Remembrance

For most people this signals the beginning of summer filled with pool time, barbeque's, gatherings with family/friends, and enjoying a lovely bank holiday!

Memorial Day is really about remembering those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for this country.  It's about remembering our ancestors, our family members, our loved ones, and our friends who grave their lives for our country.  

My sincerest thanks to all the men & women fighting for our country. You are brave and selfless. 

 

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

I would also like to give a very Happy Birthday to my loving boyfriend. I went to Chicago this Holiday weekend to spend with him and we had a great time!!!

Growing Out Of Friendship

I am sure a lot of people have gone through this. Starting in Middle School you may have a group of people you hang with. by the time you get to High School the group gets smaller or some "members" may change.

By the time you graduate, go through college and start meeting new people, things can start to change with the friendship. The strong friendships usually last throughout all the years.

You start getting older. Start meeting even more people. May even get back in touch with old school buddies.

People start important jobs, have kids, have more important tasks to do.

I personally, have been doing the "club and drinking" thing since I was in college and have been out of college for 5yrs for a total of 9yrs. I am tired of it. I am tired of drinking and getting drunk, going to the club and looking for a man that aint looking for you. Its useless.  I am almost 30yrs old. I am in a committed relationship with a man that has never been into the clubs. I am not looking for a man, so there is really no reason for me to go out anymore.

The past couple of years I have noticed my friendship with one of my best friends fall a little. I really don't know why. We have been friends since high school. Never had an argument before. Always got along. recently, she has reunited with some girls from our high school from younger classes (I don't even remember them) and they have been hanging out A LOT. I have been seeing her tweets and she tweets about them always going out. To dinner and drinks and never invites me EVER!

And when we DO go out. It's only me and her. She never invites anyone. It's almost like she is trying to hide me or something. I really don't understand why.

I really haven't even seen her since our Cruise in 1st week in May and she hasn't said anything to me but a losy Happy Birthday via Twitter.

It just makes me sad. But then again, when I really think about it...she does go through her friends quickly. She was best friends with another person we both knew from high school (Actually all 3 of us were very good friends but I stopped talking to this person when I went to college and we never kept in touch) and suddenly they just stopped talking also...for no reason. She was friends with ANOTHER girl and stopped talking to her because the chick was cock-blocking because she was trying to get laid (Weird reason to end a friendship but okay). And this same girl, she never brought her other friends around her because she said she was "dingy" and didn't want her to say anything stupid around her "new friends". Sometimes I feel that is what she is thinking about me.

She invited me in maybe March or April to a Breast Cancer walk for May 22nd with her. Told me once about it. Never reminded me or confirmed if I was still going prior to the walk. Didn't tell me how to register. Of course, I completely forgot. Next thing I know I am seeing her tweeting pictures of her and 4 other girls at the WALK. I'm like, thanks for reminding me!

I'm sure she was talking about the walk prior to the date (Via Twitter), but I am following over 500 people on Twitter so I am not going to see and read every tweet she makes. It sucks. It makes me feel that she invited me to not seem that she was leaving me out but really seems that she didn't care if I went or not.



It really makes me sad. Guess we are just growing apart...

Thankful Thursday

 

1) I'm thankful for the beautiful weather we are FINALLY getting here in Michigan!

2) I'm thankful for having a great Birthday!

3) I'm thankful for my very old 20 something yr old car is still running!

4) I'm thankful for still having a job...even if I hate it!

                                                                                                                                

What I'm Loving Wednesday

                                                                              

One and ONLY thing I am loving today is having my LIFE!!!

                                   

Prayers To The Victims

             

It's devastating to wake up to morning show reporters breaking news of yet another tornado to rip across yet another US city. This time in Missouri.

{Photos from nytimes.com}

The images and television footage look as if they are scenes from a horrific movie. 

Sending my condolences to those who have lost friends and loved ones in any of the horrific tornado's over the past two months, and thoughts, prayers, and strength to those who are living this nightmare.

Click here for an article I came across with ways you can help victims in Missouri.

 

 

 

 

We acquire the strength we have overcome.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

 

P.S. Throughout all the heartache I have had this week, I DID celebrate my 27th Birthday yesterday, May 23rd. I had a great Birthday dinner with my family at the restaurant Fishbones, Downtown Detroit and had a awesome time. I am very blessed to have made it another year and hope I have many years to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

Cherish Life

 

Say I love you

Embrace Forgiveness

Count your blessings

Be nice to yourself

Let the small stuff go

Practice patience

Make this day count

Life is short

... Unfortunately I was reminded of that today.

  

Today, at work my manager called my whole department off the phones and to the middle of the floor. He then told us the Assist. Vice President of out department suddenly passed away yesterday. He just got off the phone with her husband who still did not know what happened. 

Of course, all my co-workers, including myself, was in shock. We had just seen her Saturday! And to make matters worse they told us to go back to work. This woman who we have spent the last 3yrs working with every single day just died and they want us to wipe the shock (And tears) off our faces and act like nothing happened?

I am devastated. 

Cynthia wasn't always the go-to person to ask a question to but she defiantly didn't deserve to die. My heart goes out to her family and her husband, whom she was only married to for 3-4yrs. I still can't believe she is gone.

Life is so short. Cherish it.

                                                                                                                          

Be Confident

                           

No one is perfect, yet we live in a world which idealizes a certain way we are meant to look, behave and think. We are bombarded continuously with these images and ideals of perfection. If you focus on any negative too long, you will start to believe it’s true. Rather than focusing on all the ways you don't match the ideal, try to focus on all the positive ways you can outshine it. Each of us has unique skills, talents and strengths. Self confidence comes from accepting yourself. We are never meant to be perfect or to have all of the answers, so recognizing this takes an enormous pressure of your shoulders straight away. Often people seek acceptance from others around them, waiting for someone else to say that you’re ok. This does nothing to improve your self esteem or confidence – it simply gives away your power to someone else. The only person you should be seeking validation from is yourself. By getting to like, love and appreciate yourself, your inner confidence grows.

Decide. Commit. Succeed.

                                                                     

My Turbo Fire has FINALLY arrived! I am so excited! I am so ready to start. To be ACTIVE, being HEALTHY and start LOSING WEIGHT! I have felt unfit forever and I am so proud of myself that I decided to do this. I am defiantly ready to commit myself to this 90 day workout and SUCCEED! The package came with books on how to eat healthy, good foods, foods to avoid and a schedule of all the workouts...working out 6 days a week!

 (Also came with a notebook to write down all my food and bands to do with the workouts)

CAN'T WAIT TO START SEEING THE CHANGES!

 

What I'm Loving Wednesday

As I was browsing other bloggers pages I noticed Jamie's Blog where she has started something called "What I'm Loving Wednesday" where every Wednesday she blogs about WHAT SHE IS LOVING (obviously). So I thought this was cute and think I will continue this tradition...

1) I'm loving the fact that it's Wednesday and the weekend is almost here.

2) I'm loving that my 27th birthday is now less than a week away.

3) I'm loving that I am having TWO dinners to celebrate my birthday.

4) I'm loving that my my boyfriend will be visiting me in less than 2 weeks.

5) I'm loving that I was blessed to see another day that I will never see again.

What are YOU loving? :)

Fitness & Being Healthy

Throughout these last couple years I have been trying to eat healthy and start working out regularly. I want to continue to be healthy. I also want to lose weight. I can defiantly spare shedding 80lbs (Nope, not afraid to say it). I want to have a crazy, sexy body. I don't want to be a size 0 but a nice tone, shapely body would be awesome.

As I have stated in my previous Blogs, I have done Insanity but thought it was a little to hard so I am waiting for Turbo Fire to come in the mail. Hopefully, it will be here tomorrow and I am SO excited!

Turbo Fire is a 90 day body transformation of fun cardio, dancing and kickboxing! It has 12 workouts on 11 CD's. You can find both Insanity and Turbo Fire packages at the Beach Body site.

I am so proud of myself. Even though I just started back working out I am really being serious about it. I am counting my calories at this FANTASTIC SITE My Fitness Pal where I log my food and workouts and have so much great support from other people on the site. I simply love it there.

I'm getting great at eating healthy. I gave up candy, pop, juice, fast food, and trying to give up fried food (So hard!), not eating after 6pm and working out 6 days a week and drinking lots of H2O. With dedication and motivation, I can do this and I am so excited and can't wait to start seeing my results!

 



Music Monday

Decided on Monday's, I am going to give light to a music artist which I am listening to at the time, someone I love, an album that I loved just to give everyone an insight to maybe someone they have never even heard before.

Today I am going to give a shot out to ADELE. 

                                         

Her album is AMAZING. Her voice is amazing. I love her. I can listen to her album again and again. She has a beautiful voice. It's different. She can sing me to sleep.

Check out the video to her single "Rolling In The Deep"

  

       

                     

Turning Up The Burn

I was doing the Insanity workouts...almost finished but I got very lazy before my trip and decided to let it go until after I came back.

Before I went to the Bahamas, my computer got a horrible virus. It wiped out all my pictures and my Insanity and Turbo Fire workouts I had saved on it. I got the workouts from a friend of a friend. I didn't think nothing of it and asked if I could come over to her house and she can put the workouts on my computer again. She said yes and basically gave me the run around for over a week. I basically got fed up and just decided to buy the DVD's myself via beachbody.com

I really don't understand what is people problems lately. I am really starting to feel that I can not depend on anyone but myself.

For example, my mother volunteered to take me to the airport. Come the morning of, she has this big attitude that she is mad she is up and has to take me and said she will never do that again. My sister was supposed to pick me up when I came back. She was fine when I asked and the hours before she is supposed to pick me up she texts me " Don't ever ask me again to do this. I don't want to be bothered." Excuse me? My own sister. The ONE AND ONLY time I ever needed someone to pick me up from the airport. And I ALSO told her I would give her gas money!

It's just makes me so sad and I am tired of it. I can't wait to get my DVD's in the mail so I can start back on my Weight-loss Journey and I am going to take it from there. I have to, unfortunately, stop asking people to do anything...the few times I ask since I am such a burden to people.

But I am very excited about Turbo Fire. I chose to buy this instead of Insanity because Insanity was pretty hard and I felt like its more of a toning workout and I am most trying to lose weight. I felt with the weight on my body I couldn't do some of the exercises. It did get easier but it was still hard. I am hoping to lose 20-30lbs with Turbo Fire and then go back to Insanity after for toning up (Which I will also buy and not ask whats her face). I am excited to start back working out. Turbo Fire is 90 days long so I have a way to go. 

And of course, I will let everyone know how I am doing along the way.

   

The Shine Project

Have you heard of The Shine Project??

This is Ashley.  

She is the creative genius behind The Shine Project.  Check out her blog here.

She is spreading shine around by doing all sorts of charitable acts of kindness.  She sells these adorable necklaces and the proceeds go towards a scholarship for inner city school college students!  How awesome is that?!

And now she has also started selling her Shine t-shirts, just like the one she's wearing in the picture above.  This way we can all get involved with a Shine Project in our own community!  I know I'm inspired to start doing just a little more...

- donating clothes to charity

- organizing can food drives

- volunteering at a beach clean-up

To help the Shine Project, I just put in my order for this fantastic necklace with a rose charm for $12









 Are you interested in spreading the shine?!




 

I'm Back

I am back from the Bahamas. It was fabulous. I was there from May 6th-9th which was short but nice.

It was great weather. It was over 86 and up. So nice and hot. We laid out, drank and just ate and ate...well, I DID! My friend, Carilyn, was acting like she was on some diet but I defiantly ate for the both of us!

Since this was my 2nd time going, I really didn't take many pictures. I probably took less than 20. The 1st time I went I took over 200 so  I really didn't think I needed to take as much.

When we got to the Bahamas the first thing we did was take a horse carriage ride around the city. I believe we were downtown...I forgot to ask.

 My friend Carilyn

Gorgeous private beach we went to.

The waiters do a dance at last dinner.

Me!


























The whole trip was great. I did notice there were some awkward moments between me and my friend. I felt there wasn't much "talking" but a lot of just silence. She wasn't smiling that much and when I asked she said nothing was wrong. She even got up early while I was sleep to go to the pool by herself...like I didn't want to go. I know everyone needs space to themselves but it was a 3 day trip! lol I don't know. Maybe I am being paranoid and thinking too much into it.

I know next time I am going with my man. He always knows how to have a good time and has LOTS to talk about! Maybe since we have known each other for so long she doesn't have much to say to me anymore...who knows.

Unfortunately, I didn't forget to bring sunscreen and got sunburn. It wasn't too bad though. It did start peeling but getting better since I am putting Aleo Gel on it.

So I took another day off when I got home to relax and now I am back to work. Hope everyone is having a great day!

 

Bahamas Here I Come ... AGAIN!

I am officially on vacation and will be headed to Nassau, Bahamas tomorrow. Will be on the Cruise Ship in Miami, FL by 4pm EST TOMORROW! I am so freakin excited. Even though this is my 2nd time going, I am just happy to be away from work and away from everything!

Earlier this week I did get a little bit irritated. I am going on the trip with my best friend and needed a ride to the airport because everyone I knew was busy. I asked my friend if I could ride with her. We have different flights, unfortunately, but her flight is an hr before mine so I thought getting there earlier is better than late. I texted her if I could drive there with her. She said her other friend is taking her. I text back "Oh ok, can you ask if I can come over to your house and we can all leave from there." She then said she will ask her. 

Even though this convo is via text I still felt awkward and felt that she didn't want to ask. Which I dont understand. We are both going on vaca at the same time, going to the same airport and ON THE SAME CRUISE. So why can't we go to the damn airport together.

If she was me and I had the ride I would have NO problem TELLING not asking whoever is taking me that "Hey the other person I am going on the trip with needs a ride and she will me us at my house and we can go from there."

But my mother told me she is not working and gets up at 5am anyway and can take me. 

That really irritated me but I am not going to stop that from me having a great time.

I just feel like I can't depend on anyone lately. I have been trying to get this Winery Tour together but no one is calling me back with prices LIKE THEY SAID THEY WOULD. The girl who I am going on the Cruise with said her father knows someone who does Winery Tours and I have asked her twice to please get the info for me but she still hasn't. I am not going to ask anymore.

My computer got a virus and it wiped out hundreds of my pictures and my dvd's of my Insanity workouts so now I need my other girl to put them back on my computer. I have asked her 3 times and she said she will text me back. I am going to ask her 1 more time when I come back from the cruise and if I dont't get a reponse I will buy it myself.

How hard is just a text message saying NA or YA!

I am going to wipe out all the negativity today and start pacing and getting myself together for my trip...

TALK TO YOU GUYS NEXT WEEK!