TV addictions, ballet, and the like.

I've started to take some classes at Arlington Center for Dance. It feels so good to be using my ballet technique that I haven't used for so long. I've just been going once a week - Tuesday nights. My first class was especially hard (of course); however, probably not as hard as I expected. After the class I told the teacher it had been 5 years since my last ballet class and she was shocked. She said she never would have guessed (I told her I do yoga. It'll keep anybody looking decent and ballerinas in somewhat good ballet shape too). It's been getting progressively better. I even pulled a very decent triple pirouette on Tuesday. It's just a drop in class, so there are new people every week, but I've definitely been one of the better people every week, so this feels great. I'm getting old though. I wonder how long I could continue to try and push my body to do what it used to do. In one combination, just this last Tuesday, I got so frustrated with myself because I knew exactly what my body needed to do, it just wasn't strong enough to do it. I remember getting really mad at myself back in my teenage years too, though. Ballet is just so incredibly hard. You aren't ever good enough.

I became addicted to the show "Mad Men" for a period. This period actually just ended this morning. I'm all caught up with the second season and there's nothing more for me to watch on DVD (third season hasn't begun yet). It is a huge waste of time, but of course thrilling and alluring. I don't have DVR and I don't try to schedule my life around shows, because I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I'm not going to plan to be home in order to watch something. This is why on Wednesday night I happen to have the tv on and I saw that "So You Think You Can Dance" was on. Do you know what I did? I didn't even turn to it. Do you know how much I love this show? Remember how obsessed I became in prior seasons? I don't even want to turn to it. I haven't been watching it/keeping up with it, and so I don't even want to see what's going on in the middle. It seems pointless to me. I want to know what prior pieces the contestants have performed/brought to the table. If I can't do this, I don't know if I can make an acurate judgement about their present performance. I realize I may be incorrect here, but I just haven't been following it, and I see no reason to start to do so now. And I don't like watching this show online. You can't rewind! And I don't think you can't watch full episodes online, so you have none of the judges or choreographer commentary.


"Mad Men" will start the third season sometime in August. I guess this will now be my second show (besides The Office) that I actually keep up with.

Are there any other shows I really should be watching?

Seriously what did we do before DVR? I guess I don't have DVR now, and I'm fine.

My fun birthday

29 in '09

Wednesday, July 22nd was the big day. Some of the celebratory events were the following (I started my celebrations about a week ago, and they aren't over yet):

A much needed and anticipated pedi a week ago Saturday (following a float down the Harper's Ferry river in West VA).

Eating the best cupcake (Chocolate with Peanut Buttercream frosting) of my life at Best Buns Bakery in Shirlington.

Starting my new job was maybe part of the celebration.

Dinner with family on Wednesday. I love Nam Viet in Clarendon. It looks kind of ghetto, of course.

Seeing Oliver! with Paige (for her birthday) and Anna on Friday.

S'mores party at Mary's Saturday. Have you tried a Reese's s'more? Or just use a Symphony bar.

I have great friends and family. Thanks for being in my life. I was asked what the highlights were of my 28th year (really my 29th, of course) and also what my goals are for my 30th. The highlights were teaching 3rd grade over the summer, finishing my master's, and moving from Vegas. The goal (it's singular. I only have one) is to make babies in or out of wedlock.

Celebrations continue tomorrow night with a joint birthday dinner with Ashlee. Hooray!

Pictures to document the festivities...

Dinner with family

Unsure what is happening here.

Helgeson. Smuse.

Maintenance

I've finished my first week at my new job. It is such a relief not to have to babysit almost 20 3-year-olds all day. I was just getting too burned out. So, now I wake up and go hang out at a toy store all day. It's actually pretty great. I don't know how long term it will be (I just am not making enough to be a legit person in adulthood), but for a little while it's fine.

So, I was hired to plan and teach the classes that they offer at the store. I only taught one class this week. These classes will be increasing; however right now we are in the middle of a large expansion of our store (into another location just two doors down on the strip of stores). The present location will have baby items and go up to age 3, while the other store will have 4-9 year-old items.

I'm new and have a lot to learn just about how the store is run, so I have to learn from all my high school/college age part-timer coworkers. There is one girl that's 27, I think. They are really ridiculous and it just makes me really glad that I'm not that age anymore and that high school is a one-time deal. They actually might drive me crazy.

I really did like one brief conversation with my coworkers. It was on the lines of personal hygiene. This girl said that one time she "really needed to take a shower," so she managed to go home and shower and get back in a 30 minute time period (showering was that necessary). She went on to explain that she had just been really busy and etc. I liked this phrase, because I think it's something that we all have experienced, but never really admit openly. We KNOW when we are dirty and need to shower. Personal hygiene is a difficult one, and this is basically the direction the conversation took. Another coworker was present during this conversation and she says to him, "Oh, but you are probably doing good now [with personal hygiene] because you have a girlfriend." So, does it take a boyfriend/girlfriend for us to be really mindful of personal hygiene? I'm not saying I follow this line of thought, I just think it's funny that sometimes it's really difficult to make sure you shower regularly; however, adults (except for me) don't seem to really struggle with this. Maintenance is such an ordeal! A girl's got so much to do. My friend, Katie, talks about people that "never look dirty." Because there are those people in the world. My sister's one of them, probably.

And, with that I'm off to get my beauty sleep (as my brother-in-law called it the other day).

I like this...

So, I randomly found this person's blog (The Single Mormon Girl's Guide to Life) and I am NOT going to read it more, because I just don't care, and if I were to read it, I think I'd be doing the opposite of what her own suggestions are. So, here's the quote:

"I think sometimes as LDS Spinsters we try too hard. We try too hard to be at the right place at the right time, to be wearing the right oufit, to go to all the right activities, and to say and do all the right things. And it’s not that we shouldn’t be trying to put ourself in situations where we can be blessed to meet the right person, but we should be careful not to try too hard.

"I think all of you know what I mean by trying too hard. It is acting in desperation. It is being someone we are not. It is being somewhere we don’t want to be. It is going against the grain of our lives. It is living in fear instead of in faith. Trying too hard makes us seem desperate. It just makes unhappy because when we try too hard we get caught up in some exact outcome that we expect and when those things that we want don’t always happen we are unhappy and hurt.

"Instead we need to live where we want to live, wear the outfit that makes us feel like a million bucks, go to the activities that actually interest us, and say and do only the things that reflect who we actually are at our best."

The thing is, is that I've definitely been on the reverse side. I've gone through a stage where I didn't try, or didn't think it was possible for me, to look good (for example). It was a really hard period in my late teens/early 20s to go through, because I kept convincing myself that I was taking the higher route, and that by not looking really good I was actually focusing more highly on the things of most importance in life. To some degree it is still a dichotomy that I struggle with; however, I've also just grown up, realized that I like working out (sweating was ingrained into me from all my years of ballet) and I was raised to eat healthy, and like doing so, but perhaps my metabolism has balanced out as well. It needed some years to recover from trauma I was putting it through with ballet. A daily schedule of not eating for 24 hours and then eating and throwing it up for years is not good for your body. I feel like even just recently I've become precisely aware of what weight I need to maintain to be happy. Girls' weight fluctuate so much, but I feel like it's a good thing to know the weight I want to be for the rest of my life.

Reposting this, because I don't care if I'm too open.

Just got back from NYC.

I heart NYC. But, maybe NOVA is home. Hipsters. Again. Not for me.

Can I please vent about the following... Don't makeout with me and then never call me again. What are we ... 20? No. I never did that anyways; however, I really just don't care. I'm not one of those girls that takes things really personally and holds grudges. Though perhaps this is an indication of a lack of feeling on my part. I've wondered recently if I have just a general lack of emotion.

Okay, no more really personal information. And I'm really sick of being single. What am I looking for? The answer is this -- I'm looking for a mentor (right, Kate?). And he can't be a jackass. I decided "jackass" is an appropriate term only after KTKKC introduced me to it. I didn't grow up with this term, nor know I could use it. I guess I've decided I can, and it's perhaps perfect word choice.

And, also? I'm going younger. The older they are, the weirder they are.

Exercising disasters.

I've had a few in my life and I've been meaning to document them for some time. And, so, here they are in chronological order.

This first occasion happened probably after my junior year of college. I believe it was spring and I was back from BYU. So, I'm running in my neighborhood and am feeling anxious to the point of complete desperation. I have to use the bathroom so badly. I probably hadn't been running consistently and my body wasn't liking it. I'm nowhere near my home and absolutely have to get on a toilet. The only home I can think of to stop is the Scalia's. So, it's Saturday morning and I knock on their door. Of note is the fact that I haven't seen or talked to Meg since Senior year of high school, and even that year or all of high school we didn't talk a ton. Though, of course I did grow up with her, and our parents somewhat keep tabs on each other. So, there I am knocking on the door, and who answers it? You guessed it. Justice Antonin Scalia in his bathrobe. He doesn't know who I am, of course, and I try and mumble out some sort of explanation. His wife appears behind him, recognizes me, and ushers me in. So, I rush to use the restroom. Luckily, I'm ushered to the restroom off the kitchen on the main floor, and not the restroom off the Justice's office, which we frequently used when I was over playing. It was an incredibly embarrassing experience needless to say, and of course the duration of my stay in the bathroom was not short. It was nice Meg happened to be home from Amherst, so I could catch up with her a bit, and not feel so much like a complete idiot.

Has anybody ever fallen off a treadmill? I have. It happened about 4 years ago. I was running at the gym and I think I wasn't feeling well and tired, but I was forcing myself to do it anyways. Is that common in marriage? So, when I fell/tripped, I was pushed back and rammed into the wall which is right behind the treadmill. The gym where I worked out, while anybody can work out in independently, is used mostly for sessions with personal trainers. All the trainers came a running, because when I hit the wall it was loud. I was very embarrassed needless to say; however, I don't think I realized that it's an uncommon thing. People don't just fall off of treadmills. I kind of thought they were overreacting. I totally got a burn on my thigh because of it though, and I think I even still have a scar. Of course, I got back on the treadmill after it happened. Can't get deterred from my workout!

I am a good rollarbladder and I love it; however, I've had some scary situations surrounding this activity. I really just need to be safe and actually wear some protective gear, but of course I don't. About 2 years ago, it was right after Christmas and I was home for winter break from Vegas. I went rollarblading in the neighborhood. They were new rollarblades and I was trying them out on my regular route, which includes the very steep hill in front of the Scalia's home. Since they were new rollarblades I was being extra cautious at the top of the hill. I remember thinking as I proceeded down that they felt just fine and not much different than my old pair. I let off the brake a little bit. Bad idea. I got going too fast, and totally fell hard, and skidded. It's not too often that a grown person will feel fear, but I remember as I fell I was scared because I knew it was going to be bad, and I had been training hard for a 1/2 marathon, which I was scheduled to run in less than a week in Phoenix. It was, but not as bad as I thought. I immediately pulled apart my already torn pants to reveal a very badly scraped knee. It hurt for a week or more, but I still was able to run the marathon. I even got myself home somehow immediately after.

I've had another near death (this more recent one, I really thought it approached death) experience with rollarblading. I went down a different hill in our neighborhood (the one leading to the Johnson's) and was holding my legs steady, was applying the brake, but was still going too fast; so I thought I'd start to transfer my weight between legs, so I was actually skating. Bad idea. I was able to hold in my core though, and I didn't die. I feared for my life though. There's nowhere to rollarblade here that is easily accessible. I miss Vegas. Vegas neighborhoods are all new and don't have hills. There are just gradual inclines, so you get your uphill workout in.

This last experience doesn't involve me, but I'm going to share it, and I don't think the person will mind too much. So, I hear about this from a family friend who I actually stay with when I am in Phoenix for my 1/2 marathon. She tells me how she ALWAYS has a really difficult time with needing to use the bathroom when she runs. I didn't understand the severity until she explains what happened the last time she ran a marathon. What's funny to me is that this doesn't make her not run. She continues to do it, because she's just that kind of amazing person, who won't let little things get in the way of being happy and accomplishing amazing things. So, she's in the last 5 (?) miles of her marathon and she starts needing a restroom desperately. I ask her what she does and assume she'll say she had to stop at a portable. No. She doesn't. Does she stop running and walk the rest of the way? No. She keeps running! She had trained so hard, and she doesn't want to influence her time! And the story goes like this...Probably at about the last mile she just can't hold it anymore and she just goes. It's coming. She's running. It's still coming. She crosses the finish line. It's still coming. We aren't talking pee people. Her husband and kids meet her at the finish line. It's running down her legs. Her husband takes one look at her and takes her heat absorbsion thing and she finds a restroom. I couldn't believe the story. What a woman!

On another occasion I went rollarbladding in the middle of the day in late August in Vegas. I thought it had been getting a little cooler at that point in the summer! It wasn't. I think I nearly died of heat stroke. I don't think I've ever felt so sick in my life. I was alone, in the middle of new roads with construction, which were the most western roads in the valley. Almost no cars were passing, and the cars that did, didn't seem to think a girl sitting on the side of the road could be dying.

And that's it. Not incredibly exciting, but maybe they were entertaining. My workouts these days are including the treadmill (I've just been walking at a 4.5 on a 3.0 incline for 30 minutes), the elliptical for 30 minutes, push-ups, sit-ups, stretching, yoga twice a week, runs down to the river on some days, and some independent cross-training. I somewhat miss my classes at 24-hour, but doing it on your own works fine too.

Cutest girl in the world?


I think so.