Take a hike

When I was younger, I used to love going on hikes. On weekends, my brother and I would hop on our bikes and pedal north into the rolling hills near our house or south to Corriganville Park-- where they used to shoot wild west movies-- to explore the dirt trails. And some of my favorite days at summer camp were those times when the camp counselors would lead us on "nature walks" through grassy fields nearby.

So when the boy suggested yesterday afternoon that we go on a hike, I was game. He had just helped his dad on a construction job in Newbury Park at a home that sits directly across from that view above. Pretty amazing, huh? Well, the boy heard that there were some pretty fabulous trails too-- ones that lead to waterfalls, even. So around 3 o'clock we got our butts off the couch and piled into the car with Hazel for an adventure.

We had planned to hike the Big Sycamore Canyon Trail, a paved service road that parallels a stream and winds its way to the ocean. Well, we ended up starting our hike at Wendy Trail instead, a dirt path that narrowed closely in some parts. I was a bit stressed at the beginning, worried about Hazel getting a tick or a rattler striking at her from the brush. But we survived and after passing an interesting little Indian hut and a rest stop we eventually hooked up with the trail we had meant to start on.

The trail really is quite lovely. There's expanses of grasslands, beautiful wildflowers and a stoney peak called Boney Mountain that dominates the scene. A sign along the trail describes the mountain as a "majestic beacon . . . (that) invites you to pause, reflect and look inward." And Charlie Cooke, a hereditary Chumash chief, says it's "a sacred spiritual area, a shaman's retreat, and a place for vision quests. It is a place for meditation. From up there, you can see everything." Maybe one day, we'll get up there.

All in all, we hiked for a little over an hour. We were getting a bit tired ourselves but at that point Hazel was utterly exhausted. We had to carry her back to the car; lucky girl, she got a free ride. I could tell she was pooped because she didn't even try to get down to walk herself. By the time I got in the car, all I wanted was some AC and a big gulp of our Crystal Lite. But I'd definitely do it again. Hopefully next time we will start earlier and we can take the 8-mile Big Sycamore Canyon Trail all the way through Point Mugu State Park to its final destination: the Pacific Ocean.

Here's some photos snapped along the trail:

Hope you are having a wonderful, sunny weekend! This Dane is off to enjoy some Aebleskivers at the annual Scandinavian Festival soon!

Accomplished

You know how on Myspace (not that anyone uses that anymore) there's a place where you can select your mood? And a little box drops down full of adjectives to choose from-- that once posted, match up with a cute little emoticon?

Well, if I were to choose my mood tonight, it would be "accomplished." Yes, I had a very successful Sunday. Saturday was pretty good: I took Hazel to the dog park, where I chatted with a cool girl while holding down my dress so the wind wouldn't reveal my Victoria's Secret to the world, and later hit up Border's to satisfy my urge to shop (don't worry, I just picked up two magazines: Self and Women's Health, the latter being a new one to me).

Still, today was a particularly productive day (minus the waking up at 11 a.m. part, ha). Here's the rundown:

• Went through my towering stack of mail
• Paid some bills
• Took care of some bank stuff that needed to be done before the end of the month
• Applied for a credit card with 0% APR on balance transfers so that I can transfer my massive balance from my Chase card (remember my New Year's resolution?) and actually start paying it off (I have a 29.99% APR right now. Ridiculous. Cross your fingers I get approved!)
• Dropped off my tax documents with my mom because she's going to do them again this year. Hallelujah! Thanks, mom.
• Ran some other errands
• Did my laundry, including my hand wash items. (Such a pain!) I actually still have one more load to do... (Also a pain since my washer thinks hot water is cold water and vice versa)
• And perhaps the biggest accomplishment of all: Went to the gym! (Also a resolution)

Yep, you read that right. Me. At. The gym. I signed up for a membership with 24 Hour Fitness Wednesday night. I was motivated by the fact that my best friend has a membership and she had wanted me to come with her and take some classes. There was a special going on last week-- hopefully it isn't even lower now, I don't want to look!-- where a one-club access membership costs just $26.99 a month. I figured I could swing that and I'm tired of looking and feeling like a blob.

We (the boy, the roommate and I) were only at the gym for about 50 minutes but we did the elliptical for 20 minutes (I ran 1.7 miles and burned 260 calories) and played basketball the rest of the time. Nothing too intense but I felt the burn and it felt good. I was pumped up leaving the gym!

So yes, I'm feeling mighty accomplished tonight. Let's hope this feeling lasts throughout the week as I tackle all the phone calls, interviews and story writing I have to do in the days ahead.

And, perhaps more importantly, let's hope it gets me back to the gym! (Hold me to it!)

So, did you have a productive weekend? Or did you have a blissfully unproductive weekend? Either way, I'd love to hear!



Image via we heart it

the Vacation Recap*

Last Tuesday began my very first paid vacation as a working girl. As many of you know, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my six days off since I was, and still am, low on funds. As luck would have it, one of the members at the golf course my boyfriend works at owns a cute little cabin in Big Bear Lake and offered to let us stay there, for free.

Unfortunately, the serious and painful sunburn I received from my day at the air show slowed me down a bit at the start of my vay-cay, and for that reason we didn't head up to the mountains until Thursday morning.

Not all was lost those first two days off work. Tuesday I enjoyed being lazy, my chest slathered in aloe, and Wednesday night the boy and I went out for dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, followed by a walk around the mall (where I swooned over pretty things at Anthropologie) and some amazing gelato, followed by Julie & Julia. Which was pretty amazing as well. The boy was skeptical and gave me side glances at every mention of blogging, but I think he came around toward the end. As everyone else has said, Meryl Streep was fantastic and funny and fabulous. The movie left me with a newfound love for Julia Child and a newfound desire to go to Paris immediately, if only for the tantalizing cuisine.

Anyway, Thursday morning we were off to the mountains. Big Bear Lake is a pretty sleepy town but we took advantage of most every activity we could that didn't involve renting a boat or me putting on a bathing suit (bad sunburn = no sun exposure!). Here's a rundown of what we did:

• Played a round of putt-putt golf at a rundown miniature golf course called The Hot Shot. The fact that the greens were held together with duck tape, pine needles acted as hazards and Cher was playing through the speakers made the game that much more fun—and hilarious.
  
• Went cosmic bowling at the Bowling Barn and kicked the boy's butt in the first game with a score of 140 (I got two strikes in the 10th frame!). Unfortunately, I must admit that my skills went downhill from there and the boy beat me in the next two games. Still, I'll always have 140 to 114. Boo yah!
  
• Window-shopped the kitschy boutiques at The Village. Found it easy to resist the urge to buy woodsy souvenirs.
  
• Took a scenic drive around the lake and through the town of Fawnskin, taking in the sights.
• Introduced Hazel to the lakeshore. She loved it. So much so she became fearless and wanted to jump into the cool blue water from a pier!
  
• Climbed a mountain. Yes, you read that right. We hiked the Cougar Crest trail. We didn't quite know what we were getting ourselves into. We were told it wasn't that difficult and that it had amazing views. The second part of that statement proved true. But it was challenging because it is all uphill, and steep, rocky hills at that. It took us two and a half hours to complete the 5-mile roundtrip trek but the feeling we had when we reached the top was worth the huffing and puffing!
  
• Went for lots and lots of walks with Hazel. To the park. Along the Alpine Pedal Path, which hugs the lake's shoreline. Oh, and to the grocery store parking lot because it was the closest place to our cabin that had grass for Hazel to go potty at night!
  
• Discovered that there is a town called Sugarloaf. Yep. We took Maple Lane to get there. No joke.
  
• Caught up on my magazine reading. Well, some of it anyway.
• Ate tons of yummy food. Finger-licking good barbecue (We shared a combo plate of pulled pork, grilled chicken, creamy coleslaw and honey butter biscuits). Classic Italian fare (I devoured the Paoli pasta, which is a Alfredo-pesto hybrid named after the popular local eatery). Old-fashioned home cooking at the Teddy Bear Restaurant (I dove into a huge, made-from-scratch turkey pot pie). A late night ice cream cone (cookies & cream) and lots of candy.
  
• Climbed a mountain. Oh, did I mention that already?

No more words. See for yourself:

The cabin was quaint and homey and completely decked out in Big Bear paraphernalia.

Even though I didn't win—I was playing a golf pro after all—this was the best time I have had playing miniature golf. We laughed a lot. 

After putting her paws in the water, Hazel thought the lake was the greatest thing ever. She kept barking at "daddy" while he was fishing because she wanted to go back down to the beach.

Lining up for a strike. The boy and I are very competitive, I learned.

Midway through the hike up Cougar Crest I realized that my water bottle and T-shirt were giving off mixed messages. Oops. Please forgive the awful, baggy shirt. I bought it in the gift shop before the hike to cover my sun-burned chest.

While walking Hazel along the lake we ran into these beautiful horses. Such a lovely sight.

Hazel blazing a trail before we said goodbye to Big Bear and headed down the mountain, back home.

*Also known as, the post with many pictures! But trust me, it was hard narrowing it down to just these! 

Things that made me smile this week...

Today I am introducing a new series I am calling "things that made me smile this week." It is pretty self-explanatory, but each Sunday I will post a list of things, big or small, that made me happy. I know there are many people in the blogosphere who do something like this, but I was particularly inspired by reading my tea leaves's "my week in objects (mostly)," Insomniac Lolita's "Sunday Lovelist" and rockstar diaries's "here's to happiness" posts. 

I just think it's good to take a moment and remember the joyful moments in life, especially those simple things that we too often take for granted.

So without further ado, here's 10 things that made me smile this week:

1. Sore upper arms and leg muscles. That means the Shred is working, right?

2. Discovering that a Grande iced coffee with milk (sweetened, please) at Starbucks is almost half the cost of a Grande iced vanilla latte. On top of that, the iced coffee has 70 fewer calories and less than half the fat—and it’s just as yummy as the latte. Score!

3. Seeing a happy license plate that read “FULJOY.” Three minutes later I was behind one that said “PXYDU5T.” Fun.

4. Watching people ride their gorgeous horses in the Bridal Path neighborhood of Simi. Ok, this one made me jealous, too.

5. CoCo, aka Conan O’Brien, aka the new host of The Tonight Show. Love his goofy expressions and gestures. Oh, and that hair. Don't you just want to touch it?

6. Taking a catnap on the couch and having Hazel take one with me—more accurately, on top of me.

7. This brilliant quote by a beautiful lady, Audrey Hepburn. (via Under Lock & Key)

8. A giant, delicious artichoke that took an hour to cook and an hour to eat. It was worth the wait.

9. Finally seeing "Slumdog Millionaire." It evoked a roller coaster of emotions in me: sad, scared, happy, romantic. All in all though, it was amazing. And I absolutely loved the dance scene at the end. Jai Ho!

10. An Etsy shopping spree. More on this later.

So what little things made you smile this week?

Iced coffee image via Starbucks
Conan image via The Tonight Show
Slumdog image via Fox Searchlight

The Shred, Day 1

Jillian Michaels kicked my ass. And she made me incredibly sweaty in the process. Dripping, actually. (Is that TMI? sorry!) But I survived it. And I feel like a better person for having done it. Getting shredded—well at least starting to get shredded—feels good.

Not to say it was easy. While doing my first day (Level 1) of the 30 Day Shred, I realized just how weak and physically unfit I am. Not that I didn't already know that, really. But I could barely do the modified push up! I am not getting into the "gun show" anytime soon with these flabby upper arms! (Full disclosure: I used 3 lb weights. Baby steps, guys, baby steps.)

Another difficult part was the sit-ups, but not so much because I hadn't done one in ages, which I hadn't, but because of Hazel. She kept jumping on top of me! She even started biting my ponytail at one point and brought me a toy to play. Geez. She was also fascinated when I was doing the jumping jacks, which might be my favorite move because it reminds me of being in elementary school for some reason. Anyway, on the first set of jumping jacks she kept barking at me. I knew that would happen. On the second set, she started jumping with me. Oh, Hazel, always the comedian. Eventually she resigned herself to watching me from the couch while chewing her bone.

One move that gave me some trouble was the side lunge (I think that is what it is called). You lift the free weights in front of you, to eye level, while lunging to the side. I felt like I wasn't doing it right for some reason, the lunge part. Like, my legs were too far apart or something. Practice will make perfect I guess.

Funny enough, even the cool down posed a challenge. I discovered I am very inflexible when it comes to doing the splits and have no balance to speak of. When Jillian told me to grab my leg and pull it behind my back to stretch my thigh muscle (what is that called?) I almost toppled over! Maybe it is because my legs were wobbly from the strength exercises but it was a bit embarrassing. Luckily, the boy wasn't home to witness it!

Surprisingly, given my asthma, I most enjoyed the cardio. The jumping jacks, the jump rope, the glute-kicks—I viewed them as a reprieve from the strength and abs exercises! I definitely felt the burn. For those of you who might be wondering, "how hard can you really work out in 20 minutes?" let me tell you, The 30 Day Shred is no joke.

Still, the good thing about the Shred is it went by fast. Though I am sure it won't always feel that way and there will be days when 20 minutes feels like forever. But overall, the Shred wasn't as scary as I imagined it to be. Some people in blogland made me a bit fearful of what the workout would be like and of Jillian but I kind of like my new tough-girl trainer's snarky attitude. She's encouraging but she isn't like an annoyingly-upbeat cheerleader. She gives it to you straight. I liked when she said there are no breaks because if you only want to work out for 20 minutes, you gotta push hard the whole time. And she's right. If I am only going to work out for 20 minutes, I have to give it all I've got!

Now I just have to stay with it. And I am planning on it. Because, as Jillian says, if you want to see change, you have to work for it. That's just the name of the game.

Image via www.wiiliving.com

In search of motivation

This post is kind of ironic given that my last post was about eating an insane amount of junk food, but here goes anyway...

Last week, I bought the DVD everyone in the blogosphere has been talking about.

The 30 Day Shred! After hearing positive (and positively scary) things about it on many of the blogs I read, I figured, what the heck, I should try it too. The promise of losing 20 pounds in 30 days also got me. I have a wedding to go to on July 25 and I want to look cute in my summer dress, which I have yet to buy. Not to mention the fact that the ex will be there, who I haven’t seen in over a year. But I digress…

So while I bought the DVD over a week ago, I have yet to put it into my DVD player. I did take it out of its plastic wrapping and open the case but that’s as far as I have gotten on my new weight loss journey. I have some excuses, most not very good.

The first is my tattoo. I got it done like the day after I bought the DVD and I literally could not walk right for the first 3 days. My foot is feeling better now, less swollen but I am still babying it (it is the peeling stage, yuck!) and I worry about putting on my tennis shoes. But I am sure I could do the workout sans shoes since I will be in my living room anyway. So the time limit on that excuse has definitely expired.

The more legitimate excuse is that I am unmotivated. I want to be healthy, lose weight, get fit, feel more confident, all of that. I really do. But do I want to work out? Do I want to sweat for it? Not really. That’s my problem. I’m lazy. I know that once I start I will probably find it easier to stick with than I think. I always hear people say that exercising gives them more energy and it just becomes part of their everyday routine—and something they don’t want to skip (even when they are getting their ass kicked by Jillian Michaels)! I can’t imagine feeling that way about exercise now because I absolutely hate working out. Especially running, because of my asthma (I sound like a geek now, huh?). But I know I just need to start. I just need to do it. Funny how starting something is sometimes the hardest part.

My other issue is that I bought this around the same time I bought the DVD.

Nutella!

Obviously, I need to make some adjustments in my eating habits if I want this working out thing to be successful. Now, in my defense, I had been very good for probably the last 6 months or so of not putting Nutella in my shopping cart. But I saw it last week while grocery shopping and caved to the creamy, hazelnut deliciousness.

But hey, it’s not like I eat a slice of Nutella-topped toast with my coffee in the morning. Oh wait, I did exactly that today. Oops! I feel like Nutella in moderation won’t kill me, but it will probably keep me from losing the chub. And who can really practice moderation when they have a jar of Nutella in their cabinet? What are you saying, inner voice? Throw the jar away? Hmmm, I just might have to.

The thing with me is that I don’t think I eat terribly—though the boy’s penchant for pizza, burgers and chicken strips does make healthy eating difficult around here. Still, I have Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice and Skinny Cow bars in the freezer to prove I'm trying. On the other hand, I also have tons of pasta in my pantry. What I really need to work on though is eating in moderation. If I am going to have a glass of wine, don’t devour the contents of the bread basket. Order a salad instead of pasta. Rediscover the joy of grilled chicken. And, no matter what I eat, don't stuff myself silly but instead, actually listen to my body when it says it is full. Yes, these are things I need to do.

So what do you do to get motivated to work out? And to stick to a healthy eating plan? Do you pin up photos of bikini-clad Victoria's Secret models as inspiration? Step on the scale every morning? Look to your friends for accountability?

Any advice is always much appreciated.

Oh, and the to-do list for this weekend?

• Take back my free weights from my brother.
  
• Put DVD in DVD player. And get shredded! 

Wish me luck! 

And happy weekend!

30 Day Shred image via Amazon.com

Nutella image via Miss Malini