tb? wtf?

So, why isn't anyone screaming about border security when a man infected with a drug resistent form of TB manages to, in his own words, "sneak into the country via Canada"? And he was placed on the no-fly list after the TB was confirmed.

Yikes.

Posted by jennj at 11:29 AM | Comments (3)

on to other things....

Heading down to NYC tomorrow morning. Girl's weekend. Bridget and I will be going to see the musical "Curtains" with David Hyde Pierce. Hooking up with Iwan, Deb, Devo, Jen, Jeff and Elke at various points throughout (not THAT kind of hook up!). Looking foward to it. Taking vacation days as I can considering how messed up my summer is going to be work-wise.

p.s. Turns out that my facial redness is probably allergies. No wonder why my rosacea topical isn't working.

Posted by jennj at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)

who ya gonna call?

In the midst of my freakin' out yesterday about my bad, bad rosacea flareup (It's NEVER been this bad - the topical I use isn't even working) I finally got ahold of my cosmetologist sister. She always has the answers. I love her.

Much better now. I did make it out last night and accomplished all of the things she told me to do. Folks, yes, for the time being I'm wearing a wee bit of makeup. And now I'm not obsessing about everyone staring at my blotchy, red face. Now I'm obsessing about people staring because I'm wearing makeup. BWAHAHAHA. Can't be satisfied, can I?

Posted by jennj at 08:12 AM | Comments (9)

more irritation

About two weeks ago my face started getting splotchy. I'm thinking it's a rosacea flare up since exercise is a trigger. But since I started doing this regular exercise thing more than two months ago, you'd figure it would have started then, no? I can't get in to see my dermatologist until mid-June so now what? Grr. And it's looking a little bit like acne. No real big bumps or anything gross like that. It's just when I rub my hand across it, it's a little rough. I never had acne as a teen, so I'm not even sure what I'm talking about right now.

And I'm obsessing about it to the point where I am thinking of wearing makeup to get me through until I see the doc. But then I'd have to figure out what color foundation to use with my skin tone, and of course I'll need powder to set it, and then if I'm going to do that I should probably at least put mascara on if not a little eyeliner and then what about my lips, even though they're a good color maybe I'll need to add more color though, just to offset the makeup.....aiyee. And I'm heading down to NYC this weekend and I doubt I'll have time to remedy the makeup thing before then so my friends are all going to be staring at me and thinking, "Good god, look at her splotchy face! Run away! Run away!" See what I mean about obsessing about it?

Splotchy. It is teh suck.

Posted by jennj at 01:39 PM | Comments (0)

when consultants don't act like consultants

When I consulted one of the benefits I loved was that I didn't have to give a sh*t. I could come in, work my eight hours and then go home and not care about office politics. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I didn't care about the work or wouldn't put my best foot forward. It's just that I didn't feel a desire to know what was going on in the organization. Too much emotional commitment when you could have your contract end at the drop of a hat just doesn't seem healthy to me. Sides, they were paying me a lot of money, did I really need to stir up things?

So, while listening to a consultant whose last day is next week talk, I could tell that they weren't getting it. As part of their explanation as to why they are leaving they went off on a tirade about some internal political complaints I've had (and others) for a number of years. I was scratching my head cause it just didn't seem to have to be something they needed to care about. It didn't interfere with their ability to get their job done. And they had a sweet deal. They've been given a lot more autonomy and responsibility than a normal consultant would have. We even accomodated their weird work schedule this summer.

I'm also a tad angry that they're leaving and so when I hear things like this as their reason it really irks me. If you're going to consult, be real about what it's about. Otherwise, go get a permanent job and don't waste my time training you, yanno?

Posted by jennj at 01:30 PM | Comments (5)

early bird gets the..presidency?

I have been trying to wrap my head around why the run for the white house is starting so early. Americans have a short attention span and with our ability to use the news networks/internet to completely crush a promising bid to nothing in 24 hours (e.g. Howard Dean) makes it a scary proposition. Viral character assassination works. I keep thinking, what can go wrong 18 months out? A lot. Who will we really end up with for choices? Will any of the people put forth right now even make it?

And then I caught a clip from Al Gore on the Larry King show about how he feels it’s too early to run. And then it hit me. Maybe this is the only way we are going to get the American public to accept a female and African American as viable candidates. We need time to get them used to seeing their faces and learning about them.

Despite my thoughts that we live in an enlightened time, my recent trip to San Antonio reminded me that isn’t the case. No real story to tell, but let’s just say that the conversations on politics and social issues with my co-workers were different from what I’m used to.

Who's the bellweather that came up with this concept to start the race earlier, anyway? Does anyone else feel like we’re being manipulated?

Posted by jennj at 09:28 AM | Comments (3)

saturday morning cat blogging

Posted by jennj at 07:12 AM | Comments (2)

alert alert

Nathan Fillion movie ("Waitress") opening this weekend. Mmmm........

Posted by jennj at 03:05 PM | Comments (4)

what's been going on....

Click on the extended entry if you are prepared for a long and rambling post.....

So, what’s been up with me? My health. Don’t worry, things are OK. Last December I had a heart attack scare. One Saturday afternoon I felt a pressure (and pain) on my chest. I thought maybe it was heartburn (although, I’d never experienced that before so what did I know?) or something that wouldn’t last long. After 30 minutes it didn’t let up and it was hard to breath I turned to nbh and said, “Let’s go to the emergency room.” 24 hours of tests, staying in the stupid hospital overnight they basically decided they had no idea what happened. It stopped hurting, mostly, by the time I got home on Sunday (the pressure had stopped sometime in the night). My heart appeared fine there were no signs on the ECG, blood tests, etc. that I was experiencing (or had) a heart attack. Was it an anxiety attack? Who knows. Anyway, I went home.

The bad news was that my blood pressure was high the whole time. So I went on blood pressure meds. Darn. I really didn’t want to go down that path. But both biological parents had it, so I was definitely at risk. Anyway, I was meeting my new primary care for a physical at the end of January so decided to wait until then to address all this stuff. He and I had a great conversation. He’s awesome. Anyway, he agreed to keeping me on the high blood pressure meds but that I should exercise more frequently (I’m not a complete couch potato folks!), eat healthy (I do for the most part!) and lose weight. And then let’s see how it goes in 3-6 months, Maybe we’ll be able to take me off the meds (I so want that to happen). I realized I should focus on these things seriously.

The final determination as to if I had a heart attack was to do a stress test to see if there was any damage. He wasn’t convinced I needed to do that, but I wanted to just in case (especially since my birth father had his first heart attack at 50 and eventually died of one at 59). Cut to the chase: I did not have a heart attack, everything looks great and who knows what that episode was back in December. Yay.

I also had the normal blood workup for my physical and except for my overall cholesterol being 209 (out of normal range), everything else was in normal range. This is good, cause it can be worse that that, yanno. However, it appears I’m slightly anemic. I’ve added iron to my daily vitamin regimen and I go in for a re-test soon to see if that’s the problem.

So. I’m overweight, borderline high cholesterol and on high blood pressure medicine. Early freakin’ signs of not so good things to come.

Mid March I started focusing on my health seriously, not half-heartedly. I decided to suspend blogging (Sides, I was getting bored with it). Not that it takes up a huge amount of time. It was just another thing to apply energy to that could be focused on my health instead.

I renewed my efforts to go to the gym (or do something active) 5-6 times a week. And for the first time, I started tracking calories. I’d never done that before. I also decided not to follow any sort of menu plan that could be found in a multitude of books and online sources. I would count calories based on what I normally eat instead. I would definitely make sure I had the right grains, fruits, veggie and meat portions, but it would be on my terms, not some laid out plan. Turns out that approach is working for me. Calories in, calories burned.

Let me tell you, I thought I had been eating healthy (and to an extent I had….I haven’t eaten fast food except two, maybe three occasions in the past six years, I started an “adopt a veggie a year” program almost ten or so years ago – hehe -, etc.) and it turns out, for the most part I was eating healthy. What I wasn’t doing was really paying attention to portion control. Holy c**p did I eat a lot of food. And it turns out I don’t need to eat a lot of stuff in order to make it through the day. My stomach really is okay with 4oz of chicken, lots of veggies and a portion controlled size of whole grains for dinner. In other words, I don’t need to eat a huge piece of meat in order to feel full. My eyes lie. I also don’t deny myself foods I like.

Course, all of this is what all doctors and nutrionists tell you when you read the articles. It’s not like I didn’t know this before.

Anyway, the upshot is that I’ve lost 13 lbs. I’m not perfect. I still fall off the wagon. But now I get back on it immediately instead of wallowing in self pity about getting off the wagon. I’m stronger cause of going to the gym and have included strength training. I feel good. The hardest part of course is going out to dinner with friends, party and travel. But yanno, I’m not going to deny myself. That’s no fun. I just don’t beat myself up about it if I do stuff myself silly. I’m also having delusions of maybe entering a 5K in the fall (wanna join me?). We’ll see. I don’t want to overwhelm myself with stuff. Especially since this is going to be a stressful summer for me with work, travel and I’m taking a college course (I took the winter semester off). So if my blog entries taper off occasionally, it’s probably because I’m busy. Course, I’m sitting here wondering if by publicly stating all this I’ll be jinxing myself. Stop. Thinking. So. Much.

I’m excited to go see the doctor soon and not only check on my anemia, but also see how the blood pressure and cholesterol are shaping up. Maybe they’ll have improved?! If not, hopefully that’ll encourage me to continue this trend instead of getting discouraged because there is no improvement. We’ll see. Who knows. Just glad to feel better.

As I’ve said before, I freakin’ love my cpap device. I think that’s been a huge reason why I’m being successful. I’m getting the rest I need at night. Hallelujah.

And finally, nbh has been awesome. Here’s one of my favorite support stories: We're sitting around on a Sunday, lazying about, and we decided to order chinese delivery for lunch. We ordered the lunch combos. Well, about 15 minutes into waiting for the delivery I decided that I'd been eating out way too much and I needed to fix a less calorie laden lunch (especially since I was afraid I’d pig out). So I said, "I’m going to make my own lunch. You can have my lunch for dinner tonight and I'll fix myself something then too.” His response: "OK. What did you get so I know what I'm eating for dinner?" HAHAHA

Cheers.

Posted by jennj at 02:30 PM | Comments (16)

i'm back

I've been missing my blog lately. And now that I seem to be in a groove with the other distractions in my life I think I'll be able to fit in a little bit of blogging now. Didja miss me?

Posted by jennj at 09:38 AM | Comments (20)