The Hard Ones {Musings from the Life Coach Part of my Brain}

I have a soft spot for hard people. 

It's inevitable. The same story every time. I don't know why they end up coming to coaching in the first place - they signed up for the research study but didn't really want to change. They called in for free coaching offered by their health insurance, but didn't really want to change. They pay me, week after week, for my coaching services...but don't really want to change. 

I don't know how I end up with them, but they end up getting in my head and heart and I have to figure out how to crack them. They're the pistachio shell that won't open - but I'm relentless. They should just quit. They should quit because they don't really want to change, but for some reason after they talk to me two or three times they don't quit. I think they know I want to figure out what makes them tick. And I think they sort of want to know too, so they stick around long enough because they want to see if I'll figure out the puzzle. The puzzle they haven't been able to figure out themselves.

When I think back on my coaching history, my most memorable clients all fall into two camps. There are the eager ones, the open minded ones, the ones who embrace being coached with their arms spread wide open. These are the ones who get it, who make me want to shout YESSS!!! in the middle of our calls and the ones who make big, glorious, life altering changes. I love coaching them. 

Then there are the hard ones. They don't quit, but they fight change every step of the way. I don't fight with them though. I refuse to fight them. I stand next to them and try to see what it is they're throwing punches at. Once they realize I'm next to them, they let me try to help. Oh, I love coaching them. 

Today, I found out one of my former coaching clients died. She actually died last year but I just learned about it today. She was a hard one - maybe one of the hardest I've ever had. She came in swinging punches, and I had to duck a time or two before she'd let me near. But I love coaching her. It always pained me that I never felt like we figured out her puzzle. I worked with her for more than a year before she moved on, and she kicked and screamed the whole time. She didn't quit coaching. But she didn't change. I learned today that she died of pretty major health complications. I can't go into details, obviously, because of confidentiality. But they were the same health issues we had sat and talked about five years ago. The very same ones. Five years ago, we talked about changing and she decided not to. And she's not here today because of that decision. 

I read the email with the news of her passing - a long three paragraphs describing her final months. I guess she was as difficult a client for death as she was for health. I read the email, I closed my computer and I sobbed. 

I can still picture her perfect, precise handwriting on her food logs. She looked like she used a ruler to write the lines when she's write portions of 1/4 or 1/2. I asked her one day - she did. She was perfect and precise in her measurements. She was perfect and precise in her logging. She'd show me this, as if it was evidence of the commitment she was making.

I'll never understand why some people decide not to change. I wrote that sentence because it sounded right, but even as I did, I knew it was not the truth. I've coached too many people to pretend that I don't understand why people change. I understand stagnancy and hesitation almost better than I understand momentum and stamina. 

I've been privileged enough to be let in on so many people's lives. It's staggering when I stop to think about the number of people who I have coached or talked to or collaborated with. There are so many amazing stories of change, of the "lightbulb moment." I've born witness countless times to that moment when someone's voice cracks and all that can come forward are tears, and then understanding, and then hope, and then freedom. I love that moment. It's why I do what I do. It's what anyone who goes into a helping profession hopes to do - help. 

You have to know, going into this kind of work, that you can't help everyone. You can't help everyone, and you certainly can't save anyone. It's never been listed in my job description that I could. But there's always the eternal hope for me, that when one of the tough ones moves on from my life, that at the very least we planted a seed. That maybe our conversations have armed them with the tools and in the right moment, the right environment, the right second of their life... they'll be able to figure out the pieces of their puzzle. They'll be able to save themselves.

I always hold that hope. 

The Best Season of My Life

At the beginning of this month, I quit my job. I wasn’t due back until November, but I knew in my heart I wasn’t going to return so I decided to cut my losses and let my office know so we could both move on. This didn’t come as a huge surprise to those who knew me best, but when it came right down to making that final phone call it turned out to be harder than I thought.

I wasn’t always sure I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. In fact, if you had asked me in college I would have assured you I would not be staying home. (I also expected to get married sometime around 30 – shows how good at predicting the future I am!) I always said I wanted to have the opportunity to choose and I’m blessed beyond belief that our circumstances did allow me that and that my husband supported my decision. Once I got pregnant, I was about 98% sure I’d be staying home… but there was still that 2% of me that wanted to leave the door open to make a choice. Which is how I found myself hanging on to my job even as my paid leave ended after 6 short weeks.

The 2% of me that wasn’t sure was having a hard time letting go of a thread of myself – my independent self, my bread-winning self, my “hey I went and got a Master’s degree, shouldn’t I be using it?” self. But these are mostly matters of pride. I knew in my heart I wanted to be home with Bo, and my reasons for returning to work were more about external judgments and perceptions than what I truly felt was right for me and for our family. When it came right down to it, my deciding factor was realizing that I’ll always have my education (or can get more), I’ll always have a passion or interest in my field (or another one) and there will always be potential to work. (Yes, I believe this is true even in our current employment state.) I’ll never, ever have the opportunity to witness first hand the daily growth of my firstborn child.

That’s not to say there’s a right or wrong answer to the decision to go back to work or stay home, and even my feelings on it weren’t black or white. If I had loved my job and going there each day provided me with a senses of fulfillment or leaving would have interrupted my ability to reach certain career goals, I think the decision would have been much harder. I still waver on the decision some days… but what affirms my decision is ultimately how happy I am. Right now, at this stage in my life, at home I feel content and blessed.

These last 11 weeks have been the best season of my life. And that says a lot – I’ve had a very happy and fulfilling life and have loved many stages of it. There’s also a lot that you give up the moment you become a mom and it’s hard sometimes to reconcile those losses. You give up feeling well-rested (will I ever, again?), the ability to just run to the gym or a coffee shop whenever you want, you give up your body, time spent with friends, large chunks of your bank account and a huge piece of your sanity that is now devoted to a section of thought called “incessant worrying that harm will come to your child and you won’t be able to stop it/fix it.” And despite the fact that every single mother I’ve met had told me being a mom would be the hardest thing I ever did but the best thing – I didn’t understand that until I spent a few weeks at home with my son.

And to be honest, it took a few weeks. The first couple weeks, Bo felt more like a baby bird to me than my own child. I felt like I was on a cycle of feed, entertain, then employ every available tactic I could think of to lull him back to sleep. But over the weeks, we found a rhythm together. The days (and nights!) become easier, he became more responsive (smiles!) and each day when I think I loved him the most I could yesterday, I find it’s grown a teensy bit more.

I just know there’s no place I’m supposed to be right now than safely guiding and teaching this child about his world. Teaching him to sleep (!!), how to lift his head, how to stick his tongue out. Teaching him that he is safe and secure and so loved. There is a quiet and gentle pace to our days together – something I know I will never have again and I’m cherishing now. The next time I have a newborn, there will be a busy toddler running around and I’m quite certain quiet and gentle will not describe the rhythm of our days.

With every big change in life, even good ones, there is loss. It was harder than I thought to say good-bye to my job (and my paycheck) and the freedom to work out at whatever time of day I wanted and the opportunity to blow dry my hair every day and sleeping in on Saturdays. It was hard, but it has been so, so worth it. I heard that so many times it began to feel like a cliché, but now I understand that sentiment inside and out.

This is indeed the best season of my life right now and I can’t imagine it being any other way now.

An Extra Day

Heather asked me if I felt like I had so much more free time now that I have an extra day off from work every week with my new schedule.  The answer is actually, no… I don’t.  But I feel like I can use my time better and I have more meaningful time, and I think that’s a fair trade.

With the 10-hour day plus a 40-minute commute, I’m basically gone from either 7-7 or 9-9 depending on which of my 2 shifts I have (8:00-6:30 or 9:30-8:00).  I don’t really have time to do many of the things I did after work before: cook dinners, run errands, make social dates.  I sometimes squeeze a workout in on either side of one of those shifts, but that tends to be about it.  But that’s okay: I’ve always believed that doing things in batches in more efficient (thank you, GapKids) and I find that having an extra off day gives me one day to knock out errands, clean house, or visit people I’d have a hard time fitting into a regular week day.  For example, last weekend I drove up to DC which I probably wouldn’t have attempted doing after work on a Friday and in two weeks, I’m making a day trip to Raleigh to photograph my sweet wino niece, Claire. 

My extra day off feels like a freebie: a life maintenance day.  I tend to schedule it to the hilt if I’m in town, but so far the trade off has been that it feels like I’m getting to relax a little bit more on the weekends.  My weeks alternate: one week I have a Thursday off, the next a Friday.

This week was a Thursday, and I had my day planned out to the hour.  That may sound not fun and a little AR, but it makes me happy to be organized and productive.  This was my schedule I wrote out at work the night before.  Please don’t judge, I am one of those people who likes to write things down for the sake of crossing them off.  So yes, “relax” and “wake up” are on my to do list.

You’re judging aren’t you?

I didn’t quite follow this to a T: namely, I started working on the website copy the night before and was feeling total writer’s block and decided that some wine would help things along.  A, ahem, few glasses later I finished it (yes, it requires editing) along with the emails so when I ignored the alarm at 7:00 and didn’t get out of bed til Matt strode in at 7:30 I didn’t feel too bad. 

There’s something liberating, though, about being free on a “work day” that even though I’m doing mostly productive things, it still feels fun.  Like when your Mom would sign you out of school to go to a doctor’s appointment.

I got to go running in the middle of the day, when the sun was shining and hit up the grocery store when the lines were short, and not feel the least bit annoyed that my doctor was running 45 minutes and I was getting docked at work for it.  So there’s that.  (By the way, I love my doc and I try never to gripe about his lateness, because as soon as he gets to my appointment, he sits there as if he has all the time in the world for me and answers every question I come in with, before taking a few minutes to ask about Matt and my running and my work.  I’ll take some extra waiting room time for that kind of bedside manner, thanks.  Unrelated, but I wanted to be clear that I wasn’t really griping about him.)  Anywho, I digress…

I haven’t quite mastered my full day of cooking yet like I had intended to, but Matt has been working evenings this last week in the PICU so our eating schedule has been so off anyways.  I did do a little bit of cooking ahead this weekend, including this lasagna from friend Kathryn and marinating & grilling a whole mess of chicken breasts to throw on top of salads, pasta or sandwiches.  So you know, a few less Lean Cuisines, a few more real cuisine this week. 

All in all, despite the trade off of the extra long days… and they do feel long, but I know lots of people work a 10 hour day without the extra day off, I’m pretty pleased with how this new schedule of mine is working out.

And this guy?  Doesn’t mind me being home an extra day, either. 

One Week

This week started off so lovely.  70s!  Sun!  I am so desperate for Spring to be here.  I had some extra work to do this week – some projects bubbling with BetterNumbers (the nutrition tracking website that’s been brewing for years and is now *live!*) and was not looking forward to spending a good chunk of Sunday buckled down working, but this was suddenly much more tolerable when give the prospect of an outdoor office.

Buddy and I also took 2 long walks this weekend at a new-to-me greenway path near my house.  It’s a 1.7 mile trail between 2 parking lots, so roundtrip it’s a nice 5k.  It’s way back behind some neighborhoods so the scenery is mostly fields – some horses! – and woods, but both days I was there it was populated with runners, bikers, and family walking.  I liked having the change of scene, and I’m certain Buddy wasn’t sad about the extra mileage either.

Matt worked a lot of afternoon/evening shifts this week, which meant I was up to my own devices most evening.  While this usually means I have popcorn and wine for dinner, I decided to embark on a culinary gift to myself and make…. risotto!  I love risotto.  But it’s so much work!  And Matt doesn’t care for it, so I always talk myself out of making it when it’s just me.  I’m so glad I finally did though.  Oh my word, it is delicious.

A few sautéed mushrooms mixed in, and it was heaven.  I think risotto is always going to remind me of being at our wine country house in Sonoma with the winos, since Pam cooked it up for us one night and it was the first time I had had it homemade.  If that doesn’t spell a recipe for comfort food – delicious food AND nostalgia – I don’t know what does.  Good thing it takes almost 45 minutes to make. 

I also got crafty one night while Matt was working, and made/repaired some necklaces I’ve had lying around.  The first one was an idea I had gotten MONTHS ago – to use up a whole mish mosh of chains that I had by twisting them all around and weaving a ribbon through them.   I saw something like it at Ann Taylor and felt certain I could do better than their $38 price tag.  When I was home for my Grandma’s funeral in January, I came across the little bauble in a collection of my other Grandma’s jewelry that my mom had at home.  It was the perfect finishing touch.  The owl in the middle also came from my Grandma’s jewelry (my mom’s mom) – she loved owls.  I stole that little guy as soon as I saw him, and he’s been riding around in my purse ever since.  I had been picturing him on a long chain necklace, and that’s right where he ended up.  I adore everything about his ugly beaded eyes, and I think of my Grandma every time I wear it.  The last one was a collection of little charms that I had been gathering for awhile, and looped around another long chain necklace.  I had it on a shorter chain for awhile, but I knew I wanted it to be a long one and finally amended it.  The funny thing is, doing all this only took me about 2 hours, but I’ve had these projects “waiting” for months. 

I do that often.

Then, because I was on a roll – fueled by risotto and craftiness – I decided to clean out my jewelry box.  I feel like every time I open it, I pull the same things out because they’re right on top and the rest were kind of cluttered.  I actually don’t have a lot of jewelry, and most of it of the costume/Forever 21 type – but I always feel like I never accessorize because I forget about what I have.  I was on a roll, so I dumped everything out, decided what items I really loved and would wear, and put them back into the jewelry box in such a way that I could actually see them.

What a difference.

I find jewelry to be one of the hardest words in the English language to spell.  Second to desperately.  Both of these words are underlined in red right now as I draft this.   Thank goodness for spell check.

It was a long work week for me.  Not a bad one, but a long one… Friday got here just in the nick of time.

Thank goodness the steroids are working too, because I needed this little lovey on Thursday. 

Next week I start working 4 10 hour days.  I am so excited about the prospect of the extra day off, although I am truthfully a tad bit nervous about the extra 2 hours at work.  2 more hours means between 2-4 more phone calls a day, and that my friends is a whole lot more coaching in one day.  I’m hoping all the “work hard” will be well balanced out by the extra bit of “play hard” that I will get.

Otherwise, I’m doomed to look like this every Friday at 8 pm.

How was your week?

I'm Lovin' It

I have a pretty nice office. I work on a floor that is wide open space with tons of cubicles mazes dividing it - a typical corporate office - but the atmosphere is hushed, calm and productive. Like a library, which weirdly enough is comforting to me. There's large windows, and sunlight streams in and on stormy days, the office takes on a cozy "we're all in here together" hush.. The windows themselves are a step up from my last working environment, a former storage room in the basement of a 1950s gym converted to an academic building. We often joked about painting a mural of a beach scene on the white painted cement walls, or about how prepared we felt for a tornado raid in our enclosed little space. It was often noisy and interruptions from students and visitors were common. In full transparency, I am certain that I provided the interruptions as much as receiving them. I liked my coworkers, and it wasn't unusual for us to sit around with our feet propped up on the desk discussing anything from our work to our lives to our depressing office walls. But still. It wasn't, as far as office spaces go, what you'd call ideal. So, I like my office and I find that, even for a corporate setting, it's a pretty nice place for Getting Things Done.

But I also try to leave it, at least once a day. My day is scheduled out from the minute I walk in the door to the minute I shut down the computer, because I'm making a series of prescheduled phone calls all day. As such, the days go by pretty quickly but I've learned if I don't walk away from my computer for the time I have designated for lunch, there's a good chance I might not get up all day. That's not good for the soul, and it's certainly not good for my booty. So I try to leave once a day.

But where to go? When it's nice out, I'll often take a book and go lie down in a grassy area and read. When it's raining, sometimes a car nap. But what I really wanted was a lounge. I wanted to take my ipad and write "personal emails" on my break, or catch up on my blog friends life, or scroll mindlessly through Twitter status. I wanted the white noise of chatter around me, I wanted comfy seats, I wanted sunlight. I wanted someplace where I could disconnect from work for just long enough to come back recharged. I'm not too picky am I?

I resorted to going to Panera and Starbucks quite a bit, because they satisfied these demands. However, that comes at a cost. I usually pack my lunch, so I'm not concerned with eating, but I quickly found my tomato soup addiction at Panera too great to overcome. And Starbucks is, well, Starbucks. While the gold card in my wallet speaks to my addiction, I do (surprisingly) try to moderate my visits for the sake of my wallet, my caffeine intake and my wallet.

I did a google search for free wifi and found some interesting options. A few hotels nearby... could I sit in their lounge and pretend to be a patron? The local library... a perfect option, but we all know how I am in libraries, and a bit too far away. Sheetz gas station? Interesting... but where to sit?

It was a coupon that brought me to my new lunch time respite. A buy one, get one coupon. Buy one fruit smoothie, get a free frappe. Interesting. I decided to give it a whirl, though my hopes weren't very high.

Turns out? I'm loving it.





Comfy seats. Big windows. Cheap coffee. Free wifi. A comfortable amount of other teleworkers with laptops propped up. A little bit noisy but still, surprisingly quiet. Who would have thought?

This Little Light of Mine

Last night I gave a talk at a community center for a small group of people - a support group called RAPP (Relatives Acting as Parents Program.)  I had been asked to give the talk a few months ago, back when I was working at my other job and had readily agreed.  All week long I'd been dragging my feet on prepping for it, and was really just not feeling it.  It'd been a hectic week, and I was mentally drained from work and the last thing I wanted to do was put on my happy face and my high heels and talk.

However, as soon as my PowerPoint flashed up I felt it - the little butterflies I get in my stomach whenever I start talking about something I'm passionate about.  In this case, I was giving a talk I've given a few other times - about how people who are caretakers often neglect themselves.  It's a talk I gave about a year ago at the NC Association of Volunteer Coordinators  - that time I was in a ballroom with 50 people behind a podium with a microphone and oh, man I was digging giving that talk.  I was on fire.  But, I felt the same thing last night though - even though I was in a community center with an aluminum table, my PowerPoint flashed on a cement wall with maybe a dozen people, expectantly looking at me. 

When I first started working in wellness, I was really in touch (as my life coach self would say) with the reason why I wanted to do this.  It's a complex bundle of my past experiences - my own struggle with my weight and eating through high school and college, mixed with the experience of becoming suddenly aware of how easy it is to take health for granted when I was diagnosed with colitis - that provide the kindling for my passion for wellness.  I know that for me, if I'm not healthy, I'm not anything else.  I'm not a good wife, I'm not a good sister, a good friend, a good doggy-momma, a good person when I don't feel well.  Being healthy - for me - gets the junk out of the way so that I can be my best self. 

There's a quote - cleanliness is next to Godliness – and whenever I hear that, I think “no, scratch that… healthiness is next to Godliness.” Being clean is lovely, but being healthy – feeling your best, feeling unlimited by your physical state – is so powerful.  I really feel that being healthy allows you to be your best self – and allows you to fulfill whatever purpose it is that you’ve been called to. 

Teaching people about wellness feels like something bigger than myself – it feels like I’m giving people a tool to get closer to being their best self, and ultimately, to find their own purpose.  I know that sounds a little lofty, but on the days that I’m “feeling” it, I know it’s because I’m doing something greater than myself.  I consider my understanding of motivation of behavior, my complete lack of competitive nature (which allows me to be a good coach, slowly easing people along to their goals), and my ability to inantely hear things that people don’t say out loud to be gifts that I’ve been blessed with.  There’s some days I don’t want to do my job.  Honestly, it’s hard.  It’s hard and it’s exhausting sometimes, to encourage and lift up people who are entrenched in unhealthy patterns.  But every now and then, I get one of those blessed moments when I realize it’s not about me – doing this job is not something I chose to do, it’s something I was chosen to do.

I didn't feel like going to that talk last night, but sometimes it's the things that you don't feel like doing that you need to do.  I left feeling reconnected to my work and grateful that I have a purpose I feel passionate about. 

Everyday Life 2.0

Life is starting to settle into a routine again (ahh, sweet sweet consistency)... just in time for the weekends to get busy with tailgates, trip to the mountains and soon enough, holiday preparations.  Last week Matt had to work 12 hour shifts (night ones too) so we've been high fiving on the front steps as he comes home and I take off, and having about an hour together after work - sometimes long enough for dinner, sometimes not. 

There's one person who's been quite happy about this - the Budster.  After spending 8 hours asleep with me, he gets a walk and a bowl of breakfast  and then he's back in bed for another 8 hours with Matt. 

After a busy Friday and Saturday - pizza/movie/vino with my friend Lauren, a 5k in the morning with Heather and her boyfriend, and rushing around getting ready for and going to the tailgate - I crashed hard on Sunday.  I'd been feeling hints of tired all weekend, and then I think I got dehydrated on Saturday (running followed by Gulp-size diet coke followed by tailgate beer... not so brilliant.)  Every time I tried to go vertical on Sunday, my head protested vehemently.

As delightful as spending another 8 hours in bed was to the Buddy, it was frustrating to me.  Didn't my body know I had dishes to clean?!  There was remnants of artichoke dip plastered on every pot I owned.  Laundry to fold!  Floors to be swiffered!  And then there were blogs to be written and papers to be filed - I still haven't put away 4 years worth of an office that I brought home from WFU and dumped in my guest room.  My blessed hubby has not taken up my dad's strategy of dealing with annoying piles of crap - that is to say, I have not found my stuff dumped in the outside garbage can.

Yet.

After I roiled around for a few hours being mad at the world that the ONE DAY where I had nothing on my agenda, I couldn't even stay upright, I finally accepted the situation and took a nap.

A five hour nap.

I know, poor me, right?

(Before I fell asleep, I desperately Googled "emergency housecleaning service" thinking MAYBE just maybe if I could find someone to clean my house while I slept MAYBE just maybe I would feel less guilty about sleeping.  It's not as my house is usually eat off the floor clean, and I’m super particular about it, but it was a bomb, y’all.)

So I slept.  I slept, I slept and I slept and I woke up intermittedly to text my mom or answer a phone call from Matt and would test my upright powers.

"Can I stand up yet with no headache? Nope.  Okay, back to bed."

Finally around six, I felt functional and was able to clean up the kitchen, do a few loads of laundry and blog.  (Priorities... the floor can get swiffered lately, I had to blog, yall.)  Matt came home a few hours later with dinner/lunch and a big ol’ Gatorade for me. 

Of course, after sleeping most of the day awake I was wide awake at what should have been bedtime, so of course, I fretted about that and how I would already be starting the week with a sleep deficit if I couldn't fall asleep soon.

Go with the flow is not really my specialty - are you picking up on that?

I finally feel like I’m starting to find into a routine with my work schedule, which is most excellent as this week somehow became jam packed with extracurriculars.  I haven't felt "ready" so to speak to take on the extras the first couple weeks, and I still feel a little bit overwhelmed, but I’m getting there.  I mean, if ever there was a week to take! on! the! world! it would be right after a 5 hour nap, right?

Does everyone take so long to adjust to new routines as I do?  In college, I often felt like by the time I got a hang of my schedule – it’d practically be midterms.  I guess the problem isn’t so much that I take awhile to adjust to a new routine, it’s that I berate myself for *not* having adjusted yet.  As if, somehow in my 28 years of routine-loving-living, one day I might wake up and find oh hey! I rock at flying by the seat of my pants now!  Wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier if I just accepted that this is who I am, and anything new makes me wonky for at least a good six weeks?

Acceptance.  A novel idea.  Something that a life coach might encourage people to do?  Weird.

Worst Day of the Year

Yesterday, January 4th was the worst day of the year, according to my sister’s Facebook status.  Immediately after she posted this, every single teacher she is friends with agreed, including my mother and my high school English teacher. 

The “dreading going back to work” statement was all over Facebook the night of January 3rd.  I can’t say I was doing backflips about going back to work, especially because that meant I’d actually have to brush my hair and get out of my pajamas … but I didn’t find myself dreading it either. 

I truly enjoy my job.  Even the more tedious parts, like paper work and data entry, give me a sense of accomplishment when I finish them.  Monday was just a typical day for me; it didn’t really feel at all like the “reality check” I was expecting.  I got to the office early, treating myself to a chai latte along the way.  I prepped for the week, getting my schedule ready, reviewing notes from my pre-holiday calls, and getting handouts ready for classes.  Mid-day I taught my first post-holiday class, and was pleasantly surprised to find that only a small percentage of people in my group had gained any weight over the holidays.  Most had either lost or stayed the same over the three week hiatus we had had.

Today started off with three coaching sessions, all very motivating and fun and productive.  I spent the rest of the day doing some paper work and reading, including snuggling up with a very exciting 10-journal-article packet on supplements.  Not exactly the same as cuddling up with the fourth Twilight book, as I had been doing over the holidays, but Twilight doesn’t exactly pay the grocery bills. 

Tonight, Matt and I are having dinner with the emergency medicine department and then I’m dropping dinner off for a girl in our resident-spouses group who just had a baby and is wrapping up maternity leave.  It’s been right back into the swing of things, but I can’t say I’ve really minded.  I have a lot on my plate this year and some pretty big plans for 2010, but I’m ready to see them into action. 

If yesterday really was the worst day of 2010, then it can only get better from here. 

Totally unrelated to post content.  But a picture-less post seems so wrong.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

Matt has his first week-long vacation this week and it’s turning out to be a great week for both of us. On Monday I came home to find an award winning yard, a totally organized garage, a really happy (crate-free) dog, a clean house and a beaming husband. Um, wow? I think I like the way this vacation is going. We settled in to cooking dinner together, having a glass of wine (my first in six weeks!) and enjoying the leisurely type of evening that I imagine other couples have who both work 9-5 jobs might experience on a regular basis. We actually do have a sit-down dinner probably three or four times a week, but often I’m cooking while Matt is finishing up charts or shortly after we eat, I'm getting ready for bed while he's putting on scrubs to heads out the door. Our weeknight routine is irregular at best, that's for sure.

Although I must say, I really don’t mind – and in fact, enjoy many aspects of – the ED schedule. For starters, Matt's never on call, and he’s usually home within an hour of when his shift is done. That kind of predictability is rare in medicine, and as much as I appreciate that now, I can only imagine how much more important that will be to me later on. Secondly, it provides us with a unique flexibility that other jobs don’t, especially with the work from home flexibility I have. For instance, while there might be a Friday night that he’s busy putting in central lines while I watch What Not to Wear, chances are sometime during the week there was a random Tuesday afternoon we were both home at the same time. Our time together may not be traditional, but for a medical intern's schedule, it's been pretty good. Nonetheless, he’s worked four very long months with sporadic days off here and there, so having a week’s vacation has been a blessing indeed. I know Home Depot is appreciating a man with free time on hands and projects to burn, as well.

On a related note, I had an eye opening moment yesterday in regards to my own vacation schedule. When I started at Wake Forest, my heart did a little backflip during orientation when I heard we got 25 days of sick/personal/vacation. 25 days? A gal could take a month off traversin’ around Spain with that kind of schedule! And, to boot, you can roll over up to half of that… in theory, accumulating 37 days of vacation in one year. Sounds great right? As it turns out, it’s been really, really difficult to use those days. Using vacation days means first finding the cajones to ask my boss for time off, inconveniencing 3 other extremely hard working people and mostly notably, coming back to more work then you left. Nonetheless, there are few things that recharge me more than traipsing around a new place with a map and my camera or a week at the beach with clams, beer and family and so I have done my best to take a few week long vacations every year.

Yesterday I worked on my PTO sheet for 2009 and found that even with a week in Myrtle in April and a week in the Dominican Republic in May and few Fridays off for weddings and other such revelry, I still I had 23.5 days left. 23.5 days!! As it turns out, I could probably much just stay home all December. I’m not sure what to do about this, since as I mentioned, burning through those days like rubber isn’t exactly encouraged or easily facilitated. But they’re my days yall, and if I don’t use at least 10 of them, I’ll lose ‘em.

To add insult to injury, I’ve also keep good records of how much extra I have worked this year. Let’s just say, I love me some Excel sheets. Last October, we had some personnel changes here at work. I won’t go into them here, but essentially a 3 man job became a 2 man job.. It was a very stressful time- there were a lot of tears, a lot of wine drinking and 4 letter words thrown around in my car in between parking spaces and garages. During the course of this event, I began keeping track of my hours in order to document how these changes had affected my work/life balance. I don’t have a punch in, punch out job – I have the kind of job where you do your work, whatever that takes. Sometimes that means reading food logs late into the evening hours, but it also means being able to slip out for doctors appointments or lunch dates without worry, or working from home on Fridays. But my job description does say 37.5 hours a week and I was curious to see with these changes, how close to accurate this was. I found that an average week for me, during this time, was about 50 hours. About 8 months later we hired a 3^rd person, which greatly reduced my workload, but I continued to keep track of my hours. Mostly because I’m a little bit OCD and once I make me a good Excel tracker, I have a hard time cutting myself off from using it. In my Excel sheet, I had created a column to keep track of how many hours over my “full time” I went and how quickly those turned into extra days. Over the course of a year, and one month, I have worked an extra 33 days.

Now granted, when I plug in “6 am – 2pm” on my excel sheet, I know I’m not working a full 8 hours. I check twitter, I write wino emails, I go microwave my lunch and end up talking to a co-worker for 20 minutes about Twilight. These things happen. But let’s say – worst case scenario – I worked half of that. That means I worked extra 15 days this year. On top of my leftover 23.5 vacation days, I have nearly 7 weeks of “extra time” this year… just sitting on the back burner.

I’m not sure what to do about this… maybe spend a little more time on twitter at work? (Maybe write blog posts at work? Check.) Unfortunately, if I put my feet up and eat bon bons the person that comes back to haunt the most is me, and then my participants. There’s no “man” to take it out on… the bane and blessing of automonous work is that you get both the responsibility of your schedule, and the responsibility of your schedule. And I guess that’s the truth of many jobs where you don’t clock in and clock out. This is probably one of those realities of being a grown up that you’d rather just not delve that deep into, like compounding interests on mortgage loans or how laundry is never really done because even when the hamper is empty you’re wearing dirty clothes. File this under: Being a Grown Up Sometimes Sucks?

What I’m learning quickly here is that if I don’t respect and nuture my time, no one else is going to. Life is a zero sum game – where you think you’re saving time one place, you’re probably burning it somewhere else. So on that note, I’m punching out at Thursday at noon and I’m not looking back. Matt and I are escaping to the mountains for a weekend – our first and only trip to the montanas this year. I’m not bringing a single food log, weight loss chart or memory or a participant who had 3 apple pies for breakfast with me.

And that is what paid time off is all about.

Oh, Maybe Because Waking Up 4:45 am is ABSURD.

Last night I had a dream that I was able to turn my alarm clock off by only using my mental powers.

This would be a little less ironic if I had not, in fact, failed to turn my alarm clock ON last night in the first place. I woke up this morning and reached for my glasses to look at the clock, expecting to see that my alarm was about to go off any minute.

5:48, the blue lights blinked back at me. An HOUR late?!?

I grabbed my cell phone to be sure I wasn't seeing things. 5:48, the screen confirmed, sending a blue glow through the room. I cursed, grabbed the phone, and stumbled into the bathroom. As I furiously tried to multi-task brushing my teeth and putting mascara on, my husband called from the next room... "what happened?"

"I forgot to turn my alarm clock on!" I yelled, as I ran through the house, grabbing coffee mug, dog leash, and my laptop.

"AGAIN?" he asked, in disbelief.

Again.

This is, in fact, the 3rd consecutive Tuesday morning, I have either not set my alarm or set it for PM instead of AM. 3 weeks in a row!

I am totally a morning person. There is no time of day I like better then 5 am - 7 am. So you would think, of all people, I would have no problem setting and using an alarm clock to get up. Yet here I am, 3rd Tuesday in a row, sporting unwashed hair and pretending the milk in my coffee is going to substitute for breakfast.

A year ago, when I was asked if I would teach a class at 6:30 am every Tuesday, I readily agreed. At the time, I was just finishing up training for the Baltimore half marathon, and I had been running every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 5 am. If I can run at that hour, I can teach at that hour, right? And in theory, if I started working around 6, I could stop working much earlier in the day, too, right?

Why do theories so rarely stick when thrown against the wall of real life?

The Tuesday class was such a success, capturing a number of full-time-workers who had never been able to do the daytime classes we previously offered, that in June we added a Thursday 6:30 am class.

Yay?

I didn't realize how much I love my mornings... for me. I miss running during that time, tremendously. I transitioned over to running Monday & Wednesday mornings, which was formerly my early morning office hours where I did lots of planning, writing and development. (Quadrant II.... important and non urgent.) I miss my a.m. writing sessions, tremendously.

When I stop and pay attention, I realize I don't really want to teach anymore at 6:30, and I think I've been, in a way, subconsciously setting myself up to do just that. I want to run, and I want to have my planning periods back on M&W. ::::insert me stomping my foot and sticking my lower lip out as far as it goes::: I know I sound whiny, and I am feeling that way, a little bit. I'm committed to Tuesday group til Feb 2010, and Thursday group til October 2010, and truthfully, I'm okay with that because I just adore the people in these groups. But will I do it again when these groups finish? N.o.p.e.

I am lucky that I have the flexibility to set my one-on-one appointments for whatever time I want - be at 10 in the morning or 4 in the afternoon. I can also read, write, and develop classes any time day or night. So in that sense, I do have a great deal of leeway with how I spend my day and have been successful if working out a schedule that works for me. But from this, I have learned a valuable lesson.

Set the alarm.

Okay two lessons. Know thy self. And thy self's most functional hours of day. In the future, early mornings will stay on my agenda... but the only commitment I'll make will involve sneakers or a keyboard.


(And for the record, I have been on time for my classes, but have sacrificed a few things along the way including exercising my dog, personal hygiene and breakfast. All rather important.)

Sure, feel free to skip my walk.

Just know you'll pay for it later when I give you THESE eyes when you get home.

Just A Day, Just an Ordinary Day...

4:26 am. Alarm goes off. I disagree. Buddy pokes his head around the corner to see if I'm getting up. As he sees the comforter tossed back over my head, he flops down on the floor with a heavy sigh to wait ten more minutes.

4:36 am. Ten minutes goes so fast. Shoes are on, leash is in, dog is practically twirling to get outside. We walk. It is dark, it is quiet, it is peaceful and I often look up to the sky on these hushed mornings and wonder what God has in store for me that day. My contemplative state is nearly always broken by noticing that my dog is squatting somewhere, and if I don't hurry over, I'll be left to using my cell phone as a light to try and see where his poo is in the grass. From revelry to reality.

We walk until the leash goes slack, and that's when I know I've worn him out, and then we walk a little bit more for good measure. For both of us. We return, we both get food, and then I get ready for work.

As I'm pouring my coffee, Dr. C comes home. I'm fixing an English Muffin while he's scrounging in the freezer, heating up a Lean Cuisine or microwaving leftover She-Crab Soup. We could not be on more opposite schedules. He updates me on his night, we say good-bye, he goes to bed and I go to work.

6:25 am. My first class starts at 6:30, and they're usually hover outside the door raring to go. No matter what time of day I hold class, there is always someone who arrives 20 minutes early. I'm very particular about my time - being late is my pet peeve, but being early infringes on my nerves nearly as much, for some reason. Perhaps it's because those 20 minutes while I'm setting up my class are the last 20 minutes of quiet I'll have for awhile and I savor each one. I'm teaching a class on portion control, and the front table is set up with enough fake food to delight a six year old with a Play-Skool kitchen.

8:15 am. My two classes are done with, and I begin to make the rounds picking up the room. The adrenaline rush that is with me while I am pouring my heart into each class, and answering questions that I hope will inspire and educate begins to wane. .. I sit down, and my feet scream THANK YOU. For an hour, I alternate between checking emails and following through but also losing myself in the pages of twitter, facebook or someone's blog I may not even know.

9:05 am. "Am I too early?" My first appointment is here. The next two hours pass by in a blur. I do four 30-minute coaching session in this time. At least one will move me to tears, at least one will leave me wondering what I could have done differently to light a spark that seemed fizzled. There is nothing I like more than coaching people through their challenges, or hearing stories about the lives that go on outside my classroom. There's little time to think about it, because my next class is gathering out in the hallway.

12:00 pm: I am walking across the tennis courts in high heels. I pray the Rec director does not come out and give me THAT look. But I am carrying a laptop bag, a purse, a backpack full of handouts, food logs, newspaper articles, and a lunchbox. I arrive in the office and have a hard time fitting through the door, without dismantling the bags from my arms and shoulders. For two hours, I enter data, read food logs or do research, updating the classes I'll be giving tomorrow or the next day. There's a book on tape on my ipod as I enter data and the numbers fly by as I soak in Tim Ferris, Michael Gerber or Rhonda Byrne.

2:25 pm: I am pulling into the Starbucks parking lot. I am pondering whether I will have an iced skinny vanilla or a light-java chip frap. My client's car is already here, and I am excited for the hour that will transpire and the transformations we'll make. Did I mention already that I love coaching?

3:55 pm: Coaching is done, so now I am hustling to the gym. Fortunately, it is 2 minutes away. I arrive and my PT client is already on the treadmill. He waves, and I have a mini heart attack that he might lose his balance. He is 72 years old, and lost 50 lbs working with me on his food intake over the course of 2 years. Now we've added in exercise, and for some reason, 3 years later, he's still putting up with me. I work him through our machines - a serious of leg exercise, upper body and core. I hold my breath as he does crunches on the medicine ball and I am posed to catch him. He notices me doing this and yells at me for making him feel like an old man. I retract my hand and he immediately rolls off the balance ball. We finish his workout, and I begrudgingly say good-bye to him and drag myself over to a stair mill. 5 minutes later, I am deeply engrossed in Kate Gosselin's bodyguard romance and the timer ticks down on the machine. I repeat the exercises I just took my client through, and leave thoroughly exhausted but happy.


6:05 pm: I arrive home and can hear the barking as soon as the garage door rolls up. I grab the leash, open the door and whisk him out the door before he can say heyyyy you're home. Nervous energy, BE GONE. A quick lap and he's himself again, and will spend the rest of the night testing out different spots in our living room as suitable nap locales. I drag out a cutting board and chop, pour oil in a pan, throw in, sizzle and wait. I open the plastic clamshell of triple washed greens, throw on some fruit, some cheese, some olive oil, some pepper.

8:45 pm: My energy is waning, so I pop my ipod books back on and bustle around my end of day routine. Pack gym bag, lay out clothes, pack lunch. Walk dog one last time, brush teeth, turn on TV. DVR-ed versions of Stacy & Clinton, Cesar or Joel McHale lull me into a vegetable state.

9:27 pm: "You in the bed?" When the Dr. calls from the hospital after 9, he knows where I'm at. I'm reading Dr. Kessler's "The End of Overeating" and it doesn't take more than six or seven pages before I start to go a little cross-eyed. Flop the book on the floor, throw the glasses on my nightstand and *click*. Lights Out.

To do it again tomorrow.

Food with A View

Food with a view, originally uploaded by dancindeac.

This morning Monica and I slept through the start of the first session ("Better turn my phone to silent so my emails don't wake me up. OH WAIT. MY ALARM IS NOW SILENCED." Brilliant.) Once we realized we weren't going to make the first talk we decided to take advantage of our locale and go for a walk. The resort (a golf club that apparently boasts to having Tiger as a member) is so stunningly green. I am totally sold on the recent claims on "nature deficits" - that less time spent outdoors plays a role in many of present day maladies. There is something to be said about that restorative feeling you get being surrounded by all things green (or blue, if you're like me with an inexplicable serotonin surge near water.) Our walk ended at one of the resort's restaurants with a quiet, empty patio overlooking the first tee and we plopped down for coffee, eggs and fruit. Clearly, exercise and a healthy breakfast serves an acceptable proxy for my presence in a conference based predominantly on the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. I mean, I'm just trying to practice what I preach!

The leisurely morning was a nice contrast to what proved to be an intense day of presentations. I feel like my brain has just taken a Pilates class. Although I try to keep abreast of the recent research in my field, I'll be the first to admit that my version of continuing education is some elliptical reading of the oh so laudable Prevention and Women's Health. (Which genuinely do report research, but in a Crystal Light kind of way - seems like the real thing, til you have the real thing.) To actually sit in a room and hear the most recent, hot off the press research not just presented, but argued, critiqued and debated... there is nothing like it. I got goosebumps today when someone discussed the effectiveness of a health behavior change theory that I use in my program, and I did a happy dance in my seat at a presentation on the ROI of workplace wellness programs. I'm pretty sure what this all boils down to is this: somehow, someway, I ended up in the right field. For that, I am thankful.

Wish I Was Here

Wish I Was Here, originally uploaded by dancindeac.

Today I'm in Tampa for the Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism conference put on by the AHA. I'm excited. I even wore my red shoes. For those of you who know about the 1997 Valentine's Dance Fashion Fiasco, I assure you my current day red patent leather loafers are totally appropriate and cute. (Red shoes, apparently, look quite hookerish with 3" heels Who knew.) Anyways, I digress: conference.

I love research. I love learning. I was nearly breathless with excitement reading the program guide. However, as much as I anticipated hearing the latest on vitamin B supplementation and the DASH diet, we are in Tampa. i.e. There's a beach. I want to be there.

So, come lunchtime my coworker Monica and I mapquested directions to a cafe in Clearwater we'd been recommended. 14 miles? Totally doable for a 1.5 hour lunch.

45 minutes later as we sat in stop-n-go beach traffic with no hopes of finding parking we admitted our folly. Sadly enough, neither of us wanted to miss the presentation on findings about prevalence of vitamin D deficiency that was scheduled for right after lunch. With a wave to our beach front cafe, we turned the car around and headed away from the gorgeous beachside town (see happy feelings inducing photo) to our dark, a.c. blasting conference room.

Research presentation over beach? Nerd status prevails, per usual.