Reclaim [my life], week 1

I am participating in a free nutrition class through my local yoga studio called "Reclaim Your Diet."  I'm personally calling it Reclaim My Life because I don't like the word diet, and the title really makes me feel like it's a "wonder-diet" only to stick around for a short while.  

I joined the class with lots of reservations, a lot of skepticism and generally a big 

? 

as to whether this was healthy for me or a right fit.  I finally decided to take a chance, as it was free and I already had yoga classes to my credit at the studio it literally cost nothing and I could drop out whenever I wished.  It is going to be what I make of it.

I'm almost done with the first week and I have to admit it is a very down-to-earth, reasonable way of talking about nutrition.  I was pleasantly surprised at how down to earth and realistic the advice is.  The dietician/nutritionist who led the classes had a very personal relationship with poor nutrition, which makes listening to what she says more meaningful.  It was really refreshing to learn about nutrition in an environment that was not telling you to completely give up any one thing and was encouraging more conscious "selective" eating than eliminating and omitting foods.

My main reason for joining the class was that I was feeling very unhealthy and felt that I needed to do something for myself.  I often put others first and really don't take care of myself first and foremost as I should.  When I do put myself first, I feel guilty and often try and back off or apologize for my decision or action.  Sure, I'm not perfect, some of those apologies were necessary, but a majority of them were not. 

I also wanted to be more in control of my life.  Right now my schedule is what my professors want it to be, anything I do outside of class is smooshed in around classes and forced to be second to every class and group meeting.

  

I needed something that I controlled, that I said: I'm doing this now because I want to do it now.

This week our challenge is to start taking out some of the processed food we have in our diet.  We were told to make a personal goal as to how many processed foods we can eat per day and aim to not go over that goal for this week.  

Only guideline: Do not say Zero.

Pheonix

one-hundred percent

burned out. restarting myself,

pulling out of ash.

A haiku for a Sunday evening.

The Unknown Doughnut

This past weekend my brother and I both made the trip home to visit my parents.  I was specifically going home to see the high school musical (Into the Woods) and my brother had some paperwork he needed to bring home and really wanted to see his sister (... or at least that's how I tell the story).  On his way home he picked up a dozen doughnuts to share with us from his local bakery.  These doughnuts are the real thing. Made that day,  light, sweet, melt-in-your-mouth kind of doughnuts. I don't think I'll ever have another doughnut from Tim Hortons ever again.  I definitely ate my fair share of doughnuts that weekend and brought one back to school with me for breakfast Monday.  I then decided I was going on a "doughnut diet" until next time some of those delicious doughnuts find their way home.

My friend posted this video on Facebook.

[Go watch it, it's only 5 minutes and really interesting... plus I have a few spoilers below so you should watch before reading]

It's called the Calorie Detective and the creator looked at the discrepancies of calories in the typical foods he might eat in a regular day.  He compared this discrepancy to big macs, hamburgers and doughnuts that you "ate unknowingly."  In his experience, he would have eaten 2 doughnuts worth of calories unknowingly!!!!

I was quite surprised at the large discrepancies between the companies' reports of the calorie count and what the calorie count actually was.  I've never been a calorie-counter but I do tend to make choices of snacks by how many calories are in a serving (Snack A has 300 calories, Snack B has 275? I'll take snack B... most of the time). So far in life I have been blessed with the ability to maintain a healthy weight without too much concern, but it is really an eye opener when you consider the amount of overeating that occurs in the United States. 

This video made me wonder: 

How many calories am I really eating? 

Can I really trust what the boxes tell me? 

He touches on how the law requires companies to put nutritional information on their food but that the calorie count is not actually enforced, creating these misleading reports.  

Does the information actually help if it's inaccurate? 

Should there be regulations on this? 

Is regulating this even practical/worth while?

This semester I have not been eating the healthiest or really exercising as much as I would like due to stress (which I know only makes the stress worse), and looking back it's scary how many extra "doughnuts" I may have eaten this semester without even knowing it.  I'm definitely a "stress eater" and I don't tend to eat the healthiest of things when I'm stressed.  I think I am going to make a conscious effort to eat a bit healthier so that instead of eating doughnuts without realizing it, I can have (and enjoy!) a doughnut or two next time my brother comes home.

Stop. Breathe. Be.

No one ever told me that the hardest part of college, was finishing it.  My classmates and I have started the seemingly never-ending list of "lasts."  It puts a very sentimental angle on life and really makes one think about what is going to be the next "first." This, of course, brings a whole ton of other feelings to the surface as those "firsts" are just as scary as the "lasts" if not a little bit scarier because of all the unknown.  

One morning, my professor of "Professional Development," a seemingly (up to this semester) pointless class that was not going to be overly helpful, and asked the question.

Where will you be locating after you graduate??

and why? 

We then started discussing parts of the country we want to work in and areas of practice we're interested in pursuing and a wave of panic rolled through me.  I hadn't thought about it yet.  Well, that's kind of a lie, I had thought about it, but I quickly pushed it aside as soon as it popped into my brain. So that morning when my professor stood at the front of the room and asked that scary scary question, I was stuck. I had no clue where I wanted to work, I had no clue what my plan was for interviewing. In reality it's a wonderful opportunity to have nothing holding me back, to be able to go anywhere I want to go.  This also creates so many options I don't even know where to start. 

So, I tried a few different things.

I made a list of possible cities I'd like to explore... but that just basically was a list of the major cities of almost every state in the US. 

I asked friends where I should go, which was enthusiastically responded to with whatever city they are currently living in. 

• J said stay here in WNY 
• E said DC, DC, DC!!!! ... oh, and I might be going somewhere else... but CH will still be here.
• M suggested Ohio... (Ohio? really? probably not, no offense, darling.)
• C recommended Boston, which I have considered, and may still consider. 

I asked the ladies at my knitting group in Ithaca who suggested: 

• Portland, Oregon
• Twin Cities (Apparently there are excellent yarn stores in the Twin Cities region)
• San Francisco (I think?)
• Chicago (after I mentioned it as a possibility)

... and after all that, I'm still at square one. Trying to decide which way to go, when in reality, I don't have 2 or 3 paths ahead of me of which I have to choose one.  I have a field.  I can go through it or around it or over it in any way I choose. And the best part? I can change my mind.  I can decide tomorrow.  I can decide next week.  I can even decide in 6 months. 

Thunder

woke me up.

And in 30 seconds Saspy cat is in my bed

Similar I imagine to the way I would run to my parent's room when thunder struck as a child.

Then I realized Dad had tilted open the sunroof last night on the way home from the dance.

And I didn't remember him closing it.

No wonder it's raining.

It always rains when Dad leaves a window open.

Better weather predictor than weather.com

I attempted to find the keys to close the window

they must be in his pocket

I don't have the heart to wake him.  

The rain is gone for the most part so what really can I do at this point?

Sit back and enjoy this lovely Sunday morning.

Enjoying the little things in life

Check out this website on enjoying the little things in life.  I think it's important to remind yourself of little things in life that make it a bit more enjoyable each and every day.  Be careful, you can waste hours going through this list.

http://justlittlethings.net/

What friends are for

Many apologies for yesterday's post.  Some days just don't go your way and I just had to write something for fear that I would never come back if I didn't at least post something.  I ended up talking to some friends and being able to become less frustrated.  It turns out my camera deleted all photos on my memory card so I lost the photos I haven't uploaded.  I'm disappointed that I lost the photos but as Erin said: "Well, I guess we'll just have to go blueberry picking again." 

And that's what friends are for: 

• Seeing the positive when you're too frustrated by or too focused on the negative to really see how unimportant it really is in the grand scheme of things. 

• Being that shoulder on which you can lean and try to explain what's bothering you when it really doesn't make sense to you and saying it out loud makes it seem just plain silly that you're upset in the first place.

• Being the one to simply say "let's go for a walk" and then let you rant the entire time and understand you sometimes just need to get things out in the open and maybe a little bit of chocolate.

I've realized this summer that my friends are the best support group I could ask for.  They have been there for me whether I want them or not (though this summer I've wanted them around more than ever).  They've always said the right things at the right time and been the voice of reason when I was unable to be reasonable on my own. 

A week worth of catching up

I've been MIA for many reasons, but mainly because I haven't turned my computer on for a week.  No, I haven't been completely without a computer for a week, I just used my parent's computer.  I didn't want to upload photos to their computer so I kept putting off updating my blog.  I kept saying: today I will write a few posts and schedule them to go up... but alas it never happened. So I'll give you a quick update on the last week:

My knitting is cursed:

Texture socks went up in flames: second sock pattern proved to be much nicer but I started the sock a size too small.  I've decided to get new yarn to remake that pattern because I'm getting sick of the black, purples and greens and feel I'll go insane if I continue to try and make it work.  I've made notes of what I did for the second sock and will be remaking them when I get new self-striping yarn.

P.S. I am not using this as an excuse to buy more yarn. My dad actually suggested it!

I was doing great on my December Lacy Scarf... until I lost a stitch and had to go back about 15 rows.  I got to confident and stopped using the lifeline regularly and then I messed up.  Again I lost motivation on that project.

Smittens are going fine, though I haven't worked on them in a while because I had done the 3 I wanted to do in July so I took a break from them to focus on the above projects.  I'm not sure I'm ready to get going on August's 3 yet.

I bought some bulky yarn at the sidewalk sale and started making Shroom only to find out that it was too small and wouldn't be comfy so I  ripped that out and plan to redo it.  It is a pretty quick knit, but I had spent most of my afternoon on it and don't feel like spending all evening.  That shall be part of tomorrow's quest.

--------

I went blueberry picking with Maddie and Erin and we picked tons of blueberries.  That night we made blueberry buckle and my dad and I used ours to make blueberry muffins and blueberry pie. Yum!

We went to a few fellow EA graduates' performance the other night at a bar in Buffalo. It was an adventure for sure.  There were 5 bands total: RedBeard was very good as was Arctic Death (the two we knew people in).  The other three had some good numbers but for the most part were mediocre.  Crush, The Everlasting was on right before Arctic Death and were a good band to bring the crowd back to focus.  After 3 bands everyone was getting a bit tired (at least from my crew).  We saw bunch of people from EA whom we hadn't seen in years.  Overall, fun times.

Uncle Sean stopped by for dinner on Saturday on his way through town to go up to Canada for vacation at the cottage.  I get to go next week after Celia's wedding... I'm very excited for both!

... And I would have tons more photos to show you but my camera isn't reading my card.  Ugh. The world is against me today.  Maybe if it starts to work I'll update with photos at a later date.

Elm Street Bakery

I have always considered East Aurora to be one of those ALMOST perfect towns: walkable, friendly and historical East Aurora has a particular charm you just don't seem to find everywhere. I could go on for hours about all the things I love about this town, but I'll save that for another post.

What is the ALMOST I speak of? 

East Aurora has lacked a bakery.  I have always dreamed of living somewhere in which I could walk to get bread in the morning for breakfast, or muffins or grab a cup of coffee with a slice of coffee cake. A place that would allow me to live as the French do: never eating a day old piece of bread.

Well, as of July 16th, 2011 East Aurora became a little bit more perfect in my eyes:

I woke up early Saturday morning, jumped on my bike and rode the half a mile to the bakery in order to make them aware that they are wanted in East Aurora.  We were most certainly not the only ones who had decided to make this point.  When we arrived the bakery had every outdoor table filled and a long line of eager patrons waiting to taste the bread.  These lines persisted for the entire day!

We decided to get a few different items in order to get a good idea of what they have to offer.  We got zucchini bread, coffee cake and a loaf of Three-Seed Sourdough bread.  They also had lemon blueberry muffins, cookies, and a pastry I can't remember the name of.  They were serving Gimme! Coffee from Ithaca, NY which made it feel even more like home.  They will eventually be roasting their own coffee but their roaster got waylaid en route from the factory.  I'm really excited to try their coffee roast!

I have to say the sourdough bread was the best sourdough bread I've eaten outside San Francisco, no joke.  It had the distinct sour taste that sadly most breads who claim to be sourdough actually lack.  I can't wait to return tomorrow and replenish the loaf that is now just a memory.

I found out that it wasn't really necessary to make the bakery feel welcome: they completely sold out on Saturday and didn't open on Sunday because they didn't have anything to sell!  I'm so glad that the bakery received such a wonderful welcome and I look forward to seeing what it becomes in the future.

4th of July Weekend

A weekend full of work, friends and fun.

1. Gardening

My dad has been itching to get our gardens tended to so when both my brother and I were home and both he and my mom were off of work he jumped at the opportunity to get something yardwork done. 

I tended to hostas on the side street.

Nate painted the steps with help from Mom.

Dad tended to the garden out back.

 I hadn't ever really helped my dad out in the garden but I was pleasantly surprised how enjoyable it was to be out in the fresh air with a pair of gloves, some newspapers and mulch.  It felt good to get my hands dirty (well, my gloves dirty) and work in the garden.

Gardening had many qualities that I enjoy in crafts: solitude yet social activity, end result which is visible and easy to measure, creativity/ability to put your own style into the finished product. 

2. Dinner and Baking
I made dinner on Saturday while everyone else finished up their chores. I made chicken with Lea and Perrin's Marinade for Chicken as well as tortellini with homemade Garlic Scape Pesto using the garlic scape from our organic farm share.  The pesto turned out tasty but the consistency was a bit off. I plan to try again with either more olive oil or less scape. I read another recipe that seemed to think you should cut the top of the scape off, so maybe that is where I ran into trouble.  I really liked the chicken marinade: light but flavorful.
On Sunday I made banana bread to take to my CI's house for a party before the fireworks.  I should have taken a photo of the bananas I used because they were of the perfect overripeness.  Last time I tried to make banana bread my bananas weren't ripe enough (I eat them slightly green so bananas which are turning brown are plenty ripe to me, unfortunately it just makes flavorless banana bread) and the result was horrible.  I put a bit of extra walnuts in (something about banana bread and carrot cake: the more walnuts the better!) and didn't over cook the bread. It came out quite tasty!

3. Fireworks!

Photo courtesy of JCW 

Fireworks at our local park :) I forgot to bring my camera, but my dad got some great shots with his new camera we got him for Father's Day!

4. Buffalo Zoo

We hadn't been in years so Monday Dad, Nate and I trekked off to the zoo.  They had a few new exhibist: sealions, sea otters (who slept the whole time we were there) and a rainforest!  The armadillos in the rainforest exhibit were my favorite of the day.
While Moxie is our tiger kitten:

we decided Sassy...

looked much more like an ocelot!

Weekly Highlight: Savion Glover

When we have extra time at SAI meetings (which sadly doesn't happen nearly often enough) we each share our "Highlight of the Week" with everyone.  I decided to bring this concept to my blog, so that if nothing else, I blog once a week :)

This week my highlight was: Savion Glover

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Savion_Glover

A group of us from tap club decided we'd go over to Cornell to see him because, well, do we really need a reason?  He turned out to be amazing.  I expected him to be really good, but he definitely surpassed any expectation I had formulated in my head prior to seeing him.  The show was exactly 2 hours.  Savion Glover tapped for about 1 hour and 58 minutes. No joke.  Even as he was drinking water his feet were moving, doing some paradiddles, some toes and heels.  Then he'd slowly get more intense until his feet were in the air more than on the ground and sounds were coming from no where (we later speculated that perhaps he had someone back stage adding in some sounds... his feet were moving that fast.)

I have to say his incredible show made my feet insist on doing their own moves for the next 24 hours or so, though my own feet just wouldn't move that fast.  He really inspired me to move, make up some sounds, and use my feet as an instrument.

A couple days after I saw Savion, my dad e-mailed me a link to a Stomp video (see below), stating "Stomp really blurs the lines between dance and playing music." which I thought was a good theme to go with Savion Glover as well.

Superheroes

"...And now we do Soulja Boy, what versions do you all know?"

Blank stares.

There are versions?

We were learning the newest dance in our Tap Club repertoire: a Superhero mezcla in honor of Ithaca Relay for Life's 2011 theme of... you guessed it: Superheroes!!  We had just learned about 30 seconds of a dance, and our choreographer asks us to do a "Soulja boy"... well, of the 12 people present, only 4 of us including the choreographer knew the Soulja boy dance, we're tappers, not hip hoppers!

But now, after learning the dance that so many people already know, we are more like the rest of the world, except we make sounds when we hop to the sides with our arms lagging behind "cranking" to the beat.  Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink.  We may look silly doing it, our overall look almost as far from hip hop as could be (only a ballerina could be further) but it was fun to learn something a bit simpler than the more complex numbers we've been learning lately.  

As we walked out into the cold after rehearsal, I realized that something about tonight reminded me of why I love Tap Club so much.  I love the other members and how we laugh about everything, I love the dancing and I love having a few hours a week during which nothing matters but the neurological connection between my brain and my feet.

Joy of cooking?

I've unfortunately discovered that I don't really enjoy cooking.  I'm not sure if this is a temporary thing stemming from the fact that campus apartments have less than ideal kitchens that must be shared (in my case) with 5 others on a daily basis.  Who really wants to make some extravagant thing they've never tried before that takes up every dish in the house, when your room mate is going to be hungry and need that burner on which you are creating your sauce?  Or maybe it is more because I'm not very experienced so every minute in the kitchen is one of constant tension as I try to dice the onions without scalding the milk.   I really think the reason I haven't been enjoying cooking is because what I enjoy about cooking is the company that comes along with it.  Growing up I would help my mom or dad in the kitchen, taking on bigger roles as I got older.  I loved helping out to create the family meal.  Now I love baking and cooking for Zach and for my family and friends because when I'm done I get to socialize and share my creation.  If I'm left to cook it's some variation of mac and cheese, or spaghetti with whatever veggies I picked up at Wegman's that week.  When Zach cooks: it's a masterpiece.

Zach actually cooks most often now: he's much better at it and he really enjoys it.  He has a couple cookbooks of Jamie Oliver's and everything we have made from them are delicious! While he's cooking I'll sit out of the way and talk to him, or do homework, or knit, ready to lend him a hand when he needs to grab something from the fridge, or just needs a third one. Then my favorite part comes: sharing the wonderful meal :)

Thursday Nights

I used to avoid the small man-made path up the side of the hill upon which "The 30s" sat.  I avoided it during the day for fear of mud and ice (depending on season) and I avoided it at night because it is not particularly well lit.  The woods is off to the left and apartments are up above as you practically scale a small cliff.  It was creepy. 

Then a week ago I was walking home around 8 o'clock chatting on my cell with Dad who says "If you're still outside, look for Orion and to his left is Sirius, a brilliantly bright star."  I had my doubts of seeing Sirius or Orion as Ithaca's campus is the brightest place outside of NYC (though I'm not complaining. The well-lit campus makes me feel safe especially when I have late classes).   As I neared the end of the path I was on I noticed the thin path through the snow going up the hill.  I decided to try out the path and I looked up at the sky.  The stars were brilliant!  Orion was standing right in front of me in all his mightiness and off to the left... well, off to the left I saw lots of stars, but I picked out the brightest one and named it Sirius. 

Tonight as I walked home with the melodic tones of "Dide Ta Deo" in my mind I once again took that path up the side of the hill and looked at the stars.  They once again shone down with vibrancy and made me smile in awe of the vast galaxy beyond us.

Last time I'm trusting the box...

I planned on doing 2 things this evening:

1. Back up my computer
2. Clean my room

I only got one of them done.

I asked for an external hard drive for my birthday after hearing one too many stories of people's computers dying on them after 3 or 4 years of use right after they had finished a huge paper.  Having bought my computer right after graduation from high school I'm nearing my third year of use and I don't want to take any chances - especially with the 5000 plus photos I currently have on it.  Today I went to set it up and it took over 2 hours or so to figure out how to do it after the box advertised  easy, straight-forward installation.  I probably used up many minutes on my phone talking to my dad trying to figure out what I did wrong.  It turns out it would have been much simpler if I had done things in the correct order and hadn't skipped steps (something I didn't realize I was doing as I thought it had already done it automatically when I plugged it in... I never claimed to be computer savvy), but once things were straightened out it was in fact quite easy. 

Now almost 5 hours later I have a backed up computer... but an equally messy room - though most things did move location.  I guess you can't do everything in one day.  The room will have to wait until tomorrow.

-KE

Photo of the day:

Uncle Sean and Emma at Grandma's 80th birthday party