I’ve been clipping coupons for a while but I was not very good about using them effectively...so why save them?  My friend Michelle has been using Couponsense.com and has been saving a ton at the grocery store.  So I thought I would give it a shot also.  Couponsense lists all the grocery stores and drug stores in Arizona and helps the consumer organize their shopping trips while getting the most for their money.  Instead of reading through all the store ads each week I can pull a report that spits out which store has the best deal and which coupons I should use.  IT really makes it a heck of lot easier to get the most for your money.  Today, I went to Bashas, who for this past week was doubling coupons up to a $1.00, they had most of the General Mills cereals on sale as well as other things that we could stock up on.  I had several buy 2 or 3 cereals and get a dollar off, with the match I would get $2 off.  Then they had their own instore coupon for when you buy 4 boxes get $4 off your total.  After everything was said and done this is what I walked out with:

12 boxes of cereal
8 bars of Ivory soap
2 boxes of Crest toothpaste
1 gal milk
2 bottles of Karo corn syrup
1 box of popcorn
1 half gal of Breyers ice cream
5# bag of flour
1 16oz jar of Skippy peanut butter
Total:  $94.41
After coupons $42.23

We could have used the store coupon a little more effectively but we didn’t...lesson learned for next time.  Anyways I’m pretty happy about how much I saved.  Also on the savings front, I saved $360 a year off my Directv bill just by asking for a lower package.  And it only took ten minutes! 

If you are looking for good savings tips check out The Consumerist and I Will Teach You to be Rich. 

My group at work is holding our yearly meetings to get things done.  Last year I was only in the group about a month and I had no idea what the conversations were all about.  I just had this deer in headlights look the whole time.  This year, I actually know what I’m talking about.  It’s kinda cool.  I can actually carry on conversations with everyone about technical stuff and how to improve process!  I was in training all last week and I’m behind on all my emails and such but this makes me feel good.

I have pictures to post from Halloween which I will do later today.  Courtney and I also had some pictures taken for our Christmas cards so I’ll post those also.

The second job is going, kinda stinks that the retail industry has taken a nose dive because I don’t have any hours for this week.  Good thing gas prices are so low....which makes no sense to me why they were so high six weeks ago.  In the industry I work in I hear all about the economy, we have no choice it’s our business.  But all the talk has me stressed out about things that have not happened but could happen.  Lost of ‘what if’s’ running through my head.  I need to not worry about it and make the best of things.  I am thankful to be working right now.  I’m doing everything in my power to make sure that it stays this way!

Well I’m off to more meetings.  Photos coming this afternoon!

I’ll be hanging with the family tonight, passing out candy and watching all the fun.  Our neighborhood is lame, no kid traffic at all which is why for the past few years we’ve been going to the other Hannafin house for Halloween.  Now that the twins are older it should be more fun this year.  Cathy and I have got a TON of candy, probably too much.  I’ve got the cameras charging so I can capture all the fun.

Speaking of fun, I’ve posted pictures from last weekend’s trip to Schenpf Farms.  The boys had a blast!  By the time we all got home we were covered in dust from walking around the farm.  I also have some video, I’ll probably get that uploaded this weekend.

What else?? I have training all next week...C# and ASP....more geek talk!  Work has been busy this past week for me which is a welcomed feeling.  My group is having a team event in two weeks, I hope I come away with a bit more direction in my daily tasks.  I hate feeling so unsecure about my place in the cube farm.  I have hopes that all the training that I am going through will keep me around for a bit.  The second job is ramping up, but looking at the economy the past month I doubt the holiday shopping season is going to be as busy as it has been in previous years.  I am grateful to have two jobs.

I dropped off my early voting ballot today.  It was a complete mess, thank goodness I got my ballot mailed to me, the wait is like four hours!  I went outside of comfort zone with my votes for this election.  Things need to change and I’m not sure either candidate is equipped to handle a makeover of our economy.  It’s the ‘lesser of two evils’ game for me.  Tuesday is going to be interesting and so will Wednesday at market open.  This is history in the making.

I hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween!  Don’t eat too much candy!

Yep, life is just moving along like it should so I haven’t had much to blog about.  I’m still trying to find my place at work.  With all this crap going on in the financial world it makes me nervous.  The ‘L’ word hasn’t come up but I’m in a position that could be considered a luxury.  I’m trying to make a niche for myself so I will be indispensable.  I have good things happening but I don’t want to spill the beans about it just yet.  If it all works out it it could lead into bigger opportunities.  I’m WFH tomorrow hopefully I will find the motivation to get shit done.  UGH!  It’s still freaking 90 degrees here.  Seriously I need some fall temperatures, I have sweaters that are dying to come out of the closet.

It’s almost 5am and since I can’t sleep what better time than now to update my blog.  Sorry for not posting anything lately, life has just gotten in the way.  I’ve been busy, working two jobs and just trying to get stuff done.  The second job is actually going pretty well.  The last two weekends I’ve done really well sales-wise, too bad I don’t work on commission.  Everyone at the store is really nice and so far we all seem to get along.  The extra income is going to be nice for the holidays. 

The real job has just been crazy.  While I was on vacation my group went through a reorg and two groups were combined and then split up again.  I feel sorta out of the loop with the whole thing.  I feel like they are not sure what to do with me.  I’m trying my best to show what I bring to the team but it feels more like a scene from Office Space.  I’m in Linux training all this week and when I return to work next week I hope to get some real world experience to help reinforce the training.  My thought is that if I can take the crap work off the admin’s plate then it frees up their time and thus making me more valuable.  Plus it paves the way for me to move into a more technical role and more pay.  The training is going well.  It turns out that I already knew a lot of the basics just from playing with the backend of this blog.

I’ve also had a jolt of creativity with my scrapbooking lately.  I’ve got a ton to scrapbook from the wedding and all.  I’ve got some of the pictures from the photographer but I think she has more to send me.  The deal I had with the photographer was that I would do all the post production work because I wanted more control of how the images were manipulated.  She shot the event in RAW which will make it easier for me to make adjustments but last I heard she was having problems pulling the RAW images off of the memory card.  I have the JPEGs so it’s like the images were lost, it would be a lot easier on me if I had the RAW images.  From 250 images I’ve narrowed them down to 140 and I hope to get them done this weekend.

To encourage my scrapbooking habit I’ve decided to start another blog just about scrapbooking.  My plan is to make it more of a product review blog.  I’ve noticed lately that a lot of the scrapbooking blogs I read are becoming more about how much blinking advertising can I cram into my sidebar than about scrapbooking.  I want this site to be a place where scrapbookers can come to get real opinions from someone who doesn’t work for a magazine or isn’t on a design team.  A place where you don’t feel like you’re being pushed to buy stuff that doesn’t work or that you won’t use more than once.  I hope to have the first video reviews done this weekend.  I’ll post the link here when it’s up.

Boy, this is turning out to be a long post…

Today was a busy for me.  I got early, went to weigh in, had a bagel with Courtney, and then got ready to scrapbooking with my friend Stephanie.  I love scrapbooking, I really do.  I’m feeling a little bit more motivated to create lately and that is exciting for me.  I’ll post pictures of the layouts tomorrow.  We got a TON of stuff at the crop today since it was CKC weekend.  I love free stuff!

After scrapbooking I went straight to my second job at Sur la Table.  Yes, I went back, this time on the sales floor.  Its not many hours right now which is fine.  Things will kick up as the holidays approach.  It’s not a hard job and thankfully I’ve done it before so I don’t need much training.  Everyone seems nice so far.  It will be nice to have the extra $$ for the holidays.

Stick a fork in me, I’m done!

I remember hearing about this accident in the news and I didn’t completely make the connection.  Plus with all the wedding hoopla I didn’t have time to think much about anything.  I was reading Ali’s blog like I do everyday and she had a post about this family.  I don’t know the family but I am familiar with Domestic Bliss and their Blissful Studio, I am such a fan/admirer of what they have done over there for the creative community.  I am deeply touched by their outpouring of generosity to help.  I’m posting their information here to get the word out, I don’t know how much I can help but I am believer that every little bit counts.  Please say prayers for this amazing Arizona family.

If you would like to help or for more information please visit their benefit blog.

I’ll be blogging on the wedding blog this week.  Head over there for all the fun.

This has got to be the most craziest week ever in my life!  I have so much to do and so little time.  For my wedding guests that read this blog, head over to www.hannafin.com/blog for wedding updates right up to the big day!

There is a lot that I want to say about what has been going on but this isn’t the right venue.  I will say that I am not at all angry or upset over recent events.  Very disappointed?  Yes.  I’ll leave it at that. 

Overall I’m clam but I have had a few mini-freakouts, yesterday was the worst.  I’ve made plans for the orchard tour the day after the wedding, and I made my list of stuff I can’t forget to do.  The list is huge!  And I feel a wee bit overwhelmed.  And now Courtney and I are coming down with colds.  Great, super, fabulous!  I can’t be sick, I need to keep moving.

We went down to Tempe Splash park first thing this morning with the twins.  The park was reopened today so I figured if we got there first it will be the cleanest it’s ever been.  You can see Courtney, Reilly and me in the video, and there is a couple of shots of Jack from far away.

We weren’t there for very long, right when we were leaving vans full of daycare kids showed up.  That would have been totally crazy if we had stayed.  The boys had fun.  I’ll post some pictures later.

**UPDATE** I took down the video because it was causing errors and pissing me off.

I got four pages done last night which is a lot for me.  I normally have a hard time getting my ideas on to paper, but last night once I got going there was no stopping.  I haven’t scrapbooked since March and not since I started my meds.  I really felt energized and creative, I haven’t felt that in a really long time.  I posted the layouts on TwoPeas.  I still have more to scrap but of course now I’m distracted.  It doesn’t help that G4 is running a Heroes marathon today.

Fern and David are in town this week.  Tonight it’s dinner at the other Hannafin house, BBQ chicken, yum!  Phoenix is getting the leftovers from Dolly so it’s freaking hot and humid today.  So not fun but I guess that’s why we all have pools.  Pools don’t do much good when its this hot, it’s like swimming in bathwater.

I have SQL training next week which will get me away from the office for a few days.  Hopefully I can gasp the information and it sticks.  I really want to figure out if I’m cut out for programming.  The Cisco classes helped steer me in that direction.  What stinks though is that I let Snapper do all the work on our labs.  I really need to take the last two classes over or at least do all the labs so I can grasp the material.  I’m going to start taking on a bit more at work.  Hopefully, that will give me better ammo for a promotion next January.  The other path is project management.  Snapper thinks I’m perfect for that role, and he’s probably right, it is a natural progression for me.  The thought of having the success of a project hinge on me makes me ill.  That’s what what stressing me out in my last role.  If I made a mistake then someone might not get their bonus, and I hated that feeling.  I would much rather be told what needs to be done and get it done.  I do have project management training in two weeks, if anything it will help me have a better understanding of how things get done.

Have a safe weekend!

I got this nasty gram from my ex-friend Joey yesterday afternoon.  I won’t go into details but basically he read the previous entry and was now upset.  What puzzels me about it is that I thought this was all done and over with like weeks ago, I didn’t understand why he had such a delayed reaction.  When I told him that our friendship was over a couple of weeks ago I thought I had made myself pretty clear.  I’m not sure if he just decided to not believe me or what.  Whatever.

Moving on....Just over thirty days until the big day.  I have a feeling that time is just going to fly by now.  The dress fitting went really well.  They are making the bustle and I should have the dress back in two weeks.  The menus are done and have been sent off to the Inn, just waiting on the cost now.  Courtney still has to decide on what color of Vans the guys are going to wear.  I’ve got him down to two, red or black, I think he’s leaning towards black.  Maggie’s flower girl dress arrived and is now being sent back because the bodice is the wrong color.  It came in ivory when it should have been red like the skirt.  No biggie.  The twins have their ring bearer outfits done, they are going to look so cute!

Speaking of the twins, they are growing so fast.  Their birthdays are coming up and they have asked for special cakes this year.  Reilly wants a farm cake and Jack wants a robot cake.  Cathy and I are going to have our hands full making those.  Which reminds me, I need to order their birthday presents soon.  So much to do!

I’ve had little spurt of motivation today.  I’m slowly clearing off my craft table and once it’s clean maybe then I’ll have the motivation to actually scrapbook a little.  I still feel like all the scrapbook stuff is out of control in that room.  I still haven’t figured out a good system for storing the embellishments and such.  Everything needs to have a home and right now that’s not happening. 

Tomorrow morning I am going to a wedding dress fitting.  This is after they have done the first round of alterations and to decide on the bustle.  It’s all getting too real.  In six weeks everything will change.  Courtney’s wedding ring has arrived and it’s really nice.  We decided that each of us will pick out the rings and just be surprised.  Although I have given Courtney a few nudges in the right direction.  We are still undecided about the menu for the reception.  One would think that two chef’s could figure something out by now.  I think I’m putting too many expectations on it, it just needs to simple, and reflect us. 

There will be one less guest attending the wedding, which I knew was coming but I had hopes that he would prove me wrong.  Joey has made the decision not to come.  The excuse...because he’s too new at his job and he can’t ask for the time off.  Whatever, that’s all crap.  My family and friends have known about this wedding since last August.  Joey made the choice to remain unemployed all winter and didn’t get a job until just recently.  This was completely in his hands and he had plenty of chances to choose a different path.  This may sound really harsh for those who don’t know the history, but it’s time for me to end this relationship and move on.  There were several emails back and forth and he said that I was stupid for ending the friendship.  It’s been a few weeks and I still feel that it was the best decision for me. This is bigger than just not coming to the wedding.  Joey has consistently let me down as a friend and each time I looked past it.  Not anymore.  I’m done. 

I also decided to get a second job.  I’m freaked out about the state of our economy and I just want to put some extra $$ in the bank for emergencies.  I’ve applied at a couple of places and so far I’ve only had one response, which did not lead to a job.  The wedding conflicted with the training, which totally stinks.  There is one job that I will be really excited to get, and it’s only 1/2 a mile down he road.  Cross your fingers for me!

If you haven’t already seen it, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is up and running...I told you guys that NPH is awesome!

I am all geeked out on the new iphone 2.0 update.  It’s all I can think about.  I’ve been playing with all the new apps and I’m am loving my phone even more than I did before.  I’m not getting the new 3G phone just yet.  I like the metal back on the 1st generation iphones so much more, feels more elegant than the plastic back.  Plus I don’t like that ATT hiked up the fees for iphone owners, I would be paying more per month which totally sucks.  Here are current favorite apps:

Pandora
This has got to be my most favorite app.  I love that I can listen to my favorite tunes/artists on my phone.  It’s like Depeche Mode is in my purse all the time.

Evernote
I have this on my MacBook also.  When I’m at work and I want to remember to look something up at home this app will allow you to paste a screenshot of what you need and when you get home you can go back to it.  The cool thing is that you can add tags to your stuff so you can search for more easily.  The screenshot function is by far my favorite feature.

Twitterific
The dudes at IconFactory are geniuses.  I have been a fan of their work for a longtime and love all their apps.  They make my Mac desktop pretty with al their cute icons.  If you are on Twitter, this is a must have app.

Speaking of Twitter, I am sorry for all the panic yesterday morning on my feed.  I was so excited about the new update and when it ibricked my phone I thought I was going to loose everything.  By Noon everything was back to normal.

I have been tossing around the thought of getting a second job for some time now.  I decided to apply at the Apple store.  It may be defeating my goal of bringing in extra cash, but it’s something that I can get excited about which is more than I can say for my real job right now.  I wanted a second job that was going to be fun and I think this will be a great experience.

Courtney and I have also been playing with our Flip this week.  I’ll post some videos soon.  I’m waiting on MobileMe to workout the kinks before I upload the videos.

I don’t have much going on this weekend which is a nice break.  The last two weekends have been jammed pack.  As usual I have tons of laundry to do, most of which is thanks to Courtney’s MRSA infection.  We have to wash his clothes and towels everyday to keep the infection from spreading.  Not fun.  Oh, I did get a microderm facial yesterday.  It did wonders to my face!  I went to see Kathy at Scosh Skincare Studio.  This was my first treatment and my skin is noticeably clearer and smoother.  I got the package deal, $150 for three treatments.  I have sun damage on my shoulders from my many years of being on the swim team, Kathy also took care of that for me.  While the hyper-pigmentation will not go away completely it will get lighter and that’s fine with me.  I just want to look my best on my wedding day.  If you are in the metro Phoenix area, I highly recommend Scosh if you are looking for skincare treatments. 

I’m gonna dig into my laundry and get things done today! 

Why NPH is awesome:

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

NPH in a musical??  That is so awesome!  I can’t wait to see it.  You can read more about it on Valleywag.

My photo of the sunset surrounded by the smoke from the fire in the west valley made it on to AZFamily.com!  Yeah me!

Wait for it....DARY!!!!

Click for the full size image

These are the chewy chocolate cookies from Martha Stewart Cookies.  They are suppose to be rolled in sanding sugar but I didn’t have that so I used granulated instead.  Well during baking the sugar melted.  I don’t know why I didn’t see that coming.  I grabbed the Heidi Swapp chipboard and used the negative space as a template.  I think it turned out rather well and they are still really yummy.

I was reading this week’s Entertainment Weekly, the issue lists out the greatest pop culture moments from the last twenty-five years.  As another birthday is looms around the corner, I thought about how much of a pop culture whore I am and decided to put together my list of pop culture defining moments for the last thirty-seven years.  In no particular order her is my list…

The dude who never gets sick has a really bad case of the Flu. 

Karma = 1 Snapper = 0.

Cripes!  it’s been freaking hot over the last few days.  I guess I needed more sleep than I normally get today.  I didn’t roll out of bed until 7am and that’s normally when I’m headed out the door for work, so I worked from home today.  We had the swamp coolers running but today they were pretty much useless so time to switch over to AC.  Normally when I work form home I usually have stuff around the house that needs to be done, but today I was pretty busy with work stuff. 

This past weekend I attended a scrapbooking class at Melrose Vintage.  Jeni Bowlin was the teacher and I had such a great time.  There were only like 10 of us in the class and Jeni gave us a lot of one on one time to help us through our projects.  I love going to Melrose Vintage, they have such great stuff and I get so much inpiration just walking around the store.  I’m so glad that they are incorporating paper crafts.  It was just nice to be creative.

My relationship with Snapper is still hanging by threads.  I tried to talk to him on Thursday, he was still being a jerk and he was making me upset all over again.  I didn’t hear from him all weekend, not that I thought I would but I had hoped.  I need to let him go.  But that’s easier said than done.

A few years back I went through a phase and put some distance between myself and the people that were toxic for me.  I am one of those friends that will stick by someone to the end, that’s who I am, and I’ve always thought that it was an endearing quality to have....but a quality that can easily be taken advantage of.  So I have this friend, and I’m going to call him out on this blog because he’s just pissed me off for the last time.  Snapper and I met at work and he was the one that went through all the CISCO classes with me for the past year.  I love my friend Snapper dearly, just as I do with all my friends, but when his manic twin comes out of hiding he is the biggest dick I’ve ever known.  I continually put up with his crap and behavior during this periods because I like to think that it’s not possible for one person to be that much of a dick at any given time.  He does this every few months or so, then he’ll get excited about something and wants to tell me about it, I listen and give the support that any good friend would do.

Now that Snapper is in a new job he finds himself under pressure to impress.  Snapper tends to perform at 300% when all that is expected of him is 100%.  I get pressure, and I don’t fault him for that.  What pushed it over the edge for me this time is that I expressed concern for his overall well-being and work/life balance and he just crapped all over me.  He started spewing on his diatribe about how he has three things in his life that matter to him, his dogs, running and work...anything outside of that is not worth his time.  I got crapped on all because I asked him if he wanted to go get a mocha with me at lunch today.  Again this is not the first time that he has acted like this to me, but this time I’m done taking this behavior from him.  I don’t need it and I certainly don’t deserve it from him.

Ending friendships are the worst for me.  It makes me feel like poop, it really does.  Am I overreacting?  I don’t think that I am.  I’m just tired feeling like crap when I all did was care about someone.

Can you believe that it’s been almost two months since I’ve scrapbooked?  Let alone done anything remotely creative.  I went to the scrapbook store today for the first time since early April hoping to be inspired.  My scrapbook table is a mess and my supplies are all over the place from when I was trying to organize everything.  I started the organization project with such enthusiasm and then all the motivation blew alway with the summer wind.  So if I’m not being crafty what have I been doing?  I’ve actually been spending a lot of time with family and friends.  There isn’t anything special going on, we’ve just had dinner and hung out like every weekend.  It’s been really nice.  I am so lucky to be a part of such a great family, something I missed out on as a kid.  All this family time has got me wanting kids again.  I’ll be 37 in two months, I don’t have much time.  Shit or get off the pot Elisabet.

I want to say happy birthday to two very special people, Brian and Dayle.  They are the most amazing friends a girl could have.

The doc has bumped up my drugs and that seems to be going well.  I can think without having a million thoughts running through my head all at the same time.  The weight loss has been moving downward for the past month which is awesome.  When I went to try on my dress it was really big all over.  And the dress....oh man it’s really beautiful.  Thank goodness it’s at Brian’s house because I would probably be wearing it all the time.  All the boys have their suits, cufflinks are on the way.  Courtney needs to figure out what shoes he wants to wear.  I say Vans, but he’s leaning towards All-Stars.  Looks like there will be twenty-five people attending the wedding.  It’s going to be a nice party with such a small crowd. 

It’s getting late.  Have a great weekend.  Don’t forget the sunblock!

The dress is here!  I’m so excited!  I haven’t seen it since I bought it back in February and I didn’t take any pictures of it since it didn’t really fit all that great.  I can’t wait to see it now that it’s in my size.  Dayle, Brian and I are going tomorrow afternoon for a fitting.  YEAH!

Wedding plans are moving right along.  I feel like there is a lot that still needs to get done but there really isn’t.  All the groomsmen have their suits and ties.  Courtney still has to get his and figure out what shoes he’s going to want to wear.  It looks like there will be about 23 people attending the wedding...not to shabby.  I am bummed that my BFF Meghan can’t be there.  We’ll have to plan a girls lunch so I can catch her up on the details.

That’s all for now.  Work is calling.

Because Gavin is so AWESOME
“The Love Remains the Same"

Genius.
“Again & Again” - The Bird and The Bee

The last two days have kicked my ass all over the place.  I have never felt so stupid, so out of place, so dumbfounded as I have the last two days at work.  The scale better show a weight loss tomorrow at WW because I don’t have any part of my ass left.  I rely on other people to provide me information.  When I’m not included on an email chain, how am I suppose to know that something was updated?  It was totally obvious that I wasn’t included, I said that I urged my peers to keep me in the loop, what more can one person do?  It was a scene from Office Space in my cube yesterday afternoon.  The emails started coming, one after another wanted to know why there was a breakdown in communication.  I took it personally because I thought I was being so careful and diligent with my record keeping.  I took my meds everyday last week, I was catching all the details.  It’s just so frustrating.  Ok it’s out...I’m done.

I finished my CCNA classes!  Now I just need to keep up the studying over the summer so I can take the certification test after the wedding.  I hope to get back on the path for my degree classes in the fall.  Hopefully I can work something out with the instructors since classes start the week of my wedding.

Now with a little free time on the weekends Courtney and I have been trying really hard to get things done around the house.  Baseboards and crown molding are top on the list.  Then the backyard needs tending to.  We’ve been pretty lucky here in the desert this year, triple digits have yet to hit us.  That will all change this weekend I’m sure.

I’ve been working on a new design for this place.  My goal is to clean up my coding, make everything according to web standards and pretty up the place.  Maybe hang a picture or two.  Dayle’s website will also be going through changes over the next few weeks.  I might as well knock them both out at the same time.  Working on the redesign has really been an enjoyable process for me.  I’m thinking more and more that this is the route I want to take in my career.  It seems to fit.

That’s all for now folks!

I have a ton of crap to get done today and what am I doing..browsing the blogs.  Maybe the meds take the weekend off?

Brian, Dayle and I had an awesome afternoon yesterday browsing thrift and antique shops all along 7th Ave and Melrose.  Lots of cute stuff out there.  Then Brian and went to see Made of Honor.  It’s entertaining and cute, we had a good time.

I spent some time on iTunes and updated my music library with some new stuff from the hottie Gavin Rossdale.  I’ve been playing around with the wedding mix, making sure that everything has a good flow.  Courtney will probably change it up when I’m not looking.  For those attending the wedding don’t worry it’s got a little bit of everything. 

A longtime friend is going through some drama and for once I really have no idea what the hell is going on.  Seriously I don’t know a thing.  Nothing is making any kind of sense.  I am taking the stance of just being there if they both need it.  I’m OK with not knowing the details at this point.  I just hope that whatever it is resolved by wedding time or I’m going to go all bridezilla on their ass.

I gained .2lbs this week, not too shabby.  Still no soda since mid February, YEAH!  Now I just need to exercise.

Have I mentioned that I love my MacBook?  I’ve named him Pauly.

I’m done rambling now.

I’ve been watching the Marcus Buckingham workshop that was featured on Oprah a few weeks back.  Now that the meds have kicked in I am finding that I can concentrate on what I need to do to find the right balance in my job and life.  The workshop asks you to examine the things that make you feel invigorated and the things that make you feel weak in your job.  Once you have identified your strengths you can then start to move towards doing those things.  I took a look at the things that I do every day at work, here is what I have come up with:

I feel strong when...
I compile and complete the weekly reporting.
I have all the incoming projects assigned to the right resource
I have discussions about subjects that I know a lot about

I feel weak when...
I am asked to perform a task without a clear understanding of what needs to be accomplished
I have to ask for project statuses
I am not knowledgeable about the topic that is being discussed

There.  I’ve put it all out on the table.  I still feel like I am in a learning phase of my current role and until I can master the basics I don’t want to move on to something else.  I believe my biggest struggle is asking for help when I don’t understand something.  This week I had two projects come into our queue that confused the heck out of me and I didn’t know how to assign them.  After reading the requests a few times I went to my boss and she walked me through the details that were going on behind the scenes.  I need to find the confidence to not be afraid to ask her or my peers for an explanation.  Another struggle is that the team that I support does not respect the contributions I make to the team.  They don’t understand that if it wasn’t for the work that I do we would not have been able to bring on additional help.  I was able to put numbers behind the amount of work that they have and that gives my boss the tools she needs to fight for more help.  Some of the team is really good about communicating their needs to me and the others don’t give a flying poo.

I loved the work I was doing in my last job but I left because it was turning into something completely different and if I did not get out fast I would end up sabotaging myself.  I was good at all the report building and building relationships with the managers but I hated that every aspect of the job could impact someone’s bonus.  I hated all the corporate rah-rah crap.  I hated being micromanaged even though I helped managers micromanage their teams.  And I hated that when I showed the tiniest bit of resistance to an idea or process that it would come back to bite me in the ass.

I’m not in a position to completely change my job because I still need to put a roof over our heads but I hope that I can make the job more tolerable.  School is ending next week and I really want to focus on doing things that I love like scrapbooking and photography.  Speaking of photography, I was referred by a friend for a job!  That’s exciting and scary for me.  I’m going to take a bunch of practice shots this weekend to make sure I’m on top of my game.

Its a big movie weekend for us, Ironman and then I’m going to see Made of Honor with my MOH Brian.  Have a safe weekend! 

I in past years you may have stopped by this blog around the end of April to read about my experiences at Coachella, not this year.  Why?  Because we decided that getting married and savng money for a wedding was more important this year.  Sure I could have skipped the fancy wedding dress to cover the weekend expenses but I’m sure no one wants to see me walk down the eisle in my cargo shorts and t-shirt.  Does this offically make me an adult?

Week two of the meds and I’m feeling pretty darn good.  I’ve lost 3.6lbs as of my WW meeting on Saturday, and I have bursts of motivation throughout the day.  The bursts typically start out as something small like sorting through my magazines, then that leads to dusting and reorganizing the bookcases, to cleaning the ceiling fans and floors.  It’s not a bad thing by any means but I tend to get a little OCD about it.  By 10pm I am physically exhausted, to the point that I could fall asleep with all my clothes on.  Then I’m up again at around 5-530ish.  Getting up has been a heck of a lot easier.  Seriously, I feel like I have springs on my feet when I bounce out of bed.  The biggest change I’ve noticed so far is that I have to force myself to eat regularly.  Again not a bad thing but something to get used to.  The focus on work and school has all been good.  I can actually get work done when I’m work (except when I’m writing on this blog like I am now).

For all my wedding guests that just happen to be reading this blog, mail your RSVPs soon! 

Carrie and I have been hanging out with Granny at the hospital all weekend.  Granny is doing a really great job with her recovery.  Hopefully she will be home soon.  Granny had a day full of therapy so Carrie and I decided to duck out and get some errands done and maybe along the way we’ll wander into a few antique shops.  We stopped at this one flea market place, we’re wandering around the booths and I get stopped by this little old lady pushing a cart around.  I don’t know a lick of Spanish but she was pointing at my stomach so I’m guessing that she is asking me if I’m pregnant.  Yeah, nothing happening there lady but fat.  Then she wanders over by her daughter but then comes back to me, she points at my purse, she asks her daughter to translate, “she wants to know where you got it from.” “I got it from Nordstroms” I replied.  They both looked puzzled, “Nordstroms the department store...” still nothing.  Then I tell them that you can get it online, then they got it.  It’s not a flashy fancy purse, just a simple pink seatbelt purse.  Next the little old lady grabs my left wrist, she’s pointing at my watch.  Her daughter says that she thinks it’s pretty, I tell them the stones in it are not real I just liked the color (again pink).  Then she sees my engagement ring, she really liked that.  Seriously, I didn’t know how to react.  I just said thank you and walked away.  I mean what do you do when some random lady stops you and begins touching you?? 

Albuquerque is just an odd town to me.  Carrie pointed out that everyone moves a lot slower, it seems that no one is in a rush.  It took us a while to even locate a fast food restaurant.  They just are not on every corner like they are back home. 

Day two of the meds and I haven’t notice too much of a change.  I did feel a bit more jittery than I normally do.  The only thing I really had on my mind is how am I going to get my homework done.  I have so many labs to get done.  And for a brief few minutes I kinda sorta panicked about what would happen to me when I die.  I’m sure that being in the hospital and helping Granny through all this is what prompted the thoughts.  It last about five minutes and then I was over it.  I’m tossing around a lot while I’m sleeping but that could just be because I’m not in my own bed.

I’m home tomorrow evening.  I miss my dude and my puppies.