Christmas Adventures

Ok, as promised, here’s a run down of the rest of my Christmas adventures.

MUPPETS! My mom and I went to see the Muppet movie. It was wonderful and so much fun. I love the Muppets!

EPIC SHOPPING! What would Christmas be without lots of shopping? I got that covered. Thanks to Megan and Andrea, we literally spent hours at the mall and Target. Our epic shopping trip also included the Muppets. I found the last DVD of the Muppet Christmas Carol. Megan was sad.

RUBY’S! Apparently I really like going to Ruby’s. Megan, Andrea and I took a shopping break for lunch at Ruby’s. (Later we went back to Andrea’s, played games, and took silly pictures.)

The next day I met up with Danielle and we went the Ruby’s in Huntington Beach. Not only did I get to see Danielle (YAY!) it was a perfectly beautiful day to be on the beach.

EPIC NUTCRACKER WATCHING! Ok, this might not sound epic, but trust me. It was. Ovation has a Nutcracker marathon on Christmas eve and all day Christmas. My mom and I watched four different productions of the Nutcracker. It was really fun to compare the different productions. I now consider myself a Nutcracker connoisseur. My favorites were the traditional Royal Ballet production and a production from Australia called Nutcracker: The Story of Clara.

It should also be noted that I drove on the 405 without injuring myself or others. Hurray!

The next adventure….NEW YEAR’S!!!

Good Riddance

At the end of every year, we celebrate Good Riddance Day in Times Square. You can shred, smash and shed all your bad memories from that year.

I think the picture speaks for itself.

You can't always get what you want...

I will post more about my epic Christmas adventures later, but first, a little story.

Last year my company gave us all gift cards to the cafeteria for Christmas. Sure, it's not some big Christmas bonus, but at least it's useful. I was really looking forward to my cafeteria card and all the tasty cafeteria sandwiches I was going to order. When I got back to work today, I found out that we all got umbrellas instead of cafeteria cards. I was kinda bummed.

When I left work, it started to drizzle. By the time I got out of the subway, it was pouring and I was pretty happy to have that umbrella.

Make what this what you will, but it seemed like there was some moral here.

So far, in Cali...

Here's a brief run down of what I've been up to in California:

-Visited family in the desert then out in El Centro. We even made a pit stop at Salvation Mountain to look at all the pretty colors.

-Eaten LOTS of Mexican food

-Gone to LOTS of yoga. There's a new studio in town with a great deal for new students, so I've gone to yoga every day. I've done yoga with weights and an Iyengar class. I even did my first ever headstand!

-Did some work (boring)

-And finally (this is what I'm most proud of) I watched the entire final season of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was pretty awesome.

Tomorrow I get to see my friends and I think we're going to do some last minute shopping!

You may have noticed I haven't been posting as much. Well I'm back in California for the holidays. Pretty much just hanging out with Opie.

Once I get the wireless set up here I'll post more.

Pilates Bootcamp

Since I had taken a sneak peek at this class, I knew what I was expecting, but somehow I thought I would be better at it. Turns out, I’m not. Things like jumping into and out of plank were really hard for me, and there were a lot of things that required a whole lot of coordination, like bicycling your arms while jogging up and down from this bench. I’m surprised I didn’t fall flat on my face. It was overall a good workout, and it worked more than just the core, which some people might enjoy, but I don’t really think this class is for me. My whole body is definitely a little sore today, but not really as bad as I expected. I like classes that focus more on form and how to do things, but this (being a bootcamp and all) was more about just doing it, even if it sounds totally absurd and you’re not even sure how you could possibly do that. If I want to run around in circles while someone yells at me, I can just go run with Coach Ramon. For now I think I’ll stick to regular pilates.

But, hey, at least I didn’t die. So that’s good.

Pilates Ouch

I mentioned that I was going to try out a pilates class on Saturday, to work off some of those holiday indulgences. I’ve done mat pilates before, but this time I tried a tower class. This tower looks kind of like a torture device, and at times it feels like one. Everything we did was pretty straight-forward, like pushing the straps with our arms or legs, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. My tummy prefers to be flabby and unengaged. It doesn’t really want to do ANY work. But considering how important the core is, I guess I should at least attempt to have some strength in my tummy.

So the first class was pretty good. I’m still sore and yoga on Sunday was a bit tough. Tonight I go back for my second, and honestly, I’m scared. The package I bought included 4 classes. Since their schedule was filling up, I reserved all my classes, just sort of based on what would fit with my schedule. I have one more class tonight and then two after Christmas. I got to the studio early on Saturday and saw some of the previous class. It’s not at all what I expected. They were jumping up and down, running in place, bicycling the air with weights in their hands, jumping in and out of plank, all while a little excited man pranced around. None of these sound like things I enjoy and the girls in the class sounded like they were going to cry. I looked at the schedule to see what this torture was and lo and behold, it’s the class I signed up for tonight.

I don’t think this is going to be pretty. Here's to hoping I make it through in one piece.

Holiday Indulgences

Well it's that time of the year again- time for holiday over indulgences. I think all I've done since Thanksgiving is eat too much bad food, drink too much, and have a few too many chocolates. Sometimes I do them all at the same time! Like last week's office party that ended with shots and Karaoke. Or the Kate Spade event last night that included champagne and probably the best invention EVER- cheesecake lollipops! Basically cheesecake on a stick. (My inner piggy rejoices!) Or the gift swap with my friends tonight. I anticipate much over indulging. My dinner will likely consist of chips and dip and mixed drinks. Dinner of champions! Is it good for me? No. Will it kill me? No. Sure, I feel a little extra flabby, but who doesn't this time of year? I just have to make sure this stops once the holidays are over.

Lunchtime Wanderings: Rockefeller Center

It's been kind of rainy and icky out, so I figured I could make my way over to Rockefeller Center on my lunch break without too much tourist traffic. It wasn't bad, except that I walked 5 or 6 blocks with people who got excited every time they saw a pigeon on the sidewalk. Really, people? Pigeons excite you?

Anywhoo, on to something more festive

A giant Christmas tree! Now I will admit, it's still a large and impressive tree, and it smells really piney, but didn't it used to be bigger? Is even Rockefeller Center making cut backs in this economy?

This was across from Rock center. I guess they're not making cutbacks. This is a mighty large plug that would have a mighty large power bill.

Look What I Made!

Look what I made!

The quiche has become my new sandwich. I started making them a few months ago, just because they sound fancy. But now they've become my new lunch time staple. They're super easy to make and I usually have all the ingredients laying around. All you need is:
4 or 5 eggs
1 cup of milk
Pie crust(I usually make mine, but you can use store bought too)
Cheese!
Filling- usually whatever combo of veggies and/or meats you have lying around.

Cook it at 350 for about 40 to 45 minutes and viola! You have a fancy sounding meal. I take slices to work for lunch with some salad, but you can eat it for breakfast or dinner too.

In other news, I bought one of those Groupon type things for pilates. I almost forgot about it and it expires soon, so looks like I'm going to pilates this week! I've done pilates before, but only on the mat. I've never used the machines. I can just imagine myself somehow getting all twisted up in the machine, or breaking it. Something not good like that. I'll report back later.

In the meantime, enjoy your fancy quiche!

Patatas Bravas

I wanted to do something a little bit exciting for breakfast today. We had some leftover potatoes, so I decided to make patatas bravas. They're a classic Spanish tapa that I had all the time when I was in Barcelona. They're basically fried potatoes with a spicy sauce.

First I fried up the potatoes in olive oil

Then made a sauce with garlic, onion, paprika, salt, pepper, mayo and hot sauce. We were supposed to add ketchup but turns out, I don't have any. We made do without.

I must say, it was pretty darn tasty.

Lunchtime Wanderings

The following is a collection of photos from things I've found while walking around on my lunch break:

1. Gaga's Workshop- I figured I would see what all the hype was about.

It was pretty cool, but everything was super expensive. Does a special Lady Gaga box of four cookies really need to be $40? I think not.


2. This explains itself...

BTW, I really need this.


3. Dylan's Candy Bar- A pop up store opened in Times Square, right across from my office. This is exactly what I need right now. Access to even more chocolate.

I want to eat both of these. And then I saw...

FUDGE! This is dangerous. I almost bought half the store out of curiosity.

As you can tell, any real attempt at healthy eating is pretty much tossed aside until Jan 1st. I'd much rather stuff myself sick with cookies and chocolates. After all, isn't that what the holidays are all about?