the dreadmill.

i hate treadmills.

but my weight has been really jumpy lately, and i don't like it.  i would like to lose about 15 more pounds before the wedding, which would put me at 65 pounds lost.

my treadmill buddy and my food diary.

i totally lost all sense of food tracking there for awhile.  i'm trying to get back on it, but it's still only a few days out of the week, it's slowly getting better though.

not only do i want to lose more before the wedding in october, but mandy and i would like to participate in the color run, probably not this year, but hopefully next year, so i want to learn to run!

it's the happiest 5k on the planet!

can you believe we want to participate in a 5k!?!  I CAN'T.

i know even if i treadmill till next year i won't be able to run a 5k, but i may be able to jog a 5k or speedwalk a 5k.  there are pictures of people way bigger than us having just as much fun as the people running!  i just want to say i've done it!

today i ran/jogged about 2 minutes on the treadmill.  it's the first time i've ever tried.  i was only on about fifteen minutes, but i tried to jog (hands off the bars and everything!) about 15-20 seconds of ever song i listened to.  the longest i went was 30 seconds, and when i got down to the 10 second countdown to the end of my treadmill time i bumped it up again.  i feel really good right now, but i am a little more sweaty than usual.  D:

so we'll see how it goes!  my goal is just a pound this week, and to track everyday, even when i'm bad!  (gonna try super hard not to be bad, though.)

next goal is to get on my bike once i move to days.  i need to get the tires aired back up and try to scrub some of the rust off the gear shift (not that care about gears).  if i have fun with the bike and ride it somewhat regularly, i'm gonna save up for a bike that i really like, rather than the yard sale bike sitting by the front porch.

fell in love with this bike today at work.
$150 that i don't have, though.  D:

baby steps, though.  baby steps to maybe a super cute bike.  :D

peace.

happy birthday to my love!

in case you are just joining the party:

sometimes he's a polar bear, too.

today is his 25th birthday!

and i love him!

and he's the greatest!

he's also at work.  sad face.

we had his party on sunday, so that could partake in WRESTLEMANIA (because we're cool like that).  and i got to set up a party and food and we made a cake and it was so fun!  i like to have people over and hand out drinks and be a cute little homemaker type lady.

we had a lot of fun, watched sweaty men fight each other (oh, and undertaker vs triple h?  love it.  ended like a disney movie, what more could i wish for!), and then played nerd games and hung out until the wee hours of the morning (bedtime happened at about 6:30 am).

downside is going to have to be WAY too much food.  my tummy was sore from being so stuffed. . .so it's treadmill all week for me, starting once my iPod is fully charged!

(also thinking about making one more birthday treat, only way less calories:  some tasty vanilla meringues.  om nom nom!)

some pretty fruit!

fruity pebbles treats!

cake scrap that looks like a donut.  :D

my love with his big cupcake.

all the sweets!

baby cupcakes!

your hostess.  :3

and contrary to those pictures, there was real food. but who wants to look at pictures of real food?

so yeah.  my dude.  birthday.  love him.

peace.

gen con 2011 blog!

i freakin' love this place.

gonna try to blog but there is a very jealous kitty next to me that thinks he needs all of my attention.  ALL OF IT.

anyway, gen con this year was pretty sweet for two reasons:  1) we got to stay the whole weekend and 2) we had a little more fun money that usual.

first, i have to say our diet took a vacation as well.  we ate whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted because we were on vacation, dammit!  so i came home with 2 extra gen con pounds, but no biggie.  :D

a million peeps!  well maybe not a million, but in the lots of thousands.

that pic if from the opening of the exhibit hall, where the do a dice roll for no reason other than it's a gamer convention and they can.  i've never gotten to be there when it opens so it was pretty cool.

chris ald the lego-taur.

i love this picture.  chris hates it because as he took his arm down after i took this shot the lego-taur cut him with his legos.  the first thing chris did was go the WOW room and show phil is battle scar.

just silly.

there was so much stuff going on and so much stuff i wanted to buy!  plus a million people in costumes and a bunch of game demos going on and all kinds of stuff.

this year i went to a few of the anime events.  i usually don't go because i don't like the new breed of anime fan that just goes ballistic over something just because it's from japan.  annoying little buggers.  i spent two events with two girls like that who i wanted to strangle.

anyway, these events were run by an awesome group of anime convention people called wasabi anime who appreciated the retro shows that i love, japanese culture and didn't squeal just because of their big anime eyes.  they put on an awesome panel about myazaki, including info and history of his films and watching his style develop.  i went to anime retro: sailor moon, followed the same thing, talked about the japanese version of the show, showed all the opening themes and discussed the recycled music the way better story lines the sailors had before they came to america.  lastly i went to anime name that tune, i should have played because i actually knew a lot of the themes, but i was afraid they'd play to much new stuff and i'd just embarrass myself.

BUFFALO.

POWERLIFTER played again this year!  sadly, they're probably getting a little full of themselves because it wasn't free this year.  i was great and i loved it but i was kinda bummed when they blew the speakers out and the show was cut short.  it wasn't surprising they went out, after all about six other acts blared through them before had.  did snag me an awesome tee shirt though.

now for some random costumes:

jareth and link.

the eleventh doctor and a weeping angel.

the eleventh doctor and lady!tardis.

also demoed a few games and this is the first year i've done that.  the first was a dice game called 'quarriors'.  chris loved it, it was alright to me but my main problem was i could barely read the dice.  you probably shouldn't try to fit 4 important bits of information on one side of a die.  the second was the penny arcade deck building game, which i loved and chris loved (plus it probably helped him that we were playing with a booth babe who he had almost defeated in WOW combat earlier that week) and there was a card based on this:

TOUCH WIENERS.

so i got to touch wieners several times with said booth babe.  and every time you play 'touch wieners' you get to say 'touch wieners' and every time you say 'touch wieners' it just gets funnier and funnier.

(for anyone who cares, info on the touch wieners card:  you play it and anyone else who has it can play it too (and gets to say 'touch wieners!) and you and anyone who has it gets to draw a card.  if nobody else plays touch wieners than your just sad and lonely and no card for you.)

and it's awesome.

our last day was kinda boring though.  actually we kinda got all our stuff done one the first two days, so the last two days were spent wandering aimlessly.  the fourth day was the worst because we had literally seen everything there was to see.  our final adventure was spent trying to find chris's cell phone that he dropped in the hyatt and was luckily picked up by a friendly hobo.

we also had an awesome denny's adventure in which we spent the entire time saying 'touch wieners' for no reason at all.

chris say's he's going to compile his list of favorite quotes from this year, if he does i'll share them.  i promise they will be way funnier out of context.

peace and kitty ears.

a goodwill blog!

since moving out of my parent's house, i have learned to LOVE goodwill!  i love it so much, especially for house stuff.  we got an awesome little bookcase for the living room for $9.50 the other day.  it's next to the t.v. and if the home of movies, video games and my overflow of books.  i've gotten cool decorate-y things and all sorts of stuff.

now, we were seriously lacking in fun money for the month, so we were pretty bummed.  luckily, chris fixed somebody's computer today and got twenty bucks.  so off to goodwill we went!  (also, as we were about to get in the truck, chris's other bff woodrow pulled up in the driveway, so we piled in his car instead for our adventure!  he also treated us to taco bell because he's like the coolest guy ever.)

here's my haul for the day, and we only spent $7.64!

1.)  some big red heels!  yes, they are big and normally i can't walk in heels, but as you can see these have treads on the bottom so i am good to go!  i don't have an outfit for them yet, but i couldn't pass them up for $3.00!  i feel so pin-up-y in them.  :D

2.)  owls on a branch, $0.50!!  i'm an owl collector, and i'll warn you that i bought every owl i saw in goodwill today except for a salt shaker that had some paper and weird stuff stuck in his belly.  D:

3.)  i love this little thing!  i actually have another one like this (they're different, of course, but same theme)!  i love the little upside down owl, i feel like that sometimes!  and $0.50 again!

4.) another little salt shaker.  i have a million of them!  he's a cute little realistic one, though (and $0.50!!).

5.)  more salt and pepper shakers!  only yellow this time!  yellow owls are so cute (as are all owls, especially when their $0.50 a pair)!

6.)  my favorite of the day!  and only $1.50!!  he's a professor owl teapot!  OWL AND TEAPOT my dream come true!

7.)  this is actually from a previous trip, but he's so cool!  only downside is he has googly eyes, so if you shake him he goes cross-eyed.  not that you should be shaking him, but i did anyway to see if the eyes were googly!

so yeah, owls and shoes!  enjoy!

peace.

a stormy blog!

spent a few days at my parents house this weekend for my granny's birthday party!  party went off without a hitch, family parties are always the best!  i did have to spend the previous day deep in crochet land trying to finish the shawl i wanted to give her for her birthday.  i did finish it, though at some point during the process bug decided she was a kitty and was going to play with my yarn ball with her ravioli hands. . .it left a little stain, but luckily most of it made it into a stitch, so you don't even notice it if you don't know where it is.

i also got my hair did, which is always fun.

look at this hair bein' all did.

in other news, i'm currently taking a speech class, and i have to do all my speeches via webcam.  which totally blows and i look awful on webcam.  D:  it makes things a little easier since i'm terrified of public speaking (at least on webcam i can't see people looking at me), but it also makes it a little harder since i have the option of doing it several times until it's perfect and will keep doing it until it is.  i did a tiny two minute speech about 6 times yesterday because i couldn't stop myself from 'um'-ing all the time.  the one i finally settled on still had one in it.  but i just can't not do it. . .

here's my 'that's awful' outtake.  enjoy.

now, to get to the part of the blog where i actually tell you about the storm instead of just making it the title and then forgetting about it.

i woke up yesterday to an awesome day.  it was cloudy, but it felt so nice outside, it was great.  so i put on my cute 'it's so nice outside!' skirt and some flip flops and i am ready to go.  chris and i were planning on stopping by the big flea market on the way home and i was totally excited.

inside, however, the weather channel is telling us it's going to be just awful everywhere and shouldn't have made plans at all.  but we were not deterred.

i went and changed from my cute skirt into some jeans and tennis shoes so my feet wouldn't get all wet in the horrible storm that was supposed to hit us.  another channel tells us there is a severe thunderstorm warning for us and bullit county (which we would be heading towards), for the next half hour or so, so we decided to wait it out.  of course, nothing happened.

nothing happened because it waited for us to get on the interstate to start throwing water on us.  screw you, weather.  it was pretty rough going for a bit, not even really because of all the rain but because of the mist getting thrown off all the other cars and chris' windshield wipers kinda blowing.

we finally do make it to the exit for the flea market and decide we'll go ahead and park and wait it out.

and of course, we park and there's nothing.  not a drop of rain falling from the sky.  just massive puddles we have to make our way around.  sigh.

so flea market fun was had.  on the way out, the sun decided to shine on us again, turning the parking area into a hot, muddy sauna.  my jeans were sticking to me and i was totally miserable.  chris told me to go get my skirt and flip flops and i could change in the flea market bathrooms, but i didn't really want to change there.  and i could have changed when we got to our next destination, but the truck was so hot and i was about to be covered in all the stuff we had with us, just to make it worse.

so being the clever girl that i am (and lucky enough to be in a pretty empty parking lot), i put my skirt on over my jeans while standing outside of the truck, took them off, got my socks and tennis shoes off and then did my best to get my flip flops on without my feet getting in the mud (they still did).  cuz i am hardcore like that and i don't deal well with humidity.  

so there you go.  chris was cheering me on just because he wanted to watch.  silly boys.

peace.

a walking blog.

today was a running around day.

the kroger up the street from us is closing (only to reopen as a new kroger RIGHT NEXT DOOR), so all sorts of perishable food-ness was on sale.  we got a lot of good stuff, was pretty excited.  decided to whip up an awesome chicken parmesan, cuz i'm cool like that.

but one of the things we actually needed to get today was a mop.  mops at kroger are obscenely expensive.  i refuse to pay eight dollars for something i'm gonna rub around on my dirty kitchen floor.

since i've been trying to get my 30 minutes of exercise a day in, i decided instead of walking on the boring treadmill that i'd go out into the beautiful sunshine-y day and walk to the dollar store to pick up a cheaper mop.  and it was amazing.  the walk was great, it was the same feeling and resistance of the hills was my incline.  it took almost fifteen minutes to get there, fifteen back.  that made my thirty.  i rewarded my awesomeness at the dollar store with some socks that matched (i was wearing visibly mismatched socks, it made me sad because my shoes were really cute and my socks were ruining it) and a diet mountain dew supernova (which is delicious, btw).

so i'm walking back and mandy calls.  i talk to her for the rest of the way to the house, i was only about five minutes away.  get to the door, sit the phone down, put the key in the lock, turn the knob. . .

it doesn't open.

maybe i have the wrong key.  i put in the other key, turn the knob. . .nothing.

i do this several times, and the key that should be the right key is behaving the same way the wrong key (the key to my parents house) worked.  meaning that it didn't work at all and that turning it just made the lock mock me.

i look at the house.  i know i may have really bad eyesight, but i am one hundred percent sure that this is* my house*, so i don't understand why the key to my house is not opening the door to my house.

i call chris.  chris calls his dad.  chris's dad picks up his key from him at walmart and brings it to me so i can get inside.

i wait outside about 20 or more minutes.  just me, my mop, my diet mountain dew supernova and a very angry damien (phil's cat) who really wanted inside and couldn't understand why i wasn't letting him in.

i can only assume that my key is just defective and i'm going to have to get a new one.  but i will be sure to test the new one before wandering around in the real world.

sigh.

it was very sad, to say the least.  but at least i was greeted by my doctor, who was also probably wondering why he could hear my outside being pissed but wasn't coming in.

sigh again.

anyway, after all that i made an awesome chicken parmesan for dinner.  penne, sauce, mozzerella cheese and frozen giant chicken things.  4 servings, 11 pts.  i'm getting good at this 'making food' thing.

a picture of me matching my blog!  i'm so cool and not still
pissed off at my key.

peace.

our second anniversary blog, part 2!

sorry it's been a few days, it sucks not having your own computer!  i've just been stealing time when i can and it's getting harder when a lot of people are home.  D:

so, in our last adventure we were eating leftover and watching wrestling.  after that we went to bed.  D:  so pretty uneventful for the rest of the night.

we attempted to get up early the next day to get breakfast at the hotel.  needless to say, i was just not feeling the whole 'awake' thing yet, plus my tummy was still sad from overeating the day before.  so we continued to snuggle and sleep until we had to get up to check out.  i had to take an awful shower with that cheap smelling hotel shampoo, and i hated it.  D:  i did my best to pick up the room, but honestly i didn't really care that much.  i am an awful hotel guest.  :P  so again, pretty uneventful.

after leaving the hotel, we began our quest for NAKED PIZZA.  naked pizza is a place up in louisville that serves just about the healthiest pizza you can find, it gets good reviews and is weight watchers friendly!  a large slice of cheese pizza from papa john's is fifteen points (omg, i know right!?) and a large slice of naked pizza with cheese is only four!  amazing!  the only problem was that chris didn't actually know where it was.  D:

we knew it was on breckenridge lane.  we knew how to get to breckenridge lane.  but we didn't know WHERE on breckenridge lane it was.  so we went one direction on this road off the interstate, didn't see it, turned around and went the other way.  still didn't see it, but we kept going.  

basically, we drove until we were back in st. matthews, which is where the cheesecake factory is and isn't far from the hotel.  we drove in a big circle because we didn't know where we were going.  but there was naked pizza, just chillin'.

we ordered our pizza (a medium smokehouse, a tasty barbeque chicken treat!), played with the iPads on the wall, and then. . .finally. . .

NAKED PIZZA!

finally, delicious naked pizza!  we were so excited!

except for that fact that there was no seating in the pizza place, so we didn't know where we were going to eat it!  chris said he knew a park we could sit at to enjoy out tasty prize.  but reference the story above about finding this place and i bet you can guess what happened.

if you didn't guess, we never found a park!  i was getting super hungry and cranky, and i kept saying to just pull in somewhere and let me eat!  we finally pulled into a walgreen's parking lot and had our noms.

look at these tasty noms!

it was so goooood!  i want some right now, and it's only five points per slice!  and they're even big, tasty, yummy slices!

chris's nom face.

so that's it (again) for now!  we did have some more adventures, but i still need pictures of them!

peace.

our second anniversary blog!

needless to say, an awesome adventure was had by my dude and i!  it was fun and silly, just like always, and totally worthy of being the celebration of our second year together!  :D

it started sunday night, when chris arrived at our house with this:

i always love how when i get a cake from chris
there is no doubt that he wrote on it.

yes, that's is one of our cutesy things.  every couple has one.  like when people are like 'i love you.' 'no, i love you!'  we go back and forth with 'you're my favorite'.  :P

for those of you following my weight watchers adventures, i used my last 12 points for the day on two pieces of this cake.  it was so good and so worth it.  :D

the next day we set out to louisville, where we had a lovely hotel room waiting for us.  i started the day with thirty minutes on the treadmill, because i knew as far as my diet was concerned, today was going to be just awful.  on our way out, chris was convinced we were being followed by an undercover cop (it did pull out behind us from the side of the road) but after it didn't pull us over for several miles we realized it was just a regular truck with a huge antennae.  silly, us.

we also had a mini walmart adventure since chris didn't have any shampoo or body wash.  i should have also picked some up, because i didn't realize i had forgotten mine, so i had to use crappy hotel stuff (white ginger is not a pretty smell).  i caved at the walmart and got a slim jim because i was starving, and we're also pretty sure there was some valentine's day sexy time going on in the car we were parked next to.  everybody had the holiday spirit, so it seems.  :P

next, the hotel!

look at our hotel/happy valentines day faces.  :D

we stayed at the same place we did the year before, and the room was exactly the same.  before we headed out to attempt to get into the delicious cheesecake factory i made chris help me turn on all the lights and the t.v.  why, you ask?  because i don't have to feel bad about it, so i wasted their electricity.

we love!!

when we got the mall with the cheesecake factory, there was little to no parking.  we parked and walked, which i said was a great idea since we were about to gorge the walk was probably good for us.  

now, before i continue this blog, here is a brief history of our previous cheesecake factory adventures.

february 14th, 2009

our first real date, and it happens to be a saturday.  we stand outside of the cheesecake factory in the freezing cold behind about a hundred other people who were also braving the cold to try to get in.  i think the wait was probably about three hours. it was our first date and i had other plans at home, so we didn't have the time to spare.  we never made it in, but it did result in our first snuggle. 

february 14th, 2010

we remember that it's going to be awful and get there early.  we wait in line forever just to get our name in, then try to waste time in the mall.  we forget that it's sunday, the mall closes, and we have to brave the cold again.  after about an hour or more we make it inside the building.  after another hour or so of waiting inside we finally get a table.  this is at about 8 o'clock.  we put in our names before 5.  but we did make it in, so win for us!

and now, to the present!

it's monday!  we're happy that it's unusually warm so our hours of waiting will at least be comfortable.  but yet we see no crowd.  assume the crowd must be inside.  we get inside and for the first time ever we are seated immediately.  my mine was blown wide open.  i'm still in awe. 

so here the gorging began.  i used all my daily weight watchers points and all my weekly points, too.  was it worth it?  yes.  of course it was.  it was my fucking anniversary, your points will not try to ruin my joy.  i did however realize i'm used to being on points and it was hard to gorge.  we finished our appetizer, i ate about a third of my entrée then boxed it up for later, then ate about 4 bites of my red velvet cheesecake before boxing that up, too.  it was still totally amazing, we literally only go once a year to this place on our anniversary and it makes it that much more special and delicious.

i never want to know how many points are in this.  never.

afterwards my stomach was so full i had to have some sort of exercise so we walked the mall.  we waited in line forever at lane bryant and finally left, and when we came back (i still wanted my stuff!) the lady was very apologetic, i think she really thought we were pissed and were never coming back, really i was just bored.  it was funny, though, that she was so excited to see us come back.  we tried to shop at hot topic but it was totally full, went into some other random stores, nothing much really to report on that.

went back to the room and did hotel things.  trust me, you don't want to know, but some of it was so funny i wish i could tell you.  but i'm a lady, so i won't. 

later that night, the hunger strikes us.  luckily we have a million foods left over.  i had just taken a shower and i realized i didn't bring any pajamas.  when chris and i are in the same bed, i usually sleep in my undies, so i didn't think i'd need them.  and i had just taken this awesome shower and didn't want to get fully dressed up (i had so many layers, leggings and a tank top and a dress and a sweater and knee high boots!  that outfit was a lot of work!) just to go to the lobby where the microwaves were.  but chris sad-faced at me and a compromise was reached.  i had originally agreed to go with him if i could wear his t-shirt over my leggings.  we has some random clothing debate since apparently womens fashions are so complicated.  finally, i agreed to go down in my tank top if i could wear chris's sleep shorts.  i didn't have any other shoes, and i didn't want to climb into those boots. . .

so i went down to the lobby of a semi-fancy hotel in a tank top, shorts, and knee high socks.  and horrible shower hair.

kinda like this.  at least my socks matched
my bra.

we heated up our food, came back to the room and watched wrestling.  it was pretty fun.

i think this blog is long enough, so i'll tell you about the rest of our anniversary adventures tomorrow!

peace.