Weekend!

-Manicure

-Bed, Bath and Beyond for apartment stuff

-A fantastic and challenging yoga class

-USA vs England soccer

-Date night: Browsing the bookstore and dinner at Tandoori Nights followed by Boccato Gelato

-Sleeping in

-Cooking for the week: spinach/mushroom quiche, sauteed zucchini/squash, black bean/sweet potato/quinoa burgers and butterscotch pudding bread (pictured here--recipe 3 of the 3 new ones I wanted to make this month!)

-Guajillo for Mexican food and a frosty michelada with a friend

Delicious Dishes.

You need to make the Easy Vegan Overnight Oats from Oh She Glows. Make them the night before in just minutes, pop them in the fridge and have a delicious breakfast the next morning. I recommend a dollop of peanut butter, some strawberries or a little maple syrup on top. These kept me full until mid-afternoon! They don't look like much but they are yummy!

Recipe #2 out of the minimum of three new ones I want to try this month!

Perfectionism.

I have a confession to make.

Lately--and by lately, I mean the last six months or better--I haven't been practicing what I preach. I've fallen pretty far off the wagon in terms of exercise and eating right. In the past few months, I've even stay away from my yoga mat. I could give you a laundry list of excuses: stress, finishing up grad school, moving, traveling, figuring out what was going to happen with my long-distance relationship, etc. However, I think I may have stumbled upon the real reason (with some help from my very smart significant other): perfectionism.

I thought that if I didn't have an hour every day to spend in the gym and if every meal wasn't a salad, then I wouldn't bother doing anything. Yes, me. The one who lost a bunch of weight and went insane for yoga and had a love affair with spinning classes. That girl. I was totally focused on dieting and working out like crazy instead of focusing on being heathly and living an active lifestyle.

The truth is that at my lowest weight, I was obsessing over every 0.2 pounds, which, let's be honest, is the equivalent of about three sips of water. I was avoiding going out to dinner with friends so I could stay at home and eat low calorie frozen meals. I was working out for hours a day. I was eating low fat and no fat "food" that was low in points. I was berating myself any week that I didn't lose weight. So I stopped. I had enough of the head games and I stopped.

The problem is that I stopped completely. And it shows in many ways.

Last night I went to the gym. I stayed for 50 minutes--35 minutes of cardio and 15 minutes of strength training. I've been eating a fairly normal diet and trying to stay away from sugary foods. I want to ease back into an active, healthy lifestyle one step at a time. To be honest, some of those steps may include canceling my gym and Weight Watchers memberships. I am not sure where I stand on those at the moment. This may also include staying away from my scale for the time being.

I need to adopt these habits on my own without putting myself into a really bad place mentally. I feel grateful for being able to recognize both my own obsessive bad habits and also what caused them. It feels good to fess up to them too. Failure is feedback. It wasn't working for me, even if the scale was saying I was weighing less and less. I'll take healthy over skinny any day.


{Photo credit: D Sharon Pruitt}

Weekend!

We spent this past Sunday at Lake Anna in Virginia with a friend. It was sunny and the water was warm. Perfect way to wrap up the weekend! Here are some pictures:

Summer Reading List

I read, on average, 80 books a year. So far for 2010 I'm at 31--slightly behind due to grad school. I thought it would be fun to share some of the books I plan to read this summer.

What's on your summer reading list?

1. The Girls by Lori Lansens --I'm cheating with this one because I just finished it. It was a little long in a few places but I found this fictional autobiography of two twin sisters attached at the head to be fascinating, heartbreaking and hopeful, all at the same time.

2. The One That I Want by Allison Winn Scotch--Just downloaded this to my Kindle. I read her previous one and while it was definitely chick lit-ish, that's exactly what I need in my post-grad school brain melt.

3. After You by Julie Buxbaum--Same as above!

4. I Thought It Was Just Me, But It Isn't: Telling the Truth about Perfectionism, Inadequacy and Power by Brene Brown--I've heard so many people rave about this book! From Kelly Rae Roberts to Stephanie's Heart Piercing Life, they all seem to like it! Brene studies authenticity, belonging, shame, compassion, courage and connection. You can check out Brene Brown's blog here, as well as a video from a recent talk here.

5. The Not So Big Life: Making Room for What Really Matters by Sarah Susanka--I first heard about her when she appeared on a Tranquility Du Jour podcast. Her message seems to dovetail nicely with what I am seeking for myself. Can't wait to read this book!

6. Women, Food and God by Geenen Roth--I read one of her first books and loved it. Then a part of her latest book appeared in the Oprah magazine and now it seems that everyone is reading Geneen! I feel like this book could really help me in my relationship to food and my body.

7. Columbine by David Cullen--What happened at Columbine was one of the defining moments of my generation. While I know this will be a difficult book to read, I think it's important for me to understand what happened and why and to try to make sense of it all.

8. A Thousand Sisters: My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman by Lisa Shannon--This was recommended to me on Amazon since I read (and LOVED!) Half the Sky, so I thought I would check it out.

9. The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker--I saw this once upon a time in the Oprah magazine, which always has great book recommendations, so I picked it up in anticipation of post-graduation free time.

10. God Sleeps in Rwanda: A Journey of Transformation by Joseph Sebarenzi--Something that you may or may not know about me is that I am obsessed with stories of memory, truth and reconciliation from post-conflict or post-tragedy, particularly state-sponsored, moments in history. Learning about the Holocaust sparked my interest in learning more about the dirty wars in South America, which led to the civil wars in Central America and then to what happened in Rwanda. If you want to learn more, I highly recommend starting with We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Phillip Gourevitch.

11. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin--I can't remember how this book came recommended to me, but it is about Pakistan and I love books about other countries and cultures, so I picked it up.

12. Too Much Happiness: Stories by Alice Munro--I also love short stories (thank you, English major background!). I love their form, their brevity, how much they convey in such few pages, they way that they are often only a snapshot of a longer story.

13. Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China by Philip P. Pan--I have a graduate degree in International Affairs and know very little about one of the world's great powers. This is my attempt to start to rectify that.

14. Worse than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen--See above. Strangely obsessed with this sort of thing.

15. The Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin--I loved her earlier chick lit books, so I thought this would be a good one for pool or beach reading.

{Photo credit: moriza}

Delicious Dishes.

Last night I made a new recipe (recipe #1 out of 3 new ones that I want to try this month!). It was Chow Vegan's baked falafel. It was DELICIOUS! We put them on wraps with hummus, red pepper, spinach and tomatoes. I highly recommend you try this very easy and incredibly yummy recipe!

June Goals

It's been hot--REALLY hot--in the DC area this past week. I've been dreaming of beach trips, picnics, fresh cherries, sundresses and lemonade. I've also set out a few small goals for myself this month so I don't get lost in the lazy days of summer:

-Finish up the unpacking and decorating

-Get back into exercising and yoga-ing regularly. For real this time. I mean it.

-Learn to be okay with free time. This is a struggle for me.

-Read through How to Land a Top-Paying Federal Job. I am still not sure what I want to be when I grow up, but more and more the government is looking like it might be an okay way to go. I need to do a lot of research on this one.

-Catch up with friends that have seen very little of me since....oh, when I started my master's degree three years ago.

-Cook at least three new recipes

-Celebrate Jesse's birthday (June 26th!) in a fun and festive way!

{Photo credit: zanastardust}

I'm back!

This past month has been....well, insane. For both Jesse and I. Finals, a funeral, packing, moving, graduation, a new job, etc. I don't think it will really hit me that I have finished grad school until September when others return to class and I don't. However, this balmy weather and free time has me dreaming of taking some adventures and expanding my horizons. I'm thinking about new professional development opportunities, places to travel, languages to learn, skills to brush up on and books to read.

Before I get ahead of myself, I want to take a bit to get back to some essential self-care things, like eating better, yoga and getting to the gym, and take some time to just be lazy. I've worked two jobs or worked and went to school since I was 15. I want to enjoy every bit of this down time.

{Photo credit: kevindooley}

The return of farmers' markets!

Last week my office moved to a new location. There are many great things about our new space but perhaps my favorite is that I am now two blocks to the White House Farmers' Market! Held on Thursdays from 3-7 pm on Vermont Avenue, NW between H and I Streets, FreshFarm Markets brings produce, flowers, baked goods and more to us city folk! My goodies: asparagus, strawberries, the best sourdough bread I've ever had (no lie!) and a rhubarb muffin. I'm so excited that I can stop by after work on Thursdays between now and November to get some fresh, local food!

The vendor where I purchased my strawberries and asparagus!

Really pretty flowers!

Bonus! To celebrate the market opening for this year, Chef Jose Andres, who has his own show called Made in Spain, plus appeared on Top Chef and is the owner of many restaurants, including two of my favorites, the delicious Jaleo and Oyamel here in DC, cooks a GIANT paella for the crowd!

Free time.

What does a girl do when she has finally turned in her last paper for graduate school and therefore has some free time for the first time in at least three years? I shall tell you. She:

-Sees "El Secreto de Sus Ojos", the Argentine film that won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film (I love Ricardo Darin!). She also watches "The Lovely Bones" from Netflix, even if it leaves her less than impressed, as well as the documentary Crude on the case against Chevron/Texaco in the Amazon in Ecuador. Upon finishing the film, she feels both infinitely inspired and infinitely enraged. (You can learn more about the case here).

-Finishes reading both Freakonomics and Get Financially Naked: How to Talk Money With Your Honey

-Buys new gold sandals and orders her Mother's Day gift for her Mom.

-Takes a long, leisurely walk around her neighborhood, walking barefoot in the grass by her house.

-Cooks up some sauteed zucchini and tomatoes for dinner.

-Throws out 5 bags of things she doesn't need and packs 7 boxes of books in anticipation of moving in a few weeks.

-Contemplates all of the things she wants to do in the coming weeks: decorate her new apartment, do lots of yoga, cook her way through Viva Vegan!, see the Georgia O'Keefe exhibit at the Phillips Collection, go see the documentary Babies, spend time at farmers markets, plow her way through unread books, go to concerts and museums, and spend time with her now non-long distance and instead live-in boyfriend, who she has missed oh so very much.

-Thinks about how good her life really is!

{Photo credit: dml82}