Scales and Zeroes

A few days ago, I bought a dress from American Eagle that fit perfectly. I dare say it’s my new favorite dress. This isn’t just because the price was right, but the size was too, a “0”. I wanted to run out of the dressing room screaming when the four and then the two were too big. Fantastic! I was beaming as Adam put the dress on the counter and said, “We’ll definitely take this.” There’s nothing more pleasing than true personal success.

My weight has been an issue for a long time as most of you know. I’m incredibly insecure because at one point I was a little on the “heavy” side. Looking back I hate myself for being so hard on myself about my love handles. I especially loath myself for allowing so many people to convince me that I was so disgusting when I never wore over a size 8 or a 10 on a bad day.

This recent pleasure of weighing in at 115 (a weight I haven’t seen on the scale since I was 15) made me want to scream from the roof tops. It’s sad that I hesitated. By losing all of this weight I felt that I was proving everyone right who ever questioned my beauty because of my weight. So I want to tell you that it was easy for me to lose the weight when I started to love myself and found a man who loved me no matter what my body looked like because I felt like we deserved it.

My wedding dress is a size “4”. I’m sure at this point they will need to alter the waist. I asked Adam if I could write a facebook status that said, “Dear x-boyfriend who broke up with me because of my ‘weight’, My wedding dress is a size 4 and I’m marrying a man far more deserving of a girl that size.” We decided that probably wasn’t appropriate, but I couldn’t resist to share it with you!

Thanks for reading and celebrating my success with me!

“Shores” and Keeping Up

This past spring a very dear friend of mine from high school reconnected with me. Ever since that glorious day I have spent endless amount of time on the phone with her sharing stories, frustrations, and everyday nonsense. It’s funny the stupid things that we can devour hours of time talking about, but it’s even better the friendship that we have built over senseless conversation. Sometimes having a relationship that is full of chatter and nonsense can be your most vital relationship.

Because of Shore’s social outreach and dedication to my life I have become encouraged to stay in touch and build other friendships with people I have put on the back burner for a long time now. I’m sure some of you have noticed that I’m suddenly flooding your facebook inboxes and calling you at least once a week. Blame it all on Shore. She’s the one that made me realize (even in high school) that being a friend sometimes means being the person who is (usually, not always) taking the first step.

I have built more friendships in the past eight months than I have had in four years because of the effort Shore has put into my life. I’m sure that it helps that with the use of her psychology expertise I am now sane again and no one is afraid to communicate back with me (just kidding).

My point is, appreciate the “Shores” in your life, that friend who is constantly there for you even when you forget to call on her birthday (my b). And not just that, but you too can become a friend like Shore. It has made a world of difference in my life knowing that I have friends out there because I push myself to stay in touch despite my hectic schedule.

This morning I woke up and was wondering when I was going to talk to my friends today. We’re a thousand miles away and Shore still fills me in on her dish washing experiences, while Alexis shares juicy gossip, and my sister-in-law in Ohio- well those conversations know no bounds!

Thanks friends, for being so awesome and thanks Shore for being a great example of a good friend.

Love you all.

Fostering Washers and Online Recipes

Adam recently moved into our future married townhome. I was so excited for the opportunity to begin moving in and setting up. I’ve always been afraid that we will get home from our relaxing honeymoon to discover we needed to open gifts, move in, decorate, etc. That’s a lot of work for two working students. We avoided that drama by having Adam move into the large and luxurious townhome early and without me. While being able to set up his possessions and the things I don’t need at my fully furnished apartment has been a blessing, it’s been a stress sharing a house I can’t live in yet.

There’s nothing like having to hang all of your hanging clothes at one house because your own house doesn’t have a closet. There’s also nothing like cleaning “our” house all day, decorating, and cooking dinner but needing to leave to go sleep somewhere else. I cannot wait until we are married! All these little things were beginning to become more than stress to complete frustration.

One stress was cured by my future fantastic mother-in-law who owns an awesome washer and dryer set. She’s not using the washer and dryer in her new apartment so we so generously offered to foster her machinery until she needs it again. I had been driving over to “our house” to pick up Adam’s laundry (somehow determining what was clean and what wasn’t) and then driving back to my house to clean, fold, hang, and driving back to “our house” to put it away. I hope I didn’t lose you there sometimes I lost myself in that situation. Anyway we are free of a drive back and forth now. Adam has two fancy machines to do his own laundry in now. But now I can’t wait to use the machines…

Two posts in one: Online Recipes

I was about to throw away a dozen sugar cookies yesterday that we had left over from a friend’s birthday weeks ago. They were stale and no longer enjoyable. Adam lectured me the other day on how much food we’ve been wasting. (I’m learning how to cook for just two) So in efforts to avoid wasting cookies (that we didn’t even pay for) I searched the internet for “stale cookie recipes”. I’m so smart. I found a recipe called “Yummies”.

1 ¼ cup of stale cookie crumbs
12 oz. chocolate chips, marshmallows, nuts, etc.
1 can condensed sweetened milk
1 tsp Vanilla

It sounded so easy! So I mixed it all together, poured it in a pan, and put it in the over for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. If you would ever like to feel like an idiot, please try this recipe. It came out mushy and gross. I imagine it would be good over ice cream though! Lesson learned: only take cooking recipes from legitimate cooking websites.