Home sweet home!

We are finally home! I had a great time in Florida... but happy to be back in Tennessee!! It was SO hot in Florida! August in Florida is always the worst month weather-wise! It was TOUGH getting back into work, though! I had pretty much NO motivation! I wanted to be hanging with my little girl all day long. I got used to being with her all day long this past week :( You can bet I was bolting out the door to go pick her up when work was over!

It was definitely a week of mixed emotions... Happy for my brother who is now a married man - still can't believe it! Sad for JR's family with Granny's passing and trying to adjust to a "new life".

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers for JR's family!

We drove last Wednesday down to Florida and made it in great time, thankfully! Maddie survived the car trip up and down. I was really afraid that she would go nuts in the car for 11 hours straight... but thankfully we kept Taylor Swift playing on the IPod and plenty of books and My Little Ponies to keep her happy :)

I had almost a full afternoon with one of my closest friends... we have been friends since middle school! Her daughter is only a DAY younger than Maddie. Crazy, huh? She is one of those friends that no matter how long it's been since we've talked or seen each other, we pick right up where we left off... she's amazing! Our girls had lots of time to play this trip!

My eating was not great, though. I normally can balance vacation eating pretty well... but not this time around. Along with my "monthly friend" showing up TWO weeks EARLY (what the heck is up with that mother nature?!?) and a little bit of family stress over the trip... my eating was pretty off for me. TONS of sugar - I mean tons, tons, tons! I normally splurge on a trip... this was kind of beyond. And since we were on the go from the moment we got up until we went to sleep each night (we drive an hour each way between visiting our families... sometimes two or three times a day!), I had no time to fit in a work out! I thought I would jump right back into healthy eating today... but I think my body got so used to gorging on sugar, that it was craving it BIG time! I'm thinking I may need to go cold turkey or close to it to ween myself off of it!

But enough of that... Here are a few pictures of my brother, Justin's wedding...

Justin and our Dad....

Maddie was the flower girl :)
Justin and I

First kiss as a married couple!
My baby sister Ashley and her boyfriend George (I have the most gorgeous sisters!)

JR & I
All four of us kiddos....I swear I'm the oldest! They all outgrew me =P

And this was TOO cute...Justin and his wives daughter, Katelyn... who is now 7 months old... was so worn out from the wedding, she crashed and they put her out on these pillows... adorable!

As for food today - it was not the best! I have a pretty empty fridge due to being gone for a week! Dinner tonight was pull out whatever is in the freezer! I had some frozen leftover grilled chicken breast, some Arnold's Thins in the freezer... pulled those out... then grilled up slices of pineapple, swiss cheese, Annie's smokey maple bbq sauce... loved it :) Crispy fries on the side...
totally veggie-less :( Oh well... I'll do better tomorrow on that one. We got our CSA delivery tonight!

We got 1 yellow squash, some grape tomatoes, a patty pan squash, 2 corn on the cobs.1 green bell pepper and a cantaloupe (all for JR... not a big cantaloupe fan here!)...

Any ideas on what to do with our produce?

Go, go, go Saturday!!

Hey everyone! How's your weekend shaping up so far?

Heading back to last night - we had some home made pizza. We used a whole wheat premade dough from Whole Foods... my side was grilled chicken, green peppers, red onion and tomatoes with part skim mozz cheese. JR's was the same with some added some pepperoni. I had a yummy glass of Shiraz on the side!
Today has been busy from the start! I got up at about 6:30 to be sure and squeeze in my work out before Maddie woke up and before my crazy cleaning adventure today. I have been itching to do my Firm work outs... so I did one of my all time favs! Total Muscle Shaping!This one is about 45 minutes long, which can be very convenient on days that I do not have a lto of time work out! It also has lots of combined movements, keeping the hearat rate up. You have bicep curls while doing leg presses on a 14 inch step, lunges with an overhead press, dips and hammer curls, etc. Today for most of these, I used 10-12 lbs weights, depending on the exercise. You also do some step aerobics using 6 inch step or using the step on an incline.

After, I was crraavvviiingg some yoga! I popped in The Biggest Loser's Weight Loss Yoga DVD. Now I LOVE this DVD for many, many reasons - one because I adore Bob (and LOVE having ANY excuse to post pictures of him doing different yoga poses... haha)...Two because I love the fact that this work out is broken up into three different time segments! You have the 5 minute warm up - then you can choose between doing a 20 minute yoga routine, 15 minute routine or 10 minute routine. Today, I did the warm up and the 10 minute routine. Just what I needed! I burned 444 calories today.

After that, it was seriously breakfast time! I don't know why... but I was desperately craving my oatmeal pancakes!

Today's combo:
1/4 cup oat bran
1/4 cup oatmeal
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tbsp protein powder
1 tbsp cottage cheese
1/2 smooshed naner
a couple of cut up frozen cherries
1/2 cup egg whites

Allllll of those ingredients to give us this (and I took like six shots of this and NEVER got a clear picture! I'm so sorry!)I topped one pancake with 1/2 tbsp PB Loco's Jungle Banana PB and the top pancake with 1/2 tbsp PB&Co's Dark Chocolate Dreams. I also sliced the rest of the banana up and sandwiched it between then. Perfecto!

The cleaning started after... I had to get my clothes situated in our room. Shamefully I have to say, our room was a mess. And it's about 85% my fault! I still think I'm a kid sometimes and um... my clothes kind of end up on the floor. So then it gets so bad that we can't walk in the room... and yes, I'm saying this in public! Embarrassing but true! Maybe it will help me change things! Probably not, unfortunately! My hubby is shaking his head while he's reading this, I know it! :)

Anyway while going through and hanging up clothes and putting them away in drawers, I also went through my closet to try to reorganize things a bit. I haven't wanted to face the closet for awhile now. Knowing that most of my clothes don't fit me at all because of my weight gain has made it hard to stomach looking at some of my fav shirts or jeans that I can't get into! I divided things into two sections... what I can wear now and what I can't. At least that way, I know exactly where to go to in the closet to get stuff out for the day and won't depress myself by going through all the others! Here's to hoping!

I got rid of some things I don't wear anymore. I've had things in the closet for a few years now saying I'm going to have them altered that haven't been touched. Out they went!

Did anyone tune into the live streaming of the Healthy Living Summit at all today? I thought it was awesome they made that available to us! I had problems with the sound throughout some of it but thought it was pretty fun to listen to and be able to get to know the personalities a bit more of the ladies there. I thought Zesty's part was great info! He mentioned getting your own domain if you plan to blog for awhile... I'm not sure if I'm ready for that - nor can I afford it right now. I do hate that I feel so limited in what I can do with my page right now, though. I want to add extra pages with before and after shots (which by the way, if you are interested you can check some out here), an info page, etc.

They also talked on the importance of photographs, which I agree with. As y'all have seen, I am definitely NOT the best food photographer at all. I am still working on that! The worst part is that as many windows and lights as we have in our house, there is NO light. I fight with that daily! So... need to figure out that angle. Thanks guys for hanging in there with me on the photos!

Finally had lunch around 1:00... I knew I needed to use up the rest of the turkey I had and a pear sitting in the fridge. So I "peared" (haha... okay maybe not as cute as I think it is) on a sandwich!

I mixed some light mayo and dijon mustard... put that on the bread with some thin pear slices. Added the turkey, swiss cheese and pressed it in a pan for a few minutes. Presto lunch! I served it with the rest of the pear, some strawberries and a few blue corn chips.
I also had a square of Ghiradelli intense dark chocolate that I found wayyyy at the bottom of one of my (many) purses while cleaning it out. So yummy!

Okay, I am off to get ready for some more errands! Gotta head out to Target and Walgreens...dinner will most likely be pizza (and wine) leftovers.

Thanks everyone for the comments on the dress! I have to say I loved the dress on in person... but when i saw the pictures, I almost cried. I haven't seen pictures of myself since gaining weight. My face is so much fuller and I'm just not as toned as I once was. But I made myself post them anyway... I need to be proud of where I am regardless! It's been a struggle today... putting on a dress tonight and knowing how it used to fit... I am trying to stay positive!

Just curious again on taking photos of food.... anyone have some great advice to pass along to make it more appealing to the eye?

Weekend Wrap up! :)

How was everyone's weekend? Before I recap our Sunday... I'll finish up our Saturday :)

I did my last day of Level 1 of Jillian's 30 Day shred yesterday. I had planned on doing some heavy upper body work after... but as I was getting my stuff out, I saw this kit that The Firm put out last year that I got for Christmas. I haven't used it yet and thought while I had some extra time, I should give it a try. It only uses a resistance band and a weighted jump rope. The jump rope has 2 lbs weights on the handles. You can either use the DVD as a whole or they break it up into 4 segments that are 10 minutes each.
I'm not sure that I loved this work out. The "equipment" seemed a little cheap. I will say that the cardio portion is TOUGH. It's mainly jump rope... you do two minutes of jump roping - basic jumping, then adding in things like high knees, jumping on one foot, etc.. then you take a break and do plyometric moves... which is HARD after doing two minutes of straight weighted jump roping! Then I did the lower body portion, which uses the resistance band... I'm actually really feeling that today!!! The upper body and abs portion are just okay. I'd pull this out for a very quick cardio boost and lower body add on... but not sure I'd use the upper body/ab parts! All in all, I burned 450 calories...

Yesterday after my post, our best friend Lisa joined us and we headed off to the mall. We grabbed a quick Subway sandwich and baked chips for lunch. Miss Maddie begged to ride the carousel...haha... this is the best shot!!
I did have 1 1/2 pretzel cinnamon stix from Auntie Anne's... yum :) Then went off to the Nike Outlet and picked up my new shoes that I am SO, SO excited about! Of course, had to have some pink on them :) How cute are they?!?!?!
Maddie decided she wanted to try them out, too... haha... I could have told her she had them on the wrong feet... but it was too funny!

I snacked on an apple and some trail mix last night before we had our leftover pizza from date night for dinner! Seriously too good :)

As for today, We had a leisurely day... Okay, I had a lazy day... JR did yard work, vacuumed out our cars... and then Maddie and I helped him wash our cars...
I kind of sat around, caught up on some blogs and did a bunch of nothing! I did plan out some meals for the week... I don't have "set" plans but at least have some options, which is a huge leap for me!

We got up and headed straight out to grab the Sunday paper and some Starbucks... I came home and really wasn't very hungry... I didn't have any cravings, so pulled this out for breakfast...
I ended up not wanting the banana... so just had a small amount of PB on the half blueberry bagel and my latte!

I went through our freezer to see what we have for upcoming meals this week... and realized we had quite a few different loaves of bread taking up all of our space! I thought I should have a sandwich for lunch to start using some of it up... I pulled out a couple of slices of this (sorry it's a bit blurry)...I had this with some turkey, Sabra's classic hummus (OBESSED with Sabra's hummus!), lettuce, tomato, Whole Foods honey mustard, Havarti Cheese... a few Sun Chips and some fruit on the side... Good lunch!

I am now 0ff to do Day 1 of Level 2 on the 30 day shred... lord help me get through it! I'm exhausted and wanting to take a nap more than anything else!

Anyone have anything exciting going on this week?

Have a great rest of the weekend!

We're back!

Hello everyone!

It's been a busy but fun weekend for us! I'll recap our trip to Alabama and also some of this weekend at home in later posts... but wanted to catch up today's food and also do Make Up Monday!

This is just a quick recap of today's food!

This morning I had to bolt out the door... but made some of my Oat Bran pancakes to take with me... the normal mix...
1/2 cup oat bran
1 tbsp Jay Robb Protein Powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp maple syrup
1/2 smooshed banana
1/2 cup liquid egg whites
Served with 1 1/2 tbsp almond butter and other half banana

For lunch... I had two slices of Pepperidge Farm's Dark Wheat Bread (SO yummy!) with some boar's head turkey, trader joe's hummus and some swiss cheese. I also had some of my favorite soup - Pacific Food's Butternut Squash soup and also some cherries I picked up at Whole Foods on sale yesterday! I was so full after the sandwich and soup... I had the cherries a couple of hours later.
On the way home, my tummy was telling me it was time for another snack... I grabbed this outta my purse...

Brittney and I headed to the mall for a bit to find Brittney a new purse... I love shopping with my baby sister :) We always have so much fun!

Then we headed home... where JR had dinner ready to go... 96% lean burger on Whole Foods wheat bun, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, half a slice of bacon... some corn and a few fries (mix of sweet potato fries and whole foods brand crinkle fries)... and a Sam Adams on the side...
I had a VERY indulgent weekend food/drink wise... I've had two desserts every single day... along with drinks :( So it seems like my body caught on quickly!! I had a VitaBrownie with almond butter and some Reddi Whip... topped with a cherry :) SO YUM!

Again, sorry this is so short... but I have to hurry off to do the Make Up Monday post... then off to play some card games with my sister and JR. This is my sisters last night here :( She goes home tomorrow! So sad :(

How was your Monday?