Getting in Shape: The Curling Way

So today I am a little banged and bruised from a very physically intense weekend. My girl's curling team traveled to Seattle, WA for playdowns. We played against the Washington girl's team that also qualified for the National competition. It was quite exciting. Friday, we arrived and got to visit some friends for dinner. I kind of got one of my team mates to come with me and she ended up being dragged into karaoke. I think, we definitely sang out hearts out no matter how many words we couldn't sing. Afterward, we picked up the rest of the teammates from the airport. Seattle by the way, is incredibly cold, especially for me even though it was actually warming up for the moment. I was still trying to get over a cold, and I was taking a whole variety of drugs to get me at least functional for the games. So the next day, we played a game at 9 am and 1 pm. We came back later on for practice at around 7/8. We were pretty sore after that day, and we had another game on Sunday at 8:30. I didn't think we were going to make it, but the Bond Girls overcame. It was a full 10 end game which lasted for about 3 hours of constant walking, sweeping, and throwing. My arms, abs, and legs hurt. Going down stairs is quite challenging. I know that I need to work on getting my upper body and lower body strength up as well as my endurance. I have about a month to really get in shape and train for the Nationals, and I think that by that time I'll be on my way to having some nice looking arms, legs, stomach, and butt...a few months before the wedding. That is, if I can stay away from all the oily and fried stuff.

Floral Designs

So I found a bracelet with half of a protea design on it. I kind of bogarted the design or the parts that I could see and made up the parts that were missing. I think that this complete protea floral motif turned out pretty well. Here it is:



We're going to incorporate this design on the cake and maybe some other things...Not sure what we're going to do yet, but at least we have something to work with. I also want to incorporate the Maile leaf since it is on my ring and it symbolizes so much as well as add a touch of Asian/Filipino with some Bamboo since we have the tinikling...I guess there's a variety of things we can do. I came across this information on the internet:

* Three (3) stalks of Lucky Bamboo:
Bring Fu (Happiness), Lu (Wealth) and Soh (Longevity).

Towers - Better, Promotions, More of the Good Things of Life, Climbing

* Five (5) stalks of Lucky Bamboo:
Represent the 5 different parts of life from which wealth spurs from.

* Six (6) stalks of Lucky Bamboo:
Also sounds like "Luck" in Chinese, bringing prosperity and favorable conditions.

* Seven (7) stalks of Lucky Bamboo:
Good health.

* Eight (8) stalks of Lucky Bamboo:
In the Chinese spoken language sounds like "Fah" which means to grow, thrive.

* Ten (10) stalks of Lucky Bamboo:
Complete and perfect.

* Twenty-one (21) stalks of Lucky Bamboo:
To offer very powerful all purpose blessing.

* Lucky Log
The lucky log keeps sprouting new leaves, which means "strong life". In Taiwan,this is the popular gift item between businesses. The giver of this gift wishes the receipient a strong life with a prosperous business that never stops growing.

On top all of that I have to make parts of it shine or twinkle for it wouldn't be Hollywood without some sort of bling. Maybe add some silvery embellishments or some fake crystals...

Mid-January Progress Report

So I haven't finalized the bridesmaid dresses as of yet, but I did get contact information to talk to a few dressmakers. We confirmed with about 99% of our vendors. We are making headway with the cake. I am extremely excited talking to Kathy from Aloha Cakery about the design. I'll write another blog about that later. I am having one of my cousins, Elaine, try to research some Filipino folk dancers so that we can have a tinikling performance, a Filipino bamboo dance. Here's a website that you can go on to find out more about it: Tinikling

I talked to Paul about it and it's incredibly hard to describe. Basically,2 people hit 2 long bamboo sticks parallelwise together while dancers dangerously dance in between and around them. I thought that this was so cool the first time I saw it when I was little, and I always thought that I would have someone do tinikling at my party. Especially, since it is part of the Filipino culture, and Paul's family and my friends most likely have never seen that before. I am not sure how much it will cost or even if we can find someone to do it. I am going to cross my fingers that Elaine will be able figure this out and make it happen.

Right now, I am in the middle of scanning my photos. There's a lot of great memories, but some memories, I couldn't find photos for. I am hoping that some Cousin or Auntie will produce a copy of a photograph of something I haven't seen in years. I also found photos of people I love and grew up with who are no longer with us, and I couldn't help but miss them. So a lot of planning and finalizing is underway. I really have to get cracking with my floral ideas...That will be the goal for next week.

Mamma Mia!

I finally got to watch "Mamma Mia," and I hate to say it, but I really enjoyed it. There were cheesy moments of course, but the music was fun, and the characters were funny. Not all of the singing was great, but at least a lot of the visuals of the movie were beautiful. It is definitely hard to make Greece ugly. I honestly didn't know what the movie was going to be about. I only knew it was a musical with ABBA songs. But I'm watching these people prepare for a wedding, and the Mom's name just happens to be Donna. I was just shocked and amused because Meryl Streep is so kookie. So I thought this was a sign. This was going to be it. I will find our wedding song here. I watched the entire film with that in mind. I even replayed some of the musical selections over again after I was done, and to my chagrin, I couldn't find it. Some of the songs were fun and great like "Dancing Queen," "Lay All Your Love On Me," and "Take a Chance On Me." But it didn't really represent Paul and me which in my mind is important. No matter, I had fun watching this film, and I was inspired! So the search goes on! Come on song come to me!

Wedding Planning Begins...Again!

It's official. Happy New Year. We are pretty nicely settled in the new house for the time being. There's still a mountain of boxes still hidden in the garage, but those we can take our time sorting out. Now, I can start concentrating on the wedding planning once again. My goal is to finalize every detail by the end of this month. I think I can breathe easier when I find a seamstress for the bridesmaids dresses. I hope to figure this out by the end of next week. That's probably the most pressing thing I have to take care of at the moment. Well, I'll give the play by play as soon as I have some things updated.