Our House on the Corner of Our Street

So we moved into our house on May 2nd, so we have been homeowners now for almost two months.  It is crazy how time flies.  We have made some real progress since we were up to our eyeballs in moving boxes, but we still have a long way to go. 

The only room that is completely decorated so far is our bedroom.  I wanted to start there so that it felt like we had one space that was clean and nice and completely decorated the way we want it.  I love the end result and I must say it turned out better than I had hoped.  Check out the pictures below.

A view from the door of our bedroom.

A view from the end of the bed looking at my pretty new headoard.

Since we didn't plat the majority of the plants and flowers at our house we have been waiting to see what we have growing in our yard before planting a lot of new stuff.  I guess you could say that we are doing a lawn and garden inventory. I must say that I really enjoy walking outside and finding new flowers blooming every week.

Something pretty and purple (my fav color) growing outside our house :)

When I was growing up my mom was always planting flowers and she had some gorgeous gardens.  When we built our house that we lived in for much of my childhood my mom made me a secret garden that I could look at from my window.  I loved it!  I miss it a lot.  My mom has window boxes now at her house and they are stunning.  People sometimes stop off of the street to tell her how lovely they look.  They really are gorgeous and I have always wanted window boxes.  Mine aren't quite as fancy as hers yet, but they look pretty good considering that it is my first time.

Two of the window boxes under the big window.

A side profile view.  I hate the white tubes coming out of the basement.  Hopefully our bushes will be tall and block them out someday!

This is the first one we did.  It has the smaller plants and flowers in it that need a little more love than the other two baskets.  This basket is under our bedroom window.

           

Happy Sunday Everyone!  There is some good stuff coming this week, so stay tuned!



Satunday Session

I hope everyone had a happy holiday weekend.  Over here in Minnesota we were snow free (yea!) this weekend and we made it to almost all of our holiday events. On friday Ron and I braved Mall of America to finish our Christmas shopping (we only have two people left) out of probably 20 people so we did pretty good.


Yesterday we had our family Christmas party with my extended family on my mom's side.  I love this holiday party. It includes about 40-50 of us getting together at my cousins house and we have an appetizer and dessert contest.  It is so much fun and everyone really tries to make a fabulous dish.  This year I made.... 


To Die For Dip:
2 - 8 oz. Pkgs. Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1 – Can (~15oz.) Whole Corn (drained)
1 – Can (~4 oz.) Chopped Olives
1 – Packet of Dry Hidden Valley Ranch Seasoning & Salad Dressing Mix
Chopped Pickled Jalapenos to your tolerance
1 red pepper chopped
1 can black beans


Mix all ingredients together and serve cold or warm in a crock pot with fritos or tortilla chips.


AND...


Double Chocolate Kiss Cookies

I added chocolate chips to the dough and made my own vanilla buttercream frosting.


So, how did it go?  I WON 1st place for the cookies!!!  People loved them.  I have to admit, I didn't eat one.  I didn't eat much besides fruit and veggies at the party and one meatball and a little dip.  It went pretty well considering how much temptation was there.


Last night I had another Christmas party to go to and I went to it and there was another table of food and tons of libations and I only ate two things.  Success in my eyes.  I also worked out on Saturday for the first time (biking) and my ankle did really well.  I am so excited to get back into my routine though.


Today, I had a holiday concert to go to but was unable to go due to a family emergency.  Everything is fine now, but I am happy that I was able to be there for my family.


The rest of my week goes, something like this...


Sunday- Finish wrapping presents, clean my house, finish making truffles
Monday- Work, Ornament exchange at lunch, working out, preparing house for Girl's Night Christmas 
Tuesday- Work, Girl's Night Christmas with ornament exchange
Wednesday- Work, Work Holiday party, get ankle checked out, work out
Thursday- Work, finish last minute holiday stuff
Friday- Christmas Eve (my favorite day of the year!!) go to church, dinner with family, open presents, go to sleep and wait for Santa :)
Saturday-Christmas breakfast with Ron, open presents, go to Ron's mom's house for dinner/presents
Sunday-Stay in Pajama's all day and watch movies and relax (probably work out)


I am kind of tired just looking at this list.  That is a lot of things to get done, but it will be worth it to spend time with family!


SS Update...

1. Attend an hour long fitness class 6 days this week.

So, my sprained ankle slowed me down, but it didn't completely deter me from getting any activity in (thanks to everyone who gave me ideas about other activities I could do), but I definitely didn't get this accomplished they way I thought I would.  Does that mean I am going to quit and just consider it a loss?  No way!  I am determined to keep going.  I know that I have a long way to go still and this was just a small bump in the road. 

2. Get all of my holiday decorations out and Christmas presents wrapped.

This is a work in progress.  I still have wrapping to do, but my decorating is pretty much done, so it isn't like I have been totally slacking :)

New Goals... 

1. Stay on track, keep my eye on the prize.

Keep tracking my food, keep up on my activity, stay away from the holiday food.  Should be easy, right? :)

2. Relax.

This is often a struggle for me.  I am a go, go, go type of person.  I know that I stress out too much, it is something that I really need to work on.  I need to just relax and enjoy this season and my time with my family and friends.  Sometimes things don't go EXACTLY as planned, but usually everything turns out in the end.  I am going to really try to master the art of letting things be and just enjoying my life and living in the moment with the people I love.

Saturday Session

I am writing to you from a place that just got 18 inches of snow dumped on it.  A place that is known to be frigid and snowy.  A place that is very close to Canada, but today feels like it is bordering the North Pole or Antarctica.  I have lived here my entire life.  I love it here.  There is nowhere else I would rather be (except Italy <3)  I love having four full seasons to enjoy.  I am someone who hates weather when it is super hot and muggy.  I like being bundled up in the cold weather.  I am someone who strongly believes that you are only allowed to complain about one season.  You either like the heat or you like it when it is cooler.  I must say, I prefer a cool crisp autumn day to most any other day. As I said before (and I promise this will be the last time) I hate being hot! So if one must choose between being hot or cold I choose to be cold.  Having said that, this next statement is going to contradict everything that I just said, but here it goes... I HATE this bitterly cold, blizzard filled, snowed in day I wish that the blizzard didn't come today and ruin my three very fun plans that I had this weekend.

Okay, I feel much better and more prepared to move on with what this post is actually supposed to be about, which is not complaining about the weather (but seriously if you looked outside and what you were feasting your eyes on had ruined your wonderful and fabulous weekend filled with family, friends and cookie baking you may be upset too).  Just sayin'.


Last time I had a Saturday Session post it was about the topics listed below.

1. Attend an hour long fitness class 6 days this week.

I made these goals the Saturday after Thanksgiving and I actually rocked at this the entire next week.  After that I got engaged, had an interview and got stuck in a blizzard.  All excuses?  You betcha.  Do I need to work harder at this?  Definitely.  This week working out was not high on my priority list.  I am not even going to try and make more excuses than the ones that were previously listed.  I disappointed myself and I need to do better, so this will be another goal for me for two straight weeks, with an added twist.  I must attend will attend an hour long workout class 6 days a week for two consecutive weeks and I will also take a Spin class and the Mixx at least once each.  Why is this a big deal?  Because I have made plans to go to these classes at least 5 times before and when I get there I see very fit skinny people who look extremely coordinated and more capable of completing this class than me and I run away to my comfortable elliptical and watch music videos of fit celebrities and kick myself for being such a baby.  That may have been the longest run-on sentence.

2. Get all of my holiday decorations out and Christmas presents wrapped.

I realize now that I am looking at this goal that this may have been me taking the easy way out and posting something that brings me immense joy and not really something that is a goal that I was working towards.  However, I was very successful with this goal and my house is beautifully decorated and lovely. 

My festive wine rack withe the stockings hung.

Ron carefully decorating the tree.

Our tree!

New goals...

1. Attend a one hour workout class 12 times in the next 14 days.  Also attend a Spin class and the MIXX at least once.

This scares me.  I hope I can succeed at this.  I will feel amazing if I am able to accomplish this.

2. Get back on track.  

What I mean by this is I kind of stopped tracking my food.  I did alright most days, but then one day I ate two handfuls of M&M's.  It was a slippery slope and I am not falling for it anymore.  Tracking every day is essential for me and is something that I need to get back into.

I will post blizzard pictures tomorrow after we reconcile from our fight.  Have a great evening everyone. Hope you're staying on track with all of the holiday temptations.  It is hard, but it will be worth it when we are well ahead of the game when everyone just begins to make their new year's resolutions. :)

Week Long Absence= A lot of Catching Up

Happy Sunday everyone!  How was everyone's Thanksgiving?  If you didn't have Thanksgiving how was your weekend?  At any rate did people stay on track with their weight loss goals and not over-indulge too much?  I am proud to say that I stayed on track very well while I was at home with my Mom for almost a week!  I have not been home that long since I lived at home in high school.

I have to say though... I really missed blogging, reading blogs and having access to a computer.  My mom doesn't have a computer or wi-fi which meant only checking things on my phone which meant no blogging for almost a week.  So, I missed everyone a lot and am going to try to fill you in on my crazy week all in one re-cap post rather than a bunch of smaller ones, so I hope you have a nice warm beverage and are ready to get the details.

Thanksgiving

I missed Fashion Friday and Saturday Sessions this week and I intend to do a mini version of each of them, but first I am going to tell you all about my time at home with my lovely mother.  We had 50 people at my Mom's house for Thanksgiving, which meant that we cooked, baked, cleaned, decorated and organized our little tushes off.  It was so much fun!  It was a lot a lot of work, but well worth it.  My parents recently got divorced and it has been really hard for my mom and my family because of how messy it was.  It was nice to have a holiday that was drama free and "normal" after having several years of bad holidays.  My mom cried during Grace before we ate dinner and was so thankful that so many people from the family came to celebrate Thanksgiving and to support her.  I had to fight back tears.  It was great to see my family and spend so much time together.  I forgot to take pictures, because we were so busy, but I did get one shot of two people that I love so much.

This is my wonderful GG and our family dog Gabi.

They are basically best friends as my mom drops Gabi off at GG's for "daycare" every morning while she is at work.

Every year before we eat we play a family game of football outside.  This year the crowd was smaller because it was 14 degrees outside with negative 10 degree windchill.  Brrrr.  My family played a heated Girls Vs. Boys game of Trivial Pursuit after dinner.  The boys won for the fifth year in a row.  Shoot!  It was a really close game though and we almost pulled out a win.

My mom and I also took the time to go through her extensive Christmas collection and get the house decorated.  My mom collects Santas and she has hundreds of them.  I am sad that I didn't take pictures, but I will and then I will show you how fabulous they are. She also has a lot of Santa Bears that our dog Gabi really enjoyed :)

Gabi and the Santa Bear collection.

The Feast

Another Thanksgiving tradition that I take part in every year is called the Feast.  It is a friendsgiving that we have had for 8 years.  My high school friends and I get together at my friend Hilary's house the Saturday after Thanksgiving every year to make a meal together and have some fun.  It is something that I look forward to every year and would be lost without it.  It is pretty rare for people to get together with high school friends for the same event every year, but we all try to make it a priority.

This year was our smallest attendance to date with only 10 people attending (we are usually close to 20) but it was still a lot of fun.  We have a strict no significant others can come unless you are engaged or married.  Some people don't like it, but rules are rules and they are not to be broken.  Ron was not allowed to come since we are not engaged or married, but that is okay with me because we see each other all the time and we don't want to break the rules.

My group of girl friends from high school minus Brooke.

Jen, Hilary, me, Stacie and Kelsey.

Our Feast of food. All of the usual Thanksgiving goodness.

10 Feasters ready for some food and fun.

Expressing our thanks for one another, our families and having health and happiness.

Fashion Friday: A Black Friday Fashion Finds Feature

Alright, so I may have gone black friday shopping this year for the second year in a row and loved it.  We didn't go at 3 am, but we did go when we woke up and we did get a lot of good deals. My wonderful boyfriend accompanied me even though we wasn't exactly thrilled with the thought.  So, what did I get you might ask.  Well I got some toys for my nephews and niece, some things for Ron, my Mom, my siblings, my GG and well maybe a couple of things for me :)

I was going to organize it all to show you, but for the sake of time I am just showing you the massive pile that I now get to wrap!

Hello purple my favorite color.  Hello beautiful zipper detail.  Hello flats that are cute and comfortable. I am in love. Kenneth Cole Slip My Mind CK in Passion.

Another view of my new flats and also a peek at my new We Love Colors tights in Maroon.  If you know me you know that I love tights.  I love this pop of color (maybe not with the purple shoes) and these tights come in like 29 colors and are very affordable.  I will say that I am an apple shape meaning that I am bigger in my middle and I have relatively smaller legs and thighs.  I would probably have ordered these a size or two smaller because they kind of gather at points on my legs because there is too much fabric.  If you are bigger in the legs you should probably just follow the guidelines listed on their website. 

Next Up... Hello lover.  My obsession when it comes to shoes it wedges.  I love these slate grey wedges.  They are super comfortable and inexpensive.  They look great with skinny jeans or with We Love Colors tights. They are from Target and are the brand Merona and called Myka.

Hello holiday hotness. You need to get these wedges from Target.

Saturday Sessions

I am once again a day late with this post, my apologies.  This is going to be a very quick, abbreviated version of the SS.  

1. Make it a holiDAY and not a holi-week or longer.
SUCCESS!!  I made it a holiday and not anything more than that.  I made a plan and stuck to it and it paid off.  I didn't over-indulge and I only ate items that I get once a year.  I had one glass of wine which was my first drink in almost 8 weeks and it was wonderful.  I am going to really buckle down for the rest of the year to get some optimal results by New Year's.
2. Start keeping track of my mood more often. 
I did okay with this, but definitely room for improvement.  I need to keep better track of this whether it is mentally or physically on a piece of paper. I stopped myself from buying a candy bar when I was really hungry at the grocery store and realized that I was just really hungry and didn't really want a candy bar.

New Goals

1. Attend an hour long fitness class 6 days this week.

I have mentally said to myself that I was going to do this for the past few weeks, but I have fell short, so I am saying it out loud to all of you in hopes that I keep up with my promise.  I have all of the schedules printed out I just need to make going a HIGH priority.

2. Get all of my holiday decorations out and Christmas presents wrapped.

Not every goal needs to be weight loss/fitness related.  This is something that is important to me this week and I know that my month is jam packed, so getting all of this done sooner than later will be best.