Summer Playlist

I've been finding myself in my car more frequently with a jobsite in Chantilly and running back and forth from the Corporate Office to the field office so I've been getting to listen to all this fabulous music I've been downloading. So without further adieu, my summer jams.

1. 21, Adele- I can't even pick one song so I just listen to the entire CD over and over again. It is too fantastic not to.

2. Jar of Hearts, Christine Peri- This song is gorgeous.

3. I love You Like a Love Song, Selena Gomez.....I can't even justify this one. It's a shameful one.

4. I do, Colbie Colait- Such a light and fluffy feel. Perfect for summer when laying by the pool.

5. Femme Fatale, Britney Spears- Another CD I can't stop listening to. It usually follows Adele. Britney is back!

6. Unchained Melody, Laura Alaina. OK, I am happy with Scotty winning American Idol, but I think Laura may have a longer career. which is fine with me. I love her version of this song. It doesn't go off a tangent from the actual song.

7. Going out in Style, Dropkick Murphys. Love Irish punk. More fun music for summer. Very Bouncy.

8. Guitar Hero, Amanda Palmer. I love the Dresden Dolls and Amanda doesn't stray far from their sound on her solo stuff.

9. Float On, Modest Mouse- This song gets busted out every summer. First song I ever downloaded. I played it as loud as possible to drown out "Hyena" and "Amazon" in the dorm.

10. White Rabbit, Egypt Central. Love them. That is all.

Apparently in the summer I like Poppy music and fluff. Oh well. Off to the pool for me.

ALmost

Well, we are almost through the first week of the diet. With little to no exercise and then limiting carbs...Aaron has so far lost 6 pounds and I have lost 4. Actual to be determined tomorrow.

Good Lord

This diet is already frustrating. I've never read so many food labels in my life. Do you know how many products have Soybean,corn or wheat in them??? Pretty much everything! This even applies to the healthy foods. guess Im going to have to puruse the Gluten Free section.

Sigh...guess it's all Farmer's Market for grocery shopping tomorrow......and Wegmans....I need my shopping porn.

"Fat Head" Diet- Day 1 and 2

Not having my morning toast or bagel could kill me....

Day 1 wasn't too bad. I started off with some eggs and turkey bacon and lunch was the left over half of my burrito bowl from Qdoba. Dinenr was slightly carby and bad. I had 2 avocado rolls, that were dipped in soy sauce. The avocado and Nori are fine but the rice and soy sauce are carbariffic.

Today, my nemesis is my coffee addiction. I'm at 24 ounces for the day...so looks like it will be water for the rest. Have to run our to a job site so lunch may be on the go but I might sneak over and grab a salad real quick at the bufffet before I go. Breakfast was fruit (watermelon, honeydew, grape, cantalope and pineapple).

Unfortunately I have no idea on weight loss. this is the week that it's pretty much pointless to weigh myself since it isn't a real weight so we'll see Monday. I know Im fat so anythign less is an improvement :)

Since I will be out of work early, I will try to get a walk in at the gym before my tour since it's too hot for outside

"Fat Head" and the Quest to see if Atkins was full of pie or actually right.

I love long weekends. I love them more with a Netflix subscription. Just lay on the sofa, turn on the Xbox 360 (for streaming....I still can't figure out the damn controller for it's actual use, plus I think that it's a conspiracy that allows guys to feel that they are, for once, the smarter mammal) and pick your movie.

This weekend, in between marathons of "Parking Wars" and cleaning, I decided to enhance my brain and check out a documentary. I ended up choosing "Fat Head" http://www.fathead-movie.com/ The basic premise of the film is that Morgan Spurlock's "Super Size me" was a load of crap and that what we have been taught by the food industry as a whole is completely wrong. Granted afterwards, I did lots of "fact checking" (Yeah Google) and indeed, many people were there refuting every claim made by this movie.

The biggest point, besides the fact that the guy LOST weight eating fast food, was that health is being destroyed by some of the things we are told we should eat. Our bodies are primed to crave sweet, salty and fat. However, nature's version of sweet equates to fruits and the salty and fat comes from meat. (mmm.... Bacon). We did not eat Grains or oils (corn and soy.....and what is in 95% of processed foods?) until the advent of argriculture. Our bodies are not made to process grains like corn and soy. A fun fact: "As heart-disease rates were skyrocketing in the mid-1900s, consumption of animal fat was going down, not up. Consumption of vegetable oils, however, was going up dramatically."

Well, the science about fat processes and the whole HDL /LDL cholestorol was interesting and we decided to go into the kitchen and see what we had that was healthy to eat. PS...pretty much 95% of our kitchen is carbs. Huh, that sucks.

However, the hubs and I have decided to take on the challenge of limiting our carbs for a month to test the theory presented in this documentary-that eating a low fat low calorie diet is not the way to go. Thank God cheese qualifies to be eaten because I just can't quit that creamy, delicious dairy. So for July, we are going to limit ourselves as much as we can to foods that would have been eaten by earlier people. We will eat Meat (salty and fatty), dairy(fatty), veggies(?) and fruits (sweet) and limit intake of breads, rice and pasta (this will suck). I will try to continue blogging on the process but I'm not promising...because it would be empty.

Summertime...and the Living is ...HECTIC

I've been neglecting the blog. I won't lie. It's been so busy here in VA that I have to remove one activity out of the equation. Since I usually don't have much worth blogging about. (what? you want to hear ALL about my working 6 AM to 6 PM and then rushing to tours for 7:00-9:30 PM???? You are glutton for boredom). It's the Pseudo-Government year end which pretty much means, we are the Govt's bitch until June 30. Lots of hours, not lots of fun. So I'll just give a small rundown.

-I do have some excitement lined up. Finally going to go see Wicked at Kennedy Center. I'm kind of glad for this one. I was late to the party on tickets and ended up getting the last remaining ticket under $100 and not $250. I wish I was exaggerating on this fact, but I'm really not. There was nothing left. I also have tockets to the LTA theater production of Hairspray. I'm fairly excited about this as well since Larry is performing the role of Wilbur Turnblad. I love my Larry :~)

-I have taken up rubber stamping and card making. We went down to Old Town and visited my now favorite store (after IKEA, of course...it will be hard to kill my absolute devotion to them), Paper Source. They were doing a demo on card making and embossing. Needless to say, I am interested in pretty much anything shiny so I decided to invest in some materials. Aaron, is also pretty into the process and has already made me a sweet card. Mellie of course spent the rest of her visit coming with different fun projects to create with the stamps......so Mellie..I blame you for this!!

-Exercise wise- still fat. Haven't seen much of a gym. Aaron and I had a talk amongst ourselves earlier this week and are going to make a joint effort to get off our asses and do stuff instead of staying home doing nothing or sitting on the internet.

-Have an exciting weekend lined up. Pedicure and Shellac-ing with Heidi and then some NPH on the big screen.


Deuces.

"Just a Small Town Girl...Living in a (Yuppy) World"

Well, it's official. I've lived in the DC Metro for 4 years. It seems like only yesterday I watched my family drive away, leaving me and the puppin alone in what would soon be known as Hell Apartment. It doesn't seem like long ago that I started my first construction job in tears, sitting on the side of the South Capitol street bridge, lost, and my van overheating, while screaming at my dad on the phone (like there was actually anything he could do.)

As a small town girl, the first few months were amazing. I filled my days with sightseeing and adjusting to life in the big city. The fact I could have anything delivered and drive most places in less than 5 minutes was pure heaven, especially after commuting between Jackson and East Lansing for the last 5 years prior. However, found myself longing for the days where I did have to drive a few minutes to get to the nearest house or restaurant. The day I can return to that world is far away.

I do have to say, a lot of pros come with city living.

1. Starbucks. Everywhere. On every corner, there is a starbucks. Granted after visiting each several times, you do find the preferred ones and those become your home. I do enjoy being able to walk into the E ST one by my office and my drink is already prepared for me. (I'm a creature of habit, don't judge me), then spend Saturday mornings in Old Town at my favorite one with good friends, right on the waterfront in a building built long before DC existed, (it was a huge swamp). Granted as you walk in DC or anywhere in the DC Metro, you will usually see 75% of the population holding a Starbucks cup...complete with new crappy logo.

2.Food Convienience. While I have not gone as far as Afghan Kabob just yet, the amount of food options is quite amazing. The king of all food is Chinese/Japanese and Mexican. The latter is great, as I have an incredibly unhealthy addiction to it. The former, while the Chinese part of it is delicious, the Japanese part was a new experience, ie Sushi. Granted you will never see my happy ass eating any sushi with fish in it, but the Avocado rolls are delicious and I am addicted. Special Shout out to Kels for starting the Ishiban addiction.
Also, pretty much everyone delivers. Yes, even the grocery stores. (I have NOT fallen to that level of lazy yet) If they don't personally deliver, services exist that you can pay to deliver food to you. Again, besides Chinese or Pizza, I have not yet sunk that far into laziness.

3.Public Transportation- I do admit that I am over the public transportation. Metro has proven itself to be extremely reliable (HA!) so I'm back to driving. However, if you find yourself wanting to go the Smithsonian with an excessive amount of people (family), the metro is the way to go. If you work at a place that is right off a stop, it is beneficial as well. If you are going alone, there are places you find that become your secret parking places that are free. Suck it, Colonial parking!

4. Good Movie Theaters/Entertainment-I do not indulge in the movie theater much, unless Groupon sends out good coupons, because you pay for nice theaters-$15 bucks a movie...plus concessions at their lowest start at 7 bucks. You pay it because popcorn with snow caps thrown in, is some damn good eatin'. There are theaters for actual performances everywhere. My personal favorites are "The Little theater of Alexandria" and "The Kennedy Center".

5.People watching-City living provides some gems. If you happen to live in a tourist city (like us) the possibilities of what you encounter are endless. My personal favs are- a. fanny packs with black socks worn with sandals and b. Foreigners. However, I do take some issue with the French. While at Mt Vernon, this past weekend, a few were talking and my Aunt in Law speaks French. Turns out they were dissing my man George's house. Oh hell no! You do not diss Washington. You can just get your "pepe" asses out of this country STAT! This also applies to John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Don't be hatin'.

Now for all of it's greatness, there are cons to the city as well.

1. PEOPLE. Everywhere. People. You can't walk without seeing one. I am so sick of people. You can't escape. In our high rise alone ,we live among 900 people. There are always lines to check out in stores and grocery shopping has turned into pure hell unless you go at 3:00 am and even still lots of people are shopping.

2.Bad Driving. Here me now. I will never again say a derogatory comment about Michigan drivers. Frankly, I wish people here drove like the Bats out of Hell that reside in Michigan. The people that drive here are seriously a step below ass clown. Most are foreigners who pretty much will never be able to drive. Cab drivers are idiots and if you see a Dioplomat plate....just move out of the way and let them go as they do what they want, which, I guess, is nice when you have no fear of being arrested.

3.Traffic. Here, I always though that Detroit had horrible traffic. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...Detroit traffic. 3 lanes of back up does not provide the joy of 6 or 7 lanes of cars sitting with no where to go. Granted I've yet to figure out where the roots of these back ups start but it's pretty much everyday. Also, if you see any flashing lights ANYWHERE...just pull over and nap because it's going to be a long commute.

I guess, in looking above, for our situation, the pros outweigh the cons. Some people were made for the country and some where made for the city. Some move to the city just to get by when the job market sucks and pay off the student loans so they can go back home someday. That, my friends, is where this small town girl's heart lies.