New Years

Sheesh, you'd think I'd post every once in a while?

This year, I'm going to try to be more dedicated to the blog. As my goal for the new year, I am going to make my life as healthy as possible. This doesn't just mean that I am going to "watch what I eat," that's only part of it. I am also going to be financially healthy (save those "workers" for when I truly need them, not when I think I need a latte), emotionally healthy (decreased stress and worry), and environmentally healthy/conscious.

To help with the process, I'm going to display it on the blog. As Leo Babauta emphasizes in 6 Changes, making it public on a blog keeps you in check.

I expect 2010 to be full of changes- internship, last semester, graduation, finding a job, working 9-5, finding a place to live, new friends. I hope that I can apply "healthy" to all of these things.

To start things off, I began my diet on 1/1/2010. To date, I've already lost 11 pounds! I'm pretty excited about the change, even if the weight loss so far has mostly been water weight. While I've tried dieting in the past, I feel more in control of what I eat. I'm older now with more money to spend and I am actually interested in food now. I see this as a lifestyle change, I can't live the unhealthy lifestyle I was living before. So, the blog will definitely serve to show you some of the foods I am eating now and how this can actually be fun. I haven't been very creative so far, but I've got purple sweet potatoes, acorn squash, tilapia, black bean burgers, and brussel sprouts somewhere on the menu in the near future!

Reason #1 why I love my friend Rachel: Despite her injuries in a boating accident 4 years ago, she turns everything negative into a positive. Case and point- cookies for her prothesis doctors for Christmas.


Every year since the accident she has made these "prosthesis cookies" for her doctors and they've become an office favorite. So, yesterday afternoon, I went over to help her make a batch for this year. They are DEFINITELY unconventional to say the least and I can really only imagine someone like Rachel being able to do something like that.

(Sorry if this offends anyone. I actually think it is pretty great.)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Pheww! So glad to be done with exams and have a break. The day after my final (Tuesday), I helped with the Extreme Makeover house. It POURED the whole time I was there and the front yard was a muddy, soupy mess. But, the house got done. Sorry, no pictures because I wasn't allowed to have a phone or camera with me! I did get to see all three designers that helped with the house (Paige, Michael, and John). While I was there they were shooting a couple of scenes right in front of me, in front of the volunteer tent, so once it airs I will let you know if any of the scenes I saw actually got on screen!

When I got home Tuesday afternoon, my mom had a surprise for me: a really ripe pumpkin. You may not know this about my family, but we like to throw things. Not at each other, or even in the house, but outside. It used to be at a stump outside, then even the side of the house, but we've also got a killer gully and it's a tradition in the family to do a little punkin' chunkin' once the pumpkin starts to go rotten. Don't worry, the other stuff we've handled has always been rotten stuff, like old tomatoes or oranges which are really fun (I know you are jealous).

My mom after the first throw off the deck and it didn't crack. This pumpkin was hard!

Here's a video of my mom taking a crack at it.

After we finally split the thing, Truffles was interested in getting some pumpkin seeds for herself.

Then, the other day we went to Canton to see the lights. We always go every year with my mom's best friend, Vicki, and her daughter.

Even our animals are getting into the Christmas spirit!

Now we're all by the fire watching Rudolf and waiting for our gingerbread to be chilled so we can make gingerbread men!

Parade

Ok, so I WAS going to do a really cool movie montage of some of the floats, etc at the parade yesterday, BUT, being the person that I am, I realized that I shot most of my footage sideways. I know, I know. I've tried to rotate it, but because of my Mac and the fact that my Quicktime is a higher version than my computer software (I'm sure you really want to know all of this), I cannot flip! So... I'll just give you a couple of photographs I happened to take between videos.

Mostly importantly, a picture of this horse:

Only one exam and I'll be done! I've got an exam on Monday and then Tuesday, I'll be working on an Extreme Makeover house they are doing in Hattiesburg (which happens to be four streets down from me). It should be a lot of fun! I'll let you know more about it (I am not allowed to bring a camera, cell phone, etc.) when I get done.

It snowed last night! It really started snowing just before 8 o'clock, when my mom and I were at a Christmas party at the Fairview Inn. As we sat down to dinner, we were near the window and the flurries were actually coming down pretty hard. When we left, I had to scrape/shovel a pretty good bit (maybe 2 inches??) off of my car windows! It didn't really stick to the ground, but I'm actually thankful because we have the Christmas Parade this morning! Should be interested (as always).

More later!

I'm such a lame blogger, eh? I promise this week I will catch up and do a couple posts. It's been so busy lately! Soon enough, this semester will be over and I'll only be a few months from graduation. It's a little scary, but I'm hoping that every thing will be alright.

This past weekend my whole family came down to Hattiesburg to see my cousin and I at our houses. I told my mom and my aunt that I would do the cooking and it would be a surprise.

It ended up turning out really well! The menu was:

Salad

Hot Bruschetta

Olive Cheese Bread

Chicken

Hummus - regular and red pepper

Pita (for hummus or a sandwich)

Apple Dumplings

MG seemed pretty happy about it...

Then my sisters stayed the night with me. We had a blast shopping, going out to eat with Cary, and coming back and watching a movie.

However, the next morning there was a bit of an incident...

Poor Ivy is not used to my "Barbie" fridge (we had to have our awesome fridge replaced because it quit working and now we have a small fridge) and as she was trying to get the orange juice out of the back of the fridge, things fell out of the fridge, she fell backwards hitting her head on the fridge and falling on to the floor. It was QUITE the morning.

In other news.... I did get the intern job at St. Dom. I am really excited about it and I hope I learn a lot. I have really enjoyed meeting the people there and, who knows, I may end up working there after I graduate!