Summer 2015

Hello there my little pumpkins. It has been some time since I've written anything useful or meaningful, but I feel a cursory update is in need.

First off, I meal prepped all of Spring Semester 2015. I lost 25 lbs in those four months just with the meal prepping and the exercise. I kind of got out of the habit of meal prepping and exercise during the last month of school due to finals, stress, my husband finally graduated with his dual bachelor's degree.

Good news though, I took two months off from it, but didn't gain any of the weight back.  I also didn't eat like I used to either, having learned correct portion control.  Now, I am back on the horse, so to speak. Since my financial situation hasn't improved since January, having anything to eat is more of the concern than cooking special meals. But, all things considered, I have taken up trail running or cross country, or whatever people call it. Since I work for the DNR at a state park, I am pretty much outside all day long. I know the people here, and I know this park now. So, I am not afraid to be out there by myself anymore.

Speaking of which, I have dropped my husband as an exercise partner. He did it first when he found someone else that was more interested in his style of exercise. So, being partnerless, I have decided I am just going to get over my absurd co-dependency and do what I want, how I want to. At least when it comes to an exercise routine. I have set myself a goal. I want to run Tough Mudder next summer, and several other obstacle type races.  I have already agreed to volunteer in Pittsburgh in August, so that'll give me a taste of what it's like.

I took this job at the DNR to get outside of my own comfort zone, and to actually have a memorable summer. Well, so far, it has rained for a month a half. It kinda sucks when you work outside. But, mission accomplished. It's been memorable.

Brian's Graduating College

Seeing that we are less two weeks away from graduation and Brian hasn't said anything yet, I am going too. 

Now, my dear husband is graduating from Marshall on May 9th at 9:00am at the Big Sandy Arena. Consider this an open invitation to all our friends and family. We bought and I even wrote out fancy invitations, but time is short, so this is what we have. Tickets are not needed to get in, but it is recommened to arrive early to get a seat.

And now important braggy stuff. I am super proud of him. He is graduating with a dual degree in Sociology and German. He is also graduating with Honors in German. So awesome! Not only that but he also has been awarded a Who's Who in American Colleges award for students who excel in service leadership. And....! He also has been selected for the President of the Year Award for his excellent leadership of the German Club. The awards ceremony is Friday May 1st, and close family are invited. (It's a formal affair. Tie required).

But wait there's more! He has finally made the decision of what he is going to do with those degrees. Graduate school. Lol. He has decided to pursue teaching language and sociology, but at the collegiate level, and thus needs a masters/PhD. But, while he is in grad school, he will be teaching undergrads. That is all, for now.

I swear that's all for now guys. Hopefully we'll see some of y'all at the ceremony. Inbox me if you need directions, times, attire, etc.

2015 Aspirations

January rolled around and I needed to change my life. I've worked hard for years and I felt like I was just spinning my wheels.  I was horribly depressed, I was gaining weight like crazy, I was doing subpar work at my job, and I was super lonely.

So, I changed it all.  I am no where near where I want to be in my life, but now I have a plan.  I am striving for progress everyday, instead of expecting instant results.

First and foremost, I was unhappy with my weight.  Since I quit smoking in 2013, I have gained 45 pounds and I am just not happy with it.  Quite frankly it was really starting to affect my husband's and my intimate relationship and that did not sit well with me.  Not only is that a problem, but the general unhealthiness that I was living was awful.  I constantly obsessed about food.  I could put away half a large pizza and then half a tub of ice cream.  I didn't really do more than go to class, go to work, and go to sleep.  Even though I now had weekends off, I just stayed home in bed binge watching TV series all evening and all weekend. Since homelife really was just blarg, I wasn't into my work as usual.  Most people did notice that I quit designing and creating things for about a year there.  Even in my day job I was just there to collect a paycheck.  I didn't truly so my job - I did not feel the need of desire to make Starbucks Corporation happy with my quality of work, and that is defenetly not me.  I am generally a workaholic.

So onto the changes I implemented into my life!

First Change - Quit my day job.  And since I have adequate savings, a month later, still okay and not freaking out and getting another job yet.  And at the same time, I reopened my Etsy shop with my husband.  We now make things together.  This has added to our relationship.

Next change- Quit eating crap!  My husband and I have really gotten into meal prepping. We fix breakfast, lunch, and snacks a week in advance. This appeals to our ultimately lazy side but also allows us to eat healthy yummy food such as grilled zucchini, roasted eggplant, grilled chicken, homemade fruit snacks, etc.   We both count our calories everyday.  I literally takes 5 minutes before bed to log them in.  We use the MyFitnessPal app and we find it fairly accurate and very handy.

Next Change - Move my butt!  I started working out six days a week.  Since membership to my college's fitness center is billed into my tuition if I use it or not, I use it as much as I can.  It's a great facility and those in the Huntington Area can also join too.  It has 3 floors of exercise equipment, 4 full size basketball courts, 3 swimming lanes, a swimming pool, hot tub, 3 raquetball courts, an indoor climbing wall, an indoor track, and not to mention private studios, and classes. It's really great place and I feel really motivated when I am there.  My workout plan is 3 alternating days of cardio (usually elliptical) and three days of weightlifting.  I use an app called JeFit like it's my personal trainer.

One month in and everything is going as plan.  I am seeing progress every week. I plan to do more detailed posts as I have time, and with progress pics and meal prep plans, maybe some exercise routines I am using.

21 Days and I Feel Fine!

I am three weeks into my new lifestyle and I'd like to share my adventure in meal prepping this past Sunday.  I have been pre-making breakfast, lunch, andd my snacks for three weeks now.  It's kind of addicting.   This week I am having red potatoes, grilled chicken, blanched green beans, and some long grain wild rice.

  


One of my favorite parts of meal prepping is all the cutting, dicing, and cleaning.  And the colors.  I love how colorful all of the veggies and fruits are.
This week, I chopped 3 pounds of red potatoes, and roasted them on 400 for an hour.  I seasoned them with some lemon pepper.  The ones on the bottom became nice and crunchy and the top ones are really silky.  I also cooked 2.5 pounds of green beans.  I cleaned them and trimmed the tips.  I didn't go all out on the green beans this week.  I blanched them in boiling water for 10 minutes.  They are still firm and a really bright green.  I learned my lesson last week with soggy green beans. Ick.  The green beans will fully cook and become tender after reheating for lunch time.  The blanching really brought out a bit of sweetness in the beans.
 

While my beans and potatoes are cooking, I mixed up my fruit snacks, started the wild rice, and set my husband to grilling the chicken.  This week, grapes and raspberries were on sale, so I added them to my fruit cups.  One note though, I did find out that the raspberries don't hold up too well being mixed and then frozen and then unthawed.  They go mushy.  On the other hand, frozen grapes are a treat all unto themselves. The rice is a rice-a-roni long grain and wild rice mix.  It's 190 calories per serving of 1 cup.  I cut it in half, using only a half cup for my meals.  My husband seasoned the chicken with smokey mesquite.  He grilled 16lbs of chicken at once. It was on sale at for $1.99 a pound, so we stocked  up on some extra for his protein snacks.

We're getting close to the end.  I bagged all my fruits into 4oz snack bags, and chopped the chicken up to be weighed into 4 oz sections.  And my potatoes are yummy!  Finally I set out all of my containers.  I use the small 2 cup rubbermaid and ziploc containers.  The rubbermaid ones are my favorite and they seals hold better and they also microwave easier.  I found the ziploc ones flimsy, but hey they were on sale too.  I first laid out my  4oz carbs into each container.  Seven got potatoes, and seven got rice.  Then I just divided the green beans evenly into each container.  It worked out to be about 3 oz per container.  Green beans are healthy all the way around, so you really can't have too many.  Then on top, is 4 ounces of grilled delicious chicken. 

Very delicious!  I let them cool with the lids off on the counter before I put the lids on the and froze them.  I found that if we freeze hot rice, it crystallizes the whole bowl and isn't very tasty after it's reheated.  

So, if you guys are really interested for the cost of these, here's the breakdown:

3.5 pounds of chicken @ $1.99 pound = $6.97

2 boxes of Rice-a-Roni @ $1 box = $2

3 pounds of green beans @ $1.29 a pound = $3.87

1.75 pounds of red potatoes @ $1.99 a pound = $3.48

4 pounds of grapes @ $0.99 a pound = $3.97

1 quart of strawberries @ $2.98 per quart = $2.98

1 pint of raspberries @ $2.29 per pint = $2.99

Total cost of shopping trip = $26.26

Cost per lunch = $1.17

Cost per fruit snack = $ 0.83 (I got 12 snacks out of the mix.)

This week, I price shopped around, and had a list of  sale prices from different places with me when I went shopping at Wal-mart.  I love their price-matching.  All you have to do is tell the cashier that so and so has what ever you are buying on sale for a specific price and they'll match it.  They don't match percentage based sales, BOGOs, or 10 for , but if grapes are on sale at Target for 99 cents a pound and they have them for 2.48 a pound, they will change the price for you.  I love saving money.

Diet is only part of the equation for effective weight loss and my change of lifestyle. Next time, I will introduce you guys to my six days a week workout.  It's working well; I am down six pounds! 

Layla and Quinn

I've started the adventure of writing my own novel.  I've included the prologue for my story to give you an idea of what I am writing.   

Prologue

The bed she was lying in a very comfortable bed.

Wait.

She was conscious? 

If she was conscious, that means…  He’s alive.

She sat up and hit her head on something.  She tried to focus her eyes in the dark to see what impeding her headroom.  She was in a bed, in a box?  Oh yes, she recalled these now.  She was in a coffin.  Last time she awakened in a ditch, so she couldn’t complain. 

She pushed against the lid to see if it would move.  It was heavy but she got one side a little.  Remembering the previous times, she sat up and peeked through the crack she had made.  She was in a small elegantly decorated room filled with flowers and the lights were muted. It smelled a little sterile and it was quiet.  She didn’t see anyone, so she rose on out of her coffin.  There were heavy curtains on the windows and coffin was on a stand.  She ungracefully rolled out onto the floor.  Rising up, she searched for the door.  She needed to get out of here quickly before someone noticed that her body’s previous owner was missing. 

Luckily, the door was unlocked and the hall outside was empty.  She didn’t hear the sounds of anyone at all. She needed to leave quickly.  She was able to leave out the front door only to discover she was in an upscale neighborhood.  Dawn looked to be just an hour away.  The sign on the lawn outside read Adams Funeral Home.  She smirked to herself.  During her previous lives, funerals were held in the deceased’s home or church.  She hadn’t seen a culture with a dedicated building for the dead since her original lifetime, back in Egypt.

First things first, she needed to get as far away from this place as possible, find new clothes, and find out where and when she was.

She closed her eyes for a moment, searching for the reassuring tugging sensation that was always present in her head, and started walking in that general direction.

She was in a small city.  The roads were paved; an excessive amount of automobiles sat on the side of the road, and all the houses and businesses were tidy and close together.  The streets were well lit with an electrical street lamp every fifty feet. 

She wondered how long had it been since her last lifetime.  Automobiles didn’t look like this in 1917.  Only the very wealthy could afford electricity at night.    

After an hour of following the pulling sensation in her head, she was standing in the parking lot of a tall building.  Saint Thompson Medical Center shined in bright lights on top of the building.  The outside looked to be made of completely glass windows, at least six stories of glass.  The dawning sun reflected a deep pink off of the building’s side.  She could see uniformed workers milling about inside.  She could read the sign, so she knew the language hadn’t changed in the many years since she had last lived.  She walked up to the front door, looking for a door handle, and was surprised when the door opened for her automatically.  She caught her reflection in the glass door. 

She then noticed how she was dressed, in a short black skirt that came to her knees and a white button up shirt.  The magic that had allowed her soul to claim this body had altered it from its previous owner’s looks to be the exact replica of her original body.  The clothes hung off her small frame, like she was wearing her older sister’s clothing. 

She walked into the main entrance and a large woman in a cartoon dog print shirt and pants looked up from behind her desk where she was hitting buttons in front a flat picture frame.

She walked past her intent on her destination.

“Can I help you?”

“No ma’am.  I am just going to the birthing rooms,” she replied

The large woman blinked at her, processing her foreign accent, words, and looks.  The woman thought a moment, and replied, “Visiting hours are not until eight.  You can wait in the waiting room down the hall.  There is a coffee machine in that one and the TV’s not broke either.  The one in the maternity is stuck on Channel 9, and no one wants to watch Sports Network.  Visitation is in an hour.”

She was miffed at the interception, but she didn’t want to draw too much attention to herself, especially when she was this close to him.  She shrugged and walked in the direction the woman pointed.  She wondered idly what a coffee machine or a “TV” was.  This was the first time she had been awakened so close to him.  Usually it was far enough away that she could ignore the tugging.  She normally had time to get acquainted with the time period.  She had to build her life from scratch every time.  She would have to steal and lay low for a while, until she found a place to live and a way to support herself.

She found the empty room filled with chairs, a big moving picture, and a square metal cabinet that announced it held coffee within.  She inspected the moving picture.  This must be what a TV is, she thought, a radio with pictures.  She moved to the coffee cabinet, pondering on how it operated.  It appeared that you put money in the slot and selected the coffee you wanted.  She could use some coffee, but she didn’t have any money.

She sat in a corner and noticed a folded newspaper on the end table.  Scared that she would discover exactly how many years she had been dead, she picked it up and read the front headline.  City employee involved in a sex scandal.  At least that part of humanity doesn’t change.  Then she found the date: October 7, 2008. 

Ninety years.  It had been ninety years since she had died.    

She browsed the newspaper, assimilating herself to current events, until the clock on the wall announced it was eight o’clock. 

Choking down her anxiety, she rose and left the room in search of a building map.  There was a big, color coded sign that stated what was on each floor hanging on the wall outside of the waiting room.  She followed the pink labeled Mommy and Baby Unit signs to the elevator.  She knew what an elevator was, even if it looked a little different.

As she stepped out of the elevator on the fourth floor, she was faced with a big window with infants on display.  She leaned against the window, hands on the glass in front of her.

There he was.  Tiny, pink, and sleeping peacefully. 

There was a set of thick wooden doors to the left of the window with a number pad on the right.  They were still locked.  She turned back to the little wonder in the window.  She looked at the card on the crib to see what his new parents had named him.  They hadn’t yet.  It just said Baby Jones. 

Aw, Quintus.  They’re going to give you a horrible name, like Henry or William, she thought to herself.

She stood there enraptured with the magic she had worked that brought them back like this.  When there was magic in the world, she had tried to give them immortality, so they would never have to be apart.  She didn’t realize she was breaking a law of nature at the time.  She was too inexperienced with magic, and she didn’t know magic was starting to fade from the world too.  There must always be balance; no one can live forever. 

When she cast the spell that merged their souls, she burnt out her body, killing both herself and Quintus.  His soul goes through the process of reincarnation each time before he is reborn into the world.  Her soul, on the other hand, was denied rebirth.  Her soul inhabits the closest unaltered empty body when he is born.  The spell transforms the body to look like she did 1500 years ago, making it hers.  Quintus’s looks change during his teenage years until he looks like he did when they were citizens of the Byzantium Empire.  He never recalls their previous lives until after they meet again, while she must remember each and every day of every life.  Until her half of their soul met his half, she wouldn’t age, and it had caused some issues before.

She watched him, saddened with the knowledge that it would be many years before he would be a man again.  Then the real work of making him love her again would start.  She turned to leave, knowing it was best to only know him from afar until then, when suddenly the lights went out.  The emergency lights were instantly on and people were coming out of their rooms, their panic stricken faces looking around. 

She felt a pressure in my chest; a low rumbling sound was heard from outside.  She could feel the vibrations through her entire body.  Her hair was filled with electric.  The walls started shaking, and the babies started crying. 

Then everything went white for the span of five heartbeats.

She felt the floor give; she tried to hold on to the wall, but it was glass and it was falling too.  She will never forget the sound of a building dying – the twisting steel, the scraping and busting concrete, the shattering glass, and then the eerily quiet aftermath where the only sounds are of human pain.

She was trapped between what used to be the floor and one of the heavy wooden doors.  Her heart was beating too fast; her breathing was too short; and all of her senses were screaming from overload.  She felt it the moment the other half of her soul depart this world, a crushing and sucking sensation from inside of her.  There was no pain; her soul was leaving that body, to slip back into quiet oblivion.  Baby Quintus’s tiny body didn’t survive the collapse so her soul wouldn’t either.    

The Great Scissor Catastrophe of 2013

I haven't sewn anything in a few months, and tonight, I was haunted by one of my vintage patterns. Simplicity #2863 from the 1950s . 

I'm all geared up ready to sew this thang.  I even picked out a really cute lilac satin fabric (it was left over from sewing dresses for my sister's wedding). It's easter time and I have a few nieces that would look adorable in this cute little dress.  

So.... All geared up, my pattern is pressed, my fabric is washed and pressed, the pieces are pinned to the fabric...and then...

MY GOOD FABRIC SCISSORS ARE GONE!

Seriously, gone.  I had them not even yesterday while I was working.  So I tear my work area apart, I look behind everything,  I pull out cabinets that haven't been moved in months.  I am on my hands and knees looking with a flashlight behind and under my desk.  I even go through all of my husband's leather working and man tools.  They are nowhere! Up and walked away.  Disappeared.  Poof.

Okay, So I am getting really frustrated at this point.  Well, angry, and poor Brian is trying to stay out of the way of a rampaging redhead.  

Finally, I give and decide that I'll have to use another pair of scissors.  And here's where the real fun begins.

1)  My Paper scissors.  --- Absolutely crap.  They cut paper amazingly.  I couldn't even gnaw with these things.

And here are the other contestants:

 The spare extra pair for random bits.

 The coupon scissors.

The haircut scissors

The kitchen scissors

All of these didn't cut fabric, but I am a stubborn woman, and I will find a pair of scissors to cut this pattern out, TONIGHT.  After some more digging in the kitchen drawers.  These are what I find:

Cheap kids safety scissors probably from when my husband was of the age to use them.  But, guess what, they worked.  And they worked good.  I finally got my pieces cut out, and then I realized that it's really too late to sew, as I have to be at work early in the morning.  So instead, I spent this last half hour writing this funny post.  

That was the great scissor catastrophe of 2013.  Tomorrow, I am going and buying another pair of good fabric scissors, and this time I am going to attach them to the desk with some string, that way I'll never loose them again.

Are you ready for the Apocalypse? Or maybe just some cool art?

I have a lot of vintage patterns, and on those patterns are some really cool fashion drawings straight from the 50s. 

I can't really draw, but I can alter stuff! So this is a concept I have of doing on the actual aged vintage irreplaceable patterns. Most of them are missing pieces and I don't want to actually make the dresses of them anyway. I just love the art, and being a Fallout fan, it seemed to pop right into that genre. So, this is my first attempt at some altered artwork, and this is on a copy of the original so I didn't actually mess it up.

Here's another stroke of inspiration I had too.  Many of my patterns don't have all the pieces, They have lovely artwork, so why not frame them?  This is a little boy's shirt pattern behind a fabric covered mat inside a wood frame.  I personally wanted to go with a linen mat and a shabby chic white frame.  I think either way looks fine.  I will defenetly be decorating with these, sometime.  

And the ones I don't like will also be going up in the shop, at some point.