I've been the master of excuses lately in regard to a TON of things including my eating habits, and my exercising habits (or lack there of). It's so easy for me to justify my laziness. I tell myself "you work yourself ragged all week you DESERVE to be lazy". This morning, as I was "running" on the treadmill (at least my version running) I realized the things that I make excuses for and then get depressed about are all things I can control. I can still run and move while I still can. I can choose to put healthy food in my body, no one is force feeding me cake!

I had to pump myself up in the last two minutes of my workout this morning. The person next to me probably thought I was insane cause I'm pretty sure I was mumbling under my breath, but telling myself why I want to lose the weight, and why I need to stay focused and not give up really helped me drive through that last minute. The high after I finished was amazing. I was proud I pushed myself, and I'm ready to do it again tomorrow.

Birthday Suprise!

For my birthday, Ricky organized a big surprise several weeks in advance. I was at work for my birthday, which wasn't that bad because I had a 4 day weekend starting the very next day. My boss walked into my office at 3 pm telling me I needed to leave by 3:30 and pick Ricky up at work right away. I had no idea what was going on. Turns out Ricky had secretly planned this....

Beauty

There is beauty around us, we just have to take the time to enjoy it.

Microwave Chocolate Cake!

]I was being totally lazy today while the hubster was out with his buddy. I wanted chocolate cake pretty badly, and a store bought cake didn't sound great and neither did making a whole cake (well because eventually I'd be the one eating it by myself). I had been playing around on pinterest and found a whole ton of microwaveable "cakes" in a mug.

It was super easy, and in less than 3 minutes, I had a steaming mug full of brownie/chocolate cake! Here's the recipe::

 

Thursday Laughs

Just some of the hilarious images I've come across lately!

Kendall's photo shoot!

A couple weeks back I had Kendall for the day and I gave her my phone to keep her distracted briefly. She somehow figured out where the camera was and made it so the front facing camera was in use because I found these photos in my photo stream!

Tv Woes & TV WHOAS!

We've had a casualty in the Garcia household. Ricky's beloved 42" plasma TV, the very first one he ever bought for himself (which if you know him at all, you know how important that decision was LOL) is now this....

We were taking this TV to Best Buy to get serviced when out of nowhere, we almost got hit on the passenger side by a vehicle who's driver chose not to check her blind spot and came right over into our lane. Ricky slammed on the brakes to avoid the collision. The force of having to stop almost immediately caused the TV to shoot forward and it slammed into the back of the front seats. It shot forward so hard it felt like we were rear-ended. Needless to say, Ricky was HEATED. We pulled up to the lady's vehicle and she didn't even look over at us. Probably cause she realized she cut us off and she saw Ricky having a full scale meltdown behind her!!!

Anyways, long story short auto insurance wouldn't cover it because there was no collision. Our warranty through Geek Squad at Best Buy wouldn't cover it either. As a last ditch effort, Ricky spoke with the manager at the Best Buy in Silverdale who said he would look into seeing what he could do. After a couple days of "seeing what they could do" we kind of lost hope. Next thing we know the assistant manager called us up and told us to come in and they'd either replace the TV or give us the current value for it to get something else! We were thrilled! When we got there, they didn't have the replacement TV, which was not in stock, so they decided to do us one better. They found the newest version of our TV (which we bought 5-6 years ago) all upgraded and gave us that one!!!!! We had to pay a nickel for the TV cause they couldn't zero it out completely and of course we bought the warranty for the new TV and we had gift cards to cover that. So in all, we got a $700 42" HDTV Plasma  1080P for $33 out the door, 4 year extended warranty and all!

We thanked the manager and he turned and told us, "No. Thank you guys for being such loyal customers!" I was floored and so pleasantly surprised. They went way above and beyond for us, when they absolutely did not have to. Amazing. I'll be making sure to send a lengthy thank you letter to not only the local store but the regional manager as well. There are still genuinely nice people in the world and apparently they are found at the Silverdale Best Buy!

Annual cold time, pretty much!

I have been down with a nasty cold since Saturday night. Coughing, fever, sinus pressure and congestion, all the lovely symptoms. I was browsing through old mobile uploads and status updates from last year at this time on Facebook and it appears I was very ill about a week earlier last year. A year before that, give or take a week off as well. I've officially put a reminder to up my intake of vitamin C for the month of February 2013, and hopefully I can break this cycle. I hate being sick!
Ricky on the other hand is perfectly fine and will probably continue to be fine because somehow he avoids getting all the trash I drag home! Does anyone do anything specific to avoid the seasonal sickness? Please don't tell me to get a flu shot either because every time I've gotten one as an adult I get sick 10 times worse than I did without one.
Is it Spring yet?!

Zat You Santa Claus?

Around mid-December we took little miss Sofia to downtown Seattle with us to meet Mr. Claus at one of my favorite stores, Nordstrom. I had heard about how the Santa Claus there has his own little "cabin" and they give the children cookies, cider, etc and parents stand for hours in line because this Santa is just that awesome. Since we don't have any babies of our own, Ricky and I thought it would be awesome to take Sofia. (If you don't know, Sofia and her mom Alma are not "actually" related, but they are an "adopted" part of the Garcia family, and we all love Auntie Alma and our sister Sofia very much!) 


We got downtown about 1 PM and thought we'd get Santa out of the way before the line became too long. Upon arriving, we noticed the was no line, and simply could not believe our luck! Turns out the implemented a paging system this year to avoid people having to stand in line outside. That's great and all but I really wish I would have been told when I called them earlier in the week! At this point the "page" line was 2.5 hours long. They told us to have our cell available, and when it was time for use to come back Santa would give us a call.

What's to do when you have 2.5 hours to kill with a 4 year old in tow?

New year.

I have much to blog about, things we did over the holiday season, and our plans for the new year. I am excited to see what 2012 has in store for us, as 2011 did have it's share of heartbreak and tribulations. I am positive as long as I have my husband and family(ies), we can get through anything!