Good Health News for me!

Great news from my latest set of blood tests last week! My A1C = 6.8 which is way down from last year and a big cause for rejoicing . . . diet, exercise and the new meds (and if I keep doing this maybe the meds can get reduce . . . keeping my fingers crossed). My cholesterol is good (LDL = 70), thyroid, liver, kidneys, CBC . . . the doctor was really happy with these results along with the fact that I have lost 20 lbs since the beginning of the year. I feel like my energy levels are up much higher than they have been for a long time and my stress levels are down due to the exercise. Even my sleeping is better and i don't feel like i need so much.

Now if I could just get through this next phase of work . .. . darn testing again this weekend . . . I am "on-call" but they have already scheduled 8am meetings for Sat and Sun to go through defects. I wasn't planning on working that much!!! I guess someone forgot that Tday is next week so they had to schedule weekend work to make up for the 2 day holiday. LOL, I am taking off on Wednesday to drive to Arkansas . . . so they can wait on my technical expertise.

Better news (ironically so) is that I have now been extended thru June 2009, which means I probably will be safe from layoffs until that time . . . maybe, who knows for sure . . . everything is subject to change. So it is a mixed blessing . . . stupid project, but enough work to keep me busy for a few more months after this release goes live on Jan 12th.

OK, enough of this . . . I've been so busy with work the past few weeks and more this weekend . . . I think I'll just go up to bed and read for awhile . . . "Twilight" . . the one for the movie which opened today.

Lost weekend . . work of course!

Last weekend ended up being a bit of a lost weekend due to having to be available during the big migration. Of course, "being available" and "working" are not exactly the same thing . . . I was really working as I ended having to activity chase down ppl to help me out with the things that were problems. This resulted in at least one rather negative incident where the "significant other" of the on-call person was yelling in the background "It's Sunday, it's Sunday" . . . I think she even hung up the phone when I called as I could hear her voice in the background although he said that sometimes the phone reception wasn't good at the house. LOL, well, I am sorry, but I had a deadline and I was being harassed from the other side. Besides, if he has responded on Saturday when I first called, then things would have been a bit better. I talked to another co-worker and she told me that this is the exact thing she had been telling me about . . . re: non-responsive support . . . and why she dreaded weekend migrations. Another co-worker mentioned that he had the same experience with the "SO" when he had contacted this support person on weekends too. Frankly this is a situation that we shouldn't have to deal with . . . we are supposed to be working together but apparently that group has a different set of rules that don't mesh with the usual "service" aspect of the company that I have worked for the past 14 years. Yes, I know that no one likes working overtime and weekends are particularly bad, but unfortunately it comes with the job and you rather have to expect to do what it takes to get the job done.

Oh, well, enough of this. It is over and done with and I have to move on. . . but I hate the feeling of "fear and loathing" for the next migration. I know that these weekends never happen right 100% so I expect I'll have to deal with this again no matter how much the manager I worked under says he'll get this straightened out, lol.

Scary incident at gas station last night . . .

After I went to the grocery store, I popped over to the gas station to get some of the $2/gal gas (down 50%) from a few months ago. I was standing there a bit zoned out while waiting for the gas to pump when I noticed a young woman with 3 little kids walk across the parking lot. Still not registering much I watched as she ran behind my car thru the gas station followed by a big guy! She was screaming, the kids were screaming as this guy was hitting her, knocked her to the ground and started kicking her. I felt paralysed with inaction . . . wondering if I should have tripped him, go pull him off her . . . scared!!! BUT do you know how many young men were at that gas station standing around just gawking?? And they were much closer to her than I was at this point. I think a couple might have said something, but there was one older man in his SUV that sped away from the pump to chase down the offender . . . I think to get his license plate number?? Anyway, it was all over rather quickly . . . the offender ran off to jump in his car across the parking lot, the woman was helped up by those unhelpful young men and I heard her say "I just broke up with him" . . . oh, my!! The older man came back to the station and checked that she was ok then got on his phone . . . possibly calling the police . . . and several other ppl said they had called the police too.

I finished pumping my gas and drove off wondering what, if anything . . . it certainly shook me up. Violence of any sort is scary . . . but violence targeted on a woman with 3 little kids is unacceptable. It is not something that is normal (hmmm, what is "normal") in my life, but is it normal for all those young men who stood around doing nothing?

And another thing is that a supposedly safe area for me has now turned into an area that I wonder if I should go grocery shopping and buying gas?? Not far from my house and where I have been going for many years. . . . monsters are everywhere!