Highlights

I'm taking a page from my friend Rachel's book and listing out "the good" or highlights of my week.

I've been trying lately to be more thankful the good things God has blessed me with, so why not incorporate that into the ole blog.

Highlights of my week...

• Last weekend my church had a conference about the Holy Spirit that was really good. I've been listening to and singing this song all week. Love it.
  
• I met with my boss for my mid-year performance review and she had really nice things to say about my work.
• I found out all the season of How I Met Your Mother are now available for streaming on Netflix. Yay!
  
• I got to come home from my business trip early and when the Mr. picked me up at the airport on Wednesday night he had JUDAH in the car! He said he thought the cat could use a little adventure because, "he never gets to go anywhere." So I got to snuggle with my sweet cat on the ride home. Love my husband.
  
• I got my hair cut/highlighted by the wonderful and talented Carey Bear.
  
• We finished our taxes. I did them myself using Turbo Tax which made me feel super smart and self-sufficient. Even though we owe some serious $$ to the feds I'm glad they are done.
• Tomorrow morning the Mr. and I are heading up to Central CA wine country (Los Olivos, Santa Ynez, etc.) for the weekend. So excited for some yummy wine and quality time with my honey.
  

Source: flickr.com via socalnewlywed on Pinterest

LBC Party, Sour Beer, and Other Adventures

On Friday night the Mr. and I threw a final party at our condo. The theme was "The Long Beach Experience" and it was so much fun!

We saw a lot of friends we hadn't seen in a while and I think people enjoyed our creative "Long Beach" theme.

As part of the party the Mr. wanted to do a Tequila Tasting, which was actually a huge hit! We sampled 7 different kinds of tequila (the Don Julio Anejo was my favorite). We even had scoresheets that I made up on the computer. Here's all the tequila in our freezer before the party started...

PS - We have A LOT of tequila left so if you ever want to drop by for a margarita let me know.

We also did a "Long Beach Visual Trivia" competition. I printed out pictures of 10 Long Beach landmarks/items and people had to guess what they were to win a small prize (Starbucks card).


This one was easy. It's the Queen Mary!


Visual trivia is a lot fun and the best part is that people can't look up the answers on their phones very easily.

Continuing with the Long Beach theme we also had handcrafted “Long Beach Longshoremen Burgers" and regional “Hipster” microbrew beer (I forgot to take pictures during the party because I was having too much fun).

Speaking of beer, I recently tasted "Sour Beer" for the first time and loved it! So I hunted some down at BevMo and had a couple of bottles of this Sour Beer for the party. Yum!


Have you ever tried Sour Beer? I guess it's an up-and-coming trend. The Week magazine (which I actually read every week) even did a little special on it last month.


A couple of weekends ago we drove down to Oceanside to have lunch with my parents. On the Oceanside Pier there were several of giant pelicans that clearly had no fear of people. Here is my Mom and a pelican that's almost her size!


Speaking of beasts... I often try to take pictures of our cat, Judah, but he rarely looks at the camera. A couple of days ago I caught him basking in the morning sun and snapped this pic with my phone. Consider your soul stolen, cat!


When I became a follower of Jesus almost seven years ago I bought an NIV Study Bible. If I have my way it will be my bible for the rest of my life. But recently the cover started to really peal and fall apart, so I covered it with some words and pictures I cut out from magazines and then "laminated" it with clear tape. I think it looks pretty nifty and it's not falling apart anymore. Crafting win!


And finally, because it's random/funny, here's a picture of a co-worker and I with "mustaches" at recent work party. Hers is actually a fu manchu, but you get the point, we're ridiculous. I'm so lucky that I work with such fun and funny people.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...

After spending the last five years of my seven year career at Large Consulting Firm at ONE client, and completing over 10 projects at said client... I am FINALLY moving over to a new project at a new client on Monday!

I am so excited!

What this means:
- New and exciting problems to solve
- New clients to meet and build relationships
- New team to work with (although I've worked with many of them before)
- More travel (I'm back to traveling every week)
- More hotel points and airline miles
- More Skyping with the Mr.
- More hours at work (I have so much to learn and do)
- Less blogging for now (new client is SO SO busy -- people are working crazy hours)
- Still traveling to Northern California



Oh, and maybe celebrating my new role with little work wear shopping at the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale.

Saturday Night in Hollywood!

I have a confession to make...

Although I live in "Los Angeles" I don't spend a ton of time in the part of LA that most people consider "Los Angeles", aka Hollywood/West LA.

But this past weekend we did a little "staycation" in Hollywood to attend my company's annual party.

We got a hotel room at The W Hollywood.

Note: My dress is from Nordstrom Rack and the designer is Adrianna Papell. The back is a fun cross-back and there are little rosettes on the bottom. I love it!

And really enjoyed the fun lobby scene there.


We did a little pre-partying in our hotel room at The W. We loved this "Mad Men-eque" bar.

Note #2: No we didn't drink that mini-bar booze, be brought our own beer. :)

The we headed to Supperclub for the annual party. Supperclub is a new nightclub in Hollywood that my company rented out for the evening.

The theme of the party was "Cirque Du Soleil" and they had real Cirque performers there. Like this contortionist who greeted us at the bar.


There were drinks, music, casino games, and a full Cirque show. So fun!

This Cirque performer was hula-hooping with a ring of fire. Can you say crazy?


I loved the acrobats. Amazing!


The Mr. tried to look very serious in our booth here. Not sure why.


I also had a chance to mingle with a bunch of co-workers and meet their significant others.

One co-worker, who I'll call "A" told me that she reads my blog. So I told her I'd post a picture of us on it (that's her on the far right). Hi "A"! :)


Overall it was SUCH a fun party. I'm so glad my company puts this on for us and our significant others. Thanks Large Consulting Firm!

What I Love About Being on Business Trips

As many of you know, I travel a lot for work.

On average I'm away from home 8-10 days a month for work (which is a lot less than my old schedule which was 16-18 days a month).

Often times people will ask me questions like, "how do you do it?!", "don't you miss your husband?", "does your husband mind you being gone that much?"

Yes of course we miss each other. But we're used to it and we don't mind it.

If fact, as I was sitting in my hotel suite (Thanks Starwood for the upgrade!) last night, I was thinking of all the things I like about being away on a business trip...

• Free food! And no cooking or doing dishes.
• In fact, no chores at all. I come home to spotless hotel room every night.
• Being able to catch up on my "chick" TV shows like Grey's Anatomy (PS - what was with that singing episode?).
  
• Sleeping in a king size bed all by myself (yes, we share a queen size bed at home).
• Being able to sleep through the night without an adorable cat jumping on me.
• Not feeling like I have to do anything besides work hard and relax (no bill paying, crafty projects, or home organizational tasks can nag me while I'm on the road).
• Coming home to a happy husband and happy cat who missed me. Absence often does make the heart grow fonder.
  

And of I love the perks of business traveling like airline miles, hotel points, and credit card points.

Just for fun, here are a couple of pictures from my business trips...

Spending my 27th birthday out to dinner with my co-workers:


My co-worker and me in a client's office "matching" in pastels:


Am I going to travel for work forever? No. I know there is an expiration date on this life. Not tomorrow, but in two years, or five years, or eight years this will all be over. And I know part of me will be very happy but part of me will miss it.

Do any of you travel for work? Have spouses that travel for work? How do you feel about business travel?

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My Work Quirks: Shoes and Hair

In my job at "Large Consulting Firm" we have a strict business casual dress code (at our firm this means button-ups or cardigans, professional skirts or trousers, no strappy shoes, and no denim).

But there are two other things that aren't in the dress code that I won't (or should I say, very rarely) do at work in terms of attire.

Flats.

And ponytails.

Yep you can call me crazy. You can try to convince me of the benefits of these fashion choices (time! comfort!). But it's a rare day in the office that you'll catch me in flats or a ponytail.

Why no flats?

Personally, I feel dumpy and unprofessional in flat. Maybe it's because I work in a male-dominated field, or maybe it's just a personal quirk, but I have a deep seeded belief that this:

Looks a lot more "put together" with a business outfit than this:

Last week since my toe was hurt I wore flats to the office all week. It was my first time wearing flats to work almost two years. I felt so short (even though I am 5'8") and sloppy. And I felt like my presence is the room was less commanding.

Outside of work, I'll wear flats and sandals all day long. But in the office it's 100% pumps for me.

So, why no ponytails?

I think this one is more about how my hair looks in a ponytail than how people's hair looks in a ponytail in general.

I'd love my hair to look like this when I wear it in a ponytail:

But on me it just doesn't work in an office setting. I think it makes me look young and sloppy. Plus my hair gets little flyaways part way through the day that makes the ponytail look disheveled. I wear my hair in a ponytail to work less than five days a year. I just think my hair looks it's best and most professional when it's down or 1/2 up.

Note: When googling about these topics to see if I'm alone in my quirks, I found a fabulous working-woman fashion blog called Corporette. They've discussed both flats and ponytails at work and it seems that I am definitely not alone.

So I'm interested to hear what you other professional women think. Do you like to wear flats in a corporate environment? What about ponytails? Is there a right or wrong way to do either in a corporate setting?

Dream Jobs

Lately, work has been killing my free time! Sorry for being so MIA.

Although I love my job and it would take a lot to get me to leave it, I sometimes think about what I would do if I could have any job in the world.

I came up with five dream jobs that I'd love to have...

1. Professional Organizer

Source

I live for organizing. The Container Store is pretty much my heaven. When I was young I'd help my friends clean out their closets.

I'd love to help people organize their homes and lives for a living.


2. Winemaker


It's no secret that I love wine -- tasting it, buying it, drinking it. I love visiting vineyards -- seeing the grapes, the barrel rooms, the tasting rooms. I just think it would be so fun to own a vineyard and make our own wine.

3. Restaurateur


I'm also a foodie. I'd love to come up with fun restaurant idea, pick the menus, and entertain patrons. I know owning a restaurant is a tough and risky business but if I could make it work, I'd love it. Plus this is something that I think the Mr. and I would love doing together.

4. Party Planner

Source

I had SO much fun planning my wedding. I make inspiration boards and help people come up with party and wedding ideas. There are just endless amazing ideas out there for parties.


5. CEO/Leader/Owner of a Small Business


I know, this one is vague. But I think it would be amazing to start some kind of small business with friends or associates. I'm not talking about starting the next Facebook or something, but owning some kind of small business where we can make a living, have fun, and do something meaningful.


Now tell me, what are YOUR dream jobs?

What I'm Up to This Weekend

Two or three times a year, in my job as a consultant, I have to work at my client site over the weekend for a project launch. We launch a lot of projects over the weekend because many them have an IT component, and the IT teams have to do their system downtime over the weekend.

So I'm going to be at work in San Jose on Saturday night and Sunday Day.

So since I had to stay in the bay area for the weekend I decided to take advantage of the time and go to one of my favorite cities in the world, San Francisco.

Last night I met a good friend/former co-worker for an amazing dinner at Mamacita.

(Image from Mamacita's website)

Then we went back to my suite at the Westin in San Francisco (I got upgraded for free becuase I'm platnum at Starwood. Yay!) to split a bottle of wine and chat the night away.

(Image from WestinSF.com)

This morning I ordered room service and enjoyed breakfast in my heavenly bed looking out at this view...

(Image from my cell phone... that's SF Bay in the distance)

Now I'm going to go out and do a little shopping in Union Square before heading back to the office in San Jose.


Hope you all are having a great weekend!

A Day in the Life of a Consultant on the Road

As you may have read in my earlier posts, I work as a "Consultant" in middle managment role in the Management Consulting division of "Large Consulting Firm."


That's me at work.

You've seen my Travel Tips and many of you have asked about what it's like to work in consulting.

Since Kelly at Kelly's Korner is having everyone do "a day in the life" for her weekly "Show us how you live" blog carnival, I thought I'd give you a glimpse into my average day at work when I'm on the road at the client site.

5:45 AM - Alarm goes off. Hit the snooze bar once.

5:50 AM - Out of bed. Get ready for work in my hotel room while listing to NBC news. Put on favorite business casual outfit - Express editor pants and a belted sweater from Banana Republic.

6:30 AM - Breakfast at the Sheraton Club Lounge. Oatmeal, yum! Read USA Today. Get coffee to go.

7:00 AM - Arrive at client site. Conference call with Europe Team. Love those accents!

8:00 AM - Read and respond to emails from clients and team members. Create today's "to-do" list.

9:00 AM - Compile project stakeholder analysis. Send to my Sr. Manager.

10:00 AM - Update team's Microsoft Projct Plan. Fill out weekly status report.

11:00 AM - Project team status call with the clients and team members.

12:00 AM - Lunch at local salad/sandwich place. Read blogs/tweet with extra time.

1:00 PM - Meet with my boss to talk about opportunities to renew or sell more work at our current client.

2:00 PM - Finish up some process documentation for the project. Call out key areas for process improvement.

2:45 PM - Ad hoc conversation with client about current project risks/issues.

3:00 PM - Read and respond to more emails from clients and team members. Prep for upcoming presentation.

3:30 PM - Present process documentation and process improvement ideas to client team lead for approval and project sign-off.

4:30 PM - 1:1 with one of the team members that reports to me. Review deliverables, discuss upcoming milestones, provide feedback.

5:30 PM - Finalize project strategy presentation for tomorrow's meeting and send to my boss for review.

6:30 PM - Read and respond to final emails from clients and team members.

7:00 PM - Sushi dinner with project team members.

8:30 PM - Blog and answer personal email from hotel while watching TV.

9:30 PM - Call the Mr. to talk and say goodnight.

10:00 PM - Read.

10:30 PM - Lights out.


Wow, sorry if I just made my job look really boring. If you're still reading, I'm sorry (and amazed). It's just hard to talk about my job without getting into specific project goals and specific project deliverables, ya know? But I really do love my job!

I hope this gave you a better look into what my average day is like. I can't wait to read everyone else's day in the life!

Back to the Grind

After having almost two weeks off from work, it's back to the daily grind at Large Consulting Firm.

I fly to San Jose tomorrow at 6:15 AM with my laptop and roller bag in tow.

And I. Am. Dreading. It.



These two weeks off of work made me realize how much I enjoy NOT working. Ha! Too bad I really like being able to pay my mortgage and go shopping.

So if I'm a bit MIA this week it's because I'm buried in meetings, emails, and 12 hour days.


Just for fun, I wanted to recap on what I did over my corporate Christmas Break:

• Celebrated Christmas with my family
• Did some cleaning and home organizing (I heart organizing!)
• Went shopping the day after Christmas and again the week after with my Mom and got some cute new work clothes, a dress for a friends wedding in April, and some discount Christmas decor!
• Took down all of my Christmas decorations (my house looks so empty!)
• Caught up on work and personal emails
• Pondered over and recapped the entire "zeros" decade
• Chose and submitted our wedding photos to my photographer for our wedding album (FINALLY!)
• Had dinner with Danica from Chic Runner at The Yard House
• Planned the dates and locations for our summer trip to Europe
• Celebrated New Years Eve
• Helped my Mom take down all of her Christmas decorations

(The only thing I didn't do much was work out or cook. But that is what New Years resolutions are for, right?!)

Overall, it was a fun and productive break. I'm so sad it is over. Sometimes I feel like January is such a let down, don't you?

Traveling Mishaps & Race Update

I headed back up to Northern California for work this week. It’s been great to meet with people in person, as opposed to virtually like I normally do.

Apparently I was a little absent-minded while packing on Sunday because I managed to forget:
1. My laptop power cord!
So, I’ve been borrowing co-workers cords all week… they looove me

2. My foundation makeup!
What did I do as my workaround? I took face lotion and mixed it with a couple of drops of under-eye concealer and rubbed the concoction all over my face as a base. Then I covered it up with a bit of powder bronzer. My face is bit more “bronze” than usual, but overall it worked great!
+ = Foundation


Packing fail. I should really read my own travel trips.

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Also, Angela asked how Elijah’s race was. Thanks Angela! Here’s the update...

The Prefontaine Classic was nationally televised on NBC on Sunday so we got to see Elijah run on NATIONAL TV with Olympians (we DVRed it so we can watch). Amazing! Unfortunately, Elijah did not break the high school record, but he still got a pretty good time (although it was not close to his PR which was a little disappointing). Oregonian/Olympian Nick Symmonds won the race so that was really cool for Elijah to run with him. I told Elijah that if I had been in that race I would have just been so nervous about false starting or about tripping one of the pros or just looking dumb on national TV. Ha!

Elijah will definitely grow his running skills with his Nike-sponsored team at Oregon, so I’m sure he have more opportunities in the coming years. I’ll keep you posted on any big news!

Working from Home?

I've been traveling for work a lot less lately.

(Thank you, crapola economy!)

Which means I can work from my LA office or I can work from home. I went into the office yesterday, but today I am here:


Where is this?

No, this isn't my own condo unit.

It's the "Conference Room" in our Condo Building. Wi-fi, polycom, and a white board without leaving the comforts of my own building? I'm in Heaven. (And in yoga pants)

Sitting at O'Hare Airport

I'm waiting for plane to board here at O'Hare to take me back to LA. Right now the Blue Oyster Cult song "Don't Fear the Reaper" is playing, which I think is highly inappropriate to play as people are boarding planes. Agree? Anyway...

I had a great week at training! Learned some good stuff and met lots of cool people. Here is me with my table group at training:

Countries represented in this photo: United States, Belgium, France, and Malaysia. That's one thing that I love about our corporate training -- they send people to training from all of our global offices, so I really get to hear what the company and life is like around the world.

I saw my wonderful Grandma who fed me all kinds of delicious food. We got in several rounds of our favorite game, Upwords (like Scrabble, but vertical as well). So fun!

Now I'm heading back to LA for another crazy week at work. To be honest with you, I'm getting a bit burnt out from my job. But I guess working hard beats the alternative (not working at all)!

Hope you all are having a great weekend!

Off to the Windy City!

Sorry again for the lack of posts this week. I've been working 13 hours days! Crazy!

On Saturday I'm heading to out Chicago for a week!

Why? I have my annual corporate training outside of Chicago all week next week. The training is usually a bit dry, but the networking is a blast and it's good to learn how to improve job skills.

But the best part is that on both ends of my training I'm going to see my amazing Grandmother who lives in Chicago:


This is her on her 90th Birthday last year at her house before her big party!

My grandma is seriously one of the coolest people I know...

• She's 90 and lives on her own
• She lives in a historic home (built in 1880)
• She's super smart and always learning (she seriously knows more words than anyone I know)
• She's a total sweetheart
• She knows more about current events and politics than I do
• She's Swedish and still speaks Swedish
• She has great stories -- think of how much change she has seen in 90 years?!
• And she drinks 5+ cups of coffee a day (like me... which is why I know coffee is good for me)

Between hanging with Grandma (who does not have internet) and being busy with training and training events, I won't be posting for over a week!

I promise to catch up with you all then and bring great pics of my adventures in Chicago.

Until then, here's a pic of me and Grandma at my wedding:

xoxo!

Praise! Company Cars and Credit Cards

This will be a short post since today is another busy busy day. I can't wait for this weekend! (even though I have more work to do over it).

I have two great pieces of news from the Newlyweds Next Door!

1. Our car situation
I blogged before about the Mr. and I only having one car between us and having to ride the Metro to my LA office when I was working in town...
Well today the Mr. got a company car! So no more sharing (except on the weekends). This couldn't have come at a better time since my company is having me work in my LA office or from home more and travel by flight to my clients less. I feel like God really rewarded the faithfulness and prudence of our decision to not go into debt to buy a new car for the Mr.

2. Our credit card situation
The Mr. and I have never put ourselves in a situation where we had to pay interest on our credit cards. We pay them off each month. Well about 8 months ago we got at 0% interest card (0% for one year) to pay for stuff for our wedding, new house, etc. Well when all was said and done we had racked up (gasp!) $5,000 on that card (suddenly I realized how easy it is to go into credit card debt). Well today I made the last $500 pay on it! (we never had to pay interest). It feels so good! I feel like calling Dave Ramsey and shouting "we're debt free"! (lol) Well we're not debt "free" but the only debt we have is our mortgage and student loans which have really low interest rates. Awesome!!!

Hope you all have a wonderful Friday and are getting geared up for a fantastic Valentines Day!

Work. Is. CRAZY.

I worked a 15 hour day yesterday. The rest of the week isn't lookin' much better. I'm just trying to keep it in perspective and thanking God that I HAVE a job.

Don't worry though, because I have a VERY special guest post coming tomorrow for Travel Tip Thursday. Stay tuned!

Much love!
Your Newlywed Next Door