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!