Thirty Years of This Guy

This last weekend we celebrated Ben's 30th birthday with family and some of our closest friends.  I managed to escape pretty unscathed as far as any cooking/baking was concerned, ah the power of hostess delegation.  Needless to say, we drank most of the beers, ate not enough of the food, lit some shit on fire and enjoyed ourselves with some amazing company.  Post-party I was told (by Ben) that it was "absolutely perfect" and that made me smile soooo big.

Today is Ben's actual birthday, the big three-oh.  We don't have anything elaborate planned but he does get spoiled pretty thoroughly.  He made his breakfast requests, that had me up cooking at 3:45 (with a smile on my face).  He's made his dinner requests that I'll deliver on tonight, scallops annnnnnnd I haven't figured out the rest yet.

Yeah that's a raisin heart, what?!

Have you ever met one of those people that everyone likes?  The kind that everyone has something kind to say about?  "I've never met anyone that doesn't like Ben!" says my mom on a regular basis.  And dammit that little woman is right!  I'm lucky enough to be married to one of those people, and I may not remember it often but it's just one of the 3972372979 reasons I love him so very much.  When I grow up I wanna be as well-liked, laid back, good hearted and kind as my dear husband.  I can't wait to celebrate his next 30 and then some.

He sneaks them treats so they'll like him better.

Carhartts do a body good. Swoon.

Happy Birthday, love!

Strangers

I saw this video recently and got goosebumps and my leg hair grew a little, but more importantly, I absolutely loved the message behind it.  And I love the title that "strangers are friends we haven't met yet" and find that to be oh SO true.

More often than not people are closed, guarded, hesitant, you name it when it comes to strangers.  What if that wasn't the case?  What if we gave strangers a chance?  What if we assumed that strangers, like us, had the best of intentions, were willing to help us out if we were in trouble, were wondering the same things about us that we're wondering about them?

Often times we wait until big/bad things happen in order to do that something extra for a stranger.  It's some odd human nature thing that I'll never understand.  But what if we didn't?  What if we made that effort, consciously, all the time?  What if we followed through on all our generous impulses?  Not just buying someone their coffee or making a donation, but the little things, even smaller than that.  Letting someone over when you're stuck in traffic, returning someone's cart for them at the grocery store, holding the door extra long even if you're in a hurry…you know what I mean.

While a lot of us use days like today to remember, to honor and to thank (myself included), I also feel like we should use days like today to challenge ourselves…to be better people and in turn make the world a better place.  Sounds pretty lofty and idealistic coming from a random woman in Maryland, but when people add up they can do big things.

So today, I challenge you to do something, no matter how small, to make this world a better place.  Are you up for the challenge?  And heck, while you're at it, share it!

Meathead Monday: Maximizing Results

What does it take to see results? For me, it's a matter of maximizing my time! I'm struggling between my desire to pick heavy things up and put them down and getting my stomach to stop jiggling when I brush my teeth. Aka: weights vs cardio. With an hour to work out in the morning it's a challenge for me to do both, or at least it feels that way.

Once I got to a # I was pretty content with and no longer FELT chunky on a daily basis, I stopped being so crazy about cardio and thoroughly enjoyed a workout that consisted primarily of weights. Was I seeing results? Yep. Were my pants fitting any better than they were before? Nope. I know I need to find a better combination of the two. This week I'm making an effort to get to the gym at 5:15. Supposedly they open at 5:30 but the doors usually get unlocked around 5:15! What's that mean? Means my jiggly ass can get in 45 minutes of cardio PLUS 30 minutes of weights and still have time for my morning routine.

Ok ok, so this might be one of the creepier selfies I've taken.

That's my goal for this week. Good thing I don't give a shit about sleep! Also, the weekends have been crushing my ass lately, not in a good way. This upcoming weekend won't be much different! So let's go for Meathead Monday (through Friday) so that come Saturday and Sunday I don't feel bad about eating some birthday cake. Ben is turning 30 and I'm throwing his ass a little cookout on Saturday. And although cake goes best with milk, lezbehonest, I'll be chasing it with cocktails.

Must. Work. Ass. Off. This. Week.

In other news. The woman on the elliptical next to me looked like she was about to give birth this morning. I just kept thinking she'd really fuck up my bicep routine if she did.

And because I didn't take any pictures of cardio, weights and pregnant ladies, here's a few pictures from this weekend's shenanigans.  The highlights of which included a some quality time with Ben, a bonfire with my brother and soon-to-be sis and some Puerto Rican cooking lessons from mom!

 

Arroz con pollo…working on getting the recipe!

 

Is there something you can do this week to maximize your meatheadedness?

Three Slash Ten

My dear sweet husband and I got married on our pre-existing anniversary, what does that mean?

1. It's harder for him (or me) to forget it.

2. I get to celebrate our wedding anniversary and "dating" anniversary at the same time and emphasize whichever number is more exciting that particular year.

Today we're celebrating 10 years of being together and 3 years of marriage (see what I did there?).

So I've talked about how we met 10 years ago on that fateful night (I searched "cops came" in order to find and link that post).  I haven't talked much about the fact that things haven't always been easy for us.  We've had our ups and downs, with a decent amount of downs.  We've struggled financially, gone through career changes, made bad decisions, made great decisions, yelled, cried, been to counseling, spoiled our dogs furry children and learned a lot from each other.  But above all, we've laughed, and as long as we keep each other laughing I'm 100% sure that with him by my side I can get through anything.  And I know he feels the same way.

These days, it's mostly ups and it's mostly awesome.  We appreciate each other, rely on each other and absolutely and genuinely enjoy each other's company.

What are we doing for our anniversary?  Who knows cares!  I made him breakfast this morning at 4:00 while he was getting ready for work and by doing so, foiled his plan of doing the same for me, ahh great minds.  We'll figure something out I'm sure.

There's no one I'd rather have by my side!

Back to Life

Long weekends, what a love hate relationship I have with you.  This one felt longer than most.  Meathead Monday was taken over by Myheadhurts Monday, but I spent some quality time with some of my favorite people and made the most of the days! I did some drinking (shocking) and some cooking (also shocking as of late).

Check out these tasty things I made…

Tomato + avocado bruschetta with basil and balsamic.

Caprese turkey burger with balsamic mayo, messy and outstanding.

Buffalo turkey sliders for that ever so familiar wing craving.

I had an interesting realization this weekend when Ben and I went canoeing.  I did NOT grow up doing outdoorsy things like fishing, hiking, canoeing, etc.  When Ben and I started dating I tried all of those things because I wanted to impress him, but I was pretty scared shitless of them.  Then, when I gained weight I stopped agreeing to do those things.  I wasn't confident for SO many reasons.  I didn't wanna hike because I'd literally have to sit down because I'd get so exhausted (you can read about that here).  I didn't wanna go canoeing and camping because I'd have to be in a swimsuit in front of a shit load of people (is shitload one or two words?).  Basically, it's not that the activities weren't fun, it's that the Tara wasn't fun.  I didn't enjoy things and I didn't really enjoy life as much as I should've.

Lately, we've been doing those things.  The things that Ben loves that (gasp) I'm starting to adore!  The things we can enjoy with friends and family and the things that we can do just the two of us and have the best day.  And I think most of the reason I've been enjoying them is because I'm not concerned about how I look in a swimsuit, or what people will think if my shorts are too short (it may help that I drink a decent amount of beers during some of these activities).  I can't help but to think how much more I could've enjoyed things had I adopted that confidence and that I don't care attitude back then.  It absolutely makes a world of difference.  Everyone posts these transformation Tuesday pictures and sure, they're impressive and inspirational, but there's so many more changes you can't see and those are the ones I'm enjoying the most.  With that said, here's a transformation Tuesday picture (holy shit I'm putting a swimsuit picture on the interweb)…I couldn't find a before picture of me in a swimsuit sans coverup (thank your lucky stars for that).

So while the physical transformation is a good one, it's not the only one.  And if you think about it, I bet there's something you can transform starting riiiiight abouuuut now…