Fat Free Whipped Topping....mmmmmm

It's summer time! And what's more summery than a big bowl of fresh berries and whipped topping?? I LOVE whipped topping in the summer and all year round. Fat Free whipped topping is low points, just as tasty and versitile.

I only get the kind in the tubs because I find the ones in the cans taste like chemicals and are very gross.

My favorite ways to enjoy whipped topping:

• 1-8oz container of FF whip topping + 1/4cup creamy Peanut Butter. Stir. Great dip for banana's or apples. Also top off that frozen whole grain waffle with some and add a banana on top.
• Fresh sliced strawberries, raspberries or blackberries with a dolop of topping.
• And this Emily Bites recipe: http://www.emilybites.com/2012/06/chocolate-fruit-dip.html
• Frozen Peanut Butter Cups: Whisk together 1 Cup of the Cool Whip with 1/3 c. Reduced fat Peanut Butter until thoroughly mixed. Fold in rest of the 8oz tub of Cool Whip until mixed. Spoon into 12 foil cupcake holders. Drizzle 1 Tsp of light chocolate syrup over each cupcake. Freeze overnight. 
• Mock ice cream sandwiches: Mix a package of sugar free pudding (any flavor) an 8oz container of whipped topping. Spread between two lite graham crackers and freeze. I sometimes add the mini chocolate chips or a squirt of hershy syrup to the mix also.   Works without the pudding mix.                                

How do you use whipped topping?

DIY- New Headboard

Once we go married, I gave notice on my rental and moved into the house my husband owns. It's a total bachlor pad that desperately needs a woman's touch and some style. I've decided to do this one room at a time.  Starting with the bedroom.

This is what it looked like when he moved in:

Baige and blah!!  It's been this way for two years, until I moved in........I decided it was time for a little color in the room. It all started with pinterest.com where I found a color scheme I loved. It had the white and red that is already the color of my exisiting bedspread.

 and I also saw an idea for reclaiming doors and turning them into a headboard.

So we went to our local salvage yard and found an old accordian style closet door for $5.

We brought them home and hubby took them apart for me.

 I scuffed them up with a little rough sandpaper so that the primer would stick. Then I primered and painted. I fell in love wih the idea of yellow in the bedroom, but the above color scheme doesn't have yellow in there! But then I decided that it be great as a pop of color on the headboard.

It was all starting to come together in my head. I just needed hubby to buy in to it. So I showed him the color scheme and hubby actually liked it (a mircle) and so I immediate whisked us off to Home Depot. He selected the actual shade of blue!

Before he changed his mind, I immediately began to get out the painter's tape and rollers and we painted the whole room on a Sunday night.

 It got a little messy, but well worth it!

This is the final result!

 Side view of the headboard

 View from above

The next step will be to add a shelf that runs the length of the room where I can display a few photos. Much like the ideas I saw on pinterest:

            

Then I've got to get a new window treatment on and do a little of decorating on the wall opposite to the headboard to tie it all together.

Great Weekend!

I had a great weekend. Saturday I got to sleep in (only 8:30, but I'll take it). I went running at my college track as part of my 10K training plan. I ran into a few employees who I hadn't seen in a while who were very complimentary of my new body.

I went home and took a shower, got dressed and went shopping! I went to Old Navy since they were having a big sale and a had a coupon on top of that. However, much to my disappointment, I found nothing I liked. But right next door is a Kohl's and I desperately needed a new bra.

My current bra was on the smallest clasp it could be, but it just wasn't enough. anytime I'd lift my arms or move around a bit, it would come up and over and I'd have to tug it back down. I knew I had to get a smaller bra, but I was hoping my cup size would remain the same. At my heaviest, I was a solid B+/ C- and now I've shrunk down to a B/B- and I was afraid I'd end up in an A cup. Thanksfully, the girls are hanging in there! Still a B cup, I just needed a smaller size in inches. WHEW!

Also while I was there, I noticed there was a serious sale on running wear, so I had to go check it out. I got a new pair of running capris and a shirt in a size SMALL!! Yay me!! All for 40% off + Kohl's cash.

I also invested in two cute belts which are designed to belt at the smallest part of your waist and not through your belt loops. I'm hoping to use these on my shirts that are getting too big, so I can get a little more life out of them. Buying new clothes all the time gets very expensive.

Then I got to sleep in again on Sunday and I went to a party at a colleagues house. It was a 'sample party' in that there were several vendors of various things there. A no pressure situation, but lots to look at (Mary Kay, Scentsy, Thirty-one, Silpada, etc). There were a few colleagues whom I haven't seen in about two or three years and it was really funny.

Nancy arrives at the party and comes over to where Jean and I are talking. Nancy cuts in to say hello to Jean and then turns to me and says, "Hi, I'm Nancy," and Jean and I die laughing. The three of us, plus the colleague hosting the party, all sat on a Board for a few years together. And so Jean says, "Um, Nancy, you already know Kali...."  :)  This happened a few time while I was at the party, so it was pretty entertaining.

Then I got home and hubby and I finally tackled the garage!! Oh it needed it so badly! We literally pulled everything out of the garage and into the driveway/front yard. We made sections of related items (car care, gardening, tools, infrequently used kitchen gadgets, party furniture, etc) and finally organized it into a sensible arrangment. Further, we were able to isolate the items that we are posting on Craiglist into one central location.

Once those items are gone, you'll actually be able to pull a car into the garage!I think that might be the first time since hubby bought the house that this has happened!

The only thing that didn't go so great was my weekly weigh-in. I was doing really good this week and expecting to lose about 1.5#'s but then Sunday's sample party happened and I didn't have the self control to say "no" to the brownies.... three times. Ooops. So I think they were stil hanging on this morning when I weighed in, if you know what I mean.

Kidney Stone

In January, I got really sick in the middle of a big meeting. Thankfully the meeting was the last thing of the day so I went home. I spent the whole night throwing up and in incredible pain in my back and stomach.  After throwing up about 7 times, the pain subsided enough for me to fall asleep. The next morning, my back hurt, but the nausea had stopped and I felt better.

Then one month later, BAM! The pain is back. I was throwing up again and it was intense! Thankfully my fiance was with me and he rushed me to the emergency room.

After some tests, they told me that I had a VERY large kidney stone (large is considered to be 2-2.5mm and mine is 4-6mm!). The stone is barely smaller than the tube it needs to travel down from my kidney to bladder, which is why it hurts so bad. Unfortunately, it only has traveled 4 inches of the 12 it needs to. So I was admitted to the hospital over night and given lots of drugs. Then they put me under and installed a stint so that my kidney could drain. The stone had blocked the kidney so it was causing the left kidney to fail. After the installation of the stint, I was sent home.

The next day I had an appointment with the doctor who said that I was doing good (ie no infection), and scheduled me for another proceedure the next day. They put me under again and then sent pulsewaves through my body in an attempt to break up the stone.

The next day I felt significantly better, though still very uncomfortable since the stint was still in place. Each day, I felt better and better, though I still had trouble walking, sitting and using the bathroom. The hope was that the stone broke into peices and in the days that followed, I'd pass parts of the stone. I drank lots of water, and used a straining device when peeeing. I didn't feel like I passed any part of the stone and I didn't catch anything in the strainer.

A week after the pulewaves, I got an xray to see if the stone remain intact, if it'd fratured but remained, or if (best case) it shattered into dust and has been passed painlessly. Unfortunately, it was as big and unmoving as ever. So I was scheduled two days later for a surgical proceedure to remove it.

They shoved a camera, a laser and a wire up into me and blew the thing up, removed it peice by peice. They also installed a new stint, this time it was tied to a string so that after a few days, they could just pull it out.

I needed a couple of days to recover and then they slid the stint out. I immediately felt better with the stint out and the stone gone. I went to work two days later and have been trying to get back in the groove.

This weekend is my bridal shower and I would like to be 100% by then. Next weekend is suppose to be my very first 10K, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it. I was on track with my training and feeling really strong before the stone and now it's been weeks since I've ran. I'm going to run a bit this weekend and see how I feel.

Then the weekend after that..... I get married!!!  :)

Bridal Shower Plans

So as an "older bride" (29), who has been living on her own for the past decade, I have every household gadget imaginable. And if I don't have it, the groom has it at his place. So, when my friends said they wanted to do a Bridal Shower, I thought,  "why? I have more potholders and measuring spoons than I need."

But then I thought.... wait.... I know what I want!

I want things to support my new, healthy lifestyle to support what will be my healthy marriage.

Food:
Guests will bring a healthy dish to share + copies of the recipes to share
Lots of fresh fruit, veggies, whole grains, lean meats
The recipes will be collected in a book that I can take home (my guest book, so to speak)

Games:
Relay races
Soccer shootout
I need some more suggestions! Also need suggestions for prizes!

Registry
I will ask that my guests consider getting me a more active gift rather than the traditional gifts. I've set up an Amazon wish list which contains things I want (hiking boots, swimsuit, running gear, cookbooks, etc). As well as requests for gift certificates to the local rock climbing gym, the kayak rental, sporting good stores and the local roller rink.

I'm looking for suggestions for all aspects of the party, please let me know if you have an idea that will enhance this party!

Engagement Photos

One weekend in January we took engagement photos! For once, I was actually excited to get my picture taken. We don't have a whole lot of pictures of us; we both prefer to be on the other side of the camera. So I'm really looking foward to having some picture of us, expecially nice ones.

We found an amatuer photographer who is building up her portfolio to become professional. She's a friend of a friend and is very talented. Since we don't have much of a budget for photography, this was perfectly affordable and good for both parties.

I fussed over outfits that would coordinate, but not match and I think I did a pretty good job. I did my own hair for the first time and I'm relatively pleased with it. Below are a few of my favorites:

I still get nervous when pictures are taken because I'm so use to hating how I look in them. Like everyone, I'm very critical of my own appearence, but I think these came out great.

Big Thanks to Amy Snow, our photographer. You can find her on Facebook.

My engagement rings

The first time I was engaged, I was significantly larger than I am today. At that time, my engagement ring size was 9.5.

Flash forward 4 years and I'm engaged again. When my fiance proposed, the rings hadn't been fitted to my size because he didn't know what size I was and it turned out, neither did I. The ring looked so tiny in my hands, like a pixie wore them (his grandmother is a little thing). The ring only went down to my knuckle. I figured I needed to have it enlarged by 1 or 2 sizes.  I was at least accurate about that.

I took my new ring to my jeweler who measured them and told me they were a 5.5. And I thought to myself, "no way, they have to be smaller than that because they come to my knuckle." Then the jeweler turned to me and said, let's measure you. I told them there was no need because I knew what size I was: 9.5, just like my shoe size. I was shocked to learn that my fingers had shrunk to 7.5!!!

It took me weeks to wrap my head around the fact that my even my fingers has shrunk! They didn't look like they had changed: still short and chunky as always.

Now, it's been two months since my ring has been fitted to my finger. In the past two weeks, my ring has become so loose that I've become afraid that it might slip off at any given moment. It is a constant reminder of the work I've been doing. I'm very proud of myself for loosing an additional .5 size (my guess). I'm going to need my engagement and my wedding ring adjusted again before the wedding and that is just so mind blowing to me.