Friday, September 30, 2011

It's Friday, I'm in Love

Happy Puppers says "Happy Friday, boys and girls!"
He's just as stoked as I am that it's the weekend!
This picture just made my day, so I wanted to share the happiness with all of you. :)
Have a wonderful weekend!

Friday, September 23, 2011

Pumpkin Protein Shake Deliciousness

Fall is finally upon us my little ghouls and goblins!  Which means I have Pumpkin Fever!  I love everything pumpkin from pumpkin pie to those heavenly Pumpkin Spice Creme Frappuccinos from Starbucks! (Seriously, if you haven't tried one yet you NEED to. They are beyond delicious. I usually get the Creme version but all of their Pumpkin Spice drinks are yummy. Try one! You'll thank me later.)

Since I've been working out like crazy, I thought it would be a good idea to add some protein shakes to my diet. Now don't cringe, not all protein shakes taste like pure nastiness.  I have found that the tasty factor heavily relies on what type of protein powder you use.  I've had such bad luck in finding a good protein powder, every kind that I tried always seemed to leave this disgusting after taste in my throat.  So gross.  So I asked my Dad what kind of protein powder he and my Mom use, and he directed me to Biochem Whey Protein Powder.  I made a trip to my local Sprouts (formally Henry's) and picked up the Vanilla flavor and the Chocolate Fudge flavor.  I tried the Chocolate Fudge protein powder in my Pumpkin Protein Shake a couple days ago and it is absolutely delicious!!  I highly recommend trying Biochem Protein Powder if you haven't already.

Because I am so in love with this protein shake, I figured I'd spread the wealth and share it with the world.

Pumpkin Protein Shake

6-10 Ice Cubes
(depending on how thick you like your shakes. I use 10)
1/3 cup Pure Canned Pumpkin
(make sure to get 100% Pure Pumpkin and not Pumpkin Pie filling. I use Libby's Canned Pumpkin. You can find it at Ralphs.)
1 1/3 cup Soy Milk
(I use Silk Light Original Soy Milk but you can use the regular or Vanilla as well)
1-2 scoops Chocolate or Vanilla Protein Powder
(I use Chocolate since I'm a chocoholic, but Vanilla is good too! I personally like to use 2 scoops of protein powder)
2 packets of Splenda
Cinnamon to taste

Blend it all up and you'll have yourself a yummy, healthy and festive protein shake!  Make sure you have a BIG glass handy, this recipe makes a huge shake.  It's guaranteed to keep you full for a good while!

Nutrition Facts

Total if you follow my exact recipe:
Calories: 227
Fat: 2.3g.
Fiber: 4.6
Protein: 29.3g.

Breakdown
2 Scoops Chocolate or Vanilla Biochem Protein Powder
Chocolate: Calories: 120
Vanilla: Calories: 110
Fat: 0g.
Sugars: 7g.
Fiber: 0g.
Protein: 20g.

1 1/3 cup Silk Light Original Soy Milk
Calories: 80
Fat: 2g.
Fiber: 1.3g.
Protein: 8g.

1/3 cup Libby's Canned Pumpkin
Calories: 27
Fat: 0.3g.
Fiber: 3.3g.
Protein: 1.3g.

Enjoy!! :)


Thursday, September 15, 2011

Massage Therapy...and not the dirty kind!

For the last month or so I have grown more and more unhappy with my job.  Not because what I do is difficult and not because the company I work for treats me poorly.  My current job is actually great, they offer full benefits, good pay and the environment is pretty laid back.  I just sit at my desk all day, not having to really interact with anyone, creating charts and updating information in different systems.  And THAT, my friends, is where the problem lies.  I'm bored out of my MIND, I'm not being challenged and I'm doing the exact opposite of what I wanted to do with my life.  I want to make a difference, I want to help people and I want to help animals.

Unfortunately, due to my queasiness, I would never be able to help animals in a veterinary hospital.  I will leave that to Will. ;) I plan on volunteering with I.C.A.R.E. Dog Rescue in October when I will have more free time.  So, the helping animals part is covered.

My mom recently had hip replacement surgery on her left hip and she had her right one done back in April.  Both surgeries were a success!  I realized though that every time I'm in a hospital setting now, I wish I had the ability to be a nurse or a doctor.  I would have loved to be a Pediatrician.  But, I think I would terrify the already nervous kiddos even more if I passed out in front of them (thank you very much queasiness) so that wouldn't have worked out very well.  When I see incompetent nurses, I want to strangle them because I know I could do their job so much better and make their patients feel a hundred times better.  But, again, thanks to my inability to be around blood or even fathom sticking a needle into anything, I wouldn't be much help. 

So, I've been really reflecting on what I want to do with my life.  I'm 23 years old, I wanted to be married with a kid by now.  Since neither of those glorious events have occurred yet, I need to finally focus on my career.  So, I began narrowing it down.  I want to help people.  I want to be able to set my own hours or work from home.  When I do have kids, I want the flexibility of being able to stay at home with them and have my career at the same time.

I began my search last week for virtual employment.  Virtual assistant, virtual customer service representative and so on and so forth.  I found nothing.  I started thinking about being an Esthetician again, but the schooling is SO expensive and it would take me about 4 years to finally get there.  I don't have 4 years for a few reasons.  1.) Will is possibly going to transfer to a UC next year, 2) I can't stand the thought of being bored and unhappy with my job for another 4 years and 3) I might finally be a mom by then.
Then it hit me.  I remembered coming across this website for a local Massage Therapy school called Healing Hands School of Holistic Health.  I remembered they had good prices and they offered night classes which is perfect since I work full time.  So, I began looking into that.

They offer four different programs: Massage Technician Training (100 hours and $990), Massage Practitioner (250 hours and $2,475), Massage Therapist (500 hours and $4,950) and Holistic Health Practitioner (1,000 hours and $9,900).  I, of course, want to be a Holistic Health Practitioner.  Looking over all of the different techniques you can learn in that program really interested me and got me even more excited about the idea of becoming a Holistic Health Practitioner. I would love being so diverse!

Being a Massage Therapist or a Holistic Health Practitioner would be perfect for me.  It meets all of the requirements of my dream job, plus depending on where you work, you can get full benefits.  I've decided that I'm going to go for it.  I'm going to see what kind of financial aid I can get and go from there.
I'm excited! :)

P.S. I have lost 2 pounds already using the Lose It! app. I love it! :) 

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Sammy and Sushi Deliciousness

Before I begin, let me just clarify that when I say "sushi" all I mean is "California Rolls".  I don't eat the raw stuff, it freaks me out.

Last night I had a very fun, long overdue date night with one of my closest friends Sam.  We went to Minato Sushi in Lake Forest, which by the way is freaking delicious and very well priced!  If you're a sushi lover, you definitely need to try Minato.  Check out their website, they have a huge variety of sushi and appetizers and also offer a great All You Can Eat option. 
Usually, when it comes to sushi, I can really only eat four maybe five rolls at the most before I'm full.  Last night I really surprised myself.  I ate eight California Rolls, four small veggie egg rolls and a scoop of Green Tea ice cream before I was finally satisfied.  I was semi impressed with myself and semi grossed out until I realized that I had basically starved myself all day by not eating nearly as much as I should have earlier, plus my crazy workouts cause me to be hungry every couple hours.  So I guess my sushi binge eating was justified after all. :P

This is completely off topic but I'm super excited about it and want to share.  Thanks to my amazing boyfriend, I have discovered the Lose It! app.  I downloaded it last night on my phone to check it out and so far it's awesome!  It allows you to set a goal weight, how much you want to lose a week (up to 2 pounds), tells you when you will acheive your goal weight (apparently I will reach mine by November 1st), tells you the amount of calories you are allowed each day, you can log everything you eat (it has a HUGE database of almost every food you can think of) and you can log your exercise routine (which of course causes your calories allowed for the day to automatically rise).  I'm really entertained and having a lot of fun with this app so far! (Only child = very easily entertained)
It's not just a phone application, you can use Lose It! on the computer for free too! I plan on sticking with it and seeing just how well it works, so I will keep everyone posted on my progress.  Let the weight loss begin!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

To The Best Dad Ever...





HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY PAPA BEAR!!!
I love you, Daddy!


Lazy Tuesday

This is all I wanted to do today. Just sleep! But since eating and paying bills are somewhat important, I had to drag my lazy butt out of bed and go to work. Being responsible is no fun sometimes!

So, my weekend didn't go quite as planned.  A pipe under the house Will is living at broke and semi flooded his room, so we didn't have our date night on Friday. I felt really bad that instead of going out and having fun, he had to move all of his stuff out of his room. We're going to have date night this Friday though, same plans that we had for last Friday. I'm excited :)

My massage on Saturday wasn't enjoyable for the most part. I went to a massage therapist that I had never tried before and it was not relaxing at all.  She was really rough and was massaging really quickly.  It seemed as though she was trying to rush through it.  I will give her this though; she gave a great scalp massage!  Even so, I'm definitely not going back to her again.  My mom on the other hand had a wonderful experience with her massage therapist and might be slightly addicted now. Uh oh! It was her first massage ever, so I was more concerned about her having a good experience than myself.  It made me happy that she loved it so much, she deserved it.  And especially with her hip replacement surgery quickly coming up next Monday, she needed a nice relaxing girl day!

Sunday ended up not being a "fun in the sun" kind of day for me and Will because by the time we got to Elsinore, everyone had already had their pool time. So needless to say, I'm still just as pale as ever. ;) It worked out though, I really wasn't in the mood to swim afterall and we all had a great time just hanging out.

Monday it RAINED!!  There was thunder and everything.  Oh, I was so excited waking up to a rainy day.  I threw on a long sleeve shirt and a pair of shorts and walked outside where I was greeted by a lovely wave of HEAT!  Ugh, it was so disappointing!  I want it to be COLD!  I'm so over it being hot and I'm tired of having to run my A/C constantly!  Oh well, at least it's already September, my season will be here before we know it!

Even though the weekend wasn't exactly what I had in mind, it was still a lot of fun and much, much needed.  I hope everyone enjoyed their Labor Day weekend as well!

Friday, September 2, 2011

Happy Three Day Weekend!

I am beyond stoked for this weekend!

Tonight after work, Will is taking me out to Laguna Beach where we are going to look at art galleries and enjoy the beach together. I've missed our regular date nights. With life being so busy though, it's easy to let things like that slip. Plus, we do see eachother almost every night. But, we have decided to bring it back and have one date night every week. Pretty happy about that!

Tomorrow, my mom and I are spending some girl time together and getting massages at Total Woman at 10am. I'm going to try and get up when Will gets up for work at 7am so I can get down there to work out and shower before the massage. (I'm finally back in my workout routine so I don't want to break it!) The rest of Saturday is going to be spent celebrating my Dad's birthday! It's going to be so much fun. :)

Sunday, Will and I will be going to Lake Elsinore to spend time with his family. Food and fun in the sun at the pool are on the agenda for the day! I have a feeling I'm going to be quite tan after Sunday! I'm very lucky, Will's family is wonderful and I love spending time with them.

Monday is Labor Day and I'm not sure what the plans are yet. My parents mentioned they might be barbecuing, so I might head over to their place for some more family time.

I've said this before and I'm going to keep saying it FOREVER...every weekend should be a 3 day weekend!!