Archive for August, 2009
Girls just want to have fun
After a few days of taking a blog vacation (due to my lack of Internet at my new apartment), I’m back! Now its time to play blogging catch-up for the past few days. It’s been an exciting, but exhausting week. So much to write about!
This past Friday I made the giant move to Syracuse. Ever since I moved from Boston at the end of June, I’ve been living out of a suitcase. I never actually unpacked all of my boxes because I knew I would just have to repack them up at the end of the summer. I am so psyched to finally get into my new place and start making it into a home. Mom, Dad, my dad’s best friend Bill and I, managed to get the entire contents of my u-haul up to the 12th floor of my new place in 2 hours. Before my dad headed back home, we also went shopping for new furniture. I found the cutest set, but unfortunately it can’t be delivered until the 18th along with my cable/Internet.
One of the many highlights of my move. I found my lucky viking key chain!
New couch
New chair
Coffee table with matching end stands
My mom actually stayed with me in the new apartment from Friday until Tuesday. We spent a few days unpacking, organizing, cleaning, shopping and decorating. It’s incredible how much time that can all take. Besides working like crazy for those few days, we did manage to have some fun Mother-Daughter time. No cable meant we watched lots of DVDs and since the kitchen wasn’t up and running for a while, we had lots of take-out. I was soooo excited to visit one of the Syracuse Wegmans. Such a fantastic grocery store. It makes losing Wholefoods and Trader Joes a little bit easier;)
The New kitchen. Once I get everything in order, I’ll post more pics, but for now I just have this one.
On Tuesday, Mom and I headed back home to Fonda. I had big plans to head back to Boston for the Healthy Living Summit and Tara and Derek’s wedding festivities. After a long tedious train ride from Albany (delayed 3 times), I arrived at South Station with my old roommate Michele waiting fro me. I was really surprised how emotional I got when the train was pulling into the city. I had no idea just how much I missed the this place. After three years in Boston I really fell in love with the city, and I miss it more than I thought I would. To kick off my visit, Michele and I went back to the old apartment, ordered foodler and stayed up talking until 3 am 
On Thursday I got up early and headed back to the Broad to visit with old coworkers. As most of you know, I left my position with the Dog Genome Group at the Broad Institute back in July to attend med school. I loved all the people there and it was great to head back and have lunch with a bunch of them.
My old desk looking so empty, but my Gumby mural is still up on the window 
Ross looking super psyched to get his picture taken.
The one person I didn’t get to see at work was the bride-to-be Tara. Fortunately, Thursday was the night of her Boston Bachelorette party. Some Broadies, the bridesmaids and whole bunch of Derek’s Iowa friends headed to the Parish Cafe and the Rattlesnake before making our way over to Jacques Cabaret for the main event. Who doesn’t love a good drag show!? It was a fantastic time and everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves. Thank god since I was the person who originally suggested Jacques.
Broadies! Kim, Cristen, me and Michele
Our waitress for the evening
All the brides who were at Jacques on Thursday night. Tara was looking awesome.
Tara enjoying the show!
Love this picture. An excellent lap dance.
So it’s currently Saturday night, and after spending the day at the Healthy Living Summit and going out with friends, I am exhausted. I need to head to bed, but I promise there will be a post about the HLS tomorrow morning. Goodnight everyone!
Taking care of business
Man, I love being productive. There’s nothing like making your way through a to-do list and checking box after box. Lately, the task list on my gmail has been getting out of control, and today was devoted to getting through it all. This morning I called everyone from the person installing cable and Internet in my new apartment to the furniture store where I’ll be getting my new couch I emailed, I snail-mailed, I organized, heck I even did some framing Besides all the busy work, I had some time to get in a good work out. I completed another 3 sets of the Buff Body work out mentioned in a post a few days ago. I added some hip exercises from Runner’s World because my IT band has been bothering me. I’ve been using the foam roller to work out some of the pain, but I also need to work on strengthening my hips to prevent the soreness.
Another item on the to-do list was return a bunch of stuff to the mall. Unfortunately, I was just past the 30 day return time period on a couple items so I had to get store credit as opposed to credit card credit. Boo! but at least it will give me an excuse to do some shopping when I’m living the life of a student again. I also picked myself up this new dress from Ann Taylor. Not only was it 60% off, but it’s super comfy. I’m thinking I’ll wear it to the Friday night cocktail party at the Healthy Living Summit and perhaps the white coat ceremony at school.
After the mall trip, Mom and I headed over to Wolf Road for dinner at Romano’s Macaroni Grill. I opted for the Pollo Magro or grilled chicken breast with honey balsamic glaze topped with fresh tomatoes served with grilled asparagus and broccoli. It was surprisingly awesome. The veggies were all cooked to perfection and the chicken was AMAZING. It hit the spot.
Since my dinner was fairly healthy (under 500 calories and I brought some home) I decided to splurge and have a piece of cake for dessert. It came with the meal and I have a problem not accepting free things. After reviewing the options, I went with the Lemon Passion or “citrus cake soaked in sweet cream then topped with lemon mousse and whipped cream.” It was super tasty, but on the smaller size as it was part of the chef’s special (salad, dinner, and dessert). I was guessing it was probably around 500 calories.
Much to my horror, Macaroni Grill’s website lists this dessert as containing 1100 calories. Ummmm…what? That’s equivalent to the calories in SIX glazed doughnuts from Dunkin donuts or TWO slices of original cheesecake from the Cheesecake factory. It was about 4 mouth fulls of cake and smaller than the sprig of mint on top of it. One gram of pure lipids contain 9 kcals. Hypothetically 1100 calories would be equivalent to 125 grams of straight fat. A serving size of ice cream (a much denser material than this sponge cake) is right around 125 grams, and this was no bigger than 1/2 cup of ice cream. Thus, unless I’m eating straight lard, I’m fairly certain their calculations are incorrect. Hmph! It must have been for a larger serving size because as you can see from the image on the small salad plate, it wasn’t that much cake. Regardless, I know I was splurging, but good god, I didn’t think the damage would be this bad. Guess who will be running first thing tomorrow morning….me!
Talk about, Talk about, Talk about movin
Shoot! Now that song is going to be in my head all night Oh well. Today was another busy, busy, busy day. I started off getting up very early to go with my dad to a doctor’s appointment. We had to be in Albany around 8, so I grabbed a banana quick for breakfast and hopped in the car. The appointment went well, and I didn’t’ have to spend nearly as much time in the waiting room as I thought I would. The only reading material available was a hospital map, Golf World magazine, and Parenting magazine. Needless to say, I opted to sit and zone out for the duration of the appointment.
On the way home from the hospital, we stopped at Dunkin to pick up flatbread sandwiches. We were running low on time, and by the afternoon, I needed some protein stat. The egg white turkey sausage flatbread sandwich isn’t all that bad for you and it’s quite tasty. By the way, sorry for the lack of pictures today. In the rush to get out of the house, I forgot my camera.
After the hospital trip, I visited with my Aunt Millie. She’s a fantastic woman, and we had a wonderful 2.5 hour conversation. We chatted about everything from local gossip to politics. We also had a big chat about med school and my upcoming move to the ‘Cuse. I really miss spending time with my extended family, so these last few days before the move have really been precious to me.
Speaking of family time, I had dinner with my brother Jeff and his girlfriend Kayla. We went out to the Bistro (Jeff’s first time at the restaurant). AGAIN, i forgot my camera. I don’t know where my head was at. Anyway, I enjoyed the Bistro’s yummy salad and soup bar and then had a few bites of my actual entree. It was a whole wheat pasta dish with chicken, mushrooms, onions, peppers, olives and marinara sauce. Super tasty, but like I said, after the salad bar I was pretty full. Dinner was great and talking to Jeff was also enjoyable. We don’t sit down and have conversations all that often, so it was good to hear how he’s doing and what he’s been up to.
All and all today was a pretty good day. Besides all the conversations about the upcoming school year, I took some time to work my brain out. Kyle sent another one of his famous crosswords, and I finished it in about an hour. This one was inspired by our recent trip to Canada. I highly recommend giving it a try Here’s a link to Kyle’s Blog. Enjoy!
Get into the groove
Way back in March, I started working hard to get in shape for the Boilermaker. Since running and (finishing ) the race, I have traveled to both Victoria for Matt and Nicola’s wedding and NYC to visit Rizwan and Monica. I have also been spending alot of time at my parent’s house watching a whole lot of bad daytime TV. Unfortunately, some where during that time, I got a little off track from my diet and exercise regime. Yes, I’ve been eating healthy-ish and working out here and there, but I haven’t been keeping up with the program I created for myself. Thus, it’s time to get back into the groove! I’m going back to keeping up my food journal and sticking to my weekly work out plan that I post on the blog. I’ve also set a few goals for myself, including breaking 30 minutes in my next 5k. I have a few months before the race so for now I’m going to focus on building strength in my legs and losing a few pounds so there’s less of me to get across the finish line
My workout for today comes from one of my favorite health magazines, Women’s Fitness Rx. Even if the covers can be a bit intimidating, the magazine usually contains really good info. WFR has some of everything including nutrition tips and work out plans. The magazine also lists the published journal articles their articles are based on. As a scientist, I appreciate this:)
I did Jackie Warner’s “Buff Body” plan. Although the cover says it will only take, 30 minutes, I find it takes me about 15 minutes to get through one set of all the exercises. I tack on 5 minutes of cardio drills (butt kicks, high knees, karaokes, jumping jacks, high skips etc) to each round and repeat the whole set 3 times for a great 60 minute full body work out.
A few of the exercises
Along with the working out, I also got back on track with eating right/write. To start the day off, I had whole wheat toast with peanut butter and a nectarine for breakfast. Lunch was a veggie burger (a Morning Star – my favorite veggie food brand) on whole wheat bread and the yellow beans. There’s nothing like fresh, raw veggies from the garden on a beautiful summer afternoon
Snacked on a Cookies N Creme Luna bar. I’m really liking the new packaging.
In other exciting news, I went out to dinner with my mom and both grandma’s. We ended up going to Charlies Restaurant in Amsterdam. The waitress had an interesting reaction to my food photography. I’ve had wait staff give me strange looks or ask why, but I’ve never had a waitress walk away from the table because she was laughing too hard to form coherent sentences. Is it that strange to take pics of food? Anyway, I started off with a tasty salad with mushrooms, tomatoes, carrots, cranberries and cucumbers.
I also had a dish called the “Tres Tostada Grande.” It consisted of toasted tortillas layered with tomatoes, cheese, chicken, yellow rice, lettuce, green onion, source cream, guacamole, and pico de gallo. Holy Yum but also holy HUGE! I ate about 1/3 of it and had to throw the towel in. Luckily, I have a little brother who loves leftovers.
Dinner was an overall success. It was a great opportunity to spend some quality time with the grandmas before I head out to Syracuse on Friday. I really don’t get to see them all that much, and I appreciate every chance I get. They were both such a huge part of my life when I was growing up, and it’s strange to see them only once or twice every few months. Hopefully now that I have a car and I’m living closer to home, I’ll be able to visit more often
Wild horses couldn’t drag me away
…from the Silks and Satins 5K run! Haha, cheesy, I know:) Today Em, Kelly and I ran in Saratoga’s annual opening weekend road race. After a 5 am wake up call, we were in Toga to pick up our packets. The race went really well! The course was flat, but even at 8 am it was super humid outside. After about 5 minutes into the run, I was sweating up a storm. Regardless of the gross weather conditions Emily ran a 5K race PR, Kelly did great, and I hit my goal for the race! It wasn’t my fastest time ever, but I’m down a few minutes from last year’s Turkey Trot. I’m getting closer to where I was at in college!
The Silks and Satins has to be one of my favorite 5Ks. I love Saratoga and it was great to run in such a beautiful town. I grew up going to the track during the summer, and since I won’t be able to go all that much this year (moving to Syracuse next week!), it was great to see it at least once. We were there early enough to see the horses warming up and all the race goers line up to get through the gates. So much fun:)
Em and I at 5 am
Post race picture. Once again, cute shirts thanks to Emily’s craftiness.
A trainer and horse making their way to the track.
A few horses warming up.
All the free stuff in our goody bag.
After the race, Em and I headed to Proctor’s Theater to see Rent. The particular production included the actors who originally played Mark and Roger. I LOVED Rent back in high school and I still do. Let’s just say if I wanted to, I could sing along to almost every song. It was AMAZING to finally see it on stage with Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal. The musical was followed up by dinner with my parents at Raindancer, a favorite local restaurant. I didn’t get any pictures of the food but it was tasty!
