Givenchy Resort 2013

While hunting for some photos to include with a blog on how to pronounce designer names (Fun fact: the whole time I was explaining the post to my style intern I kept using Herve Leger as an example and I was still butchering it), I stumbled across these photos from the Givenchy Resort 2013 collection and I am blown away.

I've been way too into head-to-toe prints ever since I convinced myself that buying a flowy top and flowy shorts in the same print from H&M would be a good idea, so I am all on board with Givenchy's large and colorful florals. Also, I keep getting a Baz Lurhmann's Romeo + Juliet vibe from them. Venice ganster vibe? That's not right, but I feel what I feel mkay? I also feel like I could do without the hats and that last mullet skirt. I'd love to pair the sweater in the fourth photo with dark skinny jeans and motorcycle boots, but I can't just grab money off of my money tree so I'm going to have to wait for Urban or H&M to produce a decent knockoff.

all photos courtesy of Givenchy

Getting Ready for the Fourth

the fish taco from Taco Guys

How have you guys been doing? Excited you don't have to work tomorrow? Me too! Mainly because I've been dying to get in a long hike or bike ride (!!). Any big plans? Dom and I are headed into Berkeley for a special holiday "Only In America" Off the Grid.  From 5–9 p.m., 11 vendors (including Taco Guys, who make the fish tacos I compare every other fish taco to, The Chairman, 3 Sum Eats, etc etc) will be there making America-inspired dishes. We totally procrastinated when making plans, so I'm glad something worked out.

Also, calls to a few of the local bars (ACME, Missouri Lounge, Jupiter) revealed that most Berkeley drinking institutions are open for the holiday. Food, drinks, and fireworks over the Berkeley marina. BAM I just planned your holiday for you.

If you're looking for some style inspiration, you can hop over to my style intern's blog for the perfect Fourth of July outfit. And if you're mixing up cocktails at home, Walnut Creek Yacht Club's Jay Crabb shared a few recipes for making a festive but not cloyingly sweet libation.

As for prepping for the Fourth? For me it's all about this baby:

photo from Smitten Kitchen

I picked up a three pack of berries from the local farmers market last Saturday, solely with the intention of making this Triple Berry Summer Buttermilk Bundt from Smitten Kitchen. Unfortunately, I've been eating through all my berries, so it may be a berry-sparse cake. Which is probably good, because I generally disapprove of fruit in my dessert.

If you're feeling especially patriotic and really want to carry that feeling past the Fourth of July, you could always pick up a cheeseboard in the shape of your state, or a chalkboard map of the country. I have the map hanging by my entryway, and I am in love with it. I want to color in all of the states.

photo from A Cup of Jo

photo from Etsy

and if you're feeling really predictably, you can just wear stripes and some sort of red, white, and blue and call it a day. I wouldn't be mad at this number, from the Karen Walker collab with Anthropologie.

photo from Refinery29, via Karen Walker

Yep, wouldn't be too mad at that one at all....Instead I'll just don a tired sailor-striped tee I've had since the dawn of time, slap on some red lipstick, and call it a day. You can't win 'em all.

Tough Mudder Tuesday: Sports Bras

Sorry I've skipped a few weeks. I'll try and back post a few so I can look consistent :)

not reassuring.

Training Update

Tough Mudder training has been going surprisingly well, ever since I kicked up my workouts since turning 25. I generally run around the reservoir a few times a week (sometimes more easily than others), aim to box twice a week, and I've recently introduced the actual Tough Mudder bootcamp into my training. I started with "Mudderling," figuring I'd start easy since the cut-off point is the ability to run three miles easily, and while I can do it, it ain't always easy.

Mudderling workout, at a glance, doesn't look too bad, but once you're in it, it feels truly terrible. I haven't experienced two such tortuously long minutes since the last minutes of my shifts at Coldstone when I was 15. Almost anyone can do jumping jacks, burpees, and ladder climbs, but two minutes will feel like five. LIKE FIFTY.

That being said, I can generally get through most of the circuit, albeit some parts more slowly, but I still have to drop to my knees after a few pushups, my ski jumps are the slowest lowest ski jumps in history, high knees for two minutes feels particularly hard after a minute of leap frogs, and I still can't do a pull up, so I fake it with a chair so one leg can help my arms out. Oh, and I figured out you can't grapevine on the treadmill. On that note, it's best to do the workout when no one's around, unless you're like my boyfriend and even running in a gas mask that makes you look like Bane doesn't faze you. Then go right ahead. I do them in my apartment gym, and with the exception of a jump rope, I have everything I need to complete it.

Sports Bras for Training

On to the note of sports bras, and only because I got into this conversation with a DD at boxing a week or so ago. The best sports bras I have ever found for keeping your boobs in check (I'm a D, for reference) are these C9 by Champion reversible sports bras I bought forever ago, which I havent been able to find since, most likely because no one takes off their sports bra and goes "oh yes, I will wear this tomorrow, but just flip it inside out." I don't know if it's the extra fabric or what, but these got me through dance practice (yes, they're that old), soccer, and now get me through running and boxing. The looked similar to these, which I have yet to try since I'm so attached to my old ones. I have tried other allegedly "high support" ones from Champion and have been unimpressed, although they tend to work well for light jogs...just not the bouncing of boxing.

Another model I've had good luck with is the Ta Ta Tamer from Lululemon. It has the most special ed name, so much so that I feel ridiculous when I recommend it to other people, but it keeps your boobs looking like two separate entities, and I haven't had any problems with the straps sliding off. It does have hooks, which can be slightly uncomfortable on the spine if you're doing ab work. Another minor thing I haven't been crazy about is the underboob band (technical name unknown). Sometimes when I'm running my rib cage feels really constricted. Maybe that's just user error and I should up the band size, but it feels too loose starting out with it hooked one wider.

One final note about the Tamer: It retails, like all of Lululemon's clothing, at a ridiculous price ($60), so buy one you REALLY love the color of, and don't throw it in the dryer. Actually, don't throw any of your nice workout gear in the dryer, which i just learned, and which makes washing your gym clothes a huge pain in the ass because you have to find spare doors to hang your wet pants, bras, and tops from.

Any suggestions for reasonably priced sports bras I should test drive?

Turning 25

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what it was, but my 25th birthday was one of my best. That's not to say the ones before it were awful, but this year, everything came together. My work (which I love, and am so happy to be a part of) surprised me with a decorated cube on my return from lunch.

I came home to a crepe paper bomb from Dom. He did an amazing job choosing prints for my walls, and getting the complete works of sherlock holmes, in a fancy schmany binding (among other things). But what really made this year one of the best birthday's I've logged was all of my favorite people being in one place on one night. I was so happy to get my SF friends out to the East Bay (for most of them, the first time they've visited me on this side of the bay), my mom and sister were there, my bar friends were there (included my brother from another mother Justin), Dom got the night off...it was ideal. I've never been so giddy. Thank you everyone for making 25 amazing. I wanted to throw a party, settled for a gathering, and had a way better party than I could have every planned.

I generally use any arbitrary occasion to make resolutions, and a 25th birthday feels like as good an occasion as any. It also falls a little more than five months after New Year's, so it's a great check in point. As far as New Year's resolutions go, I got a full-time job (yay!), and I've been cooking and reading more. But now that I've hit a quarter of a century, I'm torn between being a kid and getting serious. And that's fine. Here are my resolutions, whether I fulfill them in the next year or the next quarter century.

1. Visit new states. Dom go me an amazing hanging chalkboard map (pictured here), and the list maker in me wants to cross everything off immediately. Kentucky (where my Dad was from) is high on my list, and I'd love to visit Chicago, Boston, or Austin. But I also want to go back to New Orleans and Seattle, and explore New York more. Decisions! 

2. Pay off my debt. It's ridiculous I have debt, and I need to start being an adult about things. I learned how to figure out when I'd pay off all of my debt based on how much I wanted to pay each month, and it's looking like February of next year. Which is great! Not using my credit card isn't.

3. Read more. I need to stop passing out in front of the TV.

4. Do a pull-up. This one is totally doable! Mainly because I want to rock the crap out of Tough Mudder. I could also throw run a 10K in there.

5. Listen better. I can't count how many times I've introduced myself to someone and not even registered their name as I was shaking hands. It's awful. This year, I've made a conscious effort to try to actively listen and not think about the next thing I'm going to say, and it's still a struggle. I'm just going to blame it on the fact that I'm in my headspace so much.

6. Stop talking so much shit. This one's going to be hard, and it's seldom mean-spirited, but so much of my humor is based on hating people. And true, these people generally deserve it (those people who creep up on you in the car waiting for you to get into your car so they can get your parking spot, obnoxious drunks..mainly because, as a silent half-lidded creeper, i don't understand where their energy comes from, etc).

And that's it! That seems reasonable....right? Big thanks to everyone who came out on my birthday. I've celebrated most of yours with you, and I hope I can keep doing it! Don't move?

Tough Mudder Tuesday: Running Playlists

I'm uber particular about the type of music I listen to when I'm running. I need something with insane BPM, and if it was emo angsty music I listened to in high school, even better. If it somehow relates to someone who treated me terribly when we dated/hooked up/I was hoping we were dating but they would talk about other girls in front of me all the time, THE BEST (I didn't make good choices in college).

That being said, I also get bored extremely easily, and I'm tired of most of the music I pound the pavement to.  Please feel free to share suggestions in the comments, and, in the mean time, these are a few of my running go-tos. As I mentioned, most of these songs are terrible.

My running playlist:

• 30 Seconds to Mars: This is War 
• AFI: Carcinogen Crush
• Acceptance: Over You
• Fefe Dobson: Watch Me Move
• Fiona Apple: Fast as You Can
• Foo Fighters: Best of You
• Gnarls Barkley: Gone Daddy Gone
• Head Automatica: At the Speed of a Yellow Bullet
• Jimmy Eat World: Let it Happen
• Kelly Clarkson: Since U Been Gone (truly awful!)
• Linkin Park: Bleed It Out
• Lola Ray: Automatic Girl
• Motion City Soundtrack: Everything is Alright
• Sugarcult: Pretty Girl (The Way)
• The Walkmen: The Rat
• We Are Scientists: It's A Hit
• White Rabbits: The Plot
• anything by Girl Talk. I used to run to the whole album.

As for training status, I took a week off last week since I had so much going on with my birthday, but the runs around the Reservoir have boosted my stamina, and I'm up to doing three miles of intervals. Trying to add a mile on each week, and alternate cardio with weights days. I'd like to get up to eight miles before the race, but I'll settle for five if I can run it through hills. Still can't do a pull up, but my biceps are looking mildly impressive.

In terms of nutrition, I had tiramisu for lunch so....there's that. I'm this thing called "poor" this month with vacations and weddings. I've got some kale and apples chillin in my fridge I'll make into something substantial tomorrow. Eventually I'll get a post up with some of my favorite healthy recipes.

Related musings:

• Watch American Ninja Warrior. It will make you want to do really bad ass things. It will also make you feel less bad (if you're a woman) about having no upper body strength, because most women don't even get past the first obstacle, which involves leaping. Or it will make you feel really bad?
• I really liked watching Roni's video over at Roni's Weigh, because the entire course looked less daunting, and I was feeling really overwhelmed after looking at the obstacles again. Check it out here. She also has a rundown on her training plan.

Tough Mudder Tuesday: Running the Lafayette Reservoir

I am not a runner. I'm envious of people who can say that they are. That they get "in the zone." That those six, or 10, or 15 miles just fly by. I usually spend the first mile waiting for it to not feel terrible, and then the next two hoping it's over. And yes, I max out around 3-4 miles, and I'm supposed to run around 11 for Tough Mudder.

If you're like me, and hate running, and feel like you're dying...try the Lafayette Reservoir. It's not nearly as pretty as running the trail around the lagoon at UCSB (but let's get real, what is?), but it's a nice semi-challening three-mile trail. You'll get some gradual hills which will require you to furiously pump your arms to get up them, and plenty of downhills to catch your wind again. I wrote wine and that sounded way more motivational. Go early so you don't hate yourself in the heat.

They also rent out paddleboards there! So much fun!

Monterey Suggestions

Hi everyone. I'm headed to Monterey in less than a month (for a press trip, yay!) and would LOVE suggestions for can't miss things. Keep in mind I'm just there for a weekend, and I'm also doing research for two articles. BUT I haven't been since I was a kid. I hear good things about the jellies. And I'm forcing Dom to get into the ocean on a kayak. Anyone eat at Restaurant 1833? Since I know most of you outside the blog, feel free to text, facebook message me etc.

Oh, and it will be my birthday! Weeee 25!! (IT'S TERRIFYING)