A Very Compressed 30 by 30

Sometimes inspiration takes a bit to strike.  In getting ready for a one-year-old's birthday party this morning, I realized that today, in fact is one month until my birthday.  The very one that turns me 30.

I haven't been angsty about it, nor feeling like I am about to turn a crazy age corner.  I have felt like I need to use more moisturizer around my eyes and questioned if I can, in fact, pull off red skinny jeans, but that is about it. 

However, while nothing is actually going to change on May 21, I have been gripped with a desire to do a ceremonial 30 before 30 - just to ride out the last days of my twenties in a celebratory but forward-moving fashion.   

I think people typically give themselves a year for this, but let's see what I can do in the next 30 days.

1. Start a new, professional-oriented blog - something I can share widely and generate some personal branding around to further my career. Thank you, Lori Fong for the inspirational push.
2. Have one day, just one, where I actually do it all.  Work out in the morning, have a productive, gratifying day at work, grab a quick drink to socialize with friends, eat a healthy, balanced dinner, converse with the hubs on our days, and read a chapter for grad school.
3. Move into a home I actually own.  Okay, it's a built-in, but I'll take it.
4. Go to Las Vegas for the first time
5. Have one ridiculous, early-twenties style, wild-ass night out.  Vegas should help with that.
6. Buy one really fun, really age-inappropriate outfit.
7. Buy one really nice, high-quality, going to last a long time, 30s-appropriate outfit.
8. Reach out to a friend I haven't talked to in a long time and grab a drink.
9. Lose four pounds.  'Cause, ya know, what girl doesn't want that?
10. See some live music.  I used to do this all the time - having a brother and boyfriend's best friend in a band helped, but I miss it.  It was a hallmark of my 20s.
11. Get rid of any clothing I haven't worn in two years, any that "might work if only..." and any that just looks a little too well-worn.
12. Learn how to roast asparagus. It's always awful.
13. Make sure my parents know just how grateful I am for these past 30 years.
14. Make sure my nearest and dearest know how much they mean to me.
15. Plant something. Like, in dirt.
16. Read a Jane Austen work.  Not with zombies.
17. Go to one yoga sculpt class a week.  I really hate yoga sculpt.
18. Try the gourmet hot dog down the street before we move.
19. Go to the Whole Foods and drink a glass of wine while I grocery shop (for the five items that will keep my bill under $50).
20. Make a perfect party playlist.
21. Finishing changing my name.  Ug. 
22. Watch the sunrise over North Beach.  Setting an alarm and getting up for this is acceptable. Bonus points for me if I STAY UP to see the sunrise, but let's be honest, I think that only happened twice in my 20s and I don't think I can make it three.
23. Have a glass of really good champagne al fresco.
24. Have a ridiculous artisan cocktail along the river.
25. Learn how to get those movie-star gorgeous waves in only five minutes so I can do them before work.
26. Call my mother in law just to chat.
27. Close on a house.  Okay, okay - another built-in, but hey - I only have 30 days.
28. Drink the pricey bottle of non-oaky chardonnay we picked up in Sonoma three years ago.  Not alone.  With John.  On our deck - old or new.  I don't like moving bottles.
29. This one is open to suggestions.  What do you think? I was going to donate my hair, but my stylist told me I can't cut that much without looking like Ramona Quimbly.
30. Cut myself some slack.  Have fun with these.  Boo-ya.

In Their Shoes

I am a better sarcastic writer than serious one. Gas.  Gas and legumes were somewhat going to be the centerpiece of this post , because I have decided to try a week hard core on the 4-Hour Body Slow Carb diet.  It involves eating a lot of beans.  A lot.

But, as I was thinking about what to write, I couldn't shake two stories from the past few days.  The first is of the car crash deaths of three Bowling Green State University students, Rebekah Blakkolb, Christina Goyett, and Sarah Hammond, and the second is of Philip Patanaude, a 28-year-old Chicagoan who drowned in Lake Michigan Saturday.

See, right now in my life I am doing a lot of planning.  Planning to buy a house, planning to graduate from business school, planning a new career path.  Part of all that planning is hedging decisions with unknowns, but assuming the best outcome.  But, life isn't always that auspicious, and when it is, you don't always have much or anything to do with it.

I can just see it - ten sorority sisters in two cars, heading to the airport for Spring Break.  It's the middle of the night, but that's okay, the driver is rested and everyone is too excited to sleep.  Their parents are mostly worried about what they will do on the trip, but not so much about the ride to the airport.  I can see it because I have done it.  I have been in that car, I have been with those girls - same sorority, even.  The difference is that I, like thousands of others, made it to the airport.  I didn't encounter a car driving the wrong way on the interstate, so my life, the lives of my friends and family, were not spider-webbed across a windshield and splintered. 

I was doing a hell of a lot of planning this time last year, getting ready for our September wedding.  That's really all you do when you are prepping for nuptials - you make plans, get excited for a big party and a bigger forever, and day by day you focus more and more on that person who is going to be with you for the rest of your life.  I have been there, too.  Now, I imagine for a moment at a time what Philip's fiancee is going through, but I have to stop because even the fiction of it makes me sob and feel physical pain. 

I have had a night or two when I wondered where the hell my fiancee was, but unlike Philip, John came home.  And while John wasn't at the lake, haven't we all made decisions that in one way or another have put our lives at risk?  I know have.  I've had a lucky youth characterized by a carefree spirit peppered with reckless behavior and bad choices.  Yet here I am.  And knock on the biggest damn piece of wood while throwing a block of salt over my shoulder, all of my friends and family are here too.


As much as I plan my future, make decisions and influence what I can, the fact is, I am really not in control of anything at all.  None of us are. It's comforting to think that is not the case, but really, all we can control is our behavior. Our actions towards others.  The outcomes?  Not so much. 

So now, all I can do is pray for these people's friends and families and for continued luck and guidance. I can be loving, grateful, honest, generous and charitable, because these are the right ways to be. I can tell people I love to be safe and I can be safe myself.  But I know, without a doubt, it is only by the grace of God go any of us.

Turning Legumes into Love Handles

I am giving up sugar for Lent.  Please note, sugar-free Jell-o pudding, skinny vanilla lattes (sugar-free syrup, duh), wine, and Belgian chocolate when physically in Belgium are not, for these 40 days, going to fall into the "sugar I am giving up" category.  And, before you call me a sell-short, slacker, half-ass or pagan, understand that I am a realist and want to set myself up for success.  Hence, appropriate boundaries.

Anyway, the reasons I am doing this vary.  To start, I got married about five months ago, and while I wouldn't say I've "let myself go," I would say I likely need pliers, duct tape  and an allen wrench to zip into my wedding dress.  Another reason has to do with showing the most minuscule bit of solidarity with a friend who is facing (and will always face) some pretty daunting medical issues, and I want to offer this Lent to her (not real sure where God stands on that, but it is done with good intentions so I'll worry about that later).  It's insignificant, but I see it as a bit of prayer every time I pass the candy dish. Moving on.

So, in preparation, I have gone on a bit of a bender, but this is an odd sort, because I have managed to make lean legumes into corpulent conspirators.  Backing up for context, wheat and I don't get along so well.  It's not dangerous to me by any means - no Celiac here - but gluten leaves varying degrees of digestive devastation in its wake.  Generally speaking, I avoid most wheat products (but not pizza on St. Patrick's day after six beers).

It started on Friday night, after John and I cooked up an Asian feast.  I won't get into this, because when you and your spouse decide Friday night is a good time to shop for and prepare a four-course meal that requires ingredients like galangal, please believe me when I say it's going to involve trips to three separate food stores, at least two squabbles, and one meal consumed at 10:30 p.m. But, I digress.

So after this meal, we were both hankering for something sweet, but light.  We decided to try a pumpkin smoothie from Real Simple, because it seemed easy enough and we had the ingrediants on hand.  Really, you say? Pumpkin puree?  Oh yes.  After each Halloween, rather than pitch our pumpkins, we roast them, puree the insides and then have about 16 cups of real pumpkin in our freezer for the balance of  the year.  The rest of the recipe seemed simple enough - pumpkin, milk, honey, ice. 

Well, I don't like whole milk or honey, so we used skim and agave.  Then the taste wasn't quite right so we added Splenda and cinnamon.  Then something was still off, so more pumpkin and actual pumpkin pie spice was added to the mix.  On it went until we ended up with a frothy, spicy, not quite sweet enough oddity that all added up to "meh" calories consumed.  Yes, I drank it all.  And yes, I know pumpkin is not a legume, but don't kill my alliteration.

Moving on to Saturday, my friend Lauren had been raving about these black bean brownies a friend of hers brought into work.  Curious, and always wanting to try new flour-free tricks, I gave this recipe a spin, sans the chocolate chips and powdered sugar.  They were pretty good, not great - perfect consistency, needed more sweet, probably what the sugar or chocolate would have provided.  But still despite the mediocre taste, I managed to put away about half of them in a two day span because hey - these are beans right?  Healthy, full of protein.  A solid snack!

Anyway, the real hum-dinger came tonight.  After mentally committing to going sugar-free this Lent, there was this little sprout of an idea that kept calling to me, and jumping around in my head.  On Friday, one of the girls at the office mentioned  a cookie dough dip.  Made with CHICKPEAS. I had looked it up last week and added it to to my mental must-do, but in the middle of tonight's painful, incomprehensible Macro Economics lecture, I kept having inappropriate thoughts about this dip.  It would be mine.  It would be mine tonight! Yes.  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

Fast forward.  I plow through Dominick's and grab the requisite items to make this version of the dip.  Chocolate Covered Katie, I don't know you, but I love you.  I skipped the flax and oats, added a few splashes of milk, used Splenda and squeeze of agave, and I kid you not, it was like eating raw cookie dough with a spoon.  I was floored.  I proudly served it up to John with apples (for me) and graham crackers (for him), waiting to have the awe echoed.  Let's just say I should have known better.  John's mom, Agnes, is a comfort-food kitchen goddess.  He grew up in a full fat, full butter, full Crisco paradise, so the underwhelming response of "Yeah, it's good.  Missing some mouth feel.  Probably be better cold" was par for the course.

But trust me, ladies. Nothing "meh" here. Totally worth it.  Because in a "sh*t girls say" world, a bowlful of cookie dough makes perfect sense.  It only made my pants tighter, but what a great fat Monday.

Eat up.  One more day.

T-e-s-t T-y-p-e

Ah-hem . Uh, is this thing on? . Re-verb, whoa. I guess so.

I am so cold at writing, I hardly know where to start. Well, not at writing. I still write for work. Everyday. A lot. And for school. Not everyday. Not so lot. But, ah-hem, let me clear my throat. See, this isn't so hard.

I have wanted to pick the blog back up for so long, but haven't for a number of reasons, not the least of which is laziness seasoned with a bit of busy, broiled in procrastination served with the foie gras-textured what-do-I-write-about-as-an-employed-person-on-a-blog-called-Lady-Laid-Off?

Well, it may not be a rich dish, but here we go, just to get back in the swing of things.

Today was a happy day. Today I learned with certainty that I can claim at least - at the very least - three days of my life back from the expressway. My company is relocating and my commute time will be cut by 45 minutes each day (conservative estimate - I think it may be more like 1 hour, but I will hold off and be pleasantly surprised). This means I have just under four extra hours every week, 15 hours a month and three whole days a year back into my wallet of spendable time. Or rather, will have. This is a year in the making.

Small victories, though, right?

And enough blogging for now. I am boring myself.

They Don't Print This on Sorority T-shirts

A few years ago I was writing a book. This book was a non-fiction, story-laden exploration of the post-21st-year-of-life set - their (my) immature, dependent and bumbling attempt at living outside the bubble of college and the shell of childhood. It, like so many post-collegiate dreams was put on hold. The first hold because I was just having too much damn fun living that life and the second because I began growing out of it and no longer thought I had time to explain it.

Again, like so many bubbly dreams, I aimed to pick it back up this winter break (six weeks of no classes and three weeks of low-key work). I also thought I would do some pre-work for my stats class. Can you guess which I did? If you guessed "ate cheese ball and read fantasy novels," you would be correct. I hope to get back to it one day, and yes, I do realize that I was rather free (unemployed) for three and a half months earlier this year.

Why all that blathering of unrealized goals? Well, I have been thinking a great deal about the evolution and percolation of friendships. The book was heavily focused on the relationships I had with my girlfriends. In fact, much was dedicated to the realization that at some points in my life, they, for better or worse, represented everything important to me. It was very difficult to picture a life that didn't involve at least three weekends per month of 48-hours' constant contact and a part-time job comprised of dissecting drama (in my case, it was usually my own, self-inflicted variety).

Mistake me not, these people are still essential to my life, utterly irreplaceable, but somewhere along the way, my dependency on faded from north-star caliber to a healthy just-came-in-from-the-cold-rosy-glow. Among finding a career, a sense of self (+ esteem), a love and a desire to be alone every now and again, I became a less-clingy version of myself. In many ways, we all have. In no way does this mean they are less a part of my life, or me theirs - you might say we've diversified our portfolios. It doesn't diminish the value of friendship or the love felt, just presents a means of appreciating what has always existed in new ways.

As with most people who have a (insert "hard time" cliche here), I experienced that there are levels of depth to certain friendships that I had forgotten were there, and I also figured out that some of the ones that I thought were deepest were actually just me standing alone in a dried-up well. Then, once you get (insert "back on your feet" cliche here), the shared joy of your friends means just as much, if not more, as the daily calls to make sure you did follow through with the goal of getting out of bed by 10 a.m. and not cracking a beer until noon.

And the really cool thing is how as my girlfriends have become busier, older, wiser, they've become more interesting - two-hour dinners are as bonding as the 48-hour bender/hangover/movie/bender cycles were. I have always known and believed in the spherical nature of friendships (it was just harder to be friends with me when I took everything personally - ahem, crybaby), but at this point, it's a fascinating case study in what you knew would always be true and what you know is true.

Self-indulgent post? Absolutely. But also a thank you to my friends for who you were then and who you are now.

Double Dipping Gold

I just hit the jackpot of school/work balance. The topic for class this week - motivation. The assignment - assess your company's reward and recognition program. One of my deliverables at work (that keeps getting pushed down on the priority list, incidentally) - revamp the project's internal reward and recognition program. This is when the chi gets good - when you can not only instantly apply theories (which I have been - I listen real good now) but put them into a practice that satisfies both your work work and your school work. To quote Jim Brewer, former SNL "Goat Boy" and current Pizza Hut product whore: "Jackpot!" Seriously, have you seen those commercials? They are nonsensical and disturbingly over-enthused. I imagine Jim's agent calling him, relieved that finally, finally, he would be on TV again. How they passed test audiences, let alone aired more than once, is a mystery to me.

Anyway, this "jackpot's" arrival came just in time - this weekend I started to feel the pinch of going to school, working and maintaining a normal life. Well, actually, it was less of a pinch and more of a anxiety-induced sweat rash catalyzed by sitting in a four-hour video taped management simulation taking place in a building that is not air-conditioned on Sundays trying to sort through an "inbox" of problems while prepping a speech to be graded by peers and formulating an informed point on potential CEO resumes when you realize that you are missing the Bears game and you are legitimately stressed and don't have the benefit of actually having been on the three-week African safari that led "you" to the simulated mess. Whew. The rash intensifies since all the while, work work and school reading taunt you from home. May I quote Mercutio? "'Tis but a scratch."

End of the world? Hardly. Do many people have it worse than me? Damn straight. What is my issue then? Good point. Moving on.

An interesting tidbit from class - a substantial chunk of the three-hour session is spent discussing management issues, our experiences and learned theory. The class is pretty varied in terms of experience, age and gender. As I blogged a long time ago, I was starting to feel that the stigma of being laid off was fading. A woman in my class caused me to re-theorize. The stigma of being laid off has softened among the seasoned work force. Among the millennials (which, technically, I am), or those who haven't worked long or faced the threat of lay offs head on, being laid off puts you in the sloth bucket. To quote: "Well, I am in HR and we always say we eliminate positions not people, but there is always a reason they go. That is just trying to soften the blow." She went on, I boiled.

Head Full of Maple Syrup

I really, really don't like cats. It's bad. I am hesitant type that, because as a lover of dogs, I wonder how someone can even be neutral to those wonderful animals, let alone dislike, or, hate them. Moreover, there are some wonderful people in my life that love cats. Like really, really love cats. For some reason, my freshman year roommate, Gretchen, comes to mind. She is probably the first passionate cat person I ever encountered. We had many mutual loves - junior mints, napping, strange roommate behavior - but we never quite saw eye to eye on pets. However, G did me a great service - she prepped me for a life of loving the owner despite hating the pet. (Thanks, G-ski!)

Why bring this up now, you ask? Where is it going? Well, I'm home from work right now, with a head full of what feels like maple syrup, unable to breathe through my noise, making beautiful hhhoouuchhhuuuuukkkkk klahhh klahhhh sounds and coughing up ungodly amoeba-like globs. I believe this is because of, and will continue due to, cats.

I'm pretty horrifically allergic to these independent, oh-so-sleek creatures. Two weeks ago, John and I went to Nebraska and stayed with a lovely, more than hospitable couple who has an adorable miniature schnauzer and a "world's smallest bear" cat. Having been there before, I stocked up on allergy meds, nasal sprays and prepared to get quite intimate with a Kleenex box. It was pretty much what I expected - runny nose, watering eyes, itchy throat - making me one attractive lady. However, what I forgot was this: after putting my system through such membrane strain, I usually catch a really sweet virus and end up sick sick. And here I am.

Tomorrow, we leave for Minnesota, to visit John's sister, a lovely woman who also loves cats. Perhaps I'll plead H1N1 and don a mask. Long and short, I anticipate another week of illness, which my coworkers seem to revel in and appreciate. Despite my best attempts to hide, "hhhoouuchhhuuuuukkkkk klahhh klahhhh" can be heard down the hall, even when I am in the bathroom. Sorry, esteemed colleagues and polished outside consultants.

The cat deck has been stacked against me from the beginning - between the allergies and the influence of my father, I guess my heart was never open. Here's a story for you:

When I was about seven or eight, there were some cats roaming around our neighborhood. One day, as he pulled into the garage in his sweet 1990 tan Buick LaSabre, my father spotted such a creature on our roof. Just arriving home from work, still in his suit and tie, he sprang into action (dare I say his reflexes had a cat-like quality to them?). As I watched with intense curiosity, he grabbed a rake from the garage and moved to the side of the house. I assumed he was going to encourage the cat off the roof by startling or poking it. This would be one of the many instanced in which I underestimated my father.

He laid the rake down, right in the cat's motion path. When I asked him what he was doing he calmly replied "Just wait." I still have a vivid image of him, never taking his eyes from the cat, carefully anticipating its path with the rake, tongue sticking out just slightly from the corner of his mouth.

Finally, at the exact moment that cat had all four paws on the rake, my father, with the precision of a color guard captain, whipped the rake up and sent that feline flying. I watched, and in what seemed like slow motion, the cat arced into the sky, meowed, then landed on its feet 20 feet from our house. I stood agog.

Being young and under the influence of farm books and the Bearnstein Bears, I asked him if he was worried the cat would get hurt. As the it darted away, he laughed and said "No, babe. They always land on their feet. And now, he won't be back."

So there you have it friends. Do I think kittens are adorable? Yep. Do I respect a cat's independence? Sure. Am I sorry for what my father did? Not really.

Now, I must stop because I get dizzy looking at computer screens. Thanks, Boo.