This is the year...

     Yikes! How many times have I started this blog and quickly forget about it again. I'm confident though that this time I'm here for the long haul. I AM MOTIVATED!!
     My husband's brother and his family are moving into the same apartment complex as us next month. My sister-in-law and I have gotten pretty close lately and she is pushing me to attend classes at the gym. She is accustomed to going to aerobics classes and was really excited to try Zumba. So I took her to the gym with me and signed her up for a 2 year membership. Now for the motivation part... she doesn't have a car... and she didn't have a credit card... Soooo... I need to drive her to the gym to make sure she feels its fair to pay me for her membership :D
     Saturday was our first Zumba class and it really kicked my butt. Actually I'm feeling it all in my calves today. I'm just relieved that I made it through the whole class. Now to make it fair to my SIL who is only interested in classes I agreed to 3 classes a week. Between getting her son to school in the morning and me getting to work at noon, we can make it to 2 morning Zumba classes and a Step class. Every other day I want to hit the weights and work on my upper body. Tuesday my SIL has an appointment to meet with a trainer and hopefully she will enjoy it and be my push to go on those days too.
    It's late tonight and I have my first Step class tomorrow, so fingers crossed, that I can stand 4.5hrs at work after taking this class.


   

My Memories: "Bucket List" Challenge

It's SO nice to be scrapbooking again! I'm kind of struggling to get the creative juices flowing again though. This layout took me almost 6 hours to put together because I didn't like the way it was coming together. I'm looking forward to Sunday nights Speed Scrap to help give me some focus. This is my entry for this weeks Wednesday weekly Challenge over at MyMemories Blog.

 Background- Fall Plaids by StoryRock

Journal Tab & Note- Brandon of Summer of Our Lives by StoryRock

Bubbles- Bath Time Bubble Fun by StoryRock

Day 3

235.2 (+0.7 gain)

The scale wasn't very nice with me this morning with a gain... It could be the popcorn... or the fact that I had a big loss of 3.1 lbs on day 2. Who knows? Either way I didn't let it get me down and stayed positive all day. I have to admit that I did cheat a little today... I couldn't bring myself to get out from under the warm blankets and make my lunch, so I peeked around the fridge and found some hot fudge and had a spoonful. Afterwards I threw away the bottle as well as the strawberry topping to avoid any temptation.

I lounged on the couch all morning until my honey came home from work and then I made my lunch. Nothing fancy, just some hamburger and lettuce with 1/2 a grapefruit. Yeah... I definately craved some variety so I got online and did some searching for some blogs and came across HCG Diet Journey. She has some great recipes and advice. So off to Walmart I went and picked up a few days worth of items.

I could hardly wait to try out the Chicken Salad recipe. (Chicken, celery and an apple) It was SO much crunchy goodness that I look forward to having it again soon. Although I can hardly wait to see what other recipes I might like.

Here's hoping to good numbers on the scale tomorrow morning!!!

• 4 bottles of water
• 1 cup of black tea
• 1 cup of oolong tea
• 1 cup of chamomile tea
• Spoonful of hot fudge (Oops!)
• Hamburger with lettuce
• 1/2 a grapefruit
• 1 melba toast
• 3 oz chicken with diced celery and apple
• 2 chocolate calcium chews

R2P2D2

234.6 (-3.1 lbs lost)

Today is Day 2 of Phase 2 of Round 2. I started the day off with a 3.1 lb loss and was on top of the world. I'm thankful to have a great day like that to help keep me on track. Unfortunately I've been really hungry today. I don't know if it's just the beginning of this diet that my body is adjusting or if my dose is off because this is a different brand than what I previously used.

I started the day off with a bottled water and 2 cups of black tea. For lunch I ate the other half of the grapefruit that I left from yesterday and had my wonderful sweetheart grilled me a chicken breast on the George Foreman with a side of spinach leaves. It's SO boring! I only drizzles some garlic flavored red wine vinegar with garlic salt for flavor.

I had a tiny itty bit of motivation today and started my Tae Bo workout but got interupted after only 5 minutes and I never went back to it. Exercising isn't exactly recommended with this diet because of the low amount of calories that are on the diet. It does recommend 1 hour of walking though outdoors. Just today my honey said that he wanted to start going back to the park and running and it will be the perfect opportunity to get my walks in. I am planning on starting my wii game Walk It Out again for the days that I don't go outdoors.

Today has been a really cold day and we've been bundled up watching movies all day long. Not doing anything to occupy my mind off of food I caved in a little and had some air popped popcorn with a little flavored seasonings. Mmmm Nacho Cheese is my favorite! And another bottled water to wash down the dry popcorn.

Between movies we got up and played a little tennis on the wii :( I totally got my butt kicked, but completely glad to squeeze in some movement into this sedantary day. The popcorn did leave me feeling a bit guilty. I stayed on track with my dinner and had shrimp over chopped lettuce with again the garlic red wine vinegar and garlic salt. I saved my apple for a half hour after as a little sweet treat paired up with a chocolate calcium chew. Yummy!

I finished the night off with 2 cups of Oolong Tea and a bottled water with Crystal Light added to it. I'm hoping that I'll be okay to sleep the night through since I stopped drinking at 9:30pm and I probably won't go to bed until at least 11:30.

I'm excited to see the scale tomorrow!!

• 3 bottles of water
• 2 cups of black tea
• 2 cups of oolong tea
• 1/2 grapefruit with stevia
• 3oz chicken breast with spinach
• 3 cups of air popped popcorn
• 13 pieces of shrimp with lettuce
• 3/4 apple with 1 chocolate calcium chew

The Magazines are Taking Over

     I can't believe how many magazines I've accumulated free each month. I was saving all the fitness ones and the crafty ones but they were taking over space. I am trying to fight the clutter in my house but I have SO much stuff stockpiled that it's a fine line between stockpiling and hoarding. I just couldn't throw them all out though. I had a really hard time with that idea so I went through every single magazine and ripped out all the recipes that I liked and articles I wanted to spend more time reading, or anything with a website I want to check out.
     I got a mini laundry basket filled and I just have the Shape & Weight Watchers magazine left to sort. I got burnt out so I'm calling it quits for a bit. I put an ad on Craigslist thinking that there's a teacher or someone that could use these for making collages or something and I got a mother that is homeschooling her kids that will use them for that purpose.
     Now I just need to organize all those cut out pages. Ahh the cycle never stops but at least the clutter is majorly cut down in size.

My Bathroom



     In my search for inspiration to perfect the inner domestic goddess in me (hee hee) I follow a lot of blogs that share ideas for organizing and decluttering your home, one of my favorites is Organizing Junkie. Last week she had a post, Finding a System, that just made me so excited to implement myself. She contained her bathroom beauty products with a shoe organizer. Yeah I know! Genius right? 

     After reading this I searched online to order one but just wasn't ready to commit... I kind of wanted it NOW and didn't want to pay extra for the delivery. So yesterday that my honey wanted to take me shopping I was on the look out for this shoe organizer.

     Burlington's Coat Factory sent me a coupon for $10 off of $20 or more so that was our first stop. The store around the corner had a really pretty blue floral print one for $6 and I was happy. I also wanted to pick up a shower curtain because my bathroom was looking pretty plain. I just bought new towels a few weeks ago from JCPenny's and changed the color theme. And I found a curtain that I just had to have, it was SO different from the others... but it was out of stock.
     My sweetheart was TOTALLY awesome and was up for trying another Burlington's in Southern Vegas. And... they were out of stock there too. So I bought a different style and pouted a little. They also didn't have the shoe organizer I wanted in blue but they had a clear one that I bought.
   So what does this amazing man of mine say to me? "Let's try another store" Yep I'm going to marry this man that gets me so well. So off to the store in the West side of Las Vegas. Strike three. Determined not to leave without a resolution I spoke to the store manager and bought the floor model. Best part is that I got it for $4.99. SCORE! And the day just got better by going to 2 other stores that I posted about earlier.

     Made with designs included in My Memories Suite software.

Retail Therapy

     Today was my honey's day off and being the GREAT guy that he is he took me out shopping. Does this guy get me or what?

    

     We hit all the great stores today!  At Ross I picked up some great big coffee cups, they're twice the size of the ones I have now. And red to match Juan's rooster theme he wants for our kitchen *insert eye roll* LOL

Also at Ross my honey spotted the Biggest Loser Glass Nutritional Scale for only $13.99!! (This is on Amazon for $48) I've trained my honey well to spot a deal. I've about worn out the small $5 scale I got from Walmart. This is the neatest scale. It will measure your food and then tell you how many calories, fat and other nutrient values are in this food.

At T.J. Maxx we scored a great deal on salt and pepper grinder for $8. We just returned our last pepper grinder to Kohls after only lasting 3 weeks. I'm hoping these will be a little more durable for 1/2 the price of our last.

Last but not least was Burlington Coat Factory I picked up a shower curtain and shoe organizer, but more on those purchases in another post.

All in all it was a pretty good day out but then again any day out shopping is usually a good time.

My grandmother passed away this morning...

Background and Embellishments- Long Time Ago by Rebel Without A Pause 

My Birthday Dinner

     My brother-in-law had to work for my birthday but wanted to take me out for a belated birthday dinner. So back to Freemont St we went for Prime Rib specials at the Four Queens casino. And of course the boys had to try out the home-brewed beer... AND of course get it in a 50 oz souveneir glass. :D

  Background & Embellishments- Blooming Hearts by Let Me Scrapbook!