Blue skies smiling at me

No more rain. A calm day in and out of the office. A 45 minute climb with no breaks in my lunchtime spin class. Getting up in the morning is getting harder and harder with my muscles becoming stiff overnight. A.M. yoga isn't doing much to help with the soreness, but I am determined to get my body back in shape and become the gym rat I once was. Another quiet night in. I don't want to spend money and yet I am lonely being home all alone. I feel like I am slipping back into my old habits of work, gym, home, work, gym, home. However, I find that it does give me time to enjoy the things I love though. Like catching up on my Fall TV shows, staying up to wee hours reading a good book, listening to the latest hip hop songs and dancing along to the music videos, and just relaxing (which makes me feel guilty that I'm being so lazy). I do enjoy these peaceful days though and I love having the time to myself. With that said, this weekend I am getting out of the city to enjoy the country and hopefully do some apple picking, some hiking through the forest and spending time with my family away from home :) I can only live so much in my head before it drives me nuts, after all, I am a social creature who craves interpersonal face-to-face communication.

Cooking while it rains

Another wet day in New England. I love the rain, but I hate fighting the wind with my umbrella and getting my backpack all wet. I have been sleeping so soundly lately, it feels so good! My computer is still being worked on at work, so there wasn't much for me to do today. I took my weight class during lunch and decided that tonight would be cooking night, seeing I was too tired to cook on Sunday. So, this is what my kitchen looks like when I cook. I cook a couple different things at once; goal is to have enough dishes for the work week. Tonight I cooked my spaghetti squash, spaghetti, my special creamy tomato artichoke heart sauce, some garlic bread and brown rice. After my latest doctor's appointment, I made a promise to start eating better. I've noticed I don't eat all that much, but when I get hungry I grab crap instead of fruits or veggies. So, I'm making a change. On top of going to the gym everyday during the workweek, I am going to do my best to make sure I am eating throughout the day, and eating good stuff (not cookies or chips) while also avoiding a huge meal at 8 o'clock at night. My goal is to lose at least 15 pounds by the time I go home for the holidays. I really want to lose 25, but that's a bit unrealistic. When my BMI says I'm mildly overweight, you bet I'm gonna fight hard to get back to a health weight. So here's to first day of changing for the better...instead of baking while it rains, I cooked enough food for the next 4-5 days and divided them up into portion control containers.

Bugs

Sometimes I wish my daddy were here, some bugs just gross me out and wish he could kill them for me...like this disgusting bug I found on my ceiling above my bed. I've seen one of these in the bathroom once before and they are gross!! And try taking a photo while in zoom (b/c I wanted to get a photo and the ceiling is so high) and oh my goodness...I squealed like a girl. I did kill it, but ugck! This wasn't the only bug I encountered today. At work, my computer shut down while I was in the middle of doing a few different things and then when it restarted, I couldn't access my email, the internet or anything on the network (or my documents). IT worked on it for a few hours with no success. So, yes, I really enjoyed today. Rain (heavy mist), late for a doctors appointment, got weighed and am extremely pissed off at how much I weigh, 30 minutes late for work b/c of being late to my doctor's appointment, spinned my ass off in spin class during lunch, broke my computer, cleaned out the kitchen at work, watched some Oprah with Martha Stewart, went home and ate some apple cake and popcorn while watching "Killers" (Kutcher is so hot!) and then...killed the bug above my bed. Now I can sleep and see what adventures await me tomorrow.

The Abbey

Tonight a couple girlfriends and I met at The Abbey, which will be my new watering hole for the winter! I love the intimate atmosphere and was not disappointed with the food or the prices. I love supporting Damian (my favorite Irish bartender from Washington Square Tavern). It's a cozy little place, with a small, but tasty menu. There was so much I wanted to try, so I know I will be coming back. I had a salad with pomegranate and cucumbers and truffle fries. Then we all had some Scotch at the end of the meal as we continued our conversation about wine, cool weather and get-together's. We each ordered a different Scotch and shared. I had the most in my glass for some reason, a McClelland 12yr, and the others were Glenkinchie (which I thought was stronger than mine) and Glenmorangie 10yr. We all had it on the rocks, which I think I prefer because the ice melts and it's not as strong. The general consensus was that mine was the strongest, maybe that's why I feel so relaxed and warm :) It was a good night out with the girls. The weather is cool and that misty rain started up while we were eating dinner, but after the Scotch, nothing can ruin my night...not even if the Dolphins beat the Patriots.

Practice Games of Bowling

Today me and my teammate went bowling. First we met the new bartender Dan, who replaced Rebecca, one of the girls we always saw during the league. Second, we wanted to order the blue cheese chips and found out they took them off the menu, around the same time Rebecca left!! Boo!!! We were kind of making a scene (all in good fun) and decided to try their pretzel dippers, which were gross. The pretzels were good but the garlic butter was solid so not dip friendly and the cheese was like fake nacho jalapeno cheese, ick! Three games we bowled, and let me tell you... I was not on my A game today...nor my B game for that matter. I did bowl over 100 once, but the other two games I'm not going to talk about. I think it had to do with my pants being too tight so I wasn't able to move like I normally do (note to self: wear different pants next time b/c these jeans were bad news).

While we were bowling one of the gals that works there came up to us to ask if we had heard anything anything about the league. I was telling her how I was online a couple weeks ago and so far nothing had been posted. She said they weren't sure they were going to do the league but then her manager informed them the other day that there will be a league and she said sometime this month it would start up. Another cool change is they will be allowed to serve alcohol at 11am during the first game time this year (last year they couldn't until noon), so now the teams that bowl first can drink during their game. When I got home I looked online and saw that they will be having a league that will start up November 14th (of course that's the weekend I will be in NC!) and sign-ups begin later this week. I'm pretty excited and have been looking forward to bowling regularly since the spring. Now I must come up with a team name and start recruiting players...and also start practicing more so I don't weigh the team down...anything under 100 does not fly for me.

Oktoberfest

Today I hosted my first Oktoberfest. German, Oktoberfest and Pumpkin beers plus German food...did I mention beer? We had some Oktoberfest music (polka music and other German songs) streaming from an Oktoberfest music site. Bratwurst, German Potato Salad, German Apple Cake and German Chocolate Cake, black licorice cats candy, gummy bears, red cabbage, Pumpernickel bread with Nutella, a variety of Gouda cheeses with Ritz and some German rye crackers which were pretty bland and described as “healthy tasting” and some soft pretzels. It was an evening full of food, beer, games and laughter. I am sore from all the laughing I did. We had beer spill in the living room during the game of Taboo and numerous times during our second session of the card/drinking game “Kings”, which was another Boston First for me. Never played Kings before, and we did make up our own rules because some of us (me included) are lightweights, we just couldn’t drink as much as the game calls for. We ended up combining Trivial Pursuit cards and the Scattergories die into the card game. I was singled out quite a few times during the “Never have I ever” cards, but I had a blast! So much fun, we drank so much beer and am pleased I no longer have an entire shelf in the fridge full of beer. Everyone brought a 6-pack, so we had over 66 bottles of beer and drank all but 4 between 3:30-11:00pm. I am hoping to not get sick, and just took some Advil for a headache I now have. But overall, I would say it was a success. Of course, I did clean the apartment before everyone came over and it may sound strange but it makes it so much easier and fun to clean up after a party when the place was clean and organized prior. All I had to do was throw the trash out, put all the recyclables together and load the dishes into the dishwasher… a piece of cake. In less than 30 minutes after the group departed, the place was pretty much back to normal.

Out with Old Friends

Well, the rain I have waited for since Thursday morning finally arrived, but it had to be when I was all ready to go out downtown with one of my old coworkers and his fiance. I actually took time to get ready tonight, something I miss doing. It was exciting meeting up with old friends, people who knew me as a newbie to Boston. It was kind of weird going back to the old office, having a beer and catching up with J while we waited for his fiance to arrive. (Weird only in the sense that the last time I was in that office was when I was let go.)

We walked to Faneuil Hall (while it was raining) and ate at Anthem. It was not busy for a Friday night, and we ended up having the entire second floor to ourselves. A little over 3 hours we spent catching up and eating. I was so busy talking when they cleared our plates that I didn't mention I wanted to take my mac n cheese to go (I hardly ate any of it b/c I was full of my fried green tomato and cheese salad I ordered). Slightly disappointed about that because the mac n cheese was really good. The music was great, a little bit of everything and you had to catch yourself before you sang along out loud. It was so fun hanging out with old friends and we figured out the last time we saw each other was about a year ago at Marliave (see older post). Memories kept flooding back to a time I was happy and going out having way too much fun with the guys... J's fiance even reminded us of the time J called my sister and talked to her while he was drunk...I can't wait to see if my sister and brother-in-law remember that, lol... good times! I promise to not let another year go by before seeing them again.