Valentine's Day

Instead of writing a post about how much my job sucks right now and how frustrated I am to be working 12hr days and how they changed their mind about a lot of the exciting things I had coming my way, I am going to write about Valentine's Day...happy day, day of love :-)

We don't really do anything major for Valentine's Day or at least it isn't a given that we will....a few years ago C did something really sweet for me and then 2 years ago he got me Chloe and I love her to pieces (and miss her right now and am really glad that cats live forever....right??). This year we have both been really stressed with work and I think that it just hasn't been great for us so I want to do something sweet even if he doesn't remember what day it is. I think that I am going to cook his favorite dinner and bake him some goodies and put together a little basket for him. I need to think of what I am going to fill the basket with though and I feel like I am at the end of my creative juices lately.

I have been keeping up with the p90x workouts. I skipped the chest one last week due to me busting it on the ice and bruising up my knee pretty good. I didn't want to spend an hour trying to do pushups on my bruised knee and I skipped Yoga on Monday because i just really don't like it. I also skipped the kenpo tonight but I am going to do it tomorrow. I wanted to run tonight. I have a 5k on Sunday (when it will hopefully be a balmy 43 as the weather predicts and not 10 like it was today). I wanted to make sure I could still run. Turns out that the p90x is helping a lot with my running so yay for that. That makes me feel good.

I started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo a week ago. I am absolutely addicted. I had to MAKE myself go to bed at 12 last night when I wanted to read more and as soon as I finish this one thing for work I am going to go back to reading it. I LOVE IT. A lot of people have had that reaction and then other people HATE it...my friend in Phoenix said she has started it 5 times. I was also told that you had to get to page 200 and I totally agree. The first 150-200 pages (of the 564 page book) is just building up all the characters. That part was sort of difficult because it is full of Swedish names, towns, streets, etc and I wouldn't have a clue how to pronounce any of them. So, if you want to skip all the character building and start on page 200, let me know and I can fill you in over a quick phone conversation :-) There are 3 books in the series so I am pretty pumped about that. I am hoping to finish the book this week so I can watch the movie this weekend (it is in Swedish so all subtitles but have heard good reviews - even from the friend that started it 5 times).

Packers!!!

To say that C was excited yesterday was a little of an understatement. He is as big of a Packers fan as I am a Georgia fan (thank goodness they have the same G). He has grown up a Packers fan and there are few times when I have seen him more excited than I did a year or so ago when we toured Lambeau Field. The end of the game last night was a little nerve racking for him to say the least. I already ordered him a champions shirt this am (a retro looking one, not one of the cheesy ones). So, we had a happy household last night (other than the kitties who didn't understand all the screaming). I will say that it is really hard to watch the Super Bowl when you want to see the game AND the commercials. I was a little disappointed in the commercials though, they just haven't been as good the last few years. What were your favs?

I had a pretty productive weekend. I made my resolution chart and started on my 2010 photo book. I got a whole trip in there! Now I only have one trip to go and it will be ready and waiting for a sale or groupon or some way that I can pay less for it. I also started on my Picaboo book. I decided to do that one for Australia. I got some other little things done and am still doing the p90x. I did my two week measurements and not much has changed. I have definitely gotten stronger because I can see that in my chart. Most of what I read says that women don't start to see results until they are about 60 days in. That seems like a really long time to wait but whatever. I will stick with it :-)

Headed to Baltimore today...it is snowing here AGAIN. I am so over all this winter weather after I busted it in my driveway on Friday and bruised up my knee (and cut it through my jeans) and hurt my wrist. I am ready for no white stuff on the ground!!! I guess at least I got to sleep until a normal time today...now to see if I can make it up the driveway with my suitcase today when the car comes to pick me up...

Hope everyone else had a good weekend!

Month 2: Organization

I do realize that if I was truly organized then I would have posted this on Feb 1st, but then there wouldn't be a reason to dedicate a whole month to getting organized if I was already there.

Anyway. Here is my list of goals for the month:
1. Go through the box of magazines and tear out workouts/recipes/patterns that I want to keep instead of keeping the whole magazine. Find a way to organize them in binders or some other fun way.
2. Clean out all the boxes in my closet (some are things that have been packed up for a while like financial items for my photography business or prior year taxes). I want to organize them.
3. Find a place for everything. Get rid of anything that doesn't have a place.
4. Put everything in its place after I use it (this will be the toughest one for me...especially if I am going to use it again the next day).
5. Put my clothes away every day...doesn't seem hard, I know.
6. Clean out email every Friday so that it is only action items left. Delete and file emails as they come in (this is tough because once I file them I can't get them on my bb and I am normally using my bb).
7. Go through mail daily (or on Fridays if it is a travel week) and set up bills to be paid. I use online banking so I can change the pay date and have them pay when it is time instead of waiting with bills sitting around.
8. Organize all negatives into slots and put all paper photos in boxes or albums.
9. Clean out all cabinets and commit to do so every 3 months.
10. Put all tasks on a to do list with due dates and complete them by their due date 80% of the time.

I think that is it right now. I bought a picaboo groupon yesterday for $35 and I get $100 worth of stuff (shipping included) so I am going to work on that this weekend. They also have a code right now for 25% off so I am thinking that I could probably get a really good deal :-) YAY!!

Other than that I will be cheering on the PACKERS!!! YAY!!

Oh yeah, and making that resolution chart that I keep forgetting to do.

Exhausted..

Like if something else occurs that I don't like today, I might cry...you know, I always laugh at kids when they cry when they are tired and I wonder why they don't just go to sleep, yet here I am!

Atlanta is draining...it is tiring! I talked to my boss today and in addition to the new project I already told you about, they want to out 7 more people under me. I am glad that they trust me but it will be quite different and will be a more management job. Now I do that plus a lot of day to day work, with 12 people it will be a full time job just to manage them. We will see where it leads. I do think that it will cut down on travel maybe so that would be good for C and I. I am not sure if it really will or not. There is just so much unknown at this point.

Anyway, with all that is going on and knowing that I will not get home tomorrow in all likelihood,I am just tired. I didn't get my resolution chart done and I didn't get the post ready today to tell you my goals for Feb. Not a great way to start off a month about being organized. I am going to try to work on it tomorrow and I have been thinking about it....hopefully I can post tomorrow.

I even chose tonight as my jigt off from p90x. It was supposed to be legs and back but I will just push everything back a day and not take the break on thursday. My sister and zach started tonight :-). My sitter is much better at the arm stuff than I am. I told her she would be from carrying those kids around :-)

Hopefully I will be more cheerful and awake tomorrow. I have a meeting in the am that I only need to pay partial attention to so I am going to make my goals list while I am not listening :-)

Project Happiness January Wrap Up

So, January is almost over so I wanted to report in on my project. In case you don't remember, here is a quick recap and how successful i was:

1. Drink 8 glasses of water a day. Success! I now drink 8 glasses of water a day. I can feel it if I haven't had it and I think the habit is here to stay! Yay!
2. No more than one soda a day. Success! I think I only had about 10 sodas (if that) the whole month!! No refills at all! This one will get harder when I start to travel like tomorrow when I get up at 3:45!
3. Take vitamins. Still a work in progress. I have a few vitamins to take, they are ones I already had like vitamin C and D and I took them a couple times but since I can't take them in thie morning because they make me nauseous, I often forget to take them. This goal will have to be worked on in Feb.
4. Track what I eat. Success! I did this all month, even when I had to go to work dinners and didn't get to pick what we were having. I think that overall it helped me to eat better and I am going to continue it.
5. Eat 5 fruits/veggies a day. Success! I think there were no more than 5 days for the whole month that I didnt get this one. Pretty good if you ask me! I will still work on it and I know as the days get warmer, my choices of fresh fruit and veggies will be more!

I have completed 10 days of the p90x so I am more than 10% done. I am sure there is no difference yet but I can definitely tell that I am stronger! You keep a log for some of the exercises and I have improved in every single exercise. Part of that might be that I wasn't quite sued what I was dojng the first time but I also think that a lot of it is because I have gotten better. I am a little in disbelief that a DVD that left me barely able to walk last week didn't have any effect on me this week. C says that you can get stringer pretty fast but I odnt remember the last time I did a full routine (other than a gym class once a week). I just am having a hard time getting over how much my form and strength has improved in a week. I think I will add back in running next week.

February's focus is going to be Organization. I have a couple ideas but most of them involve cleaning something out or organizing something rather than daily tasks. I will be back With the goals for that month. I know the first one is to make a resolution chart like Drena talks about...I think that will keep me on task!

I am off to bed soon, I have an early wakeup call tomorrow!!

Hit by a Bus!

That is sort of what I feel like this am. Not really a bad bus, per se, but a bus all the same.

I think that I have told most of you about a Market restructuring they were doing at work...quick version....we used to have 80 locations, Controller at each location and then 5 Regional Controllers and the Controllers rolled up to one of the 5 Regional ones. Now we are in a reduction mode and they eliminated the 5 Regional Controllers, turned our country into 23 Markets and we have 15 Market Controllers (some over 2 small markets) now (and will likely not have a Controller at each location anymore to reduce headcount and combine operations where we can). This week was the meeting to "on-board" (gotta love corporate lingo) the new Market Controllers. It was a lot of information on where our company is going and it just gets draining. Plus, I lost one of my employees to the position (she is now a Market Controller) and I am about to lose another employee, maybe two to other projects (I told them I was going to stop letting people work on projects because they keep getting stolen). Then, the bomb was dropped on my that we are going to start taking a process that the field does currently and roll it all into home office (which I knew) and they want those people to report to me (which I did not know). At least it is the project I was about to lose an employee to so I will get to keep her. BUT, now I have to make a case and proposal on why I need to replace the people I lost in a time when we are reducing headcount. GEEZ. I guess the good thing is that they are going to trust me with this new project (and seem to trust me with "new" anyway since my whole department didn't exist before me) and it is nice that my name even comes up in meetings that I am not even in, but it also seems like when I get comfortable they change it. oh well, I was also told that I had the most job security of anyone so that is a good feeling. We also reached our budget this year for the one metric that we have to meet for me to get a bonus so YAY!

In the workout world, I have done really well and I am proud of myself. You do p90x for 6 days a week and then take a break. I started last Friday and I have done every day except yesterday. Since today was supposed to be the rest day and I didn't do it yesterday, I am just switching it. I even did it starting at 9:30 on Tuesday after a work dinner of Mexican food...that deserves a clap at least! I really like the program. I like that they tell you what to do and it seems to go by faster with each DVD. I don't love the chest and back but that is mainly because I can't do any pushups to speak of, I don't have a pullup bar and I just think it is draining. I also don't care for the first 35 mins of the 1hr and 32min yoga (isn't that REALLY long). I feel like every pose is almost the same and between all of them you have to do a plank...gross. But, now that I know there is something better at the end of the DVD (stretching and balance moves) I think that I will be a better sport for the beginning. The first time I did it I thought the whole DVD was going to have me doing planks and downward dogs. The whole thing is a pretty big time commitment if you don't already work out (an hr a day) but I was already working out for about an hour or more a day by the time you count the drive time to the gym and back. I did a little research on doing p90x and running and it seems like they discourage it a little (not sure why because only a couple of the DVDs are cardio so wouldn't it be like lifting weights and running) and they say p90x is SO INTENSE but I don't think that is true. It is hard, but it isn't like you need to sleep all day after. Anyway, they suggest that if you do run while doing it that you wait a couple weeks so I am going to start next week after I am two weeks in (if I can wait that long). I am also no longer sore. The last post I wrote was the last day I was sore...so I was sore for one day really bad but that was about it...the other days I was sore but not the kind of sore where it hurts to bend your legs to sit on the toilet. I like to be a little sore because I feel like it is working, but I don't like to be in pain too much.

The weight loss hasn't been so good (not bad but not great). I have been eating better and I feel better so I am going to focus on that. I haven't gained anything back but it has been slow moving...I have read a lot that seems to say that is common on the new ww plan so I am going to keep doing what I was doing and give it a few weeks. The past two days in Atlanta were HORRIBLE. I didn't get to pick anything I ate. The picked our breakfast, lunch and dinner. I tried to pick the healthiest options until we got to the Mexican restaurant and I ate my weight in chips. I know better than to go to that kind of restaurant when I am watching what I eat. Oh well.

This week is winter restaurant week and we are going to a really nice steakhouse tomorrow night to eat for $25.11 including an appetizer, steak, and dessert...good deal. I am excited since Dayton doesn't have that many local restaurants that we frequent :-) I feel like Drena and Carrie would be so proud of me.

That is about it for me. I am going to do a Living Social/Groupon deal here in Dayton (MUCH smaller market than in Atlanta). What would you guys like to see as a deal from a photographer? Session and pictures for one price? Prices? What size pictures? I am going to put together a couplet things for the marketing people to decide on but since you are all moms, I thought I would see what you would want. I have learned that the pricing here is a little lower than Atlanta so I changed that the other day. I know people here are not worried about pictures right now so I am going to do the deal when it gets closer to some nicer weather here :-)

Whew, that was a long one!!

Pictures are Rachel and I before and after the race last week.

AHHHH!

I am SO SORE! Yesterday I did another DVD that was what I would describe (or maybe I did in the previous post but am too lazy to look) as a sports agility DVD. You jump around, do basketball slides, pretend you are running through tires and pitching baseballs and shooting hoops...sounds fun huh? Well, it was (and hard) yesterday. I wasn't sore yesterday...today? OMG...I know EXACTLY where my butt muscles are...I also know where every single stabilizer muscle in my body is because they all hurt. Getting up and down is quite a chore at the moment. Today was shoulders and arms, neither of which is sore right now but I am scared about tomorrow now. Tomorrow is yoga. I have heard it is really hard...awesome. Oh well. I took some before pictures today. I wasn't going to but then I figured if I was going to do an hour a day for 6 days a week for the next 3 months, I better see a difference. I asked C to take the pics for me yesterday but he said I wasn't big enough for any change to show up in pictures...just goes to show you what boys know because I found a lot of pics online of women my size where it very much showed (or he was just trying to be nice??). I set up the tripod today while he was at soccer. I will not be posting them until I see some sort of change :-)

I found out today that my old math teacher (friends with her on FB and she is only like 10 years older than us so she was the "cool" teacher in high school) does a half marathon every month except in the summer where is it hot everywhere...WHAT? Doesn't that seem a little insane? I can't imagine. I just try to do a 5K every month. We signed up for our first one in Feb. It is at noon...my kind of race!!

Today the Packers won their game and are going to the Super Bowl!!! YAY!! C is so happy and like a good little fan, I was sporting my t-shirt today that said "We'll Never Forget You Brent"...HAHAHA (from when BRETT Favre left). I am hoping that this means we will get to have a Super Bowl party...YAY!