BEFORE AND AFTER!!

Thank you all for all your kind words and extra support. I knew I could count on you all to make me feel better! You all are the reason why I love to blog - I love having friends everywhere!

We all make promises we can't keep sometimes. For me, it was promising you all before and after pictures a long long time ago - what was it, Saturday? Well, low and behold, they are here! You don't get to see the office or guest room yet - they're just not done! :)

Before we get to that, I want to share with you all the wonderful creation that is food.

Breakfast consisted of a beautiful overnight oats parfait. You can't really see it, but there is a layer of oats, a layer of peaches, another layer of oats, and a layer of blueberries. I know.. take it all in.

breakfast is best accompanied by a computer reading blogs

overnight oats just wouldn't be complete without cinnamon, cocnut, and peanut butter

can you see the peaches?

 I left pretty early this morning because I had to go get adjusted at the chiropractor. He knows FH very well, and was very excited about our wedding on Friday! When I got to the parent's house, I was famished - it was only 9:30!

So I pulled out all the stops with a classic pre-run fueling session: raisins and almonds.

Just before I was about ready to run, my dad told me a package had come for me and he had put it in the basement. The flowers for my centerpieces had arrived! We ordered them online from Costo, of all places! I had to cut all the stems and put them in a bucket until tomorrow.

has anyone ever seen the netting they put over flowers? i wasn't sure whether to take it off or keep it on until tomorrow. at least they're protected!

 I went for a quick 3 miler after I got that squared away. I actually felt really good running today - a lot quicker than I normally feel. Perhaps it's because I wans't wearing my watch so I had no clue how fast I was actually going?

When I got back to my house, it was lunch time, and I was once again, hungry! I purposefully made extra stuffed tomatoes from the other night for just this reason! I had half of an avocado and some crackers and hummus as well.

i'm not kidding - you need to make this.

after i cut out a sliver

 I won't lie - after I ate that, I got more quinoa out of the fridge and topped it with more hummus. I don't know what's with me today! Whatever, if I'm hungry, I might as well eat, right? All of this was eaten chilled. It was really good after the flavors had a chance to marinate for the past couple of days.

After lunch, I did something I haven't done in a long time.

No, it's not "eating an apple" - good guess though! I sat down on my couch, and watched TV. Actually, I watched the new episode of Teen Mom to be exact. I cannot tell you how long it's been since I've had an afternoon to myself to just relax. After that, I may or may not have fallen asleep, face down, in my bed for a whole 25 minutes. It felt good.

Now, I wanted to post these pictures because I know you've been waiting and I may not have a chance to blog again until tomorrow night. My bestie is on her way up here, and my other bestie is coming when she gets off of work! I'm cooking dinner for everyone - this is totally a flashback to two years ago when we all lived together for 2 years! I'm super pumped, and they're going to like me taking pictures of every minute to document! :)

Living Room before:

sorry, I really don't have a good shot of it :)

 Living Room after:

it's still kind of barren in here - we need rugs, different pillows, window treatments.. the whole works

Kitchen before:

scraping this wallpaper was NOT a party

Kitchen after:

Kitchen before:

Kitchen after:

eventually we're going to put a range microwave in and use the place where the microwave is right now as a decorative space

I looove how the green on the walls totally toned down the color of these cabinets. They look awesome now!

Hallway before:

Hallway after:

Bathroom before:

Bathroom after:

Done and done, my friends! I am off to have a fabulous time with my friends!

a little help from friends

"What would you think if I sang out of tune,

Would you stand up and walk out on me?

Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song,

And I'll try not to sing out of key.

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends."

I'm not going to lie, I almost did not blog today because I am exhausted, irritated, and just plain stressed. However, I knew you would all give me a little bloggie love if I told you about my day.

First of all, I'm so glad you all liked my stuffed tomatoes from last night! I have one hanging out in my fridge to make an appearnace sometime tomorrow!

I think my problem with today started when I woke up at 5:30 and couldn't fall back asleep. I got out of bed around 6 and decided to take my time with breakfast this morning.

whipped banana oats with oodles of toppings, monkey cup coffee, h20

i realized this breakfast would be perfect for the 4th of july!

cherries (red), coconut (white), and blueberries (blue) - of course topped with cinnamon and peanut butter

I left my house pretty early to go over to my parents where the dining room table is wedding central! Before I went, I got in a strength training session over at the gym. It was only 9:30 when my stomach started rumbling - I guess that's good and it must mean my muscles needed to be repaired! It also may have had something to do with the fact I ate breakfast at 6. I snacked on this bad boy:

delicious, but i'll take my cashew cookie bar over this one any day

I had no idea how intense the place card making would be. It took me probably three hours to do all of the following:

• print out
• tear apart
• put into table groups to make sure no one accidently got left out
• put into A-Z groups
• Alphabetize

My printer really didn't like these - I swear at a couple of points my printer literally SPIT them out at me. They FLEW out of the printer. It was kind of weird, but had me laughing nonetheless.

I also cut our favor cards as well. We are doing a donation instead of a traditional favor, so those will go in place of a menu card. At about noon, I picked up my mom and we went on some errands and to my favorite lunch place: Chipotle!

Chipotle is almost the only "fast food" place I can go to eat. I love the quality of the food, and I also love the morals of the company. Chipotle strives to use the best ingredients - I absolutely love it. You really can't see my burrito bol underneath that pile of lettuce - I always get extra!

Just so you're aware, however, I had black beans, fajita veggies, a plethara of salsas, guac, and lettuce

From here on out, I apologize for the fact that my picture taking was really lacking today. I had a really stressful afternoon. First, mommasita and I went to Costco to get sooo many lemons and clementines for my centerpieces. When I got home, I started to continue on my wedding duties when I got a call from the country club where we're getting married at and having our reception. I went in there yesterday to make our final payment and was sooo happy to finally have that past us. I got a call today from the accountant saying they made a mistake and forgot to charge us sales tax! I looked at the recepts, and sure enough.. they did.

Now, here's the thing: it was their mistake. Their mistake is costing us another $700. Something seems a little wrong with that. It would have been one thing if they were nice about it and didn't sound accusing (yes, she made it seem like I was TRYING to get away with not paying.. seriously?), but the woman was rude, very aggressive, and just not nice. She was not very sympathetic to the fact that that amount of money is a really big deal to a young couple who are paying for a wedding and just renovated a house. I was hysterical, FH was livid, but in the end... we have to pay if we want to get married. It is so frustrating.

After that whole debacle, I went to go pick up my wedding dress from the woman who steamed it. She is a friend of someone I know, and she did a great job putting my bustles on. However, when you walk into her house, you can definitely tell it is a house with smokers. The room she uses as her sewing room is totally smoke free, and the last time I dropped my dress off and picked it up, it was totally fine. Today, however, when I picked it up, it was hanging out in the living room. I took it home, unwrapped it as she instructed me, and my entire bedroom reeked of smoke. MY WEDDING DRESS SMELLS LIKE A BOWLING ALLEY. I am so unbelievably mad it is not even funny. Needless to say, hysterical again, I called mommasita. She assured me it would get better before Friday, but I am so angry about it. I even called the seamstress to tell her about it and she "just can't believe" it happened. Well, DUH lady! If you smoke in the house and leave my dress hanging in a smoke infested room, my dress is definitely going to smell like smoke.

At this point, I had given myself a stomachache from all the stress and was just done with the day. I had to meet FH, his brother, and sister in law for dinner though. His brother is marrying us and wanted to go over the final details of the ceremony. I am glad I went because I had a great time catching up with them. I didn't get a pic of my food, but I want you to picture a chopped salad with tomatoes, cukes, onions, olives, and mushrooms. There was also a homemade vinagrette on the salad. I wish I could have had something else, but we were at a pizza joint so there weren't very many options.

When I got home, FH put together the bed for our guest room and I put in a load of laundry. Guess what we found out!! Our washer is leaking. You've got to be kidding me. Looks like I will be doing laundry at Mommasita and Big Daddy Wayne's before the honeymoon.

I wnated to calm down so at about 9:30, I pulled oat (I meant to write OUT, but hey... Fruedian slip, right?) some blueberry muffin crunch cereal to make me feel better about my life.

Nice job muffin man, nice job. You did your job.

I know a lot of you are commenting about how calm I seem 3 days before my wedding, but I'm really not! I'm a crazy wreck.

In retrospect though, if the only bad thing that happens is my dress is a little smelly and I have to dish out more cash than I expected, so be it.

My bestie comes tomorrow (not the one who was featured on here before... I can have two okay?)!! I'm so pumped!

Question: Can you give me some words of encouragement for the days ahead? I would really appreciate it! I love reading everyone's comments. They keep me going for sure!

raw chocolate zucchini muffins

Today I wanted to create something Larabar'ish - and it was delicious.

I call my creation Raw Chocolate Zucchini Muffins.

What you'll need:

• approximately 16-20 pitted dates
• 1/4 cup oats
• grated zucchini, about 1/2 medium zucchini
• 1/4 cup shaved coconut (i used unsweetened, but you can use sweetened)
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder

How it's done:

1. Put dates into processor and grind until smooth.
2. Pour the rest of the ingredients into the food processor and grind until smooth (or semi-smooth).
3. Spoon mixture into greased muffin tins.
4. Place muffin tin into freezer and freeze until set.

You won't regret these! They're rich and chocolatey - I love them!