Givin' it a Tri

In my on-going (and lately unsuccessful) quest to make fitness a regular part of my life, I've finally decided that I need to bite the bullet and just join a gym. I held out on this for a while because we have a little mini gym in our apartment complex, and "free" is a better fit with our much-chronicled grad school budget than a paid gym membership. But after a few months, I've think I've maxed out our free gym's usefulness. There are only two treadmills (one of which is always broken), one recumbent bike, and two elliptical machines. There are some free weights, but one of the two 10 lb. weights went missing about 3 weeks ago, and 10 lbs. is the weight I use for pretty much all of my exercises, so it makes it tough to do much lifting. And everything is about 15 years old. For fear of boring you any further, I'll skip to the point: our little apartment gym is not the kind of place I can get even a teensy bit excited about visiting. And when going to the gym sounds less appealing than scrubbing my toilet, nice facilities, a cool view, or an interesting class make it just a little bit easier to put down my DVR remote and get my butt up off the couch.

Enter Pure Austin. It's kind of the swanky gym in town, but what really attracted me to it is the tagline: "an indoor gym for outdoor people." And it actually lives up to this promise. It has an indoor climbing wall, all kinds of classes, a pool, and-- the coolest feature-- a huge outdoor quarry lake filled with fresh water where you can kayak or swim specific length courses marked off by buoys.
The lake also has a gravel track around it for jogging or walking. So, basically, it's a gym that offers a bunch of sporty activities that are way more interesting and engaging than 30 or 40 minutes on the ol' elliptical machine.

I am particularly excited because I swam competitively for 4 years in high school, but it's been years since I've been in pool for any other purpose than cooling off on a hot day. My knees aren't great, so while I enjoy running, it's not a good idea for me to pound the pavement more than about once a week. I've been wanting to get back into lap swimming, so this is perfect. And, because every couple years I get the itch to indulge my competitive streak, I am thinking that this will be the perfect opportunity to start training for a triathlon. It's something I've wanted to do for a while and since I find myself with plenty of time on my hands here in Austin (my social calendar isn't exactly overflowing-- possibly why I get so excited about grocery shopping as seen here and here), I figure now is the perfect time to start training. I own a bike, I'm already comfortable with running, and this weekend I'm joining a gym with not only a pool, but a place to practice open water swims. It's pretty much ideal.

I haven't figured out exactly which triathlon I'm going to do, but there are at least 3 in Austin in May or June. I'm leaning towards the Danskin women's tri, but in any case, I'll be doing a sprint distance: about a 750m swim, a 10-12 mile bike ride,and a 5K run. (I like a little challenge to motivate me; I don't like intense physical pain and mental anguish.) So there you have it. I'm giving it the old college tri! ; )

Weekend update

Our weekend started early with J's gall bladder surgery last Thursday. It was an out-patient procedure, so we were only at the hospital for about 6 hours, but I took the day off to chauffeur my hubby and play nurse. The surgery went off without a hitch, and we made it home around 1pm. After several anesthesia-induced hours of loopiness, he was almost back to normal by that evening. I went back to work on Friday, and he spent the day recuperating.

The weather here has turned a corner and it's suddenly gorgeous-- sunny, no humidity, and in the mid-70s. Like Seattle in the summer-- only it's verging on late October. Ha! For the first time since we arrived here, I had the feeling of wanting to spend as much time outdoors as possible this weekend. So on Friday night, we kicked off the weekend with dinner, drinks, and live music on Botticelli's back patio. I've had happy hour there before and it was so-so, but I was pleasantly surprised with my prosciutto and sage stuffed chicken breast on a bed of mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts. (Is it weird that I love Brussels sprouts? I really do... ) Plus the patio is gorgeous. I love the huge like oaks strung with globe lights arching over every patio down here.

On Saturday morning, I went for a long walk around Town Lake. Then I met up with J and one of his buddies at Doc's, an outdoor bar next to our apartment complex, to watch the UT-OU game. I don't know if it was the beautiful weather, the fact that the place was jam packed with 'Horns fans, or the prospect of a UT National Championship this year, but somewhere along the line, I have become a legit fan-- yelling, screaming, and pumping my fists with the best of them. The first half was rough for both the Longhorns and the Sooners, but we prevailed and are now 6-0 for the season.

Later on Saturday evening, Jason and I had a super romantic date night, er, I mean grocery shopping trip. But, really, grocery shopping can be exciting! (Possibly a cue that I need to get out more, but that's a whole 'nother blog post...) Anyway, I am obviously huge fan of Central Market, but the whole paying-for-grad-school-and-trying-to-live-on-one-income thing makes those trips to Central Market few and far between. Enter my new fave, Sprouts. This place is awesome! It's the next best thing to Trader Joe's opening up here in the Lone Star state. Essentially, Sprouts is Central Market-quality on more of a TJ's budget, but with a much bigger produce section. Tons of fresh fruits and veggies, many of them organic, and lots of organic dairy and natural, hormone- and antibiotic-free meats. I still miss my TJs, but in the meantime, Sprouts will definitely do.

On Sunday, we took another walk around our neighborhood, ran some errands, and then stopped in for an impromptu coffee and cupcake break at this cute coffee shop, Mozart's, which is right on Lake Austin. It was such a nice day that we wound up just killing a couple hours driving around and exploring some of the posh neighborhoods around Lake Austin, and then hiking up to check out the view from Mt. Bonnell. Then we came home, raided our freshly stocked fridge and whipped up some roasted salmon and asparagus. Mmmm. Perfect way to end the weekend!

Motivation

Having kind of a blah day here. It's raining, which normally I wouldn't complain about since we get far too little of it and it reminds me of home, but it's also about 82 out, so it's this gross steamy rain. Windows literally steam up because of it. Yuck. I also have literally nothing to do at work currently, so the minutes are just dragging by. I've been trying to use my free time to get myself organized and make lists.

List-making is one of my favorite activities-- I keep all kinds of on-going lists: groceries, stuff I need from Target, other items I'd like to purchase for my home, tasks I need to accomplish today, this week, and over the long term. However, the lists are just that-- lists. Sometimes I find it hard to figure out how to transfer my zest for making lists into actually doing the stuff on the lists. Housekeeping is my biggest challenge. I am a strange version of neat freak-- I LOVE to have a clean, pristine house with everything in its place, but I go through these binge and purge phases where I'll just be too exhausted and overwhelmed with everything that I feel needs to get done so I'll just do nothing. The result is a mess-- dishes in the sink, clothes strewn all over the bedroom floor, and little piles of paper on every flat surface throughout my home. Inevitably, I will get a burst of motivation and finally be able to face the to-do list, and then I'll feverishly clean every nook and cranny until my entire apartment is gleaming. However, this is not a good system. It's exhausting, and it always consumes most of a weekend whenever I go on one of my cleaning sprees.

What I need is a system that inspires me to do a little bit each day so that I can keep on top of the clutter without needing to spend my precious weekends devoted to cleaning up the mess we made all week. It's just so hard to find the motivation! I can stick with it for a few days, but then it just begins to feel like I'm a little hamster running around on a wheel and that the cleaning, tidying, and organizing is never going to end. (Which I suppose is true... we are human after all.) Does anyone have any great systems you use for keeping your houses tidy on a regular basis? Or motivational secrets to tackle the clutter and those other little projects around the house that just nag at you? Please share!

Weekend update

Exciting weekend around these parts! After much scheming and secretive discussions with several family members on both sides (moi included), my sister's boyfriend proposed! We all love Mike, so we're super excited to have him join the family as a new bro/son-in-law. And hats off to him... Mike managed to totally surprise my sister with an incredibly elaborate proposal that included a walk to a park where he feigned setting up the camera timer to take a "scenic fall picture" of the two of them under a canopy of fall foliage, followed by a surprise stay at a nice hotel downtown, which he had spent the morning decorating with rose petals and supplying with cheese, homemade chocolate covered strawberries, and champagne-- and then, as though that wasn't enough, dinner at Seattle's fanciest restaurant, Canlis. Laura is a lucky girl and we can't wait to toast them in person when we head home for the holidays!

Meanwhile, J happened to be in Seattle for one of his good friend's (and groomsman's) wedding, so I took the opportunity to travel down to San Antonio to visit my good friend Anne. We only live about an hour and 15 minutes apart, but don't manage to see each other enough, so it was fun to head down there and indulge in 24 hours of girl time. We visited a huge outdoor shopping center called The Shops at La Cantera, where I managed to walk away with two necklaces and a purse for only $35 (courtesy of Forever 21... love that place.) Later we had dinner at a delicious French bistro called La Frite. I truly think that Saturday night might have been only the second or third time in the two and a half months that I've been here that a meal out hasn't been Mexican food. Don't get me wrong-- I love me some Tex Mex-- but with Mexican restaurants on every street corner here, it's easy to forget that there is a whole wide world of different cuisines out there. I had a delicious tomato crab bisque, followed by moules frites (big pot of steamed muscles basted in a tasty white wine, garlic broth and lots of Belgian style fries for dipping.) Mmmmm....

Sunday we slept in and chatted a bit over a breakfast of coffee and scones before I headed home. I spent much of the rest of the day on the phone chatting again with my sis about the proposal and then discussing it in depth with half of my family. We're all very excited! Good thing I kept all my wedding planning materials and vendor info-- I have a feeling it will come in handy!

Fall Decor

Lately I've seen a lot of posts out in blogland about fall decor. I am not one to get too seasonally snazzy with my decor, but in our current apartment we have a mantle-- and it has been begging for a little embellishment for a few months now. When we first moved in, I had a mish mash of framed photos and some glass candlesticks on display, but it just wasn't doing anything for me. With such a huge blank wall above the mantle, I knew I needed something with a little height, and, unfortunately, a grad school budget does not permit much in the way of art purchases.

But, on my maiden voyage to Hobby Lobby (another fabulous store we're lacking out west-- kind of like Michael's meets the Marshall's home wares section meets discount furniture store), I found the mirror in the photos below. It was 50% off (can't beat that!) and stained a nice dark wood color that compliments our other furniture and will be in style for years to come. So I was able to justify the purchase. I also found matching dark wood pillar candlesticks from Pottery Barn (again with a 10% coupon for having recently moved), so the look was complete.

Both of these items will be permanent-- not just for fall-- but now that I had my nice mantle decor in place, I couldn't resist adding a little autumnal flare. Enter Central Market. I scooped up some miniature pumpkins and gourds, grabbed a few large branches of bittersweet vine, and voila! I feel like it's quite inspired for about 5 minutes of work!

The whole "mantlescape" (yes, this is a word I recently read in a Ballard Designs catalogue) from a distance. I'm particularly proud of the proportions-- I think the mirror fills up the wall space nicely.

And a closer look at my mini gourds and bittersweet vine.

Happy Fall!

(And, yes, I know this is hard to read without any paragraph breaks. I keep trying to fix it, but Blogger is not cooperating. Any tips on this?)

Rough Week

Well, I'm already not doing so well at my goal of posting more frequently in October, but it's been a long week. J has been dealing with increasing gallstone pain that starting flaring up about two weeks ago. It was a gradual thing at first, but the only real treatment is to get your gall bladder removed, so he was hoping to be able to make it to winter break before having to deal with a surgery. Not to mention, this week was his finals week for his first quarter of school. As the pain got worse and worse last week, he was popping pain medication and studying and hoping just to get through this week. That was not to be.

On Monday night, we spent 6+ hours in the ER, and discovered that he had some additional (although not too serious) abdominal issues. The doctor in the ER was able to treat him for that, but it was clear that his gall bladder would need to come out sooner rather than later. After several sleepless nights, lots of intense pain-- and some intense anxiety about school too-- J had to reschedule two of his finals, but managed to take the other two. He met with a surgeon, and the faulty gall bladder will be coming out next Thursday. So we're very happy to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's been a long, tiring week nonetheless.

However, on a more positive note, I thought I'd leave you with some photos from the Austin City Limits (ACL) music festival last weekend. We went on Friday and it was a gorgeous afternoon/evening. We saw Thievery Coroporation, who were amazing. After their set, we thought we'd wander around a little, grab some food, and maybe check out another band before Kings of Leon (the headliners) came on. The evening took a little bit of a wrong turn, however, when we spent a full hour in line for a port-o-potty that was a few inches short of overflowing. Mmmmm. I knew there was a reason I generally avoid huge festivals. Overall, though, it was fun to check out such a famous Austin event and the music that we did hear was great.

Me as we entered the festival. The park setting was super nice. It was amazingly clean considering how many tens of thousands of people were there. (Although this was Friday... it might not have looked so nice on Sunday.)

The entrance to the park as we were leaving that night-- all lit up!

Ode to Central Market

I'm really beginning to enjoy this blogging thing, so I've decided that for the month of October, my only goal will be to post more frequently. Inspired by my favorite place to spend money in Austin, I give you:

Ode to Central Market

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways

You sell things like Organic Hatch Green Chili Corn Chips

Cheese that smells like dirty gym socks

But tastes delicious

And wild salmon from the Pacific-- never farmed

Because I care about things like that

You lure me in with your artful displays

Of heirloom tomatoes and ten kinds of potatoes

And, oh! The free samples

Yet you do not judge

When I throw Diet Coke

Or non-organic toilet paper

into my cart

Central Market, you complete me

You make grocery shopping fun

You even have those tiny two-tiered shopping carts

That maneuver so easily around corners

I am forever yours

(For my friends back home, Central Market is the perfect hybrid of Whole Foods and Metropolitan Market-- all the gourmet deliciousness, but less pretentious. Plus they actually carry some normal products [e.g., Diet Coke] and have sales that make the prices reasonable. If only they would expand to the west coast!)