Hulk Hogan is my Cheerleader!

Wow! I can't believe I haven't posted anything in over a week! Shame on me! Well, nothing terribly exciting has happened since then. The only real noteworthy thing is that I had an interview on Friday with a company that the temp. agency sent me to. It was a really good interview and I think I'd really like the job. But, they're still interviewing people so that could mean one of two things: a. they haven't found the "one" yet, or b. they'd already committed to interviewing X number of people before they started. I've tried not to get my hopes up too high just because if it doesn't work out I don't want to be really really upset. But, the truth is: I really do want this job. It's a lot of excel spreadsheets and stuff I like to do and I know I'd be really, really good at it. The lady at the temp. agency was really impressed with me and I got an email from her today saying that she is looking daily for a placement for me. So, that makes me feel good. I have a feeling everything will work out the way it's supposed to, even if that means that I don't get this job that I interviewed for. 

Now, on to Hulk Hogan...

As I stated in an earlier post, I've become somewhat of a "gym rat". Well, there's this guy that's there a lot of the time when I work out and I think he kind of looks like a young Hulk Hogan (but not quite as buff...and he has red hair instead of blonde but he also wears a bandana). Saturday I was working out early in the morning and the place was pretty much dead...then he came in and there was a fruit basket where you first come in and he took a banana out of the basket and somehow caught my attention (I was on the elliptical) and he started to pretend it was a phone. It was pretty funny. Then, we actually talked. He looked like a person who would know a thing or two about working out, so I said "Hey, you know like you know what you're doing here..." and then I told him I'd been working out for a week straight doing about 6 miles a day and the scale wasn't budging even though I could tell my clothes were getting looser. He said that was ok, and that sometimes it can take a few weeks. He also said I should drink a lot of water. Then, when I went to leave he said "Keep up the good work!" Well, I saw him again tonight (I don't know why, but it seems like we end up at the gym at the same time, whether it's in the morning or the evening) and he said I looked like I was working out pretty hard. I told him that I had work out hard because I have a ton of weight to lose. Then, he said "You're doing a great job!" Awww..... so, anyway, Hulk Hogan is my cheerleader. One of these days, I'll ask him his name, but for right now...he's "Hulk Hogan". 

Working out has been really hard, but fun at the same time. The scale has not been as much moving as I would like, but still I can tell I'm getting healthier. Yesterday, I realized that I was going faster on the elliptical without really trying. That was a pretty big deal. But, when I went to Weight Watchers last night, I found out I'd only lost 1.4 lbs in a week. I was pretty upset. But, the WW lady said it was good. I guess when I think about only losing 1.4 lbs a week it makes my weight loss journey seem sooooooo long. I know the scale will eventually have to follow if my pant size starts dropping (which like I said earlier in this post...I can tell my clothes are feeling looser). I got a compliment from Andy a couple days ago, he said that my legs are looking more "shapely". They had better be looking more "shapely" after doing 6 miles a day for a week! Another thing that's hard about losing weight is our location. I'm not talking about Boise. I'm talking about our apartment's location in Boise. We live off of one of the main streets in town. And...there just happens to be a lot of temptation on this street... within a couple of minutes drive you can go to the following fast-food places: McDonald's, Taco Bell, Taco Time, Subway, Burger King, Jack in the Box, Wendy's, and a little mom & pop take-out/drive thru burger/ice cream place. Not to mention, you can also drive to Dairy Queen (it's just a little bit farther than the other fast-food joints). So, I guess you could say we live just off of "Temptation Row". I must admit even with all of my lifestyle changes and my new healthy eating habits and working out, I've fallen victim to my fast-food cravings a few times. I'm thinking of making a rule for myself that says I can't eat Fast-food except to have a salad or maybe if it's Subway - a healthy sub. I think I could do it. I think I'd hate myself. But, I think I could do it. I went an entire year without eating at McDonald's because one day I just "decided" not to go there because I liked their food too much. I haven't officially decided anything yet, but I may make a drastic decision soon. 

Now, here's the picture of the day! We went to Portland (and a few of its surrounding areas) for our honeymoon. Here is one of the few photos we took while on our honeymoon. 

Workout Playlist!

I bought an ipod nano a couple of months ago. I love it! It's actually my 3rd one. I lost the first one somehow and then, I lost the other one in our move last year. But, I can definitely say that this one has gotten more use than the other two did combined! That's probably because I've been taking it to the gym and whenever I have to walk anywhere. I had a huge playlist for working out. But, then today I realized that I only listen to some of the songs (and I repeat the same ones over and over). So, I made a new playlist. Hopefully, this playlist will work out better for me.
Here it is:

"Somebody That I Used to Know" -- Gotye

"Soul Meets Body" -- Death Cab for Cutie

"Call Me Maybe" -- Carly Rae Jepsen

"Super Star" -- S.H.E.

"Tik Tok" -- Ke$ha

"Spaceman" -- The Killers

"Human" --  The Killers

"Somebody Told Me" -- The Killers

"Allouette" -- The Delta Rhythm Boys

"Vertigo" -- U2

"Bulletproof" -- La Roux

"Inside Out" -- Eve 6

"Evacuate The Dancefloor" -- Cascada

"Good Feeling" -- Flo Rida

"Fire Burning" -- Sean Kingston

"Hot N Cold" -- Katy Perry

 

What was that? Oh, it's just another Gym Rat!!!!!

Well, it's officially happened...my very worst nightmare - I've become a GYM RAT. I know that doesn't sound horrible. In fact, to some it might sound great. But, for me it means that I'm constantly pushing myself and I'll spend hours at the gym (mostly on the treadmill and elliptical) without even realizing it. I mean, I know that I definitely need to lose a lot of weight, but whenever I join a gym I become obsessed and I become a gym rat. I always promise myself that it won't happen "this time". But, it always does. I think I'm going to have to just set a time limit and stick to it. Today, I spent 2 1/2 hours at the gym. My goal today was 6 miles. Why 6 miles? Because I did some rough calculations and I figured out that on an average day when I lived in China I probably walked close to 6 miles and I lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time. I know my diet was also a great part of it and I'm slowly getting my diet in order. I've been doing Weight Watchers and have been doing pretty well at staying within my daily points allotment. I've been eating a lot more vegetables and fruits. I've even learned to like grapefruit and All Bran cereal. My next goal is to start doing the stair master because when I lived in China I had to go up 4 flights of stairs up and down to and from my apartment several times of day. In addition, my classes at the school where I taught were all staggered on different floors so sometimes I'd have to go from the 6th floor down to the 1st and back up to the 6th and everything in between. I'm sure that had a great bearing on my weight loss as well.

Here is a picture of my gym. 

Sleep is a wonderful thing!

Sleep is a wonderful thing...that is when you can sleep. Today I woke up just after six and I couldn't get back to sleep so I thought I'd update my blog.
There's not a whole lot that's happened between my post last night and this morning. But, I thought I'd share a cool photo I made of our wedding. It took hours to do, but it turned out really nice and looks even better framed. I got the idea from pinterest. If you haven't checked out pinterest, you totally need to!

I didn't realize that the bottom left and bottom right are the same photo so I'll  have to fix that eventually.
But still, it looks really nice, I think anyway.

I Stand All Amazed!

 Sometimes...the Spirit directs you and let's you know what is "Right", even when everything seems to be going wrong.I learned this week that that it's best not to question the Spirit even when it seems tough not to do so. 

Here's my story. I think it's pretty inspirational. Hopefully, others will think it is as well.

 

I applied at temp agency this past week and they had me take tests to measure my abilities in Word, excel, typing etc...and I scored soooooooo high! I got an 83 on Excel when the avg. is 74 and a 93 on Word and the avg is 80.Plus, I did really well on the office skills (like doing math and spelling and grammar)

and on my typing and 10-keyand when I had my interview it went soooo well....the lady was sooooooo impressed with me and said, with my skill set she'd have no problem placing me

and in fact, because I did so well, she said she'd be putting me at the top of their list.

She said I'd make a great receptionist or admin. assistant and figured that they could probably place me withing a few weeks (if not sooner).

but they needed a reference from Wells Fargo

which was fine But, I knew that they don't do references and I told her that. She said that they just needed to ask them a couple of questions...so I gave her the name of my former supervisor...(because it's their policy that they MUST get a reference from your previous employer).

Well...I got an email from the lady that said she couldn't get any info from Wells Fargo.

and that because of that they wouldn't be able to place me because it's their policy that they MUST get a reference from the previous employer. There just wasn't any way around it.So, I was sooooo sad...

I'd felt so good about everything...I felt like the Spirit had lead me to this one temp agency (I'd been to others but all they wanted to do was send me to some rinky dink call center). I felt really confused because I still felt really good about it all...even after I got the rejection e-mail. So, I sent a reply thanking them for their time and saying that the best I could do was to probably get a reference from a former co-worker at Wells Fargo, but that I knew that probably wouldn't work for them.Somehow, even though I had kind of started to accept the fact that I wouldn't be able to work with them I still felt really good about working with them. The Spirit was just so strong. I knew I shouldn't question the Spirit but I didn't understand why I felt so good when it obviously wasn't working out. Well, I didn't hear from them for almost a day. Then, I got an e-mail late Friday afternoon. It was such a surprise. I didn't think I'd hear back from them since they wouldn't be able to work with me. But, I was shocked at its contents! The lady said she'd gotten special permission to use a former co-worker from Wells Fargo as my reference! Now I knew why I had still felt so good about everything. It *was* working out after all! I am so grateful for the Spirit and for the direction it gives us in our lives when we are listening to it. I'm grateful for its promptings: I don't know if they would have thought about using one of my former co-workers as a reference if I  hadn't brought it up in the first place. Hopefully, I'll get placed soon! 

Well, here's the picture of the day. This is a photo of me and a friend in my favorite park in the city where I lived in China. The park's name in English is Goldfish Park. It was my favorite place to relax while I lived there. I would walk around the park for hours at a time every night (for exercise). It is a HUGE park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Now, here's something cute a friend showed me tonight. It's Cookie Monster's parody of the song "Call me maybe".

I got a real kick out of it. 

Cookie Monster "Share it Maybe"

New Look!

Our blog has looked the same for a really long time so I decided to get a new background. So, enjoy! I think it's super cute and it fits my personality perfectly because I ALWAYS wear flip-flops! 

Today, I'm going to take on the tedious task of renaming our France/England photos. They all have been assigned random numbers and when you pull them up you have no idea which picture you're going to get, so I'm going to go through them and name them. That way when we want to look at a specific picture we can actually find it, rather than going through hundreds of photos. Eventually, I'm going to get some of them framed, or at least do a collage. I think that would be pretty cool. 

Tomorrow, I get to weight myself for the week so I better be really good today. I'm .2 from a total of 5 lbs since last Saturday, if I don't make it, I'll be really sad. I actually do 2 weigh-ins, one on Saturday morning 

at home and one on Monday night at Weight Watchers. I do this because I have two different starting weights one from last weekend when I really got back on track and decided to lose weight and one from Weight Watchers that I started a few months ago. After visiting my family I kind of got off track and I'm actually a couple lbs heavier than when I started Weight Watchers, ouch! But, I'm moving forward. That's all that matters now. 

Today's photo is one I took a few years ago when we lived in our old apartment. YOne night there was a double rainbow. You can barely see the other rainbow, but I assure you that it's there.

Probably Nothing Exciting Today!

So, I'm trying to be good and post something everyday. Hopefully, my one follower will enjoy it. You know who you are. I  promise I'll try to have interesting posts most of the time. But this is a good way for me to kind of journal too, so it helps me do that too.

Today is my day off and all I've got planned is baking a cake with my friend from work, working on my picture frames (yes, I still haven't finished them yet), and just plain relaxing. Oh, and I might throw in some housework somewhere in there as well as a nap.

My friend is from Somalia and she's a Muslim. Right now it's Ramadan and they're fasting for 30 days (4am - 9pm everyday) and apparently the fast ends this Sunday and they have some sort of big gathering and they have lots of food. So, she's baking an African cake. Last night she asked if I had measuring cups because she doesn't have any and so I invited her to come over and bake it here because, of course, I have tons of measuring cups. So, that should be fun. I think I'll ask her more about her religion. I've always been intrigued by Muslims. I think if I wasn't LDS I'd either be Jewish or Muslim. She also said I could come to her mosque some time just to see what it's like and I think I'll take her up on her offer. That would be really cool. So, that's what's going on today. Like I said yesterday my blog feels naked without any photos so here's one from our France/England trip that I really like. I turned out really well.
 ENJOY!

 I think this is a really good shot of the Eiffel Tower! 

Not sure if I took it or Andy did!