Memorial day weekend -bathing suit season is here

So I am so happy that it is memorial day because I love warm summer weather. I am unhappy Memorial day is here because someone at work 2 weeks ago told me that I have a little belly that can be seen sometimes when I bend over. Hello. So I got home and went on the scale. I am 5' 6" and weight 135.6 lbs. I have not problem saying that because my goal weight since I was 160lbs at the end of high school was 135lbs. Yes I have a little pouch but that happened when I got pregnant. So for the last 2 weeks I have been running or walking 5-7 miles a day and doing some ballet inspired moves. I have decided that after memorial day weekend I am picking up the pace.

1. I want to lose 10 more lbs and I am done. Some would say too skinny and just maybe to them. I know when I was my thinnest was 127lbs. If I finish there I will be happy too.

2. I will do this by losing 2 lbs a week- eating 1400 calories a day

3. Each morning will be sent starting with a 5 mile /walk or run. I will continue to walk another mile on my lunch break every day

4. After work I will rollerblade to work on MY troubled area MY LEGS. Yes that it right. I don't consider my stomach poor...I sit on a stability ball every day at work...if anything it is tight...but has a little pouch. Rollerblading will be days a week.

5. Yoga, pilates, or ballet stretches will finish each work out.

6. 2 times a week 30 day shred circuit training Jillian Michaels style followed by resistance band training.

7. I am going to do a total body system cleanse in the month of June

Lots of Great things to come

So I have not blogged in such a long time and it has not been for lack of thoughts, feelings, or happenings. First, I just want to congratulate Tara and Steve on their engagement and wish them nothing but more of the undying happiness and love they already share.

Any how...Life has been going very well. Since my last blog entry Melissa and I have done another wine tasting but this time in CT -we started the wine trail at Taylor Brooke vineyard with our pooches. We then came home and grilled lobsters, corn on the cob and asparagus. It was a perfect night. We finished it up by watching It's complicated! Great movie.

Last weekend we kicked off the Country concert Mega ticket series with Sugarland. There was some great tailgating with even better friends. We grilled and played games of cornhole and some got hammered. Melissa and I then took off Monday and went to the beach...cause who doesn't need a recovery plan.

Tonight we went to see Sex in the City 2 and went to the Burton's premier party. 1. We had Sec in the City martinis and they were the best I have ever had. While we there we had our pictures taken on CTNOW.com. There are many mixed reviews out there but I surely enjoyed it.

This weekend is memorial day and I am getting ready to do many picnics! It will be a great time!!!

I forgot something important. I had dinner with an old best friend. Someone I have not seen in 6 years. It was one of the best dinners I had in a while...

These are a few of my Favorite things

I love when I come home from a long day of work and I pull into my parking spot and my little Hunter's head pops up and looks for me out of the window.

I love french fries with honey mustard (that is actually what I had for lunch)

I love cuddling up in bed when it is really cold and hibernating

I love when I get a new haircut and it comes out great even when you are nervous. That is what happened last night. I printed out a picture that I loved of Kimberly Caldwell and it came out perfect!!

Good Times Never Seemed So Good

I love my friends. I guess we will get right to the point with the things that I love today. Last night Amy, Eileen, Lindsay and I went to Fenway to watch the Red Sox. It was awesome eventhough they are not playing a super awesome season. When you are a die hard sox fan the love is infinite even though they continue to break your heart. I love the "green" of Fenway. The Green Monster and the plush green grass. I love singing Sweet Caroline in the 9th inning while swaying and hugging my girl friends. I hate riding the T but thank you to Eileen and Lindsay it flew by with the crazy conversations, people watching and laughs. Amongst the most funny phrases of the night were: Lock it up. Winner, winner, chicken dinner! I will never forget that grill. I ate my weight in meat. Don't get me started on your sausage. I also got to share in Lindsay's first beer at Fenway. This great time made up for the fact that I got home at 1:30am and needed to be up at 7am. Oh that and the help of a Great One Dunkin Donuts coffee.

I started really working out as I am training for a 1/2 marathon! It is a slow process but I love the way my endorphins kick in about 15 minutes into a great workout. I did 3.75 miles today. I still feel great. It is going to take me awhile to come down. Another bonus is that it is a great natural medication for my anxiety so I do not have to take my pills. And last but not least I love that I decided to run a 1/2 marathon in October because I will be confident enough to wear a bathing suit in no time. I wanted to do so some Yoga to stretch it out after but decided to take it easy today!

Hand and hand with any running regime is the great music I listen to on my ipod. I am building up a pretty great mim. Amongst my favorites are some Justin Beiber -Baby and Carrie Underwood. Lots of Carrie Underwood. My favorite workout song is Undo it by Carrie. The more and more I hear her sing the more I am upset by this continuing wave of Taylor Swift. How does Taylor win all of these awards when she is not a good singer. I have never seen her sing good live once and I have seen her 4 times...never mind the sound in the awards show. She has no vocal range and she is always flat. They say she is a performer well I have only seen that on award shows. She was never doing anything out of the ordinary when I have seen her live. When I saw Carrie in February she did set changes, outfit changes and was never off pitch. Sounded just as good as her cd. Oh wait and she things about adult things and she is gorgeous! Phew I had to get that off my chest. I just don't get the phenomenon anymore.

I am super excited because I have a haircut tomorrow. It is going to be a drastic change. I love changing my hair. I do it almost every cut. Tomorrow it going to be one of the most daring in awhile!

There you have it. My most positive thoughts for the day! Pictures of fenway and carrie are posted on FB!

Thankful for my Mom

I am glad that I started this blog when I did because there is just so much to love. Today is mothers day and most people I know are thankful for their mothers. I am not thankful for my birth mother nor do I love her but I do love my step mom and am super thankful for her. She has changed my life and without her and my father in my life, it would be super different. I would have probably turned out to be such a low life. There actions, love, support and positive reinforcement have lead me to where I am today.

Mother's day was great. We had brunch with Ryan's family. I love all of them, they really are a great bunch of girls (except Ryan...He is like the one boy in the family). I could not be part of a better family and I am excited to one day call them all in-laws :) Anyway...we had eggs, hash-browns, bacon, crepes, fresh fruit and english muffins. I love hash-browns. We sat and we all just talked and talked and laughed and talked.

I think one of the highlights was watching Ryan's mom open her gift from us. We bought her an awesome beach birdhouse and she loves the beach. She even has her own. We also got her a flamingo holding a pina colada for the back yard because she collects them. Her face just lit up. I love giving people really great gifts. Success.

We then we to my parents house for dinner which was lasagna, meatballs, sausage and awesome garlic bread. We had an extra surprise. My cousin Jim, his Wife Mandy, and daughter Emma (who is 2 years old and cute as can be) came down with my Oma for dinner. After a great dinner we played hours of scrabble. Scrabble is a tradition in our family. We must play with my OMA after dinner at every holiday. She is the champion so she plays on her own team and the other 3 teams are couples. It was Ryan and me, Joe and Mike, And My dad and mom...and then my OMA. I love family scrabble. We misprounce words...search for words in the scrabble dictionary for help, steal each others spaces...try to make up words...it is just full of laughs everytime. It is just plain great. You have not seen scrabble until you play with our family. My brother Justin, who lives in NY and couldn't be home called in while we were playing. My dad put him on speaker so he could say hi to all. He was even making up words on the phone for us...laughing when he heard us playing. My Oma was getting so competitive she even slipped out and "OH SHIT". My Oma barely swears. Awesome day.

Yay for family!!! I love all mine!!! I will be posting pictures of Emma tomorrow on Fb!

Love one thing each day (more than one is ok)

One of my oldies on facebook reads my notes and she sugguested that I start a blog. So here it is my blog of great feelings.

Here is the facebook post that started it all:

I just started writing notes a couple of times a week to get out what has been on my mind. I keep mentioning how I have been reading this live journal called 65_redroses written by this girl who was fighting for her life and lungs from the genetic disease cystic fibrosis. She died 1.5 months ago at age 25. While reading this, I decided to live every day and enjoy it. Well I am taking it further by making sure that I see the silver lining in things that are not always good. At the end of these days ...where I am living life...I am going to document at least one thing I love about that day...and this one thought is going to wash away any of the bad that I may have had.

I know it is only 9:03am...but I love the sound of rain falling on the roof and the sound of thunder rolling. There is something so tranquil about the noise that it is ssoooo relaxing. I was even enjoying walking Hunter in it this morning. I was all bundled up in my rain boots and rain coat. My awesome Ralph Lauren checkered rain boots may be another reason I love the rain too.

If this nice relaxing rain stops my brother and I are going to peruse the farmer's market together...It is very green to support your local farmers :) Which is another thing I love...Being as green as possible. Recycling cans, bottles, paper. Recycling peoples things...I love a good flea market. I conserve energy where ever possible. I would like to start biking to work but I am taking on a 1/2 marathon so I shouldn't wear myself down.

Also...I love frappacinos. Yummy. This is one of my favorite ways to start my day. I try to stay away from Strabucks itself because they are so expensive but when the prebottled fraps are on sale (and they were BOGO plus a $1.00 off coupon) I do it. And now one of things on my birthday wish list a frappacino maker. Yes they make those now.

SO that is 3 things that I love about today!!! May 8th 2010

Now I am going to add on because some other great things happened today. I went to breakfast with Ryan and Dennis to Mitchells. And for those of you who do not KNOW me...I LOVE Mitchell's. They make this awesome dish called the House. It is hashbrowns, ham, onions and cheese all grilled together. It is delightfully good! Ryan and went our separate ways for a could hours and I bought a new purse (Dooney and Burke...butter leather yellow and yup you guessed it I love it), jeweled flip flops, aviator sunglasses and a Red Sox coat for the game on Monday. Even though those Red Sox break my heart...yup I still love them. I also bought Ryan a griddle for the grill and a marinating brush. Now I am home relaxing on the couch drinking a beer with citrus flavors...because no beer is complete without a lime or orange and trying to be creative.

These are all of my positive thoughts for today! Tomorrow is Mother's days so there is tons of stuff to LOVE about tomorrow~

My friends make up my life and keep my heart full

My Friends my keep my heart full. We talk about the deepest and darkest to each other while sharing laughs and tears...ultimately learning a little more about each other each time we hang out. Just when you think you know someone you penetrate another layer to their hopes, dreams, and fears. I feel very privaleged to be one of those confidants.

So anyway...above was a prelude to one of the best days that I have had in a while. Melissa, Lindsay and I went to a wine tasting and had a picnic up at Greenvale vineyard IN RI for her 21st birthday. We talked about boys, the ones that ruined our lives before all of our great men now. We talked about Lindsay's mom who passed away 3 years ago from breast cancer. How her father now has a new girlfriend which sometimes make Lindsay jealous and how she is scared that she is losing memories of her mother as time continues on. Yesterday in the car ride home she said she used to still be able to hear the clicking of her high heels walking in the house and now she doesn't anymore...she didn't literally hear the clicking just the memory of hearing it when her mom would come home from work. It actually brought tears to my eyes (no one saw them because they were under my sunglasses). It touched my heart...that those are things that she still thinks about. I love her so much...she is such a great person and that is why I will be there for every step of the way...when we continue to fight for breast cancer...

Anyhow...the wine tasting was amazing...it was something that I had always wanted to do since I have been 23 and since I ma going on 26 it was long over due. We tried 5 white wines (which are my favorite) and 1 red wine. I ended up buying a bottle of Pinot Gris to accomodate our picnic. The picnic consisted of pickles and cheese, tomato and mozzarella salad, blue chips and salsa, and huge strawberries and chocolate sauce...we also had funfetti cupcakes...Mother nature kept interfering with the lit candles...she kept sending wind through stealing Lindsay's wishes. We must have just sat on the blanket and talked for 3 hours. Then we went to Newport to window show and continue laughing and talking. It was such a relaxing day. We came home with the setting sun.

It is nice to have such close girlfriends in life...It gives balance to the craziness and madness of people in the world. All you hear is murder hear, robberies, arson, kidnapping, raping, illness. And when I have days like yesterday it is like the sunshine melts away the mess of bad thoughts seem to swirl around my mind like a vortex!!! I love my friends and memories we share.