So, I haven’t done a work update for quite some time. Here’s the latest:

This job never gets boring. Honestly – there are extremely few dull moments in this program. There are some very long days, but I think every job has those. There are tough moments, but, again, I think every job has those, too. The thing is, things are constantly moving, there is constant room for improvement, so it just doesn’t get boring. And that’s my kind of work environment.

We did a work personality test for the team about a month ago. It’s a variation on Jung’s work – kind of takes things up a notch, if you will. Instead of the letters that Jung’s personality test uses, you have colors. The idea is that everyone has every color in them, but, at work, you might naturally lean towards one over another. The colors: red (fiery red; will make decisions on the fly, plow right through the project); blue (cool blue; needs information to make decisions, analytical); yellow (sunny yellow; always about the team, getting everyone involved); and green (all about the individual relationships, the mentor). As one might imagine (and probably hope – after all, we’re market researchers), there’s a very strong element of blue on our team. I, however, was the only person on the team to be predominantly red. As I read my in-depth review to Rich, he said, “You should tell your manager that they didn’t need to hire someone to tell them that about you – I could have easily come in and tell them that!” Among some of the more descriptive phrases: tends to be argumentative; needs to remember that there are other ways to accomplish a goal than just theirs; needs to stop and smell the roses.

There are phrases on these building blocks we got, too. Red’s? Be brief, be bright, be gone. We all agreed that was a little harsh!

This team is very sugar-powered. That’s part of the reason for so much baking. We have cupcakes about once a month – and will find just about any excuse to get them. We have a team lunch every other week – we just get together and chat. It’s not like we don’t do that anyway, since we work in an open workspace, but it’s nice to have a “formal” get-together time.

The people I work with around the world are amazing. The past six months, I’ve learned a LOT about working with a truly global team, including cultural issues that may affect how you work with people. It’s a fun ride.

So, there you have it – a little update on work life. I can’t believe I’ve only been here for six months – it really feels like it’s been a lot longer, though in this case, that’s a good thing.

For some reason, tonight, I decided to do a BUNCH of baking. We’ve been baking more recently – being on a team of girls who all love chocolate and sweets is lending to that trend. But tonight, what I thought was going to be sweet bread ended up just being…white bread. But, hey, it was in a fancy lookin’ braid. And it was still pretty good. Just…not what I expected, especially when I was already baking my nearly weekly two loaves of whole wheat bread.

I also did something more than just tacos or stir fry for dinner – pork chops with an apple-raspberry sauce on the side and veggies. I started subscribing to Taste of Home’s Healthy Cooking magazine, and I’m finding all sorts of awesome ideas and recipes…and I only have one issue so far!! It’s actually kinda fun to be in the kitchen now – and even grocery shopping is getting to be a bit more enjoyable. It’s not buying the same stuff every week and then staring at the freezer/fridge wondering what on earth to do that’s a little different.

For my cycling friends – I met a nother couple of cycling gals from church the other day! They were talking about rides they might be doing this year, starting this month in the Mt Vernon area. So – one more impetus to my getting back on the road! I’ve been picking up running again, too – did 4 miles total last week (2 miles a day – treadmill). It’s more like a jog, but it felt SO good to run then cycle. It’s making think of duathlons in the future, and it’s given me a new goal. I’m aiming to get up to 3 miles without dying, and within 30 minutes. That’s going to take me awhile, since I’m currently jogging 2 miles in about 24 minutes. I’ve never been fast. Even when my sisters and mom and I would go running 3 times a week, I still didn’t always get 3 miles in half an hour. Now and then, yes, but I had to be in a zone. This time, I’m aiming for consistency.

In that vein, I decided to see how well I could do cycling. I was surprised – I managed to do 5 miles in 20 minutes! Woohoo! Of course, that was indoors, on a spin bike, “flat roads,” but I was still pretty proud of myself. First, for doing it after a 2 mile run; second, for doing it twice during the week!

On a semi-related note…I’m back to tracking my eating and exercising. I’m very frustrated at the fact that, since Christmas time, none of my jeans have fit – every pair is extremely tight. I ended up buying new pairs of jeans that were a size larger. So, now they’re a little loose, but the size smaller won’t fit right. I got even more frustrated this last week when I put on a pair of jeans that were all right just a month ago, had washed them, and they were TIGHT! I mean, seriously people – I’m eating fairly healthy, and a couple of days of sugar (in the month) should really NOT put you over the top like that, especially when you’re burning an average of 800 calories a workout. But I’m trying really hard not to focus on that and just focus on being sure I’m actually eating enough, and eating enough of the right stuff. Though “frustrating” isn’t an adequate word to describe the incredible degree of annoyance I have with the pairs of jeans now waiting until I can fit back into them again (if that ever happens). Oh well – as my doctor back in the Tri-Cities told me, I really shouldn’t care as long as I’m actually in very good health and physical condition, right? Why care that I can’t fit those jeans if I can run 2 miles and do a spin class afterwards, or if I can make it through a Jillian Michaels workout without collapsing? Focus on the positive!

I’ve been kind of avoiding the whole yoga/pilates thing for awhile, even though I hear all sorts of great stuff about how it can actually help flatten the tummy and lengthen the muscles, etc. I did a couple of videos this past week (thanks to streaming Netflix) and I think I’m hooked. Who knows, maybe, at the very least, my posture will start to improve (I slouch at work all the time). Whatever the outcome – it felt great, and I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of muscle toning incorporated into the routines I was doing. The second was a combination yoga/pilates routine – and when you get a good flow going between moves, it’s surprising to me how much of a workout you feel you’re getting. What’s even more surprising to me is how great it feels afterwards – relaxed and stretched while having worked the muscles. I’m thinking of doing some sort of yoga and/or pilates 3 times a week for the next month and seeing what kind of difference it makes in my regular cardio routine.

The other thing I’ve been getting hooked on is Jillian Michaels’ workouts. I bought the 30-Day Shred DVD and have to admit – it’s pretty amazing. I really enjoy the weights + cardio element which she also does in her Maximize workouts, except those use a step, the 30-Day Shred just uses hand weights. I have another DVD of hers to pick up – one of the two new ones that were just released. I’m excited to try it out.

So, there’s my updated workout routine – Jillian Michaels, yoga/pilates, and spin at the gym. It’s making me happy.

Just had to share.

So, I finally got myself out of bed to get to a 6:30am class at the gym. I know that sounds sad to those of you who knew me as the get up at the crack ‘o dawn girl, making it to the gym for a 5:30am class, if not earlier to do my pre-workout workout. No, here in Seattle, I’ve become a slacker. I still work out regularly, but the time in the morning varies. There have been times I’ve done work in the morning, then worked out at home before getting into work in the afternoon. That’s what a flexible work schedule will do!

Anyhow – I made it to the spin class at the gym. I had tried one in the evening before, and I wasn’t impressed. It seemed very low-key, low-intensity. The instructor wasn’t wearing cycling shoes or cycling gear, which threw me off – at the Tri-Cities, the spin class I took, the teachers I liked always wore their cycling clothes and shoes. In fact, one of them is the reason I got the cycling shoes I have. Anyway – the instructor this morning was the same as I had experienced before – no cycling gear or shoes, so I wasn’t expecting much. Combine that with the fact the instructor never turned the lights on, was kind of quiet, and nobody spoke in that class…and I wasn’t sure I was ever going to come back. I was pleasantly surprised. It was 55 minutes of interval training. Granted, you can always do your own intensity, but those of you who know me know I’ll go all out when I can. It was a killer class. The teacher said next week would be endurance training – I cringed inside. She said last week had been climbing. I’m glad she changes things up, and it sounds like it’s always a pretty intense class. I decided to pay for the 10-class punch card. If I’m going to get my groove on for cycling, I need to have something that helps challenge me and push me along.

So, I’m getting back in gear and looking forward to the next steps on my road to getting back on my bike and out cycling!

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1. I grew up watching Star Trek – the original, then Star Trek: Next Generation, then Star Trek: Deep Space 9. We started losing interest in the series part way through DS 9.
2. When there was a Star Wars marathon during the holidays, we’d watch it.
3. I’m also a James Bond fan – I watched a couple of the Bond movies growing up, too.
4. I will usually choose an action or comedy over a chick flick.
5. I enjoy reading murder mysteries.
6. My family didn’t own a computer until I was 12 – it was a Mac. I worked on Macs at home and PCs at school and work.
7. Even though my mother is from El Salvador, we didn’t eat traditional Salvadorian food – we did have Salvadorian desserts, though.
8.

So, my left foot has gone wacky on me again, leaving me with limited options at the gym (i.e., can’t run, can’t do the stairmaster or stair killer, can’t do my jumpity-jump workouts, can’t kickbox, etc.). I went onto Fitness Magazine’s website and tried out their build-a-workout. Before my foot wigged out on me, I wasn’t too impressed, to be honest – it was mostly weight stuff, not really cardio (I’m a sucker for cardio). Then I tried one workout in their magazine that claimed to fit it all in, in just 20 minutes. Thinking it’d be a good warm-up, I got right into it (pre-foot problem). HOLY COW. I was sweating by the second exercise – and there are really only 8 in the entire workout. I’ll share that one later – by the time I was done with the 20 minutes (I think I went a little over, because I HAD to take breaks between exercises), my heart rate monitor said I’d burned somewhere between 240 and 300 calories.

Once that option was denied to me, I decided to try the Fitness Magazine build-a-workout again. This time, very little jumping, not really cardio, but I took the exercises a bit fast-paced, and found myself sweating it out and not bothering my foot. It says an hour, but I was done in about 40 minutes, and was close to 400 cals burned in that time. It was a great, overall body workout.

Just thought I’d share. I promise I’m taking it easy on my foot this time…well, all right, I’ll admit, I’m taking it easy after doing a jump-aerobics deal and realizing later in the day how dumb that was when having a foot injury…and when my husband asked if I was taking care of my foot or “being stupid” and having to fess up that I was doing the latter.

No, I don’t learn things like this quickly.

It’s 2009! Hurray! While most people set resolutions, I don’t tend to any more, because they only seem to last a short while. We DO, however, have a couple of top-of-mind items that hopefully also only last a short while longer: Rich finding a job, and the Pasco house being sold.

I missed many friends while Rich and I were visiting family the past two weeks; my gym buddies and I never got together for a workout, and I’m bummed about that. But having all the Johnson clan together for a week, then catching up on work and such the next week, it just never happened. Next time, gals.

Those who know me, know my addiction to exercise. What some DON’T know is my recently-developed joy of road cycling. Visiting the Tri-Cities, going over the bridges a few times, I reminisced on my ridiculous rides with little to no food, overheating…riding from the Blue Bridge to the Cable Bridge just to see if my estimate of distance was correct and then realizing I was WAY too far away from home and not enough water for the rest of the ride. But I LOVED my weekend rides. I LOVED being along the river riding along Pasco, seeing some of the enormous houses and yards there were to see.

It made me miss the cycling – and I miss it more than I realized! I have an itch to get on my bike. However, there are two things keeping me from doing so: the cold (I really have no cycling gear, let alone cold-weather gear) and my clumsiness. My bike came with Crank Brothers’ eggbeaters, which you cannot get out of without turning your foot much farther than with Shimano SPDs. This little detail led to a few falls…one of which left me with what seems to be a permanent miscolored portion of skin on my left knee. I think God left it there to remind me that I should not get on my bike until I have different pedals – either Shimanos or regular flat pedals (and save the shoes for the bikes at the gym). It’s not really a scar, but it’s a dark spot on my knee from the last fall I took which was the worst. Thankfully, it was also in the driveway to our house in Pasco.

At any rate, I started looking at rides that are happening this year – I’m determined to do at least ONE ride this year, but that means I need to get out. And that means I need to find trails. I’ve heard of the Burke-Gilman, but a friend at work let me know that you can’t go very fast on the Burke-Gilman because so many others are also on the trail. There’s Green Lake, which will do for getting my feet back on me once I have new pedals, but it’s only 2.9 miles around, and typically packed…I was doing 25+ miles on Saturdays. So, I need to find pedals and I need to find trails, especially with minimal traffic.

And I need to wait until the weather warms up.

Oh, and get a bike pump so I can get the tires back up (they’re a little flat after being in storage for a couple months).

Until then, I might take advantage of the fact the cycling class bikes at the gym have odometers on them and do a 25+ mile ride once a week. It’s not quite the same as riding outdoors, but it will have to do for now.

So, awhile ago, I had posted about things that make a place feel like home.

Then we went on vacation and came back to Seattle.

And it didn’t feel like we were coming home – but like we were coming back to Seattle.

We spent time at the Oregon coast with family after the vacation to the board game convention in Dallas, and, on the way back, it felt even LESS like home than it had the week before as we had travelled back!

I miss family and friends. Don’t get me wrong – I’m SO grateful I have my husband, else I’d go completely insane, but I still don’t feel settled here. And because of it, I’m struggling with feeling like decorating our house for Christmas — the place doesn’t feel like ours (and who am I kidding – it isn’t, we’re renting it), and we won’t be there FOR Christmas, so why bother putting up any decorations?

Can you tell I’m struggling a bit with this?

Quick random thought – I wonder how many people actually read my blog? I know of a few, but I’m always curious. One friend posted on her blog something that made me think about that…basically asking why do people blog? Personally, it’s a mixture of getting things out somewhere, being able to do some writing, and keeping in touch with people who care enough to read this thing. 🙂 There’s something deeper, maybe, but I don’t feel like going there right now. My head hurts as it is.

I’ve been feeling pretty ill the past few days. It started a couple of days ago when I woke up feeling nauseous and really low energy. I still got ready for work, but as I was toweling off from the shower, I couldn’t help but notice that the towel felt like sandpaper…and it was taking a surprising amount of effort to dry off. I was hoping the feeling would pass, but, after taking my first conference call of the day from home, it didn’t. I ended up in bed most of the day, unwilling to eat or move.

Enter my amazing husband. Yes, my husband is amazing. The man cooks, cleans, does the dishes, and washes the clothes. He supports me, he comforts me, and he makes me laugh. And, when I’m sick, he brings me soup in bed, and sneaks my medicine into my ginger tea because I’m too blasted stubborn to drink it myself (I hate syrups – I’m fine with pill form meds, but NOT syrups). He makes me eat so I don’t pass out entirely, and he frets over me, constantly asking if I’m okay, teasing me when I tell him I don’t want to move and talking makes me feel sick.

My husband makes me feel so loved in so many ways. As I lay on the couch dozing off a bit (I managed to get out of bed only because I was tired of being in bed reading and wanted to watch TV for awhile), he quietly came to where I was laying and started pulling my hair away from my face. He was tucking it behind my ear, and just running his fingers through my hair. I felt like a little kid whose mommy or daddy was looking in on her while she was sleeping. I just felt so loved!

The next day, I was feeling better, and eating a bit more than I had the day before (which is to say, I was eating). My husband kept telling me how happy and glad he was that I was feeling better. Now, those who know me know I can be very slow at times, so it should come as no surprise that it took me awhile to realize how sincere he was! He kept hugging me, kissing me, telling me how happy he was I was feeling so much better! Again – I felt so loved!

I saw this comic the other day:

No, I don’t have children, but my husband does make me feel like a superstar when I get home from work. He’s happy I’m home, he tells me he’s missed me, and he means it. It makes me feel appreciated and loved. (And, to be honest, I’ve done my best to quit being grumpy after a long day when I come home, because I’ve realized that the last thing I need to do after hearing, “My baby’s HOME!!!” is be grumpy!!)

My husband makes me happy. He makes me feel cared for. Evenings I’m getting home late from work, he has dinner waiting for me. When I do stupid things, he doesn’t hammer me over the head with the fact I did them – doesn’t ignore them, either, but he doesn’t rub it in. He works with me through whatever we have to deal with; he listens when I’m having issues and gives me advice; I feel like I matter in his life. And, he really, honestly, whole-heartedly LOVES me.

So, what can I say? My husband is amazing.