The Weekend + Garden Update!

I love short weeks! Hoping this one will fly by because my birthday is on Friday! :) :)

Last weekend was super fun despite the crappy weather. On Friday I stayed in and ordered food and shared a bottle of wine with a friend. On Saturday I woke up bright and early and went for another run outside! This time I did 6 minute runs/5 minute walks until I got tired. Nothing crazy but a small step forward is a still a step!

After the run I got ready and met Tom and his friend who was visiting at Stephi's on Tremont, my favorite brunch place. Here's why it's my favorite:

They have the most amazing bloody mary bar! You can basically add anything you want into it and they are so delicious.

The blurry ingredients

Even though the bloody mary itself was basically a meal, I ended up ordering my favorite french onion panini. Yum.

After brunch we headed over to city hall for the start of an epic music weekend! We bought tickets for Boston Calling, Boston's first 2-day musical festival taking place right in the center of the city. Here was the awesome lineup for the 2 days:

Saturday:
Fun.
The Shins
Marina and the Diamonds
Matt and Kim
Porutgal. The Man
Cults
MS MR
St. Lucia
Bad Rabbits

Sunday:
The National
Of Monsters and Men
Young the Giant
Andrew Bird
The Dirty Projectors
Ra Ra Riot
The Walkmen
Youth Lagoon
Caspian

This festival was awesome. There are a few kinks that need to be worked out (particularly with the setup), but for the most part it was a really great weekend.

The lineup was amazing -- the two big highlights for me were Matt & Kim and Of Monsters and Men. I don't know too much from the National but they were really great, and I loved seeing Fun. but by 10 PM on Saturday I was FREEZING and wet from the rain so it wasn't as enjoyable as it could have been. Here's some photos!

Day 1 -- drinking some Harpoon brews in ponchos!

A rainy, grey day 1

Tom being cute and posing for a twitter contest!

My favorite pic during Of Monsters and Men!

A sea of people watching Young the Giant -- apparently there was nearly 20,000 people at the festival!

I was sooo tired on Sunday and stayed in bed until the afternoon. Eventually Tom and I went over to the garden to do some more planting because our little seedlings are all grown up!

Tomatoes and marigolds (to attract bees)

Cucumbers

String bean plant to the left, lettuce in the middle, and snap peas on the net

The whole garden! We started making a little brick path but are probably going to just put mulch down soon.

I love the garden. I really hope these babies keep growing and we get some real veggies!!

7 Months

So the other day I decided to take a look at the goals I set for myself back in January. One of those was to run 5 races (of any length) over the course of the year. In the moment I thought to myself that it was too late to complete this goal. I'm so out of shape that there's no way I could run 5 races before the year is over.

I had really started to give up on running any races (let alone 5) when I realized there are SEVEN months left in the year. Seven months! That is SO long! And so much can change in 7 months.

Thinking back on my first running stint, here's the timeline:
June 2010 - came back from South Africa
July 2010 - went back to Boston
July-August 2010 - started running (1 step at a time!)
September 2010 - ran my first 5k without stopping
October 2010 - ran the Tufts 10k without stopping
January 2011 - signed up for a half marathon
March 2011 - ran the New Bedford Half without stopping! (can't help but put an exclamation point there!!)

So only 8.5 months passed from taking my first running step outside in ages to running a half marathon. To expect that I can get even halfway there in 7 months is totally reasonable and actually makes me feel very excited! An excitement I haven't felt in a looong time.

So to start this change, I signed up for a race! In just one short month I'll be running (or walking) the Tory Row 5K in Harvard Square.

And to take it a step further, when I got home I went for a run outside! I had 0 goals for this run except to just go. I ended up doing a bunch of 5 minute running/5 minute walking intervals and called it a night as soon as I felt like it was enough. And guess what? It wasn't that bad.

I feel like I've had somewhat of a mental breakthrough this week. I feel positive and excited about being healthy and active for the first time in a long time. In the inevitable tough points of getting back in shape, what I need to keep in mind is that being able to exercise is a privilege. I am so lucky to have the time to workout when I want, the money to afford a gym membership, new running shoes and an ipod, and the actual ability to use my legs and lungs and heart.

That's it for Friday's preach. Happy long weekend ya'll!

Fun & Focus

Fun:

Last week my amazing roommate came up with some tickets to Boston Bites Back! It was so amazing! About 100 chefs came together to showcase their food in Fenway Park to raise money for the One Fund. Chefs included Ming Tsai, Ken Oringer, Todd English, Mario Batali (who wasn't there :( !!!) Gordon Hamersley, Tiffani Faison (from Top Chef!), Matthew Gaudett, Jamie Bissonnette, Jason Santos, Jeremy Sewall, Barry Maiden (from Hungry Mother), Joanne Chang, Brian Poe, Michael Serpa, and so on and so on!

There was SO much food and I was full in about 30 minutes, but luckily was able to sample just about everything I wanted. Like I said the event took place in Fenway, so it was a really cool way to see the park! We get to walk along the warning track and even go into the dugout! I didn't take nearly enough photos because I don't have three hands, but here are a few:

Oysters!

The most amazing sushi.

In the dugout!

Boston Police Commisioner Ed Davis with Ming Tsai and Ken Oringer

On Friday Tom planned a surprise early birthday present for me. First, we went to my very favorite sushi restaurant and ordered a few delicious rolls. After dinner I had no clue where we were going and was surprised when we ended up at the Berklee Performance Center. I had been there once for a student performance of Rent (which was great, by the way) but didn't think that's something Tom would get for me. He picked up the tickets from will call and I literally screamed when I saw that they said Iron and Wine on them!!

Iron and Wine (specifically lead singer Sam Beam) is my favorite band and I've been loving them since I heard my first song in 2003. Someone how I have managed never to see them live. I was so surprised when Tom handed me the ticket and couldn't stop smiling and was even somewhat shaking during the show. It was so surreal and the concert was as incredible as I would have expected it to be. Thank you TKO <3 <3!!!

Focus:

As the weather warms up I'm finding myself focusing more on getting myself healthy again. For the past few months I've felt sluggish. I think that's the best word to describe it. Too much bad food + not enough exercise = low energy and sluggishness.

The last two days I made myself go to the gym right when I got home from work and incline walked for 3 miles. That's it. I just want to feel energized again. I'm going to try to spend some time walking most days...even if it's for 15 minutes.

I went food shopping on Sunday after what feels like forever and have brought lunch the past few days for work. Yesterday I even got my very first juice from the store downstairs. It had fennel, kale, hemp and apple and was delicious! You definitely have to like the taste of vegetables to drink something like this, and luckily I do!

Taking baby steps here, but trying to get back on the horse. I'm 95% sure I'm going to sign up for two upcoming 5k races to give myself something to work toward. The trick is actually showing up and doing what I can -- if I can't run the whole thing, who cares. I just have to go!!

And for something cute before you X out...

The caption says "This pocket is occupies.Please stow all phones and wallets elsewhere." Adoooorable!

Borough Market and Paris!

The third day of our Eurotrip was pretty dang awesome. We woke up early ready to hit up Borough Market before getting on a train to Paris.

We decided to head to the train station first and drop off our bags so we wouldn't have to carry them around. This was a little bit annoying but totally worth it. Once the bags were dropped it was off to the market!

Excited on the tube!

Borough Market was AMAZING and I'm so happy numerous friends told me it was an absolute must visit while in London. The market is located on Southwark and Borough High Street right by a cute little church. It's not really known how long it's been around -- the market was first "mentioned" in 1276 but the market itself claims to have existed since 1014 and "probably much earlier." Pretty cool if ya ask me. Also, apparently a part of the market served as the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron in  Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban...even cooler!!!!

The market is pretty large and packed with various food stalls. We probably could have spent 12 hours wandering through the market but we unfortunately had a train to catch in a few hours. The best way to describe the market is with photos, so here we go!

Turkish treats. I got a giant bag of dried apricots from here!

Cheese...mmm

Sausage! In the top right corner is blood sausage which we both bravely tried -- I don't think it really tasted like blood... but I guess I don't know what blood tastes like.

Happy in the market!

Bread

Olives

Delicious cured meats

Attempted photo with my panini!

Butchers

The market was so awesome, and like I said we could have spent ages there. After a few hours we said "see you later" to London and headed to St. Pancras Station for our train. While we were there a really weird thing happened: a young girl was arguing with a police officer, and next thing we knew he was chasing her at full speed through the station. She ended up trying to go up the down escalator and they both got caught in a weird cartoonish way. It was very strange to watch...and it reminded me of Hugo getting chased by that crazy train officer!

Eventually we got on the train and were on our way to Paris!

The trains were really comfortable and SO fast...it only took us about 2 hours to get to Paris. Crazy!

We arrived!

Arriving in Paris was the first confusing moment of the trip. We didn't really plan ahead on figuring out how to get to our hotel and had some trouble in the train station. Since we've been back people keep asking me if Parisians are really as rude as we think they are. We didn't do too much interacting in Paris, but I can say that when we first arrived at the train station and Tom asked the guy at the information desk if he spoke English, he replied (in English) with, "no, I speak French." Bordering on rude but nothing too bad :)

By the time we made it to our hotel it was getting dark, so we dropped off our bags and headed off to see the Eiffel Tower! The train system in Paris was also pretty confusing. In addition to the metro are several commuter lines that run through the city -- one being the RER. We couldn't ever tell when we were getting on the RER as opposed to the subway. It was strange but we made it!

And the first Eiffel Tower sighting went to....me!! TKO I hope you know I will forever remember that :)

The Tower through the trees!

As we got closer I was totally overwhelmed by how magnificent the tower was. It was really beautiful and I just felt so happy to be there and in Paris!

We were saving going up the actual tower for the next day, so after spending a bit of time admiring and taking photos we headed to dinner. I had done some research for less touristy dinner options in the area and found Au Bon Accueil. It was very cute and definitely felt less touristy than most of the places in the area. We were given a menu in French and thought it would be fun to try to order by just identifying a few words for each description.

They first brought over some delicious olives in a martini glass. So cute! We snacked on these while sipping on some wine and perusing the menu.

For our starters, I ended up with salmon over cucumber "tagliatelle" and Tom got a celery soup with bacon and croutons which he'll tell you was probably the best thing he ate in Paris!

For our entrees, Tom got pork (I think!) and I got braised veal with mushrooms. I've never eaten veal before but this was delicious!

And finally dessert -- I have no clue what either of us got!

And a little extra treat while Tom drank his espresso:

Dinner was really great, but what happened after was even better! The restaurant had a great view of the Eiffel Tower, and when we stepped outside it immediately started sparkling! I had no clue the Tower did that and was in total shock. It was an incredibly romantic moment perfect for a little side street in Paris :)

It was pretty late at this point so we waked back to the Metro to head to the hotel. Of course we took tons more photos on the way over:

I LOVE this photo

This was the last moment of normalcy before the unfortunate time period Tom and I are calling "the walking dead" began. More on that later...