Chilly weather

The weather is cooling down, there's no arguing that. Thankfully, there's still plenty of warm sunshine to chase the blues away.

I've been spending most of my work time taking baby steps into programming and learning to code using D3. While at a high level programming makes sense to me, with all the steps and intricacies in the logic it's not long before I'm confused.

With the help of an online course, I have managed to generate a chart that updates with randomly generated data - not particularly useful but you've got to celebrate the small victories.

It's the stuff outside of work that makes me happy though:

 a warming bowl of ramen from downtown restaurant, Umai

and the view from the John Hancock building

I've been snacking more than I usually would and have been craving sweet foods recently which is never a great situation to have going on. Then again, I'm craving fruit more than anything so I guess it isn't all bad.

I never did make it to Bikram yoga in the end (work got in the way), but I'm keeping track with my other workouts, even managing a few sprints outdoors by the river today. Motivating comes and goes. but my habits are sticking strong so far.

Now off to dinner with a few Australians - can't wait to be back home for a visit in a few months.

Motivation for the week

What a difference an productive/enjoyable/relaxing weekend makes. I feel so much more motivated to kick of the week on a good note rather than fall into the Monday blues, both at work and from a personal perspective.

The crisp Saturday morning shined bright and was the perfect send-off for the local farmers' market. We put in our winter meat CSA order, bought some farm-fresh eggs and vegetables, and marvelled at the beautiful, colourful ears of corn.

Last year in California, the weather pretty much sustained farmers' markets all year round. It's a very different story in Illinois, and while it makes the winter sadder for me, at least I have next summer to look forward to. 

A few more errands in the morning was followed up an hour of training at the local Wushu school. I'm finally feeling like my body is getting back into the groove and the tiny, little muscles all along the shoulders, hips, legs and ankles are finally co-operating with me again. 

As a reward for training so hard, I baked Tim Tams! Not really. Well, I did back Tim Tams but not as a reward, but for a bake sale at M's work. They turned out to be a lot of effort, and are nowhere near as attractive as the commercially available ones, but I like to think they're even better because they're made with love (and certainly not because you can't buy them here in the USA without spending a fortune).

Sunday kicked off with a circuit morning workout which is always more fun when M decides to join me in the apartment gym, followed by the chore that is house-cleaning. Lunch and shopping with new friends at the outlet stores to stock up on clothes for the 'cooler ' months (puffy jackets seem de rigour for winter) followed by more baking capped the weekend. 

All that, plus fitting in some yoga and Rosetta Stone Portuguese lessons means I feel accomplished, but rested. Not a bad mindset heading into the work week. 

Time for a few work calls, then a sweaty workout, and more work calls. Monday, you're going to be awesome. 

TGIF

What another long week 3 days in Atlanta with plenty of meetings to keep me occupied. Both mornings I woke up in Atlanta though, I woke up almost stupidly early and so managed to get in and out of the gym (circuit workouts in both instances) by 630 am. Productive, yes, but it meant that I was incredibly sleepy by 3pm. Many a coffee was had.

For the most part, I ate well enough, choosing to order oatmeal and fruit for breakfast, salads for lunch and grilled fish for dinner. In practice, being vegan before dinner is incredibly hard. I manage well enough for breakfast, but come a catered lunch spread and options become limited.

If my experiment has taught me anything though, it's how much I appreciated being able to afford to have meat and fish in my diet.

After yet another busy week, I'm glad it's Friday, and I'm glad I'm at home snuggled on the couch, watching M playing a video game. 

Cincinnati, OH

Back from a quick work trip across to Cincinnati. After a smooth, and short, plane ride from O'Hare, a taxi to the hotel and checking into the hotel, I was ravenous.

At least the view from the room was somewhat decent.

Looks at those pretty red leaves on the trees. 

My grumbling belly reminded me that I really should eat. Being on a university campus surrounded by hospitals (because it was the only reasonably priced hotel in a reasonable location), my options were pretty limited.

Keeping to my experiment though, I ended up at a soup joint and ordered from the very minimal vegan selection a vegetable wrap and 7-bean soup. Enough to keep my belly happy, but not really enough to satisfy my meat cravings.

Those I satisfied with a massive dinner steak. Not pictured, mainly because I forgot before I dove into it.

Back at the hotel, I marveled at the ancient technology:

Although secretly, I'd love to have one of these in my home, regardless of the fact it'd get zero use. Having not done much movement all day, I made use of the free weights in the hotel gym and got a fun 25-minute dumbbell workout in, then stretched out with a 20 minute yoga floor before well and truly collapsing into bed.

Between meetings and calls, lunch with clients, and travel, today hasn't been quite on point. There are small wins though; I managed a 30 minute yoga flow, and had a decent oatmeal breakfast (with a smidgen of brown sugar) and snacked on a salad at the airport (because really there weren't other options). 

Some Gracepoint, stretching and I'm off to bed nice and early.