It's Been a While

It has been a while…. A long while… And I apologize. Life has been pretty crazy with a lot of travelling and other oddities that have filled our time. But have no fear! We are back! I guess my first duty is to inform you of all the exciting (and subsequently, not so exciting) things we’ve been doing within the last month:

• Update: Due to schedule conflicts, we still have yet to make it to the Catfish Plantation for my birthday dinner celebration. Yet, we WILL be going soon. And when we do, expect a full report!
• Neely introduced me to crepes. And Nutella. And I’m in love.
• Greg and I have been able to spend some more time with our LifeHouse from the Exchange DFW and have absolutely loved getting to know this awesome group of people. There is nothing quite like getting to spend time with people who are in the same stage of life as you, specially some who have been married for a wee bit longer. Not to mention, everyone in our LifeHouse is hilarious so we spend a lot of our time laughing and enjoying each other’s company.

• My office (and my company for that matter) is very intentional about giving back to the community, which means so much to me. Instead of working one Friday morning, my office set-aside the hum-drums of Corporate America and we went and served at the North Texas Food Bank. Let me just say, my eyes were opened. After we arrived, we were instructed that we would be filling boxes of food that are taken to a local elementary school where children get to take these boxes home to their families. The boxes we were packing provide a family’s meals for the entire weekend. In 3 hours, we were able to pack over 700 boxes which resulted in over 14,000 meals! It was so much fun being able to serve with some of my teammates from The Hartford and I was impressed by the amount of meals we were able to provide by simply giving 3 hours of our time
• I successfully ran a 5k at a local elementary school. It was a successful run, but let me just say, that was the hilliest 3 miles that I think I have ever run. Or maybe I’m slightly dramatic. But it was hilly!
• In other news, I have officially decided not to run the Dallas White Rock Half.  It’s not that I didn’t want to, or that I don’t think I’m capable, but training was literally taking over my life, and therefore was becoming my life. And I didn’t like that part of it. This is how my day was during training: Get up, go to work, come home, cook dinner, clean up dinner, go running, shower, go to bed. The end. Boring. I felt like I was not getting to live life to the fullest because I was running. All. The. Time. Now, I still run, but I don’t have a strict agenda that I’m following and it allows me to have more free time to hang out with Greg and other friends.

• I finally graduated from training!! WOO HOO! After 18 weeks of learning all the ins and outs of the insurance world, I was able to travel to Hartford, Connecticut with the rest of my training class for a “Graduation Week”. We spent the week wrapping up everything we had learned and had a very nice“graduation” dinner where we were able to interact with a bunch of our top leadership. After approximately 12 tests, hundreds of hours on conference calls, several assignments, and lots and lots of reading, I am an official Underwriter for The Hartford. (Just in case you’re confused about what I do for a living, think Along Came Polly. The only difference is that I don’t do risk analysis on people, just businesses!)
• During homecoming weekend, we joined Greg’s family in Houston for his cousin’s wedding. We had so much fun getting to do some shopping, bowling, and not to mention getting one of the best pedicures I’ve ever had in my life (the boys sat out on this one though). I’ve been blessed with an amazing “in-law” family. They literally do feel like family to me and I couldn’t have asked for anything better! Can’t wait to spend some much needed time with both of our families over Thanksgiving!

• I’ve yet again put off reading Les Mis, and instead have started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. After seeing the previews for the upcoming movie, and hearing rave reviews of the book, I knew that it was a book that I wanted to read before the movie came out. We’ll see how it turns out!

Well, that seems to be a pretty boring and mundane list. But, I am going to attempt to finish editing photos from Fiji and post them! Wishful thinking… after staring at computer screens all day, its definitely a struggle to go home and work on a computer some more. Keep your eyes peeled!

-K