When work is taking over your whole life

The last two weeks have been, lets just say horrible. Work has taken over my life.

2 weeks ago I worked around 80 hours in one week. Literally all I did was work, eat, sleep and was a stress case. Exercise and getting enough sleep has been key to me not completely losing it.

Thank goodness for my husband who held me when I was freaking out and cooked me dinner every night and didn't complain at all when I had to work every free minute.

This last week was a little better but I did have one 14 hour day. I think I've set myself up so that the near future won't be quite as bad.

I still love my job, and clearly need to find a work life balance, but I never quite expected the pressure difference between school and working. In school the only person I could disappoint was myself. At work I can disappoint myself, my team lead, and heaven forbid the client, who is paying me to get stuff done for them.

I know I have a lot to be grateful for, a great job, and a steady income, a wonderful husband and great family and friends who care for me and worry about me. I always want to keep that perspective when life gets hard for me. Everyone has different challenges, right now this is mine.

Here's to finding a balance. Anyone have advice?

Europe tour 2012: Berlin, Germany

Berlin was an incredible place to visit. We found a hostel for $11 bucks a night and had a friend of Adriennes living there who toured us all around! 

Berlin was filled with sightseeing, memorials, gelato and chocolate (this becomes a theme throughout the trip), the philharmonic, palaces, and monasteries. I cannot say enough good things about Berlin, the only thing I didn't love was the food here. 

This WWII memorial was a tribute to the Jews who lost their lives due to the Nazi's. It is the most thought provoking and emotional memorials I have ever been to. We walked around together and on our own for about an hour. I thought about the symbolism of the different sized blocks (some as low as a foot and some as high as 20 ft.) of how regardless of age, these people were senselessly murdered.

Seeing the Berlin wall was also a highlight!! Germany's past is hard to understand and hard to fathom.

We also had the opportunity to see the Berlin Philharmonic, one of the best in the world. I really enjoyed this concert. I honestly hadn't given much thought to classical music before this.

 I believe this was the summer palace, because obviously you need a summer and winter palace about a mile away on the same property.

I definitely miss the sorbet and gelato I consumed on a daily if not more than daily basis.

The palace monastery was peaceful and had a beautiful Christus.

The rooms of the palace were so ornate. I was dying over how incredible they were!

Ritter sport. Oh. My. We got about 15-20 chocolate bars our first day or so to "give to our families" even after we returned to buy more I think I ended up with a bar for each family member, and they may have been bought at the airport on the way home from Athens.

We ate about 2 meals a day in Europe and supplemented with gelato and chocolate.

The owner of the palace loved ruins so much he had a replica built so he could look out his window and always see them in the distance. HA!

Winter palace.

Europe tour 2012: Brussels, Belgium

I am not sure we really had anything we were super excited to do in Belgium other than it was SUPER convenient. Our hosts in England's partner works in Belgium and took us there when he would regularly go for work! The coolest part was riding in a car on the Chunnel. WHAT? underwater in a car?!

We stayed at a hostel and got to know this super cool girl traveling for a couple months all on her own. BRAVE.

We walked the entire city of Brussels in about a day. We were so excited to be on our own and doing whatever we wanted. I am glad we saw brussels at the beginning of the trip, because I don't think we would have been quite as enthusiastic had it been towards the end. There just wasn't that much to see/do.

The biggest disappointment of Brussels was finding out the day we were leaving the the most romantic/picturesque city in basically all of Europe was like a half hour away in a city called Bruges. Next time Belgium, Next time.

Europe tour 2012: Cheltenham, England

Cheltenham was the perfect place to get over our travel tiredness and completely catch up, since it had been over 4 months since Adrienne and I had seen each other! We walked around town, looked through the shops, ate some delicious foods prepared by our gracious hosts, watched a delightful European talent show and it was even got my first introduction to downtown abby.

This was just an adorable blue door I found as Adrienne and I were traipsing around Cheltenham. Europe was full of incredibly beautiful doors!

The coolest thing we did in Cheltenham was visit the close by Sudeley castle, which was built in the 15th century and had quite the interesting history. It really got us into the Europe trip mood!

Other Europe posts: 

Looking back

London, England

Graduation trip 2015

I AM SO EXCITED!!! We just booked our flights to the Philippines!

Travis is graduating in april so naturally we are taking a trip. We went to Mexico for mine. Now most people probably don't think I wanna go on vacation to the Philippines, but I'll show you why we decided it was a good idea. Also, read this.

It's probably going to be the biggest adventure of our lives to this point. But I can't wait to sit on a beach with warm sand in my toes, a book in my hand, and the sounds of the waves!!!

The Philippines is basically Hawaii except a lot cooler and cheaper. Its going to take us a while to get there 24 hours of traveling and 4 flights, but I'd say its worth it! We are also going with our friends Brandon and Martha, which means we will have our very own photographers for this trip, they really have their own photography business. So we will have awesome photos, and people to make us feel more safe about the whole thing.

April 24th cannot come soon enough!

Jazz game!

Last night we got to go to the Jazz vs Warriors game! It was so much fun! My parents gave Travis the tickets for Christmas and we've been looking forward to it ever since. The Jazz were doing REALLY well until the 3rd quarter and then they kind of spiraled out of control.

Basketball isn't something that I just love, but being there with Travis makes it all the more fun. Travis and I are incredibly different and therefore don't have a lot of things we love to do in common. This year we are making a bigger effort to do the others favorite things and really enjoy them together.

It's okay if we don't everything together. For example, when he is watching sports at home, I just can't get into them, so I usually read. But it is fun to experience new things and teach each other!

P.S. we just booked Travis' graduation trip and I am SO EXCITED!!!

What things do you and your husband/boyfriend do together that aren't necessarily the other jam?

My journey to running

My journey to becoming a runner is kind of odd. I didn't just love running from the outset. In fact, I really hated it. I would occasionally go on runs with my mom in high school and after abut a mile id head home cuz I couldn't take much more than that.

I didn't get into it until I had friends that were enthusiastic about running half marathons, and encouraged me to try it. At this point in my life, the longest I had ever run was probably a mile and a half and it wasn't fast. haha

My friends Xan and Megan got me to jump on the bandwagon. We ran together 3-5 times a week when training for my first half. It was honestly a blast, and I looked forward to our runs (almost) everyday.

It was a time to talk about life and figure out where we were going. To be honest I don't remember much running those couple months. Which is why this method worked for me. I trained without really feeling like I was training!

Plus I got two incredible best friends that I really don't think I would have become so close with without running. Ive been on trips with these girls and they were in my wedding. I love them so much!

Now I'm 3 halfs in and still loving the way running makes me feel. I still run with my friend Megan when we can, but life has gotten way crazy for both of us with full-time jobs, so its not quite as awesome as when we had so much free time back in the college days.

In with the new, out with the old

I am all about fresh starts to the new year! What that means for me is going through all of our stuff and get rid of the stuff we don't use anymore. Christmas brought plenty of new things. We were spoiled. When new things come into my house I feel an obligation to get rid of some old stuff.

If my mom taught me anything, it's don't be a pack rat. haha its luckily pretty easy to live this philosophy when you live in a tiny apartment, because you can only fit so much!

I am amazed every time I go through our stuff how much I end up giving away. Its just amazing how much "stuff" we accumulate. My rule is if I haven't worn it in the last year its out, if it hasn't been used recently its out, if it has holes its out.

We also decided before I went back to work to deep clean our apartment. It needed it. We got on our hands and knees and cleaned all of our tile floors (we usually just swifer them). Travis cleaned the entire bathroom. I cleaned out the entire fridge and washed it inside and out, and we organized! It felt so good to have our apartment so clean and orderly afterwords, it felt like such an accomplishment! (note: after a week the orderliness isn't quite at that same level anymore).

How often do you spring clean and go through your things??

Europe tour 2012: London, England.

I arrived in London at the airport and was picked up by a driver, courtesy of my incredible host, my mom's best friend from high school, Tracey!

I was told you are not allowed to sleep until its bedtime in the country you are in, to make sure jet lag doesn't plague you the whole trip so thats what I did. I didn't go to sleep until 9:30 London time. Let me tell you. I was FREAKING exhausted by then, but it really worked like a charm. I didn't have any jet lag problems after that.

The next day Tracey and I went shopping (at beautiful bookstores and other less important places), ate some delicious foods, saw the Broad street pump (The only thing I REALLY cared about seeing in London, I clearly had just graduated with a degree in Epidemiology) and anxiously awaited Adrienne's arrival at our hotel. The whole thing was a little stressful since neither of us had cell phones, so if she got lost or couldn't find the hotel, we were screwed. I was so relieved when she walked into the lobby!

Adrienne and I decided the best idea would be to get a red double decker bus pass to get us the best well rounded look at the city. We had about 6 hours to pack in as much as we could. We saw Big Ben, The London Tower Bridge, The London Eye, The tower of London, Buckingham Palace, and Westminster Abby. Unfortunately we didn't get to do much but see them!

We had to meet Tracey at the bus station around 8 to catch our bus to her town of Cheltenham. Its kind of a miracle we made it to the bus station. We got so lost, we were all freaking out, and decided the next day we needed to get a cell phone. haha

We had less than 2 days to explore the majestic London, its somewhere I really want to go back to to explore more!

Other Europe posts: 

Looking back

Cheltenham, England