Category: Being

Survival Mode

Leave a comment

Tuesday night: I overcame a slew of temptations at the basketball game, then my beau took down a #1 from McDonalds as I sipped veggie juice. No cheats.

Wednesday night: I abstained from indulging in a honey-baked ham sandwich and a taco bell run. Did anyone know that T-bell had the chicken ranchero soft taco on their “fresco” menu? 170 calories! I digress…

Today, Thursday: I’m feeling pretty good, despite the dismal weather. But, my car is fixed and I’m honestly not hungry. I did wake up around 4:30am with stomach pains (which I attribute to the “tea”). Last night I had a major scare! My friend Manny came over and proceeded to step on my scale ( which I’ve been avoiding), he proclaimed that it was way off. Then Robert (BF) hopped on to check it out. He felt like it was at least 10lbs over. When I got on this morning, after two WHOLE days without eating it told me I’d gained 5lbs. Imagine my despair if I’d been the first to realize the discrepancy!?! No worries, I weighed myself at work this morning and it was 10lbs off, I’ve lost 5!! Momentum. It’s all you need. Movement creates movement….my new mantra.

xx

Cleansing and craving

Leave a comment

G’day. I don’t remember it ever being -5 degrees in Fayetteville, Arkansas but apparently that is what it will be tomorrow. What is one to do with their time besides shuttling in and out of places like office buildings, grocery stores, basketball arenas and homes when the weather takes this sort of turn?

I have decided to go on a “cleanse”. Initially, I chose the master cleanse or lemonade diet. On Monday night, I mixed up a pitcher full of water, lemon juice, syrup and cayenne pepper (after a $50 trip to the co-op). On Tuesday, with my first sip of the concoction, I nearly gagged. I was quite depressed as I’d hoped to continue on this path to inner cleanliness and healthier lifestyle for 10 WHOLE DAYS. Supposedly, you should consume 10 servings of the drink. I barely got through 3. By 8pm I was starving, hungrier by far than any other time I’d accidentally gone without eating. I decided to switch to a juice cleanse, where you drink around 800 calories/day of organic and unadulterated fruits and vegetables.  Needless to say, I guzzled down some veggie juice and felt much better. Later I spoke with my friend Lydia, who is a master cleanse veteran. She explained that you cannot add the cayenne pepper to the batch if you make a day’s worth ahead of time. The longer the cayenne sits in the mixture, the more it seeps in and the more it seeps in, the spicier and albeit grosser the mixture becomes. You MUST add the cayenne on a per serving basis. Good to know.

For today, I am still on the juice cleanse. I feel fine and I actually slept really well last night. Hopefully, that will continue. The evenings are much harder for me when it comes to resisting food temptations. I am actually excited about ridding my body of toxins and spending 10 days w/o caffeine or alcohol. But, there really isn’t much to do besides eat & drink when it’s <10 degrees out!

Despite my new year’s resolution to save more money, I’ve been salivating over a few things…

Including http://www.forever21.com/product.asp?catalog_name=FOREVER21&category_name=footwr&footwr_style=&footwr_size=&footwr_color=&footwr_price=&product_id=2065010850&Page=1#

Have a fabulous day!

Resolution

Leave a comment

I’ve never been big on New Year’s resolutions. I typically think of something in the moment like “be healthier” or “exercise more” but I never commit to anything and often forget what I resolved to do within a few weeks.

Come to think of it, I’ve never actually given anything up for lent or fast or anything.

New Year, New Decade, New Start. Here are my goals for the coming year.

  • Save money. Start a savings that I can’t touch. Invest in an IRA.
  • Build a budget (goes with above)
  • Develop healthy eating habits that can be maintained
  • Find an exercise/workout/ hobby that I enjoy
  • Spend more time with my family/friends/loved ones
  • Obtain reliable transportation (my car’s life ended with 2009)
  • Start building a home, even if a house is not purchased
  • Realize what I want out of my job

More TBD…

    Best books of 2009

    Leave a comment

    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121058884

    Best books of 2009 from NPR

    Even more books on my radar

    Leave a comment

    The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Polan

    The Help by Kathryn Stockett

    American Pastoral by Philip Roth

    Pros: It’s Friday, I got paid today, Greenhouse Grille tonight, a whole week off for Thanksgiving

    Cons: My iPhone has imploded, my dog’s valium isn’t exacly working, my dryer is broken

    Pros win. Bon weekend!

    It’s still summer in New Orleans…

    Leave a comment

    Bertie and I just got back from NOLA, a quick visit with my bestie Sara and waaaay too much food. It was still summer there, so that meant I could not wear my over-the-knee boots and had to resort to the one sundress I packed. It was glorious and I think R fell in love with my city.R & P Jackson Square

    Words to live by

    Leave a comment

    I recently discovered this quote by the ever-intriguing  Audrey Hepburn. She was the epitome of the “good girl with a wink”.

    “I believe in manicures. I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure and wearing lipstick. I believe in pink. I believe that loving is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.” Audrey Hepburn

    Bosom Buddies

    Leave a comment

    Friendship is important. Almost anyone would agree. I believe that friendships between women are integral for survival. We are so beautifully different from men (mentally, emotionally, physically) even guy’s girls need their girlfriends every once in a while.

    There are many different types of friends. Acquaintances, Friends you see out, work friends, school friends, family friends, old friends, new friends…you get the idea. I say this all as a preface to my main point. A girl needs bosom buddies. A girl needs soul sisters.

    I happen to have seven besties that I have come up with through elementary, junior and high school. We’ve remained close even though we all separated after high school. The eight of us fall back into our old shtick as soon as we’re in the same zip code. We don’t talk on the phone everyday, some of us keep in touch more than others, we do have a facebook thread that we keep up with pretty regularly these days (doesn’t facebook make it almost too easy to stay in touch?) but none of that is what sustains us. What I know is, if any one of those seven girls called me and said they needed me, (it has happened) you can bet your bottom dollar I would be there.

    There were more of us during the carefree days of high school, while we were still children getting to know each other and fumbling around with ideas of the future. Some have dwindled but the core of us have remained unchanged for nearly six years now. I miss my friends all the time when we are not together, mostly because the bond we have makes me feel relief, comfort and actual euphoria while we are in each others company. Alas, we are growing up and becoming adults, as much as we might try to prolong young adulthood, it is fleeting. Two of our eight are now married women.

    This past weekend we all attended and were attendants at the wedding of Fitz. Fitz and I have been friends the longest, since we were eight years old to be exact. While the couple of us have never been what I would call the best of friends, I feel the same way about her that I do the others. It’s the group of us that’s so special. We really couldn’t be more different save being from the same town. I’ve been thinking about these friends the past few days as they’ve all left and gone back to their niches. What’s so fabulous about the fact that we’ve remained friends for so long is that we’ve all seen each other grow up. We were there for one another during all of the firsts of adolescence, the self-absorbed days of college and the frightening unknown of being an “adult” for the first time.

    What I’ve realized while reflecting on my bosom buddies, my soul sisters, is that they are as much a part of me as anything intangible can be, I am more myself when I am with them. We bring out the best in each other. I’m not daring to say we have a perfect friendship, we have catty interludes, hurt feelings, missed phone calls and everything that goes along with a relationship. What’s different is actual unconditional love, which is rarely found, thank God I have.

    Girls at play

    Girls at play

    The art of understanding opportunity

    Leave a comment

    I really can’t get the hang of consistently updating this blog! I get bogged down with everyday stuff and my own hurdles. But anyway, I’ve decided to devote a few precious moments to you, blog.

    What have I been up to? Well… I’ve been spending a lot of time having mono, working, being lazy with my beau, contemplating my future and listening to new music.  I think I’m finally over the mono part. I’m definitely having some sort of strange senioritis/restlessness right now. I am trying to “figure out what I want to do with my life”. I had hoped to figure this out in college, or in the past two years since college, but seem to be more confused than ever.

    I definitely want life to be an adventure. And my biggest fear is regret. I watched Yes Man the other night and while I thought it was a completely contrived and ridiculous movie, the saying “yes” to everything part did seem like it could be life changing. More so in a being open to opportunities way rather than actually saying “yes” to every SINGLE question.

    I feel that I have a lot to offer, why do I feel that way? Let’s see. What exactly do I have to offer?

    To start with, what qualifies me to be good at anything? Hmm, well, I’m bright, I catch on easily to things, I like learning when it suits me, I like getting to know people and figuring out a way to build a mutually beneficial bond. I am pretty goal oriented. I recently realized that I thrive on completing a task, being recognized for it and moving on. The being recognized part is pretty key, because I guess it rules out a lot of charitable causes that I would like to think I’d want to be involved in.

    What do I like to do/ be involved in? I like fashion but feel I have much to learn and desperately wish I knew how to draw or sew what I picture in my mind. I love, love, live for music. I am pretty much turned on by discovering new tunes to groove to and sharing them with my pals. I also love to sing, how could I fuse the two? I’m pretty out of practice and the area in which I live offers few opportunities to showcase my “talent”. I’m not the sing in the corner of a bar while no ones listening kind of gal. Maybe that’s lack of drive/motivation right there that’s holding me back?I like to read and write and have proper grammar. Haha I just spelled grammar “grammer”, ironic. I also love to travel, party, relax, eat good food, take photographs, etc. What twenty-something doesn’t? Sounds like my perfect job just came to me… a singing version of the intolerable Samantha Brown from the travel channel. How the hell did she get that job anyway?

    There is another side to me. The side that wants to be sensible and secure. The side that wants to stay on the safe side. I think my problem is that side has been overruling the other sides. That part of me feels guilty for any outrageous thoughts including quitting my job to travel the world, moving back to New Orleans, going back to grad school without knowing the outcome (the taking out of multiple loans). That part enjoys living for cheap with a good friend, getting off work at 5pm and having nothing to worry about til7am the next morning. That part is too thankful for the great health insurance, the bi-weekly paycheck, the dinners out, the ability to buy cute-ish clothes and Target and Forever 21, the in general worry free existence to make a move. In fact, the only real worry that consumes me is worrying about my future, worrying about what it is I really want, worrying about what I’ll do if I fall on my face, desperately trying to figure out what I would fall on my face for. I just want to want something! Is that too much to ask?

    I really just want to be a model. Unfortunately, I am 5’2″. Seriously, I need some direction and seem to have a blindfold on.

    Radiohead/Miley Cyrus Altercation

    Leave a comment

    The other night I was watching the soup (xx Joel McHale) and I learned of a certain dispute between Radiohead and Miley Cyrus. Being that I’m not Miley’s biggest fan, I found this to be hilarious:

    Media sources have been reporting that Radiohead responded to teen star Miley Cyrus, who lashed out at the band for snubbing her at the Grammy Awards last month.

    In a recent radio interview, Cyrus vented her anger at her one-time “favourite” band after they allegedly turned down an invitation to meet her back stage at the Grammys. She said: “I left ’cause I was so upset. I wasn’t going to watch. Stinkin’ Radiohead! I’m gonna ruin them, I’m going to tell everyone.”

    According to E! Online, Radiohead responded to her remarks by saying, “When Miley grows up, she’ll learn not to have such a sense of entitlement.” As it turns out, the band’s publicist reportedly issued the statement and not the band themselves. http://www.nme.com/news/radiohead/43453

    On a related note, a band called Easy Star All-Stars has a compilation of Radiohead covers on an album called “Radiodread”, it’s a really appealing, reggae sound featuring artists like Citizen Cope on classic Radiohead songs. You can listen to all the songs for free here: http://www.last.fm/music/Easy+Star+All-Stars/Radiodread