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.

instagram post.

instagram is finally on android!  yay!  now i can turn my favorite things into hipster pictures!

some letter beads.

i found a bunch of letter beads in my crafting stuff awhile ago.

i was super into making hemp necklaces and bracelets a few years ago, so i had all sorts of beads to decorate with.  i think i gave mandy the actual beads to use for hair bows or something, but i apparently stashed the letters away for myself.

last time i was at home, mandy made me a hipster string bracelet.  you know the kind.  we all made them when we were little and it was the greatest gift to get from a friend because they took so long to make, and then you tied it on and wore it till it rotted off.

(i haven't taken mine off yet.  it's still strong and it smells like my shampoo.)

so i was going to make me a cool one with a word to wear with it, it's really thin and i just like things a little more chunky.  i was going to go with my name, but i already have a necklace with my name and i don't want to broadcast myself to potential kidnappers any more than i already am.

i decided i wanted to make a pink bracelet that says 'cochina'.

i had to look it up to spell it, and oh the things i found.

my dad calls all of us cochina.  if me, mandy and bug are all in the same room and he yells 'hey, cochina!' we will all hop up to see what he wants.  and it means what i knew it meant, but i didn't know people used it so meanly!

a cochina is a pig, specifically a girl pig.  which i can see how you use it badly, and when we were old enough to ask dad what it meant, we were a little offended.  but cochina is actually a term of endearment for little girls because when they're born they're small and pink just like little piglets.  and i don't mind being called one, but then again, it's only my daddy, so it's cool.

but now i don't know if i should make it, since i do live in a largely mexican community and i don't want them to think i'm really weird!

but while i think it over, here's some cutie cochinas for you.

peace.

a meringue adventure.

after so many high calorie sweets at chris's birthday party on sunday, i decided that i needed to distract myself from the leftovers with something equally as sweet but not as horrible for my tummy.

when we joined weight watchers last year, at our first meeting in the little magazine thing was a recipe for chocolate and vanilla meringue cookies and i made them almost immediately.  they were perfect and awesome and i was very proud.

that had never happened again.

for mandy's birthday last year, she had a wonderland party and wanted meringue mushroom cookies.  those came out alright.  definitely mushroom shaped but not as good as that first batch.  also that year for chris's birthday, he made root beer cupcakes with root beer syrup that we found in the baking aisle at walmart.  so with the leftover meringue from the mushrooms, i decided to make some root beer flavored by replacing the vanilla extract with a tiny bit of root beer syrup.

that doesn't really work.

but i didn't learn my lesson.

today i though i would fix this problem by using a tiny bit of vanilla extract and a tiny bit of the remaining hazelnut syrup i use in my coffee.

first off, this recipe is supposed to make 44 adorable meringue cookies at about a half a point each.  mine made about 20 huge meringue cookies at at least one point, maybe one and a half.

they're huge.  wtf?

and when i pulled them out of the oven there were delicious crunchy bubbles all over the place that tasted exactly like my hazelnut syrup.  one of the pans was too big for one sheet of foil, so i had to overlap two.  and underneath the flap where they overlapped, guess what i found.

delicious hazelnut syrup.

the same delicious hazelnut syrup that i BEAT INTO MY MERINGUES was now crunchy bubbles and puddles under the foil rather than a flavoring in my cookies.

HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN i need some baking scientist to explain this to me.

and no, my meringues taste nothing like hazelnut.  they are still sweet and delicious from the vanilla and the sugar but with none of the tasty nuttiness that i longed for. . .

peace.

what to do when you feel like literal crap?

when you feel so bad that it may actually be possible that somebody chewed you up, digested you for a little bit and then crapped you back out?

maybe you feel like i look right now?

i think it's all these trees out here out to get me.  after i defended them against chris's allergy-tree-hating.  

right now i have sandpaper throat, giant float-y head feeling and sometimes i have snot that i have no control over.  that's the worst.  the snot that just does it's own thing so you always have to be within arms reach of some tissues before it drips.

i need some nice hot something for lunch, then i shall partake in one of my favorite sick day activities.

coloring in bed.

then maybe a nap.

peace.

one of my new favorite photos.

sometimes she's a brat.  she can be a drama queen.  she sometimes needs what she thinks she need right now no matter what.  sometimes it game after game when i just want to go to sleep.  she's way to obsessed with david bowie.

but she's also a little bit of nerd (just like i was), loves big-eyed hoot owls and hello kitty faces (just like i do), always looks cute in her glasses (i wonder when she gets that from) and always has a picture or a pencil or a mcdonald's hello kitty (that's the same as one she already has) ready to give.  plus she's the only one in my family i've ever been able to talk about pokemon with.  she also give great hugs (those sometimes with a little too much force) and has the greatest little girl style ever (i mean, check out that shirt, big girl sizes plz?)

she's my baby sister, my little bugaboo, and i love her.  :D

dress size? don't care! :D

i had chris measure me for my wedding dress the other night.

i knew i wouldn't be happy during this process, there are some things i just don't want to know. . .i almost told him not to show me. . .but i keep telling myself to remember how far i've come, not how far i still have to go. . .

i know my whole seven followers probably get tired of hearing about my weight.  but you have to remember this has been a huge challenge in my life and i finally feel like i'm winning!  i've been maintaining my weight lately, and while i would like to lose more purely for health reasons, if i never lost another pound. . .

I WOULD BE HAPPY.

i can put on almost anything i want and look cute.  when i go out in public i feel like i have a nice confident stride now, i'm never wondering what people think about me or if i'm jiggling or if people see me as a big ol' hippo or something.

if they see me as a hippo, i can guarantee you i'm the cutest hippo they've seen all day!

told you.

and if they don't like the clothes i have on, then their lucky they don't have to wear them!

i rock the polar bear while stocking baby diapers.
wanna fight about it?

anyway, back to these numbers.

the last time i measured my own waist was for my prom dress in 2004.  at seventeen years old i had a 52 inch waist.  how i survived, i do not know.

and i cried.  i cried over that dress.  when that dress arrived i was so terrified it wasn't going to fit. . .i thought i was way to fat and too ugly to find a dress to wear to prom and that i shouldn't go and i don't have a date because i'm so fat and ugly. . .

but guess what?  in that dress with my hair done and my make-up rocking and with my 52 inch waist, that night in that limo i felt like a motherfucking princess.  :D

see?  that number didn't matter at all.  it's just a number.  this is what i got, and i'm gonna make it work.

for those of you curious, my waist this time around was 44 inches, that's eight inches down around my waist and about 4 dress sizes.  and if i'm still at that size when it's time to walk down that aisle, then i'll rock it.  and if i'm a little bit smaller than i'll have that dress nipped and tucked and it will just be delicious tasty icing on the cake of my day.

peace.

sometimes there are too many.

note to self:

sometimes you can have too many hipster pictures of your own cat.

peace from tiffers and the doctor.

easter stuffs blog!

so i freakin' love easter.  especially decorating for easter!

for those of you who don't know, i moved out of my parents house around this time last year, and the first time i went back (which was only a week later) my mom had packed me some of her easter decorations that she didn't use anymore so that i would be able to decorate my own little space for easter.  

decorating has become one of my favorite things to do!  since i don't have a whole lot of room i have a few designated areas that i reuse for decorating (there the same spots i used for christmas), i just take down the usual stuff (a whole bunch of owls!) and put up the nice holiday things.  it's a nice little system for my small collection of decorations.

so here's a look at my lovely hand-me-down easter house!

a handmade easter wreath from my mommy.

this is my stuffed animal stool.  for christmas it's a bear,
for easter it's this big sheep i got from my mommy.

more sheep from various locations, a cadbury bunny that
makes bunny sounds and bunch of little knick knacks my
mom has had forever!

another mommy wreath.

close up of the sheep.  the black on is from chris, the white one from
my mum.

so many bunnies in my little bunny village!

along with some of my cute owls.

my cute owls live with the bunnies in the bunny village.

love this little vase, wish i had something to put in it!

a bunny dish.

bug gave me those little owls.  they can't go in the shop but it's
all good.  giant owl mom and pop guardians.

chick in egg banner.

floppy easter hat banner (she looks like an old lady bunny
and i love it!)

my mommy made this for me this year!  it's full of easter
candy (not for eating, though)!

one more homemade mommy wreath.

a cupcake stand and a bunny in pants.  this stand has never
had cupcakes, usually it has oranges on it!

it's a little mismatched and funky, but i love it!  maybe i'll get some new easter stuff this year to fill it up some more!

peace.