Fortunate Fridays! {tales of a pretty awesome week, plus tons of pictures}

Good day my loves.

We have made it to the weekend! I've had quite the busy week (what's new?!) and wasn't able to post most but I made a decision to at least make it in here for my Fortunate Friday series. How was your week?

Here are some of the things that happened to me this week which I feel fortunate for:

1. Awesome book finds. So, I listen to a few really good podcasts (i'm writing a post on that very soon) and I've been getting some pretty cool book recommendations. Needless to say, I have been spending some time ordering and picking up books from my local library (one of my favorite places in the world). Here is my "books in queue" stack:

The One Thing (reading now)

The Four Pillars of Investing (pending)

21 Success Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires (read)

The Women's Guide to Successful Investing (pending)

The Confidence Code (pending)

The Best Investment Advice I Ever Received (read)

And here is what I am currently reading (I am hooked on this book):

2. Jillian Michael's DVD 6-Week 6-Pack: I started the week with a made-up mind to incorporate this DVD in to my life for the next 6 weeks. Monday was day one. I almost felt like throwing up during the first workout but is getting easier. Has anyone used this one?

3. Work I am passionate about and the ability to make it work: I say this a lot but I am thankful that things are falling in to place slowly but surely. Things had been scary at first but lately I have been feeling so full of life an excited to get to work as I wake up every morning. I feel like I am dreaming sometimes. For anyone out there hesitant to follow their passion, please reach out to me and I can share my personal perspective on this topic. 

Source

4. Spending time with my dad on his birthday: It was my dad's birthday yesterday so we went out for a birthday dinner. He is a fan of seafood so he choose the infamous Red Lobster. As usual, he had his seafood platter and I opted for some chicken tacos as I was not really in the mood for seafood. The tacos were pretty good. Spending time with family, and my dad whom I love so much, was truly priceless.

Don't these look good:

We HAD to embarrass him as the staff sang him happy birthday.
...that chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream was pretty delicious (whats a bday without cake?!)

 Some of the family (grandma joined us!):

5. Last but not least -- An amazing fourth of July weekend with amazing friends: I have to admit that towards the end of last week I was feeling a little down on myself as I had no set plans for the "big and exciting" 4th of July weekend. Thankfully, some 'serendipitous' and 'spontaneous' plans appeared in my life and I had one of the best weekends I've had in a very long time. I kept telling myself "live a little" and it just made me realize that I work so much that sometimes I forget to live and have fun with people I care about and that care about me. I am now working on "living a little" more often.

...It all started with a trip to PinkBerry with one of my best friends (Hi! Yosi!)

What she had:

What I had:

...we then wondered the streets of NYC, people watching and such. We ended up at 42nd street which is the capital of CRAZY (so many people around. I had forgotten how insane busy that area is).

Decided to play along and become a tourist during my time downtown. Lets not even go in to the fact that I've lived about a 40 minute train ride away from the city for 20 years and counting. I should really take advantage of the City Life more often:

We got hungry so we arrived at one of my favorite restaurants -- Havana Central:

..We weren't very hungry so opted for some appetizers (shrimp, feta & spinach, and cheese empanadas- highly recommend) PLUS some delicious sangria made to order right at our table (also highly recommended):

...amazed at the waiter's skills as he made our drink (he was also handsome, friendly, and hitting on my friend):

...we then ran in to some friends and of course had to take a picture and then proceeded to chat for hours on end.

By the time we headed home it was past midnight so we got to welcome the 4th of July right in the middle of times square. Cool stuff.

[that was my Friday-going into-Saturday last week]

On Saturday during the day I met up with another good friend of mine. We went for a walk, talked a whole lot catching up on life and then ended up at a pretty delicious restaurant in Harlem (full review coming soon):

Hi Jess! 

On Sunday I kept it low key. Went to the gym with my bestie:

...and then spent some quality time with my niece whom I love so much:

And that's all folks. That was my week in a nutshell. What are your plans for the weekend? what are YOU feeling particularly thankful for lately?

Love,
Mabelle

Hanging out with Jillian in the Morning

Hello Everyone!

So, in honor’s of my “wake up earlier” goal and yesterday’s accomplishment, I decided to take another stab at it today and managed to get out of my very comfy bed at around 6:30 am. I was shooting for 6:10 but I’ll take it! In order to complement yesterday’s run, I decided to do some strength training this morning and what better person to do this with than with my beloved Jillian:

I completed the entire 30 day shred workout sometime last summer and I absolutely loved it! I may have mentioned this before, but I actually started seeing results on my entire body! About a month or so ago I re-started the program but things got busy (read: school) and I was just able to complete week 1. Well, today I picked up from where I left of!

I remember week 2 for some reason being more difficult than week 3 so I was scared and wondered whether I should start off with the basics again. However, I pushed through and didn’t find it as hard as I thought. I was sweating bullets (which felt awesome) and once it was over I was super happy to be able to finish another morning workout. Just makes my day that much better!

After the workout I rushed to get ready for work and couldn’t eat anything. By the time I got to downtown Manhattan (over an hour later!) I was starving! I began craving bananas for some reason (random) so I passed by my local Duane Reade  and picked up a couple (50 cents each if you are wondering). They were all super green. I usually like my bananas in the “middle” not green but not too ripe either but I got them anyways and inhaled one as soon as I got to my desk.

While checking through work email I then proceeded to have my breakfast which consisted of almond butter and jelly on a 100% whole wheat English muffin brought from home, prepared the evening before (not pictured) paired up with my fruit and café (w/ almond milk, no sugar) also courtesy of my casa. Failure to plan is planning to fail!                  

Hope everyone is having a fabulous hump-day. Break is over. Back to work but I leave you with today’s wonderful quote from the runner’s world calendar:

 

Q: Do you enjoy working out first thing in the morning?   

Where did February Go?!?! Month Recap

OOK. I know this month is short but it went by so fast! I'm pretty sure I say this for every month.

I digress..

Just wanted to come by and share my recap of how I did on my February objectives noted in this post (if you missed it). So, here it is:

1. Fitness: Finish week 2 of Jillian's Shredin30 (Finish Strong!) and sign up for two races

Definitely finished week 2 and finished strong! But I must confess that was like 2-3 weeks ago (I finished up my 7 days shortly after the month started) and I haven't looked back since. Meaning; I haven't even started week 3 of the ShredIn30 but lets just say March will be the perfect opportunity to get that show on the road!


2. Health: Make a conscious effort to Drink at least 3.15 pints of water per day (baby steps)

Ugh! This didn't go 100%. I would say I was able to keep up with that for about 60-70% of the time this months but there were days where I would just have one pint or two and then just move on to having tea for the rest of the day. I know tea is good but I read somewhere that water v. tea is not the same in terms of benefits for your body. Anyone has any thoughts on that? is that true? or would any form of "liquid" do when it comes to water intake? Wish I could count Vanilla Milkshakes as part of my water quota.

 3. Money: Organize my finances & Set a "on my way to riches" plan
I am usually pretty good with finances overall but when it comes to paying bills and actually opening correspondence on time I need to get more organized! In terms of the "on my way to riches" plan that's pretty much setting a more advanced version of a budget for myself that I can comfortably follow.

DONE! Have to say I got to tackle this task at the very beginning of the month and I am glad I got it over with! I made a list of all my monthly bills and when they are due. I posted the list in my fridge so that I wouldn't miss it. Furthermore, I added the dates to my google calendar. I feel so much more organized now and have a better idea of how much I am able to save each month. Yeyyy for financial planning!


4. Friendships: Set a "catch up date" with a close friends (I want to set aside more time for my good friends)

Did not do so well with this. :( I actually didn't see any of the friends I wanted to schedule catch up dates with. Life responsibilities get in the way but there should always be time for friendships and bonding so I need to do better on this. Lets roll this one over to March.

5. Personal Development: Complete at least 1 module of the investment course I am taking online.

Done and Done. Actually, was able to complete TWO modules and I just have one more to go. I realized I can listen to the lessons while cooking or cleaning around the house and stopping when needed to take notes. Multitasking! I will still go through them one more time to make sure I catch the "technical math-related stuff".

Welcome March! Hope you bring warmer days and some memorable experiences :)

Tell me, How was your February? Any memorable events?