So....just kidding!

After I just wrote a whole post about the diet, I have decided not to continue "Flat Belly" and to continue with "Eat Great, Lose Weight" (Suzanne Somers).

I did lose FOUR POUNDS (even with pms-y bloating!) and I am now currently at my college weight!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!

Which translated means that I have 9 pounds to go to reach my goal weight - not super-skinny, and not even what I weighed on my wedding day - but a weight that I feel is reasonable and healthy for my body and stage of life.

I'm so freakin' excited! :) Something about nine pounds just sounds so much nicer than ten pounds to me.

I decided not to stay with "Flat Belly" because it required constant measuring and weighing, and that is really just no way to live, in my opinion.

So, I started EGLW today, and I'll give it a try until Thanksgiving. I've already decided/know that I will eat a normal (although moderate!) Thanksgiving meal, because there's really no point in trying to be that self-controlled. And when you have a mom like mine, you just can't pass up food like that!

Anyway, I'm realistically prepared to gain a pound or so as my body re-adjusts to new foods and a new pattern, but if by next week at Thanksgiving I'm one pound less than where I am today, I will consider that a success :).

Here's to feeling healthy and thinner! :)

"Flat Belly" low-down

Since some of you asked, the "Flat Belly Diet" is for just that - eliminating belly fat. It's from the people at Prevention magazine. In a nutshell, you jumpstart the diet by a 4-day super strict diet that is supposed to banish bloat (and subsequently make you lose weight), and then you follow a pretty healthy diet afterwards. After the 4 days, you have to have a monounsaturated fat with every meal, which is either olives, olive oil, nuts, or dark chocolate. They based their research on people from Mediterranean cultures who apparently eat all of those foods and have low belly fat.

I'm sure you all know by now that they say belly fat is the worst kind to have - but even seemingly skinny people can have a different kind of belly fat underneath the skin's surface. I'm sure I have both kinds. lol

Anyways, this is my fourth and last day of the anti-bloat phase, and I've lost about 3 pounds so far, which is actually really great considering that I'm also hormonally bloated right now from pms! haha (And normally I gain 4ish pounds at this time of the month, so hopefully when I'm not extra-bloated I'll really be down around 5 pounds.)

My mom bought the book and the cookbook, which is the only way I'd ever heard about it.

I think I might try this until Thanksgiving, and see how it works. My friend Brigette told me about the Suzanne Somers diet, and since my mom said it was also working really well for John and James C., I might try that between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We'll see! I'll just be happy when today is over.....I'm dying for a cup of coffee!!!!!!!!!!

Flat Belly? Growling belly's more like it....

i am currently on the 'no-bloat' phase of the flat belly diet.

and i am STARVING, people.

thank GOD (and i really do mean that) that this only lasts four days, and this is day two.

two.more.days.

i think i can, i think i can....

Drama, Drama, Drama

A few random thoughts from my big ol' comfy armchair in my living room. That's right, people! Living room is moved in! I am SOOOOOOO pumped to have this room basically put together - now my house really, really feels like home again. I am a definite picture person, and it was so soothing to have all of my photos and frames out again yesterday. Plus, it was kinda like an early Christmas to unwrap all of my things again - I forgot I had some stuff!

This afternoon, I spent two hours searching for my keys. It was a nightmare. Not so much because of my personal keys, but because I have about 6 keys on my ring that belong to school. And one of those happens to be a master key to the high school. I was bawling like a baby, but I couldn't help myself, because all I could imagine was that I'd get fired or at the very least, fined a huge amount of money to re-key all the locks. Do you know how many doors are in an average high school building?! Anyway, praise the LORD, they were found in a box in the garage that we had already looked in twice. How we missed them the first two times, I have no idea, but I was a wreck.

I don't know if its the fact that my home feels homey again or because of all of the economic problems in the country (or a mixture of both), but I'm going to start getting into the CVS thing again. Kathy has been inspiring me to get my butt in gear again, and there are a LOT of great deals this week.

I'm going to make myself some decaf with my Vanilla Caramel creamer and cut me some coupons ;).

Thanksgiving is only 18 days away!!!!!!!!!!!!



P.S. I posted a video link on my Facebook site (99 balloons) - I found it from myheartismyhome.blogspot.com and seriously, seriously....you need to watch it.

Hellooooooooooooooooo bloggy world!

I have been meaning to update for a while but my life has been whirling out of control (yet in a good way, lol).  We officially got our house on Aug. 15th, and have spent every day since then working on it! Chris and I like to joke that in 3 weeks we have brought the value of our house down about $30,000.  haha  This is because that a lot of people in our area (I'm not trying to be mean, but socioeconomically it is a little lower here) would have just moved right in to this house, paneling and smelly carpet and office-tiled ceilings and all.  We just had a big vision for this place, and so a ton of stuff has been ripped out and thrown out and changed around.  

We actually moved in on Saturday night.....it's really more like camping out, because we have two functioning bathrooms and our bedroom is liveable but we don't have any appliances.  No fridge, no oven, no washer, no dryer! Oh, the things that get pushed out of your mind when you're a first-time homeowner working night and day on renovating your house! lol  We went in Saturday to buy our fridge, thinking they could probably deliver on Saturday.  Oh, no - it's definitely back-ordered til Friday! It's okay, you can laugh...we laughed at ourselves and our stupidity! haha

So we are living out of a cooler, a microwave, and a toaster.  Did I mention we haven't moved our kitchen table in yet?  So we eat on the floor.  And did I mention our kitchen is completely being overhauled?  So we can't currently use the sink.  So we use paper and plastic for everything.  (Yes, I do feel a tiny bit guilty about that).  

So, besides living in chaos right now, we've both also been working full time.  I also got a cold for four days over Labor Day weekend, which really added to the fun! hahaha 

Honestly, yes, it is a little overwhelming, but each day we see progress and thankfully we have a large house with a garage to store most of our things.  As soon as the kitchen is put together (hopefully by the weekend), life will be a little less weird.  

So............THAT'S why I haven't been posting! 

Pictures will come after my kitchen is fixed! :) Stay tuned!  

And I currently have 3 gray hairs in my head....so maybe pray for me! lol :)

Craaaaazy Times

Well, this is shaping up to be quite the week! On Thursday (our home phone had conveniently bit the dust Thursday morning) I received a call message from the superintendent of the school district that interviewed me two months ago. He said that there had been a job opening with two applicants, and I was one of the applicants (I didn't understand at first, either) and could I please call him back at the office or at home? Well, we hung out with one of our best friends from college on Thursday (and saw Get Smart, which was hilarious), and bought a new phone on the way home (late that night) and plugged it in when we got home.

Early the next morning, our new phone rings while I'm eating breakfast. It's the superintendent, asking if I got the message! I explained about the phone dying, and he proceeded to tell me that the position I had previously applied for was now open and that he wanted me to come in and have a second interview. He mentioned salary and how he could make me "very happy."

So, I went in for my intereview today. Of course I was terrified! :) My head knows that God is totally in control of this whole thing (after all, I had already put it out of my mind), but that didn't help the butterflies in my stomach. I think the interview went well, and he told me that the board members had all given me excellent ratings on my past interview and that he really liked me. He also told me the salary, which is lovely. At least in my opinion. For a teacher. :)


Unfortunately, my competition (lol) is interviewing again tomorrow, so I won't know their decision until sometime after that. So if you feel led to pray that she oversleeps her interview or decides not to show up or something, feel free. hahaha

But seriously, if you want to pray that God leads this man to give me the job, that would be much appreciated!!!

Oh, the other news: At 2:00 today, Chris is signing the new contract for the house we've been looking at. He's bringing it home, and I'll sign it tonight, and our realtor thinks Fannie Mae will be willing to close by August 19th!!!! I could be a homeowner in two weeks or less! Which would really be amazing, because I haven't shared a fraction of all the troubles we've had with the search for a house.

So, by the end of this week, I could have a brand-new house coming and a brand-new job to start!!!!!

(Or I could potentially have neither. Which would be a real mood-killer. lol)

I'll keep you "posted"!! (Aren't I hilarious?!)

Pics are up

My Dominican pictures (four albums' worth!!) are all loaded on Facebook. Enjoy! I kinda explain most of the photos so you have some idea of what's going on in each of them. There were well over 200 so I couldn't actually post them all here. :)

I was in Connecticut from Thursday - Saturday just for a quick trip to spend time with my mom and sister (my Dad was working most of the time, unfortunately). It was so nice to have some girl time - watching Project Runway and Gilmore Girls episodes, going to Puffin (I'd never eaten there before and I loved it!!!), and shopping at the factory outlets. My sister left for NYC with her friends early on Saturday morning, but mom and I got a chance to go to a few yard sales (I didn't find anything, surprisingly) and then came home to have waffles and hang out with my dad. Friday night we all went out to eat with my grandparents, which was nice. My grandmother is still really having a hard time not being bitter and angry (the doctors are still not sure/not telling what killed my uncle and my grandparents are seriously considering getting a lawyer), so that was a little hard. She cried a little bit, too. Some of you know my grandparents so if you think of her, just pray for her, will you? Thanks.

I need a mental vacation......

Ahhh! I'm so sorry about my poopy posting. It's just that every time I have logged on with the intention of posting, I get so distracted and caught up with all of the other stuff online that I missed over my 10-day absence that by the time I even think about posting on my own blog, I am way too tired to come up with anything to write. I'm really starting to think about timing myself on the internet, like some of you have mentioned that you do. I just feeling like I'm missing so much if I don't read everything! I always start out with Money Saving Mom (because I don't want to miss any money-saving tips), and then I end up following her blog to coupon sites or other blogs, and then there's my several e-mail accounts, facebook, friends' blogs.......the list goes on. My brain just gets on information overload, I guess! For those of you who time yourself each day, do you find that it's satisfying or stressful (meaning, are you okay with stopping your time on the internet, or do you feel like you need lots more time?)

Please understand that I know in the scheme of life, "internet time" is not really a crisis of global proportions. But it is something that I would like advice on, if you're willing to give it!


I'm also sorry about not posting pictures yet - I still feel like my life has not yet bounced back from this trip! I have been sleeping 9-10 hours every night since we got back (we averaged about 7 or less while we were down there, and now my body cannot get enough sleep), plus my stomach has been rebelling against eating American food again. I finally went and got my pictures developed yesterday (it cost me $45, can you believe it?!!!!!), and created an adorable little 6x8 photo book of our trip at CVS that is free after ExtraBucks (try it this week! it's so fun and easy). I promise pictures are coming sometime soon!!

It's just that my head still feels like it's swimming - the other day I put spices in the fridge and then looked for them for 10 minutes until I realized what I had done. So please bear with me! :)

*Sigh*

I was saddened today to realize that a fellow blogger had copied one of my blog ideas only a day after I originally posted. This is not the first time she has done this. She's not a regular commenter or anything, but I knew that she read my blog and vice versa. She's not anyone I know in real life, but she does profess to be a Christian.

She has recently been writing about/asking others for new ideas for her blog, saying that she was fresh out. I guess I'm mostly disappointed because she has a ton of readers, and I have...well, not a ton :)...and maybe she has figured that since so few people read my blog, no one would realize she was copying my thoughts almost exactly?

I e-mailed her today about it. Because even though we live in this virtual world, as Christians we are supposed to admonish one other when someone has done something unpleasing to God. I was very kind - not rude at all, although I wanted to be! haha


I've just always hated when people condescendingly say, "Copying is the sincerest form of flattery."

No, actually, it isn't.

It's unethical, lame, and just plain rude.

*Whew* Okay, had to get that off my chest!



In other news, has anyone gone strawberry picking yet? I've been waiting for about 3 months now and I think I'm going to go this Friday, since I don't have class. My mouth is dying to taste strawberry shortcake again. Does anyone have a great strawberry recipe? Please share!

Update on the Ants

Well, the ants aren't gone. Yesterday I did kill about 45 (literally) within about 3-4 hours.

It. was. not. a. good. day.

My husband may or may not have gotten some desperate voicemails.

Anyway, I sealed, I killed, I sprayed, I doused papertowels in rubbing alcohol where there was a big gap between the carpet and wall (hard to describe). I bought some ant spikes and put them outside. I killed more ants. I started to feel like I was going nutso.

Chris came home and poured gasoline over the line of hundreds (literally - no exaggeration) of icky black ants walking in a line across the driveway into the corner of our bedroom wall.

That made me smile.

Has my landlord done ANYTHING yet?

Nope.

God bless my friend Lindsay, who offered to let me come over tomorrow, since I don't have class, to watch Friends and escape my house. Friends and a place of escape. Now that's true friendship. ;)

(By the way, Mary, I'm taking a 3-credit math class for the entire month of June to satisfy the 6-credits of math required by PA for me to be a music teacher and/or subsitute teacher next year. You don't even want to get me started on their logic for that!)

Thanks for sharing your stories, you guys! It really makes me feel better to know you guys have dealt with this, too. I keep telling myself it could be worse.



It could be spiders.

The Ants Come Marching Into My House, Boo Hoo, Boo Hoo

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I feel as though my LIFE is being over-run by these insects!! I'm literally on the verge of heart palpitations, I kid you not. We discovered itty bitty ants about 2 or so weeks ago in our kitchen - I had labored for hours over a hot stove (no really, I did) to make two beautiful apple pie tarts, left them cool on the counter, and came home to find them swarming with ants. Dis.gust.ing. So, we borrowed some Terro ant killer from my mother-in-law (once we realized where they were coming in), and they have all but died off. Still a few every now and then, but they go straight to the Terro and then leave. Okay. *Sigh of relief*. I can deal with that.

But.

Last night, we discovered carpenter ants in the bathroom. Waaaay worse (in my opinion, anyway). They move like 80 million times faster, and I swear, these things have 9 lives. You can whack them with your husband's Adidas sandal like, 12 times (hypothetically, of course), and they will not die. It's like they enjoy testing you or something. Or the more likely conclusion that I've decided on: they want to ruin my life and make me paranoid.

Well, DH and I spent about 45 minutes last night sealing off - with duct tape; classy, right? - every possible hole they could be entering. We live in a basement apartment, and saw some coming out of some holes and some other ones coming out of a hole in the dryer pipe/vent. DH sprayed Kilz for good measure, and then we turned the empty dryer on high to teach those mean ants a lesson.

Except.

This morning Chris and I found one in the kitchen, which totally thwarted all of our ideas about entry. Chris told me it was probably just a renegade ant from last night.

Except.


I came home from class (have I mentioned I'm taking a class yet?) and saw 2 in the kitchen, and 5 in the bathroom. One ant was even carrying another ant! The nerve.

Of course, if this were my own home, I would have called an exterminator (or at least some ant killer!) first thing this morning. Except....it isn't. Chris called our landlord last night and then again this morning after I called to tell him I'd found more. (In all honesty, while they're just horribly annoying to us, they really could be eating the inside of his house - apparently these are the house-eating ants.)

Meanwhile, the ants are free to terrorize me. Which means I want to cry.

If anything happens, I will let you know.

As for me, I'll be looking at ceilings, floors, and walls anxiously for the rest of today, feeling like a crazy person.

And wishing I was as cute as Elizabeth Hasselbeck on The View.

It's Funny How Time Changes You...

I'm not working today, as there was no call for subs (I even called and asked - nothing). I secretly love these days off. I love being able to wake up and make my own schedule for the day, bake if I want to, clean the house a little bit more than normal, and run any errands that need to be done.





Even just a year or so ago I was considering teaching even when I had kids, or thinking about a variety of options so that I would be able to do it all - stay home a little with my kids, yet still be able to do my dream job (that was assuming I would get a high-school music position). But I can honestly say now that the desires of my heart have changed. A few years ago I would have bristled at the statement I'm going to make, but I can honestly say that all I want to do is stay home, take care of my house, and raise children (and eventually homeschool them, at least for a few years).

It was the quasi-feminist in me that felt the idea of staying home and only being a "homemaker" was so oppressive. I had talent! I was a good teacher! I wanted to be fulfilled by taking part in the career I thought would make me happy. Staying at home was so blah to me. All day? Every day? No thanks.

Maybe it is partially my husband's doing that my thoughts have changed about all of this. He would love to have me be able to stay home (part of the reason he is starting his online business). He is never negative about it when I don't get a subbing job - only genuinely happy that I got stay home and get things accomplished. I always thought this would make me feel second-class, but it really and truly doesn't. Making my home a comfortable and lovely place to be - whether that is via my attitude, the decor in my house, or the things I concoct in the kitchen - brings me such joy that I never thought would be possible before.

Do I miss teaching music a little bit sometimes? Of course. Do I wish that I was teaching high-school chorus right now? Absolutely. But given the option between the two? Well, I guess you could say that my heart is leading me home.

So for now, I'll continue to work. We still want to buy a house, and since I can earn money now, I will. But when the time comes for us to start our family, I'll be very much looking forward to it.

(Photos: "We're wild about music!"- one of my bulletin boards in my K-2 classroom last year -the stars on the left are for the bulletin board next to it; leading my 5th-grade Select Chorus in our Grease mini-musical for the Relay for Life cancer event; leading the entire 5th grade in their Grease program - singing "We Go Together"; and me with some of my awesome 5th grade kids. Check out my hair - that is post-program-sweaty-music-teacher frizz for you!)

So sorry about the lack of posts lately. This is usually what happens: I come home from work, and by the time I make dinner, clean up, do some housework (or, as in the case of today, come home from work completely exhausted and eat leftovers and do absolutely nothing besides take a shower), that all I want to do is vegetate in front of the computer and read people's blogs. (By the way, I really do read all of your blogs [I mean those of you lovely people who comment on here], as well as a bunch of other blogs that I lovingly stalk [i.e., I read all about their life everyday and could probably write a paper about the person even though said person and I have never met. I can't help it if someone is that interesting!].)

But by the time I have relaxed and caught up on everyone else's life, I'm usually too tuckered out to write anything on my own blog. At least, that has been the case for the past week or so.

Anyway, I promise to write something interesting soon. Really. I do. So just bear with me, okay?

And thanks to those who encouraged me with Curves. I love it. :) The comments and Curves, that is. ;)

I'm Ready to Roll....

So, I have gained a ton of weight since my wedding 21 months ago. I mean, it's shocking. Like seriously. We're not talking less than 10 pounds, here. I mean, so-much-it's-too-embarassing-for-the-internet-to-behold.

All growing up, I was pretty thin. Weight? Never really an issue. But around my sophomore year in college, things started to change... namely, my metabolism and body weight. I was able to take off 17 pounds for my wedding in August '06, and was able to keep most of it off until maybe January or so.

Then the you-know-what hit the fan. Or so they say ;)

Anyway, through a series of events, including reading a random blog, talking to my mom, and thinking a lot about the subject, I have decided to join Curves (yes, I know, now I really sound like a grandma. Oh well). I tried Curves a few months ago when they had a free fitness study, and I lost 6 pounds in 3 weeks, without dieting. But it was November, Chris was laid off and in grad school at the time, and Christmas was coming and money was so tight. So I didn't join.

I kept telling myself I'd work out when the spring came, since I am now blessed with the metabolism of......a warthog. Well, spring is here. Have I been motivated to just go out and jog? Ummmm, NO. (Honestly, I will never understand the mind of people who can just pop out of bed at 5:30 and jog a few miles. I'd rather be chubby and stay in bed, thanks.)

I kept thinking about joining again, but we're trying to be extra careful with our money in order to continue to save for the down payment on a house.

But over the weekend, I finally realized that money shouldn't be in the way of me feeling confident and healthy about my body.

So, I went back on Monday, and joined.

And it is so refreshing!

I love how Curves is real women - granted, the majority of them (except maybe my 30-year-old sister-in-law and a few others) were born 20-40 years before me. But I love going there and not feeling like an ogre just because I don't have fake boobs and work out in a sports bra and wear little tight shorts with writing on my butt. You know what I mean?

I'm not aiming for my high-school weight again; just a healthy weight that I think would suit this stage of my life. I have a loooong way to go, but boy am I pumped! Can I just encourage you to make a similar choice, if you've been considering it? Thankfully, Chris was totally supportive. (Plus, he's had a full-time job again for the past several months.) The money will work itself out. (And providentially, the owner gave me a great discount on the registration fee, even though I technically "didn't qualify" for any of the current promotions.)

Our bodies are worth it!
Here's to being healthy and confident again!

So...

If I walked to the ice cream shop last night with Chris, does that count as exercise?

What about if it was soft serve?


Juuuuuust checking.