I let myself go

I went from this........

to this.....

That my friends is a what being lazy looks like. 
That is what 35lbs looks like.
That is what I am tired of.

That 35lbs will be gone.

One very short yet very long trip

Oh man, who would have thought anyone can do what we did a few weeks ago.

My ex's dad, his dad's girlfriend, and his grandmother flew out to Vegas.  Since we're not too far from Vegas I decided it would be a perfect time for Suraya to see her family.  Actually I still consider them my family as well.  I may have married the wrong guy but I married into the right family.  We hadn't seen them since 2006 and that was under very sad circumstances.

We left Friday right after work and headed to Vegas...a 3 hour drive.  We got there around 9:30 pm.  Suri hasn't been there in years so she wanted to see all the sights.  We took her out that night to see the lights of Vegas.  Ummm, I forgot that the Sahara is FAR from the strip.  We walked and walked and finally got back to the room and to bed around 1am or 2am but not before I discovered that the McDonald's there has a 50 piece chicken nugget family meal!  Oh gosh...I was in nugget heaven!


                                                     In the car headed to Vegas

                                                    On the strip

                                               

Saturday we woke up bright and early and met up with Sidney, Allison, and Dot and the rest of the gang.  We headed out at about 7am to our first destination:  Hoover Dam.  Now I have lived here most of my life (Cali) and gone to Vegas multiple times but I have never been to the Hoover Dam nor did I even know it was so close!

                                                                

After about an hour at Hoover Dam we headed out to the Grand Canyon.....4 hours away.

We did some sight-seeing...OK like an hour!  Haha.  We drove 4 hours just to say we've been to the Grand Canyon!  We left around 3pm and arrived back in Vegas at 7:30pm


                                                                  Nap time!

After an exhausting trip it was time to show Alli & Sid the lights of Vegas.  We had Suri so no gambling or crazy nightlife for us.

So in one day we went to Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, and walked around Vegas....our day started at 5:30am and ended around midnight...then we left the next day for a 4 hour ride homw.  Whew...we were EXHAUSTED from all that driving.

Ouch...

I had this friend awhile back who I stopped talking to. 
We drifted apart.
People have been asking lately if I've spoken to her.  I have not.
I thought maybe she got rid of her Facebook account because I didn't see any posts from her.
Wrong.
She deleted me.
Ouch.
Was it because her spouse and I didn't get along?
Was it because we just drifted apart?
I'm going to go with the first one....she is still "friends" with people I know she no longer speaks to.
I didn't put two and two together that because I haven't seen her status updates she had deleted me as her "friend".


:(

The price of beauty...

...is $14.99 at Ross!  Hehe.

Those are some serious heels.  I'm used to wearing heels but these are monsters!

5"...and guess what?  I'm wearing them right now.  It took me a moment to walk normal in these.

I didn't realize these were higher than anything I own.  Looks like I usually wear 4" heels which are nothing.  These are something....OUCH!

Holy ton of food!

Last night I attended Martha Green's "Celebrating Family: The Perfect Buffet" cooking class.  I have never been to anything like it before so I wasn't sure what to expect.  I thought a few people would show but it turns out there were hundreds of people.

I have been to Martha Green's in Redland's only once and that was for a cake tasting we did for my wedding.  I noticed that it was a quaint little restaurant as well.  I made a mental note to one day stop by to eat  but I never did.  Now I am very sure I will go.  Martha Green is so personable and hilarious.  She seems so down to earth.  

Back to the class!  OK, so Martha was up on stage demonstrating how to make each meal.  As she was doing that, volunteer waiters (who turned out to be councilmen, firemen, business owners, etc from the community) were serving us each dish.  Ummm, let's just say it was a 17 course meal!  That's just a slight over exaggeration.  A few of the menu items were:     

Easy Potato Soup - Delish 
Kiwi Strawberry Salad - Yumm

New Mac n' Cheese - So so
Citrus Pecan Roll - Very good
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Torte - Did you read the name?!  That's all I have to say!!

The Favorite Brunch Strata - Had cheese, eggs, sausage - OK
Chicken amd Cheese Quesedilla Pie - My FAVE!  


There were more but with out the cookbook we were given I cannot list them.  There were so many!  My group left the table stuffed!  By the time we got to the 4th entree we were all holding our stomachs and groaning at the thought of more food but we chugged on sampling each dish and oohing and awwing at the ones we enjoyed the most.  We had a great time thanks to the owner of the business I work for.  She paid for us to attend.  That was really sweet of her. 



The proceeds of the class benefit the Redlands Bowl Summer Music Festival.  I am sad to say I have never been to the Redland's Bowl but after last night I made a decision to start going.  They have free concerts during the summer.  Also, right now there is a contest the Redland's Bowl is apart of where votes are needed.

Please vote for the Associates of the Redlands Bowl in a national contest with Pepsi Refresh. If they are one of the top ten vote recipients, they will receive $25,000.

 http://www.refresheverything.com/associatesoftheredlandsbowl
 or 

http://pep.si/cPsaET  

 

Out with the old and in with the new

We recently upgraded our cell phones to the Samsung Moment with Google.  It is an awesome phone!  It has apps like the iPhone which you can download from teh Android market.  Most are free and others you have to pay a small fee for.  I prefer this phone over the iPhone because 1) Sprint's service is cheaper and 2) it has a pull out keyboard.  I've had so much fun with this phone just by discovering new apps.   

I found one yesterday that will keep track of the calories I've consumed, Calorie Counter.  Yea, yea so what right?  Well the cool thing I found on this app is that you can scan the barcodes of items and it will pop up on your screen.  So far it has worked on everything but a box of sweetner.  In the case an item is not found you can enter the product name in the search bar and be able to find it. You can also adjust the serving size in case you didn't eat the portion they alloted (which is the serving size on the label).  The barcode feature makes it so much easier to use than having to search for every piece of food I consume.  You can also save meals you frequently eat or search for most recent foods eaten in order to populate your menu faster.  Yes, it's awesome! 

That's just one of quite a few apps I love.  Reviews on others to come.

Goodbye $ sucker!

We are about to hit month number one without cable.  My thoughts?

Goodbye cable.
You cost too much.
I don't miss you one bit.
Adios.
Good Riddance!

We now subscribe to Netflix for a low fee of $16.99.  We can stream straight to our TV or we can rent up to 3 DVDs at a time.  We are movie fanatics anyway so it works out great for us.  Neither of us were really into TV even though we had a DVR.

So with our new found love...well, mine at least, we are saving a ton and able to watch all the shows I always said I would one day start watching.  Oh, did I mention with the closure of our only other movie rental source, Hollywood Video, we have no choice but to go by way of Netflix.  Not sure about Red Box yet....

KFC's Double Down

I had been anticipating the Double Down for a week or so.  It made it's debut yesterday.  Yum!

What is it??  It is sandwich-like but without the bread.  What takes place of the bread are 2 chicken patty's either fried or grilled.  Fried all the way!  On the inside is cheese, sauce, and bacon. 

Yes...greasy yumminess!

I went yesterday to try this delish "sandwich".  My first thought when it came out was, "The picture made it looks so much better", but that's to be expected.

 





So my thoughts on it?  It was so-so.  Not great by any means.  My chicken wasn't fried all the way so it was just a greasy melty mess.  The taste of the chicken frying batter was overpowering and left nothing else for the tastebuds to enjoy.

In the end, I think that will be my one and only Double Down.   

Bursting with great news...

but I can't spill it on here. The blog isn't private and I want to keep it that way but this is one issue I can't discuss here.

Email me at kbella80@yahoo.com or on Facebook if you would like to know.

Flights are booked!

I finally found a good deal on flights to Hawaii! 

I use bing.com to track flights.  They have a predictor on the site that will tell you whether to wait because prices are dropping or to buy now. 

Guess what I came across today on Bing....BUY NOW!  So I did! 

I love that site.  Prices dropped $200 since yesterday.  I have been tracking this flight since late last year and this is the lowest I've seen.

Now I really hope I don't get the urge to check in a month or two and find out it's even cheaper.  I'll be sad. 

We're going to Hawaii.  We're going to Hawaii. We're going to Hawaii!!

MAC vs L'Oreal

I am a MAC girl.  A very loyal MAC girl until today.  I strayed. 

I am on a cost cutting mission and one area I thought I could cut costs on was makeup.  My decision was to try a drugstore brand to replace my MAC foundation.  I used to use Maybelline, Cover Girl, etc. and never could understand why anyone would pay high costs for makeup until 8 years ago I discovered the beauty and awesomeness of MAC while at a friend's house.  I was hooked!

I normally use MAC's foundation:

Studio Tech - $29.50 

Studio Fix -    $26.00

As you can see that's a little pricey but I love it and have never cared about the cost until now.

CVS has L'Oreal makeup products 40% off this week and I had a $2 off coupon.  Hmm, so what does that mean for me?  It means a $12.99 product is $7.79 coupled with the $2 coupon I end up paying $5.79 for foundation.  Woohoo!!  That's almost a $24 savings.

I ended up buying L'Oreals's True Match Super-Blendable Compact Makeup for $5.79. 

It seemed to have a similar texture as the Studio Tech.  I matched it to my skin color and matched it to the color I use from MAC.  It was pretty close........






Then I tried it on.  Oh my. Now I remember WHY I stopped using that type of makeup.  Horrible horrible horrible.

First, when I put the product on my face it was much much lighter than it looked.  The color was way off.

Second, the makeup sunk into my pores rather than glide on and provide coverage.  It also left flakes which I thought was due to lack of moisturizer on my face.  Nope, even with moisturizer it was flakey.

I couldn't even bare to use it on my whole face.  The three spots I tried it on, which are the main areas I need coverage on, was enough for me to know that that L'Oreals's True Match is NOT for me.

This round of cost saving make up was a huge FAIL.

The winner:  MAC

I may continue my search but it won't be with any of the cheaper end brands.

Sephora maybe?

**UPDATE**

CVS has a great return policy on makeup.  They have a 100% satisfied guarantee, no questions asked.  I was able to return it with no problem.  In fact I got more back than what I paid.  They didn't take into account the $2 coupon I had used.

At what point do you stop?

Andrew is not liking the idea that I am stocking up on items I deem necessary and he deems unnecessary such as shampoo and toothpaste. His idea of necessary defers from mine in that I think those types of items are a necessity and why not stock up on it while it's free or extremely cheap, while he thinks that if you don't need it right that moment then why get it?

So here's the dilemma. He says he doesn't mind me getting the stuff but only if I set a limit on how many items I get. Now how the heck can I do that? If the items are free or practically cheap I want to take advantage of it. I really don't see why it's a big deal but with him it's always a struggle on the money end. In the long run we save money but he doesn't see it that way. If we want to save money then we shouldn't spend it is his view. Grrr....

Sometimes I wish we never merged bank accounts. It is so much less stressful with separate accounts. Oh how I miss the days!

Sooo...

Notice anything different?