Fall means: Family, Fireball, and Fun!

Friday, work could not end soon enough! I was off a little early, picked up a treat for my mom, and went to my new main gym for cardio, squats, and weights. The good thing about being back at Fitness Connection is the lateral cardio machine; I love that thing! I had to break it in with 30 fast minutes.

When I finished at the gym, I rushed home and was greeted by my mom and her new boyfriend Hutch. They drove down to spend the night with me!

I took and shower and got ready, then we pre-gamed a little at my apartment. My moms newest obsession is Fireball whisky (thanks to me, I created a monster) so she was ready to get the night started with a shot. We then went uptown for dinner, drinks, and a lot of laughs. We had such a great time. Hutch seems crazy about my mom and she the same-- her happiness is all that matters to me. 

We were not out too late Friday night because my body is working hard to fight off a cold. I was tired early. 

We were all up bright and early on Saturday morning and decided to go out to a local restaurant known for delicious, home cooked breakfast. I had buttermilk pancakes and bacon. It tasted just as good as the picture looks! I never ever have breakfast food like that so I savored it. 

After breakfast we came back to my apartment. I packed and mom and Hutch left to explore Charlotte. I then took off to Raleigh to spend the night with my sister and brother in law.

I got to my sisters around 1:30 PM. She made me a fresh fruit and kale smoothie for lunch and we chatted, then we went out and did some shopping. After we finished, we decided to go out for a jog around the lake and trail behind her apartment complex. It was absolutely beautiful and a great way to get the evening started.

After we finished our long jog, it was time to get ready for the evening. We then went downtown to one of my favorite places to have dinner called "Busy Bee Cafe". We were seated on the roof (a must for me) and I had my favorite "Queen Bee"cocktail, and their vegetarian spinach "burger". 

Once we had dinner and a cocktail, all three of us were feeling tired, plus I was feeling my cold starting to take over, so we went back to their apartment. We all cuddled up in the living room and rented "Million Dollar Arm". I lasted 5 minutes before I was knocked out.

When I woke up this morning, I felt awful. I forced myself to get the drive back to Charlotte over with though, so I left my sister's as soon as I got up. I made a pit stop for medicine when I got into town then came  home. I felt bad, but I forced myself to deep clean my apartment instead of rest. My place was a mess and I am the type who cannot rest when there is a mess. Plus if I forced myself to clean, I could get rid of any germs. 

I scrubbed my apartment for about 3 hours: washing sheets, 2 other loads of laundry, dusting, vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, and Cloroxing. I took a bath once I finished then planted myself on the couch. Now I feel worse than before, of course, ha, so I am off to take a little more cold medicine and get to bed early. 

I had an absolutely blast this weekend and this cooler weather is more than welcome in my opinion, I just hate the colds than come along with it!

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Healing and Independence Weekend

Well, I tell you guys one thing, you all make it hard for me to wallow in my self-pitty. 
I feel selfish because of the support you all have shown me. What I mean by that is: I have so many friends and readers that genuinely seem to care, so for me to just sit around be sad is selfish. From the bottom of my heart and soul all I can say is wow and thank you so, so much. Your emails helped me more than you will know or realize. Whenever I would start slipping back into a dark place, I would get a notification of another email. Your words and stories really did help. 
I am finally starting to get back to a better place. I am not back to 'me' yet, but I am slowly but surely getting there. It is still a process, and one that I have to keep pushing through with, so bare with me a little longer. My heart is coming alive again as well, in a much different outcome than I thought. I hope to elaborate on that soon. 
Peace. I finally feel peace. I do not wake up dreading the day, I am energized, my heart beats slowly, but strong. I can smile. I haven't cried in 2 days. The sun is finally starting to shine on my soul. 

Even though I have been sad, life has still been happening. Work has been busier than it ever has, which has me in a million different directions. It is getting difficult and takes away from this blog some, but my job is what keeps my life afloat so of course it must take priority. Thursday, I bought a new car. My old Mustang was one of the biggest stresses in my life. It was a money pit and I finally had enough. I am in love with my Camry! It is so fancy and classy. I feel like a million bucks driving it. I have still been working out and eating clean; I am down 58 pounds now. I pushed through my plateau and lost 3 pounds last week, so I feel good. Admittedly, I think a lot of it was I just could not eat, but still. Ha. My fourth of July weekend was a lot of fun and filled with family. I spent time with my grandparents and my sister and her boyfriend Dave stayed the weekend with me. Friday we had dinner at a new restaurant in town called "Lure" then watched live music and fireworks. Saturday, my sister and I got massages, Starbucks, worked out, then spent the night with my sister and Dave enjoying dinner, drinks, and UFC. Yesterday I spent the day running errands, cleaning, and prepping for the week. My long weekend was just what I needed. I feel like now I am getting back in the game. The game of life. I have two new recipes to share soon as well. I am looking forward to catching up with everyone!

Oh and I turn 25 years old in 23 days, ah! I can't believe it. 

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Weekend Recap: Good Drinks, Good Music, Good Company!

Friday was a long, long day at work. I went to my doctor's office at lunch for my B12 injection and weighed. I lost 1 pound last week. I am thankful it was one pound because I can't lie - I slipped on my eating a little. Because I am losing weight and getting so much stronger, my work outs have become much more intense. It's incredible, but I find myself hungrier. I am going to work on adding a little more fat and protein into my diet to try and cut some of the simple carbohydrates I am constantly craving. My total down since 11/25/13 is now 44.2 pounds. After work, I went to the gym for a leg workout. Because I have been hiking so much, I have not been doing my rigorous leg routines. I was excited for my leg day and I pushed extremely hard. It was probably one of the strongest leg workout's I have ever had. 

After the gym, I came home, got ready - rocked my new sleeveless shirt from Venus and cute wedges for an evening out with my girlfriend Alexis. It was 80 degrees Friday night - so wonderful!

I guess because of Amazon Prime account, Amazon sent me a gift card for a local restaurant called "Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza". I decided to share it with Lex so we had dinner there. We each made our own "personal" pizza's. They were pretty good too. Mine had spinach, mushroom, and feta. That is my idea of a perfect pizza!

After dinner we went to the movies to see "Captain America". I am a Marvel freak so of course I had to see it. The biggest reason? Scarlett Johansson! She is my biggest girl crush ever and I love her as Black Widow. I was excited that Lex and I were seeing it in 3D; I have not went to an actual 3D movie in a long time. However, I have to say, it was totally not worth it. The tickets were $14.50 and honestly there was not much difference than seeing it as a regular movie. We looked fabulous in our glasses though!

Saturday was my rest day from the gym, and I needed it. I have barely been able to walk, ha. It is a great feeling though. I left early to go to Raleigh, NC to say with my sister. It is a 3-hour drive from where I live. When I got my sister's we took off to "Mellow Mushroom" for an outdoor lunch. Once again the weather was absolutely beautiful. We sat outside, enjoyed the sunshine and breeze, and ate mushroom and spinach pita wraps. They were alright, quite bland though.

After lunch we did some lipstick shopping at Ulta, ran a few more errands, and went by a local mall so my sister could get her brows done. She gets them "threaded" or something - I don't know, but it looked so painful. I don't do anything with my brows - I don't tweeze, fill them in, or anything.  And after seeing that, I am glad I don't. I will just let those things be.

Once we finished her torture we went back to her apartment to wait on her boyfriend Dave to get home. We then got cleaned up to go downtown Raleigh, I was feeling especially frisky, ha!

We had dinner at this amazing Mexican restaurant called "Xoco". I absolutely loved the way this restaurant was decorated. It was artsy, unique, and it felt like we were in Mexico eating. When we gave the host our name, he gave me a little baby doll to hold onto. I have NO idea why, but I ran with it. Ha! The food was fresh and not drenched in fattening sauces. I had a passion fruit margarita that also tasted fresh. I have to give that place 4 stars. 

After dinner we went across the street to a jazz bar called "C.Grace". Another awesome place. The atmosphere was intimate but still fun and very alive. Good jazz music can put anyone in a great mood. I had another delicious cocktail - it was gin, cucumber, lemon, lime, and mint. It was naturally sweet too - none of that fake syrup crap that is disgusting. 

I left my sister's around 10:30 this morning and I can't lie, I have been dragging today. I am not hungover or anything, I'm just fatigued and still very sore. Plus the weather is gloomy and chilly. I hate that! Since I have been home I got groceries, cleaned, and now I'm on to do my food prep and laundry. Fun, I know, but it must be done. I have a jam packed week coming up at work and summer is vastly approaching - it's crunch time with clean eating and training! How was your weekend?!

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A sister/sister, busy, kind of sick weekend wrap!

Before I begin my weekend wrap blog entry, I would just like to say "thank God for Zicam and Emergen-C". Ha!

Friday at 4:30 PM, my weekend started as usual. I felt strong and hit the gym for cardio and weights. I had a great work out. When I finished, I had to run a lot of errands. I went to Target, Ulta, and GNC. Then finally I picked up a salad at Panera for dinner. 

Ugh, it never ends.

I finally put all of my stuff up, took a shower, ate, and got my sister's Christmas gift together. I thought it looked cute!

By the time I finished all of that it was about 9 PM and ho-ly crap. I started to feel horrible. Body aches and a sore throat. Thankfully, I did not have a fever, but I felt really bad. I knew I needed to take preventive measures and get into bed.

I drank my Emergen-C and took Zicam and slept for 12 hours. I hoped to wake up feeling brand new. I never get sick (knock on wood, thank God) and it's been well over a year since I have even had so much as a cold. 

I woke up Saturday morning feeling like crap. But I don't like to take a lot of medicine. I barely take Tylenol or even Midol. I just do not like it. I like to take a more homeopathic approach. I do not really have a solid reason as to why, I just do. Basically I just think the pharmaceutical industry is a bunch of shit. :)

I forced myself to go do a few things and clean my apartment so when my sister arrived she would not get sick. She was driving three hours from Raleigh. She pulled in around 1:30 PM. We chatted for a while then took off to the gym. I live right across the parking lot from my gym (so awesome) and she had a 3-day pass so we decided to make the best of it.

I felt OK to do cardio but I did not have enough strength to lift weights like we initially planned. I did 45 minutes of cardio and was pretty proud of myself, I pushed hard. My heartrate was up the whole time and I burned a bunch of calories!

I felt so much better afterwards. I felt like the medicine combined with some sweaty cardio totally helped. We went across the street to Earthfare (another awesme thing about where I live, ha!) and got a hummus and vegetable wrap. It was delicious and huge! It was only 300 calories for the whole thing. Double score!

Oh and thank you to my sister who brought me another Polar band so I can use my monitor again. Captain Grace (me) over here lost the damn band a month after I got my monitor so I have not been able to use it!

We then took showers, watched some of "Country Song", and got glam!

I'm ready!

We went Uptown to a place called "Blue Restaurant and Bar" for dinner and a martini. The crusine is Mediterranean; our favorite! I had this delicious spinach, mushroom, and ricotta pasta dish. It was amazing. And the restaurant is absolutely beautiful. The below image I found was on Google, but just to show you how gorgeous the place was!

I had an "Under The Sunset" Martini. It was SO strong and so much cinnamon flavor. I could not finish it, but it felt good against a sore throat because it was so strong.

By the time we finished dinner it was 10:30 and we had to drive back to south Charlotte, where I live. We were gong to go to a local bar to watch the UFC fights. I was so excited, last night the fighter line up was incredible. But I was done, I just wanted to go home. I pushed myself to the limit.

We came home and got warm on the couch and watched a movie on HBO called "Stoker" and what a weird ass movie. That movie was just... I don't even know. I literally had this look of confusion and disgust on my face the whole time, but like I could not turn away. I kept wanting to know what was next. So if you have HBO on demand, the movie is free, so it is worth a watch. Just be prepared that it is really freaking weird. Oh and Nicole Kidman is in it. We finally went to bed around 1 AM and slept today until 10. It was glorious. I love my black out curtains, ha. 

We got ourselves dressed, grabbed a hot tea and spinach and egg white wrap at Starbucks then drove up to Ikea. Every time she comes down to stay with me, we have to make a trip to Ikea. After spending two hours in there walking around, I left with this kick-ass picture for my living room. I love it! It was only 10 bucks too!

My sister left about an hour ago and I think I am down for the count. It is so cold and rainy here and my throat is still kind of sore, super tired too. I think the rest of the afternoon spent inside warm and resting will make me brand new tomorrow. I have a busy week ahead so I have absolutely zero time to be sick. Maybe I am wishful thinking, but so far Emergen-C and Zicam have done a great job. 

How was your post-Christmas weekend?!

*Link up's are going on today, check out my link up page and join the fun! 

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