Lifetime Movie: The Pregnancy Pact

This movie absolutely terrifies me. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that it's a movie about a spike in teen pregnancies in a small town in MA - and it was started because of a "pact" between a bunch of girls.

How did my parents survive me growing up in my teenage years with things like this? Not knowing the right thing to say, or teach? How am I going to know what to say, or teach, my own children, especially if I have daughters? These girls were taught abstinence only (which is what I was taught up through 8th grade). You kind of have to see where their parents and schools were coming from - give them options for birth control and you're almost saying, "Okay - go have sex." (NOT that that's what I will teach!) But at the same time....you can give your children guidance and advice all you want, but at the end of the day, you can't be with them 24/7, and they're going to have to make their own decisions.

It's just so scary out there. I feel like I'm barely a "grown-up," how am I ever going to know when the time is right to bring a child in to this world? And when that time comes....how do Chris and I, as parents, find that balance between keeping your children close and under your thumb and letting them find their own way.

Scary, terrifying stuff.

These girls in the movie are 15, 16 years old. That means by the time they're my age, they will have 10 year olds - 5th graders!!!!!! I'm 26 and still don't feel like I'm mature or responsible enough to take that kind of responsibility.

I know that no one is ever really ready to have children - if you waited until you had enough money, or were in the right house, or worked at the right job - no one would ever have kids. But wow - what a huge step to take.

Moles and miles

I suck at coming up with good "titles" for these things....and this one is especially awful. Sorry.... :)

So, the last week or so has been......rough. Some personal challenges Chris & I are trying to work through, and last week was definitely one of those where it was hard to be away from my mom and friends. Sometimes, having only Chris is hard.....and that in turn sometimes makes it hard to not kill him. (I joke!) But, in all seriousness, I really have to be thankful that we've overcome some of the obstacles that we have, when all we have here in Columbus is each other. Parents and friends and siblings are nowhere close enough to be able to "run" to, so we either talk it out or steam in silence 2 rooms away from each other. So.................anyway. Marriage is definitely a journey.............

Last Wednesday, I finally went to a dermatology appointment that I had put off twice. Calling me a chicken? You'd be right. I had 5 moles removed - 3 because I've hated them all my life, and 2 because the doctor was (slightly) suspicious of them. The 3 that I wanted gone he just "shaved" off (ew), but the 2 he wanted to do more research on, he "punched" out. It almost makes me gag to even think about it, so google it or something. But suffice it to say that both needed stitches, and I almost fainted while lying down. I got through it, by myself, even though I wanted my mom, and I go back to have stitches out tomorrow (the one at my hairline) and Monday (on my arm). Sick. Glad to have it over with. And is it bad that my boss needed a picture of me for a bio for a client....and I took a look at it.....and my first thought was, "DANG I need a tan!"???? Bad, bad, bad!

Today, I hit a new personal best - 3.03 miles in 29:40 minutes. First time I've ran 3 miles in under 30 minutes in a LONG time, and I'm really proud of myself. I didn't really run last week with all the bandages I was dealing with and the general pain in the ass they all were, so I think I'm going to fall a little short of my 30 miles ran by 1/30. I'm about 11 miles away, and I still have 4 days.............hmmmm. We'll see. But at any rate, I was pretty pleased with myself today :)

Well, tomorrow marks day 3 of month-end week, and it snowed today - so that's going to make the next 3 days crazy. I need a shower and bed, stat! (Thanks to a rerun of Grey's Anatomy I'm currently watching) :) :) :)

The long offseason begins.....

Well, that sucked.

I was quietly confident the Cowboys could win today. Play like they've played against the Eagles in the last 2 weeks, and there's no chance we could lose.

Well, the o-line not showing up, the offensive playcalling was about as uncreative as I've seen all season, 6 sacks, 2 lost fumbles, 1 INT, and 2 missed field goals didn't really constitute as playing like we did in the last 2 weeks.

Oh well, I guess...at least the playoff-win-drought monkey is off our backs. This loss will hurt for awhile, though....

Good things:

Thursday > finally completed my "WIG" (wildly important goal) for the first time since the week of 12/7 at work. The administrators in Columbus have been working to lower our DSO (days sales outstanding) since April, and there are 2 specific tasks we have to do each week to get this done. With short weeks, the holidays, and snow, I just wasn't getting those tasks done, and it felt good to be GREEN this week! I also got a good run in that day.

Friday > was a rough day. Overly tired from not sleeping well Thursday night, which turned into me being annoyed at every little thing. I paid over $250K worth of branch invoices on Friday and that's always a huge task - so I guess that was a good thing.

Yesterday > drove to Indy to meet Mom, Megan, & Nana to pick out bridesmaids' dresses. Ignoring the customer-service-less lady at the front desk, it was a really fun time. Megan ended up picking the same dresses that the girls wore in the wedding that Chris was in in September, and thankfully, they're pretty :) I'll be wearing black, and the other girls will be in a watermelon color, which should be really cool and gorgeous for pictures. It was a fun day!

Today > it was raining outside and I definitely didn't feel like it, but I got a run in before the game started today. I didn't go as long as I have been doing, but it felt good to get it under my belt :) I have about 16 miles to run between now and next Saturday (1/30) to meet my first self-made goal. I think I can do it!

Hopefully this week will be a good one and go quickly. I have to go have 5 spots removed (3 suspicious-looking moles the doctor didn't like, and 2 that have annoyed me for forever) on Wednesday, so I'm a little tense about that, but I'm sure it'll be fine. It's also the last fiscal week of January. Wow!

Well, off to do some more laundry and squeeze some more r&r out of this weekend. 5:30am on Monday morning will come way too quick!

Good BYE, 2009!

Well, today officially wrapped up 2009. Our year-end/ December close was today, and I'm so relieved. Closes in general are stressful, but there is so much that has to be done and accounted for at year-end - on TOP of snow - that I'm glad, glad, glad it's over! Another branch's close took 5.5 hours yesterday, and ours lasted just under 3 hours. For all the hours everyone has worked lately, I'm so proud of the guys I work with, because they really do make my job easier (sometimes!)

So that was the good thing for today.

Monday - probably the only good thing was that it ended (ha). It was a crazy day at work (6+ hours of snow payroll), and cold, and just a MONDAY!

Yesterday - I hit a new "personal best" while running - 2.62 miles in 25 minutes. Not that great, but it was in the cold and sometimes snowy/ icy roads & sidewalks - but it felt good! It's actually getting easier to run outside as far as breathing goes. At first it felt like I was breathing in needles, but now it's getting better.



I'm off to bed....a little earlier tonight than normal. With the close today and the amount of hours I've been putting into work, I'm just worn out. Today was also one of those days.....hard, overwhelming, and having a generally negative attitude towards everyone and everything. Hopefully a good night's sleep will turn my demeanor around!

Night!

Happy girl

What a WEEKEND!

Obviously, the good thing that happened yesterday was the fact that my COWBOYS got their first playoff win in 13 years last night, and it was so exciting! Chris & I just ordered some wings and settled in to watch the game at home. It was scary at the beginning and I was afraid it was just going to be another wasted season, but we came out and won! There was definitely a lot of excitement in the King household last night, and it was also a lot of fun to text Anthony back and forth; it was the first playoff game of his lifetime! :)

Another good thing from yesterday was getting to sleep in (ahhhhh) and just recharge my batteries from last week's long hours and stress. I did have to go in for about 4.5 hours yesterday, but hopefully that makes for a normal (ha) 40-hour workweek this week. When I got home at 4:30, there was still too much time left until the game and I was antsy, so I bundled up, grabbed my iPod, and went for a quick run. It's really exciting to me how fast my endurance is building - both in leg strength and in breathing control. I felt really proud of myself that I went out and got a 2-mile run in when it was 12* outside :) On nikeplus.com, I've challenged myself to run 30 miles by 1/30, and I have about 22 to go....which isn't bad considering how much I worked last week!

Tomorrow brings another Monday and probably more snow, but hopefully this week will be smoother than last week. After working 4 days in 2 weeks, a 5-day workweek was hard enough without snow everyday AND fiscal year-end. We've all had a week to get back into it and this week should go a little smoother. I hope.

There isn't much point to this entry except for my concentration of looking for the good and happy things in life. They weren't hard to find this weekend!

PS - one last good thing from the weekend - we are going on vacation with Chris' family the first week of August this year to celebrate his mom's 50th birthday and his stepdad's 40th birthday - and they booked the house yesterday! It's a gorgeous, 5-bedroom house, right on the beach in Kill Devil Hills, NC (Outer Banks). A real vacation - can't come soon enough!

TGIF!

I'm sharing an annoyance........

I understand why this happens, but it still doesn't stop me from being annoyed by it. I may not be the skinniest person on the planet, nor am I the most in-shape, but it never fails to irk me when a person who weighs....considerably....more than me (I'm being as nice as possible here) brags about losing 10 pounds in 5 days after they've jumped on the working-out/ not-eating-crap train. Again, I know why this is, and I couldn't tell you what I weighed right now if you paid me to (I don't even own a scale; my "goals" are more 'how-my-jeans-fit' related), but as much emphasis as everyone puts on weight, what a cool thing to say: "I lost 10 pounds!" Okay, okay. 10 pounds in 5 days = not healthy. In that case, water weight. But still.

Deep breath.

Okay, onto positive things. Yesterday's good thing: I learned soemthing new! With the snowstorm we had yesterday, I stayed at the office a lot longer than I would have liked to avoid being on the roads, and I had to get away from my desk for a minute. So, I went outside to help one of the OMs shovel, and he refused to let me.....but he said he would train me on the Bobcat to clear our parking lot. It wasn't that hard, but took a lot of coordination.....and after about 12 hours at my desk, I didn't really have that much of it. But, I got it accomplished and I felt pretty proud of myself! I think I'll stick to the paperwork on my desk, though....even though right now it feels never ending (55 hours this week and still have to go in tomorrow....)!

Tomorrow is a big day...................the Cowboys clinched the NFC East for the 2nd time in 3 years last week, but they haven't won a playoff game since 1996. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but man oh MAN....would I LOVE LOVE LOVE to see them beat the Eagles tomorrow night (for the 3rd time this season!) Anyone who reads this knows me and I'm a little....high-wired about the Cowboys....and if they know me any better than that, know that I'll spend the good part of tomorrow thinking about this game. Oh well....there are worse things to be excited about!

Happy Friday!

Happy "twenty-oh-ten"!

LOL.

I listen to Mike & Mike almost every morning, and this morning they were discussing the difference between saying "twenty-oh-ten" and "twenty-ten." Sometimes I listen to them more for the entertainment value (ie, Mike Golic promising to leave the show forever if Greenie got something right; Greenie responded it would take two people to fill Golic's chair) than the sports value, but nevertheless, I get a kick out of them everyday.

Anyway. Happy 2010! Happy new decade! Like a lot of people, I get a little (overly?) nostalgic right around New Year's....thinking a lot about the past year - the mistakes, the triumphs, the lessons learned (some harder than others), and looking forward to the new year. This year wasn't much different, but life moves on after January 1.

We had a great New Year's Eve. The last 2 years, we've spent in other cities, dressing up, spending way too much money....having a good time, but still....too much it felt like sometimes. This year, 4 of Chris' fraternity brothers (3 of which were in our wedding; the other one probably would've been too had he not been overseas in the Army) and their wives (and, well, one girlfriend) came to Columbus, and we had a great, laid-back, HILARIOUS night. We went to a Columbus hockey game, had an informal dinner at Boston's, and then we all went back to Drury Inn (all 3 places within walking distance in downtown Cbus) where we rang in the New Year with some champagne in our pj's and Apples to Apples. It was a great time.

This is us @ Boston's - being good Buckeyes and sporting our OSU hoodies in honor of their Rose Bowl appearance on New Year's Day. They won!

NYE 2010 also marked our 7th "anniversary." We started dating on NYE 2003, so we've definitely come a long way since then :) We don't celebrate the day anymore, but it's cool to think about where we started and where we are now :)

As a rule, I don't make resolutions. Or goals, or promises to myself. Never really have. I usually take time to reflect on myself and what I would like to accomplish, but in general, I get fairly annoyed with people who announce these huge, great, wonderful goals and then 2 weeks in, are out of it (99% of them weight-loss related). So, I don't make announcements. I've seen firsthand that if you put your mind to something, you'll do it anytime of year (like my mom, who started Weight Watchers in September of '07 and has lost over 70 pounds to date!). But, for posterity's sake (I think that's the right word), here are some of my thoughts for the upcoming year.

1. Improve my relationship with God. And that means going back to church on a regular basis. Sleeping in and lazing around the house always sounds better than spending an hour in church, but I always feel....whole....after leaving church. Like I've just been home. It's definitely a part of me that needs awakened, and I'm anxious to get back to it.

2. Say "no" more often. This applies mostly to work, but to wherever it applies. I tend to wear myself out trying to make everyone happy, and that's never going to be possible. In fact, I put this into practice yesterday when someone at work asked me to put on a pot of coffee (what do I look like, your maid?), and I politely said, "Well, I have some here, but the coffee is in the cabinet if YOU'D like to make some!" Small example, but a lot of little things like that add up!

3. Live my life for me. Again, this has to do with the above - trying to make too many people happy. I'm still growing, I'm still learning, I'm still making mistakes. But I'm tired of losing sleep over the small, insignificant things that people might be thinking or saying about me and making decisions based on what people think. Chris and my marriage matter, my family matters, friends matter - but at the end of the day, it's me that has to live with my decisions.

4. Run a mini-marathon. This is one of those big "annoucement" type goals, but it's one I've been trying to get working towards for awhile now. I just got the Nike + iPod kits, and I'm obsessed with it. It tracks exactly what I'm doing online, and I LOVE seeing numbers and my progress. I believe the Cbus mini is in October, and I think it's a cool goal to work towards. I actually have run outside the last couple of days, and I kind of like it.

5. This last one is a little cheesy....but, it needs to be said. I tend to have a "guilty until proven innocent" personality, and that leaks over to the rest of my life.....only looking at and looking for the negative. While that may never change, I'm going to make an effort to, everyday, write down one GOOD thing that happened to me, or that I saw, or whatever. There are too many ugly and nasty things going on in this world, and I have so much to be thankful for.

So. Those are the big 5. Who knows what 2010 will bring? Or where I'll be this time in another 10 years? This time 10 years ago, I was 16 and a sophomore in high school. This last decade was sure full of a bunch of changes, and I'm excited to see where I'll be at (gulp) age 36. Kids....different job? New house? New hometown, different experiences?

Sit back and enjoy the ride, everyone :)