Weekend Recap and Polar Bears

Not this polar bear...

Dukie, my boy!

A whole different kind of polar bear! See, I finally got my mom to help me with the official guest list (for now anyway, it seems to change all the time!), so I've been starting to address my save the dates. If you remember, they have a vintage Hollywood vibe to them.

In fact, the whole wedding has a vintage theme going on, which I think is pretty awesome.

Anyway, I made my save the dates postcards for 2 reasons. One reason is that I was able to give it more character by making the back look like an old distressed postcard. The second is that you can save some money on postage. In fact, I saved $24- more than half of what I would have paid if I had put the cards into envelopes. There was only one little glitch...

I was working on wedding stuff on the floor of the weight room today at work...

Do you notice the stamps? They're POLAR BEARS! Here's another view:

Kinda throws off the whole vintage vibe, eh? A couple of thoughts ran through my head when the lady that was helping me brought these out. I thought maybe if I asked nicely, she would pull out some pretty ones from a back drawer somewhere. Or maybe I should get mad and demand some stamps with flowers. Or maybe I should just explain that these stamps were for a wedding. But in the end, I just said thanks and I took my polar bear stamps. Oh well. :)

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Weekend Recap:

Friday night was pretty mellow... we just stayed at home and I was actually asleep by 9:30 because I had a big day planned for Saturday...

Saturday morning I woke up at 5:30 to meet my buddies Alexis, Michelle, and Melissa for a sunrise hike! It was super windy, but we toughed it out anyway!  

Alexis, Michelle, Me, and Melissa- I can barely open my eyes in that wind!

After the hike, I came home to hang with my boys for a little bit, then it was on to work. We're helping host a JV tournament for the next 3 weeks and the varsity team is running the snack bar. Perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon. (Can you smell the hint of sarcasm?) We did cap the night in a nice way though- we went out to dinner with Human Kevin and Rachael and some of their friends for Kevin's birthday. It was a very nice evening out!

Sunday, we woke up early again and went for a sweet little 4.41 mile hike back at Runyon Canyon. No celebrity sitings this time, but we did run into Dog Kevin's brotha from another motha Ike and his friendly owner that we met at our last tour at Runyon, so Kevin was pretty jazzed about that! Then we met Brian's parents for lunch and my parents for dinner. Because we really like to eat. And because we REALLY like our families. :)

I was lucky enough to get Monday off. My dad helped me wash and detail my car in the morning. Then when Brian came home, we went and saw Little Fockers. It doesn't quite match what that hilarious group of actors did in Meet the Fockers, because in my opinion, that movie was comedic gold! But this movie was extremely cute, and I love, love, LOVE this ensemble of actors! 

From there, we walked around the mall a bit, and then it was back to my parents house for another dinner with the crazies (Talk about meeting the Fockers... these people are nuts sometimes! It's a wonder I made it out so normal! lol) to work on that list.

And that brings us back to today and my polar bear fiasco.

♥

 

Anyway, not that anyone reading this will care, but at work today, I learned a piece of good news and a piece of not so good news. The not so good news first: My sweet little class of 17 kids will be no longer. I knew it was too good to be true. No class is ever that small. EVER. They're going to add 20 kids, so it'll go up to 37, which in reality, is still a small class. Oh well. On with the good news! I found out that I will be getting a student teacher for two periods! This means that I will be teaching someone how to teach, and I get the title of Master Teacher! Can you feel the power?? ♥

Off to go address some more polar bear cards!

5 Things That Made My Day

(In no particular order)

1- This face:

Dogbert

2-  My old high school coach is now my colleague and she cracks me up... today, everyone was freaking out about The Great Horoscope Change of 2011 and our TA tells us he doesn't even know his actual birthday because he was born in some remote Indian village, so when his parents moved here they just guessed when he was born. Then Coach says, "Yeah, I've heard of that before. Once I had a girl from El Salvador that didn't know her birthday." We were all like, "El Salvador?" And she's like, "Yeah, El Salvador, or some other little town in Mexico." I start cracking up and say, "El Salvador's not in Mexico, it's an entirely different country," to which she replies, "Well it was somewhere out in the bushlands." lol, what the hell?? I practically fell out of my chair laughing.






3- This face:

Bri guy

 4- I did my Turbo kickboxing today... that's two days in a row of exercise! And my abs are a little sore... I missed that feeling.  I forgot how much fun TKB is. You sweat like crazy and when you're done, not only are you proud of yourself for working so hard, but you also feel like you can kick someone's ass. I'm starting to feel like me again! Finally!

5- I got to eat dinner and catch up with 3 of my best friends from high school- Alexis (my Maid of Honor) and our friends Michelle and Melissa. We all played softball together. We were talking about high school and I reflected to them that some of my best memories were when we used to stay after school for hours and just play- before the season was even close to starting. We used to play over the line, or Alexis' dad would come and hit ground balls to us. I used to love those days, being out on the field, smelling the grass, playing ball with my best friends. We used to hang out all the time when we were younger. But you know how life gets in the way. I'm going to try really hard not to let that happen again. The great thing about these girls is that we graduated almost 10 (TEN??!!??) years ago, and we're able to pick up like we just saw each other yesterday! They are the sweetest girls, and it felt so good to reunite with them, even it was just a couple of hours at a Mexican restaurant. ;-) Oh, and bonus- when we got our food, Michelle and I both look down and say, "Yum!" at the exact same tone, at the exact same time... which I guess isn't that spectacular if you weren't there... or even if you weren't me or Michelle... but I was pretty amused by it!

I hope you all had as great a day as I did! ♥

Thee, a-thee, a-thee, ah, that's all, folks!

List maker, list maker, make me a list!

First things first... Breakfast today was upsetting disastrous!!!

See, oatmeal and I have always been at odds with one another. We've tried to settle this before. I always think, "Oatmeal, maybe this time you will redeem yourself and your gluey texture won't make me gag," and sadly I'm always disappointed. But the other day on our shopping excursion, Rachael and my mom started talking about oatmeal and they made it sound extraordinary. So when I went grocery shopping on Monday and saw some 'heart healthy' fruit and cream oatmeal, I optimistically picked it up. I had some Tuesday and was pleasantly surprised. It was actually good. It was just a pain to clean the stickiness that is oatmeal off the bowl when I was finished. 


This morning, I was really looking forward to a bowl, but I decided I was above cleaning said bowl. So my next decision was to use a paper bowl. Naturally.

No use crying over spilled oatmeal

Big mistake. The bowl threw up oatmeal all over my microwave. Awesome.


I didn't have time to make another bowl, so I opted for cold cereal instead. Oh well. At least my belly was full, right?


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I think I have ADD. Or just a whole lot going on. Either way, I tend to forget things, confuse myself, double-book myself, interrupt myself, forget what I was about to say, forget what I was about to do... the list goes on and on. And speaking of lists, I love to make them. I make them when I need to get things done by a certain time, when I have errands to run, when I'm packing, when I want to make sure I don't forget something from the store, when I need to talk to people about certain topics, when I have ideas that I can't get too right at that moment... did anyone notice that whole sentence was a list?? I sound like Bubba from Forrest Gump! I need help, I can't stop!!! :) 


Well today, I think I filled my quota of lists... And here's a list of lists to prove it:


1- My list of worksheets and resources for the kids and their first unit of health. (Which can be viewed in all of it's awesomeness HERE)


2- My list of things I want to accomplish for the wedding by the end of the month:
-Find a baker for the cake
-Honeymoon destination picked out and reservations made
-Find a florist
-Have my save the dates (STDs, lol) mailed out


3- My list of wedding stuff to do tonight:
-Update my wedding address log
-Confirm the addresses with both moms
-Confirm the guest list in general
-Start addressing envelopes


4- My hourly list of what I want my basic week day to look like:
-6-7am: wake up, get ready
-7-3:30: work (hopefully with a run on the track at lunch. More about that in a sec.)
-3:30-4: get home, play with Kevin
-4-5:30: work out
-5:30-7: dinner (this should allow for prep time as well as eating)
-7:00 on: FREE TIME! Which isn't always free...


5- Things that need to get done during "free" time:
Blog
Read blogs
Put together the health curriculum
Wedding plan
Hang out with the two hairy gentlemen that occupy my domicile


6- My list of workouts
It's actually part of my workout tab... up on that bar up there ⇑ 
Before, I was just listing my workouts as I was doing them. The list was looking pretty sad and sparse. So what I decided to do was make my list ahead of time to hold myself more accountable for working out everyday. Once I complete the workout, I'll give myself a check mark, like this:
✓ 1/12/11: 1 hr Turbo KB + abs
1/13/11: _______ miles on track at lunch...... 30 min Turbo KB + abs
1/14/11:_______ miles on track at lunch...... +abs
1/15/11: Hike....... 30 min Turbo KB + abs
1/16/11: _______ mile run/walk................ Turbo KB Core & stretch workout


If I skip a workout, I'll cross it out and give myself a sad face, like this:

1/12/11: 1 hr Turbo KB + abs
1/13/11: _______ miles on track at lunch...... 30 min Turbo KB + abs
1/14/11:_______ miles on track at lunch...... +abs
1/15/11: Hike....... 30 min Turbo KB + abs
1/16/11: _______ mile run/walk................ Turbo KB Core & stretch workout



If I change workouts, I'll cross out the old one and just add the new one, with a check, like this:

✓ 1/12/11: 1 hr Turbo KB + abs 2 mile run
1/13/11: _______ miles on track at lunch...... 30 min Turbo KB + abs
1/14/11:_______ miles on track at lunch...... +abs
1/15/11: Hike....... 30 min Turbo KB + abs
1/16/11: _______ mile run/walk................ Turbo KB Core & stretch workout

Sinchy!
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Today I earned my check mark! I did an hour of turbo kick (the best aerobic kickboxing ever!) and then I did my own ab workout, which- if you're looking from really awkward angles, looks something like this:

Playing with balls again...

My friend George taught this one to me... you prop yourself up on your elbows and balance the top of your feet/bottom of your shins on the exercise ball. Then you bend your knees in to your chest by rolling the ball down to your toes. It's not easy to balance, and since your body is constantly trying to correct itself, it's a great core workout. I did 3 sets of 10. (If you think that sounds wimpy, than try it yourself! It's a challenge!)


In between those sets, I did another ab exercise with the ball....

Roll to your back and rest the ball on your shins while keeping your knees at 90°. (This part's pretty crucial, or the ball will roll right off, and there goes your workout!). You crunch up, grab the ball, bring it back down and touch the floor behind you, then bring it back up to place back on your legs. You're actually going up and down twice in one rep, so it's like a 2 for one deal. A BOGO. Let's go shopping! (See, ADD! I told you!)


Anyway, I also did 3 sets of 10 of these, right after the first exercise. 


And finally, at the end of each set of those exercise, I did planks. I held the first for 30 second, the next for 45, and the last for a minute.

Trying not to cry or pass out in front of the camera

I realize you might be asking yourself, "What is Kristen wearing?" Well, I hadn't really thought the whole self-portrait-while-you're-working-out thing through, so it ended up being a fantastic dose of cleavage. Sorry folks, this just isn't that kind of website. I have a reputation to maintain here!


Anyway, the basic workout looked like this (list time):
Circuit 1= 10 exercise ball foot roll things, 10 exercise ball crunch and grab things, 30 second plank
Circuit 2= 10 exercise ball foot roll things, 10 exercise ball crunch and grab things, 45 second plank
Circuit 3= 10 exercise ball foot roll things, 10 exercise ball crunch and grab things, 1 minute plank 


It's quick and dirty and I love it!

Oh, and I timed myself with my phone which was laying on the floor in front of me. It beats counting 32 mississippi, 33 mississippi, 34 mississippi...

And of course, I had my cheering section up in the stands...

They sure are special...
♥

First day back = success

I know that technically, yesterday was my first day back, but today was the first day the students were back to school for the spring semester. I (thankfully) got most of my kids from last semester back and that's great because last semester was probably the best one I've had since I've been teaching...

The only difference was that my first period was a softball conditioning class and now it's just regular PE... I had 52 girls last semester and now I have a whopping... 8! Yep, you read that correctly- 5 girls, 3 boys. It won't last, but it's pretty funny. I'm sure by Friday it'll be up to 40.

The first day was even made even better when I was asked to cover a class... that means an extra 50 bucks for 50 minutes of searching for a bakery to make my wedding cake... Sounds good to me! Their was a TA in there that basically led the class, and she had the kids read out loud... I've babysat 5 year olds that can read better than these kids! Here, I'll try to phonetically spell the words how they were pronouncing them:
- Fierce = fire-ess
- Advertising = adversy
-Gin = gine

Lol, what kind of teachers did these kids have growing up?? Better yet, don't they have parents that read to them? Ugh, I'm so disappointed. But still, overall, a great first day back.

So now I'm off to create a health curriculum for the PE department to incorporate into our standard curriculum... somehow this responsibility has been delegated to me. But that's alright, at least I know it's getting done correctly! ;-)

Have a great evening!

End of Vacation, Beginning of the No Coke Challenge

They say it takes 3 weeks to form a habit, right? So giving me three weeks of vacation is just enough time for me to get used to sleeping til 7, lounging in my PJs til 8, and then have the freedom to spend time with my dog or shop or wreak havoc on my house or whatever it is the day calls for... Well, my 3 weeks were up today. It was back to the daily grind. But first...
 
Bridesmaids Dresses, Check!
Yesterday was a great way to end my winter break from work... I was able to round up 3 out of my 4 girls, the flower girl, and my mom, and off to purchase dresses we went! We were originally going to buy these dresses like, a month ago, but I figured I should probably let everyone recoup from Christmas before making them put more money out. 

We began the day by going to Downtown LA's Santee Alley, where there is supposed to be some good shopping. I had never been before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. We did manage to find a little flower girl dress for Brooklyn, the 2 and a half year old daughter of my bridesmaid Brigitte. It looks very similar to this one:

Source

 
Brooklyn's dress is ivory and the we got her a little latte colored sash with a cute little bow in the back (so ignore the red!) She's so cute- she has these big blue eyes and these pretty little blond ringlets... Super Cute!

Next, we had lunch together and I remarked that I think I am addicted to diet Coke... which I really do believe.  It's horrible, but sometimes, I crave it. Or if I feel dehydrated, I'm like, what water?? Give me my diet coke! I had about 4 glasses. Our poor waiter. We'll get back to more of this in a minute though...

After lunch, we headed back to David's Bridal to order the dress Rachael and Alexis were able to try on before. Brigitte is 5 months along and definitely showing, but we had her try on a dress in the size she thinks will work for her. (Her due date is May 19 and the wedding is June 11th... and Brooklyn was 9 days late... we're calling it close!) It was still a little big on her, but we all decided it's better to be too big than too small... plus she's not done growing yet! She looked great in the dress, as do the rest of my girls, so I know they'll look so beautiful on the big day!

Source

The dress to the right is the one the girls will be wearing. Perfect for all shapes and sizes, including post-pregnancy tummies! We got a really good deal price-wise too, so it was a good score all around! The color I chose is called "latte" and it's actually what's being shown in the picture. And then instead of the belt that is on the dress, we're going to cover it with an ivory colored sash. So the girls will actually be opposite of little Brooklyn and her sash! It should be really cute! I don't want a brown wedding, but I do want the main color to be neutral so that other colors (like the flowers) will pop.

Enough wedding talk for now! 

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We took Kevin to the dog park today after work. I feel guilty leaving him and going back to work. :( The park is up on a hill and it was super windy, but we still had fun! Here are some candid shots of Kevin (who is now asleep on the couch!)...

Kevin made a friend named Schlomo

Check out those ears- he's like Dumbo!

My favorite shot of the day!

And this is his current state:

Tired puppies are A-okay in my book!

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The No Coke Challenge

On Saturday night, Brian says, "Starting Monday, I'm not going to drink any soda." I asked, "Not even diet?" (Which is the only soda we keep in the house anyway.) And he agrees that no, that's not healthy for you either. So it's on. For a month. We'll see if we can keep it going from there. Like I said earlier, Diet Coke is number one vice, so I filled up on some DC at lunch, and then I had a healthy dose of some at dinner. And that's all for now, I guess...

Except I almost forgot today at work! Apparently I have some short term memory problems... The school and Domino's fed us at lunch so I grabbed my pizza and some salad and found my seat. Then I noticed a six foot tall glorious stack of 2 liter bottles of Diet Coke, so I decided I should go poor myself some. Just as I stood up, the volleyball coach was walking back with 2 bottles of water and he says, "Here Kristen, do you want some water?" 

Faculty lunch... with water... and my zebra-print clipboard! And see those notes?? PE teachers DO actually work!

 Now, this seems very out of character for him, so I'm sure he must have picked up an extra one by mistake... that can happen, right? But whatever the reason, at the instant I replied, "Yeah, sure, thank you!" I was like- oh yeah, I'm not supposed to be drinking soda anyway. 

So day 1 is in the books, just water and some green tea today. It's not so bad...

;-)

 

Working Hard and Hardly Working

Today was pretty darn eventful! I (kind of) worked out, I finished my last project of winter break, and I was still able to catch up on some SVUs with my boys... Great Saturday in my book!

Hardly Working:
Brian and I knew we wanted to do some sort of outdoor workout with Kevin. After our hike with Kevin, Rachel, and the dogs last week, we decided to do something along those lines, but in a different location to change it up a bit... Lake Balboa was the local winner! It's a man made lake pond, and there are a bunch of running trails around it, and boy, was Kevin excited to get there...

He was super excited once we got there. There was a ton of ducks and water birds there, and I think his hunting blood was starting to kick in... he was head down and sniffing for most of the walk!

Family shot

We just walked the trails... not the greatest workout, but we were moving for quite a while and I got to try out my new watch, so it wasn't a bad trip after all! In fact, my exact stats from my brilliant new watch were the following:

We did 4.46 miles in an hour and 33 minutes which equals a 21.01minute/mile average. Haha, super slow, but again, other than the 2 or so minutes Brian and Kevin ran ahead (and then I had to run to catch up!) we walked.  AND according to the Garmin, based on my weight, I burned 411 calories. I hope that's true, but I won't get my hopes up!  ;-)



Working Hard:
Yesterday I started a project. Weird, right? Well, I've been reading the Young House Love blog lately and I noticed a piece of furniture they have in their house that sparked some inspiration...

Cute Shelf!

They had this little book shelf in their sun room. I didn't really notice it at first because I was too busy thinking about how cute the jars on top of the self are! If you're wondering, they made them little souvenir jars. What they did was take some sand and shells, tickets, anything to commemorate their trips, and then they labeled them with the particular trip and the year! Totally cute, right??

Anyway, they recently moved and they've been blogging about their new set up. They're hoping to eventually make this chimney doubled sided. And what happened to be in the picture?? Only what I am assuming is that very same book case, but painted... and  that was when the shelf itself caught my eye. I have a shelf that is very similar to theirs in my closet. It was left in the garage when I moved in and I didn't know what to do with it, so I just made it a shoe rack and it's been in my closet ever since. So what to do, what to do...

My similar shelf

 When Brian moved in, I gained several game consoles. And Play Station 3 is particularly awesome because it can play Blu-rays and Netflix, and probably about of other stuff (oh yeah, like video games!) The problem is, we've been had it set up on our end table. Not the most attractive or practical place for it...

The current situation

Good thing Kevin doesn't like chewing on wires, right??

Brian and I both like the shabby chic look. And I just lost some of my beloved turquoise in the house. So i decided to work some magic on that old shelf and put it where the end table is...

Priming process

 I started painting yesterday.

First I primed it so there would be some white scuffs in it, underneath the turquoise. Contrary to my quasi philosophies in my Sorry Dad posts, this coat of paint was shotty on purpose. So don't get scared!

Right about now, you're probably asking yourself if I was painting on my dining room table. Are you crazy? What would my parents think about that?? Just kidding. Of course I was painting on the dining room table! I am by no means an artist, but I do like to do paint from time to time. Sometimes I just repaint picture frames, sometimes I paint on canvas. I always do it on the table. I decided that was okay for 3 reasons... 1- the table was a hand-me down from my parents, so I've never had the it's-brand-new-and-I-don't-want-to-ruin-it feeling. 2- There's imprints of newspaper (don't ask me how) and our homework from my parents house, so it already has some unique and distinguishing features from my past. 3- We like the whole shabby chic thing, remember? So these little imperfections a la Kristen kinda fit the whole style. ;-)

Moving on...

The next step was to paint it turquoise...

With this coat, I was a little more careful than I was with the primer. And it turns out, painting this little shelf was a total pain in the ass. Those little wooden poles going up along the sides make the whole thing difficult. A bunch of nooks and crannies... at one point, I was even laying across the top of the table so I could see underneath and make sure I was covering every surface.

Pain in my butt.

But even worse than the painting was the sanding. That happened today... to the right is a picture I took during the sanding process. The right side shows the shelf prior to sanding and the left side shows after it's been shabbi-fied.

I love how it looks, but good gravy, it was a lot of work. I wish I was ambidextrous... between all the painting this last week and then the sanding today, my right arm is toast. Plus while I was sanding today, I cut one of my knuckles when one of the shelves slammed down onto my hand, I broke and bruised my thumb nail when I jammed it right into the side of the case, and now I'm blowing turquoise snot out of my nose.

Good times. :)


But it appears to be worth it!

Finished product!

Bird's eye view

Then Brian helped me moved some furniture around, we re-hooked up the Play Station and the lamp, and that was that!

Woo-hoo! Now if only we could do something about those pesky wires...
;-)