Catching Up...

So many things going on.... well not really, but I feel like I haven't uploaded any pictures or blogged about much except my muffin top...

So lets play catch up:

Congrats to my friends Jason and Craig who were wed a few weeks back.

Beautiful wedding, beautiful fall day. They are such a great couple!

Went to Run Like a Girl 1k downtown Des Moines on a nice, cool, fall evening. My friend Sandy helps plan this and this year the proceeds raised went to LLS.

My friend Kate joined me and we chit chatted drank some beer and ate some

Velvet Elvis Dip at El Bait Shop. Kate and I had to call my mom to find out what 'proprietary' meant.

I mean... who uses big words like that on a menu!? :)

We also had the worst... I'll say it again... THE WORST beer in the world.

It sounded so good... it tasted SO BAD!

I hung out with a guy I like on Saturday... we'll call him Jeff, because that is his name. He surprised me with some pumpkins and markers to decorate them since both of my sisters 'forgot' to tell me when they were going to the pumpkin patch and I had no pumpkins for the season.

He got the bestest markers ever!! BANANA CLIP YELLOW! HA!

And our finished products - minus the Michigan pumpkin Jeff made. :-)

I also went to a Halloween party at my friend Jennys house on Saturday night.

It was a lot of fun and the mask I wore was a little creepy...

I would down load some pictures of the party - cause they are awesome... but it's taking way to long to upload a picture on here and it's irritating me and my patience is g.o.n.e.

Muffin Top Meltdown

Today was our first weigh in. I am officially the heaviest I have ever been. I knew the number I saw on the scale was going to cause me to dream of being anorexic, but I love food too much to not eat it at all. So… bulimic? Nope – not a huge fan of gagging myself until I throw up. SOOOOO with that being said I think Weight Watchers is the best, healthiest, alternative for me and my eating disorder. (I am a glutton)

I also had to wear dress pants to work today. No jeans. So I rummaged through my closet and I have 6 pairs of nice khakis and khaki capris from The Limited, none of which fit. So I am sitting here today with the queen of muffin top’s happening at the top of my pants, with only 1 of the 3 buttons, actually buttoned.  Just think… when I lose the weight I want to/need to lose I will have 6 ‘new’ pairs of pants to wear!! J

My goal to lose: 20 pounds

Amount lost: --

Weeks to go: 17

Recipe of the week:

My mom made this Sunday for the Packers game and it’s pretty tasty. A serving is half a cup!

It lists the Points for WW’s on it.  Pumpkin Pie Dip

Road Kill

I get very sad when I see dead animals on the side of the road. The poor innocent raccoon, squirrel, bunny, opossum, armadillo, deer, duck, hawk, bird, beaver, cat or dog, was just trying to get home. Home to it's babies, its husband or wife, home to it's nice comfy bed. BUT NOOOOOOO, some fool had to drive too fast, too erratically and run the poor animal over.

I know I am not the only one that feels bad for these helpless animals. Years ago my older sister, Jessica, hit a bunny with her now husband Steve sitting in the passenger seat. She took her hands off the wheel to cover her mouth and was heading towards a mental breakdown when Steve had to remind her she was still driving. (At least this is how I remember the story). She was devastated. I think she ended up drinking a lot that night since she had become a murderer....

The first animal I hit did the 'reverse' in the middle of the road, I thought he continued across, but at some point, he turned back and I hit him. I was very upset, I saw his tail move in my rear view mirror and decided - "Oh... I just stunned him. He's alive and well". Later I drove by that same stretch of road and he was.... DEAD. Very upset I was.

Another time I was driving to Texas and a bird hit my windshield, and then was hit by the car behind me. I think this made me an accomplice to it's murder. I blame the other driver, if they wouldn't have been tailgating me that poor bird would have made it home to it's family.

I saw a deer get hit by a semi once.... it took years of therapy to erase that from my mind.

I remember a story of a family friend and his daughter driving a long with the top down on their Mazda Miata. A deer ran out in front of them and actually went under the car. The girl had just put lip gloss on and had deer hair stuck to her lips. Yes, that is nasty... but the poor deer never got to wear lip gloss again - cause it was dead.

Roadkill: I will say a little prayer for you.

12 Month Life List

I have added another tab called "12 Month Life List".
Besides checking off some of the things on my Life List, I thought I would have yearly goals of things to accomplish.

We'll see how it goes!

Holy Muffin Top, Batman!

So… I currently weigh more then I think I have ever weighed in my life.

What makes this even more pathetic is in December/January (10 months ago) I was fitting in to my high school jeans, and if I do say so myself… I had a hot little body!

Now – not so much.

Even my ‘big jeans’ are too tight.

So in order to fix this current muffin top situation. <----click for pictures of muffin tops! I have joined Weight Watchers and I am going to track my progress on this blog. My future food posts from restaurants will no longer contain 4 appetizers, plus a meal, plus a dessert - as much yumminess as that is, it's not good for anyones waist line!

I need to get healthy and to a weight I am happy with because even though the way I look should not affect who I am as a person – it totally does. I hate the way I look and I am positive EVERYONE else see’s all my flaws too…

This will be called my “Muffin Top Meltdown” and I will post every Tuesday my progress and weight lost with Weight Watchers. J

To Move or Not To Move...

“A ship in a port is safe but that is not what ships are built for.” ~someone

I’m almost 31. I own a house in Des Moines, Iowa. I want nothing more than to move away from the place I’ve called home my whole life. I want to live in Colorado and I have wanted this for a couple years now. Although the thought of moving away from family and friends is scary. I see myself in Colorado and I’m smiling a lot.

At 31 though, is it too late to start a new life? Will I be able to make new friends? Will I like the job I get? Will I be able to deal with my house as a rental? Will I be able to sell my house in August when I’m able to put it on the market? How much will I lose by selling it? What if I want to come back? Is it failing if I don’t end up liking it out there? Will I be able to find a good job if I do have to come back? What will I miss with my friends and family? Will B and P know who I am if they go months without seeing me? Will anyone really care that I’m gone? Will anyone really miss me?

I am safe and secure in Des Moines. I could easily play 6 Degrees of Holly Moeller with anyone in this town and find a connection back to me. Which in some ways is the problem. As much as this town has to offer… been there, done that. Any guy I meet.. I probably dated one of his friends. In some ways, I am bored of this town. (Des Moines is NOT boring, I am just bored). My fear of moving away has kept me in this city my WHOLE life. I have never lived more than 20 minutes away from my parents.

I keep thinking about moving - daily I think about it and I’ve put some wheels in motion to get this going. Having help getting  a resume together. I have an old co-worker that moved out there last spring that said I could rent a room from him. (My wonderful Uncle also offered his house for me to crash at for a while). Yet, I think to myself: “Self, should you really be doing this? Can you afford it? Should you just wait till you sell your house? Should you just wait till you are 35? Should you just wait till you are retired? Maybe just push it out of your mind, cause it’s never going to happen?

Why not take this risk? Why not do something you want to do and deal with everything else as it comes? Duh, I’ll meet friends, I’m out going and awesome… right? You shouldn’t wait any longer to move… do it over Thanksgiving weekend, or is that too soon? Why would I move away from some of the best friends I’ve ever had in my life? They’d still be my friends and visit right? Will I get there and hate it and run home to mommy and daddy? Will I fail? Will people say “I knew you wouldn’t make it out there.”? Will this move really be good for me? What if I get out there and HATE it?

“The mountains call and so I must go…” ~someone else

Have you moved far away from ‘home’? What was the scariest part? What was the best part?

Zombie Burger - A Must Try!

Tuesday night, Nicole, Tami, Jessica and I met up on the nice, big, breezy street side patio of

Zombie Burger.

It was a beautiful evening with great friends and WAY TOO MUCH FOOD!

We ordered for appetizers: Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Fried Buffalo Bacon, Blue Cheese Bacon Fries and for good measure a basket of regular fries with Zombie Sauce.

The Fried Buffalo Bacon came with DEEP FRIED RANCH DRESSING on top!

The Brussels Sprouts were delicious. Roasted and tasty!

The Blue Cheese Fries... delicious and mouth watering. I love myself some blue cheese!

I had a hot dog with mac and cheese and bacon on it. It was really good,

their mac and cheese was DE-LICIOUS!

The other girls had burgers of all kinds... I'm not quite sure what was on them.

Nicole did say her veggie burger was the best she'd ever had!

Jessica and I gave in to our sweet tooth and ordered shakes.... to go.

I got the Zombie Bride Wedding Cake Shake - it was a vanilla shake with yellow cake mix in it. It tasted like cake batter and was TO DIE FOR PEOPLE! TO DIE FOR! Jessica got the chocolate cake shake and it tasted like CHOCOLATE cake batter and it was TO DIE FOR!

We are now Zombies.



Fongs, Fa, fa, fa, Fongs!

Thursday night Chicago and I went to Fongs in down town Des Moines.

It used to be a Asian restaurant, but was changed to a pizza place a few years back.

Their pizza is.. different.

They have Kung Pao Chicken, Fongolian Beef, Thai Chicken, Loaded Potato, Spicy G, Bacon Popper...

to name a few. I've tried quite a few of these and they are alllllll delicious but my favorite will be mentioned below....

Their happy hour is pretty awesome. Buy a drink, get a free slice. You normally have about 3 kinds of pizza to choose from. We had cheese and banana pepper and pepperoni. I actually did not eat any of it, but tried a bite of the banana pepper and pepperoni. Chicago also put parmesan cheese and honey on it.
It was pretty tasty.

I however, was saving room for their cheese sticks... Which are crispy goodness, with lots of gooey cheese in the middle. They are made with the wraps that egg rolls are made of. Seriously... so good.



And my favorite....... Crab Rangoon Pizza!!

YUMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYY!!!!

I was so excited to have the pizza. Chicago and I have been trying for months to find the time to get together and get down to Fongs. It was worth the wait! I was miserably full when we left, but I just couldn't stop eating the deliciousness that is Fongs Pizza!

When you get your check, you get fortune cookies. These were our fortunes.



I highly recommend going to Fongs (4th Street down town). It's a fun, crazy atmosphere with great food. The place is normally pretty busy, and there is NO hurry when getting drinks or getting your food, but when you are there, there is no rush to leave. It's comfortable, laid back and different from any place I've been.