Not good

Yesterday I was wearing some of my new shoes and given it’s nice weather (summer is finally coming to Begium) I was bare foot.  Of course I got a blister on one of my feet.

Tonight Alice and I went training. I put a band-aid on the blister and left for 10km. I felt it a bit but decided to ignore it.

Maybe I should have looked at it… because by the time I removed the shoe, my white sock was half red. Worse the back of my new sneakers was also soaked with blood. Seems the blister bled quite a lot :(

Note for self: get better band-aids to make sure I don’t lose 1L of blood on Sunday when we train for 20km and even more importantly get the blister healed before the D day.

Work / Life Effectiveness

Today I discovered that “Work / Life Balance” has been renamed “Work / Life Effectiveness”. While I was pretty clear on the definition of Work / Life Balance, replacing balance by effectiveness makes me wonder. Is it:

1)      Work more effectively to free up time and energy to enjoy your life

2)      Manage more effectively your life to secure more time and energy for your work

????

Given how much the whole team has been working in the past month, I fear it’s #2.

This said, it’s 10:30pm and I should really get back to my analysis if I want to get some sleep tonight.

Jetlag

Sometimes jetlag is good. For the first time in a long time I slept 12 hours in a row. Crazy thing is that I still feel like I could sleep some more.

Maybe I’ll have a nap later.

Transportation

In the past 24 hours, I flew from Cincinnati to Paris, I took the train from Paris to Brussels and drove from Brussels to Stuttgart. In other words I travel by air, by rail and by road. Apart from sailing I’ve pretty much taken all means of transportation in less than 1 day.

And what a long day! I’m ready to sleep… to sleep long.

Joy, this is for you

Seen in Target.

I’m a Pegasus girl

After trying all the different models of walking and running shoes from Nike, there was only one model that fitted me: Air Pegasus.

You should have seen the face of the shop assistant when I toured the shop with each of them to check how they feel. Truth be told I could have spared myself the trouble and maybe the embarrassment if I had memorized the model I have at home. I would have known that the one with the logo of a man with a hat inside the shoe is the one I need also known as Air Pegasus

But that would have been too simple.

I now proudly own two pairs of Nike Air Pegasus: the old one in pink and the new one in blue...  No comment on the color, please.

Kia Sorento

My flight from Chicago was delayed by 2 hours. I arrived at Cincinnati only around midnight and by the time I made it to National to pick up my car, there were 10 of us queuing and only 1 person behind the counter.

To help speed up the process they told us to pick any car in the lot. Given I had to drag 2 suitcases I was left with 2 options: an SUV or a minivan. I picked the SUV as I couldn’t see myself driving a minivan.

I left with a white Kia Sorento. Sadly this car doesn’t have parking assistance which would be super helpful given its length and is a bit slow to start. I figure a more powerful engine would help.

This aside, I have to confess I like the feeling of driving such a big car and even more sitting higher than most people. It’s like owning the road.

Looking for the perfect shoes

I’ve spotted a pair of shoes I really liked at Aldo. Unfortunately for me the store didn’t have my size in the color I wanted. The good thing about the US is that you find stores pretty much everywhere so I could check 3 of them for my “dream” shoes.

Sadly it didn’t work out.

What did annoy me though, was how systematically the shop assistants were trying to get me to buy the shoes in another color or even worse, one size bigger with soles.

Why would anyone buy a pair of shoes that are not fitting? Despite how much I wanted those shoes, the last thing I need is a pair of shoes that are too big and that I might lose while walking.

Grrr....

Chicago

Saturday, weather was good: sunny and quite warm. In between shops on Michigan avenue also known as the magnificent mile, I took the opportunity to take a few pictures of the city.

 On Sunday the plan was to do the touristic things i.e. the Willis towers (ex Sears towers) and the cruise on the river.

Unfortunately I woke up under the rain. Barbara and I still went for the skydeck despite the view would be limited.

I gave up on the cruise as I didn’t feel like spending 1 hour under the rain. No matter how beautiful a city is, it’s not worth getting sick. I’ll do the boat tour next time I come to Chicago.

(Hilton) Palmer House

For my weekend in Chicago I had decided to book a hotel downtown for Saturday night. This way I would have easy access to all the sightseeing and shopping sites. I ended up in the Hilton Palmer House. This hotel is not only beautiful but also a piece of Chicago history.

This hotel was offered to Bertha Palmer as a wedding gift. And what a gift!

With 1639 rooms it’s one of the largest hotels in Chicago – so I learnt. I although discovered that presidents stay in this hotel when in Chicago. It’s not often I get to sleep in a hotel where presidents staid. Although I’m pretty sure they get a bigger room than mine.

Chicago Premium Outlets

After a long week of work where the only break was the gym in the morning, Aude, Barbara and I drove to the Chicago Premium Outlets for some shopping. The 3 of us are staying in Chicago for the weekend and were planning some shopping in the US. Our strategy was to check out the outlet first for good deal before exploring the Michigan avenue downtown.

Despite it took us one hour because of the Friday traffic, it was worth the trip. Each of us made progress on our shopping list and good deals.

For example, it was my “lucky day” when I bought Wolfram’s vitamins as it was “buy 1 get 1 free”. What a coincidence as pointed the shop assistant. My second pair of shoes at Nine West was 50% off.

Only the Bose noise cancelling headphones were not cheaper, but that’s Bose, right. The only advantage here will be the exchange rate. Still cannot believe I spend so much money on headphones… someone really has a huge influence on me.

Fortune Cookie

Today for lunch the agency ordered Chinese food. I opened a fortune cookie at the end of the lunch and found the below:

"Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone"

Not so pleased with my message while my colleagues were getting more positive notes, I tried another one:

"Speed is poor substitute for accuracy"

I guess I just had bad karma today. Let’s hope tomorrow will be better.

A moment of American culture

The candy aisle for Halloween at Target. Never seen so many candies at once.

The famous Chicago style pizza

After a long day of work the team went for dinner at Giordano’s to experience the Chicago style pizza.

To explain better what it is, you should forget about a pizza. Visualize more a tart where the crust is stuffed with cheese, toppings will come above and the tomato sauce is on top.

It’s really good but like my Italian boss would say: “this is not a pizza”.

I had eaten that pizza in the past but had forgotten how heavy it is. 2 slices that’s as far as I could get. I guess we should have listened to our colleague from Chicago who said his wife would only eat 2 slices. This would have avoided most of us leaving the restaurant with a box containing the left-over.

Difficult movie selection

As I started my flight to the US I quickly realized that 1) the movie selection was limited compared to other transatlantic flights and 2) the selection was not really appealing.

And difficult indeed it turned out to find a movie to watch.

I started with Midnight in Paris, which I wanted to see in the movie theater but never got there. I guess it was a good thing as I gave up half way through. Sadly it was another Woody Allen movie that led nowhere.

After long hesitation I tried the Bridesmaids as I had heard from many people that it was not as bad as it sounded. Well it was bad. I gave up after 20min.

I tried Battle Los Angeles… and gave up after 20min of no action.

Considered Hanna but based on what I could see from my neighbor’s screen it was not too scary / bloody for an in-flight movie.

Desperate, I started Tree of Life. The movie was super weird but strangely beautiful and captured me until the end. Not the most entertaining but much better than anything else in the selection.

Good thing is that I used up my 2 laptop batteries, started and finished 1 book.

For once I did more than just watch movies.

I hope the selection will be better on the way back.

2in1

Today I’m flying to the US for a business trip. I’ll be there almost 2 weeks.

As to be expected there will be some significant shopping  happening next weekend, especially with the dollar so low!

This translated into a sandwich of suitcases: the smaller one is right inside the bigger one. I hope that will be enough space…

A different shopping experience

A colleague of mine has a friend who owns a lingerie shop not far away from work (actually it turned out the shop is right across the pet shop where we usually go). This afternoon she had invited some of us to discover the shop. The owner had organized a small cat walk for us to show case the collection from her shop.

While I wasn’t so sure about the idea, I still joined just to see and was positively surprised. The shop is small and I would have never entered by myself as it’s not in my usual shopping area but it does have a very nice collection of underwear. Of course between seeing them on a model and on oneself there is inevitably a big difference and the need to remind oneself that not everybody has a model body.

It was overall quite fun to sit there and making a selection while chatting with other girls. A different shopping experience actually that will be worth repeating in the future.

35 days to go

In 35 days Alice and I will be in Paris ready to start the 20km race.

When we enrolled in June we thought we had all the time in the world to train. But this not exactly true because of:

-          Vacations… each of us took vacation at different time

-          Weather: when it rains we cannot walk outdoor. And it’s been a VERY rainy summer in Belgium.

-          Walking in the gym at work sucks: nothing is more boring than walking for 1h or longer on a treadmill… at least outside there is something to see.

-          Business trips… each of us has her load of business trips where access to a gym is not always possible

So 5 weeks to go, many many many kilometers to walk to ensure we will be ready.

This time unlike in Brussels, there will be people waiting for us on the finish line. So we have to finish and in due time.

Wish us luck!

On a summer day

On a summer day, actually one of the few real summer days we’ve had in Belgium in the past 2 months, we drove to Porte d’Orient to have a look at their new collection. That’s the place where we bought our living room furniture.

Inspired by the weather, we bought a table and a couple of chairs in Teak for the terrace. For a while we’ve been looking for a table to use on the terrace, big enough for 4 people but not too big given the surface we have and of course not too expensive. It’s actually crazy how expensive Teak can be. Who would pay 300 Euros for a outdoor table for 4? Certainly not us.

Today we found one that was meeting all our criteria (thanks end of summer sales). It’s now nicely standing on the terrace waiting to tonight’s BBQ.

Tomorrow we will very likely move it to the basement as the weather forecast for the next 5 days is rain.

So long for the Belgian summer.