The Diet Starts Tomorrow!

In an attempt to actually strive to make my New Years Resolutions, I did two pretty great things this week (I know! It's only Tuesday!!)
1. I paid off my Old Navy credit card (woo woo!!) It wasn't too high, so it was pretty easy to do
2. I hired a personal trainer.

That's right! I've got myself eight half hour sessions with Pam. I went in and met with her yesterday to figure out if I could afford to actually do this (turns out that with my employee discount, I can!) and I told her that I truly do want to lose this weight I've allowed myself to lazily gain, but I need to be accountable to someone other than myself. I told her that I'm a wimp and although I know how to do things, I stop when I get tired/sore/need a drink of water/because I just don't want to do it anymore. I told her that I need someone who will kick my ass. She said, "I would like to be that person." haha, gotta love Pam!!

She told me that I had to write out my goals, time my 2 mile walk, and keep a food diary for two days during the week and one during the weekend. Well, I've thought up some stuff for my goals already, like...
1. I want to make exercise/fitness more important to me than dinner with friends. Too often I will make plans to walk or go to the gym, and then someone suggests coffee/drinks/dinner/shopping and I ditch the exercise to hang out.
2. I want to lose 20 pounds before I start school in September. I think that this is pretty reasonable. It'd be about 3-4 pounds a week...do-able...
3. To continue a lifestyle filled with exercise long after September hits.
4. ???

The food diary is going okay...although I realized that today was not the best day to start it...I'm taking my friend Gina out for her birthday tonight, and we're going to Rojo for dollar taco's and two dollar Corona's, plus Salsa and Guac!! AH!! Sorry Pam...but I thought, it's okay, I'll just eat REALLY healthy all day today! So this is what my food diary looks like so far...

1. Lite Yogurt (80 cal)
2. Coffee w/lots of creamer (vanilla caramel, yum!) and lots of sugar (I don't count coffee. Or anything I put in it)
3. Gardetto's (240 cal!)
4. 5 chicken tacos (mini's!) (47.5 ea. 237.5 total cal.)
5. Sante Fe Rice and Beans Lean Cuisine (300 cal)
6. 100 Calorie Veggie Crisps (which I'm currently eating as I write this)

And that doesn't include what will make it's way on later...
7. 3-5 Corona Light's (105 cal/bottle)
8. 3 Chicken Taco's (probably at least 100 cal each!)
9. Chips and Salsa
10. Chips and Guacamole

So I'm already at 957.5 calories for the day and I haven't even counted what I'm going to eat tonight, or the two pieces of gum I had (do they count if you don't swallow them? lol)...but I am walking tonight after work, so that will burn off some what I had today...I just don't know how much. I can't believe how quickly this all adds up...

Okay, wish me luck...and keep me accountable! Let's go for walks! Let's eat salads together! Let's be social while being active!!

Suburban Life

After being home for (almost!) a full week, I've realized that I need to appreciate and love what I have right here. There is so much that makes the city so special, and there are so many reasons to love the city, but what about the suburbs? So here are the reasons that I love living in Farmington Hills...

1. I love having a yard. Knowing that I can walk out my front or back door and step into the cool grass...mmm...what a great feeling...
2. I love that I can jump in my car, roll the windows down, turn the radio up, and jam out while driving 80 on the freeway
3. I love how my hair whips around my face while I'm jamming out
4. I love that I can walk downtown on Friday nights to watch the free concerts at Riley Park
5. I love that I don't get freaked out if some stranger talks to me.
6. I love that everywhere I want to go is so easily accessible. There are no trains to switch, no taxis to fight for. I just drive 15 minutes and I'm where I want to be.
7. I love that FH was ranked Safest City in 2005
8. I love when everyone in my neighborhood congregates on my neighbor's driveway and the children all play on the huge swingset in the backyard or run around and play tag in the side yard. And all of the adults (AKA anyone who doesn't play tag or get on a swing) gather on the driveway and sit in their lawnchairs and just relax.
9. I love that I own a car and I don't have to pay for parking
10. I love the friendliness of people, when I drive or walk through any neighborhood, I can wave to people and they wave back.

Being away for so long really made me realize a few things...I'll try to keep it on the shorter side of things for you...

1. I love the city. I love the energy and the excitement and how there is always something to do or somewhere you can go. I would really regret it if I never took the opportunity to live in the city. And when I saw "the city" I don't necessarily mean THE city, lol, as in NYC. I just mean any city/downtown area. For example, I would love love LOVE to live in downtown Plymouth, and if I were able to get a teaching job in the area next year, I would want to live there...

2. I'm ready to move on to a job that I enjoy going to. I'm sorry, but answering phones and sending faxes all day is just not my idea of an enjoyable job. Coming back has shown me that I can't wait to move on. I love the people that I work with, but it's just not my cup of tea. I just need to push through these last three months (well, two and a half!) and then I will be moved on to bigger and better. I know that I should just be happy to have a job, especially when I already know so many people who don't have one - and not by choice!

3. I don't want to go another day without Luke. I really don't know what I did all these years without him, but I just want to spend the rest of my days with him, and I can't wait for that to happen. We keep saying that we don't want marriage to be an answer to my having to move back in with my parents, and that's true. We don't. We've already discussed things so I know that we're probably going to wait another year or so, which is okay. There are things that both of us want to accomplish before marriage, but truly...when I was going to the museums and Central Park, and walking around the city, I just kept thinking, "I wish that Luke were here with me." Don't get me wrong, I had a fabulous time with Becky and wouldn't trade my time with her for anything, but I still missed him. And then to get to see him for a night and a day (Sat night & Sunday)...it was just a terrible tease...I didn't want to leave! I wish that we had our crap together so we could move forward in life with each other...it will happen when it's meant to, God's timing isn't the same as ours, as we all know...I just really miss him already...

4. Did you notice how many times I said, "just?!?" Yeesh! I need a new word...

The Last (full) Day...

I took 119 pictures yesterday! I went on the Staten Island Ferry, saw the New York Harbor & Statue of Liberty. Made a friend (thanks Wanda!), went to the American Museum of Natural History, saw the dinosaurs, Ocean Life, Extreme Mammals, the Theodore Roosevelt Park. I met my friend Tracy for dinner and margarita's. Walked around The West Village, went to Times Square, posed with one of NYPD's finest, and took so many pictures my camera died! I promise not to post all of them here...just the best!!

The view from Borough Hall in Brooklyn

NYPD in Times Square













Tracy and me toasting our margarita's!



Ummm...a van filled with coconuts?? Hmmm...





Talk about a King Crab!



How many fish can you name?



The Giant Whale in the Ocean Life exhibit.



How would you like to swim with this guy?? Don't worry, I'm pretty sure he's extinct...



Giant Turtles!





It's Little Foot!



These are some huge tusks! A relative of the elephant...

The Aquarium inside the Ferry Terminal on Staten Island

Wanda and me, riding the ferry!

The views from the ferry...

My ferry!

The Statue of Liberty for many is a great tourist attraction. But I think that sometimes we forget what else it stands for. "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breath free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless,Tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
What does this mean for you? Because it should mean more than just a place to visit and take pictures of...another tourist attraction to cross off your list...

Well, since the weather was so crummy today, we didn't venture out anywhere. Instead, we just hung out at the apartment, watched BRIDE WARS, went to brunch at Le Petit and drank coffee & mimosa's (yum!), and vegged out in our pajama's! It's been a great, lazy day so far.

I've always loved New York. I think that it's the hustle and bustle, the energy, the way that everyone is out doing something, going somewhere. These are usually the things that people hate about New York. They miss the slowness of the suburbs or country. They don't want to be surrounded by hundreds of people. Sure, it's overwhelming, I won't lie about that. THere were times this week when I was on my own that I felt completely overwhelmed and unsure of what to do with myself or where to go. I got a little lost, I wandered into shops, I bought Dior on 5th Avenue, I wore $400 Versace Limited Edition perfume, I did things that I wouldn't normally be able to do if I was home in Farmington Hills, and you know what? I loved it.

I love that there are tons of little shops sprinkled on each block, that restaurants open the windows and doors so even if you're inside, you're still outside. I love that the grocery stores put flowers and fruit and vegetables on tables outside their shop. I love that there are umbrella holders in shops. I get scared getting on the subway, worrying that I'm taking the wrong one even though it says F: TO MANHATTAN, which is exactly where I want to go. I get scared when weirdo's get on the subway and you have to move from where you were sitting. But at the same time, I love the thrill of it!

At the same time, I miss home. I miss my friends and the fun things that we do together. I miss my family. I miss my boyfriend so much, I miss his dog, I miss the little things that we do together. Whether it's cooking out or going for walks. I have so much fun with him...

New York has this way of just making me feel like I've found a place that fulfills that little part of my heart...but maybe I don't have to move here, maybe I can find myself a mini-New York somewhere else...somewhere closer to home...

Taking a bite out of the Big Apple...5th Ave to be exact!

Bryant Park

Grand Central Station, also, the site where many scenes from I AM LEGEND was filmed!

New York Public Library!

This little girl was so adorable! She had on 2 pairs of sunglasses, and kept grabbing more and more accessories to load onto the stroller!!

Note the hair clips on the sides of the stroller...

Look behind the taxi's for the parade of police cars!!

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Pigeons get so close to people here! They are so not afraid of anything!

As proof, Becky got as close as she could handle...

Oooooooo...

Right after I was spritzed with $400 Limited Edition Versace Perfume...I'm not planning on washing my wrists anytime soon...

Becky's $258 Juicy Couture dress...couldn't it have been $200 cheaper?

The waterfall inside Trump Tower

It's like Where's Waldo?, if you look close enough you can find the little woman and little man to know which bathroom is for women and which is for the men!