FOUR pounds!

I have lost 4lbs. I am so excited! I’ve (mostly) been watching what I eat and doing some type of work out every day. I also have a nutrition class right now and that is really helping me be aware of what I am eating. Seeing the scale was the motivation I needed to really stick with this. I ate pretty badly over the weekend, but I did get a Wii Fit! I have been using the steps on it and the hula hoop to get a good aerobic work out.

Well, I have to take all the kiddos to the store this morning for groceries. I went the other day, but stupidly only picked up a few things. So back we go again.

And I don’t even LIKE ice cream!

Yep, you read that right. I really don’t like ice cream all that much. But last night we went to Dairy Queen and I got a turtle sundae, in a waffle bowl, and ate the whole damn thing. I think it is because I’m trying to lose weight and avoiding sweets. My cravings went overboard. According to Spark People, where I have been tracking my food, this is what I ate:

Calories: 820
Carbs: 117
Fat: 35

Holy hell! Why did I eat that!? I didn’t have the best of dinners last night either. At least I have been exercising! I have been doing yoga, aerobics, kick boxing, and bike riding. I want to ride my bike more, then it is exercise + alone time, which just rocks.

Here is my food and exercise log on Sparkpeople, so I can try to stay accountable.

Wow! That felt incredible!

In the hopes of being more active, I recorded a few workouts on the DVR, then never watched them. So this morning I put one on and it was kick boxing. I can not believe how awesome it felt! First of all, it was fun. That’s right, it was fun. I wasn’t that great at it, but I had a blast trying and laughing at myself.

The stretching/yoga at the end made me feel better than I have in a long time. I could really feel my muscles loosening up. I have felt so tight and tense lately.

Afterwards, it was just this rush of endorphins or something. I just felt so damn good. I jumped in the shower and all I could think about was doing it again. I guess I finally found something I like!

I have a few more recorded, and I know one is yoga. I want to try doing the yoga every evening to help me unwind and loosen up my muscles. Then, I am going to do my best to do that kick boxing one every day!

Cookie fun.

This is the recipe we used. I found it the last time we wanted to make cookies, but only had one egg. It was the only one I found, but it is great!
Ingredients:
* 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 cup butter, softened
* 1 1/2 cups white sugar
* 1 egg
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 375.

Cream together butter and sugar:

Mixing by hand worked much better than the mixer. It made the dough stick together better.

Then add egg and vanilla (we were almost out of vanilla, so it all went in):

Then slowly add the flour and mix together:

I filled a muffin pan with different things: sugar, sprinkles, cinnamon, and chocolate chips:

Then rolled the dough into balls and let the kids roll them in one of the toppings before baking them:

Morgan figured out how to save time by putting one ball in each ‘cup’ and shaking the muffin pan around (and Dennis figured out how to sneak chocolate chips):

All read to go into the oven, for 8-10 minutes (we went with 9):

Cool them on the tray for 2 minutes, then move them to a cooling rack.

Here they are in all their yummy glory! My favorites are the ones covered in cinnamon:

Rain rain go away….

Usually we get one good afternoon rain a day and that is it. But yesterday it rained all day long. And it will again today. Yuck. I don’t want to do anything when it rains, I get so lazy. The kids are going crazy because Nana just brought them a new pool Sunday and now they can’t swim in it.

I am in desperate need of some good indoor activities! They are playing the Wii now, so that is good. Hazel just can’t really play any of the games yet. She likes to play the shooting game, but she isn’t even aiming at the t.v. Don’t tell her that though lol. D is happy just to watch the girls play.

Maybe we’ll bake some cookies! That is a good idea. Messy, but good.

Envelope System 2.0

Ok, my envelope system was working just fine except for one thing. It was too big. There are times when I need to have a few envelopes on me. I wanted something to fit in my purse(on the rare occasion I go shopping with no kids and no diaper bag). I found the perfect thing at Walmart for under $4.

I don’t care much for the color, or the fact that it is see through, but it was the right size. There are bigger ones for the same price that come in more neutral tones, black, gray, etc. But they would not fit in my purse, so hot pink it was.
It came with tabs that have the month on them, but the other side was blank, so I used that to write my categories on.
It opens up really nicely, there is a lot of room in there!

I realize that there are no real envelopes now, but I’m still calling it my envelope system.

For your viewing pleasure…

A few commercials that interested me.

This is one of the funniest commercials I have seen. It involves Darth Vader playing golf. When this came on the tv I was laughing so hard! So, I wanted to share it.

And this one is a commercial for some Sketchers shoes, Cali Gear. I swear it is the stereotypical children’s commercial. I can see kids watching this and then bouncing around saying that they just have to have these shoes! I need to go buy some! See if it doesn’t get you all excited.

It’s Friday!(spiders, books, and more mentioned)

Not too much to be excited about though. We have a flat tire, so that needs to be fixed. Then maybe we’ll get to do something fun this weekend, besides cut the grass. It does need cut again already, so I’ll get some exercise this weekend. That part of the challenge, being more active, is not going so well. Unless chasing kids who don’t want to be cleaned, changed, or other wise groomed, counts?

I saw a freaky/scary/interesting spider yesterday. Since it was on the other side of the glass, I could look at it all I wanted. Usually I am terrified of spiders, but it was slightly cool watching it work on it’s prey. Only the mouth moved, nothing else. It was white, with black/white striped legs. It also had an hourglass marking on it’s belly, orange not red. It’s abdomen was perfectly round and smooth. I would have sworn it was an albino black widow spider. I could not get pics through the glass and I was too chicken to go outside and get near it so no pictures. Hubby killed it last night after I went to bed. It was kind of funny that I went to look for it this morning. I was kind of curious to see if it was a young black widow and was going to turn black. The kids were looking for it too. It wasn’t any smaller than black widows I have seen before, so I don’t know if it was a baby.

I just read book #2 in the Left Behind Series, Tribulation Force (click me). I was kind of disappointed in it. I enjoyed the first one, Left Behind (click me), more. I think we’re going to get #3 from the library this weekend. I know hubby really wants to read the next. I’m not so sure anymore, but I’ll let him read it first and see what he says.

I’m hoping to release some more books into the wild this weekend. I have a box full of them that still need labeled though and I just haven’t had the time. I do have some with Valentine’s day labels on them that I never got around to releasing then. Maybe I’ll release them now anyway lol.

I have to do something active this weekend! The most I did this week, after cutting the grass, was some freeze tag with the kids. Hazy doesn’t quite get that you have to freeze when you play freeze tag, so it didn’t last long. She wouldn’t freeze and the other’s would get mad.

A double challenge activity!

Something I have never done before AND more than 30 minutes of physical activity. I cut the grass! Yep, that is right, I have NEVER in my 28 years cut grass. I only got the back yard done. It was so hot outside, I was bright red and exhausted. But I did it! Go me! Hubby took a pic for proof, I think he took it more for himself than for me lol.

My Personal Challenges!

I plan to have two major summer challenges, then several smaller challenges. Things I have never done before.

Summer challenge #1 is to do something active every day. For at least 30 minutes. This can be go for a walk, ride my bike, play wii fit(if I ever get it), etc. It may not seem like much, but I have to start somewhere. Also, it is HOT out there, so I’m hoping I can keep my motivation, or find some fun stuff to do indoors. Some of my smaller challenges will fit into this challenge, I think. I actually have something in mind today that is both active and something I have ever done before. I may get dh to take a pic! He’s going to want to want proof anyway lol.

Summer challenge #2 is to learn water color painting. I’m going to start on this next week. I have all the materials I need and I found some great online tutorials. I’ll post links when I post more about this challenge. Hopefully I’ll be brave enough to share pics of my ‘work.’ As far as I know, I have no artistic ability though. It just looks like something fun and I’ve always wanted to try it.

I also have a BookCrossing challenge for the whole year. The goal is to release 366 books into the wild, one for every day of this year. So far I have released 150. You can keep track with me on my bookshelf. I did not set a goal for how many books to read this year because I have been so busy with school. I also know there are a few books I read, but did not list on my bookshelf. I just can’t remember what they are.