Somerville

Faith-Rollercoaster Wednesday

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There are more times than not lately that I’ve asked “God, are you listening at all?”

He has come to answer that in a big way.

My driveway is being worked on and the roommates upstairs have an average of four cars in the driveway (they are only supposed to have one). There’s not a lot of space as it is and it’s easy to get blocked in. So out of courtesy and mostly because I would get very emotionally agitated if I woke up and was blocked in I parked on the street last night. Street cleaning is a thing in the city, but since I’ve lived in one it’s always been during the day (i.e. 9am, when I’m not there). So I didn’t think to check. Well, turns out Somerville is from midnight to 1am on what day? Wednesday. My car had a $50 parking ticket. Thankfully, it didn’t get towed, which happens in many cities.

Finances have not been where I want them to be lately. It’s been a sore spot, mostly because I haven’t been diligent and disciplined. I’m still saving more than I’m spending, but not at the rate I’d like.

I get to work and login to Amazon. For some strange reason, my Husky email has defaulted as my login and my password worked. I go to buy a pair of shoes and Amazon automatically applies Prime (which is free for students, and a $99 value). This also saves me on shipping ($14?). Ok, God, thank you.

Work is going swell and I ended up getting promoted. Yay! CAD III, $5,000 raise.

I stepped on the scale yesterday, and even though I feel SO much stronger and fit at Title boxing, I’m up 5lbs since ending my food study. I have mixed emotions.

I leave work, am exhausted, so I come home and nap. I leave to go get groceries and am having a really difficult time managing my emotions around eating.

I come home and there’s these two young young kids and their grandmother, Spanish, looking through garbages for cans. My heart breaks for them. I walk in the door and God says go give them money. And I thought “That’s really weird, what will they think, will they accept it, I don’t have cash”. And God is like GO. So I find a $50 VISA card I got from work for being their five years, whoopie! And I walk to find them. They’re stopped out front of this guy’s house who has a garden and he gives them veggies. I hand her the card and explain in Spanish that there is $50, and she thanks me. He then gives me some veggies!

I’ve been listening to Gary Keesee’s podcast about prosperity. It’s been awesome. This was part of the inspiration for following this request from God. It was hard! But I knew I’d be more upset with myself for not following it.

That was the highlight of my day. Even though getting a promotion and amazon prime for free was great, I wouldn’t have traded giving them the VISA card for the world. As I was walking back to my house I thought to myself “who am I to care about those 5lbs? Things could be so much worse. You could have such bigger problems. Thank God that’s your only problem.”

This post isn’t well edited or thought out, but I had to get this day down before I forgot. And I haven’t posted in a while.

Fitness-Title Boxing

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Time to get serious about my upper body/core strength. I’ve dabbled in boxing before, but have yet to attempt a Title Boxing workout. That is until yesterday.

They offer one free class, but you have to buy the $10 hand wraps.

It was an hour long. 15 minutes warm up, 8 rounds of 3 minutes of punching, 1 minute rest in between, 15 minutes abs.

They have a 45minute and 85 minute class. Of course I’m getting on that when I can.

Pros-

  • Engaging, I didn’t feel like checking the clock for time endured but mostly for that “when is this round over I’m exhausted” check.
  • Cute men.
  • Early class times (5:30am M+F)
  • Core, core and core
  • Community seems ok
  • I would definitely stick with it

Cons-

  • Form not really emphasized or taught during class.
  • Groupies-there are some people that seem all-in. I guess that’s not terrible, but sometimes I roll my eyes and say they have you hook, line and sinker
  • E-x-p-e-n-s-i-v-e. I think we’re talking $119 a month.
  • I felt dizzy at one point 😦 I think I need to gauge my effort better
  • Not sure if it’s enough to get me to a pull up.

I thought I’d walk out of there 100% sold but I wasn’t. I was ready to buy a membership, but when they didn’t really teach form and a lot of people I saw were there doing it haphazard I kinda lost faith.

I had a really good discussion with the assistant manager about this and we had real talk. I told her I was a personal trainer and spin instructor, she told me she became involved with boxing after her boyfriend died and she stopped powerlifting and gained weight (yeah, for some reason people confess this stuff to me often). She made me feel better and told me I get a complimentary 30 minute form training session with my membership.

After thinking about things more I emailed her asking about getting something to cover me now until Sept. 1st. I figure that’ll give me a month to get settled, get form, and really experience the gym before I commit. Then I go on vacation for two weeks, then I’ll come back and make a long term commitment in mid September if that’s what I decide is right.

I get $150 reimbursement from my health insurance and maybe I can ask my parents to give this to me as my Christmas gift this year.

Of course, all I naturally do is beat myself up for not making more money for this to not be an issue. Then I beat myself up for not wanting to spend money on my health. Sigh, what a catch-22. My rent is going up by $300 a month and my income is going down because I’m not working my side gigs as much (by choice). I’m really beating myself up about my finances. Need to start to get educated and organized again. My thoughts are all over the place. I could work more side gig to make up for it. But I don’t know if I want to.

I need to analyze my budget is what I need to do. I’m going to wait until August because of a cool reason which I will let you on about as soon as I hear officially. 😉

God, what do you think?

Finance-Cooking Class

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I’ve been meaning to take a cooking class for a long time. When I was looking up things to do in Somerville, going to Shiso Kitchen was one of the top suggestions in TripAdvisor.

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I emailed Jess, the owner and chef, and she responded with a couple open classes. She didn’t have enough people registered for today, but eventually my friend Gillian and a couple registered so we were in! Today was the Provencal French Dinner. “Get a taste of Southern French fare with a menu featuring regional favorites such as: Spring Greens with Champagne Dijon Vinaigrette, Socca de Nice (traditional French skillet flatbread), Peppered Beef with Herbs and pan sauce, Ratatouille OR Provencal Vegetable Tian, and Caramel Glazed Berries with Vanilla Cream.”

It was really fun. There was a lot of hands-on work obviously so not a lot of picture taking options. Here’s us making the Vegetable Tian. We learned basic knife skills and she shared that Shun Knives are her favorite. The company will sharpen the knives again for you if you send them in.

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The whole thing was pretty complicated and I’m not sure that I would be able to do it alone or again. I personally cut the onion, eggplant, and strawberries, made the caramel, whipped the cream, made the pan sauce, and assembled the Tian. Here are some pictures of the final products. I loved that we made our own salad dressing.

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Although I would have a hard time reproducing the entire dinner, I can now use a knife better, cook steak, and make my own vinaigrette. I’m going again next Friday for Asian Bao Steamed Buns & BBQ.

The price was $89, but I was discounted $13 because I am going again next week. I added $11 gratuity. Well worth it for a fun, rainy Friday night activity. I’m glad I paid off my debts so I can do these activities guilt free.

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Bon Appetite!

Fitness-Exploring Somerville

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I didn’t feel like going out today, but I knew I had to. To incentivize myself I picked a place in Somerville that I had not seen yet but was listed as a place to see when I googled “things to do in Somerville”. It was 1.2 miles away, so I figured at the very least I could get a half hour ish run in (which is where my fitness journey started). I’d be stupid not to enjoy the beautiful weather. I knew I’d feel better. What else was I going to do anyway. I should be grateful God gave me two working legs (among many other things) to enable me to use. Get my point? For every lame excuse I could come up with I had to come up with at least one other to get me out the door. Usually it takes more than one reason. The destination is the most helpful, I’ve found.

This is because I’ve vowed not to become my parents. Come home from work, cook dinner, sit on the couch and watch T.V., and go to bed. Growing up I felt so sheltered and bored. I work really hard to not turn into that.

I was in a “I could give two Fs” attitude, which essentially means crossing a lot of crosswalks without the walking man sign. I only almost got hit once. Well that attitude works until you come across one of these:

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Which in fact doesn’t care whether you give an F or not, because it does not care what you think. I was literally standing under it looking to see if I had time to beat the train as the bar came down. Wtf was I thinking? The people in the cars must’ve giggled as I dodged back to the road.

I made it to my first destination, the Somerville Round House

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Thrilling, right? 1.2 miles down. Without really thinking about it, I continued onto the river. Running is one of those things that once I start I don’t want to stop (most of the time).

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Made it! 2.5 miles. Check another place off my bucket list-some pedestrian bridge over the river. Then I ran the last 2.5 miles back.

I think tomorrow I’ll go visit The Micro Museum

Maybe I’ll grab a Union Square Donut while I’m there.

I highly recommend checking out the website Atlas Obscura. I heard about it from a Podcast I listened to featuring the author. It’s essentially an encyclopedia for not-your-average tourist attractions in different areas. It’s a cool way to learn about interesting places to check out!