Day Zero Updates

Self Improvement:
0


Financial:
2) Have my goal amount saved in my bank account before J & I marry.
I did this.  Yay!


Domestic/Home Projects1) Get Married!
As of March 26th, I've completed this one also!  You can see pictures here.


4) Decorate the house.

There's a couple shots of our progress.  We've gotten through the common areas where guests see :)

5) Host a holiday at our house.

We hosted Mother's Day with mine and John's parents and grandparents!  It was a success and everyone seemed to have a good time!

14) Change my last name.

Check!  Mrs. W now!!

15) Find a creative way to display a 'W' in the house.

I'm not sure how creative you'd think it is, but I painted a 'W' black and arranged it between some photos.  It looks good.

Professional

0

Travel
1) Take a cruise.

Yes, you can also read about that here.

2) Go to another country.

On our honeymoon, we went to Mexico and Belize.  You can read about that here too.

11) Go tent camping.

We actually did this last weekend.  I'll try and post pictures soon.  John used his new camera, so I haven't gotten my hands on the pictures yet.

For The Fun Of It

14) See a friend get married.

My friend, Melissa, got married two weeks before we did in Jacksonville.  Her wedding was beautiful and she was absolutely gorgeous! 

15) Take a pole dancing class.

Bachelorette Party!  And it was awesome.  I totally recommend getting a group of girlfriends together and going!

17) Do some spring cleaning on all the clothes I have.

Before I moved all my stuff to John's house, I got ride of TONS of clothes.  I still have TONS of clothes, but it's much better!

18) Give my old clothes to someone in need.

Any of the clothes I got rid of that were in good condition, I donated.

33) Write thank you cards within a month of our wedding to all of our guests.

Failed.  I suck.  I'm still working on them.

41) Join a team involving some type of athletic activity.

I'm playing softball this season.  Our team name=Scared of Balls.  Hahaha.

Last Post Today... Promise?

One last post should do it for today...unless my mind needs to release more stuff.  I'm telling you, this running in the morning thing has got me going :-)

I'm joining up with Crazy*Running*Legs for the June book club and you should too!  We are going to read: 

Here's what Amazon review has to say about the book:
In the Garden of Beasts is a vivid portrait of Berlin during the first years of Hitler’s reign, brought to life through the stories of two people: William E. Dodd, who in 1933 became America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s regime, and his scandalously carefree daughter, Martha. Ambassador Dodd, an unassuming and scholarly man, is an odd fit among the extravagance of the Nazi elite. His frugality annoys his fellow Americans in the State Department and Dodd’s growing misgivings about Hitler’s ambitions fall on deaf ears among his peers, who are content to “give Hitler everything he wants.” Martha, on the other hand, is mesmerized by the glamorous parties and the high-minded conversation of Berlin’s salon society—and flings herself headlong into numerous affairs with the city’s elite, most notably the head of the Gestapo and a Soviet spy. Both become players in the exhilarating (and terrifying) story of Hitler’s obsession for absolute power, which culminates in the events of one murderous night, later known as “the Night of Long Knives.” The rise of Nazi Germany is a well-chronicled time in history, which makes In the Garden of Beasts all the more remarkable. Erik Larson has crafted a gripping, deeply-intimate narrative with a climax that reads like the best political thriller, where we are stunned with each turn of the page, even though we already know the outcome. --Shane Hansanuwat


I can't wait to read this book.  I ordered it on Amazon today and am supposed to have it tomorrow :)  Yay Amazon Prime!

Are you going to join up on the book club??  You totally should!

Project 365: Day 32-38

Lily, look cute as ever...chewing her bone

Girls Night!

R2-D2 goes to Tampa.  Bahhaha

Yummy + Healthy=Chicken Pot Pie

You can find the recipe here.  I think I added up everything I put in there and the whole dish was less than 1200 calories.  Just sayin'...

This loaded out of order, but check out the huge marshmellows.  I thought they were awesome!!!

Lily...mid burp.  She burps all the time and it's hilarious...mainly because she's so small and girly.

Hello...65 in Florida.  Yay!

So sad :(  Growing up in Florida, the space program was a big deal here.  I'm not sure how it actually affected other parts of the nation directly, but I have friends parent's losing jobs and I really think it's a shame to just let it go altogether.  I mean, what are we going to do?  Borrow Russia's era 1960 rocket if we need to fix a satellite?  Not exactly...

We wouldn't have most of the technology we have right now if it wasn't for NASA programs.  How will we improve what we have??

And it begins...

Last night: 2.3 miles in 20:16.  8:49 pace.  Ran to the gym...John promised to drive me home.  Oh and by the way, last night was beautiful out.  We only hit around 80*F yesterday.  Amazing for Florida in May!
Biceps and abs at the gym.

This morning 4 miles in 37:02.  9:16 pace.
Mile 1: 9:58
Mile 2: 9:49
Mile 3: 9:04
Mile 4: 8:41.
I know the first and last are correct.  The middle two are within seconds.  Don't have the Garmin with me, but I glanced at it before heading to work.

This morning John and I actually got up and ran.  This morning.  Big deal.  We really haven't gone out just to run in the morning before work since training for the last marathon.  Hopefully we can keep this up.  I love the feeling I get when I run in the morning.  Sure, I'm tired by the end of the day because I was up earlier, but it gets me to bed earlier (yay!) and I feel so good and energized during my work day.  Awesome!

The One Where I've Made Some Changes...

As you probably noticed, I changed the name of my blog and a bit of the layout.  I hope to make a new one soon, but for now, this will do.  I'm going to start documenting more of my runs to keep myself accountable.  I mean, I can't look like a slacker to all of you and John too :-)  And Lou Lou comes from John...Lou is my middle name that I hated as a child but have embraced since it's been passed down for generations.  The End.

June 4th, is the technical start to MarathonFest here in Orlando with a local running club called Track Shack.  They do an awesome job, especially for the community.  I was an active participant in MarathonFest my last marathon, but driving 30 minutes one way in the morning to run, made me a mean person after a while because my sleep was stolen, so I'll train in spirit during the week this go-around.  I'm going to follow some of their training program, some of another one I found through Runner's World, and, I got the book Run Less, Run Faster, so hopefully between those 3 things, I'll find a good groove that'll help me kick Savannah's trash!

Hopefully you are all having a Happy Monday!  I'll update your on our weekend hopefully tomorrow if I can grab some pictures off the camera to share with you!

The One Where I'm Annoyed...

I'm in a quite annoyed mood this week, so maybe airing my grievances will make me feel less full of annoyance...maybe.   Feel free to skip this post...I'm just venting...

-I know I harp on this a lot, but school bus drivers in my area of town don't have any regard for the other people on the road.  They stop in front of high schools and let the other buses out, for 5 minutes!  I would be ok if they'd just let out one at a time, but blocking traffic for the bus that's a 1/4 mile away...really?!
The worst offense is allowing the kids that ride your bus to get on the bus AFTER the lights have gone off.  I see it all the time in our neighborhood, but the bus driver will turn the lights off and start to move and instantly put them on again because a kid is jumping out of their parents car.  And then another.  And another.  When I was younger and rode the bus, if you weren't there, you weren't getting a ride from the bus to school.  She did not care that she could see you walking to the bus stop, if you were not at the stop, you missed the bus.  We learned responsibility that way.  You didn't miss the bus twice.  I learned that lesson when I was 11.  These kids that are doing this are in high school.  They are rude.  And this gripe makes me sound old.  Whatever.

-I'm annoyed with our wedding photographers.  After a month and a half of promises many times for pictures to come on specific dates, we finally get them over a month after the first promised date.  We have some nice pictures, but a lot of them are not well done.  We honestly have better pictures from friends than our photographers for the most part.  They did not adjust the spacing with the bridal party, they cut people's head's off for 'art's sake', and they freaking read a "Photography For Dummies" book during the photo process are our wedding.

Like whoa.  You can't charge that much and read that book while you're doing our pictures.  They were unorganized, didn't take charge, didn't adjust anything to look better in pictures...they just let it all go.  Oh, and for our beach wedding, they had sunshades, but decided not to bring them out until we were basically done taking pictures, so there's a lot of squinting in there because we had to face the sun. all. the. time.  I don't have one good full on bridal portrait because I'm squinting too much.  Then, when I asked about all the heads being chopped off and if they kept other pictures with people's full faces in them, she looked at me like I was stupid, and said 'No, that's the style of the photograph'.  Who wants their dad and husband's head cut 1/2 off when he's handing you off during your wedding ceremony?  I understand that some can be artsy, but that wasn't the representation we got from the other pictures, nor the moment in a wedding to be artsy. You're artsy with the bridal party pictures, the couple pictures, shoes and rings.  Not the ceremony shots. And when I look, they have better pictures from most of their other weddings.  One of the photographers was even crying at the wedding in a corner after disappearing 15,000 times.  (I understand personal issues and all, but that was really just the icing on the cake)  The worst part is we had dinner and were clear about what we wanted...at least I thought we were after the two hour conversation we had.

-I'm annoyed by people that think their time is more valuable than mine...or that just have expectations from you because they want to do something, so automatically you have to want to do it.  No.  Not true.

-I'm annoyed by people who ask for money...and then are pushy about it.  I'm a Christian and grew up in church but religious groups are the worst.  I can definitely see why people get turned off to church and God when people are trying to shove their ideas down your throat while trying to get your money to fund their organization.  Why not just share with people what you are doing and give them a link if they decide they want to donate.  Do you really want to strong arm people into giving to God?  Because...I'm pretty sure that's not what He wants.

-I'm in a funk with work right now and have to force myself to stay motivated...which is hard sometimes.  I'm working on something that is usually my favorite project of the year right now and I can't seem to get into it.  I think I just have a lot of pressure and the fun stuff seems trivial (although it is necessary to our company's marketing) when we're trying to get more work because construction is still slow and sucks.

-I'm annoyed by mean girls...

You know...the ones in real life.

I could go on, but I think I'll stop here...

If you actually made it through my bitchy little post...thanks for reading.  Some days, the annoyance just gets the best of me.

Pour Some Summer On Me!

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