Divine Intervention

So right after I wrote my last post, I went to the gym. And when I got there, I learned that they are going to be closed for about 5 weeks to do the renovation they've been saying they're going to do for like a year. They close on Thanksgiving and don't open again until January 5. We get passes to the Charlotte YMCA branches while they are closed. Unfortunately, it's going to be nearly impossible for me to go the extra few blocks to the Y and get in an effective cardio workout at lunch within an hour and a half. Plus they won't do my laundry for me. So it looks like I may be unwillingly cutting down on my cardio activity for a while.

I'm really not all that annoyed actually, because of those 5 weeks, I'll be out of town for work one of them and at home for Christmas for another, so I'm only really dealing with 3 weeks of annoyance and then when the gym reopens (god willing on time), it will be all new and super fancy. Of those 3 weeks, I'm only working 2 of them, so maybe I can sneak out for a 2 hour lunch a few days a week without it being a huge issue. I probably can. I can't help but feel a little bit like life is telling me to take a break though. Which I am ok with.

I have been wanting to check out the Y, so at least I have that going for me.

Am I crazy?

So last night at my pilates lesson, I mentioned to the teacher that I was sore in the arm region because of my yoga class on Sunday. And then I mentioned that Tuesday was usually a lifting day, and I didn't know how that would work because of the soreness. And then she was like "so you do pilates, and yoga, and you lift...that's kind of a lot." And then I realized that I also bang out 45 minutes of cardio 5 times a week. So I'm wondering if my current schedule is becoming too much? Because right now, at least Monday - Friday, I feel bad if I don't work out twice a day. Which is a little scary.

Here is my current sched:
M: 45 minutes of cardio, pilates lesson
T: 45 minutes of cardio, 20-30 minutes lifting
W: 45 minutes of cardio, pilates mat class
T: 45 minutes of cardio, 90 minute yoga class
F: 45 minutes of cardio, 20-30 minutes lifting
S: pilates mat class (when I have time I walk there and back, so that's an hour of low intensity cardio)
S: 45 minutes lifting, 90 minutes yoga (starting last weekend...until then all I did on Sunday was lift)

I will point out also that I eat at least 1800 calories a day, and this crazy schedule that started in late September/early October hasn't caused me to lose a ton of weight or anything...maybe like 3 pounds. So I don't think I'm too nuts. And I mean what else do I do after work during the week? I make dinner and watch TV or read. It's not like I have kids to care for or anything. Although, I'm thinking that now that I'm getting into more vigorous yoga I might scale back lifting to only once or twice a week instead of three times.

So thoughts? Am I crazy? Do I do this because I seriously heart living on a schedule? The answer to that last question is YES. I love schedules. But seriously, is this abnormal and crazy? Because I don't want to be crazy.

Oh the humanity

So that awesome yoga class from Sunday? Yeah. I can't lift my arms above shoulder level or straighten them completely right now. I guess that makes it ok to skip my lifting session this evening? I mean it must have done something by way of strength training if I physically can't move right now.

I'm totally going back there on Thursday night.

Weekend Adventures

The weekend was full of adventures. Here's the rundown:

Friday when I got home from work, Blake had already left for Raleigh, so I didn't have much to do. I had stopped and picked up Chinese food on my way home. So I lifted, ate my Chinese food, watched some DVR'ed TV from Thursday night, read, and went to bed at about 10. It was good until one of the damn cats started crying at 6am because he wanted water out of the faucet (Wylie almost died this weekend as a result of his whining).

The cooking class was fun on Saturday morning, I ate all sorts of pizza and foccacia and we were sent home with delicious pizza dough and a recipe to replicate it with. Best foccacia ever: caramelized onions, walnuts, and blue cheese. Now, I hate blue cheese something fierce, but used sparingly and melted on this foccacia, it was amazing. So good. I will definitely be making this recipe at some point. And I used some of the dough last night to make pizza...it tastes just like the stuff my mom buys at the Italian bakery in NJ. So I will certainly be using that recipe again...a lot.

And then it was dress shopping time. A time which I normally hate. But it went so well that I got two dresses. I figure that between the Christmas Party, DLo's January 2nd wedding, Rachael's April 4th wedding, and potentially even AT's May 2nd wedding (if it's at night), I should be able to get plenty of wear out of them both. Bonus? They were both on sale for less than $100 a piece. And of course I got some kick ass shoes to go with them. Here are the goods.

Dress #1: Susan and I kind of went into the Jessica McClintock store thinking that we would only find dresses fit for senior prom, but both wound up getting stuff there. Who knew? I will definitely wear this dress to the Christmas party, and DLo's wedding, and I'm obsessed with it. At first, it appeared to be made out of some kind of upholstery fabric, but when I put it on it grew on me. It fits really well. Actually, I think it looks better on me than it does in this weird picture from the website, but that's probably because I'm extremely conceited.

Dress #2: Just before we went to go back to Jessica McClintock and make our purchases, we stopped at Belk. They were having a large sale. Susan actually found the dress she was planning to buy at Jessica McClintock for about $50 less on sale at Belk, so she got it there. I also wound up with this number. Because I love green, and although I didn't think this would be the case, these weird bubble bottoms make my legs look super skinny. This will be worn to the April 4th wedding (it's in NJ, so day or night, it'll still be chilly winter dress weather) and will be considered for the May 2nd wedding in FL if it is a nighttime affair.

Shoes: I wanted something tall and ridiculous, as always, so I wound up with basically these. However, the ones I got were this style but black patent leather rather than crocodile skin. And the band around the platform and the one around the top (where the buckle is) are velvet. I don't know if that description made sense, but I love BCBGirls shoes, and that's what these are.

RANT: WTF is with BCBG dresses? I went into the store and loved at least a dozen of their dresses, but they were ALL strapless. Literally, all of them. Except for the one I liked the best, which had just one weird diagonal strap that would still necessitate a strapless bra. I hate strapless bras. Which is why both of the dresses that I got have straps thick enough to hide a regular bra. Also, most of the dresses appeared to be to short even for me (and I'm 5'2''). Not appropriate for functions that the people who can afford to buy those dresses are going to be attending. END RANT.

Also on Saturday, Wake lost to NC State and effectively ended our chances of going to the ACC Championship game. Piss poor effort. I was so mad when the game ended that I immediately cleaned the bathroom to get my aggression out.

Sunday, I got up early (because of the damn cat crying AGAIN) and lifted and started the laundry and whatnot. And then, like a good girl, I went to church. Blake and I did the regular cleaning and errands, and then I decided to try the 4:30 yoga class at a different studio, Yoga One. So I packed up my stuff and headed over there. And when I got there, I learned it was a HOT yoga class. Like the kind where the room is 100 degrees that I assumed only crazy people went to. It said nothing about this on the schedule or the website. I hate a lot of things, and "being hot" is in the top three (also in the top three: "Being tired" and "Being hungry." When I have the trifecta, I am completely unbearable. The entire city of Charlotte will be in danger if I ever wind up hugely pregnant in the summer months). Anyway, I was already there and thankfully wearing one of my Underarmor heat gear shirts, so I stayed. And oh my god, it was AWESOME. For starters, when you're that hot, all you think about is how sweaty you are rather than how much holding warrior 2 for 5 minutes hurts. And the time just flew. And you can stretch so much because of the heat, and during the final resting pose they give you cold wet lavender-smelling cloths to put over your eyes, and I felt AWESOME all night...long story short, I bought a yogitoes skidless mat blanket (because the sweat was totally making me skid all class) and a package of 10 classes right afterwards. I WILL be going again. Amazing.

So that's about it. Clearly my whole "trying not to spend money" thing backfired a bit, but it was a great weekend. And now we're back into the swing of things at work. Today we get to leave at lunch and head to a hotel nearby for our State of the Firm meeting. It's pretty lame, but it's an excuse to do nothing productive for most of the day, so I'm in favor of it. And then I have my pilates lesson tonight as usual. Good times. Happy Monday everyone.

Weekend time

I wanted to post at some point during the week this week, but then I realized that I had nothing to say because it was just a regular old week in Charlotte and I'm trying to not spend a ton of money right now so I haven't bought anything cool to share with the blogging world. Oh well. I think most of the time I prefer these boring weeks in Charlotte to having to be in New Orleans or something, so I can't complain.

This weekend should be at least a little bit exciting. Blake and his friends are going up to Raleigh tonight to see the Wake soccer game, followed by the Wake vs NC State football game tomorrow. So I'll have the house to myself. Tomorrow morning, Susan and I have a pizza making cooking class at Johnson & Wales which should be awesome, and then we're going to the mall to shop for dresses for the office Christmas party (and for me, at least one winter wedding). That will not be so fun. I loathe party dress shopping. But I like party shoe shopping, so at least I'll have that to look forward to. We're hoping that we'll go into Nordstrom's, find something immediately, and then not have to try on any more dresses.

Now that I've been back in Charlotte for a significant amount of time, and I've done a good job of getting a weekly schedule together for myself to include my gym, pilates, and yoga workouts, I've decided that it's about time to do something I've been wanting to do for a while but have been avoiding: going back to church. I usually hate going because I feel like I look like a loser at church all alone (Blake refuses to attend a Catholic mass). But seriously. It's church. People there shouldn't judge me for being alone (but they will. We're Catholics. It's what we do). Once I find a church that I'll actually attend every week, I'm thinking about joining the choir, because I haven't done any serious singing since I took a choir class junior year of college. And I'm pretty sure that because of that, I sound like shit right now. Also hobbies are good, so I should have more of them.

That's about it. I think I'm going to try to actually suffer through a full day of work today because I don't have to go to Winston this weekend or anything, so taking a half day sounds kind of pointless. I'll check back in next week to talk all about my cooking class, which I'm sure will be awesome. Have a good weekend, everyone! I'll leave you with this picture that Blake just took with his phone and emailed to me, of Norman inside of a shipping box (the quality's pretty bad because it's from a phone, but it's still cute).

This is the perfect little cubby for me!

'Tis a sad day

Today when I got to work I went about my normal morning web-surfing and apparently they've updated our firewalls so I can no longer get on Facebook from the office. F. I have no idea when I'll get on Facebook ever now since I don't have internet at home. I may have to convince my partner that I need to permanently have a broadband card so that I can go online from my house. Also, they have blocked thesuperficial.com, which makes me super sad. Thank god they haven't caught on to hulu yet.

This weekend was pretty good. Friday I left work early, got Thai Taste with Carrie, went to see Kristin and the baby (she is literally the cutest newborn I have ever seen), and did a fair amount of baking for the upcoming tailgate. I also tried out a new dinner recipe for a chicken and veggie casserole that was delicious. And, of course, I went to Target and spent some money. Naturally.

Saturday we had a big homecoming tailgate. Several of Blake's friends came down from DC for the game as a surprise, so it got a bit out of hand. But it was fun. EW made grilled pizzas for the food, and it was awesome. And we beat Virginia, which was a huge win. There's a decent chance we'll find ourselves back at the ACC Championship game this year, and I'm excited about it. We just have to win our next two games (and Maryland has to lose one of theirs). I'm definitely going to the ACC Championship game this year if we make it. I was unable to go when we made it there two years ago and I was sad.

Sunday I basically did laundry and cleaning and errands and I read a bit. Nothing too exciting. We were supposed to have training today at work, which was going to render me unable to go to the gym, but it has been cancelled, so that's good. Especially since I decided to be lazy on Friday again last week. I ate like an absolute asshat all weekend, so I need to get back into my normal habits. Tailgates are fun and all, but even though I don't drink at them I eat enough to destroy an entire week of healthy lifestyle. Not impressive.

Well, it's a normal week at work now. Except that my head is not in the game today because I expected to have training (and therefore would be able to zone our for 8 hours) and now I actually have to somehow convince my brain to process actual work. It's going to be a struggle.

Weekend

Guess what? it's Friday, and I'm actually in the office! It's weird. But I'm leaving at lunch time. I only have a few vacation days left to play around with so that I can roll enough into next year to take my trip to Italy.

Carrie's in town this weekend for Wake Homecoming, so we're going to Winston tomorrow for the football game. There was some talk about going to the Bobcats game tonight, but Tim couldn't get us free tickets, so I don't know what we're going to do. When I leave work this afternoon I'm going to hit the gym, do lunch with Carrie, and then do my tailgate-related baking. And possibly clean the kitchen...it's been looking pretty gross lately and I'm almost positive that is because Blake is playing chicken with me and refusing to clean it because he thinks I should do it. Which is fine because I was lazy last weekend and didn't mop like I was supposed to, so I'll accept my kitchen-cleaning fate.

I have to skip pilates tomorrow because I want to get a full tailgate in, but that's ok. I don't have much to do Sunday but the regular laundry and grocery shopping, so I may go to the gym to make up for it. Or I may go to Target and buy shit I don't need. That sounds more accurate.

That's about it. Nothing too exciting going on. I hope you all have lovely weekends and I'll check in again on Monday. :)