"So take a shot for free and photoshop the bits of me that you don't want..."
Exciting stuff that's happened in the last couple of months that I've been meaning to share with people who possibly don't read my facebook or twitter or tumblr accounts...
I got a membership with The Fresh 20. It's a meal plan service. I download a meal plan for the week, each meal being only one or two servings (since I got the For One plan). Whenever I've tried to make my own meal plans, I've had problems sticking with it. I don't always stick with this one either but somehow I don't feel as bad as I do when I come up with them on my own. Weird psychological thing, there. I have not seen a difference in my grocery bills but I haven't really been tracking them much. I am getting more variety in my meals and trying things I would not have even considered on my own. My only complaints would be that there doesn't seem to be an effort to use all of something. I can't buy a 1/4 bunch of kale at my grocery store. I've been trying to use up stuff for the other meals (or sometimes just add a lot more of whatever to the meal). Ok, the kale is a bad example but the celery is a good one. And I wish more of the meals were 2 servings, so I could eat them for lunch the next day (though I've discovered that, for me, increasing a recipe from 1 to 2 servings is a lot easier than taking a 4 serving recipe and making it a 2 serving one (I'm not fond of leftovers, I don't like eating the same meal every day)).
Overall, they seem pretty balanced though I still need to eat more fruits and veggies during my other meals I'm sure. And at $18/3 months this has definitely been a successful experiment in trying to get myself to eat better.
Another fun thing I added to my life recently is an aerial arts class. Actually, the winter session just finished and the spring session started today and I already signed up to keep taking the class. I'm not terribly good at any of the things (static trapeze, robe, and tissu/silks) but it's pretty fun and I keep making tiny little improvements in my abilities to do stuff. When I first started 8 weeks ago, I couldn't get my toes to the trapeze bar. Last class, I managed to hold my toes to the bar for many whole seconds! Perhaps by the end of this session (9 weeks) I will get my knees to the bar! Or get up on the bar! Whoa! Rope and silks are a little harder to give definitive examples of forward progress but whatever. It's all fun. And such an upper body workout. I tried to turn over in bed this morning and almost died, my shoulders were so sore. I actually decided to wear one of my front-closing sports bras today because reaching behind me was just not going to happen...
And I'm thinking since I know some people in the belly dance community here in Minneapolis that maybe I should try to get in on some of that. Unfortunately the troupe I know meets on the same night I take my circus class but that doesn't mean I couldn't start going to haflas or something. Once it's finally not awful outside, it would be nice to have more things to do.
Which brings me to my last big thing, my lack of continuous regular employment. My last contract ended on January 20th, after almost 17 months. My boss was unable to get his boss to give him the head count to hire me. So he and my other coworkers tried to get another group to hire me but that didn't work out. I spent three weeks unemployed before the head of that group contacted me to come back for five weeks and help them out with stuff, so I'm back now but only have two weeks left on the contract. (You can only contract for 18 months with one company and then you have to take a three month break.)
Everyone I work with likes me and I know they want to hire me. They've all been hoping something would happen in these five weeks that would end with me coming on permanently. And, after the experiences I've had at other jobs, that actually does mean quite a bit to me. On the other hand, it's exasperating when people are so disbelieving of how hard it is for me to find a job (someone commented that I was so good, I'd find a new job in no time and...I appreciate the sentiment but, no, that has not been my experience).
So there's the quick rundown of the stuff that's been going on in my life. :)
Oh, and one funny thing about coming back to a new group... So last fall some time I decided to ask a coworker I liked out for coffee. He said no. He's part of the team I'm working with now. We share a very small office. It would be the beginning of a cheesy romantic comedy if my life were a movie. (It's been fine, we get along pretty well, but I was so amused when I found out.)
I got a membership with The Fresh 20. It's a meal plan service. I download a meal plan for the week, each meal being only one or two servings (since I got the For One plan). Whenever I've tried to make my own meal plans, I've had problems sticking with it. I don't always stick with this one either but somehow I don't feel as bad as I do when I come up with them on my own. Weird psychological thing, there. I have not seen a difference in my grocery bills but I haven't really been tracking them much. I am getting more variety in my meals and trying things I would not have even considered on my own. My only complaints would be that there doesn't seem to be an effort to use all of something. I can't buy a 1/4 bunch of kale at my grocery store. I've been trying to use up stuff for the other meals (or sometimes just add a lot more of whatever to the meal). Ok, the kale is a bad example but the celery is a good one. And I wish more of the meals were 2 servings, so I could eat them for lunch the next day (though I've discovered that, for me, increasing a recipe from 1 to 2 servings is a lot easier than taking a 4 serving recipe and making it a 2 serving one (I'm not fond of leftovers, I don't like eating the same meal every day)).
Overall, they seem pretty balanced though I still need to eat more fruits and veggies during my other meals I'm sure. And at $18/3 months this has definitely been a successful experiment in trying to get myself to eat better.
Another fun thing I added to my life recently is an aerial arts class. Actually, the winter session just finished and the spring session started today and I already signed up to keep taking the class. I'm not terribly good at any of the things (static trapeze, robe, and tissu/silks) but it's pretty fun and I keep making tiny little improvements in my abilities to do stuff. When I first started 8 weeks ago, I couldn't get my toes to the trapeze bar. Last class, I managed to hold my toes to the bar for many whole seconds! Perhaps by the end of this session (9 weeks) I will get my knees to the bar! Or get up on the bar! Whoa! Rope and silks are a little harder to give definitive examples of forward progress but whatever. It's all fun. And such an upper body workout. I tried to turn over in bed this morning and almost died, my shoulders were so sore. I actually decided to wear one of my front-closing sports bras today because reaching behind me was just not going to happen...
And I'm thinking since I know some people in the belly dance community here in Minneapolis that maybe I should try to get in on some of that. Unfortunately the troupe I know meets on the same night I take my circus class but that doesn't mean I couldn't start going to haflas or something. Once it's finally not awful outside, it would be nice to have more things to do.
Which brings me to my last big thing, my lack of continuous regular employment. My last contract ended on January 20th, after almost 17 months. My boss was unable to get his boss to give him the head count to hire me. So he and my other coworkers tried to get another group to hire me but that didn't work out. I spent three weeks unemployed before the head of that group contacted me to come back for five weeks and help them out with stuff, so I'm back now but only have two weeks left on the contract. (You can only contract for 18 months with one company and then you have to take a three month break.)
Everyone I work with likes me and I know they want to hire me. They've all been hoping something would happen in these five weeks that would end with me coming on permanently. And, after the experiences I've had at other jobs, that actually does mean quite a bit to me. On the other hand, it's exasperating when people are so disbelieving of how hard it is for me to find a job (someone commented that I was so good, I'd find a new job in no time and...I appreciate the sentiment but, no, that has not been my experience).
So there's the quick rundown of the stuff that's been going on in my life. :)
Oh, and one funny thing about coming back to a new group... So last fall some time I decided to ask a coworker I liked out for coffee. He said no. He's part of the team I'm working with now. We share a very small office. It would be the beginning of a cheesy romantic comedy if my life were a movie. (It's been fine, we get along pretty well, but I was so amused when I found out.)