Just because (I'm shoe obsessed)...

Hair today, gone tomorrow...

It could be the recession that's making me feel the need to put the brakes on unnecessary spending (I guess I don't really NEED those YSL boots for $1000...) or that fact that if I'm really honest, even before the recession I could never really afford them. Ironic how I actually lived better (materialistically anyways) when I was a student and living off my parents than now when I'm actually making my own money. Sadness.

So I've been trying to get creative with how to update my wardrobe for maximum impact on look, minimum impact on wallet. I've definitely been itching to make some sort of drastic change equivalent to last year's teal locks (I miss you green hair but you are just too high maintenance for me). I thought I'd be satiated by a perm. But..well, I look the same, just curlier. I bought the-house-is-burning-fire-engine-red lipstick thinking that would do the trick but it's hard to look normal with bright red lips at a 10 am meeting. (The lipstick has been restricted to post sunset hours). My next attempt is to play around with accessories - hats and headbands. Partly because I sweat Blair (love you biatch!) and Olivia (hate you but you're still hot) and like to delude myself in thinking that a headband will 1) not make me look like a 30+yr-old-trying-to-be-young-looking 2)make me look like a different person. If this doesn't succeed I will surely go buy those YSL booties I've been eyeing (I will gladly accept any offers of free meals at this time even if it is Grey's or McD's - beggars can't be choosy!).

But can I just say one thing? Even my taste in cheap headgear is expensive. That third headband is $70. The pearl one is over $200. I wonder if I can make them myself..

Oh wait. I can. Look what sells on http://www.net-a-porter.com/ for $150:

YUP. YOU KNIT YOUR OWN SCARF. AND FOR A MEASLY $150 (not including S+H + TAX). Are you kidding me????

Oh and who am I kidding. So which shoes should I get? :)

Wedding-palooza...

Is it just me? Or does it feel like it's been a non-stop whirlwind of weddings of late? Actually. "Of late" meaning the last couple of YEARS. haha. BUT it culminates this weekend when I head west coast on Wednesday. Travel itinerary is as follows:

• Fly out Wednesday morning to Seattle, Washington. Catch some food and head north to Vancouver, Canada via rental car.
• Some downtime sprinkled with bridal shower-esque activities. I foresee a hike and a mani.
• Friday night- Wedding #1. My first Canadian wedding. :)
• Fly out Saturday morning from Vancouver to LA. Must head straight to hotel to get dressed for Wedding #2 that evening in Santa Monica. (Mental note: don't forget to text congrats to couple of Wedding #3 that I will be missing as it is not yet possible for me to split my body in half to attend another wedding back on the east coast). Reminiscent of the opening scene of 27 Dresses no? Cept I'll be changing on a plane and not in the backseat of a cab.
• Downtime to recuperate Sunday.
• Fly back to NY on Monday
• Rest during the week...for Wedding #4 on the following Sunday.

You know how there are people who start their own websites asking for people to send in donations to help them get out of debt? I wonder if anyone would contribute if I started one of my own to help me with a wedding fund - for others. To buy gifts off the registry for showers, bachelorette parties, for the wedding itself, for wedding related travel, etc. Or maybe it'd be easier just to get married myself and collect cash only gifts. =)

Yea, so anyone want to help me set up this site? Bueller?

The "Glee"-filled Life...

I don't remember the last time I actually looked forward to another episode of a tv show...especially with the invention of DVR, I no longer feel the need to rush home to catch a show. Rather I'll save up a bunch and watch them all back to back on the weekends...

But then came 'Glee.' Oh man. I really love this show! I turned down a game of Settlers (see post from last week) just to go watch this EVEN when I had it taped on DVR. I just couldn't bear to go another minute without knowing what happened...

So last night Kristin Chenowith (sp?) guest starred - to be honest, I had no idea who she was until last night. Apparently she's an Emmy award winning actress. But the girl can SING. I almost shed a tear when she belted out that first song "Maybe This Time" (don't tell anyone but I immediately bought this song off of itunes) and I was heartfelt when I saw that Kurt felt the same way. HaHa.

I used to be a hard core Gossip Girl fan. And I still am. But they're in their 3rd season, most eveyrone's hooked up with everyone so they're running low on believable plot lines and Georgina drives me a little batty. 'Glee' is like 'Election' meets 'High School Musical' but with a whole lotta talent. Man. I'm so sad it's Thursday...6 more days until the next showing......

Fried Chicken...for the Upper Class?

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE me some fried chicken - KFC, home made, Bon Chon, Kyo Chon, even the questionable fried "chicken wings " from the local Chinese take out...YUM-LICIOUS!


So imagine my excitement when I read NY Mag's feature on fried chicken! It has officially replaced the burger as the current food du jour being featured at fancy restaurants all over NYC. The one that really caught my eye though was the special Fried Chicken Mondays that Locanda Verde was running for a limited 4 weeks. For $55 (includes dinner, 1 drink + tax, tip) you get:



I just drooled a little at my desk uploading those images.

So here's the thing: Next Tuesday will be their LAST chicken prix fixe fest...but its sponsored by Eat Out and tix are $75. I understand eating out in NY is pricey, but $75 for fried chicken? I pay $3.50 at Baby Buddha you know? *sigh*

It's just so hard to be a girl with an appetite. If I were normal I'd starve myself for a week to buy the knee high suede boots I'd been coveting (and keep nice and thin as a side perk!) but I'm a sucker for anything edible and fried! What to do...anyone want to convince me that fried chicken for 1 night is better buying some more hair product for my newly permed hair? :)

1 sheep, 2 sheeps, 3 sheeps....

First, I'd like to apologize for starting this blog and then abruptly disappearing. In all fairness, I was blogging about my detox diet and by Day 2 I was fatigued and had to stop in order to reserve my energy resources for other things like blinking and swallowing. Just as a brief follow up: I did successfully finish the detox. I lost 5 lbs (plus another 3-4 when I got my colonic but I'll talk about that some other time as I'm in the middle of eating my lunch) but gained it all back plus some in less than a month. Final thoughts on detox? Not worth paying someone to starve myself. If I weren't so lazy I should be able to do that on my own for free. The irony.

Now. The reason why I'm jump starting my blog again is because today is the start of a new era in my life. Actually it officially started last night. The SETTLERS OF CATAN LEAGUE:

For those not familiar, this is a board game. You build settlements and cities and trade resources like sheep, ore, wheat, wood, etc with other players. No, really. It's REALLY fun. I'm actually quite addicted. I dream of making really lucrative trades like 1 sheep for 2 brick. (Actually, this would probably not really happen in an actual game).

Also, to make things nerdier, a friend of mine set up a google doc to keep a tally of wins/losses. This is an official tourney! Here are the rules for those who haven't exited out of this blog yet:

• you can play as many times as you like but each player must be a part of the league. if you play with members outside the league you cannot count it on the spreadsheet
• each league member must play a minimum of 10 games.
• games must have 3+ players.
• season ends 2/28/10
• winner will be the player with the highest AVERAGE. (there's more on scoring but I can't figure out cut and paste on html writing so pls contact me if you're interested in that)

Let the game's BEGIN!

What goes in...keeps coming out...

Day 1

8:45 am - 1 glass of room temperature water. Delicious.

9:51 am - Juice #1: Romaine, celery, cucumber, kale, parsley, green apple, spinach and lemon. It's one of those green drinks! But oddly tasty. You can taste the apple and the lemon which give its a tang. No, I won't voluntarily drink it again after this detox but not bad. I've already been to the bathroom twice and about to get myself a cup of green tea to help with the caffeine withdrawal....also scheduled my first colonic for tomorrow evening (this will have to get its very own post!!!)

12:00 pm - 1:08 pm - Juice #2 was really what i'd call a juice: pineapple, apple + mint. I'm sure this is probably the favorite among most of the 6 juices but for me it was too sweet to chug down. I nursed it like a bad cocktail at a lame bar. It's not bad tasting at all, don't get me wrong. I'm just not partial to juices in general unless it's sour (i love grapefruit!) and maybe has just a tinge of the hard stuff. (sorry. i'm not an alchey but i'm starting to fiend like one during the home stretch of this lent fast). Bathroom trips since last posting: 2 and on my way to the third. This brings total bathroom count for today to 5.

Are you allowed to chew gum? Have a cough drops? Drink emergen-C? Anyone? Bueller?

2:42 pm - Juice #3. Same as the first juice of the day. Notice that my cup has gotten noticeably smaller. For the first juice, the goal was chug-a-lug and try to bypass the fact that I am drinking vegetables that normally I don't even eat in solid form. However, hunger is slowly creeping up on me and now I want the experience to last. Another major observation: the day seems to span eons when you don't spend time thinking of what to eat for lunch, ordering lunch, eating lunch and then thinking of what to eat for dinner. I'm not sure if you can see clearly in this picture, but on my desk in the back left i have 3 things of chocolate goodies I keep around for that 3 o'clock sugar fix. I also have a gold and green tin of green tea chocolates I got as a gift in the back right of the photo. haha. What ironic juxtoposition.

5:11 pm - I had another green tea earlier to stave off the mini caffeine withdrawal headache I feel lurking in the back corners of my mind...I'm about to drink juice #4 - water, lemon, cayenne and agave - but honestly even though I'm HUNGRY (like a crazed hippo) I'm just sick of drinking juices. My belly feels like a water balloon. Each time I walk to the bathroom I hear/feel the juices sloshing around. And I'm really tired. Not like sleepy tired. More like just void of energy. Patti tabulated the daily intake of calories at 1050.

CRAZY. I'm sure I eat 2000+ easy (fried chicken alone is probably 2000).

Hrmm. I just took a sip of #4. Not bad. It's refreshing. Like a cool lemonade that does a little drop kick at the tail end in your throat (the cayenne?). I can do this....

Drink by Numbers

So it just dawned on me that most of you have no idea what I'm talking about....

Starting tomorrow, I will be doing a body "cleanse" (aka DETOX) to "ride my body of impurities, regain an alkaline balance and normalize digestion and metabolism."

http://blueprintcleanse.com/

The site is pretty detailed. Here's the condensed version:

Each day I get 1 bag of "food."

Food = 6 drinks which are numbered and need to be drunken in order. It is recommended that each drink be spaced 1 hour apart with the last "meal" to be had at least 2 hours before bedtime.

I can have unlimited water and herbal tea. Unlimited. Yay.

Repeat for 3 days.


I foresee many, many trips to the bathroom and I'm a little worried about some major meetings I have this week. I don't even drink the daily recommended 6-8 glasses of water. Most days its 1 glass of water spaced out over 12 hours + 1 or 2 cups of coffee.


When I first decided to commit to this I was pretty confident. 3 days? psssht. I've been fasting alcohol for almost 5 weeks now. bring it! Now its the eve of the beginning of detox and I'm sitting here debating if I should squeeze in one last ramen before midnight.....


I've also supposed to have been easing into this fast (see first post).
That hasn't been faring so well. A sampling of some fried goodness from the past weekend:

I threw in the pomegranate pinkberry as a buffer between the wings to make me feel better.

If I seem a little cranky or off tomorrow it's probably because I am. Please understand.

"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing"

And so my recent foray into "health nut" status has begun...

Prep Day 1 - 3 days and counting until the official start of my body DETOX.

I still have no idea why I'm doing this but I'm fully expectant of some sort of change as a result.
Whether it just scrapes my insides clean of the 30+ years of fried chicken gorging or just gets rid of the approximately 2 lbs of residuals I can almost visualize embedded into my large intestine walls, I'm ready.

Here were some (too peppy) words of advice that were sent in preparation of the detox:

Prepare, prepare, prepare — we can't stress this enough. The more prepared you are before your cleanse, the smoother your transition will be. This means: starting today, cut down on all those delicious indulgences we love to love…phase out the coffee, the sugar, the meat and the dairy, and add fresh fruit and veggies at every meal.
LISTEN UP! NO farewell-to-solid-foods-with-a-steak-and-martini dinner the night before you start. You will NOT be a happy camper by the end of Day One. And that's a promise. So start now!

Essentially this is how I translated this:

1. This isn't a 3 day detox! Add in the prep time and the post phase out time, and you're talking at least a week of no fried chicken.
2. NO COFFEE???? hrmm. does that mean coffee is a toxin? hrmm. i drink a toxin everyday?? do i care? trepidation about inevitable caffeine withdrawal headaches.....
3. There are so many exclamation points in this. these detox people are super peppy. it must be from having such squeaky clean intestines. i wonder if that's how i'll turn out after this....

So here goes. I've already had cereal with granola + coffee. Not a fruit or veggie in sight. This bodes poorly for me. I guess I'll try again at lunch.

**********

2nd breakfast fared much better with a heaping dose of fruits.
But a lunch of ground beef wraps sorta nixed that....