Finally!

So if you know anything about my life you know that since moving to Washington I have been trying to do two things: Volunteer at the Temple and volunteer at a speech clinic.

I have been contacting people about this for months, literally since July. It is now November. Finally I have started volunteering.

Yesterday was my first day at Evergreen Speech and Hearing clinic. I mostly did office stuff which is fine. You have to pay your dues before you get to do the cool stuff. Talking with the manager lady though I do think that soon I'll be able to at least sit in on some sessions and maybe eventually help out. But really I wouldn't mind learning all of the office stuff, it's useful to know how to the insurance stuff especially if I want to have my own little speech business.

Today will be my first training for helping at the Temple child center. I'll let you know how it goes afterward.

Well I just wanted to let you all know that I actually started my volunteer work and so far it's awesome.

The secret to yogging

First of all watch this clip

(What language are the subtitles?)

I have learned the secret to jogging .... Dramatic Pause ......

WALKING!!!!!

I have recently found that if I walk for about a mile and a half first I can jog for over half a mile. If I try to jog first thing I can't sustain it, get really tired and generally shorten my workout because I'm exhausted. But if I walk for first, a fast walk, while I read then I can jog for longer, I don't get as tired and I extend my session with a long cool down. In all I walk/jog about 2.5 to 3 miles a workout.

Seriously you have to try it.

Halloween!

This is technically a pre-Halloween post since Halloween is actually tomorrow but I'm really excited about my costume that my totally amazing, super awesome, wonderful beautiful sister pretty much made for me.  

Can you tell who I am?



I'll post more pictures and Aaron's costume after tomorrow.

It's real!

In school they always taught us about Autumn but I never really understood. The leaves were supposed to turn colors and the weather was supposed to get colder. Well none of those things ever really happened in AZ. But guess what? It's real!!! Check out these really beautiful pictures Aaron took.

Notice what is on my feet? Those are boots, you wear them when it's cold outside.

Mwaahahahaha!!!!!

I've been working on my maniacal laughter ever since I saw Alec Baldwin in The Shadow. You have to watch to understand.

Also I decorated my apartment for Halloween! It was surprisingly more difficult than I expected. I didn't want to spend a lot of money and it had to be simple, since that is my favorite style. Alright I did spend a fair amount on some of the thing I bought but since the most expensive piece was 12 bucks I think I'm doing alright. I scoured the interwebs to find stuff I liked that I could copy, (one  of the Castillo family motto's is "we can do it cheaper") and found these cheese cloth spider webs.

1. Cut cheese cloth to the right length

 2. Cut vertical strips in it, varying heights and widths

 3. Use your fingers to rip holes in it. Stretch out the top and rub the ends to make them stringy

And voila! Reusable elegant spider webs that aren't a mess!

Another cool thing that I adapted from that same site: black paper cut outs.

1. You need black paper (I used card stock because Joann's makes me nervous and I couldn't find construction paper), a white crayon or pencil, scissors and a template.

2. Cut shapes out. Use double sided tape to stick to wall, mirrors and picture frames.

I am kind of proud of my mantle set up. I want to put something cooler in the glass jar. Suggestions?

yes the tags are still on :)

Now our place is all spooky but still cool and I did most of it myself!

Sunny rain?

So the other day it was raining and sunny at the same time. I've seen that in Phoenix but didn't expect it here. Here are some cool (to me at least) pictures I took.  

Afterward Aaron showed me that I could speed up the shutter speed to catch the actual drops. Next time.

Trapeze Class

Here are the videos from my second and Elena's third trapeze class.

Here is Elena's Split Catch

And here is my Heels Off catch.

And here is me preparing to do the whip trick (no catch).