Ice Cream

This past Saturday I bought and read the whole South Beach Diet book. I've decided I want to see where a real diet will take me. Mainly, I want the discipline and detox. I can really let myself go when it comes to portion control, so I want to buckle down. I want to be a healthy person. I don't want to be the typical over weight nurse who puts no effort into health. I have perfect examples of what happens when you neglect your body in front of me every day at work. I don't want to just look the other way and pretend it won't happen to me.

So if you don't want to hear me go on and on about proteins, weight, portion control, and the agony of detoxing from sugar, don't bother reading for at least the next two weeks.

South Beach Diet was created by a cardiologist who wanted to give his heart patients a way to get themselves healthy and hopefully reverse the damage that was already done to their bodies. It lowered their cholesterol to the point of no longer needing medication and reversed prediabetic patients. It ended up being a great weight loss program also. The diet is based on 3 phases. Phase one is no carbs, eating only lean meat, veggies, and dairy for 2 weeks. It's the detoxing, resetting phase. Rid yourself of sugar cravings, which I have so terribly. Rarely do I eat junk food, such as cookies, ice cream, cake, but I do enjoy bread, pasta and fruit. All of which turn into sugar, which then turns into fat, and also leads to further sugar cravings (spike in blood sugar equals the pancreas sending out insulin, which then rapidly lowers blood sugar and the body thinks it needs more sugar).

That's the plan. No carbs for two weeks. Today I spent way too much time in Costco buying almost every type of veggie available (can't eat fruit, it's a carb). Costco sized veggie portions are perfect for this diet. I have enough tuna to last the average person a lifetime. Every type of dairy I could possibly stomach. And four dozen eggs.

For dinner I made chicken avocado swiss melt. It was freaking fantastic! Maybe I'll just eat that every night for the next 2 weeks. I didn't weigh today because I worked all night and it tends to be higher than when I get a normal nights sleep. Tomorrow I will weigh, and in 2 weeks I should be 8-13 pounds lighter. My goal is 10 pounds. Now I'm off to take a bike ride.

Ice cream is the one thing I craved today.

Savannah Weekend Trip

This past weekend we met my best friend, Stephanie, and her boyfriend, Eric, in Savannah. It was our first time visiting Savannah and we absolutely loved it. And Steph and Eric were pretty good travel partners too!

We stayed at a new hotel on Bay St called Avia. Everything was within walking distance. We took a trolly tour, which was a lot of fun cause it was on and off style. We ate at the cutest tea room, which didn't have sweet tea, how weird. It rained quite a bit so we didn't get to do a ghost tour or shop nearly as much as we wanted, but it was still an almost perfect weekend. It was only a 4.5 hour drive, so I can't wait to go back, hopefully with Steph and Eric!

Some friendly neighborhood pirates.



We went bar hopping the first night. Fat Tire and crawfish for Jordan.



What are they saying to you?



We ate at a Morrocan restaurant, with our hands! And Steph did some bellydancing.



The church we defiled, but not in "that" way! Although we did joke about it a lot.



Straight to hell, I tell ya.



Three monkeys.



Walking around town checking out the sites.



One of the famous fountains.



I loved all the little parks with the fountains and monuments.



We ate some fancy restaurant that was over priced and not that great.



Can you find the crabcake? I know, it's small but I promise it's there. Eric had fun trying to devide that among 4 people.



We ate ice cream after dinner.



Enjoyed a drink at our hotels bar.



And Sunday came and we had to check out :(

Oink Oink

Last Saturday, Jordan and I went to a pig roast my coworkers were having. Carlton, who's from Jamaica, let us come crash his house. He has an AWESOME backyard, with mango, papaya, citrus trees and all sorts of flowers. I wish I had taken more pictures of just his yard!

The pig was great. Zaira did an amazing job roasting him and pulling his head off. And since we are such an ethnically diverse group, we had some delicious food! Although I brought chips and homemade dip.... not exactly original to my culture.....


My crazy coworkers.



Iris about to dive into the rum punch.



Look at all those cheesy grins... there in line for the rum punch (except Nico).















Oink Oink



Zaira taking out some of her frustration on the pig.

Backyard Days

Tonight Jordan and I spent some time replacing the flowers that were mauled by falling trees this past weekend. Peanut decided to help dig the holes. We have made it into a habit of going outside after dinner and enjoying the backyard. It stays cool because of the shade, and now gets a nice breeze since the trees are trimmed. I absolutely cherish this time that I have with my husband and dogs.

- Jelly does exist but she was off doing real dog things instead of posing for pictures like Peanut




The new flowers, which now need new mulch. Never ending....!



The helper



Our new chairs that have provided me with immense joy for less the $40



And a video cause we are proud parents like that.

Just A Weekly Update

There's always something to blog about around here!

Josh and Alison introduced us to wine tasting parties last Saturday. Why we haven't done something like it sooner, I don't know, but it was awesome. Probably because of all the wine. Now we want to have our own party.

I took the plunge and decided to start volunteering for church nursery. I wanted to start volunteering somewhere. Kids is what I know, and it might even be categorized as a gift, so that's what I'm going to do.

At work, our floor is changing to some kind of critical care/step down unit, so I'm going to be doing a lot of studying for the next couple of months. I have to do EKG, ACLS (advanced cardiac life support) and a critical care course, I think. I've already started studying the 8 pound "Basic Arrythmias" (EKG) book and honestly, learning about the heart freaks me out. One area of the book said something to the effect of, the electrical impulses move through the heart this way, we think, but we haven't been able to prove it. Are you kidding me!? The heart is so complex scientists still don't know how it does what it does? Holy freak.

And then since the floor pays for all this training, I have to sign a two year contract with them. I don't have all the gory details of the contract yet, but I think it just means I can't quit or change floors for 2 years. Which is fine with me, since I didn't plan on going anywhere anyway.

We ALMOST planned to go to DC in October, which I was really excited about. But we have some other traveling we are doing that month so it didn't really work out. We are driving up to Atlanta in the beginning of the month for the LSU/Georgia game (not that I'll be going) and then Jordan is flying to Canada for a business trip. So we have planned to put off DC until May of next year.

And tonight we came home to freshly trimmed trees! The large oaks in the backyard were blocking too much sun, and we wanted to prepare them for hurricane season. But unfortunately, along with the branches, the not so careful tree trimmers took a bunch of our plants. So it looks like tomorrow we will be buying plants (yet again!) and planting them. And if we spend one more dime on that backyard I'll shoot someone!