Saturday

Last night I did something silly: I stayed up until 5am. For no reason. The boyfriend found out yesterday that he may not be able to get a work visa for the US this year (they only give out a certain number), and so I was a little stressed/keyed up about that.

Anyway, because of that I ended up waking up around midday. I had a quick breakfast and then skyped with the boyfriend for an hour, which was wonderful! I then headed out to the gym. The overall gym trip was 2+ hours. I went on the elliptical for 45 minutes, ran 1.6 miles and then tried the foam roller on my calf, which was still hurting from the cramp :(. It's feeling better now though.

I also came up with a list of fitness goals for the summer:

1. Meet heart rate monitor fitness goals every week

2. Run 5K in 27 minutes

3. 20 consecutive good form push ups

4. Lose the tummy! (I feel like I should have some goal measurements)

5. Lose 10 lbs (get down to 127lbs. This ones a bit difficult as I don't have a scale in Seattle)

 

After the gym I just chilled and read my book (it's called "American Wife" and so far I'm really enjoying it!).

Image from google

Dinner was reheated chili, which was good.

Yum!

Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to wake up early (probably, as I'll be asleep before 10!), skype with my parents and then head into downtown Seattle. I'm planning to explore the International District, which should be fun! So...hopefully my post tomorrow should be a bit more interesting!

The conference...

was great. I learned a lot and met some really nice people. It was also interesting to learn a bit more about the other legal aid organizations in Washington.

My eats today were pretty boring...

For breakfast - porridge as usual.

For lunch - a sandwich from somewhere called Potbellies. It was actually super good (although I'm sure super unhealthy).

For dinner -

Chicken parmesan with spinach

Just a quick post because I'm super tired and it's late!

Yesterday and Today

The job is still going well. It's challenging, but in all the right ways. I still need to find ways to keep myself amused when I don't have other things I need to do. One of the best things about it that I think it's going to great things for my confidence. It's nerve-wracking to talk to some of these people on the phone (I'm never very good on the phone and a lot of these people are under significant stress). Anyway, onto the outfits from the last two days:

My outfit from yesterday. This
is such a comfy outfit :D

My outfit from today. Sorry for the
bad, blurry photo - it was taken
with my phone

And the eats:

On a related note, I was so bummed that I forgot to take pics for what could have been my first WIAW...will have to remember next week!

I had porridge for both breakfasts, which was really good. The idea of making the porridge in advance is definitely growing on me!

I had a spinach salad with tofu, almonds, dried cherries and raspberry walnut vinaigrette. 

For dinner yesterday I had tilapia and spinach and corn:

For dinner today I had pasta with butter and cheese. I know. Ridiculous. It was good though, really good. To be honest, I've had a bit of a lazy day. I didn't end up going to the gym tonight and I took a long nap. I didn't end up getting a picture of it (it was a pretty boring meal anyway).

I don't have a scale here, which is unfortunate. I'd really like one to keep me motivated. I did buy a tape measure yesterday though, and took some (super) quick measurements this morning. My waist was 30" and the widest part of my tummy is 33". Anyway, we'll see what happens over the rest of the summer.

Tomorrow I'm going to a conference in Seattle for legal interns working for non-profits. I'm looking forward to it - it should be an interesting day! I imagine I'll learn a bit more about the field in general and it will also no doubt help to further my goal of taking full advantage of my time here.

On a few unrelated notes:

I woke up in the middle of the night last night with the most painful cramp in my right calf (a charley horse). I'm not sure what happened to cause it, but it certainly wasn't fun. Last time I woke up with one this major was my freshman year of college and it hurt so much that I woke up swearing. I get them with some degree of frequency, but they're not normally this bad. Anyway, my leg is still aching a bit. I've tried stretching it, but it's still not back to normal. Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions for stopping them?

For some reason my cuticles and fingers are a bit ragged. I've been soaking them in salt water, which really seems to help a lot.

On the postcard/letter front I've done well. I sent a few more off today and yesterday:

Lots of letters and postcards

Anyway, thats all for me!

Book Reviews: Getting Things Done and The Name of the Rose

I promised a review of these books a while ago, and never got around to writing it. Anyway, here it is!

Image from google

Getting Things Done by David Allen

This is one of the most famous organization books I've come across, and it was on my list of organization-type books to read. Anyway, it was interesting, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. The basic gist of it is that you should make extensive to-do lists with everything you need to do and include the very next action for each thing. Then, you need to review the lists regularly (daily). I thought it was an interesting idea and definitely had some potential. One of my big issues is not putting down everything on my to-do lists and not reviewing them regularly, so that I keep thinking of things I need to do and wasting brain power on them. However, in my attempts to use this system I've come up against two problems. Firstly, it takes me forever to set up the to-do lists and I can imagine that I'd find it difficult (though not impossible if I set up a system) to maintain them. Secondly, I find that things in my life change so quickly that it's hard to keep my to-do lists up-to-date.

Anyway, I am going to try to use some of the ideas, I just need to find ways to alter them to fit my needs better.

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Image from google (apparently this copy
which is signed by the author and is in
good condition is worth $1,300! I guess
I should've been more careful with the copy
I got from the library!!

A long and strange book, but one I'm very glad I read. This is a fiction book set in an ancient (1327) Italian Monastery. It's a murder mystery, and I always enjoy those. It was translated from Italian, so I found that the text sometimes seemed a bit stilted. Additionally, I found it a bit hard to track who everyone was! There were a lot of very similar names it in. The author frequently digressed onto commentary about religious/political events at the time. They were interesting, but sometimes a bit boring and hard to follow. Anyway, I would recommend it, but be aware that it's a bit of a long haul!

Super tired!

I am super tired so this should be a short post.

I went to bed a bit late last night, and was then woken up by my housemates being loud at 2am (quite why they were being loud at 2am on a Monday is past me). Given that they've all been living together for 6 months or so, I'm trying not to be too interfering with what they get up to, but I was a bit tired today!

So, onto a quick recap of my day:

Overall work was very fun. There were a few times when I wasn't really doing anything, and I suspect that that might be a somewhat regular occurrence, so I'll have to find something productive to do during those times. Today I wore:

Not my  favourite outfit
(I prefer skirts to trousers),
but decent I thought!

After work I headed to the gym (YMCA) near where I live. I officially joined as a member! (Yay!). It was $58 for 2 months (which is the whole time I'm here), which I thought was pretty reasonable. I'm going to make it a goal to go at least 29 times so that each trip costs less than $2! So...1 down, 28 to go :D

After that I picked up a few bits and pieces for dinner (seriously, I'm not buying any more food now. I think that part of the problem was that I wasn't planning ahead, so for e.g. I didn't have anything defrosted for dinner. To combat that I'm going to plan more. On that note I'm having tilapia for dinner tomorrow!).

And then...I cooked. Chili. It was pretty good and I made loooooads of it, so hopefully that'll be something easy to pull out of the freezer to reheat if I get into the not having anything defrosted issue again.

Seriously a lot of chili!

So, onto the eats:

I did not get my oatmeal for breakfast because I didn't have time :(.
No wonder I got so hungry at 11am!

My lunch salad. I didn't have any more chicken for it, so I used
tofu instead, which was great. I'm going to use tofu again tomorrow
(assuming I get up in time to cook it in the morning, not ideal, I know!)

Dinner was (obviously) chili. Even though I'm making an
effort to eat better, I'm never going to eat chili without lots of sour
cream and cheese. It's my favourite food, so...

So, that's all from me!

If you cook for yourself, do you make big batches of things and then freeze them? Or cook from scratch every night?

First Day of work...

was brilliant! 

Everyone in the office is lovely. It's a very small office (unfortunately they've had their funding cut recently, so they've had to let one of the lawyers go). I'm not sure if I've fully explained what they do. Essentially, they help very (very) low income people who are in the process of being evicted or having other serious landlord-tenant issues. One of the things I'm really excited about is that with evictions things move very quickly (unfortunately for the people involved), but that means that I should be able to see a few cases from start to finish.

There are two main lawyers and a bunch of law students. One of the lawyers (Mark) works as a mediator with people involved in landlord-tenant disputes (for example, today there was an issue with a landlord getting angry at a tenant who'd broken an appliance and the tenant needed more time to come up with the money to fix it). The other lawyer (John) is who I'm going to be working under. He works with people who are actually being evicted and often goes to court on their behalf. He seems like a fantastic, very open boss. He also seemed like a brilliant teacher, and spent a lot of time going over the basics of eviction law with me today.

I didn't actually do all that much today, other than reading over some of the basics of housing law in Washington. I also sat in on two "walk in" meetings - clients who turned up and asked for help. Those were pretty interesting.

Anyway, I'm sure you'll be hearing a lot more about my work in due course!

Today I wore:

I really love this skirt! My room is very messy, but I do like the
outfit! :D

On a goal related note I posted five letters today :D (most of them long overdue!)

My letters! (and postcard)

Eats

For breakfast, I had the same thing I've been having every day, but with honey instead of molasses. It was much better today than yesterday and I also was much faster at making it today which was good (I guess I needed practice reheating oatmeal?!)

For lunch I had my same salad! (I really like it! I ran out of cooked chicken though, so I'll have to have something different tomorrow.) I got to eat outside in a beautiful courtyard (in the building I work in).

Lunch (with my very cool lunch box!)

For dinner I had tofu with tomato sauce and peas. Very yummy! I (of course) had it over spinach (I've run out of spinach again! I'll have to get more tomorrow!)

Dinner! (Sorry for the blurry photo)

More food!

Today was a very laid back day. I ended up not doing much, in part because I got to bed so late last night.

I woke up at about 9:30 ish, made breakfast and then headed to the gym. For breakfast I reheated some of my oatmeal from yesterday. It was...okay. The oatmeal itself was perfectly fine and delicious, but I didn't feel like it saved much time. It took about 30 minutes to prepare it from scratch and maybe 15 mins to reheat it. It was pretty gelatinous and lumpy when I took it out of the fridge, so I had to add extra milk to get it to soften up. I then had to repeatedly "smush" it against the edge of the pan to get it to de-lump. Anyway, I'm going to continue to make it that way I think, but it wasn't as time saving as I was hoping. I didn't get a picture of it because I was too hungry!!

I then went to the gym for about 90 minutes which was fantastic. I spent 30 minutes on the cross trainer, which was great (and I worked really hard on it! I burned 352 calories, which I was really pleased with!). I then did a weights session, followed by a one mile run. It was a pretty tough workout, but I felt great after.

After the workout I went and bought more food. Seriously, I keep buying more food and it needs to stop! I've spent so much money on food recently. Today I bought a lot of fish (enough salmon for 4 meals and 3 pieces of tilapia) as well as a bag of cherries and an onion! (A random combination of things I know.)

For lunch I had the same salad as I had yesterday! (So I didn't take a picture!).

After lunch I chilled and had a nap and read my book. So, all in all a very relaxed Sunday!

For dinner I cooked up one of my pieces of salmon with some garlic and lots of spinach (I've eaten so much spinach recently!). I tried poaching the salmon, which was fine, but not great. (On a slightly unrelated note, while looking up how to poach salmon I found the following: "You can also poach salmon in your dishwasher if all else fails. Just be sure foil is sealed properly. It will take about 50 minutes on a regular wash and dry cycle.". Haha!!)

Dinner! It was pretty good.

Tomorrow's my first day at work. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm also very nervous. Fingers crossed it'll go well! I'll let you know how it goes :)

I've had a long day...

...so this is just going to be a quick post.

Eats:

Making steel cut oats! Apparently they're really good reheated
so I made a tonne of them!

Breakfast!  I had steel cut oats, protein powder, ground flax,
and molasses

Lunch! This was super yummy and consisted of spinach,
almonds, chicken cooked in toasted sesame oil, and raspberry
walnut vinaigrette

Dinner: This was rather disappointing to be honest. It was
sweet and sour tofu (the sauce was not very good though)
with broccoli (which tasted off) over spinach (which was
good!)

What I got up to:

This morning I walked to downtown Seattle from where I'm living. It was a 90 minute walk on roads that were decent but quite busy.

I saw this random cool water plane on my walk!

Once I got there I took a bus tour around the city which was pretty good. It was one of those hop-on hop-off types. I rode it all the way around once and then part way round a second time. The second time I got off at the Sculpture Park and also Pike Market, which was fun. I visited what I thought was the first ever Starbucks, but it turned out that I got the wrong one!

The famous space needle

One of my favourite sculptures at the sculpture park -  it's
an eye sculpture that doubles as a seat!

I was surprised by how much water there was in Seattle. It seemed
like I could see water wherever I was in the city!

Random pretty shore picture

The sign for the original Starbucks (not the one I went to!!)

I also got an ORCA card (bus pass), which should make traveling into work on Monday a little easier!

I've also started setting up two trips which I'm excited about. I've decided that I want to really make the most of my time in Seattle. I feel like sometimes I don't fully seize the day and take full advantage of things on offer. As I mentioned I've never been to the West Coast before, and I'm not sure when I'll next be over here, so I want to take advantage of as many things here as possible. The first trip is to Portland, Oregon on July 21-22. I've booked a hostel(!) for the night I'm there and I can get the greyhound bus there for $28. I'm trying to keep the trip as inexpensive as possible because I'm trying to save up a bit for law school and I'm not getting paid much for my internship (we'll see, maybe I'll freak out and cancel my plans). The second trip is to Vancouver in British Columbia. I'm hoping that my boyfriend will be able to come with me and it can be like a vacation for the two of us! He's not sure if he can make it yet, so fingers crossed that that also works out!

Anyway, bed time for me!

Seattle

So, I mentioned that I'm spending the summer in Seattle. I'm interning at an organization that tries to help people who are at risk of being evicted from their housing. I found it through my (old) college and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm a little nervous about starting, but it should be super interesting and also a good introduction to the legal world. I've also never been to the West Coast before, so I'm looking forward to experiencing that as well.

My room. Super messy but I am still unpacking!

I found an apartment to sublet through Craigslist(!) and so far it seems pretty decent. There are 6 other housemates (3 girls and 3 guys) and they seem like an interesting bunch of people. None of them seem to be at college, and a few of them are a little older (25, 26ish). Everyone seems to keep to themselves a bit though, which suits me.

Anyway, onto my day! I didn't sleep all that well because I got really cold (I don't have a duvet) and I also didn't have a pillow. I woke up early (because I'm still on New York time) and decided to check out the gym I'm thinking about joining. It's a YMCA, and it's about 10 minutes from where I'm living. There's another branch of the gym about a 10 minute walk from my office, which is good. I have to decide whether to pay $29/month for access to just one of them or $35/month for all of them (in my case both of them). I'm have three free visits to them, so I'm going to see what they're both like and then make a decision. 

Doesn't it look super soft and fluffy! Should keep me nice
and warm tonight!

I had a great workout this morning - I spent 30 minutes on the elliptical, did a full weights routine and ran a mile. After that I stopped by Walgreens to pick up some things (the house needed some serious cleaning, so I picked up some sponges and paper towels and washing up liquid etc) and I found a super soft fluffy blanket there. Hopefully I won't get cold tonight!

I was super hungry after that, so I had a big salad for lunch.

Salad in my super cool salad box: spinach, almonds,
apples, carrots, dried cherries, parmesan cheese and
raspberry-walnut vinaigrette

Unfortunately it didn't really keep me full, so I ended up snacking a lot in the afternoon (two cereal bars and some cookies...not the best, I know).

The rest of my afternoon was super lazy and basically consisted of me lying in bed reading and watching Monk.

Sesame honey chicken over spinach. Yum!

I ate a fairly early dinner because I'm still on NY time. At the suggestion of my boyfriend I made sesame chicken - one of our favourite meals. It's basically chicken cooked in sesame oil. After it was cooked I added honey and more sesame oil - delicious! I put it over spinach, which was really good. I'm trying to lose a few pounds and in addition to working out more I'm also trying to cut down on carbs. I also cooked some extra chicken for my salads over the next few days, so hopefully they'll keep me a bit fuller.

Yum! I've had five cups of it already in the last
24 hours!

On an unrelated note, it was a lot of fun getting food for myself (I always like starting from scratch with food and getting to stock a kitchen). I'll be posting a lot on food while I'm in Seattle, partly because I enjoy it and partly because I think it will help to keep me accountable. My favourite thing that I found at the supermarket was Lady Grey tea. My favourite black teas are Earl Grey and Lady Grey and I very rarely get Lady Grey tea, so it was super exciting to find it!

Anyway, I'm off to watch the rest of a movie I started during dinner. It's called "The Net", and it's old fashioned but still kinda interesting!

Well, I've graduated (and Chincoteague Food Recap)

I honestly can't believe I've graduated. It hasn't sunk in yet, and to be perfectly honest I'm trying to avoid thinking about it too much. As soon as I let my mind settle on it too much I know I'll get beyond upset. The other thing that was really tough for me was saying goodbye (temporarily) to the boyfriend. It's tough as we don't know when we'll next see each other. I am really really hoping that he gets to come visit me in my new home for the summer - Seattle!

Anyway, onto the eats from our trip:

Popsicles with juice, fruit and peach schnapps:

S'mores (not too healthy but extremely delicious):

Sangria:

Kale Chips:

Strawberry shot glasses:

Watermelon sorbet:

Absolutely delicious. We used this recipe, but added a lot of extra lemon juice.

Graduation Starts Tomorrow...

...it's a three day affair:

Baccalaureate

Class Day

Graduation

I'm nervous and excited all at once. I'm exhausted now, but I'll write updates throughout the event!

June & Chincoteague Recap

Gosh, I can't believe it's already June! This year has gone by so quickly. I thought about setting goals for June, but I've decided not to for two reasons. Firstly, it's going to be a pretty stressful month for me anyway as I'm graduating and then moving across the country to Seattle for the summer. Secondly, I have my list of short term goals that I'm working on, so I guess the real goal is to keep working on them!

Anyway, as I mentioned I went to Chincoteague/Assateague in Virginia/Maryland for a few days with some friends after we finished our exams. We had a really great time. We stayed in a lovely house (called Aunt Nelda's!), which was great because it meant we could cook for ourselves and had a bit more space. We went to the beach two days (but only in the late afternoons - I'm too pale to get much sun!) and we also hiked up to see the famous lighthouse there. We also spent a lot of "lazy time" just reading and chilling, but that was also really great. We did a lot of cooking: we made dinner every night (pasta bolognese, chicken in teriyaki sauce, hamburgers and seafood) and we also made a lot of other random cool things (popsicles, watermelon sorbet, strawberry shot glasses, kale chips). I'm going to do a separate post on food. I read two of the books on my goals list - Getting Things Done and The Name of the Rose, and I'll write reviews of them soon.

Anyway, some pictures:

The fully loaded car on the way there! (Steph's picture)

View Across the Channel Separating the two islands

Wine! (We drunk a fair amount of the stuff.)
In case you couldn't guess, we bought the one
on the left just because we liked the bottle!

The famous Assateague Lighthouse

The Island is also famous for it's wild ponies

The swing set near our house...I of course had to test out
the swings!

Boyfriend battling the BBQ (picture by Steph)

We went strawberry picking! (Picture taken by my friend Steph)

The room the boyfriend and I stayed in (picture by Steph)

The house! (Steph's picture)

The beautiful beach! (Steph's picture)