The bearded eye-roller

Today is face-bonk, day three. The swelling changes from day to day, and now it's at a point where it takes effort to keep my mouth shut (those of you that know me in person can just shut it- I know I talk a lot). I'll take a picture later, after I comb my hair.

I'm learning some good lessons in this head injury go-round. I'm learning to not judge people by what you see. I frequent a message board and posted about what happened. These people don't know me very well, so they're reacting to what they see. I'm getting lots of comments about getting help for spousal abuse "when I'm ready to deal with this". I know it's coming from a good place, and I know that there's nothing I can tell them that will convince them that I am not an abused spouse. You know how that goes- the more you protest, the guiltier you look.

If *I* saw me on the streets, I'd probably think the same thing. This makes me want to not go anywhere until I'm completely healed, but who knows how long that's going to take. Unfortunately, I'm on pain meds, so I can't go anywhere by myself- so BJ has to deal with "the look" whenever we're out together. He's being SUCH a good sport about this. If I were him, I'd refuse to be seen with me because I've always been too wrapped up in what people think. He's always been the one to tell me that I shouldn't care so much what people think. He's been a true example of that these past few days.

Someone from the board mentioned that they were shocked that hospital personnel didn't question me alone about this, and/or social services hasn't been out to see me. I can only guess that people that work in the hospital have a good sense about peoples' relationships when they see them together. Who knows? Maybe they did question me. I have no recollection of the hospital visit, except for snapshots of a couple of things.

I remember moving from one gurney to another to have the CT scan, but nothing more. I remember getting one shot of pain meds in my butt, but apparently I had two. It's so weird to have so much time erased from my memory. I've never experienced that before.

BJ will be taking me to the facial surgeon today. I want him in the office with me when we talk to the doctor because I still get a little foggy, but I don't want the doctor to think he's with me to keep me from talking.

I guess on one hand, I'm glad that people look out for each other. But on the other hand, it's too easy to make assumptions. And of course, I feel guilty for putting BJ through all of this, because I'm the queen of guilty feelings. He's such a good man and doesn't deserve to be judged like this. This really shows his true character though. His concern is to support me, even if he is judged for something he didn't do.

Me? I'd wait in the car if I were him. That just shows how different we are. I could learn some lessons from him about holding my head high and not worrying about what other people think.

Speaking of worrying about what other people think.... y'all know how I hate to leave the house without makeup, right? Well, I've been debating wearing makeup on my good side just so I don't look 100% horrible. It would KILL me to put makeup on my bad side because I can barely touch my face without wanting to yelp. Is that ridiculous, or what? I've convinced myself to just let it go (well, except for my hair.)

Lots of little things, so thought it was time for a this and that.

• BJ hasn't heard anything yet about the outcome from the meeting. He thinks that this is probably a good thing, but until he hears something from his boss- it's still going to be bouncing around in our heads. I choose to believe that all is well.


• I've come to the point in my job where I literally have NOTHING TO DO. I think I'm going to ask my manager to allow me to be on call at home until she lets me go. I have one project 'out there' that might require my fixing some edits, but that's truly it. The only email I get anymore is social (which, hey, that's always fun!), but I have a home email address, yanno?


• Thanks to the low work demand, I am totally ready for Christmas. All my presents are bought, the tree is up and decorated and the house is decorated. I picked up our Christmas Cards Thursday night and will be addressing them this weekend. After I get them mailed out, I'll put a copy here so you can have your very own RG Christmas card. Gee, how personal!


• I think today I'm going shopping with my cute little pregger sis. We both need a holiday party dress, but it's going to be WAY more fun to shop for hers. She's got a cute lil' baby bump going on and looks more beautiful with each week. I just looked more lumpy and bloated with every week. Especially with Cameron. That was ONE.BIG.BELLY. I had going on. If I recall, the measurement (fundal height) of a full term baby belly is about 38 cm. When I was pregnant with Cameron, I was up to 52 cm. It's a wonder I didn't topple over, since I'm only 5'3" (160 cm) on a tall hair day. People stared at me ALL the time when I went out in public, and toward the end there was only one top I could wear that would fit. I wasn't a cute pregnant woman; 'nuff said. I sure enjoyed being pregnant with both boys, even if I wasn't enjoyable to look at.


• Yesterday was our office holiday party. It was kind of sad because less than half the people showed up. People just aren't showing up for work anymore and didn't want to take the effort to come to the holiday party. The new company doesn't have a budget for ANY parties, so we ended up doing a pot luck in a conference room. The people that did show up are people that I really like, so we had fun. I was most impressed with the guys that made their own food for the pot luck. If I would have known what good cooks we had in our department, I would have set up a monthly pot luck.


• I've decided that part of my business plan is to do a lot of bait and switch schemes. Now wait, it's not as bad as it sounds. I'm applying for jobs that, if I should get an interview, I plan to tell them that I'm not interested in being an employee- but I'd be willing to create training for them as a consultant. Of course, I'll wait until I can see that light in their eyes that I've impressed the heck out of them before I pull the switch- otherwise the scheme will fall flat. I'm kind of excited for the first time I try this. It's going to be fun to see what happens.


• Lastly, I bought a pair of footie pajamas. Nick and Nora Sock Monkey footie pajamas to be exact. When I modeled them for BJ last night, I thought his eyes would be permanently stuck in the back of his head, he rolled them so far. So, let's do the math:
  
  This:
  
  
  Equals this:
  

If you'll recall, yours truly had three things to worry about:
1. My job
2. The 'girls'
3. BJ's job

We all know what happened with my job but now I know it was for the best; the 'girls' have to wait another 3 months for any kind of an answer; and today is the day that the big pow-wow happens in regard to BJ's job.

BJ is feeling really good about how his chain of command feels about him. He's done a great job for his company and has made a tremendous amount of money for them since he started. In fact, this quarter (his first quarter with the company) he made more profit than that facility has EVER made and he made the most profit of any facility in the company this quarter. Go BJ!

But, ultimately it's not up to his company to keep him employed. It's up to the one and only customer. They're used to a certain way of being treated and BJ wasn't aware of this. He thought his job was to make the most profit for the company even if it meant pushing back on the customer a little bit. That was drummed into him by his last employer. His current employer doesn't care as much about profit as it does about customer satisfaction, and forgot to mention this to BJ when he was brought in. They fully admit that it was their fault because they hadn't explained their philosophy to BJ.

As soon as he was made aware of this, he totally changed the way he did things- but was told it might be too late.

Let me put this into perspective for you. BJ is in the distribution business. He's the general manager of a facility that brings in cargo from ships from all over the world (mostly China) and then loads that cargo onto trucks for distribution throughout the state. Because of the type of merchandise he distributes, there are peak seasons. One is right before school starts and the other is right before the Christmas season. During peak, the amount of cargo quadruples (or more) and the customer expects the same turnaround as off-peak months. That becomes quite a balancing act between getting enough people to handle the peak without overspending. BJ's facility was off service levels by ONE day during peak and that's what the ruckus was about.

The meeting today is between the top level executives of his company and the customer. If the customer executives decide that they want to take their business elsewhere, then that means that his company will have to shut their doors and BJ will be out of a job.

The thing is, this particular customer has pulled their business from every.single.facility in our state- and BJ's is the last one. I used to despise W@lm@rt because I thought they were hard on BJ- but this customer is worse and has a horrible reputation. BJ knew that going in, but was up for the challenge. This customer makes W@lm@rt look like a bunch of pussycats.

I hope he hears something today so he can finally take a nice deep breath and relax a little.

So, y'all know that I do some really wacky stuff in my sleep when I'm under stress. The past few days have been no exception. My poor husband has spent his precious sleeping time calming me down, tracking me down or sometimes just watching the entertainment.

I've been particularly active and loud the past two nights. BJ said that sometimes he just watches me and thinks, "is she awake? she has to be awake... no, she's asleep". Especially when I'm doing this:


I photoshopped my face in, just to crack myself up- but this truly is the pose I do in my sleep most of the night. Have I mentioned how sore my elbows are lately?

If I'm not 'watching pretend tv', I'm sitting straight up in the middle of the bed. Or, I'm using my mini laptop. BJ said that on Friday night, he woke up to find me staring at the start page (the desktop) on my computer. When he asked me if I wanted to turn it off, I told him that I didn't know how.

Last night, BJ found me downstairs "watching" some religious programming. I don't remember a bit of this. Gee, I hope I didn't call and donate a bunch of money.

It's always kind of interesting to hear from BJ the stuff I was doing the night before. If he were a mean guy, he could really mess with my mind and tell me I'm doing some really outrageous stuff. "Honey, you made a mess and didn't clean it up" (ha! I'd be so on to him because I'd NEVER do that!)

I hope that once this week is over and all of the "what's going to happen" questions are answered, all of this nocturnal stuff will stop. I'm pooped and BJ is pooped.

New co-worker in the funny mix. He's always been funny, but again we have more time to email back and forth these days. We'll name him Hunter. One of the things I *LOVE* about Hunter is that his laugh is just like my brother Joel's, and hearing that laugh makes me really happy. Thankfully Hunter laughs a lot.

Hunter sent me and FCW a picture of his bunker and here's how THAT email thread went:

Hunter: Told you I have a bunker. Weapons, ammo, and food. I'm not psycho, it's for hunting.

Me: Ummmm, if I say that I'm not a weirdo does that mean that I'm not?

FCW: I think if you have to tell someone you aren't you might be.

Hunter: Lol, think what you want. I just recommend telling people that you don't like very much to try breaking into my house.

FCW and Hunter proceed to banter about the types of guns Hunter has (boooooorrrrrrrriiiiinnnnnnnngggggggggg!)

Me: Yeah well, I have guns too. I'll take a picture tomorrow.

FCW: Laser Tag guns don't count.

Hunter: Neither do glue guns.

I'm SO sure! OK, they aren't *MY* guns, they're BJ's. I'd never even want to touch the things. I don't think BJ wants me to touch them either. Have I ever mentioned that someone he dated seriously ended up in prison for killing her boyfriend's wife? Of course, that was well after she and BJ stopped dating. Still, he's a little nervous about the women in his life handling guns.

Good call, BJ.