First day of a 3-week vacation and my brain wakes me up before 7 am. WTF brain? Couldn’t get back to sleep no matter what I tried so here I am to talk at you. Just realized that I haven’t posted for ages. I’m a little tired of how time flies, wish it would slow down just a bit.
I worked until nearly 9 pm last night, long after the last warriors had fallen, the day before the midsummer holiday. Because I was on a training trip to Germany on Wednesday, I lost a day of getting things done that I really really needed to get done before I left, and so yesterday was my last chance to do it all, and of course, there were a million interruptions, phone calls to frantic colleagues, 2 meetings and various other disruptors. BUT! After everyone left for the day, I managed to get through EVERYTHING. I got all the enews put together and sent out for review. I got all the ads with deadlines before I get back put together and sent to the publications. I got the last couple of case study layouts that were nearly done finalized and uploaded and I even handled a pile of other miscellaneous jobs to boot.
One of the meetings was my annual salary discussion, in which there is no negotiation, merely information, but for once I was really happy with it. I got an excellent raise and praise from my boss and that felt really nice.
Today is midsummer eve, the longest day of the year. We start the long, slow slide into darkness after midnight, and I’m already sort of dreading it. The whole spring buildup of light is so awesome that facing the other half of the seasonal coin is hard to bear. Even though it’s so light in our bedroom (since we still have never gotten around to putting shades/blinds up) that it feels like bright daylight at 3 a.m., it’s worth the lack of sleep to get more sunshine. We’ve had an amazing amount of sunshine in the past couple of months, but today? on the holiday? Yeah, it’s windy and cloudy and cold with showers in the forecast. *sigh* Typical!
The trip to Germany was fast and went great. I think I have the hang of this whole training thing now, and feel much more comfortable being a presenter and spending an entire day talking, since it’s about things I know well and want to share. My audience of 7 was so attentive and appreciative and asked a lot of great questions, and gave me good feedback to take back. ALL of my training trips have gone well, but it’s nice to feel like I’m getting better at it, too. I wasn’t even there long enough to eat more than lunch in the office, but I did manage to snag a big German soft pretzel thanks to one of my colleagues. 🙂
Today marks 2 full weeks of being soda-free. I think I have had more water in the past 14 days than in the rest of my life. Haa! Not really. Surprisingly, the thing I was most worried about, caffeine-withdrawal headaches, hasn’t really manifested at all. I HAVE been waking up with headaches most mornings, but the first week I figured out it was the combination of the ceiling fan, dehydration and the facemask I was trying out to block out the light a bit more. Now I think it’s mostly dehydration caused by the fan. But I can’t sleep without the fan, so it’s a little catch-22.
The hardest thing about the no-soda life is the constant, never-ending, ENDLESS thinking about how good a Coke would taste. Does this craving ever go away?? I can’t tell after only 2 weeks if it’s making any difference weight-wise, but I’m going to stick with it. Even if I have a Coke at some point in the near future (and c’mon, I’m on VACATION NOW), I’m pretty sure I will be able to keep it to the very infrequent instead of immediately slipping back into full-time dependency. But considering that since I don’t drink alcohol, coffee, tea, milk or now, soda, my liquid intake options are drastically reduced: water. Water and juice. But mostly water, since I know juice is full of sugar, too and if I just switch to it, that totally defeats the purpose of going off soda.
The second hardest thing is that I want to drink my water (and occasional juice) ICE-COLD, just like I did my Cokes. It’s fine when I’m at home and can fill my glass with ice cubes and cold water from the fridge, but elsewhere it’s not so easy here in Europe, where ice is scarce.
And finally, our trip to England is planned, hurrah! Commencing radio/blog/vacation silence until further notice.