About Me

Sorry about the Christmas-y picture, but we don't have any decent & recent pictures of our whole little family.

Hi, my name is Ely. The good looking guy behind me is my hubby, Chris. And the little fur ball in my arms is Gus. 

I guess I should start at the beginning. Hubby and I went to the same university. He was a year ahead of me. We even lived in dorms right next to each other. I'm sure we had to have seen each other at one point or another, but we never met while we were in school. 

It wasn't until we both decided to try an online dating site, OKCupid.com, that our paths came together. I was too shy to meet anyone in "real life" and Hubby was away from home in a new town and didn't know anyone. So we tried the online thing. Apparently it's pretty popular nowadays. 

We started talking at the end of May, 2010, had our first date the beginning of June, and were officially an item by June. I like to say that our dating anniversary is May 25th though because that's when we started talking. He literally swept me off my feet on our first date. Or rather, I fell backwards off a street curb, but close enough, right? : ) 

We've been pretty inseparable ever since. He just can't get rid of me! ; ) 

He asked me to marry him on October 22nd, 2011. I actually replied with, "Are you sure?" and then finally a "Yes!!". Lol, romantic, huh? We tied the knot October 2012. It was one of the happiest days of my life, even with all the little bloopers. It was a pretty chilly October day, but it didn't rain, and the colors were gorgeous. And I don't think that I will ever forget the feeling of such overwhelming love as I felt that day. 

Our wedding day was also the day that Gus came into our lives. 

Gus is our lovely little bunny. We thought it would be cute to do some kind of a magic skit while we did the garter toss. So we rigged up my chair with a box of props underneath and Hubby pulled out the items one by one, attempting to "find the garter". Well, Gus was the icing to his cake! Poor little guy had to sit there and get yanked out of a box and into a very noisy room. I was actually afraid he would hate us after that, but he's turned out to be quite the cuddle bug.

We aren't exactly sure when his birthday is, but we are guesstimating the end of September 2012, so he's still a youngin'. And funny story: Gus actually started out as Lola. Yeah, we thought 'he' was a 'she' for about two months. And then we noticed a couple of things that had never been there before. So we changed the name to Octavius ... or Gus Gus for short. Yeah, that's from Cinderella. I grew up loving Disney! : ) 

I currently work as a Spanish/English translator/coder and Hubby is a graphic technician. That means that he is super creative and has an eye for details. Me, I just love all things cultural. I fell in love with Spanish and studied abroad for a while and decided that teaching was not my thing. Too shy, remember?

So this blog. How did I decide to start writing a blog? It started back in 2008 when I weighed in at just over 275 pounds. I was extremely unhealthy and not very happy about it, so I decided to change that. I joined Weight Watchers and lost a lot of weight. A hundred pounds and then some, actually. 

Unfortunately, wedding planning stress, married life, and just slacking off has caused me to gain some of that weight back. So I started the blog to document my success and to keep me accountable for getting back on track. I don't want to just lose weight, I want to be healthy and feel great. So I decided to start the Whole30 diet way of living. I don't like the term 'diet'. It seems to have a negative connotation and implies that it is a short-term event. I'd rather find something that works for me and just live a healthy life. Whole30 has been that something. Even Hubby has decided to hop on board with me. He definitely doesn't need to lose weight, but the other benefits have been enough to prove to him that this is the way to go. You can read my whole story over on my "How I gained and lost 100 pounds" page. 

More recently, I have had a baby. His name is Wyatt. Unfortunately, I used this pregnancy as a free pass to eat and do whatever I wanted, which usually meant junk food and lots and lots of sleeping. This means that I have got some extra weight to lose.

So that's where I'm at now, trying to find a balance, trying to get healthy, trying to find something that works for our family. I try to incorporate a bit of my personal life into the blog. I know that's one thing that I really love in other blogs that I read. I feel like it lets me connect to that person. So I want to share that with you guys. So you may see posts about family or outings or Gus or home buying/decorating in addition to the posts about fitness or nutrition and general wellness. I don't know exactly where I'll take it, it pretty much just keeps evolving and I like it that way. I hope you do too and I'm happy to share my little world with you all! : )