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Sunday, July 31, 2016

Happy Birthday, Uncle!

Even though my uncle's birthday is tomorrow, we celebrated today. Mom made a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, and we all went to my uncle and aunt's house for lunch to celebrate. Several of my cousins were there too, so it was nice to catch up with them. I had mentioned that I made dumplings yesterday and was going to continue making them tonight. it turns out that my cousin Emily and my cousin's girlfriend Michelle had made dumplings recently too.  Michelle had also gone the extra step and made the wrappers.  Um, yeah, I don't have the patience for that!
I think he wishes he was turning 28 instead of 82, but I think he will always be 8 at heart.
We are having an international potluck at work tomorrow, so of course, I said that I would bring in dumplings. I also tacked on a tray of banana pudding as a "surprise." This always happens, I always mumble to myself, "Why did I volunteer to make these? They are so labor intensive when you assemble these by yourself!" But then when I'm done, I have a huge sense of accomplishment! I made about 150...85 are going to the office and the rest are going to family or in my tummy for quality assurance.

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Happy Hour with Coworkers

I was invited to Happy Hour with coworkers today, so I decided to go eat, drink and socialize. I had been to this specific restaurant about a week ago and enjoyed their "Daly Special" (Tea-Infused Vodka and House-Made Lemonade) and ricotta donuts that I got those again, plus their crab macaroni and cheese (it's one of their appetizers, but since it's rather rich, it was filling too!).
Crab macaroni and cheese.
Ricotta donuts with vanilla and chocolate dipping sauce
and my tea/lemonade mixed drink.

Saturday, July 23, 2016

Lip Swatches of Newish Lip Products

OMG, it’s been so hot outside today! I only escaped for a little bit to the mall to get some lunch. The AC there felt so nice! It was definitely an indoor kind of day:

- Did 2 loads of laundry
- Watched some of the CrossFit Games
- Painted my nails
- Played with makeup

Left: Maybelline Creamy Matte in Craving Coral
Middle: NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream in Budapest
Right: NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream in Cannes (I don’t know why my skin tone changed so much between pictures, that’s so weird!  There was only a minute between pictures!
Julie and I went to dinner with a friend from the CrossFit gym, Shannon.  Shannon has suggested drinks after Friday's class and Maria had chimed in "Two weeks, after my husband leaves to go back to work!" During the day on Friday, Julie suggested that we go to dinner with Shannon anyway because it's nice to get to know her since she's relatively new to the area.  We had a great time. I had the meatloaf, Julie had a lamb burger and Shannon had a cheeseburger. The food was amazing!

Friday, July 22, 2016

Long Workout Day and Dim Sum with Coworkers

6:30 AM CrossFit, check! It’s the long workout day. After our warm-up, the WOD was 5 rounds of the following:
200m run
1 Barbell complex: 1 Power clean+1 front squat+ 1 hang squat clean (I did 55 lbs the first round and Coach Maddie encouraged Julie, Maria and I to go to 65 lbs the 4 remaining rounds)
5 Lateral burpees
Time: 10:27

Unrelated to CrossFit, I went to dim sum with 3 of my coworkers yesterday. I haven’t been in about a year, so I definitely couldn’t say no to the invite. I'm drooling just looking at this table of delicious food. This wasn't even all of it. There were one or two dishes that came after this picture was taken. You’d think we were eating for an army of 10 people, but no, it was just 4 of us. The price was totally reasonable, and everyone went home with a full container of leftovers.
I went over to my parents' house to watch the CrossFit Games on tv with Julie. There was a moment there where we looked at the food around us. Macaroni and cheese, iced tea, golden Oreos, frozen yogurt, etc. Heh, well, I went to class 5 days this week...and we'll be back to the grind on Monday.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

New Etsy Order

I got an Etsy order yesterday! The woman wanted to send cards to her three children, ones with their favorite animals. Awww.

Saturday, July 16, 2016

New Parrot from Nicaragua

It’s been a rather productive day!
  • Did 2 loads of laundry
  • Took care of the mail pile
  • Replaced the boring light switch cover in the bathroom with a cuter one.
  • Hung up the parrot that my sister gave me from her trip to Nicaragua. She also gave me the other two birds (one is also from Nicaragua and the other one is from Haiti), so I’m building up a collection.
RJ was not helpful in any of the items on this list.

Friday, July 15, 2016

CrossFit Test Week Summary

This week was test week at my CrossFit gym, which means that we tested our 1 rep max for each of the 4 lifts that we've been working on this strength cycle.

Power snatch (Monday): I PR'ed at 65 lbs! I had to try three times to get it, but I was looking at the clock. I have 4 minutes until we have to do the WOD. I was going to use up all the time I have available to get it and I did.

Back squat (Tuesday): I maxed out at 115 lbs. This was not a PR. I did 145 back in February, but with my back injury in March, I didn't want to push it. Maybe I'll be able to get body weight back squat in the next strength cycle it's featured in.

Push jerk (Wednesday): I PR'ed at 115 lbs. This was big because the most I've been able to lift above my head was 105 lbs, so adding 10 lbs feels like a valid accomplishment. I tried for 120 lbs but only got halfway.

Pull-ups (Thursday): I was able to do one with a purple band. This day was more exciting for my sister because she was able to meet her 2016 goal of doing an unassisted pull-up. Yay! The coach asked her to try for another one, and her arms were stuck about halfway. Hah, well, there's always the next challenge.

My coworker Michelle and her kid (my banana pudding sous chef. Some of you might remember her from Craft Time with Tina) visited a notepad making factory. She gave me one from their trip. It’s great to put in my purse. The oyster on the cover is also raised, which is a cool texture effect. Bonus: the pages are perforated!

This same coworker/friend asked me if I could water her vegetable garden while her family is at the beach next week. “Tina’s going to water our veggies and I’m going to make her macaroni and cheese.” Sous chef says that that’s a *really* good deal. Well, of course it is! I don't like the feeling of taking money from friends. Acquaintances, maybe, but not friends.

Her little brother piped in, “Tina come to beach?!”

 No, sorry. I wish, little buddy.

Saturday, July 9, 2016

Rest Day and the Secret Life of Pets

I knew that Julie was not going to want to go to CrossFit this morning, and I wasn't sure what Maria was going to do until she texted this morning. Nope for her too. If she was going to go, I would have gladly gone to be her partner in the partner WOD, but that's okay. Having a full rest day today is fine by me!

My plan today was to go see "The Secret Life of Pets," go to Ulta and DSW and get a milkshake (I got a strawberry one after the movie). Ok, so the movie was just meh. I've seen 2 other animated movies this summer (Zootopia and Finding Dory), and I would choose Zootopia over the other two. The previews made it seem better than it was. Darn marketing. I did like Chloe the cat though (I know, shocking...).

Today will be an exercise in stepping outside the makeup comfort zone. This dark purple color is *way* too pretty to be only worn once a year (Halloween). Lip color: Sephora lip cream stain in Polished Purple. Unfortunately, the liquid lipstick fell out of my pocket as I was leaving the theater. I thought something had, but it didn't dawn on me until I got home. Wah. Fortunately, Sephora's not far away if I wanted to go pick it up. It's more of a fall color anyway.

Friday, July 1, 2016

Long Workout Day

6:30 AM CrossFit, check! It’s the long workout day, so after we did some core work, we did the following for time.

100 kettlebell swings (26 lbs)
800 m run
60 air squats
400 m run
20 dumbbell push jerks (20 lbs per hand)
Time: 13:50
The coach reminded us of the hero workout for Saturday’s class. Maria and I looked at each other, “Are you going to class tomorrow?” We agreed to come since there is no class on Monday for July 4.

After the long workout, I went home and got a bunch of stuff done.
  • Vacuumed up the lower level of the house
  • Did a load of laundry
  • Went grocery shopping
  • Went to the gas station to vacuum my car. There was so much cat hair!  Which is weird since it's not like RJ's in the car with me. I guess I just track it everywhere.
After doing all that, my productivity tanked and I noticed that my back was starting to feel sore. I think my body was just tired from the workouts from this week and since I had the day off, I took a long nap this afternoon. Earlier this evening, I watched Zootopia (I've already seen this, but I really liked it when I saw it in the theater and I had a Redbox code) and "Fittest on Earth" on Netflix, which is a documentary of the 2015 CrossFit Games.

My sister is on her way to Nicaragua for a volunteer project. She texted me this morning, saying that the hotel shuttle in Miami got rear ended on the way to the airport. Oh boy. Yikes, what a way to start the day!

P.S. How can the year be already halfway over?!