4 minutes - the perfect song

4 minutes – the perfect song

The last week or so I’ve been trying to piece together some thoughts for my next entry, and I think it finally came together in my head today.  Hopefully I can articulate as clear as it seemed on my drive home from work today!

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately reflecting on the last couple years.  It’s one of those paradoxes where it seems like time is both flying by and crawling.  So much has happened, and yet there is so much coming up.  As I thought about the last few years, naturally my mind went to the highest points and my lowest points.  I won’t touch on those specifically, but it got me thinking about how people tend to focus on how quickly time flies when times are good, as well as how they deal with adversity.  But then I started thinking about what sustains me when things are neither really good nor really bad…what do I live for?  Am I one of those people that lives from peak to peak, trying to avoid the valleys?  Do I find genuine happiness in my day-to-day life? 

When I think about what sustains me, my natural inclination is to point to my family, friends, and faith.  But then I started thinking beyond the obvious.  I love to run.  I love to learn.  I love to be outside.  I love puzzles.  I love movies that can make me both laugh and cry all within the same 90 minute period.  And I love music. 

Then I had my “a-ha!” moment for the blog.  Music not only sustains me in my day-to-day life, bringing me general happiness as I ride to and from work, spend time at the gym, or attend church.  Music also is something that makes those really great moments even better, and provides comfort in those really tough times.  I have a pretty eclectic taste in music.  While my favorites include country, latin, Christian rock, and classic rock, I also enjoy pop, hip-hop, musicals, and pretty much anything under the sun. 

This week I heard a couple songs on the radio – one that made me reflect on some high points in my life, and one that made me think about some of my more difficult moments.

“Rewind” by Rascal Flatts – this is a newer song by one of my favorite country artists.  In the song the artist is reflecting on a night so wonderful that he wants to rewind it and do it all over again.  I love the melody and something about it just makes me think of some of those super fun summer nights in high school and college that I just never wanted to end.  Every time I hear it on the radio I crank it up and roll down the windows and it just makes me feel happy.

“Get Back Up” by Toby Mac – a couple years ago I started listening to the Christian station in Columbus (104.9 The River).  I just wanted to give it a chance since I do enjoy Christian rock music.  I find a lot of comfort in this station.  The songs are uplifting, and the morning show is just good, clean fun.  It also gets me to work on a positive note.  This song talks about bouncing back from a difficult time.  I like it because it’s a broad enough topic that you can relate it to almost any situation – a serious medical issue, a bad day at work, an upsetting conversation, whatever it may be.  The story within in the song basically acknowledges that we go through tough times, and those times often change us, but that love heals.  I think I like it because it makes me feel like a human – that it’s okay that things go wrong – but it ends with a positive, hopeful message.

So there you have it – 2 songs, both under 4 minutes – spend the 10 minutes and check them out if you aren’t familiar with them already.  Music breathes life into my world.  It sustains me, and reminds me of the best of times, and gives me hope during the worst of times.  What are your go-to songs?  What song makes you get lost in time?  What keeps you going on those tough days?

Top 10 Highlights from a Fun Weekend

Top 10 Highlights from a Fun Weekend (in random order)

1.       Family of 8 - Getting to see my parents and all 5 of my sisters for the first time in a looooong time.  Feeling refreshed and excited for lots of big family milestones the rest of this year.

2.       13.1 Miles - Watching my sister Carolyn finish her first half-marathon ever.  Trained alone without a group while juggling so many other priorities, and to top it off she beat her goal time.  Rockstar! (or should I say Superstar!?)

3.       7 Months Away - Being asked (and saying yes) to being in my sister Aileen’s wedding this November.  I love family events and I’m sure this one won’t disappoint!

4.       2 Hours of Bliss - Spending time in the yard.  Even if it was just mowing, trimming and weeding, I love being outside and I take a lot of pride in our yard.  Thanks to a very rainy week, everything is looking fresh and plentiful!

5.       Party of 6 - Dinner at a new restaurant – Hudson 29 in Upper Arlington.  Yum!

6.       26.2 Hilly Miles - Watching all the runners in the Cincinnati Flying Pig this weekend.  Anissa and I knew 3 people completing their first full marathon (and on such a tough course!), and they all killed it.

7.       9am Sweet Treats - Morning cocktails in an open-air bar in downtown Cincinnati with Anissa.  While waiting for runners to finish, we may have imbibed a few mimosas and some Irish coffee.

8.       Winning 2-1 - Watching Anissa’s nephew Alex play soccer.  Great weather for some kindergarten soccer (and random playtime with the Drew and Aidan too!).

9.       4 Slices Please! - Shark tank and pizza for dinner tonight.  After a fun but exhausting weekend, some greasy pizza and lazy time on the couch with my partner-in-crime is just what the doctor ordered.

10.   10pm Bedtime - Early bed time.  The next few weeks are going to be busy, so getting to bed before 10pm (vs. the usual 11:30pm) is a real treat!

Sorry, no pics to share from the weekend.  I should get better at that.

Estimating

Estimating

Wow, it’s been almost a month since I last blogged.  Time flies, I guess!  I’ve been busy wrapping up my Spring semester at Ohio State, getting back into some wedding planning, and getting our yard cleaned up after a very rough winter.  It snowed a few Saturdays ago, but since then we’ve been pretty lucky and had some great weekends (and we definitely earned them the hard way over the last 6 months!).

So, for this entry my inspiration comes from Anissa.  We were talking one night after we both got home from work and she was explaining that her students were learning the metric system.  They were applying it to some estimating problems and we were talking about how some of them were getting tripped up.  It got me thinking about what a useful skill estimating can be in our lives, and what a great application it is of math skills.  I thought I’d share some estimating I’ve had to do in the past few months, and talk about how hard it can be!

Yardwork:  Anissa and I have been itching to get outside and clean up our yard – weed the gardens, remove branches and other debris, and mulch.  We started trying to figure out how much mulch we would need, and estimating came into play twice here.  First, how many bags do we need for our beds?  We ended up deciding to get 30 bags.  We haven’t finished mulching yet, but 30 still seems like a good bet.  But it was hard trying to figure out how much you’d need.  How high of layer of mulch do you add to each bed?  How much is in one bag, and how far will it go?  I hope we remember any lessons learned for next Spring.  We also had to figure out if we could get 30 bags into my car.  We figured it would be no problem.  WRONG.  It was tricky, but we did manage to get them all in there, including room for ourselves to buckle in.  HOWEVER, my car was sagging.  I was very happy we live so close to Lowe’s, because I probably should not have driven with that much weight in my back seats and trunk.  The lesson here?  Order from the Boy Scouts at church and get the free delivery!

Painting:  Anissa and I have been painting rooms in our house and have made a lot of good progress.  But, wow, it is some grueling work.  We have had to do 2 coats on every wall we’ve painted.  We started by painting our bedroom first, and this seemed tough at the time but after painting our kitchen, foyer, stairway, and hallway, I am very excited for another easy, 4-simple-walls room next.   We are hoping to have the entire downstairs repainted before our wedding, and we’ve got the dining room, living room, and family room left to go.  So, where does estimating fit into this picture?  We had very little context for how much paint to buy for each room.  We read some guidelines about how many square feet can be painted with one gallon, but it’s hard to estimate the square footage of a space like a stairway or foyer with so many varying sizes and shapes to the space.  We have pretty much just guessed, knowingly over-estimating because we definitely didn’t want to run out mid-project.  So far, so good!

Food:  I can never get this right.  I think subconsciously I have a fear of not having enough food at a given meal to totally stuff myself like a pig, because I consistently over-estimate.  Pizza?  A large is probably too much for 2 people, but a medium might be too little.  Thus I order a large.  Coke?  Better get the 40+ ouncer.  Out to dinner?  Well, if we’re sharing an entrée then clearly I need a salad and an appetizer on top of the free bread.  Buying groceries?  I’d hate to not have enough to pack for lunch all week – better get 3 bags of chips!  See where I’m going with this?  Maybe I need to re-read this entry before every meal as a reminder of how ridiculous I can be.

Time:  Where I’m weak at food, I’m strong at time management.  Anissa can attest to this – I have a very keen sense for how long it takes to get things done.  Work.  School.  Errands.  Gym.  House chores.  Painting.  Yardwork.  I don’t know if this skill is something I just inherited from some pretty organized parents and siblings, or if it’s something I’ve developed out of necessity (call it a psychic obsessive-compulsive thing, or a lifestyle requirement based on everything I try to manage).

What types of things do you find yourself estimating?  Do you ever those “a-ha!” moments where you realize something you learned in grade school is actually very useful?

My Grocery Addiction

My Grocery Addiction

Let me start by first saying that it is currently snowing.  It’s March 29^th and we have accumulating snow on the ground.  I know it snowed in late October so we have now had snow for a full 5 months.  I’m not opining on this, just documenting for the future when I’m whining about not having any snow on the ground!

Okay, on to the main topic.  I was up pretty early for a Saturday this morning to get through a ton of random errands and tasks, and as I was thinking through some of the more routine things like laundry and grocery shopping, it dawned on me that I am unusual in that I really enjoy doing laundry and grocery shopping.  I started thinking about why I like grocery shopping.  Here’s what I came up with:

·         It makes me feel productive without chewing up hours and hours of time.  I mean, who doesn’t like crossing things off a list?

·         I love all the quick math and trying to figure out if I can beat my budget and still get enough food for the week.  Some people get frustrated when they see a tag that says 3 for $5.  I like the mental math to figure out the unit cost and then analyze whether or not it’s a good value.  I usually get burned by toiletries – so expensive!

·         I love a good deal.  Coupons.  Sales.  And using coupons when items are on sale!  I think I embarrass Anissa sometimes when we grocery shop together.  I still buy a newspaper most Sundays and clip coupons (I know, I’m about 35 years ahead of myself here).  Sometimes I even go online looking for some.  At the end of the day it’s just a fun game for me to see how cheaply I can get some things.  My crowning achievement was a few years back.  I had a coupon for $0.50 off 1 can of Pringles.  Pringles were on sale for $0.99.  Kroger doubled my coupon and I was therefore paid a penny to take the Pringles home.  Booyah!

I thought I’d share a couple tips I have about how to get some good value at the grocery store.  But first I have to preface where I shop and why.  I do not shop at Walmart.  Not for any sort of moral reasons or anti-corporation sentiment.  I just think their produce is absolutely disgusting and the store is usually so crowded with rude people that the sour mood I have when I leave sticks with me all day.  I also do not shop at Meijer.  I probably should, but I’ve had some bad produce experiences that I have not yet overcome.  As my proportion of produce purchasing has risen, I had to stop shopping there.  But, they do double coupons so I may give them another chance.  I do not shop at Giant Eagle.  WAY.  TOO.  EXPENSIVE.  It’s also pretty inconvenient to get there and back for me; I think I have 3 Kroger stores closer to me than the closest Giant Eagle.  So living in Columbus, that leaves me with Kroger which is where I shop.  On average, it’s probably more expensive than Meijer and Walmart.  But it’s always clean, the produce is great, and the prices are competitive if you are paying attention and have some flexibility in what you purchase week-to-week.

So here are a few of my tips:

1.       Some foods that charge by weight are often great steals.  Bananas (I’m thinking we all know) are a great deal.   But, I’ve found Green Beans can be a huge value.  A pre-wrapped bag of green beans runs $2.50, but bagging your own usually runs about $1.25 for even more beans.  Sure, you have to wash them and probably cut them, but that’s a savings of 50% and they are probably fresher (probably even locally grown).  I also have found that cucumbers and squash offer a good deal of food for the price.  One weighed item that always seems outrageously expensive to me is grapes.  Why do they cost so much!? 

2.       Pay attention to the off-brand products available.  Kroger uses its own name as well as Home Sense for non-food items.  These are always way cheaper, sometimes up to 50% lower than the comparable brand name product.  I think Walmart uses Great Value as its food brand and Meijer may just use its own name.  I don’t think the off-brand products are always as good though.  I’ve had good success with most cereals (imitation Chex and Shredded Wheat), potato chips (Kroger brand is about half the price of Lays), jelly, and many household products like dishwasher detergent, dryer sheets, wet mops (think Swiffer), and disinfecting wipes.  I’ve also had success with Kroger shampoo and contact solution.  I will say that I don’t like Kroger peanut butter or Kroger vanilla wafers.  Any tips you have on off-brand items?

3.       Use coupons!  I’m telling you, if you spend a little time you can save some serious money each trip, especially if your grocer is doubling the coupons under $1.  Between sales and coupons, I try to reach a total discount of 20% off listed retail.  I usually end up somewhere between 12-17% off (it tallies it for me at the bottom of my receipt).  One caution on this – the discounts make you feel good but it could be foolish.  I always make sure I look back and feel good about how much I paid for an item. For example, if strawberries are $5 marked down to $3, that’s 40% off or a savings of $2.  But I’d still like to pay less than $3 for strawberries.

I will say, I have opportunities to learn more about the fuel perks and gift card perks.  I just need to invest a little time to understand how to best game the system.

So maybe if you think of grocery shopping as a menial task, or just a fact of life, try to make it a game for yourself.  See how much you can save.  Try to find the best values and see how little changes you make can help you get more food for your money!

Zip Codes

Zip Codes

Today I decided I would reflect on the zip code for each place I’ve ever lived.  People have a lot of pride about where they grew up and where they’ve lived, and I am no exception.   So let me take on a chronological whirlwind of my life.

44111 – Cleveland, OH

I was born in Cleveland, OH in the West Park neighborhood and lived there for the first 7 years of my life.  My sisters and I attended Our Lady of Angels Catholic School along with almost every kid on our street.  My mom actually went there as well – in fact, we had the same teacher for 1^st grade!  While I was very young when we lived there, I remember what a fun place it was to be.  Block parties, parades, tons of other kids to play with.  We also lived close to “The Valley” which was home to golf courses trails, and metroparks.  Sometimes we just went for drives down there because it was so beautiful.  We still have family that lives in this neighborhood and every time we visit we have to drive by our old house and I’m overcome with great memories.  Can you believe all 8 people in my family lived in this house?  Well my mom’s family of 9 lived there before we did, so that was even crazier!

Cleveland is where I grew to love snow.

75002 – Allen, TX

When I was 7 we moved to the Dallas area.  We lived “way out” but these days it’s a fully-developed super-sized suburb.  One of the things I remember the most about Texas was how friendly everyone at school was.  I was there for 2^nd-4^th grades and I don’t think I ever had a single enemy.  Gym class was legendary.  One unit we covered gymnastics and Allen Gymnastics (home to Olympic medalists) came to our school and let us play on all of their equipment – so cool!  I also remember one summer when our family friends The Stubners came to visit.  We went to a Rangers-Indians baseball game at the then-new stadium (for the record, Cleveland won 13-4, wahoo!).  We also hit up Six Flags over Texas.  It was maybe the best couple weeks of my life.  Overall, everyone in my family grew quite fond of Texas and the brutal heat.  One final note  - it did snow one time and guess who made friends quick since we had the only sleds in the neighborhood?!

43016 – Dublin, OH

After almost 3 very fun years in Texas, our family headed back to Ohio to live in a burgeoning suburb outside Columbus.  We lived in Dublin for more than a decade including 2 different houses.  We watched the city develop into one of the best places to live, and my sisters and I grew into adults here.  We spent the better part of our high school and college summers working long hours at the Columbus Zoo in the Food Court and Concessions groups (I think I worked there for 9 summers!).  We came to know and love the quirky things about our city, like the cement corn (look it up), the incredible Dublin Irish Festival every August, the swelling pride every time someone mentions Wendy’s (especially in the context that it’s better than McDonald’s), and of course Jack Nicklaus’ famed Memorial Tournament at the end of every May.  We embraced all things Dublin and a great deal of our friends and memories still reside there.

 

43085 – Powell, OH

After graduating from Miami University in 2007 I moved into my sister Maureen’s condo and lived with her for about 2 years.  This was great for me – cheap rent in a nice place and not far from work.  It was nice for her too – help with the mortgage and utilities!  Mo and I had so much fun living together.  I turned her into a Survivor (tv show) fan and we also applied to be on The Amazing Race.  She helped mentor me as I studied for the CPA exam and started my career in public accounting.  Those were definitely 2 very fun and memorable years!

 

28202 – Charlotte, NC

In 2009 my audit firm, KPMG, presented me an opportunity to transfer to the Charlotte office.  I had no lease, no girlfriend, and basically no reason to not take this chance.  So I accepted and promptly moved to Charlotte with no close friends or family.  It was probably one of the most uncharacteristic moves I’ve ever made because I like what I know.  I lived with a girl I knew from work who was also transferring.  It took a couple months but we gradually made several friends down there.  I loved our apartment; we were right in the city.  We could walk anywhere “uptown” – bars, sports venues, work, restaurants, grocery store.  The first Christmas after I moved, I came back to Columbus and had a Miami reunion with some of my college friends.  My good friend Amy brought her friend Anissa who I had met several times before.  We kind of hit it off, and later that week we had our first official date.  Well after I headed back to Charlotte we kept in touch and over the next few months things got more serious as each of us made the long trek to visit the other (she was living in Cincinnati).  Toward the end of my first year in Charlotte, KPMG was working me like a dog and I realized I didn’t want to be an auditor any more.  Additionally I missed my family in Columbus and wanted to be closer to Anissa (Columbus is only 100 miles from Cinci).  So I ended my short stint in Charlotte after only 1 year and took a job with Limited Stores in Columbus.

Night-time view of Charlotte from my roof deck.

 

43235 – Columbus, OH

Everything with Limited Stores happened so fast that I actually didn’t have time to apartment-hunt.  I signed a lease for an apartment I had never seen and crossed my fingers the day of the move.  It turned out to be a very lucky selection, so much so that I stayed there for 3 years.  It was close to work, affordable, and had an incredible pool!  After the first 2 years, my sister Amy moved back to Columbus from Dayton, and lived right across the street in another complex.  What was even better was that Anissa moved to Columbus at the same time and they ended up being roommates for a year.  Anissa and I went from 450 miles apart, to 100 miles apart, to 0.5 miles apart.  Life was good J

 43081 – Westerville, OH

And for the past 8 months Anissa and I have lived in our new house, located just a few miles north of our previous apartments.  It’s a quiet little neighborhood tucked away from the hustle and bustle the northern Columbus suburbs.  It’s close to everything and life is very convenient.  As you may have read, we are spending time improving our house and just settling down and enjoying life now that we are finally together.  And in about 4 months, we get married J

So there you have it, the run down of where I’ve lived.  It shouldn’t go without mention that zip code 13078 (Jamesville, NY) is where my parents lived for a couple years.  I never lived there with them but visited multiple times.  It’s a small town outside of Syracuse, right in the middle of NY state.  What’s great about the location is the proximity to the Finger Lakes, the 2^nd largest wine-producing region in the U.S. behind Napa.  There were actually quite a few fun little secrets about Central NY so I thought I’d live it an honorable mention.

We can't wait to enjoy our deck this summer!

 

Unrelated, I will leave you with this amazing sunset we caught on our way to dinner tonight.

Maybe this is Mother Nature's peace offering after the winter we've had.

100

100

Well it’s been a couple of weeks again since I wrote.  Tonight’s 30 minutes of time for me (see my last entry) are writing this entry.  It’s been an absolutely manic last couple of weeks.  School has really taken its toll recently as project deadlines loom and exams are going on last week and this week.  On top of that, last week was probably the busiest week of work I’ve had since I started at Victoria's Secret in September.  Tons of deliverables and presentations.  Fortunately things went quite well and I was able to catch up on some sleep this weekend.  One more crazy week and I should be in the clear for a while.  March should be good with food tasting for the wedding, Spring Break (no classes that week for OSU, yahoo!), and hopefully things will settle down at work.

On to today’s topic.  So I’ve heard people say they can never go to Target without spending at least $100, no matter what they had on their list going into the store.  I’ve experienced this myself, especially as a new homeowner.  But it’s not Target that’s getting me lately.  It’s Lowe’s!  We have a Lowe’s just down the street so we go quite often.  Anissa and I are like lost puppy dogs in there.  We can’t find anything and we pretty much have no clue what we’re doing (but we are starting to figure it out).  So I thought I’d share our latest trip to Lowe’s including what we bought that contributed to our $100 tab this time.

Initially, we just wanted to get a couple small sample jars of paint.  We’ve been testing colors in various rooms throughout the house and hope to start painting rooms as soon as next weekend.  We are so excited!  For our family room we are going for a peachy-beige-like color which should go well with the fireplace and our furniture.  In the kitchen we want a light green.  Unfortunately, the first sample we got was more like mint chocolate chip ice cream green so we are still working on just the right tone for that room.  Also, the kitchen is tarnished with 7 (yes, SEVEN!) oil paintings of what we assume are fruits, except the fruits portrayed don’t grow on the same vines (or vines at all).  We will have to prime these parts of the wall before we can paint them.

I am just impressed that the seller managed to get 7 of these on the walls of our kitchen.  I can't stand looking at them!

 

We are probably going to do some sort of tan or yellow color for the dining and living rooms (they are white right now).  We’ve settled on our colors for the bedroom with a very pale blue for 3 walls, and a darker blue for an accent wall.  It’s kind of amazing how quick we’ve landed on colors; now comes the hard part - actually painting!

It's hard to tell because the lighting in our bedroom is terrible, but we are going with the bottom right color for 3 walls, and the top right color for an accent wall.

 

Of course, 4 small jars of paint at $3 each doesn’t get you to $100.  So what else did we buy?  First, we had to buy a new grill cover.  This Saturday we were able to break out of our Ohio hibernation since it was sunny and 55 degrees.  I can now see my driveway, get to my mailbox, and not worry about making it safely out of my neighborhood.  Finally, a break from Mother Nature (she’s been a bitch).  We opened our blinds to the deck on Saturday morning and realized our grill cover was gone.  I searched the yard and it was nowhere to be found.  We did have some blustery winds (and a tornado 15 miles north of here a few days ago) so it must have just been whipped away.  We also picked up another full-size gardening shovel (thanks to Mo for giving us our first) and an 18-inch hand saw.  We’ve got some bushes on our side yard that think they are trees.  The following picture doesn’t do them justice.  This was from early spring and they actually ballooned even bigger by mid-summer.  Oh, and btw most of that grass isn’t even our yard (we’re the terrible neighbors!).   They need to go in a bad way, and we need to start cutting them down before the weather turns for good and they start growing/blooming again. 

These damn plants have caused us so much agony.  I cannot wait to get rid of them.  Any ideas on what to put in their place?  This part of the house gets very little sunlight...

 

Throw in some outdoor light bulbs and a refrigerator filter and you’ve got yourself a nice little tab there.  The funny thing is, I feel the same way I do when I leave Target after over-spending.  No regrets, I’m just excited for all the projects we’ve got coming up.  I can’t wait to start putting some personal touches on this house!

For the record, other places I generally go into with good intentions and can’t leave without spending more than I planned:  Macy’s, California Pizza Kitchen, Banana Republic, Marcella's and usually Kroger.  Where do you overspend?

30

30

This entry is going to be a little less numerically focused than my last.  It really just stems from another one-off conversation I had with Anissa.  We were on our way home from an errand (okay, you got me, we were headed home from picking up a pizza at Donatos) and reflecting on what a manic Sunday it had been.  We got up and at it at a normal hour, 9am, and it was just go, go, go the whole day.  So we’re in the car and I just start talking out loud.  I know Anissa loves me because instead of letting me converse alone, which can be dangerous, she usually reacts to the haphazard thoughts spewing from my mouth.  I asked Anissa if she thought we’d be any happier if we had a longer day, say 28 hours.  After some back and forth, we both kind of agreed it probably wouldn’t make us happier.  We’d sleep a little more, but also work more.  We would be expected to be even more productive and we’d still be stressed out.  Then Anissa said, “I wonder what would happen if we just had an extra 30 minutes; that would be a cool little experiment.”  And it got me thinking about an entry I wrote a few months back where I contemplate what I’d do with an extra 8 hours in a week.  It made me think, what would I do with an extra 30 minutes each night?  Or what should I let myself do for 30 minutes each night?  Well tonight, the answer is easy.  I’m blogging for 30 minutes.  I love doing it.  It helps clear my mind.  It’s relaxing. 

One other thing I have only (relatively) recently come to enjoy doing is reading.  Ironically, I started to really get into reading about a year before I went back to school for my MBA and now, I read so much for school that I actually cannot fathom the thought of reading anything more.  However, once I am done with school (hopefully only another 15 months!) I am really looking forward to getting back into it.  I’ve got a long list of books lined up that I’ve been wanting to start.  I am actually taking school off this summer for the wedding, so I’m hoping to squeeze in some quality time with the Kindle.

Now let me side-step this topic to provide a little more context.  The past month or so has been a rough one for me.  Anissa and I were both very sick for most of January.  No joke we were pretty much under house arrest for several days each and there were more than a few days of work that were hard just to get through because of how crappy we felt.  Couple that with a new year, wedding planning, a car accident, some personnel changes at work, and a large course-load of evening classes and suddenly I have absolutely no time.  This all really hit me hard this past weekend.  Anissa and I had pre-Cana all day Saturday this weekend and then did chores/errands/school Saturday night.  I knew that I had to spend at least a solid 10-12 hours on schoolwork on Sunday.  Knowing what Saturday and Sunday would hold, this left Friday night for Anissa and I to do dinner and watch a movie, which was a fantastic night.  But what did I not do this weekend?  I didn’t work out once and it’s been well over a week now since I’ve even done an at-home workout.  I didn’t go to church.  And I had no time for most of our house stuff (simple cleaning, let alone getting to any projects or things that need fixed).  I was sitting on the couch last night at 10pm wondering what the hell happened to the weekend.  It’s a horrible feeling going into the work week knowing you are so far behind in absolutely every aspect of your life: work is piling up, school is bearing down, you feel unhealthy, and you can’t live up to any personal commitments.  This might be one of the lowest points I’ve had since I started back to school. 

So let me bring my pity party back to the main topic.  I am committing to myself at least 30 minutes each morning or evening to do something for myself.  To read.  To write.  To pray.  To think freely.  To stare aimlessly at the TV.  To just lay on my back with my eyes shut and reflect.  One of the things I learned from the priest who will say our wedding mass in July, Father Charlie, was that Anissa and I need to put our relationship first, even before any children we might have.  This might sound selfish at first thought.  But how can we take care of our children if we haven’t taken care of ourselves?  Upon further thought it makes a lot of sense.  So my 30 minutes is an attempt to put myself first amidst the chaos of my current life.  An attempt to bring some sanity to a manic day.  A chance to relax and breathe.  I deserve it.  And so do you.