Cats Out of The Bag!

The absence of posts here is definitely related to the absence of my motivation and will power to do, well, anything at this point. The last couple of weeks have been tough on several fronts, so I am going to spit the basics off to bring us up to speed.

Last Monday, one of my best friends from high school had his first son! Went to visit him at the hospital and take him and his new family lunch.

Got food poisoning from said lunch and spent Monday night dying in the bathroom and Tuesday and Wednesday re-cooperating and losing about 5 lbs!

Broke down and joined a plus size boot camp, wasn't all that is was cracked up to be. Attended the Monday session, missed the Wednesday session due to death by Taco Deli and attended the make-up session on Saturday, which happened to be a different class. The class was Tabatas and it ruled and I've switched to that class on Tues/Thurs/Sat, SUPER EXCITED. This is my red face after getting my ass kicked.

So as of lately, I am trying to eat things like this...

and these yummy Kix to crave my appetite. Probably not the BEST choice, but a vast improvement from before.

I'll keep you posted. :)

A Week In The Life...

This blog has a cloud hanging over it. To lift the spirits around here, let's talk style! Here is a week in the life on my inner-pinner. This is what my wardrobe would look like if I could recreate my pinterest finds!

Monday

To shake the weekend mode off and get back into the swing of all things work related, I would adorn myself in a sweet and sophisticated number like below. The structured shirt tucked and belt look keeps me crisp, but that animal print skirt says I had a FUN weekend and the FUN ain't over yet!

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Tuesday

Tuesday puts me back in the swing of things and my black pants are screaming for a POP of color on top. I may be working like a dog, but there is LIFE in this little mama.

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Wednesday

Wednesday means it's almost over and to celebrate I WILL be meeting my girls for some hump day cocktails. To keep my high spirits in tact all day I'm sportin' an eye catching outfit. Peplum is HOT and who can take there eyes of that neon skirt!

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Thursday

Thursday puts me that much closer to FRIDAY! I am letting the lax of the weekend slowly slip into my mood and my wardrobe. A relaxed fit top and some cropped slacks fit the bill nicely.

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Friday

Oh it's FRIDAY! And the throwback college girl in me is ready to the throw the hair up in a messy bun, pull the jeans on and a cute top and chillax it all the way to 5 O'clock. So I do just that in a workable manner.

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Saturday

Hot date night with my main squeeze...enough said.

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Sunday

And Sunday commences with cute but minimal effort for whatever happens to come our way! A little Home Depot, maybe Bed Bath and Beyond...clearly we don't know if there will be enough time. ;)

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The LONG Road Ahead

I am going to refer back to my very first post and wonder WHY ON EARTH can't I be one of those weight loss bloggers who decides to change and sticks with it? What magic piece to this puzzle am I missing? I think it goes without saying that I did not stick to my goal of walking five times a week, for two weeks straight. My choices are I can beat myself up about it or, I can accept that it didn't happen this time, reflect on why it didn't happen and make changes accordingly to give another go, right?

I have noticed, especially these last two days, that I am VERY dependent on Vance to help me achieve this goal. I need to work on being more self reliant. He's been feeling a little off this week and opted out of walking on Tuesday and Wednesday and surprise, surprise...so did I. I couldn't just leave him on the couch all cute and cuddly!

Please excuse our dirty laundry!

I like when Vance goes for a couple reasons. One, I'm kinda partial to him, two he pushes me to walk longer and three, we seem to have some pretty good convo's on our little walks. We make all sorts of plans... money plans, budget plans, dinner plans, weekend plans, 2nd house plans, its a planners dream!

When I walk I tend to max out an an hour. On average, I'm good for a solid 45 minutes. When Vance comes with me, I'm guaranteed a hour and a half, it's brutal, but I do it and it feels somewhat miserable great after! Needless to say, he is a valued asset, but I need to start relying on my own assets, I have plenty, to accomplish my goals.

So it seems the long road ahead just keeps getting longer. :( I don't know how many washes I am going to give myself, as of right now, it seems like as many as it takes. So I will call this week a wash, reset the goal and  hope for better results next week.

What are you guys doing to stay on track???

I'm Here

Hello all! Just wanted to drop in and say I'm here. I've started about 4 or 5 posts and quickly deleted them for lack everything, basically. I have only walked once in the last 12 days, which is TERRIBLE. I had a birthday in between now and then, which sent my schedule into a whirl wind and haven't quite been able to get it back on course. But we went for a pretty lengthy walk last night and it left me missing it. So hoping the progress will continue through the week.

That's literally all I've got for now. I think I've found myself in a bit of a funk and desperately trying to make my way out of it.

Let me know how you guys are doing!!!!! I need some positive peeps right about now.

Keep on Rollin'

After my two hiatus last week, it was SUPER important that I quick jump back on the bandwagon, as to not lose any momentum. I spent the last hour of work on Monday, mentally preparing myself to get home, eat dinner and then WALK, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk. As I shut down my computer at about 10 til 6:00pm and headed out to the parking garage, I was confronted with this...

The storm was rolling in. Thunder, lightning, and sideways rain! Not quite sure how I didn't hear or see this while in my building, but it looked horrendous. I drove home as quickly as possible, but with most of the drivers going a whopping 30 mph, it took a little longer than usual. The trip from my car to inside my house left me dripping wet from head to toe. Which is only about 15 feet. And the lovely weather proceeded to hold up for the next several hours. End result, no walk. :( That made three days in a row and I was starting to get a little perturbed. So perturbed in fact, that I managed to not get to sleep until 3:52am on the dot. 

That left Tuesday a blurry mess. I surprisingly shot out of bed at 7:00am all bright eyed and bushy tailed and made it through lunch with no problems. But 30 minutes after I got back, I was ready for bed. For the remainder of the day I was did everything I could just to stay awake, it was sad and miserable. You can imagine my enthusiasm of today being the day I had to start walking again. We ate a terribly delicious dinner of delivery pizza and then I literally dragged myself from the couch to my bedroom to change. It took a good 20 minutes to find my motivation and mostly it was found in my super cute socks. Aren't they cute!!! Hey, it's the small things.

Because of all the rain on Monday, it was so muggy outside. Disgusting, really. And not to mention I pretty much whined the whole time. Lucky Vance. But with his help, I made it through. It was even probably the longest walk I've done. And left me looking a little less than pretty. I glistened, and not the good, sexy kind.

All I can say is I did it. Not an hour after I got out of the shower, washing the ugly off, it started to pour again. Hopefully the rain showers are over with for a while, all though it's worked wonders for our yard.

Now onto my next little obstacle, this guy...

He's been starring at my for quite some time. I don't like the scale for all the obvious reasons, but the main one being is I don't want to become focused or obsessed with a number. My goal here is to be healthy and happy, not 100lbs and a size 0. At the same time, I want to be able to watch and track my progress. I know I have even begun to change my eating habits, but I know adding this cardio into my life has to be having some sort of impact, right. I mean to go from NO physical activity to walking for 45 minutes or longer, 5 times a week has to be making a change. Not sure what I'll decide and how often I'll decide to do it.

What do ya'll think. Any suggestions on the scale issue?

Lazy Weekends

Our weekend can pretty much be summed up like this...

We had every intention of making our way back down to the lake this weekend. Friday we were just too tired to make the trip after work. We had dinner with some friends and then enjoyed a very mellow evening at home. Vance on the couch watching terrible tv and I in the bed intently reading. At around 11pm, Vance joins me in bed and at about 11:30am he shoots out of bed and runs to the bathroom. I barely have the energy to muster, what's wrong? Not only did our sewer line back up, but it has backed up so much so that our shower and bath tub were sitting rivers of SH!T. I'm not sure how we didn't notice or smell in until then, but soooooooooooooooooooo glad that he did, when he did, because we were VERY close to things being WAY more difficult then they already were. Vance worked his handy man magic and was able to get the standing shit sewage of out the shower and tub. We slept with one ear and eye opened for the rest of the night.

The next morning we called our local plumbing specialist, ABC Home and Commercial Services, and we were quickly put into queue. Needless to say we weren't all that willing to leave the house for the rest of the weekend, for a couple of reasons. 1.) A plumbers visit to your house on a Saturday is not the most inexpensive ticket items and 2.) The thought of coming back from the lake house to a flooded house was not at all appealing. So we stayed in town and laid low and it was actually quite relaxing. We had a little visit to the puppy park, I did a little birthday shopping (which I wasn't supposed to be doing) and we visited with a few friends we hadn't seen in a while. All in all, a unexpected GREAT weekend.

What DIDN'T happen, I hate to inform you, was my 5 days of walking. :( The holiday I think threw me a curve ball. My week went a little something like this.

Monday: Walked

Tuesday: Walked at lake house

Wednesday: OFF

Thursday: Walked with New Shoes :)

Friday: OFF

Saturday: Walked MILDLY at the puppy park

Sunday: Walked around the mall. ;)

So at least I didn't just lay horizontal, I didn't really suit up and give it my all either, though. :( On Thursday, the new shoes were giving me a little grief, which made me walk a little weird, which made me hurt a little more than usual. I'm a wuss, I know. So I think the lacked couple of days might have been a good thing. But I am shaking off last week's track record and jumping right back in this evening.

How was your weekend???

Hairrrrr Did

First things first, let's get the standard items out of the way. It may have hurt like the dickens to swing my arms back and forth for an hour, but by golly I swung 'em. Walk number four, check! GO, ME. One more to go and I will finish out the week successfully. The new shoes need to be worn in a little bit, but I looked pretty freakin' fly in them, and that's all that matters. Tomorrow we are headed back to the lake for a little more R and R and a lot my family time!

Now to the real subject at hand.

Anybody want to take a swing at what's wrong with this picture...

Here, let me help you...

Look at those ROOTS. Ignore the greasy/frizzy issue that is going on simultaneously, that one is actually fixable, on a good day. Next week I have a much anticipated hair appointment. I LOVE my hair appointments, for several reason. 1.) I am obsessed with the smell of hair color chemicals, 2.) My hairapist is like my therapist, so I always feel a bit of clarity when I leave and 3.) I look fly as sh!t when she's done. I am a bit of a hair whore. I can't seem to pick a length or a style or a color and stick to it, I want them and love them all. I grew and grew and grew my hair out for our wedding and simultaneously lightened it.

 About a month before the I do's, I decided I wanted to be a dark brown brunette for the wedding, good by hard work. 

Upon immediate return from the honeymoon, my hairapist freed me of my lovely lock burden and once again I was a length I was much more accustomed too.

Then we had a few phases.

We went red...

We went two-toned, my favorite...

And we have ended up here, with bangs!

So that has been my hair trends over the last two years. And guess what, now I am wanting to go lighter and go it back out. Here are the color choices I am leaning towards.

Via Pinterest

Found here

Found here

So what's your vote? I apologize for the lot of me post, but I just LOVE talking about hair!!!!!!

Not So Happy 5th!

Man, that 4th of July was bitter sweet, wasn't it!!!?? We headed straight to the lake house Tuesday after work and enjoyed every bit of the sun and water!!! So much so in fact that I now look like this...

This picture doesn't really do it justice, but I have a Rudolph thing going on for sure! This picture definitely shows you how the rest of my body is a blaze too. :(

I am an avid 50spf-er, so I am a little shocked at how red I got, but we did took full advantage of being outdoors all day long.

As we're getting to learn the town of Seguin, we decided to attend their annual 4th of July parade. Nothing like celebrating the 4th in small town USA.

Vance and Michael

The Bunch!

All in all we had a extremely good day in a half hiatus and I am totally bummed that I am back in my cubicle, while what seems like the rest of the world was smart enough to take today and tomorrow off.

In other news, my oh so supportive husband decided to gift me with a little motivation present, new shoes! 

We picked these bad boys up on Tuesday during lunch and I can't wait to try them out. Aren't they pretty?! Apparently, the 80's are trying to make a comeback, because every single show on the wall was a neon color.

 Tuesday night at the lake, we had a nice 2 mile stroll, more so than a walk, after dinner. And I'm hoping my burn isn't bad enough to keep from going tonight. Seriously, everything hurts and my bra is literally tearing a whole in my skin, at least that's how it feels. :(

That's what my life has been like for the past two days, how about yours???

So Naturally...

Yesterday I ventured to Target, one of my favorite places to visit, in search of two birthday cards and a new sports bra. The summer brings birthdays galore in my family and starting the last week of June we have one a week for a while. The sports bra is needed as I am in need of some extra support, enough said. While on my way to the sports bra table, I happened to notice there was a sale on swim suit pieces. Now, am I NEVER up for swimsuit shopping, but with the frequent Lake House visits we go on and a mini vacation sneaking up in us in August, I thought it may not be a bad idea to invest in another suit. I have one that I love and wear ALL the time, so the poor girl is close to being worn out. Let it be said, there is no more sure fire way to induce a bad mood/binge eating fest other than swim suit shopping. Now as a fair assessment, I had not yet eaten lunch, so big mistake there. But as soon as I decided on a suit that made me the least Grendel looking, I flew to the check out and RAN to McDonald's to console my breaking heart. So naturally, this is what ended up going down at my desk around 1:00pm. :(

I ate my burger and sipped on my sweet tea, but about 15 fries in I had this overwhelming since of disgust, threw everything into the bag and threw it away and was left with my swimsuit and disappointment.

I know that right now I am focusing on the exercise portion, that my goal right now is to continue to walk 5 times a week. But I don't want that to give me permission to stuff my mouth with the world's most terrible foods, which I feel is what I've been doing. I just know that if I try to tackle too many things at one time, I will be setting myself up for failure.

So last night, my Mom, Dad, Aunt and sister came over for a birthday dinner. And once bellies were full, dishes washed and leftovers packed, I laced up my tennis shoes and hit the pavement for a late night 45 minute walk. I felt a little better having done something good, after my something bad.

This morning I was back to feeling better about myself and actually excited about my new swim suit purchase. No one ever said this little journey was going to be easy or speedy for that matter. And sometimes I catch myself envious of those other weight loss bloggers who set out to lose weight and then just do it. Like BAM, today it hit me and I am putting down everything that is bad for me and working out everyday and yes, some days  are hard, but I'm superwoman and that's that. Why can't I be those girls? Why is this soooooooo difficult for me? Why is it so hard to make this lifestyle change?

I don't really have the answers to those questions, other than I can only be me and I can only do this my way. And I really need to just focus on the good and know that eventually if I can continue the progress and the positive attitude that it can ONLY point me in the right direction. And as far as all those other super weight loss bloggers, I am going to keep them in my thoughts as THIS WILL ONE DAY BE ME!

Women Be Shopping...Oh, And Walking

Wanted to give ya'll a little tour of our living room...

Jealous?

TOTALLY kidding, Lord knows I wish I wasn't. In total excitement, I found myself snapping this pic via instagram while we shopped til we dropped today at West Elm. If you remember, I shared our updated floors with you a couple weeks ago. I LOVE them, they are dark chocolate and look amazing with our grey walls and new crispy white wall trim. But the one downfall, I am sad to say, is something I was more than once warned about, dark floors SHOW EVERYTHING. I mean you can see the Who Horton hears on our floors! Every dust particle, dog or human hair, leaf, grass blade, water spot and anything else that could possibly end up on the floor is accounted for and present. And even after facing the cold hard truth, I don't think I would go back and change my mind. They just look too good. :) So along with doing our research to find the best duster/mop/steamer on the market for laminate wood floors (your suggestions are welcomed!) we also thought adding area rugs would help collect a little bit of the debris as well, as gross as that sounds.

Before I go any further with my story let me just interject with a little background information on our home renovation spend plan. And I'm sorry if we've had this conversation before. When we purchased this home, we knew there would be renovations to be had. What we I didn't know is that since we didn't have a designated chunk of change readily available, these renovations would happen slowly over time. And just to be clear, it wasn't that I thought we had money and we didn't or that Acker hid money from me. I was well aware there was no money, I just was severely hopeful that we would just find some along the way, you know...under the mattress, in an old purse or maybe in a pair of jeans in the dryer.  So the process of falling in love with our first house has been a little slow in the making for me. In fact, only about 3 months in, I was already talking about our next house. But as we Acker painted, gave our kitchen a much needed uplift , laid down new floors and replaced doors and trim, our house has begun to win over my heart. And now we are working to my our first house, our first home. The most important part of that sentence, DECOR!!!!! Okay, now back to our regular scheduled posting...

So off to West Elm we went. We made our way with two intentions, purchase area rugs (for the living room, entry way, back door and possibly the bedroom) and order a new couch!!!!!! We I have been staking the West Elm sight for months now and even made a few dry run visits with a few on staff designers. But TODAY was the real deal. I walked in ready to  rattle off the items I needed and with every intention of being in and out of there within an hour. So clearly, two and half hours later we walked out and now, I'd like to introduce you to our newest additions to the Acker household.

 Back door jute. And if you're thinking new door? You're right!

 Front door jute, hopefully she'll be accompanied by a new door as well soon.

Living room jute, looks totally different in this shot, but same color as the other two.

And one of my two favorite purchases from today, a little ivory shag, on clearance! Ignore the curtains, was trying something different with the curtains, but not a fan.


And as for my other favorite purchase from today...feast your eyes on this bad boy.

You know the saying pain is beauty, well apparently, the saying works in the world of home decor as well. Although we did our fair share of jumping up and down in celebration of our new couch, we won't be able to actually bask in our awesome purchase for another 10-12 weeks. :( I guess that's just the price you pay. So in the mean time and to totally get back on track as to why we're here in the first place, I will have to spend the next 10-12 weeks exhausted on the old girl below after late night walks. 

Thursday and Friday we're not the most healthiest days. Between sushi, red velvet cupcakes and mac n cheese hamburgers, work had me all sorts of stress eating with no time left for walking. So this evening I dragged myself up and out the door for a super late walk. Not nearly as hot as my last walk, but just as exhausting. I think that's due to the two day break/binge fest. But if I can sneak a walk in tomorrow I will have kept on target with my 5 walks per week for this week and one week closer to starting the couch to 5K routine. :)

So, sorry this was a long one, but posts like these make me happy because, well more so than needing a place to vent and share as I trek through this little journey, this is a place where I can just write. Which is something I really love to do. So thanks for the ears eyes. And  don't be shy...leave me a note, let me know you're there!!!!

61 Ways

So work is slowly, but surely killing me today.

That being said I have no creative juices flowing. So instead of forcing myself to try and witty and entertaining, I thought I would share an article I found via on Pinterest via my friend Jenny. 61 Easy Ways to Lose Weight. Out of 61 EASY WAYS, there's got to be one or two I can try and tackle, right?

Anything on that list you've tried and was successful?

Hopefully, by close of business today I will be lakeside and enjoying a little two day hiatus with the husband.

What are your weekend plans?????

All I DO IS WIN

I am posting today to celebrate small victories, because let's face it, the large victories are so far and few between, I have to have SOMETHING to keep me motivated. Tuesday night we had a little movie on the couch action. We rented 21 Jump Street and it was AWESOME, go rent it, like right now, go. Our normal routine as of late has been come home, make dinner, eat dinner, digest dinner and then head out for our evening walk some time between 7:30pm and 8:00pm. And earlier than that and it's hotter than Hades, more on that to follow. So, to allow for the movie mix, I suggested we walk first and then proceed to with our dinner plans as normal. So we did and I sooo regret it. Before we even hit the end of our street I was cotton mouthed, my right calf had cramped up, I couldn't keep the sweat out of my eyes and my skin felt like it had thousands of tiny fire ants crawling all of it from the sun beating down on us. MISERABLE. We battled through the rest of our walk, not without me threatening to stop by every house to ask for water, or tempted to sprawl out under any shaded area we came across just for some shelter from the sun. We successfully made it home, but not without looking like I had just been rescued from a week long trek through the Sahara Desert. It was bad. But I have to say I was very proud of myself for having walked at all. The old me would have just as easily skipped the walk, just like that. Small Victory #1! 

Small Victory #2  happened yesterday. And for those of you paying attention, you read that right, that's two small victories back to back B!TCHES. Insert DJ Khaled's All I Do is Win right...about...NOW!

Okay, I'm back. As I was saying, yesterday I got home to discover Acker has invited his brother and brother's girlfriend over for dinner before their soccer game. So Acker was not going to be able to do our walk with me. Having a partner is crime on this little journey is a MUST for me. I can talk myself into and out of things WAY TO EASY to go at it alone. So we ate dinner and I had pretty much mentally, put the walk out of my to do list for the day. But then like a beacon of light, it hit me, just go BY YOURSELF. Such a foreign concept for me. The only person responsible for this goal is me and so the only one who can meet my goal is me, so I just need to do it. I excused myself, but my Eye of the Tiger face on, changed into gear, threw on the headphones and rocked it to some Nicki MiCra-cra for the next 45 minutes. Again super proud. I did however rock it a little to hard, because I opted out of the 9:45pm soccer game. :( Bad wife, I know. But could literally not keep my eyes open past 9. Must of been all those calories I'm burning. At least that's what I'm going to tell myself.

And I know what you're thinking, how are we going to celebrate? Well feast your eyes on this celebration of cuteness. You're Welcome. ;)

So that's my victory party! Any small victories you're celebrating lately? 

It WILL Happen

Today you get a twofer special. :) While thumbing clicking my daily blogs this morning, I stumbled upon an interview with Abby Larson, founder of the wedding blog Style Me Pretty. SUCH A GREAT ARTICLE, for multiple reasons. On the surface, the chick makes a living blogging about wedding awesomeness. And by makes a living I mean is married and has two kids and pays the bills doing what she loves. Insert my super jealous, how can I do that face here.

To be clear, I do work in front of my computer all day it does does pay the bills, but I am in no way blogging about wedding awesomeness, or any other awesomeness for that matter. I know this main topic of discussion on this blog so far has been about healthy living, but another craving I constantly battle is wanting to be HAPPY (hot topic this week, eh?) doing what I do for a living. I am so grateful to a.) Have a job and b.) Have a good paying job, but it's definitely not in a field I am passionate about. I often envy those, like Abbey, who get to do what they LOVE. I desperately WANT that. All the chords were struck as she talked about wanting to do something creative, something she was passionate about and I just feel like I haven't found that yet. But believe you me, I am still searching. And at the ripe age of 28, oh too soon be to 29, I am NOT giving up hope. And these real life renditions do nothing but make me believe it's actually possible. Maybe it's time to start putting pen to paper again with all the crazy ideas that run through my head, maybe one day, one of those bad boys will pay off.

I highly recommend reading the article if this post strikes your fancy. The Every Girl is one of my latest blogscriptions and so far, I am a happy subscriber! Totally add it to your blog list, you won't regret it.

Any blogs worth sharing you've come across???