2008 recap

Well i intended it do a whole post recapping everything i did over the year but really that is so much work to remember everything so i am just going to high light a few of my favorite things.

Trip To San Fran: We drove down to San Fran in July for my birthday. It was truly one of my favorite vacations. we were able to do so much and try so many new things. as well as we got to spend time with mats family all of whom i hadn't met yet. This whole trip we absolutely magical!

Trip To Vegas: For Mat's birthday i totally surprised him with a trip to Vegas! although it was a cheaper trip to Vegas we still managed to do thing we hadn't done down there including taking in a show!

Lazy Summer days at the truller: Laura and her family were so kind as to let us spend a lot of our summer up at their trailer this summer! It was so relaxing and really brought all of us girls together! We look forward to making more memories there in the summer of '09

My Birthday presents: I came up with the idea of spending time with my friends rather then getting actually gifts i can unwrap. it was so amazing to spend time with each one of my friends doing so many amazing things!

Moving: although moving was a super stressful event this year i lived through it and really enjoy our new home! He have been able to save and get better and better furniture and it is so fun to think back on where we came from and where we are not in terms of our home. i know we will look back when we are old and gray and remember the good times we had with our twin bed as a couch and old old old hand me down coffee tables. the TV stand and desk that literally fell apart when we touched them.

The summer in general: the summer of '08 is one i will remember and carry with me forever. gone are the days of being a care free kid on summer vacation but this is a summer that we made the most that of what time we had. it seem like every day off we had was filled with time in the sun. we laid by the pool, we went inter tubing, i made it to both the evergreen and Puyallup fairs, jet skiing on lake Campbell, hiking to the straight of Juan DE Fuca! all of these memories and more are what made the summer of '08 one of the best of my life!

Along with the good come the bad... though not too many

Snow!: the snow that we had this years was completely over whelming and brought many people i know to near break downs We were too happy to see the snow go and though there are still mounts of snow on the side of the roads as we enter the new year we can only hope we have seen the worst of it this winter season.

Car troubles: thought my life wasn't too unconvinced by needing new tires and a new starter it was a small bump in the road in my year. it truly is amazing how well i dealt with it though and it not have to relay on my parents to help me is really what made this situation one i will remember for a long time.

Ending Friendships: i am a friend who puts 110% into my relationship. I am constantly thinking as a we.. how would my AND my friends best benefit but when i come have a friend that doesn't seem to put the same effort into a friendship with me a begin to feel used and invalid so i did the best thing for me and that was to end the relationship before i had to go through anymore heartache

While there are so many other amazing things that happened this year these are the few i could think of on the spot! I loved 2008 and i can't wait to see what 2009 has to bring me!!!

projects

My gramz gives each of us stockings every year for christmas. these stockings are filled with so many fun yet totally random things. it is always a thrill opening them each year. this year my gramz included this pengine thing you build by floding and glueing paper. So that was my project today and let me tel lyou it pretty much took all day long! i think an but over 5 hours! i'm not sure if i build it correctly or not but it turned out pretty cute and it was a fun challange!

being on vacation

Well i have been on vacation for three days now and it has been pretty great! haven't done much but hang around the house but you know what that i just what i need! Sunday we had Christmas with my family. It didn't last as long and didn't feel as great as a regular Christmas but at least i got to see my family at least for a little while! We are having white trash new years at our place tomorrow night and that should be a hoot! I hope everyone comes dressed up and really get into the idea! i have yet to come up with my outfit yet but i know that my house is gonna look great and i have gathered a pretty fun play list that i think will set the tone of the party! I just hope that i don't let myself get disapointed if things don't turn out like i imagine! I have people who say they are coming but in the past we have had new people say they will come to our party and never show up. I know i shouldn't be disapointed if it is just the handful of true friends i have but it is just so mcuh fun to mix things up with new faces. my worse fear is that everyone will come in slightly white trash outfits nothing too crazy, they will all just sit around waiting for midnight. the clock will strike midnight and then everyone wil lleave! no amazing memories made. no crazy pictures or video to laugh about later. Everytime i through a party i campleatly stress myself out and have all of expecations! i should just let everything go and not worry about it and have a good time! Being on vacation has given me even more time to worry about this. I have al lthese big plans in my head... i have great prizes for the best dressed man and womenbut i fear that there won't be anyone worth winning the prizes!
anyways i have just tommorow i get everything ready and hope everything goes smoothly and everyone has fun!
wish me luck!

Week 8 Weight In

Well once again it is sunday! Even though i haven't been counting points or sticking to my diet i still feel like i should weigh myself so i don't get too out of control or off track. Todays weight in i am down one pound. but in all reality i've just lost the pound i gained in the last two weeks so i am still at a total loss of fifteen lbs!!! I'm pretty excited that i haven't gained weight too much because i t would just make it harder and harder to get back on track! not i am still not going to be counting pounts till after new years but come thursday it is back on track with working out and counting pounts! I'm going to try to fit in a bit of my favorite things this week knowing i'm not going to be able to enjoy them for a while!

Holiday Wrap Up

Well the holidays are pretty much over. I haven't seen anyone in my family but hopefully i will be able to see some of them on Sunday when we are hopefully planning on getting together but I'm not holding my breath! The celebrations i was able to have were pretty great!

My Girls came over on the 23rd to do our gift exchange. I roasted a whole chicken with a honey cranberry glaze and made mashed potatoes. Kristin made Caesar salad.. the dressing from scratch which was pretty yummy! we all enjoyed the dinner a lot then we watched a couple Christmas movies. 'tas the night before Christmas is one we watched that was LOOSELY based on the tale and it was pretty much horrible! about mice and a clock and we really couldn't get into it! but we watched the Flintstones Christmas and the Grinch who stole Christmas.. two classics! We opened our gifts and boy did we get all that we had hoped for.. and more! We are pretty good shoppers on a thirty dollar budget! It is always so nice to be able to get together with then and hang out. I can't wait till new years now!!

Christmas Eve Mat and i worked but when we got home we had a dinner of steaks and jalapeno cheese grits and we watched two versions of A Christmas Carol. We opened our presents and boy did we both do well there as well. I got almost everything off mat's list for him and he got some really great stuff for me! My favorite gifts were my Dandelion pj's and slippers from Victoria secret and my purse from express! he also got me a car stereo that i much need and am very excited to get it installed asap! of course that all depends on when we can get our cars out of the parking lot!

Christmas day we also made sure to make extra special. We woke up and had French toast for breakfast. We layed around and watched it's a wonderful life and Family Man. i was upset because i wasn't going to be able to see my family and my parents weren't willing to come to our house (even though i had talked to them twice and they had been out on the roads they had said were undrivable !!!!!!) We went to mat's moms house to enjoy a yummy Christmas dinner with his family. his brother and their two kids were there which always makes things more fun. We hung out for a while playing with the kids and stuff and then headed out to make our Christmas day movie.
We saw Benjamin Button. Such a great movie! The story is so original and inspiring it brought tears to my eyes... lol. The only bad part was that less then half way through the movie i had to pee and there was no way out of our seat without climbing over thousands of people. So i squirmed in my seat and took a lot of deep breathes and booked it to the restroom once the movie was over!

All of these get together's we really great and made my Christmas really special but i really do have an empty spot that i wasn't able to see my family. I can't imagine living in another state and not being able to see anyone over the holidays let alone being in the same state and not being able to see anyone simply because of snow! I hope that i get to see a family member soon and i hope we can recreate the holiday magic and i was missing!

well the snow has stopped... for now.

I have learned that I absolutly hate snow! but I am trying to make the most of it and be in a better mood then I have for the past few days. mats car got stuck in it's parking spot this morning but I was able to get mine out because I was parked undercover. we did the last of our shopping this morning and I am ready for all of my holiday festivities to begin. tommorow night my friends are coming over and I am cooking them dinner and we will do our gift exchange and watch christmas movies and play games. i'm pretty excited!

Week 8 Weight In

well Sunday is here AGAIN and yet another weigh in.. i pretty much don't have anything to say about this week. I'm not about excuses i just didn't try this week... the snow was stressful and i just didn't want to have to pay that much attention to what i ate. now i didn't let myself go crazy but i did end up gaining another .5lbs back! grrrr that gives me a total of 1lb gained back! now i can see that the next two weeks are going to be hard to live through so i am hoping just to maintain my weight (NO MORE GAINING!!!) and start back at losing weight after the new year. I am going to try my best at counting points most days and not worry on the days i have plans. Wish me luck!

I roasted a chicken!

well stuck in the house with all this freakin snow outside I thought I would try out roasting a chicken. I plan on roasting a chicken for my christmas dinner with my girls so I had a chicken in the house so I thought... TRIAL RUN! I have never roasted a chicken before but I think it turned out pretty well. I buttered the skin and added salt answer pepper. I stuffed the cavity with garlic and lemons. the house felt so warm and smelled so good. a perfect meal for this snow night! I can't wait to try it again. for christmas I am doing a cranberry honey glaze! should be pretty good.

oh the weather outside is frightful...

but inside it is so delightful
since we've got no place to go
LET IT SNOW
LET IS SNOW
LET IT SNOW!!!

Well we do have places to go and it is a little frightful outside... It snowed at our house last night about 4 inches while we were at work. I left work early so i wouldn't have to drive home in it (even though Kirkland didn't get any snow last night.) Then i wake up this morning to snow falling down in Kirkland in buckets full! What am i to do.. i HAVE TO WORK! pretty much not only because i have given away too many hours this week but also because there is no calling in because of snow in my job. People have to buy food and the grocery store is the one place they are going to go in the snow.

Week 7 Weigh In

Well once again it is Sunday and you know what that means... weigh in day! so i knew that it wouldn't be a good weigh in considering all the junk i ate this week... damn having baked goods around i just eat them ALL!! So i woke up today not too excited to see how much weigh i had gained... i was willing to bet two lbs!! luckily for me i just gained .5lbs! i started back on track with a vengeance yesterday and i hope that this next week goes a bit better! I have girls night on Monday which we decided that it wasn't going to be a point friendly night (i was fine with that when i was doin well grr) plus a Christmas party on Friday! While I'm looking forward to both very much i still worry that I'm going to slip into a gaining pattern. so i am going to not over indulge and try to workout three days this week and be extra strict on my points all the other days! i still need to lose weight and i can't let myself slack b/c of the holidays or i will be super unhappy!

first snow of the season

snow is failing now and it is so beautiful! too bad i'm at work and have to worry about driving home in the snow at midnight! I wanna be at home with my christmas lights on by the fireplace watching the snow through a window!

We put up our tree!

Today we finally got our tree... We hadn't gotten one yet because Mat wanted a real tree and so we had to wait so it wouldn't be dead on Christmas. But Mat finally broke down and realized all the benefits of a fake tree. We got a pretty great one with white lights already attached so over all it wasn't too much work! It was so much fun decorating it. We lite a fire and had how the Grinch Stole Christmas on the TV. I think it turned out pretty well too!

My gift to Laura

Well like my birthday Laura chose to have a day with each of us as her gifts for her birthday. My day with her involved Ice skating, lunch, and climbing the rock wall at REI.

I picked her up after she got off work and we headed to Seattle. We ice skated at the holiday ice skating rink at the center. it was so much fun with all the fun holiday lights and music. We skated for a while but our feet and legs got pretty soar. We then rode the fun carousel that was right outside the skating rink! It was so much fun to do, bring back so many fun memories! we then ate lunch in the center house bistro. The food was amazing. Also in the center house was more fun holiday stuff. There was a small town and train set that was absolutely amazing to look at. There was no detail they didn't miss. All the little people that had up there were too much fun!

We then headed to REI. it was a little tricky trying to get there because i had forgot the directions at home but after making a few circles around Seattle and then finally calling my gramz we found our way. We arrived early and were able to watch as a couple of kids climbed the wall. and finally it was out turn. The instructor showed us a couple different paths we could take and we decided on ours.

Laura went first and made it all the way to the top of the wall... a pretty amazing feat if i do say so myself. i went second and was frightened right from the start! i knew i wasn't going to make it to the top but i was willing to give it a try...

I started my climb and my to my surprise i was WAY harder and WAY scarier then i had imagined! I was only able to get a little way up the wall before fear took over. It wasn't so much the fact that i was so high and really had nothing to do with being tired but i just couldn't imagine getting any higher then having to lean back and come back down that really scared me. I know that i will do better next time and now that i am an REI member it is only $5 per climb so i will be trying it out more often.

Over all i think the day went really well and i think Laura really enjoyed herself! I'm glad we've decided to do these days for our birthdays. It builds memories that can never be replaced!

11 hours of baking

Well Tara, Kristin and I got together on Monday and did our holiday baking! we each picked out the recipes we wanted to do and gathered our materials together and we set forth at Tara's house. She has a pretty large kitchen and we still managed to take up pretty much all the room in there as well as the entire dining room table! It was eleven hours of baking fun! we gave pretty much all of it away because we knew we didn't want to eat it all. It was fun to make tins for my co-workers. Kristin also brought a large try of goodies for the break room. I unfortunately brought a tray home for mat and because he wasn't eating it i ended up eating a bit more then needed! I'm sure it will show on the scale on Sunday!!

Week six weigh in....

Once again it is sunday... weigh in day... and guess what! I did good! I lost a total of 2.5 lbs this week giving me a total of 15lbs in six weeks! i'm so excited that I have stuck with it this long... only a little more and i'll be at twenty pounds down... hopefully by new years!

So my reward for 15 lbs lost is a hard cover book and a day of reading. while I don't know when i'd possibly have time to read for a whole day I would like to get a book. I have been looking online cause I want to make it a good choice... some web sites I have looked at are chicklit.com and chicklitchicks.com... can u tell the kind of books I like reading?

I have been doing this and trying my hardest and been trying to be encouraging to the friends who are doing this with me. I just hope that if the others don't continue that I will stay strong and finally reach my ultimate goal. I know I can do it and right now it seems like I can make it! wish me luck!

when he walked in the door...

mat arrived home early from work tonight. I got up from my post on the couch to greet him to see roses in his hands. today is just an ordinary thursday and he felt like surprising me with roses. when I think of how luck I am I could cry.

Come along for a tour

Welcome to a Tour of the holiday decorations in my home... i know i have another posting of the decorations but the pictures were from my phone and it didn't show all (of the very few) decorations i have... I still need to put up our tree and wrap all of our presents to really fill our house with love and warmth but i think we are onto a pretty great start! i guess every year i will buy more and one day i will have a truely decked out christmas house! that is my goal at least!

found this on another blog

Contributed by Executive Homemaker
Twas The Month After Christmas" (Dieting)

Twas the month after Christmas,
and all through the house,
Nothing would fit me,
not even a blouse.

The cookies I'd nibbled,
the eggnog I'd taste,
At the holiday parties,
had gone to my waist.

When I got on the scales,
there arose such a number!
When I walked to the store,
(less a walk than a lumber).

I'd remember the marvelous,
meals I'd prepared;
The gravies and sauces,
and beef nicely rared,

The wine and the rum balls,
the bread and the cheese,
and the way I'd never said,
"No, thank you, please."

As I dressed myself,
in my husband's old shirt,
and prepared once again,
to do battle with dirt,

I said to myself,
as I only can
"You can spend a winter
disguised as a man!"

So-away with the last,
of the sour cream dip,
Get rid of the fruit cake,
every cracker and chip.

Every last bit of food,
that I like must be banished
Till all the additional,
ounces have vanished.

I won't have a cookie,
not even a lick.
I'll want only to chew,
on a long celery stick.

I won't have hot biscuits,,
or corn bread, or pie,
I'll munch on a carrot,
and quietly cry.

I'm hungry, I'm lonesome,
and life is a bore-
But isn't that what,
January is for?

Unable to giggle,
no longer a riot.
Happy New Year to all,
and to all a good diet!