Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I have hinted to the fact that I had something exciting in the works and everything seems finalized so I’m happy to report that I’ve been accepted into the Certificate for Sustainable Business program at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute! I’m not going for the full MBA because I’m just not that interested in Accounting and Finance (plus, I’ve already completed a Master’s Program in a completely unrelated field) but those lucky MBA ducks get to study here:

Photo courtesy of Islandwood.org

So between my full-time job, fitting in exercise, being a good wife, losing 20 more lbs., blogging, and trying to keep my house in some semblance of order and repair, I will also be taking classes on Wednesday nights through the spring and then finishing up about a year from now. I’m hoping to roll this into Sustainability work with some of our current clients or possibly grow into a whole new gig! Anyway, I’m super excited, and I reiterated in my admission essays that I really wanted to converge my personal interests with my professional capabilities.

So I’m officially going to become an Agent of Change!

It’s been one of those incredible processes where the right people have come into my life at the right time. Even on the plane coming home from my mom’s, I sat next to a woman who does PR and promotions for small farmers and slow food advocates. She had a job for me right then except for that I have no plans to leave my job.

Everything that’s happened since I started the ball rolling has really cemented this for me. It absolutely feels like the right thing for me to be doing right now.

So that’s what I’m thankful for at the moment – the opportunity to be a part of something that strives for a better, healthier planet. I can’t wait!

PS. The funniest part of the whole thing is that I’m exactly the average age, sex, and even astrological sign as the rest of their Certificate students. Glad they could fit in one more 43 year-old female Virgo!

What? That’s not how you’re celebrating?

Big Thanksgiving kisses and hugs to all my bloggy friends (you’re as real to me as that turkey is to Mr. Squirrel). I hope you’re having a super day!

My plan is to feed a co-worker’s rabbits on my way to a 2-hour yoga class at my fave yoga spot:

Yoga in the Greenhood, yo!

(This photo is making me laugh a little because those shadows are caused by a little thing I remember as sunlight, but it’s been nothing but DARK and RAINY here for days. Aw, sunshine, come back some day!)

I’ll be home just in time to start the cooking. Chris is bravely hitting our favorite market in the morning:

to pick up last minute Vegan Caesar Salad ingredients and some seafood….mega-prawns, maybe? We’re not really sure what the entree’s going to be but it will be of the seafood persuasion, just for kicks and giggles. I’m making stuffing too because that’s what I can’t live without, and I bought cranberry sauce from my local co-op which will most likely be making an appearance in my breakfast oat bran.

The next day we may take a picnic to Deception Pass where we’ll eat turkey sandwiches made with deli turkey. We’re all mixed up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler like that (again, just throwing in obscure references for my own amusement).

Speaking of amusement, it pleases me to no end that the average time spent on my site is 2:11 because that, my friends, is my lucky number! Now what are the chances of those being the same? And who else has a three-digit lucky number? I just know that when 211 shows up, everything’s going the way it’s supposed to be. It’s like a little pat on my shoulder from the universe saying “there you go.”

Safe travels everyone and enjoy the holiday!

Are you following me?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/evanspellman/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

For a second there, I thought I was going to need grief counseling for the loss of my hard drive! Every time I went to retrieve something that was lost, I just grew more and more sad. Even with my new hard drive, I’m hesitant to save anything for fear it will just disappear again (I do have a portable drive and can move important things over, but that doesn’t keep the fear away).

I haven’t even set my familiar preferences or created a Carbzilla folder again. I have exactly 3 bookmarks.

I’m just so afraid of losing it all again. I’m so sad I didn’t post about our wedding anniversary when we went to get compost from Dr. Doo at the Woodland Park Zoo who came over and wished us Happy Anniversary personally. You get chosen by lottery to pick up Zoo Doo, and it’s kinda a big deal. We had a super cute photo taken with a garden gnome on a big pile of elephant excrement. You can understand why I’d be sad about losing that, right?

I got the word today from our work IT guy that the drive is really dead. He can’t retrieve anything. I could probably pay a LOT of money to get a few things back from a specialist….maybe. But I really don’t know if it’s worth it. Then paying all that money would bring me down.

So now I have to move on, but that’s what I’m having trouble with. I haven’t taken all my new pics off the camera since I got my new hard drive, and I’m still berating myself for being so g-d efficient that I cleared the camera every time I downloaded. I would still have every picture back to August if I’d just left them on there. Arghhh.

But I have a plan: a typical shift-focus plan (usually a good method with me, I’ve found). Instead of thinking about everything I’ve lost, I’m focusing on an experiment. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been off of T-3 which I really do think helped rev up my sluggish metabolism. Yeah, it turned me into a bit of a cranky bitch, but guess what? That symptom hasn’t actually gone away so what do I have to lose?

Anyway, I made an appointment with my naturopath a month from now, and I’m going to work out like crazy between now and then to see if I can lose weight without the T-3. If I can’t, then I don’t think she’s going to have a problem putting me back on it for a couple of months.

I’ve still kept off 10 lbs, and I’m very happy about that. I bounced up a couple but that’s life. Have to keep looking at the next ten and then next ten after that.

So my dream routine is this:

Monday – home workout (which I did tonight) – ChaLEAN Extreme and 20 mins Precor

Tuesday – Zumba at the gym (with co-worker)

Wednesday – I have a commitment this night that I’ll explain later. It’s super good news and should be enough to get me out of this funk, but so far no go.

Thursday – Spin (or on Sunday, have to see which teacher I like better)

Friday – Gym (there’s a Boot Camp Conditioning class right after work)

Saturday – Walking

Sunday – Spin or free day

So that’s my plan, and I’ll just keep doing it and coming back to this page to remind myself that I made a commitment.

Then I promise to start posting fun recipes with all this coconut flour I bought!

Not much to report today – still trying to get my last batch of photos off of Chris’ laptop and start fresh on my brand new, squeaky-clean (as in empty) hard drive.

We had eye exams today (aren’t we a crazy thrill-a-minute couple?) and hadn’t really thought about the fact that both of us would have our eyes dilated when we left, so we had to do the best we could once we left there (could have been good sitcom material right there). We pointed ourselves downhill and hit up a craft fair. Crisis averted.

I was at least happy to know that the Lasik I had in 2003 did an awesome job on my left eye and a pretty good job on my right one (PS. this was my first eye exam since my Lasik follow-up in 2003. Oopsie). The kinda bizarre news is that I have a hole in my right retina (unrelated to the Lasik). I didn’t really know what to do with that information, but it’s not life-threatening or even eyesight-threatening. Anyway, my nice, new eye doctor is going to consult with a retina specialist and get back to me.

The highlight of the day was I think we decided that this may be our new car someday:

Suh-weet Ride

That’s the Volvo XC90 which has a V-8 which is awesome because it can tow stuff, like a travel trailer! We haven’t even driven one yet, and ours eyes were dilated when we walked through the used car lot so take that for what it’s worth.

That’s all I got. I had baked chicken with the new Trader Joe’s Cilantro and Jalapeno Hummus on it for dinner and a LOT of Pirate Booty. P to the S, the chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds from Costco are trés dangereuse! 90 calories for 10 of them, but still ….

I’ll leave you with this since it’s one of the few pictures I have handy from my trip to my mom’s:

That’s me. Eleven years old. Chubby cheeks and pigtails, showing my favorite pony, Otis. He was the world’s greatest pony. He was trained to pull a cart so when you lifted his front leg, he laid down for you. I would get on him like that all the time. I was probably the only girl in the world who never wanted a pony but got one anyway.

This was a hard time in my life, after my parents’ divorce, and, believe me, even a pony couldn’t make it better. Even so, Otis rocked!

I don’t want to end on a downer note…let’s make Sunday awesome because guess what? Soon it will be Monday (oh crap, I did it again).