Life, The Universe, & Everything

Originally uploaded by tbeighs

Kristi at gritty-sweet posted photos of her shoe collection and challenged her readers to do the same. This was actually a fun project, and I felt the need to warn Tim before he got home to “not be alarmed by all the shoes on his bar.”

I’m not surprised at what I see in this picture. I’ve always been a shoe person. In fact, I recently threw away 13 pairs. Plus, I have 2 pairs I am considering returning. These are not pictured here.

What I learned from this endeavor:

1- When I find a shoe I like, I buy it in every damn color.
2- I really like polka dots. There are 5 pairs with dots.
3- I have a lot of heels, vs flats.
4- I own a lot of black shoes and also a lot of black & white shoes.
5- Singular colors: 1 red (patent, top right), 1 green (espadrille, top left). I did just throw away 2 pairs of red shoes though.

The bulk of the makeup at ELF is priced at $1 today. http://www.eyeslipsface.com/ Get shoppin!

I went to the gym as soon as I got up this morning. Well after emptying the dishwasher. This past weekend, Tim made corn salsa and marinated some skirt steaks and used every dish in our kitcken for food prep. I didn’t say a word to him, since the salsa was for my family anyway. I just hand washed some of the mess and threw the rest in the dishwasher. Anyway.

I went to the gym as soon as I woke up this morning. Monday morning. Go me! I am finding that if I say “it’s only Monday so I can worry about exercise later in the week” it sets a very bad, I skip an entire week of exercise precedent. If there is any chance to finish a week strong, I find I need to start my weeks strong.

I am sure the 30 minutes on the Cybex and the 25 on the ellpitical will kick up the muscle pain, but I am hoping to head back for hip hop aerobics and a run tomorrow.

So it’s Sunday and I’m creating a grocery list and planning weekly meals while listening to a saxphone muscian play underneath my window. It’s not so bad. The sun is shining and we are enjoying the cool breezes through the open windows.

I am, however, rather depressed today. Dealing with my family (who I acknowledge I’m very lucky to have) is oftentimes hurtful. We were hoping to spend the day with my family instead they were quiet and rude at our requests, then realized their mistake when we backed out. What resulted was a big vat o’drama that I wanted nothing to do with. And my sister gets involved and doesn’t respect my boundries at all. There’s more to it, but it’s always the same. It leaves me feeling hurt and unwanted - especially compared to my siblings. It makes me want to take a huge step back from everything.

Anyway, this comes on the heels of what was a great week away in San Juan. Tim and I both went into the trip with some preconceived notions but instead we really had a wonderful time. Many of our plans fell to pot as we often decided to just relax our days away at the pool, nap in the afternoon, go out to dinner late, and then hit the casino. I came home with a tan and 1k won at the craps table! Not so bad. We also bumped into Bill Clinton in Old San Juan, literally. The Clintons were in Puerto Rico campaigning for the 55 delegate votes. We constantly kept missing Hillary. First at a speech at the government building, and secondly at her PR headquaters, across the street from our hotel. Granted we didn’t seek her out, but it was funny that we were always 1 step behind.

So now it’s back to the grind. I did not sign up for bootcamp this go-around. I missed the first week because of our PR vacation and although the instructor said he would prorate my price, I am struggling with 2 things. First, he added an additional instructor, an accomplished female trainer/runner, and I just don’t love her. Second, 5am mornings are very tough, week after week after week. He is doing a 9am session in July so that is more appealing. We shall see.

This leaves me to going back to the gym, and with the summer heat fast approaching, I believe I prefer it to bootcamp outside in the heat. This week my plan is to exercise 4 times. Unfortuately if I don’t schedule exercise like an appointment, I won’t do it. This week it’s Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. 4 hours of cardio and 2 hours of weights. My other goal for this week is to write down everything I eat. Now that vacation is over I’m back to attempting points. This will be my first real points experiment in years. I am curious to see how it goes.

Last week I was in Providence, RI where my parents verbally abused each other, embarssed all of us, and hurricaned an entire restaurant/hotel lobby while my sister demanded we put her at the center of the universe. It was, to say the very least, emotionally draining. When I got home I sat in the living room in total silence, for hours. My brother called me today to say “they sucked the life out of the room.” I couldn’t agree more. I did manage to spill a glass of champagne on my stepmother. I had to keep myself from laughing, yet mourning. RIP delicious bubbly.

The weekend prior with my mother for her birthday and mother’s day was lovely. I miss my mother all the time.

Tim is in Chicago for work. Today I ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory alone. Not sure what that was about. I was shopping and exhausted and the house is empty and it has no food, I guess. If you call martinis dinner, that is.

I’ve been shopping a lot lately. Why is that every shirt looks like pregnancy attire? It’s so impossible to find clothes I like?

In other news, I’m upset with myself for exercising only 2-3 times a week. And we leave for Puerto Rico in 2 days. On the train back from RI I started a packing list, only to be dumbfounded by all the clothes I forgot I have (all sitting in my closet). I am packing my exercise clothes. I just want to workout 4 times a week. 5 would be outstanding, but I’m not pushing it.

I got home from work at 6pm and inhaled an apple and now I am sipping on an espresso. I’m transitioning to counting points for awhile. It’s been a rough few days.

I toyed with whether or not I’d share this here, I think because in the world of diet blogging, WW isn’t something the hardcore cool kids do. After pondering it for awhile, I realized I don’t give a shit what them bitches think about me anymore.

In 2002 I lost a lot of weight and learned a hellofa alot about healthy eating on Weight Watchers. In fact I will credit WW for (initially) teaching me how to eat right. As time wore on, my WW meetings evolved into discussions about which processed food products would calculate out to less points. Back in 2002, WW did not have its name on brownies and cupcakes and muffins and breads and such — not like they do now (these processed pieces of crap irritate the shit out of me too, but that’s a completely different gripe). At some point it occured to me that losing weight was not about which English muffin is 3.5 points instead of 5. It’s safe to say I slowly grew disenchanted with the program. Or perhaps, I just burnt out on it. I will tell you that towards the end of that run, I felt like WW simply wasn’t enough food. Period. I was a hardcore exerciser then (it’s an easy habit for me to overdue) and I wasn’t eating any of my exercise points. The past few years have taught me how fucking stupid that was. If you are working out like a madwoman, burning 1000 calories a day at the gym, you need to eat more food, comprende?

For numerous reasons, I’ve been toying with the idea of re-trying WW for awhile now. First and foremost is that it worked for me in the past, and I want to experiment with the program as it is now (something significantly different than my last go around — more on that later). Secondly, I am inspiried by a few people I know who have recently been very successful on WW. Third, I’m bored and ready to change it up.

The program has certainly evolved since 2002. You can no longer bank points. Plus, they’ve introduced the core eating plan. Kudos to them for that. Right now, I am counting points as a bit of an experiement and the numbers game is interesting — especially when you compare it to the plan Sparkpeople recommended for me. On WW, if I eat my daily alloted points, plus the 35 flex points a week, I am consuming approximately 1400 calories a day. Note that does not count 0 point vegetables. So hey, I can eat 1400 calories and a huge ass salad at lunch plus some broccoli with dinner. I am also allowed to swap out exercise points for additional food (and frankly I no idea how to count “bootcamp” in the WW activity tracker). These numbers (if I calorie count the veggies) put me at the high range of my suggested Spark people daily intake. Interesting, no?

I picked a challenging month for this experiment, as I am traveling 3 times in May. In fact we leave on Saturday for Florida. My mother is turning 60 on mother’s day and I wanted to be there for it. My plan is combat the festivities by journaling my food and upping my exercise.

Truth be told, I’m curious to see if I will be a Weight Watchers convert in a few months time. Right now I am a bit wary, but cautiously optimistic.

Last week I only got 12 hours of sleep. I was that busy with work. I managed to make it to bootcamp 2 out of 3 times though. There were a few nights where I was so tired I was fighting a headache and snapping at everyone in my way. Plus, my business partner is still MIA. I spent weeks being worried, then hurt, then angry, then apathetic about it - now I’m (pleasantly) relieved. My last project went so smoothly and it was because he wasn’t involved. I also made a lot more money, as I didn’t have to split it with him. I have been forming relationships with consultants and for this past project I outsourced his part. It saved me thousands of dollars. I have also put the ball in motion to dismantle that entity and create my own. I feel really good about it all. I also informed my day job that I plan to leave prior to 2009. Hopefully I actually can!

I’ll be busy straight through till June. This weekend we are going to Florida for my mother’s 60th birthday which also happens to fall on mother’s day. It was initially a surpise but my step father spilled the beans. I am so disappointed about that.

The following week Timmah is going to Chicago for work and I am taking the train to Providence, RI for my sister’s college graduation.

The last week in May week we are flying to Puerto Rico for an actual vacation. This will be our first vacation in months. The last Saturday in May we were supposed to attend a BBQ but my SIL reminded me it’s a good friends birthday. Now I have to figure out how to get out of the BBQ. My friend who planned actually planned it around our schedule too.

This is our last weekend home till the end of May, so we spent the whole weekend doing chores and running errands. We unearthed all the summer clothes, then did 16 loads of laundry. Tomorrow I begin another huge project. There’s bootcamp 3 days, and we fly to Florida on Saturday AM. I just stocked the house with healthy foods for the week too.

It seems the busier I am, the more I get done.

I know it’s been quiet around here but there’s been a lot going on. Bootcamp restarts in 12 days and I made a promise to myself that I would not waste the progress I gained there. I have some instense work deadlines this week so on Sunday I created a schedule that included exercise, meals, and work. Of course it’s only day 3, but I’ve stuck to it. On Monday I worked 12 hours, ran 2 miles, and ate perfectly healthy. Tuesday was the same but I worked 15 hours. Today is a scheduled exercise rest day and tomorrow I need to fit in an hour of cardio somewhere between a 10:45am doctors appointment, 5 hours at the office, and a 7pm work meeting. I guess I need to hit the gym at around 8am. So be it.

Sure life is chock full o’stress, but today at bootcamp I improved my mile by 1.32 minutes.  That’s right, at 5:45am, I ran a 10:44 minute mile. 

Ever since Trish introduced me to her FHI Heat Hair Straightener I’ve been waiting to get one for myself. My hair is very thin and if I let it dry naturally it’s frizzy and and moderately curly in spots. If I blow it out it’s a huge frizzy mess. Also, my hair is so thin I have to wash it every single day. For the past 6 years, I’ve been straighetening my hair with a $40 ceramic straightener (and prior to that a metal plate version). My FHI arrived today and never was I so excited to take a shower and do my hair. The best part is that after I tried Trish’s FHI I was surprised to learn my hair looked just as good the following day. Seriously, I think FHI should pay Trish and I for all the positive PR we’ve been giving them.