In which I give up sugar for a year

Okay so some of my twitter followers were promised a blog post tracking my progress. As in the past, I am a tad flaky on meeting my personal blogging "deadlines". So, my apologies :)
  Well this past Wednesday I started my year without sugar. This was inspired by a Mormon vlogger on youtube. Actually, by his awesome 10 year old son. Check them out. They are the shaytards and their vlogs are hilarious and adorable. I love seeing the new ones they post everyday. They are an awesome and inspirational family.
  So this awesome, adorable kiddo went a whole year without candy, dessert, and soda. He made it a whole YEAR! That got me thinking about how this year I am training for a marathon in 2015. (Which by the way is probably going to be the Portland marathon since I live super close to Portland and will live even closer probably marathon season next year.) It got me thinking that I need to change my diet. And so I set this goal which I started on Wednesday.
AND IT'S ROUGH!!!
  I never realized just how much dessert and candy and soda crap I put into my body everyday! It has been only 3 days and it feels like at least a whole week. Then yesterday, I did half a juice fast. Since I always have really low iron I need at least one meal a day or I get shaky and dizzy and I get a headache. But I woke up this morning feeling so good! The sun was shining, my body felt good and tight and I wasn't starving like I usually am when I wake up everyday. It was awesome!
  I am loving this year long sugar fast thing so far. I can already feel a difference in just three days. I seriously have more energy and it is a lot easier to eat healthy. This morning I had apples and toast for breakfast. Usually I skip breakfast because it's kind of frowned upon to eat sugary stuff at that part of the day. And I usually rationalize that if I don't eat breakfast I can get away with eating more later.
  Okay, enough of the chit chat. Here are my stats for January:
January 24, 2014 (is it really 2014??? Hasn't really clicked in my brain yet.)
-Weight 150 lbs (Yeah I know, but that's going to change!!!)
-Best mile time: 8:01
-Days without candy, soda, sugary desserts: 3

So there's that :) I am so excited to see my progress this time next month!

One more thing I really want to blog about. This sunday makes one month of dating my best friend. Did that make sense in English? I just want to avoid the use of "anniversary" because I only really consider anniversaries as yearly things.
But I digress...

I am so happy. This month has been the happiest I've felt in a long time. January marked one year since my mom passed away from stage four Breast cancer and I was having such a hard time with that grief and that heartbreak in November and December. Then my sweetheart came along at the end of December and helped me so much. He continues to lift me up everyday and help me to choose to be happy. He makes me laugh and he makes me think. We have deep, meaningful conversations; and we have goofy, nonsensical ones in which we laugh forever. He's teaching me to drive. He's smart. He's one of my very favorite people :)
Thank you to my sweet goofball for a month of fun and pure joy that I haven't felt in a long time. You are the best :) Here's to many, many, many more months of the same :)

Thank you too, readers for being so loyal. I can't believe how many of you actually read my blog! It's fantastic and gets me super excited. :)

In which life changes in an instant

  I think I've talked about this before; the concept of life changing in an instant for good or bad. Last year about this time, my family's life changed in an instant for the bad. This year, my life changed in an instant in a positive way. Let me explain.
  10 days ago I came to the conclusion that I would just suck it up and be okay with being single. I would take the time to do things I wanted to do and become who I wanted to become. I had been single for almost a year and I was over trying to find a guy to date. I would just go on adventures, work, have fun and let the right man fall into my life as I went along.
  It turns out that's exactly what God wanted me to do. Three days later, BAM! My friend came over to just hang out with me and watch a movie. To be honest I don't even remember what we were watching. When he walked in the door I remember having the distinct impression that he and I were going to start dating, REALLY soon. I was mad at my brain for tormenting me that way. I did like this guy and maybe even tried to flirt with him at some point months before. But I was convinced somehow that he wasn't interested in me. Then we started to get close and he held my hand. I don't know why but just all of a sudden I lifted his hand which was holding mine, and kissed his fingers.
WHAT? WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?
My eyes were wide for about 5 seconds and then he tilted my chin up toward him and planted one on me. That's right. Kissed me right on the lips.
Then he said "What would you think about being my girlfriend?"
I said yes and smiled and since then it has just made sense and things have fallen into place.
So guess what, internet? I'm not single anymore. HOORAY!
It's been 8 days that we have been dating, and I personally think we are the cutest couple in the world. I mean, come on. Just look at those adorable faces....

In this picture we went to a Young Single Adult (Mormon) dance in Portland by the Portland temple. It was so much fun! We decided that we wanted to dress up. I just wanted to go all out and have fun. When he came to the door he showed up with a purple rose (he said I know purple is your favorite color) Won some major points in my book.
The theme of the dance was "Through the ages" so we could dress up in any era we wanted to. I chose the 50s. As you can see I wore super bright lipstick, pearls, my hair up in a huge polka dotted bow and matched it with a polka dot skirt. Then we went to the dance and I had absolutely the best time. My sweetheart is an incredible dancer and I have three left feet. Yup. You read that right.
But he sort of taught me a little bit of the basics. Enough to be able to seem like I'm not a mental patient when I dance. And I loved it. When midnight came around, we kissed. My first time being kissed on new years.
This past sunday he also took me to Urgent Care. I lost my voice and my throat was so red and sore that we thought it might be strep. He spent all day with me in urgent care and took care of me afterwards.
He's such a good guy and I am so grateful and blessed. He's my best friend too. It's so nice and refreshing to date someone who is your best friend and who you can laugh with about silly things like earwax, card games, and battleship. We love to play the card game speed together and other board games. And I just love to talk to him about things.
I'm blessed :) That's all :)
And as of late, I am receiving a lot more revelation on what the right thing to do is for me and my life. On New Years, he and I went and walked around the Portland Temple for a little while and I felt strongly that I need to pursue civil engineering or architecture. And I need to start going to school for it this year.
I think 2014 is going to be a very good year. I am so excited for what my future holds.
The past few weeks have been really rough on me. December was hard. I went through a lot of trials. With my dad having heart problems, and a scare with my sister's health, working long hours, being single, missing my mission and my mom... among other things, it was rough.
A good friend of mine said in a text "Know that I am praying for you, your break will come soon." That was about two weeks ago. I know that was inspired of him to say and it gave me hope because I am finally catching a break.
By request I am coming back to blogging frequently again. I did miss it. It was so much fun to blog all the time and see how big my audience got.
I do want to talk about a movie I saw on Christmas with my family. It was perfect for me and motivated me quite a bit to do things I want to do.
It's called The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. With Ben Stiller and Kristen Wiig. It was absolutely fabulous. I feel a lot like Walter Mitty myself. Daydreaming but never really following through with those dreams and things I wanted to do. Until the past week. Do yourself a favor and see it. For real.
Well that's about all as of right now. Life is good. Wonderful, really. I am very happy and enjoying some much needed peace. I am still sick with the remains of that virus that I went to urgent care for, but it's just a cough and headache and sniffles now. All is well.
Dang. I'm blessed. :)