A New Start?

Here's what I said in my first blog post of 2009:

"This year I will put a greater focus on my health. I will eat well, I will be active, I will take care of my body and soul (and hopefully in the process lose a dress size or maybe even two). I would just love to lose 20 pounds between now and bathingsuit season (and firm up the jigglies that will surely be there even if 20 pounds are lost). And in order to keep the goal in focus, I will blog about my progress once a month. Consider yourselves forewarned, lol."

So here it is - the dreaded progress post.

It took me 20 days to do something about the above, but last night I finally made my move and went back to Weight Watchers. If I'm going to take care of my soul, I think I need to start with how I feel about my body. I've put on some pounds over the last year or two and I've gotten to the point where I'm no longer comfortable in my own skin. Well, turns out I need to lose more than 20 pounds before bathingsuit season ... turns out I need to lose 29. TWENTY FREAKING NINE, in order to get back to a comfortable weight. Talk about shock at the scale. So. Back to basics. Drink water, track what I eat, think before putting food in my mouth, stop eating til I'm stuffed. When I get the hang of that again, I'll add in some extra activity. Got myself some long johns and a parka at Canadian Tire this weekend, I no longer have an excuse for not walking the dog!

I'm not the only one attempting a new start ... it looks as though my Senators are turning things around (fingers crossed, knock on wood, and so on). They've actually won 3 of their last 4 games, and the 4th was lost in overtime. They're not 100% back, by no means, but I see glimpses of the team that used to be. That makes me happy. It's good for my SOUL. And therefore meets my new year's GOAL. Lol.

If you've made any new year's resolutions, hope you're managing to stay true to them! Is weight loss one of yours? If so, what's your favorite tip?

Ciao!

One Last Layout

I've got one last layout to share with you further to my creative spurt over the Christmas holidays. I'm sad to say I haven't seen the inside of my scrap room since before last weekend. I have tons of scrap ideas floating in my head, but no time to scrap. Ironically, by the time I do have time to scrap, I'll probably be in a scrap funk like my friend Barb. Oh well ... it always passes!

Strange


Very easy page to put together! Gotta love that owl patterned paper. I bought it in Kingston when the girl and I visited Queens in the fall. Can't remember for sure but I think it's Sassafrass. In case you're wondering, that's the boy and the husband in the picture. They've got swim goggles on and are playing swords with pool noodles and using boogie boards as shields. What can I say; we had a pretty boring summer vacation and had to make up some fun for ourselves!

I could sure use another vacation now though, even a boring one. There's no end in sight to the transit strike and I'm getting really tired - both mentally and physically - of getting up at 5 a.m. to carpool in, in time to find parking downtown.

Another busy weekend ahead ... I've got groceries and about half of the laundry done, but now it's time for hockey practice. I'll run some errands during practice (no choice but to multitask today) and then we'll rush back home so the boy can shower and dress for our big evening out. We're going to go see the Sens beat the Rangers (ah, the power of positive thinking!) and are going a bit early so we can make a night of it. You can play Playstation 3 for free there ... cool.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Mid-Week Check-In

Not much new to report. The weekend was fairly uneventful, with two happy exceptions - I got my car back (oh, YAY) and the boy's team won a hockey game (only the 3rd of the season). I slipped right back into my Mom-chauffeur role and gave the girl a ride back from dinner out, took both kids out shopping so they could make a dent on their gift cards, and visited my mother in law. Had a little bit of time to scrap and came up with this:

Fetch the Dog


The expression on the boy's face doesn't even begin to reflect the sheer excitement he felt on the day we went to pick up Lexi. He was in shock the week before when we told him we had decided to get a dog; and I don't think the shock wore off until we had her home and he realized it was for real. The patterned paper and dog-themed stickers were Christmas gifts from the boy. I haven't silhouetted a picture since my early scrapping days ... but I really wanted to include this picture of Lexi having her first drink of water at home, and it didn't fit into the design well. I didn't want to crop it (since I wanted to see her entire tiny puppy body, from the tip of her nose to the tip of her tail!). I actually kind of like how the silhouetting turned out - looks like a design element rather than a butchered picture, lol. Not entirely sure I like how the layout as a whole turned out though; kind of busy!

So I just couldn't face the commute today ... the early morning carpooling because of the bus strike is bad enough, but add a snowstorm on top of that - forget it. Luckily I was able to work from home. And work I did. I put in a non-stop day and I'm as beat as if I went in to work. Early bedtime tonight as we hit the road at 6:00 a.m. again tomorrow. Sigh. I'm hoping that by this time tomorrow we find out the strike is over (since the contract is being put to a forced vote) but I wouldn't bet any money on it. We may be in for a long haul.

It's hard to muster up energy on these cold, dark, snowy days of winter. Not that much to look forward to - spring seems so far away. Normally I'd be looking forward to the Sens game I'll be attending this weekend - the boy and I have tickets for the game against the Rangers - but I'm almost dreading the game as the team has played horribly this season and it's almost painful to watch. Double sigh.

Ciao!

Happy New Year!

Wow - 2008 just went by in a blur and now the new year is upon us. To an obsessed list- and resolution-maker like me, there are two times during the year that give me that tingly, "renewal is possible" kind of feeling. One is the back-to-school season in September (nothing like newly sharpened pencils and pristine white erasers to give me that anything-is-possible feeling!). The other is, of course, New Year's.

So out of curiosity, I went back in time on this blog and read my first couple of 2008 posts. Wow, I really lost sight of those resolutions in no time flat! The good news is, I really don't have to invent any new goals for 2009. I can just recycle all those unmet 2008 goals, lol! Actually, I am going to be realistic and pick just one to work on. This year I will put a greater focus on my health. I will eat well, I will be active, I will take care of my body and soul (and hopefully in the process lose a dress size or maybe even two). I would just love to lose 20 pounds between now and bathingsuit season (and firm up the jigglies that will surely be there even if 20 pounds are lost). And in order to keep the goal in focus, I will blog about my progress once a month. Consider yourselves forewarned, lol.

So we rang in the new year at home with a few friends and a huge prime rib. I love dinner parties although they are lots of work before, during and after. My favorite part of hosting has got to be setting the table. I decided to go with a gold theme this year, and here is how it turned out:


Our guests left around 1:30 a.m. and I was up until 3:00 cleaning up, because I'm one of those people who just can't go to bed until all is clean. Just like my mother. So on New Year's day, I mostly napped, read, and watched tv, and while I changed out of my nightie, I changed into some pajama pants, so I think that counts as spending the day in my jammies! I didn't even do any scrapbooking; although I did finish 3 layouts a couple of days before. Here are two of them (still have to scan the third):

Relax


For some reason I just LOVE this picture of my husband and our friend Akis. Even though all we see is the back of their heads and they could be any two guys at random! I shot this with the zoom on my camera ... Akis had his wife's hat on to protect his head from the sun and from this angle, our guys look like two old Greek men gossiping on a park bench. Come to think of it, they ARE two old Greek men gossiping on a park bench! Lol. Supplies include Bohemian patterned paper from My Mind's Eye.

Good Friends


Another picture that I love. These are our best friends Carrie and Akis. Really simple layout! One of the patterned papers is Daisy D, but I have no idea about the other one (yay, I used some scraps in my stash!). The rub-on letters and bird are Bohemian from My Mind's Eye. The flowers are I think Basic Grey and Prima and hide a lovely garbage bag that was captured in this picture!

I just get SO MUCH HAPPINESS out of scrapbooking. Just sitting there in my little room creating a layout clears my mind and soothes my soul. As part of my "taking care of my body and soul" resolution (see above), I'm going to be sure to scrapbook more often than I did in 2008. Last year, weeks and sometimes months went by between scrap sessions. Can't let that happen again.

In other news ... I think I had written here about damaging my car in a parking garage on the first day of the bus strike? Well, it's been at the body shop for repair since Dec 22 and praise the lord, I just found out it will be ready for pick-up tomorrow morning. I am so looking forward to having a car again!!! Not to mention, that the strike is still on and I had no idea how I was going to make it to work without a car next week!

And in other, other news ... I think I forgot to mention that the daughter has already received offers of admission from Carleton (Bachelor of Humanities) and from Ottawa U (Bachelor with Major in English and Minor in History). And both universities are offering the maximum entrance scholarship of $4,000/year (renewable with A- average). We are a long way from a decision though - more research needs to be done - stay tuned!

Gotta go - we're off to dinner at C&A's house. Ciao!