Stoked!

I've realized how much I use "awesome," "excited," and "super" in my speech/writing.  I tell my students all the time to broaden their vocabulary, so I thought I would!

Hence the title..

Courtesy of Urban Dictionary - Thought this was fitting :)

So before I chose stoked, I had excited in mind and when I went to find a picture from Google, I loved the combination of them all!  So I took a screen shot instead. 

Haha I love this!
*note - I know the little girl in red is in there twice, but that's ok.  She's just REALLY excited.

So anyways, I'm stoked/excited/thrilled/pumped/happy* BECAUSE
We booked 2 photographers and a Dj last night!! 

Thanks to a fantastic recommendation from my future sis-in-law (shout-out to E! woo woo!) we found The Pros, a company that hosts several services including photo, video, dj, and photobooths.  Score! Their prices are absolutely unbelievably cheap, their reviews are are off the charts, and they had a showcase last night that included demonstration of services/products with prizes.  Sounds too good to be true, right? So far I'm really impressed.  I got TWO photographers (the main one has won awards for the State and is the best in the company!) and a Dj who told me she would make sure everyone left with a smile on our day! She was the only dj to have us do the cupid shuffle last night! She actually got us up and moving and she was hilarious! Perfect!

Ok so I need to go to bed and don't want to write too much more, but here are the major things left:

*Rings - haven't thought much about these yet
*Officiant - working on it 
*Dress Shopping - scheduled!
*Tasting - choosing menu 
*Tasting - choosing cupcake flavors -- MMmmm
*Engagement Photos - working on it! 


:) Have a great night/morning! Happy Weekend!


*Ok, just one more screen shot of urban dictionary - when I looked up happy. Bah ha!

How To Remove a Gel Manicure

So I love getting gel manicures but I think it's silly to go back to a salon to have them remove it for you, if you're not planning on getting another one right away.

So I have perfected a great way to take them off without peeling off a layer of your nail.  I basically figured out what the salon people do and found out how to do it at home.

Here goes.

You'll need: Nail polish remover (I prefer 100% pure acetone because it works faster), nail file, cuticle pusher, squares of aluminum foil, and cotton pads or squares

So here's what my nails looked like around week 3...clearly have grown out a bit.  I could probably keep them a bit longer, but my hair and clothes have been getting caught on them when the edges start coming up and it drives me nuts. So, time to go!

I hate it when the corners are like this! They lift up and get caught on EVERYTHING!

1. Cut the cotton pads into small squares that are big enough to cover more than just your fingernail if it were placed right on top of it.

2. Soak a small cotton pad with nail polish remover.  Then wring it a little bit so that it's not soaking wet.  Place it right on top of your fingernail.  You want to make sure your whole fingernail is covered. The reason I use small squares instead of wrapping the cotton around my whole finger tip is because the nail polish remover can seriously dry out your skin and it's not comfortable.

3. Grab a foil square and place it right on top of the cotton pad.  Wrap it around and fold on the top of your finger so it's nice and tight.  Make sure it's really close to your finger and that there aren't any holes in between. 

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the rest of your fingers on that hand.  I have not been able to do this for both hands at once because it's hard to use your hands when they're all foiled up! So I do it one hand at a time.  If you're able to do both at once, go for it!

5. I usually go watch tv or something while I wait.  I usually wait about ten minutes or so.  You'll know it's done when it looks like this when the foil comes off...

6. Use the cuticle pusher to scrape off the gel starting from the bed of your nail moving towards the end of your nail to get everything off.  

7. Use the nail polish remover and wipe off your nail one last time. 

8. Do this with your other hand.

9. I always finish by putting on two coats of nail strengthener since it's easy for them to become weak because of the nail polish remover.

Ta-da! You're done! 

Work it out!

So working with my personal trainer is AWESOME! She's really tough and I get a great workout every time.  Plus she's been coming up with a plan for me so that when I'm not with her, I know exactly what to do at home or at the gym.

So to give you an idea, last time I was with her I did a 5 minute walk warm-up on the treadmill.  Then I did circuits of a bunch of exercises. One was doing squats jumping up and down with one leg going onto one of those half ball things... see picture below to see an idea of what I mean. 

Then I also did stuff with the TRX straps she has hanging from her ceiling (I'm always afraid I'm going to yank her ceiling out, but she assures me that it's attached very securely).

See below pictures for what I did with that.

I pulled myself up like this - I REALLY felt it in my arms for the next couple days.

This was kind-of cool too...very controlled and slow movement.  My arms were shaking!

Then I did some lower ab roll outs with the yoga ball too.

I'm sure there was more, but I can't remember since that was last Thursday!  But anyways she does it similar to Jillian Michaels... 3 exercises in a rotation and then 3 new exercises in a rotation. There's always stretching afterwards and I always work up a great sweat!

Here's what she had me do tonight: 30 minutes on the treadmill at the gym.  I did 5 minutes of warm-up at 3.2 mph. (I always put it on the incline of 1.0 because I've read that treadmills are usually below the ground level at 0.0 so it's better to put it at 1.0 to be leveled out).  Then for 20 minutes I would sprint for 30 seconds (for me this is between 5.8 - 6.0 mph) and then have one recovery minute of walking (for me - 3.4 or 3.5).  I did this for the 20 minutes and then ended with 5 minutes of cool-down at 3.2.  It was really interesting to do it this way! I love intervals but I've never done such small ones! It made the 30 minutes go by really fast! 

Then when I got home I had to do burpees, push-ups, and squats with a dumbbell! See below for my workout to-do list (yes, I crossed them off as I did it so I felt good about it! ha, such a nerd).  (NOTE: I HATE burpees! They suck so bad!)

dell = Dumbbell.  Yeah, I'm not sure why I did that. Let's go with it.

Anyways, I've been working really hard and I really hope that I can see some great results!  Last Summer was the heaviest for me, and since then I have lost 12 pounds.  I'm hoping to get to my happy weight of fitting my clothes well and still having curves (I found this weight when I got off of the birth control pills for a bit - I wish my uterus didn't suck without them every month, otherwise I could just do that and lose the weight!).  To get to that happy weight I would need to lose another 16 pounds.  I think it's doable! I'm hoping that working with Abby can give me some great motivation and some new ideas.

I've read and heard that it takes 21 days to form a habit.  This will be my first week where I will have my two days with Abby and then three-four days of her workouts on my own. (the past two weeks have been hard to schedule because of schedule conflicts for both of us)  I'm excited to see where this will take me! 

:)

Wooooohooo!

Ok, so this will be fast but I'm just SO excited!

So I'm trying really hard to meet a HUGE business* incentive for Thirty-One (a $1,300 amex giftcard that I could use for my wedding! Um, hello! That would be a HUGE help!)

Well, I decided to host an online auction with a bunch of items that I don't need anymore for my display.  It was a great success!  With everything sold, I will be getting $178! Woo! So with that, and some cash I had from my party the other day with some display items, I can put it in as my own party which means I'll get the hostess benefits (at least $25 to spend in addition to the $200 I'll have to put towards replacing the display items with newer prints and all)!  AND it'll go towards my goal! BAM!

So here is where I am with my goal...

Between April and August I need to sell $15,000 in sales to get a $1,300 AmEx gift card.  So far, I have earned a $100 best buy gift card.  But I haven't redeemed it yet, because I'd rather wait until AmEx.  I am about $600 in sales away from earning the second incentive which would be a $500 best buy gift card, which would put me at $600 in rewards so far.  

So as it stands now, I'm about $600 away from having $10,000 in sales between April and August, and $5,600 away from having $15,000.

So if I break it down, I need to try my best to have at least $2,800 in sales in both July and August to meet my goal.  Normally, this would be fine because lately my sales have been around $3,000. However, the Summer months, especially July are really tough to get sales because everyone is away on vacation or they don't want to spend money since they are spending it at the beach.  So I'm trying a bunch of creative ways to earn my goal.

Here are my ideas to get more sales in July and August:

• Have an online auction - Did this! Success!
• Do another lotto game - the last one I did was successful, but time consuming.  But it gives me a $75 order and a lucky winner a great prize! - Thinking about doing this next week
• Send out coupons to past hostesses/customers 
• Reach out to my hostesses from last year to see if they want to host again - maybe offer them an incentive?
• Email all of my customers with a daily deal calendar and be honest with them about what I'm trying to earn for my wedding - I did this yesterday and I've already gotten three responses! Yay!!
• Try to focus on getting more online/catalog parties going if house parties aren't an option.
• Have a fundraiser for my school PTA in August (I wouldn't get much commission for this, but I would get the personal volume credit which means it could still count towards my goal).  - I have already talked to my principal about this, and she seems on board! We shall see!
• Reach out to my fellow direct sales friends and maybe do a swap? I host for them and they host for me? 

Anyways, as you can see, I am very motivated and determined! I just hope it pays off! If I end up with the best buy gift card for $600 that's totally fine because I can get a computer which I have needed for a long time.  And obviously, I'll still get the commissions which is going towards the wedding. But MAN! I really want that amex card! 

Do you have any ideas about how to get more parties this Summer? Maybe I could try and emphasize early holiday shopping!  Skip the store lines, and shop online with me! Hmmm....I'm on fire! :) Haha.

Amen.

*Despite being a teacher and working with spelling and grammar on a daily basis, I cannot for the life of me spell business correctly on the first try! EVER! Ha. Old habits die hard, eh?