Fun Weekend!

I am hanging out with Renae at the moment...we are watching friends and I did some scrapbooking. Overall today has been pretty chill; not too much going on around here.

But this weekend has been crazy! Of course there was Christmas eve with the Ussery's, which turned out to be a lot of fun. We spent the night there on Thursday night and then rushed home to make a quick fruit salad for Annie's lunch/dinner. A lot of people were over, which was a lot of fun. That night I ran stairs with Peter and then we hung out at Pete & Hannah's for the evening. Hannah's brother John is in town and Renae & Joe showed up as well. We had a slight fiasco with a pizza collapsing at the bottom of the oven!

Saturday was fun, we went to snoqualmie falls, then to Hans' for TONS of food and stayed there talking for hours. It has been a very social weekend and its nice right now to just sit here and poke around on the internet while Renae finishes her last scrapbook page. I can't believe this long weekend is already over and I have to go to work tomorrow, AHHH!!!

Christmas Eve Eve

Technically today is Christmas Eve Eve, which means that today was my last day of work and I have FOUR DAYS OFF! Tonight I finished making some gift tags and tonight when Matt gets home I will wrap the remainder of my gifts. I made gift tags with some Christmas paper from Heather and I cut out shapes with my slice and embossed the "to/from." I added stickles of course; a project of mine would not be complete without glitter. Here is a photo (although not the best):
My kitty Leo was very involved in the process. His head was probably about one inch from mine while I embossed. He is a very crafty cat.

I am so excited for the weekend! We have friends coming into town as well as family get-togethers, honey-baked ham on Friday, snowboarding Saturday and hopefully lots of relaxation and fun. :)

Sunday Blues

Almost every week I get what I consider the Sunday Evening Blues. Basically it is dread of another weekend being over and another week of work beginning the next day. There is absolutely nothing to look forward to on Sunday nights, so I usually do pretty much nothing. Today I did a few things, none of them memorable, although some of them mentionable:

1) I finished my lousy 2-pager. It isn't as lousy anymore, I used some cool two sided ribbon that i twisted around and I also used some awesome chipboard swirlies from Renae.
2) Matt & I found a new Asian Market, complete with a Pho place & frozen yogurt place inside.
3) I reorganized my scrapbook room (yes, again.) Renae, I may be more like my mom than I once thought!
4) I have drank two cups of Winter Blend coffee from TJ's.
5) I watched a cute video online about how to make some cute gift tags: http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/?p=2677

And I have a few photos from a more memorable yesterday:

Tiffany & Ryan in Seattle for Dim Sum:
Christmas Day party at Aunt Marie's (it was a little early!)

Feeling good

Despite the fact that my lap top is now somewhat broken, I am feeling good today. I lost .4 more pounds this week even though my weekend was full of treats and delicious foods. I have been exercising nearly every day and I feel pretty energetic and alive, even though at work I sometimes feel exhausted.

I haven't been scrapbooking much because I started a two page layout and felt so uninspired by it that I haven't sat down at the table since! This morning I have some time before work, so I might try to sit down make a page. Most likely I wont return to that attempt of a two-pager because it lacks excitement.

Yesterday my cats knocked over my flowers which spilled water all over my new Christmas stack of paper from Heather. Its not totally ruined, but the pages are warped so I'm kind of annoyed.

Last night we got to hang out with J & E which was fun because we haven't seen them in awhile. We ate dinner at Stanfords, then went out Christmas-light-looking, and finally back to our place to chat. They are off for two weeks to the E. side, so Matty & I may be a little bored for awhile. I guess we will be having friends come next week though; can't wait for that!!!

Crazy birthday

I took pictures every hour on my birthday, so I can document the day. At some point, I will make a scrapbook page with all those pictures, probably I will have to shrink them tiny to fit on a page! One of my favorite things to do is document lots of unimportant things that surround an "important" event. So here was my day (told Joy style.)

8:00 Jenn wakes up after pushing the snooze button for over an hour. She wakes up to find Matty awake already and "dinking" on the computer.
8:15 She drinks some Christmas blend with 1% milk and pumpkin pie SF syrup.
9:30 She rushes out of the house, late for the meeting and eating a kashi bar for breakfast on the way out the door.
10:30 Coffee break! Chats it up with cool people
11:00 Awesome prophesying meeting.
12:30 Jenn & Matt meet Pete & Hannah at the mall and she gets to spend some birthday money on clothes! But first, of course they stop for snacks...yummy frozen yogurt (only 70 calories!) with blueberries and a 1% coffee misto with 1 pump of pumpkin spice and 1 pump of SF vanilla
1:oo The hero of the hour tries on some size six jeans and THEY FIT!!!
2:00 Jenn & Hannah watch a movie, PS I Love You, which is a very sad movie but also very good and Gerard Butler is mega HOT!
4:30 Party time! Heather & Phil & Peter join in for the fun.
5:30 Poker time! Jenn wins!
6:00 Present time! Jenn wins again!
7:00 Yummy dinner cooked by Matt: salmon, pesto pasta & broccoli!
8:30 People leave and Jenn gets to look at her presents...She got some scrappy stuff including a tiny attacher by Tim Holtz and Christmas paper from Heather. Matt got her an underarmour shirt for running and some PEARL EARRINGS! Those match the necklace she got 3 years ago on her 21st birthday.
9:30 Matt wakes up after falling asleep and does a little sleep walking while Jenn laughs at him and tries to get him to go to bed.

What a happy birthday it was. :)

Saturday

Tomorrow is my birthday and today I am enjoying the sunlight because I am pretty sure tomorrow it will rain (because something bad HAS to happen on my birthday.) I have a few random things to say:

1) I got Mom's card in the mail today, its very cute! I love the sparkle.
2) Green lake is officially iced over! It looked really strange when I passed it on my way home from work and I was quite tripped out to see it all frozen like that.
3) I ran around lake Union today and all the other people running around the loop were guys. Therefore today I will consider myself hard core.
4) I am wearing my coat in the house.
5) I can't wait to eat Persian food tonight at the work Christmas party. That's why I ran so long, so I can eat more calories tonight!!!
6) I lost one more pound this last week. Only three more to lose! (in December)
7) Tomorrow I will try to take a photo an hour to document my day.
8) I have a few photos from last weekend that I want to share:
9) I have a couple more from Thanksgiving week that I think are fun. Both were taken at J & E's with a whole bunch of us hanging out. The lower photo is us girls all playing poker while someone tried to beat a level in Mario, playing it over and over.
10) Sorry this is such a long post. I worked this morning and then ran 8 miles so I am just relaxing at the computer.

Avoiding

I am avoiding thinking about going to work for another half an hour. I show up for the afternoon today, so that means this morning I am off. Usually my mornings before work are spent in somewhat bitter anticipation of the coming work day.

My sister's blog is very funny today. I want to write an entry like that, but unforunately my life isn't interesting enough. You should check out her blog: http://joyindeutschland.wordpress.com/2009/12/

After eating almost nothing for a week and writing down the almost nothing into a little tiny book, I have successfully lost one pound as of this morning at the gym. (This is a total of 1.4 for the month) I only have until the 31st to lose 3.6 lbs. So in addition to eating almost nothing this next week, I will be exercising every day for seven days. Bring it on, adipose tissue, I WILL WIN!

I have been so silly this morning, checking facebook, reading my family & friends blogs, reading random scrapbookers blogs, writing in my own blog, etc. etc. My excuse is that this lap top is keeping my lap very warm so I don't want to get up. Its time to get off my chair and start my day. I am wearing underarmour to work today again because it is still SO COLD!!!

So Cold

Today was so cold here in Seattle that I shivered all day. Although its in the 20's, it really sinks into your bones here more than I remember happening in Spokane. Maybe its because its also sorta humid. I am not sure, I just know that I am COLD. Right now I have spandex on under my jeans and I am wearing a hoodie as well as a down coat. My heater doesn't work in the living room!
Well I have a busy evening ahead of me...I just thought I would put up a scrapbook page that I made recently about Hannah & I making pie. I should have some pictures from this last weekend soon.

Crazy in Spokane

I am having a happy weekend so far. Matt I drove over here right after work on Friday and we made it here in time for dinner! Joe made some Pad Thai and I had a couple of awesome macaroons made by Tom. They all sang me happy birthday (because my birthday is next week) and I got a match stuck in a macaroon for a birthday cake. Renae knew I wouldn't want a cake or a pie because I would eat it all and ruin my diet. :) So then we played apples & oranges and I was TERRIBLE as I usually am at that game. I really wished we had played poker but it was a lot of fun.

This morning Rachel met me here and we went on a really nice run over at Bowl & Pitcher. Renae's house is like 5 minutes away, I am SO JEALOUS!!! We ran for about 45 minutes, which definately felt like a work out since it is so cold here. Its like real winter! Anyway, I should go wake Renae up so we can start our fun day! I get to go visit Bethany's baby and hopefully see Lilian and my mom and maybe scrapbook a little. I am so excited! I love it here. :)

A little clarification...

...from the last post. ;)

The weight loss plan started yesterday (November 30th) and I was perfectly content to eat whatever I wanted on the 29th! I ate horrible all day: pumpkin pancakes, chocolate covered coffee beans and of course the ice cream.

But now I am being good! The last two days I have not exercised because I am recovering so I have only had 1000-1200 cal each day. I have to lose 5 lbs by December 30th, otherwise I lose FIFTY DOLLARS! AHHH!

Vacation is over

I had a great five days off! To be perfectly honest I was not excited about starting work today. But I did have an awesome vacation. Here are some highlights:

1) Thanksgiving dinner with family...eating lots of dinner & pie and then playing games with the cousins.
2) Staying up late each night playing Poker with Pete & Hannah
3) Spending time at Josh & Ellen's and getting to see Mike & Sarah & Milo and Hans who were in town for the holiday.
4) Reorganizing my scrapbook room (still in the process!)
5) Running the half marathon yesterday in 2:03:08. Also hanging out with the awesome friends and family that watched me run as well as my friend Aileen who ran it with me (and beat me) ;).
6) "Studying" with Pete & Hannah, planning our "Biggest Loser" style weight loss plan for next month.
7) Eating a double scoop cone at Molly Moon's, one scoop of cinnamon and one scoop of pumpkin clove on a home made waffle cone. Yum!
8) In general being lazy with Matt, eating chocolate, not getting up super early, walking at Green Lake and doing a whole lot of nothing.

What an awesome break! Now its back to the grindstone!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I had Wednesday off today! Matt and I had a lot of fun. We ran around town trying to find Thanksgiving Blend from Starbucks. We got five pounds but had to go to 8 different places; what an adventure! Since this is my favorite coffee, I am glad that it will last awhile.

Hannah came over and made pies! We made a pumpkin pie and a pecan pie. Other than me being terrible at making crust, it went very well! We went to Tubs subs for lunch...delicious!

Hannah and Peter came over in the evening and we drank coffee and played poker. We played with pennies from my change jar...so much fun! Even though Hannah won in the end I got to keep all the pennies. :)

Mike & Sarah came into town, we went over to Josh & Ellen's tonight where they were staying.

I took a nap in the afternoon so now I am up late watching friends and cleaning the kitchen. I felt like Monica, where she has to clean everything incessantly before she goes to bed. I am watching some of the Thanksgiving episodes since tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Actually today is Thursday since it is 1:00 am. I should really get to bed now, ha ha!

Fun pictures

I took some photos today: One photo of all the food I bought while shopping at Trader Joe's today. I was unpacking it and thought it looked pretty cool so I arranged it nicely. It kind of shows the kind of food we eat, which of course is important information for everyone to know. :)

I also took a photo of all the goodies that I got today while scrapbook shopping! Actually it includes some of the awesome stuff that Renae got me for my birthday. So really its a pile of my new stuff. This photo marks the beginning of a no shopping for scrapbook stuff until 2010! Good luck Renae & Jenn.

Lazy Sunday

Unfortunately, I slept until 10:00 today! I was so tired from my week that I think I really needed that extra sleep. I jumped out of bed, made some coffee and made it to the last half of the meeting. It was fun chatting to Ben & Aileen and seeing the saints. The meeting was good! There were just 8 of us and we talked about the conference last week.

Yesterday was a blast! My best friend Renae has been in town. Saturday morning I had to work until about 1:00. Then Pete & Hannah came over and Renae came over and we scrapbooked and watched Star Trek (the movie). Then Matt came home from skiing and Joe got back from biking and we all headed over to my favorite restaurant, Taste of India. I am looking forward to the leftovers for today's lunch! Afterward, a lot of people came over including Davidde, Alethia & Tim, so of course we had to watch Star Trek AGAIN and Renae & I did some more scrapbooking. We had fun punching fun shapes out of our old scraps. She has a cute hydrangea punch so I made some cute flowers to use later. Fun weekend so far.

I am supposed to run today 10 miles. It is really raining outside so I don't know if I will make it!

Today I am thankful for...

1. Hannah, who just helped me clean my house!
2. My new address labels which have snow men on them.
3. My kitty cat who is my shadow.
4. My nice clean towels.
5. Matty, who I miss since he is working nights this week.
6. Renae, who is visiting this weekend!
7. The fact that I have tomorrow morning off. :)
8. My ability to run around Lake Union today in a wind storm.
9. My scrapbook room, which I am always thankful for because I love it so much!
10. A warm condo to shield me from all the rain & wind.

Have a great Wednesday. The week is half over!

A new week

I feel pretty domestic today...after work I went to Trader Joe's for grocery shop and as I shopped I planned the meals for the week. ;)

Tonight I cooked! I made myself corn, edamame & peppers (frozen @ TJ's) and teriyaki turkey meatballs. I love how easy TJ's makes cooking. Perfect for a non-housewife housewife.

I am alone tonight because Matt is working late. So I am sitting here writing this and my kitty cat is trying to sit in my lap while I eat and type at the same time!

This morning I read two days of morning revival because I need to catch up! I am actually trying to finish both weeks this week so I wont feel lost at the prophesying meeting. The Lord was faithful to me today and I remembered to tell him I love Him at work.

That's all for tonight!

I have a few more reasons for being happy...

1. The sun is STILL shining!
2. I ran some stairs at Capitol hill, a favorite work out.
3. One of my patients at work today told me that I have lost weight. (Yeah!)
4. We hired a new hygienist today and I LOVE her.
5. My boss bought us all sandwiches at Paseo's which are my FAVORITE!
6. I am excited for the conference tonight.
7. It is a friday!
9.Tomorrow is Saturday!
10. I don't have to work tomorrow! (sorry, just a little excited here...)

Twelve reasons I am happy today

1. It is sunny outside!
2. I found my Chaco flip flops (they have been lost for a month)
3. My ring came back from the jewelers and it is SO sparkly!
4. I remembered to bring my reusable shopping bag to TJ's.
5. I worked out for an hour with my trainer this morning.
6. I got a little notebook from her to record my eating. Its so cute and fun!
7. I lost 1.75% body fat in the last 6 weeks.
8. I get to go to Chris's for the home meeting tonight. :)
9. Matt turned on the dryer this morning so I have fresh new scrubs to wear today.
10. Leo has been drinking water from his new fountain.
11. I got to go to my favorite store (TJs) and got lots of yummy food for only $32.
12. The sun is shining! (That counts for two.)

I seem to be very tired on Mondays! Today it is because I think I hurt my shoulder and triceps playing skee ball on Saturday night. We went on a date to downtown Seattle! We had a nice dinner at the daily grill, went shopping at GAP and then spend a few hours at Gameworks. What fun was that, I hardly ever get to go out. Shopping was so fun because I had a $50 gift card and there was a 25% off sale on everything! I got three things and only spent $10!

Gameworks was fun. We played Skeeball the most because we got so many tickets. Matt was the best! We also played Plinko! That's the game where you use tokens to try to light up all the letters in Plinko and then the little scooter moves the tokens down and then some fall off and you get tickets! My favorite part was that I found lots of tokens hidden under the machine and I used a straw to get them out! It reminded me of the days of Kids play when James & I would do that exact thing! At the end of the night we turned in our tickets and we got a lava lamp and a daisy-duck-playing-tennis stuffed animal.

Well that's all for tonight. Like I said, I am exhausted from work today. I will try to upload some photos from our date later this week.

Photos from Spokane trip!

Here are some picture of Renae & I from last weekend. We went on a fun walk at the park across the street from her house. We stopped by for coffee on our way. I only got to see her for a few hours each day while I was in Spokane because she has to work night shift, YUCK! Hannah went with us for one lap around the parl. The trees were lovely.

Renae's house is very cute! I love the little porch on the side. Too bad I don't have my own house to gloat about!

Crazy friday

Friday was nuts at work. I am just so busy and now my body is exhausted. I get to run 13 miles now, yeah!

I hope to get a chance to relax when I get home and do some scrapbooking.

At some point I am going to figure out how to upload photos, but I am sorry it hasn't happened yet. I just don't know how to make the files small enough so that they will fit on the blog. I have some really cute ones of Renae & Joe's new house and Lilian's new baby.

Have a happy weekend all!

An exhausting Monday

I am back from Seattle and completely wiped out. I had every intention of going to the gym tonight but just didn't make it! Instead I am crashed on my couch eating microwave popcorn for dinner because that's all the food I have in my house.

I want to upload some photos from the weekend, but unfortunately I have no idea how to re-size them! So the photos will have to wait.

Tonight I need to vote!!! I better get on that!

Weekly update

This week has been fun because I got Friday off! I drove to Spokane late Thursday night and have spent the whole day running around.
7:30 I brought a latte to Anne-Marie and we chatted a bit while she got ready for school. She is going on a cool overnight rafting/camping experience this weekend. Unfortunately she broke her toe.

8:30 I went the the gym. This used to be 24 hour fitness so I used to have a membership there, so of course have paid them hundreds upon hundreds of dollars in the past. But now the gym is called Oz, so I can't get in with my 24 card. And I had to pay $15! I only had 40 minutes to work out so I convinced the woman at the counter to give me a pass to go in the evening as well. I did 30 minutes of interval training on the treadmill, which just about killed me. Then I did a few weights, but not a lot.

9:30 Zipped over to Lilian's house where I spent time with her, Jesse and her adorable baby Nathan. I made two scrapbooking pages while I was with her, both of her baby and with her scrapbook stuff. We chatted a bunch and watched "So you think you can dance."

12:30 I rushed to Renae's house and got to view it for the first time. Of course I was very nosy and opened every drawer and closet and stepped into each and every room.

1:30 Renae and I went to my parent's house because we had to pick up some Michael's coupons, and then of course my mom came along on our shopping trip. Renae got alot of really cool things at Michael's including some clear stamp sets which were 40% off. Matt recently bought me a ton of glitter (and yes, I mean a TON) so I only spent $3!!!

2:45 We dropped Renae off at her fabulous house, and mom got to ooh and ahh.

3:30 Lunch/Dinner at Moon's Mongolian Grill. This is one of my favorite restaurants in Spokane. I try to load up on the veggies and hardly use any noodles or oil. I think I have been pretty healthy today.

4:30 (sorry this is getting so long, I know that no one is actually reading this far...) Dad and I headed to the bank to close my account which has been inactive for two years. Little did I know, but when your account is inactive for too long they start taking $5 away every month. So my savings account only had $30!

5:00 Home at last where I got a few minutes to scrapbook in my mom's room. I only brought a few things from home, so I got to use lots of my mom's stuff, including her sewing machine! So fun!

7:30 Back to the gym for an hour of weights! I followed my trainer's plan and got a pretty good work out. I needed to get my $15 worth!!!

Now I am home and have been for a couple of hours. I just have been chilling with mom, being very relaxed. But I do miss Matt, which is probably why this post is so long. I wanted to give a summary of my week but I guess that didn't happen. THe only important thing to note is that I RAN 12 MILES on Wednesday. Thats all for now! (Finally!)

My not so interesting week

I am pretty much not writing much because I haven't figured out anything interesting to say. I like to read interesting people's blogs, but somehow I don't think I have enough going on in my life to write about on a blog.

A few notes from the week:
I ran 11 miles on Wednesday.
I love Indian food, especially the free appetizers and desserts that sometimes come with dinner!
I really love it when it rains hard.
The darkness coming so early is really driving me crazy.
I have a new found love for recycling.
I really do hate skin on my chicken.
It's been two weeks since I grocery shopped and I am having a blast trying to be creative with my meals.
I HATE paying bills.

Okay, that is all for today!

Sunday in Seattle

This morning Matt and I headed all the way to Bellevue for the meeting! To be very upfront and honest, we both absolutely HATE Bellevue. The parking situation is always a bit sticky at the hall, but we mostly just really don't like the city of Bellevue. We were surprised when we really enjoyed the meeting there! I had to apologize to the Lord for having such a bad attitude!

It was so wonderful to see Melissa and Graham and their new baby! We went to the cheesecake factory for lunch and sat around a large circular table. The service was very slow but luckily we enjoyed each others company so it wasn't too painful. Evelyn is just the cutest little two year old! Her birthday is tomorrow so she got a tiny little sundae and the waitresses sang to her. I got to hold the baby while he was sleeping! That was really fun. Even though I don't want a baby for a really long time, I really enjoy holding other people's babies.

I will just give a quick update of my working out. This week I started lifting with a trainer on Wednesday. I have been eating really well and doing as much running as possible. It may be finally paying off because on Saturday I weighed myself and I lost three pounds! Granted, this is just extra weight I have put on in recent months, but it still feels good to see a downward trend on the scale.

Hello

I decided to start a blog!

I am sitting here after a hard day of grueling work and watching the biggest loser and thought I should multi-task and make a blog.

My best friend Renae was here for the weekend and it was SO MUCH FUN! I miss her already. We went camping at Capitol forest on Friday night and then Matt & Joe did a mountain bike race on Saturday. They stayed with us on Saturday night and Sunday night. We celebrated Oktoberfest at Peter & Hannah's on Saturday night. Sunday was pretty lazy, which was awesome! I even stayed up late at watched a chick flick! So overall a pretty good weekend.

But I am back to real life. I work as a dental hygienist and this takes up much of my week. I also run a lot because I am training for a half marathon in November. During the week I usually find some time to scrapbook in the evenings. Lately my husband Matt has been working a lot of evenings and I sure have a lot of time to myself!

I know this is already getting long but since it is the first day of fall I have a few goals that I want to record and ultimately achieve!

1) Continue my running routine and get fit! Add weight lifting, longer runs and more stairs!
2) Be a better "housewife": Learn to cook more meals & keep the house clean.
3) Read the Bible more.
4) Try to serve in the church more and get connected.
5) Eat healthy! This is always a long term goal. This includes drinking green tea, lots of water and taking vitamins. I have a calendar that I keep track of these things and so far its working great!
6) Don't buy too much stuff! This includes eating out and scrapbook supplies, the two things I spend the most on unnecessarily.

Well that is all for today! I am sorry this is so boring. A first post is always boring. But I will try to improve next time!