Blog Challenge Days 9-18

Okay wow.  That eye surgery thing took a little more out of me than I had expected!  On top of that recovery, I also experienced some major career change news - specifically, I was offered a good job that is about five minutes from home!  With the stress of an almost 2 hour commute each way every day at my current job, it should go without saying that I took this new offer immediately!  So this coming week will be a mess of transition at the old job before I settle into something a little closer to home.  Exciting!

All of these things have, obviously, kept me from my computer.  I know I set out to do this blog challenge thing, and I still intend to follow up with that as best I can - but it'll likely be done in weekly block posts.  I doubt I'll have much time this coming week to write daily, and then Thanksgiving week will be spent in California - where I will be focusing on my vacation and not on a glowing monitor.

But for now, I can catch up a bit on some of the posts!  Read on!

11/9: Best Physical Feature

My most recent photos may not show it, thanks to the lovely patch, but my eyes are by far my best physical feature.  They change colors (cool right off the bat) but usually they are a deep blue, with a bright yellow sunburst right in the middle.  Awesome.

That's really my eye, and a pretty true color for right now,

despite some editing around the eye.

11/10: A Few of My Favorite Things

• Bright, vibrant colors - especially clothing!
• Twirly skirts.
• Music.  Lots of it, and in many different genres.
• My husband.  Duh, that's why I married him.
• Dragons.
• Banana-acai smoothies.

11/11: Outfit of the Day

I spent all day in bed, taking care of my eye after the surgery, so there wasn't really an "outfit" besides pajamas, and I'm not posting any pictures of that here!  In the spirit of the eye patch I wore frequently this week, I'll show y'all my pirate costume, which, oddly enough, doesn't actually include an eye patch...

I just love that giant ridiculous hat...

11/12: Things that Make My Day

• Coming home to burgers on the (indoor) grill.  My husband makes amazing burgers, and after a long work day, there's nothing better than opening the door to his gorgeous face and the smell of delicious dinner.
• A calf rub after a long run.
• Getting everything done with enough time to have some me-time.  Happens less often than I'd like - but we're working on that!
• A great Zumba class: good music, high energy, big smiles, and lots of sweat!

11/13: If I Won the Lottery

Okay, so it's boring but the first thing I would do would be pay off my student loans and our mortgage.  Practical adult things first, THEN fun.  After we become debt-free (I got a tingle of excitement just thinking about it) I'd start making a serious list of destination races to attempt, with some serious vacationing attached.  I'd probably also build an addition onto my house, a greenhouse-slash-reading-room type of thing, and maybe a gaming room above the garage.

Or I could swim in it...

11/14: An Average Day

Sadly, my average days are pretty boring.  I get up early, take a long two-hour train ride to my hectic office management job (changing soon, yay!), work my butt off for 8-12 hours depending on the day, take the long haul back home, and then get as much relaxing time in with the hubby as I can before I pass out - hopefully early enough that I can get enough rest to repeat the next day.  I can't wait for this new close-to-home job to start, so I my average day can be more Amanda time and less selling-my-soul-to-work time.

11/15: A Photo of My Handwriting

Okay, this is from my craft fair log, a record of the shipping supplies I had purchased in anticipation of staring my Etsy shop a couple years ago.  The shop is still up, but is empty for now.  I may be reviving my account soon, though, once I have a little more time on my hands.

Amazingly mundane, I know.

11/16: Proudest Moment

This is a tough one.  I've had a LOT of proud moments in my life, and there's no way to compare one to the next.  Here's a very short list of the first few that come to mind:

• Buying my first home with my husband.
• Finishing my first half-marathon, especially since I ran it with my father.
• Heading down to my college's athletic center at midnight in November because my soccer team had just learned we'd made it into the NCAA tournament for the first time in history.

A glorious sight on our march to victory!

Okay!  That should get me caught up for now!  Stay tuned, I still owe y'all a race recap and more November Blog Challenge!

UPDATE!  I just learned that my college's current soccer team just won their first round NCAA tournament game yesterday!  That's only the second NCAA win in team history, so we're all SUPER PROUD!  GO LADIES!