Opening the Next Chapter

Whew!!

John and I moved into our brand-y new home about a week and half ago! We can't even believe that this big beautiful home is ours...how did this even happen?  A few months ago; John reluctantly agreed to see how much we could get pre-approved for and to his surprise (I knew all along we'd be okay) we were pre-approved for enough to buy a home we could raise a family in. If you follow our lives at all, you know that we spent ALOT of money, time and energy working on projects in our old home--although we made alot of great memories doing so, we wanted to move into a home that we didn't feel the need to do anything to. We wanted to be able to actually enjoy our home instead of always being worried about the next thing on the to do list. So--here we are in a brand new built home :) No to-do's bigger than a few hours time--ahhhh.

We did move out of Denver and into a small little neighborhood that we're feeling quite at home in. Reunion is a new neighborhood with not a whole lot of stuff--after living in Denver for nearly 4 years we are excited to not always feel like we have somewhere to go. With us both being from small towns in Vermont, we feel much more at peace living out here. I'm learning that life is really more about the small things and spending time enjoying the things we work very hard for; is most certainly one of the small things in life. We've already seen so many cool things out here--an owl, a few bald eagles (there's a nest not too far from our house), crane and lots and lots of rabbits! 

Thank You Colleen for the photos!!

This last week I started a 3 week challenge--ideally to get my body fat percentage down. I've lost weight, I've lost inches but my dang body fat percentage is still hanging out on a number I don't exactly like. So with that. Every day I am running 45 minutes in the morning and 45 minutes at night (or cardio in general) and doing 1 hour training sessions with my trainer 2 times a week and then 30 minute work outs 3 other days of the week. So--long story short...ALOT. BUT it's only for 3 weeks. We're shocking my body if you will. 

Everything is going really good in the Lashua household. We are LOVING our new home; as we finish putting up curtains and photos on the walls i'll start giving you guys a house tour. It's beautiful, I promise :)

My Fitness Journey...thus far.

My oh my, it's been entirely too long since i've sat down and rambled...so here we go!

On Saturday, March 15th (yes, I remember the dates) I made the decision to ditch my old 24 Hour Fitness membership and to sign up at Self Defined Fitness--a gym much closer for me. At the time the only thing that made my choice to change gyms was the location, since then it's become some much more than that. The day I signed up at Self Defined fitness I had my first conversation with Sylvester Cain, before leaving I decided to do a free first training session with him on Tuesday, March 18th (although I was terrified of being utterly embarrassed).. Looking back on that free training session certainly does bring embarrassment, but I made it through it and at the time that seemed pretty good. That same day I decided to put my big girl pants on and I signed up for my first five weeks of training with Sylvester. These training days were going to bring me right up to our trip to Jamaica and I was excited about the possibility of losing some pounds just in time to get on the plane. And it has all be easy from there....said no one ever. 

Signing up with Sylvester has been the single best decision i've made in a long time. Many of you are probably thinking "this girl is nuts". Call me what you want but I have found out more about myself in the last 3 months than I have in probably the last 3 years. Sylvester is more than a personal trainer--he's really a mentor to me now. He pushes me to do things I never thought I could, he supports me on the days I can't get my head straight, he reminds me when i'm messing up and most of all he makes me laugh all while i'm swearing him for making me do one more drop set. He makes me believe I can set and obtain higher goals than I ever dreamed of. He has me believing that anything is possible and that I can physically do anything as long as I put the time in. I could go on and on about how awesome my trainer is but I don't want his head getting too big so I will leave it there for now.

How has my day to day changed you may ask? I train with Sylvester twice a week for one hour each time. I tend to train with him on Tuesdays and Fridays. I am generally at the gym Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. On Wednesdays I tend to take the day to go for a run and burn some calories dancing around my house while John is gone to volleyball--haha it works for me but my dogs are always very confused. I know you're probably thinking that 6 days at the gym is WAY too much. I beg to differ, I LOVE my gym time. My time at the gym is MY time and only MY time. I can sweat, swear, laugh and push myself both mentally and physically and then go home feeling like a million bucks. Taking 1-2 hours out of my day to day for ME is worth it, I think many could benefit from it! In regards to my eating; for the most part you could sum up my eating to clean eating. John and I do a ton of food prep on Sundays which usually involves ground extra lean turkey, jasmine rice and veggies of our choice and we also prep salads for the week. By having all of our food ready and portioned we can just grab tupperware and go--this makes clean eating MUCH easier. Paying more attention to my food intake has been pretty easy for me. When you're spending so much time in the gym it's easy to not want to undo it all with food. And no i'm not "dieting" i'm simply being more aware of what i'm putting in my body. I used to say "I workout so I can eat what I want" well my friends...that is so far from productive...this I have learned.

So what's changed with all of this hard work? I've lost 12lbs, lost I don't know how many inches and I've dropped sizes in clothes like crazy! When I started I was barely squeezing into a size 10 pant, I am now VERY happy to say I'm a size 6 again and back to size small tops! I've recently taken some progress photos. Though these are not the best depiction of the progress I've really made; i'm proud.

You may be asking why I'm sharing this? I'm not sharing it for the "good jobs" or "holy crap you look good" i'm simply writing my journey in hopes of possibly inspiring someone to make the choice to live healthy. Three years ago I gave all my size 6/small clothes to Good Will and TOLD MYSELF i'd never be that small again. Instead of doing something about my weight gain, I simply was going to accept it. YOU are the only person that can make a change. I know alot of girls out there can relate with buying a size bigger and then another size bigger the next year and not being okay with it but being okay with it at the same time. Find the exercise that you LOVE and make it part of your day--stop making excuses and get active! And when you find it--stick with it. They say things become habit after three weeks, I say they become habit when you see the changes. 

If you live in the Denver/Aurora area check out Sylvester Cain and Self Defined Fitness at the below links! 

http://www.sccfitness.com/Site/Home.html
http://selfdefinedfitnessprogym.com/

2014 So Far

Wow--it's been a long time since i've gotten some thoughts down on my blog. It's not because I forgot about my blog, it's more because I just haven't been able to get my thoughts compiled well enough to write them down. I'm still not sure I do but I really wanted to get on here and just give a good ole fashioned update. 

We ended 2013 with some great family time and a visit from my Mom and Diddy and we brought in the New Year with one of the best nights home together--just John, myself and our fur kids (it was truly great). 2014 has been pretty good to us so far! Once the new year hit we started a project we've been wanting to do for awhile now...we have demo'd our basement and are now working on putting it back together with a hopeful end result of a very NICE finished basement. Our basement has a guest bedroom, a bathroom, our laundry room and what we've always called "the back room". Until now that "back room" was always filled with alot of STUFF. Alot of stuff that needed organizing and alot of stuff that just needed to GO. We are going to now have a very nice second living space and we are SO excited about that. With this project any free weekend/evening time has been spent in the basement! I will say that i've learned how to do some new stuff--I took down my first ever wall; boy did I take some anger out on that wall and it felt GREAT! I also scraped every inch of popcorn ceiling in our basement--who ever invented that stuff must have been on some serious drugs when they thought popcorn ceilings were a GOOD idea. They are indeed terrible and terrible to get rid of. Messy, messy, messy!

I always have fun gearing up for a day of work in the basement...it usually involves a pair of John's work pants or in this case...overalls...

Aside from basement projects and my love for popcorn ceilings we've been filling our schedule up very nicely :) We're having tons of fun with our friends and we're really enjoying experiences and challenges as they come our way. John and I always enjoying sitting down and talking about life--about our feelings, our goals our dreams and we've been doing that alot lately and it makes me so excited for this life we're going to share together. 

We're going back to Jamaica in April to celebrate our one year anniversary and i'm not going to lie...my brain is pretty consumed by this. We are so incredibly grateful and lucky to be able to do something like this for our anniversary. We're of course going with some rockstar friends which makes it that much more exciting. I would say about 50% of every work day Amy and I are plotting and planning and day dreaming about Jamaica and all it's awesomeness. 

I now share some photos from over the weeks...

My new office, my new job, a HUGE step for me. Huge huge huge.

I've busted out the sewing machine and currently have a couple projects in the making!

I'm still VERY proud to have won my pick em' league as the only girl...that's right.

I've been doing a 30 day shred with Amy...workouts at home and lots of clean eats! Oh, and loose pants!

Love date nights with the husband...

I went for for a motorcycle ride in January...and it got dark and cold and my hands HURT they were so cold. 

This boy makes me laugh everyday, married my best friend...so forever grateful.

A night with lots of fun, good food and lots of drinks...love this girl!

Well folks...I have Friday afternoons off with my new gig so this girl is going to spend a little TLC time on me. Massage, facial and pedicure...coming up!! I leave you with a video of our pups making friends with the Monsta...well his real name is Wilson, he is Amy's bulldog. We love him!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOP1EtMQc0k&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Wow--It's Been Awhile!

How in the world did I let so much time go by without blogging? Oh, I know. Life has been crazy. The last couple months have thrown some wrenches at us from all sorts of angles. From events in the lives of our friends, from health stuff in our lives and in our families lives, to trips, buying new motorcycles and just cramming as much fun stuff in as we can! As the year comes to an end I find that we are both looking forward to a new year hopefully filled with tons of great memories!

The most exciting thing in my life the last two weeks has been getting my motorcycle license and my first motorcycle! I know you're probably wondering what in this world sparked this interest...well, I had been riding as a passenger on John's bike and like most things--I'd rather be in control of the situation (come to find it's also much safer). I took a two day safety class and discovered in those two days that I do love riding and that I wanted to get on the road as soon as I could. So I finished the safety class with my  motorcycle license on Sunday and bought my bike on a Tuesday and I LOVE it. I've been practicing alot on side streets and in general traffic just hoping to improve my skills and comfort--all in due time :) Let me just say that John is pretty excited that his wife has a bike! 

MEEEEOOOW!

 I've really decided that in the next year of our lives we need to do as much fun stuff as possible. Why do I say this? Oh because so many people tell me that they lost their life when they had kids--so with that, I'm going to cram in as much fun stuff possible in the next year. I hope to hit the slopes as much as possible this winter, ride my motorcycle as much as I can without having to worry about being the mother to a child, and hopefully we can go on some fun long weekends to see all the great parts of Colorado we have yet to see. We've also put a deposit down to go back to Jamaica in April---we are THRILLED about this!! 

This is the resort we'll be going to in Negril :)

My Mom and Diddy will be here for Christmas in just a little over a month--now THIS, is very exciting!!! It's hard being away from all our family in New England--but moments when family/friends are here is always so special to us. We love sharing our lives with those that love us! Speaking of Christmas--it's been nearly 70 degree's out still but I've been itching to decorate for Christmas--it's too early, I know. I've just been finding such adorable decorations!

In addition to family--we have some friends with some pretty exciting stuff going on! Our great friends Matt and Amy got ENGAGED which is AMAZING news! It warms my heart so much to see people we love so happy--does it get any better? I have some other friends heading down the marriage road and it's so exciting! I was telling John last night that I never thought I'd be the first person of  my friends to be married and now watching everyone else go through the process. But, I  must say it's pretty fun! I'm pretty partial to how we did our wedding but it's fun to see everyone else's perfect wedding! I just realized that I never posted about my best friend Hally's wedding--it clearly deserves some mentioning! Hally and Scott got married October 5th and it was the most beautiful/perfect wedding for such an amazing couple. The style of the wedding fit these two to a T! Hally and Scott--we are SO happy for you two and for the future you guys will have together!

Mostly my reflections lately have been on how truly lucky I am to have this life I live. I know everyone is doing the "the thirty days of what i'm grateful for" which I kind of think is silly because we really should reflect everyday on things we're grateful for not just for 30 days in November. Waking up everyday is  blessing and to have everything and everyone I have in my life is so incredibly amazing. I've worked hard for the things I have in my life but no amount of work could surround me with better people than I already have in my life. 

On that note--I hope everyone is doing well:) As we go into the holiday season I hope we can leave that stress that comes with holidays and focus more on spending time with those we love!

Happy Birthday Bass!

Happy Birthday to one of the most genuine, caring, will do anything for you kinda of friends on this earth. John, whom we all know as Bass has been an incredible friend to my John for about as long I have been alive ( I wish that was a joke) and has been there since day one of my John and I meeting. Bass is that friend that you know will always be there and won't complain one bit about it. I could write for days about how much this man has done for us and how we'll forever owe him--but I'll save you some time ;) From working on house projects with us after being up for a mere 48 hours, to being the best person to go on any sort of adventure with--I can honestly say that both my husband and I are are truly grateful to have such an incredible person in our life.

Bass, you are a man with a good soul- you are a friend that not many people are so lucky to have- and you carry a heart that is much bigger than most. My John and I wish you the happiest of birthdays and we hope that this next year brings even more great things than this last year did. If anyone deserves all the good things in this world it is you. 

Happy Birthday Bass! Cheers!

Our Brand New DIY Kitchen Back-splash!

Ahhh! It's about time I get to this blog! Our back-splash has been done forrrr...almost two weeks now? Let's just say, tiling isn't so hard and it can really make a dull/boring area look awesome!! We went with two feet porcelain mosaic tiles. With the two feet length, everything went up pretty fast!

Here are some photos:

Grout time!

I'm prety sure we starting grouting at 10:00 at night...it happens.

Our kitchen is near complete! It's been a work in progress, but it's certainly been worth it! We are no experts at this tile stuff, but for our first time...I think we did pretty dang good!!

Monday...and I feel accomplished?!

Ahhhh...Monday at 12:15 and I feel accomplished? That happens never. 

Why you might ask? Well, as of this morning i'm down 8lbs since changing our diet to Paleo two weeks ago! And THEN this morning I started in on my want to learn how to power lift :) Haha, is that weird? That I want to get into power lifting? Granite this morning was just day one and I have a very far ways to go before I'm feeling or looking "strong" but I can't wait! Bench pressing, deadlifts, squats...ahh, it's almost like music to my ears! Our friend Base, he is showing me the ropes on proper mechanics of all the lifts so I don't go hurting myself, so a big thank you goes out to him!

That's really all I wanted to write...kinda boring, I know! I do have a blog i'm finishing up on our new kitchen backsplash we put up--it's FABULOUS!

I hope you all have a great Monday and even better week!