It’s been a good exercising week — at least I think so! I recently purchased a Fitbit and I’ve been having some inaccuracies with it and so I’ve had to estimate how I’ve been doing each day in terms of mileage and calories burned. From the looks of Google I’m the only person who didn’t like theirs. In all honestly, I should’ve done more research before purchasing it but I read countless reviews where people raved about them. Now I’m back to my $14 pedometer that works pretty accurately out of the box and gives me the exact information I want.

With only 3 pairs of “workout” bottoms I have to do laundry a couple times during the week, and since I’ve been busy every day this week I’ve fallen behind. There were a pair of workout shorts I bought earlier this summer that have been sitting in the bottom of my drawer barely worn, because they were too tight to be seen out in public in. I couldn’t even be bothered to wear them just around the farm because they reminded me I really needed to lose weight. I reluctantly put them on Thursday morning and they fit really good! They were no longer tight in the hips, stomach, or legs. I could actually sit down in them and breathe! I haven’t taken many photos of myself as I’ve been going along but this needed to be documented! And I didn’t care about the fact I just woke up and hadn’t showered before taking the photo. And I didn’t care too much about the fact I posted it to my public fitness twitter account! (@GeekToFit) I was really happy!

When I woke up yesterday morning I remembered a vague dream of running continuously. I’m not sure what that means. I did go back to bed for another hour, I suppose the dream wore me out. When I got back up I was thinking that today would be my lazy day since I’ve been doing something active a couple hours a day for the past 6 weeks. I laid around for a while, had a shower, made lunch, and opted to go for a walk out of boredom. Ha. I left without my iPhone this time. It was a nice day, the sky was a nice blue with puffy clouds, and it would’ve been distracting and less enjoyable trying to find the perfect song to walk to. I didn’t do my usual 2.8-3 miles but it was still a brisk 35 minute walk. It was better than nothing especially when I planned on taking the day off.

I’ve been trying to come up with ways to reward myself along the way that doesn’t involve food. It’s so easy to use food as a reward or a way to console yourself when you’re having a bad day. I’m definitely guilty of the latter but that hasn’t been the case lately. Now that I think about it, I haven’t had too many bad days since I’ve been exercising more often. In terms of rewards, Monday I got a pedicure with Matt and Lindsey before leaving Cincinnati so that was something nice to do for myself that didn’t involve food. Last night I had a coffee date (that turned into dinner as well) with a cute guy so I guess that’s another reward, but I guess that did involve food. Hopefully the latter doesn’t happen as sporadically as pedicures or require me to hit certain milestones to do. :-P How do you reward yourself?

About a week ago I finally had enough of being sick and went to the doctor. I very rarely go to the doctor because most of the time they give me a slightly higher dose of something I could get over the counter and it’s a waste of money since I don’t have health insurance. Usually after a week of a cold I am feeling better, but it only seemed like it was getting worse and it was affecting my sleep. Long story short, I had a sinus infection. Thankfully, I’m feeling much more like myself now.

This past weekend I went to Cincinnati to visit Matt and Lindsey. It was nice just hanging out, taking photos at a couple parks, and eating lots of good food. I have some left over Green Lantern pizza (mozzarella cheese, garlic, pesto, mushrooms, goat cheese, and artichokes) from Dewey’s that I’ll be rehashing today for lunch.

I got back yesterday and I was a little apprehensive about stepping on the scale this morning. Despite not exercising as much as I had been the past few days and eating lots of good food I lost a pound. Which brought down my total to 15.6 lbs lost all together. I’ve been wanting to hit 15 lbs for a while. It’s not a big number but it’s a milestone nonetheless. It gave me a bit of a high this morning seeing that number. I had another exercising high this past week. Thursday, instead of taking the shuttle from where I have to park to campus I walked. It was only about a mile one-way, which was less than I was expecting, but it added an extra 3,000 steps to my pedometer. I remember walking back to my car with a huge smile on my face and entirely optimistic. I hope I continue to get these highs.

I’m always apprehensive about posting about things I’m accomplishing at the moment, because it seems like I always jinx myself when I begin sharing things and then I stop doing whatever it is I’m doing. I’ve heard it takes 21 days to form a habit and since it’s been over 21 days I feel like I can share this without falling off the wagon tomorrow. (Fingers crossed! lol)

It seems like it’s been one thing after another the past few months and about three weeks ago I reached my breaking point. I decided I could either feel sorry for myself about circumstances that were out of my control or I could change things that I do have control over. I started walking that morning and decided this is what I needed to focus on. Exercise makes me happy but I never really had the motivation to do it as frequently as I should. School is my only distraction at the moment and there’s no excuse as to why I can’t do this now.

At the end of July I began writing down my weight and at that point I was at my heaviest. I lost a couple pounds a few weeks after that weigh in, but the majority of my weight loss has been in the last three weeks. When I weighed in yesterday I lost 14 pounds all together(!!) When I saw this number tears began welling in my eyes. I felt so happy and proud of myself because all my hard work was paying off.

I’ve been using my pedometer religiously; watching the step, mileage, and calories burned count go up each day is more addicting than I care to admit. I’ve been trying to incorporate things here and there and last week I began using my DailyMile account again. I began by inputting data from the previous week into my account. Two weeks ago I walked 26 miles for the week. Last week I was already at 26 miles on Saturday. Yesterday I got to 29 miles and I was pretty sure I was done for the day, but then I began thinking that a mile will only take about 15-20 minutes of my time that I’m otherwise wasting. I did the mile and ended up at 30 miles for this past week. To me that number is pretty impressive given I live in a state where most people use cars as transportation rather than public transit. Those numbers were met out of my own free will.

In this short time, I’ve noticed changes in my feelings about food (more about this in a later post) and I’m noticing subtle changes in my body. It’s a nice feeling when I put on an item of clothing that used to be really tight that is now not so tight. There has been a not so good change that has created a little pain in my knees but then again I’ve been using 3-year old shoes most of this time. I think when my new shoes come in it’ll make a world of difference.

I’ll leave you with a great song that has kept me going!

I finished up the Spring semester and I couldn’t be happier. This has been an exhausting semester and a complete test of my patience at times. Fortunately, I have a whole month free between now and the beginning of the summer semester. I have a few ideas for things I’d like to do during this time, but I know if I do everything that I want I’ll kick myself for not taking it easy come June. It’s difficult to find the balance between completing tasks and also making time for rest. Here are a few things I want to do while on break…

Read

With my tax return I decided to splurge on one thing: a Kindle. Unfortunately, with my schedule I haven’t been able to read a lot and so I’ll be happy to break it in! I have three books waiting to be finished, as well as books I’ve been adding to my goodreads to-read shelf.

Take photos

Every now and then I reminisce through my Flickr feed to times when I took a lot of photos. I hate that my camera bag sits in my closet literally collecting dust. I’m planning to take at least one photo a day (iPhone pictures excluded) during the month of May. I seem to have commitment issues when it comes to photo projects so hopefully 31 days won’t be such a stretch.

Travel

I’m planning to take at least one trip down to Nashville to visit a girlfriend, and maybe another trip with a long time internet friend for a photo trip.

I wasn’t planning to go back to the NJ/NYC area until August and I was almost certain that I wouldn’t drive it again. That being said I’m driving back to Jersey in late May! Ha ha. I’m visiting the boy and being his date for a wedding. Hey, I can’t pass up an opportunity to wear a dress and the beautiful necklace he gave me at Christmas! I’m also planning to visit two crazy (but not so crazy) flickr friends. I should have no problem taking a picture a day while I’m there. It’ll be fun… :)

If you’re planning a long road trip, I highly recommend listening to the audiobook version of I Drink For a Reason by David Cross (aka Tobias from Arrested Development). I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed reading the book as much but listening to David read the book along with his own commentary was hilarious.

During the middle of March I started receiving e-mails from NameCheap regarding my domain name renewal. I briefly thought about not renewing it because I haven’t updated since June. Though I’m sure that’s not the longest I’ve gone without posting to one of my sites. I gave thought to buying a new domain, one that didn’t allude that I only blog about Apple or cosmetic (M.A.C) products. However, moving databases makes me uneasy and it seemed like a lot of work. So I opted to renew this domain and decided I should start blogging again.

There have been a lot of changes going on in my life since June; actually there have been a couple big changes in the last four months. I’ve quit my job and I’m in a relationship(!)

Quitting my job

I’ve been at the same job since 2006 with the exception of the summer I was in Seattle. After coming back from Seattle I moved to a different store that was about 70-75 minutes away (one-way). In January after the Spring semester started I began to feel worn down and felt like there was no time to get school work done. I was spending on average 14 hours/week in the car — this isn’t counting if I went out after work or class. And when it came down to it I was spending more money than I was making on gas getting to and from work. It was like a very expensive hobby but one I didn’t like. I was planning to wait it out until the end of the semester (later this month) but after I had to lovely experience of not wanting to leave my bed for about two weeks in January/February I decided it needed to happen sooner. So at the end of February I quit.

Now that I’m unemployed I don’t see that my schedule has changed too much because I can always fill my time up with other things; some are worthwhile things and some are new ways to procrastinate*. That being said, it’s nice to wake up on days I would normally work and breathe a sigh of relief that I’m not commuting anymore. It’s also nice that I can’t use the excuse “I can’t do x because I have to work!” or “I can’t go out tonight because I have be up early for work tomorrow!”

So I’m hoping now that I’m not working I can go to school full-time without a problem and get this degree done as soon as possible. I still have about 2.5 years left; it feels like a long time but not as long as it would be if I were working. *I do need to discipline myself and get things done before their due date and not cram the night before and stress myself out. As always I’m a work in progress.

It’s complicated

It’s been almost five years since I’ve been in a relationship so it’s weird saying “I’m in a relationship.” Technically we’re listed as “It’s complicated” on Facebook, because he’s in New Jersey and I’m in Kentucky. It’s a long story that I could probably dedicate an entry or two to but I doubt anyone wants to read it.

The short version is Andy and I began chatting sometime around 2002 and finally met in person in 2007. Since then we’ve visited with one another quite a few times. We finally made our “complicated” relationship Facebook official™ on Valentine’s day.

I didn’t see myself ever trying a long distance relationship with anyone but something felt right about this. Andy and I have been friends for so long and in that time I don’t recall a single fight. Not to mention there are aspects of our relationship that I find completely endearing. For example, when we’re out of town we always send postcards to one another. Who does that these days — especially two self-proclaimed geeks?

The distance doesn’t feel like a big deal (and who’s to say there will always be distance,) and with the age of technology it’s easy to talk to one another. In fact, in the last year I’ve seen him more often than some of my friends who live in the same state. I’m not going to name names but you know who you are. I drove to NJ during my spring break a few weeks ago and already have a ticket booked for my birthday. There’s not many people I’d drive 13 hours to see unless their last name was Hanson so I suppose he’s a pretty big deal!

So what’s new with you?

I marked on the calendar at work my last day – Friday, May 8th. I haven’t officially decided what day I’m leaving for the trek to Seattle but I imagine it will be the following week. I wanted to have some time to pack and spend time with friends before heading out. I’m still feeling a little nervous about the drive, and honestly I’d still prefer to fly out there but my brother thinks having a car out here would be helpful.

This week is definitely calm compared to last week. Last week was filled with a lot of stress because I had 3 tests, one of which I wasn’t really prepared for. Plus, I’ve taken on a web design job for my brother’s friend. It’s not a big job but it’s hard to balance putting in time for it with work and school. I have a hard time enough trying to get myself to study let alone do anything else. I’ve been trying to get better by getting rid of sites I waste time on, but I’ve only got rid of BrightKite and Livejournal. I briefly thought about doing away with my Twitter account, too, but I just can’t make myself do that. Heh-heh.

This weekend was my friend Diane’s birthday and we celebrated at her and the hubby’s house with lots of wine – which helped calm down my stress levels. I’m not normally a huge fan of wine but we were told to bring a bottle. I decided to bring a bottle of wine called “The Little Penguin” which won for most unique label. As far as taste it was just okay, but like I said I’m not a huge fan of wine. I’m waiting for embarrassing videos and photos to start showing up on Facebook but none as of yet. Heh.

Speaking of Diane, a while back she asked me for copies of these photos (1, 2, 3) and I was surprised to see them hanging on their wall. If I wasn’t “out of it” at the time I would have taken photos. It’s nice to see my art on someone else’s wall.

I hope you are having a good week! :)

I’ve successfully completed the first two weeks of classes for the fall semester. When I started on the 19th I had four classes: Intro to Music, English 102, Modern Social Problems, and Beginning Japanese. I had a feeling I would have to drop Japanese before I even went to the class because it’s a difficult language to learn. If I was working 10-20 hours/week I could give it the attention that it needed, unfortunately, I’m working 30-35 hours. When I originally made this schedule last semester I was still planning on staying at that school and Intro to Music was part of WKU’s curriculum but I’ve found out it’s not part of UofL. It’s really confusing which is why I’m going to go to an adviser who knows about what will transfer and what won’t. Needless to say the Intro to Music class was dropped but I was too late to add on another class. You would think that they would give you more than one day to add a class. Oh well, I’ll get done with school eventually.

I’ve enjoyed my Modern Social Problems class so far, because my sociology instructor from last semester also teaches this course. I wish I could take video clips on my phone to show you all just how silly he is. Today’s class included him skipping around the room and a very awkward moment of him talking about Viagra and that it’s for older men like him who need “help”. Ha!

English 102 is going to be a lot of papers, in fact we just turned in our first paper today. I wasn’t too thrilled with how it turned out because she chose the topic. It was supposed to be a claim/argument paper, but it was over something I had no real opinion on and I bs‘d my way through it. Our next paper is an evaluation over a movie of our choice. I’m going to do some research first but it’s going to be over either “Once” or “Across the Universe”. It *should* be fun!

My iPhone has come in handy especially now that I’ve added phone service to it. To my surprise I actually get service at home! Gasp! Shock! I’ve been using iCal to enter in homework and spamming the heck out of twitter with random updates from the day. I’ve recently joined Loopt (a location based social network) but I don’t think I will be parting with BrightKite anytime soon because of it. If you didn’t notice I’ve officially become a social networking junkie. As if I need more websites to check daily. ;-P

Other than school nothing real exciting is going on in my life. I am going to New Jersey and possibly New York City in October – that came about in the last month. I’m going to spending about five days there with my friend Andy, I’m looking forward to a break and to hang out with him again!

Hopefully there won’t be such a gap between this blog entry and the next. Hope you all are doing well!

In a little while I will be turning 24, and while it feels insignificant, like many birthdays do after the age of 20, I have many things to be happy about this year. I have a great group of friends, friends that I’ve grown up with, as well as friends that I’ve met in the last year. On top of that I’ve finally figured out what I want to do with my life and what needs to be done to achieve it. I really don’t think any gift can top that feeling of independence.

I’m not sure what kind of celebrating I’m getting into this weekend. I have the entire weekend off and my brother Roy is coming in Saturday from Seattle. I have a feeling we’re going to end up in Louisville Saturday night to celebrate. I’m sure there will be a couple drinks on my part. The following weekend I have plans with friends that I’ve grown up with.

The photo above is from my first birthday on August 7th, 1985. I wanted to find a photo of my siblings and I together and this was the only one in which I had clothes on. According to my Mom I didn’t like clothes when I was a kid. Ha ha. Check out my sister’s glasses!

I wanted to wish Courtney a very Happy Birthday too! :)

I’m starting this blog with a fresh slate. Partly because the entries that were here were meaningless, but mostly because I’m too lazy to back things up correctly. I’m not sure what I plan to blog about here, I suppose it will be whatever pops into my head and seems worthwhile.

This time next week my Mom and I will be packing for our trip to Japan to visit my sister. I’ve been planning this for close to six months, if not longer, and it’s hard to believe it’s finally happening. I’m excited but equally nervous. I don’t have a fear of flying but being on a plane that long would be enough to mess with someones nerves. We’re leaving out Monday (19th), arriving in Nagoya on Wednesday (21st), and coming back June 3rd. We’ve planned a few things to do but I hope we’ll have some downtime to rest and relax. I’m actually going to be missing three weeks of work. I’d hate to feel like I need a vacation after my vacation. ha. :)

I suppose that is it for the time being…