Still Unemployed

Well, it's been a while since my last post. Yes, I'm still unemployed. However, I haven't really been job searching so that's why. I decided that I wanted to get my PMP certification (Project Management Professional). So I took the online course and I've been reading, studying, and doing online mock tests for 8 hours a day for the last month. I finally finished the course the middle of last week. I had to submit my experience along with my course certification on my application. That finally got approved and yesterday I registered for the exam. I will be taking the class on June 2 which gives me a month to study. I've heard it's SUPER hard and SUPER intense. It's a 4 hour exam. So a month should be good for me to study. Wish me luck...please!

On a different note, I think I've stumbled across a new hobby. My sister and brother in law have started bike riding on the weekends. I forgot how much I loved to ride a bike. I always rode my bike every day when I was a kid. I think I rode my bike right up until the day I got my drivers license! So we've been riding on the Greenway and on the Silver Comet Trail. Now I'm all excited and I want to get my own bike. I've been borrowing a friends. I've seen bikes from $79 all the way up to $10,000! No, that's not a typo....ten THOUSAND. The only way I would pay that much for a bike is if someone was paying my ass to ride it every day. I'm thinking somewhere in the range of $100-$150 for right now. Wouldn't want to buy a $10k bike and end up having a $10k clothes rack in the bedroom in a year. Ya know? So I just have to figure out what kind I want. I'm thinking a road bike....I definitely don't want a mountain bike and I've heard hybrids aren't all that great. We'll see...I'll post a picture of my new bike once I get it. I feel all giddy like I'm 12 and there will be a new bike under the Xmas tree or something. :D

Saturday Took a Turn For the Unexpected!

Last night my roommate and I decided to stay in and chill. Well I bought a whole...um..bushel (?) of basil at the farmers market that morning for a whopping three dollars! So we decided to make margherita pizza for dinner. So out the door we went and headed towards the grocery store to buy the rest of the ingredients.

Somehow between my front door and the grocery store, my roommate decided she wanted to get her nose pierced. She had been thinking about it for a long time and finally made up her mind to do it as we were driving to the grocery store. So, we made a pit stop at Psycho Tattoo which is less than a mile from my house.

Once we were inside the store, I started thinking about a tattoo that I've been wanting for probably about the last 13 years. The more I thought about it, as I was watching her fill out her piercing paperwork, the more I decided I wanted to finally get my tattoo. So I did it! It's very small, in fact I can cover the whole thing with the tip of my thumb. It's on the top of my foot just under my big toe. I LOVE it! Don't ask me why the purple man in the moon. It doesn't have any significance. It's just something I've always wanted.

Isn't it cute? And no my foot isn't dirty. It's just ink that stained my foot. It should come off in the next day or so. But I can't believe the tattoo artist was able to get so much detail in to such a small tattoo! He did a great job!

We finally made it to the grocery store after that and bought our ingredients for the pizza. It was delicious by the way. We used lots of my fresh basil, slices of mozzarella cheese (which melt much better on a pizza than shredded cheese, and yeah I know, NOT vegan), some sliced cherry tomatoes, some red pepper flakes and a whole wheat Boboli crust. We took a "before" picture of the pizza but forgot to take an "after" picture. I think we were so excited to eat it that we just forgot! All in all, it was a very fun, unexpected Saturday night!

Trying Vegan...once again!

Earlier this week, I decided to read Alicia Silverstones The Kind Diet (for the 3rd time). I decided last night to try the whole vegan thing, AGAIN. I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY want to go full vegan but I have several things that keep holding me back. Here they are (in no particular order):

1. Cheese...mmm, yummy, gooey, oozy cheese. I know it's bad. It's fattening, it clogs and congests you and not to mention what the poor cow has to go through for me to have it. I gave up the butter and the milk a couple of years ago. Ice cream...I don't eat very much of it as it is but when I do, it ain't vegan! But I can get over that. Rice Dream makes some awesome ice cream. But cheese? It's my drug of choice. :)

2. I'm the only one I know out of all my family and friends who is vegetarian. I've been a vegetarian for the last 20 years. So I've kind of gotten used to being the picky eater at restaurants. I've also gotten used to people asking me, "if you don't eat meat, what do you eat?" (rolling my eyes). But being vegan brings even more questions, groans and crazy looks from my friends. My family is pretty compensating since they are used to the way I eat. They have no problem with anything I eat and are usually willing to try anything I make. But my friends...that's another story. Most will try stuff but they don't generally like it if it's something they've never heard of. Then the ones that want to go out for lunch or happy hour always feel as though they have to go where I want to go, which isn't true. I've been vegetarian for 20 years. I can ALWAYS find something on any menu to eat.

3. Lastly, if there is a new vegetarian or even vegan restaurant I want to try, well...I have to go by myself, which I don't like doing. If there is some new food or ingredient I want to try, I have to research it and go hunting for it myself, then figure out how to cook it myself. If I want fresh, organic, locally grown produce I have to look for the closest farmers markets and trek through them alone on the weekends. Boo-hoo.

Maybe I'm just being a lazy procrastinator. I don't know. But I'm really going to try it again and hopefully introduce some new foods to my palate. I'm stuck on your pretty standard veggies, fruits, grains and beans. I follow several vegan blogs and I always see the yummy stuff they make and want to try it. I guess if I had a friend that was also vegan, it would be much more fun. Maybe I'll post an ad on Craig's List!! "Looking for vegan friends to go shopping at farmers markets with!" Just kidding...sorta. ;)

Wish me luck!

Vegas and Lime...random, I know

First of all, WHOA! It's been a long time since my last post. I have no excuse I guess. I haven't been on the computer for much of anything lately. I have one month to go until my Vegas vacation so I've really been concentrating on eating better and working out more than anything this last month. I did lose 8lbs last month. Of course, with this past Memorial Day holiday and all the BBQ's, I think I gained a couple of pounds back. No worries though! I'm really stepping it up in June. I was only working out about 3 times a week last month. This month I'm adding another 2 days to that. I was also only eating super healthy five out of seven days in May. With one month left to go I will be eating super healthy seven out of seven days this month! Which means, no drinking. Ugh...I think that's harder than the eating healthy thing. Is that bad? :)

I just made a really yummy salad for lunch. I would've taken a picture but it was nothing special, just romaine lettuce and all my favorite chopped up veggies. I'm not a big lettuce fan so my salads tend to be tons of chopped up veggies with just a bit of lettuce thrown in. But I found the yummiest dressing! It's SO good and perfect for summer salads. It's Newman's Own Light Lime Vinaigrette. Holy YUM! I love lime anything so I think it's my new favorite dressing. I also sprinkled on some Mrs. Dash Mediterranean Herb seasoning. Wow! That salad was really flavorful! I'm thinking about making a cold pasta salad with the dressing and seasoning or maybe marinating some shrimp in it. It was delish!

One hour

AAAAHHH!! It's too early for me to be up right now. This week has kinda sucked. I've worked 7-4 for the last 11 years and suddenly my boss decided that no one could work before 8 anymore. So I'm working 8-5 and I've had to change everything around and I'm amazed at how much of a difference one little hour can make.

I'm waking up before the alarm goes off, having way too much time in the morning (hence this blog at 6am), eating breakfast later so 1pm keeps rolling around and I realize I'm still not hungry but I need to get some lunch! My dog is all confused because usually I leave for work and he hangs with my roomie until she leaves and puts him in his kennel. Now I'm putting him in his kennel and I can tell he's confused every time I do it because I'm never the one to put him in there! I hate going to the gym now because getting there at 4:45 is fine but getting there at 5:45 is like walking into a crowded singles bar on steroids. Lastly, I'm eating dinner too late because by the time I'm hungry it's like 8pm! SIGH. Hopefully by Monday, my body will have adjusted and I can function normally again.

Epiphany

Well I finally have my voice back! Thank you lord. I was really starting to get frustrated. I've worked from home every day this week and honestly, I can't wait to go back to the office on Monday. I'm a little stir-crazy right now. Really the only person I've seen this whole week is my roommate and the employees at Whole Foods. (Actually I did get to see my B-I-L and nephew today.)

Anyway, I had an epiphany this week. As I've said before, I'm a vegetarian. I would be a strict vegan if it weren't so dang hard and expensive! So the more research I did on vegetarianism and veganism, the more I became sort of an animal rights activist. Now I don't mean I was breaking into labs and stealing mice or anything. The whole animal perspective was what made me become a vegetarian to begin with. But now, a lot of my research has steered me into a different path...kinda like a fork in my vegetarian research road. I'm starting to turn into more of a food activist instead of an animal rights activist. I've been reading all these books and watching these documentaries and even tv shows...Jamie Olivers Food Revolution is a great one. Stop eating processed food people!!! It's SO horrible for you! (I know I've blogged about this once before.) I'm just really irritated by our government when it comes to America's health. They know this food is horrible but they don't care! I just wish I could open all of my family and friends eyes to the problem with the SAD (Standard American Diet and yes it is sad!)

I've been harping on my family for years now to change their diets. My mom FINALLY listened after her best friend was enlightened and changed her ways of eating. Now I've finally got someone else on board.

So I don't want to preach anymore than I already have. But if any of my friends or family have any questions, thoughts, complaints (lol) or anything about all of this, I KNOW you guys know where to come!

Obsessed Part 2

Ok, I think I was having a meltdown yesterday when I wrote my last blog. Hee hee. I was working from home and had way too much time to be doing research (more time than I should admit). I'm over it today...although I still think Twinkies are gross.

I'm going to Vegas in July and I want to lose a few pounds so starting this week I'll be hitting the gym hard and getting my fruits, veggies & water in as often as possible. Any yummy vegetarian recipes anyone has, please pass them on! I could really motivate myself by posting a "before" picture on here. But I'm not that crazy!

Wish me luck! :)

Obsessed

So...I have a new obsession. It's not really a good one either. I mean I guess it is in some aspects. I'm obsessed with what I put in my body. I don't mean like, do I choose fat free dressing over regular dressing. I mean I'm not putting anything in my body unless I make it myself. I've been doing a lot of reading and research over the last two or three years and from what I've read, I'm just disgusted with our government. I don't really want to go into the politics side of it because you would be sitting here reading this all night. But basically, I'm just trying to not eat any processed food. It's very hard. We live in such a fast-paced, convenience driven society that I understand why people grab fast food. But if most people knew what I knew, they probably wouldn't want to eat processed food anymore.

I have Blockbuster Online and I'm currently waiting to receive Fast Food Nation, King of Corn, Food Inc., and some other crazy documentary that would bore most people but I'm nerdish-ly excited to get. I've read Skinny Bitch and Vegan Freak and The Kind Diet (by Alicia Silverstone) and countless others. It's really scary how people will eat something that was chemically engineered in lab and not think twice about it. Or...like one of my closest friends, when I tried to tell her that the Twinkie she was eating did not have one single recognizable food product in it, she got mad and told me that not everyone wants to hear that kind of stuff. Um..ok, keep eating rat poison and small doses of ingredients that they use in rocket fuel. Your body...your call (and your ignorance). (They do not put rat poison or rocket fuel in Twinkies, that I'm aware of...just using that as an example as those ingredients are in some other common American foods).

If I told you something you were eating was engineered in a lab and several of the ingredients in it were statistically shown to cause cancer, heart disease, autism in young children and several other diseases, would you get mad at me and keep eating it? Or would you be completely shocked and vow to TRY to cut it out of your diet as much as possible? Call me crazy or obsessed, but I want to know what I'm putting in my body.

Maybe that's just me though.