Happy Thanksgiving Back

It's Thanksgiving day, and this scene has been playing in my head in yesterday.

It's my most FAVORITE movie ever (at least tied with Singing In The Rain).  As I sit here, working on homework screwing around on facebook, listening to the rain, and smelling the food that EJ's cooking, I'm reflecting back on the year. It was wonderful but tough year. I got accepted into the Marriage and Family Therapy graduate program at Friends University, EJ had a pretty big medical scare, but we finally got that under control, we survived our first year of marriage (being together for 7-1/2 years prior, you would think we would have this thing down, but apparently getting married really does change everything!), and just everyday life filled our year and made it fly by. With EJ's health problems and everything I'm learning and going though in the MFT program, I am realizing how much I have to be thankful for.

I am thankful for EJ and our health. To be completely honest, it had crossed my mind that he might be dying...not the case, thank God!! He is my best friend (sappy, I know!), my biggest supporter and encourager, he is always the voice of reason when I'm not able to be.

I am thankful for my family. For those that don't know, I do struggle with depression, and it tends to be worse in the winter and around the holidays. Part of that is due to not having my parents. This is/will be the second year without either one of my parents and it's hard. So I am thankful for the family that I do have. This year I feel it even more so as we have a family genogram project for one of my classes, and have been asked to learn more about my family. It has made me very sad to not have my parents, but makes me so thankful that I have my grandparents and aunts and uncles that care about me and are still in my life.

I am thankful for school. I am so grateful that I got into this amazing program, and am surrounded by such wonderful professors and classmates. I feel like it's where I belong. I may not always do the greatest, but I love it and am so excited to have a purpose and a direction for my future.

I am thankful for my furry four legged children. I love them so much, and they provide me with free entertainment :)

I am thankful for my friends. I love them so much, and they provide me with free entertainment :) They are there for me when I need them, and they always have my back!

I am thankful for so many things this year, and I hope everyone else has a moment to truly think about and savor the things that they are thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving!

Orange Is The New Black by Piper Kerman

Overview from BN.com:

With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187–424—one of the millions of people who disappear “down the rabbit hole” of the American penal system. From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance. Heartbreaking, hilarious, and at times enraging, Kerman’s story offers a rare look into the lives of women in prison—why it is we lock so many away and what happens to them when they’re there.

My Thoughts:

To be honest, I only picked up this book because I love the Netflix show and was happy to learn that the first season had stayed pretty true to the book. Of course, Netflix has had to embellish quite a bit for entertainment value, but a lot of the people and scenarios in the book correlated with those in the show to a lesser degree. What I found profound about the book is that (one): Kerman was absolutely willing to due her time and pay for the consequences of her actions, even though all of it happened ten years prior to her conviction, and (two): during her time of transporting drug money, it was about the thrill and excitement of it all, but while she was in prison, she actually made a correlation to the women and families who are addicted to drugs. Working for these people that were transporting drugs into the country had inadvertently caused the demise of so many women and families who are addicted to these drugs and Kerman got a first hand look at how it has ruined their lives. I feel like that was the big lesson she learned while in prison.

I liked the actual true account of this story, but I don't fee that it was great enough for me to recommend to anyone unless they really like the show and also wanted to know about the true life events. I would probably just recommend sticking with the TV show.

Rating: C

Planning our Disney World Vacation - Part 1

Okay, I may be jumping the gun here. We are planning our next Disney trip for the fall of 2017, but it's never to early to start planning! So I thought I would take you along and share some tips on how we planned our last trip and what we are doing this time around.

Mickey Wreath in the Fall

So the first thing one should figure out is what time of year are you going and for how long. Once you have that in mind, you can start figuring out if there are any special events going on or how busy the parks are likely to be. In the springtime there is the Disney Flower & Garden Festival, late May and early July has Star Wars weekends for all those Jedis in training. Of course Christmas at Disney World is definitely on my bucket list for the future, but we had so much fun last fall, that is the time of year we decided to back in 2017. For us, fall is all about Epcot's International Food and Wine Festival, with Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party thrown in for good measure!

At the 2014 Food & Wine Festival

Once you have an idea of when you want to go the next important piece is the funds! Nobody has ever said that Disney World is a cheap vacation, however, I believe you get what you pay for when going to the 'World' and we don't mind splurging a little bit when we are there. So the Disney company, in all of it's infinite wisdom, has come out with their own vacation savings account - seriously, genius! Folks can head over to this website, (https://disneyvacationaccount.disney.go.com/) figure out when you're going, get an idea for a budget and then figure out how often you would like to contribute to the account. From there the budgeting tool will tell you how much money you will need to set aside to reach your goal, and it will automatically withdraw that amount from your bank account. The other nice thing about this - it's not just for Disney World! You can use this account to save for your next Disney Cruise, Adventure by Disney (Hello, Italy!!), or even save up for a trip to Aulani (Disney's Hawain resort).

Example of Disney's Budgeting Tool

Since we are not actually able to book our Disney trip until next summer, this at least gets us started with our vacation fund growing without us really having to worry about it! It's just a couple of ideas and tools, but I hope that got you thinking and excited about your next Disney vacation!

I Met a New York Times Bestselling Author!

Last Tuesday, our local bookstore, Watermark, hosted an author reading and signing with Deborah Harkness. She is the author of the All Souls Trilogy -A Discovery of Witches, Shadow of the Night, and The Book of Life. These books are full of the supernatural, history, science, time travel, and romance - really there's something for everyone!

Deborah started the evening off with a reading from the beginning of her latest book, The Book of Life, followed by her talking about the books and the characters and how they came to be. It was so interesting to hear about her work as a historian, and how she brought her love of history to her books and characters. She was so personable and down to earth when she spoke - it was such a treat to listen to her!

I was so happy I was able to attend the event, and I've promised myself to attend more author readings in the future!

Garage Sellin' It!

I have a love-hate relationship with garage sales. On one hand, one persons trash really is another persons treasure! I don't want this stuff anymore, and someone out there will pay me money to take it! On the other hand, once I've gone through my things I have to price them, pack them up and lug them to the sale (I have never had my own garage sale - I just take my stuff to other peoples' sales) and then unpack it at the garage sale.

Then there is the after-sale issue. All of my belongings that didn't sell have to be packed back up and lugged somewhere. Typically I'll take my stuff back home and wait for the next year's sale, but this year is different. I definitely thought about keeping my stuff (mostly clothes) for the next garage sale, but I realized I just want this stuff out of my space and out of my life, so I've boxed it up (again) and am taking it to Goodwill. I would like to keep it and try and get money for it, but there is something about looking in our storage room and seeing the space that was made from having that stuff gone!

What about you guys? Do you like having garage sales or do you just prefer to donate your things?

Grave Peril - Jim Butcher

Overview: (from BN.com)

In all his years of supernatural sleuthing, Harry Dresden has never faced anything like this: the spirit world's gone postal. These ghosts are tormented, violent, and deadly. Someone-or something-is purposely stirring them up to wreak unearthly havoc. But why? If Harry doesn't figure it out soon, he could wind up a ghost himself.

This is the third installment of the Harry Dresden Series, and my favorite so far. I've definitely enjoyed the first two books, but while reading this one, I was actually curious as to what is going to happen to Harry and the other characters. The characters are starting to evolve, and we are learning more about their lives. I also really enjoy the writing, in that it's a dark book, but there are some great laugh out loud moments which lighten it up a bit. I'm really looking forward to reading more in this series. 

Rating: A

Week in Review: 3/9-3/15

I thought I would do a week in review to help keep myself accountable in my weight loss journey. I know this is probably not going to be the most excited post to read, but I feel like if I put it out there for the world to see, it might give me another reason to stay mindful of this stuff. I also picked Mondays to do the week in review because that is when I weigh myself - I find that also (sometimes) helps me reign it in a little on the weekends. And speaking of weighing in, I was up 0.6 pounds this week. Not the direction I want to go, but I'm not too upset about this being that I only tracked my food for 3 days.

So last week, I started off Monday with a baby goal of drinking at least 64 ounces of water a day. I'm usually not great about drinking water - I would much rather have coffee or a Diet Dr. Pepper - but I've found that drinking 64 ounces isn't really that hard if I am actually thinking about doing it. I did awesome at this this week, and only missed hitting this goal on Wednesday and Saturday when I only drank about 40 ounces.

My step goal each day is 5,000 - I sit most of the day at my job, and this one is hard because I hardly get close to this most days. The majority of days I get about 3,000 steps. I've been a little bit more mindful about this this week and have tried to get up once in a while and walk around our showroom to get some extra steps in.

My food's not great. I just started tracking all my food on Friday and for the last three days that I've tracked it, I've been over my calorie allotment. The weekends are when I typically go overboard and eat out a lot, so I'm not surprised by that. My goal this upcoming week is to continue to track EVERYTHING. I'm not super concerned right now about really staying within my calories, I just want to get in the habit of tracking everything I eat - that in and of itself will help a bit and make me more aware of what I'm eating and how much of it.

EJ and I were having a conversation about this last night - we've lost weight before, we know we are physically capable of it, but I think it is mostly a mental thing. It is so hard to break out of those habits and not rely on food when we have relied so much on food in the past. I told him that I am doing this in super baby steps. When I start graduate school in the fall (yay, me! I'm super excited) I will, no doubt, be incredibly stressed and tired, and if I can have these new habits in place, maybe I won't gain 60 more pounds in the next 2 years!

So in this upcoming week, I'm still drinking the water, I'm going to track all of my food everyday, and I am going to try to work on getting more steps in during the day.

What are some of the goals you're working on this week? Let's keep each other accountable!

My Promise to Myself

When it comes to weight loss and fitness, I have been known to say that I not only fell off the wagon, but that it also backed up and ran over me. Seriously! I have a major addiction to food. If I've had a bad day - I want to eat, if I've had a wonderful day - I want to eat, if I'm tired - I want to eat. It's a real problem when trying to lose weight.

Last July I wrote a post explaining why I wasn't going to weigh myself anymore. You can read that here, or the basic run down is that I would weigh myself and feel pretty depressed and then do really well for a week or two, and once I would lose some weight (even just 4 or 5 pounds) I would totally allow myself to be terrible and then I would gain that weight back and start right back over. What I've learned in the past 8 months of not weighing myself (granted I had a wedding and a honeymoon in there) is that instead of at least maintaining, I gained a LOT of weight - almost 20 pounds. At the beginning of February I was at my heaviest - 242 pounds. This past Monday I was at 236.6 (headed in the right direction!), but I definitely have a lot more work to do to get where I would like to be - my first short term goal getting to about 212 which would be about 10% weight loss.

 So I've decided to claw and climb my way back on the wagon - I'm not doing great, but I'm trying. This week I've started again tracking my food - again, not great but better than not doing it! I purchased a Fitbit a couple of months ago and it's kind of fun to see how many steps you take in a day, and miles you walk, and I'm really trying to pay a little bit more attention to it throughout my day. When I first got it, I would just check it at the end of the day, and see that I was like 2,000 steps short of my goal, whereas the last couple of weeks I'm checking it multiple times during the day and trying to get up and walk around a bit if I know I've been sitting for a while. I also just got back on My Fitness Pal app and started tracking my food. You can find me HERE if you would like to be my friend and support me! I like that app because I can also link it up to my fitbit so it gives me an extra place to keep track of how I'm doing each day.

So in conclusion to the rambling - I promise to TRY. I promise to be mindful of what I eat, and even though it might not be great (like the pizza I had for lunch - which was delicious and totally worth it), but I will track it. I promise to drink AT LEAST 64 ounces of water a day (which, by the way, I'm totally killing this one!). I promise not to give up and give in because I've gained some weight back. This has become a real struggle for me, and it might always be a struggle for me from now on, and I might not always have it figured it out, but I will continue to try baby step by baby step!

 

*photo from Snoopy's facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Snoopy

Our Photographer LOST Our Wedding Photos!

When we first met Nikki at Lensview Photography, she was so nice and personable, and we loved her photography. During this time - from the engagement photo shoot to the wedding day - she was so accommodating and went out of her way to make things easier for us, always telling us that if we needed absolutely anything, to just let her know. We were recommending her to anybody and everybody that asked. I would love to say that after she lost our photos, she went out of her way and bent over backwards to make things right...but I can't because she did not.

Three and a half months after the wedding we finally received a link to view our wedding photos online. The end of the gallery showed 4 pictures of us at our reception...and that was it. I texted Nikki to ask her if she was still working on those photos or if they were being put in to a new gallery for us to look at, and it took her two full weeks to get back to me to let me know that my reception photos were lost - I have no pictures of our first dance, cutting the cake, bouquet toss, garter toss, and none of all the friends and family that came in from all over the country - NONE! She claimed that she had "never had this happen and it is completely unacceptable to me. I will continue to work on them in the mean time I can offer another option. I know you had family there taking pictures with their cameras if they have these images I can edit them for you if this is something you would like if I can not find the others".  So after paying her $1350 and her loosing our photos, she thought that editing other people's photos would be sufficient compensation.

Needless to say, I was upset, angry, and frustrated. These are not pictures that we can just go back and re-take. In an email to Nikki, I said that I appreciated her being honest with me about losing our pictures, but since we did not receive all of our pictures and because of the nature of the pictures I wanted to discuss getting our money refunded for our wedding session. I told her that I was totally up for discussing the amount, but we trusted her to take the pictures, not our family and friends. It took another 2 weeks for her to get back to me, in which she responded: 

 

"I do understand and am definitely willing to work with you on a partial refund. I do not feel that a full refund is necessarily fair or warranted. In the contract it does state that there would be 6 hours of wedding day coverage. I went back and went over the time table that I was able to be there which was from 10:00 am to 11:00 am for the hair and make up at the salon, I was asked to be to Tanganyika by 1:30 which I arrived at and began taking pictures. I stayed until 8:30 that evening which would have been a total of 8 hours. Per the contract I do offer extra wedding day coverage starting at $125 per extra hour which would have been a charge of $250 for the extra coverage I was there." - I would like to stop here a moment and mention that not once did she come up to EJ or myself to let us know we were over our time and ask us if we wanted to pay the additional charge. Also that additional time/charge was never discussed after the fact.

 

 "The last photo that I have in the gallery was taken at 6:48 pm which was fully fulfilling the contractual agreement. The total package price you paid was $1350 which was to include the 1 hour engagement session which was at Tanganyika and the 6 hours wedding day coverage, (1 hour at the salon 10:00 am until 11:00 am and then 5 hours at the wedding 2:00 pm until 7:00 pm). Please do take into consideration the extras that were given such as an extra hour long engagement session to include your doggies which we were not allowed to bring to Tanganyika so an accommodation was made," - When we made up our contract we specifically said we would like 2 sessions - one at Tanganyika, which was included in our wedding package with Tanganyika, and one session with our dogs - Since we spoke about this numerous times, I assumed that this was taken into account at the time the contract was drawn up - apparently not.

 

"as well as the extra time during your wedding that I stayed late or the time spent driving from location to location." - Seriously?! You're just going to write off that mileage and gas anyway.

 
"Also in the contract it states that there will be 200 edited images plus an additional 100 images for having a second photographer. In your gallery there are almost double the images there should be. There are 595 total images versus 300 per contract. I do feel completely horrible that some of the final images for your wedding day have been lost due to a malfunction of software/hardware and trust me when I say I am so beyond sorry. I do feel that more than what was in the contract was completed however I understand that at the end of the day there are photos missing and I would be happy to do a 10% refund of the $1350 which was paid, as well as your extra images," - So what I feel she's saying is she could have taken 1,000 pictures of the outside of the building and her contractual obligation would still have been fulfilled because she gave us more than 300 photos... I know at the counter top place I work at, if someone is unhappy with their tops, we ALWAYS tell them that they just paid for us to install them, not to make it look good, so we've 'technically' done what you paid us for and we can't do anything else. *eyeroll*  NO!! It's called customer service! Now I am a firm believer that the customer is not always right, but this was her screw up, and she should be doing whatever it takes to make this right, not hiding behind technicalities. 

So the next day I text her and asked her if we could meet for coffee one evening so we could discuss this further, because track record shows she won't get back to me in a timely fashion. She text me back and said she was just super swamped with photos sessions, dance lessons, and other commitments that emails would work best due to her hectic schedule. So I took about 2 weeks to think about the offer she made us. I was so mad, but I just wanted our pictures (which I still hadn't received while this whole ordeal was going on) and to be able to move on with our lives. So I emailed her and told her we would accept the 10% refund and our remaining engagement pictures. So a week later, when I still hadn't heard a word from her, I text her to make sure she had received my emails, and instead of just telling me what was going on she text me that she had emailed me the 'other day' (which I obviously did not receive) and that she would just resend the email that evening. Sooo 2 days later, I finally got an email from her saying she had everything ready for me and that she could meet up that next week. I emailed her back and told her I was free any evening and just to let me know what worked for her. So when I didn't hear back from her I text her again, and she informed me that she hadn't had time to check her emails - she had a photo shoot on Saturday and she reserves Sunday for family - even though she was posting pictures of her photo shoot on her facebook page Sunday morning. Anyway, EJ was able to meet with her and get our pictures and a check for 10% almost 6 months after our wedding.

The first impressions that we got from Nikki were that she was so friendly and would do anything to make our day special, and so we were shocked at the way we were treated when things went wrong. Her offers were completely insincere and communicating with her was like pulling teeth. We are completely appalled at how we were treated when this was her mistake. I think there are ways this could have been handled that would have made us 'okay' with the situation (face it, nothing is going to make up for those lost pictures), but instead she hid behind the technicalities of the contract and refused to communicate with us. Maybe I should have fought harder for more compensation, but I was so shocked and insulted by what she did offer. After this situation, I would definitely not trust her with any more of my special memories - if she loses them, so what, she was there so technically she did her job, and after the way we were treated and the lack of customer service and communication that was provided after she messed up I truly don't believe she deserves to have her own business.