monday, hard to wake up...

ugh. mondays. it is so freakin' hard to get out of bed after two days of relaxing/not having to be on anyone's schedule but my own...

...but the "fun" part of monday mornings is weigh-in time! wow, yup. i just called weigh-in time fun.

last week at weigh-in i had gained .8 pounds, so i was a little discouraged, but i also expected it. peter and i had ordered pizza later in the evening on the sunday preceding so i wasn't sure my weigh-in last monday would be accurate.

so i was super excited to weigh-in this morning and even more excited to learn that i had lost 5.2 pounds since last week's weigh-in! woo hoo!

so that brings my total to 17 pounds lost :) AND, when i put that in online, i got a cute little "yay for you 5% of your goal lost" so far star.

i wish my clothes would start feeling like i've lost something...peter says he can tell in my face, which is nice to hear. stay tuned for the next update!

*love and hugs*

so, i'm kind of a slacker...

...and i haven't been providing weekly updates as i thought i would. opps?

things are progressing. slowly.

i am up to 12.6 pounds lost, which is good, but not great. but i'm also not complaining.

i haven't set any "pounds to lose this week" goal recently because i find them discouraging if you don't meet that goal; however, i have decided to challenge myself. i am hoping to lose 7.4 more pounds before july 4th. if i manage to do that, i'll be down 20 pounds since really committing myself to my goal.

that's really all for now. i felt like a slacker that i wasn't holding up my end of the reporting bargain.

oh! i've also been slacking on the working out, so i'm going to make three small goals this week:
-go to the gym twice
-keep track of my weight watchers points each day
-stay within my points allowance for the week

*love and hugs*

week "one" reporting :)

mkay i say "week one" reporting because while it's my first week of "reporting" i've actually been pseudo-trying for about three weeks prior to this week. in those three weeks, i managed to lose 4.8 pounds, but then ended up gaining 5.4 pounds meaning i was up .6 pounds from where i started!

BUT...
i lost 10.4 pounds last week!!!! and yes, i know: this is not healthy or normal; however, it is not uncommon to see a substantial weight loss your first week of hardcore dieting - especially when limiting your carb intake. and yes, i also know that i need to be very diligent this week to a. keep off that 10 pounds and to b. lose another couple of pounds.

so, that means my "total" weight loss since starting is actually 9.8 pounds!

*update on goals from last week*
-stick with south beach phase one: sorta. i ended up having some things that are phase one allowed, but still healthy (aka strawberries, carrots, weight watchers ice cream bars)
-keep track of my weight watchers points: i kept track of every single thing i ate last week using my online weight watchers point tracker
-do not exceed my weekly points total: i still had approx eight weekly points left over, plus the nine activity points i earned!
-to look towards the positives and not dwell on the negatives: this one will always be a toughy, but i every time i wanted to give in, i stayed strong!
-work out twice: i went to the gym tuesday and wednesday!

goals for monday, may 11th through sunday may 17th:
-i lost a weight watchers point for going down in weight, so i need to be diligent this week to stay within my daily and weekly points totals.
-work out three times - i am going to a wedding this weekend so any extra workouts will be moer than helpful!
-to be mindful of what i am eating and drinking at the wedding as to not derail my weight loss efforts
-i already drink roughly 75 ounces of water a day, but i am aiming for 125 ounces a day this week!

again, thank you so much for all the positive feedback from last week's blogs; that encouragement was awesome and it definitely is a HUGE help on my journey!!!

*love and hugs*

the no-no list...

so, as a follow-up to my just posted, 'attack of the bridesmaid's dress...' i have created a no-no list, aka the things that i am going to try my hardest to avoid:

1. regular soda
2. actually, diet soda as well (sigh, i love you coke zero...i will miss you the most)
3. french fries (hi, my name is ashley and i am a french fry addict.)
4. tortilla chips...and the rest of the chip world
5. fried foods in general, including, but not limited to:
a. mozzarella sticks
b. fried chicken
c. cheesecake bites (sooooooo good! try them so i can live vicariously through you)
d. fried shrimp (i know, we just met and you are so good, but sooooo bad for me!)
6. sweet tea (and since i'm in the north now -ha- this won't be as hard as previously thought)
7. ice cream
8. rita's italian ice (thankfully, they have sugar-free when i'm ready to face temptation again)
9. any type of yummy, creamy dips: spinach, buffalo blue cheese, etc.
10. white bread
11. pina coladas (this one makes me cry a little inside)
12. any frozen yummy concoction, with or without alcohol
13. alcohol (temporarily. i will miss you, coconut rum. we'll meet again soon, have no fear.)
14. baked, yummy goodness. i.e. muffins, cookies, cakes, etc.
15. excessive usage of ranch dressing
16. restaurant pizza (trust, this is just a temporary seperation)
17. garlic butter sauce from said restaurant pizza chains
18. chicken philly sandwiches
19. juice and drinks that aren't sugar-free or diet
20. croutons
21. garlic bread
22. restaurant foods that i can't find the nutritional info on to calculate points
23. restaurant foods that are above a healthy points value

this list shall be updated from time to time...

attack of the bridesmaid's dress...

so, i'm in my dear friend christa's wedding in september. i ordered my dress february 17th with the hope of losing a few pounds between then and when it arrived.

well, it arrived. and according to my mother (as i had to dress shipped to her house knowing that i was moving but not knowing where to at the time) it is cut kinda small. awesome.

as anyone reading this blog and knows me knows, i have always been battling my weight. as you as four i remember having a weight problem and it has continued to be a constant battle. i think the first entry i made in this blog was about my weight loss goals, which, by the way, have continued to fail.

but that's the great thing about trying - you keep trying and eventually, hopefully, you will get it right. peter and i started south beach yesterday. i'm using that as a way to hopefully jump start myself, even if i don't last the whole two-week of strictness. at the same time, i'm still using my weight watchers tracker. so, really i'm doing a low-carb weight watchers system - which could be perfect for me. thus, after the strict (no carb, no nothing but veggies and protein) part, i'll transition easily into adding carbs and things back into my diet - but staying within my points.

i love south beach because the you can see results in two weeks. when i lost my previous 40 pounds plus some, i was doing the south beach diet. it's tough, but it works. this time, using the weight watchers system, i'll hopefully be able to actually keep it off longer than a year.

i am also going to try and be better about writing in my blog about this. i think it will be helpful and show some accountability on my part, as well as be a reminder of the struggle and battle when a. i reach my goal and start slipping and b. when i need some encouragement along the way!

plus, i'm tired of sounding like a broken record. i LOVED getting new clothes and outfits when i was smaller; i'm soooooooooo looking forward to that again!

when i first started this blog, i had small goals for each week...well, i was supposed to! so that being said, my goals from now until sunday, may 10th:
-stick with south beach phase one
-keep track of my weight watchers points
-do not exceed my weekly points total
-to look towards the positives and not dwell on the negatives
-work out twice

oh, by the way, the wedding is september 26...which is 21 weeks and four days away!

*love and hugs*

"This is a tragedy in American history. so for today, forget any and all of your college affiliations. For today, We are all Hokies."

My heart hurts.

I really can't explain the amount of pain the events that happened at Virginia Tech truly caused. I know there are various levels of grief and I wonder if I'll ever move past the "shock/not being able to accept" phase...even two years later.

My dear sweet Hokies, while you are with us in spirit, you have so many friends, families, strangers who wish nothing more for you to be with us physically. To my friends, Ryan, Caitlin and Erin, I've had dreams where you are alive and well...waking from those dreams causes an eerie sense of reality. Ryan, to hear your outrageous laugh, would literally be music to my ears...

There's just so much pain that simply won't go away, and it never will. The Hokie Spirit and community is one of pride, but we still feel so much pain. The Hokie community, one that is so loving and warm, was struck with an enormous amount of evil that shook each of us to our very core.

The questions that linger...all of the "whys" and "what ifs," that might never have an answer. The fact that one individual could take the innocent lives of 32, injury 23, disrupt the peace of a school community of 28,000 and to make the world look at Virginia Tech in sheer and utter disbelief.

One. One person. One individual. One former student, who walked our halls, our campus, shared in our community. One.

One. One school. One spirit. One legacy that will not compromised by the actions of one.

I miss you, Virginia Tech.

We use this quote a lot in sorority life, but to those who are severely immersed in the Hokie culture as a student, alumni, faculty or staff member - the love that we feel towards our sweet Virginia Tech - rings true more and more each day, "From the outside looking in, you don't understand and from the inside looking out, you can't explain." There are simply no words to explain my love and adoration for the campus and spirit that was my life for five years and that continues to stay with me.

When I say that I am a graduate of Virginia Tech – a proud "double" Hokie – I say that with so much love and pride. When people give me the sad, "Oh I'm so sorry" look or don't really know how to respond, I sometimes just want to say: April 16^th is NOT Virginia Tech.

The students, the resilience, the Hokie Spirit, the academic excellence, the community, the mountains, the Drillfield, the residence halls, the outlaying area, the cheers ringing out from Lane Stadium, the thunder of a new sense of belonging for our basketball team, the overall athletic and academic prestige, the research, the amazingly gifted and talented students and faculty, the reasons that I could go on for days with this list – THIS is Virginia Tech.

We will NOT be defined as "the school where the shootings happened." We will be remembered for all of the greatness and esteem that our traditions, spirit and continued excellence exude.

This has been the longest but at the same time shortest two years. I still remember April 16, 2007 like it was yesterday...

Ashley had come to visit me for the weekend in Blacksburg and she was going to leave on Sunday, the 15th but ended up staying until Monday. I was going to go into the Theme Housing Office but was actually going to go to Charlottesville that day. As she was about to leave, everything began to unfold. I remember her calling me when she was on the interstate saying there were police cars and ambulances coming in every direction.

I turned on the tv in shock and disbelief that there was a shooting in West AJ...the same West AJ that the year before I had worked inside of as a community advisor and as advisor to some of the residents in that residence hall. Then the phone calls, emails and ims began saying that one of friends and an RA had been shot, but that he would be pull through...unfortunately, that was not the case. You probably say Ryan's beautiful smile plastered on your tv; oddly enough I had been prepared to see that smile in person later that evening at a special program devoted to the ten-year anniversary of the Imaginarium (special RA programming and resource room on campus).

The nightmare didn't end there and we all know the rest of the awful story. I remember watching some of Caitlin's residents on tv being interviewed and saying that they were worried about her and hoped that she was safe...only to find out that yet another beautiful Hokie, a student I had meetings with and had a working relationship with, was also taken from us.

The following day all of the names had not been identified but the lead facilitator to the freshman class I co-taught sent an email to each of our students making sure they were safe. Later, I went into the theme office and one of my former colleagues asked if I knew the news. What news? Two students from the WING (the theme program I co-taught) had also died. I remember screaming right then and there when she read Erin's name.

I feel like every single time I think, dream, read, etc. anything involving the tragic events of April 16th that I am in a really, really awful movie. There are some wounds that never heal. While we try our best to move on, it is an image and constant reminder to the pain, terror and fear that we lived.

Alesha and I went to Poor Billy's for dinner the same day all of the additional information came out from NBC and there were reporters every where. One lady tried talking to me us, twice, and thankfully Alesha was composed enough to tell her nicely that we weren't interested in talking because words were not coming from my mouth, only sobs...

Nikki Giovanni's poem at the Convocation Ceremony was beautiful. As she said, "no one deserves a tragedy." It was poignant and thoughtful but also filled with strength and passion to begin the long road to recovery.

"We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. we are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech."

Dr. Zenobia Hikes did so much for our Hokie Community to help us regain our sense of belonging, even though we had lost our beautiful innocence. She was a powerful woman in a petite frame and lead us in a much-needed round of "Let's Go Hokies!" that day. She too, is missed as she passed away a few months ago due to a heart condition, but she is a permanent fixture in our Virginia Tech family.

My heart hurts, but my love has never been more powerful. Leaving Blacksburg has been - and continues to be - one of the most difficult situations for me. Not because of what happened in April, but because of all the beautiful, exciting, wonderful experiences that happened in the years that I spent in Blacksburg. Thank you, Virginia Tech.

apartments, and jobs and headaches - oh my!

hello! i feel like it's been for-freakin'-ever since i updated or wrote anything. i have so many people asking me about the move, what's going on, etc. that i felt it was easier to write it in a blog.

first, thank you for the sweet messages and comments! it's nice being cared about :)

soooooo, sometime in february i went up to maryland to meet with my uncle who has his own company. he had an opening and since my contract with uva was up in may, and i was job searching, it seemed like a great opportunity. so, shortly after meeting with him, i gave my two weeks to uva. my last day at uva was march 5th!

short blurb about uva - while i enjoyed some aspects of working at uva, the job was not a good fit and most of the past year i've been job searching/unhappy. we all know that uva isn't my cup of tea and that blacksburg/virginia tech is a much better place for me :)

sooooooooooo peter and i went up to maryland this past sunday to look for apartments with a super, super nice realtor. he took us around and showed us the area and some good places.

the first place we saw we loved, but found out it already had an application out on it :( talk about a bummer. it was the cheapest (it had been sitting for awhile, although i don't really know how) yet nicest place. sigh.

so fast forward to tuesday. peter had to work, but i left at 6:50 in the a.m. from charlottesville to meet up with said realtor in maryland and we spent another day apartment searching. we found a nice back-up place, but once again, i fell in love with a place that was in the same area as the first one that left us discouraged.

so after running around, getting offer letters from the job, getting a certified check from the bank after finding out you have to buy a money order with cash not check, getting the run around like whoa, i made it over the the property management office who controls the property we want and HOPEFULLY this means we have that apartment. we'll find out a definite answer today, but it looks good. if not, we do have a backup that actually would allow us to move in this saturday.

i can't believe how stressful it has been to find an apartment. i feel like it was easier to buy a condo in some aspects!

so recap:
-moving to germantown, maryland
-will be working in rockville, maryland (office is located in rockville town center)
-will still have an extra bedroom so we expect visitors :p
-moving the weekend of the 20th
-starting work: march 23rd

whew.

*love and hugs*