Day Eight: Your Sky

Warning: Mom, if Day 7 made you cry, you should stop reading NOW.

So this one is a tough one to be creative with when your 'view' is very lame in the middle of your 4 wall cube...booooring. And honestly right now, when I think of sky, I think of heaven and then I think of my Granny. I think of and miss my Granny every single day. It's such a tough transition to make with death. I didn't see her or talk to her everyday, but the thought of her not being a phone call away any time I want is tough. I have been working on her taxes and I'm used to calling her throughout that process with various questions because she inevitably forgot to send something I needed...I can't call her. I look in my personal email box and see her her name on multiple emails that I never read but also never deleted. She used to send TONS of junk emails that weren't always that funny but she liked to forward them on. I kept thinking, I'll get to it one day...I never did and now, I can't let myself delete them...I will never get another one from her and that's tough to swallow. In order to keep myself from completely losing it right now, I'm going to end this blog...with the thought that My sky is my Granny.

My granny almost one year ago, her 80th birthday party/Easter weekend 2011.

Christmas 2011, about 2 weeks before she passed away.

Day Seven: Favourite

Day 7...March 7th...my momma's birthday. My momma is my favourite. She is the most generous, loving, caring, thoughtful person I know. She always puts her family first. She is my best friend and my strongest supporter. I love you Mom...Happy Birthday!!

Day Six: Makes You Smile

This makes me smile. Watching Brandon play volleyball makes me smile. He's really good and fun to watch. I also love to play volleyball myself. But I love even more that Brandon and I are starting a volleyball league together. He's playing in a men's doubles league on Mondays and we are playing in a co-ed 4's league on Thursdays starting next week.

Day Five: Something You Wore

This is my newest 'fun and cheap' find on our separate gifting site that is being discontinued here at JCP...everything was being maked down. I got this super cool necklace for $5. I LOVE it. I thought it was just okay from the pic on the website but after I got it, I like it even more!

Day Four: Letterbox

So I really don't even know what a 'letterbox' is...but I'm going to go with the best thing I could come up with that isn't just a boring mailbox. This is the JCPenney 'robot'...or the computerized mail cart..or the modern day 'letterbox'.

Day Three: Something You Adore

I ADORE this face...everything about it. I adore her big blue eyes, her beautiful hair and I absolutely adore her smile. I adore the innocence of this sweet girl. I adore her love for the people in her life, especially her family. I adore her adoration of me. She is my little mini-me in every way, shape and form (sometimes NOT a good thing!) We have had a special bond from the minute she was old enough to 'recognize' me and I hope and pray that it never changes.

Day Two: Breakfast

One of my favorite things to eat for breakfast in a hurry...it's my eat-on-the-go breakfast of choice. Plus I LOVE peanut butter. A whole grain, low-fat waffle with extra crunchy peanut butter...and a cup of coffee.

Day One: Me

As I said previously, I came down with this unreal cough/cold last week. I woke up in the middle of the night, with a really weird/annoying 'scratch' in my throat. My throat didn't hurt persay, it was just bothersome...that cough progressively got worse and worse where it became an issue every single time I took a breath in. Breathe in. Cough. Breathe in. Cough. You can see where this would become a hindrance. Lisa had it the week before me and warned me to go to the dr and do whatever I possibly could to get rid of it, otherwise it would last a long time. She didn't lie. With it being month-end close, I knew I couldn't miss work so being sick wasn't an option. I did go to the dr and got all kinds of meds/antibiotics/etc. So, the pic above represents 'me' on Day 1 (Thursday)...still coughing 3 days later. And the pic below, represents 'me' feeling sorry for myself and having a weak moment as I walked into the grocery store to buy some soup and more cough drops. Willpower Failure.

Just as an update...it's Day 11 of the cough...and it's still annoying. Mucho better, but still there.

Photo a Day Challenge

So last week, Mica suggested and challenged several of us to participate in this 'Photo a Day' Challenge with her. I thought, "very cool, this will definitely give me an 'easy' blogging topic each day!" In theory, yes...but little did I know, I was about to come down with a seriously annoying cough/cold that lasts FOREVER....plus, month-end close. Not just any month-end close, the first month-end after a brutal year-end. The past two weeks I've put in many, many hours...I've worked, at least a few hours, every weekend for the past 2 months...I pulled another almost all-nighter again this week. It's been tough. I'm not here to get sympathy for my cold and long hours (I'll save that for a future blog), I'm here to give you my excuse and reasoning for beginning my 'daily' posts on Day 8. I've been diligently taking my daily picture, I just haven't had one spare minute to write and post it. So here goes....

The challenge:

The Perfect 'for me' Blog...stolen.

I haven't had time to type blogs much this week...I'm still swamped with year-end. Hard to believe, I know. But while I shoveled in my lunch today in between meetings, I caught up on some of my friend's blogs. Most of you know of my friend Jami/Niki that lives in NYC. She's a hoot. Absolutely hilarious personality...typically when she sends me emails or texts, I can 'hear' her saying them and I laugh out loud as if she was sitting right there. You have to really know her to 'get' it sometimes, but trust me, she's funny. Anyway, I ran across this blog that she posted several months ago and holy moly did it hit home for me. There's a reason her and I have been friends since grade school and can get together for a drink/dinner about once/year on average and NEVER.MISS.A.BEAT. We have so much in common...and although a few of the 'issues' that she lists below may not apply to me (I've put a line through the 'make from scratch' type of issues) the majority of them are SO ME. Cracks me up...so I thought I'd steal...and share! Enjoy!


Pressing the Easy Button.You’ve probably seen the commercials for Staples - the ones with the EASY button. In each scenario it has a customer attempting a tedious, difficult or overwhelming task - generally annoyed or mentally spent by it. The clerk says - you could do that… (the more difficult, time consuming or complicated way) or…. you could press the EASY button (which usually means Staples to the rescue.)Recently I’ve been giving myself permission to press the EASY button more often.

You see - I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself. (You’re saying to yourself: “You? Nooooo! Nevvvvver.) 2011 has been so hectic, and I’ve been stretched in a million directions. Admittedly, most of it is self-inflicted - and I’ll give you some examples of times where I feel the pressure to be a certain way:

- When I go to parties or outings, I feel pressure to be the one with the camera, and then I feel pressure to immediately upload the photos to Facebook. OMG...ding, ding, ding...so me.
- Before dance class I feel pressure to have the most. awesome. original. choreography. ever.okay, so i don't dance either...
- I feel pressure to say “Happy Birthday” to people on Facebook. every.single.day.
- I feel pressure to read every magazine I get in the mail, cover to cover, and clipping articles from each.
- When I throw a dinner party, I feel pressure that every detail is amazing and all the recipes are from scratch. Maybe not from scratch recipes, but I like to go all out on the setup and lots of 'fun' dishes
- When a trip is coming up I feel pressure to have a perfectly planned itinerary for the group. Spreadsheet anyone?!
- I feel pressure to make plans and/or RSVP “yes”. I rarely say no...I try, but it's hard.

Granted, most of the above are normal things that most people feel (admittedly the camera thing is probably just a ‘me’ thing).


Lately I have decided that I need to just give myself a break because all this pressure is making me crazy.

Sometimes I just have to press the EASY button.
- No one cares if I don’t have my camera. Everyone has cameras on their phones. It’s fine. (Thank you to Dinah for giving me this excellent self-talk). And if I do take pictures with my camera, I’ll upload them eventually. Who cares if it’s not immediately.
- Sometimes it’s OK to recycle choreography from other routines. The girls in my class just want to have fun - the whole purpose of the class is to be stress-free so why am I creating stress for myself? It’s unnecessary. Just show up and wing it. It’s fine.
- No one will even notice if I don’t say Happy Birthday on Facebook. And even if they do - so what - it’s not like they say Happy Birthday to every single one of THEIR Facebook friends. Who cares!? They’ll have another one next year.
- Sometimes magazines are going to pile up. For a while. And sometimes ::whisper:: I might even just recycle the magazine having not even read it. Guess what - there’s nothing THAT mind blowing in the November issue of Real Simple that I couldn’t find online.
- Granted, I’ve built a reputation as an excellent event-thrower. I take pride in my parties and events and do enjoy the accolades I receive from a job well done. However….. I have to remind myself that no one is going to love me any less or think any less of my event if things aren’t mind-blowingly-perfect. It’s OK to buy already-made dips. It’s fine if the decor is lacking and/or store bought. Who cares if the activities aren’t custom-planned and you lean more on board game standbys. People care about people. Good times with others….I have to remember this.
- You don’t need to plan the itinerary. The person you’re traveling with just wants to have fun with EACH OTHER. It doesn’t have to be a jam packed, moment to moment planned trip. Relax. Enjoy life.
- Sometimes you just have to flake. And that’s OK. As long as it’s not a habit and you don’t make it a regular practice of letting people down. And you don’t have to make up a BS reason as to why you bailed. It’s perfectly OK to say “I really wanted to go, but I found myself just needing a night of pajamas and DVR-watching. I’m sure you know the feeling!” Cause guess what …. EVERYONE KNOWS THE FEELING!!!

Many things prompted this blog post, but one of the main things was my friend Jenn Gorrie who blogged about her kids Halloween costumes. Aren’t her kids the cutest things ever? Jenn who consistently goes above and beyond in every aspect of her life actually APOLOGIZED for the kids wearing the same Halloween costumes as last year. Are you kidding? I have to APPLAUD her for pressing the EASY button because the kids look just as amazing, I didn’t even remember last year’s costumes (sorry!), and most importantly as she says in her blog - THEY LOVED HOW THEY LOOKED. At the end of the day that’s what it’s all about. Jenn, I’m proud of you for pressing the EASY button!

Sometimes you gotta just…
Keep it simple.
Skip it.
Say no.
Stay home.
Know when to say when.
Give yourself a break.
Take it down a notch.
Sleep in.
Have it delivered.
Go easy on yourself.
Use store-bought.
Reschedule.
Delegate.
Get it pre-made.
Cut out early.
Rewear it.
Not volunteer.
Ask for help.
Bail out.

Sometimes you gotta just PRESS THE EASY BUTTON! Try it, you’ll like it.

LOVE this blog, and although I could probably add another 10 'pressures' of my own to her list, I'm going to press the easy button and just steal hers and leave it at that.

Maybe my life would be less stressful if I pressed the easy button occasionally...I need to get one of those.

Bragging Rights…

…well deserved bragging rights…if I do say so myself!

Remember that burr-rabbit cold race that Brandon and I ran last weekend…remember how I said we both ran faster than we expected to…even though it was SO.DANG.COLD?! Well he just looked up our ‘official’ race times and I must say I’m impressed! My time was 35th out of 522 people (top 7%) in my age group/female and I came in 491 out of 4212 total people in the 5k (top 12%). Brandon kicked my tail…but he did fantastic against everyone else as well! He came in 22nd out of 147 people (top 15%) in his age range/male and 174 out of 4212 in total (top 4%). Wow…go us!

Brandon says: Wow, look how great we did…and it was only our 1st race! Just think how fast we’ll get after a few more!

Kellie says: Wow, look how great we did…I can officially retire from racing, I’ve already hit my PBR (personal best record) and I’m good with that!

Love is in the air!!

Several weeks before Valentine’s Day, Brandon and I had a conversation regarding the celebration of it. I basically told him that I think it’s a Hallmark Holiday and I don’t believe in the way the flower industry tries to rip guys off on this one day of the year. I told him not to worry with sending me flowers on Vday, not that I dislike flowers but I just don’t like the price of them. If he wanted to send me flowers, send me ‘just because’ flowers any other day of the year…when they aren’t double in cost. What Brandon heard, “We are not celebrating Valentine’s day at all.” Ha! It cracks me up to think about the differences between guys and girls, especially in a conversation like this.

Apparently there was some confusion here…I LOVE Valentine’s Day! Who doesn’t love a day full of PINK, hearts, chocolate, happy smiles, giddy girls?!? A day focused on love…love for your friends and family, spoiling kids with goodies for no reason, happiness even if you are single. I’ve been single for plenty of Valentine’s Days and I made the best of it. I used to plan ‘Singles Awareness Day’ events. We would go bowling, dinner, movies, etc. It’s a day to be in love with the blessings you have in your life…no matter what that might be at the time! So please don’t confuse my statement above that I don’t like Valentine’s Day. I do. As you’ve seen in my previous posts, I made a plan a little early to do the 14 day countdown with daily gifts for Brandon. I was very excited about it once I had it all figured out and fortunately I mentioned my excitement regarding his gift to him a few days before I started. After the pause and confused look on his face, following the statement, ‘Wait, I thought we weren’t celebrating Vday? You said no flowers…’ I started cracking up. Uhm no. Yes, I said no flowers, I didn’t say no Vday. Whew! Catastrophe averted.

After further explanation of my philosophy…I don’t believe in spending tons of money. I believe in making it fun, light, easy, simple. A nice card, dinner at home, splurge on a tasty dessert…that’s all I need. Brandon is very sweet and very thoughtful. He doesn’t have to try hard to impress me or make me happy…it happens regularly and it’s the little things that he does that make me smile on a daily basis. Brandon thrives on being a little creative with stuff, so he jumped on this opportunity and went all out. I was surprised throughout the day and must say it was the best Valentine’s Day EVER. I’m okay with what he did…it was our ‘first’ Valentine’s celebration of hopefully many more…so I don’t believe he set the bar so high, he will have to top it next year. I believe one year of an all out splurge…the first year being the most important…next year, I’m 100% happy with dinner at home and a simple card…well, maybe with some kind of chocolate/dessert/large calorie intake!

Anyway, here’s out the day went. I had my trainer at 6am so I was gone from my house for about an hour that morning. Brandon, in the meantime, got up early, blew up about 50 balloons with a helium tank and tied curly ribbon around each one of them. He had them all hanging in my kitchen/dining room as I walked in from the garage. Holy Surprise! He bought a couple strands of lights which made it look really cool in the dark house. The flash on the camera takes away from the effect of the lighting…but it was so cool and so pretty in the room!!

I had a smile on my face all morning. Then after coming back from lunch, I had an FTD box waiting downstairs for me…2 dozen long-stemmed red roses…absolutely gorgeous!

if you've seen or read the book 'The Help', you'll get the reference above. makes me laugh.

As I said before, I’m good with dinner at home instead of fighting the crowds on Valentine’s night. But Brandon ended up making reservations to surprise me for sushi…one of our favorite meals to have together. We had dinner and came back to the house for dessert. Brandon loves his sister’s recipe of Dirt Pudding so I emailed her, got the recipe and surprised him with it as dessert! It was phenomenal!

Overall, a fabulous day…today, I still have a smile on my face, smelling my pretty flowers on my desk! Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

Vday Countdown - Day 14

Happy Valentine's Day to all 5 of my faithful followers!! Hope it was an amazing day! :)

i can't wait to see our relationship 'blossom'

Run for Chocolate?!?

So, this past weekend Brandon and I had our first 5k race together. Several months ago, a friend of his sent an email with the ‘big idea’ of doing this Hot Chocolate race in February…holy cold! I was fresh out of excuses (not quarter close, not a bday, not a holiday) so I had to commit. I wasn’t impressed with the thought of what the temps could be in mid-Feb, especially after the ice storm and solid week I spent working from home last year during this same time period. Anyway, overall, we’ve had a lame winter so I thought I might just luck out with decent weather. Not.So.Much. A cold front blew in Friday night and by Saturday morning, the temps were in the 20’s with a wind chill of 17 degrees and 15-20 mph wind gusts. BURR. Not only do I hate running in wind, I hadn’t run 3 miles straight in over a year. I’ve been working on it and I’ve done 4-5 miles at a time but not without walking some around mile 2 ½. Cold, wind, hills...I was not looking forward to it. I begged Brandon to let me get out of it with no luck. (I should mention said 'friend' bailed that morning due to the cold...I'm sorry, what?!?)

I got up at 5am to get ready, bundle up as much as possible and added a few ‘lucky layers’ for kicks.

My 'lucky' shirt from Amy...

My 'lucky' socks from Amy...

Brandon was entirely too chipper and ready to run...I don't think I've ever seen him this excited at 5:30am...

Oh it was cold. So cold. Our fingers and toes were FROZEN. I finally started feeling my big toes again about mile 2. We both survived…and both ran our best times yet. I’m happy to report that as painful as it was, I didn’t have to stop and walk (the motivation of being able to tell Amy and Brandon that I ran the entire thing without stopping…and knowing there was warm Ghirardelli chocolate fondue at the finish line…definitely helped!) Brandon ran the race in just under 25 minutes and I ran it in 28 minutes….way faster than I typically run! We were happy with our times…and happy to eat our chocolate afterwards!!

pre-race 'frozen' pic

 time to thaw and eat some yummy chocolate fondue!

 1st Race together = SUCCESS!

Vday Countdown - Day 13

i can't 'picture' my life without you!