Three years and counting :)

I started working out three years ago.  Ok, to be honest, we could go back like ten years...you know when I would randomly put on a too-tight pair of jeans and "work out" for two weeks.  But seriously, I started working out EVERY DAY three years ago.

I squatted 185 lbs last week.  Just needed to brag about that for a minute.

Have you seen my beach ball?  I last used it over THAT way...or maybe it was over THERE.

I'm kidding.

But not about the squats, that was probably the greatest achievement I've ever made, until next week when I triumph 195 lbs.  Baby steps padowan...baby steps.


Anywhoozle, the point of this post is to share my two favorite workout songs this week:






That was all I wanted to say...oh yeah, and I passed my qualifying exams.  You are now reading a post written by a doctoral candidate!  YES!!!!!!!!!!!  *girly fist pump*

*humbly walks away now*

PhD Land Qualifying Exams

Today I have the four hour oral portion of my PhD qualifying exams...kinda nervous...but I totally have a great plan to ensure my success.  Here are the key points to the plan:


1) I am going to enter the room to the song, 'The Final Countdown,' release a dead dove from my pocket and tell everyone that for my final act I will make a yacht disappear from the harbor.


2) Anytime I don't know the answer to a question I will just start out by saying, "I don't know...but it's okay," then I will burst out singing, "cause I am tiiiiitaaaaniuuuuuuum!!!!!!"

3) Instead of saying 'um,' I am going to say, 'check it, 1, 2.'

4) Lastly, I am going to wear some giant, fake prescription glasses, and constantly push them up my nose with my finger while making the Steve Urkel face.

I think my plan is straight winning.  Thoughts?

Down Easy

This song is so beautiful!

New No Doubt Song!!!

I was a teenager in the 90's and early 00's, so the fact that No Doubt has released a new single has turned me into my former squealing teenage self...sans the terribly over applied eyeliner and blue eye shadow (I know, I wore blue eye shadow *CRINGES*).

http://www.vevo.com/watch/no-doubt/settle-down/USUV71200923?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=watch&utm_campaign=wp_nodoubt_settledown

Happy birthday to meeeee!

I am a firm believer in celebrating your birthday for...about a week :D, so today the festivities begin!!!  *throws confetti*

Wine Bottle Irrigation

I'm not sure if I'm growing glassware or plants, but this wine bottle irrigation business works wonders in a garden! For the record, I originally saw this idea on Pinterest...Eventually when I find the original post I will gladly credit the brilliant mind that came up with this idea! I just went to the diner by my house and asked for their empty wine bottles, filled them with water and stuck em' in the ground. It's working great...maybe not aesthetically pleasing but my tomatoes are happy!

Garden Accents

This was the inspiration for the blue color I used to paint my garden benches.

Nutella Ice Cream

Monday's May Require Steak to Survive

Garden benches DIY

I love outdoor grilling, and I love enjoying my tiny patio garden; but more than anything in the world I love watching lightning bugs in the summertime.  I grew up in California where lightning bugs only exist as blinking twinkle lights on the Pirates of the Carribean Disneyland ride in Anaheim.  When I first moved to Kentucky for graduate school, and saw these tiny, magical, blinking wonders in real life, I became that kid who stares out the window waiting for a rainbow to appear on a rainy day.  Just to clarify my retarded metaphor, the rainy day is all year long and the rainbow is firefly season.  

So, needless to say, when I finally moved into an apartment with a patio overlooking an open field full of fireflies, I wanted to spend every possible second I could on the patio (preferably with a glass of wine) watching the fireflies.  Every evening this summer, I have tried to set up my meal plan to include grilling so that every possible second can indeed, be spent outside watching the fireflies (and occasionally burning the burgers).  It became quickly evident that I needed some patio furniture, and it became quickly evident that I am a poor, pathetic graduate student who cannot afford patio furniture ($150 for a wooden bench, are you kidding me Lowe's?).  So I did what any 27-year-old girl would do, I batted my eyelashes at my boyfriend and asked if he wanted to go in halfsies on a patio bench so that we could sit by the grill at twilight with a glass of wine watching fireflies.  It was all going to be so romantic...

As it turns out, my handsome, wonderful, brilliant boyfriend had an even better idea.  He built me a 3 ft and a 6 ft garden bench for the patio using his own wonderful, crafty, manly hands!  Want to know what was even better about our newly dubbed "benches made with love?"  They were "benches made with love that only cost $45 (including paint)!"  

Here is the Do-It-Yourself video we found online (can you hear the universal groan from boyfriends/husbands across the land as their girlfriend/wife clicks the link then bats her eyelashes?).  

Last night we sat on the benches and chatted while he grilled dinner and the dog trampled the ever-loving-life out of my tomatoes.  It was all very bohemian and lovely, and exactly the romantic moment that I originally envisioned.  

(Also, I'm not supposed to tell you this, but when we set them all up and I squealed in appreciation, he told me, "I know they aren't really fancy, but they will always be the benches I built you when we were too poor to buy them in grad school."  Commence swooning ladies, this man is my man and I love him to pieces.)