1000 squats wut?!?!?!?!?!

Um, a couple days ago I did 1000 SQUATS YO (felt like sounding a little ghetto there, apparently…)!!! Thanks to Cassey Ho, who's workout videos I've been using CONSTANTLY lately (extreme abs? good luck. it is INSANELY hard. BUUUUUTTTTT I've kept with it, and now it's not too bad!). I was actually surprised-yes, it was hard; however, I honestly didn't feel a ton of soreness in my butt/legs until I was completely done. Then I definitely felt it.

Then, because I'm real smart, yesterday I decided to do 400 lunges and 200 cross lunges on our treadmill along with running for about 3/4 mile afterwards. I also upped my weights for weight lifting along with 45 minutes of abs…I am SO SORE today I can barely move. It is SUCH a good feeling. 

The whole reason I'm working out so hard it because I'm getting married in 62 days, and not only do I want to look good for my soon-to-be hubby, but I was also told by my dress alterations lady that if I wanted to be able to breathe comfortably, I should lose 5 pounds haha. So I have :)

With a mix of upping my workouts, cutting out carbs, juicing, taking vitamins, and drinking protein shakes, I have not only lost the 5 pounds, but I just all around FEEL better, my skin is clearer, and I can see myself getting toned. It's wonderful.

chicken burgers wrapped in lettuce with a sweet potato

 Tilapia with brussel spouts, zucchini, red peppers, a large salad, and a smoothie. I have this A LOT-it's so yummy!

 My breakfasts: scrambled eggs with spinach, kale, tomatoes, and garlic. I've stopped making juice everyday because it's SO pricey, but I would normally make some sort of mix between grapefruits, oranges, apples, cucumbers, kale, spinach, strawberries, blueberries, ginger, carrots, and celery.

 Our snack drawer, filled with things to help if we have any sweet or salty cravings.

 More dinner. Seriously. Tilapia is so good. You should try it.

Salad shrimp with zucchini, onions, peppers, and garlic couscous. This was SO good.

I think the only way I've been able to eat like this is because Tim is also trying to tone up, which means he has his own meal plans. He cooks his own food. He hates seafood, so if he wasn't "dieting" also, I'm almost positive I'd be eating carbs with every meal.

It's been so nice actually seeing results from eating healthy and working out. I'm pretty sure Tim and I won't continue eating SO crazy healthy after our wedding, but we've seen what eating healthy can do, so I'm sure our eating habits will continue to be at least slightly changed for the better.

What healthy eating habits do you have?

T minus 90 DAYS!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now under THREE MONTHS until I'm married! What?! This past year has gone by so fast, and I definitely feel like I'm in crunch mode to get everything done in time. While I'm busy buying more stuff for the wedding, I thought you'd enjoy seeing some of my favorites from our engagement shoot with erikamarie photography. She did SUCH an awesome job, and I can't wait for her to do our wedding too! Here they are (sorry for the overload-she took 84 pictures, so it was hard to narrow down :D):

Sooooooo…..I wish I had seen that Tim had his cell phone in his pocket haha

You can actually SEE the mosquitos in the above photo-we were completely surrounded!

Didn't she do an awesome job? Tim absolutely hates getting his picture taken, but you wouldn't know it from these photos! He's actually smiling in some of them, and I can barely get him to do that for the pictures I take!

Birchbox is the coolest. I started purchasing a box from them three years ago. Birchbox is a company that, once a month, sends you a box normally with five or six samples of beauty products, ranging from nail polish, shampoo/conditioner, to even samples of snacks! While I may not love everything I get from them, it is still so much fun to get a box full of surprises in the mail each month :)

You can purchase the full-sized products right from their website; and with each $10 purchase, you earn 10 points. 10 points = $10 that you can use on any product. Due to some late shipments and whatnot, I ended up having a total of 300 points, so I decided to do some shopping. I wanted something kinda quirky and something that smelled good. Here's what I got:

Those cute tins are tea bag tins :) They're made by Ahmad, and they come with 60 black tea bags. I don't necessarily like black tea (I'm a decaf green tea drinker), so I haven't tried the tea yet, but I sure do love the containers :) Tim and I would love to visit London some day; but for now, we at least have a bit of London in our home :). You can get it here.

The Votivo candle scent is Pink Mimosa. I had seen this about a year ago at one of our downtown shops and loved the smell because, honestly and weirdly enough, it smelled like me! They say it smells like strawberries, mimosa, and rum…I don't know what that says about me haha, but it sure smells good! Actually, I normally smell like that because of my favorite perfume, SJP NYC (Sara Jessica Parker). The perfume's website says:

• Top notes- Italian bergamot, white osmanthus, wild red strawberries
• Mid notes- Honeysuckle, red rose demascenia, mimosa
• Base notes- Sandalwood, vanilla, rum, creamy musks

How the heck can you smell like that many things?! All I know is I smell good when I wear it. And my house smells good when I burn this candle. You can get the candle here. Check out their other candles too-I might have to purchase some other ones in the future! Doesn't their "Speakeasy" sound great? It has a spicy blend of chai, clove, and cinnamon layered over a woodsy base. That just sounds like the perfect fall candle to me. For now though, seeing as it's almost summer, I should probably get in a summery mood and use my Pink Mimosa candle :).

P.S. All these thoughts are my own, I wasn't paid to advertise for them. I just think they're an awesome company. Although, Birchbox, I will purchase more of your products and talk about them on here if you do pay me to advertise for you :)

"Fink", for $500 please, Alex.

I was doing a bit of research on Tim's last name the other day, mainly because I don't think my first name really goes with it, so I wanted to feel some sort of connection as it is going to be my last name in four months. My name will be Emily Fink. Just sounds a bit weird. Maybe it's just me. Anyway, after I looked up the meaning of Fink, I feel a bit better about changing my name :)

Fink is actually a "nickname for a lively and cheerful person"….Ummmmm……that describes me!!!

Or maybe I'm just plain weird…

It's Germanic word also means "finch"; and hey, finches are cute little birds :)

Have you ever looked up your last name before? Any interested meanings?

Honey, I'm hungry.

A few weeks ago, Tim and I went to a wedding. We got there about 5 minutes late, due to some last minute looking for clothes for Tim to wear that at least slightly matched mine…I think he now knows that when I say we should go to the store to find him a specific colored shirt, he's going to do it :). We clashed so bad haha. I was pretty upset about it actually, because not only did I buy a dress specifically for this wedding, but we've never really had the opportunity to dress up so nicely for something before, and I really wanted to get a picture of us. You can't do that when you don't match. Well, you can, but I didn't really want to :)

Anyway, we get to the wedding, and practically everyone is wearing jeans. Great. I sure was glad I didn't wear my heels. Tim changed his super nice shirt into a plaid shirt, making us clash even more; but at that point, I was long past caring about if we matched or not. I figured if he was comfortable, that was the most important thing.

The ceremony was great, about 1/2 hour long. I took some pictures, and Tim and I really enjoyed it, especially with it being an outside wedding.

The reception was at the same place, so everyone went inside while the bride, groom, and bridal party got their photos taken. Fast forward 2 hours later, and Tim and I were extremely hungry. The DJ had just said they hadn't heard anything from the bride and groom yet, and Tim and I were getting antsy. Now, Tim and I didn't know anyone at this wedding besides the bride and groom, and neither of us are great  conversationalists, so we were sitting at a table by ourselves, eating the mints and chocolates from our favor boxes.

Then Tim suggested something scandalous…"Hey, you know what I could go for? A burger." "That sounds amazing, but we can't leave! We're at a wedding!" We went back and forth for about 15 minutes: "We can't leave! They already paid for our meal!" "I know, but it's been 2 hours." "True, and I am really hungry. And a burger sounds AWESOME!" So, and I feel slightly bad about this, we left…

And went on a date for some burgers. And had a blast! It was so much fun pretending we had dressed up just for our date (which I plan to do more often), and the burgers were spectacular. I do feel bad for leaving the reception early, but at the same time, it was already 6:30pm, so assuming dinner was served by 7pm, then there's cake, first dance, everyone dance…etc., and then we're getting home at 11pm or after. And Tim and I are lame. We are very much homebodies, and I honestly normally fall asleep around 9:30pm. No, I am not a child or an elderly person. Just a sleepy 25-year-old.

We had a great night; and for breakfast the next morning, I decided to go all out and made us some homemade waffles and syrup, bacon, and orange juice. This is the recipe I used, and it is pure heaven. The recipe calls for 1/4 - 1 cup butter. I used the minimum, and it still tastes awesome. You MUST put  fruit on the waffles too-it adds a hint more of sweetness, and it's SO GOOD! I used fresh strawberries and slightly frozen blueberries. Mix it up. Add whatever you want, and I promise it will taste amazing.

My lesson from this? Make sure to do something you wouldn't normally do to make your life more interesting haha. I wouldn't say our days are laid out per say; however, we do the same routine A LOT. Changing it up and doing something different made our lives exciting, and it was just plain fun!