Christmas Spirit

For one of my classes my professor so graciously accepted our offer of doing service instead of a final exam. We decided that we would help out and do the Sub for Santa thing at the mall and buy some gifts for a needy family. The night after we decided this, the director of One Heart Bulgaria emailed me telling me the Bulgarian government cut the orphanages' budgets by 25% causing a problem with getting Christmas gifts to the orphanage. I suggested a change in service projects to my class and they gladly accepted. I was so happy to be able to help the kids I know so well!

All of my classmates dropped off donations at our professors office (we had to write a short essay as well, but that was no biggie) and yesterday I went to pick them up. I was so glad that people had donated, but wasn't expecting a ton from poor, married, college students. My professor handed me the envelope and looked at me and said, "there's 300 dollars in there." My jaw dropped and tears began to flow. I could not believe how generous people were. There were only 10 of us in the class, and without my contribution we raised $300. As I drove home I was filled with an overwhelming sense of Christmas spirit. I began to miss my kids so badly and I was so thrilled to know that they would be having a good Christmas. After all, I was just leaving them this time last year.

I am so glad to know that there are kind-hearts out there in this world that can seem so mean.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and remembers the real meaning of the season.

My Creations

I really love the Silhouette machine Tony got for me because I can create fun things! I don't have much time to blog today (two finals are staring me in the face) but I wanted to put this up. It's a card I made for my cousin, Shereena for her baby shower. The lighting is really bad because it came from a cell phone picture, but you can kinda get the idea. I was super proud :)

Merry Christmas

This made me laugh :)

Thanksgiving Week

School has kept me busy as it nears the semester's end, so I've had little time for blogging. I was so grateful (even THANKful) for this 5-day break that accompanied the Thanksgiving holiday. I've gotten some things accomplished and got in plenty of relaxation, which was much needed.

We had our own little T&H Thanksgiving dinner. Tony's parents went to see his sister, Carleigh, in California and since we couldn't afford to take days off to go with them, we decided we wanted to do our own little feast. It was a lot of fun and very delicious! We started our day by going on a jog (our own little "Turkey Trot" if you will). We ran about a 5k distance since I hadn't been running in a while. It was really fun to go running together again. We'll have to do it more often! After showering off we began our meal.

We only had a turkey breast so it took about 4 hours to cook. I didn't make everything from scratch but some new recipes I did try from scratch were cranberry sauce and stuffing. Both were very successful recipes and I would make them again. I usually don't like cranberry sauce (especially when you can see the rings from the can still in it) so I decided that maybe making it fresh would be better--I was right! It was so yummy. And the stuffing was good enough to impress even my dad, the ultimate connoisseur of stuffing/dressing. Here are some pics from our Thanksgiving feast:

Tired, but trying to look happy!

On Friday I ventured out into the wild to find some deals on Christmas gifts. The crowds actually weren't as bad as I was imagining and I got some really great prices on a couple gifts for Tony. I also got to go out for lunch with my friend, Amie, and it was really fun to see her!

We wrapped up our exciting Thanksgiving weekend with a trip to the Greek Orthodox church in Salt Lake City today. No, we're not converting, I had to do an "inter-ethnic activity" for my racial and minority groups class. I suppose going to their service works. It was an interesting experience and it reminded me a lot of the time we went to church in Bulgaria. It was really fun to go on an interesting adventure. After the Liturgy was over we headed over to temple sqaure to take some pictures for Christmas cards. It was a really fun weekend! I'm kind of sad to see it come to an end, but excited that in two weeks, I'll be done with classes!

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving.

Report

So if you didn't notice on the sidebar, I lost .6 pounds this week on my little program. I'm okay with not meeting my 1 pound goal since I lost almost 2 last week. I have to tell you it's amazing I even lost .6! Two times this week I had french fries, and last night I ate apple pie. The apple pie kind of frustrated me after I ate it because I don't even really like it! I could have saved myself several (thousand) calories ;)

I told Tony yesterday that this week would be my healthiest week ever. I don't know how that's going to happen, but we'll see! Last week I kind of consider an off week, so I'm hopeful for the upcoming week.

In non-weight loss news:

We got Christmas decorations this weekend! I got some lighted garland for the fireplace mantel, a wreath for our door, some ornaments for the tree, a STAR for the tree (yeah, we've never had a star on our married life Christmas tree...sad I know), some garland, and other fun things. It is killing me inside to make myself wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it. I really love decorating for Christmas! I want to clean really well before I do it though, so maybe the fact that I don't want to do that will help me wait to put the Christmas decor up. I'm just as bad as my mom :)

My Attempt to Be Trendy

Lately I've been seeing a lot of cute trends that I want to try. One of them being the flower clip. I think it's a really cute and classy little hair accessory. Note I said LITTLE. I'm so not into those humongous flowers that take up half the side of your head. Here are some examples:



So, while at the mall yesterday as I was picking up some awesome boots, I stopped in the store Icing. I saw some of these small flower clips and they were buy one, get one 50% off. So, I splurged and purchased a black rose bunch, and a cute brown flower similar to the second picture above. I think they are so cute! I just can't seem to figure out how to use them. This morning I tried to clip my black flower in my hair but I couldn't get it to work without it looking like a small animal created a nest on my head. I liked the look I got when I put it by a ponytail, but I wasn't in a ponytail mood today.

I know eventually I'll figure it out, but I thought I would turn to you, my loyal blogreaders. Have any of you tried this flower trend? How do you get it to work? Where exactly on your head to you place it? I don't want to look too "out there" with these flowers, but I really would like to wear them because I love them! Should I bag this altogether? Like I said, I really like the way they look when I use them with a ponytail or a messy bun, but other than that I can't seem to get it right, and I want to wear them more than just when I pull my hair back.

1 down, 20-something More to Go

This will be short because I have to finish getting ready for work, but I just wanted to direct you all to my sidebar "weight loss goal" area. I'm proud to announce that I lost a total of 1.9 pounds. I'm proud of this, but I didn't eat very well this weekend at all so I'm considering myself quite lucky to have those numbers. My little program seems to be working and I'm excited! I already feel a lot better because of the healthier foods I'm eating and the pounds dropping isn't too bad, either.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Monday morning!