Fitness Friday-Yoga

                    The summer before eighth grade we begged our friend from camp whose mom was a yoga instructor to lead us in a set. She showed us sun salute and ever since I've been hooked. Although finding time for yoga is hard I've found that even a few moves a day relaxes me. I love how calming it is and how much breathing plays a part. A lot of times in life we forget the importance of a deep relaxing breath. It also kicks your but and stretches you to the limit :) Another thing I love about yoga is that there are so many different moves which you can choose from to make a set specifically for you. My personal favorites and childs pose, pigeon, downward dog, tree, and warrior one. 

                   Yoga originated in ancient India and is found in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. In the west yoga caught on in the 19th century and the most popular yoga practiced in the west is Vinyasa yoga, consisting of fluid moves from poses to pose. There are many other types of yoga. Bikram "hot" yoga, which became very popular a couple years ago, Lyengar, which is good for physical therapy, and Hatha yoga, to name a few. All             Yoga is awesome in my professional opinion and theres a type out there for everyone.                                      

How many of you practice yoga? Do you do it privately or in classes?What's your favorite style?

Movie Star Monday- Fred Astaire

First of all can I just say, this guys rocks. For all of you who haven't  yet had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Astaire dance, sing or act, I suggest you rent a movie of his right away. He starred in tons of musicals in the 1930's and '40's He was partners with Ginger Rogers in many movies and I've got to say they worked phenomenally together. I loved him in Top Hat, Roberta, Shall We Dance, and Holiday Inn. 

He made an astonishing total of 31 movies during his lifetime. He truly is one of the best tap dancers ever to have performed and his singing was awesome too. The movies he made are the kind that make you happy, I especially love watching Holiday Inn around Christmas, so seriously, watch one of his movies and make yourself happier for a couple hours.

Friendship Bracelets

              Friendship bracelets have long been a part of the sleep-away camp fashion scene and I don't pretend to have been cool enough to discover them before I went to camp. Prior to this Summer however I only knew one pattern, the classic knotted one, I think it's called candy stripe or something. It makes an easy to learn and master bracelet where you can also choose your width. I find it very therapeutic to do these as its very repetitive and after a while you can stop thinking about it. 

              This Summer I was training to be a counselor and grew super envious of all the girls' awesome friendship bracelets so i decided to get back into the habit. I enlisted the help of my artsiest friends and got to work. The easiest step to learn after candy stripe is the V, or I call it the arrow, it's the one that goes back and forth. You do the same knot as the candy stripe except that after you finish doing your first row of all the colors, you go the opposite direction and so forth, it looks awesome and its almost as easy as candy stripe. 
              My friend Jake was really good at the hair wrap type of bracelets and he made me a few but I never came close to mastering it. The closest step I could do was the Chinese staircase, which is actually for lanyard but works just as well with embroidery thread. A girl in the last group I worked with was working on a GIANT arrows head, the one that looks like a V. She was doing 10 colors-which translated to 20 strings and I bracelet that was about 3 inches thick. I asked her how to do it and it turns out it was also pretty easy, just time consuming. I started with only four colors and started working inwards. 

               The funny thing about my new love for friendship bracelets is that I used to have a lot of embroidery threads, until I threw them all out a year ago because I never used them. Sucks to suck I guess. 
               Friendship bracelets were almost a status symbol, as if the number of bracelets you had on correlated to the number of friends you had. Every September you would come back to school and check out the amount of bracelets on and how difficult they looked.  In reality, most of the friendship bracelets I wore were the ones I made, except for three my friends made. 
What about you? Did you make bracelets for yourself or were you nice and gae them to your friends?

Fitness Friday - Zumba

            I've been doing Zumba on and off for about a year and a half, and I LOVE it. The first time I went it kicked my butt. It was way harder than I ever imagined and I dance all the time. I was honest to God dripping sweat by the time class was done, and I was sore for a full day. For those of you who don't know Zumba is a type of dancer-cise with repetitive steps that combine hip hop and latin dances. Its hard to follow the steps sometimes but the point of Zumba is to keep moving. What I love about the class I take on Tuesdays is that it's so varied, there's a range of ages, although I'm the youngest, and a range of skill levels. What's awesome is that most of the time you're gonna look like an idiot, and that's awesome. 

                           The image below is what you think you'll probably look like. 

I'm not gonna spoil the illusion, keep believing you're that cool.

Mah Nails This Week

I do my nails every week and most weeks that ends up happening on Fridays, which means that by the time the week comes around and anyone gets to see them my nails are slightly subpar. I've decided that's such a waste, especially with you guys out there. I'm sure you're dying to see my pics, alas, they're not the best pictures (my camera is still waiting to be charged), so you'll have to make do with the pics from Photo Booth.

     Note the friendship bracelet :)
                            I did the middle part using tape once the green coat was dry and free-handed the furthest.

My Obsessions

Obsessions posts will happen about once a month to update you on what I'm currently loving. I may post more about specific obsessions but I may not, we'll see.

• Scrubs
• Tea 
• Peanut butter cookies
• Friendship bracelets
• The colder weather
• Ed Sheeran
• Wedge Sneakers
• Fur vests
• Spring florals (yeah I know its not Spring)
• My weekly pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks 
• Amy Winehouse

P.S. If you were in the city today, HOW AWESOME WAS THE RAIN!!!!!!!

Movie Star Monday: Mila Kunis

This is the first installment of movie star Monday, featuring movie stars I admire greatly admire. Lets start with one of my girl crushes; Mila Kunis.

Her first recurring role was in That 70's Show playing Jackie Burkhart. I loved that show and loved her on it. Since the days of Gaucho pants and vests both her career and style have leaped to superstar level. Between the eyes and the hair, she's gorgeous and she doesn't let that force her into complacency style-wise. Her dresses enhance her figure without being overtly sexy and they're fun. She showed off her comedy chops in Ted and proved herself a great dramatic actress in the wreck of a movie Black Swan. Many people don't know that she's also the voice of Meg Griffin in Family Guy. The first movie I saw her in was Forgetting Sarah Marshall. That movie was hilarious and she played the tired role of "perfect girl" to perfection.


So what's your favorite Mila Kunis Movie?

My Fall List

Fall represents new beginnings, regardless of how many years you've been out of school, it's hard to shake that new year feeling that strikes once September rolls around. For me, the new school year always means new clothes. Everyone's got their list, mine's always informed by those chunky September magazines I get in August. I've been told my way of planning however is unique, and a little more thorough than normal people, so here's the weirdo's way:

First I make a list of all the items I want to buy; neon patterned pants, tweed jackets, and wedge sneakers all made tot the first round this year. Unfortunately these three didn't make it to the second round. The items that don't make it to the second round are generally too high fashion, too hard to find, or too impractical for my life. Once I've edited your list down to a manageable size, I start pre-shopping. Pre-shopping is the smartest way to shop because you see all of your options before spending a penny (which is especially helpful when you don't have cash to burn). For those of you who don't know, pre-shopping is when you scout the items you want to buy from various sites. It's pretty much comparison shopping except that sounds too mom-ish for me. I've included my list below. I'm purchasing most of the items online and only a few in store because I want to try them on.

Tell me what you've got to have this Fall in the comments below.

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