Ah-Ah-Ahhh*CHOO* -lergies

I.hate. allergies! This year they are almost debilitating! I am constantly sneezing, blowing my noise, and putting eye drops in my eyes.  As I sit here in my gym clothes, I am dreading the feeling of running with a stuffy head.  Not to mention my asthma (I know, I am a walking disaster).  My darling Clint bought me a neti pot...and at first I was as skeptical as Oprah looks here. I will say that it helped me to sleep last night so maybe I should stick with it!!  




As a side note, I will have to put aside my misery so I can take care of beautiful little puppy tonight.  She is currently at the dreaded vet getting spayed and will need a lot of love and cuddles!

L-I-F-E

As the semester draws to a close I seem to begin running on auto-pilot.  My planner is filled with too many things to get accomplished and way too little time. I (already being the chronic planner) block out my entire day in effort to get all of my work and other essential.  The stress of 6 exams in 4 days is looming over my head doing nothing but increasing my cortisol levels.  Of course, this becomes a never ending cycle....stress and constant studying leads to high corisol and constant eating leads to getting fat and unhealthy leads to unhappy and miserable.  So, why do it to myself? In the end, my health and my sanity must prevail.  I am vowing to look at what is important in life during this "stress mess."  In a time where I should be cooped up under my books, I am going to break out of my apartment and go for a run.  I am going take breaks and play with my beautiful Bailey.  I am going to relax and enjoy the moments I get with family and friends.  I am going to get through exams stress free.  It may be easier said than done, but... "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans” (-John Lennon) so I am choosing life.  

So much for saving....

Note to self: Never assume that you are in control, of ANYTHING.  


I have been busting my butt to find ways to save a penny here, a penny there so that survival on a graduate school budget would be possible.  HA!!! Clint was coming into town on Friday so I thought I would take some time Thursday night to clean and do some laundry. I began with the comforter...MISTAKE!  Apparently my comforter was too big for the washer (who thought a grad student could be so dumb?), so not only did the comforter not get washed....I had to take it out, rinse it out in the bathtub, wring it out, try to throw it in the dryer (MISTAKE 2) and ended up drying it out on the balcony.  Meanwhile I am having to clean up a leaking washing machine.  I tried to do a smaller load to see if it would work...(MISTAKE 3).  I ended up wringing out all of the clothes one by one and scooping all the water out of the drum with a cup.
Come to find out, fixing the 11 year old, hand-me-down washer was not worth it...so $600 later I have....

 I am trying to remain optimistic about being dreadfully in debt now and even more so looking forward to my prosperous OT future...December 2011, where are you?!  

So if anyone knows of a good part-time job in Greenville, send it my way! :) 

  

AMAZING low-fat recipes!

In my recent battle to get my on the wagon I have been searching for some healthy, but delicious recipes...and I think I may have found the solution! Skinny Taste is a website that has weight watcher recipes that really look great! This site may deter me from getting all the work I want to get done tonight, but I assure you that Clint and I will be trying out some of these dishes this weekend! 

Darn that wagon!

It is that time again to get back on that proverbial weight loss wagon.  Pre-cruise I was super motivated to eat right and get in shape so that I would be happy with how I looked in my bikini.  I started eating very healthy with the help of Biggest Loser, Simple Swaps (which I highly recommend), watching my portion sizes, and working out with Jillian on Biggest Loser Wii Fit.  Miraculously I lost 10 pounds and felt amazing for the first time since I can remember! Now I can feel myself slinking back into old habits and need a wake up call!  My biggest problem is buying healthy foods on a grad school budget...Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!


So this month's goal is to be a chronic coupon clipper, making those healthy meals, and working out with no excuses!  Hopefully I can get the little fluff ball to take up running to maximize my success :)  


 As a side note, I had to throw in Bailey's newest glamor shot.  Poor girl, she must hate us by now!

 

Why the name?

I figured it might be time to explain why I named my blog "Building my yellow brick road."  

A) If you know me at all, you know that I am overly obsessed with the Wizard of Oz.  It has been my favorite movie since I could say "rewind," which I often asked my mother to do for me so I could watch it over and over again.  I have built a pretty impressive collection of Oz paraphernalia over the years and yes, have even met 3 different munchkins (I know, kinda creepy)!  My latest Oz adventure will be going to see Wicked at DPAC in a few weeks thanks to Clint's wonderful mother who bought us all tickets! 

B) I wanted to come up with something personal to me and the changes that have been going on in my life in the past year.  It was about this time last year when I was finding out that I would be moving to a new city for graduate school which would be at least 2 hours away from Clint and all of my friends.  I was also embarking on the path to my career as an OT and learning the ropes of truly being on my own.  In essence, I was starting a new chapter in my life and I was beginning to realize it for the first time.  No more undergrad comfort zone with the sorority house of home cooked meals...I had moved on to coupon cutting, getting in bed at 10pm, and needing my morning coffee to make it through the day. Soooo....there you have it.  


"Building MY Yellow Brick Road" encompasses how I feel about finding all the pieces of this new chapter of my life and how they fit together... one brick at at time.  I am both excited and anxious about where my yellow brick road will lead and I look forward to sharing that journey with you.  

Spring, Sprang, Sprung!

Don't you love when it truly starts to feel like Spring again?! I knew that I had to fully take advantage of the beautiful weather today and Bailey was coming with.  Luckily she didn't mind too much since she got a treat at Wachovia AND at PetSmart! Guess it pays off to be cute, huh? She also had to tag along to Goodwill so I treated her with an outing to the dog park! It was her 1st time at this park and her 4th time overall and she had a freakin blast! 

Well, at first not so much....  

Bailey likes to hide under the bench when she gets scared at the dog park, but this one just happened to have a huge hole in the ground!

By the end of the hour she was looking more like this...

I was so proud of her, and most importantly she currently looks like this....

which means I will get a fully uninterrupted night of zzz's!

Since Bailey got her exercise I figured I would come home and go for a run myself to take in some more of the beautiful day.  Hoping for more of these days....especially since I will be enjoying Easter at the beach with my family :)