Goooooooooood morning ladies! Well, Saturday we went and looked at 3 apartment places in Alexandria (where we want to move). I had called all 3 during the week to make sure they would have a floor plan we wanted available in October, which is when we want to move. They all did, so I asked if they had a similar floor plan they would be able to show us on Saturday if we stopped by, and they all said yes. Well, we got to the first place, and they didn't have one to show because someone unexpectedly showed up and move in on Friday, so we didn't get to physically see an apartment there, but the office was actually made outof an old apartment, so we got to see what the kitchen would be like--SO SMALL! As soon as we left I told Jeff I couldn't handle that kitchen. He agreed it seemed more like a closet with some appliances Strike one...

The second place we went to, they had said there were 2 different floorplans available in October (both 2-bedroom, which we wanted). One was much more expensive, so we decided to take a look at the cheaper one. Of course, upon arriving at the place, they told us that that one had already been rented out for October! Jeez, things go fast around here! Strike two...

So we went to a third place. We got to see a model--not bad. It had 2 bedrooms, L-shaped living/dining combo, a bigger kitchen, plus 2 bathrooms. The only problem was that there wasn't really any place for our computer desks--a major necessity! We put it in the "maybe" pile and called it a day.

Sunday, we went to look at a place that was a little more expensive, but still not unreasonable for the area. It had 1 bedroom and a den (which we would use as a guest room anyway--it just didn't have a closet). The living/dining area was a little bigger so (by my imaginary calculations) we would at least be able to fit Jeff's desk in the living room--I really didn't care if mine was in the bedroom (since I obviously do most of my computer stuff at work anyway ). It was also in a really cute neighborhood--lots of trees and lots of people out walking and biking and even a "botanical reserve" right around the corner. They were garden-style apartments that backed to a lightly wooded area, so it didn't seem like we were in the city, which was nice. There was also a shopping center within walking distance that had a grocery store, CVS, Subway, McDonald's (not that that interested me ), and Blockbuster. We had a new top contender!

Then we visited Tower 2000. Just sounds all futuristic and high-tech, doesn't it? Well, we almost didn't even go in to look because parking was SO ridiculous! All of the "Leasing Office" spots were full, so I parked right by the door and went in--she told us to park in the back. I told her we had already driven around in the back, and there were NO empty spots! So they gave us a swipe card to get into the secure parking lot for the residents. Upon returning to the building after parking, the lady at the desk gave us a few floorplans to look at and a price list, at which I gasped. Their "small studio" at 410 square feet was listed at $1105 per month We were looking for either a 2 bedroom or 1 bedroom with den. These were listed as starting at $1500 and $1350 (respectively). We had to wait for a leasing representative. Jeff and I contemplated leaving based solely on that price list. We were really trying to stick to around $1200 a month (I know, it's high, but normal for this area), possibly a little more (the aforementioned garden-style apartments would have been $1250). Well, wen the leasing lady finally came out, she told us that they were running a special until Tuesday of $300 off the rent. I asked if it was just off the first month, as this is usually what the specials are, and she said no, it's for the entire duration of the lease. Woohoo! So we looked, we loved, we got applications, we went home. I am calling this morning to make sure the one is still available for October, then I will go over there this afternoon to drop off the applications and application fee. Here's the one we decided on: it's a 2-bedroom called the Rembrandt. 2 bedrooms AND a den--perfect! Table in the dining area, couch/tv in the living area, desks in the den area, and guest room in the second bedroom! I am so relieved! It's oner 1,000 square feet and comes to $1206 per month plus water (which is capped at $35 per apartment per month). So, it's actually less even with water than the previous place we had looked at! Whew, what a weight off my shoulders! I was getting worried after Saturday's disappointments that everything for October would be filled by Sept. 1!

So that was my weekend--high-stress followed by relief and now excitement I also did pretty well food-wise until last night--I had made lasagna on Friday for dinner (one of my pplanned meals that day was pasta). I ended up haveing 2 pieces of it yesterday plus some of Jeff's pistachio ice cream However, I was so good for the rest of the weekend AND I am totally PMS-ing, so I didn't beat myself up over it. Even PMS-ing, I was down half a pound according to my scale this morning (down 1/2 a pound from my previous lowest, not from my gain on Thursday, so actually down 1.75 since Thursday, I guess--fruit and water work wonders ).

Now, how's THAT for a novel

paperclippy- not sure if someone answered your question re:books, but there is a large number of books abour a principle called 'Mindful Eating' a type of eating practiced by some sects of buddhism (zen buddhist primarily) mindfule eating is essential like breathing meditations, where what you concentrate on is the 'feeling' of the food...mostly you eat slowly, enjoy the texture of food, and the value of food for your body, you concentrate on the act of eating itself....for a more western explaination (of course if you are familiar with zen you know most of the principles have been converetd to very western taste) you can read material by 'Susan Albers' and Donald Altman who also did do some works with more traditional practitioners of buddhist principles so a pretty good read

hope this helps

Yup its a monday alright! I am in no mood, argueing with mike over small stuff... ARG! anyhow my weekend consisted of NO excercising besides dancing all night sat night.! Lets see, friday, we went out to a local bar had a huge grilled chicken salad with a couple of beers, that was a fun night... (smiles) and then sat I did my friends hair, went to a birthday party where I had some more beer and home to go out ith the girls! we went to a bar on the water so it was packed and I ended up getting REALLY REALLY drunk and danced my arse off! It was sooo much fun, but sunday, man o man was I in the hurt box. hung over and CRANKY! so I was being not so nice to miek last night. We went to another BBQ and to blockbuster renting moveis went home and argued so I pust Makayla to bed and watched "HOSTAGE" all by myself. GREAT MOVIE!! but couldnt sleep last night because we were fighting! Oh well, now Im back at work.. only 4 days though!!!! OH VACATION GET HERE NOW!!!
HOPE EVERYONE'S WEEKEND WENT WELL!!!!

Fall semester starts today (boo hoo), I did get up and get my cardio done though, I am hoping that will be a habit soon. I don't know how I feel about starting the day off with geography, but I don't really have a choice now. I am hoping that this week will bring more motivation than discouragement (unlike last week).

I just wanted to jump intot the chat this week. Hope everyone has a great day.

Good morning everyone! I have some good news, and some bad news. The good news is that I did not gain a single pound during either of the two trips I just took! Here's hoping I won't gain during the next one either.

The bad news is that there are some kids in our apartment complex who are getting out of control. A group of about 20 kids (they look about 8-12 year old) are running amok every night. A couple weeks ago they broke one of our windows. A week or so ago we saw them jumping up and down on someone's pickup truck in the parking lot (obviously not their parents' car) and we called security (they dented the roof and hood of the car). Every night we hear screaming and yelling outside our window. While I was out of town, they started throwing apples at the wall of our building, and when we got home from Ben picking me up at the airport, we discovered that someone had keyed our car and scratched the letter E into it (want to take bets on whether it was one of these kids?).

Anyway, we filed a police report about the car, not that it will do any good. We are also going to complain to the management of our complex. There has been a lot of crime in our area recently that all seems to have suspects in our apartment complex, and we are right next to a shopping center that has been vandalized recently. I'm hoping that when school starts these kids will settle down, but to be honest we're starting to be pretty scared. Of course all this trouble started a couple weeks AFTER we renewed our lease until next August -- if this had started in June we would have moved. I am so upset about these kids but I just don't know what to do other than call the police next time they are causing trouble. Ben is afraid that if we call the police and get some kids in trouble, their friends will retaliate against us (we live on the ground floor, unfortunately). Anyway, this whole business is causing a lot of stress, and he and I had a big fight about it yesterday, after I got back from my trip. I was pretty upset because I had had a bad time at the conference and was really looking forward to coming home, and he even bought me flowers, but then as soon as we found out about the car we just had a huge fight. Things are better now, but it's still pretty upsetting, especially since the people to blame are really the parents of these kids who are allowing them to run amok.

Sorry for the ranting, I'm just really upset about this and I know there is nothing I can do about it. Have any of you ever had anything like this happen?

Anyway, at least I can get back to eating right and exercising, until Friday at least (when I am going out of town again). Hopefully the kids won't cause any more trouble this week, I'm kind of afraid of what will happen when I'm out of town again.

Hey ladies! I'm back from my trip to Daytona...it was fun, but exhausting! I will definitely not be making another weekend trip to Florida anytime soon, and I hope I never have to drive through the entire night again in my life (left at 10pm Friday and got there at 6:45am Sat with no relief driver!)! We got back to our house yesterday around 7pm. The good news is I pretty much stayed on plan this weekend...I did eat some pizza, but only half of what I would normally eat. I also got in a lot of walking on the beach, playing in the ocean, and swimming. Woke up this morning to find another .5 lbs gone, so that's a total of 2.5 since last Monday (but after a week of no gain or loss).

jilly~ that apartment looks REALLY nice! Hope you get it!!

paperclippy~ I would definitely file police reports, and also call the police when you just see them hanging around so they can come out and you can identify the kids that are causing trouble. Or, if you're not too scared of confrontation, try finding out where they live and going to talk to their parents first--it could be that their parents work a lot or something and don't even know what's going on. Tell the parents if they don't get their kids under control you'll get the police involved...if they're smart they'll realize that once the police are involved THEY (the parents) are involved, and even deadbeat parents will usually do something about their kids behavior if it puts them out. If it were me I'd have a lot of trouble not snatching one of them up and giving them a good spanking when I saw them...LOL.

Morning ladies,

I didn't to well wth my plan. I was going to try and work out on Sat and Sunday. Somehow I skipped Friday, worked out Sat and didn't on Sunday. so not much of a change there, but oh well. I'll try again this coming weekend. It is really hard to break habits that's for sure.

I hope everyone has a great week! Good luck to the ladies starting back today, I start back next Monday at school...boo hoo...

Ok bye.

Hi Girls,
My weekend sucked even worst than ever. Went to the bar Saturday night didn't meet anyone it was just crowed with ppl younger than me, so we decided to go to a second bar and they were way older than me, we just couldn't find a happy medium anywhere. Sunday night is when I came clean to one of my guy friends buddys that I had liked him and that I am the one who he's been talking to on the computer. That didn't go so well he didn't say anything he was prolly disappointed and hasn't talked to me so now im a lil upset. Hopefully it was the right thing to do. Maybe it will work in the end, but with my luck in love it won't happen.

I went on a four mile hike this past Saturday (which made my calves burn the following morning.) It was a great day except for the sunburn that I'm enduring today because I didn’t wear any sunscreen. Other than that, no exercise for me this weekend. I plan to make this week better. My goal is to workout at least 4 times this week and to stop eating red licorice. I have an addiction to those little red twists that I need to break NOW! Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, yes? :: grin ::

Hey girls!!!
I'm trying hard not to be a crappy fat chick but I've been so busy the only time I have to check out the boards is at night when I'm too tired to be interesting.

I went and paid my group fitness fee at the gym today so I'm going to try to take the kickboxing class tomorrow. I'm really nervous. I also rented a locker for the year so I'm going to be able to leave my stuff there. I'm trying to make working out as convenient as possible since my schedule is INSANE.

I'm gonna try to catch up. Hope everyone has a good week!!!!

TERRIFIC TUESDAY! Morning ladies! hmm.... Summer is coming to an end. I cannot wait, I need to step it up on the working out , I havent worked out since last thursday! WHATS GOIN ON?? I watcxhed the movie 'hide and Seek" last night, and Im such a baby I was cared.. AHAHAHAH! Im sucha dork! anyhow hope everyones day is goin good! 3 more days.. beach here I come!

"Hide and Seek" wasn't too bad--better than a lot of the horrible scary movies that have been coming out lately! Seriously, people, I want to be scared, not laugh at the terrible special effects and cheesy acting Dakota Fanning absolutely gets my vote for most talented actress--she rocks! I just hope she can stay the straight path and not go the way of other child stars (Drew Barrymore, anybody?).

On a more related note, I skipped the gym yesterday in order to go out to the new apartment place to drop off our rental applications. I get there, and the lady is like, did you both sign the addendum to allow us to pull your credit report? Excuse me? addendum? Nobody mentioned any addendum to me on sunday afternoon while we were there OR the two times I called yesterday to make sure it wouldn't be a problem to drop off both applications if Jeff couldn't be there in person! ARGH! So I had to call Jeff and make him drive over to sign the addendum after work, so instead of being able to run the applications for approval yesterday afternoon, they can't do it till this morning (Jeff couldn't get there till after the leasing lady left for the day). So now I still don't know if we will be approved (I know I have great credit, but Jeff has almost NO credit--only a car loan; no credit cards, no student loans, nothing). I'm pretty sure that's the stress that caused last night's binge on pistachio ice cream. I don't even LIKE pistachio ice cream, but it was there, ya know? I never have ice cream in the house, but I had bought it to make Jeff a milkshake over the weekend. I would have sent it home with him (like I sent him home with the last 3 pieces of lasagna so I wouldn't eat them!), but it would have melted in the 1.5-hour drive home. But, now the ice cream is gone, and I will get that call about the apartment at some point this morning (the leasing office opens at 10--2 more hours...), and I think I'm about done PMS-ing, so no more excuses for eating poorly!! Although I do have to skip the gym again today in order to go to the pharmacy to pick up a refill on my pills

Justforus- I'm so jealous!! I wish I was going to the beach. I figure if it is going to be this hot I shouldn't have to wear pants, and laying around on the beach seems like the best place to do that. I might try to talk my mom into taking me labor day weekend. I cannot watch scary movies--ever. I'm always a baby about it.

f4ith - Like twizlers? They are addictive! I'm not sure what it is about them... they aren't as tasty as say, chocolate, but it is so easy to mindlessly eat a bag. Good goal and good luck!!

Curvaceous- I'm in the same unlucky in love boat with ya. I can't decide if I should give up or just pretend I'm giving up since that seems to be attractive for some reason. Hang in there and it will happen.. thats what I keep telling myself. I'm trying hard not to give off that desperate vibe, even though I always feel like I'm on the prowl.

SpillTheBeans - Don't be too hard on yourself. I had planned on working out Friday- Monday and only got like.. half a work out in. It is a new week though, so thats what I'm thinking about.

Christy- Way to go on the loss!!!

Paperclippy - Brats! I think if I were you I would call the police everytime they even breathed the wrong way. If not the police then my landlord/office place. Eventually thier parents will get sick of them being in trouble or or your landlord will see that they are causing a lot of stress and try to do something about. However, I'm kind of an old grumpy lady at heart, so maybe it is just me.
We once had a neighbor who broke into our cars, sheds, etc and stole things. It terrified me because I realized one day that he had been watching me and my family constantly to see when we were around and when we left. I still have nightmares about it when I go home. The police came a few times and there was actually a highspeed chase, but I don`t know if they ever caught him. His "house" (which was actually on a different street behind ours) got bulldozed because they were building a new neighbor.

Stephanie- I hope you're more encouraged this week too! Geography? Eek.. I have to start my day with geology. They both sound pretty boring.

jilly - Congrats on the loss! Moving is so stressful, but exciting too. That is a beautiful area.

Good morning ladies! Well, it sounds like we all had not-so-great weekends, but hopefully the week will be better! I'm working from home today (the luxuries of being a grad student) so I will probably spend more time posting here than actually working . . . oh wait, I do that even if I'm in my office!

Good luck to all you ladies starting school this week . . . We don't start until Sept 6, so I still have some time. Of course we start the day after I get back from this conference in Shanghai, so I will be totally jetlagged!

Stephanie and Lizzie -- Geography and Geology both sound pretty boring to me! Actually I think geography is kind of interesting, but I don't think I could handle staring at rocks for hours. Once our semester starts I will be starting my day with robotics. All my other classes are in the afternoon though.

Jill -- Good luck on the moving! Apartment rentals can be so stressful. I'm dreading the next time we have to move, luckily it's still a year away!

Yume -- Thanks for the tips, I'll look into that.

We called the management office about the kids causing trouble, they said they'd talk to the security guard. We also asked about if this continues if we would be able to get out of our lease, and they said if someone else was going to move in we could get out of it, but as of right now we're still hoping things calm down when school starts -- or at least when it starts to get cold. No kids will be out carousing at night when it's freezing!

I have mixed feelings about my next trip (I leave Friday). I'm really excited to be going back to LA for a couple days, I have been really homesick for SoCal lately. I'm dreading the conference in Shanghai though, and I don't want to be away from my bf for so long. A 16-hour flight followed by four days of minging with people I don't know who want to talk about research, which I don't like, then an even longer flight back, getting home after midnight, and my first class of the semester is at 9am the next day. Ugh. I should really stop whining so much, I know it's not as bad as working two jobs like some of you awesome ladies!

Paperclippy~ You should stop whining!! LOL j/k consider yourself lucky to travel like that! I WOULD LOVE TO DO what you are doing! instead of a boring desk job same thing day in and day out! Im JEALOUS!!
Jilly~ yea Im a baby when it comes to scary movies, even sissy ones like that.. LOL I ahte moving!! the packing and the mess...
Lizze~ mmm BEACH.... traverse city... Wanna see where Im goin?? Im not sure if I can link it in here or not Ill try... WWW.MYTRAVERSECITY.COM
Sooo pretty! Im making my lists of things to pack!! Im such a visual person....Bored at work again! ! It is supposed to be in the mid 80's all weekend!! WHOOHOO!!