Moving!

Let me give a back story here real quick.  Ricky and I knew we would need a bigger apartment to live in once we got married and we had already picked the place.  Plan A was he would get home move into the new apartment and I would move my stuff over when my lease ran out April 15th.  Then....I discovered my lease ran out March 31st, and while I could have just paid extra for one more month, I didn't want to spend that much money, nor did I want to live there any longer.  So Plan B was Ricky would get home and help me move out the 31st.  But that didn't pan out either so we ended up with Plan C that acutally went through. 

Man it's been a crazy week!  I was originally supposed to move all my stuff to Ricky and I's new apartment on March 31st (which was also the day I had to be out of my old apartment).  Plan C began when Ricky called and said it would be the 30th or 31st before he made it home, so I had to switch things around.

So I ended up moving this last weekend.  Thankfully the week before my amazing mother came to stay with me a few days and help me pack.  She's super amazing and so helpful!

End of Day 1 of packing

End of Day 2 packing

End of Day 3 packing

Thankfully I didn't have to live in the mountain of boxes long.  On Friday after work I was able to go get the new keys to our apartment since the movers were coming bright and early Saturday morning.

New keys!!!!

Almost done moving stuff out!

All the items left in my old apartment.

Brand new apartment :) Nice and clean.  

I'll post some after pictures once things get settled, right now most of the boxes are in the spare bedroom so it's not too cluttered and out of sight until we get time to go through them.  But first, I need to get my man home! Once he gets home I'm staying with my wonderful friend Kara until after the wedding.  She's letting me crash  live in her spare room :)

Only a couple more days till he's home!

Basketcase

Today feels like the middle of deployment for some reason.  I can't stop my eyes from randomly tearing up, I can't get these negative thoughts out of my head, and I just want to sit in a corner and make it all go away.  Yes, I realize he should be home in 2 very slow and agonizing weeks, but it might as well be 2 months because that's what it feels like.

I suppose this feeling started yesterday morning, he called at 7:30 and we only talked for like 8 minutes.  We just didn't have much to say, and we were both a little edgy (probably from the end nearing soon but not soon enough).  But when you only get to talk once a day (sometimes not at all) 8 minutes just isn't enough, even when you have nothing to say.  (Geez here come the tears again and I have no idea why).  About an hour after we got off the phone, his mom calls me and tells me about the US soldier killing 13 Afghans and now the Taliban is really mad and wants revenge.  All this while the love of my life is still in that country.....not a good thing for me to handle.  Well since then, I've been really worried.  What if they change their mind and keep Ricky's platoon there to help fight whatever comes their way? What if they send them back to a base and he doesn't get to come home in 2 weeks? What if their planes get taken over? Yes, all these things have been running through my head non-stop for the last day and a half.

Then he didn't call this morning, and I just continue to get more worried.  Maybe they are sending him to his next destination on the way home, maybe they closed communication because something bad has already happened, maybe he's just upset at how edgy I was yesterday when we talked so he didn't want to call today (not likely but hey I am a girl).  So many more things running through my head.

He finally called about 30 minutes ago, everything is fine, nothing has changed, he's still on schedule to leave, they aren't going to send them back out on missions.  All that worrying for nothing.  Doesn't that seem to be how life goes a lot of the time? Worrying constantly about something you have no control over and it turns out to be fine? I struggle with worrying a lot.  God has been trying to help me out in that department for years now.

So please pray that the next 2 weeks go very quickly and he makes it safely out of that terribly country.

DIY Weekend

 Last weekend was so much fun! 2 of my bridesmaids and my MOH were already coming to town for a play at the Tulsa PAC Sunday night, so I asked them if they would come over Saturday so we could work on some wedding decorations.

 Here are my girls hard at work.

Burlap flowers on garland

I finished Ellie's flower girl basket :) LOVE the way it turned out.

This is inspiration for the mantle at our venue.  

A collection of all the work we finished. 

The Picture didn't turn out very well, but these are the pens I made for the guestbook

Ellie practicing :) We'll see what happens on the day of the wedding haha

Was working so hard, I burned my finger with the hot glue gun :(

It was a fantastic night, and I'm starting to feel better about the wedding planning.  The decorations are such a huge part and I have so many ideas thanks to Etsy and Pinterest.  I just want to make sure they all flow together.

Thanks girls for coming up! I can't wait to get together in the next couple of months for more fun wedding things!!! The countdown is on! 82 more days!

Took the long way

I began my weight loss journey about 5 years ago.  There were lots of up and downs and after about 2 years, I managed to lose 40 pounds. In May of 2009 I vividly remember weighing in at my weight watchers meeting at 171.0.  I'm not quite sure what happened after this, I do remember I stayed about in the same vicinity for a LONG time, I think I was even right around this weight when I first met Ricky (that was 2 years ago).  It wasn't until about Christmas of 2010 that I started putting the weight back on.  Lots of going away dinners and get togethers right before he left for the deployment didn't help my weight loss at all.  I remember stepping on the scale when Ricky left last February and I had gained 20 pounds.

I was horrified I had let myself do that.  And I said right there that I was going to lose it plus more while Ricky was gone.  I was going to be a hot 130 pound woman when Ricky got home.  Especially when we got engaged in March, I wanted to look good for my wedding! Well......that didn't happen.  My weight loss efforts had become a huge struggle and burden.  I wasn't in it 100%.  By the time he came home last October for his R&R, I had managed to lose about 10 pounds.  I was disappointed in myself.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving, I basically ate whatever I wanted.  I had already decided I was going to do one of the fab diets to lose all the weight so I didn't restrict myself at all.  Once I got back home after the holiday, I was about to start the stuff and somehow talked myself out of it.  I knew I could lose the weight on my own, I had done it before.  And I had to remind myself that it is a terribly slow process and be ok with the fact that I wouldn't be 130 pounds when Ricky got home or even for the wedding.

So December 1, my journey began again, this time with a lot more effort.  Instead of just going back to Weight Watchers which I had done so many time, I decided to give counting calories a try.  So I created a profile on My Fitness Pal.  I was still going to the bootcamp class I had joined back in September so I devoted myself to that.  I have been allowing myself treats, if I want ice cream, I get ice cream.  If I didn't have enough calories for the day for it, I knew I would need to get a workout in of some sort.

I was doing really good, Had dropped another 5 pounds, and then I got stuck.  No matter how hard I worked out or limited my sweets or cut back on carbs, I could not get off this plateau.  I was only stuck there for a month, but it seemed like an eternity.  A friend suggested I up my calories, my body could be going into starvation mode and holding onto all it can.  So that's what I did, I started eating more. I just simply ate about 250 more calories each day.  And what do ya know......the weight started come off again!

This morning I stepped on the scale and saw 171.4!!! I am finally almost back to where I weighed in at 4 years ago! I did one of those little happy dances in the bathroom haha (you know what one I'm talking about).  So I may have taken the long way, and who knows where I would be now had I not have given up 4 years ago, but that's life.  The important thing is I changed my attitude and habits back around and started making healthier choices for my life.  I simply can't wait to see the 160's on the scale and that is my pure motivation right now.

Here's to 20 pounds gone and to the next 20!

March 2012

Today is the first day of March.  I have been looking forward to this month for 12 long months.  March means Spring is about here (not that we had a terrible winter), I'm finally moving out of my apartment that I loathe most of the time, and my favorite will finally be home from this long long long deployment!

Once Ricky is finally home, things are going to be super crazy busy! We will have 2 months until the wedding, so there will be finalizing wedding plans, wedding showers, bachelor/bachelorette parties, meetings with vendors, moving and getting settled into the new apartment (that I will officially live in after the wedding), and lots of date night to catch up from the year we missed.

I'm so ready to get to know my fiance again.  Sure we talk a lot, sometimes everyday, but it's different with having a phone relationship and a real person relationship.  So I'm ready to get to know him all over again :)

I have a couple of March Goals I would like to complete:
1.  Lose 5 pounds.  I have been doing really good and I'm not focused on losing as quickly as possibly anymore, just trying to eat healthy and get at least 30 min of exercise 5-6 days a week.  I currently weigh 172 and can't wait to get under 170!

2.  Make a new recipe a week.  I'm going to try very hard to make this happen.  It might be a little hectic with Ricky coming home and trying to pack to move.

3.  Sell some stuff to get some money.  We are hoping to have a garage sale of our stuff since we registered for so much new stuff.  (This might have to wait until April)

Update on Financial Peace University:
You might remember me cutting up my credit cards a few months ago, since I started FPU last September, I have paid off about $4,500!!!! I'm hoping to be debt free in 6 months.