Happy Birthday To Steven

Another good looking cake I've made. Chocolate Cherry Cake using a Duncan Hines triple chocolate cake mix! Can't wait to bite into this later tonight ^_^ Oh and thank you grandma for the cake stand! It was super useful and made the cake look that much prettier!

Final Stretch!

This week has gone by quite nicely. I tried really hard not to focus on how I was going to have a 4 day weekend and in the end it turned out to be the best thing for me! I focused on each day of work and before I knew it, it was Friday and everyday of work went by wonderfully! Wednesday was the highlight because it was Jessica's birthday. I would have given her cupcakes the day of, but I decided to save them as a surprise for our Saturday night games. So she, Adam, and I (and my family) went to Sub Zero for ice cream to celebrate :)


Saturday I began to make the caramel apple and S'more cupcakes for Jessica. The S'mores turned out the best while the caramel for the other cupcakes melted into the cake and didn't give it the chew I was hoping for. But all in all they turned out nicely and were tasty.


Then Apollo got his second vet visit. He's a pound heavier and still healthy. While he had his check up I began working on the dog room mural. All I did that day was paint the wall blue. I still have a tree to paint, a squirrel, 2 dogs, some grass, clouds and a fire hydrant and then I'll be done with my second mural.


Today Steven and I enjoyed church and had the missionaries over for dinner. Now we're waiting for Josh to get into town  so we can go pick him up. Steven's brother is visiting for Steven's birthday and will be staying a week. I'm excited because it now means I have two people who will be cheering me on at the Dirty Dash which is this coming Saturday! I'm in my final stretch of preparing. Just gotta remember to not do anything Friday related to working out so my body can be well rested ^_^


Take care! <3

Kitten? What Kitten? Looks More Like A Wet Rat

Tuesday I gave Apollo his first bath to get all the yucky flea poop off of him. He handled it like a trooper! He was not at all pleased with the warm water being poured on him, but he only meowed out of despair twice and made a few weak efforts to jump out of the tub. He even handles the hair drier fairly well, though it was difficult to tell if he was shaking out of fear of cold. Here's hoping with regular baths (and treats to accompany them) he will be a well tempered cat when it comes to baths.

Thursday was a so so day at work. I was reminded of how I wish some people could better deliver criticism  versus making it sound like I have no awareness of what's happening around me. Let alone criticism that comes without any comments on what I am doing well at. So kinda in that flailing phase of am I really doing well at my job or am I just doing enough to get by? I would like to think I'm doing a decent job, but it's kinda hard to tell sometimes.

Friday the Dark Night Rises came out. I almost wanted to bail on it when I heard about the shooting in Colorado. It's pretty depressing how cruel humans can be one to another. BUT that didn't stop me from going. I got home from work and hopped on my bike to head to Tukwila to meet up with Jessica and Adam for dinner at Claim Jumpers before the movie. Steven had the car since it was his last day of OT and his ride was sick. It was a great 11 mile bike ride, the hardest being getting to military road from my apartment (which was a mile of up hill XP).

Some of Steven's co-workers even joined us for opening day (I like this bunch!). As a whole, we all had a good time waiting in line the hour before sitting and now it's wondering what the next get together will be and when.

So that was the excitement of the week. I'm doing much better health wise. I even faired 2 days of naughty eating well. Blood sugar is proving steady and weight is still 172. Now I'm back on the band wagon and I must be strict since this Wednesday is Jessica's birthday and next Monday will be Steven's. Take care and thanks for reading!

<3

Race Fever

Had a preemptive exciting week! Nothing grand happened, but plans are being made!

To start the week, Steven and I decided to name are wonderful addition Apollo (Ji). We narrowed it down to Jiji and Apollo and in the midst of tossing the names around I realized we can be funny with his name and make him Apollo Ji, Apollo for short. He's been nothing but a ball of joy! Apollo is playful and cuddly. He's beginning to get use to our sleeping schedule, though I'm sure he sleeps plenty while we're gone. He zips to the door as soon as I walk in and was house broken in one night :)

Saturday was his first vet visit at A Valley Animal Hospital. It was fun filling out the new client sheet because it asked for any previous dr.'s name, so to be funny I put down Dr. Ross Engstrom. For those who don't know, my parents are both veterinarians and my maiden name is Engstrom. A Valley Animal Hospital is my mother's practice while my father works at Animal Clinic of Kent. So hence my entertainment in filling out paperwork for a veterinarian who's known me since birth.

Apollo is Feline Leukemia and kitty AIDS free! That has me ecstatic because when getting a kitten without any paper work and and no shot history, it's a gamble as to whether or not he's healthy. Well, so far Steven and I have been lucky. And for his first vet visit he did really well. He had one blood draw, one shot, and was pilled for worms. The only unhealthy thing that he had was fleas so far (which I had discovered on Tuesday). In 2 weeks Steven and I will take Apollo in for his second check up and check his stool for parasites. If he passes that, Steven and I are truly blessed with a sweet tempered and healthy kitten.

After finally getting our kitten home (car rides still being stressful for him), little Apollo tuckered out in my lap while Steven and I enjoyed some free time.

Saturday Steven and I also got some ladybugs to put on our romaine plant since they were infested with aphids. We think they are doing their job well because we haven't seen many aphids yesterday and today. But other than the Romaine being bombarded with aphids, the garden flourishes. There is flowers on the green bean plant and we will be having an over abundance of green beans I'm sure.

Now back tracking a little Thursday and Friday I had the opportunity to be the lead teacher in Pre-K. It wasn't a breeze to be honest, but I never felt out of control. I felt I did a very satisfactory job. It was unnerving to let other teachers take over for my breaks and to let me go home because I felt I was carrying the load for my co-worker and felt responsible for the welfare of her students. But I had nothing to worry about because each time I came back from a break the room was in tact and the kids not being overly rambunctious. 

However Friday I was filling ill. Had a headache practically all through work and as soon as I got home, 101 temperature. So I took some Ibuprofen and went to bed. Felt much better in the morning though later Saturday I began feeling ill again (exhausted) but was well all Sunday. Today feeling like I'm going down hill again with a headache, but no temp (thank goodness!).

I hope I get real good and sick so I can be rid of it and focus on the race I've signed up for! Yep, I am running a race! It's called the Dirty Dash. I will be running 4 miles over obstacles and through mud pits on Saturday August 4th. I will most definitely be exhausted by the end of it, but I feel this will be an experience to remember and possibly make it an annual event!

I'm wanting to start conditioning myself for the race (yes I probably should have started that a month or 2 ago), hence why I really want to get terribly sick then be over it so in 2 1/2 weeks I can go do the Dirty Dash.

I already know I can jog 3 miles in 30, but what about now? I'm 173 pounds! 3 miles was back at 190. Grant it weight loss may not give me super hero energy and speed, but I imagine my endurance may be longer due to the less weight I'm carrying. Plus I have been more active by swimming, biking, hula hooping, and some Zumba for the past month or two, so I would hope jogging wouldn't be too difficult of an activity for me to jump back into.

I'm super excited with my weight lose and the up coming race. I hope I won't be ill for too long and sorry in advance to those who saw me over the weekend if you get sick XD

<3

P.S. For those interested in the Dirty Dash, you can join my team or come hang out at the race grounds to pelt me with water balloons and cheer me on :) Just comment or send me a message.

And His Name Is....

The big news of the week was last night Steven and I decided to get a kitten. We went to Midway Pets and looked to see if they had any kittens in. They did and we really liked the short haired orange one. We were told there were 2 girls and 1 boy and that the boy one had longer hair than the other two. I have to wonder if they got it back words that there were 2 boys and 1 girl, the girl being the long haired one. My mum took one look at the kitten and confirmed we had a boy.

We don't care much if it was a boy or a girl, the problem was we were set on calling him Scarlet when we thought he was a she. Now we can't figure out what to call him that we both really like. So far we've set a few names to vote on Facebook and have come up with 2 more that we've narrowed our pickings down to. It will either be Apollo (the sun God), Zamba, or Jiji. Apollo would be cool, but with how fiesty he gets I just don't think it's perfect for him. Zamba would be great too because Zamba was the name of the worlds friendliest lion. Our kitten will get really playful, but he'll calm right down and let you hold him without getting all squirmy on you like most kittens. And Jiji just sounds cute. I think that one fits him the best, dunno why, but when I look at him and think of those three names, Jiji to me stands out. But I will not name him until Steven too is happy with the name choice. For all I know we may name him something completely different.

So here are a few pictures I was able to snap of him with my phone.

And as for the rest of the week, we've had lots of hot, sunny days and will for another week I believe. We got together with friends and I continue to loose weight slowly (176 today!). Here's wishing you all another great week and loves of love from us!

<3

I Am A Pixie!

The week couldn't have gone by faster! I got my hair appointment made Wednesday and was super excited to get really short hair. Nervous of course for if it didn't look as good as I had hoped for it to look, then it'd be a month before it grew long enough to look somewhat more feminine. But it was 3 days of playing the waiting game.

In the mean time kept myself busy by reorganizing and thinning out my home. Of course I'm thinning out my things only, but I was able to talk Steven into going through some of his things too. I was able to get rid of one of our bookshelves, take the top cubby compartment off my desk, and minimize the amount of clothes I had. Then I moved my desk to where the white bookshelf use to be and assembled my piano to be where my desk once was. No I just need Steven to figure out where to put the rest of his computer stuff so we can move the TV stand in front of the couch to be the coffee table (since we got rid of the TV) and put the table back under the chandelier in which it now will have some more room all around it.

Having less things in the house is nice, although currently it looks like all we have is clutter due to all the rearranging still happening. It's interesting how fast something can go from organized to messy when pulling out bits an pieces that you know you need to put away in a better spot.

Anywho, Wednesday Steven found out quite suddenly that he has OT again for another few weeks (or longer). Whoo hoo more money! Yet I wish we had more fore warning. Luckily this time he has a co-worker he's able to carpool with  so that will help save on gas and wear and tear on the car.

Friday I got to help Jessica frost a cake and we watched Mirror Mirror. For those who haven't seen it, it's very.... slapstick? Like I still haven't been able to find the word that I want to use for it. It's bright, colorful, slightly cheesy, a slight twist on the fairy tale, yet very typical. It came across like it was meant for children (I suppose that would explain the PG rating). Then they throw in what seemed very Bollywood to me, a dance number at the end.

I'm sure I sound like I didn't enjoy the movie, but I did. It just also left a bad after taste in my mouth. It was cute by all means and I probably would enjoy watching it again, but it was kind of a silly movie. But that's my thought about it. If you like amazing costumes and play like movies, then you should take the time to go see it.

Finally it was Saturday! So much stuff to do, but most importantly, the hair cut (which I;ll get to in a paragraph or two). But first Steven and I loaded up the car with the TV, some computers, 1 box and 2 bags worth of clothes (I know, a lot of clothes!). We dropped the TV and clothes a off at the D.I. Then we took a pit stop at Red Robins. If you haven't tried your burger wrapped in a bun, you should! It was really cool and made my meal practically carb free!

Then we zipped off the the PC Recycle and gave them some of our computers. After that I had Steven take the bus home so I could zip off to my hair appointment. About 2-3 times a year I make a trip down to see my friends dad, Ron Hill, in Steilacoom. It is a long drive, but he's always has done a fabulous job on my hair and worth the trip in the end. After sending him a few emails with my thoughts and pictures he sat me down and told me what he was gonna do. In short he liked my idea and he was thinking about taking it slightly shorter in back while making sure I had bangs to cover my forehead. Then he said we was gonna use my natural color to highlight the brown color I was getting. I just smiled and even though I was ultimately nervous about whether or not I was making a good choice, I continued to plunge forward after the short hair dream.

Here's me before:

And here's me after, in which I am super happy I did it! Tell me, what do you think?

The garden is doing well. The green beans should be blooming any day now and holy cow is there a ton of vines! Also the carrots are almost ready for harvest. Probably another week or two.

<3

P.S. My blood results came back worlds better! Still diabetic, but on the scale they use to determine what your risk is for it, I went from 10.5 or greater to 8.5. The doctors goal for me is to get under 6.5. Of course all of this is WITHOUT medicine and eating/working out better. HF continues to bless me and I'm grateful He hears and answers prayers.