Word of the Day: Motivated

It’s no secret, in fact it’s quite obvious. I’m not as “in shape” as I used to be. What is considered “in shape” anyway? I mean round is a shape. Rectangle is a shape. Giant blobs are shapes. Not that I was ever actually in shape to begin with, but I had more of an acceptable pear shape going on instead of my current state of shape…which is “OUT OF”.

David loves to remind me that I’m not as small as I used to be. Thanks babe.

Over Christmas my Grampy told me in regards to Big Momma and her lovely assets, that “there’s acres and acres of it and it’s all mine!”. LOVE that! If only David had the same opinion.

:)

P90X was a dud. I mean seriously, I was over it about after the first week. I’m just not into it and apparently it wasn’t into me. We didn’t click.

It’s time for change. I am down to 3 pairs of jeans that I can wear, but by no means “fit”. It’s a denim wrestle every morning and I pray that the seams won’t bust (again) because that would leave me with only 2 pair. And I have lots of pairs, some that are my very favorites, it just appears they’ve shrunk tremendously. Amazing how that happens, huh?

We are going to New York very soon and I’ve decided I don’t want to be the largest and in chargest on the trip. All the other menfolks wives/girlfriends are petite and beautiful, and well petite is just not a word used to describe me. I mean it’s been a while since we’ve seen our friends and I don’t want them to notice right away that I’ve grown a few sizes since they last saw me! Not to mention too we’ll be walking A LOT and I need to start building stamina so I’m not wheezing after a block and groping for the nearest hot dog stand for a large coke and a wiener as an energy boost.

So what am I doing to fix it? I’m on a strict 250 calorie a day intake based on a liquid only diet, with an occasional 1” piece of celery thrown in for a treat. Oh and I plan to run 14 miles a day.

Me?! 250 a day?! HAHAH!! As if!!

No but really, today I started. I don’t expect to be much smaller by the time we go, because I’ve been procrastinating too long for those types of effects that fast. But I do hope to drop a few lbs. and start getting a little healthier.

Instead of my Chex Chocolate Bar for breakfast or Breyer’s M&M yogurt, I had a Nature Valley Peanut Butter granola thin square. So good! Thanks for gifting them to me Big Momma!

Usually I snack all morning and afternoon on junk food, and eat a big lunch with a coke. Horrible, I know. Hence the way I am.

Today I tried to drink lots and lots of water. As of the time I left work, I drank 72 oz. of water (9 servings) and I had a Clementine for an afternoon snack.

I ate two (I know I only needed one) Whole Grain Lean Pockets for lunch.

Every day on my break I am known as “the girl who sits in the hall and reads her book while everyone else is walking”. Well today, I was the girl trekking around outside for two 15-20 minute intervals. I ran up 6 stories worth of stairs, and jammed out to my ipod.

I also found this great free app for the iPhone called, MyNetDiary. It is very helpful. I can put in all the foods I’ve eaten (it tells me how many calories I consumed), all the exercise I’ve done (it tells me how many calories I burned), take before and after pictures, tells me how many calories I have left to eat that day (based on my goal I entered when I signed up), how many servings of water I’ve had that day and much, much more.

The real test of will power will be dinner. Y’all, I like to eat. No, I LIVE to eat. So this is hard for me. I’m afraid I will blow it all at dinner with 3 helpings of it, but I will try my best. And even if I do eat a little more than I should, at least I’m not doing that AND all the other bad stuff I would have eaten throughout the day.

David and I have a running date tonight…hope I don’t die of extreme over exertion.

Happy (almost) Friday!

PS- If you missed it, see below for the fun Hot-Lanta post!

Hot-Lanta

Saturday morning, very early, myself, Lindsay, Lindsay’s sister Ashley and another bridesmaid Shaila loaded up in Lindsay’s car Addison Acadia (my car’s twin) and headed North. Of course getting there was half the fun, right?

We loaded up the car, set my GPS (Natalia) to our destination and headed out in the frigid temperatures. I deemed myself the co-pilot because I was put in charge of the navigation and was granted shotgun by the back seat riders. (Where I remained the entire trip because me and the pilot worked best together – no offense other riders!)

After a few disagreements on the best way to get there, we traveled through some dark backroads, sketchy neighborhoods and made a few U-turns because Natalia didn’t know what she was doing…we were on the right path to the ATL! Love this pic- shot it in manual and am proud of myself!
Small town, still sleeping.

Our driver. I promise her eyes are open when she's actually driving. It's just she's allergic to the flash;)
Shaila trying unsuccesfully to catch some Zzzz's.

On the way there we passed a gas station/store called Striplings with the slogan that said, "You never sausage a place!" <-- LOVE it!! Oh and this is how we kept ourselves occupied on the drive/trip- Fat Face!! Ashley
Mrs. Theresa
Linds
Shaila
Yours truly!

Lindsay’s first appointment was at 11:30 but we arrived in ATL about 10:30 and dealt with a not so happy hostess who clearly had better things to do than let us check in early to the hotel even though they were told the night before that this would be allowed. Big sis Ashley came in and set her straight and off to our room we went.

Our hotel was pretty neat and we were in quite the room.
The "lounge side of the room". Through that back right door is the "bedroom" area. Swanky!


We could even see a mountain from the hotel!
Lindsay’s momma drove from Pensacola and met us at the hotel and after some freshening up and changing of clothes, we were off again.

Can I just say I do not heart Atlanta traffic?

The first stop was a little disappointing as the dresses were super pricey and nothing just really tickled Lindsay’s fancy. Plus it was a very small shop and all the focus was on the bride-to-be and her reactions of the in house designer’s gowns. Talk about pressure.

We finished up the first appointment quicker than expected and went and got some lunch at Zoe’s Kitchen. The food was pricey and not plentiful enough for me, but my chicken roll-ups were very good.


Me, Linds, Ashley

Cool lights!

After a quick walk across the street to CVS for a restroom break, pack of gummy bears, pack of white chocolate pretzels, pair of gloves and some toothbrushes, we made our way back to the car for the 2:00 appointment. Our next stop was a lot more fun and had a lot more choices. Did I mention that Lindsay is like the most perfectly sized bridal-gown- model-lady? This next shop was a busy place and every time she came out in a dress it seemed everyone stopped, even other brides, to see what she looked like. And might I say, every dress looked so good on her. *jealous* ;)

Our next and final stop was at a really fancy place called Priscilla of Boston.

This is ¾ of the judging panel. There were strict no photo policies everywhere we went, but being the rebel I am, I clearly took out my camera and snapped away rule follower I am, I only snuck a pic or two when the consultant scurried off.

After we were done dress shopping it was getting close to hungry time.

We went back to the hotel to refresh ourselves, and take a break before heading to the much anticipated cheesecake factory! 4/5 of us took advantage of the hotel’s complimentary cocktail hour. I’ll give you one guess as to who opted out…lame-o me who doesn’t care for alcohol didn’t drink even if it was free!

I slipped out of my flats and put on my comfy shoes and fluffy socks and was like a new woman. We’d had a long day on our feet!

By the time we got to the restaurant, there was a 2 hour wait. Yikes! We put in our name and then walked over to the mall next door, where Lindsay found her wedding shoes.

Spikes are in, right?

;)

We played in the Apple store for a little while and burned more time before returning to the restaurant to wait for another 45 minutes or so. Lindsay looks like she just got caught!

After we were finally seated, we were half asleep and starved. We were finally eating at around 10:30 and I know I ate a delicious Crispy Buffalo Chicken Sandwich but dang if I can hardly remember it! I.was.so.tired. But not tired enough to take a few fun pics at the table.
Sisters :)

Including one of this delicious red velvet cheesecake that Lindsay and Ashley were going to split but the whole table ended up eating it. Whoops! So yum!
We left the restaurant to battle the freezing cold temps to the car, and headed to the hotel where we promptly plopped into bed and were out like lights.

Sunday morning we got up at the crack of dawn and jogged three miles, I mean moseyed out of the room at about 10:15 just in time for breakfast. Which was fabulous by the way! This complementary breakfast had an omelet made to order bar that came with pancakes, home fries, sausage and bacon. And for the less cholesterol approach, there was the normal/healthy food bar with the usual fruit loops, bagels, fruit etc…I stayed far away from that section.

We left Atlanta about 11:30 and made the long drive home. We did get to drive through downtown Atlanta though when we were leaving and I was giddy seeing all the big buildings as it was getting me pumped for New York! We even saw the building where Lindsay will be working when she moves there this summer. Very cool!

On the way home we stopped for lunch only a few hours after breakfast. Yes, we’re the fat kids. Mmmm Checkers fries.


Oh and another weird thing, we saw three dead cows hogs unicorns furry beasts oversized animals on the side of a major highway spaced every quarter mile or so. One was pretty much in two pieces…like an animal explosion. Not pretty but I guess that’s life on a farm when you live next to a highway. Eek, poor animals:/

So that’s our girls road trip to the city of hot-lanta. What fun!

Thanks to our ring leader/planner/pilot Lindsay for putting it together and getting us there and back in one piece! I had a blast!!

Monday, Monday

The weekend is over, it’s Monday already.

I had a great time in Atlanta with Lindsay and the gang. We laughed a lot, ate a lot, and had so much fun, but I will blog about that in a separate post tomorrow :)

A realtor showed our house on Saturday. For it being listed officially as of Friday, it was kind of exciting to get a hit on it that fast! Oh and I missed the call from the alarm company when they called because the realtor set off the alarm, even though they were given the code. Glad David answered because I was blissfully unaware of the call coming in since I had my phone turned down, was hundreds of miles away and was busy doing more fun stuff, like dress shopping!

Tonight I’ll be busy catching up on laundry, tomorrow is Erin’s Premier Jewelry party (can’t wait to see the Spring line!) and Wednesday is the first night of the FSU PD Citizen’s Police Academy. Mom and I are doing it and I’m pretty excited. Hope it’s fun and we learn something too!

Oh and I finally got the go ahead from the Hubs that I could buy the lens I’ve been wanting, and as I’m doing last minute searches to verify that’s what I need, I found out it’s not compatible with my camera:/ The one I actually need is about 80 more dollars than the original. Hard to spend so much on a lens when 1)I am no professional and have no “real” need for it 2)After it’s all said and done it’ll cost about a third of what my camera did… So bummed. But I’ve been trying to find a used one online. If anyone knows where I can find a nice used Nikkor 35 mm f/1.8 lens, lemme know! (I’ve already been on Amazon & Ebay and no luck…)

Oh and the Bachelor is tonight – yippee!

Lemonade for Sale

You know they say when life hands you lemons, you’re supposed to make lemonade? Well life delivered us a truckload of said lemons, and there’s lots of lemonade for sale…

As in, a whole house worth.

There’s been a culmination of events leading up to it and we’ve agreed this would be the best thing for us. The past several months have brought to us a new meaning of the word “challenges”. We’ve worked hard to be successful, we are both blessed with great jobs, we’re not struggling financially, but there have been some other things thrown our way that have sort of stopped us in our tracks. Or better yet, re-routed us.

Sigh.

I’m sad and have had some trouble coming to the conclusion to sell the house, but at the same time we get to start over. We’ll admit it, we rushed into buying a place. We saw a sparkly house for sale that we loved, in a great area and only a month to beat the tax credit. So we jumped on it. We thought we could live with the small yard and the neighbors that can hear our every conversation when we’re outside. But you know what? We decided it’s not for us. We dream of a big yard that Remi can run like the wind and David can kick his football and I would love a big open yard to spray paint and not worry about it blowing on the neighbor’s house.

We’re not going to be in a hurry to buy, because we want to make sure the next house is, “the one”. Not to mention, there will be no buying going on until our house sells and who knows how long that could take. It’s hard because I’m usually very open on this blog, but it’s a public blog and there are some things that are just not necessary for the whole world to know. Those closest to us know the details and we’ll just leave it at that.

Thanks for understanding :)

Winding Down

Well, it's Monday night, and thus the three day weekend is coming to a close. We had a great weekend and got a lot of stuff done. Today has been really cold and rainy. I worked on a little craft while watching Avatar...here's a sneak peak.

I didn't finish it because I ran out of material...so it's to be completed!

I also snapped some pics of my favorite subject.


Saturday Lindsay, Renee, Katie and myself hosted a baby shower for our good friend Erin. We had a good turnout and had fun:) Now I can share some of those fun crafts I/we've been working on!
ERIN'SHOWER PICS
My gift to Erin - It has a "J" with Jackson Connor on the front. Love the way it turned out!
The hostesses plus the mommy to be!Notice the cool "advice tree" that guests would write on and hang.
Banner by cricut
"Owl Nest" cupcakes
Fabric owls sewn onto onesies. Once again, cut by cricut!

So, that's our weekend. It was wonderfully long and I am not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. At least it's a 4 day week though and next weekend is ATL!

“Slack” to the “er”

Sorry.

:)

I’ve been slightly slacking.

The truth is, I’ve been doing some fun stuff this week but it’s all for something that I can’t share what it is until after Saturday.

Turns out I’m not all that interesting without crafty stuff to post about.

Anywho, it’s as my good friend Renee likes to call it “Small Friday” aka Thursday and I’m super excited about Erin’s baby shower Saturday and a three day weekend. Oh and not to mention my favorite Dad in the whole world turns the big 5-0 on Sunday! Whoa!

Tonight I plan to stay warm and watch Wipeout. Gosh I love that show! You talk about side-splitting knee-slapping laughter?! You can sho ‘nuff get some and I LOVE TO LAUGH. It’s like my favorite thing to do, besides eat of course. I don’t know what’s so funny about people in pain but hey if it’s their choice I say I have permission to laugh!!

Other big events for the evening – David is going to Bainbridge after work to buy a new fender for his truck. You see, quite a few years ago two in love teenagers were laughing at some deer feed in the back of a neighboring truck in the mall parking garage. All the while said boy teenager was backing out of the parking spot and was too busy cracking up over the deer feed to notice the large concrete pole about to bump uglies with the front of his truck. Ooops! Haha, well 3 or 4 years later it’s time to get it fixed.

Oh and because I like to spend so much of my time blog reading instead of blog writing, I wanted to share some of my favorite DIY blogs. I know a lot of people have said they enjoy YHL’s so I wanted to share a few more of my dailies.

Young House Love (I’ve shared this one many times)

Bower Power Blog (This gal cracks me up, she’s cheap like me, and is a DIY queen & not to mention her hubby is a rough around the edges hunk ;) )

Perfectly Imperfect (Beautiful home decor and fabulous furniture redos)

Honey We're Home
(She's got lots of moola but still does great DIY projects)

All Things Thrifty (where I found my lima bean wreath tutorial)

Better After (My favorite site for good ol' before and afters)

PS- Our trip to NYC and Boston is in the near future! Absolutely. Can’t. Wait.

PPS- I had some M&M yogurt today. This serves no purpose other than to add some visual interest to this post seeing as it's sans photos.

Okay well that’s about all I’ve got for today.

Ta Ta for now!

Hey There!

What a great weekend it's been :-)

Friday night we went to see the Little Fockers with Lindsay and Joseph. I have to say I was sort of disappointed. That always happens with sequels. They get worse the more they do:( But it was great getting to see the Future Sundays and afterwards we got to check out their new car! So happy for you Linds!

Saturday was spent doing lots of crafting. More on that in a week or so when I can spill the beans on what was being made!

Also on Saturday I played with my cricut (some more!). I apologize if you are not interested in my crafting, but it's what I'm most excited about right now so I expect there will be lots of craft related posts from here on out.

I bought some etching cream at Michael's and had been etching to try it out. Haha I crack myself up!

First idea was to put a fleur de leus on a glass bottle.


The outcome was not so great, I think because I wiped it dry after rinsing. Oops.


Okay, take two. I cut a stencil with the word "grow" with the cricut out of clear contact paper. I placed it on my bottle.


Then I applied the armour etch and let it sit for 20 minutes.

After rinsing, I pulled it off and voila! It can be used as decoration by itself, or used as a vase for a single stem flower. Love it:)


Sunday was spent doing laundry and finally putting away all of the Christmas decorations. Everything is back to "normal" and looking rather plain:/ Now I'm thinking my living room needs more color!

You know how they say when you have some money and want to spend it, it's "burning a hole in your pocket"? Well that's what I feel like when that cricut is sitting all alone in my craft room. Like it needs to be put to use!

Sooo...I decided to take on a craft I came across on this blog a few days ago. I thought it was too cute and seemed too easy not to take on!

First I started with some not so glamorous Seminole head coasters. Of course David liked them, but I thought they could be improved and maybe "fit in" better with the living room decor.

David just shook his head when I whipped out my white spray paint. He's learned to stop asking what I'm doing and just accept it. Hah!

Sooo, I spray painted those babies and ended up with this, a blank slate.

Much better already. (love my noles but those reminded me of a college boy's dorm room!)

Then I cut my scrabble letter & number. The points for a "J" in scrabble is apparently 8 according to google so I went with it.

Then I applied it to all the coasters.

And followed it up with three coats of mod podge to seal it!


Complete- love it!


I also got my antique window hung in the guest room. And I don't know if I ever shared a picture of the semi-completed room, so here it is!

Don't know how I didn't get a picture of it near the bed, but the wreath is hung to the right of the window. Remember it's the one that has now been painted three times!

And then I got confident and decided to play with the Manual mode on my camera and got up close and personal with the textures in the room :)