Shoes-off time

Jan. 2007:

At the doctor's office for my annual physical, I hear the routine "take a deep breath" and feel a cold stethoscope press in about halfway up my back. I breathe in. And breathe out.

"Your lungs sound great," says my doctor, laughing. "But your muscles are way too tense! You need to start doing yoga or something."

"Oh please, I'm not at all flexible," I thought. "Besides, I'm just naturally wound too tight. It's part of my charm."

Last week:

I need to take 3.5 days off or I will lose those vacation days when I hit my next anniversary in two weeks, so I decided to take Friday off. (Yes, this is the world's best problem to have.)

That said, I have absolutely no idea what to do with myself. In my ten years as a working girl, I'm fairly certain I've never taken a day off "just because" - there was always a house project, guests coming to town, a big party to prepare for, travel, etc.

Trying to form some semblance of a plan - because that is what I do best - I checked out the gym schedule to figure out if I could get in a Friday afternoon workout while everyone else was toiling away at the office. There was no kickboxing, but there was a class called "Body Flow": a combination of yoga, pilates, and tai chi. Oh, what the heck, I thought. Doctor's orders.

So at noon on Friday, I changed into my gym clothes and headed out. (True to form, something at work set me off and made my blood start pumping just as I was walking out the door.)

I got to the gym with two minutes to spare, grabbed a yoga mat, and joined about a dozen housewives in the grown-up version of what my Grandma Marge calls "shoes-off time." What's better than working out in your bare feet?

We stretched. We breathed. We stood on our tip-toes for so long I thought maybe I had actually grown an inch. I wasn't able to think about work because I was using all of my concentration to keep myself from tipping over while standing on one foot. And then, with ten minutes left to go in class, the instructor tells us to lay on our backs and "find a position comfortable enough that you can stay there for the next several minutes."

Several minutes! I'm thinking. This is my kind of class! And then, immediately: What the heck am I going to do lying here for several minutes?

Well, let me just say it was wonderful.

By the time I left class, I felt completely intoxicated. (Seriously, I was worried that I shouldn't be driving.) The rest of the afternoon was marvelous: I finished a ridiculous amount of errands, took Lucy to the dog park, cleaned the kitchen, and felt fantastic. The knots in my back were gone, I didn't have this incessant urge to check my work email, and I wasn't tired. Who knew it was this fun to be so darned calm?

Though I am still planning. The next Body Flow class is on Tuesday night at 7:15. I'm already looking forward to it. And I'm dragging Janice with me!

Trouble...

I've written before about one of our favorite ads. Here's the latest spot that we just need to stop, rewind and watch about a little dog who is paranoid that someone is going to steal his bone. We especially love the scene where he's dreaming.

(Bonus points if you can figure out who this song reminds us of. Hint: She gets in trouble a lot.)

To each his (or her) own

Chad and I each got some money for Christmas, generous gifts from grandparents who gave us cash to choose our own presents. (As an extra bonus, money takes up no space in the car on the way home!)

So we each had a little chunk of change of our very own to purchase something we really wanted that we never would have bought ourselves. This is rather unusual at this point in our lives, because each purchase of $40 or more that's not food-related generally requires some consensus from the other person so we're at least being fair in spending our money.

But when it comes to Christmas cash, all bets are off. We each look at the money we have, and buy what we want.

And one month later, our money has been spent.

Chad researched and planned, spending a lot of time thinking about what he wanted to buy. He is perfectly giddy and is tracking his purchases like kids track Santa on Christmas Eve.

With this year's Christmas money, Chad bought a new softball bat (and, let me tell you, those things are expensive) and a new sports bag. So instead of using three different bats in the three different leagues he plays in, Chad can "learn" one bat, leading to even more home-runs. (I also think these sports-related purchases give Chad some hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel after his knee surgery.)

Me? Well, I haven't committed to anything quite yet. On the list are really nice headphones for my iPod and an annual subscription to People magazine. (What a splurge!)

Though, for the record, I did this same thing last year. I thought and thought and thought so much that I never made a decision and still have the money sitting in an envelope in a drawer at home. [cringe] My New Year's resolution is back to bite me.

Some things never change.

New Year's resolutions - take two

Unlike last year, I haven't said much yet about my New Year's resolutions. Why? Well because at the end of 2009, I looked back and realized that I failed on at least half of them and that by broadcasting my resolutions at the very beginning of the New Year - when life seems so hopeful and full of promise - I'm just setting myself up for failure. Here's what I was planning to do:

• Get to the gym more consistently. Yes, until about March 17. Though we did find a new gym, which is something.
  
• Find a church we really like, or get more involved with our current church. Nope.
• Be more decisive. Bummer. I really should have referred back to this when I was considering that other job and then flip-flopped on it for six weeks.
  
• Cut out the clutter--both physical and figurative. Well, I did clean out the physical stuff. I don't keep a lot of junk.
  
• Plan more meals at home instead of the current default option of going out to dinner. I'm not sure how much we went to dinner in 2008, but we hardly ate "in" all the time in 2009.
  
• Decrease utility bills by ten percent (a good suggestion from a Suze Orman column I read). Did it! Thank you to my new thermostat.
  
• Keep the cell phone charged. Oh, I guess. What a stupid resolution that was. At least I haven't lost one lately. Maybe that's because I consolidated my work and personal cell phones into an iPhone and now I can't live without it.
  
• Read or listen to a new book every month. Filed away in the sounded-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time category. And, no, that didn't happen. In fact, I can't even remember at the moment the last book I read.
  

So, this year I decided to wait until the end of January before settling on some New Year's resolutions. (This seems fair, since our Annual Convention isn't really conducive to, well...anything besides working long hours.) And I decided to keep them short & sweet so that maybe I remember them this time. Here they are:

• Go to the gym more consistently. Janice's wedding is five months from tomorrow, meaning five months from this evening I will be gorging myself on whatever I can scrounge from the rehearsal dinner and the other evening festivities. As a result, I need to hit the gym. Hard. For those of you who think I'm already in good shape, well...you haven't seen the other bridesmaids. I have work to do. Kickboxing it is.
  
• Find a church we really like. Instead of just using a dartboard approach to churches, I reached out to my friendly neighborhood listserve for some recommendations. You know how they say "be careful what you wish for?" I got 40 suggestions. If we can find a church by the end of 2010, I'll be thrilled. And the one we went to yesterday? Well, let's just say that isn't going to work out. One down, 39 to go.
  
• Try one new recipe per month. I'm in a kitchen funk, making the same baked chicken and broiled salmon and shrimp stir-fry on a consistent basis. (Cereal is good for dinner, too, though Chad is never thrilled by that idea.) So Chad went through the cookbooks over the weekend and picked out one for us to try: cilantro chicken. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give it an 8, meaning that it wasn't the most excellent creation I've ever eaten - or made - but I'll probably do it again.
• Be more decisive. Oh, what the heck. Let's try this resolution again. Besides, aren't new years really all about second chances?
  

The (for the most part) perfect man

I’ve said before that I made a list in my early 20's with my requirements for the guy I wanted to marry. (I've still got the list, and I really need to take that out to see how it compares to what I ended up with.)

Anyway, while Chad is out tonight playing poker, I am catching up on TV. And at the moment, I’m on my third Oprah – I watched Sarah Palin, an episode about addictions, and now I'm in the middle of watching a 41-year-old woman who can't find a husband talk about what she wants in a man.

So they bring this "millionaire matchmaker" in, who asks the single gal to make a list of what she's looking for in a guy. Here's what's on her list:

• Honest
• Intelligent and street smart
• Intuitive
• Passionate
• Strong
• Confident
• Considerate
• Funny/silly
• Athletic
• Decisive
• Generous/good-tipper
• Likes animals
• Doesn’t smoke
• Good genes
• Good looking
• Never been married
• No kids
• Doesn’t have a Facebook page
• Doesn’t drink out of a straw
• Likes sweets
• Handy but can afford to have someone else fix it
• No tattoos or piercings
• Has a big family and likes/talks to everyone in it
• Successful in whatever he tries to do
• Has good style

The matchmaker reads the list, and everybody laughs. “Oh, this guy doesn’t exist.” “You’re not being realistic.” “You are setting a man up for failure.”

So this made me think about my “list” from many years ago, and take a closer look at this woman's requirements. And then I realized: Holy crap.

That’s Chad. Every. Single. Item. On. The. List. He doesn’t even drink out of a straw!

Except, unfortunately for the single gal, he’s married.

Cabin fever

After blogging, blogging, and more blogging from our Annual Convention in New York, we headed out last Thursday to our place in this world, a cabin about 90 minutes away. Rachel and I went out on Thursday afternoon; Chad, Janice and Paul trickled in on Friday; and Nick came on Saturday.

Our long weekend involved:

Reading (I finished four magazines, a record for me)

Chatting

Gaming (Rummikub, Buzzword & the Game of Things, plus pitch)

Stoking (& s'mores...yummm...)

Sleeping (during the Colts/Ravens game...how pathetic is this?)

Walking (four miles a day, thankyouverymuch)

Taking in the scenery (ing) - see everyone down by the fire pit?

Passing Time

Hi folks, this is Lucy. Ellen has been gone for a while, so I thought I would bring you up to speed. I've been sleeping a lot. However, while I sleep during the day, once I've persuaded the mailman he had better not come into the house, I am always alert to outside dangers from which I must protect the home. At night, Chad comes home. I always have a lot to tell him and not much time to do it right when he walks in the door. I'm not sure he listens very well, but we all know this just means I need to keep talking, maybe a little louder, right ladies? Don't worry. Ellen has taught me well.

Anyway, after I've told him about my day, we go out for our evening patrols. The neighborhood has been pretty quiet this week. I haven't had to scold any people or animals for their behavior like I've had to now and then in weeks past. I think it may be because Chad is out too. Sometimes when Ellen comes out people think they can get away with more so I have to be extra vigilant. Ellen and I play good cop, bad cop. She is very good and acting like she's taking their side. We've got this down to a science. When Chad patrols with me, I think people must see him as the bad cop, so I try to make them feel a little more at ease. He and I still have some work to do on this, I think, but it seems to be working, so I don't rock the boat.

Once we return, it's time for some dinner and then another nap before bed. That's what I was doing in the picture. It came out blurry, I think, but it was the only one I could find with my new favorite pillow. Well, I had better go. School lets out soon and I need to be positioned in a highly visible area to ensure that those kids do get too close to Chad and Ellen's car.

Here we go again...

Remember last year when I wrote about the chaotic, sleep-deprived, often-stressful six days that I spend in New York each January for our Annual Convention? Without going into great detail - or complaining, because I do consider this chaos to be job security - I will say that I'm gearing up for nearly a week days of insanity. So why am I up at 12:20 a.m.? i wonder that myself. Dear Lord, please give me strength.

Perhaps you're sitting there saying to yourself, "Well, if she's heading to New York, I shouldn't bother checking in to see if she's writing about anything for the next few days."

And that's where you're wrong.

I will be blogging. Just maybe not here. RT will be blogging too (she's learning the hard way what happens when you kindly volunteer for "other duties as assigned").

And I'll be walking. A lot. This year, I bought a pedometer simply because I'm curious to see how many miles I can walk in three-inch heels. I'll keep you posted on how that turns out.

But don't feel too sorry for me. Rachel and I somehow have nabbed the Presidential Suite at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square (something about me offering to share a room with her to save money so NRF felt like maybe we needed a TON of space and we already had the space comp'd anyway - still mildly embarrassing, actually) and, after Convention, our office is closed Thursday, Friday, and the following Monday, so I'm getting the heck out of dodge to go to the cabin for a weekend.

Even though it's going to be a crazy week, thinking about the cabin makes me already breathe a sigh of relief! And here we goooooo....!

Five things I learned at the grocery store

Time: 7:15 - 8:00 p.m.
Place: Safeway, King Street, Alexandria, VA

5) Do not go shopping when hungry, stressed, or - heaven forbid - both. I bought twice as much as I should have. Fortunately, most of it passed the "healthy Chad" test. Unfortunately, I leave for New York in four days, so the $20 of fresh produce I had in my cart may not have been the wisest choice.

4) A New Year's Resolution around here seems to be being more friendly. More people than usual said "excuse me" or "pardon me" as I was trying to squeeze myself around their cart, their children, and their indecisiveness. (I, on the other hand, was perfectly decisive. I just bought everything in sight.)

3) The New Year's Resolution of my Safeway must not include re-stocking merchandise when the shelves are totally bare. As usual, they were out of the chicken that was on sale. They were also out of English muffins, juice, eggs, and about five varieties of soup.

2) Unlike many of my friends, I like it when people call me ma'am. It doesn't make me feel old. It actually makes me happy. And my cashier tonight was very friendly, most notably with a soft-spoken, "Would you like help with your bags, ma'am?" at the end of my checkout experience. (See "lesson learned" #4.)

1) If I go to the store to get dinner, Chad will make it. I win!

Goodbye to a decade

It didn't strike me that 2009 ended a decade until news reports started making such a big deal out of it. While watching recaps of the top ten sports plays of the last decade, celebrity stories, deaths, poignant historical moments, etc., I got to thinking about my own decade.

The last ten years have consisted of graduating from college, starting my first job, heading out on a marketing tour around the country, moving to St. Louis and then DC, finding love and getting married, traveling, buying a house, achieving success in a career that I really enjoy, creating loads of memories with family and making dozens of new friends. It's been such an interesting decade that I am anxiously awaiting what the next 10 years will bring!

But, as you'll see from the photo below of New Year's Eve 1999, the Tolley kids really haven't changed that much. (Please, no one tell me that I looked so young. I like to think that I still do.)


PS: Chad reminded me today how much I've been neglecting this blog, and he's totally right. So now that the holidays are over, and I should have more time to put all of the things in my head down on paper, look for some updates on what we've been doing.