Yar

Got my skinny envelope in the mail yesterday. We all know what that means - they said thanks but no thanks :(

Bummer.

The good thing is that things are starting to come together. I may not LIKE the way the pieces are falling, but at least D and I have a better idea of where we will both be and what we will (or, in my case, won't) be doing. And after the last few weeks of having NO IDEA, that feels kinda nice.

Good News!

D is staying in CA for at least the next 6 months!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nothing yet as far as the big boy job, but the longer he is in CA the more likely that becomes.

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

Now that he's set, let's hope for good news for me in the next week :)

Tap Tap Tap. And Bandwagon.

Hi I'm back!

The holidays were busy. So busy. I cooked a LOT. I ate even more. It was blissful.

But now its 2010 and hopefully I'm back on track here.

Tonight I finally decided to give quinoa a try. I didn't know what to do with it, really, so after a pretty quick search through some of the blogs I frequent (am I the last person to try this stuff?!?!) I decided to go a simple route. Lets just say it was a good decision. I made a really quick saute of cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and carrots with some lime and cilantro and served it with plain quinoa. Deeeeeeeeeeeelicious. Just like everyone says, nutty but not overpowering, and substantial. I'm stuffed. No meat. This is odd for me.

I'm definitely on board with this quinoa thing!

Next

There is more news coming.

Hopefully its good. I'm due for some good news, don't you think??

I'll find out about grad school by the end of the month. I'm so so so nervous!

But... even better... we find out where D will be for at least the next 6 months (in a position that will hopefully become permanent) TOMORROW!!!!! Either way is ok, but we're hoping he stays out in California. We like it there. So much warmer than NY :)

So, readers. Keep a good thought for me, will ya?

Its been a Rough Week

I'm going to be more depressing.

My uncle, my dad's oldest brother, broke his back many many years ago. Twice. Due to these injuries he had many many surgeries, most of which to remove scar tissue that built up and put pressure on his spinal cord. Yeah, ow. During one of these surgeries my uncle contracted Hepatitis C, for which there is no cure, and spent a long long time living with it well managed.

As my uncle got older he got more and more weak, and his hepatitis was able to overcome his immune system. He was sick more often, and hospitalized for pneumonia more often. As time went on he spent more and more time with pneumonia and more and more time in the hospital.

In October we got the tough news that my uncle didn't have much time left. Months, maybe, the doctors told us. Timmy and my aunt decided after one hospitalization that the next time was the last time, and made the choice to not pursue any further treatment. Not long after he got sick again, went to the hospital, was transferred to hospice per his wishes, and the day after Thanksgiving he lost his fight.

My uncle was never one for sadness or for pity. He lived a life full of pain but never complained, never let it interfere with him living his life. His wishes after his death was cremation, which we honored, and a party.

Yes. A party.

We waited until after the holidays, but last weekend many family members and friends made the trip to Rio Rancho, NM for a weekend-long fiesta in his honor. We laughed, cried, hugged, ate, drank (a LOT), danced, sang, and paid our best tribute to my Uncle Tim. I think we did a pretty good job.

William "Tim" Edmund Cozens, Jr
11/4/53 - 11/27/09

"That in death if not life they'll have rest while they sleep
Navigator, navigator, rise up and be strong"

Depressing, sorry. And angry.

I had a rather-successful grad school interview last Monday. I say "rather" because I think it went pretty well, but we will see how the school felt about it sometime before the end of the month. Unfortunately, their opinion is much more important than mine.

The interview was in Portland. I was lucky enough to be able to stay with a few current students while I was there. I walked back to their apartment after the festivities had wrapped up (alone, they were still in class) feeling pretty darn good about myself. I walked in, checked my phone, and with one little text message all those good feelings fell straight to the pit of my stomach.

Let me rewind. My sweet grandmother had been diagnosed with lung cancer a few years ago. She'd been a fighter through it all, trying chemo and radiation and the whole nine yards. Unfortunately, this hadn't helped and she and her doctors had decided to stop treatment a few months ago. Also unfortunately, she hadn't shared that information with anyone in her family - always trying to protect us, my Memere. So when we got a phone call a few months ago that she wasn't doing so well at all, and to brace for impact it was a big surprise. My family was planning a trip to Florida for the end of January to see her one last time.

Did I mention my interview was on Monday? Well on Thursday or Friday we got the worst phone call you can get: get your @$$ to Florida, now. I took my sister to the airport Saturday morning, but what the heck was I going to do? I had been preparing for this interview for a month. It was my first (and only) interview so far. This was important stuff. But my Memere - well, everything was too up in the air to say. I talked to my family about it and decided I would go to Portland on Monday  and fly to Florida on Tuesday. It was a terrible decision to have to make, but we all thought it was the right one to make.

Until I got that text message on Monday evening. My family and I had been talking the night before, they were all together in Florida and had called to wish me luck. I hadn't brought my phone with me to the school, but my Mom texted me during the day something most simple: "Please call when you're done, hope it went great! Love you!" And it was so unassuming, so benign, but I knew. I stalled to make that call. I changed and packed and even checked my email. Then I called and my Mom told me that my Memere had passed away that morning, and that she was so sorry that she didn't call earlier but she wanted me to not worry about that, and to do so well at my interview. So we talked for a while about Memere and about her dying and about my interview and I held it together pretty well but as soon as I hung up the phone I totally lost it.

Seriously lost it. I was so afraid the girls were going to walk in and see this mess of a person on their floor, but I didn't really care either. Because that's what you do when your Memere dies.

I have tried to think about, talk about, write about all the emotions that have been running through me since then but I just can't. Its such a mix. Sadness, of course. I miss her, not that I saw her that often, but in that I know that there is this little empty part of my life now where she used to be. And where she will never be again. Relief, that she's not fighting or suffering any more. Graditute that she was my Memere, and that the end was easy. But the biggest one, the one I'm trying to push out the most is guilt. Why didn't I call her more often? Why didn't I go visit more? Why haven't scientists cured cancer yet? Why haven't I cured cancer yet? And most often: Why the hell didn't I skip that stupid interview and go to Florida?

The worst part is that my whole family knows this is how I feel and is, as a result, being so goddamn nice. Telling me how proud they are of me and how I made the right choice to go and how that's what my Memere would have wanted. But they all got to say their goodbyes. They got to hold her hand and tell her that they love her. She saw them there, she knew they were there, and she knew I was not. And that makes me feel god damn awful. And I'm so afriad that I'm going to feel like this for a long long time because there is no closure here, there is no way for me to deal with this except to deal with it. And that sucks.

It comes down to is this: I'd better fucking get in to grad school.

A Confession

A little while ago I posted about two of my New Year's Resolutions. I'll finish with that soon enough, but in the meantime, I have a confession to make.

I've totally set myself up for failure.

My two goals are not "lose ten pounds" or "buy less stuff'. No. My goals are huge, life changing things. Grad school. An engagement. This is heavy stuff. And here's the truth: there is no way both can happen this year.

If I do get in to grad school (I find out before the end of the month... PLEASE keep a good thought for me!) I'll be moving to Oregon in June. D will be... well, we still don't know where he will be, but it sure won't be Oregon. And with as hard as a long-distance relationship is, neither of us is very interested in a long-distance engagement or long distance marriage. Yuk. And we agree that we are not multi-year engagement people. When we do get engaged it won't be a hypothetical, "when" we get married. It will be a set-the-date, find-a-caterer, thank-god-we-know-a-photographer-because-otherwise-this-would-be-hell, lets do this kind of thing.

And if I don't get into grad school, well, we're still more or less stuck. We still don't know where D will be with work, and what my next step will be. We pretty much have no idea what is going to be happening in either of our lives in a year, six months, hell, in six weeks. Yes, it is very frustrating. But yes, it is very exciting!

I think that when this year is over and I look back on it all, I'll be completely totally 100% thrilled if just one of these things happen. 2010, bring it on :)

Awesomeeeeee

Its the New Year. The. New. Year. That means D went to the gym last night and it was packed. It will stay that way for about two weeks and that will be the end. In two weeks I'll be back at an empty gym :)

With this in mind (and my November experiment quickly falling victim to to 60 hour workweeks), here is a GREAT article about creating habits.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle



The Habit Change Cheatsheet: 29 Ways to Successfully Ingrain a Behavior


Our daily lives are often a series of habits played out through the day, a trammeled existence fettered by the slow accretion of our previous actions.
But habits can be changed, as difficult as that may seem sometimes.
I’m a living example: in tiny, almost infinitesimal steps, I’ve changed a laundry list of habits. Quit smoking, stopped impulse spending, got out of debt, began running and waking early and eating healthier and becoming frugal and simplifying my life and becoming organized and focused and productive, ran three marathons and a couple of triathlons, started a few successful blogs, eliminated my debt … you get the picture.
It’s possible.
And while I’ve written about habit change many times over the course of the life of Zen Habits, today I thought I’d put the best tips all together in one cheatsheet, for those new to the blog and for those who could use the reminders.
Keep it simple

Habit change is not that complicated. While the tips below will seem overwhelming, there’s really only a few things you need to know. Everything else is just helping these to become reality.

The simple steps of habit change:

1. Write down your plan.

2. Identify your triggers and replacement habits.

3. Focus on doing the replacement habits every single time the triggers happen, for about 30 days.

That’s it. We’ll talk more about each of these steps, and much more, in the cheatsheet below.

The Habit Change Cheatsheet

The following is a compilation of tips to help you change a habit. Don’t be overwhelmed — always remember the simple steps above. The rest are different ways to help you become more successful in your habit change.

1. Do just one habit at a time. Extremely important. Habit change is difficult, even with just one habit. If you do more than one habit at a time, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Keep it simple, allow yourself to focus, and give yourself the best chance for success. Btw, this is why New Year’s resolutions often fail — people try to tackle more than one change at a time.

2. Start small. The smaller the better, because habit change is difficult, and trying to take on too much is a recipe for disaster. Want to exercise? Start with just 5-10 minutes. Want to wake up earlier? Try just 10 minutes earlier for now. Or consider half habits.

3. Do a 30-day Challenge. In my experience, it takes about 30 days to change a habit, if you’re focused and consistent. This is a round number and will vary from person to person and habit to habit. Often you’ll read a magical “21 days” to change a habit, but this is a myth with no evidence. Seriously — try to find the evidence from a scientific study for this. A more recent study shows that 66 days is a better number (read more). But 30 days is a good number to get you started. Your challenge: stick with a habit every day for 30 days, and post your daily progress updates to a forum.

4. Write it down. Just saying you’re going to change the habit is not enough of a commitment. You need to actually write it down, on paper. Write what habit you’re going to change.

5. Make a plan. While you’re writing, also write down a plan. This will ensure you’re really prepared. The plan should include your reasons (motivations) for changing, obstacles, triggers, support buddies, and other ways you’re going to make this a success. More on each of these below.

6. Know your motivations, and be sure they’re strong. Write them down in your plan. You have to be very clear why you’re doing this, and the benefits of doing it need to be clear in your head. If you’re just doing it for vanity, while that can be a good motivator, it’s not usually enough. We need something stronger. For me, I quit smoking for my wife and kids. I made a promise to them. I knew if I didn’t smoke, not only would they be without a husband and father, but they’d be more likely to smoke themselves (my wife was a smoker and quit with me).

7. Don’t start right away. In your plan, write down a start date. Maybe a week or two from the date you start writing out the plan. When you start right away (like today), you are not giving the plan the seriousness it deserves. When you have a “Quit Date” or “Start Date”, it gives that date an air of significance. Tell everyone about your quit date (or start date). Put it up on your wall or computer desktop. Make this a Big Day. It builds up anticipation and excitement, and helps you to prepare.

8. Write down all your obstacles. If you’ve tried this habit change before (odds are you have), you’ve likely failed. Reflect on those failures, and figure out what stopped you from succeeding. Write down every obstacle that’s happened to you, and others that are likely to happen. Then write down how you plan to overcome them. That’s the key: write down your solution before the obstacles arrive, so you’re prepared.

9. Identify your triggers. What situations trigger your current habit? For the smoking habit, for example, triggers might include waking in the morning, having coffee, drinking alcohol, stressful meetings, going out with friends, driving, etc. Most habits have multiple triggers. Identify all of them and write them in your plan.

10. For every single trigger, identify a positive habit you’re going to do instead. When you first wake in the morning, instead of smoking, what will you do? What about when you get stressed? When you go out with friends? Some positive habits could include: exercise, meditation, deep breathing, organizing, decluttering, and more.

“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.” - Mark Twain

11. Plan a support system. Who will you turn to when you have a strong urge? Write these people into your plan. Support forums online are a great tool as well — I used a smoking cessation forum on about.com when I quit smoking, and it really helped. Don’t underestimate the power of support — it’s really important.

12. Ask for help. Get your family and friends and co-workers to support you. Ask them for their help, and let them know how important this is. Find an AA group in your area. Join online forums where people are trying to quit. When you have really strong urges or a really difficult time, call on your support network for help. Don’t smoke a cigarette, for example, without posting to your online quit forum. Don’t have a drop of alcohol before calling your AA buddy.

13. Become aware of self-talk. You talk to yourself, in your head, all the time — but often we’re not aware of these thoughts. Start listening. These thoughts can derail any habit change, any goal. Often they’re negative: “I can’t do this. This is too difficult. Why am I putting myself through this? How bad is this for me anyway? I’m not strong enough. I don’t have enough discipline. I suck.” It’s important to know you’re doing this.

14. Stay positive. You will have negative thoughts — the important thing is to realize when you’re having them, and push them out of your head. Squash them like a bug! Then replace them with a positive thought. “I can do this! If Leo can do it, so can I!” :)

15. Have strategies to defeat the urge. Urges are going to come — they’re inevitable, and they’re strong. But they’re also temporary, and beatable. Urges usually last about a minute or two, and they come in waves of varying strength. You just need to ride out the wave, and the urge will go away. Some strategies for making it through the urge: deep breathing, self-massage, eat some frozen grapes, take a walk, exercise, drink a glass of water, call a support buddy, post on a support forum.

16. Prepare for the sabotagers. There will always be people who are negative, who try to get you to do your old habit. Be ready for them. Confront them, and be direct: you don’t need them to try to sabotage you, you need their support, and if they can’t support you then you don’t want to be around them.

17. Talk to yourself. Be your own cheerleader, give yourself pep talks, repeat your mantra (below), and don’t be afraid to seem crazy to others. We’ll see who’s crazy when you’ve changed your habit and they’re still lazy, unhealthy slobs!

18. Have a mantra. For quitting smoking, mine was “Not One Puff Ever” (I didn’t make this up, but it worked — more on this below). When I wanted to quit my day job, it was “Liberate Yourself”. This is just a way to remind yourself of what you’re trying to do.

19. Use visualization. This is powerful. Vividly picture, in your head, successfully changing your habit. Visualize doing your new habit after each trigger, overcoming urges, and what it will look like when you’re done. This seems new-agey, but it really works.

20. Have rewards. Regular ones. You might see these as bribes, but actually they’re just positive feedback. Put these into your plan, along with the milestones at which you’ll receive them.

21. Take it one urge at a time. Often we’re told to take it one day at a time — which is good advice — but really it’s one urge at a time. Just make it through this urge.

22. Not One Puff Ever (in other words, no exceptions). This seems harsh, but it’s a necessity: when you’re trying to break the bonds between an old habit and a trigger, and form a new bond between the trigger and a new habit, you need to be really consistent. You can’t do it sometimes, or there will be no new bond, or at least it will take a really really long time to form. So, at least for the first 30 days (and preferably 60), you need to have no exceptions. Each time a trigger happens, you need to do the new habit and not the old one. No exceptions, or you’ll have a backslide. If you do mess up, regroup, learn from your mistake, plan for your success, and try again (see the last item on this list).

23. Get rest. Being tired leaves us vulnerable to relapse. Get a lot of rest so you can have the energy to overcome urges.

24. Drink lots of water. Similar to the item above, being dehydrated leaves us open to failure. Stay hydrated!

25. Renew your commitment often. Remind yourself of your commitment hourly, and at the beginning and end of each day. Read your plan. Celebrate your success. Prepare yourself for obstacles and urges.

26. Set up public accountability. Blog about it, post on a forum, email your commitment and daily progress to friend and family, post a chart up at your office, write a column for your local newspaper (I did this when I ran my first marathon). When we make it public — not just the commitment but the progress updates — we don’t want to fail.

27. Engineer it so it’s hard to fail. Create a groove that’s harder to get out of than to stay in: increase positive feedback for sticking with the habit, and increase negative feedback for not doing the habit. Read more on this method.

28. Avoid some situations where you normally do your old habit, at least for awhile, to make it a bit easier on yourself. If you normally drink when you go out with friends, consider not going out for a little while. If you normally go outside your office with co-workers to smoke, avoid going out with them. This applies to any bad habit — whether it be eating junk food or doing drugs, there are some situations you can avoid that are especially difficult for someone trying to change a bad habit. Realize, though, that when you go back to those situations, you will still get the old urges, and when that happens you should be prepared.

29. If you fail, figure out what went wrong, plan for it, and try again. Don’t let failure and guilt stop you. They’re just obstacles, but they can be overcome. In fact, if you learn from each failure, they become stepping stones to your success. Regroup. Let go of guilt. Learn. Plan. And get back on that horse.

Resolutions, 2010

First and foremost: Food! So very typical.

2009 was a good year for me in the kitchen. I expanded my collection of yummy, easy recipes for regular nights but I also tried some more complex meals. I also baked a LOT more this year than any other year before, which is definitely not a good thing for me to continue :) Here are some of my favorite new dishes of the year:
Fettuccine Alfredo
Tomato Basil Soup
Meatloaf
Brisket
Rugelach
Matzoh Ball Soup
Charoset
Boston Cream Pie
Pollo con Espinaca
Tom Kha Gai
Spicy Peanut Noodles
Jambalaya
Zucchini Basil Soup
Chicken Tortilla Soup
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

In the next year I certainly want to continue to work on becoming a better and more well rounded cook. I’d also like to really get down some recipes I have made before but aren’t quite perfect. In 2010 these are some of the things I’d like to try:

Bagels (and Bialys!) – Since we left NY I haven’t had anything that comes even remotely close. I’d love to be able to make some yummies without having to go all the way to Brooklyn!

Granola - I have at LEAST 100 granola recipes bookmarked. Time to give some a try!

Granola Bar/Energy Bar Type thing – To replace the Chewy Bar addiction.

Blintzes – Holy crap, yum.

Stuffed French Toast – Again – yum!

Dutch Pancake – I need a cast iron pan… hint hint :)

Yogurt – worth it home made? I’m not sure. But I’m willing to give it a try!

Sourdough – because NOTHING is better than good sourdough.

Good Everyday Bread – for sandwiches and eating with dinner. I made a lot of bread two years ago but didn’t do it so much this year. Would like to get back on that weekly bread-making train if I could.

Challah – I love Jews for challah. And their men!

Wrap-ish something – again, for sandwiches. They are so expensive at the store and honestly, can’t be that difficult to make.

Horchata – not sure if anything I make will ever be as good as Filiberto’s, but its worth a shot.

Marinara Sauce – because everyone needs a good marinara.

Pizza Sauce – because someday I will make awesome pizza.

Pizza Dough – I tried a LOT of pizza dough recipes this year and I’m not totally satisfied with any of them (though Peter Reinhart’s does come preeeeeeety close). This year I will make perfect pizza dough.

Tomatillo Enchilada Sauce – because it’s difficult to find enchilada sauce in NYC, and even though I don’t live there right now, I need to prepare for where ever I do end up.

Condiment of some sort – Undecided on what exactly this one will be, but I do need something for sandwiches or salads or whatever.

Granita – and frozen custard and ice cream and yummmmmmmmmm.

Tiramisu – this Italian place near us makes the most unbelievable tiramisu. When I move I’m pretty sure I’ll go through withdrawals, unless of course I can make it myself!

Butter – see yogurt.

Crepe Cake – um, yeah. Time consuming but hopefully worth it. Who wants one for their birthday?

Meatballs – pork free, of course!

Lamb – I made lamb once this year (at Passover) but I wasn’t really sure what I was doing. We grilled it and it came out more than fine but I know we can do better.

Pasta – because I want to take pictures of my kitchen with pasta draped everywhere!

Lasagna or Tortellini – with homemade pasta, of course!

Ropa Vieja – this I made a few years ago and it came out just ok – would really like to perfect this because its probably my favorite thing to eat.

Ebilskever – because what an awesome name! And also because, yum!

Booze – wine? I’d love to try something with fermenting/boozifying/bottling. I’m not sure where to start but with a little research I’m sure I can find some easy at home recipes?

I Love...

Lady GaGa

So unapolagetic. So out there. So awesome.