Another Day Off?

Another day off? Do I even work at all??

I hit the gym hard this week! I did manage to run 25 miles!

Next week starts the first week of February in which I will try to run more than 30 miles a week. Need to find motivation somewhere! This week I've got some great days off, and after two months of promising myself I would, I'm going to that kickboxing class at the gym! (Its only on Tuesday nights).

Books, bikes, and burritos

Today I had a day off! A whole day! I worked 60 hours this week (crammed into the first 6 days of the week). So today I took myself out on the town. It was a beautiful day, and I wish I had gone running in the park (maybe tomorrow). But I did spend a sweaty hour at the gym. Then I put on a T-shirt. And sneakers. Clothes that I like, and reflect who I am! YAY! It was great.

The first thing on my to do list was to bike over to "mutiny now" the used book store and browsed the shelves for ages before buying some yellowing Piers Anthony books. I love the way used books smell! Then I headed around the corner to Senor Burritos where I celebrated Molly's excellent report by buying her a burrito. Unfortunately Molly is in Connecticut, so I had to eat the burrito for her :)

Then I biked to Starbucks where I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sunshine and drinking a chai. It was delicious, and a stranger walking by told me he liked my shirt. (Sonic the hedgehog, in case you were wondering).

When Noel got out of work I went home, and we went out to dinner, where we ate more Mexican food, and had a brisk evening bike ride before we returned home to watch "Legend," an old Tom Cruise movie, where he wears a lot of glitter, but no pants!

Best Day Ever!

Living the dream

This past week has been great! Last night we celebrated Liz's 25 B-day by biking through City Park at Midnight, drinking beers covered by a mitten, and listening to the Patrick Stump Channel on Pandora. I have an awesome life!

This week I went to the gym, working on training for the Colfax Marathon in May. In five days I ran over 31 miles. Hopefully I can run more and more each week, but for the next couple weeks I'm going to be picking up more hours at Omni. For the month of January I want to run at least 25 miles a week (not counting that first week).

This week I finished reading "Guenevere, Queen of the Summer Country" By Rosalind Miles. It was a great Arthurian fiction. It was a feminist view with Guenevere as the heroine. Many of the feminist Arthurian books style Morgan le Fey as the protagonist, and Guenevere as a weaker female, or the paragon of acquiescent femininity. I enjoyed it, and hope to read the rest of the trilogy.

AMI 2012

Happy New Year!
I just got back from the Alliance Management Leadership Institute (AMI) conference in Kansas City, MO. It was such an interesting experience, I learned a lot, and now have a few things to think about, especially in regards to continuing education, and my path in the future. I attended several sessions that gave me an introduction to topics I had never considered before, and others gave practical tips for nonprofit work, and marketing yourself in the nonprofit sector.

The first session I attended was "It is time for an ethical upgrade." The speaker mostly talked about nonprofit status and gave examples of how nonprofits, and heads of some organizations are exploiting their status for tax breaks, or currying political favor. It was interesting, but I didn't really find it relevant to me.

My next session was "When to Let Go and How to Hold on: Managing Staff/Volunteer Turnover and Retention." The entire session taught a "get to know others teambuilder." As a self reflective person I found the teambuilder interesting. I may post my personal notes on it as my next blog. As a former teamleader I didn't really get anything new out of the session.

Then I attended "Recognize the Hidden Rules of Economic Diversity" which was a really interesting session. It showed practical differences in social behavior in different socioeconomic classes. The lecture was based on A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. Payne, which I really want to read and keep learning about.

My 4th session was "Personal Branding: How to stand out in a Competitive Job Market." The speaker, Duane Hallock talked about the importance of what prospective employers find when they google your name. He recommended that everyone be findable using social media, allowing employers to find you personally (facebook), professionally (linkedin), and as a dynamic creative individual with ideas, hobbies, and a life that is more than the one dimensionally portrayal that appears on your resume/cover letter (blogs/twitter). While I am proud of the accomplishments you can find when you google my name (most of which are newspaper articles from various Americorps NCCC articles) I also now see that it would be beneficial to make this blog findable, so my name and email address are now attached to this blog, I've updated my facebook, and linkedin profiles, and I invite the public to follow me on Twitter @KatieHanchuruck.

My fifth session was the most entertaining speaker. The social media outreach rep from Garmin (Jake) talked about using social media in nonprofits to facilitate communication, and stay connected. His talk is really what motivated me to get on Twitter.

Thursday was case study day, and my team went to the Youth Volunteer Corps National headquarters and heard about their organization, and what direction they are heading toward, and their plans for increasing their number of affiliates. We looked over their plans, and what they have in place, and gave them advice and strategies to move forward in meeting their goals. Doing a case study was such an interesting way to gain a practical experience. Based on the discussion from the people I was working with it seems that theoretical case studies done in class are a big part of the classes people take. Anyway the staff at YVC said we had given them several new ideas to work on, and several ideas they had previously considered, which helped to validate their ideas, which was pretty cool to hear. YVC seems like a really cool organization, and I wish they had an affiliate in Denver, because I think I would love to work for them someday!

My last session was "Never wear your PJs to the Grocery Store: How to work with and empower your board." Which gave some practical advice for working with a board of directors. The speaker had many stories and examples from her professional experience which were entertaining, and informative. I hope to be able to use this knowledge someday.

The conference was really educational, I really started thinking about starting classwork, and going back to school. I do miss being a student, and I'm excited to start taking classes again (hopefully this fall).

I also had a great time connecting with other NCCC alums, at the conference and during my free time. I'm so grateful for friends that let me crash at their house, and will join me for entertaining evenings of catching up and reliving the best years of my life!

December update!

So I guess its time for an update. I'm sitting in the starbucks at the mall enjoying a dirty chai in the hour before I start working at Safeway. Work is good. November I worked my butt off...nearly 60 hours a week all month...which was hectic but I was able to actually put money into my savings account. I was working on a second project at work. For about ten hours a week I would call old people who subscribed to a magazine from the vascular disease foundation and tried to convince them to take a survey. Mostly I called old people and got hung up on :( I'm pretty glad to see the end of that project! With all that work I've had little time for myself, havent been reading as much as I like, and haven't been exercising at all. But now I've got some time, I've joined a gym and I've decided to read most evenings instead of firing up my laptop. I'm currently read Tamora Pierce's "Mastiff" and Paolini's "Inheritance." And of course listening to audiobooks as I bike to work.

The bike commuting has reached that unpleasant stage of winter in which the ground is either icy, snowy, or slushy. Every week David (coworker at Safeway) offers me a ride. In the name of self sufficiency I refuse. If I cant make the commute on my own than not having a car shouldnt be the choice I make. But its been fine so far. I've got double layers of underarmour going on! And of course I've heard that David has a crush on me, so I'm going to avoid crushing his soul.

Last week we celebrated Noel's 25th Birthday. Yesterday she found pictures on her phone she didnt know she took. We got to hang out with our friends , including some current Americorps TLs we hadnt seen in a while. Before that we celebrated Thanksgiving with Liz. I made a banging turkey and some sweet pecan pie! Next holiday: Christmas! Now that Christmas is getting closer I'm getting sad that I'm not going home. If Safeway plays "I'll be home for Christmas" one more time I may just bust into tear all over the cheese! After this year I dont intend to miss a Christmas with the family again.

Looking to the future I've got some pretty sweet goals going on. Now that I've joined a gym I'm working on some concrete goals, including: "Run the Colfax Marathon in May," and "look more awesome than Molly" in July. Today I got my run on with the treadmill. This weekend I want to try the yoga class the gym offers. Back in October I was up to being able to run 10miles! I'm hoping to at least get back to that by January!

Also our cat is a terror. He only behaves when we have company. He has the most annoying cry, bites, and runs around like a maniac. He wakes me up at 7am on my days off and eats so much he makes himself sick. But yesterday when we had no heat he snuggled into bed and was sooo cute! Yup, I'm turning into a cat lady!

Per mama's request

Well Life is super! My mama has requested I blog about life so here it is. I work (tons) last week was about a 60 hour work week, keeping busy, but still getting out, being social. Last week I also went to a grad school fair (turns out they ask you what you want to study, and if you dont know, there's not really too much they can help you with). I also ran my first 5K, the Scream Scram to benefit the Boys and Girls Club, accomplishing the 3.1 miles in 29.0 minutes. The next day I enjoyed a longer run, hitting 10.4 miles in 1hour, 54 minutes. Today I registered for the Colfax Marathon. Its in May. I was planning on only running a 1/2 marathon, but after the 10 miles this past weekend, I believe by May I'll be able to do a full 26.2 miles! I also registered for the American Humanics Conference, in January to get my certification in nonprofit management, so the first week of January I will be taking an exotic vacation back to Kansas City, Missouri! I'm also working on enrolling in Louisiana University of Shreveport to take the nonprofit management classes, but the enrollment office doesn't seem to have the most efficient Admissions process. This morning (and about once a week) we went down to the Denver Rescue Mission (a local shelter) to serve breakfast. 5:00 am comes awfully early, so its hard to go as often as I'd like.
Liz has arrived in Denver, and is staying here with us...we also got a cat named Jaws. He bites and has herpes in his eye.
We had our first snow the other night...the night it started was pretty awful because it was more of a freezing rain/sleet mixture and I was biking home in it, and I ended up soaked and cold :( But now its fine, chilly, but not uncomfortable with enough layers on.
Two weeks until I go home!! I'm super excited to see the family! But for now I gotta get ready for work. We're having a mini Halloween party at our weekly meeting...I made Halloween oreo balls! (Pictured above)

Recipe of the week: Veggie stuffed peppers!

Green peppers, and sweet potatoes were on sale this week, so I've been eating this nearly every day! Delish!
Veggie stuffed Peppers
1. Bake a sweet potato until soft and delicious.
2. Combine ½ sweet potato, ½ cup peas, ¼ cup pasta sauce, ½ cup sautéed onions, whatever other vegetables you have lying around and want to throw in.
3. Cut the top off a pepper and scoop out the seeds.
4. Put the veggie mixture in, and add 1oz sharp cheddar cheese (optional).
5. Put in a baking dish and bake at 400 degrees until the outside of the pepper starts to sear and you get too hungry to wait any longer.