[five]

Image from here.

On my nightstand: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind. It's good. Like sit in the bathtub until the water turns ice cold and then keep sitting and reading because it's just that good type good.

Image from here.

On my speakers: Elephant Revival (especially Ring Around the Moon and Sing to the Mountain). Soo perfect for the cooler temperatures.

Image from here.

On my nails: Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in Haute Chocolate. Once again, soo perfect for fall and cooler weather.

Image from here.

On my agenda: a trip to the Maryland Renaissance Festival with the girls on Saturday. I can't wait for some food on a stick and a glass of mead to wash it down with!

Source: districtdressup.com via Courtney on Pinterest

On my wishlist: this entire outfit, including that big floppy hat. How classy and seasonally appropriate does she look? I love it! 

[confession]

I have a confession.

I'm having a rough time of it this morning.

I want to be at my goal weight.

I want to be farther along in my career.

I want to be earning more money.

I want so many things.

It all started this morning when I was reading through some of my favorite blogs. The blogger, a woman about my age, had a gorgeous figure and traveled around the world on a regular basis. Normally I love to read her blog and hear about her adventures.

But not this morning.

This morning I was overtaken by envy.

When's it my turn?

When will I have the money to travel? When will I finally be at my weight loss goal?

It's not fair. I've worked so hard.

But the truth is, I'm just starting out.

I just graduated in May.

I'm just a law clerk.

This is my first real job.

I just started to really eat healthy in May.

Life doesn't happen instantly. It's a process and these things take time.

So no, I'm not at any of my goals yet.

But that's okay. I have the entire rest of my life to get there. I don't know how long it's going to be, but I do know that whatever it's length, I will accomplish exactly what He wants me to accomplish. No more, no less. And that will be absolutely perfect. Until then, I'm going to focus on enjoying this ride instead of focusing on what I haven't done yet or how my life could be different.

[mazel tov]

Last weekend I went on (another) trip. This time, it was off to Virginia for my cousin Ethan's bar mitzvah!

After work on Friday, complete with a yummy pot luck lunch, I hopped a MARC train down to DC where I met up with Kara and hopped the metro out to Virginia. I love that about this region of the country: public transportation is really well designed so you can get a lot of places by train.

Friday night was low-key, at least for Kara and I. We met up with our parents and grabbed dinner at Silver Diner. Seriously if you're ever near one of these, I highly recommend it. They use fresh, locally sourced ingredients to create super delicious diner fare. Love.

Saturday was when the real fun happened. Bright and early Saturday morning we piled into a shuttle with Dad's side of the family for the temple service. I do love Jewish tradition and heritage and I'm proud to be a part of it. While having parents with the same religious tradition has a great deal of value, I truly enjoyed growing up exposed to two different belief systems. You see, Dad is Jewish and Mom is Catholic. Kara and I were raised Catholic but we also learned about the other half of our heritage. We had to learn tolerance and understanding from an early age. When we reached Confirmation age, Mom gave us the option to explore and told us we could convert to Judaism or a different Christian denomination. She even offered to drive us to services so we could check them out. It's not that she didn't care what we believed, it's just that she wanted us to find our own way and claim a faith as our own. We both ended up claiming the Catholic faith but we did so knowing that the choice was ultimately ours. My exposure to Judaism has enhanced my Catholic faith. It's not that I go to Bar Mitzvahs and think, thank goodness I'm not like them. That's not it at all. It's a lot like traveling to be honest.

Enough about religion--back to the weekend celebrations!

After the service was a kiddush luncheon at E's school. Of course there were bagels and lox and cream cheese galore. It's not a good bar mitzvah without them and goodness knows I love me a good bagel & schmear. Goodness knows I don't eat them that often anymore, mostly because there's not a good bagel place anywhere near me. If I lived in NYC I would be in serious trouble!  Holy mother of all things sweet do I love butter cookies. Growing up I used to love that my grandmother would get us butter cookies from Karsh's, a Jewish bakery near her house in Phoenix. Those cookies set the standard. Sadly very few cookies have lived up to that standard. While the kiddush butter cookies were not Karsh's, I was still excited for them.

Next up we took a little break. By that I mean we hung out in my parents' hotel room and watched football for a few.  Then it was time to get gussied up and party!

Pre-party we did family portraits, which I will definitely be sharing once I get them. The night started out with a cocktail hour, complete with a full open bar. Side note: vodka, ginger ale and sour mix is potentially the best mixed drink. Ever. There were roving trays of yummy apps such as sushi, lamb, and black bean eggrolls. The party was held at a gorgeous country club nearby. E chose a "green" theme for his bar mitzvah. Not only did his talk focus on the links between being environmentally friendly and the Jewish faith, the entire party was built around a green theme. We got to vote on which non-profit we wanted him to support and all around the party were reminders to be "green." The adults got a full sit-down dinner, made with organic food of course, while the kids got a buffet. After dinner  it was time to dance the night away!! The food kept coming though--there was an adult only dessert bar where you could pick a cookie paired with an alcoholic beverage. You nibbled your cookie then took a sip of your beverage and experienced flavor magic. Mom, Kara and I went for the bourbon which turned out to be way too strong for us, even when properly paired with a cookie. There were also organic ice cream sandwiches in fun flavors like apple pie, pumpkin cranberry, and peppermint white chocolate. The bar stayed open the whole night, although it did move under a giant tree in the center of the dining/dancing area. There was a photo booth with silly props too! Finally it was time to head back to the hotel where we sadly had to say our goodbyes to extended family.

Sunday was a bit...subdued. Dad dropped Mom, Kara and I off in DC. The three of us girls grabbed breakfast before Kara's first meeting of the day. Then Mom and I puttered aimlessly around for a few hours, pausing frequently to sit on various benches. It was way too nice of a day to spend indoors! We ended up finding the Constitution Gardens which are stunningly gorgeous. If I lived in DC I would be in those gardens constantly. After that we wandered over to the WWII memorial where we met a WWII veteran and his wife. The veteran had served in the Pacific theater as a deep-sea diver for the navy. He told us a funny story about when he accidentally welded his helmet to the bottom of a ship off Leyte Island in the Philippines. He would tear up whenever someone said thank you and shook his hand. It was adorable. He truly was a national treasure and I am so honored to have met such a brave individual. Finally it was time for Mom to head to the airport and me to head back to Baltimore.

I had such a wonderful time this past weekend. It was lovely seeing the family I so rarely get to see and celebrating E's big day.

Once again, Mazel Tov Ethan!! I'm so happy for my little cousin!

[rainbow connection]

This entry is mostly pictures, mostly because I just want to look at the pictures of healthy food and forget about the cupcakes I had at our work potluck. And the cornbread. And chili. And chicken wings. And Pepsi with cherry vodka. Oh sweet goodness.

Anyways....

Enjoy!

And yes, this was actually my lunch this week. The salad recipe can be found here, and the dressing recipe can be found here. You see, when I eat a rainbow cabbage salad for lunch and make mac & cheese using roasted butternut squash (no cream or actual cheese involved), I don't feel so bad about Friday afternoons at work. After all, everyone needs a lil' break :).

Oh who am I kidding?? I just really like taking, and looking at, pictures of food.

[the happiest 5k on the planet]

Y'all. It actually feels like fall outside. And it has since Sunday.

I LOVE it.

I do have one complaint: I'm not really entirely sure if I should start the wardrobe turn over process. This is my fourth time doing this and yet somehow I still have not mastered the timing of pulling my sweaters out of storage and putting away my summer clothes. Somehow, every single year I manage to jump the gun: as soon as I make the change, the weather heats up and I have to slide the storage bins back out from under my bed. Then my whole bedroom just ends up being a hot mess. No fun.

Although if the old women of Baltimore are to be believed, all this early cool weather means we're in for a really rough winter. Apparently Jesus is trying to warn me that I may freeze to death this winter. I don't really know. I don't want to get my hopes up for a real winter, but at the same time I'm starting to worry because at least once, if not twice, a day some old woman walks up to me to remark that the weather is lovely and we're going to have a beast of a winter this year.

This whole winter thing still baffles me. A childhood in Houston and Atlanta has left me utterly unprepared to handle winter, even after all these years.

Anyways, enough about the weather.

Sunday we took advantage of the beautiful weather for the Color Run! Okay sorry, that was about the weather too. Let me try this again.

Sunday, Kristen, Ryan and I did our first ever Color Run at National Harbor. Essentially the Color Run is a 5k in which the sole purpose is to get completely covered in colored powder. The powder is similar to corn starch: non-toxic if you get a mouthful and environmentally friendly when it washes into the harbor. At each k along the race there's a color station. Volunteers line the color stations with condiment bottles full of one color powder and squirt it all over runners as they dance their way through the station. There's music playing at each station too. They encourage people to take their time with the race--after all this one is about playing in the color, not about setting a personal record.

After you cross the finish line there's a big party! They had a DJ who did "color drops" every so often. When a color drop would happen, the DJ would toss packets of the colored powder into the crowd. People caught the packets and tossed the contents into the air. The air got so thick with color that we couldn't see! Everyone jumped and jumped and jumped and got covered in various colors. If you don't like getting dirty, I would not recommend a color run.

Kristen, Ryan and I walked (almost) the whole race. We did run the last little bit and dance through the color stations. Our goal was to get as colorful as possible! We wore our white race shirts and knotted the white sweat bands they gave us around our wrists. We tried to tie on our bandanas too but they wouldn't stay put.

I made the mistake in the red station of opening my mouth while going through the station. Mouthfuls of powder are not fun, at all. They actually gave out whole bottles of water instead of the customary cups to counteract the fact that we were all getting mouthfuls of powder. The water bottles were definitely welcome!

Somewhere along the way, Ginger decided she didn't want to run with us anymore. Rude. All I know is that I had her at the halfway point (I took a few pictures of us with her) and when I crossed the finish line, my armband was empty. As a result, all of the post-race pictures were taken by Katy and Kristen.

If you ever want to look like a crazy, backtrack through a race without explaining to anyone what you're doing. Trust me--people will stare at you like you sprouted horns. I had to find Ginger though! I only backtracked part of the way before tracking down a race volunteer and explaining the situation. I was finally pointed towards lost and found who had not received Ginger yet.

While Ginger was out having fun with someone else, we decided we might as well enjoy ourselves too.  Katy had come for the race and I had seen her as we finished up. With Ginger missing though I had no way to contact her post-race. It turns out losing your phone makes it really hard to make post-race plans with people, especially when they're all going in different directions. Since we couldn't find any trace of Ginger or Katy, Kristen, Ryan, and I decided to take Lady Gaga's advice and just dance! We danced our fool heads off and participated in a few color drops before going to check on Ginger one more time.  Still no Ginger but there was a Katy wandering around!

Now that everyone was united we just had to wait for Daniella and Zeke to join us for lunch at Potbelly's. Thankfully the good people of the Color Run thought of everything: they had volunteers with leaf blowers that would blow some of the excess powder off of you before you went in any restaurants or cars. We hopped in the leaf blower line and then decided to wander towards Potbelly's. There was a super long line so we went ahead and hopped in it. Daniella and Zeke caught up with us while we were still pretty far back in the line and we all sat down for lunch together. Katy fit right into the group which was awesome; I like all of my friends to be friends with each other too. That way we can all be one big happy family, regardless of how we became friends initially.

After lunch we wandered around the area for a bit and finally decided to sit by the water for a bit. Katy got a phone call from my mom while we were lounging and chatting about life; apparently someone had found Ginger and wanted to return her to me! It turns out some nice race participant had found her, tried to find lost and found, and then just started calling people in my phone. He got a hold of Mom, who called Katy's mom who gave her Katy's number. I called him from Katy's phone and found out Ginger was in Tyson's Corner, Virginia, about twenty minutes from where we were. Kristen & Ryan were kind enough to drive me to get Ginger before we all headed home to attempt to shower some of the color off us. Sometimes I swear Ginger would rather live with someone else than with me. Silly Ginger.

To make a long story short, I highly recommend doing a Color Run if one comes near you!! The tagline for the race is quite accurate--it truly is the happiest 5k on the planet.

[blessed]

Over the course of about six years I took four different trips to Kingston, Jamaica. Each trip was for the same purpose: to serve the people at Mustard Seed Communities (MSC).

MSC will forever hold a special place in my heart. In fact, I think a part of my heart is still in Kingston with the precious residents of MSC. Every Thursday they send me a Thank You Thursday email with a short little devotional.

Today's Thank You Thursday message hit home:

"At any time in our lives, we can find reasons to complain or simply give up. However, if we make an honest effort to focus on our blessings, we will always find reasons to be grateful. So today--focus on your blessings so that you may grow and excel in gratitude. Let us place more effort in thanking God every chance we get."

Lately I've been struggling to see the fruits of my weight loss journey. It's easy to see how far I have to go before I reach my goal. It's easy to see how even though I wear a smaller size now, I'm still a bit limited in my clothing options. It's easy to see where I need more toning, how I could eat better.

But I've come so far.

My bone structure shows more; it turns out my face shape isn't round. That was just the fat covering my true face shape.

I fit comfortably into bus and airplane seats (well as comfortably as one can fit in an airplane seat).

I don't have to go so far out of my way to camouflage my weight.

I have a waistline.

I can walk into LOFT, go to the sale racks and actually find a multitude of options that fit me.

Shopping is an enjoyable experience, and not just a reminder of the fact that I've let myself go.

I have more energy.

I try more things, take more risks.

I'm far more active. In fact, I'm pretty much always on the go until it's time to drop into bed at night.

I crave fruits, vegetables, and other healthy choices.

I can't eat as much junk food. It actually makes me physically ill to eat a fourth of the amount of candy that I used to be able to eat in a sitting. A quick example: last night I broke down and bought one of those movie theater size boxes of candy at Walmart. It was an impulse buy, snagged from a bin labeled 98 cents on the way to the register. I had two handfuls. I actually thought I was going to throw up. I used to be able to down half of one of those boxes in a sitting, if not a whole box.

Yes I have work to do. But I've done so much worth being proud of. I have an awesome support system (seriously--the Facebook and blog comments that people are inspired by me or proud of me mean the WORLD to me).  I have the motivation to carry on. I have the proof that I can do this.

Sometimes all I need to do is step out of my own way. Sometimes all I need to do is shift my focus, to take off those glasses that tint my world dark and put on the ones that tint it a lovely rose color.

[over the hump]

Happy Hump Day everyone!!

I don't know about you but this Hump Day is off to a rocky start for me.

You see, Ginger is on the fritz. Apparently when I turned her back on after my flight landed at BWI on Monday, she decided that making sound was just not her thing anymore. She won't ring. She won't play music. She won't make any sort of sound at all. I took her to AT&T yesterday but all they did was shrug and say "I don't know. Take it to Apple." So Ginger and I are headed to Towson after work today.

Normally Ginger doubles as my alarm clock. With Ginger refusing to make any sound, I've been using the analog alarm clock I bought back when Ginger decided she'd rather stay ride around in a cab all day than come home with me. Everything went swimmingly on Tuesday. Everything fell apart this morning. I was all excited about getting up early to run. I set the time on my alarm clock and went to sleep.

This morning I woke up and it was strangely light outside. I looked at my alarm clock.

I had overslept.

Apparently I had forgotten to actually flip the switch to turn the alarm on when I had set it Tuesday night. Oops. Thankfully I had just enough time to eat a quick breakfast before getting ready for work.

Since oversleeping, I've managed to forget to put my rings or bracelet on, put my shoes on the wrong feet and spilled coffee on my shirt.

Fingers crossed the rest of this day goes in a slightly different direction!

My difficult morning is not the subject of this post. No, I actually wanted to tell you all about my wonderful weekend in the peach state!

Friday afternoon I left work a little early and headed to BWI. With the Grand Prix in town, getting anywhere was a nightmare. Thankfully I left in enough time to make it to the airport and grab some dinner before my flight. If I had left even twenty minutes later, it would have been a completely different story.

Saturday morning Mom and I woke up bright and early. Well, Kammie actually woke both of us up. Apparently she was soo excited that I was home, she decided that we both needed to get up super early. You see, Kammie won't get out of bed until she's sure Mom is awake. Having successfully awakened Mom, she was free to charge upstairs and wake me up. Kammie is half beagle, half Jack Russel terrier and all kinds of noisy. I heard her whining before she even made it into my room!!

Once we were both up and fed, Mom and I went for a walk. We walked 3.3 miles, chatting about life while we walked. I think walking is going to be a new tradition for us! I love spending time with Mom and getting some exercise in the process is the cherry on top of that delicious sundae.

While we were showering Dad came home. He works in Ohio currently and commutes back to Atlanta most weekends to spend time with Mom. With the three of us home and showered, it was time for lunch and errand running. I was so happy to spend the day with my parents! We're so rarely in the same place at the same time so any time we have together is precious to me. I wish Kara could have been there though. We'll all be together in Virginia in about two weeks though!

After a full day of running around town on Saturday, we curled up on the sofa to watch Animal House and catch up on college football highlights.

Sunday was a beautiful, beautiful day. Two of my dear friends got married! I was so beyond blessed to be able to attend the wedding and the reception. The ceremony itself was beautiful: Katy looked GORGEOUS and the whole ceremony was just so sweet and romantic. I love weddings. No matter the age of the couple, a wedding is a celebration of a new start. It's a day to celebrate love in all its forms.

After the wedding, we headed to the reception in a darling little cottage in old Roswell. We danced and laughed the night away. The reception was a total blast! There was food and wine, laughing and dancing. In other words, it was everything a wedding reception should be.

Sadly Monday I had to head back to Baltimore. I do love Maryland, but I hate leaving my family. Walking away at the airport always makes me so sad!

At the end of the day, I am so blessed to have the family and friends I do. Even more importantly, I was so blessed to be able to spend time with them last weekend. I can't wait for November and another dear friend's wedding!!