I need to make some changes around here. This design worked great for Winter, but I would like to look at something light and airy for Spring. I am going to attempt to redesign my original template so if things look a little terrible around here bare (bear?) with me I will try to get things looking good soon.

UPDATE @ 3:00 - Well it seems that I massacured my old design so now I really have to haul buns working on the new one or you will be stuck looking at a mess for a while and I doubt you will ever come back. Remember to save everything you are working on in Wordpad when trying to mess with codes. It’s fantastic advice!

UPDATE @ 3:51 - I am remembering why I stopped trying to edit this template in the first place. No matter what I do I can’t get it to recognize a background in the Masthead. Urg! I will continue to work on this until my head bursts and leaves brain remnents all over my office.

UPDATE @ 3:56 - When trying to put an image on your website masthead it is a good idea to make sure that all your images line up. For instance one should not say ‘images/masthead.jp’ whilst the other one says ‘images/side_background.gif’. This will cause it to not work making you insane. Relax, breathe in, breathe out, repeat. Onward! Oh and just FYI this is not the image I am planning to use I just needed a sample image so I could see if it would work.

UPDATE @ 5:53 on 2/28/07 - Who leaves their site for over a week when they are in the midst of a redesign? Someone who is trying to get herself to keep breathing while preparing for a HUGE Body Shop party. Yeah…It’s this Sunday, it’s going to be held in a bar and up to 150 people will be attending. Can someone pick me up off the floor? Right now I am making goodie bags and worrying about the amount of sample pods I have.

See you next week!

So if you came to my website sometime last week you may have noticed that it was no longer here. Whoops! I had been getting reminders about paying for the renewal, but I have been going through a rough patch money wise so I couldn’t spare the expense. Then when it was down to the last minute to pay I really didn’t have any money. So I let it go and about a week later I arrived to a blank page.

Once that happened I was sad, but I am also having health issues once again so I tried not to think about it. Then I realized that I was not only losing my website I was also losing and entire years worth of entries and that is when I began to feel panicked. I contacted Jessica to ask if she knew how I could get my archives back and the best way seemed to be renewing and hoping they still had my files. The Mrs. had already been trying to get me to put it on her credit card so I finally broke down and let her. So Wednesday night I paid for the site and when I came back into work today my lovely website was just as I left it.

What was that you said about your health? I swear people. I have years of journal entires where I don’t get sick. I’m not usually like this. My newest theory is that once I got health insurance I gave my body permission to feel sick and I relaxed about it and that is when the sickness took over. In any case on Friday of last week I woke up with a sore throat. I assumed it would soon go away and it didn’t. The next morning I woke up with a sore throat and a runny nose. I continued to get sicker until finally on Monday I broke down and made a Doctor’s appointment for Tuesday morning. I went to my cousin’s house to do a Body Shop party and my face was pretty raw from blowing my nose. Not pretty. Then afterwards I wanted to keep my plans and go to the bar with The Mrs. and Kasey. We got there around 11 and left at 11:45. I was feeling so crappy. I barely enjoyed the hot wings and I kept having to blow my nose.

On Tuesday I went to the appointment and the it was found that I have a really bad sinus infection. As a matter of fact it is the same sinus infection I have had since October that I was treated for in January. I noticed I didn’t feel 100% after I finished my medicine last time, but I had no idea the infection was still there. So I am now on a decongestant and an antibiotic. The antibiotic is quite a bit stronger than the last time and I have to take it twice a week for four weeks. I can also not have any chocolate or soda. This is really hard for me. I miss my chocolate & soda. Those were like the two bad for you foods I really loved. So I now have constellation prize vanilla pudding and plenty of water at home.

So I took off work the rest of the day on Tuesday. The Mrs. had driven me to my appointment and she also took me to Wal-Mart to get my medicine. We actually had a lovely day together and she made me feel so much better. I decided to go into work on Wednesday, because I hate taking off of work. However, I would have been much better staying at home because my boss kept calling me into his office and sending me on errands where I fell in some ice in the middle of parking lots. It was a terrible day.

Since Wednesday went so great I decided to stay home on Thursday. I went to my parent’s house so I would get to see my dogs and they could keep my company. I watched crap on TV (Regis & Kelly, Ellen and The View) and on Ellen her guest for the ENTIRE hour was….OPRAH! It could not have gotten any better. My two favorite girls. I am also starting to think I should look into Barak Obama for my presidential pick. I have been kind of hooked on Hillary because I like her and she is a woman and I just think that would be so great, but so many people have great things to say about Obama that I think I should educate myself on everyone.

After those shows I watched Forrest Gump. I hadn’t seen it in years and I just bought it at Target for $10. So that was nice. Then I got in the shower and got dressed because I had an eye doctors appointment scheduled for that night.

If there are any people that wonder how The Mrs. and I can stay together for so long and how I am sure she is the one for me this is an example. She had school in Stroudsburg all day on Thursday and she drove home (about a 30 minute drive) to pick me up to take me back to Stroudsburg for my eye appointment. That makes me fall in love with her all over.

My eye appointment went well and confirmed that I really should be wearing glasses full time. I brought my old frames in to get new lenses and I picked out a pair of simple black metal frames with a couple rhinestones. You can see them here. I was really hoping to get something like this or this, but they didn’t have anything like that there and I’m cool with the ones I chose. They are simple enough and they will go with most anything. I am hoping to get another pair this summer so I will have a variety and I don’t have to wear the same pair all the time. I am planning to get these. They are a little more fancy and I think they would look really good for when I am going out. My current glasses should be here in about a week.

So today I am back to work and ready to go. One of our workers has been out for 3 days in a row so that is putting a damper on things. It means we have to cancel some jobs and guess who gets to do that? Woohoo for being back to work! I have already been yelled at a few times. And people wonder why I like doing the parties so much.

Tomorrow I am going to Wilkes Barre to meet a woman who is leaving The Body Shop. I am going to buy some of her supplies off of her. Then my cousin and I are going to the SPCA to get her a new cat. Her old one died a few weeks ago and she has been really sad about it ever since. So it will be nice. We are in the market for a female short-haired lazy cat that will get along with a rowdy husky. It should be interesting. Plus the people who work at our SPCA pretty much hate people and really give you a hard time adopting animals. We’ll see how that goes.

So that is about everything that is going on right now. I have a huge Body Shop party coming up in a week with about 100 guests for me to stress about. I am sort of in a panic about it, but I am sure it will all work out. I have a week to figure it out. Perhaps I will take Monday or Tuesday night to action plan for it and I will also need to buy supplies.

You can see some pictures of my weekend with Ariana posted on her website here.

So I had a really enjoyable weekend.

Saturday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm I was in meetings at a Lia Sophia rally. It actually wasn’t bad at all. I got so many great ideas and I just really like selling the jewelry. It’s easy and comfortable for me. I never really got into a comfort zone with The Body Shop because there is so much to do and remember and I am so forgetful. The rally ended up being excellent even if I didn’t win anything and I met more people from my team so meetings will be more enjoyable now that I have friends there.

After the rally I headed towards Ariana’s house. I realized I was quite early and I was also thinking about improving my life for 2007, one of my goals, so I decided to drive to Curves to reinstate my membership. Unfortunately they were closed so I called Ariana and let her know I would be early.

When I got to her house I decided to clean my car out a bit. I was listening to “Chicago” by Sufjan Stevens and there is a feeling I get when I listen to a really great song for the first time so it was really making me feel happy. Then a few seconds into my cleaning Ariana pulled in. I turned off my car and went inside.

We chatted for a while before we had to go to the party. It was one of those Slumber Parties. Lord knows I have enough sex toys, but something about those parties makes me uncomfortable. I just really enjoy buying my sex toys from feminist sex toys such as here, here or even here. I did buy some of this stuff. It’s supposed to attract people to me. They say it’s for the opposite sex, but I bet it will work on girls too. You just watch. Ariana bought those too and she also took incriminating photos.

We left then and we wanted The Mrs. to come out drinking with us, but she didn’t feel good. I did end up going out with her. We were going to go to a bar in East Stroudsburg, but like an idiot I forgot my ID. We tried to get in anyway, but they are really strict around there because it’s considered a college town. We left to go back home and last minute we decided to try this redneck bar by her house.

So we walk in and we don’t get carded. Awesome. We sit down and take in our surroundings. There was a terrible live band and annoying people abound. Whatever, we just wanted to get some drinks and talk. So we sit at the bar and a while later the bartender comes over to take our drink orders.

Ariana ordered a Kettle One vodka with Sprite and a splash of cranberry juice. The bartender starts to make that and Ariana adds “And a Cosmo.” The bartender nods and goes to it. She pulls out some crap that Ariana later tells me is Bakers Club, or something. It’s apparently really cheap vodka. So she mixes that with cranberry juice and ICE sets that down and walks away. Ariana is looking down at it like, what the hell. She looks over at me and says, “I hope she knows I saw her make this. I know she didn’t use Kettle One and theres not even Sprite in it.” Then we discuss the possibility of it being my Cosmo. We look up to see where she is and we see her with another little cup and the bottle of Kettle One. Okay…so we think the drink in front of us must be the Cosmo and she is making Ariana’s drink now. She gets some Sprite and adds that so we calm down. Then she puts that drink down and walk away again. So now we have our drinks and Ariana’s doesn’t have any cranberry it’s just vodka and Sprite. I take mine and take a sip and it is just vodka and cranberry juice. We’re both like, son of a bitch. She totally messed up our drinks.

We finally get those drinks down and we want to just leave and then we find out there is a $10 minimum for credit cards so then we have to get something else. We decided to order a bottle so that she can’t screw it up. Ariana suggested the Smirnoff Raw Tea and we joked that she would probably bring us a Bud Light. I ordered it and she ended up bringing the right one. I drink it and soon after we are ready to pay and leave. Then she comes over and sets down another open Raw Tea without us saying a word or looking at her. So we have to tell her that we just want to pay our tab and I kind of feel bad and then I see her take that drink and set it down next to where she’s been hanging out. We paid and I tipped her an undeserved $2.

When we got to Ariana’s house I wanted to start my car so that it would be warm when I drove home so I turned it on from the passenger’s side and when I stood up I hit my head really hard on the roof. It hurt so bad! Then I went inside and Ariana’s mom gave me a bag of frozen blueberries to put on it.

It started to feel like me driving home wouldn’t be the best idea, but I was worried The Mrs. would be mad. Long story short I drove home at 3:00 am and then The Mrs. (who was annoyed I called her so much) said that we already discussed my staying over and she already said it was fine. Yeah…again proving I am not always the brightest.

Then Sunday rolled around. I woke up early because I had a Pampered Chef party. I went grocery shopping and then I went to my Aunt’s house to set up. Just about everyone canceled so it was my aunt, my sister, my mom, my cousin and The Mrs. Oh well. We still had a good time and at least my sister got to practice her recipes. (My sister was the Pampered Chef consultant.)
That was pretty much my entire Sunday. After the party I watched When Harry Met Sally with my aunt and then I felt sick and went home.

Last night after work I went to practice for the Vagina Monologues and then afterwards I went to Wal-Mart with The Mrs. and our friend, Jayleen so she could get something to wear for the show. She ended up choosing a button down shirt from the little boys department. We then headed to Burger King for dinner because it was already 10 pm at that point. We weren’t able to eat inside because they were closing up. We decide to take the food to Jayleen’s apartment and she was really tired so Kasey met us there. Right after Kasey got there we left and went Front Row for wings.

I feel like I have been drinking a lot lately to make myself more comfortable when I am out due to my anxiety issues so I decided to not have any alcohol last night. You know what? It was still great! It was cheaper too! I got two cokes, a beer for The Mrs., a water for The Mrs. after her beer, 15 medium wings and 10 bbq wings for only $12.05!!! That is amazing! The bartender was also really nice so I tipped them $5.00. Well worth it.

We are going out every night this week except tonight. We were going to go again, but the snow is keeping us home. Tomorrow night is free tacos, Thursday is $.25 beers (Which I won’t be drinking) and Friday we are going out to a club.

Can you believe I am going out this much lately? I’m tired, but it’s great. I’m trying to put myself out there and have more fun.

Tonight is my low key night for the week. Take-out Chinese with The Mrs. and Gilmore Girls at 8 pm. Sounds good to me.

Internet!

I do not want a handjob! I also do not want to watch videos of various people and/or animals peeing. Please take note.

Thank you.

Love,

Angela

Let’s talk a bit about anxiety.

I am currently experiencing severe anxiety problems. It took me a while to realize my inability to write up an entry is also based on my anxiety. It used to be that I had this website as sort of a safe haven. It didn’t matter what type of issues I was having in my daily life I would be able to come online and get all of my feelings and emotions out. Even though I have serious problems connecting with people I have always been able to feel that connection through comments I receive or reading other peoples blogs. Lately that has been a lot harder for me.

My anxiety is starting to creep back up again. I feel like I am not smart enough, I don’t write well, I don’t have a niche and I feel like I don’t belong. It’s just not a very good feeling.

I used to see a psychologist for my anxiety problems as well as my depression and I used to be on medication for both. Around five years ago I stopped taking my medication. Now that I have health insurance I have been debating going back on meds. I really don’t know what to do about it. I read an article not to long ago about how it’s hard to get approved for health insurance once you have a history of mental illness including depression. That gives me pause and also I remember how I felt on the medication. I felt so foggy and out of control. Going back to that is not something I want to do.

I guess the most important thing to do is just keep fighting it. Keep trying to write and not care what other people might think.

All these feeling of anxiety started to get stronger after that blowout I had in December. It’s just…you all have to understand that I am an extremely guarded person. When I let someone in and start confiding in them and hanging out with them it is a HUGE deal. So when I, finally, let down my guard and start trusting someone and that is broken I just can not handle it. I am not handling it well at all.

I have been trying to make an effort lately to get back out there. The Mrs. and I have been going out at night with our friend, Kalani. That has been a lot of fun. The only thing is I sip when I am nervous and we have been going to bars so I really should limit to one alcoholic drink and then switch to water or I am going to be constantly drunk.

The Vagina Monologues are coming up soon and I am excited about that. I have been attending the rehearsals and mingling with the other cast members. The hard part is getting me to relax and bring my bitchiness down a lot without falling into my tourette like tendency to over share and blurt things out. Because the first one isn’t really helping me meet people and the latter is going to cause a divorce. I have rehearsals again tonight and then The Mrs. and I are going out with Kasey again. I’m feeling good about that. I’m pretty excited.

Saturday I have a Lia Sophia rally and then after that I am going to a Slumber Party with my friend, Ariana. The party is being hosted by one of Ariana’s friends that I have met through my parties with The Body Shop. She has been a fantastic hostess for me so I decided to go to this to help her earn. I’m a little nervous because I won’t know many people there. I’m still proud of myself for accepting the invitation. Then on Sunday I am hosting a Pampered Chef party because I am trying to earn the Cranberry Stoneware. My sister is the consultant for that so it should be fun. Hopefully people will attend. I’m a little worried since I didn’t get the invites out until last week.

I guess that’s all. I really want to just get this out there so I can hopefully move on and get back to writing again. I’m just so bummed lately and I hate it.

This months theme is Black & White, which seems appropriate. I spent a while trying to choose a picture and finally settled on one that I think pretty much captures my mood most of the time.

I took this photo about two weeks ago and changed it to Black & White in Microsoft Digital Image Suite. It’s a picture of me at work looking at the clock. My clock is high up on the wall and a little to the left of my desk which also makes it look like I am rolling my eyes.

I am hoping to keep up with the SPC this time around and not let my personal issues get in the way.

What personal issues? I should mention that I have been trying to put up an entry for some time now and I just can’t get anything out. A few days ago I realized that it was due to my anxiety which seems to be back in full force. So every day I have been opening Microsoft Word and trying to get out an entry on my anxiety and how it is now starting to effect my blogging. It should be up later on this week as I have literally spent days working on it. Some days I get 1,000 words down before I just highlight the whole damn thing and delete it.

Things aren’t going well right now, but hopefully they will be again soon. Enjoy this post for now and I’ll try to get that entry out soon.

For other pictures on the SPC go here.