Can you spot the leopard?

Pun intended.

Can you see it?

The people sharing our rover during one of the safaris got a much better pic than we did and sent it to us.  This leopard was guarding her kill and her cub, so she did not want to be seen.

If you can spot her tail, can you spot the rest of her?  Here's the catch: it is too late, because she has already spotted you!  Mwahahahahahaha!

{hint if you are having trouble:  look in the right upper corner, then look down just a bit.  See those eyes watching you?}

All Messed Up

In the past two months, I have experienced all the seasons, out of order.  I am all messed up.

It has gone like this:

summer --> winter --> spring --> fall --> winter

SUMMER in VA

WINTER in Africa

The beginning of SPRING in Africa

FALL in CO - my walk to work on Thursday

WINTER! The very next day!  My walk to work on Friday

My very stylish - but warm - commute fashion these days

The rapid changes in seasons have made life interesting.  Layers, people.

In other news, guess who is here this weekend?  G!  He is going to help transform our library into a functional space that no longer contains cardboard.  We are in for some hard work but it will be nice doing it together.

Here is the current damage:

But there is some home made chili and a movie night in our future if we survive.  Hope you peeps have a great Saturday!  (Is there any other kind?!)

TGIF, people!

Mortified

It has been one of those days.  I did something so embarrassing today that I want to go crawl under a rock and die.

You know how, back in the day when I was doing the personal training thing, I had to keep that food spreadsheet in order to track my calories?  Well, I kept it on my work desktop since, you know, I ate like all of my meals at work.

Well, in this new position I have been crafting detailed equipment orders and such for our office and finished a particularly long and time-consuming one today.  I developed a well-written (managerial, if you will) email to some of the higher-ups, attached the spreadsheet, and sent it off.

A few minutes later, I took a second look and realized that I had attached my frikkin' food calorie spreadsheet!  Oh my GAWDDDDDDDDDD.

Kill me now.  Just do it.  All of the email recipients are guys.  I could actually hear people laughing down the hall as they opened my message.  I burned.  Literally burned with humiliation.

The worst part?  Having to shoot off another email with the actual attachment.  I went for a mix of brief self-deprecation and humor, but in reality I soooooo don't want to go in the office and face those people tomorrow.

Thank you Lord Jesus that it will be Friday.

Africa

 

Breathing easier

Metaphorically, of course.

Literally speaking, my lungs are like, "What fresh hell is this?" every day.  Walking to work has really helped but I have to say that stairs are going to be the death of me.  I end up wheezing and clutching my chest.  I feel 85 years old.  I watch people run in the park and am amazed at their supernatural abilities.

It seems as if every day I go through the same emotional roller coaster - not a major one, like Thunder Mountain.  A minor, gentle one like the Tea Cup Ride.  I wake up and marvel that I'm here, then miss G and hope that he gets here soon.  I miss Orca, then sit and have coffee and watch the sun rise over the park and start to marvel again that I'm actually here.  This is now my life.

At work, I have the most anxiety because change is change.  New office, new procedures, lots of things up in the air, the beginning of a new chapter for the entire company.  I used to be in the middle of all the action and now I am not.  I am in the midst of action on a much smaller scale; I am on the periphery of my former life.

After a few hours of living in the middle of the anxiety, I remind myself that this move is what I wanted.  And I wanted it because I no longer wanted to be in the midst of all the activity, with the awful commute and the traffic and no end in sight.  I wanted a quieter place and a quieter life.  I knew there would be an adjustment.

So each day I am living out the adjustment.  I am unpacking a brand new life and trying to figure out where everything is going to go.  I know in my heart that no matter what happens, this is the right move.  This place is better for me, and when my family finally gets here to stay, it will be the right place for us.  Friends live just down the road and I will have a packed house on Sunday night for dinner and A-peep already has tickets to come out here, and I'm getting the feeling that December is also going to be a great month for N, her fam, and my BFJ.  Things are looking up.

I just have to keep breathing.  [yeah, right]

Life these days

Does that make you want to melt into a puddle or what?  It's my new wallpaper on my phone and I just die when I look at it.  G says that she is feeling great and running all over the place, and she wears herself out and flops down to rest.  It kills me.  I miss my bun bun.

Want to see what my commute looks like these days?

Like this:

Plus, I just got P!nk's new album to listen to on the way to work, so I'll be bee-bopping along.  It's very good.  I heart me some P!nk.  I think if I were a tad more sarcastic, she and I would be peeps.  Along with Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica.

Today is October 1.  How did that happen?  This fall is going by so quickly.

Dinner at my college peep's house last night was so great.  You know how there are great friends that you meet in college, and they become part of the college "chapter" of your life, and you keep up with them consistently after that?  And you kind of grow up together?  SJ and I didn't get that experience.  We were extremely close during my first few years of school, but she was older (and started the whole moving-off-campus, getting-an-internship experience earlier than me) and this was before cell phones and we both moved all over the place during the last decade.  So, instead of keeping in touch and growing together, we totally fell out of touch.

Getting together with her was like walking through a door to 17 years ago.  Just like that.  It's so hilarious, the things about your personality that just don't change no matter what life throws at you.  I'm really glad that she lives only a few minutes away and that we have this chance to reconnect during such a different chapter of our lives.

This is SJ:

Otherwise, this is what my life looks like these days:

I would be just fine if I never saw another cardboard box as long as I live.  I'm in the process of tackling the bedroom and closet, which I would like to get done before G's next trip out here so that he and I can work on the library together.  Ughhhhh.

Happy Monday, peeps!