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March Plan with Me

I tried so hard to be ready for 2018. I wanted to be organized, I was setting goals, I was getting everything in order.

Wellllll, it didn’t happen the way I planned.

All of my time, literally, all of my time revolved around Ninong’s since November. I was working an average of 14 hours a day, sometimes 18 hours a day. I barely had time to eat, let alone drink water! So bad, not something I’m proud of. I’m sharing to show how bad my work-a-holic “ism” was. I know for a fact that if I made time to prioritize and organize my days things would have gone a lot better. But I didn’t. I couldn’t get myself to look at work when I got home. I was already thinking about it so why apply myself to write things down? Stupid me.

So November passed, December did too, there went January, finally here comes February and I was able to get myself together. I’m able to walk away from this month with my feet planted on the ground. I’m finally starting to feel like my old self again!

This upcoming month is exciting for me! With all the ch-ch-ch-changes I’ve been going through personally and professionally I’ve learned so much about myself, what I can endure, and what I can become if I apply myself. So March’s theme is “Restart.” If I want my 2018 Word of the Year is “build” then I have to get back to the point where I feel like I have something to build upon.

That being said, March is when I’m going to start fresh! I may be late to start my goals by 2 months but at least I’m starting. Like Lara Casey (author, successful business woman, mom, and beautiful soul) says, “There’s nothing special about January.” 

Original Artwork by Lara Casey

And for me, this couldn’t be more true. I’m not going to beat myself up about what I haven’t done. I’m going to celebrate what I have done and try to grow from here.

First thing is get organized. I need to get myself to where I was at the end of 2017 with my productivity. The best way to do that is to just jump back into my productivity tools – Todoist, Evernote, and my planner. I want to start the small little habits that made a big difference with my organization.

  1. Open Todoist, Evernote, and my planner 1st thing in the morning.
  2. Have a notepad or my cell phone nearby so I can jot down random thoughts.
  3. Update Todoist, Evernote during in the middle of the day and at the end of the day.

You won’t believe the difference these 3 steps have made in my productivity.

Next on the list is to prioritize. When you have a long list of things to do it’s easy to get cross eyed or stressed about it. When this happens to me personally I don’t get motivated to work because I’m overwhelmed before I even began! What I do to help with prioritizing different aspects of my life is to set things for certain days. For example, when it comes to cleaning I prefer to do it on my day off since it takes a good amount of time. That means priority for Mondays is cleaning. Another example is weekends are very busy for Ninong’s so my priority, naturally, is the restaurant on Saturdays and Sundays. This means, I’m going to schedule most of my cleaning tasks on Mondays as well as the bulk of my Ninong’s tasks only when I’m there.

Last thing for this month is to find balance. If you know me you know I’m everywhere. I guess it’s because I have so much going on that I become really scatterbrained. If you also know me then you know not only am I scatterbrained but I also am a major work-a-holic. I live and breathe business, I love everything about it so I have a habit of taking my work home. But this has to stop! When I say I’m done for the day then I really want to be done. That way I have time to give to my husband, family, friends, and to myself without feeling guilty.

Cheers to a productive, blessed, and successful month!

xoxo,

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Foodie Friday – Oahu Hawaii Edition

I always say, the best way to experience a new place is through their food scene. Eat at places you’ve never been before, try food that you haven’t tasted, and ask the locals where they like to eat!

When we go to Hawaii we have our list of places to try and things to eat while we’re there. We’ve tried a bunch of places and have every intention to try more we go to Oahu. I thought I’d compile my list of places for those that have been asking 😊

1. Helena’s Hawaiian Food. THIS. IS. A. MUST! It had to be the first place I tell you about. It’s the best place you can go for Hawaiian food! My personal favorite dish is their fried butter fish with gravy. Everything is really good – there’s nothing I’ve had there that I didn’t enjoy. But O.M.G. That butter fish is just out of this world amazing. I’ve tried to make it myself, tried to find it elsewhere – nope.

Fried Butter Fish with Gravy from Helena’s

2. Poke. You’ve got to have poke when you go to Hawaii. We usually go to Foodland to get poke cuz of their convenience and variety. BUT, if you want legit poke on Oahu I would definitely check out Tanioka’s.

3. Shrimp. Another stop you just have to make while on Oahu is the shrimp stalls/trucks on the North Shore. Giovanni’s is always a popular choice, but Charlie and I love to stop at Romy’s!

4. Uncle Bo’s Restaurant. If you want to go to a place for great food and drinks we love going to Uncle Bo’s! We first found this place when I was still planning weddings, one of my clients that was getting married in Hawaii had their rehearsal dinner here. It was delicious and we’ve been back there multiple times since!

5. Last but not least, you can’t visit Oahu without stopping at Leonard’s to get some of their tasty malasadas. A malasada is a soft bread/donut that’s fried, almost like a cronut but so. much. better! My personal favorite is their haupia filled malasadas but you can’t go wrong with the classic!

Can’t wait to go back! Is it normal to have withdrawals 5 days after a trip?

xoxo,

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Coming Home from Vacation – Time to Reset!

We took a red eye flight from Hawaii back to LA yesterday – we arrived at 5 am, went home, rested for a couple hours, drove to Oxnard a food show, then straight to work. 😪 We were still pretty tired but the red eye flight helped, it was my first time pretty much sleeping all the way through a flight. If you’re not good with airplane rides I can’t recommend red eye flights enough!

We had such a good time in Hawaii! It was definitely a short trip, but was well worth it.

We ate so much food and drank so many cocktails haha! Charlie and I had a list of food places that we wanted to hit and take his family . There’s really nothing like Hawaiian food! One of our favorite places to go while we’re there is Helena’s. We highly recommend making a stop there any time you’re on Oahu! We have our favorite dishes but anything you order from there is delicious!

Charlie and I always say that if it weren’t for our fur babies we would move to Hawaii. The island has a strict policy with dogs and other pets coming into the island because the island doesn’t have rabies. To bring your dog there you have to go through the application process and quarantine your dogs before they are approved to be transported there. But we love Hawaii! There’s just something about the atmosphere that is unlike any place 🌺

Now that we’re back I’m really excited to get back into eating well. I think the guilt of eating so much food and alcohol got to me haha! I’ve decided that I’m going to do a reset and go back onto my intermittent fasting diet. I’ve tried a bunch of different food lifestyles (I don’t like to call them diets) but the 2 that have worked well for me is the low carb/keto diet and intermittent fasting.

With everything I ate and drank I decided I’m going to do a 7 day green tea detox and do intermittent fasting. I’ve decided to go with intermittent fasting instead of keto because as a restaurant owner I don’t have much time to eat while at work anyway. I drink water while I’m at work, and then from 4-8 pm I allow myself to eat. The great thing is with that food regimen I’m able to “eat what I want” just not when I want. I put “eat what I want” in quotes because everything has to be in moderation – of course. I still have a caloric allowance every day and macros I can’t exceed, but with this diet I have the flexibility of eating what we have so long as it fits within that allowance. Flexibility in menu is so important for us right now because 1. After work we’re too tired to go out and buy groceries or eat out sometimes and 2. We have limited funds so eating out or buying high end/expensive items at the grocery store just isn’t an option for us right now.

I’m curious to see what my body stats are right now considering I went on vacation, hopefully I didn’t gain too much weight! 😆 I usually do a weigh in at the beginning of every month, so we’ll see then!

Xoxo,