So while I’ve had a great few months running around the northwest of England with my amazing boyfriend FIANCE! (that’s right! I’m engaged! but that’s another story for another post) this has led to some neglect in other parts of my life.
I stopped running. I felt (oh, who am I kidding – FEEL) really self-conscious being around a bunch of fit 18 year olds. I don’t want to run. I don’t want people to look at me. This is the same issue I had when I wanted to start running a year ago. And I need to put my big girl pants on and getthehelloverit. Because, really, no one pays attention. When I’m out and I see people running, whether they’re in shape or working to get there, I don’t think a thing about it. (Well, actually, I’m jealous). So I’m assuming most people are the same.
And I quit WW. I live in a dorm, and eat dining hall food, and I told myself there was no way to stay on plan because of that. That’s just not true. It is true that I often eat the worst options there but there are AMAZING options as well, that would let me stay OP. I just chose not to eat them.
While the jeans I brought with me still fit, they are a bit tighter, and that’s a no-go.
I have a lot to look forward to – the fiance and I are going home in April, where I will try on wedding gowns and have engagement pics taken. I want to feel good and not be miserable for some of the most exciting events in my life.
I went to weightwatchers.co.uk and found a WW meeting that is close to campus and convenient on Tuesdays. I will print out the coupon on Monday and march myself in there on Tuesday. I will also stop eating french fries for dinner.
I have had, more or less, the same haircut for about 10 years. Shoulderlength, middle part, no bangs.
Until a few months ago (Well, in the spring) when I got some totally cute sideswept bangs:
Now, most people say I’m lucky, that I have really pretty hair. It’s ridiculously think, and people say that’s awesome too. Well, I’m here to tell you, it’s not. I am sick and tired of my hair. Inevitably, I go to the hairdresser, and they see my dilemma and chop and thin my hair out, but it’s so bloomin thick that in a month, it’s horrible again.
At home I’d finally found a stylist to do my hair (she’s the one who did the bangs) and that lasted for quite awhile. I went to one here in England, shortly after I arrived, to trim and thin out and get the bangs back but she didn’t really do a great job. *sigh*
It’s at the length now where it just…..lies there. Blech. It’s ridiculously thick and a pain to brush. My bangs are so long they no longer do the cute side sweep thing and now I’m back to just a middle part. with short bits on the side.
*headdesk.*
I know in the grand scheme of things, this is a minor problem. BUT let me tell you how disheartening it is to get a haircut and in a month, to be back to hating it because it’s just so thick and unmanageable.
I am also a wuss. I am too afraid to do something drastic because I think “Oh, god, what if I hate it and look horrible?” My instructions to the hairdresser are always the same: no straight bangs, leave enough to pull back into a ponytail.”
Well, let me tell you, it’s obviously not working anymore and I can’t bloomin’ take it. I have an appointment at 11:30 tomorrow and I am seriously considering going in there and letting her do whatever the heck she wants.
Any suggestions?
(P.S) if it looks horrid, don’t expect pics for awhile. :p
EDIT:
It’s settled. I want hair like this:
That is exactly the length I want. I told the girl who did my hair last time to go chin length and she didn’t. Tomorrow I shall sit in that chair until she does it!!!!!!
And maybe one day, in a parallel universe, I could have hair like this:
Can we all just agree that Mariska Hargitay must be an alien, or something? She’s too ding dang pretty.
The Chris Brown Wedding intro dance thing. (What are we calling this anyway?) Now, this is a bunch of people who know how to have fun at a wedding.
So, as I was watching a BSB video on youtube (Straight Through My Heart, Live on Jimmy Kimmel) it hit me. How fun would THAT dance be to do down an aisle at a wedding?? Or, well, some version of it. Obviously there’d be some gaps to fill.
So, Gawker is my website obsession du jour. Today, while I should have been reading for class, or working on a first draft of a paper, or running, or doing a million other more productive things, I was browsing Gawker. And I come across this article:
And in my head, I’m like, “You’re kidding me, no?” Surely this article must not contain what it leads me to believe it contains. So I click the link. And sure enough, this new york times columnist says that Ballerina Jenifer Ringer “looked as if she’d eaten one sugar plum too many.”
Really? I hope everyone clicks that link and checks out the pictures. And also reads the tidbit where an interview with Working Mother magazine is discussed. Jenifer has a history of eating disorders (anorexia and binge eating).
My question is this: Why is this even remotely OK? Does this man not see something wrong with calling a ballerina, who has previously battled eating disorders, fat? Really?
To be fair, I am not a dancer. I know nothing about dancing. I do know, however, that the woman in those photographs is gorgeous and I can assume she’s talented if she’s dancing in the New York Ballet’s The Nutcracker.
Today I saw an advertisement that almost made me pee my pants in excitement.
That’s right folks. New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys. Touring. Together.
Some might say, “But, Kristen, you’re (almost) 27 years old. Aren’t you a little old for boy bands?”
And in response to this I’d snort and laugh.
Um. Noooooo. I am most definitely not, my friends.
New Kids on the Block were on their way down when I started liking them. I remember going to visit my cousin who had all sorts of awesome NKOTB merchandise I was insanely jealous of. Her favourite was Joey. Mine was Jordan. (Still is).
They disappeared for a bit, and then in 1995, I bought (ok, mom bought) a teen beat magazine and who did I see in it but the Backstreet Boys, a new boy band that was popular in Europe. My little 12-year-old eyes zeroed right in on one Mr. Nick Carter and I was DONE. I waited impatiently for them to make it big in the States. I clipped every article in my tween mags. I saved every poster. I watched MTV religiously, waiting to see the music video.
One day, it happened. Quit Playin’ Games (With My Heart) was played on MTV. I screamed like a banshee and ran around the room like my undies were on fire.
They’d been releasing albums all over the world, but not in the U.S. My grandma and grandpa were traveling all over the place after retirement, and when they asked me what I wanted from (insert country here) I begged them to look for BSB CD’s. Which they did. My awesome grandparents took time out of their holidays in Australia, Canada, and I think some European country, to go into a CD store and find me BSB CDs.
Finally. 1997. Summer. BSB plans to release their first album in the States. They have an event at the Virgin MegaStore in Times Square. I BEG my father to take me. He enlists grandpa’s help. Haley comes, and dad and I and she go to New Jersey, where grandpa leads us, via new jersey transit, into the city. We sit on the pavement for houuuuuurs while dad and grandpa mill around, killing time. (How lucky was I, by the way, to have family who would do that for me?) We see the Backstreet Boys. I probably cried a little bit. We bought the CDs and went home. It was absolutely magical, I tell you. Magical. (I still maintain to this day that Nick Carter made eye contact).
They begin to get big in the states, and I get tickets with some friends to see them in Constitution Hall in DC.
We are waiting outside and there are huge windows there. I look over, see Nick Carter walking down the hall, and fall. out. Seriously. I’m lucky I didn’t faint. I did, however, fall to the ground, crouch into a ball, and cry. Not my finest moment, but hey. We can’t all be together 100% of the time right? And in my defense, I was, like….12.
They get bigger and tour more. A summer later, I am not content with one concert per tour. Oh no, my friends. That summer, I went to 4 or 5 BSB shows. My mom drove me to UPSTATE NEW YORK (from Maryland) to go see the Backstreet Boys.
(I’m getting the impression that I should stop now and apologize to every member of my family that got sucked into this insanity….which is basically all of them….I should also thank them for not having me committed.)
This went on for awhile until the Boy Band craze died down. My love for BSB, however, did not die down.
I like to think I’m a much more mellow BSBer these days. The last time I saw them in concert was a few years ago, and I haven’t cried over Nick Carter since, well…since I wigged out at Constitution Hall. That’s personal growth, no?
I do believe though that were I to randomly run into them on the street, I would freak. I think they’re the only celebrities I can say that about. I’d wig the heck out.
As for NKOTB, I was so excited when they came back a few years ago, and “Step By Step” remains one of my fave songs OF ALL TIME! And why wouldn’t it be? It’s AWESOME.
Evidence:
See? Awesome.
Some of you might also ask what the BF thinks of this. Well, he kinda of just shakes his head and laughs. Lucky for me he finds my obsession with the Backstreet Boys amusing. (we’ll see how he feels when I buy TWO tickets to this awesome show and drag him along)
So, I’ll see YOU at the best. comeback. tour. EVER! (click the link. See? Even TIME magazine thinks it could be epic).
And now, I shall leave you with my forever-schoolgirl-crush and his bandmates:
So, knowing that I am completely obsessed with sharks (and not in a good way. In a “Oh-god-please-don’t-make-me-go-into-the-water-because-the-sharks-will-eat-me” way), while shopping at Ikea last weekend, the BF bought me a shark puppet. That’s right. A. Shark. Puppet.
Meet Sammy:
And because we are both uber dorks who are way too easily amused, we, of course, took Sammy on a little tour of Liverpool.
Sammy at the Albert Dock
Sammy at the big wheel
Group photo!
Being an American, I can get away with kind of ridonkulous behaviour. They expect us to be a bit crazy, really. It just pleases me to no end that the BF goes along with (and ENJOYS!) it as well.
And Sammy was so good on his day out, we bought him a treat before going home:
Sammy nomming on a McFlurry
So, the you’ve met the newest member of my English group. Expect more shenanigans to follow.
This weekend was amaaaaazing! The weather was gorgeous (I know! bananas, right?) and the BF was here, so of course, I was in a fantastic mood.
On Friday night he came over and I cooked pasta for dinner and we watched the rest of season 1 of How I Mt Your Mother. It’s his favourite American sitcom, and I like it, but I’m still on team Big Bang Theory. Hardcore.
Saturday we got up and went for a walk. First we went to Greenbank Park, which is across the street from me. I had some bread in the fridge that was about to go bad (it hadn’t yet but I’d had it for awhile and figured I needed to either eat it or toss it, and since I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat it, I needed to get creative) and so the BF and I went to feed the ducks in Greenbank Park!
Alas, the ducks were few and far between and as soon as we threw a few pieces, these guys showed up:
Yeah. Huge, hungry geese. They were sooo close to us and they’d just stand there, beaks open, waiting for food. It was kinda funny. So yeah, we feed the geese and then we went to another park close to my dorm, called Sefton Park.
This is a building in Sefton Park:
This is the Palm House, and it’s a victorian glass house that has tons of flowers and plants inside. As soon as I walked in my glasses steamed up! It was gorgeous inside though.
Outside the Palm House is the reason we went to Sefton Park in the first place: A Peter Pan statue. There are seven statues of Peter Pan in the world: One here in Liverpool, one in London, one in Belgium, one in the US, one in Australia, and two in Canada.
Since I am a major dork and LOVE Peter Pan, I had to go, obviously.
After spending some time there, we walked back to the dorm and got his car to go to St. Helen’s, which is really close to Liverpool. It had been a big mining community until the colliery closed in 1991. The town was chosen as 1 of 7 in the UK to partake in a program called The Big Art Project which was a program which would allow the town to commission a piece of artwork.
They commissioned this sculpture, called “Dream:”
Check out that blue sky!
The area leading up to the statue is really pretty. It was a 10 minute walk:
So we spent a little time there. We’d seen this sculpture from the M62 motorway a billion times but didn’t know what it was until I got a Liverpool guide book and it happened to be in there. So now we know!
And here’s us after our walk:
So, that was our touristy fun for the weekend! It felt really great to get out and walk so much. And as you can see, the weather cooperated, which always helps.
So as many of you will have noticed lately, (the last month or so) this blog has been more about travels than food/exercise/fitness. My transatlantic move started out as exciting, then got stressful, then got stressful times a million, then got fun, then got stressful again, and it’s just now leveling out.
I will say this: I haven’t weighed myself since getting here (no scale, but I will remedy that soon enough) BUT I think I am doing a decent job at maintaining my weight (probably within +/- 5 pounds). All of my clothes fit the same, and some jeans even are looser than they were a few months ago when I kind of stopped counting and tracking everything.
For me, that is almost as exciting as losing weight. Generally, if I’m not on Weight Watchers and cooking at home and counting every point, I’m gaining weight. After I stopped WW before, I gained anywhere from 7-12 pounds a MONTH until I reached my highest weight.
Shocking, huh? I definitely do not want to go back to that. I refuse to go back to that. And I am definitely not at goal weight (or anywhere close to it) and so I will be continuing this journey.
It will be different than it was before. Living on campus, in a dorm, with cafeteria food is tough. I can’t really afford to cook for myself every night when 2 meals a day are provided to me as part of my perks package as a hall tutor. And, to be honest, the food isn’t terrible.
I generally have a big breakfast because I don’t buy lunch very often (I should call myself Kristen the Frugalista). So I’ll eat a few eggs on a piece of toast, some jam on another piece of toast and maybe a piece of fruit. I take some more fruit to campus with me for a midday snack.
I eat dinner early, around 4:30, and again, it’s pretty big as I don’t typically eat a proper lunch. Usually some sort of main dish – (chicken normally) and then veggies and salad. I take fruit and yogurt to my room for snacks.
Of course it’s not always perfect. I am in England, after all – when fish and chips are served, I’m so there.
I do binge occasionally, but it’s few and far between. I’ve been to the counseling center on campus to set up appointments as it was really helpful for me when I was home, so I definitely want to keep on with that.
As for running, I miss it! So much! I want to start again but I’m sort of feeling like I was when I first started – feeling self-conscious and silly. I will have to get over that and I think this will be the first issue I bring up at my appointment next week.
So…that’s where I’m at, weight-loss wise, at the moment.
I know, I know. It’s inhuman or something, and I’m beginning to believe that it’s illegal here in Liverpool, but nonetheless, I am not a fan.
It’s not that I dislike the Beatles. I don’t. I just don’t love them either.
That being said, I now live in the Beatles capital of the world and you can’t help but notice.
Last weekend, the BF and I walked around the city center to just take a walk and take some pictures. We started at the university and walked down to a craft shop and then to the main train station area. There are some really pretty buildings around there:
After that, we found ourselves on Mathew St:
Mathew St. is home to the Cavern Club, which is where the Beatles were discovered.
Across the street is a statue of John Lennon, complete with flowers at it’s feet:
Around the corner, if the Cavern Club and the statue isn’t enough Beatles for you, you can stay at a Beatles-themed hotel! And guess whats outside?
We went to Liverpool One after our impromptu Beatles tour and went to the cinema to see The Other Guys. I though it was really funny and the BF loved it. After that, we ate dinner at a place called Barburrito. As you all know, I love me some Mexican food, and so I needed a La Tolteca replacement here. Barburrito is like a subway sandwich shop – you choose your dish (burrito, taco, or nachos) and then pick your toppings.
I had a burrito and while it’s no La Tolteca, it wasn’t bad! I think I’ll try nachos next time .
My favourite part of the day however was something I wasn’t even aware of until I got home and put the pictures on my computer.
And in my defense, I was, like….12.
(we’ll see how he feels when I buy TWO tickets to this awesome show and drag him along)
