PHR Exam

I've been meaning to write about this for a while now, but just haven't been able to find the time. This past September I started taking a class on Wednesday nights from 6 to 9 pm to help me get prepared for the PHR Exam that I am taking in December. For those that don't know what that is, PHR stands for Professional in Human Resources. 

I took over some of the HR responsibilities at my work a few years ago and after some discussion, my Boss decided that it would probably be a good idea for me to get certified in the HR field. Not sure if I have ever mentioned this but my College degree is in Accounting and my normal day to day job is in Accounting, so this whole HR thing has definitely been interesting over the last few years. It's a whole world on its own and navigating it isn't always easy. 

These are the study materials they handed out the first day of class! Yikes!

So far the classes haven't been too bad. There is a ton of extra reading and studying outside of class though. I sometimes get overwhelmed with how much there is, but I suck it up and get through it anyways. This whole process has definitely reminded me of when I was in College. I forgot how much I dislike reading for things like this, haha! 

I only have three more weeks of classes left. And I am actually going to miss one of them(tonight's class), so technically two weeks. But I have a ton of reading to do just for those two classes. Ugh. I just keep telling myself that it will all be worth it in the end when I pass my test. Not to mention I am actually learning a lot and can already see how I can start applying it. 

Overall I think taking this class is for the best. It will help advance my career and give me a better understanding of what I should be doing on a day to day basis in regards to all of the HR stuff that comes my way at work. I just can't wait for it to all be done with though. I take my exam on December 5th and will know immediately whether I pass or fail. Gotta love the technology we have now that can give you your results instantly. 

Well, wish me luck everyone! I still have lots of studying to do, but that test will be here before I know it! 

Off to Missouri

Happy Friday! Confused by that statement? Ha! Today is my Friday and it is only Tuesday. Yesssssss!!!!

Tomorrow morning we are leaving at O' Dark Thirty and heading off to Springfield, MO for my Brother-In-Law's wedding. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone and visiting with my Nephews, and of course the Wedding and a little bit of pampering the day before, but I am not looking forward to the 13-14 hour car ride that it is going to take to get there. Yuck!

Luckily I have plenty of stuff to keep me busy. Reading, studying, my phone, the oh so beautiful scenery that will be Kansas. Yeah, good stuff!  And I have already packed probably way too many snacks. Hey, you have to have some options. Right?! 

And I did find out yesterday that the hotel we are staying at has a small gym! Yessss!!!!! I can still get my workouts in. I might have to get up early to get them in, but I don't mind. It's crazy how much your priorities change sometimes. This is essentially a mini vacation and I am worried about getting a workout in. Oh man. I am definitely not the person I was a year ago, haha! But I am damn proud of that! 

I am working on scheduling some posts for the rest of the week so that I hopefully have something for everyone to read while I am away. I make no promises for a post for each day though. 

Okay lovelies, I hope you have a great rest of your week. And don't be too jealous that today is my Friday. I mean I do have to sit in a car tomorrow for 13+ hours. No one wants to do that. 

Have a great week!

Weekend Recap

Good Morning! It's Monday, which I would normally hate, but today is technically my Thursday, so no complaints from me today! Here's what went down in my neck of the woods this weekend. 

Friday night I headed straight from work to my SIL's house so that we could get started on our costumes for the 5k we were running the next day. We didn't do anything to extravagant. We just made a tutu and wrist bands and hair bows and head bands. It took longer than I expected, but part of that was due to us taking a break to go get my Niece's Halloween costumes. And holy crap! I didn't realize how expensive Halloween costumes were. I almost never buy one anymore, so it was kind of a shock to see that one costume was $35 or more. Yikes!

I ended up not getting home til about 11 or so and immediately went to bed. I knew that I had to be up early in order to finish the last few pieces of our costumes and not to mention the 5k was at 9:30. So yeah, I was going to be up early. 

Saturday morning I was up at 5:30. I got my breakfast and then got started on the last few pieces of our costumes. Once I finished with those I got myself ready and then headed out to go pick up my SIL, my Nieces and my little Nephew. We left their house around 8:30 and headed up to Palmer Lake to participate in the Creepy Crawl 5k. 

We had a blast. My Nieces got to wear their costumes which they were over the moon about. My official time was 31:53. I was a little bummed because I wanted to be under 30 minutes, but unfortunately it didn't happen. But I have something to shoot for when I run the Turkey Trot next month on Thanksgiving day. I still didn't do too bad though. I was 11th out of 27 in my age division and I was 180 overall out of 480 something participants. Not too shabby if you ask me.

After the 5k was over there was a 1 mile kids fun run. So my Nieces and my SIL went ahead and ran that while I took my Nephew and walked it. We had him in the chest carrier and running with him in that is impossible, so I took my time and just walked it with him. 

After all the 5k festivities, I dropped my family back off at their place and then headed home. On my way I grabbed some lunch for the Hubs and myself and then went home and scarfed that down. I was starving. We didn't have any plans for the rest of the day, so we sat down on the couch and watched TV for the rest of the afternoon. I also took a good hour long nap on the couch only to be woken up by a certain puppy jumping on me and licking my face. If he wasn't so cute, I would have been mad, but he's adorable, so yeah.

After my awesome nap, I ran to the grocery store and did a little shopping for the week and then headed home to make dinner. I did nothing the rest of the night. It was awesome. I needed a little bit of down time, so it was perfect.

Sunday I was up early so that I could check my Fantasy Football line-up. When you have Calvin Johnson on your roster and there is a possibility that he isn't going to play and their game happens to be in London and starting at 7:30 am,  you have to make it a priority to check his status. Glad I did. He ended up not playing again, so I am definitely glad I checked it.

I spent the rest of my morning watching football and getting some reading done for my classes. Around 12:30 I loaded up the puppy and we headed out to go hiking for a little bit. We hiked for about an hour and then headed back home.

Shortly after getting home the Hubs and I headed up to Denver. We had a few stores we needed to go to and I also had to pick my friends up from the airport. So we went to our stores and got our errands done, grabbed some dinner and then headed to the airport.

We didn't get home until after 9:30, so it made for a long day, but we did get a few things done that we have been meaning to do up in Denver, so it all worked out.

How about you guys? How was your weekend?

Five on Friday

Happy Friday everyone! This week flew by and I am very thankful for that. How about some Five on Friday?

1-I apparently didn't get the memo about not coming to work today. I pulled into the parking lot right at 8 and there was almost no one here. WTH?! Oh well! I guess I will sit here and slave the day away, haha! Just kidding!

2-Broncos played a hell of a game last night! And it wasn't a bad night for my Fantasy team either considering I have Emmanuel Sanders on it and he scored 3 touchdowns. That's right! 3! 

3-My SIL and I are running in the Creepy Crawl 5k tomorrow. I'm pretty excited about it. And I am excited to make our costumes tonight! A tutu is in my future!

4-It's hard to believe but it has almost been a year since I started working with my personal trainer. I went back and found the posts from when I started working with him last year and it is pretty cool to see how far I have come in just under a year. I don't think I fully realized what I was capable of at that point last year. So to look back at it now and to say "I finally did it!" feels pretty amazing! And I am so thankful that I have such a great trainer who saw what I was capable of when I couldn't. You can read those posts from last year here, here and here. 

5-Thank goodness it is Friday!! 

Have a good weekend!

Quest Bars=Protein Bars on Crack

Have any of you ever had a Quest Bar?

I recently discovered Quest Bars and I have decided that they are the equivalent to crack. I seriously can't get enough of these damn things!

The week before Tough Mudder my trainer gave me a list of things to get for the day of the race and protein bars were one of the items on the list. I really had no clue which ones I wanted because I had never had a need for them before this. I wanted something that tasted good so I got on Google and searched for "best tasting protein bars." The first article that popped up was from bodybuilding.com and it was an article about what protein bars their readers voted the best. #1 on that list was Quest Bars.

After reading through the whole article I went to the Quest Nutrition website and started doing some research. I found that their protein bars have a lot of protein (usually 20 or more grams) and are really low in net carbs, were not too high in calories and made with very few ingredients. Everything I read about them just made me want to try them. So I headed to my nearest Vitamin Shoppe and grabbed like six different flavors. I couldn't decide on just one or two. They all sounded so good. 

And now I am absolutely addicted to them. They are a great pre or post workout snack and they have great flavor! I am particularly obsessed with the Cookies & Cream one.

The only problem I have with these is that when I am done eating a bar, I want another one so bad! They are just too freaking good! And I have found a ton of other flavors that I love too! Here are a few of my faves:

-Cookies & Cream

-Chocolate Brownie

-Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

-Double Chocolate Chunk

-White Chocolate Raspberry

-Chocolate Peanut Butter

So if you are looking for a good protein bar or snack, try Quest bars. They are a-maz-ing!

*Disclaimer-I was not paid for this post by Quest Nutrition. I simply wanted to share my love of their product with the world!*

Weekend Recap

Happy Tuesday! Sorry my recap is late. Monday's seem to be my most hectic day, so finding the time to blog about my weekend is difficult. But I'm ready to get this show on the road. Here's what went down this weekend. 

Friday started out like it normally does with a session with my trainer right after work. After he kicked my ass I headed home and we went and grabbed something to eat. After dinner we headed home and I went straight to bed. I hadn't gotten much sleep that week and it was starting to catch up to me. And I had to be up early Saturday, so I turned on Gilmore Girls on Netflix and laid down. I was out within 10 minutes. 

Saturday I was up at 4 am. Yeah, I know, ridiculous. I had to be at my friends house at 5:15 to pick them up and take them to the airport so that they could catch their flight. After I dropped them off I headed home and got a few things done and got a 4 mile run in with the puppy. I pretty much dragged him the last mile. He was done, but he did a great job with keeping up and did an awesome job off his leash too when I was able to take him off of it. 

After my run I had to hurry up and get ready so that we could go pick up our friend and go to the Air Force Academy Football Game. We were running late of course, so we missed the first 10 minutes or so of the first quarter, but we did get to see the rest of the game and it was a good game. And a lot of fun to watch. 

After the game we dropped our friend back off at his place and then the Husband headed out to his game night with his buddies. My Brother and my SIL picked me up and we all went out to dinner at Johnny Carino's. Dinner was good. Our service kind of sucked and was really slow, but the food was really good. 

Sunday we were up early again. We had a session at 9 with a photographer to get some family pictures done. And by family I mean my Husband, myself and our two dogs. She did an incredible job with the pictures. They turned out absolutely amazing and I am so excited to get started on our Christmas cards because believe it or not people, it is coming sooner than you think! Like 10 weeks! Yikes! And yay!

Here are the pictures. Again, I absolutely LOVE them!

After we were done with pictures we headed home and dropped the two fur balls off and then headed up to Denver to meet the In-laws for an afternoon of shopping and lunch. My Brother-In-Law's wedding is in two weeks and I still didn't have a dress. So while the Husband and his Dad went off and looked at the Lego store and Brookstone, my MIL and myself went to Nordstrom's to try and find me a dress. 

I think I had 20 different dresses to try on in that dressing room. It's amazing how many more options you have when you lose weight. This was the first time that I actually enjoyed shopping for a dress because I had so many options. By the time we were done I had it narrowed down to three options. This ended up being the final pick!

I love the color! And the socks really tie the whole outfit together! But seriously, I do love this dress. This is not something I would have ever picked for myself in the past. And actually the sales lady picked this one out. But I love it and I can't wait to wear it in a few weeks. 

After we were done shopping we went and grabbed some lunch and then we headed back home just in time for the Broncos game to come on. They killed San Francisco. And Peyton Manning made history! And it just happened to be a perfect end to a great weekend! Another busy weekend, but a great one!

Five on Friday

Yep, I suck again. Hey I posted for a week straight last week, and then once this week, haha! You win some, you lose some. It happens. How about some Five on Friday?!

1-Last night my Sister-In-Law and I went downtown to Cowboy's Night Club for the Girls with Guitars event. We got to see the amazing Cassadee Pope! She was incredible. And we had fun! So glad I got to go. And glad my SIL got to go with me!

2-It's 2:00 pm on Friday. My weekend starts in three hours. Need I say more?

3-I'm going dress shopping this weekend for my Brother-In-Law's wedding. I hope I can find something I like. I've come to realize that shopping is just stressful no matter what size you are. I can't ever seem to find exactly what I am looking for. 

4-This weekend is going to be busy busy!! Again! I don't think I will ever not be busy, let's just put it that way. I'm okay with that. I love feeling like I am living life to the fullest and taking advantage of every opportunity I get to do something. 

5-My puppy is becoming a monster. He is getting huge! Every time I look at him I think he has grown more. But he loves to cuddle, which I love. But that could be problematic when he is the size of a freaking horse! 

Okay, that's all I have today. I hope you guys have a great weekend and I will try to be better about posting next week!