30 Days of Thankful; Days 7 & 8

Yesterday I was found myself very thankful for some of the small perks I have at my job. One of the best is some flexibility with my schedule. I'm working on training for the Thanksgiving day Turkey Trot and with time change the only way I can get my runs in after work is to leave a little early. I'm very thankful that I have a boss and a job that allows me to move my hours around as need to so a couple days a week I can leave 30-40 minutes early. It's a very small perk, but I know there are many people with jobs or multiple jobs that do not have that flexibility and I feel very grateful for that luxury.

Today I got home feeling not quite 100% so I am thankful for hot tea and flannel pj pants, a new episode of Parks and Recreation and someone to cuddle with on the couch!

30 Days of Thankful: Day 6

It's Election day today so obviously I am thankful to live in a country where I have a chance to make my voice heard.

I'm more thankful for the Election Day tradition started today of having a Kerby Lane breakfast before I go rock the vote.

I'm very thankful for a husband who may not be able to vote, but still genuinely cares about the process and waits in line with me for moral support! :)

I am incredibly thankful this whole mess is over with. 

And finally, I am thankful for the way the votes seem to have been cast and the results we appear to have.

And that is all I plan to say about that!

30 Days of Thankful: Days 4 & 5

So I knew exactly what Day 4 would be early in the day, but never got around to typing it up. I was having such a nice day with Isaac that I never wanted to take a break to blog. I figured enjoying my time with him was more important, doubling up one day is not the end of the world.

Sunday I was reminded of how thankful I am for some hip pain I experienced over a year ago. I had only been running for a few months to train for a 5 mile run and I started having horrible pain in my hip flexor. I was so frustrated that I had finally found an activity I enjoyed and now I was in pain. I got new shoes, tried do some pre run stretches and resting it, but nothing worked. I was dragging my feet on going to the doctor, afraid of what they would say so I kept putting it off. Then one day I saw an article on Twitter about yoga for runners.

I had always made fun of yoga and “yogis” I saw at the gym with their sandals and chai lattes they would come in with, but I was desperate so I found a Sunday Vinyasa Flow class at our gym and gave it a try. 

It was like a switch flipped, almost immediately I began running pain free.  I felt so relieved that I was able to something so simple to help my runs so I branched out and began attending Body Flow class at my gym as well. Body flow is a yoga/Pilates hybrid class choreographed to music. You get the stretch of  yoga mixed with  Pilates and get a really good full body workout. The best part of all of this was not only did I found something I love to do, I also found something I’m good at!  I generally have a pretty easy time attempting new poses and can usually do the "advanced" option.  I’ve never been “good” at any sort of physical activity, but between running and yoga I’ve found 2 things that I enjoy doing and I'm actually good at them!  Well I’m good at yoga, running I do it, I enjoy it most of the time, but I’m far from the fastest or have the far from the most endurance. I’m good at yoga though. I’m much more flexible than I ever thought I could be, my balance is improving, and core muscles are improving.

 It took a few years, but I finally found a workout regimen that works for me, and that I love. I’m so thankful that I didn’t rush to the doctor and got over my hang-ups to give yoga a shot. It’s made me a much stronger person, and I can’t imagine my life without it.

Today, I am so thankful for my extra hour of sleep! Sounds silly, but oh my gosh did I feel well rested this morning! The rested feeling lasted all day, I had my best run in a while, got dinner together while Isaac went to the gym and finished some laundry. I know the euphoria of the extra hour will wear of soon, but I'm thankful for it while I have it!

30 Days of Thankful Day 3: A Fun Saturday

Today, I'm simply thankful for this day. A fun, not stressful day with my family.

The day started when Isaac got up with Carolina at 7:20 in the morning; she's an early riser whether she's had enough sleep or not. I'm a very light sleeper so I'm generally the one that wakes up when I hear our door open and will head downstairs for Disney Channel time. But today she fell into the door or something so Isaac woke up as well and told me to stay in bed, he'd go down. Score!!

A couple hours later we headed to Alamo Drafthouse and saw Wreck it Ralph which was a really fun movie, that we all enjoyed. Throw in a mimosa and bacon scone and you pretty much have the perfect Saturday morning movie experience!

Isaac and Carolina were on an arcade kick once the movie was done and a  Google search led us to Pinballz arcade not too far from down the road. I almost opted out of this trip as I've never been a video game or arcade person. Even as a kid I found them loud and overwhelming and couldn't figure out why I'd spend money on a game that would be over in like 2 minutes. But I went and I'm glad I did. We cheered on Isaac as he owned the Doctor Who pinball game, Isaac and Carolina teamed up on a Simpsons game,  I played one racing game with Isaac and ended by wining a close air hockey game against Carolina. 

A little ski ball!

Isaac cleaning up on Doctor Who Pinball

Daddy daughter Simpson time!

We ran Carolina back to her mom's; she has a birthday party and out of town guests to see the rest of the weekend so we'll see her next weekend. Isaac and I came home and took long, wonderful Saturday naps.

The rest of the evening is for enjoying our beer and catching up on some TV.

I couldn't think of a nicer day and I'm so thankful for this day and all other days I get to spend with my little crew!

Carolina showing off what she got with her tickets!

30 Days of Thankful Day 2

It was a fairly average Friday afternoon at work, lunch was over and the afternoon was dragging when a message popped up in my inbox. It was invitation to go the conference room at 3:30 for Cookie Cake, the reason was just because it was Friday!The invite was sent by the executive assistant but when we got to the conferenece room she mentioned all she had done was send the invite, our boss, well the HR VP had decided we needed a little fun and picked us up a cookie cake at lunch!

The HR VP is one of only 3 males in HR and the only guy in our local HR group. Poor guy, we're 4 high maintenance ladies and he always manages to stay calm, even when a simple question leads to 15 minutes of "I'm so stressed about my wedding, I just want to go on my honeymooon" which totally never happened...just saying hypothetically...

So at 3:30 HR and various executives, accountants, client services people and what not gathered in the conference room and shared a huge cookie cake, just because! When ever anyone asked why we were having cake the answer was "for anything you feel like celebrating"!

It was a good day for cake. This is a rough time of the year up in our part of the building. Annual Enrollment is in full swing leaving HR feeling frazzled and the executives and controllers spend weeks in budget meetings for the next year. Throw in general "here come the holidays" stress and everyone starts to feel overwhelmed.


Anyway, I could say many, many, MANY things about my job and the company I work for but I genuinely work with best people ever and I was thankful for an unexpected few minutes to enjoy a very sweet cookie cake and some non work laughs, and maybe a few work laughs happened too! :)

30 Days of Thankful: Day 1

30 Days of Thankful: Day 1

I went back and forth on doing the 30 days of thankful this year. I believe in being thankful all the time, but I did it last year, so I tossed around other options, but in the end I came back to this one. I’ve been in a funk lately and I need the kick in the pants to see all the great things in my life. I’ve suffered with some post honeymoon blues, as well as a stressful period at work and it feels like October was just a month of disappointments. I have a bad habit of wearing my disappointments longer than I should.  I can’t stop feeling sad that thanks to a rough day at work my birthday was kind of a dud,  we didn’t get to go to the pumpkin patch with Carolina this year and that I missed out on a family event that I had so been looking forward to. I've just felt weighed down by the month.

The last few days, seeing people loose so much from the hurricane has very much put things in perspective, but I felt like I needed a bit of a cleansing so here we go. 

I had a couple things in mind for today, but then I got to work and realized that I'd left my breakfast at home. 

Not too long ago this wouldn't have been an issue for me. I'm not a breakfast eater and haven't been since about 3rd grade. I like breakfast food, just not at breakfast. Generally I have to be up a couple hours before I can stomach any food even though, I do completely understand that breakfast is important. I went years without giving much thought for breakfast save a cup of yogurt here in there when I went on a "healthy streak". Then I met Isaac. Isaac wakes up famished, he needs food almost immediately.  Breakfast is not only his favorite meal of the day, I'm fairly certain he'd find himself in a Sophie's Choice situation if asked to choose between myself or breakfast. 

Isaac likes eggs, every morning. And I mean every morning.  Usually in breakfast taco format. 

I'm not an egg eater, never have been and if I do eat eggs I like them cooked so well they're practically burned. When it comes to eggs Isaac does not take no for an answer, you get a breakfast taco, and you eat it.

 So I started my long sometimes painful journey with breakfast. Some days I've almost hated breakfast, but compromises have been made so now Isaac will pack me my breakfast taco so I can eat it when I'm ready which is normally about 10. 

Today I didn't have my taco, I run out of the house late and forgotten to grab it and I actually missed it. I realized how lucky I am to have someone who cares about me enough to make and pack me a breakfast everyday even when I am sometimes less than grateful. 

I'll never forget a couple years ago when we'd argued the night before but I still was handed my breakfast taco the next day.
"I wasn't going to make you one, but I just couldn't not make you breakfast, no matter how I mad I was"

That's love, and I'm thankful for it."

Today I made do with a Halloween pack of Teddy Grahams from a co workers desk, but I had to admit I missed my breakfast taco. Luckily I'll have it for tomorrow!