This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

I had my last PT session today but my trainer thought I had another one. And since he planned for two sessions he told me he could give me 15 minutes of free consultation next time I had time, which will be on June 19th. He told me a little about how to move on from now and the most important thing is to change movements every 4-6 weeks so you have time to see improvements. I got a new circuit to do for one and a half week and then I’m on my own. That will definitely be a challenge!

When we were done he wanted to see my body fat percentage and I was afraid of what it was gonna say. The scale said 141 lbs, not a happy number. But when the body fat percentage said 19.9% I was happy again. That is almost 4% less than in April! So even if I’ve gained weight I’ve technically lost 8lbs of fat. Muscles weigh more than fat! A happy day. Now I just need to continue this and hope I will start losing weight so I can get in my pants I brought here. I have until the fall!

He also told me that I have to start doing yoga like once a week. I’m not flexible enough in my hip for the squats, haha!

Before my PT session I showed Moa some excercises since she’s not used to using machines. It was fun and we are gonna start working out together once a week or so from now on. That will be fun.

I also got the cooking book he told me about. It’s a cookbook for the fit food lover with healthy recipes. I love it just by looking in it, everything looks so delicious and it’s less carbs than in ”normal” food. I think my mom will be the test subject to my new cooking before I dare trying it on the kids, haha!

The girl had her 5th grade graduation today and oh my god what a big deal that was. In Sweden it didn’t matter, but here it was almost as big as ”studenten”. They had a cermenoy outside where the teachers held speeches. Then there was a huge breakfast for everyone in the cafeteria. I actually wasn’t too bad, I had a lot of fruit and half a banana/chocolate muffin. It was very nice, but in my opinion too big for 10-year olds. The boy has his kindergarten graduation tomorrow, we’ll see what that will be like.

Last night I realized that I’m leaving for Phoenix tomorrow evening and I haven’t even started packing yet. So unlike me! But I will do it right now before I go to Starbucks to hang out with the girls :).

Me and the girl baked brownies after school today. They were delicous and very pretty! But it took me some time to cut out all those petals from fondant…

This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

It’s crazy how much I have going on all the time, even though I want to update my blog every day I don’t have time anymore. It’s fun though, I’ve really gotten myself a new life here :).

Yesterday morning was my first tournament in a very long time. I wasn’t nervous at all, but I actually felt confident. I’ve developed so much just in these four weeks and I don’t mind the wind and the sun so much anymore. I’ve also improved my hustling skills but my big weakest link is still the short ones right at the net.

I played with Chad and we played really well together again! The first two games we won. The third we lost by 15-13 (every game was only one set to 15), the fourth we lost as well, 18-16. And that was the poolplay. After that the elimination started. And we lost right away with 15-5 or something. Embarrassing but nice, because that meant we could eat. Grilled burritos for lunch at the beach after hours of playing was pretty nice!

Today was an awesome day too! I had a really nice sleep-in until 11am, I skyped with my mom. I can’t believe it’s just a little more than two weeks until she gets here. I can’t wait!! Then I went to the gym. I was hoping to do my routine, 20 minutes of intervals and spend some time in the jacuzzi/sauna. But I only had time for the routine before I hade to drive to Fashion Valley to met up with Moa. Jessica and Pernille were supposed to come too, but they had to work. But me and Moa had a really great time anyway. We got our table earlier since we only needed a table for two. I hadn’t been at the Cheesecake Factory since April. For dinner I had Chicken Pasta from the Skinnylicious menu and the cheesecake today was Dutch Apple Caramel Streusel Cheesecake.  I love that restaurant, everything is amazing there!

Since the time was only 6pm when we were done we decided to walk around in Fashion Valley for a while. We found a really nice loose knitted shirt we both bought, but in different colors. When all the shops closed we sat in her car for like three hours, maybe it was even four, just talking. I’m really glad I’ve found her :).

This upcoming week is the last week of school for the kids. I will have a new schedule the week after, and that is gonna be nice. I’ve been doing the exact same thing for five months, it’s time for a little change. And I will have another change when school starts again in September. It’s very nice with three different schedule during this year. I can imagine it would be a little monotonous otherwise.

Now it’s time for a little sleep, goodnight!

The original cheesecake, baked apples, caramel and brown sugar cinnamon walnut streusel.

I came home very late yesterday so I will write about this super important thing that happened yesterday, I ate sushi for the first time ever. And I loved it! I went out with Moa, Jessica, Larissa and Pernille and we had such a great night! First we met up at a suchi restaurant in Mira Mesa where we all ordered different sushis and then shared. After that we went to Starbucks and Cold Stone. I wanted ice cream but I was too cold for it so I had a coffee too, haha! We were there until very late but after me and Moa got stuck outside talking for an hour while watching three policecars with a lot of policemen surrounding a car with young people in it. I wonder what happened!

I’m really happy that I found Moa at Starbucks that random Sunday evening some weeks ago. She is so sweet and we clicked right away. It’s awesome since we’re both gonna be here for many more months :).

I got home around 1am and today I had to get up at 7. It wasn’t too bad though, I was really excited about the beach volleyball tournament!

To be continued…

I had a really nice evening at Starbucks today with Moa, Jessica and Larissa. We talked about everything between heaven and earth and preliminary decided some things, like a weekend in Santa Monica in July, Hawaii in January. Both Moa and Jessica are coming to the tournament on Saturday which is gonna be super fun! I’m really looking forward to that. For the first time ever I actually feel that I might have a chance of getting far. But I’m not gonna say too much.

Swedish school today was nice, they had ”graduation” with Swedish summer songs and a lot of fika afterward. The kids were super cute in their fine clothes. One of the moms also came up to me and jessica and told us that there were a Swedish family that wanted to join the Swedish school and they had an au pair who was looking for friends. She is gonna give her our numbers, always fun to expand friend circles :).

At the gym today I talked a lot with my PT. I am working out a lot, I’m eating enough calories but I’m still not losing weight. So he told me that I really have to cut down with the carbs. It’s gonna be hard bu the told me about a cookbook with nice recipes with more protein and less carbs. I just ordered it and I hope it’s gonna help me. It’s hard finding things to replace the pasta with, but I’m gonna try.  I’m not gonna cut all carbs, but gradually try to replace it with something else, like quinoa and vegetables.

Now it’s time to sleep.
Friday tomorrow again! 🙂

Nine weeks has gone by so fast. I’m not sure if I’ve improved my speaking skills so mich but I’m definitely aware of my flaws, even though they are tiny and few. Tonight everyone who wanted could read a text out loud. I was the last to read and he didn’t have anything else to say except that it was a perfect ending. Happy!

So now I have 3/6 credits. And I still don’t know what to take as my next class. I think I’ve narrowed it down to the Drawing class, Physiology of Excercise and Sustainability. I have before June 12th to decide.

Something really weird happened this afternoon. When I left the house to pick up the kids from school two of our trash cans were on the curb. They were empty and I was gonna take them in when we got back. But when we got back the trash cans weren’t there, they were in the backyard, full of green waste and they stood back and the wrong way round. Super weird!! The only thing I can imagine happen (except for a ghost hobo) is that the gardeners came, cut the palm trees, and took them in from the curb. Still weird and they put them the right way round usually.

Americans have a lot of weird holidays. They aren’t off from work on Easter or Christmas Eve, but they have holidays called Presidents Holiday and Memorial Day where they are off. Weird, but I’m not complaining. I had the day off too and since it was Monday I decided to spend the day at the beach reading and then play beachvolleyball in the afternoon.

I got to the beach around 11am and it was so hard to find a parking spot! I had to park far away from the beach. The weather today wasn’t  very good. It was very windy and a little cloudy. It wasn’t cold though and I did get in the water a little after the second time I got pooped on. Pelicans are circling above the beach all day long and today they pooped on me, not once, not twice, but three times!! I don’t count the trip to the water as my first time in the ocean since I only washed away the poop. I will do the real thing when it’s not so windy.

We weren’t so many people playing today so I got to play a lot. When we started playing the sky was covered in clouds and the wind decreased a lot. So it was really nice to play! And I played really well today as well. That really makes me happy! Next time I will play, will be at the tournament on Saturday! Excited! 🙂

This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

This day was really weird, nothing went as planned. It started really good though with a couple of hours of beach volleyball. There is a list by the courts, when your name is up you can win three games in a row and then you have to get off the court. I played with a guy named Chad this morning and I’ve never played as well as today with him. Our two first game we won and then suddenly the wind came and totally messed with my head and we lost big time. Our fourth game was the same and after that I didn’t want to play anymore. So I sat down for a while watchin other people play and a flying pelican pooped on me, gross!
I did play more anyway and I’m glad I did. I didn’t play as well as before and it was with another guy, but we won two games before I had to go to San Diego and a weight loss clinic.

It’s not as is sounds. I went there with Sarah because they used vitamin B12 injections. I told them about my medical condition and they said it was no problem at all for me to get the shots. I got my first out of 15 today actually. We are gonna kickstart it and do it pretty often the first month and then less often. It’s gonna be around $200 in total for the rest of the year, but I think I don’t have a choice.

After that we went to IKEA to buy tickets to the Swedish Midsummer Smörgåsbord in June. On the website it said that the tickets were on sale now, but when we got there they told us they were gonna start selling them on Tuesday. I’m not sure that I have enough time in the afternoon. According to google maps I have plenty of time, but I don’t know about the traffic and how long it’s gonna take while I’m there. We are around 6 people (not just Swedish) going, so that’s nice!

Lunch at IHOP and then we drove up to Del Mar to pick up another au pair. We were going to Coronado for our sunset kayaking tour. Unfortunately there had been a misunderstanding, we thought it was gonna start at 6pm, but it was 5pm so Karin and Victoria didn’t make it. They had mine and Sarah’s voucher so we couldn’t go either. But we did reschedule to June 16th.

Later they invited me and Sarah to Victorias house for dinner and a movie. We made pesto chicken which was really good, and then we also baked swedish mudpie served with whipped cream and strawberries. The movie we watched was What to Expect When Expecting. It’s a fun movie.

Now I am home and am gonna fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow in two minutes…

Last nights class was the one I really had troubles with. Everything so far has been easy enough, even though I’m not understanding what the teacher says, I know what he means and I do it withouth thinking. But last night was about connected speech. I didn’t have any troubles with that, but the part where he told us about the z sounds in almost every word in the English language!! There is no way of knowing when to turn the s into a z. He said that if the consonant at the end of the word is voiced the s turns into a z but since I don’t understand unvoiced/voiced I really can’t tell. But me and Karin decided to turn all s into z’s and hopefully no one will hear when it’s wrong. It’s way harder with the s in the middle of a word… Stupid Z!

Today was a really nice day. Me and the boy spent the morning at the community park throwing a tennisball and catching with a baseball glove. It was cold.

For lunch we had quesidillas which was really good. The boy only had cheese in his but I had salsa sauce and ham as well! Yummie.

After lunch I spent an hour in the gym working my butt off. This workout schedule I have is pretty intense and I get real tired after. But I love that feeling!

After school there were more school; Swedish. It’s nice when I can sit down and talk with Karin and Jessica for a few hours. She is going to New Orleans tomorrow, hopefully she will have it warmer than I had when I was there.

Now it’s bedtime and I’m thinking about if I should start watching the fourth Star Wars movie or no. Or if I should get a lot of hours of sleep, or read… Tough decisions!

I’m sitting here thinking about my next class. It’s so hard to decide so I thought I maybe could get some help from my readers.

Drawing: Focus on Perception (beginner)
Learn basic drawing techniques through a variety of instructor demonstrations, guided in-class exercises and homework projects. Topics include contour drawing, positive and negative space, perspective, shading and composition.
3 credits, $275

Project Management Essentials in Science and Technology
Effective project management skills are important to professionals in any industry. This particular course is geared to those students interested or working in the life of sciences, engineering, and technology fields. Students will learn how to define, plan and execute a project, whether the goal is simple or complex, gain, the tools and knowledge for delivering projects on time and on budget, while meeting performance specifications explore the basic components of project management and the project life cycle.
3 credits, $540

Scientific and Technical Writing for Non-Native English Speakers
Designed for primarily for non-native speakers with advanced English proficiency, this course covers essential skills for writing well in scientific or technical settings.
3 credits, $325

German for Communication I
Includes the present tense, personal pronouns, ,possessive adjectives, the accusative case, and word order. Topics include the family, weather, telling time, describing the home and favorite pastimes.
3 credits, $295

The Physiology of Exercise
Exercise physiology, the study of human physical performance, draws its research base from applied exercise physiology, sports medicine, metabolism and nutrition. This course provides foundation for a thorough understanding of this field. Topics include: cardiopulomanary and muscle anatomy and physiology; energy pathways; muscle contraction; thermoregulation; caloric consumption assessment and expenditure; body composition; health screening and rish assessment; exercise prescription; and metabolism.
3 credits, $340

Introduction to Sustainability
Get an introduction to the basic of environmental sustainability – energy, transportation, water use, recycling, and natural resource life cycles. Discover ways individuals, organizations, and governments can manage resources in a responsible manner, with minimal impact on natural surroundings and climate. Learn scientific methods for measuring the effectiveness of eco-friendly practices, wheter in kolowatt-hours of energy use, acre-feet of reclaimed water, or greenhouse gas emissions.
3 credits, $415

I didn’t put these in any other order than they appeared in the UCSD summer catalog. What to choose?

Another weekend has come to its end. As quickly as usual… Where do all the days go?

Last night I started to watch Star Wars 1 but were too tired to stay awake through it all so I continued when I woke up this morning after a real long and nice sleep-in until 11:30am. Around noon I got up and made breakfast, french toast and mango slices. Sooo delicious!

Two hours later I had to work for a few hours. My h-mom and the girl went dress shopping and the boy really didn’t want to go with them so I spent the afternoon with him.

We ate dinner at Rubios, had a cupcake for dessert and I’m still under my daily calorie intake. It helps to get up late in the mornings. But I guess it’s the same on weekdays when I’m skipping breakfast.

Now I will get to bed and start watching the second Star Wars movie.

Today, it is also just one month left until my mom gets here, can’t wait!