I’m currently doing Weight Watchers, and every week I blog a bit about what I’ve learned and experienced, and whether I’ve lost or gained weight for the week. I take notes in the weekly meetings and post them, too.

This week I was SO HUNGRY! I don’t know why, but I had to make a choice: be hungry and stay within my allotted number of points, or eat. Since hell will freeze before I make myself miserable on purpose, I ate. I ate normal food, kept drinking water, but the food I ate was above and beyond the points values I am allotted.

I kept track of what I was eating, too. It is really uncomfortable, almost awkward, to be tracking your food and seeing that you are eating too much. I tried to remember that “it’s just information” and not a character assessment. This is tough; I grew up with a grandmother who, even today, will smile and say someone is being “bad” if they have an ice cream sundae, and “good” when they are choosing vegetables over fries in a restaurant. As if what you consume is tied to your character, ethics and morality!

I gained .8 this week, and I’m ok with it. I think it’s going to be part of my process to have hungry weeks, although I’m going to do some serious thinking about what caused me to be so hungry (not enough fiber and other filling foods?) so I can help avoid it next time. It’s not a good feeling either way.

This week in the meeting we discussed tips for estimating points.

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Here’s a sad admission: I don’t know how to travel. I know how to pack a mean suitcase and sail through airport security like it’s my job; I can book hotels and flights with ease and negotiate killer rates thanks to being an American Express customer; I can sleep through turbulence. However, I don’t know how to go about picking someplace new and wonderful, setting up an itinerary, and doing interesting things once there.

I’m pretty sure I can blunder through being a tourist; you go to Italy, you see Rome, eat pizza and gelato and pasta. Easy. But I don’t want to be a tourist. I live in New York City, and I hate tourists, with their SNEAKERS and gigantic maps and slow walking.

I want to be a traveler; eat where the Italians go out to dinner (or the Spaniards, or the Argentinians, or whatever), walk to the places they walk to, and drink in the bars they drink in. I want to avoid being the international equivalent of the mid-westerners who come here in jorts and eat at the Times Square Olive Garden. Basically, if tourist town is mid-Manhattan, I want to find the Brooklyns of the world. I want to contribute to local economy and meet people, especially people my age, who live somewhere else, not just read about them.

I feel like the internet is full of great airline deals, but when it comes to having a fabulous time elsewhere, especially in the tucked away, non-touristy places, I’m clueless.

Do you all know any good websites or books, or just have any good tips? I’m sure there out there.

“Happy Father’s Day.”

“Thank you for making me a daddy!”

“Well, it’s nothing to do with me, it was you who ejacula… you’re welcome.”

Rob and Tino, last night at midnight, just before bed. Our horrible, angry dog is now a hard-core snuggler. Win.

I also updated my photo blog with photos of my ridiculously hot friend Nina.

Have a nice weekend!

I’m currently doing Weight Watchers, and every week I blog a bit about what I’ve learned and experienced, and whether I’ve lost or gained weight for the week. I take notes in the weekly meetings and post them, too.

This week was a rough one for me, eating wise. There were friends in town, and parties, and a late-night drunkenness-induced French toast with butter meal thing that happened even though I’m trying to pretend did not. Alas, the scale remembers it, and I lost only .2 pounds this week.

I was so happy to not have gained, though, that I took it as a victory. All things considered, everything I enjoyed was worth the measly loss. (The scones, you guys. The scones!)

The week’s meeting was about tracking your POINTS, and notes are below.

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Maggie was in town, and unfortunately it was pouring rain. “I want tea,” she had said, and so we found ourselves folded into Cha-An, a tiny Japanese tea house in lower Manhattan, with Alice and Laura. Everyone else ordered normal tea, and I ordered the oolong. Oolong, I thought, was exotic enough to feel special (the place oozes with a unique cozy/fancy vibe) but familiar enough not to feel weird.

“The oolong; it’s the kind that you pour and pour with the little things.” said the waitress, heavily accented and seeming to struggle with English.

“It’s what now?”

“You get the little… and it comes with the tea…” she made a pouring motion again.

“Ok.” I said, not knowing at all what I ordered. “Sounds great.”

When she left I shrugged and smiled. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

She arrived at the table with this whole… set up! It was a tall metal pitcher of hot water and a wooden box slightly smaller than a shoe box, on top of which was the following: a big glass tea pot, a small clay tea pot, loose tea in a little glass container [not pictured], an empty white porcelain cup just smaller than a shot glass, and a small ceramic tea cup with no handle. There was also a bowl containing a few lumpy, frosted green tea cookies which were pretty good.

She put the dry tea in the glass pot and then poured the water over it to brew. She poured the brewed tea into the little clay tea pot, and from there she poured it to the tea cup, then the porcelain cup, and and then she dumped it out into the wooden box which had slats to drain into itself. She did it all a second time. On the third series of pouring she dumped brewed tea from the tea cup all over the little clay tea pot, and then she handed me the little porcelain cup.

It was hot from the tea, but empty and dry. I was confused, but she was looking at me expectantly so, in one of the more awkward moments of my life, I touched the tip of my tongue to it a few times and glanced up to see if I was doing it right. I wasn’t. She laughed, and pointed to her nose.

“I think you’re just supposed to smell it.” said Laura.

“Ahh!” I said, and sniffed it. It smelled like tea. It was one of those “appreciate with all of your senses” moments, so I tried to concentrate on appreciating the aroma and not being embarrassed about the inappropriate licking. I handed it back, and the waitress smiled, set the two tea pots, the hot water and the ceramic cup in front of me and shuffled off.

Now, should you find yourself in a similar fancy tea place, you know what to do. You’re welcome.

P.S. If you go, try the scones. OMG, the scones!

A Bad Day for Pretty is Sophie Littlefield’s second book* about Stella Hardesty, a battered wife who got fed up with being knocked around and is now a happy widow of her own making.  She runs a sewing shop by day and has a word-of-mouth side business helping other battered women “take care of” their own abusive husbands in a manner that ensures justice but doesn’t quite put her on the correct side of the law.  Even so, it’s the local sheriff of all people, a lanky Mr. “Goat” Jones, that she has her heart set on.

In the middle of a romantic dinner with Goat, his tacky, trashy no-good not-yet ex-wife Brandy blows in with the approaching tornado.  The storm causes another problem as well: it unearths the murdered body of a young woman, and all signs point to Stella’s friend’s husband Neb as the killer.

It’s up to Stella to figure out the truth, along with  her sewing shop employee, Chrissy, a young single mother and one of the benefactors of Stella’s unconventional brand of justice.

If you like your mysteries with a touch of humor and your heroines smart, sassy and romantic, you will really enjoy reading about Stella.

*Although this is her second book about Stella, it stands alone nicely. If you’d like to read the first book in the series, it’s linked below.

Buy it here on Amazon: A Bad Day for Pretty: A Crime Novel
Also: A Bad Day for Sorry: A Crime Novel

Full disclosure: I got this book free and was asked to review it. I read every book that is sent to me by publishers for reviewing, and I only blog about the ones I enjoy.

This week was amazing for me. I made excellent food choices, I didn’t eat too much, I got some good neighborhood walks in, and I lost 2.4 pounds, my biggest loss in one week ever! I’m down a grand total of 6.2 meaning it is time to splurge on a massage. So, so rad. Biggest victory this week was eating half a cheeseburger. HALF! Never! Who am I, only eating half of something delicious?

I am awesome weight-lossy person, that’s who.

This week was all about snacking and staying ahead of hunger. My notes are below the jump.

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Back in 2008 I mused about having a generic roll of wrapping paper for everything. I have a collection of a few different rolls that I only sort of like, and there’s no where in my apartment to store them. Plus they’re kind of a jumbled mess.

Finally I ordered a roll of 30 lb*. brown kraft paper to wrap everything in. I also ordered some blue ribbon, and now if you see a brown kraft package wrapped with this ribbon, you know it’s from Rob and Amber. We’re branding!

(That’s a social media joke.)

I LOVE having one roll of wrapping paper for everything and all occasions. It feels so classy and organized. What I don’t like is how BIG this roll is. I thought it would be much smaller and more manageable, but the whole thing rolled up is just under a foot in diameter and weighs about a zillion pounds.

I had the package shipped to my grandma’s house, and she told me it was stuffed behind a chair by the front door because she wasn’t strong enough to lug it further into the house than that.

“Uh, oh.” I said.

I went to fetch the box, and when I saw it I had a tiny panic. I drew a breath and hauled it into the kitchen to open it.

Rob took one look at the gigantic package dragging behind me and goes, “Amber, what did you BUY?” and then busted up laughing when I tore it open and howeld, “I thought it would be smaller!”. It’s 1625 feet, which is just over one-third of a mile (or half a kilometer). I guess I just didn’t visualize it!

We are fairly certain that this roll will outlive us, and so, this blog post is for posterity, because I’m sure they are wondering: the brown roll of kraft paper that’s still around is from great-great-grandma Amber. Enjoy it, dears.

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*If you have similar thoughts, I suggest going for a 36 lb. instead. This is just a touch too flimsy for me, but I’ll manage. Oh, and also, get a SMALLER ROLL.

Check it out you guys! I just added Life List item number 100! (It’s “Run naked through a field” – I was inspired the album cover of Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust from Sigur Ros… and I promise I won’t take pictures when I do).

This list item is a little corny and meta, but I knew I’d loose interest if there wasn’t a goal, so I added it as item number 73. This helped keep me in the groove of adding things as they popped into my head instead of “meaning to” and forgetting. (Know thyself!)

Now adding things is a habit, and a fun one at that.

Here’s to many years of accomplishing!