it's moving day

i'm stressed.
i'm exhausted.
i'm not sure i like my new place.
urgh...

but i have tons of people to help me, including my brother:)
love it!!

thanks everyone!!

look out!!

so, i just figured out how to record short segments on my camera and upload them onto Youtube. um...it was fun.

here's my first take. not like i'm going to become a film director/producer or anything. but this is my current apartment. a little on the messy side, but it's still really cute and i'm becoming all nostalgic now that i'm leaving in less than two weeks...lol. i'll miss it. but i'm totally stoked about my new place. and there's a rumor going around that i might make a semi-big purchase along with the move...we'll see...it's just a rumor. don't know who started it...

so here it is. i forget if brayson got in here...otherwise i might have to do it again...lol

taking a cab home this time.

so, i answered the phone today while at work not even thinking about the fact that i didn't recognize the number only to be greeted by a pleasant man who stated that he's from Life Source and was wondering if could come in to donate some blood. At first it took me a minute to register what he was talking about as i was expecting an important work related phone call from a number i don't know, and i had to realize it wasn't the jail calling about one of my clients/their current inmate. When i finally put 'Life Source' and 'donate blood' together, i kind of chuckled, though realized i was being rude, so i explained...the last time i tried to give blood (which was two months after the near fatal faint-on-the-bus-episode) i was told that my iron was too low, it was 11 and the minimum is 12.5, so i ended up still going home with my intended-to-be-donated pint of low-ironed blood.

(apparently i'm all about using '-' to add emphasis to near all of my phrases).

anyways, he of course didn't want to lose a possible blood-donating candidate, and told me just to eat garbanzo beans and take a few iron pills the day before/day of the donation. He said that the city is low on blood and needs mine to help some poor suffering patient. i couldn't help but be a sucker and tell him i'll come tomorrow to donate...but it will have to be after 5:30pm.

since my last attempt, and shamefully, sheepishly being turned away from the blood donation center for being in poor health, i had somewhat decided to improve my iron count next time, and even as recently as yesterday, i purchased a few high-iron foods. i used to have anemia (or do again though haven't been officially diagnosed recently) when i was in middle school, and much to my dismay, this didn't just mean i got tired, got headaches and got to stay home from school and get hooked on soap operas instead of face the hell that was 6th/7th grades...i also had to eat the healthy and iron-rich foods including spinach, liver, liverwurst and Total (the cereal that has like 100% of every healthy ingredient ever), which nearly made me puke every time i had to eat them. i was always glad once i had gone a year with good iron levels and wasn't considered anemic anymore so that i wouldn't have to suffer such horrid eating habits.

however, i now find myself in the same predicament, though i don't have my mom to force feed me iron anymore, and i have to be a big-girl and do it all myself now. so i started yesterday with purchasing the store-brand (aka cheap version) of Total, figuring it will taste better than liver, which i won't eat...i just won't! i also bought a bunch of veggies and lettuce, that will hopefully help in my quest to be more healthy overall. I feel like i'm tired all the time, which is also, i'm sure, related to my low iron. anyways...long story short, i decided to eat a whole bunch of iron filled foods between now and tomorrow afternoon so that i can actually help the human race tomorrow. if i fail the iron-test again i have to wait another 3 weeks before i can try again. Dinner tonight and breakfast will be the Total-substitute with a banana to help with the taste, lunch will be some kind of hummus (garbanzo beans which are high in iron) and some spinach salad of some kind, i'll have to buy them tomorrow cause i'm too tired (lazy) to get them tonight, and then i'll hope to boost my iron up above or at least at a 12.5. i can do it, i can do it. the sad thing is, the Total-substitute tastes like cardboard...check that...Wet cardboard, and the banana is just a slight flavoring that masks about 10% of the WET cardboard taste. Good thing i love hummus. This should be a good opportunity for me to learn how to make it on my own cause i've always wanted to. maybe i'll even buy liverwurst again...it was bad back then, but maybe i can stand it. i used to hate dill pickles and now get them on every Subway sandwich i eat, which i eat...a lot. (and no i'm not pregnant) i do still hate mayonaise and mustard though...

though i digress...

i've been thinking of trying to be more healthy for a L....O...N...G...time, and my lazy (tired) ass just doesn't do anything about it. like taking 20/30 minutes out of my day to walk my dog on a regular basis. (yes i'm aware that i'm admitting to animal cruelty...) it's not THAT hard to do, but i just don't do it.

if i do get to donate my blood tomorrow, i'll be sure to take a cab home and not repeat the fiasco on the bus that was last time...and was oh, so, embarassing!!

i just read that Spinach is now being considered an Iron Absorption Inhibitor, and so isn't considered a good source of iron. The foods that Are good sources are

	Clams Pork Liver Oysters Chicken Liver Mussels Beef Liver

none of which do i plan to eat in the next...well...EVER...

crap. i'm screwed!!!

be patient and they will come!!

ok, so i was getting excited about moving yesterday and went and took some pics from around my new neighborhood. i took a few from my old one too...just cause it's so great and close to the water. the new place is still close to the water, but not as close. for not knowing the area, these will mostly look the same, but they're completely different neighborhoods. i'm excited about where i'm moving though...:) 23 days and counting!!

here's the old neighborhood...that's the water in the background...
and here's the new neighborhood...

my soon to be personal parking spot...that means i have somewhere to park EVERY NIGHT!!oh so fun!!! soon there will be pics of the inside!!

headed to bed after an incredibly L.O.N.G. day...leavin on a jet plane tomorrow and headed to CO to visit the sis and help her move. such a much needed break i can hardly take it!!

at odds.

other than the odd situation i have gone through at my mon-friday job with the demotion/promotion, it's been a really long time since i've been outwardly disliked by any of my coworkers...or anyone for that matter. Not to say that everyone likes me, but everyone has at least seemed to fake it pretty well. turns out that i'm not so lucky anymore. and it seems that i just might be in a real fight with a coworker from the restaurant, my weekend job. it's all really strange, mostly because i usually do a good job of being a people pleaser...and not usually having people outwardly snotty, bitchy and yelling because of what i've done. not that i've done anything, of course..;)

so...trying to be vague but also tell what happened...there's a mother and daughter that work at the restaurant, and they both started way after i did. they're both the type that don't back down from any argument and when they feel wronged, they will never let it go. luckily, they both have always liked me, the mom always compliments me on my eyes and hair do's...and what not...and we all get along great. well, a couple of weeks ago, one of my tables had paid cash and so had left all of the money in the little booklet that i give the check in and for some reason it had not been brought to the cash register. Said mom-coworker found it and brought it where it was supposed to go, then came to tell me that i should thank her for not stealing it. i told her that i never thought she wouldn't do the right thing because i trust her and everyone else that works there. i never thougth she would steal it because we all work together, and i trust that people aren't stealing my checks (i trust the wait staff anyways...the management is another story)...she seemed defensive for some reason, even though i wasn't accusing her of anything, but i tried to make light of it, jokingly saying something like...'i bet when you opened the booklet and saw money inside, you were like 'yeah', cause i would have'...haha... turns out she took offense to that, as if i thought that she would have been glad that here was money there for her to take..which i didn't mean AT ALL because i'm sarcastic...and sometimes forget that others don't get it. so she was mad at me the rest of the day. i figured things had blown over, and next week i went to work, only to find that both she and her daughter had 'cut me off of the nice train' and they did nothing but try to piss me off. Different side dishes that i had prepared kept conveniently going missing so i'd have to get more, and they were both really snotty to me all day. The daughter tried to steal a big party that took up two of my tables and one of hers (which always goes to the person who has more tables involved), then was furious when i wouldn't have that, and took the party myself (because it was mine (and a three table party is going to be a big tip, so i'm not going to just let her have it)). she then continued this week by taking my section, which i have had every shift since BEFORE she started working there because everyone knows i have seniority and i like that station. it doesn't even matter which station i get because the hosts don't go in order of servers anyways, and half the time favor whoever they want to by giving them more tables on different days(again...a rant on management is another day's explanation), i just get into a rhythm, i know which tables are mine without having to think about it, and why not try to stay with the same one every week..? the other wait staff actually just said one day that they 'knew i liked it" and so gave it to me every weekend. anyways, i digress...

this chic though, decided to completely ignore me today, steal my section and then took another couple of tables of mine. when i confronted her about it, she went off on me, and then was yelling in the back not directly at me, but about it only being a few dollars so 'people' need to just chill the F out....and on and on...she was soo pissed, even though she had taken my tables. i was really pissed at first, but then the more she kept going on and on in the back, i thought it was kind of sad, and i ended up being really nice to her all afternoon. not like, walk-all-over-me nice, but like, you-and-your-shit-attitude-won't-drag-me-into-your-pathetic-drama nice. i get pissed because i need the money and don't just work there for nothing. (there was a comment made last week by her mom about how it's just my second job so i OBVIOUSLY don't really NEED to be there, they said that i should leave early to let the people who REALLY need the job to stay and make money...um..it's none of her damn business why i work there or how much i do or don't need the money, but taking my tables is Going to piss me off.)

it's sooo stupid. her mom is actually fine with me now, which kind of surprised me. she actually told this girl that she was acting rediculous this afternoon when she was ranting in the back for so long.

it's just annoying, because if we can all work together things are fine, like for example, i was in a section today that i don't know as well, and so i took the order on a one top that was someone elses by accident. when i figured out that i had taken her table, i gave her the order and she took the table back...or sometimes we figure out that she would take one of my tables next time. it really doesn't have to be a big deal, especially when it's not done on purpose or if both people involved can be civil about it. apparently not everyone is that way, and with this chic...i literally saw her try to take that party of mine last week and then take my other tables so i know that she's not making mistakes, she's being an a$$. management obviously has no part in this...it's every waitor for him/herself, and it's turning to be all out war...

she's so rediculous.

it's funny though, they got a new 'operations manager' which really means shit for someone else to watch everything that you do and critique your every move. the funny thing is, he knows restaurants, and knows how rediculous the management is here..and he can't believe it. he also said that he can get me a job at another diner down the street where he says that his daughter makes a couple hundred dollars a shift on a regular basis. he's pimping these employees out to other restuarants...hahahaha. i might just take him up on it!!

i know that this all sounds so petty to people who don't know the restaurant world, but it's soo tru, and soo sad!! the drama, the insanity...and a likely place to find an enemy.

(i am fully aware btw that i can't please everyone all the time, and i'm ok with that, though it's not without it's annoyances!)