Le cours de français

Mistake: While talking with the lady behind me who is also taking the class for fun and plans to travel to Nice, loudly exclaim "this class is so fun and so EASY! I actually look forward to coming to class each time!". This will result in the rest of the class who is obviously not finding French to be fun or easy to turn around and glare at you.

My how much changes in just a week or so. I've been taking 2 weeks of French and already the cobwebs have begun evacuating my brain and making room for a new language. I have a job in which I am thinking/evaluating/analyzing 85% of the day yet the learning portion of my brain had obviously been ill used since college because on my first day of class the terms and phrases which were very basic were bouncing off me and falling on the floor. No matter how hard I listened I couldn't absorb any of what the teacher was trying to teach us and I began to worry that I was in over my head with this class. Since then I've studiously reviewed material and completed homework and have found that my brain has re-opened for business and is easily accepting all of the French vocabulary. I honestly do look forward to each class and the possibilities of what I will learn that day. I've always been naturally good in school (graduated from college with honors even though I spent half the time inebriated and in my pajamas) but have lacked the motivation to actually apply myself and study. I think I am finally at the age (and maturity) where the idea of cracking open a school book and reading isn't repulsive. If only I had this motivation back in college, imagine what I could have done with myself.

I'm sure French will become more complex as the semester passes but I am incredibly proud of myself for sticking with something that was out of my norm. I'm also really pleased that my brain is working again. Continuation of my studies for fun will definitely be on my calendar in the future. It was quite scary to see how little information I was able to retain on that first day. I can only imagine what my brain would have been like had I waited 10 years before I took another college course.

In slightly french related news, tomorrow night's dinner is Coq au Vin (pronounced coke ohe vah). YUM!


And in other slightly less french related news, I was re-watching the series finale of Sex and the City where Carrie goes to France. Holy cow, I had forgotten how hot Mr Big was. I think he made my loins flutter. YUM YUM!

I See London, I See Sam's Town

I've been listening a lot to The Killers' Sawdust CD. Typically The Killers would be too mainstream for my snobby musical tastes but I just can't ignore good music.

Abbey Road version of Sam's Town


Tranquilize


And to appease the indie rock gods, I've also been listening to San Diego's Pinback


As well as St Vincent (who sounds 10x better not live. Her voice is amazing when recorded properly)

Bonsoir! Je m'appelle Cori

One of my biggest regrets after living in the SF Bay Area was that I never took advantage of the nearby UC Berkeley and the extension classes offered. So after moving to San Diego (home to 8 major universities and dozens of smaller colleges) I promised myself that I would continue my education (for fun) and try to take a class every semester. I've lived here for almost two years and have yet to take one class (although in my defense I did register for a class last semester and it was canceled at the last minute). A few months ago I bit the bullet and signed up for a French class at a college that is 15 minutes away from my house. I wanted to take French because I've always been interested in the language and we might need it should we ever commit to a long stay in Switzerland (location of Hubby's International HQ).

My first class was last night and already I am feeling overwhelmed and debating whether I should quit. Maybe it's because I am feeling a little rusty and the book learning portion of my brain hasn't been used in 5 years. Maybe it's because the French language is much harder then I imagined and very few words are actually pronounced how they are spelled (example number 4 = quatre but pronounced like kat). Maybe it's because my bilingual mouth keeps confusing Spanish and French and what comes out is a Spanish French English hybrid (example: soy suis Cori y quero deux kittens). Maybe I am just burnt out after the fires and I need a few months where I can work til 4pm, go to the gym, come home and JUST VEG for the rest of the evening. Or maybe I am just being a big baby and if I keep at it for the next few weeks I will begin to really enjoy myself and the fact that I am becoming tri-lingual. What do you think? (see poll in side bar and VOTE! I really am confused as to what I should do and would love advice).

Typing This While Watching Baby Story

I've never been the type to glorify in the fact that one day that I could be a mother. I've talked to some girls and when they think of motherhood they think about cute babies, being called mama, naming them, going to the park, having everyone ooh and aah over their bellies, etc. When I think of motherhood I think of sleepless nights, puke, poopy diapers, toddler tantrums, teens who talk back, stretch marks, and losing my "me" time that I cherish so much. I always thought that someday that Mommy Urge would click in my head one day and I would be like "yes! it's all worth it!!! bring on the babies". Now that I am approaching 28, I am realizing that the Mommy Urge may never turn on for me. Which kinda sucks because I am not looking forward to being 30 and making that decision to shit or get off the pot. (30 has always been the age that I have told myself that either babies happen or don't).

Tomorrow I am throwing an afternoon baby shower for one of my best friends. She was a bridesmaid in my wedding (she got preggo on my wedding night!) and I am really excited for her and this baby that she has always wanted. Yesterday, I went to Babies R Us for the first time ever to pick out a baby gift for her. Holy Cow! If there was ever a place to get me excited about the possibility of having a baby, this was the place!!! So much cute baby stuff and I all of a sudden wanted to get it all.


Pack N Play. Adorable!


Cribs. Must have!


Jumper things. Awwww!!!


Strollers. Tres chic!

Not to even mention all the really adorable baby clothes. That was just the icing on the cake.

More then ever I realized as I walked through Babies R Us, babies are expensive! I could have easily purchased $500 worth of stuff for my friend. (In the end my purchases totalled $200). The last reason to have a kid is just to be able to buy all the stuff but maybe this means that I am one step closer to finally catching Baby Lust.

Is This Serious???

As you might have heard, the San Diego Chargers are playing the Patriots this weekend in a shot at going to the Super Bowl. I hate the Chargers and think Tom Brady is hot so you can guess who I will be rooting for.

I saw this article in yesterday's newspaper. Is this REALLY how the rest of the US has to dress during the winter months??? I've never lived anywhere but Cali and complained this morning that the high was only going to be 66. Either this guy is joking or I am an incredibly big princess. To be honest if I had to go to a conference in Boston tomorrow I would never in a million years think of dressing like this. In fact I would probably come in yoga pants, hoodie, and flip flops (my standard flying attire).

John Gardner of Cambridge, Mass., e-mailed some sage – if scary – advice for San Diegans heading to New England for the game:

“Fans need to wear boots with at least 1000 grams of insulation, wool socks, thermal underwear with heavy-duty winter pants, a thick down parka, undershirt, wool shirt, sweat shirt and a fleece vest parka below the outer parka. And just as importantly, a thin coating of petroleum jelly on the face, a wool or Gore-Tex face mask, hand warmers and thick wool mittens! ... I would not want any human being to be underprepared for this game.”

Probably Not His Last ...

Problem: Fluff has a large matted piece of fur on his chest. Probably a result of me not brushing him out fully after taking him a bath.

My Solution: Take him to the groomers and have them shave off the matted piece of fur.
Cost: $30

Hubby's Solution: Go at it with a piece of scissors and take care of the problem ourselves.
Cost: $285 after a trip to the emergency vet where Fluff is put under and sewn back together with 7 metal stitches.

Big Bear Lake

One year ago Dave quit smoking. Having been a heavy smoker for 10 years I never thought I would see the day when I no longer had to wait in the car or in front of the restaurant while Dave took a quick smoke break. Saying that I am so VERY proud of him doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of how I feel. To celebrate I surprised Dave with a mini-vacation to do one of his very favorite activities: playing in the snow.

This was our first time going to the Southern California snow. Lake Tahoe and Central Sierras are our usual locations for snow escapades. On the way up we hit gnarly traffic. It took us one hour to go ten miles up the mountain. Dave wasn't happy but luckily we had Sirius to keep us entertained.


We finally arrived in Big Bear and the first thing we did was hit up a local brewery and drink beer. We did a lot of beer drinking that weekend (hence the weight gain) but with the ski lifts packed, relaxing in the resort pub while watching the playoff game was the perfect activity.

After drinking beer, we checked into our hotel. Our room overlooked Big Bear Lake and was less then 50 feet from the shore.


This was our view. I can't think of a better image to wake up to each morning.


Second best part of our hotel was that it was stumbling distance to The Village. It was quite nice to never have to drive to eat, drink, or play.


The snow lifts were still packed on Sunday so Dave and I decided to do a little hiking. Dave got us lost quite a bit and had to consult the map to find our way back on the trail.


Luckily, I am an expert navigator and was able to find the trail again.


Since everyone else was on the lifts, we were pretty much the only ones in the forest. I kept trying to convince Dave to write his name in the snow with pee but evidently Dave is much more mature then I and prefers to use his finger.


The view was gorgeous and I really didn't mind getting lost.


The most important thing is that I was spending time with the love of my life and really life doesn't get any better then that.


I am one lucky girl.

Clothes, Woes, Boys, and Toys

Weight Loss
When Dave and I first began our healthier lifestyle resolution we elevated the challenge by adding weekly goals and rewards/punishments. Going in to this I though "no problem!" since I am the Queen of Weight Loss and Dave is Mr Never Touched a Gym in His Life as well as the Baron of Taco Bell. Dave has always been athletically built and good at sports but beyond that has never had to try to stay fit therefore I thought I had an advantage to this whole challenge. I was born from the womb short and round and I've had to battle my figure my whole life.

Well, I greatly underestimated the competitive nature of my spouse. Had I known that all I had to do was issue a challenge I would have done this much sooner in order to motivate Dave to work out daily. Not only has he joined my gym and gone daily for 45 minutes but he has also completely revamped his eating habits (gone is fast food) as well as given up soda! This is huge coming from the man who used to drink 5-6 cans of coca cola a day. As of Week 1 Dave had lost 7 pounds and I had lost 3. Week 2 was tampered when we took a mini-vacation to a local snow resort and I re-gained the 3 from week 1 plus one I had lost in week 2 (total of 4 pounds). Dave regained 2 pounds. I'm really trying to make this healthy lifestyle something that I can do everyday for the rest of my life and evidently the vacation eating part of my lifestyle needs some tweaking.

Dreams of Our Fathers
Sunday night I had numerous dreams about boys I had dated in the past. Last night I dreamt of several scary wars in which I was forced to do battle. The boy dreams I enjoyed mostly because they involved lots of necking and heavy petting. The war dreams not so much. In one dream a tank was firing rapid succession at me and the ammo was oranges. It is citrus season here in Cali and obviously I have eaten one too many oranges.

Working Girl
I'm still insanely busy and working 12 hour days plus weekends. Luckily Dave is gone for work this week which allows me to work late into the night without feeling guilty. Now that it has been 3 months since the fires I am starting to get real tired of this schedule. Taking this past Monday off for our mini-vacay was refreshing but I can't keep doing this same schedule. Starting next week I am going to focus more on me and work only 9 hour days plus Saturdays. Dave is super motivated to do the gym thing and I'm going to make time to go to the gym with him as soon as my day has ended (4pm).

In other news, a National news crew is coming out next week to film our fire recovery work. I really would have liked to be much thinner but am trying not to stress over it too much. What am I saying? I am stressing over it big time! (to further clarify I am stressing over my weight not the national news part).

Shiny Toys
I got the new Sirius Stiletto 2 last week and I LOVE it. I'm already a big fan of Sirius but now I can take my Sirius with my when I go to the gym or out hiking! It's super small (about the size of a video IPOD) and light weight too. Now I am just waiting for the arm strap that I ordered to come so that I can stop treating it like a delicate flower.

Suddenly a Tennassee Titans Fan

Note to Self: When attending a NFL football playoff game, it might help if you are actually a fan of the home team. Otherwise you will spend a majority of the game fuming at the drunken douche bagginess of the home team fans. It didn't help that 95% of the fans in attendance were Chargers fans and only 5% of the rest were Titans fans. This meant that the drunken (and winning) Chargers fans felt it was their duty to yell insensitive slurs at the cowering Titans fans who were just trying to enjoy the game. It was worse then a Raiders versus Chargers game (at least then even when the game is played in San Diego a majority of the fans are wearing black and besides no one dares mess with the Raider Nation). Dave and I are neither Chargers not Titans fans but we had free tickets in the club level which meant great seats under cover from the rain and free food and booze. I would go again for the chance to watch a playoff game but after experiencing 3 hours of drunk asswhats I almost declared that alcohol and tailgating should be banned at games (this coming from me who is a huge fan of the beer in all situations and lovingly remembers tailgating from many Fresno State football games). Yet, you too would have immediately proclaimed that all games should be alcohol free after watching drunk idiots stumbling around trying to pick fights (unless you were a drunken idiot picking fights then you would have thought it to be a great time for all). Astonishingly enough we were in the club level where seats were $300-400 each and those in the cheaper seats on field level and in the higher decks encountered even more douche bagery and crowd fighting.

In more uplifting news, I've lost 45 pounds on three different occasions only to regain most of the weight back within one year. The latest time I lost the weight was for my wedding and already 25 pounds of that has crept back up on me. I am realizing that I am good at the losing but not so good at the keeping off. In the past I will practically starve myself for 6 months, drop tons of weight, and then become tired of the restrictions and go hog wild in the opposite direction. I really need to find a sensible eating plan that I can easily adopt as part of my everyday lifestyle so that I don't have to keep yo-yo'ing. Easier said then done. At the football game I was rather proud of myself, usually I will consume a bratwurst, garlic fries and lotsa beer (remember free beer in club level). This time I ordered a veggie burger and diet coke and I even held myself back when they brought out the mojitos (I will write a sonnet of my love for mojitos one day). One of my biggest problems in the past is that I splurge on special occasions and soon everyday becomes a special occasion for one reason or another. Lunch out with coworkers? Splurge! Hard day at work? Spurge! Finally Friday? Splurge! After a lot of thinking I have decided that the only days that count as splurge worthy are my birthday, fancy dinners paid by Dave's work, and holiday parties.

Other news, I am trying to convince Dave to let us extend our Lake Las Vegas vacation to encompass a night's stay at the Venetian since evidently 4 nights at the Ritz Carlton is not enough for me. I am having a hard time justifying my cause.

New Year, New Healthy Me

I'm a big fan of New Year's resolutions. No one is perfect so why not begin the new year with the goal of becoming a better person in one or two different ways. This year my goal is to become a healthier person. As I've said, since the fires my daily diet has consisted of whatever easy food I can grab and stuff in my mouth and my daily exercise has gone by the wayside. My resolution is to get back in the habit of exercising (5am!), eating healthy, taking a daily multi-vitamin (prenatal vitamins make my hair so shiny), brushing my teeth before bed (I'm not so good on this), and moisturizing every bit of my body after taking a shower (no wrinkles yet and I'd like to keep it that way).

To motivate myself even further, Dave and I have a small bet to see who can lose the most weight in ten weeks. Since Dave quit smoking a year ago, he has gained 20 pounds and has lacked the motivation to begin exercising. I've also gained weight since our wedding (10 pounds during our Honeymoon and then 15 pounds since the fires). I would really like to get back to my wedding weight before I continue to gain even more and things get out of control. In 10 weeks we plan on going to Lake Las Vegas and if I win Dave will pay for a day at the spa. I love messages and facials more then everything but sex and sushi so I am VERY excited to win.

I plan on blogging my progress once a week to keep myself motivated and accountable. Today was Day 1 of the challenge and I became winded after jogging for 40 minutes around the country club golf course. I am starving and sweaty and already realizing that getting back in shape is going to be a much bigger challenge then I had bargained.

A healthier looking me at our rehearsel dinner.