An Open Letter to Jimmy John’s

Dear Jimmy John’s,

Yesterday, I had an unfortunate experience with a Jimmy John’s delivery car in Ann Arbor on my commute home from work. Until now, I was blissfully unaware that “freaky fast” delivery required employing “freakishly rude” drivers.

I was sitting at a red light, waiting to turn right when the JJ’s delivery car behind me honked. “Odd…” I thought, as I waited for the light to turn green. But then he honked again. And again. And again. And continued incessantly until the light turned. A coworker of mine was following me home after work, and had been right behind me until the JJ’s delivery car weaseled (more like forced) his way between us. I had no desire to turn right into traffic and leave her stranded behind.

A minute later, when we finally made it around the corner, the Jimmy John’s driver sped around me into the left lane and I was able to see that the rear bumper of his Honda was completely missing. Clearly this guy and his excellent road manners had at least one traffic “run in” before.

So, Jimmy John’s, please remind your “freakishly fast” drivers that the only thing you are required to do at a red light is stop. It’s unfortunate, but I will forever associate the Jimmy John’s brand with the obnoxious “honk honk” of a Honda behind me, waiting not-so-patiently in rush hour traffic.

Less than love,

Kristin

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

THE GOOD
On Tuesday, I crashed my car. Wait…what? That’s not good at all! While that is absolutely true, nobody likes a downer. And, beneath all that smooshed metal and broken plastic, there IS a silver lining. With over $3,000 of damage, I thought for sure my poor car was a goner, but my insurance company has taken pity spared it. So in 7-10 days and $200 some in rental car fees, I’ll have my baby back, good as new. And that’s not so bad, right?

THE BAD
Also on Tuesday, my dear coworker, friend and Scottie lover was taken from this world after a long battle with ovarian cancer. At the age of 62, Jean was still far too full of life to have to leave us. She was always available with a word of advice, a joke, a smile and maybe even a cursed painted mask or two. She will be missed by everyone who knew her.  Ladies, please take good care of your bodies.

THE UGLY
In the midst of all the crazy happening in my life right now, I decided it would be a fantastic time to add a dog of my own into the mix. It might not be the smartest move I’ve ever made, but I have fallen in love with this face. Her name is Roxy, and after speaking with her foster mom, it sounds like she may be the perfect fit for me and my life. I’m meeting her tomorrow and I can’t hardly wait. Hopefully, by my next post, I will be a proud furbaby mama!

I hope everyone’s weeks have been better than mine!

25 x 25 Updated – Month 2!

I think I’ve started writing this update about 8 times. I’m sure I’ll get through it this time, now that I’m supposed to be working on homework! It’s been a rough month, but I feel like I’m doing pretty well. I feel like I’m stuck somewhere between wanting to do more, and knowing that I might implode if I do. In March, I want to try to diversify my efforts a little bit.

What are your goals for March?

1. Lose 25 lbs

I don’t know how, because I’ve only half-heartedly been following Weight Watchers this month (I’ve probably only tracked my food 30% of the time), but I’m up to a total of 10 pounds lost! That means I have 15 more to go, and 17 weeks to do it. Even more exciting, I’ve had to buy 3 pairs of new (smaller) pants! Yay!

2. Walk/Run/Bike/Crawl 500 miles

This is probably the reason why my weight loss is still ticking along. I’m up to week 5 in the Couch to 5K program. My next run is supposed to be 20 minutes straight! What surprising me the most is that I can really feel my core starting to get stronger. Definately an unexpected but welcome side effect.

5. Save $4000

Thank you, tax refund! Only $400 to go until I reach my $4k goal! I know this will continue to wander up and down a little since I have some large-ish purchases coming up in my future, but I’ve got plenty of time to make up a few hudred dollars here and there. It’s a great feeling.

6. Read 6 books for pleasure
1/27/12 – Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
2/4/12 – Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
2/9/12 – Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
2/21/12 – One Good Dog by Susan Wilson
3/2/12 – One for the Money by Janet Evanovich

Never thought I’d say this, but I need to read less. At least less for pleasure. I thought it would be a realy challenge to read 6 books in 6 months, and it probably should be. I have fallen massivly behind on my school reading and I’m running out of time to catch up!

23. Learn 1o new words in Tagalog

Tagalog is the language that Joe and his parents speak, so I don’t have much reason for this goal now. I need to think of a new one. Any thoughts?

25. Send Joe someone a random letter/care package
I sent my friend Katie 2 books and a card for Valentine’s day this year!

Still Alive & 2 Fitness Wins!

My dearest blog,

I’m so sorry to have abandoned you. I have had a darn crazy couple of weeks. I could bore you with my sob story, but I’m sure you’d rather I not, so I’ll just go straight to the fun stuff.

1. I did my first ever outdoor run yesterday!
Except, mine looked nothing like that photo. It was dark. And starting to snow. What on earth would prompt me to break in my running shoes on real pavement on a dark and snowy night, you ask? Well, due to the unusually-warm-for-February-in-Michigan weather we’ve had the past few days, it was about 8million degrees inside my gym. And I couldn’t handle it. So, I thought I’d give the great outdoors a shot, and I really enjoyed it! It was much more interesting than jogging on the treadmill, for sure. I look forward to the weather getting nicer so I can hit the pavement more often.

2. I increased my distance by half a mile today!
Not to reveal how pitifully slow I still am, let me just say that I logged half a mile more in 1h 5m today than I could in 1 hour when I first started. And no, I am no where close to being able to run half a mile in 5 minutes. I think it’s really cool to finally have some tangible evidence that I am getting stronger. Definitely a non-scale-victory for the books.

Stay tuned for a full 25 x 25 update to come over the next few days!

February = Financial Doom?

So, do you want the good news or the bad news first?

Let’s start with the good news! As of February 1, 2012 my employee status at work has changed from Non-Exempt (hourly) to Exempt (salary). Now, I know what you might be thinking, but sadly I did not get a raise. My title changed, but my duties are all exactly the same. In fact, this will have little to no effect on my day to day life except that I now get twice as much vacation time! Yesss! The other big change is that I will be going from getting paid bi-weekly to monthly.

And that’s where the trouble starts. Because the transition happened in the middle of a bi-weekly pay period, my finances for February are going to be all kinds of wonky. I will get one more bi-weekly paycheck on the 10th, but it will only cover 6 business days. My next check won’t come until the 29^th. Here’s a calendar that better illustrates the financial black hole of doom:

Thankfully, I have more than enough in savings to get me through the tail end of the month, but it’s just a bummer that my savings is going to have to take a hit two months in a row. Hopefully (if I ever sit down and finish my taxes) I’ll get a refund that will help make up some of the difference. I’m also going to rely on my pantry and freezer reserves as much as possible during that time to keep my grocery costs down, and I’ll try to keep eating out to a minimum. I was also hoping to beef up my workout wardrobe a little bit, but it looks like it might be wise to hold off on that until March. For being a short month, February sure is giving me a lot of sass!

3 Awesome Things

Three Awesome Things that Happened to Me Today:

1. My scale read 158.
Not only does this mean that I lost 2lbs this week (which is pretty awesome), it means that I have entered my arch nemesis “weight decade”. I have seen the 150s come and go many times in my life, but I’ve never made it out alive. This time around, I think I can make it.

2. I ran for 3 minutes straight. Twice!
I completed day one of week 3 in the Couch to 5K program today. This is the furthest I’ve ever gotten in the program, and also probably the first time I’ve jogged for longer than 90 seconds since my high school PE class. I’ve also gotten over the idea that my jogging has to be at a certain speed for it to “count”. I no longer care if the tall guy on the treadmill next to me is walking at the same speed that I’m “running”. Ok, fine. I do. But just a tiny bit.

3. I had really delicious Thai food for lunch.
What? Weren’t expecting that one? Seriously, though, my coworkers and I have been looking forward to going to our favorite Thai restaurant all week. We could hardly sit still all morning (you think I’m kidding, but I’m totally not). And the food was delicious. As always.

KISS Me, Housekeeping!

As some of you may already know, I am in the 2nd to last semester of a graduate program in Communication. I’m currently taking two classes, which is my normal load, but somewhere along the lines I apparently engaged in some very poor planning. It just so happens that I have what are the two most labor intensive classes of my whole program right now. At the same time. I have never had to do so much reading in my life. I swear, I have scholarly articles coming out of my ears!

So, as you might guess, between working full time, being a grad student and trying to log 500 miles of cardio by June, I’ve been a little busy lately! This last weekend, my to do list was so long, I knew there was no way I’d get it all done. Especially if I wanted to have any time to myself.

But, when I was at the gym on Saturday I read an something in Good Housekeeping that turned on a light bulb for me. In the article, the author explained how her New Year’s resolution was that any task she could do in 1 minute or less (like hanging up her coat or putting that glass in the dishwasher) she would do in the moment. I think that that is a brilliant rule to live by.

As she went on about how much easier her life was after making this change, I got to thinking…If one minute could make such a difference, just think of what I could do in 10 minutes! For the past two days I’ve set the timer for 10 minutes  as soon as I get home from work and dedicated that time to cleaning up around the house.

Yesterday I put a way a load of laundry and cleaned off my desk (which has been on my to-do list for weeks). Today, I recycled all the junk mail that’s been laying around and filed some recipe cards back in my recipe file. You might be surprised how much you can get done in 10 minutes! I will admit, today I came home and thought “really? I have to do stuff for 10 whole minutes before I can lounge on the couch?!” But then I remembered that 10 minutes is not a big deal and that I should just stop whining and get to it.

Today, my to do list looks much more manageable and I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time this weekend for reading more scholarly articles. Can’t wait.