And now for something completely different...

In case you missed it on Instagram last night, we're having a baby!  I'm 14 weeks along, which puts our due date at August 18th!  We are really excited and just as nervous :)

Prepare yourself for the obnoxious amount of baby-related posts that will shortly appear on this blog.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I always have to laugh on Valentine's day because people call it the "Hallmark" holiday and my husband's name is Mark Hall, get it…Hall-Mark, Mark-Hall?!  So I always joke that I get to spend the day with the one the day was named for!

Anyway, not to get all sappy or anything, but celebrating this day with my husband for 5 years has really been so great.  We don't do anything fancy, but we have our own traditions.  I always bake him a red velvet cake, which is his favorite!

And he always gets me flowers and chocolate/candy.  We don't exchange big gifts, its all about the little things for us on Valentine's day.  I have gotten pretty creative in the past though, this was one of his favorite gifts:

Another one of our traditions is getting Chinese take-out for Valentine's day.  It all started one year when I brought it home instead of cooking a nice dinner like I had in the past.  Chinese is Mark's favorite thing to eat, so I decided to just get him his favorite meal instead of cooking something.  I guess it stuck, because we always do that now!

This year will be a little different for us though.  Mark and I are heading to San Diego on Saturday, so I did not make the cake.  I figured we didn't need to eat an entire cake the week before going on vacation- since daily ice cream is mandatory on my vacations.  We also aren't getting Chinese because Mark has to drive our dog down to his parents house after work and won't be home until late.  I will be teaching yoga, so I can't go with.  It is kind of sad not being able to actually spend much time together this year, but we will have plenty of time to make up for it next week!

A day in my life

I've seen several people write these posts and I always love reading them, so here is my own version.

I have a pretty variable schedule between my regular job and teaching yoga, and each day at work is totally different depending on what day it is.  I have a totally different schedule each day,  so I am writing just about what Monday looked like this week.

6:30-8am:  Wake up, let Shay out, feed Shay, eat breakfast, get ready for the day.  I could easily get ready for work in 20 minutes, but I have to wake up so early to "manage" my GI disorder.  I won't go into detail here, but its a huge pain.  I usually eat toast/cereal/yogurt/or oatmeal for breakfast.  On Monday, I had oatmeal with peanut butter and some apple.

8:30-9am: Get to work, prepare for groups and patients. (Wouldn't it be awesome if it actually looked like this outside?)

9am: Lead adult group therapy.

10am: Individual patient appointment.  I snuck some time to eat a cliff bar before seeing her.

11am: Lead adolescent group therapy.

12am: Attend treatment planning for our residential unit.

1-2pm: Eat lunch and work on my documentation from the morning.  I brought the rest of my apple from breakfast and an asian salad.  I also bought 5 boxes of girl scout cookies from a co-worker in this time.  I definitely broke into the thin mints for dessert.

2-4pm:  Weekly occupational therapy staff meeting and more documentation.  And more thin mints.

4-6pm: Evaluate a new patient and another individual patient appointment.

6-7pm: Finish documentation for the day.  Also, more thin mints.

7-8:30pm: Drive home, eat dinner, stuff around the house.  Sometimes Mark waits for me to eat dinner, sometimes he eats on his own.  We had dinner together this day while watching the Olympics on TV. Dinner was leftover pasta with red sauce/peppers/mushrooms. Usually I'll clean up the kitchen or fold laundry at night.  I try to do at least one cleaning chore each day.

9pm:  Watch Downton Abbey with Mark.  We usually watch something together at the end of the day while we lay on the couch in the basement with Orlando and Shay.  This is my favorite thing to do because I have a heating pad on that couch that feels amazing at the end of the day.  Orlando and Shay LOVE it too.

10pm:  I am usually in bed by 10…but honestly, sometimes its a lot earlier.

So most of my Mondays and Tuesdays are taken up with work because I work 10 hours both of those days.  I never work out these days because I'm way too tired by the time I get home.  I get my workouts in throughout the rest of the week and do any social stuff other nights as well.  My work schedule is based on our census/need for the rest of the week, and of course I have my yoga classes as well.  I'll have to do another post to cover what those days are like!

Well, thats what my Monday looks like.  It can be a long day, but I love what I do and I love who I get to work with everyday, so it never seems that bad!

Weekly Highs and Lows

I'm thinking that Friday is a good day to reflect on the week.  Maybe I can make this a weekly thing, but we'll just have to see about that.

When I was in high school, my youth group at church always started every meeting with weekly highs and lows, so today, I am going to break the week down in those two categories.  We'll start with lows though, because who wants to end on a bad note?

Lows:

- Last Sunday at my brother-in-law's Super Bowl party, our puppy got sick and started to throw up everywhere (we usually bring him if we go over there to play with his dog.)  It was not cool, and trying to clean up after him with a whole bunch of people around was kind of awkward.  Ps.  I know he got sick because his neighbor's kids fed him buffalo chicken dip- after being instructed to not give ANYTHING to him.  Ugh.

- I ate way too much on a lunch outing at work on Tuesday and felt miserable the rest of the day.  I definitely did not want to eat dessert after the meal, but one of the patients was having a hard time with hers so I told her I'd eat one too so she didn't have to do it alone.  Oh, the things I do for our patients. 

- My gastroenterologist told me that I need to start viewing my illness as a chronic/lifelong illness like diabetes.   Translation- it's not going away. Ever.  Makes being effective at my job (see above) pretty difficult some days.

Ok, now lets move on to the GOOD stuff that happened. 

Highs:

- I had a super full Yoga class on Sunday morning.  The best part of it was that Kristin came for the class!  Hi Kristin!

- I was able to work out 4 times this week, which is sort of a victory for me lately. 

- I totally re-organized my closet and cleaned out a ton of old clothes that are just taking up space.  It feels SO good to get that done!

- The Bachelor was pretty epic.

- On Wednesday evening, Mark and I had dinner with our friends Madison and Joe.  Madison made a delicious dinner for us and we had a great time chatting away.  She is pretty much a professional culinary expert, so I was very grateful that they had us over.  I would have been way too intimidated to cook…but I promise, next time is at our place!

-This hasn't technically happened yet, but I'm having lunch with Kelly today, and I already know that will be a high!

I hope everyone else had a week filled with mostly  HIGHS!

The Glam Series- EYES

For The Glam Series this week, I am talking all about my eye routine.  Last week, I discussed my face routine, and I mentioned my love of Rhonda Allison products.  Well, guess what?  This line also has amazing eye-care products!  Every night I use both of the items below.  One is the Eye and Lip Repair Serum and over that, I put the Peptide Eye Cream.  Together, they completely eliminate any puffiness that might appear in the morning, like magic!

In the morning, after washing my face, I put on the Eye Revitalizer.  It really brightens up any dark circles and makes you look wide awake.

I use a combination of different makeup lines for eye makeup.  In general, I really like Estee Lauder eye makeup, but I use Buxom by Bare Escentuals mascara.  I find this mascara makes my lashes look for full instead of long.  I already have really long lashes, so the fullness factor is more important to me.  I use this Estee Lauder eye pencil in Plum Grey.  My go-to eyeshadow has been the same for more than 5 years now.  I LOVE this Estee Lauder Pure Color eyeshadow in Sugar Biscuit, I wear it everyday.  If I'm feeling fancy, I'll do some shading with Hot Cinnamon as well.

And that's it!  I try to keep things pretty simple.  Like I said, my whole makeup routine only take a few minutes for me to complete, which is how I'd like to keep it!  I can't wait to pick up some little tips from all of the other ladies participating in this series though!

The Glam Series-FACE routine

I cannot pretend to be any sort of makeup/beauty expert.  At all.  I have an incredibly simple routine that takes me all of 5 minutes in the morning, and I am totally cool with that.  I pay a little more attention to skin care, but I still don't spend much time on it.  Even though I'm not expert, I thought this was a fun idea that Jordan is hosting and wanted to participate, so here we go!  Today we are talking about all things related to the FACE.

Like I said, I prefer to spend more time (and money) on skin care than on makeup.  I swear by 3 different lines, SkinCeuticals, Rhonda Allison, and Eminence Organic.

I have several products from each line, but my favorites are: 

1. SkinCeuticals CE Ferulic- first layer in the morning after cleansing.
2. SkinCeuticals Retexturing Activator- 2nd layer in the morning, and I use this again at night after cleansing. 
3. Rhonda Allison Drop of Essence Hydration Drops- Honestly the most moisturizing thing I've ever felt, sooo luxurious.
4. Rhonda Allsion Growth Factor Gel- moisturize and protect.
5.Eminence Stone Crop Whip Moisturizer- It smells like heaven.  It is sort of thick, so I prefer to put this on at night to really hydrate my skin.

As for makeup, I usually don't wear foundation, just a finishing powder over my moisturizer.  If I'm going out at night or want more coverage, I wear Mary Kay, which sort of makes me feel like an old lady, but I really like the product.  These are the only 2 things I buy from Mary Kay, and although I do like them, I rarely wear them:

6. Foundation Primer- this would be great under ANY foundation, it really gives your skin a smooth surface.
7. TimeWise Foundation - I find it to be much less "cakey" than other foundations have been.

My other makeup go-to is BareMinerals.  I love their powder because its soooo light, you can't feel it at all.  They also have tons of options for bronzers, blushes, and highlighters.  These are my daily choicesL

8. BareMinerals Mineral Veil- it goes right over my moisturizer OR foundation, easy peasy.
9. Rose Radiance All Over Face Color- a little goes a long way with this, it seriously lasts forever. 

Join in the fun and share your best beauty tips in The Glam Series! Next week is all about EYES.

A Very Special Birthday!

Yesterday was quite an exciting day at our house!  The "baby" of the family, our puppy, turned 2!!  

Shay, our golden retriever, has been with us since he was 8 weeks old and we couldn't possibly imagine life without him.  Here are some pictures of him as a puppy…he was the cutest!

He hid under these stairs the first afternoon we had him.  I can't believe he ever fit there!

 He was so tiny!

 Already a runner at a young age!

 Sometimes I wish I could still pick him up like this!

He was the same size as Orlando!

 As seen in the first picture, we gave him a cupcake to celebrate.  We did the same thing last year, so I guess this is the tradition.

Happy Birthday, Shay!! We couldn't have possibly gotten a better dog.  You are the best dog, friend, protector, and comforter we could imagine!  That on top of being so smart and funny, you are now declared World's Best Dog!