In the ZONE

I just got back from burning 700+ calories off at the gym and I love how good you feel there. I feel like I was left out of the cool kids club because no one ever told me what a high you can get from pumping it out on the elliptical. Don't get me wrong, I hurt right now and I really have to talk myself into going sometimes, but I just get into the zone when I'm there. It feels like it is just me and Lady Gaga leaving our hearts on the dance floor when I get in that zone.

Thank you, everyone for your sweet comments and inspiration on my last post. It means so much that I'm not in this alone. I have a community that holds me accountable. I feel like when it starts to hurt at the gym I can hear this amazing blog community telling me to take just one more stride and go for it.

I have always been the fat girl. Always. I was 5'7" and thick in 5th grade and by 7th grade I wore a size 12/14. In high school I wore a size 18 and at my worst (260 lbs) I should have been getting a size 20. I felt like I didn't deserve to do things that the thinner prettier people got to do or that I should settle on the opportunities I got. Settle on the people who would date me. Settle on the careers that were acceptable for how I looked. Settle for the outings my fat self felt comfortable in.

well fuck that!

This weight loss goal means so much more to me than just a number on my pair of jeans. It's the road to letting me finally be the best me I can be. If I want something, I can strive to be that, to do that, have that and never settle again. I used the way I looked and felt about myself to keep me from doing things that were challenging or from doing things/having things that I felt only belonged to the pretty people.

You know what I have learned these past couple weeks?

That I can finish workouts on the gym equipment.

That I can hold myself accountable for I eat.

That I can have whatever I want, no matter my size or shape.

I really like being in that zone. The gym at ASU has become my second home and boy does it make me happy to work out. Those endorphins are better than any drug out there and are keeping me sane. I just wish I would have found that out before, but the important thing is that I know it now. Thank you again IITGI and amazing fellow bloggers.

I hope your Monday is filled with self-realizations and if anyone in the Mesa/Tempe/Phoenix area wants a workout buddy I'm at the SRC every Monday/Wednesday/Friday. Just drop me a line at comeflywithme (dot) mari (at) gmail (dot) com

I'm gonna be in it.

No I'm not actually "In It" as in the blog but I'm am loving this blog and I'm gonna be in it to lose weight.

Today will be day two at the gym for me, going for 2-2.5 hours on the bike and elliptical (again thank you personal TVs!) and I'm saying it here that for my birthday and possible graduation party that I want to have a Kim Kardashian legs so I can wear a hoochie dress and sky high stilettos and I want visible clavicle bones...not sunk under fat as they are now. I'm gonna be really brave and post my weight on the side of the blog and then you can hold me accountable when I eat a whole box of Dunkin' Donuts and gain 3 pounds...fellow bloggers please tell me I have to get my butt to the gym!

The end goal? 170 or a size 8

(this coming from the girl who has always been a double digit size and at 170 for me that would be Giselle hott)

Together we can do it =)

and thanks In It To Gym It for relly making me want to buckle down and do this for real.

Actually I think that's fabric softener

I worked out yesturday at ASU's gym for about an hour and a a half (thank you TVs on all the equitment and The Colbert Report for helping work it out) and then during my 3 hour night class I started to starve. Ugh agony that is working out and then having pangs of hunger when yu live 40 minutes away from home and free food and don't want to spend moe money and stuff you shouldn't be eating anyway.

*DING* Then the lightbulb went off in my head saying "Hey that oh so sweet guy named Ross gave me a key and open invitiation to come over whenever I want...and HEY I made that pizza on Monday and there has to be at least one slice left!" So I sent him a text hoping I wasn't intruding in his night but that I was going to gnaw off my arm if I didn't get some of that pizza in me. His response? The pizza was long gone but I got an invitiation to come over anyways and we ordered in pizza. Yummm. Such a sweetheart to feed me. =)

Cut to 2 hours later us just hanging out and enjoying each other's compnay and talking about random things when I say to him

"Hey I was gonna wash your sheets when I cleaned on Monday but I didn't find any deteregent"

"I have detergent...It's that blue bottle"

"The Suavitel? You've been using that stuff from the bottle that is in Spanish?"

"Yeah I got it from the corner market down the street"

"They didn't have detergent in English? Because I am almost positive that is fabric softener"

"Really? You sure because I've been washing my clothes in that"

"Yeah...I think so let me grab it"

*running down the stairs to grab the Suavitel*

"Yeah this is totally fabric softener or Aconditionador de Telas. See look for yourself"

*Hand fabric softener over while trying to contain fits of laughter*

"This is awesome. Thank you for letting me be the one to point thing out! Can I blog about this? *snaps picture* You've been softening your laundry!"

"Think of the bacteria!"

*me histerically laughing*

"What would I do without you?"

YES! I am still too scared of wigging him out by making him pose for 20 pictures before a date or something just so I can get a good one up here of us, BUT this situation gave me a quick window to take a picture of Ross (and I really wanted a memeory of how funny its all was). Since the angle is horrendous and he is in his pj's I'm stealing one from his facebook just for the purpose of accuracy so you all can get a good idea. =)

We have a date planned for Kona this Saturday so maybe in my fancy state I can persuade him to model up for a couplde shot...maybe not still don't want to go all paparazzi on him quite yet.

White Pizza

Here is my White Pizza from Monday night.

I found the recipe here and this is my variation on it

White Pizza

2 Tbsp. butter

1/2 of a medium sweet onion sliced thinly

refrigerated pizza dough

(I got mine from Sunflower Market but you could probably find it at Trader Joe's)

olive oil

2 cups shredded pizza blend cheese (Italian blend works too)

2 cloves garlic minced or chopped finely

1 pinch thyme

1 pinch pepper

2 small-medium sized mushrooms, sliced thinly

1 medium tomato sliced thinly

5 basil leaves coarsly chopped

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. Melt butter in a saucepan and add chopped onion. Cook over medium heat until the onions are carmelized. Remove from heat and set aside.

3. Roll out pizza dough into a circle on a cookie sheet. Lightly coat dough with olive oil and bake for about 10 minutes until the crust is very lightly starting to brown.

4. Remove pizza crust from the oven and top with cheese, garlic (evenly), thyme, and pepper. Add the tomato slices in a single layer and scatter carmelized onions, mushrooms, and basil over the top.

5. Place pizza back into 425 degree oven and bake until the crust is golden brown and cheese is bubbly and completely melted

6. Remove from oven and enjoy!

This was the first white pizza I had ever made or eaten and it was delicious! I will definetly be making this one again.

Happy Wednesday Eating!

(and thanks everyone for sweet comments from yesturday's post ♥)

Hi My Name is Mari

Hi I'm Mari(sela). I write this silly blog and am soo happy you have stopped in to be silly with me.

I'm a 20 year old senior at ASU and love Arizona sunsets, sweet tea, tattoos, old lady hobbies, watching old musicals, listening to Muse and Queen and reading and writing blogs.

I take too many pictures of myself and write about anything that comes to me but in Come Fly With Me I'll be mostly blogging about traveling and the adventures I have with family and friends in the Tempe, Phoenix, Mesa, and Queen Creek area and hopefully I'll blog from the rest of the world too.

If you stay for the ride you'll read about Ross, my fantastic boyfriend, who is the best guitar player I've ever heard, and sweeter than the sweetest naval orange. I'll write about my hilarious mom, Maria, and the woes of being just another young blogger trying to conquer the world.

You can reach me at comeflywithme.mari@gmail.com or on my twitter.

Happy Birthday To You

This weekend I spent my time working and doing homework until Sunday. My sweet guy's birthday was yesterday and since my heart is happy and light and I can't find much else to write about I'll tell you how it all went down.

Ross likes cheesecake. He likes it when I make cheesecake for him and I really like making him cheesecake and making him happy. My cake decorator self asked what sort of cake he would like for his birthday and he said "Cheesecake" and me being me I made cheesecake.

I didn't make one. or two. but three birthday cheesecakes on Saturday night.

Ingredients

and a whole lot of cream cheese

Springform pans

I made a huge mess

but they came out beautiful!

Strawberry Cheesecake

Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake

Oreo Cookie Cheesecake

Red Velvet Birthday Cupcakes

White Fudge Iced Birthday Cupcakes

I went over Sunday afternoon and we spent the evening together watching 2001 A Space Odyssey (his favorite movie)

I really liked it but did not understand it at all! Anyone wanna help a girl out?? lol

Monday was Ross's actual birthday and I had school and he had work and Mondays are usually my longest days but I decided to play hooky and do something special for his day. I took a test and then my French class luckily got cancelled and I decided to not go to my evening class and instead I snuck into his apartment that is down the street from ASU's campus (and is it really sneaking in if you have a key??) and cleaned his place from top to bottom.

Thankfully his place was not as bad some guy's places I've been in and it only took a couple hours to get everything super clean. After that I made a white vegetarian pizza for when he got home (I'll post the recipe of that tomorrow for What to Eat Wednesday) and we ended up hanging out with his neighbors listening to music, sipping cold beers, and just talking on their candle-lit patio. It was such a nice night and when we came back inside he quickly updated his facebook status to this:

"I want to thank everyone for their birthday wishes and especially Marisela for making this the best birthday ever! :)"

and then I melted. We ended the night watching The Office and 30 Rock on Hulu and him playing his guitar for me. I forgot he had one, but we also looked at his myspace music page and I listened to some of the stuff he has recorded and posted on there. You should go and take a listen and see how UH-MAZING he is and then you can understand how I just turn into a puddle of gush whenever he plays for me (the last two tracks are not him singing and just friends and him goofing around..LOL)

The past two days have been so incredible and I'm soo happy that I play a part in making this a really happy birthday for Ross. He told me how he wonders how he got so lucky to get such a great girlfriend. (AHHH and I melt)

and yeah, "girlfriend" we sort of made it official ♥

But nothing changes! We're two still very happy people coming together and being awesome (lol)

"Can you die of happiness??"

I hope not.. but I hope all you lovely people have a very happy Tuesday!

I have Ricotta Cheese in my Backpack...Right NOW.

I'm sitting in class waiting for my 3 hour class from hell to begin and I being to think about the fact that I have a large tub of ricotta cheese chilling in my backpack. I have it there because I'm making these lasagna roll-ups for that special someone tonight and I had a huge break in between classes so I went to the store and got all the ingredients then. I figured that we'll be starting this evening sort of on the late side and I have to cook everything so I don't want to make the time we get together tonight any shorter by factoring in a shopping trip after class into that. It's sort of warm outside and it got really hot in my car so I figured I would save the ricotta by keeping it with me for the next 3 hours. The cookies I baked last night can stay in there along with my three pairs of shoes, blanket, four-five outfits, work clothes, make-up, pj's, toilet paper, and yarn.

Yeah I sorta live out of my car right now.

It wasn't always like this. Today instead of freaking out over making it to school on time after I woke up way late, I freaked out about not getting to blow dry my hair. Yeah I did my make-up in my car during that huge brake today and the hair makes me look homeless. Any other day I wouldn't have cared how I look. My car wouldn't be a war zone and I wouldn't be buying a second toothbrush thats purpose isn't to come home and stay with me. It's gonna stay with him...

I had to really stop myself from buying this one. I really wanted to match my new Hello Kitty debit card. Damn that B of A and their enticing ways.

Is this normal? Have you felt like this before? planing, re-planning and re-arranging and strategizing for time? I live about 40 min from ASU (Tempe), about 1.5 hours from ASU (West), 20 mins from Work Store 1, 25 mins from Work Store 2, and 50 mins from Work Store 3 adn so I an micromanaging my time to get the most time I can...for him.

please tell me you have done this before. I'm not the only one. I think we are just both smitten. Completely smitten. I may live out of car, not sleep regular hours, and see more of the freeway than my own room but I'm deliriously happy.

Taken about 15 mins ago in class.

ps. I am soo done if he ever sees this blog. Die of embarrassment?? Oh yeah, you betcha.

pps. Maybe I won't of embarrassment after all after all the stupid, spazy stuff I have done in front of him already. That requires a full post on it's own.