And... I'm Back!

After almost a month without blogging, I am back!  Over the last month, so much has happened yet NOTHING has happened!  Both Ryan and I are working 50-60 hour work weeks and barely see each other.  He works until about 7:30 or 8:00 at least 3 nights a week, while I am typically at home finishing up work that could not get completed during my normal day.  Because of this crazy schedule, we rarely get to spend any time together.  Which kind of sucks!  


So some updates on my life...


New Employee!
HP rewarded my hard work and long hours with an employee!  She started work about a week ago and things are going swimmingly!  I am ecstatic to have someone be in the office to cover for me if I would like to take some time off.  
I was fairly nervous to have this new person start, because I have never really been responsible for managing another person this closely.  Most of my staff members are self sufficient and out of the office the majority of the day.  This employee is in the office, full time, and thus requires more of my managerial expertise!  My nervousness began when couple of months ago my boss gave me and the rest of the HP managers a book to read about leadership.  After taking the online test to learn about my management skills, I learned that my top skill for managing employees is my ability to "woo" them!  Since Webster's states that "woo" is another word for "courting" I was rather uncertain as to if this was a good talent to have.  Frankly, I was flooded with images of court room hearings of a sexual harassment case.  No cases pending, currently! :o)


New Baby!
Not for me, thank God! But my brother and sister-in-law are expecting their first baby!  It is due towards the end of October, and I do not think that I have been more excited about anything in a very long time!  I am completely thrilled to be an aunt, but completely devastated that they live so far away!  They are not yet sure of the sex of the baby.  I think it's a girl!!!
Ryan and I are getting very excited to make a trip to North Carolina to see the baby at Thanksgiving!  I have never been to North Carolina, either has Ryan, and we are excited to see what its like! 


Cait the Cheapskate?!
Turns out, I am a lot more of a cheapskate than I thought!  I never really noticed how tight I am with money, until recently.  Ryan and I are saving up for our first home, which I think has spun me into the final stage of insanity!  I am constantly watching our money, making sure that things are all accounted for.  We have already saved lots, which infuriates me more.....where was all of this extra money going before?!? Yikes! This new lease on money has now started to bleed into my work life.  I can hardly justify any expense, even if it is not my money that is being spent!  The other day my boss asked where my paper shredder was, and I responded by reaching for his papers and starting to tear them into pieces.  He smiled and said, "its ok, buy a shredder".  It took me several days to bring myself to actually make the purchase...


Now that things are starting to get a little less frantic, at least for me, I am hoping to return to my blog more frequently!!!


Feels good to be back! :o)

Didn't your mother teach you anything????

Apparently, not!  I must say that I whole-heartedly believe that people should have to be tested prior to having children.  I will personally administer each test and vaccinate each individual who fails, to ensure that my future children will not be intermingling with these animals!


I grew up in a household in which my brother and I, feared my parents.  And, no, not in the sense of a "Mommy Dearest" reenactment, but we knew if we misbehaved that we were going to be in trouble.  Where is that fear in the children these days?!  Children know that their parents will not do a thing if they misbehave.  "Little Suzie is just expressing herself"!  Bull.  Little Suzie knows that her parents will just smile and pop an antidepressant and move on.


I am so irritated with going out in public, to see these little gremlins running around like mental patients.  WHERE ARE THE PARENTS?!  It seems as though, parenting has become less about developing your kids into well-rounded, positive members of society and more about being best friends.  All I wish, was that parents would step up and discipline their children.  It is not the children's' fault that they misbehave.  Why wouldn't they?!  No one is ever there to tell them "no".


For example, the other day I was at work while a mother and her children where in the fitness center.  One of the kids comes barreling out of the fitness center, down the hall, and into our kitchen.  I walk into the kitchen for another cup of coffee, just to see her digging though our refrigerator and taking my food!  Then she takes the food into the clubhouse and her mom didn't even come to me to apologize for the stolen goods!


So to all the parents out there, who do not want to make me have my tubes tied, thank you!  Thank you for taking the time to teach your children right from wrong and how to be cute little kids.  For the rest of you, thank you for setting the standard low, as I now know that there is no way my kids will be worse than yours!

Fate...

I am one who is a large believer in fate.  I believe whole-heartedly that things happen to us for certain purposes.  Whether it is for us to learn and grow or to push us down to make us appreciate what we have.  With this said, I believe that certain people enter your life to help you open your eyes and grow into a better person.  I, for instance, have been blessed to have a certain person in my life for nearly 20 years.  This person and I have been through many ups and downs over our almost double decade relationship.  We have shared countless laughs and countless tears.  We shared some of our darkest secrets with one and other.  Because of this relationship, I feel as though I have a sister.


This person is one of the strongest individuals that I have seen.  I completely admire this persons ability to be positive and upbeat in situations in which many would crumble.  I have never looked up to someone more than I do to this person.  She is a wonderfully kind soul and deserves nothing but the best that life can provide.


It breaks my heart to see her go through life's challenges, but I know that if anyone can handle a tough time it is her.  I believe that I am looking forward to seeing the next chapter of her life unfold, just as much as she is.  


Many of you know who I am speaking of and that is likely because if you have met her, then you know you've seen something special.  


I am completely blessed to have her in my life and I think that she has been apart of it to keep me sane, while helping me act insane!!


I hope that everyone has a person like this in their life.  And if you don't you are missing something truly amazing!


I love you!

2011: The Year of Controlled Expenditures

Within the last few months, Ryan and I have been working very hard on assessing our spending habits and to work towards building up our savings account.  Ultimately, we are hoping to save up a hearty amount of money to put towards the down payment of our future home.  

We have purchased Quicken to help us map out where exactly our money is going.  Although we are recently married and the vast amount of our extra money over the past year has went towards our wedding and then towards our honeymoon in January, it is still shocking to us to log into our Quicken software and to see where exactly we have been spending our money.

After we picked ourselves off the floor after seeing our first Quicken pie-chart of our categorized spending, we decided that 2011 was to be the year of Controlled Expenditures.  Meaning, we were to minimize the amount of wasteful spending and try to do certain things ourselves.  We both made sacrifices, such as, I gave up tanning while Ryan has cut back on his Fantasy teams.  And by cutting back I mean, I will tan at work (where it is free) and Ryan will limit his Fantasy teams to under 10 per sport!  We are also limiting the amount of eating out that we do, as that is our biggest bad habit!  Home cooked meals might be half as good, but they are also half the price! :o)

Buying a home is something that we have both been dreaming of for many years.  We are in the ideal scenario for saving a lot of money and there is no reason why we cannot have a large down payment in a few years.  Basically, our living expenses are zero as much of our rent is paid for by my work and the only utilities we have is our gas/electric bill.  Obviously, we still have other expenses that are uncontrollable such as our car payments, student loans and cell phone bills.  But knowing those amounts each month make it easier to save!

Each Sunday we spend the morning watching the Iowa Home Show and seeing the houses that are for sale in the Des Moines Metro Area.  This gives us a little extra motivation to know that the small amount of sacrifices that we are making, are worth it!  And although, many people say that "now is the time to buy" we are confident that in three years or so we will be glad that we waited and know that it is worth it to have the home that we want for the monthly price that we want!

It does take quite a bit of self control to monitor our savings and to make sure that our money is being spent the way that we want, and in no way do we want to live like hermits just to have our home.  But with Ryan's recent promotion, we are getting very eager to see what will unfold in the upcoming years!!

Hopefully, we are able to meet our goal in the next few years and everyone can come to our housewarming party!!!!!!

Just Another Awkward Day....

I like to call what happened today the "perfect storm".  Combine my ungraceful nature with nearly 24 years of bad karma, add in a sarcastic attitude and the lack of a filter and viola the "perfect storm"!

So, I have met with the same group of people for appointments several times over the past few weeks.  They have made it very clear that they have no intention of renting for at least the next calendar year.  I explained to them that it is extremely unlikely that the exact unit that we were looking at was going to be available next year, yet they still wanted to tour almost every other day for 2 weeks.  

By today, my patience was running rather thin with this particular group.  I told them in no uncertain terms that this was to be the LAST tour until it gets within a few months of their actual move in date, as they were taking up a lot of my time touring something they were not prepared to rent.  After my stern comments about our tours coming to an end, I began to lead them up the stairs, got about 3 stairs up and fell on my face!!!!  I didn't just trip, I fell.  Nearly hit my face on the stairs and wound up screaming out in fright.  It was impossible for them to keep straight faces throughout the tour and I remain completely embarrassed! 

The Perfect Storm.....

Grammys 2011!

I must admit, as more over-the-top Lady Gaga gets the more obsessed I become!  Hatching from an egg post incubation?!  Sheer insanity meets sheer genius!  I loved it!!!  She is quite possibly the most eccentric person on the planet, and is my hero! 
Bruno Mars, will you marry me?!  I absolutely LOVED his performance!!  The throw back remix of Grenade was amazing and I truly hope he does not go to jail for that cocaine, hes too pretty for prison!
I was so excited for the Cee Lo Green performance of the "song otherwise known as 'Forget You'", but I am not sure if I was outside of the circle of people who knew why the hell he was dressed like a be-dazzled chicken, or what?!  But the hushing mupets were hysterical! And someone please, take the mic away from Gweneth Paltrow!  In my not-so-expert opinion, she ruined that song!
All in all, I thought it was amazing!  I love watching amazing performances being intertwined with not so amazing performances and acceptance speeches!  More importantly, I was thrilled that Christina Aguilera could remember all of the words and start the night with this gem....

Pranks...Gotta Love Em!

Recently, I have taken up the lost art of pranks and more excitingly PRANK WARS!  I never was a big prankster growing up.  That has a lot to do with my inability to keep a straight face in funny/awkward situations.  However, I am working on my poker face so hopefully I will improve with time (like wine!!!). 


The office prank wars started months ago, and have been getting better and better!  Here are some of my favorites. One of my co-workers put a doorbell chime in the ceiling of another co-works office and proceeded to press the doorbell button repeatability throughout the day.  Since everyone was in on the prank, they all pretended to not hear the doorbell noise when they were in her office, making her think she was having a medical emergency inside her ears!!!  She retaliated by wrapping every single item in his office with Christmas wrapping paper, down to his pens and paper clips! A different co-worker and myself have exchanged a few pranks as well!  He has switched the buttons on my mouse, which renders me retarded when I have an IT guy in my office helping me with computer items and I can even click on the start menu!  So, just this past week I changed the time on his computer to be 25 minutes behind!  He had no idea.  When 5:00 rolled around, and he is usually home by this time, he cannot understand why I am leaving the office 30 minutes early!  


Now, the ball is in my co-workers court and I am getting more and more nervous with anticipation.  I assume it will be a good one, so I need to be ready for my retaliation!  


Help with any ideas for my next attack!!!!