Our Summertime Plans

As of last Thursday, Joe officially finished his first year of dental school! I am so proud of all that he has accomplished this year and SO excited to have my husband school-free for the next 2+ months.

Well, technically it is here. But I couldn't resist a GoT reference.
Or that throne made of pool noodles.

It still seems unreal that he has time on his hands. We went out to lunch and shopping on Friday, and both kept thinking that we needed to hurry home so he could get back to studying. After every meal we eat, show we watch, walk we take with Buster, etc., we both expect us to have to part ways (him to study, me to try to entertain myself until his next - brief - break). I'm not sure how long it will take for us to adjust to his new, totally free schedule, but it is such a great feeling every time we remember that he doesn't have any studying to do that I don't mind this adjustment period.

This summer will be his only sizable break from dental school during the entire 4 years. Next summer (between years 2 and 3) will be spent studying for his boards and in clinic. Once clinic starts, that is a year-round commitment until dental school is complete. 

Knowing this, we want to take advantage of these next couple of months and have some exciting things to look forward to. My youngest brother, Brian, is coming to visit next Saturday. While he's here, the three of us will head to Washington D.C. for a couple of days. Joe has never been to D.C. and is a big history buff (especially U.S. and Presidential history), so he is really excited. Brian and I have both been twice, but never together. I'm sure we'll be spending lots of time looking at monuments and visiting museums. 

The following Sunday (June 22) is our cruise! Brian will be staying at our place and taking care of Buster while we are gone. I am SO EXCITED for this cruise. Unless you count our road trip out to Philadelphia or trips to visit family, the last vacation Joe and I took together was our honeymoon 3 years ago. This is long overdue :) The cruise is a week long, and we will sail from New Jersey to Bermuda, dock there for 3 days, then sail back. I know that most cruises involve island- or city-hopping, but I actually like the idea of having a long period of time in one place. Most of the other cruises we looked at only docked for about 4 hours at each locale, which doesn't seem like nearly enough time. I've been on 3 cruises in my life (at ages 5, 9 and 22), so I know what to expect. Joe, on the other hand, has never stepped foot on a cruise ship, so it will be so much fun to get to experience his first time cruising together. 

Just 13 days after we arrive home from the cruise, we will be heading to Missouri for a little over 2 weeks so we can visit Joe's family. We don't want to leave Buster again, so we will be driving and bringing the dog with us. It's about a 15 hour drive and Buster hates the car, so that should be really enjoyable. Despite the dreaded drive, I am so excited for this Missouri trip! I love Joe's family and when we visited during our road trip out to Philly last year, I was SUPER sick. Like, the sickest I have ever been (I had to sleep on his mom's recliner for 10 days because I would have extended coughing fits if I laid down at all). I felt so miserable that we ended up cutting our road trip short and heading straight to Philly after Missouri (with a couple of short detours) instead of driving through the south and then up the East Coast as planned. I feel like I didn't get to spend enough quality time with his family, so hopefully this trip can help make-up for that a bit.

After we return from Missouri, things slow-down a bit. All we have planned for August is to see Book of Mormon and to go to a Phillies vs. Cardinals game. 

I know that I have been terrible at blogging lately, but I am hoping that all of these exciting adventures will give me something to write about :) Then again, maybe I won't want to waste a second of time that I could be spending with Joe. I guess we shall see...

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I REACHED MY POINTS!

Last week I finally did it: I hit 2500 points! (Click here if you have no idea what I am talking about).

With such an awesome reward (new clothes for next month's cruise!), I was pretty excited when I finally racked up that 2500th point. To celebrate, Joe and I went out to lunch and spent much of last Saturday shopping. Unfortunately, I found nothing (how anti-climactic!), so when we got home I browsed Modcloth and put a large order in :) THAT was fun. 

I'll be honest, I did cheat a little with my reward. I was at the point a few weeks ago where I knew for a fact I was going to hit my points by the cruise so I started buying some dresses on Modcloth. I justified it because they were almost sold out of a few things I wanted, so I decided that if something was almost sold-out I could buy it early. Here are the dresses that I have so far for the cruise: 

I can't wait to see which ones work out from the order I placed Saturday :) 

Now that I have hit my point goal, however, I am in danger of not FITTING in these dresses. I didn't realize how awesome the points were at curbing my bad behaviors until I stopped tracking them. Suddenly I am once again the gluttonous, booze-addicted person that I was pre-January. 

Not good.

And all the other things I earned points for? Totally slacking on those too. I haven't flossed in days (sorry Joe) and I haven't been taking my vitamins. Joe thinks I am rebelling since I had to be so good for so long (he's probably right), but with less than a month before the cruise I don't have time to rebel. I need to get back in the swing of exercise, healthy-eating, and taking care of myself in general. So, starting tomorrow, I am going to start logging points again. I just need to think of a new motivation :)

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Contact Paper Cabinet

It looks like making my giant chalkboard wasn't a fluke - I am finally back in craft-mode! Yesterday, I decided to work on improving a file cabinet that I got for free from a 2nd-year dental student.

***Side Note*** I really, truly cannot turn down anything free or super cheap. It has been painful to drive/walk through University City and see all the mattresses and furniture sitting on the curb as the Penn kids move out of their apartments. If it wasn't for our mattress debacle last year, I am sure we'd have at least 2 or 3 new *treasures* in our apartment just waiting for a little TLC. ***End of Side Note***

I have had this cabinet sitting in our room since around Easter, and I knew that I wanted to cover it with cute contact paper. I still remember my mom covering a cabinet in contact paper for my room when I was a little kid, so I knew that I should be able to make it work. And, unlike the late-1980s, there are websites like Amazon with lots of cute options. I, of course, had to go with a chevron print.

I figure that with the light grey and white, this will be PERFECT in a nursery someday (no, I'm not pregnant). If we happen to have a boy, I can remove the pink Washi tape and replace it with yellow or blue. (One of the great parts about Washi tape is how simple it is to remove without messing up what is underneath it).

Speaking of which, the Washi tape was one of the things that made this cabinet project so easy! It was the exact size of the lip on the cabinet, and it was too hard to perfectly cover the lip with the contact paper. So, instead, I just cut the contact paper and tucked it over the side of the lip a little and then put the Washi tape on top of it. It covered the "icky" parts, saved me lots of time, and added a pop of color.

***Side Note*** Though you can buy Washi tape on Amazon, it's probably cheapest to buy individual rolls at a store like Staples or Target. The last time I was at Target, they had a whole little section with different Washi tapes. ***End of Side Note***

Another thing I realized was how much easier the contact paper went on if I sanded the cabinet first. I saved the top for last and it took a while to get the rest of the cabinet covered without air bubbles (the worst part about contact paper). When I tried covering the top, those grooves/scratches were really noticeable so I decided to sand down the top to make it more of a smooth surface. I couldn't believe how much easier it was to cover - MUCH less bubbling. Not sure why this is, but I'll definitely sand before any similar project in the future.

I'm having a lot of fun crafting lately, so hopefully I can come up with more projects soon :)

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Giant Chalkboard Project

Chalkboards are SOOOO in right now. Despite that (or maybe I am more of a sheep than I realize), I decided that I wanted to make a giant chalkboard for our apartment.

There are other crafts on my to-do list (I've had an unfinished cabinet and a can of paint ready to be put to use for the last year), but when a new idea strikes all older craft plans get bumped down on the list. (Joe is convinced that can of paint will never be used.)

I had planned on hitting up thrift stores to find a large picture that I could paint over, but we hit the motherlode when one of the dental school frats had to sell their frat house and the contents within. Among the various items up-for-grabs were some giant dry-erase boards.

JACKPOT!

For just $5 a piece, we bought three whiteboards of varying (large) sizes. I'm not sure what I'll do with the other 2 (I'll figure out something), but the biggest one I flipped over and took a can of chalk paint to.

Had to remove a sticker with some nail polish remover (hence the discolored spot)

Pretty pleased with this chalkboard paint

It only took two coats of paint:

Coat 1 

Coat 2

It's not perfect (which annoys me) because you can sort of see brush strokes. But because my arms weren't long enough to get the roller to go down in one straight shot, I figured it would still be a problem whether I did 2 or 20 coats (maybe not, I know nothing about painting). For that reason and in the interest of conserving the chalk paint for another (currently undetermined) project, I decided to stick with just the 2 coats.

I was so excited to start drawing, but finished reading the instructions and realized I had to wait THREE WHOLE DAYS to write on it.

THE SUSPENSE ALMOST KILLED ME.

But Joe helped me hang the chalkboard today and I was able to test it out :)

SOOOOO LOVE THIS. I couldn't believe how easy it was :)

It's also inspired me to do some more crafts, so maybe I'll finally put that can of paint to use :)

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Happy Birthday Joe!

Yesterday, Joe turned 30-years-old. I took it a lot harder than he did. After all, Joe is the level-headed one in our marriage and I am the slightly dramatic one.

As a Christmas Eve baby, I tend to go a bit Birthday crazy. My parents always took painstaking measures to make my Birthday as special as possible so I wouldn't feel gypped, and I think that led to me thinking that Birthday boys and girls must be treated like kings and queen.

***Side Note*** One symptom of this craziness is capitalizing the word 'Birthday' because I think it is deserving of the honor. ***End of Side Note***

When you combine my case of Christmas Eve Baby Syndrome and the huge milestone Joe was celebrating, it should come as no surprise that I went a little overboard this year.

We started off the festivities on Sunday night by going out to dinner at a fancy steakhouse. I chose the place because they have steak au poivre (which Joe and I LOVE) and a swanky atmosphere with art deco decor, mahogany walls and lots of maritime art (thanks to our upcoming cruise, I'm into anything sea-related right now).

Dinner was DELICIOUS.

I also used it as an opportunity to give him his first present: tickets to Book of Mormon, which is coming to Philadelphia later this summer. Joe is a big South Park fan (as am I), and has been talking for a long time about wanting to see this play. The tickets were stupid expensive, especially since I decided to spring for Orchestra seats, so I did extra work to pay them off (I am so grateful to have that ability with my freelance job!).

***Side Note*** Joe and I always get nosebleed seats, but when we saw Phantom of the Opera Joe had a hard time following the story because he couldn't tell the Phantom and Raoul apart. Yes, I understand this should be impossible because the Phantom wears a mask, but that's how far away we were sitting. It was honestly hard to see he had a mask on, made more difficult by the fact that the actor playing the Phantom was kind of pasty. ***End of Side Note***

It was an excellent night, and a perfect start to Joe's Birthday festivities.

Yesterday, Joe awoke to a decorated living room and a wife willing to drive to McDonald's to get him a breakfast sandwich (I got a diet coke out of the deal, so I was happy). Joe decided the night before that he wanted to do presents in the morning before class, so we started with gifts that family and friends mailed to us and then I brought him a bag of gifts from me.

He got spoiled with some awesome gifts, like Phillies vs. Cardinals tickets from Stacey. Buster thought all the gifts were for him, so he stuck close to Joe.

Joe didn't want a party for his Birthday, so I wanted to try to figure out something special to do in honor of him turning the big 3-0. Thanks to some internet inspiration, I decided to buy him 30 presents. Though a pricey endeavor, I figured I was saving a lot of money by not throwing a party and I could do most of the shopping at Dollar Tree, Ross and other discount stores.

 Here's what he wound-up with:

1. Play tickets (not pictured)
2. $10 Kindle gift card for a book he's been wanting
3. Used PS3 game from GameStop
4. See Above
5. See Above
6. See Above
7. Tie
8. Cards Against Humanity
9. Joystick 
10. Flight simulator game
11. Men in Black 3 (got this on Black Friday for like $3)
12. Heisenberg magnet
13. Earbuds
14. Portable ping pong set
15. Walking Dead puzzle
16. Book with stats about 30-year-olds
17. Pack of his favorite pens (that I always steal)
18. Card game
19. Reeses Pieces
20. Gummy Worms
21. Gummy Bears
22. Big League Chew gum
23. Eclipse gum pack
24. Dan Brown book
25. Fun dress socks
26. Checkers
27. Board game 
28. Gadget to amplify his iPhone speaker
29. Seinfeld-related t-shirt
30. Philadelphia-related t-shirt

I was a little worried he would think 30 presents was overkill (he's very frugal), but he actually loved the idea and had a ton of fun opening his presents. If you can swing it, it's a great idea for a milestone birthday like this.

After presents, he had to get ready for class at 10. I met him on his lunch break and we went to Chipotle for lunch. That man loves him some Chipotle.

He had to go back to class for an hour (yay for not having too much class on his Birthday!), so I stayed on campus and did some work while I waited for him to be done. On our way home, we stopped by an arcade that he's been wanting to go to ever since we moved here almost a year ago.

We had SO MUCH FUN and Joe got a couple of big-ticket wins. We'll definitely have to go back more often, especially since it's across the street from the dental school.

After the arcade, we ate cake and ice cream (because 30-year-olds don't have to wait until after dinner). Joe then installed his flight simulator game and I did some more work. For dinner, we had pizza from Papa John's and WAAAYYYY too much wine.

It was a great end to a great day :)

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Bye Bye Scale

Oh what a tease I am. I mention in my last post that I am a few days away from my monthly weigh-in, and then I don't bother to blog until a week after said weigh-in day. I am sure you are all dying from the anticipation ;)

Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but I only lost 0.6 pounds.

Yup. You read that right. After a MONTH of busting my butt in the gym and being very careful with food and alcohol (I honestly don't think I have ever worked so hard to lose weight in my life), I didn't even lose a whole pound.

I was livid.

Until my trainer measured me.

Then I found out I lost a TONNNNNN of inches. FIFTEEN to be exact. Here's the breakdown:

Not too shabby for four weeks :)

The measurements helped calm me down A LOT, but I can't stop thinking about the scale. My pride at getting such amazing results is constantly tempered because every time I think about the inches lost or put on an article of clothing that is looser, my brain snaps me back to that moment when I stepped on the scale and it read 195. How unfair is that when I worked so hard and EARNED the right to be proud of myself?

So I'm done. I don't care what the scale says anymore. I want to lose weight because I want to look better and I want to get stronger. People don't see my weight tattooed to my forehead when I walk down the street, they see what I physically look like. And I am kicking butt in the gym, getting stronger every single time I train.

I'm sure I'll eventually weigh myself again, but for now I don't want anything to do with the scale.

Instead, I'll just keep flexing in the mirror (my new favorite pastime) and reminding myself of this:

Source: http://bodyconsciousnessblog.com

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2000 Points!

For those of you newer to the blog, you may not know that at the beginning of the year I created a point system for myself to help keep me accountable with my health. You can read the whole post here.

The gist is that I would reward myself points for making healthy choices (exercise, drinking water, taking vitamins, flossing, etc.) and I would lose points for making unhealthy choices (drinking booze, eating sweets, etc.). In the past I have done point systems and they have helped keep me accountable, so I figured I would try it again.

There have been some tweaks here and there, but I finally arrived on 2500 as the final number of points I needed to earn my reward: new clothes for our cruise in June! I'm excited to say that as of today, I have surpassed the 2000 point mark and am less than 500 points away from a shopping spree!!!

Honestly, I wouldn't be where I am today without my trainer. As helpful as the point system can be, I was getting pretty lazy in the weeks leading up to taking the plunge and signing up for personal training. Not only that, but even if I had somehow motivated myself to exercise for points, there is no way I would be as strong as I am now... or have some of the muscle tone that is developing (and making me do double-takes in the mirror). She is amazing - and training is one of the best investments I have ever made in my life.

The hardest part about having a trainer is that I had to promise her I would only weigh myself monthly. For someone as obsessed with the scale as me, that was rough. And it also means that I have no clue what I weigh right now. At last check, I was down 12 pounds since January 1, but that was 3 weeks ago. I'll have a better idea on Monday when I get to weigh myself again :)

But even if I can't weigh myself, I see a difference in pictures:

These aren't the best comparison shots, but I didn't have many pre-point pictures where my whole face was visible. I realize looking back that I cut off part of my face in almost every single picture I have of myself. I was too embarrassed by how puffy it was getting and thought I could disguise my weight gain. Sad.

Another difference I can see is with my strength. Every single time I train, I am able to do more and push harder than the previous session. One thing I am particularly proud of is that I'm almost ready to transition into "real" push-ups (as opposed to the push-ups where you are on your knees). I remember back to doing the 30 Day Shred and how I couldn't make it through 10 push-ups even on my knees. Now I can bust out 10 knee push-ups like nobody's business :)

I am so proud of myself, and I can't wait for my shopping spree! I have a feeling that, unlike typical shopping days, this one won't involve me crying in the fitting room... unless I happen to cry tears of joy ;)

Just 53 more days until we set sail! I can't wait to see how much more progress I can make.

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