A great week

It's been a crazy week and a half, but pretty great for the most part.

Last weekend we had our state volunteer/family conference. My friend/co-worker, Nikki, and I put on a Leadership Presentation for all our high ranking folks. Uffda...we threw it together at 5pm last Friday and somehow it still went really well. We were complimented more than once that we work well together. It is true. I love doing presentations and teaching with her. We're able to bounce off each other and keep things rolling. She's a great friend.

Sunday after the conference I met up with Kev and his kids for our annual tradition of painting eggs. Not hard boiled eggs, mind you, ceramic ones. It was a lot of fun. I love to paint, and having a tradition with Kev's kids is great. We painted 3 each this year. Let's hope I don't drop and break them like I did last year. :)

The week after that was insane. Boss1 was back and so there was a ton of catch-up to do and prep for his next trip. Plus it's the end of the month so we had a bunch of projects to clean up before April shows up. Busy busy busy.

Thursday I had a Girls Night with KC, Charissa and Chris - how confusing! KC set up a night at a local boutique that sells Bare Ecentuals/Bare Minerals products. Yes, I went out for a make-over. Holy crap. It was fun though. The gal who 'did me up' was named Kate and she was a riot. I kept questioning the look and she started teasing me, "You need to step out of the box." "Give it a chance, you're not even trying." She said it in a joking way which helped, but later when I started asking real questions she was great in helping me understand the steps. Bridget had warned me that BE/BM products have a LOT of steps, which is true, but hey, if it works and it's not too nauseating for the non-girl in me, it might be good for me to try.

Plus, I like their products. They don't feel heavy - though some of their creams did feel sticky at first, but when I tried them today and let them dry a bit before applying the next step it wasn't so bad. And their sunscreen for your face is AWESOME. I got a mini sample one year from somewhere and I loved it. Lightweight and didn't smell bad. Plus when I sweat it didn't get in my eyes.

When I got home I walked in to the Man Cave to see M. It took him doing the classic double-take and a surprised look, "You have makeup on! Who are you?" He was pleasantly surprised. He liked how the foundation and powder smoothed out my skin and made me look younger, but he didn't like all the eye shadow. I explained they did a "wedding" look so I'd need to work with something for an everyday look instead.

Today, after kickboxing, resistance bands, and a run, I showered up and tried the makeup out. I had some eyeshadow - funny enough, similar colors she used Thursday - and I attempted this girly process. It wasn't too bad. I didn't go too dark on the eyeshadow, and M didn't really notice. Maybe I did it right. :) Or maybe not. We'll see... more practice on that. Someday I'll be a girl. :)

Today was great...I mentioned I had kind of an intense workout morning. It was great. It was upper body day and we were short on time so Julie led us through super-sets on all the exercises with a little cardio to loosen up in between. 40 minutes of that and then we went into an intense 30 minute kickboxing workout. I've been partnering up with Cory lately and he pushes me like no other. It's awesome. We were sweating a ton, which is always fun.

Then after a 90 minute break, I met up with Sara, my running buddy, and we went for a 3.6 mile run. Tons of fun. We ran pretty hard the first mile, and Sara was doing most of the talking - and it was uphill, so by the time we got up to the left turn we were ready for a walk. We walked and talked two sections (not quite 2 miles total) and caught up and talked through wedding ideas. Sara just got married in November so she has a bunch of contacts for me. Yay! We ran in the last mile and ended up coming in at the end of FXB's mile test (initial testing was this morning) so the coaches and instructors who were there cheered us on too. :)

I love running with Sara - we're evenly matched with skill and pace and we can still talk and catch up. She's become a great friend over the last couple years.

This afternoon, M and I went into town to have lunch (I needed it since I hadn't eaten all morning) and we were going to do some shopping. We got his shoes for work ordered and me some more running socks (score!). Then we went for frozen yogurt (I had a coupon) and then as we were driving home I saw the antique store that's in our town was open, so we went in and checked it out. We spent over an hour in there, didn't see everything but did find a couple things that were purchased at M's garage sale a couple years ago - for way more than we got for them. Too funny. I did find a couple of the books I collect - Trixie Belden - but I didn't buy them today. I doubt they're a hot commodity, so I'll catch them the next time around.

I came home and napped while M studied. Now he's mowing so I thought I'd write a little. But now I'm done, so I'm going to go. :) 

Back at it

Yay! I've been running again! It's been so long!

After Saturday's misery with the Irishman, I decided it's time I get off my butt and get back out there. So yesterday after a lower-body day, I went for a 2.5ish mile run. It felt awesome. So this morning B and I walked 3 miles. And then after work I ran 3 miles of hills.

*sigh* I'm back on the right track. The best part? Running tonight and losing myself in my thoughts to the point i forgot I was running. LOVE that feeling.

Busy week and great saturday

Really? Has it been since Monday since I've written? It's not surprising, I guess. I've had a busy week - very productive but limited time on email and the Internet.

And I've been okay with that. I've been reading. It's been awesome! M returned to studying for his upgrade test so nights have been quiet - no television - all reading. YAY! At work I've been actually getting projects accomplished. Boss1 was back this week, which is great because his presence "rights" the world, if that makes sense.

So I read "An Abundance of Katherines" and then started on the Hunger Games series. Kari had suggested I read it and loaned me her Nook so I could read them right away. I'm loving those, except I finished book 1 and now i need to download book 2 but I don't really want to plug in our account code, so I need to go into town to find free wi-fi. Maybe tomorrow since it seems M has settled in for the night.

Anyway - today I ran the Irishman, my St. Patrick's Day tradition. This entails a 5mile run at 9am, 5K at 11:30 and a 1mile run at 2pm, just before the start of the parade. I haven't been running a lot lately (read: at all), so I was a little worried about this one. Plus I've been freaking out about my knees and I think my fear of my last marathon has kept me from running. I don't want a repeat of that day...it sucked and it hurt.

Today was good though, other than my breathing issue. Despite kickboxing 4 days a week, my breathing isn't that great, which means that cardio isn't good enough. More to work on. And it was humid today, so that didn't help either.

I'm happy with the runs. And I got my Guinness at 10am (between the first two races). Last year they gave away Guinness glasses with the beer, but this year, nada. Oh well...it was still tasty.

Now I'm just relaxing and trying to decide what to do for the night. Do we go into town or stay at home? Decisions, decisions.

Manic Monday

Mondays have become my favorite day of the week. I know, I'm weird. But I have Mondays off so Mondays are great in my world. Yesterday was no different.

I got up at my usual time of 4:20 a.m. Now you'd think that since Daylight Saving Time was this weekend that this would have been tough. But for whatever reason, I have flowed right into the normal time. I woke up at 4:08 and was ready to go. Kickboxing was awesome and then I came home to attack the day. And I did so with a vengence.

I took a nap.

A 90 minute nap, at that. :) It was great!!! I love my Monday nap time. I curl up on the couch and snooze for awhile, enjoying the solitude of a quiet house all to myself. *sigh* I love that time.

The rest of the day I spent cleaning the house. I'm not a huge fan of cleaning the house, but it needed it. I spent an hour in our bathroom alone. The shower took half of that time. Uffda. The good thing is that I finally bought kneepads so washing the floor wasn't so bad this time. But the house was dirty. Dirty, dirty, dirty. I'm glad I cleaned. I even went through piles of papers and got rid of a bunch of stuff I don't need anymore.

When M got home I made dinner - baked parmesan chicken and balsamic green beans with cranberries. M loved the chicken. He liked the green beans. I was just happy a new recipe for both turned out so well.  Then I cleaned up while he studied. Then I got to read the rest of the night. It was nice to not have the television on for once. I'm going to relish this time while he's in training. I miss my nights of just curling up on the couch and reading.

Weekend recap

Friday was a long day. It was funeral day in my world. My former personal trainer, JG, lost his mom last week and her funeral was Friday am. I wasn't sure if I should go or not, but I'm glad I did. I ended up meeting up with another friend from grad school, Tim W. He and JG are co-workers now. It was great to meet up with them both, though I didn't talk to JG. He wasn't looking too well and I wanted to let him have his peace.

Friday night, MPJ's wife and I headed to another memorial service for our co-worker's mom. She had died suddenly on Tuesday and I felt I needed to go. It was a nice memorial and our co-worker, Nikki, was overwhelmed that we drove so far to be there for her. She was really close to her mom, and I'm really glad we went.

The only bad thing was that we didn't get home til 11 and I still got up at 5:20 for class. I debated on going, but Kari and I had agreed Friday morning to meet for class Saturday AM. I'm glad I went. Jamie taught and we had a great class - though we were the only two fired up, it seemed. No one on the East side ever yells or cheers their partner on during class. It's so weird. So we were pretty loud and obnoxious but we had fun.

M and I had our first pre-martial counseling after class. We spent an hour talking with E about our issues, which was good. We have some things to work on, but it was helpful to realize that we weren't as screwed up as I thought. :)

After that, M let me take a nap while he cleaned out behind the dryer and vacuumed out the vent. Then we went into town and ran some errands, had lunch, and made plans for the evening. M worked on our centerpieces for the wedding some more while I went through papers. Exciting Saturday night, if you ask me.

Today, we headed in to town and had breakfast while reading through the scripture options for the wedding. I did my best to keep my mouth shut so M could make the decision, but he got to the point where he had me narrow it down and read them out loud and then we picked from there. He hasn't studied the Bible like I have and he said he struggles sometimes to understand them. So I did my best to read them and we picked from there. One fits us really well. Really really well. :)

We stopped in to visit his mom for awhile. Then headed home to wash cars and get some work done. M spent the afternoon welding and cleaning cars while I attempted cream cheese mints for the first time. M had picked out a bunch of flavors but I only made two today. What a mess. I need to figure out the trick with these. I wanted to practice so I can get them figured out before the week of the wedding. No sense in adding additional stress that week. It'll be bad enough that we'll need to make them then, but at least I'll have a better idea of how to make them quickly and efficiently.

Now, I'm exhausted. Daylight Saving Time sucks in the spring, but I guess it's just something to live with. It doesn't change much for me, other than more light at the end of day, which would be good. I already go to work in the dark, so that doesn't change, but maybe now I can get some runs in after work.

For now, I'm going to finish this up, play a game and then go to bed. Tomorrow is Monday - I'm hoping to get back in my routine tomorrow, including making my hard boiled eggs, cooking up some chicken and cleaning. It'll be nice to get back to normal.

My boss makes me glad

Boss1 sent me an email this afternoon - "Can you confirm I'm registered?" It's regarding a conference he has coming up. I wrote back, "Yes. But not for golf." Which was per his request a few weeks back - it's a legal thing. Anyway, he writes back, "Your no fun. Have a great weekend!"

Forgiving his grammatical error, this makes me glad. I've been concerned about our working relationship. When Boss2 was MPJ, Boss1 and I didn't talk a lot, but not that Boss2 is now SCW Boss1 is talking to me more. YAY! It's a very good thing.

QiZen

Last night as I was trying to fall asleep, M said to me, "You just need to find your chi-zen and clear your mind." I started laughing because I heard "cheesin'" - so relaxation wasn't quick to come.

I do like that merge of words though - QiZen (or maybe I should spell it ChiZen). Qi can be translated as breath, air or gas (which we know M has a lot of the latter). And Zen is absorbtion or meditative state.

So I could have:

breath absorbtion

breath meditation

air absorbtion

gas absorbtion (which is deathly with M sometimes).

I like that - breath absorbtion or breath meditation. We all need to breathe. This reminds me of Drew Barrymore in Ever After at the ball scene. She runs in to see Henry and as she stops at the top of the stairs she says, "Breathe. Just breathe."

I think I forget that sometimes. Not just to breathe but the importance of taking the break - stepping back and taking it all in. Last week was a long work week, full of high intensity, stressful decision making adventures, and dealing with folks who only work weekends - catching them up on what needs to be done. On top of that we're dealing with some stressful issues at work - deaths, folks who need mental help (not just me), people retiring so job shifting will soon occur, etc.

So M saying I need to find my QiZen is right on target. I need to find time to breathe. I need to find time for honest-to-goodness breath absorbtion.

Wow - it's been a couple days

It's been a crazy week, I will say. A couple surprise death's in the lives of my friends - as in my friends' moms died, so today is Funeral Day. I have a funeral at 1030 and a Memorial service tonight. It wouldn't be bad but the morning is an hour and 18 minutes away and the service tonight is almost 2 hours away. But waddaya do?

Last night I went with Bridget and got my nails shellac'd. She thinks it will help me to stop biting my nails and for them to grow before the wedding. I'm not convinced yet, but I agreed to try it. It can't hurt and it'd be good for me to do something for those.

I realized this morning though, when I couldn't find my ID badge for the 3rd time in 2 weeks in my purse on my way to work (i had left it at work at my desk) that I need to get back into my routine. My eating has sucked, my days and nights are off, and things are falling to the wayside. It bugs me because I'm not normally like this. I need to get back to the real me. I need my CDO to fall into place, my detail orientedness to come forth, and my routine to return. I feel off.

Busy Monday

Yesterday was a busy day, but let me finish up Sunday first.

Sunday, after work, Kari and I (and her friend Shelly) went to the musical, In the Heights. I hadn't heard anything about this but when Kari had asked a couple months ago, I jumped at it. Maybe I wanted to prove that, despite the fact that I didn't try out for Sweeney Todd, I'm not boring and uncreative. Anyway, Kari signed us up for the pre-show buffet which was awesome. And the show was great too. It was a nice night of my kind of normalcy.

I got back late Sunday night, but still got up early Monday for kickboxing. After I got home and cleaned up, M&I headed south to file taxes. M likes to take care of that at the local/nearby/closest base so he doesn't have to pay for it. M was sweet and agreed to drive so I could nap. Not that I did nap. I have always struggled with sleeping in a car. I did get to read for about 3 hours while M got his taxes and his mom's taxes completed. I'm starting to ramble, so let's just say we were there about 4 hours longer than we thought we would and thereby got home really late.

Today was beautiful weather. I ditched work early and went for a short run (my first in a looooonng time) then ran some errands. I'm just waiting for laundry to finish so I can go to bed. I'm exhausted. And I'm rambling.

Busy weekend and one more day to go

I know I haven't written in a while. I did write on Friday but it didn't post, I noticed, so I just pushed that back now. Friday was a crazy day. Do you ever have those days where you just need to cry for about 20 minutes and then all will be okay? That was my Friday. It hit about noon, but SBK and I went out to work on the script for a ceremony we had yesterday and after a mini-nap in the car (so she could let her dog out) I felt better. Yesterday was a whirlwind...we got news one of the gals in our building is retiring. It wouldn't be  a big deal but B works with her and is still learning. AND the ripple effect that will occur in this building will be incredible. It's kind of funny because no one wants her job, but they all want her position. After B was told that the gal was retiring, she said to me, "Now you can move across the street to SBKs job so I can have yours."

Guilt guilt guilt - I don't know that I feel comfortable with anyone but B taking my spot, not that it's my choice, but I don't know that I want SBKs job. Apps are due Tuesday. I'm running out of time.

Interesting find

I'm cleaning up my notebooks this afternoon, trying tof make sure I have all my taskers completed for today, and I found a note I wrote a few months back. Well, I think it was a few months back, there's no date listed.

I do this a lot - write random things to myself or others and then never do anything with them. I find them later and try to figure out what I was thinking or doing at the time. This one is interesting. I know the week, at least I think I do - it's one of two, but my fear that is evident is crazy. I don't know why I worried so, the days in question went off fine. I was nervous the entire time, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. I'm still learning the position that this is discussing, but it's fine. It's just funny how I work myself up over things sometimes.

Anyway, this is the note:
It's days like today, or weeks like this one, where I question my existence & job choice. I'm so much of a CO [not sure what I meant with that] & yet my job is not of that sort.
I feel stupid this week - I know shit about my job for this weekend & I wonder why * was selected for this tasking - other than there was a hole & I was avalable.  I'm expendable. But this weekend I'm in a key role - I think - but I know nothing of what I'm to be doing. I am literally scared for this weekend.

Yourself

"Everyone always says to be yourself...like "yourself" is this definite thing...like a toaster, or something."
-Angela, My So-Called Life

Last summer, I was at a conference of workshops. That is, I was at a conference that showcased workshops that we could bring to our workplace if we so desired to book them (or copy them). One of them was from the ScreamFree Institute. They have a daily parenting tip you can sign up for and, despite the fact I don't have kids, I signed up anyway.

Above is today's quote. And here is Hal's take:
My "self" is an abstract compilation of my feelings, principles, and experiences. It changes on a regular basis as those things shift and change. We are never "done" as people and this is important to remember for several reasons. If we convince ourselves that we are set in stone, then we are shortchanging ourselves tremendously. We are complicated beings, capable of growth and change. So are our kids. Avoid, at all costs, backing your child into a corner by labeling them in one form or another. Labels only limit; they never help. You are not creating a stone statue that will be "finished" when it turns 18. That's good news. It should enable you to relax a bit and enjoy the ride.
-Hal Runkel, LMFT, Author of ScreamFree Parenting and ScreamFree Marriage

This reminded me a lot of my quote at the top of my blog. I am never one thing, I am many and as many I constantly change. I'm like a shape shifter, but in a good way.

But I understand Angela's statement - she seems perplexed here that you're supposed to be this definitive thing. But people aren't, yet are often expected to be. I'm expected to be one way, and most of the time I'm not. Part of that is because I buck the system and when someone tells me I have to be this, or I can't be that, I do the opposite (I'm such a child in this way). I'm really glad Hal's Take says as such, "Labels only limit; they never help."

That reminds me of my prof in college who would always tell me, "Moe, you can do anything you want, you  just have to decide what you want." My boss said something similar a month ago, "What does Moe want?" Of course both of these comments made me start singing from Damn Yankees, "Whatever Lola wants....Lola gets..." Too bad that's not always the case.

Today is due day (or maybe tomorrow). I have to talk to the boss about SBK's job that's open. I need to come up with a plan because the deadline is rapidly approaching and with the work weekend ahead of me, my time is extremely limited. Though I often do my best work under pressure. :)