Porch Dining, and My First Giveaway!!

Hello there my lovelies! I've been having a great week so far, and the greatness is not even close to over! Here's why:



1. There's something fun happening at the end of this post....

2. We get to wear jeans to work today (even though it's Thursday)

3. I have my family birthday dinner at my house tonight, with just my smaller, immediate family

4. Tomorrow night is my whole family dinner at

Promises - My 30 Before 30 List!!

As of yesterday, I'm officially a quarter-of-a-century old. That's a big deal, right? Maybe, but also maybe not ;) Either way, I'm excited about it! Most of you should know, that for the past six months, I've been working on my list of goals for 25 Before 25, and I've had so much fun! Some were easy, some were hard, some were quick, some took longer, but all were enjoyed. (You can read my final

Pre-Teen Obsessions - First Things First edition

Hello there again lovelies, for my second post of the day! This post is for week #4 of our First Things First link-up, with my good blog-friend Hallie at Life: Oceanside! Every week we have specific "first" topics that we share with y'all, and we want to hear your answers as well. So read our posts, write your own, grab our button, then come link up your post with us! This weeks "Firsts" are:

Popcorn Must be Eaten at the Theater

Today is my 25th birthday!!! Hooray! For some reason, I've always really loved my own birthday. I know some people tend to shy away to avoid the spotlight or extra attention, but I tend to bask in it. I don't know if that's "selfish" or not, but honestly, I don't really care - because celebrating my birthday is just always so much fun! And I mean, come on, it IS your special day after all! So why

Post-Pledge: The Final Recap

As of this morning, I'm considering my 25 Before 25 Pledge list officially over. Tomorrow I will be 25 years old, and it's time to move on! I have created a new list of 30 Before 30, which is full of all sorts of things. Some are small, some are quite huge, but I'm excited about them all. (Those will be posted later this week.) But for this post, I want to do a recap of how things went for my 25

Puzzling Letters

The One Where all of my letters end in a random question...

Dear Week: I'm glad you're coming to an end in just a few more hours. Why do four-day work weeks always end up feeling incredibly long? I don't get it...?



Dear Exercise: I did pretty awesome again this last week. In the past four days I: hiked on Monday, did an at-home training circuit & weights on Tuesday, did the 30-Day Shred on

Providing the Facts of Halie

On Tuesday, Whitney at I Wore Yoga Pants posted a fun link-up for us to join. I however already had two posts for Tuesday (a weekend recap & First Things First week 3) and a weigh in post yesterday, so I've been waiting for today to come, so I could finally participate as well! There are about a zillion other bloggers who have already joined in, but I just had to jump on the bandwagon too. And

Positive Weigh In Results

Last week, after I posted my super long weight loss journey in it's entirety, and I got such amazing responses back from all of you. One response told me about a weekly "Weigh In Wednesday" link up, and so I checked it out. It's other ladies like myself, who are all struggling with this weight issue too. I checked out a lot of their blogs, found some I really connected with, and was inspired by a

Pajamas & Pets - First Things First edition

Hello there my lovelies! Here comes my second post of the day (which is kind of unheard of around here), but it's to welcome you back for week three of our First Things First link up series with myself, and Hallie from Life: Oceanside! We've loved reading y'all's posts over the last couple of weeks, and we're looking forward to reading more about this round of topics as well! So this week is:

Papaya, Park Hike & Publix again!

Good morning dear blog friends! I don't know if y'all had a three-day weekend like I did, but mine was great! And I'm in a great mood this morning :) Feels good to start off not only the day, but the entire week the right way! Here's some quick recaps of my weekend activities, accompanied by a few pictures, of course!



Friday night I couldn't think of anything "special" for the boyfriend and I

Productive Things, Fun Things & Exercise Things

Dear Weight Loss: It's still going great, and I'm feeling awesome. Today I'm down another 1.5 pounds, which means I'm weighing in at 208.5 pounds now! And I gotta still keep pushing. So I'm not going to take the weekend off like I did last week. The goal is to exercise twice over the three-day weekend. Which leads me to....



Dear Bicycle: I miss you! I haven't ridden you since our crazy epic

Prophet's Fasting Plan

So yesterday, I shared a super long honest post about my entire weight loss journey. And let me tell y'all something, I was terrified to put all of that out there. I mean, it's one thing to mention you want to lose weight and exercise and blah, blah, blah. But it's something entirely different to list out your actual weight and all the ups and downs you've seen on the scale. But you know what? I

Pursuing a Healthier Me

This is going to be a hard post for me to write, I can feel it already. Not because I don’t know what to say, but because I’m going to be completely raw and honest and open about my weight loss journey and struggle. I've shared on my blog plenty of times my goals for exercising and eating. I've shared when I've felt both defeats and victories along the way. But through it all, I've been kind of

Planes, Jobs and CDs - First Things First edition

Today is Round 2 of our new link up, "First Things First," with myself and Hallie from Life: Oceanside! Last week we got a good amount of participation, but we're definitely looking to grow and expand some more this week! Thank you to those of y'all who joined us last week, and welcome to those who are new! We look forward to reading y'alls posts, and getting to learn more about some of your

Pedometer On Steroids

Ladies! Today I'm posting my very first giveaway on this blog, as a contributor for an awesome prize. However, now that I'm reading more about this special little gadget, I'm wishing I wouldn't have contributed, so that I could enter to win instead, because this looks so dang awesome! Was one of your new years resolutions to lose some weight or just be healthier?  Could you use a little help

Publix Was the Highlight

Guys, this was another super chill weekend. I guess that's just how it's going to be as long as Jeff is still in recovery mode from his broken foot and surgery. He is finally getting better, but we still have two more weeks of bed rest and foot propping...And then after that, he'll be in a walking boot, so we'll still have to take it pretty easy. He does seem to be getting better though, so at

Purple Polka Dots

Dear Friday: Seriously - WHAT took you so long to get here? That was just ridiculous. This week has felt all weird and long and I hardly ever knew what day it actually was. That was just unacceptable. Please be faster next week, OK? Great, thanks.

Dear Boyfriend: I'm so glad you finally got your stitches out of your foot! However, we still have at least two more weeks to go of wearing the splint

Preparing, Procrastinating & Planning

Haven't done a "Currently" post in quite some time, and since it's usually so fun & easy, I'm going for it today!

Listening to: the sound of my own clicking keyboard, and not much else in the super quiet office today...
Craving: Surprisingly nothing, food-wise. But I could definitely stand to go for a bike ride!
Working on: This blog post, duh
Loving: That I've worked out three days this week,

Presented With an Award!

Yesterday, I was surprised with an exciting Twitter notification, saying I had been tagged by my blog-friend, Ricci, at A Beautiful Mess. So I head over to the Tweet, and simply saw this:


{Inspiring} bit.ly/VIiIL1 @allisondiane16 @rollwithit176 @nbellediaries @halierenee88 @jkthomas87 @saradbverde @heleneinbetween
— ricci (@riccialexis) January 8, 2013


And then when I followed her link to her

Pumped About Sharing our Firsts!

Hello lovelies! I'm so excited this morning, because today is finally the day mine and Hallie's link-up starts! We've been talking about it since the middle of December or so, and I've been pumped ever since then! So here's the deal - and it's an easy deal, so don't be worried: every Tuesday for a couple of weeks or so, we're going to do a First Things First link-up!

We'll do different "firsts"

Plain Jane Weekend

I wish I could start writing a post of all the amazing, fun, awesome things I did this weekend, however, it just isn't so. It just wasn't one of those weekends! I mean don't get me wrong, it was still a good weekend, it was just really chill and simple. It was kinda one of those Plain Jane Weekends -- but those are usually the most relaxing and enjoyable :)

Friday night I went to my friend

Pizza Hut & Redbox & Letters

Dear 2013: So glad to have you here! Thanks for coming :)  I'd say we're off to a good start already. Now let's just make sure we stay wonderful all year, and be good to me, OK?! And also be good to my boyfriend, friends and family while we're at it. I've got a lot of goals and plans for the year, and I'm excited about all of them. Help me keep up my motivation and determination to make a great

Plentiful Bounty

Yesterday afternoon, I went on a little mini road trip with my Mama, Aunt Suzanne, and Grandmother to Eufaula, Alabama, for my sister's first wedding shower! Most of her fiance's family are all from there, and they wanted to throw her a shower while some more family members from Tennessee were in town during the holidays. So they put together a Christmas-themed shower, and it was quite lovely!

Page View Issues?

Guys. Do y'all ever look at your stats page in Blogger? You know, the one where you can see things like: page views, traffic sources, audience...? Well, I do look at it pretty often, but yesterday I noticed something. I noticed a HUGE spike in overall traffic to my blog. So I went to the stats page to see the top referring URL's, and yesterday a spam site sent me tons of views. Now normally, we

Plunge into 2013

It's a new year my friends! January first, twenty-thirteen. Can you guys smell the the new calendars and planners and the change in the air? I think I can. (I think I can...) So without further ado, let's just go ahead and Plunge into 2013. Let's dive right in and see all that this glorious New Year has to offer us! Here's my Goodbye. Hello list for a brand new 2013... (borrowing the idea from a