Back home with BIG news and time to get busy!

Greetings everyone from the comfort of MY bed! It is so good to be home. Brian and I had an amazing time at Glacier National Park! I will look back on this trip forever as my favorite vacation because.....I'M ENGAGED! That's right. Brian popped the question while we were on our trip. I plan on doing a whole post about it, but lets just say I was very surprised. There were lots of tears, and of course I said yes!


Although the scenery at the park was beautiful (there will be a post with pictures) and I had a fantastic time I am soooo glad to be home. 2 weeks is an awful long time to be away. Today will be about relaxing and catching up on a few house  things, but after that it's going to be BIZ-EEE! I have dentist and doctors appointments all this week. Gotta get that stuff taken care of before school starts! Then next week I will be going to new staff academy and working on my room. The week after will be more back to school meetings, and then it will be time for school to start! Whew! This summer has gone by fast. It seems just like yesterday I was stressing about finding a job and worrying I wouldn't be able to enjoy my summer. Now here we are at the end and it's been great!

I'll be back later today with the engagement post and Glacier pictures! See you then!

Meet Me in Montana

We're leaving for Montana tomorrow! I think I'll wear my  hair like Marie. Looks good don't it? Our flight is at noon and we'll have a lay over in Vegas for FOUR HOURS! Oh what will we do???

Mmmmhmmmmm! Yeah right...Gambling makes me nervous and I'm broke so....maybe I will window shop.

After our lay over we fly to Missoula. We're staying with Brian's friend Brett our first night. He has a mastiff! I'm excited to play with the doggy. Then Thursday morning we'll get in our rental car and go to the store to get our food then head to our first campsite! We'll be camping at Lake McDonald for 4 days then move to Many Glaciers for another 4 days. Then we'll be headed up the Prince of Whales hotel in Waterton, Canada! Super excited about this! Look how beautiful it is!

After a couple of nights here we'll be headed back to Brett's for 2 days then fly back home! I'm really excited. Brian and I are going to have such a great time. I have to admit I am a little nervous. I've never been camping for this long before and I hope I can hack it. There's still snow in some parts of the park and you know how I feel about winter,  but it shouldn't be too bad.

We'll take lots of picture so expect a big post when I get back. See you in 2 weeks! :o)

My my how time flies!

Brian and I are headed to Illinois this weekend to celebrate my God daughter, Reygan's 2nd birthday. I can't believe she's already 2! It seems like it was just yesterday I was out there for her birth. And now she's a big sister and growing up so fast. She's so super smart. She already knows all of her colors and shapes. It's cause her mommy and daddy are super smart and teach her lots. Here's a picture of Reygan and I the day after she was born.

And here's one of Reygan now with baby brother Jackson!

Pump the brakes! Maybe...

I've been feeling very conflicted the past few weeks. I feel like summer is FLYING by. Last weekend was the 4th of July and it feels like school just got out yesterday. We are going to Illinois this weekend for Reygan's birthday then off to Montana shortly after we get back. Part of me is like, "Slow the hell down, summer!" But then another part of me is feeling good about it going by fast. I think I've decided next summer I will be getting some sort of job. I feel like I have waaaay too much down time. It makes for a lot of boredom, and at times worry. I took my last Lexapro probably 3 weeks ago and since then it's been a roller coaster. Not an adult, big roller coaster, but at least a little one. Like at Camp Snoopy. For the first couple of weeks I had a lot of trouble with dizziness and weird heart flutters. I was weepy and worried I would feel bad again. Then most of last week was wonderful. The dizziness went away. I felt like myself again. Then things started feeling off again. I had a little panic attack one evening. I was excited to go celebrate the 4th with my family, but at the same time felt worried I was going to have negative emotions again. My therapist had said that if I felt persistent emotions that are not reflective of my environment I should take that as a sign I may need to go back on medication. I don't feel like that is the case. I would say 90% of the time everything is great. Then every now and then I feel a sense of sadness and worry that I'm not going to feel good. That I'm going to have anxiety. Or that I'm going to feel sad during a time I should feel happy. And then worrying and ruminating about it makes me frustrated. Sometimes it's a sadness that life is different now. Don't get me wrong I'm super happy with the life I have with Brian and my family and friends. But going to my parent's house; home doesn't feel like home anymore. This summer hasn't felt like summer to me. I wasn't as excited about the 4th of July as I usually get. Maybe it's just changing and getting older and life is going in a different direction. A good direction. But it's foreign, because it's new. It doesn't mean that I've lost my spark or my happiness. That I have a mental issue. It's just a new chapter and I need to embrace it.


I have so much to look forward to these next few weeks. Like I said we're going to Illinois then Montana. It's going to so fun. I get to see my best friends and my God daughter and her little brother. Then spend some quality time with the love of my life in a beautiful setting. No sense in ruining all that with worries of feeling bad when it is absolutely not going to happen. I need to remember to shake those negative thoughts whenever they pop up. I know that they tend to come around when I'm by myself or don't have much to occupy my time. If I know that then I should use my strategies to help. I can do it. I've done it before and I will get to a point where it is easier and I won't have to do it as often. I just have to keep working at it.

Technology makes me fussy....

Or rather technology makes me fussy when it doesn't work how I want it to! So I recently got an iphone. It's an iphone 3 and I got it used from my sister. Nothing too exciting. But I didn't have to pay for it! I haven't really done anything too fancy on it. Not even uploaded my music. I have an ipod. It works just fine for music. Well at least it did. Yesterday I got my ipod out of my purse to upload some recent itunes purchases. When I pulled it out of my purse I discovered that it was starting to come apart a little around the the top. You know? Where the white face meets the silver back. So I tried to push it back together hoping it would just click in place. It clicked alright. Or should I say cracked? My video ipod (that I have had for like 5 years) now has a rainbow swirly all over the screen. I would take a picture to show you but it's in the back room where Brian is playing WOW and I was already fussy with him due to my technology frustrations so I'm just gonna let him be.

Anyway. Since my ipod is temporarily crapped out(I say temporarily because Brian says it will still work we just need to buy a new screen) I decided now would be a good time to put music on my iphone. Easier said than done.


A couple of years ago when I got a new laptop I had to transfer my itunes library to my new computer, and things did not exactly work out. There were a few songs and playlists that did not make the switch. For whatever reason ( I think it was because they were songs my sister had burned for me which she probably downloaded from napster or something sketch like that) these few songs will not play on my new laptop. It says that itunes can't find the file. So the only place I can listen to them is on my ipod. Which is now broken. Still following? Since the songs are not in my itunes library anymore I can not upload them on my iphone. Not only can I not upload those few songs, I can't upload my whole library because it's too big. My video ipod has plenty of room. iphone is too small.

What's a girl to do? Well my hero, geeky, boyfriend Brian showed up just in time yesterday to come to my aid. He was able to plug my ipod into his computer and put my music on our external hard drive. Awesome, right? So today I was able to put the "lost stuff" back into my itunes. However, when I tried to upload the "lost stuff" playlist onto my iphone things got complicated. The playlist would not show up, but some of my songs did. Several are not on there. Brian tried to help explain to me how to go about synching your music with your iphone, but none of it made sense and I got fussy. I mean real fussy. Why does apple have to make it so complicated?!? I just want the music I want on my iphone! Or my ipod to be fixed. Whichever comes first.

I still don't have every thing I want on my iphone. I gave up. I figured good enough for listening to on our road trip next weekend, plane trip in 2 weeks, and on vacation. Who knows, maybe I can have a new screen by then.

It's times like this that make me miss CD's and my Disc- man. Or even cassette tapes! At least I could touch my music and knew where it was! Not just floating around in cyberspace.....I think I need a snack and to go to bed...:o/

I want to ride my bicycle..AKA DANG!

Well for my first day back on Livestrong.com yesterday went okay. I kept within my calorie allowance and even burned some playing on the Kinect in the afternoon. I kinda messed up in the evening when Brian and I went to 3 spoons. I had enough calories for frozen yogurt but when I added sliced strawberries, dark chocolate chips, and a teeny bit of hot fudge to my  cup of chocolate vanilla swirl I went over by like 100. Whoops! Brian said it was okay and pretty good for my first day.

Today I decided to go on a bike ride after breakfast for some exercise. It was...interesting...I headed over to the Prairie Park Nature Trail again and went all the way around that. When I was coming back home I had a little trouble at the stop lights at 23rd and Harper and 23rd and Haskell. Stupid things wouldn't change so I could go across the crosswalk! Waited for like 5 light cycles at each intersection before I said screw it and went south down Haskell to get on the bike trail. Took that up to 15th and then back down Haskell, then 19th, then home. I calculated the miles using google maps. 9.4 miles! Took me 95 minutes. I put it in livestrong as leisure bicycling (under 10 mph) and it says I burned 618 calories! Woo-hoo!

Now I'm really hungry. I think I'll fix lunch here soon. Thinking about going to the pool today. We'll see. That place is always crawling with kids I know. Wish I had a small, less crowded pool to go to. I need to find a friend with one!

Too much booty in the pants.

I just returned from spending a lovely weekend in Hutchinson, Kansas for my good friend, Katie's wedding. It was wonderful. I had a great time hanging out with Katie and was so happy to be apart of her day. She looked beautiful and I know that she and Louie will be so happy together!

Now returning home? Not as happy. I've been feeling....let's say....like a FAT ASS lately. Super chubs. Chunky monkey. Too much junk in the trunk. My badonk is outta control. And not just my badonk. My belly, hips, thighs, arms, FACE! Even my face feels fat. So last night when I went to the bathroom I decided to step on the scale and lo and behold I'm back to the weight I was before I lost a few lbs earlier this year. So crap. It comes as no surprise. I've been eating like a pig lately. But this chunk is not welcome. It cannot stay. I've got to do something about it!

But the doing something is the hard part. As far as the exercise goes I have plenty of time. Hello?? Teacher. Not working 'til August! I did go to Dog Days a couple of times. But I have to get up at 5:30!!!! LIKE IN THE MORNING. That's too early for me in the summer time. So that's an obstacle. I just have to exercise on my own at a more reasonable hour. But then the question is, what do I do? I have a bike. I like to bike. That's an option. Running is out. I don't move quickly unless something is chasing me. We have a Kinect and a pretty fun dance game. There's a idea. Or I could go over to our "gym" at our apartment. Swimming is an option too. Okay...so I guess I got exercise figured out.

Now the eating. Man I love eating. I love food. I love tasty food. I love to cook and eat and be full and happy. I know I can still eat and be full and happy while trying to lose weight. I just need to make better choices. That's not hard. I know what's good and what's bad. It's just that the bad is sooooo yummy! I have a LIVESTRONG.com account that I started using a few months ago. I have not kept up. I can use it to track my calories and make sure I'm being smart. I just need to stick with it.

And then there's Brian who should win the award for most supportive boyfriend EVER! He thinks I'm pretty even if I feel like a beached whale. He tells me he'll do whatever I need him to while I try to remove some booty. AND he's super nice about it. He asked what he should say to help me not cheat with out being bossy. Gosh I love him.

I know I've had a blog like this before with all my grand weight loss plans that puttered out when things got rocky and I got distracted. But things are not rocky now. Things are the opposite of rocky. Smooth sailing. Great boyfriend, great family, great friends, great new job. Not too many distractions. I can stick with it. Here I go!