Count The Happy Things

     Ok, so weighing myself after the diet didn't work out, well, because I don't own a scale. Slight overlook on my part. I'll need to go buy one of those. Check back in next week and we will see how much I lose. Here though, was my last supper. Tasty? Slightly, nothing magical.

     Something else today caught my attention. I remembered someone I used to know that every time she would feel down, or in a bad mood, she would count the happy things. I haven't done this in a long time. I don't know why, the positive girl that used to think of every single breath as a miracle doesn't come around anymore. Today I was in a bad mood. So many things seem to be against me today and I was sad and moody. So Jacob sat me down and said this, "I want you to make a list of all the things that make you happy and you are not aloud to stop until you FEEL HAPPY." And then he went to cut his hair with the trimmer that fixed the wiring on all by himself today. He also got a promotion at work. My husband is awesome. So because I have an awesome husband, and he knows me so very well, here I go. A list of Happy Things, in order of thoughts flying into my head.

Happy Things

Jacob
Baby Stuff (For future notes)
Babies in general.
Money
Having a laptop named Esmeralda.
Allergy Medicine
Presents
Shoes
Pinterest
Psych
Charmed
The Rainbow Cake I am going to make tomorrow. Blog to come.
The Onion soup I made for dinner with broccoli, rice, tuna(Jacob's idea, turned out well), low-fat sour cream, all in a bread bowl. Took a picture to place at the bottom of today's blog.
Bacon
Mary Kay
Helping People
People in General
The book called What Einstein Told His Cook.
The mall
Shoes
ShoeDazzle
Your Next Shoes Blog
Music
Driving with the music playing very very loudly. (You would think this would distract me. It actually helps me concentrate.)
Crockpots
Rice Cookers
The Food Channel
Really muscular male movie stars.
Duct Tape
Books
Shakespeare
The pencil or pen he used to write his masterpieces.
Pedicures
Maincures
In fact, they are best done as a Mani-Pedi.
Quilts
Grandparents
Really nice kitchen supplies, Kitchen Aid Mixers for instance.
Did I mention shoes?
Cute Dresses
The really cute styles on pinterest.
Really nice Hotels.
Spas
Losing weight.
Fitting into a size 6 skirt one day. =)
Fantasizing about traveling the world with my husband, and Colby and her husband.
Dreaming about the future.
Designing my future house on Pinterest.
Getting amazing tips, crafts, and recipes off of pinterest.
Looking at shoes.
Wearing shoes.
Touching shoes.
NOT smelling shoes....
My husband's promotion.
How hard my husband works to provide for us.
How good my husband is with numbers.
How wonderfully my husband walks.
The way my husband talks.
The way that rhymed just now. 
The way I did not rhyme that on purpose.
How my husband can cut his own hair, and fix his trimmer wiring after it explodes in our living room.
How patient my husband is when it comes to housework. One day I will get this whole keeping the whole house clean all at the same time thing down.
The thought that one day I will have a perfectly clean house ALL THE TIME! Wha?!?!?!
Reading my patriarchal blessing. 
Knowing that my Heavenly Father is always there for me.
Feeling the presence of the spirit. (Wondering if I am supposed to capitalize Spirit....)
Spirit.....spirit....hmmmmm.....
The scriptures, and the way they can comfort and heal.
The Gift of Discernment.
Those prayers where I literally can't explain them without putting it in the form of a conversation. (I said, "This." God said, "That.")
The fact that God chastises us so that we may make our weakness strengths.
Avocados.
Lorilie. (Pronounced Laura-Lie.)
Knowing that one day soon I will be sealed to my favorite husband and raising a brand new family that didn't exist before. To be able to nurture the greatest creations I will ever witness. Better than the I-phone 5. My kids will be AWESOME!
Being terrified to have such huge responsibility on my shoulders. (I saw a quote today that said, "Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide FOREVER to have your heart go walking around outside your body.")


I am officially in a much better mood. To be specific, thinking about the Lord and my future children makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. 

 Here is that Onion soup I made for dinner. =)

One more thing. I mentioned that Jacob got a promotion? Yes, that promotion is here. In Provo. So we will be staying a bit longer. we will wait until mid-March. We are still visiting MO and KS in December though. =) Yay!!! I LOVE Christmas. Can't wait to make Christmas Food!!!!! Kinda like the ones pictured below. ;)

Snow Cocoa

 This Roll Thing.

Oreo Coal, For the 'bad' kids. ;D

  

3 Day Diet: Dia Dos

     Here what I ate for dinner tonight. Once again, I did not want a grocery list so combined them with salt and pepper and steamed them. I infused the water I used to steam them with about 2 tbsp Italian Seasoning. This improved the taste immensely, and was only a slight cheat on the diet. Actually, it probably would not even count as cheating. I think. Here is what I ate today:

     Breakfast: 1 slice of toast with half a banana sliced over it and salt sprinkled on top. Salty sweetness is awesome. And 1 hard boiled egg.
     Lunch: 1 cup of cottage cheese, salt and peppered. And 5 Saltine Crackers. Someone please kill me.
     Dinner: This creation pictured above. Chopped: 1 hot dog, 1 cup brocoli, 1 cup carrots. Steamed. Salt and Pepper.

     Ok, I started drinking water like crazy today, and I walked around the mall applying for jobs. I only spent  99 cents while I was there. Be proud of me, be very proud. It took every ounce of will power not to buy every pair of shoes I saw, and that REALLY cute jacket at Buckle.
    Anyways, I still got to have my 1/2 cup of vanilla ice cream for dessert, along with the other half of that banana I had at breakfast. It was a good dessert, except 20 minutes later I was craving a hot dog. A nice hot dog on a bun with ketchup and mustard. Better yet, a J-Dog. With that special sauce they make that makes the mouth water.
     Now, I am going to go to sleep, and dream of food. Namely the wonderful meals I am already planning for my 4 days off of this diet. A hint? It includes homemade corn dogs, rainbow cake, soup bowls, and magic.

3 Day Diet: Dia Uno

It's nearing the end of day one, and this is my dinner. It's pretty good actually, but I'll get to that later. First, why I am starving.

   Breakfast: Half a cup of fresh squeezed orange juice, 1 slice of toast with 1 teaspoon of peanut butter spread on it. This was an ok breakfast to be honest, I sprinkled salt on my peanut butter toast and it was quite tasty.
    Lunch: 1/2 cup of plain tuna, salt and pepper added, on a slice of toast. As far as lunches go, this sucks. So by 5:00, I was starving.
    Dinner: 2 slices of turkey, 1 cup of french style green beans, 1 cup of carrots, 1 small apple.

Now, I love to cook. When I eat, I need it to consist of at least a little bit of my touch, a little bit of creativity. I was craving cooking more than I was craving eating all day. So by dinner time I was not about to take this bit random list of small portioned food and eat it all like a grocery list. So I created this warm salad. The whole cup of green beans, both slices of turkey chopped, 6 of my baby carrots chopped, 1/4 of my apple cubed beautifully, and of course, the only seasonings allowed in this diet, salt and pepper. Tossed and microwaved for 1 minute. I wasted nothing though. What I did not put in the salad I ate on it's own. Now mt tummy is happy, and this salad was bomb. For a diet salad anyway..... I would never eat this a normal basis without adding a lemon vinaigrette and of course some spinach leaves. Maybe toss some sauteed onions in too. Basically, it needs some work, but it quenched my craving for creative cooking. And for dessert? 1/2 cup of vanilla ice cream. =)

 

3 Day Diet

     Growing up, my mom was always on some kind of diet. I remember her always talking about losing weight and how wonderful this or that diet was. Well, this time I am paying attention. When I got engaged, I gained weight. My fiance had a car, he drove me everywhere, I didn't have to walk or ride my bike unless he was at work. Then I got married. Wow. Now I drive myself everywhere. I cook ALL the time. I stopped watching what I ate until about a month ago. Then I started noticing that my pants were really tight. "Oh no!!!" I started really watching what I was eating, but losing weight is pretty darn hard. BUT, combine this with a diet my mom told me about that is three days of strict meals, then 4 days of normal common sense healthy eating, then 3 days of strict diet, and so on until your goal is reached. Then you just keep eating smart, regular exercise and so on, to keep the weight off.  Now normally I would be all, "Whatever, that sounds stupid, it won't work." But my mom told me she ALWAYS loses 10 pounds for every 3 days she does it. ALWAYS.  So I am going to give it a try. I think I'll start on Monday, because then I can do it every Monday-Wednesday, then break from Thursday-Sunday. 

    To reach my goal I need to do this very strictly 4 or 5 times. If my Mom's results prove true, this is going to be an amazing month for me!!!! Now, I am going to put the link on here just in case someone wants to look at it, but with a warning: Do not do this if you are pregnant or nursing! AND it says on some of the meals to have 1cup of coffee or tea. Obviously, I don't drink coffee, and I'm not a fan of tea either. SO I replace this with water. Water is something you can drink as much of as you want. So I am subtracting even more calories than they do. Win-Win!  http://3daydiets.net/index.php (Do not click on the PDF Download thingy on the side. That's an add. If you want to download it, click on the red tab towards the top that says Download.)

     I am really looking forward to this, so I PRAY it works. If it does, I will be the smallest I have been since... a long time? So, to hold myself accountable, in comes the blog. I have to post my beginning weight (AAAHHHH!!!!!) and then post how much I lose at the end of every 3 day diet. Then, at the end, a picture of my results. Now, I hate telling people my weight. So I that gives me the motivation to REALLY DO THIS. Because I don't want to get on here at the end of all of this and say, "Well, I suck at sticking to diets, I lost no weight." Because then you all know my weight. I am not proud of this weight. So here goes everything, here is my current weight: 165lb.

      I hate looking at that number. Never in the history of my life have I weighed this much. I actually was slightly anorexic when I was a sophomore in high school. If my weight ever seemed too much, I wouldn't eat until it went down to something acceptable. This probably messed with my metabolism a bit right?  Right. So here I am, trying a bit desperately not to starve myself to lose weight. So in a way, this diet is a form a self preservation. I will do this in a healthy way. I WILL reach my goal. See that positive attitude guys and gals? Sweet.

     In other news, Jacob and I are officially moving to Springfield, MO in December. Yay!!!

Musical Clothes

As of... 4 days ago, I am 21 years old. It's funny how this is supposed to be some big milestone but I don't feel any different. I didn't expect to though. 

We went to Elko to for the whole weekend to visit my Mom and family there. Kyhana and Krystal invited some friends for their birthday party, and I cried a little when Kyhana's friends didn't show. Kurtis got this gigantic pink donkey pinata that wouldn't die. Oh and the cake? The girls chose Twilight. Grandma got to eat Kristin Stuart's face. -_- But it was a lot of fun, and the cake did have a big '21' candle along with the other candles for the girls, and it tasted pretty darn good. My mom did a game that she used to do at my parties when I was little. It's called 'Musical Clothes". You get a big black garbage bag and put a bunch of random clothes in it, a couple shoes, some hats, maybe a purse. Since they are so little and the clothes are adult clothes, it looks really silly. So what you do is have them sit in a circle and the bag starts with whoever's birthday it is. In this case it was Kyhana. Then you start the music and they pass it around the circle. When you stop the music the person it lands on has to put on what they draw out WITHOUT LOOKING, and so on. They come out with the silliest outfits!! I have some pictures that I will post on Facebook, Big Billy and Little Billy are by far the funniest ones, and Little Billy won for silliest outfit. We did other games too, but that one was always my favorite growing up. 

Now for the part that I have always loved, presents! Kyhana and Krystal got this huge nice karaoke machine that has a built in I-pod dock and big speakers. They had so much fun playing with it! They also got a bunch of Monster High Dolls, yes, I said Monster High. A T.V show for kids with teen monsters. And there are little dolls to dress up and play with too. I have even seen these girl do their make-up to look like the zombie girl  on the show. It wasn't as scary as you would think. I, on the other hand, did not want a Monster High doll. I got a blender, a food processor, and a hand mixer from Mom and Kurtis. All in red of course because my mom chose them. I love them. Hope got me this cool Nailene electric mani pedi set. Aunt Chelo bought me shoes. And a gift card from Joyce & Bill. But the best gift was going to see my Aunt Lucy. Not literally of course, but her grave. We just sat and remembered her. All the things that she was there for and helped with.  My earliest memory has her in it. My Aunts have always been very close to us, but Aunt Lucy was the closest. She did my hair for my first day of 3rd grade. She was our safe haven when our parents were fighting. She and Uncle Hector started to teach Billy how to drive. They would take us swimming, they would turn escaping from all the problems at home into a sleepover party at her house. Then those last few years when she was having all of her own issues, and going through MS at the same time, we didn't talk. I still kick myself for that. When she died I hadn't talked to her in about 3 years. I didn't cry at first, but when it hit me I couldn't stop. I couldn't go to her funeral, but I got there the next day fresh off the plane from Kansas. I still cry sometimes. I miss her. While I was with my Aunt Chelo she said she doesn't know how people live without faith. Life would just be too hard without knowing that our loved ones are with a loving God. I agree. I don't think I would be able to handle Lucy's death without the knowledge that I have of the gospel and the Plan of Happiness. I am so thankful that I have that in my life to bring me peace. Without it, there would never be peace in my life. I'm not sure I would know what peace even meant, and knowing that makes me cherish it all the more. 

All in all, a good birthday. A wonderful birthday. A birthday I got to spend with loved ones, and happiness, and most of all, peace.