I listen to this audio clip at least once a day. It is stellar and this woman is my hero. Well, except for her terrible grammar.
Have a great day!
To-Do Lists
I’m what you could call a Type-A. I love making lists. I love making lists of my lists. The problem with my lists is that they tend to be detailed to the point that it is easy to get overwhelmed. I have been working a lot (that’s another post) and my husband has had to take over a lot of the preparations for my family’s visit this week. Normally this wouldn’t be that big of a deal to either of us but I made the mistake of making a list of things to do before their visit about a month ago. Why is that a mistake? Well, the list is FOUR PAGES LONG!! I wanted to paint rooms, spray paint light fixtures, hang stuff on the walls, and a ton of other unnecessary tasks. Jon said to me the other day that he didn’t want to see the list because I expect too much out of myself and he new it wasn’t all going to get done. He told me to tell him the critical chores and forget about the rest. My mom and sister don’t care if I’ve painted the downstairs bathroom. It doesn’t matter to them that half of the kitchen still has fruit wallpaper. What matters is that I have somehow managed to take 5 days off of work to spend some time with them while they are here. I think I need this vacation even more than they do. My 6 month-old nephew is coming too and I can’t wait to see him. He certainly doesn’t care if I haven’t hung the curtains in the living room.
Am I the only one who makes unrealistic to-do lists? I think it would take me a solid month to get through my current list. That’s a 60 hour work week I can get behind.
Here’s what makes not finishing my list A-ok:
The cutest little boy around.
Laughter Makes The Day Go Faster
Originally posted July 7, 2011 on my old blog.
We use Lotus Notes at my office. This may not sound like a big deal but with LN comes Sametime. Sametime is an office-wide instant messaging system and while that means I can have requests pop up on my screen at any time, it also means that I can have funny pictures pop up too. When we receive new pictures that we particularly love, we save them to our computers for future use. It may not seem like much, but it gets us through the day.
One of my favorite sources for Sametime pictures is someecards. I generally stick to the workplace related cards, but they really have a ton of hilarious ecards on their website. Here are a few of my go-to cards for Sametime:
In addition to my collection of about 30 ecards, I also save pictures from various websites for my coworkers’ amusement.
We even send topical pictures like this gem from last year:
Here’s a personal favorite:
I wish that I could remember where I got some of these images so that I could credit them. I think that quite a few came from wedding blogs that I read. I guess wedding planning and work are both equally stressful.
Is my office the only one that uses Sametime to send pictures around?
I Wish I Was A Little Bit Smaller
Originally posted July 4, 2011 on my old blog.
I may be short but I’m ok with that. . .
Over the past few weeks I have had several conversations with friends about our weight gain in the recent weeks/months/years. The discussions have been pretty similar – too busy, big life events, healthy food tastes bad, you get the gist. The fact is, I know that I have gained a significant (for me) amount of weight over the past 18 months or so. About 5ish years ago I weighed about 10 pounds more than I weigh now and I spent close to 3 years losing 30 pounds to get to where I thought I looked pretty good. Then came 2 years of fast food and Coke and now I’m almost back to where I started.
I have two sisters who are both naturally thin. One of my sisters is 39.5 weeks pregnant and weighs 5 pounds more than me. Oh, she’s also 5 inches taller. Whatever. That’s just how her genes work. Mine. Do. Not. I have to eat sensibly and work out VERY regularly in order to maintain a decent weight. I get that.
I could blame my job which requires long hours attached to a chair in front of a computer, but I work with a lot of very thin girls. It comes down to priorities. I just need to shift mine a bit if I want to get back to where I was in 2009. I also need to do this because I want to and not because I get crap from certain members of my family who consistently make comments about how I need to eat better and work out more. These are the same people who told me that I looked better than I ever had when they saw me after I’d been living on diet pills and 500 calories a day for weeks during grad school. Looks can be deceiving and I’d rather be healthy and a bit heavier than go through that craziness again.
Why am I writing about my weight? Well, aside from all of these conversations that I’ve been having lately, a lot of it has to do with some photographic evidence I’ve seen recently. In blogging about other stuff going on in my life, I’ve had the “opportunity” to look at some old pictures and I don’t like what I see. Actually, I DO like what I see. I looked smaller, tan, and happy. The tan was from 3 weeks spent in Greece and 2 weeks spent in Hawaii but I also think it was because I was more willing to wear bathing suits because I felt more confident.
- Waimea Falls, Hawaii 2009
There’s no way I could get those shorts over my arse now.
- At Germaine’s Luau with my sister, Christina, after she told me I was going to be an aunt.
- At my wedding 20 months later with my niece, Juliet. Source: Whitmeyer Photography
Aside from my incredibly adorable niece, when I look at this picture I see my giant arms and stomach. I wish I had been one of the many women who lose weight for their wedding. Saturday was our 3 month anniversary and I started the day by going to the gym. It’s something. This is not going to turn into a workout blog but hopefully I’ll be a little bit smaller for our 6 month anniversary and be able to write a little about my progress along the way.
Now I have to go watch the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest with my husband.
xo-k
Hooray for Last Minute Road Trips
Originally posted July 3, 2011 on my old blog.
With less than a week to go until July 4, 2010 Jon and I had absolutely no plans for the holiday weekend. Some friends of mine were going to Las Vegas but I didn’t want to spend the money to deal with outrageous crowds. We had talked about attending a baseball game in each of the MLB parks across the country and thought that the long weekend might be a great opportunity to cross another one off of the list. A few flight searches later we determined that any last minute flight wasn’t in the budget. I don’t remember which of us came up with our solution, but it was one of the best weekends I’ve ever had. Our first weekend getaway as a couple was to . . . Savannah, Georgia.
In typical Type A fashion, I jumped onto Trip Advisor to find recommendations for things to do in this city I’d heard so much about. We decided to schedule a walking tour with Savannah Dan, the #2 rated walking tour in Savannah. The rates for this tour were really reasonable and I found our seersucker clad tour guide, Dan, to be extremely knowledgeable about the city.
Following our tour, we decided to walk along the river before heading back to our hotel to rest for a bit. We didn’t have dinner reservations anywhere but figured we’d find something pretty easily.
- Sure we can find a restaurant on a holiday weekend!
After walking for close to an hour, we finally found a minimal wait at the Rocks on the River restaurant inside the Bohemian Hotel. It was fantastic and I am so glad that we didn’t give up our search. They also have a rooftop bar which is supposed to be great too. Following our dinner, we headed over to Savannah Smiles to see the dueling pianos in action. I had never been to a dueling piano bar and it was definitely entertaining. After a long day of traveling, we called it a night around midnight and headed back to our hotel.
The following morning, Jon woke me up and we headed over to the Westin across the river for an amazing Sunday brunch at the Aqua Star restaurant.
- Ready for a delicious brunch!
We had to wait for about 20 minutes for our shuttle across the river, but it was worth it!
- Our shuttle arrives.
We definitely needed to do some walking after eating such a huge meal, so we decided to walk around the historic district to check out some of Savannah Dan’s recommendations.
- Amazing architecture.
- So much history in this amazing city.
- The Owens-Thomas House
- Gardens of the Owens-Thomas House
- Savannah College of Art & Design
- Savannah has beautiful churches.
- Even the gutters are fancy!
- Classic cars at the police station.
One of the most moving areas that we visited along our walk was the Colonial Park Cemetery. Burials started at the cemetery in the mid 18th century and continued for 100 years. Huge trees are covered with Spanish moss and provide some beauty in such a somber location. We wandered around for close to an hour, though I could have stayed for much longer.
- Tombstones relocated due to vandalism.
Honestly, the least enjoyable part of our trip to Savannah was the fireworks show on Sunday night. I love fireworks and was so excited to see them. Unfortunately, a TON of other people in the city also wanted to see them and it was crazy crowded. We got to our spot on the river about an hour and a half before the show started and then watched as the crowds grew and grew and grew. We actually decided that we’d avoid large holiday fireworks displays like that in the future. At least I got some awesome pictures!!
The next morning we packed up the car and headed back to Atlanta. We can’t wait to return for our next trip to such an awesome city!
xo-k
The Picture Problem
Originally posted June 23, 2011 on my old blog.
My husband, Jon, and I got married on April 2nd of this year. Through the wedding planning process I relied a lot on different wedding blogs for inspiration and support. I spent tons of hours on sites like weddingbee.com and style me pretty and though I knew I’d never be a bee blogger, I think somewhere in the back of my mind I hoped that our wedding would be featured on Style Me Pretty. Fast forward to two months after the wedding and I’ve discovered a bit of an issue.
I never told our photographer about my Style Me Pretty dream. When she asked me if I’d like to have our wedding appear on any blogs I said “YES!” . . . I just didn’t specify which one. Our wedding has appeared on four blogs at this point and it’s so satisfying to see all of the wonderful comments that people have left. Three days ago I finally decided to head over to to SMP to figure out what the submission requirements were. Guess what . . . they require exclusivity!! The four blogs that we’ve been on mean that we can’t be on THE wedding blog. At first I was really sad but I think I’ve moved on. I mean, there’s no guarantee that we would have been chosen but it sucks that we’ll never know. I plan on blogging about the specifics of some of my wedding projects in the future but in the meantime here are some preview pictures. Enjoy!!
xo-k
