Sunrise on Training Day 1 6:00

SPONSOR ME!

It’s official. I signed up to run the Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon on Dec. 5th. But I’m not doing this just for me: I’ll be running with the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America’s Team Challenge to help raise awareness of these two diseases and help them fund raise. Since I know a number of people affected by these diseases, it’s a good motivator to get (and keep) this former non-runner pounding the pavement 4+ days a week.

This is week one of training. There are fifteen more weeks after this to train for running (or mostly running) 13.1 miles. Yep. You read that correctly. 13.1 miles. The farthest I’ve ever run is a 5K — and in a Santa suit. I’m not so much scared of the distance as I am the fact that I’ve challenged myself to run the entire thing. Oh, I’ve walked distances like this before (March of Dimes Walk-A-Thons, hikes, days in theme parks, etc.), just never run them! As an added bonus, maybe my body will give in and let me crack the weight that I’ve been stuck at for the past 3 weeks even with exercising.

And here’s where you come in, my dear readers:

SPONSOR ME!

My goal is to raise $2000 for CCFA, and I’d like to have the majority of that by October 1st. Yes, we have a minimum to raise, but the trade-offs of the clinics, pros, coaches, mentors, race fees, comradeship, and knowing that this will help people that I’m close to make it seem like it’s a small drop in the bucket. Every little bit helps in reaching my goal, so please give whatever fits your budget: $100+ or only $1.

Saturday training started. At 6:30 a.m. I am definitely not a morning person, but I still hauled my tush from my bed and made it out there. If you’re wondering how I’m staying motivated, I’m using DailyMile to track my progress (and you can stalk me on there, too, to make sure I’m staying true!) and have a fabulous team to keep me going. Sure, there will be days that I’ll want to bitch and moan about having to go out, but someone just remind me of why I’m running.

SPONSOR ME!

Thanks!

Future things to look forward to from my quest to run a half marathon: A short video and maybe a sweet donation challenge…

Caress Girls Night Out Las Vegas

Last Friday night, thanks to Caress and Julie, I had the opportunity to participate in a Vegas Girls Night Out. FABULOUS!

As many of you know, I’m not a girly-girl. Sure, I can glam it up if need be, but I’m much more of a jeans and t-shirt girl. That being said, I was so excited to spend the night with the ladies partying the night away. My checking account was happy since I had already purchased a dress from my favorite designer during last month’s shopping trip with Laura (who also kindly allowed me to use the picture!). The night out also forced me to weed out my makeup. The few bottles of nailpolish I owned turned into glue, and I really didn’t trust any of the mascara I owned. Off to the local makeup store on Thursday morning to find they were running a special: buy $18 worth of certain products and receive a free bag of other cosmetics free. Two nail polishes, a mascara, and lipliner later, I’m stocked for the next year or more! Gave myself a mini manicure and pedicure that night after work and managed not to mess up or chip the nails until well after the event. For me, this is a serious feat of accomplishment.

Friday rolls around, and I have two hours to get ready before the limo is to arrive. Showered with the Caress Whipped Soufflé Body Washes with Silky Fragrance Infusion in White Peach Cream, which I love since it doesn’t dry out my skin. This is very, very, very important living here in the desert. Did the normal post-shower things, the makeup, and hair, and still had time to spare.

The limo arrived stocked with Caress Velvet Bliss Body Wash in Blackberry and Vanilla Essence for each of us. We were off to the club for some great times, great music, and great drinks with great friends. I arrived home as the sun was rising, just in time to sleep for 3 hours before getting up for the state library conference. Yeah, it was a fabulous night with the girls!

Thanks again to Caress for sponsoring our Las Vegas Girls’ Night Out!

DISCLOSURE: Please read this for the full disclosure statement.

Update 2010-08-21: Julie posted this video about her Caress GNO experience:

Also, another thought about the new Caress Whipped Souffle body wash:

I love the product, and I love the raindrop design of the bottle. I’ve been using this body wash for over a week and it doesn’t dry out my skin.  However, the design of the dispenser lid drives me nuts. When closed, the lid flap sits flus with the rest of the cap, and the dispenser area is recessed. Because of the tiny area that’s recessed for the cap, the body wash often gets caught on the lip or face of the lid, making the area quite messy. My wish would be for just a little bit larger cover so that the body wash made it to my bath pouf instead of on the lid!

Friday! Friday! Friday!

[Please ignore the fact I'm posting this on Saturday.]

The morning starts out with me not being able to get out the front exit of my condo complex. I forgot that they were sealing the through-ways this morning, so flip a U-turn and and go out the back exit. Decide that it’s a Starbucks kind of morning. Stop for an iced chai and an egg & turkey bacon muffin. Chai was good as always, but the muffin quite bland. I think it needed some cheese to make it better!

Got in to work to find out I need to update my boss on the restructuring project by the end of the day. It’s very fortunate that I received comments back from one department a few messages before I read that request. Look over the proposed structure for proposed department and find that this department would like to do one part of the structure different than all of the other departments. It’s time to pull out those marketing skills so that I can keep a basic file structure between the departments, and also find out why. That’s 90% of this restructuring. Why do you want this? Tell me how you would use this. How would you store x? I try to blow holes into the structure as much as possible so that I can defend the structure if need be.

Decided on common terms for the standard folders in each department since the departments were split in what they liked to call them. Also clarified some other needs in another department. That leaves all but two departments finalized. And it’s still a week late. Yay. I hate missing deadlines, especially when it’s out of my hands and due to poor timing.

Other than that, cleaned up the desk. Put away more binders and verified documentation for one smaller element. And that’s the week. Friday! Friday! Friday!

And if you get a chance to see Colin Hay, do it. Still has a great voice, and he still puts on a great show.

A note from Thursday: Had a corporate (partner company) IT guy looking for the OPM. Seemed very new and eager to please since he kept complimenting me on the color of my eyes. Apparently he was somehow quite smitten with me even though I didn’t say more than 10 words to him. I was not smitten with him because my first impression of him was too eager to please everyone and way, way, way too nice to the point of annoyance. As I was leaving for the day, the OPM asked if I wanted the IT guy’s number since he couldn’t stop talking about the blonde haired girl with blue eyes. <sigh> No. Thanks. I’m happy right now with whom I’m seeing. That added to the oddity of the day.

Yeah. Odd, odd, odd, odd day. The entire crew was in super early today, which meant my work area was loud most of the day. My desk is located in the “crew room,” the technician break room. Had the lights turned off on me once because a tech had some down time and wanted to take a nap. Lots of chatter. People were in there from the time I came in until dress rehearsal began.

I’m not used to that.

Normally, it’s a handful of day maintenance people that are in that early. They’re normally very busy that they don’t use the crew room unless there’s a drafting project to be completed. Today, however, I felt like I was on I-15 at rush hour. I’d get up to speed and then have to put the brakes on again because something else came up. That, and the video gods were conspiring against me. I gave up on the video project about 15:00, mostly because I didn’t have the block time or correct tools to work on it. Instead, I opted to bring it home since I know how easy it is on my Mac.

"At Least I Tried" by Hugh MacLeod

There was an impromptu meeting around 13:00. I got some good information on it, although I wish the communication would have been there earlier in the day. On the other hand, I did receive a nice compliment from a coworker today. This person approached me and said, “I could never do your job. I can’t stand chasing after people for information. It’s like you’re the teacher asking the students for their homework and hearing that the dog ate it.” I had a good laugh over that because it’s mostly true. No matter what industry you’re in, documentation somehow becomes a four-letter word loathed by all who hear it.

On the way home, I stopped at In-N-Out Burger to feed my impending inner coder, video editor, and graphics artist. The guy at the window asked if I was a teacher.

Apparently the universe thinks I need to be an educator. Training people is actually in my job description, but I don’t think this is what is meant by teacher today.

Since 18:30, I’ve been editing video for work, creating logos for Libraries & Transliteracy’s logo contest, and finally writing this blog post. That makes me a very happy geek.

Halfway through the week, which means tons of meetings from noon until 4:30. Somehow I managed to squeeze lunch in there. The first meeting was the weekly technical meeting. After that the meetings all centered around the file restructure. Got some great advice from two coworkers on keeping the project moving along. Based on the feedback from the people involved, I updated the structure and identified problem areas — and the folder names that will need to be standardized (Works in Progress or Projects and Tasks?). I really wanted to have this segment of the project completed by now. I’ll be satisfied if the entire project is finished (including new file security structures and file movement) by the end of my contract. Crossing my fingers since I don’t like to leave projects unfinished!

Yep. That was the day. It moved too quick to be much more interesting than that!

In other unrelated news, my video poker winning streak broke (nickel and dime games). Thanks to Mr. Man, I’m learning. Still up $7 overall, but no winnings today. I’ll have to try again this weekend.