Hair today, gone tomorrow

Whelp, I finally did it. I chopped off all my hair.

And no, I'm playing. Chopped. All.

Friday Hans went with me to Avant Salon where they cut of 12 inches of my hair. We packaged it up and sent it off to Locks of Love. For those of you who have never heard of them, they make wigs for cancer patients to use during and after chemotherapy. I think it's a really neat organization and this is my third time donating to them.

It's a bit shorter than I wanted. I was hoping it'd still be long enough for a ponytail, but once she started adding layers it was apparent that was out of the question.

I've gotten a lot of compliments, which makes me feel a little better about it because I'm not digging it to much yet. I feel like it's poofy. And I miss how long and soft my hair was. But it's just hair... and it grows back... right?

Last week-

This week -

cut, cut cut....

Kaeng Raeng adventure

Today is Day One of my Kaeng Raeng adventure.

You may remember that I mentioned Kaeng Raeng a few weeks ago. It's a body cleanse and detox program that I ordered offline. My friend Lindsay started the company and I wanted to try it out. I figure, she looks amazing, so it must work. Oliver decided to try it before me and that was a whole big mess.

So I don't get to do the whole three days of the program because Bad Puppy ate one of the days' worth. Instead, I'll do two days of drinking Kaeng Raeng's real fruit, gluten free, vegan diet shakes, one for each meal. What I like about the program is that it's not a total liquid diet - I get to supplement the shakes with raw fruits and veggies. That means the little cooler right next to me is current stocked with celery, carrots, and nectarines.

I started the day with a Reunn, a strawberry raspberry pineapple flavor. Lindsay's website lists different recipes for preparing the shakes - I stuck mine in a blender with ice, strawberries, and lemonade.

My first impression was that it tasted pretty good! It was slightly watery, but didn't taste gritty. And one packet makes a huge serving! It took me a good half hour to finish off the batch and actually, I cheated and left half a glass.

It felt surprisingly filling. I was able to do a short workout without feeling lack of energy.

However, by the time I got to work at 4, I was starving. I mean, ready-to-eat-cardboard starving. I nibbled on carrots and celery, but that didn't satisfy me. I felt.... sloshy (for lack of a better word) inside, from having just liquids in there. I started fantasizing about food - mmmm... Chick-fil-a, P.F. Changs, Chipotle, even fried corn from Dirty Martin's (haven't fantasized about that one in a while!)

While I tried to coax Hans to bring me a burrito, he convinced me that I really want to go through with this. Cursing him, I started in on shake number 2 - Mango Peace Pineapple blended with orange juice. Surprisingly, I'm only halfway done with it and feel full.

I don't know how people do this for six days. I'll be lucky if I have the willpower to go two (i'm such a wimp!) But I know that I do feel good - healthy - and I feel like my stomach doesn't seem bloated the way it sometimes does after I eat.

Wish me luck with the rest of my adventure and I'll let you know how it goes.

Allstate nightmare over!

We seem to have many bits of good news lately! It makes me happy to type that. We are very blessed.

Today's good news comes in the form of closure - three and a half months after my car accident, the claim with AllState has finally been closed!

For those of you that remember, I first had one of the most deceitful and rude customer service reps that I've ever had the misfortune of encountering. I seriously think the guy should be fired. After one too many bald-faced lies, we refused to work with him anymore and would only speak with his boss. She was much more reasonable and we were able to negotiate with her until we finally feel that we received what we were due.

The funny ending to the story is that last week when we received the check, it was made out to "John Sweeting." Umm... seriously, can you guys not do anything right? Sure, our account lists John Carney, Karin Carney, Hans Sweeting, and Erika Sweeting, so at least they didn't pull names out of thin air. But combining two names together? Truly brilliant, and not at all surprising.

After being alerted to their stupidity, they canceled that check and issues a correct one to Hans and I. We deposited it in the bank and now that it has cleared, we can celebrate!

Even though we're happy that the experience ended without having to go to mediation, it did leave a bad taste in our mouths. Even though Hans' family has been with the same agent for over 20 years, we are starting to look into other insurance companies. And if you're shopping around, beware of AllState!

Credit cards, be gone!

Without burying the lead, our little family had a big milestone this week: We paid off all our credit cards!
Hans has always had one credit card that he used for tuition, textbooks, and other incidentals. Until this past year, I've never had a credit card. I opened one "for incidentals" and ended up putting more on it than I wanted. Yuck. We also had a Best Buy credit card for our pretty washer and dryer, and a Roomstore credit card for our couch. It was nothing over the top, but I hated worrying about which payment was due when and having to pay interest. It just felt like something hanging over our heads.

Thanks to Uncle Sam, we received a slightly larger-than-expected tax return. We debated what to do with it - put it toward my car payments, save it for a house.  We decided we'd be best off getting rid of our credit cards. So we paid of each of them this weekend and cut up the cards! No more credit cards! Yay!

We're not totally out of debt yet. Hans' parents helped us out by putting some of our honeymoon expenses on one of their interest-free credit cards. We hope to have that paid off by this summer and we'll be debt free! (I'm not counting student loan debt and our car loan - I consider those "good" debt, unlike "bad" credit card debt). We've already set up a savings account and started saving for a house. It's really exciting and I can't wait til we have a place of our own!

Called to serve!

Big news for the Gudmundsen family today!

Last night at 11:30 p.m. MST Austin John Gudmundsen received a call to serve a two year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in.....

...... BANGKOK, THAILAND!!!

He will report to the MTC on June 16th. He's shocked, but so excited to learn the language and get to know the Thai people. We are so incredibly proud of him and know that he is going to be a wonderful missionary!

Yup. That's a bad puppy.

Yesterday afternoon, I headed over to our apartment's fitness center to run on the elliptical for 45 minutes. When I came home, Oliver bolted toward the laundry room (where he gets banished when he's been bad) and I knew he'd done something to feel guilty over.

Last week, I ordered one of those detox programs online. It's actually a company created and run by a high school friend, Lindsay Reinsmith. It comes in a powder form and you mix it with juice or water or yogurt. I had left it in its box on the dining room table. I bet you can see where this is going.

Oliver managed to find his way onto the table, rip through the box and eat three packets of diet powder. In the process, he spilled powder all over the dining room floor, and then tracked it into the living room. Oh ya, we have white carpet. And Oh ya, the powder was blueberry flavored.

I came home to find a half dozen very large, very vibrantly purple spots on my carpet. And he must have licked it, because it was ground in good. I vacuumed. I sprayed Shout Spray and Wash. I used our little steam cleaner. I got some out, but not much. "Oh my gosh. We're going to have to re-carpet two rooms."

Fortunately, Middle Little Brother has some experience with messy puppies and recommended that we rent a Rug Doctor. Hans got one and we were able to get most of the stains out (plus the additional stains that we came this morning, when misbehaving puppy was sick all over the carpet - that's what you get for eating three packs of diuretics. Jerk).

The only funny part? Other Puppy is actually very well behaved. When I came into the house, he was curled on the couch in the exact same spot I had left him. He shot Oliver a look that said "OooOOoohh, you're gonna get it now!" and shot me a look that said "I've had no part in this." Oliver was covered head to tail in purple powder. It seemed like Hudson quite deliberately stretched his head, neck and back in front of me to show that his shiny coat didn't have a speck of powder on it. It seemed so human and thoughtful, his looks and actions conveyed so clearly that he wanted no part in any trouble.

I'm still not looking at Oliver. I don't want him anywhere near me. And he's still banished to the laundry room when I'm home. Anyone want a free puppy?

Pretty, pretty

As a photographer, one of my favorite things to shoot is bridal portraits. But it turns out that when it's my turn on the other side of the lens, I'm not so fond of them. So I never did them! But with our wedding day being such a rush and so crazy, we didn't have much time for photos of the two of us. We had a few, but not the volumes that some couples have. This past weekend, my dear friend Laura Jenkins (who I used to work with at Ron Parks Photography) met us at Old Settlers Park in Round Rock to do some "groomals." We had SO much fun with her and I'm blown away by how fantastic her work turned out. Here's the teasers she added to her blog. More to come!