Shifting Priorities

I took an unannounced break from blogging and social media last Friday. It was pretty spontaneous and spur-of-the-moment, especially for someone like me, who likes to announce these things. (I’m important like that.) But Friday morning, I decided it was time. I deleted Facebook and Twitter off my phone and just stepped away. Not fully. I still read and commented on blogs. I still had a book review to post. But I took the pressure off.

Pressure to keep up with my Twitter timeline, pressure to spend all my free time reading blogs, pressure to adhere to a strict five-day-a-week blogging schedule. Pressure to be present in everything but where I am at this moment.

I’ve struggled with finding my blogging and social media identity. Where do I fit in to this all? What kind of blogger do I want to be? How is Twitter impacting my daily life? Lately, I’ve fallen on the habit of writing five posts a week, Monday through Friday, scheduled to post at 7:00AM every day. I have a set schedule for what types of posts I want to write each day.

This schedule worked in the past and things were fine. I would take a day off here and there, but generally, kept up the schedule.

And honestly? It’s just not working for me anymore.

Time is an issue. I work a full-time job now and usually work out at the gym afterwards, not making it home until 7:30 or 8:00 most nights. This leaves little time to even take a shower and eat dinner, much less sit down and write a coherent blog post. And honestly, after sitting in front of a computer for 8 hours and having to have my mind completely on, the last thing I want to do sit in front of my laptop and turn my creative brain on.

I worried a lot about how my blog might suffer once I started a full-time job. And I know it sounds silly, but I did. I have known many bloggers who have fallen off the face of the earth because their job consumes their entire world. I didn’t want that from me. I wanted a job, of course, but I also wanted to maintain a semblence of me and blogging is a major part of me.

I want to value quality over quantity and I’m not doing that when I’m sticking to a schedule. Instead, I’m too busy trying to keep up with the schedule to ever put out quality posts. So many good post ideas come and go because they don’t fit in to the schedule, or I just can’t find the time to sit down and write them.

So I took a break. I had to get away from the schedule for at least a week. To figure out where I wanted to take my blog in this next year. What’s my goal? While I love getting comments from new readers and the friendships I’ve built from this blog, my number one goal isn’t to gain readers or sponsorships. It’s not to make money. It’s not to become a famous blogger.

My goal is to write. To share my passions. To be honest and truthful in my everyday struggles with my faith, my health, and my everyday life. To plan for the future. To get back to writing posts that resonate with my soul, no matter if it causes controversy or people to belittle the way I think. To write from the heart, not just from the head.

Maybe I think about it too much, but there it is.

(I also don’t want to take away from those bloggers who do make money from their blog, do use a schedule, do post daily. That works for them. It doesn’t work for me. But I don’t begrudge those who do.)

Don’t forget to enter my giveaway to win a fancy-schmancy training ball! Giveaway ends on Monday, October 3rd.

PlanetGear.com Giveaway

It’s no secret that I’m trying to lose weight. Or that I struggle with motivation. Or that I’m doing it the old-fashioned way: by changing my diet and adding in exercise. So far, exercise has been the easiest part of the battle. I’ll whine and complain, but I usually drag my butt to the gym five days a week, working out for at least an hour. And when I’m there, I’m fully invested in bettering myself and my body.

And looking good while doing it.

PlanetGear.com is a website that offers huge discounts on fitness gear, apparel, and travel destinations. All sales are made on a first-come, first-serve basis, start at 8:00am PST, and last up to 72 hours. They offer up to 70% off on all their discounts and the sales are pretty sweet, if I do say so myself.

Spinning fanatic as I am (even though, uhhhh, I haven’t gone in maybe 2 weeks? Whoops?), I have my eye on this pair of TYR Sport Women’s Kinetic Spin Sports, valued at $46, selling for just $22. Yes. I need these in my life. Or maybe a TYR Sport Women’s Kinetic T-Back Tank to go along with it, valued at $42, and selling for $22. Yes, please!

And from now until the end of October, PlanetGear.com is donating $1 for every new member and “like” they receive on Facebook to the Breast Cancer Fund. The Breast Cancer Fund “works to connect the dots between breast cancer and exposures to chemicals and radiation in our everyday environments.” They want to educate the public on scientific evidence and truths about chemicals and radiation to help prevent cancer and sustain our health.

The most fun part of all of this? PlanetGear.com has agreed to host a giveaway! One lucky winner will receive this pretty awesome training ball. I am a huge fan of training balls for exercise because they’re a great way to do add something NEW to your workout. They have the ability of taking a workout to a higher intensity (ever do push-ups on a training ball? Not. Easy.) or lower intensity, which is especially helpful if you have back or knee problems. Plus, they’re just plain fun to work out on! I feel like a kid when I use a training ball! The even cooler thing is that this ball has printed exercises located around the spine so you have built-in ways to use this to target specific muscles in the body.

Want to win it? You have four ways to enter:

1 - (Mandatory) You must be a follower of my blog. Leave a comment saying you do.

2 - Become a member of PlanetGear. (Membership is FREE and super simple! Be sure to mention my email stephanywrites@gmail.com when you sign up!)

3 - “Like” PlanetGear on Facebook

4 - “Like” my blog on Facebook

 

Leave separate comments for each entry. Multiple entries in one comment will count as one entry. The giveaway ends on Monday, October 3rd at 11:59pm. Winner will be announced on Tuesday, October 4th.

Good luck!

My Favorite Boy

Today, my sweet nephew turns three years old.

Three.

It’s insane to think it’s been three entire years since he entered this world and completely changed our lives.

Every new age and stage becomes my favorite. And age two has been delightful. His personality has developed and he’s become more feisty and funny. He’s stubborn and the spitting image of my brother.

For some reason, I was always really worried he wouldn’t develop a good sense of humor. I’ve known too many kids who cannot handle being teased, but this kid can dish it out and take it. His sense of humor is something I love most about him and I especially love how we already have our little inside jokes. I can only imagine we’ll develop more and more as he grows up.

He loves taking pictures and always seems to find my camera when he’s over our apartment. He snaps photo after photo after photo. They’re usually pretty blurry since I always make sure the flash is off because he likes to take photos of himself sometimes. He’s actually a pretty good photographer, which makes me wonder if it’s something he’ll develop a passion for later in life, or if it’s just something fun to do for now. He’s started doing this thing where he takes a photo of one of us, turns the camera around to look at the screen, and then show the picture to us, saying, “Aww!”

One of my most favorite developments of this past year is watching the relationship between him and my mother grow. When he was a baby and toddler, he would usually cry whenever we went to see him. It was heartbreaking, although he would usually calm down after a few minutes. And now? He loves coming to our apartment. He loves titi abuela (as he calls her) and is incredibly possessive of her. He absolutely loves talking on the phone with her and she puts her heart and soul into taking care of him when he’s over. He takes a bubble bath every single time he comes to visit. (Every. Single. Times.) I mean, I always knew I had the best mother in the world but now I know my kids will one day have the best grandmother in the world, too.

In every new picture I see of him, all I can think is: he’s a boy now. He’s not a baby. He’s lost the babyness in his face and I can already tell he’s going to be lanky and tall like my brother. I always thought the baby age would be my favorite and while that age is pretty amazing in its own right, this age is also pretty awesome as well. Being able to talk to him on the phone, laugh with him, and play crazy made-up games with him is something I never really thought of when I heard I was going to be an aunt. But it’s the most amazing part of all this.

Being an aunt is an amazing job. I knew it would be a fun gig, but never knew it would be this fun or fill my heart with this much joy.

Are you an aunt? What do you love most about being an aunt?

Book Review: Willpower by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney

***

Title: Willpower
Author: Roy F. Baumeister & John Tierney
Genre: Self-help
Year: 2011
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

***

I was intrigued by the premise of this book. Willpower. I’ve told myself for years that I have very weak willpower. It’s limited presence shows itself in the way I struggle to lose weight, save money, mark off items on my to-do list. So I wanted to know about willpower. What it is, what it does for me, and how to strengthen mine.

A good chunk of this book was devoted to case studies and celebrity examples of what willpower looks like (and what it doesn’t). I wasn’t very impressed with it all, wondering how to apply the hundreds of case studies presented to my own life. Now, I love to read case studies. I find the human psyche incredibly complex and interesting. But it got a little too much for me, especially when life application was lacking.

The last part of the book (starting with Chapter 9) was when things started getting interesting for me. This was when I started seeing more life application. This is when I began to understand it all.

In the spirit of a self-help book, I’m taking a different approach to this book review. Instead, here is what I learned from this book:

1. We all possess a finite amount of willpower that gets depleted throughout the day. (p. 35)

2. For every task completed throughout the day, from forcing ourselves out of bed in the morning to not eating that second piece of chocolate after lunch, draws from the same stock of willpower. (p. 35)

3. “Whether you’re judging yourself or judging others, never equate being overweight with having weak willpower.” (p. 215)

4. The Oprah Paradox. Think about Oprah. She is hugely successful and she couldn’t have gotten to where she is without having exceedingly high self-control and willpower. Yet she struggles with losing weight (and keeping it off). Even people with high self-control can struggle with their weight. (p. 217)

5. It’s more important to heed the body’s internal cues than the external cues. When we diet, we start imposing more external rules on our body: when to eat, how much, etc. But it’s more important to listen to our bodies. Learn to recognize our hunger signals, and learn to recognize when we are full. (p. 223) This is something that Weight Watchers, in particular, heavily emphasizes. There was a pretty interesting study done on this very issue and it hit home the point of internal versus external cues.

6. When we start craving sweets, it’s more than just a matter of weak willpower. Our cravings have a “sound physiological basis”. Self-control depletes glucose and the fastest way to get that back? Eating sweets. It’s at this point that we need to reach for something more rich in protein and nutrients, even though reaching for chocolate is the more satisfying option. (p. 226 - 227)

7. “...people with high self-control consistently report less stress in their lives. They use their self-control not to get through crises but to avoid them. They give themselves enough time to finish a project; they take their car into the shop before it breaks down; they stay away from all-you-can-eat buffets. They play offense instead of defense.” (p. 239)

8. In the game of willpower, it’s the exertion of trying to make a decision that matters. Even if you end up giving in, it doesn’t automatically replenish your willpower stock, although it will help you from expending more willpower with this decision. (p. 244)

I found the book to be quite the interesting read, although it was really the last three chapters that spoke to me the most. The book is heavy on case studies and makes up about 90% of the book’s content. I enjoy reading studies so it wasn’t a big deal for me, but it did get a little too much at times. If you enjoy self-help, it’s a good read. And if the psyche into self-control and willpower interests you, I would definitely recommend this book.

I received this book for free from TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. All words and opinions are my own.

He’s Still the Best

Today, a very special guy in my life turns 25 years old.

My brother is one of the good guys. He’s dedicated, loyal, and passionate. He’s responsible, caring, and funny. He’s not one to blame others for what life has given him and always steps up when he needs to. And I get to call him my brother.

We are just 14 months apart so we grew up as each others’ best friend and worst enemy. We had terrible fights and I don’t know how my parents dealt with our bickering without tearing their hair out. But we had incredible times together. Times spent playing MarioKart and Donkey Kong on Super Nintendo, with a big bucket of popcorn by our side. Staying up on Christmas Eve, playing board games and doing whatever we could to stay awake but never failing to fall asleep before 3:00am. Watching TV shows together with our Little Debbies nightly snack. Walking to the bus stop together. Letting him talk me into skipping school.

It’s only been recently that I’ve realized what an impact my brother has had on my life. My father has been a bad influence on me, my self-esteem and self-worth. But my brother has done just the opposite. He’s been there for me, always has my back, and is the one building up that self-esteem and self-worth that my dad left in shambles. He knows exactly what I went through with my dad as he was right along for the ride, too.

We have a strong connection, the two of us. Our inside jokes are aplenty and make no sense to anyone but us (as all good inside jokes do). We can talk football for hours, but have also had some very deep conversations. We seem to have broken the Fantasy Football Fight curse that happens to us every year, but we still have our moments. We are both incredibly stubborn so put two stubborn people in a fight and you’ve got a losing battle.

One of the most extraordinary things about my brother is his relationship with his son. Ten days from now, my nephew will turn three years old. (No, I’m not ready to talk about it yet. I’m pretending this is not happening.) I’ve been able to see my brother hold his baby and feed him for the first time, so nervous about what to do and how to hold him. I’ve seen him rough-house with him, discipline him, and get frustrated with him. I’ve seen them laugh together and he is always ready with stories of new things he’s doing. He is the most proud of that boy and I am most proud of him as a father. I see none of my own father in him, even when he gets frustrated with his behavior. My nephew is so lucky to have someone like him as a father. He will never have to go through what we went through with our father. (And I also can’t say enough about my sister-in-law as a mother. She’s pretty fantastic in her own right, which means my nephew is THE luckiest child.)

Today, my brother turns 25 years old. It’s crazy to think of all we have been through and how close we remain to this day. I know his life has taken a different path than he envisioned, but I also know he doesn’t let life get him down. He’s one of the most positive forces in my life and I can only hope he knows how much he means to me.

Happy birthday, bro. You’re still the best.

School-Less September

It’s my first September without school. I can’t even remember a time, aside from summers, when I wasn’t preparing for school. For classes, for tests, for papers.

And you know what? I don’t miss it one bit. Sure, sometimes I get nostalgic about going to class and being in the college environment but it quickly passes as I realize how much freedom I have now. And how my weekends and nights are filled with things I want to do, not assignments and long classes to sit through.

I didn’t have the “normal” college experience, but I can’t say I regret it. I entered college at 16, thanks to a new charter school in my area that allowed me to earn high school credit for college courses. When I started at USF, I was 18 and had two years of college behind me. I was placed in a freshman dorm and full of excitement of what the college experience would bring me. At 18, I was ready to have a normal college experience.

Well, I hated living on campus. More specifically, I hated living in a dorm room. (And the fact that my roommate and I were polar opposites and didn’t get along at all didn’t help.) I’ve come to realize I need my space and a place to be alone and you don’t get that in a dorm. Luckily, my roommate was gone more than she was around but it was a big adjustment for me and I didn’t take to it well. It was especially hard to be locked out of my room so she could have sex with her boyfriend. I spent countless hours in the bookstore and common area to do homework and study for tests thanks to her. (For me, I get distracted way too easily in public places to ever be focused and productive.)

I moved back home after the year on campus. (My roommate moved into another room in the Spring, leaving me with my own space for 4 months. Those may have been the best 4 months of my life.) I struggled to get involved and find friends, roommate issues nonwithstanding. At 18, I was even more socially awkward and painfully shy than I am now so it was just a bad situation for me to be in. I was burrowing even farther into my shell and knew moving back home was what I needed to do for me at that time.

I became a commuter student for the next year and completed two student teaching internships. A few weeks after moving back, I started working at a preschool, a job I loathed. In the summer of 2008, I was working for a printing shop that was dying and preparing for my last semester of college.

Well, the last semester of college ended up being the start of a new school path for me. The internship was terrible and I left before it was over, broken and unsure of what to do with my life. After a few weeks of searching my heart, I chose a new major: Journalism. Writing had been a passion of mine for a very long time, but majoring in it had never even crossed my mind.

The next two and a half years were spent in journalism classes, a second daycare job that was much smoother than my previous, and living at home. It was hard. My entire life revolved around my job and school. There was barely enough time to breathe Mondays - Thursdays. There were no coffee dates before class, strolling around campus, or waking up 15 minutes before my class started. Since my weekdays were filled with work and classes, my weekends were my catch-up days for homework and studying.

For the first time, I have absolute freedom to do what I want. I have a full-time job that is pushing me just my like classes in college did, except I’m getting paid to be pushed. I have my nights and weekends for myself. I don’t have the pressing worries of upcoming papers or presentations or huge projects. I can simply be. I feel more in the moment, more alive. I am happier. More fulfilled. Less stagnant.

My college years were different than most, that’s for sure. But I tried the normal route and that’s not the path I was meant to take. I can’t regret it, but I don’t look back upon those years with fondness. I don’t long for the “carefree” days of college. (If anything, I feel more carefree now than when I was a student.) That was then, this is now. I needed that time for me, to get a degree and gain knowledge in the field of journalism and media. But that chapter of my life is over. And while I can’t say for certain I will never be a student again, I can say that I’m glad those days are behind me.

How did you feel your first “September” out of college?

Boot Camp Graduate

Six weeks ago, I signed up for boot camp. My mom and I had “cash” to spend as a sort of signing bonus for joining our gym and had the option of using it for two personal training sessions or a 6-week boot camp. We wanted the boot camp.

I haven’t been exactly silent about my feelings of boot camp and six weeks later, I can firmly say I was not happy with my experience and will not do another boot camp through my gym. We went on Mondays and Wednesdays for an hour. Mondays was with a small group (the biggest group we had was 4 people, including my mom and me) and Wednesdays involved a much bigger group.

I hated Mondays. Hated them. They were more like a personal training session, but boot camp style which meant we were moving from exercise to exercise and all the focus and attention was on us. There were half-mile runs and never-ending burpees and lunges across the gym. There were a lot of “Come on, Stephany”’s if I tried to take a 10-second break and more push-ups than anyone should have to do in a one-hour window.

Wednesdays were my favorite, if I had to pick a favorite. The group was bigger, there was music blaring, and stations set up. The trainers focus was divided between everyone and it was a fun atmosphere. It was still incredibly hard, but the different stations made the hour fly by. That said, Wednesdays were also incredibly unorganized. The trainers were more focused on the more fit girls, making sure they were always together and always at the right station which meant my mom and I were pushed aside and ended up repeating stations a lot. I’m not trying to be whiney about it, but it was just very annoying how the “0% Body Fat” girls got special treatment.

I consider myself a somewhat fit individual. I can make it through a spin class without fainting. I can easily keep up in Body Pump (weight lifting) and Body Combat (karate-style) classes. I’m not a newbie to exercise. But boot camp is a completely different ball game. It made me cry. It made me almost pass out (mostly due to improper fueling, but still). It made me have deep respect for every Biggest Loser contestant. It showed me I was weak, but also showed me I was capable. I was capable of sticking to something I didn’t like. Capable of working hard, even when my lungs are screaming at me to stop. Capable of my breaking point. Capable of being willing to being pushed past my breaking point.

When all was said and done, I didn’t lose a lot of weight. (Just goes to show you that nutrition tells more of the story than does exercise.) But I did lose inches. The funny thing is, I was on cloud nine after doing my measurements and the minute I saw what my weight and body fat percentage was, I was so disappointed in myself. I quickly made myself snap out of it, because the scale does not tell the whole story. This little table proves that:

Area	Inches Lost (from 8/8/11 to 9/12/11)
Neck	-.5 inches
Chest	-1 inch
Left Arm	-.5 inches
Right Arm	No change
Abs	No change
Hips	No change
Left Thigh	-1.5 inches
Right Thigh	-1.5 inches

 

So maybe I still have a ways to go with my major problem areas (darn abs!) but I am getting somewhere. Even when the scale isn’t budging, there are more pieces to the puzzle to look at. And you know what? Even if I hadn’t lost inches in almost every area of my body, at least I went out there and did it. I did something completely out of the my comfort zone and I let them push me. And since my word for 2011 is risk, I would say I’m living up to that.

I’ve Been Doing It Wrong

I quit Weight Watchers this weekend.

I hate to admit that, but I have to be honest on my blog. I quit. When looking over my weight record from the past 2 months, I realized I had been paying $40 a month (ended up around $120 total) to gain weight. In the past two months, I’ve gained around 2 pounds. Is it terrible? No, not at all. But it is when you forked over $120 to lose weight.

My heart hasn’t been in it. I’ve been searching long and hard for reasons why. Am I just not cut out for weight loss? Do I just not have the motivation within me to do this? What is missing in me that is found in others who can lose weight?

On Saturday, it felt like a light bulb went off in my head. It’s not that I have no motivation or the right stuff to lose weight. It’s that I’ve been approaching my health in the wrong way. It’s been more about being skinny than being healthy and satisfied with who I am. For as long as I can remember, I have had body image issues. I have never liked the way I looked, even when I was younger and had a normal, healthy body. I didn’t start gaining weight until high school, but I have always felt awkward in my body. My body image issues have gotten worse as I’ve grown older. At 23, I want to believe I am done with worrying about how others perceive me and feeling as if I don’t measure up to others standards because I have 30 extra pounds sitting on my midsection, but I’m not. If anything, my body image issues are worse now than they were 10 years ago.

For the past few years that I’ve tried to lose weight, I’ve been approaching it more from the perspective of being skinny and feeling more comfortable in my body. And I think most people who have lost weight or are trying to lose it approach it, at least in the beginning, from that same perspective. We want to lose weight because we are unhappy with the way we look and feel. I don’t feel like I have ever crossed the line to more intrinsic rewards found in healthy eating and weight loss.

Ever since I joined Weight Watchers, I’ve been approaching the program from the wrong angle. I think it is the best weight-loss program there is and you can find success with it - as long as you do it right. If you don’t follow the plan, you’re not going to lose weight. Simple. As. That. But for me, Weight Watchers was about being “good” for 6 days of the week and then having one day of cheating. But why can’t being “good” be my normal?

The truth is that I need to take a step back and reevaluate. Weight Watchers isn’t working for me right now. (Because of me, not because there are flaws in the program.) I need to start learning to love my body for what it can do for me. I need to stop seeing my size as a detriment to my character. The size of my body has nothing to do with who I am as a person. I am a smart, funny, driven, pretty amazing individual. Being overweight does not take any of that away from me. Being skinny does not make me a better person. Change has to start on the inside.

Changing your entire lifestyle is hard. Heck, any change is hard. Changing how you approach food and health involves more than just what you put on your plate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It’s about how you deal with your happy moods and your sad moods. Holidays and special events. Those days when you feel like doing nothing but sitting on the couch but know getting your butt to the gym will make you feel 1,000 times better. It’s about throwing away the scale and deciding that your health is more important than your waistline.

I don’t have a firm plan in place on how I’m going about this. I do know that it doesn’t involve tying up my success in what the scale is telling me. Whether or not that means throwing out the scale (or at least my weekly weigh-ins) remains to be seen. Sometimes, it’s nice to have that as a way to track how I’m doing but it only gives a small piece of the puzzle yet I have a tendency to make it the biggest piece. I do know that I will still be tracking what I eat, but in a completely different way. And I also know I need to learn to appreciate the body I have now. I have to stop hating the way I look, just because it’s not as slim and trim as I want it to be. While I intend to work hard to change it, I also need to really work through my body image issues and discover how to love who I am because of who I am, not because of the size of my jeans. The truth is, if I don’t work on loving my body as it is right now, it’s probably not going to get much better once I have lost the weight. Change can happen on the outside, but it means nothing if change also does not occur on the inside.

So, yes, I’m overweight. It doesn’t make me any less capable, any less beautiful, any less remarkable. It just means my stomach curves out more than I would like it to.

Five For Friday: Best Search Terms

I love hearing what funny search terms bring readers to my blog. For the most part, they stay on the boring side, usually something having to do with my future husband letters. (Although, the minute I posted about my Life Planner, people searching for coupon codes for this specific designer came in droves.) Here are some of the more interesting search terms I have found:

1 - “i want to have short hair but my hair is waving”

Hair that is waving? I think you have a bigger problem on your hands than too-long hair.

2 - “i m excited too much during sex wht to do?”

You will find no help on this subject on my blog. But, honestly, is this such a bad thing? Hoookay. Moving on.

3 - “are sidebangs annoying with glassses?”

Oh, yes! And yet, I love my side bangs. But glasses tend to get in the way more often than not.

4 - “girl always been single whats wrong”

I want to give this girl a great big hug. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being single and being single for a long time. Society wants to deem it wrong, but there’s a lot to be said about being comfortable enough in yourself to be happy as a single woman. I am perfectly content in my singleness and the fact that I have been single for a long time. I really could go on and on about this subject, but I won’t.

5 - “i miss my dad, hope one day he come back”

Another search term that just made me sad. All I can say is me, too. My heart freshly breaks every day I go without my dad in my life.

What a sad way to end a Friday post! Happy Friday!

Wine and Love, V.6

Time for another round of Walking with Nora’s fun “Wine and Love” series. Write your own post on what made you reach for the wine glass and what you’re loving from this week. Link up at her blog!

Wine-ing about...

Boot camp. Only one class left after last night’s! Wednesday nights are so disorganized and chaotic and I feel shoved aside for the more fit people. I know I’ve talked about this before in a Wine and Love series. It hasn’t gotten better and I’m ready to give a full complaint when it’s over. Mondays are slightly better, but are much more intense and make me want to wish I was dead. Still, yesterday’s was pretty awful in the way we were treated and the way it was run. I would never, ever do another boot camp from my gym.

Anxiety. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully get past my performance anxiety, especially since I deal with the emotions from my failed internship on a daily basis. It doesn’t help that something major happened last week that revved up my anxiety to full load.

Loving...

An under-control grocery bill! My mom and I headed out Monday evening for a toiletries visit at Target (we went about $10 over budget, but we’re getting there!) and a grocery visit at Publix (where we came in just shy of our $100 budget). We only picked up one pack of meat to last us for three meals. (Two being meals and one being leftovers.) As long as we keep out of any grocery stores until our next visit, I think we’re headed in the right direction. I still want to work on getting the bill lower (we spent $17 on snacks! What!) but baby steps first.

Relaxing after work. Ever since I started my job, my life has been jam-packed. After putting in a full 8 hours at my job, I head straight to the gym for an hour which usually involves boot camp or spin class (neither which are low or even medium intensity). It’s nice to get a sweat session in and get the endorphins flowing after being in front of a computer screen all day, but it can be a bit too much. So last night, I came home after work, took a hot bubble bath, and read for about an hour before making dinner. It was SO nice to just relax and take it easy. I think I need to do this at least one night a week.

The NFL season kicks off today! Are YOU ready for some football?!

Finally getting my room organized. I spent Saturday on an organizing rampage. I went through my junk drawers in my room and cleaned out my entire closet, including getting rid of a lot of “skinny” clothes that I know I wouldn’t wear even if I could fit into them. We don’t have a lot of space in our apartment so we really need to use it wisely. We’re not packrats in the least so I have no problem throwing things out that I haven’t used in a few months. It took a few hours but everything is finally organized and easier to access. Feels so good!

What are your Wine and Loves for this week?

4,101 pages later...

I think I always knew I would fall completely in love with the Harry Potter series once I started reading the books. I read the first two when I was in middle school and remember really enjoying them, even if they were a style of book I wouldn’t normally read. I don’t know why I never finished the series, but I know part of the reason was because of the dark magic displayed in the subsequent books that had all Christian parents in a tizzy. I was never banned from reading the books, but also didn’t much care to keep reading. So I stopped and even when the movies came out and more and more people extolled these books, I never had an interest in them.

I wasn’t tempted when the Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened in Orlando, a mere 90 minutes from me. I even visited Universal Studios a few months after it opened and was just happy the lines for all the other rides were shorter since everyone was hanging out in Harry Potter land. It wasn’t that I thought I was “better” than those who were obsessed with Harry Potter, but I was just indifferent to the whole series. Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it’s a fantastic series, I always thought. Just not for me.

And then Erin came up with a fantastic idea. (Fantastic for those who love Harry Potter, of course.) She formed an 11-week reading plan from the end of June to the beginning of September where a bunch of us would read through the series. Seven books. Over 4,000 pages. In eleven weeks. The Summer of Harry, she called it.

I thought she was crazy. I had seen the books. They were not your average young-adult literature novels. They were heavy and thick. And she wanted us to read them ALL in eleven weeks?

But since there was a good group of bloggers jumping on board with the idea and I knew Erin and others really wanted me to read the series and discover the magic (for lack of a better term) hidden beneath the covers, I joined in.

I had no idea what I had signed myself up for.

I had no idea the impact this series would have on my life.

I had no idea that I would become like Them. Dreaming of visiting the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Linking every day processes to what I have been reading about. Falling in love with the characters and this wizarding land J.K. Rowling had imagined. Watching the movies. Drooling over Rupert Grint. (Just me?)

And 4,101 pages later, I am a believer.

I don’t even know how to describe this series or the impact it has had on me. As a writer, I was utterly astounded and impressed by Rowling’s writing ability and imagination. Every book was packed with character development, incredible plot lines, and details upon details upon details. Rowling doesn’t write by accident and every nugget of information she drops has impact and meaning. (Which is why I’m really excited to reread this series to see all the clues I missed the first time around!)

I still haven’t been able to wrap my mind around everything that happened in these seven books. Tragedy. Triumph. Love. Hate. Angst. Humor. So many amazing characters and there is no way I can choose my favorite. Every character had a place in the book, a reason for being there. They all had their moments of victory and defeat. (Although, to be completely honest, there will always be a soft spot in my heart for Ron.)

One of the best parts of reading this series were the Thursday night Twitter chats with a bunch of people reading right along with me. While I was the only one going through the series for the first time, I think it added a special something to it all, to have someone experiencing Harry Potter for the first time. Everyone else knew how everything plays out and how the series ends, but everything was brand-new for me. Being able to discuss and dissect the book with these people was so special for me. This isn’t the type of book series you can read lightly and move on from. Discussing it helped me to process all my emotions and everything that I felt while reading the books. Those Thursday night chats tied the entire #SummerofHarry experience together.

What happens now? Well, first, there is one last #SummerofHarry chat tonight. (10:00PM EST for anyone interested!) And then, I need to watch the movies. I’ve seen the first two (which were excellent, by the way) and I need to find some time to watch the remaining movies. Who’s up for a Harry Potter movie marathon?!

Five For Friday

1 - In my area, Big Brother didn’t tape until ONE THIRTY A.M. due to a ridiculous Bucs-Redskins preseason game. Now, look, I am a huge football fan. Honestly, I am. But I’m sorry, a stupid, meaningless preseason football game over the craziest show of the summer? It’s no question. So, today, my mom and I woke up at 5AM so we could watch the show before she went for a run. As for the show, I’m very happy with how everything played out, to say the least. (Also, I guess this is one of those “You know you’re addicted when...)

2 - As most of you noticed already, I have a new blog theme. I like it a lot. Also, I have updated almost all of my pages, including Letters to My Future Husband which was just had placeholder text for the longest time. Now I actually have some information as well as links to all my letters and future husband posts. I also have a new Resolutions page where you can see how I’m doing on the resolutions I made in January.

3 - The advice on my grocery store conundrum was amazing. I will say that it wasn’t anything I didn’t already know, but it drove home the point of meal planning, eating more simply, and saving toiletries visits for Target/Wal-Mart. I know we need to be more smart about what we’re eating and how much of it we’re making. Leftovers are great, but when you make enough leftovers for 3 days four days in a row? Well, then it becomes too much. But the advice was exactly what I needed to get more serious about our grocery budget.

4 - Last night, I was attempting to make breakfast-for-dinner. I was cooking hash browns and forgot to turn the heat down after heating up the oil and managed to make the fire alarm go off three times and our entire place get smoky. The hash browns were ruined and in the process of trying to take care of that problem, I burned the sausage. It still smells like burnt hash browns in our apartment. Blech. I should never be allowed in a kitchen.

5 - I’m excited about this upcoming three-day weekend! Saturday, I’m prepared to tackle a long to-do list which includes a lot of cleaning (I’m so behind!) and seeing my nephew. Sunday, my mom and I are planning to head up to Orlando for the day to hit up one of the water parks that we have a pass for. And Monday involves a boot camp at a community center and trying to relax as much as possible. What are your holiday weekend plans?


Happy Friday, friends!

Everyday Moments: August 2011

Instead of my usual monthly recap posts, I wanted to copy something Kathleen has been doing for the past few months. Finding little happiness in the every day moments of the month. Here we go!

1 - VEDA starts

2 - Being told that I could make Friday my last day, instead of the following Tuesday like I thought.

3 - Boot camp being easier than it was on Monday.

4 - A needed nap

5 - Last day of work!

6 - A pedicure and shopping for my new job

7 - Sleepover with my nephew

8 - Being awoken by my nephew chanting, “Titi Steph! Titi Steph!”

9 - A much-needed day of nothing. No work, no to-dos to complete, just rest and relaxation.

10 - An amazing first day at work

11 - NFL preseason kicks off

12 - Leaving work for lunch for the first time. It felt so nice to be out in the sunshine and fresh air that I need to make it more of a habit.

13 - Seeing my mom reach Lifetime status on Weight Watchers again

14 - A beautiful 3-hour nap

15 - Finishing a boot camp class, even when I felt like I was going to pass out since I didn’t fuel correctly beforehand

16 - Finding out there is a Chick-Fil-A half a mile from my work. Score!

17 - Being more busy at work. I’m still doing a lot of clerical tasks, but it’s something!

18 - Being known as a regular in spin class.

19 - Finishing my first 40-hour work week

20 - Seeing Crazy, Stupid, Love and falling back in love with Ryan Gosling. And his abs.

21 - Spectating at my mom’s 5K and being so proud of her. She ran on the most hilly course I’ve ever been on (I ran the course last year) and was less than 30 seconds behind her PR. She rocks my socks.

22 - Getting bragged on by my boss

23 - Snuggles with Dutch.

24 - Scoring free tickets to see “The Help”, which also meant I got out of boot camp. Score! (Side note: movie was amazing. Everyone needs to see it.)

25 - #SummerofHarry chat, talking about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

26 - My first time speaking up in a meeting

27 - A day of shopping, including buying a new pair of “running” shoes (calling them sneakers or tennis shoes makes me feel like I’m eight). My last pair I bought last September so I was desperately in need of new ones!

28 - Fantasy football draft party with my brother

29 - My brother coming over to pick up some things and having dinner with him. Weekday dinners with him are few and far-between and I loved it so much.

30 - Feeling so completely sore from boot camp, from my triceps to my upper back to my butt to my ankles. I was beat up on Monday night and it feels so good to be sore like this.

31 - Chick-Fil-A for lunch. I spent all morning filing and labeling folders, so I needed a comfort food break.