day.five

house.

so... its official!

we closed this morning!

we're proud homeowners!

if you want to see some pictures, click here!

this has been a serious roller coaster, but now, we've got it! thanks to everyone for their support, now the fun [hard] part starts as we begin renovations. 

detox diet.

we're done. we decided 5 days was enough. ive stayed steady at having lost 10lbs.

yesterday was the same menu as always, but for dinner we decided it was time for a little dressing on our salads to celebrate the end.  and wow, salad dressing [even the fat free kind] is amazingly rich in flavors! ive definitely got a new appreciation for the taste of food now. 

however, we're not totally abandoning this idea of eating healthier. we intend to stay on a healthier foods diet for the foreseeable future. yes, we'll incorporate some of those foods we gave up back in, but in much more moderation than before. we've got a general plan for how we're going to take it from here on out, and we're excited about the prospects of incorporating real food into our diets again! :]

so thats really all i have to report for now. today is the first non-raw foods diet day, and im actually excited about eating lunch again. this morning i even made some egg beaters for breakfast and they were delicious! ive definitely noticed that im eating a lot less, so thats good. i think the detox was good for minimizing my appetite a little. yesterday we worked out as usual and we ran a full 1.25miles without stopping, so that felt pretty good. and then last night we watched the debate - and i think it was finally a decent one. they actually talked specifics about the issues for once.

well yall, i gotta get to work now, just wanted to share our excitement!

miss you all!

day.four.part.two

so we definitely had some exciting news yesterday with the closing finally scheduled, but we were still on this dumb diet. and still are...

breakfast - fruit

lunch - vegetables

dinner - vegetables...

im so ready for this to be over. we discussed quitting thursday and going to dinner to celebrate the house and having real food. but karen has class, so we'll see how that goes. 

for now it seems my weight loss has plateaued at the 10lbs. it hasnt really moved from there yet. but we also havent worked out in two days now. one - because i didnt have any strength, two because of karen's class schedule. she has class immediately after work on tuesdays and it makes it really difficult for us to make it to work out before hand, lol. and then well, by the time shes done its already 8:30 and neither of us are in the mood to go work out. 

instead, we went to the grocery store last night and bought some more vegetables... 

so anyway, today is wednesday and we're just starting day 5 of the detox. i dont know how healthy i do or dont feel at this point, but i know im craving real, warm food.

well i hope everyone is doing well out there.

thanks for all the emails and comments you guys are leaving, i really enjoy them! :]

update@4pm: you guys didnt wish hard enough, we're getting the house for the original 33k we offered. heh, thanks for trying though! we close tomorrow morning at 9am and we've got everything ready, we're crazy excited! ;]

day.three

this wont be a long one. 

thanks you guys for your encouragement, i really need it right now... 

yesterday was not fun.

we had fruit for breakfast. 

there were vegetables for lunch. 

after work i was so drained and felt so weak that i just couldnt go work out. 

karen understood, she's not feeling as bad as i am, but she understands. 

for some reason this diet seems to be affecting me more psychologically (and physiologically) than her, not sure why.

we're pretty much idiots in my book for thinking we could quit sodas, meat, breads, dairy, spices, and sweets. all at the same time. all cold turkey. stupid. i dont think ill make it the whole week, im really loathing meal time. its like, "oh. raw fruit and/or vegetables. again. kill me..." so yeah... we'll see what happens. 

oh and did i mention vegetables for dinner. surprise right?

bleh.

side.note: ive lost 10lbs in 3 days. that cant be healthy...

day.two

so about an hour after blogging last night, karen and i both started getting some pretty serious hunger pangs. she ate some cucumber but i just ignored it and we went to bed. and then a few times in the middle of the night the hunger pangs woke me up, but again i just ignored them and slept it off. 

this morning we were both feeling a little better as far as hunger goes. we were just kind of normal, so we got up and went about our usual sunday morning routine. for breakfast we had an assortment of fruit - cantaloupe, pineapple, strawberry, & grapes. not exactly following the diets plan, but eh, close enough. fruit is fruit. 

then we ran some errands and went to church. after church we came home and had lunch. lunch was another salad, though this time we were allowed mixed greens [ooo, different kinds of lettuce...] and a few almonds with our orange. when it was over i was still feeling pretty hungry, but i just sucked it up and occupied my mind with a movie and working on the house model - meanwhile my AMAZING wife ironed some work shirts for me for this week. love her! :]

after all that we went to go workout again and this time i was seriously wrecked after the run. i was feelin very dizzy, light headed, and faint. so we walked a few laps and then did a light workout before heading home. 

once we got home we got cleaned up and then did dinner, we actually just finished. after my little spell at the rec center im convinced that we're definitely not getting enough protein to sustain our workout schedule, so we cheated a little at dinner. we werent supposed to have olives till tomorrow night, but we had some tonight and then we added some black beans to the salad for protein - which were definitely never mentioned in the plan, but eh, screw it. i think over all we're still doing really good even if we are feeling extremely hungry most of the time.

its the weirdest feeling being stuffed full of food, but feeling so empty and unsatisfied at the same time, just bizarre. i think mentally my health is not quite what it should be. i used to get excited about eating, and now it just depresses me to think about food. meal time is turning into more of a torturous experience than a happy one. but im sure i'll survive. meanwhile, the only thought that is clearly on the fore-front of my mind all the time is this new triple steak burrito from taco bell that we saw a commercial for when we were working out yesterday. just thinking about it now makes me salivate. it looks so delicious.... ugh. diets suck. 

well thats all ive got for now. karen and i are about to go see burn after reading at the local theatre. it looks pretty funny and its got a pretty all-star cast from what i know about it, so hopefully we wont be disappointed. 

all-right kids, play nice. 

tune in again same bat-man time, same bat-man place. 

post.script: have you guys checked out google chrome yet? im giving it a test run right now and so far i dont have any complaints. check it out.

day.one

so for those of you who didnt catch last weeks blog, heres a quick recap of whats going on and then we'll get into the real meat... well, coconut meat i guess. or maybe citrus meat. anyway.

house.
we didnt close yet, we got delayed because of the title search. no update there really, we heard from the title company and they dont actually even have the deed yet from the seller, so we're just waiting it out. oh and we're not being charged the fee for delaying the closing because its not our fault, so thats good.

job.
karen and i are both working, karen is just sustaining from day to day mostly, and my work has been a bit slow to start. this week things did pick up though and i was fairly busy most of the time with mundane tasks that were just... time occupying i suppose.

other. [heres where the fun starts]
karen and i decided we were going to go on a detox diet after some inspiration karen got from my friend claire's blog. [thanks again claire.] the idea is to just do a general cleanse [and it can result in some pretty nice weight loss as a side effect] but i think karen and i are really just more concerned with feeling as healthy as we can, so we're going to give this thing a shot.
well, we couldnt start right away because we did start looking into all the different options for a detox diet and theres some preparation involved - obviously youre significantly changing your normal diet for any of the ones you can find out there. so, we had a lot of food that wasnt going to be on the diet that would go bad if we didnt eat it before hand, and a lot of food we were going to need to procure in order to do this thing. so we spent the week trying to empty our fridge of all our meats and breads and dairy that wouldnt last till the end of a 7 day detox.
we eventually found a detox diet that we decided we were going to try and it basically consists of nothing but raw fruits, vegetables, and a few nuts & seeds. so... no cooking, no spices, nothing processed, and as i previously stated - no meats, grains, or dairy [which is like 75 percent of our normal diet]. so yesterday we went to the grocery store with our massive list of fruits and vegetables listed on the diet and got enough for hopefully at least the first 3 days. we were afraid to get everything for the 7 days at once, because with everything being fresh & raw, if we didnt get to it in the first couple of days we certainly didnt want anything to spoil. plus, we really didnt need to get as much food as we'll need all at once, its a lot.
so basically we found a couple of sample weeks on this website that lays out your meals for the day - one winter/fall week and one spring/summer week. we decided that we would try and follow the food options per day [theres a progression of specific foods youre allowed to have each day] but mix and match between the seasons. for example: day one breakfast from summer, lunch & dinner from winter. if youre interested in reading it yourself, click here for the outline of our detox diet.

day one.
so all that to get to today. and its been an interesting day. well this morning i got up earlier than karen [she hasnt been feeling good for a few days - im afriad shes getting sick...] and had my breakfast. i did a summer option and had a lot of watermelon. it was quite tasty, i hadnt had watermelon in quite some time and it was really really delicious [but as a side effect you have to pee a LOT]. karen skipped breakfast because of how she was feeling.
lunch came around and we did kind of a combo of the winter breakfast/lunch, we experimented with cracking open a coconut and eating the meat of it and drinking the water + i had a spinach salad with half an avocado and a bunch of orange slices [and i added a little cilantro because i LOVE cilantro]. it was really good once you get used to how relatively dry the salad is without and dressing. but quite tasty. the combination of all those flavors really complimented each other very well.
after lunch we decided to go workout, which ill admit was a bit draining [okay, very.] considering the lack of protein and grains we didnt have today that we're used to. but we got a good workout in. we're now running a solid mile before every workout without stopping [which is a HUGE accomplishment for me! when we started i couldnt even run a half mile without stopping and by the end of the half mile i was so out of breath i thought id go into an asthmatic coma.], we ran about an 8 minute mile, and im only mildly winded afterwards. [we've been doing the solid mile for a few days now, twice we actually did the mile before and after the workout - wow thatll wear you out!] then we worked out for about an hour and were so exhausted when it was over we just went home ready to pass out.
but we didnt. we were starving, haha. so we decided to do our dinner. for dinner we followed the winter plan [im not going to talk about the seasons anymore after this post, lol] and had a large spinach salad with cucumber, tomato, half an avocado, and lemon [and again i added cilantro, hehe]. again it was really delicious and very dry. luckily im already starting to get used to the full yet un-satisfied feeling you have when these meals are complete. but the salad really was good, and it looked great!

[and i may have added just a few sunflower seeds on top, but shh! dont tell!]

so now, here we are. ha, just finished dinner and we're thinking about watching a movie or something. but it was a pretty decent first day - and we're hoping they get better.

cheers!


post script: if you havent already noticed, i did change all the images on the left side of the page. they were all just random images i found online of cincy, but instead i put up a bunch of pictures i took during out adventures in house hunting. the first one is THE house we're buying, and yes - i did dr. the last one a little for the fun of it.

post post script: im about to work more on the house model and i thought id give you a little update on where it is at the moment, enjoy. [door detailing at the request of the wife.]

a.short.one

house.
so for those of you that havent already heard, we didnt actually close today like we were supposed to. there was some issue with the title search taking longer than normal and they werent finished by this morning, so we have to delay in waiting for its completion. other than that, as far as we know, everything is in order and we're ready to close as soon as possible. so keep your fingers crossed that itll be very soon, we're hoping this week for sure.

work.
work is going well. ive got enough going on to keep me busy most of the day and the office is slowly getting used to me being here. its an interesting culture though, the architects/project managers in this office dont naturally or instinctively hand down work to the underlings [which took me a few days and a few conversations to really understand] and instead prefer a lot of the time to do the work themselves that someone in my position would normally do. [what we in the industry refer to as the b!%*&-work, lol] so what that means is that where im used to having a handful of project managers eagerly doting upon me the mundane tasks they feel theyre too busy to do, i now have to circulate the office each morning asking each individual project manager if they think they could find something for me to do today. [which is definitely a lesson in humility - i hate asking for b!%*&-work...] however, after a conversationi had this morning, theres a possibility that i'll be getting to put one of my biggest strengths to use [organization! woohoo!] and help the office by giving their project storage system and drawing standards some much needed attention. more on that as i know more.

karen.
karen is good. shes been enjoying her classes as far as i can tell, and work is... well, work. shes still um, frustrated, with her office environment and the work shes doing is beyond mind-numbingly-dull, but its a job and it pays better than mickey-d's, so she tries to be happy with it. things between us are great, we seem to be adjusting to our living situation and this whole marriage thing better than some half-glass-empties anticipated. ill admit i feel inadequate at times as a provider, we havent yet been able to live solely on my income when little things like truck repairs or me getting laid off pop-up, but she loves my in spite of my faults and hopefully someday soon we'll get there. getting the house should help significantly so we can stop throwing money away on rent and storage each month, although the other obstacles with the house are definitely going to be a financial burden for a little while...

im learning to thank god for obstacles he presents me with. ill keep trusting that theres nothing coming my way that i cant handle, and while its extremely frustrating at times and im never clear on the purpose behind some of these hurdles, im trying to be patient. wisdom, strength, patience. thanks...

family.
everyone in texas seems to be doing better. things are slowly getting cleaned up, everyone has power as far as i know. theres still ridiculous devastation that beyond anything you could possibly imagine, but theyre making it. dad just got back to saudi and hes fine. long trip, and uncomfortable next to a rather large woman all the way to amsterdam, but hes there and safe. other than that, i dont have much new information to report on the family, ive been a little out of the loop for whatever reason.

last weekend.
karen and i mostly just tried to catch up on little things weve been getting too busy to stay on top of. we did laundry, we cleaned the apartment, some shopping, catching up on the daily show and the colbert report, some little repairs around the apartment... on saturday morning we went to a tiling class at homedepot and learned everything we'll need to know to do tiling projects at the house - oh yes bathroom-suite, you are mine! it was actually very fun and informative and if youre interested in learning hands on how to do home improvment type stuff, i definitely recommend going to homedepot things. they usually do them every saturday, check your local on for specifics. saturday evening we went to a little dinner party at a friend of karen's and had a nice time. some home-made pizza, a little wine, a lot of laughs, it was nice. we're hoping to get together with some of the people again to have a debate-party for the next presidential go-around. [and speaking of politics. i wont go into it now, but in the near future im going to post a little rant of my views on the current situation...] the only other thing worth mentioning from this weekend was that karen and i decided we're going to go on a little detox diet [thanks to karen getting some inspiration from claire's blog, lol! thanks claire] starting next weekend. we've done some research and theres a bit of planning we'll need to do before hand so hopefully we can be prepaired by next monday.

well "ya'll," thats all ive got for now.

tune in next time...

[for stew: currently listening to p86-rival factions]