Makeover!

I think ALL girls love a good makeover..whether it be for themselves, unsightly women on tv OR on your house.  I'm working on making over our home  -  little bits at a time anyway.  Jake and I { with a HUGE emphasis on Jake }  are pretty cheap!  August 29th was our 2 year anniversary of buying our first place, so I guess it's time to do a little decorating.  I have always had in my mind that we'll be selling after three years, so it seemed pointless to do TOO much around here.  I have a phobia of putting holes in walls, so the fact that I've put up curtains in now TWO rooms is friggin big!  Now that we've been here a while... I'm emotionally attached to this place!   I wonder now if we'll end up selling next year or not.  I used to think we wouldn't have enough room to start a family here, but I'm starting to feel differently about that too.  If it happens, it happens and we'll make room!!  But anyway, I wanted to show a before and after of some of the SLIGHT changes so far.. First up: The bedroom, "where all the magic happens."  Just kidding, they say that on cribs so I wanted to say it too...  Our bedroom is really wide, and its reallllllllly hard to photograph so just go with it.  I kept the same furniture, but updated the bedding (it photographs kinda fugly) but Jake actually picked it out and it looks great in person!  It's Martha Stewart, and she knows what she's doing wayyy more than we do.  Next step is to find something to hang above the bed...which will be verrrrry hard I suspect.



Before



After {pardon the monsters that must be with me at all times}


 Next Up: Flooring. We got rid of the carpet EVERYWHERE except the bedrooms.  It was horrible during the whole process, but now that its finished I love it... and WISH we would've done the bedrooms.  (its on the list for the next year!) 


Before



After

 Well, other than the floors, the only other thing we've changed is the dining room.  We put in a new chandelier, and put up curtains! 

Before - (btw, WHO puts carpet in a dining room??)

After #1, new place settings and chandelier

 

After #2, CURTAINS!

UrbanDealight

mini update! My urbandealight deal has hit 49 sales! Yowzaaa, that's big! That is a whole lot of new clients! I have a feeling I'm about to be one busy girl for the next month as I happily say 'see you later' to my social life!

Uh, Where did August go?

Time flies once again!  OH MY GOSHHH what a day/month!  Today is a particularly exciting day for my business... I had a daily deal run on urbandealight.com  AS OF this point 28 have been purchased!  That makes for 27 new clients!  (1 EXISTING client purchased, even though it specifically says new clients only...)  Anyway, I'm super pumped!  If I can get a few returning clients from this, it would be awesome!  If you've ever run any kind of ad on a daily website, you understand how much money you lose on each sale.  It's totally a double edged sword - people see the name of your business, so its great exposure, but the hosting site keeps 40% off the profit and up.  The deal is already mega discounted, so its a huge hit.  You hope that some (if not all) of the clients return.  All I can do is try my best to give them an awesome service and hope they rebook!  I think there are a lot of people who are discount junkies and literally bounce from place to place for any/all their services, where ever they can get a deal.  Can I blame the economy??  I understand though, I'm a cheapskate too.. gotta love a good bargain!

I'm excited to close out the month of August, business wise!  If my numbers are correct, I should make about $200 more than last month.  That may not sound like a WHOLE lot more, I know, but baby steps!!  If I can get a just a little increase each month, I'll be happy.  Growth, baby, thats what it's about!

In other news . . . uhhmmm... I'm going to do an at home keratin treatment tonight by myself.  I'm really bad at doing my own hair, so I'll let you know if I totally FRY it.  *fingers crossed* hoping for good results!  I hope amazon reviews didn't steer me wrong. 

What an exciting life I lead.... doing a freaking hair treatment on a Saturday night. ;) ahhh, married life!  Does anyone else miss bar hopping and partyin' down all night long??? yeah... me neither... :) 

Have a great weekend, yall!

Preface to the fb deactivation!

well, I probably should elaborate on my "big" Facebook deactivation. I say big because I've received numerous texts with "did you delete me???" and "what's wrong, why did you disable fb?" - well aside from my annoyances with people's frivolous empty posts that I spelled out in yesterday's post, NOTHING specifically was wrong. Except for the fact that I was wasting massive amounts of time sifting through that garbage. I hate feeling tied to technology, especially Facebook. I would go to get ready in the morning and think, eh, I better get online real quick and 'real quick' turns into an hour easily. It's just a waste. I dont need anyone's approval on anything to do with my personal life. I dont have anything to prove and I definitely don't need to impress anyone. This is my life and there is no need for strangers or friends to know all the details. There's something eery too, about everyone getting a pretty big peek into your world. Do you know the friends on your list well enough for them to be peering into your life and judging your every move? I also think it ruins the sanctity and privacy of marriage if you're spilling all the deets about your hubby or all the reasons that make him amazing. I know Jake is pretty freakin' awesome, but do I need to convince anyone else? Nope! I'm proud of a lot of my accomplishments, but boasting is classless. I want to be thankful, appreciative and proud, but not tacky. And more than anything, im finished wasting time! I'm looking forward to spending more time concentrating on my own life and the important people in it. Less time worried about what everyone else is doing. Not having a personal fb 1 day in feels pretty darn great! Maybe I won't be back on there as soon as I thought!

Facebook :: Deactivated

I'm FREEEEEEE!  I've been really annoyed with and tired of facebook lately.  It gotten to be so vain, which bothers me.  They should have called it bragbook or fakebook.  ~  I used to love facebook, because people posted funny things that happened to them, witty quotes, crazy situations, awkward moments, great articles they wanted to share..... things that I would find some interest in!  I'm tired of reading the boring insignificant crap that most people post.  Sadly, it's not one specific person, or I would just delete them.  Lots of people commit facebook abuse.  (and trust me, I've fallen into one or more of these categories at one point or another, BUT at least it was in moderation and I kept a good balance of positive and realistic)  Anyway, for your convenience, I have broken the chronic facebook abusers down into just a few categories:


The braggers/exaggerators:
These "LOOK AT ME" people like to exaggerate how "great" or "perfect" their life is.  Typically I believe this means they are trying to convince others of this, or possibly even themselves.  These people like to go on and on and ON about a bunch of [literally] BS.  "look how lucky I am, look how great my entire life is, check out my luxury car/vacation/home/etc." blah, blah, blah. Every SINGLE POST is a showey attempt at any/everything they think will make other people jealous of their "fabulous" life or all of the materialistic things in it.  These would probably be the most unhappy people putting on the biggest front.  Fake.  I hate it!  Nobody's life is perfect ALL the time, so who are you trying to fool???  Not me!

The 'this is what I'm doing every second of every day' people:
These people like to check in literally EVERYWHERE they go.  They also make posts several times per day about what EXACTLY they are doing every living breathing second.  Nobody cares that you're at the grocery store picking up the following 7 items.  Oh, now you're at the bank?  How riveting..  These are the people who get hidden in my news feed.  I.  Don't. Care.

The "Look, I know music" people:
These people also get hidden in my news feed.  If you're posting you tube videos more than three times per day of any given song, I want to know why.  If you like a song, must you proclaim it to the facebook world?  What are you trying to prove?   You have a radio?  You're have eclectic taste?  I like lots of songs too, but you don't see me posting 65,000 youtube music videos on my page.  Oh, and then there are those that get ALL of their status updates straight from lyrics.  Like they're being all cryptic and emo.   Once again, borrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrinnnnnngggg.  I don't like playing the "ooooh, what does THIS mean game".

The "I am religious because I quote the Bible" people:
Let me FIRST point out that I would consider myself somewhat religious -- we go to church as often as we can, we pray, we TRY to be live as righteous as possible... however, you wouldn't know any of this from reading my facebook.  I don't attempt to brag about it.  It's a personal choice, not something I need to use to improve my social status.  I don't need the entire FB world knowing my religious beliefs, and I don't check in at church and constantly quote the Bible.  I'm not looking for approval or acceptance.  This is another set of people who are trying to PROVE something.  Quoting the Bible doesn't make you a Christian.  Personally, I think your spirituality is something that should be a little private.  Not everyone will share your beliefs and those people who don't probably don't care to read exact exerts from the Bible 18 times a day.

The "Look what I ate/how much I exercised" people:
I just love when people post on FB when they've had a healthy meal.  What I would love even more is if they posted what they ate in BETWEEN all those healthy meals.  Here are some exact quotes from FB: "Had a few bites of lettuce for lunch today," "Mmm, check out this veggie stir fry," "Another sugar-free, carb-free, fat-free meal saves the day."  And then people also want to post how many miles they ran, how much yoga they did, how many hours they spent at the gym, or you know, whatever.  When you have to post about it constantly on FB it makes me wonder... are you doing this for YOU or so you can brag about it?  And even more importantly, WHO CARES?  I don't care if any of my friends ate one meal that was transfat free this week, or exercised twice.  I DO want everyone to eat healthy and get exercise, I just don't want to hear about it EVERY flippin' day. AND I want people to do it for themselves, not because they have something to prove.  That being said, if you have some success story or have changed your life with real results and you're proud of your accomplishments, by all means, BRAG, you deserve it!  But otherwise, save it.

All in all, what I'm saying is nobody cares how "perfect" your life is, that you can copy and paste a quote or lyric, what you're doing every second, or what you had for dinner.  THINK about what you post - what are you trying to prove with each check-in or status update?  And keep things in MODERATION.  If you must post something braggy, balance it with something realistic so people dont think you're being fake, or trying entirely too hard to impress people.  If you're always posting about your healthy meals, don't forget to announce when you've earned a cheat meal and got to eat something crappy!

Anyway, I'm sure I could think up several more categories, but it's a waste of everyone's time including my own.  If you want to share an overload of information, start a blog.  Clearly that's what I did!  Adios facebook, I'll be back when I can conjure up some more patience for people's stupidity!

Can I just tell you...

...How awesome I'm feeling lately?   Wow -- with my posts lately I probably sound like a pumped up perky-all-the-time cheerleader..  Not my intention so sorry if I come off as a total nut. 

This morning I had my second bootcamp. (for the next 5 weeks ill be going M,W,F every week, and I may even throw some Saturdays in.)  My first bootcamp was pure HELL.  I couldn't finish most of the cardio stuff, I was on the verge of throwing up the entire time.  When we ran, I came in last....even very far behind a women definitely heavier and older than me... AND pushing a stroller w/ her baby!  (can you say embarrassing?)  If my body matched my atheletic ability and endurance I would weigh 450 pounds.  For realsies. I almost hate sometimes that I LOOK somewhat fit because I think when people see me excercise and get winded so fast that I'm faking it.  (NOPE, wish I could say I was!)  DURING Wednesdays boot camp I thought, 'Screw this.  I'm going to die.  It's WAYYYY too hard for me.'  But after I got home and shook the feeling of death I actually felt GOOD.  Sore (which equals RESULTS!) and pumped up that I did something so hard...to the best of my ability anyway.  ;)  I thought about skipping my class this morning, and waiting for Monday to go back, but then I decided that I need to start off on the right foot - not skipping classes, but getting my lazy butt up out of bed!  I'm SO GLAD I did.  Today's bootcamp was MUCH easier for me!  Not to say it wasnt still a major challenge, but I DID IT!  Today I didn't even get nauseas!  (I did however sweat my BUTT off.  In light grey shorts...bad idea).  

So anyway, now I'm at home, relaxing before a JAM PACKED day of work!  And I feel AWESOME!  I figure from here on out, there are going to be some days I absolutely hate, and then other days that I hate but will feel great AFTER.  Once my five weeks are over I'll post a before/after picture.  I'll also post my results - how many inches I lost and how much weight I lost.  I got my measurements done today - I must say that BMI-wise I'm better than I thought.  Our trainer said we'll work on toning,  not losing, but I think it would be IMPOSSIBLE not to lose something with these intense workouts!  My ultimate goal is to look GOOD for new years!  I want to wear something form fitting that shows off sleek curves...NOT these saddlebags and a fupa!