Fitness Round Up

My neverending quest for a decent bod is in full swing this summer (as per usual). I've gotten a little "loose in the cage" since the wedding and righting the ship is NEVER easy. I've decided to start a weekly fitness round up to stay on my Ps and Qs— and also probably do some bellyaching, commiserating, and celebrating (very)small victories.

Right now I've got a lot of activity swirling in my workout pot. I'm fully confident that my combo of tennis, P90X, pilates, the Firm and the occasional run *could* whip me into shape. The key is obviously that I have to actually do them— go figure.

So far this week:
Burn + Firm Pilates



Firm Ultimate Cardio Blaster



Still to come:
P90X Legs + Back
P90X Arms + Shoulders



tennis w/ AmWilli!

My hope is to get back up to the 6-days-a-week schedule I had before the nuptials. I'm really quite vain when it comes to this stuff... and while slow, steady and healthy will definitely win this race, I have to admit my ultimate goal is just to be a rockin' trophy wife ;)

Friday in a nutshell

The day began with some sweet mother-daughter bonding at the outlets, and continued with a serious shoe safari courtesy of DSW.

A full day of shopping works up quite the appetite, so when Miss B hit me up with the proposition of meeting for some grub, I said absolutely but with ONE condition— our dinner spot had to be near fro yo (since my stomach is ALWAYS thinking at least one step ahead).

Miss B, in her infinite wisdom, chose the perfect place: Uncle Julio's.

Highlights:

Free chips and salsa just aren't complete w/o non-free queso and guac!

BBQ Chicken Quesadilla... or at least what's left of it.

Pretty, pretty swirl

Highest Light:
Splitting an entrée... the good (for-my-body) deed negates ALL those pesky calories right?!

Lowlights:

Yup, two of these.

Lowest light:
Managed to forget snapshots of US hoovering the deliciousness AND the only healthful thing we had all evening... we shall meet again YogiBerry.

And there you have it... another fabulous Friday in the books— hope everyone else is weekending in style!

Forget-me-not

Behold, my token of remembrance from AmWilli:

Please excuse the poor quality of this cell phone image

He's leaving me for the College World Series (Father-Son bonding trip he planned with Papa Willi— stay tuned for the guest blog!).

Moral of the story: Ask and ye shall receive... especially when you have a 40% coupon from Borders.

Anticipation

I, like other busy people out there, fall victim to the same old dinners week in and week out. Currently our dinner cycle includes a variety of pasta, chicken, salad, fish and turkey dishes. They're not terrible, but they're certainly not gourmet.

Between my classes, and AmWilli's little league practices, we have 2-3 nights a week when we don't get to have dinner together at all, so it's high time we spiced up the menu when we do have the chance to dine à deux.

Enter Bethenny Frankel and The Skinnygirl Dish:

Photo courtesy of bookswim.com

I've heard wonderful things about this recipe book, and Bethenny's no-nonsense approach to putting easy, affordable— and most importantly, HEALTHY— meals on the table. I batted a few eyelashes and sweet-talked the Mister into picking this baby up on the way home from work tomorrow...

Me: Hey, you're going out of town this weekend, why don't you buy me Bethenny's recipe book as a token to remember you by.

Him: OK, weirdo.

I'm excited to get it in my hot little hands and bust out of this dinner time rut! My goal is to try a new recipe once a week and post the reviews here starting next Wednesday.

In the meantime, what are some of your favorite recipes and quick meals?

No more pencils, no more books...

School's OUT! School's OUT! School's OUT!

And trust me, the teachers are JUST as excited as the kids (if not more so). I've been subbing for most of the school year—including this final week—and I can say unequivocally, that this is first summer vacation I've TRULY earned.

I suppose calling my break a summer vacation is a bit laughable, though. I have evening classes until July 8th, followed by a field experience (aka Summer School) through the end of July. Then a couple weeks of freedom until pre-service seminar starts, and then dun Dun DUN...

MY VERY OWN CLASSROOM at the beginning of the 2010-11 school year!

Those poor kiddies won't know what hit them. Although I'm sure they'll give me a run for my money, so I can't say I feel too sorry for them.

So happy to have made it through virtually unscathed :)

Happy Summer to all the teachers out there– live it up!

Project! Wine Cork Board

The Willi household is quite the wine-drinking abode (understatement of the year). We certainly do enjoy our varietals. And I, being obsessed with having a "thing," thought it would be a brilliant idea to try to keep all our corks starting around when we moved into our place in 2007.

Cut to nearly three years of collecting and we had an uninspired vase full of old corks plus two smaller bowls because of some overflow issues. Exhibit A:

Thankfully, the oh-so-smart merchandisers at Bed, Bath & Beyond sell affordable Wine Enthusiast wine cork boards. We slapped one of those babies on the registry, and low and behold, we got one!

I needed a little something to do while watching World Cup matches, so I opted for finally putting our cork board together. I started with allllll of our corks...

As I was looking through them, I picked out a few that were written on, and was reminded of why this was a good idea for us— it really is a fun way to commemorate events...

birthdays...

law school acceptance...

anniversaries...

corny holidays...

special trips...

...among other things. It was really nice to dig through that pile o' memories (especially since I didn't even remember writing on most of them). Once I was done reminiscing, I got down to business and sorted the corks by length and width. You'd think most corks are uniform, but that is so not the case— and the little stubby ones are no bueno for stuff like this.

Then came the arranging. This took a lot longer than I thought it would, because I wanted to spread the colored corks out pretty evenly.

It was smooth sailing... til the very end... can YOU spot the missing piece?

After about 10 minutes of rearranging, I finally found a way to make it work (cue Tim Gunn)!

TA-DA!

The last step was to remove each cork and glue it in one-by-one. Sigh... I loooove my glue gun. The final product turned out great, and looks just like the one above, but here are some more photos because I'm obsessed with my new cork board.

Now we have to find a place for it. I think I've staked out the perfect wall in the dining room. I'm glad I said "we" like the Mister has any say-so where this is going. Hah!

I'd like to give a shoutout to Mr. and Mrs. S. for getting us this awesome gift, and to Tiegan for sitting patiently beside me, instead of indulging in her need to "investigate" all the corks on the carpet. Good girl!

Friday in a nutshell

The evening began innocently enough... Me, Miss M, delicious tapas, a pitcher of sangria, and a few weeks worth of catching up.

It all went downhill from there :)

Teeb: "Papa, why is Mama sleeping on the couch?"
AM Willi: "Because she can't move, babydoll"