Leaves are turning colors...

Fall is here and the leaves are turning colors and starting to fall to the ground. It rained the past couple days and this morning I woke up so cold my nose, hands and feet were frozen! Weather right now is 12 C (53.6F) I will not be surprised if we get snow in early November this year.

On this day last year I got laid off from my job. My vision last year was much different than it is today. Hahah Cause I'm looking for work instead of enjoying being self employed! But, My blog is "Growing Towards a Dream" and that is what I will continue to do. Over the year I did increase our monthly amounts and gained many new customers. I also had a chance to blog and meet amazing new blogger friends ;) My goals will still continue. Husband and I have short term goals and Long term goals and we will keep at them ;) No matter what life throws at us. Life does throw curve balls huh... I once read that God throws these curve balls to see how badly you want something. So I will make sure that our goals continue to be acheived no matter what trys to get in the way. We have a 24 hour day and a lot can be done one day at a time ;)



Past couple weeks I've been feeling really down, as I mentioned before I never had an issue with with finding a job. It was never an issue I had to deal with so I find this experience extremely new. The feelings are overwhelming at times and husband reminds me that it is a recession and I am not the only one feeling this way. I guess you can say the "Ego" really gets damaged during these types of scenarios, when I always made X amount and jobs out there are paying much less than X or require much more experience which was never the case before. Damn you Economy Damn you LOL. I took a Business Analyst course over the weekend and met a lot of people in the IT world, many of them are unemployed and looking as well. It is funny here in Canada because the news continues to say the recession is over and throws out these numbers as if all is ok. I guess they do not want to scare people but just from a group of people I know I can count at least 10 people looking for a job right now.

I hope all of us can find something in the next couple of months because as soon as December hits companies do not hire until after the new year.

Trying to stay positive and I will continue to work hard in all areas of my life!!! So take that curve balls! :)

(Drinking a large coffee and getting to work!)

The soup diet

Well as I guess I should have known, my soup and egg diet did not go so well. I did start a journal for my food intake daily and I am noticing that I eat way too much at some meals without even realizing it. My will power was not that great and at times I found myself hungry I ate whatever I found, including m & m's!

My workouts have been going really well. I even went for my jog yesterday despite the rain...I was drenched! But felt great.

The good news is that I have not gained any weight, whew! All numbers are the same as of today.

Weight 145
Upper Arms: 11 1/2"
Waist above Belly Button: 28 1/2"
Waist below Belly Button: 34 1/2"
Hips: 44"
Upper Thighs: 25

My major focus this week is to continue making food at home and working out and filling in my food journal. I will also try and continue soup for lunch. (eggs for bf are not sitting well for me so I will just include a small bf with coffee or tea)

Love eating out!

I'm one of those people that just love eating out! I have been cooking at home everyday lately so when I get that chance to eat out, I go and I love it! (Minus the fact of huge calories taken in when eating out).

I went for a sushi dinner with my good friend. We chatted for 2 1/2 hours at the restaurant, good thing we were pretty much the only ones there, I usually talk much too loud ahah.

So far my egg and soup diet has not been constant but I will keep at it in hopes of seeing some sort of results.

Tomorrow husband and I are taking a 2 day course, it will add a little extra to my resume and hopefully opens some doors for me... I do not even want to go back on the topic of job hunting, you know how I feel about it... ugh.

Wish me luck! :)

Did I mention - I hate looking for work...Pt 2

Thanks for the support blogger friends ;) It's hard to ignore these feelings, they are overwhelming! I've had other issues in my life before but working has never been it. From the last job I had I was at the point of building that "career" or at least on the path to. I never had an issue finding a job and I always moved jobs the minute I felt I needed change and it worked well for me until I was laid off. When I was laid off it was bitter sweet. At the time husband and I had big dreams of moving to San Diego and experiencing different living, I took time to work on our online business and helped it grow alot over the year. But of course life takes over and we did move, but to suburbia and here I am today looking once again for that career. With the job market so crummy it makes things much much worse!

Well to relieve some stress I'm going out for sushi tonight with a friend ;) Ah leave it to food to put a smile on my face. Yesterday I made my favorite dish Thai Coconut Curry Shrimp. I love it, husband doesn't like my cooking too much but I think the dish came out perfectly tasty.

I did not do a Hump day update today since I am still working on the lunch soup diet, I will just do a weigh in on Monday, and hoping for some results ;)

My body is extremely sore from riding with the husband last night on his motorcycle. I think it's only my third time on it, I held on so tight I'm sore from my neck to ankles ahah.

Did I mention - I hate looking for work...

Almost October and no job yet. I'm having one of those days, I'm just fed up! I'll be honest, I am really really hating this job stuff! Thanks to looking for a job I feel my summer was sacrificed with no reward and now Fall has started and I'm pretty much at square one. My days feel more and more depressing. I feel that my daily job hunting is wasting my life away, my days have no meaning, no point almost. Just day in and day out of looking for a job, going to depressing interviews at places I do not even want to work at and then it gets repeated all over again. Thank goodness for my blog that helps keep me sane! I'm usually a upbeat person but the weeks have been flying by and I feel the drain more and more each day! I never thought looking for work would be so hard nor did I ever think it would drain me as it is...

Some better news, I worked out really hard yesterday and now my legs are in so much pain and wobbly ahah a good sign. I'll do it again today. At least this is one part of my life I have control of, somewhat... :)

weight loss ideas - new weekly menu

Thankfully my Monday weigh in was back at my regular weight minus the 2 lbs I was up on Friday. This weekend I carefully watched what I ate (except for at the Movies last night with popcorn and gummybears! I just can not hold out at the movie theater!)

I made a delicious omelet the other day, it was healthy and very filling. I think I will make omelette's more often!

Over the weekend I got some weight loss ideas from a blogger friend suggestion as well from some girlfriends this weekend.

Some weight loss ideas they gave me are:

2 boiled eggs for BF - I'm going to try this, this week! Thanks blogger friend! :)

Another friend of mine lost lots of weight this summer on what she calls a soup diet!
She skips BF then eats soup for lunch and a light dinner. I am one that needs my BF so I am thinking up my own combo plan.

My new weekly menu, below:

2 boiled eggs with tea for BF
Veggie Soup or salad for lunch
light dinner, lean meat with small portion of carb
fruit as my snacks

wish me luck!

Have any weight loss ideas let me know, I may add it to my new weekly menu!

PS. Can I boil eggs all in one day and keep them refrigerated for a week?

Random Friday

This morning I weighed myself and noticed that I was 2lbs... UP! Today I'm working out on my gazelle and trampoline and I will make sure to eat lighter this weekend for my next weigh in on Monday and hopefully these 2lbs will have dropped!

Yesterday I had a small dinner and added lots of fruit for dessert. Mango's, Bananas, and Strawberries. Yum!

I'm making my grocery list for the weekend and adding lots of fruits and veggies and lean meats. This week I did not work out as much as I should have so next week I really need to step it up already! Fall fashion is out and I want to be a happy shopper!

I just can't believe summer is over and Halloween is so close too. I'm excited being my new area, there are much more kids here so I will be sure to get lots of candy, and hope there's no left overs ;)

I bought this oven mit and dish cloth at Walmart for a dollar each. They are so cute. Now I just need to think of costumes for me and husband.


Have a great weekend!

Vacation Pics :)

My friends were asking why I didn't post more vacation pics so here are some more ;)
This was the tour I was talking about yesterday. It was fun and really nice to see how some Dominicans live and how they make their living. There are a lot of poor people there and they work really hard to make just a little bit of money. One thing the tour guide mentioned is to not give the children money, give them gifts but not money. At first I thought why not! Whats a dollar or 2 to me I'd love to give out some money. But he mentioned that if we do that the children will see it as easy money, and will not attend school but instead chase around tourists to make their living. When he put it that way it made so much sense, we never thought of that before. We met some of the cutest little children, I pray for all of them and hope they get the opportunity to go to school and have a brighter future.
This was one of our stops in the Jungle. Husband and I ran through it taking pics. People on the bus thought we we strange. It was so fun and I love palm trees and green landscaping. We couldn't resist!
Ha! and I got to ride a horse! I was terrified, I think the last time I went on a horse I must have been 7!

Macao beach, a public beach with no hotels. Part of a stop on the tour. The most beautiful beach I've ever seen!

Ok the next little bit might be TMI but I will share it anyway. If you look above on the day trip I wore tights under my dress. First reason is that I knew we were going to ride horses and the thought of bare legs on it grossed me out. Next the Tmi part. It was an extremely hot day, and the bigger areas of my body include my thighs! Not sure if any of you ever experienced this before, but my thighs touch and end up rubbing together and it is soooo uncomfortable! especially if it's hot! It's an embarrassing thing, but it's true!! :( I need to add lots of lunges to my exercises!

Organic goodies

In the Dominican we took a day trip called "Fonny Monster Safari" Funny name LOL. I recommend this trip to anyone vacationing in Dominican Rep Punta Cana. You get to go through little towns and meet people living day to day. We stopped at this one place where the family made their own products. Things like Sugar, 100% Cocoa, Cinnamon and Coconut oil. So of course I bought some to take home! Yum!

I started reading up on the Coconut oil and read that it is really good as a moisturizer and also a great cooking oil. I cooked with it last night for one of my side dishes. The aroma is a bit strong and I'm not sure how it will be when cooking meats. I will experiment slowly. It's my first time buying this product. Any suggestions are welcomed :)

Hope you are all having a great week!

Weekly Weigh in

After a week on the beach just relaxing, I'm back at work with my goals. Weight loss goals, Job Hunt goals, Life goals... Reality! Lets see the reality of my measurements after a week of lounging around...

No bad news! Measurements are the same, weight is the same. Not bad, pretty impressive that I had no weight gain on my trip! whoohoo!

Weight 145
Upper Arms: 11 1/2"
Waist above Belly Button: 28 1/2"
Waist below Belly Button: 34 1/2"
Hips: 44"
Upper Thighs: 25

My current goal, which has been my goal for months now, is to lose 10lbs! Just 10lbs! This should be easy, right. I'm hopeful and I can feel how much more serious I am becoming in achieving my goals, so I will take it day by day(advice from fellow blog friends ;)

** Since I came back on Sunday my tummy has been feeling weak. Very nauseous, like the feeling of being on too many rollar coasters. I'm not sure if I caught a bug or something, boo ;( A friend of mine told me to drink Ginger tea to help with nausea, but I'm not a fan of the taste, any suggestions on what can relieve nausea?