working out for Disney

[Sans Souci]

Hello-

Checking in with an upper body workout.

Winter returned overnight. Boo. It was crazy windy overnight. It kept waking me up. Once I was awake, I started worrying about *everything*. They announced the Cherry Blossom peak this morning and I kind of want to go. I got to go last year, but that was because my husband had to work in Washington that week. I need to look at hotels, but I am betting it is beaucoup bucks. It was such a fantastic sight, though. I'd love to see it again.

 

[Sans Souci]

ASU is usually in the top 10 party schools in the country. One relative went there and he had a wild time but he only lasted one year.

It is, indeed. If you are looking for one, you won't have to go far to find one. It seemed to attract a lot of well-off kids from So Cal who liked to party with cocaine. I would watch them and think, "Did you not get the memo that this stuff is insanely addictive?"

 

[HouCuseChickie]

When is the Prom? Is her dress a one-off or is the tailor fitting a purchased dress? It sounds like Kendall has a great plan either way-date or not.

It's good news she's feeling a little bit better. An opportunity to study abroad is amazing, but the timing seems less than ideal.

Prom is April 20th. It's a purchased dress that the tailor is hemming as well as adding a bustle for the train. It was a long process narrowing down the thousands of options. Round 1 of shopping was also a disaster. After finding a better store, she had a total "Say Yes to the Dress" moment...happy tears and all. She wanted something that hit a number of this year's trends, but also didn't look like everything she's been seeing on social media. She's pairing it with black patent leather platform sandals with a 4.5" block heel.



My heard broke watching Sam go down the stairs this morning. She has to do this sort of stilted and straddled straight leg movement descending the stairs because of the pain.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

I'm not surprised that a tour of the pools wouldn't be included. College kids drinking poolside and whatever happens in the pool area is not for interested applicants.

What's funny...they claim it's a dry campus. I will say that the bulk of the campus and surrounding area looked pretty dead when we drove through on Friday night. We saw a question-and-answer session from an honors college student before our trip and she said the same. All of the activity we saw was in the adjacent neighborhood off campus...surely student rental houses. Even the Greek houses are a university owned dorm building, which was a ghost town.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

ASU is usually in the top 10 party schools in the country. One relative went there and he had a wild time but he only lasted one year.

The lists vary from year to year and source to source. These are the two newest ones I can find.
https://sports.yahoo.com/top-25-party-schools-u-140042347.html

2024 Top Party Schools in America

Explore the Top 100 Party Schools in America.

www.niche.com

People often look to the academic difficulty when they look at graduation stats, but it's usually the partying element that causes people to fail out. I was really sad that a good high school friend of mine that would have been a year ahead of me failed out of SU after his freshman year. I had several friends and sorority sisters that were pulled out of SU by their parents and forced to do a couple of semesters at a local school to try and get their partying and academics balance in check.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Thanks for explaining this to me. I didn't know they had catchers sitting on buckets in the bullpen. It seems irresponsible to make someone squat for a long time. My knees hurt thinking about it and I can only imagine the burning in the legs from restricted blood flow. I can understand wanting to "toughen" players up a little bit, but having someone in a squat for a long time is too much, especially when the standard practice is letting them sit on a bucket. Personally, I'd spin out the injury as I could so she doesn't return only to get injured again. This is just my opinion, obviously you and Sam know what is best for her and her future.

Her travel coaches practice and play them really hard, so we're used to wear and tear from being pushed to the limits. This just went past what is acceptable and safe. I suspect it's because they're young and know that their job isn't secure since they don't have a proven track record. Still, the students shouldn't have to suffer. As for Sam, she'll have to ease back in regardless, but the way we left the meeting last week...

1. No more grooming her to be a catcher. That ship has sailed.
2. She will only catch bullpens if she's given a bucket.
3. Work on developing her in her preferred positions.

Hopefully, we won't have to have any more meetings.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

When I went, enrollment was 45K. 65K -112K is just excessive. FWIW. I found it very hard to study and I was not crazy about walking from library alone at night. I ended up moving to an off campus apartment complex that I selected because it had adults with real jobs and young families living there. It was quiet. I could sleep at night without someone shouting in the hall or having some idiot pulling the fire alarm at 2 AM during Reading Week. I could study at night without having to leave. I realized I was spending so much money trying to force a square peg into a round hole, I just called it a day when my lease was up.

To be honest, even 45K sounds high. The school K has selected has an undergrad population around 21K, which feels much more reasonable for a large school. The whole square peg/round hole concept is also something we've discussed. She met a number of students at the school she's selected and she felt like she fit in. While she's a real stickler for getting her work done and having things done in advance, K is very social and prefers a study environment with some noise. So, I think she should be OK in the dorms. If she had gone to ASU, she would have been in the honors college, which has its own dorms with special quiet regulations. They also now cluster students by degree to ensure you have built in study buddies. Still, the reputation of the school made us wonder if this all sounded too good to be true. Your dorm experience with the fire alarms sounds a lot like my freshman year. During finals, it was pulled as often as 4x in one night. Most weeks, it went off at least 3x... usually somewhere between 2-4am. It was awful because it was always hot inside (dorms were often in the 80s- meaning shorts and tees inside) and cold/snowing outside (below zero with lake effect snow). I was on the 4th floor of a 12-story tower that was connected via the lobby to another 8-story tower. So, it was also a ton of kids having to evacuate the building. Two of the alarms were legitimate fires. 1. A guy set our floor lounge on fire because the girl diagonally across the hall from me wanted nothing to do with him. 2. The guys up on the 9th floor blew up a couple of toilets with M-80s. Thankfully, my sophomore year dorm never had this issue. We had a couple of fire drills and one legitimate fire from a girl's curling iron.

 

[Lilofan]

It is, indeed. If you are looking for one, you won't have to go far to find one. It seemed to attract a lot of well-off kids from So Cal who liked to party with cocaine. I would watch them and think, "Did you not get the memo that this stuff is insanely addictive?"

I’ve seen lives destroyed because of it.

 

[Sans Souci]

Prom is April 20th. It's a purchased dress that the tailor is hemming as well as adding a bustle for the train. It was a long process narrowing down the thousands of options. Round 1 of shopping was also a disaster. After finding a better store, she had a total "Say Yes to the Dress" moment...happy tears and all. She wanted something that hit a number of this year's trends, but also didn't look like everything she's been seeing on social media. She's pairing it with black patent leather platform sandals with a 4.5" block heel.

View attachment 770751View attachment 770752View attachment 770754

My heard broke watching Sam go down the stairs this morning. She has to do this sort of stilted and straddled straight leg movement descending the stairs because of the pain.

This is such a beautiful dress, I love the jewel tones. It reminds me of stained glass with the black appliqué around the sequined flowers and leaves. It's a far cry from my Jessica McClintock/Gunne Saxe dresses! I think the girls have better choices today. I still have my prom dresses (I don't even know why)and they look so juvenile compared to modern prom dresses.

I am sorry about Sam. That's awful. Hopefully, she can take something for the pain, because I can imagine it's hard to pay attention in class when you're in that much pain.

 

[Figgy1]

Hello-

Checking in with an upper body workout.

Winter returned overnight. Boo. It was crazy windy overnight. It kept waking me up. Once I was awake, I started worrying about *everything*. They announced the Cherry Blossom peak this morning and I kind of want to go. I got to go last year, but that was because my husband had to work in Washington that week. I need to look at hotels, but I am betting it is beaucoup bucks. It was such a fantastic sight, though. I'd love to see it again.

Branchbrook is just a short drive from JC and is better for blossoms https://branchbrookpark.org/cherryblossoms.html
Festivities start the 1st of April I believe

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Prom is April 20th. It's a purchased dress that the tailor is hemming as well as adding a bustle for the train. It was a long process narrowing down the thousands of options. Round 1 of shopping was also a disaster. After finding a better store, she had a total "Say Yes to the Dress" moment...happy tears and all. She wanted something that hit a number of this year's trends, but also didn't look like everything she's been seeing on social media. She's pairing it with black patent leather platform sandals with a 4.5" block heel.

View attachment 770751View attachment 770752View attachment 770754

My heard broke watching Sam go down the stairs this morning. She has to do this sort of stilted and straddled straight leg movement descending the stairs because of the pain.

The dress is pretty. So sorry that Sam is in so much pain. I hope she heals up soon and doesn't have any lasting impact of the injury?

 

[Sans Souci]

Good morning.

Checking in with a jump rope and full body strength training routine.

I was looking around for hotel deals for cherry blossom peak and was getting ridiculously high rates. My husband ended up booking a single night at the hotel we like to stay at when we go. (My husband wants the Bon Voy points.) I remembered that Costco Travel does hotel only bookings. I looked up the dates and, while it is not the hotel we usually stay at, 2 nights were cheaper than 1 the one we had booked. It's a nice hotel, too. It's not a Marriott, so no points for my husband. But this was a really good deal. I also looked at the vacation package we have booked for Sept and the price came down a lot and there was a $100/night resort credit, so I rebooked.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

This is such a beautiful dress, I love the jewel tones. It reminds me of stained glass with the black appliqué around the sequined flowers and leaves. It's a far cry from my Jessica McClintock/Gunne Saxe dresses! I think the girls have better choices today. I still have my prom dresses (I don't even know why)and they look so juvenile compared to modern prom dresses.

I am sorry about Sam. That's awful. Hopefully, she can take something for the pain, because I can imagine it's hard to pay attention in class when you're in that much pain.

Yes! We also got a stained glass vibe from it as well. This was one of her wish list dresses. It's nearly impossible to find all of these dresses in person and it's hard to justify ordering something blind for this kind of money, so we were thrilled that it was one of several on her list that we found in this second store. I remember all of the Jessica McClintock/Gunne Saxe dresses. While I did have some friends that went that route and they looked very pretty, much of our school gravitated towards all of the heavily sequined dresses with the pouffy accents and tiered skirts. I also still have mine...somewhere. The dresses now definitely feel more mature, but we tried to find something that was still tasteful. K is also pretty short, so that slit falls about 4-5" lower on her leg...which is fine by both of us. She tried on a few with A-Line/Ball Gown skirts that would have been gorgeous in pictures, but they were just too much skirt. She had a hard enough time getting out of the dressing room. I couldn't imagine her trying to get in and out of a car.

Thanks. I am waiting to hear how she feels today. She came home yesterday in more pain than she'd experienced earlier in the week. I'm not sure if she overdid it trying to ease back into little things or if the school trainers are to blame. She also may be wearing the compression for too long. Today, she did her PT at home and is reducing the compression.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

The dress is pretty. So sorry that Sam is in so much pain. I hope she heals up soon and doesn't have any lasting impact of the injury?

Thank you! We hope for the same.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

I was looking around for hotel deals for cherry blossom peak and was getting ridiculously high rates. My husband ended up booking a single night at the hotel we like to stay at when we go. (My husband wants the Bon Voy points.) I remembered that Costco Travel does hotel only bookings. I looked up the dates and, while it is not the hotel we usually stay at, 2 nights were cheaper than 1 the one we had booked. It's a nice hotel, too. It's not a Marriott, so no points for my husband. But this was a really good deal. I also looked at the vacation package we have booked for Sept and the price came down a lot and there was a $100/night resort credit, so I rebooked.

I love a good travel deal! Even better when what you previously booked is now cheaper!

 

[Sans Souci]

Branchbrook is just a short drive from JC and is better for blossoms https://branchbrookpark.org/cherryblossoms.html
Festivities start the 1st of April I believe

This looks beautiful. I'd like to go here some time. I'm going to tell my husband about this place.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Checking in- It's always hard for me to get back on track after life forces me to take a little break. I think I'm doing well so far. Yesterday was day 3 of being back at it after our Arizona travel and the initial issues with Sam (nearly a week off). While Wednesday wasn't my strongest effort (possibly because I'd gone into the office and was worn out from the driving and the extra walking), yesterday was like a 50-minute sprint. I biked for the same amount of time yesterday compared to Wednesday but went an entire mile farther.

I'm getting the urge to change it up and go for a walk, but the pollen is starting to get pretty bad and there have been some recent crime issues on our green belts which have me nervous. I don't think yesterday's armed violent robbery has anything to do with the tent communities starting to pop up in the heavily wooded areas, but I recently had to call the police on someone tied to one of those tent towns. I try to be empathetic, but it's tough when a strange and extremely disheveled person comes running through your yard screaming and cursing at some dogs. Kendall had just left to go on a walk and she came running home crying because he scared her. One of his dogs tried getting past our gate, which caused the man to run towards me. At first, I was more worried that the dogs were going to get in and bite us or Voo. As the guy got closer, I noticed that he was armed. The gun was in his holster the entire time, but scary man screaming and running right towards me isn't cool. I called the police, but I doubt they ever found him. Soooooooooo, I think I'm going to stick to indoor exercising.

 

[Figgy1]

This looks beautiful. I'd like to go here some time. I'm going to tell my husband about this place.

YW and they are beautiful and less crowded than DC. I'd get there early to get a good FREE parking space, all the parking is free but the good spaces do tend to go quickly

 

[Sans Souci]

Checking in- It's always hard for me to get back on track after life forces me to take a little break. I think I'm doing well so far. Yesterday was day 3 of being back at it after our Arizona travel and the initial issues with Sam (nearly a week off). While Wednesday wasn't my strongest effort (possibly because I'd gone into the office and was worn out from the driving and the extra walking), yesterday was like a 50-minute sprint. I biked for the same amount of time yesterday compared to Wednesday but went an entire mile farther.

I'm getting the urge to change it up and go for a walk, but the pollen is starting to get pretty bad and there have been some recent crime issues on our green belts which have me nervous. I don't think yesterday's armed violent robbery has anything to do with the tent communities starting to pop up in the heavily wooded areas, but I recently had to call the police on someone tied to one of those tent towns. I try to be empathetic, but it's tough when a strange and extremely disheveled person comes running through your yard screaming and cursing at some dogs. Kendall had just left to go on a walk and she came running home crying because he scared her. One of his dogs tried getting past our gate, which caused the man to run towards me. At first, I was more worried that the dogs were going to get in and bite us or Voo. As the guy got closer, I noticed that he was armed. The gun was in his holster the entire time, but scary man screaming and running right towards me isn't cool. I called the police, but I doubt they ever found him. Soooooooooo, I think I'm going to stick to indoor exercising.

I am sorry that happened to you guys. That sounds so scary. My stomach tensed up reading this. It's one thing to have disheveled man shouting obscenities at you (still scary), but this guy was strapped. No, ma'am. Not today. I'd call the cops, too. Hopefully, they will increase their presence. I don't blame you for working out indoors. I know he has a gun on him, but he might walk into the wrong yard and be 'subdued'. He sounds like he might be mentally ill, that is worrying that he is carrying. Be safe.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

I am sorry that happened to you guys. That sounds so scary. My stomach tensed up reading this. It's one thing to have disheveled man shouting obscenities at you (still scary), but this guy was strapped. No, ma'am. Not today. I'd call the cops, too. Hopefully, they will increase their presence. I don't blame you for working out indoors. I know he has a gun on him, but he might walk into the wrong yard and be 'subdued'. He sounds like he might be mentally ill, that is worrying that he is carrying. Be safe.

He had a pretty distinctive look that I won’t soon forget. It’s quite possible he was mentally ill. The police said I gave a pretty detailed description and he didn’t sound like anyone on their radar. They said they’d check to see if he was legally carrying if he turned up. In any event, I kept the workout indoors. It’s best for now.