Girls' Weekend!

Just had an awesome weekend of girl-time. My mom and sisters and I try to do a girls' weekend once a year. We've failed miserably the last few years so were determined to make it happen in 2009.

So, this past weekend Mom, Sharon and Kiera headed down to Durham for a weekend of exploring in NC. It was nice to have them all see our new home and for me to have a chance to explore the area - with all the craziness of moving, holidays and lots and lots of work travel, I haven't had a chance to do touristy things yet in town so this was a really nice excuse to finally start exploring.

We had a nice mix of shopping, relaxing, eating, drinking margaritas and taking in the sights. My favorite part of the weekend? The Segway tour of downtown Raleigh. Still not sure how I convinced everyone that a Segway tour was a good idea but it turned out to be awesome! After an initial hesitancy on all of our parts (Segway-ing takes a bit of getting used to!), we zoomed around Raleigh, pretending to pay attention to our tour guide as he explained things but really being more infatuated with the Segway manuevering. I must say - we were pretty darn good on those things!

It was an awesome weekend - I'm blessed to have an amazing mom and rad sisters who are super fun to hang out with. I'm also blessed with a husband who was willing to hide out the whole weekend, making himself scarce so that we could have quality girl-time but then heeding the occasional calls for help (the ice machines is broken! How do I work the DVD player? etc) :)

Mom, Sharon and Kiera - can't wait til next year!!

Too funny

Someone left a comment yesterday on the blog that cracked me up so had to bring it up to its own post ...

Check out: http://despair.com/bittersweets.html

Introducing Bittersweets® - The Valentine's Candy for the Rest of Us.

Like the ubiquitous candy conversation hearts, Bittersweets® are made of flavored, chalky-tasting sugar and sport a message on their face. But unlike other candy hearts, ours are stamped with bitter musings and mockeries perfectly suited to the dejected spirits of those who will spend the holiday alone, or wishing they were. Now available in THREE unique collections- "Dejected", "Dysfunctional", and "Dumped".

Some of the sayings?
"Table for 1"
"Just a Friend"
"U Left Seat Up"
"Russian Bride"

According to the website, the candies are available in six delicious flavors .... Banana Chalk, Grape Dust, Nappy-Citric, You-Call-This-Lime?, Pink Sand and Fossilized Antacid. Too funny!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of this particular holiday. The times that I didn’t have boyfriends on Valentine’s Day, I always boycotted the celebration, hung out with girlfriends and talked about what a Hallmark-created holiday it was. Now that I am happily married, it feels kind of hypocritical to suddenly be all about celebrating the day!

But, I do love the tradition of Valentine’s Day candy. And nothing says V-day more than those chalky, nasty tasting, heart shaped candies with the little sayings on them … “Marry Me” “Love You” “Be Mine”! I learned today that those candy hearts came in to popularity in the early 1900s and that this year alone 8 BILLION(!) will be made.

Yikes. Hope everyone is ready for some chalky tasting fun :)

Karma

I think that being a good manager is one of the hardest things that you can do. Understanding your teams’ strengths and weaknesses; creating an environment where they feel supported but not micro-managed; being a friend but still having authority. I struggle with it constantly and know that I have a TON of room to grow to better manage myself and those that work with me.

But the conclusion that I’ve come to recently is that a critical part of being good manager is about sincerity. I can sincerely say that I want the people that work with me to be happy, to grow and to be successful. Of course, that needs to be balanced with producing a high-quality product but when we produce that, I want my team to feel appreciated for their efforts and to get the credit that they each deserve. Why is it that not everyone thinks like that?

I (of course) have someone in mind, someone whose actions prompted me to write this post. It's not that something major happened today, just another day of small things that cause me to doubt this person's sincerity and morals. But, you know what's making me feel better about it all? Karma. I believe in it. I believe it’s a bitch. I believe it might take some time but it always come around. ;)

I live in a hotel ...

I just checked in to my fourth hotel in one week.

The other day, I stepped off a plane, walked in to an airport and honestly had no idea what state I was in. It literally took me a minute to figure it out.

I'm just finishing up work, it's after midnight and I have to meet my team at 6:45 tomorrow morning (actually, technically I guess it's this morning. sweet).

Work is SO much fun right now ;)