Before Family Visitation

Caleb (my Husband's brother) will be arriving Tuesday, so this weekend we are prepping and getting stuff done, like for instance, my christmas shopping is officially over! Yay! Hopefully tomorrow we will be getting a mattress, finally, considering I've been sleeping on a couch for 6 months :p I've been kicking myself over wearing out the cushions even though I've had no control over it :p

So we found a place with mattresses on sale, and I pray it will pan out. I really don't want to have my husband's brother sleeping on the floor with Michael for his stay, but there is only so much we can do. We can't afford a nice mattress right now, or a bed, not with christmas and all the activities we have planned, and tomorrow is the only day we can do it because we are borrowing a truck from one of Michael's coworkers. After tomorrow we only have out mini and I'm not to trusting that the mini will be able to haul a mattress :p

Still having problems getting covered by insurance and our christmas cards were supposed to arrive 2 days ago, and I can't send anything out till those come, so yay.

Oh but I got tired of my hair and needed a change, and after not having had my hair cut in over a year, having long-is hair, was driving me insane and my ends are pretty split. So I cut my bangs, and I bleached my ends :) still getting used to the bleach job and I'm happy so far with how I cut my bangs. Seems as though I'm getting better at cutting them :) 

Anyhow, I should be getting to bed, I'm in a lot of pain right now, I expect to be in quite a bit tomorrow too. Other than grabbing the mattress, tomorrow is cleaning day. so I'll should at least have rest.

Night!

First Thanksgiving in our own place and the two days to follow.

It's the end of November and even though I've gotten almost all my Christmas shopping done and we got the Christmas tree up and lit, it seems like just last week it was Halloween.

Thanksgiving 2013.

A couple days ago was our first thanksgiving in our own place. We had my mother over, and Michael made a wonderful thanksgiving meal of turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and salad. Very simple, but we had a nice time, and we didn't need anything else. Although I must say the turkey is completely gone and that makes me sad, considering I love turkey and potatoes!

~

Friday was one of those 50/50 days, first half wasn't too great, but once we got our butts out the door, in and out of the mall and to my aunts to visit some family from out of town it was great :) it was so nice to visit with my Aunt Judy (my grandmother's sister) and Aunt Sandi (my mothers cousin), I always have a good time with them, and seeing some of my cousins and 2nd cousins was also nice, we had a great time catching up :) actually it was one of the rare times I felt comfortable and confident being myself around my family, so all in all it was a good day, and hey afterwards I got to get some Christmas decor from the dollar store, woohoo! lol :p.

But today was indeed a good day as well, I got to talk to my sister Rachel, and even though she is going through a rough time right now it was so good to connect with her :) I love her and miss her so much, and it weighs on me that I can't be there to support her as she is going through health problems. but being there for someone over the phone is never as meaningful, especially when you get caught up in life and staying in contact gets hard... I do want to be a good sister though and a friend, considering she was my friend before my sister (sister in-law).

I want to be there for all my siblings, especially my sisters, I love and miss them all, and I want to have a relationship with them, so badly, and I'm not sure they know that. I've expressed how I'm always here to talk, that I'm just a phone call away, and how I'm here for them no matter what, but it never feels as though its enough.

But indeed it was so nice to be able to connect, at least for awhile.

The other nice thing that happened today, is we bought a Christmas tree! No joke, 10 minutes after my mother left from thanksgiving dinner and I unpacked the boxes she brought over from storage, I started putting up Christmas decor, and now, Christmas has officially thrown up all over our apartment. lol I mean it is decked out! Woohoo! Its not our first Christmas in our own place, but it is the first real Christmas in our first place. Last year we moved so close to Christmas that we didn't really get to celebrate much, we did have a few gifts, but with no tree, no lights, no candles, and no snow outside, it never really felt like we had it. So this year I made sure we were prepared. and I will post pics later for sure!

Hopefully I'll get around to blogging more this next month, especially since not only is Christmas this next month, but one of my brother-in-laws is coming for a 2-week visit! So its an exciting time!

until then, tootles!

The New Place and All That...

It is high time to write that blog post I've been avoiding for the past couple weeks, wouldn't cha say :p

Before I start, I just want to say, please excuse the kinda crappy photos, all but the first one were taken with my phone.

Ok, so where do I start...

Well, it's been almost a month in the new place. Everyone keeps asking how we like it, and we kinda forcibly say "it's nice" or "we do" but honestly for me, it has a problem that can't seem to be fixed: there are some smells, one in particular which comes from under the bathroom sink. The smell is so strong and bad, it fills up the bathroom and seeps into the surrounding rooms a bit. Then there is a smell every once in awhile in the bedroom. First off you should know, that as of right now, we still do not have a bed, so we aren't using the bedroom except to house the "bedroom stuff" and clothing, so we're not in there every night, but its a small apartment so anytime either of us are getting ready we are in and out of there. so sometimes there isn't a smell (I equate that to the windows being open ALL of the time) and sometimes there is a smell, and it switch's to being a musty cat litter/pee smell, to a smoker smell (which drives me insane). Honestly I think the smoker smell does come through the windows or something because from what i can tell, our neighbors to the bedroom side of the apartment seem to smoke, also they seem to be on the deck 75-85% of the time, so that could be the smoker smell problem.

Then the rest of the apartment (dining room, living room, kitchen,) has another smell, which I have to admit sometimes it is a kitty litter/pee smell it seems, but at the same time doesn't seem to be that at all, and I can't identify it. Don't get me wrong, the smells aren't strong, but they do seep through every room, so unless you are spraying Febeeze on a regular basis (2-4 times a day) the place has a smell, and even then the Febreze only covers the smell, doesn't get rid of it.

Now that was problem number one, problem number two, which isn't so huge, but still bothersome, is the ant problem. The first day here, I unpacked all my bath stuff and put it on my bath stand next to the tub (it's like 4 tier metal free standing bathroom stand) and the very next day, when I woke up and went to the bathroom I noticed on the ground, along the tub, a huge amount of ants running back and forth, going up the wall, and up my bath stand, and they seemed to have covered my grapefruit body scrub...  it wasn't even open, I think a little had gotten out during the move and gotten on the bottle, and they were all over that. I almost freaked!

After cleaning up that mess, it's happened a couple more times in the kitchen, once when we forgot to start up the dishwasher, and it was slightly open, and a few hours later, there was a huge amount of ants up and down the cupboards going to what was inside, up to the ceiling, and another time just last night when the garbage lid was slightly askew, and we came home to find another impressive amount of ants coming from the ceiling to claim what was in it.

We never had this problem at our old place, and I understand if you leave stuff out, bugs will eventually get to it. But we haven't been leaving stuff out, this is just ridiculous, and the amount of ants, honestly in every circumstance, I've never seen so many except on a flourishing ant hill.

Now the third problem, is something that just can't be fixed, you see we got an apartment this time facing the road, and now we live on a very prominent road at that, so its busy, also we are less than a mile from the end of John wayne airport. I love to have the windows open, fresh air all the time, even if its somewhat cold, I love that, and especially with the smell problems we are having, I've wanted to do that, but the only time I can open the windows in the living room (where i am most the time and through the night since I'm sleeping on the couch) is at night, because it is just so damn loud, and I understand that compared to people who live in the middle of a big city, this is dead silence, but I'm from the country, and even our last place in riverside, it was fairly quiet....with the planes going near overhead, and the busy street right outside, its not so quiet :\ 

Now when it comes to the actual apartment, I would say yes, its much cozier then our last place, it's supposedly bigger, but here is the kicker, the kitchen is smaller, the bathroom is smaller, the dining room is smaller, and there is NO nice closet space in the hallway like our last place, so apparently there is just a ton of extra space in the living room and bedroom, which is exactly what we didn't need...so now we need to rent a storage space for just a couple box's and bins, but for now they are cluttering our deck, and thankfully I figured a way we can fit our dining room set in the dinning room, but it is pretty cramped, and we have most of the kitchen situated, but its much more cramped and chaotic then it used to be.

In all honesty, the coziness of the place doesn't really overthrow the problems, and yea we are dealing with it, but when it comes to actually liking it so far, I'm on the fence.

Now the whole point of moving was to be closer to my husbands work, and we achieved that, so that right there is the reason we are here, but do I want to stay once my husbands contract is up? I don't think so :p

So I've been focusing a lot on decorating, finally getting to make this place into a home as best as I can,  hopefully we will be working on getting a bed this month, as we improve our credit and get on a monthly plan. I do have some exciting news! Last week we wanted to check out the local goodwill, figured since its in Orange County maybe it would be a good one, and indeed it is :) actually our intent was to look for some dining room chairs, we have had a huge dining room table that we got from goodwill last December when we first moved into our first apartment, but finding and getting chairs hasn't been so easy, and with all the things we went through it was kinda on the back burner. I was super tired of not having any chairs to entertain at this point.

well recently I thought, instead of buying new chairs, since I wanted wood chairs, nothing special, hopefully something not too modern, we would start looking at goodwill's, grab leftover chairs here and there, whether they matched or not. So since we had finally moved, we figured it was the right time, to check out the one nearest to us, and we found...

4 rustic wooden dining room chairs for $50! It did come with a dining room table, kinda like ours, except it actually had the leaf, and our doesn't, but we didn't want/need the table, and we figured for $50 is great price for 2 chairs, let alone 4; so we bought it all, and re-donated the table. 

With the mini cooper it took a couple trips to get the chairs home but we did it!!!! and they look great! eventually they do need to be sanded and re-stained. But for now they work great!

another great thing is, I've been searching for antique or antique looking picture frames of all shapes and sizes, in wood and the colors gold and bronze. While we were at Goodwill, I also found 5 picture frames, and a little mirror that was perfect for what i wanted, also i found a little metal silver picture frame with roses all around it, and i got that too and painted it a metallic brown, and I'm excited to get a picture printed for it :) but here is the kicker, back behind a ton of weird framed art I found a gem, this big antique picture frame for only $7. It's absolutely gorgeous, exactly what I wanted, and I hadn't found anything that cool in a while; I was amazed nobody had picked it up given it was so cheap, because I felt that if that picture frame was on Etsy (where I had been looking for picture frames for awhile now) something of this caliber i feel would be going for $40-50 with like $20 shipping. So after that rewarding treasure hunt, it defiantly lifted my spirits! :)

One other cool thing is earlier in the month, around the time we moved, Michaels put all its fall flowers on 50% off. I knew eventually I wanted some floral arrangements around the house, but that was always last on my list, especially with the price of fake flowers, totally ridiculous, but the thing about this sale, is almost all the flowers, were my house colors, it was like a sign! Of course I wanted to go full out, but didn't feel I should because, well, its last priority, but my husband ushered me to take full advantage of the situation, so after a couple trips, and the move, I have 3 full flower arrangements, one in the bedroom, one in the living room, and one in the bathroom, and they all look wonderful! I also ended up getting a couple strings of fall leaf foliage that I decorated the living room with :) its safe to say, that the decorator inside me has been a bit trapped and festering for quite awhile, and it feels oh so good to set it free and finally feed and inspire the passion thats been so quelled.

The one pictured below iv worked on a bit since the picture was taken.

Since I've written a lot so far, I will now simply state without going into detail the rest of the exciting things that happened last month.

~I learned I actually like lamb, when done right.

~We made friends, Michael works with 2 of them, so we have been going over to there place every friday and sunday the past few weeks, and actually hung out a couple other times, like last week I hosted them at our places, and served our first cheese and cracker platter, (we went a bit overboard with the cheese) and last night we went to Dave and Busters till 1am with them and hung out.

~I finally got a wreath :) I've wanted one for our door for awhile now, and Michael bought me a beautiful halloween colored one as an impromptu present :)

~ Michael and I are finally starting another art project, the paintings for our friends weddings i think really took it out of us for awhile.

~ After a couple months of trying to find the thing that would tie the bedroom together, whether it be a picture or a bed spread, I finally found it, in the form of a bedding set. (Searched for the perfect bedding set for 3 months) and get this, the next day after I found it, it went on sale :) so I scooped that right up, and I'm so excited to use it, but I defiantly won't be pulling it out till we get an actual bed :p so its all boxed up for now.

I think thats it for now. There is a lot of personal stuff going on too, but i don't want to get into it.

 now I'm going to go eat my gyro my husband brought home for me, and play Bioshock with him :)

Laters!

I Really Wish i was Better at This!

My thoughts over the past 2 weeks:

OMG i am a HORRIBLE blogger! I can't can't force myself to sit down an actually write about whats going on to save my life....ughhhhhhh :(

Thats all for now.

Im tired.

Its late.

Goodnight.

Moving out and Painting to boot

First in foremost, in recent news: WE GOT A PLACE! To be exact we found the place and signed the papers 2 weeks ago, but I've been so busy packing and painting that blogging has been procrastinated and honestly the second thing on my mind. But yea we got a place, and we will be moving in on the 9th.

Oh, and considering the blog post I was going to write about finding an apartment apparently never took place, FYI, we decided to move closer to where Michael is working, looked for a place in Long Beach first, because it was cheaper had cooler architecture, but after 2 days of searching and appointments we decided to look closer, so Michael took a day off work 2 weeks ago and we went apartment hunting. The day went well, but honestly it was stressful and after having a meltdown at the end of the day, we weighed out our options and found the perfect place, went back, and signed the paperwork. 

Honestly, I don't know why it was ever in question, the place is perfect, Michael can literally walk to work from there, the manager is lovely, its in a great area with basically no crime, and lots to do, we will be 6 miles from the beach, and I can paint and hang pictures all I want without having to cover it up when we leave :) 

My only beef was with how much it is, but honestly everything in the area is either that price or higher, but gosh for what we are paying, we could afford a 2-3 bedroom home on Lake Michigan, but hey, I guess that's California for ya. So if we are going to pay a butt load for a one bedroom apartment, it might as well be in a fantastic area right next to where my husband is working right? 

So I've been working on packing the place for the last two weeks, it mostly done except for stuff we are using and the occasional mess we are making on a daily basis, so yay!

Sunday as Michael and I were just hanging out, I got the sudden urge to be productive, and I thought, how about we finally paint the dressers and nightstand... I mean the place is never going to have this much empty space, once we move into the new place, there will be stuff everywhere, and with the layout, there wouldn't be much space even if we did clear stuff, so hey, now is the perfect time. So 2:30 in the afternoon, I jump in the shower, throw on clothes and make up, and head out to The Home Depot.

Once there I grab a bunch of color swatched for the rest of the rooms, for future use, then decide what color to do on the furniture, took awhile but after talking to someone about it, I finally decided to go with a soft metallic brown. We grab the stuff, go home and set up a space for me to start painting the furniture. Up until about 2am I primed, and painted all the furniture. The next morning, I got up ready to check everything out and touch up, and even though I was impressed with how much and fast I did everything, the color didnt settle with me, I mean it all looked great, but I wanted either dark brown, or bright metallic, and it was neither, it was only slightly metallic, so there goes that option, but on top of that it was light brown, so it was kinda disappointing, so by the end up Monday evening, I decided to go back to The Home Depot and get the cast bronze metallic paint that was my first choice. I didnt get it to begin with because it only came in 10oz jars and I would have needed to get a lot of them, but I decided, screw it, its worth it, so I went home, did the night stand and a couple drawers, but since it was so late, and the paint was so similar to what I had already done, I couldn't tell where I was missing, so I decided to finish the next day.

Today, like Monday morning I got up and finished everything, and after two days of back breaking work, and lots of pain killers taken, I finished, and it all looks fantastic! 2 dressers (cuz we threw one out) one night stand, and a living room side table freshly painted. Oh and did I mention I also scrubbed off the paint on the antique handle on my night stand and instead of painting it the same color, I got metallic gold glaze and did a couple coats. and may I say, it all looks so wonderful now :) now all I need is to get new knobs for the dressers (I'm hoping to find a bunch of different glass antique ones) and we'll be all set!

The only other piece of news is if finally found the Tie-in piece for the bedroom, so now I know what I'm doing there, and I finally have the whole home figured out, style wise :) which has relieved me of a lot of stress and makes me super happy! I love having a plan!

So pray that the move next week goes smoothly and I will update you all as soon as I can.

Forget Summer, Time to Move Forward!

Gosh its been awhile....i havent even looked at my blog since my last post, and considering how long ago that was, im completely overwhelmed with going over what happened this summer, especially since so many thing happened over the summer that i dont even want to talk about.

lets just say it was a long summer with a lot more Bad/mediocre days then good ones.

took me two months to finish putting pictures up of the trip on fb, three albums. the trip all in all was nice, it was fantastic being in my best friends wedding, and seeing friends and family, as well as visiting Mackinac Island, The Grand Canyon, House on the Rock.

and although it was a very full and lovely trip cross country, its been a very rough and tiring summer.

Im sorry to dissapoint, but im just going to skip it all. Its too much for me to handle right now.

August 27th 2013:

As of recently, we are moving. Michael is working full time in Newport Beach/Irvine now, and the commute is just too far, and since our lease is up by the end of september, and to renew it would be more money, we just decided it would be worth it to look for a new place. so we are letting them know in the next couple days and im working on packing.

...ok officially im working on packing, but its not going so well, see the last month we have had a heat wave, and this last week our air conditioner broke, so considering my heat problem, im very uncomfortable. so right now packing isnt really going so fast, but thankfully i have a month to get everything packed and moved out, and Michael will be working on it with me on the weekends :) so yay.

Since my husband is now on a cantract, he now gets a steady paycheck for a year, and that is soooo needed nice, we need a reliable income and some stability right now, so im very thankful, and considering how much he is making, depending on where we move of course, we should be able to put a nice amount away into savings every month. so thats even nicer :)

its very much safe to say i am ready for fall/winter, this heat is killing me, its harder to breath, and every day this week iv been miserable, i cant sleep either....i really hope it cools off a bit soon. im also ready for fall decoratively. Last week we had a bit extra money, so i went to big lots and went on a little fall decor shopping spree, and found a whole punch of goodies. Instead of buying a centerpiece for the dining room table, i put together my own, and, not to brag or anything, but i think it looks great :) which makes me very happy! 

OH!!! Two piece's of news i will share about my summer is -

1- 

I finally bought and played through Bioshock Infinite :) and once i was able to mull it over for a couple days, and read everything (and i mean everything) on bioshock-wiki, i must say, it was fanstastic! i might even play it again now that its out for Mac's. Oh and just so you know, the only reason i read everything on wiki, is because i missed a few Voxiphones and so the story didnt come together as it probably should have when it was over :p so i was a bit confused about a lot of little things that at first felt like flaws in the story, haha, now it all makes sense, although im really looking forward to seeing how they make the next expansion work, as it stands, from what iv seen and heard, it doesnt make total sense, so im hoping things get cleared up. anyways. Great game, love the franchise! Big Big Fan!

and 2- 

WE BOUGHT OUR FIRST COUCH! AHHHH! Now we did already have a couch, but it was a free couch given to us, and considering all our furniture i either had before we were together (like my old dressers or bookshelves) we wither got it for free from family or friends, or we got it from goodwill, This was our first piece of furniture we picked out for our place and bought as a married couple :) so yes this was very exciting! especially since it was the couch i wanted for a very long time, + it was on clearance, and we got 15% because of my birthday! yay! all in all, it was like 350$ or so. Not bad huh?

So very exciting stuff there, that is :p

Lets see...what else.....oh, i started a 5 year, sentence a day, journal. Really helps since its hard for me to keep up with a normal one, so it makes me summarize the day, quick and easy.

Me and Michael celebrated our 2 year anniversary on sunday, its so hard to believe that we have already been married for 2 years, wow time fly's.

Pre-Trip Update

It's now 9 days 'til the trip.

So here's a bit of an update before our big adventure.

I've been on and off dieting for 2 months now, which has had some major complications, due to I might have more food intolerance's then we realized, and dealing with all of that has been mighty stressful and upsetting. But God is helping me through everything, I know this year I'm going to receive healing of some kind, and I'm going to work my butt of to lose weight. Sadly it will just have to wait until after the trip.

Other than that, things are going great! We have new-ish neighbors, and they're pretty nice, I talk to the guy fairly often and we seem to connect a bit.

In getting ready for the trip, I've been out tanning, and swimming, and gathering stuff together in the living room, like our luggage, gifts, the cooler, my bridesmaids dress and shoes, etc. I got all my toiletries and jewelry all packed away, and all my clothes set aside, and it took me 2 weeks but I even have all my outfits planned out :) which I'm sure to some of you sounds crazy, but I hate deciding on the day what I'm going to wear, especially since even though this is a long trip, every day there is something specific and special we are doing. So since I have the time, and I know what we are planning on doing, I planned it all out, lol. Hey it relieves stress and makes me feel better... STOP JUDGING :p 

So I'm not sure I mentioned it previously but we are planning on driving, 3-4 days there and back, so it's a 3 week trip with one week simply being driving, but we are still majorly looking forward to it, because we are planning on stopping at cool places along the way, and seeing some old friends, who we wouldn't otherwise be able to see, if we just flew to Michigan and back. So we are making a big trip of it; also on the way back were heading over to see my family in Wisconsin as well as see Chicago and "House on The Rock" :D I'm soooo excited!

We have been thanking and praising the Lord like crazy for allowing us to go on this trip and more, I am just so thankful we can milk everything we can out of this trip! it's been almost 3 years since I've been home, and there are many places and people I want to see!

Thankfully planning hasn't been too stressful, everything has kinda fallen into place, and worked out. We still have a few things we need to plan out, but other than waiting on some checks to come in, we are both all set and ready to roll.

Oh and I just want to say, I LOVE my husband! He has been such a rock for me while going through all these health problems, and trip stuff, and other things I'm not going to get into. But seriously, I honestly don't know how I can love him even more and more with every passing day, but somehow I do!

I also want to give a shout out to my wonderful Mother! who I love, and miss daily! She is going through some rough stuff and she always surprises me with how strong she is, especially through Christ. She is just a wonderful woman, that I wish everyone could meet. 

This last weekend she actually came over and stayed here for 2 nights, we had a little sleepover!

it was wonderful and much needed, we had a great time, we talked, and swam, and watched movies, and did our nails, and I made us Bay breezes, we went out, we laughed... we just had such a great time together. it was so nice having her around for awhile and spending time together!

So yea, other than my health, things have been pretty great! Just very very excited for the trip!

I'm most likely not going to blog while on the trip, I never have time for that shit, but I'm going to try and keep a travel journal, and take lots of pictures, so that when I get back I'll write about it all.

but hey, maybe I'll get a post or two in, just don't count on it :p

So wish me luck, please pray for safety and blessings for me and my husband, and we will let y'all know how it goes :)

Bon Voyage!

So Sorry, I Lied :\

I know I haven't written anything in a long time. I really did plan on writing more frequently when I started the diet, but things have just been so stressful lately, with the trip to Michigan coming up, and doing the diet stuff.

So here is an update.

I restarted the diet last week, its been a week on it and I'm doing alright.

it's not fun, but I've got stuff to get me through it, and eating bacon every once and awhile helps :p

Good news is, the trip is officially happening! We have decided to drive there and back. Still planning things out, but it's going to be a very full 3 weeks, that Michael and I are very much looking forward too. It feels so great to finally be planning it. :) So...so nice!

I'll give more details when it gets sooner to the trip.

Next week I have a dress fitting for my bridemaid's dress.

I finally got insurance after two months, which is great. So I set up a doc appointment since I haven't had one since January, and it's much needed.

The Virgin Diet

A couple weeks ago, my husband and I, decided to start dieting more intensely. For both of our overall health and my weight loss, but we couldn't find the perfect diet for me. We researched and came up with some solutions and through the last three weeks, I've only been eating healthier: more greens, no corn, no wheat, and no oats. But it wasn't actually a set diet, it was more of just eating healthier until we could find a diet.

This week I was on Netflix and found a reality show: "Freaky Eaters", about people who have addictions to weird food and how their addictions have been out of control and cause harm to their body's. A psychologist and food nutritionist come to the rescue and helped convince them to stop, and show them how they can change their lives and eat different things, usually to save their lives.

On "Freaky Eaters" the food nutritionist is a woman by the name of J.J. Virgin, and she seemed to me as someone who really knew her shit. She knew what she was doing and everything that she had to say really resonated with me. Bringing up a lot of really good points; things that nobody has ever really said to me, and felt a couple of those people on Freaky Eaters had problems that were similar to what I have.

I ended up looking her up on the Internet and I found that she actually had a diet plan, and a diet book out, and a lot of people were backing it up, but her site looked a little gimmicky. So I didn't know if it was real, and if people got real results, or if it was just another one of those diet books that tell you how to eat well and tell you you'll lose a pound a week or a pound a day, and really the whole searching for diet thing is been really stressing me out. There are so many out there, and you don't know which one is going to work, But something just stood out about it. So i asked Michael to look into it, to see if it held up.

So now Michael was looking into the diet, and found that a lot of the problems that she points out in her book that people think are regular weight-loss problems, are actually health conditions and that those conditions might be reasons why you may not be losing weight. One of the more prominent conditions is called Leaky Gut Syndrome (LGS).

Quite a while ago, a doctor told my mother that I have LGS, however we didn't pay him much credence, because the doctor had no proof and when we asked what proof he had, he basically said: "if you cant trust my word, you can go find a different doctor". We didn't believe in him much, simply because what he was asking us to do was so extreme, and since he was so into the whole: eating right, eating healthy, eating raw, that we felt he was putting his own agenda on us, and not actually diagnosing me.

In reading this book my husband has found links to about 90% of the symptoms I have. He has agreed that this diet is perfect for our situation, it's perfect for what we have, what's wrong, and what we need to get into. In all honesty it seems like the Lord put this in our lap at just the right time. Look at the circumstances: I never was interested in watching freaky eaters until two nights ago, and after I did I felt led to look up JJ's website, and I felt led that this book/plan might be different than the rest. It just landed in our lap at the perfect time, after all the things we've gone through. 

I've been struggling with my weight and my health for so long that this is the first time that somebody actually addressed not only what is causing my weight problems, but whats causing my joint pain, and my tiredness, my headaches, my inflammation, and so many other things. It was such a relief to realize that I might actually be able to get healing from this as well.

I'm sure many of you out there can sympathize and understand what it's like to want to achieve a goal that seems impossible, or want to try a diet when you don't know which one is going to work, and after so many failing you don't know if you're ever going to lose weight or if there is a diet that's right for you. And that's why this one seems so perfect is because it doesn't just address nutrition, it addresses actual ailments, it addresses what's wrong with your body and why these foods cause so many problems in your body.

Honestly I have been over so many of these symptoms with my doctors and with all these diets being thrown at my face, nothing seemed to fit. After reading this it was not only like a realization of a good diet for us, but it was a diagnosis of ailments I've had for years. Which is huge for me, I mean this could change so much, I could have energy, and I could have a regulated blood sugar, I could lose weight, my joints won't ache, and I'll just feel good, and so much more.

At long last, it makes complete sense; even with my wheat and corn allergy, because I never had immediate reactions to them like a normal allergy, I always had a delayed reaction, all of which is part of this Leaky Gut Syndrome. Which, in turn, means the someday I might be able to eat wheat again, have toast or sandwiches or pasta every once and awhile, without feeling like complete crap.

The diet itself is pretty extreme: no eggs, wheat, corn, dairy, soy, sugar, or peanuts. But if I can get healing, feel better and lose weight, it's so worth it. It's going to be really hard, but my husband is going to be doing this with me, so that makes things a little easier.

So what it entails is 21 days of cutting out those seven foods, and after the 21 days, you introduce one of them into your diet, one at a time to see if your body can handle it. It's not about taking these things out of your life forever, it's about taking them out and getting a detox from them and slowly introducing them back and your diet to see if your body can handle. In the book she explains why each of the foods aren't good for you. It's not about not being good for you your whole life, but why they cause problems in the body. That they are harder to digest and that your body can be really sensitive to that and it's not about an allergy reaction, it's just about having a harder time dealing with, that cause problems slowly, and since there not immediate problems, you don't associate them with what your putting into your body. Sometimes your body just needs a break and a detox.

After those three weeks, that you can start by reintroducing one of those foods into your body and see how it does. If it doesn't do well, and if you don't feel good, I would say stay off of it. if you feel fine, then you can slowly introduce one by one into your diet after that. Only a percentage though, you can't just start eating all the stuff willy nilly :p

And the best thing about this diet is it's not about cutting out all those things forever, it's about you eating those things in small quantities, just a little bit of them, in treating yourself to those things every once in a while, but cutting back drastically.

I'm going to try and do a diet diary on my blog of the 21 days on this diet, because this is going to be really tough for me and I want to be able to encourage others and to keep a log of how it's going for me each day. So whenever we start this diet I'm going to start blogging more, maybe not every day, but every couple days to inform everyone how I'm doing. It might be more like statuses especially when I'm not in the mood to blog, but at least I will try my best to keep an update on how the virgin diet is working for me. Hopefully by our vacation in June I will have lost some weight so I can feel comfortable wearing a bathing suit again.

I am tired of wearing the same shirt with every outfit because nothing else looks good on me, hides my tummy, and I can't afford new clothes. I'm tired of being fearful of wearing a bathing suit, I am tired of crying on a nightly basis because I don't feel like going out because of how I feel I look. I am tired of feeling guilty after every single thing I eat that is somewhat not good for me, even eating potatoes or rice makes me feel guilty, makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong.

I am tired of feeling like if I go out I'm going to be asked if I'm pregnant, when I'm not, and that it will just tear me to pieces, because in all honesty a few months ago somebody did approach me and ask when I was due, and it really ate at me.

I am tired of living my life like this and letting my eating take control of who I am. This body is not who I am. We all say things like: "be the person you want to be", "don't be scared of what other people say", "don't care about what other people think of you", and "you have no reason to change". When in actuality this isn't me at all, this fat/weight isn't who I am, this isn't how I picture myself and this is not who I want to be.

I can't stop being self-conscious about myself just because somebody tells me that I have no need to be self-conscious about myself, or that God made me who I am, which is false, God gave me a body and I abused it, by eating whatever I wanted. I need to make myself the person I want to be, and I need the courage to do that and I finally have it.

For the first time in my life I feel able to give up the foods I love for the body I want. I feel able to give up that comfort in eating something wonderful so that I can be happy about myself. After you eat some healthy foods for an allotment of time, when you eat something you used to like, suddenly it's gross, and you're scared that everything you used to like, is going to become gross. That's scary. You don't want everything you like to become gross all of a sudden. But in reality it will be worth it in the long run, if the body you want is worth it, then eating what you don't like to someday eating something you don't mind eating, to maintain a body that you Adore, doesn't seem so bad.

No, it's not ideal, but when you love food and you have an addiction to eating it and you don't want to give that up, you need to look at why is that, what do you cling to, what is it about food that makes you want to eat it over being happy with your body. Because from what I've seen on a lot of diet and self-help shows is that it's about comfort and safety, and usually it's because they don't feel safe in any other places in their life.

So look at your life: is there someplace that you probably should feel safe or comfortable? Are you not getting what you need where you should be getting it?, that needs to be the thing that changes, that needs to be the thing that you need to work on, working on the food, working on either the relationship with your husband, or family, or friends. It's about feeling good enough that you don't have to eat to make yourself feel better, but you have to get out there and be happy, figure out whats missing and go get it.

I know that sounds stupid, but I realized that I love food because it was the only thing I felt i had left. My health went so far down the drain. I lost a lot of things that I started losing my figure and even though I gained a husband after moving to California, I lost most my friends and never really had my family and I felt alone and ostracized, and food was the only thing, that made me happy, it is the only thing I felt comfortable with, and other than my husband, who you know he is always made me feel beautiful and it's been me making myself feel not beautiful, because I don't feel like I deserve him.

I realized that it was me that was holding myself back, and that my friends and family, and having those people around me and liking me was was not all important, but instead having one great friend there for me, was pretty big, and all i really needed. but it was also hard on me being home all the time and not being able to get out. To see that you have a future, and that you can do things, and that you're good at stuff, I mean figuring those things out, you will feel like you have a purpose, it took me a long time to get to that place, but you too will find that center, that place where you don't need those things you used to, to make you happy, to be who you want to be, you don't need to have those things to cling onto, you need to find a balance. If you want a better relationship with a friend or a family member, reach out and make that happen.

If your family treats you like shit, stop putting in importance on your family, because what do you care about how they feel. if they treat you like shit, do you want to be like them? i dont think so, so why care about there opinion? dont. Start being your own person and just don't spend time with them, start putting in importance on the people that make you feel good about yourself and the people that love you and that happiness will come. I am not trying to make this sound easy, because it's not. I've struggled with it for years and years of my life and it tore me apart every week, why I couldn't fix myself, be more important, or be more likable to them, why wasn't i important enough to people, to family, to friends, why nobody cared about my opinion, and it was only till recently that I figured out who's opinion I actually cared about, and one of them was myself.

I care about my opinion and in my opinion I don't like where I'm at, I want to change. so I'm going to. your journey is going to be different than mine. maybe everything I'm saying doesn't pertain to you at all, but this is my journey, this is what I've learned, this is what I'm going through, and I hope that someone out there can understand that all the self-help quotes to certain people, like me, is crap. It's not helpful or encouraging. what is encouraging is someone who is willing to listen to all the crap you go through, and to tell you that it's a big deal, that what you're feeling and what you're going through is a big deal, and that it is important, and then also telling you, - but you can change, you can do it because you are tough, and because you have it in you. If you don't have that person to tell you, and you don't have anyone around you who can encourage you, then your around the wrong people, and you need to decide are you going to be around people who love you, and want to see you go far, or are you going to stay around people that want to hold you back and don't care about your well-being.

Because I honestly didn't think I could let go of food. I honestly didn't think that I could let go of something I love so much, But i had three people in my life, who never stopped encouraging me, My husband, my mother and my best friend, and instead of focusing on all the people that didn't care about me, i started focusing mainly on them.

The point is I didnt think i could do anything this extreme, I didn't think I could give this up, but this is to me, a solid guarantee of a diagnosis, and in that diagnosis I have a future, and in the future I will be happier, and I will be proud. With all the days and all the things I've eaten that is made me ashamed of myself and disgusted with myself. The feeling of being proud of yourself for doing something like that is so overwhelmingly powerful it's all worth it.

There is one last thing, I have to give all the credit to the Lord, I wouldn't have been able to do this without his help. He didn't just miraculously make me lose weight, because I probably wouldn't have valued that as much as working it off myself. Even though it's hard, he gave me the strength to say it's okay to give things up. He gave me this diet, and he put this in our laps, and if it doesn't work out, he will put something else in our laps and he will help me move forward with my life because he wants me to be healthy, he wants me to be happy and he wants me most of all to rely on him for everything and we started doing that in our live, and look how things are getting better.

So starting Monday starts my Virgin Diet blog Diary,

And that entails no eggs, wheat, soy, dairy, corn, peanuts, or sugar. For 21 days after that we will see where this takes me. I'm not relying on this diet alone. I'm relying on God and if he has a lesson in this for me, and i don't lose weight, so be it. But I feel this is about me getting healthier, not just losing weight and finally being happy about myself.

If anyone reads this, who took something away from it, or wants to share there weight loss struggles, or other stuff, please comment. I would love to hear anything, anyone has to say.

Good luck to all those out there trying to achieve there weight, and life goals!

Home, Car, Friends, Profession - Update!

UPDATE TIME!

1. I wished I blogged more the last two months.

2. Yesterday we worked out a deal with the apartment management, where we gave them half rent, and then the next half is due on the 15, which is good in the sense that we get to stay here another 10 days, but bad in the sense that we are now broke and will lose the car on the 11th if we don't pay and get kicked out of the apartment on the 18th if we don't pay on the 15th, and Michael still doesn't have a job.

3. Michael said by any means we are getting me to Michigan in June for my best friends wedding, because I decided/figured out that it means more to me to make it to her wedding then to not lose our apartment, so with the little money we had we bought my bridesmaids dress. I'm sure a lot of you think it's foolish, but the fact of the matter is, February was the deadline for getting the dress, and it means everything to me to make it to her wedding since she wasn't able to be my maid of honor in mine. and I miss the living shit outta her. So I got the dress ordered, so everything else is in God's hands (and that money would have only helped us a little, not really saved us from any of these trouble's anyhow)

to also understand why we spent that money, if you didn't already know, let me inform you on something, I haven't seen my best friend in two and a half years, nor any friends for that matter, and she has been one of the only people who has stuck by my side ever since I moved out to california. Also I kinda was the one to get her and her fiance together, so its a big deal that I go... apartments and cars will come and go, but your best friends big day wont happen again (at least you don't count on that happening) so please understand that this is a very large deal to me, one that you may not understand, but thats ok, my husband and I do, and that's what matters.

4. Last month I reached a breaking point, and decided to fully decide if photography is something i'm going to go into for sure (which you should know from my last blog post) well today I took a lovely young lady named Lacey out on a photo shoot (she isn't actually younger then me, it's just a saying).

met her a few months back and I needed someone to take photos up and experiment on, so I texted her and asked if she wanted to be my model for a day and get free pictures done. Which she agreed to.

So today we went out, and I have to say it was a nice day out, I still have no clue WTF I'm doing with my camera, but I think a got a few good pics, and learned a couple things, and had a good time doing so.

So that's new and exciting.

I'll hopefully get the pictures up soon, keep and eye out in future blog posts.

5. My nails have grown really long, they look lovely, and I'm so proud of myself for keeping them so nice :)

6. I'm really scared/nervous abut the situation were in. I know God will provide what we need and a way for me to get to MI, but still with everything being up in the air, I'm a bit stressed. I mean we were supposed to have the tickets bought in Dec, we had the money, we just had to spend it all when Michael lost his job in late Jan, on bills and such, and now everything is a bit of a mess, so much going on, yet nothing at all. There are good things as you can tell, but I'm not sure if they outweigh the bad at the moment. Ok yea sure, job hunting is going great, there are a lot of really great prospects that Michael has lined up, interviews that went good, and things that are looking promising. But getting a job and getting paid might not come in time. Which means taking a few steps back after this huge step forward, we can deal with losing the apartment (as long as we can get everything moved and in a safe place) but losing the car will put a huge dent in our progress, especially if Michael gets a job, most these jobs aren't work from home jobs, and moving back up the mountain he would be over an hour away, depending one job, so it would be really bad if we lost the car... which at this point I don't have much hope for. So things are super stressful right now, so if anyone could spare some prayer for us, it would be greatly appreciated.

Other then all that, its the usual trivial stuff, watched some good movies, played some good games... oh I guess theres one more thing i would like to mention.

7. So last week, Michael got in contact with his brothers and some old friends to have a night of playing Starcraft together, which ended up in a few more people being interested in gaming all together after that, but not all of us played Starcraft, (mainly me, even though I might learn) so after that we all decided since we all play Minecraft we would start up a server and play on there. After one friends failed attempt, (some leadership problems that lead into a lot of drama) my husband talked to some of the guys and they all decided to pitch in and buy a new server, that only my husband would control (since he is pretty good with dealing with these sorts of things) with the server we bought came a mumble account which is kinda like skype but no video, and exactly like Ventrillo, if you know what that is. So we now have a server up that a bunch of us have been playing on and a way to comunicate really easily.

As someone who has missed out on spending time with people other then my family out here and Michael, this has been a great treat, I mean there mostly my husbands friends, and I know I'm not seen as a great asset or anything, and I may not be as close to them as my husband. But they're my friends. Actually there kinda like my brothers, and even though sometimes they're really over the time nerdy (like I can't understand what the hell they're talking about) or a pain in the butt, I do love spending time with all of them, and being involved.

Although I wish I knew for sure if I was there because I'm one of the guys, and their friend, or if it's just because I'm married to their best friend's (because I was in the group before, back when we lived in MI, but not necessarily fully liked or accepted) but since they're guys, I guess I'll never fully find out.

so I just try not to be too annoying and have fun. It's really nice seeing michael reconnect with his friends again :) it's also really nice for me to connect with people again also lol.

So that's what's been going on lately. Quite a bit happening :\

To be, or Not to be: The Start to One Aspiring Photographer's Journey

Last week was a breaking point for me, I realized that in putting down the camera for 2 years (because the new camera was stressful and in moving to California I had/have no friends to take photos of) I cant necessarily consider myself a photographer, yet I get angry when my photography opinions aren't considered.

So I decided, you know what, I need to choose once and for all, is this something I want to do with my life. I need to decide, am I a photographer, or do I just like to snap pics every once and awhile.

Last week I setup a free photo session with a girl I had met a few months back, figured I need someone to take photos of who isn't my husband, and see how I feel about things.

it was supposed to happen today, but got postponed to next week.

but I'm excited, thankfully she is uber excited, but know's my situation so doesn't expect much other then a fun time out taking pics.

The only reason things really changed is because I got a little bit of the burden taken off me, my husband agreed to be a tag team with me and help me with the more technical photoshop side of things, because i know if i'm going to get serious I cant keep using picnik/picmonkey to touch up pics, and in reality, it stressed me the F*** out, especially since I still have to learn my camera. So with Him working on me with that side of things I can focus on just taking pics and figuring out my camera.

Which is huge for me! Because I'm not so good with the technical stuff.

So I started getting excited again about taking pictures.

Then another opportunity popped up, and I really couldn't help but step in. 

My second cousin and his wife are having a baby, and she posted on FB that she was looking for a good photographer and asked if anyone knew of one so she could get pregnancy pics done.

now I've never done pregnancy pictures before, but I felt led to help out anyways, because in all honesty, I needed more experience under my belt, and when it comes to big things like having baby's, and wedding, I figure people want all the pictures they can get.

So I offered to do it for free.

At first I didn't get a respond back, and I told myself, who am I kidding, of course they don't want some amateur kid, who is just figuring stuff out taking pics of them.

but then!...yesterday I got a message back, and she said she talked to her husband and he is really excited about it and would love to set something up further along, maybe in April :)

Gosh did that just make my day... Michael and I are looking at getting thrown out of our apartment, and having to go back to living with my mother and stepfather (whole other story for a totally different time) and here I am by the grace of God, peaceful and excited with these opportunities on my doorstep!

 If its God's will to send us a miracle so we can stay down in our apartment, or to move back up the mountain, either way I see that things are moving forward in other ways, and I really hope they continue to do so.

So right now I'm starting to work on gathering all my past pics together to make a portfolio (of course not all of them, just the good ones) and then at some point my husband is going to help me make a website. Yay!

and ya know, I don't want to candy coat it. We have been going through a lot of crap the last month, Michael getting laid off, looking at losing the apartment and maybe the car, not having the tickets to MI for our best friends weddings yet, its been uber stressful and hard, which were dealing with as best we can.

I just thought i would share my little ray of sunshine poking through the dark clouds with y'all :)

Valentines at the Drive In

Ah Valentines Day, the day that every girl in a relationship looks forward to and every single person dreads.

I am so thankful that I'm not alone anymore and I have my wonderful husband, although this Valentines day I did not look forward to as much, since our financial problems have not gotten better.

Finally things are starting to look up, but only recently did that happen.

Thankfully I had received a little money to help us be able to get out for V-day, in our current situation I know we shouldn't be spending money, but it really wasn't enough to help us out where we needed it, so after praying about it, we decided to go out for the evening.

We didn't do much, got ready, took some pictures, made a quick trip to the store to grab a couple snacks.

All of that was leading up to our big night at the drive in.

I couldn't believe to find out that just a few miles away was a drive in theater, 3 screens, that show 2 movies every night, only for $7 per person, so $14 bucks for the both of us to see 2 movies! and we had been wanting to go ever since we found out about the place, so we figured, what a great cheap way to spend Valentines day!

So thats what we did. We went and saw Beautiful Creatures and Warm Bodies, and I have to say, other then being in pain and not having Ibuprofen, it was a fabulous night!

Beautiful Creatures was way better then i thought it would be, kind of simple movie, but I felt by the end, looking back, the character development was good, the plot was good, and I was greatly impressed on the love story, it wasnt just another teenage love story that seemed immature, it was actually pretty deep. At first it did seem like it happened all too fast, but then later they did explain it happened over weeks/months and considering there back story it all fell nicely together.

oh, and I LOVED the ending, not a typical ending, but not a bad one either, I cant stand bad endings to love stories.

I don't want to give too much away, I would definitely like to go into more detail about certain aspects of the movie, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone.

One more thing I want to comment on is the religion subject. I was worried at first, I really hate when movies or shows showcase the irrational christians, the "crazy" religious people, but i think by the end it balanced itself out nicely.

I know there are those types of Christians out there, just like there are crazy people in every religion and belief, but I cant stand it when the media makes it out to be like, thats what were all like.

its like saying all atheists are angry, or all Muslims are killers... when its not true at all.

anyways thankfully it didn't cross too far over any boundaries, and balanced back out.

there were a couple flaws, but again I can't point them out without giving things away, so oh well.

I dont think the movie is for everyone of course, but me and my husband really liked it.

as of Warm bodies, that was a great movie as well, on the lighter side since it is more comedic, and I thought he did do way too much talking... I thought he should have made it look harder for him to talk, instead he made it look easy... which I thought was a flaw of sorts, but it was enjoyable and I liked the plot a lot.

All together it was a fantastic night, especially since it was Michael's first drive in and we spent less then $30 for our Valentines date out... I do admit, it was a bit hard seeing all my friends posting pics of the thoughtful gifts there loved ones had gotten them, but considering our situation, I understand.

BTW, the top photo is a design me and my husband did for valentines day a couple weeks ago :)
I think its the best we have ever done! oh and its a crappy photo because its an Instagram photo, taken from my phone :\ ill get a nicer one up later

The 2 Week Update, and the Time for Change

Last night was a night to remember, the end to and era you could say.

This year starts a year of many changes, starting with making sure to get to bed by 12, and waking up earlier, whether I have something to do that day or not... and that starts tonight, because last night my husband and I had an all-nighter playing WoW. It wasn't because we wanted to party all night or anything, it was because we had a mission. 

All-in-all, we didn't achieve our mission till 6:38 am, at that point it was getting light outside :p lol definitely something we won't be doing again for quite awhile.

Honestly, just woke up a half an hour ago, haha.

Anyways, I wanted to apologize for the lack of blogging, I've been in a kind of funk the last couple weeks where even though stuff has been happening, I haven't wanted to write about it.

So here I am back after the last forceful blog post, forcing myself to write another one before i go slightly crazy.

So lets shortly go over what's happened recently:

This last week my husband's been home, because he got laid off on monday. They thought that the next website job would be in by now but its not, so please pray for that website job to pull through soon or another job opening, since we cant really survive without the income.

I've started looking for a job, still not sure what I want to do as far as a career, so its nothing big, but I'm putting applications out in the world of retail.

Last wednesday was my disability hearing, quite scary since I've never dealt with lawyers, judges, or courts, and I don't really have any way of telling whether it went well or not, so its all in God's hands, if I don't get it, oh well, if I do, its a blessing.

It was nice though that my mother came down to support me and we went to lunch after, so it was really nice to see her, although it was her birthday on friday and I really wish we had the finances to at least been able to take her out to lunch. But she understands.

Trip planning has been going well, I have everything loosely planned out at the moment, and the trip in June is really starting to come together, it's really exciting, just hopefully I will get a job soon and Michael's job will start back up, so we will be ok financially.

*giggle* I guess this is noteworthy, in the last 2 weeks Michael and I have watched all 7 and a half seasons of How I Met Your Mother :) wasn't what I thought it was about, which actually I'm glad, we ended up really liking it.

All-in-all things have been pretty low key, we have gone out to get sushi once, Starbucks a few times, and Denny's just the other day, but other then that, we have just been home, chilling, or exploring the area a bit.

Right now our goals are, to cut back on going out, eat healthier, loosing weight will hopefully entail, get to bed by 12, and wake up earlier, every day even weekends, for me to get a job, us to save up for the trip, of course take care of my health. I've let go of trying to make friends, maybe its not what God has for me in this time and season, and that's ok, maybe someday.

Anyways for now I think thats it, Happy January Everyone! I hope you all had a good start to the year. I'm hoping to be blogging more frequently, so I'll talk to you all next time.

oh and if you feel led to, please send us some prayer over our situation, much appreciated!

Goodbye, Hello

Today hasn't been going so well for me so far. About an hour ago my favorite mug broke, and by favorite I mean, I didn't use any other mug EVER, because this was my mug and my mug only and I only used that mug. It's basically a member of the family to me, so nonetheless I cried, I was just trying to wash it out and it slipped out of my hand and broke into three large pieces in the kitchen sink. I've always had a problem with dishes because of my small hands and weak wrists (and the neuropathy) and we still haven't gotten soap for the dishwasher in our new apartment. lol which we really should, we are just not used to having one so we always forget.

Anyways, the only reason I'm not depressed right now is because I'm going to be achieving something on WoW (World of Warcraft) tomorrow, and yesterday I went to see my doctor, and it ended up being a great visit, and that always makes everything better for me since I am a little doctor-phobic. Although I did forget to ask if I could get a copy of my x-rays, but whatever it's not super important.

On top of a great doctors visit, even though I was in a little pain all day, I felt good and was happy, I felt that I looked good, so I was comfortable with myself, which is always a big deal. It was just an all around good day...

Doesn't seem today is shaping out to be one of those, on top of my favorite mug breaking I slept pretty horribly, there was some corn in some soup I had last night so my face was a bit puffy, and usually it wouldn't be a big problem, but my husband and I just started a new diet and before we started I was building up my allergies for two and a half weeks. So I don't really have the luxury to cheat anymore.

The good thing out of all this is we are starting a lifestyle change diet, (which just means we are making it a lifestyle change instead of a diet for a certain amount of time) and we're eating healthier now. I'm sure we will cut back more as it goes on, but right now were just cutting a lot of bad stuff out of our eating habits, especially the stuff I'm allergic too. 

I simply didn't find things I used to love, and that weren't healthy for me, good anymore. I was willing to let them go. Before I was holding on to too much to be able to diet properly. Now I feel like losing weight and living healthier is more important than eating yummy stuff.

So as it is, I can splurge for one meal every two weeks, and other than that, I've cut out oats, wheat and most corn (I say most, because the only way for me to cut out corn completely is to go raw, and I just can't do that in my life right now. Corn syrup, and corn starch is in almost absolutely everything, even hot dogs, soups and a lot of other things you might never expect) plus we're cutting out soda, although I can have one Monster energy drink every two weeks. I'm not restricting myself when it comes to sugar or calories, but we are cutting back on red meats, and we are going to try and cut down the carbs, but we are starting small for now. More fruit and veggies, more lean meats, with snacks such as peanuts, cottage cheese, yogurt, and gluten free granola. Just cutting back all together, less pasta and carb-heavy meals, and more salads.

We are still working on it, it sounds very loose for now, but believe me it is a big change. One thing we aren't cutting out is coffee and alcohol, because we really only have it in moderation and both my husband and I agreed, we don't think it causes as much of a problem in our life as food does.

like I said, it's a lifestyle change more than a diet.

Back to last night, so the little bit of corn in the soup I had, threw me a bit overboard and I'm all out of my anti-histamine meds, then I had a low blood sugar at 3:30am in the morning, and since we were out of low blood sugar juice I had to drink some of that naked juice, which if you dont know, its made of all real fruit and veggies... its like if you don't have a juicer you get this stuff, along side some peanut butter... which I guess didn't mix well because when I woke up a couple hours later when my husband woke up, I wasn't feeling well at all.

so my night was pretty crappy :\

Ah well, I'm at least happy I'm able to get some blogging in today. Lately I haven't wanted to blog at all... I mean I've wanted to, really badly, but I just haven't had the inspiration or gumption too :\

so this is nice :)

Ok since I haven't blogged since December, let me think about all I need to fill you in on.

....hmmm.....well last week I was sick, which other then my normal health problems I haven't actually been sick in a long time, which is unusual since I'm (cold) sick 3 or 4 times a year and at least 2 during the winter. So it was actually a large pain in the ass that I was sick :p

but I'm mostly over it now, so yay.

New Years wasn't special at all for us, we just stayed in and watched movies and even missed counting down til midnight, although like I said, we were sick :p but I did start something called Project 365. You take a photo a day with Instagram for a year. A lot of people seem to do themes, but I'm just capturing a photo that represents my day. So at the end of the year, you make them into a photobook. I thought it would be a neat thing to try, and I hope I can keep up with it since I'm not the best at  consistency. I'm going to try my best! Woot!

Here are the photos so far, I'm won't go into the backstory details here, if you want to know they're on my Facebook. Here's the first 9 days so far.

A couple days after new years we got our entertainment center up and going in the living room, It looks great and now things really feel homie, and nice. We need a cabinet or bookshelf for the movies though, they're just neatly stacked against the wall.

The place is really starting to come together. There are things we still need, and a lot of things we would still like, its safe to say the place will be a work in progress for a long time, but for now everything works quite well :) if you look above, picture 6 if the entertainment center.

Oh and I almost forgot, here are some of the pictures from the photo shoot we had at the beach on Christmas eve, the first two and the one at the top of the post are retouched, then I did a collage at the bottom of some of the rest since we did get a lot of good ones. The second one is pretty grainy, only because it was dark out at that point and there was only so much re- touching i could do to fix it, at least on picmonkey, but I loved the picture.

I LOVE this picture of Michael and I, it's so going to be framed in our new place :)

So other than all that the week has been pretty slow, I'm sure you can tell by what I said that I got back on WoW last week, and have been doing things there most days, but nothing else has been happening. I'm hoping we can make it back to Universal Studios this month since we have free passes, we haven't just because we are either forgetting we have passes or don't have the date money since we still need money for food and parking. We decided we're going to try and have a date night every month so I'm hoping this month we will head over there.

Coming soon on our calendar my court disability hearing will be on the 23rd, not much else is going on ATM, but I'll try and let y'all know if something happens :)

So sorry for how long the post is and if it was confusing in anyway... I mostly write what comes out of my head so sometimes it can be scattered :p

Thanks for reading, 'til next time. Happy 2013 Everyone!!!