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Friday Fun! (Irene Update aka Help Out Vermont)
Hello my lovely readers! What a busy week it’s been. There’s just always something to do in Boston, and I love it. :-)
Hurricane Irene got downgraded to a tropical storm before hitting us. Boston didn’t fare too badly with mostly downed trees/branches/billboards, etc… The worst was loss of power for some. I was not one of them. As of this morning there were still people without power in Mass though.
However, I’m going to get serious for a moment and talk about my home state of Vermont. Vermont is a very wet state. It’s full of official wetlands and rivers, which means when a lot of rain hits, it doesn’t have anywhere to go. Vermont suffered horrible damages from Irene with entire villages cut off from assistance for days due to washed out roads. Vermont’s a rural state so farmers lost crops as well. Even worse, Vermont depends a lot on tourism and some of the historic covered bridges were washed away. Thankfully everyone in my family is fine, but I really feel for the Vermonters. Since I grew up there, I know that a lot of the people there are poor, working class folks who will really struggle to recover from such a travesty. If you have any spare change and have ever found my blog useful or amusing or a light in your day, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help with the relief efforts in my home state. Many options may be found here.
My week was busy full of friends and karaoke and gym and general other awesomeness. This weekend is a three day weekend, and I’m super excited! I’ll just be in town with my girls being generally epic.
Happy weekends!
Friday Fun! (People Who Have Fevers Probably Shouldn’t Blog But I’m Going To Anyway)
Hello my lovely readers! Goodness, it’s a good thing I had posts queued up and scheduled as I seem to have dropped off the face of the planet the last couple of days with a random high fever and sore throat. Not sure what that’s all about. Planning to apply whiskey and soup to it tonight.
Also this seems to be weird weather week here in Boston what with the tremors from the DC earthquake shaking our high rises and Hurricane Irene supposedly arriving Sunday. I get slightly irrationally excited over storms. This is quite possibly because they were one of the more exciting events around when I was growing up in Vermont. In any case, when the weathermen and the media are all “SHIT’S ABOUT TO GET REAL” and then it doesn’t, I get majorly disappointed.
*shakes fist at sky* You promised me loss of electricity and storms and rain slamming into my window and comforting my kitten and hiding under a blanket with my kindle and secretly laughing at my new-found right to eat everything in my fridge before it goes bad!
Yeah. Girlfriend has a tendency to get irritated when instead of that everything is sunny and normal. Although I suppose I still could hide under the blanket with my kindle and kitty.
In any case, my preparation for Irene is going to consist entirely of acquiring alcohol and a flashlight since I don’t own one.
Side-note: if anyone knows any sore throat cures I would massively appreciate it. It hurts to talk.
I think it is still obvious I have a fever.
Oh! Also, fellow east coasters, what’re your hurricane preps consisting of? My work has already hid all of our picnic tables somewhere.
Product Review: Print from Easy Canvas Prints
I was wonderfully excited to receive my second offer for a product review from Melissa Pont of Easy Canvas Prints. In her super-friendly email she gave me the opportunity to create my own 8 by 10 print in exchange for reviewing my experience (and the print) here. As a 20-something slowly trying to decorate my apartment like an adult, I jumped at the opportunity.
The site basically creates professional artist quality prints from your own photos. This means any one of your many digital photos can become a piece of artwork in your home. By far the only difficult part of my whole experience was choosing which picture I wanted hanging in my home! I love taking photos, and Boston as well as my visits home to Vermont gave me a whole slew of scenic items to choose from. I finally decided to narrow it down by first choosing which section of my apartment needed decoration the most. My kitchen won by a long-shot, as it only had one picture hanging in it. Once I chose my kitchen, I knew which picture I wanted in there.
I took a picture my senior year of undergrad at a New Year’s Eve party of raspberries in champagne with SoCo in the background. The colors in the photo (yellow and red) go with the color theme I’m slowly working on in my kitchen, so that was the choice! I then had to visit Easy Canvas Prints to create the print.
The website is clearly set-up and guides you through each step smoothly. First you upload the picture. Second you choose which size you want. Third you choose if you want a border or not. If not, your photo wraps around the edge. I wanted a border, so I then had to choose what style. I selected a solid color and a golden-yellow to match the color of the champagne. You then simply place your order.
My print arrived in just about a week, which I think is a very reasonable time-frame for creation and shipment. It arrived well-packaged in completely recyclable cardboard and brown paper and clearly stamped as “Fragile.” Hanging it literally took me about one minute, as the bracket for hanging was perfectly placed on the back, so I simply had to stick a nail in my wall.
It’s a truly gorgeous print and has absolutely added a level of class to my kitchen. I had a wonderful experience with Easy Canvas Prints, and I encourage those looking for professional quality art for their home made from their own photos to check it out. It’s a truly unique way to decorate your home.
Close-up of the print.
Print hanging on my kitchen wall. Notice how the raspberries match my red toaster. ;-)
Friday Fun! (In Which I Ramble About Health)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope you all had great weeks. Today I’m going to be talking about a new-found passion of mine that I believe you all are aware of–health and fitness.
I joined the gym back in January for a lot of reasons, but predominantly because I had high blood pressure at age 24, and I was not ready to start being sick at such a young age. I’ve made a lot of progress since then and gradually have come to love to see what my body can do. Recently I set a goal for myself of joining a local MMA club by next January. I love having a strong body, and frankly the stress-relief that comes in doing something so extremely physical is incredibly appealing to me. Plus it’s good to have a goal that’s a *fitness* one and not a *weight* one. I’ve never claimed my new passion for working out and old passion for healthy eating were about weight. It’s all about having a healthy body to me.
In any case, I decided it was high time to challenge myself with something to the next level, so last Friday I went to my first ever kickboxing class at my gym. Allow me to explain that my weak point is absolutely cardio fitness, so a 45 minute long cardio-intense class was going to be very challenging for me, and I knew it. When I first joined the gym I could barely run for 10 minutes without collapsing over and heaving for breath. So I knew this was going to be challenging. I was determined to make it through it though.
Since this was a Friday evening class, it was fairly small. There were about 7 of us ladies there. And lo and behold the very first thing we had to do was jump rope for 2 minutes to “warm up.” To me this was not a warm-up. This was jumping in with both feet (haha, pun intended). Anyway, we basically mixed jumping rope with kickboxing sequences and jumping jacks, and I thought I was doing fairly well until I glanced at the clock and saw only 15 minutes had gone by. Egads.
Let me tell you. Around the fourth time the lovely teacher told us to jump rope, I wanted to give up. I was definitely the least cardio fit of everyone in the class, and part of me wondered why the hell I was doing this to myself. And now I’m going to admit something very nerdy to you. I thought of the zombie apocalypse. Seriously.
What’s the first rule of the zombie apocalypse? Cardio. Was I going to let the zombies get me, a young strong woman? Hell no. So I picked up the jump-rope, and I continued on. I continued on through the evil suicide and push-up drills too. I fought my way through the whole class, and I have to tell you guys, it was crazy empowering. There is no way in hell I could have done that class 6 months ago, and yes it was hard, but I did it. I also went home and collapsed into bed at about 9pm on a Friday night in sheer exhaustion, but I did it.
My body is strong, and it is fit, and the more I challenge it the more it rises to the occasion. Nothing feels so good as waking up and feeling alert and feeling my muscles in my belly and arms. Nothing is as cool as knowing I can sprint 5 blocks to catch the bus no sweat. The more my body can do the happier I am and the younger I feel. I never want to fall into the trap of unhealthy living again.
I know some people really hate the saying “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” and I agree. But you know what is a much better and true saying? “Nothing feels as good as healthy feels.” And to the extent I have control over my health, I’m determined to do so.
I think that’s why I’m such a big advocate for a healthy America. I want people to enjoy the happiness and thrill of having a healthy body that maybe they never had because of poverty or because of a lack of healthy education or what have you. You don’t realize what you were missing until suddenly, almost overnight, you can survive a 45 minute kickboxing class and feel the adrenaline afterwards.
Happy weekends all!
Friday Fun! (Kindle Cover, TRX, Karaoke)
Hello my lovely readers! There’s not too terribly much to report this week. Last weekend Boston suffered a torrential downpour that destroyed my ipod. Sad day. I’m a bit poor right now, so I ended up bidding for a used one on ebay and winning. Here’s hoping it actually works when it gets here. *knocks on wood*
My kindle cover also broke this week. The doohickey that holds the kindle in place got bent out of shape (no, I have no idea how). I called Amazon, and they overnight shipped me a new one for free! Awesome. Sauce. I will say, I think my kindle cover got a lot more use in its six months of life than the designers perhaps anticipated, lol.
Last weekend I tried out a new recipe–walnut-encrusted baked tofu with spinach l’orange. It was….a bit more time-consuming than I was anticipating, but also delicious and filling. I got three meals out of it (one dinner and two lunches). Not too shabby for the relative cheapness of the ingredients.
My trainer had me try out TRX this week. There are these straps hanging from the ceiling that you use to help you work out your muscles using your own weight and gravity as resistance. It was super-duper fun to do push-ups and such in the air, I have to say. I really loved it. I’m half-tempted to join one of the gym’s TRX teams now.
I also went out to karaoke with my friend Jill this week. It was tons of fun, as karaoke generally is. Although this single lady did not see a single guy she was interested in, the crowd was a good karaoke crowd. Everyone was good-natured, supportive, and well, tipsy. Plus there were plenty of people buying drinks for us, which is always a plus. ;-)
Happy weekends all!
Friday Fun! (Birthday BBQ)
Hello my lovely readers! One thing this summer has shown me is that your summer is as fun as you make it, and that largely has to do with who you surround yourself with. Now that I’ve been living in Boston for a longer period of time, I’ve come to have a wonderful circle of friends who just make everything more fun.
Last weekend was my party for my birthday. I held it at the end of the month partly so I could have a Cowboys and Aliens theme, but also partly because no one ever seems to be around on my actual birthday since it falls right next to a big national holiday. A friend treated me to the matinee of Cowboys and Aliens, and you guys it was AWESOME. I don’t think anything could make this wild west and scifi loving lady happier than wild west meets aliens. Well, the addition of Daniel Craig’s very fine ass didn’t hurt matters at all either. This is a movie I would go to see in theaters again, and I never do that.
After the movie, the same friend helped me prep for my bbq. I made homemade veggie burgers, which were completely a smash hit. We also made pasta salad from a cookbook my dad gave me that featured an olive oil/lemon vinaigrette instead of mayonnaise. That was also a huge success. There was also grilled corn on the cob, strawberries, PBR, and goldschlagger. All in all an excellent bbq. After some friends departed, others arrived, and we went out to a local pub for drinks. My friends enthusiastically got me some of my favorite drinks (white russians and cosmos). It was such a chill party full of lots of girl talk and ending with some fun flirting. It’s things like that that make being in your 20s really fun.
I already announced my plan to throw a party in the fall with a Japanese theme, largely influenced by my recent acquisition of a vegetarian sushi cookbook. Given the percentage of otaku geeks among my friends, the excitement at the idea was pretty high. ;-) What can I say. I love hostessing and party planning. It makes me happy.
This week also saw me finally able to return to the gym after being laid low by first a summer cold and then a sprained ankle. I managed to only gain 1 pound in my week and a half out. *phew* The first workout back was hard, but fun, and I’m glad to be getting back into the swing of it.
I haven’t fully decided what’s on the plate for this weekend, but I know it’ll be fun, because it’s the weekend after all. Happy weekends all!
Friday Fun! (Family Visit and Blood Pressure)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope your weeks have treated you well. Mine has been incredibly busy (I feel like I’m always saying that in these posts……) My brother and his family were in town taking their daughter to participate in a research study at Boston Children’s Hospital, so I got to hang out with them for an evening. My niece and nephew have both grown so much! My nephew (who is four) was very intrigued by my cat, and since his family has dogs, I got to explain to him the differences in interacting with a kitty versus a doggy. He eventually got the idea that cats scare easily and he had to approach her quietly. Then she let him pet her, which was adorable, because she hasn’t ever seen a miniature person since I adopted her (I don’t know about previously).
My brother also brought along a box of presents for me from my daddy, which included the most adorable father/daughter cookbook. (Plus tons of kitchen gear. I’m a bit obsessed with cooking). It also had presents for my kitty. She completely flipped out over them. I have yet to let her try the toy that blows catnip laced bubbles. I think that particular toy might call for some video, lol.
I also had two job interviews this week plus a doctor’s appointment (routine), which kept me running around the city like a chicken with my head cut off. It also meant a got a lot of kindle time though. At my doctor’s appointment, I finally got an updated blood pressure reading. Back in January, my blood pressure was extremely unhealthy, so much so that they wanted to put me on blood pressure medication. Heart disease runs in my family, and these stats freaked me out. So I made a lot of changes in my lifestyle–both eating and exercise level–in the hopes of fixing my blood pressure without meds. Well at the doctor’s this week my bp was 110 over 80, which is really excellent and healthy!! Yay!! :-)
My weekend is mostly going to be consumed with prep for the party I’m throwing that I’m super-excited about. Also seeing Cowboys and Aliens, which, um, is kind of part of the party. Don’t worry though, I’ll definitely squeeze some reading and writing time in. Happy weekends!
Friday Fun! (On the Heat Wave and Musings on Self-control)
Hello my lovely readers! Sorry this week was a bit short on reviews. I actually finished a second book, but didn’t have time to write up the review. It’ll be up Monday! Sales of Ecstatic Evil
We’re having a disgusting heat wave in Boston this week. The temperature has been regularly hitting 98 degrees (which is unfortunately not as fun as the boy band of the same name. Yes I’m a child of the 90s). I’ve been told by people not originally from the northeast that 98 degrees here feels insanely worse than 98 anywhere else in the US because we have horrible humidity to go with it. I wouldn’t know, having never lived elsewhere in the States, but I believe them. I’ve mostly been hiding in my living room with my window ac unit watching this show from Australia on Netflix. (Um, it’s about three teenaged mermaids……It’s kind of awesome).
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about why doing what’s best for yourself can be so damn hard at times. For instance. Not only is fried food bad for people in general, but for me, it has a tendency to make me sick. (I have IBS, which I discussed at length during Invisible Illness Awareness Week). Anyway. I know this. I know that fried food tastes amazing but is bad for me and will make me sick. Yet this week I still tried deep fried mac and cheese. It tasted amazing, yes. I also puked it right back up an hour later after having a stomachache for that whole hour. All I could think for the whole hour was WHY did I do this to myself? What is it about instant gratification that makes you ignore things like “this will make you sick stop it.” I’m 25. You’d think I’d have this whole self-control thing….well, under control by now. But periodically I don’t, and I don’t know why that is. I suppose it’s just part of being a person. We all do stupid things sometimes. I just…..wish we wouldn’t? Lol.
This weekend I’m hoping to see Captain America, get in some gym time, and maybe sell back some books to my local indie bookstore. There’s also going to be a lot of time spent writing smack in front of my ac (if the cat will give me that primo spot back). Happy weekends all!
Announcement: I Am Published!!
Hello my lovely readers! So, the super-secret project that I’ve been working on is to finally get my own writing out where people can read it! I’ve been writing since…..well, since I could put pencil to paper. I am completely passionate about story-telling, and this is where I truly feel my talent lies. Since I finished grad school in January, I’ve been cracking down and getting serious about my writing.
Well, I can finally announce that I have published the first entry in a new series to the Amazon Kindle store! I started with my idea to reclaim the old format of serial books. Every entry in the series is 99 cents and short enough to read in one sitting, such as on your commute, a plane ride, a bath, etc…. The storyline is complete in and of itself, but it will be continued in another entry in a few months. Join Tova Gallagher in her paranormal world with the few moments you have to spare in your busy day! It is ideal for the busy, modern, paranormal romance lover.
The first entry is entitled Ecstatic Evil
Tova Gallagher isn’t just your average tough as nails, intelligent Bostonian. She also just so happens to be half-demon, and halvesies have an important role to play in the supe world. Whether they choose to go with the instincts of their demon or human half is supposed to predict the outcome of the endtimes, and now Tova has a deadline to choose sides. But all of that is hard to care about when she’s just met a sexy stranger on the edge of the Charles River.
Please do check it out! I write because I have stories to tell and want to entertain. At only 99 cents, it’s worth the shot, right?
Also, I started with the novella series so I could practice with the ebook publishing software before my first serious novel, which I plan to release in October for Halloween. I am very excited about it and can’t wait to let you guys know more details! In the meantime, be sure to keep an eye on my new Publications page on this blog. <3
Check Out Ecstatic Evil
Friday Fun! (Updates Ahoy!)
Hello my lovely readers! I’m so sorry there were no new reviews this week. I’ve had less reading time as I’m currently working on a super-secret project that I plan to announce this weekend. Keep your eyes open for that post! Next week things should return to normal around here, since I plan on doing a lot of reading this weekend.
This week has been its typical busy busy busy, you know, when I wasn’t occupied with the super-secret project. For my birthday last weekend I went on a really long bike ride and picnic with a friend then out for a few celebratory drinks with another friend. For the 4th of July I hosted a 100% vegan bbq. It was awesome! I wound up deciding not to go out for the fireworks since they weren’t starting until 10:30pm, and I had to get up early the next day. I could see some from my window though, which was nice. This work-week felt really long, even though it was only a four day one. I’m so excited for the weekend!
Keep your eyes peeled for the announcement this weekend. ;-)
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This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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