What I’m Up To and Other Randomness

I seem to be in some awkward transition period.  Well, it’s not awkward for me.  It just feels awkward when it comes to blogging.  However, I know me.  I’ve been writing posts for years and I’ve been through lulls before.  So, I hope ya’all can bear with me.  If not, of course, fair enough.  I still love ya’all.  😉

So… random thoughts and stuff I’ve been up to:

~ AGR the wonder-hermit went to paintball and it was FUN!  Whooo hoooo!  Frankly, I really just went to spend time with some my favorite ex-coworkers.  I never had such nice co-worker relationships and I really wanted to keep in touch with an ex-supervisee and ex-supervisor.  Turns out, the outing was worth it for the paintball as well.  I am also kinda tickled about my scratched up knees and bruises.  It makes me feel like I’m a kid again… like I’ve been falling off my bike or something as a 10-yr-old popping wheelies.  I’m really proud of myself for going out and taking a risk, especially when I certainly didn’t feel like I could offer any competitive edge to my paintball team.  However, next time… I think I will be more of an asset.  Turns out, I’m a great shot!

~ I had a really successful interview on Wednesday.  I think it is pretty likely that I will get a job offer and soon.  The senior hiring manager especially seemed to like me and there was only one task that is part of the job description that I didn’t have very specific experience already in.  In fact, in just interviewing me, they gleaned some tips from me about how to do certain things.  I am guessing and hoping that that is a good sign.  The semi-annoying bit is that this job would be for the company I am on leave from right now.  But… at least the team has a very lenient work-from-home policy so that the most annoying thing – the commute – will be minimized.  This job would be full-time… and at least moderate stress.  Ya, I know… I just posted that I decided on part-time, but some unexpected financial issues have come up and I’d feel best just knocking them out right away with the larger income that full-time work brings.  But, I still consider it a break-through to even seriously consider part-time.  I know feel like part-time may be a really great option for me in the future… maybe in a year or two.  The snail pic is a reminder to myself to just take it easy and take things slow whatever happens. 

~As I have an eating disordered history, I have an old habit of posting about eating anomolies.  My recent love of mesculin and pre-cut salad mix from a bag reminds me of my days of restriction… except I’m not restricting.  Sometimes all I want is some nice crunchy greens.  Yesterday, I ended up eating a cupcake… cuz I thought that SHOULD be the treat I SHOULD want.  I wasn’t satisfied with the cupcake and I realized that another cupcake wasn’t going to help anything.  I ended up eating a large bowl of mesculin.  LOL  I was as happy as a bunny…  Life is good without the restriction!  Then this morning when all I wanted for breakfast was a Butterfinger bar, that wasn’t an issue either.  Sometimes I remember how much time I used to agonize in thoughts about food and eating and I don’t miss it a bit… and, I feel so free. 

~Right now, I’m trying to focus on just enjoying life.  Full-time work is prolly around the corner, so I want to get my leisure in while I still have time for it.  That is prolly part of why I am posting less.  I know that working full-time (for some odd reason) usually causes me to post MORE… so I’m trying to give my brain a bit of a rest before I get back to the grind.

~I had some random thoughts about whether I think it’s fun to be me or not.  The funny thing is… if I tell myself that it CAN be fun to be me, then I easily find myself making things fun… as opposed to what I struggle with all too often: doing things that I would expect would be fun and managing to make them completely unfun with critical thoughts and weird framing of the activity.  Like… that time I turned reading a novel into a judgement of my entire future career success.  Talk about sucking the fun out of something!  Sheesh… So…. is it fun being you?  How could you make being you more fun?  <<< challenge to readers!  🙂

~I heard something on NPR yesterday that struck me deeply.  It was a neurologist (or some such specialist) talking about the myth of multi-tasking.  She said that no-one really multi-tasks.  She said that what people call multi-tasking is really jumping back and forth between different things and compromising our effort that we could’ve made had we just focused on one thing.  I think this is just awesome… cuz I have been beating my head against the struggle to multi-take (it seems like) my whole life!  Sure, somethings I can just multi-task naturally… like I can cook various things at once.  I often read or write while there is some radio or tv background noise on.  However… I’ve felt for years this guilt that I didn’t multi-task better in other ways… and I realized what a hard and unfair time I’ve been giving myself.  I realized that it is time to allow myself to FOCUS on one thing when this makes sense to me… instead of trying to calculate when multi-tasking might make sense to anyone but me and trying to live up to those standards.  *headdesk*  It also helped that I read something some weeks ago about some of the best listeners doodle while listening!  Holy cripes!  I stopped doodling years ago, cuz I was afraid it was something “immoral.”  Seriously.  So… I let myself doodle doing my last interview and the information sunk in so beautifully.  I didn’t even doodle that much or doodle the whole time.  Only when it felt right… and damn that was awesome.  It gave me new faith in my brain’s ability to retain information and simply LISTEN. 

~I read something (can’t even remember where) about this movement of people who don’t use shampoo.  Some of them wash with a teaspoon of baking soda in a cup of water.  Some just wash with conditioner.  I hear that this can cause a little oil and grit at first, but once the scalp gets used to not being so harshly treated by shampoo that the oil and grit stops… and you just end up with amazing hair.  We shall see…  Because I have very sensitive skin and scalp, I am starting out with just washing with conditioner.  Today I washed twice with conditioner… and yeah… my hair feels different… but not “gross” at all, which is nice.  Often when I come out of the shower (after a shampoo), my hair turns into puffy straw in some parts of my head.  I get frizz in some places… and my hair just feels dry, crackley and brittle in other places.  Oil sheen (you can get it any your local grocery store or Walgreens-like store…. I currently use a spray made from olive oil, since mink oil has ethical connotations that I don’t like) has helped this a lot, but I’d like to see if I can find a solution that doesn’t include my stripping my hair and then adding oil back in.  😉  I am now experimenting to see if this no-shampoo thing will give me such a result. 

I think it is time for me to make some lunch.  😉 

–AngryGrayRainbows