Elliptical!

Aaron did a huge act of service for me yesterday and brought up mom and dad's elliptical and free weights to our house. It's a hassle to drive to the gym and back, and will be even more so of a hassle in med school, so the fact that I'm able to get some cardio in whenever I want/can is such a blessing.
I tried to do the interval workout on the machine this morning, but I'm so out of shape from not consistently working out over the holidays. I could only do half of it before my legs felt like jello, which I can't believe I'm sharing because it's embarrassing, but I'll push myself to do a little more every day until I can finish while maintaining the pace I attempted today.
I also got the newest Shape magazine (my favorite!) at Barnes and Noble yesterday and am excited to try two of the workouts they featured. It's month one of five of their Bikini Body Countdown - I love that they start in February so that you can lose the weight in a healthy manner, gradually, instead of most other magazines, which usually advertise a 4-week plan. That may work for most people, but not those of us who are overweight and have more than 30-40 pounds to lose.
I also just got my first Cooking Light magazine in the mail and have already tried two of the recipes. One was beef tips in a mushroom sauce, and on tonight's menu, roasted chicken with red potatoes. They were delicious! We went to the grocery store today and only bought healthy dinner/lunch/snack options so that there's no temptation lurking in the kitchen.
It's a little overwhelming, but I'm ready to do this once and for all. Especially since Aaron's doing it right along with me. It's hard to cook two different meals for dinner!

Aaron's 24th

Aaron's party went really well, after a stressful beginning. the majority of the food i'd made ahead, so i only had the chicken wings to fry and the loaded potatoes to bake...and then the electricity goes out. meanwhile, we hear a knock at the door and it's michael and natalie, who are confused that as they're walking up our icy porch steps the house lights go off. so aaron flips the breaker outside, i put the potatoes in, and then he decides to fire up the blender...electricity off again. this time, the oven goes off and when aaron switches the breaker again, it doesn't come back on. i was about to cry at the prospect of being without an oven in general, but especially the night of the party, when he tells everyone to prepare for darkness one more time, flips the breaker for the third and final time, and i held my breath before the oven miraculously came back on. yay!
Smooth sailing after that!
We had chicken wings, loaded baked potato skins, swedish meatballs, 7-layer dip, cheese dip, homemade salsa, mini sandwiches, brownies and cupcakes. LOTS of food - the most important component of the party, according to Aaron. And surprisingly, everyone did a great a job of polishing the majority of it off between watching Alabama embarrass Texas and playing Taboo!
It was a lot of work, but so worth it. Aaron kept thanking me the next couple of days for putting it together, and I couldn't have been more happy to do it. :)