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
 
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