Day 36: Specialty Shoes

February 19, 2011:  The other day at Crossfit, the owner/coach asked me when I was going to get some weightlifting shoes.  It made me laugh a little because I have so many specialty shoes. I have shoes for just about every track event (spring spikes, middle distance spikes, long jump shoes, high jump shoes, shot put shoes, javelin shoes and trainers) and when I was "into" spinning some 6 or so years ago I bought cycling shoes as well.  Well, I guess I will be adding weightlifting shoes to the collection.  The good news is, there is apparently a competition coming up in DC in April and the owner says that I should think about competing.  He's good at making me feel like I'm doing something right.  This will be the perfect motivation to keep at it.  Hopefully some time in April I can post pics with 150lbs over my head :)

Day 35: Newseum

February 18, 2011:  Today was a first field trip of the year.  For any grade.  Luckily, it was for 6th grade.  We went to the Newseum which is a pretty cool museum and the kids enjoy getting out of the building.  It was also 70 degrees today.  So we really lucked out.  Here's a pic of the 9-11 exhibit.  If you haven't been to the Newseum, I think it's worth the trip.

Day 34: Cat Daddy

February 17, 2011:  Today was the Valentine's Day Dance for the kiddos.  They seemed to enjoy themselves quite a bit.  Middle school dances are still quite awkward but much more appropriate than the ones I remember.  Here's one of the students doing Cat Daddy (or is it the dougie??) Oh, btw, I tried to play with editing tools for this one. 

Day 33: Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

February 16, 2011:  Here's another landmark I pass everyday en route to work.  I've yet to go inside but I've heard it's pretty fabulous.  I think I will put it on my summer to do list.  Caught another red light and got this pic. Hooray red lights.

Day 32: Capitol

February 15, 2011:  My drive from work to crossfit passes along North Capitol with a pretty view of the Capitol.  I try almost every time to get a picture, but seeing how I'm driving and all it's 1) not very smart of me and 2) always a crappy shot.  Well today I got stopped at a stop light and tried again.  Not the best either but after many a tries, this will do.

Day 31: Valentine's Day

February 14, 2011: Happy Valentine's Day.  Every day during the past week has seemed to just run together.  I wasn't my most pleasant self today because of it.  But Thugs still loves me.  And I love him as well.  Hope you enjoyed your Valentine's Day.

Day 30: Beads

February 13, 2011:  I have lots of necklaces despite rarely wearing a necklace.  I don't know.  Don' t ask.  Either way, here's the newest addition. 

Day 29: TFA Kool-Aid

February 12, 2011:  I drank some TFA kool-aid today.  Today was the TFA summit in DC and it was busy.  Long day but inspiring.  Got to see some folks and catch up and be inspired by people who care about the future of our youth and their education.  I tried to take pics of the event but I clearly need to learn how to use my camera better because every single picture blurred.  Lame.  So there's my name badge.  Because that's the best picture I have. Boooo.

Day 28: Frozen

February 11, 2011:  I took this picture to show that my computer froze as I was trying to do my work for interim day at 4am.  I would have tried to work a little bit ahead of time but we had a parent night the night before and so it was late when I got home.  So I went to bed, set my alarm early and intended on getting my work done.  Oh, except my f$#-ing computer had other ideas.  It wouldn't open any word documents and just froze on this lovely dialog box.  Screw you.

Day 27: Gas Station

February 10, 2011:  I took this picture because I was intrigued to why this dude parked so damn far away from the gas pump.  Perhaps he was creeped out by me and knew I was going to take a picture of him.  But really, isn't the object to get your car close enough to the pump so that you can put gas in your car?

Day 26: Love Language

February 9, 2011: Us gals at work have been preoccupied with personality types and love languages and getting to know all of the ins and outs of our personalities.  So, after learning all about myself (because i somehow didn't already know that i was anti social, with a dry sense of humor and lack of ability to express emotion -- all of my tests confirmed this "lack" of knowledge btw) I made Thugs take the tests too.  He was pretty unenthused about it all but I now know that he, too, is anti-social and has no regard for order and timeliness.  (Well maybe it didn't say that exactly) Yep.  Two tests and you get to learn all about yourself and your loved ones. Go have some fun.

Me:  ISTJ with a primary love language of affirmations
Him:  ISTP with a primary love language of quality time

Day 25: Upside Down

January 8, 2011:  Totally skipped cross fit tonight.  And then felt super guilty.  And so, I looked up the workout online and did it at home.  There's my 12 minutes of handstand practice.  

Day 24: Rotten Onion

February 7, 2011: This onion grew some hair.  Pretty foul.  I threw it away. 

Day 23: Dirty Snow

February 6, 2011: It's Superbowl Sunday.  And that is a big pile of dirty snow.  I went to the grocery store this morning to pick up some food for the game.  This is the pile of snow in the parking lot.  There are about a dozen of them scattered around in different places.  The last snow was actually over a week ago, but when you pile it all together to clear parking spaces, you are apparently left with a big pile of dirty snow that doesn't melt. 

Day 22: Forget Me Not

February 5, 2011: Sometimes I forget to take pictures throughout my day.  There were tons of things I probably should have taken pictures of today.  I just forgot.  So on my way to bed, I grabbed my camera and took this.  My feet in my jail stripped pajamas. 

Day 21: Blackorean

February 4, 2011: When I first heard the song "Black and Yellow" I thought they were singing about me.  I mean, I am black and yellow.  (Big ups to all the blasains out there!) You can even replace the black and yellow hook with blackorean and it fits so very well.  I kid, of course.  If any of you all read the comments, you know that my crazy wonderful mother has asked me to take a picture of my "asian shrine". Well, there it is.  It ironically has no tribute to Korea, the lovely birthplace of my mother.  (Hey mom, what's that about?).  Apparently, happy cat (a fortune cat) is coming soon to add to the collection.  Oh, and the chewy bar is for the Chinese Buddha.  Apparently you have to feed him to keep him happy.  And no one wants an unhappy (and skinny) Chinese Buddha.

Shout Out to my Lil Bro on his College Decision

Lil Homie K has decided to go to school and play football at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Yay! See the coach talk about the 2012 recruiting class here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCMe0J-60I4  (Go to 12:10 to see my lil bro).

Day 20: Spills and Falls

February 3, 2011:  This morning when leaving my place, I stepped off the curb, directly on to a lovely patch of ice and completely ate it.  It happened just as another person walked by.  He asked if I was okay and I shyly said yes,  worried that perhaps he caught it on his camera phone and now it's circulating on youtube.  Either way, the fall was more embarrassing than painful.  You can see that I scrapped up my knee a little bit (right on top of my beautiful ACL Surgery #1 scar).  Later in the day, I went to Crossfit to battle with Cindy once again (Cindy is a cross fit work out consisting of rounds of 5 pull ups, 10 pushups and 15 squats for as many rounds you can do).  This time we had to do the whole lovely 20 minutes of it.  And right at the end, at minute 18 and some change, while I was trying to get off the damn plyo box that I was jumping off to do my 12th set of  jump pull ups,  to the floor to do my 12th set of 10  push ups, I fell again.  Caught my foot, lost my balance and body planted the floor.  Awesome.  (PS.  No comments on the lack of color in my leg, the ashiness of my leg, the roughness of my skin, etc.)

Day 19: Dinner Time

February 2, 2011: I made steak and broccoli for dinner.  I was pretty proud of it.  There's a picture. 

Day 18: Empty Lot

February 1, 2011:  Happy February.  The year is moving by quickly already.  Just thought this was an interesting picture. No rhyme or reason to it.

Day 17: Teachers v. Students

January 31, 2011: We had a little basketball game against some of the 8th graders today and boy was it pretty terrible.  :)  Our school has a really cramped "gym" and we played on a tiny little court. The boys weren't that good but neither am I and I was reminded of that today.  Luckily we had some tall men and some basketball playing women (that can do things like shoot and pass and dribble unlike me).  Either way, since I couldn't find a picture that made me look like a good basketball player, I'm posting this instead. 

Day 16: Nightstand

January 30, 2011:  Last time I asked for recommendations, I only got one - from my crazy wonderful mother.  I took this picture to fish for some more recommendations.  Hopefully this time you all come out from your hiding places and leave some comments below.  So, there is my current reading queue.  What are you reading?  What do you recommend I read next? Leave some love below in the comments. 

Day 15: Fight Gone Bad

January 29, 2011:  Hey, hey! Lucky you gets another picture of me!  It's the only picture I took today.  I had intended to go out after this picture.  In fact, I'm all dressed up to hit the town.  Next thing I know, I'm out on my couch.  I blame it all on "Fight Gone Bad", today's crossfit work out.  It was the last of the bootcamp class and they wanted to prove to us that we were ready for "real" cross fit.  It kicked my butt pretty good. The workout was 17 minutes long - 1:00 min rowing machine, 1:00min wall ball, 1:00 min sumo stance high pull, 1:00 min box jumps, 1:00 min push press, 1:00 min rest and then repeat two more times.  Any way, I survived (barely) and am ready to fork over some more hard earned money to Cross fit for the next couple of months. 

Day 14: I'm a math teacher

January 28, 2011:  That's a picture of my word wall.  It's very colorful.  I have no idea how well it helps the students learn the language of mathematics.  I probably should use it way more in my lesson plans. Alright, next week.  Math word wall games.  Holler.

Day 13: Bama Boyfriend

January 27, 2011: Picture 1 is my bama boyfriend during the storm yesterday. Ask me why he posed like that.  I do not know.  I think perhaps he thinks it's cool. Unfortunately for him, it isn't.  Today, we went out to clean up from the storm and he thought - hey take another dumbass picture of me today doing the same thing.  And thus, picture 2. Anyway, shoveling snow with Thugs is maybe the worst experience ever.  He is OCD about it.  He wants to get every single pile of ice and snow up and out of the way.  I just want to move enough so my car can get out.  Because of his neuroses, after cleaning his spot, he wants to clean the spots next to him, just in case one of them comes out and dumps the snow from their spot onto his.  It's really annoying.  We were out there so long we got stuck helping two other folks dig their cars out.  WTF?! At least I can count this two hour dig as my workout today. 

Day 12: Snow Cluster F*ck

January 26, 2011:    The federal government decided to dismiss people from work 2 hours early at 3pm, right into the thick of the two inches per hour snowfall that hit the metro area.  And because most companies look to the feds for guidance, much of the private and public sectors did the same.  The result - the biggest clusterf*ck ever.  Our school decided to let out at 4pm.  FAIL by my school.  Luckily, it only took me about 2 hours to get to my place (the drive usually takes about 25 minutes).  These are two pictures from my commute today.  I left around 4:10ish and arrived home at 6:10ish.  As you can see it was light when I left and got dark quickly somewhere in the middle.  I was able to snap pictures since we were crawling the whole way.  When I got home I thought my commute was bad.  Then I started hearing from some of my co-workers.  Many of my co-workers had 5-6 hour long commutes.  Really.  FIVE to SIX HOUR commutes.  They were essentially trapped by untreated roads, poor visibility, car accidents and abandoned cars.  Sheer craziness. And even worse, some of them got home to no power after their hellish commutes.  What. a. day. 

Day 11: P-R-rah

January 25, 2011:  Some of you may know that I started Crossfit this calendar year.  While I was home in LA for Christmas, I was on the internet looking for something athletic to do.  My brother, mom and myself are having a "fat off" of sorts, for lil homie K's graduation this year and I thought, maybe it was time to try and find a new activity so I could win the fat off.  Anyway, I ended up googling boxing gyms because secretly I want to be thug enough to feel like I could whoop someone's ass.  While looking up some of the gyms in the DC area, I came across Crossfit.  I never heard of it, but I googled around and found a gym with a boot camp/teach you how to do it class that worked with my schedule.  So I signed up and have been crossfitting 3 times a week since the start of the year.  For those of you that don't know, Crossfit is a mix of Olympic lifting, body weight exercises, and gymnastics with some cardio in the mix.  Either way, this week is the last week of the "bootcamp" classes so we are re-doing some of the work outs we did in the first week.  Today we did a 1/2 Cindy which is 5 jump pull ups (eventually I'll be able to do real pull ups), 10 push ups and 15 body weight squats for as many rounds as you can complete in 10 minutes. (The full Cindy goes for 20 minutes - we are not there yet - but some day).  So week 1 - I got 5 rounds and was GASSED.  Huffing and puffing and basically thought I'd go throw up somewhere (yes, this is how out of shape I was).  Today, I got through 8+ rounds and think that if I did it again tomorrow, I could get more.  The picture above is my assortment of exercise items at my apartment - not the Crossfit gym but it still represents the p.r.  (personal record).   It's been a long (really, really long) time since I've had a p.r. (mostly because what the hell could I p.r. in recently - hours spent on the couch watching tv?)

Day 10: Iron(wo)man

January 24, 2011:  So, when I was growing up, my folks used to give me a Timex Ironman for Christmas each year. It started when I was young - maybe 8 or 9 years old?   No joke, I remember the first indiglo Timex Ironman (it was sooo cool).  Not sure why they started it in the first place but I always looked forward to the gift.  It was always placed in the stocking and I could pretty much count on a new one being there each year.  I  heart this watch despite it not being the most attractive watch in the world.  As a kid, I would time races at the track meet with the watch, as teen timed my "long" runs around the neighborhood and as a college kid, I'd time the 400 repeats on those wonderful Wednesday before Thanksgiving 6am workouts.  I've tried wearing a more "professional" and "adult" watch but this one just suites me best. Either way, the forced fit way to make today's picture represent my day - today I was an ironwoman when i graded all of the tests my students took today.  Ta da!

Day 9: Three Blue iPods

January 23, 2011: I was going to upload a different picture when I saw all of my ipods sitting together plugged into my computer.  It seems that Apple is where all my money has gone in the past couple of years - if you look closely in the background you can even see the MacBook they made me buy.  Funny thing is, I'm not a music buff at all.  I rarely listen to the music on the radio (more of a sports talk gal; the kids keep me somewhat current in the latest radio happenings) and I'm not hip to any music scene (other than random top 40 type love songs of the 80s and 90s). Anyway, to all you lurkers out there, what's on your ipod?  What do you suggest I put on mine?

Day 8: Square the Circle

January 22, 2011: The idiom doesn't quite work but that's what the picture made me think of.  This is a picture of some art work at the pizza place where CJC, G and I had lunch.  I had a yummy salad with mushrooms, something I'm trying to make myself like more.  Somewhere in my life I told myself that I didn't like mushrooms but every time I have them they're not so bad.  On a different note, I'm having trouble thinking about things to take pictures of (already).  I went to the park and took some pictures of the playground.  I also took some pictures of row houses and a church.  I'm thinking maybe next month I will go for a theme and try to take pictures based on that.  We shall see. 

Day 7: I conquer?

January 21, 2011: I came home today to find a letter on my door from the apartment complex I live in.   It's starts, "Dear Resident...I conquer that we all had a fantastic new year with family, friends, and loved ones or potentially even by ourselves.  One of my New Year resolutions is to read more, I figured that the only way one can expand dreams, aspirations and goals is by reading, right? :) "  I had to read it a couple of times, just  to make sure that I read it correctly.  It even includes the happy face.  And that was perfect. And perhaps it's wrong of me to find all of the grammatical and language errors so funny. Is it bad if I conquer that reading really actually might be the perfect resolution for this person?  

Day 6: It's me!

January 20, 2011: I read somewhere that as part of the project it's a good idea to take a photo of yourself once a month.  And my not so creative self thought - perfect, 12 photos that I don't have to think about.  So every 20th of the month you will see my lovely face.  How very lucky you are.  Don't ask about the fingers thing.  I think it's mom's influence.  I don't know.  But there I am - sans glasses because - well i had taken them off to put on my hoodie (I have a large head) and I didn't realize that I hadn't put them back on.  Oh well.

Day 5: Full Moon Blues

January 19, 2011: Is that not the worst picture you have ever seen?  The full moon was so pretty tonight and I decided it was perfect for my photo today. I first spotted  it on the start of my drive home when it was much fuller and closer.  When I got back to my place it was much more distant but still very pretty.  And I had already determined that it would be the subject of today's photo.  And so there it is.  Crappy moon picture. It's just awful, but in many ways a good representation of day.  I took several other pictures after crappy moon picture. I tried desperately to find something that would be better to post.  And all the pictures I took afterward were indeed much better than this one.  And as I was looking through the pictures of the day I toyed with putting up a better pick.  But when it came down to it, this one best sums up my day. Crappy moon picture.

Day 4: School Delays

January 18, 2011:  See that ice all over the car?  The ice that took a full 25 minutes to remove? And the ice on the cement next to the car?  The ice that I slid around nearly breaking my ass while cleaning my car? Usually that would be the start to very bad morning.  But not today.  Today we have our first weather related school delay of the year.  So take that ice.

Day 3: Friends and Food

January 17, 2011:  Happy MLK Day to all.  Today the girls and I went out for our monthly food outing.  We went out to dinner some 4 months ago and decided that it was a tradition worth continuing.  So each month one of us (usually Silvster) picks a place to eat and we all go out for dinner.  So far we have ventured into Italian, Indian, Mexican and now Thai food.  Good friends, good laughs and good food.

Day 2: Dodger Gnome

January 16, 2011:  So to backtrack a little bit.  I decided to make resolutions for new years.  One of them was to take a picture everyday for the year.  It was an idea I came upon while perusing the internet and it seemed like a cool thing to do.  Plus, I got a camera for Christmas and I'm determined to use it.  Fast forward.  It's January 16th and I haven't even tried to keep up the goal.  Oops.  Either way, I had a couple pictures from our Philly trip so I picked the one I liked best.  Today, while looking at the pictures, I remembered about my little goal and thought that I better take a picture of something today so I can officially get it started.  And so, the dodger gnome.  The gnome was another gift for Christmas.  It currently sits on my TV stand with Aloha Obama.  Seeing how much of my day was spent on the couch doing nothing, I thought I'd take a picture of the dodger gnome that watched me do nothing today.  And so there's the story for today's picture.  And here's to 363 more pictures to come. (Fingers crossed).

Day 1: Ivy Stones and Anniversaries

Jan. 15, 2011:  Thugs and I traveled up to Philly to celebrate 10 years (ten years!) since our first date.  It was the perfect get-a-away from a busy, stressful and hectic work week.  As part of our trip, we headed back to our alma mater, reminiscing about times of old and marveling at how new and different the campus is since I graduated seven (and him nine) years ago.  While touring the campus, we came across my class ivy stone.  We don't know where his class stone is and we didn't look too hard to find it (maybe next time).  We ended our campus tour with a pit stop at the book store (where we willing gave some more of our money to the school) and some refueling (aka large margaritas) at a campus bar.  It was a lovely trip and some nice quality time together.