July 4th

I got this email yesterday in the middle of an otherwise crappy day.  T entered a contest about his favorite July 4th memory in downtown Indy.  If we win, we get a free night's stay downtown, so keep your fingers crossed!  (Side note:  I married one of the good ones, what can I say?)

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My best downtown July 4th memory would easily be July 4, 2009. You see, that was the day I proposed to my wife. My (then) fiancee had planned a wonderful weekend downtown for my birthday that weekend. My birthday is July 9th. This was a surprise gift to me. She had thought of everything. Little did she know I was planning a huge surprise for her. I remember so clearly on Friday night that she was frantically watching the weather as rain was being called for on Saturday. I told her not to worry, that the weather would not ruin our plans. We headed downtown and went to Rock Bottom Brewery for lunch. I was nervous, but was ready to propose. I knew in my heart she was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. We had a great lunch at Rock Bottom. When we finished, I insisted we walk to the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. This is her favorite location downtown. Not only that, I know she loves the grand architecture of Statehouse and Capitol buildings. I took her to the side of the Monument facing the Statehouse.

Now, you see, it was pouring rain and not really warm for July 4th. She was wondering why I dragged her to the Monument in the cold, rainy weather. We stood there under an umbrella, and that is when it happened. I looked her in the eyes and said, "I have a question for you." She looked back and said what. I pulled out the ring and said, "Will you marry me?" She gasped and immediately said yes! She put on the ring and we stood there, happy as could be, in the cold and rain under an umbrella. We kissed and gasped and laughed for half an hour and had not a care in the world. We were the happiest people on earth right then and the rain was not going to dampen that. Once we finished celebrating, we headed to the hotel and checked in. We called all our friends and family to tell them the big news.

Once we changed into some drier clothes, we headed to Victory Field for the Indians game. You see, my fiancee had bought tickets right behind home plate back in March for my birthday present. We headed to the field, and waited under the bleachers because of the rain. At that point, the game was postponed. We headed to our seats, wearing rain ponchos, and took many pictures of us and the ring. We still could not believe we were actually getting married. The game ended up being rained out, but that did not dampen anything. The fireworks planned that night downtown were also rained out, which bummed us out a little, but we still were so, so happy.

It was the perfect weekend, even though every plan fell through the cracks due to the weather. I will always say that July 4, 2009 is the second happiest day of my life. It is the day my wife said yes to marrying me, and I could not think of a better place than downtown Indianapolis for it to have happened. We had been on many dates downtown when were were dating and the Monument holds a special place in our hearts. The happiest day of my life, of course, is September 18, 2010, the day we were married.

This is my best July 4 memory of downtown.

  

Wish I may, wish I might...

I've been a slacker with the Spin Cycle the past few weeks (Sorry Sprite's Keeper!), but I've decided to kick my own butt into gear this morning and write about this week's topic:  wishes.  I wish I could come up with something brilliant and witty to write....

 

 

It's ironic because there's something lately that's been on the top of my wish list, as I know it is with a lot of us out there.  I wish I had more time.

 

More time to relax.  More time to do the things on my ever-growing "to do" list.  More time to go out and have fine.  Just more time.

 

I wish I had more time to spend at home.  We have this brand new house, and I feel like I hardly get time to spend in it.  With traveling to Michigan, Colorado, and Vegas over the past two months, I feel like I've spent more time in hotels than I have in my own bed. 

 

I wish I had more time to write.  I haven't written a single sentence in my manuscript since May.  (Bad, Nain, bad!)  I could go for a few more hours in the day to dedicate to that. 

 

I wish I had more time to spend with family and friends.  I feel like I hardly ever get to see some of my friends lately.  Seriously, it's ridiculous when you have to schedule dinner dates out months in advance just to be sure you see them. 

 

I wish I had more time to go on fun dates with T.  Back when we first started dating, we had a TON of time to go to ball games, downtown, movies....but with a new house and marriage comes responsibility.  But both of us are starting to feel the effects of that.  You know, the fact that we spend more time talking about what we need to do around the house, bills, and when the lawn needs mowed or groceries need bought than we do spend talking about our hopes and dreams?  Things that make us happy?  I wish I had more time for that. 

 

So yeah, this sounds like a complaining type of post, and maybe it is, but that is what I wish for.  What do you wish for?  Stop by Sprite's Keeper and see what other's are spinning!

  

Motivation Monday!

 
 
It's Monday again...not completely psyched about that, but, to get myself into the groove this week, I'm needing a little motivation.  Motivation Monday, more specifically.  So let's get motivated, shall we? 
 
 
It's easy if you want to join in - just write a post about what motivates you this week or anything that you need a gentle nudge towards motivation.  Copy and paste the link to that post, comment to this post, leaving that hyperlink, and I'll link you up!  We got 2 participants last week...let's see if we can go for broke with 3 this week!  Whoo!
 
 
My motivation?  Well, of course, with my travels out of state last week, I ate like crap all week and need to get back on the working out and eating right track, which I am doing, but...I need motivation in another area.
 
 
I know many of you already know this, but I'm a proud Independent Beauty consultant with Mary Kay.  It's my second income, along with the whole lawyering thing.  It's actually something that I think is a lot of fun, and I've really enjoyed working with the company so far.  I was really in the groove for awhile there until we moved, and then I kind of let things slack off a bit. So I'm wanting to really get back into it.  It's tough, but I'm up for the challenge.
 
 
This last weekend, much to T's relief, I've finally gotten around to organizing that Mary Kay inventory closet, and it's all clean and organized.  It looks great, if I do say so myself.  So now that everything is all pretty and straightened up, I'm ready to sell!
 
 
My goal is to book a party a month and also have a $1,000 day.  I'll be picking a day in August where I hold deals broken down by the hour and set a goal of getting a $1,000 in Mary Kay sales.  I'll need you, my loyal bloggers, to help in reaching that goal.  You up for the challenge?
 
 
I would be remiss if I didn't put out a plug for my Mary Kay page and my Mary Kay Facebook fan page. Check out the new products, and also become a "fan" on my Facebook page if you want to receive updates on deals I have.  Plus, it'd be really awesome if I broke 25 in fans.  Right now, I'm stalling at a sad and lonely 11 fans. 
 
 
So that's what I need motivation for this week...what about YOU?





Chloe @ My New Life as a HousewifeAmber @ Amber LaShell RantsRobin @ Find Good in Every Day 

I like my smut! Don't judge!

My name is Nain.  And I like reading smut.  As part of my tradition when traveling, I always stock up on tabloid magazines before boarding the plane.  Us Weekly, In Touch Weekly, OK Magazine - you name it, I read it.  I need something light and airy as a distraction as I sit in what I otherwise consider to be a giant death machine catapulting through the air at an abnormally high speed.  (Did I mention that I don't like flying?)  Plus, it's the only time I can legitimately purchase these magazines.  I mean - I need something to do, right?  And I'm not about to read War and Peace in the two hours I have to waste between Boulder and Indianapolis.  No!  I'd rather read about Pippa Middleton's dating status or Lindsay Lohan's latest drug problems.  Oh, and Kim Kardashian's upcoming nuptials?  Sure, why not? 




However, I do have to kind of "hide" my reading material when I'm on the plane, especially depending on who I'm sitting near.  You'll get those people who actually do read something of literary value on the plane, reading the classics on their Kindle.  Or the people who are sitting there doing Sudoku puzzles, working their way to Mensa only within the span of a two hour flight.  You do get those little judgmental looks as you pause over a story about the current season of the Bachelorette.  (Sure, I don't watch the show, but I am interested in this Bentley fellow and how much of a douche he was....) 




But I don't care.  It's my tradition, and I like it!  And I can't wait to see what new gossip awaits me on the flight home on Friday. 




  

How far we've come

It's that time again!  June 25th is a very special date for T and me.  Sure, we now have an anniversary to celebrate every year on September 18th, but we always will have that special date in June to remind us of where we began and how far we've come. 

It's been three years since our very first date.  Before June 25, 2008, T and I had only had a few phone conversations and exchanged emails.  No way did I have any idea whatsoever that the man I was meeting for dinner at Carrabbas that week day evening was my husband.  But yet, he was, and here we are.  So this Saturday, we will be making our annual date to Carrabbas to celebrate that very special occasion.  It's what's keeping me going this week as I'm away at a work conference missing T like crazy. 

It's crazy because before I met T, I would be okay going on a work trip alone like this.  Well, sure I'd be lonely but, I'd be fine.  But now, I just miss him so much when we are apart.  It's just the little things.  So by the time we do talk at night, I am just bursting to tell him everything about my day.  Every boring and mundane detail.  It's like my day just isn't complete until I do that.  But I can't help it.  He's my best friend.  It's hard when you're used to waking up to the same person every day and you wake up in a strange city, thousands of miles away and not be able to really talk to them but for a brief period at night.  But...it's only this week, and there are people out there who can't talk to their spouse for much longer, like spouses who are deployed, etc.  So I am lucky.  But I miss him like crazy, and I can't wait until Friday when I come home and even more so, I can't wait until Saturday when we go out and celebrate the special date that made us us. 

I love you, T.  Happy three years!

  

Wordless Wednesday

While I'm getting my learn on, this is the view I get to see....so beautiful.  Living in Indiana you never get to see anything other than corn fields and flat land...  

  

Family is a treasure

So it's Tuesday, and you know what that means?  Small Treasure Tuesdays with Chantel!  I didn't get to share any treasures this week, but I do have many to share this week...and my treasure this week is family.



This last weekend we went up to Michigan for T's brother's wedding.  Weddings are the perfect occasion to get together with everyone, especially those relatives you don't get to see too often.  I'm lucky in that most of my extended family is within driving distance for me, though it is hard to get together every year and get the whole family under the same roof.  T has it much harder.  The majority of his extended family lives in the greater Boston, Massachusetts, area, so seeing them is a rare occasion.  We got to see them in 2009 for a graduation, last year for our wedding, and just last weekend for another wedding.  It was a busy and hectic weekend, but it was also so wonderful to see T's family, especially his grandparents and aunts and uncles who came in from Boston.  It was a short visit, but a great one nonetheless.


So this week I'm treasuring family - no matter how far away they may be.  What's your treasure?

Let's get motivated! To learn, that is!

Hi everyone!  I'm BAAACK!  Sorry for my week-long hiatus from blogging...I needed some much-needed time away, and now I'm back and ready to go.  And what better a way to get back to writing than with a little motivation fun?  And you can join in, too!  How do you do that, you ask?  Just whip up a little motivational post and leave the link in a comment to this post.  And I'll link that puppy up.  It's just that easy (cue infomercial music).  Yep, it's easy.  So here we (I) go...




So this week I am headed to the great state of Colorado.  Boulder, Colorado, more specifically, for a work conference.  I've hired a new attorney for our office who handles our domestic violence cases, and I'm accompanying her to a trial skills training class this week.  A class I didn't think would be all that intensive, but now looks more like a week-long law school course.  I have about 50 pages of materials to review and prepare for class to start on Tuesday.  I thought I was done with school!  I mean, that piece of paper hanging up in my office...that means I'm done, right? 




So I'm off to learn and get my trial on.  I'm a little nervous because I've never been the competitive type, and this is a hands on learning type of class.  And apparently people get really really into it.  And I'm the kind of person who would laugh at inappropriate words being used in testimony like balls or wood.  I'm the one who will likely be on Facebook the entire time and will be playing solitaire while others give their oral argument.  (I have A.D.D.  What can I say?)  But I'm going to support my new attorney.  And you know what?  I'm going to try my damndest to learn something.  Or die trying. 




So I'm off to get my learn on.  What's motivating you guys this week?

Chloe @ My New Life as a Housewife
Amber @ Amber LaShell Rants



The thing about law school

I hired an intern for our office for the summer, and the topic of law school has come up recently between the attorneys in our office - if given a second chance, would we do it again?  So I thought, "this would make one excellent blog topic..." So here's my 2 cents on it, for what it's worth.

 

 

I can say with certainty that my answer would be no.   I hate saying that because honestly, I do love my job, but...sometimes I wonder if all of it was worth it.  But let me explain...

 

 

See, the thing they don't tell you before you go off to law school is this: you will spend three years of your life attending classes and lectures that do nothing at all to prepare you as an attorney.  It's like a rite of passage instead of something that actually trains you to work in a certain field.  And you don't know this until you're out of law school.  No, while you are in law school they stress that you have to take this course or that course because it's on the bar exam when in reality, nothing you learn in that course will a) help you in the bar exam or b) be something you will actually utilize once you are an attorney. 

 

 

Law school was hands down the most stressful three years of my life.  The constant competition, the constant studying, the lack of any spare time or freedom whatsoever...it wears on  you.  It takes a huge toll.  There is a reason that lawyers are one of the top categories for professions that experience substance abuse, depression, etc.  We were told this during our three day orientation before classes started my 1L year.  I thought "sure, sure...but I won't be one of those people."  Until I became one of those people.  The kind that fell into a deep depression and experienced extreme anxiety over everything. 

 

 

 

The sick and twisted part of all of this?  You pay for it, meaning you actually pay a large sum of money to undergo this stress.  So you really have no one to blame but yourself, but by the time you actually figure out that, you're already a year or two into law school and too far in debt to get out.

 

 

Of course, graduating law school I will admit was one of my biggest accomplishments, second to passing the bar exam.  Graduating law school, however, doesn't really mean too much when you actually graduate.  Yes, it's a huge relief to be done, but three days later I was in bar exam prep classes getting ready for three months of constant studying for a two day, thirteen hour test in late July.  So yes, you get your diploma, but that celebration is limited and short-lived.  There is only so much you can do with that degree, and if you want to use it to practice law, you must pass a ridiculously difficult and arbitrary exam to do that.  The unfortunate thing is I know way too many people who busted their butt in law school and graduated only to fail the bar exam multiple times.  The majority of these people couldn't pass the test because they just didn't do well with standardized testing.  Where is the fairness in that?

 

 

I say this not with bitterness but from experience.  Upon graduating law school, you meet with a loan specialist who gives you  your final amount you owe.  And my experience?  That amount scared the living crap out of me.  It was big.  And the monthly payment to repay it was equal to my rent I paid for my apartment.  Not cool.

 

 

Of course, during law school I kept hearing the saying "well, you're going to be an attorney...just wait until you make the big bucks."  Yeah, well, only about the top five percent of our graduating class got jobs in the big firms.  The huge majority of law students graduating either start their own practice or working for a small to medium-sized firm.  The starting salaries for those firms can range anywhere from $40,000 to $60,000, and they usually start at the bottom of that range, which gives you hardly enough to cover your living expenses but your student loan payments.  The reason for this is as a new attorney, you are walking into a firm with little to no experience in court, so your firm pays for what they get basically.  Why would they pay you a huge salary when they have no guarantee that you'll be a good asset to their firm?  They won't know until you start.  Once you are in the field, you learn by making mistakes and learning what not to do.  It's baptism by fire.  Not everyone has those experiences, but trust me...my first time in court?  Not pretty.  I learned from it, but it was one tough lesson to learn.

 

 

So honestly, if I had to do it all over again, would I?  Probably not.  Someone asked me "when you have kids and one of them wants to be a lawyer, what would you say?"  Thinking about it, I think I'd say to really consider the costs and what you will be getting yourself into.  I wouldn't discourage it, but I would definitely tell them to go into it with their eyes open and to know with certainty that this is the career for them. 

 

 

Not sure why I decided to dedicate an entire post to this today, but getting it out is almost cathartic.  Perhaps I should be a pre-law counselor?  :-)

 

Currently

I'm not going to lie....I'm working on this blog post thinking "what in God's name am I going to write?"  Because seriously, my motivation is lacking this week.  I'm exhausted, and well, in turn, I'm not wanting to do much.  Hence, the lack of a post yesterday.   So instead, I am going to copy Chloe from My New Life as a  Housewife and participate in the "Currently" post she did this morning.  (Thanks Chloe!  I needed the inspiration today!)

 

 

Current Playlist - my Pandora station, which includes Kate Voegele and Adele, as well as a number of my other favorite artists

 

Current nail polish - none on my finger nails, but I am using the coral stone color from Mary Kay on my toe nails, and it's super cute.  And what would you know, I sell it, too? 

 

Current drink - I'm currently drinking coffee with hazelnut creamer in it - hoping it kicks in the energy soon!

 

Current food - dried cherries!  I don't know why but I am seriously craving these lately.  I could eat a whole bag of them at one time, but that would be bad...you know, for obvious reasons...

 

Current TV show - Parks and Recreation

 

Current wish list - I don't know...I already have everything I need :-)  I guess maybe some time off would be nice...

 

Current triumphs - hiring a new attorney for our office, moving into our new house, and...um...that's all I can think of :-)

 

Current banes of my existence - not being able to catch up on my sleep, dealing with annoying contractors, not having enough money

 

Current celebrity crush - John Stewart - I heart him :-)

 

Current blessings - T, my family, my health and our new home

 

Current outfit - jeans, an orange flowy shirt, white sweater and bronze long necklace

 

Current mood - really really tired and a little cranky

 

 

Sorry for my not-so-cheery post this morning...I will try harder tomorrow :-)  Promise.

 

Wait! I missed it?

Things have been so crazy lately that I am ashamed to admit I missed my one year blog-anniversary!  How could I???   I was going to write this fabulous post about how I have progressed as a writer since I first started the blog.  I was going to have it posted on the exact day one year later.   But no...I missed it!  (Hangs head in shame)

My very first post ever was on May 16, 2010, and it was a cooking adventure that went terribly, terribly wrong.  To truly understand, you'll need to read the step by step instructions on how I attempted to make "healthy" brownies using black beans (yes, you read that correctly).  I was told by the good folks at Good Morning America who had the writer of the cookbook himself on the show that you couldn't even taste the black beans.  These people are horrible liars.  I took one bite into the gooey mess and yep, that's black beans I taste.  Suffice it to say the rest ended up in the trash.


So much has changed since that first post - I married my best friend, we fought with a mouse in our house and won (only partially), decided to give the house to said mouse and built our own home, went to Ireland, I started my book (still a work in progress), and I've met some amazing friends out here in the blogosphere in the process!  All in all, I'm very pleased with how things have evolved, and I think that this is one of the best decisions I've made.  And I thank T so much for his love and support as I embarked on this little adventure.


So here's to Year 2!  Let's see where this one takes me! 


And because reaching one year is a treasure, I'm linking this puppy up with Chantel's Small Treasure Tuesdays.  

  

Motivation Monday

Sorry I wasn't around last week for a Motivation Monday....but, I'm back!  And motivated...whoo! 


Thank you to Amber LaShell for still participating - you rock, and if you haven't checked it out already, cheer her on with her goals she is reaching.


I'm trying my best to stay motivated this week.  We have two training appointments this week, and I must admit, but our last personal training appointment totally kicked my butt.  I mean really kicked my butt.  Our trainer has some kind of boot camp mentality, but it's good because it kicks me in the butt to work hard.   It's hard because I'm not always seeing results (despite the fact that T repeatedly tells me that I am), but I want to keep it up.  So I need to stay motivated this week.


Another thing I need to do to stay motivated?  I need to stay on task.  I'm seriously  having a hard time doing that.  I went to a training session for Mary Kay last week, and one of the ladies said she makes a "to do" list in a notebook every day to keep herself on track for her business and other goals.  So I'm going to try that....we'll see how it goes!


So what's your motivation this week?  Share your post by commenting to this post and copying and pasting your link!

Chloe @ My New Life as a Housewife
Ali @ A Coffeeqween's Life
Chantel @ My Thoughts and Treasures
Amber LaShell @ Amber LaShell Rants



The art of persuasion

As an attorney, it's my job to be an advocate.  They say a good attorney can successfully argue both sides of a story and can persuade you to take each side.  And we can talk and argue.  A lot.

 

 

So that's my personality.  T on the other hand is more of an introvert.  He's not much of an arguer.  But he has to give presentations at work in front of large groups of engineers, many of them executives, and so I've offered my advocacy skills to help coach him.  The other night he did a practice run of his power point presentation, and even though all of the concepts were WAY over my head, I tried my best to quiz him as if I were in the audience.  I also helped him in the "giving things a positive spin" department.  For example... "we weren't given much time, so I was only able to collect this much data."  To this I told him to say "I was able to successfully utilize the time allotted and produce this accurate data."  Sounds better, right?  It's all about how you say it.  It can be total bullshit, but that doesn't matter.  So long as you have confidence in what you say, they will believe you actually mean it.

 

 

I had to do this all the time in court.  So many times I had nothing for a case or the worst client ever, but...you have to try to win your case.  So you spin the facts (not lie, but make them sound better than they are) to make your case seem better.  Most Judges could see right through it, but, you had to do it anyway.  SO my words of wisdom to T were this:

 

 

"You have to own it.  Say it with confidence, even though it's crap.  Talk that person into believing that this is the only thing they want to believe in."

 

 

I was pretty good until I made this analogy.... "Hell, I could sell poop Popsicles to a group of vegetarians if I made it sound good enough." 

 

 

No, I don't know where that came from.  And T just busted out laughing, immediately posting that on Facebook as one of my many "Nain-isms" 

 

 

But did it work?  Yes, it did.  I got a text from T after his presentation "Well, it's done.  I sold poop Popsicles to a group of vegetarians!"    And he'll never forget that phrase ever when he has to do a presentation again.  Mission accomplished.

  

The art of waiting

 

This week's Spin Cycle topic on Sprite's Keeper is waiting.  Something I absolutely hate to do.   I am so not the patient type.  Not in the slightest.  When I decide I want something or want to do something, I do it right then.  And if I don't, I worry about it until I am able to finally do it or find out about something that I'm waiting for. 

 

 

When I took the bar exam in July 2006, I had to wait an entire three months until late September when they posted the results online.  Three month of waiting.  Waiting for what would be the biggest moments in my career.  I had convinced myself after I left the last day of the exam that I had failed, but at the same time, I had a job that depended on me passing this exam.  I truly think the Board of Law Examiners must be a group of cruel cruel people since they create the hardest and longest tests known to man, and then they make you wait three months until you find out your fate.  Luckily for me, I found out I passed, but that wasn't after I didn't get any sleep the week of the results, especially the night before. 

 

 

I remember when I was a little girl waiting for Christmas to arrive or my birthday to happen seemed like forever.  Waiting for summer vacation took eternity.  I would create countdowns by stapling a bunch of paper with numbers counting down the days to a piece of construction paper on my wall, and each day, I would get more and more impatient for the big day. 

 

 

Waiting for our wedding day to arrive was another one of those long and tortuous things, too.  Not in the sense that it was torture thinking about our wedding.  Not in the slightest.  It was the fact that I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was the man I wanted to marry, and I just wanted the big day to get there so that I could start the rest of my life with T.  And it wasn't the fact that I wanted the big party.  It was the fact that I was tired of waiting to be his wife.  Our engagement was over a year, and to me that was too long.  But, of course, it was worth the wait because the day was magical and the happiest day of my life.

 

 

So while, yes, waiting can be a long and anxiety-producing task, it's usually the big "waits" that bring the biggest blessings.  Now if only I could get better at waiting in lines at the grocery store...

 

 

And am I waiting on anything big coming up?  Well, that's for me and only me to know :-)

 

 

Check out Sprite's Keeper's blog and see what other things people are waiting to happen!