A couple weeks ago I participated in an Alzheimer's Memory Walk at Seattle Center. My office formed a team and, even though I didn't know anyone on it, I decided to join.
This is what branching out looks like for me. Be proud.
In the end it turned out that a friend on my client team was also participating, so I didn't have to branch out too much. Baby steps, people.
They sent out this picture to the group today and it makes me laugh. Just a hodge podge of people, not looking very enthused and me front and center. Could I look more out of place? The event was obviously to raise money for the Alzheimer's Association with each participant doing the fundraising. My attempts were meager, but THANK YOU to everyone that donated. I walked for my grandma and your support really did mean a lot to me.
One perk of my job is that sometimes I get free stuff. Sometimes they are little things, sometimes big things. And last week, it was cupcakes. Unexpected, (undeserved), delicious cupcakes.
As I was carrying the box back to my desk from reception, I noticed the sticker announcing some improvements. Does that make you uncomfortable too? Moist is definitely on the The List and my brain couldn't fathom that word getting any worse.
Moisty=Worse. Moisty-er=THE WORST.
Although, they weren't kidding around. Those cupcakes were "more moisty-er" than ever before.
I got a birthday present in the mail a little early this year from my brother and sister-in-law. Yes, Internet, that is a can of Rob Dyrdek TAG body spray.
+I have a friend returning from two weeks in the wilderness (or a farm in Massachusetts, either way) where she's been without the internet (see what I mean about it being the wilderness?) and I received an email from her today mid-travel that expressed her hope that I had been blogging in her absence. Oopsy-daisy. Maybe this will make up for it.
+I've been OBSESSED with the US Open this year. To the point where I've been watching matches every day, following @usopen on Twitter, TIVOing matches I'm missing, checking the site for updates and even braving the treadmill (as opposed to my bestie the elliptical) so I can rock the personal TV screen and watch while I run.
And maybe I cried when Melanie Oudin won her 2nd AND 3rd matches. I was just so happy for her!
And I wish Nadal would play without a shirt on. Just thinking out loud here....
+I had good Labor Day weekend. Not quite all I had hoped it would be, but still a solid performance. Having two days off of work alone is enough to make it worth it.
+The weekend included making jam and seeing two chick flicks [Time Traveler's Wife and The Proposal]. Please don't judge me for seeing The Proposal three times in the theater. I can't help it if Ryan Reynolds is the DREAMIEST DREAMBOAT THAT EVER LIVED! I can't.
+The weekend also included a Brandi Carlile show. Bonus! This particular show was a fundraiser for the band's foundation, Looking Out, and included a Q&A session which I quite enjoyed. She also only played fan requests that had been previously sent in. One of which was, Happy, which I've been dying to hear since I saw her perform in in Boise in 2007. I think it's in my BCB Top Three songs. I know you think it should be getting old by now. I can assure you, it's not.
+I also got to hit up Bumbershoot, thanks to my fantastic roommate who had the ticket hook-up. It rained all weekend, but while I was there the rain held off, which I was super grateful for! I saw The Cave Singers, Lenka and Metric.
+The Cave Singers might be my new obsession. And I maybe developed a bizarre crush on the lead singer (on the left). I mean, he was wearing a hot pink hat, rocking a full beard and a dirty tank top...BIZZARE. CRUSH. But apparently I can't resist a man with a harmonica.
+Metric exceeded my expectations. Let's just say there was an ample amount of fist-pumping. I've been singing Help I'm Alive non-stop for the past two days.
+Tonight at the gym I was watching the Federer/Soderling match while running and started clapping after a point. I made a mental note to try not to act crazy in public. Let's just save the crazy for at home, okay?
+I stopped by the grocery store tonight and was hit on by the checker, who I'm assuming is 18 years old. Really, Universe? The best you can do for me is 18 year old bag boys?
+I'm participating in the Alzheimer's Association Memory Walk on Saturday at Seattle Center. If you'd like to make a donation to support the Alzheimer's Association, you can do so on my personal donation page.
+Really, the event that I've been thinking about most these past few days is the arrival of my niece and nephew. A text message at 4am is just confusing no matter what the message is, but when it announces that the "babies are here" a couple months early, it's even harder to grasp.
They were born at 29 weeks and we've seen the power of prayer working on those tiny ones. And it amazes me how much love I feel for them without having met them.
Elizabeth with her daddy. William holding his mommy's hand. Try and tell me this isn't the most adorable thing you've ever seen. Please keep them in your prayers! They're just special little ones and my eyes well up every time I look at pictures of them.
+The adventures continue this weekend with WICKED on Friday. I'm going to try my hardest not to sing every word of every song, but I can't make any promises.
I love weekends in general, but I particularly love four day weekends. Having today off was delightful. I slept in, got an oil change (only 6 months over due), grocery shopped, watched tennis and made jam.
My first, and only other, attempt at jam was a couple years ago in SLC with Lindsay and a girl in our ward. It turned out great, but it was something that seemed too difficult to attempt on my own. A few days ago Lindsay came home proclaiming that Friday was the day for jam.
And so it was.
So we headed to Costco and bought some supplies. This time around we went with freezer jam, which is apparently the "cake from a box" of the jam world. I'm not above taking shortcuts so it was fine by me. It only took an hour or two and resulted in jars of jam that look delicious. I'll be able to tell you how it tastes in 24 hours.
First of all, I got a bad haircut last week. When DON'T I get a bad haircut? The end.
Moving on the to real reason for this post: I have a new calling.
I successfully flew under the radar for over a year with the easiest calling in the world, but unfortunately those days are over and I am now also an FHE group leader.
Remember how I don't love FHE? I guess someone felt like I needed to start feeling the love.
I have a list of things I wanted to do this summer. (PS - Summer is pretty much over and I don't know if I've done any of them.) One of the items on the list was flying a kite but I couldn't convince anyone to do it with me. So I took this opportunity of being in charge of FHE to force my group to do it with me. Brilliant, no?
I was singing Let's go fly a kite! to myself all day, but it turns out you need a kite and wind to make it happen. Of which we had neither. Three stores, no kites. So I guess it didn't even matter that there was no wind.
All in all, kind of a huge failure.
But I'm determined to get myself, and possibly my group if I'm feeling ambitious, excited about Monday nights. We'll see how long this determination lasts.
Last Friday at work we played Win, Lose or Draw for our monthly happy hour. Not to brag or anything, but my group was in charge of this particular HH and it can only be classified as a success. The prize for Best Artist was the jumbo pen you see in the picture below.
I LOVE this pen. I didn't win it, but every time I see it I laugh. For a long time.
So imagine this...
You're in a conference room full of team members reviewing a report over the phone with your client. As you reach your portion of the presentation you begin to speak and out of the corner of your eye you see a co-worker pull out the jumbo pen and begin to take notes with it.
Like it's totally normal.
Everyone else in the room starts to laugh silently and you're left to somehow find a way to 1) avoid laughing and 2) not lose your train of thought and sound like an idiot in front of your client.
It all worked out in the end, but considering the fact that my sister and I can't even get through a dinner prayer without one of us starting to laugh, this was quite an accomplishment.
Me: I'm nervous. I feel like I'm going to puke. Les: But you look FANTASTIC today! So if you do puke, at least you'll look great doing it. Me: Thanks. Les: That's what I'm here for.
PS - I didn't puke, pass out or accidentally say something inappropriate today on the panel. However, I did do a lot of talking with my hands and say "um" several hundred times (I wasn't counting, but that sounds about right).
I spend a significant amount of time each day listening to music. I have my headphones in before I walk out the door in the morning, on the bus ride to work, most of the day at my desk, on my way to grab lunch, the ride home, at the gym and music is typically on in the background of whatever else I'm doing in the evening.
I can't claim to know anything about music, technically. I don't know what makes it good or bad. I can't produce any combination of sounds that anyone would want to hear. But, I love it anyway. I love how it can pull me out of a funk or push me deeper in. How certain songs automatically call up specific memories. Or the feeling when an entire room full of people are singing along with a performer.
That was a big build-up for me to say this: I worry sometimes that I let the rhythm take me over.
Yeah, you heard me. Bailamos, or something.
Exhibit A: The coffee shop in my building plays a lot of music I enjoy and one afternoon while meeting with a sales rep (PS - That's not weird. We have A LOT of meetings there.) I found myself distracted by the song playing. Pretty soon I was completely ignoring the man talking to me while tapping my feet and was on the verge of mouthing the words when I snapped out of it. Close call.
It's a legitimate concern. I fear that one day I'm going to be at my desk and start singing out loud without realizing it. Like Marcus in About a Boy when he accidentally sings in the middle of class. With his eyes closed.
But hopefully when (not really "if") that day comes the song won't be "Killing Me Softly". Although, when I take it to the bridge in the Fugees version there's really nothing quite like it.
My job gives me the opportunity to work with a lot of different people from a slew of web properties and last week I got an email from one of the publishers that I work particularly closely with. Now, getting an email from them isn't out of the ordinary; I send/receive hundreds of emails on a daily basis. But this particular email was a little out of the ordinary. It's purpose was to ask if my boss and I would be willing to participate in a panel discussion and present the "agency perspective" for this company's internal sales training.
But you see, public speaking and I aren't really friends. I actually make fun of public speaking on the playground and steal its lunch money. Or does public speaking make fun of me on the playground?
Regardless, my first inclination was to delete the email and pretend I had never received it. But then I decided to be an adult....so I let it sit in my inbox for a few hours (or overnight) before responding.
Eventually I responded and said "No problem! Of course I'd be happy to help!".
I didn't mean it.
My boss and I jumped on a call this morning with the guy heading up this training to review the format and some of the questions we'll be asked. During the course of the discussion he casually mentioned that there would be roughly 60 people in attendance and three of us on the panel answering questions.
I CAN'T FLY UNDER THE RADAR WHEN I'M 33% OF THE PANEL.
As soon as we got off the call my phone rang. It was my boss and our conversation went something like this:
Me: Hi. Boss: This is going to put you out of your comfort zone. Me: Sure is. And I'm freaking out. Boss: It's going to be fine. How many people are on the team you work with over there? Me: Five or six. Boss: See, it's just like them...times 10. Me: Exactly. TIMES TEN!
And then she gave me a pep talk about how it's going to help me grow, which is all well and good, but doesn't change the fact that I've been on the verge of vomiting for the past two days because I'm so nervous.
I don't know what came over me, but I was in a particularly good mood today. Maybe it was just a rebound from the serious funk I found myself in yesterday. Who knows? Either way, I was feeling (and sharing) the love.
I was sitting in the second hour of church, waiting for class to start, when a friend walked in with a new-ish haircut and I said something along the lines of, "Have I told you yet how cute your hair is? Because it is." And over the course of the next five minutes I proceeded to tell Pamela how much I liked her sweater and Cara how adorable her notebook was.
Cara then turned to me and said, "Who are you and what have you done with Stephanie?".
What? A girl can't compliment where a compliment is deserved?
Then in the third hour I spent five minutes flagging another girl down to tell her I liked her bag. Cara then accused me of passing out compliments like "golden tickets". Here's the thing, I meant every one of those compliments. And if I'm thinking them, why not share them?
But then I started thinking about how out of the ordinary my behavior seemed to my friends. FRIENDS. People that I see on a very regular basis and spend significant amounts of time with. If they were so shocked by my friendliness then clearly I'm doing something wrong.
For the record, I don't think I was acting out of the ordinary. Everyone was just looking exceptionally good today.
This afternoon I was informed by my cube neighbor that Kate Hudson and A-Rod were shopping at a store downtown. My immediate response? LET'S GO. Her response? Looking at me like I was a moron. For some reason I then felt the need to explain (as if it would make things better) that it was one of my goals in life to see a celebrity being photographed by the paparazzi. I've been to Sundance and people like me chasing Emily Blunt down the sidewalk (true story) do not count. Just to be clear, I'm not talking in a dangerous, stalking while driving recklessly way, but in a normal way.
You know, normal stalking. No? Fine.
Needless to say, I'm pretty sure I racked up a couple more Crazy Points in the eyes of my co-worker today. Meh.
I decided to take this inside scoop to someone who I knew would appreciate it. Lindsay. So I sent her an IM relaying the info. Her immediate response? Why aren't you down there? You could fulfill your dream of seeing the paparazzi!
And that, Internet, is why we are besties.
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In other roommate related news, Lindsay is trying to convince me to move to BFE. I mean, it's OUT. THERE.
I thought I had made a good case when I reminded her that I take the bus to work and was positive that there would be no convenient routes. But then she called me (from upstairs) to tell me the exact route number, where it would drop me off and how long it would take, which incidentally is less time than my current commute. Bust.
Possibly the most notable is that I didn't fall asleep on the way to OR from work. Not even a little bit. I guess 9 hours of sleep will do that for you. But apparently I didn't learn my lesson because I'll be clocking 6.5 hours at most tonight. Oh well, there's always the bus ride in the morning, right?
I saw Ashley Parker Angel. Remember him from the band O-Town and his hit show on MTV There & Back? When I say "hit show" I mean "reality show train wreck that was only watched by me, my brother and my sister-in-law".
Yup, it was him. Or someone that looked like him in business casual.
I also saw my future husband. He got on near the mall with a tackle box and finishing rod. Kind of weird, but since learning how to fish was on my list of things to do this summer I figured this could only mean that we were perfect for each other. Plus, he was totally adorable.
But then he got off at a random stop in the middle of the bus route in a non-residential area where I usually only see homeless people get on or off. This of course led me to believe that fishing was not just a hobby, but a way of survival and that I might walk past him one day sleeping on the sidewalk or peeing into an empty milk carton.
I was a little disappointed with SYTYCD this season. I never had a favorite dancer (unlike last year) and I didn't fall in love with many of the routines. While I was kind of disappointed overall, there were a few gems.
I'm not a dancer. I've never taken a dance class (unless you count that tap class in college, which I don't). I don't know anything about what makes one dance better than another. But every time I watch this routine my eyes well up.
And I can't help but love everything Wade choreographs, especially this one.
The event was obviously to raise money for the Alzheimer's Association with each participant doing the fundraising. My attempts were meager, but THANK YOU to everyone that donated. I walked for my grandma and your support really did mean a lot to me.
