I choose how I feel

For a long time now Bryan has been telling me that I have a choice in how I feel. I have to say that I honestly did not understand that concept. I thought that feelings were something you experienced and not something you really had a choice in. I definitely need to work on making a choice about how I'm feeling but I know I am capable of ending my anxiety and I will end it. I am tired of trying to control my surroundings on order to control the symptoms of my anxiety, I need to remember the only thing I really have any control over are my reactions and trying to control external forces only increases my anxiety so I need to remember that.

On the treadmill

Today I took a picture of the new view I look at when I'm running on the treadmill. In order to avoid the morning traffic Bryan and I leave the house at 5:45 and drive to a gym up in Bellevue. I have to drive up there every day so I'm doing my runs at the gym now instead of at home where I've been doing them for 5 years. The view is pretty cool. I took the picture right at the end of my run after I had gotten a really good endorphin rush at about 40 minutes. The rush let me kick the speed up and it felt really good,

My Shadow

So today was a very intense day of training at work. I spent most of the day with a really nice guy named Paul who reminded me of all the statistics I learned in college. Finally after about 4 hours of statistics and creating first articles I had to get my daily beach fix.

Today at the beach the little munchkin in the picture let his little ball roll down the steps almost into the water. His nanny didn't notice and he stood at the top of the steep steps for a minute looking like he wanted to go down and retrieve his ball. Before he could tumble down the stairs into the gravel on the beach I decided to go get his ball so he wasn't tempted to do it himself. At that point his nanny showed up and I handed him the ball and he proceeded to throw it back towards the water. I retrieved the ball again and handed it to the nanny this time and then went back to my spot on the steps to watch the ducks. A few minutes later I got up and started to walk back to work. As I was walking I heard giggling, so I turned around and the munchkin was following me. When I turned around he started pointing at the sky and saying "plane" and sure enough a plane was going overhead. It made me smile and I took a picture.

Baby Duck

I realized today that I should take advantage of the fact that I don't have a whole lot to do in my new job yet. Yesterday I ate lunch at my desk but there is a gorgeous waterfront park less than 200ft from my office. So today I went around the corner and got lunch and then went and sat on a park bench 15 feet from the shore of Lake Washington and watched the momma ducks and there babies. If you can't see it there is a little baby duck in the center of the picture. The mommas were getting fed bread by other people and the babies were just trying to keep up. It was adorable,

My new "view"

So today was my first day at my new job and it was awesome. It was a long day but it was a whole lot of fun and I can't wait to dig into the issues I'm going to deal with at this new job, it's going to be a real challenge. I can very happily report that I have an office again and I kind of have a "view". Between me and the window are 2 different offices but at least I can see daylight from my desk vs sitting in cubicle hell again. This job is going to be a real challenge but I think it's going to be a whole lot of fun. I've even started another blog to write about the things I learn.

New commute

Today I drove my new commute during rush hour (okay maybe a little after) for the first time. This is the view just as you drive into Bellevue from Factorial on I-405. The fact that I had enough time to take a picture with my cell phone tells you that the traffic was bad. But surprisingly it didn't take nearly as long as I expected. My plan is to leave my house by 6 am, drive to Bellevue to workout then drive to work in Kirkland after my workout. This should work out well because the worst of the traffic is between Renton and Bellevue so I can beat that traffic and then after my workout it should only take me 10-15 minutes to get to the office.

I'm really going to miss working out at the same Gym with Bryan and getting to do my runs at home. But after my conversation with my new Boss this morning I think I'm going to love this job and the freedom it sounds like I will have to solve problems. I can't wait!!!!

Lamp Shopping

Today was actually quite a busy day for vacation. Got up and went to the gym and had a good workout. Got home and took a shower and the played guitar hero for a little while. Then I went to a doctors appointment. After the doc appointment I went lamp shopping. I went to Seattle Lighting because I want to replace all the gold monstrosities the previous owner installed. Most of the things I liked we're generic things to be installed but this particular lamp struck me and pretty and I think that it might go well in our living room after its been painted. Bryan said he wasn't a huge fan but I think if he sees it in person hell come around.

Chaos

Today Jeff Heiss painting started painting the interior of my house. Right now my living room is condensed into a small pile in the middle of the room. This is going to be my life this week but that's okay. When its all done the house will have fresh paint and I won't have to look at the dirty walls any more. It's just amazing how dirty walls can get from a husband and dogs. I'll post more pictures as the week goes along.

Before the paint

So this is what our dinning room looks like before paint, well at least before the spots of paint on the wall. I have picked some very eclectic paint colors so we will see what happens once it all done. Its really interesting to have the living area so empty. We actually got rid of quite a lot if stuff yesterday. It's always cleansing to me to get rid of things you no longer use. I'm excited to get the house painted but now I have to figure out what to do with myself for the rest of the day because I'm not used to not having anywhere to be or to do. I really need to plan a vacation where I go somewhere for a week, maybe that would allow me to relax a little bit more.

Preparing for Paint

So starting tomorrow our house is going to be a war zone because the main living are is going to get painted. As a result we are having to move everything out of the way to give the painters room to work. I spent all day yesterday packing up all the little knick knacks and such and packing them into the guest room. As you can see from the picture Willow was trying to "help" as usual. By the time I was done yesterday you could barely take 2 steps into that room. This week is going to be very interesting.

Seattle Adventure

Well it's been a few days since I've blogged because we've been really busy. On Saturday we went to a friends loft in pioneer square in Seattle. Because the Seattle Sounders (soccer) were playing we decided to take the link light rail from Tukwilla up to the international district in order to avoid having to fight for parking. Bryan is very familiar with this area of town because he used to work down there and because he takes the train every day. There were a whole lot of people out because of the Sounders game and we came across a big crowd in pioneer square. This picture was taken on the water garden in pioneer square. I didn't even know it existed but Bryan insisted that I had to see it and I'm glad I did. I didn't know there were such neat waterfalls in the city.

Keiko

One of the houses I grew up in had a beautiful Japanese maple by the front door. My mom planted it when my family first moved into our house when I was 4 and that beautiful plant was still thriving (or maybe just trying to eat my mom's front door) when she sold the house last summer when I was 30 years old.

I knew that when I owned my own home I wanted to have a Japanese maple in the front yard, so a few months after my husband and I bought our house I went and bought my Japanese maple. When I brought my fancy new plant home I found out that my husband really likes to name things. He insisted I pick a name for my plant so I chose the name Keiko after the whale in the movie Free Willy.

Her first year on our yard seemed touch and go because we ended up needing to move her and the first year I didn't do a very good job remembering to water her during the summer. But I realized that giving her a name made her more real so I think of her like a person and that helps me remember to take care of her.

Since Keiko we have added several other "friends" to our yard. In the backyard we have a rhododendron named Mrs. Sally sassafras purple pants Montgomery the III (Bryan named her). And in the front yard we have 4 hedges that we are trying to grow in order to block the junk yard next door they are named Harry, Mary, Terry and Jerry (again Bryan did the naming). These plants aren't doing as well as Keiko but hopefully I can convince my mom to come over this summer and help me figure out why they aren't growing. Mom?

EyeLeo

So for the last couple of months I have been doing a lot if reading on how to get the most out of yourself when trying to get work done, one of the things I read is that it is essential to take breaks, that they will actually help you be more productive because distracting yourself for a few minutes and thinking about something else will help you brain be able to refocus. I actually find this a very difficult thing to do, it's just one of those things that I forget to do. So I found this app called EyeLeo that I installed on my laptop at work. Every 15 minutes a little cat pops upon my screen over everything and for 10 seconds tells me to roll my eyes, look out a window (if I had one) or shut my eyes really tight just to give my eyes a break from looking at my screen. Then once an hour my screen goes dark and the cat appears and I can't do anything on my machine for 5 minutes. Now there is an option to be able to delay or cancel the cat from appearing but I found that when I had that option enabled I would never actually use the 5 minutes for a break. So I put the program in strict mode which means once it goes dark I can't do anything on the machine for 5 minutes so I'm forced todo something else. Usually I will either meditate or get up and go talk to coworkers, but if I'm at home I've been known to play a song or 2 on guitar hero during my break.

NSEW

So I actually took 4 different pictures today. Each one looking out a different window at my work. The view out of the 7th and 8th floor of this office building are pretty cool but even though they are cool I don't think they will compare to the new view I'll have looking out at the water in Kirkland. The first picture is facing west out of the lunch room on the 8th floor.

The 2nd picture is facing north out if a different side of the lunch room on the 8th floor. The lunch room is actually a pretty cool place to eat lunch since it has a very cool view from several directions.

The third photo is actually the view I see most often and the one that can be the most beautiful on a clear day. This view is facing south east out my my teams scrum room where we meet every morning at 10am. On a clear day you get a gorgeous view of Mt. Rainier, but unfortunately today it was cloudy. If its sunny again before I leave I'll take another picture.

And finally the view facing south. I took this picture from an empty office and its actually a view I don't see very often so I don't have all that much to say about it.