New York City

Is anyone else like me? I go on a whirlwind vacation, get home – and I need several days/weeks to sort through everything that happened in order to properly tell about it.  For the people around me, it can be frustrating – they want to hear about it immediately – when in reality, they’ll slowly hear about it over the next several weeks or months.  Such was the case with this blog post – it’s only a highlight of my trip.

I left for New York on Saturday morning at 6AM.  I was terribly worried about missing my flight and around 4AM I started getting calls and text messages from people making sure I was awake…I thought that was incredibly nice.  I arrived at the airport an hour before my flight – which turned out to be unnecessary.  I flew out of Paducah, which is a tiny airport that only flies one place – Chicago.  It took me all of 30 seconds to check in and I sat around for about 30 minutes before being allowed to go through security (which took about 2 minutes).  Our little one-gate airport also has little planes…the plane I flew to Chicago on seats about 35 people.  Tiny airport, tiny planes, 10 minutes from my house.  I’ll take it.

Uneventful flights from Paducah to Chicago to New York City.  New York! This time, I stayed in Queens which at first seemed a bit daunting, by the end I really loved the neighborhood.  I had established a routine: Walk two blocks, grab coffee at Espresso 77 (totally awesome guys there! Gave me free coffee on my last day), walk a couple blocks more to the train.  Drink my coffee on my way into the city, finish it up just in time to get off the train.  

What to do in the city?  Seems like that would be an easy answer, but it wasn’t.  I’d researched and researched and tried to make plans – and I didn’t seem to be able to really nail anything down.  So I showed up with almost no plans.  I had tickets to Sleep No More, Ellis Island, and I knew I was going to see a show on Wednesday.  Beyond that – I had no idea!  In a way I was very happy with the no-plan plan.  It meant time to wander, think, see what I see, and just let the week unfold before me.  

Sleep No More is an amazing theatre experience that allows you to wander through 6 floors of scenes, follow actors, go through their things, steal candy, accidentally end up in the middle of a scene unfolding around you.  Fantastic experience.  I ended up finding a metaphor for life out of it: While things in life might be offered to you, sometimes it’s subtle and you have to reach out and take it or the chance might pass you by.  

Chelsea Market – Oh, how I fell in love with this market!!  I ultimately went three times over my six days in New York.  

High Line – This is around Chelsea Market and it’s former railroad tracks 3 stories above the streets turned into a beautiful garden path.  It extends for several blocks, though I didn’t walk the entire path.  It was amazing how the city could be busy beneath you and yet you feel like you’re far from everything.  At one point I sat here with my eyes closed just enjoying the peaceful environment while my friends ate ice cream lol

Shake Shack – YUM! This place had been recommended to me and I stumbled upon it on Wednesday in Midtown.  I came around the corner and there it was!! I went in, ordered my food and sat down to read.  I came upon it a couple of hours later and customers were lined up around the block!!  I was extremely lucky to have gotten there early, I just didn’t know it at the time.  

Indian Buffet – I’d never had Indian food before, so we hit up a buffet in Queens.  I didn’t know what to expect, but I was extremely surprised at how delicious the food was…I even ate goat!  What’s more, I liked the goat.  

How to Succeed in Business – I knew on Wednesday I wanted to see a show, it was the entire reason I didn’t schedule myself to leave until Thursday.  So on Wednesday morning I made my way to the TKTS booth in Time Square hoping to get tickets to Once.  By the time I got to the booth, they only had blocked view and I wasn’t sure about that, so I went with How to Succeed.  I knew this show would be closing at the end of the week – so if I couldn’t see Once, I wanted to see something I wouldn’t have the chance to see again.  I ended up with Eighth row CENTER seats.  Unbelievable.  I’m sure seeing this alone helped me with my crazy awesome seat.  It was such. a. great. show.!!  

Of all the cool things I did though, the very best part was the people I got to meet.  I didn’t know the girl I stayed with (friend of a friend, hi Nicole!!) but we ended up being great friends at the end of the six days.  While I do want to go back and visit her someday, travel-bug has hit and I want to go somewhere international next.  Anybody got a couch for me to stay on? 

Losing Myself

Two weeks from today I’ll be in New York City! I’m looking forward to it for several reasons.

• I’ll be on vacation, duh.
• 9 days off work
• I’ll be in New York City
• In nyc people ignore each other
• I’m looking forward to being ignored
• I need answers and I hope to come home with clarity on a few things.

I’ll be on vacation for nine days.  It’s been seven months since I took any time off work – I forgot to request holiday time off last year, which meant my last vacation was in October.  After that, I like to get through winter before taking time off again.  Over the next eight months, I have three separate weeks scheduled.

I’ll be in New York City.  My favorite city, ever.  I love that there are so many people, that people ignore each other, and that it doesn’t matter if they ignore me or not, nobody knows me there.  I’ll be alone at least half the time, which means lots of time to reflect and consider my next moves in life.  And yet, I don’t want to think about anything at all…I just want several days to empty my mind.  Maybe when I come back home I’ll realize which direction I need to go.

Any big life changes I’ve ever realized needed to be made, came while on vacation.  I expect this time to be no different.  Stay tuned…

 

 

Bike Snob

A few weeks ago I mentioned on Facebook that I’d like to get a bicycle.  A couple of weeks later a friend let me know that she actually had a bike sitting in her garage that I could have for $25.  She had only ridden it about 15 times, so it was practically new.  It’s a bike she bought at Walmart, so it’s nothing special…but it’s a practically new bike for $25.  I picked up the bike today and it’s pretty great…a little tall for me, but I’ll make do.  After I picked it up I went to the bike store (we only have one) and asked them to look it over.  I went in there fully intending to also purchase a bike rack for my car.  That didn’t happen.

I walk in, and the owner comes up to ask if I need assistance…except she’s texting while she’s talking to me.  I work in customer service and so that was weird to me, because I’d never do that.  I tell her I had just picked up a bike and I wondered if they would look it over and help me pick out a bike rack for my car.  She gets a guy from the workshop to get it out and after he looks it over, puts some air in the tires, and declares it in good shape…the owner begins her diatribe.  She wheels the bike out and says “Well, it’s not that there is anything wrong with the bike, it’s just that there’s nothing right with it.”

Wow, thanks.

“You do realize this bike is entirely too big for you?”

Since I’m only 5′ tall, that really doesn’t surprise me.  She proceeds to show me why this bike is unfit for riding – brakes are terrible, the gears are awful, the seat is horrendous, the bar is all wrong. I told her all I really wanted to do was ride around the park to which she replied “Yeah, you won’t be doing that on this bike.” So I took her bait – I asked “So, what kind of bike would you recommend?” She walks me over to a couple of bikes.  One is $450 and the other is $650.

Come on.  I’m not dumb.  Of course those bikes are better than my cheap Walmart bike.  She has me get on one of the bikes for a “test drive” except we’re still in the store.  And I haven’t ridden a bike in over five years.  I get on, push off, fall over.  Not all the way over, I caught myself…but I fell.  Also, I have a skirt on.  Not a nice athletic skirt, a cute little straight knee skirt with Sperry’s.  Casual, yet cute.  And I’m riding a bike.

Actually, I’m falling off of a bike.

So she goes to get me a helmet.  I’m apparently now an insurance risk.  She tells me to take the bike outside to the empty parking lot next door.  I was VERY glad to do this, because I knew I needed more than a few feet of riding space to find my groove again.  It took me a few laps to stop feeling like I was going to run into cars or simply fall over.  I go back inside and she backhandedly complimented me.  ”That didn’t take you as long to catch on as I thought it was going to take.”

Thanks.

She sends me back out with a different bike and I rode around more, this time feeling more stable – but knowing all I want to do is go back in and buy a bike rack so I can go.  I get back inside and she is ready to put the bike I arrived with back into my car.  After she does this, she just tells me to have a good day – and goes back into the store.

But…what…about…my…bike…rack…

I suppose my bike just wasn’t good enough for a bike rack from her store.  I felt like she was nothing but a bike snob.  My Walmart bike was just a piece of junk compared to her several-hundred-dollar bikes.  But you know what? I came home and rode my bike in my neighborhood just fine.  Well,

Not just fine.  I thought I was in pretty decent shape until I tried to ride the bike uphill.  Baaaaad.  I was huffing, puffing, and had to do the walk of shame with the bike over the hill.  These guys drove by and honked, pointed, and laughed at me.  I didn’t care, because at least I was trying something new

Mrs. Bike Snob did point out one thing about my bike that I happen to agree with – the bar.  It’s pretty high and it keeps me from being able to properly straddle the bike.  So in a few months I’ll look into getting another bike.  From Walmart.  Or Target.  Or somewhere other than her store.

 

Fatty.

Apparently the things I eat really matter.  Huh.

Last week I was only able to go work out once and then over the weekend I sort of forgot that my body wasn’t made of bionic material that could consume whatever I shoved into it’s mouth.  I’m going to be painfully transparent here. 

Saturday morning I was taking my niece to a fundraiser pancake breakfast – but I wasn’t picking her up until 9AM. I woke up at 7:30AM thinking that I was going to starve to death, so I went out for coffee and ended up with a donut.  That I ate in the car. Before I ever left the parking lot. Then I went to the pancake breakfast. I did go hiking for a couple of hours, so that burned 10-15 calories I’m sure. After hiking we stopped to get something “small” to eat. I did get a kid’s meal, but that included a cheeseburger, fries, orange soda, and a rice krispy treat for dessert.  Then only Two Hours later I found myself at another restaurant to watch the Kentucky vs. Louisville basketball game.  Here I announced to the table that I was going to “Eat whatever I want, because this is a special occasion!!” I almost never drink soda, but remember – this was a “special occasion” so I drank 3 very large glasses of Coke.  Along with a massive bacon cheeseburger and fries.  But wait, those weren’t just regular fries! No, no. These had cheese and bacon and ranch for me to dip them in!!  Then, I had 3 cups of coffee. Coffee that I filled with cream and sugar, because that’s the only way to drink coffee.  And then, Kentucky won.  Maybe all the food I consumed help fuel them? Because, fast forward to Monday morning.

I go to the gym feeling all good about myself for making it to the 7:15AM class before work, because I’m so healthy like that. It doesn’t take long for me to realize I have practically zero strength! Simple exercises are now almost impossible for me to carry out. The nature of my class is that the instructor tells me which weights to use, so there is no backing down. I’m doing kettle bell swings with a 25 lb, which last week I did just fine.  This week, I’m dying.  I’m breathing heavy and I even had to stop at one point!!  I’ve never had to stop.  I start to realize that going a week in between classes and my fabulous eating habits over the weekend are really doing me in.  Barely any water, I hydrated on coke and coffee all weekend…it just didn’t work.  I had no idea until this morning how a weekend binge could seriously affect my workout.  Now I know.  Today, I’ve eaten lots of fruit and drank lots of water…tomorrow will be a better workout.

 

Waiting.

My advisor says I’ve completed everything I need in order to have my degree this semester and best I can tell, she’s right. Yet – I won’t be satisfied until I get my letter of acceptance from the Records office.  They mailed them out yesterday. I had hoped by some small-town miracle that I might get mine today…but I believe the mail has already come today and there was no letter.  Today I ran into my advisor from Mid-Continent University, which is the school I plan to obtain my Bachelor’s from (and perhaps a Master’s) and she let me know that my semester will start June 4.  It’s an 18 month program which means I’ll have a Bachelor’s degree by next December!!!  It’s taken 14 years to get an Associates, so 18 months seems like nothing.  Continuing with a Master’s is a decision I will make after I’m at least halfway through the program.  That would be an additional 24 months…I’d probably take some time off in between and see what kind of job I could get.  I’d love to move to a larger city – Nashville, Tn would be ideal.  It’s an easy 2 hour drive from where I currently live, so I’d be close to my family, but also in a place with far more job opportunities.  I’m almost 2 years away from having to make that decision…so I’ll just put that on a back burner for now.

It’s one month 24 days until my vacation!!!

I’m still working out with kettle bells, I haven’t really lost any weight.  Then again, I think I upped my calorie intake at the same time I started working out.  So I’m kicking into gear – by the start of my vacation on May 12, I want to be another 10 lbs down.  I’ve also been attending a financial budgeting class that my work is offering and I had to give my spending habits a good hard look.  Over a three month period I spent $500 on eating out.  Not only is that financial madness, that’s dietary madness.  So, until my vacation I will only be giving myself $20 a week for spending money.  This will force me to cook at home, which in turns, guarantees that I eat healthier.  I’m a firm believer that anything cooked fresh at home is healthier than it’s counterpart at a fast food restaurant.  For example – I made tacos and rice this weekend.  Those are automatically healthier than Taco Bell, and probably cheaper in the long run.  Cost me about $10 total and they lasted for four meals.

Recap: I have my body on a diet, I have my money on a diet, and when I go on vacation I’m going to gain back all the weight I lost and spend all the money I saved.

 

Almost….there….

It’s interesting to me that when I don’t write the visits to my blog increases.

I didn’t intend on neglecting this space. I suppose I’ve had a bit of writer’s block…or it’s more likely that things in my life are at what seems to be a standstill, and yet not.  It feels like a standstill because over the last three weeks, nothing has changed. I’m still going to the gym, though I’ve not lost weight (but seem to be getting thinner, so I suppose it’s working), and I’m still going to school.  I did finish up Biology last week – rounded it out only 2 points from having an A.  Now all that stands in between me and an Associate degree is eight more weeks of Geography.  I think I’ve got this.

It doesn’t feel real yet.  I’ve been working on this degree for a very long time and there are only eight weeks left to attaining it.  I applied for my degree as soon as this semester started and was told I would receive an acceptance letter in the mail “sometime in March.” So, naturally, every single day I check the mail.

Sometimes twice, if it was empty the first time.

I’m also nine weeks from going on vacation to New York City for six days, which also seems unreal. Unreal to the point that I’m having a difficult time planning things. I’ve fake-planned a vacation there so many times that I feel like I’m still fake-planning. I did the most important thing though, which was buy a plane ticket.  So if I have nothing else planned – I at least have my ride worked out. On one hand, I’m completely fine having nothing planned.  Wandering around the city with coffee in hand sounds fabulous.  On the other hand, I have this fear that I’ll come back home and realize I was one block away from a/an _______ I’d love to meet.  (Insert author, singer, songwriter, actor…)

I imagine that it’s going to be a low-key vacation.  Lots of coffee drinking, cupcake eating, bookshop wandering, people-watching fun sprinkled with some theatre, topped with tons of walking.

I think I just summed up what I want out of life in that one sentence.

 

 

Workshop

Today is the second day after my first kettle bell class and man o’ man, I can feel the burn!!  Despite that, I attended a kettle bell workshop this morning.

(I don’t know if kettle bell is meant to be one word or two, but it autocorrects to two words, so I’m going with that) 

I fully intended to stay for the class that followed the workshop, but the workshop felt quite a lot like a workout – so I didn’t stick around. We worked on proper form for swings, clean press, and (what’s the name of it…where you put the bell straight up and lock your arm?) Anyway, those three things and also dropping the kettle bell after having it up and locked.  It was sort of a karate kid moment, we did the moves over and over without a kettle bell in order to learn the motion.  At one point we stood up against a wall to practice dropping the kettle bell to keep us from going too far out.  If our hand hit the wall – we did it wrong.  After we’d practice it sans kettle bell, we would do it several times with the weight.  He also went over proper push-up form.  Surprisingly my form on those is pretty spot on, and I can do pushups quite a bit easier than some in my class.  He has us do those in sets of five and I generally don’t have any issues with them – Except my first five this morning due to my arms being so sore! I was shocked that after I pushed myself through the first five, the others that we did came a whole lot easier. I’d say that just during this workshop we did about 30 pushups over the course of the hour.

The thing I’m really struggling with is the clean press. He keeps saying to get the power from my legs and gluts, but I can’t figure out how to make that translate into giving power to my arm. He says that I’m “muscling it up” instead of letting my legs and gluts do the work.  I seem to be able to make it happen with the swing, but not the clean press. Also, I’m bringing my arm out too far instead of bringing it across my body. So I’ll be practicing that move at home in preparation for the next class.

Today I can feel the workout in my back legs, gluts, abs, shoulders, biceps, and triceps.  Basically – everywhere below my head.

My first class I wore gloves to protect my wrists and I was the only one wearing gloves. Today I went without gloves and certainly saw the need for them! I think that might actually be affecting my clean press.  It doesn’t feel too good when you swing your arm up and the bell hits your wrist. I might have been subconsciously trying to keep that from happening, therefore it affected my movements. If gloves help me to give 110%, then gloves I will wear.  Tomorrow, I’m likely to have bruised wrists

Ouch.

I’ve officially joined a Kettlebell Club!

Tonight is my first class – I’m both excited and a little nervous.  Excited because I know the classes are very small (just 5 or 6 people), the trainer is hardcore about form, and I know that Kettlebells work. Nervous, because the trainer is hardcore about form and I know he’s going to kick my butt.  I told him yesterday that I probably wouldn’t like him very much during class, to which he replied “Nobody does.” haha (I think?) I signed up for 3 months, which will put me directly at my vacation in May.  I think that will help motivate me to get through the first 3 months is knowing that at the end will be vacation and it’s a nice goal to be as fit as possible by that time.  What I do know, however, is that my last 3 months at the gym I fell in love with free weights and once I started focusing only on free weights I lost a clothing size. I’m excited to see what can be accomplished with a trainer pushing me.

I was gathering my things together for class last night and knew I had some take home tests that I’d done and wanted to make sure I got those into class.  It was 10 minutes before I had to leave and as I pulled them out of the bag, I realized there was an entire 30 question test that I never even touched. I thought there were only two of them, but there were three tests!! I instantly felt like an idiot, considered skipping class so that I could turn it in next week, but didn’t because we had also had an in-class test (which I am pretty sure I made a 100% on!) I just didn’t know what to do. So, I turned in the two that I’d completed and I’ll do the third one this week.  Perhaps I can play it off like “Oh my goodness, it was left in my bag!” or something. But if I have to miss this test grade, I think I will just let it serve as a very important lesson.

I’ve felt very stressed this week, my biology class is ending soon which means it’s reached a fever pitch getting things wrapped up and ready for the last test and then upcoming final. I had three take home tests and an in-class test in Geography this week.  I felt like I barely had time to study for everything between working full-time, actually attending class, getting to the gym, and church on Sundays.  Then, sitting in class last night, it occurred to me.  How many hours did I waste on Facebook last week? I don’t mean to – I just get on for a quick look and 30 minutes pass.  For the sake of my education, I deactivated my Facebook account last night. I’ll reactivate it at some point, but for now…I’m off.  I made no announcement – I just did it…and it does make me wonder how long until someone notices that I’m gone? I like to think I’m so important on there and I’ll bet it’ll be a month before anybody wonders where I am.

I’m saving the draft here, I will add my Kettlebell experience. It’s time for me to get dressed for work!

14 hours later:

I’m back! Done with work, done with kettlebell club and done with homework for the evening. I’m kicked back watching reruns of How I Met Your Mother.  The long and short of it is this – Kettlebell class is HARD!  However, the two hardest parts didn’t involve kettlebells at all.  I’ll walk you through…

It started with a couple of yoga positions for warm up – I’ve never done yoga before, so even this was new. Downward Dog and Upward Dog. Weird positions, but they stretch you out and get you warmed up.  Next, he had us do five push-ups. I impressed him with my mad push-up skills. His exact words were “Another woman who can do real push-ups!! I’m so impressed!!” I busted out five right away and felt good about it. As we started using the kettlebells he upped me to 20 lbs on some of them because he said “I can tell you’ve been doing weight training” Yes! We did a few different (sets, positions, whatever they are called) with the kettlebells and that felt good, it wasn’t easy, but I didn’t feel like I was going to die.  Until -

Pull-ups.  Turns out, I can’t do pull-ups.  We were to pull up as much as we could, hold there for five counts and come back down – and do this four times. I pulled myself up approximately one inch (seriously). After this, we did some more kettlebell work and then came the next part that really did almost kill me.  It made the pull-ups seem like a piece of cake.  It was another round of pushups, except this time it was on his count. That means he had us go into a half pushup and hold it for five minutes 30 seconds. My arms had just been through all this major work out and about 10 seconds into the hold, my arms and shoulders were shaking – closer to the end I was breathing so hard I honestly wondered if my arms would collapse under me. I did sneak a knee to the ground a time or two just to catch a break. We had to do this twice.  It was complete and utter madness.

However, the moment it was over and I realized I had survived – I felt GREAT! My upper body is still quite…not sore, but I can tell I worked out.  He said on Saturday I’ll probably be quite sore, and I’m supposed to go back in for class on Saturday morning.  I feel like I’ll probably be quite sore tomorrow…but we’ll see! At this rate, I’ll be whipped into shape in no time at all.

Did I mention that my instructor is a former Marine?

Discarded Clothing

While I wait for my lunch to cook, I thought I’d sit down and blog a bit!

Two of the four days of this week I’ve worn clothing that was barely hanging on my body. I didn’t mean to do this – they were items that I previously wore without issue.  Apparently in the last week my body has made some big changes and some of my clothes just don’t fit any longer. So today when I was getting dressed for work I decided to wander into my second bedroom – where my discarded clothes are.  I found a nice folded stack of skirts and picked one to try on.  I was pleasantly surprised ecstatic to see that it fit!!  Below the skirt was the shirt I normally wore with it – and it fit too!!  I was thrilled to have “new” clothes to wear into work today.

I’m going to be making another change to my workout soon. Last summer I tried Zumba for about 6 weeks and then stopped. In November I joined a 24 hour/No contract gym and have been going there pretty consistently. I found that I really enjoy weight training as opposed to straight up cardio – like Zumba or running.  A few weeks ago, I realized that one of my customers has a Kettle bell club, and I started talking to him about it. I’m pretty close to making that switch – kettle bells are so intense that you only have to go 2-3 times a week. This is very good news since I work full-time and attend school part-time. I really have little time to fit in workouts every day at this point in my life.  I look forward to May, when I’ll be done with community college and will get my bachelors by attending school one night a week, one class at a time. I’m sure it’ll be tough, because you still get your bachelor’s in 18 months, but at least I’ll only have to be in class one night.

I’m digressing.

Point is – I’m losing inches big time by weight training, I am excited to switch to kettle bells, getting my butt kicked, and getting into excellent shape!!

 

MacBook Pro

I have upgraded my life.  I have a MacBook Pro. I don’t really know how to use this MacBook Pro.

Everyone says I will love it, and I know that I will – but first, I have to relearn everything I knew about computers. My experience at the Apple Store was top notch. My own employer is committed to customer service, so I notice customer service, and this was the best I’d ever received. Lily greeted me when I walked in and never left my side – and once we made our way to the MacBooks I never had to take another step anywhere and neither did she. We discussed the options, she found a discount for me, she texted someone to bring the MacBook to us, she processed the transaction standing there, and then she helped me set everything up on it.  I wanted to ask her for her personal phone number so that we could be best friends forever. I resisted, however I can promise that due to that experience, I’m converted to Apple for as long as they keep this level of customer service.

Having only had it for 12 hours – this is what I like so far: My keyboard lights up, it has a webcam (Can you believe I’ve never had one?!), the charger is a magnet, and that’s it so far. Over the next few days I am looking forward to setting up iTunes, playing with iPhoto, iMovie, using Skype for the first time (anybody want to Skype?), and finding out what else this amazing MacBook can accomplish.

Anybody have any tips for a brand new Mac user?