Collie in Disguise

I frequently get asked what kind of dog Isa is. As far as I can guess, she seems to be Golden Retriever and Border Collie? Whatever kind of herding breed she is, she is basically a collie with gold-colored hair. She doesn't have any retriever instincts- it took some effort to teach her to fetch, and she *hates* getting her feet wet. (Although apparently most collies like water as much as retrievers do.)

We started herding sheep about two months ago, and so far she's apparently doing everything right (as far as I know. bringing me the sheep without biting them anyway...)

Stomach. I hate you.

Here I am searching google at 3am wondering if Yaz (birth control) is causing my severe stomach cramps right now. I think the worst has passed, but not ready to sleep yet since my stomach is still burbling away.

I dont know if Yaz caused this or not, but I'm switching to Yasmin 28 right away. I took that for 3 years or so and it was great. I thought Yaz and Yasmin were similar enough that I'd be fine on Yaz too, and this whole first month on it was fine. I've read some bad stories about Yaz, sure, but there are horror stories about Yasmin 28 too, and I thought it was great while I was on it.

It's just in the last few days, since I switched to the 4 days of not taking it, where you're supposed to get your period, that I've had issues. I've always had stomach issues to go along with my period though, so I didn't think much of it, but this little episode was way worse than anything I've experienced before.

I mean, I did a lot of running earlier, which doesn't help, but that was awhile ago. I also ate some shortbread cookies and pretty rich chocolate, about 3 hours ago before bed. That probably didn't help. I wonder if the granola I had after running had any effect... oh well, who even knows. I'm not taking the stuff anymore.

My prescription is actually for the generic Yasmin 28, but my doctor gave me some free samples of Yaz and said, why not try them. I'm supposed to start the second month tomorrow, and so I was going to continue on the free samples of Yaz, but I guess I'll just go and get my real prescription filled. I'm scared of it now that it fucked my stomach up so badly though, because maybe the problem will continue on Yasmin 28 too...

Brief Update

I have almost too many places to express myself in writing these days. The urge to write a personal blog (this one) has been mostly fulfilled by my private journal recently. I have some photos from events that I will post and share.

In the meantime, a brief update of my life:

I have started studying, a little, for the CPA exam. I am now writing TWO blogs about experiences related to that, and school, and stuff. One of them is my own domain, and is my original blog. The other is on a financial blogging community, which gets a lot more traffic. I only have about 3 posts up there now, but so far it's going pretty well. I am managing to write two blogs about essentially the same topic without repeating myself too much.

I have been having a lot of luck lately. I want to express my recognition and thankfulness for this, although I'm not really sure to whom/what to express it.

Monday

A post, because I haven't written in a few days, and I feel like writing. A quick post, because I am going in to work with my mother tomorrow, and so I have to get up... in 6 hours.

This weekend was interesting.

I would just say that the weekend was fun actually, except that a UGA professor killed three people on Saturday, which is very sad. One of them was his wife. The others were members of her community theater group. They haven't caught the guy yet, which is a bit disturbing. I wonder how long someone can make it on the run these days, when he has been so clearly identified.

Twilight was on (big bike race event that everyone uses as an excuse to start drinking at 4pm), so Athens was crowded, and we ended up going downtown super early (like 5pm) on Saturday, and staying until 3am.

CCK performed their NKOTB number again, and I got a complete video this time. Still working on figuring out how to take good video with this camera, but at least this time I remembered I can't rotate it, so I have to hold it landscape!:

Art Travel Diary Thing

While I was traveling in Italy, I tried to draw/paint a little. Mostly we were walking around cities and sightseeing, so I have far more photos than drawings. I'm going to make a little scrapbook/art journal of my trip.

First, I need my CD of photos that I left in Italy so I can figure out how many photos to include. I might add some drawings, because sometimes a photo captures all of the ugly things that you didn't notice when you were taking the picture. With a drawing, you can single out the beauty that caught your eye, and just leave the extra bits out.

Here's a page from the hostel we stayed at in Ravenna. It is my most complete page at this point, and even this one I am planning to add to.

Money Issues

So yesterday, my mom got really mad at me about... well, all sorts of things. One of them being that I spend too much money on things I don't need. I guess she has a point.

I don't do any drugs, and I don't drink much, but I am a little addicted to shopping, eating out, and hanging out in coffee shops. I thought about trying to come up with limits as to how much I could spend on each of these a month, but I decided that, like with any addiction, the best way to work on this problem is to cut these things out entirely. It's too easy to fall back in the habit if I let myself do it "once or twice."

So, from now until... well I'm not sure when. How about August? That's kind of extreme for a ban on eating out, but then again, I will need money saved up for first month's rent. Okay, let's do it. From now until August, I will not eat out or buy any more mochas (unless someone really hot invites me out to eat or get coffee.)

I know my friends enjoy going out too, but I hope you can support me in this. (Oh man, I made myself sound so serious about this now, haha). I'm hoping that we can instead get together to eat in-I need to develop that as a new habit. My inability to cook anything edible is an issue, but maybe I'll work on that too!

I'm going to keep track on here of how long I can go without these things in a sidebar here. I also need to stop spending on crafts and fabric, etc. At least until I have finished the 3 or 4 projects I already bought supplies for. I'm going to keep the chart simple and just stick to not eating out and not going to Walkers.

Michal goes to Poland

Sadness: Michal left to go home to Poland yesterday. Hopefully he'll find his way back here soon!