Whoa, baby. Today has been one of those days.

You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones where your eyes are burning and your head is reeling and you’re not sure if you can possibly do one more thing. Which is why I’m taking five precious minutes to escape to blog world.
Hello, world.

I have been nonstop since 5:30 this morning. And while I love days like today where everything is flying by, I am officially exhausted and running out of steam. I feel as though I’ve been more productive today then I have all week (and yes, I do realize that it’s only Tuesday). But I still have so much left to accomplish.

I am in a desperate rush to finish going through all of Sean and I’s ‘apartment’ junk stuff so that my mom and I can have a garage sale. We were so blessed during our wedding to receive so many brand new things, but now we have so many items that we no longer need. And naturally, (love you hubs), I am the only one going through everything. Which is OK, I’d much rather do it then have Sean do it, but it’s so time consuming and not really all that fun.

My mom has been so kind (ha) as to continually brings bags and bags of stuff over to our house from her house that I have managed to collect over the years. And while I realize that she is just trying to get her own house in order, it sure does make it a heck of a lot harder for me to get mine in order! Soon enough, though. One of these days my house is going to be 100% a home. Take THAT extra junk.

I can’t stand being unorganized. It stresses me out. If you saw my kitchen cabinets you would know I’m a little obsessive about things being in their place. And I will happily show them to you if you ask… hehe. Maybe I’m a smidgen proud of how organized they are looking these days.

I have come to realize that I am obsessed with Bed, Bath & Beyond and The Container Store. Those two stores have managed to steal more money from me then I even believed possible. Every time I see some new way to organize a drawer or cabinet, my mind immediately begins ticking with all the different ways I can utilize those new items. And before I know it, I’m wandering in on my lunch break filling my basket with all of said items.

Am I the only one with this extreme problem?

Hope you all are having a wonderful Tuesday and that it went by as quickly as mine did. Tomorrow is officially the halfway point of the week! And this is going to be quite a good one… Today is my sweet father’s birthday (Happy Birthday Dad!!!), Thursday is my father-in-law’s birthday, and Sunday is my dear friend Allison’s birthday. And Sunday, oh Sunday! I am running the Mistletoe 5k – my first 5k ever! I am extremely excited and nervous about this!!

xoxo

Rachael

I’ve said it before, but Thanksgiving is hands down, my favorite holiday. There’s something about Thanksgiving that beats Christmas for me (I know, I know, everyone is probably gasping in shock), but Thanksgiving is such a wonderful time. Christmas has become so overrun with the decorations (don’t get me wrong – I love good Christmas decorations, and our house will be decked in festivities) and gifts that it seems that it’s become a time of greed instead of what Christmas was truly intended for.

That said, Thanksgiving is such a blessed time of thanks. Everyone is so appreciative of the time being spent together. Love just overflows throughout Thanksgiving, and what is better than that?

So Thanksgiving, thanks for existing, you make my November every year!

I am starting my “New Year’s Resolutions” early this year! As in, tomorrow. Want to know what they are?

1. No more sodas. I used to be really good about never drinking sodas, but lately, I have been having the “occasional” soda, which has become much more normal than occasional.

2. Be healthier. I mean this fairly broadly… Fine tuning workouts, tweaking diets, wearing sunscreen more often, etc.

3. Spend more time with God. I want to start doing daily devotionals again, which I haven’t done in quite some time. I’m looking forward to furthering my personal relationship with Him.

Those are my three main ones. I also want to spend more time with the people that matter most to me and spend more time with family (though really, Sean and I are pretty good at spending time with both of our families. Love you guys!)

Tomorrow it’s going to be time to take down the Thanksgiving decorations, because on Wednesday we move into December, my official starting point for Christmas decorations! I’m excited to have a house to decorate for this year, last year Sean and I had JUST closed on our house right before Thanksgiving and everything was far too chaotic to decorate. But this year is the year!

xoxo

Rachael

I’m really a very lucky girl.

I have so much in my life that I am thankful for and every day I feel so blessed.

*I am, of course, so thankful for my wonderful husband. I fall in love with him over and over again. There’s nothing comparable to staring into his beautiful blue eyes and looking at his perfect little smile to remind me how lucky I am to have him!

*I am SO thankful for my family. My parents are aaa-mazing. My siblings are faaantastic. They are my best friends and I would be so lost without them. And my best friend sister Jen? LOVE.

*I’m thankful for how I was raised.

*I’m thankful for my in-laws. I could not possibly be more blessed. I hear all of these horror stories about in-laws and I just can’t relate, because mine are nothing short of fabulous.

*I’m thankful for my closest friends… Jenn, Candice, Alisa, Sarah G, Erica E, Allison… I love you so! But you already know this.

*I’m thankful for Leo & Louie. They are bright spots in every day. I never thought I’d love cats, much less as much as I love them!

*I’m thankful for being able to live the life Sean and I are able to live and for having the friends that we have…

*I’m thankful for having a life outside of my husband, and that he has one outside of me. It makes our time together that much more precious.

What are you thankful for?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Good morning!

Today is like Christmas came early, because today, even though the calendar says “Tuesday” it is our work-week THURSDAY. YES.

Now THAT is some exciting news! Because THAT means tomorrow is like FRIDAY and then… are you ready for it?? IT’S THANKSGIVING!!

I think that Thanksgiving is my all-time favorite holiday of the year (minus my birthday…just kidding). What could possibly be better then celebrating everything that makes your life wonderful – while getting to eat all the best things in life?!

Hello, stuffing, I eat you once a year and yet you are my favorite side dish of all time. As far as I’m concerned, turkey is the side dish and stuffing is the main course – YUM.

Also, I have a whole lot to be thankful for this year. I’m going to give you my thankful list tomorrow, but I’ll give you a couple today, just as a nice little sneak peek.

First and foremost, I’m thankful that I pulled myself out of the ebay bidding war for those lovely sneaks I showed you yesterday, because they sold for the same that they retailed at, which is not much of an ebay steal.

Secondly, I am so thankful for my job. There are days when I hate it. There are days when I don’t. But when push comes to shove, this job has kept Sean and I able to do all of the extras we want to do. It’s not my dream job, but in this economy, it’s a job. It provides. And I get to work with someone that is now one of my best friends. So for that, I’m truly thankful.

That’s all today! Time to scamper on back to work.

Happy Tuesday all!

xoxo

Rachael

Clearly, I am in a huge funk.

As I’m sitting here slurping down my Route 44 vanilla coke (which, if you know me, I don’t even drink soda) after having literally eaten my way through the day I realized that I need something to be working towards. I feel as though I’m sliding off track right now, so it’s time to get back on track, and feeling sorry for myself is obviously not working. (surprise, surprise!)

SO with that being said, I am going to have to set a goal. A few months ago, I set a goal to get down to a certain goal weight. I was right on track for a while and then I just derailed completely. Thanks a lot, football season, for forcing me to be at Bdubs every Sunday since I can only watch certain football games there. Oh and thanks for adding fried pickles to your menu, you know I have a huge weakness for them.



thank you, food spotting

 No more football at Bdubs for me. Well, let’s be honest, I’m still going up there, but sans the fried pickles and beer. Ugh.

thank you, Google

So I think that a good way to get back into everything is to set a new goal. I am signed up to run my first 5k in January. However, I think I am going to sign up for a December one as well. Maybe I’ll do a race once a month.

I think that I am going to train for a 10k though. I also think I need new shoes What better way to embark on a new mission then with a sweet new pair of kicks to do it?!

So I’m currently trying to get these bad boys:

thanks!!

We’ll know in 15 hours if I’m the proud new owner of these!

Hope you all have a wonderful rest of the day. I’m about a third of the way done with my vanilla coke and I feel AWFUL. No more soda for me, ever. BLEH.

I am really struggling to get through this week. And since it is Monday, I am really struggling to get through TODAY.

I definitely did not accomplish as much as I wanted to this weekend (figures).

I definitely am not happy about certain things.

I definitely miss my friends.

And I need a NAP. Badly. I feel out of sync with my life right now.

On the up and up, Sean was nice enough to go buy me a Drew Brees jersey this weekend. (those suckers are not cheap!) Unfortunately, we didn’t get the Saints game of course.

I have so many phone calls/emails/etc to return and I just haven’t had the energy to get into conversations with anyone right now (so if you have not heard from me, I am sorry I will get there… I just am so out of it right now.)

::sigh::

I hope everyone has a spectacularly short week, Thanksgiving (which I think is my favorite holiday) is right around the corner!

xoxo

Rachael

If work is going as quickly for you as it is for me right now, then can you even believe it’s already Friday?! Because I really can’t.

Every single day this week has been long and stressful. And yet, when 6pm rolls around, I can’t even believe the day is over. I go home exhausted and I wake up equally so.

Great post so far, right?? I thought you’d think so.

Which is why I’m here right now. I have to take a break from work for a minute. When I got into work this morning, I threw everything off my desk and onto the floor. Well, maybe not ‘threw’… I put it all on the floor. ‘Threw’ sounds much more dramatic and purposeful though.

It was liberating, to say the least. I dusted my desk, took all the toys I’ve collected and put them on my bookcase, and have started tackling piles of things one by o n e.

On the flip side, I am wearing a verrrry cute coat today. I haven’t had a good fall/winter coat, well, ever. So I went to Marshall’s and bought a super cute charcoal grey sporty coat and I am now wearing it. Granted, it’s a little warm in the office to be wearing a coat, but I don’t care!! It makes me feel a little bit better.

Anyhow. I have to go back to work now.

Hope you all have a spectacular Friday. And an even better weekend. I will be going through clothes and things from my old apartment and CLEANING OUT!

xoxo

Rachael

There is nothing I hate more than being cold. And cold is what I was this morning.

I’ve come to realize that the colder it gets, the less covers I seem to have each morning (thanks, hon). I’m fairly certain Sean doesn’t realize it, but each morning when I wake up half of me is frozen due to the fact that I don’t even have sheets! The only warm spot has been where my sweet kitty has been cuddled up next to me purring away. And let me tell you, with a cat purring against your throat (he sleeps right under my chin) it’s very difficult to sleep.

Anyhow, there’s two parts of my morning that I’m being to dread.

The first is the waking up freezing part. It makes me not want to get out of bed. Once I get out and get going it’s not so bad because by the time I make it out the door to run I have significantly warmed up and then the running keeps me going. Not that I’m warm by any means.

The second is getting out of the shower. I relish hot showers – even in the summertime – and every morning its like 15 minutes of glory as I stand underneath the pelting hot water. But the second I turn off the water it gets perceptibly colder. And when I open the shower door it’s like a little bit of death seeps in. I hate it!

Clearly I have nothing interesting to blog about this morning. Sorry for such a weird little post.

Thank goodness it’s Wednesday. For the first time in WEEKS Sean and I have zero plans this weekend and I could not be happier.

xoxo

Rachael

1. That my husband and I are able to provide for our family no matter what
2. That my little brother finds all the happiness in the world and meets the right girl
3. That I am able to live my life to the fullest and honor God through it
   

I love you with my whole heart!

I guess that concludes the 30 day challenge! I definitely enjoyed doing it, though I think 30 days is a long time kind of, which is why I sped it up towards the end.

In other news…

I definitely was not feeling up to par yesterday at all. I’m not even really sure why, I think it’s just defeat because I so badly want to make healthy decisions all the time but I am only human and I fail. I’ve been working so hard each week towards a specific goal and I get closer and closer and then the weekend comes and I just blow it. So I am resolving to make better choices this weekend. And next weekend I will make the same commitment. I am hoping that by looking at it one week at a time, it will be easier.

Anyhow, back to my very grey mood yesterday… I was feeling rather obsolete at work. I didn’t wake up on time, in fact, I woke up really late and didn’t have time to get in a workout before I left for work. I had pretty much decided that I would just start over today, but then my sweet husband intervened in all the right ways. As I pulled up to our house last night he was working in the garage. I got out and asked him how long he was going to be and he said a while, so I decided to go ahead and do my Monday workout. He told me to go and run and feel better. Thank you, baby, for your support.

Then as I walk into the house, cooing hello to my kitties and flipping on the kitchen light to drop off my lunch box, purse, etc, I was greeted with this:

I love you!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Tuesday. Today is a brand new day!

xoxo

Rachael

I’m obsessed with my pets. I truly think I have the coolest cats ever known to man. They are way cooler than any cats I’ve ever met. They run around and play like crazy. Sean and I spend more time going “Leo did THE cutest thing…” or “You’d never believe what Louie did today…” It’s a little ridiculous. I really think we’re obsessed.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week, Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I can’t wait!

xoxo

Rachael