1200 And Below

I need to do this. 

By this I mean loose these pesky 10-15lbs that I’ve gained in the past 8 months. I kept saying that as soon as I got back from the honeymoon I’d get back on track, but I haven’t and we’ve been back for nearly 2 months! 

I’ve been good at making excuses:

• I don’t have healthy snacks. 
• I make dinner for Thomas which is definitely not calorie friendly for me. 
• The ice cream tastes so good. I’ll start counting when I’m done with this pint. 
• I haven’t had In-N-Out for a long time! 
• It’s much easier to just make a quesadilla for dinner. 
• I don’t have my food scale! 

The list can probably go on for ages. What I have found most difficult this time around is making food for Thomas and then finding something for me to eat. By the time I’m done cooking for him I don’t want to make myself something or if I do I’d rather it be something quick like a quesadilla or peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

Every work morning when I try to fit into my work slacks and they don’t fit I vow to myself that today will be the day that I start and go a whole day staying under my calorie goal. So far it has happened a couple of days but then the next day I’m back to the usual. 

Since Thomas left yesterday for his trip to Maryland (for the 3^rd time in 2 months) I thought that this week would be a good week to try to keep it in gear. While I made some yummy meatballs (I only tried 2) on Sunday for him to eat with spaghetti I did have leftovers from 3 different nights in the fridge for him to eat.  This made it easier since I didn’t have to cook for him for the two nights he was here and so I could focus on myself. 

I have a go to meal for low calories at home. Trader Joe’s carries this Grilled Teriyaki Chicken which is delicious WITHOUT the teriyaki sauce. With the sauce the per serving calories is about 190, without the sauce I can only imagine it being closer to 150 (still I count the whole amount even though I don’t use the sauce). I make some couscous (measured out) with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray (0 calories!) and add some soy sauce (10 calories!) and I have myself a meal for under 250 calories. Sometimes, when I feel like it, I’ll add some veggies from Green Giant that are under 50 calories per serving as well. 

So far I haven’t really done this. At first my scale (to weigh the chicken and the couscous) was out of battery and it uses a watch battery which I didn’t have. Then I took it to my mom’s house and she gave me a battery but then I forgot the scale at her house. It’s finally back at my place! 

I have other meals that I generally ate when counting calories but I haven’t made them because they don’t seem to interest Thomas. I would make a lot of sautéed chicken breast (no olive oil!) or grilled pork chops both with veggies and mushrooms on the side. 

I can also always stick to Lean Cuisine’s (my normal lunch meal) for dinner as well, but I try not to have them for dinner so I don’t wear myself out. 

This weekend I bought myself some peaches, pears, and cherries to have at work. I also bought some 100 calories popcorn bags and seasoning to put on it for afternoon munching. I will stick 100% to water (except for the alcoholic beverage once in a while) and ignore the sugary juices in the fridge. 

Wish me luck! 

The Mahoney Wedding – Reception (2of 2)

Finally I have arrived at my last re-cap post for my wedding. It’s only been a few days over 3 months, that’s not bad, right? 

When I last left you I finished telling you about the ceremony. 

Our reception was after the ceremony (as soon as people could make the about 20 minute drive) at Thomas’ parents’ home. They have a very nice house with a pretty decent back yard (and by that I’m referring to Los Angeles, not in comparison to some of the backyards I’ve seen on other blogs). Since they knew we were trying to save money on the wedding so that we could buy a home they very graciously allowed us to use their home for free. 

In order to have the reception here we had to rent chairs, tables, linens, and tents. Although we got married in spring we live in an area that does not tend to have cool weather. While a lot of the country was under snow we were having 85+ days. That said - it actually rained the day before the wedding for an hour or two. 

My sister, brother-in-law, and (mostly) my MOH set up the tables early on Saturday morning and made them look gorgeous. I made the center pieces myself and my supervisor’s son made the table numbers – all items were from the Dollar Tree! I didn’t want any flowers on the table because one of the things that bother me at big parties like these is that there are so many decorations on the table you don’t have space for anything else. However my mother-in-law got some flowers donated and those were placed on the tables (I didn’t find out until the reception time).

As I mentioned in the previous post Thomas and I took some time to get to the reception site because the ceremony was shorter than we expected. When we arrived we had the bridal party come out to the front lawn of the house so that we could be organized to be announced into the party. 

While people were clapping for Thomas and I and we were doing a little dance when we walked in someone told us to re-do the cake topper, so we had to oblige! 

As you can imagine the night was a long of mingling and a lot of drinking. For me. The one regret I have from the wedding is that I drank way too much. The cucumber mint martini that I requested we have was SOO good that I couldn’t get enough of it! (My mouth is watering at the thought of it now!). 

The best pictures of the entire day were from the reception. I had a lot of fun and couldn’t stop smiling the entire time. 

My dad was too shy to do a whole speech but my brother-in-law went ahead and did it for him. The night before my nieces decided they wanted to give speeches as well so we let them. Thomas’ dad and best man (his cousin) both gave speeches along with my MOH. 

My brother-in-law (since I was 9).

My youngest niece, Camila.

After the speeches Thomas’ Uncle Greg gave a blessing and we said the Lord’s Prayer.

Thomas' Uncle Greg.

Then it was time for dinner! We chose to have it catered by Stone Fire Grill. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a chain restaurant that is simply delicious and very affordable. We ended up paying about $13 per person! We also had tons of left overs. 

The cake was ordered from a high school friend and she did an amazing job. Not only was it delicious (chocolate, lemon chiffon, and carrot cake) but it looked beautiful! I will be ordering from her again soon! We also ended up having left overs of the chocolate portion of the cake. I think we forgot to tell the caterers that the cakes different flavors so they only passed out the top two layers. Oh well.  

I set up 3 different things for our guests to do during the reception. 

• Jenga Guestbook

I saw this on Pinterest and since Thomas and I like to play games I thought it would be pretty perfect. Instead of a regular guestbook I set out Sharpies and our guests signed on Jenga pieces. Since our guest list was under 70 we had more than enough pieces for everyone. 

• Plate

    I saw this plate on clearance at Jo-Ann’s and thought it would be cut to put up in our home. Of course not I haven’t done it, but it was a cute idea, right?

• Thumb Prints 

I also saw this at Michael's. Everyone left their thumbprints as leaves of a tree.

• The Shoe Game

I’m sure you’ve seen this either in a movie, at a wedding, or floating online. The idea is that guests write down questions that have either a GROOM or BRIDE answer and then the bride and groom have to answer the questions by sitting back to back and lifting up either the bride’s shoe or the grooms. I was nervous to do this because I didn’t want the attention on me, but it ended up being SO much fun! 

There was plenty of dancing, including my dance with my dad to Bob Carlisle’s Butterfly Kisses and my first dance with Thomas to I Still by the Backstreet Boys (yes, of course BSB was played at my wedding!). Thomas had his first dance with his mom as well. I did a lot more dancing than I ever would have though since I hate to dance. 

I imagine I am sitting on his lap here because he is over a foot taller than me!

We did do a Money/Cash dance. It was fun, but also a bit disappointing. We didn't get many people to come out and participate. I think part of this is because people tend to think we are much better off than the rest of the family and also because since it was held in the home people were wandering around the house and not just in the backyard. 

I had to do a lot of this pulling up. I mentioned previously that I forgot to put my bra/underskirt on under my wedding dress!

Because I did end up getting pretty drunk I don’t remember much of what happened in the evening. I remember my MOH taking my dress off of me before she left (she had an early flight back home). I remember throwing up on Thomas’ parents’ bathroom (in the toilet) and that I cried because I felt bad that I had ruined it. Thomas assured me that I hadn’t ruined it and that everyone had fun. 

We also took a lot of pictures with friends and family.

My brother, David.

My MOH.

My Mommy.

And of course I threw the bouquet and he threw the garter!

We finally left at some time around 8pm. My brother-in-law drove us to the hotel we were staying at and he picked us up the next morning. 

Weekly Wrap Up

I'm typing this from a windows computer. I'm not a Windows person, but my husband is and he insisted I have a PC so that I can play video games with him (one of the few things that Macs aren't really good for).  I do use Windows at work, but it is for very limited things that only have to do with work (and blog writing sometimes). 

We had a nice weekend. On Friday Thomas invited me out to lunch which works for us because we work within a few blocks of each other. We went to Pizza Rev which is a fairly new pizza chain. It is amazing! Think of Subway's style of making your sandwich and apply that to pizza. I get to put as much bacon on my pizza as I want and whatever type of cheese and other ingredients I want for one price. 

While I made Thomas some Hamburger Helper for dinner I enjoyed my left over pizza! 

Saturday was our busy day. Nikki (my niece) has been planning a picnic for months. Every year she hosts one which I think is pretty cute. This year we had it at our local park which just had a water section added to it.  Now that I have the Galaxy S5 I can go into the area without being afraid of my phone being wet (Jonathan did tell me to be careful with my phone!)

My brother and me. Do we look alike?

Pretty good looking for an 80 year old, don't you think?

I treated the kids to some Snow Cones at the end of the picnic. 

That evening Thomas, the kids, and I were invited to Thomas' cousins' sons' 2nd birthday party. He's an adorable kid and we all had a really nice time!

Thomas cannot take a normal picture!

But before we could head to that party in the afternoon we had to do some cleaning up:

My brother has been helping us with some upgrades to the condo. He was fixing the sink but we kept having missing pieces to get an air gap. I had run the dishwasher once before earlier this week, but this time it decided to pop and we ended up with a kitchen full of water. Luckily the water wasn't too dirty and it was easy to clean up. 

I'm also happy that we hired a housekeeper that will start Monday afternoon. Yay to clean toilets, sinks, and floors! 

I'm tired just looking at all those pictures! Sunday was a little bit quieter. Thomas had to work all afternoon at his office so I went to Costco and Wal*Mart to run some errands and stock up on food (I cannot keep enough food in this house! He eats so much!). 

I had leftover ground beef from Friday's dinner and I needed to do something with it. I offered it to my mom who suggested I make some meatballs. GREAT IDEA! I had some more frozen ground beef and all the other ingredients that were needed. Plus Thomas loves spaghetti and meatballs! 

While Thomas does eat left overs, I think that the ones that we have he didn't like much the first time around so I don't think he's interested in eating them, so I wanted to make him something fresh Sunday anyway. 

Thomas will be out of town at the end of next week again. *sigh* At least we had a good weekend!

And hey, it's okay that I'm posting this on Tuesday...