Favorite Pins of the Week

Hi Everyone!  Happy Friday!  Here are some of my favorite things I've pinned this week:

From here. Getting ideas for Christmas.

From here.  Hoping to make one of these for this fall.  Super cute skirt.

From here.  Great stash buster quilt.

From here. Pumpkin Pie bars, I'm thinking these will need to be made while in Kansas since my Dad and Steve are both huge Pumpkin Pie fans.

From here.  This soup looks awesome, also something I think I'll make while in Kansas.

From here.  I love this and someday will have it!

That's it for me for now, hope you've had an awesome week!

Over ther River and Through the Woods...

We're going to go visit my Mom and Dad in a week!  I'm so excited.  Steve and Chris are going to be there for a week and I'll stay an extra 3 days.  What am I doing with my extra 3 days in Kansas?  I'm teaching a Mexican food cooking class.  I can't wait, we'll be making Pozole, Mexican hot chocolate, Tres Leches cake, Carne Asada, Tortillas, Mexican Rice, Refried Beans and Chicken Mole.  I'm super excited to teach my first cooking class and to have my Mom there by my side to help me with it!

I think I'm the most excited about just getting away it's been just over 2 years since we took a real vacation where we leave the house and we're not available to anyone at work.  I'm starting to feel a little overwhelmed at work.  I took on some new responsibilities about 4 or 5 months ago and it's really increased my work load and made me feel more stressed as I'm trying to juggle the staffing needs of our programs and all of my work as an office manager.  It's good stress because it means that I'm doing stuff that needs to get done, but sometimes between staffing and HR stuff it all gets to be a little too much.

We're finally having some fall weather today complete with THUNDER STORMS!  I love thunder and I love rain and I love the cold temps that this has brought with it.  Look at how awesome the sky looked this morning at 6:30 when the sun started to come up through the clouds:

 

I also got to wear a sweater today finally!  Steve and I went shopping a couple weekends ago for clothes for our trip to Kansas and I've been dying to wear some of my new sweaters, but since it's been in the 90's and 100's the last couple of weeks I haven't been able to.  But here's what I wore today:

Sweater: Vintage Suzie from Ross

Skirt: Old Navy

Polka Dot Tights: Target

Shoes: TOMS

For those of you wondering, yes I still have the mohawk and it is becoming quite glorious!  Look at how long it's gotten:

 That's it for now, I have some knitting updates to post but I need to take pics so those will have to come later!

Day 52

Day 52 and only 8 days left, this has gotten really hard, I've been ready to quit a few times, but I've kept myself and the hubby on it.  We will make it, come hell or highwater!

Day 28 of Juicing

So we are now on day 26 of the juice cleanse with 34 more to go.  We’re doing pretty well, though it is hard with friends and such as eating is such a big part of our social lives.  I’m super happy with the  progress to date, I’m down 23.2 lbs and just look at the progress pics.  I’m down a total of 52 lbs since my birthday so I’m now more than half way to my goal for the year, so that’s way exciting.  I’ve started running again recently and it’s amazing how much faster I can run now.  I’m hoping to participate in a run either this summer or early this fall.  I’ve also started doing some yoga and after we’re done with the cleanse I want to start doing Bikram Yoga at a new place by us called Purple Yoga, I think the detoxing aspect of the Bikram would be really good.  I’ve been reading up on it and it feels like it would be a good fit.  They have a 2 week unlimited program so I can try it.  For some reason I had really bad lower back pain today, not sure why, though we did switch fiber pills yesterday so I’m switching back tonight to see if that makes it better.  Thankfully the back pain has almost completely gone away now, so that’s a relief.  Overall I think this has been a great experience and I’m glad that Steve is doing this with me, I don’t know that I would make 60 days on my own.  I really miss chewing, not so much food, though there are things that sound really good, but mostly I just miss the act of eating and being able to sit down for a meal with people.  I’m hoping we get to go do something as a family this weekend as the last couple weeks have been pretty full of stuff and it would be nice to get a chance to hang out with my boys.

Day 17

Day 17 and down 19.2 lbs. People have started to notice, I've got complements on how much weight I've lost but also on how much my skin is glowing! I feel amazing, lots of energy and feeling really upbeat. 43 days to go!

Adventures in Juicing!

See all those beautiful fruits and veggies covering my counter and filling my fridge?  Why you may ask did we buy so many?  Are we canning them?  Are we hosting a big fruit and veg based party?  No!  As you may have guessed we are juicing them!  We have decided to start our journey on a juice cleanse and it’s amazing the amount of fruit and veg it takes to sustain you for a week of juicing.  I’m thinking in the future just getting a few days worth of food at a time so it’s not so overwhelming looking.  Why are we doing this?  Well, you see a few weeks back we watched a documentary called “Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead” and it had a big impact on both Steve and I.  You see, the basic premise is that there is this guy who is very overweight and has some health issues decides to go on a 60 day juice cleanse to try to address both of these things.  The idea of the weight loss and jumpstarting a new way of eating is immensely appealing as well as a way to feel better.  Lately I’ve been feeling really bogged down by life and I think a lot of this is the fact that we haven’t been eating as well as we should be.  I’m hoping that I start feeling better, maybe I won’t have so much nasal congestion after this and some more weight loss would be awesome.  So we’re starting today and hoping to make it 60, we’ll see how it goes!

Exercise and Losing My Mojo

No I haven't lost my exercise mojo, that's still going super strong, though I've been sick this week so I haven't exercised as much as I would have liked, but I'm starting to feel better so we'll get back on track soon. The mojo I've lost has been my crafty mojo, I just feel like between doing homework with Chris, working out and making dinner in the evenings I haven't had much time to craft. I think I need to revert to having my sewing machine set up all the time so that I can take those few min I have and sew. I've got my next dress all cut out and ready to be sewn together I just can't seem to find the chutzpa to do it. I'd like to show a new finished dress on here though, and since it's starting to get warmer I'd like to have something fun and new to wear. I'm hoping to get a little organizing of my Harry Potter closet done this weekend as well as work on an art project with Chris, but we may go hiking so we'll see what happens.

Image Source

Chris' Room

So item number 28 on my 29 for 29 was to redecorate Chris’ room with him and we’ve done it!  We finally got the sister-in-law and her boyfriend out of the house and Chris got his room back, so off we went to Ikea.  We let Chris walk around the entire bed department and choose the bed he wanted and he decided on a twin size unfinished wood bed with an unfinished side table to match.  So we took down the old bed and cleaned the room out, got rid of all the old toys he doesn’t play with any more, some we gave to our friends, Matt and Jess, for their son Nolan and the rest we donated.  Then we stained the bed with a blue stain and the side table with a green stain from Minwax and it ended up looking really cool.  We also put up all his jerseys from football and soccer and a couple shelves for his trophies.  We found the coolest skateboard hanger from Target so we put that up and hung his skateboard and Chris picked out some Shaun White stickers from Target and put those up all over his room.  Oh, he also got a hamster for getting straight A’s last semester, so Max the hamster got a really cool cage and a place of prominence by the sink.  I think that’s it, but his room looks much older now and really show’s how much he’s growing up.  And I know, a blog post is nothing without pics, so here's the room!

Charlee's Tutus

So some of our very dear friends are getting ready to have their second baby and it’s a girl this time, right now they just have the cutest little boy ever.  But because this was a girl it meant that I got to make something uber cute and pink. So I went off to Target to get some little girly essentials like a pink kitty cat hooded towel and while I was there I found these super cute pink leggings with ruffles on the bottom.  Well I also decided that Charlee (that’s the baby’s name) needed a tutu, but knowing how much of a pain it can be to put multiple layers on a baby I decided to attach the tutus to the pants and my Mom came up with the bows on the butts.  I think they are too cute!

29 for 29

So as you probably noticed from my previous posts that I didn't quite finish my 28 for 28, but I got pretty darn close.  The best thing that it did for me was to concentrate on making some more things for me to wear and use. I've really enjoyed wearing my creations and have gotten some great comments on the things I've made. So in sort of the same vein I've decided to do a 29 for 29 for this year.  I know I'm starting kind of late, but this is a bit different than last years so I think I'll be ok.  The main theme this year is no theme, these are just 29 things that I would like to do before I turn 29, so without further delay, here's the list:

1. Get my office organized

2. Lose 100lbs (I'm already 11 lbs down since I started tracking on Dec 29, but 21 lbs total since I started my weight loss journey right around my 28th b-day)

3. Make zombie quilt

4. Finish decorating the wall above the piano

5. Finish restoring the piano (and get it tuned)

6. Make a rug for the dining room

7. Learn to do a full bust adjustment on sewing patterns

8. Finish knee socks

9. Make Steve's Marine Corps Quilt

10. Run a 5k

11. Read 12 books

12. Make a clock for the clock wall

13. Submit a piece of art to an art show

14. Get my next tattoo

15. Get a new mattress

16. Visit my parents in Kansas

17. Make a bra

18. Wear shorts with pride

19. Refinish the bathroom bench

20. Decorate my office at work

21. Buy a pair of TOMS

22. Repaint my desk at home

23. Recover or Slip Cover a chair

24. Buy/build a new comp

25. Finish spinning yarn from 2011

26. Weave something from start to finish

27. Sew a shirt

28. Re-decorate Chris' room with him

29. Make matching travel accessories

Blackout

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/sopa-pipa/

Resolutions of a Sort

Hello Everyone!  Hope you had a great and wonderful holiday season.  I know mine was super hectic, what with birthday parties and Christmas and then Steve got sick over New Year's, but we're all healthy and doing well now.  The end of the year always gets me thinking about new beginnings and trying to better myself.  This year, a week or so before my 28th birthday I had a break down of sorts.  If you know me in person you know that I've struggled with my weight for the majority of my life and have had some weird body dis-morphia in thinking that I'm way bigger than I am, which causes me to get depressed and eat more, making me bigger than I was.  Well on this particular occasion we were getting ready to go out and I put my jeans on and realized that I had not only worn through the inner thighs, but I had worn through the patches I had made on the inner thighs.  I then tried on my smaller (size 18) pair of jeans and there was no way that I was going to be able to wear them.  I broke down and cried about how I'd completely let myself go and then had to pull myself together to re-patch my (only pair of size 20) jeans.  It made me realize that I really needed to change something.  I thought about doing a full detox but then Steve brought to my attention that every time I try to do something super drastic I don't follow through.  So I thought about it for a couple weeks, meanwhile starting to think about the foods and the portion sizes that I was putting in my body.  I finally decided that I needed to start running again and tracking my calories.  So I found an app (MyFitnessPal) to track my calories, started drinking a gallon of water a day again and started on the Couch to 5k program, which was going great until I misplaced my headphones, but I'm rectifying that today.  I have been walking and doing calisthenics 3 times a week and since that day in December I'm now down a total of 17.2 lbs from my starting weight of 254.8.  My clothes are fitting better and best of all I feel amazing.  I've been eating mostly fresh foods, and cooking at home almost exclusively, though we did go out last weekend, but I managed to stay within my calorie range every day.  I haven't really missed anything as I've made the decision that if I'm going to use calories for it, it better be the best, ie instead of a bigger bowl of diet ice cream I'll have a small bowl of gelato.  I also made the decision that since I have so many clothes down to a size 10 that I'm taking the Seamless Pledge, and I am not going to buy any new clothes until I reach my goal weight of 150.  I'm super excited about this, I can thrift for stuff and I'm not including under garments or shoes in this, I can't make those (yet).  So I'm hoping you'll be hearing more from me this year as I shrink.