More bad luck???

Daniel took his motorcycle to work this morning and ended having the clutch cable break on him. If you know anything about vehicles that use a clutch, you will know that it is impossible to shift gears with no clutch. Luckily Daniel was close to home when it happened and happened to be on a hill. He turned the bike around and managed to push start it and pop it into 2nd gear to ride. Problem #2, once you are in gear you CANNOT stop b/c it will die if you don't clutch, so he had to ride home without stopping - not sure how he pulled that off in morning traffic. So now I have to call around to find someone that sells a clutch cable for a motorcycle and it looks like he will be fixing it tonight b/c if he doesn't get the bike inspected by tomorrow, we will have to pay a fine! This really sucks.

On a funny note, he called me to complain that he was stuck in traffic. He started riding his bike to and from work this week so having to drive and deal with the traffic was not very exciting for him!

Irony

I am sitting here drinking a Cafe au Lait from Dean & Deluca and reading the book, Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built A Company One Cup At A Time.

Because Dean & Deluca is an upscale, European-type cafe/bakery, Daniel thinks I am a snob for liking it better than Starbucks. But in all honesty their coffee is just plain better and it is cheaper. That doesn't mean that I would skip reading a book about a company that did so well. Also, I do like Starbucks specialty drinks, they are just expensive and packed full of calories.

What are your strengths?

I just finished reading Cure for the Common Life by Max Lucado and Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham. Both turned out to be similar books. Max Lucado discusses discovering and living in your sweet spot while Marcus Buckingham focuses on the need to discover your strengths and to continually improve on them and to worry less about your weaknesses.

I took the strenghsfinder test where I discovered my top 5 strengths to be: Strategic, Ideation, Input, Achiever & Self-Assurance. It was pretty interesting to discover what my strengths are - I definitely relate to all of these.

Max Lucado discusses thinking about your S.T.O.R.Y. to discover the things that you truly love by looking back at your life. Strengths - things you excel at. Topics - things you love. Optimal Conditions - what gets you started and keeps you going. Relationships - role you play. Yes! - what feels the most satisfying.

I would definitely recommend both of these books - they give good incite into who you are.

Trip to Nashville

We had a pretty good trip over to Nashville this weekend. It seems like we are on our second wave of weddings since we graduated from college. Last weekend Daniel went to Colorado to be in a wedding and this weekend, Nashville.

We were able to see Daniel's fam and then Saturday we were able to see several friends. I actually ran out to Mt Juliet for breakfast with a high school friend and her husband while Daniel headed into Murfreesboro to go on an 18 mile bike ride with a high school buddy.

We met up in Murfreesboro and had lunch with Daniel's dad and then headed to downtown Nashville for an early dinner with some friends we knew from our time in Cookeville. Why is it that so many visiting times revolve around eating?

After dinner, we walked around downtown where 1) I ended up getting blisters on my feet due to wearing dress shoes and 2) I am a moron because I walked over a grate in a dress and had a Marilyn Monroe experience where all of a sudden air was blowing up from underneath me and my dress kind of took flight. At least I was walking with Hillary BEHIND Daniel & Marshall and when I finally got control of my dress and looked around, no one seemed to have noticed besides Hillary! After grabbing a coffee and walking around and visiting some more, Daniel and I headed down to West End to the Cathedral of Incarnation for the 7:30 wedding.

Daniel really enjoyed getting to see several people he had known from high school. After leaving the wedding, we wandered around downtown and found where Daniel's company's Nashville branch is located and we drove my Cummins Station which is where the start up company I am working for is considering getting office space. It is kind of hard to imagine where we will be in 2-5 years. We have so many friends that are in Nashville now or planning on moving there in the near future. But on the other hand, we are enjoying Charlotte and we want to finish renovating our house and live in a FINISHED house for a little while...

Grocery Shopping Tirade

Here’s the thing: I love lists and there are parts of my life in which I cannot function without a list.

Grocery shopping is one of those areas. I plan out my meals for the week. I compose a list of grocery items I will need from the store. To Daniel’s annoyance, I will ONLY buy what is on my list. I go through the store methodically. And then when I go to check out I organize my items on the conveyor belt as to how I think they should be put in the bag. Whether the items go into the bag in the right way is up to the cashier. Seven times out of ten, the cashier bags it wrong (at least according to my standards).

It is particularly frustrating when I go to all of this effort and they combine items in strange ways such as vegetables with frozen foods or worse bread or eggs with something heavy! It really makes me mad if they overload my bags and the bags break before I can get them from my car to my kitchen.

I am not sure why I have to be so compulsive about my list and grocery process but it really drives me CRAZY when I go to all of the trouble of organizing my items and they get haphazardly bagged!

shoes

What is the one thing that never seems to stay in its proper place? For me it is my shoes. I find them everywhere. My shoes are by the front door. Next the couch in the living room. Under the desk in my office. In random piles in my bedroom. They are never put away. I try really hard to keep them organized and neat in my closet, but they never stay there. I love for my feet to be bare, so as soon as I stop whatever I am doing, my shoes come off. When I finally get around to "cleaning" my house I am forever rounding up my shoes.

Would you rather?

This morning I was having a discussion with several women about the following question: "Would you rather mow the lawn or do house work?" The overwhelming majority answered: "Mow the lawn."