{Hopelessly Healthy}: October 2011

My Addiction

We all have those little things that we love, something we can't get enough of, something we have to buy the moment we see it because we NEED it.

I don't share this with a lot of people and still only a few people know, so you should feel lucky that I'm sharing this information with you, but I'm addicted to something and I don't know if there is any stopping me. I've tried to stop, but the problem always comes back.

Friends, I'm seriously addicted to buying beverage containers of any sort. They can be cute, they can be fun awesome colors, some of them are even boring. I'm especially addicted to Starbucks tumblers, of any shape, sort or size.

This obsession/addiction has been something I dealt with for years, since before I worked for Starbucks. I really started to build my collection when I got hired and now instead of paying full price, I get my discount and for some reason, that really makes buying all these things justifiable. Right?

Last night before The Mr. and I went out, we stopped by Starbucks so I could grab a tea. While I was waiting for my drink I started the check out their retail area. The Mr. has mentioned here and there that he has wanted a tumbler for his coffee but has been looking for that "perfect one." So, I thought I would be a good girlfriend and scope it out and see if any caught my eye. In the midst me finding him a mug, I also found one that I really really REALLY liked, and needed.

A customer came into my Starbucks a few weeks ago with this cup and I fell in love with it. Perfect color, perfect size, perfect lid, perfect everything. I knew it was an older tumbler because I hadn't seen it around (did I just admit that I frequent Starbucks that much?) and so when I got home that night, I looked it up on Ebay, $42.99 plus shipping for that sucker.....I love it but I didn't love it that much.

Back to my original story, that perfect tumbler and I were destined to be together. On the lowest shelf of this Starbucks' retail, in the furthest corner, sat this amazing tumbler coffee holder thing. It was sitting there, in perfect condition, with dust on it, as if someone hadn't touched it months. I think I did a dance when I saw it. I don't even have to tell you what happened next, the rest is history.

I am now a proud owner of the most perfect Starbucks tumbler and The Mr. got one too (his wasn't able to be photographed due to the fact that he was enjoying hot coffee out of it already and was not home).

Sometimes I think this addiction is getting the best of me and to be honest, most the time I forget to use my tumblers. I'll either forget it at home or in my car as I'm leaving and I don't go back to get it and therefore, I don't use them as much as I want. I'm going to make more of an effort to use them more often, as it will help save this planet!

Here is the rest of Starbucks collection. Please note that I have more at my parents house and I'm sure I've lost some throughout the years. Please also note that I just bought the red one in the front LAST WEEK!

So tell me, what is your little obsession/addiction? Please tell me that it isn't just ME who has silly obsessions like this.

Wordless Wednesday - My Breakfast

Me? Wordless? NEVER! HAHA....

My breakfast:
1/2 cup - Original Egg Beaters
1/4 cup - Canned Refried Black Beans
1 tbsp - Reduced Fat Shredded Cheese
1 - Mission Low Carb 8'' Flour Tortilla

Don't forget my delicious cup of coffee with:

2 equal

2 tbsp - Coffee House Fat Free Skinny White Chocolate Mocha

Yum yum yum!

Brrrrr!

I say it all the time, and it all depends on the time of year it is. If it's cold, I would rather be warm; when it's warm, I would rather be cold. Apparently, I'm never happy.

It's really been getting cold out lately and I have to be honest, I am not ready for it. I love to wear sandals and my capri's and obviously, I can't do that in the Fall/Winter. I've been having to wear a sweater lately and not just when I'm outside, we refuse to turn on the heater! The Mr. always has to remind me that since we are in a bigger place we have more space to heat up, which makes for a bigger electricity bill. Thank God we have afghans that my lovely Mother crocheted for us!

The newest afghan is probably my favorite blanket to date. First off, it's two of my favorite colors, green and purple (also Scentsy colors!) and it's huge! If you've ever covered up with a homemade afghan, you'll probably notice that they are never the perfect size; too short and not wide enough! But this blanket is perfect, it covers me from head to toe, it's nice and warm and to make it even better it covers the 6 foot + Mr. that I call my boyfriend! We often have to fight over this afghan because we both love it and when aren't sleeping on it Rambo is! That silly dog!

I hope that my house will forever be blessed with my Mothers beautiful crotched work of arts (that sounds funny), because I am blessed to be able to have a Mom who knows how to make this kind of stuff!

Tonight, I am so so so thankful for my newest afghan. I was freezing when I got home from work, I wrapped myself up in and now I'm warm and comfy!

Wrapped up in my favorite afghan!

P.S. I'm trying a new comment database in hopes of a better comment platform. Let me know if you have any trouble leaving a comment!

New Favorite Quote

I ran across this earlier today on Pinterest and I fell in love with it. It's true, my parents have always showed that they loved each other no matter what they were going through. I couldn't ask for a better example of what love is suppose to be and look like.

I will be forever thankful of the love my parents have for each other.

Friends You Love - Meet April from April Showers

I am so excited to participate in my first Blog Hop! I ran across this "Friend You Love" Blog Hop yesterday and I knew exactly who I wanted to write a guest post for me. April from April Showers is someone I met about a year ago online and has because a great friend!

She didn't hesitate to write about our friendship and what it means to her; so friends, I introduce to you, my amazing friend, April!

****************************************************************************

Hi! I'm April from April Showers and I'm Abby's friend. Like...pretty good friend. She's definitely at the top of the "People I'm Going to Tell When I Get Pregnant" phone tree. (Or Facebook tree, as it were.) But at the same time she doesn't quite know enough about me to warrant blackmail. (Yet.) Our conversations are lighthearted and fun, and I'm so glad we don't have to talk about all our problems or drama in order to stay interested in what we talk about each day. (Not that my life is that soap-opera interesting, but if it were...) While I feel completely comfortable venting to her about anything that is going wrong in my life, there is something about Abby that makes me not NEED to vent. Just a nice conversation turns my day around! Of course, if anything ever goes awry...I'm on board for a good supportive chat and virtual sob and hug.

Not only are we friends, but we basically keep each other in business. I mean, I think she has exhausted my list of services and ordered everything I offer. I currently have an entire cabinet full of Scentsy products and three warmers, but am sitting here compiling a list for even more. When people come to my house they assume I'm a Scentsy rep, and I just say "No, I know people." Now if she could somehow send me a Starbucks, we'd REALLY be in business.

Having a friend I've never even MET in real life has proven to me that you don't need to meet in order for a great relationship to be there. Of course, we attempt to plan to meet at every single opportunity we can...but I won't feel any less of a friend if that never happens. In fact, I'll just be happy that she won't see my bad hair days. Or me in an "un-Photoshopped" format. But if she did I'm sure she wouldn't judge. Laugh maybe. But not judge. :P

Love you Abby!!!!!!!!! :D

Halloween Cookies & Dinner

I won't lie, I'm really glad the week is over and that my weekend is finally here. I'm hoping to have a better weekend then I did last week (and it seem to be going that way) and hopefully I'll get a little R&R in. Last weekend we were dealing with flooding and broken sewer pipes, yuck!

So far this weekend I've been able to watch a movie with The Mr. ( I am not allowed to share the title of the movie we watched because he doesn't want anyone to know he watched a chick flick! Did I just type that? Oops!), sleep in, drink coffee and spend some time browsing the interwebs and I was able to do some baking!

This afternoon I got together with some of my coworkers and we made Halloween cookies! It was nice to hang out with the girls outside of work and spend some time doing something we truly enjoy (not that we all don't enjoy our jobs or anything). I won't lie though, I was a little jealous of the KitchenAid Mixer that I was allowed to use today, I have got to me one of those! My coworker almost has the complete pink set of the KitchenAid set and I'm super jealous but that's besides the point. We made two different type of cookies, one's that looked like fingers and another that looks like owls. We had such a fun time creating the fingers and cutting dough to look like an owl.

Before I left to make cookies I asked The Mr. to get things ready for dinner so as soon as I got home, I could throw all the ingredients together and then pop it into the oven. I made turkey meatloaf and need an onion chopped up and I knew that would take some time so having him do that for me would save some time. After we were done baking cookies I hurried home so I could start dinner. I walked into the kitchen and found this:

What an amazing man! It made my heart happy and made preparing dinner super easy! Anyway, I threw all the stuff together, preheated the oven and made our turkey meatloaf.

I served it with brown rice mixed with salsa and steamed broccoli. I was going to take a picture of the finished product but completely forgot and by the time I remembered, we were almost done eating! Dang it! I could never be a food blogger, I would forget the most important part.

Dinner was great and very satisfying and our cookies turned out awesome! So far, there's been nothing to complain about with this weekend, and I'm so thankful for that!

Houston, we have a leakage!

I skipped a day of thankfulness, oops. This week has been a long week and I am so ready for a weekend! On Sunday evening, after sleeping the day away, I decided to start a load of laundry. Don't act surprised, it's something I normally do on Sunday's and Monday's, but this time it was different, and not fun.

About 20 minutes after starting the first load of laundry, I walked into our spare bathroom and was surprised to step into a huge puddle of water. The puddle covered the whole bathroom floor (coming out from under the toilet) and the tub was starting to fill up. I automatically called for The Mr. and I automatically knew we had a huge ~~poopie~~ problem!

Because it was Sunday night there wasn't really anything we could do besides soak up the water and hope and pray it didn't leak any more. Monday morning came and we had to get ready for the day, we were hoping that the problem was just a fluke and we wouldn't see any sign of floodage, but we were wrong!

Again, water all over the floor and filling up the tubs. At this point, I was highly annoyed. We couldn't get in touch with our landlord and were kind of at a loss for what do to. We obviously had a "clog," or so we thought, and it needed to get fixed, pronto.

Monday afternoon came and we finally got ahold of the landlord, two plumbers and builder of our unit. They got started on the problem right away and they all thought it was something that was going to be simple and easy to fix....ha! The two plumbers put their skills to work and did everything they could to unclog our mess; only to find out that we had more of sewer problem than we originally thought. One of the main pipes to our sewer had collapsed and we had a major back up!

The rest is history and needless to say we've had some major construction going on around here this week. Showers had to be short, we couldn't run very much water at time, so dishes couldn't be done, and laundry was on a major halt. The past two days they've been working to replace the collapsed pipe and to fix anything else it may have damaged.

I am so glad that we were able to nip the problem in the butt and get it fixed in a timely matter, but more importantly, I'm glad I won't be cleaning water off our bathroom floor anymore!

So today, I am so thankful for properly working sewage and a dry bathroom floor! I am also thankful for The Mr., he had to put up with all my whining and complain during this whole process (and I'm sure there was a lot!).

Week 8

I'd heard it all the time, "Live in the moment." But if I did that, I'd weight more than a dump truck. Losing weight wasn't about the moment at all; it was about having faith in the future. It was about knowing there would be another meal in a few hours.

-Stephanie Klein

Week 8 is out the door and today starts week 9. I can't complain about week 8, I'd have to say it was a very successful week even with having my family over for dinner and attending a birthday party on Saturday.

One thing I LOVE about Weight Watchers is that you truly can eat whatever you want, as long as you track your points. Of course, foods that aren't good for you are higher in points and do not keep you full for very long; so the goal is to eat "power food" that are "low" in points and keep you fuller (is that even a word?). So going out or having friends over for dinner isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as you plan for it.

I'm always nervous for Tuesday morning to come around, only because I know once I get up, I have to get on the scale. Since starting Weight Watchers, I've kind of been yo-yoing, one week I gain, the next I lose, so since I lost last week, I was worried I was going to gain this week, but....I DIDN'T! Yay! I was so excited!

I lost 3 pounds this past week! That makes a total of 16 pounds GONE....FOREVER!

I'm so close to my 10%, I can taste it!

For my non-scale victory (nsv) this week, I was able to fit into a pair of pants that didn't fit me 2 months ago! I tried them on last night and at first I did a little bit of happy dance and then I almost cried, the hard work IS paying off! I wore those pants to work today and if I remember right, they were more comfortable today then they were when I last wore them!

Today, I am so so so thankful for Weight Watchers and so so so thankful for my old (new) pants that fit me!

Here's to a healthy week 9!

The joy of E-mealz

Photo from: http://e-mealz.com/

This evening we went grocery shopping and it wasn't for E-mealz, it would have been a regular ol' shopping trip.

This time we had a (already made) grocery list, with all the groceries to make 7 dinners, all we had to add was anything extra that we needed.

So, not only do I have 7 meals planned out and ready to go, I had a grocery list made out for me which made for a smooth and easy shopping trip, which I have to thankful for.

Grocery shopping is something I hate doing, with a passion but I actually enjoyed shopping with a list that was made for me!

Today, I am thankful for E-mealz and for The Mr. for finding this amazing program!

To find out more about E-Mealz, please visit their website: http://e-mealz.com/

Sleepy Time

Today I am so thankful for sleep because all we did today was sleep. We woke up for about 45 minutes this morning and before I knew it, I was waking up again at 2:30pm.

Our bodies obviously needed it and I won't lie, it really felt good and I've felt relaxed since waking up but now I'm behind on laundry.

Tomorrow I will catch up on our laundry and find a way to be thankful for that but as for today, I am thankful for a days worth of sleep.

It's even better when I'm sleeping next to The Mr. :-)

Weekends

Today is my Friday and I am so thankful it is finally my weekend. I truly love my job and everything about it, but I am so ready for my weekend.

I feel like the last couple of weeks we've been going nonstop and haven't really enjoyed a weekend at home. A weekend at home with nothing to do is God sent, and Lord knows I need one!

I don't have very many plans other then catching up on laundry (yuck), cleaning up the kitchen (boo) and relaxing (yay!).

I am so thankful my weekend is here and so thankful for some R&R with The Mr.!

My Best Friend

My best friend is probably one of the most amazing woman that I know. She's strong, independent, smart, beautiful and on top of all that she's a wife and mom!

Like any and all best friends, we've had our moments but no matter what, we ALWAYS find a way to still be friends.

She recently moved to another state and I was so worried that we wouldn't keep in touch but even though we're 2169 miles away from each other, we still manage to talk (almost) everyday and still tell each other our secrets. (At least I tell her mine! ;-) )

I love my best friend and I am forever thankful for her.

Thank you Friend for always being there for me, for being able to laugh at me and with me and put me in my place when I'm wrong. I hope you know how thankful I am for you!

Autumn

As I mentioned before, Autumn is favorite time of the year. The change in weather, all the beautiful colors, the gloomy days, Pumpkin Spice Lattes; you name it, I love it!

Autumn gets me excited for all the wonderful Holidays that are around the corner as well as mine and The Mr.'s birthday!

I will soon be getting out our sweaters and coats and putting away the tank tops and sandals.

I am so thankful that Autumn has arrived and I can enjoy everything it has to offer!

Funnies

A friend of mine posted these on Facebook and I thought they were too good to not share! Enjoy! :-)

What's for dinner?

Since we starting dieting again, The Mr. and I have done really good about preparing and eating dinner at home. Our grocery bill sure has gone up but since we aren't eating out as much, it evens itself out. One of my goals is to plan dinners out and prepare a grocery list so that way we follow our diet and stick to our budget!

Weight Watchers has an amazing online database that has a ton of recipes with the points listed which is really nice. I've also ran across a few cooking blogs that are dedicated to posting Weight Watcher friendly recipes and most of them post the point values as well! Some of the recipes look amazing and the ones I've cooked have not disappointed.

Last night we had Lighten Up Chicken Divan, (http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/11/chicken-divan-lightened-up.html) which was the second time I made it. The first time I followed the recipe and stuck with Swiss cheese (not one of my favorite cheeses) and it was okay. This time around I added cheddar cheese in place of the Swiss cheese and it was amazing! Cheddar cheese is the way to go!

We've also tried a few other of Gina's (author of www.skinnytaste.com) and we always love them! Some of our favorites have been: Slow Cooked Sweet Barbacoa Pork, Skinny Tuna Noodle Casserole and Crock Pot Chicken Taco Chili.

I recently stumbled across Emily Bites and she has so many recipes that I want to try! I love her recipes because they all look like "comfort" foods, just lightened up and in smaller portions. A lot of the food she cooks is in personal size or bite size form, which makes serving size a piece of cake! Every time I visit her blog, my recipe box get bigger and our grocery list gets longer! I would love to ~~attempt to~~ make these: Pepperoni Pizza Mini Puffs, Mini Spinach Dip Bread Bowls, Chicken Enchiladas (these look super duper yummy to me and I love Mexican food!) and Taco "Cupcakes".

I obviously have my list and grocery shopping cut out for me. Thank God The Mr. does a lot of our grocery shopping because I work most nights! I'm sure he'll appreciate the list with all these yummy dinners in order!

What are your favorite "diet" dinners?

The Scale

Today, I am so thankful for my food scale. Without this scale my diet would be a big ol' flop!

When I first starting weighing my food, I was so surprised at how much I over estimated on my proportions and how much I was really eating. I think that's a shocker for anyone who is starting a well proportioned diet.

It's been really nice to have it, use it and knowing how much I'm eating.

Oh, great Weight Watchers Food Scale, I love thee. I am so thankful for you!

Now to get a new battery for it because it told me today to replace the battery. Sad day!

Rambo

Meet Rambo, he is a Boston Terrier and he rules this house. We like to say that this is Rambo's house and we just pay the rent. Without Rambo, our lives would be so boring.

I'm thankful for this silly dog, he makes us laugh all the time, has such a stubborn personality and knows the way to our hearts.

We like to consider him our child and I often refer to him as my son, because that's how much I love him. He loves to get rubs, especially by his Grandma and he knows just how to con her into doing it.

This dog has my heart and I am so thankful for him!

Weighin' In

Today marks the start of week 8 in my weight loss. I am doing Weight Watchers again and so far I've lost 13 pounds. The last two weeks were a little rough but after some deep self conversations and watching the scale go up a little bit, I knew it was time to get back on board again.

It's funny the way dieting works and how easy it is to fall back into old habits. I shouldn't have an excuse but with the weather starting to get gloomy, all I wanted to was sit back, eat all those yummy comfort foods and enjoy life!

The Mr. has been doing our grocery shopping and following the diet as well, so we didn't have a lot of comfort food around the house. But since I work next to Fred Meyer it was really easy to go grab some and indulge. Dang that store!

I'm not comfortable posting my weight for the world to see, so each week I plan I just letting you how much I lost/gain and how the week went. When I started Weight Watchers again, I wasn't blogging faithfully and I didn't tell many people we had started dieting again. I wanted to get a head start and feel comfortable with it and I finally feel like I'm at that point.

Here's to a great week 8 and healthy future!

The House

It's my first vlog! Whoop whoop! It's a video of the layout of my house for my readers who aren't nearby and can't come over and see it for themselves!

Enjoy!

hey you.

Today, I am so thankful that someone posted this on their Facebook wall and I read it.

Everyone knows that the world is convinced that you have to look a certain way, walk a certain way and talk a certain way. Men and woman are always trying to fit into those roles and be that certain someone that the media tells us we need to be, I'm even responsible for it.

I do love who I am, I do love all my flaws and my imperfections. If I didn't have them, I wouldn't be me. That quote is so true and so fitting for me at this moment.

Please share this picture with your friends and family, you never know who it will touch.

Starbucks

You can bet your bottom dollar that I am thankful for Starbucks. Not just because it allows me to pay my monthly bills, or because I love the company.

Today, I am so thankful for Starbucks because without it, I probably would not have made it through my day. I went to Starbucks not only once today, but twice. I normally don't drink that much caffeine but today I needed it.

I'll probably be up until the wee hours of the morning and I'll blame it on the caffeine, but without it, I would already be asleep.

Thank you Starbucks, I am so thankful for you, every day of my life.

My Family

This my family, my beautiful family. There is no other family I would rather belong to and no other family I would rather call mine. This is my family that I am so thankful to have.

My parents have a love that is like no other and I can only hope to know the same love someday.

My sisters are beautiful and no matter what happens, they will always be my sisters and I hope that they know I love them dearly.

My nieces are two of the most amazing girls that I know. They are both so smart and so beautiful and have the world their hands. I love those girls more then they know.

No matter what challenges we may be facing, I love my family.

The Mr.

For obvious reasons, the first person that I am most thankful for in my life is my handsome boyfriend. In the short 2 years that we have known each other, he has done so much for me. I can not even begin to tell you what all he has done or even how much it means to me because there are not enough words that will amount up to it.

He loves me when I don't think I deserve to be loved, he makes me laugh, even when I don't want to laugh, he is always there to lend a helpful hand or to give helpful advice. He loves and enjoys my family and most importantly loves to spend time with them.

There isn't anyone else I would rather spend my time or hopefully the rest of my life with because he gets me, he understands everything about me and yet still loves me.

I am so thankful for my Mr.

Tis' the season...

I'm not talking about Christmas here, I'm talking about the season to be thankful. Where the little things matter most because pretty soon I'll be surrounding myself with family and friends for the Holidays, and all those little things seem to stick out a lot more during this time of the year.

With that, my goal from now until Thanksgiving is to post once a day with something that I thankful for. Hopefully by doing this, I will be able to remind myself everyday of why I am blessed.

Stay tuned for future thankfulness and goodness!

Life Today....

I hate that feeling you have when you know you're about to get sick but your body is just taking it's sweet time. Over the last week I've been really tired, waking up with a sore throat, a constant headache and just feeling really blah all together. I just wish if I was going to get sick, it would just happen. I really wish I could just crawl back into bed and sleep it off.

With this new blog, I've been obsessed with finding or even creating an amazing blog layout. I found one that I really really liked but I wasn't going to pay $25 bucks for something so simple and easy to make so last night I ended up making one that looks like it and I LOVE IT! Maybe that's why I'm getting sick? I've been staying up to the wee hours of the night working on this stuff, but it's so easy to get wrapped up in it, playing with the fonts, colors and background!

Fall weather has finally arrived and I couldn't be more excited! Fall is seriously my favorite time of the year, I love everything about it. It makes me feel warm and cozy! I feel like I could sit here with a book, sipping on a cup of hot tea, a Pumpkin Spice Latte or even a Salted Caramel Mocha (my fall options are endless) and just soak up the cozy feeling. If I were to do that, I'm sure I would eventually fall asleep and waste my day, but nothing is more relaxing then that!

I've been working at Starbucks since May and at first I wasn't too sure about the store I was at, it was a really rocky start. Over the past two months I've really started to feel like I have finally found my place in the store, I truly love the people and the customers I work with everyday. I recently met with our District Manager and at first I wasn't too sure I liked how the conversation went but after recapping and reflecting, I realized he was challenging me to be a better Shift Supervisor and a better partner. He reminded that I was a huge part of the store and challenged me to hold myself and other accountable for their actions. It couldn't have been a better conversation and I needed to hear everything he had to say. Since then, I've been able to meet with my Store Manager and express my feelings about the store and my role there. It really has been a great experience and I'm excited for what is to come! It's always a good feeling when you enjoy what you are doing and can take pride in it.

With the death of Steve Jobs (which The Mr. & I are extremely sad about) I've been reading many of his quotes and some of them are so touching and moving. My favorite quote so far related to me so much and how I've been feeling about work lately.

Decorating for Halloween!

Fall is my favorite time of year and I love to decorate for it! Ever since I was little, we would always decorate for Halloween and we would go all out! It was something we did as a family and a lot of the decorations we had for years. I'm sure my mom still has some of those decorations. I asked The Mr. last night if he would get the Halloween box down for me and while he was at work today, Halloween/Fall exploded all over the house. I'm planning on going to Walmart and the Dollar Store over the next couple of days to buy a few more things and then I'll be all set! Happy Fall!

Sign hanging from the wall

Banner hanging from our sliding glass door

Can't forget about my Fright Night Scentsy Wamer

Second Scentsy Warmer

Front door with homemade wreath

Right after I put the decorations up

Front window at dusk

Front window at night!

I went outside and took a picture of the front window a few times during the day, I could not wait to see it all lit up!

Duplex Pictures for Ivonne!

Please note that this was a post from my previous blog and just transferred it over. I know it is past July and we are already living in the duplex! :-)

The Mr. and I stopped by the duplex this evening and we were able to get some pictures! I'm sure the workers are so tired of seeing us but they are always so nice and always let us walk around and view the progress. They did confirm that it would be done the first part of July! I'm so so excited! Enjoy the pictures!