Sorry I am late with my postings!

*I know I have done a pretty poor job with blogging lately.
*I am sure that some of my followers want to stop following me.
*I promise you, I have NOT fallen off the wagon.
*I feel like the blogs that I read and the people who follow me on my journey have made a huge impact on my life and my success losing weight, so I don't want people to think I am not taking this serious.
*One of my Saturday Sessions goals is to make sure that I am blogging more regularly, since I missed two of my regular topics this week.
*On a lighter note, I have to admit that I have been missing in action for a pretty good reason...


I got engaged on Friday night!!!!!!!!


For those of you who don't know (I am guessing that this is many people) I live in Minnesota and on friday we got a healthy serving of snow.  My boyfriend bought us tickets to the Russian Nutcracker ballet awhile ago and it also happened to land on the same day as another event that my friends and I had been planning to go to called the 12 Bars of Christmas which is a bar crawl that raises money for a local children's hospital.  It is a lot of fun.  Since they are both in Downtown Minneapolis we decided we could squeeze both of them in.


At noon yesterday Ron called me and said, "I booked a hotel room for us at the Hilton downtown because it is going to be such bad weather, so now we don't have to worry about driving."  I was super excited and decided that I would meet him at the hotel. 

I loved the cute Sweet Dreams pillow on the bed of our suite.

When he got to the hotel he told me that we needed to hurry up in order to make our dinner reservations.  So, we went out into the cold, snowy night and walked to dinner.  On the way there we passed Peavey Plaza, a small area that is lighted with an ice rink.  In one of the corner's there is a small patch of evergreen trees that were beautifully dusted with snow and glowing with dazzling lights.  As I stopped to take my camera out to snap a picture, I turned around and found my boyfriend on one knee in the snow.  He said some very sweet, touching, amazing things to me before asking, "Will you marry me?"  To which I ecstatically shouted "YES! YES!" with tears in my eyes.  We both cried and hugged and took pictures. 

I think that my face says it all!

There he is in the snow.  My fiance!

After all of this excitement we went to dinner and then to the Russian Nutcracker ballet.  The ballet was fabulous and the State Theater is gorgeous.  

A view of Hennepin Ave in Downtown Minneapolis on our way to the State Theater.

I LOVE the music from the Nutcracker and going to the ballet was a dream of mine.

The inside of the theater.  Gorgeous.

This was the story of my fairytale proposal followed by my childhood dream of going to the Nutcracker. Friday night was the most amazing night of my life.  After the ballet I was able to go out and tell all of our friends.

Excited friends.

Really excited best friend and my fiance.

After the 12 Bars of Christmas we went back to the hotel and crashed because we has been through so much excitement that day.  I hardly slept because I was so anxious to tell my family at cookie baking.  Every year my sister and my mom and I spend an entire day making cookies.  I planned to tell them by writing in a cookbook that I got for each of them and I wrote them each a personal message and then the P.S. said "We're engaged!!!"  I got to my sisters and quickly handed the book to my sister and mom and then opened them and I watched as they read their messages and then my mom was the first one to read the line.  Both of them had apparently saw it coming and started to say, "I knew it! I knew it!"  We exchanged hugs and started to talk about how it all happened.  I waited for my other sister to come so I could tell her and she was thrilled.  I only had my Grandma and brother left and I called them both up and then made the announcement on my facebook page.  I am so happy at how this all unfolded and could not feel more blessed and loved by my fiance, family and friends.  It was the perfect proposal and best way to share the news with everyone.  We are thrilled to start planning a wedding and I bought some wedding magazines yesterday.  Woo hoo!  Excited for the next chapter!!

After all of the excitement we still managed to make a lot of cookies, which I will show you below.  I promise to get back on track next week when things have settled down a bit.  Hope everyone is doing great on their journey!

My mom and her/our family dog Gabi.

My mom showing my niece how to carefully lift out the cut-outs for cream wafers.

One of my sisters at the cream wafer frosting station.

Piles of cream wafers all in a row.

These cookies are beyond amazing and delicious.

Cut-out cookie station for the kids.

The beautiful cookie creations that the kids made.

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.

Versatile Blogger Award!

A big thanks to Vicky from Getting Fit for giving me the versatile blogger award!  It is nice to get an award to brighten your day and remember what you are working towards.

When you are given this award you are supposed to list 7 things about yourself and then pass on the award to 10 fellow bloggers. Apparently some people do not enjoy getting awards, so sorry if I give one to you and you don't like them.

1) I've never been to Iowa and it borders the state I live in.

2) I ended my relationship with soda 4 weeks ago and have never felt better.

3) I am allergic to fish and coconut.

4) I lived in Italy for 6 months and loved every second of it.

5) I was the 6th grade spelling bee champion.

6) I am going to go grad school next fall.

7) I am really excited to conquer this journey during the holiday months.

I'm passing this award on to:

Shanilie at Losing Over Half of Me
Whitney at Slimming Down for the Gown
Alissa at A Journey to Thin
Kelly at Life in the Fat Lane
Kenz at All the Weigh
Lyn at Escape from Obesity
Kati at The Great Balancing Act of a 24 Year Old
Stacy at Stacy's Weight Loss Blog
Tim at Fat. Boy. Thin
Jessica at See How She Runs

A few other comments/notes about today...

1. A very long battle that has been going on in my family is finally over and I feel sadness and peace at the same time.  I am so beyond happy to move on, but moving on means letting go completely and although I feel ready for that it still makes me slightly emotional and sad.

2.  Yesterday was my nieces birthday and I went to her house to wish her happy birthday and there was spaghetti and a princess cake and there was slight temptation, but I remained strong.  I passed on everything, ate some fruit and veggies and went home to eat my healthy meal.  We also had a Halloween Nacho-bar potluck at work today.  Last year I made AMAZING queso with more cheese than can be imagined.  I was asked to make it again this year and I was a little bit nervous.  In the past I have made"exceptions" to eat poorly on holidays, birthdays and special events, so it would not have been out of the ordinary for me to choose to do this.  I am really, really trying hard at this losing weight battle and I didn't want to compromise my results this early in the game.  Last night I made my own healthy mexican pizza that I ate during the potluck and it was great.  Sure, I can honestly say that I didn't miss the other food at all.

3. Final thing for the day is... I have been wanting to try the Forever 21 Plus size line Faith 21 for quite some time now, but when I googled it one day I found all of these negative comments about the sizing.  I looked at their website and found the size guidelines and noticed that a 3x was a 17-18 and thought eeek, there is no way that will fit me.  I have been looking online at their clothes for weeks and finally today I went to the mall to look at the selection.  The closest mall to me is Mall of America, so their selection is HUGE, which I know is not the case in every mall.  I found dozens of things that I loved.  A lot of it I looked at and thought there is no way that will fit me.  Not now, maybe later?  I found two skirts and a sequined tank top that I had to have.  I figured I would take them home and have a reward when I reached one of my smaller goals and was able to fit into them.  I got home and thought I would try them on quick just to see how much they didn't fit, so that I knew how long it would be before I could wear the items comfortably.  Well..... ALL 3 ITEMS FIT!!!! Super cute, trendy clothes for a reasonable price in smaller sizes than I am used to and they fit?  Amazing.  I might return the items and get a 2x just so that I have something to fight for and look forward to wearing around the holidays.

Three letter word that I hate... GYM

So, is day four of my lifestyle change and I have done really well with the eating portion of this journey.  I am eating 3 well-portioned, healthy meals and small snacks in between them.  I am feeling great already and feel like I have already lost weight (I am only weighing myself once a week, so check back on Sunday to see the results).

So, what is missing you ask?  Well good question, but I think you already know (I already know even though I don't want to admit it).  The gym, working out, moving this body, working on my fitness... you get it.  I need to get off of my rear and get moving, especially since my job requires that I sit for almost 8 hours a day.  So, tonight my boyfriend came home and said lets go work out.  Normally I would make any excuse in the book to NOT work out.  It's that time of the month, no clean socks, sore fingers... yes sore fingers, I said ANY excuse to not go.  Well, anyway we went to the workout room in our apt and I did the elliptical for 15 minutes and was feeling pretty good, but I was definitely feeling the burn in my legs.  I decided to hop off and do some weights and try to incorporate some interval training with my cardio work out.  After doing some weights and crunches I was pooped and hadn't eaten dinner, so I decided to call it and head up for dinner.  Ron and I made a pact to be active every night even if for the first week we don't workout for longer than 30 minutes (cardio and weights).  It helps to start somewhere.  It makes me feel like I can do this if I start to gradually integrate working out with the healthy eating.

Also, I have a VERY busy weekend with family events and other activities, which always means tons and tons of FOOD and SWEETS.  To try and prove to myself that I can really do this I have already looked at the menus at places we are going and made a food plan to help me stay on track.  I love how being healthy feels and thus far I love how easy it has been.  I know, i know talk to me in a few weeks and hopefully I have this same optimism.  Wait, scratch that I WILL have that same optimism and dedication to this.  As Perez Hilton says, "nothing tastes as good as being healthy feels."