Back from my Hiatus!

Aloha Blog world.

I am back after my year hiatus. Life has finally settled in place I have been working as a nurse for over a year now and everything seems to finally settling down. However with my wedding approaching quickly I have lots to do with little time. November 16th will be here sooner then we know it.

Robert and I have been busy away planning. We have the most important things booked and figured out just a couple more kinks to work out. We both are settled in our jobs, and have been stressing about moving out of our apartment and buying our first house. It is still up in the air whether we will wait till after we are married or do it before. I honestly would prefer to wait because that is the last thing we need to add to our list of stressors already.

I also recently recommitted to WW for the billionth time, and I know this is cliche' to say but I plan on finally getting to my goal weight, I know everyone and myself included say that every time but I am holding myself accountable. I did not gain back all the weight I lost luckily but I gained back more then I would hope for. I just started my 4th week of doing online since with my busy night shift work schedule online is a lot more convenient. I have so far lost 9.4 pounds in 3 weeks, with about 15 pounds to go for my wedding goal.

This is the most recent photo of us :) We were suppose to take our engagement photos this weekend but due to the weather it was postponed, so hopefully I will have some professional photos to post soon :)

Till next time.
Lauren.

What a weekend!!

I had probably the most eventful week/weekend of my life this weekend. To start out on Thursday I got ENGAGED to the love of my life! Then on Friday I graduated college and today Saturday I packed up my whole life into a 6x10 trailer and am heading back home tomorrow morning to start my adult life. I start my new job June 13th and I am excited and really nervous all at the same time. The only thing that I didn't do well this weekend was my diet, I ate so bad all weekend I feel all sluggish and gross. Its amazing how the food you put into your body can make you feel so great or so horrible. Monday I'm getting back to it, especially since I have a wedding to get in shape for now. The wedding isn't set in stone yet since the engagement is so new, but we are thinking late next year maybe early 2013 since Robert still has to graduate in December.

I had a lot of pictures taken this weekend so that is what the rest of this post is going to be. So I hope you enjoy and can see all the excitement I had this weekend!!

Hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the weekend, I know I will have a busy one driving home and unpacking!

Bittersweet.

Today after finishing up my last day of my NCLEX review course I had a rush of emotions hit me, I was so relieved and excited to have survived nursing school and starting my career soon as a graduate nurse. Then all of a sudden when I got back to my apartment and realized how empty it was becoming every day due to my roommate moving out into her new apartment today and my packing of my things for Sunday when I officially move. I began to cry because this has been my home for three years now and I have met some of the best people in my life here. My amazing wonderful boyfriend, Robert that I cannot begin to be thankful for.

And then of course my best friends! Chelsea who is my roommate aka soul sister, we understand each other so much and I think thats why our friendship was able to survive and conquer living together and only made us grow stronger. Then my other best friend Joanne, we went through nursing school together and were each others shoulder to lean on when times got hard with all the overwhelming material and studying. We are all three the best of friends, sometimes we wish we had a 4th so we could be like Sex and the City, but we never found that fourth person that fit right.

(Chelsea, Me, & Joanne)

We are all three going to be living in different cities but the good thing is it will give us a good excuse to come visit each other and get out of town for a weekend! My boyfriend and I will also be doing a long distance relationship for about 6 months till he graduates and moves to be with me. He made the commitment to follow me, I was going to stay here where we live now but we ultimately weighed the pros and cons and thought about where would be best for both our futures and jobs and decided that Houston, where I'm originally from would be the best option. 

I feel so blessed to have these amazing people in my life as well as an excellent family I could of never made it through nursing school without their support. It has yet to hit me that I will be graduating and officially growing up, I think once I walk across the stage and sit for my boards it will hit me all at once. I'm scared to weigh in this week because due to finals I fell to the temptation of a lot of comfort foods, and this weekend I'm sure I'm going to have my fair share of alcohol to celebrate. Oh well you only graduate college so many times in your life, minus well enjoy my weekend and just hit the gym and diet hard on Monday. 

I'm excited to be re-commiting to Weight Watchers in June, because I feel like that is the missing puzzle piece in my weight loss journey right now and I think it will help get me out of the slump I am in and help re-motivate me to get these last 25 pounds off of my body for good. I know this is a very long post but I had quite a lot on my mind and wanted to share. I will post all about my graduation weekend and hopefully will have pictures to share!! 

Let the countdown begin!

So as of today I am officially done with my undergraduate career! I will be walking across the stage this Friday at 3pm and will be all done! I still have a busy week ahead of me even though finals are done. I have two more days of a NCLEX review course that is 8am to 5pm, what a two days it is going to be, but I really need to just toughen up and stick it through.

I wasn't able to scan all of my graduation photos that I had taken onto my computer due to time constraint but I scanned two of my favorite and I'm going to share them with ya'll. Excuse my whiteness I need to tan, and trust me next week when I move back home with my parents I will be lounging by the pool enjoying my week off before I go back to work and put my big girl shoes on.

There were some other really good ones I will share later on when I get the time. I need to go prepare my lunch and snacks for tomorrow since I'm going to be at the school 8-5 and need to be prepared so I don't go to the vending machine or school store. Good thing I have a lot of fruits and veggies that I need to eat up by this weekend. I'm going to call it a night early tonight, because I've been up since 5 am for my final day. 

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mother's out there, especially my amazing Momma! 

This is a picture of my Mom and I last year a little bit before I started my weight loss journey so I'm at my heaviest in this picture, but its the most recent picture of just my mom and I. I'm going to have to get some more recent pictures especially this weekend when I graduate!!!

Well I'm spending Mother's Day studying for my last final I have tomorrow morning and then I have an NCLEX review course for three days and graduate on Friday! For those that don't know what NCLEX is, its the official boards to become a licensed nurse. So even after I graduate I still have to pass boards in order to practice as a nurse. I wont be taking my boards till June so I have time to study and I'm taking two review courses so hopefully it will all pay off, but I'm going to save the stress of that for some other day.

My weight loss has been up and down this week, but I guess thats what I get for being obsessed with the scale and stepping on it every day ever since that cheat! No more till Friday and I'm going to do my best to eat as clean as possible this week before graduation because I know its going to involve a lot of yummy food and drinks. I know I can do this because the last think I want to do is sabotage myself again!!! I already feel guilty enough...

Have a wonderful Mother's Day!

Acceptance.

So after my emotional binge yesterday I woke up this morning feeling kind of relieved. Its odd to explain but after binging due to my emotions I sat down and thought about the reasons I chose to binge and I came to the conclusion that it was my own choice and that my destiny is in my hands and that tomorrow morning I'm going to get up with confidence and step on the scale and accept whatever it has for me because I'm going to handle this like a mature adult and learn and grow from it. I stepped on the scale up one pound this morning and even though it was disappointing it could've been much much worse. So I'm using this as a learning opportunity and I'm moving on!

This is a great picture of how I'm going to learn, grow and change. I need to learn from the past, live for the present and grow for the future. I feel like this journey has made me a stronger person mentally and emotionally however there still are some wounds there that I need to work on every day. But that by accepting them I know my downfalls and I know that they are there so I can work on improving them everyday.

So besides that I have one of my last two finals today of my undergraduate career. Its kind of bittersweet I'm ready to graduate and open a new chapter in my life however I'm going to miss being a student and everything that it entails. Although I do have quite the number of responsibilities that most of my student friends don't, I still don't have the quantity of responsibilities that normal working adults do. So this is going to be a change and I'm hoping I will adapt to it rather quickly especially since I'm going to be working night shifts 7pm-7am! I'm going to look like a crazy woman sleeping during the day and up at all times of the night. Almost half-vampire like. Oh and studying for my nursing boards is another stressor of mine, hopefully I can keep my stress eating to a minimum and at least choose healthy alternatives!!!

So my goal for the week is to work on my stress eating during this stressful time and exercise more when I start to feel stressed that way I can release some good endorphins, being working out always makes me feel better! Also to keep my motivation high, because with one final left and a lot of packing to do I can't afford to slack now. Focus on clean eating this week as well. That is something that I have been doing really well on and I think that will help to get the one pound off that I gained this week and up my water intake!

Have a great day everyone :) Its almost the weekend and I know everyone is ready. I am happy to be back in the blogging world and I think later on sometime when I get some time I'm going to add some personal touches to my blog to make it more personal that way I will be more obligated to use it, because it does make me feel better when I write down my feelings/emotions. 

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Too bad instead of enjoying some yummy Mexican food and margaritas I am stuck studying for a final I have in the morning. Today I had a mental break down. Just the realization of one door closing and another opening scared me and I got emotional and instead of handling it like an adult. I went to food and binged on cheese and crackers. Of course it could've been worse I only ate about 500 calories worth of it. But tomorrow is my weigh-in day and I'm probably going to be up. But I'm moving on and accepting it, I was doing so good. Oh well I will put my big girl panties on and accept it like a big girl and just accept what the scale has in mind for me in the morning and get right back on plan and just learn from the mistake I made instead of dwell on it. Here's too eating clean for the rest of the week that way my size 8 graduation dress still fits!!!

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone!!