We had cute decorations.

Very good food (from the Hummus and Pita Co., I’ve been there many times to pick up my own lunch, this was the first time we ordered catering. It was a really nice spread, but they were 30 minutes late so (luckily I had told them to be there 30 minutes before the party started) I can’t imagine ordering from them again.

And we had a pinata. The bride has always joked that she wants a pinata for her birthday at work so I thought this was the perfect opportunity.

The party went off very well (we delayed it 15 minutes due to the food being late), she was surprised, everyone loved the food (which by that point I didn’t care about, so much drama with what to order), the cake (from Whole Foods) was delicious, and she loved the gift.

After work I headed out to CitiField with my friend Maria to see the Mets play the Phillies. She’s a Phillies fan and I’m a Mets fan (not that I really care, but I grew up as a Mets fan) so we had a nice rivalry going.

This was the first time I’ve been to CitiField and I thought it was nice. Certainly nicer than Shea Stadium. Maria bought these $25 tickets that came with a burger/veggie burger, fries, and a medium soda. I thought that was a great deal.

This was the first time I’ve been to a stadium where they list the calorie counts for food. Let’s just say after seeing my burger and fries was 995 calories I ate the burger (which was gross) and about 5 of my fries (which were also not that good).

Here we are. Not knowing where to look at the camera.

The game was tied early, then the Mets took the lead, then it was tied again, then at the end the Mets completely fell apart and the Phillies scored 7 runs in one inning. The Mets tried to rally during the bottom of the 9th (they scored 3 runs) but it was not enough! Still a fun night though. And it was so cheap I need to take advantage more often. I even had a relatively quick trip home, door to door I was home in about an hour and fifteen minutes which isn’t bad considering I had to get out of the stadium, take 2 trains through 3 boroughs, and walk home (about 3/4 of a mile)!

8:50am: Cornbread English muffin with peanut butter and Trader Joe’s reduced sugar strawberry preserves. Normally I stick to overnight oats, but I came back from my parents’ house Tuesday morning and went straight to work so I swiped an English muffin on my way out!

10:30am: Trader Joe’s fruit and nut trek mix granola bar. I seriously love these things.

1:15pm: Grilled cajun chicken, corn, bell peppers, grape tomatoes, romaine, with Italian vinaigrette salad from Hale and Hearty. It was awful. I don’t know how I got it down. Thinking of it now makes my stomach turn. It just didn’t taste fresh. The sourdough bread was delicious (I hadn’t planned on eating it, but I needed something besides the salad). The pineapple coconut water was, always, delicious.

2:30pm: A piece of 70% cocoa almond brittle chocolate. It was good, better than the orange one I bought last, but still not something I can imagine buying again. But I will eat the 7 other pieces!

3:30pm and 4:30pm: 11 peanut butter-filled pretzels. I normally have these at 3ish, but I had another serving of them in place of my normal piece of fruit…

…because the banana I stole from my parents looked like this. Oops.

7pm: 1/4 Gatorade and 3/4 water drink for my run in the heat. I only ran 3 miles, but damn it was hot and humid (upper 80s and near 100% humidity) and I drank it all.

8:30pm: I remembered why I always lose weight in the summer. The heat spoils my appetite. I didn’t want to eat anything when I got home from my run but I settled on a cheddar Amy’s burrito.

9pm: Watermelon. This was secretly all I wanted for dinner. It was very good.

That’s my weird day of eats. Very unfulfilling, but nothing awful in there so we’ll call it a win!

1. I was on my college’s student government executive board for two years (treasurer, woohoo $$$) and during that time we had the most amazing advisor, this woman name Beth who was so inspiring to my college life, but also to my personal life and to this day, five years after I’ve graduated, to my professional life.

One day, I’m pretty sure my senior year, I had agreed to help one of the other executive board members run some errands for a training we were doing that weekend. I went with her to several stores early one morning and later that day I had a meeting with Beth. I started complaining how I had to do everything, this, that, help Sarah run errands, etc., etc.. Well, Beth asked if it was my decision to help Sarah. And I said yes, but that even though I didn’t *have* to I still *had* to. And she said no, I didn’t, if I didn’t do it Sarah could have gone by herself or asked someone else.

The moral was that if I decide to do something then I have to own it, I can’t go back and complain about it or wish I hadn’t done it. It’s a really important, valuable lesson that I often think about and draw inspiration from today. It has definitely helped me accept my decisions and move forward rather than dwell on them.

2. Maybe a year or so ago the head of my department at work and I were discussing my performance. We were talking about how I have a tendency to get nervous during our conference presentations, start talking quickly, and then trip over my words. He said his theory was that I just want it to be over with so I want to get through it ASAP. And that I needed to just slow down, realize it was happening, and do the job he knew I could do.

Now this isn’t a particularly perceptive man. I like him, but (forgive me for saying this) he’s kind of a typical guy in that he’s not the most observant person. I doubt he realized that I took what he said to heart, but I realized that I definitely do this in presentations, but I also do it in life in general.

I often think I just need to do this or make it through this or get to this point. But there is no finish line in life (besides death and I am in no hurry to get there). I need to sit back, relax, and enjoy the moment and focus on what’s happening now.

3. This isn’t advice so much as a quote that really resonates with me:

“And that’s when I realized, making fun of Caroline Krafft wouldn’t stop her from beating me in this contest. Calling somebody else fat won’t make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn’t make you any smarter. And ruining Regina George’s life definitely didn’t make me any happier. All you can do in life is try to solve the problem in front of you.”

Anyone know where it’s from? Anyone? Mean Girls, obviously! I’ve seen Mean Girls many, many times, I think it’s a great movie and I think this is great advice. There are definitely times when I find myself annoyed at someone, that I know or even just on the subway, and I think “Oh my god their outfit is way too tight” or “What is wrong with their hair?” I try to catch myself in those moments and realize what I’m doing. There’s no reason to judge someone like that and in the case of a stranger, there’s no point in being annoyed or angry and carrying that around. In the case of someone I actually know, that judgement is often my way of skirting the bigger issue.

I think it’s often easier to focus on superficial things or trivial things rather than the bigger problem at hand and for me (and I’m guessing other people) I often revert to pettiness. When I find myself doing this I try to make myself realize what I’m actually bothered by and address that. Most of the time I find it’s something I should just let go.

4. This one’s funny: My good friend/coworker Erica invited me (or maybe I invited myself…) to have dinner at her parents’ apartment one night a few years ago. As we were sitting down to eat her mother asked me if I was usually on-time for work. I said yes, I was usually early. She then told me that you should always be a little bit late, that way, on days you’re very late, no one will notice since you’re never there on-time to begin with. Whenever Erica mention’s her mom now I refer to her as the woman who gave me the best advice I’ve ever received. But I continue to arrive at work 15 minutes or so early.

Anyone want to share any of their favorite advice?

1. My Parents’ Dogs. I am not an animal person. I am not someone who passes dogs on the street and wants to pet them. Mostly I think they’re going to kill me (probably a result of getting attacked). But there’s something about having animals around the house that’s just really calming. Even though they can beg and get underfoot, they’re so cute and adorable and I love being able to spend time with them.

2. Getting out of NYC. NYC is great and all, but I hadn’t left NYC, before this past Wednesday, since Easter. And I started to go pretty damn stir crazy. Being at my parents’ these past few days has been fantastic.

3. Books. I am really loving reading lately. I’m very proud of the 33 books I’ve read so far this year. It’s meant a lot of quiet time, which has been great, and a lot less internet/television stimulation which has also been great. Book recommendations are always welcome. I LOVE hearing what other people are reading.

Anyway, I digress. Since I didn’t go to the beach I hung out in my parents’ backyard again. What started as a chilly day turned into a sunny and HOT day.

The iPhone went inside at that point. Also, what does “solo emergenze” mean? (Apparently it means “emergencies only,” damn, I wish I would have swiped it now, I wonder what would have happened?) Does my iPhone turn multi-lingual when it’s hot out?

The point of this post is to talk about being outside. I was never a kid who liked playing outside. I remember spending a lot of time as a young kid playing outdoors with neighborhood kids, but by the time I hit middle school I was done with being outside. It was hot, you got sweaty, you got dirty, and I always got sunburned.

I pretty much kept up that set of beliefs for a while. The beach was always different (although I get bored there after a few hours), but throughout college I always preferred being inside. And even living in NYC for the last four and a half years I’ve always preferred to hang out inside rather than sit in the park all day or something.

I think it boils down to wanting to be doing SOMETHING. I’m a do-er, I’m not someone who does well just sitting around. Everyday when I wake up I have a plan in mind. For example, my plan for today was wake up, eat English muffin with peanut butter, wash face, put on sunscreen, get dressed, go to the beach, read at the beach for 2-3 hours, come home, eat lunch, sit outside all afternoon, workout around 4pm, have a beer, eat dinner, sit outside reading more, come inside and blog and read blogs, eat fruit, watch Mad Men, eat dessert, wash face and brush teeth, go to bed.

So if I could plan a day where I’d be doing stuff and just happened to be outside that’s fine. But endless stretches of just sitting around terrify me.

(This post is all over the place.)

Lately though, my feelings about being outside have changed. I don’t know if living in the city with no outdoor space has started to wear thin, but now I want to be outside all the time. I’ve started taking walks at lunch, I go running/walking when I get home, and on weekends I want to just hang out and read in the park.

So that’s pretty much the point of this post.

I’ll end with the giant slug on my parents’ umbrella holder. (Looking back it seems so mean how we used to dump salt on them when I was a kid. I know they can be bad for gardens, but why not just pick them up (with a shovel or something) and move them elsewhere? I can’t imagine watching something suffer like that now.)

And the view of their backyard at sunset.

Monday: The plan was to go running, but it was pouring so I did a whole heck of a lot of lunges inspired by Fitnessista’s 10 Ways to Lunge. I also did 3 minutes of a forearms and toes plank (10 seconds of holding the plank, 5 seconds relaxing).

Tuesday: I went for a 3 mile run (alternating 5 mins. running and 1 min. walking) and did another 3 minute plank. The best part about the run was that my Garmin magically started working. It stopped charging about a year ago so it just died. Granted I haven’t really tried to use it in a year, but the other day I randomly decided to see if it would charge…and it did!

I had been using RunKeeper and and I never felt like it was accurate (which I don’t necessarily blame on RunKeeper, the GPS on my phone isn’t the best). Compared to my Garmin RunKeeper was about .16 off (it was done faster than it should have been).

Wednesday: Plank day! I used another Fitnessista page as a guide. I did 10 seconds of holding a plank and 5 seconds off for the following planks: regular plank, hip twist plank, lifting right leg plank, lifting left leg plank, supermans. I did it once, then I did it again. I also did 50 leg lifts and 50 scissor lifts.

Thursday: All I wanted to do was go for a run. It was supposed to be sunny all day, but it ended up being overcast and rainy all day. It looked like it was clearing up when I left work, but when I got to Brooklyn it was lightly raining. I don’t mind running in light rain (I kind of like it) so I said I’d still go. Then it started down pouring, and kept down pouring until around 8pm. Bye, bye run.

Friday: Tons of walking, but no time for a real workout.

Saturday: I ran 3 miles at my parents’ house (again, 5 mins. running alternated with 1 min. walking). It’s so nice to run somewhere less hilly. But it was humid and I finished a sweaty mess.

What else I’ve been up to

I went to NJ for work on Wednesday.

The work part of my trip went really well and then I did some shopping.

New capris (yay or nay with the coral jacket?)

New wedges. Super comfy.

New espadrilles. I actually need to exchange them. I only tried on the right one in the store and when I got home and put the left one on the left one was smaller. I tried to exchange them Friday afternoon but the Michael Kors store by my office (which has super snooty employees, FWIW) didn’t have an 8.5. I’ll try some of their other stores next week.

I actually have these in gold from last year.

I LOVE them and wore them everywhere last summer. However, after a month the sole fell off, luckily it wasn’t anything crazy glue couldn’t solve.

Then, this year, the whole bottom started falling off.

Again, crazy glue is a miracle worker Now I’m probably crazy for buying the same shoes that fell apart on me, but whatever, I love them, I don’t care.

I took the train out to my parents’ house yesterday afternoon. That picture shows the crush of people on the platform with the reflection of the train. The confusion pretty much sums up my trip.

I went to the bank to cash in all my change. When my parents came in for my wrist surgery I had them take the change back with them since it’s so heavy. My bank here has a change machine, but the one in the city doesn’t. The change is actually from the piggy bank I talked about in this old post. I had $61.03!

After the bank I went to Target and the beer distributor.

Then I came home and cooked.

Green Chili Chicken Turkey Burgers from How Sweet Eats.

Triple Double Chocolate Puppy Chow from Food, Fitness and Family (couldn’t find chocolate Chex)

Sweet Corn and Roasted Jalapeno Hummus from How Sweet Eats

I snacked on all my food sitting on my parents patio all afternoon. I also had an Ithaca Flower Power beer (I think it might be my favorite beer). I finished two books. I highly recommend them both.

And after dinner my mom made strawberry shortcake for dessert! And then my dad and I took the dogs for a walk.

Whew! That was a big brain dump. Busy week!

Charles Bradley – “Heartaches and Pain”

Ingrid Michaelson – “Far Away”

Regina Spektor – “Hotel Song”

It’s been a week since I got the splint/cast thing off my wrist. Honestly, I can’t believe how fast the scar is healing.

That’s from last Thursday to Wednesday.

I think a big help has been the vitaman E oil I’ve been obsessively rubbing into the scar.

It was recommended by my physical therapist and I’ve been massaging the scar with the oil all week. I think it’s definitely helping break up the scar tissue.

As I’ve mentioned I went to my first physical therapy session last Friday. I met with the physical therapist, who oddly enough turned out to be the same physical therapist who was shadowing my surgeon the first time I went. She has a student working with her and I gave my history to the student and the student was mainly the one who helped me, under the physical therapist’s supervision.

They took some measurements, my right wrist was swollen and I had much less range of motion compared to my left, but my grip was still stronger in my right (dominant) hand. After that they did some massaging, which hurt like all hell, and then had me do some exercises. Following the exercises they did some more massaging and also some stretching of the joint, which felt great.

I got sent home with the following exercises:

I’ve been doing them every morning and I can definitely see/feel improvement. Yesterday I was able to (briefly) hold myself in a full plank. Last week the idea of putting any weight on my right wrist like that made me feel like it would snap into two. I’ll admit that part of me is frustrated at not being able to do EVERYTHING yet, but then I remind myself it’s only been a week.

The only bad thing about physical therapy so far has been the bruises after my first session.

My wrist felt great, but I could barely touch my right forearm. I guess it helped because the muscles have been much looser, but damn, breaking up those muscles was PAINFUL.

I went back to physical therapy this past Monday. They again heated it, did a massage (more gentle this time), and then we did exercises. Some of the same ones as above, but also a couple of other ones. I had to form a piece of putty into a meatball with just my right hand (hard) and this other contraption that was a ball with 5 elastic bands coming off of it and at the end of each band was a ring for each of my fingers and my thumb. I had to stretch it out and then squeeze it together, this was hard, but I thought the putty was worse. After the exercises they iced my forearm and wrist, so cold!

The only strange feeling, besides the tightness, has been a tingling. Sometimes when the nerve is compressed it gets tingly. It’s a weird feeling but the physical therapist says it’s normal.

I have my next physical therapy appointment tomorrow, hopefully they’ll think I’m making good progress.

I have the same thing for breakfast every morning, overnight oats. I use the recipe from Peanut Butter Runner and add about a tablespoon of peanut butter and a tablespoon of Trader Joe’s reduced sugar strawberry preserves. Lately I’ve been wishing it was saltier. I always eat this once I get to work around 9am.

Around 11am I was ready to gnaw off my arm so I had a fruit and nut trek mix granola bar from Trader Joe’s. These things are so good, only have normal ingredients, and are 140 calories each!

Finally, lunch! Around 1pm I whipped out my lunch, this is Eat, Live, Run’s favorite salad. I followed her recipe exactly, except I added grape tomatoes because they’ve been good lately. I also mix the dressing together beforehand so it’s like a creamy dressing. This has become my go-to salad.

Drank an entire bottle of Trader Joe’s lime seltzer in the afternoon. On a normal day I drink 3-4 of the Nalgene bottle you see behind the seltzer bottle. I am a water-drinking machine.

Around 2pm I had a square of this intense orange dark chocolate bar. I’m not a fan. It tastes good, but the pieces of orange and almond slivers are weird.

Around 3pm I had 10 peanut-butter filled pretzels. Normally I buy them from Trader Joe’s, but I forgot so this is a brand from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I think I might like these better.

Around 4pm I had an orange. It wasn’t very good.

When I got home from work, around 6pm, I had a small handful of chocolate chips (x2).

On the way back from my run I stopped to buy a coconut water with pineapple. I just recently realized I liked the pineapple flavor, it was very refreshing.

Dinner was a turkey caesar burger from Sweet Tooth Sweet life, steamed green beans, and mini roasted potatoes (with way too much salt, oops). (This is a salad plate, btw.) I tried to make the burgers last night, but the ground chicken I bought Friday, which had a sell by date of 5/23, smelled like rotten eggs when I opened it. Google (and my common sense) told me I should throw it out. Trader Joe’s only had ground turkey so I made these tonight with the turkey and I thought they were great.

Dessert was some blackberries, strawberries, and two squares of Trader Joe’s dark chocolate, caramel, and sea salt bar. I love that thing.

And that’s everything I ate. Besides the very, very, very small piece of brownie I had at work. Someone made them and I wanted to try them, they tasted good but had a really weird consistency. I realized as I was writing this that all three of my main meals featured recipes from bloggers! I get nearly all my recipes from blogs and I’m almost never disappointed.

Three years ago I said how I didn’t eat a vegetable until I was 21; I had just recently started drinking milk; I didn’t eat much meat; and I wanted to learn to like Asian food, fish, eggs, and yogurt. An update on each one:

VEGETABLES: I still eat tons of vegetables. I try to have 2-3 servings a day and I’d love to have more. During the winter I mostly stick to frozen vegetables (mostly broccoli and green beans), but in the summer when I can get veggies from the Greenmarket I take advantage of those. And Brussels sprouts in the fall. I really love Brussels sprouts.

MILK: I do not drink cows’ milk any more. I certainly still eat dairy, but the phase of drinking milk and putting it on cereal has passed. I don’t find cereal and milk to be a filling breakfast and I just don’t find myself craving milk. I probably haven’t had a glass of milk or cereal and milk in 2.5 years.

MEAT: I stopped cooking meat at home right around the time I started this blog three years ago and I didn’t cook meat at home on a regular basis (meaning more than once or twice a year) until a couple months ago. Now I find myself wanting meat more often, so I make meat. Always organic, local and grassfed when possible, and I still only eat it maybe 3-4 times/week.

ASIAN FOOD: I said in the original post how I liked Indian food, well, I still love Indian food and I’m also now a big Thai fan. I could eat that spicy basil sauce all day. And steamed veggie dumplings. I’ve also tried Vietnamese food which I really enjoyed. I still can’t get onboard with Chinese or Japanese food. My guess is that I just haven’t found a dish I like, but unless some Chinese or Japanese restaurant wants to sponsor me it’s probably not going to happen as I don’t have money to waste on food I don’t like. As I’m writing this I had a realization, I’ve had cold sesame noodles and chicken teriyaki that I’ve liked, but they’ve both been dishes made by a coworker who’s a very good chef. As I said in my original post, part of what makes me picky and turns me off from trying food is the fear of not knowing what it is. When my coworker made the food I knew there was nothing crazy in it.

FISH: I’ve gotten on the shrimp wagon. I can’t imagine eating those freaky pink shrimp with cocktail sauce you see places (they’re so weird), but in my beloved Thai spicy basil rice dish or in a jambalaya or with grits or over pasta I love them. I still haven’t found a love of other seafood. I did order snapper at dinner the other night, but that’s the first time EVER that I’ve ordered fish in a restaurant. I don’t know what came over me.

EGGS: I did a really good job of eating eggs. I ate eggs, both that I made at home and I ordered in restaurants, for a good year and a half. Then, in the winter of 2011, I went out for brunch at a place I go all the time, felt sick the rest of the day, and then spent the night throwing up. I don’t think it was the food, a few people I know had stomach viruses around that time, and I felt better in pretty much exactly 24 hours, but (sorry for the imagery) once those eggs came back up I haven’t been able to bring myself to eat eggs again.

YOGURT: This was probably the easiest thing for me to get myself to eat. I started with flavored Greek yogurt. I went through a small Chobani pineapple obsession, but in the past year or so I’ve gotten into buying plain Greek yogurt and adding a little bit of fruit preserves. Much less sugar.

I’ve always been a big fan of Michael Pollen’s and an article about food rules in the NYT a few years ago really spoke to me. This rule, which was actually submitted by a reader, always stands out in my mind:

Image from here. (You can see all his favorites that reader’s submitted here.)

Anyway, that weird tangent is my way of saying that although I’m making my own personal judgements about all of these foods I totally do not judge anyone else for what they choose to eat/choose not to eat. You eat those deep-fried sheep eyeballs (or cocktail shrimp) and you enjoy every second of them.

Looking back, and thanks Ali for encouraging me to do this, I think I’ve made a lot of really good progress. But there are still foods I would like to conquer:

DARK LEAFY VEGETABLES: I eat a lot of romaine. And I pretty much only eat romaine. I think I like the crunchiness, I try eating spinach, but it’s just mushy. But the dark, leafy greens are so good for you that I know I need to work on this.

SEAFOOD: I will keep trying.

Then there are other foods that no matter what I try or anyone says I will never like:

ARUGULA: Probably the worst tasting food on the planet. The smell of it has made me physically ill (literally running to the bathroom). Completely vile.

CUCUMBERS: They taste like soap.

MELONS (besides watermelon): They’re in the same family as cucumbers to me, they’re too clean tasting.

Another thing I can’t seem to make myself like is sweet with my savory food. Like an apricot or apple chicken dish or maple syrup on vegetables. I really like savory food and bitter food (which is why it’s weird I don’t like arugula) and combining those flavors with sweet foods is just too much for me.

There’s my long update on what I’m eating/not eating/want to be eating/will never ever eat. I read somewhere that your taste buds change every seven years or so and I definitely think that’s true and I think my tastes will continue to evolve and hopefully expand!