jobless

so i’ve got bad news

Luke lost his job today. He was laid off this morning. His check was what paid our bills. Mine was for spending, gas, etc.

Please pray for us! and for Luke that he can find a good job!!

 

Chantix review **continuously being updated**

Wow its been a really long time since I have updated! I apologize. I have been extremely busy with the holidays, birthday parties, holiday parties, work parties, christmas shopping, working, overtime, and just general life. I can’t write much today but just that I am doing good and that I have some exciting news!

I saw my doctor yesterday to get a prescription for Chantix! For those of you who don’t know what that is, it is a medicine that helps you to stop smoking. From what I have heard from the many people I know who have used it, and from what I have read online, the medicine really works!

What it does in a nutshell: the medicine blocks receptors in your brain so that you don’t crave or get satisfaction from the nicotine when smoking a cig. Basically you will just be like ‘why am i even doing this’!

Today is my first day of taking the meds and I have heard there are some pretty crazy side effects associated with this medicine. Vivid wild dreams, nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and some more serious side effects such as suicidal thoughts, skin rashes, diabetes (ya i read this one online), heart issues.

So anyway I think I’m going to start doing a report of my daily findings from taking this medication. That way i can chart my progress to see how well I’m doing at quitting and that way if something bad were to happen, i’d be able to trace it easilier.

Day 1, Friday December 2, 2011

Took my first 1/2mg from my starter pack about 10am. I have felt absolutely no side effects as of  4:00pm.

Day 2&3 December 3-4, 2011

as of monday this evening have felt no side effects from the meds. possibly not strong enough? Also have had no desire/urge to quit smoking.

Day 4 December 5, 2011

today is my first day taking 1/2 mg in morning AND evening.

smoked an afternoon cig and as i was walking back inside my mouth started to water and i felt as if i was going to throw up. thankfully i never did but i felt a tad naseous for the next 30-45min. smoked a cig on the way home from work and although i didn’t feel nauseous, my stomache didn’t feel normal. The meds are definitely in my system by now and i believe this is the beginning stages of the meds working. this is the first day i felt any type of change from smoking.

took evening pill at 5pm

Day 5 December 6, 2011

took morning and evening dose as normal. have not felt any nausea today when smoking. just took evening dose 10min ago but did not feel any different yesterday after taking it. i think the 1mg/day is not enough to feel a lot of side effects. possibly when i up next week to 2mg/day i will notice more.

have been smoking normally, i don’t think i really need to as much tho. i believe the physical urge to want to smoke is ebbing.

Thanksgiving in October, November walks, and a fat man

Happy November everyone!!! Wow, I can’t believe October is already gone. Santa will be here before we no it! I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween.

I took my son trick or treating around my father’s neighborhood. (we live on a secondary road with no side walks…not so safe for a 4yr old). My son dressed up as a ninja. But not just any ninja….an ICE WOLF ninja! 

The pic above is with his daycare lady, Mrs Brenda. She lives in my dads neighborhood so we got to trick or treat at her house!

I won’t bore you with a gazillion pictures of him dressed up because I am sure you have seen enough people dressed up to last you another 365 days so I’m going to back track a bit to this past Saturday. Me and both big and little Luke drove 2 and a half hours down to the eastern shore of MD to visit my grandmother who had come down for a visit from Albany, NY. She only comes to visit once a year since she is 90yrs old and its a huge ordeal when she does come.

What was supposed to be a 2 1/2hr drive, took a lot longer due to the annoying people driving 20miles an hour bc it was snowing. We made it there before dinner thankfully (which was good considering I brought green beans and dinner rolls) and was able to actually enjoy the rest of our day considering the horrible traffic.

We had a thanksgiving type dinner complete with a turkey and ham, stuffing, mashed taters, pumpkin pie, and my momma’s homemade apple pie! I actually forgot to take pictures of all the food because I had only one thing on my mind….EAT!!!

After dinner and desert, my Aunt Maggie (whose house we were at), set the kids up at the tables for some arts-n-crafts. It was cute, they made a turkey out of a pumpkin

 and decorated fall picture frames for my grandma.

my son is on the bottom right

When we first arrived, all the little ones had to take a picture with grandma and the pictures were later printed out to put inside the frames they made. The actual frames were cute…they were made with my Aunt Ilene’s Cricket!

We then spent the rest of the night hanging out, talking, and taking pictures. The twins and I started to get pretty goofy with the pics (they really are twins, they look NOTHING alike, and are as different as night and day…literally) but I really am glad to have gotten pictures of all the first cousins… 

and then pics of all of our kids.

 Here are a few of the other pics…

Kelly and I

 

My cousin Stacey and I

 

 

Me and the twins

 

 

The boys got a bit crazy out of hand and started extreme wrestling.

Luckily no one was injured!! Sad to say, the ride home was even worse! Although it had stopped snowing, the traffic was worse due to a power line that had fallen on the main road. My mom was actually stuck in traffic from the power line backup and had someone rear end her!! She is okay but her brand new Honda Civic has a smushed up behind!

All in all, a wonderful weekend with a few minor mishaps. I do want to say, for the record, I have done EXTREMELY well so far with all of the Halloween candy around me. I can’t lie and say I haven’t had one, two, three pieces but in all seriousness…THAT IS GREAT!! Even with my love of Reese’s cups!

There is just something about the Reese’s Big Cup that I salivate over…with all that extra PB….ok I am going to stop!! Enough!!

For lunch today I had a salad at the food bar at our cafeteria here at work. Since I work for a health insurance company, everything in our cafeteria is healthy. Gotta love that! All turkey meat, egg whites, wheat noodles, etc

Dinner tonight is actually going to be at my mother’s house. I have dinner with her and my son every Tuesday. She eats organic so I know I won’t consume anything not healthy there! She is a wonderful cook so I can’t wait to see eat whatever it is!

We also take walks in her neighborhood after dinner and check out the scenery. My mom has a huge green thumb so she likes to wonder around and check out other’s gardens and set ups, etc. Even though it is a bit chilly outside, it sure is pretty looking at nature in the fall!

Question of the Day:

1. Has anyone hear of the Fit 2 Fat 2 Fit? If so, do you agree with what this guy is doing?

pumpkins and baseball

Ok, first things first. I am sorry I have been MIA this past week but I have had SO MUCH going on. Good stuff, I swear! I’m not going to tell you about everything, just the fun stuff!

On Sunday, big Luke and I took little Luke to the pumpkin farm to pick out our pumpkins. Let me tell you, it was slim pickings at the farm this year. I actually had read in the Carroll County Times, my local newspaper, that there was a shortage of pumpkins this year due to the crazy rain we had a few weeks ago. But we had fun finding a pumpkin, even if there wasn’t much to choose from!!

My Luke's on the hayride!

We took a hayride to the pumpkin patch and then back to the main area where they had a petting zoo, pony rides, pumpkin bounce, playground and some home made jams and butters, cidars, etc. You know I bought some pumpkin butter, apple butter, honey and some apple cidar!!

Luke sliding at pumpkin farm

 

He definitely had fun and we will be carving the pumpkins tonight! Last night big Luke had a baseball game. He plays with his father on a 30 over league and loves it. When he plays in our area, we go to watch his games. Yesterday they played right up the street from us so we were able to join in the fun!

This is Luke up to bat!

Yay! He made it to first!!

I told Luke that this is the picture they would put on his baseball card lol. You remember when photographers would come out and take pictures of you and then of your team??

 

Lukey and I had a lot of fun playing with the camera, taking goofy pictures of us and some videos. I am just going to spare you a few of the goofball moments.

Thats my little monkey!!!

Thats me on the left and my little goofball!!

 

So after a nice weekend was had, we started the work week yesterday. So far, so good! Had a nice meal last night of some spaghetti. Quick and easy and Luke makes the best home-made sauce! Yumm-0!!

 

For breakfast this morning I had some overnight oats with some pumpkin butter. Soo delish! I can’t really take pictures of my food at work without looking strange so I don’t always have pictures of my lunches, etc. I’m sure I can do it in the morning…if I remember!! Your lucky I remember to get myself AND my son up on time! This chick right here…is sooo not a morning person!

 

Lunch was nothing but leftover dinner from last night and a White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Clif Bar.

 

I’m going to my mom’s house tonight for dinner with my son so I have no idea what is in store for me tonight! My mom is a very good cook and she eats all organic which is great for me and my son, sometimes we just don’t have the same likes and tastebuds!

 

 

windy saturdays

I’m writing this from my phone so its gonna be short. Today is the day after my bff peggy’s wedding! I promise you all I will write a wedding post about the event soon!

It was such a wonderful time and I am so glad I was able to be a part of the beautiful wedding. Luke looked so handsome dressed up! It was a wonderful time and I can’t wait to see the professional pictures. My maid of honor duties are done! What am I gonna do now? Plenty!

I have the Susan G. Komen race coming up and a possible other one in DC as well. Exciting!!

Looks like big luke is back with my frozen fruit! What a wonderful man…I sent him to the store for me to get some frozen fruit so I can make a smoothie. This girl has to get some nutrients back in her body after all the alcohol from last night!

Smoothie time!

I’m so sorry…

Hey everyone, I just wanted to quickly apologize for not writing in here lately. I think with me being super busy and everything else, I became run down, sick, not feeling well, and just plain tired.  I’m still not feeling well and I almost want to go home a half day at work, but I’m going to stick it out. Not sure why, I mean I still have over 4 weeks of vacation time! I honestly think, sitting here right now and writing this to everyone that I might actually go home. I just need to curl up in my bed, under the covers and sleep the day away. (well at least until 8pm when VAMPIRE DIARIES comes on! Sick or not, I cannot miss this show!

So I again apologize for drolpping off the blog planet and never updating on the bachelorette party but as soon as i feel myself again, I will blog about that and a few other surprises!!

I’m not even going to talk about food and exersize bc it has been non existent in my life this week. Food is a bare minimum and exersize is nowhere in site. I have not had the energy to even try doing some kind of work out!

I’m really bummed because I was supposed to start two workout classes this week.

There is always next week!

Questions of the day:

Do you force yourself to work out when you are not feeling well?

What is your favorite day of the week to watch TV?

Winning, DUH!

Just found out that I am the winner of some Sweet Pillar & Co. chocolate covered dates from a giveaway off of Courtney’s blog. Very excited to be looking out for this in the mail! Thanks Courtney!

Don’t you just love getting stuff in the mail other than bills??? I know I do.

So today has been a day full of meetings at work so I have not had much time to do anything until now. I have been sitting ‘on the go’ all day so I managed for breakfast to have a White Chocolate Macadamia Clif bar for breakfast.

I did however bring something amazing for lunch, even if I couldn’t really enjoy it the way I wanted. Sitting in a room full of people watching presentations isn’t the way I had in mind to eat this:

White Chicken Chili! yumm I am in love with this stuff. Sooo simple to make. I just followed the directions off the back of this:

and that was that. Sorry I don’t have any pictures of the actual making of the chili. Please excuse me, I seem to sometimes forget to take pictures in the midst of cooking!

Went and took a walk outside last night with my son and our two dogs. It was nice. I walked our boxer, Cat (yes my boyfriend named his dog Cat BEFORE I met him) and my 4yr old son walked our little dog, Dawg (yes he named his dog Dawg BEFORE I met him).

I might try and head up to Dicks Sporting Goods tomorrow to find some new hand weights bc the ones I have are Lukes old ones from highschool and they are ANCIENT. Yes, a weight is a weight is a weight but I just want better. I’m always afraid they will fall apart lol. I don’t think I’m going to get on the treadmill or elliptical tonight but am going to try going for another walk after I get home. If I don’t have enough time to do that, I’ll probably just do an exercise from the On Demand Network because when I get off of work I’m GOING SHOPPING!!!!!!!!!!!

I love to hear those words. Oh those sweet sweet words. I am going to pick out a dress for the bachelorette party on Saturday and a bra to wear with my dress for the wedding.  Plus I’m sure I’ll find some other things; I always seem to do that.

Well gotta finish up some more work before peacing out of this place!