hey motivation, where did you go?

I've been back in the real world now for almost 3 weeks and I'm still having trouble motivating to get back to my schedule of eating right and exercising most days of the week. I figured this might be a problem before we left for vacation, but I felt good when we got back and was ready to jump back into things. Or so I thought. Ever since, I've been stuggling. I've worked out some, I've sort of been eating healthy, but really it's been half-baked attempts at both. I gained a few lbs. on vacation and while I haven't gained anymore, I also have lost those extra souvenirs I brought home with me either. And I'm starting to get bummed about it.

I know that I just need to do it and stop making excuses, but for some reason this is a real challenge right now. I was feeling really good about the strides I was making before we left and now I just feel schlumpy (is that even a word?). Okay, vent over. Hopefully I'll have a more uplifting update next week.

On a brighter note, last night I was working out with my trainer and instead of just doing weights, he added in a set of shuttle runs. Now, I've never played sports so that term sort of went over my head, but a good definition can be found here. I am usually reluctant to want to do cardio stuff with my trainer b/c the idea of paying someone to watch me run just seems silly. At least with the weights we are always doing something new that I haven't seen before and would likely not be doing on my own. However, these shuttle runs were *gasp* actually fun! Those of you who have played sports and had to do these are probably thinking "sure, they're fun for a few sets... try doing them for an entire practice and then talk to me". Which, I'm sure you're right. But, it was nice way to shake-up our session last night.

Memememe ... again.

So, I got tagged by a whole gaggle of gals (alyssa, tater and kenna) to do this meme. Guess it's time to get crackin' on it!

Four Jobs I've Had In My Life

1. Office assistant at a corporate dental office --- my very first job at 14!
2. Salesgirl/Cashier at Nordstroms --- the discount was so much fun.
3. Dance teacher at my old dance studio --- taught tap to little kids.
4. Office manager for a small dermatology office --- worked my way from lowly med. asst to basically running the place.

Four Movies I Can Watch Over And Over

1. Office Space
2. Dirty Dancing
3. Pretty Woman
4. Shawshank Redemption

Four TV Shows I Like To Watch

**I'd like to note that based on my previous post about my love of TV, obviously choosing just 4 is too hard. **

1. Grey's Anatomy
2. Biggest Loser
3. Heroes
4. Lost

Four Places I Have Vacationed

1. London
2. Paris
3. Italy
4. Maui

Four Of My Favorite Dishes (I'll give it the twist of listing stuff that I make at home)

1. Pan-seared filet mignon w/creamy mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus
2. Salmon and Asparagus in Parchment w/white rice
3. Turkey Tacos
4. Turkey Chili

Four Places I'd Rather Be

1. Home in bed
2. On a beach in Hawaii
3. In a cafe in Italy sipping espresso and people watching
4. Shopping in SD with my friend K

Four Websites I Visit Daily

1. Google
2. Gmail
3. Hotmail
4. CNN

I think everyone I know has already been tagged to do this but here goes anyways:
Gimme Skinny -- fellow sparker that is gearing up for a half marathon.
Paved with Good Intentions -- a foodie whose blog is filled with so many yummy pictures of meals she cooks that I drool all over myself while reading her blog.
random thoughts on a daily basis -- my dear friend wan just had a baby so i know she has tons of free time on her hands and would love to fill this out ;)

Shopping and cooking and cleaning, oh my!

Yup, that pretty much sums up my weekend.

Shopping

• After work I hit up Target for a new shower curtain and bathmat (it was time to replace them) and Best Buy for a USB memory card reader and the Grey's Anatomy vol. 3 sountrack. I highly recommend picking it up -- lots of really great tunes including previously unreleased tracks from John Legend (Sun Comes Up) and Matt Kearney (Breathe In Breathe Out) and a song written especially for the season finale from Ingrid Michaelson (Keep Breathing).
• Later that night the hubs and I had "date night" at Costco. When I told my co-workers about this, many of them let me know that they often do this with their significant others too. Nice to know we're in good company. We stocked up on wine, chicken, cereal, chips, a few new books, season 6 of Gilmore Girls (for me), eye drops (for him) and a fresh baked pizza for dinner. Can't beat 9.95 for a pizza the size of a small country.
• Saturday I swung by the new AG Jeans store in Beverly Hills and picked up 2 new pairs of jeans. Woohoo! The salesgirl was really nice and very helpful, even bringing me a bottle of water when I started having a coughing fit in the dressing room. After a stop at Denim Doctors this week to nip in the waist, they will be perfect! Thank you Oprah for bringing my attention to the Club fit --- my backside will be forever grateful.
• That afternoon I went to the grocery store and stocked up for the week. Yay! No lines are so very nice.

Cooking

• Saturday night I made an Applesauce Spice Cake (recipe from Real Simple) which made the whole apartment smell like fall. Although, I guess anything that starts off with a stick of melted butter and a cup of sugar is going to smell pretty darn yummy.
• For dinner, hubs requested my salmon and asparagus in parchment. Again, recipe is from Real Simple (found here) and looks/tastes much fancier than it actually is. Add a side of white rice and some wine and voila! Dinner is served.
• Last night I tried a new chicken recipe for dinner from Cooking Light (my other favorite place for new recipes). Chicken and Asparagus in White Wine Sauce with chive mashed potatoes. Yeah, this one is a keeper! Even though it's from Cooking Light, the amount of butter used probably makes it less than healthly, but eh, still better than getting takeout.

Cleaning

• Went through my closet and loaded up another 2 bags for Goodwill.
• Replaced the bathmat and shower curtain in the bathroom and gave the rest of the room a quick cleaning.
• Dropped off a bag of dry cleaning and did 4 loads of laundry at home. And now we have clean things to wear this week.
• Cleaned and reorganized the kitchen. It looks all pretty and shiny again.
• Reorganized and dusted my half of the office. The hubs side is his responsibility. hehehe

See, not a terribly exciting weekend, but very productive! And now only 4 days til my long weekend -- no work on Friday or next Monday makes me a very happy little worker bee this week :)

TV anyone?

This has been a wonderful week so far. Why, you ask? Well it's the official start of fall television, of course!

I should just let you know now that I'm am completely addicted to TV. And I don't discriminate. I love fluffy teen dramas, soap operas, comedies, reality shows... basically you name it and it's probably been on our DVR at some point. Speaking of the DVR, this has been both a blessing and a curse. Sure, I can now tape a bunch of different shows so that I don't have to break my neck getting home by 8pm each night to watch them, but it has also made me want to try out a bunch of the new fall shows to see if there are any out there worth sticking with. I hate being on the late freight with hit shows, so my thought this year is to give a bunch of the new programs a shot to make sure I'm not missing something good. This all adds up to me hijacking the DVR leaving my poor husband just shaking his head when he sees the list of shows being taped. (Okay, so I might have left him a little space to tape the World Series of Poker, but still) Good thing he loves me....

And what, might you be wondering, am I taping? Well, I'll break them down for you by each night (new shows are italicized):

Monday

• Heroes
• Dancing With The Stars (DWTS)

Tuesday

• Biggest Loser
• Beauty and the Geek
• DWTS
• Law & Order: SVU
• Cane

Wednesday

• Pushing Daisies
• Kitchen Nightmares
• Private Practice
• Top Chef
• Dirty Sexy Money

Thursday

• Survivor
• Grey's Anatomy
• The Office
• ER
• Big Shots

Sunday

• Gossip Girl (encore)
• ANTM (encore)

Mid-season replacements

• Lost
• American Idol
• One Tree Hill
• Amazing Race
• Project Runway

See, I told you I love me some TV. What I have seen so far has been good. Biggest Loser is still super motivating, Beauty and the Geek still heart-warming and SVU just a great hour of television. Last night's episode of Kitchen Nightmares literally made my stomach turn -- green chicken or rotten tomatoes anyone? -- while DWTS has a great cast of celebs this year, which should make for an interesting race to the finish (already I'm rooting for Sabrina, Helio and Melanie -- who knew scary spice wasn't so scary?).

Between working, hitting the gym, making dinner and watching TV, let's just say my days are pretty jam-packed! :)

Computer update and weekend review

No, I have not forgotten to post pics and stories from our vacation. Yes, I am still without consistent internet at home (I get to jump on the hubby's work laptop from time to time, but it's not with any regularity). However, we did place an order for a new computer for me this weekend. Yay!! And here she is:

I. cannot. wait. But sadly, I have to. She isn't due to be shipped until October :( Oh well. At least there is a light at the end of the tunnel....

I had a long weekend (no work on Friday - wheeee!), but it still felt far too short.

Friday:

• Woke up early and lounged on the couch catching up on TV. Caught a little of The View --- having Whoopi Goldberg as the new lead host is a HUGE improvement over Rosie O'Donnell. The show is much more fun now and I'm actually looking forward to watching it again on my next day off.
• Haircut in the late morning. My hairdresser is on maternity leave starting next week, which means she won't be back until sometime in January. I'm happy for her, but selfishly, totally bummed that I have to use someone else for the next few months.
• Shopping for new fall clothes! Scored a couple cute pairs of pants at BR, a skirt at Ann Taylor, some assorted sweaters and a couple pairs of boots. Bring on the chilly weather!
• Hubby was exhausted from a long week so pizza delivery, a bottle of wine and Blades of Glory capped off our night (I thought the movie was funny. Jim thought it was hilarious)

Saturday:

• Had breakfast at home and watched college football with the hubs while straightening the apartment.
• Lounged around until 3pm when we packed up the cooler and headed to the UCLA game.
• No rain at the game (thank god!) Seated next to some hilarious fans and had just a great time. Bruins 44 - Huskies 31!

Sunday:

• Hubs left early for the office -- booo!
• Made a couple of wedding cards for a co-worker. Would post a pic, but see computer problem above. :(
• Supposed to have a volunteer meeting for alumni that wanted to help with sorority rush at my alma mater. Um, it was canceled... but no one bothered to email this little fact out to everyone. Bitter, party of one.
• Farewell dinner at Wokano for Mrs. Madisen. We'll miss you m'dear!

And now it's Monday again. Only 5 more days til the weekend....

My besties: Blondie and Vino

I got an email a few days ago from one of my best friends Vino (also sent to Blondie, our other best friend) giving us a quick update on what is going on with her (most notably she passed her comps and now has her M.Ed. in Special Education -- rock on girl!) and also telling us how thankful she is that we are friends and don't have drama. I guess her group of friends in Vegas are playing games and it's driving her crazy.

And that got me thinking about just how much I value our friendship and how lucky I am to have these two women in my life. But first, some background...

Waaaay back in college, sophomore year, I started dating an older guy who I thought was just dreamy. Long story short, I stopped hanging out with my friends (including Vino and Blondie) so I could spend more time with him (he didn't particularly care for my friends -- what an ass), spent almost all my time at his apartment and generally fell off the face of the planet for just over a year. And then as my jr. year was coming to a close, he somewhat suddenly broke it off. And my world damn near fell apart.

Many of the other girls in sorority house were not terribly forgiving. They had resented the fact the I basically disappeared for many months (rightfully so, I mean, it definitely wasn't one of my finer moments) and were rather cold about the whole situation. But not Vino and Blondie. In fact, they went out of their way to be there for me whenever I needed them. We were all living in a sublet apt that summer along with a couple of other girls and the support I got from them was something that I can't adequately describe. There were always there when I needed to talk or to just get out of the house to get my mind off things. That summer I grew quite close to both of them and by the time we started school in the fall, I was ready to get back into the house and try to catch up on everything I had unfortunately missed for the past year. Without them, I don't know what I would have done.

Shortly after the start of the school year, I met Jim. After going on several dates (even though I had claimed that I was not ready for a boyfriend quite that quickly), Vino, Blondie and I were out and about and Blondie turned to me and said "You know, we like Jim. We don't mind you dating him. But if you disappear again, we will come and find you because we know where he lives!" To which we all started laughing. But they were right. And really, how could I do that again, when I would be missing out on so many fun times with them? [In a happy coincidence, Jim really liked Blondie & Vino and was more than happy to hang out with them and their boyfriends, accompany me on sorority events and just generally be a regular part of my life without making me choose one over the other. See, there are many reasons why he is a keeper.]

While my last year in college had its ups and downs, one of the things I most remember is how much fun I had with Blondie and Vino. Sure, I could go into detail about all of our crazy adventures, but it wouldn't capture just how much it meant to me to have such good friends that would welcome me back with open arms after being such an idiot about the friendship for such a long time.

After college, we all went our separate ways in terms of physical location, but haven't lost touch with each other. And when we talk and hang out, it's like it was back in college. We still do an annual girls-only weekend where we go somewhere to just hang out, talk, drink wine, eat and pretend like we're those crazy girls we were in college. Two of us are old married hags now with the third to join the ranks very soon. And yet, while everything has changed, it has also completely stayed the same.

Many people say that a group of 3 just doesn't work. And yet, for us, it does. I am so lucky to have found such wonderful friends and I know that we'll still be hanging out and being silly with each other for many many years. So, if you two are reading this, know that I love you both and am so happy that I can call you besties.

and I'm back.

I'm sad to be home and back to reality, but we had an absolutely wonderful vacation!! The one downside is that my laptop at home decided to die right before we left for vacation (it is currently undergoing tech therapy, but the verdict is still out on whether it can be saved) and when I got back my old mac laptop (always good in a pinch) decided to go on the fritz too. Boooo! So, while I took tons of pics and have a ton of stories to tell, they're gonna have to wait until I can fix my computer situation at home. Total bummer. But I promise lots of fun pics and a full review (well, more like reviews) of the trip very very soon.

I did want to post that I'm back and getting back into the swing of things. I have a bunch of blog reading to catch up on and I just recently finished making it through all of my emails. Lots of other stuff is already going on so there will be other posts about random topics in meantime while I wait for my home laptops to be cured.

Okay, off to read more blogs.... :)