SOURPUSS

I've always thought that word was funny. Sourpuss I remember once when I was maybe 9 or 10 and I had just found a load of self confidence and started standing up to my brother, or whoever because I was made fun of for having freckles, or being chubby, or whatever it is he and his friends felt they could make fun of me for. My mom had said something to me that I didn't like ( I can't remember what!) and I gave some smart ass reply ( which was common, LOL still is!) and she said "you need to go to your room little miss sourpuss" It always kind of stuck. So now when I see girls/women that have major attitude problems all I can think of is man, what sourpuss!

Times have a really changed Haven't they? When I was in highschool the big thing was AIM or AOL chat rooms and the regular old telephone and beepers.. Do those even exist anymore? Now we have facebook, twitter, myspace, texting,blogging, etc etc. I'm sort of sad that people don't pick up the phone much. It was fun to make new friends through chat rooms and then log onto Aim and have someone message you. Those things have changed into all this other social networking now. While I do enjoy blogging and facebooking sometimes some stranger will do something that just blows me out of the water. People have really lost a lot of self confidence. They have lost real people skills, and can now hide behind their computer screen. behind a blog. People who might otherwise be shy in real life are total arrogant, bullies on the internet.

I avoid drama at all costs. I have 150 cast members in my business and deal with enough teeny bopper drama from them. I don't need to be apart of drama from the internet, from people I don't even know.

Sometimes words can come across different through text, and unless you really know that person in real life, you wont know if they are being sarcastic, mean, opinionated, etc. I've been at fault for this. I'm sure we all have. But if I have offended someone, and they let me know, I'm quick to look at my mistake, apologize and move on. What else can I do? I wish other people would do the same thing. Realize that you're putting your life in the open for people to read. Realize not everyone is going to share your opinion. Realize we all have different personalities, and just because you might not understand where someone is coming from doesn't give you the right to make a judgmental remark about that persons character. And the blogger/twitter gangs? Really? girls get their online best girlfriends, then have them all gang up on one person in an open forum just because they can. So wrong on so many levels. It completely makes me want to run the other direction with social networking. We're all suppose to be networking. Having fun. Getting to know new people.We all put glimpses of our life out there for others to read. We want feedback. We want encouragement. But I guarantee nobody wants to be bullied or harassed behind a screen.

So in conclusion, I just hope we can all be adults while on public sights. I delete, unfollow, and walk away from anyone I see doing the above mentioned things. It's not nice and is extremely immature.

THE HAIR CHRONICLES

I've probably had every hair color imaginable. I started coloring my hair when I was 13. Yup, that young. My mom started letting me get some highlights, which moved into blue or green or purple streaks ( what? I was a cool kid!)and then I wanted really dark purple hair, which moved into wanting really blonde hair, which then went back to wanting dark black hair, etc. You get the point. I've colored my hair a lot over the last 15 years.

For the last 5 or 6 years I've been rocking a shorter, blonde hair style. All different variations of blonde, but blonde none the less.



This was maybe 3 years ago?




This was last year ( probably my favorite color/hairstyle)




Look at those cute little babies? oh, they grew up so fast! But my hair here, longer,light brown with blonde highlights.

Last year I went to a new stylist in Portland and she completely FRIED my hair. I'm talking bleach blonde, and worried to comb it out. When I got into Sacramento for our Halloween season I went running to my old stylist. I walked in, she cringed and absolutely refused to do anything more to my hair ( that involved bleach) so.. I bring you to where I am today.




Not the best picture, because you can't see the length, but it's dark brown and past my shoulders at this point.

I've been at this color, and growing it out since August and frankly? I need to freshen it up. It's Spring ( well, somewhere.. because it's not here yet in Oregon)
I know I can't and wont go all the way blonde for awhile, I know I don't want to go short for awhile, but I certainly need to give it back some life.

I have an appointment today to get my hair cut and colored so we'll see what myself and the stylist can come up with. If I can remember, I'll have her snap a picture of the length and the true color.

WEIGHT WATCHERS; week 4

I need Spring to get here, really. I took this picture last year around this same time. it was a balmy 75 degrees that day. This week? We have snow in our forecast.

Anyhow..



Weight watchers week 4

Moving right along aren't we? I fully expected to be going into week 4 with at
least 10 lbs off. But unfortunately that just didnt happen. I did have a loss this week of 1 lb. I know it's still a loss, but honestly? I wanted more. I worked really, really hard. I went to the gym 3 times during the week and had 1 boot camp workout. I worked really hard on staying within points and only used my exercise points. I left every single one of my weekly points alone. I really expected at least a 3, since my pants felt a bit looser and I had worked hard. But whatever. At this point there is nothing else I can do. I'm following the rules. I'm working out. Eating healthy.

I posted on twitter a few days ago that I was upset about my loss. I reached out to a few different people and had some great feed back... well, other then the drama that came of it from one girl, but whatever, she doesn't matter. I know I'm not the only one who struggles with this...It would be a lot different if I was sitting on my ass eating pizza and ice cream everyday. But I'm not. I'm eating grilled chicken. vegetables, fruit, whole wheat pasta. So like I said, I'm just not entirely sure where the issue is coming from.

I had an OB appointment today. I went in originally for my yearly "women" test and with a list of questions about why we're having no luck getting pregnant. I also mentioned the 40 lb weight gain in 2 years and how hard I've struggled to get it off. She said it's more then likely related, and we've begun our first series of tests.

I can't even begin to describe the weight that was lifted off my shoulders. I have felt like a complete failure the last few weeks ( body wise) and I know it's out of my control right now.

So as of right now, I have an ultra sound scheduled next week, and labs scheduled next month. I guess I have to wait until day 3 of my period to get the best results. I just hope that doesn't happen while I'm in Florida ( 18 more days, squeeeee!!)Once we get results back, we'll move forward from there. My DR is an obgyn doctor but also specializes in infertility, so it's nice to not have to move between several doctors to get some answers.


I'll keep you updated on the process, because I think there are others out there going through the same thing I am.

Week 1 loss: 3 lbs
Week 2 loss: 1 lb
Week 3 gain:.5 lb
Week 4 loss: 1 lb
Total loss: 4.5 lbs

WEIGHT WATCHERS; week 3

Week 3 didn't turn out very well. I certainly made some measuring mistakes. I ended up having quite a few points left over, but I ate every single one of my exercise ones and all of my daily ones.

My number one mistake was eating late. At least 3 nights we had late dinners ( around 9:30) and that never sits well with me. Even though I stayed within my points target eating late in general is still bad.

I had a major sweet tooth. Like major. I didn't go crazy but I definitely had a weight watchers ice cream every single night. Again, it was within my points but I'm sure I could of had better self control

And my third mistake was measuring. I never measured any meats or exact amounts of pasta and I think that's a biggy. I went out yesterday and bought a food scale and plan to measure everything this week, including all oil, butter, etc.


Overall I gained half a lb. I didn't like it, and felt like crying but it could have been worse. I'm trying to change my mistakes and move forward. I had my last day of personal training :( booo! on Sunday so now it's just me, myself and I in the gym. I started insanity ( another post about that soon!) and plan to take 2 zumba classes, 2 lifting classes and 4 or 5 days of cardio.


So we'll leave it at that. I'm planning to measure everything this week. Eat all my daily points and only my exercise points and leave my flex/weekly points alone. No more late night dinners, and a lot less sweets!

WEIGHT WATCHERS; week 2

Well last week was a total bust in the Weight Watchers world. I followed every single rule and stayed within my points, even had a quite a few weekly points left over but I had gained 4 lbs by the end of the week. I also had started my period the second day I started WW so all in all it was just a week from hell.

I stepped on the scale on Wednesday or Thursday since I felt back to "normal" as far as bloating and cramps go, and found that I dropped 7.5 lbs. To say I was happy would be an understatement. So I'd say realistically for my first week I lost a solid 3.0 lbs.

Im not counting the additional since I had gained, and i'm going based off my "starting" weight.

Moving onto week two.

Just finishing up aunt flo and I lost one more solid LB. So that brings my loss down to 4.0 lbs. I'm still following all the rules and stayed within my points.

This week I really tried to kick up the gym, so I had 2 personal training sessions, and 2 cardio sessions plus lots of dog walks. I ended up getting 28 extra points this week because of that. I had planned on not touching my weekly points and just using my daily points plus my exercise points to see if I could get a bigger, solid loss. Unfortunately I only got 1 lb out of the deal so I'm not sure why.

Could be muscle gain, could be that I'm not eating enough, or maybe I'm eating too much? Honestly, I have no clue. I still have to play with the points thing and see week from week what works best. Obviously 1 lb is better then nothing. On Saturday I used up all of my exercise pts in one setting. We were suppose to go out to dinner with some friends but C wasn't feeling well. We ended up ordering Chinese. I portioned every thing out, but we got a variety of stuff. Since everything is fried and has sauce it added up very quickly. In the end I had a horrible guilty conscience, because I worked so hard for those pts! I guess you have to splurge once in awhile to maintain happiness.

I'm moving onto week 3 now and hoping for at least a 3lb loss ( well in reality I want a 5, but trying to be realistic!)

I'm going to just eat daily points and not touch my exercise, or my extra weekly. It;s gonna be tough, but I need to see where my issues are coming from. If there isn't a big loss this week, then I'm going to try week 4 with eating almost all of my weekly.

So as a recap.

Week 1 loss: 3 Lbs
Week 2 loss: 1 lb
Total loss: 4 lbs

RUNNING FROM LIFE

I'm a tiny bit embarrassed to admit this. but On Friday night we almost ran. Ran from what you ask? well after tsunami warnings, and now radiation warnings, it was getting to be too much. We live some 4000 miles away from Japan, but yet we're getting just as many hazardous threats and "GET OFF THE WEST COAST NOW!" media spilling's it was just starting to be too much. C approached me on Thursday evening about leaving. He said he absolutely felt for our safety and the safety of our future children, we needed to go on a little road trip and get out of town for a few days. I wasn't thinking much of it, until he started reading to me all the information about what was to come our way. And then? He showed me all the sold out airline tickets leaving PDX. That's when it hit me. I was afraid. I was worried we were being stupid with our lives. I wanted to get out asap. And so we made a few calls to my mom, who then of course freaked out too, and told her we were heading out for a few days.

I had a personal training class Thursday night that I couldn't cancel ( although seems so stupid to go with the mind set I was in!)I spoke with C on the phone on the way there and back, and we were making lists to get things ready. After my class, I headed home, and came back to a level mind.After doing some more research we decided to see how much radiation they were detecting in Los Angele's first since it was due to hit there on Friday and us on Sunday. It was a horrible night of sleep, but when we got up on Friday morning, results showed minor amounts. Now, I don't necessarily believe everything the government says, so I found a few local sources who stated the same thing. So in conclusion we decided to stay home. We figured as long as we stayed indoors as much as possible the next few days we would be fine.

This all seems a bit silly now how freaked out we got, but it was eye opening. We worked as a team, and were on the same page the whole way through. That leaves me hope that in case of a real life emergency we'll be good to go. We're prepared.


I just hope nothing big comes our way for the next few days since C has a really bad sore throat and a strained muscle in his back. :(

A BIG FAT NEGATIVE

(Disclaimer. I will be talking about periods and stuff, so if it's not your thing, you might wanna run the other direction.)

I did something really bad this week. I got my hopes up. Like, waaaay up.

You see, after we miscarried My periods have gone to shit. Meaning; they're all over the place. Some months they're the first of the month and so super light, and some months they move to the middle and I can't even bend over they hurt so bad. It's been a confusing mind game, and a very emotional one at that.

This month I anticipated a bad one, since the last 2 were fairly easy. I started cramping the 1st and second thinking I was surely about to start. But nothing. Then I woke up and my boobs hurt. I mean aching, warm and felt like huge jugs of water were falling out of my chest. I got a little tinge of hmmm.That's a sign I had before too when I was pregnant. Maybe maybe maybe.

I didn't think about it anymore for a few days, but by day 6 when I still hadn't had my period and my boobs were still hurting, I caved and took a test. It was negative.

I put it in the waste can, and about an hour later I decided to look at it one more time and there was a faint positive. I think I had a small heart attack, but then came back down to reality and realized it was probably just a vapor line. I decided to wait another week ( and the anticipation? OMG the worst!) It was the 10th of the month. Boobs still hurt, still no period but some cramping. So I bought an EPT. Took it, and that one was very very negative. So I gave up hope. I just figured my period was jacked up, I've taken 2 tests and nothing.

2 days later I still had nothing. Just an emotional side of me wishing I was pregnant, and not anticipating a late period. I guess god heard me, and decided it was time to stop playing mind games because he through in 3 of the biggest cramps I've had in my life and then I started.

And like I said in my last post, It's one of the worst ones I've had in a really long time. So bad in fact that I caved and made an OB apt. I'm ready to start the testing process. I'm ready to learn why my body is doing what it's doing.

Infertility is not fun.

WEIGHT WATCHERS; week 1

I started weight watchers this week. I was having a really hard time counting every single calorie, then logging it in, plus logging in all my fitness, charging the body bug, printing everything for the personal trainer and still feeling motivated.After almost 3 weeks of being sick I was completely off course and needed to start fresh.


So I changed it up a bit. I'm still working with my body bug, still working with my personal trainer, and now I'm watching "points" instead of calories. So far, I'm liking it. I'm eating what I want just in major moderation. It sort of works better for our lifestyle, since we enjoy cooking and obviously eating.

This week I really learned how to portion control. Like majorly. Have you ever measured out your cereal to a serving size? and then measured out the milk? ( or for me, silk) holy crap was I over-eating this stuff. probably 3 times over eating. but now I know. I've measured everything just to see where I'm at and to sort of train my brain on sizing control. I don't however, measure oil ( olive oil or whatever) or spices, or veggies. Veggies are no points ( well most of them) and so I just eat as many as I'd like.

All in all, I didn't have a "loss" for my first week, and I stayed within my points and even had lots of flex points left. I have to say this though. I'm having a really tough period this week ( of course it comes on the week I started this) and normally I would have gained upwards of 5-7 lbs and I didn't gain anything. So I'm thinking once this is over I should have a loss of at least that.

I'm looking forward to week two. And hoping to see a nice big loss once Aunt flo is kicked to the shed.

LENT

I can't believe how fast this year has seriously flown by. I remember last year's Lent

I have actually really made a difference in my life with last years fast. It took me a little while to watch the cussing, but now I'm very aware of what comes out of my mouth and try to find other words to use. Do I still cuss? sure. But maybe 80% less then I did. To me that's a success!

So this year I decided to make another big change.I'm sure we're all guilty of this but I am a social media addict. I spend more time on facebook then I do any other website, simply because it's attached to my phone.

So this year, I'm giving up Facebook. I highly considered giving up all of social media, (facebook & twitter)But I decided to give up the worse of the two. I gave myself a few rules though. I wont be logging into my personal one, but I will be logging into our business one simply because I need to upload pictures and keep my cast members up to date.

And then once Lent subsides I'll see how I feel about it and might give myself limitations on using the website. I just find it more stressful, degrading, drama, and a huge time waster then anything. I'm ready for this change.

If you celebrate Lent, what are you sacrificing?

TRAVELING ON A BUDGET

I'm very surprised by how many people that don't travel. It's our very favorite thing to do. We don't spend a lot of money on ourselves or our house simply because we'd rather use our time and funds to explore.

We've been to a lot of places over the 9 years we've been dating.

- Los Angeles
- San Diego
- Chicago
- San Antonio
- St Louis
- North Dakota
- Oregon (before we moved here)
- Detroit
- Las Vegas
- Seattle

( I also went to Hawaii with a family I babysat for)

We also visited many, many states on two huge road trips. One going from California to Michigan ( for business) and one going from California to North Dakota for a wedding. I don't really count driving through states as "traveling" there because we didn't stop in most of them.

We've obviously been to quite a few places and a lot of those places we've been multiple times ie ( Los Angeles hellllo Disneyland! and Las Vegas)

We're not rich. And we don't have any credit card debt. We never go anywhere unless we can pay cash, and it's in our budget. So here's how we budget our trips every year.

First of all, when we start throwing idea's about places we want to go, the first thing I do is look at numbers. I want to know what airfare ( or gas) is going to cost, how cheap we can get a hotel, and what our food/activity budget will be.

Once I have a game plan I present to Carlos.
side note Carlos does NOT plan. He absolutely hates the process and would rather leave that all to me. Sometimes it's a pain in the ass,  but we get through. I give him a few different options, tell him how much they cost and that's it.

We frequently use sights like Sidestep.com  Priceline.com and Orbitz.com.  We're on SouthWest airlines mailing list, so when they run deals, we know. In general though, I use Priceline for most of our hotels since we can "name our own price" and I use sidestep to narrow down flight choice. It's all about shopping around.
We set aside every year 5K for travel. Sometimes we can make that spread into multiple trips, and sometimes we make it into a bigger trip.
I know not everyone can afford to save that much every year, but even if you can save $ 1000 you can travel.

So I encourage you all to start looking. Start planning. Even a little weekend getaway. It's so good for your soul. For you relationship. It makes life feel a little less chaotic.

On that note 46 more days till Florida. sqeeeeeeeeee.

FLORIDA HERE WE COME!

Well after many arguments and going back and fourth we finally decided on our spring vacation in Florida.

I'm sure you're thinking; Why the heck would you argue about vacation? In short answer. We're both very opinionated.

He wanted to go on a cruise. I wanted to be stationary on an island and enjoy beach life. I'm all for cruises and would have had no problem going on one, except C's entire family (including C) has opinions on what islands are the best, choosing the best boat, don't go here, or there. ugh. I wanted our first "big" vacation to be some place we've both never been.

I think it's no surprise that we're pretty big Disney fans. Neither one of us has been to Disneyworld, so that's our first stop. Well, technically San Francisco is our first stop. We'll be driving down to SFO for a week to spend some time with C's family, run a few business errands and leave the dog.

 We'll fly into Orlando, spend 4 nights. Out of those 4 days 2 will be spent at Disneyworld. We'll then pick up a rental car and head down to Key west for 3 days. Can I just say for the record how EXPENSIVE hotels are in the Keys? Holy crap. I've had mini heart attacks just looking at the prices. Apparently we're going down at the tail end of spring break, so prices are probably inflated.  I can't justify spending $300 a night for a room that you don't spend much time in. We have other vacations going on this year, so my frugal self is going to continue looking and waiting to see if prices will go down. After Key West we'll be picking up another car and heading to Miami Beach for 3 days.

We have absolutely no plans as far as attractions goes ( well, other then Disney) but I'm really interested in snorkeling, para-sailing, and lounging on the beach. We're also pretty stoked to try Cuban cuisine and key lime pie!

So there you have it. 10 days of vacationing bliss on the other side of our world. Now I just have to figure out how I can make it 57 more days. Our high today is 16 degrees. Florida? 80. oy

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SPENCER!

Today, my beautiful no longer little pup turned 9. I can't even believe he is 9 years old. He still has the energy of a puppy.

Spencer has lots of toys, but we tend to not buy any "noise" making toys so we don't get annoyed ;) I was walking in the pet sop the other day and decided, oh, okay. I'll buy him one just to see his reaction.

It was the FUNNIEST thing ever. I was laying helplessly on the couch in all my sickness glory when C showed me this picture



Spencer would not touch the thing. every time C squeaked "Herman" Spencer begrudgingly stared him down and pounced back.

Eventually Spencer learned the dog was fake and he could essentially chew the thing up, but It was fun for the first night to watch the two interact.



( Please ignore my smoking trucker man voice. I'm dealing with a nasty sinus, cough, cold, bug)

BROWNIE SUPREME COOKIE BARS

After our huge meal that was Super Bowl Sunday we couldn't help but make dessert. I had big intentions on trying to bake something new, but after browsing several recipes, only one thing sounded good. Something chocolate, but yet cookie like.

I found just what I was looking for in these bars



Yummy brownies with chocolate chip cookies mixed in? Yes please!



You can thank me later. ;)

I can't take all the credit here. You see, I did something I NEVER do.




I bought a store packaged treat. I opened up plastic bags with all the goods, added a little water and egg and viola! I popped that sucker into the oven to bake. It took me all of 10 mins of prep and 30 minutes of baking.




First you spray non stick spray in a 9X 9 baking dish, and then add your brownie mixture.



Then you dabble the cookie dough on top.


Bake, cool, eat.

SUPER BOWL SUNDAY

Just the title makes me drool.

Here's a secret. Both Sparky and I never watch sports. Maybe, we'll watch a baseball game here of there but that's about it. We're just not the sporty type. Growing up, my family always watched football, ( Packers and cowboys!) and hosted ( as well as went) to lots of super bowl parties. I didn't care about the game but loved having new friends over to play, but even more so? I loved all the delicious food! ( real shocker there, right? ;) )

This year I told C a few days in advance that I wanted to actually watch the entire game and make lots of delicious food. Just the two of us. He obliged, and off I went on the hunt for the perfect super bowl recipes.

We started off with some bbq/buffalo wings. I cheated on these as I bought them from our deli counter. After pricing what it would have cost to buy all the ingredients, plus cook them, we decided the deli counter was the best bet. They were running a deal for a bucket of wings for $8.00 Can't beat that!



Moving on, I decided fajitas sounded really good and would be good on the calorie front. I went to Chevys to pick up some fresh made tortillas and we grilled some chicken, steak ( for him) and veggies.





Everything turned our delicious! And I was pretty excited that I stayed within my calorie limit even though I indulged in 2 mikes hard strawberry lemonades.


I was also pretty into the game this year. I didn't get all the scoring stuff, but enjoyed watching, and rooting on an old family favorite team ( Packers!)

I think we may have just started a new tradition!

TUESDAY TIDBITS

-Carlos and I both have colds. Oddly enough,  we both woke up with the same symptoms on the same day. Stuffy nose, drainage, itchy throat.
 Then as the day wore on, I ended up with a dry cough. We've both been parked on the couch for the last 2 days trying to nip this thing in the bud.

- I canceled all personal training last week due to my melt down, and then turned around and canceled all my training for this week due to my cold. I did make it for 30 minutes on Sunday but even that wore me out. I'm afraid next week my stamina will be lowered, and I'll loose motivation.

- The weather has been so dang weird. It's been really cold, but sunny. Then it will warm up and rain. This is not very Oregon like for this season, so it'll be interesting to see what Spring has in store.

-I have about 6 different recipes to post and just haven't gotten around to it. I think if my laptop didn't take a dive last year, I'd be posting every day while mending on the couch.

-I need to buy a new lap top. I have my desk top, and we're talking about buying C a new desktop ( for work) but I really want a lap top, too. It would make traveling, and every day life so much easier if I had a mobile source for our computer.

-I'm feeling a craft itch and wanting to make a spring wreath. I haven't found one that I absolutely love yet but I'm hoping soon.


Nothing too exciting going on in our lives right now. We're just taking it day by day, hour by hour. Once these colds go away we'll get back into the swing of things.

IS THIS REAL LIFE?

Have you ever seen that youtube video(referring to my title post; " Is this real life? ")...That's how my life feels right now. garbled, unorganized, chaotic.


I've been kind of a negative Nancy lately. I think it has a lot to do with the dreary January days. It has to do with my need and want for fast results in the gym that just aren't happening. It has something to do with the fact that I want a vacation that doesn't involve business or taking other people. It also has something to do with losing my grams. I miss hearing her voice.

In other words, life right now is tough.

I went into the gym on Tuesday. Mind you, I did an intense booth camp on Saturday,  had personal training on Sunday, did lots of cardio on Monday  and personal training again on Tuesday. Anyhow. Tuesday rolls around, I wasn't feeling all that great, but I pushed through and headed to the gym. I was 10 minutes into my training when I started feeling the emotions, the shaking, the yucky feeling of black outs, and then I lost it. I could not do anymore. I knew if I stayed the entire hour I would have been a puking, crying mess.  At 6pm when every single person that has a membership is at the gym, would have seen me, I decided to stop, and go home.  Once I got in my car I lost it. Full on waterworks. I felt so guilty for giving up. I felt so angry for all the stress, and mind garbles I had going on. It was a huge mental block and I had no idea how to get out.

I've taken a few days off from the gym, and just spent time with myself. I did a whole lot of laying on the couch, taking naps, watching ridiculous realty shows...I have to say I'm not 100% there yet, but I'm trying. Hopefully this weekend can reshape my funk and I'll be back at the workout game on Sunday.




In other more upbeat news.

-I've been playing with some new recipes that I'll be posting this week. All are healthy, and really filling!

 - I hope everyone on the east coast is getting through the massive storms! I'm surprised Oregon hasn't had more cold, snowy days. But it seems that all the storms passed us by and went right over to the eastern states.

- I've redone our budget and started a jar system for fun stuff. I'll be posting about that too, for people interested in  saving their finances!

SUNDAY TIDBITS

>We're preparing for a mini vacation on Tuesday to Southern California. We're going with a good friend down to Disneyland for 4 days and I can't freaking wait! We decided to stay home for New Years Eve, so we were able to swing this mini vacation into our budget. The best part is; We're Flying! We usually just drive, but since it's a short trip we're going to fly. Instead of a 16 hour road trip it will take us 4 hours of flying ( with a few hours in SF for a layover!)

> I'm going through major mommy guilt about leaving Spencer at a dog kennel. We've always got to leave him with our family and friends, and this time we just don't have that available, so he has to stay in a kennel. We've checked a few out and ultimately decided on one based on the fact they offer suites and potty breaks. He literally has his own "hotel" room equipped with a radio, TV & outside access. He gets 3 walks, and a kong toy before bed. If I didn't feel guilty about leaving him, I'd be laughing at this ridiculous situation, but none the less, he'll be well taken care of I'm sure.

>I am doing 2 gym classes today, 2 tomorrow plus a personal training session. I'm really trying to knock out some major work, since we'll be on vacation. I know we'll be on our feet 16 hours a day walking around the park, but I just don't want to have to start back at square one when we get back. It will be interesting to see what my body band tells me I've burned while walking at Disney.

>I'm going through short hair withdraw. I've taken a year to grow my hair out, and then I dyed it brown. But I'm now wishing I had short blonde hair again! I think the hair debacle with forever be a love hate relationship.

>I still have Christmas decor up. I know, I'm lame and lazy. But we literally put it up 4 days before we left for all our Christmas travel. So I feel like I needed a few more weeks to enjoy it's festiveness. But now? it's just mocking me, and begging me to put it away. Maybe before our trip. Maybe not. LOL we'll see how that goes.

>Valentines day stuff makes me sick. Especially when it's in stores the day after Christmas.

>I'm addicted to playing angry birds on my iphone. It literally consumes hours of my time.


It feels good to empty out my brain!

NEW YEARS RESOLUTION

I have 3 New Years resolutions this year.

1) To pay more attention to my writing and blog..
I love looking back a year ago and seeing what we were doing in our lives, what was in my head, and how far I've come along. Truthfully, I've given up on this blog many, many times. I've questioned my sanity when it comes to writing, because deep down, I'm not sure I want to share my life with everyone. I have good days and bad days. I'm self conscious. I fight with my fiance. I'm not that close to my family. I've miscarried. I'm opinionated. I think to myself? who wants to read my reality? It seems all the blogs I read are sugar coated. Girls I felt connected with, I no longer do, because they have become "mommy" bloggers, who seem to have perfect lives. ( or at least that's how they portray themselves). But the truth is, "I" want to read my blog. And therefore, I will write for me. I wont sugar coat things. I'll put my life out there for those to read, and you can either accept it, or turn away. It's ME. It's who I am.

2) Work on my health and fitness.
I've been working on this over the last year, and again I have good days and bad days.
My worst fear came true November16th. My grandmother passed away. Out of my entire family she was the only one I connected with. She understood me, and guided me. She died at 64 years old. let me say that again. She died at 64 years old! That's TOO young! She had a whole life to live. But she chose to smoke. For years. And ultimately, her lungs gave up.
It made me realize life is too short, and the choices we make right now affect our future. I want to be there for my kids, and for their kids, and their kids and so on. I want to be healthy, and active.
 ( for reference, my grams did stop smoking 2 years ago. but the damage was already done)

And so: I've thrown out my entire pantry and started over. We're doing lots of organic produce & lean meats. I've hired a personal trainer, and bought a body media fit band. I should be close to my goal weight by July if I keep up the pace that I'm at, and I'm happy with that. It's not a fast weight loss, but it's a life changing one.

3) Get married & have a baby

Both are works in progress. We have some news on the marriage front but aren't willing to share just yet. We made a decision that works best for us, but might not sit well with our family. That's all the details I can say on the marriage term, but I do promise to jump into more detail as soon as we tell our families.

As far as having a baby. Let's just say we're not stopping it. I'm pretty sure I have some fertility issues, and now that we just got a new health care plan, We're going to start testing at the end of March. Ideally we'll be pregnant before summer. I'm really hoping for a winter baby, since that will allow us enough time home before our Halloween season begins, but at this point...I'll take what I can get.

So there you have it. I'm back on the blog bandwagon, I'm working on ME and working on becoming a family with C.

wowza!

I'm baaaack!


this is a short post, but I have lots more coming. Once I get caught up on laundry and trying to get my house in order for the cleaners, ill be posting!