Hard Worker

Spencer and me back in the day

I've always been a hard worker. While all my friends were just plain ole geniuses and while my little brother could easily outsmart me in just about anything, I had to work dang hard to be able to get the good grades I got. All through high school, college, and grad school, I worked hard. I like to think it's one of my strengths. However, I have learned that working hard for school and working hard for a living is different and working hard for a living is much harder!

I've been having a hard time with work since I got back from Christmas. Maybe it's the winter blues, maybe it's getting over that 6 month hump at a new job, maybe it's the fact that the entire month of January starting the day I got back from vacay was absolutely nut-so, and maybe part of the problem is that I haven't been working hard enough.

I've been chatting with Dan a lot lately about work and he knows how much I'm struggling with it and staying motivated, but the other night like the good husband he is, he gently put me in check. He asked if me maybe the reason why I feel like I haven't improved in two months is because I haven't really been working all that hard. And you know what, it's probably true. After my crazy month in January where I was just reacting to crisis after crisis, I just sort of gave up trying to really plan anything, trying to do something new, trying to improve. I stopped working hard. And this has hurt me and my clients.

I feel horrible that my weakness has hurt other people, but hearing that from Dan is what I needed to pick myself up and get motivated again. Not that I'm going to become an amazingly hard worker again over night (this stuff is hard!) but I now feel more accountable for the lack of progress with my clients. I can't put it all on them. I believe in change and that change has to start with me before my clients are going to change. I don't think I can be a therapist if I don't believe in change, and I had better practice what I preach!

I am valuable as a woman

some of my favorite women-folk. they are basically all awesomely smart, nice, driven, incredible gals!

"You were not created to be the same as men. Your natural attributes, affections, and personalities are entirely different from these of a man. They consist of faithfulness, benevolence, kindness, and charity. They also balance the more aggressive and competitive nature of man. The business world is competitive and sometimes ruthless. We do not doubt that women have both the brain power and the skills to compete with men. But by competing they must of necessity, become aggressive and competitive. Thus their godly attributes are diminished and they acquire a quality of sameness with man. The conventional wisdom of the day would have you be equal with men. We say, we would not have you descend to that level."

-President Ezra Taft Benson

I love being a woman. I love when I hear a prophet/apostle/church leader/anybody! speak about the divine attributes of women and how essential they are to humankind. I feel like the world frequently is about total and complete equality in any and all things and the fact of the matter is that we'll never be equal. We as women have some amazing gifts and talents that are better than men and vice versa. The really wonderful thing about the whole situation is that we balance each other out! There needs to be sweetness, tenderness, kindness...etc. in this world and in developing all of those qualities it does not make a woman the weaker sex. It takes strength to empathize with someone's pain and suffering and it takes courage to feel emotions whether positive or negative. Women basically rock, in our own special way and I am incredibly grateful for it and the reminders I receive from church leaders.

quote stolen from here because, well, it's a dang good quote!

Half Marathon

So a while ago I mentioned that I'm training for a half marathon, and currently I'm still on track! I'll be starting week 6 this week which is still 35 min walk/run. I wanted to try and do a half marathon because I wanted to make sure I was really motivated to work out and I had a goal other than a general "loose weight" or "look good" sort of thing. Since starting my training I've gone to the gym a minimum of 3 times a week which is waaay better than the 1 or 0 I was averaging from Thanksgiving till New Years.

I really liked this training schedule because it started out so slowly/easily. 20 minutes of walking the first week? I can totally do that! 20 minutes of walking and running, that's not too bad either! And so on and so forth. It's a longer than normal training schedule, but that's perfect for me. Slowly but surely wins the race, right?

Not that I plan on winning any sort of race whatsoever. My goal is just to finish before they start closing up, hopefully it will be around the three hour mark... hopefully a little less but I want to give myself some leeway : )

The race is in Boston, but it's not the official Boston half marathon/marathon. It's the Boston's Run to Remember. It purpose is to remember fallen policemen, firemen...etc. I'm really excited because there are a bunch of girls in my ward doing it, my nyc bff Miss Julie Mack is doing it and my MOM is flying out to Boston on her way to NC and is going to run it too! So it's just gonna be a big party of runners and it'll be good times. And it's a good excuse to go up and see Boston a bit.

So that's my current big exercise goal that I'm having fun with. How are you staying motivated to work on those health goals?

A Night on the Town!

For Christmas, Dan gave me tickets to see the Lion King on Broadway. Amazing, no? So that was our exciting Wednesday night. Currently there are still some fancy restaurants that are doing Restaurant week (which was the last week of Jan and first week of Feb). So we decided to have a real night on the town and go all out!
I sadly didn't take any pics of us not in our winter coats which is too bad cause we were all gussied up!
We decided to start the night out classy by taking a bus into the Bronx to catch an east side train.
We went to Le Cirque (it's actually just the bottom part of the building, see the entrance with the small red sign? You know it's fancy when there's hardly a sign for you to know where the dang entrance is!). Our friends Ashley and Jonathan went there on Monday and told Dan they were still doing restaurant week. The food was pretty good, but I never feel like when I pay that much for food (even with restaurant week discounts) that it's THAT good. You know? It was all ity bity and we thought we'd have to stop for a hot dog before the show, but it did end up being enough to hold us over : )
In front of Lion King with my tickets!

Mufasa!
Waiting to go to our seats, and oh so excited! Dan got amazing seats, 7 rows back from the stage, in the middle section, on the aisle (so we didn't have to climb over everyone).

so tired by the end!

It was an amazing show. That entrance at the beginning makes the whole things completely worth it, and the rest of it is awesome too. It's just crazy to see how they've brought all of these animals to life on stage and how beautiful it all is.

Thanks Dan the Man for an amazing fancy pants night! I loved it!

Washington Square Park

On Monday I had a girl day with Julie and Zaneta for J's b-day. We met up and saw When in Rome (cute movie, but don't make a guy see it) and then shopped a little at H&M (I got a suuuper cute pair of black pants, Thanks Z for pointing them out! and some different style tights to help get over those winter blahs). Z then left to do some chores (dang chores!) so J and I went down to Washington Square Park to take pics of the arch.
Vwa-la! Zee arch!
Then we were attracted to the apartments/brownstone-y buildings next to the park. Remind you of a certain Will Smith movie? Think vampire-ish beings, think darkness, think a deserted NYC, think Maddie had nightmares for 2 weeks after seeing it...
Did you guess I Am Legend? Cause then you'd be right! But I'd still loooooove to live in one of those apartments!
Then the sun started to set perfectly with the arch
I love me some back lighting
I also like having a friend to take a picture of me as proof that I really do exist!

We then continued our day on downtown 5th avenue which is a black hole of spending happiness for me. Anthropologie (purchase made there with Christmas gift card given by the husband of all people!), Banana Republic, J.Crew, and Gap (purchase made there because they were having a 40% off everything sale and I got sucked into the idea that 40% sounds so close to 50%). I had to text Dan and warn him to not freak out by how many bags I had when we met up for dinner.

It was a superb day. Julie and I discussed how it'd been way too long since we'd just wandered around the city, took pictures, and made random purchases. I love those long leisurely days that at the end of you feel satisfied for having done everything and nothing all at the same time. And J-Meezey is the best person to have those kind of days with : )

PS. Thanks J for having a birthday, thus giving me an excuse to go shopping and spend way too much money. Making purchases for myself as a way to celebrate your birthday, I think YES! xoxo

Miss Julie's b-day bash

Monday night we celebrated Miss Julie Mack's day of Birth. I heart my sweet Julie Mack and thus was extremely happy that I was able to have the day off (thanks Presidents!) and play all the live long day with her. That night we met back up with Miss Zaneta, and were joined by Dan, Kami and her boy Chris. We ate at 5 Napkin Burger in midtown, and um... that burger is gonna rank up there. Served with caramelized onions, melted ooey gooey gruyere cheese and a warm toasted bun, it is amazing, and amazingly messy (hense the 5 napkin name, clever huh?).after being fully satiated
Oh NYC BFF, how would I have survived the last year and a half without you!? It makes me really sad that I was a wimp and didn't live with you until the end of March and I had to go and get married to that boy and leave you because I like you an awful lot. And now you live so far away in hip mid-town, and I kind of understand because now you're closer to work which is good (and I guess mid-town is better than our ghetto), but you're soooo far away from me!!! But we are still friends because...

1. I need girl time away from Dan and you are my go to girl!
2. We have a lot of the same opinions and you validate me : )
3. You like to take pictures with me and pretend to be a tourist and you're not embarrassed to do so
4. You are happy happy happy which makes me happy happy happy!
5. I don't know who else I'd confess all of my inappropriate thoughts and opinions too and not get smacked
6. We can go for weeks without really talking and then play and it's completely normal
AND
7. you're my NYC BFF and nobody could replace that!

and if I ever give birth and my mom isn't here yet, you have to come and help me because I'm pretty sure Dan is gonna pass out on the floor or I will try and kill him... and you'd probably help me see some reason.

So basically I need you in my life for a plethora of reasons and I'm really glad you were borned... because all babies want to get borned!

xoxo

The Molest-stash

Last V-Day, Dan shaved off his beard. Carrying on that tradition again, on Sunday he decided to shave it all off.
We call this the molest-tash. Why? Because it's nasty. End of story.
oooo ain't dat seeeeexy?

He's all mine ladies! All mine!

Our lovers day celebration

On Saturday afternoon, Dan went to the temple and did baptisms with the new converts in our ward while I snuck away to Ashley's who helped me make pretzels dipped in caramel and chocolate because Dan had loved the ones they gave us at Christmas (such good home teachers!). When I got home Dan surprised me with tickets to see Valentine's Day that night after we went out to dinner. I tried unsuccessfully to get him to take a nice picture with me...
I tried 5 times and this is the best one. The gopher face. Awesome Dan.
On Sunday night I made a fancy dinner which included Pioneer Woman's amazing Grilled Ribeye Steak with Blue Cheese Sauce with Onions accompanied by some roasted russet potatoes and a healthy salad to try and balance it out.
Again, trying to take a decent picture but do I get one? Sorta : ) Gotta love his predictible unpredictableness... if that made sense?

It was a nice V-day overall. I sure do love me some Danny boy!

Happy Love Day!

I hope everyone is having a happy love day! I think the point of Valentine's Day (other than the commercialism) is to remember and appreciate love. It doesn't matter if you have a significant other (and I know I'm saying this while definitely having one, which isn't fair) the focus is on love in all forms. Loving your family, friends, even complete strangers--just showing love to others and yourself for that matter. Anyways... Go show someone some love! Love makes the world go 'round, right?

xoxo

Sometimes I'm lame sauce at this wifie thing...

BYU graduation in 2008. Aren't we all tender and in lurve?

Sometimes I have a hard time remembering that Dan does sweet things for me. I get in one of those horribly mean moods where he can do no good. Like last night. I wasn't very nice to him, and I knew I was doing it and I knew there was absolutely no good reason and he knew it too. Then right before bed I looked at my blog to see if there was anyone I could stalk and I saw my post from Thursday. A day ago about how wonderful he is and the sweet things he does. And I thought, "Maddie, you're lame sauce."

Dan is a self professed hater of scheduled tender times like Valentine's day and probably in July our anniversary (just because I'll hype it up to an unattainable level and he'll try and make me be a little realistic but I don't like people stomping on my fairy land parade! Especially when I know I'm wrong, gosh darn it!). I know this fact and yet still when those tender times come around and he doesn't talk at all about what we're doing and he gets that uber annoyed look on his face when I bring it up, I get my panties in a twist and then have one of those nights were I'm just a meanie to him, the poor boy.

But at least this time I had proof on here that even during this past week, he's done at least two cute/sweet/nice things for me without any prompting. Now aren't those unplanned, unasked for cute/sweet/nice things so much better than the forced nature of scheduled tender times? uh, that would be a definite yes!

Snow Day!

Wednesday was a snow day! All NYC public schools were canceled on Tuesday afternoon due to the impending storm. Meaning Dan had the day off. I canceled my appointment for the day and did paperwork at home. It was a really nice relaxing day to say the least! We met up with another friend for lunch and on the way home I took some pictures...
Dan all bundled up with his dino hat of course
Me all bundled up in my super long NYC winter coat.
What we saw coming out of the subway...
Little park by the subway
Trying to cross the street
I had to clear up all of the pictures because the snow made them fuzzy
Our street, even the trees are coated!
Our building
Snow covered NYC is the best. Everything is quiet and muffled and it looks so soft and clean... at least until it gets all muddy and brown and nasty and just becomes a nuisance : )

Needless to say, it was a lot of snow and I was actually kind of happy to see it. I've gotten used to there being snow in the winter time and we've only had one other snow storm where it actually stuck for a couple of days. This poor Cali girl is turning into a snowy winter girl : ( I gotta go some place warm!

Dapper Dan Man

A few weekends ago, Dan's mom drove us all around New Jersey and we picked some things up at Costco and Ikea (probably two of the most time/money wasting stores that I adore). We picked up this little chalk board doo da (a la Julie Mack) for the kitchen. I wrote I heart you, and when I woke up the next morning (after Dan had left) I had a sweet message waiting for me. : )
Yesterday (Wednesday) we had a snow day. All NYC schools were cancelled which meant Dan didn't have to go to work and I cancelled my appointment because my client was coming from far away and just did paperwork at home. Dan said he'd bring me my breakfast and I expected just a bowl of cereal, and this is what I got! : ) a bowl of fresh fruit, oj and cereal, and it's amazing what you can do with a cookie cooling rack and a placemat huh?

I sure do love that man!

Super Bowl Party 2010

We hadn't had friends over in a while so Dan the Man decided to throw a super bowl party which means, he wrote a witty invite while I cleaned and cooked for two days : ) He did help clean a little bit, that good man o mine.

I get really excited to cook for people, but at the same time I'm nervous as all heck that it will be bad. For dessert I wanted to make Pioneer Woman's cupcakes she had on her site last week. She used her texas sheet cake batter, put some hershey kisses in and then dunked them in a delicious ganache. YUM YUM!
The ganache waiting to be heated up again
Yummy yummy cupcakes ready for the oven
Mmmm mmmmm! Too bad my first batch was burnt on the bottom. I have no idea why, but I didn't want to serve burnt cupcakes. So I used a box mix for dark chocolate cake, put the kisses in, and dunked them in ganache all over again.
I think those turned out even better! The dark chocolate cake mix was absolutely perfect with the sweeter kiss inside
For dinner I made my mama's chili. I like hearty chili while Dan likes spicy. Too bad when I cook, I'm probably going to make what I like! I made a loooot which means we've been eating chili all week and I now have a large supply in the freezer. Always good for those days I don't really wanna cook.
Our friends brought over appetizers. Ashley's 7 layer dip was amazing, Scott's wings were perfectly spicy, and his lemon bars disappeared. Thankfully Lindsay brought over some veggies with hummus to combat all of the sinfully delicious food we were chowing down on.
And we watched the Super Bowl a little bit too. This was probably one of the most fun super bowls for me. It helps that there was good food, good friends and the game was short : )

I want, I want, I want

I have been having some major "I want to go do some heavy duty shopping to make me feel better" thoughts floating around. I've resisted thus far mostly because we live near no major shopping areas, I work in a ghetto shopping area, and I'm more able to resist spending ridiculous amounts of money online than in store. I don't know why, I think it has something to do with having to pay for shipping and what if it comes messed up and I have to return it...etc. etc.

But these are some of my wants right now.
A cute pink ipod shuffle to accompany me on my half marathon, engraved with the date and mileage of course (I know running for 13.1 miles isn't a big deal to some people but being a person who has only ever run a 5K at the very most in one sitting... it's a big freakin deal!)
buying oodles and oodles of tights and lots of fun colors (most of which I will probably never wear because I have to be all professional and ish)
Getting this sexy candle for Valentine's day. It sounds like it would smell sooooo good and if the pioneer woman says it's yummy, then it's gotta be right?

I've also been pining away for a dslr camera. Looking up used ones on amazon, reading reviews... I want one!

Anyways. Random whiny post. Maybe I'll go shopping this weekend and feel better : )

Vegetarian

Nope, I'm definitely not vegetarian. Not by a long shot, but I like trying out vegetarian things to see if they're just as good as the more caloric meaty versions I sometimes eat. Last week I tried out these chicken nuggets by Boca Burger. I made some honey mustard at home and accidentally made a ton. This turned out to be good because these nuggets had absolutely no flavor. I even baked them in the oven, not the microwave version and they just were not good. Then tonight I added their meat crumbles to my spaghetti sauce and it turned out pretty flavorless and somewhat nasty. Edible but I won't be buying them again.

I've tried a lot of the Morning Star products and I really like them. Their meat crumbles are good, and I like using their bacon for BLT's. They also have very yummy corn dogs : ) Too bad my supermarket up here in Washington Heights doesn't really go for that sort of thing!

Maybe someday I'll try going vegetarian. But it just seems like a lot of work and having to really watch what I eat. But we shall see maybe I'll try it for a week : )

The TV

For the past couple of months, I've been doing research on HD-TV's. I say "I" because Dan has done no research. This is his big thing he's wanted to buy and I've been doing all of the research. How do I end up getting stuck in the research position, I'll never know, but I did. For a long time I was staunchly in the 32in or smaller position regarding getting a new TV. I didn't want a big ole honkin TV looking ridiculous in our apartment. I just didn't really think size mattered. Of course to Mr. Thomson it was of the utmost importance! And what did we end up getting this last weekend????
Mr. Thomson putting together the new TV stand. Making my living room a wreck again.
See that big-a box?
Yeah that one?
That has a big-a TV in it with some big-a instructions
And that is one happy happy boy : )

We've used a lot of our wedding gift cards and money for things for the apartment that I particularly like. Like kitchen stuff, decorating stuff, etc. etc. So this was his big thing he got to get out of the wedding dinero. And he can't stop talking about it : ) I love it when my boo's happy.