Days 65-70: Whirlwind of Events

'Tis the busy season for my job, as such I routinely run out of time by the end of the day and therefore have to condense my blogging to weekly for the time being. This will be an adventure, I can barely remember what happened yesterday, so it should be fun trying to remember what I do for an entire week. 

Day 65, Wednesday, 3/18: Q at 9 am, Restage a beautiful condo in Belmont Bay, go to warehouse and pack for tomorrows staging, head back to gym for second round of abs with Joey... pass out face first from exhaustion.

Day 66, Thursday, 3/19: Stage unoccupied home in Fairfax, head to the gym with Joey, fall asleep and drool on myself.

Day 67, Friday, 3/20:  Q at 9am, 2 Destagings, Dinner with Hubby's co-workers, adventure to Fredericksburg that ended in an internal battle over a drink.

We went to see Insurgent at my favorite movie theater which has a swanky bar and 21+ section. We had an hour to kill, so we sat in the bar chatting where I discovered they had drinks tailored to the faction you identify with... SO OF COURSE I ORDERED DAUNTLESS before it even registered that I wasn't supposed to be drinking. As the drink gets brought to the table, Joey gives me shit about the alchohol. I sat there, took a sip, set it down, stared at it for a while, and eventually gave up and passed it to my husband. Instead I got a water with lemon and headed into the movie. Will Power 1 - Booze 0. Thanks for the push Joey.

Day 68, Saturday, 3/21: This morning I had a consult, tanning, make-up tutorial sesh with Yaya and Sabrina, and TopGolf with Joey and Ryan. Fun stuff aside, today was particularly awesome because I decided to try on a pair of Martin and Osa skinny jeans from 5 years ago and they FIT! I EVEN NEEDED A BELT! 

Honestly, I thought this was a fluke, so I ran to my "skinny closet" with all of my non-fat girl clothes in it and start ripping through jeans, shorts, and skirts from Gap, Banana, Express, and Limited... and I FIT in EVERY SINGLE ONE! I am officially out of fat girl clothes and back into normal sizes. Granted, it is still a 14 and bigger than I want to be, but it is a hell of a lot better than a woman's size 18/20! The picture below is me in the same jeans 5 years ago. I find this pic particularly interesting because even though I am the same size, I appear to be more toned. So yay for weight lifting!

 

Day 69, Sunday, 3/22: Gym, Tan, SHOPPING!  Today was pretty rad. Joey and I went to the gym. I ran for 45 minutes, Joey did Abs, then we met up with Josh and did a virtual Body Flow class. Holy moly that class is hard! It is apparently a mix of Yoga, Pilates, and Tai-Chi. I was sweating like a pig about half way through. I didn't know my body was capable of bending all those ways. After that hour was over, we grabbed a shake, went grocery shopping, stopped by a friends house to say hey, and popped in for a quick tan.

We got home around 5, ate dinner, then I headed off to Nordstrom to see what I could fit my behind into. I was like a kid in a candy store. I picked up a couple of Free People skirts and shirts, a Couture maxi-dress, and a Ralph gown. I can't tell you how much fun it was trying on super cute, trendy clothes.

Listen when I tell you the struggle for fashionable fat girl clothes is real! I have always considered myself a bit of a Fashionista, but trying to remain cute while your fat is pretty damn hard. If it wasn't for ModCloth and Eloquii, I wouldn't have been able to do it. Now, I am SUPER excited because I don't have to worry about that. You best believe my behind will be waltzing right into my favorite store on the planet, Banana Republic, next week.

Day 70, Monday, 3/23: I had Q in the morning and I did Yoga in the evening, other than that, I have no on earthly idea what I did today.

We will see if I can remember what I do next week. Talk to you later, gator.

Day 61 & 62: Staging A Brighter Future

This weekend I was assisting with the Association of Property Scene Designer's Stager Pro class. It was a great time. I met a lot of great ladies who are going to do well in our field. I was the Gopher for the weekend which meant I was running around to the properties and setting up the furniture and accessories for the students to use and helping wrangle everyone during Sundays scene staging and shopping classes. Needless to say, I am exhausted, so I am going to take a nap. Later Gator.

Day 47: So Blessed to Love My Job

If you love what you do you will never work a day in your life. For me, I am so blessed to be able to say that is 100% true.

 

Today was a doozy. I had a 10 o'clock with Q where she whipped my arms into shape. Then I ran strait to the warehouse to grab some items for todays staging.  My assistant Kiana and I did an occupied staging in a beautiful home right around the corner from my house. The owner was so sweet with such southern charm. I felt right at home. The house looks fabulous when we were done, but boy was I exhausted by the end of it! I came strait home and I am now laying on this couch. I am not moving the rest of the night.

 

Here are a few shots of what it looked like after. In order to see the entire album of Before and After's, click here

 

 

Day 42: My Day Job... Which I LOVE!

I can honestly tell you I truly, truly, truly love what I do. I love every not to pretty, sweaty, physically exhausting detail of it. For those of you who don't know, I am a Lead Stager for The Staging Fashionista, one of the DC area's premier full service staging companies. We do a lot of properties ranging from super tiny condo to enormous McLean Mansion's. The smallest I have been in was a one bed DC condo and the largest a 5 story multi-million dollar monster outside of Tysons. 

Today was a pretty standard staging in Fairfax, VA. I did this baby by myself because my assistant couldn't make it due to it being rescheduled from the snow. One of the greatest things about my job is the fact it is extremely physical. We don't have a large team like some of the other companies. Most of the time we have one mover and one stager, so guess who is moving the furniture. We are.

This one we had 2 couches, 4 accent chairs, 2 tables, 6 dining chairs, 1 coffee table, 2 ottomans, 4 side tables, book shelf, countless pieces of art, accessories, lamps, rugs, kitchen and bath accessories. With no one else but us, Anthony and I hauled everything right up to the second and third floor where it all belonged. After everything was said and done, it took me a good 7 hours to do the house, we had the foyer, living room, dining room, eat in kitchen, den, master bed and bath, and office. I must have gone up 45 flights of stairs by the end of it. All this working out is really paying off. I wasn't huffing and puffing at all. It was the craziest thing!

Here is a couple of shots from the staging. In order to see the before and after's of the entire home, click here

 

 

Day 41: Snow Can't Keep Me Down!

Ugh, is it spring yet? This snowy crap is for the birds! This morning I woke up all excited for my staging in Fairfax. We knew the snow was coming, but we didn't expect it to hit so early. I got to the warehouse around 10 to grab my assistant and head to the property. We got about half-way there before it started to snow. A few minutes later, I got a message from Mannie, the owner of The Staging Fashionista telling us to call it off because the snow was getting too bad and she didn't want us to get hurt. So, we turned around and I headed off to take Kiana home.

Whew buddy, that was an experience. I ended up turning off a main road and going through some windy back roads that had not been salted (thanks GPS). Needless to say, some people need to stay the hell off the road if they don't know how to drive in snow. A guy in an audi slowed down quickly right in front of me, when I went to pass him my back wheels kicked out and we started sliding sideways. You want to talk about a tight butt. Holy moly. Jesus take the wheel. Thank the good Lord for Erica teaching me how to control a front wheel drive car in snow my first year in DC. Thanks to her lesson, I was able to get us out of it safely. I safely got Kiana home and I safely got myself home... after a lot of nervous joking and cussing at shitty northern VA drivers.

Once I got home, I went into turbo cleaning mode to relieve the stress from the drive. I am pleased to say my house looks awesome right now. About 3:00 Ryan comes upstairs and tells me and Joey that he is going to our neighborhood clubhouse gym to run 6 miles, so we decided to tag along for a family gym outing.

Joey and I thought we were going to swim, but the life guard bailed on his position given the current blizzard, so we modified and went to the weight and cardio room. I did 30 minutes on an elliptical, followed by a 3 set circuit of 25 lap pulls (55 pounds), seated rows, leg press (150 pounds), and two other leg machines that work the hammies and glutes. This is about the time Joey came over to see if I wanted to do abs. Ryan still had about 25 minutes left, so I said sure, why not. I went and grabbed a 10 pound medicine ball and 2 yoga mats and we did 3 sets of 25 sit-up ball tosses, and 2 sets of 25 medicine ball partner throws. I. Wanted. To. Die. But instead, I walked over to the rowing machine and did a 500 meter row on 10 resistance. That rower was right next to the inclined sit-up bench that Joey was on. When he got off, I decided I should try it... mostly because he was goading me into it. Damn. That was WAY harder than it looked. Once I completed my measly 25 inclined sit-ups, Ryan had finished.

This was the first time I have ever worked out with Joey as my partner. I think he may have missed his calling as a trainer. He is excellent at motivating others. During the last round of sit-ups I was getting SUPER tired and he never let me quit. Trust me, I tried.

We got home about 5:30 and spent the rest of the evening around the fireplace watching movies. It was a nice night after a really good workout. We rescheduled the staging we missed today for tomorrow, so I must go and get my beauty rest. I will talk to you tomorrow.