I'm bored. Every year I wonder why I come in this week, and every year I remember that its because my boss takes this week off so I can't. Sigh.
None of our approving partners are here, a lot of staff is out of the office, and it is tediously boring. I originally asked to leave at noon tomorrow, but emailed my supervisor on Monday to ask about working from home that morning instead. She has not replied, which is a bit frustrating because at any other time (including on vacation) she still checks her email at least once a day. I'm not sure if I will just suck it up and come in tomorrow for my 3.5 hours or if I'll go to the CFO and ask. I *really* did not want to be here tomorrow!
Brought lunch today (sandwich and goldfish crackers because I'm 12), but right now I'm feeling like I will need to escape the office for a bit. I can't believe it's not even noon. :o
Christmas was great! My celebration with BF and J was lovely and my trip home was great. I got a legitimate white Christmas there as 7-8 inches of snow fell on Christmas Eve. It was gorgeous! My travels only included a couple of delays on the way out that landed me in Omaha about 2 hours late, which was better than a lot of people had to deal with.
Now the focus has shifted to NY's Eve, which we will be celebrating in a very low key way. We plan to pick a super casual dinner spot (seriously, like Buffalo Wild Wings or something, LOL) and then come home for drinks, football, Kathy Griffin & Anderson Cooper and a midnight kiss. :-) Sunday is our 2 year anniversary so we're also planning to go out to dinner that night, though we've not finalized our destination.
I do love this time of year and a little bit of me dreads it ending after this weekend. I love how our home looks with all of the Christmas lights and decorations and I love the general spirit of everything. I'm looking forward to the arrival of 2016 and excited about what it may bring!
I hope everyone had a great holiday and I wish everyone a very happy New Year!
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Monday, December 21, 2015
Christmas is coming!
So it's Monday of Christmas week and I'm here at work. Traffic was lighter, my bus was emptier, and the office is definitely quieter. I'm an hour and a half into my work day and already looking forward to wrapping it up. I've got some things to take care of before I go, but unfortunately our database is broken in a way that significantly impedes my ability to do my job. Hoping it gets resolved this morning because I always like to get everything off my desk before I go out of the office. I do finally have a back-up, but I like to minimize what she has to deal with in my absence!
I had a nice weekend. It was productive! We finished up BF's Christmas shopping, which included a trip to Victoria's Secret for perfume for his 15 year old daughter. I got to pick out the scent, which also meant avoiding any of them that had racy names. :-p We settled on one called Fabulous, which was acceptable. I got the rest of my presents wrapped Saturday afternoon to the sound of some fun Christmas music, and our tree is now resplendent with lots of presents for everyone.
We decided on a Christmas cookie to bake Tuesday (Chocolate peppermint pinwheels) and I made a formal request that we do a viewing of "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" that same evening. We got some more nice Christmas cards in the mail, which I love. :-) I'm excited that I can finally say that my holiday starts tomorrow! I will be going to breakfast with my friend, A, wherein I will get to present her with her gift, which I'm excited about. It's so true that as you get older, the real gift is in giving as opposed to receiving. I'm so happy about the gifts I found for people this year. :-)
BF picked J up this morning and they are now headed to go see the Star Wars movie. I'm glad they have something fun to do today. :-) Tonight we are just doing crockpot buffalo chicken sandwiches for dinner. I'm hoping to get to the gym or at least do a home workout this evening since we don't have anything planned. I also intend to get my packing list for my trip put together today. Hopefully I can get most of my stuff together tonight so that I don't have to worry about much tomorrow evening.
I finished the first season of "Master of None" this weekend. Wow, did I love that show. First of all, it's full of great music. Beyond that, it really touches on so many things that feel so real, including how modern technology has changed dating, and the reality of how much pressure is added to dating in your thirties. The finale was on point and really honed in on a lot of things I think singletons in their 30s can identify with. I'm also just really proud of myself for finishing a season of something for once. Takes me ages and happens rarely! I'm still only 6 episodes into the third season of House of Cards. ;-) I'm so behind!
Got my holiday nails done this weekend (red and silver alternating), am wearing a red sweater with red Christmas bulb earrings and am generally just ready to get this holiday started! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday with your friends and families!
I had a nice weekend. It was productive! We finished up BF's Christmas shopping, which included a trip to Victoria's Secret for perfume for his 15 year old daughter. I got to pick out the scent, which also meant avoiding any of them that had racy names. :-p We settled on one called Fabulous, which was acceptable. I got the rest of my presents wrapped Saturday afternoon to the sound of some fun Christmas music, and our tree is now resplendent with lots of presents for everyone.
We decided on a Christmas cookie to bake Tuesday (Chocolate peppermint pinwheels) and I made a formal request that we do a viewing of "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" that same evening. We got some more nice Christmas cards in the mail, which I love. :-) I'm excited that I can finally say that my holiday starts tomorrow! I will be going to breakfast with my friend, A, wherein I will get to present her with her gift, which I'm excited about. It's so true that as you get older, the real gift is in giving as opposed to receiving. I'm so happy about the gifts I found for people this year. :-)
BF picked J up this morning and they are now headed to go see the Star Wars movie. I'm glad they have something fun to do today. :-) Tonight we are just doing crockpot buffalo chicken sandwiches for dinner. I'm hoping to get to the gym or at least do a home workout this evening since we don't have anything planned. I also intend to get my packing list for my trip put together today. Hopefully I can get most of my stuff together tonight so that I don't have to worry about much tomorrow evening.
I finished the first season of "Master of None" this weekend. Wow, did I love that show. First of all, it's full of great music. Beyond that, it really touches on so many things that feel so real, including how modern technology has changed dating, and the reality of how much pressure is added to dating in your thirties. The finale was on point and really honed in on a lot of things I think singletons in their 30s can identify with. I'm also just really proud of myself for finishing a season of something for once. Takes me ages and happens rarely! I'm still only 6 episodes into the third season of House of Cards. ;-) I'm so behind!
Got my holiday nails done this weekend (red and silver alternating), am wearing a red sweater with red Christmas bulb earrings and am generally just ready to get this holiday started! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday with your friends and families!
Monday, December 14, 2015
The Week Before Christmas
So Christmas is next week. Craziness! I am pretty proud of myself because I finished my shopping this weekend. I will be getting a few more packages this week as the result of online shopping, but I hope to get those wrapped this weekend. Cheers for adulting and getting this all done in a timely fashion. :-)
I'm really excited for the looming holiday. Admittedly, it's been a bit more challenging to get in the Christmas spirit since it's been 70 degrees outside! This weather made me realize that I'm definitely a person who needs to live where there are seasons, in particular for the holidays. Maybe one day that will change, but for now, I'm torn between loving that I can go outside without a coat in mid-December and feeling jealous of the snow my Colorado relatives got this weekend! Conundrum.
My holiday party was last week. It was a success! We ate, we had drinks, I danced with my friends and co-workers. :-) I had a fabulous time and I think BF enjoyed it, too. I really do love getting dressed up occasionally and feeling sparkly and fun. My Etsy purchased holiday party earrings were gorgeous, too! The second, smaller pair were a freebie thrown in by the seller, which was a lovely surprise.
We stayed at a hotel in Alexandria post-party, so it was a much shorter trip back than it would have been otherwise. Friday at work was a bit painful, not because I was hungover (because I wasn't, cheers!), but because I was exhausted and holiday parties on Thursdays are mean. ;-) I made it through, though, and was so glad for the weekend.
Weekend was nice. Aside from wrapping up my shopping, we also made a couple of batches of Christmas cookies with J with some cheesy Christmas movie on in the background. J left Saturday evening and we went out to dinner at a new to us Mexican place, which was fun! Sunday was gym and football, as it should be. ;-)
I woke up dreading this work week, to be quite honest. In spite of the weather, I'm definitely getting into holiday mode and everything else feels like a distraction. I have a couple of small things going on this week (ie tutoring through my work partnership tomorrow, trainer tomorrow night, lunch with a visiting friend Wednesday, a building breakfast at work Thursday), but I fear that it will be a tedious week at work. We're also supposed to have our reviews this week and maybe/possibly/hopefully get our raise & bonus memos this week. My supervisor is behind the curve and hadn't done our reviews yet as of Friday, but hopefully she got them done this weekend since they were due last week! She's out Friday, so I guess our reviews should be before then.
This weekend will be up for grabs. We don't have J at all, so we're planning on another date night. I think we'll go to dinner and then go see the new Tina Fey/Amy Poehler movie, Sisters. Beyond that, BF has a couple small gifts to get for J, so we'll get that taken care of. After that, it's Christmas week, which means...BF picking up J Monday morning, breakfast with my friend A Tuesday morning, quality time with BF and J Tuesday afternoon and evening and flying out to Omaha Wednesday morning. I feel like once we get to the weekend everything is going to be a whirlwind.
Crossing fingers for a fast work week.... :-)
I'm really excited for the looming holiday. Admittedly, it's been a bit more challenging to get in the Christmas spirit since it's been 70 degrees outside! This weather made me realize that I'm definitely a person who needs to live where there are seasons, in particular for the holidays. Maybe one day that will change, but for now, I'm torn between loving that I can go outside without a coat in mid-December and feeling jealous of the snow my Colorado relatives got this weekend! Conundrum.
My holiday party was last week. It was a success! We ate, we had drinks, I danced with my friends and co-workers. :-) I had a fabulous time and I think BF enjoyed it, too. I really do love getting dressed up occasionally and feeling sparkly and fun. My Etsy purchased holiday party earrings were gorgeous, too! The second, smaller pair were a freebie thrown in by the seller, which was a lovely surprise.
We stayed at a hotel in Alexandria post-party, so it was a much shorter trip back than it would have been otherwise. Friday at work was a bit painful, not because I was hungover (because I wasn't, cheers!), but because I was exhausted and holiday parties on Thursdays are mean. ;-) I made it through, though, and was so glad for the weekend.
Weekend was nice. Aside from wrapping up my shopping, we also made a couple of batches of Christmas cookies with J with some cheesy Christmas movie on in the background. J left Saturday evening and we went out to dinner at a new to us Mexican place, which was fun! Sunday was gym and football, as it should be. ;-)
I woke up dreading this work week, to be quite honest. In spite of the weather, I'm definitely getting into holiday mode and everything else feels like a distraction. I have a couple of small things going on this week (ie tutoring through my work partnership tomorrow, trainer tomorrow night, lunch with a visiting friend Wednesday, a building breakfast at work Thursday), but I fear that it will be a tedious week at work. We're also supposed to have our reviews this week and maybe/possibly/hopefully get our raise & bonus memos this week. My supervisor is behind the curve and hadn't done our reviews yet as of Friday, but hopefully she got them done this weekend since they were due last week! She's out Friday, so I guess our reviews should be before then.
This weekend will be up for grabs. We don't have J at all, so we're planning on another date night. I think we'll go to dinner and then go see the new Tina Fey/Amy Poehler movie, Sisters. Beyond that, BF has a couple small gifts to get for J, so we'll get that taken care of. After that, it's Christmas week, which means...BF picking up J Monday morning, breakfast with my friend A Tuesday morning, quality time with BF and J Tuesday afternoon and evening and flying out to Omaha Wednesday morning. I feel like once we get to the weekend everything is going to be a whirlwind.
Crossing fingers for a fast work week.... :-)
Monday, December 7, 2015
Christmastime is Here!
I cannot believe it's a week into December already! The end of the year always seems to go like this, though. You make it to Thanksgiving and then time just flies through the holidays. I'm currently listening to some Christmas music (Nebraska Theater Caravan's "A Christmas Carol"), as it reminds me of seeing this particular production time and time again during my childhood in Omaha. :-) Oh, how I loved the man that played Scrooge for years upon years!
Christmas preparation is fully in swing around here. I've actually wholly impressed myself by having all gifts planned out and a good portion of them bought. I've got an Amazon cart waiting for my next paycheck, just to spread the love around, ha, and this weekend I'll be going out to wrap up my shopping. I've managed to do pretty much everything online so far, but for clothes I prefer to buy in person. I'm getting BF a work shirt and a casual shirt as part of his gifts as well as a shirt each for my mom and stepdad. Beyond that I just need to pick up a couple of Christmas cards and after that...I think I will be done! I used to be such a last minute shopper, but I've found that preparing and shopping early just makes the holiday season a lot easier.
I'm still deciding if I want to do Christmas cards. I used to do them religiously, but then I got off track somewhere. I'm considering it, but I want to do a more limited list. However, I think that's where I get thrown off each year because the list grows longer than I'd hoped. We'll see!
This weekend was nice. We didn't do very much, but J and I did invest a small patch of time into building and decorating a gingerbread house kit. It was fun and is cute enough, but we definitely did not miss our calling with this kind of stuff. ;-)
We will have J for only a half weekend this coming weekend, which would normally be fine. However, her mom asked yesterday to keep her for the following weekend since she'll be staying with us for the week of Christmas. Kind of a bummer since we were planning a cookie baking, holiday movie watching event that weekend, but I guess we'll have to re-evaluate our schedule. I think we'll try to bake some cookies this coming half weekend, as we have her until 6 on Saturday, and maybe watch a Christmas movie on Friday night or Saturday during the cookies. We'll make it work. :-)
Currently I have scheduled off December 23 and 24, with December 25 being the holiday. However, I decided this morning to request Tuesday, December 22nd as well. It would be nice to have an extra day to hang out with BF & J, and also to have more time to pack and get ready for my trip the next day. Yes, it seems a bit silly to just work Monday, and I thought about asking for that as well, but I know that it's easier for my supervisor to stomach if I'm there to get everything in order on Monday. Plus, I also asked about leaving at noon on New Year's Eve since my firm doesn't close early on that day, and I didn't want to be asking for too much all at once. ;-) Crossing fingers this request goes through!
So this weekend I started watching "Master of None" on Netflix. I am loving Aziz Ansari and I can't wait to watch more! I'm four episodes into the ten episode season. We also watched the first 2 episodes of "Jessica Jones" on Netflix, and I'm really enjoying that one as well! I've always liked Krysten Ritter, so that was the first draw for me, but she's playing a totally different type of character than I'm used to with her. It's another one I'm looking forward to getting more into!
Right now I'm definitely in that frame of mind where I'm just excited about the holidays and work seems like an inconvenience. :-p This Thursday night is my firm holiday party and I'm really looking forward to making up for last year when I was coming down with the flu, unbeknownst to me. We have booked a hotel in Alexandria to crash in post-party to avoid having to drive all the way back to the house. I would have preferred staying at the party location in DC, but they took too long to send out the discounted rates and honestly, they're still pretty pricy for a place to sleep, even if it is right next door to the office. :-)
Anyway, I feel like the holiday party is the real start of the Christmas whirlwind. I'm excited to get dressed up, get my hair done and have a good time with my friends, coworkers and BF. I got some super cute new earrings from Etsy that I will debut that evening as well. I do have to work on the Friday after, but that day is historically pretty light around the office, so it's not too bad.
I guess I need to try to rein in the distractions and focus for a couple of more weeks! At least there will be fun things interspersed in there until Christmas to keep me entertained. Cheers to December and all of it's accompanying chaos! :-)
Christmas preparation is fully in swing around here. I've actually wholly impressed myself by having all gifts planned out and a good portion of them bought. I've got an Amazon cart waiting for my next paycheck, just to spread the love around, ha, and this weekend I'll be going out to wrap up my shopping. I've managed to do pretty much everything online so far, but for clothes I prefer to buy in person. I'm getting BF a work shirt and a casual shirt as part of his gifts as well as a shirt each for my mom and stepdad. Beyond that I just need to pick up a couple of Christmas cards and after that...I think I will be done! I used to be such a last minute shopper, but I've found that preparing and shopping early just makes the holiday season a lot easier.
I'm still deciding if I want to do Christmas cards. I used to do them religiously, but then I got off track somewhere. I'm considering it, but I want to do a more limited list. However, I think that's where I get thrown off each year because the list grows longer than I'd hoped. We'll see!
This weekend was nice. We didn't do very much, but J and I did invest a small patch of time into building and decorating a gingerbread house kit. It was fun and is cute enough, but we definitely did not miss our calling with this kind of stuff. ;-)
We will have J for only a half weekend this coming weekend, which would normally be fine. However, her mom asked yesterday to keep her for the following weekend since she'll be staying with us for the week of Christmas. Kind of a bummer since we were planning a cookie baking, holiday movie watching event that weekend, but I guess we'll have to re-evaluate our schedule. I think we'll try to bake some cookies this coming half weekend, as we have her until 6 on Saturday, and maybe watch a Christmas movie on Friday night or Saturday during the cookies. We'll make it work. :-)
Currently I have scheduled off December 23 and 24, with December 25 being the holiday. However, I decided this morning to request Tuesday, December 22nd as well. It would be nice to have an extra day to hang out with BF & J, and also to have more time to pack and get ready for my trip the next day. Yes, it seems a bit silly to just work Monday, and I thought about asking for that as well, but I know that it's easier for my supervisor to stomach if I'm there to get everything in order on Monday. Plus, I also asked about leaving at noon on New Year's Eve since my firm doesn't close early on that day, and I didn't want to be asking for too much all at once. ;-) Crossing fingers this request goes through!
So this weekend I started watching "Master of None" on Netflix. I am loving Aziz Ansari and I can't wait to watch more! I'm four episodes into the ten episode season. We also watched the first 2 episodes of "Jessica Jones" on Netflix, and I'm really enjoying that one as well! I've always liked Krysten Ritter, so that was the first draw for me, but she's playing a totally different type of character than I'm used to with her. It's another one I'm looking forward to getting more into!
Right now I'm definitely in that frame of mind where I'm just excited about the holidays and work seems like an inconvenience. :-p This Thursday night is my firm holiday party and I'm really looking forward to making up for last year when I was coming down with the flu, unbeknownst to me. We have booked a hotel in Alexandria to crash in post-party to avoid having to drive all the way back to the house. I would have preferred staying at the party location in DC, but they took too long to send out the discounted rates and honestly, they're still pretty pricy for a place to sleep, even if it is right next door to the office. :-)
Anyway, I feel like the holiday party is the real start of the Christmas whirlwind. I'm excited to get dressed up, get my hair done and have a good time with my friends, coworkers and BF. I got some super cute new earrings from Etsy that I will debut that evening as well. I do have to work on the Friday after, but that day is historically pretty light around the office, so it's not too bad.
I guess I need to try to rein in the distractions and focus for a couple of more weeks! At least there will be fun things interspersed in there until Christmas to keep me entertained. Cheers to December and all of it's accompanying chaos! :-)
Monday, November 9, 2015
Frost on the Window
In a very unwelcome turn of events, our nearly 80 degree weather on Saturday has now turned into a 30 degree morning with frost on the grass! Brr. I've really been enjoying the unseasonably warm weather, but I knew it was going to be short-lived. One of these days soon we're going to turn a corner into permanent cold weather for the season!
On the upside, this week marks the beginning of a handful of short work weeks for me. We're leaving for our road trip to Charleston at the crack of dawn on Friday and returning Monday afternoon. Thusly, I have a four day work week this week and a four day work week next week. I also will only have a half day on the 19th because I have a few appts. that morning and will be in late. The week after that is Thanksgiving, which means a three day work week!
While I'm dreading the car trip to Charleston, I'm looking forward to the escape from DC. We're going to see BF's family, which includes his mom, sister, brother in law, nephew, their two dogs and cat....and they all live in one house! It's a chaotic place to be, LOL. Hopefully the weather there will be nicer and we'll find something fun to do. We leave Monday morning, which we'll probably be quite ready for. ;-) We won't know until tomorrow if J is coming with us since it will entail missing two days of school. She's checking with her teachers to see if it is workable and will be letting us know.
Tonight I'm going to work out with a new to me trainer at my gym. I got a 6 session training package that results in one session a week. I'm hoping he can help me get back on track fitness wise. I'm looking forward to it regardless! I've done a lot better in the last week on eating much less sugar and making better overall choices. Weekend was more challenging, but I definitely did better than usual and those small lifestyle changes (ie turkey pepperoni vs. regular, whole grain sandwich thin vs. wheat bread) are the ones that stick!
I already have been planning ahead for our weekend trip by getting some snacks to bring with me. I can't account for meals there until I arrive, but I know that having healthy snacks on hand for both the drive and the stay is important for me! Hopefully I can make some decent choices for our meals there and get out for a walk or something in lieu of the gym.
I can't believe it is November, and that Thanksgiving is less than three weeks away and most significantly, that Christmas is shortly thereafter! I guess I need to start planning for Christmas gifts and all things related soon. Craziness.
Before I close out this post, I want to take note that I did have a nice weekend! It was a full J weekend, but we really didn't do anything of note! I caught up on some TV via DVR Saturday and Sunday morning, I went to the gym and we watched Michigan State v. Nebraska football Saturday night, which ended very controversially and left this Nebraska fan feeling a little torn and sad for my MSU fan boyfriend. Sunday we watched the Skins lose to the Pats (shocker) and I also managed to get to Kohls to use some Kohls cash and a coupon. Got a couple of clearance shirts and some black jeggings (god help me) LOL. I'd been needing some black pants that worked better with boots and these are actually perfect for my needs!
There's a new DSW opening up out by me (well, closer than all the other ones) next weekend, which I'm pretty excited about. I really would like to find some flat black booties at some point, but who knows when that will be. This is the time of year when things start getting really busy! Plus, must start setting aside money for Christmas gifts and Christmas party hair appointments and the like. Ha!
On the upside, this week marks the beginning of a handful of short work weeks for me. We're leaving for our road trip to Charleston at the crack of dawn on Friday and returning Monday afternoon. Thusly, I have a four day work week this week and a four day work week next week. I also will only have a half day on the 19th because I have a few appts. that morning and will be in late. The week after that is Thanksgiving, which means a three day work week!
While I'm dreading the car trip to Charleston, I'm looking forward to the escape from DC. We're going to see BF's family, which includes his mom, sister, brother in law, nephew, their two dogs and cat....and they all live in one house! It's a chaotic place to be, LOL. Hopefully the weather there will be nicer and we'll find something fun to do. We leave Monday morning, which we'll probably be quite ready for. ;-) We won't know until tomorrow if J is coming with us since it will entail missing two days of school. She's checking with her teachers to see if it is workable and will be letting us know.
Tonight I'm going to work out with a new to me trainer at my gym. I got a 6 session training package that results in one session a week. I'm hoping he can help me get back on track fitness wise. I'm looking forward to it regardless! I've done a lot better in the last week on eating much less sugar and making better overall choices. Weekend was more challenging, but I definitely did better than usual and those small lifestyle changes (ie turkey pepperoni vs. regular, whole grain sandwich thin vs. wheat bread) are the ones that stick!
I already have been planning ahead for our weekend trip by getting some snacks to bring with me. I can't account for meals there until I arrive, but I know that having healthy snacks on hand for both the drive and the stay is important for me! Hopefully I can make some decent choices for our meals there and get out for a walk or something in lieu of the gym.
I can't believe it is November, and that Thanksgiving is less than three weeks away and most significantly, that Christmas is shortly thereafter! I guess I need to start planning for Christmas gifts and all things related soon. Craziness.
Before I close out this post, I want to take note that I did have a nice weekend! It was a full J weekend, but we really didn't do anything of note! I caught up on some TV via DVR Saturday and Sunday morning, I went to the gym and we watched Michigan State v. Nebraska football Saturday night, which ended very controversially and left this Nebraska fan feeling a little torn and sad for my MSU fan boyfriend. Sunday we watched the Skins lose to the Pats (shocker) and I also managed to get to Kohls to use some Kohls cash and a coupon. Got a couple of clearance shirts and some black jeggings (god help me) LOL. I'd been needing some black pants that worked better with boots and these are actually perfect for my needs!
There's a new DSW opening up out by me (well, closer than all the other ones) next weekend, which I'm pretty excited about. I really would like to find some flat black booties at some point, but who knows when that will be. This is the time of year when things start getting really busy! Plus, must start setting aside money for Christmas gifts and Christmas party hair appointments and the like. Ha!
Monday, November 2, 2015
November Already?
Seriously, where did October go? I can't believe that this weekend marked the end of October and the return of Daylight Saving Time. The fact that it is now dark so crazy early in the evening again is a tough pill to swallow. It makes the days feel like they consist of work and then nothing else. Sigh. I do appreciate it being light out earlier in the morning, but I'm not sure the sacrifice is worth it.
November is also marking the beginning of a new effort on my part. I realized recently that my eating habits have gone from fairly lousy to incredibly terrible in recent months, and it's unacceptable. I eat entirely too much sugar on a daily basis, I snack too much, and I just generally make a lot of poor choices. The fact is that I'm not getting any younger, and I can't continue to eat like a 14 year old boy and not suffer the consequences.
My first step in reining things in was to download the My Fitness Pal Calorie Counter app to my phone. I hate the concept of tracking my food intake, but it's incredibly important that I'm held accountable for my choices. I'm hoping that just the knowledge that I need to track every item I eat or drink will make me opt for some better choices. It's hard to look at a garbage food day and not feel like a huge glutton when you can see the cold, hard numbers of what you're doing to yourself.
I'm specifically working to cut down my sugar drastically, to drink water more consistently, and to not overload on carbs quite the way I have been. I need to focus back on lean meats, nuts, fruits and veggies, and to make an attempt to eat whole grain products when I do indulge in bread products. I also want to be more conscious of my processed food intake.
It's a big task. It's overwhelming. I sat down and tried to calculate out the amount of calories I recall eating on Friday as well as the sugar intake. It was ATROCIOUS. :-o Looking at those numbers it was painfully clear why my pants have been fitting tighter, why my body is softer and squishier and flabbier. It also lends a strong insight into why I feel low on energy often times, and why my skin is crappy and everything else.
Sometimes the idea of working to live a healthy lifestyle is just so daunting. There are so many ideas out there about how to do it, and the calories vs. fat vs. carbs vs. sugar vs. anything else debates rage on. I just figure that moderation is key. I will never be successful in any lifestyle that completely outlaws any food/drink entirely. Yes, it may be easier for some folks to go cold turkey on things, but I am not interested in that route, at least not currently.
I've tracked my coffee and breakfast this morning and already chosen to half my breakfast based on the nutrition information I saw. I'm doing OK on my numbers for everything but sugar, which is already utilizing more than what I'd prefer of my daily recommended intake. It's tough! I'm also definitely planning on the gym tonight. I want to do 30 minutes of cardio and then 30 minutes of weights/strength training.
I am meeting with one of the trainers at my gym tomorrow for another consult. I'll get weighed, body fat assessment, measurements, all those awful things for someone who is brutally out of shape. I'm dreading it, but I know I need to see the numbers. I need to be held accountable for what I've done to my body in recent months. I'm also hoping to get some insight into putting together a realistic workout plan for someone with my long commute and short amount of week day free time.
The holiday season is looming. It's a really challenging time to try to straighten up one's eating habits, but honestly? There's always an excuse to be had. It's November 2nd. My holiday party is December 10. I'm using that as my first step goal!
I read an article about a study they did on kids and sugar. They cut down their sugar intake drastically and replaced the sugar with starch, calorie for calorie. They found that in 10 days, those kids had a reduction in blood pressure, triglycerides and bad cholesterol. TEN DAYS! They were eating basically the same amount of calories, just in a different form, and they had all these changes AND lost weight. That's crazy to me, and it really struck me personally. The last time I had a physical (nearly 2 years ago, not counting well woman visits and all that jazz), my Dr. told me my triglycerides were a bit high. I also have a family history of high blood pressure and I've had instances of high BP myself (but also have a history of white coat syndrome, ie Drs. office increases in BP!). So the idea that even a 10 day period of changing my habits could make even a small difference in my numbers is pretty incredible to me.
I'm due for another physical in the next month, and I'm planning to schedule it for at least two weeks out so that I can do what I can in the meantime, however small, to improve my situation before the bloodwork.
I'm really hoping I can make positive changes this time around. Between the trainer consult, the looming physical, the MyFitness Pal app, the holiday party motivation, my desire to fit my clothes better and for my skin to improve, among other things, I really want to do this! Wish me lots of luck, self-restraint and motivation!
November is also marking the beginning of a new effort on my part. I realized recently that my eating habits have gone from fairly lousy to incredibly terrible in recent months, and it's unacceptable. I eat entirely too much sugar on a daily basis, I snack too much, and I just generally make a lot of poor choices. The fact is that I'm not getting any younger, and I can't continue to eat like a 14 year old boy and not suffer the consequences.
My first step in reining things in was to download the My Fitness Pal Calorie Counter app to my phone. I hate the concept of tracking my food intake, but it's incredibly important that I'm held accountable for my choices. I'm hoping that just the knowledge that I need to track every item I eat or drink will make me opt for some better choices. It's hard to look at a garbage food day and not feel like a huge glutton when you can see the cold, hard numbers of what you're doing to yourself.
I'm specifically working to cut down my sugar drastically, to drink water more consistently, and to not overload on carbs quite the way I have been. I need to focus back on lean meats, nuts, fruits and veggies, and to make an attempt to eat whole grain products when I do indulge in bread products. I also want to be more conscious of my processed food intake.
It's a big task. It's overwhelming. I sat down and tried to calculate out the amount of calories I recall eating on Friday as well as the sugar intake. It was ATROCIOUS. :-o Looking at those numbers it was painfully clear why my pants have been fitting tighter, why my body is softer and squishier and flabbier. It also lends a strong insight into why I feel low on energy often times, and why my skin is crappy and everything else.
Sometimes the idea of working to live a healthy lifestyle is just so daunting. There are so many ideas out there about how to do it, and the calories vs. fat vs. carbs vs. sugar vs. anything else debates rage on. I just figure that moderation is key. I will never be successful in any lifestyle that completely outlaws any food/drink entirely. Yes, it may be easier for some folks to go cold turkey on things, but I am not interested in that route, at least not currently.
I've tracked my coffee and breakfast this morning and already chosen to half my breakfast based on the nutrition information I saw. I'm doing OK on my numbers for everything but sugar, which is already utilizing more than what I'd prefer of my daily recommended intake. It's tough! I'm also definitely planning on the gym tonight. I want to do 30 minutes of cardio and then 30 minutes of weights/strength training.
I am meeting with one of the trainers at my gym tomorrow for another consult. I'll get weighed, body fat assessment, measurements, all those awful things for someone who is brutally out of shape. I'm dreading it, but I know I need to see the numbers. I need to be held accountable for what I've done to my body in recent months. I'm also hoping to get some insight into putting together a realistic workout plan for someone with my long commute and short amount of week day free time.
The holiday season is looming. It's a really challenging time to try to straighten up one's eating habits, but honestly? There's always an excuse to be had. It's November 2nd. My holiday party is December 10. I'm using that as my first step goal!
I read an article about a study they did on kids and sugar. They cut down their sugar intake drastically and replaced the sugar with starch, calorie for calorie. They found that in 10 days, those kids had a reduction in blood pressure, triglycerides and bad cholesterol. TEN DAYS! They were eating basically the same amount of calories, just in a different form, and they had all these changes AND lost weight. That's crazy to me, and it really struck me personally. The last time I had a physical (nearly 2 years ago, not counting well woman visits and all that jazz), my Dr. told me my triglycerides were a bit high. I also have a family history of high blood pressure and I've had instances of high BP myself (but also have a history of white coat syndrome, ie Drs. office increases in BP!). So the idea that even a 10 day period of changing my habits could make even a small difference in my numbers is pretty incredible to me.
I'm due for another physical in the next month, and I'm planning to schedule it for at least two weeks out so that I can do what I can in the meantime, however small, to improve my situation before the bloodwork.
I'm really hoping I can make positive changes this time around. Between the trainer consult, the looming physical, the MyFitness Pal app, the holiday party motivation, my desire to fit my clothes better and for my skin to improve, among other things, I really want to do this! Wish me lots of luck, self-restraint and motivation!
Monday, October 26, 2015
Monday, you are not my friend
I really dislike Mondays! I wish I could just skip them and move on to Tuesdays each week. :-)
So we carved pumpkins this weekend and it was a good time. We roasted the seeds, and I have a small selection of them at work for a snack today. J did the cool wolf one on the left, BF did the goofy one in the middle (it has ears you can't see and that thing in its mouth is a tongue poking out) and mine is the uber traditional one on the right.
We watched a scary movie (The Conjuring) and I watched two more on my own (The Taking of Deborah Logan and The Canal). I'd already seen The Conjuring, but it was good enough for a second viewing with others who hadn't yet seen it! The other two were new to me and I actually really liked both! The Canal is an Irish movie from 2014 and it had a great ambiance to it. It's about a man who suspects his wife of cheating right at the same time he discovers that his home has a rather grisly history and may be haunted. It was very well made and built suspense quite successfully.
The Taking of Deborah Logan is a combination found footage/documentary type movie, though it's all fiction. It's about a woman doing her thesis on Alzheimer's, and as part of that she is doing a documentary involving a woman with early onset Alzheimer's. As the days progress, weird things and behavior start occurring that can't be attributed to her illness, and it starts to become apparent that something scary is going on!
They were both really good movies, which is not too surprising since I found them on lists like "The Best Scary Movies You Aren't Watching" and things like that. I watched those two on my own because not BF & J don't have the same obsession with all things scary like I do! I have several more I'd like to get through this Halloween week. They include:
The House of the Devil
The Sacrament
The Den
The Houses October Built
I'd also like to squeeze in Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project, maybe A Nightmare on Elm Street. But that may be overreaching, especially because I also want to watch Halloween on Halloween. :-) I still want to do some scary book reading, but honestly...it may not happen. Too much to watch, too much to do!
Managed to get my Halloween manicure done at home as well yesterday afternoon. J & I did our nails together and she actually did the reverse of what I did. I did all black save for two orange nails on each hand and she did all orange with black accent nails. Hopefully they will survive the week as long as I do my trick of a new topcoat everyday. Good times!
Ran out to Target briefly and got some orange and black Halloween socks and a purple tank to go underneath a cute black and white shirt I'm wearing Friday. We have our annual Halloween Hullaballoo that afternoon, which is basically when everyone's kids come to the office to trick or treat and then have cookies and pizza! It's a really fun tradition and I wanted to dress as festively as I could without donning an actual costume. J reminded me that purple is also a Halloween color, which saved me from having to get an orange cami that would have been totally unflattering. ;-)
In non-Halloween news, I got my 2016 planner in the mail Friday. I'm such a nerd because this is super exciting to me. :-) I do use Google Calendar for pretty much everything appointment and event-wise, but I've kept up the paper planner because I tend to use it differently. It's basically a diary of everything I do, so it's a lot more detailed than what's on Google. I can't tell you how many times I've referenced it for random reasons! So it still serves its purpose and I love getting the new one each year.
They sent an email out today updating everyone on forthcoming upgrades and changes for our Firm in the remainder of 2015. One of them is something I am going to LOATHE....they are blocking all personal email websites and all social media. I know many employers have done this for ages, and maybe we've been lucky to have the access we have for this long, but it's still a blow. They claim it's to comply with client's increasingly stringent security requirements, but who knows. Supposedly this will be implemented by year's end. They also said that they will be adding internet browsing safeguards and email content monitoring. Awesome. Cheers for that coming down the pike. I just hope that none of these changes affect our ability to check these same sites using our mobile devices when on work wi-fi. Guess that remains to be seen!
So tomorrow at work is a random Jeans Day. Granted, it had strings attached in the sense that you had to make a charitable donation in order to wear jeans, but it's worth it. Jeans make work better! So that makes one less day of choosing an appropriate work outfit, woo.
Speaking of random, I have a random inquiry. Does anyone have any experience with curling wands? I've been thinking of picking one up just to try it out. I love the look of the curls they give, and I've read that it's an easy way to polish natural curls, too. Just thought I'd see if anyone had any personal experience with them!
Time to go deal with this Monday....
So we carved pumpkins this weekend and it was a good time. We roasted the seeds, and I have a small selection of them at work for a snack today. J did the cool wolf one on the left, BF did the goofy one in the middle (it has ears you can't see and that thing in its mouth is a tongue poking out) and mine is the uber traditional one on the right.
We watched a scary movie (The Conjuring) and I watched two more on my own (The Taking of Deborah Logan and The Canal). I'd already seen The Conjuring, but it was good enough for a second viewing with others who hadn't yet seen it! The other two were new to me and I actually really liked both! The Canal is an Irish movie from 2014 and it had a great ambiance to it. It's about a man who suspects his wife of cheating right at the same time he discovers that his home has a rather grisly history and may be haunted. It was very well made and built suspense quite successfully.
The Taking of Deborah Logan is a combination found footage/documentary type movie, though it's all fiction. It's about a woman doing her thesis on Alzheimer's, and as part of that she is doing a documentary involving a woman with early onset Alzheimer's. As the days progress, weird things and behavior start occurring that can't be attributed to her illness, and it starts to become apparent that something scary is going on!
They were both really good movies, which is not too surprising since I found them on lists like "The Best Scary Movies You Aren't Watching" and things like that. I watched those two on my own because not BF & J don't have the same obsession with all things scary like I do! I have several more I'd like to get through this Halloween week. They include:
The House of the Devil
The Sacrament
The Den
The Houses October Built
I'd also like to squeeze in Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project, maybe A Nightmare on Elm Street. But that may be overreaching, especially because I also want to watch Halloween on Halloween. :-) I still want to do some scary book reading, but honestly...it may not happen. Too much to watch, too much to do!
Managed to get my Halloween manicure done at home as well yesterday afternoon. J & I did our nails together and she actually did the reverse of what I did. I did all black save for two orange nails on each hand and she did all orange with black accent nails. Hopefully they will survive the week as long as I do my trick of a new topcoat everyday. Good times!
Ran out to Target briefly and got some orange and black Halloween socks and a purple tank to go underneath a cute black and white shirt I'm wearing Friday. We have our annual Halloween Hullaballoo that afternoon, which is basically when everyone's kids come to the office to trick or treat and then have cookies and pizza! It's a really fun tradition and I wanted to dress as festively as I could without donning an actual costume. J reminded me that purple is also a Halloween color, which saved me from having to get an orange cami that would have been totally unflattering. ;-)
In non-Halloween news, I got my 2016 planner in the mail Friday. I'm such a nerd because this is super exciting to me. :-) I do use Google Calendar for pretty much everything appointment and event-wise, but I've kept up the paper planner because I tend to use it differently. It's basically a diary of everything I do, so it's a lot more detailed than what's on Google. I can't tell you how many times I've referenced it for random reasons! So it still serves its purpose and I love getting the new one each year.
They sent an email out today updating everyone on forthcoming upgrades and changes for our Firm in the remainder of 2015. One of them is something I am going to LOATHE....they are blocking all personal email websites and all social media. I know many employers have done this for ages, and maybe we've been lucky to have the access we have for this long, but it's still a blow. They claim it's to comply with client's increasingly stringent security requirements, but who knows. Supposedly this will be implemented by year's end. They also said that they will be adding internet browsing safeguards and email content monitoring. Awesome. Cheers for that coming down the pike. I just hope that none of these changes affect our ability to check these same sites using our mobile devices when on work wi-fi. Guess that remains to be seen!
So tomorrow at work is a random Jeans Day. Granted, it had strings attached in the sense that you had to make a charitable donation in order to wear jeans, but it's worth it. Jeans make work better! So that makes one less day of choosing an appropriate work outfit, woo.
Speaking of random, I have a random inquiry. Does anyone have any experience with curling wands? I've been thinking of picking one up just to try it out. I love the look of the curls they give, and I've read that it's an easy way to polish natural curls, too. Just thought I'd see if anyone had any personal experience with them!
Time to go deal with this Monday....
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Halloween things
I am excited for a looming weekend of scary movies, pumpkin carving, seed roasting and other such seasonal fun. Sometimes I really think Halloween is my favorite holiday. It's in my favorite season and my favorite month, and just has so many good associations to it. I wish I had more time to do all the Halloween things I wanted...all the haunted houses, the pumpkin patches, reading all the scary books, listening to all the scary podcasts, watching all the scary things. There's just not enough time!
I also always get the urge to watch the Halloween episodes of everything...My So-Called Life, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Office, Gilmore Girls, Felicity....even Roseanne! Always a good time. :-)
I found a couple of new to me scary movies I want to watch to rotate in something new. They include "The Canal", "We are What we Are" and "The Fourth Kind". They are varying in subject matter and are not all overtly Halloween type scares, but they sound like things I would enjoy! I also have the desire to watch some older ones like the original Paranormal Activity, The Ring, The Grudge, The Silence of the Lambs, Stir of Echoes, The Blair Witch Project. Of course I'll obviously watch Halloween....on Halloween. :-)
In the meantime, work is just in the way. Ha! I really wish it were friday, but at least we are on the downhill slide. I don't want to rush my way through the last part of October, but I am looking forward to November. We're driving to Charleston to see BF's family for a long weekend November 13-16, so that will be a couple of days off work and out of town. Then later in the month is the four day weekend for Thanksgiving, which we are happily staying home for this year. It will be really nice to have no obligation to travel for the holiday, especially since Christmas is around the corner at that point and always a huge travel hassle!
I really can't believe it's this time of year already. It seems crazy to be talking about Halloween, much less Thanksgiving and Christmas. My holiday party is December 10th and I'm hoping for a shining comeback from the sickfest that was last year's party. I'm probably going to re-wear a dress I own already instead of buying something new, so that should save some money! Definitely an expensive time of year no matter how you cut it.
My ex-H is in Aruba right now with his fiancee and a group of friends. I'm ferociously jealous. I need the kind of life where I jetset off to Aruba for a week. Ha! Probably not in the cards. :-) Hopefully it will at least be decent weather when we visit Charleston in November. By then it probably won't be much of the awesome mid-70s weather we're having right now!
So this was a boring, fluffy post, but sometimes that's what I have to offer. :-) Cheers for Thursday, which is almost Friday!
I also always get the urge to watch the Halloween episodes of everything...My So-Called Life, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Office, Gilmore Girls, Felicity....even Roseanne! Always a good time. :-)
I found a couple of new to me scary movies I want to watch to rotate in something new. They include "The Canal", "We are What we Are" and "The Fourth Kind". They are varying in subject matter and are not all overtly Halloween type scares, but they sound like things I would enjoy! I also have the desire to watch some older ones like the original Paranormal Activity, The Ring, The Grudge, The Silence of the Lambs, Stir of Echoes, The Blair Witch Project. Of course I'll obviously watch Halloween....on Halloween. :-)
In the meantime, work is just in the way. Ha! I really wish it were friday, but at least we are on the downhill slide. I don't want to rush my way through the last part of October, but I am looking forward to November. We're driving to Charleston to see BF's family for a long weekend November 13-16, so that will be a couple of days off work and out of town. Then later in the month is the four day weekend for Thanksgiving, which we are happily staying home for this year. It will be really nice to have no obligation to travel for the holiday, especially since Christmas is around the corner at that point and always a huge travel hassle!
I really can't believe it's this time of year already. It seems crazy to be talking about Halloween, much less Thanksgiving and Christmas. My holiday party is December 10th and I'm hoping for a shining comeback from the sickfest that was last year's party. I'm probably going to re-wear a dress I own already instead of buying something new, so that should save some money! Definitely an expensive time of year no matter how you cut it.
My ex-H is in Aruba right now with his fiancee and a group of friends. I'm ferociously jealous. I need the kind of life where I jetset off to Aruba for a week. Ha! Probably not in the cards. :-) Hopefully it will at least be decent weather when we visit Charleston in November. By then it probably won't be much of the awesome mid-70s weather we're having right now!
So this was a boring, fluffy post, but sometimes that's what I have to offer. :-) Cheers for Thursday, which is almost Friday!
Monday, October 19, 2015
October-ing
I've been really enjoying October thus far. It truly is my favorite month! We went to a pumpkin patch a couple of weekends ago and to a haunted house on Friday night. :-) Next weekend we'll be watching scary movies and carving pumpkins. Must hit all the best fall activities before we slide into November.
We only had J for half the weekend this weekend, so on Saturday night we went out to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch some of the Mizzou game. They lost, but it was still a fun evening. When we got home J had texted BF and said something along the lines of, "So my mom/friends/family are asking when you're going to marry Bluemoon". HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
I had to laugh. BF actually asked me if I'd put her up to it based on my response of, "Hey, you know...that's a good question! What are you going to tell her?" I assured him I had not, but that if I was to glean some information from her inquiry what was the harm in that? He responded, "Eventually. One day!" and I rolled my eyes until they almost bottomed out entirely. He later told me that his answer to her was "Could be soon".
I'm not putting a ton of weight into that answer. BF is the world's slowest moving creature in terms of commitment. It's a bit goofy because I know we both see each other in our long-term future and I know he's 100% committed to me. He's just a very marriage-skeptical guy, which I get to some degree, but also to another I'm like...GET OVER IT. You get out of it what you put in it. I SHOULD KNOW. :-)
Anyway, I thought it was cute that she asked and I'm secretly glad that he is periodically reminded that the world thinks we are ready for this next step. It will be two years in January, which is a pretty solid chunk of time when you're grown adults, esp. once you've lived to together for almost 8 months already and it will be ten months by the time of the aforementioned anniversary.
I know part of this is related to the wedding bug going on around me, which I've mentioned before. My ex-H is engaged and getting married in Mexico in April, another friend is proposing to his girlfriend soon, an old bloggy friend is engaged and wedding planning. There's definitely something in the air! But beyond all of that, I just really feel like we've proven to ourselves that we are in this for the long haul, and cohabitation has gone strikingly well, and I feel like his kid is my (step)kid through and through. She drives me crazy at times, but I love her, anyway and I love that she sees us as another family in her life.
I guess only time will tell, and patience is a virtue and blah blah blah. ;-) I have faith in BF that he will set aside his concerns and take a chance on marriage with me sooner than later, although the sooner may be slower to come than I'd maybe like. Compromise, compromise. Just last year we spent our anniversary evening discussing the idea of living together, and now we are living together like rock stars! Things will unfold as they should.
Honestly, life is busy enough that I shouldn't have a ton of time to worry about that too much. Work has been CRAZY and it's definitely keeping me super busy. We start our elementary school tutoring partnership tomorrow, which is always fun! The kids are super cute and it's nice to do something like that for people who need it. We go twice a month for the duration of the school year for a couple hours at a time, so it's a good time and something beneficial for all involved.
Beyond that, I'm reading a lot, trying to find time to watch a bunch of different things on Netflix and Hulu and trying to remember where my headband and gloves are now that it's cooler out in the mornings. I think I'm going to have to upgrade to a heavier winter coat because my walking commute is several blocks longer this winter and it gets COLD! This morning was 33. :-o Brr.
I love fall, but I don't love that it leads to winter!
We only had J for half the weekend this weekend, so on Saturday night we went out to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch some of the Mizzou game. They lost, but it was still a fun evening. When we got home J had texted BF and said something along the lines of, "So my mom/friends/family are asking when you're going to marry Bluemoon". HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
I had to laugh. BF actually asked me if I'd put her up to it based on my response of, "Hey, you know...that's a good question! What are you going to tell her?" I assured him I had not, but that if I was to glean some information from her inquiry what was the harm in that? He responded, "Eventually. One day!" and I rolled my eyes until they almost bottomed out entirely. He later told me that his answer to her was "Could be soon".
I'm not putting a ton of weight into that answer. BF is the world's slowest moving creature in terms of commitment. It's a bit goofy because I know we both see each other in our long-term future and I know he's 100% committed to me. He's just a very marriage-skeptical guy, which I get to some degree, but also to another I'm like...GET OVER IT. You get out of it what you put in it. I SHOULD KNOW. :-)
Anyway, I thought it was cute that she asked and I'm secretly glad that he is periodically reminded that the world thinks we are ready for this next step. It will be two years in January, which is a pretty solid chunk of time when you're grown adults, esp. once you've lived to together for almost 8 months already and it will be ten months by the time of the aforementioned anniversary.
I know part of this is related to the wedding bug going on around me, which I've mentioned before. My ex-H is engaged and getting married in Mexico in April, another friend is proposing to his girlfriend soon, an old bloggy friend is engaged and wedding planning. There's definitely something in the air! But beyond all of that, I just really feel like we've proven to ourselves that we are in this for the long haul, and cohabitation has gone strikingly well, and I feel like his kid is my (step)kid through and through. She drives me crazy at times, but I love her, anyway and I love that she sees us as another family in her life.
I guess only time will tell, and patience is a virtue and blah blah blah. ;-) I have faith in BF that he will set aside his concerns and take a chance on marriage with me sooner than later, although the sooner may be slower to come than I'd maybe like. Compromise, compromise. Just last year we spent our anniversary evening discussing the idea of living together, and now we are living together like rock stars! Things will unfold as they should.
Honestly, life is busy enough that I shouldn't have a ton of time to worry about that too much. Work has been CRAZY and it's definitely keeping me super busy. We start our elementary school tutoring partnership tomorrow, which is always fun! The kids are super cute and it's nice to do something like that for people who need it. We go twice a month for the duration of the school year for a couple hours at a time, so it's a good time and something beneficial for all involved.
Beyond that, I'm reading a lot, trying to find time to watch a bunch of different things on Netflix and Hulu and trying to remember where my headband and gloves are now that it's cooler out in the mornings. I think I'm going to have to upgrade to a heavier winter coat because my walking commute is several blocks longer this winter and it gets COLD! This morning was 33. :-o Brr.
I love fall, but I don't love that it leads to winter!
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Hello, October!
I so love the month of October! We started out seriously rainy, but this week has been pretty gorgeous. It's my favorite kind of fall weather where it's cool in the mornings, but sunny and moderate in the day. Perfection. :-) I can't believe we're already a week in!
Work has been pretty busy lately! I guess that's a good thing, though. Yesterday was a bit of a stressy one, but I got out of the office for lunch with my friend, A, which helped. I recently was given a Blackberry for work purposes, which is interesting. I don't love having two devices to lug around, but until our IT Dept. can figure out how to make friends with Android this is my lot in life. I'm not a superfan of the BB as a device, though. It just seems so old school and boring and worky, LOL. It's half touch screen, half keyboard and I haven't had anything more than a touch screen in a few years!
So we got the house 95% decked out for Halloween this past weekend. We got to combine my decorations with the ones BF got last year, so that was fun! I just have a couple small things to finish, some tiny pumpkins to buy (decorative, carving ones come later) and then we're done! We also got discounted tickets to a haunted attraction out our way that we'll be going to one of these weekends. Love haunted houses! I hope to go to at least one in addition to going to one of the area pumpkin patches for some seasonal fun.
I ordered a paperback copy of "The Amityville Horror" recently because I have always wanted to read it, and this is definitely the time of year! I have been on a Kindle sample spree lately and am trying to decide what to read next. Some of my recent reads include:
Side Effects May Vary-Julie Murphy
YA book about a girl with cancer who thinks she's going to die and thusly undertakes a bucket list of things to do before her death with her childhood BFF. Problem is it's mostly not a happy, good inducing list, but more of an "I'm going out with a (nasty) bang" list. Then she finds out she's in remission and has to deal with the aftermath of everything she wrought in that year! I really enjoyed this book actually. Good twist on the super trendy kid with cancer book that's been everywhere lately.
Why Not Me?-Mindy Kaling
LOVE Mindy Kaling. She's funny as always and is just so relatable in so many ways! I'm also a huge fan of her show "The Mindy Project", which I subscribed to Hulu to watch this season. Totally worth it!
If I Could Turn Back Time-Beth Harbison
I enjoy this author and her love of time travel related storylines. It probably wasn't my favorite book of hers, but it was definitely enjoyable
Books on my Kindle waiting to be read include:
Everything, Everything-Nicola Yoon
A Head Full of Ghosts-Paul Tremblay
This is apart from the previously mentioned slew of samples and the paperback copy of The Amityville Horror. So many books to read!! :-)
We saw "The Martian" this weekend. I truly loved this book and I really enjoyed the movie. I thought Matt Damon did a good job! BF and I went and took J and I think everyone really liked it.
In other news, I desperately need to book my Christmas travel, but the fares are outrageous and are for non-direct flights to boot. Sigh. This is THE week to book, so I need to get it done, but it's just hard to reconcile $600 dollars or more for a non-direct flight to NEBRASKA IN THE WINTER. It's such a racket! Luckily my grandfather is going to buy the ticket using his miles and that should bring my cost down to a more reasonable $300 or so. I do wish I could spend Christmas with BF sometime, but I can barely rationalize a ticket to Omaha, so asking him to get two for himself and J is out of the question. I've always gone home for Christmas, and with my grandfather's health not being so awesome anymore, I'll likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Oh well. At least BF has J for Christmas this year so I don't have to feel extra bad about leaving him totally solo for the day!
It's almost time for my fall salon visit for a sprucing. I'm due for my seasonal highlights/lowlights combo and a cut, and I've scheduled that for a week from Friday. Love those days! Beyond that, I'm currently looking forward to a concert I'm going to on Sunday night this weekend with my friend, A. We saw Andrew Belle for the first time a couple years ago and he's finally back in town, so we're going again. He puts on a great live show and I LOVE his album. Should be a fun night, even if it does mean having to watch the season premiere of "The Walking Dead" on DVR Monday night instead of Sunday. ;-)
Time to wrap this up and get focused on my workload for the day. Happy Wednesday!
Work has been pretty busy lately! I guess that's a good thing, though. Yesterday was a bit of a stressy one, but I got out of the office for lunch with my friend, A, which helped. I recently was given a Blackberry for work purposes, which is interesting. I don't love having two devices to lug around, but until our IT Dept. can figure out how to make friends with Android this is my lot in life. I'm not a superfan of the BB as a device, though. It just seems so old school and boring and worky, LOL. It's half touch screen, half keyboard and I haven't had anything more than a touch screen in a few years!
So we got the house 95% decked out for Halloween this past weekend. We got to combine my decorations with the ones BF got last year, so that was fun! I just have a couple small things to finish, some tiny pumpkins to buy (decorative, carving ones come later) and then we're done! We also got discounted tickets to a haunted attraction out our way that we'll be going to one of these weekends. Love haunted houses! I hope to go to at least one in addition to going to one of the area pumpkin patches for some seasonal fun.
I ordered a paperback copy of "The Amityville Horror" recently because I have always wanted to read it, and this is definitely the time of year! I have been on a Kindle sample spree lately and am trying to decide what to read next. Some of my recent reads include:
Side Effects May Vary-Julie Murphy
YA book about a girl with cancer who thinks she's going to die and thusly undertakes a bucket list of things to do before her death with her childhood BFF. Problem is it's mostly not a happy, good inducing list, but more of an "I'm going out with a (nasty) bang" list. Then she finds out she's in remission and has to deal with the aftermath of everything she wrought in that year! I really enjoyed this book actually. Good twist on the super trendy kid with cancer book that's been everywhere lately.
Why Not Me?-Mindy Kaling
LOVE Mindy Kaling. She's funny as always and is just so relatable in so many ways! I'm also a huge fan of her show "The Mindy Project", which I subscribed to Hulu to watch this season. Totally worth it!
If I Could Turn Back Time-Beth Harbison
I enjoy this author and her love of time travel related storylines. It probably wasn't my favorite book of hers, but it was definitely enjoyable
Books on my Kindle waiting to be read include:
Everything, Everything-Nicola Yoon
A Head Full of Ghosts-Paul Tremblay
This is apart from the previously mentioned slew of samples and the paperback copy of The Amityville Horror. So many books to read!! :-)
We saw "The Martian" this weekend. I truly loved this book and I really enjoyed the movie. I thought Matt Damon did a good job! BF and I went and took J and I think everyone really liked it.
In other news, I desperately need to book my Christmas travel, but the fares are outrageous and are for non-direct flights to boot. Sigh. This is THE week to book, so I need to get it done, but it's just hard to reconcile $600 dollars or more for a non-direct flight to NEBRASKA IN THE WINTER. It's such a racket! Luckily my grandfather is going to buy the ticket using his miles and that should bring my cost down to a more reasonable $300 or so. I do wish I could spend Christmas with BF sometime, but I can barely rationalize a ticket to Omaha, so asking him to get two for himself and J is out of the question. I've always gone home for Christmas, and with my grandfather's health not being so awesome anymore, I'll likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Oh well. At least BF has J for Christmas this year so I don't have to feel extra bad about leaving him totally solo for the day!
It's almost time for my fall salon visit for a sprucing. I'm due for my seasonal highlights/lowlights combo and a cut, and I've scheduled that for a week from Friday. Love those days! Beyond that, I'm currently looking forward to a concert I'm going to on Sunday night this weekend with my friend, A. We saw Andrew Belle for the first time a couple years ago and he's finally back in town, so we're going again. He puts on a great live show and I LOVE his album. Should be a fun night, even if it does mean having to watch the season premiere of "The Walking Dead" on DVR Monday night instead of Sunday. ;-)
Time to wrap this up and get focused on my workload for the day. Happy Wednesday!
Monday, September 21, 2015
Awkward
There's nothing quite like waking up on a Sunday morning to an email from the wife of your ex-boyfriend. I got that distinct pleasure yesterday and the ex-boyfriend in question is Angry Ex. As a refresher, we dated for just shy of two years from 2009-2011. He has periodically reached out to me over the years in spite of the fact that he started dating someone three months after we broke up and has since gotten married and had a child.
I last heard from Angry Ex a few months back. He reached out via LinkedIn since I had him blocked on G-Chat. Because I am ever the moron trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, I eventually responded to his message in spite of my hesitation. We spoke via G-chat one day for about half an hour and I was actually pleasantly surprised at first. We were catching up like normal, functional people with no off the charts weirdness. He told me he'd moved to Florida, had a son and was running his own business, which he'd always wanted to do.
He sent me pics of his kid, him with his kid and then pics of his house and his beach view. That was eyeroll-worthy, but he'd always been obsessed with overcoming his meager beginnings, so I wasn't too surprised. He also told me that he'd been sick, but refused to give me details. It came up in the context of how he'd overhauled his eating habits and was now gluten-free, etc., etc. He attributed his "remission" to this dietary change exclusively, which I found questionable. I think I was generally annoyed that he was doing the equivalent of vaguebooking via chat by implying illness, but refusing to offer details. We ended up sparring a bit over the subject of the diet changes being the end all be all treatment and cure for things, and he immediately fell back into the role I knew so well from him...the all knowing asshole.
At that point my annoyance was mounting quickly, and I made some comment about how it was so obvious how different we were and why we hadn't worked out in retrospect. I only meant it to be about 25% passive aggressive snotty LOL, but he took it as full on snotty. I tried to explain that I was just happy we'd both found people who were better suited for us and he took that opportunity to say something that basically boiled down to him having found someone intelligent, as compared to me.
I blocked him. I remembered AGAIN why this man was so toxic and immediately decided it wasn't worth sinking to his level again. He's always going to be meaner, he'll always go for the jugular in a fight, and I will always come out feeling worse than him. It wasn't worth it. After a few days the dull ache of disappointment in myself for falling for it and opening that window again, however briefly, went away and I forgot about it.
Until yesterday. For your reading enjoyment:
This is Angry Ex's wife. Thank you for being so respectful to my lying husband. I would appreciate it if you stopped communicating with him, although I do understand he is the one initiating it.
I last heard from Angry Ex a few months back. He reached out via LinkedIn since I had him blocked on G-Chat. Because I am ever the moron trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, I eventually responded to his message in spite of my hesitation. We spoke via G-chat one day for about half an hour and I was actually pleasantly surprised at first. We were catching up like normal, functional people with no off the charts weirdness. He told me he'd moved to Florida, had a son and was running his own business, which he'd always wanted to do.
He sent me pics of his kid, him with his kid and then pics of his house and his beach view. That was eyeroll-worthy, but he'd always been obsessed with overcoming his meager beginnings, so I wasn't too surprised. He also told me that he'd been sick, but refused to give me details. It came up in the context of how he'd overhauled his eating habits and was now gluten-free, etc., etc. He attributed his "remission" to this dietary change exclusively, which I found questionable. I think I was generally annoyed that he was doing the equivalent of vaguebooking via chat by implying illness, but refusing to offer details. We ended up sparring a bit over the subject of the diet changes being the end all be all treatment and cure for things, and he immediately fell back into the role I knew so well from him...the all knowing asshole.
At that point my annoyance was mounting quickly, and I made some comment about how it was so obvious how different we were and why we hadn't worked out in retrospect. I only meant it to be about 25% passive aggressive snotty LOL, but he took it as full on snotty. I tried to explain that I was just happy we'd both found people who were better suited for us and he took that opportunity to say something that basically boiled down to him having found someone intelligent, as compared to me.
I blocked him. I remembered AGAIN why this man was so toxic and immediately decided it wasn't worth sinking to his level again. He's always going to be meaner, he'll always go for the jugular in a fight, and I will always come out feeling worse than him. It wasn't worth it. After a few days the dull ache of disappointment in myself for falling for it and opening that window again, however briefly, went away and I forgot about it.
Until yesterday. For your reading enjoyment:
This is Angry Ex's wife. Thank you for being so respectful to my lying husband. I would appreciate it if you stopped communicating with him, although I do understand he is the one initiating it.
I also appreciate him sharing all our details with you. Oh and btw, I have the disease, not him. Not sure what type of sympathy vote he's trying to get on that one. It's interesting to hear that we are having so much marital trouble (especially when I was pregnant). I'll have to discuss that with him. This is like reading his diary.
Not trying to be dramatic, just a little shocked by this. Have a wonderful life.
So yeah. That happened. I was pretty shocked. I was heartened to see that she at least recognized that he was the one who reached out to me, but I still felt a pang of guilt for a moment. Then I realized that I had nothing to feel bad about. All I've done for YEARS when he's contacted me is a) stupidly give him a chance to be normal and b) tried to keep him in line, remind him of his marriage, remind him of my relationship status and point out how wholly incompatible we were. I didn't even get into most of that this time around because it was such a limited interaction, but I do know without a doubt that I didn't behave inappropriately at all.
My biggest takeaway from this is disgust with him. I feel bad for this woman and have since the first time he hit on me while he was still with her. Furthermore, he implied in past convos that he's cheated on her, he constantly told me how she was needy, insecure, that he wanted to leave her, that they were going to divorce, etc. I do wonder if she delved further back into his email or if he'd deleted all of that and just left this because for once he hadn't hit on me in the messages.
However....I'm appalled that he apparently lied about this illness. Whatever it is, he doesn't even have it, she does. That's truly appalling to claim someone else's illness for sympathy or whatever he was doing. This woman has been tied to him for several years now and is locked in a marriage and forever bonded to him by that child. I truly feel sorry for her.
Anyway, I obviously didn't respond. She sent the email from his email address, but even if she'd sent it from her own I think I would be staying out of it. I want no part in this marital drama, and I will gladly oblige her request to stop communicating with him. In fact, I did that already since this interaction she's referencing was months ago.
Sometimes it's good to be reminded of what a huge bullet you've dodged. Crossing fingers I receive no additional contact from either of them about this in the future!
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Ready for Fall
Now that vacation is over, I'm officially ready for fall! My beach trip was fantastic. I looked forward to it for so many months and it truly lived up to all of my expectations once again. I read two full books and finished another I'd been reading. I spent my days in some variation of the following:
Morning hot tub
Beach (with sandwiches for lunch)
Pool
Sitting outside on deck reading, scene gazing, talking
Shopping in quaint little shops, enjoying various foods, walking the Duck boardwalk, mini golfing
Grilling dinner at home or going out
Late night hot tub
We went to the beach every single day, we swam in the pool every single day, I hot tubbed every day (BF got sunburnt on the first day and had to pass until a couple days before we left!). We ate Duck Donuts three times in the course of the week and rode the house bikes to get them. We also rode the bikes down the road to the beach each day since it was a bit further than advertised (!). I had fantastic fish tacos twice in the week, I had a few summery margaritas and other fruity drinks that came in fun glasses. I managed to avoid getting sunburnt, I bought a really cute t-shirt, a pair of earrings and a bracelet and also got BF's daughter, J, two pairs of earrings that I get to give to her tomorrow. :-)
I cannot convey how much I needed this vacation! It is so amazing to step away from life's every day obligations and expectations and just be ruled by your own desires. I got up early most days on vacation, but it was by choice and that made all the difference! The bed wasn't amazing, but I slept really well, anyway. BF and I got the chance to just be together, have fun and relax, which we needed, too.
Most importantly, after a rough several months of feeling pretty disconnected from my body and not being a general fan of it (I'm out of shape, I've had some health nonsense going on-nothing serious, just frustrating)...well, vacation reminded me that my body is my friend. I'm not perfect, it's not perfect, but I'm still good. I love the beach because suddenly all of my self-consciousness goes away. I rocked two different bikinis on the beach throughout the week and added a third to the mix at the house. I didn't hide in my cover-up or stay tucked into my beach chair. I wandered for shells every single day, I cooled off in the water. It was something I really needed!
I've been back to reality for a few days now and things are basically back into the usual swing. We had some seriously gorgeous, fall like weather early in the week and I was LOVING it. It's warmed back up, but the mornings are still cool and you can definitely tell that summer is moving out and fall is moving in! Now that my vacation has come and gone I am ready for fall! I am having romantic visions of myself in soft jeans, my new t-shirt and one of my new pairs of booties LOL. I can't wait to wear them both! Football is underway and I'm loving that, and I love needing to pull out a hoodie in the evenings. This is my time of year. :-)
In real life news, I got my first flu shot yesterday at work. I never used to get them, but after last year I have changed my tune. I still firmly believe that all of the health issues I had this past year are somehow connected, however tangentially, to the fact that my immune system got beaten down by the flu in the winter. I got sick on the day of my holiday party and it just started a snowball effect of crappy health stuff, and the flu stuck around in some form or another with a cough that WOULDN'T DIE. So I'm doing everything I can to avoid a repeat occurrence of that. My arm is totally sore from the shot,but hopefully it will be worth it.
I'm very glad it's thursday. It's tough being back to work after all that time off! We don't have any real weekend plans yet aside from football viewing and Costco (oh boy), but I'm sure some things will shape up, however small. Cold front supposed to come through sunday to break this building heat we're having (still milder than regular summer, but not weather that allows happy jeans wearing and bootie breaking in!).
Happy thursday!
Morning hot tub
Beach (with sandwiches for lunch)
Pool
Sitting outside on deck reading, scene gazing, talking
Shopping in quaint little shops, enjoying various foods, walking the Duck boardwalk, mini golfing
Grilling dinner at home or going out
Late night hot tub
We went to the beach every single day, we swam in the pool every single day, I hot tubbed every day (BF got sunburnt on the first day and had to pass until a couple days before we left!). We ate Duck Donuts three times in the course of the week and rode the house bikes to get them. We also rode the bikes down the road to the beach each day since it was a bit further than advertised (!). I had fantastic fish tacos twice in the week, I had a few summery margaritas and other fruity drinks that came in fun glasses. I managed to avoid getting sunburnt, I bought a really cute t-shirt, a pair of earrings and a bracelet and also got BF's daughter, J, two pairs of earrings that I get to give to her tomorrow. :-)
I cannot convey how much I needed this vacation! It is so amazing to step away from life's every day obligations and expectations and just be ruled by your own desires. I got up early most days on vacation, but it was by choice and that made all the difference! The bed wasn't amazing, but I slept really well, anyway. BF and I got the chance to just be together, have fun and relax, which we needed, too.
Most importantly, after a rough several months of feeling pretty disconnected from my body and not being a general fan of it (I'm out of shape, I've had some health nonsense going on-nothing serious, just frustrating)...well, vacation reminded me that my body is my friend. I'm not perfect, it's not perfect, but I'm still good. I love the beach because suddenly all of my self-consciousness goes away. I rocked two different bikinis on the beach throughout the week and added a third to the mix at the house. I didn't hide in my cover-up or stay tucked into my beach chair. I wandered for shells every single day, I cooled off in the water. It was something I really needed!
I've been back to reality for a few days now and things are basically back into the usual swing. We had some seriously gorgeous, fall like weather early in the week and I was LOVING it. It's warmed back up, but the mornings are still cool and you can definitely tell that summer is moving out and fall is moving in! Now that my vacation has come and gone I am ready for fall! I am having romantic visions of myself in soft jeans, my new t-shirt and one of my new pairs of booties LOL. I can't wait to wear them both! Football is underway and I'm loving that, and I love needing to pull out a hoodie in the evenings. This is my time of year. :-)
In real life news, I got my first flu shot yesterday at work. I never used to get them, but after last year I have changed my tune. I still firmly believe that all of the health issues I had this past year are somehow connected, however tangentially, to the fact that my immune system got beaten down by the flu in the winter. I got sick on the day of my holiday party and it just started a snowball effect of crappy health stuff, and the flu stuck around in some form or another with a cough that WOULDN'T DIE. So I'm doing everything I can to avoid a repeat occurrence of that. My arm is totally sore from the shot,but hopefully it will be worth it.
I'm very glad it's thursday. It's tough being back to work after all that time off! We don't have any real weekend plans yet aside from football viewing and Costco (oh boy), but I'm sure some things will shape up, however small. Cold front supposed to come through sunday to break this building heat we're having (still milder than regular summer, but not weather that allows happy jeans wearing and bootie breaking in!).
Happy thursday!
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Hello, September
How is it September already? I feel like this summer has jetted by so quickly and now we're on the heels of it ending. Once my vacation is in the books I know I will be fall-focused. Autumn is my very favorite season and it's definitely looming.
I have four days of work, including today, before vacation times begin, and I'm continuing the countdown! I'm checking the weather in OBX, adding to my packing list and figuring out when to do all the things I need to do before we leave. BF took my car for an oil change yesterday during his tele-work day, so that's one less thing to worry about. We take my car on on this trip since it has much more space.
I had a good weekend, too. I spent Saturday morning and afternoon running a bunch of errands, which was really nice. I don't often get a chance to run errands solo like I used to, as nothing is as close to where I live now, so we tend to consolidate our efforts. This means that usually I have BF and often J with me for errands, and I hate shopping when people are waiting on me.
I bought three pairs of shoes on Saturday that I'm madly in love with. I got a pair of brown booties, a pair of black booties and a crazy comfortable walking/commuting/everything else shoe. They're not the cutest things in the world, but they're not bad and they feel amazing.
Black Diba Bootie
Brown Crown Vintage Bootie
They're comfortable, sue me!
I also got a couple of pairs of super comfortable leggings at Kohls, a new bottle of one of my favorite perfumes (Viva La Juicy) and a couple of clearance shirts at Kohls. It was a productive shopping day!
My new swimsuit arrived in the mail on Friday and I actually really love it! I went with a dark teal color since I already have a pink swimsuit and it's very flattering. The ruched waist on the bottom is a nice touch and I look forward to breaking it in this weekend. :-)
Swimsuit
I am SO ready for a break from work. I definitely need a time out and will hopefully come back feeling a bit rejuvenated. It's been a hectic summer around the office and I'm feeling a bit burnt out and my patience is thin! Ten days away from the office, seven of them at the beach, can only help things. :-)
I feel like tomorrow starts the downward slide toward vacation. That's when I need to start thinking about things like doing laundry before my trip and beginning to set aside things to pack. Thursday morning I've got to drive to Alexandria for a dental cleaning in the morning, then I have an acupuncture appointment in the evening. After that I'm meeting up with a couple of girlfriends for dinner and catching up! Since we're doing dinner with J Friday night, we're not going to have a ton of time to pack on those two evenings. We plan to set out for OBX Saturday morning around 9:30 or 10 since our check in time is 4 pm.
I can't say I have too much interesting to offer these days aside from pining for this long-awaited vacation. BF and I definitely need this trip and this break from the real world. It will be so good to just have all of those days to just spend time together and have fun without worrying about the day to day obligations. I hope to remember what it's like to sleep in a little bit and to stay up later! Living with BF has really cramped my style in terms of my schedule. I've definitely had to adjust to going to bed earlier and getting up earlier. I had to in order to be functional!
Finished another book yesterday, "The Best of Enemies" by Jen Lancaster. I enjoyed it well enough, but will admit it wasn't my favorite of her books. Can't pinpoint why, but it was a good enough read. Started "If I Could Turn Back Time" by Beth Harbison on my commute home last night, but just barely, and it's not overwhelmingly engaging at this point. Maybe I'm getting burnt out on the string of chick lit, brain candy books I've been reading lately? Hard to say.
The books I have on tap to take to the beach include:
Station Eleven-Emily St. John Mandel
The Fever-Megan Abbott
Dare Me-Megan Abbott
The Secret History-Donna Tartt
I also have multiple samples on my Kindle as well as at least one other fiction book on there.
I've been trying to read "The Secret History" for months. I've started it and stopped it at basically the same point multiple times, which is admittedly very early on. I feel like if I can just really immerse myself in it for a day or two I'd be hooked, but it's been a struggle to get there! Maybe now that the fall times are lurking ahead I'll be better able to focus on a less fluffy book like that one.
Time to make myself an iced coffee and continue muddling through this already long Tuesday....but hey, at least it's September! :-)
I have four days of work, including today, before vacation times begin, and I'm continuing the countdown! I'm checking the weather in OBX, adding to my packing list and figuring out when to do all the things I need to do before we leave. BF took my car for an oil change yesterday during his tele-work day, so that's one less thing to worry about. We take my car on on this trip since it has much more space.
I had a good weekend, too. I spent Saturday morning and afternoon running a bunch of errands, which was really nice. I don't often get a chance to run errands solo like I used to, as nothing is as close to where I live now, so we tend to consolidate our efforts. This means that usually I have BF and often J with me for errands, and I hate shopping when people are waiting on me.
I bought three pairs of shoes on Saturday that I'm madly in love with. I got a pair of brown booties, a pair of black booties and a crazy comfortable walking/commuting/everything else shoe. They're not the cutest things in the world, but they're not bad and they feel amazing.
Black Diba Bootie
Brown Crown Vintage Bootie
They're comfortable, sue me!
I also got a couple of pairs of super comfortable leggings at Kohls, a new bottle of one of my favorite perfumes (Viva La Juicy) and a couple of clearance shirts at Kohls. It was a productive shopping day!
My new swimsuit arrived in the mail on Friday and I actually really love it! I went with a dark teal color since I already have a pink swimsuit and it's very flattering. The ruched waist on the bottom is a nice touch and I look forward to breaking it in this weekend. :-)
Swimsuit
I am SO ready for a break from work. I definitely need a time out and will hopefully come back feeling a bit rejuvenated. It's been a hectic summer around the office and I'm feeling a bit burnt out and my patience is thin! Ten days away from the office, seven of them at the beach, can only help things. :-)
I feel like tomorrow starts the downward slide toward vacation. That's when I need to start thinking about things like doing laundry before my trip and beginning to set aside things to pack. Thursday morning I've got to drive to Alexandria for a dental cleaning in the morning, then I have an acupuncture appointment in the evening. After that I'm meeting up with a couple of girlfriends for dinner and catching up! Since we're doing dinner with J Friday night, we're not going to have a ton of time to pack on those two evenings. We plan to set out for OBX Saturday morning around 9:30 or 10 since our check in time is 4 pm.
I can't say I have too much interesting to offer these days aside from pining for this long-awaited vacation. BF and I definitely need this trip and this break from the real world. It will be so good to just have all of those days to just spend time together and have fun without worrying about the day to day obligations. I hope to remember what it's like to sleep in a little bit and to stay up later! Living with BF has really cramped my style in terms of my schedule. I've definitely had to adjust to going to bed earlier and getting up earlier. I had to in order to be functional!
Finished another book yesterday, "The Best of Enemies" by Jen Lancaster. I enjoyed it well enough, but will admit it wasn't my favorite of her books. Can't pinpoint why, but it was a good enough read. Started "If I Could Turn Back Time" by Beth Harbison on my commute home last night, but just barely, and it's not overwhelmingly engaging at this point. Maybe I'm getting burnt out on the string of chick lit, brain candy books I've been reading lately? Hard to say.
The books I have on tap to take to the beach include:
Station Eleven-Emily St. John Mandel
The Fever-Megan Abbott
Dare Me-Megan Abbott
The Secret History-Donna Tartt
I also have multiple samples on my Kindle as well as at least one other fiction book on there.
I've been trying to read "The Secret History" for months. I've started it and stopped it at basically the same point multiple times, which is admittedly very early on. I feel like if I can just really immerse myself in it for a day or two I'd be hooked, but it's been a struggle to get there! Maybe now that the fall times are lurking ahead I'll be better able to focus on a less fluffy book like that one.
Time to make myself an iced coffee and continue muddling through this already long Tuesday....but hey, at least it's September! :-)
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Can't hardly wait
It's happening, guys. I'm at the point in my pre-vacation mindset where I've lost all ability to focus on anything BUT the upcoming trip. I gave in and started my packing list today! Our departure is still eleven days away, but I'm a list maker, and this makes me feel like I'm moving closer to the goal. I'm going to get my oil changed this weekend in preparation for the road trip, too. I've generally reconciled myself to the fact that these last remaining days will probably go by pretty slowly since I have something to look forward to, but each day that passes, however slowly, is still a day closer to vacation. :-)
I've got my beach books picked out to take with me, I'm bringing my super cute Golden Girls dress that I have only worn for BF's birthday dinner thus far. New swimsuit arrives Saturday and hopefully will work out. Did I mention that I'm excited for this trip???
This is only the second time since my honeymoon in 2002 that I've taken a week off of work. It is still such a novelty to me! It feels so decadent and I love it. I definitely have earned the time off and I most certainly need it! BF and I need a chance to just be together, relax and re-connect in the wake of the crazy last couple of months.
I'm possibly going to drive you all crazy talking about this until it happens, and I apologize in advance. :-) I'm scanning my calendar for the days in between to see what I have to occupy myself and here's what I've found:
Today: All Personnel Firm Luncheon AND Building Ice Cream Social. SCORE! :-)
Friday: Hair appt. Yes, hair guy went a little crazy last time, but a) I got used to it and b) now the layers have grown out and my home blow outs are not as successful. Time for a shape up and trim, not to mention the general pampered feeling and awesome aftermath of a salon appointment!
Saturday: Oil change and errands during the day. Dinner and comedy show with BF, his daughter, J and my friend, A. Should be fun!
Thursday of next week: Dental cleaning in AM (not fun, but love the feeling after!), acupuncture after work and then dinner/drinks/dessert with two girlfriends in Alexandria. Also, that day marks one year and 8 months I've been with BF! He has his Fantasy Football draft that night with his friends. :-)
Friday of next week: Dinner with J before we head out of town!
Saturday of next week: ESCAPE!!! :-)
The countdown continues....
I've got my beach books picked out to take with me, I'm bringing my super cute Golden Girls dress that I have only worn for BF's birthday dinner thus far. New swimsuit arrives Saturday and hopefully will work out. Did I mention that I'm excited for this trip???
This is only the second time since my honeymoon in 2002 that I've taken a week off of work. It is still such a novelty to me! It feels so decadent and I love it. I definitely have earned the time off and I most certainly need it! BF and I need a chance to just be together, relax and re-connect in the wake of the crazy last couple of months.
I'm possibly going to drive you all crazy talking about this until it happens, and I apologize in advance. :-) I'm scanning my calendar for the days in between to see what I have to occupy myself and here's what I've found:
Today: All Personnel Firm Luncheon AND Building Ice Cream Social. SCORE! :-)
Friday: Hair appt. Yes, hair guy went a little crazy last time, but a) I got used to it and b) now the layers have grown out and my home blow outs are not as successful. Time for a shape up and trim, not to mention the general pampered feeling and awesome aftermath of a salon appointment!
Saturday: Oil change and errands during the day. Dinner and comedy show with BF, his daughter, J and my friend, A. Should be fun!
Thursday of next week: Dental cleaning in AM (not fun, but love the feeling after!), acupuncture after work and then dinner/drinks/dessert with two girlfriends in Alexandria. Also, that day marks one year and 8 months I've been with BF! He has his Fantasy Football draft that night with his friends. :-)
Friday of next week: Dinner with J before we head out of town!
Saturday of next week: ESCAPE!!! :-)
The countdown continues....
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
It's the final countdown
So I've been counting down, and it's 12 days until my vacation. We booked this beach house in mid-February, so it's been a long time coming! I've patiently waited all of these months and now it's almost here. I couldn't be more excited, and I couldn't need this getaway more!
It's been a complicated 2015. The best part of 2015 was making the choice to move in with BF. It was a decision that was hard to come to, but I'm very glad I made the leap. I truly love going to bed next to him every night and waking up with him every morning. We aren't perfect, and we've had our struggles, but we've worked through everything and we're still here, ready to keep moving forward.
2015 also brought with it a continuing stream of health issues for me. Nothing earth shattering, but a lot of stress, frustration and me meeting my high deductible pretty early in the year. It's been challenging, but again....still here. Still moving forward.
Add to this the job stress as of late and this amounts to one exhausted Bluemoon. I *need* this vacation and it can't come soon enough! I am reveling in the notion of ten days away from work, away from real life obligations. Seven days at the beach, seven days of sand and sun and the ocean. Seven days of no alarm clocks, no recommended bedtimes, nothing to do but go to the beach, swim in our pool, explore the Outer Banks again and just enjoy being together. I CANNOT WAIT!
I had this grand plan to get in better shape over the summer in preparation for this trip. Due to a variety of reasons, some allowable, some excuses, I did not do this. I strongly considered getting a one piece swimsuit for the trip. I online shopped for one and never found anything I loved. I was annoyed because last summer I really enjoyed wearing both bikinis I brought and I found I didn't really care what anyone else thought. So in the end, I bought a new bikini to add to my collection. Screw it, right? I can wear whatever I want!
So now I just have to make it through less than two weeks to get to this vacation. I can totally do that. I'll focus on getting my work done, starting my trip packing list and mentally preparing myself for a big, long break from reality. :-) Cheers to vacation!
It's been a complicated 2015. The best part of 2015 was making the choice to move in with BF. It was a decision that was hard to come to, but I'm very glad I made the leap. I truly love going to bed next to him every night and waking up with him every morning. We aren't perfect, and we've had our struggles, but we've worked through everything and we're still here, ready to keep moving forward.
2015 also brought with it a continuing stream of health issues for me. Nothing earth shattering, but a lot of stress, frustration and me meeting my high deductible pretty early in the year. It's been challenging, but again....still here. Still moving forward.
Add to this the job stress as of late and this amounts to one exhausted Bluemoon. I *need* this vacation and it can't come soon enough! I am reveling in the notion of ten days away from work, away from real life obligations. Seven days at the beach, seven days of sand and sun and the ocean. Seven days of no alarm clocks, no recommended bedtimes, nothing to do but go to the beach, swim in our pool, explore the Outer Banks again and just enjoy being together. I CANNOT WAIT!
I had this grand plan to get in better shape over the summer in preparation for this trip. Due to a variety of reasons, some allowable, some excuses, I did not do this. I strongly considered getting a one piece swimsuit for the trip. I online shopped for one and never found anything I loved. I was annoyed because last summer I really enjoyed wearing both bikinis I brought and I found I didn't really care what anyone else thought. So in the end, I bought a new bikini to add to my collection. Screw it, right? I can wear whatever I want!
So now I just have to make it through less than two weeks to get to this vacation. I can totally do that. I'll focus on getting my work done, starting my trip packing list and mentally preparing myself for a big, long break from reality. :-) Cheers to vacation!
Friday, August 7, 2015
Summer!
I'm still here! I just realized I haven't posted since mid-July. :-o This happens every year-the summer is just a dead zone for me posting wise!
I'm at that point of summer where I'm starting to get those little fall yearnings, except for the fact that my beach vacation is still a month away! Work has been crazy, everything has been a little crazy, but I'm here, I'm good, I'm just behind on blogging...though still reading everyone else's blogs!
I've officially started my beach countdown. We leave four weeks from tomorrow! I absolutely cannot wait to have seven days out of town, at the beach, relaxing and enjoying tons of quality time with BF. Life has been chaotic and stressful and we definitely need the down time.
In the meantime, I am being forced to come into work for six hours tomorrow, which does NOT please me, overtime or not. I cannot stand the thought of work intruding on my weekend and it is something I'm just ready to get over with!
Weather is gorgeous the last couple of days, cooler, but warm and nice. Getting ready to head downstairs for Happy Minute pizza and socializing at work and then escaping at five, especially since I have to be back here tomorrow.
Happy weekending!
I'm at that point of summer where I'm starting to get those little fall yearnings, except for the fact that my beach vacation is still a month away! Work has been crazy, everything has been a little crazy, but I'm here, I'm good, I'm just behind on blogging...though still reading everyone else's blogs!
I've officially started my beach countdown. We leave four weeks from tomorrow! I absolutely cannot wait to have seven days out of town, at the beach, relaxing and enjoying tons of quality time with BF. Life has been chaotic and stressful and we definitely need the down time.
In the meantime, I am being forced to come into work for six hours tomorrow, which does NOT please me, overtime or not. I cannot stand the thought of work intruding on my weekend and it is something I'm just ready to get over with!
Weather is gorgeous the last couple of days, cooler, but warm and nice. Getting ready to head downstairs for Happy Minute pizza and socializing at work and then escaping at five, especially since I have to be back here tomorrow.
Happy weekending!
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Dress for Success
So the birthday was a success! BF loved his gifts he's received thus far. The Washington Nationals birdhouse arrived yesterday, along with his silly t-shirt, so I'll be gifting those to him tomorrow evening once J is back at the house. We went out to lunch with J for his b-day and then went miniature golfing. We opened presents and then J went home and we went our for dinner. Below is a cropped (and rather dark!) pic to show you all my Golden Girls dress. ;-) I felt really good in it and look forward to wearing it again, as I changed back at the house. The evening plans were to watch the NASCAR Race, LOL. Man loves his Jimmie Johnson. We had some drinks and ice cream cake for dessert, though, and it was nice.
So today is my Thursday, which is awesome. Yesterday was a chaotic mess at work. I got in early, got a 15 minute lunch and stayed late. Today should be much better. I'm so looking forward to our getaway Thursday-Sunday. A few days away at a rental house/cabin in the mountains of West Virginia sounds so great right now! The place has two levels of huge decks on the back, a hot tub on the deck, two jacuzzi tubs in the house and a grill. What else do we need??? :-)
Our plan is to be super, crazy low key. We are going to grill, watch movies, play games and relax in the hot tub. I'm going to read, maybe take a jacuzzi bath, too, to read in there! I'm sure we will also explore the nearby town, though I'm not expecting a ton of things to do...which is A-OK! I'm not bringing any hair straightening items LOL. I'm going curly and rogue, super short hair be damned! I'm hoping for cool evenings to make the hot tub more enjoyable, and the chance to wear a hoodie. :-p I will also be packing my new Golden Girls shirt, which I washed last night in anticipation! We're also bringing J's birthday gifts and will be baking her a red velvet cake per her request.
In the meantime, just need to get through today and tomorrow! Tomorrow night will likely be a lot of packing and organizing, which is fun enough when you're on your way somewhere and not coming back from somewhere. ;-)
Cheers to a fast moving work day!
So today is my Thursday, which is awesome. Yesterday was a chaotic mess at work. I got in early, got a 15 minute lunch and stayed late. Today should be much better. I'm so looking forward to our getaway Thursday-Sunday. A few days away at a rental house/cabin in the mountains of West Virginia sounds so great right now! The place has two levels of huge decks on the back, a hot tub on the deck, two jacuzzi tubs in the house and a grill. What else do we need??? :-)
Our plan is to be super, crazy low key. We are going to grill, watch movies, play games and relax in the hot tub. I'm going to read, maybe take a jacuzzi bath, too, to read in there! I'm sure we will also explore the nearby town, though I'm not expecting a ton of things to do...which is A-OK! I'm not bringing any hair straightening items LOL. I'm going curly and rogue, super short hair be damned! I'm hoping for cool evenings to make the hot tub more enjoyable, and the chance to wear a hoodie. :-p I will also be packing my new Golden Girls shirt, which I washed last night in anticipation! We're also bringing J's birthday gifts and will be baking her a red velvet cake per her request.
In the meantime, just need to get through today and tomorrow! Tomorrow night will likely be a lot of packing and organizing, which is fun enough when you're on your way somewhere and not coming back from somewhere. ;-)
Cheers to a fast moving work day!
Friday, July 10, 2015
Bluemoon as a Golden Girl
Happy Friday! It doesn't *feel* like a friday, but it is, and you will find no complaints from this girl. Fridays are jeans days, which automatically makes the day better for some reason. I'm also wearing a bright, vivid purple shirt that I love today and some earrings that match perfectly, which I got in Columbia, Missouri during a visit to my friend T a couple of years back. They make me happy because they kind of remind me of grape lifesavers.
In addition, I'm rocking my new favorite lipstick, which is the oft-sought and rarely found "your lips, but better" shade for me. It's a L'oreal Colour Riche balm in the color of "Plush Plum". I'm madly in love with it because it smells good, it's super moisturizing, and it doesn't need a gloss on top. Also, the color is just perfect. Bought it with some CVS Bucks yesterday and it was definitely a good choice.
Signed up for Ipsy this week to see how it compares to Birchbox. I figure I'll give it maybe 2-3 months and see which one I want to stick with. Both should be coming in the next couple of weeks, so I'll be sure to share my thoughts. ;-) I do love getting a box full of random beauty items instead of just a mailbox full of bills and junk mail.
In other news, I sorted out BF's birthday on my own. Thank you for the suggestions, though! He's just a tough cookie to gift! He recently mentioned an interest in getting a birdhouse for the backyard, as we have some built in hooks on the fences from previous owners. I had previously scoped one out on Etsy that was Washington Nationals themed, and I decided to go for it. It's pretty neat and I think he'll really like it.
While in the Etsy vortex, I also made an impulse purchase of three t-shirts from one shop---one for BF, one for his daughter, J and one for me, LOL. His is a goofy shirt, which is his favorite kind, J's says "Bye Felicia", which is one of her favorite current sayings, ha. Mine is....well, behold the awesome of my shirt!
Seriously, who doesn't love The Golden Girls? I LOVE that show. I've watched it for years in syndication, and I think I recall it actually being on TV as a first-run series. Anyway, I adore that show, I adore those ladies, and this shirt is everything. :-)
The birdhouse and the t-shirts won't arrive until next week, AFTER BF's birthday, but luckily I have a built in excuse for these tardy gifts. We are renting a house in the mountains of West Virginia Thursday-Sunday, and it was originally planned as a joint birthday celebration for BF and J. His b-day is 7/11 and hers is 7/22. So I'm just going to give BF the gifts I currently have on Saturday, and then explain that I wanted to extend his birthday fun into the trip, so I will give him those two gifts at that time. Cheers! :-D
In related Golden Girls news....I think I previously mentioned having bought a summer dress at a thrift shop when out running around with J one Saturday. Well, I haven't had an opportunity to wear it yet, but I think I'm going to bust that baby out Saturday evening for BF's birthday dinner. We are going to a really nice local restaurant with a reservation and everything...fancy for us. ;-)
Anyway, this dress is the weirdest thing to me. It's a slip style dress with this crazy, wildly colorful random pattern on it. I look at it and it legit screams Old lady Miami! Golden Girls! to me for some reason. Objectively, I recognize that the pattern is probably pretty damn ugly when you look at it too closely or too long, AND YET....I was drawn to it, and I like it. It's my Golden Girls dress! It's the one thing I DON'T have a picture of for this post. ;-) I'm going to try to remember to get a pic Saturday since it's not often I wear dresses on the weekend.
This post brought to you by a decaf grande skim Caramel Macchiato, Friday enthusiasm and a feeling of success at finally finishing BF's birthday gift on the day before his actual birthday. ;-)
In addition, I'm rocking my new favorite lipstick, which is the oft-sought and rarely found "your lips, but better" shade for me. It's a L'oreal Colour Riche balm in the color of "Plush Plum". I'm madly in love with it because it smells good, it's super moisturizing, and it doesn't need a gloss on top. Also, the color is just perfect. Bought it with some CVS Bucks yesterday and it was definitely a good choice.
Signed up for Ipsy this week to see how it compares to Birchbox. I figure I'll give it maybe 2-3 months and see which one I want to stick with. Both should be coming in the next couple of weeks, so I'll be sure to share my thoughts. ;-) I do love getting a box full of random beauty items instead of just a mailbox full of bills and junk mail.
In other news, I sorted out BF's birthday on my own. Thank you for the suggestions, though! He's just a tough cookie to gift! He recently mentioned an interest in getting a birdhouse for the backyard, as we have some built in hooks on the fences from previous owners. I had previously scoped one out on Etsy that was Washington Nationals themed, and I decided to go for it. It's pretty neat and I think he'll really like it.
While in the Etsy vortex, I also made an impulse purchase of three t-shirts from one shop---one for BF, one for his daughter, J and one for me, LOL. His is a goofy shirt, which is his favorite kind, J's says "Bye Felicia", which is one of her favorite current sayings, ha. Mine is....well, behold the awesome of my shirt!
The birdhouse and the t-shirts won't arrive until next week, AFTER BF's birthday, but luckily I have a built in excuse for these tardy gifts. We are renting a house in the mountains of West Virginia Thursday-Sunday, and it was originally planned as a joint birthday celebration for BF and J. His b-day is 7/11 and hers is 7/22. So I'm just going to give BF the gifts I currently have on Saturday, and then explain that I wanted to extend his birthday fun into the trip, so I will give him those two gifts at that time. Cheers! :-D
In related Golden Girls news....I think I previously mentioned having bought a summer dress at a thrift shop when out running around with J one Saturday. Well, I haven't had an opportunity to wear it yet, but I think I'm going to bust that baby out Saturday evening for BF's birthday dinner. We are going to a really nice local restaurant with a reservation and everything...fancy for us. ;-)
Anyway, this dress is the weirdest thing to me. It's a slip style dress with this crazy, wildly colorful random pattern on it. I look at it and it legit screams Old lady Miami! Golden Girls! to me for some reason. Objectively, I recognize that the pattern is probably pretty damn ugly when you look at it too closely or too long, AND YET....I was drawn to it, and I like it. It's my Golden Girls dress! It's the one thing I DON'T have a picture of for this post. ;-) I'm going to try to remember to get a pic Saturday since it's not often I wear dresses on the weekend.
This post brought to you by a decaf grande skim Caramel Macchiato, Friday enthusiasm and a feeling of success at finally finishing BF's birthday gift on the day before his actual birthday. ;-)
Thursday, July 9, 2015
Help!
BF's birthday is Saturday. For some reason, I am having the hardest time with gifts for him this time around! I have a few things already taken care of, but I feel like I need one more good gift. Of the things I got him, one he basically told me he wanted, one is more of a cute gift that we'll all appreciate, and one is a t-shirt I think he'll love, but may not be big enough (and his size is nowhere to be found). Any magical, inspirational ideas of something cool I can do? I'm usually so good at this and am ROCKING his daughter J's birthday ideas. :-)
Anyway, real post coming later hopefully, but otherwise excuse this interruption of regular programming. :-)
Anyway, real post coming later hopefully, but otherwise excuse this interruption of regular programming. :-)
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Chop Chop
Oh, the woes of a holiday work week. It's finally Wednesday, but the week has been dragging! My birthday week was pretty good. It's always nice to feel loved and appreciated by my family and friends! I'm another year older, and hopefully another year wiser. :-)
Got my hair cut on Friday morning and wow... It was shorter than expected. I left feeling a bit shell shocked and a little self-conscious as well. Definitely the shortest I've had it in a long time! I was predominantly worried about how it would fare when it was curly. :-o Got lots of compliments on it from women, got a couple, "Wow, it's short" from guys. This is not even a little shocking! This reinforces my belief that more often than not, men prefer long hair over short. If that's the case, OH WELL. It's hair, it will grow, and I ultimately like it shorter than longer!
Please ignore my escaping bra strap, as the shirt had a weird cut and proved challenging all day. ;-)
Anyway, wore it curly sunday and monday, and it was a bit challenging, too. But I'll manage until it grows out a bit, and it actually looks pretty cute when blown out. I did it myself yesterday and not only was it quicker, but it was a cute look!
Really looking forward to the long weekend. Just one extra day, but I'll take it! We really don't have any concrete, interesting plans. I expect to watch fireworks somewhere, I expect to grill food. That's all I've got so far. I'd also like to finish watching this latest season of "Orange is the New Black". I think I have about five episodes left. Such a great show!
Boring today, so I'm going to wrap this up before I ramble any further about nothing. Cheers to today being this week's Thursday!
Got my hair cut on Friday morning and wow... It was shorter than expected. I left feeling a bit shell shocked and a little self-conscious as well. Definitely the shortest I've had it in a long time! I was predominantly worried about how it would fare when it was curly. :-o Got lots of compliments on it from women, got a couple, "Wow, it's short" from guys. This is not even a little shocking! This reinforces my belief that more often than not, men prefer long hair over short. If that's the case, OH WELL. It's hair, it will grow, and I ultimately like it shorter than longer!
Please ignore my escaping bra strap, as the shirt had a weird cut and proved challenging all day. ;-)
Anyway, wore it curly sunday and monday, and it was a bit challenging, too. But I'll manage until it grows out a bit, and it actually looks pretty cute when blown out. I did it myself yesterday and not only was it quicker, but it was a cute look!
Really looking forward to the long weekend. Just one extra day, but I'll take it! We really don't have any concrete, interesting plans. I expect to watch fireworks somewhere, I expect to grill food. That's all I've got so far. I'd also like to finish watching this latest season of "Orange is the New Black". I think I have about five episodes left. Such a great show!
Boring today, so I'm going to wrap this up before I ramble any further about nothing. Cheers to today being this week's Thursday!
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Birthday Eve
So tomorrow is my 37th birthday. :-o Crazy how time flies as you get older! I certainly don't feel 37. As a general rule I feel about 30. I still maintain that I felt older when I was 25 and married living in the midwest, LOL. Strange!
I took tomorrow off as a Floating Holiday and BF took it off as well. We don't really have many set plans other than to NOT be at work. :-) I do think we're going to a Japanese steakhouse for dinner, and I'm predicting a Red Velvet Concrete from BurgerFi will be my birthday dessert! In the middle, weather dependent, there may be some miniature golf, a breakfast/lunch, maybe some birthday money shopping. I'm just looking forward to spending the day with BF.
Tonight we have my Firm's tickets to the Nats game. However, we are supposed to get potentially record-breaking temps today before some possibly severe storms roll through in the late afternoon/early evening hours. Right now, it seems like the game may be delayed about an hour, but good to go at that point. If that stays the case throughout the day, BF will commute into the city and we'll find somewhere to kill some time before the game. Hopefully it works out!
Today is my brother's birthday. We grew up having to pick a spot together for our birthday dinners with the family and it was always such a chore, or so it seemed! Now I feel a bit nostalgic for those joint birthday celebrations! I'm never home to celebrate my birthday anymore, perhaps that's why.
Today and Thursday I have to spend 6 hours of my work day in a training room getting ready for our new database rollout in August. I am positively dreading it. I don't think I can login as myself, so I won't have access to my work email, and I'm afraid of what I'll come back to over my lunch break and at the end of the day. 6 hours of a 7.5 hour work day in a training room is simply too much! It was supposed to be 12 hours broken up over a three day period, but since I'm out tomorrow I am having to squish it all into two days. I'm just hoping that there will be competent trainers available, as the "just play, figure it out on your own" tactic they've suggested to this point has not been very valuable.
I guess I will go rally myself to get into this training. At least I have a lot to look forward to tomorrow and Friday. :-)
I took tomorrow off as a Floating Holiday and BF took it off as well. We don't really have many set plans other than to NOT be at work. :-) I do think we're going to a Japanese steakhouse for dinner, and I'm predicting a Red Velvet Concrete from BurgerFi will be my birthday dessert! In the middle, weather dependent, there may be some miniature golf, a breakfast/lunch, maybe some birthday money shopping. I'm just looking forward to spending the day with BF.
Tonight we have my Firm's tickets to the Nats game. However, we are supposed to get potentially record-breaking temps today before some possibly severe storms roll through in the late afternoon/early evening hours. Right now, it seems like the game may be delayed about an hour, but good to go at that point. If that stays the case throughout the day, BF will commute into the city and we'll find somewhere to kill some time before the game. Hopefully it works out!
Today is my brother's birthday. We grew up having to pick a spot together for our birthday dinners with the family and it was always such a chore, or so it seemed! Now I feel a bit nostalgic for those joint birthday celebrations! I'm never home to celebrate my birthday anymore, perhaps that's why.
Today and Thursday I have to spend 6 hours of my work day in a training room getting ready for our new database rollout in August. I am positively dreading it. I don't think I can login as myself, so I won't have access to my work email, and I'm afraid of what I'll come back to over my lunch break and at the end of the day. 6 hours of a 7.5 hour work day in a training room is simply too much! It was supposed to be 12 hours broken up over a three day period, but since I'm out tomorrow I am having to squish it all into two days. I'm just hoping that there will be competent trainers available, as the "just play, figure it out on your own" tactic they've suggested to this point has not been very valuable.
I guess I will go rally myself to get into this training. At least I have a lot to look forward to tomorrow and Friday. :-)
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Yawn Party
So BF is still getting over a cold, and as many of us know, the cough is often the last thing to go. I know that when I was so ridiculously ill this winter I had the cough for MONTHS after I kicked that vicious bout of the flu. Last night BF came to bed and proceeded to cough. And cough. And cough some more. He FINALLY gave in and took some Nyquil Cough, but by that point the damage was done. Every time I'd dozed off he'd cough and I'd be jolted awake. Boo. Woke up this morning feeling completely exhausted. I know he's ready for that cough to go away, but I'm definitely looking forward to it as well! :-o
I watched two more episodes of "Orange is the New Black". I'm now through 5 of the latest season's 13 episodes. I wish I had time to just marathon them! Such a great show. Once I finish that I'm going to go back to the latest season of House of Cards, which I'm only 2-3 episodes into so far. I wish I had wifi for my bus rides to and from work, as I could get so much watched! :-) Alas, no such luck and my data plan isn't big enough to contain all that Netflix awesome.
This week is truly dragging. Yesterday was just disgustingly hot, but today is slightly better. Gotta love summer! Current plan is to muddle through this Wednesday work day and probably spend some quality time with the BF this evening.
I've found that quality time during the week is challenging to come by if I want to keep on my gym routine. I get home shortly before seven, we make and eat dinner. I relax briefly and then have to head out to the gym. Home an hour or so later, shower, then there's not enough time left to get much done before I need to aim for bed since we get up so early! It's pretty frustrating sometimes, and that's why on occasion I just call it and decide to take a night off from the gym and spend the evening with BF. We're making chicken fried rice tonight for dinner, and then I'm hoping to go on a nice, decent walk to make up a bit for the gym. I really just want a few hours that are uninterrupted by the gym, or showers or a never ending feeling of having ten other things I should be doing!
It's definitely much better since we have lived together, as we do get all that in between time that we didn't used to, and we do go to bed together and wake up together, which is really, really nice. But we don't have that designated "date night" like we did when we lived apart. Occasionally I just have to make it happen! :-) We get lots of time on the weekend, but J is usually with us, so it's a different dynamic.
Tomorrow night I'm going to see my hair guy after work to get my highlights touched up. I love a good salon trip! I'm staying in DC for the evening to attend the Battle of the Bands event my firm is participating in, and will head that way post-appt. This also means I need to pack a change of clothes so I'm not attending in work gear and prepare myself for a late night. Our band doesn't play until 8:45, and so I'm imagining the earliest I'll get out of there is ten, and then I have probably an hour metro ride followed by a thirty minute car ride. Cheers!?! Guess it's going to be a tired Friday, too. :-)
I guess that's all I know for now. Happy wednesday (is almost thursday) to everyone!
I watched two more episodes of "Orange is the New Black". I'm now through 5 of the latest season's 13 episodes. I wish I had time to just marathon them! Such a great show. Once I finish that I'm going to go back to the latest season of House of Cards, which I'm only 2-3 episodes into so far. I wish I had wifi for my bus rides to and from work, as I could get so much watched! :-) Alas, no such luck and my data plan isn't big enough to contain all that Netflix awesome.
This week is truly dragging. Yesterday was just disgustingly hot, but today is slightly better. Gotta love summer! Current plan is to muddle through this Wednesday work day and probably spend some quality time with the BF this evening.
I've found that quality time during the week is challenging to come by if I want to keep on my gym routine. I get home shortly before seven, we make and eat dinner. I relax briefly and then have to head out to the gym. Home an hour or so later, shower, then there's not enough time left to get much done before I need to aim for bed since we get up so early! It's pretty frustrating sometimes, and that's why on occasion I just call it and decide to take a night off from the gym and spend the evening with BF. We're making chicken fried rice tonight for dinner, and then I'm hoping to go on a nice, decent walk to make up a bit for the gym. I really just want a few hours that are uninterrupted by the gym, or showers or a never ending feeling of having ten other things I should be doing!
It's definitely much better since we have lived together, as we do get all that in between time that we didn't used to, and we do go to bed together and wake up together, which is really, really nice. But we don't have that designated "date night" like we did when we lived apart. Occasionally I just have to make it happen! :-) We get lots of time on the weekend, but J is usually with us, so it's a different dynamic.
Tomorrow night I'm going to see my hair guy after work to get my highlights touched up. I love a good salon trip! I'm staying in DC for the evening to attend the Battle of the Bands event my firm is participating in, and will head that way post-appt. This also means I need to pack a change of clothes so I'm not attending in work gear and prepare myself for a late night. Our band doesn't play until 8:45, and so I'm imagining the earliest I'll get out of there is ten, and then I have probably an hour metro ride followed by a thirty minute car ride. Cheers!?! Guess it's going to be a tired Friday, too. :-)
I guess that's all I know for now. Happy wednesday (is almost thursday) to everyone!
Monday, June 15, 2015
Monday Blues
You know, this morning started out well. I woke up and actually got up when the alarm went off instead of snoozing. I put on a cute dress and BF told me how nice I looked before I left. I dozed on the commute in, got into the office and then...the s**t hit the fan. Honestly. I have been here for an hour and already two different people have frustrated the hell out of me. The frustration stems from a sheer lack of reading comprehension on the parts of these individuals, and laziness on the part of another. WTF, mate?
I had to take a step back, minimize the inbox and I'm choosing to spend this quality time blogging while I cool down. I refuse to let this entire day unfold this way! It's June, it's (almost) summer, it's Pay Day, it's a billion degrees out. Well, that last one isn't really a positive, but it's life! :-)
So the weekend was good. Friday night was pretty uneventful, as most are after a long week. Saturday BF had to go into the office for a few hours, so I took J to brunch with me, where we met a couple of my favorite girlfriends. It was a good meal and we did a little shopping afterwards in the stores nearby. After that J and I went to a huge thrift store she knew of in the area. I'll fully admit thrift stores are NOT my thing, but it was actually pretty fun. J convinced me to try on a dress by agreeing to try one on, too, and I actually liked mine and bought it. :-o It was $9 and is not my usual style, but appealed to me, anyway. It's hand wash only, so I'm going to do that this week before introducing it into my summer wardrobe.
Saturday night we stayed in and watched a movie with dinner. Sunday we went to see "Jurassic World", which was actually excellent. I've only seen the original Jurassic Park movie once and haven't seen the others, so it wasn't something I was obsessed with seeing like J was, but I enjoyed it! Back at home J and I did home manicures in the time before she got picked up. BF and I grilled burgers for dinner and that's about it!
I'm hoping this work week goes by quickly. I'll fully admit that I'm more focused on the fun stuff coming up than the work stuff! This week my Firm is participating in a Battle of the Bands for charity. It's Thursday night at a club in DC and I'm planning to attend. It's going to be a logistical nightmare since I live so far out. I'll either be getting back home at midnight or after and then going back to work 6 hours later, or I'll be inviting myself to spend the night at a friend's house closer in. Saturday is my Firm's annual picnic, which I've not actually attended yet. We RSVPed to go this year and to bring J since she'll be in our company again. Hopefully the weather will be decent and our commute out there won't be awful! Sunday I think the plan is to go to a Potomac Nationals baseball game for Father's Day for BF.
All right, time to get focused back on work I suppose....after I get some breakfast! :-)
I had to take a step back, minimize the inbox and I'm choosing to spend this quality time blogging while I cool down. I refuse to let this entire day unfold this way! It's June, it's (almost) summer, it's Pay Day, it's a billion degrees out. Well, that last one isn't really a positive, but it's life! :-)
So the weekend was good. Friday night was pretty uneventful, as most are after a long week. Saturday BF had to go into the office for a few hours, so I took J to brunch with me, where we met a couple of my favorite girlfriends. It was a good meal and we did a little shopping afterwards in the stores nearby. After that J and I went to a huge thrift store she knew of in the area. I'll fully admit thrift stores are NOT my thing, but it was actually pretty fun. J convinced me to try on a dress by agreeing to try one on, too, and I actually liked mine and bought it. :-o It was $9 and is not my usual style, but appealed to me, anyway. It's hand wash only, so I'm going to do that this week before introducing it into my summer wardrobe.
Saturday night we stayed in and watched a movie with dinner. Sunday we went to see "Jurassic World", which was actually excellent. I've only seen the original Jurassic Park movie once and haven't seen the others, so it wasn't something I was obsessed with seeing like J was, but I enjoyed it! Back at home J and I did home manicures in the time before she got picked up. BF and I grilled burgers for dinner and that's about it!
I'm hoping this work week goes by quickly. I'll fully admit that I'm more focused on the fun stuff coming up than the work stuff! This week my Firm is participating in a Battle of the Bands for charity. It's Thursday night at a club in DC and I'm planning to attend. It's going to be a logistical nightmare since I live so far out. I'll either be getting back home at midnight or after and then going back to work 6 hours later, or I'll be inviting myself to spend the night at a friend's house closer in. Saturday is my Firm's annual picnic, which I've not actually attended yet. We RSVPed to go this year and to bring J since she'll be in our company again. Hopefully the weather will be decent and our commute out there won't be awful! Sunday I think the plan is to go to a Potomac Nationals baseball game for Father's Day for BF.
All right, time to get focused back on work I suppose....after I get some breakfast! :-)
Thursday, June 11, 2015
thursday thoughts
It's been a busy Thursday, but I take comfort in the fact that the week is nearly over!
Things I'm thinking about as this Thursday work day wraps:
....why I'm scheduled for a 4:30 meeting when I ideally head out at 4:50 for bus-catching purposes each day
.... the mouse I saw inside the CVS drugstore cosmetics and lotion aisle yesterday.
.... if I will ever find the perfect lipstick/gloss shade or if I will spend my life buying bad ones, mediocre ones and good enough ones
.... all of the above about the perfect curl products
.... how on earth I can get everything I want/need to get done on this dreadfully short post-commute work days. It's hard to fit in dinner, house chores, gym, post gym-shower, periodic beauty indulgences (ie home manicures or hair blowouts) and regular old relaxation
.... if I will ever find the time to sit and marathon a whole season of something on Netflix
.... why it took me so long to get a new keyboard at work when my old one had the lettering on the keys rubbed off and they threw it out when I got the new one, anyway
.... if the mahi mahi fish tacos we had last night for dinner will be half as good for my leftovers dinner tonight
.... how glad I am tomorrow is friday
.... how much I'm randomly looking forward to sending out the FB invite to my birthday happy hour
.... how much I'm in love with this cute, cheap dress I got from New York and Company this past weekend, and how flattering it is
.... how much I hope this meeting doesn't make me late leaving work, and how much I really want to catch my regular bus to get home at a less unreasonable time than I would if I missed it
.... how glad I am we got our July long weekend cabin trip in the mountains of West Virginia booked yesterday
.... how much I miss writing, and how much I need to get back to it, and how on earth I'll find the time!
Things I'm thinking about as this Thursday work day wraps:
....why I'm scheduled for a 4:30 meeting when I ideally head out at 4:50 for bus-catching purposes each day
.... the mouse I saw inside the CVS drugstore cosmetics and lotion aisle yesterday.
.... if I will ever find the perfect lipstick/gloss shade or if I will spend my life buying bad ones, mediocre ones and good enough ones
.... all of the above about the perfect curl products
.... how on earth I can get everything I want/need to get done on this dreadfully short post-commute work days. It's hard to fit in dinner, house chores, gym, post gym-shower, periodic beauty indulgences (ie home manicures or hair blowouts) and regular old relaxation
.... if I will ever find the time to sit and marathon a whole season of something on Netflix
.... why it took me so long to get a new keyboard at work when my old one had the lettering on the keys rubbed off and they threw it out when I got the new one, anyway
.... if the mahi mahi fish tacos we had last night for dinner will be half as good for my leftovers dinner tonight
.... how glad I am tomorrow is friday
.... how much I'm randomly looking forward to sending out the FB invite to my birthday happy hour
.... how much I'm in love with this cute, cheap dress I got from New York and Company this past weekend, and how flattering it is
.... how much I hope this meeting doesn't make me late leaving work, and how much I really want to catch my regular bus to get home at a less unreasonable time than I would if I missed it
.... how glad I am we got our July long weekend cabin trip in the mountains of West Virginia booked yesterday
.... how much I miss writing, and how much I need to get back to it, and how on earth I'll find the time!
Friday, June 5, 2015
Lovely June Days
I cannot believe it's already June! I've been out of school for years and years, but it constantly amazes me how quickly time passes when you don't have set points in a school year to break things up. Regular adult life is comprised of so much routine and sameness that it's easy for a month or a season to pass without you realizing it!
The Lancaster trip was a good time. :-) It was a mini trip for sure, but I think we packed a lot in! We did some miniature golfing, we went to the Strasburg Railroad and took a 45 minute steam engine train ride through the Amish countryside. We had lunch at a place with Amish cuisine and took a tour of an old Amish Farm House, which also had some grounds that held the CUTEST baby goats ever. We wrapped up the night at a Lancaster Barnstormers baseball game, which I really enjoyed.
A few pictures:
The Lancaster trip was a good time. :-) It was a mini trip for sure, but I think we packed a lot in! We did some miniature golfing, we went to the Strasburg Railroad and took a 45 minute steam engine train ride through the Amish countryside. We had lunch at a place with Amish cuisine and took a tour of an old Amish Farm House, which also had some grounds that held the CUTEST baby goats ever. We wrapped up the night at a Lancaster Barnstormers baseball game, which I really enjoyed.
A few pictures:
Strasburg Railroad
Gorgeous countryside
My new BFFs, the baby goats!
Baseball game-gorgeous weather!
The work week has been incredibly slow moving. :-/ I have a couple of meetings this afternoon, but other than that just a regular old Friday. We got a new quilt for the bedroom at home. BF previously had a plain black comforter on the bed along with gray sheets. Thrilling, right? In addition to it being BORING, it was getting too heavy for the season, so I upgraded us to a really cute patterned quilt. It's a gray color palette, but it's much nicer looking overall and much lighter-weight. BF is lucky I'm not into uber-girly things like floral patterns and the like. :-D
No big weekend plans on tap. Tonight will just be relaxing at home with BF and J, maybe watching a movie. Tomorrow we have the usual day of erranding on tap. I need to get to DSW to find some new gym shoes, and then we have much less exciting stops to make at places like Lowe's for new blinds. Thriller! It's J's half weekend with us, so she'll get picked up at 6pm on Saturday. We don't have any plans right now for the evening. It may depend on the weather! We've had the dreariest, most drizzly and gray week of weather. It's been unseasonably cool as well. Hopefully this weekend we'll get some better weather!
The rest of June should start to get a little busier, though. It includes a brunch with girlfriends, possibly attending a Battle of the Law Firm Bands for my firm at a local club, my Firm's annual picnic at the Zoo, Father's Day for BF with J, hopefully another Nats game and birthday festivities, which right now just include taking my b-day off since it falls on a Wednesday and a happy hour the friday of that week to celebrate. :-) I'm looking forward to all of it! But in the meantime, I'll settle for nicer weather, a relaxing weekend and some shoe shopping. :-)
Happy (almost) weekend!
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