As you can see by the lack of posting. I've been busy. And sick actually. Tuesday, after feeling great all Memorial Day weekend, I woke up with a Severe sore throat, but went to work and left at lunch time to spend the rest of the day miserable on the couch watching Tori & Dean re-runs (which i love). Yesterday I felt better, but today my throat hurts again on the right side, no swollen lymph node, but pain. I'm pretty sure I have strep throat! My boss had it for 2 weeks (untreated) and i'm pretty sure it's spread to me. Of course, i'm getting married in 16 days and can't afford to be sick, so i'm going to call the doctor at lunchtime and hope he believes my strep and sends the local pharmacy a prescription. I need to get a new doctor, since this one is still in Harrisburg and I've been living in Lancaster County for years now. It's hard though! Plus, I like him, he's been my doctor forever. Anyway, I'm headed up there this evening for a highlight touch up, so if worse comes to worse I can leave work early and stop into his office.
On a lighter/brighter note: My weekend was awesome! We found the kittens at Alex's parent's farm that we've been wondering about, by found I mean we saw them from a distance and when we went to search for them, we had no luck, they're good little hiders, well trained I guess. I'll find them next time i'm out there. I'm thinking of getting two of them and Laurel wants the other two, so that'd be perfect! Alex doesn't want a cat but they're so cute! Also, i've officially started my 18 day diet/exercise plan.. the South Beach has begun and this is the first time i'm actually exercising with it, so i'm hoping to get good results. Usually I lose about 8-10 lbs in 14 days, so maybe working out will speed this up. Plus, I need to be bikini fit for Hawaii. Super excited!
This weekend is packed full of fun as well.. Friday night i'm hanging out with the Brewing Wives Club, going to eat some yummy Thai food at Sukothai and then back to my house to play some Apples to Apples. Saturday is my Bridal Shower, yay!! And it's at Hoss's which i loooove. I'm always begging Alex to take me to Hoss's. The salad bar is out of this world, i think i wrote that in a previous post?? haha. Anyway, after that is my Bachelorette party with my bridesmaids and a couple close friends. We're going to dinner downtown in Harrisburg at Cafe Fresco and then we're going to go out for a little while.. play it by ear and maybe head back to Jess's.. I'm kinda boring so I kinda wanna keep it low key. Should be fun though! Then Sunday, Alex and I are having a date day, we're going to write Thank you notes and maybe hit the movies, probably some dinner, relaxing stuff.
Today's only Thursday, but it feels like Friday and should fly by pretty quickly. Next friday we get our new desk that my grama got us for our Wedding Gift. It's awesome! And now I don't have to hear Alex complain anymore about papers being all over the kitchen bc we don't have a decent desk to store them innn!! :)
Happy Thursday!
It's after lunchtime but i just thought of a couple things I would love to eat right now.. First of all, my lunch consisted of some raw cauliflower and some light ranch dip.. yummy but not very filling. Here's the list..
..Hoss's salad bar - there's no time in my life that i will ever turn this down.. best salad bar ever.. you can hardly call it a salad bar, as it has soup, bread, make your own nachos, mac n cheese, and then there's the dessert bar.. again, best salad bar ever!
..Reese's Peanut Butter Cup (Mini's only) - the weird thing is, it's hard for me to each a regular size peanut butter cup, but i can shovel in the mini's.. i guess there's just too much peanut butter to chocolate in the regular cups.. the ratio is WAY off.
..Sushi - in particular, a spicy tuna roll.. it's basically the only one i like (other than maybe california and tnt) but i like when the tuna is a little spicy, i've had it before where there's no spice, and i don't waste time with the soy sauce and wasabi, so it needs to taste good on it's own!
..Hard Taco from Taco Bell - I can't even tell you the last time I went to Taco Bell, i'm so sad that it's been that long, probably over a year.. and a year is a long time people! I might have to drag Alex there tonight!
..An Isaac's Scarlet Ibis on a wheat wrap - nothing beats their turkey, and the combo is just amazing.. not to mention the chips, sweet potato are my favorite but you never get enough of those in your little bunch. I've heard you can buy just a bag though, i should try that sometime.
..Guacamole - a good guacamole is awesome, it really depends a lot on the avacados..i should move somewhere that they're fresh and ripened year round.. i could eat guacamole all day, and normally when i make some, i literally want to eat it all when i'm done making it and Alex has to take it from me.
And lastly.. Banana Ice Cream from Coldstone with Banana's Mashed in - I have a banana here at my desk that isn't quite ripe yet.. and it makes me think of maybe the 2 times in my life that i went to coldstone (too pricey) for Banana ice cream with bananas in it.. Banana is probably my favorite flavoring, that and cotton candy.. but i don't ever eat cotton candy because the amount of sugar is outrageous.
Now let's count the things on my list that are remotely healthy.. i'm counting.... 2 : Hoss's Salad Bar (bc all i normally will get is 2 salads and then i'm full) and Guacamole because i dont care what they say about saturated fat, if it comes from a veggie, it's good for you! Sushi might be deemed healthy as well.. i could really use a bento box right now!
Hope this post doesnt make you hungry!
Alex and I had such a great weekend! From our triple date with Dan, Steph, Britt and Matt at Stoudt's and Zia Maria, to my cousin's super fun wedding, to staying up until 4 am talking with Phil and Ashley, to brunch at the navy base with my family and furniture shopping with Da.. it was fabulous! I was so tired though that I slept the whole car ride home, and i am not normally a car sleeper. Alex was so tired that instead of taking a nap yesterday, he left work around 10 am and spent the day napping.. that's the life. Hopefully he's doing dishes too (finger crossed) since our dishwasher blew a fuse.
At the wedding it was crazy to think that that will be me in less than 4 weeks. Facebook says 26 days but I think that's a tad off. It sure is coming up fast though. I just don't love people staring at me all the time, and I know that I'm the bride and blah blah blah but I just don't really enjoy being the center of attention. I'll just have to suck it up I guess. I hope my wedding see's as much dancing as theirs did, we danced a TON!
Back to the daily grind though.. hasn't been easy, but i'm working on it. I've decided that working just doesn't really suit me.. so maybe i'll get lucky this week or weekend and hit the $170 million powerball.. keep your fingers crossed for me, k?
Thank goodness it's friday. I think i say that every friday, but really.. tgif. I wait for this day all week (starting on monday of course).. and when it gets here, i work really hard so that the hours fly by and then all of a sudden it's 5 pm and i'm FREEE! Hopefully one day (probably later in life) I'll enjoy the entire week and not work for the weekend.
Last night was probably the hardest I've laughed in about 6 months.. that may sound sad, but really, i do laugh all the time but just not as hard as last night. Alex and I took a trip to York to see Jim, Mark and of course, the Mr. & Mrs. It was so much fun. First of all, I hadn't seen Jim in forever.. and he's just so hilarious that forever is just too long. Secondly, Mrs. T makes the BEST food in the whole world and we had the best enchilada's i've ever had in my life.. after we had Jim's homemade guac of course which was way better then Alex and mine usually turns out. We'll have to get his recipe. Most of the night I spent laughing, pretty much.. Jim and Mark together is just priceless and they'll make you laugh no matter what. So glad we were invited for dinner.. mmm, man it was good!
In other news, yesterday, after seeing so many FML (f*** my life) postings on facebook.. i kept wondering, man do these people really hate their lives that much?? Well now I think I get it. I somehow (ok, through twitter) came across a website called fmylife.com which is bascially, FML. On the site people post stuff that happens to them, that's basically terrible but hilarious and at the end of each one it says FML. I'm pretty sure i'm catching on reallly late to this, but better late then never because yesterday at work I laughed outloud about 15 times.. i try to hold it in but some of them are just SO funny that a little bit of the laugh slips out. It's kinda like sometimes when you have to fart but it's not an apporpriate time, but a little bit forces its way out.. like that, but not gross. (Sidenote.. i actually sat here for a minute wondering if i should post that last comment.. the one about the fart.. but i think it's a good analogy, so it's been posted) Anyway, check out that site because you'll laugh outloud!
Big weekend ahead which I already outlined in a previous post.. pretty excited for it! Have a GREAT weekend!
One of these days I'm going to check my bank account online and see that i've received my tax refund! one of these days..... but when?? It's been over 4 weeks now, and sure they had it send it back to me because I forgot to sign it, but everything had been checked and i sent it back in the very next day, so what's taking so long?? I'm getting direct deposit! It was bad enough that i couldn't e-file. We're assuming that's because I had to request to get the stimulus I missed last year (due to my parents accountant). I want that money, darnit! We need to pay off the honeymoon and go on our honeymoon shopping sprees, pay off most of my credit card, pay off our home/car insurance as well as some tax bills! That homeowner credit will really pay off (get it? tehe) But whenn will it get here? The answer is, not soon enough. So i'll just keep waiting, and checking that bank account until the glorious day that I see the money has been deposited. It will be glorious!
So, it's wednesday, yippy skippy. I don't have much to report on, but I will say that the rest of the week and weekend is filled with activities! Tonight we're having a cookout with Alex's parents.. makes me feel like we should get some patio furniture so we can eat outside, even though it's not going to be warm enough.. i'm thinking into the future.
Thursday night we're heading over to York to have dinner with Jim and his parents, they are awesome! And his mom is such a great cook, can't wait to see what we're having. I'm making a dessert for both occasions, strawberry trifle but only 2 layers instead of a bunch bc i actually don't have a trifle dish thing. It's pound cake, vanilla pudding, whipped cream and strawberries then another layer of the same. It's going to be DELICIOUS and really the only sugary items are the pound cake and strawberries because i got sugar free pudding and whipped cream! wahoo!
Friday we're going out with Dan and Steph to celebrate they're engagement! So exciting! I love weddings and engagements because the bottom line is parties! Speaking of weddings, i really need to go out and get my cousin and his bride a gift since that wedding is on Saturday! It's at the Capital's Rotunda (i know i spelled that wrong) and it's going to be lovely! No to mention, FUN! This is going to be practice for Miss Makayla, as she is the flower girl in this wedding as well as my own. The only difference is, she'll be running to Alex at the end of the aisle. She refers to him as her Beyonce (instead of Fiance) and i'm pretty sure she wants to marry him.. but i'm sure after Jess pulls her off and sits her with my mom, she'll probably cry.. good start to a wedding, i think!?
Sunday we're going to Brunch at the Navy Base's Officer's Club, aka where my reception is.. and then we're meeting with the Catering Manager to go over a couple more things and survey the room one last time to get an idea of what we want setup to look like. I need to get her the numbers by the end of the week, so i'm hoping that the people who haven't responded and got a follow up message from Charmayne, are planning to attend, or at least respond with a no thank you.
I worked on the programs yesterday, I just need to verify with the church that i have it in the correct order. I also made the list for the placecards I just need to find out if people arent coming and then put all the table numbers by the names. I'll probably do this at lunchtime.
More updates to come this week and the next couple, really it's insane how booked our weekends are. But it's for a good cause. I don't know what i'll do with all the free time, probably have Alex yell at me about painting. He's the slowest painter alive, that's probably why he says that. He wants to re-paint everything we painted when we first moved in.. and not change the color, just re-paint everything. We're going to get carpet when we get back from our honeymoon, and we do need to get the painting in now (or soon) but it's a little insane to repaint everything we've already painted. So i refuse. We'll see how it ends up. :)
It has been BUSY around here. We got our marriage license on friday and I took a half day (it was lovely but we were running around a lot so not much time to enjoy it). And for dinner went down to Alex's aunt and uncles for a Beer Pairing Feast with Victory Brewing company beer and fantastic food. I ate way too much.
Saturday I traveled to my cousin's Bowling Birthday Party, which was super fun because I sure love bowling. And watching that age group, 3-8 bowl is just cute! Then after that we went to Juliana's (Italian Restaurant) where we ate a buffet style dinner, except they brought the buffet to us! It was delicious and again, I ate too much! Later I went out with Jen and Laurel and then Courtney, Derek, Nick and Alex showed up as well. Perfect night to sit out at Marion Court.
Then sunday was of course, Mother's Day so we had lunch with Alex's mom and then dinner with my mom. Very nice and relaxing.. with more eating too much.
I am now back on the South Beach, and i'm serious this time. It's 5 weeks til the wedding and I need to get bikini ready for Hawaii. Today I had an egg white for breakfast with a shot of milk. I had two pickles for a snack and a flavored water. Celery and light ranch dip for lunch with some sunflower seeds. And after work i'm going to the grocery store, so I can stock up on carb free fare!
It's almost 30 days til the wedding, so it's getting down to the nitty gritty and I really need to get some things done. I'm going to work a lot this week on wedding stuff. I want to get my program and place card order placed so that after proofing it should only take a week to get them back. I'm going to try to have that done by Tuesday. Then get the info on the people who didn't respond by Wednesday and be able to call my Caterer to give her final numbers by friday, give the florist the number of tables for centerpieces by Wednesday. Etc! It's gonna get crazy!
So i'm getting serious now.. about wedding planning of course. Really there's not a lot of time, 37 days to be exact. Now is the time to get down to business.
Today I made some lists.. a Honeymoon Itinerary and a Wedding Day To Do list. The Honeymoon Itinerary basically outlines everything we'll be doing each day.. I need to go into more details with it though, because in some cases, it's cheaper to book activities online.. also, reservations for some activities is recommended. This will help keep us organized, trips can be so busy that you forget what your plans are and with this list, i'll have phone numbers, addresses and the like. The wedding day to do list just lists duties that will need to be done the day of, from setup to breakdown. I need to make sure all ends are tied up. I mean who's going to roll up the aisle runner with all the flower petals in it? Surely not me. ;)
We're going to be having brunch at the Hilton the next morning with some guests, but we've decided that it's not going to be another bill my parents are footing, people will be responsible for paying for their own meal. I'm not sure how i'm going to mention this yet, probably just word of mouth. We also need to figure out which of our friends are actually planning to stay overnight.
Responses are due on Saturday. I spoke with my mom earlier and she said we've gotten a bunch more in, so it should be exciting filling those names and their dinners into my spreadsheet. I'm a spreadsheet-a-holic.
One thing I really need to start working on are the Programs and Placecards. I'm thinking about having the same company print these that did my Invitations. That way, it will be consistent. The programs are going to be rolled up into little scrolls tied with a ribbon! I ordered some candle votives today as well for the table's centerpieces. I'm not sure what i'll do with them afterwards but we'll figure it out. Hopefully I get my order in from TheKnot.com.. they never email when it's been shipped and don't have tracking numbers.. not normal for a web order.
I really need to download the sheet music for our pianist.. I simply must do that tonight! It wasn't working on our little laptop, so i'll have to move to the imac.
Man, i'm excited to go honeymoon clothes shopping soon! King of Prussia sounds like a great mall to blow some cash in!
Happy Cinco de Mayo! If only it were nice and warm outside instead of raining for the 3rd or 4th day straight. I hear there's going to be at least another few days of rain.. what the heck? It's not April anymore, May is supposed to be about flowers! I know rain is necessary and all for life to exist.. but i'd really prefer that it rain maybe once a week and all the other days be perfect. I should really just move to San Diego where they think 90 degrees with no humidity is hot. I was there last May and on the news they were saying, "It's going to be a blazer out there today, 90 degrees" Their advice was to stay indoors in the A/C to avoid overheating. These people are spoiled! (this is jealousy talking).. they don't know what humidity feels like. It makes 90 degrees feel like 105! Luckily, we don't really approach that much in PA which is nice but humidity is a sweaty killer.
OKAY! That is enough complaining about weather! Let's talk food. I'm currently munching on Celery and Hummus. I used to really dislike hummus due to the fact that I don't really enjoy chickpeas.. they're basically tasteless! However with hummus, there's garlic and cumin and tahini that make it taste more like peanut butter. The only difference between hummus and peanut butter is that it's super healthy with little fat (okay that's not the only difference but the main one). Therefore I suggest hummus as a healthy snack. I just had maybe 8 celery sticks with hummus and i'm stuffed! I'll have to wait to eat lunch i'm so un-hungry. Speaking of lunch, last night Alex sauteed some of his dad's organic asparagus with garlic and olive oil.. seriously, anything with garlic and olive oil is like heaven! I should start taking pictures of these things for illustrations, a blog with no pictures = no fun. I'll work on that.
Tonight i'm going to drink a margarita in front of a space heater to really celebrate cinco de mayo! And to keep warm of course!
Let me just start with this small dieting fact.. friday is not a good day to start anything having to do with eating healthy. the weekend is way too easy to cheat! which is in fact, what happened.
Saturday morning we went out to Rt 272 to pick up trash for Alex's brew club, there was just the right amount of people there.. it only took an hour or so and not too much trash to pick up. My legs were killing though from picking asparagus on thursday and not having the correct technique. Regardless, we finished. The club promised to pay for two beers at Stoudts in return for doing our good deed. How can I turn down 2 FREE beers?? That's where the beginning of the end began. First of all, their menu was wack.. it really surprises me how many places are carb unfriendly. Not even the salads looked appetizing.. or healthy for that matter. So I ordered a veggie pizza, and drank my two beers and we rolled out.
Then we took one of the longest drives ever from Adamstown to York for Mr. Steve's Grand Opening. Due to the dreary-ness of the weekend, it was basically empty there. Brings me back to the surprise party I just had where people RSVP'd yes then didn't show up, but hey.. stuff comes up, i get it. Anyway, we stayed there for a while, tried a couple more things. I drank a lovely sugar free red bull to wake myself up a bit and unfortunately also had a small bag of skittles.. oops!
Then we headed to the mall, I got Grandma's Boy for $5! So exciting. And when we got home we were going to watch Vantage Point, but Blockbuster sent us Cloverfield instead.. not a movie we wanted to see. But then Vantage Point was on one of our movie channels, so we previewed it to see if we actually wanted to rent it. A blur of laziness ensued. Next thing I know, we're going out to eat at El Rodeo and picking up some distilled water. I ordered fajita's and could only manage to eat 2.. then took home a whole take out box full of food, portion sizes in america are wack! Then i folded laundry (yawn) and watched Coyote Ugly.. then we finished the night with some Dewey Cox! I think that's our favorite movie.. it never gets old.
That was the best sleep i've had in a long time, that night. We woke up and Alex decided not to brew since it was raining.. again (when will it enddd!) So we vegged for a while until I got a call from my sister Jess. She was at the Park City mall nearby with the guy she's seeing, who I hadn't met yet. So after watching the season finale of Tough Love, Alex and I headed to the mall to meet them. I got a nice (ripped) dress at Forever 21 for 20% off.. easy fix. And then we headed to lunch at Iron Hill. There I had a salad, turkey sandwich and some sweet potato fries.. i'm not sure where that ended up, thinking back now I don't even think she ended up giving me the food she said she'd package up for me. Oh well. So meeting CJ was fun.. he's a super nice guy and that's good for Jess. After so many dimwits, you need a nice guy.
After this meal, alex and i vegged again until our Dinner in the burg at Firehouse Restaraunt. We were trying it out to see if it would be a good Rehearsal Dinner spot. The food was awesome, atmosphere.. casual. It was like fine (expensive) dining in a casual restaurant, with huge portions. Worth the cost due to the portions but still! Show me a place with small portions, anywhere.. please! We decided to check out Appalacian Brewing Co since it was nearby and they have a nice banquet room for occasions such as Rehearsal Dinners. The room is HUGE, way too big to fit 10-15 people, but the key was privacy. You get a whole room! Plus good beer, i don't even think they serve Miller Lite. We decided to make it our first choice with Firehouse as a back up.. I just need to see if it's available for our date. Oh, and at the firehouse, I had pasta for dinner.. i fell off the wagon and walked 3 miles this weekend. But don't worry.. i'll hop right back on! :)
Today is the first day of my South Beach diet. I tried to start yesterday but peanut butter cups were tempting me, so I'm starting today.
For breakfast I had one egg white and for my morning snack I had cheddar cheese and pepperoni. Now I need to figure out what I want to eat for lunch. Normally I pack my lunch with left overs or make a wrap.. that's how I got through my last diet, turkey wraps everyday for lunch. But I seem to be burnt out because they don't even sound remotely appetizing anymore. I didn't pack a lunch today because as usual, I ran out of time and also, we didn't have much to choose from. I was hoping the stir fryed veggies would be in there today but Alex must've taken them this morning. So now i'll probably roll up to the grocery store, pick out a sugar free red bull and mosey around looking for something no carb to eat. I'll probably pick up some sunflower seeds too.. gosh I love them. I never seem to finish a salad when I get it from the grocery store, so that's out. I really wish they had a stove top here at work so I could at least steam some veggies or cook up some refried beans. Maybe I should bring my hot pot in and use that? I wonder if I still have that thing. It worked really well making pasta back in college even though we weren't supposed to have them in the dorm. I'll have to look for that. Then when I get home I'll probably have a glass of milk and then we're off to dinner at a steakhouse so that should be easy.. steak and veggies! Busy weekend ahead, i'll have to prepare myself with healthy snack foods.
Oh man, it's already 12:15.. I should've left for lunch 15 minutes ago! Oh well.. it'll bleed into the next hour a little more. :)
I'm not sure where I want to begin my blogging journey but I might as well introduce myself.
I'm 24 years old and I work as a Marketing Assistant (but I call myself a Marketing Specialist) for a manufacturing company. My job is pretty easy, I have to say. It's everything I learned about in my Marketing classes in college, so that's good I guess. I'm looking for something more though, this definitely isn't a job I plan on staying in for years (I've already been here a year and a half). I'm looking into getting an Interior Design certificate from a local college because I've always loved interior design. I even started a degree in it when I first went away to college, but that school wasn't working out so I had to find a new major as well.
I'm engaged and will be marrying my fiance in June, so that's coming up pretty quickly. Things are busy now and will only be getting busier by the time the 13th rolls around. It's exciting though, and we're going to Hawaii for our honeymoon so we're super excited about that! So many people are engaged right now, it's crazy! But I guess i've been out of college for 2 years, so that's normal. Pretty soon everyone will start popping out babies too! Not me though, I plan on waiting at least 4 years.
I have a serious dream about building a home and Alex's parent's farm provides the land, now we just need to save the money to buy some of the land and build the home! It's a pretty daunting task but really that just means I need a higher paying job so that I can save the money, the job i'm in currently is under paying me which.. I know the economy is in a recession and all but I haven't gotten a raise since i've been here, oh other then the .25 they gave for cost of living or something.. what's a quarter going to do for me? After taxes it's about 18 cents an hour! I'm also determined to drop 10 pounds by my wedding day (shouldn't be hard) through utilizing the South Beach Diet. I lost 10 before Easter which I gained about 3 back because of the chocolate.. i really can't resist mini peanut butter cups. But I really need to buckle down since the wedding is about 6 weeks away. I need to look good for Hawaii! The South Beach Diet works though, so i'll outline all the stuff i'm doing to drop the weight, including Pilates which i'm adding into my diet/exercise regimen. Last time I took off the 10 lbs I did it without exercise, so pilates should help expedite the droppage!
Well that's a bit of a preview of my life.. elaborations to follow!
On a lighter/brighter note: My weekend was awesome! We found the kittens at Alex's parent's farm that we've been wondering about, by found I mean we saw them from a distance and when we went to search for them, we had no luck, they're good little hiders, well trained I guess. I'll find them next time i'm out there. I'm thinking of getting two of them and Laurel wants the other two, so that'd be perfect! Alex doesn't want a cat but they're so cute! Also, i've officially started my 18 day diet/exercise plan.. the South Beach has begun and this is the first time i'm actually exercising with it, so i'm hoping to get good results. Usually I lose about 8-10 lbs in 14 days, so maybe working out will speed this up. Plus, I need to be bikini fit for Hawaii. Super excited!
