Random progress (TasteBook, new job, etc...)

It's been a little bit since I've updated so I figured I'd take a few minutes here. The new job's going well. I can leave work having the feeling that I'm a part of something good which is obviously a good thing. The only thing I feel a smidge uneasy about is we have to finish our calls in four minutes which kind of sucks because I feel guilty cutting people off on their stories & can't really slow down on the speech that explains it all or answer too many questions. But, I've got to keep my ducks in a row. Three girls who started at the same time as I did (a week ago) have already been let go. I'll tell you that was a wake up call. I enjoy chatting with the girls that I work with & lately it's been slower so I've been able to get some reading time in. I finished The Undomestic Goddess & will probably pick up Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I'd gotten that from Autumn for Christmas last year & read about half of it. I guess I got distracted or something happened in life that I stopped reading it. It was interesting, so that is kinda weird.
I found a wicked cool site today Tastebook where you can upload all of your recipes to it & at the point you're ready to you can buy a cookbook of your recipes. it's a binder that you can add to, too. So if you want to add more pages (that look the same) you can add more. It costs money which sucks, but it looks really nice & isn't that expensive. I had a three ring binder with my recipes in it, but it's just been hard keeping them organized & looking nice, so I think this may be a step in the right direction.
I got my belated Christmas present from Autumn. It was great by it self & the fact that it helps me with #5 & #66 on the list. She gave me three new tops & a gift card to iTunes. I was itchin to wear some new clothes, so I wore them Wednesday, Thursday & Friday of this week. In my opinion I think they looked nice & fit me well. The biggest thing I need to work on is getting more classic pieces, though & build from there with other tops & accessories. I had way too much fun shopping for songs on iTunes. I'm gettin there to building up my music collection again. I had a really good sized CD case full of CDs a few years ago, but I'm not sure if it was stolen, borrowed & never given back or lost because I don't have any of them anymore.
The water drinking is going alright. I haven't really been able to get a full 32-64 ounces in, but I am trying. The soda ban is great so far. Really the only time I miss it is with a meal, but with that & working out a little more & watching what I eat a little more I might be able to start losing a few of these pounds I'm trying to get rid of. Oh, and I finally bought a bottle of vitamins.
One other thing that popped in my head when I was grabbing the List numbers for the labels. I made a wicked baby step on the wedding planning. I was talking to one of the girls at work, Mary Kate, and we were just chatting about all kinds of stuff. Rich & my relationship came up. I told her we're engaged. I really don't do that much anymore because when I do then they ask when the wedding date is & then I have to hang my head in shame and tell them October 1st, 2011. It just sounds sill because it's so far away. But, she was cool with that and then she asked if we had any details about it. I told her that I had always since I was a little girls wanted to have a beach wedding, but since moving up here & seeing the beaches I kind of rethought that idea because they're quite different than what I'm used to. After our first fall here that sealed the deal. The foliage is gorgeous. I was kind of still holding out hope for water near a foliage ful area. At my last job one of my customers brought me to their company website
& I adored it. Well, I made the mistake at one point of telling some of the girls at work this & then they asked me if I'd been there, and once again I had to hang my head in shame and say no, not yet. Well, Mary Kate put my worries aside a bit by telling me she's been there & it is GORGEOUS, so that made me pretty happy.
Oh...and I joined the

(details are here
) &

so maybe that'll help me keep on track with a lil community support. The new book on docket is

and you can read the cover flaps here. Just for reference the last book was

& here's a lil synopsis
of that.

Baby steppin

In the words of Bob Wiley, baby steppin, baby steppin, I'm doin the work. Im' not a slacker.  I haven't been able to "check off" that many items on my list this week, but then again it's 101 Things To Do In 1001 Days not 30.  I mean in reality this list is about self improvement of my quality of life.  Basically I'd say my list is split up into 3 categories

1.  a regular to do list of not so fun things (legalities, financial, home, pets)
2. things that are classically fun (my relationship with Rich, fun for fun sake)
3. in between (health & appearance, mental health and well being and intellectual furthering, cooking)
   

Like I said in my post Prioritization
I worry about money a lot. I mean a lot. I think a lot of it comes from guilt from past financial irresponsibility. I mean I wasn't really that bad, I just wasn't good, and I don't want to fall into those habits again. I've learned a lot from Money Matters message board
, and as my List shows I like Dave Ramsey\'s 7 Baby Steps
. Anyway the point of bringing that up was that I get wicked guilty when I spend money on things that aren't necessary (bills, groceries, gas, debt reduction, savings.) But, hopefully w/my new job (more about that in a minute) and not having so many payroll deductions like I had at Deluxe we'll be able to make progress and I'll feel okay with spending $ on some fun stuff, too.
I haven't been doing half bad w/flossing. I fell off the wagon a bit when I started work & am only at 64% success rate, but it should be okay. I've hard a few times that if you do something 30 days in a row it becomes a habit, so I'd say that first 30 days are the hardest and then it should be cake.
Bonus on my water drinking goal. I forgot that we had bought a replacement filter for the PUR water pitcher we have. So, that's one less thing I have to buy. I would still like to get a cute 32 oz water bottle. This one is so cute Victoria\'s Secret watter bottle. I hate the color pink, but I like the little motivational benchmarks on it like "Hey have a sip" on the top & "Drink Up Baby" almost on the bottom. But, until then I've been doing good at home & I'm going to try and find the lid to my favorite Starbux travel mug. It's silver sparkly & cute, but not too girly.
Drinking more water should hopefully make the soda ban (for two weeks ) easier. I even have a worksheet on my workbook for that. lol I'm starting today & it's ends conveniently on the last day of the month.
I finished Swapping Lives. Most of it was pretty good, but it got a bit whiny towards the end of their swaps, and wrapped up a little quick. I started book #2 of the 32 that i'm going for. The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella. Jane Green & Sophie Kinsella are pretty much my two favorite authors. They're both pretty much the same genre. I know I really need to broaden my horizons, though. But, I've got 30 more books to go, plus the 5 banned books, 5 from the New York Times Bestseller List, and 5 classics, so I think I should be good.
We used our gift cards that we got from Rich's grandmother for Christmas to Outback. I'm going to count this as our weekly date week. It was delish as usual. I have Phantom Gourmet\'s Guide To Boston\'s Best Restaurants book and I bought Rich the 2009 Entertainment Book for Christmas, and we've used a couple coupons out of the Entertainment book, but to be honest I think the only place we've been to out of the the Phantom Gourmet Guide is The Melting Pot and Fuddrucker's. Both not intentionally for the purpose of checking out restaurants in the book. The Melting Pot we went to for Rich's 25th birthday. I'd been to one of their franchises in Orlando with my friend, Steph, and her mom and her friend when we went on vacation to her timeshare back in 2003 (incidentally my last vacation.) I loved it all three courses. When I went with Rich it was good, but way too filling. I almost felt sick with how much I ate. You can't exactly get a to-go box. Fuddrucker's I'd never been to before. They had one in Tampa, but for some reason I'd never made it. We went to the one in Methuen on a whim. It's pretty darn good. A little on the pricey side for a burger and fry place, though.
The "Get a Job" item should be in some mid color between green & red, maybe yellow or something. I have a job, but it's only a temporary assignment. It's for five weeks. I'm actually pretty proud of it, though. Its The Citizens Energy Oil Heat Program or as some call it the Joe For Oil Program. Joe Kennedy, of The Kennedys (he's Bobby Kennedy's son) is a big part in this program that is grant funded to help those in need. It's a one time delivery of 100 gallons of oil. It doesn't seem like a difficult job, but it seems like it should actually have intrinsic instead of just financial rewards to the corporation I work for.
Anyhow, speaking of work, I've gotta weather the storm & get to BBW (Bath & Body Works.) The roads are apparently horrible, but it's time & a half.

Progress or lack there of on the list

So...today's the nine year anniversary of my dad passing away.  I always feel kind of weird about it.  I've always wanted to do something simple on the day to mark it, but not make a big deal of it.  I can't ever put my finger on what to do, though.  For me it, along with my mom's anniversary, my birthday & New Year's, always turn out to be a reflection on where my life is now & where I think (or where I think my mom & dad would want it to be & if they'd be proud of me if they were still here.)  I think that my list is a good way towards meeting my own expectations for myself, and what I believe my parents expectations were of me.  

I feel bad that this post is kind of a downer, but what do you expect?  Other than this post this blog has stayed pretty positive & I've enjoyed seeing & feeling that.  I had a blog on Xanga a long time ago, but no one was subscribed to it so it was more like a diary and kind of turned into a fill-in session to a really good friend of me who did actually follow it.  I've also blogged on MySpace, but a lot of the time when I look back they're very mopey & negative.  I'm really trying to look towards the future & make actions to make myself a better person.  I've also been struggling hard with comparing myself to others.  MySpace and Facebook can be a great tool to keep in contact with long lost friends & acquaintances, but it also can lead to lots of comparing yourself to others' online personas.  I know that everyone has had a different journey to where they're at, and that profile's aren't usually a 100% snapshot of a person's life and that if anything's going to be left out it would be the negative parts.  I guess I've just become more & more overly honest & open about my life and my feelings.

Anyhow, yeah...so I've so far succeeded with #8 (Flossing Daily) and I've been working on #22 (Reading...)  I've thought about #16 (attempt to give blood), but my diet hasn't been the best lately and I want to make sure I've had a quality meal before I go to maybe not pass out.  My dad was a multi-gallooneer, and I always wanted to give that gift as well.  The first year I was able to I tried.  We had a semi-annual blood drive at my high school.  I passed out.  First time in my life I'd fainted.  I tried again my senior year and same thing.  I've actually fainted just having blood taken for a blood test.  I'm not a squeamish person, or afraid of needles, nor am I anemic or anything of the such.  I have had blood taken for blood tests & when I had my bone marrow typed for a drive, and I did not pass out.  My guess is it's actually watching the blood come out.

Moving on, though.  I should be getting a pretty decent check Friday, so I'm going to get a few things to help with the list (a Brita filter for the pitcher we have, a BPA free bottle, more SuperFloss, some multi-vitamins, maybe some more music on iTunes, probably set some $ aside for the legalities section, probably go to play pool, and maybe work on wardrobe/lil black dress/workout clothes.)

Charting out the 101 things to do in 1001 days list

So, here we go.  I made a chart with the dates from Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 to Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 for the "A Habit" section, and saved it on my desktop (I have a very clutterfree desktop.)  So, basically I'm going to open the file every morning as a reminder of my goals & by the end of the night hopefully w/a little work be able to mark that I completed the goal for the day (drinking 64 fl. ozs., flossing, vitamins.)  I also included the aerobic workout and cleaning the house, but to make it easier for myself chart wise I have it daily, but made my "yellow line" 57%.  Meaning if I complete the goal less than 57% of the time I'm in trouble.  I also made a chart for going to the salon every other month, but that has only 15 months, so that was a bit easier on the eyes.  I also have a pie chart to the left of the date chart.  They say that doing something consistently for 30 days makes a habit.

So, far what I have started is, "#5- work on acquiring a classic wardrobe for work", "#8- floss regularly", "#22- read at least 1 book a month", "#45- get a job", and "#66- work on my iTunes library."  

#5- was started technically a little earlier than the beginning of the 101 project as I went shopping on Monday January 5th, after work.  I got a FABULOUS pair of black pants and pair of jeans.  Lane Bryant has a sizing system that's works with your hip to waist ratio.  Yellow is slightly curvy to straight, with little to no curve from the waist to the hips, red have moderate curves, and blue are curvy with small waists and fullest at the hips.  I fall into the yellow, which works because their pants fit my waist, hips/butt (or lack thereof), and legs (kind of, I mean it could still be tighter to fit correctly.)  I also got my first blazer.  It's black with tiny pink pinstripes.  I'm not really one for pink, but you can barely tell & the cut looks great on me.  I picked up a few more little pieces, a white tanktop, a new belt, a cute lil red top, and a fantastic bra.  I actually learned something in the process, too.  Did you know you're supposed to wear nude under light not white under light?  Yeah, and it works too.  

#8- I've been lax on.  Sometimes I floss, sometimes I don't.  I'm not consistent.  But, 1 day down, 29 to go to stick, right?

#22- Well...this one I also kind of cheated on.  I bought my first book of 2009 & the project on Dec. 7th, and started reading it on January 2nd.  It's not heavy reading by any means.  It's Swapping Lives by Jane Green, my favorite author.  It's brit chick lit at it's finest.  Okay maybe not necessarily at it's finest, but I like it.  It's not trashy, but it isn't deep either.  I think it still counts toward the one book a month goal.

#45- I'm making headway on.  I lost my job December 10th.  Since that date & even a little before I've been hardcore looking for a job.  I do not want to go back to retail or restaurants again.  So, I posted my resume on a few job searching sites, applied to a few random postings, and registered with a couple staffing agencies.  Okay, so a couple is technically seven.  I got some great feedback & critique on my resume at the staffing agency I went to in Boston last week.  I got a call yesterday afternoon about an temporary assignment in Andover.  It's only a little over five weeks long, but still it'll pay the bills.

#66- Rich had bought me a iTunes gift card not long after Christmas, but I hadn't been able to redeem it as my iTunes/QuickTime was being a pain in the butt.  Luckily my brother is a whiz with computers and was able to help me uninstall, and reinstall QuickTime and make sure that iTunes was good to go.  So, I added fifteen more songs to my library.  Yea!!!

I'd say I'm getting there little by little.  I have 1001 days afterall.