I’m freeee! Weeeee!

I’m making a career change.  That’s my big news.  And I feel freeeeeee!

Since I graduated with my degree in public relations from the fine institution that is the University of Florida, I have tried very hard to love the marketing/advertising/pr/media industry.  I’ve worked in several different aspects of the business, dabbling in everything from advertising to media buying. And from to corporate marketing to a more grass roots approach. And as much as have I have tried to make suit me, it just doesn’t. I’ve never been really excited to go to work.

Don’t get me wrong.  It has been a really fun experience in many ways. I’ve seen some really creative stuff, and met some very talented and ambitious people. I’ll probably miss the creative atmosphere a little bit.

But I’ve also watched every boss I’ve had work 60 hour weeks on a normal basis. I’m so not okay with doing that. Not when we are trying to start a family. And not for something that I only kind of like.

So I am giving myself a pass, and I recently accepted a new position outside of my current field. I think it will be fun.

I’ll also finally be able to go to the fertility specialist without completely draining our savings. God is good. Also, the gym that I belong to has a location less than a mile from where my new office is located. Yay!

The only downside is that my current office, which is located in the happiest-looking community on earth (because it was originally developed by Disney, and you can definitely tell), is right above a Starbucks.  So I pretty much walk there every morning for my tall, non-fat, decaffeinated latte. Shush. I can’t have caffeine, so I have tricked my body into “thinking” that it wakes me up.

Anyway, my first day is Thursday, Feb 4.

Also, I’m still working on my personal training certification, and am hoping to do this on the side once I get my own training straight again. The guy who will be training me starting next week has a degree in kinesiology and twenty years of training experience at all different levels, so that should be good too.

Now if only I can find some where to lay out at lunch…

Confession

I know exactly where all of the madness started…

It was the first Christmas party of the season at a beautiful dessert party. With no time to eat dinner between work and the party, and a stomach that was demanding food (since I have trained it so very well), I abandoned every ounce of what I believe in and consumed an entire plate of dessert for dinner.

Actually, now that I think of it, it all started on Halloween, with the five leftover bags of M&M’s.  I ate them all. In five days. One each day.

My cheating continued on through Thanksgiving, with my sampler platter of desserts. And the days following Thanksgiving when I ate subsequent sampler plates of desserts until they were gone (oh, the joys of hosting!).

The Christmas party put me over the edge, but a bunch of bad decisions lead me there.

I know that some of you are probably thinking that I’m way too militant.  That I shouldn’t care so much. That I’m “small,” and it really irritates you that I’m even complaining.

And while these things may be true, and I’ve heard them before from friends, here is another true thing:

I’ve gained six pounds so far. Six.

I also feel better when I eat clean, good foods give me fuel that allows me to take full advantage of my days. Since I took a flying leap off of the wagon I’ve felt gross, and lazy. In fact, I have not done one meaningful workout since before December.

Next holiday season, I will stick to my single square piece of 70 percent dark chocolate after lunch, and feel good about the fact that I’m not undoing all that I worked for during the year.

Enough complaining though, because I am finally back to eating clean, and next Wednesday, I will begin working out with a trainer. My friend and partner in fitness, April, has been looking absolutely amazing since she started working out with this guy, and I really can’t wait for him to help me take my training to the next level. Or really any level at this point.

I’ll reluctantly shoot some before pics tonight, but I’m not sure if I’ll have the nerve to publish them until I have accomplished some progress.  We’ll see.

I also have some exciting news to share tomorrow. And no. I am not pregnant.

I wrote this post two weeks ago and forgot to post it…

This morning we went to the office of Family Services of Metro Orlando to get our fingerprints taken to start the process of becoming foster parents.

I met Jason at outside of my work, and we moseyed on over to Starbucks, which is basically located in the parking lot of my work. Yes, I am bragging about that. Nanny nanny boo boo.

Anyway, Jason looked me up and down, and laughed.  Yes.  He laughed. And I knew it was the boots. I wore black boots today with my dress and black tights.  It has been hovering around thirty degrees in Florida for almost two weeks now, and I had a deep desire to wear a dress today. So I did. With tights. And boots.

He told me they looked good, and that I was just cute with my boots on.  Not sure yet if I believe him.

Anyway, I soon discovered that I haven’t worn these tights since I was about thirty pounds heavier. Want to know how I made this discovery?

The tights?  They will not stay up.

I have felt the cool draft of winter on my butt more than I care to admit today.

I even had to announce to my coworkers, while we exited our office building to grab some sushi for lunch in downtown Celebration, that I would have to hold up my tights as we walked.  There was great laughter. And great humiliation.

When I am finally able to remove these wretched things at 9:00 tonight, when I arrive home, I’ll use them to play tug of war with Hogan.

That’s all I got.

Capital One Slosh Fest

Anyone watch the Capital One Bowl game on New Years Day?

If so, you couldn’t have missed that it was raining, and the field looked like a big, muddy mosh pit. Or a giant mud wrestling pit, but with football players instead of skanky women in bikinis.

What does this have to do with anything?  Well nothing, really, except that we were there. In our ponchos, in the rain.

The morning started on a most wonderful note, at the lovely and very delicious Chez Vincent French Restaurant in Winter Park.

Then we loaded a shuttle bus and got our ponchos ready, cause the skies were looming and wind was blowing, and I was caught in a mix of excitement to cheer on the LSU Tigers (I always said if I weren’t a Gator, I’d go for the Tigers. Except I don’t know why I like them so much.  Must be the purple.), and anxiety about getting wet and sitting in it for hours.  If there is one thing I hate more than being cold, it’s being cold and soggy.

Also, a quick note to the cold weather we’ve been experiencing:

You can leave anytime now.  I’m pretty sure that it’s sinful to be 29 DEGREES IN FLORIDA. In the words of my cute little niece, Ava, “Me no LIKEY.”

Go home. And please tell Global Warming that I’m now even more convinced that it’s a big crock.

Thanks.

Ryan

So back to the game.

Here we are in the shuttle, and no, I didn’t bother with make up or (clearly) my hair, since I knew I’d have a hooded poncho on the whole time. Given those two facts, I’m not sure why I’m posting this picture for all of the world to see. Don’t judge.

And here are some shots of the mud fest.  They truly do the amount of mud no justice, but I didn’t want to pull my camera (not the Rebel, but still!) out in the middle of the monsoon. Plus, I was too busy coveting Erin Andrews’ job and general gorgeousness Burberry rain boots down on the sideline, and concentrating on trying to keep my own sad little mesh, Nike-clad feet under the seat in front of me to prevent rain drops from getting my socks wet.

Would you get a load of those booties? It was a real nail-biter in the fourth quarter, but sadly, LSU couldn’t bring home a win, and ended up losing to Penn State.

Luckily my Alma Mater won later on that night with the Gators slaughtering Cincinnati, and we also said bye to Tim Tebow, and at least for now, Urban Meyer.

Picture from USA Today

I can’t believe I just wrote an entire post about football. It’s now time to stop typing.

Protects like a man, smells…like a man

I read a blog post yesterday on Big Mama, and she mentioned that she has been wearing her husband’s deodorant for the past week.

OH EM GEE. Meee tooo!

I can’t believe that I am admitting to all of the internets that I’ve been wearing Jason’s Old Spice Arctic Sport for well over a week now.

Since he’s a hater of germs (come on, as if my pits have germs), he’s been acting all annoyed about it, but I did get a small grin out of him when I told him that I’m reminded of him each time things “heat up” during the workday.

How romantic.

It’s not that I want to keep smelling like a dude, I just keep forgetting to pick up a stick of Secret from the store.  And also, one Christmas Jason put FOUR STICKS of different smelling deodorants in my stocking so I naturally thought that maybe since he was aware that I was actually out this time, he’d stuff one in there. Oh well. I figure either I smell better, or he’s given up on me smelling better. For the record, he swears that it was just to fill up space (he shouldn’t have admitted that, and also, who chooses deodorant as a “filler?”) but to this day I’m paranoid that I stink like stale curry or something.

For the record, Secret works better than Old Spice.

Best Christmas Evah

I know that Christmas isn’t about the gifts.  It’s completely awesome that the world stops to celebrate the birth of Christ, and it’s really special to me that Jason reads the story out of the Bible every Christmas morning.  It brings things into perspective before we rip open our presents.  Happy birthday to you, Jesus, we will now open all the presents that we got for us. Kind of weird, if you think about it. I would never abandon the gift-giving tradition though, because I’m not a scrooge and also because it’s so darn festive and fun, and I LOVE giving and receiving (not gonna lie) PRESENTS.  But I think that as our family grows, the reading of the story, His story, on Christmas morning will mean even more because whether our home is filled with biological kids, foster kids, adopted kids, or a mix of all, there will be even more teachable moments for us and for them. This year we read “the action packed,” as Jason called it, version from Revelation.

Umm, so let us talk about the presents.

It was a gooood year for the presents.

You’ll be seeing lots of pictures on this little blog of mine, because  Jason was the best gift giver ever this year, and got me this:

I’ve been coveting this camera ever since my dad got my mom one for Christmas couple of years ago. At every family get together, I would get my hands on this baby and shoot away. Now I have one.  My sister got one too (!), so that means we’ll be taking some classes together to learn all of the ins and outs.Truthfully, I don’t hang out with my sis as much as I’d like, so I’m really looking forward to spending some more time with her on something that we both love to do.

Back to gifts. I never really thought much of Crabtree & Evelyn products (actually, that’s a lie. I did think something. I thought all their stuff probably smelled like my GREAT grandma’s armpit powder.), but a couple of years ago on Christmas, Jason got me some of their shower products. I was kind of secretly skeptical when I pulled them out of my stocking, even though I made him think they were the best gifts ever.  Truthfully,  I ended up LOVING them.

Normally, he picks up the mousse and body scrub from their “Naturals” line, and this year he added the Distillations Deep Cleansing Body Wash.  I’m a big fan.  I probably should branch out and try some of their other products, but I like to stick with what I already love. Well that, and I still slightly fear smelling like rose water.

Merry, Merry Christmas!

I’m alive!

I’ve just had no time. None.

Be back soon!

Glory in the Highest

Last night we went to see this:

I don’t know whether you’ve ever seen these two together, but it was absolutely amazing.  My new favorite way to kick off the season.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Pet post number 45677686748

I’m sorry in advance about three dog posts in a row. Actually, I’m not.  I mostly skip over posts about children and pregnancies.  There are a few exceptions: this one (because I really like her), this one (because she is my sister and friend), this one (because she is hysterical), and this one (also hysterical). I mean no offense if you are a pregnancy or mommy blogger, but I have to keep a positive outlook over here and reading about the one thing that I can’t have seems kind of creepy and doesn’t really help my efforts to not become one of those obsessive/sad/bitter women who’s blogs definitely scare me and make me thankful that my life doesn’t revolve around getting pregnant. Don’t know what I’m talking about?  Look up infertility blogs if you dare.

So I won’t be sad if you don’t want to read about my pets.  Just don’t leave forever, okay? I’m probably WAY over thinking this.

Anyway, since losing his manhood, Hogan has pretty much been confined to his crate for six days now, per the vet.  He also hasn’t been allowed outside without a leash, also per the vet.

This means that he has to do his “business” on a leash.  This is Jason’s job. By default, all gross things in our house fall on Jason.  Mystery leftovers in the fridge? Jason disposes of them and cleans the container. Dog throw up?  Jason.  Bugs?  Jason. Clogged drains, toilets, or pipes?  All Jason.

Last night while we were lying in bed, he informed me that Hogan actually grunts while he goes number two.  This caused me to go into a fit of laughter that lasted way longer than it should have.

Think what you will about pit bulls, but Hogan is the best. He’s got personality.