Bike To Work Day
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Today I biked to work for the first time since I’ve been in Memphis!
It also coincided with national bike to work day. Yesterday I got the flat tire on my bike fixed. So I started off this morning with a new tube, tires full of air, and a cute easy-to-ride bike.
Twenty minutes later I made it to work! It’s roughly 4 miles from my apartment to work and I got stopped at a bunch of stoplights.
Not too bad!
I’m lucky to live in a nice location that is close to roads that I can easily ride to work. There were bike lanes for part of the way and the rest of the way had super wide lanes perfect for a car and a bike. It felt relatively safe and easy as well. My only problem was a few slips on the trolley tracks… those things are annoying on a bike!
At lunch I walked over to the Bike To Work Day festivities at Court Square to pick up my swag bag and get lunch.
Since Fuel Food Truck was there again I stopped by and finally got some bison tacos.
Which were amazing. Seriously. If you live in Memphis track that truck down and get yourself some bison tacos. You are welcome.
Afterwards I looked through my bag from the Bike To Work Day thing (you got one if you registered through their website). You had a choice of a lunch box bag or a messenger bag and I chose lunch box.
It was packed full of goodies:
My favorite things: the koozie lunch box, a tire patch kit, and a bell. All things I actually wanted and/or needed! I can’t wait to put the bell on my bike.
Downtown Memphis did an amazing job with this. I saw so many people with bikes Downtown and it really made me happy. With the awesome growth of cycling in Memphis I bet it will be even bigger and better next year!
The plan for me is to now bike to and from work whenever the weather forecast looks decent (no storms and such). Woohoo!
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Something More Permanent
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Do you ever feel so busy that you can’t get a real grasp on anything? Things are slipping through the cracks?
That feels like me right now.
I feel like there is so much going on I just can’t keep up. Blogging is a pretty low priority for me so it’s been on the back burner for the most part. That’s a shame sense it’s actually a huge stress relief for me!
Things feel like they are going super fast and everything is in transition at the moment. From where I live to work to how I exercise… you get the point.
I’m used to this type of thing. I have segmented my life into 2, 3, or 6 month segments for years now. Three months living in Vermont, four months living in Austria, two months living in Oregon, five months in Tennessee, six months in New Zealand…. since I’ve started blogging I’ve bounced around every few months. I’m used to being more of a nomad than a permanent citizen anywhere.
I’ve felt temporary and in flux for so long. I know things always change and I’ve accepted that and flowed with it better than most people, but right now I’m not loving it.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s been fun. I’ve seen more of the world and had more awesome experiences than I ever dreamed I would. It’s been amazing, but I’m craving something more permanent. A city that I’m planning to stay in for a while. A place to stay for a few years instead of months. Roots. Family. Stability and permanency.
It’s something I’ve been craving for a while now. Getting married and thinking about starting our own family has made me want to have a place to call home. It’s made me want to have more than just what fits in suitcases for the next move.
Maybe it’s not surprising to you based on what I’ve been blogging lately, but I’m moving back to Memphis.
Yes, with Kepa. No, not right now. Yes, hopefully this year. Yes, I’m going back to New Zealand still.
This is more of a change in long term plans. I love my family and want to be closer to my mom since she has cancer and is getting up there in age (sorry Mom!). I love my job and want to work in my office instead of a room by myself. I love my city and want to be part of making it a better place with people who want to be here.
So Kepa and I made the decision together to choose Memphis over New Zealand at least for the foreseeable future. It will be a chance for us to actually start a regular type of married life and have a more permanent living situation together. You know, ‘cause I actually like living with my husband!
I’m still going back to New Zealand in July and will stay for a bit. I plan to go snowboarding and road trip the South Island and do a bunch of other things off my list before leaving again. It will be fun!
That’s the plan for now! But remember, like I mentioned, things are always changing.
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Fresh Approach to Changing School Lunches
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Tonight I ate a cookie.
It wasn’t a normal cookie though. It was one of those healthy cookies. The kind with less fat, less sodium, less of all the bad things yet it still tasted great. It was also the kind of cookie they have started serving in Memphis City School.
Cool, right?
Tonight I went to Community Foundation of Greater Memphis to watch the documentary Cafeteria Man. The film is about improving school lunches which falls into one of the Community Foundation’s main initiatives of healthy eating, active living.
The film follows the work of Chef Tony Geraci in Baltimore schools as he worked to change the way school lunches and other meals were served. The film was fascinating and it was awesome to see the changes he made in Baltimore during his time.
Based on the video he focused on great things:
- buying food local from farms in the state/area
- bringing food from farm to table instead of prepacked trays
- providing fresh whole foods to kids at each meal
- embracing urban agriculture and farming even at the schools
- teaching kids to grow food themselves
- teaching kids to cook food that they’ve grown
- the end goal of producing a healthy student ready to learn
The above photo is actually Memphis kids in a Memphis garden. Chef Tony Geraci is now the new director of Nutrition Services for Memphis City Schools. He is working here to create the same kind of changes to improve the quality of school food.
After the movie Tony Geraci was there to answer some questions and talk more about what he is doing in Memphis since the movie was focused on Baltimore.
Cool things happening with school food and nutrition in Memphis:
- Breakfast in classrooms is now at 71 schools. Last year it was at zero. This rocks because as he mentioned it’s hard for kids to learn if they are hungry or jacked up on sugar so this kind of program is a type of readiness for learning.
- Geraci runs the program like a business. He makes sure they save money from the budget and he listed several projects currently running that do this. For example he is putting 200k into a few dozen acres to grow food and that will create 1.2 million in produce utilizing a prison-farming program.
- Grahamwood Elementary school created a hoop greenhouse garden that is producing food actually being eaten at their school and a couple others. It’s one of the first of several gardens planned. Hoop farms can provide food and also be a great teaching tool.
- New point of sale system that allows parents access so they can see what their kids are getting each day. It will also allow blocks (no cookies for example) or reminders to get at least 3 salads a week (and a message pops up if that isn’t happening so the kid has to get one).
- Trucks of food ready to cook and already prepared (cut, washed, etc.) go out from the central kitchen to the schools. Food is actually cooked at the school instead of just reheating trays a prepackaged food.
- People are parents in Memphis have been really supportive so far.
My favorite quote of the night: “If you eliminate the crap, they can’t order the crap. “
I really found the movie and the talk afterward fascinating. It’s a popular and sometimes controversial topic these days but things really do need to change. I remember the school lunches I used to eat and … they were bad. Really bad. I’m pretty sure I never ate a salad until college and vegetables were rare because they always looked so disgusting. It’s awesome to see that the choices are getting better and giving kids now a better chance at being and staying healthy and ready to learn.
What were your school lunches like as a kid? What improvements would you like in schools today? Meatless days? Fresh foods? More/less choices?
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Bike Collector
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I started the day with zero bicycles and no intention of getting any.
Somehow I ended the day with two bikes.
And I’m still not biking to work tomorrow.
That is mainly because I don’t know if I would even make it on the bike that works. Who knew bikes without gears were so tough to ride? I’m going to have to build up to that since taking so much time off biking has left me as a total pansy.
Other things I collected today: tiredness and headaches.
Goodnight.
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Food Truck Rodeo in Memphis
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First, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! Happy Mother’s Day to my mom who is awesome and all the other amazing moms out there. I hope the day is amazing and you are celebrated and cherished.
Second, let me tell you about the food truck rodeo that happened in Memphis on Thursday. Sure this blog post is a little late but I’ve been busy!
The new Memphis Food Truck Alliance was created recently to unite the various food truck operators to help support and market the members. Memphis is new to food trucks and only last year started allowing them to operate. I think right now there are around 50 or so in operation and I’ve seen maybe a dozen of them, most at the Food Truck Rodeo on Thursday.
By the time thursday rolled around I couldn’t contain my excitement!It started at 11 a.m. and we left around 11:45 to walk the couple blocks to Court Square where the food truck rodeo was happening.
When we got there things were in full swing and several trucks had rather long lines. It seemed that Revival Southern Food and Fuel Cafe were very popular and had the longest lines.
After checking out several of the menus at various food trucks I decided to get in line at Fuel Cafe’s food truck. They had bison tacos that sounded interesting!
Unfortunately everyone else had the same idea that I did. The line was very long so it crawled along slowly. Lucky for us it was a beautiful day.
Then, five people before I got to order they ran out of bison. After waiting twenty minutes (or more?) in line I had to switch my order to chicken tacos. They erased it right off the menu when I got close. It was a bit disappointing but I was also excited they were getting so much business.
When I finally got my chicken tacos, about half an hour after ordering them, but luckily they made up for the wait.
I love a good taco! The chicken was well flavored and taco worked perfectly as a whole with the veggies and warm corn tortillas. I was very happy to see the cilantro on top too! I added a bit of hot sauce and it was perfect!
After eating my tacos I went to get frozen yogurt from YoLo… except they weren’t taking credit cards. Yuck.
Overall the food truck rodeo was a bit disappointing. A few people on Twitter complained about waiting 1.5 hours for food and my coworker gave up after waiting and went to a local restaurant. I’ll give them a pass though because it was the first one and it’s hard to predict how big the crowd will be the first time you hold an event like that. Hopefully next time will be better.
I’d love for them to do it once a week downtown, maybe on Thursdays. I think it would be nice to have a revolving group featuring different food trucks every week.
The Memphis Food Truckers website will eventually include event listings where food trucks will be and a map tool showing exactly where food trucks are operating that day. As a food truck lover I’ve extremely excited about that!
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Life In The Office
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This is me.
Today. And all week.
Being back in the office is fun but it’s a whole different lifestyle than living in New Zealand and working from home. There is definitely a lot more sitting. When I’m at home I’m usually standing to work a lot more than I do here since we are in an open office work environment and it’s just a bit weird.
I’m trying to stay healthy despite my increase amount of sitting.
- I’m drinking more water. See that bottle in the photo? It’s big and I drink a couple of those a day.
- We walk at lunch. It is awesome to have a couple coworkers who like getting out of the office for a short stroll.
- I’ve brought my lunch multiple days! Saving money and being healthy all at the same time. Win.
I’ve also been crazy busy at work. That means doing the normal things like writing articles about social media and the more fun things like playing with our office dog.
That’s Sophie! She is the cute little furbaby of a coworker. She is spending the morning at the office and it’s so fun to watch her run around. She makes me miss JuJu even more!
Back to work for me now. I’ll be back at some point soon to share about the food truck rally that happened in Memphis yesterday at lunch. I love food trucks so the fact that Memphis has a food truck scene now makes me super happy. Post coming soon, I promise!
Do you work in an office? How do you stay healthy?
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Previous post: Back On Track
Next post: Food Truck Rodeo in Memphis
Back On Track
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TODAY WAS A GOOD DAY PEOPLE.
Seriously. I feel pretty good about things.
What things? Let me tell you.
I’m back on track.
After finishing LiveFit then freaking out over my mom’s cancer then moving back to the USA I let myself completely derail from the healthy living thing. I wasn’t out there eating twinkies and chugging soda, but I wasn’t paying attention to my food and I wasn’t exercising much at all.
Frankly I felt awful last week because of it. A few weeks of that made me feel just AWFUL.
I can only go so far off track these days before my body screams at me to stop it and treat it better. Better food, more movement, more positive thinking. Those things are the important things to me and make me feel better. It’s important for me to feel good, to feel strong, to feel capable. So I’m shaking off the last few weeks and getting back on track.
That means:
- Taking my lunch to work most days. (Started today!)
- Going for a walk before/after work and during lunch. (Also did today!)
- Tracking what I’m eating in some way. (Back to MyFitnessPal counting today!)
- Forcing my thoughts to the positive. (Harder, but I’ve tried today to banish the downer vibes!)
It’s pretty damn annoying to go through this process so many times (and probably more annoying to read for those faithful reader who want to shake me sometimes). You know… I get to my healthiest point and then for whatever reason slide into less than healthy behaviors. Here’s to hoping one day this isn’t something I do anymore.
But for now I’ll deal with the reality of the situation. Taking it one day at a time. Small healthy behaviors lead to bigger changes, right?
Go team Merry Life. (Maybe we need to work on the team name, hehe. Suggestions welcome.)
-
All The Other Things
There’s a lot of stuff happening in my life right now that I’m not talking about and might not for a while.
Doesn’t matter though… I feel good about the things that are happening behind the scenes. Life is good.
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Previous post: Awesome Weekend
Next post: Life In The Office
Awesome Weekend
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My weekend started on Friday with Friday Funday!
Friday, after a morning meeting the entire office headed out for an early lunch out in East Memphis. We had a choice of where to eat between a deli and tacos. Of course, I chose tacos.
It was my first time eating at Swanky’s Taco Shop. I ordered crunchy chicken tacos.
They were nice but not the best tacos I’ve ever had. Maybe I should have eaten them slower. I couldn’t though because our office field trip continued… with a movie!
Yep, we went to see the new Avengers movie. Sometimes it’s nice working with a bunch of geeks. ;) I really enjoyed the movie – it was quite funny! After the movie half the office went home and the rest of us grabbed some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream before parting ways back at the office.
Saturday was a busy day for me. I hit up Walmart for some needed supplies like contact solution and then visited some thrift stores for new clothes.
I love thrift stores both for the price and the randomness of the selection. Sometimes I’ll go shopping and find nothing I like and sometimes I’ll leave things at the store I wish I could have bought. It just depends on how lucky I get. This particular shopping trip was extremely lucky because I finally found a maxi dress I liked!
It’s a bit long on me because I’m a shorty but I love it. It’s so vibrant and the colors are awesome. It’s not really anything special but after a long search for a dress I both liked and could afford I’m happy to have found it!
Sunday was spent doing absolutely nothing for the most part. I’ve been a lazy bum to be honest. The two productive things I’ve done were reading the Rebel Strength Guide because I’m thinking about actually doing one of Nerd Fitness’s guides all the way through and cooking some food for the rest of the week.
I’m trying to combat my new tendency to eat out every day (sometimes multiple times a day) since I’ve been here. Maybe having food ready and portioned out will help me make some better choices this week. My body needs a break from the sodium and calorie overload from eating out so much. We will see!
How was your weekend? Have a great week!
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Previous post: Biking In Memphis
Next post: Back On Track
Biking In Memphis
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Biking in New Zealand is pretty easy. Where we live the roads either have bike lanes or are wide enough to accommodate both bikes and cars. I can do pretty much all my errands by bike without a problem so I rarely take the car.
However, I’m a bit nervous about biking while I’m living in Memphis. In years past it has been known as a very unfriendly city to cyclists and I’ve heard some horror stories from friends who did try biking to work. Personally I never tried biking to work either since I usually lived 20-30 minutes away by car and bikes don’t mix with interstates.
Now though I’m living closer to my work place and biking to and from work is actually possible! I’m super excited about that. And since I’ve biked a bit in Downtown already I feel more confident about my ability to actually do this.
Plus since the last time I was in Memphis they have created MILES of new bike lanes! The street I’m on and both of the streets nearby leading downtown have new bike lanes. It’s pretty awesome!
For a little extra reassurance I’ve been researching routes and other cycling stuff in Memphis. I’ve found some great things about Memphis and biking in my search:
- Memphis is one of six cities that have been chosen to get fast track protected bicycle lanes from Bikes Belong Foundation. The Green Lane Project is a cool effort working with six US cities including Memphis to help build world-class cycling networks on city streets in the next two years. This is huge for Memphis and makes me really happy!
Annual Bike to Work Day is on May 18th, which I can actually participate in! I remember this from last year and was so bummed that I lived too far away to ride there safely, so I’m super excited this year! You have to register this year though but that is easily done here.- Some cool Memphis bicycle related sites: Greater Memphis Greenline (multi use trails throughout the city which are really nice), Biking in Memphis, Bike Walk Tennessee, Livable Memphis, Fix Memphis., Memphis Bike Polo (I’d be scared to play but it looks cool).
- City of Memphis Bike Route Tours and a map of proposed/future bike lanes in Memphis: Memphis Bike Lanes. Bike Lanes proposed by Mayor AC Wharton to be completed by 2013.
- And what I was really looking for: Map of Bike-Friendly Streets in Memphis!! I’m using this to plan potential routes to work. Thanks to this map I confirmed what I thought would be a good route to take and will check it out for real once I get into the city. Looks like it will work perfectly!
- I just found Kyle Wagenschutz’s website/blog Bike Ped Memphis this week. Kyle is the city’s Bicycle/Pedestrian Coordinator and he has done great things for biking in Memphis over the last couple of years and I’m excited to follow his blog on the topic.
I think Memphis could be a great city for cycling and it’s nice to see changes being made to move in that direction. Memphis gets a bad rap all the time from almost everyone but I love it here and always will. I guess I like an underdog with character. It makes me happy to see good things happening in the city, especially regarding one of my other loves – biking!
I’ll be writing a lot more about biking in Memphis once I actually pick up a bike and start doing it. For now I’m waiting on my bike I’m borrowing from my boss (should get it this weekend). I’m super excited to get it and get out there and test out all those new bike lanes! Wish me luck!
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Previous post: Foodie In A Food City
Next post: Awesome Weekend
Foodie In A Food City
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Is Memphis a foodie city? I’m not sure what really categorizes a city as “foodie” or not and you could probably make a case for every city since they all have at least a few good restaurants.
On the way home today my coworker and I were discussing basketball (Go Grizzlies!) and came to the conclusion Memphis is big on three things: food, music, and basketball. That pretty much sums up the city nicely I think.
All I know is I’ve been eating out way too much since I’ve been back.
I’ve eaten out with my friends. I’ve eaten out with my mom. I’ve eaten out with coworkers. I’ve bought meals and had meals paid for. I’ve eaten fast food and at restaurants. I’ve either eaten out or eaten the leftovers for lunch and dinner since I’ve been back. Since I don’t normally eat out much this feels strange and like major overkill.
I know I need to cut down on this and start bringing lunch to work or making myself dinner. I bought groceries the day after I got here and have only really eaten cereal for breakfast so far. Yikes! At the very least I can say I haven’t been snacking or overeating which is a positive, right?
It will come to an end soon since I need to save money and help out my mom too. But for the first week it was nice to have all the things I missed while I was gone!
I guess I’m always talking about food lately because when I created my “what you tweet” infographic it basically called me an upbeat foodie obsessed with my dog.
Okay, maybe they were pretty right. ;)
Follow me on Twitter or Facebook to find out. I’m not crazy into social media these days but I do love the occasional conversation there!
Are you a foodie? Do you live in a foodie city? How often do you normally eat out?
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Previous post: Good News Wednesday
Feeling Funky
I'm in a funk. I've stopped myself from many times from going full on Debbie Downer here, and so far so good, but I can't keep it in any longer. I can't recall ever feeling like this, I feel like I'm not connecting, not fitting in, not understanding anything that's coming my way. I feel like I'm trying to walk in very thick sand.
I've lost the twinkle of hope, that passion for making things happen. That spark to stretch myself and try something new. All I want to do is retreat. And this has been going on for months.
I'm hesitant to even put this out there because, really, does the world need more words about sadness? Loss of hope? And then I realized that I know it will come back and this too shall pass, but I feel an itch to share, regardless of how vulnerable it makes me feel.
And you want to know the weirdest part about this funk? It has nothing to do with weight loss. I'm losing, and lately due to loss of appetite, rather rapidly (13 pounds in one week.) Normally I would jump for joy to see these numbers on the scale, but lately, I'm indifferent.
I have a few ideas as to where these feelings are coming from. For starters, I've become scared to try something new.
In the past four years I've tried a little bit of everything...design, catering, jewelry, clothing design, blogging, e-book writing, and a few more other things that I've forgotten along the way. Each time I start out with this hope of what I could become. I fall in love with the potential of a new business, a new idea, a smaller version of myself. I have great desire to "do big things", but sadly, I've come to realize that I was more in love with the result rather than the process.
And because I believe everything in life is connected and related, I know that deep down, what I do and how I make a living has a lot to do with how I feel and care about myself. And somewhere along the line I never figured out or changed my perspective enough on any given thing/business/idea/project to fall in love with the process (a line I'm stealing from The Biggest Loser.)
And I want to get there. To be in the love with the process of taking care of myself rather than the result of being thin, or doing things because I love the action and not because its a defined direction or path.
I find myself worrying so much about things I do and don't have control over. My mom emailed a quote to me recently,
“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself
to be made a victim.
Accept no one’s definition
of your life,
but define yourself.” – Harvey S. Firestone
The last line is the one that hit me the most "accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself". I've come to realize that I haven't defined who I am or who I want to be. I've been waiting on other people to tell me who I am, or who they want me to be or who I can be. That path can be very unsteady. I've realized, that I've been relying on my past experiences to define who I am.
These experiences from junior or high school where I never felt good enough...my clothes, hair, makeup, body, personality...always fell too short. In the days when opinion flowed out of mouths so freely, where everything on the outside was the measure of a worthwhile person, those days still linger too many years later.
I want to give myself permission to define who I am, who I want to be, and unapologetically become that person. I want to move forward even when fear starts screaming in my head. Fear that my efforts are lost, that they won't get me anywhere, or that it's pointless to try.
Recently, I've had strong desires to start painting and illustrating again, a skill that I picked up in college and loved. I let it go because I didn't let myself get good enough. I feared the work that was involved in getting good, I worried that I would spend all this time and never arrive. That I could never feed myself off of it. That it wouldn't matter. That I'd never be good enough.
And the realization that I stopped doing something because I was both in love with and afraid of the result, rather than the process, knocks the wind out of me. And I understand deeply, where this trend pops up over and over again in my life.
Silly little things and the big stuff too. I've put so much weight in these imaginary outcomes, that I've stopped myself from ever starting or even being in the process.
What if I lose weight and I'm still ugly, or have a loose skin? What if people resent me? What if I get unwanted male attention? Why both lose weight?
What if I start painting, but never sell a print? What if I never wrap my own canvas? What if I'm never taken seriously? Why bother painting?
What if I never make a good living doing what I love? What if my businesses stop growing? What if I can't keep up with the growth? What will I have to give up in order to make more income?
What if I start marketing my design...what if I fall short? or make a mistake? or ruin my reputation? What if I'm never credible? What if I fall short or miss a deadline? Why bother design?
And I do this with everything, cleaning, exercising, work, meeting new friends, staying in touch...on and on and on. I can play the "what if" game for so long that I wake up at 29 and realize that I stopped it all before it got good.
Good News Wednesday
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I started today planning to do a What I Ate Wednesday post. Then I was going to do a Wordless Wednesday post. Instead I’m just going to share the pictures from today and then tell you the good news at the end. Feel free to scroll down immediately.
My day looks so much cooler through a bunch of overly processed photos. I see why people like Instagram so much. ;)
So the good news of the day is that my mom’s appointment with her radiation oncologist went well! Since she caught the tumor early it’s only dime sized and she is a great candidate for a simpler surgery and faster radiation. Both of those are outpatient and she doesn’t need any chemo. Hurray!
Basically she got the best prognosis possible in this kind of situation which is a huge relief. Of course this is all dependent on the tumor actually being what they think and no deal breakers popping up, but it’s good news to hear. We were already both feeling pretty positive about the situation which seemed to shock the oncologist. He was super positive (which is good) but it felt like he was doing that to cheer up my mom who was already upbeat about things. It was funny. Anyway, everyone is encouraged and feeling good about the treatment situation which will begin at some point this month with surgery.
It’s still the beginning of this process but it looks like it won’t be as bad as it could be. There will be more doctor bills and the next two months won’t be super pleasant for my mom with the treatments but all things considered that is some great news to hear. Thank you all again for your support!
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