Knives + Stairs + I Hate a Man Named Darryl

I went to a personal training session for the first time in my life on Tuesday. I made the mistake of telling the trainer, Darryl, one of my goals was to tone. Which apparently means we do lots of weight training. I have never done any weight training whatsoever. He warned me I would hate him the next day. Needless to say, my legs (and arms... and abs... but mostly my legs) have been in the worst pain I've ever felt in my life (so far) ever since then. They felt like someone was stabbing my quads with 20 knives, each leg, every time I walked up or down stairs, tried to sit on a chair, stood up from a chair, bent over to get something out of my suitcase, walked anywhere. There was a lot of wincing and lip biting and almost falling over trying to do things. Stairs were definitely the worst, though.

The day after the session I came down to DC for an event I planned. We had the check in table upstairs, by the front door to the venue, but the event was held in a space... down... two... flights... of... stairs. STAIRS. KNIVES. THE PAIN.

Side note here: I always wear high heels to work functions, even though I'm usually standing for a long time and doing a lot of walking around checking on things. I think it has something to do with when I wear flats I'm like negative 2 feet tall and feel like a little girl, but when I wear heels I think I look like an adult. So when I'm around lots of people at my firm, I like to look adult and professional. I also don't (usually) find heels uncomfortable like some people do. I usually will wear flats preparing for an event so I can run around, then throw my heels on when it starts.

I brought these flats with me to run around in, but didn't plan on wearing them all evening because of what I said above, but also because they didn't really match my outfit. Let's just say if I were another female and saw someone wearing those shoes with what I was wearing I'd judge her on her shoe choice. But maybe I'm just judgy like that. So I wore my flats running up and down those stairs until the reception started and then I bit the bullet and threw on my 4 1/2 inch heels. Remember the 20 knives? Let's go up to 30 now with the heels on. The pain. Oh the pain... there were a few points where I thought I was going to just fall because my legs were obviously just going to break if I was in that much pain. Also sometimes the pain would get so bad that they would kind of turn to jello. Jello does not make for very supportive legs. I seriously must have looked like I had never worn heels before to all our guests. Gritting my teeth, wincing at every step, holding onto the handrail for dear life... So I guess that whole adult-looking thing probably flew out the window.

Today it only feels like 15 knives, so I guess that's an improvement. Also, I'm able to wear low heels again after wearing only flats. Still can't sit or bend down without wincing, though.

Hopefully tomorrow we'll be down to 10 knives so I can actually enjoy exploring DC. Fingers crossed.

I hate you Darryl.

But I'll see you in a week for our next session. Hopefully I'll have forgotten about all this pain by then.

Lesson of the day: Don't go to a personal training session for the first time in your life if you have ANYTHING to do for the next week that involves standing or walking or sitting, and most importantly not going anywhere that has two flights of stairs you have to take 40 times in a night. OK FINE and maybe, just maybe, pack flats that match and don't wear your 4 1/2 inch death wish heels.

-C
xxx

Party Time! Excellent!

via Martha Stewart

I can't wait to start cooking things for our party. Former Bridesmaid/Now Wife Amanda and I are throwing a joint birthday party for our hubbies this Friday. It's BYOCC themed - which means Bring Your Own Christmas Cookies! It's going to be at their house, since ours isn't really conducive to having lots of people in one area (we have lots of tiny rooms on three floors, versus big, open spaces on less floors), unless we wanted to have it in the backyard... in December. Anyway, we kind of procrastinated on the planning, but this past weekend it kind of hit me, oh crap! We're having a party on Friday! So I went out and bought a bunch of crap... I mean, delicious food (that's probably not in the health food aisle). I decided to make spin dip (which I'm also bringing to my work's floor holiday party that day), decided to throw some Velveeta cheese and salsa in a crock pot for a quick and easy cheesy dip, decided on a cookie recipe for myself... I guess I was in panic mode that I wouldn't have time to do anything. But now? Oh now I'm finding more recipes I want to make and I'm going to drive myself (and possibly my husband...) crazy this week with all the cooking I'm going to do. But I don't care! I want to do it! It's Christmas, and you know what I think my problem is? I don't think I've ever... wait for it... wait for it... thrown a Christmas party. Yeah, so I guess I'm kind of on overload with wanting to do all sorts of things in addition to what I already listed above. Like making eggnog from scratch (yes, it's delicious if you don't buy it at the store), and making two kinds of cookies... and making deviled eggs with green and red food coloring! EEK!! That's my excited sound.

How am I ever going to be able to wait the two days before I can start making things??

I'm blaming Martha Stewart for providing me with a plethora of recipes.

-C
xxx

Phall in Philadelphia

via Google Image Search

If you don't live in Philadelphia, you probably don't know this, but people here like to turn F's into Ph's. Sounds stupid to the outsider, but I have to admit it's kind of fun - I mean, phun. Anyway, after getting back from our honeymoon, it was straight to work on our department's biggest event of the year. It basically consists of a lot of logistics for the people flying in, all-day programming for our visitors (and all the materials and logistics that go along with that), and the cocktail reception to cap it all off with (my favorite part). It's kind of a rarity for people in our industry to throw receptions and actually decorate, but I wouldn't have it any other way (and luckily my director wouldn't either). So we spend a good couple of hours, with help from our facilities men and on-site caterers, setting up and decorating for a good ole time to be had by 150+ people. It's stressful, but I love it. I love seeing peoples' reactions to all the decorations, hearing the compliments, and secretly knowing that I didn't spend a fortune on decorating it. Not that it's my money, but still. It's fun getting creative with things you buy at the dollar store, or some other cheap place online, and seeing the result looking like you spent way more on it.

We used to do a theme not to be mentioned (I'm just so sick of it I don't even want to talk about it), but I finally got to nix it and we ended up just doing a fall theme this year, which I think turned out great. Even though we had a ton of dollar store decorations, I think it looked classy. I hope it looked classy. I'm pretty sure it looked classy. We cleared the area of all the furniture and brought in a ton of high tops. We rented antique gold shimmer linens for our food tables and high top cocktail tables. We hung spiral fall decorations from the ceiling, had leaf confetti, leaf garland, tissue paper leaves, and I made floral arrangements from ($ Tree) fake flowers, leaves, and fabric petals. They looked great, if I do say so myself. The final touch was the gold balloons. I loooove me some balloons for a cocktail party. Especially gold ones. I feel like they're fun but being gold they're classy. So they're classy fun. We had delicious food and I bought a ton of candy and bags for people to take it home in (they really liked that). Autumnal fare, candy, pretty decorations, and alcohol. Who needs anything else? We didn't even have music, but it was so loud no one noticed anyway.

via Google Image Search

Next up? I'm off to Arizona to see Former-Bridesmaid-Turned-New-Momma Lela to help her throw a Halloween party. I'm hoping she'll let me put up decorations and help make fun party stuff versus changing diapers. I'd like to think she knows better than to put ME in charge of a baby :) juusssst kidding (sort of)

Happy Halloween!! What's YOUR costume going to be? I'm going to be a Panda!

-C

xxx