Week 2 of Summer

I had every intention of posting this yesterday, since it was the official end of week 2 of summer but the day just seemed to slip away from me.

Week 2 of summer was absolutely wonderful: filled with old friends, good books and lots of relaxing.

I purchased a hammock with my birthday money and even went for the kiddie sprinkler system in order to stay cool (this week's highs are near 106, jeez). I have invested a lot of time in the hammock and in the new series I started Fifty Shades of Grey. I was skeptical at first after all the hype surrounding the books, but they have totally sucked me in. In one week I made it through one and half books, and have been recommending it to everyone.

On Tuesday Mr. B and I made an impromptu visit to Little Woodrow's to see our old friend Luedde. And there were turtle races, which were free to bet on and highly amusing.. It's definitely nice to be able to venture out on a week night without worries of work the following morning.

On Thursday I met up with Amber, and we had lunch at this cute little pho place called Elizabeth Street Cafe. The decor was super cute and the food was amazing, a little pricey for lunch but a splurge every once in a while is nice. We then spent the evening drinking margaritas downtown on patios and catching up. The pictures we took together were less than flattering so I simply will post the margarita picture from the Key Bar patio.

Friday was another fun treat, a girl's night out, filled with bowling and pizza from Home Slice. It was so much fun to be able to goof off in a low key setting. I learned both Friday and Thursday that bowling and pool are not my strong suits. Thursday my doubles partner basically kicked me off the team and Friday my best average was a 101. Either way both nights were the perfect balance between catching up with friends, relaxing and being silly.

I ended the week at Emma Long Park with Gina, toes in the sand and lawn chairs in the lake. It was an incredible relaxing end to the week and the perfect break from this uncomfortably hot weather.

I know that I can't live in summer forever, I am sure that all this time off will eventually get boring (or at least I hope so) and I KNOW Mr. B won't pay my way in life (don't worry I have tried asking in many different ways). But I certainly have enjoyed being able to have all of these outings and enjoy being social for a change. I feeling well rested and light hearted as I enter my third week of summer and plan for my trip to Houston.

The Box!

I Heart Working Out...No Joke!

I am VERY addicted to pinterest, and some of my favorite pins are the inspirational work out pins directed to females. Hands down this one is my favorite...

I am completely weird about working out. I have odd tendencies, which isn't really unique to working out, but still my OCD generally requires a routine for things and working out is no different. This being said, I also find some people's routines insanely odd as well. I probably judge too much, but then again I imagine that I am constantly being judged too. Seems fair, I guess.

My Oddities: 

1.  Without music there is NO workout, I will gladly just turn around and skip the gym if I find my itouch isn't charged. Sad, but true. And my music must be rap. I can probably quote every song of the Eminem Recovery album.

2.  I need ice cold water!

3.  Shot Blok's have become my favorite work companion. They are like energy in the form of candy!

 

4.  I despise gym clothes. I feel no need to show my assets when working out, and gym shorts on a girl that is over 5'10 are just way to short!



My new workout shorts, probably a bit too short but it is so hard to find ones that are long enough but not boy length!



5.  Think Thin bars are the ultimate pre or post workout bar. With 20 grams of protein they totally curb hunger pains.

 

6.  I send nasty thoughts to people who get in the way of my routine, or are using the machines that I want to use.

7.  I dislike working out with people, strangers and people I know, but I can't work out at home.

Other People's Oddities:

1.  I don't understand the people that brag about working out on facebook, seems silly or a cry for attention.

2.  People who talk on the phone at the gym, they infuriate me!

3.  Not wearing proper workout pieces: flip flops, too tight shorts, jeans, etc. What are they thinking?

4.  People who socialize at the gym, I am sweating and in a zone, chit chatting is not on my to do list at the moment.

5.  The people who come in use a piece I was using, machine or ball, for one set of reps and leave. My routine gets messed up or I have to reset the machine, for someone else's silliness. Because let's be honest one set of reps isn't doing ANYTHING.

End rant! Perhaps I will post my routine at some point, but for now the stairmaster and medicine balls remain my favorite pieces of gym equipment.

Another motivator for tomorrow's workout...

The Box

I Heart Organization!

As Carrie Bradshaw said, "I like my money where I can see it...hanging in my closet." I am a shopping addict. Bored, I shop. Upset, I shop. Happy, I shop. Shoes, clothes, purses and jewelry: I don't discriminate I love them all. But all of this shopping has seriously done a number on my closet and my financials.

Teaching has been extremely positive for my waist line, I have been able to go down two sizes since I changed jobs which meant a lot of my clothes did not fit anymore. And teaching requires a much different wardrobe then what I wore at the law firm. Gone are the heels, pencil skirts and button downs and in its place are flats, flowy skirts and t-shirts. Don't get me wrong, I heart my new wardrobe and my need for more shopping. But all of my new additions has left me with a mess of a closet full of disorganization, clothes that don't fit or just don't make sense.

One of the projects I wanted to conquer this summer was to attack my closet. My closet was by no means messy, it just felt unorganized and overwhelming, so I avoided spending any time in it.

I am extremely lucky in the fact that Mr. B graciously gave me the entire closet taking on a small section for himself. And it's a big closet. BIG. So when we moved in Mr. B unpacked his shelf in less than an hour and was all moved in. Due to the fact that I had to choose between writing a lesson plan and unpacking my house, and well school always won out, I didn't unpack my closet for nearly two weeks. Anyone who knows me, was shocked by the lack of attention to my closet. I have moved nearly 10 times since moving to Austin in 2003 and my closet is generally unpacked in the first two hours. But after living with most of my stuff in storage for nearly two months, I just wasn't motivated to even deal with the closet. I unpacked it all, kept it all and forgot about most of my clothing.

Five hours later my closet looks perfect: organized and color coded. I was lucky that I didn't have to purchase any organization containers, I just needed to get creative with what I already had. Which made this a zero expense project, my favorite kind.

And ta da...

I love my accessory station! Purses, scarves, hats and jewelry all have there own place and are easy to look through and pull out. I am thinking of adding labels and maybe sprucing up my jewelry section (pinterest is a bad influence) but that's a project for another day.

I added some framed old pin up pictures for some fun decorations that wouldn't really work any where else in the house.

While it probably doesn't look like I actually got rid of stuff, I really truly did! One bag of trash, two bags of donate and three bags of resale clothes later and my closet feels a lot lighter.

And I now have a new shopping rule; in order to prevent this from happening again and to help my credit card issues (a story for another day). If I buy something new, something old must come out or the new item needs to be returned. Let's just see how long I can stick to this and for Mr. B's sake hopefully this will work better than a budget.

The Box!



Sister Time

Yesterday I drove down to San Marcos and met up with my sister for some shopping and lunch. This might not seem like a big deal for most sisters, but it has been a trying six months for our relationship so this day was a big deal for us.

There really is no reason to go into all of the details of our 'family drama' so long story short: my sister is married and kept it a secret from my dad for close to three years, I have known for the last year or so and felt like I was betraying him by keeping it a secret. So in February we exchanged some unpleasant words, I issued an ultimatum and we hadn't spoken since.

My sister and I have always been very close, we have silly traditions of bad Mexican food and shopping days where we don't actually buy anything and Jack in a Box on Christmas night. We are both a little goofy so together we are able to really be ourselves and just have fun. Not having her in my life for the last six months has been difficult, so her reaching out to me on my birthday was absolutely the best thing in the world to me.

In our family we rarely talk about feelings or emotions, we are the specialists of pushing all of those emotions down and ignoring them. So per usual we didn't actually discuss what we said to each other or dwell on the fact that we hadn't spoken in six months. We just picked up right where we left off: we talked, shopped and ate bad Mexican food. And it was wonderful. I hope that this is the start of us reestablishing our relationship and learning to better respect the fact that we are each adults with our own opinions and will make our own choices.

I haven't been to an outlet mall in years and seven hours later I walked away with very little besides aching feet. Which is probably best considering my nonexistent shopping budget, my few purchases were pretty lack luster except for this little gem. Mr. B is a big Cardinals fan so for $8.98 this was something I knew he would appreciate and even more so that I made it through the Victoria Secret Outlet store with only spending $8.98, a true accomplishment! Maybe Mr. B is starting to rub off on me and I will learn to stick to a budget, not likely.

The Box!

First Day of Summer

Today is my first real day of summer. I have been doing curriculum writing and tech training since school ended for some extra money, but yesterday was the last planned day of training. I will still have a few more days of working as we update my lab, but those days will be more spread out over June and July.

I spent quite a bit of time weighing the pros and cons of doing summer school or doing these sporadic days of paid training. While summer school would of paid more, I really wanted the opportunity to enjoy my first summer, so budget be damned.

My hope for summer is that I will spend some time enjoying Austin with friends, pampering myself and focusing on the house. But most importantly relaxing. I am the queen of lists, piling too much on my plate and running around rather than relaxing, so this will go against every instinct I have, but I don't want to get to August and regret not taking advantage of this precious time off.

Things I am Loving This Week:

Booking my flight to go see Erica in August, for only $7.50, thank you Southwest credit card.

Sleeping in past 6:00 a.m.

Intense workouts and not being afraid of being sore the next day and having to be on my feet for eight hours.

Pampering myself with a new hair cut and a day spent at the spa: massage, pedicure and manicure, with wine and chocolate. Awesome birthday present from Mr. B.

Drinking wine on a Thursday night, just because I am in the mood.

The Box!

Today we are...

Today we are...

We are having our first living in a house issue, the AC unit has stopped working, which has left us both crabby and hot. If anyone knows anything about the heat in Texas, the summer is the worst time to lose the AC. With our lack of knowledge on most household issues I did what any tech savvy person does; googled it. And when I didn't like the google's answer, I called my Dad. Hopefully his advice will allow the AC to start working before we go to sleep, and our landlords will handle the rest. If not we might kill each other before the end of the week, or melt.

For now I am snacking on Frozen Sour Grapes and planning my adult frosty beverage to stay as cool as possible.

The Box!

The Lucky One

Yesterday was the Big 27. I approached yesterday like I have most birthdays: avoidance, denial and then the panic of not having planned anything. I have a love hate relationship with birthdays, that has nothing to with getting older and everything to do with expectations.

I am always afraid of being let down so instead of actually making a plan and voicing what I want, I avoid and ignore the day. But then I get let down that nothing has actually been planned. Its a vicious cycle. I am working on improving my thought process if nothing else to avoid Mr. B actually listening and ignoring my birthday, but change is slow.

Last year's birthday was amazing. Blue on the Green with Bob Schneider, dinner with Mr. B and then a day at Hamilton Pool with Mr. B and Erica. It was relaxing and the perfect was to spend my birthday.

Hamilton Pool

This year Austin's social calendar did not fall in my favor. Zero music shows that I would want to attend, Erica in another state and ROT Rally weekend which meant any service industry friends would be working and downtown would be packed. So I had pretty much given up on celebrating my birthday on my birthday.

But Mr. B came through in a big way and made me feel so amazingly lucky and special. We had margaritas and queso (my other love) Friday night and then he presented me with presents. A gift card to Victoria Secret for a new bathing suit and a spa day complete with a manicure, pedicure and a massage.

I would of been completely content with those two presents but I woke up Saturday morning and Mr. B surprised me with Zip Lining and an ice cream cake and the fact that he had gotten the day off something I thought was definitely not going to happen.

A 30 minute drive, a boat ride, a hike up hill and a quick demo of the equipment and we were off to do 5 different zip lines.

We make helmets look sexy.

The last zip was 2000 ft long, over 20 stories high and we went about 50 mph. It was an incredible experience! One which I embraced and had no fears about, which considering both my parents first question was "did Mr. B have to push you off to ledge", says a lot for how much I have loosened up. Surprisingly the actual zipping was very relaxing and the views were breathtaking.

Trying to pose for a picture while zipping is difficult.

After zipping we took much needed showers, ordered take out Chinese food and enjoyed my ice cream cake. And ended the night at Red's drinking and visiting with friends. The weekend was beyond wonderful and reminded me just how amazingly lucky I am right now in life. Who needs expectations when you have great friends and an wonderful boyfriend to share so many adventures with. I truly am the lucky one.

The Box!

What is a Box?

When I decided to start this blog I knew I wanted to to be both for my personal life and professional teaching life. So few things in my life exist in both worlds, so I wanted a place that could hold everything from my latest dyi project, lesson idea or wacky student story.

Coming up with a name for my blog proved more difficult. It had to be something that described me personally but was still school appropriate in case a student or coworker every stumbled on here.

Originally I thought Box O' Giggles, until I googled it and realized it had to do with drug use. Learn something new everyday I guess.

I believe some back story might be needed here, about 5 years ago, when I was first dating Mr. B (we will call him this for now) he so lovingly dubbed me the Gigglebox. Because well frankly, I laugh at everything. And sometimes its uncontrollable. And sometimes its just a few giggles and other times its full on cackles. And more often than not no one is laughing with me, well until they hear my never ending giggles. I don't ever recall my endless giggles being a topic of discussion before this time, so I decided I must be giggling so much due to happiness. And I was happy, new friends, new man, new job, etc.

There have been many variations on the nickname over the years, but now I am just known as The Box to Mr. B. While Mr. B is constantly looking for giggles, my students are constantly telling me how odd my laughs are, so I do believe the name still fits.

And well babblings, if you have noticed I have a tendency to go on and on for a bit too long. Often about topics that few care about. And for longer amounts of time then are actually needed to tell the story. Add a glass of wine in the mix and you might never get me to shut up.

Thus "The Babblings of The Box" was born.

Giggling with Erica after a long Longhorn Football Saturday.

Giggling by myself after graduating from University of Texas.

Giggling with Allison before her sweet wedding.

The Box!

Trying to Remember the Moments

Welcome! This is my first attempt at blogging, my hope is that I will actually commit to keeping this blog current, but I have never been successful at keeping a journal. I have always loved the idea of journals, searched for the best looking journal and pen combination but never have been able to actually spend the time to sit down and write anything after the first entry.

In part that is one reason I am starting this blog, hopefully an electronic forum on the Internet will motivate me to spend the time to add to this blog on at least a weekly basis. Though considering I told my old roommate a year ago I was starting this blog and just sat down and gave the blog a name today, I am a bit skeptic.

The other larger reason behind starting this blog can be summarized by this quote, "We do not remember the days, we remember the moments." In the last year my life has looked like: my best friend moved across the country, I moved into storage/my boyfriends tiny one bedroom, boyfriend and I moved into our first house, I left my job at a law firm, started my first year of teaching, survived my first year of teaching, completed my alternative certification program, took three state tests and received my official teaching certificate. Whew. Just looking at that list makes me exhausted. So needless to say, I probably took about ten pictures in the last year, talked to less than ten friends and really recall less than ten moments. My hope is that this blog will encourage me to take more pictures and recall more moments as I have a place to record the comings and going of my life. And most likely way too much of the babblings of the box.  

The Box!