Zombie-licious, and Indian Beach

My friend from work, R, had a birthday party and instead of having your average "everyone go out for food and drinks" birthday party she decided it needed to be a Zombie Bowling Birthday Party which was awesome.

I spent a few days last week tracking down stores that carried Halloween makeup and fake blood in the area (shock:  there are TONS of places that carry these things on the regular and not just for Halloween, who knew?).  Once I amassed my supplies I tested out the makeup on my arm for two reasons:

1.  I wanted to make sure I wasn't allergic to it.
2.  I wanted to see if I could make some realistic looking zombie skin and what not.

Saturday came and we took Rudy to the beach since it was so wonderfully beautifully Spring-y outside early in the day.

We got home in the early afternoon, took leisurely naps and then awoke to transform ourselves from this: 

to this:

Basically I bought some "gray" toned base make up in the costume section of the party supply store and covered our faces and necks in it so we didn't look so "alive".


Then I created bruised and decayed spots mixing and blending black, red, green, blue and yellow face paints.  You have to do it in layers or else it turns into a funny looking brown or gray spot on (learned that from testing on the arm).  I wanted our eyes to look a little dark and sunken in so I added a lot of shading and bruising there.

You cannot really see it in these pictures because of the flash, but I also added bluish-purple and greenish tinted vein marks on our faces and necks- sort of like dead bodies on TV have.

Next we smeared and sponged on blood to make it look like we were
A). injured and also
B). brain-hungry and chowing down on human flesh.

Here are some better views of handiwork:

 I'm laughing in the last one because I had posed really well and even made Zombie sound effects for the picture, but BF started laughing which made me laugh really hard as well.  Even Zombies have a sense of humor I guess.

I really hate zombie movies, but can I just say that I LOVED dressing up like one.  We got all sorts of funny stares and comments downtown.

R's birthday bash was at Grand Central Bowling, so we bowled a couple games, ate and drank and had a general good time before heading off to find a place to hang out for a while.  We ended up at Ringlers on Burnside. 

Before the party BF and I scared a couple of little kids without meaning to.  They were walking down the sidewalk with their mother and looked at us.  The mom had a good sense of humor about it and said, "Looks like they've had quite the day!".  While we were driving downtown I kept wanting to press my face against the window and stare at the passengers in other cars, but we didn't really hit much traffic so I didn't get much of a chance. 

Mostly people thought it was pretty funny, as did we.

Here's to more theme parties that involve out of the ordinary dressing up!

Roller Derby, and Yes I May Be Crazy

** this post is full of links, so click away, my friends! **

I may have mentioned that BF and I have gone to Roller Derby a couple of times and absolutely love it. I may have also mentioned (or you may just know this about me) that I LOVE brutal sports. I'm not a huge fan of basketball or football, but give me sports where people regularly get in fist fights and break their faces and I'm all in.

Anyway, so in the course of watching roller derby and talking about roller derby, I decided that maybe I should participate. I'm not huge, so I don't have that going for me, but I am pretty agile, though I don't know about my agility on skates yet. I looked into it and guess what?! They have tryouts every 3-6 months for the Rose City Rollers.

I also found out that you have to go through their training course first, which is fine by me. I'd rather get knocked around in private first and know I can handle it before everyone in Portland sees it.

During my discussions with BF on RD, we figured I needed a pretty rad name so we started brainstorming. I came up with a few, and then I found out that there is a registry of Roller Derby Names so I had to check my creations against it to ensure I wasn't stealing someone else's Roller ID.

I would tell you the names I've picked, but I cannot. I know. I feel terrible because they are so awesome I cannot even hold all of the awesome inside, but I also don't want someone else stealing my name before I can register it. So... you know. Gotta protect. If it were up to BF my name would probably be Sass Mouth, because, according to him (and he's known to be correct about things) I have a mouth full of sass. But that's pretty well known and not very itimidating to a gang full of 6 foot, 250 pound roller derby queens. (No, not all RD teams are made up of the aforementioned; it's only 1 or 2 girls a team that fit that description and they scare the living heck out of me. Face your fears).

Also, there's this whole Roller Girl sub culture that. ROCKS. MY. FACE it's so W.T. Here's what I've learned so far:

1. Get some good skates. Duh.

2. Stock up on figure skating tights AND fishnet tights. Why? Because NO ONE looks good in fishnets, so you layer them over the skating tights. Also, if you get a rip, NBD. You're still covered.

3. You have to have a persona. You can't go out there as "Regular Heather". You have to pick your name and dress/act the part. That's part of the fun of roller derby.

4. Wrist guards and knee pads.


So the plan is to get some skates, figure out if I can actually skate, sign up for the training, kick some RD behind, and get on a team. And then I will reveal my RD Name.

Are you excited?

I May Be Crazy...

This week I've really hit a nice stride at the gym. And by that I really mean that I love the gym.

?!

You heard right.

Shocked? I kind of am. I'll give you all the lurid love affair details.

So I started getting back in to working out last year when I decided I was going to run and then run in some fun races. I cannot believe that I actutally ran in the Hood to Coast race and didn't die. I lost some weight and realized that I actually liked to run- even in high school when I was in pretty fabulous shape I hated running. Anyhow, this past fall/early winter I started the Whittle Your Middle challenge with a few friends. I didn't really like the program that the creator of the workout used, so I asked BF to write me a workout plan that would work for me. He did an excellent job (and still does since that plan changes every few weeks). I've been going to the gym a few days a week doing weight training and some cardio. Now I've upped it and I hit the gym 4 days a week for weights and cardio and one extra day on my own just doing cardio.

At first going to the gym was something I dreaded... not to the point that would send me into depression, but I would definitely drag my feet on getting ready and getting there. As I started seeing some results (read: weight loss) I got a little more motivated. Then I started seeing muscles and I really found my motivation. Last week I noticed that I am starting to get some ab definition. AB DEFINITION people. Even when I was 30 lbs lighter and getting over mono I lacked ab definition. And my legs! OHHHEMMMGEEEE.

Needless to say I'm totally hooked now. It's a bad day for me when I don't get to work out. I sort of live for it, but I still have days where I don't want to get out and I want to eat cookies and chocolate all day (hey, I'm still a girl). And all of this working out makes eating healthier easy. That sounds weird but it's true. I have more energy when I eat cleaner- heck, I just have more energy in general now.

The thing that I really like about the gym is that I see where I've come from and I see where I can go, it's just up to me. Weight training makes me feel powerful (oh, and it's good for your bone density) and unlike home, there are an infinite amount of things I can do if I get bored (which happens pretty easily). I'll admit that it's taken me a while to feel 100% comfortable working out there (I'm BIG into having my own personal space and NOT being around other people's cootie germs) but now it feels normal. Something about going to the gym fuels me. I plan my days around getting there and having enough time to get what I want to do done. I sound insane. I know.

I've reevaluated my goals and I've decided that I need to keep going. Don't worry, I'm not going to turn into a female body builder or a rail-thin exercise freak; I'm keeping the goals healthy and attainable. I thought it would take much longer than it has to see results that I liked, so I'm very pleased.

Next challenge- getting ready for bathing suit season. I know it's 3+ months away, but I got my Victoria's Secret catalog the other day with all the cute bikinis and I've already earmarked the pages. I'll be damned if I don't look better than the VS models this summer. Damned. It's gonna be some hard work (thank you ahead of time, BF, for your help and support!) I want to point out now that my downfall is food. When I eat well, my results are on point. When I stray my energy goes down and everything else sucks. Have I mentioned that I LOVE food? And I LOVE bad for me food. Like I said, downfall. But I don't have to let it be.

What are you doing to be awesome this year?

Side Note: I am addicted to watching Biggest Loser. It ALWAYS makes me cry. EVERY WEEK.

Absence = Good News

So I might have been missing for a few weeks here. Why?
Because I'm so fancy...



I'm SO FANCY because I got a new job.


(giving you space to freak out here... I know you are excited)


I still work for the same company, but I got somewhat of a promotion. You see, the girl that had this job got a different job in a different department- which by most accounts needed to happen (don't judge me, I don't cause the office gossip). Also, my boss left the company (more office drama but I don't have the energy to go into it). So my ex-boss's boss, who the other girl was working for (lost yet?) called me up and was like, "Hey, why don't we have you fill in for So-and-So until we find a permanent replacement."

And of course I was like, "Sounds great."

So I was "filling in" for a couple of weeks and then got the job. Permanently.

What does this mean?


This means AWESOME. That's what it means.

But really it means that I now have my own office/work space in a really cool building at HQ. It means I can walk from my building across the sidewalk to our own private store/salon/restaurant/fancy hang out for lunch and hot cocoa. It means I can go for a run around WHQ if I feel like it. It means I can clip my badge on my pants pocket and look all important and stuff because I actually get to use it to GET INTO BUILDINGS... because, as I said, I am fancy like that.

More importantly, it means my morning commute has been cut in half.

Lastly, it means that I am the busiest I've ever been at work because a lot goes in to getting acquainted to a new job during the holidays. And a lot goes into trying to figure out how to best do my new job since the powers that be decided my role should evolve from what the job originally was (which is a good thing).

So, sorry my sweets, but until I get it more under control I will only be sneak-blogging while I can grab a second here and there.

In other news: OMG- it's almost Christmas!