The Time I Was Halfway Done

Yesterday marked the end of the semester, which means that I am officially halfway through my credential program. Time flies so incredibly fast, I can't believe it. This is how we all were feeling.

That's my friend B. He's hilarious and fantastic. Our final was super hard. We all had to brig a dish to share at a potluck. Ad then we had to eat. My life is hard, but someone has got to live it.

I had a great, short run after class, followed by lifting. Doesn't everyone celebrate the end of their semester with a trip to the gym???

The ladies (plus B) had made plans to celebrate by cooking dinner and exchanging ornaments. It was a great time, and once again I was out way too late for my grandma butt.

This afternoon, my mom had a cookie party. We had trays of cookies for everyone to decorate. I think my mom went a little cookie crazy.

My best friends in the world came over and so did my nieces. All feels right in the world with friends, cookies, and babies.

I think my mom got grand baby fever.  Which is going to last a long time, since I am just fine being Aunt Rachel.

Boyfriend, of course, had to show off with his cookie decorating skills.

Mine look like a 3-year-old made them. 

Look how beautiful my bestie is with her daughter.

That baby is so photogenic. I also got a selfie with her, of course.

After our selfie, she told me the most amazing story.

Now boyfriend and I are on our way to see The Music Man at our local theater. I am turning 26 in 2 days (less than, actually, since today is almost over) and it's really freaking me out!

I'm Such An Overachiever

Tomorrow is the last day of the semester. We are having a hard day of eating a potluck and giving short presentations. Then the ladies and I are celebrating by making stir fry and laughing until we cry.

Yesterday I got the pleasure of babysitting my niece. This was the first time my sister has asked me to babysit and I was so excited. We danced and sang and read books. We also stared at the Christmas tree.

I also tried to take a picture all sneaky like of my feet in the room I do tabatas in. Well, my sound was on and the loud camera sound went off. I need to just stop trying to take sneaky pictures.

Today, I attended my last Thursday class for a month. I'm starting to feel free. I came home, chopped vegetables, ate dinner, baked cookies, and then wrapped a present. That's right. Singular. I put it under the tree and it was the first present under there this year. I'm such an over achiever. What's that you say? Six days left until Christmas...? Yeah, obviously an over achiever.

Now I am so tired I can hardly think. I can't wait for two weeks of sleeping in.

How I Got Started

The other day, one of my favorite bloggers, Ali, asked me how I found the exercises I do in my weight routine when I first got started.  I thought this was a great topic to blog about, because weight training can be confusing and definitely intimidating.

Let me start out by saying that I am in no way a professional.  Everything I have learned has come from the internet and books, but I am basically obsessed with proper form and learning every new thing that I can about strength training.

It began with running.  Okay, that's not true.  It began with walking with some running mixed in.  Before I knew it, I was running.  Then I was at the gym several times a week.  I would always run before hitting the weight machines for about 10 minutes.  I had absolutely no idea what I was doing or why I was doing it.  I was extremely scared of the weight room with all of the huge men.

Boyfriend is intimidated by me!

It wasn't until I read this that I really started getting serious about strength training.  Her story was very similar to mine, and yet, she had the body that I wanted.  Yes, I began my obsession with lifting for pure vanity reasons.  But as I continued on my educational journey, I found out just how important strength training is for women.  We are meant to pick up heavy things. (Remember, "heavy" is totally relative to you and your own personal abilities).  

I knew I wanted to get away from the machines.  Machines are good for certain things, but to get real results and the best bang for you buck, so to speak, free weights are where it's at.  I began by buying a book.  The New Rules of Lifting for Women, to be exact.  This gave me a foundation of free weight exercises.  It has a program in it, but I never really followed it.  I looked up each exercise on Bodybuilding.com and made sure I had my form down.  That is the key to picking up heavy things.  

I knew that I wanted to train for looks, rather than strength.  I began researching programs to follow, but realized none of them really fit exactly what I wanted.  So, I created my own routine that I have changed every three months or so.  I focus on one part of my body each day: shoulders, legs, chest/triceps, and back/biceps.  I researched (mostly on bodybuilding.com, I'll be honest) exercises that are for each specific part of my body.  If I didn't know how to do the lift, I googled it.  Bodybuilding.com has many, many, many programs that you can follow if you enjoy following a strict schedule.  Otherwise, you can search exactly what part you want to workout, and they will give you a bazillion and one exercises to do.  It's a really fantastic resource.  

My biggest piece of advice is to find a program (or piece together your own) that you know you will stick with.  Don't be afraid to go into the weight room with a piece of paper or notepad with the lifts on it.  When I first started, I had to draw stick figure pictures of how to do the lifts to remind myself.  Don't be intimidated by the men in there!  Most of them have no clue what they are doing either.  

This was almost exactly a year ago.  Time goes too fast.

I really hope this helped!  Feel free to ask any more questions.  I can only tell you what I did and what worked for me, but I love getting people into lifting.  Some day, I hope to get my personal training certification.  For now, I will stick to getting my teaching credential.  

Relaxing Weekend

Saturday was a very lazy day for me. My sister's brother-in-law had been asking me to kick his butt in the gym, so the morning started with me doing just that. I don't run on Saturdays to give my legs a break, so what did I do? Had a reunion with my good friend Stairmaster.

Then I proceeded to show both him and boyfriend my leg routine. I showed them proper form and walked them through my routine. So I trained legs twice this week. My behind better be hangin' by the time this year is up. ;-)

Both of the boys can't walk today, so I think I was successful. I felt pretty awesome showing boys what to do. Girl power, for sure! I finished up with another date with the Stairmaster and 5 minutes on my nemesis, the stationary bike.

I refueled with my dad at Mongolian BBQ. The plate below is boyfriend's masterpiece.

The rest of Saturday was literally spent laying down. I had a very important Skype date with my best blend, though. They were having technical difficulties, so it looked like a big blizzard on my end.

Even the dogs were lazy.

This morning I was up early for my long run. I felt the best I have felt in a very long time. I felt so good that I went an extra mile!

We had our usual brunch with boyfriend's mom. It was amazing after my run.

We spent the rest of the afternoon doing this.

Let me just tell you how bad I am at puzzles. Well, I can't put it into words, but I have never completed a puzzle in my life. I am pretty proud at how many pieces I put together.

Now we are at a concert, which is a little different from my usual Sunday night. I hope everyone had a great weekend!

My Friday The 13th

First, I just want to give a warm welcome to the new readers! Hello! Thank you so much for commenting!  Keep 'em coming. I love hearing from people.

Second, a confession. Christmas is 12 days away and I have done ZERO Christmas shopping. It's really hard to get excited about the holiday season when you're completely broke. I should get on it though. Christmas is coming way too fast.

My Friday the 13th was pretty good. I started off the morning assessing a student instead of being a student myself. Anytime I get to be with the students instead of in class makes a much better day. I did eventually make it to class. Then I immediately went to the gym.

Whenever I do a shorter run, I bump the treadmill up every mile. This time I put an incline every half mile. It's how I beat boredom. I also had this guy today.

Friday is back day. I enjoy training my back because I get to do fun moves like this.

Boyfriend decided to train his entire body, but spent most of the time doing dips, because he's a dip. ;-) 

I really like it when he works out with me. It makes me happy and feel less lonely. I enjoy working out by myself and having alone time, but it's great having someone to talk to, especially when we haven't seen each other for 3 days. We headed to Costco, because that's our usual Friday afternoon activity.

We were invited to boyfriend's mom's house for dinner and to decorate the tree. We hung out with his grandma for awhile and boyfriend forced her dog to love him.

We had a delicious, light dinner of chicken, Brussels sprouts, and potatoes.

Then the decorating began. Again, I am pretty much an opposite Martha Stewart and get bored with anything that has to do with decorating, because I'm horrible at it. So I sat on the couch and was really helpful by watching and not ruining the tree.

Now I am going to fall fast asleep. I am so looking forward to next week when I can turn off my alarm for two weeks. Have a fantastic Saturday!!!

Do you like decorating?

More About Me

I'm tired, of course. I mean, it's been a whole week and a half since I've had a break. But, I slept better than I have in many, many weeks last night, so I'm taking that as a sign that I'm just plain tired and a week off doesn't cut it.

But, to make a long, whiny story short, I'm going to do another cop out by postin random facts about me that may or may not be known.

1. I actually did do my homework last night. :-) I am completely done with all but one short assignment for the semester. It feels really great. Maybe that's why I'm tired?

2. I cannot drink out of a cup. I have to drink out of something with a straw or a smaller top like a water bottle. I find that if all I have available to me is a cup, I drink exponentially less water than I do if I have a straw. I don't know why this is. It may stem from the fact that I sucked my thumb for a very long time.

3. I don't do seasons. I'm a coastal California girl through and through. I am used to 58 degrees year round. And the redwoods make their own fog when they get too hot, so I'm used to fog. That being said, it's been cold. It snowed (by snowed I mean some flakes came out of the sky for 2 seconds). I am in awe of the people who actually live in seasons. I respect you very much!

4. I brought 4 pairs of shoes to the gym today. I've been going in between my placement and class on Tuesdays and Thursdays now instead of at 4:30 in the morning. This is much more pleasant, but I have to pack a lot more. I had the shoes I wore to my placement, my lifting shoes, my flip flops for the shower, and my off brand Ugg boots. I had my fake Ugg boots because California has suddenly decided to have seasons and I'm FREEZING.

5. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I cannot peel a hard boiled egg and have it intact. I eat a boiled egg every single day practically and I've gotten really good at perfecting my peeling. The last batch I boiled, however, didn't turn out so well and they were impossible to peel. My OCD kicked in and I have gotten overly frustrated with peeling them.

6. I realized that since my friends started having babies, all of the pictures on my phone are of really adorable babies. And I am really, really okay with this. I love them more than anything. When did I become an adult??

So there's some more insight into myself. I hope you've enjoyed it! 

Instead of Homework

I'm definitely feeling the end of the semester. I am so close to being done with a huge project that I just can find the motivation to sit down and write the summary. So this weekend, I did a whole lot of not doing homework.

Instead of homework- I drove to boyfriend's mom's house for brunch. Malcom had a very comfortable ride.

Instead of homework- I had an amazing breakfast with wonderful people. We haven't seen boyfriend's mom for a couple of weeks because she went to LA for Thanksgiving. It was fantastic to see her again.

Instead of homework- I avoided my long run. I had amazing plans torun from  boyfriend's mom's house to town and back which is about 8 miles. But then I ate and sat around chatting and decided to wait to go on my dad's treadmill. When I got to my dad's I realized that I had forgotten pants and had to borrow some of my step-mom's shorts. Then, I got 2/10ths of a mile and the belt broke. It was really seeming like the stars weren't aligned for me to run. I went to the gym and everything was okay after that.

Instead of homework- I held babies. I know I say it all of the time, but I am massively in love with my niece. Today we spent a long time cuddling.

Instead of homework- I watched my sister decorate my dad's Christmas tree. We have a fun tradition of decorating the tree as crazy as possible and then the parents laugh and have to redecorate the whole thing. We also stand far away from the tree and throw the garland. I love this time of year.

Instead of homework- I spent many hours with the boyfriend, with my famy, exercising, and just living and being present. My homework will get done eventually. I enjoyed my weekend and that's what matters.