Hard Up

Sheesh! This blogging thing gets away from you (me)! Although, in my defense, I just came back from my wedding/vacation and haven't had a day off since! Somehow I agreed to work back to back weekends and have been really, really regretting it! I once read in Glamour mag that if you become the "indespensible" person at work that you won't risk losing your job and you will be more likely to get promoted. What it didn't mention that by becoming and being indespensible, you also have to work. A lot.

Here at work, since my staff mainly consists of 20-somethings just out of college, everyone is sick. I managed to stave off the sickness for now but I just heard another victim (sick staff member) come into the office! Hello, hand santizer, my name is Julie!

Before I started feeling sick this endless week, I did manage to leave a bit early on Tuesday and have lunch with my hubbies and do some shopping and cooking. We drove over to Shadyside and at this little hole-in-the-wall crepes place. I had a savory crepe filled with spinach, mushrooms, and tomatoes and some sort of tangy, soy sauce. The Hubster had a brown sugar banana which reminded me that I needed to go to the dentist- so sweet!



Afterwards we went to Whole Foods which is where we usually shop, but this time I was able to fully utilize my iphone app for WF. It is a recipe app that allows you to search for recipes based on diets, ingredients, new recipies and favorites. You can add recipes to a short-list so that you can go back to them easily AnnnD is allows you to import the ingredients onto a shopping list! By far the BEST free app I have found. I got ingredients for Curried lentil chickpea stew (in a slow-cooker) and Butternut squash and spinach with a blue-cheese dressing. I made the squash first and prepped the ingredients to go into slow-cooker around 1030pm b/c it needed to cook 8-10 hours overnight.

Post-dinner the Hubster and I still had enough energy for some MORE shopping and we went to Ikea to price out the last few pieces we need to finish our bedroom, bathroom and living room. See here for next to our bed, to lounge on in the bedroom see here and for more bedroom storage see here. For storage in the bathroom see here and we couldn't really find the right pieces of end tables for the living room b/c our couches are so high, but we are thinking of moving the sleeper couch into second bedroom and getting a "cheapie" (not so cheap actually) to replace it for the living room b/c the kitties shed and seem to like to chew on our good couch. However, there aren't really any good colors. You see, our living room is rather dark even though we have three, huge, 13 foot windows. The windows face the back of the apartment building and are heavily shaded and don't get a ton of natural light. The walls are painted a beautiful muted robins egg blue, and the floors are medium brown hardwood. We have a pretty dark rug and a saddle-brown leather couch. We really need to lighten it up, but I am scared to go white/light b/c of the kitties being grey and black. I have to keep looking, for sure! See the fur-culprits below:

Lucy aka Li-Li

Not-so-good pic of Ollie being silly

That's it for now everyone! I am making plans to sit in tonight and order take-out from Nikki's Thai Kitchen which is oh-so conveniently located 1 block down the street and have a glass or two of wine to relax with my beloved. See you later!

I'm back and I'm Married!

So, it has taken me a few days to get around to posting and that would be due to my crazy hectic work schedule, yoga classes and just being plain 'ole busy! The ceremony was amazing and everything turned out really well. Especially the rings! Hopefully, I will be able to post some photos soon!



this photo doesn't do them justice :(



The time we spent on the beach and all the naps we took and dinners we made together, made it a totally relaxing, calm way to get married! I am so lucky to be married to my Hubster! I still haven't found my camera :( and I didn't want to risk taking lots of pics on the beach with my iphone. Really, honestly, I am just bad at taking pictures, in general and it is on my list of "things to get better at"!

We also had a great time in NYC when we went to dinner at Taboon and the Dirty Projectors concert at Terminal 5. It was an awesome show!

No pics of dinner b/c it just didn't seem right to be tkaing pictures when we were trying to have a romantic time! We split a few mezze (appetizers) which came recommended, and we had wonderful hummus and I ordered a salad and Hubster had the lamb. No desserts, but we did have 2 rounds of drinks! We had these amazing cocktails that were made with apricot juice, and I think they were called (spelling?) miche-miche and I am going to do my best to try and recreate these one day!

But, for now, I am going to focus on truly getting my eating and diet (as in my daily food habits) back on track and today was a great start! I plan on really trying to utilize this blog to keep myself accountable for what I eat and if I think about posting my daily eats then maybe I will steer clear of things like this, which is right up the street from my work and also things like this!

This morning, I got the day started off right with a little lo-fat, organic maple yogurt with granola and coffee made by the Hubster! Funny thing is- Hubs doesn't drink coffee, but he sure brews a mean pot!

This Back to Nature granola has some great stats- best I have been able to find for granola- in a half cup you get 3g fat, 4g dietary fiber, 11g sugar (which is nice and low) and 6g protein! I picked it up at Whole Foods and it was a bit pricey but for those numbers, I'll take it!

For lunch, I didn't snap any pics b/c I was out catching up with my friend Haylee, but I had a veggie and hummus sandwich, but I only ate half of the heavy bread they served it with, and small side salad! YUM!

Check back tomorrow for pics of dinner tonight- we are going sushi!

T-minus and counting...

Today I am counting down a few things...

• 9 days until we get married
• 7 days until we go to NYC for dinner and concert
• 6 days until we leave for vacation
• 6 days until I get my engagement ring back and Tom sees his ring
• 3 days until I go to shop for last few things for wedding and vacation, which will include make-up session at M.A.C.
• 2 hours until yoga
• 15 minutes until I can leave work

Sometimes waiting for the future can be good: it allows you to get through the things that are tough or difficult in the present. But sometimes waiting anxiously for the future makes you overlook the goodness of the current day.

Today I had lunch with my friend Heather at Crepes Parisienne and I had a cheese, mushroom, spinach and tomato crepe with creme fraiche and it was divine! Minus the part where I scarfed it in 10 seconds, didn't take a pic and forgot wallet, so since Heather paid, I didn't feel right asking her to pay to split a desert one. Oh well! I will get this blogger stuff down one day when I am not so busy counting things down :)