I spent 7 days on a Carnival cruise ship last month

It was awful.

:)

The Perfect Hair and My Birthday

Before I dive in to that discussion, I just want to address my last post. Thank you for all the comments and advice! I'm a little better. But what I've learned is that you people are just as tired. My goodness we are a tired bunch, aren't we? It's been a long winter and I think we all need a long nap and some sunshine and warmth in our lives. And a pedicure. I will also say that after having the Fitbit I've definitely found that adding extra steps in my day has added some extra energy (duh). So that has helped some. I'm also starting something new soon and I'll share that with y'all in the next few weeks.

Back to important things, like hair. This weekend I was perusing my Instagram and a girl I follow was at Blissdom and posting pictures of other bloggers she had met. And that's when I discovered Kate with The Small Things Blog who is now my Hair Idol. *insert angels singing here* Seriously I am in love with this chick's hair. (I realize I am late to the game and many of you already probably read her blog.)

The reason why I love her hair is because her texture is similar to mine.Many times I'll take a photo to my hair girl and she'll just shake her head and tell me it won't work. My hair is too thin or too fine. If you have similar hair, visit her blog, she has TONS of hair tutorials. 

Last night I attempted to recreate her loose curls photo above. I didn't do a perfect job since it was a Sunday evening and I didn't want to waste a lot of product. But it turned out ok. I just hope I can get motivated to get up a few minutes earlier in the mornings and curl my hair occasionally. It looks SO much better when I take some time to style it. I mean, duh I suppose. Sorry for the ratty St. Pats tshirt I'm sporting. And also I need to work on some volume. Kate has mastered volume. (read: teasing!)Do you have a hair idol blog that you follow? Shareee with me.

Other updates: Last weekend I celebrated my birthday in Florida. We had a jolly good time. Which is good because immediately upon getting back home I became deathly ill with what I thought was a 24 hour bug. But it turned in to a week long bug. I spent my birthday quarantined in my house in bed with fever and chills. So that was fun. But it happens sometimes. At least I had Florida sunshine the weekend before! I even got a little mini sunburn! It was glorious (that's bad to say, I know. Wear sunscreen!)

I turned 39 so you know what that means? The Big One is coming...bring it on. :)

I'm tired. All the time.

Have any of you gals in your late 30s/early 40s ever experienced any of this? I feel tired all the time and could quite literally, sleep for days. I've been going to bed every night around 9:30. I'm getting at least 8 hours of sleep every night, so that is not the problem. This weekend? I slept 9-10 hrs both nights.  My energy level is almost non existent. And I'm crankier.

Also: my weight has gone up 10 pounds since last Fall. Not that is not a huge catastrophic event, but for the last 5 years, I've pretty much maintained my weight within a few pounds. So to gain 10 lbs, that's kind've a big deal for me.

Another issue: I feel so unenthused about work anymore. Not that anyone is every super joyous to go to work every day, but I used to really enjoy my job. Now I get the Sunday evening dreads. But mostly because I have to get out of bed and actually think. And make decisions. And that...is tiring to me.

Doing taxes, housework/home projects, work projects - is so overwhelming. I just don't want to do any of it.  Where/what to eat for supper? Even that overwhelms me.


I've tried to incorporate more excersise, hoping that would help. But it really hasn't seemed to do a whole lot. I'm not giving up on working out though. But it takes a lot more effort lately to go to the gym than it used to.Thus the reason I bought the Fitbit. Was hoping it was motivate me to get more activity throughout the day, especially since I sit. All. Day. Long.

Also, I don't think I'm depressed but I have noticed that I feel indifferent about things lately.  I have a big exciting vacation booked for April and I should be over the moon excited about it. But I'm just, meh.

35 year old me wouldn't even recognize 38-soon-to-be-39 year old me. What the heck is going on? Have any of you ever experienced this before? Is it hormones? I will talk to my lady doctor about it next time I go in. I know sometimes this stuff just happens as you get older, but I'm not used to feeling this way and I really want it to stop. 

Besides talking to my doctor, I'm going to start taking multivitamins again and try to regularly get some Vitamin D. Until then...zzzz....

The Valentine's Day Mystery

I know. Two posts in two days. What has gotten in to me?? But I remembered that I forgot to share this with all of you.

So Valentine's Day rolled around recently and guess who got a beautiful floral arrangement at work?

 

The only problem? It was signed "Guess Who?" And as of today, I still don't know who sent them. So whoever you are Mystery Person, thank you! They were beautiful and brightened my day! 

Aren't they gorge??

***Fitbit update: At the end of the day yesterday, Fitbit told me where I was based on calories burned and estimated calories burned the rest of the evening. You are supposed to be in the "green" on the barometer at the end of the day and I was. So mission accomplished. I don't know how long my excitement will last with this new gadget, but last night I found myself while cooking dinner busting out dancing  in the kitchen just to see how many extra calories I could burn. 

Question from April about the Fitbit: How does it know when you wake up? How does it know how much or what you eat?

You tell the Fitbit when you are going to sleep and you can set an alarm to wake you up. The Fitbit (which is strapped to your wrist and not uncomfortable at all) gently vibrates to wake you up. I would think this would be nice for those who share a bed with someone. This way you wouldn't wake the other person up. Otherwise, the Fitbit knows via your movements that you awake.

For the food part, you have to enter what you eat each day in order for it to calculate calories consumed. That part does take a little time, but if you are used to using My Fitness Pal or other calorie counting apps, it works pretty similar. 

 

Review of the FitBit One

Uh, is anyone still there?? Sorry I took an unintended hiatus from this blog. Life has been cuh-razy. Well, mostly work has been crazy. So crazy I don't have time to blog much anymore. So, for the moment, I'm baaaack.
.
So I bought this little fancy schmancy contraption recently. So far it's been pretty interesting and fun to use. It's the Fitbit One and it basically calculates all your data for you throughout the day.

Let me show you...

This is the flower. It grows when you are active and shortens when you aren't. Pretty silly if you ask me. Which you didn't. But still.  Doesn't do much for me.

Here are the calories I've burned since midnight - who knew you burn calories while sleeping?? This includes calories burned while sitting, standing, walking, running, whatever you are doing - it calculates the total calories burned. I'm hoping to tack on a few more in a yoga class here shortly.

This is the distance I've walked so far today.

This is the number of floors I've climbed.

This is the number of steps I've taken. I'm supposed to reach 10K by the end of the day but yeah, that's probably not going to happen today.

 

It also comes with a sleep tracker. You strap it to your wrist and it tells you how many times you woke up throughout the night. This is pretty neat but not sure how often I'll use this feature. Now if Fitbit wants to add a feature that rocks me back to sleep or comforts me when I have a nightmare, then maybe I'll consider. Although, that's creepy.

The Fitbit cost about $100 on Amazon. So far I will admit it's been pretty fun to use, and I've been trying to find ways to sneak more steps and distance in throughout the day such as parking as far away as I can from our building and going up and down stairs at work more often. 

It will also track your food daily, which is a huge part of weight loss. So it's pretty cool at the end of the day to see if you are in the plus or negative when it comes to calories consumed/burned. 

One last cool feature - the Fitbit automatically syncs to your computer. You literally have to have the fitbit within 20 feet of your computer and it'll sync for you. Pretty swanky. 

A friend asked me - so basically it's a glorified pedometer? Pretty much. But I'm enjoying using it so far. This winter has been horrible for me diet and exercise wise, so I'm hoping a new shiny gadget will help motivate me. I'll keep you posted on progress. 

PS This was not a paid advertisement. I bought this puppy all on my own. Sadly. 

Happy New Year

Sorry to leave my blog hanging for so long. Hopefully I'll catch up on things soon. And hope your 2013 has started out with a bang!

Baby Shower for a friend

Last weekend my closest friends and I hosted a baby shower for another close friend. Having parties during the holidays makes decorating so much easier! Such a pretty backdrop.

Our pretty mama is on the far right due in February.

It was a Feather Her Nest shower and I think it turned out beautifully.

This was a ladies only shower but we allowed this one to sneak in occasionally...can you blame us?? :)

I made chocolate dipped strawberries... (the strawberries I had to choose from were not the greatest!)

And Paula Deen's deviled eggs... (no, they don't have butter!) :)

We are deviled egg crazy around these parts!

You are really going to love my next post. A fellow blogger Raven (I'll link to her post in my upcoming one) posted about her time in a private Christian school. Which got me thinking about MY time growing up at private Christian school. It's going to be a doozy! If you went to private school or Christian school, please comment and share your experiences too!