Thursday, April 29, 2010

Cleaning Up My Act

I can't believe I am back in America. I have been gone 8 months and it feels as though I never left. But it does feel really good to be home.

Matt and I moved into the cutest little apartment that overlooks the bay in Newport. The water is filled with gorgeous sailboats that are docked in front of each one of the fancy beach homes that line the bay. It's so beautiful. Not to mention Balboa Island is the most adorable place ever lined with quaint little shops and great restaurants. Everything about this place is so warm and inviting, plus there is just something so therapeutic about living by the water. We have been spending our mornings going for walks around the perimeter of the island, looking at all the homes, admiring the gorgeous weather and water, and counting the millions of USC flags hanging proudly from each balcony. BARF!

Unfortunately our vacation time is over and it's time to get back to work. We haven't gotten completely set up in our new digs yet and we are still without cable and internet but we did get our phones hooked up.
I have been reintroduced to 2010 and the concept of internet via a hand held mobile device. I feel so invincible with all this information at my finger tips! I will try to keep my blog updated as much as possible but my once iPhone savvy lifestyle has taken a turn towards a technological incompetence. My fat fingers that moved so nimbly across my phone eight months prior have now quickly slowed to a crawl and my patience for my lack of ability in iPhone typing is wearing thin. Pictures will just have to do.
So I leave you with these....

What a way to start the day!
Until you come across this.




Thursday, April 22, 2010

I Can't Believe It's Over

What a way to end a fabulous season!
This is the second time in Anorthosis history that we have taken a double. Both Championship AND Cup!
I can't believe this season is over. Now that we have come to the end, it feels like it has flown by, unlike a few months back when the idea of me going home seemed to be ages away.





Saturday, April 17, 2010

This Is What My Day Consisted Of...

We started the day off by locking our keys in the apartment. Thank goodness the first story of our apartment complex is only 2 feet taller than Matt and thank goodness that boy loves to climb.
Too bad everything was locked once he pulled himself up onto our balcony.
Once we got our keys, we spent the day at the beach. This is the President of the Cyprus Volleyball Federation's grandson.
Blackmail?
Greatest game ever! We played this at Costa Coffee while sipping our yummy hot cocoa so we could start winding down our day.

Delish! But doesn't compare to the hot chocolate at Fertile Grounds in Berkeley.

This was the first time I ever had one of these Macarons. I didn't even know what they were called until I spent 30 minutes searching for them online once I got home.
I thought they would be crunchy cookie outsides with a simple filling. I definitely did not expect the delectably fabulous soft cookie with rich centers. Such a wonderful surprise and possibly my new favorite treat.

Yeah I know, I need to get out more.

* Images via and via and via




Iceland, You Have Our Attention!

Now please get your volcano under control and hold off from exploding again until Matt, Olive and I are back in the United States safely. I would really like to go home.

*Image via




Wednesday, April 14, 2010

I Am Always So Enlightened When Sitting With Bleach On My Head

Artwork by Beatrice Boyle
This past January I was sitting in Toni and Guy down on Stasikratous Street in Nicosia, I was drinking my green tea, waiting for my foils to be removed, and came across this article. It just made so much sense to me at that time and answered so many questions I had. In a way, it helped me to get to know myself better.

Two days ago, I was sitting in Toni and Guy down on Stasikratous Street in Nicosia in the same seat I sat in this past January. I was drinking my green tea and once again waiting for my foils to be removed. Deja Vu, I came across another article that made so much sense to me. It made me feel more at peace with my problems.

Yes, I am going to type out a majority of the article.

What Price Skinny?
-Avril Mair

"I have lived on meat and orange juice, supplemented by strange little pills dispensed from an expensive Harley Street clinic. I have gorged myself on pure red protein and fat lumps of cheese. I have forced down pounds of raw chopped vegetables and boiled cabbage into a smelly, inedible soup. I have fasted, juiced and more or less starved. I have gone low fat, low carb, low sugar, low everything. I have counted calories, restricted and limited my daily intake, turned healthy behavior into an unhealthy extreme. I have used food as comfort as punishment, as therapy. And, oh God, how I'm bored of it all.
Yet still I find myself here, not fat exactly, nor even overweight. Just not thin. Still, for years I've had an ill-defined discontent with my body, a constant unhappy simmer that's hard to reason. I don't suffer from a disorder, it's not a problem lurking deep at some physiological or psychological level. I wasn't even a chubby child.
It's just that I've always wanted to be thinner. Half a stone, maybe even a stone... Hell, let's make it two. Doesn't everyone secretly think they'd look better like that? Well, don't you?
Unless you were born genetically, blessedly thin, this curiosity about what it would be like to get much thinner is up there with fantasies about being rich. For most women, the chances of fitting into a size-two Phillip Lim is about as likely as being invited to open a Coutts bank account. But still we keep hoping.
And so I go from a voluptuous size 12 to a sinewy size eight, from jutting angles to abundant curves, then back again. And again. On some days, I contemplate the fat content and carb load of everything I put in my mouth. On other days I just consume, mindlessly, unthinkingly, without worrying about where those calories will go. Sometimes I lust helplessly after food; at other times I am a careful, conscientious eater. Despite this schizophrenic behavior, the seductive allure of thinness has not become an all-consuming compulsion. But it is something that I think about a whole lot more than I should.
When I have been at my thinnest, it has been neither accident nor long, slow slog of moderation. At school, I swam and ran and revelled in an athletic prowess that denied the possibility of teenage plumpness. Years later, I left my job and suddenly had time on my hands. Bored and directionless I took up running again and was soon pounding out a marathon on eat London pavements each week. I dropped several sizes within a short month; I was toned and taut and, for the first time since adolescence, properly thin. I went to an all-night party in a sheer Roland Mouret dress and remember coming home in the dawn light, barely wrapped in a borrowed jacket. It looked good; clothes do when you're thin. But, of course, none of this lated. I started working again and my interest in exercise waned. Thin became not-thin.
Although I have had varying degrees of success with increasingly restricted eating, when I've been at my thinnest I have always exercised to extremes. If intensive weight loss involves power and control, a battle with the body, I enjoy turning it against itself. In an S&M sort of way,obviously. The thing is, I'm not really interested in diets. The steady drip-feed of deprivation isn't for me. When it comes to weight loss, I need a short, sharp shock, rather than attrition warfare. As with all my beauty adventures, I want gratification quickly - however much it hurts."

For the past 23 years or for as long as I can remember, I have lived with this ongoing battle with food. I too have gone from gorging my face with every edible matter to merely starving myself. Food was my outlet, my punishment, my comfort, but also my greatest source of depression. I always felt this frustration inside because I could never keep it under control and never put it into words in order to understand...and there I sat in Toni and Guy and had it so perfectly defined on that white piece of paper I held in my hand.

I am not saying that this power struggle between me and food has been conquered, but I definitely feel more at peace with this internal battle and almost as if I took a huge step forward and became a little stronger along with the realization that I AM NORMAL.




Tuesday, April 13, 2010

2010 CHAMPIONS!

CONGRATULATIONS GIRLS!!!
WE DID IT!
WE ARE OFFICIALLY THE 2010 CHAMPIONS OF CYPRUS!

What A Way To End The Season!



I LOVE YOU ALL!

Plus we get a really cool trophy :)




Monday, April 12, 2010

There's No Place Like Home

We finally got our flight schedule!!!!


We leave April 25th at 5:00 am

Arrive in London at 7:55 am

Depart London at 9:55 am

Arrive Los Angeles same day at 12:55 pm


Thank you time difference





Seven Man Louge



This is what I am most excited about for summer.
Never a dull moment.

I miss home so much!
14 MORE DAYS!




Sunday, April 11, 2010

World's Unusual Treehouses- I WANT ONE!



How cool are these treehouses?!?! It's like every adults dream to have one of these in their backyard. It's just sophisticated enough where it doesn't classify you as a child.
I have already decided before we do any kind of remodeling to our home, the first thing that will be done is a treehouse!

*Images via




Saturday, April 10, 2010

Meet My Beautiful Ladies

These are my stunning bridesmaids! I am such a lucky bride to have them in my life.

Camilla Salem rocking our famous Chubaka Boots!
Cassy Salyer

Kari Pestolesi

Bianca Endersby

Kat Reilly

Lindsey Walling

Alli De La Puente

This might help all of you be able to put faces to the names that constantly come up on my blog




Is Anyone Else As Nervous As I Am For My Own Wedding? You Will Be After Seeing These Pictures

We look like such a good looking group of people who are there to celebrate a wedding. Right? Guess again!

That poor little crab was a universal prop throughout the whole entire night.

The Groom and the Best Man.....

Twisted Sister- Snort the salt, Shoot the tequila, and squeeze the lime in your eye.
ARE YOU SERIOUS MEERS?!?!

I don't even know what to say.

Dan chasing the cougars. She was loving it.

Vulture was attacked earlier by an electric razor and wanted to show everyone at the wedding.

Sweaty beast
his excuse to bump into attractive ladies- someone was pulling him by his tie.

He walked into the church with those condoms hanging out of his pocket. This one won't fly with Cindy Beck.

Old man can DANCE!

We should put the buttons on the back of their shirts so they stop unbuttoning them at the most awkward times.

Oh, you two. Lets try to keep that trick in the bag during the next wedding.

Guess we all know why Penn State was ranked the #1 party school this year.
Nice job boys. Hope you're proud.

Anyone now as nervous as I am for my wedding?




Friday, April 9, 2010

Aren't The Boys Going To Look So Dapper?

I really just wanted to use the term dapper
Makes me feel so English....I don't even know if it's an English word.

Anyways, these are the boys' suits! Obviously the ties will be a different color but they just look so darn sharp.
I know all you ladies are excited to see the studs Matt ordered online for his groomsmen.
Just kidding, they are his real friends. But stating this now officially makes Matt responsible for their actions at our wedding.
Andy Proper- Matt's Brother
Paul Spittle- Spittle

Nathan Meerstein- Meers, The Gazelle, The Meers

Andy Kubic- Juice, Pain Train, Sensitive Sally, Crash

Garrett Beck- My darling baby brother commonly known as Uggs (short for ugly. I promise it's a loving relationship)

Dan O'Dell- Boner, DOD

And last but not least, my absolute favorite..
Lucas Walker- Vulture, Blicky, Wolfpack, Bloic, MmmBloic, Tenderfoot Timmy (please note that these were all self proclaimed)

I am just hoping our wedding doesn't result in a pants off party like the last Penn State wedding we went to. It's not like they will be easy to hide in the crowd while doing their ridiculous antics since they range in size from 6'2'' to 6'10''

Yes, this really happened. Classy fellas

*image via