Weighing In

So I am upping my diet and starting to watch my calorie carb fat protein intake. As of this morning I weight (good god this is embarrassing) 182.2 pounds. I used to weigh 168 like two months ago. My goal is to get down to 160 in time for the wedding, which realistically should be very doable. It means I have to lose 1.19 pounds a week. 

 

Today has been my first day on the diet and I already screwed up. I ate a whole wheat wrap, healthy right? NO! the contents of the wrap (turkey breast a slice of swiss cheese and two slices of tomato) were fine, its the wrap itself that was the problem I came to find out. Get this! The wrap with nothing on it was 300 calories! 50 grams of carbs and (surprisingly) 9 grams of protein. Now I don't mind the calories so much but the carbs! good god! Needless to say I would have been better of having two slices of bread. 

 

I also had a cookie this morning and for breakfast a granola bar and a banana (which by the way is the worst fruit you can eat when dieting) and two baby bell cheese wheels as a snack. It is now 3:37 I have slight head ache I'm irritable, and there is a buffet of snack food in the kitchen where I work which is NOT helping. 

 

I really hope I can finally reach a goal I set for myself. Every time I do this with dieting I never make it to my goal. Curtis will b dieting and helping me out with all this too so his weight will be going down with mine and he is going to end up getting all super hunky. (yes hunky is a work, no not honky, hunk-y)
 

Wellbutrin - Day 1

I visited my therapist yesterday and broke the news to her that I took myself off of the prozac because I started to feel really lethargic and it was making it so I got nothing done around the house or work or anywhere.

We talked for a little bit and after some convincing she decided we should try Wellbutrin because it helped me when I was depressed in the past. It does nothing for anxiety but I still have the xanax in case of emergency. On the plus side its supposed to help me lose weight (yeah right) and is supposed to help me focus better.

Today was my first day on it and for the next three days I am only taking 150mg and after that I bump it up to 300mg.

When I went to the pharmacy they said my insurance company had a little issue with me taking that pill because it is expensive on their end I guess (even though I get the generic) so the pharmacy has to contact my doctor who has to contact my insurance company to explain/convince them I need to take that medicine in particular. If she cannot convince them I will end up not being able to pick up the prescription because we won't be able to afford it.

 

I am Freaking Brilliant! - White Guitar

 
So I just realized I am freaking brilliant... okay maybe not so much brilliant as creative/clever. I have been trying to figure out how to incorporate my fiance's silly musical geeky side into the wedding (I want a bit of a more traditional wedding). And at first I was thinking OH maybe a Super Mario Guest book that everyone could sign. Well after looking around a bit I couldn't find one (this would be a great way to make money by the way if anyone is interested).

So then I thought well I can get more of his musical side to show in the wedding... and THAT'S when it hit me! Why not get a white guitar that everyone can sign and we can just hang up in the house. I mean we have 5 guitars in the house as it is whats one more that we can put out for display right? I hope this idea goes off without a hitch. I already ordered the guitar off of ebay (only $34!) so it is on its way.

Just another small step in getting everything ready for this wedding taken care of... now what else can I take care of on the list....

Holy Hot Popsicle Sticks Batman, That's a Lot of Money.

So out of nowhere a friend of Curtis' (Charles) who I have met twice gave us our wedding/Christmas present early. As I am sure you can guess by the picture it was cash. a LOT of cash, like I just pooped my pants that a lot of cash to give to someone who you have only met twice.


Charles gave Curtis and I $1,300!!!


Now I am sure that may not be a lot of money to everyone but no one, and I mean NO ONE, has ever given me that much money in one sitting. The most cash I think I have ever gotten was $1,000 and that was from my father the first time I saw him in 12 years for college. And while yes I have gotten presents that were more then that amount its still a shocker. Mainly because I have only met this guy twice. He is a great guy funny and sweet and a dork of course cause that's the kind of people we hang out with but it really took me by surprise. He handed me the envelope with the money in it and I thought awesome maybe one or two hundred bucks, that will come in SUPER handy. I asked Curtis to take the money because I was at lunch at the time not knowing just how much was in there.

While I did say thank you at lunch the next time I see him I am going to give him a huge hug and thank him again. I just really don't know what else to say to his generosity.


This means that Curtis and I are only about $750 away from our goal! Which by October should be totally doable. I am just now scared to death because I am starting to wonder what will go wrong.

Wedding Diet is ON!

So my first step to start losing weight will be to cut out soda from my diet, this includes diet soda, because they just taste gross. Now this will be incredibly easy because the only time I can get my hands on soda is at my work place and I have been trying it out for the past couple of days and I am doing fine. The only bad thing is that for once we actually have coke in the house so I had some over this weekend. That however will come to and end probably after today.

 

My long term goal with the drinking is to cut out everything but 2% milk (on rare occasion) and water. Drinking water is the main thing. I don't get enough fluids as is and I definetly need more water period, diet or no diet. 

The second step for me will be to stop eating chocolate. Now THAT is going to be a HUGE challenge for me. I am severely addicted to chocolate. I think about it every day and I eat it just about every day. It kind of disgusts me to be honest. Again most of my candy/chocolate consumption ends up at work but its safe to say there has been more than enough in the house as well. I think if I just ween myself off little by little I will be okay... but again, by far one of the biggest challenges. 

My third step will be to eat at least 1 salad a week. I think this will be easy enough. I like a couple of different kinds of salad now and I can get the dressing on the side and poof at least one healthy meal right there!

I know I am going to end up adding more to my diet plan as I go along, you know, like exercise (ick!) but I think if I lunge myself head first into all this I am just going to end up quitting it in a week. So this time around I am going to go about it the baby step way. Tiny little steps to improve my overall quality of life by making smarter choices... we'll see if I can stick it out.

 

I got a Dress! (Finally)

Super yeay! I found a dress... its the wrong size I have never tried it on and I am not quite sure what the back looks like but its mine!

I saw a dress on ebay and jumped on it.  I can't really go into too much detail about what it looks like because my fiance is reading this but as far as i could tell in the picture it has all the elements I am looking for.

The best part is that with shipping and handling the dress only cost $63 so even if I hate it I am sure I can go to a consignment shop or just back on ebay and sell it for a small profit.

Truth be told this is the second wedding dress I bought off of ebay and much like this one I don't know what the other one will look like.

I am almost certain that both dresses are the wrong size but I can have it tailored so that it is a corset back and then i can lose and gain (please god no more gaining weight... blog post coming soon about that) weight.

Exhausted

I feel so exhuated today. I don't know what is up with me. I feel tired right down to my very bones. Hopefully its just because its morning and this will go away by the afternoon but in all everything feels tense and tight.


Lately I have been gaining weight like there is no tomorrow and I have only one person to blame for it and that's me. I have put on 10 pounds in like the past two months. I can't seem to stop myself from eating and I haven't the energy to go work out at the gym, not to mention time. I guess I could always just start waking up earlier to go but then I would be getting either less sleep or less time with Curtis because the only time we really seem to have time to talk is around 10pm-1am.


I can't wait for our vacation. While I do want to go and see the Kennedy Space Center at the same time I just want to lounge around on the beach and do absolutely nothing. Okay so I do want to go and look at some wedding dresses in the area but that will be hard to do with Curtis right there. Maybe if I find a good outlet store I'll sneak away in the morning while he is still sleeping... or maybe I will just actually use my vacation as a time to relax and forget about all the planning and what not that goes along with the wedding. 

My Garden

No I did not grow this in my garden, just got it for myself.

So in case you were wondering how me and my green thumb were doing here are a couple of pictures.

My radish plants are growing like crazy, I think I planted one too many in this little pot. There are also three squash plants in there!

 My newly planted cherry tomatoes! these are growing pretty slowly but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they fruit.

These are my carrots and yes that is a kids play bucket that I am using. I only planted a few but I didn't want them getting smashed together. Again I really hope they fruit.

These are just some of the flowers I planted. The ones in the little blue bowls are really growing up and started to vine out and curl around the other plants so I had to separate them and put them in time out... yeah I still really want kids.

These two flowers felt like they took FOREVER to grow this big but they are finally really starting to push their way through.

These are teeny tiny little poppy (not poopy which is what I spelled at first) flowers. These too are taking a VERY long time to get bigger but the fact I see green already is a good sign.

I accidentaly spilled (dumped) the entire package of snap dragon flowers into this pot. you can tell where the little clumps of green are where the majority of the seeds landed. 

So that is my garden so far. I can't wait to get a house or a little condo where I can grow flowers in my own little plot of land. I saw so many more things at the store that I want to plant just running out of room on the porch.

I should also really get a water canister thingy soon because lately its taken three tall cups of water just to quench the thirst of the little guys in the hot Florida sun.

Bye Bye Prozac

So a couple of days ago I decided to take myself off of Prozac. Why? Because while I hate feeling jittery and anxious it makes me feel a lot better then being depressed. I noticed that I had started to become incredibly lethargic. I mean I didn't want to do ANYTHING. I just wanted to sleep I wasn't interested in anything and all together just felt like poo.

I am now practically bouncing around by my cubicle, still not getting any actual work done (which will eventually come and bite me in the rear) but I feel better and as far as my personal life is concerned (the wedding) I am being far more productive. So much so I found two dresses I actually sorta like but am still hoping to find something better.

One of my coworkers even offered to come with me to a bridal show on Sunday if Curtis couldn't make it because of work. 

Speaking of work they just called me to tell me I won't need to come in today. It kind of sucks though cause it means less money in the wedding fund which has me a little worried. We have soooo close to $2,000 saved and that means just another $2,000 to go to have a nice small wedding.

I am kind of nervous as to what my therapist has to say about e taking myself off the Prozac but oh well I rather feel jittery then depressed any day. I am also currently not on birth control just because I haven't went and picked up my prescription yet and in a way it feels kind of nice to not have to pop a pill every day.
 

Another Shoe Post (non-wedding related)

So confession time... I'm a girl and I like shoes... *gasp* shocker I'm sure.

But the truth is I like weird shoes like this...

Not so much Lady Gaga weird, cause that just looks incredibly painful and uncomfortable, and god only knows how many times she has fallen on stage because of it. But there is just something about high heels and the odd way people choose to create them...

The above is a great example, now  could I even walk in those bad boys? Probably not, which is just one of the reasons i don't buy them, the other being that the magical money fairy that pops out my butt is stuck and not coming back out.

But oh if I had the extra cash lying around... I think mainly its more fetishy shoes that I am into and want to wear everywhere but 1) work is not the place to wear shoes that will draw attention to yourself (at least not my work and B) my feet will be killing me if I do try and keep up with wearing stuff like that all the time.

On a completely different note, I want to go over seas and have this kind of pedicure:

I can't remember what its called but basically all those little fishies eat the dead skin off your feet. I bet it tickles like crazy!

Wedding Shoes

So I guess I kinda found a dress I like. Everyone says I look good in it my mother said it best when she said you want to hear "wow she looks great in that dress" instead of "wow that dress looks great on her"... really I think in the end its the same thing but whatever. My only concern, as always, is that I will one find a cheaper dress or two I will find a better dress or even worse, I will find the dress I really want but can't afford.


But I digress...

 I was thinking that for my "something blue" I would wear blue shoes. This way I won't have to worry about the shoes color matching exactly with the dress color. Well with my mouse in hand I stumbled upon this...

 and I start to wonder to myself... maybe that would just be a little too much... maybe... and god forbid the lace get stuck on one of those bad boys and I land face first down the isle.

Wedding Woes

So after asking my dear and beloved Fiance for the past FIVE FREAKING WEEKS to email a guy he knows who MIGHT be able to get us a good deal on a venue for the wedding he finally sent the email today. His reasoning for not sending it before? He was busy. Now I will grant him that, yes, we have both had a very hectic schedule over this past semester. BUT if  you have time to update facebook and read my blog then you freaking have time to send a five minute (if not less) email! Ugh!

 

I have been putting away every freaking dime I have for this wedding from my dish washing/waitressing job at the restuarant and I know money is tight for him right now so I'm not mad about him not being able to contribute as much but could you at least be slightly more involved in the planning of the wedding. 

I don't have my maid of honor around, she is in Boston. My mom won't come and visit me in Florida because she thinks we will just argue about the dress. The two girls that did volunteer to help me dress shop once slept with my current fiance and the other doesn't know that I know she is sleeping with my ex fiance. I have all of one day a week off from work which is the same day the majority of the wedding dress places are closed. If I do buy a dress its going to take 4-6 months to arrive and the wedding is now scheduled for October so I need to make a decision soon. A huge problem with this is that I actually found the wedding dress I want badly but the freaking thing costs almost $1,600 and the total amount we plan on spending on the wedding is $4,000 if we can help it. But once my mind is made up its going to be damn hard to change it.  I have looked on all the discount wedding dress stores online and NO ONE is selling that dress for cheaper. 

I have scoured for venues and for caterers and have looked at wedding cakes, and I can't make up my mind on any of it because the budget of the wedding is so up in the air. I don't know if we will have $4,000 in time for the wedding. I am saving about 400-500 a month but then the sushi place ends up being slow and I bring home less than that. 

I am so close to just saying screw it and just going to the court house but damn it all I want that wedding dress and I freaking WANT to walk down the isle and I want pictures and I want everyone in the world I know to see it. 

What else is bugging me about the dress is that I know that I am going to need to lose weight before the wedding so if I get a dress that fits me now it may not fit me in time for the wedding. So then what the freak do I do? Spend another couple hundred so I can have it altered again. yeah... great... 

Sorry about all the complaining folks but I just needed to get that off my chest.

Bathroom Etiquette

Okay so this just popped into my head the other day. Are there some people out there that just don't understand bathroom etiquette? I was at a hockey game earlier this year and had to use the little girls room. So after finding it (it was on the floor below where I was) I picked a corner stall. All of the other stalls were empty except for one all the way down the other end. And there were a HUGE amount of stalls in this bathroom. So I am sighing in relief when someone walks in and picks the stall right next to mine! I could understand if there were only like three stalls in the bathroom but this place had an entire wall full, why oh why do you have to pick the one next to me? I am a nervous pee-er as it is (not a fan of going in public) so this only hightened my already existing stage fright.

To me it seems that if you have a row of stall open it is only the polite thing to do to leave at least one open stall between you and the other person.
 

Summer Vacation Here I Come!

The above picture is WHERE the hotel is. In other words, the hotel is literally right on the beach at Cocoa Beach. The Atlantic Ocean will be our backyard. Curtis and I are going for my birthday in June and while it is going to be stupid hot it will be totally worth it. I got a great rate for the room, originally over $150 a night for only $58 from getaroom.com. 

While we are there we are going to watch the sun rise together, go to the Kennedy Space Center, and lounge by the pool and in the hot tub late at night. I am going to tan and we are going to try and make it so Curtis doesn't burn and its going to be freaking awesome fighting against the current of the ocean as I jump through the waves.

Can you tell I am excited yet?!?!

Exams

Curtis's exams for the spring semester are finally over *breaths huge sigh of relief*. He just called me a little bit ago at work and sounded out of breath to tell me he got an 80% on his final Biology exam, it was one of the harder classes this semester. This means that he passed all of his classes and most of which are A's. He took 6 classes this semester and 2 jobs and dealing with a nutty room mate at times but he made it through it like I knew he would and I am way proud of him :-D

The paper he and I worked on together (on Thailand Prostitution) ended up getting a 100%! So that was an automatic A in the class basically. Over the summer he is only taking 2 classes thank god so that should give him a little break. The great news about the classes over the summer is that its entirely paid for by grants and scholarships. We are not having to pay a penny out of pocket.

Dress Shopping

I tried on a couple more dresses on Monday at Demetrios in Tampa and lucky me most of the dresses there are a size 10!... I'm a size 14 at best. Much like the picture above my boobs were popping out all over the place and it sure as heck did not zip up the back. I did however find two dresses that I liked quite a bit. Both are around $1500 which means I will try and find it cheaper online becuase there is no way I am spending that much on the dress if I can help it.

I showed the pictures of the dresses to my mom and she said I should keep looking. I asked her why and her response was they look "uncomfortable". This made me think that by uncomfortable what she really means is i am going to look fat in it. Oh well I might be reading too much into that.

I do have one other place in mind  that I want to go look at dresses and see how their price compares as opposed to the other two places I have been to. I also found out that I need to order my gown pretty soon if I expect it to be here in time for the wedding.

Oh and the wedding date will definitely NOT be in August. A co-worker is taking her vacation at the restuarant right on the weekend that I wanted to have it so I am still keeping November 11 in mind but I am also thinking about having it October 10, 2011 (10/10/11) mainly because it is on a Monday which means everyone we know is more likely to come. All I really know is I have to pick a set date soon otherwise I am going to be in trouble.

I also have to pick out a venue and SOON! The Hungarian church is still available but its just SO small. Granted we are not going to have a ton of people there to begin with but I was hoping for a decent size dance floor at the least. Any suggestions about places in the Hillsborough/Pinellas county Florida (not the beach because Curtis will fry and so will I) they would be greatly appreciated. And if you have a rich uncle that lives down here and has a huge mansion we can have it at I am all for it. (yes I live in la la land and my fairy god mother and white slippers are hidden in my closet).

Update - Graduation

Super over-exposed picture of Angie and I.

So what was supposed to be a sort of 3 day weekend vacation for me didn't turn out like I had hoped. Poor Angie's flight was delayed BIG time and she didn't arrive at the airport till 6am. She did get to meet Curtis for a brief minute while his car was in park in front of the airport gates. Her mom came and ended up hugging me before Angie which was kind of funny actually. We put all of our stuff in her trunk and off we went for a 4-5 hour car ride up to Tallahassee.

With random pit stops, me attempting to read and driving part of the way we made it in time to pick up Angie's cap and gown along with the tickets to the graduation. I love FSU their campus is so pretty with its old architecture. All the buildings end up looking like castles. Almost all the buildings are made out of brick.

That night Angie, her older brother John, John's girl friend Jasper, Angie's dad and I all went out to a wine bar and listened to music that was too loud while drinking WAY too much wine. We ended up following Angie's dad home in the car just to make sure he got home okay. At one point he stopped at McDonalds and I got out of the back seat snuck up to his car while he was picking up his order and asked him how many weight wachers points that was since he was on a diet. Angie's dad finally made it back to the hotel safe and we were on our way home as well.

We didn't get to sleep in much Angie's mom was up at like 5am or 6am and we were up an hour later getting ready. The shower after Angie got out kept going from hot to cold back and forth which at like 7am my body is not ready to deal with. I was doing a little dance in the shower trying to get out of the way of the water when it was cold while I had one foot up on the wall trying to shave my legs. I finally said forget it and just shaved my legs tot he point where the skirt hem stops and hoped it wouldn't be a very windy day.

We got to campus early but it was still packed from morning ceremony. We got a good parking spot and Angie, John and I went and toured the campus. We didn't get a chance to go into the buildings like when Angie and I toured the campus like 2-3 years ago. I guess they decided to lock the doors now.

I almost knocked some old lady out while we were walking into the building because she put her hand on my shoulder and started pushing me. Of course I didn't actually do it but I did end up yelling at her. Me + lack of sleep does not equal a happy camper. Not to mention I don't really like being touched let alone pushed by someone I don't even know. While they were calling names I was half falling asleep in the bleachers.

When they finally called Angie's name we hoot and hollard and let the world know how proud of her we were.

Oh I almost forgot! I ended up getting her an opal bracelet which she loved, yeay! and she even wore it to her graduation, SUPER yeay!

Right after graduation we went to eat where angie's mom almost got us into a car accident and after that we drove another 4-5 hours back to Clearwater to drop me off.

And that was my 3 day vacation at FSU, it flew by like it didn't even happen.

Update - Job

Well as you can tell from above, I did not get the job. It has been over two weeks now since the interview and even though I sent them a thank you letter and a follow-up email about the position still being open I never heard a word back. Makes me kinda sad.

Curtis also interviewed for an Assistant Manager position at his job and didn't get it. Though after the fact we found out its for the best because the guy that would have ended up being his manager turned out to be a jerk. Curtis took on more hours at a different store location even though he has finals this week as a favor and then the guy just started being an ass by leaving early leaving his sick Assistant Manager there and then when he got a text saying 250 items were missing he called Curtis and told him he was going to come over there with the cops to look at the video (which I personally took as a threat to Curtis). Come to find out the 250 peices were missing from another store entirely. Ugh! What a guy... so glad Curtis is not going to end up working for him. Plus we would have ended up moving up to the New Port Richey and while the rent is much cheaper up there, there is NOTHING to do up there.

Hopefully another position will open up soon for him and they will pick him for it. God only knows the man has worked hard and long enough to deserve it.