I started my 10 week challenge on Monday. I weighed in, bought some vegetables and have been to the gym 3 times this week!

The hardest part will be avoiding sugar. My boss was out last week when we had the Challenge rally and wasn’t aware of the contest. She came back this week with a box of donuts to surprise everyone. Another coworker is asking people to buy cookie dough for her daughter’s fund raiser. Look at my ass! What are you people trying to do to me?

I’m starting to like the Basement Bally’s over the Big Gay Bally’s. Basement Bally’s TV’s are much closer to the machines since it’s in a basement and not a pretty loft. Basement Bally’s knows better than to show CNN.  And nothing is better than distracting me from boring elliptical than Howie Mandel giving people money. TV is so much nicer when you don’t watch it all of the time. It’s almost as amusing as it’s supposed to be.

Can you tell I don’t like having lots of topics in one post?

I’m starting to think about what kind of CEU’s I want to do for my LSW. I would like to do workshops on alternative/holistic therapy because my grad program did not explore alternative therapies at all. The ASWB publishes a list of approved CEU providers and I found a couple sites that list alternative therapy online courses.

Another option is to take a class. I started looking at post-master’s certificate programs but can’t find anything I like. There are lots of classes for non-profit management and some classes (not all post-grad) for clinicians but not a lot of in-between. The research courses I’m finding are for real scientists and the math in them would probably kill me.

I might be on my way to restarting clinical supervision. My boss gave me a few referrals. Unfortunately, the referral at the university can’t supervise me but one other person might. One referral I’m not contacting because her agency focuses on parenting resources. I don’t think I need the challenge of a “mommy and me” centered supervisor right now.

So I am still doing some social work based activities and not just writing letters and looking for FedEx envelopes.

My workplace is involved in the 50 Million Pound Challenge. We had a kick off event this week and there is an inter-agency contest going on. Whoever loses the most weight in 10 weeks (by percentage, not pounds) wins moneys! My agency isn’t that big and I’m sure everyone won’t participate. I would say there is a 1 in 50 chance of winning. So really I have no excuse not to start working at losing weight. The first weigh in is Monday (so I’m working on finishing my box of Valentine’s truffles this weekend.)

My tattoo is healing nicely and has stopped being itchier than Lindsay Lohan’s crotch. My tattoo is another reason for me to lose weight! I gots to look good to show it off!

Wonderful moment at work this week: Assistant of the Last Minute department comes by asking for FedEx envelopes. I don’t have any, just Express Mail. No, she needs FedEx because these are VERY IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS. Whatever, keep hunting. She finally finds the envelopes (probably in her own office because her department is the only one that uses Fed Ex) and sends off her docs. Next day I find out the very importantness did not reach it’s very important person because the Assistant sent it to the wrong address. Competency. We do not have.

And you came back to me? Aww.

The past couple days have been like a weekend to me because the boy and I left town, gambled, saw Chuck Berry and I got inked.

The casino-whatever it’s a casino.

Chuck Berry- Chuck Berry is 81 years old and wears shiny shirts and plays small clubs at 10pm. That alone is pretty rockin. His son is his guitarist and tries to keep his dad on task. Sometimes during a guitar solo Chuck forgets what song he is playing and either turns around to ask his son which song he was playing or just goes into another song. It’s like getting twice as many songs! Chuck likes the ladies, he invited all of the women in the audience to come on stage and dance with him for the very last song. After being crushed by the flock of women on the stage, his roadie helped him back to the front of the stage so he could forget the words to another song. He also likes his lawyer and he pointed him out during the show. I guess that’s good advertising for the lawyer. And he likes Obama. At one point he rambled this gem “Ram..know what rhymes with ram? (confused look from son) Bam! Bam! How about that Barack Obama?” We cheered.

Tattoo-The day after the show I got up bright and early for my 9am tattoo appointment. I can’t complain too much, the artist was booked for months and was cool by coming in early to see me. He did a fantastically detailed outline and I’m going back in a couple months for the fill in. I’m not sure if it’s because my other tattoos are small or if it’s because they have no outlines but this tattoo hurt a lot worse than the others. I had to keep reminding myself to breathe as he made tiny lines over my spine. The outline took 2 hours, the fill in will take 4 hours. I have 2 months to learn how to meditate. And I have 2 months to start losing some serious weight so I can show off this tattoo.
V-Day- Oh god, I’m so damn gooey with the boy. It’s kind of sick. I made him a card and got him some cutesy presents. He surprised me with a big box of Vosge truffles. I loves me some fancy chocolate.

Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle

Just click it.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again!

It was insanely cold today, I think my eyeballs were freezing as soon as I stepped outside so I didn’t go to the Lunar New Year parade in Chinatown. Luckily, Chicago being the wonderful city it is, there are 2 parades!  The parade in Uptown is smaller than the one in Chinatown but so much  fun. We were there for the parade kick-off so I stood way too close to a row of firecrackers and kids were standing on a float to get a better view of the dancing dragons (and an early start on hearing damage). The dancing dragons were a couple people long but there was a small hand held dragon that about 8 people held up on a stick. They were supposed to spin and weave the body of the dragon around itself but some of the dragon holders were a bit confused and the dragon leader alternated between yelling at the people behind him and smiling for the crowd. We got some yummy Vietnamese food afterward and saw the dragon again. I want a dragon.

My mom was sad that it was too cold to go to the parade today so I brought some pastries from Chinatown to my parents and we ate bad suburban Chinese food.

While we were out picking up the food she told me that she had been talking with my dad about my desire to get my tubes tied. She said “as much as we would love to see you walk down the aisle or see you pregnant, your health is most important and getting pregnant isn’t worth the risk.”

Yes, exactly. Well, kind of. Hidden in that reassurance is  “We don’t think you’re going to get married because you’re not having babies.” Mom, I have so much to teach you! She will be the first to get a copy of my yet to be written book.

Oh, I was silly to think that I would get my tubes tied by just asking a nice, qualified doctor.

I called to get my bloodwork results and schedule my tube tying and the office person I talked to said that my doctor doesn’t do surgery with my HMO. She told me to call my HMO and go to an outpatient clinic. He didn’t mention that my insurance would be a problem during the visit but I know how oblivious doctors are as to which insurance networks they are in.

So I call my insurance and they tell me that he cannot do the procedure because my hospital is religiously affiliated. I knew that at one time this hospital was St. Something but I thought the new name had bought out the old one. I’m still not quite clear on how the doctor does sterilization. All the info I find on him says he only works at this one hospital. His staff person made it sound like it was my specific HMO he didn’t work with but maybe it is HMO’s in general. I called his office a bunch of time going back and forth with the insurance company, I feel dumb calling again but I want to know if there is a way of getting the surgery at a hospital.

I want to stay at a hospital, preferably this one, because I am worried about my robotness and the clinic they referred me to is pretty much an abortion clinic. They do other stuff but if you google them, the first results say abortion clinic. I don’t want to deal with protesters, that tense feeling in the waiting room or weary doctors that have been vacuuming all day.

Hate you, health care system.