Blarg

That is how I would like to describe how I felt today.  Tired, and I ate too much.  (sensing a theme somewhere...)  We had a food day at work, and there were all sorts of delicious finger foods that are way too easy to just pop in your mouth as you walk to the printer, and again when you walk back to your desk...and when you're as forgetful as i am (anyone else go to the printer then realize they forgot to actually hit "Print"?) that is a lot of food.

Also, i was up late last night making pickle rollups and wasting time b/c i apparently have the same motivation to go to bed as I do to work out.  Hmf.

So - thanks to abbie & sarah for the good suggestions on motivation from my post yesterday!  Today I was still trying to think about what would motivate me to get moving, and realized that I had $30 in iTunes bucks, so I downloaded some music to update my workout playlist.  I have read that as long as you are listening to something with a faster tempo you will naturally find yourself moving faster.  Also, i remembered a trick i used to use - when i work out with headphones on i dont hear my wheezing, and it's harder to fixate on the pain/wheezing/whatever.  So, i browsed around and found some things I thought would be fun to workout to - some Katy Perry, some funk/dance/techno mixes of songs I like (Bounce! Volume 2), and then a few random songs by Usher, Rihanna, Britney, and Eminem.  Finally, I have a secret love of funk disco music...Stevie Wonder's "Superstition"?  Gets me moving every time! :)  So, we will see.  If nothing else, i have some new tunes to listen to as I clean the house, get ready in the morning or make the drive back n forth to StL.

In closing, a few posts back I mentioned that I wanted to start ending my posts on a more positive note (apparently consistency is not my strong point) so I'd like to list a few more A-Mazing peeps.  Since the last A-Mazing list was heavy on the ladies, i thought i'd list some guys.

--The above mention of disco music reminds me of my friend Jason. We used to sit next to each other during my first stint at stst and during the year and a half or so that we worked together I found him to be easygoing, easy to talk to, kind-hearted, forgiving, and most importantly, fun to be around!!  He has a great sense of humor and during my most troublesome times dealing with Beau & coping with depression, he was one of few people I felt I could confide in & trust.  He reminds me a lot of my brother.  You're probably wondering why the disco music reminds me of him, right?  Well, our group of friends used to go to The Levee somewhat frequently, and quite often they had an awesome funk band playing...all of us girls would be out there bustin a move and Jason was right there with us - he can cut a rug!! Such friends are hard to find, and he is an A-Mazing one.

--My uncle Erwin.  He has a wacky sense of humor, a way of finding the humor in most situations (and if there isnt any he finds a way to put some there).  He is mischevious, and is not a person you want to play a prank on as paybacks really are a biatch...but it is hella funny to sit back & watch him screw with other people though!  He is fiercely devoted to taking care of his family & friends, and while he does stir the pot sometimes (it's genetic...our family can't help it!), he has a way of being diplomatic and fair, and looking out for the little guy.  He is successful in his job and has a passion for life - new experiences, new toys, new technology.  An A-Mazing guy...and just so happens to be my Godfather.

--Last but certainly not least - my husband.  He's patient, kind-hearted, and faithful.  By faithful I mean he has a spiritual faith, he has faith in me, and faith in us...as evidenced by my pain-in-the ass ways during certain weeks of the month and his willingness to adapt to my moods.  This weekend marks five years that we've been together, and later this month is 2 years of marriage.  The things that drew me to JN still do - he's supportive of his family, is passionate about his hobbies, is affectionate, is a great surprise-planner, and he's a worker!  I'm very proud of him, and love him very, very much.

Okay, you can go barf now. ;)

Reflections on Work & Chester Copperpot

Recently I have been reflecting on Work.  Seems like I'm doing more of it than playing...and there are times when I resent those that seem to prioritize Play over Work.  I find myself wondering why I resent it when it's clearly my personal choice, as well as why I choose to do it.

Here's a story from this evening on this very topic:
I got up & made lunch for JN & I (read: put prepared stuff in our lunchboxes...no cooking this early!), got in the shower, went to work.  Over my lunch hour I worked on a take-home test for my Developmental Psych class (clearly the result of a prior choice to Play rather than Work).  I left work 15 minutes early to come home & finish up the take-home test while eating a quick dinner, then zipped off to class, to arrive 10 minutes late due to my aforementioned choice to Play rather than Work.  We got out of class an hour early, so I came home & realized the state of our apartment was stressing me out.  JN got home not long after, and I begged him to take the next 20 minutes and just help me clean up.  I believe I got about 5 minutes before a beer was procured & a position on the couch with the laptop was taken.  Hoo boy... NOT COOL. It should be noted that a good chunk of the mess was mine, but it seriously would have taken about 10 minutes of us both working together to get it done. 

So why did i get so mad?  I mean, it's not like we had a knock-down-drag-out or anything over it, but i was pretty perturbed.  I could have chosen to sit on the couch too...but there's something in me that can't relax in the midst of a cluttery mess.  Just ask my cousin Sarah...I dont remember how old we were, but I once cleaned her terribly messy room (complete with reorganizing her closet) during a sleepover at her house.  We had fun & stayed up till all hours, but then once she fell asleep & couldnt fall asleep so I cleaned.  What weirdo kid does that??  One with issues. (raises hand)

Clearly, I am willing to work for peace of mind.  So where is my motivation to work for other things, say, personal fitness?  Obviously the number on the scale isnt keeping me up at night (although the resulting sleep apnea & snoring is keeping my husband up).

I read an interesting quote by Thomas Edison the other day regarding this subject of Work:
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work."

And today I read this post on the blog of a girl I admire from afar (I dont know her personally, only through her posts on Weddingbee.com and her blog).  She mentions a book written by Amy Chua on the topic of parenting styles.  It's an interesting topic to me...but even more so, because not long ago I was watching an interview with Ms. Chua on KCPT (public tv channel in KC).  I listened to a good portion of the interview but it was incredibly painful....my perception was that she was the type of person not to actually listen to what people were saying, but to wait for them to stop talking.  And she didn't always do that either!  Lots of interrupting of the interviewer.  She was very...how do i put i...not forceful per se, but definitely overpowering and steamrollerish during the interview.  I ended up changing the channel because the manner of discussion was distracting me from the content of the discussion, and my blood pressure kept going up.  I hate hearing people argue (almost as much as I hate being sung to) and it was just painful.  But I digress.

In her blog post Ms. Penny refers to the Chinese parenting method described in the book, and reflects on how the approach differs from that of the stereotypical American. But, as Ms. Penny says, parenting wasn't the point of her post & it's not the point of mine either.  The point was that Ms. Chua points out (looosely paraphrasing here) that skill is not usually the result of natural talent, that to get good at anything you have to work at it. Is that the same thing as to say to find success or opportunity you have to work at it?

You can blame my reflective mood on my philosophy/ethics class yesterday evening. :) 

So...here's my point.
I'm working my butt off to keep my house clean-ish so I can sleep at night.
I'm going to school part time so I can go to school full time so I can make a living doing something that has a chance at making the world a better place.
Both of these things, I'm motivated to do.
I'm working out with Freda each week, sometimes twice, all times looking like a whale with legs & an asthma problem....but i am not really motivated to do it...not REALLY.  I dont look forward to it.  Not like I look forward to finally be able to pursue my education without having to earn a living at the same time.  Not like I look forward to falling into bed at night exhausted but with the peace of mind that accompanies the slight smell of bleach in the air and the lullaby of the dishwasher running (does anyone else associate that noise with a clean kitchen??).

All of this to say...What in the heck can i do to make myself WANT TO WORK OUT?  I want to look forward to it!  And friends, I do NOT look forward to working out.  Not at all.  I want to look forward to it in the same way I look forward to having coldstone for dessert.

I know.  We all have dreams.  Chester Copperpot wanted to find One-Eyed Willie, and I want to find my Motivation to Move.  If the Goonies can do it, why not me? :)

Say Yes to the Dress...erm...Scrubs?

Remember this post?  Well...these guys said no, but These Guys said YES!! I heard back in August, and I think it has finally sunk in.  Maybeish.  Can you imagine me in scrubs, with a stethoscope around my neck?  Or starting an IV, or helping a doctor with a procedure?  Eek!  I am starting to...as it sinks in...mostly am really really looking forward to a job where I can care for people first hand.  Really looking forward to that.  After the year of hellacious courswork & clinicals....it's definitely not a cakewalk ahead.

As part of the curriculum I have to have 15 cr hrs at Rockhurst, so I'm workng on that now.  I was very fortunate to be able to enroll in evening classes, which will let me keep my full time job for the next year until nursing school officially begins.  Yay for that!  This way I can pay for these crazy expensive credit hours as I go instead of having to finance them in some way.  I think I have been living in a land called denial when it came to the expense of private schools.  I went to a public university for my first degree, and when I went back to school in 2009 it was to community college.  Hoo boy!  What a difference.  At this point my opinion is that TSU and Rockhurst are pretty solidly comparable schools.  Wouldn't that be a topic for discussion...or another post. :)  Maybe I'll table that for after my first semester here is behind me.

So anyways, back to the point...you are reading the blog of a nursing student! Eeee!  The countdown has begun...T-Minus 10 months to full time school, an experience I have yet to have the luxury of enjoying.  My husband is THE ONE that is making this happen for me...without his love & support it probably would have been even longer before I'd have been able to do this.  He's a wonderful guy, that one.

Anything else new? Hmmm...well, the weather is cooling off, which is good because the humidity is my nemesis...but then so is sub zero weather.  I'm trying to soak in as much of this gorgeous weather that I can!

Beyond that, I'm just really really busy.  On top of the 6 credit hours this semester - Ethical Theory & Abnormal Psych - I was promoted to manager in a new group at my current job, and it has definitely been a humbling experience so far.  I get to deal with clients directly now and have a 3 people reporting to me, and while I enjoy both of those things immensely, it can be daunting some days.  Being a manager, esp in client service is not for the faint of heart...as a good friend recently said, "I have learned that pleasing everyone is hard, but pissing them off is way too easy."  Oh well...can't win em all. 

Have a good nite loves!


p.s...sorry about no pictures.  It's late & I'm decompressing from the day...hope to have something for you in the next post. You know, when Christmas rolls around... ;)

The Last Decade - Newlywed Style - part two!

So I bet you have been waiting with baited breath for the next installment! It was like pulling teeth, but I did manage to get some details of the last decade from The Husband.  Without further ado, here is his last decade!  Please bear in mind that he's not a very talkative guy, so i had to take some creative license here.  Oh well, at least there's a second installment....

2009 - got married, aka lost my freedom; visited another country for the first time (st lucia) (oh wait, except for when i went to mexico in 2004 christmasish time))
2008 - went fishing at Roaring River for the first time, moved downtown, survived engagement pictures & wedding planning
2007 - moved into midtown, proposed to the love of my life, got a fly fishing rod for christmas, traded my manly Ford Explorer in for a cute Honda Fit.  there was also QT nearby where i was able to still get coffee conveniently every morning.
2006 - started dating the love of my life, moved into the wornall apartment where i enjoyed being able to get QT coffee very conveniently every morning. started working back at the OG but this time not in columbia.  love that place!
2005 - met the love of my life, started working at my current location of employment, graduated from m-i-z. also worked at BWW part time, until i quit on valentines day 2006.
2004 - i was in college, bought my Ford Explorer, wrecked my Volvo, interned at the gates of hell a credit union.  oh yeah, also went to mexico around christmasish time
2003 - i was in college, was a roofing lackey during the summer, lived on a diet of dr pepper and funyuns while sweating my body weight in water every day hauling shingles everywhere.
2002 - went to m-i-z in the fall, started working at the OG in columbia my favorite job ever
2001 - worked at a heating & cooling place making ductwork & went to community college.  also worked at a car dealership where i drove cars & wrote tickets (not like a cop but for services). 
2000 - graduated from high school, raced mustangs and evaded The Law like smokey & the bandit

when asked "do you have goals for the next decade?"  JN says:  "nope."

if you know my husband at all, you should know this is his way of saying "please stop asking me questions and take your laptop back in the other room". :)  I'm sure he has goals, but for now i will leave him be.

a trip home, the zoo and a pubcrawl

As the summer was coming to an end, I was looking forward to my schedule slowing down a little bit...it seemed like as soon as June hit, we had something going on every weekend through the end of August, and those somethings were always at least a 2 hr drive from home. It was definitely a fun summer, but I was looking forward to more quiet weekends, ones that didnt involve living out of a suitcase & paying for expensive gas. :)

Well...that hasn't happened so much...it's gotten better, there are more weekends that are quiet & not jam-packed with stuff to do, but there are still plenty of booked weekends in there. Such as, 2 weeks ago when I went home to visit the family. Jeremy came with me, and we had a blast taking the kids to the Pumpkin Patch, and hanging out with family. On Sunday the 2 of us had an afternoon date --we went to the StL zoo-- to sortof celebrate being together 6 months (hey-it's a big deal in this battlefield of love that is the dating world!). :) Talk about a great weekend!

Here are a few pictures of the kids at the pumpkin patch:














































On a side note...This last weekend we had the fall pubcrawl in Westport...talk about a ton of fun! My friend Buscher flew in, and my friend Brad & his roomie Kirk drove in to be on the team. It was so much fun...altho it's been a looong time since i've had a weekend with so little sleep! Blogger's being slow so i will post the pictures next time, but rest assured, there are some gems in there! :) haha...

steal of the century

Yesterday I was reading one of my daily blogs and read about this girl, who writes for Mind of Mencia, who just ran her first marathon in Hawaii.  She wrote about her preparation for it, and then a separate entry for the first half of the marathon.  Reading that brought back all the emotions & reactions I experienced during my first marathon, in Hamilton, Bermuda.  The anxiety of preparation--do i take this? no..i wont need it...but what if i do?...better take it...well, i dont want to bring too much...what is everyone else taking?...ok, enough-i'm leaving it...ok fine, i'll bring it with me.  Imagine agonizing about this over everything you take.  Even after having made a list of what you will need.  Then there's the anticipation at the start line, the feeling of excitement as months of blood sweat & tears culminates in a few 'short' (ha! whatever!) hours of running...and then dragging yourself through those few short hours.

 

Reading that made me want that feeling back...I felt the same way after reading David and Abbie's postings about their first triathlon...David had blisters at the end, Abbie's legs were shaking from the effort.  They helped each other through it, and the same as Pamie, didnt come in first, didnt come in last, but FINISHED.  It's hard for me to get my butt off the couch, but there's no prouder moment than when you cross that finish line.  And no better feeling than when you get to sit down (collapse) afterwards in a heap of sweaty smelly exhaustion.  Doesnt that sound like fun??? :)  I want that feeling again!! 

 

So, this weekend i think mom & i are going to look into marathons to run in april.  I found a couple of international ones (London & Paris), and a few domestic ones (Nashville, OKC, Dallas, Big Sur).  Stay tuned...

 

Oh, and on the topic of the subject line....my company has a classified ads, and i found an add for a mattress.  JN has been needing one BAD--his was his great grandpa's, and i think it was worn out when he got it.  This mattress that he got, it's a Sealy pillowtop...only a couple of years old...i looked & a new one on sale was like $700 bucks.  Guess what he got it for?  $65!  and this was after the guy asked $100 OBO.  :)  We picked it up last night, and it is a ginormous improvement over his last one.  Makes me want to hit the garage sales...so i can find more steals of the century!

long time no see

yeah, so about those promises to write every day, exercise all the time, blah blah blah...dont remember? yeah, me neither. nevermind then. :)

Lots of changes these days...just moved out of the HL & in with my friend denise deniserson...i'm liking living there, except its farther away from my BF. It's been an adjustment, but i think it's a definite change for the better not dealing with the stress of the wicked witch of the west anymore (the director). My evenings are now free to do whatever (yay!)...altho that 'whatever' now usually consists of anything that costs no money (boo...). JN (the BF) and i read this book his grandma gave us, The Total Money Makeover. Nothing really new in there, it was pretty much one long pep talk to spend less, get another job to make more, and pay more stuff off. oh yeah, and stop using your credit cards. It was genius. :) So...jn & i have been trying to live very cheaply, and pretty much succeeding. For less than $6 a day we have been eating breakfast, lunch & dinner. I feel like those kids in el salvador sally struthers was always going on about... "for less than 6 cents a day you can feed a child for a month!" Hmm...i wonder what we'd have to reduce our grocery shopping to in order to get it under 6 cents a day! i'm not sure i want to find out.

This weekend i have been in stL visiting family for the first time in what seems like forever! i think it has only been like 2 months, but that seems like a long time when i've been used to going home ever 4-6 weeks. what a difference an extra 2 weeks makes. Mom & i spent a lot of time working on a scrapbooking project we've been working on for awhile now...and the rest of the time was spent playing with the neice & nephews & hanging out with friends. it was great! only downside was that jn was in kc...next time i'm dragging him with me! :)

Weekend O Fun

It was such a fun weekend! Friday was happy hour...which of course turned into happy evening and then happy night! :) We started at Tanners where we got to hear this cool band that had Janis Joplin singing & Mr. T playing the drums. Not kidding! I'll have to come up with some pictures for you... The lady who was singing for the band looked JUST like Janis Joplin...down to the bare feet and bell bottom legging pants and hippie shirt and long hair. JUST like her. She also did a pretty good job of singing "Me & Bobby McGee." Mr. T was just rockin out on the drums...giving his best "I pity the fool!" look to the audience as he played. Later that evening we moved on to the Majestic Steak House for some drinks & jazz music. This place has been around KC foreeeeever, and apparently has really good steak. Since we only had drinks, i will have to make a return trip to experience the steak....the music was fabulous though, i'd go back even if they didnt have a reputation for good food.

Saturday I slept in till like noon, had lunch with Beau & then went over to grill out at Jason's with some of my co-workers before we headed out for a night of bowling at the neighborhood Rock n Bowl event. It was stellar!! Black lights, neon bowling balls & bowling shoes, beer, good music...what a night! Jeremy got almost all strikes in the 2 1/2 games we bowled, impressive! Much better than my skills, my high score of the evening was 107. Look out world! :) After that we all headed back to Jason's for an old-school house party...Jason had a bunch of Busch Light he needed to get rid of, and everyone was happy to help out. I think it was like 4am-ish when i got home...so the rockstar within still lives! :) Good thing, the pub crawl is not far off...

Sunday (today) I slept until like 2pm. MAN i'm a bum...
I did get something accomplished though. I went grocery shopping, and this time actually remembered to take the grocery bags my cousin sarah made for me a month or two back. It felt so good to tell the checker no thank you when she asked "paper or plastic", i said, oh-I brought my own bags thank you! :) If i were her i'd be thinking "silly tree huggin hippie..." :) It felt good to do my tiny little part to keep waste down. I think there should be an incentive at the grocery store--bring your own bags, get coupons for discounts or cash back. I bet more people would do it...Anywho, I also am trying to make the switch to organic...all organic is not affordable right now so i am slowly easing into it...plus i'm not sure of what all i'm buying right now (the brand names are all new to me) so i'm easing into it. So that was also exciting, to see most of what i purchased was healthy & good for me. So after that exciting trip to the store, I went to Home Depot & got some new planters, soil & flower seeds. I repotted the plants in my apartment (must be doing something right...they're all still alive & ready for an upgrade in housing) and planted seeds in the small planters left over. I also tried my hand at pruning a runaway ivy plant, so we'll see how that all turns out as well. Finally, a bunch of us got together at Jeremy's for dinner & to watch some tv...he made this incredible red sauce with pasta...it had shrimp & lobster in it--YUM!! We also had an assortment of good wine, a couple of shiraz's (i dont know what the plural of that word is) and a red wine from South Africa that was pretty good. it was a good weekend, start to finish.