Long Month, Short Hair!

Ello friends!

This week/month has been a little cray cray with senior design, workouts, take home tests, homework, housework, and food prep. You'd never guess that I was on Spring Break from school last week!!

I finished my body wellness cleanse on Thursday of last week and I have to say I am VERY pleased with the results :) After the 2 week process the final results were: 7 lbs LOST, better digestion, flatter tummy, and more energy! I consider it 100% success and I'd definitely recommend this product:

GNC Preventive Nutrition® Advanced Complex Body Cleansing

Now that that's over I can finally have my regularly scheduled cheat meal! Yesss... It will be pizza and a Quest bar for desert (or two hehe). If you haven't tried them you must. They are delicious. Warning: Highly nutritious, delicious, and addicting. Learn more about these little pieces of heaven here: Quest Nutrition Num num. I tried the Vanilla Almond Crunch and Cinnamon Roll flavors on Saturday night and OMG holy delicious. My all time favorite though is the Lemon bar. Tastes like desert. No, tastes better!



In other news, my hair is slowly but surely growing out. You may remember these long and luscious locks:

Well, now they're not quite as luscious... but longer than they were! A year ago I cut my hair SHORT:

I liked it, but MAN does it take forever to grow
back out! Choose wisely my friends ;)

I sent my hair to Locks of Love but I definitely missed my hair SO MUCH. I have been growing it back out ever since. Here's how far I am:

Getting there!

I'm sorry for the lack of posts, I was actually typing up this post last week when my computer got a virus and crashed. #FAIL. Thank God that the awesome team at Rite Fix Computers was able to remove it and recover my files. I still don't have it back yet, but hopefully it will be done by the end of the day. I hope ya'll stick around though and can forgive the delayed response!

I'm up on campus now (working on homework) so I better go actually do that ;)
Be blessed this week and don't forget to count your blessings!

~Ruthie

Mall->Monday->Meltdown=Media Fast

Tuesday... [Dear God, please let me survive this week...]

Last night I. DID. NOT. SLEEP.

Life has been a little cray cray lately. From my last post, it may seem like I have everything planned out, and I do! Thing is... Life loves to NOT go according to my plans. REALLY loves it.

Basically, without going into all the details (and photos courtesy of Google), here's the deal: My phone looks something like this...

Run over by a car in parking lot

Last night, I was dealing with a big mystery stain on the carpet that looked something like this....

(thank you garbage bag)

Said stain flippin' re-appeared overnight after I spent a good half hour cleaning it up last night. WHAT!?

I am trying desperately to remember this...

"Goosfraba..."

So... I didn't blog my Seattle pictures or get to bed until 11pm again.

Here's those pictures from the weekend in Seattle though. I can't show you the pictures of my new hair cut because they were on my phone, which is OK because now it'll be a total suprise revealling when I put up pictures after competition :)

These pictures survived though because they were on my camera. Let this be a testimony to why you should never let me near a mall... especially one with amazing stores like Lululemon and H&M.

University Village Shopping Center

 

This place was shopper's paradise...

... And a literal paradise, there were beautiful
flowers all over the walkways. LOVE.

Action shot! This little guy was playing in the
fountains. Oh to be young and carefree.

Really? Must you tease me.

I must distract myself from crepes...
Enter: LULULEMON!!

I knew going into the store I wouldn't buy anything,
but here's what I tried on. Ya know, just cuz.

Dream outfit! I am in love with the material of
their clothes. If you've tried it then you know.

Okay I had to... I heard Lululemon are
 the "Perfect Butt Pants." Are they?

Next stop: H&M to find a cheap outfit for a
mystery event I am doing on Monday

The possibilities are endless! Seriously,
I was probably there for 2 hours.

H&M was a total success, and super cheap!
(A nice change from the rest of my life)
I found the perfect mystery event outfit; plus
for only $5 bucks I snagged these pants + belt.
Cool.

As far as today goes, I am determined  to make the best of it. So far: there's a work barbecue at lunch so the whole place smells like bacon, and all the fridges are full of carrot cake, brownies and what I hear is Orlando's "super delicious flan". [Lord, seriously... just let me make it through this week.]

Again... Must. Find. Distraction. From. Food. I turned to the blogs, but only to find that it seems everyone is blogging about the same things: Food, Stress, and Shopping. What I found on my blog roll this morning:

• lifeofahappyblonde - just found this one, I need to study her ways and become a 'happy blonde' myself.  
• Fitnessista is a shopping nut too, beware: she found Costco...
• College Fashion knows me all too well and posted about 10 Ways to Detox and De-Clutter Your Life Mid-Summer
• Zuzana and Freddy are still kicking butt and loving life over at BodyRock

All in all, I need to cut some things out or else I may crash and burn before Saturday so I am going on a "media fast" until sometime next week. No electronics: no TV, email, Blogger, Facebook, movies, music... ect. I need it to be just me and God in my head, not all the extra "noise" the world wants to put in there. It's already off to a great start with my cell phone smashed to bits. So this means I'll also not be blogging again until after the competition - it's not you, it's me. Please pray for my sanity!

Signing off for now,

Ruthie

Purely Indulgent

Good evening all~
Lookie what I found in the comments on one of my long-time fave bloggies, Oh She Glows .... another like minded chicka! Angie started a discussion on our "favorite quotes" and this one caught my eye immediately:

Hmmmm, seems like a lot of girls struggle with this same issue: too much planning! My friend Leana told me she does it too, and she hates it! Why do we do it if we hate it? I hold that it's natural for women to be overly concerned and we have to actively fight the tendency to over-think and over-plan our lives.

-- Shout out to Leana her because it's her birthday today!!!! Happy birthday beautiful!
I can't wait for our sleepover next week girl, we're gonna have a blasty :D --

Back to planning though: there's definitely a fine line between being spending enough time planning to be well prepared and being a frazzled wreck from excessive worrying, planning, re-planning, and then ending up no better off than when you started. Talk about a cruel curse of womanhood! Ooof.

So there's that little nugget... what I really got on to blog about are the things that I found truly irresistible, indulgent, and so enjoyable is utterly indescribable this week... Mmmm mmm!!

No matter what, there are 3 things that never fail to make me happy:

1. Clothes ...... Two words: Retail therapy, not so cheap sometimes $$ (ok so never)
2. Food .... I love cooking and food blogs! But sometimes it's not such a health comfort. Must resist the sweets!
3. Music .... Play on play on! This one has never gotten me into trouble :)

~ Clothes:
We will begin with clothes and the pleasures I've found on el Internet this week. Oooo yes my friends, I have bad case of cyber lust with some serious clothes cravings! Luckily such cravings rarely end in kitchen raids or ruining my contest diet so I see no reason not to INDULGE! (As long as it's window shopping)

Exhibit A: Sky Dresses (as seen on Jamie Eason)

Every since one of Sky's dresses. IN. EVERY. COLOR.

I love dresses <3 They make you look so good and people always compliment my "cute outfit" when I wear one, little do they know that 9 times out of 10 the reason I wore a dress is because I am terrible at making cute outfits and/or was running late and didn't want to put on more than one piece of clothing! Easy and stylish? Win Win.

Exhibit B:  More luuurrvely dresses. Courtesy of UrbanOg.com

I am also fascinated with 4 Ways to Wear Tom's Shoes. There's actually cute ways to wear them! Who knew.

~ Food:
Moving on to Numero Dos... FOOD. Warning, prepare to fend off instantly induced snack-attack from the following food porn. "Hi, my name is Ruthie, and I google 'peanut butter and chocolate'."

Peanut Butter Fluff Donuts

Read the recipe... You'll understand my obsession...

 Oreo Stuffed Peanut Butter Lattice Mini-Pies

So flipping adorable...
Oreos + PB = Perfection.

Magic Eight Bars 

Eight layers of bliss.

In my defense, I did have a good reason to google decadent deserts! I am putting together goodie bags to give to my friends and fellow Bikini competitors backstage after the show. TRUST me, they'll be ecstatic.

Now the rest of these recipes have no defense. They just looked awesome!

I've shared my love for pumpkin on my blog before, but in case you missed it: I have a huge thing for pumpkin, I just love it! It's good for you and tastes like heaven. What's not to love? I'm the crazy chick buying 10 cans of Libby's Pure Pumpkin as soon as it hits SALE at Safeway. Gotta stock up!

Naturally, I found this thread on the RxMuscle Recipe Forum: Pumpkin Recipes

Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin Pancakes

The classic: Pumpkin Pie

What you don't know is another of my weird food obsessions ... unless you've lived with me and witnessed my many oatmeal concoctions... but I have a slight obsession with making "gourmet oatmeal." I could eat oatmeal every morning for life and be as happy as a clam.

A Bazzillion Ways to Make Oatmeal

Butterfinger Banana Oats.
No words can describe my excitement :0

 

Okay enough food, I am making myself hungry! Moving on to Numero Tres:

~ Music:

I sometimes forget the power of music to change my mood, but luckily today I remembered just I was having a seriously tough time getting into my evening lifting sesh. I was doing that whole worrying about the future thing and totally zapping my energy... until I broke out my tune-age!

My energy went up about 500% as soon as I started jammin' out :)

I must have really been feelin' Adam Lavine today, because this song had me literally dancing up the stair stepper...

Another awesome jam:

Some real deep Derulo lyrics: "This girl is passin' out in my lap... She's a blond." Ha-ha because that explains it!? (Okay it kinda does.)


Bow-chicka- bow-wow, J-Lo you're one fierce woman! Diggin' her song with Wheezy, "I'm into it!"


One more  kick @s$ tune, and one more fierce woman - courtesy of Gwen Stefani and NoDoubt... a golden oldie!



Oh Gwen. She's got it. Still got it. Always will.


Dang it, now I am all pumped up and I have to go to bed! I have to get some sleep though, I fun plans for tomorrow in Seattle: I'm getting a haircut + color to blend my short hair into the extensions I'll be wearing on stage at the bikini show. I'll share pictures later!

For now it's off to bed to at least try to sleep.
Buenos Noches Amigas :)

~ Ruthie

Well, That's New

There's truly nothing as relaxing as a long weekend... a whole extra day! It's almost like I'll wake up tomorrow and it'll be Friday all over again. I <3 President's Day.


I TOLD you there was a God. Ha-ha. And even God rested on the seventh day as you may recall... Everyone needs a little play time. What's your plans for the holiday weekend? As my Fluids teacher Raj noticed, "All the Canadians have already left the country." Seems they missed the maple syrup and hockey a bit too much to stick around, eh? Kidding kidding... you Northerners know I love you and all the great things that you've brought to Butte, MT, USA.


Fun fact: Basketball originated in Canada. At least that's according to Octane Sirius XM Sattelite Radio that's been having "Canadian Appreciation Week." Which basically just means the HPER will have the same great lifting music, just think: My Darkest Days, Thousand Foot Krutch, Three Days Grace, Theory of a Deadman, Nickelback.

My friends and I with My Darkest Days drummer in Billings

Nickelback's Pyro-Show way back in the day, 2004

I've actually seen all of those bands I mentioned above in concert, except for Three Days Grace. My Darkest Days was with Skillet in Billings, and Thousand Foot Krutch was at CreationFest believe it or not! I will be hittin' the weight room tomorrow to enjoy some of that Canadian music and pump some iron tomorrow for sure :) For now though, I want to share with you a couple new things in my life that I'm quite thrilled about! Or should I say,"'aboot"- (Canadian accent).

The first is my new hair-do! I'm halfway only bringing this up so you'll still recognize me when you see me. Some people didn't. I got so many double takes and "oh my gosh!" reactions this last week. It actually made me feel quite special that people noticed and (for the most part) liked the change. Thanks especially to Tim, Mikey, Frankie, Jeremiah, Andy and Chester... your reactions were priceless. You know why ha-ha.


I didn't do it for any special reason, hair grows back so it's no big deal. And I sent my 11+ inches to Locks of Love so I feel really good about doing it. Here's those long locks in their former glory:

Goodbye 30 minute blow drying and countless broken hair ties!

Without further ado! The new hair-do:

The front...

 

...and the back. Super short huh!

Also going through a bit of a transformation for the better lately is my computer; which I can FINALLY use again after a long two months of trying to figure out what was wrong with it: Staples "fixing" it, then telling me it was never broken ... useless "help" really. I don't recommend Staples. Or Dell for that matter. So OK it had been dropped... but it wasn't working before that, and then I found out the major problem was a that it "could not locate the internal hard drive"... so I got a new one, twice as big this time. Then I had to get a new operating system. My friend Tom (who has been featured on my blog before, scroll down to the napper.. yup that's him!) is just awesome and he got me Windows 7 instead of the crappy Windows Vista I had- Thank you again :)- and my ever-loving dad installed it for me. Yahoooo!

Here's my Dell laptop's "before and after" pictures:

Blue screen of death... bad bad news

Better than ever! More memory, better operating system...
 and a much much more appreciative owner :)

There's just one more new thing in my life that I'm all smiley about.It's not a very big thing and you guys totally won't care but this one's for the ladies! Check out my zebra nails:

What do you think? Do you like the safari trend? Would you wear it?

That's all for now, I gotta go to bed so I can wake up to Friday #2 :)

Goodnight all! Sweet dreams,

Ruthie