Life Update

Holy cow - I didn't realize I did not post during the ENTIRE month of June.  I'm sorry!

I'm not really sure where this blog is heading in the future.  It might disappear - like so many blogs when the time comes.

I have some updates to share with you all.

First, I had a BLAST during my very first pin up contest.  I didn't make it to the second round, but I made some new friends and had a fantastic time.  Here are a few photos from the day.

Strange Beauty Show did our hair for the day and Bomber Betty Cosmetics did our makeup.

 We had a photographer that walked around with us to take some photos.  It was fun to take a few photos with the classic cars.

Second, I PASSED my certification exam I took back in May!  I had forgotten about waiting for the results since it was 7-8 weeks since I took the exam.  But by the time that week rolled around (last week), I was SURE that I had failed and I was seriously avoiding checking my mail.  Thankfully, Justin told me that I should just suck it up and check it.  I almost fainted in the hallway when I opened it to see that I passed!!  This is a HUGE step towards my career goals.

Also, the very next day, I got a call that I was offered this job I really wanted.  I am going to wait to talk more about that until I actually have the contract signed and done...  it was a crazy week for sure!

Well hello there!

Yikes!  I haven't written since May 7th.   Sorry about that!

I guess I hadn't had much to write about so I just figured why bother.  And honestly, I didn't really mind it.  I basically forgot I had a blog.  Maybe that's an indication?  We'll see.

So here's a little update I have for you:

JOB:
Still none.  I'm still job searching daily and applying to things that I am qualified for and am interested in.  But it isn't a lot.  I'm still waiting to hear from this head hunter about a job he contacted me about in April, so we'll see.  I really hope something comes up soon because I am honestly bored with not working and really tired of not having any money.

FOOT:
The foot is good.  I got the all clear from my doctor last Thursday so I won't be seeing her again unless I want her to remove the toenail completely because it's bothering me.  The nail is slowly growing in and she says that I won't really get the whole thing back, so we'll see.  I'm really more worried about what it looks like than I thought I would be.  At least I can fully function.

GYM:
I started back to the gym last week.  I waited a week longer than I wanted to because I was afraid I was going to do something to my toe.  But it's honestly been great.  I haven't been running or jumping yet, but soon.  I'm not really in a rush, especially since I'm not playing volleyball right now.

DATING:
Nothing much was happening on this front for a long time.  Guy #2 basically pulled excuse after excuse, so that was that.  Last week I went out with a new guy from Match.  He is very nice.  We went out again last night - so we'll see.  He's fun to hang out with, but I'm not sure I really feel attracted to him.

I snagged an outfit photo before my date last night

OTHERS:
This month has seemed really busy.  One of my old teammates got married two weeks ago and a bunch of my teammates were in town to celebrate.  We had a great weekend reconnecting and just having a blast.  I snagged a couple photos from the pretty crazy week.

 Me and Tera take a selfie

 Sprangers, Tera, Amanda, Me and Brooke

Then there were shots and fishbowl drinks - and things got crazy!

 Amanda and I heading off to the wedding

 Wedding attire - Sprangers, Amanda, Tera, Me, T, Brooke

 A little Sunday Funday in the cab ride home with Amanda and Brooke

 Finally, I took a leap of faith and entered a pinup contest with the MOTOBLOT event.  Shockingly, I made it to the top 20!!!!  That means I have to be onsite for the event on the 14th of June for audience voting.  EEEK!  I'll be spending the next couple of weeks practicing my pinup poses, picking out what I'm going to wear and figuring out my hairstyles!

Post Surgery

A little public service announcement to all of you...

if you ever have control over it, when you have to have surgery - GET TWILIGHT ANESTHESIA instead of full blown anesthesia.

Seriously.  While it was a little weird to be awake and talking to my anesthesiologist during the surgery, I had very little recovery time after the surgery.  In fact, all of the terrible feelings I remember from last surgery were gone this time.

My toe surgery was Friday morning at 7am.  I was ready to get it over with and treading the aftermath that I remembered from last time.  Thankfully, I felt great and only had to spend 20 minutes in recovery after the surgery.

Right now I am on limited mobility (no walking Samson, not a lot of activity) until I see my doctor again on Monday.  I was so thankful that my mom was able to come and stay with me until Monday and take care of Samson.  She also had to drive me up to Madison yesterday for a presentation (to hopefully get a job).  And now she is keeping Samson at their place so I don't have to worry about him until I get the OK from the doctor.

I am not really in any pain, which is really nice - but I am sooooo extremely bored it's not even funny.

I should be using this time to study for my CAE exam that's in a month....  yep, I should definitely be doing that.

:)

Hopefully I will have some more updates soon.  Sorry posting has been light.  I don't really have much going on right now.

Hello Out There!

I have completely slacked on blog posting.  No excuses, I just don't have much to talk about.

A few of you that have been bugging me for updates on life have been hearing about it constantly so I wasn't sure I needed to post.  But this is probably still good for reference.

The last I wrote was about St. Patty's day and the last time I saw guy #2.  Since there I have heard from him occasionally, but he hasn't made any move to ask to see me again.  So I'm not really sure where to go with that.  As I learn more about what he's doing, he is incredibly busy.  But there is a part of me still thinking - hey, if he was interested in seeing you, he would do it!"... So, that's where that stands.   Guy #1 is still around sometimes, but its so casual I can barely think about it as dating.  I heard from him last week while I had plans and there have only been a couple of texts since then.

I'm still on match, but nothing has really been progressing with that.  So, yeah.... that's about it from the dating end.  Not going to lie, I'm pretty bummed about Guy #2.

As for my professional life, that's not really progressing any faster than my dating life is.  I have a presentation next week for a potential job, but I don't know what the decision time line is for that.  I've been checking things online and there isn't much out there.  This week has started to set in the panic of realizing that I am not getting any more money coming in.  Yikes!  I did sign up to take my certification exam on May 2nd so I should really be spending this time reading/studying.  I need to stay focused on something!

On some good news (because right now this seems super depressing), I have been hitting the gym while I've been home and keeping an eye on my eating.  I have definitely lost weight, probably close to 10 lbs in the last 3 weeks or so!  It's definitely something I wasn't really focusing on and sort of happened while I was distracted with everything else.  The good news is that it has given me a new sense of purpose for right now.  Keeping on track with the weight loss - IE: Bikini Ready 2014!  Of course, this is going to become challenging for the next couple of weeks because I have my surgery on Friday and that will hinder my mobility for a while.  If I can keep on track with my eating, I should be able to push through that.

So that's all I got for you right now.  No dating, no job, and soon less mobility than ever.  2014 is not shaping up to be the Year of Megan right now...

First Date #2 of the Week

Date #2 has an incredibly lengthy and sort of weird back story.   Let's see if I can sum it up in bullet points.

1. Guy #2 randomly follows me on Instagram sometime last year.  I check him out and follow him back after seeing he went to NIU also.  Random photo comment commences sporadically.
2. My friend, Meredith, tells me about this new dating app, Hinge, based on connections through facebook friends.  Very similar to Tinder but not necessary location specific.
3. After a week of being downright frustrated with Hinge and ready to give up, Guy #2 pops up as a "connection".  I say YES (obviously) and anxiously wait all day to see if we "matched".
4. Two days pass with no alert of a connection, so I quickly pout and move on.
5. Last Friday, I wake up to a message that "You and Guy #2 connected.  Say hi!"
6. Messaging via Hinge takes place.  I send him my number irritated by glitchy problems with the app.
7. Texting ensues.
8. After waiting 3 days to see if he was ever going to ask me out, I give up and ask him myself.
9. I find out that we actually "knew" each other in college and he admits he's wanted to grab a drink with me since then (and has had a bit of a crush on me).
10. Planned Thursday date.

So that's probably as simple as I can make that whole process.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited about this date.  This date was in the works before Date #1 was even an option and it was really hard for me to get excited about date #1 because I just couldn't wait to go out with this guy.  As I told my coworker, I am not sure I have ever been this excited about a date in probably a decade.  The upside - YEAH something positive this week.  The downside - I was totally in my head all week!  Instead of being casual and relaxed about this date, I was over-analyzing every text message.

ANYWAYS...  the date was terrific.

We hit it off right away (not surprising) and had a great time chatting.  I laughed a lot.  He is cute!  It was great.  And the best part... we had already agreed to see each other again on Monday before we even ended this date.

So really, aside from my shitty job situation and now the toe surgery, my week has been pretty awesome.  

I'm responsible for planning the second date - AH SECOND DATE!  I better get my thinking cap on.

And then God said, "this should be funny"

I know now that God has a sense of humor - and a really good one!  I'm not mad at him with how this week has panned out.  I think I actually reached the point with my employment that is acceptance.  This will be the kick in the butt I need to make the change I've been wanting to make for the last 18 months.  Anyways... what happened yesterday afternoon is what my title of this post is directly related to.

If you had told me last Sunday that THIS was how my week was going to go down, I would've laughed in your face.  A big old belly laugh.  

So with the job loss, two pending dates with two different people, I think God thought "eh, why not throw one more thing into the mix?"

*Disclaimer - if you are in any way squeamish... you may want to skip this post!

Yesterday, I had a pre-scheduled appointment with a podiatrist to take a look at the nail on my big toe.  It had been bothering me.  I messed around with it and it wasn't getting better.  My coworker thought I might have an ingrown, so I made an appointment like a good adult to see the doctor.

After seeing the doctor, she was concerned by the amount of irritation and said that in order to clean it and let anything drain, she would need to take the whole toe nail off and get a sample of what was under there.

So we went through the procedure of numbing my toe and then I had to look away when she was removing the nail.  I have a pretty tough stomach and most things don't bother me... but having a toe nail peeled off.  Ugh.  No thank you.

I was busying myself with my phone when I saw her reach to open the door and call out, "Nancy, bring the camera."

I will tell you.  That goes on the list of THINGS YOU NEVER WANT TO HEAR YOUR DOCTOR SAY.  For me, it goes directly under when my dentist was pulling teeth for implants and he goes "uh oh".  Seriously.  No dentist of doctor should EVER EVER say uh oh.

Anyways....  why she was asking for the camera was because there was a clearly defined "growth" underneath the nail that was pushing the nail away from the skin.  Hence the irritation and other issues.  She said because the "growth" was perfectly circular and felt hard, almost bony, there was a good chance it was "just a bone spur".

She threw out words like, or a cyst or small tumor - BUT NOTHING SERIOUS (I love how doctors do that) and sent me down to get an x-ray before I went home.  She said she would probably be able to call me and tell me by the end of the day.

So I went through the waiting process for the x-rays, stopped at CVS for gauze and supplies and headed home.  She said I would have only mild discomfort for the first couple of days until the skin started to toughen up, but she did not warn me that during the time that the numbing was wearing off - it felt like she was still attempting to rip off the nail!

She called me back around 6:30pm (while I was getting ready for my date) and told me that the x-rays confirmed it was a bone spur.  That they are VERY common, especially with athletes, and that I would need to schedule surgery so she could remove it.

And THAT is how God played a joke with my yesterday.  Fortunately, it did little to dissuade my enthusiasm for my date that night - which I will talk about it a follow up post. :)

What a week

I am not sure I'm ready to discuss what's going on at work, but really anyone reading this would already know that I am being let go.

To make a really long story short, we've been having issues with our biggest association client since the new president came on in November.  On Monday, a forwarded email made its way to me that made a "before we fire them" comment.  So with losing this client, my small company cannot afford to pay me anymore.

So there's that.

I know am in the process of dealing with negotiations about when my officially "last 30 days" starts and how much I have to be in the office.

I will tell you, this situation has been handled extremely poorly!  But I'm not going to write about any details until everything is done here.  That's the last thing I need to deal with.  Which reminds me, this blog is no longer going to be searchable to the public.  There's really no point.

This post sucks.  I'm sorry.

Though, on the bright side, while my professional life is crumbling around me - my dating life is actually taking an interesting turn.

I'll write about this week's dating in a follow up post.

Getting Organized in 2014

Late yesterday evening, Leslie send me an email asking if I was going to participate in Apartment Therapy's January Cure.

The premise, is the follow along with the 30 activities during the month of January to kick start your year of progress.

So I figured - why not.  I love organizing and making progress and feeling like I'm accomplishing things.  Why not.

So I signed up.

Basically, they send you an email every day with what your "project" for the day is.  Interested?

You can still sign up.

It just started yesterday and yesterday's task was to walk through your house and make a project list.  Then narrow down that list.

This weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) is to buy flowers, mop and vacuum all floors and get your green cleaners together.

You can also see the PDF of the full month.

So if you are interested, sign up.

I will be finishing my project list tonight and was already planning on a good cleaning this weekend - so I'm totally on the ball! :)

Christmas time (aka the "emotional post" Sara has been waiting for)

Sara, I hope you appreciate the title call out.  :)  XO!

I know I teased about writing this big emotional post about Christmas time... and then I basically when blog MIA for the rest of the week. Good job Megan!

I talk about it every year on this blog, how much I love Christmas time.  Heck, I even had a 25 days of my favorite Christmas music countdown.  I am one of those people that is generally excited when the stores start putting up Christmas stuff in October.  I listen to Christmas music starting in November.  I decorate.  I have a holiday party.  I LOVE that Christmas spirit and general feel that the holidays brings.

But since my break out a few years ago, I find myself "forcing" that good cheer.  Since my breakup happened a couple of days before Christmas on that year, it's been really hard to move on from that bad feeling.  No matter how much I feel I have moved on from the relationship.  Just like any event in your past that made some sort of impact - it never really goes away.

I think the holidays amplifies the emotions of everyone - be it the positive or negative ones.    This year seems to be harder.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm frustrated with work right now.  Or that two of my amazing friends just moved away.  Maybe it's the lackluster dating - or lack there of.

Whatever it is, it's making me feel like a Christmas Cheer phony!  So I am doing my best to work myself out of it.

I'm making attempts to get myself out and about so I am not just stewing at home. I've got my holiday party next Saturday.  I'm doing what I can.

Oh, hey there blog!

I have officially sucked at blogging recently.  My last post was 10 days ago!!!

I'm sorry.

I will try to be better.  In the meantime, here is what I have been up to since then (in pictures because I'm lazy). :)

I finally made it to Girl & the Goat - even if it was only for drinks and appetizers.

Hanging out with this lady...

I had some (more) Jeni's Ice Cream. Black coffee and dark chocolate peppermint.... mmmmm

Samson and I have taken lots of walks.  He LOVES that its getting cooler out.  Me?  Not so much.

I spend four days in Orlando.  It was cold, cloudy and rainy.  I was not upset (since I was stuck inside), but this guy wasn't thrilled.

Samson was glad I was home - though he gets spoiled at Gigi's house.

A random dinner and drinks at Wilde's near my place.  It took about 20 takes to get one semi decent "we are pissed" photo.

One of the many outtakes...

I screenshot this photo from Instagram on my phone.  I think I may attempt one or two of these for Christmas.

With crazy storms a-brewing yesterday, Samson was my couch buddy for a few hours.

And, I am finally back in the office today and had a package!  I love when I forget I ordered things online and get a surprise package.  It's my Christmas notecards and gift tags from Brittany Fusion Paper!

Happy Halloween!

If you were deft enough to notice in my outfit photo yesterday, you got a sneak peak at my costume as it was hanging on the door behind me.

:)

Happy Halloween everyone!

Paris Adventures (Part 2)

*Read about the start of our trip and our four days in Barcelona HERE and the first part of our trip in Paris HERE.

Day 8 (9/16)
Another day of drizzly rain.  We walked down to the Louvre, which was really only a few blocks from our hotel.  The Louvre is HUGE.  The building used to be the Royal Palace before Versailles.  While majority of the artwork is not my particular favorite (lots of religious art), the sculptures were pretty cool and you have to be there.  As someone that enjoys art, I really liked it.  It just took a LONG time to get through.

Afterwards, we walked down to the street to Angelina's - a tea room well known for their pastries.  It was delicious.  I had a simple club sandwich and we picked up some desserts to eat when we got home that night.

After we dropped our things off, we walked over to Notre Dame to do that tour.  I forgot to mention that we did buy a two day Paris pass, which got us past lines at many places (like the Louvre and the D'Orsay Museum...totally worth it).

Grammy - I said a quick prayer at St. Therese for you.

After Notre Dame, we crossed the Sienne to find St. Etienne Du Mont Church which I had found on a list of things to see.  But it was closed. :(

We were pretty tired from all the walking and the Louvre, so we grabbed some crepes from a local cafe and ate in our room to dry off and rest our sore legs.

Day 9 (9/17)
We woke up and were taking our time getting ready.  Unfortunately, we got out days mixed up and ended up having to scramble to take the metro to make our Paris Catacombs tour on time.  We made in (only 5 minutes late)!  The catacombs was pretty cool.  It's an interesting story.

One of two sculptures in the Catacombs

After the tour, we went to the Museum D'Orsay.  We skipped the long line to get in and took our time going through.  It is definitely smaller than the Louvre, but it features the types of art I really like.  Impressionists, post-impressionists, etc.  The rooms were a lot tighter than at the Louvre which made it frustrating to try to look at paintings while people were crowding around the well-known ones.  Typical museum.

Afterwards, we decided (in the rain) to take the metro over to the Champs-Elysees and head to dinner at a restaurant recommended to us - Le Relais de L'Entrecote.  We made a pit stop at Laduree, a famous pastry shop to pick up some macarons for later.   Anyways, back to L'Entrecote.  We were told that they don't take reservations and there would be a line, so we go there about 20 minutes before it opened and waited in line to get in.  We were like 7th in line, so we were sure we would get in first.  Their premise is pretty simple.  Everyone sits.  There is no menu.  You get a house salad, steak (cooked rare, medium or well) and fries.  You get two servings of the steak and fries, which is really just half your steak first and then the other half later.  Then you can choose a dessert from their menu.  The food was good.  The steak came with this green sauce which was delicious.  It was interesting to eat in a place like this.

Day 10 (9/18)
On our last day in Paris, we were pretty tired and pretty tired of being wet.  We decided to buy tickets to take the hop-on, hop-off buses and just ride around the neighborhoods and get off when we wanted.  We took the tour to the Luxembourg Gardens and walked around a little bit.  Then we got back on and rode around until we were hungry.  We hopped off to have lunch at Le Deux Magots and then got back on the bus.

After riding three routes of buses, in the rain - we were pretty much done for the day.  We took one final lap past the Moulin Rouge, which I wanted to see.  Gotta say, I was overall underwhelmed.  In the daylight at least, it looks pretty run down.  Also it's on a street in the artsy district that is loaded with girls clubs and sex shops.  Vaguely reminiscent of my neighborhood I guess. :)

We headed back early, picked up some crepes for dinner and packed up for our trip home in the morning.

I had so much fun on this trip - seeing so much and spending time with my mom and dad.  Honestly, I was feeling pretty tired and frustrated with the inability to really communicate with people, so I didn't do any shopping in Paris.  Something I will have to rectify with another trip. :)

Paris Adventures (Part 1)

*Read about the start of our trip and our four days in Barcelona HERE.

Day 5 (9/13)
We left Barcelona in the morning and arrived in Paris around lunch time.  Sidenote, the security in Europe is NOT like in the US.  I would travel in Europe anytime.

When we got to Paris it was raining....  which would be the daily weather for majority of the time we were there.  We got to our hotel, the Westin Paris Vendome which was a really cool and beautiful hotel - maybe just a little bit loud....  thin walls and doors.

After we unpacked and got settled, we decided to just push through the drizzly rain and walk down the street towards the Louvre and the Sienne.  Then, we walked down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe.

We stopped at Cafe Du Colannade for dinner before we had our ghost/mystery tour.  Our tour guide, Michele, was nice and funny.  Mom was fascinated by his glass pipe that he smoked most of the time we were walking and I liked that he was wearing fangs.  Totally in character.  The tour was interesting and nice to walk around a bit of Paris at night.  Did you know that the real story of the demon barber, Sweeney Todd, is actually from Paris?  After the tour, we wandered past the Louvre at night.





Day 6 (9/14)
Another day of drizzling rain.  We were pretty tired from the day before so we decided to sleep in, which ended up being around 10:30am.  Even with the rain, we pushed through and walked up to the Basilica Sacre Coeur.  Maybe the second most famous cathedral in Paris.  It was beautiful (even in the rain) and was sitting high up on the hill above the city. After our tour, we wandered upon a little square with restaurants and a ton of local artists selling their goods.  Both my mom and I bought paintings from two different artists and we sat at one of the cafes for lunch.

After lunch, we wandered over to the Parc Monceau, down past the cemetery and over to the Tower Eiffel.  The rain just would not let up and both of us were tired and sore and wet and cold.  We headed back to the hotel early.  My mom commented while looking at the map that we had walked FAR that day and we ordered room service and watched BBC reality game shows.

Day 7 (9/15)
Finally, a day with NO RAIN.  And it could not have come at a better time since we had our day trip out to Versailles Palace.  (Our tour guide also let us stop at the Arc de Triomphe while it was nice out.)  This was probably my favorite part of the trip.  The palace was incredible and we didn't even see most of it.  The tour we were on got us VIP access to the private apartments which are not open to the general public.  That was pretty cool.  It also got us in right away past the lines so that we could see the famous Hall of Mirrors without many people in it.  After that, we headed up to the gardens.  We went on a day that they were having the fountain shows which was awesome.

 

When we got back to Paris, we decided to take advantage of the nice weather while we head it and headed down to the Eiffel Tower to see it lit at night.  Hands down the coolest thing ever.  I know it's super tourist, but I loved it.  We saw it twinkle once while we were walking there and then waited around to see it again.  It twinkles for 5 minutes every hour.  After that, we stopped to eat at this cafe on the Sienne and got to see it twinkle one more time before we headed back to the hotel.

Stay tuned for Part 2.