Ten Things Thursday: The Blood and Cupcake Edition

1.  It had been an off week for me.  After a weekend of doing very little but resting since I had a persistent and annoying headache, I woke up Monday morning feeling like someone had smacked the left side of my face with a board and then shoved a metal spike into my temple for good measure.  In other words, a migraine.  The light sensitivity was so bad that the lights from the phone when I called in to work just about killed me.  I was back in the office Tuesday but feeling sluggish and still headachy.

2.  The likely culprit is aspartame.  I had started drinking diet coke again about two weeks ago.  I've had a persistent and annoying headache for about two weeks now.  Stupid of me to go back to that stuff.  The reason I did?  Even stupider:  I'd been low on cash -- the Pepsi Throwback with the real sugar is pricey -- and had a coupon for two 12 packs of diet soda.  Bought the diet soda, forgot to use the coupon, drank it and got headaches for my trouble.

3.  On top of it, yesterday my allergies decided to kick in on high.  This morning, after oversleeping because, sluggish, I had just gotten out of the shower, when I cleared my sinuses (aka blew my nose but "cleared my sinuses" sounds classier, eh?) they clearly had been bleeding.  Then I'm starting to get ready when my nose starts bleeding.  All over the cat.  FYI, blood comes off of cat fur very easily.  That's kind of disturbing.

4.  Long story short, I was very, very late to work.  My co-worker had brought me a mocha.  Then I sit down and go to get some hand lotion from the other side of my desk -- there's a cupcake behind the kleenex box!  What the hell?  I ask the co-worker who brought me coffee if she brought me a cupcake.  It wasn't her.  I ask our secretary, who is answering me like "did I bring you a cupcake?"  I'm baffled.  She pokes her head in my door, all "wow, who would do that?" and then asks "is that your stereo?"  I start to answer yes, look over and it -- and there's another cupcake!  Then I turn around, there's another cupcake on my table!  A half turn, and I spot another cupcake!

There were six of these hidden around my office,

and it's not even my birthday!

5.  So I'm having a much better day now.  The best part is, our secretary has only been with us about five weeks now.  I'm glad she's fitting in with us so well.  We're such a busy, high-stress office that we need to blow off steam frequently.  Yesterday we redressed Skelly our office skeleton and moved him to the conference room.  I was telling my mom about this last night and she asked why we had a life size skeleton in our office.  I was like, why wouldn't we?  My co-worker, who officially owns Skelly, agreed.

Bring on the paperwork!

6.  Even since I went to Bend last month I'd been doing very well limiting my gluten intake.  Tuesday night I had a massage and by the time it was done, after eight, I was starving and well, Five Guys Burgers and Fries is right across the parking lot.  I got a burger and fries.  Next day (yesterday) my tummy reminded me why gluten is a bad thing for me.  Not too bad, but enough.  So of course last night I had some chicken strips, again not too bad, but then I eat an entire pint of strawberry cheesecake ice cream.  Very unhappy tummy today.

7.  How unhappy you ask?  I'm glad you did because now I get to reference shit weasels.  Ever read or see Stephen King's Dreamcatcher?   It's what they call the alien that grows inside a host and then exits the body, rather dramatically, through the bum.  In the book the scene that reveals this isn't so bad.  In the movie, holy shit, no pun intended.  That's kind of how I feel today, like I'm starring in the sequel Dreamcatcher:  Revenge of the Shit Weasel.  I plan to remember this feeling, to draw upon it the next time I think gluten and a whole lot of dairy are a good idea.

8.  Now you're going to have shit weasels on the brain.  Better than out the bum, I guess.

9.  I had an idea from a blog I follow.  This person has done everything right (as I would define it) and lost weight and looks absolutely amazing, but has one vice.  It's not a bad vice, but it's a frequent vice, a consumable.  I've started mentally substituting "twinkies" for this vice every time it's mentioned and I wonder if this person would think differently about that vice if they did the same, particularly since more than a certain amount of this vice often leads to other not-so-great choices in the food department.  As in, one or two twinkies a week is probably okay but more than five at one time and they could eat the buffet.   Anyhow, I'm not telling the story to shame this person, just to explain how I've started thinking that way about gluten, not with twinkies but more like Drano.  "A burger with Drano would be okay, just this once, right?"  And how can you say "sure, Drano just this once would be fine!"?

10.  Did that make any sense?  (And if the blogger happens somehow to be reading this, please don't be angry with me.)  I just find it interesting that this person would never eat twinkies, but that their vice adds up and maybe starts equating to twinkies and that's maybe something they've never thought about.  I had this vice myself for a very long time and I understand why someone would want to keep it.  For some people, their vice really is twinkies, but that's easy to spot as a potential problem when you want to be healthy and lose weight.  Mine these days is cupcakes.  Which, by the way, I made everyone in the office take one.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl