Add Peanut Butter to your Oatmeal!

 
TGIF for real!  I don't know if I've ever meant that more than I do today!  It's Friday and I have almost made it through this week!  I'm full of mixed emotions today...I'm feeling tired, anxious (probably because of the 2 cups of coffee I've already had and because I'm itching for the weekend to start), happy, and sad all at the same time!  Talk about complicated!  I'm only sad because I've been working so much that I haven't gotten to see Vinnie very much this week and he has to dog sit for his Uncle who is going on vacation so pretty much the only day I'm going to see him is Sunday for the wedding.  But we'll have so much fun at the wedding that it will be worth the wait!

Ok so the title of this post is "Add Peanut Butter to your Oatmeal".  Seriously guys.  If you like peanut butter and you like oatmeal, add them together and you won't be disappointed.  One of my co-workers introduced me to this.  It's actually good with any kind of oatmeal but I prefer it with maple and brown sugar.  Just add a spoon full of peanut butter before you put the instant oatmeal in and then add the hot water or milk.  I am a HUGE peanut butter fanatic so I was thrilled when I tried this.  Also, not all Targets sell these but I just bought some Banana fudge filled cereal bars (Market Pantry brand) and they are also to die for!  D-E-LICIOUS! 

So one of the reasons I am happy today is because I get out of work at 2 pm in order to start the long holiday weekend off early.  Since I get off work early today, I am going to have time to stop by the mall and buy a new dress for my friend Megan's wedding on Sunday.  I was going to just wear something I already own, but let's face it, this is too good of an excuse to go shopping and buy a new dress.  I love dress shopping!  One of my favorite stores to shop in is Anthropologie...I'm obsessed with everything there.  So I was browsing their site and here are a few of my favorite items:

 So none of the above items I would probably wear to a wedding (besides the jewelry) but let's face it, I probably can't go into that store and only buy one item.  That place is my shopping weakness.  I always end up spending too much money (sorry wallet, but today is pay day and you are going to be hurting).

Now these are dresses that I could wear to a wedding!  P.S. All of the images are from the sale section on Anthropologie's website, which you can also get an extra 25% off of through September 3.  I love Anthro but they are so darn expensive that I almost always only shop the sale items (because even those items are expensive).  Come on, girl's gotta budget!

Oh shit,  I just remembered there are going to be Labor Day sales...uh oh watch out people.  Tarah + sales = crazy person!

I just started thinking about how I'm going to wear my hair for the wedding.  I would like to do something different but I guess how I wear my hair also depends on the dress I buy.  So I found some hair ideas on Pinterest:

So I'm not good at doing my hair AT ALL but I can braid.  Any of these hairstyles would probably take me about 2 hours to do (and Vinnie getting super cranky waiting) but I might try one of these out.  I can braid pretty well so we'll see how it goes.  I'll probably just end up straightening it and being boring.  I think it's supposed to rain on Sunday though and my hair + humidity + rain = HUGE MESS so wearing it up might not be a bad idea.  

I hope everyone has a great LONG weekend!  

I know I'll be having a great weekend starting Sunday after sipping on one or two of these little guys!  Amaretto Stone Sours are the best wedding drink!  Happy Friday, happy long weekend, and happy Labor day!!!

xoxo
 

It's OK Thursday

Hi everyone!  It's Thursday and I am surviving this hectic work week!  I gave myself a little pep talk this morning before I got out of bed.  This is probably going to be the longest, hardest day this week so I will be extremely happy when I am laying in bed tonight dreaming about this week being over!

 Alright so this is my first time ever linking up so I hope I do it right.  Sidenote - please don't make fun of my blog guys!  I'm just starting this whole thing and I don't know what I'm doing.  I have seen tons of awesome blogs that put mine to shame, so if anyone has advise on how to improve mine, please advise away!

It's ok...

That I have a major stomach ache right now because I ate a Take 5 candy bar for breakfast

That I have been a little bit of a grumpy bitch this week because I'm overworked (and underpaid) and stressed to the max (I'm not a complainer but I've definitely been complaining this week)

To be overly excited for my vacation next week, even if it is just to Iowa

To be wearing a ponytail today because I didn't wake up in time to take a shower and also make my hair look cute, I chose taking a shower over looking cute (your welcome fellow employees) 

That I skipped laundry day this week and my dirty laundry is now piling over the laundry basket

That even though I live with my boyfriend and see him every night, I still miss him during busy weeks like this week because we don't get to spend much time together (besides when we're sleeping)

To be thrilled to death that it's a 3 day weekend and that I get to go to my friend's wedding on Sunday (party time)!!!

To wear the same grandma sweater over my outfit 2 days in a row because even though it's 80 degrees outside it is freezing in my office building!

That I'm not wearing earrings today (I hate the way my ears look without earrings) because my ear hurt :(

That I just got a gym membership but have only found time to go to the gym once (I've been busy!!!)

That I'm still obsessed with my iPhone even though I got it almost a month ago now

Alright, now that was fun!  I should start linking up more often!  

I got some exciting news yesterday (ok, exciting for me probably not for you)!  I'm going to my friend's wedding on Sunday.  I've been friends with her since I was in pre-school.  We went to grade school, jr. high, and high school together.  I haven't kept in touch with her as much as I should have but have still seen her here and there throughout college and even a little bit after we graduated.  I was honored and thrilled to be invited to her wedding because all of my other girlfriends from high school will be there and I also haven't kept in touch with them since I graduated and moved to Chicago.  We always have so much fun when we get together though!  The only bad thing was that Vinnie wasn't invited :(  Only a select few of her friends were allowed to bring guests.  This bummed me out because I really wanted him to meet everyone!  Well yesterday she texted me and said that someone just told her they couldn't make it to her wedding anymore so I can bring Vinnie!  I didn't realize just how badly I wanted him to come with me until she said that he could come.  Now I'm super excited for Sunday!  Yay for everything working out and how sweet is she to remember that I wanted to bring him!?!

I love weddings!

Anyways, like I said - exciting news for me but I get excited waaay too easily!

Have a great Thursday everyone!  Here's to surviving today and tomorrow and making it to the 3 day weekend!

xoxo 

 

Time to Organize!

Hello!  

Happy Hump Day!  Although today is Wednesday, which marks the middle of the work week, it is actually the start to my Hell week.  I work my other job (part time job my ass!) from tonight through Saturday night.  So quite frankly, I am praying to get through this week alive!  Thankfully, I have Sunday and Monday off and then start vacation on Thursday!

This countdown is currently on my desktop at work helping me get through my days here and reminding me that vacation is just around the corner!  I've been reading posts from lots of bloggers who are going on these awesome vacations and I must say, I am very jealous.  I am not taking a real vacation trip to any tropical island or beautiful resort.  Most of my vacation time will be spend in good ole' Davenport, Iowa visiting my lovely parents.  

Even the Iowa state line looks boring.

 Iowa is boring, but I could not be more excited to go visit them.  I am spending 4 whole days with them and I don't remember the last time I have spent more than 2 consecutive days with them (seriously, it's been at least 3 years).  I know they are planning some things for us to do but, honestly I wouldn't care one bit if we spent all 4 days sitting on their back porch having a few drinks made by my favorite bartender (mom).  It may not be a big exciting trip but I will enjoy it more than anything.

Ok, so last night was my only night off this whole week so me and Vinnie wanted to spend it doing something besides laying on the couch together all night.  We ended up making a quick dinner (a target frozen lasagna dinner for 2, hey I didn't feel like cooking!) when I got home from work then we went to the driving range.  I can say that I definitely get better every time I go to the driving range but I still get frustrated and for this, I'm sorry Vinnie!  He is always so patient with me because he knows I get super frustrated if I'm not perfect.  I'm way  to competitive (can't help it!).  But he still always helps me and doesn't refuse to go with me, which is one of the many reasons I love him soooo much! 

After we hit a bucket of balls we went to Baskin Robbins and got ice cream.  I debated getting 2 scoops but Vinnie, knowing me better than I know myself as usual, reminded me that I can never finish that much ice cream.  One scoop of peanut butter chocolate ice cream was perfect!  Then we hurried home because somebody (you can guess who) had to participate in an online fantasy football draft at 9:30 pm.  I of course fell asleep in Vinnie's lap while he intensely drafted his football team for an hour.  Although I do love football this fantasy shit is not exciting for me at all.  But Vinnie was satisfied with his team so when he's happy, I'm happy :)  Since I'm an old lady and fall asleep at 10 pm now-a-days, we went to lay in bed and watch an episode of Friends (our nightly routine) before we went to sleep for the night.

So, now that I've put you all to sleep with my boring Iowa vacation/boring Tuesday night details let's talk about something fun...like...organization!!!  Haha ok so I really must be an old lady because organization gets me excited!  Well I've been thinking about my vacation time that is coming up and even though the time off is going to be really nice and I plan on relaxing a lot, I've also decided that I don't want to lay around and be lazy the whole time.  I'm planning on cleaning and organizing my apartment during my time off.  I'm not super messy, but I'm not very organized either.  I pretty much know where everything is but sometimes it takes me some time to find it.  I'm going to mostly organize the guest bedroom in our apartment, the bathroom closet, my closet, and a few other odds and ends.

For the bathroom:

It's mostly the closet that I want to organize.  We have a lot of closet space but nothing is really organized in there.  I am planning on buying some baskets of some sort to put towels and other miscellaneous things like in the pictures above.  I have a little unit with 3 drawers in the closet too, but everything is thrown in there and it always takes me awhile to find what I'm looking for.  These ideas above are great!

Now my closet is not nearly big enough nor spacious enough for this kind of organization but I can at least try to add some of these things into it to help it look a little cleaner and less cluttered.  I'm planning on going through the entire closet and getting rid of things I don't wear anymore, organizing my shoes (they're all just thrown in the bottom of the closet), and adding baskets/boxes to the top shelf to organize it better.

 Again, our kitchen does not have this much storage space (we don't even have a pantry) but I need to organize the space that we do have a little better.  I love the wine rack at the top of this pantry.  Someday I will have that.  I think I'm going to buy baskets and little boxes to put apples or other fruit in like this picture has.

Now these pictures are just random ones.  I love the desk area in the top picture.  It looks like they turned a little closet into a cute, very organized office area.  That's a great idea!  Someday I will have space to do this!  Also the bottom picture is a gift wrapping station for Christmas.  Another great idea for that time of year.  Right now the wrapping paper I used last year is stuffed in the corner of my room getting all wrinkled and dirty.  This would keep all of the holiday materials in one little spot and off of the floor so it won't get dirty.  I just might do something like that this year!

Ok, sorry for the boring post but hey, this blog is about my life, and sometimes it's boring!  Anyways, wish me luck this week.  Hopefully Friday at this time I am still awake and functioning! 

xoxo

Thinspiration

Hi ya'll!  I hope everyone survived their Monday!  I know I almost didn't...I had a rough go at it yesterday.  I was very forgetful, clumsy, unlucky, and tired all day yesterday!  It didn't help that I worked the patio last night and it was INSANE!  It was a gorgeous night so I can't blame everyone for sitting outside but the rest of the restaurant was dead and I was getting murdered!  Come on people!  Didn't they know that I had worked all day at my other job and all I wanted to do was sit outside on a patio and drink?!?  Anyways the night ended up going by pretty fast since I was so busy and needless to say, by the time I got home I was a zombie.  I was asleep before my head even hit my pillow...and I must have slept pretty good because I'm feeling pretty lively today.  Hallelujah!

So now that I finally got a membership to a gym I've been looking for different workouts to do.  I used to always just go to the gym and wing it but I think I get more done and am more productive if I have some sort of a plan.  I've also found a few gym accessories that I am putting on my wishlist.  Of course, since I am trying to save money right now I probably won't be buying anything from my wishlist anytime soon (even if I would put them to good use!).

Thinspiration

So I found this workout at a website called Every College Girl.  It's a great website with lots of posts about things that every college girl should know (probably to avoid that freshman 15 that happens to oh so many college girls).  This workout is called the 100 Workout.  

 The 100 Workout:

• 100 jumping jacks
• 90 crunches
• 80 squats
• 70 leg lifts
• 60 jumping jacks
• 50 crunches
• 40 squats
• 30 leg lifts
• 20 jumping jacks
• 10 minutes of running

It's great because it's a short, but intense, workout that you can get done quick if you don't have a lot of time but that still works you out pretty hard.  This is also nice because you don't have to be at a gym to do this workout, you can do it anywhere.  Since I have such a hectic schedule this workout will be nice if I can't make it to the gym.  You can even modify it a little bit to make it longer and work you out harder if you have more time, or you can just repeat it a couple of times.  

I also found a 45 minute treadmill interval workout at Fit Sugar.  This is a great workout for the treadmill because it is going to work you out hard because you are running in intervals and it's going to keep your interest and keep you into the workout because your constantly watching the time and switching paces.  You aren't just running at the same pace and watching TV or looking around the gym.  

 On this website they say, "Intervals are the antidote to boring treadmill workouts. Playing around with speed and timing rest periods keeps both the mind and body busy. Interval training is also one of the best ways to beat belly bulge".  I agree!

Something I've actually wondered for a while is what to eat after you work out.  Right after I work out I always feel really good about myself, but I don't want to negate all of that good that I just did by eating a couple slices of chocolate cake with a side of cookie dough ice cream (ok, maybe I do want to do this but I try to avoid it).  I found a post at Every College Girl that tells the perfect post-workout snacks for any workout:

If you did cardio…

A cardio-intense workout like going on a run or doing interval training means that you need to replenish fluids and go for healthy carbohydrates.

One great snack is oatmeal and milk with a sliced banana. Another option is whole grain toast with cottage cheese and jam. Lastly, a glass of milk and a banana and greek yogurt is another great choice.

If you did strength and cardio…

If you added weight lifting to your cardio workout, you will want to strive for a 3:1 carbohydrate to protein ratio for your post-workout snack. In total, about 70 grams of carbs and 20 grams of protein.

Your best option for this workout is a protein shake with lots of fruit and yogurt, or try a sweet potato with greek yogurt. A salmon filet with a side of fruit is also a healthy alternative.

If you did strictly strength…

If your workout consisted of pure weightlifting, your post-workout snack should focus on protein to rebuild your muscles and jump start the toning process!

There are many options when it comes to a post-weightlifting snack. First, try a vegetarian omelette with a side of salsa or dark greens, or opt for this with egg whites. Another option is tofu with dark greens and asparagus or broccoli. Lastly, a chicken breast or tilapia with broccoli is another great alternative.

Ok, so now I know!

And now for the things that I am adding to my fitness wishlist:

Nike Free Run + 3

Water bottles with storage compartment!

 Those Nike shoes are supposed to be awesome running shoes and they're really cute too!  The water bottles have a storage compartment in the front so that you can store money, credit cards, even a key to your house or locker if you have no where else to put it.  This is nice if your gym doesn't have lockers or if you don't have a lock to put on your locker!

True that!

Ok now I want to go to the gym!!!!  I hope I keep this inspiration throughout the day because I'm hopefully going to hit the gym a little later tonight.  But it is my only night off so me and Vinnie are planning on going to the driving range (at least that's a good workout if I don't hit the gym), taking Marley for a walk, and getting ice cream (whatever, sometimes it's good to be bad!).  So if I can't fit the gym into this little schedule tonight I think I will be able to deal.  I'm just looking forward to spending a nice night with my love.

Have a lovely day everyone! xoxo!

 

I've got a serious case of the MONDAYS!!!!

Hiiiii.

It's Monday :( I woke up with the worst case of the Mondays ever!  So here is your warning: I might bitch and complain just a little bit in this post because I DO NOT want it to be Monday, I DO NOT want to be sitting at my desk until 5 pm, and I DO NOT want to go to work tonight.  I couldn't get out of bed this morning.  I was sooo tired I felt like my eyes wouldn't open.  It didn't help that they felt like they had sand in them.  Marley was groggy this morning too.  I also felt sick to my stomach getting ready for work.  All I wanted to do was crawl back in bed and cuddle with Vinnie.  I also forgot my breakfast and lunch at home :( Boo Monday!!!

So, now that I have that out of my system, here are a few funny pins that I found on Pinterest about the Monday blues.  These made my Monday blues a little better.

Thank you Pinterest for managing to make me smile on this dreadful Monday morning!

Well I had a pretty alright weekend, mostly because it started a little early.  I called in sick to my day job on Friday morning.  I think the flu finally caught up with me because I didn't feel very good when I woke up Friday morning.  So I tried to sleep in a little longer with Vinnie but ended up tossing and turning so I finally just got up and made pancakes for breakfast!  They were delicious but I ended up burning my wrist on the skillet so I walked away with a nice battle wound.

After breakfast Vinnie and I went to a gym that is just down the road from where we live.  We both cancelled our memberships at our old gym after we moved and haven't signed up for a new membership yet.  We now both finally have gym memberships so there is no excuse for me to be lazy and complain about being out of shape anymore!

Going to the gym!  Isn't he cuuute?!

 And after we got back from the gym we lounged around with Marley until Vinnie had to go to work at 3 and I had to get up and go to work at 6.

Kisses!

It's always sooo hard to leave this face!

So I worked late Friday but got to sleep in with Vinnie again Saturday.  Two days in a row?!  We never get to sleep in together two days in a row!  When we finally got up, Vinnie made me breakfast!  Delicious ham and cheese omelets!  

Making breakfast!

Saturday was a pretty unproductive day.  Vinnie left for work again and I had to work at 6 again.  I worked really late on Saturday and was very relieved that I got to sleep in on Sunday.  Vinnie got up early and went to work.  Sundays are my favorite day because it's my one and only day off!  Well of course since it was my one and only day off, it rained AAALLLL day!  It's beautiful outside every other day but on my day off it's miserable outside (this is me complaining yet again).  I went and worked out, got some cleaning done around the house, and got all caught up with my mom on the phone.  When Vinnie got home from work we decided to have a little date night which doesn't happen often enough!  We went out to eat at Fountainhead which is a little restaurant about 10 minutes away from where we live.  I've heard good things about it and it was pretty decent but I think the rain just put me in a bad mood because I wasn't hungry and I was ready to go home 15 minutes after we got there.  Stupid rain!  Oh well, we still had a nice night and when we got home we made ourselves a couple glasses of DiSaronno/orange juice and watched an episode of Breaking Bad (which is getting really good) before we went to bed.

Haha we tried to get Marley in the picture!

Silly!

Serious!

Smiley!

Welp, looking back at it, it looks like I had kind of a boring weekend!  It was nice though.  Now I just have to focus on getting through this week.  I'm going to a wedding Sunday, I have Monday off because it's Labor Day, then I only have to work for 2 days (Tues and Weds) before I FINALLY start my vacation on Thursday!!!  This week is going to be rough though.  I only have one night off (tomorrow night).  So I work both jobs today, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  Now if I could only find some motivation to make it through this week.  I have a feeling a lot of coffee will be consumed this week!

Hope you all had a great weekend and don't have a case of this Mondays as bad as I do!!!

xoxo T