shutterbug678

1. I have recently started to ponder the idea of life and career. My job is good. I am paid decently. My boss is great. But, I hate being on a timecard and I find myself saying "I wish it was 5" a little too often than I would like. Sure my job may not be bad, but i'm not in love with it. I'm simply content....and I don't feel like you should just go through life being content and waiting for 5:00 to come and go.

2. I'm terrified of graduating grad school and still being where I am in my career.

3. I have hit that age in life where I love spending time at home, or with my family, more than anything else.

4. I hate that I have done things in my past that haunt me at night... I hate that I let people in my life too easily and they hurt me as much as they did.

5. I finally see myself as an adult, but I don't have a problem revisiting the things I loved as a kid. I still love watching cartoons on a Saturday morning and eating black olives from off of my fingers.

6. I can't wait to take the next big steps in my life. Getting married, Raising puppies together, making our home....

7. I absolutely despise driving in the snow. Even at the slightest hint of ice I tense my body up, can't calm down and am terrified the entire drive home that i'm going to end up in a ditch.

8. I have an obsession with Ben & Jerry's. I think it is the greatest thing in the world, and nothing makes me happier on a warm spring night than digging my spoon into that little carton of ice cream.

9. I miss parts of who I used to be but overall, i'm happy with who I am.

10. I used to not notice cars. Makes, models, etc....If you asked me what type of car I wanted, the only thing I could ever really answer with was a list of colors. Now everywhere I go I am always categorizing car names and looking for one that I can really see myself in.

11. Ever since I was little I have had a fascination with numbers...although I hate math. I would look at house numbers or license plates and find the connections between the numbers. If I saw a license plate with 54216 I would think 4+2=6 & 6-1=5. I also would memorize license plates if I thought it would be useful in the future. I remember sitting in the car at the bank and I saw a car pull up. It was winter and a man got out of the car wearing a ski mask while the driver stayed in the car. I sat there and memorized the number because I figured if the guy going in robbed the bank and got into the getaway car I could be the hero and call the police with the license plate numbers. (I think I was about 8 years old at the time)

12. I can't sleep if the closet door is open and I always have to double check, and make spencer check, that the front door is locked at night.

13. I really want to run.

14. My new favorite drink is a venti Salted-caramel Hot Chocolate with a shot of expresso/ no whip (I don't like their whip) from Starbucks. It is an instant pick-me-up on a cold annoyingly busy day at work.

15. I have a guilty pleasure of searching for homes for sale and puppies for adoption. I know I can't have either of these until our lease is up in december but it's fun to look.

16. We have decided to get a yorkie and a boston and name them Borkie and Yawsten. haha...ok, maybe we'll use different names.

17. I love buying flowers for myself. I think it just makes our apartment feel good.

18. I don't understand babies. I have no desire to be a parent in the near future...but I am incredibly excited to be an aunt to my first nephew!

19. I love when Spencer has the day off on a weekend and we can lay in bed in the mornings and enjoy each other's company before we start the day. :)

20. When I finish grad school i'm going to learn a foreign language. I think that knowledge of other languages and cultures can get you 100% further than you would have gotten otherwise. Once i've learned enough to get by Spencer and I are going to travel to that country and experience it all firsthand.

21. I am a little ditzy sometimes...like right now when I stopped at 20 on a list for 25!

22. I love the show Dead Like Me, and i'm so upset it only had 2 seasons that it makes me want to stop watching it...but I can't!

23. If I could have one superhero it would be the ability to blink my eyes and go anywhere that I wanted to. "Blink" im in Spain. "Blink" I'm out of bed and in the shower "Blink" i'm at the ocean.

24. I want to live near water when I retire, if not sooner. An ocean would be nice. :)

25. I miss afternoon naps on rainy days.... It's soooo hard to work on a rainy day.

Today Cristin is out sick so my workload doubled.
Then Debbie our recpetionist called in sick. Guess who's desk is the next closest one to the door and will be fielding questions all day long from confused people who walk into the department? ME!

And now Bridget who produces the proposals that I create the covers for is going home early so she can make it to the doctor. so I have to do all parts of the proposals.....this is going to be a very very long day, but I think it's going to go way too fast....

So to sum it up, my responsibilites have quadrupled today...balls.

1. Work has been insane lately. In addition to a crazy work schedule we made the top 100 companies in the US from Fortune Magazine and had to last minute brand ourselves with the honor. Great opportunities for our company always mean a crazy work schedule down here. Bonus: Chick-Fil-A named us their business of the week and we get free chicken sandwiches tomorrow!!

2. Starbucks is getting rid of their seasonal hot chocolates very soon, so I am enjoying a large salted caramel hot chocolate with a shot of espresso right now.

3. Top Chef is on tonight and i'm UBER excited to see Restaurant wars!

4. I started my classes toward my degree a week ago. I thought that a Marketing Research class would be boring, but my class is amazing! I love my teacher. He's interesting and he keeps the material interesting and tells numerous stories and anecdotes from his experience. It's nice to feel good about going to class and to really feel like i'm learning something.

5. I started level 2 of Jillian Michael's 30-day Shred program and it is intense. One of the things is a crunch where you crunch by lifting your upper body off the ground, and at the same time have you legs in the air and rock them forward to lift your behind off the ground. Even doing one of them hurts! But i am excited for it all to become easier in the next 2 weeks as I build up my muscle.

6. It's FREEZING out. All I want to do every single night is go home and curl up under a blanket.

7. I love shoes.

I feel like a week has happened in the last 2 days. This morning I woke-up at 8:30 to the sound of Spencer's alarm. It took me 2 whole minutes to figure out that it wasn't the weekend and I was, in fact, already 30 minutes late for work. I just kept thinking in my head it was Saturday morning....

Monday I worked through my lunch and stayed at work until 7:00 trying to get slides figured out for our end of year slideshow. I created an iPhone graphic with separate application style buttons to indicate no cameras/no food or drink and to turn off cell phones. I went home, had some Jimmy Johns and watched TV with Spencer.

Tuesday I woke-up at 5:30, got ready for work and went in to work on the slideshow more. I created 4 slides for the American Cancer Society, our charity of choice, and designed the basic layout for the real photo slides. I worked through lunch again and then left at 5 and headed out to KU on Quivera. I picked up my KU ID and went to the bookstore to pick-up the book I was missing. Then I sat in my car for an hour and waited for class to start.

My teacher is really awesome! I like him a lot. He works for Bernstein Rein as a Marketing Researcher. The class is called Principals of Marketing Communications Research. I thought it would be boring, but he is constantly interrupting with anecdotes, stories, experiences, etc. and it really makes the time fly by because I was engrossed in what he kept saying! I think the class is going to be really cool! .... although I wish I could say the same about my classmates. I am most likely the youngest person in the class and everyone who is in the class is sooo full of themselves! We had to introduce ourselves and say where we worked and what our job responsibilities are. Most people had this long extensive titles and said they did media/marketing/design/etc. and giggled as they said, "yeah, I do a little bit of everything" (mind you I hadn't head of over half of the places they worked....) He didn't seem phased by flashy titles and just kind of answered with "oh, ok." and was pretty uninterested. When it came to me I just said "I work for Creative Services in Corporate Marketing at Burns & McDonnell. I do all of the company photography, production work and graphic design." he actually stopped and asked me questions for awhile and seemed interested in what I did. :) It was a good feeing since I was feeling a little less than interesting when I didn't have a big fancy title like everyone else. I think the class is going to be a lot of fun!

Today the plan is to work on slides, take some pictures and when I get home tonight work out a little and RELAX. On friday i'm working 8-11 and going home because of all of the overtime i've worked. Nancy and Steve are coming over for dinner friday at 6:30 and Spencer has the entire weekend off!!!!!

I'm so excited!!!

Sooo.... anyone up for Mama's saturday morning? :)

Being sick stinks. One whole side of my face hurts and my legs feel like they are going to give out on me when I stand up... But I suppose there are some things to be happy about.

1. It's a great day to lay under a snuggly blanket with a nice breeze coming through the window.
2. I had some delicious hot tea that soothed my throat and made me sleepy.
3. Roku. Enough said.

I think i'll be ok tomorrow and hopefully will make it into work, and then to my hair appointment in Independence at 5. I WILL make it there, no matter what....My hair looks like a greasy rat, and it takes me too much time to dry in the morning. I'm hoping to cut my morning routine from 27 minutes to 20. :)

I only work 2 more days this year... I have found that as the year is ending, my work load is getting smaller and smaller....sooo because of that today I have gotten a lot of personal stuff done!

1. I paid my personal property tax.
2. I faxed in my application for the MetroKC grant at KU. I had to gather a lot of paperwork and it was a big pain in the butt...but it will save me over $1000 per class so I suppose it's all worth it.
3. I ordered my textbook! It's silly that the university was charging $140 for it used...and I found it for $75 BRAND NEW! Didn't they get the message that we're in a financial crisis here!?

This has been a fantastic week. usually right about this time i'm falling out of my chair tired as can be. Not today! I am wide awake and I have been ever since I could pull myself out of my amazing bed....ahhhh tempurpedic, where have you been all of my life?! I feel so well rested! I'm shocked by it! It is still hard to actually get out of bed though....mainly because with the extra 4 inches of mattress my feet don't quit reach the floor, so rolling/falling out of bed doesn't work quite like it used to.

Yesterday was a big day full of television....spencer and I woke up and enjoyed some 30Rock...LOVE that show... and then we went shopping to to Red Lobster for Jason's birthday and came home and watched the Dark Knight on our Blu-ray! Picture and sound quality were AWESOME...soooo cool! :) I can't wait to get more movies and watch them. I added Wanted to our netflix. The new Angelina Jolie movie. It looks really exciting!


I'm not ready to be back at work. It seems like everyone is that way today though. :)

What a great day! Well, other than the fact that it's freezing outside!

I am so well rested. The mattress pad that Steve and Nancy bought us is AMAZING. Apparantly there was this incredibly damaging storm last night that split trees in half....yeah...didn't hear ANY of it...I was out when my head hit the pillow. :) It's been soooooo nice....

Other than that I am now laying on the couch using my 300% faster Mac, eating my 50% off Christmas Choxie. mmmmmmmm and watching LoverBoy....a movie from the 80's starring a teenage Patrick Dempsey...I'm not so sure i'm a fan of it yet..... but it's pretty cool that I can watch it straight off Netflix!!!!

Speaking of Patrick Dempsey...his new men's cologne smells REALLY good....

It's a rainy rainy day... I wish I was at home like everyone else on veterans Day but no...in fact, I get to work through my lunchhour to photograph our veterans day lunch... Yay me...

Tomorrow you can find me laying on my couch all day long.... I have decided that the time has come for me to take a personal day off. I have run myself ragged getting all of my things submitted for grad school, and have literally made myself sick....I am going to enjoy a nice long hard day of tv watching. I'm sure there will be Halloween specials like crazy!

If anyone needs me. Feel free to call. I'll answer the phone...cause i'll be at home!

I have officially dropped off the final materials needed to apply to Graduate School. I am soooo glad it's finally done! No more stress, no more jumping through hoops. They have the materials, and if they rely on my examples of work and recommendations I will have no problem getting in. If they rely on my GRE score not so much....

Now I am going to kick back my heels and wait for 2 weeks to see if I am accepted or not. If not, i'll retest and enjoy the time off to not worry about it until next fall. :)