Thursday, January 31, 2008

I am a Bad Friend!

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This is what I just send to my very oldest friend, who has been putting up with me since we were 3 years old! Her birthday was yesterday and I forgot!! I am been so crazy at work this week.... I know.... no excuse is worthy!!

I think that she will forgive me!!

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Finding Moto...

I think that I have totally lost all the motivation that I had to lose weight and get healthy!!

I am trying to get it back, but it is not easy! I think about the 8 pounds that I have gained back. I think about wanting to get healthy before I get pregnant. I think about the gift certificates that I got for Christmas that I want to spend on smaller clothes. Then I find myself eating spoonful's of peanut butter topped with chocolate chips. I feel like I am bored with everything. I am bored with the classes at the gym, the treadmill is boring, the weight machines are the same old thing. I don't want to do any of it! I am bored with eating too. I am not even enjoying the peanut butter and chocolate, I am just eating because I don't care anymore.

Then I logged into SparkPeople, which bored me.... Then I went into the message boards and saw how all these other people were struggling too. I posted about some of my issues and got wonderful, supportive answers back within seconds! I was able to offer some of my insight to others who were having issues and I started to feel my motivation come back to me!! Here is what I have come up with this time. Something new and different!!

Food: I get bored because I end up eating the same recipes over and over. When I make up menus I end up using the same 2 or 3 dishes. I came up with 10 new and different healthy dinner menus. I will rotate using that list making 2 -3 per week for both lunches and dinners. This can give me variety without breaking the food budget. These are also all dinners that I have made before and I know are easy to make, store well and re-heat well. In about 3 months I will come up with another 10 items.

Workout: I applied the same principle to working out. I decided that I want to workout Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday each week. I created 4 different workouts for each of those days, so I can rotate them and never do the same thing two workouts in a row. I think this is something like 64 different combinations! I can do circuits on the treadmill and upper body weights on Tuesday and Swim laps on Thursday and take a spinning class on Saturday! No time to get bored!

Now, the only hiccup in this plan is going to be school, they keep moving the night of class around. Right now, it is on Monday, but in two weeks it will be on Tuesday, and then 3 weeks later it goes to Wednesday for a week and then back to Tuesday. This could possibly give me a reason to skip a workout or eat out instead of cooking. I hope that by acknowledging this up front, I will be less likely to fall into the trap.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Project: Saving Money!

We need to save a certain amount of money to take with us to the closing of the house. This includes the down payment of 3% of the purchase price, taxes, points, and some closing costs (the sellers are paying all but about $200 of the closing costs). In addition there are going to be some larger items to pay for before moving, like $150 to the photographers of our wedding to finish up the album and $200 for tires for my car. I would also like to have the first 2 mortgage payments in the bank before we close, along with the final rent payment, and some money for the moving expenses (moving truck, pizza for helpers, flip switching at the cable and electric companies, etc.).

I know this may sound like I am going a bit overboard, since we are totally going to be able to afford the new place, but you just never know what will happen and we may have to replace the hot water heater right away or something else strange. I just want to have a cushion!

My plan to have this amount saved up, is to save $150 from each of our paychecks each week. Smug-Hub's mom is loaning us $3,500, so that leaves about $3,000 to save - we can do this and still pay all the normal bills too, but I wanted to try to save more, so here's what we did this weekend!

1) we decided to pay just the minimum on the 4 credit cards that we have. We had been paying $100 on each, now we will be paying only about $30 on each. This will save us about $280 each month.

2) We emptied out the storage unit into our spare room and into my mom's attic. This took about 5 hours yesterday to do. Smug-Hub brought everything into mom's house from the truck and I took everything up the attic stairs. My legs are killing me today! This will save us $45 a month.

3) We have stopped eating out! This saves us untold amounts because we never kept track of it before!!

4) We have a lady come to clean the apartment twice a month. We decided to have a cleaning lady when we were working a ton of hours, planning the wedding and going to school and did not want to spend our very limited free time cleaning. The work and school thing is still true, and it is also still true that we don't want to spend our limited free time cleaning - but doing our own cleaning will save us $60 per month.

So what does all this add up to??? Well... There are 8 weeks until we close, so at the very least we will have an extra $700!!! That really added up and we are really not any worse off for it!!

Once we get moved and settled into the new payments we can start adding back in some eating out, up the payments on the credit cards, and perhaps have the lady come back and do the cleaning for us.

Although, I have to be honest.... I am sort of looking forward to cleaning my own house. There must be something instinctual about taking possession of your home and caring for it and truly owning it! Perhaps I will get over that really fast - who knows!!

Thursday, January 24, 2008

TV - What Could Be More Important!!

One of my favorite Bloggers Virginia Belle was discussing the virtues of the DVR and it gave me the idea for this post. My love of all things television!!

I love TV, I did not have a TV in my home until I moved out of my Mother's house, as she felt that TV rotted your brain and was full of nothing but trash. Funny, she has a TV in her house now that all the kids are grown and have super large TVs of their own....

When I was about 4 I met my best friend and her Mom watched General Hospital, so we would watch it when I was playing at their house, so General Hospital and I have been good friends for many, many years. I still watched it to this day! That is not to say that I am proud of this fact, it is just that... a fact. They are my friends and I stick by my friends :)

I have been watching all 3 CSI's since they began airing and although the Miami version is the one that I like the least, I am loyal to the franchise.

I started watching Boston Legal since the middle of the second season and I think that it is the show that I look the most forward to watching each week!!

New this year, I have been watching Chuck, which I like a lot. Bionic Woman, which I think is OK, but may not bother with it if it comes back. Moonlight, which I really like! It is kind of a guilty pleasure, because it is way far fetched, even for a vampire show, but I like it a lot anyway!

Lastly, I am really liking American Gladiators!! I never watched it when it was on before (see paragraph above about Mom and the evil TV). I was really not looking forward to watching it this time, but Smug-Hub really wanted to watch it and I love him, so I was going to suck it up. I really liked it!! We have been watching each week, it I end up bouncing all over the couch with excitement as the contenders battle the gladiators and finally each other in the final event! It is beyond cheesy and there is one guy, Wolf, that keep howling and is god awful cheesy. They all try to talk trash to each other, but it comes out lame. The contender who cry's in the beginning will lose, that is just they way it is! I think that this show is just catchy and exciting and you find yourself really rooting for one person or another to win! It sort of makes me want to go to the gym and start working out and trying to train, so that I could compete if I ever wanted to. I don't want to, but if I did, I would be ready - I know I am strange!!

Other than I that, I have been watching everything about home buying, house remodeling, decorating, DIY stuff, etc. I am slightly obsessed with becoming a homeowner!!

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Sadness

I just read about the death of Heath Ledger and I am really sad about it. Obviously I did not know him personally, or can even call myself a big fan. I did like him and watched the celebrity sites when he was dating Michelle Williams, when they had their daughter, and was (am) looking forward to seeing him in the new Batman movie. I guess it is just always shocking when someone young, with so much ahead of them dies. I think a lot of my cousin who committed suicide when these things happen. It just brings up all those feelings of missed chances, lost loves, not seeing their children grow up.... Totally sad.

Monday, January 21, 2008

I Want To Close on My House!

I really want to get closed on the house and get moved! I am so apathetic towards anything else in my life right now! I remember feeling like this during the whole wedding planning thing, I just wanted to get going!! I remember that I wanted to enjoy the whole process, but toward the end, I just wanted to get past it and be married already! I want to get past all the paperwork and I want to get the place painted, I want to get all our stuff moved in and arranged just how we like it!

Once when I was younger, I was watching one of those home makeover shows. You know the kind, they find some person with a room that is so full of crap that they can't even get in the door, they help clean it out and then the show does some fancy decorating and organizing. Well, the guy from the show was trying to convince the homeowner lady that they should sell/give away/toss her collection of Barbies. The lady was protesting that these dolls were very important to her and would be worth a lot of money some day. The guy from the show pointed out that they would not fetch any price, because the boxes were crushed in places, they were all covered in dust and the cellophane was pushed in on most of them. He said to her "If you really love some "thing" that you have, it deserves a place of honor in your home, it deserves to have a home within your home." Now, I don't remember if she finally tossed the dolls or not, but his statement has always stayed with me. If you love something it does deserve honor. You must not love your clothes if you dishonor them by tossing them on the floor.

I had a talk with Smug-Hub this weekend about this very topic. I am constantly frustrated with the way that he treats his things. If I am honest, I am more upset by the way he dishonors our home by leaving his things everywhere. He honestly does not see clutter, he honestly feels that if he may, some day, look at a magazine again, it should live on the floor next the coffee table, and this really bothers me. I find messes uncomfortable; I get uncomfortable if my things are not where they belong. I am always willing to let people borrow my movies, but I get very concerned if they keep them for a long time. My dad has several, mom has a few and other people have some currently, and it is not that I don't believe that I will get them back (which has been a reoccurring problem, but from Dad? I don't think so), what makes me crazy, is that all my movies are in alphabetical order, if something is missing, then I either have to move things around to close the empty slot, or live with the empty slot. Both of these things drive me insane!

I don't know if all this makes me OCD or just strange, but I can't stay in a messy place long. For example, my dad's house. His wife is a pack rat, she keeps everything. Smug-Hub and I were over there this past weekend (she was out of town) and I was making dinner. There are lids without containers, containers without lids. There is food items in the same cabinets as bake ware. There was one cabinet of pots and pans, that was full of mouse droppings. When I pointed this out to Dad, we both cleaned it out and washed all the pots and pans. He told me that they had killed a mouse in that cabinet a few month's ago, and he was not aware that it had not been cleaned out. All the drawers are overflowing with bits of paper, pot holders, coupons, scissors, etc. I was about to lose my mind and I was only cooking one meal!

To tell someone that they are messy is to insult that person, and I really don't want to insult my father's wife. We have been making a lot of head way in our relationship since my dad hurt his back and I don't want to mess that up - but I am so sickened by this mess. I really want to wait until she is out of town next, fill up the back of the pickup truck and take a load to the dump!! I mentioned to dad that he never let me keep my room this messy when I was little, and he just shook his head and said "I have no control over this" It is not just the kitchen, every room in the house is this way. There is but a path through the clutter in the laundry room, things fall out of every closet and the garage has never seen a car!

Anyway.... I discussed all this with Smug-Hub and we agreed that he can go on doing whatever in the apartment, but once we have our own permanent home, we will find homes for each one of our things. We will honor both each other and our things! This would be another reason I really want to get closed on this house and get to the moving!! I want to get all my stuff back, both loaned out and the items stored in various places. I want all my beloved items to be home in their home within my home!

I know, I am a nut.... I just can't help it!! :)

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Food Glorious Food!

Well, I was really hoping that I would no longer have any cravings for the food to which I am hopelessly addicted, but this was not the case. I have eaten anything and everything that has crossed my path for the last few days since I stopped the cleanse. I love everything even more than I did before, God food is a wonderful thing!!

All that being said, I have got to get a handle on this eating everything and not exercising thing. I have to find something that fits into my currently overloaded life. I don't have the motivation that I need to get something going. I am going to try to get back into Spark this week and log everything that I am eating. This might help get me on the right track. Once I have the food thing under control, I can work on adding the working out thing. I know that I would have more energy if I was exercising regularly, but I am too tired all the time to make myself get started.

Oh well, I am getting ready to have my monthly visitor, and that always makes me irritable and depressed, I hope that I can get the food stuff going good this week and then once the visitor takes its leave, I will feel more like working out and pushing myself!!

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Master Cleanse - Day 4

Today is the final day! Smug-Hub did the cleanse for 4 days and so have I!!

I had a really hard time sleeping last night, I kept waking up with hunger pains, once I was awake I would have to pee and then I would get some cramping and have to go back to the bathroom. I am not as tired as I should be, but still - there is a nap in my afternoon!!

I have been fine today - we are having some nasty weather here - some snow, but more sleet and freezing rain. I went into work really early to get a few things done and have been working from home this afternoon. I would have stayed, but I really need new tires and I am concerned about driving in ice on crappy tires!

I have about 3 more servings of lemonade left and then I will have some veggie stock and maybe some potatoes.

I will have to venture out again this evening to pick Smug-Hub up from the airport about 6pm tonight, so we can go to the grocery store on the way home if I am feeling like eating anything else. I still want some pasta, with a fresh red tomato sauce! I actually think that I may have all the stuff I need to make some pasta! I am just going to have to see how my stomach feels after the stock and potatoes.

Overall I am glad that I did this, but I did not lose any weight and I am still having the cravings. I guess that maybe all that would change if I stayed on the cleanse longer but that is not going to happen. If I was feeling good, losing weight, having less cravings it would be different.

I hope that my stomach will have shrunk, so I can eat smaller portions and make better food choices, which was the whole point of this cleanse.

Thanks for all the support!!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Master Cleanse - Day 3

Well.... last night really sucked. I kept arguing with my brain all evening. I was tired and did not feel like doing anything, so I laid on the couch and thought about being hungry. I had wanted to get the laundry folded, the dishes washed and a few other chores to get the house looking nice and I did end up getting those things done, but I was really dragging.

I kept thinking about food. Am I really hungry? Not really, just having bad food cravings. What am I craving? Nothing, everything, something, anything. I think that it was not that my stomach was particularly empty, but I needed to have something in my mouth!

I did make it through the night fine and have done fine all day so far today. I only need to get through tonight and tomorrow. I actually think that doing this at work has been good - I am busy, too busy to think much about food. When I am at home, watching the tube and all those food commercials - God that sucks!

I was hoping that I would be pretty much over the food cravings by now, or at least craving veggies or something like Smug-Hub was, but I really want pasta... cheesy pasta!!

God help me, I think that I am hopeless :)

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Master Cleanse - Day 2

Last night was not the best, but I actually was not that miserable! I had class and I had to pee 7 times during the 4 hour class. That was annoying! Also, everyone in the damn class had food and 7 of the 9 presentations were about food. That was also annoying!

I don't really feel bad, I don't really feel hungry, I feel like I would be doing great if my mind would butt out and leave me the hell alone! For instance, I smelled the pizza that they were selling in the break room today.
My brain says "Oh God, Wouldn't you just LOVE some pizza right now?" To which I reply "not really, smells good though"
My brain laughs and says "Smug-Hub is out of town, no one is going to know what you have been up to while he's gone" I say "I would know! I want to do this! No one is making me do this! I want to be healthy and ready when it comes time to have a baby!!"
My brain looks at me sceptically and shrugs "Fine, I will be right here to tell you I told you so, when you fail. You know you will!" This really bums me out. My brain has no faith in me....

I have done OK today, except that I needed to have had more juice before now, but I am so busy at work, that I keep forgetting about mixing it up. The only other thing seems to be that the cayenne pepper really burns my throat when I drink the juice, so I have been putting it off.

I brought enough to make 6 servings and I am planning on having the last one about 4:30, so it is all good. I am also on my second bottle of water and I don't think that I have been peeing as much, but the herbal laxative has been causing some cramping periodically, but nothing major.

In other news, the mortgage lender called me to let us know that the interest rates are down to 5.785% and may be heading back up. She is going to wait until the morning when some kind of consumer index comes out, if it looks good, the rates will rise. If it looks bad they may stay the same or fall just a bit more. I am really excited about getting a rate under 6%!!

Mom is concerned that there is a bit of a conflict of interest since the higher the rate, the more money the mortgage lender makes. She is such a downer! I would be more concerned, except that when I suggested closing early to take advantage of the rate when it was 6.175%, the lender told me to wait, that the rates were going to fall again. She was right! She could have agreed with me, locked me into the 6.175% rate and laughed about it later. I feel fairly confident about it - I mean as confident as a person can be who knows nothing about this process!!

Anyway, all seems good on the cleanse front and the house front!!

Se you all tomorrow!!

Monday, January 14, 2008

Master Cleanse - Day 1

I am finally finished with the anti-inflammatory drugs for my hand, so I am kicking off the fast/cleanse/diet thing this week. My husband if out of town until Thursday evening, so I will have peace and quiet while going through the mood swings of detoxing. I am going to try to post everyday about the experience, both as a reference for others and as a way to chart my progress. I wish that I had remembered to weigh myself this morning, but it was very early and I was still sleeping until I had been at work for few hours!!

So, OK I started by drinking the herbal laxative tea last night before going to bed. I felt fine when I got up this morning but nothing was moving, if you know what I mean.

The second step is to drink this salt water mixture, you are supposed to drink it slowly (or it can make you throw up). The ratio of salt to water is supposed to mimic your blood, so it does not get absorbed into the blood stream, but goes right through you to help kick start the cleaning out of your system. I drank my salt water after I got home from taking Smug-Hub to the airport - about 6:30am. You are supposed to start drinking the lemonade mixture after you start eliminating the salt water. I have not started eliminating the salt water yet, so I went ahead and had some lemonade about 9am. I was starting to feel really hungry, but not that horrible hunger, just a gnawing kind that I get sometimes when I get so busy at work that I forget to have lunch.

The lemonade is good, I used a lower amount of the maple syrup (it is supposed to be 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to 2 tablespoons of maple syrup - I used 2 to 1). This is supposed to help with weight loss and I really like the tart taste of the lemon. I used too much cayenne pepper in my first glass, but I kind of liked the spice!

I had my second glass of lemonade about 11:30 and I plan to have a glass about every hour and to follow each glass up with a glass of water. I normally drink one 33.8oz bottle of water each day, and I want to try to double that while I am fasting. I actually want to try to keep up with 2 of those bottles each day, which is just over 67oz. They say that you should drink 8 8oz glasses of water each day, that is 64oz, so by drinking two bottles of water, I would be getting just over the minimum! Totally doable!

How long am I planning to do the cleanse you ask? Smug-Hub did almost 4 full days, he had some orange juice and vegetable stock on the evening of the fourth day. I am slightly competitive, so I would like to do it longer than he did, and the book says that you should do 10 days at least. 10 days seems overwhelming to me, so I am going to try to do it longer than Smug-Hub did, and then take it day to day from there!!

I will post again in the morning to see how the rest of the day today goes. I have a class tonight, so it won't be like I can just go to bed early if I start getting too hungry! We will have to see how it goes!

Wish me luck people!!

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Pain in the Hand.

On New Year's Eve, as my husband and I were leaving the house heading over to a friend's house, I turned the wheel and felt a really sharp, stabbing pain in the palm of my right hand, just under the middle finger. It hurt all night and all the next day.

Smug-Hub said that I needed to go to the doctor, but being that it was New Year's Day everything was closed except for the emergency room and this was not an emergency. We had started the Master Cleanse that morning, so I could not take any Advil or anything on an empty stomach as it has been known to make me throw up in the past.

Smug-Hub finally convinced me to go get some food and take some Advil about 6pm that night. It did not help at all! The next morning I called the doctor and was seen mid-morning. He told me that it was a calcium deposit and the treatment was an anti-inflammatory and a cortisone shot. The shot was so painful that I start whimpering when I think back on it! My whole hand become numb and a bit swollen.

The rest of that day most of my hand was numb, and the middle finger was swollen and hot to the touch. It was the same the following day (Thursday), so I called the doctor again and was told to alternate heat and ice and not use the hand. This is almost impossible as I use my right hand to write, type, click the mouse, etc. I did the best I could while at work. Once at home I did the ice/heat thing for several hours and by Friday morning only the tip of my middle finger was still numb.

Today, that middle finger is just slightly tingly, almost back to normal. The only issue, is that the area where I felt the original pain is still slightly painful. I am hoping that it is just the bruising from the VERY LARGE needle and it will go away soon.

I hope that this is the end of this particular story, but we will see!

Friday, January 4, 2008

Moving Right Along!

We had the house inspected yesterday and it passed with flying colors!! Only 4 little things need to be fixed and all of them combined should be well under the $500 the sellers are responsible for. First issue was that the deck is not bolted to the house, it is nailed, nails rust, which can be a safety issue. Secondly, also on the deck, one of the posts is loose and wobbly. Third, in the bathroom, one of the sinks in leaking and is also that sink is not getting any hot water. Lastly, there is one vent in the living room that is not blowing heat/air, it may be blocked or not connected to the main. See! All small stuff!!

Next, I need to call the mortgage lender and find out what steps are next with her, but at this point, we just wait to close!!

Here are a few more pictures!


Kitchen









Back of the house









This is the "Thomas The Tank Engine" room. My nephew thinks this is the coolest room in the whole house! He told me that this would be his room when he came over for a sleep over.
This will actually be painted and will become the new baby's room, whenever we decided to embark on that chapter!!