, 2mgs is not even going to be close to cutting it. Not unless folks want to see me go psycho on them. As in scream at them and call them obscenities psycho. Hmm…though I’m thinking that could be my plan for my commute??!!

wired.com If I were a guy this is what I will look like commuting without my smokes!

Yeah that will definitely be me tomorrow. I have mints where my ashtray used to be. MINTS. Though they are the yummy air puffy ones that just melt in your mouth. Kind of like minty spun air. I love those things…but not enough to keep me from screaming at everyone on the road. For crying out loud, I do it NOW. Can you imagine without my friend, the cigarette?

I suppose we shall see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully it won’t go as bad as I think it will. I’ll bring my nasty tasting lozenges, my e-cigarettes and my mints and see how I turn out.

Wish me luck!

 

Life and Work and Quitting Smoking

Yep, I’ve been gone a long long while. No time to blog when you are working 12 hours a day EVERY SINGLE DAY. Even weekends. Did I get a bonus out of that? Nope. Did I get a raise higher than budgeted? Nope. My boss tells me I have the “satisfaction of a job well-done”. Uh huh…there is that, but it doesn’t get the bills paid, the house clean or my World of Warcraft guild back on it’s little feet. Ugh.

That is what we’ll be talking about today. Because THAT is all I can think about. The fact that I have not smoked today. The fact that I REALLY REALLY want a cigarette. The fact that I’ve tried this 100’s of times before and failed miserably. (Did I mention I wanted a smoke like uber badly?) The fact that I might gain weight. The fact that my head hurts like a bitch right now. (What I wouldn’t do for a smoke right this second)

There are some new things for the soon-to-be-ex-smoker. Please don’t ask me if that’s a word. I’m in the throes of nicotine withdrawal and frankly, I don’t really care. But there are some new things. I found some great iphone apps that help me. One lets me mash on buttons when I really want a smoke, but I resist. That makes me happy. It makes me at least feel like I am accomplishing something. Though the fact that I haven’t kicked my cat today is a total accomplishment in itself. And I ADORE my cat. However, he and his little brother are seriously getting on my nerves. They want to snuggle, I want to be left alone to feel sorry for myself and mourn the loss of my best friends…my smokes.

Yes…that’s right. Ask most smokers and as much as they hate the habit (and oh my gosh, are scorned for it), we do love our smokes themselves. They are always there in a pinch, in that time of stress. When you want to jerk the douche bag out of his car in front of you and beat his face in, you can turn to that trusty cigarette instead. (Holy crap, what the hell am I going to do Monday during my commute? Eat mints?) When your boss just treated you like a total piece of shit, you can turn to your best friend….the cigarette…. to get you through it without screaming obscenities at her and losing your job (Again, what the hell am I going to do Monday…eat a mint? Oh yeah, that will get the dopamine flowing!). Yep, that cigarette keeps the bills paid.

You can stop rolling your eyes or asking yourself how stupid I am. I know the above remark sounds stupid, it all sounds stupid, but it’s what we THINK. We are addicts, no different than alcoholics or drug addicts. However, for some reason we are treated differently than those addicts. Alcoholism is a disease. Smoking is just a nasty filthy habit that people can quit any time.

Anyone who feels like the above, I wish I could transfer what I feel to you right now. Those 4000+ extra chemicals that tobacco companies are putting in their cigarettes (did you know that up until this year, big tobacco was not made to disclose what was in each cigarette? Only God and the tobacco companies knew what was in a smoke) are doing a number on me. But oh hey, no worries, you’ll get over it in no time. Not true, most smokers relapse at about 3 months smoke-free.

Okay, I’m going to stop ranting, my fingers are swelling I swear. Hell of a way to spend a vacation day so sorely earned, eh?

I Need to Win the Lottery

Why you ask? Well besides the fact that folks say that money can’t buy happiness, I don’t quite believe that. I think it can. I think I can be perfectly happy never having to HAVE to work another day in my life again. Yes…pretty sure that would make me happy.

But today, it would have made me triple happy, since I think my boss implied I was fat. Yes, the same boss who thanked me a few days ago. He was obviously in a mood today and I didn’t help it by questioning a procedure he put into place. Pissed him off. I don’t care. It’s stupid and creates more work than is necessary. But he’s one of those guys that is always right.

Now again, I am in Payroll. My life goes to hell in a hand basket this time of year. Want those W-2 forms? That’s on my back and tons of work hours go with it. So I’m already irritable. It’s after hours and there is junk food like every where, being that it’s Christmas time. I will never understand why companies feel the need to overwhelm their customers with bad food this time of year. My hips expand just thinking about it. Send us booze, that’s what we need. Alcohol and lots of it. Not all this crap they send.

So there are cupcakes on the desk right in front of my directors office. We are bullshitting about something, I don’t remember what. Oh yeah…that bunch of one dollar bills in his desk. He said they were to make change, I started laughing and said “uh huh….suuuuuuurreeeeee”. So we are both snickering and the big boss does a drive by insult to me. As he’s walking through he spots that last cupcake and says “R, there is one cupcake left, you KNOW you want it”. Ok first of all, it was a blue iced fucking cupcake. Know what blue icing does to your teeth and lips? It makes them fucking blue. Second, I don’t like your implications.

You know what? I know damn well I’ve put on about 10 pounds. You have to make it worse? And before you guys say I’m over reacting, this guy is a runner. He runs every day. Well, I guess he wants a bucky fucking beaver badge for that. Tell you what there big guy, put in the hours I’m putting in, add my 2 hour commute and I want to see you still have time to run. He considers himself an athlete and since we are not, we suck.

To say I was a bit pissed off is an understatement. I went quietly into my office and stewed on those words. They hurt. Getting older blows, the weight gain that comes with it triple blows. I’m already struggling here and you want to insult me? Honestly, I wanted to take the blue icing and smash it all in his buzz cut hair. That would’ve made me feel better. However, I have a mortgage and other bills and I would have lost my job over that.

What he doesn’t know is that me and a few of my friends have started a walking regimen on our lunch breaks. Helps with stress reduction and I’m hoping these 10 pounds will go away. There is a hill on our walking path and that hill has kicked my ass every time so far. Tomorrow, I will top that damn hill, I won’t complain about it (I really hate that hill!!) and he can SUCK IT.

And when these 10 pounds come off and they WILL come off, then he can really SUCK IT.

Work and WoW

Totally need these today after the work day I had. I ran my ass off…one building, back to my building, back to their building. They had VERY BAD JUJU today. They are our offshoot payroll department and they took over a payroll for one of our hospitals and oh my GOD…did they ever fuck up.

Now here is the thing. The woman that was running this payroll is a good friend of mine and personally trained by me. But getting this hospital payroll thrown on her along with her other duties was too much I guess. She…….forgot……….to……….pay………them!!! If it hadn’t been so bad, I would have laughed at her for doing something so incredibly stupid. You’re a Payroll Manager. Paying people gets you paid. But she forgot that OH SO IMPORTANT step of sending the correct file to the bank. So she calls me in a panic. In all the years I’ve known her, she has never panicked. So with permission from my VP, who runs both departments, I run on over there. I’m there for hours. Literally. I have a lot of people I used to work with in that entity, in various departments. So once I got the file sent over, I had to socialize with them and tie up a bunch of loose ends while I was there. In the meantime…..my work is piling up on my desk. So all in all it was a 12 hour day. But she was so grateful, I thought she would cry. They are not out of the woods yet. Not everyone will get their direct deposit tomorrow, but most will.

I do look like a queen at the moment to the VP though. He even THANKED me. I almost fell down in shock. But instead, I graciously said it was no big deal and went off to my pile of work. You have to understand this guy is usually a total dick. For him to say those two tiny words was like a major miracle…like the clouds parted and the sun streamed down for that brief second.

Okay enough of that, let’s get to World of Warcraft. I summoned all my officers to ventrilo and had a meeting. First we talked about the morons that are stalking our little guild. While I’m conducting this meeting, the one is acting like a total fucktard. So…screenshots are taken and I re-opened my ticket. I think that Blizzard FINALLY listened. They said there would be repercussions this time. While it’s about damn time. Like I told Blizz, this has been going on for a month. So maybe my little guild will finally get some love from the WoW Gods.

So after discussing how to handle the dipwads, we moved on to me telling them I didn’t want to tank anymore. Total and complete silence, which I knew would happen. I’m the guild’s main tank and frankly, it now feels like a job. I would rather change specs and heal as a holy paladin. After their initial shock, they took it better than I thought they would. Except one long standing person in my guild. He was irritated, you could tell. But he’s part of the reason. “Run me Sam” “Run me Sam” “Run me Sam” as soon as I log on. So I stepped down from main tank, much to his chagrin.

Then we moved onto me finally stepping up as a leader and telling my officers they NEEDED to ACT like officers instead of guildies with a title. I needed them to take responsibility for certain things. I need recruiting officers and raid officers and banking officers, etc. They can pick what they would like to do, but then they MUST follow through or lose their ranking. It’s that simple. Honestly, I have been putting off saying anything to them for fear they would get mad at me. It’s just a game, right? But I cannot do it all myself. I just can’t. If we are to survive….or grow…I need them to be who they are. Officers of my guild.

I took a deep breath when that was done. So far no one has left the guild, so maybe I shouldn’t have been so scared to say anything to them.

Change can be a positive thing. But things will never change if I don’t change. The status quo is fine for a while, then we must evolve or stagnate. Right down to something as simple as an online game…….

Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares

My newest TV obsession. I just found this show, even though it’s been in the US for at least 4 years now. Longer in the UK. I’m not sure what I find so fascinating about this show. The fact that folks let their restaurants get in that bad of shape or the fact that he is a complete jerkwad at times.

Like that above. You can just TELL he’s pissed off at someone. But then……..just about the time you want to hate his guts, he redeems himself by being sweet. Or putting a family back together. Or backing off when one of the women start to cry and that always seems to happen. They always cry. It’s kind of embarrassing really to the rest of us women. I am not a crier and I certainly would do my best to NOT cry on TV. But oh my GOSH…the women on this show, it seems that’s all they do. One restaurant owner locked herself in the bathroom for hours. Literally. She stayed in the bathroom bawling her eyes out…you could hear her…while Gordon and her staff relaunched her restaurant. Are you serious?

But today, I was glad it was my new obsession, since I am so damn tired I can barely get my laundry done. On a rare vacation day from work and all I want to do is sleep. So I spent several hours in bed. Me, my DVR and my cats who were thrilled to cuddle up and sleep. Oh I only have two cats so you all don’t think I’m this crazy middle aged cat lady.

But yeah, back to this fatigue thing. I am not amused by it. I’ve always been the type that can GO GO GO. Now it seems to just hit me randomly. There have been days at work that I’ve had to take a nap in my car on my lunch break to make it through the day. And yes, I take a multi-vitamin. No I’m not on medications. Yes, I could be going through menopause, though I’m not sure and my new OB-GYN seemed to blow off all my symptoms. I tried to talk to her, she pretty much said “sounds like the beginnings of menopause, have a nice day” and she whisked out the door. How’s that for support? Sheesh.

I just never seem to know when I’m going to have a day like today. I make sure I get between 6 and 7 hours sleep a night. More or less than that and I suck for the day. I probably should go to the doctor but I have no other symptoms. What am I going to tell him. “Hey Doc, I’m tired”. “No, there is nothing else”. “No, I really can’t think of a reason I’m this tired”. “Yes, I’m getting enough sleep”. I know my doctor would try to find the cause but I’m not sure I want to go through all the testing he’ll feel the need to put me through.

So I got pretty tight with old Gordon up there as I laid in bed telling my body “Get your ass UP and go put the laundry in” and my body responding by telling me to “fuck off” in body language. Hehe…get it?…my body telling me in body language? Ok, you can all stop rolling your eyes now. It was lame, but I couldn’t help it. 🙂

Seriously though, this has got to stop. It’s interfering with my life now.

If anyone has been through this kind of fatigue with menopause, I’d love to know about it. And how you adapted to it.

Black Friday and the search for a computer..

So here we are, the day after Thanksgiving, when the Christmas holiday revs up, our lives go to shit trying to get everything done and work really goes to hell in a handbasket. On that note, I want to share a very funny picture I ripped off Facebook this morning, courtesy of my brother:

Santa being dissed by his reindeer…

Either you’re laughing stupidly like I did, which means you share my somewhat twisted sense of humor, or you’re shaking your head wondering what’s so funny. That happens to me a lot actually.

So back to the Black Friday thing. I got up at my usual 4:30 am. Yes, I get up at 4:30 am every day, even my days off. I can’t help it. My body is trained. My Dad did this to me. When I was young..oh say, around 10 years old all through my teenage years..my Dad would get me out of bed to tag along with him pretty much wherever he went. So my body is trained to get up that early. Anyway, I hit the Black Friday sales online. I must say I totally scored for my son at one store. In shorts and a t-shirt, cup of coffee in hand. Now THAT is my kind of shopping. I got all that he was getting, except for the sneakers (or tennis shoes, as they like to call them in South).  I have to get him one more thing and I’m done Christmas shopping and I’m STOKED about it.

However, after this I thought…hmm…wonder what’s on sale in the computer world. I am still running a Dual Core processor, 4 gigs of ram and Windows XP. It’s definitely time for an upgrade. Well……I struck out. Desktops evidently are no longer a popular item at Christmas. If I had wanted a laptop or a tablet, I would’ve done great. But a desktop? Forget about it. It didn’t even come close to happening. I don’t consider $40 off a sale. And I hit everyone from Amazon to Staples to Tiger Direct and New Egg with like 20 stores in between. It was disheartening to see. My very first Black Friday, where I rolled out of bed at 4am (not really a hardship) with my Mom ( a HUGE hardship for her) and hit CompUSA at 5am. We both totally scored on a computer back then. Now they aren’t even a factor.

So I guess I’m going to upgrade mine. New motherboard, new processor, Windows 7. However, even though I have changed everything else in my computers over the years, I have never upgraded the mobo/processor or the hard drive. And frankly, I’m a bit concerned over my lack of knowledge. I don’t really know what plugs into where, you know? So this will be an interesting lesson that I hope doesn’t blow my computer all to hell.

Any helpful tips that my readers can share with me?

Monday…enough said, yes?

This is totally how I felt at work yesterday. We have one woman who does NOTHING but raise hell all day long. We hear her and it just pisses the rest of the team off. Frankly, all we want to do is shut her the hell up. It’s ridiculous that one person is allowed to wreak so much havoc on other people’s work days. Quite frankly, what has happened to her at this point is the rest of us don’t care and will NOT help her unless we absolutely are forced to by our boss. Of course I consider him just as guilty for allowing it to happen. He needs to grow a pair of balls and send her back to her office. We have year end coming and it’s always a super stressful time for us and it’s going to be hell. Did I ever mention I do payroll? Yep, I’m that important person at your job that you totally forget about until I fuck up your check. Then you know my name. LMAO…you all know it’s true.

On the WoW front, we made it through another heroic last night. I got a trinket. One point and I’ll be ready to make an ass out of myself in LFR. I can’t wait…well..I can but I have to do it, you know? Momma needs gear. Can’t lead my group unless I can take them where they need to go.

And..my son passed his at home drug tests finally. YAY!! Means he was telling me the truth on the whole weed thing. Yes, part of me wondered.

So tell me, how do you handle the fucktards at work?