Morning Smoothie
I have a problem. I cannot eat when I first wake up. I need a good hour or two before I actually start to crave food. Of course by the second hour I’m usually too weak to actually want to make anything, or I’m at work, so I started to try and think of options to remove this predicament from my daily life.
A few weeks ago I started buying fresh fruit at the store and making smoothies at night. I would buy:
Raspberries
Blueberries
Strawberries
Bananas
Yogurt
Sometimes I would substitute an ingredient with a plum or other fruit just for a change. They came out really good, but I had two problems with it. First, since my local grocery store sucks when it comes to having fresh produce, the fruit would last 2-3 days in my home before going bad. This would force me to head to the store twice a week to get a week’s worth of smoothies. (Each nightly batch made almost two Thermoses worth.) Secondly, it was kind of expensive. You can grab already-made smoothies for less than what I was making them for. Excluding the bananas and yogurt, the above listed items are about $3.99 for a small plastic containers worth. That would be $12 plus another $4 or $5 for a big carton of yogurt. (The bananas cost almost nothing.) So we’re looking at roughly $16.00 to make two smoothies. That’s $8 each!
Luckily I found a great alternative that solves both of those problems: Frozen Fruit. Companies like Dole, Jamba Juice, America’s Choice, Yoplait, and others sell bags of frozen fruit that you can make smoothies with. Some are even designed for smoothies and include bits of frozen yogurt inside. Depending on the brand, they run anywhere from $3 to $5 a bag. Most of my online research tells me that there is little nutritional difference between fresh and frozen fruit.
I’ve now tried three different brands and so far my favorite is Yoplait’s Triple Berry Smoothie. (Update 3/4/13 : Wegmans sells them for $2.49 a bag!) When I made mine I substituted milk with yogurt. It came out delicious!
Catskill’s Hike – Panther Pictures Posted
Pictures are posted from my hike up Panther Mountain in the Catskills. I’ll try to get a journal entry written
soon.
http://www.theliberaltraveler.com/photography/?album=5&gallery=87
My First Cross Country Trip
Once in awhile I glance around this website looking for things to improve, and it always bothered me that I never wrote about my first Cross Country road trip. I guess I never did because it was a very quick trip, and in that regard made it kind of boring to write about. I completed the trip in 52 hours and only took a 4 hour nap, which was unintentional mind you.
The other reason is because there wasn’t much to write about. I had driven through one of the most beautiful parts of the country at night and missed out on all the scenery. Don’t get me wrong, the trip was still very exciting, but most of that was because it was my first time traveling so far away from home.
Anyway, in case anyone is interested the entry can be found on the Adventures Page, or through this link.
For anyone new to this website I encourage you to check out more exciting road trips like:
X-Country Road Trip 3 – Northeastern Route (Over the Great Lakes)
X-Country Road Trip 4 – Northwestern Route (through Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas)
or X-Country Road Trip 5 – Southern Route (through Louisiana and Texas)
Metro-North Railroad App
I’ve been commuting to and from Grand Central for over six years now. Surprisingly there are still some commuters with smartphones that don’t check the Internet when they have a question, or download an App that they could make use of every so often.
Mobileware Inc’s MNR onTime is one of those Apps. They recently updated their App to a new version with live updates, track numbers, fares, and more. I highly recommend downloading it if you commute out of Grand Central.
To Do List
Earlier in the year I started a “To Do List” using the Reminders App on my Mac and iPhone. I have them automatically sync together using iCloud, which is a neat feature. Once I add something on one device, it’ll show up instantly on the other once I open the App. When iCloud first came out it was funky, but it’s gotten much better. Although I don’t care much for look of the Reminders interface, it’s been a very helpful tool in organizing chores and getting them done.
Here’s my random list of things I didn’t accomplish. Although it’s unlikely, I’m hoping to knock a lot out over the next four days.
Ran Dumb
Hello again. I thought I’d just catch you up with the latest going on. Mostly continuations of prior stuff. The only new event coming up is my snowboarding trip to Vermont this weekend. I’m very excited. (It’s also an important birthday for me. Yikes!)
HARD DRIVE DILEMMA
First off, my 2TB LaCie hard drive crapped out during Hurricane Sandy. (Not because of, just around that time.) Although the hard drive is under warranty and could be replaced for free, I’d lose all that data. I do have 85% of it backed up, but of course that last 15% I don’t and it’s footage from the road trip to Alaska. I’m so torn as to what to do. I can’t afford the $1299 it’ll cost the extract the data (with no guarantee I’ll get the Alaska footage). So do I get a new drive and lose that footage, or take the broken drive back and let it collect dust…. and maybe in the future pay to attempt to recover it?
BANK OF AMERICA CATASTROPHE
So BOA is royally trying to screw me. I’ll spare you the long story leading back to 2011, but in May of 2012 I was told they are now refinancing people with LPMI on their loans. So we started the paperwork process, and 6.5 months later they denied me (again). After sending and resending the same paperwork, after getting an appraisal when they first told me they didn’t, they told me they can’t do it because I’d have to change my property type. They have me listed as a Condo (their fault, not mine) and to refinance they’d have to change the “Property Type”.
Funny thing is, no one suggested correcting my file. So I separately called and faxed over documents to prove I’m a Co-op. Once we change that, I cannot see why they’ll deny me. Fingers crossed. Last I left it with my Loan Officer he was passing me over to upper management because as you can imagine I’m livid. They really just don’t want me to refinance… after all, they’ll lose money and I’ll be saving six figures in the long term. I contacted the officer stating the property-type correction and haven’t heard back.
VERMONT
Anyway, I’m excited for Vermont. We rented a place near Okemo Mountain. Oddly enough the Catskill mountains have more snow than Okemo. The Catskill’s have a base ranging from 15-24 where this one has 16. But since they’re smaller they only have 4-6 trails open. Okemo has 26 with 4 lifts open. Reports from riders have been good. A little compact and icy, but enough powder to get in some good runs.
Regardless of the mountain conditions, I’m excited just to be chillin’ in Vermont with some close friends. For years I’ve been wanting to get 10 or so close friends together in a cabin for a weekend. Copilot managed to make that come true. She rocks.
Long Time No Write…
Wow. It’s been over a month since I last wrote an entry. Sorry about that. I never even got around to writing about The Devil’s Path which was a very intense hike. That’s on my To Do list.
Life has been very hectic recently. The first week of October was the New Hampshire road trip, followed by the Catskill’s Hike the second week. Shortly after that we had Hurricane Sandy which tore the Jersey Shore and lower New York apart. My town had downed trees and power outages galore. I was actually out of work for a week because Metro North couldn’t operate.
Since then work has been incredibly hectic, mostly in good ways. Two people were let go and one quit, so we’re down 3 employees yet have an increased workload. The company’s not doing well. We haven’t recovered from the Great Recession. Since I’m a “Junior Editor” I’ve been asked to help out with Assistant work, yet luckily I have been bombarded with Editorial work. In the past two months alone I’ve cut several spots for four different movies, three of which have “finished” and will be on the air. So it’s been a very good two months for me. It’s very stressful at times which is why I haven’t been writing recently. On the weekends I just want to relax but yet I find myself running errands and playing “catch-up”. I hate that game…
Aside from Holidays and parties, the next big event for me is a birthday present from Copilot. She rented a place in Vermont for a weekend. It’s a huge house that sleeps 15 people. As I was putting together a list of close friends to invite, we decided to start our Wedding Guest list as well. It’s so hard. We calculated 263 close family and friends, way more than we had anticipated inviting. We’ll see what happens. I guess I shouldn’t complain though. Too many friends and family is a good thing, right?
So that’s what’s new. An increased workload, upcoming birthday and snowboarding trip, and wedding planning.
Oh, and Copilot’s brother is coming to live with us…
The Devil’s Path Pictures
Pictures from The Devil’s Path in the Catskills are up. I’ll try to get a blog entry about it up soon.
