Google tells me I’ve been alive nearly 300,000 hours (wha?!), but these past 24 have to be among the best I’ve lived, truly.

Surfing with Luna

A few years ago, I went to Hawaii to visit my college BFF, Lindsay. I had some time to myself while she and her husband worked, and I finally worked up the nerve to call a local surf school about taking lessons. “There’s no waves,” they told me.

PERFECT! I’m afraid and just want baby waves anyway, so that sounds great! No, we can’t go out if there’s no waves.

OK FINE.

Well, yesterday, I had the opportunity to go out to Rockaway with Luna for a surfing trip. Hello life, you are wonderful. They were launching their newest protein bar, Berry Greek Yogurt, and celebrating with sunset surfing/stand up paddle boarding. Since I’ve SUP-ped a handful of times, I decided to bite the bullet and try surfing. They brought us out to the Averne area of Rockaway, and we met up with the Skudin Surf School, owned by badass pro surfer Will Skudin.

To be honest, I was really nervous, but I could tell we were in good hands immediately and felt really comfortable with our instructors. They gave us some board handling tips while we were on dry land and taught us how to get up on the board. Have you ever done surfer getups in a group fit class? It’s basically the same thing. Dude, that was hard enough on dry land! I tried not to let my knowledge that I am clumsy AF get the best of me and charged into the water.

Have I mentioned I’m clumsy? Because I’m clumsy. And no matter how hard I try, I can fully comprehend the instructions someone’s giving me to do something physical but something gets lost in the translation of making my body do it. Ask my dad and our failed golf lessons.

They had us drag our boards into the water, then paddle out to the break, and the instructor would help us turn around, point us into the wave, and give us a push right into the wave and tell us when to stand up. So basically they 100% hand-held for us and I still messed up. I kept stepping too far off to one side, and my weight wasn’t equally distributed. I also kept trying to stand in a Warrior II kind of stance instead of with my feet parallel.

A video posted by Theodora Blanchfield (@theodorable) onJun 21, 2016 at 3:10pm PDT

UNTIL I GOT IT!

Oh, and thankfully they also provided wetsuits for us, because the water temp was about 62. BR. (It felt fine with the wetsuit.)

EXCUSE ME, WHICH WAY TO THE BEACH?

Afterwards, they took us to Rockaway Beach Surf Club, where Rockaway Taco now exists as Tacoway Beach.

Oh hell yes.

I slept a very happy sleep, content with both an amazing dinner and a solid afternoon of trying out surfing.

Verdict. 11/10, would surf again.

Puppies at Work

That’s right. Puppies at work.

Today on our show, we had the North Shore Animal League on as guests AND my favorite trainer, Dara, was teaching.

I was a participant in the class, and we had the puppies running around. THEY ARE ALL AVAILABLE FOR ADOPTION. Well, most of them. Some of our DB people adopted some already!!!  You can catch a replay of the vid until tomorrow morning on our Facebook page. (Which you should probably like anyway if you haven’t already thankyouverymuch.)

And then…I got to work and got a promotion 🙂 This is the longest I’ve ever been at a job and only my second promotion in my career (so far), so I am basically on Cloud 9 right now.

How was your day?

Tomorrow is the official first day of summer, which is basically my favorite day of the year.

I am so hardcore Team Summer. I ❤️ NY but our winters are long and hard. I live for this time of year when I can walk out my door without a coat and in flip flops and just wander the city. I love that everything slows down just a bit, and the world just feels filled with possibility.

Here’s a few specific things I’m looking forward to this summer:

Hamptons Weekends 

This is the third year I’m doing a share out east with my friends, and I’m counting down the days until I can roll out of bed and loaf down to the beach to lay out all day. Our house is nothing fancy but it does have a private beach (which SJP goes to!) which makes it all feel a little fancier than it is. Oh, and my favorite coffee is out there. 

Marathon Training

Some people dread it, but I am so excited for those long double digit runs that make you feel like you can conquer the world. For running longer before 10am than most people will run in their lives. For hours and hours to catch up with running buddies and explore new parts of my beloved city.

Vancouver // SeaWheeze

I’ve heard great things about SeaWheeze (basically, Lululemon’s half marathon) for years, and last year a group of blogger buds and I all managed to snag bibs and found a sweet Airbnb to rent for the long weekend. I’ve never been to Canada, and I hear Vancouver is amazing. I didn’t plan for it to be this way, but apparently 2016 is about accumulating passport stamps, and I’m not complaining. Good thing I got Global Entry a few months ago! 

Junior League

So, technically we are “off” during the summer, but I’m about to take over our Transfers committee, and I couldn’t be more excited. I transferred to the NYJL eight years ago, and it was life-changing and introduced me to so many strong, successful women I consider friends and mentors today. If you’re moving to NYC from another League, definitely reach out to me! (Or really if you have any NYJL questions in general, this is one of my favorite things to talk about.) Taking a break a few months ago when my mom was sick and I was slammed at work was the right decision, and so is coming back to this. I’ve wanted to chair this for years to help introduce women to the organization and the city that have given me so much.