Woohoo! Pictures!

 

Well, here is the picture of the Buffalo Ranch Chicken!  Apparently I need to upload them to Google+ to put them on here because my uploader won't work.  Silly. Well, there you go!  Yummy chicken :)

 

 

Insanity and Ty Food

This past Wednesday I spend at least 7 hours doing nothing but cleaning.  I scrubbed floors, organized, vacuumed, dusted, disinfected, and made 90% of my apartment spotless. 

By Thursday night, it looked like I had a circus in here.  There was popcorn everywhere, random toddler underwear strewn about, toys every 6 inches, and just general disarray. If you had walked into this household last night, you would have believed I hadn't cleaned since we moved in. 

So, why do I do the ridiculous repetitive chores?  I mean, I had to vacuum, tidy, and do a lot of that work again today and it will probably have to be done again tomorrow afternoon.  Ty doesn't really care unless it gets in the way of him doing stuff, and Whimzy loves having toys everywhere. 

It is for a few reasons:

A) It makes me feel better when the place is clean, even if I get frustrated, angry, and a bit psycho feeling after it gets trashed in less than 24 hours.

B) I remember how bad it can get from my less than perfect younger days.

C) Paranoia.  What would happen if a social service worker stopped by to ask for directions and my place didn't look fit for a healthy toddler?  I could lose Whimzy!! 

Granted, my place is nowhere near perfect 90% of the time, and my bedroom is only clean about 10% of the time, but keeping up on it is easier when I do a bit each day.  And that 10% of the time when Whimzy is in bed and Ty is at work and I can just sit and enjoy the clean almost makes the crazy worth it. 

 

So, this diet has me eating a very strict amount and type of food.  And since I measure part of my self-worth by the food that I have cooked, it was really bugging me.  My passion from life was missing.  So, I sat Ty down yesterday and had him pick out some recipes from my Pinterest board for snacks and meals that he would like me to make.  This would serve 2 purposes.  Hopefully, having homemade snacks and convenience food available at home would stop him from spending money at Kwik Trip and would be healthier.  It would also satisfy my need to cook and take care of him.  I am super excited about this week because I am stepping outside of my comfort zone and cooking things I wouldn't normally really consider.  I will even be making my own pretzels!  How exciting is that? 

 

Tonight was the first recipe.  Buffalo-Ranch Chicken.  Super easy, and something that Ty would absolutely love. 

 He loved it!  I got the recipe from Pinterest, who led me to this link:
 

http://reallyfrompinterest.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2012-02-03T11:52:00-08:00&max-results=1&start=11&by-date=false

The 3 lbs. will last Ty 2-3 meals and can be used after the initial meal as shredded chicken for sandwiches, diced chicken for salads, or just plain.  The sauce left over in the slow-cooker can be used for a bunch of different stuff including dips for those sandwiches, sauce for chips and pretzels, and toppings for anything else he wants to put it on. 
Side note: The 3 lbs. will last most people at least 4 meals, but Ty is a monster and eats 3 breasts at a time.  For 3 breasts, it came out to about 600 calories (which would be reduced with less chicken, obviously) and ended up with a B- on my nutrient tracker/calorie counter website.  I paired it with some chicken broccoli rice and salad. 

I will try to keep up on all of the new recipes that I am trying and post them on here :)

Ugh, and I am about to throw a fit because the picture uploader is not working!
Here is the link to my Facebook picture of the chicken:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152426626170366&set=a.10150808771980366.735638.786490365&type=3&theater

Roller Coaster

I had a bad day, then night, and then morning.

After feeling so wonderful for a few days, this little bit of a dip in my mood/life feels even more dramatic than normal.

Yesterday I could just not get up the energy to do anything.  I ended up watching Disney movies with Whimzy and cuddling all afternoon. 

Then last night I felt like I was getting sick and I had some anxiety issues.

And to top it all off this morning Ty and I got in a fight.  Not an end all be all fight or anything life changing, but still a fight.

Totally sent me into an anxiety ridden morning.

I hid in my room with Ivan (my stuffed hedgehog that I took with me when I was separated from my mom) and mobile Pinterest.  Cried it out, took a shower, and then decided that I needed to suck it up and move forward.

Got out of bed, made myself and Whimzy lunch and took an energy shot.

Waiting for that to kick in so that I can tackle my to-do list from yesterday and today.

Times like this really make me realize that no matter how far I have come in my battle against depression and anxiety, I am still battling it.  Even with more good than bad days, I still have to remember how to deal and how to move forward.  The upside, or so I am telling myself, is that a few years ago, after a bad 24 hours, it would take me another 3 days to pick myself up and move on.  Now, I can do it as soon as I realize that I need to.  I may still not feel the best, but I can make myself function and I can push myself through it all.

I have learned that pushing myself through it but giving myself a little bit of understanding is much better than just curling up in bed and ignoring the world.

I wish I would have had the strength a few years ago to realize this, I might have avoided a bunch of mistakes and would have to be rebuilding so much of my life right now, but hindsight is 20/20.

 

I still need to work on my self-esteem, a lot.  I think that will take time, though.  I am a better person today than I was before and that is what I need to remember when I feel sad or scared. 

 

I am extremely thankful for the couple of friends that reached out to me when I posted my status on fb at 4am.  They really helped me put things in perspective. 

 

So, time to go push foward and pick up Ponies.  Ah.  The life of a mom...

Stupid Energy Shot

Cannot sleep.  My legs are all twitchy.  Could be because of that energy shot I took this afternoon...

Apparently I did not need anymore energy.

Actually, the last few days I have felt amazing and more motivated than ever to make my life run smoother and make myself a better person. 

I have some serious personality flaws that need working on, and the New Year is just the time to do it!  I seem to be doing a pretty darn good job, too. 

I am hoping that this sudden surge of energy has something to do with my change in eating habits, but until it lasts longer than a few days I am reserving my exuberance at the change.  No point in getting excited over a fluke!

 

I think Ty finally read some of the blogs.  Silly him.  I had to bug him for forever to get him to sit down and read them.  He didn't even comment on any of them!  Rude. 

 

So, I tried uploading a picture of Whimzy jumping for joy over how awesome life is, but my computer hates me and does not want me to succeed at anything, so that may have to wait. 

 

Okay, I should probably go try to crawl back in bed and get some sleep.  Another full day of awesomeness ahead of me in the morning. 

 

 

 

 



Weight Loss, Cravings, and What I REALLY Want

As of today, I am down 8.2 lbs. in one week.  I can deal with that.  If I do this diet for 3 weeks with a 3 week maintenance diet for two rounds, I should be able to get down to 150 lbs for the wedding.  I cannot wait to see the look on the ladies who do my dress alterations when I go in!

That good news being out of the way, I could seriously kill a puppy to eat some cheesy tater tots from Burger King.  I swear, if they are gone by the time I can eat them again, I am going to go on a rampage.  A bloody, emotional rampage.

 

On a more wedding-ish note, we pretty much finished up our Bed, Bath, and Beyond registry!  We registered for dinnerware, but it is probably the lowest thing on what we would really like to receive.  We really need our bedroom stuff, towels, the kitchen stuff (besides the actual dinnerware), and the accent furniture. I would love to get the two buffets and the bookshelves we want! 

We have also started our Target registry and it is going to have a bunch of the stuff that Bed, Bath, and Beyond doesn't carry. For instance, we already registered for a Blu-Ray player and some first aid kits at Target. 

 

As I plan and move through checklists for the wedding, I am really getting excited.  

So Freakin' Lucky

We just started registering!

It was so much fun!  I got to scan everything that looked even remotely cool. Espresso machine, bullet blender, food processor, new pillows, new comforter, an ice cream scoop...you name it, we got to scan it and put it on our list!

Since we already live together, we are just working on upgrading our current stuff or finally trying to get some stuff that we want/need.  There was this wine/buffet piece of furniture that had room for wine bottles and space to hang wine and beer glasses from plus some shelves and drawers and an expanding top.  We REALLY want it.  I know the perfect little space for it. 

We still have at least one more appointment at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and we plan on registering at Target, also. 

 

Want to check out our registry so far?

bedbathandbeyon.com

Registry Number: 13205531

Under the names: Cara Robertson and Ty Christensen

 

 

Info will be posted on our website, also!

And remember, we are going to be adding more and there is a whole other store we will be registering at.

 

 

And, let me say, Ty and I did not really disagree about anything.  It was so easy and so much fun.  I am so lucky to have such a great guy ;)

Moving Along, Continued Awesomeness, and Getting Serious

Happy New Year!

2012 was a pretty amazing year for me, so I am not wishing for a new beginning or a better year this year.

That being said, this year is looking like it is going to be even better than last year was!  I am getting married this year!  I get to become Mrs. Ty Christensen this year and live out my fairy tale wedding surrounded by my favorite people. 

After some slow time regarding wedding planning, we are finally back on fast forward with our plans. 

We are registering this coming weekend and looking at tuxes, the invites are started, the appointment for the Bridesmaids and other VIP people dresses is made, and the Save The Dates finally went out.  I also started buying flowers and other decor stuff! 

It is starting to look like a real thing now, not just some far off event.

 

Also, today is the first day of my new diet program.  Can't wait to post some after pictures in a couple of months :)

 

I hope everybody is excited for the year ahead of them and is thankful for 2012!

 

I would post a fun pic of Whimzy jumping to illustrate how awesome life is right now, but I haven't uploaded it from my camera yet...lol.