Can you hear me now??

At work, I get L-O-T-S of phone calls all day long....and I never knew how many people didn't have any idea how to talk to someone on the phone.  Whatever happened to "Hi, May I speak to _______ please?"  Or even, "I have a question regarding _________, could you direct me to the person I need to speak to please?"  Instead I get a lot of "Uh.....who's this??"   or "Uh yea...get me John..." or my personal favorite "Uh........what???" Note to self people,...when you call a place of business, at least go through in your head for just a second so the person on the other end of the phone (someone like me) isn't trying to decode your jibberish. :)

All Aboard!!

There are many things that people associate with the fall season. Leaves change colors, nights get colder, and NEW TV SHOWS!! This season, i'm smitten with PanAm and not only for the fun storylines and great locations, but the CLOTHES!!! I'm torn because although I love the style of clothes they wore, i know it took a lot of time to look that way, and i don't have that patience for that....hahaha. I did some research and found it's not too hard to get the same looks, even in our modern day stores. Hmm...I sense a shopping trip in the near future! :) Click here to read an article to prove im not the only one interested in this :)

Everyone is a 3 year old at heart

When I was a kid, I thought (as i'm sure most kids do) that I would know everything by the time I was 25 years old.  I would know how the world works, I would be dealing with people who were intelligent and understood the world as well, and who were going to run the world with me as an adult.  Well here I am, 26 in fact, and all I can tell you is that is NOT the case at all.  I've come to find out that most adults, myself inclued, and just kids dressed in big kid clothes.  We all want attention, most of us don't know how to share, and we get bruised even easier than we used to, and when we think we are right, we all have to stand up and make as much noise as possible until we get our way, basically a big temper tantrum.  So really....growns up are just playing dress up! Just with bigger toys and more money....who knew!

2 years down! Forever to go!

2 years ago today, Brock and I became husband and wife and it's amazing how fast time goes by!! It just seems like barely 1 year ago yet along two!! We've both grown so much and are still learning new things about each other and I can't wait to see what is in store for the years to come!! Here are some pictures of our blissful day that was 2 years ago

 

CHEERS to many more!!! xoxo :)

There's always gotta be 1....

Scene 1:

Picture it.  San Francisco. Summer time, On a Trolly. The breeze blowing over you gently pushing the hair off your forehead clearing up the view in front of you and allowing you to enjoy the beautiful scenery.  You get a whif of the pastries that were just freshly baked, as they're put out available for purchase by people on the street and then...just when everything surrounding your senses is starting to blend perfectly into a masterpiece someone says ...

"LOOK AT ME....I'M FLYING!!!! WEEEEEEEEE LOOK! LOOK AT ME!!! TAKE MY PICTURE!! IM LIKE LEO IN THE ONE MOVIE....WEEEEEE!" All of a sudden, all those great feeling you had going on....go crashing to the ground. Now you get a smile on your face after imagining that person falling off the trolly and getting ran over by a car, that happened to have Leonardo DiCaprio in it :)

Scene 2:

It's a Saturday night, and you're enjoying the latest suspense flick at your local theatre.  You've eaten half of the popcorn tub already and have to pee because you've gone through half of your extra large Coke. You don't want to leave yet though because the suspense is literally too much for you to handle, and you can't WAIT to see what happens. It's about to get to the part where everything comes together and you finally find out what the answer to life really is....and then....
*RIIIINNNNGGGG*  *RRIIIINNNNGGGG*  "Hello? Oh hey what's up man? Nah....im just watching a movie here, what's goin on with you?"....... uh ...hello??? we're in a MOVIE THEATRE!!!! its not your house, and this ain't the Tivo kind of place that you may be used to....and just like that....all your suspense energy from the movie changes into you using every muscle in you body to help you sit down and not get up to punch the guy in the face and throw his cell phone 4 rows back.


There always has to be one jerk-face who needs all the attention on them or forgets that they aren't the only one in the room and it ruins the wonderful experience for everyone else. If you don't know who the jerk-face is in your group.....it's probably YOU! just fyi. :) This reason alone is why I hate going to the movie theatre. I'd much rather sit at home, in bed, in my pj's, with a bowl of my own popped popcorn that I didn't have to pay $8 for, and a coke that I can refill whenever I want and enjoy the movie that way without any outside restrictions.  I think it's because I have a control problem....but that's beside the point...it's just plain RUDE!!

That's how it was this past weekend.  My husband and I were enjoying a wonderful weekend in San Diego to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary, and decided to end our trip with a trip to the San Diego Zoo which was so much fun!!! Until.....we got to the end of day and we were on the guided tram tour around the park.  We were just minding our own business on the top of the tram, towards the back and enjoying the wonderful view, when during the tour guide's explanation of the surrounding areas, and very large tan man with cutoff sleeves and grey hair starts waving at the people below and going "hello!!!! Hello!!! Hey!! I'm up here!!!! Hello!!!"  Like REALLY??? I'm sure the people down on the street are just DYING to wave back at you, in fact...that's the whole reason they came to the zoo!!! JUST to wave at you...and now their life is complete.....and this guy did it for THE REST OF THE RIDE....oh!!! and it gets better.....
When we got to the section that had the wart-hogs....the tour guide said that "you may recognize these animals from The Lion King, this is what Pumba was..." and that was just more fuel to his fire....the rest of the time he was yelling "PUMBA!!!!! HEY PUMBA!!!! LOOK AT ME PUMBA!!!!! I'M WAVING AT YOU......." i'm sure the wart-hogs were just looking at him and think "nu-uh this guy is not seriously waving at me...really??" because....you know...that's how wart-hogs think.... :)

SOooo.....the moral of this story is....don't be an inconsiderate asshole....unless you're at home then you can do what you please, but....when you have to share space with other people outside of your home...be kind and rewind please. :)

Carb is another four letter word...

It's been a while since i've posted and I thought I would post about something that i've been getting asked about a lot.  Lately Brock and I have been on a no-carb diet and we've both lost a good amount of weight! We started in May, and to date, i've lost 25 pounds, and he's probably lost between 30 and 35 (grrrrr) but people keep asking me why i'm doing it and how i'm doing it. So i'm going to answer those questions here...

We both had put on some extra weight during our first year of marriage (the newlywed 20??) and after we got our fill (pun totally intended) we were looking for something to do about it.  We didn't want to diet though, we knew that if we wanted to lose a good amount of weight and keep it off we had to do a lifestyle change.  So Brock did some research and we decided to try a (eventually) low-carb diet, but since we wanted to drop some serious weight, we had to start out NO carbs. then gradually introduce carbs back into our diet.  We keep it light, with fish, vegetables, beef, and chicken.  We've also chosen to give up dairy (except for cheese) and sugars. Luckily Brock is an awesome cook or else I would have gotten bored with it and gave up a long time ago!! haha! He's come up with some great recipes that keep it fresh when we have dinner.  For breakfast and lunch we're on our own since we are both at work.  Sometimes we have enough left overs from dinner that we can bring the next day but usually it's so good we eat it all up!! In the morning I usually eat scrambled eggs, and a couple pieces of bacon, then for lunch I have a chicken ceasar salad, then for dinner its usually whatever Brock comes up with.  Some good steak, or chicken recipe.  One of the recipes we do is something we call "Chicken Stuff" it's a dish that we actually had at Brock's brother's house one holiday season, and it was so good and easy, we decided to make it ourselves! I wrote it down as best I could, but the beauty of making your own recipe is that you can add or take out anything you'd like! So feel free to use this recipe as a base for something you can create yourself!

Items:
*4 Chicken breasts seasoned to taste (we used cayenne, salt, and pepper on ours and it spices up the rest of the dish)

*3 cans of chicken broth

*2 cans of diced tomatoes in juice

*½ blue carton of mushrooms sliced (or more if you like mushrooms)

*approx 4 cups of Artichoke hearts (we use the Costco ones that are marinated in oil already in a jar, but you can marinate them with whatever you’d like before putting them in)

any other vegetables you may want to put in, we’ve used squash before (right before the end or it will get too smushy)

you can also add basalmic vinegar if you want- depnding on how much you like vinegar

Directions:

1) Cook whole chicken breasts in separate skillet until it is almost cooked all the way (it’s going to fully cook when you mix it with the other items)

2) When the chicken is about half done, or towards the end, put all the rest of the ingredients together in another pot separately and let cook while the chicken is finishing.

3) When chicken is almost done, chop it into chunks and add to pot with all the other ingredients.

4) Let cook for about 30 – 40 minutes.

5) Enjoy!

If you want to make the dish a little heartier, you can get frozen cauliflower out of the bag, steam it, and then dice it very finely (almost like you would an onion) and have that on the bottom of your bowl before putting the rest of the stew on top. The cauliflower acts like rice and soaks up the juices, it just doesn’t add the extra carbs to your meal!

When we want to have carbs, we'll cook some cous-cous and put the stew on top of it when we serve ourselves.  ITS YUMMY!!!

Another recipe we use a lot is one that Brock found on AllRecipes.com   it's called Coconut Chicken Curry.  Now I don't like anything with coconut in it and I had never had curry before so this dish already had 2 strikes on it when I had it, but it was DELICIOUS!!! I don't know if it's the actual recipe or if it was the Brock-ness spin he put on it, (because he always does) but it was amazing!! It does have brown rice in it, so we don't eat it as often...but it's become my new "comfort food" meal....too bad it makes our house smell for about 3 days if we don't have enough windows open when we cook it.  Here is the link for the recipe:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/curried-coconut-chicken/detail.aspx

I've put it a lot more time at the gym as well, at least once a day, sometimes twice a day. I do either straight cardio, or i've added Piloxing into my routine as well.  It's fun, but a little pricey for me, so I don't do it all the time, although there is a dvd you can do at home in the meantime. Brock has a set of weights that he uses at home during any free time he may have since he's trying to gain more muscle as well as lose fat. We both have a goal we want to get to, and then once we're there, we'll add more carbs into our diet.  We still eat out with family when there are special occassions, and when we go over to someone's house we'll eat before we leave, or we'll just eat whatever is there.  We don't want to make someone else not eat something or not serve something just because we've chosen a particular diet.  We just try to control it as much as possible when we do have the choice of items to eat.  When I started to plateau and wasn't losing any more weight, i cut out cheese too and that helped kick my body back into gear.  We've substituted milk with Almond Milk (which is reallly yummy!) and have found a new love for macadamia nuts!

It probably sounds so cliche, but i've noticed that i've felt a lot better while being on this diet.  I don't feel as bloated, I don't have nearly as many stomach aches as I used to, and I just overall feel better.  It's almost like i don't feel as heavy. I've been sleeping better, and I don't have some of the health issues anymore that I did before! It's weird too how I feel so sluggish after eating a lot of carbs.  So say we go to BJ's Pizza for a night out one night (our favorite restaurant) we'll order our favorite pizza and maybe split a pizookie for dessert. While i'm there, it tastes amazing and I feel great....until I go home that night or wake up the next morning.  Then im battleing with an upset stomach or just feeling like i need to take an 18 hour nap and it usually lasts for a couple of days. That actually makes me stick to my diet more because everyime I "cheat", I actually feel worse in the end so....ya! That's pretty much it! Feel free to ask me any questions if you're more interested in what we're doing but thats pretty much all there is to it.  I NEVER thought I would be able to give up carbs, but I guess you can't knock it until you try it! :)   To see how we've changed....here's a picture of us last December at Disneyworld....



and here's one that was taken of us about a month ago:



and here's one taken of us from last week with our friend Kristine

I don't have one of us standing, but that will come soon!  I do however have two of me by myself...

The picture on the left is of me on our anniversary last October, and the picture on the right is of me at a bridal shower about a month ago...

So that's that.  I'll keep you all posted on my progress as im only 15lbs away from my goal weight.  I do however need to remember to add strength exercised to my routine though to start toning.  But that's a whole other project :)

-Heather

the juices are flowing!!

So I don't know if you know how much I love Lady Gaga, but I do....A LOT! I've been playing her music non-stop for the past couple of days and it made me want to write again.  I'm always jealous of people who can just write whatever they're thinking and sometimes it comes to me and sometimes it doesn't. Today it did, and I wanted to post it somewhere...so here ya go!  P.S...don't look too much into it, it's just a poem..lol

"The Dark Knight"

Where did you think you were going when you came into my heart?

Did you have a plan to leave it all and put me back into the dark?

I thought with you I was through with all the blue and black that I had felt thus far

But then you dug me even deeper into a hole where I couldn’t see the light at all

Brilliance is beauty but pain is true colors that come out when you least expect it

You had my world all in your hands and it took only a few seconds to crush it

Did you know how much power you had? You could have made everything right

Instead you left me to suffer alone crying throughout the night

After all is said and done I have nothing left but remains of what you left with me

I have my strength and my sorrow and that’s all I can count on without you.

Someday I hope you get to see how much you left when you left me.