i finally made it to chicago - and what a time it's been!

okay, it's been almost two weeks since i last posted - there's some things to share!

so the trip from dc to columbus was uneventful for the most part. i got up at 8am, packed up the last few things into my car and off mopsy and i went. we had to make one little stop at my sister's house on the way because i'd left some things there after my farewell soiree. now mind you, my sister's place is not but 20 miles from my mom's, and just 2 miles outside of dc. so, i wasn't too far from home when, as i was flying 85 mph on i395, i saw a state trooper off to the side of the road just an exit away from my sister's exit. when i didn't see him immediately haul ass to chase after me, i figured i was home free. just when i was thinking, "whew! i outsmarted another copper," and ready to give myself a pat on the back, i saw the pretty flashing blue and white lights of virginia's finest. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

i pulled over to the side of the road, maybe 500 ft. from my sister's exit, and rolled down my window. the trooper walked up and asked me what my hurry was. "none officer, i was just not paying attention - i was zoned out thinking but obviously not about the speed i was driving!" i gave a half hearted attempt at a laugh and gave the officer an "aw shucks, i messed up but have pity on me" type of look. he looked at me with his eyebrows raised and a slight note of sarcasm to his voice, "yeah, obvious-LEE." he then continued to explain exactly how fast his radar caught me, and i explained again how i was just thinking about all the things i needed to do, because i was on my way to chicago via columbus for my move. the nice officer then told me he was from chicago (go figure!), and asked me where i was going to live. i told him, he asked for my license and registration (all the while, mops is doing her best to protect me from the tall man in uniform with a weird looking thing on his head, barking at him in her meanest tone). i gave the officer my license, but unfortunately my registration was in the glove compartment. my small suitcase was tightly wedged between the passenger seat and compartment, requiring me to get out of the car, yank and yank at my suitcase until i could dislodge it and extract my registration. explaining that to the officer, he rolled his eyes, asking if the car was mine and upon my confirmation that yes, in fact, the car was mine, not to worry about the registration. what a smart cop - i guess he realized sooner than i did, that if i tried to get out, one of the other cars whizzing down shirley gate highway could kill me.

ends up, the cop gave me a break on my ticket - instead of charging me wreckless, which he most certainly could have, he gave me a regular speeding ticket. after my many thanks, he let me go on my way and off i went to pick up my belongings at my sister's. from there, the rest of the trip to columbus was extremely uneventful. i spent 3 nights in columbus, hanging out with my family there and off i went to chicago. again, nothing of note occurred on the drive...it was pretty smooth sailing.

i got to my apartment in chicago and fell in love with my temporary place. it's great - so much room, nice furnishings, great neighborhood. couldn't ask for more! well, actually i could, but not for much. except tv and internet...the place didn't come with those two most important ammenities, which i had to arrange for and live without until comcast could get here the following week. it was going to be a VERY long week without either of those things!

mops and i quickly settled in and went to bed. the next morning, i woke up with a major cold. it was horrible - sore throat, head congestion, chest congestion, achy, etc. however, i soldiered through that so i could get myself to go sign up at the gym that my friend and i decided to join. i also managed a target and grocery store run, which wiped me out! the rest of the weekend, i was sick in bed, which worked out because my chicago friends were out of town for the entire weekend.

this week i've been busy going to the gym (i'm bound and determined to get fit over the next several months), getting interviews scheduled and getting familiar with this great city that i'm now calling home!

changes - they are acomin'!

so, after recovering from my vacation, i finally started prepping for the BIG MOVE. i started out the week getting my mind organized, writing down all the To Do lists, prioritizing them and then scheduling them. now that i think of it, i probably should have used Microsoft Project for this effort - as much thought and concentration i put into my lists, it may have been easier (and more like the Project Manager in me) to put them into MS Project. anyway, I digress...

i began running errands, making the appropriate phone calls, buying the necessary items to get me through the first night in my new 'home', separating the clothes/shoes/bags that i'm taking from those i'm leaving behind, etc. as much as i knew the time was coming, i'm finally feeling like it's more of a reality than a theoretical. and i'm really, really, REALLY excited!!!

my plan is to drive myself and the mopster up to ohio to visit my family there. i'll spend a few days with them, then drive on the last 6 hours to Chicago. i have no idea what to expect - and while that thought is sort of scary, it's also pretty exciting at the same time. my main concern is whether or not i will find work. i'm surprisingly optimistic that once i'm on the ground, i'll find a job. and i'm also wondering if i'll have more luck with love in Chicago than i had in Boston or DC. my thought there is that i won't be traveling as much, so i can actually form and develop friendships/relationships. fortunately, the city holds some of the greatest friends that a girl can have. they are all very supportive of my move and are just as excited as i am that my arrival is just a week away.

4 days til OBX, 15 days til Chicago bound!

i am counting down the days until i head to the beach. not that i'm stressed out and could use a break or anything. cause, let's face it, i'm on sabbatical. however, there's nothing like being at the outer banks. the pristine beaches, soothing sea air, beautiful water - it's all that a beach should be.

i'm not one for the touristy beaches like myrtle or ocean city. when i want to get away to relax and spend time with friends, i don't want to hear the noises of arcades, screaming kids and drunks everywhere (although, i could easily be one of those drunks). i like the reclusive feel of obx. sure there are sections that are densely populated (Nags Head), but for the most part it's uncommercialized.

once i get back, then i have to pack up my fall/winter gear and head to chicago. i'm really excited about this new adventure in my life. i have a feeling it's going to be a good change for me. the process of getting there, though, is seriously beginning to stress me out. and when i stress, i tend to procrastinate. at least when it comes to my personal life - work is a different story. i have a list that's never ending of things i need to do, but i'm holding on the excuse that i need to focus on the beach first, move second. obviously you can see where my priorities lie.

so that's what's on my mind today. nothing earth shattering; just my own self-absorbed thoughts that i needed to put out there to relieve some of my own self-induced stress. because my life is so stressful (rolling eyes).

sweet home chicago!

so it's been a while...what else is new? i really do try to keep up with this blog, but every day life and it's interuptions get the best of me.

anyway, let me get you up to speed: after my college campus tours, i went 'on the bench' at work (translation: didn't have any projects to work on, so i was unbillable = cost/liability for the company) for a few months. just before memorial day, i found out that the firm was laying me off. not a big shock - i had seen the writing on the wall. we didn't have ANY work coming in, and our anchor clients were cutting back on their consultants. it was just a matter of time. so, i made the decision to take the summer off. i was going to look for jobs in three cities: DC, Chicago and Boston. If the right opportunity came to me then I would settle in that city, however i wouldn't start until after labor day.

during my 'sabbatical', i traveled a little bit, relaxed and beached it a lot. i eventually received an offer from a small local consultancy which seemed like a great company with the exception that they wanted to hire me with lower overall compensation, lower level and with the same amount of travel. i wans't exactly enthused by it, but i figured that nothing else had come along, so why not?

then, i went to visit friends in chicago. it was a GREAT time! it made me realize how much i wanted to try out chicago. on my last day there, i had brunch with allie, who talked me through some things. see, she was in the midst of reading "steering by starlight," authored by martha beck. allie explained the premise of the book, which, in very simplistic terms, is that your destiny is out there for you to find - you just need to open your eyes and see the 'signs' or 'magic'. allie pointed out that i have placed obstacles in front of myself regarding moving to chicago, and that there are ways to overcome those obstacles...i just needed to open my eyes. for every obstacle i threw at her, allie gave me a handful of potential solutions. how could i argue? thanks to her listening skills and pointing out that i was a 'story teller,', we went straight to the bookstore so that i could pick up my own copy of "steering by starlight."

i have to tell you - it was a truly eye-opening book. if you haven't read it, i highly recommend you pick it up! after reading just a few chapters of the book, i realized that allie (and martha beck) were right - i was the creator of my own obstacles. so, i did some research, found the financial means and made the decision to try out chicago. i'm moving there on october 1st, and will see what i can find in three months. if i find work there and enjoy it, then i'll stay. if not, then i'll move back to DC in december. this way, i won't have any regrets - i'll have tried something new and will know one way or another if chicago really is my destiny. :)

chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool

so got through 12 rounds of on-campus interviews. being back here at school really makes me nostalgic of my younger days. it's also a slap across the face by reality when i realize i am in my early 30's and not my early 20's. college - those were the days.

what they don't tell you back then is that you'll look back one day and want to return, but only with the maturity and confidence that you have in your 30s. i'd love to take the person i am today and have a college 'do over.' i would take my classes more seriously, become more involved with the school and still have a decent social life. i wouldn't feel the need to go out every night and feel like i'm missing the best party if i stayed in on *gasp* a friday night. i think i would also be less nervous around guys and more open to slowly establishing a relationship, rather than being impatient and giving up after a couple of days.

the college days - i miss 'em, but thinking back to who i was then also makes me cringe!

view of campus

time to upgrade my hair dryer

since I first started drying my own hair at age 12, I always insisted on needing a hair dryer with the highest wattage. my hair is thick, wavy and (according to my stylist) dry. if I used a "regular person's" hair dryer, it would take me an hour before my hair looked somewhat decent and not so much like a Ch-ch-ch-ch-chia.

it's been over seven years since I last had to buy a hair dryer. the search was a painful one, resulting in me buying two different hair dryers, thinking that I'll use one for every day and the other for travel (even though it was huge - not travel size at all). the one I used for "travel" blew out within a couple of months and I sent it on it's way to the hair dryer cemetary. the one I fell in love with and am using to this day was a cheapie Conair 1875 - blue with one attachment. that sucker gets HOT and blows out some major gale force winds.

well, my blue Conair 1875 is falling apart. the attachment no longer stays on the barrel, so I have it taped on with packing tape (it's all I had handy at the time). it also kind of shorts out, where I see a little flash in the motor area and a cool shot of air hits my head before it starts warming up to its normal temp. needless to say, it's time to let it go. I've finally come to grips and accepted this.

so now I'm doing some research and I'm overwhelmed with modern technology. tourmaline, ceramic, ionic, etc. WTF?!?! I've done my obligatory search on google to see what the experts say, but I haven't been able to find 2 people to agree on a single hair dryer as being the best. I'll keep searching and let you know which one I settle on...right now I'm leaning towards the T3 Tourmaline Professional Featherweight Hair Dryer.

to be continued (and I know you just can't wait!)...

the caboose of the blog train

hi - my name is mindy and i'm a blog addict. i've been a blog addict for nearly a month now. seriously - i can't stop reading blogs. i used to think that this blog thing was retarded and a waste of time, but now i figure everyone else is blogging, so why not me? they say it's never too late to jump on the band wagon, so consider me jumped.

it all started when my brother's girlfriend started blogging. then my sister joined in...and then my sister sent me this link to a blog about a guy in rehab with pat o'brien. it's f'ing hysterical. i even passed it on to a co-worker of mine and we took a couple hours out of our busy day to read the whole blog and kept quoting parts of it to one another over our cubicle divider. and then my friend rynnie sent a link to a blog about a girl who lost her job because of her blog. read it, learn it, live it. as a result, there will be little to no talk about my job on here. maybe a reference or two about a co-worker (cause let's face it, that's who i spend the majority of my days and weeks and life with), but that's it. i don't want to be forced into what i like to call "a sabatical".

okay, what else...oh! how could i forget?! i have a dog - i think she's the cutest little schnoodle in the world, but you be the judge:


besides my dog, i am a 30-something female working for a living, making decent bank and still single. yes, i said 30-something and still single...shut up...it pains me to have to say that. i always thought i would be more stable, more self assured in my 30's. not sure what the heck happened, but my 30's didn't start out as i thought they would. in fact, i think i've digressed into acting like an 18 year old. how sad.

anyway, i am not sure how long i'll keep this up. i'm not very good at committing to things - diets, resolutions, guarantees, owning a home, owning a car, etc. it's amazing that i committed to mopsy. but it's only been nearly 2 years. i had a car for 5 and i've lived in my rented condo for nearly 3 years, so i'm still early in the game. haha. and who knows what the agenda of my blog is - do you have to have an agenda? i hope not, because again, the issue of committing to one topic bores me. so this is an open forum for me to vent/blabber/discuss since i doubt i'll have any readers other than jaime and my sister.

alright, gotta try to publish this thing and figure out how to post pictures. i taught myself SQL, surely i can teach myself HTML. ugh. oh shit - it's 10.30pm and i've already missed Making The Band - can't miss PoweR Girls too (told you i'm like an 18 year old)...i gotta get on the ball!!!!!!!!!!!