A Valentines Kitchen Tree

Tomorrow will be the first of February and I promised that I would share a photo of my kitchen tree now all decorated for Valentine's Day. Each month, I'll be switching out the decorations to meet the season or holiday. It's been a lot of fun jotting down ideas. I made two different types of heart ornaments, one out of doilies and the others were inspired by Princess Lasertron.

I bought valentine ribbon, pink heart picks and a very cool silver and red garland at discount at Hobby Lobby. I'm pretty stoked with the way it turned out and will enjoy looking at it this month.















February Goals

1. Lose 4 pounds.
2. Complete 15 scrapbook pages.
3. Get together for lunch with my girlfriends.
4. Start to organize crap for Craigslist (anyone need a really cute student computer desk?).
5. Enjoy getting away from the weather with a work trip to Phoenix.

My Exercise Diary or "How I'm wasting my time chasing my 25 year old body" :)

Got my butt out of bed this morning around 7:45 and headed to the gym. Did 35 minutes of cardio and 10 minutes of strength training concentrating on my upper body.

On the iPod Playlist today:

Holdin On To Yesterday - Ambrosia
Leader of Men - Nickelback
First Snow - TSO
Hard On You - Rob Thomas
Too Bad - Nickelback
Shadow On The Sun - Audioslave
I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow - AKUS (featuring Dan Timinsky)
Cracklin Rosie - Neil Diamond
You're Gonna Get What's Coming - Robert Palmer
Your Love - The Outfield


After my workout I treated myself to a couple of poached eggs and some wheat toast at my local grocery store. I always do my weekly grocery shopping on Sunday mornings and my routine for a long time was to get my workout in, then do the shopping. Once that was done and I was home, I could get a shower, a fresh cup of coffee and sit down to read the sunday paper. That's my perfect Sunday morning.

Back in the Saddle Again.......

Started back to the gym today and it felt good! I did a 45 minute workout. 30 minutes of cardio and 15 minutes of strength training. I split the 30 minutes of cardio up into 15 minute segments, 15 minutes on the elliptical and 15 minutes on the treadmill. I'm hoping that my schedule will allow 2 nights a week at the gym, 1 night doing a fitness DVD at home and one night of either walking or biking (well, once we get rid of all the snow and it gets warmer), so for now it will be 3 nights at the gym and one night at home. Being a Friday, the gym wasn't busy at all, but I'm afraid that until everyone that started a fitness routine as a New Years resolution drops out (usually around the end of February), it's going to be a fight over the cardio machines at the time I go. That's the only drag about this time of year. By March, I'll have my run of the place...

On the iPod playlist today:

Take it to the Limit - Hinder
No Time To Lose - Tarney Spencer Bank
Should - Hinder
If I Had Wings - Darius Rucker
Fake It - Seether
See the Light - Green Day
New Tattoo - Saving Abel
Almost Honest - Megadeath
Sound of Madness - Shinedown
My Own Prison - Creed

I must say that when I looked in the full length mirrors in the gym, I could definitely tell that I've gotten smaller. The scale isn't registering what I would like, but I'm definitely building muscle and muscle takes up less space than fat.


No plans this weekend. I was hoping to get in the basement and get some crap I want to put on Craigslist organized, but it's too damn cold down there, so that is going to wait another month. I guess I'll just have to scrapbook....lol

STILL working on Disney pages.....

Disney Pages!!

Since I'm doing them, I might as well show them to you.....still not done with the album, but I'm chipping away at the pile of photos. I may have already shared some of these and if I did, here they are again....


click the pages to enlarge























I have tomorrow off as it is a federal holiday and I'm heading to Sears to buy an elliptical! I'm so excited.....I've enjoyed working out at home, more than I thought I would. I've been doing a bunch of different fitness DVD's and I bought myself a new set of weights, so now I have 1 lb, 3 lb and 5 lb hand weights. I already had a stability ball and mats but I really want a some type of a cardio machine. I've decided against a treadmill because if my foot problems were to flare back up, I can't use a treadmill, the elliptical is more forgiving on my feet. I've saved a bit a money and I've decided my health and fitness is worth it!

This is the one I'm getting....



Having my sister and the kids over tonight to watch the Golden Globes award show. We're sucker for movie/tv awards shows and watch them all. I like looking at all the fashion. I'm making chicken and noodles and some crescent wrapped little smokies for an appetizer.

Enjoy your week!

Okay, I lied......

I was chatting with my scrapbook peeps the other day when I proclaimed that there would be no scrapbooking shopping until our Winter Retreat in February. I lied....

I went to Memory Bound today and just had to purchase this.....





I had said in my email that in 2009, I spend less than I ever have since I started scrapbooking in 1996...that's 14 years. I probably spent less than $150-200 and I'm betting that most of that was on adhesive and cardstock. I really wanted to put a dent in my stash and I did a little. I still have more stuff that a human will use in one lifetime. I feel a purge coming on this spring.

I'm leaving for Washington DC again this week. I don't fly out until Tuesday and I'll be back Friday night. I'm staying at the JW Marriott right on Pennsylvania, not far from the White House. I love staying downtown!

What I am going to miss is a scrapbook night with a bunch of good friends. We aren't able to get together as often as we would like and I hate missing but I have no choice. I won't be home in time to go. I take solace in that I'll be going to our annual Night Owl Weekend Retreat the first weekend of February, so I'll get to see everybody then.

Have a good week!

A Very Cold Weekend

The weather has been so bitter cold that you just don't want to plan anything that requires you to go outside. I didn't even leave the house today and aside from a trip to the grocery store and pet store tomorrow, I'm hibernating again.

Been working on our Disney World album....STILL....

I'm just burned out on it, but it needs to be done and I really don't want to put it aside, but I still have between 10-20 more pages to do and I'm afraid I'm going to have to because there are other things I want to work on.

Here's some of the more recent pages I've done - (click to bigify)






This is a 6 page layout, 2 double pages and a single




More to come.....

Off to a Fresh Start......

FINALLY got over the head cold that I caught on New Year's Eve....just in time for my time off....figures....feeling better today and I'm glad it was my flex day off so I could at least have one day of feeling like doing something other than reading and watching tv/DVD's. The bad news, I think Connor is now coming down with it.

Happy to report that I did NOT gain any weight over the holidays, in fact, I lost 3 pounds. THAT's good news!

Even with the head cold I had to get all of the Christmas decor put away and my guys helped out a lot! They took care of the tree and I put away the rest of it. I decided that I was going to leave the small tree behind the sink and decorate it all year round. Right now it has a winter theme going, but will soon make way for Valentine's Day!



Now on to my New Year's resolutions. I know a lot of people think new year's resolutions are hokey, but I don't and I'm also very goal oriented so making new resolutions are right up my alley.

1. Start being consistent about taking a Multi-Vitamin, extra Vitamin D and Omega3.

2. Continue working out but upping it to 4 times a week rather than 3.

3. Curb the F-bombs...lol!

That's all I can handle this year.