A Year full of Yay.

December is upon us already. I seriously can NOT believe it. This year whizzed by faster than a paranoid streaker.

I must admit though, even with its ups and downs, this has been a fantastic year. Which in all honesty I have not been able to say in a long loooong loooooooooong time. And for that, I'm incredibly thankful! I know it's not quite the end of the year yet but I feel like sharing some of those wonderful things with you now anyways.

• I remained employed during these tough times. YAY!
• Nick and I had our 1st Anniversary in June! :)
• My little old car is still putting along with no problems.
• I'm back to living a healthy lifestyle, working out and eating right.
• I discovered the magical wonder of Food Blog Land and fell in LOVE. AWE YEAH!
• Oliver (AKA crazy cat) and Nick are getting along better, most of the time. HA!
• I'm feeling good and looking better week by week. YEAH, I just gave myself some props, so what? Don't hate on me! :)
• I realized how much I enjoy cooking good, healthy and clean food.
• I've rediscovered my love of photography. Maybe one day I can take classes and get better!
• I'm FINALLY redoing my tattoo. Which is still a work in progress but only for a few more weeks. PAINFUL YAY!
• Nothing serious broke in my house this year. The FEW things that did, Mr. Handy Nick was able to fix. HE EVEN FIXED THE DISHWASHER PEOPLE!
• The folks have both started exercising. This makes me very happy!
• I have been financially "not in a scary place" this year.
• I've been healthy. I haven't even had a cold!
• No cavities. HA HA HA!!

Okay, I may be stretching it a bit here, BUT, it's been a great year overall. Everyone I care about is healthy, happy, employed, being loved and living life with joy. What more can a person ask for?

How about oatmeal? YEP! That's what my body was asking (screaming) for this morning!! "FEED ME OATS you devil woman! IT'S BEEN TOO LONG!" I had to obey these angry little voices inside. They were scaring me!

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 cup water
• dash salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and pumpkin pie spice
• 1 banana, sliced
• 2 tbs sugar free peach preserves

Tasty-tasty! And it made my angry little voice inside my head disappear for hours, which was nice. It started screaming again by about 12:30 though. "FEED ME.... FEED ME...." So I hurried up and heated up my lunch. Which consisted of an egg white scramble that I cooked up last night.

• 5 egg whites
• 1 green onion, chopped
• 3 cherry tomatoes, chopped
• handful of broccoli, chopped
• sea salt & pepper to taste

I also had some Trader Joe's Peach Salsa on the side and a toasted English muffin sprayed with my beloved spray butter.


On our break today Ann and I ran to Target. In the 10 years that I have worked at my current job, I'm honestly NOT sure if we have EVER went a solid week without visiting Target. Scary right? Half the time we don't even know what we want. It just sounds good so we find ourselves driving there. That red bullseye has us hypnotized I tell you. THEY'VE GOT US GOOD! I picked up some Christmas treats and toys for my Fur Baby (Oliver cat) and something for my Papa. YEP, that's right Papa, I got you something else. YOU KNOW YOU LOVE IT! HA!

My afternoon snack once again ROCKED MY WORLD today! It was another yogurt mess with Oikos yogurt....


POM arils....


And a blueberry VitaTop.


This one also gets a 10 out of 10. I don't know what those folks over at VitaLicious are doing but they are doing it right. I am addicted to these things. ALL OF THEM ARE SO GOOD... EVERY SINGLE FLAVOR! I SWEAR!

My yogurt mess was delicious! I devoured this bowl like an animal!


Before we knew it 5:00 rolled around and we were off to the gym. Here is my workout.

Horizontal Chest Press

Weight of Machine x 15

+10lb x 14

+20lb x 10

Seated Chest Press

30lb x 25

40lb x 16

50lb x 12

Inclined Chest Press

20lb x 14.5

30lb x 8

20lb x 12

Modular Chest Press

30lb x 20

40lb x 18

50lb x 10

Eliptical Machine

15 min, 134 calories

Bike (random, uphill setting, level 5)

15 min, 5.4 miles, 100 calories

My shaky little legs were on FIRE by the time we left. WHEW! It felt good though. I did 15 minutes on the eliptical! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?? My right leg hung in there just fine! I WAS SO HAPPY....AND SHOCKED!

Nick wasn't home tonight. He was visiting his mom for dinner. I took full advantage and took a nice long bubble bath, lit some candles, made a nice warm cup of coffee (yes, coffee at night because I'm crazy) and turned on So You Think You Can Dance. I was in HEAVEN!

I was also hungry so I made myself a nice salad for dinner. I LOVED IT!

• romaine leaves
• green onions
• black beans
• cherry tomatoes
• avocado
• Morning Star Farms mushroom burger
• red pepper flakes
• salt & pepper to taste
• spray butter

Yes, I ate every single last little bite. I may OR may not have talked to myself about how good it was between bites. YUM!

I'm still sipping on coffee. It's 11:00 at night. I'm SO going to regret this!! :)