Since When Is Foam Acceptable Work Footwear?

Unless you work at a beach or a pool, I really don't think flip flops should be appropriate work attire.  Now I will admit, there are some situations where it cannot be avoided.  I work with more than a few women who, in their last several months of pregnancy, couldn't get anything else on their feet.  However, if you don't have some kind of medical condition which necessitates wearing flip flops or similar footwear, I don't think they should be worn to work.  The same could also be said for crocs.  As I walk through the halls of the multi-million dollar company I work for, I see entirely too much foam.  I seriously wonder what goes on in peoples heads in the morning when they are picking out this attire.  Is this convenient? Did they walk out of the house this morning without shoes and this was the only thing in the car? Do they think that footwear choice is actually appropriate? 

When I sit at my desk and hear the familiar flopping noise, I cringe.  Don't get me wrong, I love flip flops just as much as the next person.  I wear them when I finish working out and generally whenever I can in the summer.  I just don't love flip flops at work.  The argument always rages on in my department about attire.  We are desk people; we sit on the phones all day and aren't seen.  That being said, I don't want to go to work looking like a slob on the rare chance that I might meet someone important and that might be a connection I want to make sure I made a good impression on some day.  I wouldn't want to be wearing flip flops and torn jeans on the day I happened to meet the CEO.  We wont get started on the torn jeans rant, that is a story for another time.

Sorry for the total lack of posting lately.  I have thought about posting several times, does that count?  You're right, I guess it doesn't.  I think we can almost officially say we are moving.  Everything is good to go on the house we are buying, we could literally close tomorrow.  Ok, maybe we couldn't close tomorrow, but we have everything lined up.  On the selling end of our house, things have been a bit of a nightmare.  I guess all can't go smoothly.  We have a buyer that we had to go back and forth with on the offer, which almost tanked the whole deal. Luckily for us, we have an awesome realtor who worked some magic to make this thing happen. 

Then, we had to wait almost a week for the inspection report to come back from the buyer of our house, and that came back with a bunch of stuff the buyer wanted fixed; including a radon mitigation system.  The buyer had our house tested for radon, but it was on a weekend where it rained almost all weekend.  From what I have been told, and what I have read, rain can really mess with those tests.  We went back and forth again for a while and in the end decided we were going to have to give a little if we wanted to move.  The latest stressor with our buyer is that as of earlier today, the appraisal on our house hadn't been ordered by the buyers lender.  We have had a purchase agreement signed for almost three weeks, I'm not sure what the hold up is here.  Close date is supposed to be July 17th, someone needs to light a fire under some butts.  Can you tell I have no patients for this kind of lax attitude? 

I hesitated for the longest time to get things set up to move: moving company, time off work, transfer utilities, etc.  I wasn't sure the deal was going to go through.  Even now, I'm slightly concerned about the appraisal, but there is really nothing I can do about it and I can't prolong setting these things up anymore.  At this point, I will cross my fingers and hope for the best. 

The house we are purchasing is a three bedroom, two and a half bath two story home with a finished basement.  We will have a large yard with a wooded area on one side of us and a green space belonging to the city behind our house.  We really couldn't ask for a better property.  We will be getting the formal dining room we have wanted and a larger open kitchen.  I'm excited to have more than one bathroom and a master bedroom that we can fit a larger bed in.  Last weekend, we found an amazing deal on a king sized bed in the clearance center at a local furniture shop.  The bed and the mattress were each about half off.  My quest now is to find new bedding that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.  TJ Maxx will be my best friend for the next couple of weeks I think while I peruse the shelves. 

Yay for mature trees all around the property!

The view from the two tier deck to the back of the property. 

Awesome granite counter tops and lots of counter space!

We will have our fireplace back and a vaulted ceiling in the living room

 

Here is the new bed!

 

 

There are just a couple of teaser photos, we will of course post more after we move and things get settled in.  Andrew has claimed his library, so he will work on that first thing while I work on unpacking the kitchen.  I will try to update on here on a regular basis, but we are going to be in the packing frenzy for the next three weeks I imagine.   

A Workout Update

I wish I had more of an update for you in regards to my weight, but I don't.  I have no lovely before and after photos to show you at the current time.  The only good news in this department as of late has been my health screening results from work today.  All my numbers look amazing according to the vendor we use.  I wanted to point out that all the numbers might look good, but my weight certainly doesn't. 

My weight, as of late, has been a major source of frustration.  In the past, if I worked out about three times per week the weight just kind of fell off for a while.  That hasn't really been the case this go around.  I don't know if my metabolism has slowed with a few more years on me or what the deal is, but I can't say I'm happy about it.  I even had my doctor test my thyroid levels a couple of weeks ago.  I thought since I have a family history of thyroid issues maybe that was keeping me from dropping the pounds.  Sadly, along with the rest of my blood work, my thyroid tests came back fine.  I say sadly because I was kind of hoping that was going to be the "easy answer" I was looking for.  I realize it wasn't the easy answer and would mean I would likely be on medication the rest of my life, but it would give me the answer I had been looking for as to why I can't seem to get the pounds to drop off.  The doctor offered to refer me to a dietitian or an endocrinologist for further blood workups.  I thought before we got that crazy, perhaps I should step up my own efforts. 

While I have been working out at least a couple times per week regularly, I know there is a lot more I could be doing.   Andrew and I don't eat totally crappy, but I know we could make improvements.  We try to limit eating out and try to also limit the amount of prepackaged foods we eat.  Andrew has a strong family history of heart conditions, so for several years we have been trying to watch our sodium.  Although watching sodium can take the fun out of some foods, we felt it was the best decision for our health.

I considered joining Weight Watchers online program.  If anyone has any thoughts or feedback on that, I would love to hear it.  I have tried to pick a couple of healthier meals for Andrew and I this week as well as watch what I'm eating throughout the day.  I have also tried to increase my fruit and veggie intake this week and watch my calories.  I'm especially trying to watch the calories I am drinking in through coffee and things.  I have limited myself to coffee drinks a couple afternoons this week rather than every day.  This one pains me because I really like my coffee, but if I have to cut on the coffee somewhere it has to be in the afternoon and not in the morning.  I didn't have coffee this morning until after my health screening, and it was an ugly thing.  I'm not a nice person to be around without my coffee, just ask Andrew how I am on the weekends. 

In addition to watching my food this week, I have also increased my workouts.  I have stepped up to three thirty minute workouts on the elliptical and tomorrow will be going to a Zumba class.  If you have never done Zumba, I highly recommend it.  I started when I was trying to get in shape before the wedding.  I love it because you get a great workout without really feeling like you worked out.  My goal is to get five workouts in each week; four during the week and something physical with the family on the weekends.  We have a lot of great trails and parks around that we can take advantage of.

So, there is the new plan; increase the workouts and be more intentional about what I eat.  I am going to try this for a few weeks and see if I see an impact in the weight department.  I was down a couple pounds today at my health screening from last week, so that is good news.  If I see no progress by the six week mark, I may have to re think this plan.    

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.  In our house, we celebrated father's day on Friday when Andrew came home from his week long work trip.  The puppies gave him a wonderful card and a CD!  We also made a trip to the dog park today to celebrate father's day.

I'm sure some of you are wondering about the house news; don't worry, we are too.  Things with the house we hope to purchase are going better than we could have imagined and moving along smoothly.  Things with the sale of our house have been rough from the time the offer came in.  The inspection on our house was this past Friday and we are still waiting to see what the buyer is going to come back and ask us to fix.  We hope not much because we don't have much to contribute to any further repairs on this house.  We have done our fair share of upkeep to this house: new fridge, new washer and dryer, new landscaping, new sump pump, new backwater valve, repaired grounding wires...

I guess we will see if the buyer sees things similarly.  Currently, they are running a radon test at our house and those results should be back tomorrow night.  We hope to hear about the inspection once the radon test is complete tomorrow night.  Of course, I don't know what to tell the buyer if the radon tests come back off the charts; we aren't in a position to pay for a radon mitigation system.  If we can get through inspection and appraisal we will be golden.  We hope to have our appraisal back on the house we are trying to buy by the end of the week.  We are just hoping that the inspection on our house doesn't tank the entire deal.  We haven't really even started packing yet for fear we will have to turn around and unpack. 

Maya All Grown Up

Today is an exciting day in our house, Maya officially turned one today.  She has been with us for about eight and a half of those months.  Even though she is a handful sometimes, we love her to the moon and back.  Buddy has learned to share his attention, but I think he also enjoys having someone to run around with. 

Of course to celebrate, we had to buy Maya a birthday cookie!  We couldn't leave the store without also buying something for Buddy, it was only fair.  So, Buddy got a Peanut Butter Cup. 

 Here is Maya and her Muddy Paws treat.  Andrew thought it was only fitting for her since she always comes in with muddy paws from digging in the yard!  You can't really tell in the photo, but the paper was still on the treat she was in such a big hurry. 

Let's just say Buddy got to his faster than I could take his photo, so here is Buddy after he just took a big bite! 

Here is a look back at Maya's first year with us! 

 Shortly after we brought Maya home in October.  She was about 16 weeks when we got her. 

 Buddy and Maya bff's! 

 All dressed up in their sweaters

Playing in the snow

 

Maya hanging out in the planter at grandma and grandpa's house

 

I'm pretty sure Maya still looks the same she did the day we got her.  She might have filled out a bit, but not much. 

 

 

 

Now, BIG ANNOUNCEMENT TIME.....

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Buddy and Maya will soon have a new yard to run around in.  I'm laughing as I write this because I'm guessing you all thought I was going to say Buddy and Maya were going to have a new brother or sister.  Sorry to disappoint, folks.  The week we wanted to take the house off the market, we had a showing that resulted in an offer.  We haven't had a showing on the house in over a month and were mentally prepared to take the house off the market and start doing some work on it.  I think I even shared some of our plans on here.  No news yet on where we are going, but we should know by this weekend.  Things are going to be moving fast around here for the next month or so. 

 

I told Andrew the next time I want something, I'm just going to forget about it and say I don't want it because that is when things seem to happen for me in life.  I'm not sure when I am going to learn that valuable lesson in life.  Things will happen when they are supposed to happen.  Andrew and I encountered each other in college when  I had decided I was just going to focus on school and stop worry so much about meeting someone.  When I mentally prepared to work a couple of part time jobs until I found something full time after I graduated, I received two full time offers in one day.  When we couldn't find a friend for Buddy that we thought was a good fit, I ran across Maya's litter.  I could probably go on for a while, but I think you all see my point.  

 

So, there is the big news in the Wood house for the week.  The emotions associated with this move have been a roller coaster.  I have to admit I feel a little bit of sadness at the thought of moving, but I think that has more to do with this being our first house together as a married couple.  I know wherever we go, we will make new memories together.  As Andrew would tell you, I'm not a fan of change and change here we come!  We will post more as we know more.     

 

A Belated Birthday Post

Storms seemed to be the theme of my birthday celebrations this year; let's hope it isn't foreshadowing the year to come.  My birthday festivities started off with a celebration with family and friends Memorial Day weekend at our house.  The plan was to grill and enjoy our patio, but Mother Nature had other plans.  Instead, we grilled and enjoyed the front porch on our house.  It made me glad to have the enclosed space and realize we don't use it near enough.  Everyone still had a good time, we think, despite the interruption in the original plan.  At one point, I believe we had sirens going off and a torrential downpour outside. 

My actual birthday was much the same for the weather.  It started off decent, but got a little dicey for a while.  Story of my birthday; spending some time in the vault at a jewelry store.  We were at a jewelry store when the sirens went off and a storm blew through, although I think it was only ever high winds.  That will be a memory I wont soon forget from this birthday.  But, our goal was accomplished while we were at the jewelry store.  I have never been much of a watch or bracelet person, but for some reason lately I have been wanting a watch; not just any watch, a really nice watch.  I didn't want a $25 special from Target; I had one of those and promptly broke it.  So, Andrew's birthday present to me was a beautiful new watch!  I am absolutely in love with it.  It has white ceramic in the band, diamonds around the face and rose gold, which is also in my wedding ring.  This is a Citizen Eco Drive watch, so it also doesn't need a battery to keep it going.  I know I will get many years of use out of this watch.    

 

I also got some new bling, as we like to say in my family, from my parents for my birthday.  Since pink is my favorite color, it is only fitting that I got some pink jewelry for my birthday!  Check out these awesome new earrings! 

 

 

Birthday's aren't about the gifts we get, they are about the people we share them with.  I shared my birthday with my wonderful family and friends who remind me daily that I am loved.  I am so grateful to have them all in my life. 

 

This week we have another birthday in our house; Maya is turning ONE!  There will of course be a birthday celebration complete with a birthday cookie for our birthday girl.  She is coming to the end of her official puppy days, but she is still very much a puppy filled with energy.  She keeps buddy on the go, which is a good thing for him; it keeps him young.