"Me" time and SF 2
2008 has gotten off to a good start in terms of using the new year as a start for some changes in my life, at least i think it has. the biggest change really has been a significant shift in my eating habits and hopefully in my exercise habits as well. this is all part of the "to be a hot 30 yo" "resolution" that will last for the next approximately 16 months .. and onward. seriously though, what i eat now is quite different than what i use to let myself eat ... even my "trainer" after comparing my food diary before and after the change, was amazed. there are moments where i have broken down i will admit ... a box of fried chicken here and there, one little piece of chocolate, or what not. but in general, my meals of late have been centered around oatmeal and fruit for breakfast, stir fry vegetables and beans and vegetable burgers for lunch and dinner. and i might eat actual meat only every other day. i pretty much do not eat cheese or any kind of potato now and rarely any bread of sorts. in exercise, i have had two "training" sessions, learning out how to actually lift weights and now trying to figure out an actual workout schedule.
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i'm not going to bold yet and say that any change in my body has definitely happened, but i have gotten various comments that i do look slimmer. anyways, i am glad i am having help though ... and free at that! kahl has been a great benefit to my life in that he puts so much energy into helping me along my little "journey". i will have to admit though, i do feel a slight twinge of strangeness when we're training that is, since he is sort of a cute guy and well built... and well you get the picture... i'm only a man.
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we were stretching on a mat, laying side by side, i'm lying down and he lift his head over and talks to me about stretching. i couldn't help myself but think this was an approximate position you might be in talking to your lover in bed. alas .. he's taken ... and even more so ... i am his friend and his boyfriend's friend. oh well. speaking about that though, kahl was telling me that he and andy were having dinner this past weekend with another couple and the other couple asked why was it that i was still single. it was a sort of complement i guess, the way they seemed to ask it, saying they didn't understand that with my talents, why i'd be single still.
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why? i dunno ... but to be honest. right at this moment ... i really don't care that much. i know for a few previous months i was waxing and waning about single-ness ... but you know, this "health kick" of late has really shifted my focus and in a way ... as I told Kahl ... what i am doing now ... perfecting my health and hopefully starting to advance professionally ... is all stuff i want to do ... solely.... solely for "me". they are all things that directly benefit me and i reap direct rewards from in accordance to my efforts. the whole finding or having a boyfriend thing ... honestly ... too much trouble to think of it now. and way to volatile. and if you think of it ... what really is the benefit? the REAL ... lifestyle changing ... and lasting benefit. sounds pessimistic ... or bitter ... but i don't really think so. i want to think that it's just "me" time now.
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so in general "me" time is going fabulously. in other news, i just went to San Francisco again this past weekend. the genesis of the trip was to help sam, my ex-ex-boyfriend celebrate his 30th birthday. flying halfway across the country for a birthday? well... seeing that he had friends flying fully across the country ... i guess i needed to represent texas. and its sam... the only person i've been intimate with and still talk to with amicability ... that speaks of something i guess. anyways, sam and i and about 20 other or so of his friends (from various stages of his life) had dinner and some continued on to a little quiet party at his place. it was a fun evening ... not crazy ... but enjoyable. and it is always fun to see sam.
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however, the other part of the trip entailed being entertained by hector's friends. they were kind enough to offer us (yes, hector came with me!) 2 evening stay and even a great tour around the "must see" sights of SF. the touring afternoon was long but filled with some seriously spectacular scenes to be had around the city. i think my favorite was going up to "Twin Peaks" and seeing all of SF laid out in front of you ... it was a beautiful sight. and of course, i appreciated the poetic end of the day watching the sun dip into the Pacific Ocean ... quite nice. it was a perfect "weekend" trip ... well almost ... as i had to immediately go back to work when we got back sunday evening to prepare for the work week. but i did realize how much i love SF ... whyd idn't i ever really think of that town to live in before?
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speaking of traveling, the next thing to look forward to is this ... after almost 2 years of working at SWA, a job where i originally was brought on to do some projects in china... and consequently NEVER worked in china (except 1 time yes but it was a short 1 week charette) ... lookee here ... i am actually working and even more ... going to china finally. i will be in hunan a week or so and then topping it off with 2-3 days in hong kong... city i have never been to. to be honest, i am jazzed about hong kong but only ho hum about the actual job in hunan ... haha... oh well. well... i am also jazzed about flying first class and business class all the way as well... sweet! anyways, this week will be busy trying to figure that all out and preparing.
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Breakdown
since i didn't really circle the day i quit smoking, i really can't say how long i've gone without a smoke. my best guess was that it was the week or so of thanksgiving.... which puts my record of quitting cold turkey from ciggs at just over a month and half. not bad.
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of course, that ended this evening as i "treated" myself to 2 ciggs this evening. the thing is ... and maybe this isn't exactly the right way to think of it ... i don't see it as a "relapse" though. i've decided that if i get so far as opening that pack again in the near future telling myself its "just" for one more .... i've decided i need to just chuck the pack in the trash (since obviously then i don't have the willpower to avoid ciggs when i know i have them in the house). but again, i don't see it as a relapse in my attempt to quit. it was a pleasurable smoke .. although funny enough, i have sort of honestly "loss" the taste for it a bit ... so i guess that's good.
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my new mantra i guess regarding my "resolutions" such as quitting smoking and eating better and just general better health-style is something like "its OK once ina while". Kahl, my new "personal trainer" has said regarding food you KNOW is bad for you ... as long as its "once in a while" ... its OK. so this week, i "treated" myself to an ever satisfying lunch box of fried chicken ... and not even thinking about peeling the skin off. Funny though, I still couldn't bring myself to eat the buttered muffin that came with it (since i figured protein even with all that fat is still somewhat beneficial, whereas empty carbs with fat ... is just nutritionally bankrupt) For about three weeks now, I have been making myself grow accustomed to always thinking "is that something i really should eat"... but directly coupled with that is "OK, i want to eat it but its really not that great for me .. so how can i make it better". silly things like making 5 egg omelets but using only whites, getting "dry" baked sweet potato as opposed to the glycemic index bomb of a regular baked potato (even without the "fixings"), eating cheese only if its for eating the cheese itself(as opposed to adding it to food), diluting with seltzer orange juice (yummy!) and pretty much all drinks really, reading reading reading ingredients, comparing calories, protein, carbs, and fats. etc, etc. and of course, once in a while eating a box of fried chicken :)
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and once in a while, having a cigarette. Nice.
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A New Year, A New Bathroom
over the "holiday break" i was fortunate to have off from the friday before christmas through the next solid 11 days till the day after new year's day. during this time, i did two major things. for the first half or so i went up to dallas to spend "xmas" with the parents and some relative who also had stopped into town. it was a relatively uneventful yet relaxing few days filled with listening to the parents buzzing and all the minutia of their life. a nice break from my ordinary existince if nothing else.
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but come christmas day i was outta there though and on my way back to houston. oh before i go on, a quick re-cap of this year's gifts ... two dessert books, a creme brulee cooking set, a silly calendar, lovely clothes, headgear, various small minutia, and the best gift of all from my well-knowing parents ... money! haha, actually it came at a great time because the check they wrote me was perfectly timed for what i did for the rest of the holiday break ... finally renovate my bathroom!
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haha, keep in mind... the "original" idea was to devote weekends of October (that is 2007!) to finishing the bathroom, and then weekends of November to the kitchen ... in order to make my technical owning a house for a full year anniversary. ok... so i re-plastered the ceilings the first week and painted them and painted two big splotches of blue on my wall to test the color.... hmmm... that same condition existed till the day i came back from dallas for christmas. ha. now, sheer laziness aside though, there was ALOT of happenings in October and November, from travel to work to just other social functions ... hello... Halloween and Thanksgiving? anyways, so since i had six days of nothing to do, i really had no excuse to not get at least a decent start.
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and so the following pictures document in roughly chronicle order the transformation of my plain jain, and teetering on a little drab bathroom ... into a hmmm ... frenchy, funky, sea side escape ... hmmm sort of like miami, only if it was taken over by the french as opposed to the cubans?
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in general, like most of my "reno" projects... it was mainly a surface treatment ... paint, lots of trim and molding, some exploration with accessories and with this particular project, a fun reinterpretation of a light fixture that was inspiring yet pricey at its store price ($2500!). eventually, i would like to re-tile the floor, but as i believe i've probably hit mty budget already, i think i'll leave this DIY to the next parental gift ... and anyways... surprisingly the vinyle ( i know... shameful huh?) ... kinda... matches the new color.
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all the walls originally has this DISGUSTING "popcorn" texture all over making the walls like sandpaper (i might as well rubbed my face against the walls to get a shave). 3 tubs of spackle and lots of hand action later... and then some sanding ... re-spackle... and re-sanding ... i got relatively smooth walls ... yay!
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after smoothing the walls, came installing the "trim package". i designed a composite trim that would act sort of as a chair rail / wainscoating and integrated a strip of embossed texture wall paper so i could give it a little extra "oomph" of detail. the small ledge gave a small (but lengthy) place for putting small items (having a pedestal sink allows no counter space) but i wanted to keep it small as not to cramp the space). don't mind all the funky colors... all the items in this pacakge were leftovers from previous reno i did and i knew i'd paint all over it anyways.
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behind the door there was a shallow bit of empty wall that i decided would be a great place to have a small shelf of sorts. so i designed and built a very shallow shelf that would be as high as the chair rail trim on teh other side of the room and would have the same trim/wallpaper detail in order to simulate a continous look around the room. it fun proving to myself i really could build something. awesome.
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EVERYTHING then receives a 2 coats of primer, and the next pictures show the result after the wall under the chair rail are painted an ever so greyer shade of white (try painting white on white and wondering where you've painted already) and the walls above the chair rail a beautiful blue-green called "Surfer".
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although i do love the color i chose, after putting it on i began realizing that my original idea of painting both the walls AND ceiling this blue might just be a little too over-powering. backing up from that move made me then realize that i had to add some more molding, specifically crown. despite having done crown molding a few times before, it was already day 3 or 4 by then and i was already getting tired of DIY and decided i didn't want to deal with the needed precision in installing crown molding well ... so as a compromise i looked into an alternative that involve neat little corner blocks that sit well in the ceiling corners so that the ends of the molding trips could just hit it flush as opposed to a mitered cut if it hit another molding strip ... trust me ... a lot easier! also after the blue went on, i applied the small detail of molding "frames" the walls making it tre french. ooh la la.
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the mirror was a fun little project in that i took the glass from an old mirror that had a much too small frame and put it into a open frame that i had that was much thicker in scale and nicer in ornament. by the way, the "sunflower" mirror in the earlier pictures i just didn't feel fit the space after all so that'll be used somewhere else now. the next few pictures are at a stage of about 90% done. the remaining items are filling in the holes and cracks in the crown, painting the crown, adhering the faux stain glass, and then lots and lots of detail clean and touch up... oh yes, and completing my "classiest" item in the bathroom ... my custom "retrofitted" chandelier. the inspiration piece was from "design within (meaning out of) reach" and was basically a chrome bar with light hanging from it but also a thick wall of beautiful crystal baubles ... price tag? $2500. so my "design on a dime" mentality took a cheapo walmart bought acrylic "chandelier" that was bought for $15, cut apart the baubles and then attcahed a wood trim piece to the ceiling and meticulously hung from string strands of "crystal" in a line in front of the already handsome yet conventional fixture, whose original shades had been removed, leaving the naked light bulbs, which in this application become sort of big crystals themselves. not excatly the same replica, but when you compare $2500 and tops $20 ... come on!
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ahhh... a new year... a new fresh retreat from the world ... i feel relaxed already!
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