Recurring Series – Page 124

50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind, Part 8

I always forget about these questions until I see Melissa do a post on hers. I’ve been doing these since July of 2010 so that should give a good indication of how fast I’m progressing through these. Ha!

36. Is it possible to know, without a doubt, what is good and what is evil?

Isn’t this what sets us apart from other animals? Our moral compass? I think we know, inherently, what is good and what is evil. What will lead us on the right path and what will take us down the wrong one? I do believe there are a lot of grey areas between good and evil, of course. And we all have our different definitions of it. So I guess my answer is yes and no, which really isn’t an answer, is it?

37. If you just won a million dollars, would you quit your job?

Yes. I would probably start graduate school, though, because I know I would get so bored without something challenging me.

38. Would you rather have less work to do, or more work you actually enjoy doing?

I’ve never thought of myself who can say they are not afraid of hard work. I wish, but I think my weight would be in the normal zone, I would have run those half-marathons I signed up for, and have more published articles to my name, if so. That said, I’m finding I enjoy being busy. I thrive on it and am more productive this way. When I don’t have much to do, I end up taking longer to complete tasks and cross items off my to-do list. I would rather do more of the things I enjoy. More writing, more reading, etc. If I could fill my life up with work I enjoy, I would be a happy lady. (And I have no idea what’s stopping me from doing this, other than pure laziness.)

39. Do you feel like you’ve lived this day a hundred times before?

No, not at all! That’s what is so enjoyable about my job. Every day is different. Every day is filled with different projects and tasks, different problems to overcome, different meetings and conversations. When I worked at the preschool, the days differed but they were the same week after week. Mondays were slow and an easy breakfast to pass out, Tuesdays were for hurrying through breakfast and clean-up and supervising karate, Wednesdays were for getting through breakfast even faster to supervise dance, Thursdays were another slow day but a big breakfast to make, and Fridays were always up in the air. Every single week. The same thing. Over and over again.

I am so glad I no longer work there. (Although I do miss some of the kidlets and my co-workers.)

40. When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in?

I feel like I march in the dark with a lot of things I strongly believe in. Saving myself for marriage, waiting until I’m married to live with my husband, being pro-life, being a Christian. But I’m comfortable being alone. I’m an introvert, I thrive on being alone. Hopefully, I’ll grab a few friends along the way who believe in these ideas as well. And if not, that’s okay. I’ll keep on marching.

I want to know: would YOU quit your job if you won a million dollars? Why or why not?

Categories: Recurring Series

Everyday Moments: September 2011

September. What can I say about September? Nothing extraordinary happened. I finished boot camp, celebrated my brother’s and nephew’s birthdays, and started to feel more at home in my new job. I no longer sit in meetings and have no clue what’s going on and the spreadsheets are not intimidating me anymore. I’m getting to know our contacts and they are getting to know me. It’s a good feeling.

My eating habits weren’t the best and my weight loss has really stalled. I’m trying not to beat myself up about it, but it’s very hard. Still, I’m trying and that’s all I can ask of myself.

I’ve been debating all month if I want to try my hand at NaNoWriMo in November. My life was always filled with midterms and tests that I could never accomplish it years prior. But if I keep saying I don’t have time to write, I’ll never get a book written.

Without further ado, though, here are the little things that made me happy this month. (Inspired by Kathleen.)

1 – Shopping trip at Target

2 – The “launch” of my new blog theme

3 – Finally cleaning out my junk drawer and my closet. It felt awesome to get rid of so much stuff I have no need for anymore.

4 – Spending a few hours at Typhoon Lagoon in Orlando.

5 – Finishing the Harry Potter series.

6 – Coming home after a full 8-hour day instead of spending an hour at the gym. For once, it was a nice, relaxing evening!

7 – Fresh-baked cookies.

8 – First game of the NFL season and it was a good one.

9 – Having a delicious strawberry-mango margarita with dinner. Best margarita I’ve ever had!

10 – Lunch date with my old work BFF. Also, Pinkberry peanut butter and chocolate froyo with every unhealthy topping I could fit in my bowl. SO MUCH YUM!

11 – The first Football Sunday of the NFL season.

12 – Finishing boot camp! Without a smile on my face, but I finished.

13 – My first Body Pump class in 6 weeks. It was tough, but such a good change.

14 – Rachel winning Big Brother!

15 – Celebrating my brother’s 25th birthday

16 – Deciding to take a break from Twitter and Facebook, and keeping up with a strict blogging schedule.

17 – Baking homemade chocolate cupcakes.

18 – Another Sunday, camped out on the couch, watching football. No. There isn’t anything better than that. (Also? Hi, future husband. My name is Stephany and I am SUCH A CATCH. Geez.)

19 – Going to bed at 9:45pm. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve gone to bed THAT early!

20 – Being so busy at work, I needed to make a to-do list to keep track of everything. I reserve the right to complain about being TOO busy one day, but for now, I love it. It’s so much better than not having much to do/not knowing what I need to do.

21 – One of our freelance designers dropping off yummy treats from a bakery. I ate what was quite possibly the best brownie I have ever had.

22 – The new fall TV schedule. I’m not sure how I’ll keep up with it, but it’s nice to have my shows back.

23 – Carrabba’s for dinner

24 – All of Dutch’s routine blood work coming back normal.

25 – My nephew running around Chuck E. Cheese dressed as Spider-Man during his third birthday party

26 – Winning Fantasy Football this week. I’ve done terribly the past two weeks, but I caught a break this week! Woo!

27 – Cookie dough. There’s nothing in the world like it.

28 – Finishing The Help. The movie was fantastic and so was the book. (Review to come!)

29 – Emails and messages from friends who get it.

30 – Laughing with my nephew. I am SO excited about this new age he’s in. So much fun!

Happy October!

Categories: Recurring Series

Wine and Love, V.6

Time for another round of Walking with Nora’s fun “Wine and Love” series. Write your own post on what made you reach for the wine glass and what you’re loving from this week. Link up at her blog!

Wine-ing about…

Boot camp. Only one class left after last night’s! Wednesday nights are so disorganized and chaotic and I feel shoved aside for the more fit people. I know I’ve talked about this before in a Wine and Love series. It hasn’t gotten better and I’m ready to give a full complaint when it’s over. Mondays are slightly better, but are much more intense and make me want to wish I was dead. Still, yesterday’s was pretty awful in the way we were treated and the way it was run. I would never, ever do another boot camp from my gym.

Anxiety. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully get past my performance anxiety, especially since I deal with the emotions from my failed internship on a daily basis. It doesn’t help that something major happened last week that revved up my anxiety to full load.

Loving…

An under-control grocery bill! My mom and I headed out Monday evening for a toiletries visit at Target (we went about $10 over budget, but we’re getting there!) and a grocery visit at Publix (where we came in just shy of our $100 budget). We only picked up one pack of meat to last us for three meals. (Two being meals and one being leftovers.) As long as we keep out of any grocery stores until our next visit, I think we’re headed in the right direction. I still want to work on getting the bill lower (we spent $17 on snacks! What!) but baby steps first.

Relaxing after work. Ever since I started my job, my life has been jam-packed. After putting in a full 8 hours at my job, I head straight to the gym for an hour which usually involves boot camp or spin class (neither which are low or even medium intensity). It’s nice to get a sweat session in and get the endorphins flowing after being in front of a computer screen all day, but it can be a bit too much. So last night, I came home after work, took a hot bubble bath, and read for about an hour before making dinner. It was SO nice to just relax and take it easy. I think I need to do this at least one night a week.

The NFL season kicks off today! Are YOU ready for some football?!

Finally getting my room organized. I spent Saturday on an organizing rampage. I went through my junk drawers in my room and cleaned out my entire closet, including getting rid of a lot of “skinny” clothes that I know I wouldn’t wear even if I could fit into them. We don’t have a lot of space in our apartment so we really need to use it wisely. We’re not packrats in the least so I have no problem throwing things out that I haven’t used in a few months. It took a few hours but everything is finally organized and easier to access. Feels so good!

What are your Wine and Loves for this week?

Categories: Recurring Series

Five For Friday

1 – In my area, Big Brother didn’t tape until ONE THIRTY A.M. due to a ridiculous Bucs-Redskins preseason game. Now, look, I am a huge football fan. Honestly, I am. But I’m sorry, a stupid, meaningless preseason football game over the craziest show of the summer? It’s no question. So, today, my mom and I woke up at 5AM so we could watch the show before she went for a run. As for the show, I’m very happy with how everything played out, to say the least. (Also, I guess this is one of those “You know you’re addicted when…)

2 – As most of you noticed already, I have a new blog theme. I like it a lot. Also, I have updated almost all of my pages. Now I actually have some information as well as links to all my letters and future husband posts. I also have a new Resolutions page where you can see how I’m doing on the resolutions I made in January.

3 – The advice on my grocery store conundrum was amazing. I will say that it wasn’t anything I didn’t already know, but it drove home the point of meal planning, eating more simply, and saving toiletries visits for Target/Wal-Mart. I know we need to be smarter about what we’re eating and how much of it we’re making. Leftovers are great, but when you make enough leftovers for 3 days four days in a row? Well, then it becomes too much. But the advice was exactly what I needed to get more serious about our grocery budget.

4 – Last night, I was attempting to make breakfast for dinner. I was cooking hash browns and forgot to turn the heat down after heating up the oil and managed to make the fire alarm go off three times and our entire place get smoky. The hash browns were ruined and in the process of trying to take care of that problem, I burned the sausage. It still smells like burnt hash browns in our apartment. Blech. I should never be allowed in a kitchen.

5 – I’m excited about this upcoming three-day weekend! Saturday, I’m prepared to tackle a long to-do list which includes a lot of cleaning (I’m so behind!) and seeing my nephew. Sunday, my mom and I are planning to head up to Orlando for the day to hit up one of the water parks that we have a pass for. And Monday involves a boot camp at a community center and trying to relax as much as possible. What are your holiday weekend plans?

Happy Friday, friends!

Categories: Recurring Series

Everyday Moments: August 2011

Instead of my usual monthly recap posts, I wanted to copy something Kathleen has been doing for the past few months. Finding little happiness in the every day moments of the month. Here we go!

1 – VEDA starts

2 – Being told that I could make Friday my last day, instead of the following Tuesday like I thought.

3 – Boot camp being easier than it was on Monday.

4 – A needed nap

5 – Last day of work!

6 – A pedicure and shopping for my new job

7 – Sleepover with my nephew

8 – Being awoken by my nephew chanting, “Titi Steph! Titi Steph!”

9 – A much-needed day of nothing. No work, no to-dos to complete, just rest and relaxation.

10 – An amazing first day at work

11 – NFL preseason kicks off

12 – Leaving work for lunch for the first time. It felt so nice to be out in the sunshine and fresh air that I need to make it more of a habit.

13 – Seeing my mom reach Lifetime status on Weight Watchers again

14 – A beautiful 3-hour nap

15 – Finishing a boot camp class, even when I felt like I was going to pass out since I didn’t fuel correctly beforehand

16 – Finding out there is a Chick-Fil-A half a mile from my work. Score!

17 – Being busier at work. I’m still doing a lot of clerical tasks, but it’s something!

18 – Being known as a regular in spin class.

19 – Finishing my first 40-hour work week

20 – Seeing Crazy, Stupid, Love and falling back in love with Ryan Gosling. And his abs.

21 – Spectating at my mom’s 5K and being so proud of her. She ran on the hilliest course I’ve ever been on (I ran the course last year) and was less than 30 seconds behind her PR. She rocks my socks.

22 – Getting bragged on by my boss

23 – Snuggles with Dutch.

24 – Scoring free tickets to see “The Help”, which also meant I got out of boot camp. Score! (Side note: movie was amazing. Everyone needs to see it.)

25 – #SummerofHarry chat, talking about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

26 – My first time speaking up in a meeting

27 – A day of shopping, including buying a new pair of “running” shoes (calling them sneakers or tennis shoes makes me feel like I’m eight). My last pair I bought last September so I was desperately in need of new ones!

28 – Fantasy football draft party with my brother

29 – My brother coming over to pick up some things and having dinner with him. Weekday dinners with him are few and far-between and I loved it so much.

30 – Feeling so completely sore from boot camp, from my triceps to my upper back to my butt to my ankles. I was beat up on Monday night and it feels so good to be sore like this.

31 – Chick-Fil-A for lunch. I spent all morning filing and labeling folders, so I needed a comfort food break.