A good day

You know what's funny? When you wear this to work and receive more than one compliment on how "dressed up you are" today.

Secret: It's ridiculously comfortable.

Apparently I'm normally dressed like a slob. I'll have to throw on a dress and leggings more often. That's the key to a raise, right?

So, on to the real reason for this post. It's been one of those months at work where I've felt like everything I do is fraught with disaster. (No, I'm not a drama queen. Why do you ask?) I walked into work today, however, and the clouds parted.

A project that I'd been working on designing, discussing, editing, redesigning, and making changes to since April is finally complete! I don't normally discuss my designs on here, but why the heck not?

Probably scarily accurate.

The typical pieces I get to design at work are one or two-color jobs, normally on white paper, and stapled if necessary. There are exceptions, of course, but just some background. My boss told me back in April that the MPA program in our School wanted a viewbook and that she wanted me to design it: colors, shape, paper type, all that. One of my coworkers wrote and edited the content.

Fast forward seven months:

Ain't it perty?

A few of the spreads

Along with the writing, designing, editing, meetings, and e-mails, we also hired photographers from different areas to take the great photos.

My favorite spread. That's one photo!

My crack at designing infographics. Kinda.

I took these pictures in my ill-lit office, so the actual piece has much better colors. Promise.

This, on the other hand, is a series of pieces I designed, photographed be a professional. Fancy, right?

In conclusion: I really have no point here except that I'm not sad I showed up for work today.

Training squared

You know what I love? When I'm at work at 2:00 the day before a mid-week holiday and everyone's freaking out about a job of theirs that you're working on. Many times I feel like people think I wave my pink, sparkly magic wand and ta-da...design! The fact that this seems to be the thinking of many means I must be pretty good at what I do, however when something goes awry, I can't just say "sorry, wand's in the shop."

My money-maker. (I love how dirty that sounds).

Do you know what I could do with that kind of power? I'll tell you one thing. If I did, in fact, have a magic wand, I wouldn't be paying $161 a month to have my itty bitty lawn mowed!

I also wouldn't be paying $100 for six one-hour sessions at PetSmart for them to train me how to train my dog to stop being an asshole. Unfortunately, I'm not kidding. Things are about to get real in the Hinkle house, starting with no more dogs sleeping on the bed or barking at strangers on our walks. Thankfully Kari and Kara both have dogs who had issues when they first got them and they have been successful in training them to be good citizens, so I have some moral support and hope.

What do you think, after all the serious training is done, should I shoot for this?

Hartford half marathon training is now in full swing. So far my biggest issue has been consuming enough water. It's sad, really. Something so simple. I'm pretty psyched about my cross-training days, mainly because they can take place inside, where the thermostat isn't set at "hell."

Tomorrow I'm going to be hanging out with my friend to celebrate her birthday and, you know, America's birthday. We're going to a barbecue and my contribution will be a vegetable platter. I know, I'm frisky like that. I figured I'd be all fancy and buy whole carrots instead of the "ready-to-eat" packaged variety. So, I get home to chop up some veggies and when I get to the carrots I realize I don't have a vegetable peeler *womp womp* So much for being fancy. Also, it looks like I'm bringing the vegetables in individual plastic bags because I also don't own a platter. I may never get invited to a party again.

Talk about ugly carrots. At least mine are more
attractive than this.

Happy Independence Day everyone!

My "niece" Embry (my best friend's daughter) and me.

Remember: hydrate to dominate!
(How do you like my PSA?)