Rants, Recipes, and Running

Wow, I am not very consistent about blogging these days! I've been all over the place lately. Work has been insane, because we are preparing for a BIG audit. Medicare audits are stressful. All audits are stressful. And I'm learning how especially stressful they are when you are working for an insurance company that serves the Medicare/Medicaid population.  ;) But I'm a learning a lot! And it's teaching me lot about accepting "constructive criticism". Ha! What else is new? Well, we have been busy house hunting! But more on that to come soon. For now...a "currently" post. Since I haven't been around here much lately. Reading : "The Nightengale" - which was recommended to me by my personal librarian sister . It is such a good book! Highly recommend it!! Thinking : About what I'm going to bake this Sunday in the quarterly "baking challenge" I do with my friend's 2 daughters. We do a baking challenge, where my ...

I have stayed pretty quiet about my career change in the public world. Why? Now when I tell people I'm a work from home nurse for an insurance company, I get responses like the following: "Oh cool! My cousin sells insurance. It pays the bills" "So you don't take care of people anymore? How can you be a nurse from your home?" "I work from home too!! I see Pampered Chef!! Isn't working from home the BEST?!" Here are a few clarifications about real work-from-home jobs: -Bottom line: they have you working from home because it's cost effective. Not because it's convenient for you. -Your productivity is scrutinized under a microscope. Literally every minute of my day is accounted for on a spreadsheet -Your workload is possibly double than what it was in the clinical world. -You are expected to answer any email or request on a minute's notice, because your boss knows you aren't "busy with a patient" or "in ...

Since Ryan works about 50% of the weekends, we really try to take advantage of the one's he is free. Especially now that we live in a tiny apartment - and there is no yardwork/housework to fill up our free time! So last week at about 10:30 pm Thursday night, we decided to plan a last minute backpacking trip! This is one of the best times in Tucson to backpack, because it still cools off at night - but it's not cooling off to 20 degrees ;) We were also in the midst of doing a Whole30 challenge, so had to get creative with planning food ;). And if you haven't been backpacking - food is super important. You burn so many calories, you have such light gear, and good nutrition is extremely important! I was able to work from 5a-1:30p on Friday, so we could be on the trail by 3pm! Score! The Trail: -The hike to Hutches Pools is beautiful. You can either make it a ~10 mile hike or a 4.5 mile hike. We choose 4, so we could make it to camp before sundown. So we took a tram (...

Greetings, blog. It has been a few months since I've graced you with my presence. Excuse? Well... -we sold our house -moved from a 3100 sq ft home to a 700 sq ft apartment -I changed jobs -I went to Florida for 2 weeks for training for my new job -I came home and have been trying to work both jobs simultaneously -We were preparing to move again in May, to start our journey to get back to the Midwest -We had a early "mid-life crisis" What does that mean? Well, we aren't moving any more. It looks as though we are in Tucson to stay. Just trust it's all for good reasons. Was it a hard decision? Words don't explain. Does it still have us scratching our head almost every night? 3/7 nights per week. But we both have the gut feeling we are doing the right thing here. In the mean time, I've come up with all sorts of fun things to blog about. Here are a few posts you can look forward to: -Downsizing: Why you don't need it all to have it all -Work...

So as I recently stated, life has had a lot going on lately for the "Nastase's". And when things tend to get busy, I tend to play the "what if" game. Ryan has temporarily put a band to my "what if" game. So to get that all out of my system, I'm referring the " journal jar prompts " and talking "if's" today! If you could have dinner with anyone currently alive, who would it be? I have to say my family. There's really no celebrity, polician or other person in the world I'd rather sit around the table with than my Mom, Dad, siblings, and their families! If you could meet any fictional character, who would it be? The BFG, otherwise known as "The Big Friendly Giant". Remember the book by Roald Dahl? The 1st time I read this book as a child, I had night terrors over this Friendly Giant. Which is ironic, because if I remember correctly, The BFG lived in the girl's closet and delivered good...

If you would have asked me 1 year ago, "Do you want to go to yoga?" I would have laughed, and thought to myself "That's not a workout! If I'm going to spend an hour at the gym, I may as well spend in lifting weights or running!" Boy was I wrong. And how I have changed my thinking! I label this post "downward facing diva" - because I feel like I have transformed into my own personal various of a "yoga diva". Better known as a "yogi" over the past few months. I started yoga because I had a revelation that it's quite pathetic that I can run 20 miles, but I cannot touch my toes. Yoga helped me do that, and much more! I will share that I wasn't feeling so "yoga diva status" at my 1st bikram flow class approximately 3 weeks ago. Where I found myself outside the studio, at the corner of a busy intersection in town, lying on the cement in a sports bra and yoga pants dry-heaving! Not my finest moment. And le...

As I recapped in my " Thank you, 2015 " post, that was a pretty amazing year. My biggest goal was to make 2016 more exciting and happy than 2015. I think we are off to a good start. We kicked off New Years weekend with a bang. I started NYD with a 20 mile run with my girlfriends, and then Ryan and I headed to Star Pass Resort for a weekend of relaxation, hiking, good food, and rejuvenation! But this post is to focus on literal this 10 day span, because I cannot believe how much as happened. Let me set the scene: Ryan is working night shift on random days (sometimes he is Monday - Friday, sometimes he is Wednesday - Sunday, sometimes he is Monday-Tuesday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday). You get the jist. It's all over the place and we are ships passing in the night. In fact, I met a friend for brunch today and I was a few minutes late. And my reason was "I met Ryan on the street and hadn't actually talked to him since Thursday - so we stopped in the street to hu...