A Brief Update...

Very tired... past 11pm and so drowsy I almost just submitted a cover letter with the wrong school's name on it.  I was saved only by the fact that EdJoin would not let me attach a .doc, so I caught my mistake before resaving it as .pdf, thankfully.  Note to self: make sure fully awake when applying to jobs.

Job Applications
Applied to two jobs - one a Kindergarten French/English Immersion program, the other a 2nd Grade position at a progressive Classical Academy.  Will see how goes...

French Immersion

Private School

Garage Sale
I left a message for our neighbors asking them when they want to do this thing.  Haven't heard back yet.  Too lazy to run down and talk to them when I heard them come home tonight...

Exercise may happen tomorrow, with my niece in tow.  =-)  We walked her around some college campuses today, but it was too leisurely to count as cardio...  My back is much better seeing as I did some focused exercise on the machines last week, doing countless repetitions using my lower back and shoulder blade muscles (personal trainers out there, I'm sure you know what those muscles are called... Google help me out... possibly Teres Major or Trapezius).  Also, converting my bra into criss-cross shape on the back alleviated the pressure on my shoulder blade.  Okay y'all, I'm so tired it's painful!  G'night!

Fried...

A little tired this week... my back has been bothering me so I slept 3 nights this week on the floor.  Also, I have a theory that bras are causing nerve damage on my left shoulder blade.  Possible? (TMI?)

Nevertheless, I've done the following list items so far:

Exercise #1:  Walked at my work breaks, 45 minutes on 3 days, combined.

View of the freeway from the sidewalk by the learning center

Exercise #2:  Got stuck in La Jolla (awful, I know) picking up a mended suit during rush hour, so I said, screw it, and parked by the cove to go for a jog (covering my cardio for the week).  Not a shabby place to go for a jog.  More like idyllic.  Gotta get stuck there more often.

Beginning my jog...

The tide pools

Ah... La Jolla.  Now back to reality.

Job Application: as I said yesterday, I applied to 3 jobs - two in SD, one  in Irvine.  Nothing now to do but wait...

Teaching Binder #1: On Tuesday, I searched for lessons on Teacher Vision, and got distracted by a website showing how to diagram sentences.  (Is it weird that I find that extremely fun?)  Did find a lot of cute worksheets and lesson plans.

Teaching Binder #2: I started reading a book on my teacher to-read list - Bridge to Terabithia.  Somehow, I made it through elementary school without ever having read it.  Very good so far.  Not sad yet, but I'm bracing myself...

Garage Sale and Stick Shift:  I haven't started these two yet... I didn't set a once-a-week requirement, but I hope to not postpone these till the end.  Should I make myself do something each week?  Probably, b/c they both kinda scare me.

Okay y'all, bed time!  As Jason Mraz once said, "Live your life, get your sleep, be a dork."  =-)

Three Applications

Just knocked out 3 job applications.  Woohoo, now the only thing left for this week is to think about the garage sale and how the heck I'm gonna learn stick... it seriously terrifies me.  I nearly killed my hubby's car trying one time, stalling so hard in the middle of the road (with other cars waiting) that the car bounced probably a foot off the ground.  I need, like, a month on a deserted parking lot.

BTW, Kit just contacted me with her list, so I shall post it.  I heard she went to the gym last night. =-) You go, girl!

The Last Week

This last week went by fast, and I was in L.A. for part of it.  Here's what I did to round out the last week of our 2nd month of Five Things:

Garage Sale:  On the garage sale front, I talked to my neighbor about having a multi-family garage sale, and he tentatively agreed.  Next month, we will actually have it.

Health Insurance:  I finally got my agent Jeff on the phone and found out he represents all the local providers, which is great, because he won't sway me towards one or the other.  He gets commission on whatever I choose, and he's free of charge to me.  So he told me more about Anthem and Kaiser, and recommended that we reconvene in November when I'm closer to needing a plan.  Who's knows, maybe I'll have a job with benefits by then...

Teaching Binder:  I researched more lessons, which I need to print, and I ordered a few cheap children's books to use with some of the lessons.

Balcony project: I rolled up the green floor and tied it up using several trash bags.  I took it down to the trash area and swept the balcony one last time.

On Sunday, I went for a walk around my neighborhood for the previous week's Exercise #3 that I missed.  Then I did three more for the week:

Exercise #1 - walked at both of my breaks at work:

Exercise #2 - swam in the pool at L.A. Fitness for 40 minutes.  Hence the wet stringy hair.  I had never ever used the pool at the gym.  After the first 5 minutes of laps, I was pretty tired, so I did water aerobics/ballet, tread water for 5 minutes, and paddled using a floaty thing.  Then I did some more laps to finish up.  Tiring!  That, and my eyes burned all the next day.  Note to self: buy goggles.  Really good workout, though.

Exercise #3 - I walked around downtown L.A. all day!  I downloaded a map of sights to see and was a  tourist all day while my hubby worked.  It was surprisingly fun...

Walt Disney Concert Hall

Our Lady of Angels Cathedral

The Police Department with a reflection of City Hall

I ate in Grand Central Market

The Biltmore Hotel

L.A. Public Library

Angel's Knoll, the hill where they sit on a bench in "500 Days of Summer"

End-of Week Scrambling...

I went back to my procrastinating ways a little this week.  I did call a Blue Cross agent, Jeff, who sent me quotes from not only Blue Cross but several other California health insurance companies.

The rest of the items on my list got a little postponed.  I did see my French conversation partner on Tuesday, but did not get to the beach, as it's been overcast here in San Diego.  I spent most of Tuesday speaking French and just hanging out with my friend, so I didn't accomplish anything else on my list.  The next two days were similar, but only because I worked those three days and was too exhausted to do anything when I got home.  So that left me with only Saturday to a) clean the balcony, b) get stuff for the yard sale, c) do something for my teaching binder, and d) do my last two exercises.  

Saturday morning:

My husband went to play tennis, so I went to Staples to copy lessons for my teacher binder.

Then I went to my parents' house and spent nearly 4 hours clearing stuff out of my room for the garage sale.  The thing that took me so long was deciding which stuff I could part with.  I hang on to WAY too much sentimental stuff.

Clean closet!

I hope some people will actually want to buy this stuff... there is a large Stewie doll that I hope some fan of the Family guy will be interested in...

Saturday afternoon:

I cleaned the balcony.  I pulled up many rusty nails to get up the crappy green floor, rolled up the floor, and piled it in a corner.  Next step will be weatherproofing the floor so water doesn't leak into the holes where I pulled up the nails.  Check out the results:

Saturday evening:

I did yoga using my computer and DVD while my husband watched the baseball game.  He tried to ignore my grunting as I attempted to hold a side plank pose.  

I did not finish Exercise #3 this week, so I told Kit that I needed an extension.  I did Exercise #3 Sunday, and I will do 3 more this week.  

For Exercise #3, I went for a 40-minute walk.  I saw a roadrunner, and while it did not make the "Beep-beep!" sound, it was pretty fast like its cartoon counterpart.  But I must tell you, they are definitely not purple:

(Note: one has to be careful of copyrights when using other people's photos.  I got this fabulous roadrunner photo from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roadrunner_DeathValley.jpg where all the content is released to the public domain.  =-)

This tired walker is going to shower... 

Exercise #1

Today I capitalized on my 15-minute breaks again, this time taking advantage of the full 15 minutes, and not just 10 min. of walking.  I walked 7+ minutes one direction, and the same amount back.  I am building up some nice calluses thanks to my not-so-padded Franco Sartos.  I guess if I were really gung ho, I'd pack sneakers in my car and put them on on my way out.  But that would require planning, something I sometimes lack...

Overcast but there was a loooooovely breeze...

Tomorrow will have to be busy for me to get ahead on my list.  I hope to at least call Blue Cross and find at least one other health insurer to research.  Among things not on my list that I would like to accomplish tomorrow - going to the beach, and meeting with my French conversation partner.

It seems that my optional items on the list are proving rather difficult to accomplish.  It seems that if they're not mandatory, I kinda don't do them...  the meditating, I haven't done at all.  And going to bed by 10pm?  Lately it's been more like 1am.  But I am tired since I had to get up for work this morning, so I am going to bed by 11pm tonight.  And I'm gonna knock out Watership Down, the awesomest 500-page book about bunnies you will ever read.  Goodnight all.  =-)

A Productive Week...

Did I mention I got some work, finally?  Since I had no luck finding a job in education for the summer, I went back to my old haunt, the temp agency, and got my first of hopefully a string of short-term receptionist gigs.

As for the list, I got a late start this week, not exercising until Wednesday.  As I said, Exercise #1 was at the gym (on bikes, weight machines, and the elliptical treadmill).

I got creative for Exercise #2, and I added up two days worth of walking on my work breaks.  Thursday, I walked 10 minutes (5 minutes up the street, 5 minutes back), and Friday, I walked 10 minutes at my first break and 10 minutes at my second (and I could see the ocean on the way back =-)  The only downside was that I was slightly sticky for about 20 minutes afterwards.

This is the street where I walked - my cell phone pic doesn't do it justice.  The little strip of silver to the right of the building at the end - that's the Pacific.  Gorgeous.

For Exercise #3, I also got creative.  It came down to 11:30 pm on Saturday and I still hadn't done Exercise #3.  If I had put it off till Sunday and requested an extension, then I would have to exercise four times the next week.  So I got off the couch from watching "Where the Heart Is,"and walked up and down the stairs 20 times.  It took only 5 minutes.  So for some reason, 20 was the magic number, and I did 20 of everything from leg lifts to arm circles to grand pliés to squats.

Can I request bonus points?  I kicked butt on our balcony today (even though I already worked on the grill this week), with the help of a little child labor (we donated money to our church in exchange for giving a 14-year-old some work around the house).  No laws were broken in the employment of this child.  And we tipped her $10 and gave her food.  She repotted our ailing palm and pulled up nails that were pinning down the monstrosity that is our fake grass floor covering.  We finished two thirds of the job, and check out the results (and y'all will have to look at my previous posts for the "before" pictures):

I also looked up HMOs at Blue Cross Anthem, but or course I couldn't figure out if they covered allergy shots.  I assume they don't, but I will call next week to see.  So that takes care of my health plan item.

So woohoo!!  That completes this week's part of the list.  After I worked out, I finished watching "Where the Heart Is."  Natalie Portman is just so darn cute.  I'm off to bed.  Cuz it's late and stuff.  =-)