Kelly Trepp, Author

So our new Pottery Barn coffee tables came yesterday and they are beautiful. Spare me any lectures you might have on the cost of Pottery Barn, they were on sale and I got a 10% Registry Completion Discount. I love Pottery Barn and you can't change my mind. Nope, nope, nope! So anyway, now I have these awesome tables but they looked fabulously naked bare in the middle of our living room. Looking at them, I knew I needed baskets, mason jars, candles and vase filler, but I didn't have those items lying around the house. **Light Bulb** Why not use some leftover pieces from the wedding? Enter vellum, glass beads, LED candles, glue dots, and a pair of small square vases that have been hiding in my linen closet since we moved here over three years ago. (Holy cow has it been that long?!) Most of these materials were leftover from the table number luminaries I created for the wedding (shown at right). I threw together a quick design in Photoshop to print out on the vellum...

So today I dutifully stepped on the scale, as I do most Wednesday mornings, to see that my training and hard work last week has begun to pay off. SCORE! I'm down 1.4 lbs since last week, birthday cake and all! Accountability: I wasn't entirely strict with my diet over the weekend. Birthdays are tough on the waistline. Nevertheless, keeping the sushi, hibachi, and cake to a minimum and working it into my overall daily caloric goals saved me some major disappointment on the scale. I began training for a half-marathon last week, so activity was at an all time high. Maybe not all time, but it was at the highest point since running the Warrior Dash in May. I ran the first three days of the Couch to 5K (C25K) program to ease back into running. Yesterday, I completed a 2 mile run in just under 21 minutes. Not too shabby for the first week back at it! I have to keep reminding myself not to push too hard too fast. Thankfully, my lovely lady friend who convinced me to sign u...

"The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." -- Robert Burns No matter how much planning we do, it's a law of science that if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. Trust me, it's science . But seriously, all of these idioms exist for a reason. No matter how much planning we do, we cannot account for all events that come our way. As such, my best laid plans to train for this half marathon have already gone of the track. Staying late for work, traffic on my afternoon commute, calling financial institutions to change my legal name, and the lack of day light have all conspired against me to cause me to miss my training for the first time. Three for four isn't bad, right? There are so many things that can conspire against us to keep us from attaining our fitness goals. But even if you don't have time to get to the gym or don't make it for your evening run, here's a few ways that you can burn a few extra calories throughout the day: 1. P...

... just got a little bit craftier! I not only strive to be a fit wife, but a wife fit for a king! We're talking cooking, cleaning, gardening, and crafting to make this house feel like a home. Leading up to the wedding, we were tight on the budget. We wanted to get through the wedding without any debt. Now that we've passed that hurdle, let the homemaking begin! Friday I posted about temptations . One of my temptations was a craft project I've had waiting for me since last weekend. Today I took the time to finish it up! I originally found this craft inspiration on Pinterest , from a blog that I mentioned the other day ( Delightfully Noted ). I thought it was a perfect step to homebodying our home. First I had to gather all the materials. Notice the can of spray stain. I wanted to do a rich, warm, wood tone rather than a glossy spray paint in hopes that the color would pop and match the lighter, distressed color in the frame, as well as the tones and color scheme ...

Today marks a quarter century since my birth. Saying it like that makes me feel kind of... old? But then I remember I have so much life left ahead of me, and my journey has only just begun! I like to think of Friday's as "Temptation Friday," because there's always something just before the weekend that you're either a) really looking forward to, b) can't wait to avoid, c) have to do right now! These can be good temptations, or they can be devilish unwise temptations. Today's temptation is a good one for me. I'm working from home and I'm fighting the temptation to throw my work to the wind and put my feet on the pavement. As of today, I am officially considering myself in training for the Rock n' Roll Half Marathon at our Nation's capital. As I'm making it official, a run at lunch with the pooch can't hurt productivity too badly can it? My second temptation is to begin a craft project that I have been dying to get to. I purc...

First, let me start off with saying that I do not condone daily weigh-ins. As I have written before ( Choosing a Healthy Goal ), choosing a fitness goal measured by how you look and feel is far more important than limiting yourself to a number on the scale. Furthermore, your body weight may fluctuate anywhere from one to five pounds at any given point in the day. That is why it is important to only weigh yourself once a week at the same time of day. For me, that's Wednesday morning before work. So this morning was the first time I weighed myself since our return from the honeymoon. I weighed myself immediately upon our return, but we'll not discuss that here. It was unsettling. The first week after the honeymoon, I kept telling everyone I was on the newly married, "letting myself go" diet. It worked and I enjoyed indulging myself on the honeymoon and for the first few days we were back, but then I found myself feeling lethargic and all and all, not very healthy. ...

One of my easiest go to meals for dinner is Scallops over Fried Rice. It takes about 30 minutes , give or take rice cooking time, and is delicious every time. Trust me, the hubster was not very familiar with fish when we first started dating, but I've made him a believer in scallops. I've been working a lot of long days and, thanks to some road work, I have had a longer than usual commute time lately; so healthy, home cooked meals have been hard to come by since the wedding. I was thrilled to make it home in time to cook this meal for dinner. As a bonus, hubby had the rice ready and waiting for me when I got home. (Love you hubby!) To make things go quicker, I used frozen vegetables for this meal, though I typically peel carrots and chop onions and peppers. As you'll see from this recipe, I don't often use measurements in my dinner recipes (baking is a completely other story). I also don't like to tell people how to season their foods because different people...

And I've got lots to tell you about. As some of you know, my hubby and I were married on Oct. 1. As such, I've been remotely enjoying his company and haven't bothered to check in. We have a lot to do to get caught up, but I will be updating regularly again when things return to normal around here. Until then, here's a gooey wedding photo by The Blonde Photographer to gush over.