formerlybostonchile

I am absolutely convinced that I am coming down with something. My throat continues to be on fire, and now I have a bit of congestion. Argh. I could barely get out of bed this morning. I set my alarm to 5 and snoozed all the way to 7am. I must be tired. I am even yawning as I write this. In fact, I think I will take my happy self to bed very early tonight, and start everything I have planned on Tuesday.

I finally went to Las Vegas. It wasn't a pleasure trip. I was sent by my boss to learn how to code better and make money so really most of my time was spent in a teaching class and i am very proud to say that I didn't fall asleep once. I did get a chance to go for a spot of sightseeing after the class. I really dragged my feet but eventually at around 6pm, I was ready to leave the hotel. The hotel where I stayed was close to the monorail and bus so getting to the strip was super easy. I bought a 24 hour pass and I was good. My initial plan was to go to Bellagio and see the water show, the conservatory and then from there go to the outlet shops to see what i could see. However, and these people who built the monorail are very very brillant people, in fact, they need to get a genius grant for being good at separating tourists and their money because I was completely derailed once I got off the train at the stop for Bally's. As you, my one beloved reader, may or may not know...

Whoa, life got busy there. Crazy week. Good for business but not good for my me time. Sometimes I wish I could breathe think dream medicine, then I wouldn't resent it for taking all my time from me. It always seems to come first, takes over, and pushes everyone and everything else out. Sigh. But all things must come to an end, and just like that *snaps fingers*, its Friday already and here I am waiting for my flight to Vegas. Wish I were going for pleasure, I have a work conference to attend. Nevertheless, am excited a bit. I have never ever ever been in Vegas, flown over Vegas, driven through Vegas or even looked at Vegas. I was supposed to go with a co-worker but due to drama and shenanigans, am going by myself. I am kind of happy about that, cos I was kind of dreading going with this person. But, at the same time, this means I really have to get out of my shy mode and make an effort to visit a place or two on Sunday. I was thinking of maybe thrifting but am not sure. Speak...

For once I didn't wake up with a song in my head. I woke up instead to my phone ringing but I thought it was my alarm. My first reaction was already, am not ready! I tend to leave my phone, which is my alarm and my ipod, also my alarm outside the room so i will actually get out of bed. Anyway, I picked it up, saw i had a missed call from nigeria. Wondered why they always call me at the crack of dawn, read my email, ignored another najia phone call, continued reading my email including a devotional that i usually avoid, felt convicted, read another devotional felt more conviction and then finally checked the time and saw it was 5:45! Big hiss. What!! I could have slept for another 30 minutes! I had been got. I need every ounce of sleep because honestly, I have been wavering between hungry at night and exhausted at work. I fell asleep at my desk for the second time in a row yesterday. No, I don't have the nine month flu. Last night was a battle! I was hungry, HUNGRY! For dinner...

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer . Psalm 19:13-14 My devotional from Joyce Meyers on Sunday and again today re-emphasized something that I keep forgetting: the amazing creative power of the tongue. I've always said the above verse in church as part of the parting benediction/grace but it wasn't until today that the words truly hit me. We are made in God's image and just like Him, we have the ability to create things out of nothing through our tongues. Meditate on that for a minute. It is still a mystery to me but as I've gotten older, I have realized that what we say and what we think matters.  As my driving teacher once told me, we drive towards what we see. I figure it must be the same for what we say and what we think. The words we say and think tend to be programmed into us and eventually become reality. I have seen this firsthand in many aspects of my life . I work in a bu...

Last Monday, I took the time to write down a few goals that I wanted to accomplish for myself. Work related, I promised myself to write two handouts for my patients. I started to, and realized that all the work had already been done for me on an amazing site called healthychildren.org. So I've decided to just print what I need and give it to those parents who are interested. My personal goals were more extensive. Visit a thrift store three times this week--  I guess I should clarify why. Basically, my ultimate goal is to transform my apartment into a beautiful place that I love by June 2012. However with my huge consumer debt, am kind of on a limited budget so I can't buy out HomeGoods like I want to, therefore thrifting was my solution. However, I was frustrated because I never find anything good except books. Last week, I discovered Mr GoodwillHunting's blog and i salivated over and coveted his finds and wondered why i wasn't ever so lucky. Apparently others ha...

I fell asleep on the couch last night, sitting up with my laptop close beside me. I was trying to bang out my 1000 words for the day. But I had wasted so much time surfing aimlessly and i couldn't get into the space. Still I kept going because I was determined not to give up so soon. As it turns out, useless web surfing is one of the things that is on my DO NOT list. What is aimless surfing? It is when you just sit on the computer and aimlessly go from random site to random site, reading things you have no business reading and wasting precious time. And my time is particularly precious cos i don't get home till after 7 sometimes and my goal is to be in bed at 11pm so i can wake up at 6 and do it all again. Today is a half day yay. three more work days left, i consider thursday to be my hump day. i need to get my act together today and get my car registered and all that. i am getting paranoid now everytime a police car or even a mustang (cos for some odd reason, mustangs are ...

I felt very good this morning. For the first time in a long time, I resisted the late night snack monster and the late night procrastinator monster, and all the monsters that prevent me from doing the things that I should be doing. I publicly gave up gari and sugar right here on this blog as of last Friday. I even drew a crude incentive chart and put it on my fridge. I check it off every morning if I manage to stay gari free the night before. Of course, being the cheater that I am, I originally replaced the gari, sugar habit with popcorn and honey roasted peanuts. Yes, I did. But last night was the first time I didn't eat anything extra aside from my dinner. Like my mommy always said whenever i was still hungry after a meal, drink water. So i drank water and took myself to bed. I think I am begining to feel good about my present weight. I feel lighter in my body, I don't feel as constricted and bloated and FAT as I had been feeling before I started exercising regularly. My ...

I think i might be coming down with something. When I woke up this morning, my throat was on fire. I hope I don't end up losing my voice. It's so cold, so cold, so cold. But I just did a quick estimate of my light bill and it's going to be worth it. I can still be more conscientious about light though. My upstairs neighbor's meter is less than mine. Obviously, I can start unplugging stuff and turning off unneccesary lights. I am just too competitive. I weighed myself yesterday and am just 4-5 pounds away from my goal of being under 180 by the end of this month. I get so hungry late at night though. I don't know what to do about that. I started off with good intentions, i had my oven roasted chicken plus a huge bowl of salad for dinner. i ended up tossing the salad out because i highly suspected that the tomatoes in it had gone bad. note to self, when making salad ahead of time, eat it quickly or add tomatoes later. in fact, add all wet stuff later. oh well. i am g...

Every morning I set my alarm for 6 am and every morning I do not fully come alive until way past 6, even when I wake up before my alarm clock like this morming. Why? o Why? This week is going to be an awesome week. I have to repeat that affirmation to myself all day cos this week is a 6 day work week. Argh! I have enjoyed my last two weekends off tremendously, but alas all good things must end. With the exception of the passing of the Voice, this weekend was a great weekend. I woke up at the crack of dawn as always which is soo annoying. Luckily, I didn't have to spend hours cleaning. I just hung up my clothes, emptied my sink and loaded the dishwasher, ate something for breakfast and finally left the house. I went to look for my pulls at micheals, and a scale at bbb. No success at any of them but i did walk away with some trim for about a dollar each. I am thinking of jazzing up my boring white lamp shade. I bought blue trim but now am thinking that maybe that's too bori...

I was first introduced to her amazing voice by my mother who brought her tape home one day. I played that album out, in fact, hers was the last voice I heard before I went to sleep every night.  Whitney, I loved her and eventually I came to know almost every song she had song to date (circa 1992-93, still don't know how because this was before Google, YouTube, ITunes, shoot the internet wasn't even widely accessible yet).   I remember being so excited for her when she was on Video Soul with Donnie Simpson talking about her soon to be born daughter and the name that she and her husband had finally agreed on: Bobbi Kristina.  I remember watching her perform on one award show or the other and shutting it down! I was in awe of her talent. She could SING! You couldn't talk bad about Whitney to me back then. A friend of mine dared to say Sade was prettier than Whitney, I'm still a bit mad at her for that. And when the Bodyguard soundtrack was released, I...

I got a thorough dressing down from my trainer last night. He weighed me and let's just say even I was apalled and ashamed. I confessed about my late night predilection for gari and sugar. I didn't tell him about the chicken marsala that I carried home from work and had for breakfast and snack yesterday. Anyway, after our training session which was fun, I went home and threw that chicken crap right in the trash where it belonged. I need to be serious about this. I am giving money I aint got to this. Ooowee. I don't know what it is about late night eating and me. I am very good during the day, except for yesterday. I usually eat a healthy breakfast. I alternate between a homemade "parfait" kashi go lean cereal with greek yogurt, smoothie with a scoop of protein powder or huevos rancheros (basically black beans, salsa and two eggs over easy. I throw it in the microwave and cook for two minutes). Lunch is pretty good too. This week am alternating between a cabbage st...

Yay Thursday! Half day! and am one step closer to Friday! Of course, I have a lot of catching up to do today so I don't know if I will actually get to enjoy the half day but just the thought that I will be driving home in the daytime not in the darkest dark has me happy. There has been a  beautiful full moon out the past few days so the drive has actually been nice. I started this post in the am, and then stopped because I had nothing more to say and I was cold and sleepy. It's now almost 12 hours later and am still cold and sleepy. I am determined to write through the nothing to say phase. Like I heard in a sermon the other day, persistence is about doing things you don't feel like doing. I am still trying to find pulls for my dresser. The issue I have is that I do not want to spend more than 20$. Am I being super cheap? I went on anthropologie's website and I saw some stuff I really liked but I didn't like the price tag of $8 so much. But it's so pretty ...

Yes, Super Bass was the only song I heard during my workout yesterday that inspired me to complete a routine without whining or calling my trainer names. I think I need to make my own workout mix. I decided the other day to go back to watching what I listen to because the mind is a powerful thing that tends to hold on to whatever you feed it, no matter what that thing is. So I decided to download the sermons I missed from the church I have decided to start attending. Long story short, one of the things that resonated with me from one of the sermons and was echoed today in my devotional is persistence. Rick Warren's specifically says "nothing great is every accomplished without persistence and patience." I have always been a writer and when I was younger I wrote a lot. Everyday, everywhere. On the bus, while waiting for something, later at work. I wrote in my journal daily. I had scraps of paper on which I wrote stuff. And all that writing paid off, I always had some i...

@HGTV.com A tray of succulents as a centerpiece on my countertop or future dining table @1stdibs.com My future dining table This set of silverware from CB2 Amazon.com Some nice crystal pulls for my bedside table A herb garden. Mine, circa 2009 Miami.

 My crazy looking art project. Retry! The curtains. Ignore the unevenness. I have a problem with straight lines. Before After. Need more stuffing! Problem Child! Don't know why the wood wouldn't fit. Will have to try again.  So going over my bed. So excited about it! No clue where to put this. Too small for over the tv.

Last week was pretty good for me. I worked out five times. My goal was six because I thought I had a session on Saturday, turned out I didn't. I didn't do a good job of eating well though. I hope to rectify that this week, well, starting tonight cos I did soak some garri with sugar at 1am when I couldn't sleep. It kept calling me, calling me, calling me. I was good about making my bed during the week, but on the weekends not so much. I didn't empty my sink daily..oops. And I doubt I will be good about this week cos my sink is presently full of pots. I cooked last night: I made a salad for my dinners - red cabbage, lettuce, carrots and sweet bell peppers which I plan to dress up with chicken, tuna or eggs and have for dinner. I had planned to grill some chicken on the grill outside during the weekend but I got caught up and Sunday was so cold that I didn't even bother. I probably won't get home until after dark so I guess I will be using the George Foreman...

going to church today. Woke up too late for the 9:00am so I have to go to the 10:30am. Havent been to church in a long while. Don't know why. Just fell out of the habit. But I need to go out there and connect with God's people. He did say, do not neglect our meeting together: Heb 10:25 NLT. Sigh. I am returning to Life Church. It's right behind my house. So no need to travel too far. There are some Redeemeds here. But they split in two for whatever reason and I refuse to choose one over the other. Saturday was so so in terms of goals. I did get my chest after all for 30$ off, am going to buy some crystal pulls and wash it down and put it next to my bed. I put up my curtains. Got my wood for my canvas framing but it was too long so am going to see if they will recut it for me Did my art work. LOL. Looks crazy Bought a 9$ bag of fiberfill and could barely fill two ottomans. Will have to buy more. Or find a rag store or something. Today is cook and clean day after chu...

Been dreaming all day yesterday and this morning about this: Pottery Barn Mirrored Bedside Table West Elm: Low cutout headboard West Elm: Diamond Tufted Headboard Ok, the original inspiration from the dream is hotter, hardware makes all the difference. My sister, the best negotiator evah!, told me to ask for 20% off. If they agree, then it might come home with me. Rubs hands with glee. But then, I will need to change my headboard asap from this to this: Need to get a move on. Didn't realize Home Depot opened at 6am. Woulda been there since. I've been up since 6am. My natural alarm clock doesn't realize am off on Saturday!  Lots of projects to do today. Finish hanging up my curtains.  Stretch my canvas and hang it.  Fill my Hausa ottomans/poufs. My little art project Tidy up Plan a menu and implement it.  Not so bad in list format. Off we go. 

Yay, it's Friday at last and I have Saturday off! This is my first Saturday off since the end of 2011. I worked three Saturdays in January, and most of my Saturdays were in a row. So I am super excited about tomorrow. I hope to finish hanging my curtains in my living room. I started but I realized many things, most important of which was my ladder is just tooo damn short. I was on my tiptoes the whole time. So am going to break down and buy a ladder. Had a very odd dream. There were some other young Nigerian pediatricians like myself in town. Like myself they ended up here because they couldn't find jobs in their home city. Very odd. What are u saying subc? Had my training session yesterday. He took my measurements. I still have a long way to go. My body fat is still pretty high. Yeah, I need to get my act together post haste cos I am paying way too much for me not to have any significant results. My target weight for the end of the month is under 180. I need to stop ...

I keep waking up with random snippets of song in my head. That song is from a reggae mixcd I've been listening to lately so I really have no clue who the singer is. Moving on. Yesterday was a great day. I did my couch to 5K training. I am on Week 6 day 2 or three I think and the running time has increased to 10 minutes at a go. Now I don't run too fast. In fact, as the length of running time has increased, I have decreased my speed and right now am comfortable at a pace of 12:45 sometimes 12:30. The first ten minutes were alright. But the last ten minutes? OMG, I really wanted to stop. I had all kinds of justification too, I was going to be late for work. I can complete the work out this evening (total lie, I can't workout in the evening alone for some reason), I will this, I will that. It was hard, but I managed to ignore all those voices. I did give in a tad and reduced the speed for about a minute, but then I continued on. I felt so awesome when I completed it. I was...

As I opened  blogger to write a post, the song ojo Monday jumped to my head. I mourned my unbacked up and crashed ibook immediately. I have so much music that I've lost. I haven't heard that song since 200something. I didn't even remember who did it which is a damn shame cos am a Fela stan. Anyway, rushed to Youtube to find it. They didn't have it, but there is a band called Ogun Afrobeat that did a pretty decent cover considering they don't even speak the language. Turned out it's called by its English name: Monday morning in Lagos: Anyway, all that to say it's Ojo Wednesday and I hope I survive. I worked out yesterday with my trainer. My arms are looking nice per him and me. Am still a bit weak though as in, I don't have much stamina for certain exercises. Anyway, time is already fast spent. I have to go for my jog and yet again I didn't edit my playlist. Why do i procrastinate so! PS. Turns out that I do have that song, must have bac...