Saturday, September 18, 2010

Baby Birthdays and Kings of Leon!! (111/365)

Day 111 Happy: Hayden's First Birthday and the Kings of Leon concert

Today was a good day... well, after 3:30 it was a good day. Before that I was at work, and ... well, it was work. AFTER work, though, I got to go to little Miss Hayden Marie's first birthday party! Hayden is my friend Miranda's baby, and also the flower girl in my (rapidly) upcoming wedding. She was so cute, even when she started getting fussy after she got bored with opening her (ginormous pile) of presents and when she was smashing her little personal cake to pieces. Marc took a ton of pictures for Miranda, and they all came out so cute!

Unfortunately, we couldn't stay too long at the party, because (yay!) we had to head to the 1-800-ASK GARY Amphitheater (worst.name.ever.) to see KINGS OF LEON!! We bought the tickets for this concert in March, and I kept forgetting that we had them, so every time I heard about the concert and I remembered, I got all excited. We had lawn tickets (which were still stupidly expensive), but it was a beautiful night, warm but not too hot, and it felt so nice to sit in the grass and listen to some amazing music. There were tons of drunk fools to watch dance and act crazy; at some points they were even more entertaining than the bands on stage!

What a fantastic Saturday!!

Friday, September 17, 2010

"I Really Want To Lose Three Pounds!" (110/365)

Day 110 Happy: A good weigh-in

I lost 3.1 pounds!!

This is especially happy-making, since I worked my butt off last week and only lost .9 pounds! I even had a "bad" weekend while I was in Georgia, with the Chinese food and the Starbucks and whatnot. I worked really hard this week when I got home, though. I have really been watching what I eat and have been working out, sometimes twice a day! After being so disappointed last week, it is really nice to see a better number on the scale this week.

Since I don't have to take my dress in for alterations until October 15th (at the very latest) I want to lose some weight before I take it in. However, I can't lose TOO much weight because the dress is already a little too big and they can't alter it beyond a certain point, so three pounds is actually pretty good. Even better, my pants feel a little looser and I feel stronger!

I love a good weigh-in. Now time to start working again so that I get a good number next week, too!!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Workout and Diet Fun! (109/365)

Day 109 Happy: Good workouts and diet technology

I have been doing such a good job of working out at least once a day. I'm starting to feel a little thinner, and I definitely feel stronger! Not only that, but I have a ton of energy that I didn't have before. Since I do my weigh-ins on Friday mornings, hopefully all of my hard work will show up on the scale... then again, maybe not for this week since I had Chinese food with my Mom and sister at the mall in Georgia on Saturday and then I had a Pumpkin Spice Frapuccino at the airport on my way home... and I didn't work out Friday or Saturday this week. It was a little bit hectic. But I'm not just trying to eat better and work out week to week... it's supposed to be a lifestyle change... blah, blah, blah.

Also, I got the neatest (free!) app on my iPhone today. It is called My Fitness Pal, and it tracks all of your calories eaten and burned (through your exercise) throughout the day. It even builds a database from all of the other users and has nutrition information for tons of food already in the system. When you first download the app and use it for the first time, it asks you about your height, weight, age and goals and then tells you how many calories you should be at after eating and exercise every day. I'm supposed to have about 1200 calories a day, and as I enter in my breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, it tells me how many calories I have left. It's actually kind of fun and helps show you just how quickly calories can add up if you're not paying attention.

Just another reason to love my iPhone!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Bum Day! (108/365)

Day 108 Happy: No class!

Oh happy day! My class in the middle of the day didn't meet today, so I had between my morning class and my night class to just hang out. I came home, and since Marc was off work, he and I just bummed around for a while, had lunch together and watched some TV (still haven't finished The Office, but it's getting really good!). And (bonus happy) I got a good workout in, too! Between school, work and trying to work out at least once every day, I've been really busy lately, and it was just nice to have a day to just bum around the house, even if it was just in between other busybody things.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Fake Meat! (107/365)

Day 107 Happy: Veggie Meat!

It tastes just like chicken... but it's not.

Sometimes I'm a chicken when it comes to trying new things. This is the reason why it has taken me 3.5 months of being a vegetarian before I decided to try some of Morningstar's non-meat meat products. However, I'm on a diet and I want to make sure that I'm getting the right amount of protein and other nutrients, so I picked up some veggie chicken strips and chicken patties last night when we went grocery shopping.

Guess what... THEY ARE GOOD! The breaded chicken strips with ketchup on them taste just like regular chicken strips. Fried chicken strips are one of the only meat products that I actually miss eating, but now I don't have to miss them anymore. And, my veggie strips are baked instead of fried, and are only 190 calories for two, so they are (bonus happy) diet friendly!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Amazon.com (106/365)

Day 106 Happy: Amazon's textbook trade-in program

Once Marc and I realized that you can sell your textbooks back to Amazon for store credit, we started going through our books to find ones that we no longer needed. We also got some books that a co-worker was getting rid of and traded in the ones that we didn't want. We ended up with almost $120 in store credit!

We haven't spent it all yet, but today we made some pretty awesome purchases... one of my favorite shows from my middle-and-high school years was Boy Meets World. Until last week, it was not for available on DVD; the only way you could get it is by buying it used from somebody who bought it when it was available on DVD back in the day. The entire series was over $400! Now, though, it was apparently re-released on DVD and you can buy individual seasons for just under 12 bucks! So, we bought the first and second seasons, Big Bang Theory season 3, and two Harry Potter books for me... The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles and Harry Potter Should Have Died. They should be pretty interesting.

Can't wait until my order gets here next week!

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Short Work Days! (105/365)

Day 105 Happy: Five hour work days!

I love Sundays. They are my favorite day of the week, since Sundays are the day of the week that I spend the least amount of time doing unappealing things like working and going to school. Also, I get to sleep in a little bit, since I don't have to be up until 10!

However, lately there have been some rumors flying around at work that we are going to be changing to an 8-3 workday for Sundays. Obviously, this is not a good thing. Of course I don't want to get up at 7am on a Sunday! At least if they are going to tack on hours, they are doing it in the morning instead of at the end of the day. Working 8-3 is definitely better than working 10-5; at least I'll still have some part of my day left over to enjoy myself.

So far, no word from the big bosses about whether or not all this is true, but I think I had better enjoy my short Sundays while I still can!