Meet the Shaneyfelts

Archives for 2014

Five on Friday

Happy Friday!!

1. Wednesday night, Dustin surprised me with a date night!  He took me to my favorite Mexican restaurant, Phil Sandoval’s, where I ordered the chicken fajita salad (minus the sour cream).  Then we went to drive through the Galaxy of Lights at the Huntsville Botanical Gardens.  I have never been and have always wanted to!  It was really pretty, and I’m thankful for a husband who planned a great surprise!

2. In college, my BFF and roomie, Janie, and I always threw a Christmas cocktail.  Girls wore cocktail dresses and guys wore sports coats.  I MISS IT!!!  I’m dying to wear a cute cocktail dress somewhere this holiday season.  If I have to buy one just to wear out to eat I will.  I know I’m not the only one who wishes they had somewhere to wear a beautiful dress!
I want this.

I would totally wear this to school after the party.

3. Yesterday my gorgeous mom had a birthday!!  The woman doesn’t age.  I hope when I’m older that I not only look beautiful like her on the outside, but also have the heart of gold that she has.  She radiates her love for The Lord.
4. I made this the other day.  It. was. so. good.  And it was healthy, too, which was the most important.  I have a feeling that this may be a summer staple in our house!
5. Is it Christmas break yet???????



Lacking Motivation?

I posted a little while ago about my weight loss journey.  I feel so much better now that my body is much healthier, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t struggle with laziness and food temptation.  I’ve found that there are a few things that help me when I’m just “not feeling it.”

1. Schedule your work outs.  I like to work out 4 times a week–Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.  I started that schedule when I started training for my first half-marathon.  The 3 weekday runs were shorter (3-4 miles) and Saturday was reserved for your long run.  After I finished my half, I kept the same running schedule.  Lately, I’ve used my week day runs for incorporating interval speed training and trying out some new circuit work outs.  I’ve learned though that it’s okay to move my days around or to miss a day, but I always have to keep myself in check to make sure I’m not getting lazy.

2. Have accountability.  Accountability is important in life and can definitely be used for exercise and eating healthy.  Personally, I cannot tell someone that I’m going to run on a certain day and then not do it.  If you struggle like I do with motivation, try finding someone to help keep you accountable.  

3. Read magazines that focus on good health.  I cannot read magazines like Shape and Women’s Health and eat snack food.  Read those magazines and they will give you inspiration for a new workout or a new type of healthy snack food or recipe!

4. Meal plan.  This has been a life saver since we’ve gotten married.  I meal plan every Saturday morning our meals for the week.  I write them down on the lines at the bottom of each day in my Erin Condren life planner.  It’s been so helpful because if I’m running late one day, then I know exactly what I’m cooking for dinner that night.  There’s no guessing, not running to the store, and no excess grocery bill because I only buy groceries for one week at a time.  It’s really worked for us!

5. Give yourself some grace.  I might schedule my work outs and plan to eat a certain meal on a certain night, but life happens.  One thing I’ve learned since being a teacher is to be FLEXIBLE!!!  As long as I don’t make a habit of it, I’m okay!

I hope these tips have helped you out if you’re like me and sometimes lack motivation.  I think they really helped me by just writing them out!

Our Rehearsal Dinner

(I’m going to be doing a few recap posts on the wedding so that I can go back and read years from now!)


Our rehearsal dinner was special in two ways–not only were we celebrating our upcoming wedding, but we also celebrated Dustin’s 29th birthday!  He so graciously allowed me to plan our wedding date for the day after his birthday, so our rehearsal dinner doubled as a birthday celebration.

Earlier that day, I spent the morning with my bridesmaids relaxing by the pool for my bridesmaid luncheon.  It was heavenly!  The weather was absolutely gorgeous and my BFF’s mom made my favorite for lunch–chicken divan casserole!  We then feasted on a butter pecan cake from a local bakery.  So good!  I gave my mom, Janie’s mom, and the girls’ their gifts and we parted ways to get ready for the rehearsal that night at 6.

You know they always say that something will go wrong on your wedding day?  I think that everything that could have gone wrong went wrong during the rehearsal–thank goodness!  The music on my CD wouldn’t work with the church’s sound system so we had to practice without music.  I was kind of worried since I wanted to walk out to a certain part of the song used in my bridal processional but oh well!  The guy who worked the sound system gave me knew blank CDs to re-download my music on to, and I just prayed that they would work on wedding day!  I’ll do another post on my music later because each song had a meaning behind it.

After the rehearsal was over, we headed to the old train depot for dinner!!  JW Steakhouse catered and I had arranged to surprise Dustin with an Alabama cake for his birthday.  (This post is lacking on pictures because all of them are on my mom’s camera and her computer, so my iPhone photos will have to work.)  Then we played two HILARIOUS games that had everyone laughing!!  Dustin then gave his guys their gifts; I surprised him with his gifts, and my mom gave him a present, too.  
Mary Beth, me, and Janie

Later that night, I went back to my parents’ house to spend the night.  Mom had written me a letter and wanted to read it to me.  Cue the tears!  Me, Mom, and Rachel cried the whole time she was trying to read it–well, cried and laughed.  We kicked my step-dad to the couch and all three of us girls slept in their king-size bed.  I hardly slept!!  I was so excited to marry Dustin the next day!!!!
This picture is REAL LIFE, y’all!!!  My eyes and face are red from all of the crying I did, and as you can tell, we all did quite a bit of crying 🙂  They were tears of happiness, of course!