Different Sides of Me

It's me!

There are so many different sides of me as a person.  It really all depends on my mood.

Some days I'm a happy person.  I can't stop smiling and I love to laugh.  I crack jokes that really aren't that funny, but the right people laugh anyway because I tried.  Simple things amuse me and I feel high on life.  These days often involve music, lots of music.  And dancing.  And photos.  And people.

Some days, I'm a thoughtful person.  These are days when I tend to be productive blogging.  I like to think things through.  I like to plan.  I'm careful, methodical, and I pay attention to detail.  If I have a problem, I'll plan out several scenarios.  I want to know my options.  I come up with creative solutions.  I discuss with others who know more than I do.  I research.  My computer is my friend.  I'm quiet, lost in thought.

Other days I'm sad.  I'm grieving the loss of the mother I knew.  I'm learning to live with my family again.  I'm missing my partner and the ease we had in college seeing each other every day.  I check my phone for messages every half hour.  I look for distractions.  I watch a lot of TV, read books, and sometimes I even try working out.

Then there are the days when I'm hyper.  I exercise and feel good afterward.  I organize.  Closets get cleaned out, laundry gets done, and to-do lists are made.  I shop for things I need, spend money I shouldn't, and often walk away with something I really should return.  I bounce off walls, I talk on the phone, and I do way too much at once.  Sometimes I'm productive, sometimes I'm not.  I lose my focus, but can often gain it back.  I eat sugar on those days.  It's probably not a good idea.

Let's not forget when I'm in my control mode.  I am a go-getter.  I make things happen.  I take a crappy situation, find a solution, and go for it.  I thrive off actions.  I'm productive.  I explain to people what they need to do to get things done.  I take complete charge.

And sometimes, just sometimes, I'm just me.  I'm the girl who takes care of everyone else but just wants someone to take care of me.  I'm the girl who spends a vacation planning another vacation, only the next one is with a special someone.  I'm the girl who loves Dunkin Donut's Raspberry Iced Tea.  I'm the girl who lives to dance and laugh, letting the music take over.  I love my family, enjoy my friends, and adore my dog.

I am all of these things, all of these sides of my personality.  My personality at times can be like New England weather.  If you don't like it, wait until tomorrow; it will change.

Goals for the Week

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!  Today continues my vacation that I started last Friday.  Thanks to my company giving us all some time off (Friday and today, plus the Monday after New Years) and my remaining vacation time, I'm able to enjoy this whole week off (which turned out to be 11 days).  So ten points to me!  I have a few goals for this very busy week.

My first goal is to clean out the trunk of my car.  It's full right now.  Mostly with jackets, shoes, and books.  So I need to bring in all the jackets and hang them in the closet, put the shoes away in the bin under my bed, and get the books back into the bookcase.  That's the plan for today.  I know I can get it done!

My next goal is to order my new dresser.  My dad took my old one for the guest bedroom and promised to buy me a new one, one that I can take with me when I move.  So I picked out the one I want, I just need to order it online using my dad's credit card.  That's another goal that I think I can accomplish today.  I'm determined.

I'm pretty sure I can get both of these things done in time to go visit with an old friend.  She was my neighbor growing up (and my mentor's daughter).  I was the flower girl in her wedding.  Her oldest daughter just got into college this month (and is the same age as KungFuPanda).  I didn't know this until recently, but her husband is an adoptee.  Go figure...  We've been trying to meet up forever but it just hasn't worked out.  Seeing her is a top goal for the week!

Tomorrow I have the annual Christmas party for my mom's side of the family.  The kids do a gift grab and the adults do a Yankee Swap.  It's pretty funny.  One of my uncle's in notorious for stopping somewhere to get a gift card on the way to the party where the rest of us plan for weeks as to what to get.  Naturally everyone wants the gift card he buys and his gift is the most popular swapped item.  Nice...

Wednesday is my "down day".  My mom had a baby book that she made for me.  It's all about my adoption with cute baby pictures of me.  I have mixed feelings about it.  Some of the language isn't so great to deal with but at the same time, it's a part of my history.  My mom used to read it to me as a bedtime story.  A few years ago the pages started to yellow so my mom ripped it apart to save the pictures.  She promised to put it back together again but never got around to it.  I found a few websites that will let me put it back together again as long as I scan the photos.  No more yellow pages!  So the goal for Wednesday is to put the book back together again online and order it.  My mom is going to help me so it should be a lot of fun to spend some time with her.

Thursday I will probably go to Connecticut to spend some time with my "school" family.  It ought to be a fun time.  I'm planning on celebrating New Years in Times Square (I'm crazy I know) and coming home Sunday night.  That leaves Monday to finish anything that I didn't get done over the week.  It's not much of a vacation (though the weekend will be) but I put so much off for "when I have time" that I really need to get done this week to start the year off right!

Wish me luck!  I'm going to need it...

Learning to Relax Again

I've tried this before and failed miserably, but I'm deciding that I'm going to be happy from here on out.  I'm going to work harder at getting to a better place than I'm at right now.  I'm determined to do it.  I can't keep living like this, and I'm going to deal with it and move on.  So I'm going to try to stay positive, and make some changes in my life to reduce my stress.  I've been browsing around on the web looking for tips and I figured I'd share some of the things I've been doing in my life in an effort to feel better.

Deep Breathing
Megan over at Earth Stains posted this gem a few months back.  I've been practicing and oh boy does it help a lot!  This method of deep breathing is something that I can do anywhere.  When I feel particularly stressed, I start a cycle of this at my desk.  I close all the windows on my computer (leaving only the relaxing background), relax my muscles, focus my eyes on a blank wall in my cube (if I'm not at my desk I close my eyes), and focus on my breathing as I recite the numbers in my head.  I block everything else out other than my breathing to the count.  It's so soothing and it helps me to calm down.  I've learned that deep breathing is a great way to relax and to relieve anxiety.  I highly recommend you check it out.

Organized To-Do List
I've been learning how to better organize my to-do list.  I wish I still had all the wonderful links but I have yet to organize enough to keep track of them!  Basically, it's helpful to keep things written down.  It lessens my anxiety and gives me a place to look when I need to figure out what I should be doing.  I tend to let things stack up and then I worry about them.  By making a to-do list, I'm able to stop worrying about forgetting to do something.  Everything I need is on my list you see...  But a to-do list isn't good enough to cut it for me.  It has to be organized.  Some tips include making things specific (rather than writing "Do Christmas Shopping" I wrote "Go to CVS Saturday to purchase doll for Katie"), organize them by priority (things with higher priority go near the top so I don't loose them in the list), keep separate lists for short term vs long term (certain items are long term goals and I don't want them cluttering up my list everyday), and make sure items move on the list (the point of the list is to get things done; therefore I expect myself to finish at least three things per day and to add new ones as they come up).  Microsoft OneNote has really helped me to work on this goal and it's helped me to be more successful and productive lately.  It's also decreased my anxiety level because I keep a separate list of everything I've accomplished in the past week so I can feel proud of my accomplishments and feel like the list isn't a mountain to climb over.

Headphones
My desk at work isn't in the most ideal place.  It's across from the office printer.  That's right folks.  Every time someone in our department of about seventy-five people prints something, I sit there and listen to the printer.  It's annoying.  And then they walk over to get their printed paper.  And sometimes they bring a friend.  And they talk.  It's maddening.  So I brought my noise reducing headphones to work and put all my music on my phone.  And so the music helped.  But I found that I got distracted by it sometimes.  And I don't always have relaxing music on my phone.  Then I realized that I have a white noise app on my phone that has the sounds of waves crashing on the beach!  The beach is my happy place, and where I feel most relaxed.  Now I listen to the ocean while I'm at work.  I still hear the printer in the background, but the sounds in my headphones help to relieve some of the stress and keep me focused.

Screen Brightness
I lowered the brightness of all my computer screens (yes, I have more than one).  I don't need to be looking at a glaring screen all day if I can read it fine without the bright lights.  The bright light of the screen isn't the greatest for your eyes and it was starting to give me headaches.

Walks
My breaks are now dedicated to walking around the office.  The act of walking around and getting out that pent up energy has started to really help me.  Can I really get in good exercise from walking around work?  Well my building is sort of a half of a mile long from end to end.  And I happen to work on one end.  While I don't have time to walk the mile down and back on a short break, I have plenty of room to walk around and to change some scenery.

Reading
Reading is another stress reducer that I've given another try.  Rather than watching TV before bed, I've started to read.  I've had problems with this before (I tend to get caught up in a good book and can't put it down, thus not sleeping when I should be) but now I'm trying really hard just to stick to two chapters a night (depending on a book).  I heard on the radio that reading is the best stress reliever, and that it's better than watching TV.  I just finished one of my books and I really need to get going on another one.

Well there you have it, some tips and tricks I've been following to help reduce my anixety and to lead a less stressful life!

Christmas To Do List

Just so you can all see the insanity that I have going right now.  These are actual screen shots of my current To-Do List for the holidays.  Shoot me now...  I just changed some of the names and took off what I'm actually getting my friends and Rudy so if they read it here, they still don't know what's happening.  I'm sneaky like that. It's funny, but in the past my Christmas List was about what I wanted for Christmas.  Now it's all about what I want to get others for Christmas.  Wow, I feel like such a grownup!

So there you have it.  The plan is to get the the gifts purchased first.  I know what I'm getting everyone so I can run into each store and then run out.  So that's the whole top of the list.  And then I'm going to handle the house thing.  And then the Christmas Cards.  And I'm leaving the wrapping for my mom (I just need to wait for a few things to get to my house so I can wrap my own gifts).  And we'll deal with the tree when he deal with it.  And the baking is just for fun for me.  So I can get it done.  I know I can!  Besides I might be going to my grandmother's so she'll bake with me!  Yay!

Today's musical choice is the Nutcracker soundtrack.  It's amazing.  We used to go every year when I was a kid.

Hope you're To-Do Lists aren't that long!

Another To Do List

I've got lots of things to work on and not enough time to do it all.  That's ok, I'm sure this stuff will get done at one point or another.  And the nice thing about this list is that every item is a nice-to-have, not a need-to-have (with the exception of the 2011 Interview Project).  Need-to-have's are a lot more stressful.  Like seriously stressful.  I can get this stuff done at my own pace.  I do have some ideas as to when I want to get it done, but it's not like I'm under the wire.  I really like this whole no-deadline thing.  I'm not used to it.  I'm used to churning out a ten page paper in two days because it's due in two days.  I'm used to banging out a coding project because I have to get it done by Friday OR ELSE.  So this is nice.  Sort of.

Note: I got paired up with Unofficial Mom for the Interview Project!  Check out her blog if you have a minute (very cute)!  http://unofficialmom.blogspot.com/ I'm working on my interview questions to send soon and I'm happy with the way my list is shaping up so far.  Nearly there!

Adoption Checklist

I like these posts... Here's one just about adoption.

Sometimes adoption is a roller-coaster I just want off of.  C'est la vie!

Things To Do Checklist