Holiday Cheer

This is how I've felt all week...

I love the holidays, but the stress of buying the 'prefect gift' and making sure it's in the mail on time is never fun. Every year I tell myself I will do Christmas shopping in May or June or August, not November! And every year I fail to stay true to that promise. At least this year I have a good excuse: planning a wedding and honeymoon is time consuming! Maybe next year will be my year to be prepared and have the chance to truly enjoy the Holidays.... maybe...

Snowpocalypse 2010

It snowed in Seattle yesterday! I actually went to work in the morning for a few hours, and was grateful when our boss emailed the staff (all two of us who were in the office) that we would be closing at 12:30. I was also grateful that we live close enough to my job that I could just walk home, especially hearing about friends who were stuck on buses for 2 hours and others who were traveling on I-5 for 6 hours!

Here's a couple photos outside our window, taken in the afternoon, before it really started to come down:



After it got dark Mark and I went outside to peak around the corner, down the big hill that's on the other side of our building. We had been watching cars trying to go up and down the hill and our street all evening, slipping and sliding. The hill had at some been blocked, and our neighbors came out with sleds and laundry baskets to slide down the hill in/on! I wish I had brought my camera, but didn't want to risk dropping it in the snow.

This a video (taken on a street near our place) showing the stupidity of Seattlites who should've never tried to drive on the sheets of ice that covered our streets:

Daily goals

• I will eat a healthy breakfast (including a fruit!) before leaving the house every morning.
• I will take my daily vitamins.
• I will drink 60+ oz of water everyday.
• I will eat a vegetable at both lunch and dinner.
• I will only eat out once a week.
• I will try a new recipe once a week.
• I will be active 30 minutes 5 days a week.
  

Before

Today is the beginning of the rest of my life. I will begin a new journey that will guide me to become more healthy, more fit, more happy and THIN! My best friend has been on Weight Watchers for the past several months and has encouraged me to join her once all the wedding mayhem has stopped. Mark and I have been back from Paris for less than a week, and I've been looking forward to my first WW meeting for a long while. I am ready!

This is my 'Before' photo. It was taken the morning of my wedding, while I was getting my makeup done and my hair was setting in curls. I think it is a beautiful photo. The lighting is wonderful, I'm happy, I look pretty, and I look fat. It's that simple. This is me at my heaviest: 302 lbs. (Yes interwebs, I'm publicly announced my true weight! I refused to be ashamed!)

Something has clicked (finally!) inside me, allowing me to (finally!) accept that I NEED to lose weight. And this time it's for the right reason: I'm doing this for myself! I want to be able to go shopping at any store without frustration. I want to be able to walk up a hill or flight of stairs and not be winded. I want to be able to one day have kids and be able to play with them! I'm ready for life and I'm ready for this journey. Bring it!

Urban Craft Uprising

This weekend is my FAVORITE bi-annual craft show:

Every time I go I pick up a new flavor of wool fiber from HiFiber (previously madebyMoxie) and I've got my eye on this one:

Summer Picnic

The 4th of July (last Saturday) was 50 degrees and drizzly all day. It is predicted to be 90 degrees on Thursday! It's true, Seattle summers officially begin on July 5th, without fail. While my fiance and I did just invest in our very first air-conditioner (he's a redhead and hates the sun/heat with a fiery passion), but my best friend and I have made plans to soak up some rays, address all the dreaded wedding invitations, and possibly have a picnic at the park up the road from us. Bonus: across the street from the park is the best ice cream in Seattle- Molly Moons. Their balsamic strawberry, Theo chocolate, and Vivace coffee are my top favorite flavors.

This cute chair and roll up (portable) table set is on our
wedding registry from Crate and Barrel:

Other awesome supplies for making a fantastical picnic-

NstarStudio:: Urban Picnic Rollup
Such a cute way to tote some eco-friendly (bamboo) utensils!

greenappleworkshop :: Wicker Picnic Basket
Vintage and not the typical natural color.
It even has a tray that fits inside to keep things neat and tidy!

WithLuvLulu :: "Picnics are Fun" Card
If only I looked that cute while spilling stuff all over myself...

Happy 4th of July!

Seattle wasn't supposed to have a fireworks show this year, but a few months back a local radio show made the announcement and listeners freaked out. Donations quickly started to poor in and Corporate America (Microsoft, Starbucks, etc...) began pitching in as well and within 24 hours Seattle's fireworks show was back on! Read the whole story here.

This was actually my first time watching the show from the grassy hill at Gas Works Park. I figured I've lived my entire life in Seattle, we're going to be out of town for a friends wedding next year, and there's a chance we'll be living elsewhere in 2012 (or the end of the world...) so now is the time! It was drizzling most of the day leading up to it, but once we arrived at the park it had stopped. We found ourselves a nice patch among the thousand of other folks and waited 2 hours for the show to start. It was well worth it:

TOMS Shoes

I'm in love with these shoes! Having an unusually wide foot and constantly struggling to find shoes to accommodate and still be cute has been an ongoing battle for most of my life. But TOMS! They're a bit snug at first, but soon enough they begin to fit like a glove and can be worn all day! They even have great arch support (super bonus for my high arches) and a bit of padding in the sole so you can walk for miles in the them. I have a pair of the grey canvas ones, but will invest in another pair soon. I'm thinking red linen, just to be bright and cheery, plus I've heard the linen stretch out a little more than the canvas ones and I'm curious.



Oh! And I've forgotten the best part: TOMS One for One mission! With every pair purchased, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. Since their beginning in May 2006, TOMS has given over 600,000 pairs of shoes to children in need, through the purchases of caring customers. How much does that rock?!

Playing Catch Up

My goodness, the holidays flew by and here were are in mid-January!

Here's what I've been up to since Thanksgiving:

• Had Thanksgiving at our apt, I made all the fixing's (potatoes, stuffing, pies, etc...) while Mom & Dad brought the bird. It was delicious, of course, and afterward we completed our annual puzzle.

• Finished all my gift buying for my fiance's family on the east coast, wrapped, packaged and mailed the box of gifts with a shipping charge of $67! Good grief!

• Held a Holiday Party/Game Night at our place, biggest gathering yet! Roasted a whole chicken (so tasty, my kitty John insisted the whole night he needed to have some) and enjoyed an evening surrounded by friends. This was the biggest turn out for any of our gatherings, 10 or 12 people all together!

• Received an early Christmas/B-day gift from my parents: a new laptop! Its a Toshiba, and I'm in love!

• Last minute shopping on Christmas Eve for my parents. It was fun being downtown in all the hustle and bustle. Made me REALLY appreciate that I no longer work retail downtown.

• Christmas was spend with my parents, had to wait for Mark to get off of work, then hop a bus to Lynnwood to have them pick us up at the Transit Center. Enjoyed gift opening before a wonderful Prime Rib Dinner.

• Day after Christmas the four of us drove to Winthrop, WA. The drive was about 4 hours, over the pass and through the hibernating apple orchards of Central Washington. I loved waking up every morning to snow on the ground!
• *My birthday was spend wandering snow covered trails just outside Winthrop, then a walk through town and an AMAZING dinner at a local restaurant. I had my first Bison steak and am convinced its the best thing ever made!

I am now just finishing up my 2nd week back at the office and adjusting to the 'working life' again. Honestly, I'm really looking forward to the 3 day weekend (MLK Day weekend) ahead of me. I'm not sure if its the weather, or being chained to a desk and a computer that's really got me ready for bigger and better things.

I've also been making some lifestyle changes. The realization that my wedding is only 9 months away has given me the extra push to start losing weight. I've joined Weight Watcher, they have a great online/iPhone friendly program now that matches my way of doing things much better then their old system of writing things down and going to meetings. I've also asked my mom to help me acquire a new piece of equipment called the Bodybugg. Its a device that you wear around your upper arm and it counts the calories you've burned in a day. It is supposed to arrive today and I'm more than excited to start using it!

Vacation: 4th of July Weekend

I'm back at work after being on vacation for almost a week. I find it so hard to sit in front of a computer all day after having the luxury of sleeping in, cooking breakfast (not have stuffing something in my face and grab a coffee cup while running out the door) and asking the wonderful question: 'What shall we do today?'

Me and my wonderful beau both had last Thursday off and had the privilege of borrowing my Dad's trusty Subaru Outback. Now with the proper means we were able to journey down to Ikea. (Oh Ikea, how you inspire me and feed my desire to own a house one day...) We had a mission of making me a craft table to replace my current dinning table/tiny desk set up. We were victorious, finding bright yellow counter tops (under $40 for enough to span 100 inches!) and we got three kitchen cabinet cases, with shelves, to use at the 'legs' on either side and in the middle. Its fabulous! :)

Once all the craft table bits (some assembly required) were unloaded it was off to the Pioneer Square Artwalk! Our tiny little studio at the 619 Western Building was filled to the brim with sweaty and slightly intoxicated art seekers. Since we were on 'vacation' at this point there was little to no effort put forth, and still quite successful! I sold 5 wallets and got some awesome feed back.

The next morning we were off to Oregon in the Outback, armed with classic CDs, snacks and good company (each other). The usual 3.5 hour ride turned into 6 hours (*groan* holiday traffic) to Astoria, Oregon, where we ended up following a nutty local, to avoid more traffic, who gave a quick, whirl-wind tour of land mark Astoria: the 'Goonies' house and the 'Kindergarten Cop' school! Once safely inside the condo my Grandmother had bought back in 1982, with my parents, favorite cousin, aunt and her husband, our vacation truly began.

Honestly, there is no better place to take a deep breath and relax at than the Oregon condo. Sitting in the bay window, over looking the bridge that connects Washington to Oregon over the Columbia River, it puts my mind at ease. The condo is a work in progress, slowing shuffling out Mimi's, my deceased Grandmother, decor, and replacing it with hodge podge updates, (i.e. new kitchen counter tops and various walls painted pastel attempts to make the place more cheery.) Most of the old decor is a combination of rust red/orange, nautical blue and ivory and can be seen on all 4 levels of the 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath tower. In the 'kids room' (the room with two twin beds) on the top floor there is a 15 foot tall wall covered in dotted fish wall paper next to the toilet, and behind the toilet a framed drawing of a wide eyed owl. Needless to say, this place has character!

The rest of the weekend was spent visiting garage sales, thrift shops, outlet stores, windy beaches, beautiful bike trails with wildlife (a herd of elk!), fresh fruit and delicious dinners. Really there wasn't much more I could ask for! (Except to have it last forever... who wants to buy me the winning lotto ticket?)