This week was very much the tale two separate weeks. I suppose you could call it A Tale of Two Half-Weeks if I was to try to make a terrible pun since I used another Charles Dickens story for the title of this blog.
The week started off full of stress and anxiety at work. Many of you know that I'm an auditor. Many, if not most, don't really know what that means. Most people hear the title auditor and think of a nerdy guy with a brief case and black rimmed glasses being sent from the IRS to your doorstep to confirm that the $10,000 medical deduction for that hip replacement was for your hip and not your dogs hip. I'm a different kind of auditor. I'm the guy that goes into businesses (be it non-profit organizations, partnerships, corporations, etc.) and looks at your financial records to make sure you are recording and reporting everything in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles and promulgated by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (I just threw that last sentence in to sound smarter than I really am and because my friend and fellow auditor, Andrew, loves the term promulgate especially when referring to a promulgating body).
I can be seen as a person that can be accusatory in my job because, well, my job is basically to go into a company's accounting department and tell them what they are doing wrong and then write a report about it. It isn't quite as bad as all that but we auditors are certainly seen in that light.
As payback for all the turmoil that an auditor inflicts upon the company, our profession requires that the auditor get audited. So every three years another auditor comes into my office and tests the work that I have done to give a report stating whether or not I have been doing my job correctly. It is a stressful and terrifying notion because if you don't get a passing report the consequences can ripple throughout every job and can result in very dire consequences. Just as doctors make the worst patients auditors make the worst auditees.
The stress from my peer review kept my heart rate up in the optimum weight loss zone without having to work out. During this period I got in a run on Sunday after a nice 6 hour work day and Wednesday after three very long days at the office responding to questions. Wednesday night I was finally able to breath (a little) and I believe a lot of it had to do with getting in an evening run. After all the stress I put on myself and anxiety I was struggling to fight through a good long run felt great. I was able to calm my nerves, refocus my energy, and get through the work I needed to accomplish. Exercise really can be help alleviate most stress in a persons life. Drinking Scotch in front of the Christmas tree is also helpful.
Feliz Navidad
Thursday and Friday were still long days at work but for very different reasons. I still had, and I hope will continue to have, lots of work on my plate. More than that I just wanted to get through the rest of the week to get to our A Christmas Carol weekend. Hopefully you read the blog from this past Friday so you already know that Rizzo and I go see A Christmas Carol live onstage every year so I won't bore you with the backstory of the annual outing but just regale you with stories of our 24-hours sans-Cece.
Saturday morning was full of packing, preparation, grocery shopping (for Rizzo) and finally driving to Old Town Alexandria for our night away to see A Christmas Carol. The first stop was Port City Brewing Company. I had been to this wonderful establishment once before with my hetero life mate, Joe, but this was Rizzo’s first trip. I’ll recap most of this experience in an upcoming edition of Beer Snob but for this particular blog I’ll share with you Rizzo’s obsession with one particular woman in the pub. She would look over and laugh at her and couldn’t really explain why. So I asked her what she was looking at. Her response was something in the vain of “every time she talks she makes this face…”
After indulging our beertooth at Port City we made our way to The Little Theater of Alexandria. There will be a full recap of the weekend in the third installment of Bah Humbug so you’ll just have to weight for that exciting adventure (see what I did there with wait versus weight?). You wouldn’t want me to spoil another blog by recalling every little detail in a simple weekly weight update, would you? I didn’t think so. What I will tell you is that Rizzo and I threw caution to the wind on Sunday and ate like stoned test bunnies.
After a restless night of sleep (I can never sleep well in a hotel room but it will never stop me from trying) Rizzo and I woke in the City of Alexandria. We woke up at our normal time, about 5:30am, and relaxed I bit in our living area before we hit the streets for a couples jog. I thought it might be fun to go for a run together to (1) be romantic during out day away and still be healthy (2) to explore the new place for the jog, and (3) to make sure to not fall too far off the wagon.
In front the hotel getting ready for a run.
At the end of the day this was a good week even without the weekly weigh in at Weight Watchers. Rizzo and I got in a good run on Sunday morning together after a wonderful night away. I learned that stress really can be reduced by working out.
P.S. On Wednesday morning Rizzo and I had to go to work early. Cece was sleeping like a log so we had to wake her up to get ready. This is unusual because usually she wakes up on her own and we just get ready for the day. I went into her room but before waking her up I snuck a picture of her sleeping and I thought I'd share it as a bonus. There is nothing cuter than a sleeping baby except for maybe me in a speedo bathing suit.
But Cece isn't the only one who likes to sleep. Rizzo is famous for getting comfortable on our couch in the evening to settle in to watch some TV. She usually makes it through 10-12 minutes of a show before this happens. Rizzo, your welcome.
P.P.S. I know that it is "you're" and not "your". I did that on purpose because it drives Rizzo crazy. I figure if I'm posting such a damning picture I might as well piss her all the way off with some grammatical errors.