The BEST part of Easter

That's right Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs. EVERY Easter I look forward to getting my hands on one or two of these.

I stopped off at Rite Aid yesterday on my way to work specifically for one of these precious gems. To my surprise, they now have KING sized peanut butter eggs. I don't think I even need to tell you which one I bought.

The best part is that even though I strayed by having one of these ginormous delights, I still lost weight for the day :)

Woot woo! 3 lbs to go!

Update

I've got to say, this past week off for spring break has been GREAT. I have had to do some studying, but I did get to enjoy a lot more of it than I thought I would. I'm sad to go back to an exam first thing Wednesday morning :(

These next couple of weeks are going to be chaotic. On April 10th, I have an exam that will determine if I get to move on to my 2nd year in the program. Needless to say, I'm very stressed about it.

Brian's mom and sister have released some cute photos from the wedding. I'm also working on prepping for my cousin Nikki's wedding in October. She wants us all in black, and I found a super cute black dress that is going to be just perfect....so I'm all set there. However, she's having a bachelorette party in Las Vegas this August, which means I need to save up MUCHO DINERO for flight, drinks, hotel, etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it will be tons of fun, but I'm not looking forward to all the money it's going to cost :(

All of these weddings are making me very....antsy. lol. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

I got to go up last week to see baby Connor. He's doing really well and has already gained FOUR POUNDS in the last month! You would never guess it though, he has also gained some length so it has all evened out. Such a cutie! As much as I love him though, that is one thing I'm NOT antsy for just yet, lol.

Weight loss is going slow but steady. I've lost 6 lbs since I started and have another 4 to go. Over the summer, I'd like to start hitting the gym more to start toning up a bit....mostly my arms and back. We'll see how that goes!

Anyway, time to shower and head off to work....I'll check in later when there are some more blog-worthy things going on in my life, lol.

lol

Goodbye Alex!

So, my brother in law....(ok, not really. He is my cousin's husband. My cousins and I are so close that I consider him a brother in law.)

Anyway, my brother in law is in the Marine reserves and headed out to Iraq. This weekend was his last weekend before he heads off for 7 months, so we wanted to all get together and do something fun. There isn't much "fun" in Fremont, so we all ended up at the Saddle Rack. It isn't a place that we would choose to go normally, but we all had lots of fun anyway.

So goodbye to Alex. You will be missed by all of us and we can't wait to have you home safe and sound. You can keep up on how this Marine wife is doing while he is gone. Maybe send her some nice thoughts.

I'm too short to get everyone in the picture. My arms only stretch so far!

Good luck getting this bunch to be serious...

Nice husband and wife slow dance

All of my boys!

Driving Me Crazy!

Ever since I got the new cat, I have found cat piss in inappropriate locations on four occasions. The first time was in my purse, the second was in an empty shoe box, the third was on my old bath mat, and the fourth was on my new bath mat.

This time, they did it on a Sunday when I was out of quarters to do laundry....and I can't go to a bank on a Sunday.

I don't know who is doing it, so I cannot punish the behavior. Every time I've had to suck it up and just clean the mess. I'm already scooping the box every other day, to make sure that their box is clean. Maybe I need to start doing it every single day? Wow, as if I'm not busy enough already...

I did some online researching and found that it can be due to stress. My cats don't get along particularly well, so I can imagine this would be causing some stress. I also changed the litter box recently to a larger, enclosed box, which could also be stressing them out I suppose.

I read that ideally, you should have 1.5 litter boxes per cat in the home. This seems crazy to me...If I don't need 1.5 toilets (I'm not sure what .5 of a toilet would look like...) then I'm not sure why my cat's would. That's THREE litter boxes for a tiny one bedroom apartment. Just seems a bit excessive. It's hard enough as it is to hide ONE litter box and fight the odor in a place as small as this.

Fortunately, I saved the old smaller box, so I'll start using that one too. I don't know where I'm going to put it that is out of general view, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Sorry kitties, it' s only 1 litter box per cat, but this will just have to do. Spoiled little shits.

I'll keep you all posted on the results.

Saint Patrick's Day Bust

I didn't get to do ANYTHING for Saint Patty's this year. I studied for a midterm all day and then was in class until 9pm. After that, I had to come right home to finish up papers that are due at 9am tomorrow. It's nearly 1 am now and I have to get to bed to be up by 7 for a full day of classes.

At the very least, it would have been nice to drink some green beer and eat some green food :(

Well, Happy Saint Patricks Day to you all anyway...even though it is technically tomorrow by now.

Saint Patty's Pedis!

My cousin Holly took me out and treated me to a pedicure. I LOVE to get regular pedis, but I lost a lot of income when I had to drop the classes I teach from 4 down to 3 to stay afloat in my own classes. Since then I've been painting my own toes...sometimes....when I'm not lazy lol. Most of the time the paint is chipped and fugly.



Thanks Holly!

Weight Rundown 3

I have now lost the 1 lb I was up from the wedding weekend plus an additional .6 lbs. It has been going slower since I ate half a pizza on Wednesday night and caused my friend to cheat on her poor husband, but a 1.6 lb loss for one week is still really good.

It feels great because even though I'm not back to my normal weight, this is the lowest I've been since before the holidays.

Halfway there!

No More Interviews!

My MS clinical psychology program is all in efforts to become a marriage and family therapist (MFT). Even though I will have my masters degree in clinical psychology in a little over a year, that will only make me a marriage and family therapist intern (MFTI). In order to become a full blown MFT, I have to get 3,000 intern hours. Well, the board of behaviorial sciences requires that 150 of those hours are obtained before we graduate, so we have all been looking for MFT trainee placement positions for the last couple of months.

I applied to two different places. One was with the YWCA and would involve working with a lot of women and families. I was really interested in this position because they work with a lot of battered women, and I since I work with batterers, I've always been interested in getting experience with the other side of the coin.

The other position was with Fair Oaks Mental Health Center. They work with a lot of the...well..."crazy, crazies" lol. A lot of schizophrenic, bipolar, PTSD, depression...things like that. This population intimidates me a bit, BUT, it is a paid position so this made it a pretty attractive option.

Well, Fair Oaks left a message on my machine today offering me a position. I think that while the population is a bit intimidating, it is for the best because I could potentially quit my work with batterers and focus on just school and my placement. School, placement AND work would probably be WAY too much.

I haven't heard anything from the YWCA but I think that is ok. It seems to make the most sense to accept this offer and just move on with my life. I've been on FIVE interviews for these two different position. All while balancing school, studying for the big exam in April that determines if we move on to 2nd year, and work.

I am so done with the stress of job searching!

Turtle Sex

I had to post this...who's day couldn't use a little turtle sex with a shoe? Thanks Jesse!

Meet My Little Shithead

Here she is...Miss Shithead.



Last night, she decided to run out the front door and take off. It was roughly 11pm and dark as hell. I had to crawl around outside on my hands and knees looking under all the bushes around the front of my apartment complex. I finally found her in a planter box around the other side of my unit.

I grabbed the little snot before she could run and threw her butt back in the apartment. She was scared for about 15 seconds and then proceeded to come lay at my feet and take a nap like nothing had happened. Glad to know this adventure didn't wake HER up or anything.

Until this one becomes less of a handful, I have affectionately named her Shithead.

The Wedding

The wedding was a ton of fun. It is very rare that his entire family has the chance to get together like that, and it was sad when it all ended because I think we all knew that it wouldn't be happening again for quite some time.

The ceremony was great, and it was so cute to see just how in love they are with one another. I just barely managed not to cry by looking at the ground instead of how intently Rich was staring at his bride :)

By the time the reception came around, we were all absolutely exhausted. The boys had been up super late drinking and enjoying their time together, so most of us only ended up with anywhere from 3.5-5 hours of sleep the night before. I was unfortunately on the lower end of that. It still went well though, we were all just a bit less lively than I'm sure we normally would have been.

I'll post a couple of pictures when I get them. I'm especially looking forward to some pictures that Brian's mom took of the two of us all dressed up after the ceremony. I haven't had any pictures taken of me since I cut my hair short last December, and he and I rarely get any pictures together :)

The best part of the whole weekend was that even though I did not follow my diet AT ALL on Fri, Sat, and part of Sun, I only gained 1 lb for the entire weekend. I was expecting more, so it was a nice surprise.

The only really bad part of the weekend was coming home to the MESS that Tawny had created while I was gone for 2.5 days. She tore apart one of her little mouse toys and flung the stuffing everywhere. She then dumped over her little mini scratcher and all its contents of catnip on the floor. She topped that all off by unrolling ALL of the toilet paper and ripping it to shreds on the bathroom floor. I came home to a completely empty roll.

Last, but not least, I left an empty shoebox in the floor and one of the cats chose to pee in it like a litter box. This pottying in inappropriate places has now happened twice since bringing Tawny home, but I can't punish a behavior I didn't see since I don't even know who did it. Baby does have a history of doing this when her box is dirty (although she hasn't done it in years), and I don't know Tawny's history...so it is really hard to say. I DO know that Tawny chose to eat ALL of the tons of food I left out for the 2.5 days and went on a poop fest. The box was FULL in that short period of time.

In any case, my only option was to suck it up and pull out the mini carpet cleaner. The box soaked most of it up, but you could smell it on the carpet below. I cleaned the shit out of that one spot and the entire surrounding area. The last thing I want is for them to smell the residual and think that this is an ok place to pee.

Oddly enough, after being left alone for 2.5 days, Tawny has been WAY more confident compared to before. It's like she suddenly realized that this is her house and she doesn't have to be scared. She now follows me around and hangs out in whatever room I am in. Too cute :)

Weight Rundown 2

It has only been...*quickly counts on fingers while looking at the ceiling*...6 days since I started my diet and I'm already down 4.6 lbs. And no, I haven't been starving myself, I've been following my points, drinking all the water I'm supposed to, and getting on most days lots of sleep.

The first couple days were a little harder since my body was getting used to eating less food, but it's not like I've been eating a ton of food before, so I'm already to the point where I feel satisfied eating my 20 pts each day. In fact, sometimes I have to eat more at the end just to hit it.

I've discovered that weight watchers has come out with 2 point chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream cups. YUM. Ice cream and cookies are my absolute weaknesses when it comes to food, so it is nice to be able to incorporate it into my diet.

I realize that all this initial quick loss is all the easy weight. I remember that when I did this before, I started tapering off to 1-2 lbs a week after a certian point. I'm just hoping that since I'm starting this while it was only at 10 lbs, I won't taper off before I hit it. Oh, in a perfect world...

5.8 to go!

:-D