Oh Canada!

Congrats Team Canada on your Gold medal in Men's Ice Hockey. Such an exciting game to watch and even though I was rooting for the USA and my St. Louis Blues representing our team, I'm alright with the end result.


Sidney Crosby, you continue to amaze me. I'm not sure how you can get much better, but I know you will come up with something. After today's awesome game, I'm ready for the NHL season to get back into full swing. Too bad we only play the Penguins once in a blue moon.

Lost and Found

Up and at 'em at 6:30 on a Sunday morning. Yeah, I'm crazy like that. Actually, I feel great right now and I'm looking forward to the day. Nothing too wild plan, I'm just trying to take it easy and enjoy the little bit of time I do have off.

In talking to some very wise people earlier in the week, they inspired me to think outside the box a bit to bring back that lovable, sweet, fun person I have been missing in myself the last few months. It seems I've let work and worrying get the best of me and pretty much have lost the drive to pursue all of the other fun stuff I used to do. So, I spent some of my down time this week thinking about all of the interests I used to have before I started working 45+ hours a week.

Cooking, baking, working out, playing poker, reading, scrapbooking and spending quality time with my family and friends...yes, that's the stuff I'm missing. Lately, I've rushed through these sorts of activities just to get them off my list of things to do and I haven't really taken the time to enjoy them. I have to get a grip on my life and find a balance and I think I'm off to a good start.

I've cooked a few times this week to make lunches for my nearest and dearest friends and I also semi-baked to go along with those lunches. (Don't worry, I'll get back to my full baking and wow you all very soon!) Cooking for myself is a no brainer, usually it's something quick and easy but taking the time to put together a meal you can be proud to serve others is something I enjoy doing. I take pride in knowing that I can brighten my friend's day by making something delicious. I also think cooking is a great way to show someone else how much the mean to you and how grateful you are to have them in your life.

I took a very different approach to working out this week. While I have never really given this up, it always seemed like going to the gym was such work for me after my regular job. I'd force myself to go to the gym every night and wouldn't leave the gym until I had my 65 minutes on the elliptical in or I had my cardio and weightlifting goals finished for that day. This week, I switched it up a bit and decided that if I'm going to go to the gym as often as I do, I don't have to be so obsessive about it when I get there. Some nights it's ok to just do a run/walk combo on the treadmill for a half an hour (something I would never do before) or just to weightlift and tone my core or if I feel up to it, do 65 minutes on the elliptical. I have a very strict diet for myself most of the time, so it's not like I need to go and force myself to burn 1,000 calories a night. I'm smaller and weigh less than I've have in 17 years. That's an accomplishment and I need to look at it that way. In the long run, I think I will feel much better for switching it up too.

Yesterday, I think I found a fairly complete balance to my time off. I went to the library to find some fun reading material and started reading for entertainment again, spent a little time catching up on errands, found some time to catch up with my family and then finished my night watching the Olympics at home. For the first time in months (besides my birthday), I went to dinner with my Mom, Michael and my Grandma again. Usually, I will stop in to their house for a few minutes every few weeks and then rush off because I felt like I had so many other things to do or I can't seem to find the time to get over there more often. It was nice just to talk to them. I know they want to make sure that I'm taking care of myself and I know they have my best interest at heart, even when I don't want to hear it. Before I left, I planned a time to cook dinner for them next week too.

Today, I'm taking the same approach. I have to go do my laundry this morning and I think I'm going to scrapbook some of my fun summer pics from last year. I'm so tired of winter and the freezing temps here and I'm hoping that this will help get me even more pumped and thinkin' spring. Tomorrow is already March 1st so spring should be around the corner, right?!? Let's hope so! The rest of the day....who knows. I'm learning I need to just go with the flow and that's what I'm going to try to do. :)

Enjoy your day!

Songs of the week

Happy Monday! Hope your week is starting off on the right foot.

Not sure how I feel about the day or even the week so far, but in getting ready this morning, two songs popped into my head. I think I going to make these my songs for the week and hopefully they will pull me through all of the nonsense. I know very little about both artists, but their songs are catchy and apply to this week in some regard.

- The Remedy by Jason Mraz
- What Do You Want from Me by Adam Lambert

Don't worry, if you happen to catch me singing either one of these, it's just because I'm taking my own advice and looking to music to relieve some stress.

I'm headed into work. Take it easy! :)

Weekend wrap-up

It's been a fairly good weekend here once again. There was time for quite a bit of fun, a bit of rest and relaxation and just a very little work, which is a good thing because after the crazy week I had last week, I needed a stress-free weekend.

Saturday afternoon, while still celebrating Coco's birthday (it's a month-long event), the girls met to see the musical,

Having never seen it before nor ever watching the movie (yes, I must live under a rock), I thoroughly enjoyed it. What made it even better was that it was performed at the Fabulous Fox Theatre.

Probably the biggest downfall of the day, the amount of time it took for all 12 of us to meet and actually make it to our seats. (we were late as per usual)
I don't know if I'm not as high-maintenance as I previously thought or if my friends are just that much more high-maintenance than me but when I'm told that everyone is supposed to meet at a place at 12:30 so that they can make it to their final destination at 1 pm, I would definitely try to stick to my deadline. (This coming from a girl who's biggest pet peeve is lateness and thinks time management is a valuable and essential asset for any person to have.)

I drove myself separately and even had an errand to run beforehand and still made it to the parking lot by 1 pm. My friends...umm yeah, they called at 1:15 saying that it would take them 15 more minutes and finally at 1:52 pm, 9 of them met me out in front of the theatre. We waited 5 more minutes for the last 2 girls and then the potty stops started. Needless to say, we didn't make it up to the balcony until 2:15 and then had to inconvenience others to get to our seats for a show that started promptly at 2 pm. Ugh!
Thank goodness I was kept occupied with texting during my hour long wait, otherwise I probably would have been even more irritated by the time we made it into the Fox.

I knew better than to go to dinner after the show as I had somewhere else to be by 6:15 pm and didn't want to go through the same craziness or be late for my other plans. So, I rushed to my car and tried to dodge as much of the traffic out of the city as I could. I made it in plenty of time for event 2 and even had a few minutes to spare. The rest of my evening was great and probably once of the best nights I've had in months. :)

Today, well, what can I say about today? It's been an alright day. I'm not really looking forward to going back to work tomorrow morning and I think that's what has me a bit down.
It will be a busy week once again since we have month-end on Friday and to top it off, after nearly 5 years without backups for any of the Accounting/Billing/Payroll positions, our bosses decided last Friday to start cross-training for our departments this week. Yes, you read that right, the employees in our department have not had backups since our corporate headquarters moved to St. Louis 5 years ago.
My position, not-so-much this week (or probably any other week in the next few months), but everyone else will have one other employee start learning a new job so that people can finally start taking multiple days off or even week-long vacations. Because of the confidentiality and sensitive nature of both my Accounting job and HR role, my duties will be spread amongst numerous employees. I get to find the time to meet with a few people and teach them specifics about what I do. Honestly, I think it will just be easier if I never take off of work when its not a Federal holiday but that doesn't work so well when you have 3 weeks of vacation and 6 PTO days to use in one year. So, we will see what happens...
I did make it known in our meeting that I won't answer work phone calls in Vegas again this summer. Of course that probably has more to do with the fact that we don't have a Vegas trip planned and not the fact that it's work calling and checking in on something random.

Wow...seems like I'm all full of complaints tonight. I'll try to have a more positive and upbeat attitude for the next update.
Hope you have a good week!

My Valentine's Gift

No matter how many times I'm an idiot, there is one person that will always make me realize that I'm a truly special and much loved person.

Tonight was again one of those nights where I was a complete moron and that person fixed me and made sense of the mess I created. I don't know why I deserve someone like this but I'm thanking my lucky stars that I do.

Now if only I could remember how to stop being so stupid...

This just in...

from NASCAR.com news.

CONGRATULATIONS

Jamie McMurray

ON YOUR 2010 DAYTONA 500 WIN!

Jamie McMurray wins the 52nd running of the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway!

Big WOO HOOs coming from me! I was rooting for him all race long!! Good job Jamie!

You Give Love A Bad Name!

I could have started off this post with Shot Through The Heart or I'm a Cowboy, on a Steel Horse I Ride or She's A Little Runaway or any other Bon Jovi lyric, but that didn't seem as fun and even though this news is unrelated to Valentine's Day, it's extremely exciting!
So here's a little riddle for you. It's the same riddle Rosemary and I presented to Coco on her birthday this past Wednesday.

What could be better than rocking out to Bon Jovi while driving into another day at work?

How about...
Rocking out to Bon Jovi LIVE in Chicago on July 30th?

That's right...7 girlfriends are going to see Bon Jovi in concert in Chicago!!
Coco was extremely excited that we surprised her with the trip to see her absolute favorite band and Rosemary and I are so excited that we were able to pull off one great birthday present for one very special friend! We're definitely looking forward to the concert and the girls trip! Coco and I have been reminiscing about our last trip to Chicago to see Bon Jovi in concert and we have laughed like crazy about the antics of that weekend....I can only imagine that it will be that and more with this group.

In other news, I finally have a day off from work tomorrow! After not taking an actual day off since our little mandatory vacation stint back in July, I'm ready for a real day of enjoying myself and trying to regain some sanity from the year-end grind and new year bedlam I've been put through the last 3 months. It actually should be a good day off too, since it's a Federal holiday and there is not much that needs to be done for my job. Tuesday will be crazy, but at least I should be somewhat rested to deal with that.
I don't have much planned for my day off though. I decided to take care of all of my household responsibilities on Saturday so that I could enjoy the next two days off with little to do. I've got to take my car in for brakes and an oil change and I've got an appointment to complete 2 sets of taxes for my friends tomorrow night, but the rest of the day will hopefully be carefree and very enjoyable.

Finally, I want to say thanks to two of my favorite cousins, Nicole and Emily, who at 7:30 this morning, sent me the cutest text message for Valentine's Day.

Thanks girls for brightening my Valentine's Day. You two are awesome and I hope you have a fun day.
While I think you should show those special people in your life, how much they mean to you every day, it's also nice to show some extra love today. I know I'm truly grateful for those that stick by me through thick and thin. :)

I'm going to go enjoy the rest of the Daytona 500 (go McMurray!) and take it easy. Hope you have a great rest of the weekend! Catch ya later!!

A fun game and a weekend update

If you have a few spare minutes and you're looking for something fun and silly to do, then I have the solution for you:
Go to urbandictionary.com, type your first name in the search box and figure out the definition of you! Here's mine,
Lindsay --
1.) a girl who is hotter than the flames of hell
2.) the marvelous and mysterious temptress from the land of eternal joy
3.) a girl who is smarter than Albert Einstein but as gorgeous as Helen of Troy (you know, the one whose beauty started the epic war)
4.) this girl is in no way affiliated with Lindsay Lohan. Lohan simply stole this girl's name.

Hilarious!!! I'm definitely gonna pass this on!

As for the big birthday weekend, well to put it mildly, it was the best birthday anyone could ever ask for!!! I had so much fun and felt so relieved that everyone seemed to enjoy themselves! My Bro is quite possibly the greatest brother in the world too. He made me laugh and cry and most of all, realize that in spite of history, one night can make a difference and I had a fantastic night singing and dancing and just having fun! I'm extremely thankful that he made my night as special as he did. I will remember the sacrifices he made and will be eternally grateful to him! Thanks again Bro!

Earlier in the day, the girls and I got to experience our "cardio ballet" class as they referred to it and let me tell you, that was harder work than I expected. Even working out the 3 or 4 days a week that I do, I worked muscles that I don't usually think about and was able to learn a fun chair/lap dance routine. (Now, if I could only remember the whole thing! My new age is getting to my memory already! Ha!!) The instructor was great and she really made us feel like sexy, spunky chicks. I would totally love to take those classes on a regular basis!! Oh and if you're wondering, yes, I got to try out the pole too!

After class, Coco and Rosemary took me to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. Lunch was great; however, if you know me, you also know that one of my pet peeves is having attention called to you when you are out on your birthday, meaning I absolutely hate when they bring the waiters over to sing. It's been a sticking point with me ever since I was little and they used to sing when we went to the Olive Garden or anywhere else for a birthday dinner. Well, Coco decided to tell the waitress that it was my birthday and what happens....they bring out a little ice cream sundae with a candle in it and sing to me. Ugh!! No matter how less shy I am now to when I was when I was younger, I still despise the singing thing....but I sat there and didn't crawl under the table and then ate the deliciousness they brought as my "reward" for not running away. :)

This week, it was back to the grindstone at work. Monday and Tuesday passed in a blur since it was the first two days of the month and their is so much to do to start the month off on the right foot and finally today, things started going a bit smoother. I'm hoping I get through the next 2 days at work with very few problems....we'll see what pops up tomorrow and then I'll figure out what's going on for the weekend.

Take it easy and enjoy your night!