day 2 in philly!
it’s been fun so far.
yesterday gene gave us a little driving tour around the city, went to jason’s to check out the wedding site, ate lunch, went on a walk to a cool coffee shop, had a marvelous home cooked dinner with gene and laura, then “worked” on my project some (i really just fell asleep because i was tired).
today we slept in a bit, ate breakfast, and then gene dropped us off near the liberty bell. casey and i explored the city for a good 5 hours. we went to the liberty bell and got a tour of independence hall (where the DOI was drafted/signed…we saw GW’s actual chair). our tour guide was the loudest person i’ve ever heard in my life…seriously…wow. after that we walked a lot of blocks to reading market and got some food. that place was crazy…likes tons of food stands and people all over the place. it took us about 30 minutes to walk around and pick a place to eat. we picked the right place though. our food was yummers. after that we just explored some more for a few more hours. then we met up with abby and jon and amanda and went to dinner at this southern comfort food place…(awesome right? go up north to eat southern food…). it was actually really good though…at least what i got was. don’t laugh but i just got a bowl of glazed carrots and a bowl of sweet corn and it was the best carrots/corn i’ve ever had…ever (probably because they were glazed in butter but still it was the healthiest things i had to choose from). now the girls are just sitting at gene and laura’s house drinking hot tea while the boys are going out to bars drinking who knows what. good times.
peace out.
in around 3.5 hours casey and i will be headed to the airport to fly to philly…i know, i should be sleeping but i never seem to be tired the night before a trip…i guess i just get excited. this will be the first time that casey and i have ever flown anywhere together. that’s crazy. we are going for our friend jason’s wedding. he’s marrying a girl named haley and from what i can tell she’s a real swell gal. their wedding/reception is going to be slightly unconventional and i have a feeling it’s going to be awesome. i’m not going to tell what they are doing so that you have to wait in suspense until i update about it later. hopefully i’ll have lots of pictures to post too. i hope that we get to do lots of fun stuff while we are there…abby and jon are going too so we’ll be hanging with them lots. the only thing that sucks about this trip is that i have a semi big project due the day after we get back so i’ll have to work on it lots on vacation. hopefully i will not procrastinate too much. i think i’ll be ok.
we left bella and ellie with our friends dan and carrie. they have their own dog so for the next 5 days they will have 3 dogs. yikes! they are brave. thanks guys!! this is the first time we’ve left the dogs with friends and i am super nervous about it. i almost started crying today thinking about it. i know i know, i’m just an over protective momma. i’m probably going to call dan and carrie every day to check on them so i don’t worry the whole time.
well, i better head on to bed for a few hours of sleep.
peace out!
i gave my blog a new do.
i like it.
rules are hard to follow/implement!
im doing ok…some rules are easier than others.
one thing i wish i had more of is discipline and self control so hopefully these rules will help with that. anyways………..
i’ve been sick the past few days. around 2 weeks ago casey had a cold that lasted around 3 days. i actually thought for a couple days that i had escaped getting it but no…i got it. i started feeling bad on friday and felt awful saturday, sunday, and monday. today i woke up and felt better…not 1oo% but much better…so im thinking tomorrow i will be good. woohoo!
i love my puppies. bella and ellie are already bffs and it makes me so happy. they are playing more and more each day. every time i come home i let bella out, say hi to her, then say “let’s go get ellie!” and she runs to the back room where ellie is. i let ellie out and she jumps up on me to say hi and then her and bella run down the hall together. it’s precious. they also share their toys pretty good. my favorite thing they do (other than wrestling) is when they play tug. ellie just stands or lays there while bella tugs with all her might. it’s humorous. i have a video of them playing that i’ll get casey to put up soon.
ok thats all for now.
wish me luck on my rules.
peace.
im trying to implement some “rules” into my life and here they are:
- drink 24-48 ounces of water every day - i do not drink enough of any liquid period…at the end of some days i realized that i’ve had nothing to drink all day. i’m just never thirsty. i eat a lot of fruits and veggies that have high water content so maybe that’s why. regardless i need to drink more water and 24-48 ounces a day will be a huge improvement for me.
- limit carbonated beverages to one a week. this won’t be hard since i rarely drink them but sometimes i drink 2 or 3 a week…and this will help me drink more water.
- drink more tea. tea is really amazing in so many ways. this one shouldn’t be too hard now that i work at starbucks and can get it for free. plus this will also help with my drinking more water rule.
- increase my dairy intake. i usually come pretty darn close to eating the minimum recommended daily servings of grains, bean/meat proteins, fruits, veggies, and fats…but the one catagory i don’t come close to fulfilling is dairy proteins. so today i kicked off this rule by having a cup of vanilla soy milk with breakfast and 1/4 cup of cottage cheese with lunch…and tonight i’ll have a cup of frozen yogurt so that will be my 4 serving minimun for the day! woot!
- cut out artificial sweeteners. they really are nutritionally no bueno. i’ve started using raw sugar in my coffee at work and i really like it. it’s nutritionally better than artificial sweeteners AND real sugar because it’s less processed. double bonus! i’m also looking into some different natural sugar substitutes. an obvious one that i already use often is local honey. another one that im trying is called xylosweet. it’s xylitol, a naturally occuring sugar derived from corncobs and birch trees (and mushrooms, fruits, and berries)! plus it has a low glycemic index so it’s good for diabetics and hypoglycemics…and it even fights cavities!
- eat less candy…anyone that knows me knows that this one will be hard.
- add more variety/new foods to my diet. sometimes i get stuck in ruts and eat the same things very often. i want to try to add more recipes to my menu rotation. i’ve recently added two: couscous stuffed bell peppers with apricot glaze and fish…i’ve decided im going to make fish at least once a week. last night i made honey ginger glazed mahimahi and it was awesome.
- do some sort of physical activity every single day and for sure stretch every single day. i am counting stretching as physical activity…so even on my “rest” days, i still want to do stretches/yoga.
- tidy of the house every day. by this i mostly mean just picking up after myself and putting things away when im done with them. im real bad about picking up after myself and it drives casey crazy…and it’s more annoying when i let things build up and then it takes me even longer to tidy up.
- pray every single day. this is the most important of my new “rules.” it’s sad and i hate to admit it but i do not pray nearly as much as i should. i go days without doing it and that needs to change.
so there they are…and just because i’ve made these “rules” doesn’t mean i won’t break them (these rules aren’t meant to be thrown back in my face, so when i accidentally leave a plate in the living room or something i don’t want to hear about me breaking my rules…casey). i am going to try my best to follow them but i know sometimes i’ll forget or run out of time in the day or get lazy or whatever. it just helps me to have them written and witnessed.
ok that’s all for now.
love.
all you ladies out there need to head to old navy asap tomorrow morning. i went today and racked up on some sweet stuff. in addition to their normal sale stuff they had 3 racks of stuff for 97 cents!! i got some real nice goodies. for example: a 40 dollar bathing suit for 2 dollars, a 30 dollar pair of pants for 1 dollar, 25 dollar sweater for 1 dollar, etc. i ended up getting 260 dollars worth of clothes for 63 dollars…i saved almost 200 dollars! it was awesome. the only non-awesome thing is that i have no birthday money left. oh well…that’s what it’s for!
anyway that’s all for now…i just wanted to share my super sale story.
lately i’ve been on a lady gaga kick…i’ve had her CD playing in my car for like 2 months now. it’s weird because i don’t really like super poppy music but i just LOVE lady gaga.
i’ve also been on a mango kick…i’ve been eating it like crazy. i guess it’s a good thing to eat like crazy though.
what about you? been on any kicks lately?
i took a bite of my sandwich (sliced chicken, mayo, and spicy mustard on whole wheat) yesterday and for a split second it tasted just like those cheddar and sour cream potato chips. it was totally weird: 1) because i haven’t tasted, seen, thought about those chips in years; 2) because nothing on my sandwich was close to cheddar or sour cream; 3) after that i never tasted that taste again.
no matter where i am in our house an ant always manages to be crawling on me…in the kitchen, on the couch, in the bathroom…it’s weird because we don’t just have tons of ants hanging out in our house. and whenever we do see ants it’s usually on the kitchen counter because we left something sticky out or something. anyway, i’ve decided that every time there’s an ant on me it’s just the same one and he likes me so much that he always manages to find me and crawl on me just to say hello. right now he’s crawling on a book next to my computer…because that’s where i set him. anyway his name is ANThony and he’s my best ant friend.
my trip to texas was fun times and im so glad i got to go.
texas clouds
texas is pretty
like i said in my last update, saturday morning i went with chelsea and some of her friends to a local coffee shop called mozart’s to do some painting. it was fun and relaxing.
here’s everyone painting
here’s what chelsea painted
here’s what i painted…i named it “dot flowers”
after painting we went back to chelsea’s adorable little house to hang the paintings. woohoo!
here’s chelsea hanging my painting on her wall of paintings
then we went and had lunch at subway and met our moms for pedicures. at first i was sad because i couldn’t figure out my massage chair but the girl doing my nails did such an amazing job massaging my legs and feet that i forgot about my chair pretty fast.
saturday night we had our whole family over for a dinner. it was a lot of fun. i was so glad to see everyone. here are some pictures.
me, sharon, linda, and pam
all the cousins (plus the back of my brothers head)
kelly, brenda, dad, robbie
sharon, linda, grandad, ronnie, mom, gary’s head, and don’s knees
after most people left trevor challenged me and my dad to the cinnamon challenge (look on youtube if you don’t know what it is). i don’t think me and my dad ate enough because these are the worst reactions trevor could catch with the camera:
i spent the night with chelsea satruday night and we woke up sunday morning and went to a yoga class. it was a hot yoga class in a 100 degree room. i don’t think i’ve ever sweat so much…i was soaked. i actually really enjoyed the class and i wish i could do more yoga more often.
the rest of sunday consisted of church, sitting around, and then going out for a sushi dinner…i love sushi.
on the way home from sushi i called casey and for some reason i just called out “FALCOR” (the luckdragon of course). then we (me, casey, trevor) proceeded to have a hilarious conversation about the never-ending story. the funniest part was when my dad chimed in and thought that atreyu’s name was “trachea.” we laughed so hard…you just had to be there. so then me and my brother went to get some ice cream and we watched the never-ending story when we got home and that movie is so so cheesy but it was worth it.
monday me and my mom went shopping. i didn’t get much…just a necklace, sunglasses, a bra, some socks, and some sweat pants. thanks mom!! then we met my dad at his work and ate some chick-fil-a in the hospital cafeteria. after that i packed up my stuff and came home to birmingham.
it was so good to see casey and my pups…i missed them and they missed me!
anyway…now you know all about my trip to texas (if you even made it through the whole thing…thanks for hanging in there!)
i’ll be posting a new blog post soon…im working on it.
