Pinterest Inspired Wednesdays - Valentines

This week, I am joining Suz from 30 Before 30 List for Pinterest Inspired Wednesdays!  If you are unfamiliar with Suz's blog, you should definitely check it out.  Hers is one of the first blogs I began reading, and I have always found Suz's writing to be both insightful and motivating.

Last week as I was browsing through pins, I came across this depiction of the bible verse Romans 12:9-10.

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This lead me to what turned out to be a delightful blog called Homegrown Hospitality.  The author, Stephanie, had posted a PDF file of a Valentine card to print on cardstock and attach to treat bags.  I instantly felt the need to create Valentine treat bags for all of my co-workers, so I started by printing the card on both salmon and white cardstock.  Several days later on Monday evening, I visited my sister's house after work and took my nieces to Wal Mart to help me pick out candy for the treat bags.  Naturally, I agonized over what to get (it's the perfectionist in me), and I ended up with five bags of candy.  Surprisingly, we could not find any treat bags throughout the many isles of Valentine's Day paraphernalia.  Just as I was about to admit defeat and simply purchase sandwich bags, we found clear treat bags in the Wilton isle.

Yum!

Upon returning to my sister's house, my nieces began distributing the candy to each of the treat bags and closing them with the provided twist ties, while I cut out the Valentines. As with any creative project I undertake, this was much more of an ordeal than it needed to be. I obsessed over cutting out the Valentine cards with perfectly straight edges, and about making sure the candy was evenly distributed between the varying types. Luckily my nieces know how to handle me and I was running short on time, so I was able to force myself to go with the flow and not focus on everything being perfect.



The Sun Chips were for the facility supervisor,
who is diabetic. 

At this point I needed to head for home, but not before giving each of my nieces and nephews a treat bag, along with my sister, her husband, and my sister's friend that was visiting.  The next morning when I arrived at work, I punched a hole in the top of each of the Valentine cards (a hole punch was the crucial tool we were missing the previous evening), and tied a card to each of the treat bags with the hot and light pink curling ribbon with which my oldest niece had provided me.  All that was left was to distribute the bags!    

       

Putting together holiday treat bags for family, friends, and co-workers used to be a regular festivity for me, but it is something I have not done in several years.  I had forgotten the joy of putting a smile on someone's face and brightening their day through such a simple act.  While I do not envision myself assembling treat bags for each holiday as I have in years past, I do plan on making more of a conscious effort to celebrate and honor those people in my life who impact it on a daily basis.

Don't tell anyone, but I kept all of the Milky
Way Midnights for myself!  (They're my favorite.)

Fab Five Goals for 2012.

For the New Year's Eve service at church, members and guests were asked to come with a list of their top five goals for 2012.  Below is the list I created.

FAB FIVE GOALS FOR 2012

1.  GOD

• Strengthen my commitment to and my walk with God. Discover His purpose for my life and start living according to His will.
• Develop and strengthen my prayer life.
• Take the new members class at New Life Worship Center and begin serving in a ministry.

2.  FINANCES

• Educate myself about money management and apply the principles to my life.
• Reduce my personal financial debt by at least 1/4 this year.

3.  HEALTH AND WELLNESS

• Develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle, by exercising regularly and making a conscious effort to reduce junk food and eat nutritiously.
• Get to a healthy weight by the end of 2012.
• Develop and strengthen my thought life.  Write in a journal regularly.

4.  ATTITUDE

• Count it all joy in 2012.
• Learn to live life each day with a spirit of gratitude.
• Learn to respond to disappointment, frustration, and other negative emotions with grace.
• Fill my heart with love, faith, patience, courage, kindness and joy.

5.  RELATIONSHIPS

• Commit to making relationships with family and friends a priority in 2012.
• Strengthen existing relationships and actively pursue new relationships.

What are your goals for 2012?

30 Second Shred.

This evening I tried the Level 1 workout of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred for the first time. Almost immediately I was discouraged when the workout began with push ups. I barely squeaked out two (on my knees at that) before I was maxed. I failed to make it through the entire 30 second set of jumping jacks, and when "jumping rope" it was all I could do to bounce let alone have my feet leave the floor. Having only five pound weights, I discovered during several of the other exercises that I had to completely forgo using them, five pounds proving to be too much. During the lunging exercises, I was barely able to lower into a squat. To add insult to injury, I was reminded just how inflexible I am during the cool down. As embarrassing as it is to admit all of this, I am further shamed to reveal that I actually cried once the workout was over (and not out of joy or happiness). 

There is no other way to say this - I am completely disgusted with myself. I have let myself become a lazy, lethargic individual who does not want to exert even the tiniest amount of effort beyond what is absolutely necessary in any given day. How the hell did I let myself get THIS out of shape? More importantly, how do I get myself back on track?

One thing is clear - this is going to be a much longer, much more difficult journey than I had originally anticipated. I just need to remember that everything in life is a process and I will not be perfect at everything on the first, second, or even the hundredth try. It is okay to fail, as long as I keep getting up, dusting myself off, and trying again. As frustrating as the slow progress may seem, taking baby steps to reach my goals is better than taking no steps at all.      

Laughter Wanted.

Whenever I am in need of a good laugh, the following commercial never fails to deliver the desired result:



This commercial is a close second:



What is your go-to when you are in need of a good laugh (or two)?

City of Wonder.

Hi, my name is Rebecca.  And I am addicted to the Facebook game City of Wonder.

Having once been obsessed with the games Mobsters and Mafia Wars (I have found that obsessions are easy to come by when one is bored at work), I am aware of just how easily (and quickly) I fall under the spell of things that for all intents and purposes appear to be competitive.

By golly, I want to win the competition.  No matter what it is.

It starts out so innocently.  You begin to build your civilization.  Grow your population.  Add allies (that is if you are able to convince any of your Facebook friends that it is absolutely necessary to life that they start playing the game).  Then, all of a sudden, your slow and steady progress isn't good enough.  You want more.

The creators add items that you can "purchase" for your land only through parting with exorbitant amounts of gold.  The only problem is, you earn one bar of gold every time you reach a new level.  That insane asylum you want (a special just for Halloween - and something you may very well end up needing in real life) costs 35.

But wait - I can take surveys to earn more gold!  Except that 7 times out of 10 you don't qualify for the survey - and you can only attempt to gain gold this way once per day.  So, countless time is spent attempting to qualify for and take mind numbing surveys, all for a measly four to ten gold each.

Then you start dabbling in other ways to earn gold.  Buy a subscription to Shape magazine for 28 gold!  Sign up for Netflix for 60 gold!  Join Columbia House for 80 gold!  When you find yourself starting to consider parting with your hard earned money to straight out purchase gold, you have to ask yourself, "Do I have a problem?"

The answer is most likely yes, you do.

Funny how a click of the mouse can become so addicting, isn't it?

Looks like I might have to quit this one cold turkey.

The dark side of getting older.

Dear Metabolism,

I suffered deep and utter embarrassment today when at the university health benefits fair I had to divulge my weight to a petite (and very much skinny) younger woman.

(Yes, I am at the age now when suddenly because I work on a college campus most everyone must be younger than I am.)

(Except for tenured faculty, of course.)

(And perhaps the secretaries of the various departments on campus.)

I "volunteered" to tell this woman my weight so that she could tell me:

• (a) that I am obese according to my body mass index (of which, by the way, the Wii Fit had already informed me months ago thankyouverymuch) and
• (b) that my body fat percentage also lies outside of the healthy range (what a shocker there).

So, my older and increasingly loathed (not to mention much slower) metabolism, would it really be so hard to function at the capacity of my late teens/early twenties?

It sure would make things a whole lot easier on me.

(And by that I mean I could continue to eat whatever I want, whenever I want.)

(After all, the unhealthy choices just taste so much better.)

Begrudgingly yours,
One Not So Mindful Eater

World's Dumbest Employees.

You've heard of the television show World's Dumbest Criminals, right? Well, yesterday I could have been on the show World's Dumbest Employees.

It all started with a rocky Monday, followed by an email received Tuesday morning that sent me over the edge in terms of anger towards and complete dislike of my job (not the job itself, but rather certain individuals who have the innate ability to suck any and all joy out of the work environment).  Having contemplated looking for alternate employment for quite some time, I finally decided to take the plunge.  In addition to searching for open positions at several universities out of state, I applied to four positions posted on the human resources website for the university at which I currently work.

My intentions were never to keep my job search a complete secret from my boss, but rather to wait and see if I landed any job interviews before discussing the matter with him.  I saw no need to rock the boat and jeopardize what little comfort I have by prematurely announcing my hopefully impending resignation.  As fate would have it, however, the public announcement of my job search would not occur at my own discretion. 

(Can you see where this is heading?)

Thursday afternoon, a graduate student from another laboratory randomly said to me, "Oh yeah, you applied to a position that was posted by [your boss]."  I can just imagine what the look on my face must have been.  Color drained, an expression of utter disbelief followed by an unspoken plea for mercy.  Least to say, the next time I crossed paths with my boss, he told me to stop by his office before I left for the day.  Talk about AWKWARD.

Lesson learned?  When searching for a new job, only apply to listings that are clearly in no way even remotely related to my current position.  In other words, don't be such a dumbass.