I Love Lucy!

My roommate!

Over the past two months that I’ve been funemployed, I’ve gotten to spend a lot more time with my incredibly awesome roommate. We’ve become so much closer and am so grateful that she entered my life. We were fortunate enough to be two sane people who met over the internet. I’ve actually been really lucky with my internet friends (Hi Ben, XX!).

Lucy is the yin to my yang. She is calm, soothing, an excellent listener and advice giver and so sweet. And she is gorgeous! We are also very similar in some ways: we both gag at romantic movies and love healthy food, hula hoops, dirty rap music, hot men, neon colors, lip gloss, working out,  and Bethenny Frankel. A typical day off for us includes wearing bummy clothes, getting coffee, spending too much $ at Target, scoping out men at Whole Foods, then working out.

Lucy claims that before she lived with me she didn’t bake much. She’s been watching me and has been inspired to start baking too. Tonight, after juicing an apple, she wondered if there was anything she could do with the leftover apple pulp. All on her own, she researched and found a recipe for Carrot Apple Ginger Tea Cakes. She got everything together and successfully made them. I was so proud!

Aren’t they cute? She topped them with extra brown sugar to make them sweeter.

Being that she is vegan, I had always assumed her dessert options were so limited. Wrong! I pointed her in the direction of the blogs SpaBettie, by Kristina, and Healthy Diva Eats, by Katie. Any other blogs/sites with vegan recipes would be greatly appreciated by us both! Send ‘em over! :)

Today at the gym, Lucy was admiring a pair of Nikes a guy was wearing. We went over to ask him what style they were, and she actually said, “I’ve been perving on your sneakers. What are they?” Perving. And that is why I love her!

Hula/Spin Success and Black History Month

I promise the above topics are related. Just read on.

Hula/Spin was a success! David gave me a wonderful introduction and I’m confident that everyone in the class thought it was a neat concept. We had one girl win a free personal training session because she was able to hoop the duration of a 3 1/2 minute song. I’m seriously contemplating buying a book on hula hooping so I can become a master hooper and start my own fitness classes. Just imagine that. Would you attend?

During the cool down song, David usually comes around for high-fives. He instead announced that in honor of Black History Month, he’d be walking around asking us individually who our favorite black person was. I almost fell off my bike laughing. I mean really, we were getting our burn on AND our learn on. Most people responded with celebrities like Denzel Washington, Sydney Poitier, Michael Jackson, and Usher. I chose an Eco celebrity:

JULIUS!!!

Julius was my trainer last year and became one of my favorite people in the world. I highly recommend him if you need to learn how to pump iron. He is the reason why I am no longer afraid of the gym’s man zone and can babe-hunt like a pro.

Because I was in class, Ashley was left to gawk at the babes alone. I received this tweet from her:

Past gym-related tweets that will make you chuckle:

(Feel free to add me on twitter: @christinaorso.) About that last tweet, Ash’s most recent gym crush appeared to be a babe until he jumped on the treadmill next to us. It was like big foot joined Eco Fitness and his main mission was to pound down on heavy machinery. I guess he can still be a babe, but if he wants to run on the treadmill, he should probably put on ballerina slippers.

Question 1: Do hot gym babes motivate you to work out? I don’t have a gym crush but I do appreciate any male who likes to work on his pecs/lats/biceps. Not traps though. Those are freaky.

Question 2: How do you feel about men doing the stereotypically female fitness classes like yoga and pilates? My ex-bf pumped iron but loved pilates. I’m a huge promoter of doing whatever fitness routine that makes you happy, but that always made me wonder. Then again, I find exercise while drinking. Who am I to judge?

Vodka curls last summer:

Adventures in Hula Hooping

Last Wednesday, my hilarious friend Mike challenged me to a hula hooping competition. For some reason he was under the impression that he could outlast me; little did he know I am a hooping champion.

The two of us met at the gym with five different hula hoops: one crappy hoop that Mike had and four of Lucy’s and my hoops. As I walked in with my hoops, I wondered if people would look at me like I was a lunatic, but the exact opposite happened. Everyone wanted to know what we were up to, and I was even asked if I’d be teaching a class anytime soon. A few other girls approached us and asked if they could give it a try. It was fun to see so many people intrigued by our $5 toys.

Mike and I had a couple mini competitions, most of them lasting between 5 and 10 minutes. Mike did an awesome job keeping the hoop up, but I was definitely the winner. Here is a little clip that Lucy took of us. Please enjoy Mike’s “competition attire” and the part where he skips. He’s a gem.

While we were there, one of the spin class instructors/trainers, David, attempted to hoop. He was very enthusiastic, but didn’t do so well. The next day at the gym, I went to his spin class, and he immediately recognized me as hula hoop girl. In a typical spin class, you can spin, run on the woodway speed boards, or use the krankcycles. David thought it would be fun to throw the hula hooping option in there and asked if I’d like to bring my hoops to a class. Of course I was all over this. On Friday morning, I brought my hoops to class and it was a success! Even David finally got the hang of it.

At tomorrow’s  Spin class at 6:30 p.m., David will be teaching spin, and I will be teaching hula hooping! Anyone can come, but I recommend calling to sign up for a spot just in case. David is offering a free personal training session to whomever can keep their hula hoop up the longest. All my Eco friends need to come!

Why I Have Issues, Round 1

Trust me when I say that there will be a round 2. And maybe a 3 and 4. I am a strange chick.

1. I get an obscene amount of magazines each month. In just one day, I received four.What’s worse, when I stopped at Publix for just flour, I picked up another because I couldn’t resist the cover.

2. I get wayyyyyyy too excited about new food finds. I nearly peed my pants (dress?) when I saw the four new Fage Greek yogurt flavors. If you look really closely, you can see my tongue sticking through my teeth. I am that excited.

new flavors: strawberry goji, cherry pomegranate, blueberry acai, mango guanabana00

3. Every single time I bake, I have some sort of a fail. A burn. A cut. A slice. I dropped this. I splattered that. I broke a utensil. It’s always a surprise. On Friday, I baked these swirled blondies for Amanda’s birthday. In an attempt to easily cut the bars, I thought flipping them out of the pan seemed like a good idea. Okay, NO. I dropped a chunk of them on the floor.

4. I spend too much time at Chick-fil-A. Not that there can be such a thing…but…I went there twice today. It wasn’t my first time doing a double-drop-in either. They know me by name, they slap me five…do they worship me? I got this facebook comment from Caroline today:

OF COURSE it was me!

5. I cannot do anything without making a mess. While looking for my passport, I destroyed my bedside table drawers. Hurricane Xtina at her best.

6. I actually cannot dress myself. I don’t know how to match articles of clothing to make an outfit. I seek out fashion advice from my awesome blogger friend, Holly. She was so kind and made me a collage of ideas on how to wear my peach sequin skirt. I love her for this!

7. My nicknames include Hot Mess and Messtina, No explanation necessary.

8. I find joy in hula hooping.

Do you hate me now?

Bambu Dining with the Roommates

Last night, Diana (my old roommate) and Lucy (my new roommate) and I went to Bambu for dinner. Bambu is an Asian restaurant in Mt. Pleasant off of Coleman Blvd. It’s very pretty inside and the sushi is great. They have a ton of rolls to choose from, so we each picked one and shared with each other.

Diana ordered the SCAM Roll - Crab and cream cheese roll topped with avocado and spicy shrimp and crab mix.
Lucy ordered the Super White Tuna Roll - White tuna and avocado atop a spicy tuna, crab and cucumber roll.
I ordered the Umami Roll - Tempura shrimp, spicy tuna, and mango roll topped with seared tuna, jalapeno, and sweet chili sauce.I loved all three rolls, but I definitely enjoyed mine the most. Mango in a roll was a first to me, and I really loved the fruity flavor against the jalapeno.


We went straight home after dinner. No additional alcohol for us. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t have fun. Remember when I bought my hula hoop a couple weeks ago? When I got home with it, I was thinking Lucy was going to think I was a total weirdo for buying a hula hoop. Instead of looking at me funny, she told me she actually had the same one in a different color. Moments later, she came out of her room holding a purple hula hoop.

So last night, Lucy and I had a major  hooping session. I’m talking about a solid hour of hula hooping – around our waists, wrists, elbows, and neck. Yes, neck. We are becoming pros. I can’t even lie – today’s mission is to go buy more hula hoops in different colors because it’s really fun to hoop two at at time.

We are 5-year-olds.

Videos/pictures to come.

Don’t forget to enter the Yoplait smoothie giveaway!