Sunday, April 15, 2012

4. Perfect Week


Remember that time that my life was insane and I didn't have time to blog? Me too. It was last week. 

I've ended my week-long craziness with a relaxing weekend weekend 1-credit class for my Master's program. Gag me. I've been in class starting at 9am, which means I didn't get any time to catch up on sleep this weekend, but there is free coffee so I'm staying positive. 

We got let out pretty early for lunch so I enjoyed the rest of my quinoa (from last week!) and an apple outside on the quad to soak up the beautiful weather. I really don't spend enough time outside. Must add to to-do list. 

Zoning out in class has really allowed me to think about how I need to start dealing with crazy weeks. I know all it needs is planning, organization and lots of sleep...but somehow I never seem to get there. 

But this week will be different:

Here's a blast from the past and my new mantra for the week.

Please watch this video. I like to think I'm best represented around 1:13. 

I'm publicly stating that this week will be my PERFECT week. Here's what it entails:

1. Meal Planning
This is probably the thing I do the worst at. Meal planning helps me eat better and save money. I'm thinking about pre-making all of my lunches tonight and storing them in tupperware for easy access in the morning...but tupperware takes up more room than we have in our fridge. I'll update on this attempt later. 

2. Getting Enough Sleep
Oh Lord. I do not sleep enough and I do not have good sleeping habits. Because I'm constantly stressed out, my brain doesn't turn off at night. In order to actually clear my mind of the 1,000 things going through it, I have to pre-occupy myself by watching something mindless on TV. Eventually, I will fall asleep but it takes longer because of the mental stimulation. To remedy this, I'm going to read a book EVERY night this week (right now I'm reading: A Place of Yes by Bethany Frankel (LOVE her). If I can't focus because my mind is racing, I'm putting a notebook next to my bed so I can transfer my thoughts to paper rather than laying awake worrying all night. 

3. Completing Morning and Evening Routines
Why is this so hard? No one knows. I'm usually really good at completing my morning routine, but this week I'm adding 3 morning workouts. Oddly enough if I'm able to get up and get into the gym, the rest of the morning is seamless because I always have time to fit everything in (having a good breakfast, packing my lunch, getting coffee and tea, picking out clothes, making my bed). My evening routine falls to the wayside 75% of the time though. This week I resolve to do a 10-minute cleaning spree of my room, make a to-do list for the following day, put my clothes out for the morning and go through my hygienic routine (will post this later). 

4. Being Productive
This is self-explanatory. I need to be productive at work so that I'm only at the office from 9-6. I need to be productive at home so I can tackle my post-work to-do list and have time for the rest of my evening and morning tasks. My lack of productivity is a major source for the lack of organization that leads to my stress. I will be productive. I will be productive. I will be productive.  

5. Not Sweating the Small Stuff 
My job is stressful. My family is stressful. My roommates are stressful. School is stressful and at times even my relationship is stressful. But there are things to worry about and things to dismiss. This week I'm going to keep the "Oprah" method in mind while facing obstacles in any of the previously stated areas. The Oprah method (which a good friend of mine learned from watching her show once) is thinking about problems in terms of the length of time they will matter. They are either day problems, week problems, month problems or year problems. Anything that won't be effecting me in a day or week, I will fix and move on. 

This is my perfect week - what is yours?

axoxo
-A

Sunday, April 8, 2012

3. Easter Sunday, Easter and Sunday

Happy Easter, everyone! I hope everyone got a chance to spend time with the people they love today.  I spent the day with friends playing games outside and eating far too much pimento cheese. Now I'm back home doing my Sunday routine. 

In an attempt to keep myself eating better and save some cash, I've become really big on meal planning lately. I spend almost 3 hours every Sunday buying groceries and obsessively preparing all of my meals for the week. 


Here's my standard weekly haul of groceries. 

This is basically what I get every week. Lots of veggies including 3 bags of spinach (I throw nearly a half bag into most meals I make), 2 cartons of mushrooms (cross apply previous half bag statement), quinoa (superfood), apples and bananas, yogurt, and then something that doesn't take any effort to make. This week it was brown rice pre-made sushi. I used to buy the Trader Joe's microwavable salmon packages, but they are packed full of calories and the portions are huge, plus I'm trying to eat fewer microwaveable foods. 

Not pictured is the enormous bag of lemon's I buy religiously once a week. Gotta have that hot lemon water. 

This week I decided that I need to shake my lunch routine up a little bit and decided to make a huge carton of quinoa that I could just section into portions. 

To start, I took all of the left over veggies from last week. This included a few cherry tomatos, some onion, zucchini and a hand full of brussel sprouts. 


I cut those up and sauteed them while I was boiling the quinoa and about 20 minutes later my veggies turned into this:


Yum. 

I topped it off with a little bit of lemon, olive oil and soy sauce (for extra flavor), threw in the quinoa and packed it all together in a big container for easy access throughout the week. 

I cannot put into words how much I love taking the time to prepare food for the week on the weekends. It's seriously relaxing. 

Welp, it's about time to get back to my work computer and get a jump start on this weeks craziness! By that I mean I need to finish up 3 memos because Kevo is getting back into town and I miss him ;-)

Have a great Sunday night!

axoxo,
-A



Saturday, April 7, 2012

2. Island in the City

I suppose I should say that I'm a DC transplant. I moved here from Michigan about a week after graduating college to fulfill a semi-life long dream of working in politics. Here I am, almost two years later and I have a great job and for the most part, really love the city.

But every once in a while, a girl has to get out. This week I had Friday off for Good Friday and the boyfriend and I decided to take a trip to Roosevelt Island. If I'm being honest, I didn't even know this place existed. Roosevelt Island is a little island in between VA and DC with a huge monument for President Teddy Roosevelt in the center and about 4 miles of walking trails around it.

The plan was to get Whole Foods salad and have a picnic on the Island, but it was a little cold and windy for that, so we sat in a park near the apartment before we headed out.


Every time one of these I get a half scoop of...well...everything. Whoops. 
I could have eaten 11 of them.


Once we got over to the Island we quickly found a big slab of rock that was suitable for laying on. We sat for about 20 minutes and enjoyed the sun and the view to Rosslyn. 


My mountain man, after a little tutorial on how to pose for pictures. 


Before we left I had put together a super cute outfit, curled my hair, etc. Then we got outside and it was freezing - t-shirt, zip-up and ponytail it is!


Hah. I took this right before we left. Tell me this does not look like the fence at District 12!?


This is the only good picture I got of the monument. Unfortunately it doesn't even show a fraction of the actual thing. I thought this little boy was just precious. 


That was the start of the weekend. Today I saw Kevo off before he headed home for Easter and am having trouble tearing myself away from Khloe and Lamar and my large pot of coffee. 


axoxo,

-A

Friday, April 6, 2012

1. I'm Paul, Let's Begin

This blog has been a long time coming, but I'm glad to say it's finally here. 

Let's start with the name. When I started dating my boyfriend last summer, he told me once that he had to leave my house because he was "tiredroni". Since then, the addition of "roni" to emphasis words has worked it's way into my daily vocabulary. 

Very mature, I know. 

But when you find something that works, you stick with it. 

I read a lot of different blogs. I want this one to be a combination of all of the things I read about. I want it to be a blog that i'd love to discover. I'm going to talk about fashion, food, fitness, friends and failure (ohhh so many F's). Those, to me, are the pretty things. Prettyroni. I'll loosely document my work life and my love life. Finally, I'm going to write about the every day stuff that happens in the life of a 20-something and how much red wine I have to drink in order to get through it. 


So, here's a toast. To you, to me, to this blog. I hope that you'll join me. 

Here's to you, here's to me.
Friends forever we shall be.
If we ever disagree, then f$*% you...and here's to me. 

;-)

axoxo,
-A

P.S. My name is not PAUL. It's a line from RENT and I just couldn't shake it. Just run with it.