Vending machines are brilliant.  They are brilliant for the people who own them and horrible for the people who use them.  Snacks and drinks from vending machines are such a ripoff, yet we all buy from them simply because they are so convenient.

But I’m beginning to realize that it is sooo expensive when it adds up.  Even though I KNOW I’m not getting a good deal, I still buy something.  Almost everyday, yes, I said EVERYDAY, I buy a soda from the vending machine for lunch.  That’s $0.65, 5 days a week, which is equivalent to $3.25 a week for 5 sodas.  I could go to the market and buy a 12 pack for that price.  But I don’t.  Why?

Well, everytime I go into the market and I don’t see the soda on sale for at least under $3.50, I don’t buy it.  I don’t buy it because I think its expensive.  But silly me, as long as the price for one soda is cheaper than $0.65 than its worth it!

Note to self: buy soda from the market.

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed lately.  I feel like there’s not enough time.  There are so many things that I am trying to do, so many things I want to do, but it doesn’t seem like I have enough time.

Been on hiatus for a bit.

Bad Signs..
The company sends out an email saying, “now that everyone has their photo badge….” (note: we took photos for our badges a few months ago)  I reply to the email saying, “I don’t have my photo badge, did everyone get theirs?”  They basically DELETED my photo from the system.  Great…  AND THEN, 2 days later, my badge doesn’t even work!  I can’t get into the building.  I stand waiting in the stairwell door on the 2nd floor for like 5 minutes hoping someone will go downstairs, but nothing.  So I finally call my coworker and he lets me in.  My badge doesn’t work for about 3 days, what a pain.  But alas, they gave me my new photo badge.

And another thing…
I saw this lady who doesn’t watch her hands after using the bathroom stick her hands in the ice machine.  Sick.  They have tongs for a reason.  I don’t know if I’ll ever use the ice again.  Sick.

The neighbors down the street were having a little gathering.  A bunch of young fathers stood around while their kids played on the street.  I passed by these kids while walking to my car.  As I walked past this little girl that was probably around 5 years old, she greeted me.

Little Girl:  Hi!
Me:  Hi!
Little Girl:  Where’s your baby?
Me:  LOL, I don’t have a baby!

I’m sure my face was like “what the…”  I turned and looked at all the fathers and they were just chuckling.

Ahh..little kids.  Good laugh good laugh.

-Things that make me smile: Watching a 3-year old little boy on one of those plastic tricycles rolling down the ever so slight decline screaming “Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!” at the top of his lungs.

-I think one of the best parts of retreat was just jamming on the guitar really really loud with people who know what they are doing.

-Sadly, people have no problem throwing each other under the bus

-I like watching the olympics

I was about to drive to church on Sunday morning when I encountered a bit of an incident.  I was trying to unlock the car with my remote but it just wasn’t working.  I tried for about 5 minutes and it wasn’t working.  So I was thinking, “what can I do?”  The only thing I could think of was that I would put my key in the door, the alarm would go off, and I would turn off the alarm manually.  Ok, that was my only idea since I had somewhere to be.

I stick my key in the door and my alarm goes off, I go to turn off the alarm except it doesn’t turn off!  So now my car alarm is going off very loudly, I have the keys in my hand, the door open, and am basically helpless.  I try pressing all sorts of buttons, but the alarm is just BLARING.  At one point, I somehow I got the alarm off.  So I proceed to stick my key in the ignition.  BAD IDEA!  BEEP BEEP BEEP BOOP BOOP BOOP.  Next thing you know, some people who live down the street get home and they’re just standing outside their garage watching me.  They probably thought I was breaking in the car.  So I use large motions to show that I am trying to press the buttons on my remote.  So then I just look at them and shrug.  The lady goes in the house but the man just stands about 100 feet away staring at me.  I wonder what he was thinking.  Maybe he was wondering if I was breaking in or maybe he was wondering if I needed help.  He finally left.

So with no idea what to do, I call my roommate and wake him up to ask for help.  He says he’ll come out and look at it.  I tried clicking the remote again and it worked!  Whew.  Car unlocked.  Alarm off.  He said my battery was probably dead.  I thought so too.  But he went and checked the battery and it was fine!!

Sheesh, all that trouble for some mysterious reason?  Dang, I hope that never happens again.  It was quite nerve wrecking!

At retreat this past weekend I was “dorming” with 5 soon to be 8th grade girls and two other “adults”.  Observing junior high conversations made me think about how great it is to be a kid.  Granted that some junior high kids to high school kids do have a lot of drama, these girls were still 12 (only 12!) and very young.  Their minds weren’t worrying about this and that.  They worried about silly things, like how come those girls don’t like us, but mainly, they just had a great time with each other.  They were in the moment all the time.

It’s funny how much that changes as one grows older.  We look at children who just sit around doing nothing, having joy just rolling a ball around – ah, the simple days.  Then you get to elementary school where you just play all day.  Junior high – who likes who?  High School – who likes who still; trying to balance a life of extracurricular activities along with academics; college prep tests.  College – what should I study; what do I want to be.  Post-College – where is this job taking me; where do I want to live; is this what I aspire for in life.  And on and on it goes.

We have to handle more and more things as we get older and so we often look back and admire the wonders and innocence of youth.

Can we be kids forever?

For most of us who are out of college and in the business world, we find ourselves spending at least 40 hours a week at the office.  We go there Monday-Friday and see and interact with the same people for 5 days a week.  Many people spend time with these work people more than they spend time away from work awake.

In being around these work people (almost) daily, I find that I don’t really know them that well.  I’ve come to realize that none of us really know much about each other.  It seems difficult for people to invest in relationships in the office.  People are there to work and work only.  It seems like no one has the time to care about you and your personal life.  Sure you can have one or two really good work friends, but how well do you know them?

Do you know about their family?  Do you know about the things they like?  What do they do on the weekend?  What are their passions?  Their beliefs?  What troubles are they dealing with?  Personal problems?  There is so much that makes up of a person that its hard to get to know someone fully.  The point is that each person has so much to them, so much more to them than just their existence in the office.

I think sometimes we need to remember that a lot is going on in people’s lives.  That sometimes people aren’t always “there” because they have so much more going on.  Some people may always be in a bad mood, others always joyous and it may make us wonder about them.  But I guess we shouldn’t forget that there’s more to life than just the office.

I just spent the last half hour splashing cold water into my eyes.  I idiotically put something that warns to “NOT put directly in eye” DIRECTLY INTO MY EYE.  The result – burning.  Very very painful burning.  But of course, I did NOT know that you couldn’t put it directly into your eye.

I went to the optometrist to pick up my new lenses today.  I’m going back to gas permeable lenses.  Normally, gas permeable has two solutions.  One is a cleaner and the other is the conditioner.  When you take the lens out of your eye, you rub it with the cleaner, and rinse with water.  Then you put the contact in your case and fill the case with the conditioner.  When you want to put them on again, you take them straight out of the case and put them in your eye.  That is a NORMAL circumstance.

I had my new contacts to put in and the assistant asked what solution I wanted.  Boston or Optimum.  I’ve had history of allergic reaction to Boston so I opted for the latter.  It had 3 bottles in the box.  One cleaner, one rewetting eyedrops, and one storing and disinfecting solution.  Ok, its obvious, put the last option onto the lens and insert into eye.  BAD IDEA!  My eye hurt so freaking bad.  My eyes were just watering and it was so painful.  So I was like, oh maybe I’m just not used to hard contacts.  Where are the rewetting drops?  Okay, put that in, BURNING!  After about 5 minutes of me being hunched over holding my eye, I decided, maybe this solution is no good.  Perhaps I should try the Boston.  BUT, I had already put the other solution on the left lens.  So what do I do?  I put the Boston solution OVER that one in hopes to wash it off.  Then I put that one in my eye.  More burning.  After I’ve calmed down for a bit they take me into the room to wait for the doctor.  Little did I know that for new lenses they want you to wait around 15 minutes to get acquainted.  Those were the most uncomfortable 15 minutes EVER.  I was going to die.  I needed some eye drops badly.  My right eye felt all cloudy and both eyes were just painful and bloodshot.  So the doc comes in and I ask for eye drops.  It felt much better.  Then he checked my eyes.  He thought it was weird that it was so uncomfortable and said that he would brb and disinfect my lenses again and try a different solution.  He came back to show me what he used.  And I’m like, no not that.  I just used that.  And he said what did you do?  I explained and he said you’re not supposed to put that in your eye! You have to rinse off that stuff with water first!

Well, great!  Now what am I supposed to do.  He told me I didn’t damage my eye so that’s good.  So I took off those freaking lenses and put my soft contacts back on and they burn too.  In fact my eye still hurt.  The right one was a little cloudy so I kept putting more and more water in it.

Why did that dumb contact solution make theirs different like the others.  I guess I should have read the directions, but they usually (I guess not anymore) operate the same.

Anyway, I hope my vision clears up.  I took off my contacts for now.  I should rinse my eye out some more.

The more I consciously think about eating healthier and less, the more I want to eat.