If I don't do this right now I'm never gonna get to it today.

I had a really nice weekend. I'll do a quick recap.

Friday night was datenight. I was so beyond exhausted when I left work on Friday night. The entire week had just been nonstop. Almost every day had been nonstop from 8am to 12am, no joke. I would get up around 8, leave the house by 9 and not return most nights until midnight. It was a lot.

I met Kevin at a restaurant in Park Slope, which is a neighborhood near our neighborhood, for those of you not familiar with New York. We go to this tex mex place in that 'hood called Santa Fe Grill. And we LOVE it. We hadn't been in a while so we were both excited. And hungry.

I usually love to have their margaritas but I decided I didn't need the calories so I just had a couple sips of his and order a gin and tonic with lime for myself. Significantly less going on in that drink than in a margarita. We had chips, guac, salsa, delicious entrees, and nice conversation. My exhaustion-funk eventually lifted and we had a nice time. It was an otherwise early night because I had to be up early Saturday morning.

Saturday was HST day. We finished writing, rehearsed, tweaked, re-rehearsed, and finalized our show. It was a bit stressful but we work well under pressure so we got it done. We worked from 10am-2pm, took a break until 6pm and basically worked straight up until showtime at 9:30pm. Kevin and I (Kevin does the lights, sound, and narrative intro for our show) went to have lunch and workout during the break. We had a yummy lunch from the Whole Foods prepared foods bar (mostly salad and rice and we split a slice of pizza) and made our way to the gym for a long cardio session and some light lifting.

The show went really well; it was very scary and exciting for us to finally be performing it and was ultimately a lot of fun. But by the end of it, when we were all finished and had our street clothes back on, we were all just zombies. I was sitting in a booth at the bar with Kev, all of our friends milling around, and I said "I'm at zero right now." I could barely even smile or make eye contact with people, I felt so ridiculously depleted from all the different kinds of physical and mental exertion from the day and also from the whole nonstop week. About ten minutes later, Billy, one of my HST teammates who'd been talking to someone on the other side of the bar came up to me and said "Jen, I'm at zero right now." Funny. But true. We were all just drained. I was ready to leave shortly after Kevin and I shared a burger and fries.

Sunday was ahhhh NOTHING for most of the day. Well, sorta. It was so nice not to have anything "work"-related on the agenda. We slept in, which I needed badly, woke up around 11:30, and I decided I didn't want eggs for breakfast. (We eat a lot of eggs and eggwhites in our house.) So I decided to make pancakes from scratch! Obviously pretty simple, but I'd never done it before. I found a very simple, healthy recipe online and they turned out great. I made some plain ones, a walnut one, a couple strawberry and blueberries ones and we chowed down. YUM.

A while later, I got a wildhair and decided I needed to walk to a local yoga studio for their 4pm basic class. Kevin came along and I think he might still regret that he did. It was a tough class. The walk, round trip, was about 45 minutes, which was very nice, and the class, although basic, was intense. This woman was a fantastic instructor. It was a very different vibe, of course, and she was a different kind of teacher than the yoga classes I take through the gym. I loved it. I was sweating BULLETS. I don't think they had any a/c on in there and it was a bazillion degrees outside with humidity like you wouldn't believe (when we left the apartment for the first time that day to set out on our walk to the yoga place we both said "Oh GROSS.") so the sweating was to be expected, but I was also working my ass off. And in a basic class! The teacher was amazing about making sure we were getting the most benefit out of every pose and movement. And boy, were we. Oof! I loved it. I think Kevin would have rather probably been anyplace else in the world. And maybe we bickered about it a little bit when it was over. :) (Read: had a big fight.)

We grabbed something to tide us over on the walk home - an all-natural frozen yogurt for me and a slice of pizza for him. We showered and changed at home and then headed over to our friend Matt's house for what will go down as one of the best meals I've had in a long time. Matt is a vegetarian and he invited us over for dinner because he'd been feeling like "cooking for people." And who am I to turn that down? We brought some wine and arrived to a house that smelled lovely. The menu included: a light citrus beet salad (never had beets before!), unbelievable bruschetta type things with veggie toppings to die for, a white-bean soup that was creamy but not heavy, a spring salad with lemon juice and a hunk of cheese, gnocchi made from scratch with pesto also made from scratch, and for dessert, this unreal warm berry mixture over HaagenDas. So. I died. From joy. And flavor. And it was LOVELY.

We loved sampling all the different foods Matt had prepared, we had lovely conversation, and really enjoyed ourselves. I was stuffed when we left, but mostly with veggies! It was a really nice time. And as if all that wasn't enough! He sent us away with leftovers of the gnocchi and the soup! So awesome. Had the bean soup for lunch just now. Stuffed.

I tend to be a bit of a finicky eater so I decided to just walk into Matt's dinner willing to taste anything he put in front of me, knowing some of it might be stuff I'd never had before and would usually shy away from. And it paid off because it was all so delicious. He is an amazing cook.

I woke up yesterday to a higher number on the scale than I was hoping for, but after a huge meal and a couple glasses of wine the night before, and, if we're being honest here, a large bite of my leftovers from Friday night's datenight once we got home from Matt's, it was to be expected. I tried to eat lightly yesterday and woke up for weigh-in this morning to a nice 1.2 pound loss. Nothing stellar and perhaps not earned because I definitely had some trespasses this week in terms of food, but I'll take it.

Workouts were wonderful again this week: plenty of cardio, two HARD yoga classes, some abs, and a lifting session. Feeling really good about all that right now. I skipped exercise yesterday and I'll go on my lunch break today for just 30 minutes of cardio. I'll probably try that 3 machines workout I did last week - 10 stairmaster, 10 treadmill, 10 elliptical. Variety. Spice of life and all.

I'm going to have to make it to the grocery store soon. I'm planning some veggie lasagna, some chili, and turkey burgers for this week. We'll see!

Tonight is another HST rehearsal and then I'm hoping to make some pizzas with Kev . It will be late 10:30 or so, by the time I get home but those puppies cook up quickly, so it should be fine.

Our apartment is a bit of a mess right now. We've been so busy. But I'm trying not to let it get to me.

Honestly, I'm definitely antsy right now - looking to the future. Wondering what's next for me in terms of my job/career and if we'll live in New York forever, etc. I guess the fall tends to make me feel that way. But the practical reality of life is that I'm way too busy to consider much beyond the daydreams I have at the moment. I'm hoping once these fall activites become more automatic, I will be able to carve out some time this fall to focus on what I want to work towards next. I'd like to have that stuff more firmly in my mind's eye by Christmastime. It will feel good to go into the new year with some new goals. Until then, the exercise and yoga, the cooking and organic foods focus, and the friendships and activities I'm enjoying right now will have to be enough to keep me sane. I'm pouring WAY too much time into my dayjob right now especially with the commute, but with a terrible economy and a really tight job market, there's not much room for me to move out of this lifestyle at the moment. It doesn't mean I can't imagine what will someday be possible, though.