Giving Thanks

I've believe that expressing gratitude is one of the best ways to improve how you feel about your life, or at least that is what I have heard. Every once in a while, when I see extreme poverty or someone with a serious disability or life struggle it becomes very clear just how fortunate I am. My goal is to feel this fortunate every day, without the prompt of seeing someone who has it way worse.

I can quickly come up with a list of things I am thankful for, you know, the obvious things. Health, family, my dog, my husband. While I am deeply thankful for those things, I want to try and express genuine thanks for these and other things in my life rather than blurting out a standard list out of habit. This goes beyond just knowing that I am lucky to have these things, but to imagine if I didn't....I could lose all of my family in a tragic accident, lose my own health, weigh 300 lbs, or need to be on welfare. Thinking of life in those terms makes me feel sheepish when I complain about a idiotic driver, trip to the post office or my love handles.


Here is what I am thankful for:

• The flexibility of my job and the pay. I think it is important for me to put this first right now, because it is easy to take things for granted, especially in today's job market.
• The friends I've made over the last two years. T and I have a handful of really great couples that we just LOVE hanging out with! We have gone out of our way to make new friends in this small town over the past couple years.
• The amazing mountain biking right outside our front door, and the progress I have made in my first year on my mountain bike.
• The consciousness that emanates from nearly everyone who lives here; to be healthy, get outdoors and most of all, enjoy life!
• That my parents are fun to be around. While all families have their quirks, I am very thankful that an evening with them is not worse than pulling teeth. I have come to realize this is not the case with many people and their parents.
• The time I had on this earth with my brother. A beautiful soul who I can thank for teaching me many valuable lessons. Just thinking of his laugh makes my heart expand.
• Our beautiful September wedding in Telluride. It was nicer than I ever dreamed of! And our wedding photography is top notch. I am so thankful we had great documentation of our day.
• My pretty face and body, which I am always reluctant to be thankful for, but I need to give myself a little more credit. I get frustrated about 5 pesky lbs, I am thankful it's not 50, and quite frankly it's completely in my control, so if I really needed to lose 5 lbs, I could.
• The opportunities I have had to travel. Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Luxembourg, Prague, Budapest, Sweden, Mexico, Canada, Hawaii, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Costa Rica... this list isn't even complete and I know this is only be the beginning of it :)
• My hilarious Boston Terrier Izzy. With so much personality, her cute smooshed face, and an insane amount of intelligence, I swear she was made for us!
• My physical abilities. While I'm no Olympic athlete and my vision is crappy, even with contacts, I am able to practice yoga, snowboard, ride my bike, watch movies, smell fresh flowers and talk to friends. Spending 23 years watching someone get cheated from having physical abilities made me realize what a gift they are.
• My college education, and the fact that I am still paying for it, which I truly believe has given me more character.
• The amount of responsibility, whether it's familial or financial, that has humbled me and taught be to be self sufficient.
• The amount of self awareness and personal growth I have experienced in the last year. This connection with myself will only continue to grow because of what I know now.
• My beautiful tattoo. That I am very excited to be adding onto in a couple of weeks!!

That's all for now, but I hope there are many more of these lists to come.

I Heart the Gaga

Not going to lie, pretty excited for Lady G's new album, Fame Monster.
This hard working lady is putting out yet another album in the midst of her busy year.
Here is her new single that I am already liking called Bad Romance:
http://cache.umusic.com/web_assets/ladygaga/site/badromance/default2.html

My workouts just got better!
Thanks Lady G!

Nothing to Wear

I want my closet to look like this!


I am in serious need of clothing re-hab! I need to go through my clothes and get rid of anything and everything that I don't wear or doesn't fit. Then I need to strategically purchase the items I need to make my wardrobe complete.
I am usually good at getting rid of anything that is not flattering or that is old, but have a hard time getting rid of stuff that doesn't fit. I have a lot of clothes that are a little big for me, and I keep thinking, what if I gain some weight? If I gain weight, I don't want to have to go out and buy new clothes because of this! The clothes that are a little big are usually nice items that I feel guilty getting rid of, since I spent so much money on them. I am also guilty of purchasing things a little big in the first place. So I hang on to these items and they just make my closet look full, but I realize I can't wear half of it. Doesn't that psychology seem weird? You would think that I should have the opposite opinion. Get rid of all my bigger clothes, so if I gain a couple of pounds, I will feel motivated to work it off rather than go buy new clothes to fit my fuller figure!?!
I got a really good tip from a fashion blogger Style on a String. She said to organize your clothes by type and color. So when you put all of your black shirts together, you can get rid of any that are faded and don't fit and know that you still have 2 left. This way you can also recognize holes in your wardrobe. If you realize that you have a cute item that fits but you never wear it, you probably need something to wear it with! Then you can make a list of the items you really need.
This weekend I want to take inventory of my clothes and make a list of what I need.
Unfortunately, the amazing custom closet will have to wait :)

High Low

Per the suggestion of my bestie and her Twinner, I am following the High/Low trend. T and I played yesterday in the car, on a 45 minute drive to a nearby town to go deal with some crappy tenants who haven't paid and are being evicted.

I thought it would be a good idea to "stack the deck" and list 2 highs and 1 low, given our circumstance:
T's Highs:
His delicious lunch
A really good coffee he had that morning (he really
likes coffee!)

T's Low:
"Doing this! Driving 45 minutes to deal with this shit while listening to the wind whistle through my bike rack"

My Highs:
Having a particularly detail oriented client thank me for my hard work
A mini date-night at Outback steakhouse (I had never been and was kind of excited!) and to go to Target (because we don't have one where we live)

My Lows:
Feeling kind of crumby that day because I had some jitters/light headedness and I felt like I was going to pass out on my run

Which brought me to another High of the day, taking a mid-day run with my dog and a friend!

Today I haven't asked T, but I can assume his High has something to do with the delicious lunch I made at home that we enjoyed together. It included a sip of wine (shhh don't tell!) and ended with an espresso and bit of chocolate! It is always nice when we can spend our lunch hour at home together!

Thanksgiving

This is the first time in a while that we have absolutely no Thanksgiving plans. My dad is in Africa for work, mom is headed to my aunt's house for her annual family Thanksgiving feast and my sister and her family are off to AZ.

I am pretty excited to have no plans, but now I am starting to wonder what we should do!

Do I cook at home, all the fixings, and invite a couple friends over? For some reason I am not feeling motivated about doing it all. I have cooked a full Thanksgiving dinner twice now, all by myself and it is tons of fun and always turns out great. But for some reason I am not feeling it this year... It sounds like a lot of $$ on groceries, lots of cooking, and cleaning.

I am sort of hoping we get adopted by friends. I have never really crashed anyone else's Thanksgiving. That could be fun to see how other people do it. Also I would love to spend a lot of time cooking 2 really good dishes or so. Then I can research recipes and get super creative. I make a mean sweet potato pie with ginger snap crust, and also love making different stuffings!

Decisions, decisions!
Either way, it will be nice to have no real holiday obligations, except hang out with my husband and relax!
What is your idea of a perfect Thanksgiving?

The Oatmeal

This website is hilarious!

Thought this FB quiz was fitting, but there is a lot more funny stuff on there.

Created by Oatmeal

Morning Madness

I SUCK in the mornings! What is wrong with me?
While I hit snooze, T gets up and makes us fresh juice from our juicer, I stay in bed. I finally get in the shower, dry my hair, do my makeup and get out of the house without enough time to make breakfast. I leave the house right at 8 or a little after, getting to work at 8:10. I'm at work with no coffee and no breakfast.
This is stupid! We are talking about a 15 minute difference in planning!

What I should do is pick out clothes and set up the coffee/breakfast the night before.
And, here's a genius idea...
Get up when the alarm goes off!

This is going to sound weird, but I think that T's level of responsibility makes me less responsible. Here's my theory... I have always been the more organized, well planned, driven person in my relationships. Then I met T. He is a total busy-body. He is on time, organized, planned out and efficient. He gets stuff done and is very productive. These are traits I always thought were strong in myself, but his level of "togetherness" makes me seem like a slacker! In our relationship, I am the spontaneous, free-spirit procrastinator! At first I was insecure about this, but now I just realize that we are different people. Just because he is very very organized and productive does not mean that I am not. It is also nice to have a partner who is not lazy. He cooks, cleans, and gets stuff done, and it feels really good to share these tasks with someone. I could get into a long talk about this, but I am going to stick with how this relates to getting up on time.
Because T is so on top of things, he would never sleep past his alarm and never be late to work, so in my subconscious, I rely on him to make sure I am not late! So now, instead of setting my alarm and telling myself that if I don't get out of bed I am going to be late, I just wait for his alarm, and for him to get up, and for him to say "Babe, it's time to get up" before I do anything. This is SO silly! I feel like I am depending on him to be on-time to work. When I was a teacher I had to be there at 7:30 or 7:45 every day. Students were in my room and the bell rang, so I could not be late. During this time, I woke up every morning at my alarm (before T). I had breakfast and coffee before I left, because not eating is not an option as a teacher! I need to get back in this habit!!!

Today was the epitome of my morning disasters! T got out of bed and I stayed in, just petting our dog and laying there. I knew how late it was getting, but didn't seem to care. Then he said "We will never be able to car pool together if you don't wake up on time." He's 120% right! We work at the same place, so in theory, we should be able to carpool, right?! But I do my hair and makeup so it takes me a little longer in the morning, meaning that if we are going to ride together, I need to get up BEFORE him! So I get up and get in the shower. Take 20 minutes in the shower (which is SO long!) I am not a long shower person! Meanwhile he makes us some veggie-fruit juice and drops it off on the bathroom counter. I get out of the shower and there is no hot water left for T! Now I am really feeling bad!
He leaves for work. I finish getting ready, grab a Luna bar and leave the house at 7:58.
This needs to stop!

Maybe for a week I should sleep in a separate room and pretend my husband won't be there to save me! That would be a wake up call!
:)

Hair

I've decided to switch hair stylists, at least for the time being...
This is a big deal!

I think its funny how attached and committed we feel to our HAIR stylist! In all seriousness though, it is extremely difficult to find a stylist that is an ideal match. Here are the qualities I would like my stylist to have:

• Obviously great talent at cutting and coloring hair
• Enthusiasm for what they do and lots of creativity. I rely heavily on my stylist to choose what is best for me. I rarely come in with a specific idea or "look" in mind. I like them to work their magic!
• Decently priced. Too low and you don't think you are getting a good enough job, too high and you feel resentment when you look in the mirror and don't feel like a supermodel.
• They need to be someone you can comfortably chat with. Someone that doesn't exhaust you with gossip and stories, someone that doesn't drain you with a million questions when you know they don't even care about you, and someone who doesn't leave long patches of awkward silence. You don't want to come out of a 1-2 hour appointment feeling drained from the conversation, you want to feel relaxed. Like you chatted with a sibling or old friend.

Recently, I feel like the woman who I have been going to off and on since I was 14, and exclusively during the last 2-3 years, is not quite cutting it. (pun was not intended! but I like it!) She has great skill and creativity, but sitting in her chair lately has gotten more and more draining.

I honestly feel a little judgement from her. I feel like she resents that I am younger than her and married (this sounds weird, I know!) but she has been single for a while and she is in her mid-thirties. Not that there is ANYTHING wrong with that at all. It's just tough because I often get trapped in conversation with her. She complains about being single and says she will never get married and she just wants to give up. I am positive, and tell her she will find someone because she is cute and funny and hardworking. (this is true!) Then she says she wants to be single, and I tell her some honest benefits to being single.... We get to a point talking where she corners me, like I am stuck because I have no clue what I could possibly say to her. Now I enter every conversation with caution. I am hesitant to agree with something she says in fear she will turn it around on me later. This is so weird!

Without going into every incident, I do want to share one more thing... I color my hair dark and have very fair skin. Sometimes the dye gets on the side of my face (normal) and they wipe it off with a towel. The past few times she has been a little sloppy about it and gotten some on my face. She doesn't notice it until it has dried on and then she scrubs it HARD with this chemical and a towel. It literally rubs my skin off, and I have this small red dry patch on my face for a month afterward. On my last visit I asked her to be careful and explained what happens to my face, and she got super defensive, and basically made me feel like I was overreacting and being high maintenance!

During the past few visits I have been uncomfortable. On top of that, when I go to pay, she is just choosing a number out of thin air. I feel like she doesn't respect that I work hard for my money and choosing to go to a $100+ hair cut is a big decision for me. I have to plan the appointments, usually around payday, to make sure I have the money to do it! Once she charged $75 for a cut and color because she was worried the color would fade, she normally charges somewhere between $90 and $110 for the full cut and color, and on a recent visit it was $90 for a sloppy color retouch and a trim!

While I really like her, and think she does a really nice job, I decided to take a break for a while and try someone else. At first I had feelings of guilt...

I have had numerous conversations with my friends about switching... They say:

• "once I saw my old stylist at the grocery store and I ran the other direction"
• "I just stopped going, never called or anything. One day she saw me with a different haircut and we haven't talked since"
• "I've been going to Marie for 10 years, I don't trust anyone else to cut my hair"

My belief is that hair stylists are not miracle workers, and they are the only person on earth who can do my hair. I feel that many people are skilled at cutting hair. Also I don't get very attached to the outcome of my hair. I am not worried if it is not my favorite look. Hair grows, we color, we cut, we get older, styles change. I like to mix it up. I am not scared of letting someone else cut my hair. I hope I don't get caught with the same look for 10 years!

So I decided not to feel guilty. I can switch if I want and if she is offended it is her problem. I knew it was important to be up front with her about switching stylists, but I still didn't have the guts to call her on the phone. Mostly because she never answers and I didn't want to leave a weird voicemail about it. Also due to the awkwardness of our recent conversations, I chickened out a little bit and wrote her on Facebook instead!

Here was what I wrote:

Hi lovely lady!

I just wanted to let you know that I went to another person this time for my
hair. It doesn't mean anything personal about you, I still LOVE what you do for
my hair and love seeing you! I just decided to mix it up this time. This stylist
is also a friend and they offered me a good deal so I said yes. I just wanted to
be up front about it because I think it's weird when people go to someone else
and don't say anything about it to their stylist.

I am sure I will be calling you for an appointment soon! How did your movie
turn out? I bet it was awesome!

Hope all is well!

I was honest in my email, but aired on the nice side because I know she will take it personally. But you know what... I went to someone else last night, felt liberated and free to make my own decision, and I don't feel guilty because at least I told her. So what are your thoughts?? Be "monogamous" with your stylist or play the field a bit?

Is there this unspoken loyalty that you worry about? Do you feel bad about switching?

Oh the joys of being a woman!! You bring these issues up to a man and they laugh, out loud, in your face. T's response "WHO CARES if she sees you with a new haircut?!"

October Goals Recap

Since its early November, I should probably check out my October goals and see how well I did. I did update the status of them in the actual post, but here is my synopsis.

• We met with our finance coach and started developing our joint budget. I did get added to T's account, which will be functioning as our main checking account. We have not yet started our cash envelope system, and I still need to close my bank account and switch all my auto pay items to our joint account.
• I did use my yoga punches, and think I figured out how I can avoid feeling like I got hit by a train afterward! LOTS of water and electrolytes! I don't think I will buy another pass anytime soon, I need to figure out what I am going to do for workouts this month. I need to establish an acceptable amount to spend on working out each month, because if I had my druthers, I would buy a yoga pass, rec center pass and dance class card. I did cave and buy a 20 punch card to the rec center ($75, super cheap) which I think will last me for a while. Now I just need to decide which class card to get. I am leaning toward dance, $75 for 10 classes. I will miss yoga though, an hour and a half in silence works wonders for my mind.
• FINALLY finished wedding thank you cards last night!! Still need to print return labels and take it all to the post office, hopefully today. I am also pretty proud that I made little packages for some people who couldn't come to the wedding. I included our wedding favor and a little card that has info for viewing our pictures!
• Have not synced my Blackberry, still need to go through my Outlook and update addresses before I sync.
• Still need to decide about health insurance. I REALLY hate dealing with health insurance because I just get mad about how much I spend and how little I get for it. Anyway I think I am close to a decision.
• I have been writing in my blog more! Though I feel like the content is pretty lame and self serving, but who cares! I AM doing it!!

I would say I am very proud of how much I got done. I feel as though I have had little free time because every night after work I am busy doing "administrative life stuff."

Maybe my November goals will contain something fun... I think that's a good idea :)