I went to SeaWorld in San Diego this past weekend.  Haven't been since I was a kid and I visited the Florida location that time. 

I forgot how majestic those animals are to see up close.  Especially Shamu.  The real Shamu died many years ago, but everyone identifies with the name, so they just call all of them Shamu.  The one we saw was actually named Corky and she's 46 years old.  From what the trainer said, she's a sweet gal and is always ready to lend a hand to babysit the other killer whales' babies so they can have a Calgon moment or date night or whatever.  I think I cried the whole time I watched the "Believe" show.  Corky was so gentle with the trainers and gave hugs like you wouldn't believe.  You could tell she was very attached to the trainers in the show.  She followed them around.  Here is an animal that could eat you for lunch, yet she's hugging you or giving you a big sloppy kiss.  Amazing! 

The dolphins were incredible as well.  So smart, so fast, so comical. It was hard to take a photo because they move so fast.  Dolphins have been known to protect surfers from sharks until help arrives.  Isn't that awesome?!

The polar bears were amazing up close.  We arrived just at feeding time, so we got to see them walk around and fish food out of the water in their habitat, which was set up to look like the Arctic tundra.  Did you know that with all the global warming, their natural roaming lands are shrinking?  That's sad. 

LOVE SeaWorld!  Take your kids and marvel in all things aquatic.  And right now, you can go twice for the price of one visit!  I definitely plan to go again before the year is over!  You won't be disappointed!

Cheers!

Kelly :)

Well I did it!  I created something from nothing(relatively speaking because all matter that will ever be in the universe is already in existence right now.)

My boyfriend has a backyard that's seen better days, it hasn't been touched in 12 years, even though his landlord provides a gardener.  Go figure.  But, no leaves collected, no plants, no pruning, no grass, zip.  Just weeds, tires, broken patio chairs, rusted grill.  So, I thought, "Hmm, I have an idea…"

April '08: I decided to take it upon myself to fix it up.  I really can't make it any worse, just raking up the leaves was an improvement. The project started with me researching what the heck I was about to undertake.  I normally can't keep a plant alive because I forget to water it.  (I now have cats and I've managed to keep them alive for 3 years, so I think I can graduate to plant life.)  HGTV was a HUGE help, as well as, some friends that have backyards of their own.  Book after book, magazine after magazine, gardening show after gardening show, I tried to cram as much info into my head as I could in a short amount of time.  The guy at Lowe's probably thinks I'm stalking him.  But when I want to learn something, I ask a lot of questions.

Before photos:

There's a PATIO under here?

 

The first plan of attack was getting rid of that 6' pile of leaves.  I let the gardener handle that one, it was the least he could do.  (And in doing so, he finally pruned the trees.)  Then, the true nature of the backyard was finally revealed.  I had my work cut out for me.  The yard has nine trees back there.  One is a gigantic mess with roots that have damaged part of the patio.  The concrete has been pushed up, so it's unstable to walk on.  I removed the concrete, section by section, to expose an 8'x 8' area of dirt and roots.  Laying any type of flat structure over top, ie. new patio or deck, wouldn't work because the roots would continue to grow and we'd end up back at square one.  So, it's just going to be a nice large area for plants and maybe a bird bath.

May '08:  Next was working on the lawn, or lack thereof.  It was mostly hard dirt and weeds.  If you want new grass, there are two options.  Grow it yourself or get sod.  Sod is pre-grown grass you simply lay down in sheets for instant gratification.  Growing it yourself obviously takes more time, but it's cheaper and less work.  I went with growing it myself because it was going to cost $16 verses $80 -$100 to lay sod.  To prep the dirt, you have to rototill to break it up and uproot the weeds.  I opted to do this part BY HAND, instead of renting a machine for an hour.  I couldn't afford it (oh, did I mention that I have about $100 to spend on this entire project?)  I used my trusty hand rake (from the 99 Cents Store) and hacked away at the dirt for a solid month, little by little, in my spare time.  I didn't say this process was going to be fast, did I?

June '08:  You guessed it, still working the dirt, but this time, I was leveling the ground and sifting debris from the soil.  The ground was very rocky, so I had to clean it up and will use the rocks later for mulch around some plants.  While working on the dirt, I decided to fix ANOTHER part of the patio that had eroded away with time and weather(right side of below pic.)  I dug everything up and out and laid down the concrete sections I removed from the tree root area to form a new patio!  Who knew recycling would be so much fun!

Alright!  I guess it's been quite awhile since I last blogged.

My website is going through some changes, so hopefully you like the new look.  I'll be working on it more, so check back for updates. www.kellychristopher.com

I'm still working out, which means, I'm getting slimmer by the day!  I've dropped a few sizes, so I have to go shopping again.  I'm not complaining, good excuse to shop when none of your clothes fit.  Yeah me!  The workouts are still awesome and I really enjoy the program I'm doing.  My trainer is the best and he's a great motivator.  Check him out at www.extreme-burn.com. 

I'm totally addicted to a new show on the USA Network.  It's called Burn Notice.  LOVE IT!  Funny, sexy, exciting, there's comedy, drama, spy games.  It's the complete package.  Season 1 is available on DVD now, Season 2 just started up.  Thurs night is my new favorite night. I don't get to watch much tv these days, so it's that good.

I joined a theater company.  Did I mention that?  Yep.  West Coast Ensemble.  www.westcoastensemble.org.  So, hopefully, I'll be doing a show soon.  Haven't done theater in awhile.  Will be good to get back up on the stage.

A good friend of mine is moving into the apt next door to me.  I'm totally stoked! It will be nice to have a friend in the building now.  We can borrow sugar from each other all the time!  (Do people really do that?)

Praise to the following people for having babies recently:  Jonna Mundorff, Brianna Thompson, Karen Noble, Anna Urive, Liz Journic, Wendy Byron, I'm forgetting someone...congrats ladies and gents on your new offspring.  Couldn't be happier for you all.

Well, have to cut this short.  Gotta make it look like I'm working here at work!

Ciao friends,

Kelly :)

Hello friends,

I have come to the realization that it's time I got myself in shape.  Well, it was time about 6 weeks ago.  So, I started one of those bootcamps with the lovely Von James.  (More on him later.)  6 weeks have gone by and now, I'm trim(er) and much stronger.  I won't go into the details of the inches/weight lost(never ask a girl that), but let's just say, I had some clothes shopping to do over the weekend.  And I went from doing 12 pushups to 55.  Count your blessings!

I loved the results so much, that I signed up for another 6 weeks of torture...umm, I mean fun.  In all actuality, it really was fun (but I'm not gonna lie, it was hard work) and I feel a crap load better than before.  Wow, really?  6 (small planned ahead) meals a day, plus cut out sugar and "white" things?  That's all it takes you say, Kelly?  It really is that easy(along with working out.)  Oh, and don't go near anything that says "partially hydrogenated" or "high fructose corn syrup" either.  You don't EVEN want to know what that stuff is doing to your body.

Von's a great guy.  He's been doing it for years, has a killer amount of knowledge regarding nutrition and wellness.  He doesn't take himself too seriously, knows how to have fun, but knows when it's time to get the work done.  He's a great motivator when you just don't feel like doing your 300th squat. You're not gonna get skinny from diets or pills or sitting on the couch.  Burn those calories and fat! (If you're interested http://www.myspace.com/extremeburn)

I posted a photo of he and I in my album section from our graduation party.

I'll keep you posted on how the next 6 weeks go.

Cheerio!

Kelly :)

Hello fellow Irish (and Non-Irish) Friends,

It’s St. Patty’s Day!! Woohoo!  Can’t wait for that taste of Guinness later tonight.  Ooo!  That rich, velvety dark ale with the cute little widget hiding inside.  Oh, the perfect drink @ 210 cal/pint.  Come to me...

I’ve got my green on today.  Yup.  I love anything that has to do with Ireland and the Irish.  I even went so far as to study Ireland in college.  I’m that crazy about it.  Heck, even my NAME is Irish! (Thanks Mom and Dad!)

"Kelly (..k(el)-ly..) is an Irish origin given name and surname. Etymologically, it originated as a patronymic surname, with the prefix Ó ("grandchild", or "male descendant") and the suffix Ceallach ("strife", or "contention"), an Old Gaelic clan name, Ó Ceallaigh (anglicisized as "O’Kelly").

It’s been adapted to mean "Brave Warrior" in many English language armies (for example, the Irish Army, British Army, and Australian Army), and "Warrior Princess" by American popular culture. Kelly is the second most common family name in Ireland (after Murphy).  Kelly, and variants, was originally only a surname. With transferred use, Kelly became a popular masculine given name also, and subsequently became a popular feminine given name also. According to the U.S. Social Security Administration, Kelly, girl’s name, was ranked 999 in 1944, then steadily gained popularity through 1977 (10), before declining (212 in 2006)."

Don’t know why I love Ireland so much, the place gets rain like nobody’s business.  But I hear it’s just the most magical, wonderful place to visit.  I’ve been dreaming of going since I was a little kid and by George I WILL get there one day.  Maybe this year will be the year, who knows.  I would even consider buying a little place over a pub someday so I could keep coming back for more.

Let’s learn a little about the day and the patron saint who inspired it:

"Saint Patrick’s Day (Irish: Lá ’le Pádraig or Lá Fhéile Pádraig), colloquially St. Paddy’s Day or Paddy’s Day, is an annual feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick (circa 385–461 AD), one of the patron saints of Ireland, and is generally celebrated on March 17.

Saint Patrick (Latin: Patricius, Irish: Naomh Pádraig) was a Roman Britain-born Christian missionary and is the patron saint of Ireland along with Brigid of Kildare and Columba. When he was about sixteen he was captured by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family. He entered the church, as his father and grandfather had before him, becoming a deacon and a bishop. He later returned to Ireland as a missionary in the north and west of the island, but little is known about the places where he worked and no link can be made between Patrick and any church. By the eighth century he had become the patron saint of Ireland. The Irish monastery system evolved after the time of Patrick and the Irish church did not develop the diocesan model that Patrick and the other early missionaries had tried to establish.  St. Patrick used the shamrock, a three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish.

In the past, Saint Patrick’s Day was celebrated only as a religious holiday. It became a public holiday in 1903, by the Bank Holiday (Ireland) Act 1903, an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament introduced by the Irish MP James O’Mara. O’Mara later introduced the law which required that pubs be closed on 18 March, a provision which was repealed only in the 1970s. The first St. Patrick’s Day parade held in the Irish Free State was held in Dublin in 1931 and was reviewed by the then Minister of Defence Desmond Fitzgerald. Although secular celebrations now exist, the holiday remains a religious observance in Ireland, for both the Church of Ireland and Roman Catholic Church.

Sign on a beam in the Guinness Storehouse.

It was only in the mid-1990s that the Irish government began a campaign to use Saint Patrick’s Day to showcase Ireland and its culture.The government set up a group called St. Patrick’s Festival, with the aim to:

—Offer a national festival that ranks amongst all of the greatest celebrations in the world and promote excitement throughout Ireland via innovation, creativity, grassroots involvement, and marketing activity.

—Provide the opportunity and motivation for people of Irish descent, (and those who sometimes wish they were Irish) to attend and join in the imaginative and expressive celebrations.

—Project, internationally, an accurate image of Ireland as a creative, professional and sophisticated country with wide appeal, as we approach the new millennium.

The first Saint Patrick’s Festival was held on 17 March 1996. In 1997, it became a three-day event, and by 2000 it was a four-day event. By 2006, the festival was five days long. 500,000 showed up in 2007."

___________________________________________________
What a beautiful country...

Farmland


Castles


Nature



What’s NOT to love!!!!!

So, I hope you all get a chance to celebrate this festive occasion in one form or another today.  Drink responsibly and have a ball.

Cheers!

Kelly :)

You know I was thinking.  Today is February 29th, which is a Leap Year.  I wondered about the origins.  So, I looked it up:

"A leap year (or intercalary year) is a year containing one or more extra days in order to keep the calendar year synchronised with the astronomical or seasonal year. For example, in the Gregorian calendar, February would have 29 days in a leap year instead of the usual 28. Because seasons and astronomical events do not repeat at an exact number of full days, a calendar which had the same number of days in each year would, over time, drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. By occasionally inserting an additional day into the year, the drift can be corrected."

Here is a cute article from Conte Nast explaining the extra 24 hours:

"This being February 29 — Leap Day —Today is costing you an extra day's interest if you're repaying a debt. On the bright side, its earning you a tiny bit more on your bank deposits.

Whom do we have to thank — or curse — for this extra day every four years? Julius Caesar and his lover, Cleopatra.

In 48 B.C., Julius Caesar was in Alexandria, Egypt, absorbing the culture and science — and decadence — of Cleopatra's capital. There he learned from an old sage named Acoreus about Egypt's calendar, which had a leap year.

At the time, the Roman calendar did not. Like most ancient calendars, it was based on the phases of the moon, which in one cycle take about 29.5 days. But 12 months of 29.5 days doesn't equal the true length of the year as measured by the orbit of the Earth around the sun. It's off by 11 days, so anniversaries, holidays, and entire seasons to drift backward on lunar calendars.

The ancient Egyptians had realized this and created a calendar 365??-days long — with the fraction averaged in by adding an extra day every four years.

When Caesar returned to Rome, he created a 365-day calendar with a quadrennial leap year, adding the extra day in February.

A minor hassle for some, perhaps, but certainly better than the alternative faced by the Romans. Back in 45 B.C., for instance, their lunar calendar had drifted backward by 80 days — nearly three months. Spring had become winter, and autumn came in the summer months.

To correct, this Caesar decreed that 45 B.C. would be 445 days long. Think about the extra interest on 80 extra days! No wonder they called it "The Year of Confusion."

Okay, makes sense.  But what I would like to know is, if someone is born on February 29th and it's only observed every 4 years, when do people celebrate their birthday the other 3 years?  March 1? Technically, their birthday is the day after February 28, so I would assume they would just celebrate on March 1.  And no, you don't stop aging until the next February 29th...

Happy Birthday for all of you out there born on February 29.  I'm glad my mom had me on the 27th.

Kelly :)

How cool was the Lunar Eclipse last night?  WAY COOL!  I wasn't home at the time for this one, I was at a SAG Life Raft Event at SAG Headquarters.  But a bunch of us went outside to watch for a few minutes.  Lovely, just lovely.

There was another one in August of '07 and I took some photos of it with my digital camera because my old telescope just couldn't handle the low level of light during the eclipse.  But here's one of the few good photos my camera took:

Who knew a small digital camera would capture a nice photo?

Well, the next Lunar Eclipse isn't scheduled until December 10, 2010.  Mark your calendars!

Kelly :)

I'm trying to be more into "Fashion".  I do have a simple, laid back style.  I like to look nice, but the problem is that most of the time, I'm lazy.  And I could never really put together an outfit to save my life growing up.  My favorite color was plaid.  Or if I try to put an outfit together, I feel dumb that I look like I'm trying too hard.

But with being in the biz, I'm trying (as of late) to be more "fashion" conscious...whatever THAT means.  I guess it means being more aware of what's in right now, the latest handbag, etc.  Not that I'm going to run out and buy it on my piddly little salary. But maybe I can gain a sense of style and have more confidence in putting together an outfit on my own.  I don't really read Vogue or Cosmo.  I've sneaked a peek here and there, but get too overwhelmed with all the (mostly) offensive photos and/or scary, outrageous outfits.  Do women really wear that stuff?  I think it's a designer saying "Look what I can do!"  It's not practical, so why bother?  Expression maybe, who knows.

I know everyone loved Devils Wears Prada, which I did to, I bought the DVD, but never REALLY looked at the fashion in it.  So, lately, I've been watching over and over just for that. Wow, I had no idea Chanel was such a big deal.  I actually deal with Chanel products at work(can't tell you how, but I do), and I never cared for it.  But seeing that it's such a big part of the fashion world, made me take another look. 

Now, I'm in love with some jewelry from the movie:

&

(her wearing the first necklace in the movie)

I wish I could afford stuff that I like.  But when I make some $$, you best believe where I'm headed.  Might pick me up one of those signature quilted purses...err, excuse me, handbags, too. 

I tell ya, fashion can be addictive.  I've gone so far as to start reading up on Victoria Beckham.  I never used to like her, for no apparent reason, but lately, I've changed my opinion.  The woman knows how to look good.  (Although she could stand to gain a pound or ten.) 

(this is like the only photo on the internet where she's smiling):

(she normally looks like this):

No one's perfect of course, but still, I'm starting to like her.  I'm about to buy her new book on fashion, just to see what she has to say.  I'm expecting to be pleasantly surprised.

Let the fashion games, BEGIN!

Kelly :)

PS. I will own these before I'm dead...

Hi gang,

What do you think this is?  Hmm?  Could it be the spirit of one of my relatives making their presence known?  Flying saucer? LA gunfire? Chinese New Year celebrations?

No, it's the sunlight bouncing off the building across the street and STRAIGHT into my retinas as I sit at my desk at work.  Where are my moviestar shades when I need 'em?

Just thought I'd share.  I'm going to close the blinds now.

Cheers!

Kelly :)

My sister bought me this lovely "stadium" pan last year for my birthday.  I don't have many sporting events to really use it, so I used it this year for my annual SuperBowl Cake I make for my friend's party.  (I usually just make a foodball field every year.)  Well, here it is!:

You like?  It was a bundt cake, which is needed because of it's dense nature to hold the 3D shape.  I don't normally make bundt cakes, but I thought it was rather tasty for a first try.  Everyone else seemed to like it as well.

So, I guess I'll bust out the pan once a year for the SuperBowl.  Although, I did promise my friend that I would make him the cake when the LA Clippers won the NBA Championship...keep dreaming Doug...keep dreaming!

Cheers!

Kelly :)

PS.  I'm bummed the Pats lost.  I think they were a way better team overall, but the Giants played their little hearts out.  So, they deserved it.