Monday, December 30, 2013

Christmas Recap

Hello everyone! I hope that you had an amazing Christmas with your friends and family! Mine was pretty great. Only a few things could have made it better. For instance, if my Mom could have made it home for Christmas. But it's okay that she didn't. I am sure we will see her soon. And if it would have snowed. I don't know what it is, but I am a sucker for a white Christmas. But really, it was a great day!

Christmas started for us on Christmas eve. My family came over to our house and we had dinner together. We made a ham, green beans with bacon, mashed potatoes and gravy and even had some delicious cinnamon apples with vanilla ice cream for dessert. It was deliciously yummy and everyone seemed to enjoy dinner.

After dinner, it was time to open presents. It was more about watching my Nieces rip into theirs, but we also opened a few gifts here and there. It was fun watching them open their stuff. They get so excited about all the stuff they get.


After all the presents had been opened and it looked like a bomb of wrapping paper, boxes and bows went off in our living room, everyone headed home. My Nieces needed to get home so that Santa could come, so after everyone left and after we cleaned everything up, we headed out to go look at Christmas lights for a little bit. We just drove around our neighborhood, but there were definitely some good ones.

Christmas morning we were up at about 8. We gave the kitties and the dog their stockings full of goodies. And they went to town on all of their new toys. They were in heaven. It was like having real kids on Christmas, haha!


While the animals were enjoying their new presents, we opened ours. I loved watching the Hubby open his gifts and see the excitement on his face. He had no clue what any of them were, so it was even more fun to watch. It was pretty much a Batman themed Christmas for him. That's all he wanted. As for me, I got some great things that I had really been wanting. My favorite gift of the whole day was my Wes Welker jersey!!


After opening our gifts, we got ready for the day and headed to church. In all honesty, Christmas Mass is always my favorite mass of the year. However, this year, it was the worst mass I have ever been too. The visiting Father made no sense at all in what he was saying and he must have been trying to break a record for the longest homily ever! It was awful and kind of disappointing.

After Church we headed home and picked up Louie and then headed up to see the Hubby's parents and to have dinner with them. Once we arrived at their place, we all opened presents together. His parents freaking rock and bought both of us some great gifts. We both got new fitbit wrist bands. Which I am absolutely loving!!


After all the gifts were opened, it was time for dinner. It was delicious of course. It always is! We had pork roast, fresh green beans, regular and sweet potatoe pierogie, and a delicious salad. And dessert was sooooo good too. We had homemade apple tarts with homemade froyo! Yummmmmm!!!!!

After dinner it was time to head home. Both the Hubby and I had to work the next morning, so we wanted to get home and get to bed.

It had been a great couple of days celebrating Christmas with our families. And I wouldn't trade it for anything. Did you guys have a great Christmas? What was your favorite part of it all?

Megan

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that you all have a wonderful day filled with love, family and friends!




Megan

Monday, December 23, 2013

Craptastic Weekend Recap

Yep. That's right. This weekend was craptastic. Why? Because instead of being able to get the last few things that I needed to get done before Christmas, my ass was laid up in bed or on the couch all weekend long. 

It started last Wednesday in the afternoon. I started coughing. No big deal. It was just a little cough, or so I thought. By Thursday morning it was a full blown chest cold. The kind that hurt your chest so bad when you cough. But I sucked it up and headed to work. By the time the afternoon hit, I started getting chills and body aches, so I headed home so that I could get some rest and hopefully sleep it off. I was running a pretty high fever too and I got it to break, but I woke up Friday morning and still didn't feel good. 

After I dropped the Husband off at work, I headed over to the Doctor's office. After what seemed like the longest wait of my life, they finally saw me and determined by listening to my cough and my chest that I had bronchitis. Okay, not a huge deal. I can take some meds, but I can still get stuff done. But oh no. It didn't stop there. They wanted to do an influenza test on me just to be sure. 

The nurse comes in and sticks this little swab thingy up both of my nostrils. Which for the record, does not feel nice. She tells me to go ahead and wait out in the waiting room because the test will take about 15 minutes for the results to come back. After being in the waiting room for about three minutes, the nurse comes out and tells me that the test came back positive almost instantly.

It wasn't enough to just have bronchitis. No! I had to have the freaking flu on top of it. Which also meant that I was contagious. So that pretty much put a stop to any of my weekend plans. They sent me home with a prescription for some Tamiflu for me and for the Husband since he probably already had it. And they told me that I should stay home for at least 48 hours and that I would no longer be contagious after that. Great!

So I spent my weekend laying in bed or laying on the couch. I tried to get up and do a few things here and there, but every time I would, I would start to not feel good again. So after a while I quit fighting it. I accepted my fate for the weekend and embraced it. I watched every Christmas movie that we owned. And when I was done with those, I turned on Netflix and watched a few that I hadn't seen before.

Sunday afternoon I was able to get up and go out and do a few things since I wasn't contagious anymore. We did a little bit of our last minute shopping and then headed home. Nothing too special or for too long.

All in all this weekend was a bust. I had so many things that I needed to get done that didn't because of this stupid flu! But I have a couple more days to get everything finished, so hopefully I can get everything done in time. I hope that you guys had a better weekend! And Merry Christmas week everyone!


Megan

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Weigh-In Wednesday

First off, I know. I have been a horrible blogger lately. I blame life and work. Things have been absolutely crazy at work. And we have been so busy at home trying to finish up everything for Christmas. I know, it's just a bunch of excuses, but it's all I got people. Sorry! I hope that you are all doing well though and I will hopefully return to my regularly scheduled blogging soon. 

Now, let's get to Weigh-In Wednesday. 

I did pretty okay with not over eating on my Birthday last Thursday, but I did cave and have some frozen custard. It was better than cake. In my opinion anyways. And the only day that I really struggled with food was this past Sunday. But I felt completely horrible after I ate the things that I shouldn't have and I promised myself to do better the next day. And so far so good. 

I am still going to the gym 6 days a week. I actually am in love with the gym. It is my way of getting away from everything. On days that I don't do Zumba, I just put my headphones in and don't pay attention to anything going on around me. It is a great way to kind of escape from everything else going on. 

I am still struggling with drinking enough water. I don't know what it is, but I just don't feel thirsty most of the time. I downloaded an app to try and help me remember to drink more and it really isn't helping at all. I just ignore it. Oops! 

Okay, time for my weight. I am down to 207.2, which is a 2 lb loss from last week. My weight loss has slowed down a little bit the past few weeks. But hey, 2 lbs is still 2 lbs! And I will happily take it! 

I am going to stay with my current goals of tracking food, exercising and drinking more water. I am however going to add one. I really, really, really, really want to be under 200 lbs by the beginning of the new year. I am 7 lbs away from that goal, but I know that if I work my ass off and stay away from the Christmas cookies, I can do it. I am so close. I just need to push myself a little bit more. 

Thanks for stopping in today guys. Sorry again for being a horrible blogger. I hope to fix that soon. Hopefully with the long weekend coming up, I can get some posts scheduled. Have a great day everyone!

Megan

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Mod Cloth Outfit + The Perfect Birthday Gift!

I recently discovered two websites that I am absolutely in love with. Mod Cloth, which I found out about because they emailed me and asked me to take part in their challenge(hence the reason for this post) and Polyvore. I had heard of Polyvore before, but I had no idea what it was until I decided to go browse the site.

I had always wondered how people had put together those cute outfit sets on Pinterest, and guess what? Now I know. And not only that but it is super easy once you figure out how to use the damn site. But anyways, I digress.

Mod Cloth sent me a featured item for the week and asked me to build an outfit and accessorize it with other items on their site. So when I got the featured item, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. It didn't seem like something that I would wear, so I was kind of worried how it would turn out. But in the end, I actually got an outfit that I could totally see myself wearing!



Mod Cloth Outfit

Mod Cloth Outfit by megan-elliott-1 featuring an ivory shirt

The best part about this outfit? It would look amazingly cute with the new purse that the Hubby gave me for my Birthday today!! Hello new Coach purse!! I can't say that I was surprised about it though, he did let me pick it out!! I also got a really cute leather heart Coach keychain too!

So picture the above outfit with this purse.


I think it would go perfectly! I mean after all, it was the perfect Birthday gift for me. Thank you Honey for being so awesome and getting me such a great Birthday gift! I love it!

What do you guys think of the outfit? Have you ever used Mod Cloth or Polyvore?

Megan

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Weigh-In Wednesday

Hey guys! It's time for Weigh-In Wednesday. Let's get to it!


This week's post is going to be kind of short. Short, sweet and to the point!

I did a pretty good job of accomplishing my goals from last week. I was at the gym six days again last week. And I am still going strong on tracking my food in My Fitness Pal. The only one that I didn't do quite as well on was the whole drinking more water thing. But I did just download an app that is supposed to help me with that. So hopefully that will help me remember to drink more.

Okay, down to my actual weight for the week. As of this morning I am officially down to the lowest weight that I hit this past summer. I am down to 209.2! That is a 2.6 lb difference from last week. So almost three lbs a week.

I had a session with my trainer on Monday and since my weight loss has slowed just a little, he suggested that I try cutting my calories down from 1700 a day to 1600 and see if that helps at all. This shouldn't be too difficult. Most days I don't even hit 1700 calories, so I am definitely going to try it.

My goals for this week are to keep up all my current habits, which include going to the gym, tracking my food and to drink more water! But the one thing I want to accomplish more than anything is to not over eat on my Birthday and to stay away from the sweets. Gasp! I know! No cake on my Birthday? I know it seems kind of ridiculous, but honestly cake doesn't even sound good. I have not been craving sweets like I used to. I would much rather have something else that isn't as bad for me.

Sorry this post is so short. I haven't had a lot of time to blog this week. Work has been crazy and to add to that, I am in Human Resources seminars the next two days, which made my two days in the office even more hectic.

I hope you guys have a great day. And thanks for stopping by and checking on my progress!


Megan

Monday, December 9, 2013

Weekend Recap

Hello everyone! Welcome to the most craptastic day of the week, Monday!! 

This weekend was once again jam packed! It was go-go-go from the beginning. Friday night I picked up the Husband and we headed home for a few minutes. When we got home we had three packages sitting on our porch! They were essentially all for me. One was our Christmas cards! Eeek! One was part of my Birthday present from the Husband and the other one was my Husband's Christmas gifts! So really, they were all for me. I got to open all of them, haha! I love getting mail. 

After I opened all of the fun stuff, I headed to the gym and worked my butt off on the treadmill. I did 45 minutes of interval running. 45 minutes!!! That is a new personal best for me! Whoop whoop! I was so gross and sweaty by the time I was done. It was disgusting, but worth it!

After the gym I headed over to Wal-Mart to pick up the Kitty Christmas cards that I made for a friend of ours. I will have to share those with you when I show you our other card too! But that was pretty much it for Friday night. 

Saturday I got up way earlier than I would have liked to, but I needed to be at the fabric store when they opened at 8. So I got there at 8, which is a great time to go because no one is there and I didn't have to wait in line to get my fabric cut. Score! And then I headed home to drop everything off and then headed to the gym for Zumba. 

After Zumba I headed home and got a shower and got ready. The Husband dropped me of at KB's place around 1:30 where I met up with KB and a few other friends so that we could head downtown to watch the MLS Cup Championship. We were routing for Kansas City because we hate Salt Lake City. It was a crazy game, but Kansas City did end up winning in the end. And it was fun just hanging out with everyone and catching up. 

After the game we all headed home. The Husband and I ordered Chinese food and watched Wreck-It-Ralph. What a cute movie. So much creativity. I really liked it. I also got to work on our Christmas cards. But other than that, it was a pretty laid back night. 

Sunday was spent running around as well. We got up and got ready and then went to pick up my Nieces. My oldest Niece, MaKenzi turned 7 on Saturday. She is getting so big. But we promised her we would take her shopping for her Birthday present, so we picked all of them up and headed to Toys R' Us. I don't know who was more excited to go there, my Nieces or my Husband. 

My Nieces and I roamed about for a while looking for the perfect things to buy. Once MaKenzi had everything picked out that was within her budget, we had to track down my Husband so that we could go check out. At this point, he was looking at all of the playing cards and we had a hard time pulling him away. When we finally did get him away from them, MaKenzi told him that he was just like a child. I died. I was laughing so hard. Best part of my day right there!

After the shopping trip, we headed back to their house and dropped them off and then did our grocery shopping. Then we headed home and watched some football and did some more Christmas decorating for the rest of the day. It was fun taking my Nieces out shopping. I just love listening to them talk. I swear they grow more and more each time I see them. 

It was a fun weekend. And I am glad we got to spend some time with our friends and family. And I am glad that Salt Lake City lost! Suckers! Haha! 

Now, Thursday just needs to get here, because it is only one of the best days of the year. My Birthday!!!! Whoop whoop! Can't wait! 

Hope you guys had a great weekend! 


Megan

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Weigh In-Wednesday

It's that time of the week again! Time for Weigh-In Wednesday!


So last week I left you guys telling you that my main goal was to not over eat on Thanksgiving. And as I mentioned in my Weekend Recap post, I am happy to report that I accomplished this! I didn't over eat. I stayed within my calories and I felt great afterwards for once. I didn't feel like I was going to pop from eating too much. 

I also spent a lot of time at the gym over the past week. Last week alone, I went Monday through Saturday. That's right, I actually went to the gym on Thanksgiving. Hey, they were open, so I was going. And I am glad that I did. It is amazing how great you feel after going and getting a workout in first thing in the morning. And it is amazing how much you actually enjoy going after you get in the swing of things. I actually am at the point where I am disappointed if I don't go. Oh my gosh, it is happening. I am becoming one of those people that I could never understand why they loved going to the gym. Aaaaaagggghhhhhh!!!! 

Something pretty cool has happened a few times over the past week. On Saturday, I got to the gym a little early before Zumba so that I could stretch out and all that good stuff. I was stretching out when a lady that also attends the class came up to me and asked me how much weight I had lost. She also told me that you can really tell and that I look great and to keep up the hard work. I have never talked to this lady in my life, so to have her come up and say something like that made me feel amazing. No joke, it made my entire day! And she wasn't the last person to say something. Quite a few of my co-workers have said things to the same tune and a few more of my fellow Zumba ladies told me that they have seen a huge difference and that I look great. It is really cool to see and hear that all of my hard work is paying off. 

Okay, let's get into the good stuff, the measurements! I promised you guys new measurements today, so here they are. 


A total of 10.4 lbs in just under a month! I am so excited and proud of this number! I have been working so hard, and like I said before, it is nice to see that my hard work and dedication is paying off. I am so close to being below 210 and that much closer to getting out of the 200's. I can just see it happening already. Aaaaaagghhhhh! I want this so bad and I don't care what I have to do to get there, I am going to get below that 200 lb mark. Hopefully by the end of the year! And I am going to stay below it!

Okay, now for some goals! Keeping up with my gym routine is the highest on list this week. I want to stay consistent with going to the gym. The longer I keep this up, the less likely I am to break this habit! And same goes for my food tracking. I am currently on a 31 day streak on My Fitness Pal and I hope to continue this streak.

Drinking more water is on the goals list this week too. I have been doing a lot better with this, but I could still be doing a lot better. And last but not least, I want to be down another 3 lbs by my Birthday next Thursday. That would put me in the 208 range, a number I haven't seen on the scale in years! What better way to celebrate my Birthday then with a small victory and feeling great about myself!

Thanks for stopping by this week guys! I hope you are having a great day!


Megan

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Christmas Shopping

Up until about 9 pm last night, I was dreading doing any type of Christmas shopping. As much as I love Christmas, I hate shopping for it. More just because of the crowds of people who are never very polite. And finding parking is just a pain in the ass this time of year at any store. And every year I swear I am going to start shopping in June, but I never do. 

Last night however changed things. We were scoping out some of the Cyber Monday deals and found some awesome sales and tons of places with free shipping. So we started looking at our list of people to buy for and found some great prices on items that we knew they would love. And within an hour we had over half of our Christmas shopping done. Just like that. 


I am not going to lie, it feels pretty glorious to have so much shopping done and to have not even stepped foot in a single store! Did I mention I already bought my Husband's gift too? Yep! Bought it online last Friday! And got free shipping on that too! I am loving this whole online shopping thing. I need to do this more often!

Now I still have a little bit of shopping to do, but most of it doesn't require me going into a store, so I am pretty happy about that. I mean there will be one or two stores that I have to go to, but I don't anticipate it being a huge ordeal. Especially since it will probably just be Target. And if I go on my lunch break, it won't be bad at all. Let's hope anyways. 

And of course I stocked up on boxes, bags, wrapping paper and ribbon after Christmas last year, so we should be all set on that stuff too! I can't wait for everyone's stuff to arrive so that I can start wrapping gifts! I love wrapping gifts and making them pretty with ribbons and bows. I know, I am weird. But I like doing it and it's fun, haha! 

What about you guys? How's your Christmas shopping and wrapping going? Are any of you already done? 


Megan

Monday, December 2, 2013

Thanksgiving Weekend Recap

Hello everyone! I hope that you all had an amazing Thanksgiving and a great weekend! It was definitely great having 4 days off, but it went by way too quickly and I did not get as much done as I would have liked to, but it happens. 

My weekend technically started on Wednesday afternoon. Our CEO walked around the building around 2:00 pm and told everyone they could leave if they wanted to start their Thanksgiving weekend a little early. I didn't think twice about it and was out of their in about five minutes. I called my Husband and found out that they were getting off work early too, so I ran home and grabbed my gym clothes and met him there. After the gym we headed home and I got ready to go out with my friend KB.

KB picked me up at about 6:30 and we headed to the movie theater to see Catching Fire. And holy freaking crap, it was amazing! They did such a great job with it. And I am looking forward to seeing it again. The only annoying part of the whole night was these girls behind us that kept asking all these questions. And they weren't just asking them quietly to each other. No, they were talking loud enough for everyone to hear. It was really annoying and by the end of the movie, I am pretty sure every person in the surrounding section wanted to strangle them. But again, the movie was awesome, so I tried to not let it ruin the movie too much. 

Thursday morning, Thanksgiving, I got up pretty early and headed to the gym. After a good hour, hour and a half workout, I headed home to finish getting things ready for Dinner. My Husband baked his made from scratch Pumpkin Pie and I finished getting the veggie tray ready along with our sweet potatoes. After finishing up our part of the meal and getting cleaned up, we headed to my Brothers for dinner.

It was a great Thanksgiving meal. The turkey was amazing! My Brother out did himself again this year. And even though I shouldn't have had any stuffing, I did have a little and it was delicious as well. I was very proud of myself for choosing better foods and smaller portions. For once, I didn't over eat and it was awesome to not feel like I was going to explode. It was a great day with family and I am glad that we got to spend some time with them.


Friday I got up a bit early again and planned on getting started on Christmas decorating right away, but it ended up not working out that way. We ended up watching my Nieces for a good portion of the day. So we took them to the park and then got some lunch. It was fun spending time with them. I love seeing how much they have learned in school. My middle Niece, Kelsi, is in Kindergarten and she was telling me what a verb is. What? I can't believe how smart they are. I love seeing them grow and learn. 


After my Nieces left, we headed to the gym and then made a few stops to a few stores on our way home. We spent the rest of the night just hanging out at home and watching TV and pulling all of our Christmas decorations out of the attic. 

Saturday I got up and headed to the gym for Zumba. After Zumba I headed home and we got cleaned up and headed out for the day. We went to a few of our favorite small, local businesses for Small Business Saturday. We also went to Dick's Sporting Goods and grabbed some dinner and then headed home. It was a pretty uneventful day. 

Sunday was crazy! We got up around 10 and immediately started working on putting up our Christmas decorations. Around noon, my Brother, my SIL and my Nieces showed up so that we could go get our Christmas trees. We all headed over to the Tree Farm and started browsing the selection of Christmas trees. I spotted ours the second that we parked, haha! It wasn't a hard pick for us. We knew what kind of tree we had last year and we loved it, so it didn't take long for us to find ours. My Brother and his family found theirs pretty quickly too, so once we paid and had them loaded onto the top of their Jeep, we headed out. 

They followed us home and dropped our tree off for us and then headed back down to their place. We got the tree in the base and set up in the living room. That is when we discovered that our tree is a little lopsided. It grew like that apparently. So from one angle it looks great then you look at it from a different and it is crooked. Oh well. It gives it character.

My friend Megan also came over on Sunday and took some pictures for us to use on our Christmas card. They turned out so good. So I finally got to order our Christmas cards from tinyprints.com. I can't wait to get them. I love how they turned out, but I can't wait to actually see them in real life.


I spent the rest of the night decorating the house some more, putting the lights on the tree and watching some football. Thankfully the Broncos won this weekend, so all is right with the world again.


It was a very busy weekend, but I knew it would be. Especially with all of the Christmas decorating. And I am not even done yet. I still have to do the front porch, put up our outside lights, decorate the tree and finish the last few inside decorations. Yep, there is still lots to do. Oh well, it will be worth it!

Did you guys have a great Thanksgiving? What about your weekend? Did you do anything fun and Christmasy?


Megan

Friday, November 29, 2013

Let the Christmas Decorating Begin!!!!

I love Christmas! I love the way this time of year makes me feel. I love how a simple Christmas song can make me feel so good. I love that getting a real tree makes me so excited and can put a ridiculous smile on my face. And above all of that, I absolutely love decorating for Christmas!

If I had my way, I would start decorating as soon as Halloween was over. However, Ebeneezer Scrooge my Husband has a strict not until after Thanksgiving policy when it comes to me putting up Christmas decorations. Except that each year he gets a little bit more lenient. I mean I put a snowflake table cloth on the table the other day and a glittery white bird cage with a holiday garland on it and although he did say something I pointed out that nowhere on either item did it say Merry Christmas. So he let me off on a technicality, haha! What he doesn't realize is that I am ever so slowly making it to where I can begin decorating earlier, haha! 

So today starts full on Christmas decorating! And I can't wait to get everything put up. I want to do something a little different this year, but don't want to spend a ton of money so of course I headed to Pinterest for some inspiration.

First, I wanted to find a great way to display our Christmas cards. Last year I put ribbons on the cabinet doors in our kitchen and attached the cards to the ribbons. But, I wanted to try something different this year. I found some great ideas and can't wait to see what I can find to make one of these ideas.





All of these came directly from my Christmas Pinterest board. You can find the source of each pin on there. 

I also wanted to find a few new ideas for some new decorations. I found some great DIY items and can't wait to see if I can accomplish a few of these. 



This is essentially what I did for our cards last year, but I thought this would look nice just with the bows and no cards!




I see a trip to the Habitat for Humanity Restore in my near future this weekend to see if I can find some old window panes and shutters. And maybe some old picture frames.

I can't wait to get everything decorated. I have been so excited this week knowing that I could finally put everything up today. The Husband isn't too excited but that's because he knows that he has to climb up in the attic and get all of our decorations out. And he has to climb up on the roof this weekend to put up lights, haha! He will live though. He'll grumble through it, but in the end he will be proud that he put them up, because it's his house and something the he should do. Men. They think so differently than us sometimes. 

I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving with your families. And I hope you have a great weekend! 



Megan

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you are having a great day full of family, food, and football! 




Megan

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Weigh-In Wednesday

Happy Wednesday! It's time for Weigh-In Wednesday. Let's get down to it, shall we?

Sorry for the hiatus last week. Glad to be getting back on track this week. 

My eating has continued to be pretty good. I am learning more and more everyday about what I should be eating and what I shouldn't be eating. I am learning to pay more attention to the ingredient labels. I know what I should be looking to stay away from. And also I have decided that if I can't pronounce it, I shouldn't be eating it. These few things have really helped me stay away from things that I would have otherwise eaten in the past. 

I did pretty good with tracking my food and with staying within my calories for each day. Again, I went over a couple of times but not by more than a 100 calories or so. 

My workouts lately have been awesome. I find myself wanting to go to the gym more and more. I am there at least 4 or 5 times a week, sometimes 6 depending on the week. I am learning so much from my personal trainer and I think that is definitely helping. I am getting over the "What the crap do I even do with these weights?" situation that I was always in. I am slowly starting to learn things that I can do on my own and it really helps for when I go by myself. I have also been writing down everything that I do in my sessions so that I have something to reference when I do need a workout. I am also done with my four free sessions and after talking it over with my Husband, we decided that this is something that I need to continue with. So I have purchased 12 additional sessions and am going to be seeing the personal trainer every other week starting in December. 

Yesterday before I headed into Zumba I met with my trainer, we will call him A, to take some measurements. We did body fat percentage and some basic measurements. The body fat percentage was not fun. We had taken it the very first day that I met with him, three weeks ago, on this little hand held machine and for some reason my number has gone up since then, which isn't really possible especially since I have lost weight. And my trainer seemed to agree, so we decided to do it the old fashioned way with calipers. We got something slightly different and he was convinced that our very first reading wasn't very accurate, so we are starting over on this particular measurement and we will see where it goes from here in about a month or so. 

I was pretty discouraged by the results of the body fat percentage and I think he could see that because he made it a point to tell me that I shouldn't be discouraged and that I was doing great, especially with the amount of weight that I have already lost. A also told me that if I can keep up with how I have been doing that I could definitely be under 200 lbs by the beginning of the new year. What?! This would seriously be insanely huge for me. The last time I was under 200 lbs was my Freshman year of College. I am so determined to get there. And there will be a lot of celebrating when that happens. And by that I mean me jumping up and down and dancing and probably screaming at the top of my lungs, ha! I can't wait for that moment. 

Okay, let's get down to the good stuff. The measurements! Or the measurement in this week's case. On the scale this morning I weighed in at 213.6. Which means that I am down 5.6 lbs since my last Weigh-In Wednesday post two weeks ago! I am absolutely excited about this because I know that I have been working so hard for it! And seeing this number on the scale this morning made me realize that A was absolutely right yesterday when he told me not to be discouraged by my body fat percentage because 9 lbs in three weeks is flipping amazing! And if I can keep up losing three lbs a week, I could definitely be below 200 lbs by the end of this year!

The only goal that I am really going to set for myself this week has to do with Thanksgiving tomorrow. My goal is to not over eat. And instead of mashed potatoes and gravy, I will be having sweet potatoes. And I will be eating as many fresh veggies as possible. I will admit though that I will be having a very small amount of stuffing and one very small piece of dessert. I mean, I should be allowed one little cheat, right? As long as I don't over do it, I think it will be okay. 

Sorry again for the hiatus last week. I am definitely going to try and not have another one of those because this really does help keep me on track. Thanks guys for stopping by and checking in on how this journey is going. I appreciate your support more than you know.
I hope you all have a great day and a great Thanksgiving!



Megan

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Weekend Recap

Once again I am late to the Weekend Recap party. I really need to start writing these on Sunday nights so that they will actually get posted at a decent time on Monday or on Monday at all. Haha, yeah! That might not ever happen. I know me all too well. 

Hope you guys had a great weekend. I am happy to report that ours was actually really low key for once. I know! Crazy!

Our weekend started on Friday at noon. The Husband and I both got off work early so that we could head up to Denver for a concert. We went to see Less Than Jake, a ska band. They are my Husband's absolute favorite band. And because I got to go to so many concerts and things this past summer, we agreed that we could purchase the VIP tickets to this particular show. They were $75 a piece and that included our tickets, a free shirt, a free poster, a laminated VIP pass and we got to meet them before the show! 

We got up there around 5:00 pm, found parking and then headed over to the meet and greet. The guys in the band were freaking awesome. They each spent a little bit of time talking with each person individually and signed some of our stuff for us as well. It was a really cool experience and I could just see how happy and excited my Husband was about this, so it was definitely worth the $150 we paid for the tickets. (Sorry in advance for the not so great pictures. I only had my phone on me, so they didn't turn out very well.)


After the meet and greet, we went and grabbed some food at Hayter's Bar and Grill next door to the venue. The food wasn't bad, but it definitely could have been better. After we ate we headed back over to the venue to get some seats for the show. 

They had two other bands that opened the show. It was supposed to be three, but one of the bands had flipped their van a few days before and couldn't make the show. They did end up showing up towards the end, but it was too late for them to be able to play at that point. The two openers were called The Masked Intruders and Anti-Flag. The Masked Intruders were definitely interesting. They all wore different colored ski masks and you couldn't see their faces. They won't even reveal their real names or let you see their face. Interesting for sure. And Anti-Flag was pretty hard core. Definitely not up my alley when it comes to music, but I can see why so many people like them. 


After the two openers, Less Than Jake came on and played an amazing show! And when we met them they asked what songs we wanted to hear during the show and both of my requests were played. I was pretty excited about that. They do happen to be two of their most popular songs, but I would like to think that my requests were heard, haha!


After the show, we made the long drive home where we didn't arrive until about 1:00 am. Talk about a long day. But it was definitely worth it!

Saturday morning I somehow managed to crawl out of bed and go to Zumba. After my class was over I ran a few errands, grabbed some lunch and headed home. After we ate lunch, I proceeded to pass the eff out and took a four hour nap! It was glorious! I woke up around 5 and we decided to grab some Chinese food takeout from our favorite place and just watch TV the rest of the night.

I also got started on some Christmas gifts that I am making for some of my family members. Once they are finished and they are given to the respective people, I will show you guys what I did, but until then, it is a secret! I don't want to spill the beans in case they read this! 

Even though I slept for a good portion of it, it was still a pretty productive day. 

Sunday I woke up at 7:30. Why? I would like to know that myself. Of course I couldn't go back to sleep. And it had snowed some more so I was all excited about that. So going back to sleep apparently was out of the question. So I decided to get up and do the grocery shopping for the day. Apparently I need to get to the store that early every weekend. There was no one there. It was amazing. I didn't have to deal with rude people in the produce department blocking every damn fruit or vegetable that I need to get to with their humongous cart. And I didn't have to wait in a ridiculously long line at the checkout. It was awesome! 

I headed home after my successful morning of grocery shopping and got to work on cleaning up the house and trying to get my Mom's sewing machine working. This thing is older than I am, but it is a beast and normally would work way better than the crappy plastic one that I have, but something is broken on it, so that didn't go so well. It ended with me being really frustrated and pulling out my other machine to work on the project I was working on. Oh well! It was worth a shot. 

I spent the rest of the evening making dinner and watching an awfully frustrating football game. That is all I am going to say about that, haha! 

It was a nice relaxing weekend. And very much needed. I just hope we can have a few more of these in the next few weeks before things get real crazy with Christmas!


Megan

Friday, November 22, 2013

Friday's Letters

Happy Friday! Time for some letters!



Dear Friday,
Thank you for finally arriving. I seriously don't know how much more of this week I could have handled. 

Dear Less Than Jake,
I am really looking forward to your concert tonight. Although this is more for the Husband, I know that it will be fun and worth what we paid. 

Dear Weather,
Okay, I know I complained about how warm it was last week, but seriously I didn't want it to be this cold! Holy shiz! Just walking from the Gym to my car last night, my disgustingly gross sweaty hair was frozen. Yikes!

Dear Self,
Next time you decide to fall asleep around 9 pm, I would appreciate it if you would sleep through the night instead of this whole lets wake up at midnight and can't go back to sleep deal. Yeah, not fun. I wasn't taking a nap. I was ready for bed damn it!

Dear Self, Again,
I am still very proud of what you have accomplished this week, but you need to do a better job next week with your eating. You slipped up a couple of times this week. Let's get that shiz under control. Deal?!

Dear Catching Fire,
I can't wait to see you next week. I am so excited!

Dear Mom,
Thank you again for giving me my Birthday money early. I really needed some new jeans so it was nice to be able to go and get some. You are the best Mom ever! Love you!

Dear Christmas,
I can't wait to start decorating the house for you. Thanksgiving needs to hurry up and get here so I can start decorating!

Dear Louie Bear,
I think it is absolutely adorable when you snore while you are sleeping. That being said, it's really loud too! You are worse than your Dad when it comes to snoring.

Dear Denver Traffic,
Please be good to us tonight. Don't be ridiculous. We would appreciate it.

Dear Boss Man,
Sorry about having a huge breakdown in your office on Monday. I appreciate all of your help with everything though and your willingness to step in and help solve the problem. You are seriously the best Boss ever!

Dear iPhone,
I don't appreciate that you keep telling me that I am low on storage. I keep deleting pictures but yet don't seem to be freeing up any space. It is annoying. I definitely need more storage next time I get a new phone. Apparently I have a crap ton of music that is taking up way too much space. And I can't delete it! I needs it!

Have a great weekend everyone!



Megan

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Random Musings for the Day

Just a few random musings for you guys today. And maybe a couple of rants thrown in here and there just to liven things up a bit. 

First, I woke up to a Wintry Wonderland this morning and was a very happy girl! Did it take me over an hour to get to work today? Absolutely! But it snowed and that somehow makes everything okay in my world!


I definitely had a huge breakdown at work the other day. And when I say that I mean I was bawling my eyes out in my bosses office for half an hour because of how stressed and overwhelmed I was. Poor guy! I don't think he quite knew what to do with me. But he is pretty much the best boss ever and quickly stepped up and asked what he could do to help me not feel so overwhelmed. Which was exactly what I needed to hear. I didn't realize how stressed I was with everything that was going on. And of course it just took one little thing to push me over the edge. It was all downhill from there. Crying, being pissed, ranting. Ya know? The usual emotions that come along with a breakdown. It wasn't pretty. 

And now for my rant of the day. Why is it that clothing stores can't carry jeans or any clothes for that matter in bigger sizes? Yes, I am a bigger girl. I range from a size 16-18 in jeans. And when I need new jeans and have to go to a zillion different stores to find a pair in my size, it is really freaking frustrating! I went to at least 10 stores yesterday and not one of them carried jeans over a size 14. Really?!

It pisses me off beyond belief. It just screams "Sorry! You aren't good enough or small enough to shop at our store!" And talk about making you feel like absolute crap! I am already not happy with how I look and feel. And yes, I am trying to do something to change that right now, but that doesn't make it any better. It still makes me feel absolutely awful and dislike myself even more. And just because I am bigger than others, that doesn't mean that I shouldn't get to buy cute clothes and feel good about myself in them! I guess I just don't get it. I mean my money is just as good as anybody else's walking into those stores, but yet because of the sizes that they carry I am automatically discriminated against when shopping there. Discriminated might not be quite the word I am looking for there, but for some reason that is the only word I can think to describe it. 

And what is even more frustrating is that before I went to any of these said stores yesterday, I looked on their websites to see what size jeans they carried. And every single one of them went up to the size that I needed, but yet they don't actually have them in the stores. Only online apparently. No where on their websites did it state this. And I could never buy a pair of jeans online. I have to be able to try them on or you run the risk of getting them in the mail, they don't fit and you just have to return them anyways. Which is a complete waist of time. Ugh! I am just getting pissed again thinking about it, so I will end this rant now before I ruin my whole day with it. 

On to something more positive. I did end up finding some jeans finally yesterday. And yes, they were in the plus size section. But ya know what, I love them and they are comfortable and I don't care. I have jeans that fit (for now) and I was extremely excited that I found this particular brand in my size. They are Silver Jeans, which are usually $100 jeans, but they were only $50 a pair and one of them I only paid $36 for. I was very happy after the long and not so great search for jeans earlier in the day. 

And I got some new boots! I can't wait to wear them! But I need to waterproof them first. Thanks again Mom for giving me my Birthday money early so that I could go get some stuff. 



Okay, I guess that is all I have for the day. Sorry for my long rant, but it happens. I hope you guys are all having a great day. Only one more day until the weekend. Thanks goodness. I don't think that I can handle anymore of this week. 

Megan
 
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