Meet Jingle... Our Shelf Elf!!

Day 1: The kids found Jingle enjoying a lift from a new pal



Day 2: Enjoying the view out the front window from a precarious perch



Day 3: The kids left some cookies for Jingle, who decided to to share them with some new friends

He wrote them a note to thank them

Well Where the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks Have You Been....

This is what you might be asking yourself, Where in the world has Stephanie been. Well I will tell you, that I have been on one grand adventure after another since we last talked. I will keep all the gooey details to myself and share some of the highlights with you;

• You might have heard that we had a little hurricane here on the East Coast. Ok so maybe it wasn't little. In fact it was huge. We lost power for 9 days and ended up moving into a hotel for part of that time. Our road was a mess and we can still see evidence from the damage.
• We had a huge Halloween party and it was a massive hit, and so much fun!
• For Halloween the kids were Harry Potter, Hermione, and Ron and it was voted that I, therefore must be Lord Voldemort. I'll spare you guys the pictures since they might be used later as blackmail
• My classes have gotten progressively harder as the semester has progressed and finals are coming up so I have been more busy than normal.

I hope ya'll had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Ulta I Love You!!

WOOT WOOT I got me a 20% coupon for Ulta this week and this is what I went and got myself. I love me some Too Faced!!!

Organizational Sundays

Sometimes I get these notions in my head, and I just can't seem to shake them until I take action. I had just such a notion today and man o'man was I sorry I did. First let me mention, although I think I might have before, that I am an organization freak of nature. I make my bed every morning and I can't stand clutter or things not in their proper place. When my room, bathroom, closet etc... are unorganized it makes me feel as though my entire life is out of order. So for that last couple of weeks I have been feeling out of sorts every time I opened the doors to my closet. Truth is I have too much stuff and not enough space.

 

 

So I spent most of the day trying to decide what to do with the limited amount of space I have and the massive amount of stuff I have. After sitting in my desk chair and staring into the abyss that has become my closet for what seemed like hours I finally decided that the only way to fix it was just start rearranging. Which ended up looking like its own version of chaos.

After getting started

What my room looked like with everything removed

It was a daunting task but after putting things back and then taking them out once again I think I finally found a solution.

After

Top Shelf

Shelf on the right

The thing is, I am moving next year so I have decided to start taking things out and sending them back home to MI in preparation. So I removed quite a few of the cloths I no longer wear or don't wear often as well as moved all of my shoes up to the top shelf since they take up the most space. While I still am not happy with the use of space, I am content with it for now. An emphasis on " For Now"

 

Hope Y'all had a great weekend!



Experimental Thursdays

So I wanted to do an experiment today. I am a sucker for mascara, so much so that I had to purchase another plastic drawer organizer to store it all. So as I was walkin through Ulta today (as I do many days) carrying around 3 new packages of mascara, yes you read that right 3, I thought to myself "I wonder if these things really do all they say they do". I had never really paid attention to the packaging of these cute little tubes before, I simply bought them because they promised longer lashes or fuller lookin lashes. So with that, this blog post was born. I bought three new mascaras today; Maybelline Colossal Cat eyes, Maybelline Illegal Length and L'Oreal Voluminous Million Lashes. So here is my before picture, my lashes are, I would say, of medium length and volume.

 

 

So today I am going to try the Maybelline Colossal Cat eye. Here is what the wand looks like

This claims to add "Instant volume" " no clumps" and "Full and Spiked at the corners" so here is my after;

 

 

 

As you can tell there wasn't a very noticeable difference. My lashes look darker yes, but not noticeably longer or thicker. I do however like the darkness of this product though, so plus on that. Otherwise this is a great big fail.

 

*update this mascara did last all day though*

 

 

Stay tuned for next weeks Experimental Thursdays!!! 



Oh Yes it's Ladies Night....

Woot Woot I love me some girls night out!! Last night I went out with a couple of my girls to celebrate both of their birthdays, and we had a blast!!

I am lovin the fall weather, since that means I get to rock a scarf (and a leopard one at that!!). So we went and seen the Movie Argo, which was fantastic, and then had dinner at this lovely Mexican restaurant. We laughed and joked and talked for like 3 hours and it was so nice!!

This week I have been lovin this new palette (well new to me anyways) that I bought off of Hautelook.com. Its the Balm Nude Tude, which I have been pining after for a while so when it came up in their sales I was like "Snatch" and "Now your Mine"

Hope Y'all are havin a great weekend!!

Steph's tidbits:

• We have been super busy around our house lately gettin ready for Halloween. We are throwin a party and the kiddo's have loved going shoppin for decorations
• Wahooo I logged 18 miles runnin this week!! I am a beast!!
• I took a Kickboxing class this past Thursday and it was an Awesome workout but man oh man did I feel it later!

*here's somthin funny. When ever I do a spellcheak on my blog posts, it always highlights words missin the "G's" at the end. Sorry folks but I come from the midwest and we like to leave the G's off words, can't help it.

Mid-Week Makeup Break....

Just realized how long its been since I posted anything makeup related. So I thought I would mention a couple of things: first, I have not been wearing very much makeup lately mostly because I am working out so much (I REALLY REALLY want to wear those darn shoes !). Usually after the gym or my run I grab a quick shower and then only have time for a quick bit of eyeliner and some mascara, with a bit of lipstick. That being said I am loving the following products since they pack a power PUNCH with only a little work:

Both of these products cost less than $10 (even less if you have a coupon or discount for Ulta!!).

On My Way to Being Shredded :)

So for the last seven days I have been worshiping the workout God I like to refer to as: JILLIAN MICHAELS

 

After reading numerous bloggs depicting the A-M-A-Z-I-N-G results of her DVD workout system, to which I really didn't buy into the hype, but decided to give it a try anyways. And it turned out to be my lucky day because the 30 Day Shredd was on sale on Amazon. Double Awesome! After the first day I was exhausted. Now after 7 days I am already seeing a difference. And I am in L-O-V-E!!!!! I have so much stamina, I have run 3 miles everyday except one. That day I ran one mile at my lowest target time. Today I also took a new class at my gym called H.E.A.T. which totally kicked my butt. Here is something I have noticed about myself; I don't stay motivated if I am focused solely on losing weight so I needed something else this time around and I found it in the form of this:

And These:

Fantastic Motivation Right!!!! I found these on JustFab.com and am Blissed Out over them. In other news........................ I have none, LOL. My life is super lame right now :) and strangely I am ok with that!

 

Hope your life is LAME right now too!!!

Long Time No Blog...

Hey guys :) Sorry its been so long since I have blogged but the end of August and the Start of September have been crazy busy for me. Let's recap:

August:

• I ran a second 5K (did a little bit better than my first but not enough to be excited about)
• Took a 9 day trip to Seattle and Alaska- had an awesome time and saw some downright AMAZING things ~ plus a Seattle Mariners game!!

September:

• Kids started school ~ and so did I
• I have ran everyday in September except for 5 days. Pretty good if you ask me!

So that's what I have been up to. My classes, which I only have two going right now, are pretty laid back so far but I am trying to get ahead as much as I can in preparation for when it starts to get really crazy typically around the middle of October when my other 3 classes start. As of right this minute I am on schedule to graduate next spring and I could not be more excited. As for the working out; being on a cruise for the last week of August and beginning of September proved to be a bit of a challenge (since there is food EVERYWHERE on a cruise) but I only gained 1/2 pound which I think is quite an achievement. I am still running most everyday and am planning on running a third race on the 13th of October. I have lost 2 more pounds since the start of September but I am still struggling with Willpower when it comes to food. Sometimes I feel like I get food on the brain and until I eat it it wont go away. And that's when I feel at my weakest; but I am starting to recognize the triggers and hopefully will get stronger each day. Do you struggle with Willpower in any aspect of your life? In other news my sister and her husband are thinking about coming out here sometime in the near future, hopefully around Thanksgiving or New Years. I am really looking forward to that since I haven't seen my family since June. I really love this time of year, the leaves are starting to change and the mornings are cool I love the Fall its such a great time of year!

Hope y'all are having a great start of the new season!!

So Here's the Deal...

I am the kind of person who needs to put things in writing. If I am going on vacation, I write down a packing list (often multiple). If I am studying, I write down a schedule... You get the point. So recently I have decided to start taking this whole losing weight thing seriously, if you've been following the flow of this post then you might correctly assume that I am going to WRITE down my goal. Here's the Goal:

Lose 45 pounds by 2/8/2013

That is a little less than 6 months from now (granted I did in fact set that goal on the 8th of August) and would put me at my goal weight of 133 pounds (you do the math). Now I can't even begin to remember when the last time I weighed 133 pounds, and if you were to ask me (on a rough day mind you) I would admit that I feel like my boobs alone weigh that. Its a big goal but one that I feel I should be able to accomplish, its a soft two pounds a week. So what have I been doing so far and what am I going to do from here forward? I have trying to really paying attention to how and what I eat, as well as counting calories. I am trying to stick to 1200 to 1400 calories a day. I have also started running, ALOT. After my first race on 7/7/2012 I really caught the running bug and was running at least three times a week until I ran a second race on August 12th. Since then I have run, almost, everyday. But with all the running I find myself hungrier so I have been looking for snacks that contain lots of protein that will keep me fuller for longer, so far my favorite has been smoothies. I make a couple on Monday morning and freeze the ones that I don't plan on enjoying that day. Then I take one out of the freezer when I get up in the morning and by the time I am done with my run and workouts for the day it is the perfect after burn drink! On days when I don't run, either because I am feeling sore or simply didn't make the time (or when it rains, I can not stand when my cloths get wet) I try to either do some sort of weight training or another calories burner. Here's what I did today; it's a nine minute interval with no stopping (come on everyone has 9 minutes!)

• 1 minute-March in Place
• 1 minute- Jog in place (do it fast!)
• 1 minute- Jumping Jacks
• 1 minute- Side to Side jumps
• 1 minute- Jog lightly
• 1 minute- Jumping jacks
• 1 minute- Squats with kicks, alternating legs
• 1 minute- Jog lightly
• 1 minute- Jumping Jacks

I rested for 1 minute and then did it two more times. By the time I am done I am sweating like crazy. I have also started meditating twice a day for 15 to 20 minutes each time. This was simply a curiosity I had in the beginning, and when I saw the benefits I decided to give it a try. My insomnia is so much better as a result of meditation. And I have also found that my focus is completely different now, I don't hear any other voices when I run or get distracted as easily. I occasionally go to the gym usually to take a class, like Yoga or to use the weight machines. 98% of my running is done outside. Going forward I plan to continue running at least 5 times a week (if not more). But I don't want to just lose weight I want to get stronger so I might break down and hire a trainer for a couple of sessions just so I can feel confident that what I am doing is right for me. I am also going to continue running races. I have another on on the 8th of September (an 8K, that's 5 miles) and a couple of others planned through the end of November. I am very excited about seeing what my body can accomplish and all that I am capable of!!

Stay tuned :)