Fun times!

We have had a fun couple of days! On Friday, we took a day trip to Columbia, Missouri. We walked around the downtown area near University of Missouri's campus and ate lunch there. Then we headed over to a state park nearby and did some hiking.

Rock bridge

Ben climbing off the trail

Ben in a small cave and stream

Me!

Swampy area

Cool shaped trees

As you can probably tell, Ben is a way more adventurous hiker than me. But we both had a good time seeing the park. We headed home after hiking, and we were just in time to hit up Sonic's Happy Hour, so that worked out perfectly!

Blurry sunset on the way home

We spent most of Saturday relaxing. I caught up on some episodes of Say Yes to the Dress. :-) And we headed to a different state park in the afternoon to hike some more! This one is close by, and it has several trails we want to try eventually. I just hope we can get a little more outdoor fun in before the weather starts to really cool down. It's been just gorgeous and warm here all week.

In my fitness plan news, WOOHOO. I lost weight this week, and I'm so relieved! I actually lost more than my goal for the week, but I really think my original weigh-in was artificially high. I hope it was anyway! Haha.

What has worked for me so far:

• The Daily Plate--I LOVE it and how it easy it makes things!
• Working unhealthy snacks and treats into my days--usually I try to cut them out completely and end up binging on them later...I've just been deciding when the calories are worth it to me. So far, it's not that often and usually I just want one or two cookies instead of 5 or 10.
• Staying under my calorie goal each day--not too far under, but under--even if the calculator says I've burned some calories, I try to stay under my original, un-burned goal. That way I feel sure I'm going to see results.
• Exercise--obviously hiking has been a great way to work in exercise without feeling like I'm going to die at the gym. And I've been doing my 20 minutes of Jillian everyday. My stamina is improving slowly! And I'm totally taking today off from exercising. :-)

I'm really hoping I can continue to stick with this...usually I start to give up within a couple of weeks, but seeing good results this week was a great motivator. And if I continue to lose a little, I think I'll try my dress on again next week. That might also provide some more motivation! :-)

Happy Birthday Jen!

Today is my best friend Jen's birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNIFER LEIGH. I wish I could be there to help you celebrate. I miss you so much!

Reasons that I love her and she is awesome include:

• She befriended me in Spanish class my freshman year and helped me not look like a total idiot in there
• Ever since we met, she's always, always, always been there for me
• We can communicate with each other without speaking, which comes in handy when we want to talk about people who are around us
• We laugh at the same things, even if some of those things might be awful things that should not be laughed at
• She doesn't judge me for laughing about awful things
• She makes delicious cheesecakes (most of the time....when she's not burning them :-)
• She introduced me to Starbucks way back when
• I feel like I'm a part of her family and she's a part of mine
• Her face looked like this during Ben and my's first dance:
  

(It's hard to see, but she looks SO happy for us that it makes me tear up!)

I love you Jen Leigh!! Hope your birthday is the best one yet. :-)

:-)

Just thought I'd say hello today! Nothing much is going on here this week. Ben and I went to Hobby Lobby last night to look around (I think he was trying to make up for all the football/baseball/more football/more baseball on TV around here lately). We didn't buy anything (this might shock y'all, but I'm unemployed! I don't talk about it much, I know :-), but I saw TONS of things I'd love to have for Christmas decorating. And by tons, I mean rows and rows and rows and rows. So much fun!! I still have major hopes for a couple of job possibilities, so maybe some new Christmas decorations will be in my future soon. Fingers crossed!

My dieting and fitness plan is going well (easy for me to say after only 2 days!). I'm using this Daily Plate site to track my calories, exercise, etc. I saw it on another blog, and it's really neat! In the past, I have tracked my calories in a spreadsheet, but this site is so much more useful. The database is full of all kinds of foods, it tracks your caloric needs based on your weight and activity level, and (the coolest part for me) it keeps track of your daily percentages of protein, carbs, etc. based on all of that other stuff. I've always been worried about getting enough protein and eating too many carbs since I don't eat a lot of meat. But my protein levels are more than fine! And my carb levels aren't too high either! For the most part, I'm finding my basic food choices are actually pretty healthy. It's all the extras (that I've always known are bad) that have been getting me--cookies, cakes, etc. etc. We'll see how it all goes. I'm usually good at being gung-ho about this stuff at the beginning and then it just all peters out gradually. I'm finding that fear is a pretty good motivator so far, though! If I don't lose at least a little weight, I can't really function in that dress. And I want to be able to function AND look good. Haha.

Well, I need to get going. My goals for today include cleaning the kitchen (again, story of my life) and taking down our Halloween decorations. :-)

Our Halloween

We didn't go to any parties or dress up, but our Halloween was a good one anyway!

It started out for me by going here:

Brand new Wal-Mart!

I was going mainly to get the stuff to make these: Candy Corn Bark. You'll have to imagine mine in your head because I didn't take any pictures! Or you can pretend mine looked like the one in the pictures there (even though it totally didn't). It turned out tasty, though!

From Wal-Mart, I hit up...

DSW!

...to check out their shoe selection. I've been looking for shoes to wear in Jenny's wedding in December, and I just recently found a pair online that I LOVE. So I went to DSW to check them out in-person.

THE shoes

Of course, they didn't have them in black in my size. And of course no other size fit. And of course (if I'm being honest) they were not the most comfortable shoes in the world, and I may or may not have felt a little off-balance walking in them which could (or could not) pose a problem for my main duty as a bridesmaid, you know WALKING down the aisle. So, I'm glad I saw them in person, and I'm sad they didn't fit (I was able to try on a quite stylish bright purple version in my size). I tried my hardest to fall in love with another pair of shoes at DSW, but it just didn't happen.

Feeling inspired, I came home and tried on this:

My bridesmaid dress!

Up til this point I had been in a bit of denial about gaining weight since the wedding. And I was expecting the dress to be a little snug (I knew I couldn't gain much weight when I ordered it!). I was not expecting it to look quite as bad as it did! I mean, it zips....so that's something. Haha. Anyway, I am SO glad I tried it on when I did so that I can be absolutely certain it will fit in mid-December. AND, a lucky break, some black shoes I already have work perfectly with it. It won't even have to be hemmed. :-)

So, I will be making GOOD friends with:

Jillian

over the next 7 weeks. And with healthy foods. And with portion control. :-) Which means I have quite a bit of candy corn bark sitting on my counter torturing me at the moment! Bad timing. :-)

I'm actually a little excited because this provides the perfect kick in the butt for me to be healthier! We'll see how it all goes.