Thursday, June 30, 2011

Yay - It's official!

June 30, 2011

Dear Ms. Christine Elizabeth Harding Hart:

Congratulations! The Degree Progress Department is pleased to inform you that your Juris Doctor degree has been conferred and posted to your academic transcript at the University of Southern California. The conferral date of your degree is May 13, 2011.

Your diploma has been ordered [I ALREADY GOT IT - BUT WE HAD TO PROMISE TO GIVE IT BACK IF WE DIDN'T ACTUALLY PASS OUR CLASSES] and will be mailed to your permanent address of record, unless you already made other arrangements (hold for pickup, or mail to your local address.) Note: If the address had a 90007 zip code, your diploma will be held for pickup. If you have not received your diploma or pick up notice by August 4, 2011 please contact the Diploma Office at (213) 740-7070, or by email to diplomas@usc.edu.

[I deleted the part about ordering transcripts]

Again, congratulations on this achievement. You have completed a demanding course of study and we are proud to have you join that select group of individuals who are graduates of the University of Southern California.

Degree Progress Department
University of Southern California


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Pretty Flowers


I got these this morning - I'm going to be a Bridesmaid!!! I'm so excited, and couldn't be happier for the couple.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Engagements

Two very close and longtime friends, Juls & Elisa, just got engaged within the past two weeks and will be Mrs. Lund and Mrs. Spencer respectively by next summer. Very, very fun :-)

Elisa, me and Adelyn at my Bachelorette (I wish I had one where she was looking more at the camera, but she looks great here so I hope she doesn't mind, nice headband, Adelyn ;-) )
Courtney, Tracy, Juls, and me at the Orange Bowl
It's strange, when I got engaged back in the Stone Age at the age of 22, I thought I was unusually young to be getting married at 23. Time sure does fly, as both friends will be 27 when they marry next year, and we will have been married for 3 years as of then. A bunch of us are becoming old married ladies!

As for old married mommies... I think we still have a few years before that...hopefully, since I want my traveling buddies available as long as possible!!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

New Car!

After several months of looking for a car, doing a ton of research, and keeping track of used cars on the market, I signed the papers tonight and brought home this baby!

It's actually more green/teal than it looks in this photo. At least it's not silver (I don't like silver cars and half of Toyota's cars seemingly are Silver - drives me nuts).

It is a 2007 Rav-4, with about 50,000 mi, Four Wheel Drive (for the Pennsylvania snow in 2013-2014), and a ton of safety features*. Bluetooth will probably be installed next week. I'm very excited :-)

(it's going to be shipped to Alabama, courtesy of Curtis' new employer :-)

Now we just have to insure it... I hate insurance companies of all kinds. Necessary evil, unfortunately.

*I don't have the best driving luck so safety and size was key this time around. This car is replacing my dream Mustang Convertible, which sadly sacrificed itself to save my life when we were hit by a big rig truck last November.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Monday, June 20, 2011

The Root Canal Diet

As I mentioned in a recent post, I had three root canals last week. While the procedure itself is pretty mild, I still can't really chew solid food. This has actually been good for my waistline and for my efforts to drop a few pounds before the bar, but, suffice it to say, I'm looking forward to having full chewing ability again, hopefully tomorrow when I go in to get the crowns.

In the meantime, I've been eating stuff like this:



I put some organic Quinoa in the rice cooker, and just before it was done added in organic black beans and chopped onion, and topped it off with some shredded light cheddar cheese. Talk about protein! I didn't think I had the hunger to finish it, but I did! It was pretty good, although I still contend that Quinoa needs some kind of acid like tomatoes to really make it delish.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Happy Father's Day!








- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Funny how things change...

For the past 4 months, I've worked out more than, probably most of my life (except for my last year in college, when I worked out more than I studied...)

The last three weeks have been difficult in terms of working out. I got a nasty cold which made it difficult to do anything, including study. Then, on the superficial side, I had my hair professionally straightened when it was dyed, and it would have been ruined by a Jillian Michaels warm-up. So I decided to abstain from working out until it started looking gross, which was probably two days ago, but laziness (combined with three root canals - seriously) pushed it to today.

So, today, I finally got the motivation to put in a video. I decided on the easiest workout from Jillian's newest video, Ripped in 30. When I first tried this workout, I had just finished my 30 Day Shred goal, so I was in pretty good shape and Level 1 of this video was easy. It's Funny how easily your body reverts when you don't work out! My entire upper body today is exhausted, my cardio, which is already bad, was really bad. But I survived :-). Looking forward to working out through the weekend and getting my weekly totals back up to 4-5 days a week.

Plus, I'll be laying by the pool studying a week from today, so that's added incentive to get it going again. At least my body still looks decent, even if it FEELS weaker.

It's also funny how my standards have changed. The idea that I would be down on the fact that I haven't worked out as much lately, even though I still managed to get in at least one good workout a week since graduation, is indicative how my body AND my mind have changed. I think I've enjoyed so much progress, both in my body shape and in my muscular strength, that I'm scared of completely losing all this progress. I hope this motivation continues through July! (although I will let myself off the hook if I don't completely make it, as long as I pass the Bar, right?)

In other news, Curtis' last day is tomorrow, and then he is off for three weeks before he leaves for Alabama. He's planning to work out during his time off, so I'm hoping to supplement my videos with short sessions on the treadmill or elliptical with him, to really try and get fit before July, when Bar prep really gets crazy.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

And...

I got my hair done today... :-)





Exciting news!

Click here for big family news!

(no I'm not pregnant...)

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Friday, June 3, 2011

Jon's 24th

The scary thing about being an older sibling is watching your younger brother or sister get older. My brother turned 24 yesterday and is as handsome as ever!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad