I must apologize again for neglecting my little bloggy space. I guess I just haven't had anything go on in my life that I felt the urge to write about. Even now, I am struggling to think of something interesting to say. I spend a good chunk of my day reading blogs (yes, I should be working, but business is slow....I can't stare at a wall for 8 hours ya know) I read about all of these interesting people and marvel at how they can continually come up with witty, funny, and inspiring posts day after day. It really makes me realize how utterly boring my life is. Other than work, my life consists of cooking, cleaning, Facebooking, and wedding planning. What will I do once the wedding is all planned?

Speaking of wedding planning...there have been a few new developments. I made my first payment toward my dress....only 9 or so more to go!!! I'm toying with the idea of using silk flowers for my bouquets instead of fresh. I went out and bought some that I really like, but I have no clue how to arrange them. My future mother in law and I are going to go out this weekend and get some more stuff and play around. We are also going to play around with centerpieces and see what we can come up with. I am craft challenged, so it will be interesting to see what happens. I made the joke that if I made the centerpieces there would be glue fingerprints all over them.

I'll be going home in May. Words cannot express how excited I am for this trip. For once, I will be home without something else going on (funeral, wedding...etc) I will be able to enjoy my family and friends with no pressure of HAVING to be anywhere. Other than wedding appointments I will be home free. The bonus is that my mother is buying my plane ticket. As my younger brother so aptly put it...."Holy shit....Hell froze over?" I hate to say it, but it's true. I love my mother, but she is the worst with money. Like I'm one to talk there though...c'est la vie!

I have been chugging away at my diet. I am currently down 6 pounds and I am so proud of myself for that. I would like to be down 10 more by the time I go home in May, but i have been sitting at 6 pounds lost for going on two weeks. I really just need to step up my working out. I've gotten a little slack in that lately and I need to not be.

Part of my diet entails me being able to have a little homemade sweet snack. So far I have been baking away making a yellow cake with frosting (from scratch), sugar cookies with icing (from scratch), coffee cake (okay it's all from scratch) and lastly chocolate and butterscotch chip cookies. I think being able to be "bad" once a day is keeping me motivated. I hate the deprivation that dieting gives you. I hate walking by store fronts or restaurants, thinking, man I wish I had one of those. Or going to the store specifically to buy a candy bar because I couldn't take it anymore....oh and a package of cookies for good measure too. If I consistently have something baked around me, I am less likely to overindulge when the cravings get to be too much. In these past few weeks I have found a new love of cooking and I have been trying out a bunch of new recipes. So far they have all been home runs. If you are looking for a great recipe site, then I definitely recommend www.sparkrecipes.com. Unlike other recipe sites, you can type in the ingredients you are cooking with along with the serving size and it will automatically calculate the nutrional values for everything. I have used it both to find new recipes to try out and also just to see how healthy my current recipes are. So far, not too bad.

Well, I suppose that is all for now. Take care

Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend

We had a bit of a ring snafu last week. Pete got a call from the jewler saying that the diamond we picked was mislabled and that it was actually quite a bit more expensive. He didn't really get/understand all of the details, so we decided to go down to the jeweler. My inital reaction to it all was that "it's not MY fault they mislabled the diamond". So we go down there and they sit us down in this private area. The sales woman explained to us that every week their in-house jewelers weigh and grade all of their diamonds. The diamond that she showed us and another diamond were very similar and somehow during the grading process were switched and put into the wrong envelopes. They brought out both of the diamonds so that we could compare the two and decide if we wanted to pay more for the one I picked (they said they would meet us half-way on the price) or if I wanted the one I "picked". Looking at both of the diamonds you could immediately tell that they were very similar. The one I "picked" is and I1 clarity, I color, and .99 carats. The one I picked is a VS2, H, .98 carat. Each diamond was only one grade off on each point. I could only see a difference when I looked at them through the loupe. The one I "picked" had an inclusion right near the middle. I could only see it when looking through the loupe though. I also got to put both diamonds in the setting so I could see which one looked the best. Surprisingly I went with the diamond I "picked" rather than the one I picked. Even though it had that inclusion, I thought it had just as much fire and it looked so much bigger in the setting than the other one. And as a bonus, the jewler gave us $100 for putting us through all that trouble!! We decided to go out to dinner at this really nice restaurant by our house (it's all organic and oh so yummy!!) and went out to see the new Bond movie. Very Good.

I have just jumped onto the Twilight bandwagon. I went out this weekend and bought the first book in the series. I opened it up on Sunday night and didn't close it until almost 3:30 Monday morning. It was almost like a fix....I HAD to finish it!! I went out and got the 2nd book (New Moon) yesterday. I was able to contain myself a bit better and was able to put it down fairly early so I could get some sleep. We are going to see the movie at some point this week and I am so excited!!

I've also joined a Fitness Challenge with some of the girls on one of my online message boards. I'm hoping that will help me to get motivated to start losing some weight. There's a $15 Lush gift card at stake!!! Wish me luck!