Hello Summertime!!!

What, it's not summer officially yet?? Well it is here in SC! It's hotter than a pair of sweatpants full of barbecue. On the bright side, it's also the fun time of the year - weekend beach trips, pool parties, cookouts, summer produce and and cute summery clothes.

This past weekend I went to the beach with a friend of mine. We were only able to stay for the night, but we had a great time. I can't wait to go back! We did some shopping, and I dragged my friend into a Forever 21. That store is always completely trashed and full of teeny bop clothes, but their jewelry is cheap and fun to shop.
























I spent Memorial Day with my family, and we took a trip to the local farmer's market. Let's just say, we tore it up.






































































Mater sammich = Two pieces of white bread. Slice a juicy tomato. Slap some Duke's mayonnaise on it. Bite into a slice of heaven.
























Ahhhh..... :)

Today was an exciting day for me because I was down 2.8 lbs this morning, for a total of 8.4 lbs since April 25th. Baby steps to the finish line... :)

My latest food obsession: Vegan/Raw Foods

I have a new surprising food obsession, one that I never saw coming. A little restaurant opened up beside my gym, and I never really gave it much thought. The words on the door said "organic, raw, vegan." Now I do like to consider myself a healthy eater for the most part. I like to try new stuff occasionally. But this place never really struck me as one I wanted to dart in and try immediately. Fast forward a few weeks later, and a friend of mine told me she wanted me to try a new favorite lunch spot. It was, you guessed it, the same place. So I agreed. The first time I ordered a hummus wrap. I don't how to describe it really. It was delicious...refreshing...filling (as in, I wasn't hungry for HOURS), and just overall very tasty. Over the next few weeks, we went several times. On this past Tuesday, she texted me to meet her there as I was already walking in the door. That's how bad our obsession is.

Pictured below are two of their specials. The first one is my personal favorite, the vegan tacos and a corn salad side dish. It's ah-mazing.
























This one is their vegan spaghetti and meatballs.



















Now I know what you are thinking. What the heck are they made out of? I really don't know. I know that according to their website, it is "unprocessed plant foods that have not been heated above 115 degrees." I don't plan on turning into a vegan anytime soon. I do enjoy my meat, cheese, milk and eggs too much. But trying new things from time to time is never a bad thing, right?

Have you ever tried raw/vegan food?

What a weekend!

Sorry for the late update! Just finally recovering from the weekend. It was a super busy one! Thursday evening was the Kenny Chesney concert, and it was SO much fun! We bought tickets but a friend of ours had a suite, so we were able to enjoy the show while enjoying free food and beverages!
























My friend Julie and I before the show. She's one of my besties, and this is her first appearance on my blog. Everyone say "Hi Julie!" ;)

























Here I am with my boyfriend, Kenny, before the show.

Friday evening was my friend Shannon's baby shower. You should have seen my friend Jenn and I in the Target trying to buy items off her list. It was so hilarious! We finally had to flag an associate down for help. "Um, can you tell me where to find Butt Paste???" Next time, I'm bringing Chardonnay with me. The shower was fun though, and I got to meet a lot of sweet ladies!

By the way, would y'all please tell Shannon to update her blog already??? :) Clearly, she has some news to announce!



















Saturday evening I attended a beautiful wedding. We had a great time!!
























I love these girls!
























And there may have um, been a photo booth....what happens in the photo booth stays in the photo booth right???
























I can't believe these horrible tornadoes have struck again, but keep Joplin in your prayers. You can also text "REDCROSS" TO 90999 to donate $10 for relief efforts. I did it last night, and it was super easy.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

PS If you are reading this in Reader, I'm sorry for how screwy it looks. It looks normal on my screen but it always looks crazy in Reader. Ahh, Blogger. We have a love/hate relationship!

"One Bottle of Wine and Two Dixie Cups"

"3 AM we fell in love....














That's right...it's time for some Kenny Chesney! The last time I saw Kenny Chesney was a few years ago when he played at Williams Brice Stadium. He broke his foot in the lift as they were bringing him up to the stage but guess what? The man still rocked the house! With a broken foot. Amazing. I have mad respect for this guy. Hope to have some fun pictures from the concert to show y'all tomorrow.

Happy Thursday!

A Confession

Y'all know I love the South. Specifically South Carolina, obviously. The South is where my heart lies and most likely, I'll never leave. My family is here. I have lifelong friends (aka family) here. I have a great job.

However, regardless of all of that I confess: Sometimes I sit and dream of moving to California.



































































I just fell in love when I visited and I could easily see myself living there. The people were so friendly, the weather was amazing, the scenery is breathtaking, and the the food...I could go on and on. It's been 2 years since I visited but I can't wait to go again someday. I even loved LA. Just overall a beautiful place.

So there you go. My little West Coast secret. :-)

200 Calorie Pizza? Don't mind if I do!

Did you know that Hungry Girl is on the Food Network now? I caught a few minutes of it yesterday and she was doing a show on low calorie pizza. I don't know about y'all but pizza is one of the things I've really missed while I've been trying to lose weight. So needless to say, I perked up when I heard what she was discussing.

The first pizza she did was a White Crispy Pizza. Her version says that it is only 200 calories. Mine was probably more like 280 calories, because I could not find fat free ricotta. I used skim instead. But at any rate, under 300 calories is still pretty good! Also, I used spinach instead of basil leaves, because I didn't have any on hand.

Let me know if you try it. I can't wait to try more Hungry Girl pizza recipes! PS the 200 calories does NOT include the red wine. ;) hehe
























Crispy White Pizza
PER SERVING (entire recipe): 200 calories, 3.25g fat, 930mg sodium, 33g carbs, 7g fiber, 7g sugars, 17g protein -- PointsPlus® value 5*

Prep: 10 minutes
Cook: 20 minutes

Click to download a printer-friendly version!

Ingredients:

1 large low-fat, high-fiber, burrito-size tortilla with about 100 calories (The one I used was the brand LaBandarita, which only has 81 calories - I found it at WalMart)
1/3 cup fat-free ricotta cheese
1 tbsp. shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup thinly sliced onion

1/4 tsp. garlic powder

1/8 tsp. salt, or more to taste
Dash black pepper

4 thin slices plum tomato
4 fresh basil leaves

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.



Put tortilla on a baking sheet sprayed lightly with nonstick spray. Bake in the oven until slightly crispy, 3 - 5 minutes per side. Leave oven on.

In a small bowl, mix ricotta cheese with mozzarella cheese. Set aside.

Bring a skillet sprayed with nonstick spray to medium heat on the stove. Add onion and, stirring occasionally, cook until softened and slightly browned, about 5 minutes. Immediately stir onion into cheese mixture. Add garlic powder, salt, and pepper, and mix well.

Spread cheese-onion mixture evenly on top of the tortilla. Top with tomato slices and basil leaves. If you like, sprinkle with a dash of salt.

Return pizza to the oven and bake until hot, about 5 minutes. Slice and enjoy. Pizza for one!

MAKES 1 SERVING

A Prayerful Monday

Please keep a dear friend of mine and her family in your prayers as they deal with a devastating loss.
























Matthew 5:4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

Happy Friday!

Gummy Vitamins: Best Invention Ever

Ok, maybe not ever because I'm pretty sure air conditioning is the best invention ever. But after that...definitely gummy vitamins.

I don't even want to know how much money I have spent on multivitamins only to toss them out after a few months because I would never take them. Or I would take them maybe once a week. And when I did finally break down and take one of those horse pills, I would gag on them. And then stress about choking to death in my kitchen because I live alone and no one would know for days until they smelled the decaying body.

When I recently heard about these, angels started singing and it was love at first sight.












source

Now not only do I take my multivitamin every night (and whatever you do, don't take them in the morning - Nausea City, USA), but I look forward to taking them! They are yummy and they are gummy. And you get to take two a day. Score. Just don't eat too many...they taste like candy and it's easy to do. You've been warned.

And now back to your regular scheduled blog reading. Just had to share this because if you haven't heard of them, go out and get some today. No more death by multivitamins! (I got mine at WalMart.)

Enjoy!

Birthdays, Mother's Day & More

This past weekend was my friend Cindy's birthday! We went out to dinner to Cotton Grill in Lexington and had a fabulous evening. And I splurged a little too much but it was worth it! Their grits are amazinggggg. Zomg. But moving along....

Me and the Birthday Girl:
























These two sweet Southern gals below are sisters and I have known both of them my entire life. (and that's a long time) ha!
























Cheers to the birthday girl!
























On Saturday, I took my mommy to Charleston for the day. She loves to walk on the beach, and by the time we were done we had walked almost 5 miles. Whew! Then we did a little beach shopping on the Isle of Palms, drove around and looked at houses, and then drove over to the Arthur Ravenel Bridge. We walked half the bridge and added another 2 miles onto our daily total. I love that I was sore the next day but my 69 year old mother? Totally fine. The woman is a walking queen.

I always take a picture of this sign - I love it!
























After lunch and walking the beach, so pardon our sweaty selves.















































For Mother's Day, I cooked and we just relaxed outside and enjoyed each other's company. I cherish this time with her. She is truly my best friend! I love you mama.
























And last but not least, my weekly weigh in was this morning, and I'm down 2.8 for a total of 4.6 (not sure why, but my ticker on the left side rounds up...grrr). Yay! Of course, I walked approximately 25 miles this past week, so I'm sure that helped a great deal!

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Keeping a Clean House: How Do You Do It?

I love a sparkly, clean house but I hate to clean. Then again, unless you are Bree Van De Kamp, who enjoys it? But I do enjoy that high that you get after a good cleaning session. Is there anything better than going to sleep in fresh, laundered sheets? I don't think so.

Because of my bad habit of procrastination, I usually end up with a mound of laundry every weekend and a ton of household chores. And I run around doing a quickie clean job, and never finding the time to do a really good scrub session. Sometimes it just ruins my weekends, and I spent Sunday nights folding clothes.

I am determined to put a stop to this. Or at least attempt to create some better habits throughout the week to put a stop to weekend "cram cleaning" episodes. A few days ago, I downloaded Martha Stewart's Weekly Cleaning Guide. I was afraid it would be too daunting because we know how Martha is, but overall it's not too bad. So what I've decided to do is break up these weekly tasks into certain days, and try to accomplish a few of the things on the list each day.

























Do you have a cleaning list? How do you keep your house clean? Or do you have these crazy rush-job cleaning episodes like I do? And those of you with children, a-yaya. It's just me in my home, so really it is ridiculous that I cannot manage to keep up with this daily. I'll keep you posted on my progress! I have even considered asking a few friends to drop by unannounced over the next few weeks to keep me accountable. Hmm, scary thought. But it would probably work!

Ending on a positive note, I lost 1.8 lbs on my first week tracking through the My Fitness Pal website. Some of you may remember, I was really struggling with losing weight with the new WW points plus program. For some reason, it just wasn't working for *me* (Disclaimer: I love WW - I lost 30 lbs on the old program. But for me, the new plan just didn't work well.) Whatever works, right? If you join MFP, let me know so we can be friends on the site!

Happy Wednesday!

Brag Report: 18 miles!

I dread walking on the treadmill as it is so boring to me! However, this week I sucked it up and got on that bad boy almost every day. And as a result, I got in 18 miles of walking! The first few days were pretty rough, as I am not used to walking that much every single day. My legs were feeling pretty tired. But after about the 4th day, I was feeling pretty good! I downloaded a few movies onto my iPhone, and this has been a lifesaver. I prop the phone up on the top of the treadmill screen, plug my ear buds in and off to the movies I go! It was so helpful in passing the time away.

Also, I've been continuing to faithfully use the website My Fitness Pal every day, and several of my friends/coworkers are now using it as well. Whenever I log in I can see which one of my friends has already logged their food, exercise or if they have lost weight. It's pretty motivating! So far, I've done really well, except for Friday. I pretty much had a cheat day on Friday. But hopefully on Tuesday morning when I get on that scale, I'll see a lower number. Cross your fingers and say a prayer!

I'll leave you with my favorite photo from the royal wedding:















The little girl with her hands over her ears? Pure awesomeness.