Details, details

It's the beginning of August and I have 20 days until my internship and university classes start.  I need to finish planning the rest of my wedding AND write a 5 page (minimum) paper due when school starts.  You'd think I would be all over these things, but I'm unmotivated.

Whomever said wedding planning was fun is a liar.  For someone who doesn't like making decisions and takes awhile to decide something, these last few details have been torture.  That saying "the devil is in the details" seems to be true for this situation.

Hopefully I will find my motivation this week or at least after Saturday when I take a required state teaching test.

Celebrating in July

(I know I'm a horrible blogger.)

This month has been full of celebrating.  My younger sister got married the first weekend of the month.

The bride and I.  I'm the oldest of three girls and will be the last one to get married.


Then I made it to Lifetime Member status at Weight Watchers.  I was able to stay under my goal weight for 6 weeks and now I can attend meetings for free as long as I stay at or under my goal weight.  :)

Here I am with my leader Donna.  (After looking at this photo, I think I look sick.  But then I realized I didn't have any or much makeup on.)


Last week I had an interview with WW for a receptionist position.  I'm happy to say that I was hired!  :)  I'll be working part time which will be great for my class schedule this fall.

There's probably more I can blog about, but I can't think of anything else.  Since my summer class is over, my life is pretty boring and uneventful.

Crazy Semester

I've been horrible at keeping up with this blog!  These past 3 months have been CRAZY people!  I hope to update my blog this week with everything that has happened during that time and then continue posting a minimum of once a week.  There's lots to cover, so I better get started and see if I can figure out how to post under old dates.

Officially Passed!

After a crazy weekend of waiting, I received the results from my teacher certification test!!!

I passed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  So now I can teach 4th-8th grade in the state of Texas!  Woo hoo!!!

This was a difficult test to study for because of the span of information.  These grades learn US History, World History, and Texas History.  Plus think of the difference between 4th grade math and 8th grade math.  I remember taking Algebra 1 in 8th grade, but there are now kids taking Pre-Calculus.  So it was a lot of information, but I'm glad to have passed!

Passing this test means that I can become an intern/student teacher this fall AND I have opted out of 8, yes 8, classes at the university.  :)

This summer I plan to take one more test that is required to become a teacher.  It's like the ethics/law test and I'll be studying for it once my summer class is over.

Only 1 more year left in my program and then I'll be ready to teach!  SO EXCITING!!!

50 books

This semester I took a class called Survey of Children's Literature.  We were required to read 50 books and then create summaries on each of the books.  There were 12 required books and the other 38 needed to fit into categories that the teacher assigned us.  Unfortunately none of the books in my home library matched up with the qualifications.  :( So that doesn't qualify for one of my 101 tasks to complete.

Luckily I live near a great public library and my university has a children's book section to it.  I started reading the books over Christmas break and finished just in time to turn in my project.  It was a lot of reading, but I was able to read a variety of children's and young adult books that I would have never known existed.

(Can you see how I haven't had much time to post?)

Spring Break=Wedding Planning

Spring Break is usually a time for relaxing, taking a vacation, and going to the beach.  None of those activities are in the cards for me this week.

This spring semester is very hectic for me.  I'm tutoring 2.5 days a week, taking 10 hours of classes, AND trying to substitute teach as much as possible.  This week of "vacation" is the only time my parents and I can get together to start planning the wedding.

Since E and I talked about getting married and looking at rings, I've pictured us getting married at the Houston Zoo since we had our first date there.  I even went as far to emailing the Zoo officials after we started looking at rings in October to get prices on their venues.

Plans for this week include finding a venue and to start looking at dresses since it takes me a long time to make decisions.  I have the hardest time deciding on what to eat for lunch.  So making a big decision like which wedding dress to pick out, is going to take me a bit longer.

***************
Update on wedding plans:

Here's what I have accomplished during this Spring Break:

Checked out 4 different venue places

Booked my venue!  :)  (The venue is a large aquarium that will have the ceremony on the "second" floor.  We can choose to get married in front of the penguins, seals/sea lions, or a large Caribbean Reef.  They provide catering which includes a cocktail hour after the ceremony, linens for the reception tables and chairs, the reception buffet, and an ice sculpture.  The reception will take place downstairs on the "first floor" and a dance floor is included.  The hotel associated with the aquarium will provide the centerpieces for the reception.  Our guests will be able to explore the aquarium during the reception since the whole building is ours for the night.)

Booked the photographer who has shot in this venue before

Narrowed down my choices of wedding gowns to 2 (I officially decided on a dress a week later, and it arrived 2 weeks after I ordered it!)

Picked out the bridal party gowns

Now I need to find a DJ, florist, finalize the bridal party gown color, pick out flowers, pick out songs, and finish collecting my something borrowed, blue, old and new.  All of this planning will have to wait until after my younger sister gets married in July!

Did I mention that my wedding will be the 3rd one my parents have put on in the last 15 months???  :) At least this way they will be getting all of us married off sooner than later!

I'm Engaged!!!

EEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

E and I have been together for 4 years and we are now engaged!  We celebrated Valentines Day a little early and went out on Friday night, February 11th.  We found this dinner cruise that looked interesting and thought we'd try it out.  It wasn't what we were expecting.  There was a buffet line, but you couldn't get seconds and the food wasn't anything to write home about.

We walked back to the car and E said he couldn't find his phone.  I got out my phone to call his and locate it while thinking he better not have left his phone on the boat.  The phone rang in his glove box, so I opened the glove box, grabbed the phone, and gave it to him.  He asked me to open the glove box again.  There in the shadows, because it wasn't lit up very well, I could see the outline of a box.  Inside it was the ring I picked out several months earlier.  :)  He also wrote a note asking me to marry him next to the ring.

Who knew a blah dinner cruise could end so wonderfully!

55 gone, 10 left

I've been extremely busy lately and haven't had time to post.  Sorry about that!  But I wanted to share the good news I received last week.  I've officially lost 55lbs total!  Of those, 41lbs were lost while on Weight Watchers.  Lately my non-scale victories (NSV) have been avoiding free food at work, buying my first pair of pants in a single digit, and buying medium sized shirts.  As a teenager I jumped from the kids department to double digit clothing.  So it's exciting to finally be able to shop in the same stores as my sisters and friends.


I'm excited to hit this milestone and hope that the last 10lbs will come off quickly.  My 10 year high school reunion is in May and it would be great to show up being a WW member at goal.  The last time I was this skinny was probably in junior high school.


Here are some pictures of me at my heaviest versus now:

I can tell a big difference in my energy and even how I carry myself.  There are a few days when my mentality thinks I'm still at my heaviest, but those days are getting few and far between.


I hope to post more soon, but I'm bogged down with homework right now.  :(

Happy New Year!

Most people think of New Years Eve as a time to party, but I'd rather spend it at home with my loved ones.  This year we stayed at home, made some snacks, toasted to the new year, and just had fun.  Here's a photo of our snack spread...

Pretty yummy huh?  We had hummus, pita, pretzels, veggies, dip, little smokies, and a few slices of pumpkin pound cake.  Combine this food with a bottle of champagne and we were ready to go. 

Another thing people think of during NYE is what their resolution is going to be.  I haven't given it a lot of thought but I'd like to make some changes to my life this year.  I'd love to land a full time job in the fall instead of starting a non-paid internship.  I also want to improve on myself as a person, girlfriend, friend, sister, and daughter.  That's a pretty vague goal, but I know how I want to feel throughout the year.

Last but not least, I want to lose the last 13-15lbs to become a lifetime member at Weight Watchers.  There are several habits I need to work on this year to accomplish this goal like drinking 40oz of water a day, getting in all of the WW good health guidelines, and getting in more exercise.

I'm pretty sure my 10 year high school reunion and my younger sister's wedding will be big motivating factors to get to me to my goal.  Both are crazy events in that I don't feel old enough to be going to a 10 year reunion or having both of my younger sisters married before me.

I hope everyone had a great NYE celebration and that my friends have the best year possible!  I'm hoping to blog more in the new year and can't wait to read about how others are doing this year.  I believe 2011 will be better than 2010.

Super Busy

I've been a horrible blogger because I've been extremely busy.  Let me catch you up on the high points...


In early November, I celebrated my 28th birthday with a low key family event.  This is the first year that I haven't cried my eyes out on my birthday.  I'm comfortable with being 28 and where I am in my life.  On my birthday, I received a call from the principal of the middle school where I've been subbing a lot asking me if I'd like to tutor some of the students for the reading TAKS test.  Of course, I said yes and have been working as a tutor 3 days a week.  There was one week where I worked 3 days as a tutor and 1.5 days as a substitute.


Between working as a tutor and finishing up the fall semester at UHCL, I've been a busy woman.  My regular housework and workout schedules have gone down the drain, but it's been well worth it.


I'll be posting more this week between cleaning my house and reading for the upcoming semester.

Merry Christmas!

Here's wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!  I'll be blogging more this week so stay tuned!

Wordless Wednesday

Is Eight Enough? I think so!

I've been busy working, being sick, and working on school work to have time to blog.  Be prepared for a long, but cute/fun blog!  :)


Some of my friends have started "Tell it to me Tuesday" where each week you tell something about yourself.  Last week they talked about their pets and since I've been in a very unique situation I thought I'd tell ya'll about my pets.

This is my little girl, Lacy Marie.  She's now 5 1/2 years old and I adopted her from the Houston SPCA in September 2005 right before Hurricane Rita.  She's a sweetie who likes to be held, go outside to eat grass and smell flowers, eats like a dainty girl, but will play with bugs too.

This is my little boy, Samus.  My boyfriend, Ephram, and I adopted him from the Houston Humane Society in May 2008 right before we moved in together.  Sam loves hanging out with his dad, having his belly rubbed, laying on the back of the recliner, complaining/talking about anything and everything, and loves getting wet food for dinner.

Samus and Lacy are best friends. They love to hang out together whether it's when they are awake or asleep.

This is the newest addition to our gang.  Her name is Cici and we found her in our driveway under one of our cars in August 2010.  We call her Cici because she's a Crazy Cat or C.C.  She likes playing with her siblings, running around the house and playing with her boot toy pictured above.

Before CiCi came along, we noticed a mother cat and her 4 kittens hanging out in our backyard.  One afternoon, we thought one of the kittens got away from the mother and was crying in our neighbors yard.  After catching that kitten, taking care of it for a few days, and giving it to a friend, we discovered he wasn't part of our mama's litter.  

This is the little male cat we found in our neighbor's front yard crying.  He's name is Apollo.

To make a long story short, we borrowed some humane animal traps from a local Feral organization, caught all 5 cats in two attempts and eventually had them spayed/neutered.  We kept the cats in our guest bathroom after their surgeries and re-released them into our backyard.

Sounds crazy, huh?  At the time of her surgery, mama cat was pregnant again with 3 kittens.  I can't imagine having 8 cats living wild in our neighborhood on top of the other cats that we randomly see out and about.  Since we paid for them to get fixed, we are trying to help them survive as much as we can by leaving out food and water for them.  These cats are so sweet and happened to be born at the wrong place and time.

This is Mama Cat.  She's very skittish and won't come near humans.  If she sees us through the window, she freaks out and runs.

This is Max.  He's a handsome cat that will only come towards us if we are filling up the food bowl.

This is Anna.  She's just like Mama and runs when she sees humans.  We are still getting to know her personality since she doesn't hang out much where we can see her.

This is Emma.  She's a sweetie who likes to rub up against our french doors in the dining room.  She plays with Cici through the big windows in this room.  If we open the door though, she runs to the edge of the house.  She's still working on how much she likes humans.

This is Lyndon.  He's a sweetie who comes up to our back door looking for food and for us.  When we open the door to feed them, he walks a few feet away from us and waits patiently to be feed.


So our house has been full of cats going in and out the last few months.  It's been a little crazy, but totally worth it!  We have decided that having eight cats is plenty for us and we aren't looking to get any more.  :)


Hopefully things will be calmer in the next week and I'll be able to blog more!

The Clouds are Parting

I've spend the last few weeks trying to figure out when I would work out, study, and get things done in general.  Overall, I've sucked at creating a new routine.  But I'm working on it, I promise.

During that time, I've moped around the house wondering how I was going to be able to survive without income, hopefully not draining my savings, and how I would pass the time without a job.  I found out I was available to start substitute teaching, and once things calmed down at my house, I was sick and then 2 of my cats were sick, I accepted a half day job at a local middle school.  That turned out to be one of the best half days ever!!!

Word got around the hallway I was working in that I am a good substitute teacher.  The teacher I worked for emailed me the next day asking about 8 other days I could work for her.  Of course I said yes to all of the days including ones in the spring.  That same day, another teacher she works with called me asking if I could work 4 days for her this semester.  Again, I said yes.  :)  I spent two days last week with 5th graders and will spend another 2 days this week working with the same students.  

I'm excited because I can finally see how this career change is looking up for me.  At first I was worried about going to school at night and not having anything else to do.  But now I'm subbing and enjoying every minute of it.  I have training for another district at the end of October and I can't wait!

I apologize for not blogging, but between subbing and my computer not having internet access it's kind of difficult.  I have a bunch of pictures I want to post, so once I locate my jump drive I will be posting a lot!  Stay tuned!

Routine? What's that?

So I've spent the last 10 days unemployed and boy has it felt strange.  I haven't figured out a new routine for myself either.  There hasn't really been a set schedule of up at 7am, goof off (computer time, eat breakfast, etc) for x amount of time, then step away from the computer to study.  

Most days I'm up by 7am, on the computer/eating breakfast/watching tv until 10am then I start studying.  In all honesty it's more like "hmm...my facebook game will be ready to play again in 4 hours so why don't I get my homework done between now and then."  Or "umm...I've checked every website I have bookmarked twice now and nothing has changed, guess it's time to be productive."

Right now I haven't written out a schedule because I know that I will start substituting soon and that will throw things out of whack.  It's been nice hanging out at home for awhile, but I need to do something where I can leave the house that doesn't include shopping or spending money.  :)

Any advice on how to start a new routine would be great!

I have a lot of things I need/want to blog about and will hopefully be posting soon about music, my 101 things to do in 1001 days list, and about a cat invasion at my house.  Stay tuned!

Something More

Something More

By: Sugarland

Monday, hard to wake up

Fill my coffee cup, I'm out the door

Yeah, the freeway's standing still today

It's gonna make me late, and thats for sure

I'm running out of gas and out of time

Never gonna make it there by nine

[Chorus:]

There's gotta be something more

Gotta be more than this

I need a little less hard time

I need a little more bliss

I'm gonna take my chances

Taking a chance I might

Find what I'm looking for

There's gotta be something more

Five years and there's no doubt

That I'm burnt out, I've had enough

So now boss man, here's my two weeks

I'll make it short and sweet, so listen up

I could work my life away, but why?

I got things to do before I die

[Repeat Chorus]

Some believe in destiny, and some believe in fate

I believe that happiness is something we create

You best believe that I'm not gonna wait

'Cause there's gotta be something more

I get home 7:30 the house is dirty, but it can wait

Yeah, 'cause right now I need some downtime

To drink some red wine and celebrate

Armageddon could be knocking at my door

But I ain't gonna answer that's for sure.

There's gotta be something!

[Repeat Chorus]

On Wednesday September 1st, I put in my two weeks at my job! This has been a tough decision and it has taken me a long time to make. My last day on the job is tomorrow (September 12th). It's a strange feeling to be leaving the place I've worked for the past 5 years with the coworkers that I've gotten to know and like. Part of me is excited and happy to be leaving and not knowing what the future is going to hold. The other part of me wants to keep the security blanket and not jump into the pool of the unknown as I call it.

The day I quit and the day after, I felt like I jumped into the deep end of the pool and was treading water. I felt like I couldn't breathe and that I needed a noodle or flotation device to help me from what I just did. But in the last week, I've moved into a calm, happy, excited place where I know I'm making the right decision for myself, my current family and my future family.

My goal now is to continue taking classes at the university down the street from my house, it's literally 3 miles away by car, and start substitute teaching this semester. I subbed this past spring and absolutely loved it. I started classes this summer and have loved every minute of that. I think I was meant to be in a school environment.

The best thing would be to land a full time teaching gig for January. To do that I have a lot of reading and studying to do so that I can take and pass my state certification exam. I plan on starting that on Monday once I'm finished with this strange and crazy work schedule that I've been on all week. Right now, I'm planning to get certified in 4th-8th grade but would prefer to teach 4th-6th.

This blog has gotten away from me due to the craziness in my life and trying not to reveal that I wanted to quit my job to start a new career before I actually quit and told my bosses. There are a lot of things I need to update including my list of 101 things that I want to accomplish. That list is going to be tricky because I've forgotten to write down what I've accomplished and even though I did reach a monetary goal on the list, I will be dipping into my savings until I get a full time job.

I hope to make a schedule so that I can keep up with my studies, work outs, this blog, and life in general. I guess I'll post it on here so that way I can keep myself in check. :)

Hope the few people that still read this blog will stay with me and continue to support me through this new adventure I'm on.

Heather

drowning in coupons

I've been slacking when it comes to clipping coupons, sorting them and then processing them to send to troops over seas. I decided that I was going to at least clip and sort all the coupons in my house on Monday. Before going to bed last night I felt proud that I had accomplished that goal and planned to "process" the coupons on Tuesday and get them ready to be mailed out. (processing= typing the worth of the coupons into excel so I know how much "saved money" I'm sending over seas.)

It's Tuesday and as I've been working on cleaning the house, I've found more coupons. Not "I've found 10 coupons to sort", more like "I've found a large stack of newspaper coupons that have been clipped, another large stack of coupons printed from the internet that need clipping, AND a large stack of newspaper coupons that need clipping."

AAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The whole thought of going through all these coupons that haven't been clipped or sorted makes me want to give up on the whole project! I have a bunch of stuff I'd like to accomplish today and I don't need to be sitting on my butt clipping coupons while watching recorded tv from my dvr TWO DAYS IN A ROW!!!!!

*sigh*

Have I mentioned that I've lost my motivation to lose weight and get back into a work out routine??

Yep I have. I can't get motivated to do it. I don't know when to fit it into my new schedule and it's frustrating me. On a positive note, I've gotten back to tracking what I eat this week. I've gone WAY over my points allotment on a few days and I've almost eaten my way through the extra 35 points we get for the week! Eck!!

Oh that note, I guess I need to get my butt up from the computer and start working on my long to do list, which includes coupons, cleaning house, and working out. :-/

Hello old friend...

It's been awhile since I've posted and the only excuse I have is that my life (which I'm suppose to be blogging about) has been busy. I've been working 6 day weeks for the last month and a half. I've enjoyed working 6 days in a row, and before you call a shrink for me let me explain.

I've been working at my regular job for 5 days and then I've been working as a substitute teacher for the other day of the week. There was one day where I was crazy and subbed for 8 hours before going to my regular job. I was tired at the end of the day, but I survived. There's been a recent schedule change at my regular job within the last week, so instead of working at night I'm working during the day. I'm liking it so far and enjoy being at home in the evenings with my boyfriend and our cats. It's the closest thing I've had to a normal life in the last 5 years. I'm still working on the weekends, but that doesn't bother me because it allows me to sub.

So other things going on....

I broke into the 150s and will be fighting to stay here and break into the 140s. That is going to involve me getting back to the gym and working out this week. Even with my body feeling better, a gym membership that is paid in full, a stability ball & bike at home and numerous workout dvds at home, I haven't worked out since probably early February. I can't even remember the last time I worked out. My goal for this week is to workout 3 times. I'm hoping that slowly getting back into it will be good for me and encourage me to workout more next week.

Because of my new schedule change, I had to stop going to my morning WW meeting. This week I'm going attend a meeting in the evening and hopefully will find a new meeting to call home. I just want to keep my life consistent and that includes when I go to my WW meeting.

Thanks to the tax refund that I received today from the IRS, I was able to complete one of my 101 things! YEAH!!!! 45. Expand my car fund to $10k.

It took me awhile to do on my small income and I've been putting any/all saved money to this fund. I've been putting money into this fund for years and to finally have that much money saved is exciting!! I'm not going to be buying a car anytime soon, but there are a few expenses coming up in the next month with the car I currently drive. It's nice to know if the cost of the repairs is high, I won't have to eat ramen noodles to survive until it's paid off.

Other than that news, I've been toying with the idea of going back to college. I'm not sure what I would want to study or if I'd want to get another Bachelors or start a Masters degree. It's such a life altering decision and I find it hard to decide where to eat dinner. So I will be thinking of this and trying to figure it all out within the next couple of months.

I'm also going to set a new goal of posting a blog once a week at the least. I'll let ya'll know how the working out goes this week!

C25K & Weight Loss Update

Sorry I haven't been good at keeping up with this blog, but things have been busy. I'm behind on a lot of things: reading my novel, tv shows are stacking up on my dvr, and the blogs I'm subscribed to haven't been read in forever.

From the first week of January to the first week of February, I've lost 5.6lbs. I'm excited about that, but feel that I'm running out of steam. :( I'm going to challenge myself again to track my foods everyday for the month of February. It worked well last month, so I'm hoping it will work again this month.

Last night was a challenge at work with all the Superbowl foods that were around. I went a little crazy and didn't feel very well by the end of the night. I'm hoping that eating well the next 2 days will help my weigh in on Wednesday.

So today I'm starting over with a Fiber One Yogurt and a banana for breakfast. It may not seem much of a breakfast, but considering I'm just now eating at 10:15am, it works. I've discovered that since I normally sleep until 9am everyday, I'm not eating breakfast until 10. It kind of throws off my eating schedule for the day, but it also helps because I am usually working late every day.

On the exercise front, things have come to a complete halt. Week 1 of C25K I developed shin splints, but after some rest and then wearing proper running shoes I felt much better finishing up W1 and starting W2.

During Week 2, I tried running outside because of the gorgeous weather and really found out how different it is than the treadmill. In the middle of W2, I started having some knee pain. I wasn't able to finish my workouts and opted to switch over to the bicycle for the rest of the week.

On my 2nd Week 2 (I felt like I needed to redo this week and not move on to Week 3), I tried to start working out again and decided to quit because the knee pain started up again.

Before starting Weight Watchers, I would jog/walk around Memorial Park's 3 mile loop a couple of times a week for about a month or two. I was 26lbs heavier and I don't remember any knee pain what so ever. I'm not sure what's going on, but the knee pain has disappeared.

My plan is to slowly ease back into working out. That includes weights, squats, cardio and the C25K program. I'll keep updating my progress, but it looks like I will have to put off the C25K program for the time being.

Hopefully I will be able to finish the program and participate in another 5K this year.

Measuring Wine & Yummy Lasagna

This is the 12th day I've been tracking with WW. I'm not talking a theoretical 12th day, but an actual, I have the proof written down, 12th day.

That's a first for me! I also did something tonight that I've NEVER done before. In the 3 years I've been a WW member, I have NEVER measured out my alcohol. Before I would just not count it or save up all my extra points for that day and then not count any of them.

Tonight, I measured out 4 oz of water, added it to my wine glass, and then used a washable marker to make a line on the glass. Then I filled red wine to that line and enjoyed!

It was a very satisfying experience to know that I was in control of the amount of wine. It also helped that I had a bunch of veggies and 1 slice of pizza for my dinner. So I was satisfied with food and with the alcohol!

:)

I hope that the days to come are filled with satisfying foods and that I keep tracking.

PS- For a yummy recipe for Slow Cooker Lasagna go here. I replaced most of the "fatty" ingredients with low fat/fat free versions and it was SO good. I'm not a ricotta cheese fat, but this was just right in that sense.