and while I'm here...

let me just bitch a bit about work. I was just checking the stats of the blog, and blogger/google is kind enough to show a breakdown of the browsers of those who visit my blog. 69% of you use firefox, btw.

but that's not the point of this. I'm complaining about work, remember? seeing the stats just reminded me of something about work to bitch about, that's all. :P

did you know that there are people out there that still use AOL as a browser? and yes, I'm serious. I have to deal with one of our customers at work (I work for a software company with a web-based product) who insists our program should work perfectly on AOL. I swear to god, I want to bitch-slap this man through the phone every time I have to talk to him. No matter how many times or ways we tell him that the program works best on firefox, he comes back with "AOL is still in the top 10 search engines." Um yeah...whatever...listen, old fart...learn to use the internet like a real person. you'll get so much more out of it. really.

oh, and if I haven't said this anywhere before, I'm the CSR (customer service rep) for the company. what can I say? it's a small company. a very small company. my supervisor does help out, but it becomes more and more obvious each day that the reason she hired me was because she was really tired of dealing with the customers herself. and now that I'm trained well enough, and up to speed on most everything about how the program works, I get to deal with 95% of customer service stuff.

including tech stuff unrelated to our software/website/program. yeah, this is me...tech support....bwahahaha...

okay, so I know my way around a computer a bit, and I'm obviously very comfortable using the mighty interwebz. but I'm not techie enough to be able to fix a printer remotely. just sayin'...

alrighty...I seem to be in a rambling, wordy kind of mood tonight, so who knows, maybe I'll be back again later. but for now I think I'm going back to wandering around the blog settings, and possibly adding some links, etc.

this whole week sucked...

I am finally feeling better today, but man was this week tough.

I'm coming up on the 2 year mark of when ex walked out on the kids and me, and it's triggering me a lot more than I expected it would. It's not even about him. Not really. It's not about missing ex, or caring about him, or wanting him in my life. I truly cannot picture that man as part of my life anymore.

No, this is about the feelings of being abandoned, of my children being walked out on by their own father, who couldn't see beyond his own selfishness to say goodbye and offer explanations or apologies before he went to work one day, and never came home again. It's about the WTF feelings - I mean really, who in the hell actually packs up their shit in secret, goes off the work after kissing his wife goodbye and telling her he loves her, all while planning to never come home again? It's just all so stereotypical and cliche that it can't help but make you go...WTF?, right?

Anyway, I finally released some of what I was feeling in words last night, and it made a big difference. Today was a better day.

Mondays suck...

yeah I know...not exactly earthshattering news. lol but I felt the need to share, anyway. :p

if today was any indication, this week is going to drag.

weirdly enough, I got to work today to discover that my supervisor moved her computer to another desk. we had been sitting in the same corner of the office since I started, at a 90 degree angle to each other. I've been feeling like she's constantly looking over my shoulder, even when I know she's not. I guess she was feeling it too, because she moved to a smaller desk, but one that's slightly hidden behind a new partition.I can't say I blame her. The whole sitting in the middle of the fishbowl where everyone can see you all the time is very draining. I'd love to have some walls or a cube to call my own.

Oh well, at least I have a little bit of separation, and a lot more work space to now call my own. It may not be much, but I'll take it.

oh, and something positive, too...

I still need to talk to an adviser, but I've pretty much decided to abandon the "back to work" Associates degree program I was working on at the community college. Instead I'm going to see about going back to the University and finishing out my original degree. Well, close to it. I'd like to do the general Communications one, rather than the Journalism specific one.

We'll see how it goes. I need to do a bit more research, see how much I'd be able to take online, etc. and make an appointment with an adviser.  But when I'm (finally) a college graduate, I'd much prefer it to be with a degree that I've had to work for. It'll mean so much more. :)

on the subject of...whine

I'm feeling whiny. It's my own damn fault. PMS is rearing its ugly head because I've been feeding it with a lack of exercise, way too much caffeine, and lots of not healthy eating. Add in some financial stress, a really messy house I don't want to clean, people that I love and are important to me that I worry about, plus the too hot summer weather and yeah, that's a recipe for PMS disaster where I'm concerned.

I wanna run away. Or replace my vehicle. Or eat some chocolate. Or at least go shoe shopping.

Okay, so I really want to do all of the above. Not going to happen. (See "financial stress" mentioned above.) Except maybe the eating chocolate part. :P

I know that whining isn't going to help anything. I know that this too shall pass. I know that over all, I have a pretty positive outlook for my life. But I still have this overwhelming urge to whine. I hate PMS.

Ugh! Sometime really soon I'm going to need to pull up my big girl panties again and take control of my life again, instead of drifting on auto-pilot. I'm getting too whiny for me to listen to myself anymore.  

well now, that was embarrassing...

visiting my boyfriend this weekend. we went out Friday night with friends for dinner and then to see my boyfriend's son play at the piano bar where he works.

guess boyfriend and I were a little too obvious in our smooching, because the son not only saw us, but razzed us about it later.

oops! <insert very embarrassed smiley here> lol

okay, as embarrassing as it was to get caught making out in public by my boyfriend's 20-something yr old son, I'm glad the son was comfortable enough with us and our relationship to give us a hard time about it.

so this goes in the "it's a good thing" column. :)

just....weird

I actually told someone today that I hoped ex was happy, and I meant real happy, not the sarcastic all the happiness he deserves with the psycho bitch happy I usually mean.

It was weird to hear that come out of my mouth. I hadn't intended to say. It just sort of flowed out as a natural part of the conversation.

Gotta admit though, the reply back was gratifying, especially since I was talking to someone who didn't know me while married, has never met ex and hasn't a clue what he's like irl. What this person said was along the lines that it sounded like ex was someone who didn't get that he was responsible for his own happiness.

And then to add to the weirdness, I had dinner tonight with a friend, someone who knew me and ex as a couple, and as parents. She's very firmly in my corner, and has been since she found out, which was sometime not long after ex walked out on the kids and me.

The conversation tonight went all over the place - we had a lot of catching up to do. And my friend told me how mad she had been at ex when she found out about him cheating and the way he left, and how she probably still is mad at him, because she thought we were the one couple who were so good together shit like this would never happen.

Sigh

Had several realizations after that. The first one - I'm pretty guilty of rewriting marital history too. Maybe not as intentionally, but it sure was easier to focus on the bad times instead of trying to remember the good times. The second one - I covered up way too much for ex, and made way too many excuses. And three - nobody really knows what a relationship is like, from the outside. Oh, I guess we can add four - that ex fooled a lot more people than just me into thinking he was a good guy.

I feel like maybe I've cleared one of the last few hurdles of this marathon. Another level of acceptance, maybe? Someone suggested I've possibly reached indifference. I suppose that could be it.

Not a bad thing, at all, any of what happened today. Just...weird...