Hello!

Hello!  Hey!  Hi there!

I'm taking a cue from Katie and starting this week at work I've been dressing (more) for success.  I'm dressing for the job I want, not the job I have - or something like that.  Perhaps feeling a bit better about myself?  That's still to be decided.

I really just wanted to check in and say hello.  I've missed you. 

Wedding is over, as well as the stress headaches.  Below are a few of my favorite pictures from the day.  Sean's sister Rebecca took the first two and the bottom picture was from Katie's camera.



This shows a lot of the emotion of the ceremony. Tears all around.

My handsome husband and I after the ceremony.

Sean and his mom were dancing, but Lilly and Charlie wanted to dance, so we all danced a bit together.

Happy Thursday!!

Weigh in Wednesday

No beating around the bush today.

April 4, 2012: +1.7 pounds, -36 pounds total

I have a problem.  I have a food addiction.  I love sweets.  I can be trusted around anything with sugar in it.  I need a sugar intervention.  I love to bake, which in turn, makes me want to eat everything I bake.  Basically, that means no baking.  I think I need a sugar detox.  Or to only eat savory foods, no sweets.  I need help with my eating.  I need to be better at tracking things in Lose It.  I need to quit making excuses for myself. 

This weight loss thing is hard.  I knew that.  I lost the motivation I had in the beginning.  I'm at the weight I was during college.  My clothes are fitting again.  In turn, that makes me feel comfortable.  But.  I'm still incredibly unhappy with the way I look.  So unhappy. 

Like I said, I have a food addiction.  I eat because I'm bored.  I'm bored because I have a sad social life.  I eat to numb the pain of feeling like I have no friends.  I've been this way my whole life.  I've eaten to numb the pain of something else going on.  That has to be the most real and vulnerable thing I've said here.  This is real life.

Reasons why I eat to fill the void of:

• feeling like I've lost all of my close friends.
• pushing away the friends that were once close to me.
• feeling like a failure when it comes to my career -- I know what I want to do with my life, but I can't do that without years of experience and no one will give me the experience I need.  Feeling like a failure.

This feeling is a double edge sword.  I still have thoughts of this below.

Reasons why I want to be as healthy as possible:

• To feel good about myself and be happy with myself.
• When Sean and I are ready to have a baby a few years from now, I want my body to be in tip top shape.
• To be happy.  I know reaching my goal weight will not make instant happiness, but the journey of getting there and working my ass of (literally) is what will make me happy.

It's kind of a sad state around these parts.  Never fear, I'm still the happy, optimistic person I usually am, but a weight gain makes these kinds of thoughts run through my head.  I don't want to sugar coat things.  This little bloggy blog is me and sometimes I'm sad and down on myself.

I'll be back to my bubbly self in the next blog post. 

Friday.

Highlight of my day so far.

We look like young little babies.

Being able to fit into and wear that shirt.  This picture was taken on Sean's graduation day from St. Thomas, four years ago.  This picture is bittersweet.  The next day, he moved to the east coast and our across the country long distance relationship began.  Thankfully, I see him every day now and we're getting married. 

I'm going to visit Travis, Becky, and Charlie in Winona.  What are you doing this weekend?

Optimism.

Optimism is a funny thing.  One second, it's there, and the next second I'm complaining about something else.  Me being cold, me not wanting to go to work, me not wanting to bike against the wind every direction I need to go, blah, blah, blah.

Enough is enough.  I've decided to try to be optimistic in most crappy situations.  Examples:

• People are annoying, but it is probably me that is annoyed and the situation, not the person.
• I want to slap people, but again that is me and the situation, not the person's fault.
• At work, the school next door is playing their band music super loud.  Eh, it could be worse.
• The people living above my apartment sound like they're coming through the floor.  Eh, it could be worse.
• It's cold outside.  No, actually it's not.  We've been spoiled this winter and spring.  This is above-average and abnormal. 

Attempting to be optimistic.  What have you been complaining about that you could look on the bright side of things?

Exhausted.

Tomorrow night Christa and Katie are coming over for wine and wedding crafts.  Becky, I'll bring more crafts along with next weekend!

Good things to happen this week:

• I have a garden plot
• Sean is employed

I prepped food for tomorrow night and have cleaned the apartment.  I'm exhausted.  I think an early bed time is in order this evening.

Good night world.

A few photos.

Man hand.

This is my left hand today.  Sean and I went and picked out our wedding bands tonight.  His is already in our possession because Arthur's had the ring in his size.  My ring has to be custom made so it fits my engagement ring.  So, for the next week or so I will be without my engagement ring.  When we got home, I took stock of all of my rings and only two fit my left ring finger.  This one and another crazy one.  At least with this giant ring, my finger won't feel so naked. 

Mmmmm, beer.

This is Sean taking the first drink of his first batch of home brewed beer.  It has all been drank by now with a second batch brewing.

We're cheesy.

This is Sean and I before we were going out to celebrate my birthday.  I don't remember why we were laughing.

Delicious.

Long overdue picture of my birthday cake.  This was the only requirement for my birthday this year.  And next year.

That's life, in a nutshell.

Did you notice?

Did you notice I didn't blog about Weigh in Wednesday this morning?  After all, it is Wednesday.

Let me tell you why.  Seeing as yesterday was my birthday, I don't think calories should count on your birthday.  I know, what irrational thinking.  That is exactly why I am overweight now.  Trust me, I know.

But.  My one wish for my birthday was that Sean get me an ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery.  Boy, did he come through.  He got me the six inch sized cake.  It layers red velvet cake with cake batter flavored ice cream.  It was amazing.

Not only did Sean get me a fantastic cake, he also made my birthday a thousand times better.  You see, yesterday I was feeling pretty blue.  I totally wanted to have a pity party by myself for the entire day.  I think I've figured out the reason why I was so upset, and no, it's not only because I discovered my first wrinkle.  I've been having a mini quarter life crisis.  I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I want to do with my life and I can guarantee it is not what I am doing now.  I want to find something where I am genuinely happy to wake up and go to work every day.  Yesterday and the days leading up to it I was completely freaking out.  I still kind of am, but I will find my way.

Anyway, about my birthday evening.  I got home from work and Sean showed me the cake in the freezer and the bottle of wine he picked up for me.  He cooked me dinner: steak, roasted veggies, and baked potato.  I drank my bottle of wine over the course of the evening.  Sean gave me Adele's CD so I can belt it while in the car.  He let me watch Glee, New Girl, and Raising Hope.  He let me fall asleep on the couch with a lap kitty.  It was a fantastic end to the day.

Of course phone calls from my parents, Becky and Charlie, and a text message from Travis were very important to me as well.  Katie even sang me happy birthday when I got to work yesterday morning.  All in all, my 24th birthday was pretty great.  It was definitely better than last year's recovery from my appendectomy surgery.

Today though, calories totally count.  Now it is all focus on losing weight for the wedding dress and reminding myself of how badly I want to reach my goal weight.