Inspiring Poem!

I’ve heard this poem several times, but I have never actually taken the time to really listen to it. I browse quite a few blogs and I saw that one of my favorite bloggers (Glamzini) had this posted on her site and it really hit me.

How true and inspiring!

I feel as though President Obama’s light has allowed and motivated America the to let their light shine.

Our Deepest Fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear
is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness,
that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually who are we not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people
won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine as children do.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us;
it's in everyone.
And when we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
~ Marianne Williamson

Trying to Shed Some Pounds

I don’t consider myself fat, but I can stand to lose a few pounds and get in shape. I own a bazillion workout DVD’s and tons of exercise stuff, hell, we even have a sauna in our house. I never use any of these things. So sad, I know.

I’ve decided to seriously get myself together. Summer is just around the corner and I also have my 10 year high school reunion coming up this year.

I’m starting the Master Cleanse on Monday (2 Mar 09) and I’m going to try and last a full 5-7 days. I’ve attempted this before but I have never made it past day 2.

I’m also doing CHALEAN Extreme, which is a DVD series by Chalene that is supposed to help you to build muscle and burn fat and basically get a hot smoking body!

I won’t be posting any before pictures, well not yet at least. Let’s just see how my after pictures turn out.

My goal is for this to be more of a lifestyle change rather than just a quick weight loss thing and fall back into my habit of never working out and being a couch potato.

Some of my body inspirations:

Berlin…

AJ and I took a brief 4 day trip to Berlin and we had a great time. Berlin is filled with so much history and it is a beautiful city. We arrived on a Friday evening and had just enough time to find our hotel and grab a bite to eat. We spent all of Saturday figuring out the U/S-Bahn and walking all over to see the sites. It was soooo cold and wet and the weather was just ugh – so I’m bundled and covered up in just about all of our pics, but we still had a good time.

The Brandenburg Gate

A Piece of the Berlin Wall

AJ using his navigational skills (he's so cute trying to figure out what train to take)

Checkpoint Charlie - One of the main gateways for crossing between the two halves of Berlin during the Cold War. The naming of the checkpoints was based on the phonetic alphabet, and as this was the third such checkpoint it was given the name of Charlie.

Exhausted after a long day on the go

Hotel Adlon - This is the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby from the balcony.

Starbucks has seriously taken over the world.

I made AJ take me to the Zoo

On the roof/terrace of our hotel, this was our last day there and I was so tired

Garmisch Germany…

After a very interesting week, AJ and I set off to Garmisch for the weekend. The drive was long (4 ½ to 5 hours) and unfortunately AJ wasn’t feeling all that great – so that kind of sucked.

The weekend was supposed to be relaxing, but AJ was sick and he spent the majority of the time in bed sleeping and coughing up some pretty gross stuff. He did however manage to stay up and watch his favorite team; the Pittsburgh Steelers kick butt in the Superbowl.

I squeezed in some snowboarding and a massage, but other then that our weekend was pretty uneventful. I really sucked on taking pictures (sorry) but here is one of me snowboarding...

I Heart Dublin!

So, London has been knocked out of its number two spot and has been replaced with Dublin! Munich is my number one favorite city in the world (more so for sentimental reasons), and London use to be my second. Well Dublin has stolen my heart as well as the number two position on my list of favorite cities in the world.

Call me an idiot (or a typical American), but I did not know that they spoke English in Ireland… I know, I know, that’s pretty sad :-( Anyway, I had a great time here! Although a little pricey, Dublin is awesome. We spent the majority of our time exploring the streets and walking endlessly with no destination in mind. We tend not to plan things when we travel and just go wherever the wind blows. We stayed at the Best Western Academy Plaza, which is in a great location, right off of OConnell Street. My husband is a genius at finding great rates on the internet and Tripadvisor has never failed us on reviews and ratings.

We flew Ryan Air… If anybody has ever flown Ryan Air, then you know what an experience it can be. Since it’s just the two of us, we didn’t check any bags and carried on one bag each (which is all you’re allowed) no purses, no laptop bag… Just one bag, and it better not go over their weight limit (which is about 10 or 11 Kilos) and it better fit into their mock overhead bin that they have at the check in area. I can’t talk bad about Ryan Air, because their prices are amazing, and I believe this is the way they keep their prices so low. The flight was less then two hours and the trip from the Airport to the Hotel was about 15-20 minutes.

I don’t want to write a minute by minute review of our trip but I will highlight some of the things we did. My husband is a beer connoisseur, so we visited the Guinness Storehouse, which was interesting. He enjoyed it and he enjoyed the sampling and free pint you get at the end of the tour.

We spent our evenings eating (my favorite thing) and then we closed the night out at a Pub. We spent the majority of our nights at the Fitzsimons Pub, my husband loved this place. They were also showing the playoff games, which is rare to find in Europe. American Football isn’t very popular over here.

I wish I had more of a luggage allowance because the shopping is wonderful! The weather leaves a lot to be desired, it rained and even snowed a bit during our stay---but that didn't put a damper in our swagger.

I truly had a magnificent time here and I hope that we get a chance to come back and visit before we leave Europe.

This is how the Guinness is served at the storehouse.

AJ posing with the Guinness man.

AJ in front of the storehouse/museum

I found it amusing that they have a TK Maxx in Dublin - Especially since I use to work at TJ Maxx as a teenager.

These were seriously the best chips I ever had.

Hard Rock Dublin

Temple Bar

What a Wonderlul Day in History!

Okay, this blog thing is hard to keep up with. Well, since my last post America has witnessed history and I am so happy and inspired by our new president and his family. I spent the MLK weekend in Dublin with my husband and I was so amazed at how the people there were excited about President Obama and wanted to celebrate the event.

We left Dublin on Monday night, so I wasn’t able to see first hand what kind of events they had going on Tuesday, but I did notice this at the TGI Fridays in Dublin, as well as posters around the city announcing events to celebrate the big day.

I spent the whole evening Tuesday night watching the Inauguration and was overcome with emotion and joy. My husband wasn’t as emotional as I was, but he did sit and watch about 4 hours of the event with me. I could tell he was getting a little bored after that – he tends to blab a when he’s disinterested with something. I took my one man party upstairs and continued to watch the events and I finally fell asleep during the parade. The time difference here really makes it hard, but thank God for the internet!

Past travels...

My husband and I are HUGE traveller's, which is kind of sad because I think a blog would have been a great way to share our adventures with friends and family. So, to play catch up, I thought i'd highlight some of our past trips and continue to post about our future trips.

Paris is such a beautiful city!

London is my second favorite city in the world.

Istanbul Turkey

Amsterdam

Rome