(Not So) Difficulty Run

After back-to-back post 3:00 am bedtimes, I needed to get outside in the fresh, crispy air. The day started with a run and brunch at Brooklyn Bagel Bakery. I spent the afternoon with a few "new" friends on a winter hike in Northern Virginia. The trail ended up providing fewer challenges than expected and the temperature only reached freezing point degrees in the sun. None of that seemed to matter with the spectacular surrounding scenery. 

Hooray Nature!

An Apartment Tour

I mentioned moving (in October). Well various this' and thats, have prevented the documentation of my new digs. Today is the day. I have a three-day weekend with nearly nothing going on. Shocked? Me too! I dove into a true apartment cleanse on Sunday morning. And I got down and dirty, scrubbing each surface in this place. I have a phone call in to my mom, for the woman never taught me to mop. Is it supposed to be the ab workout it was?

My bedroom:

I have Pops to thank for putting together this bed and the black bookshelf. I learned how awful sleeping on a leaky air mattress the floor was during my first few weeks. I have Favorite Person to thank for hanging the shelf and artwork. I have my mom to thank for the miscellaneous decorations. I have M.R.B. to thank for the plant I cannot kill. There is still some work to be done. I need to go shopping for sheets and a comforter. In the interim, I have Latte Woman to thank for the toasty flannel sheets. Also on the shopping list, is curtains. I need those, stat. Those lovely "curtains" were left from the previous tenant, along with the tree wall art.

The Kitchen:

It's tiny. And functional. You can see I have chickpeas cooking in the crockpot. I am on a mission to cook a new recipe each week for the entire year. I am right on par--Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins, Savory Orange-Roasted Tofu and Beets, Butternut Squash and Kale Quesadilla, and Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies. I am eating almost entirely vegan, when J.P.B. is not visiting. I cannot seem to let go of cow milk, for drinking. I'm imperfect, what can I say. 

The (Open) Dining Room:

I spend a fair amount of time at this linen covered table writing letters, working from home, playing on my computer, and most obviously eating. 

The Living Area: 

If sports are on and the local bars have not lured me in, I am usually planted on that over-sized comfortable couch. 

The (Shared) Bathroom:

This is one of the most spacious bathrooms I have ever had, contradictory to this being the most crowded area I have ever lived in.

The Balcony:

The natural lighting in this apartment sold me. My bedroom and the dining room have five by four feet windows. The double-doors to the balcony only sealed the deal.

And I have failed to mention, the location is prime. Adjusting to life with (bills and) roommates has been relatively seamless. I am more than happy I "toughed" it out at home for a year while job hunting, then working my first office job and saving. The apartment and true independence was worth the wait.

Sometimes Not

I am in this waiting place, hoping for a lightning bolt moment where the summary statement of events from the past couple weeks come to me. I really, really like neat little packages with a lesson at the end. Increasingly, I am traveling down these paths where it just is not quite that simple.

So that’s right. I used to judge your blog. I sat smugly on my couch, looked at your blog for the second time in two weeks and you had not posted anything! I mean, what else were you doing with your life? Probably living it. In my world, that was not allowed. You owed it to this devoted follower, to post - regularly. I find that it is perfectly OK for me to judge your blog, but I do not appreciate your snippy thoughts about my blog. I have been on this journey of blog writing, sometimes writing every week, sometimes not for more than three years. Right now, it is a season of “sometimes not” documenting. I am having trouble writing about life in general because I want to share meaningful events, but I am full of a lot of loose ends right now. (I am finding this is not a horrible thing.) It is not because I do not have thoughts. Oh believe me I do! Again, I am not really sure what they all mean. I have not processed and worked through them enough to write about them on a blog. I am a bit of a perfectionist and so I am refuse to write about something until I can wrap my mind around it satisfactorily.

All of this is to say, I’ve stopped judging you, my fellow bloggers. I now understand that not all thoughts are able to be worked out in 300 words or less and that is OK. It is actually a good thing because lets face it, life is complicated, busy, and incomprehensible at times and we need to be able to rest in spite of the chaos. I need to dispel my compulsion to know and fully understand everything immediately (and then blog about it).

I am still going to post from time to time, but more sporadically than before. Let the judging begin!

Traveling for Work

Dear Pops,

At the close of business hours on Monday, I learned I would be traveling to Norfolk, VA to support a Navy project. My to-date focus at this company has been solely Internal Revenue Service (IRS), so this effort was certainly going to be a challenge. And when you factor in my direct-line at said company--Boss Man, also focuses his efforts entirely on IRS work, I will admit I was nervous.

I am writing you now following my first working vacation. I started Wednesday morning at 5:00 am with a shower and a Starbucks drive-by. Black fuel in hand, I managed to be at the office by 6:00 am for a prompt departure. I traveled the four hours to Naval Station Norfolk with a coworker I have only crossed paths with in the halls of headquarters. The conversation was filled with the long, awkward pauses of two people who have near nothing in common and share a respect for work boundaries.

The work portion of the day may have began later than my typical 8:00 am start, however, I was expected to put in a full eight hours of cube-land grind. As the day progressed, my fried brain could not wait for the clock to strike 6:00 pm; my stomach was crying with pains of hunger by this time. The only things I consumed all day was the apple I packed and a slice of greasy pizza. This, as you know, is a very untypical Wednesday meal plan. Now joined with four additional coworkers, together we traveled 30 minutes to the hotel in downtown Norfolk. The day was not over. I had 15 minutes to change into an outfit less dressy than my business suit and nicer than my usual post-work sweats. I savored this brief period of alone time.

I gathered with the crew in the lobby a little before 7:00 pm. There I grew increasingly aggravated and grouchy--my hunger intensifying--as we waited for the dawdlers. Then, collectively, we decided on Thai food. This was not my first choice for cuisine. My one hang-up being, I had plans for Thai with friends, not coworkers, at Bangkok 54 back in Northern Virginia on Friday. But I am sure you know how that is. At least a decision had been made without too much commotion! Thankfully my dinner was spectacular for an empty restaurant sitting amidst an unpromising downtown.

At 9:00 pm, I was free to return my hotel room, where I was greeted with the pings of several work emails coming through. I was unable to log into my company's VPN on the Naval Station, and I owed one final monthly report to Boss Man. (This would have been handled first thing this morning... had I been sitting back in Chantilly, VA racing through my normal routine.) At least I had Modern Family playing in the background. I closed my eyes and drifted to sleep quickly after; I slept well.

By 6:30 am, I was fully clothed and in the lobby, waiting for my ride to Yorgo for another spectacular meal--bagels. We had breakfast off-site to grab additional emails from the network before going into "lockdown" on the base. I have coworkers making this trip on a regular basis to appreciate for finding this off-the-beaten-path gem. But we were working by 7:10 am... and the day ended around 5:00 pm, at which point I still had the four-hour drive home to Northern Virginia.

Aside from the faces of distant coworkers, a short walk to dinner, and the drive to-and-from the naval base, this is what I saw of Norfolk:

I was taunted knowing Virginia Beach was somewhere in that blue distance.

That was a lot of babbling and pontificating, to convey my sincerest apology. There is nothing remotely close to that feel of vacation when it comes to travel for work. There was no time to plan, not that I do a ton of that prior to travel anyway. There was virtually no time to explore. There was hardly time to pack!

Ever since I was your little girl, I envied all the vacations work took you on. In my heart of hearts, I have always been a traveler. I enjoy finding that fresh perspective travel brings, escaping the ruts of daily life, and discovering new cultures and places. I particularly long for the places that make me appreciate my life. You have been on some "incredible" vacations--Aruba; Berlin, Germany; Cancun, Mexico, to name a few from the previous two years. But after my 39-hour excursion to Norfolk, I have come to realize these dream destinations, among your more mundane trips to Detroit, MI, Minneapolis, MN, San Antonio, TX, and San Francisco, CA, are noting like real vacations. They were longer than average working day, in conference rooms and cubes you are unfamiliar with. They were spending time with people you would rather limit yourself to 40 hours (ha!) a week with. They were simply doing your job.

Before closing, I will thank you for encouraging me to take on challenges and teaching me the importance of team work. Mostly, I want to thank you for instilling in me a solid work ethic. One that does not include "counting" hours and instead giving quality hours until the task is accomplished.

I will no longer be referring to these nights away from the home you built as vacation.

Much thanks and many more apologies!

Love, Sister