This & That: Life Wrap Up

So about 2 weeks ago, I tried mashed potatoes for the FIRST time in my life.  Yes, I'm for real, NO, I'm not lying.  I'm uber picky and I always thought they looked disgusting and I hated that 'mashed' was in the title.  Trying them for the first time was like a hit of crack.  NO LIE I have been craving them for every meal.  Mmmmm... Oh and P.S.>>I've never tried crack either but it seemed like a good point of reference.

I also tried salmon for the first time recently -- and liked that as well!  Now, it's not a serious obsesh like the 'tatoes but something I would definitely have again.  My taste buds must be gettin' all growed up. 

Hmm..I cannot believe I just wrote about foods that I've tried.  How BORING and odd.  This is the life of a married lady, I tell you.  My excitement is derived from new foods and finding cleaning products that work well.  But I wouldn't have it any other way!

So Jake has now been working in his new city for a few months now and he's ALMOST out of training which he will be realllllllllly glad for.  Thank goodness they shaved a few weeks off for him.  He has an old friend that will be starting soon for the same department, so he's pretty excited about that as well. 

My work has been cruising right along too!  I'm gearing up for the summer which is my busiest season.  I may end up having to extend my hours or pick up an extra day to accommodate everyone.  How is that even possible already??  When I opened my doors in June/July of last year, I worked between 3-5 hours a day and typically 3-4 days each week.  I probably mention this EVERY time I talk about work, but I still feel STUNNED by the growth and success of my business.  I'm having so much fun with it, and just could not be more thankful for the freedom it has given me to be my own boss.  I'm happy, healthy and stress free and you can't put a price on those things I tell ya!

With all the WORK going on in our family, we SURE hope to make some time for vacationing this year!  We are taking a mini-trip to Chicago in July for a family reunion - I'm SUPER excited about this because it's Jake's first time to the big city!  And I LOVE ME SOME CHICAGO!  I'm going to try to pack as much in as possible.  We hope to take a few 'real' trips this year as well, but more on that later.

I've been doing really well with my gym workouts, going as planned... AND MORE!  Pretty exciting stuff I tell you.  I used to think Jake was a cray cray person bc he'd spend 2 hours at a time at the gym.. But now WHEN I have the time, I love it as well!  Some days I hit up the gym twice.  (Who is this girl?!)  Ever since I lost my extra weight (Thanks to cal counting and my itworks wraps!)  working out doesn't seem so hard these days.  When I was heavier I had NO endurance and also felt more pain in my joints when I did practically anything.  My energy level is way up too!  I'm doing an 8 week bikini challenge with a couple friends right now!  (Its FREEEEE, check it out on ToneItUp.com)  It just started a week ago so you can still get on the bandwagon!  You can do the workouts at home, OR print them off an take 'em to the gym.  LOVE IT!  And the TIU girls have the most bangin-est bods ever.  = MOTIVATION!

So we have two monsters dogs of course and we'd been attempting to leave Buddy The Destroyer out instead of his kennel.  He'd been chewing up the blinds and stuff, but once they were ruined we figured it didn't matter if he damaged them further.  (Terrible, right?!)  Cut to last weekend.  Jake and I have a glass bowl on counter with all of our prescription meds, vitamins, 1 chocolate bar, etc.  Well, Buddy somehow got almost ALL the medicine out of the bowl --thankfully the glass bowl didn't fall/shatter-- but we came home to a pill explosion all over the couch and floor.  Pills and crushed pill powder everywhere.  We were able to determine that he had ingested the following:  Blood Pressure Meds, Hydrocodone, Ibuprofen, Biotin, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Unisom, a bar of chocolate, andddd God knows what else.  Someone tell me how this dog LIVED??  No throw up, no diarrhea, no slow breathing, hyperactivity, N O T H I N G !!!!!!!  I swear he's got 9 (million) lives or something.  It was redic. And back in the kennel he goes!

Some House-y Type Stuff

In the last week or so-ish I've been trying to do some stuff with this janky-looking house of mine.  I rearranged a little last night and I feel like it's a WHOLE NEW PLACE!  WHOOOO!  Jake was working and I was totes bored -- When he's gone it's the best time for me to get creative, crafty or in a cleaning mood.  No distractions plus it helps the time go by.  We hope to put our house on the market later this year, so I figured a little sprucing up could help.. Well, that AND a nice good 2 day DEEP clean.  Phew!  Now that everything is like new, I'm all " AWW I love this house!! "  I really do. *Sigh.*

Rearranged!  Excuse the dog toys & clutter.

Anyway, so want to see some of my projects??  My MOST exciting one was the bar stools I reupholstered last night.  I bought these stools from walmart a few years ago.  They are just basic. Boring. Blah.  I hit up hobby lobby to find some fabric and buy a staple gun.  I KNEW I had to find chevron fabric because it is my most favoritest thing in the whole world right now!  Unfortunately, they didn't have any colors except gray+white... It's still adorbs, but I couldn't do all three stools with it because my house has more warm tones and I was afraid it wouldn't look right.  I bought 3 fabrics with the hope that I could make them go together in a non-go-together kinda way.  I'm REALLY digging Moroccan styled decor, and lots of pops of colors and prints.  I absolutely A-D-O-R-E how these came out, take a looksie!

Next up: My makeshift jewelry holder.  I have{had} a jewelry tree thingy that someone gave me, but it wasn't working.  First of all, my clunky jewelry was weighing it down.  They also kept getting all tangled up, and they were much too long for the little tree anyway.  It always looked messy and unorganized.  I practically never wore any of my necklaces because it was such a b!tch to untangle them.  I wanted something that I could display my stuff easily on.  Solution: A chunk of rustic looking wood with little white rosette knobs on it.  So fun, simple, easy and cute.  I love looking at all my necklaces!  P.S. I retired my jewelry tree to a pony-tail holder tree.  HA!  It looks redic, no pictures of that mess...

Did I talk about my pinterest spare bathroom makeover yet??  Well, if so, you're gonna hear about it again.  My bad.  I found a tutorial for tiling around straight edge mirrors in the bathroom - seemed easy enough!  Have to say though, it wasn't QUITE as easily as I hoped.. I ended up with liquid nail (glue) all over my mirror.  Also, the first go around I decided I would do it my way which didn't work and all the tiles fell off, shattered and even CHIPPED MY MARBLE SINK.  Uh, whoopsies.  Lesson of the day:  Follow the directions, no shortcuts.  Once it was all finished though, I was really pleased with how it turned out.  I also put up double curtains just because I think it looks cute different.  I also did this 'my' way - I bought REAL curtains so they're extra long, anddddd they can't get wet or be exposed to heavy humidity.  Bad idea for a SHOWER right?  I guess it would be if we ever used that shower but we don't.  I just couldn't find any shower curtains that didn't look cheesy or cheap. 

Tile Border on Mirror

Curtains

So, the spare bathroom isn't exactly practical, but apparently practical isn't exactly my style.  Take my dining room for example -- it's my FAVE room in the house, but if you THINK about trying to eat in there OR GOD FORBID use a plate or napkin I will assault you.  That room and all of it's contents are for looks only.  I mean, why else would I have fake pears sitting on every plate?  {BTW, I've toned the dining room down a little bit... I put up all the glasses and silverware.. That shiz gets dusty and it's just extra cleaning.  And Lord knows we aren't having some formal dinner party any time soon!}

I guess that's about it for the house lately.  I bought some new vases and some decor type stuff, but nothing too exciting.  We still have a LOT more that needs to be done though.. New carpet, new blinds, new paint... Ay yi yi it never ends!  Thanks in part to our lovely dogs.  I like taking it one little project at a time though!  I'm really into antiquing right now and waiting to find perfect pieces here and there!  Maybe I'm finally getting the hang of this home decorating thing after all  . . . Now . . . If I could JUST get something up on the walls.

My April Update

WELL I took the WHOLE month off of March and didn't do one teensy ounce of blogging!  Okay ~ it wasn't actually on purpose, I just got carried away with all the nothingness I was doing all month.  Seriously, when I look back, I'm all uhmmmm, where the F was I all month long??  I'm going to blame it on working.  Maybe I didn't work any more than usual, but HOORAY I had a record month!  Actually, every month is a little better than the month preceeding so maybe I should stop getting so excited and shocked when I run my end of month reports??  Then again, increasing profits are always reason to celebrate, whoo partttayyy!  Now I remember what I spent March doing -- SHOPPING, splurging on myself, throwing back cocktails, lots of dining out and even some treating other people to some little gifties.  But now I'm going to come back down to Earth and stop being so wasteful and splurgy.  And selfish, basically. 

So, I signed up for a gym membership (Jake's bright idea)  and I'm working on my fitness!  Starting yesterday. :)  I took yoga yesterday and I'm doing zumba today!  My goal is to hit up atleast 4 classes per week.  I'm finally down to my goal weight so this is just so I can feel good AND be somewhat in shape...and  not be out of breath when I walk from my car into work.  Mmmhmm, it's THAT bad.  Since I may or may not end up knocked up at some point this year, I want to be in the best shape possible.  Anyway, group classes are kinda my thing-thang so hopefully I can stick with this.  I'm locked into contract for 12 months which makes me a leeeetle nervous.  If all else fails I'll just use their tanning bed - then it won't be a total waste.  I guess.

And last but not least, we had a Dr.'s appointment recently to discuss conception/fertility.  We've been off the pill since July-ish of last year (I can't even remember, honestly!).  Jake and I have been in serious baby-mode lately.. We love talking about the future and all the things a baby will add to our lives!  We also like to talk about our fears with the whole thing -- It's SCARY stuff, you know?!  I asked Jake what his #1 fear was -- Was it the responsibility?  The financial strain?  The fact that our lives will be totally different??  No.  Jake's ONLY fear (so he says) is that I'll die.  Yes, DIE, during labor.  {Eeek!}  I don't know whether to think that's sweet or freaking weird.  I wonder if that's a common fear for soon-to-be-daddies.  Who knows?!  Well, so anyway, in the mean time of waiting to turn up preggo we are going to have some genetic testing done.  Both of Jake's parents were adopted so we have NO medical history beyond them.  Surely everything will be fine, but it can't hurt to be cautious!  Especially for a chronic worrier like me.  Speaking of worrying - people have asked if we're worried about NOT being pregnant yet.  The answer is N O.  Although we would love to add to our family, we are confident that it'll happen when it's supposed to.  We aren't "trying" REALLY hard by any means...NO doing ovulation trackers and checking daily BMT's ~ We're just having fun the ole fashioned way.  We LOVE our marriage and our life together, and we aren't in a crazy hurry to turn everything upside down; We're young, healthy and still have lots of time left to expand our family.  It's not a race, people!  If it happens soon, we'll be over the moon..but if not we'll just keep on embracing the journey.  After "trying" (I use that word loosely) for 18+ months we'll revisit the matter but I don't even want to THINK about crossing that bridge when/if the time comes.

Tummy Tranformed!

I wanted to share with yall my tummy transformation ~ Props to the "It Works" Body Wraps that helped me slim down!  I love them so much that I'm thinking about just going ahead w/ becoming a distributor. (So let me know if you want some, since I can get 'em at a discounted price!)

I have a 4 photo/8 week transition photo and then the 2 photo/8 week transition photo that I'm posting today.  It's me prior to my first wrap and then me again 8 weeks later.  (I tried to do a wrap once every two weeks.) The first photo was taken December 1st 2011 and the "after" photo was taken on January 31st 2012.  {The 4 photo transition is too wide to fit on blogger, so I'll have to stick with the 2 photo one!}  Check out how well this stuff works! -- P.S. -- I hope nobody looks as this and thinks I look ill.  I'm still within a healthy weight range, and still have fat in LOTS of other areas on my body...just not the tummy!

Want to know more about the Body Wraps??  Here' some of the FAQ and info from the itworks website:

Expect "ultimate" results with this amazing 45-minute body Applicator! The Ultimate Body Applicator is a non-woven cloth wrap that has been infused with a powerful, botanically-based formula to deliver maximum tightening, toning, and firming results where applied to the skin.

• Tightens, tones, & firms
• Minimizes cellulite appearance
• Improves skin texture & tightness
• Mess-free and simple to use {<---- they lied on this one..it's a little messy!}
• Results in as little as 45 minutes {3/4 times, I left mine on overnight!}
• Progressive results over 72 hours
• Made with natural ingredients

What is the Ultimate Applicator?The Ultimate Body Applicator is a non-woven cloth wrap that has been infused with a powerful, botanically-based formula to deliver maximum tightening, toning, and firming results when applied to the skin. It continuously hydrates for firmer, smoother, more youthful-looking skin and reduces the appearance of cellulite and skin slackening. See results in 45 minutes.

How often can I use the Ultimate Applicators?The Ultimate Applicators can be used every 72 hours and should not be used closer than that since they are continuing to work during that time.

Can I use more than one Applicator at a time?In most situations, we encourage you to use only one Ultimate Body Applicator wrap at a time because it will give you the most dramatic results when targeting one area at a time. The Ultimate Body Applicator targets the specific area where you have applied it and will continue to work for 72 hours.

What about for arms and legs, is it okay to wrap them at the same time?For leg and arm applications, it is safe to either cut one Applicator in half and use half on each limb, or, if necessary, use one Ultimate Body Applicator on each limb to promote symmetry.

How does the Ultimate Applicator Work?The Ultimate Applicator works by detoxifying, tightening, toning and firming. Daily, toxins are naturally removed from the body by your stool, urine and the air you breathe out. The ingredients continue to work for 72 hours after you have applied the Ultimate Applicator, so you may continue to see progressive results over this time period.

How long do the results last from the Ultimate Body Applicator?The results you see from the Ultimate Body Applicator are not temporary, as you may have experienced or heard about with many body wraps that simply cause water loss. The Ultimate Body Applicator helps detoxify, tighten, tone, and firm in a manner that produces lasting results—without water loss.

Happy Belated Valentine's Day Bloggers!

Valentine's day is soooooo made-up and over-commercialized, YES?  YES.  But, with that being said, who doesn't love the ever-so-cliche lovey-dovey gifts from their significant other??  I think the kiddos have the most fun with it - I know I did back in the day!  My husband did a fab job this year  . . . annnnd I'll leave it at that! ;)  Is anyone else annoyed by the people on FB who took a million photos of their V-Day gift(s)...{AND their xmas gifts..AND their birthday gifts...AND any-frickin-time they spend a dollar?!} It's ironic that the people who want to prove soooooooo bad that they're doing financially well, or in a happy relationship (and sometimes marriage)...are the ones that are fulla shizz!  I've come to realize that bragging about something on FB tends to mean one thing:  You're overcompensating big time!  When you know you've got something good or you're doing well, you don't have to try to remind/convince everyone around you or rub it in people's faces.  Plus, with today's economic state, and the sad misfortune of a lot of people, it's in really poor taste to post that kind of stuff ..... Ahh, yes, I feel another FB deactivation coming on SOON....

Anywho!  I'm  onto Phase II of Operation: Get Dead Sexy for Summer.  Phase I was all about droppin' pounds the old-fashioned and easy way... counting calories and using body wraps! NO, I didn't exercise at all, because I felt like that would be too much of a life change and I would give up. I am L A Z Y, people!  I've lost as many inches/pounds as I can for my body type to remain in the healthy category, but the last time my scale saw this #, I SURE don't remember having all this saggy skin, these two saddle bags and lots and lots of CELLULITE.  Ugh.. Not cool.  So now, in order to firm my skin and vanish the cottage cheese on my thighs, it's time to get off my butt a bit.  But I'm still doing it the easy way.  I bought this gel that tightens/tones/firms AND gets rid of cellulite (its basically the same stuff in the wraps, but you can just use it daily) and I'm also doing a litttttttttttle weight lifting.  Okay, and I'm also taking a fat binder/carb inhibitor so I can feel a little less guilty about eating crappy food sometimes.  NO cardio though, cardio is my mortal enemy for realsies.  I'm really digging the ItWorks line, and so far everything has worked as advertised!  Oh, and I took a before pic of my butt & thighs (w/ a swimsuit on of course!) so that way when I'm finished w/ the gel I can see if my cellulite is gone.  I couldn't stop laughing!!!!!!!!  It's terrible.  Really, REALLY terrible.  I don't know if I'll ever be able to post it on here but i'll keep ya posted on my progress!  (But don't expect a model-esque photo of me looking PERFECT in a bikini in a few months... I'm just trying to work w/ what I've got here... there's only so much you can do w/o plastic surgery... and, you know, working out for real and stuff...)

New Club!

Sooooooooooo....today I had my first meeting with Jake's new department's Police Wives Association!  No lie, I was totes nervous about going.  I'm like snappppppp what if I screw this up and everyone HATES me??? Eeekk!  I'm happy to report it went well! . . Like, reallllllly well!  The meeting seemed so formal with an agenda and discussion topics and everything!  I was even comfortable enough to speak up throw some of my genius ideas out there!  (I'm usually totally silent around new people!)  All of the ladies were extremely nice and welcoming to me.  I didn't even feel like the "new girl."  I can definitely see Jake's new department as a place that we will forge even more close friendships -- this is EXCITING for us!  Ever since Jake has switched departments, it seems a lot of his former co-workers are thinking about coming over too.  How awesome would that be??  A month and a half into 2012 and I'm feeling really good about it!  I'm ready for Jake to head back to shift work so we can just get back to a regular routine, although, I will sure miss getting to have dinner with him every night AND getting to go to bed together!

Low Cal Meals I LOVE

I'm all about finding easy to whip up meals with super low calories.  I eat the following three meals pretty frequently, and they are all UNDER 200 calories.  Each one takes less than 5 minutes to make.  EASY!  Sometimes I have to make my hubs' lunch and dinner, so it's nice that my meals are so quick and effortless. 

Low Calorie {Soy} Grilled Cheese {130 Cals}
~ 2 Slices of Pepperidge Farm Whole Grain Wheat Bread (90 Calories)
~ 1 Slice of Soy Vegan American Cheese (40 Calories)
~ Olivio Buttery Spray (0 Calories)
Make this the same way you would a regular grilled cheese.  Spray the butter on the bread, and grill it on a skillet with the cheese slice in between.  Typical grilled cheese sandwhiches will cost you 300 calories or more.  This one is only 130 Calories and tastes soooooo good!

Spinach Salad with LOW CAL Ranch (YES, it exists!!){134 Cals}
~ 1 Cup of Organic Baby Spinach (4 Calories)
~ Salad Spritzers Ranch Vinaigrette, 10 sprays (ONLY 15 Calories!)
~ Garlic & Butter Croutons, 2 tbsp (35 Calories)
~ 1/4 Cup of Shredded Mozzerella (80 Calories)
Toss everything together in a bowl and eat!  This recipe is totally filling and only 134 Calories!

Almond Butter Toast {180 Cals}
~ 1 Tbsp of All Natur al Almond Butter (90 Calories)
~ 2 Slices of Pepperidge Farm Whole Grain Wheat Bread (90 Calories)
Toast your bread in a toaster and spread on the almond butter while still hot.  I eat this for breakfast often, and it's enough to keep me full for a while.  I love toast with just about anything on it though!