Loca Loca Loca

This week has been great!
Seriously, I know I talk about Zumba a lot, and it probably gets super annoying... but I don't know what I would do without it! And being able to Zumba SO MUCH this week has not only completely distracted me from the stupid crap going on, but I feel SO amazing! There are not words to express how happy I am that my mom and I started Zumba. Most of all, that we found Cecy as our Zumba instructor!

 I've spent the majority of the night just sittin on facebook and looking at a million pictures, and started looking at pictures of my mom and I from a few months before we started Zumba.

We went from this:

To this:

 haha.. I couldn't pick just one, I had to do both!

I'm so proud of my Mama and how much she's lost! I wish that I had stayed as buckled and strict on a diet and she was when we started, but I was still eating pretty bad and kickin' back the hooch quite often (most times even AFTER zumba :/ ha) But serioulsy! Look at how good she looks! I love you mom!

I seriously feel so good right now after all of this "working out" I've done this week. And I can already feel a huge difference! I was watching a movie on TV with my grandma earlier. Holding the remote with one hand, and my other had just resting on my bicep. I went to change channels when a commercial came on, and just that small movement made me think "DAYUMMM!!! There's some nice feelin' muscle there Shandi!" haha. My arms feel toned. My legs feel toned. Even my middle is feeling better! (that's my most uncomfortable area, so that's AWESOME!) All I can think about is finding time to Zumba tomorrow. Which really would be quite easy seeing as I get off work at 2. Anyone down to Zumba with me? Let's find a place and come up with a time and let's do it! I've had a day to let my body rest and my muscles chill and stop aching so much! haha

This is my "I feel really good about myself so I'm going to take a picture with no make-up, hair not done, and no bra(tmi? haha)" picture. **also** note Gary the snail on my phone. haha. It makes me happy.

Anyhow, I hope everyone had an excellent week. And I'm sorry for yapping about Zumba non-stop every day of my life. I hope I'm not boring you to death!

Wednesday?

For reals on Wednesday even! Although, I was tempted to wait until tomorrow, as I will be doing TWO zumba classes tomorrow! haha.

I hopped on the scale today after Zumba and am down another 2lbs.
Total loss: 5lbs. ohhh yeah.
I'm pretty happy with that. :)


There's a lot to catch up on. Even though there's hardly anything to catch up on.

We came to an agreement that while we've been having a lot of fun, our once amazing friendship has disappeared. So we put an end to not being together and are going to focus on getting our friendship back to being awesome before one of us ends up getting hurt. It's so stupid. But it totally needed to happen. I'm just happy we both agree that we need to fix it now rather than wait until it's past the point of being fixed. I just love him.

and then i take blurry photos of myself.

Lots of Zumba this week. Tuesday night. Wednesday morning. I'm going to go help my mom teach at the church at 6:30am (yikes!) Thursday. And then Thursday night after work! (If I've survived!) I just love Zumba so much. And now that weekend snuggles are gone, it really is just about the only thing I look forward to. I can already feel the amazing difference just this week has made. And my legs feeling toned again. If Zumba were a man, I'd totally marry it.

I decided to start working on some shirts the other night to get myself out of my lonely funk. I've had back orders for my "Zumba" shirts I made a loooooong time ago for so long, I decided I might as well get on it. And update a little.

They're freakin' sweet. Once I get these done I need to start on making a variety of Shandi shirts also. I forget how popular they are. (haha, it sounds like I'm so vain, but really---they're in high demand)

I'm staying the night at my moms tonight so I can get up in the morning and go with her to teach her "Brazilian dance aerobics class" (can't call it the "Z" word haha) . I was originally going to finish making the shirts for Zumba tomorrow night, but I'm too tired. I'm surprised I've even blogged for this long! Haha. all I know is that there are not enough words to express how excited I am to go from sleeping in this bed:

to this bed:

ohhh I love big beds. And my parents guest bed is seriously soooooo comfortable. And the sheets are soooo cozy.

And I get the best snuggle buddy ever tonight too!

(sometimes when I ask for "puppy kisses" he gets confused and thinks I'm saying "bite my face off")

haha.

I just found this picture, it makes me miss being "skinny". It's from when I first moved in with my grandma, and I had gotten SO SICK right before then and couldn't eat or keep anything down for about 2 weeks and lost a whole bunch of weight. On top of already not really eating a whole lot because we were a bunch of bums and never had food at our apartment.   Anyhow... my goal is to be back to that! (I only have about 10 more pounds to go to the weight I was there... which certainly isn't my END goal... but for now that's what I'd like to focus on.)

That ending there was a bit random.

That is all for tonight. Hope every one's week is going swimmingly.

Wish me luck on waking up and working out at a most ungodly hour tomorrow! hehe

bloggin' explosion!

In my mind right now... This post is going to have soooooooo many different topics. But I'm also quite tuckered out from my exciting day, so I'll do my best to get it all in before I fall asleep on my keyboard!

First off! I know it's Thursday, but my good bloggin' friend Heidi has started a "weigh-in wednesday" feature on her blog, and I said I was going to join her, and then lady time showed up so I postponed. But I decided no longer! I must begin!

(she also has a super cute photo that she uses every week for her feature, so I decided to copy-cat and make one too!)

The last time I weighed myself, I weighed x amount of pounds (no way I'm postin' that number until I lose quite a bit more!) and tonight when I hopped on the scale, I was  3 pounds less! Yes! Honestly, I'm a little suprised about this, as I've been curing my self pity and lady time induced yucky feelings with eating (awesome?). But hey, I'm not complainin! Time to kick this weight-loss in to high gear! (continue reading for more details!)

Heidi is soooo cute and crafty! She's having a give away on her blog right now

Her etsy shop is sooo cute! I've been wanting to order things from it so bad, too bad I'm a po' Shando. At least when I get moved to full time at the job I'll be able to spoil myself with such delights! In the meantime,  I decided to enter the give away! :) *crosses fingers*!

Of course, went hangin out with the boys the other night, and I just LOVE Big D! He's such a goofball! I know, I know, I talk about him and always say the exact same things.. but he's just such a sweetheart. And makes me feel so awesome when he gets excited, almost like a little kid, when I go over. Haha... oh man.

I also got my hair done yesterday! My sweet, beautiful, incredible (Bride-to-Be) cousin Alesia does hair, and she's so good to me and does mine for a most reasonable price. :) I decided a few days back that I wanted something different, but not TOO different, as I love my hair way too much and changing it makes me nervous. So I decided maybe a little red, and a teensy twist on the cut would do the trick. Alesia said she could certainly deliver for me. And added the extra bonus of maybe some colored extensions. So she picked up some BRIGHT RED extensions and we had at it!

It's hard to tell the overall red color, I was trying to get a good picture to show it alll day, but none of them worked as well as I liked. But trust me... it looks freakin SWEET! I love it sosososososooo much! She's the best ever! And really the only one I trust with my hair anymore. I don't even have to tell her what to do, just let her have at it and I know I'll always leave LOVING my hair. (click on her name above and set up an appt if you're interested in some sweet hair action! Or click here for the FB page for her salon)

Speaking of my sweet, beautiful, incredible (Bride-to-Be) cousin Alesia, she usually has Thursdays off, and I had the day off from PH so we made plans to go to breakfast an hang out. She met me at my house and we ran a few errands. Picked up my good friend Erik. It was so nice hanging out with him. I've really missed him a lot. Even if he is having a tough time right now, it was just nice to know that we're still friends. We went to Callie's for breakfast. Mmmm. Dee-lish! 3 pitcher's mounds, and a million coffees (all around, not just me haha) later we headed off to take Erik back and then we went to do some wedding stuff! I'm her Maid of Honor and this was the first chance we've had to be together and start plannin'. Well, with me anyways. Haha. There was a bit of a panic-mode for a minute when she said she wants to go next month to get my dress! I want to be SKINNY for the wedding! So, time for this girl to start REALLY working to get smaller by next month! YIKES! I'm thinking about trying the whole "no-carbs" business, but it makes me nervous, especially since I don't eat a lot of meat... Anyone have any good "diet" type ideas? Or know a good carb-free meal plan?

I saw these super cute plates at the paper store we went to. I almost just want to buy them for fun!

my sweet, beautiful, incredible (Bride-to-Be) cousin Alesia

can you believe there's THAT many choices for envelopes!? Cuz I had no idea!

Needless to say, it was an AWESOME day! And to finish it all off, ZUMBA!

post Zumba sweaty-beauty! ha

I hope everyone else had a great Thursday!

Sunshine Sunshine is fine

Today was BEAUTIFUL! Just the kind of day I needed!
Even though I woke up late for work, I just KNEW today was going to be great the second I saw the sun shining through my blinds. Work at PH was pretty good. Came home early and hung out with my Grandma for a bit before my "in-between-jobs-revamp-nap". Went to work at the call center and kicked butt. Talked to my Team Lead about getting more hours, and he asked if I'd be interested in FULL TIME! (ah! I wasn't going to say anything so I wouldn't jinx it.. I just HAD to!) He's going to look over my numbers and we'll discuss it more after this week I think. Which is AWESOME because I reeeeeeeaaaaaallly didn't want to be working BOTH jobs while my parents are on their cruise and I'm kickin' it with my brother.


Anyhow. I went to the boys last night after posting that whiny baby post, and I just have to say, Matt and Dustin are my absolute favorites. They can always make me smile. And Big D and I, I swear it seems we've got each others backs when the one of us is feeling blue. And he's always so down to take pictures with me. And I like that, because then it still allows me to be a little vain on the bloggin photo business.

This one was his personal favorite, due to the face he's making. haha

And this guy just always makes me smile. Always has. Even during my toughest times with friends, the ex, myself, he's been my rock through so much crappy stuff and doesn't let me dwell on it. Sure, he'll let me complain for what's worth complainin, and then it's over. We move on. And that's the best. And is for sure exactly what I needed yesterday. (and the added bonus of snuggles and kisses isn't too bad either.. haha)

I should have gotten off of the computer so long ago and gone to bed. So I think I'll do that now. I hope everyone had a great Monday! And let's get this amazing mood to go all week! Even if the weather doesn't!


*also*

my body is trying to grow a horn... soooo not cool. (the white circle in the pic is my Mary Kay mask that I've been caking on there to try to make the sucker go away...) I've come to the conclusion that it's either a horn, or my body just decided that one head wasn't enough for this Shando, time to sprout another on the forehead.


So here's to also hopin' lady time induced acne goes away SOOON! hehe

Fire Pants...

I lied. This post is not going to be awesome.



I'm sooooooo sad. Blegh. Lady time arrived, and it's kicking my butt. Serrrriously!
I just wish I had a big bed with baby not-boyfwen to come snuggle and watch movies all night and pat my head when I keep crying for no reason.

UGH!


I'm so over this. Cheer up, buck-o. It'll all be okay. Quit being so down. RIGHT NOW!
There's so many uncomfortable feelings and thoughts that I haven't thought or felt in years and years, perhaps I'm just overreacting. I know nothing can change unless I make it so. It just feels like everything I do lately to make things better, either doesn't change anything, or things just continue getting worse on their own.

Somebody all the WAAAAAAAAAAAMBULANCE.
Make them take me away.

Day 29 - In this past month what have you learned?

In the last month, I've learned that winter is only good for the Holidays.
Well, I guess more, remembered. As I'm quite certain I've learned that before.

I've learned that... uh...

I don't know.
This post is dumb. I'm done with it. haha.

*******************

Along those same wintry lines, however... enjoy this photo:

My mom works at the Elementary school, and I went with her last Saturday to help her out with something. As we were walking back out to the car, I saw this poster. Ohhhh Spring cannot come fast enough!

So, what was I helping my Mom with you ask? Lemme tell you. She recently switched jobs at the school to the Librarian and she needed some help decorating one of the bulletin boards there. She opened up the "Work Room" door and said to have at it! It was like a dream come true. Wall to wall paper in all different colors, textures, sizes. Scissors! Glue! Glitter!(which, I unfortunately found too late. Probably for the best.) Anyhow... this is what I came up with:

My mom made the snowflakes. :)

In other news... I've been so down lately. My face is breaking out... I'm grumpy and whiny baby... I keep crying. (No, I'm not tearing this out of Heidi's blog, I promise it's happening to me too! haha) I'm quite sure my lady time is trying to show up... My body is just stupid.

And this whole winter thing is getting so old. I just want sunshine! And things that make me happy! Like being outside without freezing! Swimming! Tanning! Hiking! Kite flying!  AHHHH!

It feels like the only thing I look forward to now are Zumba, and weekend snuggle sleepovers. How pathetic.

At least I have during the week sweetheart kisses. And good company to make me smile.

I'm trying to cheer up. I'd like to NOT keep posting such yucky posts. Sorry for being a downer, fellow bloggers. Next post I promise to be more awesome.

*also* I really Really Reeeeeaaaaaaally hate noisy eaters. Especially when it involves lip smacking. It's disgusting. And makes me want to scream and smack the person in the mouth.     that is all.

Day 28 - A picture of you in the last year and now, how have you changed since then?

One year ago: I was still very heart broken and desperate for any sort of company. 

I don't remember being this cold all the time.

Quite unhealthy. Physically and mentally.

A pro at making questionable impulse decisions.

Now: Healed.

Happy.

I can be comfortable being alone.

Hair about 4 inches longer.

Found Zumba, and feel 10 times healthier. (both physically AND mentally!)

Non-Smoker.

Freakin' awesome. (a whole years' worth more..)

****************

This past weekend was my good friend Janice's Birthday. So we went to SLC for her party. I have so much fun when we go up there. It's nice hanging out with a bunch of people who just want to have a good time. I decided to use my Ipod as my camera for the evening and took SO many pictures! (If you've seen my FB you know what I'm talking about..)



Exibit A:
mustache photo. They have this mustache on their bathroom mirror... I couldn't resist.

The whole night was so fun. So many great people. And seeing the way Not-Boyfriend acts when around the SLC crowd makes me happy. And Salt Lake adventures very rarely disappoint.

                            Me, Hailey, and Janice

This is also the night I realized how you change the lens on the incredibooth. And trust me... It was quite the big deal when I realized that my photos with Big D came out in COLOR  haha.

Also, look at how he's such a studly Dustin.

Man I'm friends with some attractive people. haha. ;)



And then there's this guy...

I'm sad he (along with quite a few other people this night) didn't realize that the incredibooth takes FOUR photos, so he was making the same face in ever picture. Whatta dough-head.



I think that's about it. Not much else to talk about.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and is having a great start to the week!

Day 27 - Why are you doing this 30 day challenge?

Why am I doing this "Challenge" you ask?

Because I sucked real bad at knowing what to blog about when I started this blog up again.. So I figured having pre-chosen topics would help me along.

I was right.. but now it's just obnoxious! haha. :D

 *****************

It's cold.



And I need to trim my bangs.

Have a GREAT night!

(thanks for stoppin' by!)

Resolution breakin'

I just can't seem to get myself to do any 30 days of blogging again today.
I don't even know what the next "subject" is...


I just wanted to make this a quick post anyhow.

Today was wonderful. Didn't have to work one job, so I went to the other early so's to get off early and have a nice evening with my family.
I made a deal with myself last night. No more whiny baby days this week. I used up my quota on my sick days. So from here on out, POSITIVITY IS KEY! ha. Seems to be working alright.  :)

I'm somewhat stuck in a musical rut, however. That sounds so silly. But I'm working on getting my new ipod filled up, I've got most of my music on there, going to steal the essentials from the boys. But I want something new.
Any musical suggestions? Any kind really. As I love most anything. (considering I already have everything from Billy Holiday to Leftover Crack on my old ipod...)

Just a few photos now..

 I know I know... I said to take it easy on the pictures of myself.. 

But I DID also say I'm resolution breakin' in this post too. ;)

This was a few nights ago, the sunset was BEAUTIFUL there were so many amazing colors in the sky. 

I was driving so I wasn't able to get as good of a picture as I'd like, but I think this does some justice.

Anyhow, I hope every one's Tuesday is going swimmingly. I'm getting anxious for Zumba! I just want it to be time to get ready.

1-because it's Zumba. And I'd marry it if I could.

2-because JODI is coming tonight! Oh I can't wait! :DD

Resolutions?

1- Finish 30 days of blogging that has instead lasted 3 months...

2- No more soda. Or at least go back to very rarely soda. Ever since I quit smoking I've been drinking a lot more soda... It's gotta go!

3- Cut back on the hooch.

I don't drink often. But I'd like to make it even less. And with weight-loss in mind, it can only make things better!

4- Exercise at LEAST 4 days a week. I've got my 2 guaranteed Zumba days. I need to make sure I'm doing 2 more days of SOMETHING!

5- Spend more time with my family. (extended family also. With the Holidays over, I've been racking my brain trying to figure out when we're going to have an excuse to all get together again!)

7- Keep my room clean.

I'm sure there's more that needs to be done, but I think that's a good start.

 I probably should start taking more pictures like this though...

 Or perhaps just consider growing a sweet 'stache... somehow.

 Maybe just stick to :

8- Post pictures of more than just self when blogging.

You vain, vain Shando...

How's everyone holding up with their New Years Resolutions? :D