Life is a combination of magic and pasta.

Emily found out why my boss was arrested. There's no way it's not going to be on the news.

What a way to find out your boss is a FUCKING CREEPER. I got hold of Elaine and yesterday he was over at Marine Sciences. This is from the RUTGERS arrest record.


EDIT: CREEPER CONFIRMED. So much anger. SO MUCH https://www.njoag.gov/dean-of-research-school-of-environmental-and-biological-sciences-at-rutgers-university-arrested-for-invasion-of-privacy/

I swear that making the Sound of Music reference is what sold this INSANE outfit (it came in a thrifted "vintage" box though it's not vintage but it is some low level designer). People were amused and liked it and then someone BOUGHT it just now!!!



The average cost of goods for that box was $3.70 so after depop's fees, I made exactly $50. Amazing. LOLLLL

By the time I get done backreading, I've lost track of what I was going to say to support or commiserate or relate. So sending love and hugs, express route style. Saying that I've bitten off more than I can chew is putting it mildly but trying to dig myself out financially and right now the only way to do that is keep chugging forward.

I was SO irritated on a work zoom today and it pushed me a little more (after doing screaming rants around the thankfully empty house) to keep going with the various ventures. Today we got a huge box of plus size thrifted clothing and of the 40 items, only two were completely rejected. I still am learning the reselling game and how to take photos and what to say (kind of ashamed of using AI for it but when I hit my stride, I'll do so far less). Since I needed to go to the grocery, I rolled by the Goodwill and found four things that according to research, I should do well on. Evidently they're getting rid of the different color days with discounts so that source will be a little more challenging. They will still be doing the reward system (I think it's $5 in credit when you spend $100?) and hopefully the senior discounts.

Anyone having any flashbacks to this little gem I found?
https://www.depop.com/products/di9esue-true-vintage-1980s-bgb-ltd-2a4e

With my discounts, all four items cost me $10.50 (the other three being an indian style dress, a madewell velvet top and a "skater" dress that I thought would be conservative clothing for Mercari but AI said to target it toward the kiddies on Depop). If I sell that vintage 80s dress for anywhere close to the posting price, even after fees, I'll have profit already even before selling the other items.

Now just to all the other things I've burdened myself with. lol

Got the lipid results and my statin-loving doctor didn't put me on statins! Just recommended good diet and more exercise to get that LDL even lower.


Guess feeling like hell for a couple of days after the shot is worth it? Hopefully this week is a little better than the last couple

From the weigh in at the doctor's last week, I evidently lost 20 pounds since the last appointment. The lab numbers are decent, though looks like there's more work to go. A1c went from 7.1 (diabetic) back down to 6.1 (pre-diabetic). For some reason, Labcorp forgot to run the lipid panel so I have a new script and will get re-stabbed for that on Monday morning.

I do seem to be struggling with the 7.5mg dosage since I have the same side effects this week as last week - nausea, headache, fatigue and this week I also have a mild ache in a spot in my abdomen. Thankfully the latter is slowly going away but better not be the pancreas. That would suck to have to go down or discontinue when it's helping.

Anyway, I've picked up a shopping habit lately which I need to get under control. Mainly press on nails (did at least discover how to get them for FAR cheaper than mainstream brands), purses, beads/beaded bracelets and dresses. Thankfully I've discovered thrifting so the amount spent is far less than it could be. Certainly less than Emily's Lego habit lol

I have sent a few items of clothing in to ThredUp which five items have already sold. It's not as lucrative as someplace like Depop/Mercari/Poshmark but I haven't dipped a toe into reselling there. Yet. That's one thing I'm pondering is online selling. Part of what I'm going to try out during the townwide garage sale this year is making curated mystery boxes to sell. One will have a "self care" theme (face masks, some of the fun press on nails, hand cream, etc.) and the other a "Bookish without a book" theme (beaded pens, small journals, bookmarks, etc.). Those things are HUGE on social media right now so I thought why not. If they don't sell in real life or even if they do, I may try etsy. I figure along with the YouTube channel, I should come up with more side gigs that when I could potentially retire from Rutgers late next year, I can either do side gigs full time or get a non-Rutgers admin job and do those to keep the income flowing.

Today we went to Container Store since I need something better to store my earrings than the plastic bins I've been using for years. Since they're merging with the former Bed, Bath and Beyond, right now they're reducing inventory with discounts. The discounts aren't huge yet so I stuck with my original intended purchase and that's what I'll be sorting through this evening.

I knew the store didn't open until 10am and it was only 9:40 when we were getting into the area so we detoured to a Goodwill Store that was on the way. I'm not a big thrifter but for my fake boutique roleplay for the YT channel, it's been paying off to have an engaging looking background. So we have been putting fake flowers and such and I needed some bigger vases. The sign in the front said that yellow price tags made things 50% off so we kept an eye out for those. We found two nice size vases, a pair of fabulous sparkly heels which will look amazing in the background of the fake "shop" and also a JCrew suit dress in near perfect condition.

The entire haul totaled $12. Nice. The reason for purchasing a size 2 dress is I'm going to send it in the bag with my other stack of clothing to be thrifted to ThredUp. I'm curious to see if the name brand makes me more than I paid for it which was $3.50.

If online thrifting becomes a thing, we'll follow the sales at Goodwill and other good thrift stores and Emily will have to come along because she knows ALL the good fashion brands. I only really know the big names. Oh and once I've filmed with the sparkly heels (on the shelf, I'd break an ankle), I'll either try to sell them at the garage sale or will sell online.

So before I get into the work drama (like most places, never ending so I try to keep it to the highlights nowadays), GP appointment was ok, my BP was up but I was feeling crappy from the weather, from it being "shot night" the night before and well, life. But I've lost 15 pounds over the last three months and we'll see when I get my blood tests on Monday morning what the verdict is there when it comes to statin-land.

Anyhoo, the newest work nonsense. I'll only make a brief mention here of someone that worked with us before that left with shit former Bosslady and got a two step upgrade yet interviewed for the two step downgrade for that Lindsay girl's replacement. She's not likely to get the job since it's clear that it's not what she wants to do but Elaine and I are confused as to why Josh thinks she earned the "consideration" to have a second interview. That may or may not be relevant in a future post so noting it here. Though I'll also note when Josh mentioned it to me that why would we owe this person ANY consideration? Sure, we all like her but she made it clear in the first interview that either she didn't read the job description or didn't care. But anyway.

Next up, I was doing my job of letting a chair and faculty member know about an opportunity for a good multistate project and copied Josh. Josh responded separately to me with this "Thank you so much for your continued support of our faculty.  So great to see the connections you are making and the enthusiastic response!"

Whatever. Shut up. I didn't respond and if I did, it would be "You're welcome" not "Thank you for the compliment" since there isn't shit that I'm thanking YOU for, BUD. He's lucky I didn't respond with "Yeah, I'm awesome, where's my fucking promotion? Yeah, I thought so." You'd think I was being unappreciative to have compliments from my boss but it put up red flags for me and I wasn't sure why...until Wednesday when an email went out from the head of the Business/Budget/HR office that Kathleen, the person upstairs TWO pay grades higher than me that I do the equivalent of her job without the pay or the staff (in the research rather than extension office she's in) got a fucking PROMOTION and will be the new DIRECTOR of the HR office. Aw HELL NAW. I'm sorry but she was NOT the pick. Also, she's the one that flounced on me when I made the small request that if the funding application for my stuff came out while I was out after surgery if she could put them in for us.

I find it incredibly telling that NO ONE has done a "congratulations" response to that email that was sent out to everyone on our campus. This is highly unusual since when these sorts of announcements go out, we all get bombarded with tons of reply-all responses from people and yep, not one single person has done this in the two days since this announcement was sent.

I'm rather sure that Josh knew that her promotion would piss me off, and it has. Evidently according to Elaine, he's supposedly back to advocating to me to the leadership that my promotion needs to go through. Yeah, fucking whatever. Let me know when it does. In the meantime, I'm biding my time until another opportunity knocks or my 25 years for full retirement hits in fall 2027. Until then, piss off and I'll continue to act my wage.

The cardiologist didn't have any sort of grave diagnosis, but since my ECGs come out with a small issue and I did technically "fail" the nuclear scan (not by any leaps and bounds, thankfully), he wants do double check to make sure things are good and what course to take be it meds or minor procedures.

I have a carotid artery doppler scan next Thursday and then he wants to schedule a heart CT but since the latter requires a creatinine blood test before, since I'm seeing my GP for my regular follow up also next Thursday, we'll bundle the blood tests together and I'll schedule the CT after that.

Coincidentally, my GP, cardiologist AND University Radiology are all in the same small building together so it's at least convenient. I could also technically go to the Labcorp in the building next door for a whole one stop shopping experience but that location truly sucks with crowds and long lines even if you make an appointment so I'll just schedule the blood tests at the nearby Labcorp in Walgreens.

Mom had to have surgery on her carotid arteries which made her neck look weird but she was also a smoker for many years. I did get some of that secondhand as a kid but hopefully it didn't wonk things up TOO much.

He didn't have an answer about whether I actually have that bicuspid instead of tricuspid valve but the CT may answer that. I also wanted to know since I found it said if you do, you should let siblings know so they can get checked. As much as they annoy me, I certainly would warn them to get checked if I turn out to be genetically defective and all.

Between beaded bracelets, press on nails (that I can't wear until after my heart tests later this week, long story lol), skin care and even a little makeup, it's odd. Almost girly girl? Welp, ok.

Yesterday we saw signs around for an estate sale on the north side of town - the fancier side - and decided to go check it out for potential props for the channel and such. One thing we had our eye on was a black lacquered bar cabinet that was $175 and decided we'd go back today since it was supposed to be the 50% off day.

I did find some colorful costume jewelry and a couple of fans that I thought could be fun for some characters or just finding something to wear them around that's different. Oh and I almost forgot, I also got a three foot tall sturdy small metal shelving thing. Today when we went back, the cabinet was still there but suddenly priced at $300. Nah. Not like we'd want to try to heave it into Emily's Subaru for just about what they were already selling it for the day before. I did find a couple more necklaces and a couple pairs of earrings that looked fun. In total for both days I spent $40 on everything. Here's the jewelry and fan haul:

And the shelf I almost forgot about


Most things had that mild "old house with a whiff of a little possible cigarette smoke" but I soaked the jewelry in soapy water a couple of times and the smell was negated and I hand washed the fans. The fans still had a tiny bit of smell after drying so I spritzed some nice perfume on them and let them air out some more and they smell nice.

It was fun since I'd never been to an estate sale before.

Kinda like the new cardiologist. Even if he does want to put me on statins...don't waaaaaana. Though he's going to hold off until I see my GP (who happens to be upstairs from his office) in June since she'll order the regular blood tests to see how things are going. These will be the first tests after starting Mounjaro so fingers crossed.

My BP was normal in both arms which stunned me since I was kind of a nervous wreck. We did and ECG and looks like he's going to have me do more tests - a transthoracic echocardiogram and a nuclear stress test at the end of the month. The latter will likely be without exercise since I have my wobbly-ass knees.

The reasoning is the ECG did show left ventricular hypertrophy. I couldn't remember when I had a previous one which DUH, it was before the surgery. I found that and it showed that it was just borderline whereas it's more obvious in the one today. Greeeeeat.

I don't have any particularly obvious symptoms that I know of aside from the fact that I know my sleep sucks. So I'm going to have to get that stupid sleep study done after all. If I can do the play at home version, to assure that I'll get enough sleep for an actual diagnosis, I'll hit Ye Olde Recliner. Otherwise my achy shoulders and back will wake me up like usual and throw things off. I will have to say that I've noticed a small improvement in less needed trips to the bathroom through the night. A win is a win.

I can't post the picture of last night's wedding shower since it was a closed hijabi-friendly event and they asked not to post on social media. But it was really cute. Emily drove since it took an hour and a half to get there and I get nervous about highways. It took an hour to get back and I know Emily didn't like driving at night. The wedding on Saturday is a different location but about the same distance. Hopefully a Saturday won't have the rush hour crunch and it also starts at 1pm and we don't intend to stay for much of the reception since it will be crowded.

There wasn't a lot that Emily could eat at the shower and there wasn't a lot that I SHOULD have eaten. I didn't overeat but having coffee in the evening, oily pasta salad, tuna salad, bits of cheese, a small spanakopita and part of a mini pudding took its toll when I got home even though I didn't finish things. I was ill all night. Guess while the 5mg of Mounjaro doesn't shut off the food noise, it does punish you for not eating properly. Noted. I need to use up vacation days this and next month as not to use them so I took today off and took Monday off for the new cardiologist.