So far, they only have plain cream cheese, which is okay by me, but John likes flavored.  Check out that nice bagel and the presentation!

2 bagels with cream cheese and 2 coffees only $3 plus tax.  How awesome is that??  The owner used to work at Uncommon Grounds, so he gets a good deal on coffee and baked goods from them, which he passes on apparently.

We biked around for a while and back home.  10.5 miles today at a 13.4 mile per hour pace.  Not too shabby!

Cute thing – I got home and was in the kitchen taking my vitamins when I heard “Brrrritttt”.  Those of you with cats know exactly what I mean.  I looked around and saw this:

She has never gotten up there that I can remember, so I don’t know what was up with that LOL  Jody – I thought of you when I took this picture!

I did a little work before showering to get some of it caught up.  It still has been sooooo busy and I didn’t want files to fall too far behind their turn around time (I am such a good worker – totally worth that raise!).

I thought I would talk a little bit about working at home and how it is to keep a schedule and all that.  For those that don’t know – I work at home as a transcriptionist.  I don’t know if there is a more sedentary job than that.  Really.  All I do is listen, type, and edit.  My environment has to be very quiet, too – so no music or distractions like that.

A lot of people think of how great it is to work at home, but they do not realize that you have to have a very distinct personality to do so.  You actually have to be more disciplined than if you go into an office.  The old company I worked for had a specific time window for me to work in on certain days, but my current one has no set schedule.  I can work any hours and any days to meet the commitments for them. There is no one sitting there and telling me to get to work or to get to the gym or even mow the lawn.  It’s all on me.

I have found that I need to have as set a schedule as possible in order to be the most productive.  I normally wake up pretty early, which is something I am trying to work on with Operation Sleep this month.  I do like to do my workouts first thing in the morning to get them done, plus it is just a nice way to start the day.  Although with biking season, I tend to do that more in the evening with John during the week.  Strength training is always done in the morning to avoid the afternoon preeners at the gym.  Exercise is nonnegotiable for me.  Like Nike says – Just Do It.  No excuses.

I start my work day no later than 10 am, most times a little earlier.  I make sure that I work straight through.  When I stop typing, I stop earning money, so I won’t open my google reader until lunch break or the evenings.  Although I occasionally get Fridayitis and goof around a little.

Segue…

Let’s take a lunch break, shall we?  Our porch is shaded until mid afternoon, so it was still nice to sit outside and eat lunch.

Yes, the plate was precariously balanced.

Speaking of food and working at home, this can be quite tough.  My house is filled with foods I like to eat because… well, I live here.  It is very easy to get up and go to the pantry and get a snack.  Calories add up whether they are dates, nuts, cheese, chocolate, crackers, blueberries – any ‘healthy’ treat.  It all seems innocent until you have eaten 5 snacks during the day because you can.  And it is very easy to make snacks if I want.  All the ingredients are in the pantry to bake anything, really.  Slow day at work? How about cookies??  Although I am pretty good about that.  I do have to have some things kept up high that start to get my snack engine revving, which helps a fair degree, but I can always pull over a chair if I really want something.  I think keeping an eating/snacking schedule is just as hard at home as it is in an office, if not more so!

So yes, there are some great benefits to working at home, but it isn’t always easy.

Speaking of snacks – I received a bag of these from FoodBuzz for the Tastemaker program.  I love Fig Newtons and these are like crunchy newtons.

Very interesting. They have the Newton taste, but are thin and crispy.

Note that 2 are pictured, but I ended up eating 6 of them!! That’s 2 servings. Addictive little buggers.  Guess these need to go up high…

We hit a high in the mid 90s today.  Hot!!  Funny how 6 months ago we were at minus 27 degrees and today 90 degrees.  Now that is a wide range of temps.

Our house stayed a cool 79 degrees with no AC on with our new windows.  Yes indeedy – worth the $$$ putting those in.

I did want a cool dinner, though.  I had the forethought to put some oats into vanilla greek yogurt and let those soak for a couple hours.  Then when dinner rolled around, I added some chopped strawberries and cinnamon!

Looks like a mess, but cool and refreshing.  Kind of a pseudo muesli  (does anyone else find that name kind of icky?)

I do have to do a little more work tonight as it was a tough slog with some of the doctors today, but otherwise a relaxing evening at home – and staying out of the Fruit Thins!

You know, my abs were still sore from the incline situps I did on Wednesday!  That is an awesome move.  Or I need to work my core harder.  Not sure which.

Zipped home for breakfast. Last year I was riding to the gym in the morning because it was just warm enough. Not this year! Still in the teens overnight. Booo…

Breakfast was so yummy.  I had some Wheatena that I added some egg whites to.  Topped with a banana sauteed in a tsp of butter and cinnamon and some of that yummy coconut butter.  With a side of cafe au lait.

This was tres delicious!

For those curious, this bowl has 385 calories in it.

I then got to work – at home!  I am returning home to work.  But not for the new company.  I thought I had 2 options:  Work for new company at home or work with old employee at the office.   Since I was in the office, I spoke quite a bit with the owner this week.

A little background here:  There are 250 transcriptionists employed by my company, so it is not a huge company in terms of the MT world, but big enough so the owner usually doesn’t talk to the individual MTs (we go through managers).  No MTs work in the office, all are at home.  The owner is incredibly nice and she wanted to make sure I was happy working in the office before making me an official employee rather than a contractor.  She put me on more accounts so I had work, which was the only reason I was leaving the company (other than more pay being offered to me) As you know, I was very conflicted about this and talked to her.

Well, lo and behold, she offered that I could go back home, but with a big raise so that I wouldn’t leave her company.  Of course I leapt at that opportunity!  I am going to be making more money than the new job would have offered, plus I can keep my schedule flexibility instead of working from 2 to 10 with a weekend day like I would have.  Funny – all I had to do was go to the top to get this figured out.  It never hurts to ask.  I am over the moon now and this company has my complete loyalty for a long time to come (at least until I start my donut/bagel shop haha!).

Working at home meant no lunch packing and no eating out of containers today.  I brought tuna back for another go ’round this week. I did lemon pepper.

On side side is my new favorite evening snack (yes, I realize it is lunchtime).  I mix canned pumpkin with cinnamon and topped with toasted pecans and tablespoon of cream.

This tastes so good!  My tongue is very used to nonsweetened stuff now and I can taste the natural sweetness of the pumpkin.  Libby’s brand must have some special pumpkin they grow because it tastes different than other brands. (I can’t believe I am a canned pumpkin connoisseur, but there you go).

Afternoon break and I had something I haven’t had for 3 days!

See the happy lady?  I keep waiting for something weird to happen and I will be unemployed come Monday.  That’s because we tend to have some unfortunate luck.

Dinner time!  I had some BBQ chicken with sauteed brussel sprouts.

Those strawberries are standing at attention!  They were so good.  I need more…

To celebrate the homecoming, John and I are out for coffee (decaf)!

We might even go over to the mall before it closes.  Gotta live it up!

Oh, and we passed our permit inspections, so work will progress on the half bath this weekend!

Question: What is your favorite way to eat pumpkin?

Then I came home for a bagel.

Yep – at home! We stopped at Panera Bread last night and picked up a couple bagels to have for breakfast. There just wasn’t enough time for me to work out, get John, have bagels, take him home and me go to the office to work. We only have 1 car and no biking yet.

So how is that going, you ask? Yesterday was an interesting day. It was like doing my job that I do every day at home, only doing it in a different place. The people in the office are very nice, but I didn’t talk too much, since I had work to do. I am the only one in the office that does transcription. Everyone else does either administration work or IT work. I think they don’t quite know what to make of me LOL!

I was worried about bringing in all my food as I wasn’t sure what to expect for the office area, but it was quite cushy! There is a big fridge, microwave, and one of those Keureg brewer things with all kinds of coffee to choose from. I had brought my own milk in a jar with a french press and coffee, but turns out I only needed the milk!

It is kind of in the middle of nowhere outside of town.  This is the view outside:

Complete with the snow that is never going away!  Biking here would be  a little tough.

Here is a view of my work station. I have a window! Plus 2 big screens to look at, which is quite different from using my little netbook.

A little messy as it took me some time to get organized.

I am having some ergonomic problems getting used to this desk and chair, and they are getting me a keyboard drawer so I am more comfortable. The office is very laid back. Almost too much so. I have to really do some thinking.  I have one more question to ask tomorrow, and then I can make a decision.

Lunch time at work was part of my packed stash:

Plain greek yogurt with some honey, chopped strawberries, and flax seed. Yum!

This office likes to eat. Yesterday they did Taco Bell, today another restaurant as take out, not to mention that they brought in Dunkin Donut bagels this morning.  Maybe they know it is bagel Wednesday?? I didn’t have any of this stuff.  I don’t want to seem rude or anything, but I also don’t want to feel pressured to eat foods that I don’t normally eat.

I did, however, take full advantage of the Keurig coffee brewer!  Yay!  Lots of choices of coffee to have.  I bring my own milk because they just have the CoffeeMate creamers (hello trans fats). Not to mention the creamers are sweet, which I don’t care for.

I had a snack of some coconut bread.

This bread is more like a cornbread biscuit and keeps me full because it has fat in it.  I’ll post the recipe tomorrow.

I was glad to get home.  I am the last one to leave the office.  That last half hour or so is so silent.  It makes me have a lot of feelings of separation anxiety from John.  That is also something I am struggling with.

I came home and made a quick dinner.  Eating later is easier when I have some precooked items.

I had chicken with laughing cow and the last squidges of hot sauce (   ).  Maybe there is one more serving in the bottle.

John got up to shenanigans while I was gone today.  He made up some of the cutest little chocolate chip cookies with some peanut flour in them.

That’s a snack for tonight.  I need to decompress, practice guitar, and I think I will hop on the trainer to do the decompression!

Paper reading and chatting commenced.  Do you ever feel like your brain is all over the place sometimes?  Mine is.

Biked home and settled in for a day’s work.  Busy right from the start, too.

Lunch break and I wanted protein!  Chicken curry salad.

This is a tasty salad.  We went grocery shopping last night and are overrun with produce.  Not a bad thing.

Not sure if it is a hold over from yesterday’s ride, but I have been kind of hungry today.  I broke a little earlier than normal for a snack of iced coffee and some Lindt chocolate (touch of sea salt).

Good!  I was hoping to make it to dinnertime, but my tummy was growling a couple hours later, so I had some blueberries.

Frustrating work afternoon.  I was doing a 15 minute report (which takes about 3x as long to actually transcribe).  It was an admit for a newborn and the doctor began switching back and forth between he/she for the baby during the report.  There is no way to tell which sex a newborn is, as there is no name given (and that doesn’t always help).  So, I had to send it through with a bunch of discrepancy marks.  Funny how the doctors get irritated at the transcriptionsists like we are supposed to be mind readers.

I read an interesting article today on Tips for Mastering Long-term Weight loss. Evaluating how many of these I do:

1. Learn to love exercise – done.
2. Count calories the right way (quality, not quantity) – Mostly do.
3. Fill up with fiber (whole grains, fruits, and veggies) – Done
4. Control carbs – I do fairly well with this.
5. Downsize your portions – Done
6. Eat protein and take a multivitamin – Done and done.
7. Eat dairy – Oh yes, do that for sure.
8. Weigh yourself carefully.  This actually was confusing, because it said to weigh carefully, but then to use the clothing test.  - I am not weighing myself this month, although I would like to right now.
9. Use a food diary – I use daily plate.
10. Have a healthy attitude – I do fairly well at this, but could always improve.

Am I the only one that has trouble with using clothing as a weight barometer?  I find I can wear the same pair of pants with a wide weight range.

I was so hungry for dinner, so I needed something stat.  I had a ginger Altoid to keep from nibbling (this is working really well, btw).

Cheese omelet anyone?  Yum!  With some elderly brussels.

I need to work some more tonight.  This is starting to get hard, I have to say.  Why can’t I get paid (enough) to just blog my little heart out? 

Snack of some granola later, I believe, once I finish work.

It was still hot this morning, but not too bad for riding to the gym for my workout.

Strength Training Move of the Week: Upright Row. This exercise is for the shoulders.  You basically just pull the dumbbells or bar up to about your chin.  You want to try to not raise your shoulders up to your ears doing this. Also keep your elbows up and don’t let them drop down or you won’t be working the shoulders.

Please note the lovely tan lines I have from all that biking (yes, I wear gobs of sunscreen).  I really need to work on slowing down my reps.  Note I also figured out how to edit the video so you don’t have to see me turning on the camera and getting into frame!

Then I biked home for breakfast.  Too busy to go bike for the usual bagel on Wednesdays (wahh!).  Of course, we are actually going to be moving bagel day to Thursdays anyway most likely.   I’ll be biking there tomorrow, though, rest assured.

Instead, I had some pumpkin cream of wheat.  Totally craving the pumpkin again, which is weird since it sure doesn’t feel like fall.  Wishful thinking maybe?

I did let the bowl sit for a bit and cool down well.

Started work early because of the amount of stuff to do right now with John gone.  Mid morning hunger hit, and I decided to have some blues!

I also had the Tour on muted while I worked (muted0.  I almost never have the TV on during the day except to watch Jeopardy during lunch, but cannot resist live Tour TV.

Speaking of lunch, I broke for lunch when I was hungry, which ended up being about 20 minutes before I normally break for lunch on a time schedule.  Another cool lunch.  Like yesterday only with blueberries instead of strawberries:

We have worked our way through 3/4 of that big bucket of blueberries from Friday.  Of course, I shared with family, but a good deal ended up in my tummy

I had phone training this afternoon for my new job.  Mostly just how to use their specific platform.  Right before training started, I made an iced latte to drink during it.  This is our little cheap espresso machine:

Mr. Coffee.  It’s functional at least.  This is cooled espresso.  I put some milk and ice in a glass, then slowly pour in the espresso:

That makes the pretty layer.  It’s just to look at for a moment, because I stir it up to drink.   Served with a mini dark chocolate mint cup from the fridge!

I did some work for my new job for a while.  I am limited as to how much I can do because they need to audit everything I do line by line at first, just to make sure all is okay.  I’ll probably be released from QA in a couple days.  Then I went back to the  other job and did more work there.  I started to get really hungry an hour before dinner, so I decided to have a pear:

Cold and refreshing straight from the fridge.  This heat is making me want smaller, more frequent feedings.

Took a break for dinner.  I was not horribly hungry, but I have a busy work night tonight ahead of me still, so it was time to eat.

I was going to have a nice cold salad, but my lettuce decided to get soupy.  Ick.  So, I just had the chicken with some sauteed brussels.

I am keeping up so far, but I have at least 2 more hours of work to do tonight, plus some order packing for the business.  I am going to take a break later for some banana soft serve.  Nana is already in the freezer!

Maybe John will bring me a nice present from Atlantic City for doing all this work

Question: Have you ever worked 2 jobs?