But I'm Not Old

Since I started this blog about being 30 and taking on a new perspective of my life and what I want out of it, it never really occurred to me that 30 is that age where you start to become "old." I mean, 40 is the new 30, right? I didn't have a crisis and I embraced turning 30, feeling young and vibrant, and not at all mourning the loss of my youth.

And then I went to my annual physical.

Let me start of by saying in the past 8 years or so, I've increased my frequency and enjoyment of physical activity. Growing up I hated gym class and sports. Sweating was for losers and unless someone was chasing me, I wasn't interested in running. I did like to swim and was on the team throughout middle school, getting sidelined by an injury in high school. And frankly, I wasn't athletic enough to want to come back from the injury.



Throughout college I would work out some; going to the gym on an infrequent basis to torture myself on the elliptical, never quite figuring out what I was to do with the free weights. But after college, I joined Curves and something clicked. I started enjoying my workouts, looking forward to them, and was very happy with the physical results. Eventually my schedule made it difficult for me to get to a gym to work out, so Dave and I bought an elliptical machine for the basement and a piece by piece we've created a pretty fantastic home gym. We have a weight bench, free weights and bar bells, medicine balls, a Bosu ball, resistance bands, a full stereo and Dave even hung the TV on the wall so I can catch up on my TV shows from Netflix. I'm a few seasons behind on Grey's Anatomy, Lost and 24, but learned if I do 30-45 minutes of cardio, I can catch up pretty quickly. And the stereo allows me to indulge my secret hip-hop/gangsta rap fetish during strength training.

For those of you still wondering what a Bosu ball is.

Since the basement floor is concrete, we even bought the foam gym flooring to put down and I've got several yoga mats that I work on. But prior to the wedding, when I was in complete buff bride mode, I bought Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred and started going all out with the intense workouts, which includes a lot of plyometric (jumping) training. The result was exactly what I wanted (I was in, fact, a buff bride). So this past year, when I put on a few extra pounds, I went back to what I knew worked.

Hmm, I don't remember my knee hurting like that last year. How come it only hurts the day after I jump around on the basement floor?

Crap.

I'm old. And possibly busted.

I just wanted to be the new hotness!

(10 points to anyone who gets that reference.)

The good news is that I didn't break myself. My doctor say my knee is fine and that I certainly didn't do any damage. But if I continued to jump around on a concrete floor, it could be bad news. Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone.

So I haven't jumped around in the basement for about two months. And guess what? My knee doesn't bother me anymore. Imagine that.

While I'm a little disappointed that I literally can't do the things I was doing a little more than a year ago, I definitely don't want to injure myself and am glad I paid attention to what my body was saying. So it's back to the elliptical and static strength training for me.

So lessons learned. 1) I'm old, whether I like it or not. 2) If it hurts, don't do that. 3)Relish what I can do, so I don't have to mourn the loss of my youth when I'm 40.


You get extra LOLcats today since I skimped on the photos. And I thought these were funny.

Wedded Bliss

This weekend, my husband and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. It's funny, so many of our friends commented how they couldn't believe it had already been a year. Dave and I pretty much couldn't wait for the year to be over!

They say your first year is your hardest, and I think we were dealt some pretty difficulty challenges these past twelve months. Between Dave's back injury and losing his job, and me taking a temporary pay cut in order to gain some sanity in our lives, coupled with my dad getting hit by a car, my mom changing jobs and having surgery, and all the stuff going on with friends and people close to us, this year has not been easy. We toasted to a Happy New Year, hoping that the next twelve months (and the many years to come) will be easy in comparison. In fact, one of the biggest things I'm looking forward to this year is spending Christmas with Dave, something we couldn't do last year since he was injured and couldn't travel with me to Pittsburgh. (I had to go--children were counting on me.)


Saturday night we had reservations at Gibbet Hill Grill. We'd been there once before for a friend's graduation party and every once and a while would mention that we really need to go there for dinner. Taking advantage of a special occasion, we decided to go. When we arrived, the place was pretty busy, with a full dining room and filling bar area, as well as a wedding about to begin outside. The reception was to be held in The Barn, a separate building across from the main Grill restaurant. Our table was in the back at the windows, so I was able to see a little bit of the ceremony once it started. (We didn't crash this one either. Although we were appropriately dressed, alas we did not have a gift.)

Our waiter was great--very fun and attentive. And the food. Oh. My. God. I had been planning all week what I was going to have, doing extra workouts to accommodate all the yummy goodies I wanted. But words really can't describe it (not that I won't try!) Much of the food featured on the menu is grown either right on the farm or is local to the area. It's so fresh and the flavors are perfectly melded together with other fresh ingredients.


We ordered drinks, and looked over the menu, for Dave's benefit since I already had it figured out. Dave got a gin and tonic, and since I was getting steak and I am my mother's daughter, I ordered a Maker's Mark Manhattan. (And about halfway through the glass, I was finally able to taste the ice! I'm just saying, that was one drunk cherry, totally unfit to drive.)

As an appetizer, we ordered the Farmhouse Grilled Cheeses, made with local cheese and bread from a nearby bakery. This included a wonderfully sharp cheddar on a perfect sourdough bread, and a yummy goat cheese and roasted red pepper spread on a crusty french bread. They were gooey and warm and paired with a fresh tomato soup for dipping. Well, they called it soup, but it was really more like a thick marinara sauce in texture, but tomato soup flavor all the way. I could have licked the bowl, it was that good.

Dave had ordered a cup of New England Clam Chowder, which he said was perfectly creamy without being too thick. My meal came with a house salad, with all kinds of fresh greens, local goat cheese and a tangy chardonnay vinaigrette.

But really, we came to this place for the cow. And it was excellent. Dave had the Prime Rib Au Jus with garlic mashed red bliss potatoes and citrus-honey glazed carrots. I thoroughly enjoyed the Sirloin Steak Tips with a perfect baked potato. We figure they do a lot of wood-fired cooking there, because while the food wasn't necessarily smoky, there was a slight flavor to it that could only come from a wood-fired oven. The steak was so smooth--an intense flavor and a soft, butter texture. The most perfect steak tips ever.

Of course, I was celebrating and knew I was having dessert. I had a little bit of convincing to do for Dave, but he humored me and joined it. Gibbet Hill actually serves Milk and Cookies on their dessert menu (come on, how often do you see that?), and I pondered that option. Our waiter told us the cookies were Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal Cranberry, and I was almost hooked. Two of my favorites. But I decided against it because those are also two of my best cookie recipes and I wanted to try something unique. In the end it was Chocolate Pots de Creme with salted caramel, while Dave chose the Peach Crisp.

Ok, so I wasn't actually certain what Chocolate Pots de Creme was, but the waiter sold it by saying "silky smooth" and "chocolate" in the same sentence. It arrived in a mug and the top layer was smooth caramel, topped with just a little bit of cream. A-maze-ing. It was the silkiest of chocolate mousse, with an intense chocolate flavor, almost like hot cocoa in taste, paired with an oozing pool of caramel with a salted kick to cut the chocolate back a little. I could have licked the mug. And almost did. The Peach Crisp was huge, topped with almost two scoops of vanilla ice cream (the waiter told us later that he put more on it because he didn't think there was enough when he picked it up from the kitchen). The peaches were perfect and the cinnamon-y, nutty struesel topping was delicious.

We so rarely go out and get drinks, appetizers, and dessert with our meal, but celebrating "New Year's" seemed appropriate. We went home, snuggled on the couch, looked at our wedding album and digested.


Sunday, our actual anniversary, Dave's parent's came over to have lunch and celebrate with us. Dave and I popped a bottle of champagne for breakfast and toasted to a less chaotic year. After lunch with Madaline and Ernie, they gave us presents. A couple of entertaining dishes, since we have people over often, and a very special gift from Madaline.

Madaline is a quilter and an incredibly talented one at that. For our wedding, she made us this:


It's a king-sized quilt (her first) in beautiful colors. The picture doesn't do justice for the pattern or the quilt work she did, so trust me when I say it's gorgeous.

So I was quite surprised to open our gift yesterday and find this:


A beautiful "snuggling"quilt in our wedding colors. I swear, she picks the best fabrics. The border has hearts looped all the way around it and it's just lovely. Madaline commented that she didn't know our wedding colors when she started the bed quilt, so she had to make us another one! I don't think that was quite necessary, but it was very thoughtful.

So one year down, we spent the rest of the day watching football and it couldn't have been more perfect. I'm so lucky to have married such a wonderful guy that has been supportive and positive in a year that has been challenging and difficult. I think I'll keep him.

A Change Will Do You Good

I read an article yesterday about how sometimes a change in your life is all you need for a new perspective, new beginning, new you. Change can be a powerful thing for your outlook on life. Maybe like how getting married, turning 30, or cutting off all your hair makes you stop and look at things just that much differently. The article stressed that you have to change for the right reasons (that is, you want to do it), not change to appease someone else.

It really spoke to me because in the last six months or so, I've made lot of changes in my life and I believe they have been positive and helped me get to a place where I am happier. Even the seemingly little things have had a bigger impact than I ever would have imagined. I grew my hair quite long for my wedding. Now, I've always had long hair and have cut it shorter at various stages (like the morning of my sister's wedding). But this time, I went pretty short. A cute bob with bangs. I haven't had bangs since I was 12 or so. A pretty dramatic change to my look, but in the grand scheme of life, not a big deal, right? Surprisingly, no. Months later I'm still getting compliments from people I see regularly. My attitude at work is a little more professional since I feel a little more pulled together in how I look. I even feel more confident shopping for clothes. Is it all the hair? Probably not, but I do feel the hair started some other little changes that collectively brought me to Happyville.

The article references a website, First30Days.com, designed to help you make a transition. Everything from how to manage your finances, get healthy or master your iPod are topics with advice and tips on moving through the first 30 days of that change with success. What a great idea! I've only skimmed through a couple of the topics, but the information is incredibly valuable. I moved to Massachusetts just over four years ago. D and I wanted to be at the next level of our relationship, but the long distance wasn't making that an option. So I moved. And that was hard. The moving advice on this website really woke me up to why it was so hard. According to their experts (and you'll find they have real experts in each area), "Among the first three things you need to plan for are finding a place to live, arranging your finances and finding new friends."

What a wake up call. It seems like such a simple thing, but 'finding new friends' was the hardest part of me moving and I didn't make it a priority. So the transition was clouded by the fact that I missed my friends. Don't get me wrong--I was excited about moving, being with D and starting a new path. I just wish someone would have said to me, "When you move, make sure you find a doctor, know where the grocery store is and make new friends."

Four years later, I have friends I adore (although I'm still not a fan of MA) and have gone through many more changes. And thinking about them (the article suggests making a list of all the changes you made or lived through--like moving, recovering from an accident, starting a new career--to see how much you have accomplished), has really solidified my new perspective and reminded me that I make the decisions in my life that impact my happiness.