The last five songs I’ve downloaded from iTunes are a mix of old and new stuff. Since I’ve recently joined a new gym near my new apartment, I’ve been getting back into spinning (I have found in my travels that the closer a gym is to a metropolitan area, the more intense and better the spin classes are). I heard most of these songs in some recent classes and it reminded me how much I liked them.
1. What Hurts the Most by Cascada. I know. This is Rascal Flatts cover. I love Rascal Flatts but this version is way more workout appropriate, and I love Cascada as well. It definitely gets me moving during cardio sessions.
2. Play Hard by David Guetta (feat. Ne-Yo & Akon). This song is my anthem right now. I heard it on a commercial for headphones about a month ago, liked it, and then I heard it as part of a mash up in spin class and realized I needed to own it. I play it during my workouts, during my commute, while I’m getting dressed in the morning… It is very versatile and very uplifting.
3. #Beautiful by Mariah Carey (feat. Miguel). The reason for this is Mariah Carey. Period. End of story. She has yet to let me down.
4. I Need Your Love by Calvin Harris (feat. Ellie Goulding). Apparently Ellie Goulding can do no wrong lately because this song is fantastic as usual. She has such a unique, delicate voice that fits so well with the whole vibe of the song.
5. Wake Me Up by Avicii. I’m going to go ahead and say I’ve never heard of this guy before (or band, whatever it is). I heard the song on the radio and ran across it while I was browsing iTunes the other day. It’s a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll which is what I like about it. It has a certain intensity that is interesting. It’s definitely on my workout playlist.
Bonus song: Get the Girl Back by Hanson. Go download this now. It’s everything Hanson is supposed to be: catchy, fun, infectious… These guys are quietly putting out some good songs these days and I’ve downloaded more than one in the past couple years. That’s right, I said it. I listen to Hanson. And you should too!
I graduated middle school in 1999, ok? Hanson for life!
It’s July already! Where did the time go? Since we’re just over halfway through 2013, I thought it would be a good time to check in with my New Year’s Resolutions. I’m feeling good about my progress so far:
Add more variety to my fitness routine- CHECK(I’ve tried both yoga and Crossfit and hopefully I can make them regular parts of my routine)
Continue to make weight loss progress, and continue to stabalize my nutrional routine-I think I’m making baby steps with this (I’ve gone up and down a little because of some vacations, etc) but I think having a full time job will help me stabilize my routine further
Cooking Goals
Make a successful challah bread- nope
Broaden my savory dish repertoire- a little bit
Try at least 3 new techniques like making marshmallows or risotto, or cooking with a new ingredient like tofu- CHECKon the marshmallows, and I made vegetarian dumplings with my mom
Cook more dinners at home rather than using places like Panera as my dinner option too often- CHECK, lately I’ve only been eating dinner out maybe twice a week tops, otherwise I make my own dinner
And let’s see how accurate my horoscope for 2013 from Yahoo was:
2013 brings you sweeping change and intensity, Virgo. The biggest transformation takes place in the realm of the mind. Communication, correspondence and courses of new study carry great importance. Saturn, the cosmic taskmaster, is spending a good chunk of time in the sector of your chart ruling the mental realms and communication. If you’re not already a powerful public speaker, teacher or writer, get ready to discover your latent potential to sway the masses with your power of speech! You’re also hungry for knowledge in 2013, and will want to strengthen your skill set and beef up your resume with even more knowledge than you possess naturally.
I can’t say this is word for word accurate, but I think it corresponds well to my transition from grad school to a new promising job. I love horoscopes!
So the moral of the story is that I need to make Challah bread, continue to improve with my weight management goals, and hit the books hard. I think I can do that in six months!
Although I often aspire to be more literary, I’ve had a lot of trouble falling into a consistent habit of reading books. I usually have some type of time consuming excuse, but right now I have none of those so I turned to my bookshelf of un-read books. I picked one that I got for Christmas last year called Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard. It’s a non-fiction book about President James Garfield’s life and mostly his assassination and death.
I know what you’re thinking, it’s sounds riveting, right? Well I’m actually a big US president nerd, so this book was right in my lane. At first it was slow going because I was skeptical about whether Garfield was an interesting or worthy topic. But after I got into it a little and the pieces started coming together, it was really great. Not only did it give a detailed and interesting account of his short lived presidency, assassination attempt, and illness, it really brought together several historical elements of the time period that helped the story significantly.
For those of you unfamiliar with Garfield, I’ll give you a brief history lesson. He was elected as the 20th president, just a few after Lincoln (who was the 16th). Garfield was considered to be a real stand-up guy, who was a great example of the American dream. He was raised in extreme poverty in Ohio, and created a life for himself through education and hard work. Really one of the only US presidents ever to have that type of personal history.
So he was inaugurated in March of 1881. On July 2nd of the same year he was going to the train station to catch a train to New England to settle his kids into school and take a little family vacation. This was pre-secret service and before presidents had things like Air Force One. Apparently Lincoln taught them nothing. So Garfield was just walking across the station with his buddy, the Secretary of State, and all of a sudden, he was shot in the back. The shooter was Charles Guiteau, a recent stalker, considered to be insane, who believed that God told him to kill the president.
The shot, however, was not fatal. Garfield did not die until September. The problem was that he had several doctors chomping at the bit to treat the president and they did everything they could think of: random incisions, probing around for the bullet, inserting and draining various things. Long story short, he died of all the crazy infections created by the crazy medical procedures. Apparently Europeans had caught onto sterilizing medical instruments at this point, but American doctors still thought those ideas were bogus.
I don’t mean to spoil the story, but this is just history. The details in the book make it worth reading: the medical issues of the day, the inventions and technology, the political and social atmosphere. It’s all fascinating. For example, this was right around the early years of the telephone, so news spread a different and faster way than before. It really brought to light many of the inventions and precedents that we take for granted today, that were new or even non-existant at that point. I love when learning about history make me understand more about my own life and surroundings.
Sadie Dishes 