moving in.

Whew! What a hectic week it's been. Nathan and I moved in to our (!!) place last Saturday and it was exhausting.

My parents were able to come and help us move with their small trailer, which was more of a blessing than I could've imagined. The not-quite joke of the day was how exhausted that trailer was and what pros we were after the "month of moving" my family has endured. (Four complete family moves between my mom, grandma, great-grandma, and cousins will do a lot to you!)

We were able to get about 80% of our stuff in that day and Nathan finished his 20% the next day while I was out of town. We felt nothing but exhaustion as we sat on the floor for our picnic, enjoying the new chapter that had started in our lives.

As the week continued, we spent countless hours moving boxes, trying to keep our sanity, cleaning, and learning to live with each other. We may work well together as a couple, but we are still two completely different people! Nathan will never understand why I have so many coasters and I will never understand why I can't stack the pots and pans (because apparently they will scratch, he says).

But we are learning! And working hard... So far we've redone our patio, scrubbed out the kitchen cupboards and cleaned the hardware, scrubbed the bathroom floor, changed the drapes in the kitchen, and a whole page two of things already crossed off our checklist. Now if we could be that productive on wedding planning....

Before redoing the patio, but after 30 mins of weeding...

the (mostly!) finished after

A short funny about living together before I wrap this up? I woke up one morning last week to my phone ringing. I was waking from a dead sleep, so I naturally did not look at who was calling. I groggily said hello and heard Nathan reply back. It was odd to me that he was calling at 8:30 in the morning. "Where are you?" I asked him. "In the living room." Turns out, he had come into the bedroom at 8:25 to turn my phone from silent to loud, walked back to the living room, and called to wake me up. Nathan's reasoning? He knows I get cranky when I'm woken up and didn't want to deal with that. Sigh.. Such is a life together.

unplanned.

Imagine my dismay when I walked outside for the first full week of spring and saw this outside my apartment.  My day pretty much continued on like this - a series of unexpected, unplanned events.

I had an 8am appointment that I arrived at, running on too little sleep and not enough coffee.  I'd planned an hour for this appointment and travel time, yet when I got to my car to head to my internship, I still had a left over 40 minutes.  I'm on a slight spending freeze from my vacation, so heading to a coffee shop wasn't on my list, it wasn't enough time to go back to my apartment or run any errands, so I just went to the office.  As an intern, I don't have a key - so I sat outside our office (indoors) and read my book until someone showed up.  While it was nice to read my book for a little bit, the person coming into the office was running late, which meant I got into the office late (so much for trying to go in early!).

And thus my day started.  Promos were cancelled, intern life got tricky, contacts weren't available, promotions were denied and I dealt with difficult people.  When I did get lucky with a promotion, I had to make it to their location ASAP, as I didn't have time later in the day.  There were other things to be done beforehand, so I didn't know if I would make it on time, if I would get stuck in traffic, have to drive to campus and pay for parking, or if I'd even make it to class on time.

It continued. Quizzes scheduled, stressful production scheduled, more interning from home, hopes to go to the gym, more promo drops to make.  A 20 minute power nap became an "I-missed-the-alarm-OMG" 90 minute nap.  Nothing was going right for me.

It would've been easy to let these things get to me, but throughout the day I somehow made it work, which isn't always easy for me.  I breathed a lot.  I focused on the fact that I got to read this morning and not feel rushed for a few minutes.  I did some quick thinking and made one drop in the morning, knowing I'd have two others to make later, but made it to the bus, to lunch with a friend, and to class on time.  My quiz was postponed.  Production went smoothly, and I made it home.  I had to reschedule two drops due to the unplanned nap, but I felt more rested than I had all day.  I didn't make it to the gym; instead I did some peaceful yoga stretches at home.  I watched a little TV and found myself saying "I love getting to stay up late because I feel motivated".  That's HUGE for me.  Keeping the motivated feeling, feeling productive, and instinctively using "get to" instead of "have to" was the moment for me when I got to sip my glass of wine and smile to myself.  I can do this.  YOU can do this.  I tell myself everyday to just "breathe through it".  I think of some of my favorite inspirational quotes.  Each day, I get through the unplanned.  I know when I wake up in the morning, it will be a new day to tackle, and it's been a long time since I've felt this way and I couldn't feel more blessed to share it with you.  Tomorrow's a new day, one that I can tackle and one where the snow has melted or the coffee shop on the corner changed their sign.

What do you do to keep pushing through the unplanned things?

life & choice kinda rhyme but not really but they're kinda the same.

Mostly because they're both hard.  And they suck.  Not really, I'm really thankful for both of them, but they're tough cookies, you know?

I attended a panel recently on the topic of choice, and why it matters.  There were presenters from three different topics of choice; Dr. Susan Schneider, presenting on the Science of Choice, Dr. Rothman, presenting on How We Choose, and Dr. Vladas Griskevicius, presenting on Decisions: Rational or Irrational.  I was technically working sound for this event, but it was one I was more than happy to be working - choices had been bothering me lately, and I was treated to a new appreciation for choice and what it is.  I was reminded that as much as I hate it, choice is unavoidable, but that humans prefer having choice (albeit limited) over no choice, and that many of us are overconfident in our decision making abilities.  We all have cognitive biases surrounding our decision making, and lately there has been talk of that being our flaw - however, Dr. Griskevicius (who asked us to call him Vlad) argues in his book that having those biases is what sets us apart from animals.  Dr. Rothman talked about experiments on how people make choices, involving mirrors in our shopping carts and kids taking too much Halloween candy unless they see themselves watching them (seriously).  These are just the snaps of what I learned in each presentation.

The discussion portion was where things got really interesting - Dr. John Halberg, who is a consultant on MPR, was our moderator - and I heard how choice and what the audience had learned about choice impacted their daily lives.  Being aware of all of these things has impacted the way I've been making  and thinking about decisions since attending the panel.  I'm more aware of the biases I have when I make decisions, I'm more aware of biases others may have.  I'm careful not to delude myself or dilute the information I'm getting.  I'm looking at how my habits and environment affect my choices and if I'm at a point in my life where I can alter these habits.  I received an onslaught of information and I loved learning all of it.

Which brings me to the big lesson I learned from it all.  Having too many choices often makes me feel out of control, overwhelmed, and anxious.  I tend to shut down and decide that no choice is the best choice.  So when I was offered a part-time position that would turn into a full-time position when I graduate, which would then become an executive management position with a great event marketing company, I freaked out.  It was the first big-girl job I'd applied for, and then it was offered to me, and then I panicked.  What if I took this job, but then my dream job came up?  What if I didn't take this job, but then didn't get a job?  I was suffering from major What-If-itis and to say I was freaking out was an understatement.  I talked it over with Loverman, who didn't say much, and he asked if we could talk about it on the commercial (I probably shouldn't have brought it up during football), so I waited.

By the time the game took a break and the commercial had begun, I'd made a decision.  I wasn't going to take the job.

Yeah, I need a part-time job.  Yeah, I'm going to need a full-time job in 7 months.  But it wasn't for me.

Sure, a great opportunity fell into my lap, and many people would have jumped at the chance, but I had a choice, and I had to trust myself on that choice.  I'm at a point in my life where the chances are theoretically endless, which means I have endless options - of course I feel trapped.  Instead of over-thinking each and every choice I make, I'm attempting to trust my gut.

When I left that voicemail, thanking them for the chance to interview, the amazing offer and opportunity, followed by my apologies for being unable to take the job, I found that I suddenly felt free.  I was free to choose something I love, and I cannot wait for that choice to present itself.

What has been a choice you've been confronted with lately?

cheers.