If I had a table, I'd put this on it . . .

The hardest thing about moving out on your own for the first time: collecting furniture. It's easy if you don't mind the hodgepodge college method of decorating - whatever you can piece together from your parents, grandparents, old roommates, furniture you found on the street corner, pulled out of the charity dumpster at the end of the school year, etc. However, if you're going for the more sophisticated look, where every piece of furniture actually coordinates, then it takes a while to get it all together.

As such, I do not have a dining table yet.

But if I had one, this would be it:

(World Market, $299)

And if I did have this table, this is what I would put on it:

It's a little odd to have a dining table center piece without a table, like putting the cart before the horse, but I think there's nothing wrong with a little forward planning.

They look just as nice on top of my bookcase until such a time as I have a table to put them on.

They are super easy to make. All you need is:

1) Decorative bottles - $6 each from Pier 1

2) Hot glue gun

3) LED candlesticks - $7 for package of two from Joann's Fabrics

4) Ribbon

Glue the cap to the bottle, let dry. Then add the batteries and replace the candlestick, give it a quarter turn back wards to disconnect the batteries. Then wrap a little ribbon around the base to hide the glue - et voila!

And when you're ready for a romantic, candle lit dinner, twist it a quarter turn to the right.

Now, all I need is the table. And maybe the guest for the romantic dinner.

I heard Johnny Depp is now free . . .

Taking it to the streets

What's this? A blog from Nikki? I thought she fell of the face of the earth.

At least, that's certainly what the last couple of weeks have felt like. Some changes have happened at work which have hugely impacted my free time and extra-curriculars, making the last month or so feel a lot like this:

(Photo from here.)

The beauty of life is that it is ever changing, as unpredictable as the weather or Lady Gaga's next wig. Which means that we must always adapt to its challenges, or, like the elephant above, end up with our heads in the sand, praying for the waves to drag us out to sea.

I don't know about you, but when life starts getting rough, I break out my new favorite adage: "Keep calm and organize." With the new hours at work, I've had to re-evaluate my work out regimen, my writing schedule, when to fit in chores, grocery shopping, laundry, etc. and it's been rough. But the last two weeks of experimenting have definitely taught me one thing: To-Do Lists are wonderful!

I love lists. I will add things to a list solely for the satisfaction of being able to cross that puppy off. There are few things so satisfying as visual affirmation of having accomplished something. Since I create a lot of lists, I go through a lot of paper - usually scraps, but still waste - and I wanted something a little more permanent. Enter Pinterest. I found a great and simple make-your-own dry-erase board and voila:

Yes, that is my green ruler from elementary school, stamped with my name in case anyone is confused who it belongs to.

I used the same paints from this post ($1.99 each), since I like uniformity, and found some really pretty scrap book paper from Michael's, $0.39 a page. I have a handful of old, inexpensive picture frames bought from Target during my college days, so being able to re-purpose one of them is a bonus. I would recommend using the Sharpie on the back side of the glass, as I've since discovered that erasing the dry-erase marks sometimes removes the Sharpie marks as well.

Happy Listing!

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Now to my next topic: running. Due to the past couple weeks' craziness, I've only managed to fit in one 2.5 mile run. It was not pretty.

Yesterday, I was invited to join a sunrise boot camp down at the Santa Monica Pier, run by Slim Body Fitness. Having not had a decent work out in two weeks, I was surprised that I didn't die there on the beach within the first twenty minutes. However, it did give me a swift kick in the rear and a fat knock to the noggin'. Running is not enough, I need to work on my core strength as well. My new resolve is to run on the weekends and hit the gym for interval training during the week, focusing on strength training and cardio.

Up til now, almost all of my running has been at the gym on a tread mill. Tread mills are great, but they can't substitute for the real thing. It's not only important to take your run to the streets (or park, beach, trails, etc) for the fresh air and interesting scenery, but to get a real idea of how to keep pace. It's a lot harder keeping pace when you don't have a machine to drag you along when you get a little tired.

Today I got my first real taste of long-distance running. Thanks to Map My Run, I found a 5 mile run at a local park that I decided to take for a spin this morning:

It went fairly well, save for when I got lost inside the park, when I was supposed to stay on the periphery, which led to a little bit more walking than I wanted while I was climbing up hills to try and figure out where I was. At the end of it all, I managed to do 5 miles at a 15.48 pace. Not too shabby!

It seems like Mud Runs are all the rage now. I'm always learning about new runs, ever since I participated in the Warrior Dash, and I've come across a few interesting ones:

For the Zombie enthusiasts, there is the Run For Your Lives race, where Zombies jump out at you from practically nowhere and try to take your "life flag".

For those who enjoy getting messy, but maybe not muddy, there is The Color Run, which looks very cool (and pretty) indeed!

And for those with a more militant bent, there is the Spartan Sprint, where "Gladiators" await you with fake-jousts to try and knock you off the course. My brother, ex-Marine that he is, decided this was the run for him and it didn't take much convincing for me to join in. For the Southern Californians out there who want to participate, the race is the first weekend in December, plenty of time to gird your loins and sign up!

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And now: writing.

I am proud to say that one thing I have successfully implemented in the last two weeks is writing every day. I take my moleskin and my lunch and chill in my car with the windows down, making the most of the SoCal breeze while it lasts, and spend a good 50 minutes writing on my lunch breaks. On Sundays, I bring it all together on my computer to tweak and edit.

I'm nowhere close to where I want to be in my writing, but I feel good about it. I'm learning as I go and have only to go up!

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Progress Report:

Words Written to Date: 6830 (28.45% of Weekly Goal)

Miles Run to Date: 53.05

Average Pace: 14.03 minutes per mile

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For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

A post about my true love . . . Traveling.

By my count, I have been to 13 different countries and that is not even nearly close to the number I want to visit in my lifetime, which is ALL of them. Well, most of them.

Sadly, pesky things like work, car payments, and student loans are preventing me from dropping everything and becoming the kind of jet-setter I've dreamed about (which includes drinking bellinis in in Venice, riding an elephant in Thailand, and chasing King Penguins in Tierra del Fuego).

Until such a life is possible, I'm bringing the world home and putting it on my walls.

Introducing my first project:





I'm sure many of you have seen variations of this craft online, especially on Pinterest, and I've wanted to make my own version for a while now. There are some cute versions for married couples depicting where they met, then married, then lived. I decided to go with the three places in the world that I truly consider home - Merced County, San Diego, and London.

It's a fairly self-explanatory craft, but what's the fun in making something and not sharing about the process?

Step #1: Paint the frame.





I used floating frames meant to display comic books ($5 each, on sale at Michael's) and I chose to match the color to the throw pillows on my couch. What you don't see in the photos are the little strands of camel hair from my paint brushes that got stuck in the paint. I would recommend spray painting instead, unless you like the texture. Don't forgot to add a couple layers of gloss for that nice, shiny look.

Step #2: Choose your map.





If you're a AAA member, you can get free maps from any AAA office (thanks Dad!), or you can order a street map offline, which I did for the London map. The good thing is, the map doesn't necessarily need to be current, so you can get old ones fairly inexpensively.

Step #3: Select your heart templates.





Due to the types of maps that I selected, one big heart wouldn't quite cover all of my favorite areas, so I found a selection of different sized hearts worked nicely.

Step #4: Arrange your hearts.





I tried to keep the pieces mostly in geographical order.

Step #5: Put it all together.





Repeat as desired and display.






All in all, for three framed maps it cost about $30 total.

Maps - Merced County/San Diego - $0 (AAA); London - $8 (online)
Paint - Navy Blue, Teal, Clear Gloss - $1.99 each
Frames - 3 x $5

. . .