Germany: Take Two

Sometimes I wonder if I'm genuinely good or truly terrible at my job. Although, companies don't go out of their way to spend more money on you than they have to, right? And since they've now sent me to Germany a second time, to help out the team here, I'm going to go with the first.

More than five days notice would've been nice, though.

I like my job. As an operations financial analyst, my job is cool. I work with the teams who make stuff and help them understand their numbers. Expense and volume-wise. I collaborate with other teams to put together snippets that explain the variations from our plan and then report those out to senior level management.

I suppose cool is a relative word here. Again, I like my job and I like the people I work with. The undeniably cool part is seeing the stuff we make and knowing they go into things we use everyday.

But my job doesn't fulfill me and that's okay.

It's hard to be passionate about finance or accounting. It's kind of dull. So I use the time I'm not at work to do fulfilling things. I bake, I do crafts, I muddle in this and that. I run and cycle and travel to new places.

Those things fulfill me and my job let's me do that.

I think that a lot of people get caught up in the idea that if you "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life." And I can definitely understand trying to manage life expectations when we're inundated with people encouraging us to follow our dreams. Believe me, I've been there.

But I'm left wanting and it's a terrible feeling.

So yeah, I may "work" all day. But then I get to spend my free time doing things I really love. So please excuse me while I go explore Hamburg - our second mini-vacay in less than a month. It's shaping up to be pretty awesome.

Fitness Flash

Vacations do not help with triathlon training.

TRUTH.

In this phase of our training, we're building up our base fitness and "rest" week isn't until next week. With the schedule this busy, I can't wait until the real training kicks in. I have a feeling it's going to kick my butt.

Here's how last week shaped up:

But if you can imagine a feeling from this picture, it's hard to imagine it wasn't worth the time off.

Let's go back.

The End of Three Day Weekends

Why do vacations have to end?

Life is so much fun without responsibilities. Driving off into the sunset (quite literally) to places unknown? It's pretty neat. It's also pretty awesome to spend life looking at this face.

Saturday, Ryan and I walked around downtown Burlington, going in and out of all the little shops on their main arcade. He was such a good sport about it. I even dragged him through a four story store. I do think it helped I buttered him up first with an oil and vinegar tasting at Saratoga Olive Oil Company. Midway through our stroll, he was even convinced we needed a pizza stone.

But after the most fantastic lunch at the Farmhouse Tap & Grill and a quick stop at Ben & Jerry's, we headed back to the car empty handed. I was definitely okay with that.

The rest of Saturday was very low key. We headed back to the hotel and binged on television. By the time we had dinner we had watched enough food shows to make us hangry and enough crazy people shows to wish we were in a coma. I mean, who gets married at first sight?!

Incidentally, I found a new show I'll be watching. Tell me you watch it too?

Waking up today was much too hard. Back to Troy. Back to real life. Back to diets and lots more exercise. Ugh.

As much as I'm looking forward to spring and the wonderful things that it brings, the last dregs of winter do hold some appeal.

With a long detour keeping off the main highway, I think we even found where we belong.

How was your weekend?

Spring Break and Three Day Weekends

As a graduate student, Ryan's got the life. Seriously.

I mean, summers? He's off. The holidays? No school! Mid March? Spring break. And life isn't like that for the rest of us, why?

I guess that's what we have vacation days for. And they're even better when you have an awesome boss who let's you take them with a day's notice. Like literally, I asked for today off, yesterday. She's the BEST. Before I came home and delivered the good news, I tried to find a good argument for going someplace warm. Unfortunately, it's spring break time, so flights are outrageous. And driving south would take twelve plus hours to get north of 50° F. So naturally, we went north, to Burlington, Vermont. 

Home by 5:00p and out the door by 7:00p. That's my kind of spontaneity.

And waking up in Vermont? It was so so nice. There's just something about vacations to quiet places that's very refreshing. It could've been the king sized bed too, though. But let's go with the fresh mountain air, yes?

We were all over the map today. Like it was a let's-get-everything-in-today kind of day. I think we're more tired today than after the three hour drive last night. I mean, we ran today (because tri-training waits for no one!), we searched for Heady Topper, ate ice cream, and bought pie. 

We had samples, ate lunch, then sampled some more.

There were teddy bears, magic hats, and then fries galore.

After all that we couldn't stomach any more. But we sure look forward for what tomorrow has in store.

I hope you got that those last few lines rhymed. You did right?