The Biggest Loser's serves up a new host

As you probably know by now, I'm a self proclaimed reality TV junkie. I watch pretty much anything, except the singing and dancing shows (with the exception of The Voice, which I love, but wouldn't have watched without Dan's stuffing it down my throat). One of my favorites is The Biggest Loser. Oh, how I love that show. I love watching people's lives being transformed in the most profound ways before my very eyes. Sure I get a little cringey when the contestants start weighing less than me, but I still feel overwhelmed with happiness for them on their accomplishments. It's incredible. They literally go from solemn and unhealthy shells to vibrant pictures of life and health.

With all that being sad, I'm completely baffled by the show's producers' choice for the next Biggest Loser trainer. Remember Anna Kournikova?

She looks amazing, right? Professional athlete, strong, svelte, muscular. She looks to be in her prime here. Gorgeous, fit, and healthy looking. Totally conceivable that this girl would be a personal trainer and a role model for Biggest Loser contest. The only problem?


This is Anna now with Biggest Loser host Alison Sweeney. And this picture doesn't even quite capture is as I remember it. She literally looks sickly. I was actually shocked when she stepped out onto the stage on the finale last night to be introduced as the replacement for Jillian Michaels. All jokes about Anna being a professional loser her entire tennis career and therefore a perfect fit aside, there's something wrong with this picture.

I'm not going to get into digging into Anna's physique, because really? Who am I to judge? And also, I know that girls at any size and any weight have self image issues. So I'm not going to pick at her. What I will say is that I'd be seriously concerned for her health. She just doesn't look healthy, and it seems entirely hypocritical to me that someone who is clearly underweight (even with the extra poundage of cameras on her) is going to be guiding others to optimal health. It's just a bad fit for a fitness icon like Biggest Loser. Call me crazy, but I don't think she's the greatest example of a healthy physique for Biggest Loser contestants, and I'm pretty disappointed.

What say you? Do you think Anna is a good fit?

Do you like my new look?

So you may have noticed that I did a small overhaul on the blog. I wanted something a little more reflective of us and our style with a little less going on. It's just a boring Blogger template, but it'll do for now. Perhaps it'll motivate me to push me in new directions in terms of my posts, too.

The blog header pics were taken by This is Life Photography. I purchased the photo shoot through Groupon last year and we finally used it in March, the weekend after we moved into the new house. The photographer, Marisa, was awesome to work with and we loved our pics. Our deal came with 3 prints and 1 digital file and we ended up buying 8 additional files. If you live in Phoenix, we definitely recommend her.

Tomorrow is my appointment with the doctor to hopefully get some infertility testing started. If you can spare some good wishes or thoughts or vibes or prayers or whatever it is you do, I'd appreciate it.

The First Official Unexpected Expense

Since moving into our house over two months and a half months ago (how has it been that long?!) we've dropped our fair share of change on the house improving things. There was the bathroom and kitchen repainting, the new appliances, sink and countertops, the dog door, the new lighting fixtures. Dan poured concrete to extend the patio to under the dog door so the dogs would be on a cleaner surface than dirt before stepping inside. He also stained the shabby looking wooden gate to the backyard. I think that's all the major stuff. However, that was all expected. Last night we came upon our first unexpected expense: the garage door opener.

The darn thing has been kind of a pain since we moved. For some reason, at certain times of day, the safety sensors mistake sunlight for a small child (or something, I don't know how these things work) and won't close by itself. We have to sit there and hold down the button the whole time. Pain in the behind. Dan was researching how to move the sensors to eliminate the problem and had gone to Lowe's to get a tool and something else, and when he came back - irony of ironies - the motor on the opener burned out. By the time he figured out what was going on with it, Lowe's had closed and we were SOL for getting a new one. So that's on Dan's agenda for tonight: replace garage door opener.

The rest of our weekend was great. We spent Friday night with Dan's coworker Jake, watching Jackass 3, which - as a lover of all things Johnny Knoxville - was hilarious. I'm officially obsessed with the Roller Buffalo skit. I've played it on my phone probably 10 times since Friday night and downloaded the song as a ring tone. Yeah, obsessed. On Saturday we headed to our friends' house for a BBQ. We'd intended to watch the rapture, but that clearly didn't happen, so it was just a normal BBQ.

Oh, and yesterday I sold out. Call it what you will - sheer curiosity or too many DVR'd episodes of Extreme Couponing, but I went and did some coupon shopping. Seriously, people, deodorant and body wash for $0.67? Sugar-free Snack Packs for $0.77? Not to mention, better prices on quite a few things we use often. I didn't go crazy or anything, but it was definitely worth the time it took to cut coupons out of three papers. I had stocked up on meat in the last couple weeks and didn't have to buy any, so I was able to spend less than half my weekly budget and I won't have to buy deodorant for either of us for about 3 months, or Snack Packs ever again, and our fridge is stocked full of fresh veggies for this week's meals, which brings me to....

:: flashing lights::

Meal Plan Monday!!

This one was actually fun to do. Dan and I went out for dinner last night and planned the week's menu together, which was a nice change from flying solo.

Dan's requests: a lot of veggies

Monday: Spaghetti squash topped with veggies. This one was Dan's idea, and he's cooking it. I'm curious to see how it turns out. Honestly, I'm just thankful I'm married to a man who loves his veggies.

Tuesday: Enchilada casserole with beef. Again, Dan's apparently cooking this one

Wednesday: BBQ chicken and corn. Dan had a marathon of Best in Smoke on TV as he was doing stuff around the house yesterday and it got us both craving BBQ

Thursday: Bangers and mash. Only we're using turkey kielbasa and we're going to try a cauliflower "fauxtato" recipe I found. Hopefully it works out.


Hope you have a great week!

Gimme gimme! Update - my life in crappy Blackberry photos

Remember this fun little post about some things I was pining for? Well, some of my dreams have come true. I ordered my letters from Letter Chef on Etsy just before I wrote that post. What I didn't tell you was that the seller was awesome to work with. I wanted them on a pretty big wall, so 4x6 prints weren't going to cut it. She sent me a list of all the prints I could choose from to get the 8x10 and 11x14 prints I wanted. I had about 12-14 options for each letter. I showed them to Mrs. ESPN, Salt and my friend, Natalie, to help me choose. I got them in about a week, which is awesome, considering their custom size, and framed them right away.

But I didn't like something about the white on white on white. I had tried to pick prints that were dark around the edges because I knew the frames I wanted were white with white mats. But something just didn't look right. I wanted the mats to be purple to coordinate with my candles and bath mat. So on Mother's Day, my mom and I went to Joann Fabrics to search for a solution. We considered buying/custom ordering new mats, spray painting, and even covering the mats in scrapbook paper. Ultimately, we decided to try the spray paint. We figured that the worst that would happen is that we'd get too much moisture on the mat and it would ripple and we'd have to buy a new one. Spray paint was the easiest and least time consuming solution to start with. And this is our end result:


I love how they came out, and it was a fun project to do with my mom.

Next up, I mentioned my friend Jennifer's cards in my Gimme, gimme! post. It wasn't entirely a surprise because she asked for my address, but I was stunned to find these beauties in my mailbox when I got home yesterday.


Aren't they amazing? I wish you could see the details - there are hat pins, glitter, embossing, buttons, cute bows, and tiny Bingo cards. Five gorgeous, hand-made, and one-of-a-kind thank you notes. I love them all, and I can't wait to order some cards for upcoming birthdays from her. Again, if you'd like to contact Jennifer, her email is vogtdesignco@gmail.com. I think you'll be amazed at seeing her work in person

So there are just a couple of my little desires satisfied. Now all I'm waiting on are my chairs.

Meal Plan Monday: April 16

First, I'm so excited to announce that my wonderful friend, penpal, and bridesmaid, Kari and her husband are expecting a baby GIRL!! Kari called me after the sonogram to tell me and I'm just so happy for them. They were both hoping for a girl (with healthy being the number one thing of importance, of course), and I'm glad they got their wish. So that was the fabulous news of the day. On to meal planning.

Monday: Dan's childhood favorite, hot dogs and mac and cheese. Only we're going to add some veggies on the side so we can fill up on some good stuff. Mondays are a great day for a little bit of comfort food.

Tuesday: pasta with meat sauce, or maybe meat balls, because last week's turned out so tasty

Wednesday: chicken enchiladas with a side of black beans

Thursday: steak salad. I'm trying to recreate our favorite from Native New Yorker: sirloin, fresh romaine, onion, a little bleu cheese, yummy yum yum!

Friday: Date night

Saturday and Sunday: We should have enough left overs from the pasta and enchiladas to at least have lunches at home. I'm trying to make stuff stretch into the weekend to be both mindful of our budget and have homecooked food over restaurant mystery ingredients.

What are y'all having this week?

I hope I'm not jinxing myself

This past weekend, for Mother's Day, my parents were visiting with their dog, Emmy, and we decided to try something new. While we ran out to run some errands, we left Clover, Paisley, and Emmy free in the house with access to the dog door. We'd been curious how they would do with no one around. When we got home, as far as we could tell, they'd done just fine. Nothing was destroyed, no messes on the floor, no evidence at all that they'd been left to their own devices.

On Monday, Dan texted me in the early morning to see what I thought about leaving our girls in the house instead of crating them. I figured it couldn't hurt to try. Clover's been doing great with the dog door, and my only real concern was her deciding one of the couch cushions looked tasty or barking incessantly at the neighbors without me there to stop her. I figured I'd come home to sticks and bean pods from the yard all over my living room carpet, but that happens almost daily anyway. So we tried it. I was amazed to come home to a clean carpet and two happy pups, still warm from their sunbathing. So we tried it again Tuesday, and got the same result. I was happy that we could give the girls more freedom and not have the guilt of crating them all day.

And then I came home yesterday. Paisley greeted me right away, but Clover was nowhere in sight. I went to the yard to see what she was up to, and called for her. Nothing. I thought maybe she was being stubborn - she tends to hide when called because she still thinks that "come here, Clo" means "get in your crate and get locked away for hours." And then I heard whining. And scratching at the bedroom door. Uh oh. We know how this ended up last time. Ugh. All I could picture was my comforter in shreds and Clover accidents everywhere. So I took a breath and opened the bedroom door, and... nothing! I searched everywhere for evidence of an accident. There was nothing. No wet spots - trust me, our carpet is so plush that her wet messes sit on top without soaking in. I'd see them very easily, and there were none. My comforter and pillows were intact. Clothes within reach of a bored puppy all had their buttons. You seriously couldn't tell she's been in there alone for 8 hours. Well, except for the fact that she made a mad dash to the yard to go potty and then drank a whole bowl of water (poor puppy didn't have any in the room since the bowl had been moved from the crate to the kitchen). Dan later found a ripped up package of iron-on hem under the bed, but if that's the worst of it, I'll take it. As it turns out, Dan had seen Clover in the yard when he was getting ready and thought she was outside, but when he gathered up his keys and lunch box, she'd apparently gone to hide under the bed to avoid crating and was accidentally left in the bedroom.

So I don't want to jinx myself, but I'm cautiously excited that we may have fiiiiinally achieved house-breaking with Clover. Yes!

It's the return (once again)...

of Meal Plan Monday. So we've been in the house a good 8 weeks now, and we've more or less settled in to our routine. We're both generally home (even after running errands) by 5 or 5:30 at the latest, then we work together to make dinner. Lately, Dan grills, while I prep something like veggies inside. But Dan's getting tired of Italian burgers (as freaking delicious as they are), so it's time to get the creative juices flowing again. As the weather heats up, the goal is to use the oven as little as possible, and I'm also in favor of working the Crock Pot into action at least once a week. So here's the plan this week.

Meal Plan: Week of May 9th

Dan's requests: pasta and chicken. You got it, Buddy.

Monday: Pasta - Italian sausage, whole wheat penne, and veggies

Tuesday: Shish-ke-bobs - chicken, mushrooms, peppers, pineapple. Yum!

Wednesday: Meatball subs. We don't do sandwiches much, but for some reason this one sounds good. I think I'll attempt roasted sweet potato fries to go along with the subs. They're our latest addiction.

Thursday: Mushroom Crock Pot chicken and broccoli. I'll do some extra to give us some easy left overs for the weekend.

Friday is still our date night, which means we generally head out for dinner to wash the work week away


What are you serving up this week? Care to share your favorite summer dinner ideas?

Coming clean

I've been quiet lately. Here mostly, but also somewhat in real life. It's not that nothing has happened. On the contrary, my sister got married, we finally got our dog door, and my in-laws decided unannounced visits are fun (they're not). But I have something bigger on my mind, and when that happens, I am often unable to let other thoughts out because I feel like the other thoughts are tainted with the big thought. And I think if I can get the big thought out and off my chest, I can get back to the other thoughts. So bear with me.

I've mentioned before that Dan and I want to start our family. I've also vented my frustrations with comments and misconceptions. But what's bigger than the fact that we're trying to conceive is when that journey began. We recently hit our year mark. On April 12th, to be exact. On that day, after trying for a year and being under the age of 35, I - or rather we - joined a new rank. On that day, my chances of conceiving in any perfectly timed cycle dropped from 20% to only 13%. On that day, I became eligible to begin testing for infertility. I held out hope, having witnessed the unexpected joy of Cycle 12 pregnancies, but a mere week later, I learned for the 11th time in a row that I was not pregnant.

April 12, 2011 loomed over my head for a few weeks. It's been a difficult thing to face. I've had some bad days over it. My mentality has changed a lot since last year. I started out pretty happy-go-lucky, figuring Dan and I would be parents in no time. I bought Taking Charge of Your Fertility and read it from cover to cover. Armed with my thermometer to chart and track my cycles, I was excited not only to be a mom but to learn about my body, something I'd actually been afraid of since hitting puberty. I was liberated, for lack of a better word.

Cycle after cycle went on. At first, I got anxious about it not working. Then I realized, especially after my high blood pressure reading, that I had to chill, both for me and for my hope for a baby. I don't necessarily believe that my baby-wanting caused high blood pressure, given family health history, but it certainly wouldn't help. I relaxed on the charting and temping, and focused more on just trying to have decent timing and rolling with the punches. Almost thankfully, we also avoided pregnancies for 2 cycles in the year - once so I wouldn't be due around my sister's wedding, and again for my friend Rachel's wedding, both for which I was/am the maid of honor. Those avoiding cycles also contributed to calming my nerves. They gave us both a break and renewed our spirits.

Now I know what you might be thinking. I didn't have a full year of TTC. True. But we had 10 cycles with good timing. That's more than some ladies get. Statistically, we should have gotten lucky in 10 cycles. By the numbers, 50% of couples conceive in 6 months, and 80% in a year. So we're somewhere in the 75% figure with 10 cycles. We've gone from "this is taking time" to "we may need help."

And so, I made an appointment for the end of May. I wasn't going to. Not for a little while, maybe not until July. But that last cycle with no results hit me harder than anticipated. I'm wasting time if I don't. If something is wrong, waiting until July just wastes more time. I'm not gonna lie. I'm scared. I'm worried something is wrong, but it's worth it to me - and to Dan, who's so so supportive, I can't tell you how lucky I am - to find out what, if anything, we're dealing with. Maybe we just haven't gotten lucky yet. I'm willing to deal with that. But if something is not right and we can fix it, I want to.

It's hard to say we might have an issue with infertility. Even until now, I kept saying "maybe we just haven't gotten lucky yet." But infertility is defined as failure to conceive within 12 months with careful timing. I qualify, no matter how you dice it. It isn't a label I want to pick up. This isn't about wanting sympathy or attention. This is National Infertility Awareness Week, and in my circle of blog and Twitter and Facebook and Bump friends, there are posts loaded with encouragement and information everywhere. I'm the newbie to all this. There are ladies who've been poked and prodded and injected for years in their pursuit to have a baby. I don't want to go through that, but I may have to. Only time and testing will tell. And in the spirit of getting the word out, and bringing to light the fact that infertility can affect any couple, I'm coming clean.

I also just want to take a moment to thank the very supportive people in my life. There are some of you who've offered advice and knowledge, and I can't thank you enough. There are others who've lent ears and shoulders, and I appreciate that so much, too. I count my lucky stars for the incredible people I have in my life.

My little sister got married!

This past weekend was my beautiful sister's wedding day. She looked absolutely gorgeous, and we celebrated with a beautifully planned party. I'm so happy for her and my new brother-in-law, Daniel.

Check out the happy couple (sorry for the Blackberry photos, it's how I roll) taking it all in at the reception.

I wish you could see her whole dress - it's absolutely stunning.

And my labor of love: their cupcake display and cutting cake. Megan and Daniel chose red velvet, chocolate peanut butter, lemon, Oreo, and maple bacon for the flavors, and they were all a hit. My dad and Dan ended up setting up the display and they did a great job making sure it looked just right. Congrats, Megan and Daniel! Wishing you a lifetime of sweet moments!

Why I'm content spending $2.35 on toothpaste

Ugh, sorry for the wall of text. Blogger hates me today and doesn't give a darn about the spacing I've tried to insert. Last night was the series premier of a new reality TV show, Extreme Couponing (cue Dan leaving the house). I've actually been looking forward to this one. Who wouldn't, when the previews included sound clips such as "that's basically 99% savings." I mean, who doesn't want to save money? There were two episodes on last night, and while I'm not going to recap them, I'll bless you all with my thoughts and some highlights. All of the 4 women whose stories were featured in the two episodes have large areas of their home dedicated to food and product storage. There were blurbs all over Twitter and Facebook about how Extreme Couponing should have been named Hoarders: The Beginning. A couple of the ladies had either a huge basement or pantry for all their goods. But two families had to stock their stashes all over the house. In one, the mother of 7 children (whom she referred to as her litter) had some 1,400 rolls of toilet paper under her 2-year-old's bed, and "he doesn't even know!" Soup was stashed in the kids' playroom. Another mom of six had 75 boxes of cereal in her master bedroom closet, which she called her favorite room in the house. She even said her stock pile was almost as beautiful as her family. Bascially, all these people had amassed enough stuff to keep their families alive in the event of the zombie apocalypse, or for 3 years, whichever comes first. And how can they afford all this, because we know 75 boxes of cereal alone is worth more than many household food budgets? Well, couponing of course. Some of the ladies are able to be stay-at-home moms thanks to their efforts, but couponing is a full time job. They get anywhere from 3 to 12 Sunday papers a week to collect coupons. Then they make massive grocery shopping trips. Everything is organized down to the penny. In many stores, there are policies that necessitate multiple check-outs. One woman had to split her load into eighteen separate transactions to maximize her coupon potential. One couple bought all the same products but checked out separately to double the savings because the store's policy only allowed the doubling of one coupon. For the same reason, another couple had to call 5 friends to come to the store to stand in so they could beat the store's policy. I mean, this is serious effort and planning. All that planning pays off, though. The women featured saved anywhere from 91 to 99% on their groceries. Some were even paid to take stuff out of the store when coupons resulted in a negative balance on some items. They got free toilet paper, vitamins, cereal, and paper towels. Granted, it took some of them two hours just to check out, but it is definitely well worth it when you can say you walked out of the grocery store with $1,900 (OMG) worth of stuff for $103. Yeah, jaw dropping. Now, my issues. First, there's one thing they don't tell you or show you on this show, and it's something I know because I work with some serious couponers. Most of these ladies probably pay a service to keep track of what coupons are resulting in big savings. The taping showed them picking up their papers, circling deals, clipping coupons, and la-de-da-ing off to the store. Not so much. Coupons and deals at the store generally don't coincide. So there are services (or you could do it yourself if you are insane) that keep track of which coupons were issued and when and instruct you on how to organize them. You may have to hold onto them for a month before you can get your best benefit out of them. Some of them will expire. I know people who keep from 2,000 to 3,500 coupons on hand. Then, when the weekly circulars come out, the service alerts you to deals and points you in the direction of the stash where the helpful coupon should be for you to use. It's not as cut and dry as "clip and shop." It takes serious effort and organization, which I don't have. Also, as I mentioned, these ladies are using multiple transactions. I mean, they had spreadsheets of the order that things had to be rung up in order to not miss any savings opportunities. One extra can of corn in a transaction and they'd ::gasp:: pay full price. There's no way in hell I'm going to sort out exactly how to split up orders into 7 or 13 or 18 chunks. I'm just not. I'd personally be embarrassed to ask a cashier to go through all this song and dance. Second, I get that spending less than $10 on a year's supply of stuff for a whole household must be exhilarating, but what are you going to do with it all? I'm not spending my life living among groceries and convincing my kids that cans of soup are appropriate playroom decor. "Hey mom and dad, just pull up a seat on our paper towel chair! They were free!" No. Just, no. Granted, I realize I wouldn't have to hoard as much stuff. But at this point in my life, I just don't find it necessary to have 120,000 sheets of toilet paper on hand at all times. Also, I'm not judging what people feed their families, and I'm the first to admit we eat junk sometimes. But from what I've seen in what they're buying, it's a LOT of processed foods. Boxed cereal, while delicious, isn't what I'd consider the most healthy thing. And they're not buying Kaashi. They're buying Pops and Trix. Sugary stuff. There's also a ton of crackers, sodium-laden soups, hot dogs, etc. I didn't see any fresh produce in any of the carts. I try my hardest to avoid purchases of processed foods. Most of what goes in my cart is fresh meat, veggies, and dairy. I buy Dan crackers here and there, and I keep soup on hand for Crock Pot chicken, but most of what I buy has to be baked, grilled, broiled, roasted, or steamed from it's raw state. Like I said, I'm not saying we always eat the best food, but I don't see the point in saving 95% on processed foods when I try so very hard to make us the freshest meals possible. And I know this could change when we have kids, too. I understand the value in convenient food. Just for now, couponing to fill my shelves with boxes and cans isn't my style. It's definitely all fascinating though. There's a part of me that's jealous of the fact that what they spend on a year's worth of groceries is what I spend on a week's supply of Chobani yogurt (I may be exaggerating). But there's a trade-off, as there is with any choice in life. I'll keep my sanity and pay full price for toothpaste for now. What say you? Did you watch the show? Do you engage in extreme couponing? Non-extreme? Are you content like me to just pay what things cost? How do you save?