festa

 Yesterday was one of the big Portuguese festivals (not Fatima, but the other one, Holy Ghost, I think?) and I am still recovering from the bifanas and bud lights. So to repent, tomorrow, I will be hitting up a yoga class at 6am. Am I crazy? I am totally not a morning person. Like, at all, so this will be something new for me, kind of an experiment. An experiment to see if I am able to get up early to do something I enjoy, something just for me, or if my body really doesnt want me up at ungodly hours of the day. So we’ll see. And of course, I will keep you all posted. All three of you.

friday fun

 I just ran across this on someone’s blog and I had to post it. I laughed out loud!

bikramania

 Yesterday, my flex day, I went and tried Bikram Yoga for my first time.  I think I am in love.  No kidding, this seems to be the coolest workout I have ever tried.  I am not a total stranger to yoga (when I worked in San Diego at a fitnesswear company, we had yoga every Friday afternoon, it was a nice treat) but this yoga is different.  Conducted for ninety minutes in a room heated to 105 degrees makes for a strenuous workout.  My goal was to make it through the entire ninety minutes without leaving the hot room;  I had to sit out some of the standing poses because I got real lighheaded, but I just went into the child’s pose and rested for a few, but I never left the room, so I am proud of myself.  I got myself a week membership for unlimited classes for $29, so I am going to try to cram as many classes as I can into this next week.  If I see some major results, I may keep it up.  Itis a bit on the pricey side, but I only have 6 more weeks to go before I have to reach my fitness goal, so I gotta start hitting up the drastic measures department.

 In blogging news, I finally got the chance to upload pics of bags and other crap.  I have edited a few posts (you may have to get into the archives to find some other, old pics that I have been too lazy to upload) so you can see visual progress of what I have been doing, in case you guys all think I am just fashioning bags only in my imagination.

 Last weekend, we went to Upstate NY for a wedding in Utica.  On the way there, we hit up Cooperstown to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame.  It was really impressive.  I always get that feeling that I am seeing stuff that is bigger than me, old, steeped in history and goosebumps develop all over and I step outside myself so that I can remind myself not to forget.  Soon after, we checked into the hotel and we were getting ready, Jeff was applying lotion and we got this crazy Bostonian omen.  Not sure what it is meant to imply, but…

  

…tell me that does not look like the Boston B!!!

crunch time

 I totally fucked up my bag last night. 

 In cutting the striped fabric, the first panel came out perfect and I beamed.  The second one however, was cut on the fold leaving not enough on the back side of the fold to cover the entire pattern.  Idiot!  I should have “thought twice, cut once” but I am an idiot.  So I decided to use stripes only on the front of the bag and use just the red fabric for the back of the bag.  But then I screwed up stitching (after practicing with some decorative stitching and not switching back to default stitch length), using the fusible interfacing and not realizing that the paper is supposed to come OFF.  Idiot!!  The stitches are too small to remove with the seam ripper without ruining the fabric, so I am conceding defeat to the striped bag.  So today after work, I have to run out shopping for pants, go back home, (this means no walk/running interval cardio for me today, boo) start on the bag AGAIN, using only red fabric.  On the upside, though, this leaves me with more options for the pants I can wear; instead of just khaki, I can find some blue sailor pants, or white.  We’ll have to see.  I am such a procrastinator!  If I didnt wait until the last minute, I could have made more striped fabric and things could have been fine!  Grrr.

 Anyway, at work, they hare having some kind of fun event next week, and they asked us all to bring in baby pictures of ourselves and they will post them around and whoever guesses the most employees from their baby pictures correctly gets some kind of prize (day off or something).  So this morning, as I frantically searched for my baby pictures, I found all sorts of old cds of mine: Metallica S&M, Dance Hall Crashers LockJaw, Liz Phair Exile in Guyville.  Right now I am rocking out to Dr Dre Chronic 2001.  Inglewoooood!!!

 In parting, I will leave you with my work submission:

 

 

[6/27/08 edit: pictures uploaded! Here are photos of my red bag, completed...still needs more work, but, hey.]

fall gal

  In keeping with my Nivea Challenge, Sunday, for Father’s Day, I went for a bike ride with my dad.  I borrowed one of his “road bikes” the kind with the super skinny tires that usually require the rider to look entirely the part with the head-to-toe spandex.   I wore running pants that kept getting stuck in the gears, so I had to tuck my pants into my socks.  I looked like such a pro.

 Anyway, unfamiliar as I was to this particular kind of biking, I was doing great for the first six miles or so.  Great that is, until we came to this huge downhill with a left turn at the bottom.  I panicked and could not find the brake.  I yelled out, “I am going to crash.  I am going to crash!”  And crash I did.  The bike smacked into the curb and I went flying, “skipping like a stone” as my dad recalled.  Luckily, I landed on the grass and skipped onto a mulch bed, nice cushy landing.  I slammed my head into the mulch, my wrist dug a divot in the grass, I have a bad road rash on my elbow and a bunch of bruises up and down my body.  My glasses scraped my face up pretty good.  But the worst injury of them all?  Two bruises, on the ischial tuberosities (my poor, aching bum bones).

 Now I know why the riders on these road bikes wear the padded spandex getups.  Duh.

 In sewing news, I am halfway done sewing the strips of red and khaki fabric to make my striped fabric.  The measuring and cutting was the most tedious part, but I am coming along nicely.  My shipment from Joann with the bag frame and the boning should come in today, so that is a relief!  Now I will have no excuse not to finish prior to Friday AM, when we will head off to Utica, NY for the wedding.  I really, really, really hope that I dont screw this one up.

 Fingers crossed!

negative seven

 I am down seven pounds in my quest to lose twenty.  At this rate, I should be down the 20 lbs by the 4th of July!  I ditched the sparkpeople.com idea since the site is banned from my work and instead, I have started up on the Nivea challenge (google it, it’s pretty easy to maintain).  It consists of three days on, one day off, two days on, one day off, all the while interspersing strength training with interval cardio.  Today is an interval cardio day, so I will be out with my walking buddy and we will add three minutes of jogging every ten minutes into the mix.  Should be interesting if nothing else, especially in the god-awful swelter that wont leave New England.  Sundays are my cross training days and I have already made plans to go on a bike ride.  I havent ridden a bike in ages, so I will keep you all in the loop as to whether or not the old adage is true and I haven’t forgotten how.

 In sewing news, I have not even started on my nautical themed bag for the wedding on the 21st.  Gasp!  Time is running out.  I think the thing most holding me back is the daunting task of having to make my own striped fabric.  I am unsure how to stitch it to ensure it is stitched securely since I will be cutting up the fabric.  I’ll keep thinking about it and start on it on Friday (one of my off days in the fitness regime).  I have it all sketched out, however, just waiting on my shipment from Joann with the flex frame and boning and stabiliser (which has no bearing on when I can start stitching the striped fabric, I jsut like to make excuses.)

 Carry on!