February 2009 Archives

...PomJob wins the Boca gift package. Congratulations!

The rest of you still have a chance to win the big prize of $5,000. I'm not giving that away though - you have to go enter at http://balancedliving.gather.com/ Just be sure to fill out your entry by this Friday, February 27th.

As for me, life is a little bit busy. I could perhaps use some of that balance that they are talking about over at gather.com. In the last week I have attended a wedding (lovely and romantic), had dinner with a friend (delightful), had dinner with my dad (somewhat frustrating), gone house hunting (both exciting and a wee bit terrifying), had lunch with my mom (yummy), gone to the dentist (two cavities and an abscessed tooth. Why do I have such horrible dental karma?), celebrated John's birthday (whee!), gotten assigned to a new project at work (a cool one, but a big change for me) and kept up all my usual activities besides. I'm tired. Last night I couldn't even make it through the Oscars - I kept falling asleep on the couch.

There is a lot brewing in this brain of mine. A proper post is coming, I promise. Until then: Bizy, Backson.

Bonus points to anyone who can identify that reference from one of my favorite pieces of literature :)

As anyone who has been reading here for a while knows, I’m a vegetarian. I’m also an enthusiastic user of Boca products, so when they invited me to a DC area blogger spa night, I was more than happy to go. Free spa services and a product I already use? Why yes, I’ll be there.

I got to meet Linda of Sundry Mourning, a site I’ve been reading since before I even had a blog, and I’m pleased to say she’s just as smart and funny in person as she is in her writing. Beth from So the Fish Said was there too, and it was nice to see her again. I have to admit that I’m a shy and somewhat awkward sort of person at these things, but for me I didn’t do too badly. I didn’t walk up to Linda and say “Hey, we both love kickboxing, True Blood and making zombie jokes! Want to be my new best friend?” and while I didn’t get to meet everyone who was there or get their blog names, I did have some interesting conversations and enjoyed my free massage. Also, they had Boca mini-sliders. I never get to eat the mini hamburgers, but I did this time!

The point of this spa night was to spread the word about an online community, Gather.com and a Boca Balanced Living contest they are running. You can read all about it here, but basically, the idea is that we are all looking for balance in our lives – I know I am – and right now you have the chance to win $5,000 to help you find that balance. Perhaps $5,000 would help you get out of debt and restore your peace of mind…or it would allow you to hire a babysitter and get to the gym twice a week…or pay someone to clean your house so you can spend quality time with your family. All you have to do is write a little essay about what you’d do with the $5,000 and submit it through their website by February 27.

Personally, I think I’d use $5,000 to hire a personal trainer so I can finally finish losing the weight I want to lose and move into the maintenance phase of being fit. Clearly, I either don’t work out efficiently enough, or I need someone to push me harder than I’ll push myself. Or maybe both. Gather.com actually looks like a pretty interesting site, and really, are you going to turn down the chance at $5,000? Go check it out!

Even better, you’ve got two chances to win stuff! Because even if you don’t win the $5,000, the Boca people gave me a gift bag of goodies to give away. Don’t worry, they gave me one for myself too. It has a handy reusable shopping bag that rolls up tiny and can be stored in a purse, a yoga mat, a date book (John is already mocking me for how much I love this date book, but I say he’s just jealous that he didn’t get any free stuff), coupons for Boca products, Boca recipes and more! All you have to do to get it is leave a comment by Friday, February 20, and I’ll pick a winner at random.

Special Bonus since we’re all Boca focused today – recipes where I’ve used actual Boca products:
Toad in the Hole
Stuffing with sausage

I can't believe I've never posted my recipe for Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie. Look for that coming soon.

The warm snap here continues, and continues to be awesome too, except for the part where it was at least 80 degrees in my office building today. One more reason to miss having an office with actual walls and a door - I used to have a somewhat noisy, somewhat ineffectual window unit I could turn on in hopes of regulating the temperature. Now we all suffer together, usually due to the arctic level of cold that pervades a massive open space with walls that are all windows.

Which is why, even though it was going to be in the sixties today, I wore a sweater, and long skirt, tights and knee high boots. It is extremely hard to concentrate on writing copy when you're sitting at your desk sweating. All of me was hot. My fingers were sticking to the keys as I typed. My hair frizzed. I think my feet even swelled up a bit. By the end of the day I gave up and took my boots off so my poor toes could breathe and just hoped that no one would notice.

Naturally, by the time they get the temperature sorted out, the weather will have returned to normal and we'll all be back to wearing scarves and coats at our desks. You just can't win.

• I have just realized that two of my favorite TV shows, Life on NBC and Lost on ABC are now scheduled against each other. The horror! Thank goodness for recording/downloading technology, because it is not fair to ask me to choose between Charlie Crews and Dani Reese and Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley et al.

• I would like to state, for the record, that in IVF embryos are not implanted into the woman's uterus. They are transferred. If the doctors could implant the embryos, IVF would have a 100% success rate. I really wish the people writing articles about this octuplet lady and her very irresponsible doctors would do some basic fucking research. The next time I read an article saying they implanted eight embryos, my head may very well explode.

• My workout streak continues, although I may have undercut the effectiveness of today's workout due to eating a cupcake. This was not just any cupcake though. It was organic and gourmet and purchased at a fancy bakery for a work celebration. It was also totally delicious and completely worth the calories. I have no regrets.

• Speaking of the gym, they've just renovated the one I go to, and now all these new people are clogging up the place. They actually had to turn someone away from my weight lifting class tonight, because they were out of the weight bars. I do not care for this development. And! And! There are these annoying people who have this fancy aerobics class after our class who are complete fanatics. They show up for their class half an hour early and line up outside the classroom, glaring in at us. We've had actual showdowns with them storming into our class while we're still cooling down or getting in our way as we try to put our equipment away. It got so bad that the gym powers that be moved their class start time back 15 minutes. Tonight they barged in anyway, even though their stupid class wasn't starting for another 12 minutes. Their teacher wasn't even there yet. Those freaks need to watch their backs is all I'm sayin'. It would be tragic if a weight fell on someone's foot or something. You know, in the mad scramble to get everything put away quickly.

• Excellent customer service saves the day. I was responsible for ordering flowers for someone on my team. I ordered from ProFlowers and did not have the greatest experience, as the flowers arrived very late in the day. Not only that, but I got an email saying the flowers had been delivered when they had not yet arrived. So I sent them an email expressing my discontent, and they refunded the delivery charge and offered me free replacement flowers. I didn't need the replacement flowers since they did eventually get delivered, but I was quite pleased with their decision to refund the shipping charge. And just like that, they've earned my repeat business. That's the way to run a company.

• ...yeah, that's all I've got.

On Friday I noticed that my little "Thinking" area in the side bar had gotten sadly out of date. So, seeing as how I was cold, I threw up my little ready for winter to be over rant.

Well, winter is not over, but it was 65 degrees here yesterday. 65! I got to go outside without a coach, which is one of the items I said I wanted. It was awesome. In fact, I'd go so far as to describe it as super awesome. I didn't quite do the Julie Andrews/Sound of Music twirl, but that's pretty much how I felt inside. I love you warm weather.

Of course now I'm tempted to put a request for 10 million dollars in my sidebar. Must not use newfound powers for personal gain. I guess I'll just settle for enjoying the weather again today. It won't be quite as nice, and I'll be stuck inside at work, but maybe I can get out at lunchtime.

What are you wishing for these days?

So far so good with Fitness February. I'm giving myself an A for week one. I made it to the gym for weights on Monday, cardio on Tuesday, kickboxing on Wednesday and Spinning class last night. And as I suspected would happen, there were no accidents on 270 as I was driving home last night. So I guess that is the agreement - I go to the gym, and the highways stay clear. Watch out for next Thursday, because I have plans after work and won't be able to go to the gym. But! I do plan to work out in the morning instead, so perhaps we'll get a reprieve.

Don't believe me? I got up early and did 30 Day Shred this morning because I have to run some errands after work tonight. I'm feeling very virtuous, and surprisingly energized. Morning exercise can go either way with me, because I am just not a morning person. Luckily, today went the good way, and I do not feel the urge to immediately return to bed. Facing Jillian first thing in the morning is tough though.

Overall, getting back on my workout schedule has me feeling great, if a little sore. I need to find a way to bottle this feeling and pull it out when I start getting lazy. Perhaps this note will help:

Dear Future Self,

You like everything better when you work out. Stop making excuses, get off the couch, and go exercise! It will be worth it.

Love,
February 2009 Self

While everyone else was resolving to get fit at the beginning of the year and heading to the gym in droves, my resolution seems to have been to see how unfit I could get in a month. I think I made it to the gym five or six times in January. Through a combination of holidays, snowy/icy days, just not feeling well, and having an overwhelming urge to just get home at the end of the day, I really fell off the exercise wagon in January. I wasn't working out at home either. I did that maybe two or three times.

Even as it was happening, I said to myself, why are you doing this? You'll feel better if you go to the gym. Just go. After the first 10 minutes or so, you'll get into it. Or I'd tell myself I know the basement is freezing, but it won't be once you get down there and start doing one of your videos, dummy. But for some reason, my motivation just wasn't there. So I have declared February to be the month to get my old routine back. I started last night, going to my usual Monday night weight lifting class. I'll continue it tonight and do some cardio, either elliptical or the treadmill.

There, I've declared my intentions in front of the entire Internet. That ought to motivate my (currently embiggening) ass.