Organization is Overrated

While I have not yet lost any of my toenails, I do have some nice purple-black bruises under them. I won’t have to paint them for the next year (not that I paint them on a regular basis, but now I’ll look like I do).

Today’s Exploit:

According to my workout schedule/preparation for a marathon I was supposed to only walk a couple times the week after I raced. 

So I did.

I followed this by a week of complete laziness and did nothing. 

Then I decided I was going to start doing my video workouts again. I was really excited. And I was so ready, I even planned with the other MWD that we were going to switch over at four instead of six so that I could have some sunlight. 

And then the day came that I wanted to start.

And the day went without starting.

Because I was very organized the last time I was home and put everything away instead of leaving it in bags in my car like normal.

Organization is overrated.

Letdown

The day after my race, the big marathon one, I had a very difficult time moving. I did moderately okay if I kept moving, but if I sat still for more than 28 seconds my muscles froze. I would then, to my family’s delight, have to hobble around bent nearly double for the next 3-5.2 minutes until they un-froze.

Thankfully that was the worst day, but then I had to go to work where the roughnecks got to make fun of me for walking like an old man for the next 3.27 days.

Today’s Exploit:

I was really excited for my new class to start, really exited because I though it would be about business management. The title contained the words “Career Management”, so I was sure that this one actually might help me a little.

While I enjoy getting good grades, I now have a 4.0 in worthless English classes. I say “worthless” because none of the papers I received 100% on would have passed my high school English teacher, Mr. Patrick, without being slathered in red ink with a note saying “Re-write or fail”. Probably they wouldn’t get a passing grade from my middle school English teacher, Mrs, Babel, either. (I now beg for criticism at the beginning of each class, and so far have not received anything other than “Good Job” or “Nice work”.)

But I digress.

I was excited for a business class. 

But naturally, that excitement was dashed when I got the email saying I needed to take an assessment for my UNIV___ class. 

Wait.

UNIV does not equal business. UNIV equals general university class.

And “Career Management” does not quite equal “Business Management”.

Crap.

Another goal setting class.

Maybe this guy will have higher expectations and I won’t ace the class. Maybe he’ll actually have some suggestions for me. 

Maybe.

I May Update This Blog, Someday

I started this post 7 days ago. It then spent 4 days unsaved on my desktop with a few unexplained numbers in it, followed by three days with the same content saved as “untitled” in my blog folder.

Today’s Exploit:

I had some vacation just before Thanksgiving. While part of the reason for vacation was my parents’ visit, the other part was to run a really long ways.

A REEEEALY long ways.

I ran a marathon, the Rock and Roll Marathon in San Antonio, to be exact. That’s 26.2 miles. And I really wanted to do well for my first one, but I kind of tanked just over half way through. 

Things were going well, and I finished the first half at least 30 minutes faster than my other races. But then I started getting cramps. First in my right calf, then my left. Then they got worse. And when I tried to walk it off I’d get cramps up thigh, and going up any hill that didn’t immediately make both calves so tight I couldn’t reach my toes meant my hamstrings were going to cramp. 

Therefore I walked most of the second half, and took almost 6 hours to finish, 5:49 to be exact. That was an hour and 49 minutes longer than my goal time. 

Stupid cramps.

Anyway, I didn’t come in last, so there’s something.

Rankings:

148/207 Women 25-29 yrs

2448/3111 Overall

I Might Be Able To Sleep Now

I ran 4.97 miles in 45 minutes. I even had to walk 0.33 miles. I have renewed hope that I might be able to finish my race in something somewhat, maybe close to my goal. But I’m trying not to get my hopes up.

Today’s Exploit:

The mouse, the one that has been haunting my nights and making it even harder than usual to fall asleep, and making sure that I wake up even more than normal, has been caught.

Finally.

I’m told it was taken outside. 

I’m guessing it was on a sticky trap and will slowly die of thirst, but I’m going to pretend that it was a snappy trap and it had a quick clean death. Even with the amount of trauma that the monster caused me, I don’t really want it to suffer. 

Naturally the timing of this event is just so that, if I have to stay tonight, tonight will be my last night. And therefore it will not be any easier to sleep because I’ll be excited about going home. 

Gah.

Mice Are No Longer Friends

I have less than 3 weeks until I kill myself in a most torturous manner. 26.2 miles of hopefully not exceptionally hot Texas weather. My goal is 4 hours, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to make it, but I plan on finishing anyway. Then I’ll fall over and twitch a bit before I expire.

Today’s Exploit:

I was okay with the mouse that ran around the kitchen, and not overly concerned about the mousetrap wars that followed.

I was also okay with the two that played under the table while I washed dishes, only running away when I had to cross their path to get to the bedroom. And I was a bit disgusted with the fact that they chewed through one of my headphones, but it was the replaceable part. 

I laughed at George the other day when one ran from the fridge to the recliner and he wouldn’t put his feet on the floor until he had to go outside. 

That all changed last night.

I was in bed trying to relax my brain enough to go to sleep, a nightly trial. Then I heard scratching. When I looked nothing moved and I attributed it to my imagination, which tends to go wild at bedtime. I heard it again, and was met with the same results when I looked for the source. I re-situated myself so that I could see off the bed if I heard another noise, and proceeded to fight the random flight of my thoughts.

Suddenly I felt a tickling on my head. One of those creepy feelings that moves along a line, and you’re sure it’s a bug, but it turns out to be your imagination when you try to brush it away.

I took a deep breath and made myself stay still and try to relax. 

That was when I felt something moving down my side.

I sat up as fast as I could.

The mouse ran the length of the bed and disappeared.

I made a noise something along the lines of “Gaaah-rrrraaaaawwwweeerrr” (which translates to something along the lines of: BLOODY HELL, THERE’S A MOUSE IN MY BED AND THAT IS DEFINITELY NOT SOME PLACE THAT A MOUSE SHOULD BE! GET OFF! GET OFF! GET OFF!) and jumped up.

Naturally by then the mouse had vanished completely, and did not appear to be in any of my bags or under the bed or hiding in the A/C closet. I searched each of these places at least 3 times before I retired to the living room.

I proceeded to sit on the couch, curled as small as I could get, and watch for the mouse for the next hour.  

I also spent this time trying to convince myself that I really needed to get some sleep, and the mouse only touched the outside of the sleeping bag. And maybe my pillow.

Probably my pillow.

I searched the room another 3 times, and my sheets 7 times.

I finally did make myself get back in bed, using a tiny corner of my pillow that I knew no mouse feet had touched.

I got an astounding 2.1 hours of sleep between trying to get comfortable, trying to make myself relax and feeling phantom mice feed EVERYWHERE.

Mice are no longer something I can see without thinking they were in my bed, and probably eating my food while I washed my hands. 

I was ok with traps before, but now I think we need about 17 in each crevice. 

Attack of the Spider

I have, surprisingly, not been harassed mercilessly by Matt about nearly killing George with my deadly pasta. I fully expect to meet a total stranger on my next trip to a big city that knows the story, though. I think he told everyone he knew.

Today’s Exploit:

I noticed some spider nests in the upper corners of my doorway a while ago, just before Cupcake came to visit. She was overjoyed by the fact that I had spiky egg-sacs living in both corners. She would stand about 3.2 feet away and eye them suspiciously before sprinting through the door as fast as she could while Arley held it open for her. I would have made her open the door herself. 

Anyway, I decided that I should probably move the nests to some place else, because I didn’t want spiders hatching all over my door and getting into my house. I have enough of them hanging out in there already. 

I prepared myself with a piece of cardboard and a piece of sand paper, because those are the required spider catching materials. Then I took a deep breath at tried to gently remove the egg-sacs from the corner.

It turns out that Widows (I now know that Widows can be identified by their spiky egg-sacs) do not make delicate webs and egg-sacs. They make something more along the lines of scratchy-sticky wool/kevlar nests that do not like to let go. So I scraped a little harder with my cardboard, the sand paper held up to catch anything I dislodged. 

Suddenly I did dislodge something, something that hit the sand paper, rolled down it and flew of with a trajectory to my exposed cleavage (this is Texas people, and Texas is HOT! I wear the smallest tanks I can find when I am not “really” in public and standing outside my front door does not count as public). Luckily it hit me and bounced off landing about a foot away from my foot. I squeaked and did a panic dance and then started to investigate. 

My attacker was not large, considering I had a pet Black Widow with a body about the size of a quarter living in my garage (that might be a slight exaggeration, but not by much). But she was brown, with dots and swirls on her back. AND SHE HAD AN ORANGE HOURGLASS! This beast is a Brown Widow, which the internet says are more poisonous but less aggressive than their black sisters. Naturally I had to go get my camera and take some nice photos to prove that I wasn’t making this story up.

After retrieving my camera I chased her around my breezeway trying to get not-blurry photos. Naturally she came to and was being quite feisty by the time I had my camera and would not cooperate with me when I tried to take a picture of her belly. 

After torturing her in this manner for about 5.7 minutes I carted her, on my sand paper, over to the dumpster and released her, shortly to be followed by her egg-sacs, which are not near as fragile as most of those I’ve seen. 

Then I went back to remove the second nest from the doorway. This removal went much smoother, and I discovered that it also housed a Brown Widow. Which I’m told is pretty rare, Matt couldn’t believe that I’d actually seen two together, and that they were both nesting in my doorway.

As soon as I finished moving the nests I went and requested that the pest removal guy come take care of my doorway, and spray for the ants on my porch while he’s at it. 

The Time I Almost Killed George

I have just over 2 months left to be ready to run 26 miles, in a row, all on the same day, and it might be really HOT because it’s in TEXAS.

I have to run the purple line and the red line.

Today’s Exploit:

Yesterday I made birthday pasta. That’s the pasta that I’ve had almost every year, ever, for my birthday. Except that one time, and I don’t remember what we had, but it wasn’t as good.

I made birthday pasta because I said “Happy Birthday” to my cousin, and we talked a little bit and he mentioned that one time I made it at his apartment. Or maybe it was two times? Whatever.

Anyway. I made birthday pasta, because it’s amazing and it’s my birthday month, so it still counts. 

So, there I was, cooking butter and garlic. Every time I do that George and Matt act like I’m cooking up some ambrosia, or something equally appetizing. Not that it ever is, but they sure act like it.

I cooked the butter and cooked the extra chopped garlic and chopped some parsley and chopped some clams. And then I Matt attacked me asking if I’d put the cork back into the wine yet, and when I said it wasn’t open yet he attacked the bottle and opened it right up. Then he couldn’t figure out which way the cork went to fit back in the bottle. 

So I cooked the butter and the garlic and the parsley and the clams, with one clam juice. And then I added the wine and had some awesome purple sauce. And it cooked and cooked and cooked while I waited for Matt to come back with the parmesan cheese. 

He got back and I added the cheese, did a quick heat up and dove in head first. 

When I came up for a breath George was hovering. I thought it was pretty much a given that when I cook everyone eats, unless I hide it within 23 seconds. But since he was hovering I asked if he wanted some pasta.

He jumped in head first, too, quickly followed by Matt. 

We were sitting there stuffing our faces when Matt asked what was in the pasta.

Matt: This is really good, what’s in it? And how difficult is it?

Me: It’s REALLY easy, it’s just Butter and Garlic and Parsley and Clams and...

Matt: WAIT! It has CLAMS?!?!

Attack of the Sugar Ants

I just had to write a paper selling something. So, naturally, I chose Hello Kitty backpacks. Nerdy Hello Kitty, no less. When looking up reviews of this product I found some lovely gems that were something along these lines:

OMG! Hello Kitty is, like, so cool and I (heart) her so much! I totally, like, love this backpack and everyone should, like, totally get one to be as cool as I am now! OMG It's so exciting and I love it so much, everyone in, like, all my, like, classes is going to be, like, so totally jealous that I got this, like, totally awesome backpack. (;

Except with worse grammar, capitalization, punctuation and emoticons.

Today’s Exploit:

I had a nice long break between my last one and this one. Almost 2 1/2 weeks! In that time I worked on shelves (I’m ALMOST done), ran a long way WITH OTHER PEOPLE, and fought some ants that took up residence in my closet on my porch. I think I almost got rid of them, but we’ll see when I get back.

In the mean time. I arrived at the rig to find all my boxes piled up and ready to be unpacked. Which I did, in the heat, all by myself. I put the computers in the box, along with all of the cables and nonsense that needs to be hooked up. I ran cables to my sensor and a separate monitor, and I set up the satellite. By then I was nice and soaked from sweat and covered in dust from crawling around on the floor and sitting in the dirt to untangle some cables. 

My night hand arrived in time to run one last cable and set up his own computer while I showered and got some dinner. When I came back to the box, after a few hours, to set up some computer files I was assaulted by itty bitty sugar ants. These things like to bite. And then you feel all creepy-crawly with phantom ants for about 6.32 hours. 

After the one bit my hand I looked around to discover that they were EVERYWHERE! They were in Logan’s keyboard, on and under his mousepad, under all of the computers in mass quantities and hiding individually under cables. 

I killed 487.

Then I went and got some bleach, because I heard a rumor that they don’t like strong smells cause it means they can’t follow their neighbor’s trail.  

After about 2 hours of alternately killing mass quantities of ants and spraying the heck out of the counter and any possible entry space I started to feel sick from the fumes and gave up for the night. I still have to kill one or two every day, but it’s much better than being swarmed by them every time I try to work at any of the 172.6 computers. 

And now I have the creepy-crawlies again.  Gah.

Making Rolls and Building Walls

I still hate intervals just as much as I did in high school. Yet I’ve convinced myself that I need to do them once a week. This better pay off in November.

Today’s Exploit:

I got to help with a building project last weekend. 

I went to Kevin’s grandparents house where I was force-fed ridiculous amounts of food and listened to a crazy-overwhelming amount of chatter. Everyone there likes to talk and the babies like to get their opinions in just as much, and there are lots of them. 

Glenda (Gramma) told me she’d teach me how to make “hot rolls”, which I’ve finally discovered are just dinner rolls. And Kevin told me I am required to learn this trick. And Dale (Grampa) made Kevin let me help with the framing for the addition on to their house. So I spent the weekend covered in saw dust, occasionally peeling potatoes, moving 2x4s and holding them steady, and sweating through my cloths just in time to go inside for a break. 

And then they looked at me like I was crazy when I offered to help with the dishes.

The Green Thumb of Cooking

Today’s Exploit:

I got two small days off, when they sent someone to the other rig to take my place and before they sent me back to my rig. It was lovely and horrible. I loved that I got time off, I’m getting used to this schedule thing and going to another rig disrupted it. And it was horrible because I only had 2 days, gah.

But now I am back on my rig and dying from heat and lack of sleep. George basically forced me to go to bed, telling me that he’d make absolutely certain that my depth was right before they started drilling, and my night hand, Harley, said I could sleep late this morning if I needed. 

I like working with nice people.

Today, after checking on the computers and making sure everything was working properly, I went back to the trailer to make breakfast. I stuck a frozen waffle in the toaster, a store bought one because I never remember to make enough right before I go to work to have fresh ones. While it was toasting I was washing and slicing some strawberries to put on top of said waffle. Suddenly George was leaning over my shoulder sniffing like he’d just found the prize apple pie at the county fair. 

Me: It’s a waffle, do you want one?

George: No, but you have a way of making everything smell good.

Me: It’s a frozen waffle, I didn’t do anything to it.

George: I know! But everything you cook smells amazing. You have a talent!

So, evidently I have a talent for making frozen store waffles smell good. It’s, like, the green thumb of cooking. The Cinnamon Nose, or something. But it’s my magical talent, so I’ll take it.

Bud, the Grasshopper Dog and King of the Table

Texas is hot and humid and gross. I want to go to the cabin.

Today’s Exploit:

Today I went to the trailer to get some breakfast, because I decided that a few drinks of chocolate milk were probably not enough to be considered food. When I got there Bud the dog was sprawled out on the coffee table. 

That was new. Usually he sprawls under it, or under the desk or on the couch. But today he was king of the coffee table. He stood up when I walked in, so I patted him on the head and he sprawled out again.

He got kinda interested when I went into the kitchen, but only kinda because he wasn’t too impressed with the grape I shared with him the other day. He really was more interested in the ham sandwich I was making. But when I stayed in the kitchen with yogurt and blackberries and strawberries and raspberries he got a little more interested.

He stood up on the table and started to act like he wanted to jump down. But it was a little on the tall side. I guess he forgot how he got up there. My guess is he jumped on the couch and then hopped over to the table. But he evidently didn’t think that would be a good way to get down, so he paced along the other three sides of the table for a good while before braving it and diving off. 

Once safely down he had to investigate the kitchen to see if I dropped any tasty crumbs on the floor, one that the cloud of flies hadn’t carried away. On his investigation he found a grasshopper. This was interesting. 

He pounced. I’m pretty sure he pinned the grasshopper to the floor with his face. 

When that got boring he whipped his head around to make the hopper jump. And he scrabbled around and pounced again. This time he swiped with his paw to make the poor grasshopper flee. He spent the next 15 minutes wiggling and bouncing and swiping and whipping and pinning the grasshopper with his face, and was still at it when I left. 

By this time the grasshopper was missing a hopping leg, and the other one wasn’t getting much traction on the floor as he fled. The only way he got into the air was when Bud whipped his head around and threw it across the kitchen, and then it could almost make a graceful landing by flapping its wings. 

I’m told Bud is an English bulldog, so he’s all squat and square and sausage-y with a giant, heavy head (he has to rest it on the table or on your knee for a pet so that he doesn’t fall over sometimes). The grasshopper probably thought it was being smashed by a furry boulder. Anyway, Bud is not particularly graceful and made quite a spectacle bouncing around the kitchen. 

A Long Job

Today’s Exploit:

We drilled 7 feet last night. It was a winner of a 12-hour cycle. 

This job is supposed to be done in 4 days, according to the report I received from my manager at the beginning. We have 2 wells to drill and are still working on the first 500 feet of the first one. That means that we still have over 9000 feet to drill. 

At 1.02 feet per hour. 

This is going to be a long job.

Myrtle Has a Friend, And a Baby!

Today’s Exploit:

Myrtle has a friend, or step-sister, or something. I was wondering around Home Depot one day, working up the courage to talk to one of the “associates” about getting a washer/dryer. Not a washer and dryer, but a washer in a dryer, or dryer-in-a-washer. Something. 

Anyway, I was wandering through the plant section when I found Alison. Miss Alison (Aly) Aloe shouted at me that she needed to go home with me. And I was so shocked that I acquiesced. So now Myrtle has company.

Also, I took a cutting or two or three from Myrtle a few months ago. Probably March. Anyway, I put them in a glass with some water and promptly went to work. When I got back the cuttings had roots and were looking rather pale. 

I changed the water and put them outside for a while, since I was home to monitor water levels. They perked up and turned green again just in time for me to go back to work. When my parents and Cupcake arrived in May they were stringy and nearly white with lack of sunlight. My dad took care of them and I ignored them for another month or so.

On my last days off I finally opened the potting soil, since I needed to re-pot Ally into a pot that wouldn’t fall over from a nasty look. And I potted the babies and gave Myrtle some more dirt, since I keep dumping hers in the floor of my car on trips. I also planted some seeds in my big pots, but that’s another story. 

To complete my ramblings: Baby Maya perked up and turned green and sturdy in about 2.6 seconds. She withstands the heat better than Myrtle and doesn’t seem daunted by the wind. Also, she’s safe from the company man, David, because Myrtle offers a larger selection of leaves to eat.

Holiday Post

Happy Fourth of July. Be patriotic, have a barbecue and watch the fireworks (if fireworks aren’t banned due to fire restrictions). I’ll be wishing I was with you, and not staring at some boring computers.

My Abnormalities

Today’s Exploit:

According to George I seem to be the abnormal as an MWD. 

The first time he told me this was when we were picking up our tools to get ready to drill. All of the roughnecks were off doing other things when it came time to pull the slips (move the fancy wedge-thingy so that the drill string could move up and down) on one of the sections. George was going to pull them himself, so I went over to help and my night hand decided he’d help too. 

I didn’t think it was a big deal, but evidently I am the only female that he’s ever seen pull slips. But really, it’s not like they give us much of a chance. The last time I did it was when we were almost finished with a well and it was the middle of the night when the big boss-types were in bed, and not out making sure that all rules were adhered to.

My other instance of MWD abnormality was the last time I carried water into the trailer. I do this on a regular basis, we keep at least 2 bottles inside so that they’re not quite so hot when we need to use them. 

George: PJ, I think you’re the only MWD that carries water. I’m pretty sure that most of them would die of thirst before they’d carry water.

Final Score Freak Out

Today’s Exploit:

I finally found out what my score was for my first REAL English class. I was panicky for a while, because my instructor took far longer than I thought should be allowable to post grades. Then, after posting one of the two final scores, my overall score was 75% because the site automatically puts a 0 for NA scores after 72 hours.

Freak out time? 

But I was nice and didn’t send any nasty emails freaking out about my C in class, when I had been getting 100% most of the class. (Most of the class being 3 out of 4 previous weeks.)

But now I know. And I was relieved. I was strangely worried about my final paper. But I got full credit. 

This means I get a 99.2% in the class. 

Yay.

Group Picture Time

A cookie:

Today’s Exploit:

So, after being goofy and taking lots of crazy pictures their mama came out and made them sit still so we could take group pictures.

I couldn't resist tickling, they set me up.

Photos with Boys

More running pictures at Evergreen Trail Runs!

Today’s Exploit:

On my last day I remembered to take out my camera. And I made Eli and Cavan sit still, mostly, for pictures with me.

Cavan:

The crazy face

The tickle face

Normal!

Eli:

Oops, a finger. That lens is in the wrong spot!

I said, "Don't move!"

A good one!

It’s hard to get them to sit still. They wiggle and giggle and want to take pictures of everything.