Uncategorized

It was March 27, 1988. I woke up and climbed out of bed and heard talking in the kitchen. I wondered downstairs to see whose voices I was hearing. My Grandma Jerry and Grandpa Carl were sitting at the kitchen table. I asked them where my mom and dad were. They told me the next time I saw them, I would have a little baby brother or sister.

What Tracy probably didn’t know until I texted her this morning, was that the moment after I found out my mom was going to have a baby I had crossed my fingers and wished on stars that I would have a little sister.

I couldn’t have asked for a better sister. Tracy has grown up to be the most amazing, wonderful woman. She is an amazing mother to two outstanding boys, and an amazing step mother to two beautiful girls that she treats like her own.

She is the hardest worker I know. Day in and day out she goes to a job that drives her absolutely crazy, helping to provide for her family and make sure they have what they need.

Tracy ALWAYS puts everyone else before her own needs. Sometimes I find myself yelling at her for not doing something for herself every now and then.

Tracy and Mike have such a strong marriage. They have been through so much together, loosing Mike’s parents and their home in the tornado on April 27, 2011. They lived in a camper for 6 months while they rebuilt and put their lives back together. Every day I wondered how they did it. But they did.

Tracy and I might not always have “liked” each other, if you have siblings…you know what I am talking about. But we have ALWAYS loved each other and stood up for each other when needed.

Now Tracy is like my best friend and I am so thankful to be blessed with such an amazing sister!

Happy Birthday, Tracy! You deserve the best and so much more!

This is one of my favorite pictures of us!! Anyone remember perfume Barbie?

Tracy and I with our great aunt, Nannie.

The year Tracy cracked her head opened before Christmas and blamed it on me. Don’t worry, the story will be posted!

I am not a giant here, I am a few years older than everyone else in this pic. Tracy just looks absolutely beautiful in her heart romper!

The day we met Lucky, our Dalmatian.

Good ol’ snow pictures!

Shortly after this picture, Tracy crashed into a tree because she didn’t roll off when I told her too!

We were always classy.

I love you Tracy Lee!!!!

I hate Tuesdays. Can we all agree that Tuesdays are the worst days ever? It was so damn longgggggg……

BUT now it is Wednesday, confession time!

My car needs washed. My car needs washed so desperately bad. I am so sorry dear Rogue for letting  you ride around all dirty. You still have sand particles from the last time in snowed here and that just ain’t right!  Speaking of car washes, Kathy…is this how you wash your car?

I don’t give a shit about March Madness. There. I said it.

I freaking love the new JT song!! It reminds me a little bit of old school NSYNC and that makes inner high school Nadine very happy. The song has been stuck in my head for days.

I am fully aware that I would fail at any diet/lifestyle change that completely cuts out cheese. Don’t lie, you would too.

I hate when I stumble across an awesome new blog and they don’t have a Bloglovin’ follow button. Here is a little memo for you blog world: not everyone uses Blogger and you are limiting your daily readership if you only have GFC. If I REALLY like the blog I will try to find it on Bloglovin’ anyways…but nine times out of ten I am too lazy.

This:

And now a deep confession:

I have been getting angry with my work outs. I wake up and do them, but I haven’t really been seeing much difference. I mean, if I really think about it…my muscles in my legs have improved over the last two months. I can handle longer bouts of cardio than I could when I first started. Yet, I don’t see enough difference for how hard I am working. It is frustrating to make yourself get up as early as I do and work out five days a week to not see desired results. I am feeling discouraged. This tells me one thing, I am not eating clean enough, little enough, or well enough.Also, the increase of strength training with the Beta phase has me hungrier than usual, which has caused me to snack more than I should be. I have been experimenting with upping my protein to keep me full longer. Now that I am aware that I am not trying hard enough, I am taking steps to fix that. Doesn’t mean that it is easy.

Now go link up with my girls Kathy and Liz and confess something!

Now that winter has come and gone and I tackled a good bit of my winter goals, it is time to conquer some more! I am going to set up my goals in the same format I did last time, I like to focus on several different areas of my life. You will see that a few of my winter goals that did not get accomplished have been brought over for spring. They are going to get done, damnit!

Mind

1. Read at least two books.

2. Watch at least three new to me movies.

3. Study and research different nutrition and healthy lifestyles.

Body

1. Make an eye doctor appointment to get prescription sunglasses.

2. Complete T25 and start a new work out program. (I am currently on week 4 of Beta with T25)

3. Incorporate more work outs than just my morning  work out program Monday – Friday.

4. Complete both the 1800 minute challenge and the 90 days til summer challenge. (See bottom of post for information.)

Home

1. Turn the dog room into more than just the dog room/storage room. Make it functional and organized.

2. Clean the garage and get rid of EVERYTHING that we do not need.

3. Start collecting items for the gallery wall.

Food

1. Try a new food that I wasn’t willing to try before.

2. Eat at two new to me restaurants.

3. Try three new recipes.

Money

1. Continue with staying in more on the weekends than going out.

2. Cut any excess spending. (services that aren’t being used, etc.)

3. Come up with a savings plan goal.

In addition to all of these goals, I am going to participate in the 1800 Minute Challenge. I think this is a great way to incorporate more work outs than just the 25 minutes I do for T25…and whatever my next program will be. This challenge starts on April 1 and runs for 60 days. Basically you are to work out for 1800 minutes in 60 days. This is about 30 minutes per day.

Also, the 90 day summer bikini challenge is going on, which takes you through June 21. I didn’t link up my plan, but I do plan on following  along and working my hardest through the next 90 days. And the rest of my life…but I like to take it bits at a time with these mini challenges!

If you are following along with either of these, let me know so I can make sure I am following you! I like to see what others are doing, their motivation, etc.

I hope between these two challenges, cleaning up my eating some more, and staying on track….I will see some results in time for summer! It is quickly upon us folks. Time to buckle down.

I am pretty sure that yesterday was the quickest day in the history of days. I mean seriously…it felt like the day was just flying by and then I got the inevitable Sunday night blues.

Friday – Friday I went to lunch with my weekly “lunch club” and it was wonderful. Then I came back to work and soon after got a phone call from Chris. It went a little like this. “So um. I came home today and was in the basement and I could hear water running. Turns out the main water line into our house burst. I am going to head back to Lowe’s.”

Oh gee! Own a house they said. It will be fun they said! So my picture of water today for Kelli’s link up is actually lack of water. Can you get more creative then that? I think not.

Saturday – I got my hair did Saturday morning. Then I headed to pick up a few random things that we needed, and stopped by Marshal’s real quick because I wanted to see if they had any shampoos that I wanted. I happened to walk by these baskets on the way and I thought to myself…hmmmmm those would look AWESOME in my linen closet. I didn’t get them but now I kind of want to go back for them!

Saturday afternoon we met up with our friends from Huntsville. They were in town and it was Lanney’s birthday! We met up at World of Beer, then headed to Moe’s BBQ for dinner. Their turkey platter is DELISH!

After Moe’s we went to the Todd English pub for some drinks and to hang out on the patio at the Westin.

While we were there, the Alabama gymnastics team showed up. They had just won the SEC championship! ROLL TIDE! Chris got a picture with the coach!

Sunday – I did our meal planning and grocery shopping. I tried a new “power foods” salad for lunch. It had brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli, cranberries, pumpkin seeds and poppy seed dressing. It was amazing.

For dinner we tried Liz’s loaded chicken and cheese potatoes and it was good too!

And that was how the weekend just flew by!

See that tail wagging? Gracie knows what’s up on Fridays! This is her hurry up and come back home face!

1. When we were out and about last Sunday, we saw that the special edition Yoshi 3DS XL was released along with the new Yoshi’s Island game. I never cared to upgrade to the XL version from my regular 3DS…until Sunday. Chris was all “You should get this and sell yours.” I was all “I dont need the XL.” Well, apparently I did because it didn’t leave my mind and I ended up heading to Target on Tuesday to go purchase the damn thing. I mean they were giving $30 gift cards with it and I saved 5% with my card so I couldn’t afford to not get it right? Isn’t it super awesome! Now I need to sell my pink regular 3DS…

2. Give-away winnings! I won two give aways recently!!! I was so excited! Check out my awesome scores! A Red Letter Words picture and a Bottle Band. Seriously, go check out Red Letter Words if you have a second. They have faith inspired art and do a lot of good things. That bottle band is just what I need for my work out water bottles! They have some super fun colors and sayings. My favorite part about these give aways? I got to choose exactly what I wanted from each company!

3. Handful of Everything- Crack in a bag. Seriously people. This stuff is freaking awesome. It has to be better than chips, right?

4. Last Friday we had a date night at J Alexanders and I realized I never talked about my weekend because I took Monday off. The food is always amazing there! We tried a new appetizer that we have never had before, the smoked salmon dip. I also tried a new dish which I was super proud of. Usually I stick with the same things but I wanted to adventure out. I ordered the pork tenderloin with bang bang sauce and smashed potatoes. I never order pork. It was DELISH! Chris ordered the prime rib medium rare with a loaded baked potato. Enjoy some food porn:

5. It isn’t Friday without an ecard, is it?

Also this,

Joy is back with her Friday Five link up. Go check out her blog today for the sweetest baby pictures ever. Seriously. I can’t handle the smiling sleepy baby! AHHHHH!