November 2014: Home Improvement Month

 Chris and I focused on home improvements this month. 

Finished Ceiling Trim

New Sink

Painted Fire Place Wall where more shelving will go

Wall Paneling, and Floor Trim

Okay, I'll just come out and say it. I know nothing at all about home improvements. However, Chris's Dad offered to come out and help Chris get some things fixed up around the house. We now have a new sink! Which is a great improvement from the old beat up one we had before. For those of you that don't know it was ceramic and was stained and cracked, not to mention the faucet was leaking. We now have a beautiful stainless steal sink with a SPRAYER! I love the sprayer, but Chris tried to ban me from using it because I end up getting everything surrounding the sink wet when I try to spray things down, but I Unbanned myself because I love using it so damn much! Chris's Dad and brother also assisted us in getting the trim down down stairs. For those of you that don't know, last summer our basement flooded, we had to replace the entire floor with laminate flooring. Once we replaced it, the only thing left to do was to put the trim in, but we didn't have the time or the money to do so for quite a while. Chris's Dad did it for us as a Christmas present which was just wonderful of him. During the time of the flooding, Chris also tore out the fire place leaving an ugly section of the wall showing in its place. During Home Improvement month, We sanded down the wall, and while I worked a 12 hour shift, Chris got the wall painted, it looks so much nicer now! We also have new paneling down stairs and Chris took down the projector shelf that was in the ceiling and finished the trim along the wall. Everything looks so nice. I will include pictures, but I only have the after pictures, not the before pictures. Our carpet is disgusting. I spent 1.5 hours trying to use oxyclean and an iron to get the stains out of the carpet and it was a huge waste of my time. Chris and I discussed that because of our dog Malcolm thinking that the carpet is for peeing on, we will need to replace the carpet with laminate flooring like we have downstairs and then just replace the carpeting in the bedrooms. I like this plan, because every time I clean the house, the carpet makes me sick to look at, it is just so stained and it grosses me out. We still have a lot of work to do, but it is coming along nicely, We hope to get our  house projects finished by the end of 2016 depending on what kind of help we can get. 

October 2014: Garage Sale Month

Chris and I decided that we would have a Garage sale in the Spring to help pay for the wedding and to get rid of some of the junk we have around the house. That being said, any friends or family who want to be involved, help out, or sell some of their own stuff, are welcome to join us! Our goal this month was to go through sections of the house and choose things that we were ready to get rid of. I went through my clothes and was able to get a full garbage bag full of clothes to sell as well as a pile of books. Chris and I went through our games and decided to get rid of about 7 of them. I went through the DVDs and chose a few of those to get rid of, and together we also went through the cupboards in the kitchen and dining room and chose a few things to get rid of from there as well. I eventually went through the linen closet and found a large pile of things that we no longer need or want to have around, Chris wasn't sure where most of it even came from. I then organized the linen closet, it looks so nice and organized now. How Exciting!! During this month Chris and I started to learn Spanish with a new app called DuoLingo. I would recommend it to anyone who wants or needs to learn a language. It not only works, but it is in a game format that is actually kind of fun. It makes learning a language interesting and simple. I already knew a bit of Spanish to begin with, so it was fun to test out of some of the more simple categories. Chris and I plan on learning as much Spanish as we can before our trip to Mexico at the end of January and then switch to Italian until our honeymoon in Tuscany. Exciting things to come! 

September 2014: Saving Money Month

In September Chris and I decided because we were both feeling low on cash, that we would try and curb our spending for the month. I'd say we did okay with this goal. Neither Chris or I over spent on food. What I mean by this is that we chose to eat at home instead of going out, and when we went grocery shopping we stuck to the essentials and didn't spend extra money on expensive gluten free items or treats. I often get food cravings and have a hard time not allowing myself to have whatever it is I am craving. During this time, I had to be very careful not to allow myself these cravings. For example, I will often crave Pizza, but even if I make my own pizza, the gluten free part makes it expensive. We also spent a good amount of our time staying in. We didn't go out to dinner, or go out to movies, or do anything that required us to spend extra money. We spent a lot of our nights in November watching tv or movies, playing games with friends, or playing video games. During this time, I was able to save enough money in my account to have a bit of a cushion, as well as put extra money into our savings account for the wedding. This month of saving allowed Chris and I to be able to put down our deposit for the Tent rental! 

December 2014 : Sword Fighting and Video Game Month

So, Chris purchased a Groupon for us a while back.

It was a month long membership to the Minnesota Sword Club. I promised Chris I would give it a try, however, I had a very nasty feeling that my ex-boyfriend Tyler Clayton would be there, especially since I had remembered that he said he still worked there last time I talked to him. We showed up to our first class on a Wednesday. I was pretty nervous, and looked around to see if Tyler was there, sure enough, I spotted him teaching private lessons at the end of the gym. I turned to Chris and said "I told you he'd be here" I proceeded to do everything in my power to avoid an encounter with him. I hid on the other side of the wall and tried to stay away from where he was. When the classes was about to start, Chris and I headed onto the gym floor to meet up with the rest of our classmates. Unfortunately, as I descended the stairs, Tyler was walking up the stairs at the same time, and almost bulldozed me over. We were both moving quickly. He stated "Whoooaaaa" and I said, "How are you?" He said "Good" and quickly kept moving. Needless to say it was an extremely awkward moment. I am pretty sure he snuck out of the gym after that avoiding me in every way possible. Chris and I took our class after that, no longer worrying about whether or not Tyler was around, he was definitely not in sight. I think Chris enjoyed the class more than I did. I was okay with the first part of the class, because we were just doing footwork and running drills with our swords, but as soon as we got our armor and head gear on, I was very uncomfortable. My mask/cage thingy was too big, and I had to take off my glasses in fear that they would get ruined. The remainder of the class was all about attacking the head. It was uncomfortable to get smacked in the head all the time. My mask would vibrate each time and I couldn't see due to not having my glasses on. It all felt very disorienting. Also, I kept getting hit, because I am not a fast learner when it comes to sword fighting, however, I still blame the uncomfortable head piece and the fact that I didn't have glasses on. Afterwards, Chris and I went home. I never showed up to the class again, but Chris went at least 3 or 4 more times. As far as video games go, Chris's friends got him into League of Legends which is an online game that he plays on his laptop. He really enjoys it, so while he played that, I would continue my Dragon Age Inquisition Journey. I am pretty far along in the main plot now. I believe I am almost to the end of the main plot, which at that point I could either choose to continue some of the side quests or just start over with a new character. The game is pretty cool, but I don't enjoy it as much as Dragon Age Origins, mostly because I like to follow a main story line, and not have to stray too much from it. I would say, however, that I enjoy the story line, the romances, and the graphics far more than Dragon Age 2. Anyways, I'm done geeking out about it. Chris and I have decided to keep this monthly theme thing going into 2015. Stay tuned for the first theme of he New Year! 

August 2014: Outdoor Activities Month

We were having trouble deciding a theme for August as Chris was going to have to be out of down again for alot of it. We were trying to find something that would still work while he was gone, so we decided that when he was back in town for the weekend we would find things to do outdoors. The first weekend we started kind of slow. We ended up going to an outdoor patio and having a drink and then went to see a movie with friends. Afterwards, we walked around the Arbor Lakes area and stopped into Trader Joes to get something for dinner. So, not the best start to an outdoors weekend, but we progressively got better. The weekend after was my birthday weekend, on Friday, August 8th, we drove up to Acadia, Wisconsin and stopped at a few wineries on our way up. When we got to Acadia, there was a festival going on where we spent time outside checking out the festival and having some dinner. We then sat down to watch The Beach Boys perform. It was pretty funny, they are so old now and singing about 3 girls for every boy, and "Wouldn't it be nice if we were older..." Chris somehow convinced me that we should to swing dance in front of the beach boys. We went right up to the center of the stage and security kicked us to the side. I was a bit embarrassed, but we finished the song. Afterwards, the crowd was so large that we ended up having trouble getting out of there and boy did I really want to not be standing in front of a massive crowd any more. We ended up squeezing through masses of people and got back to where my family was sitting. While the beach boys were still playing, my Aunt Cheryl, Mom, and Dad and us decided to go and start with the lantern launch. We met up with another group of about 10 people who were also launching and it looked so amazingly cool that we decided we want to do it at our wedding. Not long after the Lantern launch, it was time to head home. It was about 930 or so and about 10pm when we got back to the car and we had a 2 hour drive back. It was a very pleasant day! On Saturday August 9th, Chris made me a delicious birthday breakfast and then we went to the farmer's market. It was kind of sad that they didn't have any coffee. We then went to check out tent rentals for our wedding.

July 2014: Video Game Month

We decided to do a video game month, which really is kind of a silly theme, but Chris was traveling 3 weeks out of July, so I agreed to it since I would be on my own for a lot of the time. I attempted to download a few games onto my computer, one of which was suggested to me because it is the same people who made my favorite video game series Dragon Age! Susan, Kendra, and I, like to geek out over that game. It is a role playing game based in a fantasy world and while playing you can play out various romance stories between characters, what I also liked about it was that you never had to wonder where to go next, there was always a quest you were doing or a place you knew you had to go. I had tried playing Skyrim in the past and didn't like it all the much because it was too open world for me and there was no definite end to the game. The dragon age serious tells a story, it's like watching a series of interactive movies. After having issues downloading games onto my computer for whatever reason, I decided to try a game called Oblivion that Chris had around. I created my character and started playing. There was a main storyline that I kept following since I was so used to dragon age, but Chris said I didn't have to follow the main story line. I enjoyed playing it for the most part, but it has the same fluke as skyrim, It is too open-world for me and not enough of a solid storyline. Chris experimented with a game called Boom Beach on his Ipad and both of us got even more involved in Clash of Clans on our I-phones. All in all, I can't wait for Dragon Age 3 Inquisition to come out. It was supposed to be released this October, but it is now being delayed until November. Stay tuned for next months theme "Outdoor Activities".

June 2014: Health Month

I need to preface this by saying that we kind of failed at our Fitness month in January, so this was kind of a re-try. I'd say we

did pretty good. 

Healthy Eating

We went to the farmer's market twice and stocked up on tons and tons of vegetables and fruit. we ate mostly chicken and fish for our meats and we had plenty of fresh veggies and fruit just about every day. There was a whole 3 day weekend where we ended up eating brats, chips, baked beans, and dips due to parties and gaming. That wasn't the healthiest, but all in all, for us, we did really good. I want to continue the healthy eating by continually having veggies and fruit around. I felt so much better health-wise while eating this way. 

Exercise

We actually did really great with exercise this time around. We went to the gym every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday where we spent 20 minutes doing cardio and extra 10-15 minutes lifting weights and doing crunches. It felt really great to get into a regular exercise routine. It was something that I would have happily continued, but then I got new job and started working 10-12 hour days which made it really hard to work out. We have only worked out once per week for the last two weeks, however it is July now so we made it through the whole month of June! YAY!