Groundhog Day

Along with the phrase, "doing twice as much and only getting half as much done," I have heard the words "groundhog day" a lot in the last six months. If you have not seen the movie, which features Bill Murray, it basically is about a man who repeats the same day over and over. Much like most of us have been doing for the last six months! I was making my coffee the other day and it hit me hard for some reason and I thought it would be fun (or extremely boring) to go over what a normal groundhog day entails these days. 

I may not be quite as groundhoggy as some, as I have been going into the office since day one, but I still do get that "every day is the same" feeling! Here's what a day in the life looks like. 

3:30 am (yes, you read that right): get up

3:30 am - 3:50 am: bathroom break, brush teeth, make coffee and breakfast, eat, get lunch ready

3:50 am - 4:30 am: study

4:30 am - 4:40 am: work on journal (this is something I have been doing each morning for 10 minutes)

4:40 am - 4:50 am: read blogs or work on blog (another 10 minute/day goal)

4:50 am - 5:00 am: get dressed, let the cat out, pack lunch, fill water bottles with ice

5:00 am - 5:20 am: drive to work

5:20 am - 2:30 pm: work

2:30 pm - 3:10 pm: drive home (takes about a half an hour but sometimes longer with traffic)

3:10 pm - 4:00 pm: chores (water plants, empty dishwasher) and make/eat dinner or snack

4:00 pm - 6:00 pm: study (or run on non-study day)

6:00 pm - 7:30 pm: read books, catch up on news, do chores,  research vacations that ultimately get canceled, etc.

7:30 pm / 8:00 pm: bed time

Then repeat! Seriously, these days a trip to the grocery store is like a vacation, and a vacation is...well, what is a vacation? 

Are you experiencing this phenomena? What does your groundhog day look like? 

Read More

An Average Day in the Life of Liz

I have seen a few of these blog posts floating around and I thoroughly enjoyed reading them. I knew I definitely wanted to join in on the fun and write "a day in the life" blog post. 

That was until I realized how damn boring my life is Monday through Thursday. My weekends vary so much and I write about those every week, thus I wanted this post to be about my routine during the week. 

I have to preface by saying; control yourself. Do not get too jealous of my life. 

Varying between 6:15-7:00 AM, I wake up. I put in a positive message so every morning when my alarm goes off I will feel invigorated and ready to start the day. Except that never happens. I detest waking up early. When my alarm goes off every morning I hate my life and want to throw my phone across the room.

Once I am able to pull myself out of bed, I stumble over to the kitchen tripping over Marty approximately 4 times as he eagerly awaits his morning treats. I then take my Glutamine and slowly feel myself come back to life. 

I make up my bed (literally, I cannot function if I do not make up my bed. It will haunt me all day if I leave it unmade), wash my face, and then do my makeup and hair in the kitchen while watching the "Chelsea Lately" and "Watch What Happens Live" from the night before. (I am cynical today; "Chelsea Lately" ended last night and I am so heartbroken. For four years, my morning routine has been watching her show while getting ready for work).

After, I eat breakfast, get dressed, then I am out of the door. It takes me 5 minutes to drive to work -- my office is 2 miles from my home. Most mornings I dive right into work, but then some mornings I need a pick-me-up. I am not a coffee drinker at all, but some mornings I have been having some because I am so tired.

After I make my coffee and water, I check the mail, then get settled at my desk. I turn on my favorite station on Itunes radio for music, check my email, then make a list of important tasks and things to do for the day.

Next, I meet with my direct boss-- the president of the company. We go over his daily agenda, upcoming travel, events, and other related things. I then him what is going on with the office, employees, managers, and my current projects. Once he and I finish with our meeting, I am usually involved in other meetings. 

By late morning, I am back at my desk processing invoices, working on personnel files, creating company blog posts, and answering emails. We have visitors, clients, and lunch meetings on a regular basis so I run errands a lot. Whether I am depositing money in our different bank accounts, picking up lunch, purchasing a sympathy card, birthday gift cards, creamer, or a personal errand for my boss, I am out and about often. 

My afternoons are often spent away from my desk. Our office takes up 75% of the 4th floor of the corporate building so I run away all day delivering messages, getting pulled into impromptu meetings, putting up the endless supply of items our office always needs, telling someone where to find an extra pen, reminding people the sky is blue, listening to the daily problem of the coffee machines, fixing 1 of our 15 printers, etc.

At 4:15-30, I excitedly hop into the elevator down to the main lobby where I go to the bathroom and change into my gym clothes. Then I am off to the gym! I immediately train after work and my workouts are normally an hour and a half.

After the gym, I take the long 30 second drive home. Once I walk through the door, my appetite is hulk like so I immediately inhale my post workout meal. As I am refueling, I will sit down to check emails and write down thoughts, blog ideas, and things such as that.

Once I am sane again, I unpack my bags, feed my starving cat because I am a horrible mother, and pick out my work outfit and gym clothes for the next day.

I then shower. Once I am out of the shower, I start to get tired. That is when I settle down for a bit of TV to try and unwind and quiet down my mind.

Throughout the next hour or so I may go back to work on my computer some, make my last meal of the evening, play with Marty, and watch a movie.

Between 10:30-11 I get into bed and indulge in a little reading before I call it a night.

The end! 

Read More

A Day In The Life

It annoys me when people who have not posted in a while start of a post by saying, "I know I haven't posted in a while, but..." or "it's been so long since my last post". It should be obvious if people are paying attention, but most likely, not as many people noticed as you hoped/thought. So I am not going to do that.

Having said that, I feel like every time I think about writing a post, the enormity of what has happened since my last post makes me hesitant. What do I even talk about? A lot has happened. Do I recap it? Do I just skip it and jump to the present? Where do I even start? I feel like in the past few months, a lot of other things have taken over my life, and now posting does not seem as important. Don't get me wrong; I WANT to post. I want to have things to post about. To be honest though, although I am busy, I am not very interesting lately, and my brain is pretty much useless. Therefore, that is why I am going to do a quick "day in the life" post, so years later when I look back, I can remember what a busy/trying/exciting/crazy time this was.

4:21 am: The alarm goes off. Sometimes I hit snooze and am reminded again in 5 minutes how tired I am and how much I do not want to get out of bed.  Usually I just get up. Why prolong the inevitable?

4:22 am - 5:10 am: Shower, eat a bowl of cereal, down a cup of coffee, and put on a pair of black pants and some sort of top. Study for about 15 - 25 minutes. **FYI, I got a new job which requires me to be licensed and there is a lot of studying involved. More on that in a bit.

5:11 am - 5:59 am: Walk to the bus, commute, study some more, walk from the bus stop to work.

6:00 am - 3 (or 4) pm: Work. I started this new job about 5 weeks ago and it has been a lot of learning new things, new terms, new processes and procedures, new software and new rules. I am also the "new guy" again, the one who people wonder about when I am roaming the halls. A typical work day involves a lot of spreadsheets and computer work, some phones, some handwriting orders (I know; who does that anymore) and some operations/organization items.

4:00 pm - 5:30 pm: Go to the gym, work out for about an hour, walk to the bus. I injured myself (Achilles) a couple of months ago, so have been doing more elliptical, bike and weights instead of running as much. **However, I do have three races to recap, including Boston, a 100k race and a 50 mile race that kicked my butt in a big way.

5:30 pm - 6:15 pm: Commute, more studying, walk home.

6:15 pm - 7:30 pm: Shower, water the garden (the tomatoes are looking great!), make/eat dinner.

7:30 pm - 8:30 (or 9) pm: Study. Try not to fall asleep.

9 pm: Bedtime. Hopefully.

You can't really get much more boring than that, can you? In fact, as I read over this post, I am falling asleep... So, yeah. The days are pretty packed right now, and not really with very fun stuff. I average about 2 hours of studying a day plus about 6 - 12 hours on the weekends. My exam is on July 7th and then if when I pass the first one, I have to take another one, which is as of yet unscheduled. Basically my summer is shot.

Hopefully soon I will post a couple of race recaps, as well as some opinions on micromanaging, tips on how to achieve having a successful garden and a dirt loving dog at the same time and some funny stories about my roommate's dating life. Until then, happy June!

What have you been up to in the last month? What is your average day like? Do you remember what it was like to be the "new guy"?

Read More

Will Work For Food

I am excited to say that I got through Hell and high mileage, that is, the high mileage week that was last week. I ended up running 6 days, which isn't ideal, but it included two short 3 - 4 mile lunch time runs, which are a great way to get out of the office and see the gorgeous weather. So those ones don't even count as work.

View on my lunchtime run.

However, Saturday WAS work. 20 miles on an already dehydrated body on a hot day was not the best thing I've ever done, or the smartest. I blame Roger, the 70 year old man who kept filling my wine glass on Friday night. You have to watch out for those old guys; they are sneaky. The more wine he poured, the more I lamented about how I was going to be hurting the next day (as I cheerfully swilled wine from the glass). When I woke up on Saturday not quite feeling 100%, I knew I only had myself to blame (and Roger, of course) so I bucked it up and put on my shoes.

The run was long and hard. The end. Normally afterward, I am Starvin' Marvin, but this time, I was only so, SO thirsty. It carried over into the next day, when I ran a trail race (100% better than Saturday's run! Recap later!) and had brunch afterward but wasn't really that hungry otherwise.

Then Monday rolled around, and the beast reared it's ugly head and screamed, "feed me, Seymour"! This happens quite a lot, where my rest day is also my "eat everything you can put your hands on day". So I thought I would do a quick rundown of what I usually eat on a normal day when I training (actually this list is what I ate on Monday, March 25).

5:45 a.m.: Steel cut oats with banana, sunflower seeds, almond milk, chia seeds, flax and coconut. Coffee.

8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.: 2 - 3 cups of coffee

9:30 a.m. (or 10 if I can hold off): Apple, some almonds

11:15 a.m. Salad with apples, grapes, almonds, sweet potatoes, garbanzo beans, quinoa and spinach

Breakfast salad?

12:00 p.m.: Lentils with rice

1:30 p.m.: Brussel sprouts with sesame oil and salt (lots of salt)

2:30 - 3:30 p.m.: Orange, carrots, celery with hummus, grapes, a mango, pirates booty, nori/seaweed snacks, trail mix (and anything else I have in my secret snack drawer at work), an applesauce

5:30 p.m.: more brussel sprouts, more lentils and rice (I was eating up left overs)

7:30 p.m. Corn chips with homemade "red pepper & hummus salsa", cous-cous salad with asparagus and orange bell peppers

8:30 p.m.: Greek yogurt with honey

In looking over this list, I realize a couple of things. One, I didn't really eat a lot, just a lot of times per day! Also, I didn't eat any meat, which is fairly common for me anyway. Also, the breakfast salad would have been really good with Craisins. Just saying.

Do you ever have days where you just can't stop snacking? What is your weakness / your go-to snack food? Are you hungrier the day of a big activity, the day after or both?

Read More

A Day in The Life: Finding Free Time

Lately I have been feeling a bit like I don't have time for the things I like to do. I know that I have definitely been blogging less. So I sat down to try to figure out if I am managing my time badly, or if one thing has taken the place for others or what is going on.

5:30 Alarm goes off.

5:45 I actually get up.

5:45 - 6:10 Get ready for work, eat breakfast, get dressed, etc

6:10 - 6:30 Internet time: blogs, pay bills, return emails. You can see why my internet presence has been diminished lately.

6:40 - 7:10 Walk to carpool, wait for car, ride to city, walk to work (morning commute). During this commute I really don't have time to do other things, as I am usually chatting with the driver.

7:10 - 4:00 Work. I usually take a half an hour walk somewhere in the middle of all this, in order to get some fresh air and exercise during the day. I am also going to start going to the gym 1 - 2x per week on my lunch break. In that case I will take an hour for lunch and go home later.

4:00 - 5:00 Commute. This takes a little longer than in the morning, since I take the bus home and there is more traffic. Also the walk on either end is a little longer. Each day for my commute, I walk about 2 miles total. I also try to read on the bus ride home, which is about 25 minutes. This is sometimes the only chance I get (make) to read each day.

5:00 - 7:00 Get dressed for a run, get ready for a run and then go running. Lately my runs have been anywhere from 1 - 2 hours long since I am in the height of Boston training (last week: 58 miles).

7:00 - 8:00 Cook dinner, eat dinner, make lunch for the next day.

8:00 - 8:30 Shower, get ready for bed

8:30 - 10:00 Free time. Lately I have been trying to use this time to read, but I have been so tired, so I admit that I often have been catching up on Top Chef or the like. Some days I also use this time to make big meals for the week, or to do some more internet chores. However, I have even been too tired lately to blog or comment on blogs.

The Verdict? Maybe I need to be more specific about what I do during my free time hours? I find that I feel guilty if I don't "do" something productive but I feel tired sometimes if I do. Also, I think running has been taking over, but it's something I like to do, so it's not like I am giving up things I like to do when I am running. I am just doing less of the OTHER things I like to do, I guess. Which is okay. I just feel like I want to curl up all day and read once in a while.

The other thing is the TV. I have been putting it on for background noise during "free time" and then I end up watching it instead of doing other things. I need to either get over feeling guilty about it or stop doing it. "Poop or get out of the ocean", as a lady at work is fond of saying. Don't ask me what that even means.

What does your typical day look like? Do you find that you have enough free time in a day? If so, how do you do it!?

Read More