I've Caught Some Bugs

I caught some kind of bug that's had me coughing, hacking, sneezing, and SO congested since the day before Christmas. Happy holidays. Hopefully this long weekend will be enough to kick the cold.

To distract myself from trying to cough up one of my lungs, I started browsing on Amazon. I've been looking for DVD storage solutions forever. Our DVD stands we have now are beyond overflowing and starting to sag. They're showing their age and quality, being 5 years old and cheap.

You can catch a glimpse of the less crowded of the two behind my napping husband here on Thanksgiving weekend.

I haven't found much that would accomodate our needs. Apparently it's not average to have 1000+ movies???

Atlantic 12 Tier Media Rack - Holds 450 DVDs

This little guy has been on my "maybe" list for months. He'd have to be a triplet just to accommodate what we have now, much less what we'll have before we leave Japan. Which is costly for something that may or may not work...and that I can't see in person.

I've also been drooling over these pretty woven boxes to replace my four shabby card board boxes in our entertainment center. Which hold -- surprise -- more movies.

Woven Banana Leaf Collapsible Storage Bin

Glancing at my "maybe" list again led me to browsing all the storage and organizational goodies I'd love to purchase at some point in the future. I'd love some small ottomans and some hooks in our little entry nook so our coats and crap don't get piled on the kitchen table. I'd love some baskets and bins to tame the clutter in all the closets we have. Some under the bed storage since we actually need summer and winter wardrobes now (in Lemoore I never had to switch my wardrobe!). All the little kitchen spinners and racks to contain spices, soups, dishes, pot lids, etc. etc. etc. Lots of stuff for the office so our files are maintained, the closet is used for more than piling crap we don't want to look at, and the bookshelves don't explode. More storage bins for the living room and bedroom to again tame the clutter. A new desk for the office since our current one is hanging on by one screw, maybe two. Maybe some cheap side tables and coffee table to replicate our badly dinged and dented cheap Ikea versions. I only have one side table and Jeff always claims it! We're pricing new TV's for the future and possible new entertainment stands.

The list goes on and on and on...I caught the organizing bug again.

But it's harder when we're here. Normally I'd hit the stores like Target and Marshall's to see what I could find for cheap. Then look through Amazon. I can do that, but not much furniture makes it all the way here. And it's hard to see quality online looking at a picture. We've been to an Ikea-esque furniture store out here in Japan, recommended by a friend. I loved looking through everything and pointing out what I liked, but we only came home with those hanging basket things for the closets. I need more stuff! If only the new year wasn't a huge holiday that basically closes business in Japan for a week...

Oh, and I looked for Ikea in Japan. Nowhere near us. Damn.



The first step is to clean the mess I already made. Before buying more stuff. Having a party while you're under the weather means the mess stays exactly the same for seven days. Give or take. I may try to tackle the mess tomorrow, or I may curl up on the couch with some hot chocolate from my new Keurig. And then make sad, sick faces at Jeff until he goes to pick up dinner. Yeah, that sounds better anyways.

Challenge Accepted

My wonderful, loving husband gave me this wonderful, amazing gift today.

I'm in love.

And totally overwhelmed. I want to make the most of this gorgeous thing and I haven't got a clue! I'm working my way through settings with this guide from Pioneer Woman right now, and am hoping to start digging deeper into all the settings and options on this camera.

I know, it's day one. I've got time.

I'm hoping to make my small love of photography a much more permanent part of my life. In Lemoore, my pictures mainly consisted of my cats. Apparently since they're not here, I don't pull my camera out as much. Which is silly. I'm in JAPAN. I should be taking pictures of anything and everything for goodness sake. Right now the snow and ice is slightly discouraging, but I'm hoping with this new motivation, I can get out and better document this amazing experience we've been given.

If you're a photographer friend, I'm going to be asking to dig in your brain a little. And if you have any advice, please share!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you're enjoying family and friends and enjoying the little things in life and all that good stuff.

This photo is from 2009, but pretend it's today ;)

Dilemma

Want to know about a dilemma I go through at least 3x a year?


My hair.



Short or long? Long or short? What to do, what to do?

I love my hair long. Well, I love how it looks in pictures. When I took the hour to blow dry and straighten, it was gorgeous.

When my curls cooperated, it was gorgeous.

The other days are just not photographed, I guess. Obviously my hair was a mess or up in a bun on those days, which defeats the point of long hair if it's always pulled up.

Short is amazing too. So easy to style, so light on my head. Of course, humidity makes straight styles impossible, and when layers are too short, like the back of my head, curls don't really happen. And bad hair days? There's no hair to pull into a bun and forget about, I have to style, style, style.

Right now my hair is just short of this.

Minus the chunky bangs. And with a whole bunch of layers added in. I'm trying to decide whether to trim it back up to shorty short, or try to grow it out.

Another section of my dilemma is bangs. Normally, I don't agonize over bangs too much. Then I got them butchered in San Diego last Christmas.

Now I'm terrified of getting a bad haircut again.


I realize this is a relatively undramatic dilemma, but it's a ridiculous one I;ve way too many times in my life. If you're a girlfriend, I've probably asked your opinion once or a hundred times. And I'm probably going to ask again tomorrow. Grow it out or chop it off? I can never decide.

Indian Food

I tried Indian food recently! I've never had it before. I knew before going to the restaurant that I would love naan. Hello, bread and potatoes girl. I was a little unsure about curry though.

This is a friend's picture, but I got basically the same thing. If I remember correctly, I got cheese naan (I liked the regular naan better though), buttered chicken curry, vegetable curry. I think? It was good. I also tried a friend's spinach curry and mutton curry and those were both pretty good too.

It's a tiny little restaurant, barely big enough to fit all my co-workers for a dinner, but the service was pretty good and the food was delicious. I'm trying to convince Jeff to go back. Now all I need to do is figure out where exactly this restaurant was...

Just excited about trying a new kind of food and liking it!

Ryusendo Caves & Amber Museum

Back in... November, we took a trip to some local caves. I've been meaning to blog about it, but you know how that goes.

Let's start with some maps. I know it's hard to understand where we are in Japan and where the places we're visiting are. Most of the time it's hard for me, and I live here. Anyways. Misawa is A. The Ryusendo (Rye - ooo - send - oh) caves are located in Kuji (Koo - gee) I'm pretty sure. It was roughly a three hour drive, which was a little long for a day trip. 

  Onto the caves! I've never been in a cave before. I didn't really know what to expect, besides darkness and bats.

 This cave had very narrow walkways. It was wet, obviously, and we got all sorts of little drips on us as we walked. Jeff kept mumbling about how difficult it was for him to maneuver the weird angles. I'm fairly short, so most of the overhangs and twists didn't make me contort like he did.

One spiral staircase had it in for Jeff. He had to basically bend over backwards and maneuver the wet and sometimes slippery steps. This was about the point he started telling me "You just had to pick the caves tour..."

Most of my pictures are blurry or hard to see, since it's so dark in the caves. I saw maybe one or two bats while we were walking, but Jeff counted twenty-something. It could be because I was so worried about slipping and falling. I'm clumsy. There were tons of stairs and water, which could be pretty dangerous for someone like me.

I made it through without slipping! I felt that was a pretty successful cave tour. I was kind of disappointed by the caves though. I didn't know what to expect, but the tour only took about twenty minutes. A three hour drive for a twenty minute walk? Bummer.

There was a pretty path outside the caves. We walked it after the caves and I think both of us enjoyed this walk better. I'm still mesmerized by how gorgeous northern Japan is, even in November when the leaves are falling and everything is preparing for snow.

It was a chilly, overcast day, but it was still gorgeous.

At one point, the path even had Jeff quoting Indiana Jones...

‎"Bridge very sturdy, Dr. Jones. No worries!"

We really enjoyed the walk. We made it to the end of the path and it started sprinkling. We hurried back towards the caves where there were some restaurants. We got out of the cold rain and got some warm food.

It was a small Japanese restaurant, so the menu was pretty limited. We both figured noodles were a safe bet. This was buckwheat noodles with wild vegetables. It was pretty good! I've never had buckwheat noodles before. I prefer ramen over buckwheat, but they were filling and it warmed us both up after getting drenched in rain.

Next up on the tour was an Amber museum. It was an additional hour to get to the amber museum. At this point, it was about 12pm and we were honestly ready to be done. The caves were underwhelming, and the long drive back to base was unappealing. But we forged on after we bought some much needed caffeine.

The amber museum was small. We started by sanding and smoothing our own small amber pieces for necklaces. Jeff and I are both perfectionists, so of course we very carefully smoothed and compared our pieces. (We have them just hanging on a doorknob at the moment, but they may become gifts for our nephews at some point soon).

The exhibits were interesting. The amber chess set above had Jeff falling in love. Some of the signs had English translations, so we were able to decipher what it was we were looking at. There was a myth inside this amber "sun" that people believed there used to be two suns. One shattered and fell to Earth, leaving pieces of the sun, amber, all over the world.

This was a meditation room. Apparently some people believe amber has healing and calming powers. The amber rocks on the floor felt wonderful. The color was pretty too, but I'm not sure it would calm or heal me if needed.

There was an amber mine we could go tour if we wanted to. We did, so we wandered up that way. It was about 3pm at this point. I went to walk into the mine, and freaked out! There was a BAT flying directly at me!! Agh. I jumped back and made Jeff laugh hysterically. Turns out we hit their feeding time, so the bats were repeatedly flying out into the entryway to get bugs, then flying back into their caves. Over and over again. I was grossed out and fascinated at the same time. I took a video because it was something I'd never seen before.

All in all, it was an interesting trip. We both enjoyed seeing the places. But the length of the drive and the anti-climatic caves made us both mildly disappointed. We agreed that while it was fun, we wouldn't pay for that tour again. Next time, we'll try a different tour. But regardless, it was fun to see something new! 

Maybe next time, I'll post more promptly about our adventures too ;)

The Story Behind This Picture

This is a picture from Jeff's command Christmas party a few weeks ago, taken by their photographer. It makes me smile. We're so unprepared for this picture. While it looks like we both just forgot to smile fully, what's actually happening is this:

They've just handed out Christmas trivia questions. My husband happens to be a trivia know-it-all, and gets seriously competitive with this game. I've had a few drinks and am way more interested in laughing and talking than trying to come up with answers to questions about songs from the '50's. A photographer wanders to our table to start snapping pictures. He takes the other couples' pictures as he weaves around the table. Jeff is still deeply enthralled in trying to come up with answers. I'm watching the photographer circle the table, thinking how nice it will be to get a picture of the two of us all dressed up. Then the photographer points in our direction, asking if we'd like a picture. I nod my head in excitement, but before I even have a chance to get Jeff's attention, the photographer lifts his camera to take the picture. I'm hitting Jeff's arm frantically to get him to look up for the picture. He's absorbed in the trivia challenge and refuses to listen to yet another interruption. I start rambling frantically, because everything is more urgent after a few drinks. He finally looks up and says "what?!" with all the annoyance you could imagine and I see the photographer take this as his cue to snap the picture so I try to get a grin on my face. See Jeff's hand moving in a gesture of impatience? That's not a grin on his face, it's more like a grimace that goes with the thought "why is my wife interrupting this trivia for a silly picture when we could win a prize if I just answered these last three questions before she interrupts again?!?!" I tried to win brownie points after this by going to a nearby table and "borrowing" some answers from friends, but I ended up picking the only answer they got incorrect.

I still like the picture though!

Thankful

It's not Thanksgiving time anymore, so people don't really share what they're thankful for right now. They impatiently wait to unwrap presents, bitch about the snow and cold, complain about the lack or Christmas spirit, or focus way too much on the Christmas spirit. Family should be the focus of the holidays, but it's so often bypassed by the little things.

The little things were overpowering me this week.

Today, I spent the afternoon laughing and playing with some of my favorites at work, then came home. You know what I found? This guy, helping to make my day a little better.

We're still working out a routine for housework - I bumped up another 10 hours or so of work a week recently. Since I used to spend that extra time on housework, you can guess where the slack fell the past few weeks.

Well, my handsome husband was doing dishes and laundry while he patiently waited for me to get off work and bring dinner home.

I can't stop smiling about it. We disagree on a lot of things and sometimes getting him to clean the way I want him to (yes, I know I'm picky and obsessive about it) is like pulling teeth. And then he goes and gets all sweet on me.

Because that's just what he does. He takes me as an emotional and opinionated person and does whatever he can to fix whatever's wrong and make me smile. Whether it be a lively debate about some little detail or tucking me into bed with migraine medicine when I'm sick, he's special.

And I wanted to brag about it for a minute. Because I'm so thankful to have him in my life. And because if I interrupt our James Bond movie marathon one more time, he's going to start ranting about how I never let him watch movies without talking over them. But I'll probably interrupt anyways.

Breakfast

First, I have no explanation for my all-over-the-placeness with blogging. Back and forth, back and forth again. I'm sure there's a legitimate reason somewhere, but I don't have it at the moment. Bear with me please.


Ever since I started working at 6:30/7am, breakfast has been a quick and hurried shove food in my mouth as fast as possible while I run out the door type of event. Even when I didn't work and stayed home all day, I'd grab something quick and small for breakfast. Cereal, granola bar, what have you. Of course, I get hungy again in an hour. Not the best idea.

http://www.macheesmo.com/2010/03/breakfast-sandwiches/

Since I've been making baby steps in eating better, I decided this week was the week to work on my morning habits. I'll never be the girl who can get up an extra 30 minutes early to scramble an egg or fix something filling, no matter how hard I try or what time I work. Morning's just aren't my friend.

But this was easy! Using this blog post as inspiration, I went and cooked a dozen eggs this weekend. I stumbled on the post on Pinterest and had pinned it a while back, thinking about how good McDonald's breakfast can be sometimes.

www.macheesmo.com/2010/03/breakfast-sandwiches/

Basically, you bake the eggs in a muffin tin until fully cooked. Assemble the sandwiches and freeze. Easy.

For my first try, it wasn't too bad. The eggs were a little overdone, but mainly because I got distracted and didn't watch them closely enough while they were baking. Still good enough. I assembled with cheese slices because it's even less work, froze uncovered for maybe 30 minutes (it was getting to be my bedtime and I was impatient!) and then wrapped in tin foil and froze again.

This morning, I popped three in the oven at 5:35am and set the timer for 25 minutes while I went to finish blow drying my hair and getting ready for work. They came out just in time for me to wolf one down and chug as much coffee as I could without burning my tongue. I can manage popping something in the oven and walking away, I just can't carve out an extra couple of minutes of standing in the kitchen. I left them in a few minutes too long, so the english muffins were a little too crispy. But still good. Jeff and I both enjoyed them, and I stayed full much longer than normal.

I'm planning to make them again for breakfast tomorrow, with a few minutes less in the oven.

Now I just need to figure out a handful of other ways to get a good breakfast with no time in the morning. I'll get sick of these if I eat them every day, but right now they taste lovely and extra special replacing my normal toast or granola bar.

The recipe is pretty self-explanatory. The only new thing I discovered was the muffin tin. In the past, I've made a quick fried egg and assembled a sandwich. This was easier, and I was left with a dozen eggs rather than just one.

Here's another link in case you've missed it: www.macheesmo.com/2010/03/breakfast-sandwiches/

Life Lately

I haven’t been updating very frequently lately. But nothing has been happening that prompts pictures or detailed blog posts, so I’ve mostly just gone about my business and called it a day.
Then I got a birthday card from my wonderful aunt who reminded me that some people can’t regularly check my Facebook and look to my blog for life updates (If you’re reading this Aunt Alice – thanks! I meant to send a thank-you card, but you know how that goes.) And even I’m not going to go digging through my Facebook page to try to remember what happened a few weeks ago, much less any longer. I was trying to remember the exact date we landed in Japan, and looking on my blog was way easier and faster than trying to use my Facebook. Better.

So.

I’ve started a new job. I bumped up to a salary job and I’ve bumped down my age group – I’m still working with kids but now they’ll be toddler sized. I haven’t been given a specific age group yet, so it’s anywhere between 6 weeks and 5 years. I’m bouncing back and forth between school age and child development for a few more weeks, and the contrast is refreshing. It’s hard not to love your work when you spend your mornings playing dress up with toddlers (I was a cop, firefighter, and construction worker this morning) and spend your afternoons making Christmas cards with school age kids and talking about anything from where we’ve lived (some of these kids have been all over the place!)  to what we love to do on the weekends. Of course the getting puked on (babies) getting hit or bit (toddlers) or getting screamed at (school age) puts a damper in things, but not for long. Regardless, I’m very excited about my new job.

Jeff and I haven’t been exploring too much lately. Snow has hit Misawa already, so the roads are going to get tricky fast. Japanese don’t really plow, so snow piles on ice on top of snow on top of ice on narrow, winding roads. It’s fun. On base the roads are fine, at least. We’ve also just been really lazy lately and have been choosing to spend our weekends at home relaxing rather than adventuring. We’re hibernating?
We’ve ventured out a few times.

We visited some caves and an amber museum a few weeks ago (I just realized I never blogged about this, I should do that soon!)

Last week, we had Jeff’s command Christmas party. We had a lot of fun, I could probably do a quick blog post about that at some point too…
Next weekend we have my command Christmas party. The week after that is Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, we’ve been shipping boxes all week. We had bought most of our gifts for family back home well before Thanksgiving with the intention of mailing them all out before the big turkey day. The best laid plans, right? We got them out this week, which happened to be before the priority mail deadline, which was today according to my radio. We splurged on some special gifts for our nephews, and then bit the bullet and paid the price for the hassle of shipping something that didn’t fit in a flat rate box. Ouch! Not happening again! I can’t wait until everyone gets to open their gifts and see what we’ve picked. I’ve loved shopping for unique gifts to give from our end of the world.
I even took pictures of mostly everything I bought before I wrapped and packaged.
Health wise I’m chugging along at pretty much the same place I was at weeks ago. I’ve cut back drastically on soda. I’m now down to very little each week. We usually eat out once a week, and I usually end up having one or two more sodas throughout the week. But that’s miles better than the one to four sodas I’d been drinking daily. Workouts are relatively nonexistant, but I’m working on it. Diet is still mediocre at best, but oh well. You can’t do everything perfectly, right?

Hmm, what else to update on? It’s hard to think of what people will actually be interested in reading. Life in Japan lately has mostly consisted of working and sleeping, which really isn’t very different from life in the states, except for which side of the car I drive in and what timezone I’m sleeping with.
It’s hitting me that we’ve been here for almost a year. It’s hard to believe on one hand. How have I lived overseas for a whole year?! On the other hand, it feels like home. Our apartment is good enough for now, we’re both working full-time, we’ve made friends and we’re involved in the community. We know enough of our town to maneuver the streets and enough Japanese words to at least decipher gestures and broken English. I’ve fallen in love with sushi and the scenery. If you asked me exactly a year ago if Japan would ever feel like home, I’d have looked at you with wild eyes and said “no!”. How things change, eh? (You can bet when one year hits, you’ll get a long blog post about how much change a year can bring!)

'Tis the Season

For some reason, this year I’ve been really enthusiastic about decorating for the holidays. This is the second Christmas we’ve had in our own home. Our first, in Lemoore, was filled with the tiny tree and dozens of cookies. Last year, we were home for the holidays on our way to Misawa. It was stressful to be homeless and not knowing how our travels would end up, but wonderful to see everyone and spend quality time.
This year I’m doing double efforts since I didn’t get to decorate last year, I think. It’s relatively calm this year, no traveling, no PSCing, no worries. We’ll spend some quality time just the two of us and enjoy some time with our friends. So I had more time to focus on those little extras that make the house sparkle for the season.


The tree is of course number one on anyone’s decorating list. Ours is a tiny fake one, bought on sale at Lowe’s. I’d love a real tree or a large pre-lighted one, but with moving to unknown homes every few years, a small one is much more realistic. We wouldn’t really have room for anything bigger in our apartment right now anyhow.

Luckily, with lights and ornaments, the tree looks much better than when it’s first unpacked. And it fits into the one empty nook we had in our living room. Perfect.

Our wrapping paper this year was so cute, I cut some up and put the pieces into our wall collage. I left some browns and greens that were already there so it’s not Christmas overload, but it does look pretty cheery.

I wanted red everywhere this year. Apparently I needed some color in our relatively neutral apartment. With both of our preferences often leaning towards brown or black, it’s easy to get bland when we can’t easily paint the walls. I’ve got pops of red here and there now.

On our coffee table. I had made some twine balls a few weeks ago (wrapped twine around balls of newspaper and glued the end piece), and I had some plastic twine-looking balls in a closet sitting untouched. I grabbed a few and spray painted them red, which makes the bowl look more interesting on the coffee table and brings in more red. And I’m already trying to decide what color to use after Christmas… Our books just happened to match the decor this week too. Jeff’s is red, mine is maroon.

On the entertainment center, I added some empty wine bottles I spray painted red as well. I love how they look and how easy they were to do. Easy decor and easy pops of color, plus my love of painting is satisfied for a while.

I hung these sparkly snowflakes with twine from the overhang over the entertainment center and DVD stands. I had bought a pack of ornaments in 2009, but these are just too big for our small tree, so they became hanging decorations instead. They’re beautiful in person, but very hard to photograph in our sunny living room!

Here you can see the snowflakes hanging and the pops of red on our entertainment center. I swapped out some of our decorations for more green, white, and red things. Our big blue planters stayed though – Jeff even let me buy a new plant recently for the one on the left! The one on the right is still hanging in there, but the lack of bright sunny days is hurting my green thumb.

I hung our stockings from the counter overhang. We have small ones with our names on them. I don’t know where the red ones came from, but they’re pretty so I hung them up. More stocking stuffers for both of us!

My new favorite green thing is my little cactus. I picked him up when I picked up the plant for the entertainment center, hoping a cactus could outlive my questionable thumb. These cracked glass votives were too cute to pass up, so I picked them up with some matching green votives. The plate was a can’t pass up deal at the BX, they had all sorts of decorative bowls and platters with Christmas decorations, so I got one and luckily found a way to use it.

Cute, right? We’re having friends over for Christmas Eve, and I’m tempted to go buy a few more plates and bowls to put all our food on.

It’s not a big, dramatic difference. I don’t want that drastic of changes, because we still have to live in the apartment through Christmas. But it feels a little more cheery when it’s cold and snowing outside, or the wind is howling against the windows like it is right now. Brrr.

Happy holidays!

So Long, Soda

After a week and some change, I’m still living mostly without soda! Diet Green Tea has been a lifesaver, it’s replaced my soda at most meals and has 0 calories. I’ve also been drinking various other flavors of tea, orange juice, water of course, and milk.

Changes or Progress I’ve Seen?
-I’ve eaten like garbage, so my weight isn’t looking any different. Granted, it’s been one week anyways.
-The lack of carbonation has really helped with my stomach. Since my gallbladder was removed in 2008, I’ve had trouble with all sorts of foods. While I’m still not perfect, I don’t think the bubbles were helping.
-I haven’t had too many problems with caffeine intake. I’ve gotten headaches in the past with no caffeine or less caffeine than I’m used to. Sometimes I have coffee, but not every day. I’ve grabbed a Red Bull here and there, but not enough to give me my accustomed dosage of daily caffeine. And guess what? No huge side effects! I had a terrible migraine one day that mainly came from stress and escalated at work while I wasn’t able to medicate. By the time I got home it was well on its way to knocking me out for a day, so I took a soda and migraine medicine to knock it out. I’ve found that caffeine helps the medicine work its way through my headaches better. But otherwise, no head problems or any other caffeine withdrawal symptoms. Surprising since I was accustomed to SO much soda.
-My husband gets soda I don’t like now. I always bought soda we could agree on, since we both drank it. This week he picked up Mountain Dew, which I hate, and has been enjoying one a day. He apparently has the self restraint that I’m lacking and can limit soda to one a day. It also makes it easier for me to forgo soda when I don’t have any I like in the fridge.
-I’m not ingesting empty calories to the tune of 300-600 extra calories a day. This was the whole reason I quit soda, and it’s a damn good one.

I’m hoping to keep it up. I don’t intend to never touch a soda ever again. That’s unrealistic for me. I limited it to special occasions, like eating out. So when we picked up food on Saturday, I had half a soda. And when my work had burgers and brats for sale and I brought dinner home from work, I had a soda. But just on any given night? No.

Now, I need to focus on MOVING. Jeez, my trips to the gym are nonexistant and my exercise DVD’s are sitting untouched. Even my Zumba for the Wii has been collecting dust in a bin. It’s getting chilly outside but I’m perfectly capable of working out still and I don’t. Bad. Not good for me at all. I always use excuses to convince myself something else is more important, but really, what’s more important? Being healthy or having a clean house? Getting 30 minutes of activity or 30 minutes of internet? Pathetic, sometimes.
My goal for the next two weeks is to do something active every day. Whether it’s a DVD, a trip to the gym, a walk up the 8 flights of stairs in my building, a brisk walk, something! Even 5 minutes of movement before I fall into bed would be better than nothing. This should be interesting because some other things are changing in my life, but really, when is life ever going to give you all the time in the world to work out? When I wasn’t working and was at home all day, every day, I STILL didn’t consistently work out. Really?! NEEDS TO CHANGE NOW.
Encouragement is welcomed

Swapping Addictions

This week—-

I’m going to try to swap my addiction to soda

For an addiction to coffee and green tea.
I’m stocked up on coffee
And green tea

Coffee has fewer calories than soda, especially when I prefer mine with skim milk and sweetener, but still has the caffeine boost I need to get through the day. I used to say I need to give up caffeine, but I’ve become realistic. Green tea is also super healthy and tasty, so I’m hoping I can swap our my evening soda for tea, which is more flavorful than water but won’t keep me up at night and won’t give me 140+ unneeded calories.
I’m having one more delicious soda tonight with some homemade chili that’s currently making my house smell ah-mazing, and then I’m going to try to kick the habit.
Let’s see how this goes!