Another fabulous day

Today, Jay and I are consumer-debt free. Jay is also an official home-owner. I figured that he deserved it after all of his hard work on "my" house.

Tonight we are booking our flights to Australia and New Zealand. We depart for our trip in just 51 days! The itinerary has changed somewhat, as we begin making actual inquiries and plans.

My aunt and uncle will be picking us up in Brisbane and taking us to her home in Surfer's Paradise. We'll stay with her for two days, then the four of us will go down to Coolangatta and stay at the Sebel for three days in a lovely 2 BR apartment. There is a place called Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary where we can cuddle koalas on the way to Coolangatta, so there is no need to visit the place in Brisbane when we arrive jet-lagged. Another thing that we're planning to do in Coolangatta is try out diving . I'd rather realize that I hate diving early in our trip rather than dive for my first time at the Great Barrier Reef, have a panic attack and then be eaten by sharks. We'll then travel back to Surfer's with Nancy & Darryl for our final night. The next morning (Sunday May 19th), we'll be at the airport early for our flight to Airlie Beach and our Whitsunday Cruise.

So that is the trip update!

I've thought a lot over the past year (especially with having a blog) that I would like to get back into photography. It kinda runs in the family. My dad was an excellent photographer, my cousin is an incredible photographer... my mom is an avid photographer,  so hey, it's in my blood. I was into photography in my youth and even won a few prizes entering my photos in the county fair. Back then we shot with film, of course. A month ago I asked my photographer friend Laura for advice on  buying an inexpensive but decent DSLR. After considering her advice, I've decided to go with a refurbished Nikon D80 from B&H photo with a 18-55mm zoom lens.  My new toy should arrive before the weekend! So hopefully my next posts will have some REAL photos in them.

On to the diet... I am down a total of 9 pounds. I think that I'm actually down 10, but the scale wasn't as friendly to me today.

I'm debating whether I should go to the next step down in Atkins - the OWL stage. In OWL, you gradually increase your net carb intake to 25 grams of net carbs the first week. The next week, you increase the net carbs to 30, and so on until you find the right amount without gaining weight.

I'm 22 pounds from my ultimate goal weight, but only 11 pounds from no longer being considered overweight.

I'm happy to report that I've been consistent about exercise as well. I've been to the gym or exercised every other day for at least the past two weeks. My exercise buddy has an injured knee and can't do the regular machines or classes, so tomorrow we are going to attempt to swim laps at the Y. And hoping to not look like complete fools. The doggie paddle is my best stroke, so I might be in trouble!

Oh and I almost forgot - we will have new babies coming next week! My boss is hatching out some of our eggs, so we will have silkie and gold/black star crosses hatching around Friday. Should be some interesting looking chicks. Those are on top of the 15 chicks that I ordered back in November. It sure seemed like a good idea at the time! I'm thinking of giving away or selling 5 or 6 of them, plus a few of my girls that are already laying. A few people I've talked to were interested in trying out chickens. I told them that they could borrow some of mine and if they discovered it wasn't for them that they could give them back.

That's it for now. Fingers crossed for some decent photos to appear next week!

Today is a fabulous day

After several setbacks in our refinancing saga, we closed on our loan today - at 3.75% fixed for 30 years. AWESOME. I've never been so excited to pay off bills. As of next Wednesday, Jay and I will have $0 in consumer debt, have the funds available to finish our house (HVAC, crawlspace insulation, new shed/shop, privacy fence), have 4 months worth of emergency savings, and last but not least will have our Australia/New Zealand trip paid for. Oh, and did I mention that the refinance will also be saving us $500 a month? So with our new savings plan, we will be socking away 10% of our income, which we should really be doing anyway. We had been doing a great job with our savings, but car repairs or other unexpected expenses would always chip away at the account. My 401k is also quite happy these days. Financial stability is feeling mighty great.

To save even more, we've been thinking of getting rid of DirecTV, but our favorite shows are on SyFy, which doesn't work well with Hulu Plus or Netflix. Rather annoying. In three more years, we will also have paid off our DR timeshare (although I expect that we'll get suckered into the next level when we go back) and Jay's student loan will also be paid off, saving us even more money each month. We're keeping his student loan since the interest rate is so low.

I'm also getting a massage after work (a gift from one of my coworkers that I finally booked - great timing!)... plus Jay and I are going out to dinner to celebrate our loan closing! 

I've lost 8 pounds so far on Atkins. Not as much weight as I was hoping to lose in a month, but it's progress. I'm hoping to lose at least 16 pounds before our trip. However, as long as I lose at least 12 pounds before May, I will be back within "normal" limits. To weigh what I did when Jay and I started dating, I will need to lose about 25 more pounds. However, I would be happy with a 23.1 BMI (losing an additional 18 lbs or total weight loss of 26 lbs).

That's it for now! Hope to post about some of our New Zealand activities over the weekend. :)

 

Wordless Wednesdays - The Weight Loss Edition

I haven’t had a slice of bread in three weeks

It’s probably the longest I’ve gone without having bread, rice, or pasta in my life. What I wouldn’t give for a fresh crusty piece of French bread slathered in mashed potatoes and angel hair pasta. Mmmm.

In reality, Atkins is not that bad. The first week was the worst for sure… I felt so bad on the fifth day that I had a PA at work check my blood sugar because I thought I was dying. Turned out that I just needed some delicious salty chicken broth. Your electrolytes can get all out of whack on Atkins, especially during that first week.

There have been some other discoveries, like when I realized that this delicious Caffe Breve that I’m drinking is full of carbs. Crap. I looked at a carton of half & half and assumed that they don’t put that much in the drink. Well… yeah. This drink has at least 16 grams of carbs in it. Crap. Crap. Crap. I decided to search the interwebs about the amount of carbs in a Caffe Breve and it was bad news. So no more lattes, breves or anything. From now on, I’m sticking to brewed coffee with heavy cream and sugar free sweetener.

The other discovery I’ve made is that the Atkins bars and shakes have made me stall. I bought them probably a week or week & a half into the diet when I thought I was going to die. I needed something crunchy and sweet, and they fit the bill. Depending on my cravings, I’ve been eating anywhere from 1 and 3 of those Atkins shakes/bars/treats. Well, the last week hasn’t been good. I drank too many sprite zero & vodkas at a party over the weekend and have probably not been counting carbs as well as I should. This weekend will be another challenge – a one year old’s birthday party and a fun night out with my girlfriends in Baltimore. I think that I’ll choose a drink like vodka and club soda so that I can pace myself better. Those Bacardi & diet cokes and sprite zero & vodkas just go down entirely too smoothly.

My results? The first two weeks were great! The first week I lost 4 lbs and the second week I lost 3 lbs. Week 3 = 0 pounds. In all fairness, I haven’t been great about going to the gym. I’ve only been going about once a week. Starting today, I’m going to be more disciplined. No more Atkins shakes/bars/treats or fancy coffee drinks. Gym no less than three times a week. No alcohol other than vodka & club soda – and those sparingly.

So last weekend I faced a dilemma… what to make for a party. I googled “low carb appetizers” and came up with a bunch of different recipes for stuffed mushrooms. Most of them called for mayo mixed with cheese and artichokes. YUCK. Straight mayo? No thanks, I’ll make my own concoction.

I ended up making shrimp cocktail and my own version of artichoke dip stuffed mushrooms. Both were gone in fifteen minutes… so I’d say that people liked them!

Here is the recipe… it was incredibly simple!

Artichoke Dip Stuffed Mushrooms

Ingredients:

 8 oz softened cream cheese

1 cup Italian blend cheese – parmesan, romano & asiago

14 oz. can of artichoke hearts

2 lbs baby bella mushrooms, cleaned & stems removed

This made about 40 stuffed mushrooms with 1/4 cup of dip leftover.

Drain and finely chop artichoke hearts. I removed a few of the outer leaves if they were too fibrous.

Mix cream cheese, artichokes & cheese.

Stuff mixture into mushroom caps.

Bake on foil-lined tray at 425 for 25-30 minutes, until tops begin to brown.

Enjoy!

Australian Itinerary

Last weekend, Jay and I spent our first free weekend in four months planning our trip to Australia. We also spent a ridiculous amount of time vegetating in front of the TV, but I think we deserved it.

I wish that we were able to leave on May 10^th as we had originally planned, but our friends are getting married that day. I guess that I should be thankful that they’re getting married on Friday instead of Saturday. So now we get one less day in Australia and one more day in New Jersey. Not a great trade-off, but we do love Rick and Morgan.

So we will leave NJ/MD sometime Saturday morning (probably with quite the case of the wine flu) and head to Los Angeles for the day. Flights to Australia don’t leave until after 9pm, so we’ll have the better part of the day to explore the city and tire ourselves out. We’ll be in for 20 hours of air travel (after the flight to LAX), so hopefully we can get some sort of sleep on the plane. Ambien will be my friend.

We will arrive in Brisbane at 11 a.m. (Oz time) on the 13^th, which is 15 hours ahead of EST. Let’s hope that I adjust quickly, because we’re going to hit the ground running. 

Our first day depends on my Aunt Nancy. I originally planned to get a hotel in Brisbane the first night so that we could acclimate to the time difference and visit Koala Pine Sanctuary to snuggle a koala. Now I’m thinking that to maximize time with my aunt, I’ll ask if she’d be up for picking us up at the airport and check out the sanctuary with us. After the sanctuary (or the next day), we will travel an hour south to SurfersParadise and Coolangatta.

We will spend the 13^th-19^th hanging out with my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Darryl in Coolangatta and Surfer’s Paradise. I’m really looking forward to it, as it has been ages since I’ve seen them – probably six years and they have never met my husband. It’s going to be a blast… I can see us getting into all sorts of trouble. So those six days will be spent eating, drinking and making merry. While we’re there, we’ll probably go to another critter sanctuary and whatever touristy thing Nancy suggests. I haven’t done much research into those places.

On Saturday the 19^th, we will depart Surfer’s Paradise for another paradise 1200 kilometers north. We’ll fly to Airlie Beach, which is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands. 

Why the Whitsunday Islands? THIS is why.....................

We’ve decided to book the Whitsunday Blue  for a 2 day, 2 night sailing adventure. From what I’ve read, a live-aboard boat is the best way to see the Whitsunday Islands. The Whitsunday Blue is a catamaran, which makes for a little less seasickness. This boat also has private cabins with bathrooms, which is pretty much unheard of for most live-aboards. It only takes 8 guests, so hopefully they'll be cool. We get along with most people, so I'm not too worried. We’ll be leaving on our adventure on Monday the 20^th and will return to Airlie Beach on Wednesday the 22^nd. 

No time to rest when we return to Airlie Beach on Wednesday! There are only 3 full days left of our trip and we need to make the most of our remaining time. We will be hopping in a rental car and driving towards Dimbulah, Queensland  (700-ish kilometers from Airlie Beach). 

Chances are high that we won’t make it all the way there and will have to rest for the night. This portion of our trip will be our Outbackish portion. Our final destination is not Dimbulah, but Almaden. 

Or maybe Tyrconnell. We’re not sure.  We're kind of winging this part of the trip. Hopefully there will be no international incidents. No tractors or kangaroos crossing our path. That kind of thing. I'd like to think that we learned our lesson after that tractor mishap in Ireland. 

Once we’ve tired of small town life, we will be on the road to Cairns, our final destination in Australia. We may book a reef trip while we’re there. This one  looks promising. They even have an introductory scuba, which I'd like to try.

We will be departing Cairns for Auckland, New Zealand on Sunday, the 26^th. New Zealand remains to be planned, but we know for sure that we’ll be visiting Hobbiton and Waitomo Caves. 

More on New Zealand once we figure out everything we’re doing. Previously, I said that we were going to hike Mount Doom. However, it will depend on the weather and if we’re feeling up to it. I don’t know how much strenuous activity we are going to feel up to. It is vacation after all! 

Diet update coming soon – stay tuned!

Squeee!

The waiting is over!

I am happy to report that all of our hard work has finally paid off.

Our house appraised for $50,000 over what we needed. Now it may be time to do some rate negotiation, as our LTV is pretty significantly lower than we originally expected.

Tom Petty had it right

The waiting really is the hardest part.

 The good news is that we are officially approved for the refinance and the commitment letter has been signed. The bad news is that we are still waiting for the appraisal, which is a condition of the approval. As each day passes, I get more anxious about our home’s value. On Wednesday, our loan officer said that the appraisal was in the review process with the in-between company and that hopefully it would be released tomorrow. Gah!! Well, it’s Friday and the main thing standing between an incredibly fast closing is this stupid appraisal. The appraisal could make or break this refinance. If the appraiser wants to be picky, she could throw in a bunch of things like we have to install railings for our steps or repaint/cover the fascia and soffit. Or maybe she could throw in other things that I haven’t even thought of or noticed.

We’ve wanted to finish the fascia for quite some time, but didn’t know anyone who had a brake. We were not planning to repaint the wood yet again. The plan was to cover the wood with metal, which stands up to the elements much better than wood. It also stands up to birds much better. And squirrels. These critters love to gnaw and peck through wood and nest in our attic. We also haven’t installed railings yet because we are planning to get rid of the brick steps and replace them with wood. So obviously we will do those things, but we just have been busy with the inside of the house. So if we have to do those things first, it will probably put us out another few weeks with the refinance. We’ll have to get the work done and then the appraiser will have to come back out and confirm that those things have been taken care of. I would hope that she would be more lenient since it’s a refinance and not a new purchase.

Part of my relentless obsession over the dollar amount of the appraisal? How much was all of this work really worth? The blood, sweat, tears, stress and the amount of money that we actually put into the house. Will it pay off? Would it have been cheaper to tear the whole thing down and start over? Emotionally, I don't think I could have done that. This was the place I grew up and the place I want to raise my future family. We have put about $80,000 or more into this project, so I am going to be heartbroken if our appraisal doesn't equal the amount of money we put into it.

So… if the appraisal comes back today in the amount that we need with no “subject to” repairs or conditions, I will be a happy camper.

On to the more gooderer stuff!  I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for a long time - this is the first weekend since the beginning of November that we a) haven’t had guests b) have no plans and/or c) Jay hasn’t had to work. We are making a trip to the grocery store tonight and after we get home, our cars are not moving until Monday. I might make it to the gym sometime this weekend, but we’ll see. The Atkins diet is crazy hard, but I’ve had amazing results already. I lost 4 pounds the first week! I know that a few pounds might be water weight. However, I’ve been tracking my exercise and food using LoseIt, and according to that app, I should have lost at least 2 or 3 pounds last week. My clothes feel looser (hurray for less sausage legs) and even though it hasn’t been easy, the quick results have been worth it! I’m hoping that I can stick with the induction phase for at least a month. I do have some challenges coming up – wine and chocolates for the Women’s Club event next Wednesday,  a birthday shindig for a friend next Saturday, more festivities the following weekend. There are plenty of things to get me off track. My plan is that if I’m going to cheat in any way that I have to make up the difference at the gym. I’m going to try hard not to cheat and to stick to a single drink at each event – or have no more than two rum & diet cokes. Or club soda and vodka. Which is disgusting and makes me not want to drink anyway.

So that’s what is up in my world this week. What's up with you?