Trip Stats & Lessons Learned

**18 days **8 flights **3 countries **7 cities **4 travel buddies with me **14 taxis (at least) **Lots of walking **Countless cups of tea Lessons Learned **When in Egypt, walk like an Egyptian. There are only two types of pedestrians in Cairo: the quick and the dead. **Kurds are not Turks, Arabs, or Persians and they'll let you know it! One must remember this when traveling in the land of the Kurds. **How to pack lighter: doing laundry in the sink and giving stuff away. **When deciding where to move, pick the last place you ever thought it would be and that's where you'll end up.

Meet Elita*

the "chosen" camera THANK YOU Corrine for hooking me up!!! *Elita means "chosen" in Latin

Trip To-Do List

exactly 2 weeks from today I board the plane...I'm starting to get excited! My to-do list remains as follows: 1) Finish reading a book on the culture (220 pages to go) 2) Finish shopping for appropriate clothing 3) Purchase gifts: brownie mix, taco seasoning, coffee, good chocolate, Gold Fish crackers, hard candy, games, baseball caps, Swiss army knives, beauty products, first aid kits, maps, small Atlases, refrigerator magnets 4) Make 6 copies of passport 5) Do my taxes 6) Double-check visa status 7) Buy a small digital camera 8) Decide which pictures of me and my family to bring 9) And of course, will need to pack and keep it under 50 pounds

I Am an Ingrid!

You are an Ingrid -- "You are unique"

Ingrids have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive. How to Get Along with Me * Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me. * Be a supportive friend or partner. Help me to learn to love and value myself. * Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision. * Though I don't always want to be cheered up when I'm feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little. * Don't tell me I'm too sensitive or that I'm overreacting! What I Like About Being an Ingrid * my ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level * my ability to establish warm connections with people * admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life * my creativity, intuition, and sense of humor * being unique and being seen as unique by others * having aesthetic sensibilities * being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me What's Hard About Being an Ingrid * experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair * feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don't deserve to be loved * feeling guilty when I disappoint people * feeling hurt or attacked when someone misundertands me * expecting too much from myself and life * fearing being abandoned * obsessing over resentments * longing for what I don't have Ingrids as Children Often * have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original games * are very sensitive * feel that they don't fit in * believe they are missing something that other people have * attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc. * become antiauthoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood * feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents' divorce) Ingrids as Parents * help their children become who they really are * support their children's creativity and originality * are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings * are sometimes overly critical or overly protective * are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

Not Me Monday: Daylight Savings

Dragging myself out of bed this morning did NOT look like the bear in the video below. No way, not me! I'm like the penguin - I absolutely love coming to work the Monday after daylight savings! If you want to join in NMM fun, check out MckMama's blog for more info.

Not Me Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week. Ok, so I've been thinking about joining this "Not Me Monday" deal for while. I really enjoy my friend's NMM posts and want to join in the fun...So without further ado...here's my first NMM post.... I did NOT have to throw all the ingredients for my usual lunch wrap into my bag on the way out the door because I was running late for work this morning. Nope, I never run late to work on Monday mornings. No, that certainly wasn't me driving through that yellow...err...ok it was a barely red light on my way home from work today. No way - not me! I'm a much more responsible driver than that. And I'm never in such a hurry that I blow through yellow lights. I didn't just have 2 cookies, some free samples from the National Nutrition Month expo, and a DanActive for lunch today because I was too busy to make my wrap for lunch. Never in a million years would a dietitian like me be caught dead eating cookies for lunch. Slacking off when the trainer wasn't looking during my circuit training class today didn't even cross my mind. No, all those healthy calories at lunch gave me TONS of energy to finish strong and are you kidding me - I absolutely LOVE sit-ups and push-ups! And I'm definitely NOT having ice cream and brownies for dessert tonight with my roomies. Nope, we're totally against that junk in our house. Yuck.

It's now or never...

Today was day 1 of my new exercise routine. This is a really good thing because over the years I've had a love-hate relationship with exercise. I've never really been a fan of running or going to the gym. Lifting weights is ok but the free-weight section (aka the testosterone zone) intimidates me. Swimming is great, but not in the winter. Mostly, I prefer to be "tricked" into exercising by fun diversions such as playing sports, dancing, walking or by taking group fitness classes. Notice one key theme in all these activities: other people. The main element that keeps me going when exercising is people! So of course I was so excited to learn about a free group circuit training class lead by one of the personal trainers at the fitness center in my workplace. Even more exciting was that one of my co-workers was interested in going with me too (accountability is a good thing)!! So Katie (my co-worker) and I have been semi-faithfully attending the class for about a month now and just 2 weeks ago we learned that Peter (the personal trainer) is going to be conducting a study on any willing circuit training participants. To be a study participant, one must attend the class 4 days a week (it's only 30 minutes long) for 8 out of 10 weeks. He is measuring the difference in our fitness level before and after the 10 weeks. Last week we enrolled in the study and had our beginning fitness level measured (height, weight, BMI, percent body fat, flexibility, back strength, number of sit-ups in 1 minute, resting heart rate, and recovery heart rate time). That was an interesting time. My percent body fat is too obscene to repeat and I was shocked to find that I had shrunk 1/2 to 3/4 an inch in height! The dorky dietitian in me immediately began recalculating my ideal body weight and calorie needs based on this new information. Both figures are frighteningly low and would definitely be difficult to maintain during this, the most calorie-dense time of the year, without some semblance of an exercise routine. No matter what the numbers say, I'm happy with my new-found routine with its built in accountability and I'm excited to see the results!