Leavin’ on a jet plane

Tomorrow me and the family are leaving for St Maarten.  Looking forward to a relaxing vacation on the beach.  Which is very weird because I would say that I am not a beachy person.  I love to look at the water, I love the sounds and smells, the waves rolling onto shore, but the sand sticking to me or to just sit and sunbath is not me.  I do like to sit under an umbrella and read while Sean and Hannah swim in the water. So here’s to a relaxing week with my family.  Something Sean is in deep need of after the last couple of weeks of work. 

So I plan on reading, stitching and relaxing for the next week.

Read Full Post »

Last Day of School

My baby is now a fifth grader!  I can’t believe it.  She will be 10 next month.  Where is time going so fast? Why can’t it slow down?

Every year on the last day, I take in cupcakes for the class.  This year was no different, except I ended up with five left over and man oh man… do I ever want one.  But I have been very good the last week & a half with no carbs or sugar.  since we will be going on vacation soon and I plan on breaking the rules, I wanted to be good before we go. 

I framed this year’s end of the year gift myself, so it isn’t perfect, but I think it came out okay.

 

I received a lovely gift as well… which was way to much… It is beautiful though and I love it.

 

I had never heard of this jewelry before and looked it up online last.  I feel in love with several other charms.  I have told Sean that he can get me a couple for my birthday, our anniversary and Mother’s Day. :0)

I have so much to do next week to get ready for vacation… I am not sure where to begin.  Lots of housework, laundry, get my nails done, hair trimmed, packing (I hope I don’t forget anything important), Hannah and I are going to visit my niece and her family one afternoon, she had a baby a few weeks ago and I haven’t seen him yet. And I can’t even remember what else needs to be done. 

Read Full Post »

SBQ and weight loss

Here is the SBQ for this month. It’s a two-parter!

Tell us about something that you have stitched or plan to stitch for any father in your life. Maybe it’s for your father, your father-in-law, your children’s father, your grandfather, your godfather, or someone who was or still is an important father-figure in your life. Why did you choose this particular piece of stitching? Tell us the story behind it.

I was lucky in the father department since I was not raised by my biological father, but instead by my step-father who adopted me when I was 11 years old and never made me feel like I was anything less than his daughter.  For Father’s Day in 1996 I stitched “Father” from Stoney Creek.  I am pretty sure he liked it.  It hangs in my parents’ living room next to the “Mother” I had stitched for Mother’s Day that year and well, gave to my mom.

And because a simple one part question is never adequate, let’s go some more:

Often times we identify our love of needlework and our skills with our mothers or grandmothers or other women. It’s understandable because often they were are first teachers or role models. Now let’s think about our stitching life as it relates to our dads. Is there anything about our approach to stitching that we can recognize as traits of our fathers? For instance, does your dad (or any other important man in your life) have an approach to one of his interests that you can observe and think, “Hey….if I substitute the word “needlework” for “fly fishing”, we’d be pretty darn similar!” So tell us about it.

My dad has a couple of hobbies… the computer and wood-working.  Although it has been years since he has done much woodworking. I guess that would be the hobby of his that I could substitute.  I did not get my love of needlework from my mother, who can barely sew a button on.  Both my parents have been very supportive of my needlework hobby.  My mother even goes to the bookstore every month to pick a UK stitching magazine that I like.  My father keeps telling her to sign up for a subscription and have it mailed to me.  I think she likes picking it up and saving several copies to either mail or give me when I see them.

~~~~~~

Today I went to the chiropractor for an adjustment, to pick up some of the IP snacks and to get weighed in.  I recently went overbroad two weekends in a row… one being the long holiday weekend…. and went out for dinner last Wednesday with the PTA had drinks and dessert.  I gained back a couple of pounds according to my scale.  No biggie, I decided to not panic.  I went no carbs/no sugar the past couple of days.  So at my weigh in… not only did I lose the weight I gained back, put I lost and additional 2 lbs from my official final weigh-in before starting the maintenance phase.  They asked if I would come in next month to one of the seminars and share my weight loss story.  We are leaving in just over a week for vacation, I hope I don’t gain to much… but let’s face it, it’s vacation for crying out loud! :0)

Read Full Post »

I’m very happy to be done

Not a great photo, but I just finished.  Needs to be ironed and I will be framing it myself.  I hope it looks okay when I am done with that part.  I had to take the bottom portion of the design out so that one… I could finish it by the end of the school year and two… so it will fit into the frame I bought for it since I don’t have the time to send it off to be finished into something or have framed professionally. 

Yesterday I received a surprise… flowers from Sean’s company.  He has been working all weekend, so this is a “thanks for being supportive” bouquet.  There is a balloon attached to it and that balloon makes Daisy very angry.  She was staring at it and growling at it yesterday after they arrived. 

For Sean’s birthday this year, Hannah and I give him an iPad.  Hannah loves it.  She wants one of her own, but I have informed her that won’t be happening.  I gave in to the Kindle and we gave her one for Christmas.  So, she took one of the Apple stickers that came with it, colored it and stuck it to her Kindle cover so she can pretend that she has an iPad.

Have I mentioned lately that I have a new addiction to Vera Bradley?  Since Mother’s Day I have gotten a few (or so) more bags.

I couldn’t pass on the Resort Bag in the Sittin’ in a Tree pattern… I got it on eBay at a steal!!  

Not all of these are for me… the Rivera Blue bags are Hannah’s for vacation (large duffle, tote and wallet).  Since they are in a retired pattern we got those pretty cheap, especially the zipper tote… retired color and bag style.   I got the Sittin’ in a Tree pattern in the large duffle, tote and hipster bags for vacation.  I also got a few wallets for bags I got for Mother’s Day and the Hope Garden that I already had. 

  Another retiring color… Bali blue.  This is the Stephanie bag.  I love it!  I also got the hipster and euro wallet in this pattern.  The Hipster is now on sale in every color!  I want a few more of that style in various colors.  Hey, I did mention the new addiction, didn’t I?  Thank goodness for sales.

Hannah’s school had Field Day at school this last week.  The students love Field Day!  Their favorite part… Water play!

That’s my Hannah in the dark blue Nike tennis skirt. soaked!

Read Full Post »

It’s just gets under my skin

For sometime now I have been on a journey to reclaim the body I once had before having a baby.  I have never expected or even wanted to get back to the weight I was when Sean and I got married (I was a tiny 104 lbs!) but I have been overweight and uncomfortable in my own skin for about nine years now.  In January 2009 I started working out six days a week hoping to lose about 10 lbs., at least to start.  That didn’t happen.  I didn’t lose a single pound.  Instead after going on vacation to WDW in July, walking a ton and working out most days while we were there, and trying to watch what I ate, I gained 5 lbs.  WTF?  But I continued to workout and hope.  I tried different workout programs, even spending lots of money to get “Slim in Six” only to drop 3 lbs at the end of the six weeks, which I put right back on.

I am not a fitness or weight loss expert but I swear if one more person said to me, “well, you know muscle weighs more than fat” I think I would have (will) go postal.  Because guess what?  One pound of muscle weighs the same as one pound of fat.  The difference is… muscle is leaner.  So with that fact in mind, I was not just going be my weight, but measurements of my waist.  And that wasn’t changing either.  My clothes were often to tight and uncomfortable but I just kept squeezing myself in them. 

On a whim in late February of this year, I attended a seminar at my chiropractor’s office for a program called Ideal Protein.  I bought into what they said and signed up.  The ‘Protocol’ is similar to the South Beach diet in giving up carbs and sugar.  The difference is upping the amount of protein intake with their specially formulated proteins packs.  The idea behind this being that the reason for not obtaining any weight loss is because the pancreas/insulin production is not working correctly and no carbs/sugar for a period of time helps the pancreas by giving it a break and resetting itself so that it can work correctly.

I love carbs and I love sugar.  And I don’t believe in giving up foods that you like but do in moderation.  But like I said, I bought into what the doctor giving the seminar said because it seriously made sense to me.  So I started the program the very next day…which just so happened to be Ash Wednesday.  The great thing was I almost immediately noticed I was losing weight.  It took just a little longer than I hoped but by the end of April, I had completed the program having lost a grand total of 23 lbs and 6 inches from my waist.  I am still exercising 5 to 6 days a week.  (I hate exercise but hate the way I feel when I don’t do it.) 

For the most part, in the last month I have maintain the weight loss, though I have gained back 2-4 lbs… in keeps going up and down between that, but I am okay with it.  Though I am making an effort to get it back down.  And now I can eat carbs & sugar, but try to keep the really bad stuff for the “treat” day once a week.

I am writing about this because there are a couple of blogs that I read that the bloggers have written about their own struggles with weight loss.  They are both using the Weight Watchers program that I think is great.  Why didn’t I use WW you may ask?  Not really sure.  Anyway, they are both struggling to either lose the last few pounds and gaining/losing the same few pounds.  On one of the blogs, people have commented about the whole muscle weighs more thing.  It just irritates me when I hear/see this.  I do agree that the few lbs could be water weight or muscle if the measurements are going down.  I want to comment on their blogs to encourage them and remind them of what a great job they have done and let them know they aren’t alone in this journey/struggle.  Perhaps give a little advice to how to overcome the plateau, but I am not an expert, just from my own experience.  But I also want to comment on the lb for lb thing but I don’t want to start a big thing or sound like I am discouraging them. 

Read Full Post »