Happy Halloween!

It has been a

Very.

Busy.

Week.

I got put on this project for the Army and while it is exciting and interesting, there is SO MUCH WORK involved. The test only runs for a month and it is a huuuuuge DoD project, but I got added on late, so I've been playing catch-up all week. I've already put in over 30 hours this week and I still have two more days of work to do.

Whew.

The rest of the week doesn't get much easier. Tomorrow I'm working from home because I'm going back to my alma mater NMSU to give a speech/presentation to a journalism class. My mentor invited me to speak to the class as a professional writer... it's so weird! The last time there was a speaker in the class, I was sitting in the class taking notes. This time, they'll have my resume in front of them. So weird! But so exciting. I just hope I can do justice for my mentor. He's the best!

Then Friday (which is technically an off Friday for me), I have a ton of stuff to do, so I'll be working again. Friday night, we head to Phoenix to see Kevin Hart (our favorite!), eat, and visit with Fiance's mom. We're SO EXCITED. We LOVE Phoenix and I bet the weather is beautiful. Plus, we get to have Lolo's Chicken and Waffles and Oregano's Pizza again. YUM!


Our roommate will be here to watch Shadow and take care of the house (plus it's only for a small weekend getaway). He's looking forward to having the house to himself, I'm sure!

Hope your week is much less stressful than mine is!

Sundays

Today is a day for...



THIS pasta that my mama made...

A little of...


via

THIS game...


And a lot of this adorable face...

Happy Sunday!

Sunshines/Dark Clouds

Sunshines!

• It's almost the weekend!
• Fiance surprised me with 10 more XXX vitamin waters! I LOVE vitamin water, particularly the zero calorie kind, and ESPECIALLY the XXX flavor (which is like, pomegranate acai berry or something). He is so sweet.
• We are going to Phoenix next weekend. Our roommate will be at the house to take care of Shadow, which is SUCH a relief when one of us goes out of town, because then the dogs don't have to get uprooted.
• We are going to Phoenix to see our favorite comedian Kevin Hart. WE LOVE HIM. I'm so excited.
• We are also going to Phoenix to see Fiance's mom and I'm excited! She moved over there this summer for an amazing job with Amazon and she's about to be CRAZY busy, so I'm thrilled we can spend some time with her before they go into peak season (fiance, too!).
• We are ALSO going to Phoenix to get MORE photos taken. Our other engagement photos (from my friend Mel) were necessary because we needed photos for our save the dates. With this trip, we found out we can see our wedding photographer and it might work out. If not, we'll try for February.
• In Phoenix, we get to eat our favorite foods WHICH INCLUDE Oregano's Pizza, Lolo's Chicken and Waffles, and Sprinkles Cupcakes. YUM!
• Next Thursday, I'm going to be a speaker at a PR class at my alma mater, NMSU. I'm SO nervous and happy to do it. My old professor invited me back due to all of my experience with my column writing, my technical writing, and my freelance writing. I'm totally honored. This professor is the BEST and I always thought that if I got invited to speak at one of his classes, it was a sign that I "made it". I guess I made it!
• Fiance and I have a fun weekend planned. We're going to see a movie and then going to a friends' costume party. It should be a fun Saturday!

Dark Clouds!

• I feel like I haven't seen my friends in FOREVER, particularly my bridesmaids. Other than Val last Thursday and my sister last weekend, I haven't seen the other girls in a while! (Granted... they mostly live spread far and wide. Val/Blairre are here, Jess in Albuquerque, Dani in Chicago and Steph in Ft. Worth).
• It's been COLD. I'm bracing myself. Is it spring, yet?
• We are broooooke until next payday. But, we are paying down our (small) debts. So it's better to be broke than in debt, right? Right.
• I'm going through one of those periods in which I want to spend money. Unfortunately, that's money I don't have right now. Sigh.

Have a great weekend!

Back on the Wagon

I know I have some bad days as far as my healthy lifestyle goes. I mean, I like to think of this as a "lifestyle change" and not just a diet... particularly since I'm not really dieting. I can eat whatever I want, but I just feel better when I'm eating things like salmon, brown rice, veggies, chicken, etc.

But I have REALLY been slacking. And it's not that I'm eating badly... I'm just eating too  much, I think. And not working out hard enough. So this week, I'm back at it! (Even though I skipped on Tuesday to go visit my grandparents! I've been trying to go more often... they're both in their 90s and they are slowing down. Plus they are hilarious and I love them. My grandpa gave me $10 and a pear for my upcoming birthday. Then he said he let me win at gin rummy three times, as part of the gift. Ha! I won fair and square.)



I feel like I look like a "Who" from the Grinch in this picture. But it's pre-workout so here it is.

Wish me luck as I jump back into this.



Also wish me luck as I try to convince Fiance to let me dress Shadow up as Michael Jordan again. LOOK HOW CUTE!

Peanut Butter and Parties

So Fiance has had a crappy week. He got up every morning at 4:30 am to eat and get ready for work at 5:00. He got off work at 9:00 am, when he would come home and do stuff around the house and work out and study for his certifications, and maybe nap if he could. Then he would go back in and work from 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm. By the time he got home, ate, and showered, it was close to 11:00 or 11:30 pm. So even with a nap that day, he was only getting 5-7 hours a day, but all spread out. It was rough.

So we figured we would spend this week just lounging. Fiance worked Friday morning and when he came home, he wanted breakfast. A LOT of breakfast.

We made French toast and bacon. And not just some French toast. Almost an entire loaf into French toast. I think like, 12 pieces of bread. And then entire package of bacon. I had two pieces of French toast and one piece of bacon, and Thomas and Fiance ate the rest. Yes, each had five pieces of toast and almost half a package of bacon.

Normal breakfast when I was single and living on my own was a bowl of cereal or maybe an egg and a piece of toast. Now? I make food for an army. If we have boys, I'll have to triple my food production. Lol!

My sister came in on Friday night, so we went to dinner with her and Kylie and my parents. Yesterday, we worked out and participated in my mom's school's "Toss No Mas" event, which basically entailed us pulling weeds and moving bricks. My boss's birthday party was last night and he had a jumpy balloon. Fiance and I were sitting with my coworkers Gina (and her boyfriend Nick) and Louie (and his girl Liz), plus an engineer John (and his wife Marissa), and at one point, we all just looked at each other and then make a run for the jumpy balloon! All the kids were out at that point, so we ran in and jumped around and then went down the slide attached. It was so fun but HARD! How do kids do that for six hours? We were tired after 15 minutes!

Today, we went to my parents' to say goodbye to Jess and Kylie, who gave Shadow a mostly empty jar of peanut butter, his FAVORITE!



And now, it's Football Sunday and we don't plan on moving from our spots until 5:00 tonight. Boom.

Hasta!

Friday!

Dark Clouds:

• My house is dirty. I need to clean clean clean... later. Lol!
• Fiance and I have both been soooo sleeeeeepy. I think a nice, long, late morning tomorrow is in order.
• The dogs (or one dog...) keeps LICKING the couch until there is a big wet spot. Only when we're gone. Maybe it's a nervous thing? I hope it stops soon, i HATE it. 

Sunshines!

• My sister comes into town tonight. YAY!
• My boss's b-day party is tomorrow! Fun fun fun.
• I finished my side freelance project for Amazon. I really liked the way it came out!
• We're ALMOST DONE getting addresses for our Save the Dates. So ready to send these bad boys out.
• I'm down 5 sizes now... at this rate, I'll hit my goal weight before the end of the year. Wha? So exciting.

Enjoy your weekend!

Ready for the Weekend!

Yay, my weekend starts TONIGHT and I have tons of exciting things planned this weekend. Bullet list? Bullet list.

• My sister is coming into town tomorrow! YAY!
• My boss's birthday party is Saturday. It will be fun to see my engineering coworkers outside of the office... I always wonder if they will still try to talk about technical writing with me...
• I'm down another three pounds... woo! Just 20 lbs until I'm at my goal weight! :o)
• The new Glamour came in my mailbox! I love magazines.
• Fiance has been working some overtime with his new position but he's done after tomorrow... which means that we have the whole weekend ahead of us to enjoy together.

Ready for the weekend... right after this workout. Blah.

October

October. How is it October already?

The days are much, MUCH shorter. The sun sets before 7:30 instead of trickling on to set at 8 or 8:30. The mornings are chilly. The air has a crisp, cool edge to it. It's fall.

I just can't believe the year is almost over. It has been one of my favorite years yet. We got engaged. We started getting healthy. We went to Phoenix, to Vegas, to Albuquerque. I hit my stride at work. I learned how to cook many, many more things (homemade Alfredo sauce, mashed potatoes, Parmesan chicken...). And even though I turn 25 in less than a month, 24 has been really, REALLY fun.

I'm not looking forward to winter in New Mexico (and all the bad weather that goes along with it), but I do like the fashion. I like boots and leggings. I like layers. I like the food. I like pumpkin muffins. I like soup and stew. I just... I just don't like the cold! Brrr!

In just a few weeks, Fiance and I go back to Phoenix for a concert and I'm so, so excited to be there. I can't wait to live in Phoenix.

Black Keys Tonight!

I had no idea what to get Fiance for his birthday in August. He doesn't play as many video games anymore. He just got a bunch of new clothes. He doesn't need shoes or sunglasses or books or anything.

But what he kept talking about was music and his favorite bands. So when I heard that the Black Keys were coming to Las Cruces... I knew it would be the perfect gift.

We saw them last year in Mesa, and it was an AMAZING show.

And tonight, we get to see them again! We are SO EXCITED! Happy (late) birthday, Fiance! :o)

Back to Reality

It's Tuesday after a wonderful, nice, long four day weekend for me and getting back in the swing of things has been a little harder than I thought it would be. But to ease in, I'll do a recap of my weekend.

Friday:

Slept twelve hours. Wake up feeling AWESOME. Fiance and I eat a delicious lunch at Boba Cafe. I have a turkey wrap and a cup of green chile wonton soup. DELICIOUS.

Then we head to the gym so Fiance could teach me interval running. Basically, you spring fifteen seconds and then rest fifteen seconds on the rails on the side of the treadmill. It sounds easy, but it is so hard. I was pouring sweat after ten minutes, when normally on my normal mile runs (which take about ten minutes), I'm only a little sweaty after one mile. Whew.

Saturday:

Slept ten hours. Wake up feeling awesome. We head to the gym so I can take a Zumba class and Fiance does weights. Then we head to the grocery store, to the dog food store, and then to Target to register for our wedding!

Here's the thing. All wedding websites say you should register for three times the number of people invited, so that people have an option. Sure, okay, that works. But then... THEN we went to Target. And we walked around for an hour picking out plates and bathroom stuff and cool kitchen digital scales and stuff. Then we looked at our number of registry items. 46.

We walk around another two hours. We find some sheets and a comforter set we like. We pick out AWESOME suitcases I hope someone gets for us. We look again. 59.

But overall, we have most of the stuff we want and we're really hoping people just give us money, if anything. It would be SO hard to transport lots of big stuff back home after our destination wedding.

Saturday night:

We go to the Southern New Mexico State Fair! YAAAAY! Fiance buys us a turkey leg, fresh lemonade, a funnel cake, and curly fries, all to share. I immediately go, "oh, we'll never finish all this!"

Cut to twenty minutes later and I'm polishing off the fries and Fiance is practically licking the empty funnel cake plate. Um... never mind.

But it was so delicious and so amazing.

Sunday:

FOOTBALL! Roommate orders us pizza and we basically sit on our couch watching football from 11 am to 5 pm. Then we get ready to go have dinner with my good friend Blairre and her husband and two kids (Carson and Kennedy, who are 14 months and 1 month respectively!). It was SO MUCH FUN. They are the cutest kids ever and Carson is getting to be so sassy. I love love love getting to see them.

Then we decided to go see Looper again. Even better the second time!

Monday:

Slept 10 hours. Feeling amazing again. We ate lunch, went to the gym for more interval training, tried to get stamps for our save the dates (remembered it is a holiday... which is why I'm off work... duh... lol). Then we came home and read (me) and played video games (Fiance). Now we're watching Monday night football.

Such a great weekend! October kicks off the holiday season, so a lot of our paid days off are during this season... fine by me!

25 Before 25 Update... One Month Away!

So now we're exactly ONE MONTH away from my 25th birthday... so here's my 25 before 25 update!

1. Buy a nice piece of jewelry for myself

2. Submit my columns to a syndication press system

3. Watch 10 of Boyfriend's Academy Award winners In progress... just three more!

4. Lose 30 lbs

5. Become financially independent

6. Make homemade tortillas

7. Run a 5k

8. Volunteer for something

9. Make THIS chicken :o)

10. Do something different with my hair (dye it, cut it, etc.)

11. Go camping

12. See my grandparents once a month

13. Keep my spider plant alive

14. Donate money to charity

15. Read 10 classic books on the BBC Top 100 Books  Just two more!
16. Learn how to make great mashed potatoes
17. Find a dress that makes me feel like a princess
18. Ride in a helicopter
19. Try a food I can't pronounce
20. See another Cirque Du Soleil show
21. Improve my individual relationships with Boyfriend's family
22. Stay in touch with my sister more often
23. Start an herb garden
24. Write another 25,000 words on my book
25. Be truly surprised :o) 


Not bad, just a few more things! Here's to the last push!

Friday Sunshines/Dark Clouds

It's Friday! And today, I just have Sunshines. Which is a sunshine in itself! Woo!

• It's FRIDAY and, counting today, I'm off for four days. BOOM.
• I watched a documentary on Koko the signing gorilla and now... I want a gorilla. Imagine? Fiance would never let me.
• BUT he does put up with the other nerdy parts of me. Like when I sent him this photo:

With the caption "T-rex says, 'I do'."

I crack myself up.

• Tomorrow, Fiance is taking me to the Southern New Mexico State Fair. YAAAY! I had to bribe him with funnel cakes and turkey legs, but at least we get to go and ride the Ferris Wheel. So excited!
• Our house is nice and clean. I love starting the weekend with a clean house!
• We're going to register tomorrow... registering is SO FUN!

Have a great weekend!

New Clothes!

So. I've lost a lot of weight.

Not a LOT a lot, compared to some people here, but a lot. And I've dropped 4 sizes, which means I need new clothes. Almost everything is too big for me now.

I've been trying to buy a few things here and there without breaking the bank, but I think I'll try to go by something like this clothing guide.

Black tank: CHECK

Crew neck sweater: CHECK

Nice jeans: CHECK!

Long sleeve white shirt:

Khakis:

Black turtleneck

White button down

Black t-shirt: CHECK

Cardigan: CHECK

Short sleeve t-shirt: CHECK

Wool skirt: CHECK

Black suit: CHECK

Oxford

Black dress: CHECK

Silk blouse: CHECK

Gray trousers: CHECK

Fitted jacket

Camisole: CHECK CHECK CHECK

Printed dress: CHECK

Bold top: CHECK

Ruffled top

Cocktail dress: CHECK

Sparkly top: CHECK


I'm not so far off already! Awesome!

Scary Movies

So this exchange happened yesterday between Fiance and me...

Me: Can we just stay in and watch scary movies this Halloween?
Fiance: Sure, baby!
Me: ... and by scary movies, I mean like, Hocus Pocus. I can't handle that Paranormal Saw Haunting crap.
Fiance: ...

I suck at Halloween! Lol!

Monday Memories

Instead of Throwback Thursday, I thought I would start off the week with a little Monday Memories (pulled from a few other blogs doing similar things)! We'll see if this ends up being a weekly thing. For now, we'll start with...

High School Memories
 
1. Tell us what kind of student you were in high school {popular, nerd, sport obsessed, choir, etc} I guess I was a combination, but mainly nerd. My high school wasn't as cliche, really. Like, we had football players and cheerleaders in the marching band. I was on the pom squad, but it wasn't like we were the popular clique. I was Winter Ball Queen my senior year, but I think it was just because I knew a lot of people. I was in marching band, poms, honor society, and a creative writing/thinking group called Knightwriters. I LOVED my high school years.   2. Share with us some high school pictures. We know you have them somewhere. Ah, high school. Here are a few.
Me and some of my best girlfriends who are still good friends!
At winter ball :o)
In a quinceanera :o)

3. Tell us about your school. Private? Public? How many in graduating class? Mascots? School colors? Public school, baby! We were the "newer" school at that time, and our school was the nicest in town. We had carpet, great technology, new equipment, etc. It had a weird mix of gangsters and rich kids and normal kids, but there were no real "cliques". Everyone just did their own thing and had a great time. I was in the band and senior year, one of my closest friends was the quarterback of the football team. I guess he was "popular", but he wasn't snooty or anything (his cousin was dating my sister, so we all hung out all.the.time). We all just did our own thing.
My graduating class was around 220. The sad thing is... we started with like, 600. So in four years, almost 400 of my peers transferred, moved, or dropped out. Yikes. Our mascot was the Knight and our colors were teal, black and silver!

4. Tell us about some of your favorite memories of high school. Or what stands out the most? Any teachers? Specific classes? Oh gosh. High school memories. So so so so so many.
Definitely football games. Like I mentioned, I was in the band and a pom girl. So every Friday, I would back a huuuge bag with all of my equipment. I would start off in my pom uniform (the leo, the dance pants, the poms, the hair ribbon, the socks, the dance shoes, the silver eyeshadow, etc.). About five minutes before halftime, I would run into the bathroom and change out of my silverette uniform into my band halftime show outfit (for our Scheherazade show, I had different dance shoes, different socks, purple palazzo pants, a different top, my guard gloves, FAKE JEWELS to glue on my face, and a sequin crown thing for my hair). Then I would run run run out to do the halftime show, then I would run back and change, and then finish the game. I was always exhausted on Friday nights! :o)
Other great memories... bonfires at the Pit with Nick, English Expo with the Knightwriters (winning two medals every year!), being the commencement speaker at my graduation, having one of my columns on the front page of the newspaper, winning Winter Ball Queen my senior year, winning first place at the Regional Chemistry Competition, finally nailing my sabre solo for our senior band show, Olajuwon and Josh yelling my name over and over when I won awards on Senior Awards Night...
A lot of great ones. :o)
And my favorite class/teacher of all time? AP Chemistry with Mr. Ewing. He was amazing. He made chemistry so fun for me.   5. Tell us a piece of advice you would pass on to your children or any child entering high school. The important thing to remember is that if YOU are doing what you love, high school is a success. Being Homecoming Queen doesn't matter. Dating a football player doesn't matter. What really matters is being with your best friends and loving what you do, whether it is band, choir, football, whatever.
High school was AMAZING and I LOVED IT. But... I also REALLY LOVED college, too! I can't say I've ever disliked any big experience I've had... they've all been learning experiences. But amazing memories. :o)