Better Blogger

I am going to try to be a better blogger. I have certainly been a slacker lately but I just haven't felt like there was a ton to report that would interest anyone. I mean new carpet is extremely exciting and all, but some excitement you have to keep to yourself.

So, I guess the biggest bit of news we have had lately is not really great news but I don't think that it is really a secret either....Craig got diagnosed with cutaneous lupus. Fun stuff. He had this rash that he would get about 3 days after being in the sun. We couldn't figure out what it was and we looked up rashes all over the internet. No medicine really helped so it was really bizarre. I finally made him an appointment with a dermatologist thinking that it was just a sun rash....imagine my surprise when I talked to him later that day and he said they did a skin biopsy. They said he either had lupus or he was allergic to the sun. Um, that seems like a big difference. Then a week later he got the results and they said he had lupus. Then it was a question of what kind....he had emailed me the word above which is just the skin kind but then there is also a kind that is all your organs or something so I was worried. Of course they tell you no info on the phone and then getting it out of C was even worse so I only got half of what they did say on the phone. Today he finally went to get the full results and see the doctor. Turns out (thankfully) he only has the skin kind!! That is the best case scenario. The doctor had prescribed him meds the first time which he refused to take so I made him tell the doctor that this time. The doc seemed surprised that the rash cleared up without meds and told him that he only had to take them if he had a flare up (which made him really happy). Since the first visit we have been putting 70 sunscreen (they make 100!!!) on him and he hasn't had anymore problems so I am hoping we have figured out a way to beat this in just 2 weeks :-) He also stays out of the sun during the hot parts and stuff and it seems to work. I am glad that it turned out to be a less serious kind for sure.

So, between that and my thyroid, I think that we just feel old and like we are falling apart. At least neither of those things is due to anything we did or didn't do....at least not to my knowledge. so at least I don't feel like we have done it to ourselves.

Other than that the battle of the bulge continues for me. I still have not lost any of the weight I gained from the thyroid and/or traveling. Most of what I read suggests a low carb diet so I am trying that. It severely conflicts with my no eating meat that isn't organic when on the road. If you cut out carbs and you cut out meat, you eat a lot of lettuce and stay very hungry. I am hoping one day I will figure it out. Until then, I apologize for the girls who might have to see me in a bathing suit....let's just pretend I am 5 months pregnant :-) Then it can be "cute". That is about what it looks like.

The new job is still kicking my butt but I hope that will one day slow down a little. I think that a lot of it is putting the framework in place. I have a lot of personalities that are really different so getting it all together is a challenge but at least it is a good challenge.

I am sad that I haven't seen my nephew in two months but I am hoping to visit him next Sunday when we get home from girls' weekend.

That ends this edition of random thoughts!

So much going on lately. I feel busy all the time (the travel doesn't help). I thought it best to do this post in bullets.

--Craig's parents are visiting this weekend. I am a bit nervous about it because they are bringing their dog. I got an email from Craig's mom this morning that their dog was in a fight on Sunday and they didn't want to leave her so his dad was going to stay home with the dog and his mom was going to DRIVE across the country ALONE. I asked Craig if they could bring the dog and we could just keep the cats in the basement for the weekend (it is finished/furnished, has a sliding glass door and it is where their litter box is). The Craig's mom keeps asking if the cats will be secure because their dog was trained to hunt and if one of the cats got out the dog would attack. I was nervous because Chloe has gotten out before but it was when we didn't close the door all the way. Craig assures me we can lock them down there without issue. I am still nervous.

--This promotion has proved to be quite a challenge. I know in a lot of jobs people make fun of the title "manager" and certainly "senior manager" as just being titles. I don't know how it works for other people but I have to actually MANAGE. Our job isn't one of those jobs where you go to work and do the same thing every day and the manager is just there to make sure no one stops coming to work. It is project based and I spend a lot of time allocating projects and answering questions about said projects and smoothing things over. I would say it is 50% of my time. I am hoping it will settle a bit but I am not going to get my hopes up.

-- On Sunday Craig and I participated in a 29 mile bike "tour". A tour is like a race except it isn't a race at all, just a ride. We could start anytime between 7:30 and 9:30 and had to be done with the course by 4pm. We weren't sure how the whole thing worked so we got there around 7:30 to register and stuff. On the way there we drove through the hardest rain I have ever seen in my life!! It was awful and I was doubting that we would be able to even ride but luckily when we got there it was sunny and WINDY. To give you an idea, we were riding at about 15-18 mph out of the wind but whenever we had to go against it we (i) could only go 9 mph....you do the math. I really enjoyed doing the event with him and I think that he was really proud of me for doing so well. That was the first time I had ridden a road bike on the road. We normally ride on a paved trail. I think that we will try to do more of them.

--I am extremely disappointed in the CSA we are doing. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and half the stuff we get comes from other countries (and rots fast). I don't feel like I am supporting the community if my money is not only going out of the community but out of the country. UGH. They also send a lot of weird stuff that we have to look up to even know what it is and the seem to stuff it with leaves (lettuce or the ends of radishes or random greens). I just don't feel like we are having a good experience. I talked to the other couple we share with and they sort of feel the same way. They have an option where you can choose what you get each week so I think we are either going to try to switch to that or switch to the farm that I used to get our eggs from. I am really disappointed.

--Tonight I am going to see Sex and the City 2 with my Dayton girls....feels weird to have a girls' night that doesn't involve Erin, Carrie, Drena, Morgan or Jennifer....my Atlanta girls. I am glad that I have found friends here but I do miss my ATL girls (and all of you in other states too but I didn't get to see you often before either). We decided (by we, I mean them) to dress up for the movie....Carrie style. I am not even sure I should tell you guys what I have on right now and I am not even sure what I will show up to find! It is also Ali's 2 year anniversary of her divorce so we are going out for drinks afterward to celebrate (I know that seems weird but he cheated on her with her best friend (who was also married and whose wedding she was in) and now the two of them are getting married so we are celebrating the fact that she discovered how much of a dbag he was 5 years into marriage instead of 25).

I feel like there is a lot more but I don't know what it is right now. I feel like summer is already slipping away from me! Can't wait for the girls' weekend at the end of June!

On the road again....

Well, thank you all for the support (and congrats) after my last post. I am feeling much better these days. I chatted with Craig that night and it seems that we are on the same page with everything and he even said that if there was a job that I just couldn't pass up that he would move to Atlanta. That is good to know. I really don't want it to come to that though....but we will see. I asked my boss about it yesterday morning and he assured me that it was not a problem right now and he didn't foresee it being a problem. I even asked if the other manager said something and he said no. I really can't figure out where the motivation behind the comment was but as long as he is not concerned, I am not going to be either.

I am in Baltimore (well, right outside of it) for a couple days. Not much report. I don't feel that I could possibly be anywhere near a major city but I am assured that it is right up the road. I am tired so I think that I am going to bed pretty early tonight. I have had a lot more energy lately but I also haven't traveled quite as much. June is a tough month for me. Right now I will only be home 6 weekdays for the whole month and Craig's parents will be there for 3 of them. When the 4th of July weekend gets here I am going to be SOOOOOO ready!! At least one of those weekdays will be spent with my girls at the beach :-)

I got it!

Well, I had to go to Atlanta today for a meeting (actually I volunteered to go because it is a topic that will affect me and I really wanted to know) and while I was there I was told that I got the Senior Manager job!! YAY! I am very excited. I think that I have a bit of a tough road ahead because the other girl that was up for it is also a manager and I am taking over her group so I will be her new boss. She was in Audit Services before I was and she was at our company before me and she is older so I am sure she feels like she should have gotten the job. My boss even addressed it with me when he told me about it and said that he would help. He would help??? This isn't the first time that he has mentioned it to me (other time was during the interview) so I have a feeling that she has said something to him. Ugh.

The part of the whole job offer that scared me a little bit is he asked me if there was ever a chance that I would move back to Atlanta. I am sure that I looked shocked (I only moved away 14 months ago). I told him that I wasn't sure because I wasn't sure my boyfriend would be up for it (we are cool and can talk personal stuff). He said he knew that might be the case and said the he didn't really feel like it was necessary and it was 2010 and all but not everyone was on the same page. He also said he liked how I came to Atlanta and that I should probably start coming twice a month (good news if anyone wants to hang out) because the face time is good for me. This has been on my mind ever since. I haven't mentioned it to Craig but will talk to him about it tonight. I feel like my head is spinning. I like my life in Ohio. I feel like I have the best of both worlds right now. I live in Ohio with Craig and I love it....we have a nice house in a nice area (best schools around) and we have room and we have no traffic and my garden and .....well, life is just EASY there. I don't feel stressed (other than work sometimes) and I like the seasons (minus winter). I don't know, the more I think about it the more I wonder if I want to move back. We talk all the time about buying a house with more land. I am about 5 seconds away from saying I want to live on a farm. I would say the one thing that would lean me toward yes is being near my family. I do miss that and even though I see them about as much as I did before, I would like my kids to see their grandparents. I don't want to go back to dealing with traffic and paying way more for a house of the same quality and all that though. It stresses me. Amazing how your view changes when you move away. Would I like to be back with all of you, of course! Do I think that Craig would be happy? Not so sure. I think that Atlanta is one of those places you have to get used to (or grow up in or at least grow up in from high school on). The other side is that if I don't say I will move back, does this mean that I am as far as I can go in my career? Maybe. Do I care about that? Maybe not. Craig and I have discussed many times whether I should stay home if we had kids and he likes the idea of it. I kind of do too. I think that by the time we have kids I will feel like I got to do the career thing and I will be ready for the mommy thing. Maybe I will want to consult or work part time or something. So, if I am going to do that then why kill myself now to move up the ranks. I LOVE my job now, despite the fact that I might complain sometimes. I would be happy doing it for a very long time. I make good money, everything else is just icing as far as moving up.

Ok, plane is landing, gotta go....can you tell my head is spinning? Thanks for reading!

Home Sweet Home

We are back!!! The trip was fun but exhausting! We always do that to ourselves but we have a lot of fun.

I am working on the pictures now and I hope to actually post some on the blog this time (as opposed to leaving them on my hard drive like I normally do).

I still have not heard about the job yet but I am going to Atlanta on Wednesday for a meeting so I am hoping I will hear by then or at least when I am there. We will see.

Hard to tell on the whole thyroid thing right now....I was still a bit tired but we also had really long days. It also says that it takes a couple weeks for the meds to start working so I will be patient. I did manage to eat out the whole time (fast food sometimes because it was the only choice) and didn't gain an ounce so hopefully the metabolism is more normal at least a little.

I will post some more when I get some pics ready :-)

Thanks Erin!

Remember this post in February? Well, sweet Erin called me that night and said that I should probably get the thyroid checked out. I started to notice that there were days when I would get so tired for no reason (enough sleep, not too much sleep, nothing strenuous, etc) and noticed that no matter how healthy I ate, I was still staying around the same weight and the second that I didn't eat perfect I would gain. It was also going to a different place than it used to be instead of just being spread out. I guess what I am saying is that it just didn't feel right for my body. I have always been fine as long as I get 7-8hrs of sleep (and I know some of you would dream of that) and usually if I make a conscience effort to eat healthy I will shed pounds. Didn't really seem to add up. If I go back and really think about it (and I said this a few times on my other blog) the math just didn't add up. So, long story short, I made an appt for the doc. That takes for flipping ever if you are not an established patient but I finally got one for May 3rd. I showed her the blood work with the high thyroid stuff and then she took more blood. She said that if nothing changed we would just watch it (apparently I am borderline) and if it got worse we would start meds. Not thrilled about the meds because you basically have to be on them for the rest of your life but I am looking forward to feeling better. I got the call on Friday that we were going to start meds. I picked them up and started Saturday. They say that it takes a couple weeks to really feel the effects but I already at least feel the effects mentally. As silly as it sounds, sometimes when things aren't right with our body we (and everyone else) assume it is something you aren't doing right.....get more sleep, eat healthier, etc. While a lot of time that is the answer, I think that I knew my body enough to know that might not be the answer this time. I didn't, by any means know, what it might be....I think that I just knew something was off. I feel mentally relaxed now to know that there is an answer. I guess we will see if the meds have any effect over the next few weeks. I have to go back in a month to check the levels again.

Anyway, as you can tell by my other post, I didn't really think that it was a big deal and probably would have procrastinated on it a lot longer had Erin not called me.

So, lesson of the post is 1. listen to your body and 2. be nice to Erin :-)

In other news, vacation has been pretty active so far. It is gorgeous out here weatherwise....nice almost 80s but breezy.....well, down right windy! I think I inhaled enough sand yesterday to be the equivalent of a 1 yr old eating sand at the beach. It was the hardest 1hr walk back to the car ever! Today is Santa Fe!

Raining on my Parade

Yesterday morning I did another 5K, that is my third for the year. All week it was beautiul here.....you know, when I have to work, but the forecast for the weekend was not great. It was supposed to rain all weekend. Yuck. On Friday I checked the forecast and it said the rain wasn't supposed to start until 10:30. Since the run was at 9, that would be perfect. Unfortunately I was woken up at 6am by thunded, lightning and rain....yuck again. It rained for the entire prerace, during race, and post race (one of the girls in our group got second in her age group so we waited for awards). After I got to my car to drive to the pub the rain stopped and it didn't rain again ALL day....perfect. UGH. The rain was so bad at the beginning of the race that I could barely see.

The good news is that I finally broke the 3o min mark. My official time was 29:45 according to the race but I was a few seconds back from the start line and not coordinated enough in the rain to get everything started and stopped on my watch so I knew my exact time. Of course of the four of us, there were two of us that finished right together and then the other two girls finished in 25:36 and 26 something. Yeah, I will never be that fast. At least it is sweet to always have someone waiting for you and cheering for you at the end :-) I think that our next one isn't until June and I can't decide what the goal should be. I have shaved off 40 seconds in 6 weeks so maybe I could shoot for 29 mins this time. I think that is pretty lofty though...not sure I will get that done.

6 more days until vacation!!!