A New Year Wedding Celebration

One of the first important things I did this new year was attend the joyful occasion of my dear friend Joanne's wedding celebration. She and Jose are such an inspirational couple. I love how simultaneously fun and nerdy and cool they are together. Being a part of the celebration felt like falling in love again!

They asked their guests to come in fancy vintage wear, from the decade of our choice. The happy couple looked amazing in their finery ... including Fluevogs, of course. :-) My little family and I did the 1940s, also with Fluevogs (no pic of my husband, alas, but he wore his fanciest Fluevogs, the black Wisdoms).

First dance

My little guy and I hanging out. Yes, those are flamingos on my dress! He's wearing a WWII London evacuee costume (I know, so awkward, but I had to get him period clothes at the last minute). The googly eyes didn't come with the costume; those were from Shirl. :)

The Fluevog ladies after dancing. The bride replaced her Vogs with the most adorable bunny slippers.
My outfit details: Dress: Tatyana via ModCloth | Cardi: LOFT | Shoes: Fluevog Liz

I must add, the music that evening was fantastic. Their DJ did an '80s mix with a few songs from other decades thrown in, and it was consistently good. I was on my feet sweating off the food and wine almost the whole time!

Congratulations to the happy couple. Here's to many more years of joy to come!

xo, Gladys

Happy Snapshots: Summer 2015

I went to Western Europe for the first time this past summer. I went with one of my sisters to London (with brief visits to Bath and Cardiff, Wales), Edinburgh, and Paris. It was a very quick but lovely trip. Here are some photos!

Requisite tourist-y photo with the London Eye in the background (on the Jubilee Bridge)

My younger sister and I got lost while trying to walk to London's West End, and we managed to run into the little cul-de-sac where part of the Philippine Embassy was. Of course we had to take a dorky pic.

I met my friend B at the Tate Modern Museum and afterward we walked across the Millennium Bridge toward St. Paul's Cathedral.

A "street" performance in front of the British National Museum (not an actual street there)

Are you surprised that we made it to Cardiff, Wales, to check out the Doctor Who Experience/Museum? Loved seeing a life-size police box in person.

This was the site of so many great Doctor Who episodes (the Russell Davies years).

This was taken outside the Roman Baths in Bath. The walls activated my trypophobia a bit, but I made sure not to look too closely!

Lovely Fluevogs (Arabella) by the bath

Tea time at the famous Pump Room

More tea, this time in Edinburgh, Scotland

Walking up the Granny Steps towards the Edinburgh Castle

Taking selfies in front Notre Dame just to show we were there. There was no way we were going to wait in those huge lines to get inside. I know. We made really bad tourists.

Posing at one of the many bridges in central Paris. Check out the locks.

Sorry this was basically just a photo dump. I don't have much time to write a longer reflection on the trip, though, to be honest, I probably need to take the time to reflect on it more. I came back from the trip and had to start teaching less than a week later. I was pretty jet-lagged for the first few weeks of the fall semester and I'm not sure that I've quite recovered yet! But it was great to be there. I even saved my sister from getting pick-pocketed/mugged. I want to return with my husband next time.

xo, Gladys

Happy Snapshots: Spring 2015

This past June and July have been a little busier for me than in past years. I was able to meet a writing deadline this week, so I'm feeling pretty happy with myself. Note that I don't expect anything to come out of it; I did submit something for publication (academic), but it's the completion of a writing project that is always a victory for me, even if it's minor.

As I sorta promised, here are some pics from our Colorado vacation. We stayed at a rented guest house on a crazy-beautiful 17-acre place in Durango. This was the yard, you know, where a herd of deer would just hang out and eat the grass and gallop into the forest when they heard a car coming down the long driveway:

Herd of deer

Me on a horse for the first time ever! My companion was named Cielo and he LOOOOOVED to eat. He was big and slow. (Btw, I wish I'd worn a better hat, but I don't have any cowboy hats.)

My little guy (waving) on his horse named Burrito

I love that he's still so cuddly.

It was a nice vacation, although I was scrambling to finish grading during a good chunk of the week. I did finish grading on time, though. And it was a nice place to relax outside of reading student papers.

Here are a couple of other photos from earlier this year. This one with M and E was a selfie taken after we watched the musical play, Pride and Prejudice, at the La Mirada Theatre. It was really well-done and really fun. The three of us went as a birthday celebration for me. What a great ladies' night out!

Do you notice that my front teeth look more prominent? I started wearing Invisalign braces back in February, and with the realignment, you can see that my teeth are wider than they used to look. Yes, I'm finally straightening my teeth in my thirties.

Finally, this photo is of a pair of cool socks that my older sister got for me as a thank-you. They're all titles of banned books. What a super cool way to celebrate such great books!

So you see, I have been taking photos and doing other stuff besides teaching and grading. I wish I had more time for the blog -- it's a good way to practice writing and journaling -- but I hope this will do for now. Have a great rest of the summer!

Gladys

Let's Catch Up

I've successfully completed my first semester teaching multiple classes. I'm sure it wasn't my best work (sorry, guys), and I can understand the reasons some students didn't put the class higher on their lists of priorities (though why they bothered to keep coming to class boggles my mind). However, I'm really proud of the students I was able to reach. Some of them were just wonderful, and I'd be happy to see them again sometime just to chat.

Also, there's nothing like teaching writing to make me realize how much writing means to me. I was asked to teach again this summer, but I had to decline. This summer is for writing (as well as for reading widely in my favorite genres) once again. I have inchoate ideas that need to be harnessed into new, better-articulated projects; and I have one actual writing deadline that I don't want to miss.

Since school let out a couple of weeks ago, I've spent a week in Colorado for vacation and another week recovering from the vacation (isn't that how it always works?). Some highlights of the trip: I rode a horse for the first time (and didn't fall off), I learned a bit about the fascinating history of the ancient Pueblan people (formerly known as the Anasazi), and I found out how scary altitude sickness can be: we were at about 8,000 feet and my son nearly fainted early on during the trip. I honestly thought he was dying, and I was torn between trying to keep up his spirits and breaking down completely. I'd never seen him looking so pale and bloodless before, except when he was first born. Suffice it to say, it was an incredible relief when he revived by the time we got him to emergency services. And I will hereon make sure he is completely hydrated during our travels.

Now that I'm back home for the rest of the summer (until my next trip, which will be right before the fall semester starts up), I'm focused not only on my professional goals but also on a couple of personal ones, one of which is getting healthy again. Finishing my dissertation last year really derailed my exercise schedule, and I'm afraid that teaching this past spring didn't help much, either; even worse, I returned to some bad eating habits because I didn't have much time to cook regularly. I've been most consistent with yoga, in part because I treat it like therapy, but I need to incorporate more cardio. I also need to eat more vegetables. This summer, it looks like swimming will be back on the schedule, and summer vegetables and fruit are always much more appetizing to me than the fall and winter ones. Hopefully, I can break the bad eating habits, at least most of the time. I think taking an 80/20 approach has been most successful for me in the past. We will see how it goes in the next couple of months.

Pictures next time.

Gladys

Holidaze 2014

Hello there. :-) Happy holiday season. I wanted to make sure I posted one more time in 2014. Here's my Xmas day outfit, a couple of new favorite items in my closet.

Dress: Effie's Heart | Shoes: Fluevog Liz via Raspberry Heels

The fabric of this lovely Effie's Heart dress is stretch knit and drapes wonderfully. I love how well-made it is. Plus pockets!

I love these shoes. They're a limited-edition colorway that was only available at a store in Poland called Raspberry Heels.

I know it's been a loooooong time since I last wrote something here. It's been a busy fall since I finished up school. Besides volunteering at my son's school and weekly yoga, I attempted NaNoWriMo in November and I interviewed to do adjunct teaching at the local community college -- I start in February! I'll be teaching three comp courses and am putting together the syllabi now.

My siblings and siblings-in-law had an "ugly sweater" theme. Can't really see mine, but it's a Doctor Who sweater from TeeFury.

The holidays have been more relaxed for us this year, which has been nice. Because frankly, I'm exhausted. I'm proud of all that I've accomplished this year, but it's been difficult in many ways, as anyone who's read or seen the news since the summer knows. I'm wishing you all a more peaceful, sane, just, compassionate, and happy new year.

xo, Gladys

It's Happening

Having a blast with my funny boy during a hike at Yellowstone National Park in June

I drove half the day to my university yesterday. I'm here on a mission: to get my committee's approval signatures for the dissertation and submit all paperwork to the graduate office. So far, two signatures down, two to go! I had a lovely long chat with one co-chair over coffee yesterday. Though I don't expect to go into academia, she suggested that I think about turning it into a book manuscript and publishing it at an academic press somewhere, and then offered some leads. (My reaction: Wow! Really?) Anyway, hopefully everything will be done by Tuesday. Cross your fingers that it all works out. It's still sinking in that I'm almost done. I'm really going to be a "Doctor" soon. Whoa....

Random but here are bonus photos of my outfit for a 1950s theme birthday party from all the way back in May. Man, I have been neglecting this blog.

Dress: Emily and Fin via ModCloth | Socks: Gold Toe (for girls) | Shoes: Fluevog Danielson

The shoes are Fluevog of course (I showed them off on the blog last year), and the dress is from ModCloth. Of course. When I find a winning combo, I tend to repeat it over and over. :-)

xo, Gladys

Pretty, New Glasses

I've been meaning to post for a couple of weeks now, but I'm seriously way past a deadline. Trying super hard to finish a dissertation chapter in time to get it to my advisers before the end of the spring semester. I'm thisclose yet still have more to do. I'm only close to finishing because I have pulled back from my workout schedule the past few weeks -- I bruised a rib on my left side (probably from coughing due to allergies, yikes!! and ouch!!) so I've had to take it easy and just stay home. Sad to have missed yoga for two weeks! Anyway, I also managed to deny myself the pleasure of blogging (but not unfortunately the procrastinative pleasure of following Benedict Cumberbatch via his fans on Twitter and Tumblr, argh) just so I could keep working on the chapter. I hope to be done in the next couple of days. Oh please oh please.

Anyway, I'll have to be brief here. Just a few photos featuring my gorgeous new glasses (Tiffany & Co!) to which I treated myself for my birthday this month. They're navy, and they have bling. I haven't had new frames in almost six years so I was way overdue. And yeah, I splurged. I didn't buy these because of the brand, but because they turned out to be the most flattering for my face shape. Of the eight pairs of blue frames I tried on (yes, they HAD to be blue), I thought these looked the best on me. Received compliments from the get-go. My SIL says she likes them because they show off more of my face, particularly my eyes. (And yeah, looking at recent photos with my old glasses, my eyes do look a little smaller, or like my face is obstructed by the old frames.)

Here's a closeup. Aren't they pretty!

Dress: Ya Los Angeles via ModCloth | Sweater: Urban Outfitters | Tights: Foot Traffic via Sockdreams | Shoes: Fluevog Jen via Amazon

This is a terrible photo taken of an outfit that was actually much cuter in person. Wore it for two parties one Saturday earlier this month. I was inspired to put it together because of the color of my glasses. But the lighting was bad at the time (sun too bright) so you can't see much detail, including how utterly adorable the shoes are!, and my hair was messed up completely by the wind (wind is the enemy here in the high desert).

Here's a better photo of me with calm hair and wearing my new glasses, at my family birthday lunch. Also, I love this photo with me and my guys; we don't get to do a lot of family photos, just the three of us. Thanks to my brother for taking the pic.

xo, Gladys

New Year's Healthy Resolution

Happy New Year, everyone!

Like everyone else and their mom, one of my New Year's resolutions this 2014 is to get healthy and fit. Since last summer, I've been doing yoga once a week and Zumba with friends every other week or so. When the swimming season ended, these two activities kept me on track. I also started logging my food and exercise on MyFitnessPal.com, which was easy to do with my iPhone (with the bar code scanning). And it all worked: I stopped eating such huge portions, dropped some excess weight, and toned up my arms and especially my legs. Even my waistline shrank a little, though not to 2011 and 2012 levels.

But also like everyone else and their mom, I slacked off around November when the holidays rolled around. I didn't stop doing yoga or Zumba, but I did quit logging my food on MyFitnessPal. I started eating whatever sugary and grain/carb-y thing people offered, and I bought and ate such items for myself even though I knew they would give me gas and bloating later on. (For me, pasta is a huge culprit.) I didn't do any extra workouts to compensate for extra calories coming in. Even worse, I took a couple weeks off from any aerobic activity. My skin started to break out severely from all the cheap chocolate I was stuffing in my face (cheap because they're made up more of sugar and milk than the good stuff, real chocolate). Let's just say I wasn't at my best for most of December.

Thankfully, the week between Christmas and New Year's gave me some time to reflect on how I wanted to get back on track. I've been a fan of the Primal (paleo-ish) living philosophy for years now, but to be honest I've had trouble with the "move more" part. I was always athletic growing up, but it was never about disciplining my body; it was about fun. Moving more as an adult takes a lot more effort and discipline, especially with a child around (strangely enough). If I want to work out, I have to budget the time for myself, something I haven't had a lot of practice doing because I've always preferred my physical activity to be either purposeful or FUN (hence the fact that I don't run or do CrossFit -- those aren't fun to me). When I was in school, it was all decided for me: move intensely during P.E. or track or volleyball or weightlifting practice. In college, I didn't really exercise but I did have to walk up and down hills across a huge campus to get to classes and work. Now I'm a stay-at-home mom trying to finish a huge writing project. All of these factors put together have led me to a mostly-sedentary life. Yoga, while I love it, can only do so much with weight-maintenance, especially if it's just once a week. I need to move more. Period.

The good news: my younger sister splurged on all her siblings for Christmas and bought us cool FitBit fitness trackers that you can wear on your wrist all day (you can take it in the shower and you can sleep with it to track your sleep patterns, too). You can see me wearing my Flex wristband in the photos here. The system displays your daily stats on the computer or smartphone. It's the same idea behind logging your food intake, to make you more aware of how much you're moving around. And if you make your daily goals, your wristband buzzes you and on the stats page you get big green happy faces that say "Hooray!" :-) I know it sounds cheesy but it feels pretty good to see it. Another neat thing is that the app links with MyFitnessPal, so you can tell at any given time how many calories you've taken in versus how many calories you've burned. One consequence of this? I've now done several quick workouts (15-30 minutes long) late at night before the stats turn over to the next day! Haha.

It's early days yet, but so far it's fun and interesting to track all of this info. Even if I don't do it for the whole year, at least I'm getting a good sense of my baseline, and for now I feel good about taking control over my habits. I started a week ago, on New Year's Day, and it was kind of a scary revelation to see just how much food and snacks I had gotten used to eating (I was trying hard not to waste all the leftovers in the fridge) and how little I was moving around to compensate. I knew I was bloated and my pants didn't fit as well as they used to, but I didn't realize how badly I was doing. I really fell off the wagon! So far, though, it's been working. I'm down half a pound already from last week, mostly from losing some of the water my body has been hoarding, and my belly looks and feels a little less puffy.

My best "move more" day was last Saturday, when my little family went hiking so my husband could test out his new GPS tracker. (We like our devices in this house, apparently.) We did a 3.7 mile hike at the famous Vasquez Rocks that included some steep hills. Even the 5-year-old managed it. He got tired midway through, but we took several breaks, drank water regularly, and had snacks. We made it in about two and a half hours, and it felt good. I probably would have preferred moving a little faster and maybe not having to push/carry my kid up and down the hills (it was a little scary a few times), but it was a wonderful experience overall. And it was literally all about taking small steps to get to your goal.

And that leads me to make this corollary to my New Year's resolution of getting more fit: I want to be smarter about how I do it. More mindful. Hiking or just walking with my family would be one way to make that happen. It felt as good as when I meditate during yoga. And so far, an extra 15-30 minutes of Zumba in the evenings (using YouTube videos) has been pretty fun. To be honest, I'm not a diehard fan of doing a full hour of non-stop Zumba the way I do it with my friends (I get exhausted by the 30-minute mark and that's no fun); I just like dancing with friends because of the great company, and sometimes we have brunch together. But our Zumba sessions also aren't as regular as I would like. Hopefully, the quicker version I do at home will be more sustainable on a daily basis and thus do a better job of keeping me on track.

I wanted to end with this photo of one of the huge outcroppings that we saw on our hike. It immediately made me think that a sperm whale or a blue whale had become petrified into rock. Of course not really, but I thought it looked cool. Doesn't that look like a sperm whale's eye to you?

xo, Gladys

Christmas, Doctor Who Edition 2013

Do our outfits remind you of something, or maybe someone?

That's right! My sisters and I dressed as three different Doctors. From the left, my older sister is dressed as #10 (David Tennant, probably my favorite Doctor), my younger sister is dressed as #11 (Matt Smith, her favorite), and I am dressed as #9 (Christopher Eccleston, the fantastic one-season wonder who is my second favorite).

In contrast to our (sorta) ass-kicking faces above, here we are channeling the goofy and fun aspect of the Doctor:

ON ME: Suede jacket: Ann Taylor LOFT (from many years ago) | Top: GAP | Jeans: Gloria Vanderbilt via Costco (!) | Shoes: Fluevog Qtee via Amazon

It made me happy that we all managed to get into some kind of costume. I think the casualness of our interpretations was perfect for the holidays (it wasn't Halloween or a Comic Con, after all) ... although I wish I'd worn boots rather than my admittedly-gorgeous but still-not-appropriate Mini Qtees, at least for the pic.

Anyway, here are some of my other favorite photos of the day, with lots of kiddos, yummy food, and a last look at our growing family.

Happy New Year's Eve! If you'd like some inspiration on making your New Year's resolutions, here are a few articles and video that I enjoyed:

• "Here's The Science You Can't Not Know Before Making That Ambitious New Year's Resolution" via Upworthy
• "How to Actually be Successful in Achieving Your 2014 Goals" via Good
• and "The Most Important Thing You Can Do In The New Year To Lose Weight, Get Sharper And Live Longer" via HuffPost

All thought-provoking. The takeaways? Let's make our resolutions specifically for the New Year in order to harness the power of optimism on this occasion. Instead of roaring out of the gate and being immediate-results-oriented, we should start with small steps to build strong, identity-based habits that will last throughout the year. (We won't burn out so quickly that way.) Finally? Get more sleep!

And with that, I bid farewell to the good and the bad of 2013, and look forward to a wonderful start to 2014! I wish you the same! See you in this space next year. :-)

xo, Gladys

Sewing: Oliver + S Reversible Bucket Hat, Take 2

I didn't want to end the year without one last sewing project, and thankfully this one turned out okay so I can share it with you. Really, though, it's the model who's doing all the work here.

Even if a little blurry, isn't he utterly adorable? Those cheeks say hello!

This is my godson C wearing the reversible bucket hat that I made for him as one of his Christmas presents. If it looks familiar to longtime readers, it's because I have made this hat before -- from a free Oliver + S pattern available here -- and even used the same fabric for one of the sides (his mom picked the fabrics). This time around, however, I confess that I was pretty rusty due to not having sewn anything during the second half of the year. Sorry, C! Well, he doesn't really like the hat (yet), anyway. During the photoshoot, he kept taking it off -- hence the blurriness as I scrambled to take the photos in the waning light. His mom, my older sister, tried to help ... and I just wanted to point out the Doctor Who TARDIS slippers she's wearing in a couple of the photos -- another present from yours truly!

Speaking of which, I'll post some photos of our actual Xmas celebration, which sorta had a Doctor Who theme and made me seriously happy. And then there was the delicious food. And the adorable nephews. And the fun family conversations and music. I was in heaven!

Anyway, if you celebrate, I hope you had a wonderful holiday, too!

xo, Gladys

Early Halloween Costumes

This Halloween season is very unlike last year's. My son still hasn't made a final decision on what he wants to be, and I'm not slaving over sewing costumes from scratch this time around. But! I think we've found a couple of good ideas that we'll probably use for the day-of next week!

The monthly contra dance that we attend was last Saturday, and costumes were encouraged in honor of the holiday month. Almost everyone came dressed as something, and it was fun to see what people came up with. (One glaring exception was my husband, who didn't even bother to wear an orange shirt like he'd done in the past. Oy. But at least he came to dance!) I had spent the previous week looking through old photos on my computer, trying to transfer them to an external hard drive so that I could free up some space on my increasingly-slow laptop. I saw that I had worn this pink-and-white confection of a dress a couple of years ago for another costume party one summer, and it gave me the idea to turn myself into a doll. (Sooo original, I know.)

Dress: Tara Starlet via Amazon | Tights: Sockdreams | Shoes: oooold Steve Madden

You probably can't tell very well, but I drew large eyelashes on my eyelids with an eyeliner. The pink cheek blush was face paint provided by E and applied by MP in the church bathroom. (I had a semi-bright red lipstick on earlier in the evening.) I love the effect! Too bad I didn't have a wig, too, maybe Raggedy Ann red hair. Though I think the clincher was the white tights. If I hadn't had those, this look would have fallen flat. As it was, I got a lot of compliments from the other dancers, male and female, old and young alike. :-) The major advantage to the outfit? It was perfectly comfortable to dance in.

As for my little guy, for about a week I had the idea to get him some nerdy plastic glasses so we could turn him into Clark Kent. He already had a Superman shirt that he wears casually. Add a button-down and nice pants and PRESTO! Super easy Halloween costume. The trouble was that he didn't want to wear any of it. Sigh. It was touch-and-go for about half an hour before the dance, but we managed to bribe/finagle/threaten him into wearing the outfit. And what the heck was the problem? Isn't the effect adorable? Kids!

We got the glasses from Party City.

The line dancers. My kid didn't have a partner -- Daddy had asked first -- so he shadowed me.

So here are the ladies all dressed up! MP, I believe, was going with a mashup-1960s/1970s-mod(ish) theme. With the glasses, she looked like a hot teacher! lol (She said she would have worn contacts but her eyes were not in the mood that night.) And E went with a pirate theme this time around -- a fabulous excuse to wear her gorgeous new Fluevog boots! They both look fantastic.

Land ahoy!

I really liked this profile shot of E! I made her pose like that even though it cracked her up. One last look at those boots (which by the way are ON SALE)!! Thanks to E for providing the photos in this post from her iPhone. (My iPhone is an older model and the photos came out way too dark.)

xo, Gladys