To Shop or Not to Shop

I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but I am not good at online shopping at all. I would much rather go to the store and try on the clothes. When it comes to swimsuits, however, it seems all the good swimsuits can only be found online - which is very frustrating. I have a rather long torso, so finding swimsuits that fit is really hard for me. After looking around online, I decided to buy this swimsuit from Victoria's Secret.

I was a little worried that it wouldn't be long enough for my torso so I anxiously waiting for it to come in the mail. Well, it came in finally and I tried it on. The length was no problem. The problem is that the cups are about half the size they are in the picture. There could be a wardrobe malfunction at any moment in this swimsuit!! So if anyone knows any secrets to online shopping - especially swimsuit shopping - let me know!!

And to update my office Biggest Loser challenge, after gaining 0.4 lbs, the next week I lost exactly 0.4 lbs putting me back to my original weight. How weird is that? I had even worked out for thirty minutes every day that week. Who knows. I kinda of slacked this week and have only worked out once so I may be eliminated this week. We'll see.

The Biggest Loser

Three weeks ago, my office started an Office Biggest Loser Challenge. Each week there will be a different challenge and every Monday we have to weigh in to the office manager. Whoever loses the smallest percentage of body weight each week will be kicked out - just like on the show Biggest Loser. Wanting to show my good spirit and to bond with my coworkers, I decided to join in the fun. Tomorrow will be our third weigh in - and so far I have actually gained 0.4 of a pound rather than losing any weight. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

The first week, the challenge was to drink the recommended amount of water. Take your body weight and divide it in half - that is how many fluid ounces of water you should drink per day. I am proud to admit that I completed this challenge! It was so hard to drink that much water! I went to the bathroom a MILLION times a day! However, a lot of other people completed the challenge so we had to do a tie breaker at work, which I lost.

The second week, the challenge was to eat the recommended serving of fruit each day. Yeah I did not do so well at this challenge. You are supposed to have two cups of fruit a day. I probably had two cups of fruit the entire week. Luckily in week one no one was eliminated. They decided to be nice. In week two, they kicked out the people who had not been doing their weigh-ins. So I was still in!!

The third week, this past week, the challenge was to work out for 30 minutes a day for six days of the week. With David's help, I completed this challenge! We would run for 15 minutes on the treadmill in our apartment's clubhouse and then do 15 minutes on the bikes. Tomorrow is the weigh in so we will see how I do! I'm not actually caring if I lose weight so much as I would like to get in shape. I can't even run the entire fifteen minutes on the treadmill. The competition lasts for 12 weeks. My hope is that by the end, I can run for at least thirty minutes straight. I'll keep you all updated - because I'm sure you all are really interested in this. haha! Wish me luck!

Mattress Madness.

After two months of sleeping on an air mattress, David and I finally got a real mattress this past Saturday!! We actually bought it two weeks ago but had to wait for it to be delivered. We got it at Macy's on sale - originally $1400 and we got it for $400! I was so proud of myself; I love a good bargain.

Of course, like most things in life, David and I learn as we go. We are new to the real world and having to actually buy furniture, cook, clean, blah, blah, blah. We purchased a mattress and box spring. Well, guess what? We own a platform bed. Platform beds do not use box springs. When the delivery men brought our mattress, the mattress was actually taller than the head board! It looked so goofy! After many phone calls to my mother and a few google searches, we found out that we have a platform bed. I didn't even know what that was. Apparently, they are big in Europe/Ikea. So now we have a super comfy, wonderful mattress on our bed and a box spring sitting in our other bedroom. Eventually we will get another mattress to put on the box spring. After we buy the million other things we would like to purchase now that David is working. But yay for us! No more air mattress! No more be woken up every ten minutes in the night to the sound of the mattress squeaking and creaking! David and I are such adults now.

On a different note, David started working full time at Zwick Construction. He loves his job and I love that he loves it! We went to Happy Sumo last friday to celebrate his first paycheck - in over eight months! So for now life is good. We are just working away and relaxing at night. I have actually started cooking a lot. I planned a bunch of meals and did a big shopping trip last week and have cooked four delicious meals. Shout out to Carlee - I made your penne rosa and loved it! It was amazing.

So that is what is going on in our lives. Now that the holidays and craziness are over I will try to give more updates. And more pictures. Pictures always make a blog post better. Sorry this one is lacking. Hope everyone's 2010 is going well!

Coupon Mom Inspiration

This morning on the Today Show, I watched the most inspiring, fascinating segment. Apparently there is a lady out there named the Coupon Mom. She writes books and comes on to talk shows to tell about clipping coupons. The Today Show had her take a girl shopping. When the cashier rang up their bill, it totaled just under $100. Then the Coupon Mom stepped in with her coupons. The total came to $0.25! Yes twenty five cents!! Is that crazy or what! I had been wanting to start clipping coupons to save a few dollars here and there and then I saw this segment. I am determined to clip coupons this week. If anyone has any tips or suggestions or easy websites to use - let me know!!

What is my Problem???

I split my pants twice today. Not once but TWICE. This morning I had on pajama pants while I was cleaning the apartment (in preparation for Michalle and Matt coming on Wednesday.) I was stretched across my bed dusting the back part of the bed. I turn to get up and the entire crotch split open. Okay fine. I have had those pajama pants since 7th grade. (Shout out to Catherine Eiserman - I'm pretty sure we both owned them and we bought them for a pajama themed Club 91 Dance. And yes I still wear them on occasion.) I change into real clothes after the incident and get on with my day. Then David and I came home from seeing the lights at Temple Square around 11 pm. I put on a different pair of pajama pants and as I get off the couch from sitting with my legs stretched weird, they rip!! In the same spot as the others! TWICE! I split my pants twice. And these ones aren't 10 years old. (I think they are only 6 years old.) Seriously, though. What is my problem? Good thing David and I decided to start a Christmas Eve tradition of buying each other new pajamas each year. (We decided this before today's incident in case you are wondering. Just a nice coincidence.)

Look What You Did...

...You little jerk! haha I love Christmas and I LOVE Home Alone! In fact, me, David, and his little sister watched it last night. And as usual I was laughing the whole time and crying by the end. Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I love buying presents for people, putting up decorations, doing family traditions, and see all the pretty lights everywhere.

Last Saturday, David's friend Scott and Scott's wife Allison invited us to see the Hale Center's performance of "A Christmas Carol." I really lik

ed it! It was the first time David and I had been to the Hale Center. They do such a good job. The pr

ops and furniture for each scene would pop up out of the ground or come down from the ceiling. It was really cool. And they guy who played Scrooge was really good. I very much recommend going to see this - I even recommend it more than that 3D Jim Carrey Christmas Carol movie - that I did not like so much.

Before the play, we stopped by this house in Sandy that has the lights that flash in tune with the Christmas music on the radio. It was pretty cool - I think I've seen better on Youtube, though. This is a picture of the house next door to the radio house. It looked prettier so I took a picture of it. I do miss that people in Utah do not put up a

ny where near as many lights as people do in Texas. It guess it is harder when your yard and house get covered in snow to put lights up.

David and I decided to buy a fake Christmas tree this year. For only $20 I think it looks pretty good! Growing up, we always had just a fake tree. Plus when I lived at King Henry, we had a possessed tree that fell over about a million times (breaking all of my roommate Allison's ornaments in the process) so I decided that I am just a fake tree kind of person. We had some extra lights so we put them around the TV area. Hanging up is my stocking that I grew up with and then the stockings David and I bought last Christmas. I decided I am going to make David a stocking that matches the one I grew up with so we will have one more stocking hanging.

Here we are in front of our tree. The box said it was a 6 foot tree. In case you don't know David, he is not six feet tall. Guess the box lied.

And here we are taking a picture right before leaving for church.

On a side note, moments after this picture was taken, and moments before leaving the house for church, I decided to blow out the candles we had been burning. I then decided that it would be a good idea to grab a knife and stab at the wax, pushing it down the side of the candle (so that it would fall in the wax and melt). At the time this seemed like a good idea. Why does it always happen that way? Next thing I know, I am screaming as hot, red wax flies out of the candle and down the front of my skirt. What was I thinking? Luckily the wax did come out in the wash but I would have to recommend not stabbing hot wax with butter knifes.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!! I cannot wait!!

The Big Move

On November 20th, David and I FINALLY moved in to our new apartment. We ended up not moving in to the smoky apartment because management found other problems with the place. It was probably for the best. The apartment we did move in to, though, smelled like curry so we bought a ton of Glade Apple Cinnamon candles (one for every room/bathroom) and they are working great so far. I was a little worried about the move because it was going to be just me, David, and his dad to move everything. David's boss let him borrow his company truck around 4 to pick up our couch, love seat, and chair. I ran to the apartment to sign the lease and get the key before David arrived. Work was crazy that day so I had to run back to work after giving the key to David and his dad. When I got off at 5, I was worried that we would be moving stuff back and forth from the storage unit all night. Oh how I overestimated the amount of stuff David and I own. It took ONE trip. That's it. It all fit into David's dad's van and his brother's suburban that we borrowed.

I must say it feels so nice to finally be back in our own place after living with relatives for the past 7 months. We are so so grateful to my grandparents and David's aunt and uncle for letti

ng us live with them, but it just feels so much better to have our own place.

Warning: apartment is a work in progress. No judging. These pictures were taken the night we moved in, before we unpacked everything, and before we bought more furniture. And they are in a random order because I am still blog illiterate.

Here is a picture of the second bedroom. This will be the last room in the house to work on. Two weeks later and it still has just a chair and our old T.V.

Here is the front room. You can see the mess on the floor. Of course before unpacking anything else we made sure to get the T.V. set up.

Here is our bedroom. We will be sleeping on the air mattress for quite some time. A real mattress was last on our list of furniture - they are so expensive!

Here is the walk-in closet. Love it! Haven't had a walk-in closet in forever!

And last, the living room. My leg looks like I chopped it off at the knee and placed it on my lap.

So there you go! These are just the "before" pics. I will post the "after" pics after we decorate some more. I have to say, until we moved in, I had never actually been to Ikea. Neither had David. And now I am ashamed to admit that David and I had Ikea meatballs three times in the span of a week and a half. But hey - the coffee table above was only forty bucks! Gotta love it!