30 Days of Truth- Day 30

Day 30 → A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself.

I decided to do Days 29 and 30 all at once, mostly because we leave for Michigan in three days and everything until then will be committed to packing, figuring out the last few planning details, figuring out exactly what needs to be done and when, while we're in MI so that all of the wedding preparations go smoothly.

So, here's Day 30...

Dear Anna,

I love that you're wide awake the minute you get out of bed (on most days), but that you can go right back to sleep if you decide the alarm clock was probably on crack when it rang the first time. I love that you work hard at the stuff you love to do, but also at the stuff you don't necessarily like as much. I love that you know how to have a good time even without drugs and alcohol. Another very admirable character trait, is that family always comes first and that change isn't a big deal as long as your loved ones are along for the ride. Home is where your family is, it's not defined by a space.
I love the softness of your hair just when it's dry after a shower and the color of your eyes. I love the little strut you get in your step when you think no one's watching, like you're walking an invisible catwalk. I love the fact that you like your body, most days, and don't feel the need to be a size 0 or even a size 8. The confidence that comes with that acceptance is damn sexy too.
I love the life you have, the wonderful husband, the adorable cat, and the good job. I love the fact that you like your job, not just because of the co-workers but also because of the day-to-day paper pushing. And the fact that you've never given up on that promotion, even though you've tried five times.

I love almost everything about you, even when there are days when things are looking a bit down.

Sincerely,

Me

30 Days of Truth- Day 29

Day 29 → Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.

How whiny I can get when I'm tired, hungry, annoyed, well, really any time I'm not grinning from ear to ear. I'm not sure I can really tone down the whine factor in my voice, but I guess I can pay more attention to it when I start to get whiny. I guess the hardest part might be to realize that I'm doing it, so that I can try not to do it. And why, well, it's one of the few things putting a bit of a strain on our marriage. My DH just kind of shuts down when I start to whine, which causes me to whine more because he's not paying attention. I need to find a better way of communicating my dissatisfaction. Something that's more conducive to getting something done.

30 Days of Truth- Day 28

Day 28 → What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?

As short a time ago as two years, I would have said, I don't know. I actually had this discussion with my hubby's cousin about a year and a half ago, because she found out that she was pregnant at 17. We talked through her options, and although we are both pro-choice, neither one of us could really imagine having an abortion. She ended up having the baby, putting it up for adoption and then changing her mind. Luckily, the father of the baby is very much engaged in raising the child, and they are going to get married, and not just because of the baby. So hopefully that's a teen-pregnancy story that ends well. She also has the full support of her family behind her, is planning on going to college this year, etc. So she got pretty lucky.

Back to myself, I had this discussion with my parents when I was younger. I know they would have supported me in any decision I chose to make, if I had gotten pregnant unexpectedly. But they also offered to adopt any child I did have. However, that situation never came up, and I'm now a married lady, with a good job, a wonderful husband, and settled enough that if I did get pregnant now, I wouldn't freak out. I'm not quite ready to start actively trying for a child, but if it happened I think I'd be happy. After the initial fears that we can't afford a child yet, that we don't have the room, that our neighborhood isn't safe enough, etc. I overanalyze everything, so I doubt this would be any different.

If I got someone pregnant... well, that would probably take a miracle, or a turkey baster.

30 Days of Me

Since I am almost done with the 30 Days of Truth (I have about 3 days left), I was really glad to find this new prompt here.

So, here are the daily prompts for 30 Days of Me:


Day 1- recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself
Day 2- the meaning behind you blog name
Day 3- a picture of you and your friends
Day 4- a habit that you wish you didn’t have
Day 5- a picture of somewhere youve been to
Day 6- favorite super hero and why
Day 7- a picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you
Day 8- short term goals for this month and why
Day 9- something youre proud of in the past few days
Day 10- songs you listen to when you are happy, sad, bored, hyped, mad
Day 11- another picture of you and your friends
Day 12- how you found out about blogger and why you have one
Day 13- a letter to someone who has hurt you recently
Day 14- a picture of you and your family
Day 15- put you ipod on shuffle: first 10 songs that play
Day 16- another picture of yourself
Day 17- someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why
Day 18- plans/dreams/goals you have
Day 19- nicknames you have and why you have them
Day 20- someone you see yourself marrying or being with in the future
Day 21- a picture of something that makes you happy
Day 22- what makes you different from everyone else
Day 23- something you crave for a lot
Day 24- a letter to your parents
Day 25- what I would find in your bag
Day 26- what do you think about your friends
Day 27- why are you doing this 30 day challenge
Day 28- a picture of you from last year and now, how have you changed since then?
Day 29- in this past month, what have you learned
Day 30- you favorite song

30 Days of Truth- Day 27

Day 27 → What’s the best thing going for you right now?

A wonderful hubby. We may have our differences of opinions occasionally, but on the whole we make a very good team. This past week was Restaurant Week in DC and that means, for my husband the chef, that he works 6-7 days, 10-12 hours a day. What that means for me is that I come home after work to an empty house, sit around by myself on the weekends, and get extremely upset when he then decides to go to a bar after work. I know, I know, I'm a terrible person. Well, that is precisely what happened on Friday night, he texted me to tell me he was going to the bar and I laid on the guilt trip (I've been waiting for you all day, I was really looking forward to spending some time with you, etc.). Said guilt trip didn't work (you know the adage, "be careful what you wish for," well, I wished for a husband who I couldn't wrap around my little finger... and boy am I paying for it).

So he comes home around 3am (the subway- aka the Metro- stops running at 3am on Friday and Saturday night) and I'm still awake, barely. He comes home, I go to bed, and try to give him the cold shoulder. Well, I know I have no legs to stand on in this argument, because he's been really good about coming home all week, and it was payday, which always means he ends up at the bar after work. So the cold shoulder approach didn't last very long, not to mention he didn't even notice I was giving him the cold shoulder to begin with. Long story short, despite our difference of opinions, he's still the best thing going for me right now.

Case in point, last night. He comes home right after work and the first thing he tells me (accompanied by a shoulder rub) is that he was thinking about it on the Metro on the way home, and he really has everything in his life that he wanted when he was a kid. A job, a place to live, some money in the bank, and a wife he loves and who loves him. I may have melted, but maybe the shoulder rub was partly to blame for that. I'll have to do an experiment, maybe next time he tells me his life is perfect, he'll have to refrain from rubbing my shoulders and then I'll know if the melting was because of what he was saying or because of what he was doing. And then he discovered that I had bought him beer (a very rare occurance at best) and came back into the room and said, "so you know when I told you I loved you and my life was perfect a second ago, well, I've decided I really do have the best wife ever." :)

Why My Medical Bills are Free... Sort of.

So, I started a Flex account at work this year. There's two of us with medical expenses (mostly dental and vision related, not so much physical or mental problems), but that really adds up. So it seemed like a good idea to distribute those payments out over a year's time. I don't feel the loss of the $50 (pre-tax) that come out of my paychecks and I can pretend all of my medical expenses are free! Ok, so I know they're not, but I can still pretend.

This is great, because instead of being completely unhappy about actually having to pay our dentist (which in the normal realm of customer service expectancies, I would not have paid for... can you return dental service?) I can just pretend that I didn't have to pay him at all, because I'm getting reimbursed for every cent I just paid him... from my own money. In fact, the payflex claim went through in about a day, after our dental insurance took months to come through for us.

It's totally worth it not to have to worry about almost $400 coming out of your account at once (although I still have to pay the dentist first, before I file the claim with payflex) and instead putting aside small amounts from every paycheck. It totally helps with the budgeting too, because I can just enter the same sum in for medical expenses every month and not have to worry about being wrong and having unforeseen expenses pop up in my budget. And did I mention the pre-tax thing? Yeah, I don't have to pay taxes on $400 and my mother (also my accountant/tax person) doesn't have to worry about itemized deductions (or maybe she does, but I really wouldn't know, because I've never done my own taxes).

30 Days of Truth- Day 26

Day 26 → Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?

Hmm, I thought I answered that question in my post for Day 25. But yes, I have thought of giving up on life. Several times actually. Mostly it was during my dark, angsty teenage years when I decided that no one cared about me and that it would make them sorry if I killed myself. Yeah, I know, typical emo behavior. In college I thought about ending it all, because it would be easier than dragging myself to class every day and coming back to procrastinate and then do homework at 1 in the morning. But right now life is pretty awesome, so those thoughts are far, far away. Plus, as discussed in the previous post, even if I did want to kill myself in earnest, I'm too much of a coward to actually go through with it. So I think I'm safe, regardless.

Two Great Things!

Two amazing things happened today...

The first was that I finally paid the dentist. The insurance company finally paid the majority portion of what we've owed the dentist since February. That's how long we've been fighting with the insurance company, 6 months! But we didn't back down, we didn't let up on the insurance company or on the dentist when he tried to refuse to help us with the appeal. And in the end it paid off, big time. We're talking a difference between $1400 and $350. That's over a thousand dollars that we didn't end up having to pay. Today I called the dentist and paid the remainder of the bill and it lifted this huge weight off my shoulders. I'm still never going back to that dentist, because he's condescending and refuses to take the time to explain things to me, but in the end he did come through for us. So I asked his receptionist to thank him for me.

The second amazing thing was that I have a time and date for my interview. I am a grants administrator and manage the grants that my organization passes out. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to say who I work for, because I've had issues with this in the past. But I'll try to explain what's going on in the most general sense. Bascially, over the past year, I've applied for 5, now 6, jobs with the organization. I was well qualified for 5 of the 6, but I didn't get any of the 5 I applied for. I basically made me feel pretty worthless or that HR might have it in for me. I know I don't interview that well, I'm just not good at selling myself yet, and I get really flustered when people ask me questions I'm not expecting. But I know I do an awesome job and I was hoping that that track record would speak for itself. It didn't. This 6th job makes me feel like that has all been worth it. Why, because I really, really, really want this job.

I studied environmental studies in college, and my absolute favorite thing, the thing that interests me the most about environmental studies, is water resources. Specifically, freshwater conservation, water rights, dam removal, sustainable agriculture, riparian borders, etc. Now most of this stuff probably makes the average person yawn, but then again there are plenty of things that other people find fascinating that make me yawn. So it's all good if you're shaking your head at me right now, asking yourself, "what is she smoking?" (The answer to that is nothing, I'm just high on life.)

Well, some of the jobs I applied for had to do with water resources, but only one was about water rights, and I really wasn't invested in the Program because all of the grants I manage have to do with birds, trees, and tigers. Now, tigers are very pretty animals, but I'm just not passionate about saving them. Yes, I think they should be saved, but I'm not sure I want to be the one saving them. At least not directly. Obviously, I'm not going to go out and buy tiger parts from the black market, I might even give some money to an organization that saves tigers, but I don't really want to work with them directly. Some with birds and trees, I know they need saving, but I don't want to be doing it myself. But I just got assigned to a new program, which deals with freshwater conservation. And for the past month and a half my work has actually, for the first time, brought me true joy and happiness. And then I found out that they're looking for a full-time coordinator for the program.

As soon as the job was posted, I jumped on it. I got my resume and cover letter in the day after the job was posted. I've been waiting anxiously for the deadline to pass and to hear about a potential interview. In my mind, this is already my job. Why? Because I'm the only person at the organization who really works with the other two people who manage the program right now. I've gone above and beyond for them and I know they really appreciate that and like working with me. I'm just worried about who else might have applied. Today I found out that they did want to interview me, and I have a date and time now. But even if I don't end up getting the job, at which point I'll be ready to look for another job elsewhere, I won't let the new person lever me out of the program. I'm too invested in it and too happy doing this work, to let someone else take that away from me.

30 Days of Truth- Day 25

Day 25 → The reason you believe you’re still alive today.

I believe I'm still alive today for two reasons: the love of my family and cowardice. My family has always supported me and even during my dark, teenage angsty days when I was contemplating suicide to "show those bastards that they need me," I still knew deep down that they loved me. I knew that my family would be upset if I did go through with it and kill myself. The other thing that kept me from doing it, was the cowardice aspect. I didn't have access to poison or a gun, I'm scared of heights, I don't like swallowing pills (certainly not a whole bottle of them), and I'm scared of inflicting pain on myself (I just recently got over having to spend half an hour shaving my legs, for fear of cutting myself). So that really left no good options.

Cowardice is also the reason I haven't died accidentally. I slow down to a crawl in heavy rain, more so since my very slow-speed, hydroplaning car accident two years ago. I'm afraid of heights, so falling out of trees or off a cliff, or a parachute not opening has never been a problem. And in general I'm just not a very adventurous person when it comes to doing something potentially dangerous.

30 Days of Truth- Day 24

Day 24 → Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)

I am terri-bad (yes, that's a word) with music. I can never remember song titles or lyrics, altough the melodies, no problem. I've tried to complete this for several days now, hence the lack of new posts. But I find that I'm no farther than I started, and so I guess I'll have to admit defeat and move on. Due to some sort of OCD, I can't seem to post anything else until this is taken care of, so admitting defeat should let me continue to post. Sorry guys.