Life – Page 18

The Year of 2017

December 29, 2017 by Alicia Leave a Comment

I’ve already been reading posts on blogs about the best of 2017 and reflections on the year. I have to say, overall, this was one incredible year. There were many hard times, many lessons and lots of moving around with travel and settling in a new state. All of that though, has brought me here and for that I am grateful.

This post starts with Australia of course. After my first time in Australia, I knew I had to go back and explore more. I told myself I would try to make it back in 5 years and I just made that deadline arriving into Sydney on Dec 30, 2016. I had first gone to Australia in 2011. We rang in the New Year wearing shorts and sunscreen and watching the fireworks over the Sydney Harbor bridge. That was another item on my {lost} bucket list, you can check out my new one here.

We had no itinerary but there is so much to see in Sydney, we opted to stay for 2 weeks.

By the end of the two weeks, we took some rest days lounging around our apartment we had through Airbnb and then hopped on a plane to New Zealand. Our original thinking was that we should go to New Zealand before doing any farm work in Australia due to the high bio hazard control New Zealand has.

We went on the best guided tour to Hobbiton and then rented a campervan for two weeks to drive around the south island of New Zealand.

That brought us to February, hopping on a plane again to Melbourne Australia. We settled there for a week which was wonderful after all the driving. I even joined a pilates/yoga studio and went to the 7am class 5 days.

We loved the campervan so much in New Zealand, we decided to get one in Australia. We ventured to Adelaide, happening upon the Fringe Festival, a festival we would love to go to again. Then we drove to the outback on the Stuart highway, a very long straight road. We saw Uluru and quickly said goodbye to Uluru as we had to get back to Melbourne to return our van.

Next it was off to the East coast, beginning in Brisbane. We took a train ride from there to go to the Australia Zoo for a day and I had my wish come true when I got to hold a koala, even if the mosquitoes were awful and bit my face while I was holding little Peanut.

australia zoo koala cuddle 2 — holding a koala, one of the best days of my life

We took trains and buses up the East coast, stopping to visit one of my friends, then taking a boat trip totally out of my comfort zone, before heading to Cairns while Cyclone Debbie made its way into Australia.

We ended with a visit to the Australia honeymoon capital, Port Douglas, where Brian and I parted ways as he headed back to the US and I headed to London.

April began in London, where I was very tired and hardly adjusted to the time zone in the few days I was there. I mostly stuck to walking around, but I splurged on the Harry Potter tour and was glad I did. I also went to see Kinky Boots on London Broadway which was amazing.

I took the train to Paris. Oh the Eiffel Tower, Louvre and all the bread you could want.

I then took the train down to the Aix en Provence to stay with a family friend. It was my birthday and we got treats from a local bakery. I stayed with them for a week and about half of the week was pretty chill where I caught up on reading, writing and doing yoga in my room. I needed that down time in all the hustle and bustle of traveling. We had some fun day trips to Marseilles and then to see flamingos in the wild which was just incredible.

Soon it was time for another train ride to Barcelona to meet up with my sister’s friend. Thank goodness for her Spanish because I only took French in school. She was also the best tour guide.

My final travel place was Dublin, which was too quick of a visit and I came down with some sort of stomach bug so I lived on cereal and water for the most part in my time there. Thankfully I was feeling better by the time I had my flight home to Chicago.

In May I got to visit my sister in Iowa and cross that state off my “to visit” list. I then moved to Binghamton and was applying to whatever jobs I could find, which I found difficult being in a smaller town compared to applying in Chicago or Philadelphia.

I kept sane thanks to finding an awesome powerlifting gym and going for 5 mile walks on the bike path nearly daily until my ankles were so sore I needed to rest. Finally I had some interviews and started my job in June.

Still working to keep myself busy, I signed up for a yin yoga training in the area which ran through July and August.

I also attended my first BlogFest in July and it left me on a total high. It was amazing beyond words.

Blogfest IDEA bridge 2017 — Blogfest/IDEA World July 2017

August was when the year took a turn with a sudden loss followed by another loss. I did however attend my first state fair.

I thought things in September would turn around and then I had to head home to Chicago for one of my own family members. Though I made the best of my trip supporting my friend’s small business and also visiting the beach because it was so hot for September and the water wasn’t even that bad.

In October, I enjoyed a visit to Penn Yan and some pumpkin carving. We made the difficult decision to put one of our cats down. I also finally decided to get an online coach for my powerlifting. I love having a workout made for me and also working on my nutrition to really build muscle.

November was a less eventful month (thank goodness). Of course we had Thanksgiving, but I’m not into Thanksgiving food much. I did enjoy a wonderful friendsgiving though. We also finally got our deposit down on our wedding venue and I will talk more about that in 2018 and the wedding plans.

Once December came, I was ready for the Christmas movies and music. I had all my shopping done in the first week pretty much. Brian was actually home over a weekend and we decided to go down to NYC for a day and I invited my friend Alicia along. We saw Cats on Broadway and that was really good.

I once again made my gingerbread cookies and ate sooo many of them I think I will be set until next Christmas.

My mom decided she wanted to spend Christmas in Florida because we found out my grandma had lung cancer so my mom, sister and I spent Christmas weekend in Florida. It felt weird with it being so hot and Christmas, but it was also really nice to get sun because we had a lot of grey, snow and rain in New York and I was really feeling those winter blues already.

And now we head into the New Year. I’d say 2017 started at a high high and the middle was kind of the lowest of lows with too many funerals. I hope now we are headed in an upwards direction again with a New Year starting. One of my main goals for the year is to work on my strength. My Florida bikini photo says it all to me. I am so proud of my hard work to get back in shape, but not just in shape, to see my body transform before me and be increasing my weights to a number I never imagined. Investing in an online coach has definitely paid off already in the only 3 months so far.

Wow that was so much to recap. If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading. I really appreciate you stopping by my little corner of the internet. I love to write and share my adventures. Cheers to the New Year!! I’m ready for 2018!!

Are you excited for the New Year?

A New Bucket List

December 21, 2017 by Alicia 2 Comments

A couple weeks ago, I listened to the Chatty Sisters podcast as they talked about bucket lists and the lists of 30 before 30.

I don’t think I ever made a 30 before 30 list but I did make a bucket list back in 2012 in my last year of college. Unfortunately I have no idea where that list went. I think I only had it on paper which was odd for me since I typed so much back then. Maybe one day I will find it and it will be fun to look back on. I do think if I did have the list I accomplished quite a few travel things this year that I believe were on it and that is exciting.

new zealand bucket list — photo from New Zealand, a place that was probably on my lost bucket list

So for thinking out loud today, I thought I would make a new list. Now onto a new list, no age deadline, just things I want to do or dream of in my lifetime. Of course this last year, more than ever, has taught me life is short and I am so thankful, times a million, that I was able to travel for 4 months of this year as that was a dream of mine.

Buy a house
Get married -wedding planning details to come in the next year
Greece
Itlay
Iceland
Alaska
See as many of the 50 states as possible. Ideally all 50, but only at 17 right now and really need to get out West.
Have a family
Volunteer at elephant sanctuary in Thailand
Do a prenatal yoga training
Host a Christmas dinner
Get my MBA
Swim in an infinity pool
Do a 1 mile open swim
Run a 5k without stopping
Compete in a powerlifting meet
Do 10 pull ups in a row
Write a book
Meet Oprah -love her!!
Host a game night with friends
Do a sprint triathlon
Do a sponsored blog post
Have a yoga photo shoot
Go on a yoga retreat to another country
Africa Safari

This list could easily turn into a travel list of course and there are many places I would love to travel, but I thought 25 was a good number to stop at for now. It will be nice to have this list to look back on in the next few years as I know there are some plans in the works for some of these items.

Have you ever made a bucket list? Do you set an age limit or just make one for fun for things you would like to do?

What is something on your bucket list?

Harry Potter Music, Fall Foods and Gym Videos

October 30, 2017 by Alicia 2 Comments

We made it through a Halloween weekend and while I didn’t dress up, I did enjoy some fall foods. My weekend was kinda a roller coaster in how I was feeling. I don’t really know why, other than to say I plan to far ahead and so I had this mile long to do list in my head when I can really only focus on a foot of it. Anyone else like that? I am trying to remember to be in the present moment and focus on what I can do NOW and not what happens in 3 months or so.

Anyway, the weekend started off on a good note. Brian and his brother bought some chicken wings for dinner and I enjoyed bbq wings and my leftover broccoli. The pairing was delicious and balanced to me. I then finished off some cookie dough Artic Zero ice cream. I had a free coupon so I got some at the store last week. It was delicious.

Brian and I actually headed out Friday night to do something different, to see the Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra perform some Harry Potter music. Thanks to Facebook I found out about the event months ago, but of course, Brian can’t plan anything in advance. When he mentioned last week that he would very likely be home Friday, I begged him to purchase the tickets. Thankfully there were still a few seats left. It was totally sold out by the time Friday came.

It was so cool to sit there and hear the Harry Potter music come alive. They also had the best guy giving little tid bits of commentary and even reading short passages from some of the books to explain the music coming up next. Not only did I enjoy the music, but I also learned about the directors for the movie. Overall it was a great night out. Each time Brian and I go out to enjoy some of the arts, we think, wow we need to do that more. It’s just hard because we have to book things last minute with his job and never knowing when he will be around. I was glad we made this happen though to kick off the weekend.

Saturday morning, I headed to the gym. I’ve had new workouts for a week now and I realized last week I needed to push harder. I did just that on Saturday and it felt really awesome. I also took a couple videos of my squats and deadlifts on my phone.

So I wanted to talk about videos and photos at the gym. I couldn’t totally tell if the one guy who commented “it’s not selfie Saturday” was serious or sarcastic. I take videos so I can see how deep my squats are since we don’t have mirrors and I want to see how I am doing. It’s also a way to mark my progress. I prefer to not have my phone out when at the gym, but I love my new iphone and the videos it takes. It’s also good for me to have some videos or photos to send to my new coach online. Not sure how other people feel about videos and yes I hate to be that person setting up my phone against my water bottle in the gym, but hey, I try to do it when there aren’t many people around and for myself and progress. Just putting those thoughts out there.

After running a few errands Saturday morning, I came home and made Nikole’s pumpkin lasagna and while I would have loved to keep it vegan, I wanted to share it with Brian and I also didn’t have any of the ingredients to make the tofu ricotta so it would have cost me more. I simply subbed regular ricotta. The plan was to have it for dinner but then other plans came up so I had it Sunday for lunch and it will be my dinner during the week. It was really delicious even the next day.

The rest of my afternoon was spent finished season 1 of This is US so now I’m not too far behind and doing lots of reading. My Saturday afternoon was brightened up when I got a Halloween card from one of my friends in the mail. I love snail mail!!

For dinner, we headed out to a new brewery which also has a taco food truck parked outside so you can enjoy food with your beers. I’m not a beer person so I just stuck to water, but I did enjoy a farro arugula salad and one of Brian’s tacos.

The rest of the evening, I needed some alone time to get back to some of my to dos. The day seemed to go by quickly and I felt I didn’t accomplish as much as I would have liked. I know we all have those days.

Sunday morning I woke up still a little annoyed. It was a rainy day with a predicted 4 inches of rain to come. I headed to a yoga class since I didn’t get my Friday yoga. I loved all the stretching and fast flow we did. I worked up a sweat.

When I arrived home, I got back into the kitchen roasting some veggies and then baking some more pumpkin scones, a double batch so I could bring some to work.

I think the baking was the most therapeutic for me and then I was able to get back to accomplishing some to dos in the afternoon. Oh and I also ordered half of the Christmas presents I am getting other people this weekend. Even if the gifts are for others, I just felt happy doing a little online shopping. Now to wait until Black Friday to find myself a new winter jacket because I have only been wearing mine for about 14 years and it’s a child’s XL or something…

What’s your favorite Fall recipe?

In Memory of Skittles

October 25, 2017 by Alicia 3 Comments

Back sometime around 2004/2005, my sister and I wanted our own cats. We had a cat growing up, Mr Tony Macaroni as I liked to call him and he was my parents cat since they had him even before I was born.

In the Spring of 2005 we went to the local animal shelter and they happened to have two young cats who were not siblings but they were fostered together and they didn’t want to split them. We met them in the back and fell in love. They weren’t kittens but they were only just over a year old. While they came with different names, we renamed them as Tom and Skittles. My friend Mercedes actually came up with the name Skittles as she was fast and would skid on the floor a lot. Tom became my cat and Skittles my sister’s. Our older cat, Tony, didn’t care much for the two little ones but in his old age he was fine as long as they left him alone. Good thing we got two so they played with each other (I couldn’t find a picture of Tom and Skittles together, but I did find one with Tony).

Tony lived to a good 21 years old when he was put down in 2008. The kittens were influenced by Tony though because he went outside. They became interested in the outside world. My parents decided they wouldn’t declaw the kittens because of the pain Tony had been put through and with their interest in outside. Tom was quite the hunter outside while Skittles was shy and timid.

As Skittles got older though and we put in a cat door, she would explore the outdoors a little more.

Christmas was always a fun time for the cats. A tree, ribbon, bows and boxes.

Skittles didn’t like being held unless you held her just right on your left shoulder. She liked to sit on laps or snuggle under the blanket to not be seen. She was smart though because if you held her with two hands under the blanket and someone else came to pet her, she was suspicious. It was a rare moment when my dad could pet her. I think their relationship started off a little rocky when he would only come around to trim her claws. Eventually we gave up on that and when my mom went back to working, Skittles sought attention from more people. As Skittles grew older, she became very curious about everything. Even though she would run away from strangers for the most part, if you did approach slowly with your hand out so she could smell you, you might get a chance to pet her.

If you wanted to wake up Theresa in the morning, you simply put Skittles on her bed. Of course Skittles would soak up all the attention and loved her belly being rubbed. I always see a belly rub as the animal trusting you.

For almost 13 years, Skittles was with us. A month ago, I got to see her when I was unexpectedly home. I’m glad I got to see her then as just a couple weeks later my mom discovered a tumor on her leg and it was super aggressive. To have it removed would have been very invasive and would have left Skittles with 3 legs. In addition, there was no guarantee that would remove everything. It had seemed to already spread, so the family decision was to let her go peacefully.

I don’t know how my big boy Tom will do without you. We will all miss you.

Thank you Skittles for all the good memories. Rest in peace.

Linking up with Amanda for Thinking Out Loud.

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