Printed memories

**collective sigh** It’s Friday. I think this week went by fast, but then I think how long it took to get here. Quite the battle inside, but regardless of if it was quick to come or slow as molasses, its happily here.

All week long has been quite the head in the clouds feeling for me. I got a groupon for a 20 page shutterfly photo book that expires in just a matter of days, so pretty much all this week, I spent my work hours creating it. I realize some may find this wrongful use of company time, but well, clearly I don’t have issues with it, so creating a photobook was on my agenda to do.

I decided to make an album of the cross country road trip G-man and I took back in 2009. Ack! Over 3 years ago. That’s unbelievable to me, any way, it was so great looking back at the memories we captured. Getting brought back to that moment where we caught the last 20 minutes of daylight at the Grand Canyon before we couldn’t see anything anymore. Or when G-man drove me through a tropical storm on the coast of Mississippi, because “it was nothing” to him…as the water is spilling over the wall covering the road..and I’m having an internal panic attack..

Or when we were at Disney World and got matching Mickey Mouse t-shirts to wear around the park. Just typing that brings the biggest smile on my face and sentimental tears to my eyes. …and now I’m crying… ugh, I’m hormonal, and emotional and gosh, I’m missing him bad right now.

{any way} I thought I could fit an entire month’s worth of photos (we took a month to drive from California to Virginia) in 20 pages, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. 46 pages later (not bad if I say so myself), my book was complete. I read from other’s that Shutterfly puts this “vivid effect” on all of your photos without your knowing which will over saturate and make your photos more yellow/orange, so I wanted to make sure I took that effect off before hitting ‘order’. Only I couldn’t find where it was. I looked everywhere to no avail, and finally jumped on live chat to ask.

I wasn’t prepared for what they told me. That I had to completely remove every single one of the 170 pictures I put in the album, delete them all, remove the effect and start over. I was crushed… not to mention a little upset. 45 minutes of live chatting back and forth, and taking 50 pictures of each page and its layout with my iPhone later, I finally was able to follow their instruction, remove the vivid effect, and start all over.

Thank goodness I took photos of each page of what pictures went where. In 45 minutes flat, I had put all the photos back where they were, triple checked every page, font and spelling and hit order. Now I sit and wait. I’m pretty excited to get it. This is just one trip of many that needed to be made into an album, so I’m excited that it got done.

I’m really becoming a big advocate for getting photos off the computer and onto print. Whether they’re thrown together in a cheap photo book, made into hundreds of 4x6’s or placed with care into many expensive photo albums, they need to get off the computer and into our hands. My goal is to have stacks and stacks of photo albums to share and see for years to come.

What’s your goal with your photos?
Do you use Shutterfly for your albums?

Have a lovely weekend, my friends. I’ve missed you guys!

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Myths about eating “less”

Sometimes I can talk like I really know what I’m talking about. Yesterday was one of those times. I was even impressing myself, until the very end when I started to lose my train of thought and stutter. *I’m thinking I’m developing a stutter problem*

In light of yesterday’s post and all my cooking Sunday, I had a little more confidence with my knowledge and held onto it while talking with a co worker. This co worker is battling her weight and she declared to me and another co worker that she was going to lose weight! And by telling us, it was her way of holding herself accountable, whereas before she would keep it to herself and fail.

I’ve heard her talking before with other co workers a month or so ago, but I sat back and listened to their ‘advice’, cringing as they were steering her in the wrong direction. Despite my frequent lack of eating enough throughout my day, I know what I’m supposed to do. I’ve had personal trainers over the years, not to mention G-man who is constantly researching exercise and eating the proper amount of calories, so I have a lot of knowledge on the subject.

So when she made her declaration, I asked her what she planned to do. “EAT LESS!” was her answer. This made me nervous, so I asked her how less? And that’s when she said 1,000 calories a day. 1,000 calories a day. That is too low!

I really think this is the common myth women believe. That by consuming an awfully low amount of calories that it will take the weight off, and its just not true! Should you eat less? of course! But dropping to such a low amount is going to put your body in, ‘hold tight to that fat’ mode! Especially if you’re going to start incorporating exercise in your life. You need that fuel. I think this is a big reason women get so discouraged and stop working at it, because they’re not seeing the results they expected.

We got to talking about what she could do. I showed her the pictures from my cook fest and it got her all excited of the possibility. She even wants to pay me to cook it all for her. {if anyone can come up with my price, I’m up for suggestions} but I explained to her the importance of eating enough, especially if she starts to workout, drinking tons and tons of water and keeping it healthy.

I’m not sure if you thought avoiding eating until dinner was the way to lose weight. Or that by eating considerably ‘less’ and working out would burn all that fat. Or that weight training will add bulk when you’re wanting to lose the weight, but let me tell you. Starving yourself daily is not the way to go..working out requires you to eat more (of the right foods) to fuel that body and get the burn to work on the fat..and weight training will help you lose weight. It won’t bulk you up but help burn the fat more and lean you down.

Yes, muscle weighs more than fat but its m-u-s-c-l-e.

Am I professional? No. But I’ve maintained this physique for the past 10 years

Do I make the right dinner choices all the time? No, but even when I wasn’t eating enough food, I was still always eating healthy foods. Nothing processed. Veggies, sweet potatoes and chicken only. This is my current routine with my eating.

Breakfast
2 cups of coffee (1 level spoon of sugar and 1/2 and 1/2)
steel cut oats w/fresh fruit and flaxseed sprinkled on top w/brown sugar and a dash of milk

Mid morning snack
apple slices w/all natural peanut butter (every single day for the past 9 months)

Lunch
(this week) sweet potato wraps
{or}
a salad or chicken leftovers
next week I’m making this for lunches (and let me tell you, its delicious!)

Mid afternoon snack
(if I get hungry)
plain cottage cheese w/pretzel crisps
{or}
a piece of chocolate dipped in peanut butter (I have this obsession w/peanut butter)

Dinner
Chicken/fish/shrimp and veggies

Drinking close to a gallon of water every single day and I get 2-4 workouts in a week. Depending on my mood.

But that’s it. It sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t. I hope I helped my co worker. I really want her to succeed and feel better about herself, and hopefully this post can help someone else see the realities of what it takes.

What myths have you been told about losing weight?

Do you have a tried and true way you maintain your figure?


*remember, I’m not a professional. Only offering suggestions of what’s worked for me and what I’ve found over the years to be effective.

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A holding pattern

Welcome to the very first Monday of the new year! Already in this one week alone, so much has gone on. Its been a busy one! Especially the weekend.

Its taken over 8 months, but I’ve finally made the decision to get myself back. Its been about that long since I’ve actually cooked for myself. I’ve made a meal here and there, but 9 times out of 10, I’ve gone the route of veggies and sweet potato and called it a night. Or just a sweet potato..or just the veggies.

Not exactly the healthiest for me.

I’ve had myself in this holding pattern for so long with little to no motivation or energy to do anything more. A funk if you will and over the weekend, I finally told myself to snap out of it. I’ve held onto a lot of stress lately and its been so draining and it leaves me with no ability to make anything at night. I think all of its been the main reason my clothes are a lot looser and ultimately dropping down a size in pants.

I was shocked and confused months ago when I noticed how loose they were and couldn’t figure out why. I’d synch a belt just so they’d stay on. I cheered with a friend when I tried the next size down and had them fit perfectly, celebrating my new ‘tinier’ size. I size I’ve never been. I thought it was because I was working out consistently that was doing it, but it wasn’t until this past week that I really got to thinking that it might be because I haven’t been eating enough.

To put the fears aside, I’m not anorexic. I actually still weigh the same with the same 5lb fluctuation. And I could easily link back to the week where I ate a buffalo burger every day for a week straight. I love food. There’s no doubt about it. I just wasn’t eating enough.

When I went to the store Monday night last week, I loaded up. On stuff I thought would get me through the week, but what ultimately didn’t last me past Wednesday morning. It was in that moment, opening my fridge and seeing a carton of 1/2 and 1/2 and a couple apples and nothing else, that I realized I haven’t gone grocery shopping in months. I’d go to the store every week, but only for something here or there, but never to actually make meals.

Cooking for 1 isn’t exactly the most enjoyable thing. Its actually downright depressing and tiring and I made sure to avoid it at all costs.

Saturday morning came and I had every intention of making the morning a Costco morning. My weariness won out and I ended up staying warm under a blanket on the couch, eating the bear minimum. I had a jewelry party that night and even though I was starving, I knew she’d have food (as most of them do) and waited until I got there.

Nasty oven baked fake taquitos were her party food of choice. I had 2…and that was my dinner that night.

Sunday, I had more resolve. Even though my energy was zapped, I made the drive to Costco and got as much as I could possibly think of. Then once I got home, I poured over my food board on pinterest, and wrote down all the other things I needed and made the trek to my grocery store. $200 later, I was ready to get to work.

For 3 1/2 hours I cooked.

I made 5 Roasted sweet potato wraps for lunches.


5 steel cut oats w/fresh fruit for breakfasts.


and 5 dinners of sautéed veggies and chicken.


A week’s worth of meals, healthy complete meals, where I can come home, reheat and not have to wonder what I’ll be making. It takes so much stress out of my week knowing I have healthy meals already prepared for me. No more running to Subway and wasting money on lunches. Or making toast in the morning that will only leave me starving by 9am.

I’m ready to eat again, to cook again for myself and get back into a functioning human being who’s not in this stall pattern. Its amazing how much I’ve wasted these past many months but from this moment on, my goal is to make my week’s worth of meals every Sunday and to eat like there’s no tomorrow…even if that means not being able to fit into my new smaller pants.



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I wanna hold your hand

If you haven’t caught on yet, I use either song lyrics or movie lines to get my point across. It’s the way I’ve grown up communicating.

Can you name the group I’m using today?

Any way, on to my point. I need someone to hold my hand. I realize I’m 30 years old and should be able to do things without hand holding, but I’m really needing it. Like, honestly needing it.

Who is willing to take on the full and complete fun responsibility of being my 5 day a week accountability partner with working out?

Ever since this last surgery I have really let myself go. Eating crap and exercising so irregularly, that, though I haven’t weighed myself {no scale} I have been the softest and jiggliest I’ve been since I gained 15lbs at 21.
its obvious here.


Last week I measured every single area that I have problems with. It’s a lot of areas. As well as taking the ‘before’ pictures. I worked out 2 days last week but my goal is 5. Monday through Friday.

I’ll admit, I worked out yesterday and I was surprised I did. Once I woke up I felt like a truck hit me, I was so drained, that I just kept it a lazy morning before heading to physical therapy. But being in PT, they make me exercise in the form of jumping. Lots of jumping. And with jumping comes jiggling in front of everyone. Everyone who watches me. How do I know they’re watching me? They talk about my jumping the whole time I’m doing it. I was at my limit of disgust.

I ended up going straight to the high school afterward and hit the bleachers. I was dripping with sweat, it was awesome. But I know me. I know my motivation and I know that I really really need someone to hold me accountable daily, right now.

If I know someone will check on me and there’s that chance I could disappoint them, I’ll tend to do it.

So, who’s willing to step up and help me? I have a 4 week goal and need to kill it before my deadline. If YOU need an accountability partner yourself, I can do it!

In case anyone’s wondering, I still haven’t been cleared to run but I’m thinking by next week I’ll be able to start again. But I can do everything else!

Who’s in?? Please. Pleeeease.

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Weight for me

I have to be honest, I’m frustrated beyond belief and can’t do anything about it.

I had a goal and that goal was actually coming to fruition prior to my surgery. Since then, obviously I haven’t been able to workout at all and I’ve been feeling the effects. And hating it!

In every way I know I’m thin. So understand that my frustrations might seem dumb to some but I can tell when I gain weight. It all likes to take residence in my hips and thighs and I just want to cry seeing all the hard work get lost as I sit on my butt day in and day out with my feet up.

I’ve started to do upper body again. Push ups, dips and ab ripper X, but its obviously doing little to the lower body which is where the weight has gone. Or doing anything for that matter anywhere since I’m not doing any cardio to contribute to the small workouts to make a difference.

So, I’m feeling gross. Like, extremely gross.

And please understand, I’m not doing the whole girl thing where I say, ‘I’m so fat’ just to get people to tell me I’m not fat. That’s the last thing I’m doing. Just needing to vent that I’m dying to get out and run the bleachers again. To workout and be toned like I was working so hard to be before.
via

I never thought I’d be the type dying to workout but I’m just itching to go out there any way even though I’m not ready.

Do you guys ever run across this with yourselves? Where you can’t workout for a few weeks or months and just feel horrible?

How long can you go without working out before you can tell your body’s ‘softening’? What do you do to help the spirits?? ….besides eating cookies and chocolate, cause seriously, I’m already doing that.

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Dear Jillian Michaels, I now understand

I understand why you yell at people. I still don’t care for it, but I now fully and completely understand.

I’m working someone out. I know its lame, but I can’t talk too much about it, but they need help.

Enter ME.

There have been quite a few people who have referred to me as “Jillian Michaels” as I describe the workouts and my demeanor to them. Some in a good way…some not so good way.

But I don’t yell….but I can see where I could…

It can be frustrating listening to all the complaining and excuses being made, but I’m learning to not care and push them even harder. harsh? I don’t think so. But I know they think so. Maybe I’ll create a different approach.

I used this line the other day after they stopped in the middle of a set, ‘the longer you stop, the more we’re going to do.’ Needless to say we doubled that set.

Moving on…

I find a little pleasure in working people out. I’m not sure if I could do this as a full time thing, but I like knowing we’re both getting the benefit since I’m kinda getting a workout in too. And to see them go further than they did the day before or do more then they thought they could do is encouraging. But I get too emotionally involved I think. I get frustrated too easily at the lack of desire intensity devotion commitment to it.

A month ago I set a goal to work out 5 days a week. I’m doing really good. Now if you saw it, I said 6 days, but that proved too much for me and stuck with 5. 3 weeks in I was doing great, 4th week I got completely burned out by it and did I think 4 days. Thankfully with me working this person out, it’s enabled me to keep working out, albeit later in the day.

I admit, I’ve only done Ab Ripper X once in a week. But since I’ve worked out, my abs are rocking!

And my most difficult area, my legs are coming along too. Even my mom commented that she can tell they’ve toned up and my cankles aren’t so cankl-ee anymore. They’ve actually thinned down…since my calves have also thinned down. I’m so stinking happy at that report! It’s so hard for me to tell looking down on them.

I’ve slacked off on the push ups too, but I did 100 the other day and about died! This push up app that I have on my phone is destined to kill me.

I only have a few more days of hard workouts to do before I have my surgery so I really want to stay consistent with them all the way up to the end when I have to take a few weeks off. So here’s to pushing hard!!

How are you doing with your workouts??

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Let’s all set a goal, shall we?

Last week I yelled at myself. I wasn’t being the most fair, but yelled none the less. Does anyone else yell at themselves? Be honest.

I workout inconsistently. A day here, a day there and I think it shows. Mainly in the hipple region. (what? you don’t call it the ‘hipple region’?) Ok, the hips and thighs area.

That’s my problem area and we’ve never gotten along. So even though all last week I was gone watching crazy puppies, I was still upset with myself for not being in the tip top shape that I believe I should be in.

total side note: my body building friend/personal trainer informed me years ago, in her opinion, that I had B.I.D. Body Image Disorder. What I see is not what others see. Well duh, of course we all see ourselves in the icky mirror on occasion.

Any way, I know what I look like yet I prefer to be a lot more toned. Hence the ‘goal setting.’ I have no excuse to not work out…beyond the feet of course. I have plenty of time in my day that at any part of it I could go out and get ‘er done, but I opt for 1st in the morning because otherwise I’ll never do it. I know me.

So, I’ve set a goal (and a plan) for myself beginning this week:
M-W-F I’ll wake up and go to the high school track and do my workout. Then come home and do a legs video (to speed up the toning process, the track workout isn’t showing me results fast enough).

T-TH-S I do the P90X Ab Ripper X DVD plus a bunch of push ups and dips.

I’ve worked out every day this week and feel great about it! My ultimate goal is to pretty much look like these ladies. seriously. (let’s all note how much I don’t like Jillian Michaels, but I can’t deny she’s in phenomenal shape)


My main focus are my legs, they have the most work to do. My arms could be more toned and abs I want to maintain.

So I’m putting it out there. To keep me accountable to workout and get toned. My goal is to maintain the healthiest fittest body I can for the remainder of my days, and I’ve seriously starting as of Monday…I’m not getting any younger (as I get told regularly) and you know what they all say. Once you hit 30 your body does this weird change and when once you could bounce back you can’t anymore.

Well Baby, I’m going to make sure I don’t need to “bounce back!”

If anyone wants to join me with their goals, you’re more than welcome. Feel free to tell me them in the comments and we can keep each other accountable. Don’t not want to put it out there. It’s just time for me to stop dilly dallying.


I hope every single one of you awesome ladies have a fabulous weekend. My life gets crazy as of Sunday so I’m going to soak up today and Saturday as best as I can before it all begins.

Images via pinterest 1.here 2.here 3.here 4.here 5.here

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