Giveaway Winner!

Thanks to all entered the giveaway and checked out Katie's Etsy store and blog. She is awesome and I think we all benefit from her craftiness. Stay tuned for my attempt at her french macaron recipe.

The winner of our little giveaway from Katie's TwentySix Eleven shop is the hilarious and sweet Danica Rugg from The Jake and Dani Story (that's mainly about Hadley). Her blog is also worth checking out - she makes me believe in real, messy, wonderful motherhood. With a name like Danica, she's bound to be pretty cool.

Email me Dani! Contact me at dholdy{at}gmail.com and we'll get you all hooked up.

Everyone else - don't forget there is a coupon code valid for all of my readers for Katie's shop! If you have any decorat-y/design-y needs check out her store and email her - she's really nice and great at customization.

Use code CHEETAH25 for 25% off your order at her store!

Also, this giveaway was fun. Lets do it again. Email me if you are interested in advertising your product or services. :)

Creep Central

No, this post isn't about another creepy BYU date. Sorry. Maybe I'll dish out a few more of those soon.

This is about the creepiest thing about me, Danica Anne.

Most of you probably know I'm a geek right? I own more Star Wars paraphernalia than your average citizen. The guy at Gold's Gym actually referred to me as "Star Wars Girl" on Monday because I'm always wearing a Star Wars shirt to the gym. I was flattered.

Many of you know that I like gore and violence - of the zombie flavor in particular. Walking Dead, World War Z, Quarantine, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, etc.

But I have a love/obsession even worse than these. Definitely the creepiest thing about me.

Since high school I've been in love with the Thomas Harris "Hannibal" series. Yes, the one with the cannibal serial killer. The more popular movies (Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Manhunter/Red Dragon/Hannibal Rising) were based on his amazing books - which I've read many times.(I own them all if anyone is interested in reading them with me?.. no? .... no one?)

Obviously I wouldn't say I LOVE the cannibalism. I could definitely live without it. That's not what I'm there for. I love the mystery and suspense, the crime drama, the psychological elements. I love the characterization and how Dr. Hannibal Lecter becomes almost a protagonist.  I love the philosophical questions the books pose about what is "good" and the struggle to develop and follow a personal moral compass.

I love them. I love these books and movies. I love the story. I have an entire playlist dedicated to it. I've read a disgusting amount of fan fiction.

So I was beyond stoked to see that NBC has picked up a pilot season of the show Hannibal - about the relationship between Hannibal and famed detective Will Graham. This will fill the open space between the end of Hannibal Rising and the flashbacks in Red Dragon of Will catching Hannibal.

Here is the problem. The Beard is somehow morally opposed to violent films about cannibalism. He's adopted The Office, Star Wars, Harry Potter and even Star Trek. But he draws the line at Hannibal. I think it's pretty rude.

What I'm trying to say here is that the Beard needs a hobby that gets him out of the house for an hour or two each weeks so I can watch my creepy, morally objectionable TV show. Someone needs to start some sort of Fantasy Baseball Anonymous meetings or weekly Starcraft practice.

I'm also looking for best supporting actors in the role of Danica's Creepy Friend Who Watches Hannibal. And Maybe Reads the Books, Too.

Any takers?

Workout Wednesday - Back from the Dead

Last summer I was super ambitious and started a Workout Wednesday series to fill my empty time - the pros of being a teacher during the summer.

Obviously it fizzled. But we're back. (I was still working out you guys. Promise.)

I've always been athletic and active. But it isn't until the last few weeks that I've found the best gym workout method for me. Just in time for Spring Break suckas!

My dear friend Shannon posted about her workout routine and we started emailing about workout philosophies. We both agree on the following

• Cardio is pretty much of the devil
• Spending more than 45 minutes in the gym makes us want to set ourselves on fire
• Lifting weights is fun
• Lifting weights makes us feel good
• Our metabolism and bodies are responding when we focus on weight training

So here's what I've been doing for approximately 3-4 weeks and I'm sold. Seriously. I feel great, I acutally LIKE going to the gym and my body is showing results. 

I go to the gym 3-5 times a week - depending on the week. I pack all my gym stuff and psych myself up for an awesome workout during the day at school. After school I drive to the West Jordan gym, not far from my school, and grind out a workout that I'm looking forward to. If it's the weekend or I'm already home, I go to the Draper Gold's. 

The point is that I get excited for a workout and I tell myself that I'm going to push hard for only 30-45 minutes and feel awesome after. Also the fact that I don't have to kill myself on the dreadmill for 30 minutes before a 30 minute weight workout is a huge factor in my happiness.

I suggest a pair of sick Nike Frees to motivate your workouts. 

I do little to no cardio. Sure, that's an essential part of a workout you may say. But I can either force myself to do crappy cardio and hate every second of it, getting into a terrible mood and doing a bad job at my weight training afterward - OR I can do a quick cardio stint to warm up and save my energy for weight training.

During my workouts I push myself hard. I lift heavy, take short breaks between sets and move quickly from exercise to exercise. That way I get a sort of cardio workout without having to run! Yahtzee. 

I motivate myself with new music and having a purpose - right now is our Spring Break trip to Vegas and St. George. I have 2 new swimsuits and boy do I want to use them. That makes it so much easier to get to the gym, push hard, do that final set.

I have 4 workouts - Lower, Upper, Core (abs, back, butt), and the rare Cardio. I make sure I do the first 3 workouts every single week. If I get in a 4th workout I make that day my cardio - I run for longer, read a book on the bike or treadmill and some interval training. 

The hardest thing for me to do is take the time to stretch every day. I'm notoriously inflexible and trying to fix it. 

I've started drinking protein shakes post-workout and I love it. I got a shakey-bottle and I mix vanilla whey protein powder with soy milk, blend it into smoothies or stir it into greek yogurt with fruit.

**Do any of you guys do protein powder? I want some more ideas of protein shakes and good powders that you guys use. 

On my sore or off days, I mix in some yoga at home - either YouTube or my own sequences. 

I'm already noticing more muscle definition, less jiggle, and a faster metabolism. 

Combine this with some self-tanner and a fresh manicure - I think I'll be able to show my face in a swimsuit next week in Vegas for Spring Break. 

Twentysix Eleven Giveaway Extraordinaire!

Finally. Black with a Chance of Cheetah is coming of age. In the blogger world that means having a giveaway, or so I'm told. 

My dear crafty friend Katie has recently opened an Etsy shop and loaded it up with super cute home decor and personalized subway art. She is offering one lucky reader credit to her shop - Twentysix Eleven - for a free piece of subway art! She has tons of great options from romantic script to inspiring quotes.

So onto the giveaway. To enter, leave a comment for each of the following that you complete:

• Like Twentysix Eleven on Facebook
• Follow Katie's blog at These Are the Days
• Check out Twentysix Eleven on Etsy and leave a comment telling me which item you'd choose. If you can even pick just one. 
• Follow my blog, Black with a Chance of Cheetah on Bloglovin'

Remember to leave your email in your comments so Miss Katie can contact you. 

This giveaway will run through Friday! 

Can't wait to finally reward my readers for putting up with my boring snarkiness. Katie is giving all Black with a Chance of Cheetah readers 25% off their orders for putting up with me.  Use coupon code CHEETAH25. Yahtzee. 

I appreciate you all one subway art-s worth. 

I Put the "Dance" in Abundance Mentality

Over the last week, I got kind of nervous because we had all of a sudden booked  our week like we were single again - friends, family, appointments and funtivities every night. For some reason I've started this trend where I plan a couple of activities a week and try to leave other nights wide open - then I end up canceling my activities anyway out of... what? Laziness mostly. Fatigue. Fear that I won't be cool or have fun. Selfishness.

Instead, I accepted all of these funtivities and plans because I've been in excellent spirits (due to this fantastic weather, fun developments at school and the planning of a Vegas spring break trip next week - woot!) and I decided I should try to have the "abundance mentality" I liked so much in 7 Habits by Steven Covey.

The Abundance Mentality says that you shouldn't live like you have limited resources, a finite amount of energy or only a few spots in our heart for love and close friends. You should live like you have plenty of love, energy and time - especially for others. You find as you love more and more, you end up with more love to give and receive. You end up with more energy and more friends. More LIFE.

So when the Holdaway's called us to meet them at Culvers in AF for dinner when I'd just returned home sweaty and exhausted from a particularly awesome workout (post coming later this week) I was tempted to pass - but we went and it was awesome. I even came home with a new JCrew pencil skirt and striped sweater for $45. Yahtzee.

Also - Can we talk about how awesome the Traverse Mountain Outlets are? These are the bathrooms. They are nicer than my entire house - and bigger. And I secretly want a big floppy hat so I can pretend to be a celebrity at the pool this summer. Does anyone have one of these? Worth it?

Post-workout shopping - A Millenium Falcon t-shirt - Target, hoodie - Pac Sun, jeans - F21, high top sneakers - Forever Young shoes, hat - JCrew

When I was sore and tired from getting home late, knowing that our team was going to forfeit either way, I wanted to ditch my regional tournament bball game. The whole season our ward barely scraped 5 people together to play - but we made it to the regional tournament after sweeping the stake. Two of our women got hurt playing and we forfeited our first tournament game. But I showed up anyway. It was just me and my baller friend Brei - so we forfeited as predicted. But the other team had 8 girls and wanted to scrimmage so we got to play anyway! And we had an awesome time - and an awesome workout. Rewarded.

Wednesday we had a CDP with the Ashby's and made some of the most delicious tacos and guacamole and berry cobbler this state has ever seen. After stuffiing ourselves, Katie and I planned.... wait for it...... A giveaway! Check out my post tomorrow morning to enter!

Thursday was our one night to hunker down and relax. Which means popcorn, cuddling with Glen Coco and NBC shows. Are you serious Ann Perkins? Who is your hairstylist? And is anyone else insanely weirded out by the sperm donor situation?

These two

Friday was one of our beloved date nights with our besties the Findeis'. We met for dinner at our favorite Italian joint in Salt Lake - Tucci's. Wow. We ended up talking so long we missed our planned movie - Don't Stop Believing - that documentary about the Fillipino guy who joins Journey. Instead we went shopping at City Creek (a new Boston hat for Ryan, tons of spring essentials for me) and watched "Thank You For Smoking" back at our place. Man we love them.

Saturday morning I was tempted to lay in bed and just read all morning/day/evening always. But I didn't! I pushed myself to make use of my time. I slept in, mind you. But I got up, hit the gym, library and Sonic - of course. I had my protein shake and then we cleaned up our house! Chores! Can you believe it!

 Breakfast of Champions: Vanilla-Honey Greek yogurt with honey flax granola and blueberries, a protein shake and a 44 oz. Diet Dr. Pepper. 

 The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and 1776 by David MuCullough

Saturday night we had another CDP with Caroline (newly returned from INDIA yikes) and her boyfriend Martin, with a guest appearance from our other high school BFF - Mckensie. Plenty of glory days-ing, gossiping and catching up.

What an awesome week. Am I tired? A little. But this abundance mentality thing is pretty freaking awesome. Give it a try. It definitely paid off for me. Get your hands on "Seven Habits for Highly Effective People" and your world will change.

Stay tuned this week for a giveaway, Workout Wednesday, the creepiest thing about me and more #JuniorHighProbs.

Thanks for reading! Love you all.

RIP Google Reader

We've had a great few years, GR. I still can't believe Google is giving up on you but pretending Google Plus is real and worth it.

So here I am on Bloglovin' - join me won't you?

Does anyone else have RSS readers they like to use? I'm going to try out a few before I decide on one exclusively.

Watching Lately - An Ode to Netflix

I'll never give you up, Netflix. Never. You're like a warm blanket, comfort food, a hot date, an exciting adventure and the best class I've ever taken all in one. (On a related note - Hulu Plus can suck it!)

Obviously we are constantly rotating through all the seasons of The Office. {and by 'we' I mean 'I', averaging 4-5 episodes a day, working on my next project - an in-depth analysis of the show to help me grieve its end.}

But besides that, here are our latest faves on the 'Flix. (hate that I called it that)


Happy - an interesting, inspiring documentary that I watched when I was sad a few weeks ago. These filmmakers travel around and interview people about what makes them happy. They even go into the psychology and biology of happiness. It's really cool. It's basically just the Gospel - serve, have enough but not too much, live with purpose, etc.






 Breaking Bad - the Beard and I needed a new show to watch together that was "new." The Beard somehow gets bored of watching The Office over and over. How? Anyway, we caved to Breaking Bad fad. Wow. I kind of hate it, but can't stop watching. It's so engaging and crazy every single episode! You hate and love everyone. I've cried, laughed, dry-heaved, sworn, screamed, smiled and grimaced. The great thing is that there are tons of episodes and you never want to stop, so it's a great marathon-watching show.




 Freakonomics - The Beard just finished listening to the audiobook at work, so we decided to watch it on a whim. It's so interesting! Very cool to see things a different way - even if it has some depressing thoughts about education. See/read this especially if you like Malcolm Gladwell, stats, and social experiments. 






Aziz Ansari: Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening - I really love stand-up, but the Beard kind of hates it. We were able to compromise on this one because he loves Tom Haverford from Parks & Rec, and that's basically Aziz in real life. This stand up is hilarious, but be warned - way, way, way too much cursing and sexual innuendo. But if you can't figure that out from the title... maybe put down the laptop and go read a book?

The Truth About Zombies - Very interesting scientific approach to zombies. It ranges from epidemic research to survival techniques to Haitian Voodoo. Max Brooks, the author of the best zombie book ever "World War Z" (coming soon with Brad Pitt yayayayaya!) is a narrator and perfect. The Beard was unimpressed.

"How can you call yourself a 'Zombie Expert' with a straight face?!"

Portlandia - Obviously you can make fun of hipsters to no end, and obviously I'm gonna like it. I've never been to Portland, but my Oregonian coworker says it is spot-on. Season 2 just went up a month or so ago, so if you like awkward humor, sketch comedy, and making fun of those multiple varieties of hipster that make our lives miserable, check it out. 

On my "To Watch List"

• Vampire Diaries at the persistent request of my sister
• Firefly because I'm a nerd and want to watch it
• The Queen of Versailles - Rainn Wilson tweeted about it so it went right in my queue
• America: The Story of Us - I've watched 3 of the episodes and they are AWESOME. I use them in my US History classes all the time. I want to finish the series.
• ESPN 30 for 30 - Guess who put all of these in the queue?

Anything else on Netflix I should watch?

Book Review/Pizza Night: Batting for the Other Team (Yikes)

Yesterday we went to our first book club meeting (missing the first one due to weather... booooo) and it was so great. I mentioned that I want to join 4 more book clubs and the Beard said, very wisely,

"Book clubs are to you what fantasy baseball is to me!"

And you know what? He's right. So anyone else that wants to start a book club with me - please let's? Email me. I'm totally down.

We read "The Art of Fielding" by Chad Harbach. It's a book about the intertwining lives of various characters at a small university in the midwest - including/surrounding the university's baseball team. I had high hopes when I began the book - it was all about this amazing shortstop Henry Skrimshander. The book is so fun for the first couple hundred pages! But, alas, it cannot last. Tragedy strikes and all of their lives fall into disarray. Heartbreak, death, loneliness, anxiety, depression, and terrible conduct ensues.

You can imagine the Beard's reaction when I tricked him into reading the book "It's about baseball!" only to have the baseball emphasis dwindle and the gay love affair emphasis swell about 200 pages in. Lolzies. Ryan is a homophobe, for all you new readers out there. Also, Ryan is obsessed with baseball and takes it INCREDIBLY SERIOUSLY. So to have his baseball paradise infiltrated with a gay love story - it was kind of the perfect storm.

At dinner we concluded that the story was good and the characters were interesting, but so many sections of the book were just wildly unrealistic and almost designated to become a screenplay. Overall, I would give the book a 7/10. I loved the baseball, the team esprit-de-corps, even the love stories before they fall apart. But the pain and guilt and trauma was too real, too long and too unsatisfying. Try it if you are interested in baseball, gay relationships, the internal personal struggle, or Moby Dick (a huge theme/inspiration in the book).

By far the best part of the book was discussing it at Pizzeria Limone - wow. We've heard great things but man, were we impressed. I got the Viola - a delicious pizza including proscuitto and blackberries. BLACKBERRIES!

We took the Trax because we take the Trax literally anytime we are able because we're obsessed with it. Can't wait until the Draper station opens up in August because it's seriously 3 minutes from our house. Yahtzee.

 

Shirt: AE, Skirt: Banana Republic, Boots: Forever Young, Bag: Coach, Coat: Old Navy

 

On the train home, while we were still in downtown SLC two kids climbed onto the train. They were probably about 13 or 14 and were very rowdy. The Beard was convinced they were high, although when I deny things like that I have to accept that I have never been good at noticing those things. They were bugging passengers, giggling furiously, swearing, and just generally being teen messes.

It was after 9 pm. On a Monday night. Downtown SLC. These boys were just riding the Trax around for fun, according to their conversation. And everyone just rolled their eyes at these little punks.

But I couldn't. It hit me in the heart. These were just like so many of my students. And they WERE freaking annoying. But what is your life like if riding around on Trax at 9 pm on Monday nights in downtown semi-sketchy SLC is better than being home? I just felt so responsible and sad for them.

You can take Danica out of her classroom, but I guess you can't take the classroom out of Danica.

Make good choices, sketchy Trax boys! Somewhere a random History teacher is thinking about you in a non-creepy way!

The 3 People You Meet at Parent Teacher Conferences

I have concluded that there are really only 3 types of parents that come to Parent Teacher Conference. There will be your anomalies and different flavors, but they'll all fit generally into these 3 categories. For your reading convenience they are listed from the easiest to the hardest. Enjoy.

#1 The Mandatory Parents

"Yes. Your child has 110% so everything really is fine. Thank you for coming. Bye."

These parents will go to every academic event, every school function AND bring their entire family. Always. Their kids are always at the top of the class and talking to the teachers is kind of a waste of time, but they do it anyway. Although I roll my eyes at them, I really appreciate them and their dedication to their student's education.

#2 The Interrogation Parents

"So he's telling me there is never any homework and that everyone is failing and that he's turned in everything and you just haven't graded it. Is that true?"

"Well..... no. Actually none of that is true. At all. Even a little bit."

These parents have kids that try to pull a fast one on them, but they use Parent Teacher Conference to attack confront their child in front of the teacher. It seems that tension has existed in their relationship for a while and the parents use this to spearhead the imminent conflict. With me watching. These kids might be B students or D students, but they get an A+ for Awkwardness and embarrassment.

#3 The Two Face Parents

"I know he is failing/he's just been so stressed/we had to move/we're getting a divorce/I'll have him stay after school/She's going to be grounded until this changes/I will make SURE she is up in time to get to your class first period/He's just been SO sick/Thank you so much for your help!"

These parents are the worst kind. They come in 100% on the teacher's side. They coo and simper and agree and justify. Their guilt (mixed with true parental concern, I am sure) forces them to Parent Teacher Conferences because they know they aren't doing everything they should as a parent, but they want to cover that up. And they probably honestly want to do better.

Today they are an attentive parent and a true ally, but tomorrow the kid will be late or absent from the first period class their mom PROMISED to get them to on time. Tomorrow their brand new iPhone won't be taken away as promised. This weekend they won't spend grounded and "working on homework," but instead having a great unsupervised weekend.

But even these parents, working 12+ hour days and cleaning pencil penises off my desks can't make me quit smiling over the 100% test scores, high fives and lightbulb moments I get every day. :)