We Have a House

I know I already said this yesterday but I have to keep repeating it to believe it. I picked up the keys today and mike and I stopped by with the pups in tow. We brought a box of glasses given to us from my friend Molly. Yay. The dogs loved it and they both fit through the doggie door. Adorable!

After a long day, I finally got back to the apartment around 9pm. I hadn't eaten dinner yet so I just through a ready made Indian meal together. It was pretty tasty.

For a sneak preview of the house I will show some photos. Also we do not have any front of the house photos yet for some reason.

Obviously the grass needs to be handled but how cute are those chairs out there?


This is our cute little shed. It us air conditioned and has a freezer in it and lots of storage space. Also it is actually clean inside. I always imagine them to be dirty and filled with bugs and lawn mowers. Haha.


This is what will be the guest bedroom. I love the built in book shelves! Not sure about the curtain yet but no worries.


This is an awful photo (meaning camera did not do a good job) of the living room. I live the fireplace.


And for whatever reason I took a photo of the front door for you.


We will be taking out the carpet and putting in wood paneling. We will also paint the walls some fun colors.

If you get some sort of inspiration from these let me know. Any of you out there good at design??

Now it is time to thank dean and diva for making this all possible!! Thank you for your help with this and through this! It means the world to me.

Now I need to get to packing. First box tonight? Only worked 12 hours today and only got a few hours of sleep. No big deal right? Haha.

Have a good one!

Good and Bad

I will start with the bad first to get it over with. So this morning I woke up to what I thought was a garbage truck outside. Turns out it was actually a paramedics. When I looked outside I saw it drive away with no one in it. I thought that was a good sign. Unfortunately it was not. When I left my house for work I saw 2 cops outside my door just standing there. I was confused and aksed if they had knocked or something. They said no. I asked if there was a problem and they told me that my neighbor had died. It was the mom in the apartment right next to me. We had talked a few times, and we even brought them some meatballs mike made from scratch. She was only in her 50s if that. She lived with two of her sons and has at least one other. Her boys are all on their 20s (or so it seems). I feel sooo awful for them. I do not know what I would do if my mom died. I would be a miserable mess. Especially atsuch a young age. I ended up cooking some baked ziti for them to help comfort them. That sort of food does the trick for me. Well actually I would prob not eat for weeks if my mom died, because that's I how I deal with grief.

I put some extra ziti together for mike and I. I put them in little ramken things for portion control.

Note, I just discovered Photoshop for iPhones for free. I think I mat have over saturated that. Oops.

So onto the good news!! I signed all the papers today and I am officially a home owner!! Everyone went back and forth today about whether it would close today (only out of concern for documents being ready in time). Luckily it did close today! Yayaya. We don't get the keys until tomorrow because they need to wait for some funds to clear or something. I guess if you sign late in the day that is what happens typically.

Mike is picking up champagne tonight for us to celebrate. Unfortunately we are celebrating right next to a family in dire pain. Even though this is great that we closed in the house I am still keeping them in my thoughts.

Tomorrow will be a long day of work. Because I took off early fr the house signing I am going in at 6am tomorrow. Oh well. I don't really have to but I need to get work done!

Accidental Chicken

Today I got stuff done. I went to target to pick up a prescription. Then I was off to costco again for veggies, fruit and a few other things. I ended up with mini cucumbers, mini bell peppers, fresh green beans, plums, pasta sauce, black beans and avocados. At costco i ate several of their free samples. One i thought was just some cheese but i took a bite without really looking and realized it was meat, either chicken or turkey. I almost spit it out but got all socially weird and told myself it was turkey. Then i decided to go back to the booth to check it out. Turns out it was chicken. Awesome. In case you are new to the blog, i am allergic to chicken so this was not good. I freaked out a bit then decided to get on with my life.

After that I went to Randalls and got whole wheat tortillas, milk, and pumpkin pie mix.

When I got home at 2 pm I decided to make lunch. I made black beans with onions, garlic, corn, tomatoes and red pepper. I then spread some garlic Boursin cheese on a tortilla and added the black bean mix and covered it with another tortilla. Then grilled it in the foreman. After that I cut up half and avocado and sprinkled some red pepper on it. Mmm.

About an hour later the chicken hit and I was off and on sick for 2 hours. Then we had to go to the new house to do a final walk through. Luckily I was fine during that. The house looks great and I am crossing my fingers we close tomorrow (or Tuesday??).

I did some laundry today and finally got through it all. I even put most of the clothes away. I will get to the rest when I am done with this.

I als seperated my veggie snacks into plastic baggies so that they will be easy to eat at work. I also packed an avocado and nut mix as well. That might be too fatty for a snack though. But good in omega 3s so might do it.

For dinner I made a boxed lasagna with a side of green beans. I ate this while watching Dexter and sipping some red wine. Mmm.





My tummy is still theatening me with pain. People often ask me if maybe I am over the allergy and I always tell them it is not worth the risk to test that. Now I did, on accident, and yes I am allergic and never would I test it on purpose again.

This week should be intense. I hope to Jesus we get the house. If we do we move in on Saturday. Yay!! Nothing is packed yet but I don't think it will be too awful. Moving to Austin mike and I packed up the place in just a few days. Not a big deal. Not perfect packing but it got the job done. Luckily only moving 3 miles this time and not a few thousand miles.

Alright laundry is calling my name.

Day of sandwiches

This was a day of sandwiches apparently. This is mostly because I have felt like I was dying of hunger all day regardless of what I ate and a sandwiches were the quickest way to get food in my face. It has been like this all week. It is miserable. Especially since I haven't had time to make up for the extra calories with workouts. This sort of hunger just makes ne want high fatty comfort food. I have only halfway avoided those.

I started my day waking up at 630 am. Mike and I are dog sitting a friends dog. It was bored at 630 an wanted to move around and bark. No big deal though becase my sinus' hurt and sleeping longer would have not been good for the head.

I ended up spending the early morning making up some work from Friday and watching hgtv and trying to learn how to make the most likely new home awesome.

After that I made some brown rice for breakfast. My mom used to make brown rice for us like one would make oatmeal. I added a ton of cinnamon and some sugar. It was awesome. Last time I ate it I got sick but so far not sick. Yay!

For lunch I had to eat quick because mike and I had errands. I put some boursin garlic cheese on an Arnold thin. I also added some blackbery jam and grilledthe sandwich. Alongside I had to have some sweet potato chips. Mmm.

After this mike and I went to a jewelry store to get wedding rings. Mike found one he really liked and it was not too bad on the budget. Yay! I decided against a wedding ring because te engagement ring passes for one and adding more looks weird on my short fingers. Works for me! I also got my ring cleaned for free. It looked like a completely new ring. Yay!

After I went to old navy and got a few things. After mike and I went to lowes and figured out the colors we want on the walls in the house. We also figured out the wood laminate we wanted for the floor.

After all the errands, I was starvig. Or rather I never was not hungry all day but now I felt like it I could eat lunch since it was after 5 pm. I used an Arnold thin again with Boursin garlic cheese. But this time I added an egg, with oregano and siracha. It was amazing. I am not kidding. As you can see I also had some more sweet potato chips. Mmm.


Later tonight I am going to go watch zombieland with mike and a friend. Should be good.

Tomorrow is more errands, including a trip to costco and hopefully some prep for packing.

Mike and I are supposed to close on the house on monday. There some glitches that move it to tuesday but that is worst case scenario. Cross your fingers everything works out!!

Cholesterol Update

So just got off the phone with my doctor. Apparently my overall cholesterol went down, including the LDLs, but I guess my triglycerides rose (which is bad I guess). Unfortunately my HDLs went down which is not as good. So mostly good news overall I guess (that seemed to be what she was saying at least), but definitely still some concern.

Her recommendations, more fiber & omega 3s. I have to go do the test again in 3 months and see if there is any improvement.

She has not mentioned weight loss yet, most likely because I am not technically overweight (although not too far off). But I think if I can get to a lower weight all those levels will drop.

In the last few months I have not been eating as well, nor have I been exercising enough. This is because life has been in over drive for me.

I think I have incorporated much better eating behaviors though overall. More veggies, and lots of fiber. I do not get enough fruit though I think, mostly because I forget about it. I stopped taking my omega 3 pills. I think I should start doing that again. I wanted to be able to get it on my own by eating omega 3 foods, but with my crazy life, I am not so sure that will work out for me all the time.

How do you incorporate fiber and omega 3's into your diet?

So far all I have done is eat a LOT of veggies, try to eat fruits, eat whole grains high in fiber, and omega 3 nuts. I should be eating fish more (only occasionally ever want it) but not sure that is reliable for me to do. I think once I get back to exercising I will get better overall too.

I cannot commit to some intense plan right now because the whole house moving, intense work, and wedding planning. I think once the house part gets taken care of, I can be more regular about everything.

This is how my schedule has been recently. I work from 8-6 (or 630), get home at 645 - 7 and need to eat. I eat dinner around 8 - 830, and then need to spend the rest of the night doing things like getting invites out, buying a wedding dress, talking with the broker, signing real estate papers, talking with mike about his papers, etc. I end up going to bed around 12pm and wake up at 6am. Not good.

Last night I had 4 different people call me, and ended up being on the phone for about 2-3 hours. Not a lot of down time, but all conversations I needed to have.

Small Steps... Lots of Small Steps

Oh my lordy. If this whole house thing works out, I am able to move in next Monday. I am freaking out a bit about this. ONE WEEK. AHHHHHHHH.

Because Mike and I are so paranoid that something weird might not work out, we have not done anything to prep for this. Just today are we telling the apartment complex that we are breaking our lease, and are going to pay a boat load to do it. We have not started to pack, collect boxes, decide on exact paint colors or wood floor paneling (we are doing this before we move in).

I still need to do other things one step at a time. I need to make sure this bank thing will work out as planned, sign up for utilities for the new place, sign papers (duh) and some other craziness. It is paralyzing me right now.

But... I was able to workout last night. I went on the elliptical at my apartment gym. Wow, now that was intense. Not sure if it was entirely intense for people in shape, but for me, I was dying. hahaha. It was good though.

Then after getting a few things done around the house I made a tasty dinner. I cooked up some couscous with garlic, olive oil, oregeno, red pepper, chopped almonds and some spicy pork. I threw it all together with some fresh green beans. I made something similar to this a few weeks ago, but have been craving it ever since. I will be eating the leftovers today. Mmmm.

My snacks are packed for the day too. I have a sandwich baggie FULL of mini bell peppers, and tomatoes. I also have sliced apples, yogurt dip and a graham cracker. These should be much better snacks than nutri grain bars, chex mix and m&ms, right? :-)

Oh yeah, I also bought my wedding dress. I got it online though so have not even tried it on. I will have to get it altered for sure though. I am in between sizes, and opted for the bigger one just in case. I will have to get the hem shortened anyway because I am short and dresses seem to be made for giants (jk).

Wish me luck in not hyperventilating at work. haha.

Working out soon to come

If I do not have time to workout as frequently as I need to (if at all) then it is obvious I need to get completely on the healthy food train. Yes that was awfully cheesey. This past week or so I have not been eating that well. If I wa eating healthy I was eating too much of it. I also stopped eating good snacks because I stopped buying things for them. My health was starting to take a turn for the worse the past few days so I knew I needed to change a few things.

I was feeling very anemic or as if my blood sugar levels were just off. I was feeling constanly hungry and shaky and unable to concentrate. I get this way every once in awhile and typically more veggies and fruit fixes it.

Last night I had a big bowl of veggies for dinner. But then ended up eating snacks and drinking Halloween beverges at the Halloween parties I went to. Oh well.

Today I wanted to prep for the week and prevent bad snacking and meal eating. I went to costco because the veggies and fruits are generally cheaper. I got mini sweet peppers (the main reason I go to costco bc they are ridicuously cheaper), apple slices and grape tomatoes. I am going to separate my veggies into differen baggies so I can just grab it on my way to work. I also made a yogurt dip to eat along with my apple slices. The dip includes plain yogurt w vanilla, honey, cinnamon and almond butter.

Other good buys from costco include a huge bag of quinoa for only 9.99, and Boursin cheese mmm.

For lunch today which ended being at 4pm (weird I know) I had a grilled sandwich with Boursin cheese, ham deli slices, and jalepenos on Arnold thins. Mmm. I also ate a bunch of apple slices with my yogurt dip. Yum.

Oh I forgot to tell you, we were approved for our loan! Now we just have to make sure a few other small things go as planned before we get a house! I am still crossig my fingers because I am always paranoid about these types of things. We are supposed to close on nov 9th. Yes that is ridicuously soon. It also means it will be hard to fit in workouts but I imagine once we move it will be a ton of working out. Also my gym will be about .4 miles away.

Today I need to get quite a few things done still. Laundry, work project, decide on a wedding dress, mail out more invites to late address responders. Ahh. Wish me luck!

Still No Word

We still have not heard back about our loan approval. Tomorrow was the latest date we were told it would take to get done. And it has to because our finance option period will be over and I will die of an anxiety attack. Hahah. Not really, but it might be a close call.

So I have two meals for you today. This morning michael made me a delicious breakfast before work. He made me a "fried" egg on wheat toast with a bit of siracha. It was heaven. The yolk was perfect. Also the cappacino he made me was delightful.

For lunch I just had a sandwich and some chips. I then had to go to the doctors for the yearly check up. My doctor is awesome and provides a real bath robe instead of those paper ones. Also all medical notes are taken on a netbook. They also have a therapeutic dog. Crazy right?

For dinner I was getting angry hungry. But I pulled myself together and came up with gnocchi with a gorgonzola sauce with a side of green beans. This was absolutely amazing. It tasted so much like the trader joes version that I was in heaven.


I also spent the night getting all my wedding invites ready to be mailed. After that I also cooked 2 batches of chocolate chip cookies with black and orange sprinkles for mike's students. Mike helped too. It was a lot offin. They are not healthy at all but they sure are tasty.

Now it is time for bed. Hopefully I can fall asleep. Please loan underwriters give me a chance to breathe and tell me the loan is approved.

Eye of the Storm

We should know by Wednesday whether we pass the loan part of buying a house. I am beyond nervous even though the broker was willing to bet our earnest money on it. Hahaha.

So right now I have been spending a lot of time focusing on things I can control. I got my wedding invites ready to go out. They would have been done earlier but I had to resolve some issues with correct addresses. I also ordered the Brazilian invites.

Last week I also got to do a fun scavenger hunt in downtown Austin with my work. It was a lot of fun. Especially since our team won!!

On Friday night I watched almost half a season of the office. And mike made a delicious bread pudding shown below.

I also at some point last week made a Brie and blackberry sandwich. Mmm. That was heaven.


Tonight I made a delicious soup with some thin rice noodles, onions, garlic, veggies and some pork. It was amazing for this rainy day.


I am crossing my fingers everything works out. I think once we are out of standstill I can get back to some sort of workout routine.

Gotta go. Sleep is needed.

Something healthy

The stress going on right now has not been very nice to my body. In effect I am focusing on making sure I have more veggies and other things that help my body behave like it should.

Last night I made a pretty amazing dish. I started with Far East whole wheat roasted pecan and garlic couscous. I added it to the rice cooker without the flavorings. I added some onion and some garlic. I let it cook until it was done. Then I added some turkey bacon, chopped almonds, the box seasoning and green beans. This was spectacular. I hope somewhat healthy.

Tonight my meal was only healthy because I ate more veggies than anything. I made annies mac n cheese and added some costco jalepeno sausage and some edemame veggie mix from heaven. It was very tasty and left me wanting more only because the flavor.


Tomorrow I am planning to incorporate sweet potatos into my meals.

In other news, no time for working out. I have good excuses and bad ones. But scheduling that on top of intense work schedule, buying a house (I hope) and planning a wedding and wedding recetion in Austin has made the thought of working out too overwhelming. Although it might reduce stress and alleviate the tummy problems. Bleh.

Why can't I just workout while analyzing data all day? Hah

What do you do (exercise wise) when you barely have time to eat much less sleep?