I didn’t get around to planning out our meals this week. Which also means I didn’t get around to going grocery shopping yesterday. I get lazy when it is cold.

I decided we should order pizza last night. Bad decision. We feel so gross today now.

I woke up to having no milk or bread for my usual toast and tea breakfast. Oops.

I would go grocery shopping this weekend, but I am doing my wedding makeup and hair trial after work. Not my best moment of planning. I will have to go tomorrow after work, but that doesn’t help us with lunches the next two days!

I must be better especially as the wedding approaches in

Actually no meal plan this week. I did go grocery shopping today though! We have a lot of frozen chicken, shrimp, and scallops so we will be eating that each night.

SUNDAY
Super Bowl - taking out wings from Hooters

MONDAY
Jesse is preparing something since I am working out after work

TUESDAY
Eating at my parents!

WEDNESDAY
Again I am working out after work, so Jesse will be preparing something - probably shrimp and scallops and broccoli

THURSDAY
I’ll pick a chicken recipe I like

FRIDAY
Again I have time to find a recipe

SATURDAY
My first wedding dress fitting!!!

I am not doing very well on cutting back my social media use. I have this crazy desire to catch up on everything! It is so weird because none of this stuff really matters.

My RSS reader feels overwhelming and I already cut it down at the beginning of this new year in anticipation of this goal, which included all of the wedding blogs except for two that are just great. There are some blogs I really love and they help me with business ideas or just life ideas. There are some others I love but aren’t useful. I don’t have the time to read everything anymore. I know I should cut it down to just the bare essentials that I can read while eating my breakfast/lunch/weekend for 30 minutes or so! This is going to be a weekend goal!

I have always had a love/hate relationship with Twitter and I’m in the hate part right now. I guess this is a good thing because I’m not checking it at all except to see if someone contacted me once or twice a day.

Instagram, while I love it, is tiring me out! I am always checking it and liking almost everybody’s pictures! I need some overhaul of this, but not sure how to do that except maybe to cut back on the number of people I follow!

Let’s see what I can get done this weekend where I will have a social media free weekend again to see if that helps cut it back!

SUNDAY
Roasted Peppers & Shrimp Pasta
(Clean Eating Magazine Nov/Dec 2012)

MONDAY
Thai Pork and Papaya on Couscous
(Clean Eating Magazine July 2011)

TUESDAY
Coq Au Vin
(Clean Eating Magazine Nov/Dec 2012)

WEDNESDAY
Pick up dinner

THURSDAY
Maple-Dijon Cod
(Clean Eating Magazine March 2012)

FRIDAY
Curried Turkey Burger Sliders with Roasted Broccoli
(Clean Eating Magazine July 2011)

SATURDAY
Spaghetti Squash with Chicken
(Clean Eating Magazine Nov/Dec 2012)

The holidays were bad this year for eating well. I was buying snacks which meant we were eating snacks. I wasn’t cooking much so we were eating out a lot. It just wasn’t good.
One of my goals from last year was to try thirty days of clean eating. I never really got that opportunity last year and was always making excuses. But since I do have a wedding to be in soon ;) and the holidays were so bad, Jesse and I both decided to stop drinking until Super Bowl and eat as clean as possible. We are 25 days in since we started on the 2nd. We’ve been really good! Mostly clean foods, organic whenever possible, cooking at home instead of eating out, no red meat, and definitely no drinking.
The first two weeks I really wanted a glass of wine, but that craving went away after that. I could have definitely enjoyed a bad snack once or twice but I didn’t give in to the bags of chips in my new office break room one time last week! I feel like I have more energy and I lost 5 pounds which is what I was hoping to do! Jesse has lost 11! Making my meal plans for the week on Sundays are helping so much. I should start posting them here as well.
Tonight we had to go to Jesse’s boss’s house for dinner so we did have a glass of wine and ate steak. I was so tired after dinner and wine though! And I didn’t really enjoy it all that much. I am definitely enjoying eating this way. I know I’m not being perfectly clean in all my choices but it’s good enough for me right now.

This month has been a whirlwind! Starting a new job, final wedding details, house stuff. I’m exhausted! I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with some wedding decisions. I wish someone could just make them for me.

I want to make a post about my new house! Sort of an in-progress type of thing! What it looked like when we moved in and what it looks like now.

I also want to go out photo shooting! It’s been way too long. I miss it and I should plan on taking a walk around my neighborhood at the very least.

1. Grateful to have my brave, funny, caring, and beautiful sister in my life! How lucky I am!
2. I love my Mom! She is one of my best friends and I value her opinion so much!
3. I am so grateful for my fiance. I hope I can care for him as well as he does me. Live Goal: be a great wife!
4. I am thankful for my house. I love being a homeowner! So empowering! I love making a home with my best friend.
5. I am grateful to have a job. While not ideal, it has helped me buy a house, pay the bills, and have benefits.
6. I am grateful to be a citizen of a great nation where I am granted the freedom to cast my vote and voice my opinions.
7. I am thankful for my fitness studio: Beyond Motion. They helped me find a fitness routine I not only do, but love!
8. I am thankful for dinner and margaritas with a friend after work. It was great to chat!
9. I am blessed to be living in such a wonderful place! The weather and views are unbeatable!
10. I am thankful for the gift of love. And to have my own soul mate!
11. Thank you to all the men and women serving our country! I truly appreciate your sacrifice!
12. I am thankful for the grocery store! Silly but as much as I hate going I am glad I don’t have to hunt and gather!
13. I am grateful for my Grandad. We shared many interests: dancing and photography included.
14. I am thankful for my exercise calss. The instructor is so sweet and the calss helped get me exercising again. And I love it!
15. I am thankful for my sweet future sister-in-law!
16. I am thankful for my energetic, cute nephew!
17. I am thankful for my future in laws. How giving they are and how well they raised their son!
18. I love being a homeowner!
19. Grateful to have a friend who I would feel comfortable talking to about anything.  Plus I love our pen-pal ways! 
20. I LOVED writing tomorrow’s to-do list item: Read Magazines.  aka a day off from work
21. I am thankful for my Gran and her never-ending love. So inspiring!
22. Grateful to have a wonderful day to spend with BOTH of my families! And that my Dad was home this year!
23. Thankful to crash a 10-year high school reunion and catch up with old friends!
24. Thankful for my Wash U friends!  I was watching Senior Dances and just missed you all so much!
25. I am grateful for 17 wonderful years with our Chardonnay! We miss him every day.
26. I am so thankful for my father for his endless giving. Time, love, gifts, everything. I love him.
27. I am thankful for my Nana. She was an incredibly sweet woman and I am lucky I got to spend the time with her when I did.
28. I am lucky to have an Aunt and cousins who, despite distance, would help me out with anything!
29. I am so blessed to have Jesse in my life every day!
30. I got a little behind on #30daysofthanks, but I am so grateful for everyone in my life. My friends, family, fiance, house, job, and so so so SO much more!

I decided to abandon my “Find or create a science club” goal from 2012.  I didn’t have the time to do it the way I wanted to.  I was hoping to gather a few people to watch a science-based movie, most likely sci-fi but a science documentary once in a while, and then read an article related to it.  We could then discuss and bring our respective knowledge together for it.  I had a few bites of interest, but I knew I didn’t have the proper time to devote to choosing the movie/article/time and even place to host it.  Then I kind of just lost interest in the whole idea.  I still love reading about science but I don’t necessarily need to discuss it with anyone.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to my mom about hiring a calligrapher to address my wedding invitation envelopes.  I love the look of white ink on a beige envelope.  Like the photo below:

Photo by Clary Photo via Style Me Pretty

This is just my perfect envelope: Kraft paper envelope, white calligraphy, vintage stamps. So for my invitations I ordered a latte colored envelope and had the return address printed on the back flap. My invitations look awesome and I am so thrilled with the result! More on that to come next month.  :)

So I reached out to a lot of calligraphers and only one got back to me.  She was not available to do the envelopes but I have hired her to do my escort cards.  So my mom contacted a local calligrapher and we got her samples.  We weren’t thrilled with the result and decided that she wasn’t worth our money.  I really didn’t want to do it ourselves, because we can’t get white ink easily.  I wanted a calligrapher to give me the above.  My mom didn’t know what else to do and I almost freaked out about getting white ink.  Then I took a deep breath.  And realized what I was doing.  White ink…nobody cares what the envelopes look like, most people just toss them anyway.  I can’t even remember most of my friends’ envelopes and I save them (with the invites all tucked inside).  So why does it matter if I can’t find white ink?  It doesn’t.  I just had in my mind the above type of images from my Pinterest.  

Yes I do love it, but it just wasn’t working out for me.  So I told my mom that I just wanted to do it ourselves.  My dad has beautiful handwriting and volunteered to do it.  And my handwriting is pretty good as well.  So we will practice and write them in the upcoming weeks.  I plan on mailing the invites on Saturday February 2nd.  And they will still look beautiful!