Greetings from Winston-Salem

Well, I am finally all moved in and (mostly) settled into my new apartment in Winston-Salem. Matt and his two brothers helped me move in last Saturday.I can honestly say, with the exception of NOT getting the 24' truck that I specifically requested in my order placed three days in advance, the move went smoothly. Matt calmed me down, which was good, because the guy at the truck rental place was rude and kept telling me I "didn't need" the largest truck that they had. Regardless, Matt made it fit. I think I lucked out because I didn't actually MOVE any of the furniture or boxes in the truck because I had to keep an eye on Coleman.

So after we got all moved in, we went back to Wilmington (truck was one-way). Matt and I got our engagement pictures done by a friend on Tuesday, and even though it was cold and windy, I thought they turned out pretty great!! I'd like to get some "professional" ones in Winston, but I might wait a couple of months for that.

I came back to Winston on Wednesday, and have spent the past few days unpacking, getting settled, and buying essentials (such as groceries). I have a rather lofty goal of eating out as little as possible, and cooking dinner and packing my lunch for work on a regular basis. It shouldn't be that hard, since I'm just by myself right now, and can use leftovers, too. I'm excited that there's an Aldi's only about two miles from my apartment--I got a ton of stuff there for under $200! :) While I did have to go to Food Lion to pick up a few other things, I was happy that I could get my kitchen pretty fully stocked relatively inexpensively. Since the only apartment I've lived in was a townhouse, I was a bit unsure as to how I would like "apartment living." Surprisingly, even though I am very close to Wake Forest, it is relatively quiet here. I have now spent a Friday and a Saturday night here, and I hardly hear anything. There are 10 miles of trails which start behind my apartment and connect to trails across the street. Coleman and I have explored them a little bit, and he seems to like them! I've had confirmation from a couple friends in the area that I'm in a good area. And to confirm it, there are several large, expensive houses off of the Bethabara Trail that runs to my apartment. I like that there's a library, and a Dollar Tree about a minute or two up the road from here. I also like that there's a Family Dollar, Target, Aldi's only a few miles away. I'm only a fifteen minute drive to work. I'm only a few minutes away from my friend, Katie. I'm even close to the Reynolda Gardens and Reynolda House, which I plan on checking out at some point. Also, apparently there is a historic park at Bethabara where the Moravians settled. Should be fun checking out sometime soon. Hopefully the weather will be warm tomorrow (supposed to be 72), so I can take Coleman to Pilot Mountain tomorrow!!:)

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

Happy belated Valentine's Day!! I hope that everybody had the most awesome day EVER. I know I did. Matt came home from work and class with a dozen red roses, and a sweet card (ironically, the card that I myself ALMOST bought him!!). We went out for a nice Italian dinner, and had a nice romantic night ;)

Unfortunately, between the Italian sampler, the large class of sangria, and some Riesling I had last night, I think I put a pound on just yesterday :( That's my frustration lately. I have been eating smaller, more frequent meals, and eating small snacks too throughout the day. When it is warm enough, I've been taking my dog on walks for about an hour or so. I did lose the couple of pounds I had put back on, and now I gained another pound! It seems to do that for some reason....I lose a few pounds, gain one or two back, lose one, and then gain another! I am going to go with the assumption that my unhealthy eating last night, along with the alcohol helped me put a pound back on, and hopefully I'll be able to take it back off. I am not necessarily at an "unhealthy" weight at 130, but I'd like to lose between 5-10 pounds. I would love it if I could be 120 lbs again. Although I do have to say, I have been feeling more energized lately since I've been getting more exercise, and trying to create healthier eating habits.

On a HAPPY note....I finally found a place to live!! After spending two Fridays driving to Winston-Salem, going all around looking at houses, apartments and condos, and then driving BACK to Wilmington....we found a place!!! It's just an apartment, however, it's 2br/2ba has a HUGE walk-in master closet, and is a little over 1000 sq ft. The rent is cheap (they're doing a special for $575), so that would help us to save money for other things (such as a honeymoon or renting/buying a nice house), and there are 10 miles of hiking trails behind the apartments, which will be super great for Coleman. We got everything approved yesterday, so now I just need to mail in the deposit and the pet deposit, and I will be signing the lease and moving in on Saturday! I'm so excited, I can't wait! It will feel SO good to FINALLY have my own place again!!!

Creating healthy habits

I guess it's been awhile since I've last posted. I've been keeping myself pretty busy here. I had some good news....I lost four pounds...yay me! Sadly, due to slacking off a few days in the food journal, exercise, etc, I've gained back a couple of those pounds...which I have to say, is frustrating. I was JUST bragging on facebook about how I'm starting to take off the pounds. However, I can't let myself become frustrated or discouraged, I've gotta keep moving forward. I think part of the reason I've put a couple of the pounds BACK on is not getting enough fiber in my diet. Not only that, Matt and I spent an ENTIRE day (from a little before 7am until about 12:30am the next day) driving around Winston-Salem looking at houses, which meant an ENTIRE day of eating fast food. Yuck. I used to LOVE eating fast food, but I'm finding that it's starting to disgust me somewhat when I DO eat it. It makes me feel lethargic and drained.

I read in a magazine recently it takes 66 days for something to become habit...so that's what I'm working on. I've been using the treadmill in Matt's apartment complex, as well as my Zumba Wii workouts, and when the weather's nice out, I've been trying to take advantage of that by taking Coleman for long walks. One habit I'm trying to create is to aim for at least 30 minutes of daily exercise, if not every single day, at least on MOST days. I feel better when I do that.

My second habit I'm going to try to work on is eating healthier, eating breakfast EVERY day, and eating several small meals throughout the day, with lots of fiber and protein to keep me going. I've realized that lately, I've gotten in the habit of skipping breakfast, not eating much for lunch, and then eating a large dinner. By the time dinnertime rolls around, I'm famished. It doesn't help that for the past couple of months, I've more or less been living with Matt (let's just say, my dog and stuff are at my parents' house, however, I'm here everyday and end up sleeping here almost every night, as well), and he doesn't exactly keep healthy food on hand. So today, I took it upon myself to go grocery shopping for HEALTHY foods. I really like Fiber One bars and cereals, and they keep me full in the mornings so I don't have a sugar crash. I also stocked up on hummus, chocolate soymilk, Special K protein shakes, skim milk, Skinny Cow ice cream bars (only 100 calories, woo hoo!!), and bagel thins and sandwich buns, which are thin, only 100 calories, and chock full of protein and fiber. So hopefully, this will be the start of new, healthy habits. I've done an hour of Zumba and Just Dance 2 on the Wii so far today, and I've been eating smaller, more frequent meals.