Work 1, Lisa 0...but not for long!

Phew!  This past week at work was absolutely horrible!  I haven't experienced stress like this before.  Two of the three departments that I oversee are going through major changes...and seem to be slowly sinking.  The third department is treading water in the big sea of crap.  Corporate is the captain and is standing back and laughing while watching everyone slowly drown in this sea.  I'm standing on the bow of the ship and am not able to throw out any life-preservers for fear that Corporate will throw me out in there too.  That's all the details that I want to go into here, but it's tough right now.

It's put me in such a funk, and I've had a really hard time getting out of it.  I've been completely and utterly exhausted...both physically (nausea, headaches, heart burn, chest pain, etc.) and mentally.  I haven't even been able to exercise much, which is a bit uncharacteristic of me.  But NO MORE!!!!  Today is the day that I'm turning all of this around!  I spent a lot of time today reminding myself of what is truly important and what isn't.  It's important to get a paycheck.  We all need money to live.  Most of us (me especially) need to feel a sense of accomplishment too.  Work usually gives me that...but not for several months.  I think that along with having to make some tough decisions that I don't agree with is what has been weighing on me.  I'm going to try my best going forward to really leave as much of that as I can at work.  As my boss often says, "All I can do is give 100% when I'm at work...and that has to be enough."  I have a great personal life, and I'm going to start focusing more on that when I'm home.

Onward and upward!

 

Ready for the weekend...

I'm the type of person that cannot stand a stressful professional life at the same time as a stressful home life.  You all know that I've been complaining about work for some time now...and it only seems to be getting worse.  It's quite impossible these days, and I really don't see it getting any better.  So, of course, this week started out just the same.  I was ready for a drink by the time lunch rolled around...and so was Kristine.  Ha!  So we decided to try out a newer place downtown after work Monday...Lola.  It has some really creative drinks and some pretty good food too!  Very cute patio.  Check it out...

At least I was off Wednesday, but it was mostly so I could make several appointments.  Luckily I was able to schedule all of them in the morning.  Chad took the day off to and helped me paint all afternoon.  (Thanks, babe!)  The painting in the dining room is seeming to take forever, but it looks like we will be done on Saturday...even though I have to sacrifice the STL Heritage Beer Festival.  Boo!  I'll be very glad when all of this is done and I can move the furniture back into place.  At least then I'll be able to cease going to the living room for salt, pepper & paper towels.  Ha!

Chad and I will have some fun this weekend though.  We're planning to go to the Wine, Dine & Jazz Festival in Belleville tomorrow night, and I'm sure we'll hit up Rick's on Saturday evening.  Hopefully I'll be able to post some dining room pics by the end of the weekend.  Cheers!

Painting, painting and more painting...

This weekend was pretty uneventful.  I recently had my dining room ceiling repaired and re-plastered, so the next step was painting.  My previous dining room colors consisted of a light beige on 3 of the walls, 1 dark red wall and white trim.  Since there is a possibility that Chad and I could be moving in a year or so, I decided to tone it down with the paint.  Sabrina Soto (HGTV) says that neutral sells.  : )

Chad and I settled on a light brown on all 4 walls.  This should coordinate with the other colors in the house.  I still like my red, so I plan to accent with it instead.  Saturday we primed everything with Kilz.  I forgot how much I hate priming.  It's so much harder to apply primer than regular paint!!  Anyway, today we primed and painted the window trim & door trim.  It was in desperate need of some attention!  I'm off on Wednesday this week for a couple of appointments, so I'm hoping to get the actual paint on then.  Man, I can't wait to get the dining table out of the kitchen and the kitchen island out of the living room!  Every time I need salt, pepper or paper towels, I have to head to the living room.  The wine rack is in the living room too temporarily, but that's a bit more convenient.  Ha!
I'll be sure to post some pics of our project when it's complete.

I'm not a big fan of being cooped up in the house all weekend, so Saturday night we got cleaned up and headed out to Rick's (Olivia's).  All 6 wines on the tasting menu were super tasty!  We ended up purchasing a red blend from Cline Cellars...Oakley Five Reds.
We also had some yummy Manchego cheese at Rick's.  I hadn't heard of this before, but I'll definitely be looking for it at the store in the near future.  After Rick's we headed to dinner at Seven in downtown Belleville.  We hadn't been there in quite a while, but it didn't disappoint...and neither did the martini.  Tonight we're laying low in front of the TV.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a better week at work, but I'm probably just dreaming.  It's been crazy busy lately and I don't really see an end to it.  : (
It's a shame because I really used to like this job.  It's always been challenging (in a good way) but now it's challenging (in a bad way) and tests my limits daily.  I'm just hoping I can hang in there for awhile.  It's got to get better, right?  So for now, I'm just going to keep my sites set on the weekend.  This weekend is Wine, Dine & Jazz in downtown Belleville.  We're hoping to head up there one night.  

Hope everyone had a great weekend!