One year ago today, I got quite the shock and B asked me to marry him! I remember we had literally had a conversation the week before about getting engaged. I am such a planning freak and I wanted to make sure we were both on the same page. After that conversation, I was under the impression that we were going to wait another year, and just enjoy dating for longer. I was so happy and relieved after that conversation and felt such a peace about everything that I was stressing out over.

We talked often of getting married, but wanted to wait a while, or I guess he convinced me that waiting a while would be a good idea. It’s weird, once we started dating, I had that oh so cliche feeling of knowing he’s the one that I would one day get married to. Everything with him is easy. Even when I get so angry, he still does weird stuff to make me laugh, which makes me even more mad that I can’t be mad at him! But in the end, he is such an encouragement to me, he loves me even though I do so many weird things and he makes me the happiest girl in the world.

A year ago, after I got done tutoring, he tried to drag me to El Torito and I didn’t want to go. We stopped at his house to drop something off for his passport, which I didn’t know WHY HE HAD TO DO IT BEFORE DINNER because I was starving. He took FOREVER getting out of the car and I almost flipped out as he was wasting so much time, for no apparent reason. Little did I know that since November of 2010, he was working on getting my ring custom made. Little did I know that on February 2nd he had lunch with my brother to ask him if he could marry me, and I had NO IDEA that he got the completed ring on February 2, 2011, at 3:00 pm, and then, after taking what seemed like years to get out of the car at his house, he walked up behind me, got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. The night was a whirlwind after that but I have never felt so much joy and love in my heart, ever. I think Shea was just as shocked as I was, I called her like 200 times that night and FINALLY she called me back after I left the weirdest message on her phone. It was so much fun to share all the excitement with all our family and friends.

Nothing makes me smile more than thinking about us. He makes me happy. What a difference a year has made… We are married, have a house and a little doggie. It’s a weird way to explain it, but things are just nice. They just flow.

No one EVER has surprised me like that in my life. Hip Hip Hooray for Engagement day!

xoxo

So month one of 2012 is in the past, and now it’s onto February. The month where I struggle with spelling it’s name wrong the ENTIRE month. Thank goodness for spell check. This is also a month where we celebrate love. I like to celebrate love all the time but I like to get into the hearts and happiness and share my love with some of my favorite people. One being my best friend, Shea.

We are celebrating the month of love by getting out hearts pumping and the blood flowing. That creative little one over at No So Cli-Shea made this little banner to celebrate our month of heart pumping fitness and I’m jumping on the bandwagon, stealing her banner and posting about what we do all month to make a difference in our bodies.

You see, we talk a lot about our bodies, and we both know we can do a lot better working out. It’s easy to complain, but what’s hard is making a choice to make a difference. What is more fun than working out together? Obviously pretty much nothing so we got up super early this morning and headed to the park to do a 45 minute workout that included day one of Fab Abs as well…

So we are both committed to working out together on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, and doing the Fab Ab workout those days as well as the days that we are not working out together. I’ll still be running on Tuesday and Thursday and doing my long run on the weekends. Also, with weather SO  lovely lately, I might just head out for evening runs as well.

I also have excellent news to share about tracking my food that since I started keeping track of all the food I’ve been eating, I’ve lost 6 pounds. The app (My Net Diary) I’m using really helps me make wise decisions about my food and doesn’t just count calories, which to me, I could have eaten my calories in a burger and fries that day, but obviously that is not a good choice. It reminds me to eat fiber in the morning, and tells me when I had to much sodium and all that stuff, that is easy to overlook, at least for me.

Shea and I even took HORRIFYING before pictures this morning, so we can work to keep each other accountable. We were talking this morning about how summer always comes around and we then try to make a change, but it’s already too late, and with February upon us, we can start now, to see a difference.

What are you going to do to make your Fat to Fit February? As we all know, changes don’t come over night, but making a concious effort in food choices and exercise will make all the difference come June!

Here’s our workout from this morning (12 reps/3 times)

Crunches (12 forward, 12 on each side)

Mountain climbers

Plank (20 seconds)

Push ups

Pelvic Thrusts

Jump rope (30 jumps, 40 jumps, ending on 50 jumps) while I jumped rope, Shea did Jumping Jacks. We did 25 Jumping Jacks each time and then switched

And the most dreaded leg throw downs – 10 normal and then 5 on each side. Those BURN and I hate them, but we got them done

Leg Scissors (which we did 30 scissors)

I’m really starting to actually see a difference when I track my food, and guess what, DUH, I feel better about myself and my body. Shocking, I know. I’m not starving myself, I’m not working out 20 hours a week. I’m not depriving myself. I’m making wise decisions, working out different parts of my body than normally and splurging when I know I deserve it. (not every day like I used to with the tootsie rolls! GAH!)

It takes a commitment, but we are both committed and will be checking in on our progress throughout the month. I’m excited to have a workout buddy to do these exercises with, and being sore together means we are sharing the pain!

xoxo

I get a few emails about how I curl my hair. I made a video about how I do it every morning when I curl or ‘bend’ my hair when I actually take the time to do it. It highlights that I do many weird things and make many weird noises. I find that it comes out the best when I do it like I show in the video because the way I used to curl it when it was long makes me look like Shirley Temple!

When I first blow dry my hair… it looks like this

I also talk about a product and I’ve been told I call it by the wrong name, who knew… but here is a link to the product, Aquage and I also reference another blog that I love going to for hair stuff and she made a video on how to put the Aquage in your hair, which is super helpful. You can find her super cute blog here, and here’s the video on how to apply Aquage. I usually put nothing in my hair, so when I use this I really see a difference and it works great to keep it so well!

Overall, it’s pretty easy, but I do have a ton of hair, so that makes it much larger than normal hair. I do find that the bend always works better on the left side too, the right side plagues me with weird stuff going on. Alas, hopefully you enjoyed the video. Sorry it’s SO long. :/

xoxo

This weekend I worked the Tinkerbell Half Marathon Expo, which was quite fun. I saw and met many people. Good stuff. Working expos isn’t that bad but it’s just long hours. But meeting people and talking to people is always fun.

So that was Friday and Saturday, all day long.

Thanks to Angry Julie for this awesome picture

Sunday, I wanted to try to redeem my running spirit and went out for a run. I knew I wanted to get at least 6 miles in but didn’t know how my body would hold up after being on my feet at the Expo. I finished with 10 and a smile on my face, which hasn’t happened in quite some time. Thankfully my body did great and I am not to sore except for my hip today, which has been happening on longer runs lately. I did run faster than normal and did actually enjoy the run for the first time in a while. I felt strong and happy. It was a lovely day, the sun was shining and I ran in a tank top!

I had a conversation with Tara last night about training and the upcoming Arkie Marathon. We both have seemingly been struggling with running it seems and though we both are committed to running the Full Marathon in Arkie, we both are not having a grand training sesh this time around. We both have been not having a problem running around 10 miles to 13 miles, and then the other miles just seem to intimidate us and we are both not even attempting to increase our mileage right now. So therefore we had a brilliant idea of running the first 13.1 miles, and then trading off from running and walking. I think it’s the “Galloway” method. So from miles 13 – the end of the race, we are going to walk a minute and run five minutes. We are both excited to run the race, spend time together and just hang out. What better way to spend time together, than suffering through a marathon together?

We discussed how we were both okay with this idea, and both are still committed to the full. Therefore that switches up my training a bit with keeping pretty consistent to running a long run (10-13 miles) on the weekend, and shorter runs during the week. We also talked about how we will have fun running the last half, and enjoy all Arkansas has to offer along the route! I mean, how many times will I ever be in Arkansas?

Also, this weekend, B’s brother left for New York! He was offered a job there and he moved away. It all happened so fast and it was so exciting and we had a little going away dinner with him this weekend.

So tonight it’s back to the gym for me. I have dilligently been tracking my food via the app that I found and am seeing some results. I know it takes time and the fact that small results are showing up is helpful in the motivation category. I also just feel better, so that’s good!

xoxo

So this is not related to running, but something that B recently created and I love it! And since today is a rest day, I thought I would share it with everyone. I showed him the idea of a Pallet Board Flag and then he was pretty excited about it and wanted to make one for the house. The inspiration ideas are here here and here

He started off collecting some Pallets and then took them apart and nailed some of the wood pieces from the front of the pallet and placed them on the ‘frame’ he constructed. He nailed them all down to the frame and even made one that was a little broken to make it look a little more ‘ragged’, like an actual flag. The boards he selected were all selected very specifically. He took apart three pallets to collect these few pieces.

Then he caculated what he needed to do to make the stripes and stars and how many he could fit on there. He penciled them all on the wood and then started painting. The hardest part, according to him, was painting the edges of all the stars. He is very good at calculating all these things, and made sure that everything he drew on there was straight and looked good. I don’t have patience like he does.

He finished painting it yesterday and I love the way it came out! He did such a good job with it.

We are going to hang it in our bedroom above our dresser, once we get our bedroom furniture set, which is hopefully in the near future. He has to add a few things to the back of the flag to hang it from, because it’s pretty heavy to have on the wall. I know if I really wanted to create this, I could have done it, so I know it’s a good project if anyone wants to try it. I will have to share a picture of our room, once it’s completed in a few months and the flag is hung! I love it, and it matches our mirror and pretty much entire home decor so well.

xoxo