He likes it, he really likes it!

I sent John the floor plan of my dream home yesterday. He really likes the plan too! Yay! Sure, it’s a big house, but it’s about the same size as my parents house, which I don’t consider too huge. Maybe because I grew up in a house that big so it seems normal to me…I don’t know. But I do know it’s the perfect size for a family of 5 plus pets. J We haven’t even started building a model in the subdivision yet, but when we do, I definitely want to go over and check it all out. From what I’ve seen so far, I think it will be a great place to live.

Funny story, too…so John is the one that thinks we should stay in our current house longer than I want to. Yet last night, when I ask him to please put the ladder away out of the kitchen (still there from installing the lights), what is his response? “There’s no room in the garage right now…guess we need to go buy that bigger house.” He just wants to 3 car garage…

Back to the counting board...

So much for my trying to do Weight Watchers again. I wasn’t really tracking my points. I just kind of took note of how many points things were, but I didn’t write anything down or anything like that. It was working pretty good for about 2 weeks, I finally got back down under 130. Then came the wedding in Florida and it went back up, but as soon as we got back home and I started eating “normally” again, it went back down. Unfortunately it has gone back up after this past weekend, which I thought wasn’t too bad, eating wise. Well, I blame it on the cookies John forced me to make on Friday…we’ve been eating some every single day. Then there was Chik-fil-a on Saturday morning…but I only got 4 chicken minis…nothing else. Oh yeah, then Frito pie for two different meals. And we went out to dinner Saturday night where I ate more red beans and rice than I should have. Okay, so this weekend was not great. Either way I’m still not where I want to be and I HAVE to do something about it. So, it’s back to ACTUALLY counting points…staying within my point range…and working out!!

Thank goodness our workout class starts back up again this week…today, actually. That will help out. And I must must MUST do more cardio at home. Last night was a great example of what we SHOULD be doing. I made sure to have a snack late in the afternoon so I could workout once I got home. I did 30min of cardio on my Wii workout game (My Fitness Coach, MFC from now on) then a couple minutes on the Wii Fit (where it shamefully said, “Oh, it’s been 33 days since your last workout!”). But I was pleasantly interrupted on the WiiFit with John asking if we wanted to take the dogs on a walk since it was so nice outside. Which we did, for about 45min. down to the big retention pond behind our subdivision where we let the dogs off the leash and let them frolic in the water. It was a very nice evening…minus almost getting drug across the ground when the dogs spotted a rabbit and took off after it faster than I could get my footing!! It was already after 8pm when we got back home, so I just made chicken sandwiches for dinner. Though made with frozen breaded spicy chicken patties, that alone cost me 320 calories! Geez. But yeah, we definitely need more nights like that.

Oh, and about me trying to wake up early to workout…had some help with that this morning. Major woke us up whining about 3am, so John gets up to let him out. Apparently he was having trouble trying to poop…poor dog. Then he starts whining again at 6:05am. My alarm was set to go off at 6:15am, so I go ahead and get up. Turns out he had thrown up in his crate and couldn’t lay back down, so I let them both out and brought his bed downstairs to wash. By now it’s only 6:15am and I’m wide awake. Well, I had done so much cardio last night, I didn’t want to do anymore this morning, so instead I put together a lunch for John (then forgot to tell him about it) and washed a couple dishes, then went upstairs and woke John up and ironed a shirt for him, then put away my three loads worth of clean clothes. And by that time it was time for me to get in the shower. I love mornings where I get so much done! Thank you Major for throwing up! J

Dream House!

I have found my dream house in my dream neighborhood! As some of you know, I work for a home builder and we are starting a new community just south of Pearland close to EVERYTHING. So I think it will be an ideal place to build a new house. We now have our list of plans to offer out there and I found the one I want. It has everything I have on my wish list for a new house. Here’s the rundown:

· 3548 square feet

· 2 story

· 5 bed/3.5 bath

· 3 car attached garage

Wish list items met:

· Big open kitchen overlooking family room

· Big pantry

· Big utility room (enough room for an extra freezer)

· Linen closet for every bathroom

· Extra hall closets

· Large coat closet downstairs

· Full size walk-in attic space

· Gameroom

I have no idea yet how much it will cost or if we’ll be able to afford it, but I can dream right? I mean, we can’t move for at least another year so it’s not like we’re going to go out opening weekend and buy it. It just happens to be part of my job to select the plans offered during set up and I saw it was on the list. And I just LOVE this plan. I get to go out and monitor it in a couple weeks so I’ll get to see it in person. Hopefully that will just confirm how much I like it! But so far, based on the floor plan alone, I can already see John and I with our three kids (that we don’t have yet) and two dogs all growing up in this house and staying there for a long long time.

Let there be light!!

I can now say I have the kitchen lighting I have been dreaming about since we moved into our house two whole years ago!! With the husband feeling bad about darting off to France and Africa for two weeks, I was finally able to coerce him into some of his "honey-do" items before he goes. It only took one weekend to get the kitchen lighting of my dreams. Two new recessed cans over the sink and bar area, a new main light fixture, and under cabinet lighting around the main counter area. And to top it off, it only took about $250 to complete it all! I was very very very very VERY happy with the results! I can see my sink!! No more dark corner!!

Ta-Da!!

(Pardon the tool mess...we're still in clean up stage)

Exercising

I honestly really really really want to know how to reset my internal clock so that I can be in bed at 10pm to be able to wake up at 6am to work out in the mornings. I used to be able to do this quite easily. I don’t know what happened, but now I rarely can get in bed before 11pm and can’t drag myself out of bed until 7am. Now, I want to work out in the mornings because I find it a little harder to try to work out in the evenings, besides our workout class. Since I don’t get home until 6pm, I like to be able to start dinner right away because I HATE eating late (even though it seems to happen more often than not). Plus I’m usually hungry by then, so I don’t want to wait any longer to eat. But after we eat and watch a couple of our shows and clean up the kitchen, I’m not in the mood to work out anymore. I don’t really like working out after I eat, and I’m usually too hungry to work out before I eat! So the best possible scenario would to be to wake up earlier and do my work out in the morning, then it wouldn’t be so bad if I don’t get to exercise in the evening. I just can’t seem to get myself out of bed! I used to be able to easily wake up at 5:45am every morning, now my alarm goes off at 6:30am and I go back to sleep until almost 7am EVERY morning!

For the record, for quite a few months in the recent past I hadn’t slept well at all. I would just toss and turn and never get a real restful sleep. So I attributed my sluggish-ness in the mornings to that. But lately, I have been sleeping much better. I should be able to get up, right? Maybe I’ll just start setting my alarm earlier. Like 6:15am instead of 6:30am, so if I still lay there for 30 more minutes, I’m then getting up at 6:45am instead of 7am. Do that for a couple weeks. Then move it back to 6am, so then I’m getting up at 6:30am. Then slowly make myself not stay in bed 30min. after the alarm. And hopefully make it where my alarm goes off at 6am and I can actually get straight up out of bed. Of course, that also means being very strict about getting to bed early.

I always feel so much better when I start the day off productively. I would love to be able to start walking the dogs in the morning and doing my workout game on the Wii. Maybe then I could actually finally lose these stubborn pounds that keep sticking around. And not having to worry about fitting in exercise into my evenings would free up some time to do other stuff…like clean the house, and do laundry, and play with the dogs. It would be a win-win for everyone! Now to just make it happen!!

Lazy Friday

I work for a company that on the last Friday of every month, they buy pizza for everyone for lunch.  We always look forward to it.  I even have it set up on my Outlook calendar so I don’t forget.  The only down side is, on a normal day we go to lunch at 1pm.  On pizza day, the pizza gets here about 11:30am.  We usually go up about 11:45am and get our pizza then come down and sit at our big table and eat together.  We’ll sit there for a good hour or so just chatting.  But sadly, we’re finished eating and have to go back to work just about the time we would normally be going to work.  So now, here it is only 1:20pm and we have the entire rest of the afternoon left!  The downside to Pizza Friday…it makes for a VERY long afternoon, that’s usually not very productive.  And I hate not being productive when I have so much to do!  Yet I’ll still probably sit around and waste another 45min. just because I don’t feel like I should have to start working yet. 

Home Improvements

As some of you know, John and I started last year on a laundry list of home improvements we wanted to do at our house. Yes, even with a brand new house, we had a ton we wanted to change! Our first big feat was adding the patio slab in the back. 14’ x 20’. It’s a monster of a slab. We did that about 6months after we moved in. Then we wanted to rip up all the carpet downstairs and put down wood laminate flooring. So last February we went out and bought all the flooring. Then in June (yes, 4 months AFTER we bought it) we finally got around to putting the new floor in, but only in the Living Room. All the while I’ve been doing random painting and sprucing in other areas. Now here we are over a year after we bought this wood flooring and it is yet to be completed. The closet under the stairs needs to be finished and we need to do the Dining Room. One other item on my wish list is to add a recessed can light over our kitchen sink and put in some under cabinet lighting. Back in November I painted the kitchen, but not the ceiling as I was waiting until the light was put in and all the sheetrock repaired from that project.

John and I sat down last night and talked about all these projects and when we could do them. Mostly because I said I would be okay with him leaving the country for two weeks if he finished some of my projects that have been hanging out for like a year and a half now! So FINALLY, starting bright and early Saturday morning, John will start working on putting in the light over the sink! Since it is on the first floor of a two story house, we don’t know how difficult it will be having to thread wires around through joists and what-not, but the tentative plan is for him to put in the light over the sink, repair the sheetrock, install the under cabinet lights (we’re just getting the plug in kind, so that should be pretty easy), then start on finishing up the flooring in the closet. So while he is working on the flooring, I can paint the kitchen ceiling and do some caulk and paint touchups on the base and trim. Then the kitchen will be complete (and hopefully the closet floor)!

My original goal was to have all of our home improvement projects finished by this summer when we went on vacation, but it’s looking like that might not happen. But one of the biggest reasons is because we started out Total Money Makeover, so we have been trying to spend less money. But we already have all the supplies to complete the kitchen light, ceiling paint, and closet flooring, so we just need to do it!

Saturday cannot come soon enough! I never thought I would be so excited for someone to rip a hole in my ceiling! J

Upgrading

Okay, so you can obviously see that I’m lacking in the upgrade department on this blog.  I tried so hard last night and wound up with just more of a mess!  But thanks to my great friend, Val, I got some great tips and advice.  So I will be working on doing some actual improvements to my blog today and tonight.  If anyone has any suggestions of things they think I should add, my ears are open!

Am I retarded??

Okay, someone seriously has to help me out! I can't figure out what the heck I'm doing with this thing. I tried to change my template/layout...and I don't know how to make it do what I want. I ends up being some mismatched version of two different templates. I see all these neat things on other peoples pages and I have NO IDEA how to do it. And unfortunately I don't have the time to sit around forever trying to figure it out on my own. Soooo....who wants to give me a lesson in customizing my blog??? I'm sure everyone would benefit from it so they don't have to look at this atrocious mess of a blog I've got right now!!

16 Again

How is it that one little conversation can throw me back 10 years to being that same 16 year old girl trying to get that one guy to like me?

I recently had a chat on Facebook with an old boyfriend…if you could even call him a “boyfriend”. I think we “officially” dated for maybe 2 weeks, if that. He was just that boy I was so infatuated with and did everything I could for him to like me and want to be my boyfriend. But as fate would have it, there always seemed to be someone in front of me in line. For the longest time I always felt that I wasn’t ever good enough. I was never the girl that got the guy.

Yet here we are 10 years later and I’m the one who is happily married to a wonderful man, and he’s the one alone, having chosen the wrong girl. And we happen to both be on Facebook at the same time one night and he sends me a message. The first time I’d heard from him in 8 years. And instantly I’m transformed into this little insecure teenager still wondering if the boy will like me. Turns out it took him a while, but he finally realized how horrible he had been to me and that he had loved me and was an idiot for passing me up…and he apologized. I was such a mix of emotions. Glad I finally had closure. Sorry it took him so long. Curious as to what if? I mean, what do you say when the first guy you thought you loved tells you he’s sorry for being such a jerk to you back in the day? It was just so strange because I had shrugged him off so long ago. I never thought I’d be back in that situation wanting to be his friend again. Which is probably what I was most sad about those 10 long years ago…losing such a good friend. He was probably one of my best friends at the time. We could talk about anything for hours. Then he got some new girlfriend and ditched all his friends. I thought that was it. I’d never see him or talk to him again. Now here he is…telling me to call him none the less.

Granted, he fixes cars for a living and my car needs fixing so he said to call him so he could fix my car, but I think I’m scared. Really, what do you say to a guy you haven’t talked to in 8 years?? It can’t just be a casual, “Yeah, so my check engine light is on…how much do you charge to fix that?” How awkward… So here we are a month later and I’m still afraid to pick up the phone. That little girl inside wondering what she’ll say when he answers.

Trips

So, speaking of trips, John and I went to Florida this past weekend for one of my cousin’s wedding. It was just fabulous! We stayed in this really nice hotel. The wedding was just gorgeous…but I guess that’s what you get when you spend $100,000+! I will definitely post some pictures as soon as I figure out how. Everything was just beautiful. The weather was great. The food was great. The company was great. We had so much fun! We went to the Ringling Bros. circus museum and the Ringling Mansion. It was quite interesting. This is the same wedding I was afraid we were not going to afford to go to, but thanks to a nice tax refund we were able to go and I’m SOOOOO glad we did. We needed a nice weekend away for some fun and relaxation. We needed a little boost with everything we’ve had going on lately.

Gone Again

It’s usually not a good sign when your husband calls to tell you he went with his boss to go get all his vaccinations for going to Africa during lunch. I knew there was talk of John having to go to Africa at some point, but never anything official. Until I got the call this morning.

John: “So, how would you feel about me leaving on the 13^th to go to Paris and then going to Africa and coming back the 25^th or 26^th?”

Me: “That’s two weeks!”

John: “Not quite.”

Me: “Oh sorry…13 days!”

How would I feel…how do you think I would feel about you going off to two foreign countries for 2 weeks? But I do know it’s a great experience for him and will definitely help him professionally. So I’m okay that he goes. As long as he brings souvenirs and helps me clean the house before he leaves. J Hey, at least this time he’s leaving the day AFTER the holiday. Hmm…come to think of it, it will be the first holiday of 2009 we’ll get to spend together!

I don’t think I like this trend though. He was gone 5 days in January, 7 days in February, and now up to 13 for April! I guess that’s more reason to take my last vacation day over Easter to spend a little more time together before he goes.

Testing...1..2...3...

Okay, let me know if this worked. I subscribed to mobile blogging this weekend, but haven’t tested it out yet. I subscribed since I rarely find time in the evenings to get on and write…and by then I’ve forgotten all the witty things I wanted to say during the day at work! And since we have such strict restrictions to our internet browsing, I figured I could easily get on to send an email to my blog when I need a little break from working. So hopefully this works, and I will have much more to say!

Off the wagon

Good job, Julie. Day 1 of starting WeightWatchers again and I've already fallen off the wagon. Okay, so our office provides us with a stocked kitchen for lunches. Lately I've been really good and just having a sandwich for lunch. Thus was the plan for today. Well, also lately, the grocery lady has been buying small cups of Hormel chili. Probably to get rid of the excess of Fritos we always have. A lot of people have taken advantage of this and have been making Frito pies. My favorite! Well, we eat lunch later than most, so there's usually no more chili by the time we get up there. But there was today!! So instead of my healthy sandwich, I caved for the Frito pie. But you know, really I think I deserve it, having spent TWO HOURS pooper-scooping the backyard by myself on Saturday!!

Hair color

So back in September I decided it was time for a change with my hair. So I chopped it all off and dyed it brown. And I loved it! Now, 6 months later, I'm not sure I like it so much anymore. I know, I can't even make up my mind about my hair. I want a change, then I want it back, then I get bored and want to change again...it's a vicious cycle. But I was looking back through photos old and new and I decided that I looked better with the blonde hair. So I might keep the cut, but I think I'll get my natural color back. It just suits me better, I think.

I can't decide though how I should go about getting back my color. When I went dark, I just did it at home with a $7 box from the drugstore. Now, to go back natural...do I chance picking the wrong color by myself at the store, or do I have my hair lady professionally do it (for WAY more money) and have it come out probably better than I could pick on my own?? And I need to decide before next Saturday!! We're going to my cousin's wedding in Florida in 2 weeks and I'm going in for a haircut next week so I need to decide before I go get it cut if I also want her to color it, or try to do it myself before the wedding. Hmmm...I think I just made up my mind.

I so do not want to show up at the wedding with frightful hair from a home color job gone wrong!! Stephani it is.

Sheesh...

Goodness me. I sure keep very consistent with this, can I? It doesn't help that our internet privileges (if you could call them that) are so strictly restricted. So anytime I do think of something to write about, I usually can't if I'm at the office. So here's a quick week in review:

Sunday, John and me and Tony and Val, and Matt and Bailey all went to the zoo. It was really really fun! I haven't been to the zoo since probably third grade. I had a great time with everyone and it was a GORGEOUS day! I took lots of pictures with the giraffes...go figure. :o)

Monday, I went to the doctor. A new doctor since I didn't really like the last one I tried out. She was okay. The wait at the office was HORRENDOUS. I didn't see her until probably 2 HOURS after my appointment time. Good thing I took the whole day off! So I told her about how bad my shoulders had been bothering me lately. I got some xrays done of them. Still no word on that. But her other advice was just basically stop using them if I can and take Aleve every day for 10 days. I'm on day 3 of that...and it still hurts to turn the steering wheel when I drive. :o(

Tuesday and Thursday were workout class nights. Lydia killed us as is the norm, but boy do I love her for it! I think I'm actually starting to see some results! Thank goodness!

Wednesday I went in search of new (inexpensive) wedding bands for me and John for our vacation this summer (and any other time I don't want to wear my diamonds). I found some that were great at James Avery. I took John there tonight so we could decide and buy them. We ended up with ones different than I first wanted, but John liked these more and they actually didn't have either of our sizes in the other style. But hey, the ones we got were even cheaper and they're still nice and pretty. Only $84 for the both of us! What a deal!

Okay, that's the week in review so far. More later!