Catch Up

I enjoyed a wonderful and relaxing long weekend with Luke. I wish I could say that I haven't been blogging because I've been busy, but really I just haven't felt motivated. Also, my allergies came back with a vengeance this weekend...so I'm going to use that as my excuse too.

This post serves as a catch-up of all the things I feel behind on. A bullet point post feels appropriate.

• Last Sunday, the day after my sister's wedding, was spent at a graduation party for my cousin Chelsea, and then a little get-together at my sister's new in-laws so they could open their wedding presents. It was a fun day! But I was sooo excited to go home and RELAX!! It was the first time I had been able to sit down and not worry about the million things I had to do for a whole week. Being a matron of honor is not for the faint of heart. Ha!

Cute, Baby Hudson at the graduation party. Probably the smiliest baby I've ever seen! Although I somehow did not catch him in a smile in this picture.
This gift was wrapped in Transformer paper and everyone was really curious as to what was inside. It was about a year's supply of toilet paper from Andy's friends :-P

• On Monday morning I woke up to find a special surprise sitting in front of my computer. Luke booked us a night at a nice hotel on Lake Erie, and tickets for Saturday night and all day Sunday next weekend at Cedar Point! ...For our anniversary. I'm so excited!!
• I spent Monday afternoon and Tuesday afternoon last week at my parents' pool. I felt I had earned some pool time after the wedding week! On Monday I hung out there with my mom and a good book, and on Tuesday I was there with my cousins Sarah and Rachel, and their babies Hudson and Elin.
• I spent a good majority of time last week working outside and pulling weeds. Our house was looking like a jungle, and Luke and I hadn't had time to work on it. I enjoyed spending lots of time outside, working on my tan and burning some calories in the hot sun.
  
• Speaking of burning calories, I have been using a new calorie-counting app on my iPhone. It's called "My Net Diary." You can scan bar codes of the foods you eat or just search for them. You can also plug in the exercises you did during the day. It gives you a calorie limit each day. I don't want to jinx myself by sharing this, but I'm excited, so I'm going to. I have lost 7 lbs in the past few months! Mostly just by counting calories and eating in moderation, and also adding in some more exercise (I use the 30 Day Shred video, sometimes do Zumba, or just walk). My goal for the past few years has been to lose 20 lbs, and that would put me back where I was in college and my ideal weight. I'm so excited that I'm almost halfway there!
  
• I've been cooking a lot lately since it's summer and I'm home so much more. Last week I tried three new recipes: deep dish pizza (pictured below), strawberry-stuffed French toast, and Pioneer Woman's taco pizza. Something went horribly wrong with the sauce for the deep dish pizza (totally my fault...I'm sure it would have been delicious if I hadn't messed it up). But the French toast and the taco pizza were both very good! I've been using Pinterest a lot for new recipe inspiration.
• I took a trip to Home Goods last week with some of my in-laws. I was thrilled, as it is my favorite store. We spent a good amount of time in there, and also in Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Pier 1, two more of my favorites. We enjoyed lunch at Five Guys which is always a treat! Sidenote: while we were at Home Goods, I found these adorable, tiny, alphabet cookie cutters. Can someone please tell me what I could use these for?? I couldn't think of what I would use them for, but they seemed too cute to pass up. But pass them up I did, and vowed that as soon as I thought of a reason I couldn't live without them, I would come back and buy them ;-)
• I spent Friday night with some family friends. We started out walking the track at my old high school, then went out to dinner, and finished the night playing The Game of Things (I won!) Any night that ends with a board game is a success in my book.
• Meredith, one of my sister's bridesmaids who stayed at my house during the wedding weekend, showed me this game for the iPhone called "Smack That Gugl." Have you played it?! It is sooo addicting. Luke and I always get very competitive when it comes to games, and we kept sending a text with a picture of our high scores when we had beaten the other person. I think I'm in the lead right now ;-)
• On Saturday, we spent the evening at a fish fry with Luke's family. It was delicious! Later we sat around a fire and watched fireworks off in the distance. At one point, one of those cool Japanese floating lanterns landed in their yard. So Luke's uncle and cousin decided they wanted to send it off again. They covered a paper towel in oil, and lit it on fire inside the lantern. It probably wasn't the safest thing to do, but it worked! We sent the lantern on its way again :-) These are so pretty! I think it would be fun to get a bunch of people together and light them all at once next year for The 4th of July. A la Tangled :-)
• We spent our 4th of July in a very unpatriotic way. We just weren't up for fighting the crowds, finding a parking place and a place to sit to watch fireworks. We decided to go out on the town instead because we figured everyone else would be out watching fireworks and we would have the town to ourselves :-) We first went to Longhorn for some dinner, and then to see the New Transformers movie in 3D. I was not a fan of the first two Transformers movies, but I LOVED this one!! And the 3D was sooo good! It's a must-see. Anyway, it was a great night, and so relaxing since the roads, restaurant, and movie theater weren't crowded at all. After the movie, we hung out with some friends for a little while because my cousin Laura is here visiting from Hawaii! It was nice to visit with everyone!
• And while I'm updating on my life, I might as well go the full nine yards and update on my couponing and savings too. Since May 23 (when I started couponing again), I have saved $233.99 on groceries!! I think that's pretty significant! While I have saved a lot, I honestly didn't come too far below our set grocery budget last month, because I stocked up on EVERYTHING. You kind of have to start from scratch when you start couponing. However, this month? I'm planning on saving a boatload, and here's why: I went crazy with coupons last month, stocking up on all kinds of cleaning supplies and personal care products. So this month, I'm going to try to completely avoid those aisles in the grocery store. When I go shopping, I hope to only hit up the produce, bread, meat, dairy, and baking sections. I think this will save me a significant amount of money. My plan is to stockpile every other month, and then ease up on the couponing a bit and buy very few things on the off months. So far it's really working for us.
• One last point. I have been reading like crazy lately! I've just been in the mood. And right now, I'm trying to get through the Harry Potter series as fast as I can so I have them all read before I see the last two movies. Right now I'm in book four, and can't wait until my sister gets home from her honeymoon in Scotland so I can hopefully borrow books 5, 6, and 7 from her!

If you made it down here, you deserve a prize! But I'm glad I got all that stuff wiped out in one post, because now it is not stressing me out anymore.

However, the tons of unread, un-commented-on items in Google Reader? Now THOSE are stressing me out. Sorry I've been a bad, bad commenter lately. Blame it on the addicting powers of the Harry Potter books...