Goin' Goin' Back Back to Cali Cali

American Airlines has this great and creepy in flight Internet service that I'm taking advantage of. I love being able to get online, although I do think I need to cut back on how much time I spend on my computer, but it is a little weird, right?

My trip back east with my family was really great. I do feel very relaxed and ready to get back to Santa Monica.

Some highlights from the trip include:
1. Spending so much time with my nieces! Julia is a total crack-up and Lila is so beautiful. It was a lot of fun to hang out in the city with Julia on Friday. Watching her run all over the place and see how truly happy she makes people by just being her adorable self was a great way to spend my day. At one point, we were holding hands walking down Park Ave. and a man literally rolled down his window and screamed out "I love her hair."





The hardest thing about living in California is that it's so far from my family. And spending time with my nieces makes me feel even farther away. But we had a very fun time and I can't wait to see them again.

2. Worked out 5 times! Thank you to Wii, I was able to keep up with my workouts and feel good about that aspect of this trip. Usually when I'm in NYC, I'm very inactive and eat a lot. But that wasn't the case this time around. I tried Wii for the first time and besides being a truly outstanding bowler (which is funny considering I suck in real life), I got to work out four times doing yoga, aerobic exercises (the hula hoop is a KILLER), strength training and balancing work (of which I apparently have none of, according to Wii). It made me really happy to be so active on the trip and also made me freak out a little less about food.

3. Easy on the food. I didn't go crazy around food, which was great. I didn't beat myself up about food choices either. I definitely ate more than I would had I been home, but I wasn't, and I needed to let that go. But it brought to light, even more, how important it is for me to limit how many times a week I go out to eat. Or even just how much I eat out period. It's just impossible to make the best decisions when you are tempted by the little menu calling out all these great foods that taste good, but in reality, are not that good. So I'm going to get right back on that bandwagon.

4. Little on the agenda. I'm usually the type of person who has a jam-packed social schedule. I flit from place to place and meet up with a million people and then come the end of my trip, I'm anything but relaxed. Luckily, this was not the case with this trip. Although it made some people sad (I didn't get to meet my Aunt's dog Monty), it was important for me to not overextend myself and to keep the trip simple. This definitely helped make my trip more enjoyable and lent to the refreshed feeling I have heading west.

5. Laundry's all done. One of my favorite things in the world is to go home with clean laundry. I know this makes me seem incredibly anal and boring (and I'm okay with that), but it does make a big difference for me to go home and not have to worry about the pile of laundry and other chores waiting for me. So, thanks to Kara, I was able to get all my laundry done in NJ and can go home with one less thing to cross off my to do list!

6. No work! This one is getting easier and easier for me. It's not as much of a challenge to check-in and monitor my emails. I just don't do it. Which is a great feeling. I'm okay with the fact that I'll have a bunch of emails waiting for me tomorrow morning and that the next few days will be a little nutty. But that's okay. It's worth it to me, to truly be able to step away from work and give myself the time I need to restore my energy and chill out.

So overall, it was a really great trip. I loved being able to see so much of my family. Lila's christening yesterday (I'm a co-godmother with Katie) was really nice and made it possible for me to see more of my family that I don't normally get to see. It's a nice calm before another storm erupts over here.

It's going to be a challenging week. Steve's mom is currently scheduled to go in for a major major gnarly operation on Wednesday. She backs out of most her plans, so I wouldn't be surprised if she backed out of this, but...it really is almost a case of life and death and with literally her life on the line, I'm leaning more towards her going through with it. I'll be doing a lot of taking care of other people this week- Kathy and Steve and her sister, My Steve and his brother. It's a lot to manage and keep up with, but they need all the strength and support I can muster up, so I have to make it a top priority to take care of me during all of this as well.

For me that means, maintaining my workouts (I did squeeze in Wii fit this morning and Susannah and I already have a date to go for a bike ride before I start work at 8am tomorrow), significantly cutting back on how much I eat out (I already have plans for Wednesday PM to celebrate my 10-year Friendiversary with my Best LA Ladies), write down what I eat and make sure I'm doing what is necessary to take care of myself so that I feel well balanced and rested at the end of each day.

I'm going to spend the last two hours of my flight listening to Oprah's Best Life Ever podcasts, catching up on my food journal and writing out my goals for the upcoming week. I know it's going to be another great one!