When I can't sleep

Man, it was one of those nights. They are rare, but when they happen its a nightmare. I laid awake for over an hour last night. My mind would NOT shut off. Too much to think about.





What do you when you can't sleep? Personally I cuddle up on the couch with my puppy and watch movie series. Currently I'm addicted to Grey's Anatomy. Third season, episode 16. And. It's. Awesome.

psyched.

Completely and totally PSYCHED for this movie. 

It had better be the best movie of the year, no the century.

411 to my husband, I want to go to this premier aka the midnight premier for my birthday since its only five days before my birthday and then I want to go to breakfast on my birthday morning. 

That is all. And anyone who reads this has permission to remind him of this. 

Preferably before my birthday. 3/28

1950's wife

 Sometimes, well often, I am an awful wife. An awful 1950's wife that is.

There are often piles of laundry lying around clean and dirty often getting intermixed; a sink full of dishes, even after I swear they just got done; shoes, shoes everywhere, my husband's shoes, my shoes; the dog's toys strewn in the most unimaginable places (behind the toilet?);  appliances crowding our counter tops, always in convenient reach but never in their rightful spot hidden away in the cupboards; and always there are pieces of clutter on my floors, tracks of dirt from my husband's boots.

Consequently I don't even have any babies to give me a good excuse for the lack of order. Only a dog, who I fawn over as if she is my baby.

And yet, my husband still loves me inspite of it all. I am so glad that the man I married is not from an earlier time when a women's role is to slave for her husband, to keep the house, the children, and the dog immaculately spotless. As a matter of fact he helps me with it.

I love that man.

Say What?: Crystal Light

 
Continuing along with our specific health myths because of the spike in 'healthiness' because of NYR's I figured this was the perfect time to add this information to your pile to consider what you use to become more 'healthy'. A lot of people along with diet's and overly rigorous exercise programs start doing everything they can to cut sugar, fat, and even essential nutrients out of their intake. However, often when they go to the efforts of switching from regular to diet sodas or sugar free drinks they often put something into their body even worse than the real thing.

Did you ever wonder how sugar free drinks still taste so good? I mean, there's no way the product would stay afloat on the market if they tasted nasty. They have to be putting something in that is substituted but doesn't break down as natural sugar. My friend Emily Ferguson wanted to know specifically about the substitution in Crystal Light and the implications of its health risks. I loved that I got this idea, because I had never really thought about it because I avoid diet or sugar free drinks as a general rule.

So for the down and dirty details, "Crystal Light...depend for their low calorie content on two artificial sweeteners: aspartame and acesulfame potassium" (source)

Among other things, Aspartame's side effects include...

Abdominal Pain
Anxiety attacks
Arthritis
Asthma
Asthmatic Reactions
Bloating, Edema (Fluid Retention)
Blood Sugar Control Problems (Hypoglycemia or Hyperglycemia)
Brain Cancer 
Breathing difficulties
Burning eyes or throat
Burning Urination
Chest Pains
Chronic cough
Chronic Fatigue
Confusion
Death
Depression
Diarrhea
Dizziness
Excessive Thirst or Hunger
Fatigue
Feel unreal
Flushing of face
Hair Loss (Baldness) or Thinning of Hair
Headaches/Migraines dizziness
Hearing Loss
Heart palpitations
Hives (Urticaria)
Hypertension (High Blood Pressure)
Impotency and Sexual Problems
Inability to concentrate
Infection Susceptibility
Insomnia
Irritability
Itching
Joint Pains
Laryngitis
Marked Personality Changes
Memory loss
Menstrual Problems or Changes
Migraines and Severe Headaches (Trigger or Cause From Chronic Intake)
Muscle spasms
Nausea or Vomiting
Numbness or Tingling of Extremities
Other Allergic-Like Reactions
Panic Attacks
Phobias
Poor memory
Rapid Heart Beat
Rashes
Seizures and Convulsions
Slurring of Speech
Swallowing Pain
Tachycardia
Tremors
Tinnitus
Vertigo
Vision Loss
Weight gain

(source)

Does anyone else find it slightly ironic that the additive that is being used in place of sugar to help 

reduce weight gain can actually cause weight gain as a side effect? 

Another little tidbit is that 10% of aspartame is Methanol also known as Wood Alcohol and can be a  

poison and can cause serious vision problems when consumed in high amounts. 

Aspartame may also trigger or contribute to these other diseases,

Aspartame may trigger, mimic, or cause the following illnesses:
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Epstein-Barr
Post-Polio Syndrome
Lyme Disease
Grave’s Disease
Meniere’s Disease
Alzheimer’s Disease
ALS
Epilepsy
Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
EMS
Hypothyroidism
Mercury sensitivity from Amalgam fillings
Fibromyalgia
Lupus
non-Hodgkins
Lymphoma
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) 
(source) 

In addition, aspartame is shown to lead to cancer in lab rats....does that worry you? It worries me. READ CAREFULLY: aspartame is the number one additive in over 75% of adverse reactions reported to the FDA and is present in almost all popular sugar substitutes such as NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, Equal-Measure, and other common foods such as...

Carbonated Soft Drinks (anything that advertises Diet)
Some Cereals
Chewing Gum
Fruit Spreads (jams and jellies)
Sugar free Ice Cream
Juice drinks
Maple Syrups
Pudding
Sugar Free Cookies
Sugar Free Ketchup
Fat Free Yogurt
Sugar Free Yogurt
And many many many more. 
(source)

Aspartame is actually present in over 6,000 food and drink products that are marketed world wide. So since its so widespread, what do you do to help keep it out of your foods and your families? READ THE LABELS! I will be the first to admit, I have my favorite prepackaged foods. But I don't eat them everyday, and I severely limit my consumption of them.


So obviously, drinking water sweeteners, or Diet drinks can be very unhealthy for you and even worse than a real sugar drink. A lot of people go overboard trying to change all their habits at the beginning of the year, thinking that they can make extreme changes and no harm will come of it. However, I suggest and practice rarely ever drinking soda, and I do not use any water additives except Airborne. Instead of going cold turkey from sugar and high carbs on your body to drop that beginning of the year weight, try changing a simple habit like what you drink. Until you are thru withdrawals from whatever carbonated beverage you intake I wouldn't suggest making extreme changes to your diet as well, or the lack of sugars and fats your body is used to ingesting will make your hormone and neuron impulses to and from your brain go Jackie Chan and you will cave on your diet and relapse. Big time.


Suggestions to helping water taste a little bit better than just normal water would be putting a lemon slice in (only one) or cutting some cucumber and adding that in. Personally I don't find anything more refreshing than ice cold water straight out of my Brita pitcher. If you think you're tap water tastes off, it probably is. Tap water on average has lots of additives that make it taste funky. The solution is a filter system. Either way drink lots and lots of water. 


p.s. did you know the solution to helping someone who is detoxing, dieting, recovering from illness, surgery, extreme exercise, etc. faster is to drink water to help get rid of the toxins. 


p.p.s. if you want more information of food additives to avoid, this list may interest you.

Hawaiian Christmas I

So as many of you know we ventured far from home and sweet little puppy for two weeks to spend our Christmas holiday in glorious Honolulu, HI to visit my parents on their LDS senior couple mission. Since I took over 500 pictures, we of course will have to do some installments and since we did so many amazing things, I figured that would be easiest to break it down. Hope you enjoy!

We arrived late at night so it wasn't until morning that we got to see what a amazing view we would get to see each day

Our very first activity was going to see Pearl Harbor. Although it was so crowded and tourists were everywhere, the beautiful message and peace was still very potent. It's one of those things you just have to experience for yourself. Another check on the bucket list.

Many thanks to my sweet Aunt Kathy and Cousin Suzie for getting the tickets and coming along with my parents and us even though they had already gone about ten times themselves (Suzie and her husband Preston are stationed on Ford Island which is behind us in the picture above).

Addicted to a certain movie

Do you ever find yourself feeling like you need  little pick me up and you can think of the perfect movie to watch that fits the mood...but you don't have it? I hate that! We have seriously over a hundred movies, and I constantly am saying to Jer, "I want to watch 500 Days of Summer."

So I finally bought it. I can't wait for next Monday, which is when its supposed to get here!

Ever have those movies you just love to watch and you can't really explain why?

What I wake up to

....every morning.

 

And I love it.

Happy Monday!

Fashion Alert: Gap Outlet

For all those chic girls who LOVE sales on top of sales, today is the LAST DAY to get an extra 30% off anything and everything at the Gap Outlet.



All you have to do is enter NEWYOU at checkout and cha-ching. I have to admit I already indulged in not one but two pairs of these cream cords that were not ten dollars, but $6!

What could I possibly want two for you ask? Well, I'm going to be making my own colorful cords in the next week or so, so stay tuned! This could be the craft project that is over my head...

Rings of a more than basic nature

Fashion Find:
"Spoon rings were first made in 17th century England as wedding rings by servants who could not afford expensive precious metals. Servants would steal a silver spoon from their master and have it turned into a wedding ring to be worn on the thumb of their love. Servants who were caught stealing their masters' spoons were sentenced for 'stealing a silver spoon.’ An expression of love got the servants 7 years of imprisonment overseas. When they arrived, some of the servants met skillful prisoners who could turn spoons into rings. They took yet another spoon from an officer or their new master to present their love with a precious ring. Ever since, spoon rings have been a timeless gift of love."

I got mine through a friend of a friend whose cousin makes them. And might I say, I rarely wear jewelry on a daily basis except a pair of diamond stud earrings, my wedding rings, and my watch. And this has officially been added to the classification of daily wear.

They are easily found here, here, and my favorite here.

Name Changer

A lot of my married girlfriends joke around about how I got the short end of the stick when I got married because of the name I received. Smith, the second most common last name in the U.S. was extremely more common than Mills. Truthfully it made me feel kind of anonymous. When people discovered my last name they all respond, "Oh Smith, huh? That's really rare" or something like that. It's kind of become a running joke.  Most women when they get married take on a more unique last name, but not me.

Somehow though, it hasn't really mattered in the long run. And there are plenty of positives to having a common last name.

Top three I've come up with so far...

1. Now in classes where I was normally the only Mills, I now get to wait until almost the end of the roll and I don't really have to pay attention until I hear the first Smith because I'm normally the third or fourth.
2. When we're out to eat and a reservation for Smith gets called and no one responds we normally get up and take it. Definitely a perk. And no that isn't immoral or anything.
3. Whenever we go to Smith's grocery and we're checking out, if the clerk asks how we'd like to pay we say, "Hey we're somehow related to the people who own this place; I'm sure you can just put it on our tab." They don't normally find that one funny, but we do!

Jared also suggested naming our first son Wesson Smith as a pun from Smith & Wesson...but I shot that one down before he could finish his sentence.

Say What?: HCG Diet

This topic, is something very important to me. I wanted to focus on extreme dieting at some point and it seemed perfect because its that time of year when everyone and their dog tries to lose weight by radically extreme measures. And it is SOOO unhealthy for you. One diet in particular caught up one of my girlfriends in its promises of lost weight, and unfortunately has resulted in very real consequences for her.

"Thousands of people are latching onto a diet that promises rapid weight loss—up to 30 pounds a month—and, judging by its recent surge in popularity, actually delivers. But the so-called hCG diet is either a weight-loss miracle or a dangerous fraud, depending on who's talking." (U.S. news: health)

So lets delve deeper into the facts. The HCG diet revolves around a combination of two efforts, limiting your daily intake to 500 calories, and either taking drops or shots daily of hCG (human chorionic gonadotropic) which is actually a hormone produced in pregnant women. All this to help you, "drop into the new you" (source). So what does this get you besides being terribly hungry, and "lose a lot extreme"? (source)

Well some of the side effects include gallstone formation, irregular heartbeat, hair loss, oh and of course our dear friend constant constipation. Additionally the FDA has even come out saying that hCG supplements are illegal and fraudulent (Dr. Oz). So why between all these warnings and side effects do people still use it?

Because they're dropping weight. However if any person were to limit their daily caloric intake to 500 they would also lose weight. But that is considered starving yourself, and ultimately the weight you lose during this diet is all regained once you return to your previous lifestyle. When your body is coming out of starvation mode after being starved of its needed calories for extended period of time it is going to take every single calorie it can get and then store them away like a bear preparing for another long winter.

On some occasions in addition to regaining the weight in women specifically injecting all of that hormone found in pregnancy can actually disrupt your natural reproductive cycle, which is what happened to my friend who is now trouble with infertility.

Overall, the hCG diet has been, "thoroughly discredited and thus rejected by the majority of the medical community" and there are much safer ways to lose weight. (source)

Home Happy

So as promised, I will post pictures of our fabulous trip to Hawaii, but first I figured I should give you the lowdown of our latest apartment. I don't know what we would have done without amazing family and friends to help this move be as little stress as possible. So thank you, you know who you are! With the help of some friends we got together our new apartment in about three days and with a lot of money later its basically home sweet home.

And per my NYR I have already made it very well known to Jared, friends, and family that unless someone dies, our apartment burns down, or other ABSOLUTELY extenuating circumstances that we will NOT be moving from this apartment for a year. I will redecorate, rearrange furniture, whatever to ease this itch that I have when I start to feel like its time for a change.

So to definitely 'set down roots' we decided to make the apartment as comfortable as possible, pulling out all the stops. Specifically because off the nature of our apartments' cheaper build and being older, it seeps heat out of every nook and cranny and especially the windows. Since the heater is to expensive to run constantly I took the plunge and spent a little over 200 smackers to put special heat retaining curtains on all five of the huge thin windows. Our first apartment ever putting in this much effort to make it our own. We will DEFINITELY be staying for a long long while.

They also are 'blackout' curtains. So we mainly keep them closed all the time except for a couple hours in the day so my plants can accomplish photo synthesis. Who knew that curtains could be so expensive?! But they do add some kind of ambiance to the atmosphere. A tasteful one? An expensive one for certain.

As of next thursday we will be back on track for Say What? and in the meantime I will put up pictures of our new apartment, latest fashion finds, and tell all about our glorious holiday trip to Honolulu, Oahu. Ah I miss the beautiful beaches and waves so much. But no worries, we brought sand back with us in luggage. And in my hair. And in any other possible orifice including my ears and nose.

Here's to new starts!

New Years Resolutions 2012

After a year of housing turmoil and moving 3 times and living in 4 apartments, I think it is safe to say that my #1 nyr is to stay in the apartment we are in for the entire year.