Happy Friday!

G$ and I actually have a pretty action-packed weekend coming up.  Tonight, we are meeting friends for Mexican (yeah, not ideal for the first week of Operation: Accountability), then Saturday is my company's holiday party at the Hotel Monaco in DC (repeat text above from parentheses). 

On Black Friday, I made a large Banana Republic purchase.  I bought four potential party dresses (each 30% off!) with the intention of returning three.  And sure enough, only one was actually flattering, so the other three are going back.  Phew.  I'll post pictures of me actually wearing it sometime next week. 

Other than those evening events, I'm sure will do the normal routine of hitting up the dog park and hiking...

Kairo pooped after a lot of running at the dog park. 

Muddy, dirty dog while hiking

Also, since I never post frequently, I know some of you may not have thought to scroll down to see if I had other posts... but I had a very productive, couch-ridden weekend due to the back tweak, so check out the other posts if you haven't already:

• October Catch-Up
• Thanksgiving 2012

As for an update on the back.  I think I'm almost back to 100%.  I had no pain yesterday - at all!  I even debated going to the gym with G$ this morning, but thought I shouldn't test my luck.  I'm planning to go hiking with them this weekend and assuming all goes well, will be back at the gym on Monday.  Hurray!  I'll keep you guys posted. 

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

<3
K$

Operation: Accountability - Week 0

So some of you know that G$'s brother is getting married to longtime girlfriend in April 2013 in Playa del Carmen, Mexico!  Which means... I'll need to be in a bathing suit in front of G$'s entire family in less than five months.  If that's not motivation to get in shape, I'm not sure what is...

This is where Operation: Accountability comes into play.

Over the next five months, I'm planning to post my progress on a weekly basis, in an attempt to motivate myself to keep with it.  I'll be sparing you guys picture progress -- although I am contemplating actually taking pictures every week or once a month to really see progress, but if I do, I most definitely will not be posting them here!  

The biggest problem I'm facing now is... being on the DL because of the Thanksgiving back injury.  To be honest, I really have no idea for how long, which really sucks.  However, starting on Monday, I'm planning to make healthy food choices, since that is 100% something I can control while not working out.

This Week 0 post is more of an introduction to give you guys a heads up of what's coming.  Get excited!  Ha!  :)  Every week, I'll report the change in my weight, body fat percentage, muscle percentage, bicep, chest, natural waist, lower waist, hips, thigh, and calf.  The number column will indicate the overall +/- compared to the Week 0 measurements.  

Anyone else want to get on board with their own Operation: Accountability?!

<3
K$

Thanksgiving

This year's Thanksgiving was again pretty low-key, just my immediate family plus G$'s parents over at my parents' house. 

G$ and I order eggs, milk, and meat from South Mountain Creamery and they were teaming up with a turkey farm in PA to offer hormone- and antibiotic-free turkeys, so we ordered one and it arrived the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  Since it's an au-naturale turkey, my mom reminded me that most store turkeys come pre-brined, so I took on the tasks of finding a brine recipe, cooking up the brine (all 3 gallons of it), and marinating the turkey in the brine in our cooler overnight.  Somehow in my 27 years of life, I had never had the pleasure of cleaning and removing the innards of a turkey.  After pulling out the neck, there was nothing else inside, which confused me.  I actually called my mom to ask where the bag of innards were.  The answer was simple -- check the other end.  :)  Gross. 

Me battling the turkey in the sink

I rinsed and dried the turkey, then plopped all 25 pounds of it into the brine-filled cooler.  I wish I would have taken a picture of the turkey in the cooler -- it was a quite funny!

On Thanksgiving Day, the boys -- my dad, my brother, G$'s dad, and G$ -- went golfing in the morning, while my mom and I prepped the turkey for cooking.  We then met up with Amy and Ally and went for an hour long walk through the neighborhood with the dogs -- a pre-stuff.your.face.with.yummy.food walk, if you will.

After the walk, folks started to arrive for Thanksgiving.  My mom suggested giving the dogs a rawhide bone to chew in an attempt to distract them (and reduce the barking) as the doorbell rang and people entered the house.  Unfortunately, Kairo is a very spoiled dog and prefers peanut butter slathered on his rawhides, so he was ignoring his and trying to steal Abby's and Hunter's pre-chewed (therefore soft) bones.  In an attempt to keep Kairo from their bones, I sat down on the floor holding his collar, while he was slightly pulling, which caused a pain in my lower back.  When I stood up, the pain became more excruciating. 

Having had lower back pain a few times before, I thought I just need to stretch it and it would pop back and I'd be fine, so I went into my parents' room and laid down on my back in an attempt to stretch the back muscle out.  I quickly learned that this was not the little batch twitches I've had in the past.  It.was.extremely.painful.  After laying on my back for a bit, I was able to roll over and get up on all four in an attempt to get back on my feet.  Scott walked past the door to see me half crying in pain and half laughing at the ridiculous image of me on all fours.  He tried to help me up, but the pain was so much that I ended up sprawling out on my stomach.  G$, my dad and mom came in to help.  I spent about 45 minutes on the floor with my face in tears.  The worst part was that laughing made it hurt sooooo much and you guys know G$, he's a jokester, but was very supportive and held in a lot of the jokes/one-liners he thought of while I was lying on the floor.  Isn't he sweet!?! :) 

In all seriousness, G$ sat by my side until the pain subsided enough for me to attempt to get up.  He tried to help me up once, then another spasm occurred, so it was back to my stomach for a bit, while he patiently sat next to me holding in one-liners (which I know was very, very tough for him, but much, much appreciated by me!  Thanks G$!).  From time to time, even Kairo would pry himself away from the appetizer-begging in the kitchen to check in on me. 

 We got this wonderful family photo taken...

We tried again and with G$'s help, I was able to get to my feet.  Hurray! 

I made it into the kitchen for some appetizers, then sat myself down at the table in preparation for the Thanksgiving feast.  Everything was so delicious!  

From the table, I was able to get G$ to take a few cute shots of Brandon and Ally:

I am very thankful for having such a wonderful family, who all came to my side during the back incident.  Seriously, thank you very much for all your assistance, tips, and help to make Thanksgiving 2012 a great one despite having pain throbbing from my lower back.  :)

In you're interested... I'm doing better now, but still not 100%.  I have figured out what position/motion causes the spasm in my back, so I'm avoiding that.  It only happened once on Friday, and so far, not at all on Saturday.  I surprising found a comfortable position to sleep in, so at least I'm not tired and cranky.  I'm most disappointed in the fact that the gym is now out of the question, probably for the next week.  From what we've read, we believe it was a pulled/sprained muscle, which unfortunately means there isn't much that can be done.  Just ibuprofen, ice/heat, and time.  No instantaneous cure?!  Bummer! 

I'll keep you all posted on the recovery! 

<3
K$

October Catch-Up

I know it's been a while since my last post.  And since the tragic "pegging Kairo with a rock" incident, nothing all.that.exciting has happened in our lives.

Here are a few highlights:

G$'s Birthday. We had a low-key dinner at G$'s parents house with his sister, brother-in-law, and nephew.  G$'s mom made G$'s fav cake -- yellow cake with chocolate frosting:

New Camera.  We bought a nice camera.  G$ had some birthday money/Amazon gift card, which we used towards the purchase.  We looked around at a number of 4/3 compact and DSLR cameras, but G$ convinced me that going with a straight DSLR was the way to go since it more naturally fit in both of our hands.  So we bought a Canon Rebel T3i.  And so far love it.  You'll see some of the pictures we took with it below in other recaps.  We are still working to accessorize it - with a sling strap (purchased) and bag (still being researched). 

via

Nats Game.  We went to Game 3 of the NLCS, the first game here in DC.  They lost... but the camera was shipped just in time. 

Then after Game 4 and the beginning of Game 5, we had high, high hopes of the Nats going on to the next round, only to be severely disappointed when St. Louis came back...  oh well, there's always next year. 

Busy at Work - Sick - Busy - Sick.   The past two months work has been much busier than normal.  I was working on a proposal, plus actual work was busy, which led to be me catching a few colds.  Staying up late and being sick caused me to make the conscious decision to sleep in rather than get up early to get to the gym... I'm embarrassed to say this, but there were no gym trips in October. 

Working before the Nats game, on my day off :(

Working on the couch with Kairo

Nephew Brandon's 2nd Birthday.  We had a small gathering at my parents house (sans Kairo).  Lisa sister and three kids were also there, so we opted to leave the K-Man at home.  I was able to get some good pictures of the fam!

Birthday Boy

Climbing over Hunter

Me holding my niece, Ally

Hurricane Sandy.  She came and she went somewhat anti-climatically for us.  G$ had two days off of work, I "worked" remotely those days.  Ultimately, we were surprised how little damage there was to our neighborhood.  No trees down.  Just some branches/leaves, not even tree limbs.  It certainly got very windy on Monday night, but it wasn't even raining that hard.  We had to take the K-Man out a few times when the wind was picking up, the first time in late afternoon, I took him out and he wanted nothing to do with it.  After much coaxing to get him to "do his business" he quickly retreated to the closed front door.  Then next time around dinner, G$ was taking him out.  G$ leashed Kairo up, but as soon as the door opened, Kairo did.not.want.to.go.outside, so G$ picked him up and was finally able to get him to tinked (yes, that's the past tense of tinkle in our little world).  The last time he had to go out was right before bed.  This time, G$ went to get his leash, and Kairo quickly back-peddled to the other side of the room.  He knew what was coming and was not a happy camper.  G$ coaxed him outside with treats, he did his business, then we went to bed.  I wish I got a picture of how pathetic Kairo looked that third time.  Puhlease don't make me go out there again!

Broken Bed.  A few weeks ago, I washed our sheets and that afternoon was trying to make the bed.  Kairo had jumped up on the partially-made bed, so in an attempt to get him to move to the bottom of the bed, so I could pull the sheets up to the top, I did a superman jump on the bottom of the bed.  CRACK!  The wood bed frame cracked, and the bottom-right corner of the mattress/box spring was sagging.  Awesome.  Since the bed was purchased, it had been moved four times.  In the last three times, we had movers who disassembled and reassembled the bed.  I knew after this last move, the extra stabilizing piece in the middle of the bed was broken.  After taking it apart, we noticed some screws missing and it just generally was not in the best shape.  So we slept with the mattresses on the floor for a few weeks while we decided what to do.

Kairo on top of G$ when the mattress was on the floor. 
Please ignore the under the bed storage bins that are not under the bed. 

At first, I thought this was the perfect time to buy a super cute upholstered bed...

via

 ...but then decided I should hold off until we buy a house and know what kind of space we'll have there.  So we just purchased a cheap metal bed frame (found on craigslist).  I have plans to drill holes in our existing wood headboard, so we can attach it to the bed frame.  

It's hard to believe Thanksgiving has come and gone (more on that in a future post) and Christmas is only a month away!  The holiday season is upon us!

<3
K$

Rock. Paper. Scissors.

Shoot. I pegged Kairo with a rock.

I feel full disclosure on the blog is a necessity, so it would just be wrong if I swept this under the rug. Last Sunday, G$ and I were at the Shirlington dog park with K-Man. It was late morning and our plan was to poop him out earlier in the day since we had two softball games that afternoon - one at 2pm and another at 6pm, with a barbecue at teammate's place in between.
We had done a lap and were down at the creek near the main entrance where there are not usually many (or any) dogs since the water is shallow and not ideal for swimming. It was G$, Kairo, and I down there. We threw some sticks for Kairo and he ran through the creek chasing them. G$ had recently emailed a few folks on the softball team with an article about throwing like a girl. G$ threw a rock down the creek and then I tried to throw it as close to the spot his rock hit the water as I could. I threw a couple, then moved to a different spot on the shore to get better footing. Knowing that I sometimes have a loose cannon when it comes to throwing (i.e. I have been known to release super low and the ball/stick/whatever I'm throwing goes nowhere near my target), before each throw, I made sure I knew where Kairo was, so there was no chance he was anywhere near where I was aiming. I picked up another rock about the size of tennis ball, but more oblong to try again. I released the rock and was met by Kairo letting out the most high-pitched whine I have ever heard. And he was not putting any pressure on his front left leg. Oh.my.goodness. I nailed Kairo with the rock. I could not believe it. I think what had happened was that since I was checking to see where he was, he was the last place I look before I threw the rock. Seriously, had I been trying to hit him (which, let me be clear, I was not), there is no chance I'd come close.

G$ and I called Kairo over to the shore (the "incident" occurred while he was standing in the middle of the creek). He hobbles over to us and still is not putting pressure on his leg. I'm in tears, clutching Kairo saying, "I'm so sorry" over and over again. We had no idea where on his leg I hit him, since both of us only saw the splash of the rock as it hit the water. We contemplated carrying him out of the dog park, but I was convinced it was just something he had to walk off and he'd be better in no time. He hobbled out of the dog park himself, I helped him into the car, and we headed home for a bit before softball. Later that evening, we took him for a short walk and I was convinced his limp is getting better and that he'd wake up Monday morning perfectly fine - kind of how things played out when we thought he tore his ACL.
Kairo woke up in the middle of the night and struggled to get down the stairs. After he was about half way down, I tried to pick him up and he yelped in pain. Great - my hopes of having him wake up healed were shot. But with his yelp, I was able to figure out that the rock hit him higher up on his leg, and that it wasn't his foot, toes, or ankle region that was stuck.

G$ called the vet when he got into work to schedule an appointment. We were able to get the last appointment of the day, at 11:40. G$ picked me up at work and we headed to the appointment and explained the situation to the vet. I'm of course, once again a crying mess. She did her examination and since he was so tender at the location of impact (his humerus bone), she was concerned and recommended doing an x-ray now, rather than waiting another day or two as she normally would. We left him at the vet and headed back to work. I was still a mess - could I really have thrown the rock hard enough to break his bone?!?! But luckily since I had told the story so many times to coworkers, I was now able to say it without with tears. Yes, embarrassing, I know...

Around 1pm, I received a call from the vet - muuuch sooner than expected - and she had good news. No broken bones! HURRAY!!! She was prescribing him pain/anti-inflammatory meds. But... she said for the next week Kairo should only go outside to use the bathroom, no playing, no long walks, nothing. Greeeeaaaat... he's a high energy breed and needs exercise; otherwise, he becomes a jumping, over-excited crazy dog. This will be a fun, daycare-free week for us! But I kept looking on the bright side - what a relief, no broken bones. I wasn't even sure what they would have done had his bone been broken, but I can only imagine the recovery would be even longer, so I am just so glad that it didn't come to that.

After the first two days on the meds, he seemed to be fine, so we took him off the meds and his limp stayed away. Saturday we went hiking and after a 3.8 mile loop, he still was not limping. And today we visited "the scene of the crime" and he chased dogs, was chased by dogs, and even went down to the creek. All is good. Phew! What a relief!

Needless to say, I have been the butt of numerous rock and animal cruelty jokes both at home, with family, and at work. But, I certainly deserve it, since accident or not, I did hit my dog with a rock.

While at the dog park this evening, G$ was able to get this photo taken:

<3
K$

Trying Something New

Well, maybe not new-new, but new to me - INSTAGRAM! I signed up a while back, but never used it. I thought about it and it'll be perfect for me: I take tons of pictures on my phone, but slack on writing the blog posts. So with Instagram, I'll be able to more frequently share pictures - in realtime!

Don't worry, this doesn't mean the blog is going away. Oh no, you'll still get the monthly (sometimes bi-monthly) posts you've become accustomed to! :)

So what do you need to do?? Download the Instagram app for your phone, create a free account, and start following me: k_dollar_sign

My first official instagram post is up:



<3
K$

Stripe It Up!

Prior to our move, back at the end of April, I had big plans to use the 2+ weeks after we were moved into the new place, but still had the old place to complete some DIY painting projects (since Kairo wouldn't be in the way), including:
+ Painted stripe curtain panels for the living room
+ Magnetic chalkboards - for us and Scott & Amy's
+ Sand and paint bar stools

Well... things didn't quite happen as planned. Who's surprised?! I know G$ wasn't...

Scott & Amy, I know your wedding present is now over a year past due, but I promise, it will eventually happen!

Fast forward two months to the end of June. I finally got around to completing at least one of my planned DIY projects - the painted wide-striped curtains for the living room in a white and yellow/gold stripe. Since I was planning to this project in April/May, I already had all the supplies:
+ Small Foam Roller and Paint Tray
+ Paint
+ Fabric Medium - to make the paint less stiff once it dries
+ Cheap White Curtain Panels
+ Painter's Tape

BTW: It was actually more difficult to find cheap white curtain panels than I had thought. Target online was sold out, Target in stores was sold out, Amazon only had nicer panels or they were super sheer, I wanted something opaque. I ended up ordering them from walmart.com.

I had decided to do painted stripes, rather than sewing for a couple of reasons. 1) Sewing is a little intimidating to me and 2) I don't have a sewing machine.

Anyways, since I had all the materials, I only needed one other thing: dog-free space to paint. Our friends that we met through Kairo - Tom and Hope, with dog Chester - now have a yard and Hope very graciously offered her backyard anytime I wanted/needed for craft projects, so I took her up on it and went over one Sunday morning. She was also going to do a canvas painting for her soon-to-be-born son's nursery (now born) and wanted help, so it was a two birds, one stone kind of thing.

If anyone recalls, it was HOT in DC this weekend. We got together somewhat early, but after a Michael's trip for paint and canvas, it was already late morning and unbearable in the sun. Luckily Tom and Hope have a huge dining room, so we move the table aside and set up shop in there.

First, we measured and taped off the stripes. I had 84 inch curtains, so I did six 14-inch stripes. FYI - it's probably a good idea to actually measure your curtain length, since my bottom stripe was a few inches shorter than the rest. Not the end of the world, but just an FYI. While taping, we marked the tape lines with arrows, so we knew which side the paint should be on. I went over all the tape lines again with my fingers, pressing firmly to ensure I'd get a smooth paint line.


After both panels were taped, I laid the first one out on the floor, pressed the tape once more time just to be sure. I then dumped some paint into the tray and squirted some fabric medium in (yeah, I kind of winged it), mixed it with the roller, then started painting. After the first panel was finished, Hope and I carried it outside to bake in the sun. Then I started with the above steps on the second panel and moved it outside to dry.


Then got to the fun part - helping Hope paint her canvas. I hadn't painted probably since high school, but I really enjoyed it. I found it very soothing, and makes me want to do some more art projects for our place. Excited, G$?!?!


Once the canvas was painted, the curtains panels were dry, so I folded them up and went home. I had purchased curtain ring clips to hang them, so as soon as I got home, I unfolded them, hung them. After they were hung, I worked to fold them into a pinch-pleat, so they hung the way I wanted to, which is actually one of the pluses to having done the stripes with paint, the slight stiffness of the paint helped keep them pleated.


The one downfall to the yellow/gold color of the stripe? It kind of takes on a pukey greenish/yellowish hue at night. Hope actually has yellow curtains and when I explained my problem with the striped curtains to her, she said she has the same problem with her yellow curtains.

In hindsight, I think in the next house, if I decide to do these again, this is what I'd do differently:
+ Sew them: a few straight lines and hems can't be too difficult and it'd probably be a good beginner sewing project
+ Go with a tan/greige color rather than yellow/gold to avoid the possibility of puke-colored stripes in the evening.
+ Make them longer, so the bottoms touch the floor: granted I was using the cheap pre-made curtains that I knew were going to be too short, but went with them over the longer version so I wouldn't have to hem them - lazy, I know. :)

And there you have it, my first DIY blog post! :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

<3
K$