Reminder

As embarrassing as it is to admit, I have not been working out regularly since the Wastach Back race over three months ago. Work has been absurdly busy and my travel schedule was fairly hectic and so I just let it slide.

Oddly enough, the last three months I have found myself being overly irritable, emotional, tired and more prone to worry than usual. I don't know how I keep forgetting this but the connection between my physical self and my emotional/intellectual/spiritual self is ridiculously strong. When I am not taking care of myself, all hell breaks loose in my life. I get frustrated by dumb things at work, I confuse relationship status with self-worth, my spirituality gets cloudy. It is next to impossible for me to feel any sort of peace in my life when I don't feel healthy.

This weekend was the first Saturday I wasn't out of town in three weeks and I'll be gone the next two so it filled up fairly quickly. But I was determined to squeeze in just ONE little hour of exercise. I had plenty of other places I probably should have been but as soon as I got on the stair climber I knew I had made the right decision. I cranked it up as high as I could take and by about 10 minutes in, I was completely sweat soaked. It's amazing how the concerns of your life can just drip off you in those little beads of sweat. Travel complaints, workload frustrations, dating woes, fear of my impending 31st birthday (31!!! WTF!!!), disappointing numbers on the scale...all laying there on the floor at 24 Hour Fitness. I hopped off 45 glorious minutes later and didn't even say goodbye to them.

Good riddance fellas.

Lapped!

I have spent the last week thinking intently about lyrical cliches in music. I was actually working on a post about it and then tonight, I was catching up on episodes of This American Life and I think they stole my idea.

You guys, I really really want you to listen to this program because it features PHIL COLLINS talking about breakups. Phil Collins people.

You won't regret it.

No one can string together a bunch of really cheesy lyrics together that still manage to reach in and rip your heart out like this guy. Seriously, listen to this song and then try to tell me you haven't felt these VERY EMOTIONS when someone broke your heart.

Against All Odds

Not to mention the fact that I used to listen to his version of "You Can't Hurry Love" and dance around my room wondering if I would ever, EVER get to kiss a boy. Don't worry dad, still waiting (not).

Random

My job is zapping every last bit of my creativity right now. I'm listening to a LOT of music though so here are some treats for you.

Anything Anything
Because it is loud and insistent.

Kanye
Because it will take root in your head.

The Sun Also Sets
Because there is genuine yearning here.

The Spinners
Because it is timeless. I'm so in love with this song I want to take it out behind the bleachers and make out with it.

Quota

I knew this day would eventually come but I have officially reached my limit of theoretical relationship talk. From now on, I will only be able to converse about things like science, music, literature, Thursday Night Television, technology, fitness, sushi, travel, geography, religion, politics, philosophy and design. But the endless relationship blather cells of my brain have died.

Here is a song that has one little swear in it but the lyrics are adorable.
Birds

IF

...you are overtired
and
...you are really hungry
and
...you are sitting in ridiculous traffic
then
...you should probably think twice before you start making phone calls.

Wake Me Up!

One of my favorite things in the entire world is hearing a song for the first time that stops you dead in your tracks and makes you feel half desperate until you can hear it again.

I was working in our Portland office last winter and thanks to the wireless network floating through the office, my iTunes program was picking up everyone else's iTunes as well. Since another favorite thing of mine is going through other people's music, I eagerly clicked on one belonging to "Coach". There was a fair amount of 80's music in there so I was having fun listening to some old favorites. Then the phone rang or someone came in and I got busy and forgot about the music. So maybe an hour later I was back on the computer and a song came on that dug it's little claws into my ears and has yet to let go.

I'm not going to tell you who the artist is because I'm afraid you will judge it/me and not give it a chance. But it's been a good nine or ten months since I bought this song and I still listen to it regularly.

Waiting for that Day

The lyrics are great, the melody is great and the album it comes from is definitely worth checking out.

Committment

I've read all sorts of commentary lately about what is/isn't love and "how to get married". I've started about 10 posts about it. But then I saw this:


And I have nothing further to add.

City of Wind

For the last five years my job has required a LOT of travel. As in, my mother usually asks "so where are you?" when I call her because it's likely I'm NOT at home. Traveling for work is a mixed bag and there are times I really like it and times I really, really hate it.

This weekend was one of those trips where I think, "OK, this is actually a totally awesome thing to get paid to do."

I had to make a quick trip to Chicago for a little guerilla marketing project we are doing (the one some of you helped me with recruiting!) and was scheduled to leave first thing Friday morning. I stayed up way, way too late on Thursday night (trading messages on Facebook with a guy who used to date a now married roommate of mine and was curious about "what went wrong". The internet. Proudly wasting my time since 1994.) and arrived at the airport early Friday morning to find that I was seated in a middle seat AND the flight was delayed for two hours. So this was shaping up to be another great weekend lost to The Man.

I finally board the plane and I see that I am seated between two middle aged guys who appear to know each other. One of them offers to help me put my bag in the overhead compartment and because it is heavy and I have about four things in my hands, I let him. I'm busying myself getting comfortable when I look up to see he is still quietly struggling to stuff my slightly overpacked bag into the space so I feel bad that I'm behaving a bit like he's the hired help. So I hop up, help him push and offer my sincere thanks for the help. As we sit down it's clear that yes, he's with the guy on my left so I say, "oh I'm sorry, are you two together?" and Mr Left, who I discover has quite a charming South African accent, says "we know each other but no, we are not together." I laugh politely but I'm thinking, "oh boy, three and a half hours with a couple of jokers, can I get my iPod out now?" So I pull out a book, turn off the air conditioning and put my water bottle in the pocket in front of me. Mr. Right says, "geez, you move really quickly." So I'm getting the sense these gentlemen are going to be talkers. I fly so much that I just don't always want to get into awkward conversations with my seatmates and my experience with overly friendly middle aged men is that they usually want to hit on young single females and pretend they aren't wearing wedding rings. So I'm not super excited about getting into it with these two but figure maybe if we get it over with before we even take off they will doze off or read the paper or something. I ask them where they are from and they say Detroit. I know next to nothing about Detroit except you know, they make cars there. So that's my lame response-"oh, are you car guys?" Well it turns out they ARE car guys. Volkswagon guys. I happen to be one of those people with a sort of unreasonable attachment to my VW so I get all excited to be meeting members of the family.

I will spare you a bunch of boring conversation details but I ended up talking to my new friends all the way to Chicago. They were funny and cool and we talked all about their wives and their kids and jobs and Detroit how it's time for me to upgrade to an Audi (VW also owns Audi). The flight flew by and I was really glad I hadn't just slipped on my iPod and retreated into myself. We all exchanged business cards (I promised shoes for their wives and they offered a great deal when I was in the market for the upgrade) and I headed off to the rental car shuttle.

I get on the shuttle and it's just me and the driver-another friendly, talkative guy with an accent I try to place. We talk for a bit and I ask him where he's from originally. He says, "oh it's a tiny little place in Switzerland that no one has ever heard of. It's called Neuchatel." Yeah, well, anyone who served a mission in Geneva knows that city so I answer him in French that I have indeed heard of Neuchatel. The guy breaks into a huge smile and responds in rapid fire French that sounds so beautiful to my ears that I almost start to cry. Turns out he had also spent some time in a totally random city in France that was my first mission city. I never ever get to speak French anymore and it's sad how much I am losing but we had such a lively conversation that I was sad when we finally got to the rental lot.

I bounce off the shuttle, all a twitter after so many delightful interactions, and find myself in possibly the most animated rental car office on the planet. There are probably eight good looking guys working that day and all of them are talking and laughing and having way more fun than I thought you could at such a job. I go up to counter and in a sort of funny turn of events, the guy offers to let me take an Audi A-4 for the price of the compact. I take him up on it and soon I'm speeding down I-90 in a car that is ridiculously fun to drive.

Chicago is in my top 3 favorite cities and has quite a bit of personal signifigance for me. I spent a good chunk of a summer there as a nanny in college and I still feel a special connection to it. Driving in always makes me a little emotional anyway, and on a clear beautiful day that has already been pretty fun, it definitely got to me.

The rest of the weekend rolled on without a hitch, I ate delicious food, talked to a ton of women about my brand, walked all around Millenium Park, drove back and forth on Lake Shore drive a bunch of time with the sunroof open, taking advantage of the fantastic sound system in the car. I had an entire row to myself on the way home and managed to actually fall asleep for most of the flight and catch up on some much needed rest. I was back in time to meet up with an old coworker in town for the weekend, attend a GREAT church meeting today and even squeezed in a nice sunset bike ride at the beach.

I've been doing a little too much complaining recently so I'm not even sure I deserved a nice reminder that life is good but hey, I'll take it!

Playing Favorites

Along with the majority of the country I did NOT watch the VMA's on Sunday night but I did tune into YouTube on Monday morning to watch Britney Spears sleepwalk through her "comeback" appearance. I don't want to waste anyone's time talking about that sad, sad little person but I did realize that Brit-Brit and I have something in common.

I think we both spent the summer being less than vigilant about our food and exercise choices and it is catching up to us. I however, am choosing to get back to my regular running schedule and maybe keep it to Taco Tuesday and not Tacos-a-go-go. I'm not super concerned about it since I know I've just been kind of lazy lately but still, I'm a girl and it can mess with your confidence a bit when you aren't feeling your loveliest.

I once heard that every woman should identify one feature that she just really loves regardless of what else is going on with her body. So to chase away some of the negative vibes that come when your jeans are feeling a wee bit snug, I'm going to say something nice about my own favorite feature.


I really like my eyes. I like the color, I like the shape, I like the size. I LOVE the lashes. I love that my sisters and my mom have them too. I love that I have a hard time keeping my feelings out of them. I know they should get the credit for most of my successful flirting experiences. I can certainly give you a long list of things I would fix if I could but as far as these babies are concerned, I wouldn't touch them.

So consider yourself tagged. Go back to your own blog and tell me what you love about YOU.

Failure to Launch

I asked for something I really feel like I have earned at work last week and I didn't get it.

At first I was really, really angry. I did all my homework before I made the request. I spoke to experts, I rehearsed my points, I prepared spiritually. I really felt like I did everything within my power to go into my meeting prepared. And it didn't work.

I don't want to give the impression that I always get what I want, because I do not. But in my adult life it has often been the case that if I try really hard, things have a way of working out. But the recent past is littered with incredibly disappointing situations that I was convinced were going to end a different way.

So I've been thinking this week about what really constitutes failure. Is the mission a bust if a person over which you have no control chooses not to grant your request? Is the lesson I needed to learn actually in the asking regardless of the outcome? Isn't learning when and how to stand up for myself a valuable skill to pick up sort of no matter what?

I'm pretty sure the answer is that almost any experience is only a failure if you don't learn anything from it. If all it does is make you mad, bitter and cynical then yes-utter failure. But if you can get a little bit of space from it and take some lessons from it, then I think maybe life could seem a whole lot less frustrating.

The next problem of course being that lessons learned often mean that you have to change-your attitude or your circumstances or your behaviour-and that can be a whole difficult process of it's own.

The lesson I think I've decided to take from this is one that has been incubating for years but I think it's really time to apply it. If I really do believe that God has a plan for me, I'm going to have to put just a bit more trust in that plan than what my somewhat control freak nature typically enjoys. This isn't a license to be lazy or to quit trying things, it's just an understanding and an acceptance that I am not as in charge as I think I am. And that frankly, if there is an all powerful, all knowing Being who would prefer to pull the strings a bit, then maybe I should let myself relax a bit.

And because I feel like there ought to be some sort of behavioral manifestation of this lesson, I've started moderating my soda intake. I realize there seems to be zero connection between the two but I wanted to do something that would remind me OFTEN to loosen my grip.

Trust me, I've had less Diet Coke for two days and I think it's already working.

It's baaaaaack

I promise I will not spend the next seven months talking about Friday Night Lights BUT....the first season came out on DVD last week and so far, my sister-in-law locked herself in the basement and watched almost the entire season in one sitting, my sister and her roommate have been catching up and I drove straight from the airport to Corey's where we watched five episodes in a row even though I'm so tired I want to die.

So honestly, if you haven't taken my advice yet, you can march yourself down to Target, get the first season, and get ready for the season premiere on October 5.

I also promise this blog will go back to being interesting shortly. I'm suffering from a wee case of writer's block but I think I'm getting over it.

American Idol

Can I please please be Tina Fey when I grow up?

See You Later Suckers

My sister came for the weekend.

And Labor Day means the tourists had their last hurrah and now we get our parking spaces back. So we threw a BBQ.

It was a really ridiculously awesome weekend.

Weird

I have one million things I want to say and none of them are coming out right.

i think it's because I decided this weekend that I'd rather err on the side of listening too much than talking too much.

Tight spot for a writer.

Come Take Advantage....

I have been mixing business and pleasure too much lately but it's because I have been working on this major promotion all summer and so it tends to bleed over into my real life.

It also happens to be a pretty killer promotion so I wanted to share it with all of you.

My company, maker of women's athletic shoes and apparel, will be giving away 50 pairs of shoes and 50 performance fit tee-shirts EVERY DAY for 50 days starting tomorrow. We have two running shoes and a walking shoe to choose from.

You can only enter once but you get entered again for every friend you refer who signs up too.

So click here and you can enter one day early!

Pony

Someone asked me a few weeks ago if I had to choose a theme song, what would it be?

Asking me to choose ONE song is almost laughable but I think I found one.

One Trick Pony

Yep. I think that's it.