On Thursdays, we drink juice

Happy Thursday friends.  I am nearing the end of my day, and I wanted to fill you all in on something I've been doing for the past few Thursdays.

Juice!  You may recall that I did a three day cleanse earlier this year.  Well, lately I've been doing something a bit less drastic.  For the past three weeks, I've been doing a one day cleanse every Thursday.  I get six juices delivered to my apartment on Wednesday night, and then I tote some juice to work on Thursday.

Just like the three day cleanse, I get four vegetable juices, a lighter juice (spicy lemonade!), and a "liquid dessert" of cashew milk with vanilla and cinnamon.  The idea behind doing a one day cleanse is to do five days of healthy eating, one day of juice cleanse, and one day of cheat eating.  Sounds pretty do-able right?

I know you're wondering why I'm doing this!  There are tons of articles about why juice cleanses are effective, and there are equally as many articles about why they are bad for you.  One of my co-workers asked me "does doing it for only one day really work?"  To which I answered "well it depends on what you mean by work!"

For me, the best part of doing a juice cleanse is that it resets my body and appetite to focus on healthy, fresh foods.  Very often in Singapore, I find myself eating foods that are covered in oil, salt, and MSG.  So it's good to be reminded of how good it feels to eat healthy!  I don't know how much I buy the notion that drinking nothing but juice will somehow rid your body of toxins and make your skin glow, but I know that I feel a lot better when I'm eating well, so I use juice cleansing to reset myself into eating better and thus, feeling better!

Singapore friends - I use Rejuicenate for my juice cleanses!  The one day cleanse isn't advertised on their site, but the chef/owner is awesome and super flexible (and a friend of a friend).  I just emailed to ask, and he let me pick my own customized one day cleanse containing my favorite juices.  I would definitely recommend it if you are interested in trying a juice cleanse!

The choices we make

Hi friends!

As I mentioned in my weekend recap, my friend Leslie is in town for a visit!  Leslie and I were co-workers at my first job out of college, and we have stayed in touch ever since.  She's the only friend that I've had come visit me in both Nashville and Singapore, so even though we don't see each other often, it is always fun to catch up.

One thing she mentioned over the weekend really got me thinking - she said something about how much I've changed and how people back at my old company are all surprised to hear about what I'm doing these days.  It's funny, because obviously, I know that I am a lot different now than I was when I left college.  My job is different, my lifestyle is different, and I live on a different continent.

Do you ever feel like you can pinpoint the tipping point in your life?  Like, is there a critical juncture for you that basically shifted everything?  I feel like I can point to an exact choice that I made that put me on this path.  Of course the path continues on, and there are other forks in the road, so to speak.  But it's weird to look back and think of that spot in your life that changed it all.  And it's even weirder to look ahead and wonder if another spot like that is coming up?

All over

Hello all!  How is everyone's weekend going?  I've been randomly very busy this weekend - I'm playing host to a visiting friend!!  She's in town for a few weeks, so we are definitely not in any rush to get around town, but we've actually managed to see quite a bit in just two days... especially considering that it was raining all day on Saturday!

Friday night after work, I met Leslie at her hotel and we caught up for a while before heading over to her inaugural experience at Din Tai Fung.  Jet lag and a week of work settled in pretty quickly, so we called it an early night on Friday.

So delicious.

I had plans to go to back to Yin Yoga with a friend on Saturday morning, but it was pouring down rain!  I actually was woken up by thunder early Saturday morning, and I remember thinking that I was happy that the rain would be over and done with by the time I was really ready to get up and get the day started.  Not so much.. it ended up raining all day, which totally sucked.  I usually just walk to yoga, but I was in no mood to walk for a mile in the rain, so I skipped class and just did my own workout at home before heading out with Leslie.  I showed her how to get to her office on the train, and then we went for foot reflexology (!!) and Singapore Slings at the Long Bar.

Sunday morning was gorgeous, so I took the opportunity to go for a run!

I just like these blooms

Leslie and I ended up walking around and shopping for some cheap souvenirs in Chinatown before heading over to Orchard for some more sightseeing and lunch.

We did the obligatory trip to the top of Marina Bay Sands for the sangria and the sights.

Sunday afternoon, I went to the St Regis hotel for one of my favorite things - high tea!!  We were celebrating a friend's 30th birthday, and it was really lovely.  A great selection of scones and sweets, and a fun group too!  I just love going to high tea.

Dessert table!

Pumpkin soup, egg custard, quiche, and tea sandwiches

It's been quite the indulgent weekend, and I'm definitely happy to be relaxing on my sofa at home right now.  The weekends always fly by way too quickly, and it definitely goes by much faster when you are busy!  I'm sad that Monday is just around the corner, but hopefully this week is relatively quiet.  Hope you are all are having a good weekend!

Photo dump

Hey all - hope you're having a good week!  Here are some random scenes from Singapore lately...

Do you see what I see??  Trash on the MRT!

I just find this to be funny for some reason - I don't think it's meant to be silly though... 

Love this place!

Drunken prawns

The Happiness Project: April

And here we are - the end of another month.  How did I do in my March Happiness Project?

No dumping - I think I did pretty well!!  Looking back on the month, I definitely feel like I did a much better job of not dumping my complaints about work out (and onto others).  I asked a friend the other day if he felt like there was a difference this month, and he said yes!  His comment was that although I've still talked about things that irritate me, this month it has been more isolated to very specific incidents, rather than just general complaining.  So I'm still complaining, but less?  I'll take it!

The chapter in the book related to the month of April is titled Parenthood.  Obviously, this topic is not applicable to me, but tonight, I was looking back over the specific bullet points that Gretchen (the author) had listed for the month, and I think I can make some of them my own..

Sing in the morning - She aims to sing in the morning because it seems to have a cheering effect on her daughters.  I certainly am not going to get in the habit of singing to myself in the morning, but I think that there is something else I'd like to commit to doing in the morning in order to put myself in a better mood each day - exercise!  Many of you may remember when I did the #10kRunStreak, and although running in the January cold at 6 am after only a few hours of sleep didn't always seem like a happy moment, I really think that it helped me get through a challenging time at work.  This time, I'm not necessarily going to run every morning, but I'd like to do something.  Of course a quick run or a workout in the stairwell are always good options, and I recently have gotten into this yoga video by Tara Stiles as well.  All easy things that can take less than 15 minutes but will give me a sense of accomplishment and register some activity on my Fitbit One at the very least.  (I literally just thought of this while I was writing this post, so we shall see how this goes!)

Acknowledge the reality of people's feelings - Gretchen applies this to her kids, but I think I will be a bit more selfish and just apply this to myself.  I want to be consciously acknowledge my own feelings.  I've mentioned previously that I've started a bullet journal.  And I love it.  But I don't do it consistently.  I want to.  I'm going to.  I want to put at least one bullet down a day.  About a feeling.  There's got to be at least one thing worth feeling each day, right?

Be a treasure house of happy memories - I guess this kind of goes with the one above in the way I think it would be applicable to me.  Bullet journaling is a good way to preserve memories, but I think this blog is also a good way to document the good (and bad!) times.  So I am going to try to post ten times during the month of April.  (I also just thought of this one right now...)

Gretchen's last bullet point for the month is to take time for projects, but I really don't feel like this one resonates too much with me.  So I'm going to acknowledge the reality of my own feelings (ha!) and skip it.

And of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the inverse of parenthood is being someone's child.  Many of you know and love Nancy Lin, and many of you also know that I didn't always make it easy for her when I was growing up!  As each year passes, I try harder and harder to make up for my teenage years.  It's definitely not a one month project, so I definitely won't treat it as such, but I am always thinking of ways in which I can be better at "childhood" too!

Alright, this somehow turned into quite a long post!  Time to wrap it up.  I need to go to bed soon if I'm going to get up in the morning to work out!

#OnWisconsin

Happy Sunday folks.. I've had a lovely weekend thus far, and I am very happy to report that both Florida and Wisconsin are in my Final Four.  After Duke's early loss, I thought I was done, but it seems that I may be back in the running now!

Speaking of the final four, I am rapidly approaching my final four months in Singapore... it is CRAZY how quickly time goes by.

This weekend has been nice - I've got a few busy ones coming up, so it was really nice to be able to spend some time relaxing in Singapore!  Friday night, I went to a friend's house for a poolside BBQ.

Side note - one of the appetizers she served was cheese and pineapple.. apparently this was all the rage during the 1970s in England?  Guess it never really made it's way to America...

Saturday morning I hit the yoga studio with a friend.  She suggested a Yin class - I usually go for Vinyasa style classes, but I was SO glad that I tried something new this week.  Yin is a very intense stretching class.  You hold the poses for up to five minutes at a time.  I've been spending more time trying to run and climb stairs, so some deep stretching was just what I needed.  I will definitely be returning to this class!

That afternoon, I had plans with friends to pack a picnic and go to a concert at the Botanic Gardens!  After more than a year and a half of living in Singapore, it was my first time to the Botanic Gardens, but unfortunately, we were a bit delinquent in getting to the concert, and all the music was already over by the time we showed up haha.  Oops!

The rest of the weekend has been fairly mundane, but I've been happy to have a quiet one, although I am super sad to have missed the Vandy MAcc five-year reunion in Nashville this weekend!!

Worth the read

Hello all.. I'm happy to report that although this week has been a busy one, I've felt much better and had much more energy than I did last week!  Weekends away are where it's at.

Anyway, most of you probably already know that I love to read books.  But my absolute favorite thing to read is the internet!  Here are a few quick gems that I've come across in recent days -

25 Fascinating Charts Of Negotiation Styles Around The World - Based on my experience, this is spot on.

24 Charts Of Leadership Styles Around The World - I think the Indonesia chart is the most interesting.

NYTimes: Moving Past Gender Barriers to Negotiate a Raise - Just a good read.  Side note - If it's possible for me to like a person that I have ever met before (and I totally think it is), I really like that new GM CEO!

All Good Things - I am a big fan of believing that the universe opens the right doors for everyone.  We just have to keep our eyes (and minds) open enough to see.

A Dedication - I just really liked this one.

That's all I've really got to share today.  It's been a busy week, and I've still been working at that far away client, so it doesn't leave a lot of time for much else.  Even though the week has been relatively smooth, I am still looking forward to the weekend with a bit too much excitement / desperation.  Luckily, tomorrow is Friday!!  Woohoo!