You would think this was a good sign

So here's another camping pic for all of you. This was on our way up the hill to Kennedy Meadow to fish... This was taken from the car... and what are we following? Yep, that's right, the fish-planting truck. Newbie fish straight from the farm. A couple hours later we saw the fish actually being planted in the river at Kennedy. It was kind of funny, I had expected them to be released from the truck directly, but no, the fish and game guys came over with nets full of squirming fish and threw them in the river. We asked if we could throw a line in the truck, but they didn't especially like the idea. :D And with freshly planted fish, was the fishing good? Nope, terrible. But hey, I fell in the river so we know the day was complete. Both my dad and I fell at some point in the weekend, and that's pretty much a requirement for our trips. That and big fires and Monkey's chili!!!!

Hope you all had a good weekend. Drop me a line sometime!

~Wildflower

Pictures!

Ok... so come one, come all, experience the weirdness! As my brother mentioned on his blog, he burned his knuckle hair off and I took a pic. Unfortunately it came out blurry.... but see for yourself to the right. I have also included the pic of the Stockton Feilzer group.

I think I almost lost my mind at work today. You know it is bad when you tell your boss to go away because "...you are freaking out and that is making me nervous" my exact words mind you. And yes, my boss does have a sense of humor but does need to enhance his calm.... feel the chi, repulse the monkey! During publishing time my office-mate and I often tell him to go away when he gets too fussy. Too bad I can't do that with other people at work :D Anyway, I got through it but am going to go have some fun tonight. I will add more camping pictures tomorrow, so you can further see into the weirdness :)

~Wildflower

I'm Back!

So I am back... I am dirty, tired, bruised, but had a damn good weekend. The funniest part was probably when I fell in the river. Yeah, it was awesome. No fish, unfortunately. And the uncle of mine who is moving to Missouri left before we even got there... he is now in MO and didn't say good-bye. I am a bit perturbed.

Anyway, I have got lots of pictures to share later, have to get them developed and scanned. I have some on my cell phone too, but my mobile web won't begin until tomorrow, so I can email them tomorrow. Hope you all had a good weekend, I must go clean dirt out of... well, everywhere!

I love the smell of panic in the morning

Ok, so last day of work before CAMPING but of course I have to be having one of those crap mornings where absolutely nothing goes right. Oversleeping, zoning out in the shower, losing things, having to make multiple trips to the car because I kept forgetting things, having some random guy with incomprehensible speaking skills keep calling my cell phone, and then being late to work. I may be getting to the campground at midnight at this rate. I packed really fast last night too, so if I get there and I have forgotten something essential like my shoes I am going to be upset. Is it too early for beer? Hehe.

Well, I will not be posting for a few days, but I am sure I will have stories and pics to share when I get back. Have a great weekend!

~Wildflower

Here's Your Sign

Ok, so it is Wednesday morning, the start of my third ten-hour day. I am beginning to get a bit stressed... Case in point, my shopping trip last night for camping supplies (ie, beer, fishing license, beer). So I was next in a massive line of people at the checkout counter, with only one checker working and judging by the speed she is moving, she is obviously new (not that I am saying this is her fault, just setting up the situation). The guy and girl in front of me are totally lingering, but apparently they can't linger standing close together at the END of the register... no, they have to do it far apart, blocking the whole register so I can't move up... my stuff is completely checked and I can't get anywhere near the ATM machine because they are lingering around, asking all sorts of inane questions, while the line grows and bends around the corner. I can hear the grumbles of people behind me. Then I hear something that almost sends me over the edge... I hear the girl ask the clerk "How late is your photo lab open?" to which the clerk responds "Until 5." ... Now, can we guess what hogging-all-the-space-at-the-register-girl's next question is???? Yep, that's right folks "In the evening?" NO IN THE MORNING YOU DWEEB! MOVE! And it is a good thing she did, because I might have wasted some precious beer hitting her in the head. All I can say is "Here's your sign!"

Sigh. I feel better. I am definitely going out tonight and relieving some stress. I know I shouldn't since I have to be up early and have one more 10 hour day tomorrow plus a two hour drive up to the mountains, but I think for sanity's sake, I need it. Anyone who goes to Bogey's, I will be there tonight relaxing, feel free to join me!

~Wildflower

Things I did this weekend

1. Went to a pool party put on by James and Care. Awesome party guys! And it had a cool group of people there... It was nice, haven't been to a house party in a while, it was nice to have the whole DJ, bbq, beer thing going again.

2. Went to lunch with Katy... I hope that's not what made you sick girl! I am sorry :( But I did enjoy our chat and the lovely Chili's Southwestern Eggrolls... mmmmmm forbidden eggrolls.

3. Got a new phone. It is soooo coool. I have a new toy :D It takes pictures and video, I had a lot of fun with that last night. And it supposedly has a speaker phone, but I have not figured that part out yet. It is a huge upgrade to my ol' ghetto phone! Oh yeah, it makes phone calls too ;)

4. Went to the bar, drank, same some karaoke, saw some friends. Even had a few shots ;) And then hit Jack in the Crack on the way home.

5. Slept in. Yup. Should have gone to church, but I was very tired. I have a long week ahead of me so I think it will be ok. Will go the weekend I get back from camping, for sure. I think part of it is that I am a new member, and the minister who so impressed me ( and also welcomed me so openly ) in the beginning has left, and they have not found a new one yet. So it is a different person doing the service each Sunday. While the people are still very nice, and the sermons ok, it just doesn't seem to have the same dynamics as the services done by the most recent minister. And if you are curious because you have never heard me talk about religion, I will reassure you that I have been attending the Unitarian Church, which works very well with my values. If you want to take a look, here is the link to their website:

http://stocktonuu.inreach.com

6. Cleaned the bathrooms and emptied the garbage/recycling. The amount of garbage Mike (my husband for anyone I don't know who may be reading this) and I go through in one week is ridiculous. Yeah, it was totally exciting. It is hot out there and the dumpster smells. Yay.

7. What I am doing right now... posting on my blog and text messaging people. I can multi-task. I am special :D

Will do later:

8. Go to Mom and Dad's for dinner. I haven't seen them since last week so I owe them some quality time.

And then the rest of the day will play by ear. I am going to relax though, as I have to work 10 hour days Mon-Thurs so I can have Friday off for camping. My posts might be a little slim next week, but I will for sure post the following week and may even have camping pics to post.

Hope all reading this had a good weekend and good luck with the upcoming work week. Peace out!

~Wildflower

I'm melting...

Well, not really. But at 104 degrees it sure feels like it. We had very special guests at work today and had to dress up in... and then sweat all over... nice "professional" clothes. What no flip flops? But apparently the meeting went well. As for me. I am ok. At least for now. My stress level went down quite a bit, no weeklong headache. I am feeling such weird ranges of emotions lately, I think it is part of my treatment process. I feel a little lonely, but I keep reminding myself that just because I am alone at the moment that doesn't mean I am alone ... or need to be lonely. Just got to keep kicking myself in the butt to get myself back on track.

I am looking forward to this weekend, it should be fun. Check my brother's blog (link on sidebar) for Mexico pictures, one of strange brass sculptures! I definitely should have taken more pictures, but I can always copy others. :) But since my work is never done, I have some chores to do before bed. So good night all, more posts soon!

~Wildflower

Blog Spam!

Ok, so no one told me there was such a thing as BLOG SPAM! I got a nice piece of "warning of earthquake danger" piece of spam posted to my blog by another user today... Someone I didn't know of course. How nice, huh? One more place to delete spam... I just hope the male-member enlargement ads don't make their presence known. :D And no too weird dreams last night, just dreams that I was in the middle of a snowstorm (even though it was ungodly hot last night) and needing to use the restroom real bad. No fun stuff like dancing cockroaches or anything. Maybe I'll eat some jalapenos tonight and see what happens! Hehe. Or maybe the chicken helper and white wine will do the trick. Yup, I am a real gourmet!

~Wildflower

Aye... los tacos

Ok... too many tacos tonight, this will make for some weird dreams I am sure. I will probably have a couple to write about tomorrow! Care makes excellent tacos... too excellent for my own good I think! As long as I don't dream there are bugs on the ceiling or that my brother is drowning underneath the bed (yes, both of which I have dreamed before, and no, I was not drunk, stoned or otherwise chemically altered) I think I am ok. At least I have never had dreams about toasters catching paper towels on fire or hamsters running through giant walls of suds (Dad) so I can't be THAT weird, right? :D Yes, I am a bit silly tonight. I added a link on my sidebar to my brother's blog, check it out for some more family weirdness. At our annual camping trip week after next I will be taking pictures so I can share with you all. I must retire though, cause it is close to midnight and I have another day of battling invalid html tags tomorrow!

~Wildflower

Just stuff

Well, nothing too exciting over the last two days, but I owe a post. Friday I spent with my parents, Saturday and Sunday with my husband and friends. We all went to see "12 Angry Men" at Kiley's Dinner Theatre in Lodi, the show was good, and the two leads were fantastic. Then did the obligatory Karaoke (which will do again tonight) and had a good time :) Today we had James and Care and their Austrian friend, Alex over for pizza, margaritas and videos. James brought his copy of "Bleacher Bums" (another Kiley's show he was in) as Mike and Alex had not seen it. I forgot how awesome that show was. I also got emailed pictures of my co-worker's baby (who was born very early Saturday morning) and he is adorable. I am glad mom and baby are ok :) Since I don't have much more to say for now, I am going to leave you with a picture of my favorite monster, Sadie.

~Wildflower

Vaccines and boosters

So today was yet another day that was basically a carbon copy of the previous. The only thing that happened out of the usual (as in it happens, but not every week) is that I made yet another trip over to Kaiser to see my counselor and get a booster on a vaccine I began in late May. So my arm hurts and I have a nice bump but I'll get over it-until the next one anyway! But the more important part of the trip with the counselor. I talked to her for quite a while about many things but the one thing that stayed with me was telling her how I feel "stuck." "Stuck" as in not knowing what I want and not knowing my next goal in life. I feel as I live the same day over and over again, and at the moment don't have the opportunity to change things much... We jointly decided that I had "Groundhog Day" syndrome (the movie, not the holiday! If you haven't seen it, I urge you to); I keep reliving things until I "get it right." Although we agreed that my "reliving" was for very different reasons than Bill Murray, there was something to "getting things right." Which in this case means I need to start learning how to make decisions again (I lost that ability with my near-constant state of anxiety for a few weeks this spring, anxiety is gone but I have not regained my decision-making skills) and set goals, even tiny ones. But of course, me being me, I pointed out that sometimes things don't work out the way you want or intend them to, as you can not control anything other than yourself (something we learned to accept in anxiety management class) and there was a very real risk that I would have to reset my goals once again... But as she said "So what?" Really.. "so what?" I don't know actually, I don't have a good answer for that. So basically, I got two "boosters" today. One for the legitimate vaccine, and the other being much more abstract... A booster on anxiety, stress management, and self motivation. One was stuck in my arm by a injection technician, the other was stuck in my head by another a mental health technician ( a new pc word for counselor, I think... :-P )

So, I leave you with this thought--of what else do we periodically need a "booster"? I have a suspicion there are probably many more things that have not yet crossed my mind.

~Wildflower

Drunk and feeling strange

Yes, I am drunk. So this post wont be long considering I have to get up very early tommorrow. Promise I will add more then. But had an interesting night full of excess, old friends, my husband, etc. I can say it always surprises me how these events turn out. Too many tears, not enough laughs this particular evening... Considering this, next time will definitely have more laughs. Sorry no profound thoughts, I think putting myself back together is more important than that right now. Any suggestions will be gladly accepted now.

~Wildflower

Getting the hang of it....

Ok, thanks to happy hour and Linda and Becky, it took me a while to figure out posting pictures to profile/posts and editing links but I got it ;) The strange thing is, I edit links all the time at work! But happy hour was well worth it, too bad only laundry beckoned at home. I don't have anything too exciting to post about my day, just a double Monday (the term I used to describe Tuesdays after a three-day weekend). Fourth was way relaxed due to budget restraints, but I was glad to get outside at night with some old friends and see all the fireworks in my area... I still am working on the peat dirt on my shoes! I will leave you with a picture of one of my favorite places in the world, Kennedy Meadows, CA, near where I camp with my family in Pinecrest, CA. And I promise to come up with something a bit more thoughtful soon!

~Wildflower

Kennedy Meadows
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My first post!

Well, here goes, I have officially entered Blog-land! I am absolutely terrible at coming up with titles, etc., so I thought I would pretty stumped when it came to creating a title and URL for my blog. But for once in my life, a title just came to me. "Technical Difficulties" I have my company's IT department and my co-worker, friend, and office mate to thank for giving me help with this one. Last week I was facing a tight deadline to get something published to our website, and our boss was being quite grumpy... And to top it off our network was moving at snail's pace. When I finally finished editing the HTML program and hit "Send" I got those famous two words "Technical Difficulties", which completely obliterated the half hour of changes I had made to the file. As I don't like to use four letter words in the office, I felt the need to let out a large groan and hit the desk, prompting my buddy and office partner pop off her headphones and turn around... When I explained, she commented "I think today is a technical difficulty" ... I blurted out "My life is nothing but technical difficulties!" We laughed at the time, I got my work done and so on a so forth. But later that day, I started to think... Can one have technical difficulties in life? I began to ponder all the hurdles I have jumped and obstacles I have worked past (and the ones I am continuing to work past) in the last few months, and decided, yes, yes indeed. Technical difficulties truly do exist outside the "techie" world and are part of everyday life. Somehow it made me feel better too.. Maybe I am not losing control, maybe I am not spiraling downward... I am just having technical difficulties. And, true to point, I've already called in the repairmen.

So, I have a blog. A good URL, a good title. Let's see if I can find things to fill it.

~Wildflower