This is a beast.

So...who was FLOORED by Adele's Grammy performance? Because I certainly was. I may have re-watched it today while no one was home. I may have jumped to my feet and begun clapping and singing along. But since no one was home, there will be no independent confirmation that such a thing occurred. (It totally did.)

And before I go any further, I just want to say that I ran across Ludovico Einaudi's music on Pandora and have officially become obsessed. He's a modern, minimalist pianist and his music is PERFECT for background and homework music (I'm listening to him right now). To illustrate, here is "Primavera," from his Divenire album, that you can conveniently play whilst reading this blog post! It's one of my favorites of his--slow and steady, but artfully building up to a resounding string solo. Ugh! Leaves me breathless! To up the bougieness factor, you may also brew a mug of tea and drink it with your pinky out!



I hope that you had a great Valentine's Day! I'm pretty ambivalent about this "holiday" in general, but I had a GREAT gift waiting for me that morning!

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I had forgotten that I wanted the Lady and the Tramp for my birthday, since it had conveniently become available on February 7 (the auspicious date of my birth). I mentioned it offhand at dinner one night and ~*VOILA*~ it appeared on Valentine's day, courtesy of my one true Valentine, my mom! (Lolz.) I seriously love this movie, y'all. I'm all for the Lion King and the Fox and the Hound, but I need friends to watch those with and cry with. The stampede?? The BEAR? uh uh, no way. I'm not doing that on my lonesome. But Lady and the Tramp is perfect for solo viewing on a lazy afternoon!

Also, this is flaw-free scene; Peg is such a diva and I love her for it:



I also got a beautiful bouquet of tulips from my dad via ProFlowers. They came in a box and I followed the instructions to the T. Thank goodness I read them, too, otherwise I would have completely removed the plastic sleeve. But apparently tulips need that support to stay vertical while they drink up the water. A little box of chocolates also came with the flowers and I wanted to take a picture, but half of the chocolates in the box suspiciously disappeared.............into my belly.


Sometimes....I can't stand how amazing my dog is. I was trying to get him to pose cute with the flowers, but then he SNIFFED them and all I could do was contain my squeals until after I finished clicking the shutter a few times. Then he got a huge hug and a "what a GOOD boy you are!"

Look at him. He's so confused. It's like he's picking his girlfriend up for the homecoming dance and doesn't know what to say.
"Hi. I got these flowers. I think they're pretty. Like your dress. You look pretty. Like these flowers."


Totally squeal-worthy, right?

So yeah, Valentine's Day was pretty much a non-event, other than the fact that at 23 years old, my parents are the ones sending gifts to me. At least I was working on VDay; I've started training on the sandwich line, and I finished training on the salad line last week. I like salads a lot more than sandwiches right now--maybe by tomorrow night it'll even out for me. I just feel so slow, still! But at least my trainer told the manager that I'm "better than the managers-in-training that I have to train." So that makes me feel better! Next week, I train on the pizza line, and after that, expo, which is basically the person that pulls the orders together and gets them ready to send out. It's a step up from just being a counter server, and there'd better be a raise in the deal!

Backtracking a bit, my birthday in Oxford was a BLAST! Thanks so much to Faison for letting me stay at her house and getting this AWESOME cake for me from Emileigh's!


A bunch of people came out to dinner at Snackbar, Leigh included, and I had so much fun seeing everybody, even if I was ready for bed at 11:30 PM! (This whole working and being an adult thing is tiring!) In all seriousness, I have been truly blessed with phenomenal friends that I love spending time with. Without getting too deep for a blog post, every now and then I think back to high school and the first few years of college and realize how unhappy I was, and I recognize how that manifested itself in my friendships. Now that I've embraced what an utter nerd/fool/diva/HBIC/weirdo I am, I'm much more happy, and my friendships are a lot more genuine (and filled with cat macros). So, if you're reading this, thanks for being a friend! I really appreciate your presence in my life and I hope that I add some positivity/sassiness to your own!

Okay, serious part of the post is over! Now onto some fitness stuff! I've been doing the bootcamp with Mr. Andy for about three weeks now and I am loving it. It takes place at a field and so everything is body-weight based. Lots of push ups, lots of squats, lots of fire hydrants. My arms have already become more toned, and since squats barely even faze me now, I would say that my legs and butt have gotten stronger, too. Today we started at one end, did 20 push ups, ran to the middle, did 10 squats, ran to the other end and did 20 sit ups...then ran back to the middle, did 10 more squats, ran back to the beginning and did 19 push ups...10 squats, 19 sit ups, 10 squats, 18 push ups, 10 squats, 18 sit ups, and so on. I got all the way down to 12 before we stopped! That means that today, I did:

144 push ups
170 squats
144 sit ups
Wowza. I love it though. I love the smirky feeling that I get deep inside when the men at work rush to help me pick something up, and I've already gotten it off the shelf and started carrying it away before they've taken five steps. I love being the one that gets called to cut a cake because I actually do enough resistance training to cut through a frozen three-layer cake on the first try. I love being able to carry trays and not feel like I'm going to drop food all over the floor. I love the soreness in my muscles because it means that I'm just making them stronger. I've started counting grams of protein before I even look at the calories!

I still do some NTC work outs though, because body weight exercises without dumbbells is limited. I did the Arm Sculptor work out yesterday with 8lb dumbbells and was dripping sweat 5 minutes in. But I just think about how awesome I'm going to look in my bridesmaid dress for Faison's wedding and how I'm going to be so fit for Charlottesville and that's all the motivation that I need. I encourage everyone to get moving and be healthy! You're only one workout away from a good mood! After all, exercise gives you endorphins; endorphins make you happy! And happy people just don't shoot their husbands.

Elle Woods thanks you for your time!
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