Elusive Ink

Currently Listening
Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?
She & Him



Well, I took the entire week last week off. It was a good week, and the weekend was particularly fantastic. Tiffany drove up on Monday and spent the week, and despite the fact that we'd never met in person before - we hit it off immediately, as if we'd grown up together. (In fact, Nathan was shocked to find out that it was our first meeting after her week here.) We enjoyed some relaxation with the hot tub, and massages --- as well as some craziness in downtown Leesburg with some vintage hats, a big yellow bear, a camcorder, a spontaneous rain downpour, and a random Target trip to get a multitude of sugar cereal, oreos, and milanos.


Grace and Stephen joined our party of two on Thursday, and after crashing for a little while Grace, Tiffany, Mom, and I went to get pedicures, which was fun. (Also turned into a spontaneous trip to Target to buy "Apples To Apples" and then we went on a failed Tequila adventure. That night we stayed up FAR too late spontaneously dying Tiffany and Grace's hair.




We spent all of friday in DC where Nathan was able to get off early for the weekend, and Ian joined us mid-day. We were all SO HUNGRY that after picking Ian up we stopped at a random metro stop (which just happened to unfortunately be in the business district) and ended up eating pizza because there was nothing else closeby. Then we headed to the Spy Museum, but since Nathan and I had been before we decided not to spend another $40 going back in, so we went across the street to the National Portrait Gallery. We'd planned on going to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, but it ended up getting too late - so we went back to the house where Mom had made spahgetti and we played more Apples to Apples. Oh, and that is officially NOT my game. I felt like a total dope and didn't "get" half the jokes or pop culture references.









Saturday was Luau-day, we spent all day preparing: beginning with a whirlwind trip to Target and Costco. We were expecting several local friends to join our fun, and were surprised when no one that RSVP'ed ended up coming. It was still possibly the best party I've ever had or attended, though. We ended up remixing the party playlist and the six of us made it a good time, despite no one else showing up. (Including some epic videos of the macarena, and Grace and Tiffany doing the Soulja Boy dance.)





Unfortunately, vacations don't come without consequences. This week has hit hard. I can't believe it's already Thursday. Just hoping I can get through Today and Tomorrow at work. I had a bit of a tumble (on a boat?) somewhere in the midst of the fun last week so I've been kind of sore in multiple places this week. I've decided to ignore it, though, as of this morning. Nothing I can do about it, life goes on. I regretted being a bit of a bum Monday and Tuesday, catching up on sleep (and not much else) and letting some other stuff I needed to get done slip. Yesterday was my first day back to work after my vacation, and it went surprisingly fast. It wasn't a pleasant day, I was pretty grumpy all day because my leg and wrist were hurting and we got a five pallet shipment of nearly all cast iron. I was looking forward to coming home and relaxing and getting some laundry done, and walked in to my Mother in a really bad mood. I have this bad habit of blaming everything on myself even when I haven't been around all day, then Mom mentioned something about the laundry and I freaked out because I'd left a load of Nathan's laundry in the dryer. I had left the laundry where I had planned on picking it back up in the evening when I got back, on the false assumption that Mom wouldn't have time to work on the Laundry yesterday. Sooo...there were no empty hangers in the Laundry room, and she had to do my boyfriend's Laundry. I know that contributed to her frustration, but was finally able to convince myself that it was only a contributing factor. So, I decided since she'd had a bad day we should go on a goodie-errand run. Nathan and I headed out to get some goodies, and I spontaneously stopped at Bloom to get some Belgian White Chocolate Macadamia coffee creamer since that's Mom and my favorite and Target stopped carrying it. Then we went to find a car wash, but it was closed by the time we got there. Neither Nathan or I had eaten dinner so we went to Kobe and were going to grab some sushi to-go, but the grumpy sushi chef was refusing to make anymore for the night. We stopped at Wal-Mart on the way back because I wanted to look for a movie, and ended up picking up some sweet tarts for Mom. All of these stops ended up meaning that, we failed in getting the manufacturer's star off the front window, and got home too late, Mom had went to bed. Just the topper to a really sucky day. Hungry, my leg and wrist killing me, pointless errands, dirty vehicle, and five pallets of shipment. (We did manage to finish that shipment though, despite the fact that two coworkers have the flu and the other has strep throat.)

I've done really good this week at eating right so far this week, I've gotten down to half a cup of coffee a day, and the only "slip" I've had is a piece of carrot cake the other day. (Hey, it needed to be used up before it went bad!) I bought a battery for my pedometer, which I've found does keep me more accountable for making sure I'm active. I average abot 8000 steps a day so far, but that isn't including going running because I haven't been able to the past several days. I'm actually thinking about putting my graduation money towards hiring a personal trainer, ida lee has a pretty good deal for five sessions and I think it'd be a really good jump-start, to learn some things I can't find out through my own research and have a fitness plan customized to me. Going into a gym by myself and trying to figure out the equipment is kind of daunting, but if I had a plan and knew what to use and the best safest ways to use it I would definitely be more inclined to take advantage. Plus, I'd get that initial motivation.

Part of my aversion to going to ida lee to work out is that I don't like driving. It makes me nervous. I really need to get my permit - I drive a vespa right now, and I just feel so SMALL out on the road. I avoid driving myself to work, and try and get a ride as much as possible because I get a knot in my stomach every time I think about going over in the outlet mall traffic. People around here are so careless already, I almost got hit once trying to turn into my driveway. I was turning from the right side of the road left into my driveway, WITH my left turn signal on (trust me, I checked) and this dude tried to pass me on the left and get around me right as I was accelerating to turn. Brilliant. But I've just decided that fitness is worth it, plus I can always bike, I need to get better at biking.

Anyway - I just finished some fresh fruit, cottage cheese, eggs, and am going to grab a piece of bread before I head down stairs to get ready for my day: dentist, bank, UPS store, work, and bringing home a 13 quart cast iron dutch oven for Mom tonight.

More later.
-Lindsey

Currently Listening
Jesusland
Ben Folds




After a very pleasant weekend, it's Monday again. Funny how that works. It's been a busy few weeks around the house, but not too stressful. Nathan arrived about a week and a half ago, and it really is great having him here. Despite the challenges of adjusting to that daunting thing called "change", we're both so happy to finally be able to spend some time together. We went together to see the new Star Trek in imax last week, it was truly stunning. I left wanting to see it again. Other than that, we've been enjoying just having time to do mundane things together: running errands, doing dishes, sitting together and reading, etc. So far, so good.



I was very proud of myself for completing my first two week menu for the entire family last weekend. It's going well so far, we're halfway into it and there hasn't been too much complaint about my choices. I realized how hard it is to balance healthy foods, with economical choices, and complicated recipes with simple meals the kids can easily throw together. I came in a little overbudget, but not too bad. I decided to try out some of the coupon/moneysaving tips I've been reading about and realized it's a lot harder than they make it out to be! I had almost twenty coupons and...only saved about $5. I have a feeling it would be easier I wasn't planning for 9 people, but it's all a learning process and I'm really enjoying the experience. I figure if I can learn the best tecniques to do it now, for 9, then when I'm married and have my own kids it will be a cinch.

Aside from menu planning, I've not been doing much at all, working on building my new website (elusivephotodesign.com --- but there's nothing there yet!), and planning our Luau! I am so very excited to be seeing friends from all over the US, and the week will be a blast. I relenquished kitchen duty for the luau, because I was beginning to get very stressed about trying to make an authentic hawaiian feast for 40+. So, I'm making two cakes, and concentrating on being the photographer. That's it. I'm proud of myself.

I've been really focusing on a few things in particular lately: learning to accept help, and learning that it's perfectly fine to be content in my life as it is, and do "nothing" for a while (work part-time, enjoy baking and doing laundry) until I feel led to pursue something concrete.

I am content, but had been beating myself up that I wasn't actively pursuing something important. Mostly because I was worried that my parents would feel I was being lazy, and continued to feel pressure from friends asking me "aren't you disappointed that you aren't going to college this fall?" Honestly, I'm not. I'm very at peace with my decision, and pleased not to be starting off my life in debt. I'm working steadily towards my career, and more importantly - I'm gaining life skills, and home management skills that will be invaluable to me as a wife and mother someday. I feel like I have my priorities straight, and am really glad that Mom helped me to see that it's perfectly fine to relax for a while.



I spent the evening last night making a "rainbow cake" as a test run for Sophie's birthday cake. I didn't frost it, partially because I didn't want to waste the time/ingredients, but mostly because we're all going to be sick of cake soon. I will be doing some marathon baking during the next few weeks, as we have four birthdays and a luau that need cakes. (Maybe cookies for the luau?) I'm making a chocolate spiderman cake, another rainbow cake, a zebra cake, a carrot cake, a cheesecake, and a chocolate sheet cake. I'm guessing I won't be having a slice of them all, (would be kind of counter-productive to trying to live and eat healthier) and the kids' birthday cakes will be TINY cakes. I may not make a cake for two or three months after July.

Now, I should go get ready for work. I need to run by the bank to deposit my check before I go in, and would like to rotate the laundry again before I leave. I'm down to two loads, which is always a good feeling! I am going to try to break out of the Monday blah's and be miss optimist today. We'll see how it goes.

...trying to convince myself to go to sleep! It's been a busy week or two, and I just can't seem to get my brain to STOP for two seconds to allow myself to sleep. I am dreading going to work tomorrow which is contributing to my insomnia.

Oh well. Time go go sleep. I do want to blog though. Tomorrow.