Saturday

Hello blog. 

I have a stomach ache today. My stomach usually gets messed up after a bad migraine from all the medication and today is not a good stomach day. 

Today I managed to get up, shower, prep food for tonight, drive into Manhattan, eat brunch with friends, drive back, all before 1:30pm. Amazing for me on a Saturday.

Ava is having a girl!!!!!

My old boots just zipped up very easily (sign of weight loss, a few weeks ago I could not get them zipped past mid calf).

My friend just emailed us saying that on Saturday 2/15 were getting a private tour of the White House west wing! Eeeek! I've never been there! (She works in the White House).

It's snowing again.

M told me this morning that everytime he wake up and sees me, he falls in love again. Melt <3

Lately, I am obsessed with this quote from Dead Poets Society. I put it on my bulletin board yesterday for our poetry unit. Then I came home and saw it on an apple commercial!

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. 

To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" 

Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

Ode to Irony

Its funny how real irony is.

Yesterday my friend asked me why I hadn't posted on the blog in awhile. Little did she know that just that night before I had written a new post. 

I then explained to her that sometimes I get in "migraine depressions" (I actually invented this term) and even though I created this blog for the sole reason of helping me get through those scary migraine depressions...the last thing I tend to do, when deep in the dark, is write. 

But lately, I told her, I've been much "better" (will I ever actually get better?) and hadn't gotten a migraine in almost 2 months. 

Just a few hours later, my colleague asked me how I've been feeling lately. Generally I'm very superstitious about this and when people ask me how I'm feeling (meaning migraines) I just say "okay" even if I'm doing great. I'm scared to jinx a migraine-free streak by getting a migraine. But, I was feeling so great, that I told her, "I'm feeling great." I even went on to explain that the night before, I had exercised for the first time in 2 months (really exercised) because I finally let go of the fear that exercise would cause another migraine. 

I walked out of her office feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. I started thinking about weighing in at WW later that night, and got excited. I sat down in my chair. I took a sip of water. Then, I got a migraine. 

I literally couldn't believe it was happening. I think I may have slammed my fist on the desk and furiously whispered "No." I triple checked to see if I actually was having an aura or my eyes were just dry and blurry. And I finally gave in and downed the migraine meds.

The next few hours were lost to the hole of darkness, silence, and cold rags on my face. I crept out of bed 6 hours later, exhausted from being in pain, still with a stabbing pain in my right temple, simultaneously starving and nauseous, and ordered pizza. Granted it was whole wheat light on the cheese mushroom pizza, but let's just say that's not how I imagined my evening going. I had planned to go food shopping straight from work, walk to WW, come home and work out, cook, eat a healthy dinner, and spend some QT with Marvin. Clearly, none of that happened. 

So here I am now, the next day, in bed, in the dark. Still have a headache, but worse, my fear of irony has grown, gripping my brain with its ugly hands. For me to truly believe that a moderate 30 minute workout caused a migraine is dangerous... Exercise may be the one thing that can actually lower my high(er than average) risk for stroke besides not getting any more migraines. For me to truly believe that my superstition is real... That if I admit and accept feeling "good" I will actually cause myself to get a migraine, is both absurd and scary. 

How can I go on having a normal life?

I know everyone has something. And there's definitely someone whose something is worse than mine. And they go on with their lives. But right now, I just wanna say that my something really sucks. And sometimes I'm just not sure how to beat it. 

Inspired by Julie - Saturday Sixes

Its been awhile, and since I always hate the "catch up" posts... Julie inspired me to write some lists.

Six things I've been eating lately:

-Challah French Toast with seasonal fruit from Rosewater

-Marvin's sister's homemade lentil and corn soup (yellow lentils, corn, vegetables, homemade dumplings, and coconut milk)

-Crockpot pulled pork... LOTS of it

-Eggs & veggie breakfast

-Homemade sorrel (made from the sorrel plant in Grenada)

-Kohlrabi! (one of my new favorite veggies)

6 new things I've bought/received as gifts that I have't stopped using:

-iPad keyboard

-Lots of fabulous OPI & Essie nailpolish

-Diamond earrings

-BKLYN coffee mug

-Fitbit

-WW olive oil spray pump and salad dressing cruet

6 new places I've gone to recently:

-Rosewater (brunch)

-Lefrak Center (new ice skating rink in Prosect Park

-Loki Lounge (Marvin's Bday!)

-Bogota (I'd been there once before, but this time it was for lunch and it was a completely different experience!)

-Scottadito Toscana Osteria (NYE dinner)

-Staples (huge Staples with a parkling lots I dsicovered on 4th ave)

6 places I want to go to

-Whole Foods (a new, multilevel, solar powered, bar-on-the-roof, WF opened a few blocks away... and... parking lot!)

-Brooklyn Larder (basically like a fancy butcher, sells meat and cheese and I have a gift card)

-Old Navy (I need some plain staple clothing like solid sweaters, etc

-Grand Central Oyster Bar (new HUGE seafood restaurant, oyster bar/counter, seafood shop that opened a few blocks away)

-The Bell House (bar/venue in the area)

-Pies N Thighs (local breakfast/brunch spot recently on Diners Drive-ins & Dives)

6 things I'm excited about

-Yelp Holiday Hangover on the Hornblower Infinty tomorrow night! (4 floor yacht on the NY harbor that holds over 1600 people, free food from over 100 local venues, OPEN BAR, magicians, performers, etc. CANNOT WAIT

-My trip to DC in February with college roomies Alex Sarah Kelly & Jamie

-February Break 

-The Bachelor mini viewing party at my apartment Monday night

-The Biggest Loser Makeover week next Tuesday

-Marvin's brother-in-laws 40th Birthday party next weekend

When all else fails, do something....

Hello! I have really been struggling with my hunger lately. I think its a combination of:

--increasing my "may cause weight gain" meds threefold

--going back and forth between eating healthy and binging for holidays, parties, etc.

The daily meds I take don't actually goes weight gain, but they increase your appetite and therefore I am hungry ALL THE TIME. I swear I feel like I go to bed hungry and wake up hungry, and feel hungry before AND after meals. 

Yesterday and today I somewhat found a solution. I came home from work (hungry) and began rummaging around in the fridge. But I then decided there was no way I could actually be hungry since I had just eaten a snack in the car ride home. So I did something else. First I picked up all our clothes of the bed/floor. Then I washed the dishes. Then I washed peeled and chopped a crapload of veggies. Then I decided to make chili. By the time I was done with everything, I actually was hungry and it actually was an appropriate time to eat. Sounds simple but sometimes I feel like there's nothing else to do... But eat. (Absurd)

And now... My life in photos over the past three weeks

Buffalo chicken lettuce wraps. SO easy (boneless skinless chicken breast in a crockpot with a bottle of franks hot sauce). I sliced some carrots and celery and used lowfat ranch for the wraps. Yum! Marvin, of course, made a panini.

And speak of the devil, here he is hand whipping some skinny pumpkin cheesecake. Tasted sooooo good on the spoon but sadly, we did not get to eat any on thanksgiving. 

And here are my spin on skinny pumpkin cheese shooters. Very similar to the pie bit with some added cool whip and crushed chocolate graham crackers. 

I recently got to head back to my new favorite bar, Beauty Bar, with one of my newly married favorited couples.

Here you will see the easiest crockpot dish I ever made. Boneless skinless breasts with a bottle of salsa verde. That's it. I ate it over brown rice with some lowfat cheese and veggies. I love using my crockpot bc I can always get 4-6 meals out of it, at least. 

My work holiday party this year was at Brooklyn's Children's museum. I imagined that they rented a space or room for the party, but they literally rented out the whole museum!!! It was so cool, and the museum security was really lax and let us wander around and hangout in all the exhibits. Being a children's museum, most of the exhibits were interactive and some even had live animals! This was definitely the coolest most interesting party I've ever been to. One of the exhibits is called "world of Brooklyn" and it's a little mini replica of Brooklyn... Complete with a subway, bus, pizza shop, prospect park, barber shop, etc. it was so cute!

We nearly spent 100$ on a tree from the guys who sell them on the street.... But thank god we'd isn't becausew e got this beauty for $30 at Home Depot! I was amazed at how many trees they had... It was literally like a tree farm (except they were already chopped down).

We had a lovely time decorating and Marvin even put a little surprise gift in my stocking!!!! ❤️❤️❤️

This past weekend overall was very nice with lots of relaxing, Christmas decorating, and partying. Saturday night I went out for a birthday party. We were the oldest people there by 4-10 years and I definitely was reminded why I don't go out in the west village..... But we still had lots of fun.

Migraines, paninis, and wolves

I can't believe I am yet again, talking about my migraines. They are so frequent that I am having to miss or leave work early 1-2 days a week. When I start to think about it, I sometimes feel an uncontrollable panic well up inside me. At other times I feel strangely calm, almost complacent. Part of me feels like: Oh well, this is my life. This is how its going to be for an undetermined amount of time. My choice is either to let it overtake my entire being and accomplish nothing for the rest of my life (overdramatic). OR, find ways to deal with it. I have been better about finding ways to deal with it... "it" being the fact that I have a benign, non-life threatening brain disease that I will probably have for the rest of my life. I've stopped trying to figure out WHY and WHY ME and HOW CAN I CURE THIS. What am not good at "dealing with" is the actual migraine and aura episodes. I always feel scared and panicked. I always think "something worse" or "something new" is going to happen to me during a migraine attack. And I always - feel pain. The intensity of the pain varies and that is basically the main factor of how well I "deal."

Some people have apparently tried to recreate the type of aura I get - called scintillating scotoma. Its pretty freaky because this is pretty much exactly what it looks like:

On to other topics.

Lately, Marvin has really been into taking whatever I cook and making it into a panini. I bought this little cuisinart panini press a few years ago that I used to use a George Foreman grill for chicken, burgers, etc. Since living with Marvin, we've made more use of it than I did in the past three years. This is great because I usually cook some sort of meat and then just throw it on top of a salad. That's usually not enough for Marvin, but the panini press allows me NOT to have to cook an extra side dish just for him.

Example: I cooked BBQ pork shoulder in the slow cooker.
My dinner: Salad with BBQ pork
Marvin's dinner" BBQ & cheddar cheese panini

Viola!

This week a real wolf came to my school. The 7th graders are reading Call of the Wild and one of their amazing teachers raised $5,000 to have a wolf come to the school. I honestly don't know what sort of company brings wild animals to schools, but it was pretty cool. This wolf was HUGE... like I always thought wolves were the size of dogs. But now way, 3x the size at least. The scariest thing was how the wolf was just pacing back and forth around the gym... probably surveying the hundreds of food options (people). Creepiest of all, when a new person would enter the gym, or make a particular obvious movement, the wolf would immediately lock eyes with you and track you for the next minute or two. I literally thought the wolf might eat me. But it did not.

Pumpkin Caramel Latte

Title = probably the best Bath & Body Works candle you'll ever smell in your life. Seriously.

Weight Watchers
I'm down 8.8 pounds!!!!!! I am SO proud of myself - I have not lost this much weight since my senior year of high school. It sounds like a lot to me, but I still can barely notice in my body. I haven't heard any "Have you lost weight?" yet. My clothes are still fitting pretty much the same, maybe a tad looser. This week I am REALLY nervous to get weighed because my Biggest Loser watching experience tells me that a big weight loss often is followed by a small to non-existing one. Last week I lost FOUR POUNDS... which sounds absurd to me... so I'm expecting very little this week. Plus, I bombed on the weekend again... eating pretty much whatever I wanted on Friday night and Saturday.

Cooking
I have been cooking up a storm. This is probably my biggest "weight loss secret." Its totally not a secret that cooking encourages healthier eating, but for me this is a big one. Ordering dinner or lunch guarantees that I'm either going to get something slightly more unhealthy than if I would have cooked it myself and/or eat slightly more than if I would have cooked myself. So here are some of the things I've been cooking:

Squash: In the past few weeks I've made spaghetti squash (straight up with homemade tomato sauce), butternut squash fries, and roasted butternut squash.
Baked chicken nuggets (Skinnytaste)
Chicken Shiitake Mushroom Soup (Skinnytaste)
Crockpot whole baked chicken and
Crockpot chicken broth

Beauty Bar

So I am at a total loss of 4.8 pounds since my 10/16 start date. I think this is excellent considering:

A) No exercise besides walking (not that I'm proud of that but I am impressed with my body's ability to lose weight without excercise).

B) "Flexible" weekends... meaning, I didn't really track points or stick to the diet during some special events over the past few weekends. 

---wknd 1 - Apple picking

---wknd 2 - Erin and robs wedding

---wknd 3 - Tricia's birthday party 

---wknd 4 - Dinner and drinks with friends 

I am excited to see if I can really keep this up!

I am obsessed with this coffee shop on the corner called Venticinique. They have an awesome pumpkin latte in which they put real pumpkin (well, from a can). I think this is genius and it tastes 100x better than Starbucks PSL.

I am LOVING fall in Park Slope. The leaves on the trees and ground are gorgeous, and the sunsets each night are breathtaking. This leaf got stuck to the bottom of my pants the other day and I just had to keep it :)

This is the view down the street outside one of my living room windows. Marvin and I love drinking our coffee and staring out the windows. I can't wait until he builds our little window seats. 

Cooking has been fun and we've still been using the crockpot nearly every day. Sometimes it's hard to "modify" meals so that they are healthy for both of us, but still filling for Marvin. He's an example of our 2 different versions of breakfast this Saturday morning.

Me: egg whites with veggies, a banana and clementine.

Marvin: eggs with cheese, toasted bread with olive oil, BBQ chicken (strange I know, but he likes having meat with his eggs!)

Last night Laura and I stumbled into an awesome bar down the block from my apartment: Beauty Bar. I thought it was so cute! Apparently there's a famous-ish one in manhattan but I had never heard of it. Basically the concept is beauty parlor turned bar. So the bar is full of vintage beauty parlor stuff.... Barber chairs, hair dryers, manicure tables and magazines, etc. the walls are also glittery and give the whole place a 70s feel. AND, I heard you can actually GET a manicure there earlier in the night. So cute!