I'm Crafty!

In my quest to find the perfect 80's costume for a skating party in a few weeks, I stumbled across this website: Cut out and Keep
I checked it out, and thought to myself, "Self - you have a lot of tshirts." Why yes I do. But I despise the crewneck collar. I have so many interesting shirts and I refuse to wear them. Not a fan of anything tight around my neck. There was one particular how-to that caught my eye - a no-sew halter top from a tshirt. Now that looks super easy right?

Last night I searched Google for the how-to and it brought up a few other tutorials, including a youtube video that totally rocks: YouTube link
Busting out with a test shirt, I was able to pull off the halter with no problems. I don't own a sewing machine so I hand stitched the collar part. Didn't take long at all. Just make sure your stitches are nice and even. The bigger the shirt - the bigger the tank. Honestly the practice shirt was gigantic and I'll probably try another idea with them. I did successfully transform 2 shirts to halter tops. It took under an hour and looks pretty damn good. The best part? It was free and now I have new tops.

I took a few snaps of the before and after product. Just follow the instructions and you won't have any problems!

What the heck am I doing?

I've taken on a new challenge. What are you doing now? ... you may wonder. Well, let me tell you. I've recently started tracking my eating habits on Shape.com They have this wonderful program called the Virtual Trainer. So I've been playing with that for 3 weeks. It has greatly helped tracking and logging every single thing you eat. The weekends are hard though. Especially when you do such great progress for 5 days and then mess it all up by drinking 6 Bud 55's and eating a block of cheese.

Luckily, I am able to squeeze in a trip to the coast with my sister and her husband. The only bad part is it's coming up in 2 weeks and I do not have a bikini ready body. Normally my first reaction would be to reach for the lemons, maple syrup and cayenne pepper but no! I will not resort to quick, temporary solutions to lose a few pounds. Hence the dreaded two-a-days. Starting Monday, I will work out twice a day - preferably using my favorite method - The 30 Day Shred. Right now I'm attempting the high-impact (Natalie version) exercises on level 1. I still can't do real push-ups, and resort to girl push-ups - but I can do all of them instead of laying there panting.

Monday was really tough. I never realized how much harder it is to do Natalie workouts and not Anita. After work I ran out to Academy to get a heart rate monitor. I'm dying to know how many calories I burn on the different levels and different impacts. Per my night session, I burned 181 calories. Not bad, I expected to do more. But I was dying. My thighs are on fire. The high-impact version is a world of difference on your thighs. Getting deep into the squats is a serious work-out.

This morning I woke up at 5am with Matt and rode my bike, hoping to get rid of the lactic build-up in my thighs. Right now - I can't walk down stairs. I've been using the escalator to help me today. Seriously, I'm in pain. But that's good right? RIGHT? Tonight is low impact level 2. Wish me luck, I hate level 2.

Don't throw that away!

Last Sunday afternoon turned into a craft restoration day. We have these interesting outdoor garden vase pots we bought years ago - we fill them with tiki torch oil and place them in the garden or around the retaining wall. They do a great job of keeping mosquitoes away. Sadly, the elements have weathered them away to very ugly, peeling pots. I've been on the fence about throwing them out and replacing them until we thought about restoring them with some new color.


Here is the old vase - see, it's ugly.



I sanded off the old color (which was not an easy task on a humid Sunday afternoon, mind you) and ended up with this.



Then we spray painted them with a white primer. Matt came up with this great idea to use wire coat hangers in the tree to keep the paint on the item and not on the grass.



Don't they look like apples?



TADAA! And here is the finished product. They look like new, and all it took was a few hours, some sand paper and spray paint.

Angry Birds

Hello crack.

Hello my name is Dawn and I am addicted to the iPhone app Angry Birds. Please help me through this addiction.

Find the Zoolander reference....

I have to say, one of the fun things about my job is watching the daily eye candy of large groups that stay with us. Every day brings a new group of individuals, new outfits, hair styles and smells.

I try and refrain from stereotyping a large group of people, but most of the time I can spot the type of conference going on in the hotel just by checking out the ladies in the bathroom. Sometimes I want to giggle, other times I want to offer up tips. Today is one of those days. The amount of sadly dressed, frumpy girls in the lobby makes me sad. I'm almost positive slipping them a printed out TV schedule of What Not To Wear under the stall might get me fired, but the desire to help remains. All I can do is smile and hope these clothing-challenged individuals are making more money than I could ever make with their Jaclyn Smith collection from K-Mart.

I had to share this one with you guys...

Limbo

Ahhh, limbo...be it in your relationships, your job, or any aspect in life, limbo is a hard state to maintain with grace. For instance, yours truly has been experiencing a severe case of limbo recently. I believe it has been close to 2 weeks tomorrow.

I have to say, it has given me a new life lesson. Dealing with the sense of the unknown with little emotional outbreaks. Typically I would be worrying, making myself sick with anticipation, unable to do the normals things in a day without dwelling. But no more! I'm trying my best to keep my feelings and emotions under control and professional. Let me tell you this, it's freaking hard. Every day I wake up wondering if this is the day, but alas, it's not. And that, my friends, is a mood killer.

So here I am, venting away on my blog, keeping the situation thinly disguised as possible. Blogs are a great place to vent, as I'm sure my close friends and coworkers are pretty tired of listening to me complain and eye roll my day away. Even now I feel much better getting it off my chest. Hopefully in the coming days I can create a happy blog post revealing more, but until then, my 6 readers, this is what you get.