On eating healthier...

I have never paid much attention to what I eat. I'm lucky to have a naturally slender build, and it took awhile for what I was eating to catch up to me. Plus, I wasn't eating fast food very often, and I don't eat a lot of dessert, so I was probably eating pretty healthy - right?

Not so much. Because my pants are too tight right now. And I don't care what size you are, if your pants don't fit, they don't fit.

My sisters and my mother are all very healthy eaters, so I got some pointers from them. There was just so much I didn't know. Main problems with my diet:

• Cheese can't be the only food I eat. And I can't eat so much of it.
• Ditto when it comes to bread.
• I need way more protein and fiber.

So, I've begun a quest of healthier eating. Not necessarily dieting - just making a conscious effort to make healthier choices. I'm by no means an expert, but here are a few things that have made this easier for me:

• Snack, snack, snack! Eating every few hours takes the edge off your hunger, and keeps you from eating too much during meals. Plus, it keeps your metabolism working non-stop. Fruit and nuts are my go-to snacks.
• Choose stronger tasting foods. I love cheese (see above problem). If I put a stronger tasting cheese, like swiss, on my sandwich instead of say, American, I can use less but still get the taste. If I put mustard on my sandwich, I don't need nearly as much mayo. 
• Check serving sizes. This is what blew me away. The serving size for the chips I brought for lunch yesterday? 13 chips. Which is not at all the serving size I was usually eating. Oops.
• Drink water! I bought a huge rubbermaid container from the grocery store that I fill up each day with 64 ounces of water, and I make sure that I drink it all throughout the day.

What are your healthier eating tips?

Auction Quilt

I promised a friend of mine months ago that I would make a quilt for her employer's annual fundraiser. She works for Cincinnati Union Bethel, and my favorite of their program is called Off the Streets. This program helps women leave prostitution, teaching them life skills (ranging from couponing to job searching), providing them with health care, and helping them to support themselves. It's amazing.

Here's the quilt I made:

It was made from a jellyroll pattern where you sew all of the strips together. It's the fastest quilt I've ever made, though it still took 7 hours. Sewing those strips together isn't as quick as you'd think! Here's a link to the pattern.

I really like how it turned out. It's a large quilt, and the colors are much more vibrant in person. Glad I could contribute to the fundraiser!

Honey? About that honeymoon...

Last night, as I was doing my Biggest Loser workout, cursing Bob and his dolphin planks and mountain climbers, Zac casually came downstairs and pulled out his computer.

Me: What are you doing?
Zac: Looking at passport stuff.
Me: Why?
Zac; Because my passport expires on our wedding day.

Oops. Moral of the story - check your passport expiration date like everyone knows you're supposed to do to avoid problems like this, and rush fees!

Sort of cool that the passport he was issued 10 years expires on his wedding day. And thank goodness we caught it now, and not three weeks from now!!

Giveaway from CSN!

In the flurry of pre-wedding activity, I missed the one year anniversary of my blog. Happy blogiversary to me!!

To celebrate, CSN is offering one of you the chance to win a $35 gift card to any of their online stores... and they have a lot of them!

What could you spend it on, you might ask? Excellent question.  If you're redecorating your kitchen, you might want to purchase some pendant lighting. Preparing for summer? Consider a hammock! Planning (or dreaming about) a tropical vacation? Get some new luggage!

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment! You don't have to include a fun message to me, but you're welcome to do so if you want to! =)

The giveaway will close on Thursday at 9:00 PM EST. Good luck!

What I'm reading this month

I can't believe that with 25 days until the wedding, I'm still reading! But... I am, and I'm glad. It helps me keep a bit of sanity.

For the first book club:

I loved this book. It's about slave owners who travel to Ohio each summer with their slave mistresses for vacations. It is Perkins-Valdez's first novel, and it's very well written. I would highly recommend it!

For the second book club:

I haven't started this one yet, but it comes highly recommended from someone whose book recommendations I usually agree with! Looking forward to getting in to it.

What have you been reading lately?

What do I do with this cool thing?

I won't lie - one of the most fun parts about getting married are the wonderful, generous gifts we've received from our friends and family.  The kitchen stuff has been especially fun... new gadgets that make cooking so much easier and so much more fun. It's amazing the difference that nice cookie sheets make when you're baking!

For the new gadgets that we've never used before, like our rice cooker, we've been making an effort to learn how to use them. (Side note: if you don't have a rice cooker, get one. It's awesome!). But this one has me stumped:

I know everyone who has an immersion blender loves it - which is why we wanted one. But what do you do with it?? I'm so excited to use it, but I need some ideas for what it's best for. Any suggestions?

Why didn't I pay attention?

I'm hard at work planning this year's Summer Program for work.  A few days ago, I met with some incredible math teachers to get their feedback on the curriculum. These guys were incredible - they just get math in a way I"m not sure that I ever could.

As we were talking about factoring (FOIL, anyone?) and the angles of triangles, I started to feel sad that I have about zero memories from high school math. I'm not sure I could even tutor someone in Algebra. I guess it would come back to me at some point, but why didn't I pay more attention??


This happens to me even now in my grad school classes. A teacher will mention something, and I think, "I know I learned that. What the heck is that? I KNOW we learned that!"

Sigh. I'm pretty sure that if I re-took the test I aced two weeks ago tonight, I would totally bomb it. This is not good. Must. Learn. More!!!

Anyone else feel this way? Think about how brilliant we would be if we had actually paid attention to everything we've been taught and did more than short-term memorized the information for a test!!

Never Too Busy

I took a course in college where we studied the abstract concept of time, and ever since then, I'm been fascinated by time and schedules. Most of all, I'm fascinated by the concept of being "busy."

No matter how much you have going on, you're probably busy. I'm in school, working and planning a wedding. I'm busy. But so is my younger sister who is in college. So is my neighbor who works part-time. So is my grandmother who is retired.

Everyone is busy. None of us have enough time to do everything that we want to do. I get that. Today though, I stumbled upon this quote and I felt like I had been smacked in the face:

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Louis Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein.”

                                                                                                - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Wow. So I guess the question is... what am I doing with that time??

Budget Spreadsheet

I said I wasn't going to post, and here I am posting again right away!  But... there have been a lot of requests for this budget spreadsheet, so I wanted to share it!

We've been budgeting for about two months. We added not one dime to our savings account in all of 2010. In February, we saved $1600. And not because we're rich. It's because we were smarter about our money. I'm officially a budget convert.

I made this spreadsheet to track our budget, and wanted to share it for anyone who needs a jump start. Basically, if you change the categories on the first page, it will reflect on the monthly pages, and the dollar amount you set will go right into the monthly pages. On the monthly pages, if you zero out in a category it's green, if you overspend it turns red. The category column each month is set up with tabs so you can only choose from sections of your budget.

Yeah I know, I'm swanky. Hope it helps you get rich!

Just click here to download it!

I need a break.

So, I"ve been a horrible blogger. I realize many people probably didn't even notice that I haven't been updating, but I felt like you deserve an explanation.

Turns out full-time job + graduate school + getting married in 6 weeks = disaster! Shocking, right?? I have officially hit my breaking point and I'm starting to lose it!

Worst of all, I have nothing to share with you. Zac hasn't been working weekends this month, since that's when I usually sew, I haven't been making anything. Unless you want to hear me recite the ten questions you should ask if someone is suicidal or read a paper I wrote about immigrant women and domestic violence, not much is going on! Sigh.

But, the budget is still going strong, as is my Biggest Loser workout. Both books were a hit at my book clubs, work is still crazy busy...  everything is just happening all at once!

So now I'm watching Toddlers and Tieras and a woman is spray-tanning her 15 month old and gluing fake nails on her fingers. What the heck is wrong with this world??

Long story short, I'll be posting when I have things to post, and I won't be gone long. Just need a few days (weeks?) to catch up on my life.

Because I'm getting married in 6 weeks!! AHHHHHHH!!!!