Exhausted!!!
Wow – so here were are mid-week and I already feel like I worked a full week!!
I haven’t talked a lot about my current job on this blog – for privacy reasons (and because my company tracks all mentions of it on social media) I don’t mention the company name online, but I work for a large company in my city.
In fact, one of my New Years Resolutions last year was to get a job in my field: Human Resources. I had actually started a job in Labour Relations at the beginning of the year, but after a really bad incident (which I will talk about eventually) – I quit, that’s when my unemployment happened.
I had actually stopped looking, and then this position literally fell into my lap. It’s fairly entry level in HR, but with a lot of responsibility and deals with a lot of confidentiality, and it’s in Recruitment, which I LOVE.
The ONLY downside to my job (and honestly the only one!) is how much work it CAN be! You are dealing with dozens of people each day and balancing a lot of schedules, collecting references and answering lots of questions. This past month I have put in SO much overtime!
I really shouldn’t complain, again I LOVE my job (I can’t stress that enough!) – part of our company policy is that we get 15 Fridays off this year…I haven’t even really had the option to enjoy one yet this year as we have been travelling out of town a lot for my husbands tests that he’s taking. Between that and working overtime I.NEED.A.BREAK!!
Luckily, with all this extra time, I am able to take some time off in lieu. So I am thinking of booking myself a spa day and really enjoying some R&R!
ALSO, next week, the husband and I will be booking our trip to Vancouver/Seattle for the summer – I can’t wait to have something to look forward to!! He and I haven’t taken a vacation together since Halifax 2009!
I think, to alleviate the current stress, I will also make some time for a nice relaxing bath and a hair mask one night this week…
Do you treat yourself to some special “you” time when you are feeling a bit overworked/overstressed?? What is your favourite thing to do to relax??
Filed under Life in General
A Failure to Plan
Wow – so a HUGE fail at blogging last week!!
I actually have a few posts that I had saved as drafts, however I never actually set them to post – and then last year turned out to be INCREDIBLY busy, so I never even had a second to set them up!! Isn’t that terrible!
Quick recap of last week: Monday was drinks after work and then just relaxing, Tuesday was Sparks night/my Mom’s birthday, Wednesday was a going away for Danny at work, Thursday was a “Ladies Party” at my house, Friday was my day off, but I went into work at 7 AM anyway (after staying up until well past midnight the night before *yawn*)
Anyway, so I felt a bit out of sorts last week just trying to keep up with everything, I could barely keep track of what was going on. I was supposed to have an eye appointment (which I changed to this week) and I had originally scheduled a facial for one evening but just figured I would reschedule for sometime when I had a little less going on.
So this weekend I was thinking about how I was just so scrambled last week and could barely keep track of goings on outside of my planned activities, things I needed to do or finish – workouts I wanted to take place – and blog posts I wanted to put up. I COMPLETELY forgot to utilize a fantastic resource of mine. My Erin Condren Life Planner.
(I am totally cheating with an old picture that I took!) – Anyway, I am SUCH a paper planner kind of gal, even though I rely on my iPhone a lot as well – there is something just so therapeutic about jotting thoughts and activities down (especially doodling with my colored pens!!)
Amber turned me on to the in the fall and I made it known to the husband that I wanted it for my birthday 
Since I don’t want to be scatterbrained any longer, I decided to start keeping track of more than just my appointments and scheduled days off – instead I started adding extra things I want to do in the day like – workouts, blog posts, general housekeeping, outfits, makeup/hair looks and even nail polishes I want to try out…lame? Maybe, but it’s all things that I over look if I don’t plan for it or see it written down.
My iPhone is FULL of lists of things I would love to buy/save for, passwords and To Do list reminders.
But I LOVE to use my planner for my thoughts, dreams, life plans and just general ideas about life.
Hopefully this added level of organization will help me keep up with the old blog…but just to be safe, I am going to make sure that I “pre-write” or schedule at least 4 times a week.
What about you? I know Amber has asked this before, but are you a “Phone” planner or a “Paper” planner? How do you manage without writing everything down??
Happy Monday All
Filed under Life in General
The Power of Positive Thinking
So I had a nice little break this weekend!! Very relaxing with very little planned, it was so nice to not really have anything to do!!
I also forgot to set some blogs up for Friday and Monday!! Oops!! Sorry – I didn’t mean to forget already!
So – a little recap of the weekend!
Friday night, I was BAGGED!! Last week was just so insane that I told the husband that if I survived until Friday, then I deserved some take out. So take out it was!
I won’t tell you what it was…but it wasn’t great – we followed it with a movie date – “American Beauty” – mine and the Husband’s first date movie
Other than that, no plans!!
I worked out to Carmen Electra’s Aerobic Striptease on both Saturday and Sunday mornings – what a workout!! I felt so relaxed and limber after the workout on Saturday, I briefly considered a career as an exotic dancer, or a Pussycat Doll at least (I DID take Stripper 101 – and performed my moves for both Lex and Amy ;P)
The evening was spent with our friends – starting out by a girls night, which was a blast followed by another movie: “Love and Other Drugs” (cute…dirty at times!!)
And then Sunday was SUPER relaxing, MORE movies – started the day with a workout, a delicious BLT and strawberries for breakfast, “Back to the Future” and “Beetlejuice” – then I started getting cranky.
I was whining and getting super negative – the husband was suggesting things to do, and living in such a small (industrial) city there just isn’t that much to do. I probably would have killed for a place to go play mini golf or go bowling…but alas, we don’t really have those options (we have bowling, but it isn’t open on Sunday afternoons)…so I sat around and sulked for a little bit.
I really wanted to go for a walk, but my current boots are a bit of a wreck – they don’t have any barrier whatsoever to wetness, they don’t keep my feet warm and the insoles are all ripped up – anyway, my only other option were my HUGE ski boots…like 2 sizes too big, very little support but at least warm and waterproof.
Oh Jen, get to the point.
Anyway, I decided to do something a little more positive – we decided to go for a walk in our gorgeous walking trails. So we grabbed the pup and his leash and made our way to the Birchwood Trails – it’s a series of trail veins going through a section of forest. There are a bunch of different trails and options (and LOTS of hills!)
We started out on a 2.7 KM option and went down a hill that MAY have been called the “screamer” (I was slightly confused, but it was insane, we walked UP it in the winter, and it was scarier walking down in the winter. We took a couple of different turns and took longer than originally planned.
In the end, I think we walked almost 6 KM and it took us almost 2 hours!! RIDICULOUS!!! We walk that in like 45 minutes in the summer, but trudging through the snow (the paths are groomed, just the snow was a bit soft) and there were LOTS of little hills.
Anyway, this horribly long posts point was that I took a cranky day where I was acting super negative, and we turned it around by enjoying the weather and getting outside and enjoying something positive about our city.
Oh – and then I ended the night with a yummy drink as we watched “Burlesque”! FUN!
And lastly, I can’t WAIT for these to arrive:
I know Uggs are pretty old school and kind of “out” but I think they are super cute, and I ordered the grey ones! They should be here next week, just in time for winter to almost be over (and time to pull out the rubber boots for all the snow thawing!)
MOST RANDOM POST EVER. My apologies!!!
Filed under Life in General
Tea Party
So – as I mentioned yesterday, in an attempt to give up coffee, I have started to try getting in to tea.
One of my coworkers told me about this fantastic tea place in Edmonton and I had to check it out myself when I was in the city last weekend.
David’s Tea is a Canadian company that started in Montreal a few years ago. They have expanded all over the country, and luckily (for me) there are two locations in Edmonton.
Since I am fairly new to tea drinking (besides a few teas here and there, as well as the Tazo collection from Starbucks) – I certainly hadn’t had much experience with loose tea, which is what David’s is all about.
So I made my way into the store, and was pleasantly surprised – the layout was clean and simple to the left was a wall with sweeteners such as organic honey and agave syrup, as well as different tea pots, cups and pitchers. I had heard a little bit about it from my coworker but I was NOT prepared for what I saw when I looked at the right wall, approximately 100 canisters of loose tea lined the wall.
The salesgirl was INCREDIBLE – asked me what kind of tea I was interested in trying, why kind of flavours I liked, etc. I explained to her that I was trying to cut out caffeine and that I wasn’t certain what kind of tea I liked best. I tried the two teas of the day and told her which one I liked best. She gave me about 5 different canisters to smell, and that’s about all I could handle!!
I picked three of the five flavors she showed me Forever Nuts (which reminded me of autumn), Goji Pop (fresh and fruity smelling) and Pink Flamingo (this smells INCREDIBLE in the bag!! Just like pink grapefruit) – Ironically, every tea I picked turns pink when steeped
I drank both the Forever Nuts and the Goji Pop warm and I iced the Pink Flamingo – it was DELICIOUS!!
It’s amazing how delicious these teas were, and I think I paid about $15 for 3 bags (1 of each flavour) which is a bit “steep” (haha!) but it last a LONG time, especially because you only use about 1.5 to 2 tsp at a time.
The other cool part about this place is that you can either buy a tea ball (which I already had something similar to at home) or you can buy disposable fillable tea bags to make your own (which would be great if you were travelling).
Personally, I decided to buy this mug – the Timolino – which is pretty awesome in my opinion, it’s a stainless steel “To Go” mug with a detachable infuser – I got it in the smokey blue color, and I was shocked when I filled it the other morning and an hour later it STILL burned my tongue!
Sorry to have such a long post about products, but I was just beyond impressed by this store, and I think any tea aficionado (or wannabe ;P) should check this place out (if there is one in your town).
Any big tea drinkers out there?? What are your thoughts on loose tea??
Filed under New Loves
