Random Monday

Well I never thought, nor did I ever want to become a workaholic...but here I sit on a Monday night, sending out e-mails and fixing a few files. I think with the invention of technology (computers, blackberrys, etc.), it's made work too accessible, and employers now think that we are at their every beck and call, no matter the time or the day. What happened to having a 9-5 job, 40 hours a week, I swear that doesn't happen much of anywhere anymore. It's really quite scary when you think about it. I don't know what constitutes a work-a-holic, but I was adding up the hours that I've worked in the last month and it actually took be my suprise. I knew I worked alot, but this is insane. In a month, the normal hours a person should work, if they were to work the standard 40 hour work weeks, they would have worked 160 hours. I have worked somewhere around 293 hours in the last month....over 100 hours in over-time. In those terms, I should be rich...not so, because if you are a salaried employee there is no such thing as over-time pay. This is crazy, there has to be a time when you realize you need to find the balance between working and having a life. So that is my new goal, to figure out a solution so that I don't wake up one day and realize I worked my 20's away. It's hard though when you work for a company that doesn't understand that there needs to be a balance to have happy, HEALTHY, well rounded employees. For example, we just got an e-mail the other day saying that none of us on the sales team were to assume we have any weekend off from now through the end of October, even if it's not our events, we may have to work. So we're not supposed to make plans on the weekend unless it is cleared by management. Talk about feeling defeated. I honestly think that's why I'm sick, I've just worked myself sick, and with no more paid days to take off, I can't afford to take a sick day. waa, waa...talk about a depressing post....sorry to have bored you all in to oblivion..haha! Ahh the joys of self reflection.

On a side note, I got home tonight, not feeling so hot so I just wanted to lay around and watch the Bachlorette. Apparently Tucker was feeling starved for attention, because he chewed up 2 different pairs of shoes! He's starting to get naughty!

I don't really have any big plans for the 4th, I wish it fell on a weekday so I got a day off, but it's on a Saturday this year! I'll probably just hang out on the boat (cross your fingers for nice weather), maybe take in a Twins game, hang out with my friends that are still in town. I'm watching Abbey and Justin's little dog, Nemo while they are gone up north for the week. Tucker will have a friend for a few days! Hopefully they get along :)



"Part of me wants safety, wants to go back to how things were, to a life that I could predict, where I know how life is going to be. And the other part of me wants to go somewhere else, into the unknown." -Roswell

Sick

I woke up this morning with the worst sore throat I've had in years! So I went to urgent care this morning to get a strep culture and of course it came back negative, but he said that the 24 hour test may come back positive. But of course, the line I always get when I go to the doctor "it's a virus, you're just going to have let it run it's course". I just want drugs! haha. Even though I know they won't help, maybe it's just a mental thing. I swear every time I get sick, it attacks my throat first, I used to get strep all the time as a kid. So needless to say my weekend off didn't go as planned. I spent the whole day in bed either sleeping or watching movies. Hope everyone had a great Monday and are looking forward to the 4th! I can't believe this week it's July...man how time flies!

Did she say Stalker or Stock Broker??

Like I've said previously, my job just happens to bring about some strange happenings when you least expect them. So yesterday, I'm sitting at the Boat Club, I had a wedding last night, so the decorating crew was showing up at 3pm and then bridal party following for pictures, and I get this strange phone call on my work cell phone. I was in the process of a meeting (aka talking to the Jimmy John's man about our sandwiches, hehe), so it went to voicemail. About 20 min later, I listen to my voicemail and it's a lady who is a guest at the wedding that night asking me if I had a space at the Boat Club that was secure and safe that she could, keep some things because she had some very important items that she couldn't leave at home or in the trunk of her car. She goes on to say that it's a crazy situation but she has a stalker and this information is confidential. So, of course I was not expecting this, and I think I heard it wrong. I ask my friend, Natalie, who's sitting next to me to listen to the message because I'm pretty sure one of my guests tonight has a stalker...great. She goes "oh no, she probably said she is a stock broker and has some valuable items like a lap top,etc. Still, I was wondering why would she need to bring them with to a wedding??? So she listens to the message and says "sure enough, she said she has a stalker"....what? So I call her back and she tells me she's a psychologist and she has a sexual predator stalking her (I'm guessing it may have been one of her clients), and she has a back pack with stuff he has been trying to get and she has to keep it with her at all times. So I get off the phone, kind of stunned, I wasn't quite sure what to tell her, we don't really have any secure area, but now my main concern is the wedding tonight with 140 other people that will be there and the threat of this man coming and ruining the wedding or doing something unthinkable.

Anytime we have alcohol at a wedding, I have to hire security to be there the duration of the event, and it so happens that I hire a off duty St. Paul Police Officer and it's the same guy each time, so I know him really well. I give him a call and tell him the situation and he asks me to call her back and get some information (description, name, picture etc). So I do, and she tells me she can't give me the name, so I tell her to describe him and she tells me he's "unbelieveably ugly, creepy ugly", so I tel her I'm gonna need a little more to go off of here...so she tells me he has really gray hair and glasses....for being a psychologist she's not very good at being observant and descriptive! Seems odd. So I tell my cop and he just says he'll be on guard, but can't do much with out a name/picture/description other than gray hair and glasses (which describes over half the people at the wedding). So later, true to her word, she shows up with the backpack, we store it under a table, and as far as I know nothing happened, because when I left at 8pm we had no issues. I warned the staff though, just to be on the look out. What is this world coming to? The strange part that my cop and I were talking about is that she should have had a restraining order on him, and if so his name would be public knowledge so she could have told us it. Who knows, maybe she was crazy too...all the while the bride and groom knew nothing of the matter....success!

Remember when I said I wear many hats at my job...now I can add investigator to the list.....I kinda like this one, sounds kind of fun! Maybe being a CIA agent is in my future :) hehe.

I got a call from my Dad around 9pm last night and my uncle, grandma and cousin were in town that day, out on the boat and they were heading home and wanted to stop by my place to see Tucker. So they stopped by for a bit, it was fun to see them, it had been a while, and Tucker was happy...he loves visitors! Very friendly doggy....which doesn't help me out if someone were to break in, he'd probably run up and try to play with them....

Today is my first Saturday I've had off since April, so I don't even know what I'm going to do! I was hoping it would be nice, so I could go out on the boat, but it's cloudy right now, I'm hoping it will clear off soon! I have some friends coming over tonight and we're gonna have a few appetizers some drinks and then maybe head out to Uptown to one of the patios out there for some fun!

On a sad note...I can't believe MJ is dead. I don't think I'd ever want to live the lifestyle of a star...look at how invasive the media is in times like this. RIP MJ!

Have a good Saturday :)

"What's more important; what we become or how we become it?" -One Tree Hill

Hot, Hot, Hot

By the title of this blog entry, most of you are probably thinking I am going to talk about the very hot weather we had today...wrong. I'm going to tell you a story of how lame I looked tonight at dinner.

Abbey and I haven't seen each other in a few weeks (which is a long time for us), so we decided to meet up after work today for dinner. So after a late meeting I had I headed out to the Mall of America to go to a Mexican restaurant that is in the mall. Now, this really has no relevance to the story, but it happens I eat there and it irritates the heck out of me, (which has been a handful of times), they never get my order right, and what I think I'm ordering, it never turns out to be what I think it is. Like today (I promise, this is leading into the story, just giving you a little background), I ordered what I thought was cheese dip with some chorizo in it. No...it came and was like chorizo with chunks of cheese...not good. So anyways, it has a green chili pepper that was garnishing this dish. I don't know when it happened, but I mush have touched the chili with my finger, because towards the end of the meal I have an itch....in my eye. Seriously, not even a 1/2 a second later my eye is on FIRE! I have never felt a burn like that before. Abbey and I are seriously in the middle of a conversation and all of a sudden I just start swearing. Haha, she told me I was making a scene, and the drama queen in me probably was, but it hurt! She laughed at me and I cried..haha. So I took my napkin and doused it in my water glass and kept putting it in my eye. During this time the waiter comes over and clearly sees something is wrong. He askes what happened, I tell him, and he proceeds to tell us of a time that sauce flew into his co-workers eye. Really, I don't care....my eye is on fire, I can't see, and I'm not listening. He maybe should have chosen a different time to tell us this story. Anyways, it eventually goes away, and all I had to say to Abbey was that I was glad I wasn't on a first date or anything and it was just her, because that would have left a "burning" impretion on that guy....pun completely intended. So we proceeded to do a little shopping around the mall, to which I looked like a freak, one eye had make up, the other did not. Lovely.

I'm about ready to head to bed, I'm exhausted, because Tucker was throwing up all night, so I didn't get much sleep. I felt like I had a kid, I was laying on the bathroom floor all night with my pillow and comforter...mostly because I would rather have him throw up on my tile versus my carpet...but let's just say for arguments sake, It's because I was being a compassionate pet owner ;) Anyways, I called my mom to take him to the vet, because I had to run to work and they told us just to "watch him". Why do I feel like doctors and vets never have answers for anything and their solution for everything is to just "watch it a few more days and if it keeps happening to come back"? So annoying! So hopefully he does better tonight :)

"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Father's Day Weekend

I hope everyone had a great Father's Day! Mine was good, despite the crappy weather! My family and I went out on the Boat yesterday, we finally got it put in since my Dad got home from Japan on Friday. Yippi, so excited to use it this summer! Like my usual busy weekend, I decided I wanted to go on the boat for a little bit, even though I couldn't stay too long as I had to go to work my wedding. I am very directionally challenged and now apparently my memory doesn't work either, because as I was driving to the boat slip, with my sister, I proceeded to exit 3 different times, thinking that it was the right one. We had quite a laugh, when my brother (driving in the Expedition with the boat and my parents), were really far behind us and on one of the exits, I got stopped because a Funeral procession was going through. So I wait about 5 min, get back on the high way and at the exact moment I'm speeding down the on-ramp, the blue expedition and the boat come cruising by.....talk about impecable timing! haha, it was funny...probably only to my sister and I though...one of those moments!

Saturday night I went to one of my good friend's sister's graduation party, it was fun to catch up, I feel like I never see anyone anymore! I hadn't been feeling good all day so low-key was essential. After finding a date for my wedding that night, I had to cancel on him, as I really wasn't feeling up to it!

Today we just hung out, played a few card games (my family are game playing machines) and had a great dinner with griled shrimp and steak..yummy! Even Tucker got in on the action of playing some skip-bo! Here are a few pictures:

I went to the movie The Proposal this weekend with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Renyolds and it was really good! I recommend it, it was a very funny romantic movie! I can never decide when I leave movies like that if I really enjoyed them or if I despise them because I want my life to be like the movie?? haha, if only our lives could be just like our favorite movie, it would make things interesting! That gets me thinking, if there was one movie that you would want to resemble your life...which one would it be???? There's some food for thought.

"Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless." -anonymous

Old Friends

After work tonight I had dinner and grabbed a few drinks with an old girlfriend of mine I haven't seen in over a year. Katie and I grew up being best friends ever since pre school and then we kind of grew apart in high school and have still been in contact, but don't get to hang out very often. Everytime I'm with her though it's like we've been friends forever! We have such a good time. She's heading out to New York for an internship for 3 weeks and then when she is done with school she plans on moving out there to work in the fashion industry! At least now I'll have a reason to head out to NY for a vacation, and I'll be able to have her to stay with! We remenised on how crazy we were back in Junior high and some of the fun times we had. It's funny to see where we were and who we've turned out to be, we actually both lead pretty similar lives right now. We exchanged some stories of recent dating catastrophies and recent heart breaks and how we both are just living life one day at a time. It made me realize how much I really do enjoy my life right now and don't think I'd change a minute of any day! Even though I complain and I live in a world of happy couple/wedding bliss 24/7, I like where my life is right now. I'm single, independent and I actually love it! I can be selfish right now and I know that life won't always be like this, going places and doing things when I want to and at the drop of a hat. It's an adventure, and I love it (even when I'm complaining), haha! I think if my life hadn't turned out exactly where it is right now, there are so many experiences that I would have missed out on. I know it's a weird thing to say, but I actually am glad that I've dated the people I have and had my heart broken the way I have, and went on some lousy dates recently, because with out those experiences, I wouldn't be who I am or really felt like I've been experiencing life to it's fullest.....crazy talk? Maybe? But I do know I'll never get a re-do of this chapter of my life. This post is probably boring everyone, but it was a great night of realization, so I thought I'd share!

I am supposed to go to a wedding this weekend in St. Cloud, and my date that I had lined up just bailed on me for Saturday...so now it's operation find a date for the wedding, because I don't really know too many people at the wedding besides my friend Jackie and her husband, who are in the wedding party, so I'll never see them! I guess if all else fails....I can always drag my sister along! She always makes a great date :)

"the state of your life is nothing more then a reflection of your state of mind" -dr. wayne w. dyer

Free to Be Me

I was driving home the other day and a song called "Free to Be Me" came on and as I was listening to the lyrics, all I could think was that it sounded just like my life right now. Funny how songs can relate to different parts in your life, like when you are going through a break up it seems like every song that comes on the radio is meant to make you feel worse! hehe. Anyways, not to be all philosophical or cheesy, but here are the lyrics to the song. She's a Christian singer and I think this songs pretty much fits into the pieces of my life right now!

At twenty years of age I'm still looking for a dream A war's already waged for my destiny But You've already won the battle And You've got great plans for meThough I can’t always see

(Chorus)‘Cause I got a couple dents in my fender Got a couple rips in my jeans Try to fit the pieces together But perfection is my enemy On my own I'm so clumsy But on Your shoulders I can see I'm free to be me

When I was just a girl I thought I had it figured out My life would turn out right, and I'd make it here somehow But things don't always come that easy And sometimes I would doubt

And you’re free to be you Sometimes I believe that I can do anything Yet other times I think I've got nothing good to bring But You look at my heart and You tell me That I've got all You seek And it's easy to believe, even though.

Here's what it sounds like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujenRXDu2Ik

Scared of the Vacuum

I had to share some cute pictures with you. Tucker is so scared of the vacuum. When I got home from work today I gave him a quick bath and then had to break out the vacuum because his hair was all over my floor. He tore off under my bed and wouldn't come out! Here are some pictures....

He's peeking out from under the base board on this one...it looks like he's saying "mom can I come out now". haha, so cute!

5K

Everyone needs to get up off the ground after they read this because I know you have all fainted. Yes, I, Jenni Ellson, signed up for the Twin Cities Medtronic 5K, in October. Work sent out an e-mail on Friday, seeing if we could come up with some people to form a team for this race on October 3rd, and a few of my friends and I thought, why not?!? So I can now start accomplishing my goal of running a marathon during my lifetime. I have no excuse to NOT get into shape now. I think a few of us ladies are going to try and train together either before or after work a few days a week, if not I'll just have to start using my gym memberships...ALOT more than I do now! haha...they're a little dusty right now, from lack of use. 5k is only about 3.5 miles, but that's a lot for me when I'm not an avid runner....at all.

Wish me luck, come noon on October 3rd, we'll see if I'm still alive....I better be because I have a wedding for work that night! Nothing like having having too much on my plate!

"Behind every achievement is someone who dared to try. " - anonymous

Success

It has been a gorgeous weekend here! I had 3 weddings this weekend and a birthday party today, so I've been working the whole time. My weddings yesterday started off well, then we ran into a bit of a time crunch, so it was me driving back and forth between the two trying to get them set and ready! I think the recipe for a successful Event Planner is 2 parts organization, 2 parts adrenaline, and 2 parts of focus, throw in a little craziness (I think you have to be a little crazy or you won't enjoy it) and you've got an Event Planner! Needless to say my feet are very, very sore today! There were a few cute groomsmen at one of the weddings....another reason my events were a success...haha I had a great view of the St. Paul skyline, the events turned out awesome, beautiful sunset, and some cute guys to look at...all in all a successful night!

Today, I have a 60th birthday party at the boat club, so I should be there for a little while. They are a cute couple, the guy has parkinsons, so he has trouble doing quite a few things and this was fun for him to be able to plan (he was very meticulous on the floorplan), made it a little hectic for me, but I knew that was only one of the few things he could help with so I went along with it! It's beautiful again today so it will be another great event....I hope!

I do have to tell a quick story. On Thursday night I had an event for 300 people at the Boat Club, it was for a bunch of business people in St. Paul and they came for some appetizers and drinks. As I was running around trying to get things squared away (we didn't have club soda or a cash register for the cash bars, so I was running all over the city. Who would have known, the entire city of St. Paul was fresh out of Club Soda). Anways, got off track there, the bartender comes to find me and says he has a guy who wants to talk to someone about booking the Boat Club for an event. So I go talk to the guy. Now the problem with this is that I go to meet him and he has a lazy eye. I absolutely hate when that happens because I don't ever know where to look. He was the owner of a glasses shop and wanted to host an event there. So he proceeds to talk to me for about a 1/2 hour and the whole time, I hear nothing he says, all I can think of is which eye should I look at, which one is his good one??? At this point, I'm sure he knows I'm thinking this and is just thinking what a freak I am. Seriously, so akward. One eye was looking one way the other the opposite way. So I don't even know if he was looking at me. So I did my best and tried alternating which eye I was looking at. Haha, we'll see if he ends up booking an event with me!

I hope everyone had a great weekend :)

"Life should be a little nuts, otherwise it's just a bunch of ... Thursdays, strung together" -Rumor Has It

It's the little things in life

This post is in response to my previous post. I got into work this morning, open my inbox and the first e-mail I read is from my friend Robyn, who I work with. This is what it said:

Hi Jenni,

Just wanted to send you a note to let you know you will be sent to the moon for ‘maintenance’ (it needs dusting) on Monday.

Have a great week,

Mgmt.

I laughed so hard in my cube....made my day!

And The List Goes On

Man, my resume is really building! Now, I guess I am an IT person at work. The Boat Club's internet has not been working for a few weeks and everytime I have to work over there, the wireless seems to go down. So between calling our office to figure out what's going on, to calling our computer company we use, I feel like I fast forwarded through a degree in IT (too bad I am not getting paid like an IT person, I'd be rich). I was so frustrated though, because computers is like a completely different language. I pretty much gave up on the wireless internet working last time I was there, so I brought an ethernet cord with today to just hook up the land line. Of course, that didn't work. So I called the computer company and the guy starts rambling off that I need to plug this cord into this router and this one into this modem and this data line is different from this phone line, blah blah blah. I have no idea what I'm doing. So finally I just say "All I need to do is plug the cord that I have connected to my laptop right now to a place where I will get internet". He then tells me "oh, well you can't do that, you need a static IP address" or something like that. So I asked him what he has just helped me with, and what the heck he's talking about now. Pretty much the conversation ended there because he then claimed he couldn't help me. I'm glad that I wasted 35 min of my life listening to a guy ramble on in a different language while I tried to decipher what he was saying. Not cool.

So my resume will now read that I work in Sales, Events, Maintenance, Operations, IT, Lawn Care, as well as Maid. At this rate, maybe I'll learn to fly to the moon with this job.

Rainy Weekend

Ahhh another Sunday night...this weekend flew by! It's funny to me when I was younger, time seemed to stand still and now it just flies by, I can't believe that this year is already almost half over! This weekend it was pretty cold and rainy, which means I shopped :) haha, any excuse to do that, right?!? I went to a few stores to get a few more items for my re-decoration downstairs. There are just so many cute things you can buy to decorate a house, I wanted it all. I think someone needs to come and take my credit card away from me, it needs a break! Even though I do pay my credit card off each month, the writing is starting to wear off from being used so much....is that bad??? I think confessions of a shopaholic may be more me, than I thought! But what else is there to do on a rainy day? Good thing I don't live in Seattle, I'd really be poor with all the rain!

I had a wedding yesterday at the Boat Club, it was a lunch wedding so I was able to actually have my Saturday night off! It was a great event and the couple were so cute! They had gotten married in Mexico a few weeks prior and then had their reception here for family and friends that weren't able to attend. I love when I work with couples that you can tell know the real meaning of a marriage, and don't just get all caught up in the "wedding". They were the type of couple that make you believe in true love!

My sister came over last night and we had a movie marathon night, what better to do on a rainy night! We went to blockbuster meaning to rent a movie, and we walked out with 1 rented movie and 12 purchased ones!!! Haha, blockbuster was having such a good deal, I couldn't stop myself. I had to chuckle because when we went to check out the guy behind the counter asked if we had a life, buying this many movies! haha, I'm sure it looked like we were hermits. My sister complained that I had no food in my house (since I'm on a diet), so we had some fat free popcorn and water for a snack...she definitely won't be coming back to my house for the snacks! If only I could eat as much as her and be her size...somewhere that gene pool skipped me, thank you parents.

Today, I went over to my friend Robyn's house, who I work with, and got a massage, it was great! She is in massage school right now and needs to practice on people for class...I told her I would help her out anytime she needed! Then my sister, mom and I went to the movie "UP" at the theater, it was really cute, animated movies just aren't the same as they were when I was growing up though. I think I like all the old school things better, the Little Mermaids, Lion Kings and Beauty and the Beasts of my time, were so much better. I even like the very first nintendo far better than anything they have now! Techonology can be too much I think at times!

Anyways, I think I'll head downstairs and watch one of my movies I bought! Hope everyone had a great weekend!


"Most people don't know who they are, that's why they lie. They're afraid someone else will figure it out before they do." -One Tree Hill

Payday :)

Woohoo, it's pay day today, one of my favorite days! Haha, however, most of that check ends up just paying bills..not fun. Actually, all of my check will go towards my bills. Such a tease to get that check and then in just vanishes. Ugg.

Not too much planned this weekend. I have a wedding brunch tomorrow at the Boat Club. I haven't had one of these this year, so it will be fun. The weather isn't supposed to be very nice, so that could be a bit challenging. I'm kind of excited though, because this means I have all of Saturday night to do whatever I please! Usually my Saturday nights are consumed with a wedding reception, but tomorrow it will be the morning :)

We didn't get the boat on the lake yet, I was hoping to do that this weekend, but i'm not sure with the weather, hopefully Sunday we can, because next weekend looks pretty good! But the weatherman is never right, so it could storm. Really, I think that is what I should have gone into, Meteorology....I could be wrong everyday and get paid some big bucks!

Have a good weekend!

Random Fact I'm sure everyone NEEDS to know.

One of the top stories on Yahoo News today was this headline:

"Doctors warn 'Skinny Jeans' can lead to thigh nerve syndrome" - which I guess basically means nerve damage in that area (semi-paraylasis).

I knew having tree stumps for legs would come in handy one day! Good thing those jeans never looked good on these thighs...at least I'll have fully functioning thigh nerves come 80 years old! Take that skinny jeans!

Rub a dub dub

A couple weekends ago I took Tucker to the dog park, I thought it would be fun to see how he liked the water, since retrievers are supposed to love it. I think I may have gotten a faulty retriever, he doesn't like water or taking walks?? What kind of dog is this? haha. He did however love rolling around in the mud...thus needing a major bath when we got home (which he also hates). Here are some pictures from the excursion.

"The most successful people are those who are good at plan B." -James Yorke