Heads up!

Feeling a bit lost lately, and not really sure what to do. Until I figure it out, I'll be MIA.

One of those mornings

Have you ever had one of those mornings where before you are even out the door you want to turn around and crawl back into bed and be done with the day?

That is me today. Woke up late, and decided that since I was already late I was going to make it worth it and make myself a green tea latte for the drive into work. Put my travel mug on top of my car so I could open the door, and it comes crashing down to the cement floor seconds later. Favorite ceramic travel mug I bought right as I moved out from my parents house after college.

Have to admit though, if that's the worst thing that happens to me today, I'll still have had a good day. Here's hoping that's the worst to happen today!

Pinterest has not failed me.

While perusing Pinterest lately I came across a pin that said that there was a version of that Wen shampoo made by a brand that is found easily in stores and it is way cheaper than the Wen brand. Naturally, I had to try it. It's made by Herbal Essences. You can get it here. I bought my bottle at Target for $4.99 (which definitely beats the $30-60 for Wen on Amazon). I used it last night in my shower and I have three things to say about it:

1. It smells fantastic
2. My hair was really soft after rinsing it out which is not normally the case. It usually feels like straw. I made sure to massage it really well when putting it on because it doesn't lather. I used 4 pumps (the directions say to use 3-4 pumps. I started with 3 and then added another pump when I felt I had missed spots), let it sit for a few minutes and then rinsed really well. I ended up rinsing, going on to the next step in my usual shower routine, back to rinsing my hair, next step, back to rinsing, etc. I think I rinsed it 3-4 times just to make sure it came out all the way. 
3. I must have fully washed it out because after blow drying and then sleeping on it, I woke up this morning with beauty queen full sized hair. I looked like I had teased the crap outta out, but not the knappy teasing, the teasing that adds tons of height and volume. Even after straightening it which usually takes off the volume, my hair is still big this morning!

You're not supposed to use it for every washing, so I think I'll be using this maybe once a week at the most. I'm definitely pleased with the results after one use. Thank you, Pinterest!

Why I love Thanksgiving.

It's my favorite holiday because:

1. Family time
2. Holiday centered around food. Of course I can get behind that!
3. FOOTBALL (Seahawks v. 49ers!)

Family time being the favorite part of the day. I love lazing around the house with everyone just enjoying their company. I don't do the whole Black Friday thing, so I don't have to deal with crowds or overpricing of merchandise only to "slash" it back to the original price.

This year will be different in that we're not going to both sides' houses for dinner. We usually go to Jason's parents' house first and then drive over the bridge to my parents. Jason has to work early on Friday, so we're just staying close to home this year. I'm kind of sad about that, I love seeing my folks.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Enjoy the day spending it with those you love and please be sure to thank the cook. They work hard!

November, Yikes!

October was an insanely busy month for me, hence the lack of posts.

Oh, by the way, my health experiment was a MAJOR fail. I think I lasted 2 days. It was awful and I'm pretty embarrassed by it.

At the end of the month hubby and I met my family down in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for my sister's wedding. It was such a relaxing vacation. I did not want to come back to the cold weather and rain (actually, with the humidity in Mexico this time of year, we were actually looking forward to the cooler temps while waiting for our plane ride back). Best part of the trip, J loved it! Mr. I Had a Bad Experience in Mexico when I was 15, I hate Mexico...wants to go back. Success!

Spent our 2nd Halloween in our home. Only this year J had to work late. Good thing I have girl friends that wanted to come over and help me pass out candy. My friend brought her three cousins from Korea with her, and they got so excited passing out candy to all the trick-or-treaters, it was great, my work was done! All the little kiddos dressed up were so cute! I found this post on Instagram regarding health and fitness, where anytime an "Elsa" came to the door, you do 5 pushups. I had 6 before my friends got to my house, so I did 30 pushups by myself. While they were there, 2 more came to the door, so we all did 10 pushups. It was kind of fun to do something silly like that. Also, second year in a row I ran out of candy before the first hour mark. Next year I'll learn, I swear.

Health Experiment, Day 1.

I've decided to start a week long experiment on eating the correct portion sizes of my meals, working out every day, and just eating healthier (everything homemade, no eating out, the least amount of processed ingredients as I can with what I have/basically don't spend any money just use what I have).

Notes on this experiment:
-I do not plan on doing this on Wednesday - no workout and I'm going to dinner with my parents and hubby's parents. I may go to the gym after dinner...I haven't decided yet, we'll see what time we get home. I have a 9:30 bedtime :)
-I just came up with this last night, so Monday was not included in my "week". I'm going until Sunday and from there I'll see if I want to extend to the next week.
-I made a plan on dinners I wanted to make late Sunday night and went out Monday and bought all my ingredients I was missing, so it's not like I had all these just laying around my house...so yes, money was spent, but that was before I came up with this experiment for myself.

Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014:
Breakfast: serving size of peanut butter multi-grain Cheerio's (3/4 c), with serving size fat free milk (1/2 c). Beverage: homemade London Fog (1 1/2c. fat free milk, 2 Earl Grey teabags, 2Tbl homemade vanilla syrup) Thoughts: didn't seem like much, but if it says that's a serving size, so be it.

Mid-Morning Snack: organic medium honey crisp apple. Thoughts: 40 minutes before lunch and I'm STARVING. Maybe drinking water will help...

Lunch: leftover from dinner last night - oven baked chili dogs. Granted, this was semi-homemade, as in I bought all the ingredients and just assembled it. Next time I make this (and I will, I really liked it) I will do homemade chili, not canned as I did last night. I also won't forget the mustard. Oops. Thoughts: drinking water between my mid-morning snack and lunch definitely did help curb the appetite. Just a reminder to me that I need to drink more water. They'll be days I don't drink any, so a good day would be 1-2 glasses. I know it's bad, but I'm not a fan...and I've tried adding fruit and it's so-so. I don't do those powders or liquids you can add to your water...I HATE artificial sweeteners and no matter which I've tried, I can always taste the aspartame aftertaste and I hate it. I'd rather drink regular sugar.

Mid-Afternoon Snack: 1.25 cup sliced strawberries. Thoughts: I bought these last night from the grocery store and they're just not the same at the peak of the season (sigh). 

Workout: This was the most frustrating workout I've ever encountered and I ended up quitting early and going home. I went to my gym and started with some cardio on the elliptical. My machine started making very weird noises, so I moved to another machine that did a mixture of ellitical movements and stairmaster movements. The log screens kept freezing, so if I hadn't had my heart rate monitor on, I wouldn't have known how long I was going for, etc. That got annoying, so I moved to another machine - a regular treadmill. Couldn't get it to turn on. Once it finally turned on, I couldn't get it to start a program. Moved to yet another treadmill, and everything was great - got intervals going, watching Pioneer Woman on the attached tv, all good. 20 minutes in, and bam! sleep timer and it shuts down. I think, "Okay, about 30 minutes is a good warm up, I can move to the main classroom since there are no classes going and I'll do my pilates workout." {side note: I have the blogilates app on my phone - love it! I subscribe to her monthly workouts and in the app she has links to the youtube videos of her workouts so I don't have to search it while I'm out and about} I get into the room to start my workout and the app won't open because I get terrible data coverage in the gym and they refuse to get wifi for members. I was so over it I went home thinking I'd do my pilates workout there...but eating dinner and watching tv with the hubs was way more comfortable.

Dinner: leftover chili dogs from last night. I had 2 because I was hangry.

Total Calories = 1,694

It has been over a month since updating and I feel like this summer is just flying by! I can't believe schools are back in session (in Washington anyway) just next week. My nephews will be starting kindergarten!

What I've been up to lately:
1.) after 6 years, I left my position at a non-profit and went into the construction business. I am the sales coordinator for a cabinet/casework manufacturer. I help prepare all the bids that are sent out. It's such a different path than what I was on, but I'm starting to get the hang of it and am starting to do really well. Hopefully I can continue to grow and learn new things in this new field of mine.

2.) after 5 years and three nephews, whom I love dearly don't get me wrong, I have a niece! My brother and sister in law have birth to their daughter at the end of July. I wish I could fly down to Georgia to meet miss Elena, but sadly I can't. Duty calls. Boo.

3.) football season is now upon us, and I'm anxiously awaiting next week when hubs and I will be at the season opener of the Seahawks season against Green Bay. We lucked out and my parents sold us their tickets, so 1st level baby! So excited for Sept 4th!

4.) the following week J and I will be celebrating our 2nd wedding anniversary. Time is flying by, but luckily this year I remembered in time to get his gift early..2nd anniversary is cotton or china, depending on whether you follow traditional or modern. I have a plan for both :)

And I'm going to stop here. I have to be up for work in about 6 hours and I'm cutting back severely on my caffeine intake due to getting a high blood pressure reading recently. This won't be pretty...