Grrr...

I'm going to tell you my secret to happiness.

Are you ready?

Have a good attitude.

Seriously. I have been trying this and it's been working out pretty well. 

When I wake up in the morning and I tell myself "It's gonna be a good day" I tend to go into the day and it turns out okay.

When I wake up dreading going to work or the weather or some other random crap, my day is automatically not as good as it could be.

But some days are just destined to be bad.

I woke up today and I was in a good mood. I got to work and I was STILL in a good mood (which is unusual unless Lizzie goes to work instead of Carly, but that's a story for another day).

Until some fool ruined my happiness with all his douche-baggery.

To skip the long story, this guy didn't think that he had to follow our compliance rules and come sign for something. He thought that he was something special and he shouldn't have to follow the same rules as everybody else.

This is the conversation that ensued after he was transferred to me:

D-Bag: The problem is, I have a flat tire and I can't get there.

Me: I understand that, but unfortunately it is a compliance regulation and I don't have the authority to break the rules.

D-Bag: No, you aren't understanding. I can't get in there. My car has a flat tire and I need to be able to do this over the phone.

Me: I do apologize for the inconvenience, but there's nothing I can do.

D-Bag: Okay, so what you're saying is that i have to walk to the North Bend branch with no coat on to sign for this? (our NB Branch is about 3 blocks from where he was)

Me: Yes, you could do that, but they don't open for another half hour.

D-Bag: Right. Ya know what, you don't understand my inconvenience and this is just SHITTY customer service.

He then proceeded to hang up on me.

Now, I have a pretty high tolerance for people's ignorance when it comes to policies and compliance at work. Since I work at a Credit Union, there is a LOT of policies and procedures that we HAVE to follow or risk getting yelled at by our bosses, and even costing the Credit Union hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. So to have this tool-shed sit there and tell me I'm just inconveniencing him for shits and giggles, AND cuss at my, really brought my mood down. 
And when he acted like it was MY damn fault he was too simple minded to bring a coat when he left the house WHEN IT'S 34 DEGREES OUTSIDE, I almost flew off the handle.

Anyways, even after I had to deal with his shenanigans, I was able to salvage my mood for the most part.

Until my boss came back from a meeting out of the office. It was about her daughter and her health.

I touched on this last week, but my boss's 13 year old daughter is having some serious health problems and she's been in what is considered "in patient" treatment for 5 weeks now. 

In celebration of her doing so well my boss and her husband booked a trip for spring break to celebrate their daughter's improving health.

Today's meeting brought news that her health isn't improving. Or at least not enough for her to be done after her 6 week in patient treatment. She has to go through 6 more weeks. And if that doesn't seem to be working, it means hospitalization.

This broke my heart. Seriously. I know how hard it's been on my boss, and even harder on her daughter. The news was completely devastating to both of them. My boss had to call and cancel their vacation they just booked over the weekend. The poor little girl was pretty much told that all her hard work wasn't getting her anywhere. My boss was in tears when she came back and couldn't even stay for 20 minutes before going home again.

Anyways, if you guys could keep this girl (and her family) in your thoughts and prayers (if that's your cup of tea) she really needs them.

BBL

This will be a short check up.

My weight has sadly gone up a little bit due to laziness and some snacking issues.

But, some good things are that a) I worked out more this week, and b) I will be getting my small blender delivered tomorrow, which means I can easily make my Visalus Shake at work for lunch, which will make the pounds start melting off some more.

My goals for this next week are

1) Go to the gym at least 3 times

2) drink my shakes twice a day most days

3) continue making well rounded dinners for Chad and myself

4) What Harry Potter movies and do this workout:

WWF

Hi, my name is Carly. And I am addicted to Words with Friends.

I just hopped on the wagon less than a week ago and I haven't been able to stop.

Something I've noticed when I play is that whenever someone plays a word, I automatically think it is a direct result about what the person I am playing against is thinking about me.

If someone plays "breast" or "bedroom" my reaction is "Whoa there cowboy (or cowgirl), are you coming on to me???"

If the word "rude" or "psycho" is played, I think "are you being for real bi-otch?"

Someone even spelled the word "bye" the other day and I immediately thought they didn't want to play with me anymore (which made Sad Panda).

Also, am I the only person that thinks that some of the words that it allows aren't real words? I've taken to just plugging letters in hoping that it thinks it's real words. Sometimes it does.

Anyways, I'm highly addicted. And I urge you to play with me if you so wish. Carly_Ann_13 is my username.

That's All.

The Biebs...

So, I know I can't be the only person who's seen the Proactiv commercial where Justin Bieber shows up with a bag of skin care goodies for random girls.

These girls are always so completely stoked to find that the Biebs thinks their skin needs the free help. And that he has appeared at their front door to show them the Proactiv light at the end of the tunnel. 

On national television.

I mean, having skin issues ain't no thing in my eyes. Don't get me wrong, I freaking hate it when I break out and I want to just rip my whole face off and not go out in public. But I don't think having less than perfect skin is something freakish that people look at and go "holy hell, was she burned by radioactive materials?"

But I would NOT be happy to have Justin Bieber (or any celebrity) show up unexpected on my door step to let everybody and their mothers, fathers, and siblings know that I might need some help with my skin care regime.

That's just me though...

Things I've Been Doing Lately

My blog writing has been pushed to the back burner a little bit this weeks because I've been a busy bee.

This week has had a LOT of work related activity. We're offering some great rates on loans right now, which means that I'm being worked like a DOG. Thursday alone I disbursed over $100k in new loans. BY MYSELF. This earned me kudos from the CEO herself (which sounds like a lot bigger deal than it really is... we see her everyday, so it's not like talking to her is some rare occasion, haha). All the actual work I've been doing at during the work day leaves me quite tired at the end of the day.

Gotta make that money, beezies!

Also, I've been trying to get back in the swing of working out. Since my foot is still on the mend, I decided that I'm gonna being swimming. Frequently.

It's a lot harder than I was expecting. I could barely make it across the pool once without drowning. For real.

The house hunting has continued. 

Chad and I (and my mom and sister) met up with our agent/friend Kelli to look at a couple houses yesterday after work. The first one was a historic house a few blocks from my work and the pictures made it look REALLY cute. However, upon entering the house we realized that it a) had really low ceilings because the floors were raised because of flood risk, b) the floors were also not level, and c) the stairs were very steep and had very little foot space. Like, I could barely get my whole food on the stairs. But it looked so cute from the outside!

The other house was a little more expensive, and about 800 square feet smaller, and only one bathroom (which is something that I have a hard time dealing with).

But, we went there and it's got a circular driveway, which is nice. Also, it's a rambler which means no difficult stairs to navigate furniture up and down. It had a good size backyard too, with an excessive amount of "outbuildings" (which makes Chad happy). And it's on a good street... Meadow Drive (I'm also a big fan of nice street names). It's definitely on the list of contenders.

To round my week out, I met up with my sister to go to brunch with Kristine and some other ladies. It was a good time. Then Sister and I proceeded to head to David's Bridal to pick up Bridesmaid dresses for her wedding.

The End. (Sorry, that was really anticlimactic. Not much I can do about it though.)

Dear Vodka, I miss You

For those of you who may have forgotten, my well being challenge for the month of February was no alcohol. 

Yikes, I know.

Anyways, we are a week away from March and I am happy to say that I've been surviving just swimmingly without alcohol. That's not to say there haven't been times when I've desperately desired a strong cocktail. But I've refrained.

With that said, I am really excited to have myself some vodka next weekend, YAY!!

Which brings me to my next point. 

Miranda, over at Aimless Translation, is having a giveaway that could win me this little beauty:

Heck yes I need it.

Mother Nature is a Cold Bitch...

So I know my last post was really not very cheery... my bad. But we all know that life isn't all sugar and spice and everything nice.

With that said, I found out tonight that someone I know passed away. In his early 30s. From heart failure.

SERIOUSLY?!

He was a nice guy that I first met when I was about 17. He was a friend of a friend of my boyfriend at the time (are you still with me?). We ended up hanging out with the same people at the same times. I didn't see him for a few years, but then last year we came in contact again at my work. 

Anyways, he was a really nice guy, a family man with two kids and a wife. And he died suddenly, and I really am having a hard time wrapping my mind around the crazy things that happen sometimes.

Anyways, moving on.

Here in the Pacific Northwest we are having some wet weather (What else is new 20 miles from Seattle?) 

Which, for those of us in the Snoqualmie Valley, means FLOODING (everybody together now... YAY!!!).

So I'm gonna just share with you guys some of the fantastical images of flooding in our area over the years.

This is a section of our main highway... or what WAS our main highway. That green house in the background never recovered (obviously) and the old man that was inside it had to be airlifted out. He didn't make it. (fun fact: ALL the houses on that side of the highway were condemned this past fall due to the flood damage YEARS ago)

This house is on the market. And has been for a while. Can't imagine why... (fun fact: I seriously wanted to go look at it because the inside looks really cute. From this angle, not so much)

Yes, Snoqualmie welcomes you. By invitation (and boat) only. (fun fact: this sign is about a block from my work, and people honestly DID have to boat to the office)

Aerial view of the valley. WELCOME!

Untitled

Have you ever had a friend or coworker that has had some sort of problem in their life, or something has happened to them and their lives are just in shambles?

Well that's been happening around me a lot lately.

And it's hard.

You can only say to yourself "I can only imagine how awful that must be" so many times before you realize that even though you aren't going through it yourself, you're still going having really strong emotional reactions to it.

I hate it.

Right now, I have a co worker (my boss) who is going through a really rough time with her daughter. A scary, horrible, all too common problem for a 13 year old girl. 

I hear about what's happening, and I see this girl, this CHILD, dealing with these demons and I just hurt for her. I want to hug her and shake her all at the same time.

I saw my boss, a woman who is normally strong and so together, break down in tears the other day because it is just beating her down so much.

Her tears made me want to cry for her, but what does that accomplish? Nothing.

And then I have a best friend. Someone who I love dearly and would take a bullet for. 

She's had a rough go of it that past few months. Not even just the past few months. The past couple YEARS have been rough on her. Sure, sure, some of it is just normal life happenings. But some of it is painful, and hard and I've watched her struggle through the ups and downs.

Last night something heartbreaking happened. She texted me and I couldn't help but think to myself "holy hell... what now?" because my jaw just dropped.

My heart is aching for her, but I don't know what to do.

All I know is how I deal with things. 

Alone.

I've never been one of those people who likes to have people around, fawning over me when I'm upset. Wanting to "talk about it". 

When someone dies, I don't want to sit around in a circle with other people mourning and cry together. I want to go home. Cry my tears by myself.

So, what do I do? 

I feel like a bad person for not knowing what to tell someone.

Is it enough for them to know I'm here?

Ugh.

Ish I did This Weekend.

As many of you can relate to, it was a three day weekend, thanks to President's Day.

With that said, this weekend wasn't that different from many other weekends. 

Friday night I was supposed to go to a jeans party at a friends house. However, after contracting Chad's cold, I spent my afternoon feeling crummy and started feeling the familiar pains of a migraine coming on. So, I decided to stay home on the couch rather than power through the pain and spend undoubtedly large quantities of money on new jeans.

Saturday morning, Chad and I decided to do some cleaning. I made breakfast, did the dishes, and cleaned the bathroom (all before Chad dragged his ass outta bed, might I add).

Once we were both fed, we decided to tackle our bedroom. Remember this sh!thole?:

There was a SERIOUS need to get this taken care of. 

I don't have any updated pictures because honestly it is hard to capture the difference between then and now. Our bedroom is pretty damn small. Even before Chad moved in I barely had enough room for all my furniture. Then you switch the twin bed for a queen and add a (large) dresser and bedside table when only removing one bookshelf, and things get REAL cramped. Not to mention the fact that Chad has about 5 laundry baskets (which he NEVER takes the clothes out of, might I add) and shit gets deep.

Anyways, back to the point. The drawers in the above pictured dresser are closed. I did ALL my laundry. Threw away a lot of junk (and about 15 old water bottles that had fallen on the floor by the bed), donated some clothes that i don't need, and generally tidied up.

After that, Chad went to play with his boyfriend Dustin and drool over the pistol he wants to get (which I am going to surprise him with on our anniversary in April).

Meet the Glock 20, my friends.

Then Chad came home, drunk, and insisted on playing Skip Bo with me. Which was fun, until his intoxication turned him into an obnoxious d-bag that put me in an even worse mood than I was already in. I ended the night in bed reading the second Hunger Games book.

Sunday started with me doing more laundry and more reading. 

Then I headed to my friend Kelli's house to learn a little bit more about the ViSalus shake product that I've started drinking. 

I got some more details about some of the products and mix-ins and got even more excited about it. 

I'll be posting updates on it later on, once I have more updates for you.

Sunday night ended with bell choir rehearsal, as usual. We got music for Lady Gaga's Just Dance, which I think will be really neat once we can get our act together and play it right, ha.

Today hasn't been too exciting. I got out of bed, had myself a raspberry coffee shake, and headed out to InSpa to get my nails done (courtesy of a gift card from my mom)

And here I sit, trying to catch up on all the blogs that I haven't read all weekend.

If you made it all the way through this uncharacteristically long post, I applaud you.

When I'm a Homeowner

I have some things that I really feel will be necessary once I am a homeowner.

1. I will have fresh flowers. Often.

I think that fresh flowers add something to any room. A clean scent. A pop of color. An overall spritz-up to a room that can get boring when you're in it all the time.

Source: tinywhitedaisies.tumblr.com via Jan on Pinterest

Source: weddingchicks.com via team on Pinterest

2. There will be assigned days for accomplishing tasks.

I'm pretty sure everybody has had the problem of "planning" on doing something "sometime this weekend" or "in the next few days". Knowing myself, there will have to be certain days assigned for doing things each week, or the house will be in SHAMBLES.

Source: allthingzrelated.blogspot.com via Amelia on Pinterest

3. I will have a clean, color coordinated, FUNCTIONAL bedroom.

For those of you that missed the pictures of Chad and I's bedroom the other day, you may not understand what an improvement this would be. I want to have a bedroom that I can walk into and not be overwhelmed. I want it to serve it's purpose... as a place for me to keep my clothes and shoes, and a place to lay my head at night.

Source: countryliving.com via Despina on Pinterest

Source: freshome.com via Hilde on Pinterest

Anyways, those are things that cross my mind as I day dream of having a house to call my own.

In other news, I DID clean my room today (with a little help from Chad). Some things I found?

1. about 4 pairs of scissors... huh?

2. approximately 1534 unmatched socks. 

3. A mere 27 magazines, mostly Cosmo, US Weekly, and the occasional Cooking Light.

4. My carpet!!!! Never thought that would happen.

Moral of the story, I was very productive today and am rewarding myself with the Harry Potter marathon on ABC Family. Jealous? Thought so.

I got the Fever...

...Baby Fever, that is.

NOT!!

Gotcha!

But seriously, I am a little under the weather thanks to Chad bringing home germs (it couldn't possibly be due to the fact that I work in a very public place... and with money).

Anyways, I attempted to text Chad that he gave me his cold.

What came out instead? I'm glad you asked...

"I think you gave me your child"

I immediately sent a correction text saying that I meant to type cold but my phone thought child was a better option. I almost regretted doing it because of how fracking funny Chad's reaction probably would have been.

Oh well, I got a good chuckle out of it, as did a few of my coworkers.

Valentine's Day Recap

Chad and I aren't one of those super romantic couples that goes all out for Valentine's Day.

I usually get him a pair of cheesy boxers, some candy, and a card.

This year, I left the boxers out (for no real reason other than because I was lazy), and combined the card and candy in one. 

Exhibit A:

It started out really well at the top, but by the time I got to the bottom of the board, things got scrunchy and weird. Oh well, it's the thought that counts.

In return, Chad got me the standard flowers and stuffed animal.

 I tried to trick Chad into being in a picture by asking him to hold the bunny... but clearly he held it over his face. Oh well, maybe next time.

So that is pretty much the extent of our Valentine's Day festivities. I had a veggie burger for dinner, and he is in the process of making himself some chicken noodle soup because he's coming down with something. Awesome.

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures that I took in the parking lot at work. The way the sun was shining/setting on the snowy mountains was too pretty to pass up.

Hope everybody has had a good Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day Update

I’m here with my update for Blogger’s Biggest Loser, AND the Ten Pound Challenge.

  

First of all, I would like to say that I have officially lost 5 pounds! Actually a little more than that. I was at about 5 pounds lost before my surgery, and I’m now about half a pound lighter than I was then. Which I find amazing considering the fact that I still haven’t really been able to work out (I found out that jogging causes me some serious pain still).

As far as diet goes, I haven’t been snacking as much, which I suppose is a good thing, since I can’t seem to make myself snack on good things, like fruit. And I just started a new shake product called ViSalus.

Basically, you choose your program thing (I chose the basic, cheapest option so I can try it out without shelling out lots of money for it). It comes with a bag of this shake powder (sweet cream flavored) and some flavor packet/nutrition boosters. I always worry about these powdery shake drinks because sometimes, if I’m being honest, they’re nasty. We all know it. But this was pretty good. I had my first one this morning and I used the banana energy flavor thing, and a spoonful of peanut butter. It was pretty dang good. And you can add pretty much anything you want… yogurt, fruit, whatever. Or change up the type of milk you use. I used just not fat milk since that was what I had in the fridge, but a lot of people use almond milk or soy milk. I’m gonna hafta get creative.

So anyways, that is where I am at right now. I can start swimming again this week, so I’m hoping to get back into my workout routine.

My goals for the next week are:

Continue cooking healthy dinners for Chad and I every night

Get my badonka-donk in the gym 4 times a week

Replace one meal a day with my ViSalus shake

Lose 2 more pounds

Me thinks that’s reasonable.

Welcome!

I know it's not like I have buckets of new followers out there, but I do know that some of you might not know the basics about me, or my little blog here.

Which is why I decided to link up with Neely.

So, hi. My name is Carly Ann. I started this blog to kind of document and get support for my weight loss journey. However, it has ended up being a place for me to talk about weight loss, relationships, recipes, tv, movies, books... just about everything.

(That's me on the left... to the right is my BFFL Kristine. Go check out her blog)

Anyways, some things you should know about me:

I love animals way more than people.

I have a beagle named Buck (short for Young Buck) and a cat named Freaka. And a horse named Lad's Indian Princess.

I'm a loan officer at a credit union... a job I never thought I would have and TOTALLY doesn't fit me.

I've been with my boyfriend Chad for almost 7 years now. With no sign of a ring.

Sometimes I bitch about things.

I credit the blogosphere with my addictions to pinterest and nail polish.

I live with my mom and have been house hunting for what seems like YEARS (realistically it's probably been a year and a half).

I am OBSESSED with Halloween and Christmas.

I ring in a world travelled English Handbell Choir.

I think that Urijah Faber might be one of the most attractive people. In the world.

(Um, seriously. Do you not see the hotness??)

I am a big fan of Harry Potter and Twilight. Don't hate.

I rarely crave sweet sugary things... usually salty foods.

As much as I hate myself for it, McDonald's is my favorite fast food restaurant (although I haven't craved anything from there for a while, especially after their little pitbull campaign).

My only sibling is my older sister, who happens to be getting married this August.

When I grow up, I want to be a 50s housewife. Cook, clean, workout, and do crafts. And ride my horse in there somewhere too.

When I go to the bar, I order a vodka soda with a splash of pineapple juice.

Those are the basics of me. Ta-da!