At long last, a job!

After ten months of unemployment I finally have a job!!! After sending in tons of job applications to various sources I scored my first interview. I applied in November, interviewed in December, trained in January and will start Monday (aka in February)! It was a long process (including a background check that took me almost two hours to do) but it ended up being worth it. I was hired!

I am an official Library Aid for MCCS.

This week was my MCCS customer service training, three long days of powerpoints and presentations and trust games that at times were enjoyable. Our main trainer was wonderful and tried to make things as fun as possible, which was appreciated, but some presentations were just the kinds you needed to chug caffeine to get through!

Did you know the only 'I' in team is in the a-hole? ;)

 Also being on base for long periods of time was interesting. Especially those moments when helicopters fly so low you feel like you got a little trim off the top of your head!

We also had an interesting little bus tour. I now know where the post office is. Score.

Like I said, our trainer made it fun and every day pumped us up with the Chicago Bulls entrance theme. There was clapping, cheering and maybe even the wave. Well HR got jealous of our fun so one day they started playing the macarena in the hallway and dragged us out of training for a flash mob up and down the hall!

At the end of it all I met my new supervisor and I am pretty excited to start Monday. I will work some evenings but the library I am working in doesn't stay open past 7, so not too late. Also I will probably be working every other weekend, but that is doable. I hope my coworkers like me and I am excited for the opportunity. I will be surrounded by books and that is heavenly to me. We have so many resources that I am anxious to take part in.... if your base has a library check it out! There is so much more than just books.... Rosetta Stone, nooks, DVDs, Wii and XBox and Playstation games for rent, and so much more.

My supervisor took over the library late last year and is open for suggestions and program ideas and I have so many ideas that I hope I can put into fruition.

It has been a long wait but I am so thankful that I got this job. I am hoping it is really meant to be, maybe I had to wait this long because this is the place I needed to go.

Let's hope!

I will keep you posted on how it goes after my first day.

And I plan on auditioning for the show at the community college on Monday so I see a busy few months in my future if I am cast. Fingers crossed!

Couch 2 5K

My husband has been on a dieting kick since the holidays started. Most men (including my husband) are very lucky in their metabolisms. He starts eating right and noticeably loses weight. Did you ever see that weird commercial of the cartoon couple and the woman says she cut sweets and lost a pound and her husband lost ten. They stop drinking soda; she looses two pounds he loses twelve. That is us. I haven't been drinking soda since my wisdom teeth removal. Considering Diet Coke is my main source of caffeine this has been difficult. Mio energy gets me through the day. I miss it! I haven't had sweets (Nutella included) and I have been really good. No dice.

So my husband naturally wanted to speed his speedy progression along and started hitting the gym and running. A lot. I do not run. If you see me running something is chasing me and you better run too. But after weeks of nagging of his persistence I started the Couch to 5K program (C25K). I downloaded the app to  my iphone and began to dread the day I'd use it.

Our first run was on a warm Saturday.  My program started off slow, a five minute brisk warm up walk, then a minute of jogging and a minute and a half of walking rotating for half an hour with a five minute cool down. Ryan ran five miles then came home and met me with the dog to do my run. No pressure right? I hated it. My ears were cold, my chest hurt and I basically wanted to cry before I was half way through. My husband tries to be encouraging with the "You can do it!"s and "Keep up that pace. It is really good!" sort of remarks but they make me want to punch him. Is that bad? I don't do positive reinforcement well I guess. Poor guy is definitely going to have it rough in the future when we have kids! I can see the delivery room now, him being sweet and encouraging me and me reenacting the Exorcist with my head spinning around screaming at him. I'll probably be one of those "YOU'LL NEVER TOUCH  ME AGAIN!" sort of people. Luckily we have a few years to go on that. Poor guy indeed.

Anyway, I hated day one. And I dreaded knowing on Monday I'd have to do it again.

Lucky for me it turned chilly that Monday so we went to the gym on base. Nothing like seeing Marines lifting double your body weight to make you feel like an outcast as you search for a treadmill. I have to say, day two was a little better. The treadmill allowed me to pace myself better somehow. Maybe because Ryan wasn't there pushing me as much I was able to push myself. Either way, I love the treadmill and hate running outside. Do you think I can do a 5K at the gym? My husband is the opposite and he somehow thinks I will run 5Ks with him come springtime. I don't even know if I can make it through the program let alone do an actual 5K with him! He is so much faster than me and more in shape!

As you can see my distance (and not shown pace) dropped slightly day two on the treadmill. But I felt a lot more comfortable. Until Ryan insisted I do an ab work out and lift some weights and I couldn't move my arms for two days. I think I did something wrong. It was funny trying to be an extra when I couldn't bend my arms more than 90 degrees.

So I had a few days off to do my extra thing and was back to the gym Thursday. And again Saturday.

You know what?

It is getting a little better.

By the way, that is overall mileage and time over all my days, not one day's work out! The first few days I was the crying face. Then the sad face. And as you can see last time I was the middle. I also had my best distance and pace on week 2 day 1 (and having Annie running nine miles on the treadmill next to me as I tried to maintain conversation totally helped with that!).

So that's where I am. I will be going to the gym again tomorrow and trying to continue. My main goal is to finish the nine week program to the best of my ability. Ryan keeps saying I should add more time and pace goals each day, but honestly for now I really just want to make it through and do what my body thinks is best. If I over think it I freak myself out... especially knowing in like a week or two the run/walk cycle becomes just running basically.

But smoothies do help.

Wildberry banana smoothies with fat burner almost make the hell of running worht it. Almost.

I'll keep you posted, hopefully this journey will be successful! Ryan said I look thinner already (honestly, I don't see a difference but he checks me out more than I check out myself I guess) but I hope I can notice a difference soon too.