Adventures in time management - It's 10 am already?

With work picking up, getting deeper into married life and (the latest update) my brother living with us, it doesn't seem to get much busier than this. I find myself waking up at 5:30 am working all day until about 6 -7 pm and heading home to get ready to start it all again. On good days, I will force myself to quit around 6 and go to the gym. The good part of all this is that I'm losing weight because I don't have time to eat AND I am forcing myself to workout. Go figure!

I've always known that I work much better under pressure, but the whole time management thing comes up again in my life. A friend and I have recently hired an Assistant Account Executive, which immediately lessened some of the smaller tasks at work, however, I struggle with not giving her 'assistant'-type tasks just to cross off things on my to-do list.

Slowly but surely I am learning how to reorganize my time and making sure that I am taking time for myself. I stay away from the computer as much as possible on the weekends, that doesn't actually seem too hard for me.

After all is said and done, I have to remember that I am a human and can't work like a machine....or can I?????? What do you do to take time out for yourself and enjoy life a little?

Is there such thing as the 4-month itch?

It's been four months since we got married and my how the time flies. Work has been crazy busy and my new husband talks about us as newlyweds, which I find both amusing and strange, since we have been living together for much longer than marriage. I think he really enjoys the idea and fact that we are married. I guess I need to take a moment to appreciate that about him, instead of finding that confusing.

With all that's going on right now, I'm starting to get that itch I feel when I'm in one place for too long. Even though I'm crazy busy with work, I just want to do something different, which is why I ventured off on my own to begin with. We have a few things coming up but I've just today decided, "we" are planning a trip to Italy. (Shhhh...don't tell hubs, he doesn't know this yet, but he'll be thrilled) This will be our international trip of 2012, although we did go to the Dominican Republic for our Honeymoon, I'm convinced that it doesn't really count.

My genius idea: In October (low season), fly from LA to Rome and drive up to Florence to Venice. Fly out of Venice and come home eight days later. Easy right? Flights and hotel rates are much lower in that season and I used TripAdvisor to find a handful of really reasonable B+B's (my reasonable means between 50-110 euros/day) in each city we stay at and we'll rent a teeny tiny European car to drive in, woo!

So our travel itinerary for 2012:

January - Dominican Republic (The honeymoon)

April - New Orleans for Jazz Fest

August - Hawaii for the birth of our dear friend's baby and some relax time

October - Italy, from Rome ->Florence -> Venice

NYE - spend our anniversary at home (in LA) with Chaka and plan for 2013

That's a successful year if I ever saw one! Let's go! This itch is gettin' crazy.

The end of an era!

As you may know, the last year of my life pretty much revolved around planning a wedding day, one single day that would be imprinted in my mind forever. I LOVE thinking about this day and finally realize why people say that it is the most important day in a girl's life...probably a man's too, depending on if he's a jerk or not.

My wedding day was the most strangely tranquil, magical and happy day of my entire life. It is just an indescribable experience to have everyone you love and that loves you, to share a ceremony that is magnifically (<--new word) important with the most important person in your life.

To make a long story short, it was a great ceremony and crazy fun party. I feel like everyone really had a great time, which was my main goal. It wouldn't have been as great without someone handling all the day-of details. (NOTE TO BRIDES: you MUST have a day-of coordinator if nothing else.) I am so excited to begin my life with my new husband. We are taking the month of January to organize and situate ourselves and plan for the rest of the year and set timelines and goals. I love January for that reason, I end up feeling so organized.

Oh yes, we got great wedding gifts and I have enlisted the help of my new CrockPot to make this Chili recipe, as my very first slow-cooker recipe. Wish me luck, 4.5 hours to go.

Married life, here we go.

Single or Married life?

I've been pondering the married/single life question for the past few weeks and am still to come to a real decision about what I want to do. Although I have always wanted to be married, have kids and a family I think that I may be too emotional for that kind of commitment.

Its not that I can't commit, but I've come to rely on myself. I feel like any disaapointments that come in a relationship are easier to deal with when you're unmarried. If you're married everything becomes more critical because you are legally bound to that person. I'm not saying that I wouldn't be in a committed relationship or even have children with a 'boyfriend' or 'partner', but if we weren't married, would things be less complicated? I don't want to end up divorced and bitter.

As a female, I'm less likely to have baby papa drama and I'm not even saying I wouldn't want to be in a relationship with the father of my children, but why should I legally bind myself to anyone. I have no problems with a common law marriage. The most relieving part is that if we WERE to separate, then it wouldn't be this great legal ordeal. Then again, maybe THAT is the true adventure/commitment of marriage, seeing if you can put up with someone for the rest of your life no matter what (damn! that sounds like jail, no wonder men have issues). I'm not saying this just for myself, I'm saying it for the other person too, my emotions may go nuts when I'm going through menopause, he doesn't have to put up with it.

Having the thought that there may be years of unhappiness in a marriage, but you stay together because you're married, doesn't really appeal to me. I understand that because you're in a deep friendship that you stick together, but what if it is unhealthy. I'm not keen on divorce, so I feel that the staying single may be an option that is viable. THAT and the fact that I have always taken care of myself and have no qualms about continuing to do so. I have yet to discover a person that I can rely on more than myself and highly doubt that I will ever find someone like that. Its a curious thought and a curious predicament. I guess only time will tell, but since I am so emotional, I'm sure that I will dive right in.