My family and I have been working hard since Thanksgiving to get our house ready for Christmas! Finally after bringing up boxes and boxes upstairs all of the decorations are up! This year we have four trees up and all three floors are filled with Christmas spirit. This past weekend was our big Christmas party and the house looked beautiful!
Sometime last week a friend asked me if I was ready for this upcoming Wednesday. I looked at the text message and tried to remember what was happening on Wednesday. My usual schedule for that day is gym and haircut or a lazy day with some Netflix. I make a rule that I cannot go out or drink during the week or that will make life so much more difficult for the rest of the week. I had to reply, “What is on Wednesday?” after being confused why a friend would want to know why I was excited for the gym…. She replied “Your birthday party!”
I sat at my desk and laughed out loud. Where did these last 365 days go? How was it already my birthday? How did I accomplish so much in one year but not enough at the same time? Could I get just one more week of being 22 years old so I could get my life in order before turning 23? Can I make sure I have a clean room and my laundry is done?
Unfortunately life does not wait for you to have it in order and goes by even when you are not paying attention. On the 24th of December I turn 23 years old and that age is very old to me.
_________________________________________ Continue reading “now I understand why Peter Pan didn’t want to grow up”
It is a Sunday night and I am in bed under all of my blankets dreading tomorrow. Monday is always a dreaded day no matter what job you have or how much you love your life. Monday is a day to start fresh with goals and a fresh to do list. This past weekend was crazy busy with a big family Christmas party at my house that required days to clean and finish decorating the house, working on Saturday to help out in my moms office, a surprise visit from old college roommates & another Christmas party at a family members house.
I am going to bed right now with dirty hair and I am trying to see if I can get away with using dry shampoo tomorrow just for one more hour of sleep. Back in college I would schedule in my planner my sleep schedule because without planning my whole day out I would have never gone to bed to do everything I wanted to do in one day. Now in the PGL world my first alarm goes off at 6:30am and I am crawling to my bed around 10pm. Does anyone have any tricks on getting out of bed in the morning? I have not made it to work on time once in two months and it is not acceptable when I walk to work since can see my work building from my front porch!
On Sunday night I plan what days I can go to the gym, my weekly hair appointment, and what night I will go to Wegmans to go food shopping. The highlight of my week is going to the gym on Thursdays and then going to Wegmans for a late night food shopping. It is so nice with no one being in the store and I can get everything without feeling rushed or being trampled trying to get juice. My planner looks more like to do lists than a calendar. I plan what day I can set time aside to paint my nails… I only work 40 hours a week but realize that in the PGL of being an adult, there is a lot of personal and home maintenance that goes on. I learned the hard way recently how bad it can be when laundry is not done in a timely manner.
The clock keeps ticking one more minute closer to Monday and dreading it does not properly define my feelings towards tomorrow. This past weekend involved lots of fun but a little too much partying and no sleep. Six days in a row of working and less than eight hours of sleep. Anyone who knows me understands that is not a good combination!
Thank goodness it is a short week because of Christmas! This year, all I want for Christmas is an entire day to sleep in my bed! Let’s see if a full night of sleep is possible before the year is over…
Tis’ the season for pretty Christmas lights everywhere! It is impossible not to get distracted while driving because I am looking at peoples homes and not the road. Not good I know! I am lucky enough where I can walk to work and this warm winter we have is a blessing because cold weather and I do not go well together. On my walk home I love to walk around our towns Main Ave because all of the trees and stores are decorated in lights.
I have been trying to find someone to drive around and look at lights with me because I love to see how each home is transformed with Christmas decor.
I was born on Christmas Eve so with my birthday following on a big holiday that the entire world celebrates makes it easy for my parents to have led me to believe that the whole holiday was for my birthday. There was one birthday I was probably four years old we went to Disney and my parents told me the whole firework display and the park decorations were for my birthday. It took me years to connect the dots that the celebrations were actually for someone else’s birthday…
My town on Christmas Eve has a big event in a park that was across the street from my childhood home. Santa would come on a firetruck and bring a bag of cookies and we would sing songs. My family actually personally knew the Santa so the whole park and town would wish me a happy birthday and sing to me. For a little kid it was a magical experience.
Even though I am now technically an adult every Christmas season the decorations and lights bring back the magic.
*I still believe*
A big part of my job is customer service and with that is a lot of talking on the phone and interacting with people. The office opens at 8:30 in the morning and by 9am I am already dealing with town emergencies and handling situations. This month we have had one of our properties broken into, the beach vandalized and alarms going off in buildings causing the police to come to my office to the rescue. That is a lot of chaos before finishing my first cup of coffee in the morning!
Some days I am very chipper on the phone but when it comes to Friday I am exhausted and my patience is depleted. Being nice is just part of my personality. It always has been. There are times when people call my office very upset and need someone to blame. I have been yelled at for leaves on the ground, ugly electrical wires hanging in the street, and for the lack of parking in a square mile town. It is a lot of concerns and being yelled at to just grin and bare it. But no matter how I complain I always take it like a good sport and answer the phone happy as always.
By using my own connections and networking I am working on a very cool project with my job that involves fundraising. Working for a nonprofit ~*fundraising*~ is like a magic word that brings joy to all involved. I was CC’d on a few emails of having my name, contact info, and agenda forwarding to different people higher up in the company. Which is amazing when I kept getting emails of my name being forwarded! But I noticed something that took away this deserved excitement. I was introduced as a “Very sweet, nice young lady trying to do good for her job…”. Is that how I am viewed to others? Do more experienced people in their field only see me as nice and sweet? I do not want to be nice and sweet when I am negotiating a deal or contract. I want to look ambitious and like a powerful businesswoman that I went to school for.
For the first time, my personality which, I have always viewed as my charm, is actually more of a fault and hurtful in my career. There is no solution to fixing my personality but I hope to see my work presence being more powerful than a sweet young lady one day.
It was impossible to be on social media in December without seeing a Buzzfeed post or college student complaining about finals. While my friends who are still in school were complaining about the lack of sleep, amount of schoolwork and juggling it all it actually made me miss school. I had missed college before of course but I knew that being an adult and working had a lot to offer in different ways. I miss the social life and the friends I had but I also enjoy going to bed at 9pm every night and watching Netflix with my cat on a Saturday night. I have stopped wearing real clothes on the weekend and food shopping at Wegmans on Friday night is the highlight of my week.
But when I saw people in the library studying I really missed school. I will be the first to admit it that I am a very big nerd. I loved reading and writing papers. The library was my favorite spot on campus that gave me so much inner peace. With a cup of coffee from Starbucks in my hand I knew that I could conquer the world… or a fifteen page research paper due the next day. It is not until you have to say goodbye to something do you realize how much you miss it.
I know that I am not done with school forever. I am taking time off to save up some money, gain some independence (financially and residential) and figure out what my zip code will be for the next few years. I know the next step is my masters but I have goals of getting my PhD or going to law school. All of these options require a nice pretty check to pay for them so some time off is necessary for now to save some money.
Finals weeks was always my favorite because it was just an exam a day and I had all day to go at my own pace, goofing off with friends and everyone was delusional together with the lack of sleep.
For now I sit at my work desk and stare longingly out the window and wish I could walk from Mandeville to Merion or even grab a coffee at Starbucks. I hated the long walks everywhere on campus but now I long to go on a walk and run into friends like I once. I miss school and cannot wait to go back.
Blonde Rosie Blog 