This afternoon, Mike and Jessie and I went to Shelby Farms which is a giant park here in Memphis. I walked about three miles. It’s so pretty. There are a bunch of lakes and walking/biking trails, a dog park, a bunch of bison. It’s awesome. I was wearing tennis shoes and still managed to get blisters.

I’m hoping that we do this often. It’ll help me lose my weight. I have lost 4 lbs from having my tonsils out. I was hoping for more. On the plus side, I am at 204.4 which is 21 lbs down. Today I squeezed into a size 14 pants. They were super tight but they still zipped. =) Hopefully in the next week or so I will drop down to under 200. Once I get there, I will never ever ever go above 200 lbs again.

Today was my second day of work at my new clinic. I think I am really going to love it. It is so so much better than my old clinic. The people are nicer and the work is less.

So far Memphis is pretty okay. I miss my family a bit. I bet it only gets worse.. but I will have to deal. We haven’t really started unpacking yet or anything. My first day off is Thursday. That is probably when we will do it.

Alright. Off to bed.

-Stassney <3

No, not like the lint trap in the dryer.

This will be my first year ever participating in Lent. Tommy is much more religious than I am, so I decided that no time would be better than now for him to share that with me and for me to learn more about Christianity in general.

All I’ve gotten to so far is that for Lent you are supposed to give up something that does you harm or that you are addicted to.  Also, that it represents the time that Jesus was in the desert fighting off his demons and the devil.. or something like that. I may not have been paying attention to this part of the conversation last night.

So I thought for a while on things that do me harm (since I’m not addicted to anything), and decided that I will be giving up laziness, procrastination, and frivolous spending. I want to lead a busy and productive life.

I’m hoping that this will help me reach my weight loss goal, get a job, sew more (I’ve sewn a few pillows! more on that later), design more, and be more organized.

If I stick to this, it will help me lead a better, happier,  and more fulfilling life. I think it will be a nice change although it will be hard at times since I have always been very lazy and a procratinator. My life knows no different.

PILLOWS!!

I decided a while back that I wanted to sew some pillows for some friends’ apartment. I hadn’t told them yet.. so this may be spoiling the surprise. At the beginning of February, Tommy and I went to Joann’s Fabric and picked out a bunch of fabric for me to make a skirt, a pair of pants, and a vest. While we were there, I found this awesome black fabric that basically feels like microfiber in the home decor fabrics. So that is what these pillows are made out of. I used some ribbons to add a little detail to the smaller ones and I still have one big one to go.

I am very excited about this.

These are the first things that I have successfully sewn with the sewing machine I got for my birthday that are actually useful and to my surprise actually kind of pretty.

Once I get a bit better and can sew more than just pillows, I was thinking about maybe opening a shop on Etsy.

So wrapping up, I am having a great day. I have lost 7 lbs since I started my diet, and I put too much butter in my eggs this morning and yet they mysteriously turned out absolutely more scrumptious than usual.

Off to being productive!

If you go to the site don’t forget to read all the amenities. The floorplan we will live in is Unit T. It’s available on floors 45-50. On the north side of the building, starting on the 25th floor, you can see the front door of the capitol from your balcony.

It is all very impressive.

I have no doubt that we will be able to afford the $3.15 million price tag.

We will call it home with our two children, expensive furniture, and many pets.

My name is Stassney and I am currently obsessed with The Killers and Brandon Flowers.

This will last a few months until something else catches my attention. Tommy has been making fun of me because I have a school girl like crush on Brandon Flowers.. but really he’s beautiful.. so who cares.

We went to their concert on Tuesday night and even though we were in the mezzanine, it was amazing. The only way I would have enjoyed myself more is if I was in general admission and could jump around and scream along (is jealous of the sarahs). The next morning I promptly downloaded their CDs and have listened to them almost nonstop. I made a CD for my car that, I guarantee you, will not leave my CD player for months.

I am putting this show at the top of my list.

That’s huuuge, considering how great The Black Clouds and Underdogs Tour was for me. That was my first show ever and it had 3 of my favorite bands from that time of my life playing in it. Fall Out Boy, All-American Rejects, From First to Last.. and two bands I hadn’t heard of.. Hawthorne Heights (which I could care less about) and The Hush Sound, who turned out to be so amazing that I saw them 3 other times in the following months. I was front and center, right against the fence. I had a bruise across my stomach from being pressed so hard against it. I showed that off for like a week.

I did have my fair share of issues with The Killers show though. It was an arena show, which isn’t my thing. I like small intimate shows. I like to feel like the performer is having fun with the audience and doing what he loves.. not throwing around something rehearsed because he has to and that’s what’s expected. I like to have some conversation and interaction with the audience. This show was still amazing despite lacking spontaneity.

As for the other things that happened in the past week, I had my 20th birthday! I’ll give you a quick overview. My family and I went to eat at Kobe. That’s always one of my gifts. A 200 dollar meal is like a pre-requisite for my birthday. In my opinion, I love Kobe so it’s definitely worth it. Then we came home and ate a delicious cake and I opened my presents. I got a sewing machine, a wii fit and some other things, but those were the biggies.

The cake was for sure my favorite part. It was the first cake my mother has ever made completely from scratch and my God was it delicious. It was lemon and raspberry and instead of icing it had meringue! Yummmm.

I am going to leave you with some pictures from my birthday, and one of my cat for no real reason, along with the pictures of a dress that I designed specifically for Stefny!

Now for an update on Bella! My dad has decided to let us keep her. That, however, is not keeping him from being pissed. I called her my puppy monster the other day. I have now decided that she is more of a potty monster. An even more appropriate name would just be monster. She is very misbehaved! I guess that’s just how puppies are, but it’s getting hard to deal with.

How could you possibly send that cute, little face away?

[On a side note][I love that the bride looks skeptical]

I used a white charcoal pencil for the white in the dress and I think it turned out wonderfully. It makes me want to invest in some black paper sketch pads.

The back of this dress will soon follow. If not tonight, then tomorrow.

Tommy and I went over to Andreas and Jacquie’s to see The Big Lebowski. I thought it was hilarious. My favorite characters are easily Maude Lebowski and Walter. They have the funniest moments in my opinion, plus I love Julianne Moore. We ended up watching two other movies I had never seen, The Naked Gun and Resident Evil. Both boys fell asleep relatively early, but Jacquie and I were up until 7:30. All of my friends have lived elsewhere for so long that I had almost forgot what it was like to just sit up and talk for hours with someone who wasn’t Tommy.

Since my last post, I have found the most fantastic furniture. I won’t be able to afford it right away but it is the furniture that I want so I’m going to save for it. I don’t really want to get in 5000 dollars worth of debt the second I move out.

I also designed a new dress. This one is a lot more traditional, but still very me.