I'm well. Just got out of the habit of posting daily for a few days.

I've been exercising a lot, lately, or at least I feel as though I have. The scale seems to think otherwise. I assume this is because I really let myself enjoy any and all possible foods while I was home in Chicago. I was surprised to see that I was only up a little bit on the scale after that, but I chalked it up to my incredible exercise while I was there (I really did do very well that weekend with the workouts) and moved on. But I think I fooled myself because it seems that the inevitable extra couple pounds I "earned" that weekend were just waiting for me to get nice and comfy.

Last week was certainly better in terms of food consumption and maybe even exercise, but I still ate more than I needed to. I was up for yesterday's weigh-in and just rolled my eyes and hopped off the scale. Whatev, Bev.

I'm incredibly proud of my exercise efforts lately, as I've now mentioned three times. I've been doing regular, long, cardio sessions, and mixing it up with running on the treadmill, running outdoors, hiking outdoors, and the eliptical machine. I've also been taking yoga classes whenever possible and doing some pilates and some light lifting here and there. I know I've said it before but I'm really enjoying the yoga. It's just so great on all accounts for me. I'm a little OCD about the fact that I'm not lifting as much as I used to be, but I know the yoga is building strength and flexbility in a whole different kind of way. I think this current combination of exercise is something I can stick with for a while. As much as I love lifting, I was definitely in a rut with it.

In related news - and this is pretty big for me - Kevin and I woke up this morning and exercised BEFORE I had to leave for work! Huge. We have talked about doing this countless times and I have attempted, with him and without him, countless other times, to actually go through with it. I've only ever succeeded in waking up a little earlier than usual, but not enough time to get any exercise in. This morning, the practice and constant verbalization of our desires finally paid off. We roused ourselves at 8am, which doesn't seem that early all of a sudden, and were out the door by 8:15. We shared half a banana and drank glasses of water before we left and when we opened the door to the apartment I was so pleased to feel brisk fall-like air. It was perfectly sunny, the bluest of skies, and a nice cool 68 degrees. Amazing running weather.

I wasn't sure at first whether or not I was going to be able to eke out a run at all. I'm not a great morning person - never have been. I don't usually like to move fast or talk a lot or think about much before, say, 10am. So we told ourselves we'd just walk until we felt otherwise. We got to the park, which was filled with morning exercisers, and started running a few minutes later. Ended up doing 30 minutes, 21 running, 9 walking. I was worried I wouldn't make it home in time to get ready for work, but we walked in the door with about 15 mintues to spare so I hopped in the shower while Kevin, the darling, packed my lunch for me (and left me a sweet note at the bottom of the bag...awwww >puke<), and I was out the door at just the right time.

It was so nice. I loved it. I felt really glad we did it. It wasn't a stellar workout by any means, but it was certainly progress in what has seemed like a uphill battle I'd never win, the battle to exercise in the morning. I'm not sure if it's something that will become a regular habit for me this fall, but this morning was basically painless so I'm hoping to recreate it more than once. And of course it was just great to be outside breathing in the fresh air and feeling my muscles working. I'm tired now and hungry. But that's okay.

I had an apple on my walk to the train to tide me over, and a sandwich with one egg and one piece of cheese from my egg-cart guy once I got into Manhattan. And! A hot coffee! I'm an iced coffee slave in the summers, but this morning was just cool enough to warrant hot coffee. It was yummy.

I brought my lunch today - chicken quinoa salad, a recipe I stole from my good friend Jess who has brilliant kitchen ideas on the regular (the first batch I made two weeks ago turned out just 'eh' but I learned! and this batch is really delish), a simple spinach salad, a piece of whole wheat bread, and a half an avocado. Not quite sure it will be enough food because, frankly, I'm ravenous right now, but I'll make do.

The best part of today is that I don't have to go exercise on my lunch break! I don't do that every day, but a few times a week I like to try to. I'll go to a yoga and/or pilates (I want to go to yoga but I feel like I should go to pilates) class tonight after work and before my 9:30 improv show - the show I skipped last week in favor of a nice long workout and that great Vinayasa class that I took and loved.

I think maybe I'll just take a relaxing walk around Central Park or midtown in general on my break today, soak in the perfect weather - a sunny 73 here today - and the sights and sounds of the city.

Yesterday the attorneys at my office had lunch catered and I was in charge of setting it up - so I swiped a nice handful of amazing looking cookies. This is not so I can eat them all at once, though wouldn't that be amazing? It's so I can have them for desserts for a few days. I can have one a day, that's the rule. They're yummy. I think I'll save today's for later tonight.

Things are busy again. Back in the swing of real life. It kinda feels like school started and I'm back to all my fall extra-curriculars like play practice and choir practice. It's really just HST that's ramped back up, after our August hiatus. But that, especially this week, is in and of itself a big time committment. We, foolishly or brilliantly, gave ourselves basically two weeks to write our new show, which premieres this Saturday and is a fucking MUSICAL, in essence. I'm not sure we realized, or maybe we did and we were in complete denial, about how much work there was to do. But we all really needed that break in August and most people were out of town anyway, so this is the hand we've dealt ourselves.

Consequently, everyone's working 'round the clock to get this thing on its feet. The people on the team who don't work 9-5s are meeting during the day to write songs and firm up concepts. And we're meeting in the evenings when we can to block out stuff and learn or relearn songs and figure out how to connect the dots. Luckily we wrote some of the non-musical material over the summer. But, for one reason or another, we never write these things down, so we're going to have to remember what we wrote two months ago and basically relearn it and rehearse it to the point of being funny, i.e. not embarrassing. ;) But all in all, it's been a lot of fun so far, this crash-creation process.

I was telling Jess, actually, earlier today via email that this group of people are like family to me. We've known each other for a long time, we've been in a comedy group together for 4 years and we've written six (now seven) full-length sketch shows in that time, we spend a fair majority of our free time together, whether we're working or not, we've travelled all around the country (and Canada!) together, and we know each other very well from having spent these 4 years in this intesively collaborative process together. Which means we also want to kill each other from time to time. But it's always interesting and it's usually a lot of fun and it's certainly been a huge blessing in my life, not just in terms of enjoying myself but also because it's been an amazing learning experience. I know if and when it finally ends, I will spend the rest of my life relating other experiences to this one and missing and cherishing this time. I know that nothing else will ever be like it and that I will always remember getting to live out the dream of being able to create a bunch of silly stuff with my best friends.

Can you tell we have a new show opening and that I'm all excited about it? I am. ;)

Day-job work is good too. I like my new boss, he's really nice, respectful, and easy to work with. And things are busy which is good because it's distracting. I still plan to be out of here before I'm 29 (in a year and 2 months), but I just discovered that yesterday was my 1 year anniversary of returning to this job. (I worked here when I graduated college for a little less than a year, worked other places for a few years, and then returned here last year.) I can't believe a year has passed since then, but it has.

It's going to be tough to fit in all the exercise I want to fit in in the coming days. I have something goin on almost every night. But I will do my best.

That's all my news for today, I think.