I've seen this note floating around Facebook, but I didn't really read the list until now. I do read a lot, but I tend to stick with what I love (translation: I re-read books obsessively). I'm confident I've read each of the Harry Potter books at least 10 times, and I didn't even start reading them until after the 6th one came out. Ahh! I tend to buy things called "classics" in the bookstore and never get around to reading them...
The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?
Instructions:
Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X (should I put multiple X's?)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible / (1/2 an X here)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Total: 5 (or should that be 11 because there are 7 books in the HP series?)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I've read maybe 4 of his plays... so nowhere near the "complete works")
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
Total: 3 (wahoo, I've read more than 6 total!)
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (I've heard this is terribly depressing)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Total: 3
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma-Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X (are they not aware that this is part of the series the Chronicles of Narnia?)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
Total: 3
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
Total: 4
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafo
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Total: 1 (sad :-( )
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Total: 2
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
Total: 1
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
Total: 3
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad X
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo X
Total: 4
Grand total: 29
However, we have several of these books at the house so I could read them if the urge strikes me. Keegan has read all the gigantic and tragic books by Russian authors (Crime and Punishment, War and Peace, Anna Karenina). He also has the complete works of Shakespeare and most of Jane Austen's books (which I really want to read because I love Pride and Prejudice so much). I'd also like to read The Lord of the Rings so the movies will make some sort of sense and I don't have to consult the LOTR Wiki to get all the details. I also have Great Expectations sitting on my bookshelf because I bought it for school and then never had to read it. I also want to read The Iliad and The Odyssey, both of which Keegan has and both of which are not on this list. I started one of them once and I don't remember which... I'm also reading Ayn Rand's books- well The Fountainhead anyway (Atlas Shrugged should definitely be added to this list). Catch-22 is another I've heard good things about. And I'd like to read more F. Scott Fitzgerald. Basically... I read all day at work and want to go home and read more for fun. I already read during lunch for fun!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
My new thing: to-do lists
My recent updates have all included to-do lists, so let's not break the trend:
The eating healthier is going pretty well. Keegan and I had milkshakes from Cookout on Monday, but other than that I seem to be keeping to my plan for the most part. I still haven't managed to buy any of the intimidating odd-colored vegetables (read: eggplant, carrots, sweet potatoes), but I'm doing well with fresh fruit. This week we have bananas, green apples, strawberries, and blueberries which will make good snacks and desserts. Tonight I'm going to make beef stroganoff (not that impressive, seeing as how the stroganoff part is pre-packaged) with spinach salad and fruit. I've also been adding sunflower seeds to our salads, which is something I always do at salad bars in restaurants, but it's nice to have that extra source of nutrients. We still have canned nuts around as snacks, but we've been keeping snacking down. Last week I made fresh blueberry muffins, so we had those for after-dinner snacks (and breakfast on the weekend)
- July 31: buy washing machine and dryer!
- August 3: slideshow to Monty recapping all my work for the summer and my future steps
- August 7: desired weight of 131 pounds
- August 8: send list of wedding pics we want printed to our photographer
- August 7-9: make use of tax free weekend to buy school supplies, namely a backpack I can carry my laptop in and textbooks
- August 21: send final draft of paper to Monty including all the new info I've gathered through my meetings with Dr. Craig and feedback from Monty between now and then. I know Monty will want to make major changes to the paper (based on the comments of other grad students around the lab) but at least I'll have a good starting place for the new school year. Then I can enjoy that last homework-free weekend before classes start :-)
- September 1: have all of our remaining boxes unpacked. This will involve buying our media cabinet so we have somewhere to put our DVDs and CDs. I think the office will be much more inviting when it's not got 8 boxes sitting in the middle of the floor!
- September 1: desired weight of 128 pounds
- October 1: desired weight of 123 pounds (and that's my stopping goal; generally I'd like to be between 120 and 125)
The eating healthier is going pretty well. Keegan and I had milkshakes from Cookout on Monday, but other than that I seem to be keeping to my plan for the most part. I still haven't managed to buy any of the intimidating odd-colored vegetables (read: eggplant, carrots, sweet potatoes), but I'm doing well with fresh fruit. This week we have bananas, green apples, strawberries, and blueberries which will make good snacks and desserts. Tonight I'm going to make beef stroganoff (not that impressive, seeing as how the stroganoff part is pre-packaged) with spinach salad and fruit. I've also been adding sunflower seeds to our salads, which is something I always do at salad bars in restaurants, but it's nice to have that extra source of nutrients. We still have canned nuts around as snacks, but we've been keeping snacking down. Last week I made fresh blueberry muffins, so we had those for after-dinner snacks (and breakfast on the weekend)
Friday, July 24, 2009
First check in
Well today I weighed 133.4 lbs; I'm not sure if that's an improvement or just reflects a change in the amount of water I'm retaining now or something. So I guess I wouldn't call it progress, but at least it's not going in the wrong direction...
I've met some of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the week.
And finally, here are a few pictures from the rafting trip last weekend!
I've met some of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the week.
- Keegan is finishing his portion of the thank you cards this afternoon when he gets home from work- what a great husband!
- I have found answers to all of the questions raised at my meeting with Dr. Craig, but I do not feel they are not answered to the fullest extent (ie: what are typical failure modes of dental implants? I have found much information that answers this question in general terms, but I know there is a ridiculous amount of info out there to answer this)
- The curtains are hanging! Yahoo!
- Returning camping gear this afternoon
- Sadly I did not go to the fitness room any days this week :-O But Keegan and I have been taking walks in the evenings, so that's a tiny shred of redemption there
- I picked about 30 pictures I know we're going to get
- We haven't been to Sears, but will most likely go there tomorrow morning!
- Send the nearly final version of my paper to Dr. Craig, who has graciously (and enthusiastically!) agreed to look it over. This involves some reformatting and re-organization, and I haven't compiled all the info I want to make one of my tables very thorough, so I'll continue to work on that.
- Go through my clothing to set aside items I never wear to take to Good Will; I'm going to have Keegan do the same thing because for two people, we fill insane amounts of our limited space with clothing
- Attend Keegan's company picnic! Two summers ago they had a cornhole tournament that Keegan and I won. Keegan really raked it in though; we won $50 in gift certificates to the movies from the cornhole, but he also won an iPod shuffle in a raffle and a Starbucks gift card at Bingo. I need to take this guy to Vegas!
And finally, here are a few pictures from the rafting trip last weekend!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Whitewater fun
This past weekend Keegan and I went whitewater rafting with some of the students in my program- it was really fun! I had been once during the summer between 7th and 8th grade with my Girl Scout troop, but we were doing much milder stuff than what we were exposed to this weekend! We had a great time though :-) Keegan and I both fell out on separate occasions, but honestly I was more concerned with losing my glasses than falling out (and luckily my glasses are fine!) However, one of the other members in the team chipped a tooth on a rogue paddle :-/ The next time we go rafting I'm going to wear an old pair of glasses and a mouth guard! We were rafting on the New River Gorge and there were some pretty intense rapids; we watched a video afterwards and it may feel intense while you're actually on the boat, but watching it on tape it looks terrifying. Like when I feel out and just disappeared under the boat.... But anyway, point of the story, it was really fun and I recommend it to others. I guess the next thing to do is go skydiving. My stepdad has been trying to get me to go since I turned 18, but I've been too much of a whimp. The last time he invited me was the Friday before my graduation from NCSU and I figured I should at least get my diploma first if I happened to squash in to the ground :-P
I have several goals for myself this week.
I have several goals for myself this week.
- Finish our thank you cards (I've written the ones for my family and our friends, but Keegan needs to finish the ones to his family and friends that are closer to him, then we'll each sign them all)
- Find all of the info to answer the questions Dr. Craig and I uncovered at our meeting on Thursday- I've already answered 2 of the 5 big ones, so I think I'm on my way.
- Clean out all the camping gear we used and return the borrowed stuff to its owners
- Finally hang up the curtains for our bedroom. I ironed them a week ago and Keegan borrowed a power drill from his family (I have all hand tools, nothing powerful) but we just haven't gotten around to actually doing the hanging.
- Go to the fitness room at our complex at least 3 more times this week (this may be difficult as I'm pretty sore from the trip and my thighs are a bit sunburned- I'm thinking the waves washed off most of the sunscreen I put on my legs)
- Pick the wedding pictures we want to have printed. We get to select 300, so it's no small feat to sift through the website and pick the ones we really want. I've picked about 20 so far, but I didn't start at the beginning and I started making the list as an afterthought.
- Check out Sears for their deals on appliances, specifically, efficient washers and dryers. Our energy bill is really not that high (average cost $50.42/month since moving in last August, which is roughly $25/person/month) but we want machines that actually clean the clothes well and don't turn our upstairs into a sauna during the drying cycle. Additionally, I know Sears aften has big sales where buying more than one appliance at a time you save greater percentages, and since we need to buy both, it would be nice to save 10 or 15% off of our total order.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Welcome to the real world!
Today Keegan and I opened our joint accounts at Bank of America- I feel so grown up! Not that getting married doesn't make me feel grown up, but now we've got something that is really ours :-) We opened a risk-free CD as our savings account because we are allowed to make withdrawals from it without being penalized, receive a 1% interest rate (which is not fantastic but is much better than 0.1% on standard savings accounts), and are not charged fees if the amount in the account falls below a certain level. We initially wanted to open a money market savings account, but there's no way we can guarantee we'd always have $5000 in there, at least for now. But maybe in a few years we'll be able to make the transition. We also opened a joint checking account that doesn't have any sort of minimum balance requirement. Our plan is going to be to contribute equal percentages of our income to the joint account to cover things like rent, tv/internet, water, electricity, cell phones, and groceries. I'm going to try to contribute part of what's left of my stipend to my personal retirement accounts and then add a bit to our joint account too, but we'll see how that goes.
In other news, I have a big meeting tomorrow with a professor in the chemistry department who might be able to provide me with some very useful contacts. His name is Stephen Craig and he should be able to introduce me to some potential collaborators and give me some guidance on my ideas. Wahoo! I've been really unhappy lately, feeling kind of pathetic and a little lost since I'm just reading a lot and working on my paper but I don't have a path to follow for doing actual hands-on work. I did make some microspheres, but that was just me playing around, getting back in the feel of labwork. But I will at least have a paper by hopefully the middle of the fall semester, pending Monty's revisions.
Also, the 3rd International Conference on Self-Healing Materials is going to be held in the UK in 2011! Here's hoping I have something noteworthy to present so I can actually go!
**Update
My meeting with Dr. Craig went really well- he's very excited about the project I proposed! I'm so happy to have a real defined path with specific answers that I want to find, rather than a billion questions pulling me in opposite directions. Now I'm going to work on more details!
In other news, I have a big meeting tomorrow with a professor in the chemistry department who might be able to provide me with some very useful contacts. His name is Stephen Craig and he should be able to introduce me to some potential collaborators and give me some guidance on my ideas. Wahoo! I've been really unhappy lately, feeling kind of pathetic and a little lost since I'm just reading a lot and working on my paper but I don't have a path to follow for doing actual hands-on work. I did make some microspheres, but that was just me playing around, getting back in the feel of labwork. But I will at least have a paper by hopefully the middle of the fall semester, pending Monty's revisions.
Also, the 3rd International Conference on Self-Healing Materials is going to be held in the UK in 2011! Here's hoping I have something noteworthy to present so I can actually go!
**Update
My meeting with Dr. Craig went really well- he's very excited about the project I proposed! I'm so happy to have a real defined path with specific answers that I want to find, rather than a billion questions pulling me in opposite directions. Now I'm going to work on more details!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Starting point
My weight as of Friday, July 10:
134.8 lbs
Let's see what two weeks of healthier eating and lifestyle choices will do :-)
134.8 lbs
Let's see what two weeks of healthier eating and lifestyle choices will do :-)
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Grocery store success!
I made the first trip to the grocery store while in my new "eat better" mindset and not only did I buy some new things I've never bought before, but I saved money on them!
Strawberries and blueberries were both on sale, so I bought some of each and I'm looking forward to making some nice yogurt smoothies with them or eating them just as fresh fruit as desserts. The strawberries came in a 2lb container, so they will be very useful! On sale for $3.99 too! That might not be the best deal, but it's better than some I've seen :-) I also picked up a jar of sunflower seeds (which I absolutely love) and a container of mixed nuts (both unsalted/sweetened and on sale). I can't remember all the kinds in there at the moment, but I remember almonds, peanuts, cashews, and I think macadamia nuts also. Now I just have to make sure I eat them at a controlled pace! I also bought spinach, cucumbers, bananas, skim milk, and non-fat yogurt, but those are things we get every week at the store anyway (sometimes substituting green peppers or celery for cucumbers). There wasn't a lot for me to buy this week because I stocked up on meat, pasta, and cereal before the wedding when it was on sale and I've got like 15 meals worth of each chicken and beef in the freezer.
I've never bought nuts or blueberries before, so I'm branching out at least a little bit. Maybe next week I'll venture towards something more colorful in the veggie section...
I use Excel to track our grocery spending, dividing it in to savings by MVP card and savings by coupons, then looking at the total cost of the groceries and the percent savings each week. It's not a totally accurate reading because we occasionally buy food at Target, especially if it's on sale or in their summer section that always has larger boxes, like what you'd get in a Sam's Club or something. But these expenditures are less than $20. We also buy all of our health and beauty things at Target too, but only when I've also got coupons for them; sometimes we can luck out and buy things on clearance with coupons too, like Pantene shampoo and conditioner.
So far this year we've spent $1203.69 at Food Lion on groceries and saved $399.78 using our MVP card and coupons. This gives us a percent savings of 24.932%! This is pretty good I think, seeing as how we've saved almost half a month's rent on groceries so far this year. Looking back on the year I see my personal best shopping week was in April when I spent $32.53 and saved $33.89 for a percent savings of 51.02%! I'm assuming that's one of the weeks when chicken was on sale for like 50% off per pound and I was able to buy it and wrap it up to store in the freezer. Of course that might also have been when Diet Cokes were on sale or Lipton noodles or something else was 10/$10. It's too bad I don't have a pantry because I could do some serious stocking up if I did!
I'm sure that now that I'm going to be buying more fresh foods we will spend more on groceries, but that's something I'm willing to be flexible on. Plus we can always scout out the deals in the paper and buy the fresh items that are on sale :-) I read this book called America's Cheapest Family that my stepdad picked up at a garage sale, and this family was hardcore. They only went to the grocery store one time per month and I think they had something like 6 kids, so they talked about storing all the foods and which were the first to be eaten. They also had a lot of info about how they paid off their house in a ridiculously short period of time (9 years I think?) by living frugally and on one income of around $40,000. Their last name is Economides (it's Greek) and very fitting!
Strawberries and blueberries were both on sale, so I bought some of each and I'm looking forward to making some nice yogurt smoothies with them or eating them just as fresh fruit as desserts. The strawberries came in a 2lb container, so they will be very useful! On sale for $3.99 too! That might not be the best deal, but it's better than some I've seen :-) I also picked up a jar of sunflower seeds (which I absolutely love) and a container of mixed nuts (both unsalted/sweetened and on sale). I can't remember all the kinds in there at the moment, but I remember almonds, peanuts, cashews, and I think macadamia nuts also. Now I just have to make sure I eat them at a controlled pace! I also bought spinach, cucumbers, bananas, skim milk, and non-fat yogurt, but those are things we get every week at the store anyway (sometimes substituting green peppers or celery for cucumbers). There wasn't a lot for me to buy this week because I stocked up on meat, pasta, and cereal before the wedding when it was on sale and I've got like 15 meals worth of each chicken and beef in the freezer.
I've never bought nuts or blueberries before, so I'm branching out at least a little bit. Maybe next week I'll venture towards something more colorful in the veggie section...
I use Excel to track our grocery spending, dividing it in to savings by MVP card and savings by coupons, then looking at the total cost of the groceries and the percent savings each week. It's not a totally accurate reading because we occasionally buy food at Target, especially if it's on sale or in their summer section that always has larger boxes, like what you'd get in a Sam's Club or something. But these expenditures are less than $20. We also buy all of our health and beauty things at Target too, but only when I've also got coupons for them; sometimes we can luck out and buy things on clearance with coupons too, like Pantene shampoo and conditioner.
So far this year we've spent $1203.69 at Food Lion on groceries and saved $399.78 using our MVP card and coupons. This gives us a percent savings of 24.932%! This is pretty good I think, seeing as how we've saved almost half a month's rent on groceries so far this year. Looking back on the year I see my personal best shopping week was in April when I spent $32.53 and saved $33.89 for a percent savings of 51.02%! I'm assuming that's one of the weeks when chicken was on sale for like 50% off per pound and I was able to buy it and wrap it up to store in the freezer. Of course that might also have been when Diet Cokes were on sale or Lipton noodles or something else was 10/$10. It's too bad I don't have a pantry because I could do some serious stocking up if I did!
I'm sure that now that I'm going to be buying more fresh foods we will spend more on groceries, but that's something I'm willing to be flexible on. Plus we can always scout out the deals in the paper and buy the fresh items that are on sale :-) I read this book called America's Cheapest Family that my stepdad picked up at a garage sale, and this family was hardcore. They only went to the grocery store one time per month and I think they had something like 6 kids, so they talked about storing all the foods and which were the first to be eaten. They also had a lot of info about how they paid off their house in a ridiculously short period of time (9 years I think?) by living frugally and on one income of around $40,000. Their last name is Economides (it's Greek) and very fitting!
Monday, July 6, 2009
Get healthy, stay healthy
I recently read my friend Emily's blog detailing her plans to make healthy choices with respect to dieting and preparing food. Last year I virtually eliminated junk food from my diet and all snacks that I did eat were either fresh fruits and vegetables or low sodium/fat snacks like yogurt or granola bars that also contained nutritional value; however, I've never been a big meat eater and my diet was seriously lacking in protein. I mainly ate grains, but now that Keegan and I live together, I prepare many more meals with meat (although chicken is my primary source of meat). I used to whip out measuring cups and spoons to measure everything I ate, even counting out pretzels to make sure I was eating the serving size that I thought I was eating (I always used to gauge my food intake for things like pretzels and crackers by handfuls, which is not the most accurate measuring technique). Leading up to the wedding I was going about 6 miles/day on the treadmill and lifting weights, so it didn't matter that I was snacking more than was strictly necessary because I was working it off in my 1000 calorie-burning treadmill sessions. While living in Wolf Village my last two years of undergrad I also cut myself down to one Diet Coke a day (and for those who knew me before then, 1 per day was a pretty amazing achievement) but I think that also contributed to my weight loss.
Before the wedding I was drinking as many as 3 Diet Cokes per day, which is not only expensive, but is bad for my dental health and the rest of my body as well. My snacking was limited because my dress was certainly not going to magically get bigger if I did, but once we were on the honeymoon I went totally overboard with the candy eating and splurging. I wouldn't be surprised if I had gained 5-8 pounds since the wedding. That would put me around 135 pounds, which is still perfectly normal, but it's not the size I was before and I know that I have not been getting the daily values I need for any of the dietary categories.
Keegan and I received a scale as a wedding gift (thanks Clark!) so now I will really be able to accurately assess myself. Starting on Friday I cut myself back to 1 Diet Coke per day, and it's going fine so far. I drink the 1 per day because I get seriously intense headaches without caffeine, but I really think I could overcome that if I tried slowly cutting back on my intake. One can of soda contains 12 oz; I will continue the rest of the summer limiting myself to one can per day. I hope to eventually transition to buying bottles of soda so that I can slowly reduce my intake or switch over to buying caffeine-free Diet Coke to try to fool my mind into thinking I've got what I think I want... if that makes sense. Caffeine in soda doesn't actually make me stay awake, it just prevents the headaches.
I desperately need to increase the protein in my diet, but I really don't like to eat red meat and fish does not agree with me (translation: unpleasant digestion). I do however, really like eggs and nuts like almonds, cashews, peanuts, and pistachios, so I would like to incorporate these things in to my diet. I think I've avoided eating nuts lately because of the fat content, but small servings would be beneficial. I had high cholesterol when I was younger (middle school) so I try to steer clear of eggs for this reason, but once I read more about the dietary guidelines and perhaps get my cholesterol checked somewhere I'll be able to make more informed decisions.
Fruit and veggies have never been a problem with me because I love to eat them and will eat way more than the recommended servings without finding it to be inconvenient. However, I need to vary the types of vegetables that I eat to include more colorful veggies. I tend to gravitate towards the green veggies (broccoli, green peppers, cucumbers, green beans, spinach, lettuce, etc) but I don't eat the colorful ones (eggplant, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, etc). However, some veggies I just don't like or upset my stomach (tomatoes, peas, onions, mushrooms, squash, zucchini, lima beans) but I think I might like them if I tried them again or just found a new way to prepare them. There is no hope for the onion, the mushroom, or the tomato.
Keegan and I would be thrilled and blessed to have a large family someday and although such developments are not in the near future, I want to make sure that I am as healthy as I can possibly be before we decide to have kids. It may take awhile for me to actually integrate all of these changes into my(/our) diet, but I think it will definitely be worth it in the long run. I know I want to significantly reduce or eliminate my caffeine intake while pregnant and I need to be eating the foods that will provide the nutrients necessary for the development of a baby. I know there are prenatal vitamins that I will also be taking, but for myself I want to be able to be healthy without the need of supplements. Right now all I take is zinc to help with my immune system (and I only take that probably twice a week at best) and chewable fibers, but I don't want to be one of those folks who tosses down one of those GNC Vitapak things every day. I feel like something is wrong if you need to be taking 6 different supplement pills every day, but that's just me and that's just my view.
I don't really have a defined weight-loss guide for myself because I think my main desire is to be healthy on the inside, which will then most likely be reflected in my external appearance. I would like my "normal" weight to be between 120 and 125 pounds, but I realize as I develop my exercise and weight lift routines this may not be feasible. So I guess I should say that I want my size 4 pants to fit comfortably again. I was wearing a size 2 at the end of undergrad, but I think that size may be too small for someone of my height and build. I would like to achieve this goal by Christmas (although I may reach the goal and then succumb to the holiday treats!) and this seems to be a realistic time frame.
Along with these goals Keegan and I need to limit the number of times we visit restaurants to eat (which is not too frequently) but will still help us make healthy eating choices so we're not hit with meals where we consume more than a day's worth of calories in one sitting. My water intake also needs to be significantly increased; I did accomplish this in the months before the wedding but I've since slacked off and replaced water with soda or juice (which is not so bad, but high in calories and sugar if you don't watch the brands you buy).
So these are some lofty goals that are now tacked on to the list of personal goals I've set for myself involving my career and things like saving money to put in a Roth IRA (which I still have not opened- I'm such a slacker- my reason now is that I'll just wait until I change my name so I don't have to go through the hassle of changing the name on the IRA), to put towards a house, and towards more current things, such as a trip to Europe for Keegan and myself in a few years. I also realize that although I own my car now and have no payments or anything (other than insurance and routine checkups) to make on it, I will some day need to replace it. Sadly this month the way we were paid is different; I've been moved to a grant to be paid, so I will now have a W-2 instead of a 1099 MISC and I will have Social Security removed from my stipend. Students were also "given" roughly $2700 on top of our usual stipend for us to turn around and pay to Duke to cover our student fees for the summer; however, we were then taxed on that amount, and taxed at a staggering percentage, because it looks like we make almost $3000 more in a month than we actually do. So after the taxes were taken out from the total and I pay the $2727 owed to Duke for my summer fees (which incidentally is almost as much as my TUITION for one year at NCSU) my salary for June is about $730, which is less than half of what it should be... and I'm still trying to recover from paying the final wedding checks in the weeks prior to the wedding. I will be fine because I had some money saved from previous months, but it's a little irksome the way the payroll office chose to pay us to pay themselves instead of just taking their money out first. That extra $2727 makes it look like I get paid more than 10% more than I actually do and sucks for the purpose of taxes. I think there is a Lifetime Learning Credit I can claim on my taxes for instances like this; I remember learning about it before doing my taxes for this year although I couldn't use it last year (but my officemate could, so I talked to her about it). But all in all I can't complain; we got a 2.5% raise (which will cover some of the deficit caused by the Social Security that will now be taken from me) and I am still getting paid. I know many graduate students and recent grads are not so lucky, so I really am thankful, even if I don't sound it.
So I will post updates on my progress (and other life events, of course) as I work towards a healthier lifestyle!
Before the wedding I was drinking as many as 3 Diet Cokes per day, which is not only expensive, but is bad for my dental health and the rest of my body as well. My snacking was limited because my dress was certainly not going to magically get bigger if I did, but once we were on the honeymoon I went totally overboard with the candy eating and splurging. I wouldn't be surprised if I had gained 5-8 pounds since the wedding. That would put me around 135 pounds, which is still perfectly normal, but it's not the size I was before and I know that I have not been getting the daily values I need for any of the dietary categories.
Keegan and I received a scale as a wedding gift (thanks Clark!) so now I will really be able to accurately assess myself. Starting on Friday I cut myself back to 1 Diet Coke per day, and it's going fine so far. I drink the 1 per day because I get seriously intense headaches without caffeine, but I really think I could overcome that if I tried slowly cutting back on my intake. One can of soda contains 12 oz; I will continue the rest of the summer limiting myself to one can per day. I hope to eventually transition to buying bottles of soda so that I can slowly reduce my intake or switch over to buying caffeine-free Diet Coke to try to fool my mind into thinking I've got what I think I want... if that makes sense. Caffeine in soda doesn't actually make me stay awake, it just prevents the headaches.
I desperately need to increase the protein in my diet, but I really don't like to eat red meat and fish does not agree with me (translation: unpleasant digestion). I do however, really like eggs and nuts like almonds, cashews, peanuts, and pistachios, so I would like to incorporate these things in to my diet. I think I've avoided eating nuts lately because of the fat content, but small servings would be beneficial. I had high cholesterol when I was younger (middle school) so I try to steer clear of eggs for this reason, but once I read more about the dietary guidelines and perhaps get my cholesterol checked somewhere I'll be able to make more informed decisions.
Fruit and veggies have never been a problem with me because I love to eat them and will eat way more than the recommended servings without finding it to be inconvenient. However, I need to vary the types of vegetables that I eat to include more colorful veggies. I tend to gravitate towards the green veggies (broccoli, green peppers, cucumbers, green beans, spinach, lettuce, etc) but I don't eat the colorful ones (eggplant, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, etc). However, some veggies I just don't like or upset my stomach (tomatoes, peas, onions, mushrooms, squash, zucchini, lima beans) but I think I might like them if I tried them again or just found a new way to prepare them. There is no hope for the onion, the mushroom, or the tomato.
Keegan and I would be thrilled and blessed to have a large family someday and although such developments are not in the near future, I want to make sure that I am as healthy as I can possibly be before we decide to have kids. It may take awhile for me to actually integrate all of these changes into my(/our) diet, but I think it will definitely be worth it in the long run. I know I want to significantly reduce or eliminate my caffeine intake while pregnant and I need to be eating the foods that will provide the nutrients necessary for the development of a baby. I know there are prenatal vitamins that I will also be taking, but for myself I want to be able to be healthy without the need of supplements. Right now all I take is zinc to help with my immune system (and I only take that probably twice a week at best) and chewable fibers, but I don't want to be one of those folks who tosses down one of those GNC Vitapak things every day. I feel like something is wrong if you need to be taking 6 different supplement pills every day, but that's just me and that's just my view.
I don't really have a defined weight-loss guide for myself because I think my main desire is to be healthy on the inside, which will then most likely be reflected in my external appearance. I would like my "normal" weight to be between 120 and 125 pounds, but I realize as I develop my exercise and weight lift routines this may not be feasible. So I guess I should say that I want my size 4 pants to fit comfortably again. I was wearing a size 2 at the end of undergrad, but I think that size may be too small for someone of my height and build. I would like to achieve this goal by Christmas (although I may reach the goal and then succumb to the holiday treats!) and this seems to be a realistic time frame.
Along with these goals Keegan and I need to limit the number of times we visit restaurants to eat (which is not too frequently) but will still help us make healthy eating choices so we're not hit with meals where we consume more than a day's worth of calories in one sitting. My water intake also needs to be significantly increased; I did accomplish this in the months before the wedding but I've since slacked off and replaced water with soda or juice (which is not so bad, but high in calories and sugar if you don't watch the brands you buy).
So these are some lofty goals that are now tacked on to the list of personal goals I've set for myself involving my career and things like saving money to put in a Roth IRA (which I still have not opened- I'm such a slacker- my reason now is that I'll just wait until I change my name so I don't have to go through the hassle of changing the name on the IRA), to put towards a house, and towards more current things, such as a trip to Europe for Keegan and myself in a few years. I also realize that although I own my car now and have no payments or anything (other than insurance and routine checkups) to make on it, I will some day need to replace it. Sadly this month the way we were paid is different; I've been moved to a grant to be paid, so I will now have a W-2 instead of a 1099 MISC and I will have Social Security removed from my stipend. Students were also "given" roughly $2700 on top of our usual stipend for us to turn around and pay to Duke to cover our student fees for the summer; however, we were then taxed on that amount, and taxed at a staggering percentage, because it looks like we make almost $3000 more in a month than we actually do. So after the taxes were taken out from the total and I pay the $2727 owed to Duke for my summer fees (which incidentally is almost as much as my TUITION for one year at NCSU) my salary for June is about $730, which is less than half of what it should be... and I'm still trying to recover from paying the final wedding checks in the weeks prior to the wedding. I will be fine because I had some money saved from previous months, but it's a little irksome the way the payroll office chose to pay us to pay themselves instead of just taking their money out first. That extra $2727 makes it look like I get paid more than 10% more than I actually do and sucks for the purpose of taxes. I think there is a Lifetime Learning Credit I can claim on my taxes for instances like this; I remember learning about it before doing my taxes for this year although I couldn't use it last year (but my officemate could, so I talked to her about it). But all in all I can't complain; we got a 2.5% raise (which will cover some of the deficit caused by the Social Security that will now be taken from me) and I am still getting paid. I know many graduate students and recent grads are not so lucky, so I really am thankful, even if I don't sound it.
So I will post updates on my progress (and other life events, of course) as I work towards a healthier lifestyle!
World Traveler
Keegan and I had a wonderful honeymoon! Bermuda was a beautiful and peaceful place to visit, and all of the people there were very welcoming and nice (although I'm sure this is because their economy is based primarily on tourism). I posted many pictures on Facebook, but I took about 1200 (seriously). We mainly used the bus system to explore the island; we visited some underground caves, climbed lighthouses and church towers, explored forts, walked on the beaches, Keegan played golf while I enjoyed the scenery, and we took a boat tour that allowed us to see sides of the islands that larger boats are unable to visit.
We arrived home around 9p.m. on Sunday and I was back at the airport at 6:45a.m. on Monday to fly to Chicago for my conference. The conference was extremely informative and interesting but also very specialized. There were about 6 or 7 different groups there from all over the world and while I understood a bulk of their work, it was very chemistry-based. I now know I will need a more extensive chemistry (or polymer chemistry) background if I am to proceed with this as my research area. It would be wonderful to be on the forefront of the field, introducing these materials into the biomedical realm, but I'm going to need a bit more knowledge before that's feasible.
I got home around 1a.m. on Thursday from the conference and used that day to recover from all my flights and to compile my notes on the conference presentations to see how to best incorporate what I learned into my review paper. I also tried to make at least a little space in our place around all the wedding stuff that is piled up :-)
Friday we got up at 5a.m. and left around 6:30 to drive to Connecticut for Keegan's family reunion; we made it to Connecticut around 6:30p.m. and spend the night at his grandparents' house with his dad, one of his sisters and one of his brothers. On Saturday we again got up at 5a.m. to drive to Hardwick, VT for the actual reunion. We spent the afternoon there socializing with his (and my new) huge and extended family. I had a great time and people actually remembered me from last year! News travels fast though, because pretty soon we were approached as "David's boy from Gerard's family... the newlyweds!".
I personally loved Keegan's grandpa's hat; on the front it said "Genuine Antique Person" and on the back it said "Been There, Done That, Can't Remember". When asked where he got it, he said it was a present on his 75th birthday (he's 86 now) but that he only wears it on special occasions, which is why it still looks new. He and Keegan's grandmother will be celebrating their 63rd wedding anniversary in September; I only hope that Keegan and I will be able to spend such long and happy lives together too! :-)
So in a time span from Sunday, June 28 to Sunday, July 5 I was in two countries and 15 states. Bermuda to Philadelphia to Raleigh/Durham on June 28 followed by Raleigh/Durham to Cincinnati to Chicago on June 29 then Chicago to Detroit to Raleigh/Durham on July 1/2. Then factoring in the drive up on July 3 and the drive back on July 5 I hit North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachussets, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Delaware. Adding in Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan and you've got my 15 states. Plus Washington, D.C. too I suppose. We were going to try to hit Maine also, but that would've added some time to the drive to the reunion; Keegan says we can go there another time. I want to hit all the states at some point, plus I've heard Maine is beautiful :-) Keegan was there for a wedding last fall so he's already been there, but it will be new for me!
I think we are going to plan a trip to Rhode Island for our one year anniversary; we will time it to line up with the reunion so we will already be in the Northeast. We both enjoyed seeing the Biltmore House so this time we'd like to see where other Vanderbilts built their "summer homes" in Newport. Maybe we can take a drive along the coast to go visit Maine sometime during this trip :-)
Being married is so wonderful :-D
We arrived home around 9p.m. on Sunday and I was back at the airport at 6:45a.m. on Monday to fly to Chicago for my conference. The conference was extremely informative and interesting but also very specialized. There were about 6 or 7 different groups there from all over the world and while I understood a bulk of their work, it was very chemistry-based. I now know I will need a more extensive chemistry (or polymer chemistry) background if I am to proceed with this as my research area. It would be wonderful to be on the forefront of the field, introducing these materials into the biomedical realm, but I'm going to need a bit more knowledge before that's feasible.
I got home around 1a.m. on Thursday from the conference and used that day to recover from all my flights and to compile my notes on the conference presentations to see how to best incorporate what I learned into my review paper. I also tried to make at least a little space in our place around all the wedding stuff that is piled up :-)
Friday we got up at 5a.m. and left around 6:30 to drive to Connecticut for Keegan's family reunion; we made it to Connecticut around 6:30p.m. and spend the night at his grandparents' house with his dad, one of his sisters and one of his brothers. On Saturday we again got up at 5a.m. to drive to Hardwick, VT for the actual reunion. We spent the afternoon there socializing with his (and my new) huge and extended family. I had a great time and people actually remembered me from last year! News travels fast though, because pretty soon we were approached as "David's boy from Gerard's family... the newlyweds!".
I personally loved Keegan's grandpa's hat; on the front it said "Genuine Antique Person" and on the back it said "Been There, Done That, Can't Remember". When asked where he got it, he said it was a present on his 75th birthday (he's 86 now) but that he only wears it on special occasions, which is why it still looks new. He and Keegan's grandmother will be celebrating their 63rd wedding anniversary in September; I only hope that Keegan and I will be able to spend such long and happy lives together too! :-)
So in a time span from Sunday, June 28 to Sunday, July 5 I was in two countries and 15 states. Bermuda to Philadelphia to Raleigh/Durham on June 28 followed by Raleigh/Durham to Cincinnati to Chicago on June 29 then Chicago to Detroit to Raleigh/Durham on July 1/2. Then factoring in the drive up on July 3 and the drive back on July 5 I hit North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachussets, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Delaware. Adding in Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan and you've got my 15 states. Plus Washington, D.C. too I suppose. We were going to try to hit Maine also, but that would've added some time to the drive to the reunion; Keegan says we can go there another time. I want to hit all the states at some point, plus I've heard Maine is beautiful :-) Keegan was there for a wedding last fall so he's already been there, but it will be new for me!
I think we are going to plan a trip to Rhode Island for our one year anniversary; we will time it to line up with the reunion so we will already be in the Northeast. We both enjoyed seeing the Biltmore House so this time we'd like to see where other Vanderbilts built their "summer homes" in Newport. Maybe we can take a drive along the coast to go visit Maine sometime during this trip :-)
Being married is so wonderful :-D
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