Seriously Thursday

I was catching up on BFF Andrea's blog today and saw that she was linking up to Seriously?! Thursday which I thought was a very clever blog topic.  That being said, I've linked up as well....enjoy!

1.  Seriously....I'm going to the Rihanna concert tonight at Target Center in Minneapolis so I've been listening to Rihanna all day today on my iPod!

2.  Seriously....I had to move my desk today to a different building across town.  Now I'm further from home and left all of my friends (except for one...my boss).

3.  Seriously...I might wear shorts to the Rihanna concert tonight and if you any of you knew me, you know this thought would have never crossed my mind a year ago before I lost about 60 pounds!

4. Seriously...where did summer go?  We went from winter to a short span of Summer (no Spring) and now we are having the Spring we missed...

5.  Seriously...is anyone else super excited for the next Challenge on MTV...it's seriously looking like a good one.

6.  Seriously...is Bentley seriously coming back to the Bachelorette?  I will puke if it's him behind the closed door...

7.  Seriously...did I mention that I'm going to Rihanna tonight?

Not a Seller's Market

If you’ve been thinking about selling your house, you may just want to reconsider…unless your house is one of the lower quality homes in the neighborhood.

Ben and I have recently found ourselves completely shocked and helpless after consulting with a realtor and a property appraiser about potentially putting our house the market.  We live in a great neighborhood in which most of the houses are COMPLETELY different.  I don’t want to say that we have the nicest house in the neighborhood, but we definitely have one of the nicest because of all of the money and time we have put back into our house.  Ben was fortunate to have gotten a killer deal on house almost seven years ago.  It was a complete dump that was weeks away from going into foreclosure.  The house is now beautiful and full of character since it was built in 1887 (yes, that’s an 18).

After talking to a realtor and the appraiser, we have learned that the inside of our house (besides the number of bedrooms and square footage) has absolutely nothing to do with the value.  It all depends on what the comparable houses in the neighborhood have sold for in the last six months.  The appraiser was actually able to give an informal appraisal without even seeing the outside or inside of our house.  It doesn’t matter that we have refinished all of the original hardwood floors, or completely gutted the 100 square foot bathroom for a complete update, and completely updated the second bathroom, or redid the entire kitchen with new appliances, counters, backsplash and refinished cabinets, or that we built and expanded a new deck on our patio, or that we have a heated, large workshop with running water and a bathroom connected to the two car garage, or that we have all newly painted walls and new window treatments, new carpet and light fixtures…the list goes on.

I can’t be upset with the realtor or the appraiser because it’s simply how the market is right now…it’s a buyer’s market.  We are now left with the decision of whether or not we are satisfied with only getting enough out of the house to pay off the mortgage (which I’m thankful we are doing that well because I know there are a lot of people that won’t even be breaking even for years to come), or we sit on the house hoping the market improves but then taking the risk that the mortgage rates will sky rocket.

What to do, what to do.  Do you have any advice for us?

5 Reason that I Love Weight Watchers

Since I’m about to give my life story on my struggles with weight, I wanted to start with the five reasons so that you can choose or choose not to read on…

1 – There are no food restrictions.  You can eat whatever you want whenever you want it unlike other fad diets that say you can only eat certain foods and they can only be eaten at certain meals.  Yuck…who can sustain those diets?

2 – Points can be earned by doing activity (for those that don’t know, all food has a point value and you get a certain number of points to eat everyday).  The points that are earned can be used at anytime through the week.  They don’t have to be used that day.

3 – There are additional weekly points that can be used any time during the week to be used to eat/drink the things you enjoy.  I usually use these for cocktails.

4 – Weekly weigh-ins to keep me accountable.

5 – Weekly meetings to share ideas, successes, and obstacles with other people going through the same struggles.

I have been slightly overweight my entire life.  At each period of my life I thought I was fat at the time, but as the years passed and I continued to gain weight I would see old pictures or remember the size I used to be and think ‘wow, I can’t believe I thought I was fat…I’d do anything to be that size again.”

I started and stopped and restarted a diet so many times that I can’t even count.  I’d lose a few pounds, but the diets were never sustainable.  In the beginning it’s easy to be gung-ho because you’re motivated, but we soon get bored of eating healthy and quickly jump back into our old habits.  There never seemed to be a happy medium.

It must have been about six years ago that I tried Weight Watchers for the first time.  I LOVED it.  I was eating healthier, but I still had the option to eat the food that I loved like pizza, chips and fried foods…I just had to plan for them.  I had amazing success on the program in a short time period.  If my memory serves me correct, I lost 25 pounds in less than three months.  Then one weekend I had an awful weekend with eating bad foods…really bad foods.  The problem wasn’t that I ate the bad foods, it was that I still actually lost weight at my next weigh-in.  You’re thinking “why is that a problem?”  Well, the problem is that I thought “this is great, I can eat terribly and still lose weight.”  So I continued to eat my old ‘bad’ foods.  My new metabolism kept up with me for a short week or two, but it soon caught up with me and the weight began to come back.  I felt defeated and quit Weight Watchers all together.  So although the program worked and worked well for me, I did not have the right attitude.  I wasn’t viewing it as a lifestyle change.  It was a quick way for me to lose some weight so I could go back to eating the foods I loved…all the time.

About two years went by and I decided I had had enough of the weight gain and tried Weight Watchers again.  This time they were offering a special that you could pay ahead for like 16 weeks to get a discounted rate.  I chose this option, but it was a terrible idea for me.  In those days if you missed a week you still had to pay for that week’s weigh-in.  However being that I paid ahead, I never felt like I was losing money if I skipped a week since I had already paid for all of the weeks.  Honestly, I think I probably only went to the first two weeks of the entire 16 weeks because I didn’t feel accountable to go.  Needless to say, I didn’t lose any weight.

Three more years and four miscarriages later, I became completely fed up with all of the weight that I had gained (by this time I was way more than slightly overweight).  The doctors haven’t found a single thing wrong with me that would cause a miscarriage, so my only thought is that it has to be the excess weight.  I knew Weight Watchers had worked for me the first time, so I didn’t have any hesitation in rejoining.

I joined for the third time mid-September of 2010 and I haven’t looked back.  In the almost eight months on the program I have lost 55 pounds.  There has only been two weeks that I gained weight at weigh-in and they were the last two weeks with a .2 and .4 pound gain (which is like nothing).   This time it IS a lifestyle change for me.  I am by no means always eating healthy.  In my opinion, you have to allow yourself the food you love on occasion and in portion controlled quantities or you will never be able to maintain your new weight (unless you just don’t care about food, but I find that hard to believe or you wouldn’t be trying to lose weight in the first place).

I am so thankful that my mind is finally in the right place to succeed at losing weight and Weight Watchers has been just the right tool to help me do so.

Tail Wagging Tuesday with C Mae

I haven't been the greatest at keeping up with my blog posts, so I am going to follow suit with my bff Andrea and try "Tail Wagging Tuesday with C Mae." 

Every week, C Mae provides a topic to write about your pets (she has a dog, so hopefully the topics will always work with my cats).  At the end of her post you can link up your Tail Wagging post for other bloggers to read.

Today's topic: "The Look"

With my cats, River and Percy, it's more about the tones in the meow that lets me know what they are saying, but I can at least play along with this one.

Since this is my first post about my cats, I should probably give you a quick background which is going to make this post really long... 

Prior to 2005 I HATED cats.  When I moved in with my husband Ben (boyfriend at the time) one of his roommates wanted a cat and Ben reluctantly agreed.  Drake was AWESOME and I was completely heartbroken when Drake had to leave with his owner two years later.  Apparently I had never been in the presence of any "good" cats prior to Drake...hence my hate for cats. 

When Ben and I returned from our honeymoon in January of 2007 we knew we had to get a new furry friend.  We went to the local humane society and purchased not one, but two cats (because they came together and it was a buy one get one deal).  I don't know why we bought Sully and River (formerly Beau Beau and Princess who were two and a half years old) because they were absolutely terrified when we were holding them and they wanted NOTHING to do with us.  They turned out to be the most amazing pets, both with their own unique personalities. 

River (the girl) became totally attached to me and NEVER leaves my side.  Sully (the boy) became Ben's cat.  Last October Sully died suddenly with zero warning signs to us.  The vet assumes he had an enlarged heart.  Ben and I were devastated and River became depressed (seriously, it was awful the sounds she would make).  We had to get another friend for her (and us too) so we made another trip to the humane society a month later and purchased a three month old kitten "Ted" which we changed to Percy. 

Percry has been fabulous too, so we have come to the conclusion that a cat's personality is all about the owners and how much time and attention they devote to the cat.  It took River a couple of days to adjust to Percy, but they now love each other (for the most part). Percy is still a kitten so River doesn't always appreciate him jumping on her back to chew on her neck!

Ok, so here are the "looks" of my cats...

This is the "Are you really going to make me come inside?" look from River

This is the "Don't disturb me while I'm getting your clean laundry full of fur" look from River

This is "Are you ready to play?" from Percy

This is "Maybe Percy won't find me in here"

This is "Daddy farted again" from Percy

This is "PLEASE...not another picture" from River

Finally, these are the "I love my mom" looks from River and Percy



What kind of looks does your pet give you?



Top Sheet Yes or No?

Can someone please tell me the purpose of using a top sheet in bed?  The only possible good reason that I can think of for using a top sheet is to prevent your skin from feeling the incredibly irritating feeling of those tiny little pilly things that develop overtime on the fabric of your blanket. 

I have always felt that using a top sheet is the “normal” thing to do so I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve tried it again to see if somehow a good reason to use it developed since the last time I tried it.  The result it ALWAYS the same, which is:  Nope, that was just as annoying as last time I tried this.

The problem with a top sheet for me is this…wait…the problemS with a top sheet for me ARE:

1 – I have to be able to kick my feet up in the air after pulling the covers over me so that the blankets can wrap up under my feet/legs so that I’m tucked in like a burrito, which can’t be done with a top sheet because it has to be tucked in under the mattress.  There is nothing more annoying than staying in a hotel bed and the sheet is tucked so tightly into the mattress that all of my strength is not enough to pull out the sheet to give my feet a little breathing room.  But in a hotel, you have no choice but to use the sheet (and sometimes only the sheet) because you never know what is on the comforter.

2 – I can’t use a top sheet with Ben (believe me, we’ve tried) because it never fails that the top sheet is nowhere to be found in the morning because Ben manages to kick it off both of us.  I think he may find the top sheet more annoying than I do.

3 – It also doesn’t work for Ben and me to use the top sheet because we don’t share blankets.  Yes, I know it’s weird which is why we’ve tried using the top sheet so many times since we ARE a married couple and not two strangers sharing a bed.  However, sharing blankets doesn’t work for us for a couple reasons:  a)we both violently toss and turn throughout the night so one of us would end up without any blankets at all (usually me) and b)Ben’s blanket has those little annoying pilly things that I mentioned above, but he loves his blankets because they are  super awesomely warm quilts made by his grandma.

So…if anyone has any tips to offer for us to try using the top sheet yet again, I will gladly hear them.

How Not to Use Facebook

I’ve been a little hesitant to share this post because it’s 100% my opinion and I’m not looking to create any drama or be de-friended on Facebook because someone gets upset with one or all of my top 10 things not to do on Facebook.  These are in no particular order…

1.   Post drunk photos – most of us are friends with family members or at least a handful of people that we work with.  Do you think your aunt wants to know how wasted you got last night?

2.   Post cryptic message – I have to say this is my biggest peeve about posts.  Don’t tell everyone you’re having the worst/best day and then not tell us why.  Do yourself a favor and tell us right away so you can save yourself the extra step of logging back onto Facebook after 18 people ask you why.

3.   Comment about work – I struggle with this one.  Being that I spend the majority of my day at work there is of course always something to say about it or someone…just remember you have to go back the next day.

4.   Use Facebook to share your religious or political views – this is where some people might be offended.  Nothing against people that do this once in awhile, but there are some on Facebook that this is all they do.  It gets old and rarely does it start a meaningful debate.

5.   Constantly talk about how your life sucks – unless something tragic actually happened, your life doesn’t suck that bad.

6.   Check-in – this used to bother me because it broadcasts to the world that you’re not at home and your house is free to rob, but now it bothers me because it’s getting out of hand with how often people are using this.  Unless I’m stalking you, I don’t need to know where you are at all times.

7.   Send love letters for everyone to see – try texting or sending a personal message.

8.   Post about how much and how often you drink – similar to number one, but in this case it’s not just one occasion.  People will start to feel bad for you, but not bad enough to do something about it.  And remember your future employer could be reading.

9.   Use Status Shuffle – this is a key indicator that you don’t have anything else to do.  Save your posting for when you actually have something to say.

10. Do not post your high scores from Facebook games – I am totally guilty of doing this in the past, but now I realize how annoying it is.

PLEASE don’t hate me for posting any of these :-)

I Wish I was Cool!

I always thought I would be one of those people that would keep up with the times and would always have the latest technology or fancy gadgets.  I actually thought that I was doing pretty well until I wrote the first sentence of this post and thought about what I would write next.  I now realize that I have fallen off the wagon to the future.  I don’t even have a clue how to download a song.  Heck, I couldn’t even burn a cd if someone else downloaded the songs for me. 

I’m embarrassed to admit that I gave up trying to keep with technology once Ben came into my life because I have completely relied on him to do it for me since he is so smart with computers and technology.  We have a fancy tv with a lot of options that I don’t know how to use;  a fancy blu ray player with all the cool Apps and Internet options, but all I can do is figure out how to play a move; a surround sound system that god forbid would get put on the wrong setting that would require me to watch tv in closed caption (except I wouldn’t even know how to turn that on).  Thankfully our Logitech Harmony remote is smarter than me and has a help button that fixes any issues if something isn’t turned on correctly when the system is powered up.  I’m not completely uncool though…I DO have the latest in Smart Phones, but I probably don’t use it to its ability; I DO have a Facebook account (who doesn’t?); and I DO have a blog…that gives me a couple points right?

My grandma on the other hand is one cool chic!  I thought she was super cool when I learned that she has a Mac computer (and will only use a Mac).  Then she got a Blackberry before I even knew what a Blackberry was.  She had an iPod before I had one.  She had an LCD tv before we did.  She has DVR and knows how to use it.  She has a Facebook account at the age of 82ish.  She has a Wii and still uses it.  Ben and I had dinner at her place earlier this week and I walked into her house to see her iPad docked to a keyboard.  Yep, grandma has an iPad.  WTF? My grandma is WAY cooler than me.  While we were eating, she politely asked Ben if he could help her get her house setup with WiFi.  My grandpa on the other side of the family doesn’t even know how to turn a computer on let alone know what WiFi is.  It’s crazy cool to me and I can only hope to be that hip at her age.

How cool are you?