The poor puppies!

Today was a bad eating day! My bosses bought me pizza and made chocolate cake for my birthday at the shop. I ate way too much! It was really yummy, but way too much!

I came home and knew I needed to do some kind of workout. I decided to take the dogs for a walk! I can't take all of them with me - that's just crazy! - and Jazz is not a good walker. I wanted to walk for an hour or so. Sam and Chewy can always use a walk, so I grabbed them and Max... harnessed them up and headed out!

If I did this right, here is a map of what we did:

(Out and back route) The poor dogs walked almost 3 miles. The map says 2.76, but some of the neighborhoods aren't on the map, so it looks like I took an angle to get to one of the streets. Plus, we were on a walking trail next to the main street that is very windy. We stopped a little before the main street because Sam did this:

Yep! She sat her butt down and refused to go any further. She had already tried laying down once, so I figured 2nd time and she's ready to turn around... considering we had to walk back!

We got home, let the rest of the monster's out and got big drinks! Chewy laid down on the kitchen tiles for about 5 minutes and is now playing happily with Toby and Allie.

Max did this for quite some time:

Now he's resting quietly in the window, watching for bunnies that dare enter HIS yard!

I was pretty excited about our walk. Jazz, Toby, and Allie get to go in the morning, but we won't go that far. Jazz is not a very good walker, and doesn't do well unless she's on a sidewalk (and has to be able to see cars coming or they scare her). I'm also driving David's mom to Greenfield tomorrow. There is a house she wants to look at to see if she wants to rent it. David told me to bring my workout clothes and we'll jog around the block around the hospital!

Did you think that I would EVER be excited about running? I didn't! But, I'm so excited to be doing longer walks and runs. I can't wait to get my heart rate monitor ~ it should be here Monday!!!! And you KNOW that I'll be doing some kind of workout that night to see how it works if I've already done my run!

Birthday Clothes!

Tuesday was my birthday and David spoiled me rotten with dinner! My mom sent me some birthday money and made me promise to use it on something fun! My grandparents also sent me some money, so I had that also.

First, we went to Kohl's and I didn't really see anything that I liked. I really wanted a swim suit, and found one on Penny's website. So, we went there next. And here is what I got:
2 shirts I can wear at work: (The pictures aren't the best - it's dark in the house, and David was taking them at a weird angle)


And 2 fun summer shirts:


(This is my favorite buy of the night)



(Sorry about the tag)

And.... I got a 2 piece swim suit! I got a tankini because I just wasn't ready for a bikini. Although, I did make progress - I tried one on! Maybe it was the style, but I knew there was no way I would be comfortable in it. So, I got this instead:


As for my grandparents' money... We got this:

It was more than I was planning on, but David "chipped in" the extra money because he wanted all the extra "fun" stuff.

Oh, and David's present to me??

Yep! I'm getting a Heart Rate Monitor!!! The puppies helped me pick the pink one (versus green). It comes with the transmitter (a $30-40 value), free shipping, and no tax! It should be here Monday or Tuesday!

Overall, it was a great birthday! Even after a really, really unhealthy day, I still lost .4 lbs for the week. I have one more week of maintenance and then I'm officially Lifetime! I got the 3 month journal that I'll use to manually track. That and my new HRM, and I'll be able to keep this weight off. I'm considering losing a few more lbs - 5, maybe 10...?

Anyways! Awesome day, awesome shopping spree... Awesome week!

Monthly Update

I realized tonight that I need to update my monthly goals! I can't believe May flew by so quickly. As a reminder, here were my goals for May:
* Lose 4 lbs (Reward: 1 new outfit) -- Completed 5/6! I still haven't gotten my outfit though! I did get that blue top for last weekend, but now I get slacks, jeans, shorts... something! I think I want to use my reward to get a swimsuit - they are all WAY too big.

*Workout: Cardio 45 min 3x a week; Toning 2x a week (Reward: Dinner in the Old Market and a carriage ride!) -- Completed! I was much better about strength training and toning this month. So, David owes me dinner and a carriage ride in The Old Market (Downtown Omaha).

Now, I get to figure out June goals. I'm stumped with my weight "loss" goal. Since I'm supposed to be maintaining, I can't say that I'm going to lose. I know that I'm going to stay in my window, so I don't feel right saying "I will maintain my weight loss." I think I'm going to say that I will lose 4 lbs. I've decided to lose 10 more lbs and my maintenance "phase" ends in 2 weeks. So, if I lose 1 lb a week, I can hit that goal. My reward this month will be to go see a movie (nothing David will veto, and no popcorn needed!).

My exercise goal was easy to decide - on Monday, I made it 13 laps on the track. David wants me to point out I was in Lane 2, which means I went a little more than a 5K. I was able to do it in 50 minutes. So, I want to be able to complete it in 45 minutes or less by the end of June. I will also continue to do strength training 2 times a week. For this reward, I get a pedicure!

Maintenance has been going well. I had my 4th weigh in tonight since hitting goal. I've fluctuated quite a bit in that range, trying to play with how many daily points (29-33). I've also played with how many weekly flex points I can use (I used all of them last week and gained 3 lbs). Another thing I'm playing with is how many activity points I need to earn to maintain. So far, I'm thinking that I can eat 33 points most days, use 15-20 weekly points throughout the week, and I need to earn 15-20 activity points.

Right now, I'm .4 above goal, but I've ranged between 2.8 below up to .8 above. After maintenance, I want to lose another 10 lbs, and should be able to do that by just dropping the extra 4 daily points.

Walk down memory lane...

Today, David and I are celebrating our 2nd anniversary! I can't believe it's been that long - it seems like just yesterday we were planning our wedding. And now, we're celebrating another anniversary!

So, in honor of today, here is a picture journey of our years together.......
David and I had our first date on August 27, 2005. A week or two later, he invited me to watch him race.


Fast forward to Aug 27, 2006... for Christmas, David had asked for professional pictures. It took 8 months, but we finally had some pictures taken!


A month later (September 30), David popped the question. He totally surprised me by saying that it was somebody's birthday and we were doing a surprise party. He said it was "dressy," so he'd take advantage and get a cheap limo for the fun of it and take me to a nice dinner. Yes, I bought it hook line and sinker. After dinner at Vivace's, we went to the Lewis and Clark Monument. I knew he was planning on proposing sometime, but didn't know when. As we're standing on the outlook, watching planes land, he says... "I wish your ring had come by now." I said "It's okay. I love you and will wait for the rest of my life for you." He said, "The ring came early so turn around." As I turned around I realized he was down on one knee. He asked me to be his wife and spend the rest of his life with me. I was shaking so bad that I had to put the ring on myself and could barely say yes! We got great pictures thanks to the limo driver.

Oh, and the birthday party? It was a surprise engagement party! David is awesome.

The weekend after David proposed, we went to my sister and brother-in-law's wedding reception. They eloped on St. Patrick's Day, and were celebrating their wedding with family and friends on October 5.


We started planning our wedding - for Oct 6. I wanted a big, fall wedding. As fall turned to winter, winter turned to spring.... Well, everything seemed to go wrong. I had friends and family arguing with me and fighting with each other about what was "right" for OUR wedding. David made the comment one day "we should just elope." I said no. He said "then let's move the wedding up." No. I want my fall wedding. 2 weeks later, on May 1, I told David "I want to move the wedding up. I'm calling the photographer today to see when he's available in June." June 1 was it!

We planned an outside wedding - at the gazebo in Carter Lake, where we lived. It was going to be perfect! We had a backup plan of the methodist church if the weather got bad. Well, the day of the wedding, storms were "questionable" and as the morning progressed, it was getting pretty dark in the West. We made the call to move it indoors to the church. The rain? We had LITERALLY 5 raindrops all day. The church was perfect, though, for our 60 guests. And we were able to go to a park for pictures! Sorry for the multitude of pictures - I just love them all, and had trouble narrowing them down! And they are in no particular order - Blogger adds things weird!













Married life was great! We spent the weekend going to the zoo with family, a bed and breakfast Bed and Breakfast, and a winery. The first year flew by! We celebrated our first anniversary with the B&B again and a few wineries around Grand Island.

This spring, we had pictures taken. David loves to ask for professional pictures, so I think that's just going to be his new "standing" Christmas present.




Life continues to pass us by... I keep thinking one of these days it will slow down, but then again, I don't want it to. I love life. I love my husband. I love everything that we have. We are so blessed. And everyday, I fall more and more in love with him.

And finally, if you made it through this, I applaud you! Here are two final pictures - both from this weekend. One at the mansion, and one at a winery.

Anniversary Weekend

Tomorrow marks our 2nd anniversary. This time 2 years ago, I was getting my nails done and freaking out about how much I had to get done still! I was up until 2:00 in the morning doing last minute stuff... And, in looking back, none of it mattered! But, I thought it did at the time.

Every year, David and I have marked our anniversary by visiting wineries across Nebraska and always going to a special Bed and Breakfast. So, if you are bored, here's a weekend in review - complete with links, pics, and reviews of places!

We went to Soaring Wings in Springfield. My favorite was the Winter White, their dryest semi-sweet. David's favorite was the Falco Red, a semi-sweet red.

Next, we visited Windcrest Winery in Raymond. This is his first year open, but you cannot tell that by the taste of his wines! We took a bottle of the Crest Select (semi-sweet) and Cherry Delight (a semi-sweet cherry wine) home. If you have a little bit of chocolate in your mouth when you drink the Cherry Delight, it makes it taste like chocolate covered cherries! Yummy! And because he is a newer winery, he will actually let you try all of his wines - dryest to sweetest for the same price. He just gives you slightly smaller portions than the other wineries do for only 5 tastings. But, so worth it!

After Windcrest, we checked in at The Anniversary Mansion. Two years ago, David surprised me with staying here the night after our wedding. We have made it a tradition to come every year and have now stayed in 3 of the 4 rooms. Dave is an awesome host and his employees are fabulous! As always, we are looking forward to going back next year!

Before settling in for the night, we dressed up

and headed to Misty's. As if we hadn't had enough wine already, we ordered a bottle of the Riesling. We had the portabello mushroom appetizer. I had the Salmon Choe and David ordered the Petite Prime Rib. Both were delicious!

We headed back to the mansion for the night and enjoyed an awesome breakfast! The jacuzzi tub was nice and relaxing, and the bed was SO flipping comfortable! I told David I want to steal it.

We left the Mansion and headed for the zoo! We haven't been since the weekend of our wedding - we went with family the day after - so it was a nice break. We went to the store beforehand and got stuff for sandwiches. The one thing we didn't do that I wanted to was the Butterfly Pavillion. But, we have a zoo pass and plan to go back next week. The animals were feeling lazy, but it was the perfect day and we had a blast. (All the walking and hills provided great exercise also!)









After the zoo, we decided to finish our weekend with another winery! I won a bet last night, so David owed me another bottle of wine. We went to our favorite tasting room, Too Far North, in Ft. Calhoun. Sandy is always awesome and can pin your tastes perfectly! We tried a few new ones, and I actually liked a dry red! Yes, I, Amanda, liked a dry red! We brought home a bottle of a wine from Hartington, NE (Northeast Nebraska Winery - they aren't on our tour, though). They have an outlaw "series," complete with history on the bottle! I loved the Sam Bass (the dry red), but we bought a bottle of Jesse James (semi-sweet red).

We headed home, made dinner, and played with our puppies! Oh, and had a glass of wine (of course!). We had a great weekend relaxing and enjoying ourselves. Tomorrow starts a new week. It's my first day with kids for summer school. Hopefully the 14 days go by quickly! Look for tomorrow's post.... a blast from the past!

April Showers bring May Flowers

I know you've all heard this phrase. Well, I'm really hoping that our personal "April Showers" will be bringing some awesome flowers soon! This week has been tough, but it's also had some ups. There are days where I just wonder what we've done to piss God off. But, then something good happens, or somebody says something, or I get emails! I know that other people have things worse, but it's been an emotional week for me.

So, a rundown of the week....

Sunday and Monday - spent the day with David's family. I love David to death, and his family is great - individually and in small doses. But all rolled up into one? And at my house (and in some small ass town in Iowa)? Yeah, not so much. Lots of wine was had by Amanda!

Tuesday and Wednesday - packed up my classroom for the summer. I don't know why this always makes me more sad than the day the kids leave. Seriously - I get emotional packing up my room! I think it's the consistency and routine. And the bare walls. I hate bare walls.

Thursday - got my room ready for summer school! I'm at a different building so I had a few things to do. Am I ready? No. I'll go early Monday morning. I'm excited, but at the same time, I just want to be done. The money is nice though!

Friday - got bad news all around the board.... David decided to pull a tooth that needed a root canal. We can't really afford it right now (for several reasons), and he's in so much pain. So he made the decision to pull it. We also finally got the results back from the nuclear test they did on his gall bladder a week ago. It's dying and he needs to have surgery. He goes to see the surgeon on the 10th, but now he can't do his summer classes. So, his graduation is pushed back to December 2010.

I'm glad David will be getting healthy. He'll have a little time off work and then he can get back on track. It also means we have to keep holding out on a baby. We're not sure if we're going to wait until David is completely out of school, or until late fall, after he is recovered and things slow down a little.

I know that we will be great parents when it's time. I just hate that people who can barely afford to raise the ones they have keep getting pregnant. And then pregnant. And then pregnant.

So, the goods for the week!
We're keeping up on the 5K training. We went to the track together Monday night and Friday morning. I went by myself on Wednesday. Monday and Wednesday I made it 2 miles in 30 minutes - jogging half and walking half. Friday, I made it 2 1/2 miles in 40 minutes! The best part.... there were some army guys doing some kind of training. 3 guys were running. When they started, I was about 1/3 of the way around the track from them. 2 of the guys easily passed me. When I rounded the corner, I looked back at the 3rd guy... He was jogging slowly, but going. I don't know how far they had to run, but I know they were being timed by the "guys" on the bench. I keep doing my thing - walk, jog, walk, jog... The 2nd guys passed me a couple times. The 3rd guy? He NEVER passed me! I never passed him either, but I did notice that he was walking some.

Now, granted, he could be recovering from something, or just having an off day. But it felt great that someone in the MILITARY never passed me as I did my "thing" on the track!

I also got my hair done. It was my anniversary present to myself. I haven't been in 3 months and it felt great! I got it lightened up but I decided to grow it out a little. We're going to do pictures this weekend, so I'll be sure to get one of my hair!

I had to have my eyes checked. I haven't been since October 2007. Oops! That's what happens when I don't wear my contacts every day so they last longer. My prescription didn't change! So, I have contacts ordered and they gave me a sample pair because I begged.

So, it was a good and bad week. I was pretty emotional all week, but things are improving. I know things will get better for us. We work our asses off and deserve to have a break! It will come.... It will come.....

Something to think about

I got this through an email from my cousin and after the day I have... I needed something positive (More to come - probably tomorrow)! I don't know who the original author was, but several of the lessons struck home for me as I read it.


To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.
It is the most-requested column I've ever written."

My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:


1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and
parents will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey
is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never
blinks.

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up
to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an
answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't
save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will
this matter?'

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come.

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."