Update Central!

March 23, 2010 – Update central!

· Justin

Things are going very well! So well in fact that we moved in together at the beginning of March. We’re still working on getting the two apartments crammed into one apartment that we can actually live in, but so far the process has been successful and the end is finally in sight. I don’t think Justin shares my goal of having a working guest bedroom in time for the next houseguest we have, but I think we will probably be able to work something out.

· Avon Walk

My mother is walking with me this year! I’m very excited about that and I’m looking forward to getting to spend the time with her. She’s started a blog to keep updates on her training walks: www.nancysnewyorkwalk.blogspot.com We’ve got to raise $3,600.00 between us, so place feel free to click the link at the top of the page and donate. We appreciate any help you can give and there might be prizes…

· Theatre

Intimate Apparel was fun and a great experience. We go to meet the playwright, Lynn Nottage, when she came to see our show. That was very exciting. More importantly, my dad and Richard got to see it, my mom got to see it and Andy got to see it. I don’t think that many important people (to me anyway) have made it to see one of my shows in….well…ever. The downside is that I don’t think I will be doing much if any theatre any more. Stuff happens here in the fall and winter and that is when things at work are super busy and I need to focus on the stuff that actually pays me because…well, I like buying shoes and I need money to continue doing that.

· Work

Has been absolutely crazy. I worked 11 hours days a couple of times a week for a while there and that was rough. I did finally get an office and that has helped with actually pushing through projects and getting them done during normal business hours instead of having to stay late to avoid getting interrupted. We are opening our third office in San Francisco next Thursday. The anniversary of the company and my anniversary with the company is next Friday. After three years we have three offices in 3 cities, we went from 3 people to 15 people (tripling our staff) and our revenue is on track to triple as well. That’s a pretty major accomplishment for us and we are completely awesome!

· Vacation

I have no idea what this is although the concept sounds good.

· Birthday

Coming up soon – faster than I expected. Dallas will be in visiting from her world travels and that will be nice to catch up with her – hopefully we’ll have a bed for her to sleep in. Donations to the AVON walk on behalf of my birthday will be met with cookies, contact me for details!

Day 3 - 7 and then some

August 19, 2009 - The rest of my eating at home experiment didn't turn out the way I thought it would and I'm confused as to whether it was a success or a failure, so I'm going to call it a draw. On Wednesday I had a date and on Saturday I had a date (both with a new gentleman that we are calling Other Justin so as to avoid confusion between him and our friend Justin), so I ate out, but I didn't pay for it, so does that count or not count? Other than that, I bought lunch one day and everything else I ate at home, which is why I am declaring it a draw. If anyone wants to argue with me, please leave your argument in the comments section.

Tomorrow we have the company boat party which will entail me spending 8 hours on a boat with the guys from our offices (both NY & CA) drinking beer before taking a car to the airport and getting on an airplane to go visit my dad for a couple of days. Anyone in the ATL area, we are having a pool party on Saturday! A super huge shout out to my friend Liz who is staying at my apartment and watching my cat for me while I am away. I really, really appreciate it.

In other news I am still trying to fund raise for my Avon Breast cancer walk. I need to raise a bit over $1200 in less than 60 days, so if anyone wants to contribute, there is a link on the left hand side of the screen. Every little bit helps! If everyone who reads this blog donated $5 - well, I'd probably have $5, but it would still help!

Other than that, I am ready for my nap now and I cannot wait to go home and pack for my trip. See you next week!

Good-Bye, April Showers!

April has been a much busier month than I had originally planned. I started and finished my first baby quilt, the show I’m in is starting to really gear up and the weather here is finally starting to get beautiful (and it’s NOT RAINNING!).

So here is a picture of the lovely baby quilt I made for my coworker Henry. It’s based on the book '10 Little Rubber Ducks’ by Eric Carle. My mother designed it and I put it together. Right now that book is my favorite children’s book and since they had a little boy (they named him Luke Henry), the color scheme seemed to work well and at least somewhat match the décor they picked out for their nursery. I am very pleased with the way the quilt turned out (although, in the way of these things, all I see are the mistakes!).

I am currently in a production of Show Boat that is good in that it keeps me from being a lump on my couch, but I forgot how frustrating community theatre could be. If we ever started on time, I think I might drop dead from the shock. I was so fed up with us starting late, that I decided if I ran late yesterday (I had a trip to the NY Aquarium with a couple of friends – the sea lion had better timing than the theatre folks), I wouldn’t worry about it at all. I was 35 minutes late to rehearsal and we still hadn’t started yet. The show sounds pretty, although at the moment it still looks a damn mess. We have 53 people crammed onto a black box stage that is about the size of the reception area in my office (which is a good size for a reception area, but a bad size for a stage to hold 53 people). When/if I get them, I’ll post pictures of my completely hideous costumes.

At work, we opened our LA office on April 6, 2009. It’s been interesting getting so much of that set up remotely. We’re still working out a few of the bugs, but I hope to have all of that resolved by next week or the week after. Things in my office are going very well and we recently hired a new guy named Colin and I think he’s going to do very well here. (We had a different new guy who lasted a grand total of 12 hours – which is not quite a record for us, but is close.)

I’ve been meaning to start training for my walk, but the weather (torrential downpour) and my laziness have been conspiring against me. I’m hoping to walk to the theatre at least once each weekend while the show is running to begin my training. I did get a bit of a kick off yesterday – the couple I went to the aquarium with parked so far away from the actual building I swear we walked to Russia to get to their car (maybe it only felt like Russia because all the signs were in Russian and all the people on the street were speaking Russian – one of the neat things about New York is how people can basically transplant their whole culture into one section of town and it makes you feel like you’ve crossed the street and ended up in another world).

Speaking of the walk, the fundraising has started and is moving along slowly but surely. If anyone is interested in donating or helping to fundraise, please let me know and/or click on the link below. I’ve pledged to bake a batch of cookies for anyone who donates $100 or more and I will ship them anywhere in the continental US. I have a feeling once the show closes, I will definitely kick that aspect of my life into high gear. I’ve been keeping out a packet change collection box at the office and we’ve already raised over $40 in less than 2 months – just from pocket change! Can you imagine? It’s pretty awesome.

Please click here to DONATE!

That’s pretty much everything that’s been happening with me. More to come (and hopefully with pictures) as we move into dress rehearsal and performance!

I'm Alive!

I know I haven't updated since before the holidays - I know, I know. Shame on me. Daddy and Richard were in town for the holidays and they were a lot of fun. Since then I haven't stopped running. When I returned to my office, my boss decided we were moving in three weeks, so I had to plan and execute the move of our entire office within three weeks. It was one of those situation where anything that could go wrong did go wrong, but we got into our new space (5 times larger than our own space) and now there is a little island of calm for me and no neighbors for the boys to annoy.

Also, I will be doing a show with The Heights Players. I'm chorus person number five in Show Boat which I'm hoping will be awesomely bad. Not because I don't think the people are good, they actually are, but we are doing the show in a tiny, tiny black box. I can jump up and touch the ceiling. So it should be an interesting experience. I haven't done a show in about 2 years and I haven't done a show with this company since just after I moved here, so I feel a bit like I've come full circle. My friend Alicia will be doing the show with me, so that will be a good bonding experience for us. We haven't done a show together since we played the Gemini twins in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in college.

Speaking of bonding experiences, Alicia and I will have plenty of time to bond over the next year because besides doing the show together, we are also doing the Avon Walk together this year. No one is more surprised than I am that I really wanted to do the walk again this year. I couldn't walk for a full 24 hours after the last one, but having made it through the whole thing was a real accomplishment for me and I am very interested in seeing what that experience is like this year. Dallas is off traveling with Randy and won't be back in time to go on the walk with us or do the fundraising, but Alicia expressed some interest, so we are going to try and get a team together and make a difference. On a more personal note, this year, besides walking for breast cancer, I am personally walking for Bruce's brother Mike who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. There aren't a lot of walks or anything like that for pancreatic cancer, so I'm just adding him into my thoughts and prayers for this.

So that's my basic update and I'm going to try and get back on top of my updating. I'm off to make pulled pork and maybe some animal crackers. Have a wonderful day!

Finally: The Avon Walk NY 2008 (as per me)

October 19, 2008 – Finally an actual update for the Avon Walk! I’m sorry it took so long to get this up, but I really needed some distance on it before I could fully appreciate the whole experience. My team was called Safe at Second (that’s us in the picture) and we raised over $20,000 for breast cancer research and programs. Thank you again to everyone who supported this fantastic cause! They told us that something like 5,000 people walked this year and I believe it! We started with the opening ceremony at 6:30am at pier 84 (44th and the west side highway). We actually started walking the route around 7:00am and we were definitely in the middle of the pack, but closer to the back. By the time we reached the first rest stop, our team was 20 minutes behind where we needed to be in order to finish all 26.2 miles before they closed the course. Dallas and I really enjoyed the other women on our team, but between Maggie’s gimpy ankle (she got a stress fracture a couple of months before), Lori’s pregnancy (she had to pee every five minutes), and the other women just not having any sense of urgency, we were never going to finish. Dallas and I decided to jump ahead of the rest of our team. Our natural walking pace was faster than what they were walking anyway and on top of that, we figure we didn’t ask people to donate money because we were walking a little bit, we told them we were walking 39.3 miles! So off we went. Walking with Dallas is a little like driving with Dallas only the other “drivers” can actually hear her. It was hilarious. Along the way we got to chat with a lot of interesting people and I was surprised by how many people were walking alone and how many men were involved. On our way up a particularly steep hill in Inwood, a very kind gentleman offered to help me (I might mention at this point that I was the pack mule for both Dallas and myself – I offered to let her keep some things in my pack as long as she carried it half the time and she agreed and then couldn’t because it “hurt her back too much” – grrrr). We powered down more Gatorade than I think was probably healthy, ate our lunch on the go and made pretty good time until we were on the Manhattan bridge coming back from Brooklyn. That bridge is unexpectedly steep and we really lost our pace. The Avon walk people – the staff, the Crew, the Kids crew and the cheerers – were stationed at exactly the right points to give you a boost, especially near the end. Our last 6 miles went the fastest for us because we just wanted to be done. I got through the last 2 miles by singing the one verse I know of “Kung Fu Fighter” over and over again, sometimes out loud, and karate chopping Dallas at the right moment. She was not amused, but it got me through. We started at about 7:00am and we finished the course at about 3:30pm. We averaged 3-4 miles an hour once we left our group. We started 20 minutes behind where needed to be and ended up more than an hour ahead of where we needed to be.

We claimed our bags and our tent and some scouts set up our tent for us and then we went to eat. There was a little bit of team drama (I think because we left them behind, but also these are not people I know very well, so I don’t know), but I’m not going to dwell on that. Dallas and I ate dinner and did some yoga. They had showers and stuff like that, but we elected not to use them. #1 The weather was gorgeous and actually required layering and sleeves most of the day – so not much sweating. #2 Wet hair and 40 degree temps do not a happy and warm Ashley make. We were trying to wear the names of the women we were walking for. I had all the names hanging from my pack, but I wrote Sarah and Helia’s names on my hands and arms so that everyone could see them at all times.

It started raining at 4:30am. For those of you who have never camped in the rain, the sound of rain on tents is deafening, especially when there are so many of them in one place. Luckily, Dallas and I had set our alarms to get up at 5:30am anyway, so it wasn’t too much before that. The downside was that we had to eat, break down our tent and walk the first 3 miles in the torrential downpour. Our team was lagging in the morning and we wanted to just get the last 13.1 miles done, so we took off as soon as the route opened at 7:30am. The first three miles were miserable and since the coffee sucked at breakfast and we hadn’t passed a Starbucks to duck into yet, my Singin’ In the Rain medley was not met with happiness from Dallas (It could give a girl a complex – really), but as soon as we got real coffee and the rain stopped things started to look up. The rain and the wet shoes and clothes made the second day much more uncomfortable than the first, so we sped through it as fast as we could. I’m convinced that’s what gave me the shin splints. I started feeling that around mile 7 the second day. We swung through the medical tent at the lunch stop (which we hit around 10:30am on both days, so really they were more like brunch stops), and got some Tylenol and Bio-Freeze (like Bengay, but better), and then were on our way. We hit the finish line at about 11:30am. (And didn't I look pretty? The sweatshirt, the jacket tied around my waist, the shirt I had on underneath, my pants and my tennis shoes were still all wet - it was fun...and comfortable.) We stopped and had a beer (Dallas did, I had more Gatorade because I was pretty sure I’d throw up beer) before we went to grab our bags. Now the only two negative things I really have to say about this experience are that on the second day, there weren’t nearly enough cheering stations; and that after a person walks 39.3 miles, they shouldn’t have to walk another two blocks to get their bags. That’s just mean. We went and dug them out of the piles and changed our shoes to wait for the rest of our team who came through at about 1:00pm.

After sitting and waiting for them, I couldn’t hardly walk. Dallas and I took a cab home and getting up the stairs to my (3rd floor walk up) apartment would probably have made lots of people laugh. Overall, I was not as sore as I expected to be and the worst of the soreness was done by Sunday night/Monday morning. The shin splint stuck around and caused problems for a good two weeks, but seems to have subsided for the moment (knock on wood).
So things I have learned:
1. Body Glide is a lifesaver for marathon type walks – put it everywhere, all over your feet, around your waist where your pack sits, where your sports bra meets your skin and more. Reapply often.
2. Extra socks are a godsend – especially when your feet are wet, your shoes are wet and all your clothes are wet. Change them at least twice a day if not more often.
3. Nothing brings out the best in New Yorkers like 5000 people walking en masse through the city – I only mean that partially sarcastically (China town, I’m looking at you!).
4. Your experience with sort of thing depends largely on the sort of people you are participating with/talking to. I recommend chatting a little bit with a lot of people along the way and saving the “get to know you” conversation for after you reach your destination.

If you had asked me when I finished if I would ever do this again, my answer would probably have been a resounding NO. Now that I’ve had an opportunity to think about it, though, I am actually thinking about doing it again and signing up just on my own. Maybe I can get Bruce to do it with me (Dallas thinks she’ll be moving to CA or something by that point, but if she’s around I’d definitely do this with her again). I’ll decide for sure in January. If anyone is interested in doing the NY walk with me next October 11-12, 2009 – let me know!

I survived...

October 9, 2008 - So I officially survived walking what turned out to be about 40 miles of walking (39.3 official miles and a lot of ground to cover at the camp ground and to claim baggage at the end), with minimal soreness and a mild shin splint. Not too shabby for someone who didn't train at all for this thing. I've posted the only picture uploaded so far below. More pictures and the full story of the walk will follow hopefully this weekend!

39.2 Miles in 2 days - YIKES!

October 2, 2008 – In about 2 days I will be walking 39.2 miles and camping out on an island in the east river and spending time with 8 women I hardly know and my best friend – al for an extremely good cause. The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer is two days of walking with a record breaking number of people raising a record breaking amount of money for Breast Cancer Research. It’s not too late to donate if you are interested: http://walk.avonfoundation.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=1660&px=4289734 For those of you who have already donated, thank you, thank you, thank you for your support! You are rock stars!

While packing and getting ready for this thing I am starting to freak out an awful lot, but I know it will be loads of fun once I actually get there (at the ass crack of dawn – we start walking at 6:30am). I’ll take as many pictures as my camera will allow and do my best to post them back here.

In other news, my mother and I are starting a business together (on top of my full time job – it should be fun). I don’t want to give too much away right now, but look for more news in the coming months.

I recently started reading the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. I read the first two books in one weekend and finished the 3rd in a single evening. The last one is burning a whole in my bag right now, but I’m going to do my best to keep myself from staying up until all hours of the night.

Bruce is a little upset the last few days because he left the windows in the house open on Tuesday night and on Wednesday morning when he woke up, the cat was nowhere to be seen. The theory is that he escaped from the spare bedroom to the roof of the neighboring house, but we can’t find him anywhere. If anyone in Bay Ridge Brooklyn happens to come across a black cat that likes to cuddle and talks a lot, shoot me an e-mail or leave me a comment, please. Alicia thinks it’s weird that I’m not more upset about it, but what are you going to do? Rocky has his claws and is still very capable of hunting. Making a big fuss about something that’s already happened and I have no control over will only make Bruce feel bad and it isn’t his fault.

Gotta run – wish me luck on the walk and look for updates and pictures after this weekend!

August? (I also thought today was Tuesday.)

August 6, 2008 – I am now convinced that New York is located in a strange time warp whereby three minutes have passed and all of a sudden it is August! This summer has been nothing like I planned in more ways than one. I meant to go on a vacation at some point, I meant to get more done around the house and I meant to spend more time with my friends. Somehow none of that happened.

What did happen was that I spent almost every weekend at the beach (which is awesome and the thing I credit with keeping me from going insane and killing people during the week), I redecorated the bedroom (while mom was here – it looks so good that Bruce called me in the middle of a meeting the day after he saw it and just wanted to reiterate to me how much he liked it), and I’m learning how to live within my means. That last one is the most difficult and probably the most useful.

I feel a little silly because “living within my means” results in me trying to eat 2 meals at home a day. Anywhere else that sounds ridiculous, but here it is pretty much the way things work. Plus I’m counting “eating out” as any meals ordered in to the apartment. I’ll keep you posted. This month is on track to being the first month where I’ve taken care of everything that I need to and I still have money to live on. Woo-hoo!

I’ve been in the mood to drastically simplify my life recently. I keep getting the urge to go through everything in my closets and just throw away everything I haven’t used/needed. I hesitate to this because normally I do it on a whim and realize that I got rid of stuff I actually needed, however I’ve been pushing this whim down for a while, so maybe it’s time.

I still have hopes for a vacation, although the chance of it happening before the fall is not high at this point. I just need some time away. Last year I didn’t take enough time off and they forced me to take three days at the last minute so I wouldn’t implode and it sucked.

The training for the Avon Walk has been nonexistent. I really need to kick that into gear, or I’ll be hurting come October. Dallas has not been wanting to train at all and I somehow got left out of the loop for training walks (I imagine because Dallas opted out, I got left out), but hopefully I’ll be in the loop coming up and really get some stuff done. I still need to raise like $1700, so if anyone out there in blog land wants to donate to my cause, please shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment and I’ll get you all the information you need.

Here’s to hoping that everyone out there in the world has been having a wonderful summer!

Hello There, It's been a while....

June 24, 2008 – So I’ve been trying to figure out how to make the dates appear on these entries, but it is beyond my technical abilities/patience to figure out. So this is my new system. Since there is no date on the last entry and it has been long enough that I don’t remember, I’m going to do a blanket update and I’m sorry for any repetitions.
Good News First:
1. I got a promotion. You are now reading the typing of the General Manager of The Talener Group. It’s been an interesting transition and we aren’t done yet, but it’s a process.
2. My cousin had a baby (Congratulations!).
3. I won the NBA Finals pool at the office (Go Boston Celtics!).
4. Saturdays have become a standard beach day for the summer.
5. I got a Wii Fit.
6. Dallas and I are on the final level of Super Mario Bros 3.
7. I will be doing the Avon Walk for the Cure in October, I need to raise $1800. If you or anyone you know is interested in donating, please visit my personal walk page: http://walk.avonfoundation.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=1660&px=4289734
8. I was the top biller for the Quarter in Q1 of 2008.
Bad News:
1. I had to put one of the cats down. It was Toby a.k.a. the angry Chinese man.
2. My dentist and I have become very good friends due to the fact that I’ve had a ridiculous amount of dental work done recently – on the upside, I like him.
3. I lost both the Masters pool and the US Open pool, but I didn’t come in last.
As you can see, the good pretty much outweighs the bad and you can’t really ask for more than that.
So last Friday afternoon I got off work early and decided there was no time like the present to start building up to a marathon and a half *for my walk in October). From my office to my house is a bit over 15 miles and my friend Dallas and I had been wandering a bit lately, so I thought "No big deal." I made it about halfway there (about 7.6 miles) before I gave up and got on a subway. I went home, sat on the couch for an hour and was sound asleep by 9:30pm because I was so exhausted.
Lessons learned:
1. This is going to be much harder than I thought.
2. Don't walk down 3rd avenue hoping to hit the Brooklyn Bridge (I always walk down Broadway, so this didn't even occur to me).
3. Don't drink beer with coworkers before walking 7+miles - it didn't end badly, but it made it harder to stay focused while passing the 9 million bars between my office and my house. More lessons to come...