The Religion Thing

There is something I've been trying to avoid completely that keeps creeping back up.  Church.  I feel like it's such a taboo subject because people are so strong willed in whatever they believe that it's so easy to offend someone.  I'm a cradle catholic (grew up catholic), and never really questioned anything.  Catholic school ... Church twice a week ... My dad even has more pictures of Jesus in the family room than his kids.  I never really questioned it until I went on a trip to El Salvador last year.  After my ex and I broke up, I spent quite a bit of time moping around living off Ben & Jerrys and Jacks frozen pizza.  A friend invited me out to an art show at her church.  As I was looking through the artwork I saw some photos of small children in those black and white pictures.  Sort of like the kind you see on TV when that song is playing in the background (I believe there are angels among us ... ).  I asked her who took those photos, and she said they were from a service trip to El Salvador.  I signed up a week later.

I spent a week working side by side the people who lived in the small town of El Progresso.  The twenty something of us from the U.S. geared up rode a pick up truck through the streets (dirt paths) of El Progresso (El Salvador) to our work site where we made a road.  I joined the trip to try to think about anything other than my recent break up, and while I was there I found myself thinking about religion again for the first time in years.  I went on the trip to get myself out of the break up rut that I was in, I found myself leaving feeling refreshed and ready to get out of my pajamas and pizza black hole.

I'm not sure when I stopped, but I stopped going to church.  Life got in the way somehow with my traveling job, and hectic schedule.  I've spent the past year trying to slowly get back into church and figuring out how I really feel about this whole religion thing.

84 Miles Down 196 Miles To Go

The Suburbian Triangle

I ran four consecutive eight minute miles.  I have never been so excited.  Except the problem now is that I'm barely running!  It only took me a little over half an hour ... when this use to take me a full hour (10 min walk warm up, three 10 min miles, and 10 minute cool down).  Now all I need to do is push past the four mile run.  

All I could think about today is moving to Boston!  This past weekend I went out and picked an apartment, did a history tour, got some fancy italian food, famous cannoli's, and even saw a game at the big green monster (Fenway).  I fricking love this city.  I've always loved Chicago, but it's never really been mine.  I feel like up until this point the past five years have all been typical.  I've come "home" to where my family is, I've got a job in consulting, I've moved downtown.  I've done all the things my good friend refers to as the "suburbian triangle life".  You grow up in the suburbs, go away to college, come home and move downtown, meet someone, marry and move back to the suburbs.  I know so many people doing this.  There is nothing wrong with this path, but I am just now starting to realize it isn't mine.  I don't know anyone in Boston, I don't have any family members who have gone back full time to get an MBA, and it'll be mine.

Seeing so closely the next step has put quite a bit in perspective.  I'm starting to feel like the timer has been turned upside down, the race is on!  Just like my mile pace, my life is moving quick.

I've also scheduled mental health day ... and I'm going to run, do yoga, shop, and read a book.  I can not wait to have some time to myself to unwind.

81 Miles Down 169 Miles To Go

Plateaus

Vegan week was an amazing success.  I feel healthier, more energized, happier, and I'm going to keep this lifestyle.  I'm going to keep eating mostly vegan (probably with the occasional cheese or egg) in my house, and try to stay vegetarian when I leave.  I also had something very exciting happen to me this week.  The weight on my drivers license ... is no longer a lie.  I weigh the same amount I did in high school.  For the first time since then.  Plus I have muscles (because I decided not to be skinny fat and its working!).  I haven't even had cheetos in weeks.  There was a situation a couple months ago, where I walked by the vending machine and saw two co workers.  One of them said to the other "Are you pulling a Kim?" ... "Getting 2:00 PM cheetos".  I realized that I needed to change my habits then, so I switched to baked cheetos.  As it turns out, that wasn't what I needed.  What I needed was a piece of fruit.  I feel like lately I've plateaued.  I'm lukewarm happy.  I'm anticipating all these changes, but I'm not happy with what I'm doing in the mean time.

Today I went into work ... with my packed lunch box.  After driving an hour and a half.  I opened excel and turned on the iridescent light.  Four hours later ... nothing had changed except that my coffee was gone.  I realized that I've been working without any days off four three months straight.  I'm going internally stir crazy.  I think I need a mental health day ... Or a mental health week.  I am looking at yoga retreats ... I think I'll start with a mental health day, and take it from there ...

77 Miles Down 173 Miles To Go

Vegan Success and Focusing on the New

Day 2 of the Vegan Trial = Another day of massive success.  I still feel alert, happy, and full all day.  I had another day of delicious food with a new recipe for dinner.

This is not my picture ... but her's really does the meal justice:

Quinoa Risotto with Coconut Milk Mushrooms and Saffron

http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2010/08/almond-coconut-quinoa-risotto-saffron.html

One thing I'm noticing is that I'm not "hungry" or "full" anymore.  I just enjoy eating, eat the correct proportion and then stop.  I stay full and in between I snack on oranges or bananas mostly out of boredom.  Today I felt so amazing and energized that I ran five miles.  I ran my first mile at 7:30, which I have never done before.  I remember in high school running the mile for gym class, and at the time I was in my peak athletic condition.  I would use my inhaler (popular kid alert) and run my little heart out and the fastest I ever came in was an 8:30 mile.

I think I've been feeling so great that I stepped outside my comfort zone and did something I was trying not to do ... I asked a guy out.  Something I rarely do ... but we had been talking and have a lot in common.  Plus I've had a little bit of a crush on him since last summer.  And he said in a nice way "but you're moving." Ugh.  I'm not sure why with some people I see these restrictions and with others I don't.  I have told just about every other guy that has asked me out the same excuse he was just telling me, but thinking about him it didn't bother me so much.  I'm not sure what it is that makes your just want to run up to someone and hug them when you see them vs. wanting to dodge eye contact and make excuses, but I wish I could figure it out.  I haven't really had that feeling where I wanted to ask someone out in a very long time ... So I'm glad I acted on it.  I'm pretty sure life will never slow down enough for it to be a good time for me to start a relationship so I'm going to try to not let it get in the way of that when I think that may happen.  Time to shift the focus to building the new.

74 Miles Down 176 Miles To Go

Living in the Present as a Vegan

Vegan Day 1 = Huge Success.  I loved all my meals today.  I felt full all day, and I had more energy than I've had in a long time.  I'm posting every recipe, because I didn't know vegans could eat well until I found this blog.  Everything is so flavorful and I lost that sluggish lethargic feeling I can sometimes get in my normal life.  It's funny how what you eat can have such a huge affect not only on your body but on your mood.

Breakfast: Tofu Kale Spinach Burrito

http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2011/06/vegan-breakfast-burrito-fun-with-daiya.html

Lunch: Mac and Cheese & Cinnamon Cookies

http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2013/04/boxed-vegan-mac-cheez-gone-fancy-easy.html

Dinner: Mango Avocado Basil Wrap

http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2012/07/thats-wrap-peach-basil-avocado-balsamic.html

I even had one of my best runs today.  Four miles, and I barely noticed them.  The problem I'm having now is making time to run all these extra miles (good problems!!).  I think that I need to start applying this method to my regular life.  Stop putting things into it that are affecting me negatively.  I need to weed out all the people who make me unhappy, and stop putting myself in any situations where I'm unhappy with how it affects me.  I started going to church again recently, and last weekend I officially started working daycare.  I go to church, hang out in a side room and babysit kids from 1 month to 2 years old.  I don't think there is anything that can make you more happy than little babies all running up to you hugging you.  I've also noticed as I get more involved, I'm making friends with genuinely good people.  I know it will take time for certain things in the past to settle there and no longer affect my future, but as I find more positive things to focus on in the present those things are really starting to speed up that process.  Finally ...

69 Miles Down 181 Miles to Go

Making Friends and Going Vegan

Since the last time I've run ...

One of my very best friends told me she was engaged.
One of my very best friends got a puppy.
One of my very best friends moved.
One of my very best friends got a new job.
One of my very best friends started her baby on solid food.

... Why can't I stop focusing on this?  What is going on?  I'm pushing to change all this "stuff" in my life, but I haven't found the change that makes me happy yet.  I'm still occasionally frustrated.  My friend texted me at 5:00 AM this week, "Call me as soon as you wake up!!"  My thought process went something like this: 1 - Someone is in the hospital. 2 - She's pregnant.  3 - She's engaged.  Luckily ... She's engaged!  My nose started tingling and I started getting tearey eyed.  I miss my friends.  My ex was my best friend for the four years we were together.  He listened to me on the phone, had dinner, went out for drinks, movies whatever I wanted.  Somehow I fell into this black hole of relationship land and slowly lost touch with my good platonic friends.  The last time I had friends who knew me inside and out was college, five years ago.  Holy @#%!.  I think part of the reason this happened aside from dating Maybe is because I moved to Chicago and took a traveling job.  All my college friends were dispersed across the U.S. and I barely saw them.

As soon as I moved to Chicago, I realized that life was not like the TV show "Friends".  You can't sit in a coffee shop all day, date someone new every couple weeks, and I don't recall a scene where they went to the bars (which seems like the only thing people do here).  They just hang out and get to know each other literally all the time.  Stay skinny and never go to the gym, eat and rarely cook (except Monica).  I made a lot of "friends" in the city, but none of them knew me as well as the people I lived with the four years of college.  When I'm a big fan of running and yoga, it's tough to make new ones.  You can't run behind someone or sneak up beside them and say Hi.  You also can't introduce yourself to someone next to you in bikram yoga (it's silent) or after class (everyone pretty much gets naked to change out of their soaked yoga clothes right away ... and that would be weird).  I don't work in the city so it's tough to make work friends.  I've set myself up to not make friends! What?!?!

I'm seriously considering if I want to live in a big city after school.  I do have some new living criteria: no more commuting.  Also, It's time to live somewhere that I want to know my neighbors.  For now, I can't control any of that, and its sooooo frustrating.  So I'm trying to focus on things that I can change.  I'm going to try something I've always wanted to try: going vegan.  Not permanently, but for one week.  I've occasionally gone vegetarian or only eaten fish.  Not because I have an emotional connection, but because I just feel better.  So I'm going to try to change the way I eat and see if I can't get myself feeling a little better.  One week to focus on things I can change: food!   

65 Miles Down 185 Miles To Go

Skinny Fat

It's time to make some decisions.  I've been planning and planning and waiting and waiting.  It's time to start acting.  I've been told before "Planning is everything, but plans are nothing."  I have all these ideas shaping up and grand plans on how I'm going to reshape my life.  So I'm just jumping in and making deicions.  I'm officially signed up to go to Kenya.  I'll be there 10 days.  I'm taking two months off work to refresh and travel.  I'll have an apartment for one of them ... which is either going to be an amazing idea or a really stupid one.  Now I just need to find a place to live once I get there.  The apartment searching process is such a pain in the butt that I've considered living out of a suitcase.  I started sending out roommate feelers, and so far I've heard from a guy that lives in Egypt and a girl from Lebanon.  This is going to be so different than undergrad where I went to school in a corn field with a bunch of small town Indiana kids.  They actually had a take your tractor to school day.

I feel like I'm starting to rock my career choices, but I need to get everything else in line.  My dating ban is super boring, but I'm starting to eat really healthy and spend a LOT of time working out and running.  It's amazing how much this stretch of not dating has cleared my mind.  At the same time I'm dropping weight.  Fast.  For the first time since my skiing accident the weight on my drivers licence is not a lie.  I've set a vacation, chosen a school, picked a quit date, paused relationship land, and now I will focus on my body.  It's time to get skinny hot, not just skinny fat.  Dropping weight doesn't make you rock a bikini, I want definition.  I downloaded a body builder ten week tone plan and a bunch of inspirational workout routines.  None of which I have had the courage to start, but I think it's about time.  This weekend.

62 Miles Down 188 Miles To Go

Hills and Lies

What is wrong with my body?  I've been a grown up for roughly five years.  I usually wake up between 5:00 AM and 6:00 AM, Monday through Friday.  On weekends, I'd like to wake up after eight to ten hours of good sleep.  No matter how late I stay up, if I drink or if I just watch movies, I wake up by 7:30 and am WIDE awake.  My body would rather wake up early and be tired all day than continue sleeping past the wee hours of the weekend morning.  So I finally accepted it, and I woke up early to go for a long run in the suburbs.  I've known for a long time that I am a city girl, and I love everything about living downtown.  However, I'm the outsider in my family, they all love the suburbs.

Anyways, there is a running path by the home I grew up in that I use to run all the time.  Today I ran past all my high school friends old houses, and all the places we use to hang out.  It was a nice little run down memory lane, both ex boyfriends are married and moved away.  My best friend who I spent most of grade school living with is married with a baby (one of the cutest babies ever) and living in California.  It was a quick memory filled run.  I always thought it was three miles, and I have literally never ran the whole thing.  There is this tiny hill that always gets the best of me.  It is somehow perfectly placed so that when I hit the running wall, I am right at the bottom of this hill.  I usually can't breathe at that point and I just stop.  After realizing that I had run three full miles and not made it to the hill, I started giving up in my mind.  I had that thought where you've already reached that goal, so you can just stop anytime now.  But then I rounded the corner and saw this tiny hill, and I just took off!  I sprinted over it, and ran the entire fourth mile.  I even had an eight minute mile in there, which I haven't done since high school.  It's funny that when you stop focusing on the goal, you crush it.  That little voice in your head that says "stop now you've done good enough" is just a tiny little liar.

60 Miles Down 190 Miles To Go

Little by Little

Today was an interesting run.  I hated things a lot less, but I did something really stupid.  I accidentally ran my regular route backwards.  I got distracted because the girl running in front of me was going really fast and had long hair.  I had a momentary burst of hair envy.  And then I noticed I missed my regular turn and I was way out of breath from running too fast.  I figured it was no big deal I'd just switch it up.  On my way back up the lake ... I found myself running in a constant wind tunnel.  For a mile and a half, which may not seem like a long time, but try not breathing for 15 minutes.  Now do it while you work out.  I tried not to say this this year, but sometimes change is bad.  At least this one was poorly timed, but I got a wonderful picture of my running path or should I say my wind tunnel.

I also realized that while I was being angry about a change (running my route backwards) I was still accomplishing a huge milestone.  I've run two marathons now.  Not nonstop, but still I've done it.  In two months.  I am running a marathon a month.  If I keep this pace up, I will be running 314.4 Miles in one year. That kills my goal.  I could also run ten marathons, 262 Miles in one year.  Either way ... I am going to do more than 250 if I keep it up, provided I have this much time in graduate school.  (Reality sinking in ...).  I'm also changing pieces of my life like crazy.  I talked to a friend about my ex, let's call him Maybe (which was pretty much the only answer I ever got from him), and disclosed that I was antsy knowing this was his last week in Chicago.  She said rather bluntly, "That's because now you know it will never happen again."  I equally hate and love her, because she knows me inside and out.  And she's right, it's over.  No "maybe" one day, no "maybe" things will change, no "maybe" we'll find a way back to each other.  And that's probably my own little personal wind tunnel, because I hate "maybe" and that is not the relationship I want to be in.

Even though I found myself in a wind tunnel, and I'm running my "marathons" in little pieces, all the things I'm doing are adding up.  My weight is dropping, I'm eating healthier and feeling better, I haven't seen my ex and soon he'll be gone, I'm leaving my job to take on an MBA, and I'm finally a real runner.  I'm already happier, and my life hasn't changed that much since I started.  I'm just more okay with it now.

56 Miles Down 194 Miles To Go

Pants Less

I'm embarrassed.  After all that bragging, and all those long runs, today I have a one mile run to show for myself.  Everything hurt today, and everything felt exhausted.  I was feeling crabby, but I forced myself to run through at least one mile before moving into something different.  While I was doing my abs workout, I noticed all the guys around me.  There were eight of us crammed into this tiny space, all doing planks and crunches.  What the hell was going on?  I think it's hilarious that we all sit at these desks all day working, and then we have to go to the gym and run in place and do sit ups in place.  Always stationary.  The whole thing sort of makes me laugh out loud, which I did and fell out of my plank.  (Losing whatever street cred I had).  We study and work like crazy these sedentary lives and then have to schedule time to go to a building and move our bodies in one place.  When I think of why I do it all, it's so that I can get a good job and make good money.  Is it all really that important?  I dislike my job ... and the money is just sitting in a bank account not being spent.  I'm saving it all so that when I get married my kids can do the same thing I'm doing.  It's kind of funny, and sometimes I wonder what the point is.  (For the record I absolutely appreciate my dad doing this for me so that I can have the life I have).  I'm not going off the deep end and quitting my job or running across the country (although that is an interesting idea ...), but I am challenging the status quo and wondering if it's what I really want or what I know.  I think that I've worked my butt off studying and in my career so that I may be able to choose what I want to do with my life.  When I went into consulting, I thought it's the most difficult job to get, and I took a job at the most difficult company to work at.  I even took the highest salary of the four job offers I had because it was the highest.  I didn't know much about working to be able to really know what I would be happiest doing, but I was narrowing down my options by rediculious criteria.  Wow ... I really hate everything today.  Like the girl in the picture says, even pants.  I'm protesting everything safely, pants-less in my locked apartment by myself under a blanket.  (Rebel...)

I know there is so much to be done in health care, and when I take my next job I want to be sure I'm getting closer to something that makes me happier.  Apparently it is not the sedentary lifestyle, or it's at least not the kind of work I'm doing today.

52 Miles Down 198 Miles To Go