My March Madness

I could care less about basketball, but I've had a pretty mad March - both in the crazy and the angry sense. Lots of ups and downs and lots of emotions going on. This has been a tough month. It's felt like it's gone on forever and there is still one more day. However, not all was bad so I should focus on those good things that happened this month. Here are some tidbits:

• Positive: Army Wives is back! It feels like so long between seasons and I'm happy to have new episodes on. However, the shows brings out a lot of emotions during this deployment.
• Negative: I'm afraid potholes are going to eat my car alive. MN can't decide if it wants to be winter or spring and the roads are not liking it. Seems that road crews are doing pretty well staying on top of patching this year though.
• Positive:  My husband got better internet access finally so I get to talk to him online most days now. Hopefully we'll get to use Skype one of these days since I have not seen his face or heard his voice since January. He also got his promotable status which means he can be promoted to Sergeant soon.
• Negative/Positive: I have been struggling with work more and more. Having so  much responsibility in a fast-paced growing company is stressful for me on top of everything else going on in my life. I have had a lot of moody and angry days and I hate feeling that way. I have been having anxiety issues often and knowing that I am leaving and needed to find a good replacement and train them was a lot of pressure on top of a lot of regular stress. Luckily, we hired someone last week and she is great. Definitely an answered prayer. I'll be done with work after next week, then on a cruise, and then hopefully enjoying some less anxious time at home before moving away.
• Positive: Baby Lucy was born on March 11! I can't believe my best friend/"wife" is a mom now. I was blessed to be there for Lucy's birth. Although I am terrified of the birthing process, it was a much more positive experience than I expected. Megan was tough and once the drugs kicked in it was all smiles and laughs and excitement. The baby came over two weeks early but was healthy and beautiful. Now we have a sweet little bundle of joy in our apartment. I have not heard a peep out of her during the nights so so far so good. She has a very sweet disposition and even lets mommy and daddy get some sleep at night.

(Photos by Devotion Photography)

A Whole New Year

Thank goodness this year is finally over. So much happened this year, and it has definitely been a stressful and emotional ride. Work has been busy and a seemingly impossible deadline for an office remodel, plus planning a party that was to take place New Year's Eve in said office added a giant dollop of stress on top. BUT we pulled it off (mostly), and actually the one thing that was not done turned out to be a positive. We were supposed to have glass walls put in to separate the reception area and the offices/meeting rooms. They were not able to go in on time, but it was actually nice because it was open and roomy for the party and it was like a dollhouse because you could see into the rooms, and use the tables.

So after about 4 very short and busy weeks of construction, the ceiling collapsing, painting, stripping paint of of brick, new hardwood and carpet, installing electrical and light fixtures, moving around furniture, and building cubicles, we totally transformed the space. I don't have any before pictures, and we wish we would have taken progress pictures but we didn't have extra time or energy for that sort of thing. I can tell you though that it looks a million times better. It used to be dark and dingy with black carpet and black paint on the brick. And the prior tennant was a questionable "massage parlor" so that made it feel extra shady.

We got lucky with the furniture. About two weeks ago I had a mild panic attach thinking about how all this needed to get done, and THEN we needed to furnish the space. So I went on a used furniture hunt and hit the jackpot. $60 round tables, a desk that matched our current desks perfectly, nice looking side chairs that were in good shape, cubicles that we had actually looked at previously at another location and they magically found me again (the exact ones we wanted to buy a month ago but someone bought them out from under us), and a nice new desk chair for me. On another trip there to pick up some of this stuff I found the perfect conference room table in the back room of the furniture place, and we got a set of chairs to go with it. We got the reception love seat and chairs at IKEA and they are actually pretty comfortable for IKEA furniture.

So the furniture made me feel better, but there was also the cleaning and party prep that needed to get done. The contractors were finishing up the day before the party, there was still stuff all over the place and things like plate covers on outlets still needed to be put on. So we were down to the wire getting the place picked up, and it needed a deep clean real bad. The bathroom was probably the grossest bathroom I have ever cleaned, and I made that thing sparkle! I also scrubbed the kitchen floor on my hands and knees picking paint off with my fingernails, cleaned the fridge that had mold and other surprises in it, cleaned out all of the cupboards and drawers, washed all the windows, vacuumed both offices, and cleaned the other kitchen floor. Man that was a long day.

Here are some pictures of the new space:

 Sparkly clean bathroom complete with new shower curtain (yes we have a shower in our office)

 Clean kitchen getting set up for the party

 Reception area - love the exposed brick and the light fixture

 This will be my boss' office once the glass walls go in

The "dollhouse" view of the meeting rooms.

Yesterday morning we were busy with final clean-up and party prep. I had to go pick up the food and luckily that was right before the freezing rain started. As much as this party stressed me out and I didn't really want to be there for 6 hours making it another 12 hour day, it was a success. We had a pretty good turn out, people seemed to be enjoying themselves, and the bosses were pleased with the outcome of all of it. It feels SO good to have it all done, or at least mostly done. Hopefully next week I'll be moving into my new office with a window again. I have only a 4 day workweek left and then I have time off to be with my husband while he is home! 2011 is going to be a good year, I can feel it.

Be Still

I had a whirlwind of a day. I had a 3 hour meeting on my schedule this morning, but before I could even join that I had to finish putting together an important file related to a client project. I then had to grab something to eat so my stomach wouldn't growl the whole 3 hours, grabbed my laptop, and made my way into the meeting late. That laptop gave me amazing multi-tasking ability, which I am already good at, but now I can do it to the max.

However, I got pulled out of the meeting for a call with our lawyer about a contract situation I've been working with. Then, I got side-swiped by our construction contractor on my way back to the meeting with some interesting news. With one of my coworkers out today, I was the go-to person for the contractors doing out remodeling across the hall. He took me over there, and apparently half of the ceiling had collapsed...which was not supposed to happen nor did we anticipate it happening. Luckily none of the guys were in there when it happened or this could have been a much worse problem, they had carried a load of scrap down to the truck and when they came back the ceiling was on the floor. And also luckily the section above the private office right next to it did not fall because there was someone working at a desk in there. Wouldn't that be a nice surprise? Apparently whoever previously put up the drop ceiling didn't bother to actually fasten them to the beams with wire as they are supposed to be. They were just being held up by the walls that we just ripped out. So...most of the ceiling tiles did not survive the fall, and only some of the medal grid. The only thing to do was fix it! The contractor was not very happy about that.

So back to the meeting I went, listening, participating, taking notes, emailing back and forth with our banker, answering questions on skype, and keeping an eye on facebook in case my hubby came online. After the meeting I had an equally busy afternoon which ended with me beginning to review some urgent legal documents after I had originally planned on leaving since I had tai chi tonight. So I had to rush to get those reviewed and sent on to the client, then grab some food and cram it in my mouth in 5 minutes, change in the bathroom, and go to class......to an hour where I am expected to shut off my brain and relax. Breathe. Get it touch with my chi. Move below the speed of habit. Going from this kind of a day to that is a challenge, but it is much needed. It's hard to remember to take time just to relax and breathe, and not worry or stress. It's hard to leave your burdens behind, to put your mind on hold, to trust that your problems will be resolved in time, to be still. On busy days and in life in general.

Breathe in, breathe out...

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; 

I will be exalted among the nations, 

I will be exalted in the earth.”

Psalm 46:10

Ok I guess it's winter now!

I haven't really had a whole lot going on this week, so I'll sum it up in one post. I better find some more exciting things to do so I can be a more active blogger! Here are some tidbits:

•  We hired another girl at work! I am no longer alone with all the guys. They are great, and I enjoy working with them, but sometimes it gets to feel a little lonely being the only female. Sometimes girls can be too much drama, but it's nice to have someone who will understand my frequent emotional changes :) Deployment kind of causes an extra dose of unpredictable emotions every day.
• Wednesday was a bad day. Work was stressful, I was tired and cranky, and then to top it off I finally got to talk to my husband after a week and the internet on his side was not working, so we got a total of 3 minutes of conversation in. I just felt like crying the rest of the day.
• Thursday was a better day. I got to talk to him for a good while with the webcam and he told me he found out his dates for R&R! Now I have a real date to count down to and it's not too far away! The other great news from Thursday is that my best friend/roommates found out the sex of their baby and it's a girl! I was hoping for a girl, so I'm excited!
• Friday was a nice change of pace. Work was quiet and I got to talk to hubby again for a long time and was able to talk some stuff through with him that had been stewing in my head. It's hard being so far apart because I want to talk to him and tell him things and work through everyday stressers together, but we usually don't get to. So when we have at least an hour long chunk of time to talk it's really great to actually be able to feel like we can connect on a married-couple level. You people that actually get to be with your spouse all the time - don't ever take their daily company for granted!!
• Last night we got a mega snowstorm. I woke up to an instant change from fall to winter with a blanket of snow on the ground. Luckily I had nowhere to go today so I stayed away from the roads as advised by my brother (took him a half hour to go 4 miles) and my roommate (who got stuck in the snow twice this morning). Therefore, I am still in my pjs at 8:30pm and had a wonderfully relaxing day catching up on tv shows, cleaning, talking to my man, and working on a mosaic project. Today marks 6 months of marriage which is also something to be happy about!

Office Remodel Project

This past week has gone so fast, mostly because of how crazy it has been at work and the long nights I have been there this week. The bosses decided that it we were going to completely redo our office before some big clients came in this week. The office needed a facelift anyways, so this was the opportune time to do it. Problem was, we were given about a two week time frame to plan, organize, and execute everything. The construction started last Thursday night, and then because of plans, ideas, and color schemes changing, we didn't start painting anything until Wednesday. Clients were coming Friday.

So what we ended up doing was putting up a wall to create a reception area, creating a reception desk/office with the weird half wall thingy we already had, updated the lighting in the entryway, painted everything including doors and trim, and cleaned up the entire office. All of these things actually got done after some very late nights with several of us pitching in to help the painter guy (looking back we should have just hired a whole team to do it). Some of the little things didn't get done because of time lines, annoying vendors, and the fact that the bigger things took up so much time. But all in all the office looks good. It was cleaned up when the big clients came in yesterday. Now we have to finish the little polishes and probably move on to phase 2...

Besides all the remodeling work, I also had a lot of work work to do this week. So I worked about 58 hours this week, which led to me to go bed at 9:30 last night and sleep for 12 glorious hours. Now today I finally get to spend a little time at home (my roommates haven't seen me all week) and fit some fun things in. Going to check out that mosaic store today, and maybe a walk later.

Gaga Craziness

Megan and I went to the Lady Gaga concert on Tuesday night. The fact that tickets were ridiculously expensive, and the fact that Megan was starting her school year and me starting back at work at 8 am the following morning did not stop us from going and it was well worth it. We could have done without the opening act, Semi Precious Weapons, because they were insane and the singer was just a hot mess. He even changed his whole outfit (including his skin tight leggings) on stage, not kidding. But Gaga was amazing. That girl puts on a good show. It was kind of a storyline with elaborate sets and costumes, and it didn't even matter that most of the songs had absolutely nothing to do with the "plot" because it was all just so flashy and exciting. I think she changed her outfit during or in between almost every song, sometimes in about 30 seconds while still singing backstage. Impressive.

Even the set changes were entertaining. Of course it was weird and if you've seen any of her performances you know she does weird things with blood and strange costumes and such. That's all just part of her character.

Ok, so here's the thing about the show that we didn't like. We were sitting next to a family with children the approximate ages of 6 and 10. This show was NOT appropriate for children. Swearing (mostly from the opening act), sex, blood and gore are not things that you should pay for your child to see, especially on a school night. What are these parents thinking? The only thing that was in any way remotely appropriate for kids was her message about being yourself and loving who you are and not caring about what other people think. But even that was tied in to her advocacy for GLBT rights and support. She has a large gay following and her support for the community is part of the reason she has such dedicated fans. I don't even want to think about how many things parents had to explain to their kids after seeing this. For grown ups, it was a very good (in a weird way) show. As crazy as Gaga seems, she really is a talented artist. She writes all of her music and lyrics, always sings live, is an amazing dancer, and is so creative and unique that she has basically made herself an icon. And I think she is younger than me. Megan and I were trying to figure out who to compare her to. Elvis? MJ? Madonna? Prince? Maybe a combination of all of them, but she is in a class of her own.

I didn't get a whole lot of sleep after the concert because I was all hyped up and then all anxious about going back to work. By the time I finally got to bed I couldn't fall asleep. My first day back at the office was super busy. After a two month "vacation" a lot of things had changed and I had a lot of stuff to sort through and organize. I have a very long to do list and have hardly made a dent in it. Plus I have to change my name on everything, which is practically a job in itself. It feels good to be back and be more productive. These two days have gone so fast and I have worked 9-10 hours a day and had to cut myself off. I have a lot to do tomorrow before the holiday weekend so I better get to bed. Still haven't heard from the hubby :( Hopefully he will be able to contact me soon. I miss talking to him and haven't heard his voice in almost a month.