Good News & Bad News

Where oh where do I begin...?

I guess I'll start with the good news first.  Who doesn't like good news, right?

Something exciting should be happening between now and the end of July barring no unexpected events that would change that.  What you ask?  Well, I'm going to keep that a secret.  Partly because I think it will be fun to keep you all in suspense until the official announcement can be made.  And partly because I'm concerned what y'all will think of me.

Gosh, that makes it sound bad doesn't it?

Oh well, it is what it is and it's staying a secret!

Now to the bad news :(

These past two weeks have been crazy to say the least but that's no excuse for letting myself do what I normally do.  What I'm saying is just because there was a bunch of stuff going on in my life doesn't mean I should have let myself revert back to having Mountain Dew on a daily basis.  I shouldn't have let myself forget about my goal to get back on track with exercise and eating better.

Life happens, on a daily basis, so I need to learn to deal with what life throws at me in a way that doesn't result in feeling badly about myself.  I need to learn to deal with what life throws at me in a way that I don't use it as an excuse to do what I normally do.  I need to learn to live my life the way I want, and need, to live it.

There!  I've said it...again.  I'm starting over, or however you want to say it, again.

Blogging consistently is something I need to do.  Even during the tough, crappy, blah times that I go through in life.  Why?  Because I'm not accountable to myself.  I feel more guilt and want to change my ways for the next day more when I put it out in the blogging world for all to read than I do when only I know what I've done.

Is that weird?  Is that bad?

Shouldn't being accountable to myself be enough?  Or is that something that comes with time?

Maybe some day being accountable to myself will be enough...

Back on the Wagon!

Hello Summer!  While the weather here in Wisconsin might not always feel like summer right now I am officially done with school for the semester so it is my summer, woot!  With summer should come more consistent blogging from me (yay!) and less whining about being stressed (double yay!).

I want to say a quick thank you to my readers who have stuck around despite my lack of interesting and regular posts.  Also, I'm excited to say I've reached 200 comments!!  Some of those comments are my own replies to your comments but still, 200 comments!!  I'm excited if you can't tell. ;)

Yesterday marked day one of working 8-hour days at my job.  I don't really get much of a summer break by working 40-hour weeks but I am making money which I need to be able to pay for school so I can't complain.  And I work at the same place my mom does so we carpool all summer.  Not having to pay for gas basically all summer is awesomesauce!

Yesterday also marked day one of no Mountain Dew...again.  Last week I stepped off the no Mountain Dew wagon for a few days.  I got myself back on yesterday, yay for something positive!  I have come to realize that I will probably never be completely Mountain Dew free and I'm OK with that.  If I can consistently limit my intake to 2 per week I would be super happy with that.  So that's my goal, 2 per week...I better drink them slow when I have them then eh?

Sunday Sami and I were schedule for a ride at 10am but let's just say I woke up after 10am and Sami never contacted me so I just said whatever to it.  We aren't schedule for any rides as of right now so I need to get in touch with her.  Because of the full-time hours I'm working for the summer we're only going to be able to get together on the weekends so I really need to get my butt in gear about riding without her.  Here's to getting back on the fitness wagon!

I have an interesting post floating around in my head that I will try to write tonight.  It will have pictures instead of just my boring ol' writing (yay!) so hopefully that helps make my posts more interesting.  I know bloggers love to see pictures and not just a bunch of words.

You are now semi caught up on my life.  I will catch you up a bit more this week with some more posts woot!!

Questions...

What are your summer plans?  Are you working or do you actually get a summer break?

Carpooling: yay or nay?

Something Positive

In my last post I shared with you all my Weekly TV Schedule and already since Thursday so many shows have ended for the season.  The Vampire Diaries, Nikita, Hellcats (I think), and Survivor have all ended for the season.  And many others are going to be ending this week.  Makes me sad :(

So it got me to thinking what shows are on in summer??  Well the first one that came to mind thanks to a well-timed commercial during the season finale of Survivor tonight (Yay Boston Rob won!!) Big Brother came to mind.  Aside from that I couldn't really think of any.  What shows do you watch during the summer??  I would love to watch True Blood but  my family doesn't pay to have HBO as part of our satellite package.  And unfortunately that show is so tightly under lock and key you can't watch it online any where for free.  Something else that makes me sad :(

But anyways, onto the title of my post.  Despite feeling pretty crappy due to a cold Wednesday-Friday (and only semi-crappy Saturday and Sunday) I found the positive in my life.  At the end of a reflective post about my negative feelings I decided to make it my goal to be more positive, to find something positive each day. (Read it here)  I accomplished that goal.  Every day, except for yesterday, I drank at least some water.  While it wasn't the recommended 8 glasses every day it was some.  It might not seem like much but it really kind of is.

Normally when I make that decision to have a Mountain Dew drinking water goes down the tubes from that point on.  But not this past week.  I may have had Mountain Dew multiple times this week but I also had water, even after I had that Mountain Dew.  I feel extremely proud of myself for taking this step and working towards becoming healthier.

There have definitely been moments where I was focusing on the negative things I was doing this past week but when I remembered what I made my goal on Monday I felt better about myself, even if it was for 5 minutes at a time only, because I was able to say "That's something I didn't do well before but I am doing better at it now."

I am going to keep working on focusing on positive things in my life, make more good things happen, and be the person I want to be not the person I make myself be.  Until of course I'm making myself be the person I want to be ;)

Looking ahead to this week I am in the home stretch with this semester.  The home stretch but yet I still have so much to do.

• COM103 (Speech) ~ Record final speech (late), Critique 4 final speeches (late), Write self-assessment essay w/o feedback from classmates because my speech is not done yet (late), Present speech to live audience & have them complete feedback forms (late)


• MUS278 (History of Rock & Roll) ~ Take final by Wednesday


• BUS325 (Organizational Behavior) ~ Take final by Friday


• BUS327 ~ Write reflective essay by Thursday, Take final on Thursday

It's really Speech that is dragging me down.  I should be done with that class but unfortunately I let procrastination get the best of me and I have put it off and keep putting it off.  So tomorrow afternoon when I get home from work I am going to sit my butt down and just do my best to do it all before I go to bed for the night.  I decided to say do my best to do it all because I am afraid to say I will do it all because my history is not very good with making those types of statements about school work.

After completing this semester I will have three semesters left before graduating college and I am going to vow to put 100% effort into not having a repeat of this semester's performance.  I'm embarrassed and ashamed of how I let my work go when I do not have a challenging schedule at all.  I only work part-time while in school and I had PLENTY of time to spend on school.  I made poor choices and decided not to use that time wisely.

Lisa at I'm An Okie (seriously check out her blog, it is freaking awesome!!) shows me that I can do much better if I just put the time and effort into school.  She works full-time and goes to school part-time but gets As in her classes.  Why?  Because she puts the time and effort into school!  It's so simple but yet I make it much harder than it needs to be.  Lisa is going to be my role-model for the next three semesters.  Thank you Lisa!  Also, I need to send a thank you to you for linking my weekly TV schedule post to your blog the other day.  I had a big jump in viewers after that.  It makes me feel good to see people looked at my blog, even if they didn't comment.  (If you read but don't comment don't be shy!  Come out of the shadows and comment :) )

No questions for you peeps tonight.  I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

What the H-E-double hockey sticks am I doing??

Just so you know this post is probably not going to be very positive so if you don't want to read a negative Nelly post skip this one.  And I apologize that it seems like I probably do a lot of negative posts but honestly, that's how I feel and this blog is for me to get those negative feelings out there instead of holding them in.

Lately I am wondering what the h-e double hockey sticks I am doing with my life.  More specifically my health and school.

Thursday I biked with my friend Sami.  I planned to take Friday off and bike again alone or with my dad Saturday or Sunday.  I did neither.

Thursday afternoon through Sunday I basically was a couch potato and accomplished nothing other than reading blogs and watching TV.  I had homework that needed to get done like yesterday.

I now have a lot on my plate for this afternoon/evening after I get home from work.  I am going to feel overwhelmed and will probably resist just sitting down and getting it all done.

And I'm wondering why...

I mean seriously, why would I choose to not use the time available to work on homework so I can avoid feeling overwhelmed?

Why would I choose to not use the time available to bike as planned?  Am I really that lazy?

School is approaching the end (thank God!) but I still have so much to do and I just don't know what has turned me into the student who is fine with turning assignments in late, or not doing them at all.  I never was this way, even in high school when I started my procrastination.

I keep talking about how I want to lose weight, and how after my most recent appointment with my doctor in April I need to lose weight for medical reasons but yet I'm still not putting the effort in on my own time.

I can't rely on a work out buddy.  I need to do this on my own most of the time.

I've blogged about my plans and struggles to give up Mountain Dew, or really soda in general, but I have yet to really stick to the plan and follow through.  I keep saying it's because it is available in my house.  But we all know that's just an excuse.  Yes, it would be easier to kick the habit if it wasn't in the house but it is my choice.  I can just say no if I really want to.  Same with at work and at school.  Is it available for me to buy from a vending machine?  Yes.  Do I have to buy one?  NO!

Why is it so hard for me to just say no to soda??

I just feel extremely frustrated with myself lately.  I don't understand what I need to feel like in order for it to set in that I'm doing this to myself and I can change my ways to not feel frustrated and every other negative feeling.

I hope I can turn things around before I hit "rock bottom" and just feel so terrible that I have to make the necessary changes.

If you stuck around this long, thank you.  I appreciate the time it took you to read this and leave a comment.

Goal: Be more positive.  Find something good I've done each day.  Make more good things happen each day.  Be the person I want to be, not the person I make myself be.

Real Quick...

Just wanted to post a quick little something so I can keep up with the 5 days/week blogging thing.

• Blogging - Monday and today...guess that means I need to blog every day for the rest of the week as I already didn't blog Sunday and now yesterday.


• Nutrition - Logged pretty much everything in Spark on Monday but now haven't done it yesterday or today.  Buuut I have been watching my portion sizes.  Staying away from Mountain Dew has been a fail except for yesterday.  Moving on to tomorrow, not going to beat myself up about it.


• Fitness - Monday I took my dog for a 33 minute walk.  We made it 1.89 miles.  Yesterday due to yucky weather I did nothing.  I should have done something today but it was like a half-day snow day for me so I ended up being rather lazy.  On the bright side, my mom and I have talked about where we could put the Wii in our basement for quite some time but never followed through with our plan but today we came up with a new plan.  This new plan is much more attainable than the last one so I have a good feeling it will be happening soon which means I'll have no excuse to not use the Wii as a form of indoor exercise.


• Weigh in - Did not weigh in yesterday as planned.  My grandma called me right at 9 when I was going to be getting out of bed and invited me over for breakfast (waffles yum!) and to use her oven as our new one still has not arrived.  I made 3 loafs (is this the correct "term"?? Spell check doesn't like this word for some reason??) of banana bread, sooo good.  I will for sure weigh in tomorrow or Friday.


• Weather - Like I mentioned in my last blog there was some yucky weather headed my way and it came in full force.  It snowed pretty hard yesterday morning, stopped for a while, and then snowed in the afternoon into the night.  It was like a thunderstorm but instead of rain it was snow falling from the sky.  This resulted in my dog being scared and keeping me and my dad up the whole night between the two of us.  This morning it took my dad an hour to make it to work (normally 30 minutes or less) with a 4-wheel drive truck.  Yea, that's how bad it was.  So my mom and I called in to say we would be in no later than 10.  We work at the same place so we rode together in one car and ended up making it there by 8:30.  My mom's boss later decided that anyone who didn't live in town should really consider leaving early; translation = my mom should go home.  We left at 1, meaning I only got 4 hours of work in so I will have to go in tomorrow to make up the 3 hours I missed but I will probably work 4 as I was planning to today for an even 8 hours.


• Laptop - After work tomorrow I am going to get a new laptop.  There is nothing really wrong with my current laptop other than it occasionally likes to blue screen on me (usually late at night for some reason??) so I am getting a new (better) laptop and will let my family use my old one for as long as it lasts, which with their light use it will probably be ok for a while.

Wow so that turned into a longer "little" update that I was planning.  Anyways, I'm off to finish making my bed from last night...I was lucky I got the fitted sheet on my bed last night before my dog jumped on my bed and laid down, not that I'm complaining because prior to this he wouldn't lay down and was pacing and panting.

And real quick, new readers thanks for checking out my blog and leaving comments!  I enjoy comments and am glad to see new readers commenting.  Keep 'em coming!!

Little Successes

Why hello there!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Sunday :)

I've made progress towards three of my five goals today. Yay!

• Homework - I am actually working on my History of Rock and Roll class stuff prior to the night it's due (tomorrow).  Lately I have been putting it off until the last-minute and as a result not finishing the assigned reading or listening to the lecture which leads me to not doing the greatest on my quiz and BSing my way through the discussion board posts.  But not today, I've done both!  I'm currently working on my discussion board posts and then will be taking the quiz for the week.  Part of the reason this is getting done tonight is I have a 5 minute pro/con speech due tomorrow that I have barely started to work on.  Tomorrow after work will be devoted to working on that and then recording it.  (Speech class online, awesome? I think so ;) )


• Blogging - I am posting for the second day in a row.  Woot Woot!  I apologize it isn't about anything super exciting.  Our oven is broke currently so there will not be any baking going on in my house until our new stove/oven arrives in a couple of weeks.  Guess you'll just have to suffer through my random thoughts for the day. ;)  I'm still looking for shrimp recipes so if you have one please let me know!


• Mountain Dew - I have not had one today, unless you count the small amount that was mixed with the Cherry Dr. (Dr. Dew as my aunt and I call it).  I am taking this as a success because usually on a Sunday I would be enjoying a few Mountain Dews (YUM!).  Especially when there is a family dinner at my grandparents'.

In other awesome news Alexis (check out her blog here) enlightened me how to change the font and font color in my blog.  She even posted the step-by-step instructions (with awesomesauce screen shots) on her blog.  Simple things in life make me happy/excited so I am super happy/excited that I know how to do this.  Thank you again Alexis!

I must get back to my history of rock and roll class before I find more ways to avoid doing the work.  Sorry my blog isn't very interesting right now...I just feel frazzled right now and even though I want to work on posting more consistently I need to make school my priority right now.

Questions...

What is one blog you highly recommend and think I should check out??

In a bit more than a month I will be able to renew my contract with AT&T and get a new phone.  What are your thoughts on Blackberry, iPhone, and Droid phones??

Shrimp Recipe??

Wow it's been a while since I've posted, sorry :( I am going to work on this, promise!

And speaking of things to work on I have a few other things I need to work on.

• Homework - Just like with my blog posting I've been putting homework off.  I am getting it done though, just very rushed at the last-minute.  As a result it is obviously not my best work.


• Cleaning - My room is a mess and needs to be cleaned, badly.


• Work outs - I've been making excuses to not work out, bad idea.


• Mountain Dew - I've been drinking it when I want and as often as I want.  Empty calories are not helping me reach my weight loss goals.  I'm going to start working on cutting back to 2 (12oz) sodas per week.

Four things to work one, well five including the more consistent blogging, will be enough for me to work on for the rest of the month.  Too many goals will make me go into overload and I'll fail miserably.

Now to the title of my blog.  Do you have any recipes for shrimp? With Lent right around the corner seafood is starting to go on sale so it seems like the perfect time to try out a new seafood recipe.  I really like shrimp so I would like to find a recipe for that.  If you have any suggestions or any suggestions of where I could look for a shrimp recipe let me know!  I enjoy pasta and rice so the shrimp could be paired with either one of those.

Sorry for the short post but I don't want to bore you with all the boring details of my life since my last post.  I will definitely work on posting more consistently so this doesn't happen again.

Another question for you bloggers...how do you change the font color when posting a blog??  I see others doing and haven't been able to figure out how to do it myself. Please help!

Update: Thanks to Alexis I now know how to change the font color in my blog. Yay!