Perfect Friday Night

Yes, I understand that the perfect Friday night for someone in their mid-20s should not be how I am currently spending mine, but I can't imagine a better evening than the one I am currently having. It's been raining for three days here in DC, its pretty chilly outside right now, and I've worked a lot of hours this week. I left work at 7:20 tonight, came home, and curled up on the couch in front of postseason baseball with a bowl of homemade black bean soup and a piece of leftover cornbread. Perfect.

Later on I might watch the season premiere of Psych from Wednesday, but we'll see if I'm awake.

Some exciting news from the weight front: I lost my 5 percent! One of the things Weight Watchers has people focus on when they're starting out is losing a percentage of their starting body weight. I lost my five percent as of this past Tuesday, which feels awesome. It's possible I might be at 10% by Christmas, which is pretty exciting. It was even better because last week was a pretty rough week food-wise. I was starving pretty much all the time and I ate WAY more points than I was supposed to every day. Luckily I got a lot of extra workout points to help balance it out, but I was a little worried when I stepped on the scale. And, as it turned out, it was better than it usually was. Imagine that! Well, I won't question it too much, I'm just glad it is what it is.

Speaking of food, I promise that the pumpkin cupcakes will be posted about. In the meantime, I made more cupcakes that I took into work today: mummy and spiderweb cupcakes. The initial plan was to make all mummy cupcakes, similar to the ones found on the Better Homes & Gardens Halloween site. But when I decided that those weren't turning out very well, I decided to do a little bit of ad-libbing with the leftover orange icing from the pumpkin cupcakes, the white icing for the mummy cupcakes, and the black decorating gel I had bought. It worked out pretty well. They were really popular at work, which is good. One of the problems with bringing in baked goods like cupcakes to work is that I don't eat them, so I don't know if they're any good before I feed them to people.

Anyway, the finished results were made with Duncan Hines dark chocolate fudge cake, Betty Crocker cupcake icing, Pillsbury Supreme vanilla frosting dyed orange, and red and black decorating gels.

 I didn't want to take any home, so I decided to add a note to encourage people to take some.

Finally, because I managed to take my camera into the office, I took some pictures of the decorations. It's nothing groundbreaking. Things are pretty straight laced in the school where I work, but people definitely feel in the spirit when they walk into our suite.

Jade's desk, when you first walk in the door. It's got the jack-o-lantern orange garland that I bought at Michael's. One of the professors walked in the other day and thought we were a little ahead of ourselves on the Christmas decorations and then realized it was for Halloween.






Vanessa's desk, to the left when you first walk in the door. The pumpkin on the left came from Wal-Mart or Target a few years ago when we hadn't had time to carve anything, and the one on the right is from Giant a few weeks ago. They both light up. Vanessa thinks the one on the left is scary, but said it was counterbalanced by the less scary one on the right.

The GA desk, opposite Vanessa's desk. I picked up these foam signs and decorations at Michael's for $1 each. You can see on the bottom jack-o-lantern that they sparkle. The black parts on the skull sparkle and the spiderwebs shines all over.

The door to my office, with the ghost and two pipe-cleaner jack-o-lanterns, from Michael's and HomeGoods respectively. I added on the rest of the foam decorations from the GA desk to my door later in the day after I took this picture.

And now picture spam of my office.

Well, that's the office. I'll hope to have more posts soon. I'm off to a corn maze this weekend, so that should be worth a few laughs on Sunday. And tomorrow is my last PT session, which is kind of sad because I really like my trainer, but I don't have the money to keep going to these sessions. What I've learned, however, I can take with me as I keep working out at the gym at work. And I have nail polish reviews. I currently am wearing a gorgeous purple glitter, but I haven't been able to take pictures because it's been so dark and gloomy every day and I haven't had the natural light necessary to make it look anything but black. Sad. But I'll get them. I promise!

Midterms and Decorations

I had a midterm tonight in my speechwriting class. We had to write a crisis speech, so the idea was that we couldn't have much time to prepare. We got a topic at the beginning of class and had the full class time (2.5 hours) to write a speech and submit it. I finished mine in about an hour and a half and was the first one done (OK, so I finished at the exact same time as another guy, but close to first).

I was actually really happy with what I turned in. I'm not the type of person who frets and fidgets during an exam. I walk in and I either know what to do or I don't. If I don't, I'm not going to waste my time trying to figure something out or remember something I never bothered to learn, so I generally finish those exams pretty quickly. If I do know it, I take the exam, review it once, and then submit it. I take tests pretty fast in general, so unless it's a really long test or I know an extensive amount on the topic and am trying to fit it all in, I usually finish pretty early. But I'm rarely so content with the responses I give as I was tonight. Usually I feel good after an exam because it's over (one of the reasons I prefer final exams to final papers: there's a finite amount of time between when you start it and when it has to be done and there's nothing you can do about it). Tonight, I felt good because I felt I had submitted a quality piece of work. Now let's just hope that my grade reflects that.

No one came in to work today except for me, so I didn't get a lot of work done. There are some things about the office environment that are really frustrating me right now, so I'm trying to relax and be more apathetic toward work. This sounds like it would be counter intuitive -- if I want something to improve, I should work to change it -- but really I'm annoyed and frustrated because I care too much about my job. If I care less about it, if I spend less time doing it, if I really work on improving my personal life outside of my job and just not thinking about work, I'll be happier in the long run. I'm debating whether to start a countdown to when I'll stop working there. It looks like it should be a year or less, but I don't want to start counting down until it's a little more clear.

On a note of making work a little bit more enjoyable, I took all my decorations into the office today. I put most of them up, sharing some of them with coworkers who do not have their desks decorated. Jade currently has the garland of jack-o-lanterns up on her desk like bunting, and I might be talked into giving up some of my foam spiderwebs and jack-o-lanterns for the GA's desk on the other side of the office. Then everyone will have some Halloween spirit when people walk in the door (technically, I have an office that is hidden from view, so people have to come find me to know I have Halloween spirit, thus decorating of the suite spreads the good cheer to people who can't see my office). I'll try to take pictures tomorrow, if I can remember to bring my camera.

I also have to weigh in tomorrow, which might be ok and might be ugly. I ate all of my weekly and all of my activity points this week. There are a couple of food items I may have overestimated, but usually we underestimate, so I'm sure that I made up for it somewhere. I've been really active, but I've also been starving this past week, and I'm not sure why. Hopefully I will have lost some weight, even if it's only a fraction of a pound. Three people at work have commented about my weight loss, plus my personal trainer, which is very satisfying. This is my last week of personal training, so hopefully I can take a lot of what I've learned and keep using it at the gym and keep losing weight. Most of what we've done is pretty easy to remember (not easy to do) and I can translate it at the gym or even at home. We'll see how it works.

I'm currently wearing China Glaze Mummy May I (actually MMI, this time, and not Zombie Zest, which I kept calling MMI in my post last week). It dried really matte last night even with topcoat, but I put another layer on tonight and I'll try to take some pictures tomorrow.

Still a work in progress

I've been seriously slacking off on the blogging. More than a week between posts? I do have legitimately reasons for not being able to post, more so than just the usual "I'm busy," but I'd rather just say that I'll keep working on being better at consistency.

I don't have my camera with me right now, so I can't post my newest polish review and I really need to hit the shower and go to bed, but I'm hoping to have a bunch of new stuff to post about in the near future.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I'd like to try to bring in Halloween-themed goodies to work on each Friday of October plus on  Halloween itself (on a Monday). I won't be able to give out candy to the kids (my favorite part -- I dress up like a witch), because I'll be in class, but that's all right, I guess. It's for the greater good. (I got a "check plus" on my speech, btw. Not a real grade apparently.) I'm also working on decorating the office for Halloween/fall, so maybe pictures of that. Plus Halloween manicures and even more fitness/diet stuff. I'm down 10.2 pounds since I started Weight Watchers, plus the 10 pounds I lost before I joined! Twenty pounds!!

As a final note: Today I was in the student union dropping something off on the basement floor (where the ex's department is) and walked to the elevator to take it up to my Weight Watchers meeting. The ex was in front of me and had just pushed the up button and so I stood quietly waiting for the elevator to come. I figured that half of humanity's time in elevators is spent trying to ignore the other people in there in order to not have to make awkward conversation, so it should be easy for us to continue to ignore each other's presence in an elevator. When it dinged, he turned to get in, saw me moving toward it and walked past me and away from the elevators like he hadn't been standing there waiting for it. Really, I don't have any problem with this because I wasn't looking forward to spending quality time in an elevator with him, but it just seems so ridiculous. I understand why he doesn't talk to me. I even understand why he won't even be civil to me. But to not ride in an elevator with me just seems... silly. It's not like I was going to use the opportunity to have a long conversation about my "feelings." Oh well. I went to my meeting, lost weight, chatted it over with Joyce because she could tell I was a little flustered and felt better about it in the end. And no crying, so again a victory.

All right, I hope to have more stuff soon for October, but after a day of work, kickboxing, and class, I need to shower before bed (esp. bc I didn't show last night after work, Zumba, and class. Gross.)

What a day...

Today was a stressful day at work. It wasn't necessarily a bad day, but there was a lot going on and I felt pretty drained the entire day (probably because I worked all day on Saturday and then had to be in on Monday morning... not my favorite thing). My boss is an asshole, but that's nothing new. He thinks the entire universe revolves around him, he refuses to be reasonable about anything, and doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself. He screwed over my coworker this afternoon, too, and while it benefits me, it sucks for her and I'm really pissed off about the way that he did it. I'm also pissed off because basically, I ended up screwing her, too. I said I didn't like working on Saturdays (does anyone?) and he said I didn't have to work them anymore, which I thought meant something else was in place. But instead, he just made Vanessa work on Saturdays, which wasn't exactly the solution I thought we had in place.

On top of that, students kept coming in left and right, none of them had appointments, and I couldn't get anything done. And we're likely to have fewer students come to the program than the boss hoped, but he doesn't understand, you know, reality, so he thinks this is somehow our fault and is freaking out because now he won't get to go throw his weight around the dean's office like he feels is his god-given right. What an asshole.

I just need to tell myself that I won't be here for more than a year after this, because I'm going to graduate next August, and if I'm not trying to get my degree from this place, then I no longer care to work for them.

On a lighter note, I saw my ex when I was standing near his office today and he has gotten faaaaaaaat. I know I shouldn't relish in that, but he really looks like he's gained 30 pounds, and that is just awesome. Especially because there I was in a form-fitting navy blue dress (made more flattering by the generic-brand Spanx I was rocking), having lost 20 pounds since my weight went up after he dumped me. Basically, he now has a double chin and a spare tire, and I looked awesome. Love it.

Yet, I somehow managed to sacrifice that awesomeness with my evening dinner. I think my weigh in tomorrow is going to be rough, but that's ok, because I can get right back on it this week.  Because I may or may not have had a calzone and wings for dinner tonight. I'm still having my PMS-style cravings, which will hopefully be gone tomorrow or Wednesday and I can get back to being a functioning human being.

Anyway, I feel absolutely unproductive over the last week or so, even though I know I've been working really hard recently. I need a break. Maybe a vacation of some kind, even though I just went on vacation in June, though that wasn't really a relax and lay around kind of vacation, but an eight flights in 14 days vacation. And when I was supposed to be relaxing on a beach, I got sick in Bali. Of course I did. Maybe something relaxing is in order, even if it's just a staycation. Of course, now that I'm on hourly pay at work, we'll see if I'm willing to give up my days.

Side note: first day on hourly at work, first extra 45 minutes worked. I figured out that if I got a half hour of overtime a week, I'll end up with an extra 600/year, which is saying something. So if I get myself an extra 5 hours a week, maybe I can make adult money. That'd be nice.

Spicy Oven-fried Chicken

I really don't feel good today. In fact, I've felt kind of sick for three days. Luckily, it's just particularly rough PMS so it should be gone in a couple days, but I've had a bizarre relationship with food for the last few days (this must be what being pregnant feels like).

Normally, I don't have any "female issues." No cramping, bloating, fatigue, or whatever else they list in the Midol commercial. But I have not been well this week, and have been having a lot of trouble deciding what to eat. On Friday night, my mom suggested Hollis sandwiches, which are one of my favorite things ever, modeled after the sandwich served at the Pav at UVA by the one-and-only Miss Hollis. But when she suggested it, I felt nauseous. So then, she suggested Chinese and that sounded so much better. Sweet, fried, spicy. Perfect. Yesterday, I at the leftover Chinese food, so today I was left trying to figure out what to eat now that it was gone.

I settled on a Weight Watchers recipe that I got when I joined. It's called "spicy over-fried chicken" and my mom made it once, but it was kind of... bland. So, I decided to add some more Tabasco and see if it was any better. Here's the recipe:

If you're having trouble reading that, you should be able to enlarge it to full size. I'm not sure where you could find this on the site or if it's exclusive to joining. I hope WW doesn't sue me for putting it on my page, though. It's just so good!

And it is good. The almonds in the breading really make it crunchy, which helps deceive you into thinking it's deep-fried. I ground a few out of the mixed nuts using a microplane. I used fat-free half-and-half instead of low-fat buttermilk, primarily because I had the former without going to the store. I also used chicken breast, because, again, it was already in the freezer.

The resulting chicken, right from the oven, and cooked to an internal temperature of 170 degrees. It made the whole house smell great while it was cooking, which is weird, because it was really just baking a chicken breast. The areas with the larger pieces of almond are the ones that got particularly brown and crispy.

Because I added a lot of Tabasco, I figured this would be spicy, so I served it with blue cheese dressing on the side. To lighten the blue cheese dressing a little bit, I used a small amount of regular dressing and added crumbles of reduced-fat blue cheese. Blue cheese (which I'm not spelling bleu cheese bc I don't want to deal with the little red underline for misspelled words) is one of my favorite foods and I would pretty much put it on anything, and this reduced-fat kind, which I found at Giant, is really good.

It turned out it still wasn't all that spicy, so maybe next time I'll add a hotter type of hot sauce or more of it. I don't really like spicy foods, but I do like buffalo-style food, and that's the idea behind this, in my opinion. But it met my criteria for foods I've been craving the last couple days: sweet, fried, spicy. It was a great decision, and I don't feel like I totally destroyed my diet, despite eating Chinese food this week, which is not good for you at all, but tastes so good.

So that was my first recipe entry. I'd like to do more of them, and I'll take more pictures next time. I didn't think to make it a blog post until I was at the end, so next time I'll have more in-progress pictures. I'm also planning some "to-do" list kinds of posts. This is one of them: working through some recipes I want to try through the blog. I also want to document cleaning projects (I'm kind of a slob), make my way through my nail polish collection, and make my way through my shoe collection and wardrobe. If I can't find a use for something, I'll donate it to someone who can.

But for now, I'm going to go back to watching the Nationals and the Phillies and lay on the couch feeling generally crappy, but with a full and content stomach.

From recipe (on screen) to finished product (on plate)

Making Blogging a Habit

They say that good habits have to become habits before you can keep them. Obviously blogging isn't a habit for me yet, but I hope that it will be. This week has been pretty busy, but I could have made time to blog, it just didn't really come to me as something I should do until it was bedtime. So I have a while before my dinner reservations tonight, so I'm going to use it to write a solid blog post.

One of the reasons I want to write a blog regularly is because I think it's a good place for me to organize my thoughts. Whether they're about weight loss, nail polish, cooking, social life, school, work, etc., having them all written down in one place helps me contain them into finite thoughts and lists of thoughts, which I can then organize into something that doesn't seem quite so overwhelming. Being seriously depressed was very frightening and, while I hope it doesn't become an issue again, having some measure of control over my life is a good way to keep that from happening. I've always been a person with a plan and when I was the most depressed, my plans were shot and I didn't know what I wanted to do other than to marry someone who was bad for me and completely lose my sense of identity in him. Good thing that didn't actually happen.

Having more solid plans that can roll with the punches should be good in the future. It's one of the reasons I named my blog "What's next?" It's a West Wing reference, sure, but it's also a rallying cry to face life as it comes at you, tackle it, handle it, and move forward. Locating the lightswitch is also a West Wing reference that, while ridiculous, is essentially the same concept.

So this week has been busy, but it's been REALLY great. I worked out every single day from August 8 through August 15. I went to two awesome Zumba classes (I've been looking for a great instructor since Jose left GWU) and got my ass kicked more than once by things like "Step and Sculpt" (*shudder*). That instructor was a sadist, but he was wearing a UVA shirt, so we'll call it even. But I felt really proud of myself for sticking to the working out, even though some of it was out of my comfort zone, even though I busted my ankle a couple weeks ago, even though I was tired and didn't want to do it, etc. I worked out, I kept up with the skinny girls (for the most part) and I had a good weigh-in yesterday (also kept up with all my points tracking for WW). I feel like the physical activity part of things (at least right now) is really coming together. That's another thing I want to make a habit.

Work is going pretty well right now, too. Though there are a lot of frustrations, given my boss's....unique... personality, but I feel like I have a solid handle on things. Having been in charge of a program on top of my other duties for the past year has been a challenge. I haven't done it single-handed, but I became the go-to for much of the school when people needed a rep from our program. I took on a lot of the director's responsibilities that were time-consuming and way over my pay grade, and generally I got treated like shit while doing them. But now we have a new director, things are falling back into place, and I've done everything for a year. So now it should be easy.

Today we wrapped up our annual admissions cycle, and everyone with a complete application has received a decision, which is amazing. I'm not sure it's ever happened before in the history of the program. One of the interesting things about my job is even on the days when I slack off and I'm not working constantly, there's something to do, because there are always applications to be processed, decisions to be rendered, letters to be sent, etc. But now... there aren't. Now it's done and when I sent the last letters, I literally felt a completely different atmosphere enter the office today, because it finally felt like we were where we should be, after all this time. I think we can stay ahead of the game this coming year, too, so I look forward to that. Though, hopefully in a year, I'll be done with grad school and looking for a new job and it will become someone else's admissions cycle.

And on top of working out and handling work, I'm in-between semesters for school, so I didn't have to work on Saturday, do homework on Sunday, or freak out about not having any time to myself. It feels really good to be on "vacation" from school, even though I'm still going to work. And tonight I have dinner reservations at a fancy steakhouse with three lovely ladies (though one was a last-minute cancellation -- sad) from college who I love to be around. It's Restaurant Week in DC and so we're getting three courses for cheap at a nice place and I've been looking forward to it for weeks.

Right now, things are good. I'm in a good place. I'm wearing a cute dress. My weight is coming down. My activity is going up. I'm getting good grades and doing good work. This is a little bit of a cheesy post bc it's basically just "Life is good," but it is right now. So I thought I'd write about it as I attempt to make blogging a good habit, too, like I'm trying to do with all these other things.

And I don't have nail polish on my nails right now, but I leave you with my Fourth of July manicure from when Laura and I went to Nashville:

As you can see, it's kind of crappy. It's supposed to look like a firework (which was not my idea, you can find the original here). I think it came out all right given that I used a toothpick and have no skillz whatsoever. And here it is on the whole hand:

I'll keep the pedicure in reserve for the next time I'm not wearing nail polish.

My triceps hurt...

I am sore. Normally I'm not sore until the second or third day, but I'm already sore. At 5:30 this morning, I rolled out of bed and headed to Chantilly to meet my personal trainer. His name is John, and he actually looks like the black version of my ex, also named John. So that was bizarre. But it's ok because he's pretty cool and I think he's the kind of person I would like working with. Unfortunately, he's also the most expensive trainer at the studio, so if I were to stay there, I would likely try to get someone else who was a little less expensive.

Anyway, I got on the treadmill to warm up, then the real fun began. And by fun, I mean he kicked my ass for 40 minutes and I wanted to curl up in a ball and die. I'm not sure if the muscles between my boobs and my armpits are my pecs, but if they are, then my pecs hurt. We did range of motion, which isn't a problem, then I did that thing where you have to step onto a bench. Then we did bench press, then dead lift, then other things, then measuring (ugh). It wasn't so bad except that my muscles are screaming out for relief.

I was actually pretty happy to learn that things are not as bad as they would seem. He gave me what I felt was a reasonable number for where my weight should be, which he based on eyeballing my frame. I appreciate that, because I have a huge frame and generally where I would fall for a recommended weight would put me solidly into the skin-and-bones category. I also was pretty happy with the weight I was able to lift. Through my post-workout research, I've found that most women can't lift the Olympic bar (45 pound bar with no weights used for free weights), which explains why he started me on a 30 pound bar. After 20 reps of that, we went to just the 45 pound bar and when I was able to do that, he added on 5 pounds. I made it through about 6 reps of that with him pushing me along, which is exactly why I need a personal trainer. If I were on my own, I would go "Ok, well 45 felt good for 5 reps, so I'm done." With a spotter and encouragement and someone to be accountable to besides myself, I was able to do a lot more and feel good about it.

I also had to fill out a questionnaire and when it asked me if I was sedentary, I circled in between the "yes" and the "no" options. John disagreed and told me I definitely was active, which I appreciated. I don't always feel active because I sit behind a desk all day, but I try to do something on a regular basis. I guess compared to the majority of the population, I am pretty active and for someone my size, I'm relatively fit.

Overall, I was really happy with it. This session was free, as are the next three that I have through a Groupon. Then I have 10 sessions that I got at a place in Reston through Groupon as well, so that should be a good comparison. If I really want to continue with personal training, I might work on finding a way to budget it in. I have to view it as an investment made in my health and not as money being spent for nothing. My health and fitness are things that will benefit me no matter what happens in the future, so I should definitely spend money on them.

I have a personal trainer. That's weird.

So, tonight I set up my first ever personal training session. For whatever reason, I decided to set it up for 6 a.m. on Saturday morning. I don't understand why I do the things that I do, but I guess Matt and I will be calling it an early night after dinner on Friday so that I can get up at the crack of dawn to bust my ass and then be downtown at work by 8:30 a.m. I make interesting decisions sometimes.

But I had a good conversation with my potential trainer on the phone tonight and it will certainly be interesting. He said I shouldn't expect it to be painful, and either way I have three free sessions, so I'm not paying for it now. Then I can switch to a personal trainer in Reston and give that a try and figure out which I like best and maybe keep going, or maybe find a different one, or maybe decide it's not for me.

I did lose two pounds at WW this week, which was nice bc I was pretty sure I was going to go up two pounds. Good to know that all the working out I did last week was worthwhile (the 33:57 elliptical 5K, for example!! WOOOOO!). August is a good time for me to focus and try to get into a rhythm bc when the school year starts (both for attending and for work) I'm going to be challenged to keep it up.

I got my score back from my questionnaire. I got 100% and the instructor asked if she could post it as an example of an excellent project. I really don't understand. While I didn't think it was absolute crap, I really wouldn't think it was a shining example -- even reading through it again, I feel like it has some major issues. So either the rest of the class is pretty crappy or I'm better than I thought or I have amazing luck and I keep guessing the right answers correctly despite not understanding the content. It could be any of the above really, but I guess it's a good problem to have.

I should probs customize this blog and make it look better. Maybe when I get a better idea of how I'm actually going to use it, I will. I've been thinking that it's pretty narcissistic to write a blog and expect people to read it when it just addresses the daily and boring goings-on of my life. Perhaps I should give it a theme, or set up some kind of schedule. Like Tuesdays I address weight and exercise and Wednesdays I address work/life balance. (HA! I have none of that. I'm a workaholic.) Or maybe I've never done a damn thing in my life that's organized so why start now? I want this to be a coherent publication, something that people might read who don't know me inside and out. I like to discover people's blogs and read them and relate to them. But I suppose it's an evolutionary process. So I'll make slow but steady progress and hopefully people will want to read it.

I leave with this: my most recent nail polish color. It's China Glaze Celtic Sun and I love it, but I went swimming twice and it didn't last. This is it's dying moments when I wanted to take a picture and capture it for posterity. I like nail polish in kind of a middle-school-girl way and so there may be nail polish pictures on here from time to time. Deal with it.

Ah, the first weight post of many...

One of the things I'm perennially working on is losing weight. I'm not so much a yo-yo dieter, but I am a yo-yo weight loser. I don't necessarily go for fad plans or crash diets where I suddenly lose a ton of weight, but I'll slowly but surely lose 10, 15, or 20 pounds... then much too quickly gain back 15, 20, or 25 pounds. My co-worker, Fifi, came into my office a couple months ago with a Weight Watchers flier and said "Are we going to this?" so I agreed to do it. I did WW in college, and I wasn't a fan, but my mom lost a lot of weight on it and now works for them, so I figured I'd give it a second chance.

One of the keys for me to lose weight is to maintain an active lifestyle, which I am sometimes good about and sometimes not. For example, this week I've logged six miles of walking and two trips to the local pool to swim laps. I always like to keep things in some kind of unit when I exercise, whether it's miles or minutes or calories. Usually I prefer distance measurements. For example, when I walk, I like to walk a 5K and when I swim, I like to swim the distance required for a sprint triathlon (half an Olympic-distance triathlon). It helps me feel like I have an end goal in mind. If anyone wants to help me keep active, I'm always looking for ways we can hang out together and do that, whether it's go for a walk, go sightseeing on foot, or spend a day at the pool.

I log my activity via President's Challenge which is a pretty cool site. It encourages people to be more active and assigns points based on what you do. If you're physically active, it's kind of a neat way to give yourself higher goals, and if you're not physically active, it's a way to start setting those goals. The Presidential Active Lifestyle Award is pretty cool -- it involves being active five days a week for 30 minutes or more, six weeks out of eight. I also use the Internet to read a lot of blogs about people who do things like "enjoy running." I want to be one of those people desperately. Certain types of exercise to me are enjoyable, like walking and swimming, but running is a chore. I'm not very good at it, either, but I figure with time I might get better. I'm trying to be active in 5Ks and other kinds of races, including maybe doing a 15K in December with my sister.

There are a lot of things I'd like to be able to do as I get healthier, like finish a triathlon (sprint distance) and run a marathon (maybe somewhere as part of a Hawaiian vacation). These are goals I talk about off-the-cuff like I don't really want to do them, but I actually do. So, if I know you and you want to be active, you can help me achieve things that will really mean a lot to me. There are little things I want to achieve along the way. On my trip to Asia, I was completely comfortable fitting into my plane seats (which I was not on my trip to Oklahoma last summer for my grandfather's funeral) because I had lost enough weight to do that. When I was sick on the way back and felt like utter shit, I was glad that I was at least comfortable in the seat as I tossed and turned and prayed for my Ambien to work better than it did. That was a big achievement. I'd like to be able to fit into a couple of the cute shirts that I own with buttons that don't button over my (huge) boobs (which will get smaller with weight loss... hopefully). So in all seriousness, I'd love the support of my friends and family as I work on making this effort a real goal that I achieve, and not another failed attempt with a net loss of plus five pounds.

I feel like this blog will be a combination of a lot of the different things that will interest me. There may be pictures of what I'm eating (I'm obsessed with looking at pictures of people's meals), what I do to work out, the nail polish that I'm wearing (I took one of those this morning -- I was wearing China Glaze Celtic Sun!), work, school, etc. So, consider this my introductory weight post.

Why not?

I figure I'd give this blogging thing a try. All the cool kids seem to be doing it. I'm going to try to keep my real name out of it for as long as possible, but I don't think that will work very well. I'd just prefer to not have it pop up when people search for me.

Anyway, I've got a lot going on these days, not to mention the fact that I can be kind of an unpleasant person to be around, meaning that I don't have a plethora of friends (though I'm not a friendless hermit, as Matt would say), so it's a good place to share some things happening with me without making everyone else deal with them.

I'm not quite sure what I'll talk about here. For the most part, I'm working through my depression, though the subject will inevitably come up from time to time because it's an important subject and has helped shaped me as I am. I'm also working on improving my overall physical and mental health. I'm trying to improve my diet, my activity, and my weight (forever a struggle), so this is as good a place as any to document that. I work full-time at a job that I don't like very much but it's at a university, so I'm going to grad school for almost nothing, which makes the job worthwhile. I'm getting a master's degree in strategic public relations, so that I can hopefully be a press secretary on the Hill -- follow in the footsteps of C.J. Cregg (the blog title is a West Wing allusion).

So yeah, I guess we'll see what happens. I don't really know how to use these "technologies" that the kids use these days, but I'm sure I'll get better with time.

M