Don't Tell Me

Colin and I went apartment hunting this weekend. It was interesting to look in Harlem, which is quite different than the neighborhoods we've lived in Brooklyn, including Brooklyn Heights, Clinton Hill and Williamsburg. So we found two places that we really liked and put in an application at one. The one we have an application in is located in East Harlem. I dare not give out the address in public yet, lest someone snatch the apartment out from under us! It's crazy all the documentation they want, you'd think we were buying the place, not just renting it. We pounded the pavement a lot this weekend looking from 114 - 140 on the East and West side. There is not question that the west side is nicer, but they are for the most part only building condos on the west side. Although I did find a 1 bedroom on the west side, which I'll put an application at if this place falls through. Colin and I have an interview on Friday with the building, keep you fingers crossed for us!

Chariots and Radar

I have not gotten to the gym this week. And although it may seem like I'm making excuses, I'm really not. Our gym is 1.1 miles from our house. It's the closest gym in our neighborhood, so we had no other choice. When I get off the train when I'm coming home from work it's 0.8 miles, so it's not quite as bad of a hike. But this week has been pretty unbearable. Monday was bitter cold, Tuesday it was raining, Wednesday and Thursday it was snowing. I'll try to go today, but I'll still have to trudge through over a foot of snow, which is highly unpleasant. Even though I haven't made it to the gym, I've been eating well. So although I haven't lost any weight (at least I don't think that I have) I am still sticking to my proper eating habits. I'll find out if in three weeks I've lost any weight next Tuesday when I see Samantha again. Or the next time I go to the gym, which will definitely be before that time.

Colin and I are moving again March 1. We were going to wait until March 15, but I don't think I can stay in the apartment we currently rent for that long. Plus there's no reason to wait if we don't have to and moving in on the 1st is a lot easier than moving on the 15th. Originally we were thinking about moving to Astoria because we like the neighborhood and the apartments offer more space for less money. But then either him or I got the bright idea to look in Harlem. We've always thrown around the idea to live in Manhattan, but didn't think that we could afford it. Some people wouldn't consider Harlem Manhattan, but we do, so we are trying to move to Harlem. The reason we like Harlem so much is that we can live in a nicer, new building for almost the same as what we're paying now. The buildings we are looking at this weekend all have a gym, laundry room, and other amenities for <$1600/month. If that isn't a deal in NYC I don't know what is a deal! We have three appointments on Saturday and two on Sunday. That should give us a nice selection and I plan to measure and take pictures of everything.

Other than that the weekend is open for paper writing and submitting my application to teachnyc!

Have a good weekend everyone.

Song of the Day: Radar- Britney Spears

Roses

So I fell off the wagon a bit this weekend. But to be honest, I'm 26 and sometimes I just want to have a good time and be a little wreckless. I had drinks on Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday day. I over did it a bit, but it's one weekend and I will not let it discourage me and throw me off track any longer. I have good food's in my refrigerator and will start eating them again along with getting my butt back to the gym, I haven't been since Friday.

I have to go to DC for work, but I intend fully to eat well and workout, even if that means I have to get up early and go. Eating in hotels can be difficult, but I'm sure I will be fine or I can go out and find something around me that's healthy. I don't see my dietitian for three weeks, so this is my opportunity to do well and lose as much weight as possible in the next three weeks. I think my issue is that I got too discouraged that I hadn't lost more weight in a month. I know my previous post sounded excited about the 15 pounds, which I was, but for some reason this weekend I let myself get discouraged. I will do my best to not let that happen again.

I also need help at the gym. I do 1 hour of cardio every time I go. No weight lifting yet because all of my muscles are covered by fat, so even if they did get bigger, no one would be able to tell yet. I rotate four machines: 30 minutes of uphill walking, bike, elliptical and arc trainer. There are a few other machines that I'm intimidated by, but I want to try them eventually. What else can I do to get cardio exercise? I can't really run on the treadmill because I have shin splints. But I would like to initiate more cardio because the same four machines get boring and don't wok enough different muscle groups. If I had extra money I would go to a spinning class because the YMCA I'm currently a member of does not have spinning. Spinning is absolutely my favorite exercise. If I was a better swimmer I would swim, but I'm only a mediocre swimmer at best. Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'm learning to love the gym again.

Suga Suga

It's been an interesting week. Even though I've been sleeping enough, I've felt exceptionally exhausted. Not just tired, but literally exhausted; falling asleep at my desk exhausted. I saw Samantha, my dietitian on Wednesday. This week we discussed sodium intake. I'm learning so much from her. I learned that the average woman should take in less than 1500 mg of sodium/day. And there is a lot of sodium in foods! She already had me reading food labels, but now I'm looking at how much sodium is in any given product and most products that you wouldn't expect to have sodium definitely have it. For example I bought whole grain cous cous last night from a package. A single serving has 680 mg of sodium. If you're keep track that's more than 1/3 of the sodium I'm supposed to have in a single day! Keeping my sodium intake low will be difficult, but I'm up for the challenge.

TGIF: I'm going out dancing with my friend tonight. It supposed to be super cold, but I hope my liquid jacket will keep me warm :-) Tomorrow Colin and I are going to look at an apartment in Astoria and then we're going to walk around to see what buildings are being constructed and if there are any deals like "1 month free rent" going on. We already found one place in our price range with one month free rent, but we can't move until March 15 because we're just too busy; Colin's taking the bar in mid/late February and I'm taking my certification exam on February 19th. I'm also going out of town April 1-3 so we can't move that weekend either, so that leaves us with either now or March 15 and we decided to stay put until it warms up just slightly. After we look at apartments on Saturday, Colin's friend is having a birthday part. This reminds me that Colin's birthday is coming up next Saturday. He doesn't particularly care for birthdays so I'm not sure if he'll want to go out or anything. Also since his birthday is so close to Christmas I never know what to get him. I'll come up with something small and cute, although I have no idea what I'm going to get him at this point.

I finally got to the grocery store last night. My downfall of not eating well is definitely when I get lazy and don't go to the grocery store. This week I did well with breakfast everyday, but lunch and dinner were a struggle. Since I didn't go grocery shopping last weekend I had to eat lunch and dinner at takeout places, which is really bad. I did ok eating rice noodles a few nights and chipotle burrito bowl one night, but overall I felt like I was taking in too many calories. So I fell off the wagon a bit but going to the grocery store always helps me get back on track. Also I didn't get to go to the gym as much as I would have liked this week. I went Monday and I'm going today, but other things got in my way on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Hopefully I'll get to go tomorrow, but I have a doctors appointment and we're looking at apartments so if I'm going to go it will have to be before therapy, which makes for an early day on Saturday, which isn't fun, but we'll see; I'll do my best to fit it in to my schedule.

The rest of the weekend I will be doing "homework". I have to study for my exam in February, work on my NYC teacher application and work on my ARP. Busy weekend!

Song of the Day: Ice Cream Paint Job- Dorrough

Fell on Bright Days

I'm finally feeling better. I still, that's right still, have a little bit of a cough, but it's nothing like it was last week. I got back to the gym for the first time yesterday and that felt good. I haven't mentioned my weight loss progress, but I'm comfortable doing that now. In one month and two days I have lost 15 pounds. Yes, I know, I was sick part of that time, so I cannot attribute all of my good fortune to hard work, but I think a lot of it was from hard work I've accomplished while working out. Now I really need to kick it into high gear to lose another 15 pounds in the next 30 days, lofty, but I'm up for the challenge.

Short update today. More to follow this week.

Stiches

I've still been sick all this week. That makes a full two weeks of illness. I went to the doctor on Monday and she said it sounds like I had a stomach flu followed by the flu. Leave it to me to get two illnesses at once! No matter, I am finally feeling better and should be able to get back tot he gym next week. I cheated a bit this week- only once- by having pizza and chicken wings, but it was the only thing I got to eat all day, so I figure it wasn't as terrible as it could have been. I feel it's better to fall off the wagon early, remember why I'm doing this and then get right back on the wagon, which is what I've done. I didn't see my dietitian this week because I was so sick and I didn't want to spread my germs to more people than necessary. I also took Tuesday off of work to rest at home, which was the right decision. I came into work on Wednesday mildly refreshed. Now it's Thursday and I am feeling much better. I know I'm feeling better because I had two glasses of red wine with dinner last night! I still have a cough, but it's nothing like it was even earlier this week.

This Saturday I am going to buy my bridesmaid dress for my friends wedding in May with another friend from high school. While we shop, her fiance and Colin are going to hang out together, probably at our place. We plan to have dinner and drinks with them later that evening. Those are my only plans for the weekend because I plan to dig into my ARP this weekend. I really have to start working on it if I want to finish near May/June.

I also need to buy a plane ticket to Chicago for April!!!! I'm spending my 27th birthday with my bff :-) Us Aries do it up in style baby. I should buy it soon because prices have already gone up since December. If I had the money, I would have bought the ticket then and there, but no matter, I can still get it for less than 200$.

I miss my grandmother. I wish I got to see her more often. I didn't realize until I was getting on the bus to Detroit how much I would miss her. It's always too late when I realize how much I'm going to miss her. If Colin and I do end up moving back to Michigan, then I will be able to see her more often; drive home every few weeks to spend a weekend with her. Right now it's just too expensive to fly to see her. But I don't want to look up one day and say "shoulda, coulda, woulda". I will make more of an effort to see her more often. Teaching pays more than I'm earning now so that should help me to see her more often. I feel for her because I wish I could help her more, with auntie Jean and with our house. Maybe in a few years when I've paid off some of my student loans a little more. Life is such a trip.

Song of the Day: Criminal- Fiona Apple

Glamorous

It's been a while since I updated because I've been relatively sick over the past week. Two Thursdays ago I woke up with a fever of 102 after being violently ill the night before at dinner with some friends. Needless to say I spent my last day in NYC in bed trying to recover before my flight to Cleveland the next day. I recovered enough to get on the flight and quickly resumed my sickness at home. I self-diagnosed myself with a stomach flu and chest congestion, but I've been sick for so long (still sick today folks) that Colin thinks that I have pneumonia, which is entirely possible.

I had a nice time in Cleveland with the family, although Aunt Jean smokes so much I'm sure that's what kept me sick and vomiting at home. I feel sad for my grandmother because she doesn't get out as much as she'd like to during the day. Aunt Jean won't leave the house, so Ma has to stay with her most of the time, unless my brother agrees to stay with her. My grandmother was nice enough to buy me a new dress and new shoes for Christmas so I'd have something new to wear for New Years Eve. I absolutely LOVED the stunning dress she chose, which is unusual because we have very different tastes in clothes. But the cake topper was my shoes! I absolutely fell in love with a pair of over the top heels! Black with a bow on the front. Pictures of the dress and the crazy evening we had to follow.

I had fun in Michigan as well. I was hoping that I'd be better by New Years, but no such luck! I was still sick and coughing, but had a blast with my girls, Colin, Jim and Avdo. We danced the night away at the Fillmore with some great folks and I met some of Colin's friends friends, who were super nice and I had a great time with them as well. There were so many people that evening at the Fillmore! It was damn near impossible to get a drink, but trust me, I was able to use all of my drink tickets and had a good buzz going for the evening. The following day Mari was kind enough to make us all breakfast at her pad. There I got to see more of my friends that I missed the night before.

Now I'm back in NYC, still sick and back at work, not looking forward to my first full week of work, only because I'm still sick and could use a few more days to recover at home :-(