How fun are these?

How fun are these? Rene read about them on a little Disney blog on Friday of last week, so clearly I needed to buy them!

The Steelers one is clearly the cuter of the two!  I can't wait for them to arrive.

First week at 27

Well I've just about lived through the full first week of 27...yep I feel old!  Anyhow I figured I would give a quick recap of the birthday festivities...what can I say Rene and I are pretty boring...no big blow out parties for us...

The birthday weekend started out pretty good though, Thursday I got home and opened the mail and found a card from mom and dad waiting in the mailbox.  Plus a Seen It-Twilight for the Wii...yes Rene is super excited to play that, and a Starbucks gift card -- YUM!  You can bet I stopped for a Venti Latte on my way to work Friday morning!

Friday I also go these beauties delivered to my office!

 

The white arrangement was from my team of recruiters and the roses (though the picture cut them off) were from Rene of course!

Saturday we did a bit of errand running and stopped by Sprinkles to pick up some birthday treats!  I love the cupcakes from Sprinkles and have a new fave for the month of January--S'mores!

We even made some birthday cake cocktails while we watched some of our backlogged DVR TV shows....

You must try these yum!

2 parts whipped cream vodka

1/2 part amaretto

1/2 part cream(or milk)

1 part godiva white chocolate liqueur

While I would like to say the night was nice and quiet one of my recruiters decided that 27 wasn't too old to take shots for your birthday-- so arrived at my apartment with another recruiter from my office with a bottle of Goldschläger in hand and decided shots were needed.  It was all in all a pretty quiet night, though Rene was feeling a little "under the weather" Sunday morning.

But wait the celebration wasn't over just yet....

Monday morning (after having to move my cubical due to us expanding) I arrived to this....

Lots of decorations from my recruiters...they know me so well (notice the Disney theme?).

All in all it was a pretty good birthday this year, lets hope that 27 has some good things to come!

Having the hard conversations

No matter where you are in your life, there are certain conversations that are always harder than others.  The conversations that people steer away from...some of the conversations we have with ourselves, others are with friends or family, co-workers or our bosses.

Today was the day that I had to have one of those hard conversations with my boss.  Today was my annual review at work.  It's been a hard year for me (2011), I didn't hit the work related goals that I had set for myself and overall it was my third straight year of rebuilding my line of business.

After almost a 3 hour conversation I've gotten a lot off my chest and I'm hoping that now I can officially put 2011 behind me and hit 2012 full force.

My thought of the day is that no matter how hard that conversation is to have--have it sooner rather than later, you may not get the exact outcome that you want but at least you've put your thoughts, feelings and concerns out there...

Certified!

After finishing up finals this semester I told Rene that I was going to sit and take the next certification with NAPS--my PRC certification (Physician Recruiter Consultant).  This exam was much easier than the 155 question test that I took to get my CTS this summer since it was dealing with what I do on a daily basis!

I am happy to say that with just a little over a week of preparation I successfully passed the exam this weekend!  It's a nice way to round out the year and add a couple more initials to the end of my name.  

My Next Project

Another of my recruiters has a birthday coming up this Sunday and since I made a wonderful cake for the last one I decided that this time I am going to bake some cookies for her birthday.

And who doesn't love a basic sugar cookie? But I found this on Pinterest and thought that since it's fall why not go with a little theme right?

I'll be making a batch of these this Thursday while Rene is off playing basketball with Deloitte I'll be sure to post how they turn out!

If you're sick please stay home

It seems like every year it starts in September and it runs through February...the dreaded cold/flu rotation within our office....yet no one seems to realize that each year if people just stayed home we could avoid this.

I understand that yes, in a sales job that if you aren't in the office and you aren't selling you aren't making money...however, if you are coughing, sneezing (not just allergy sneezing) and even throwing up and running a fever guess what? You aren't working either, you're complaining and feeling awful so please do us all a favor and stay home.

2 weeks ago a co-worker came back from vacation and quickly got sick, cough, cold, fever, throwing up...yet she still showed up to work! What the heck was she thinking! Everyone kept telling her to go home but she wouldn't because she didn't want to use her PTO because she didn't want to hit the negative in her PTO Bank--this annoys me beyond belief!

Now we've had over the past 2 weeks 8 others come down with the stomach flu, or a horrible cold with fever...did they learn their lesson though? Of course not each and every one of them started feeling sick and still came to work then the following day stayed home "sicker than a dog".

I have armed myself with hand sanitizer, super vitamins, and a can of Lysol to de-contaminate the work spaces of those who have fallen victims to the illness ...but sometimes that still isn't enough.

For anyone reading this please take heed and pass it along to all of your friends, if you think that you're coming down with something, or you feel a little "off" please do us all a favor and stay home. I take care of myself to prevent getting sick, I don't have an option when I am healthy not to come to work just to avoid getting sick, so please stay home--thanks!

Happy Monday!

Well ladies and gentlemen we've officially started October!! Can you believe it? That means that next month is Thanksgiving and then Christmas?! WOW the year is just flying by.

My desk is ready for the fall season though as I brought little pumpkin for all of my little recruiters for a festive touch to the area.

And what made my Monday even better? I walked in to a little present from Bethany our office manager~apparently she just couldn't pass this up when she saw it this weekend and she knew I needed to have it :)

This little beauty will be joining me in my weekly manager's meeting (professional aren't I?)

I love a week that starts out with a little something to make you smile! Happy Monday!

Getting Closer to Fab!

As of this morning I got all the front portion of my cube covered in pink and white....

I like having a bit of color now all I need it to get a couple frames rather than having the wedding pictures pinned to the wall...and also change out my calendar and other pieces of the "regular office supplies".

Add to that....today there was some revenge in the office my recruiter David arrived today to a desk covered with glitter

And then next to him Dustin's cube was toilet papered overnight.....

You've gotta love holiday weekends and short work days in our office....I'm thinking though that the cleaning crew might hate us tonight.

Drab to Fab!

So yesterday for some reason the tan/cream color of my little cube here at work was starting to get to me....It was drab and really not "me".

Now yes there are articles out there in every business magazine and publication saying that putting personal touches on your work space is a big No-No...however I see my office as not one of those typical business offices.

The boys have a basketball hoop, at any given time there are stress balls being thrown across the room, and we have a Dallas Mavericks flag still proudly displayed after their victory (that or it's just been forgotten to be taken home).

So this morning I started on my "Cube Re-Vamp" and plan to take my work area from Drab to Fab over the next week or two.

Clutter and papers gone! I'm going for the green feel and going all electronic (or at least trying to) and hopefully adding some light pink hues and green to my little area. Here's my progress thus far....

I'll be sure to post updates as I go. Step one will be just finishing the pink and white draping around the front of my cube and then I plan to get some "girly" (pink and green) trays to keep papers rather than the ugly black plastic stacking thing that I have now.

Rene might laugh at my spending of $12 to change things up but I figure I spend the majority of my time here and have had the same surroundings for 3+ years why not change it up right?

Certified

July started off as a pretty good month thus far! As of last Friday I am now officially certified by the National Association of Personnel Services as a Certified Temporary Staffing Specialist (CTS). Next step will be to start the certification process/studying to take the Physician Recruiter certification....that will have to wait though until after summer classes which start on Monday!

It's been a nice little break from the spring to summer classes I wish that I didn't have to start back to school I liked not having to stress over the reading and exams, but I only have a total of 5 more courses before I am finished with my MBA so HOPEFULLY all goes as planned and I will graduate in the Spring 2012 class.

Not much else going on in the lives of the Blanco's recently work, work, and more work....at least it's Friday right?

Really on the Ball at Work!

I’ve been noticing over the past few years that working at a desk all day has started to put a toll on my body. Not only have I noticed that my eyes started to get worse (and now require glasses/contacts) but my posture has been getting worse and worse and my neck and lower back hurt almost daily.

So about a month ago I started looking into some alternative options. While I would love to have the desks that accommodate a treadmill, I don’t think that the director of our company would go for that regardless of how beneficial the studies say they are for health of employees.
Then I found this, where you can put an exercise ball into a chair and sit on that, but really I am not spending the $99+ on one of those…..
That lead me to my current sitting situation, I went to Target and bought myself a large exercise ball which now serves as my chair. Monday as I started inflating it in my cubical yes I got some very odd looks, and the looks continued throughout the day by the guys that walked by my desk…..

But I must say that yesterday when I got home my back didn’t hurt and I could tell that I was sitting up much straighter than I normally do. Add to that I am strengthening my core and apparently I can burn up to an additional 350 calories throughout the day I think it’s a win-win situation.

Plus it gives me some entertainment when I find myself rolling around a bit or having a little bounce while sitting here. Now it’s time to get to work – it’s meeting time.