Random Thoughts

My friend Heidi came over the other day and helped me out and she didn’t even know it so thanks Heidi!

Her grandson who is 3 and my daughter who is 4 were arguing about taking turns and she said “at my house we do 5 min. turns.” She then would tell the kids, “4 min, 3 min”, etc.

Now those of you that are parents and have been for awhile probably are saying, duh, I already do this but seriously I have not thought of it this way yet. I babysit another child on Tuesdays and he is 8 months younger then my daughter. I have always fought with them about taking turns but the actual timing concept did not come so clearly until I was shown it.

Today is Tuesday and I have implemented this and it is working out nicely. I am making a couple adjustments though. I have a digital kitchen timer that I have been using and training the kids to listen for the beep so they know when their turn is up. It is funny because they keep asking, “is my turn over yet?” It is awesome to them when I say, “no not yet.”

They were playing with a really loud circus toy I bought my daughter that was driving me insane. The song would just keep repeating over and over. So my brilliant idea… Mommy takes a turn for 5 minutes. They gave me the toy without any hesitation at all because I set the time for myself too. What is nice with kids that can’t read yet…I set my 5 minute time for 10 minutes but still told them it was set for 5 minutes. They haven’t noticed any difference. The plan was that they would get onto something else and forget about the noisy toy. Did it work? ABSOLUTELY! It is noise free and has been 20 minutes since my timer went off.

Now I will go hide the toy somewhere.

One of the things it says to do first in the secret documentary is to write down a list of everything y you are grateful for. I am going to do this next but wanted to add something of my own first.

This is what I am calling my “blacklist.” This blacklist is everything that is holding me down from, right now, from imagining my life of “abundance.” I am going to create this list and then destroy it. I would love to burn it but seeing as this may cause some issues in my house with my kids, I may have to make do with the paper shredder.

My list:

House foreclosing
Where to move and when
Too many medical bills
Utilities too high
Roof leaking
Back yard sucks
No money to go out
Not enough money for more extra-curricular activities
Not enough money for gas to visit KY
Not enough money to go on vacation
No extra money period!
Too fat right now
Fighting with husband about money
Fighting with husband about time
Our car is too small
Have a huge crack in my windshield
Broke back tail light when hitting the neighbors van
$56,000 in student loans
Infant does not sleep
Toddler is back talking and being hard to deal with (which could be the result of all my stress from above I know)
Time to work out
Time to write
Time to work out as much as I need to
TIME TIME TIME TIME
Pressure to attend church from many people

OK going to try and attach the shredding video

I will expand on this documentary in future posts, but for now here is the message in the movie in a quick “nut shell.”

We attract our destiny whether it is negative or positive. The universe and us as humans work together and we decide what we will attract. Will we attract a lifestyle with abundance or a negative style? It pretty much tells you to see yourself living the life you want to live and that is what you will get.

Obviously there is a lot more specifics in the documentary but you have the idea. I am going to incorporate those ideas into my life and see where it takes me. Hopefully into abundance right?

Here goes the old college try!

I posted a while ago about “needing to speed this process up.” I blogged that I would do the Jillian Michael’s once a day and the total gym later. I have been pretty good about doing the Jillian every day (at least 5-6 days a week) but the total gym has been a little harder to do.
I have not stopped working out twice a day but get to about every other day. I have done the total gym a half dozen times but have also just simply jogged in front of the TV instead of the total gym on some days. I also bought a Pilates ball and have been doing some sit ups and tons of other exercises on it as well. I do job with the weights on my legs most of the time (5 lbs on each leg).

I just can’t depend on just the total gym because I can’t do that everywhere I go. I needed to be able to expand what I was doing and want to keep it cheap or FREE so that is why I decided to not kill myself and just run if that is all I can do later in the day.

I have noticed that I can sit and run in front of the TV now for 30 minutes without any trouble at all. When it stops raining around here I will probably see if I can run at all outside. I have never liked running outside and did it once for a few months and lost some weight but it is definitely not my favorite.

Measurements:
All in inches
Adding some new ones (check out my first post today on 5-17-10).

NOW 5-17-10                                   5-3-10              Loss or Gain
Bust: 42 ½                                          43                     L- ½
Under bust: 37 ½                                ?                       ?
Waist: 43                                           44                      L- 1
Hips: 46                                             46 ½                  L- ½
C-section scar
(measuring around body
where scar is located): 44                   ?                        ?
Thigh (1): 26                                     26 ¼                   L- ¼
Arm: 12 ½                                        12 ½                   0

My total loss of inches in only 14 days = 2 ¼ inches. This is pretty darn good if you ask me. Working out twice a day is really paying off, whihoo!

Wow, I had no idea that I would have a 4 year old teenager in the house. She is already waking up with an attitude and I swear I don’t know what to do about it.

She wakes up with this look on her face and she starts off immediately with the “No Mom” way to early. She is starting to be really snotty until about noon and then she basically gets over it for a few hours.

I do not wake her up. I let her sleep until she is ready to get up. I have made a strict bedtime with her at night and constantly argue with my husband about it because he always wants her to go to bed in front of the stupid TV.

I am constantly sending her to her room, taking away TV and/or treats for the day but this does not seem to make an impact. All she says is “I don’t want to lose anything.” When I say, “OK then stop being mean.” She says “BAH,” or spits with her lips I my direction, or whatever.

What works? ARGH……!

I think I should have started measuring under the breast area and an inch or two under the belly button (waist). My waist is not losing real fast but I am noticing my clothes get baggier.

My Irish vest that I purchase and wore the first Sat in March was baggier this weekend when I wore it.

I had to wear a girdle to be able to do up the vest around my trunk area and had to safety pin my tights to the girdle because they kept rolling down underneath my belly.

I wore the exact same tights and vest without a girdle this weekend (2 days ago) and my tights stayed on my stomach and did not roll and the vest did up just fine and I could actually fit both my fists inside the trunk part that was too tight before. The tights even stayed up while I dance.

When I measure the stomach was not down more than a ½ inch but I am noticing a huge difference where the C-section scar is. I can see the scar without having to lift up the fold of skin. I really believe that if I would have started measuring that area along with the area just under the breasts I would be seeing more of a loss than I have been publishing.

I will add those measurements sometime this week.

We have had a ton of rain and more to come here in the Midwest and even though I may be frustrated with the lack of outside playing we have been getting with the kids, I am loving the rain from my garden. I water it every day but I have to say that the garden does not get watered like it does when it rains.

I have herbs popping up and actually can use some finally and the garden, once it sprouted, is growing really fast now. One problem with the garden, well I totally forgot to write down and label what I planted where, oops. I know the first row is carrots and they are so small you can’t see them in the picture, but they finally sprouted yesterday. The next row is brussel sprouts, and then…?

I even bought extra topsy turvy’s this year so I will have tomatoes, cucumbers, and bell peppers in them. I did not label those pots either but they are ready to plant this weekend. I would do them today but I need a payday to buy the soil (frustrating economy).

Anyway, here are some pictures of what is generating in my backyard so far. Hopefully this weekend I can get the topsy turvy’s planted and see even bigger sprouts as we have lot’s more rain in our forecast!

 

The garden is small but I did not want to spend more than 1 day digging and planting as we don’t know how long we have in the house due to the forecloser and I did not want to do all that work for hug garden to let someone I don’t know benefit from it. We are just playing the waiting game on the house but are hoping to be here through the summer so I can use the fresh vegetables

My daughter has already started begging me to put up the Christmas tree and decorations. I don’t know why but she has pulled out the Christmas music and movies and will not stop about the decorations coming out next.
I love Christmas and I really hope that all this early Christmas stuff does not ruin the excitement this year. Of course I am telling her “NO” on the tree and decorations, but I have watched at least a dozen Christmas movies and listened to about 3 CD;s over and over again in the last 2 weeks.

I am glad she likes Christmas but I really need to find something to detour her Christmas thinking. I wish the weather would cooperate so we could go outside and play more. But on the up side, all this rain is doing wonders for my garden to finally sprout some green!

Is it too expensive to buy and cook healthy? What kinds of foods should I be looking at when I go to the grocery store? What can I do to help make it affordable and make my family want to eat it?
I have a “rule of thumb” when going food shopping, and that is, stick to the outer portion of the store and stay away from the inner isles.

If you think about it, all the processed, high fat, high sodium and high calorie food is down all those little isles in the middle of the store. If you take a look at the outside parameter of the store you will notice that is where all the “fresh” foods are. This is where you want to be spending those hard earned dollars. If you can prepare an entire meal out of one single box, put it down and walk away.

Cooking fresh is not as expensive and difficult as people think. You can grow a garden in the spring and summer months and freeze your own vegetables to eat during the winter months. Experiment with fresh herbs and spices and find what works for you and keep your herb garden fresh in a sunny window or grow light all winter long.

The hardest part of cooking healthy is learning how to do it. Once you learn that it is not that hard it will not take very much time out of your day and it can be exciting and gratifying. Let your kids prepare meals with you and teach them how to shop in the store at a young age so they grow up making healthy food choices and teaching others and their future families how to be healthy. I have found that my kids choose to eat the healthy foods more diligently if they have helped prepare it and they ask to help with dinner all the time.

Take these few steps towards educating yourself in the grocery store and pick up a cook book that allows you to cook with fresh herbs and fresh ingredients and have fun becoming a healthier you!

This is my review of the perfect brownie pan set. My wonderful neighbor bought me one of these today at CVS. When I initially opened the box I had to go back to CVS as half of the things in the box were missing. I am pretty sure that someone else needed some pieces and parts and bought it initially, took what they needed, and then returned it back to the store.
Well after my trip to CVS I came home and my 4 year old and I decided to try the double fudge brownie mix that comes in the recipe book that comes with it.

The recipe was really easy to make and after I washed the pan, it was very easy to put together and put the mix in.

My pan did leak a bit and in the directions it gives you some tips to help with this.

The brownies taste really good and they did seem to cook pretty even. I was worried ¾ of the way through as the edges looked like they were cooking a lot faster but in the end they seem to have the same consistency as the middle pieces.

It is a cool idea to have them come out in individual squares and this does help the cooling process quite a bit. I did not like how slippery the stand on the pan is though so I did end up putting them on my other drying rack and as you can see in the picture I am not displaying them on the pan as they say but rather a plate as it does not slide everywhere.

As far as the taste and the cooking process I think it is neat and it worked fine. As far as displaying the brownies I do not like the pan. I almost knocked them off the counter a half dozen times. Some rubber on the bottom of the stand would probably do the trick.

They also give you 10 free stencils to decorate with powdered sugar. Well I tried to sprinkle the powdered sugar on them like they said but as you can see from my picture that did not work out well. You can kind of see the heart one in the middle and then there is a flag on the right but other than that it just looks like globs of powdered sugar. I gave the stencils to my 4 year old to play with after.