Grilled Cheese Diet

Recipe:

2 slices of bread

Lots of butter

and a handful (or two) of shredded mozzarella. 

and this is probably the one and only recipe you'll see on my blog. I swear I cook more than just sandwiches but after being iced in for 4 days this is what my diet has consisted of. Bread. Butter. Cheese. Repeat. While that's 100% acceptable in my book, my thighs on the other hand are screaming at me. It doesn't help that we haven't done much exercising lately. The most we've done is searched for the remote, changed channels, and napped.

Same yoga pants. Different day.

That's not entirely true. On Saturday the dog and I braced ourselves and hit the slopes the sidewalks for our one and only walk since the ice hit Arkansas. Emily destroyed all of her toys in revenge from being stuck inside with her lame mom. I gave in once the sun came out a bit... but.. don't let that big guy fool you. It was still very well under 20 degrees. No worries though, thankfully I married a mountain man who made sure I had all of the REI essentials incase ice storms like this occur...

I've never been skiing, but I think walking your dog on ice is on that same level. After nearly falling twice, I let her roam freely while I walked/tiptoed behind. My hands and face were frozen so I can't imagine how the ice felt on her soft little paws. We walked and slipped around for a little more than an hour until my hair was turning into icicles. On the way home, I noticed my little favorite tree in our front yard finally losing the last of its Fall leaves...

Fall left the party, and Winter has arrived early. It was real Fall.... can't wait for you to return next year. Winter has made her presence known and plans on sticking around for awhile. No pun intended. I hope she lets up a bit so I can go to the grocery store and get more bread, butter, and cheese. Gotta keep my GC diet strong so I can fit into those yoga pants.... *side eye*

I Was Addicted to Tanning

Before I get to todays topic, I want to acknowledge the ice cubes, snow, and rain hitting our rooftop right now. Schools and businesses are cancelled/closed today, and most likely tomorrow. Although tomorrow is Saturday so school is a no-go anyway. I know some of you up north are laughing at us down here in the south, but just remember that we don't get winter storms like this often so our cities don't have the equipment to clear the roads. The million dollar equipment isn't necessary when we only have one maybe two storms like this per year.

Whew. Now that I got that out of my system, it's time for a little confession.

I was once addicted to tanning. If Intervention was around, then I'm sure I would have been on it.

I looked worse than Snooki and JWoww combined.

Worse than my favorite Super Bowl character.

Worse than these brown crayola markers.

and almost as bad as Tan Mom.

Here's proof:

 My favorite...

 WHAT. IS. THAT. 

It's hard to look at these pictures, because I now know the damage that was done to my skin. Not only was I addicted to tanning but also the duck face. I'll save those pictures for a different day.

It all started my senior year of high school. I worked during the summer at an after school program so I could spend my money on things I wanted throughout the school year. Mainly tanning packages, ripped Abercrombie jeans, and long white tip nails. Hashtag priorities. My mom refused to pay for such nonsense and she made it known that if I wanted that stuff, then I would have to pay for it.

So I did.

I would tan EVERY DAY. Unless we had a basketball game or practice that ran late. It got worse when basketball season was over and prom season was on the horizon. Not only would I tan, but I would get spray tans along the way, just to get that "glow". I would spend HUNDREDS on lotions, thinking they would make me look darker. I even used one of those nasty Playboy bunny stickers on my hip to see the progress of my tan. Disgusting.

I wouldn't use the normal tanning beds. No, no, I would use the extreme tanning beds. Ya know, the ones with the brightest bulbs and that cost nearly $100 a month to use. I would only have to be in there for 10 minutes and I would come out looking orange and what I thought was beautiful.

It got to the point that if I didn't tan that day, then I would feel pale. I would be up all night thinking about tanning the next day. I'm not sure if I was competing to be the tannest girl in the class or in the state of Texas, but I definitely had everyone beat by a long shot especially in the warm month of February. I was so tan that I was no longer considered tan, it was nearing a different culture/race. I would buy dark skin make-up and bronzer. And worse, light lip gloss.

It wasn't until after prom that I stopped going as much. I think it was the pictures that I saw the next morning and thought "not ok". If only prom was sooner. By college I was still tanning but not as much. Thank the big man above that there were no "good" tanning beds in the small city of Canyon, TX. I also didn't have money to spend on my skin. I bought a few tanning packages but was so busy with school I rarely went. Don't worry though, I was still rocking those white tip fake nails.

I graduated three years later looking my normal color...

... confused and unsure about where my life was taking me. I don't know why considering two days after that I was on-air reporting for the CBS station in Amarillo. Call that bragging, but I worked my butt off to get there.

Like most recent college graduates, I could barely pay the bills so tanning wasn't an option. It wasn't until I moved to Abilene that I thought I would get back into tanning again. A few trips to the salon, and bam, I looked like this...

My last tanning trip EVER was right before this picture was taken

At least you can see my eyebrows, but still I knew it wasn't ok, so I stopped. Just like that. I was tired of wasting money on it. I was tired of looking tan in the winter. And I was FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE worried about how my skin would look in the future. I also saw the beauty in natural skin colors and how pretty light make-up was. Lauren Conrad and Taylor Swift helped me see that.

I've been to the dermatologist several times concerned about certain moles on my body, but thank goodness everything has come back fine. I'm lucky now, but I don't know what's in store for my future. What I do know is that I'm wearing lots of sunscreen, applying anti-wrinkle cream (already), and warning others to stay away from this dumb addiction.

So what do I look like now? Most of you know but for those who are just stopping by today, here's an update:

You can see that my skin already has a natural tan to it. Why didn't I see that in high school? I'll never know. I will NEVER get in a tanning booth again nor will I allow my daughters (if I have any) to do the same. If they want to be tan, they can go outside and soak up the sun... with sunscreen on of course. 

Before I end this post, here's one last comparison for the road... 

Orange vs Natural. Which one do you vote for?

This is what dreams are made of....

I know this may come as a shock to you but there's a winter storm making it's way across parts of the U.S. I had no idea until I got on Facebook this morning and saw the 10 iPhone screenshots of the temperature on my feed. Not to mention, the 12 other pics of the temperature in their cars. I don't know about you but when it's -7 degrees the last thing I want to do is find my phone, take a picture, find the right filter, and then post it to every social media outlet I own. Also, I can't really feel my hands when it's below 40 so there's that problem too.

Anyway, enough with my complaining, yesterday morning two of santa's elves dropped off our new couch!

We've been waiting for it since October so you can imagine my excitement when it showed up on our front door/the Pottery Barn truck.

Before this we didn't have anything besides a leather chair in the corner. It was depressing. Some of you may know but Nate and I have had our struggles with furniture since the day I moved in last year. Here's the story, Nate was once in a relationship with a blue and white couch from the 80's. It was just the couch and him until I showed up. She was mad, and we got into several arguments when Nate wasn't around. So I gave him a choice,

It's either me or the couch.

You obviously know his answer but it wasn't pretty. So when it was time to move, the couch had to go because I refused to move it into our new home. You might be thinking "wow you're the worst person ever I can't believe he married you" and I often tell myself the same thing, but here's the deal... actually, I'm skipping the description of the couch and I'm just going to show it to you...

Ignore that precious face and let's focus on that couch. THAT COUCH. I can't handle it. It was time for it to find a new home. Craigslist helped us and it's now living inside the dorm of a college student where it belongs. We made some money off of it so you can't hate me too much Nate. 

We still need to furnish the dining room and the master bedroom. We're currently sleeping in the guest bedroom. Why don't you move the guest bedroom furniture into the master bedroom maxine? that doesn't make sense and you're somewhat right, but the master bedroom is too big for the furniture, and it would look empty. So that's our next big purchase. We're saving up for it now so we should have it by the spring.

Now that I've lost all of you, I'll wrap this up with one of my favorite music videos of all time....

YES.

My Pants Don't Fit

Todays challenge: successfully putting on my pants while breathing. Thanksgiving was (as usual) very good to me, and I may or may not have devoured my monthly worth of calories in 24 hours. Who am I kidding? I've been eating my thanksgiving leftovers, for breakfast lunch and dinner, since Thursday so I'm sure I'll be good on eating until NEXT Thanksgiving.

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving at our home in Little Rock. Nate's parents drove from Georgia to see our new house and to help cook the big meal. I was nervous to say the least, but they took on the role of cooking the turkey which made me happy because I'm not there yet in the cooking department. I was in charge of everything else besides the stuffing so it was still a stressful day but I definitely learned a lot on what NOT to do.

Like don't follow Paula Deen's pumpkin pie recipe, because oh I don't know, IT DOESN'T BAKE. I made 4 of them. FOUR!!!! and none of them turned out right. I finally went with another recipe and it was perfect. But still, I wanted to figure out why my PD pumpkin pie wasn't baking. Oh well, maybe next year.

Also, gravy is not easy to make. I felt like I was in a 3rd grade science project making glue. Note: you don't want your gravy to have the texture of glue.

Take pictures of your meal. You'll need it for the blog later. I wish all of you could see the beauty in my green bean casserole. I want some so bad right now.

Don't stress out. Thanksgiving food is like mexican food. It all goes together no matter what.

That's all the life changing advice I have for you today. Let's continue on to the rest of my holiday week, shall we? Nate came home from doing Air Force things, but won't be home for good for awhile. Hopefully he'll make it before my 25th birthday in the next couple weeks. We'll see. I told him on Wednesday that I really wanted to get a Christmas tree for our new home. I didn't care if it came from Goodwill or a garage sale, I just wanted the xmas spirit in here. A couple days later after doing some shopping, I came home to this...

How sweet is that?! He surprised me and I didn't even notice it until about 20 minutes after I arrived home. It's the perfect size and I can't wait to jazz it up with some ornaments. Although, we may have a naked tree this year, and buy ornaments that go on sale after Christmas and use those next year. I don't mind, I'm just thankful that we have a tree... in our first home.... with each other...

*awwww*

Gone Country

I have a love hate relationship with country music. Some days I'm into it, but most days I'm not. Growing up it was different. I wouldn't be caught dead listening to anything else (except anything boy band related) and I literally thought my mom was in a relationship with Tim McGraw. I kind of looked like him/she saw him in concert at least a dozen times. But that's not the point here, my point is that my love for country music has dramatically dropped over the past several years. Maybe because it's changed? I wouldn't put all the blame on Taylor Swift (I honestly do love her) we'll just say that she's definitely added some sparkle to the country scene, and it's not the same as it used to be.

Although my love for it has almost disappeared, it never fails that when one of the songs listed below comes on the radio my heart skips a beat, the windows go down despite the winter blizzard, and I am singing Whitney Houston style in my car. That's an understatement. I might as well be putting on a country show in my little mazda 3. This is my life folks, and these are the top 10 songs that I know every single word to (in no particular order)...

10.

Kerosene by Miranda Lambert

9.

Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks

8.

Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood

7.

I Like it I Love it by Tim McGraw

 6.

Strawberry Wine by Deana Carter

5.

Neon Moon by Brooks and Dunn

4.

Blue by Leann Rimes

3.

Bye Bye by Jo Dee Messina

2.

Check Yes or No by George Straight

1.

Fancy by Reba

This post was supposed to take 5 minutes to write, but I've been listening to every song at least 100 times. Take me back to the 90's y'all, this is my jam. Reba, Tim, the innocent LeAnn.... that's my crew. I may be bitter towards this new stage of country, but nothing NOTHING will change my country. What are your all-time favorite country songs?

Linking up with Yoga Pants for her Friday jam sesh. 

The H Word

There are many words in the english language that I can't stand, 'moist' being one of them. Amazeballs, totes (used seriously), and pimple also join the hated words list. It's just something about them that makes my skin crawl. Recently, with half of my Facebook getting married, the words: Hubby, Hubs, Hubster, and yes, Husband make me want to vomit on my keyboard. They too have made their way to that long list of words that should never be used. EVER.

I never thought it was possible to ruin a word with such meaning but it's happened and I swear it's getting worse by the second. Let's go back in time/look up in the dictionary and talk about what a Husband really is. Some definitions use "master of the house" and "a man joined to another person in marriage"

You may notice that either of those definitions relate your husband to a pet animal or little kid. Shocker. You can also scroll down and see the related words category...

Out of all those words, we decided to steer in another direction (we're bad drivers, it's true) and park in front of Hubby's house. HUBBY. H-U-B-B-Y. Just look at the word for a second. How did that happen?! Where did we go wrong?! Something isn't right. Now I do have a theory, and some of you may not agree with me, but I'm going to share it anyway.

Back when social media became... well, social media... we felt like we needed to update anyone and everyone about our lives. "Look at me! I graduated" "My first job!" "Just bought my first car!" --- you name it, we all shared it. As time went on, my feed almost felt like a competition. Sarah got into a relationship, so Anna needed to be in one too. Sarah got married and had babies, so Anna needed to get married and have babies. Now that Sarah and Anna have the best lives in the world and they love their husbands so much... they need to share that too...

"Hubby cooked me dinner tonight! He's so sweet to me!"
"My hubs just did all of the yard work, I am just beyond blessed to have him in my life"
"My husband and I love spending time together. He's my everything. I am so glad we got married 3 years, 4 days, and 10 hours ago."

You're husband this... you're husband that... W E G E T I T. You love your husband, YOU MARRIED HIM. Stop bragging about it and enjoy your marriage. It's YOUR marriage after all, it's not meant to be shared to the universe.

Between a husband and wife. Not husband and wife and Facebook. And finally, Be PROUD to call him your husband. Not hubs, hubby, or hubster. If you like those names, great, but does HE like those names? I really am interested in knowing what he thinks about them.

One more thing: please stop showing your hand with your wedding ring every time you paint your nails a different color. Your ring is beautiful, we know, keep it to yourself.

Rant over.

Emily/Nail Update

As most of you know my princess Emily has been battling some sort of sickness the past two weeks. I went into detail here about how it started and how she was acting. It was miserable. But, thankfully, I can now say that things have completely turned around and I have my ol' pal back! She's eating everything in sight and isn't napping half of the day anymore. We've determined (by "we" I mean the doctor and myself, because I'm an expert too) that it is in fact food allergies and she just needs a certain type of food the rest of her life. 

Expensive food might I add. So if any of you need your house cleaned or lawns mowed let me know, I'll send Emily right over so she can earn some allowance towards her food bill.

She can also make sure squirrels no longer visit your backyard, protect you from the dangerous UPS man, and wake you up at 6:30 am just to sit outside. True life y'all.

Now to the update you've all been waiting for. Last week, I also wrote about this gel manicure set I bought and how awesome it is. It says on the box that it'll last two weeks and a little over one week later, I can proudly show you....

....  it looks like i just painted them yesterday. I've washed dishes, given Emily baths, and showered here and there. This stuff is legit and so far I give the kit a 10. It was worth every penny and I'm excited to try new colors. What colors should I buy next? I'm thinking a dark maroon or black.

That's all I have for you today folks. I've got some shopping to do -- have I told you we're having Thanksgiving at our house next week? Have I also told you we don't have a dining room table yet? No biggie.... (pray for me).

I Married Into It

I'm in no way shape or form a fan of football. Or at least I wasn't two years ago. I went to a small school where we had football, but I didn't go there because of that. I went because of the broadcasting program. Yeah, call me a nerd whatever. Nate on the other hand went to Auburn, ya know the school that won the national championship in 2010. I heard all about it on our first date, I also learned part of the fight song then too, if that gives you any idea of what a crazy football fan he is. But I get it, it's a big deal if you went to a big school.

March 2012

Anyway, if you're familiar with the SEC (which I can't believe I'm writing this right now) then you'll know that Auburn was absolutely terrible last year. I know this because I almost witnessed Nate crying in the living room every Saturday. It would, without a doubt, ruin our weekend. I would give him pep talks like I was talking to the team. "It'll get better, wait until next year, we'll get a new coach, just be patient" -- I said everything. So you can imagine my excitement towards the season this year. I won't give you the record because I don't know it, but I do know we're doing really well.

This post is getting way too long about something I clearly know nothing about, so let's get with the point here -- I visited Nate in Alabama this weekend and we made our way to the Auburn vs Georgia game. Apparently it's a big rivalry.

Tiger Walk. It's where the team and coaches walk to the stadium while the band plays. It's pretty cool if you know all the teammates names like Nate does.

Stadium food is pretty cool too. BBQ nachos? Give me more.

We were on row one which meant I had every distraction in the world. Cheerleaders, the mascots, band, the media -- it was really great. One thing I don't like about watching a game in person is that I don't have announcers telling me what's going on and I can't see if they got a first down or not, I need that yellow line to help me. Hashtag girl problems.

I do however understand the scoreboard. WE WON! It was insane because of this catch....

We really shouldn't have won, but whatever, I'll take it!! Nate hugged me so hard I couldn't breath. He was also hugging people he didn't know so hard that I'm sure they couldn't breath. It was great to see him so happy.

It's tradition when we win everyone throws toilet paper on Toomer's Corner aka "Rolling Toomber's Corner" aka get toiler paper stuck to your boot for half the night.

It was, hands down, one of the best experiences of my newly wed life. I'm jumping on this college football train because I can and well, because I married into it. War Eagle y'all!!

Also, I met Santa on my flight back to Little Rock...

BFF4L.