Another Catch Up

Ok. Thank you to my friends that have encouraged me to start this up again- Elizabeth and Sarah. It's already 10:15 and I don't want to be up too late tonight since I'm getting up in the morning to work out with my roommate, but if I'm going to get back into this, I might as well start now. So I'm going to (once again) do a quick life update. (That seems to be a trend here, huh? Several months off, one long update, a few regular posts, then I'm gone again. Oh well.) Maybe if I keep each update short it will motivate me to come back and elaborate (that word is sounding really funny to me right now, but I think it's right. lol) on them later. E helped me tonight to realize I'm a perfectionist blogger. Unless I know I have time to sit down and write out everything I want to write, I don't. And then my time away gets longer, and I have more to write about, and since we all know each post ends up about 2 1/2 times longer than I meant it in the first place, this quickly becomes an exponential problem. So I'm going to try to break that habit. We'll see. If you'll leave a quick comment and say hi when you stop by so I know my posts aren't just floating around the net unread and uncared about, it might help :) Just sayin'...

Ok, so, let's see.

First off, yes, you read right. I now have a roommate. 2, in fact. Moved into a new place with 2 girls from my small group in October and have been here since. No, I'm still not fully unpacked. It's more space overall, but I have to share it with 2 other girls who also have full kitchens and lots of bathroom stuff, etc, so my room is still a disaster.

Sad news: Gus passed away :( I still cry about it if I think about it for too long, so I'm not going to write much here. But I'll just say he had a good last day- spent in front of the fire at John's and he was buried with love behind John's shed. We've picked out a stone and are going to paint it to mark the place. This year's Christmas ornament was in honor of him.

I'm still continuing to consider/pursue photography. My wonderful parents got me a DSLR for Christmas and I've already taken one 1-day class for it. I took a (point and shoot) photography class through Chimpsy with Mom this past weekend, and I've signed up for an SLR class through the same company. And I'll be signing up for my first 6 week class through Showcase soon.  I'm still trying to figure out the logistics of time/money/which school, etc. I had a very good, looooong talk with mom over lunch after our class this weekend and talked about that, among other important things, and I was very happy to hear that, should I decide to just go for it, rather than saving up or trying to go part time, she understands and perhaps even agrees. As smart as being careful and financially responsible is most of the time, and as much as one of the "signs" that something might not be a calling from God includes anything that puts you in a financially difficult position, sometimes all you can do is jump. And I'm starting to think more and more that's what it's going to come to here. We'll see....

John was up in Nashville last weekend recording on Corey Crowder's first Sony album. That's right, my boyfriend was deemed good enough by Sony for them to use him instead of using their own studio drummer to do the actual recording for the album. I'm so proud of him and excited about what possible doors this could open for him. He's already mentioned in passing being open to the idea of moving to Nashville. I'll have to talk to him more about this at a later date sometime. Hmm..... :) In the meantime, rest assured that I will DEFINITELY keeping everyone updated on any shows or release dates for the album!!!!

Still working towards a closer relationship with God. In baby steps. I think I'm a perfectionist Christian too, sad as that sounds. If I can't get in my God time how I think I should every day, I just stop. I need to get better about this. I need to get better about making this the top priority on my "get better at these things" list.

Hoping to spend some more regular time with my sister, Sunny. She's 12, almost 13, and I think she could use a sister that shows an interest in her life at times besides when she's needed for babysitting, and who acts more like a sister than a surrogate parent.

A close friend of mine moved back into town from Miami, and I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited about this!!!!! (Despite the fact that I haven't seen her in the week and a half since she moved back to town except for her first night. Must get better about that too.)

John and I are heading back to the yurts at Fort Yargo for Valentine's weekend. I might possibly rent a macro lens for the weekend, as that's my major area of interest in photography. Hopefully I'll have some cool pics to post next week.

I'm thinking, I'm thinking.... I think those are the biggest areas in my life that need updating. I guess technically, as it's been more than a year since I started this blog (despite the TOTAL lack of a full year's worth of posts) I should change the name of it. But I'm not going to. Now, anyways. Maybe later. Any suggestions on what it should be?

Morning blues

I really hate how dark it's starting to get in the morning..... :(

Busy Day at Work

Hello again! Goodness today was crazy! There are several people out at my office currently, all of whom I'm covering at least partially for, so my to-do list has just gone through the roof. And as much as I wish I were, I really just don't think I'm a very good multitasker. I really like getting one thing done at a time and being like "Yes!! Ok- what now?" If it's a few items I can handle it, but when the list gets longer, and everything on it is "high priority" (which tends to happen when you have 6-12 different people all giving you things to do) I start stressing out and I get a little paralyzed trying to figure out what actually needs to be done first.

A couple good things have come out of it though. First, I've been approved to go into OT if necessary. I don't really want to HAVE to work any extra hours, but the extra $$ would be nice. On the other hand, it would be nice to have that as an excuse if I can't get everything done- "Sorry! I hit 40 hours and was sent home!"

Second, I think I'm finally making a new friend at work! haha- I don't really have a lot of friends at work. Some people would be fine with that. They like to keep business and personal separate, and it doesn't bother them not to have friends in the work place. For me, though, it makes tough days a lot easier to get through if I have someone I know and trust and can talk to and have fun with. I have 1 person like that in my office currently, and a couple others that I can talk and laugh with on a surface level. But not as many as I'd like. Mostly it's just due to demographics- most of the people I work with are older and in a different part of their lives. But I find myself skipping our all-hands meetings more because I don't feel like going and sitting by myself than because I don't care about the content of the meetings. Anyways, there's a lady that's not super new, but has been here several months. She doesn't work in my department, so I don't work directly with her, and I only interact with her occasionally, but lately our conversations when we have to call each other have been longer and not solely business related- we'll complain about our jobs in the normal way, and talk about other things outside of the office some. I shared John's music video with her and we were talking about that this morning and I was so happy about it when we got off the phone! If I were a guy it'd probly sound like I have a new crush. lol. But I'm just excited about possibly finding a new friend :)

Speaking of John- I have found a few friends to go to the Falcons game with me tomorrow, so I'm super excited about that! And I'm also excited because it sounds like John and I might be spending Saturday together just hanging out. Between my brother leaving, and John getting ready for drumline and all of his released material we've both just been swamped lately and it's taken a toll on our one-on-one time. He's been so sweet and has surprised me twice recently with unexpected visits, but neither was a time when we could really hang out and enjoy each other's company. And even when we have seen each other, it's been with other people. So it's sounding like we might be spending all day Saturday together doing whatever we want. Another friend is having a party Saturday night, so we'll hang out then go to that together I think. And I am just so excited about that prospect. It's still a play-it-by-ear idea right now, but even just that possibility made my day whenever I thought about it today. I'm just so tired mentally that I could really use some time with someone I love and who makes me feel special.

I did get to spend some time unwinding last night with my amazing small group. We had a spa night at one of the girl's places. We turned off all the lights and lit candles and put on records (yes! records! she had a genuine record player! so cool!) and we all put on face masks and did nails and hand massages and all sorts of fun stuff! It was soooooooo nice! A nice way to break up the week for sure!

Now I think I'm going to head to bed early to get an early start tomorrow. Try to knock out a decent amount of work before the weekend gets here so that the people that get back in the office on Monday will see that I HAVE been working!

Just a few random parting notes:
~Finding out you missed free doughnut holes is a very sad experience. I walked into the break room late in the day today and saw a box of them in the share/free-for-all area but it was empty :(
~Loco's to-go straws are waaaay too feeble. Between trying to open it and then stick it through the top of my drink, I think mine bent/cracked in about 6 different places.

Cats and Grads

I'm in a hotel room in Murfreesboro, TN currently. My lil' bro graduates from MTSU tomorrow. So proud of him! :)

I'm actually really tired, so this won't be long. Just checking in.

I got to see my new kitty again today. I don't think I mentioned that in my catch up post. I came home one day from work and there was a VERY sad looking kitty sniffing at people's garbage bags on the second level in my building. So I coaxed him upstairs and gave him some food. And I just didn't have the heart to leave him out there so I put him on my back porch and kept him out there for about a week with fresh food and water and litter. I didn't know what kind of diseases he may have so I didn't want him actually IN my apartment as my boyfriend and I have 2 other cats that I didn't want to risk catching anything. But he was very sweet and obviously used to being around people.

I got him into the vet and turns out he's an oooold man. They're guess-timating about 15. (So, more a "cat" than a "kitty" really, but whatev...) It took them like 4 tries just to even determine he was a he actually. His fur was so matted they couldn't get through to his "parts" to see what kind of parts they were. We ran all sorts of blood work to make sure he was healthy and such. He was free of the super bad stuff- feline leukemia and feline AIDS, worm-free, etc. Turns out he does have hyperthyroidism which causes all sorts of symptoms like increased heart rate and high metabolism which in turn lead to an inability to put on weight, increased bowel movements and urination, etc, etc, etc. But the vet said it's fairly easy to treat so we've got some pills. He'll take those for a month then we'll check his levels again and adjust as necessary. Once we get that leveled out again it'll just be a matter of a couple annual check ups.

And my parents did me the huge favor of taking him to get shaved (the matted fur really was just ridiculous) and I got to see him for the first time after that today. And Oh. My. Goodness. This is one skinny cat. When I get my camera fixed I'll post pics (hopefully soon, before he fattens up too much, otherwise I'll just use John's camera.) But the point is that he is now on his way to becoming a much-loved, fat, content indoor cat. :) He is very laid back (my parent's 3 dogs don't phase him a bit) so we'll probably introduce him to our other 2 cats within the next week or so. Oh yeah- I named him Gus!

(And don't worry, the house sitter this weekend knows to give Gus his medicine while we're away!)

Anyways, it was a long, if tolerable, day at work today. Followed by a 3 1/2 hour car ride, so I'm going to head to bed now. Luckily this ceremony is NOT a morning gig. We don't have to get there til 12ish. My only worry is getting up in time to catch free breakfast downstairs :) Sweet dreams!

Spring Cleaning

So a few posts ago I was pondering over which of my "What If..."s I was going to select at small group to focus on for the next week and check back in on next Wednesday. As it turns out, I didn't pick any of the items I mentioned in that post. I actually decided on "What if I finally cleaned out my closet?" (Which is good, cuz I was going to try the whole getting up earlier thing anyways and I already failed at that this morning. I'm going to keep trying, but that would have been a disheartening start to my What If adventure.)

So why did I pick this item on my list? Basically I'm hoping it will be a catalyst to help spring board the rest of it. I have admitted before that I am a hopeless, helpless pack rat. But that doesn't mean I'm happy about that fact. I really don't mean to hold on to so much crap, it's just that every time I try to start cleaning and throwing stuff out, the mountain of clutter is just so overwhelming that I get disheartened. Plus I get a crippling case of the "what if..."s (and not the good kind like this small group study... the bad kind that makes me think I'll immediately find a need for whatever it is I threw out right after the trash man picks it up.)

All this junk doesn't really do anything, though, other than get in my way and stress me out! Any time I actually feel like doing something productive, like painting or baking, I look around and realize that I would only be adding to the mess unless I clean up first, and my energy and enthusiasm for my would-be project just get sucked right out of me. I have actually attempted to declutter a number of times and just not gotten anywhere for all of these reasons. So I'm going to try one more time, with the hope that knowing my small group is expecting an update in a week's time (I promised them trash bags full of give-away clothes) I'll actually get somewhere. Granted, after agreeing to that I realized that the only time I'm going to be home and able to make any progress is tonight from about 5-6, Sunday evening for an hour or 2, and Monday evening from about 5-9. But hopefully if I really buckle down I can start making some headway.

I actually ran across a few really inspiring/helpful tips online today at Miss Minimalist. One entry zeroed in on a nasty habit I have of organizing rather than decluttering. Of course I want whatever I'm left with to be organized, but I'm going to try really hard to actually GET RID of stuff, because the simple fact is, no matter how organized I am, I currently have more stuff than I have space right now. The other tips were for how to keep my place decluttered after my purge. Hopefully by following a few strategies such as "one in, one out" and "one-a-day," I will feel inspired when I come home rather than bogged down with more work.

When we each announced what we would be working on in small group, we were asked "How will this change your story?" I am HOPING that if I can actually make some headway here, I will feel more at ease in my own home, keeping my home clean will take less effort, and I'll finally be able to just start whatever other projects I feel like without having to spend hours tidying up first. I'll feel more organized in general and, as silly as this may seem, better equipped to take on the world. If I can take on the monster that is my closet (and linen closet and desk drawers and storage closet) then just maybe I can tackle everything else on my growing-up list!

Plans and Decision Making

So I've got a few friends started on What If... lists of their own. I'm still super excited about small group tomorrow. I still have to decide what on my list I'm going to really focus on for the next week. I'd like to look into painting at the children's hospital. I need to do some research regarding what it is I want to do (determine if it's healthy/feasible/etc) and then, if that all checks out, find out who I need to talk to in order to get permission and really make this happen. If it worked out, it would be a really neat way to get myself painting again while also volunteering within the community. However- I'm hesitant in that area because I simply do not have the time in my schedule right now to commit even one day a week if I WAS able to work it all out. However, I know we're supposed to step out of our comfort zones with this dare. So perhaps I can at least take the first few steps towards getting my idea organized. Set up a time to go talk to someone perhaps? If I get the details worked out I could plan on actually starting mid-June when my schedule calms down a bit.

However, the "what if..." that I choose (for this purpose) also needs to be something that I can actually make progress on in a week. With that in mind, I'm thinking about perhaps either trying to get up earlier each day, or trying to run everyday. If I ran in the morning before work I'd be killing 2 birds with 1 stone!

We'll see. I've got a little while longer to think about it.

In the mean time, I got to hang out with some friends I haven't seen recently today, so that was nice. We met up for pizza and got to catch up. And I'm ending my day with a movie with my boyfriend :) Jumanji. Haven't watched this movie in forever. Used to be a fave of my family's though. It was one of our go-to movies if all else failed. Hopefully it won't disappoint tonight...

What if...?

So I know it's been forever. I totally f-a-i-l-e-d at the whole keeping this going thing. I thought a million times about coming back and posting, but either it had been too long and I had too much to say, or I felt so guilty for staying away for so long that I couldn't bring myself to write anything, or a million other reasons. But an email I got today has inspired me, so here I am. My small group is doing a short "What If" study for the next couple weeks and I am already IN LOVE with it. We read this post (http://donmilleris.com/2010/03/25/the-single-most-powerful-question-you-can-ask/) and were asked to come up with our own list of 5 What If's. Then we're going to read them to the group and follow up on them in coming weeks. Well, I got started, and just like everyone that commented on the post, I couldn't stop at 5. And I wanted to share. So here they are. I have a feeling I've just created a list I'll be adding to for years to come.

What If...
What if I started a journal and KEPT it?
What if I got up earlier (on time) each day?
What if I stopped watching tv?
What if I looked into painting at the children's hospital?
What if I started my newsletter?
What if I really started baking?
What if I painted a little bit every day?
What if I refused to jump to negative conclusions?
What if I ran everyday?
What if I called my family just to say hi?
What if I stuck to my budget?
What if I finally cleaned out my closet?
What if I wrote a book?
What if I went on a mission trip?
What if I volunteered at church again?
What if I went to church every week?
What if I prototyped my invention?
What if I learned Spanish?
What if I learned guitar?


(ps- if you want an update on all the things I originally started this blog for, here's the short list:
-I failed at keeping up P90X first time around but am ending Week 8 of my second attempt tonight- this time with a friend.
-I have marginally improved my eating habits, including a few crash diets, and am now roughly 8-10 pounds (depending on the day) lighter than when I started this blog.
-I typed out my budget yesterday and created a Google Doc to help me stay on course. Hoping this Friday (payday) will be the start of that.
-I renewed my determination to get to the doctor's today and printed off info about my health insurance plan.
-I have made 0 progress on the cleaning out the closet front or the church attendance/volunteer efforts. Hence the listings in my What If list.)


What would be on YOUR "What If" list?

Day 10- Small Accomplishments

Wow have I been busy this week! Back to work on Tuesday with a more-than-normal workload to cram into a shorter- than-normal work week. But there's just one more day and I'm hanging in there. I saw 2012 with my boyfriend on Tuesday after my workout, and really enjoyed that. Another movie with great visual effects. Had small group last night and per usual didn't get out until 10 after chatting away.

My workouts are going well. Kenpo X on Tuesday kicked my butt! I never knew martial arts were such a cardio workout! I had to press pause several times in order to catch my breathe, mop my brow and grab some water! But I definitely knew I was going to benefit from that afternoon! I'm still feeling the burn in my calves and triceps. Yesterday was my rest day, and this evening starts Week 2 back with Core Synergistics (eek!) I'm hoping I'll be able to make it through a few more of the push up moves this time around!

I also finally got the workouts to the girls in my small group. Sounds like 3 or 4 of them are going to be joining in the fun! I've already heard from 2 of them that did today's workout together this morning. It's so nice to have people in your life following such a tough program right along with you. They're exactly a week behind me, so for the most part we'll still be doing the same workouts on the same days. We're already joking around and looking forward to the "beachbody"s that we're going to have in a few months!

Heading out of town tomorrow after work for a birthday celebration for my boyfriend's grandfather. Should be lots of fun, but I'm not sure what kind of workout opportunities I'll have. So I'm planning on getting up super early tomorrow AM in order to get in Cardio X before work. I'll try to get in a run on Saturday somehow since I'm missing the 10K group, and then hopefully I'll be back in town on Sunday early enough to pop in Yoga X.

I'm also not sure how closely I'll be able to follow my meal plan while I'm on retreat with the whole fam, so I'm just planning on making the healthiest choices available to me, and doing the best I can. I'm staying away from the all-or-nothing approach I've taken in previous attempts where I've given up on the whole program as soon a I slip up one tiny time. I'm focusing instead on doing the best I can and making as many little accomplishments along the way as I can. For example- I said "no thank you" to popcorn during Tuesday's movie. Last night's snack at small group was cupcakes. I didn't have one! And at today's staff meeting our boss provided various flavored popcorn. And once again, I didn't have any! So I'm holding tight to these little steps and hoping they snowball eventually!

A friend showed me a really inspiring article today and I just cannot wait until I start seeing results in my own life! I'm determined to see this through. A group at my work is also focusing on Health and Wellness and they've asked me to give an informal testimony during our next staff meeting about a bootcamp I went through a while back, so I'm sure I'll be talking about the programs I'm in now as well. Who knows-- maybe I can inspire some of them to step it up with their goals too!

Day 4- Supplies

I have a very full schedule for the rest of today, so I'm going to check in now in case I don't get around to it later. Here's what the rest of my day looks like:

- Get off work at 4:15 (work work work until then)
- Go pick up some cold-weather gear for tomorrow's 8am run (eek!)
- Head to the grocery store armed with my P90X list of acceptable foods
- Go home and unpack all of my new stuff
- Pop in today's P90X workout (Cardio X)
- Shower and get in bed early in order to rest up for tomorrow!

Then tomorrow I'll have my first 10K training run ALONG WITH my P90X workout! Crazy huh? I guess I better get used to it. I'll let you know what all this training program is going to entail tomorrow after I find out myself!

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