Chillin with Charlie

4-7-16

It has been some tiring last couple days!

I am still struggling a bit with this new schedule. My mind and body still gravitate towards an early wake up time. I was waking up at 3, excited that I had another 45 minutes ahead of me. The problem is, when you add another 45 minutes to that total, my mind is confused. I have dreams of waking up too late or I just can’t seem to settle despite the gobs of time I have. I end up finally falling asleep 10 minutes before the alarm, which then makes me groggy. Not ideal over all.

I have been good, though. Every morning this week, including yesterday, I managed to rock the Wii. I start with a couple yoga moves to stretch out and wake up. Then the basic step program seems to work well since it has a 20 minute option which is a perfect amount of easy in terms of thinking and yet still I am able to raise my heart rate and really feel like I am doing something. Plus, it is a full body work out what with steps and me swinging my arms a lot. My whole body is sore, which I take as a victory. Yesterday I changed it up a bit and did some boxing along with some hula hooping. I still did steps, but only 10 minutes since I did the other things. My target is doing about 20 to 25 minutes each morning, which is a good amount for starting off. My hopes for next week is to do a little bit while the boys do their homework, too. Even if it is just little things, like yoga stretches, I think it will be good for me.

Tuesday evening I went out with Alyssa and Sarah. It has been 9 months since we did this, which is really sad when you think about it. We went over to the Olive Garden by the Carson Mall. It was a fantastic evening. I didn’t mind staying later than normal knowing that I didn’t have to get up quite as early. Alyssa also had a lot to talk about what with her mom having passed away a couple months ago. Plus, her daughter was getting a foot cast on the same day Dax got his cast off. I felt bad as there was a fair amount of kid talk and Sarah didn’t seem as interested, but we also ahd time to talk about other things, so that was nice. We really need to figure out how to do this more often, but life gets busy.

Wednesday took us to the LA Zoo. The sloth exhibit was one of the first things you see when you go in since it is near the nursery and they call it the children’s section. Charlie the sloth was actually awake and moving a bit. He yawned and looked around a fair amount, which delighted Bobby to no end. We hung out at the enclosure for about 10 minutes, with Charlie active that whole time. He then curled up to take a nap, which is how he was still like a couple hours later when we said goodbye to him as we left. Spike said it was the greatest thing ever. He now wants to see a three toed sloth (Charlie is only a 2 toed) so I need to look up to see if the San Diego Zoo has one.

The rest of the zoo was a lot of fun. It was quite warm there, so I was thankful for the amount of trees that had grown in providing lots of shade. The highlight (aside from Charlie) was the chimpanzees who were having some kind of crazy dispute with one of the males in the enclosure. The chimps tend to have pretty large crowds as they run around and are incredibly active. Yesterday was no exception, especially when they were scaling the palm trees in the enclosure and screaming at each other. It was like watching some bad reality show. They yelled, they chased, they were dramatic. And of course, the topper was when one pooped off of the rocks which resulted in not only my own boys laughing hysterically, but the entire crowd which consisted of several field trip groups. It was fantastic! It was also as if the chimps were only paid to be on for like 15 minutes at a time since the “show” seemed to only last a bit before they all shuffled over to the area that wasn’t by the seats for watching. I gotta say, too, I wasn’t feeling real confident about the glass since one was boarded up with wood and you could see why; the glass had been cracked all over most likely from chimps pounding on the glass. Yeah, not a warm and fuzzy moment.

When we got home, we ended up watching the Force Awakens (Dax actually played FIFA on the PS4) which was nice. I was pretty spent from all day in the sun along with the workout sore. I even was able to go to bed pretty early since Ken and Dax went to Ken’s soccer and Bobby said he just wanted to go to bed. He had a headache, which I know was because he didn’t seem to want to eat much of the day and he was most likely dehydrated and tired. I think he was fine, but it was probably good for both of us to be able to call it a night so early. I was also impressed that he turned out playing his games to take care of himself, which is an amazing sign of maturity.

Now I am in the midst of dealing with the drama that is work. Trusty is just such an idiot and he doesn’t understand how to use Excel, SAP or even proper English at times. Unfortunately, this trickles down to members of the department who then want my help in some creative accounting to show that goals were actually met if you pull out certain figures that were beyond a rep’s scope of control. I feel good when I can help them, but I hate it even more when I then have to explain my numbers to him since he doesn’t understand. It is not a fun situation. At least I have practice to look forward to tonight since that tends to be fun. And it’s Thursday, which means tomorrow is Friday and hopefully it will all speed by.