2 Rooms mostly done, 5 to go!

We started painting and redecorating our home, so far so good! Man can 2 people collect a lot of shit! So we have been cleaning and painting and organizing. So here first is my room {I should have taken before and after{{shudder}}}! This room used to have both mine and Jeff's stuff in it, but since Sarah moved into her new house we now each have our own rooms!

So here is all my artsy stuff! This took the most time! I have so much stuff! Geesh, but I swear I use it all!!! I finally got around to having some prints of my photos made large for my wall! I couldn't be happier!
The computer also got relocated to my room, since I am mostly on it, plus we wanted to get it out of our living room. It is feeling more and more springy in my room...I want to feel as if I am sitting outside inside {since I do not have a 4 seasons room}.

I am not sure what I am going to hang on these little daisy hooks, but I thought they were adorable and for sale at Hobby Lobby for $2 each SOLD!

This is now Jeff's room, it is so nice for them to be separate so my room can be really girly and his can have all the car stuff he loves so much LOL!

Love the colors though!

He also got Jasper {Iguana} since Jasper hates me!

Next week the living room, Jeff already cleared it out. Oh man does the rest of the house look a mess, it is like The Wizard of Oz when she opens the door!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

!XOXO!

Try Something New...

Long time no blog {ugh...I know} regardless....
I have been trying something different the past 10 days. I have been plain old school counting calories. My sister has had great success doing this...so I figured what the hell I need a break from WW anyway...after sometime the point counting drives me bananas, now I realize that counting calories is still, well, counting, for some reason it seems like a change {who knows}! :)
I found a really great website that you can become a member for FREE to, it is called CalorieCount.about.com
You can log in everyday and track your food, activity and so on. the thing I like is that it grades your food and your day or over all week. So far since January 29th I am receiving a B+ on my nutrition...pretty funny. I find that I strive to have a better grade each day! I have lost 2 pounds and am due to "weigh-in" tomorrow.
Being that I am a bit reclusive at the present time this new site fits in my schedule just so.
Give it a try click on the link above to check it out. It takes a few minutes to get set up and such, and you also do a little calorie assessment so that it can give you your target, but it is really pretty easy. Let me know if any of you decide to check it out and if you have any other questions.
I decided to be brave and pick up an Acorn Squash at the grocery store this week, not knowing how to prepare it or even what to do with it??? {yikes} !!! I am going to try a new veg each week until my store runs out of things I haven't tried, then I will go back and try them a different way.
Besides the Internet is JaMMed with recipes! I didn't have to look very far tonight, there was one on the new website I mentioned above...{cool}!

It was for Baked Acorn Squash(click here for recipe) it is really good, with apples nutmeg, cinnamon and nuts, yum! I was thinking I wanted to do something savory with my squash, but it turns out this sounded so good! There was another recipe on there with onions and mushrooms that I think I will try next time.
Raw and unscooped (above)

Acorn Squash baked then I put the filling in...back in the oven, oh my smells so good! (above)

Yeah it was really good! Try it sometime, really easy too!

CalorieCount.about.com

~If the problem isn't hunger, the solution isn't food!~

Before and After (well more so during)

I didn't even know if I really wanted to put these on here, but the difference is pretty shocking to me...so I thought I would share.

This is the difference 67 pounds and hours in the gym makes:

Before: Today
Jeff took the above picture of me this morning as I was leaving work, these are my smaller black jeans, I think about 3 sizes smaller. I stopped wearing jeans a few years ago, it feels great to be in a new pair! Plus, do you notice I have a bright turquoise shirt on?

Now on to a few more before and afters, do I really need to point out which ones are which?

I don't even look like the same person.

The before picture I showed you were the good ones! UGH!!!!
The good news is...I AM SO NOT DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Create-a-Cat Kit $3.99

EMBELLISH IT ~ PERSONALIZE IT ~ MAKE IT YOUR OWN
Oh man! Hey guys did you see this?


LOL!!!

Disclosure, no animals were harmed in making this blog post, I do not do any testing on animals, nor do I force my cats, or other peoples cats, in this case my sister cat, to pose in boxes. This silly ass cat crawled in this box and stayed there for hours, before her nap in the box, with top opened, on the floor, I was able to pick box up set it on the table and take pictures, after that I put box on floor reopened it and observed cats playing through plastic. Like I stated afterwards cat fell asleep in box on the floor, so I don't wanna here any cruel cat shit...got it....its funny!!!!

Bahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday monday, la la lala lala....

So off to Cantigny we go. The temperature outside is a perfect 77 with a steady breeze. White puffy clouds dotted in the sky, and we had the whole day to just wander around. Perfection...almost, one exception men have a one track mind, now I know what you are thinking and that is not what I am talking about. I mean their other one track, car, boat, tank motorized mind.

Jeff: "lets go see what new tank Cantigny got, hey there it is over there!"

Jule: "yeah...ok, something is sticky on my shoes?"

Jeff: "oh, hey man isn't that thing cool?"

Jule : "this is making me crazy like my feet are sticking to my shoes"

(at this point he is staring at the boat I at my shoes)

Jeff: "oh really? Hey they got this from Europe it was a fishing barge for a while"

Jule "uh huh"

(now my shoes are off and I am walking like a duck in the grass trying to get the sticky off)

Jeff: "man is this thing huge, look they painted it and restored it."

Jule: "do you think Neddy (my looney cat) was licking my shoes again, sometimes that makes them sticky, this is gross!?!"

Jeff: "hey are you gonna get a picture of this, this must be what Danny was talking about?"

(put my shoes back on)

Jule: "yeah, yeah picture ok, yeah its cool!"

(walk around it, snap the picture)

It was pretty cool, would have been better if you could climb inside or something?

Then I spot a sprinkler!!!!

AHHHhhhhhh yes I am saved!

A little Croc-a-flop wash!

Now I can enjoy my day!

OOhhh big tank, ok, so I have seen these a few times now, but just when you get bored, you find a little something...
this little chipmunk! A few of them were playing around on the tank, man were they cute!

This is Jeff's next car, lol!

A useful thing to do with your bright old crocs...

AND now get ready for the

Frog-a-fricken-RAMA!!!

Holy smokes there was a lot of these buggars...or shall we say buggar eaters!

Oh hello!

Just look at that pretty green pond stuff! Bahahaha!

He was sitting so still!

I think he has been in the sun too long!

I didn't even notice until I put these pictures on my computer that there was another little guy in the water at the bottom! See him? This guy was so big, yikes!

A little swimmer...

Lets zoom in...

Full frontal view, lol!

I couldn't resist some more butterfly pictures, it just wouldn't be me!

I really like this one!

All this walking around has made me hungry!

We thought we would try out their restaurant for a treat, they have a nice little patio, not too much longer will you be able to sit outside and eat. Here's our yummy lunch! I had a smoked turkey panini with fetta cheese, pickled red onions & arugula on wheat berry bread, it is served with kettle chips, (I figured about 14 points) with a lovely glass of ice water. Jeff had a very delicious BBQ pulled pork sandwich also served with kettle chips, and a diet coke, he recently switched to diet (good boy). Our lunch was really good and the day was so pretty! Picture perfect! Plus with tip it was only $20! Deal! This is our Monday thing...so we shall see what we find next week!

Sorry this picture is a little dark, it is hard to get good shots of yourselves!

Cash in my pocket!

I am sooo sick of paying $2.50 (if on sale) a box for 100 calorie packs. Honestly a lot of the time the little snacks in there are flat and lifeless! So today i thought I would do a little experiment and boy am I happy!!! So on to the Dollar General....

Where i found lovely little bite sized cookies, chocolate chip, oreo-esk-like and teddy gram-ish, all ONE DOLLAR a box! 140 calories a serving, so I split it up and did the math so that I would have 100, 5 cookies per bag and 10 grams per bag, 100 calories 2 points!

Perfect size snack. I also bought a box of baggies for $2, but I only used about a third of them, so that leads me to .67c!

Yes I packaged them all up, it only took like 10 minutes!

I got 32 servings out of those 3 boxes! They taste pretty darn good for a non-gourmet cookie!

32 servings / 4 bags per box (regular brand) = 8 boxes x $2.50 each = $20

32 servings ~ 3 boxes @ $1.00 each + .67c for bags = $3.67!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's right folks 10 minutes of my time is worth $16.33!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cash in my POCKET!!!!!!

Low in points too such a bonus!

I'm back on the Wagon and this time I have company!

I am excited to say that I have started my very own little health group!

Recently I have made the decision to switch gyms because it was giving me a bad feeling where I was going. I was waiting to have confrontations with people that I had problems with and that is no way to go about something that is positive. So I also decide to stop going (paying) to my WW meetings, this will help off set the gym cost. HOWEVER I really need to be held accountable and weigh in once a week. Sooo there was a few people that really needed to also be held accountable and being that I am a professional Dieter I am happy to run my little "meeting".

I won't mention any names without permission, but I am thinking that we shall have our own little blog soon....after our "name" contest is over.

I have resumed my workouts. I have seen a physical therapist who said that I just have bad tendinitis in an already weak spot in my knee, and NEVER do another squat or lunge (I think I can handle that!). SO I am back in business.

Jefferson (my hubs new name) and I have worked out 3 days in a row. We are shooting for everyday this month and next to try to win a vacation from our new club, (3 days stay at a 5 star resort), the manager said we could totally win because you can only win once and most people who come often have already won, and they have done it with 28 days in a month! I am allllll over a contest. When she was telling me about it, Jefferson was like OH No, he knew he was in for it! LOL I get very competitive and love to WIN WIN WIN!!!!!!

So thank you each and everyone of you who sent me an encouraging email, card or phone call!

It means the world.

I knew that all I had to do was mention I was drowning and I would get many life preservers thrown my way!

Much LOVE!

****And to my "healthy Peeps" I will be checking on you to see if you did your homework****

Falling off the wagon...

I thought maybe if I admitted it on my blog maybe it would jolt me back on track.

One of the hardest things I have always had to face is my weight-loss...well loss...gain...loss...gain gain...loss......I just want to stay with loss.

right now I am at a 4 week halt, thankfully I haven't gained but I feel like complete shit!

I hurt me knee really bad working out with a new trainer, and the more the weeks go by the more pissed off I am!

I can hardly work out, last time I went in the pool it hurt, lovely eh?

I know that there are other things in the gym that I could be doing, but instead of just sucking it up and doing something instead of nothing, nothing is what I keep choosing.

It is so much easier to just toss in the towel...but all my goals, all my hard work so far!

The bridesmaid dress that I am going to have to get into in 5 months!

The kids I want to have....

OK, I need to get back on track, at least I didn't gain!

But I am soooo bored with weight watchers, I am finding it so monotonous!

Oh well I am just going to have to keep going, I bet once I get on track I will feel better in just days, instead of shit for weeks LOL.

Thanks for reading, encouraging and emailing me.

I will keep you posted...tomorrow will be a better day...the sun will come out!

The Riverbank Six PM