Weekend In Review: Movies Under the Stars

I spent most of this past weekend holed up at home with Thomas - after all we hadn't seen each other in 2 weeks. However, we did go our separate ways on Saturday night.

Our city council member for the city of Los Angeles puts on Movies Under the Stars every summer. This past Saturday night was the first one for this summer. They showed Despicable Me 2, which I had not seen yet. 

Before the movie starts Subway is passed out for both kids and adults (sandwiches, chips (for adults), cookies, and boxed drinks (for kids). 

They serve popcorn right before the movie and usually have some activities for the kids. 

In this instance an organization had some coloring books and other arts and crafts as well as anther game to win a prize (tattoos or bracelets).

They typically also have a face painter there.

This is our city council member.

Jonathan was dancing like a loon in the front of the seating area.

Finally the movie started a but after 8pm, it was still light out but it got dark quickly after that.

Jonathan made it about 2/3rds of the way through the movie before falling asleep.

Sunday Social - June 29, 2014

Being married includes me learning to eat dinner early so now it's still very bright outside and I'm ready to go to sleep. Since if I did go to sleep now I'd be up with the birds, I thought joining in the fun of Sunday Social would be the best way to spend my time. 

1. What was your college major? Did you ever change majors?

I started college as undecided and then quickly declared myself in Journalism. I never changed my major, but I did immediately go into getting my teaching credential as soon as I finished my BA. 

2. What is the best purchase you’ve made lately?

Probably my new condo! Okay, I shared this purchase with my husband, but I think this is the best in at least a year. 

3. What is something silly we don’t know about you and go…

Hmm. I haven't really been a silly person as of late. Maybe it would be that I enjoy watching Nickelodeon and Disney shows. I forgot to watch Girl Meets World on Friday, so I set my DVR to record it tonight (and the whole series!).

4. What is your favorite holiday?

Like many people, I love Christmas. I love the traditions of it as well as the family and food. But I also love the 4th of July. I love going to see fireworks - something my family always did since I was little. But it's also a holiday I'll be able to own in our families now. This year it came too close to our wedding and getting our house in order, but next year I will have a 4th of July party at our home/pool. I can't wait!

5. What is the first thing you do when you wake up?

Usually it is to see what time it is and try to decide if I have more time to snooze. On a weekday I've been getting up soon after waking up to use the restroom and then leave the room so that Thomas can sleep a little longer. I'll go to the couch where I'll go through my e-mail, Facebook, and blogs. This usually takes me through Thomas waking up and it becoming time to get showered/dress/hair done and get to work. 

Sunday Scale Link-Up (June 29th)

I saw Madi from And So I Did do this link up several weeks ago and I knew I wanted to participate - but I was in the midst of my wedding and honeymoon so I couldn't do it then. Then I got back from Argentina and I couldn't get my head into losing weight/watching my food. 

This past week I did do a bit better. I stayed on track for most of the week. I had a bad day on Thursday so I did the bad thing and ate fries that night. Then my husband came home from being gone for 2 weeks on Friday and I made some pork with mashed potatoes. Actually, that was probably not too bad. I didn't eat all the potatoes, and the pork is low in calories. 

However I did make myself a fruit smoothie (only fruit, ice, and Spinach - no yogurt, milk, nothing else) which probably had more calories than I should be consuming. At least it's healthy, right? I did eat more than I should have snack-wise on Saturday as well. 

I was about to go get myself a big bowl of Lucky Charms during halftime of the MEX-NED game - but then I saw Madi's post and thought - instead of going to eat that, let me write a post and make a better choice as far as food goes. 

I weighed myself mid-last week and I was 2lbs down from when I returned from Argentina - but still about 8 pounds over from a few months ago. 

You can check out my WeightLoss page (link above) to see a history of how my weight has gone up and down over the past few years. I am currently WAY down from my highest weight of 196lbs  at only 157.8, but I am far from the lowest I've been - 144lbs. 

I had been able to stay between 145 and 150 for most of the time, but with worrying about my wedding and going to Argentina I went up. The websites say I should be 136 or less for my height (5'2"), but I think if I can stay at 145, or maybe 140 to 145 I will be fine. With that weight I fit easily into size 6 pants. 

Which is the current problem. After returning from Argentina I can't fit into my work slacks. 

I just took these pictures. No sucking in - laying it all out. 

I won't post pictures every week, maybe at each 5 pound mark or if I notice differences! 

Please check out Madi's link-up!

Week In Review

This will be done in bullet/list form – mostly because it is a bunch of mumbled thoughts.

• While I enjoy learning and appreciate getting new information that will help me advance in my job. I hate having to sit and listen to the same thing over and over. That’s especially true when it’s something I already know. This was a problem during the training I had this week. I understand that it is because not everything in the training has been around for as long as others, and they need to make sure we all know how to do things – but it drives me insane to listen to. 

• If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you would know that I acquired a pet fly over the last week. Last Friday night there was a fly buzzing around my bedroom. It kept getting near my head and then landing on the TV screen. I went to sleep and the next morning I saw it on the window. When I went to kill it, it fell into the window sill (and no, I didn’t throw it in the trash). Then on Monday night I was home with my niece and a fly kept buzzing around our heads in the kitchen and then in the master bath. It would bump into the mirrors over and over again. Out of curiosity I went to check the window… the original fly was no longer there. We have named him Norman. 

• Wednesday was employee appreciation day at work. Let’s say I didn’t feel appreciated. We’ve had a lot of negative things going on in our office over the past few weeks and having the management serve us some cold food (that I wasn’t even fond of, although many did enjoy) was not really showing appreciation. Other offices throw big parties for their employees with lunch and dessert, music and decorations. Ours was in the conference room, no music, no decoration, and the managers just passing out boxed up lunch. Last year we had some music and the atmosphere was better. 

• We have some plumbing issues at home. They aren’t severe and they don’t require immediate remedies, but I do want to take care of them sooner rather than later. I had a plumber come out last week to take a look. This week he told me that it would be $545 for everything. My jaw dropped a little bit. I asked him for a run down on labor vs. product costs. He didn’t give it to me. So instead I’m going to give my brother a hundred dollars and have him fix the things (which include the washers in the bathroom faucets, replacing the kitchen sink and master bath shower head, and fixing the shower/bath mixer). 

• Lastly, but most importantly, Thomas came home on Friday after 2 weeks of not seeing him! He’s not a texter, but on Thursday morning I got a text that said "I was just thinking... I can't wait to see my wife tomorrow!" 

Ribs O Pain

I was going to write about my week today but I need to feel sorry for myself for a little bit. This is a long post, and it deals with my chronic pain and my fears of being able to be pregnant. I’d appreciate you reading it, but I understand that there are a lot of words and nothing in ways of pictures. 

I know that there are many, many people who are dealing with a lot more pain than I am. But that does mean that my pain doesn’t matter. It does. 

I’ve always had upper back pain. Okay, not always, but from about the age of 14. I’m a couple of months away from my 30^th birthday now. That pain, though, would be strong some days and less severe other days. I was prescribed a muscle relaxant that I would take when the pain got to be too strong for me. I remember that from about 6/2014 2012 and before I was maybe taking it once a month. 

Then in July 2014 I got hurt. I don’t know how, exactly, though. The only thing I remember is zipping up a dress and feeling pain down my arm. I thought I pulled a muscle or something. Nearly a year later I found out that I had broken 5 ribs on my right side. During that year I was in so much pain I didn’t want to do anything. Towards the fall I couldn’t get up or lay down without help. I had to lay on my right side to have some type of relief.  The doctor’s I went to told me it was just inflammation and to take some anti-inflammatory medication – which never seemed to help. 

Finally in May 2013 a doctor at my new insurance through Kaiser ordered me an x-ray, which revealed 3 broken bones. An MRI (or was it CT scan?) later on revealed 2 other broken bones.  

I got the call at work and started to cry. I wasn’t imagining the pain after all! There was a reason that I felt stabbing pain under my right breast. 

Then came another problem. Why was I still in pain if my initial injury was nearly a year earlier?  

After seeing different doctors, having scans, blood work, and countless other things done I was given the sad news: if you’re still in pain you will probably always be. It’s unlikely it will get better. 

The bones had healed somewhat. They are still healing now, though, 2 years later. So the pain that I feel now is not the broken ribs, but the result of the ribs being broken. 

Nerve damage. The doctor explained that when the ribs broke they probably damaged the nerve that runs from the spine in between the ribs. While nerves do heal, they should have healed by now. 

So the answer is medication. I’m on a nerve pain medicine called Gabapentin. I’m at the highest dosage (800mg, 3 x a day) and I’m taking Tramadol along with it twice a day. 

I’m still in a lot of pain. I feel it all the way from under my right breast to my back. Sometimes, when the pain is more unbearable than other times, I take a Norco instead of the Tramadol. But I’m afraid that I’m hurting myself taking so many medications.

The last few days the pain has been worse than it has been (maybe the adrenaline of the wedding and honeymoon masked the pain?) and so I started thinking about when I have kids. 

When Thomas and I decide that we want to have a baby I will have to be taken off the Gabapentin. It’s not compatible with pregnancy. Thinking about this makes me cry. I want more than anything to be pregnant and have babies, but how can I do that if my body doesn’t agree with it? If my body will betray me and give be so much pain that I can’t handle being pregnant. 

I’m so afraid of not being able to have my own children. I worry about our finances. While I won’t lose my job (a positive of being a government employee), I only have so much paid time off, and it’s nowhere near enough to cover 9 months off. 

If you’ve read this, thank you. I needed to get it off my chest. I needed to talk about it. 

TBT: Favorite Vacation

I don't remember specific vacations, at least not in the way I see family vacations on TV. When my siblings were little in Argentina my parents took them on family vacations to Brazil another areas. By the time I was old enough to remember family vacations my entire family wasn't together. 

I was two when my sister left for college and three when my brother left. My other sister was on dialysis so we couldn't go far. After my sister received her transplant in 1987 we did take some trips to the Grand Canyon, Vegas, Baja California and up to the Bay Area. 

In 1991, ten years after my family came to the US, my mom took me and my brother back to Argentina. My brother was 21 and I was 7 at the time. 

This would become my most memorable family vacation I got to really meet my grandma and all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins - which I have a lot of!

In additional to getting to know all of these people we got to spend Christmas at my grandmother's house out of all my trips this one I remember the most.

Later that trip we went to Bariloche (the same place I went on my honeymoon), Mar del Plata and to the beach as well as other cities. 

Can you spot me? This is a hotel my grandparents vacationed in. I took a picture there with Thomas as Well! 

Bariloche, Argentina - 1991/1992

This is in front of "El Abuelo" - a very oooollld tree. It died a few years ago.

This is our classic family picture. Except for the two youngest grandchildren, all of us have a picture in front of this tree. Thomas included!

I had a great time and so thankful that my mom took me!

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Wedding Wednesday: The Mahoney Wedding - Saturday, April 26, 2014 (PART ONE)

The day is here! Or it was. But I’m here to tell you about it!

Saturday was, of course, another early morning followed by a long day.

The hairstylist and make-up artist were supposed to arrive at the condo by 7am, and I woke up a little bit before that. I was really not wanting to get up and start getting ready when I got a text saying they would be about half an hour late. I guess that put some spring on my step because I was able to get up, get the girls up, and head to Starbucks for a mandatory Bride run.

We got back to the condo just as my mom and brother, along with Jonathan, had come over. We started prepping the house for hair and make-up and the hair/make up girls arrived shortly thereafter. They started working on us after setting up and after they had prepped my hair I finished doing my nieces’ nails.

My mom and brother left with my nephew after a while and I called my mom later to come back when it was her time.

My hair and makeup were the last to be finished… and I was in awe. Okay, at first I freaked out a little bit because I looked so different, but as I look back at all the pictures I cannot help but smile at how gorgeous I looked (narcissistic much?).

While the hair and make – up was being worked on my photographer had arrived.

The photographer went about her business of taking pictures of my dress, shoes, and basically our getting ready. After she was done she headed over to Thomas' parents' house to get pictures of him getting ready. 

Lauren had the busiest day of all of us. She had to haul over the jello shots to the reception and also be there in order to get the tables set up. My sister and brother in law met her there as well. She was also in charge of picking up all the flowers and taking some to the reception location and the rest to my house.

All during this time I was pretty relaxed. I was not stressing out like I had been the previous months. Which, looking back, made the day so much better. It also makes me realize that any worries I had before hand of getting married were normal and not serious. I did not have cold feet whatsoever that day.

Lauren and I headed out to the chapel along with the girls at around noon with a quick stop at Walgreens for emergency lipstick for later. 

I was forgetting two important things at home, which I wouldn't realize were missing until nearly 2 hours later. 

Once at the church we checked out the chapel that my co-worker/friend had decorated that morning. It was then time to get my nieces, nephew and maid of honor ready for the wedding. 

The photographer, a different one because the first one had a different wedding to go to, was already at the chapel and had taken some pictures and then continued to get pictures of us as we prepared ourselves. 

When I was finally ready to get myself into my dress... I realized I didn't bring my petticoat or bra to go under my wedding dress. Things my parents had spent a lot of money on purchasing for me. Luckily, because I am large in the bust, the dress stayed up and no one could tell a difference... although I could. By night time I was tired of pulling my dress up, something I don't think would have happened if I had the undergarments. (Now I will try to sell them since they still have tags on!)

The ceremony started promptly at 2pm. I didn't get to see any of beginning of the ceremony with my family walking in or my mom and mother in law doing a candle ceremony (although this might be on video somewhere). I've been told that my nephew did an amazing job as ring bearer walking down the aisle. I wish I could have seen him.

Next I'll talk about the actual wedding ceremony, and in part three I'll go over the reception.