ADD's and ABC's

I have been MIA for quite a while now, so I'm going to be jumping all over the place (hence the ADD)! But enough with the acronyms, I have exciting things to share!...

First of all, softball started and it has been COLD! It was supposed to snow yesterday, but it was a lot of hype for nothing. It really wasn't even that cold at all. In fact, I'm back in shorts right now. But during the week, I bundled myself up to brave the outdoors all day. Between the chilly breeze and my growing fear of UV rays (good luck with that, PE teacher!), I managed to create this monster:

Sorry for the bad quality... cell phone to email to blog... bad combo. Anyway, one of my 9th graders told me I look like an Antarctic gardener. I thought that was pretty hilarious.

Wedding Stuff
Moving on!... Biggest news... MY DRESS CAME IN! I'm going to go see it and try it on sometime next week... gotta get paid first!

I'm pretty sure I have my invites, rsvp cards, table numbers, escort cards designed, so my next step is to create some interesting and captivating programs. As far as I'm concerned, all the wedding stuff that I have left is all of the artsy-fartsy DIY stuff that I've been looking forward too. I think our last major task is to buy our rings.

Working Out & Eating Right?
So lately I've been working out more often than I was before (although if you follow this, you would realize that I've totally bailed on keeping a journal... I didn't mean too! I'll start again!), but it's still not as much as I used to. And that kinda really pisses me off. I mean, last year at this time, I had recently finished a half-marathon and was gearing up to run a full marathon. And now I'm scared to run even a mile because I'm worried I won't be able to and I don't want to find out. Blah. I've been doing my Turbo Kick, but I feel like I need more. With that being said, I just printed out my free 7 day pass to 24 Hour Fitness, and I'm planning on using all 7 days for group exercise classes. Effective tomorrow. I need to sweat and apparently I need extrinsic motivation. We'll see. I hope I like the classes, and I also hope I can talk the gym into giving me some sort of discount because $45 a month kinda blows.

I'm going to add another tab to the top and call it "Eating Right?" (...cue confused Ron Burgundy face)

I want to keep myself accountable for the food I eat (just like I'm not doing for my workouts. Ha!) Now if you know me, you know that my diet consists of chocolate, pepper jack cheese, Nutella, diet Coke, and currently, Girl Scout cookies. The plan is to actually eat more healthfully (healthily? healthy? healthier? Idk.)

I read a blog the other day where this girl lost 12 pounds for her wedding by going on the Paleo diet. She said she followed it very strictly and didn't even have to work out, and the pounds just melted off. (Nice, right??) I googled it. Apparently, you cannot eat any dairy products, any starchy products, any sugars, and it didn't say it specifically, but diet Coke and Nutella are probably off-limits too. Basically- it's all hunter-gatherer food, i.e. fruits, veggies, and lean meats. Hmmmphh. I don't think I'm strong enough for that business. But I would like to follow something that isn't too far off. (With maybe a cheat day for some cheese. And chocolate. And diet Coke.) We went to our favorite farmer's market today and got a bunch of fruit and vegetables. I'm going to make some chicken to put into salads for lunch this week. And I'm looking forward to it! And some thin mints!

So I know I won't be the epitome of a healthy eater over night, but I will be trying. And documenting!

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ABC's
Like, every other blog I read is doing this, and it brings me back to the fun times of good ole Myspace shenanigans, so I'm jumping on the bandwagon. Here we go, the ABC's of me...
A.  Age:  27. Oof, that's like, almost 30.
B.  Bed size:  We were on a Queen, but it was like, the most uncomfortable bed ever, so we switched back to the double that we put in the guest room. And hopefully after the wedding, we'll graduate to a King!
C.  Chore you hate: I'm not really a fan of washing dishes. Luckily for me, Brian is!
D.  Dogs:  I love them! Especially yellow labs named Duke, Chloe, and Kevin!
E.  Essential start to your day:  Cuddle time. The best part of my morning is hitting snooze and cuddling in closer to Bri for 8 more minutes. And then again for 8 more minutes. And then again...
F.  Favorite color: Yellow, turquoise, pink... I kind of have a lot. ;-)
G.  Gold or silver:  White Gold... which is a silver color...
H.  Height: 5’5"ish
I.  Instruments you play:  Tambourine, maracas, and I play a mean triangle
J.  Job title: Physical Education Teacher and Assistant Varsity Softball Coach
K.  Kids:  Looking forward to having some someday!
L.  Live:  So Cal
M.  Mom’s name:  Darlene
N.  Nicknames:  K-Rod, Hot Rod, Rodzilla, Rodsky
O.  Overnight hospital stays:  I've never had one (knock on wood)
P.  Pet peeve: I guess right now it would be people who think they can be PE teachers when they don't know how to play any sports and then don't bother to show up to practice the teaching skills that they so desperately need to succeed in a career that they thought would be easy but apparently is just too difficult for their pea-sized brain to handle, and upon receiving suggestions from seasoned veterans for increasing their potential for success, they say, "No." Ugh.
Q.  Quote from a movie:  "Who wants a Mustache ride?"
R.  Righty or lefty:  Right
S.  Siblings:  Jeffers!
T.  Time you wake up:  Well. The alarm goes off at 5:00. I usually hit snooze for like, an hour and 15 minutes or so.
U.  Underwear: Under where?
V.  Vegetables you dislike:  I'm not really a fan of corn.
W.  What makes you run late:  Sleeping in... damn snooze button!
X.  X-rays you’ve had:  Teeth, my head (softball), probably a finger here or there
Y.  Yummy food you make:  I'm actually pretty good at cooking, but my favorite is lasagna!
Z.  Zoo animal favorite: MONKEYS!!!! And although they're not usually at zoos, I really enjoy sea otters! Brian has taken me to 2 aquariums to visit them and they're so cute and playful and fun to be around!

 

I've been MIA for a while now, but for good reason... I've been knocking out wedding tasks left and right! Well, that, and after-school softball practice started last week. Our first game is tomorrow- busy times!

So one of the last MAJOR things we had left to do was pick a honeymoon. From when we first started seriously looking to the time when we finally booked, air prices went up soared! (No pun intended!) I really want to experience Italy with Brian and when I started looking at the end of 2010, airfare was around $750-850 pp. Recently when we looked, I couldn't find anything under $1450. Needless to say, Italy was out.

We tried to look into some Sandals vacations which sound really good because everything is included. BUUUUT, a Sandals trip for both of us would have been at least $5,000 when all was said and done, and for that much money, I'd rather go to Italy and explore ancient lands than sit around drinking my honeymoon away. But that's just me.

 What we ended up picking is a week long trip to beautiful Maui! We will be celebrating our first week as husband and wife driving with the top down in paradise! I'm so excited!

Another thing I'm pretty excited about is another DIY project that I was able to get started- and practically completed- this weekend...

I purchased photoshop through Amazon last week and it finally came last Thursday. I tried to figure it out on my own, but it's unlike any program I've ever really used, so I was feeling pretty hopeless on my own. Luckily for me, we had some friends over for a game night on Friday, and one of our groomsmen (Kevin) is almost finished with his masters in web design, so he was able to give me a quick tutorial. Saturday morning, I was off and running!



I've come up with a couple of designs and I like each new one more and more! Without giving too much away, this is the latest:

I made the background neutral colors and the flowers bright- which is what I'm hoping the actual wedding will be like. I really like it, but I'm going to work on making an even better one. And then after I've come up with a design I like, I can make rsvp cards, table cards, escort cards, programs... it's going to be awesome.

So that's what I've been busy with... and that's what I'm about to get back to! I'm going to try to check in more often this week.

Exhaustion

I feel like this:

But a little bit chubbier and not as cute.

I don't know what it is, but lately I feel like I hit a brick wall. Like I just don't have energy. Like my legs are made of lead.

I'm yawning by 6:45 and I want to be asleep by 8:30....

I don't know why, but I don't like it one bit.

I've been managing to tough out some work outs anyway, and I'm hoping that eventually, my workouts will start to pay off- size-wise and energy-wise.

On a side note, I've determined that it may just be more work to have a student teacher than to not, and that the average person cannot be a PE teacher. Oh, and I should get paid more.

Off to research more honeymoon stuff!

Las Vegas and Falling Asleep on the Couch Before 9... Cuz I'm Crazy Like That

This week felt L-O-N-G... and it looked something like this:

and this:

... but there wasn't as much beer involved as you might think.

Here are some of the highlights of my last week:

1- Las Vegas!
A week ago today we were heading to Vegas with Kevin and Rachael. We stayed at the MGM and had a blast. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the weekend:

Me and Rach getting cabin fever in the car... caffeine, much?

Cutest dinner date ever!

At the Aria for dinner

There was a special- 5 beers for a dollar... diet coke was like, $4.50. Um, beer, please! 

Like I said, beer wasn't involved as much as you would think based on these pictures. Those five glasses were small, and it was practically the only alcohol I had the whole time. I know, I know, I have to cut back.


Considering those five beers were the most I've had in quite some time, I was feeling pretty silly by the end of dinner. I even proposed a question that everyone but Brian thought was funny (but I think they were laughing at me, not with me)- "If you drink a lot of beer, will you be better at basketball? Ya know, because of the hops?"


Haha, I still think that's funny!

 

Saturday night, I managed to convince everyone to walk over to the Bellagio and watch the water with me... it's one of my favorite things to do in Vegas. Clearly I'm not the gambler/drinker/party animal that is typically found traveling to this part of the country. You now, like the guy we saw jump into the Bellagio water. Like, for real. And it was cold. I can be an silly doofus from time to time. And I rarely turn down a dare. But I would never, ever do that. What a douche.

But I will dance in front of the Bellagio... like I said, I can be a silly doofus...

 2- My Mother
I'm so proud of her! I stopped by her house in the morning earlier this week to discover that she had just completed a workout! And it was her second week of consistent exercise! Woo-hoo mom! Keep up the good work!

3- The Lost Symbol
Brian finished reading this Dan Brown book on Saturday night in Vegas, so I started it. And LOVED it! I reinforced some personal philosophies that I have been trying to live by for the last couple of years. 

I'll do an entire post devoted to how a fictional suspense thriller relates to my PE teaching-5 mini beer drinking- falling asleep on the couch before sunset-life.

Oh yeah. It's been hard to get much else done this week because Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I was fast asleep on the couch well before 9:00. I keep telling you, I'm pretty rad. And like, my apartment smells of rich mahogany. 

So, that was my week in a nutshell... with a little bit of work thrown in!

We actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we're going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time.


But really.

Except maybe not the wallpaper. ;-)