2-16-11: Well kids, I’m sorry, but this is going to be a sort of short post.  I went to the ENT yesterday and found out that they could get me in for surgery on the 21^st.  I’m having tonsil and nasal surgery to clean out my sinus cavities.  I have 3 days to get over a week’s worth of work done and get my house in order…and do some grocery shopping for soft foods like Ensure and noodles and lots and lots of frozen delicacies (like popsicles, ice cream and sherbert).

I decided I’m going to keep my 5 pound dumbbells next to me.  I figure while I sit all day to recover at least I can do some curls.  I’ll let you know how that pans out for me.  I got my March issue of Cooking Light (has Healthy Habit #3 in it).  I’m saving it to read next week while I’m recovering so that will be fun.

2-17-11: In more exciting news, I’m having my Annual Wine Tasting Party tomorrow as a last hoorah before the boringness of being at home for a week with no contact with the outside world.

2-18-11:  WINE TASTING PARTY was a hit!  Everyone who came had fun.  We had 11 bottles of wine but I only got a picture of the first few.  I was so concerned about getting all the food done and out on time I totally didn’t take any pictures of their plated beautiful-ness.  I made a large platter of sliced green, yellow, and red peppers; carrots, apples and pears.  I made a platter of goat cheese, Roquefort cheese, and cheddar cheese with crackers.  We had chips and salsa, spinach dip with ciabatta bread and triscuts; an assortment of Girl Scout Cookies and pastitsio for the main course (it’s Greek pasta).  I’m not going to lie, the picture is a bit blurry, but you can’t expect too much of me since I already had started tasting.

From left to right: Xplorador Malbec, DaVinci Chianti, Syrah (from New Mexico-can’t make out the label), Fat Bastard Shiraz, Lotengo Malbec, Kendall Jackson Pinot Noir.  Later on Low brought some Red Diamond Cabernet Sauvignon, Taylor brought Liberty School Chardonnay, and Chelsea brought a Merlot (but I can’t remember the name…Leeche something).

2-19-11: I made an ultra healthy dinner for myself tonight so that I could make up for eating all those Girl Scout Cookies this past week.  I started off by baking some fresh Cod Fish with lemon, olive oil, celery salt and tarragon (350 degrees for 25 minutes).    For my side, I sautéed some red peppers, zucchini and garlic in olive oil.  At the very end I added about 1.5 cups of fresh baby spinach.

The bread was from Prairie Thunder Bakery in Downtown OKC.

I paired the meal with leftover Liberty School Chardonnay (it was still good the 2^nd day).

And for dessert, I decided I wanted some coffee cake.  I found this coffee cake at Crest foods; it looked good and so I thought I’d try it.  I ended up liking it better than Entenmann’s (which is a great compliment for coffee cake).

2-20-11: Tomorrow’s my surgery so I might not do a guest post for a while!  Tonight I’m going on a last jog and having surf and turf for dinner (since I won’t be able to have solid foods for a while).  I decided “go big or go home” with tonight’s dinner

Good morning! How are your weekends going thus far? Mine started off with a bang. I came home Friday evening to find that the upstairs neighbors apartment had flooded and I had a huge leak by my front door.

With all the problems with smells and whatnot at this complex, I was very upset. Thankfully, they’ve promised to come out Tuesday and fix all the carpet and make everything better. We’ll see if that actually happens, but for now I’m not letting myself stress about it.

Shortly after I discovered the leak I headed out to the perfect event for someone having a slight mental breakdown…

The SIL’s Wine Tasting Party was quite a success. She has one every year – just girls and everyone brings a bottle.

Much girl talk ensued, of which 99% was highly inappropriate and shouldn’t be repeated. We did discuss gas for awhile, per my blog discussion on Friday. No party is complete without some talk about gas, right?

We snacked on cheese and crackers, chips and salsa, fresh fruit and veggies and many Girl Scout cookies. The SIL is a troop leader so she has the hook-up.

I think everyone had a good time, myself included. This means that I was practically worthless yesterday. I swear I get the worst hangovers of all time. It’s not fair.

I went to bed early last night and now I’m feeling like a million bucks. I’m planning to get my long run in today.

Side note: I just saw a commercial for a website people can go to if they want to have an affair. WTF?

Are you a red or white wine drinker? Or do you hate wine?

What’s the most ridiculous this you’ve ever seen sold on a TV commercial. That affair website really shocked me. How gross.

Dear Young, Misguided Self:

I try not to think about you very often. Childhood was a painful time I often push under the rug. Sometimes though, I think of you, and remember how far we’ve come.

I wish you wouldn’t have been so hesitant to understand your pain. You wanted to have a perfect family, be the perfect daughter and above all else look perfect – but you should have been reaching out. Things were not perfect.

I wish you would have looked in the mirror and realized that the least of your worries should have been your appearance. You were hot.

You were also driven and ambitious, but you never gave yourself enough credit.

You never told your friends about what was going on at home. You never told them that you were depressed.

You never let anyone in.

You went to all the events, took all the pictures and practiced the art of being as perfect as possible.

You didn’t know your father. You didn’t know how to handle your mother. You counted down the days until you could escape from them, not knowing that with a little bit of patience you could have started relationships with two of the best people in the world.

Most of your friends were fake. They didn’t like you and they talked about you behind your back, but all you wanted was their acceptance. That was the absolutely least important thing in the world. You were so confused.

You missed out on a lot, you didn’t understand what was important, but the good news is that you made it through it all.

Everything is different now.

You’re no longer fake. Your friends love you for who you are and you have learned to slowly let them in.

You aren’t as thin as you were in high school, but you are far more confident and appreciate your body for what it can do and not just what it looks like.

You have forgiven your parents. They love and cherish you and you couldn’t live without them.

We won’t talk about college right now, there were many highs and lows in your late teens and early twenties, but you came out of it strong and resilient.

You’re now twenty-five and single with the world unfolding before you with opportunities you laid awake dreaming about all those years ago.

I’d like to tell you to do things differently, but the fact of the matter is that everything you did then helped get you to where you are now.

You are beautiful – then and now. Try not to go another 10 years before remembering that.

Love,

Your older, more bad-ass self

Happy National Wine Drinking Day! Are you planning to celebrate?

The SIL just so happens to be having a girls night/wine tasting at her house tonight so I will be enjoying said holiday. Pretty excited about it.

In case you’re wondering, which you probably aren’t, my mouth is not healing quickly. It still hurts to eat most things and I’m pretty much fed up with it.

Drinking hurts less because I can get it down without too much contact to the wounded area, so I had a liquid lunch yesterday.

I sipped on this green drank and Twittered a bit, then I realized something terrible.

I had gas.

Really, really bad painful gas.

And I have an office mate, so you know what that means. I had to hold it in alllll afternoon.

Maybe you’re not supposed to blog about gas, but I’m going to.

I have no idea where it came from and why it was so severe, but it got me to thinking about the injustice of shared offices and cubicles.

How are we supposed to hold our… air… in all day long like that?! It’s unhealthy.

Sure,  you can get up occasionally and go to the bathroom or step outside, but if it’s really bad (like mine was) then you just have to sit there in misery for the sake of being polite.

Terrible.

Anyways, it was really quite crippling so there was no way I was going to make it to the gym.

Instead I enjoyed the privacy of my own apartment, did laundry, did a kickboxing workout and watched TV.

Because I fear my problems might have stemmed from a fiber OD – I kept dinner simple.

Whole wheat spaghetti (I wish I would have had regular, too much fiber!) with a rose cream sauce from Target.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Happy Friday!

If you work, do you have a shared space or your own office?

I ate sushi again last night. And some delicious General Tso’s chicken.

I went to a new place called Nhinja with friends Taylor and Chelsea. I had an Eat Around OKC Deal I wanted to use, plus I’ve really been wanting to try out the restaurant.

I would have taken pictures and given a review, but we had catching up to do and my mouth hurt so badly that I couldn’t really enjoy the food.

I audibly yelped from the pain several times. Kind of pathetic.

In case you were wondering… I do not recommend head-butting large inanimate objects with your facehole.

It hurts and it impairs your food enjoyment.

I’ll definitely be back to Nhinja to give a proper review when I can eat soy sauce without sweating from the pain.

I will say that the restaurant was very clean, the food was affordable and what I tasted was quite good.

I also had a Saporro Light, which was refreshing and the only thing that didn’t burn my wound.

It was an order up-front kind of joint, which I find to be a bit stressful when it comes to ordering at a new restaurant, but that was the only drawback.

That, and the fact that my mouth feels like it was kicked by a ninja…

Okay, I’ll stop whining now.

Does it take you a long time to decide what to order when you go out to eat or do you  go with the same thing no matter what?

Have you ever bought  Groupon, Living Social or something similar? I’m obsessed with them (even though Groupon’s latest ad campaign was vile).

As you may know, I received a large amount of free Chobani this past weekend.

While the Chobani Champions yogurt is technically made for kids, this grown-up is thoroughly enjoying it as well.

The fact that it comes in smaller quantities makes it perfect for adding some sweet protein into a meal. I’ve been enjoying it in yoatgurt this week for lunch.

When it comes to my yogurt preferences, I tend to lean toward 2% Plain Greek yogurt (Fage is my numero uno, with Chobani coming at a very close second) but when I want a flavored yogurt treat Chobani is definitely the winner.

I have mad love for the Pineapple (grown-up) flavor and now both of these kid versions are certainly on the list as well. I definitely recommend them to both children and adults!

Speaking of Chobani, did you see this?! So exciting!

Have you tried the Chobani Champions yogurt? Do you love it?

What is your favorite brand/flavor of yogurt?

*** I received this product free of charge from Chobani as part of a contest on Twitter. I was not chosen as a winner because I have a blog. I was not compensated for this post, I just love Chobani and wanted to sing it’s praises.

I’ve talked a lot about my love life on this blog.

I’ve written about my broken engagement.

I’ve written about how my relationships played into my struggle with depression.

I’ve joked about how much I hate dating. Seriously, I hate dating.

I’ve announced the start of two relationships… and the end of two relationships.

I’m pretty candid about it all.

I’ve also talked a lot about how strongly I believe in finding a relationship with and love for yourself before you can truly be happy with another person.

This is probably my biggest mantra, and the thing I believe in the most.

While I’m on this subject, let me just say – I think Valentine’s Day is pretty ridiculous. Even when I’ve been in relationships on the holiday, I’ve still never been a huge fan.

Like New Year’s Eve, it just gets built up too much and it’s hard to find a way to meet expectations.

In the past, when I found myself single on V-day, I would fit right into the cliche and feel sorry for myself.

In fact, last year I started online dating on Valentine’s weekend. I felt ready for a relationship and frustrated that I wasn’t finding it.

Online dating wasn’t really for me, but I did run across the recent ex through the dating site. We reconnected and started up a relationship.

Even though I downplayed it on the blog, I thought the relationship was going to be really special.

I thought it was fate.

We’d had feelings for each other long ago, but were both in committed relationships and never spoke of it.

Then, we reconnected six years later only to find out we lived within a mile of each other.

Neither of us wanted kids, and agreed that should we ever change our minds we wanted to adopt.

We were both afraid of committment and had similar emotional baggage.

He was my physical type and also extremely smart and funny.

However, it started off rocky and just got rockier. I dare say, he had even more issues than I do. He accused me of cheating constantly (I never came close, he was paranoid), had a huge guard up and had a mean streak.

His good qualities weren’t enough to make up for the bad. So I broke it off.

I was sad, but the break-up awakened something inside me.

I had truly thought that our meeting again was a sign of some sort, and then all of a sudden it was over.

I felt like I was missing the point. I needed to read between the lines.

After several days of crawling into my brain and overthinking my life (I do this often), I realized that maybe I didn’t meet him again to find my soul mate, but to remember certain things about myself.

One thing that struck me about the ex was that he was so unhappy that he’d never moved out of Oklahoma. He’s always wanted to live in Seattle, ever since he was a little boy but he never took the plunge.

Now he’s 32 with a successful career in law and, in his mind, unable to get out.

I didn’t want that to be me.

I’ve also always wanted to move away. To the East Coast. I’ve always wanted to see if I could do it. To find out what I’m really made of.

Thus, the D.C. idea was born.

And, in the process, the relationship I have with myself has grown even stronger.

I love how resilient I am.

I love how willing I am to do what’s hard to get what I want.

I love that even though  it would be nice to have a boyfriend, I am choosing what I really want over a relationship I know would not work out in the end. (He tried to rekindle the relationship, then gave me the ultimatum – him or D.C. Seriously, it happened.)

I love that God has a plan for me, and that I’m listening to it instead of just doing what is easy.

And Valentine’s Day seemed to be as good of a time as any to remind myself of those things.

The truth is, no matter who your Valentine is, you have one person to cherish and celebrate today – and that’s YOU.

Corny as it may be, it’s the gosh damn truth.

What’s one (or more) thing you freaking love about yourself? Come on, it’s the Hallmark Holiday of love – when else can you brag about yourself with reckless abandon?!